Lots of remorse and a new project!

A million apologies go out to those who read this blog! My internet was down, and I hear ya sista, it was tough. Or brotha, I suppose, though I have trouble imagining a man reading this. "Myrtle, can you believe it? Amy at so many things to love made SOUP today. And washed some diapers. Boy that girl is interESTing!"

Okay, so to wrap up the vegetarian week I followed the quesadillas by making something out of tofu. Let's call it Tofu Recipe #1, because it sure as heck wasn't food. TR1 started out as a stir fry but I was lazy, and I decided to try and make a dessert instead. Plus I was enthralled with the idea that there was an ingredient that was equally useable in stir-frys and dessert. I found a recipe for a tofu chocolate cream pie, and TR1 was reborn into that, except that I was grumpy and had just bickered with my darling husband over something desperately important to world peace, like milk prices or what have you, and I just started throwing stuff into a blender. It was not creamy. I kept adding sugar and cocoa powder and milk (which was pointless because the recipe was supposed to be vegan) and finally I just threw it into the fridge to see if it would set like pudding, which it adamantly refused to do, and eventually I froze it and ate it like tofu ice cream. It was unpleasant.

I tried the teriyaki tofu stir fry recipe next, and it was much nicer. Although we both decided that tofu does not provide the same feeling of 'fullness' that meat does, so you really need to pile on the carbs.

I made a vegetarian lasagna with layers of cottage cheese, refried beans and spinach. It was very easy but the noodles required a lot of liquid to cook fully. The tomato sauce alone was not enough.

I also attempted the risotto. Excellent, and very decadent feeling, to sit down with a bit heap of creamy rice for supper. If I made it again, however, I would use actual broth instead of bouillion cubes, which added way too much salt.

And finally we decided to give another veggie burger a chance and tried President's Choice Portobello mushroom burgers, which I thought were a great alternative to meat. They were so above and beyond the Yves burgers that I am really curious from a business point of view how Yves stays on the shelves.

I have a call in to a friend to pick me up some textured vegetable protein next time she hits the bulk barn, which will be sometime this weekend I believe, but you cannot find TVP for love or money in this little town so we'll have to wait to try that. All in all, I actually had a great time making this week's food. In fact, I enjoyed myself so much I started saving receipts for the next challenge...can you guess what it is?

I won't keep you in suspense. I'm very interested in something I've seen floating around recently on blogs I read. Frugality. In fact I originally intended to name this blog The Frugal Kitchen. Except that I am occasionally not at all frugal and also I hoped to write about stuff other than food every once in a while. However, I still have a great desire to see how frugal I can get in the kitchen, and to that end my next challenge will be to spend no more than $25 for one whole week's worth of food for two adults. Can it be done? Feel free to leave me disparaging comments to light up my competitive spirit!