MoFo 9: Quick Lo Mein

Robin Robertson has a much prettier photo (and the recipe!) for this dish on her blog. This is another winner from Vegan on the Cheap. I used wide rice noodles in place of the spaghetti/linguini because I had them and I thought they'd go better with the flavors anyway. While it is my firm belief that just about anything can taste great covered in sriracha and sesame seeds, this is abnormally good. I got a "you can definitely make this one again" from the boyfriend. That usually indicates it as a winner! This also packed up perfectly well for lunch the next day.

Posts to check out:

1) I love soup. It's usually fairly simple, filling, and makes a lot so it's great for leftovers. So great for the weather we're having right now...in fact I made soup for dinner tonight...not from a can! I made this one that Sofia blogged about from Viva Vegan! (post to follow eventually). So, here's a soup recipe roundup from LunchBoxBunch!

2) Our Veggie Kitchen has a recipe inspired by a food cart in Portland (blast them and their abundance of vegan food carts). It's for a tofurkey cheesesteak and it looks yums!

Win! Ricki from Diet, Dessert and Dogs has a giveaway for Lucini Cinque e' Cinque. Click over to her blog to find out what that is and how amazing it looks!

MoFo 6: White Bean and Barley "Risotto" with Kale and Tempeh

So I have this bad habit of shopping online. I'm so busy with school most of the time, and it's so convenient that pretty much everything I could ever need is available to be shipped to my door that I do take advantage. With Amazon as long as the order is over $25 it ships for free; because of this I have been known to just add things to my cart that I'd been thinking about purchasing, usually cookbooks. It sometimes doesn't save money, but other times, amazingly enough it does (cuz shipping can be hellza expensive). I know I have a problem; I doubt I'll seek help. A few of the cookbooks I've accumulated this way I have been extremely happy with and, as so, glad that I was "forced" to get them...like the one the above recipe comes from: Vegan on the Cheap. This is the first recipe I tried from it and I loved it!

The flavors in this risotto were great. I subbed cremini mushrooms for white (because white mushrooms=blech to me), but otherwise followed the recipe. The tempeh is cooked separately first to give it a "smoky" taste and it added a lot. This dish was hearty and was great the next day for lunch as well. This was also my first time working with barley. I'd had it in restaurants before, usually in soup, and have liked it, but I'd never found a particularly tempting recipe. Until now!

I know as per the MoFo agreement weekend posts are not necessary, but I felt like it anyway. So did lots of other bloggers! Here are some posts to check out today:

1) My friend Kelly over at Kohlrabi and Quince has a great post up about a crazy-ass run we did last weekend called Warrior Dash. There was a big group of people we knew who were there and it was painful, but a good time!

2) Amey at Vegan Eats and Treats is trekking along on her way through the world's foods, today she's cooked up some food from Cuba!

3) Wing-it Vegan is spending her MoFo time cooking up eats from other blogs! This week was all beets, and it ends on a sweet note with beet cookies! It's crazy-sounding, but the results are beautiful.

4) Over at Cake Maker to the Stars Kittee has a guest blogger today talking all about the fabulous vegan sandwiches available here in San Francisco. From the list I have only tried Ike's and it definitely delivered, maybe one day I can try out some of the others. The vegan "cheesesteak" from Jay's Cheesesteak and the torta from Gracias Madre sound like winners to me!

MoFo 3: Stuff and Things

I don't have time to rummage though my SD card and resources to talk about a meal tonight. I've got an exam friday morning, so I've got to get to studying. However, I can't miss MoFo...here's what caught me eye today:

1) Chocolate Cherry Amaretto Milkshake Shots from Manifest:Vegan. Yes, please! Also, she's got a giveaway going on for some Coconut Bliss ice cream, check it out if you like free stuff (and who doesn't?!).

2) An Oktoberfest Party over at Vegan Homemade. Such a great idea, mixing two great things like vegan food and beer--you can't go wrong!

3) Amazing looking Super Fudgy Brownies at Not a Rabbit. I've been looking for the perfect vegan brownie recipe, with the crackle on the top like I used to love--these ones look pretty good!

4) Science meets food over at Notes from the Vegan Feast Kitchen; I love learning about why food reacts the way it does and Bryanna's talking all about onions today.

5) Over at VegSpinz: some amazingly creative Halloween decorations inspired by Harry Potter.

Like more free stuff?! There's a giveaway at LunchBoxBunch for the Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook: 100 Great Recipes, Photographs, and Voices
(you need a Twitter account to enter), Robin Robertson has a copy of Vegan on the Cheap: Great Recipes and Simple Strategies that Save You Time and Money
up for grabs on her blog (I have this one, it's awesome!), and over at Vegan Appetite win a copy of American Vegan Kitchen