Homemade bread

Even though the Californian "Spring" is transitioning into what everyone else would call Summer weather, I've been on a bread-making kick lately...

A tender crumb:

I also made up a big batch of veggie chili.  I bought a few different types of dry beans (kidney, pinto, black) and cooked them up, then added onion, a couple carrots, some celery, corn, a handful of quinoa I had sitting around, and a couple serranos:

And for more unphotogenic food, I made an experimental dish.  I've been toying with the idea of a cornbread casserole (instead of the typical biscuit/dumpling crust).  I cooked up some chunks of tempeh, onion, and eggplant with Italian spices, salt, pepper, nutritional yeast, and combined it with a small can of diced tomatoes and some soymilk to make a creamy sauce.  I made some tofu ricotta from Vegan with a Vengeance, then plunked all of this into a casserole dish.  Cooked it in a 350 degree oven for a while, then added a cornbread crust and cooked it a while longer.  I tasted a bit of it, it's not perfect yet, but I think it's a minor issue of seasoning and the amount of sauce (not enough!).  Bubbling fresh from the oven:

Mmm I love not having to cook during the week.  Hurray for mass baking and cooking efforts on the weekends!

Does a Casserole Count?

Although certainly not accurate enough to use in equations, Pi Day has arrived along with DST.  And I forgot, so no pie! (Although we did end up making more pizza. The boy is obsessed.)

The boy and I usually try to make up a big pot of soup or a pasta dish or some pizzas to eat during the week. We usually leave early in the morning and get home around 730 or 8, so having premade food prevents us from eating popcorn and oatmeal for dinner.  Well, okay, I still usually have popcorn for dinner a couple times a week, but there have been some late nights recently.  Oops.

We already have a bunch of soups frozen, so I scrounged around and made an "everything" casserole with biscuits.  A giant russet, a couple vegan bratwurst, some pinto beans, celery, an onion (a precious one, since apparently we are having an onion shortage), two big carrots, soy milk, nutritional yeast, parsley, oregano, salt and pepper, and some biscuit dough all went into making this unphotogenic might-as-well-be-pot-pie-for-Pi-Day monstrosity:

Yes, that is a little bit of sausage at the corner there. It's too bad that biscuit topping looks so much like vomit, because this was total comfort food.  I don't get people who criticize vegan food as "looking icky" or whatever excuse they give not to try something; it's not like a meaty cheesy shepherd's pie ever looked any more glamorous.