Pesto!

I'm sure you know that just about all of North America is sweltering in a heat wave. It's especially bad in California where people have died in 110-plus temperatures. And I have the desire to smack the snot out of anyone who dares to suggest that global warming is a hoax. And I hope that the heat will break soon and/or we get a nice, hard rainstorm.

Anyway, I did a little grocery shopping tonight to pick up a few things and made this:


It's Bulghur (or bulgur) Couscous with Veggies, a recipe from The Post Punk Kitchen, and a sun-dried tomato pesto from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan with a Vengeance, the book inspired by the PPK. I had some leftover sundried tomatoes from my raw dish last week, and used those. The recipe suggests simmering and soaking, but lazy vegan that I am, I say buy the oil-packed ones instead and save some time. You can also reduce the oil in your recipe a tad. The pesto was creamy and just a bit garlicky. I probably did not have enough sun-dried tomatoes, but it did have a nice pale orangey color, as you can see. And it was quite, quite tasty. I'm hoping the tomatoes added enough vitamin C to help me absorb the iron in the spinach.

I didn't want to be boring and have just that, so I cut up a cake of tempeh and adapted Dreena Burton's Tofu Tidbits from The Everyday Vegan to make Tempeh Tidbits. Unless a dish calls for silken tofu or a creamy texture, you can adapt most tofu recipes for tempeh. Lightlife's Flax Tempeh is already fairly soft, so there's no need to steam it beforehand. Believe me, I appreciate that timesaver too. I liked the tofu tidbits when I made them, but I loved the tempeh tidbits and will probably make it this way from now on (hope you don't mind, Dreena). I didn't marinate, as the recipe suggests, but I will try next time.

And I'm so happy that I used most of my leftover spinach, the rest of my zucchini, and the rest of the tub of mushrooms--yay!