Chocolate Pie w/Graham Cracker Crust; Zandra's Veggie Noodle Soup

My last day off was Monday, the 5th...and, incidentally, the day that the two cookbooks I ordered online were allegedly shipped, so of course, I'm hoping that one, and preferably both, of them will show up today. Fingers crossed....Anyway, I did some cooking that day, the chocolate pie and the veggie noodle soup. Both of them turned out very well, and I was pleased.

The pie is vegan, except that I used regular margarine in the graham cracker crust, so you can use either oil or Earth Balance to veganize it, if you wish. I used the chocolate pudding recipe I posted back in December, but added more cocoa, more vanilla, and three tablespoons of corn starch, to thicken it.

The crust recipe is one I found in my old "Joy of Cooking" cookbook, and is very easy. 1 1/2C of crushed graham crackers, 1/4C packed brown sugar, and 6Tbs. of melted butter...yeah, yeah, yeah, I know: It's Blue Bonnet margarine, lol. Whatever! Anyway, mix all this together until all the crumbs are coated with the butter, and pat it into a 9-inch pie pan, bake for about ten minutes at 300º.

The pie recipe is as follows, with my changes in it:

Combine in blender:
1 pkg. silken tofu
2/3C sugar
3/4C unsweetened cocoa
2Tbs. vanilla extract
3Tbs. corn starch
Blend until creamy and thick, pour into pie crust, and bake at 325ºF for about 30 minutes. It will still be a little shaky when you take it out, but don't overcook it. The crust should be nice and crispy, and the pie, after cooling, should hold together enough to cut and scoop onto a plate. It's awesome, trust me...especially if you're a coolwhip freak like I am, lol. After you put the coolwhip on it, if you can see the pie, it's not enough coolwhip...got that from Paula Deen, lol.

Monday was a good day for soup, so I made Zandra's Veggie Noodle Soup, that I'd found on VegWeb.com. I only changed it a little bit, honest. You know I never, or almost never, follow a recipe exactly. So, here's the soup:

Zondra's Veggie Noodle Soup
10-11C water
2med. potatoes, cubed small
2-3 carrots, in small discs
2-3 celery stalks, small dice
1/2C onion, chopped
vegetable bouillion for amount of water used
2-3Tbs soy sauce or Braggs Liquid Aminos
2 1/2C rotine pasta
salt and pepper to taste
1tsp garlic salt.

Bring water to boil, cook potatoes and carrots until just tender, about 10minutes.
Add remaining veggies and bouillion, add soy sauce and garlic salt. Cook on med-hihg heat 5-10 minutes, covered.
Add pasta, cook 10 minutes or until pasta and veggies are done. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Easy enough, right? So of course, I made it more complicated, lol. First, I sauteed the onion, celery, and one teaspoon of minced garlic in about 2Tbs. of olive oil and margarine. Then I added the potatoes and carrots, and let them saute just a couple minutes, and then added the water. I let all this come to a boil, and then simmer for about 20 minutes, when I added the pasta. My pasta was maybe two handsful of penne, a large, round pasta, as I didn't have any rotini. After everything was cooked the way I like it, very, very soft, I added about three good tablespoons full of the miso paste I bought last week, and let it simmer, very gently, for about ten more minutes, until the miso paste was dissolved into the soup. It turned out really good, I liked it very much, and have some of it frozen in the freezer for one of those times I odn't want to cook. One thing I will do differently the next time I make it, tho, is to add quite a bit more miso to it. I could just barely taste the miso, and since I love miso soup, it's just gotta have more in it. So, there ya have it!

Last night was one of those nights I didn't want to cook, so, I took some of the frozen vegan chili out of the freezer, and heated that up. With it, I made a cheese and salsa quesadilla, and honey, please, that was some good meal, let me tell ya! I ate like the proverbial pig, lol.

Tonight? Well, I'm not sure yet, but I "think" I'm going to finish up the pintos I cooked last Friday, before they go bad. It's come to my attention lately that I waste an incredible amount of food, and I'm trying to do something about it, it bothers me that I do. One problem is that sometimes I just don't like what I've cooked, like that bbq tempeh I posted in my first(I think)post. Altho I tried to save it, make it taste better, ultimately I ended up throwing most of it away. Another problem is that some recipes make wayyyyy too much for one person, and the stuff isn't always freezeable, so I end up losing part of it, too. Or, even worse, I forget about the leftovers in the 'fridge until they start growing grey fuzz, sigh, so those get thrown out, too. Anyway, I'm seriously trying to better about the waste, so, yeah, I guess it's the pinto beans, boiled 'taters...or maybe just baked...and the leftover french-style green beans from, um, whenever. They're still good. And a pint of chocolate cookie crunch tofutti for dessert!

One last thing, and I'm thru babbling for today. I think. I made another batch of granola today, and am out of oatmeal, coconut, and almost out of honey. There's about a cupful or so of cashews and walnuts together, so I'm going to mix the two together and make a nut butter with them. Should taste ok, I think, and that way, I'm not wasting the rest of the nuts.

Until next time, Happy Eating.