I'm not dead!

Honest! My laptop was away for repairs and the desktop scares me and doesn't have my camera software on it. So, enough excuses. I have actually been cooking and taking pictures. I also have an Aerogrow update, but I can't be bothered figuring out what week it is. Who cares? Anyhoo, onto the food.
As soon as I saw Bryanna Clark Grogans stuffed seitan roasts in her newsletter, I knew I had to make one. This one is stuffed with a sage and onion stuffing and dear lord it was divine. It carved beautifully and was so tender. It is big though, so we were eating it in sandwiches for about a week, but we're not complaining. Here it is all sliced up and served with usual roast dinner things:
Next up are the chickpea cutlets from Vcon. I like them, but I don't love them. I think I'd make them again though and tinker with the seasonings. You can actually barely see the cutlets in this picture because they're drowned in onion gravy. Served with roast potato salad (currently my favourite way to eat potatoes... Mmmm... Balsamic vinegar....)
And, as promised, an Aerogrow picture:
I've started to harvest everything, and I'm really enjoying the constant access to fresh herbs, plus it smells lovely.

Aerogrow Update and Adventures in Seitan Making

First up, here's the Aerogrow update for week 4:
Everything's spreading out and starting to encroach on each others growing space. It's kinda cute. It's like watching a little artificial community interact.

Anyhoo. This week I made the soy and seitan cutlets from Bryannas Vegan feast Newsletter (which I thoroughly reccommend). The recipe makes loads, so I've mainly been eating those for the past few days. The first night we just had them floured and fried, with potatoes, asparagus, broccoli, and gravy. Delicious.The next night we had them cut up into strips and marinated in a lemony, soy, mustardy, agavey, (you know, all the stand by marinade stuff) sauce and served over stir fried vegetables.
Given the fact that I'm Scottish, you may expect to see some battered seitan in the coming days. Oh my.

Various Stuff from the Land of Lelly

Yeah, so, I totally took the picture for my Aerogrow update, but got distracted by the overwhelming urge to sleep for a week (I had my last exam on Wednesday) so I didn't get around to posting it. So here it is:
So everything's growing great. The dill doesn't seen to be happy with it's allotted space and is trying to invade all the other herbs spaces. Big bully!

This is a pot pie I made the other day when I new I was going to be busy for a few days. I think this was the last slice:
It had potatoes, carrots, brussel sprouts, spinach, cheezly, in a nutritional yeasty type sauce thing. Damn tasty.

This year I told everyone in my family not to buy me presents for Christmas, because well, I hate Christmas. Blah blah blah commercial crap. Anyhoo, Nobody was happy with this, so I thought we'd reached a compromise in that I would make presents, and they could donate money to a charity or buy a very small present if they really felt they needed to. Alas, I just came back from Glasgow with bags of presents. Seriously people, next year, no presents! Anyhoo, here's one of the presents I (mostly) made:
It's a hamper (duh). In the jars are sundried tomato pesto, onion marmalade, and chocolate-cinnamon-almond biscotti. There's also a bottle of chilli infused oil, and the cracker looking things are chocolate chip cookies. There's also some herbal tea and hot chocolate. Oh, and don't you just love the bag the bottle's in? I made that too. It can be reused to transport all your holiday plonk to parties. I reinforced the stitching on the handles to make sure there were no plonk breakage incidents. All in all, I think I did rather well.

Aerogrow - Week 2

Reporting in for the end of week two. Good growth on everything. The parsley is coming out to play and I'll probably take it's lid off in the morning (you're supposed to do it when the light's off to reduce stress). I had begun to lose hope for the coriander at the back there, but I just had a peek and it is starting to sprout! Yay! The lights started to blink today to add nutrients and water, so I did. It's all highly exciting stuff.

Aerogrow - Week 1

The Aerogrow was all set up a week ago so I thought I'd post the progress. I may do this every Wednesday, or I may get bored. I make no promises. Anyhoo, the italian and purple basils, dill and chives are sprouting up nicely. The chives appeared in like an hour and seem to be growing bigger by the second. Not that I sit and watch it or anything, not at all... The mint has sprouted too but not enough to remove the lid thingy yet. The coriander and parsley aren't due to sprout until the 8-15 day mark, so it could be tomorrow, it could be next week. I know I'm on the edge of my seat!

The Aerogrow Is Here!

Isn't she purdy? It came ridiculously quick, and I literally just set it up 5 minutes ago. I set it up myself which just shows how foolproof it is. I should apparently have my basil sprouting in 3 days, and everything else not long after. I've got purple basil, italian basil, coriander, chives, dill, mint, and parsley. How very exciting! Once the herbs are done (they'll apparently grow for 4-6 months) I think I'll be getting the salsa pack which has tomatoes and peppers. That is, unless they bring out something more exciting before then!

I will of course be providing periodical updates on the progress of my herbs, because well, I'm sad like that.

And now I give to you... A token Tofu Tikka Masala.

Leek and Bean Cassoulet

From the Veganomicon. To be honest, I found this a little bit bland. Once I'd tasted a few bites I found myself reaching for the salt, and then the red pepper flakes, etc. I would definitely add more garlic next time (even though this time I already doubled the garlic), and I would also add some herbs to the dumplings.

Nonetheless, it was filling, fairly healthy, and it looked pretty. Here it is served up.

In other news, I recently ordered one of these for my incredibly poorly lit flat. I'm very excited about growing my own fresh herbs, and then tomatoes... Mmmm... I am not your average 22 year old.


Oh, and in case anyone cares, the answer to the question in my previous post was "Two plain bridies, and an onion one as well". I did love herbstsonne's answer of "There were plenty of bridies and singing a song togethaaaaa.". Brilliant! It really should mean that...