Vegan dinner

I'm alone for dinner tonight, so I did the one thing I can do well in the kitchen-- improvise.  I hate cooking and I am not all that good at it.  I negotiated my way out of being the cook when my husband and I got married even.

So anyway, I had a failed attempt at making Ani Phyo's raw oatmeal raisin cookies sitting in an airtight glass container.  It wouldn't clump together into a cookie shape.  I figured it would be a good filling for an acorn squash, so I bought one earlier in the week.  I figured now would be a good time to try it.  So I cooked the acorn squash according to the directions on the sticker.  It suggested a dried food medley in brandy or wine and gently heated.  Since I thought some of the problem with my cookie mix might be that the oatmeal was a little stale, I figured a little wine in the pan wasn't a bad idea.  This worked well because we opened a so-so wine last night and decided it wasn't all that great.  Time to use it for a better purpose!

Ok, so I gently heated the wine and cookie mixture and added in several strong shakes of cinnamon and a little nutmeg and stirred it all up.  Spoon it into the two squash halves and enjoy!

Since I also bought a plantain when I got the acorn squash, I figured this was a good time to try it.  I love fried plantain, but I myself have never fried one before.  So I winged it.  To be honest, I don't think I've ever fried anything before in my life.  I don't really eat fried foods.  I got our small frying pan and added a little canola oil into the bottom, just enough to coat it.  I heated it on a lower setting because I sure didn't want to get burned by a splatter or start a kitchen fire.  I added my sliced plantains and watched.

I knew they were supposed to come out a delicious brown color, but I had no luck in getting them there.  When I first flipped them (fyi, I'm also spatula-flipping challenged), they turned out neon yellow.  I got out our splatter guard and turned up the heat a little more.  I let the other side get a little darker and flipped again.  In the effort to brown them evenly, many of them got burned.  Many more burned on one side and stayed neon yellow with just brownish areas on the other side.

Anybody with plantain suggestions, please let me know!  Even though I didn't get to eat the whole plantain, I was overall very happy with my results.  Plus it's great to know the whole meal is vegan!  Go me!