Eat Like a Rabbit

VegCooking has a great selection of vegan recipes with fabulous photographs to make you want to try every recipe they throw at you. The recipes are categorized by I love the thought of adding cranberries to green beans. I found it ironic that the side dish was recommended to go with hazelnut and rosemary encrusted seitan, which was the entree that sounded the most tempting to me.

When I was little, we were a family of habits. Every Christmas Eve we had dinner at Don's Seafood in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, followed by presents with everyone under the tree at my grandparents. The next morning were presents at our own homes, and back to Mawmaw and Pawpaw's for dinner, football, and time around the billiard table. Now, Christmas's are celebrated in Florida. Sometimes at Disney, sometimes volunteering somewhere. We are no longer driven by our habits, but by our memories of the years we had together.

PF Chang's, namely this location, is where Paul and I had our first date. That being said, it's kinda special to us. I can even remember what we ate that night. However, we have since been educated about excellent choices at the restaurant and generally select other items. Firstly, the broccoli and tofu in a chili sauce is generally one of the preferred dishes because I am a sucker for broccoli.

When Paul and I got married, there were some big discussions about corn bread. There is a variety of cornbread flavors, recipes, and activities for after the cornbread. There is sweet cornbread (which my husband calls Yankee cornbread), salty cornbread, corn scones (a Moosewood Restaurant recipe), corn in the cornbread (a Boston Market recipe), and cornbread dressing (my mother's recipe).

Sorry, we were too excited and hungry to take a picture of this one.

I chose the easiest recipe I could find for Tempura on foodnetwork.tv. I battered frozen green beans, fresh julienned carrots, fresh eggplant, and frozen broccoli. Obviously, I defrosted the frozen veggies slightly. I used the sauce from Moosewood Restaurant's Pad Thai recipe and served it with brown rice.

The result of the first concoction was so delicious, I was afraid it was a mistake. For my parents, I made the recipe again replacing the green beans and eggplant with zucchini and onion rings. The result was the same. However, my mother did turn up her nose when she saw me mixing the sauce. Upon trying it with the meal, she decided it was good.