Monday, January 09, 2006

How to Say Thank You with Pasta, Peas, Potato Rolls & Leftover Sloppy Joe

Some days I just have trouble thinking it all through. Yesterday was one of those days. We left the house early to pick up a couch and recliner from my inlaws. Thanks to a rented a van and some borrowed some muscle from my brother-in-law, we got our "new" furniture in the house with relative ease. Unfortunately, during this flurry of activity, I forgot about planning something to eat.

Thanks to some quick thinking on Jim's part, I made peanut noodles with peas but it didn't seem like enough, especially for a guest who had just lugged a monsterous couch across the icy tundra that is my front yard. Thankfully, I still had some refrigerator potato roll dough which I quickly shaped into rolls. I put these near the wood stove to rise. I gave them barely 15 minutes before popping them into the oven. We also had some leftover vegan sloppy joe, which I warmed up to serve with the rolls. In the end, it looked like quite a spread.

Ironically, dinner snuck up on us as well. All the furniture moving sparked a cleaning frenzy and no one noticed the time until it was well after 6pm. I rummaged through the fridge and came up with small containers of Peanut soup and Sweet & Spicy Lentil Chili from the week. Tasha minced two cloves of garlic. Leen chopped one onion. I added one quart of carrots, frozen beet greens, the leftovers and a handful of bulgur. 15 minutes later, we had a pretty good soup along with toasted potato rolls and the remaining peanut noodles. Whew!

1 comment:

Katie said...

That's good to hear! I'm fairly certain that TVP (which stands for textured vegetable protein-doesn't that sound appealing??) is one of those items that you'll only find at a health food or natural food store. A regular grocery store with a big natural food section might have it.