Pasta and Peppers

It is currently 39 degrees according to the weather man on our balcony. I don't doubt it... It's so hot that my greedy cats haven't asked for food since 11am...












...and my poor nasturtiums on the balcony have gone from being all perky this morning to wilted and cooked this afternoon.






What a perfect time to make a cold supper. Unfortunately, the cold supper I decided to prepare required boiling and baking which are not the best activities on the hottest day of 2015 so far! Oh well, hopefully it will be yummy.

I have two bags of mini peppers and while I love them raw, I decided to roast a few. The result is delicious!

Roasted Mini Sweet Peppers





20 mini sweet peppers
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Put parchment on a baking sheet and place the peppers in a pile on the parchment. Drizzle olive oil on them and mix them around so they all glisten. Spread them out, sprinkle with salt (I used the new trendy Maldon salt flakes and proceeded to spill the container all over the counter and floor while I had oily fingers), crack black peppers over top and pop into the oven for 30 minutes. Take them out and eat hot or let cool but be forewarned that they will be very hot inside! When they are in the oven, they will still be all puffy but they will collapse once they start to cool.






I baked tofu at the same time as the oven was on as we needed something more than just roasted peppers! Tofu bakes for 60 minutes.

I also decided to make a pasta salad since Corey had been saying how much he was craving pasta salad and the one at IGA is certainly not vegan (or really that good in my opinion.) Why not just boil water while the oven is on??

Creamy Pasta Salad (it never makes a good photo!)





In a large bowl, mix:
4 cups cooked pasta
Celery
Peppers
Carrots
Any other raw veggies you like

In the Nutribullet or blender, blend:
1 pkg soft silken tofu (although medium or firm would be fine but not the banana flavoured kind)
3 tsp chopped fresh dill
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp white vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp agave syrup
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper

Pour over the pasta and veggies, mix, and put in the fridge until you eat! Pasta salad always tastes better the longer it sits. Well, not weeks but hours or a day.

And while the oven was on for the extra half hour for the tofu, I decided to make the rhubard loaf I wrote about last week except I made into muffins. They took 40 minutes to cook.

Not my proudest energy-conscious day as now the air conditioner is going full blast.

Have you tried this olive oil? It smells delicious and has a nice flavour.






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Roasted Cauliflower and Running Sauce

I have decided that it is impossible to get more than 2 or, if you're lucky, 3 slices of cauliflower out of one head of cauliflower. My recipe said "slice cauliflower into 1/2" thick slices." I got 3 and then lots of florets. Never mind. This was still yummy.

Roasted Cauliflower
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Slice your cauliflower into 1/2" slices and lots of leftover florets.
Toss the cauliflower in 2 tbsp olive oil.
Place on a baking sheet with parchment paper, a silpat mat, or lightly grease the mat for a crispier result.
Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and any other herb/spice that you like.
Bake 7 minutes, take out, flip the cauliflower, and bake another 10 minutes.
At this point I turned off the oven and left the cauliflower in there while we went for a run. It was nice and golden when we returned. Corey says that this is his favourite way to eat cauliflower now.

Running Sauce
I'm sure this could have a more technical name but if I am going to have yoga curry then I might as well have running sauce.
1/3 cup white wine
1 small onion diced fairly fine
1/2 tsp Italian herb mix
2/3 cup vegan mayo (many people swear by Vegannaise but I prefer Spectrum Egg-less Canola Mayonnaise Type Spread - sounds yummy eh? At Save-On-Foods and less expensive than the other)
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 chopped tomato

In a small saucepan, heat the wine, onion and Italian herb over medium-high heat until half the liquid has evaporated. Blend the mayo, onion/wine/herb mix, cayenne and turmeric together. You can put it into the food processor to make it smooth or just mix it in a bowl. Stir in the chopped tomato. Let it cool in the fridge. To have a tighter sauce, take out the seeds of the tomato and let almost all the wine evaporate. I liked it runnier to pour over the cauliflower. It made a good dip too for other veggies.