Vegetarian Gourmet by the Skinny Gourmand: Lazy to Blog

It's been one month since I last posted. Not that I haven't been cooking, but I was lazy.

So I decided to wrap them all in one post.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Bread Pudding

It's a deconstruction of Strawberry Cheesecake French Toast. What's interesting about this is I forgot to add egg to the batter. As it sat in the fridge waiting to be baked the next day, I was worried sick the whole night. As it turned out, it was very good. Here, an egg-less bread pudding was born!

Apple Gorgonzola Tart

For awhile now I knew there was a jar of apple sauce in the back right corner of the freezer. And I had been wanting to use it with Gorgonzola cheese. I just couldn't remember where and how that apple sauce came about. The most reason blog entry that used apple sauce was as far back as Thanksgiving..... I digress. We basically loved the tart - the sweet tartness of apple and distinctive acquired taste of Gorgonzola was a winning combo. I wish I did a better job with the butter crust: it was good but didn't hold up very well.

Herbed Polenta Muffins

There was a whole bunch of cherry tomatoes sat untouched for more than a week. They looked fine except a few that had wrinkled skin. What's better than preserving them before they go rotten? So I made a jar of Herbed-Oven Dried Tomatoes, and used them to make a savory Herbed Polenta Muffin. I think I used this muffin recipe combined with ideas from here to come up with this. It's good on its own but better with something creamy. I tried it with a creamy Broccoli Cheddar Soup, which I liked. Adrian liked it with scrambled eggs.

Sticky Meringue

Now, this Sticky Meringue does deserve a post. But I'm lazy. It came to me one night when we were both still full from lunch but wanted something for the night while watching Heroes. It's not hard to make but requires some patient: a total of 2 hours. We took the short cut putting it in the freezer to chill, otherwise it would have taken longer before it reached our mouth. It's basically made of (a lot of) butter and sugar, some flour, and eggs. Things that you can find readily in the pantry. The hard part was whipping the eggs to form peaks. I had to switch from one hand to another with a hand held electric blender. When I complained, Adrian replied, "imagine doing it with hand". That was a call for help, Mister Smarty Pants! It's a good recipe and I will definitely do it again, and hopefully blog about it.

Despite heaps of good-will advise, I chose to go with overnight train. The nice people at the train station kindly advised me to take the second class cabin (shared by 4) instead of first (shared by 2), seeing that I traveled by myself.

Tonight, I'll be leaving to Chiang Mai for one week. I bought a one-way train ticket that leaves at 7.25pm. I should wake up in Chiang Mai around 9.30am. This is going to be my first train ride in SEA. I am well aware that it is nothing like traveling in Europe, but it should be interesting. We'll find out how interesting it is by the mode of transport I chose for my return.

3 bags full of yummy goodies, complete with instructions.

Adrian left to London two nights ago. He'll be back in two days, coming home to a lonely apartment. He's going to miss me (and my foods) so badly. Poor thing. Since yesterday, I have been cooking and baking; making fridge-stored ready-to-eat foods. Nothing extraordinary but some adaptation of old recipes.

Savory Zucchini Sun-dried Tomatoes and Roasted Red Bell Pepper Muffins

Although I don't know how it tastes, I loved the smell. It took awhile to prepare: roasting the red bell pepper, and chopping the vegetable into mince - the down side of being vegetarian.