Weekend cooking

Last weekend, I spent almost all my time cooking. Actually, the cooking part was easy. Most of my effort was spent on prepping and chopping the vegetables and then washing the dishes repeatedly so I can re-use them. What's so sad about it is that in the end, my arms and hands were so sore, they could barely move and I have little results to show for it.

So what did I make? I made veggie stock, lentil soup, chickpea cutlets and seitan roast. The chickpeas needed to soak for at least 8 hours, but the mashing of them by hand was hard. Also, I am not good with knives and chopping. So dicing all the veggies into tiny cubes was probably not the best on me either. The seitan roast was a crockpot roast, so very little effort there. Honestly, I don't know why I was so incapacitated after a weekend of this. Looking back, I feel like I did very little. There was so much more I wanted to do but didn't get around to it. So anyways, the veggie stock is now frozen, as is most of the chickpea cutlets. The seitan roast and the veggies from the veggie stock will be eaten this week

In retrospect, I could have done things differently and will do so when we move into the house. First of all, I will cut down on veggie chopping by hand and let some machines do some work, like the food processor. For veggie stocks, it shouldn't matter if the food processor processes the veggies too fine since I'll be straining the stuff anyways. I'll also use the food processor for processing the chickpeas to bits. Mashing by hand is hard work! As for the dishes, that's what the dishwasher is for!

This past weekend, I did another big round of cooking. I made my favorite egg and potato salad, cucumber salad, cabbage soup, pita chips, onion dip, deviled eggs and a casserole. My hubby and I polished off the pita chips, onion dip and deviled eggs before the weekend was over. I froze some of the cabbage soup and half the casserole.Even so, I think we have enough food to last us a few days.

These past couple of weekends have left me eating very well and feeling very satisfied. If you'd like to try to make some of the foods I made, here is the list of sources:

- chickpea cutlets - Post Punk Kitchen
http://www.theppk.com/2010/11/doublebatch-chickpea-cutlets/

- lentil soup - Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything
http://markbittman.com/7-ways-to-make-lentil-soup

- seitan roast - Vegan Planet
http://veganplanet.blogspot.com/2008/03/slow-cooker-seitan-pot-roast.html

-cabbage soup - Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything
Couldn't find it posted online, but it's in the cookbook and the iPad app

- pita chips
Just split the pitas, brush with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and toast in the oven at 400 degrees for 5 minutes.

- onion dip - Alton Brown
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/onion-dip-from-scratch-recipe/index.html

- deviled eggs
Cut hard-boiled eggs in half and scoop out yolks. Mash yolks with prepared horseradish, mayo, salt and pepper. Then pipe or spoon yolk mixture back into egg whites.

- egg and potato salad
Steam cook 2 potatoes, 2 carrots, 2 eggs and dice them along with a fresh, small cucumber, de-seeded. Mix with mayo, white pepper and salt to taste

- cucumber salad
Slice cucumber very thin and toss with salt and vinegar. Let it sit for a couple of hours, then drain. Mix in sour cream. Add mayo and pepper to taste.

- casserole
Saute tomatoes, celery, carrots, mock duck, scallions, garlic and whatever leftover veggies you have until tender and starting to brown. There should be about 2 cups of this. Beat 5 eggs and add lots of grated parmesan cheese. Then mix in the veggies and 2 cups of cooked rice. Put into baking dish and bake at 350 degrees F for about an hour.

You'll notice a lot of mayo and sour cream being used this past weekend. This is because I really wanted to make onion dip and the egg and potato salad and I ended up with some leftover sour cream and cucumber. So I made a couple of other things to use up these ingredients. Although there is no excuse for the deviled eggs other than the fact that I just wanted to make them for me and my hubby to snack on. Despite all the cooking work, these past couple of weekends have been very enjoyable and I have eaten very well. I do love it when my cooking adventures turn out well!