Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Dried Sour Cherries

Because dried sour cherries make everything better, natch.

Seitan “Stroganoff”

Seitan definitely wins over tempeh in the pseudo-meat department. I’m not sure it will be making it into our regular rotation, but this was good. The seitan definitely had a meatier feel than the mushrooms in this, but ultimately it’s more poultry-like than beef-like. We served this over whole wheat egg noodles.

Recipe Adaptation: Green Beans with Fennel Cauliflower

We found ourselves with about one serving of roasted cauliflower with fennel in the fridge. I wanted to stretch it further, so I sauteed the leftovers with string beans. Delicious!

Sesame-Sriracha Crusted Tuna

John got me the Sriracha Cookbook for Valentine’s Day (he knows me so well). This is the first recipe I’ve tried from it. The sriracha flavor isn’t all that pronounced, but in general it’s very tasty.

The cookbook recommends you serve over white rice with steamed vegetables. I went a little more fancy, putting it over edamame fried rice and serving it with a green bean and cauliflower concoction (recipe to follow). I bet the simple route would be even better, so the tuna is the star of the dish.

Apple Galette

Woo! I always get excited when I manage to bake something (not my strong suit). This was born out of always being intrigued by galettes, and having a bunch of apples that were about to go bad sitting around. This Bittman-based dough recipe is super easy (and uses the food processor which is nice) and I kept it simple with the filling – just sliced apples with a sprinkle of sugar.

Asparagus, White Bean and Mushroom “Cassoulet”

When I saw this recipe in “Cooking Light” this month, I thought it was a must-try for Meatless, but still wasn’t sure exactly how it was going to come together. But the flavor was great! I wanted a slightly thicker sauce but I’m not losing sleep over it. The homemade breadcrumbs step is worth it (and easy enough to do while the beans are simmering).

Yellow Rice w/ Seafood

You could also call this “cheater’s paella”, but basically it was a quick way to get dinner on the table and experiment with the frozen “seafood mix” of calamari, bay scallops and baby shrimp I got at Trader Joe’s. The quality of the mix was so/so (you could substitute a pound of any uncooked seafood) but the overall dish was tasty and easy.

If packaged yellow rice is too sodium-tastic for you, you could cook regular rice with spices such as saffron. Pictured with greens.

John’s Rice & Bean Burritos

Man were these yummy! I vote John cooks dinner every Monday so I have time to go to the pool and swim. Should have checked the points first, though, as I had two and flour tortillas alone are 4 points each. Eesh.

Tempeh Fail

We’ve had pretty good luck with our experiments in meatless zone this month. Even stuff that sounded a little sketch on paper (i.e. frozen meatless meatballs from Trader Joe’s, made with Quorn) turned out to be fairly tasty.

After attempt #1, I’m not putting tempeh in that category.

Now, I don’t think I’ve had it before (John has fond memories of a tempeh burger from New York that he used to get). I followed a Cooking Light technique of marinating it in an Asian, soy sauce-based marinade before stir frying (though I made up my own stir fry recipe).

I thought it was pretty gross. Not posting the recipe. I don’t like the texture, and it has a strange bitter aftertaste.

Strike #1 for Meatless. Seitan is on the agenda for later this week; we’ll see how we fare with that.

Bittman’s Creamy Cauliflower Mac & Cheese

John saw this recipe in Runner’s World and wanted us to try it out. It’s good! It doesn’t taste exactly like mac and cheese, but given that neither of us are huge fans of the classic dish, we liked it just fine. Don’t skimp on the salt.