Elise Inspired Eats

One of my best friends Elise has an amazing vegan blog called HungryHungryHippie and I read it religiously. There are food combos in there that I can see myself making with the addition of some real meat unlike the fakies she uses. No offense E. So as I navigate through her list of eats, I've tailored some of my dinners with her in mind. Below are the food combos I've come up with.

Elise has had several posts regarding squash, so when I went to the Asian market the other day, I came across kabocha squash and decied to make use of it. To my surprise, this is the same kind my mama uses for some of her dishes, but growing up I only knew it as a calabasa, plain squash. I salted and peppered like E does and baked in the oven. Fyi, totally encountered the problem of cutting this bad boy in half because the skin's so tough. Solution: I used one of those large Asian cleavers. Very powerful.

Result:














Orange goodness!

Dinner combo #1:

I cut up some of the kabocha into cubes and added some sauteed shitake mushrooms and sunburst squash. This was pretty good by itself so I attempted to eat a strictly veeggie dinner. Mission accomplished! I was quite full afterwards. Oh and btw, I totally had more than the cover shot here, so don't worry, my appetite is still in full effect.

Dinner combo #2:














Kabocha cubes tossed with pieces of asparagus as my side.

Sorry I took a bite before the photo opt, but this was my open-face sandwich using the kabocha squash as the spread with spinach and pieces of shredded chix on top with a bit of balsamic vinaigrette as a light dressing. This was pretty delicious and the side asparagus and kabocha kept me very satisfied.

Dinner combo #3:

This may not look like the most appetizing of meals, but this was really really good! This has slices of beef in a bed of romaine lettuce, l.o. kabocha chunks, l.o. black beans with bell peppers and some garlic croutons, lightly drizzled with a honey mustard dressing. I just wanted a hint of sweetness so that's why the honey mustard made an appearance, otherwise, you can probably have it without since the black beans and squash were pretty flavorful already due to them being leftovers. DEEE-licious!

Lastly, I was reading E's post, appropriately titled, "My Salsa" and I was inspired to have avocado in my salad. I knew I really wanted beef for dinner last night so I pan seared this sirloin my parents bought with crushed garlic, cayenne pepper, paprika, S&P and a dash of cumin. Then I tossed in the remaining leftover black bleans with chunks of avocado in the same pan after cooking the beef.

So here's dinner combo #4:

Beef, avocado and black beans on a bed of mix baby greens, no dressing = total taste bud satisfaction! Salamat to my wonderful friend for being clever enough so I can piggy back on her creations. =)