Family Dinner Night

I've instituted Family Dinner Night with my parents at my house. It gives me an opportunity to cook some new dishes and get honest feedback. Now that my dad's home from his little vacation, I have a devoted omni to please as well. I have to say that they're both being strangely supportive of my veganism, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am actually cooking for the first time in my life.

Tonight I made Chipotle Veggie-Bean Burritos (c'mon, you already know what cookbook it's from!). I pre-prepared the burrito stuffing and rice this morning, so by the time they arrived I just had to re-heat the rice, cook the asparagus, and put the burritos in the oven to heat through.

I started everyone off with a sample of my Apple-Hemp Nut Muffins (they loved them and took 4 home), and then an appetizer of the Chipotle Corn Black Bean Soup, which everyone really enjoyed, but we all agreed it had too much cumin in it. I topped the burritos with salsa and Toffuti Better Than Sour Cream, which Dad said didn't resemble Sour Cream in the slightest, but mom and I both thought it was great. Sometimes if Dad knows it's tofu based he instinctively doesn't like it. The other hit of the night was my rice. It was just organic long grain brown rice, but I cooked it with a tsp. of VegeBase in the water and the results were fantastic!

Product Reviews:

Toffuti Better Than Sour Cream: The texture is fantastic, and it adds just the right amount of tang and moisture to dishes.



Amy's Medium Salsa: This is my all time favorite salsa. It has a nice thick consistency and the medium has heat, but it's not too overpowering. I also love that it's chunky.






VegeBase: I've tried a lot of different bouillon brands in the past and I've always found them either too weak or too salty. This one is perfect (and it makes delicious rice)!


In other news:

My little girl was spade on Thursday. I'm so grateful my vet is into lasers, so her incision is tiny. She had to spend the night at the vet though, and now she's scared when we get in the car and she follows me everywhere even more than normal. She's also supposed to wear a collar/cone so she can't lick the incision site, but I only have the heart to put it on her at night or when she's alone. Here's a pic of her looking exceptionally sweet earlier tonight.

When she has the cone on, she can barely walk because she tends to walk with her head down and it bashes into everything. Since I'm home or with her most of the time, I've decided to leave it off and just keep an extra close eye on her.