2012 Kicks Off With A Culinary Win

The last month of 2011 had me running to the market and to my Mom's constantly. As I bought fresh foods for her, she returned to the hospital just as frequently. In the midst of this cycle my kids were here and there (read: not home for meals), Holiday celebrations cancelled plus Dave and I too tired to do anything other than grab a quick something somewhere and fall into bed for sporadic cat naps with the cell phone tucked under the pillow.

Is it any wonder that I spent New Year's Eve scouring the web for yummy recipes that would use up the veggies-on-the-edge-of-forever in my fridge and not send me to the market, thus sending 2012 into a budget deficit?

Committed to creating a hearty breakfast or brunch that would send us to the hospital (post Football game of course) and see us through the visit with enough yummy in our belly that we did not succumb to the hospital cafeteria, I opted for VeganPiggy's Vegan Breakfast Burritos To Die For.

Since I had 6 packs of Tofu that I bought on sale for 59 cents in addition to all the veggies on hand this seemed like a winner. After swapping the carrots for broccolini, sautéing a few heirloom tomatoes in what I had left of shallots I had the happy experiment of omitting the salsa and using up what was left of Basiltops Vegan Pesto Habanero. We buy this at the Farmer's Market in Santa Monica but you can get yours at their online store. 

Did it work? I'll say. MeatatarianMan Dave happily helped himself to seconds and confirmed that this was a do-again. Yay! A kitchen victory so early in the year.

But wait! There's more. The all important Eagles game ended (Let's not go there), kids confirmed they would not be home and there was the emotionally exhausting hospital visit. No way did I want to cook. I just wanted to sit in a dinner and be served copious cups of coffee (say that 3 times fast). Hubby had other ideas, he wanted to go home. Ugh. What to feed upon? I threw the left over breakfast burrito innards into a big bowl of wild rice that I had forgotten to serve last night and added artichoke hearts, more tomatoes and the few mushrooms I had on hand.  No photos, but trust me - it looked great and tasted great too.

Dave liked this so much that he didn't ask for the Kelbasa he missed out on at breakfast and chose not to add the diced chicken breast I had set aside for him. Another win!