Mothers day Tofu and Avocado with Vegan Cookies

My inspiration reached its first peak during my finals week, surprise surprise. Perusing vegetarian recipes at that time was much more enticing than perusing biology notes. Coincidentally, I was coming home on Mothers Day, and what perfect, inexpensive gift could be better than cooking the Mom dinner? I also figured that an amazingly cooked meal would be a great way to debut my vegetarianism to my parents.

My first dish was a simple thai tofu with a peanut butter sauce base. I picked this because I am a obsessive fan of peanut butter and there weren't too many complicated ingredients involved. Figured might as well play it safe for my first time.

Over-all, my tofu turned out O-KAY. It wasn't the thai-delight I was envisioning, but given the amount of time and effort exerted, I'd say it was fair. Not something I'd want to serve if I am ever trying to impress someone though.

Difficulty: 4
Desire to make again: 4-5
Over-all: 5-6
Notes: I think the flavor was too basic. Maybe could add some more salt to it? For my own purposes I could probably DGAF and leave as is.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/amazing-simple-thai-tofu/

To accompany my tofu, I made an avocado egg dip. This was even easier to make, although it was a side, but it turned out surprisingly delicious. The great thing about this dip is it can be put in anything. I feel like I can eat it by the spoonful, use it as dip or put it between bread and make a sandwich.

Difficulty: 2 (just kind of messy when you're mashing things)
Desire to make again: 10!
Over-all: 8
Notes: When I made this, my mom happened to have pre-flavored eggs which might have added saltiness to my dip. When I do this myself with regular eggs, I will probably need to add salt.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/stellas-avocado-egg-and-onion/detail.aspx

Dessert-Vegan Banana Cookies!
Since I was (and am still, sort of? yes?) totally into the whole healthy thing, I wanted to make a vegan dessert. I found this awesome cookie recipe that just looked too easy to pass up. My one gripe about baking desserts is all the butter that's needed that my Asian refrigerator never has in stock. So this vegan recipe looked pretty perfect. Plus, all the ingredients are so healthy by themselves, and the reviews were pretty generous in their compliments, and now I can say I've tasted why!
The Parents weren't as big fans as I am. The Mom complains it is too sour because of the cranberries, but her taste-buds are seriously as sensitive as an amphibian is to environmental toxins (#nerdalert).  And the Dad just said that "it looks like horse shit." Whatever. Since I an a hard core sweet-addict, this is just the kind of nicotine-patch I need to start curbing my impending diabetes.

Difficulty: 2
Desire to make again: 10!
Over-all: 9
Notes: Took the advice of the commenters and froze my bananas the second time around before adding them in, not sure how much of a difference it made though. But subbing the oil with applesauce was definitely a good tip. Also added dashes of cinnamon that can be left to taste. What's great about this recipe is that it's a base that leaves room for lots of experimentation, i.e. chocolate chips and peanut butter (GAH, but that takes away the whole point of the nicotine patch. oops).

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/healthy-banana-cookies/detail.aspx

Here is the Dad eating "horse shit"

This is the unbaked version

All in all, it was great to do something nice for mothers day. And even though I previously complained about the Parent's gripe-age at my vegetarianism, I guess they do still try to accomodate me, even if it goes against their entire upbringing and culture, so I do appreciate that.

Cheers to parental-lovin' ~