Tomatoes & Tasty Tomato Mush

Hey, where did the weekend go? I swear it was just Friday! Sunday night and I do not get along so well, I always feel like I’m in a manic rush to get things ready for the week – laundry, food planning, vacuuming all the pet fur balls, sterilizing the kitchen while trying to enjoy the last little bit of the weekend. Anyway, it was a busy and relaxing weekend starting with a quiet dinner at home Friday. Hubby and I were burned out from the week and decided to stay home, watch TV and see who reins supreme in Street Fighter 4. It was a tie, BTW. For dinner, I steamed a spaghetti squash, sauteed the squash with tempeh chunks, chopped tomatoes, a minced jalapeno pepper, chopped onion and seasoned with cumin and curry powder for a fiesta vegan skillet.

The pepper was spicy, but not too hot and I didn’t need any salt with this dish because the spice and heat blend created a wonderful savory dish.

Saturday I headed to my sisters to meet the relay team I’ll be joining for the California International Marathon. I’ve never done a relay before and am looking forward to this because the distance it perfect to keep my training up, but not be over stressing. I’m definitely not ready to run the entire marathon and I’m not sure if I’ll ever take on one. If I do, I’ve heard the CIM is the one to do since it’s mostly downhill. Anyway, after we headed to Chipotle for lunch, the first time I’ve been back since going vegan. I got a salad layered with black beans, guac, roasted peppers and plenty of salsa – pretty tasty for fast food vegan. What I didn’t get was a picture since I got carried away talking with my sister. :-P

While my dad is on vacation, I had to stop by his place today to check on things and completely clean his garden of any veggies ready to go!

I scored a ton more tomatoes, some eggplants and another spaghetti squash. Between his garden, mine and my sisters, my kitchen is becoming overrun with ripe tomatoes! I loaded the dehydrator to use in marinara sauces throughout the winter. But I still needed to use up eggplants and tomatoes for dinner and decided to get creative with red lentils. I first simmered a cup of lentils and two cups of water in a skillet for about 15 minutes.

While I chopped eggplant and spiralized an odd looking yellow zucchini I picked up at a farmer’s market.

I simmered these with the lentils and a tomato-heavy marinara sauce whipped up in the Vita-Mix.

After about 15 minutes on medium heat, it was simmered to mush and ready for serving.

For a cooked vegan dish, it still have a wonderful fresh tomato and squash taste and the zucchini noodles held together nicely for cooking, making for a fun noodle dish. The texture was a bit mushy, but a comforting warm stew that I will be recreating on a cold, rainy winter night.