Painting Carrots!

I have been painting carrots for the past few days.  I would like to make more work with vegetables and fruits and their months they are harvested in the midwest.

When I am finished painting the carrots, I will cut them out.

After harvesting carrots at Green Institute last summer and receiving organic carrots from my CSA share, I was surprised by the crazy shapes carrots can grow.  Each one comes out differently from the ground. 

Last week I cooked a lot!  I made Tofu Cutlet Marsala twice since it was so good.  I followed two recipes.  One for the cutlets and one for the sauce.

Ingredients for Cutlets (I also did this with eggplant instead of tofu since my sister doesn't like tofu, but first sprinkle salt on sliced eggplant to remove bitterness and let sit for 20 minutes, then pat away moisture with paper towel and follow same steps below):

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 cup of all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 cup panko bread crumbs

1/2 cup soy milk

1 14-ounce extra firm block of tofu, drained and sliced 1/4 inch thick

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

2. Whisk cornstarch, flour, salt, and pepper into a bowl.  Pour milk into a separate bowl.  And pour panko bread crumbs into another separate bowl.

3. Pat tofu with paper towel to remove excess moisture.  Dip a piece of tofu into the flour mixture and cover the tofu completely.  Then completely dip tofu into soymilk quickly and let some of the soymilk drip off the tofu, then transfer tofu into panko bread crumb bowl.

4. Fry the breaded tofu and as you finish, place the tofu on a baking sheet in the oven.

Ingredients for Sauce (I tripled this recipe because it was not enough sauce first time around!)

2 Tbs oil

1/2 yellow onion chopped

2 cloves garlic minced

1/2 lb cremini button mushrooms, sliced

1 Tbs tomato paste

1 1/2 cups Dry Marsala wine

small amount of lemon juice to taste

1/8 cup parsley, minced

2 Tbs earth balance butter

Saute mushrooms and onions in oil until mushrooms have given up most of their moisture.  Stir in garlic and tomato paste, cook until fragrant.  Add Marsala wine and cook until sauce thickens up quite a bit.  Remove from heat.  Stir in butter.  Add lemon juice and parsley and stir again. 

Serve sauce over tofu or eggplant cutlets!  It is my new favorite meal.

And for dessert...Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups!  My Grammy made these for me two years ago and I hadn't made them until now.  They are amazing.