Saturday, February 12, 2011

On the B Scale...

It's been an exciting week, which isn't saying much for me.  I was lucky enough to get a snow day this past Wednesday and spent all afternoon working on the blog.  I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but I had to pretend to be helpful while Mr. B was recording soprano tracks for our Easter musical.  Fortunately for all those involved (including the helpful someone wearing the headphones), Mr. B recruited a female singer to sing in lieu of doing it himslef, a la Farinelli...and I thought I married a baritone. 

While I was pretending to adjust levels and gains on the sound board, I discovered that I could see how many people had read/visited my blog since I started writing this past summer. 

WHOA.

I could not believe how many people were reading my blog!  Please notice the past tense of wereNow, I'm sure out in Bloggerland, my numbers are grossly small compared to that of and even sub-standard blog. But holy crap, there were over 400 people reading my blog that came from all over the world!  When I saw half of the European Union colored up, I about Euro-peed in my stretched-out pants!

Of course, when my writing dwindled, so did my readers.  Boo. It was that pesky teaching job and the vain attempt to inspire, mold and set fire to young minds that affected my dedication to the keyboard. 

That and my addiction to Netflix.

So here I go with a new attempt at recording my vegan journey and keeping the European Union up to date with the number of skid marks in Little Bs princess panties.  What better way to start than with a Mr. B approved recipe!  He happened to give this recipe 9 Bees out of ten.  The Mr. B rating scale is one of my new gimmicks that goes along with the new blog title.  I thought a 5 bee scale would suffice, but he felt he needed a 10 bee scale to allow himslef more expression.  Sweet, right? Or maybe he's still thinking on a 5 bee scale and a 5 blows.  Only time will tell.  Look for his rating on all the recipes I try from here on out.

One more (non-dairy) cheesy remark...Holy Bees, this was good. 

Spaghetti Pie with Black Bean Balls  (click to print)


1 c. cooked spaghetti (or 3oz dry, then prepared)
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. corn starch
2 T. water
2 T. Fake Parmesean (I used Galaxy)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 c. spaghetti sauce (you can used your favorite can, or make your own
1/4 c. Toffutti Better Than Cream Cheese
1/2 c. sliced black olives
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
1/2 c. Daiya Mozzarella Shreds
1 can Black Beans

Preheat the oven to 350* and spray a pie plate with Pam.

Rinse and drain the black beans.  In a small bowl, mash the beans with a fork or potato masher.  You don't need to pulverize them. It is okay if you can still identify a few beans.

Mix the baking soda, baking powder, and corn starch together with the water.  Pour into the bean mixture along with the fake paremesean and garlic. Mix well.

In a large bowl (or the pan you cooked the pasta in), stir the cooked pasta, spaghetti sauce, cream cheese, black olives, salt and pepper together.  It helps the cream cheese melt if your pasta is warm.  If not, you might want to nuke it for several seconds.

Dump the pasta mixture into the pie plate.  Spread it evenly in the pan.  Form the bean mixture into 1 inch balls (feel free to chuckle here, if you didn't already when you read the recipe title) and place them on top of the pasta.  Sprinkle with Daiya shreds.  Bake for 30-35 minutes.

I would love to tempt you with photos or video of Little B eating as much pie as I did, but my camera is still broken and I am still hating on Kodak.  I'm that girl who won't by a cookbook unless there is a picture with every recipe. Being the self-referential bee I am, I am pretty sure everyone else in the world is like me in that regard.  I have doubts whether anyone will ever try a recipe I share anyway, but I imagine it's practically impossible if I don't photo journal the process or end product.  Plus, the more I write the greater the odds that each post will be dreadful not as witty as I would like.  Therefore, it's nice to have pretty pictures as a distraction when I don't bring my A game.  

So alas, no Spaghetti Pie pics, but hopefully this will make you come back again...

Whoops...See, you can't even trust me for a good pic. Maybe next time.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Jennifer!! I am following you now LOL

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  2. Thanks, Robyn! Look for my cream cheese brownies at school on Monday!

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  3. Hello! Let's get together for a bean-based meal soon--this one sounds great! My dear husband is a little freaked out by meat alternatives. You must remember that when I married him, he would only eat 5 things (potatoes with no skin, cheese, plain beef, plain chicken, noodles, and bread). Okay, that is 6 things, but you get the idea. He has come a long way. In 12 more years he may be loving tofu as well. It's a process.

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