Cooking? What's that?

 Hey all! It's been a while and honestly, I've not been cooking. So that's why. For a brief update, I've successfully completed a year of grad school, I'm moving in December, I got promoted at work to a real position with benefits,I went to the beach once, met some people and I'm having my gallbladder removed on Wednesday because my family line says no woman shall have her gallbladder.

So I've stayed busy.

Today though, I decided I should cook some. Both things I'm about to post were amazing but I unfortunately cannot eat either today. The gallbladder is stating that today will be a pear and toast day, and even that is sketchy, but these two are fantastic things. The pumpkin mac and cheese I'm freezing until I'm able to eat it, and the tomato soup I think I will be able to eat sooner than later, but both were experiments that came out amazing.

For the pumpkin mac and cheese, I found several different vegan  recipes about incorporating squash into a mac and cheese recipe, so I went with that. I'm not a huge mac and cheese person and the last two vegan attempts were less than stellar, so I was not hopefully but could not shake a craving. I then went into the store and selected a few fall flavors that I thought would complement each other and went from there.

The tomato soup was because I had some peppers and tomatoes from a CSA that I needed to use before they spoiled. My friend Taly made me a cold tomato soup when I first got out of the hospital that was so amazing, I wanted to copy it. It may not be as good as hers, but it's pretty close.

The only potential downfall of either of these recipes was my oil. I don't cook with oil anymore, so I had none in my pantry. Only a bottle of meyer lemon oil that I bought on sale at a Tastefully Simple party. So I worked with it and the lemon helped freshen each dish, so it worked. I think if I ever have the will to repeat a cooking day in the kitchen and try these out again, I may add a lemon.

Vegan Pumpkin Mac and Cheese
1 box pasta of choice (I used whole grain organic shells)
1 tbs plus 1 more for topping Earth Balance
1 tbs olive oil (ha, lemon)
1/2 (the smaller) container soy creamer (couldn't find soy cream so creamer it was)
1 tbs flour
3 tbs nutritional yeast
1 package vegan cheese (I used rice cheese because of the fat content being lower but I imagin diaya would be 10x better)
1 can organic pumpkin
1 pkg baby bella mushrooms
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
sage
salt, pepper, paprika to taste, cinnamon and bread crumbs for the topping

Heat in a skillet the oil and saute the mushrooms, onion and garlic over low heat til soft. Remove and set aside, then make your roux out of the earth balance and flour. Once that's completed, add the creamer slowly and season. I use a whisk for this and from this point until the sauce is complete. Add the nutritional yeast, mix well. Add the cheese, and when that is melted, add the mushroom mixture then the pumpkin and season til you're happy. Finally, add the sage, mix in the cooked noodles (should be al dente) and put in a baking dish. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon, add breadcrumbs and add little bits of earth balance. Bake at 350 for 20 min or until the sides are bubbly then remove. It's pretty amazing, not going to lie.

Tomato Soup
3 large tomatoes (I also added 1 roma tomato since that's what I had left over)
2 hablano peppers
2 banana peppers
1 japanese eggplant (or omit, again it was extra)
cilantro
1 28oz can fire roasted crushed tomatoes
salt, pepper, garlic powder, touch of natural sugar
Oil for roasting (again, lemon)

Heat oven to 350. Place all produce in a pan, drizzle with oil and salt/pepper. Pierce the eggplant. Roast for 30-35 min or until produce is starting to char and is soft. For me, the peppers finished first. Remove accordingly and place in pot that already has the crushed tomatoes. I usually remove the stems and seeds, then place in the pot. For the eggplant, remove skin and the tomatoes just remove the hard ends. With everything in the pot, use a hand held blender and blend away. Add soy cream and blend, then season as needed. I cooked on low for an additional 45 min because I forgot about it. Amazing soup though, especially for rainy days like today.

So yeah, that was my day. Pretty productive. Also, we had a visit from Salsa, formally known as Squishy as he is staying with us for a couple days as his mom moves. Pretty obsessed with him, the other cats are jealous.