the vegetables have been eaten...

{I'm not quite ready to announce the Iron Chef winner just yet.... I think I'm going to bring in a third party to judge the entries.}  

Here's how I ate the vegetables during the past week:

• Shrimp and black bean burritos with brown rice, sauteed squash and mushrooms, and jalepeno guacamole.
• Vegan Zucchini and walnut muffins. 
• Mango jalepeno tofu sauce.  (This is an adaptation of a post punk kitchen recipe, it's actually still in the fridge, I should use it soon.)
• Barely smashed fingerling potatoes topped with caramelized onions.  (I'm really into caramelized onions right now, I'll post more about them in the near future.)
• Polenta with sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, and caramelized onions. 
• Fingerling potato apartment fries.  (Kind of like home fries, just smaller.)
• I donated the pear to my mother. 
• I diced and froze the jalepenos, to use whenever a dish calls for a small amount of the peppers in the future.  I do not recommend doing this.  The oils from the jalepeno got under my fingernail and burned for at least 24 hours, despite incessant washing. 
• I still haven't cooked the sweet potatoes, they last a while, but I really want to make sweet potato bread.  (I was housesitting and left them at my house, so I actually had to send Brandon to Schnucks for our Sat. night dinner sweet potatoes.

Here are some other things I made this past week:

• Shrimp and red onions with lime and cilantro.  It was a very quickly throw together dish for girl's night at my friend Beauvais' house.  We ate it with brown rice, chips and fresh guacamole, and mango peach salsa.  
• A ton of caramelized onions, on toast for lunch, on top of potatoes, in polenta, you name it!  They just happen to be my current Lenten obsession, plus I bought a huge bag of red onions at Costco... Need I say more?
• BLT&A sandwich  An adaptation of the Cafe Eclectic version with soy bacon... PS- the A= Avocado.  YUM!
• Roasted sweet and white potatoes.  I just love these, also another Cafe Eclectic adaptation. 
• Crab stuffed portabella mushrooms.  These were really very good.  I mixed together lump crab meat, breadcrumbs, more caramelized onions (they acted as a binder for the stuffing,) and some herbs.  The I cleaned out the mushrooms and stuffed them.  I topped them with more bread crumbs and baked for a few minutes to toast the breadcrumbs and cook the mushrooms.  They were quite the hit!  I'll make them again in the future with some parmesan cheese and maybe an egg to hold the mixture together. 
• Byzantine lentil soup.  Pretty basic lentil soup but cooked with dried apricots and dill.  I learned about this from our friend Micah last Sunday at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church (we were there for the Sunday of Orthodoxy.)  He was kind enough to prepare lunch for the OCF group along with hummus and fried pita.  Absolutely delicious! 

Woah, I've done quite a bit of cooking this week!  I didn't realize how much I had actually done until I wrote it all down.  Maybe that's why I've had such a wonderful week, I spent most of it in the kitchen!

One other VERY special thing I made this week were 40 crowns cookies with my little buddy James (who turned 5 today!)  On Monday we commemorated the 40 Holy Martyrs of Sebaste.  If you don't know much of their story read this.  We made the crowns to remember the crowns that appeared over the martyrs heads.  James really seemed to understand the story of the martyrs, it's amazing how much he's grown up since I started babysitting him almost 2 years ago.  

Most Holy Martyrs of Sebaste pray to God for us!

PS- Just for James we made Lenten SUGAR cookies, he has established a very strict "no chocolate during Lent" rule that developed when his Pops (Deacon James) told him he wouldn't be able to drink chocolate milk during Lent.  Don't you just love how children take things so literally?