Vegan Lady Eats

How to peel garlic super fast (20 seconds)

2012-01-22T15:49:00.000-08:00

Since we have been remiss in posting lately, we thought we would show you that Vegan Lady not only Eats, she Vlogs (or whatever) too! Observe her prowess in demonstrating that one can indeed peel a head of garlic in twenty seconds. Note that this works better if after a single round of shaking, you remove the peeled cloves before shaking up the unpeeled ones again. We peeled these for some Scorpion Paste to go with Tacos (stand by for another post).

Spumoni Cupcakes

2011-11-16T07:57:00.001-08:00

When I recently saw some Neopolitan vegan ice cream in the freezer, it made me realize how much I used to love spumoni ice cream. Then it hit me: we had pistachio butter we’d bought in Portland, and I could make spumoni cupcakes instead.

The basic concept was to make three kinds of cupcake batter (a 1/3 recipe of each) then layer them into the cupcake pan (note that the original colors were actually green and red as they should be, despite what they turned into after baking):

The recipes we used were the basic chocolate cupcake from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (unmodified), a modified version of Peanut Butter Cupcakes from the same book (but we substituted the pistachio butter for the peanut butter, and agave for molasses), and a modified version of Strawberry Cupcakes form the Joy of Vegan Baking (but instead of strawberries, we took about 2/3 cup of frozen cherries, thawed and pureed).

Since in the end the chocolate was the strongest flavor, we decided to make pistachio and cherry buttercream. I thought they were pretty good, but not worth the effort (and the cherry flavor was never really strong enough). Sarah thought they were just mediocre. It was fun to change it up though!

Thai Lasagna

2011-11-15T11:36:00.001-08:00

I’d been craving lasagna, so had just bought the supplies I needed. But when I was at the Thai grocery store recently to restock on curry paste (after a dinner plan of cooking up eggplant and greens with curry paste and some soy sauce was derailed but the lack of both curry paste and soy sauce) I saw these:

and realized that I could make Thai lasagna. The basic concept was to use the rice noodles as lasagna noodles, coconut milk with one kind of curry paste in place of tomato sauce, and the layers of toppings would be seitan, tofu, and broccoli, each with a different type of curry paste. In the end, I realized that would be silly since I’d end up with several open cans of curry paste, so I just went with green curry for the seitan, and Kaeng Par for the tofu and coconut milk “sauce” that I put on each layer of noodles.

This came out really well, although very spicy and salty, so I ended up taking the leftover rice noodles and broccoli and cooking them up “plain” so we could mix that with the lasagna for a more normal tasting meal.

For ingredients, there were 3 packs of seitan (cooked in a bit of peanut oil, 1/6 can of coconut milk, and most of a can of green curry), 1 pound of tofu (cooked in the same amount of peanut oil and coconut milk, and a bit of Kaneg Par curry instead of green curry), 1 bunch of broccoli (just sautéed in a little bit of peanut oil), and a pack of rice noodles (I used the other 2/3 of the can of coconut milk, mixed with the rest of the Kaeng Par curry to go on each layer of rice noodles). Here's a "side view" showing the layering:

Arugula Salad w/ Tempeh, Seared Apples & Onions, Candied Nuts, and Pear Cider Dressing

2011-11-14T10:50:00.001-08:00

Normally we have a pretty strict policy of having Sarah as the household Salad Director, but with her being so busy with class I’ve been doing most of the cooking and shopping. When I got a great deal on arugula at the farmer’s market, I couldn’t resist trying my own.

The starting point was arugula (4 small bunches) and a medium bag of broccoli micro greens from the farmer’s market). For toppings, I bought 2 gold rush apples (sliced and chopped and cooked in a nonstick skillet), one onion (caramelized in a skillet with a bit of olive oil and some pear cider), a package of tempeh (seared in the nonstick skillet with a bit of soy and more pear cider), and some walnuts and pecans that I cooked with maple syrup, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper until crystallized and dry. The dressing was olive oil, pear cider, Dijon mustard, and sage. I made the toppings the night before, so assembling the salad ended up being pretty easy!

Cheesy Brocolli Soup from 'Easy Vegan Recipes' booklet

2011-09-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

I did a tabling* on Saturday, but it was pretty slow, so I started browsing in Compassion Over Killings' Easy Vegan Recipes booklet. Although I was never a fan of cream of brocolli soup, once I saw that recipe in the booklet, I couldn't get the idea out of my head.

See, just like the picture in the booklet!

This is the recipe: Cheesy Broccoli Soup

I halved the broccoli and nutritional yeast, quartered the cashews, used only 1/4tsp + 1/8 tsp salt, only about 2-3 cups vegetable broth, added 1/3 cup chives, only 1/4 tsp garlic powder, and didn't add onion powder or pimentos.

The great thing about this recipe is it really is a snap to make. I placed my cashews in a dish and covered them with water, and microwaved until the water boiled. I then let them sit and soften, and drained them before adding to the food processor. Otherwise, I followed the instructions in the recipe. It really only took me 30 minutes to put together and I'm a slow mover. After finishing making the soup I liked it but I felt like it needed something. Then I left to walk the dog for 30 minutes, and after returning, the soup was perfect! It just needed time for the flavors to set in.

I need to try to control myself and not eat anymore or I won't have anything for lunch tomorrow. I know some people** think cashews are awfully expensive. For those folks its good to know you can halve the cashews in this recipe and still come out with a mighty tasty result.

*this is where you stand at or sit by a table filled with literature and ask folks if they would like some info as they pass by.
**my husband Jon.

Portland Eats n' Vegan Conference

2011-09-13T18:49:00.000-07:00

For my readers who weren't at the Vida Vegan Bloggers Conference and who don't currently reside in Portland (Hi Mom and Dad!), I'm going to give you a re-cap of the conference, my impressions of Portland, and discuss stuffing my face.

(This is brunch at Sweetpea Vegan Bakery. It was transcendent, and I ate only the biscuit portion of this offering to the Gods. Clearly, we have to move to Portland.)

We stayed with our friend Bernie, who began a string of awesome host actions by picking us up at the metro station. Although we'd had all sorts of dreams of exploring Portland together by bike, Jon had unfortunately broken his toe boogieboarding so instead was relegated to one of those embarrassing knee scooters.

Before I arrived in Portland I printed out my list about 90 restaurants in Portland, and didn't even bother including food carts. I don't know if you've ever been to a food cart in DC - a tiny rectangular tin coffin with gummy oversalted soft pretzels and hot dogs - but I was entirely prejudiced against food carts - how could good food come from them? Thankfully, my yelp-loving husband convinced me to try the highest yelp-rated food cart in all of Portland Kitchen Dances. H-O-L-Y S-M-O-K-E-S, that is some GOOD FOOD.

We feasted on the tempeh Reuben, the raw beet ravioli, and then bought tacos not due to any hunger or actual room left in our bellies, but because that's just how good the food was. We then said 'boy, we should have photographed this food before we wolfed it down like savages'. I kind of felt like with a conference of 200+ vegan bloggers, someone else would probably do the heavy lifting and take better photos than I would have anyhow.

At the conference I got to try two new products which I'm super excited about.

1. Earth Balance's new coconut oil based margarine, cuz it doesn't taste like coconut people, it TASTES LIKE BUTTER!! I totally went back for a few extra samples.

2. Upton's Seitan Italian Sausage style seitan. I'm not much of a sausage person, even when I ate actual sausage, but I really like this product.

3. Is it even possible that I didn't even try the new greek yogurt despite my husband being an old friend of Ken's who MADE the greek yogurt himself? Yes, somehow I didn't realize it was even there. I probably spaced out during an important conversation in which Ken stated "we will have samples of the Greek Yogurt there". Instead of hearing this important information, I was off in Vegan Lady Land..."OMG Isa is here, she is like at the same bar I am at. She is my hero but I can't be a complete fan girl and say anything stupid to her. Okay, think of something not stupid". So as you can see, I was unaware of the greek yogurt being available for tasting.

Our friend Bernie got us two loaner bikes to bike around Portland with! Although Jon couldn't use his too much, I was able to bike to the conference and all around town - hardly getting lost at all, which is unusual for me. I'm lucky Portland is basically a grid - it was designed with the map challenged like me in mind :)

I had a total bikegasm when I encountered my first street sign that indicated that cars HAD to turn left or right, despite the fact that a perfectly full sized street lay ahead, but bikes, and bikes ONLY, could proceed straight. I can't tell you the amount of joy it brings to a cyclists' hard and leathery heart (yes, we cyclists are all very tough and leathery from exposure to the elements and hard bike seats) to see things like a big fatty green painted bike crosswalk with a flashing light that says "yield to cyclists" on a big high speed bridge. Yes you motorist, with your eco-disaster death machine, YOU must stop for ME! (Oh, by the way in case you wondered if I am sometimes an eco-disaster death machine driver, yes I am) anyhow, BikeJOY.

Back to food. Yeah, we had the vegan donuts. They were okay, but I was spoiled long, long ago by the best donuts in the universe, to which none can measure up. My family who eats non-vegan donuts agrees with me that this one bakery in Wildwood, NJ has the best donuts they have ever tasted, and no other donut can ever measure up. Next time I'm there I'm going to do some outreach and see if I can get them to make me a vegan donut. Wish me luck!

Portobello: a fancy vegan restaurant in Portland. Jon is making me write about it, but I'm not a fancy food lady. I don't think I can give P. the proper treatment in writing, but I'm pretty sure Jon will wake up masticating and moaning 'Gnocchi' for several months to come. For the potty minded out there, masticating means chewing.

I highly reccomend a food tourism trip for any vegan who has the cash to spare. Would you like to eat a vegan caramel, a vegan danish, a vegan donut, a vegan _______? <----fill in the blank. Go to Portland.

Winter Coat Without Harm

2011-09-07T08:34:00.000-07:00

I opened up the latest Mooshoes email and browsed around in the link to Vaute Couture, a vegan clothing company specializing in coats. I found a coat I really liked, but it was $300 (a special introductory price) and that's a lot for me to spend.

Unrelated Pig Photo

The problem, aside from simply finding a coat made without fur trim or goose down, is that most coats are made from eco-unfriendly fabrics and made by people who aren't getting treated well or paid well at their work.

Many vegans work at non-profits, and it's difficult for them to afford ethical products. Its hard to get into the mindset of - hey, I only buy a coat once every 5 to 10 years, I can save up to buy a nice one - because we're so trained to be able to immediately afford clothes and shoes.

I personally hate shopping, so I only go once or twice a year. Generally only when my existing clothing becomes embarrasingly and irreparably stained or worn looking. I go shoe shopping even less. I used to purchase new running shoes more often, but then the whole barefoot running thing became popular and I started to question the value of 'support' in a shoe. Now my gym shoes are super old and worn looking, complete with holes. I make up for my frugality in this area by spending a LOT on food (and my education).

I'm totally sold on the value of organic food, and supporting local farmers who practice organic farming methods. If I ever waver about that $4 organic red bell pepper, I just think of that pregnant mother who picked grapes for a living and whose child was born with a rare deformity associated with exposure the pesticides sprayed on the grapes she was picking. I think about how she didn't have any health insurance. I think also about whether or not she will get cancer or suffer other health impacts from exposure to those pesticides. I've long since forgotten her name which I learned on a radio show eight years ago, but her story is burned into my brain.

My "solution" to avoiding sweatshop labor and buying eco-friendly in the last several years has been to buy used. I purchase my clothes at Goodwill or other second hand clothing stores. I realize this is kind of a copout because I should be directly supporting ethical businesses rather than not directly supporting unethical ones. Its difficult for me to convince myself to spend a lot on clothing. However, I sure could use a really warm coat this winter. I'll let you know if I end up buying the coat, and I'll review it too.

Coming up next (once I find the #*!&$ camera cord): Monstera Deliciosa, Indian Salad, Tom Yum Eggplant Stir Fry & Creamy Tomato Soup!

Greek 'Feta' Salad Sandwiches

2011-09-05T15:03:00.000-07:00

(this post from was a while ago, but since I lost my camera cord, I didn't post till now!)

The dog was tired enough to not even bother waking us up, so we didn't roll out of bed until ten thirty am! We had our friends Noelle, and Joe (of Carpe Vegan) over for dinner last night, and even more folks came over for board games after that and we played until the wee hours. We made a few dishes for dinner, but the star of the show was the Greek Sandwiches - a recipe of Jon's we enjoy every few months.

I just started uploading the pictures to Jon's flikr account as he was heading out the door, and he called over his shoulder "make sure to only upload good pictures, I don't want any blurry ones in between" and "make sure you tag everything properly". That cracked me up that he actually cared about the quality of the photos in his feed, whereas I treat flikr like one of those catchall drawers filled with paper clips, expired coupons and museum putty.

Jon wrote up his recipe and the associated blog post, so here's Jon:

One of my favorite sandwiches as a kid (after I went vegetarian but before I went vegan) was a Greek sandwich from Cross Rhodes in Evanston. Cucumber, Tomato, Red Onion, feta, olive oil, and vinegar in a thick, soft Greek pita. Damn. I tore those sandwiches up in my youth. While investigating the various cheese substitutes out there, we have made two key discoveries:
1. All vegan "feta" cheese you can buy at the store is disgusting. The range is from "bland and weird and unpleasant" to "please erase my memory of that flavor."
2. Sheese "strong cheddar" flavor does not taste much like cheddar, but in context DOES actually taste quite a bit like feta (more so than homemade feta we've made)

This led me to chase my dream of recreating that sandwich, and lo, it was glorious. After making it about a half dozen times I figured I should measure the ingredients I add and write the recipe down. Also, originally I would shred and crumble up the cheese into little bits and make a light dressing more like the basic sandwich. But I hate screwing around with trying to make fake cheese crumble, so here is a simpler recipe where you just blend it with the dressing. It is still all kinds of delicious, and much less work. Also, the original recipe only used half the block and then the other half would spoil in the fridge. After doing that several times I just started doubling it and freezing the unused sauce for later. Here's the recipe:

3 cucumbers, sliced
4 vine-ripened tomatoes, chopped (can't get good tomatoes? don't bother with this recipe, as they are key)

1 small red onion, sliced into thin crescents (quarter the onion then slice thin)
Optional: lettuce, or sprouts, or whatever else you like (I skipped them in the batch shown in the photo)
Greek pita or lavash (Greek pita is thick and soft and awesome, but if you can't get it normal pita will suffice)

Sauce:
1 block Sheese “strong cheddar” flavor vegan cheese
2 large cloves garlic
¼ cup + 2 Tbsp olive oil
¼ cup + 2 Tbsp lemon juice (~1.5 lemons)
3 Tbsp fresh oregano (or ~1 Tbsp dried oregano)
¾ tsp black pepper
¾ tsp sumac (optional, but awesome)

½ tsp dried dill (optional)

¼ tsp salt
1 cup water (after cutting the tomatoes & cucumbers up, drain them into the measuring cup to start with and add plain water until you get to 1 cup)

Note that this recipe makes about twice as much sauce as you need, but just freeze the other half and next time this recipe will be crazy easy. Just cut up the veggies and let them drain a bit to start. Mix all of the ingredients for the sauce in the food processor (I add everything except the sheese and water first and puree it for a while to get a nice base, then add the drained tomato juice & remaining water & sheese). You can either toss the veggies with some of the sauce to taste and eat on the pita bread, or just spread the sauce on the pita or lavash and add the veggies. Definitely don’t pre-mix the veggies and sauce if you’re not going to eat it all right away or it gets watery. Adjust any ingredients to your liking, this is just a rough guide rather than a hard and fast recipe

Eggplant Rasavangy

2011-08-20T14:24:00.001-07:00

Jon bought 6 eggplants at the farmers market in his enthusiasm for the different skin colors and shapes. We hadn't decided what to do with this aubergine bounty, but he had suggested Baingan Bharta. I checked out the Dakshin Vegetarian Cuisine from South India (whew, what a name!) cookbook to see if they had a recipe, because our Baingan Bharta "recipe" is more of an outline and I wanted some tasty Indian food. I didn't find Baingan Bharta, but there was a similar enough dish called Eggplant Rasavangy which I used as a guideline.

The dish calls for Sambar powder, which we didn't have but it gives a recipe, which I made a variation of.

Sambar Powder:
1/4 cup dried red chilis
3 TBS ground coriander
1/2 TBS Cumin seeds
scant 1/2 tsp fenugreek powder
1/2 tsp whole black peppercorns
1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
1/4 tsp yellow dal
1/4 tsp red dal
1/4 tsp poppy seeds
1/4 stick of cinnamon
3 curry leaves
1/4 tsp ground turmeric

I separately fried up the red chillis in about 1 TBS of oil. Then I took all of my whole spices (peppercorns, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, cinnamon stick, my rinsed dals and curry leaves and roasted them in a dry cast iron pan (removing the curry leaves once they looked dry/crispy), until the mustard seeds popped for about 20 seconds and removed from the heat. Once my red chili peppers had fried for 3 minutes I removed them and placed on a paper towel to get the oil off since I was concerned about gunking up my seed grinder with oil. I put the red chilis and whole spices into the seed grinder and whizzed til finely ground. Set aside - you will only use a portion of this powder.

Coconut Paste:
3/4 cup dried unsweetened coconut
2 serrano chilis, de-seeded & finely diced
11 dried red chilis (really that was too many so I recommend 6)

I fried the serranos and dried red chilis in the leftover oil from the previous chilis for a few minutes, then added the coconut and toasted, stirring frequently, until it turned light brown. Then I removed from heat and after cooling a bit, ground it up in the spice grinder.

I cooked up 3 cups of red lentils in an ample amount of water until they were super duper soft and any extraneous water had evaporated off. Sorry for being so inexact but I'm sure the Internet can tell you the right proportions.

Jon was kind enough to chop up about 2 cups of onions, and about 6 cups of eggplant so all I had to do was clean 4 cups of cherry tomatoes and stab each with a knife so they would cook down nicely and not remain whole (don't know if that was needed, but did it anyhow). I added 2 TBS earth balance, 3 curry leaves, 7 more dried red chilis, 3 teaspoons of mustard seeds and the onion to the electric pressure cooker and set it on brown. Once some of the onions had started to get brown I added the eggplant and tomatoes and set it to high pressure for a few minutes time. It didn't actually get to pressure, but I was trying to get the eggplant and tomato to cook down enough that I could actually stir it, because before it was so full I wasn't able to stir without things falling out. Once I had stirred it I set it to five minutes on high.

After it beeped, I drained off about 5-6 cups of tomatoey/eggplanty water and reserved it for some other dish (lentil soup!). I removed the 7 whole chilis. Then I added the cooked red lentils, coconut paste, 2 TBS + 1 tsp of Sambar powder, 1/2 TBS asafoetida powder, 1 tsp tamarind liquid, 1 TBS brown sugar, and 1 tsp or 1.5 tsp of salt. At this point I wished I'd put less chilis in the coconut paste because then I could have added more sambar powder, such a more nuanced flavor, and still had an appropriate amount of heat in this dish.

Ahh, looks like baby diarrhea, but tastes like a little spoonful of heaven!

Simple Summer Dish

2011-07-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

I ate the remainder of last night's dinner out for breakfast, so once lunch rolled around I went to the fridge to see what I could find. I was surprised to discover perfectly good fresh green beans and two bags of tomatoes (one still good!), along with some beet greens. I also noticed the little plastic container with thyme in it was still good, so I had enough to make a dish of some sort.

2 cups sweet orange cherry tomtoes (sliced in half) or some tomato with high sugar content, diced
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
1 can canary beans or white kidney beans
2 TBS fresh Thyme
1 cup fresh beet greens or spinach
1/2 teaspoon Seitenbacher Veggie Broth Powder
2 cups diced fresh green beans
2 shakes of freshly ground black pepper
a few sprays spray oil
salt to taste, if needed

Firstly I turned the burner on medium low and sprayed with a little oil and waited for it to heat up. Then added the sliced onions and let them cook pretty slowly, I wanted to caramalize them. I let them cook for about 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Once they looked brown enough, probably not officially caramalized but good enough, I added the tomatoes and green peppers, added 2 TBS of water, and covered for 15 minutes. Then I realized I should probably add the thyme in there, so I got to removing the thyme leaves from the tough stems. It helps if you grab the stem about 1/2 centimeter from the top, and drag your fingers while pinching downward. Then you can pinch off the top which is soft enough to add to the dish, and discard the woody stem.

Then I added the thyme and vegetable broth powder, stirred and covered for another 5 minutes. Then I added the beet greens and covered for another 3 minutes and then stirred. At this point I stirred uncovered for a bit until the beet greens looked like they were nice and evenly wilty. Then I added black pepper and a drained, rinsed can of canary beans from goya, which come already super salted so I didn't have to add any extra salt to the dish. It came out really nice with a very sweet tomatoey oniony goodness to it. I suppose I should eat this with rice or bread but I'm too lazy to make rice and we're out of bread. Actually, I feel like this would go even better over some soft white rice noodles or something else with the texture of egg noodles.

Curry Leaves!!!!

2011-07-18T18:27:00.001-07:00

As a birthday present, Jon's mom sent me a large branch of fresh curry leaves. Your average joe would probably open said gift and say "whuh?" I however was overjoyed, and instead responded with: "EEEEEeeeee!" Fresh curry leaves, like pomegranate molassas, or rosewater, are in that special list in my head of coveted items I'd like to cook with when I get a chance. She included recipes which she had photocopied, and some of them had stars next to them. One was curry leaf sambar, which contains an astonishing 30 curry leaves. (don't worry, still no shortage, and you can store 'em in the freezer too!)

The recipes are from a cookbook we also happen to own but I have regarded with fear since Jon explained "its really good but everything takes like 4 hours to make, its crazy hard". However, these particular recipes really weren't bad at all. It all came together at the speed of a normal meal. I decided to make the curry leaf sambar and some vadai to go with. I have never made either before, so it was an adventure.

For some reason we had Urad dal (also called black dal, although its tan colored) in our cabinet. I think we had a reason for that. Anyhow, it came in handy because the recipe required 3 kinds of dal! The orange colored ones, yellow, and urad. I rinsed them this morning before work and let them soak in the fridge all day. Those were to make the vadai, which are apparently just blended up soaked lentils with some ginger, chilis and onion - who knew?

Sambar, before blending

The sambar was a little more work, since it required frying two sets of spices. I didn't have asafoetida, but I put some white pepper in there instead because it had a similar smell, according to me. The recipe called for tamarind paste and we had concentrate, so I wasn't sure how much to put, nor how the final product was supposed to taste, so I had to wing it. In the end, I did end up adding some of Jon's magic powder, which is some chutney powder we add to Indian food if it needs that extra kick.

So I start frying my first vadai, and I'm watching the oil bubble, and I'm waiting for it to get brown, and then giving sidelong glances to the large tub of batter which hasn't been fried yet...and then it occurs to me. We have donut pans! This was something I picked up for my birthday last year, because it was a donut party and I made some gluten free donuts in it. So I was like, why stand around forever like a sucker frying these up in batches when I can get them all done at once in the oven? I know, I know, hardcore vadai types are going to be rolling their eyes and groaning at this point. Hey man, if your legs can take it, feel free to fry 'em. I however biked to work and back AND to whole foods in a vain asafoetida effort during lunch, and my legs weren't having it.

Vadai before baking, with some sprayed on oil

Final results: I loved the sambar and the combination of the vadai and sambar. The fried vadai did have that extra special edge to them, but overall they weren't so far superior to the baked that I feel its worth the effort to fry. I approve of baked vadai!

Vadai in Sambar

Oh, one other thing. I made lime-tamarind-agave soda! I love sour things, and had some limes & club soda in the fridge. The soda is good, the only problem is its brown, and not clear brown like coke, but cloudy brown, so it has image issues. It kind of reminds me of that Austin Powers movie where he grabs the beaker and drinks from it and exclaims "ahh...kind of...nutty!". I'm just going to allow you to Google that if you want to gross yourself out, unless you've figured it out already, in which case I'm not surprised.

TV Dinner

2011-06-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we want to sit down and watch a movie and be lazy, but still have vegetables calling to us from the fridge nagging us about how they are going to go bad and we'll have wasted our money. On those days, we usually do all the chopping work in front of the TV - but this time, we took it to a new level and brought the plug-in pressure cooker out onto the coffee table, and did part of the cooking there too! If we were only making Ratatouille, we could have made the whole thing while watching a movie, but crazy me I wanted to make Ratatouille lasagna. There are a lot of vegetables here, but they do cook down. Even though it went above the recommended fill line, we jammed all the veggies in and it worked out fine. We have the Fagor 3-way 6 qt. pressure cooker/rice cooker/slow cooker. I have only used the pressure cooker feature, but I can't recommend this product highly enough to save time and hassle. We got Lorna Sass' Pressure cooking cookbook so we could take full advantage of it. Pressure cooking allows you to use less oil, and cook your food in half the time. Modern pressure cookers are extremely safe now as they have safety release valves so the pressure can't get too high.

Above is our chopping & cooking setup in front of the TV. Note our dog Leeta wondering if that onion is any good to eat :)

This will be an even more ideal recipe for about a month or so from now, when eggplants are widely available from the organic stands at the farmers market. Its a great way to get a variety of vegetables into your meal while not being too "healthy" tasting.

Ingredients:

12 Lasagna noodles
3 medium zucchini, sliced into 1/4 inch slices

For Ratatouille:
2 1 lb eggplants, peeled, 1/2 inch tall and wide matchsticks, 2-4 inches long
2 onions, roughly chopped
2 red bell peppers, de-seeded and sliced into 1/2 inch strips
1 lb fresh Roma tomatoes, roughly chopped plus 1/4 cup vegetable broth OR 1 32 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained, but with 1/4 cup of their juice
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil OR 2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 pinch red pepper flakes
3 gloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
2 tsp olive oil

For the Creamy Cheese Part:

1 TBS capers
1/2 cup pitted black olives (for best flavor, get the pricier brands that come in glass jars, not the canned type)
1 lb firm tofu, pressed
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 TBS lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt

Its no beauty queen, but it sure does taste good!

Preparation:

Place the tofu between two cutting boards, and place a heavy object with a wide bottom (like a cast iron pan) on top for 15-20 minutes. This squeezes any excess water out, so you'll want it to slant slightly towards the sink so the water goes into the sink rather than all over your counter. Chop all veggies for the Ratatouille part - keeping the zucchini separate from the rest. Put your electric pressure cooker on the 'Brown' setting (or if you have a cooktop pressure cooker, put stove on medium), put 2 tsp of oil in your pressure cooker and wait till its hot. Add onions and the dried spices (bay leaf, salt, red pepper flakes, and fennel seeds - if you are using dried basil rather than fresh, add that now as well), and garlic.

While that is sauteing and you are stirring occasionally, put a large bowl of water in the microwave until hot ~5 minutes. Pour the hot water into the lasagna dish, and place lasagna noodles in to soak for 20-25 minutes - no longer! While they are soaking, go back to your onions. Once the onions are translucent, add the other veggies (eggplant, red pepper, tomatoes - not the zucchini) and bring up to high pressure and cook at high pressure for 3 mins. Pre-heat the oven to 350.

Now to prep your "cheese". Break up the tofu into a few pieces, and place into a small food processor (not a large one, otherwise you won't be able to blend properly). Add your cloves of garlic, lemon juice, and salt. Now add the chopped olives and capers, close up the machine, and run until the olives and capers are really well blended and it all looks smooth and uniform.

Drain the water off of your noodles and slide them onto a separate plate, make sure pan doesn't have any remaining water. Place your first layer of noodles into the lasagna pan. Drain your Ratatouille but keep the fluid you drained off*. Find and discard the bay leaf. Then add 1/2 of the Ratatouille, then layer of zucchini. Now add half of the "cheese" and spread around the top till its fairly even. Add the second layer of noodles, and, if using fresh basil, put 1/2 cup chopped basil here. Then add remaining Ratatouille, and remaining "cheese" Then add the final layer of noodles. Then spoon enough of the leftover fluid from the Ratatouille over the lasagna that it comes up to almost the top but not quite. Try to pour along the edges so it goes down rather than sitting on top. You don't want fluid overspilling and messing up your oven, but dry lasagna is bad. You can always put a large jelly roll pan on the shelf below (not the same shelf) the lasagna to catch the drips if you are worried. Make sure the top layer of noodles is wetted down with the leftover Ratatouille fluid to prevent drying out too much. Place the lasagna in the oven, uncovered, for 30 minutes. The top noodles will have dried out some, but I just drizzled a little more Ratatouille water on them at the end and they softened up again.

*To be honest we placed our Ratatouille fluid in a large frying pan and reduced it until it was about 2/3 of what it started out. We were able to add most of the fluid back into the lasagne then - and reducing it concentrated the flavors. However, for ease of preparation, I decided not to put that in the recipe.

Banh Mi Salad (sorry no photos this time)

2011-06-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it wasn't precisely low cal or healthy, and yet, still a salad. The green parts were healthy :)

1 package seitan
1.5-2 heads red leaf lettuce (depending on size)
1/2 cup chopped mint loosely packed
1 cup cilantro, chopped, loosely packed
1/2 medium red onion, sliced thinly, then chopped roughly
5 limes
1 daikon or similar volume of red radishes
2 carrots
6 TBS Sugar
1/2 cup cashews
Sriracha chili sauce
some water
Soy Sauce (couple of tablespoons)
Rice Vinegar (couple of tablespoons)

First, get someone nice like Jon to peel and thinly slice your carrots and daikon (set aside separately in a bowl), and chop your onion, cilantro, mint and lettuce. Juice your 5 limes and place the juice into a bowl with the daikon and carrots, along with up to 3 TBS of sugar (stir well), a few tablespoons of soy sauce (to taste), and a few tablespoons of rice vinegar (to taste, or in our case, till we ran out). Let them soak for 15 minutes in this, stirring occasionally.

Drain the seitan, then throw into a frying pan. Strain the fluid from the carrots & daikon into the seitan pan, leaving the carrots and daikon still in the bowl - set them aside. Turn the seitan up to medium high, and let 1/2 the fluid evaporate while stirring very occasionally (I practically ignored the seitan, we were watching Star Trek, after all). Then taste the fluid, and add about 3 TBS sugar, or until it tastes sweet enough to you. I don't like things too sweet myself, I like the tang. Stir to incorporate the sugar, and cook until the pan is almost dry, then take off the heat to let cool.

Take the 1/2 cup cashews, and place into the coffee grinder (make sure you don't have leftover coffee grounds in there, b/c you don't want coffee salad dressing). Grind until its a powder, and pick out the big pieces that didn't get ground. Put into a bowl, and add enough water so its kind of thick, then add sriracha to taste, then add more water till it gets to be the consistancy of a ranch dressing.

Mix the lettuce, mint, cilantro, and onion, then top with the pickled daikon/carrots, and then with the seitan. Put about 3-5 tablespoons of cashew/sriracha dressing on top. Yum! I wasn't planning to post this (obviously - no pictures), but Jon was so in love with this salad I decided I'd better record it in case we get in a banh mi mood, we'll know how we made it.

Dreaming of Pho

2011-06-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

We ate at a lot of different restaurants during our honeymoon. The most memorable meals, for me anyhow, were the vegetarian Pho, the Korean, and a cashew pesto bagel sandwich. Jon loved the Tom Yum soup passionately, but it was too spicy for me. I decided the first meal I would try to re-create at home was the Pho.
I realize summer is not exactly soup season, but I feel Pho should get a special summer soup pass for the exceptionally fragrant, summery herbs. The Pho at Ban Le in Kona, Big Island had a mushroom broth as its base, so I included mushroom broth in mine. Jon said he didn't think the seitan added anything really, but I think its important to have some protein along with all those carbs, to help you feel full. Next time I might try marinated fried tofu instead, because that's what they had at Ban Le and it was good stuff.

For the Broth:

1 leek (green leafy part only)
1/2 yellow onion, cut into large chunks
1 4" chunk ginger, quartered
3 star anise (gives a mild licorice type flavor, can be omitted if desired)
3 cups mushroom broth (I used Pacific Foods Organic Mushroom Broth)
2 cups water
2 cups vegetarian beef broth (I use better than bouillon's not beef broth)
1-2 tbs soy sauce
1 cinnamon stick
6 cloves

For the soup:

1/2 yellow onion, sliced
1 package seitan
2 TBS Hoison Sauce
2 Large Portabella mushrooms, de stemmed, de ribbed and sliced into 1/4 inch slices
1 pkg rice noodles (8oz) (look for a package that says banh pho, but if you can't find that, pad thai noodles will work)
1-2 serrano chilies, sliced thinly
1 TBS Sugar

For condiments:
2 cups Cilantro
1/2 cup Thai Basil or Regular Basil
2 cups Bean Sprouts (or if you can't find any as I couldn't, daikon, peeled and sliced thinly with veggie peeler)
1/4-1/2 cup mint
2 limes, cut into wedges
Sriracha Chili Sauce
Hoison Sauce

Preparation:

First, cut the white portion of the leek off, and save in the fridge for another dish. Wash the green tough leaves and place in the pot. Quarter the ginger and add to pot. Add the broths and water, cinnamon stick, cloves, star anise, and the 1/2 yellow onion. Let this boil for about 30-40 minutes while you get the other things ready.
Heat a cast iron pan with a bit of spray canola oil to medium high. Add the 1/2 onion which is sliced, and stir periodically until the onion is soft. Some parts should get a bit black and crispy looking, others a dark brown. If this doesn't happen, up the heat a bit. You want to get some blackened and dark brown bits for flavor, while not burning the whole onion. Drain the package of seitan, and check for any thick pieces. Take the thicker looking pieces and tear them up until they are in line with the majority of pieces which will be pretty thin. Once the onion looks soft all over, and somewhat translucent, reduce heat to medium, and add the portabellas and stir periodically until they are soft. Remove from the pan to a separate bowl, re-spray the pan with oil, and add your seitan. You want to get a slightly charred look to this as well, without burning. It will probably stick some, just use a good spatula every 2-3 minutes to scrape it off and stir it up. Don't stir constantly, you need continuous contact with the pan to get the darkened pieces. Once it looks darker tan, add 2 TBS of hoison sauce and stir to combine. Leave on the heat for another minute or two, then remove to the separate bowl.
Take a large glass or ceramic bowl, add 8 cups of water, and microwave for 8 minutes. Then add the noodles, and microwave for 4 more, stirring the noodles halfway through. Then drain the noodles and rinse under cold water.
Once your broth is ready, you can now use a slotted spoon to remove the onion, star anise, leeks, etc. Add the sliced serranos, drained noodles, seitan, onion and portabella to the broth. Add the sugar, stir well, and 1 TBS of the soy sauce. If it seems to need more salt, add a second TBS of soy sauce.
Now pour yourself a bowl of soup, and add your condiments. You want to add these only to each bowl of soup you serve, not the main bowl, because you don't want your herbs to get very cooked, just only slightly wilted. If you like things spicy, add a bit of Sriracha Chili Sauce. Do this before you squeeze a lime wedge or two into the bowl, because otherwise you can overdo the lime easily. Add lots of cilantro and bean sprouts, and less mint and basil. If your soup needs more flavor, you can add hoison sauce.

Not really that Korean Korean Tacos

2011-04-30T14:21:00.001-07:00

We recently received our first issue of VegNews, which yes, I subscribed to because I want to submit our wedding later to get in their vegan weddings issue...but anyhow, they had a recipe, thankfully, which did not involve avocados and chocolate (you know those raw pudding recipes), or bananas - because Jon hates bananas and I recently had a bad avocado/chocolate pudding experience. Basically we had an extra avocado (I always get more in case I cut one open that's not really ripe), so I thought "why not take it to work, I have cocoa powder at my desk, and can use the sugar packets to make a pudding!". So yes, I ate an entire avocado with cocoa powder and sugar one day, and although it was good at first, I felt pretty sick by the end and I can't mentally handle the idea of a chocolate avocado pudding, possibly forever. Just like I can't ever eat a vegan sausage/cranberry stuffing ever again.

Where was I? Oh yeah, they had a Korean fusion taco with tofu, korean-esque flavors, and a pear cilantro slaw. We didn't have any tofu, but I thought - why not make Korean flavored chickpea cutlets (based on the V-con ones). We didn't have an asian pear or napa cabbage, or cilantro, but we did have purple cabbage, and apple, and mustard greens.

After gathering my ingredients, I realized we were out of gluten flour. I was pretty shocked, its like how do two food-obsessed vegans run out of a basic staple like gluten flour...its like when you run out of nutritional yeast or something. So here's where it gets wierd (um, its already wierd if you're an omni reading this). Instead of gluten flour/chickpea cutlets, they became quinoa chickpea cutlets with additional chickpea flour and bread crumbs, and Korean add ins like garlic, scallions, red pepper flakes, etc.

We really enjoyed this and Jon insisted I write down how it was made so we could replicate it again. Someday he will learn that there are pretty much only 2-3 things I ever want to make more than once. One of those is mushu vegetables, another is gardein & mushrooms stroganoff.

For the future, I would like to add more flavor to the cutlets so I could bake them instead (yes, you can cheat and have less flavor when you fry things), because quinoa absorbs a lot of oil while frying and so its not as healthy as you would hope. And they fall apart fairly easily. But lots a protein!

Quinoa Chickpea Cutlets (lets be real, they're patties)

1 1/4 Cups Chickpeas, mashed (a can of chickpeas will do)
1 TBS toasted sesame seeds
4 cloves garlic
3/4 cup dry quinoa, cooked
1/4-1/2 cup chickpea (besan) flour
1/2 - 3/4 cup whole wheat bread crumbs
1/4 cup scallions
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2-1 tsp garlic powder
2 1/2 TBS Low sodium tamari (less if using normal tamari - to taste)
1 TBS Brown Sugar
1.5 tsp dark sesame oil
1/8-1/4 cayenne pepper

Drain & rinse chickpeas, mash, then mix in quinoa and most everything else except for your chickpea flour and bread crumbs. They go in last because you add as much of them as will make your patties dry enough. I'm not sure why your patties need to be on the drier side, but probably there's a reason why most cookbooks don't have you throwing wet batter-style patties into oil. Maybe they absorb even more oil, who knows. Then heat peanut oil up on medium high, and fry your patties about 4-6 minutes per side.

Asian-Esque Slaw

This slaw is super awesome, and I love it. I didn't actually make as much as I'd wished I had, and so I will make more tomorrow, because yum!

1.5-2 cups Thinly Sliced Purple Cabbage (cut into 2 inch strips)
2 cups minced mustard greens
1/4 cup scallions
1 apple, shredded
2 TBS Rice Vinegar
salt to taste
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
Sriracha Chili Sauce, to taste (1/4 tsp to start in case you're not sure)

Just peel your apple, shred it, chop your mustard greens & purple cabbage, and chop the scallions, mix everything together except Sriracha - add a teeny bit at a time because if you add too much it'll ruin it. Perfect to eat right then. If you leave it sit overnight, you'll have to re-Sriracha it, because the salt makes the veggies lose some moisture, and this will drain to the bottom along with the Sriracha flavor.

In conclusion, while Jon loved the patties and the slaw, I think the slaw was the real winner. In addition to having fantastic flavor, I always feel extra proud of myself when I eat raw veggies and they are super tasty like this, I feel healthy and not in a "brown rice and steamed brocolli torturing myself" way. More like an embracing life and flavor, and health too, as a bonus way. :) Enjoy!

Creamy OrangeyRedYellow Chowder

2011-04-26T05:56:00.000-07:00

This recipe is based upon one in the Color Me Vegan cookbook we recently purchased when attending Colleen's book signing. I of course made an ass of myself by screwing up the story of a friend of mine whose sister in law is a friend of Colleen's, and mixing up the ex-wife with the current wife. No wonder she looked confused at my story!

Anyhow, some of the recipes in the cookbook have like, 3 ingredients which always gives me pause, I am not sure (aside from broiled asparagus with tamari and toasted sesame oil), how a three ingredient recipe could ever be good, but this one had a lot of ingredients and so looked promising. Also, we had both roasted red peppers and carrots on hand. We also had a sweet potato, rather than regular potatoes so I decided to diverge somewhat from her recipe and do my own thing. Why normal rather than sweet potatoes are used in the "orange" chapter of the book is unknown.

It turned out super duper yummy and we both loved it a LOT!

So, the photo doesn't look so hot, but man, is this a GOOD soup.

Creamy OrangeyRedYellow Chowder

2 onions, chopped
1 tsp thyme
1 small sweet potato (about 1.5 cups diced) diced into 1/2 inch dice
4 cloves garlic
3 carrots, peeled & diced
2 roasted red peppers, seeded & chopped
1/2 cup vermouth
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups water
1 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup cashews ground into a powder

In a soup pot, place the onions, carrots, sweet potato, vermouth, salt, thyme and garlic and saute for about 10 mins. Then add the water and roasted red peppers, and simmer for about 20-30 minutes or as long as it takes your sweet potatoes and carrots to get tender. Then add your frozen corn and stir till its no longer frozen, and the 1/2 cup ground cashews. Then use an immersion blender to blend some of the stew, leaving some of it chunky. You will be happy to eat this soup, because its yummy!

Tostadas Mazatlán

2011-04-26T05:45:00.000-07:00

These tostadas have absolutely nothing to do with Mazatlán, it just so happens I lived there for 6 months and these tostadas needed a name. My parents came over to stay for a night and I asked them what they were interested in eating for dinner. My mom said "remember that black bean mango thing you made that time?" I did not, but I whipped this up, and I think everyone was happy with it. I know Jon and I loved it, but you know when guests come they pretty much have to say they love what you make*. I know I'll be making it again someday, sooner if I wasn't such a weirdo who insisted upon eating recipes I've never made before all the time.

*for some reason vegan mac n' cheese does not fall into this category.

Tostadas Mazatlán

2 jalapenos, diced finely
2 red peppers, 1/2 inch dice
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (2-4 limes)
1/2 red onion, diced very finely
2 tsp cumin
1.5-2 cups mango, diced small
2 cups cilantro, chopped
2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
8-10 flour tortillas (I chose Chili infused tortillas)

Wash and dry your cilantro (in a salad spinner or with paper towels). Chop. Put in a large bowl. Open your cans of black beans, drain and rinse. Peel and dice your mango (or, if using frozen mango, thaw in the microwave until not frozen but not hot and dice) and add to the bowl. Peel and dice your onion, and dice your red peppers and jalapenos and add to the bowl. Slice 2 limes in half and juice (you may need a 3rd or even a 4th depending on how juicy your limes are), and add 1/4 cup of the juice to the bowl. Add the cumin and cayenne pepper, and toss all the ingredients to mix. Salt lightly to taste. Mix again. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes as the flavors will strengthen a little with time. While those flavors are melding, put your flour tortillas in the toaster oven and toast - watch it though because you want it to get stiff and crisp, not burned. Once your tortilla is stiff and slightly crisp remove and do the same with the remaining tortillas.

Place about a cup of the mixture onto a toasted tortilla and serve.

Island Inspired Eating

2011-03-31T07:09:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but I've really been into fruit laden, spicy foods recently. From this craving, came the following two recipes. I made them for my parents while I was visiting them, and they got good reviews (*hopefully* not just because they are my parents). I think I might sub pineapple juice out for the water in the burger next time, and definately add hot sauce (I didn't when I made it). The burgers are super easy to throw together. The fries are more work, but if you have a good quality veggie peeler, like the OXO brand, and a very sharp knife (yes you, go sharpen your knife), you won't be slaving away for very long.

Caribbean Black Bean Burgers (makes 6 patties)

Oven at 375F
Beano* at the ready

1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion flakes
1 can black beans, drained & rinsed
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup finely diced red pepper
3/4 cup crushed pineapple, drained
1/4 cup finely diced mango
1 TBS Cornstarch mixed in a small bowl, separately, with 1 TBS water
4 scallions, rinsed, sliced thinly (white part and first 2 inches of the green part)
1/2 tsp hot sauce (if you like things spicy)

Since mango is a chore to peel and chop, you may want to save time by purchasing frozen mango and thawing it. I buy the larger green and red mangos because you get more mango for your peeling and chopping effort than the smaller, yellow variety.

Chop your red pepper, mango and scallions, and drain your crushed pineapple. Mix the water in a small bowl with 1 TBS of cornstarch and set aside. Put your black beans, bread crumbs, salt, onion and garlic seasonings in a medium bowl. Use a pastry cutter or a potato masher to mash the beans until there are no whole beans left, but its not a complete mushy paste, there will still be half beans in there. Add the cornstarch/water mixture, and hot sauce if using, and mix well. Then add your mango, pineapple, and scallions, and red pepper and mix again.

Use your hands to form patties, on the small side for a normal 'burger' size. They won't stick together terribly well until they are cooked, so be gentle with them. Spray a bit of oil on a cookie sheet, and arrange on the sheet.

Cook for 15 minutes in your oven which was preheated to 375, then carefully and gently flip them (they should looked dry and somewhat hardened on what was previously the bottom side, you need them to form a crust). Then give them 10 more, and check them. You can always flip them again for a few more minutes if they weren't quite done on the first side.

Usually english muffins aren't vegan, but these were a store-brand that happend to be vegan - yay! I sure do miss a crispy, crunchy, margarine soaked english muffin every now and again. The mister just doesn't dig 'em, so its not usually worth the trouble of hunting down a vegan english muffin.

*word to the wise: healthy eating means eating more veggies and beans, and that can result in some uncomfortable bloating. Beano is an enzyme that assists in your digestion and prevents gas. I contacted the company and their new product, beano meltaways, is VEGAN! Halelujah!

Baked Chipotle Sweet Potato "Fries"

(fries prior to baking)

Oven at 400F

Chipotle Spice Mix (a bit of kick to it):
2 tsp chipotle chili powder
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt

Alternative Spicing (not 'hot' spicy):
1 TBS Lawry's Seasoned Salt
1 TBS Chili Powder

Few Sprays of Oil
3 Sweet Potatoes

Make sure you have a really good vegetable peeler, and peel the sweet potatoes. Cut them into uniform matchsticks 3/4 inch wide and a little less than 1/2 inch thick. If there are any very thin parts where it tapers off and gets too thin, cut that off because its going to burn (you can put the misfits into a bowl and microwave with a bit of water till cooked through, and eat as a snack the next day). Put the good matchsticks into a bowl, spray a few sprays of oil, toss, then a little more oil, and then add your spice mix and toss until they are evenly coated. Place on a few cookie sheets - don't crowd them otherwise they will steam each other and wont' get at all crispy. Put into the 400 degree oven and check them at 20 minutes - if some of the edges look a little burned they're done, but otherwise you can poke them with a fork and it should slide in with no resistance - if not, give them 5 more minutes. Mine took 30 minutes till they were done. Some might get a little black on the bottom (that's because we didn't flip them at the 15 minute mark), but I just didn't want to fuss with flipping, they are already enough work! They were still super tasty.

Do you care about how many calories are in this meal? Yeah, me neither, but just in case...as a service to you, here ya go:

Calories in one Patty: 130
Calories in English Muffin: 120
Calories in 2 TBS Salsa: 20
Calories in 1 med. sweet potato: 103

Total Calories: 373

Baked Tofu Sandwiches

2011-03-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

While at a friends birthday party at a bar, I ran into a guy from HS. I was completely stumped. I remembered nothing. Apparently, not only did we have chorus together, but also worked together at a local pizza joint. I felt really bad, but I have a horrible long term memory, and I can't remember very much from HS. I wish I could say it was 'all those drugs' or some other good excuse, but no, my brain is just that way.

However, silver lining to this cloud, I remembered how we used to microwave chopped onions in a little margarine to put in sandwiches, and they were surprisingly good. So when I baked some marinated tofu later in the week, I decided to use the same trick for my sandwich onions. You may notice from the photo, that this sandwich has no bread. We can blame that squarely on Jon. (Jon loves getting blamed for things, and he reads this blog).

How so? He's a mayo-hater. So you just can't keep a jar of vegan mayo around for only one person. It gets moldy. As such, I find most sandwiches way too dry. Thus, the lettuce sandwich. You might think that's sad, but wait till you try and it and it rocks and you are like 'forget bread, that's for cinnamon toast obviously, not for sandwiches!'

So, to make the baked tofu:
(oven needs to be at 425, btw)

First press your tofu unless its CRAZY firm (like soyboy low fat or white wave hard tofu) for 15 mins under something heavy. Then slice SUUUUPER thin, slightly thinner than a cd jewel case.

Marinade:

2 Tbs Miso (Red or Yellow)
2 Tbs Rice Vinegar or Lemon Juice
2 Tbs Sugar
2 Tbs Tamari
1 Tbs Nutritional Yeast
1/4 tsp Liquid Smoke

If you aren't pressed for time, marinate your tofu for 20 mins in the marinade (this means you should delay preheating the oven a bit - wait till you start marinating. If you are pressed for time, just dip the tofus in the marinade to coat both sides and throw in the oven. Wait 15 mins. Remove and paint on more marinade on both sides with a special non-disgusting paintbrush you reserve only for kitchen food jobs. Throw back into the oven (make sure the other side is the top side now so they get evenly cooked). Check in 10 mins for doneness. They should look dry-ish and a little darker around the edges. Give them 5 more minutes if they don't look done.

They will actually improve in flavor overnight in the fridge, but I had to dig in right away.

I took some chopped red onions and put them in a tiny bowl with a bit of margarine (I subsequently tried this with a bit of spray oil, and then, a few drops of water and they all worked fine), and microwaved for 25 seconds & stirred, and repeated until I was happy with their level of cooked-ness. I chopped up some grape tomatoes as well.

To assemble:

Place a large clean romaine lettuce leaf on your plate. Put a piece of baked, cooled tofu on top, and throw on a handful of the chopped grape tomatoes and the cooked onions. Then fold the lettuce leaf over the tofu both ways, so you can keep it mostly from falling out, and chow down.

A Salad you can get excited about!!

2011-02-25T05:47:00.000-08:00

Most people think of salad and boring and what you eat because you "should". Not so this salad. This is tasty. So much so that I was wolfing it down like a wild animal, entirely unable to photograph my work!

Spicy Cajun salad with Corn-Shallot dressing.

2 cans chickpeas
2 bunches green onions
2 containers grape tomatoes
Spring greens
Frozen sweet white corn
2.5 TBS Shallots (2-3 sections of shallot)
Mild Rice vinegar
olive oil or canola oil

Cajun Spice Mix:
1/2-1tsp cayenne pepper
2 TBS Thyme
2 TBS Paprika
4 tsp red pepper flakes
2 TBS Onion Powder
3 TBS Garlic Powder
2 TBS Chili Powder
2 TBS Oregano
3 tsp salt
1.5 TBS black pepper
(you'll need to use a mortar & pestle or spice grinder to grind these together, because otherwise they'll be too large and won't stick well to your chickpeas + zucchini)

We got one of those giant containers of spring greens for the greens.

Wash your tomatoes & green onions and cut off the very last inch or two of green onion (and the hairy butt end), and then if you're watching calories, spray with spray oil. Otherwise, drizzle liberally with olive oil. Shake some salt on. Stab each tomato with a fork so it doesn't explode. Broil for about 5-7 mins on High. Once cooled, chop the tomatoes in half and the onions into 2 inch strips. Then preheat oven to 400.

Slice 3-4 zucchinis in half, then each half in half, and then again so you have little long triangles of zucchini, cut the triangles to about 3 inches long. Coat liberally in cajun spices and roast, turning once for about 20-30 minutes? (I don't remember, but check on them every 10 mins).

Open 2 cans of chickpeas, rinse and pat dry with paper towels till just slightly moist. Then spread them out onto a lightly greased jelly roll pan (not a cookie sheet otherwise they'll roll off into your oven) Dust well with the cajun spices, then roll them around and dust again, till they get an even coating of spices. It should look like they are super duper coated in spices, to an excessive extent. Now you can spray the chickpeas lightly with spray oil and place into the 400 degree oven. Every 15 mins, check on them, and STIR THEM. We forgot to stir and the outer ones got burned and that was sad. It should take about 45-50 mins for your chickpeas to get crunchy. That's your goal.

While those things are cooking, take 1.5 cups of sweet white frozen corn, microwave till thawed (not hot), and then throw into a blender or food processor. Add about 2 TBS of rice vinegar and 2.5 TBS chopped shallot and 1-2 TBS of olive oil and blend well. Taste, adjust amt of vinegar and corn to you liking, blend again. I'll be pretty thick, but you just have to stir it really well into the greens for a while and it'll spread out. You might add a bit of water though if it seems dry.

To assemble:

Take a pile of lettuce (about 2 cups), and plop 2 TBS of the very thick chunky corn dressing on it. Massage around with your hands to coat. Put 2 tbs of broiled tomatoes and 2 TBS of broiled scallions and massage into the salad. Place the zucchinis in an attractive wheel spokes fashion radiating from the center of the salad bowl. Then sprinkle with a handful and a half of crunchy chickpeas. Now you can gorge yourself on this delish drool worthy salad.

If you have leftover spices, you can dust your popcorn with them for cajun flavored popcorn (I did this!), or rub some tofu with the spices and fry it up.

Another important note about this recipe. In general, whenever I use my oven I try to figure out something else I could use it for right after - like throw some sweet potatoes in there for baking, or bake an eggplant. That way it saves you work the next day or day after if you need roasted eggplant for a dish, and baked sweet potatoes make excellent healthy snacks, and can be incorporated into many dishes.

I invented a recipe, and it doesn't suck (Spinach Dip!)

2011-02-17T06:11:00.000-08:00

Last night I finally got around to making artichoke spinach dip. Too lazy to turn on my computer, I just tried in vain to remember Bryannna Clark Grogan's recipe for spinach artichoke dip. As it turns out, I have a poor memory, but that's okay, because I really really really love this dip. Also, start freaking out, because it has NO OIL! Its not ETL due to the salt and miso, which contains salt, but other than that its SUPER healthy.

Sorry about using the 1/2 a brick of tofu, I hate it when recipes are like '1/2 bell pepper, diced', but I'm going to make lemon pepper tofu with the rest from vegan brunch, so there's an idea for your leftover tofu.

Oil Free Spinach Artichoke Dip that tastes like Ranch Dressing

1/2 brick of firm tofu (not too firm because this is already a thick recipe)
2-3 TBS unsweetened soy yogurt (silk brand- plain)
1 tsp yellow miso
1-2 tsp lemon juice
3/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
dash black pepper
3 cloves of garlic
1/2-3/4 tsp salt
4 artichoke hearts, tough leaves removed, chopped
8-10 oz frozen spinach, squeezed WELL

Firstly, into your food processor, put the tofu, yogurt, 1 tsp lemon juice, onion powder, roughly chopped garlic (yeah, if you put whole garlic cloves in your food processor, they STAY whole), salt, pepper, basically everything except the artichoke hearts and spinach. Blend until nicely smooth. Microwave the frozen spinach and squeeze out. Taste the existing dip. If you really want more lemon juice, add the second tsp. Now add about 5 oz of spinach (50% of thos 10oz frozen rectangles of spinach), and your artichoke hearts and blend until well blended. Add more spinach if the dip is too strong for your tastes.

If you scoop this up with Mary's Gone crackers, you can feel extra proud of how healthy you are. Also, its really yummy and packs a major punch of flavor.

The last time I tried to make my own 'cheezy sauce', it was pretty much a total disaster, I had to throw it out and I felt bad for wasting food, and then worse when I made some sad pasta with veganomicon's cheezy sauce which was flavorless and blah. So this recipe working out is very pleasing to me.

Vegan 'Beef' Stew

2011-01-26T07:08:00.000-08:00

The Closet thing you can get to beef stew (as a vegan)

This recipe is modified from the recipe on Meet the Shannons. It is modified because I didn't want to use my oven, and spinach has no business in a beef stew. I have previously blogged about my intense love for gardein's beefless tips. I could live without most fake meats, I'm not a huge fan, but these have such a complex flavor, and add so much to your meal, you will really appreciate them.

I put every single step in this recipe, because often I forget to do something, or I do stuff in the wrong order, and I've got everything else frying in oil and then I'm like 'I have to dice 2 lbs of potatoes!?!?!?', and then stuff burns, which is bad.

1 Package Gardein Beef-less tips
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 Large Red Onion (1/2 sliced into rings – the other 1/2 diced)
3 Stalks of Celery (chopped)
1 Cup cremini Mushrooms (sliced)
4 Carrots (cut into coins – should make 2 Cups)
1 14oz Can Diced Tomatoes
1 Cup Frozen Peas
1 Cup Frozen Green Beans
1 Cup Red Wine
3 Teaspoons Shoyu or Tamari
1 Teaspoon Thyme Leaves (dried)
1/2 Teaspoon Onion Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Mustard Seed
1/2 Teaspoon Celery Seed
1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper
1/2 Cup vegan Beef-flavored broth, Preferably Better Than Bouillon's Not Beef Base
2 TBS WW Flour

Herby Biscuits

1 cup WW Flour
1 cup White Flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup unsweetened soy milk
1/2 Cup Thinly Sliced Scallions
1/2 Teaspoon Thyme Leaves (dried)
1/4 Teaspoon Sage Leaves (dried and crumbled)
1/4 Tsp black pepper

Heat oven 450.

Spread your Gardein out on your toaster oven's solid tray. Bake for 10 mins in the toaster oven at 300. While you're doing that...

Break out a bottle o' red wine and start drinkin'.
Chop your carrots (keep 'em separate) Chop mushrooms (keep 'em separate from carrots), slice half your onion, set aside, chop your celery, then dice 1/2 the onion and put celery and diced onion together. Measure out your spices and put in a small dish for later. Microwave a little over 1/2 cup water for 2 mins 30 seconds, add your brothy cube or paste, and dissolve. Add the 2 tbs of WW flour to the 1/2 cup water and whisk till even. Use can opener to open your tomato can.

In a large soup pot over medium heat, add the 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add the diced red onion and celery, and saute until softened. Add the mushrooms and continue to saute. Once they’re released some moisture, add the soy sauce (or Bragg’s), diced tomatoes, wine, veggie beef broth (with flour whisked in), spices carrots, frozen peas and green beans. Stir occasionally and when it begins to boil cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Continue to check on the Stew and stir occasionally. Remember the sliced onion and that Gardein in the toaster oven? Pour the juices from your gardein toaster oven pan into your stew. Don't lose that yummy gardein flavor! Time to fry those sliced onions in a cast iron pan till they are all caramelized, then remove them, then spray the pan with oil again, then add gardein and heat it up, a little bit of frying, just don't burn it. Just to get it heated through and properly cooked.

While the stew is simmering, mix your dry ingredients of the biscuits. Then add the soymilk and scallions and oil, and don't overmix, you don't want them to be tough. You can use less oil, but the biscuts won't be as tender. Drop them onto 2 greased cookie trays and cook for 10-15 mins.

You’ll want to remove the pot from heat when the carrots have reached your desired tenderness. You might need to add a bit of water to the stew if it evaporated too much liquid off.

Beet Brownies

2011-01-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

I was reading through the Vegetarian Times magazine, because someone had left it on the free table at Jon's work, and was shocked at really how vegan-unfriendly it was. Many of their vegetarian recipes relied solely on cheese to provide flavor, and for instance, the below brownies had eggs + butter. I modified the recipe. Actually, I put in 1.5 cups of beets, which frankly was too much because they came out pretty beety, but I hadn't read the recipe properly. I also was freaked out about using egg replacer for the 2 eggs, so I added 2 tsp cornstarch as well. Don't do that, they came out too rubbery. I'm going to try these again but with the following proportions as reccomended in the recipe

About 2 cooked beets, depending on size - (the amount required to make 1 cup of puree) or One 14 oz. can of beets, rinsed & drained
1/4 cup earth balance margarine
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tsp egg replacer powder + 6 TBS warm water, beaten
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup + 2 TBS cocoa powder
1 TBS instant espresso powder (or instant coffee)

Puree the beets till super smooth. Then beat the egg replacer with water. You can pretty much just mix everything together at this point, because since there's only 1/2 cup of flour you don't run as much risk of overworking it and developing the gluten. Put into greased 9 inch pan, bake at 350 for 30-40 mins, check at 30 with knife inserted at center. I think around 5 points per brownie, same as regular brownie but the benefit is you are eating more of a whole food I guess, maybe I'm just kidding myself here. I might try the 'replace the oil with pureed prunes + water' trick from the millenium. I'm super curious about that idea. Why am I ruining brownies? I don't know, I just think its interesting! I have to admit I've only had a decent brownie 4 times since becoming vegan, so I guess I should probably try to make a delicious vegan brownie instead. :)

I like these brownies, but they are pretty beet-y though that may be my fault for using more beets than called for. I caution the reader against using canned beets, I think they are for experienced beet people because they just aren't as good. Newbies to beets should start with a beet in top form, a fresh beet peeled and roasted (yum!), or steamed (I steamed mine for 20 mins in the pressure cooker).

Ratatouille Soup + Mushroom Olive Polenta

2011-01-20T06:47:00.000-08:00

When I was in HS I worked at a pizza shop which served a ratatouille pizza. That thing was gross, and so I thought I hated ratatouille. When we were invited to a friends house for dinner recently, they served ratatouille - and I was really nervous but committed to wolfing it down no matter what. Well, I'm very glad to have been re-introduced to it as an adult because I really don't hate ratatouille at all!

I was pleased to find a ratatouille recipe in our new pressure cooker cookbook by Lorna Sass. This is our first cooking experience with the cookbook. Well, we have been using it to look up cooking times for beans and things previously, but these are the first 2 actual recipes. I started out making the Mushroom Olive Polenta. I actually used 1 cup of corn meal instead of corn grits for this, because I didn't have any corn grits. As such I reduced the water to 3.5 cups, but it still came out nicely. I pre-mixed a little of the water at a time with the corn meal to form a thick paste so there wouldn't be so many lumps. That made it easier to prevent lumps I think. This is my 2nd experience making corn meal polenta, the first was quite lumpy but still yummy. The polenta is really yummy, though I did put more olives than were called for so it is on the salty side. Be warned, if you use a large qty of olives, reduce the salt.

[insert photo later]

The recipe only called for 3 minutes at high pressure. I was certain would take longer than 3 mins so I put it to 6. Well, everything got cooked, but the zuchini got a little overdone so next time I'll trust the cooking time and go with it. The eggplant came out meltingly tender though. Overall I liked the recipe, but I felt the tomato flavor was too strong for me, so next time I will reduce the tomato - or use another brand of canned tomato. Also instead of diced onion I'd like to try just slicing the onion into little half moon shapes. That's how our friend cut the onions and I liked that. As for the eggplant, I'm going to try 1/2 inch strips about 3 inches long as is called for in Julia Child's recipe which is what our friend made. Perhaps I should saute the zuchini separately since zuchini cooks super quickly and I'd like to have the freedom to cut the zuchini differently, and add in some parsley. However, that's making the recipe harder, isn't it, and the point is this recipe is really easy to put together.

Pressure cooking eggplant is really the way to go because I find it difficult to cook evenly and it seems like it takes forever on the stovetop. I love my plug in pressure cooker. I'm hoping this cookbook speeds up my kitchen experiences, because I need all the help I can get. I am the slowest chopper/slicer ever so cooking always takes me longer than Jon by a long shot.

We have another recipe coming up from Lorna Sass' pressure cooker cookbook and perhaps if that goes well you will know if you should invest in this cookbook. When you page through the cookbook, you do get a little worried because the recipes look really HEALTHY, which immediately starts you wondering if they have any flavor and whether you will you crave them. So far, so good - more later.

An s'load of cooking, plus actual recipes!

2011-01-19T07:34:00.000-08:00

Some of this is from a series of days, and then there was Sunday, where I cooked THE ENTIRE DAY. I cooked a lot of different dishes. My response to stress, I guess. So, back in time, we will observe: Root Vegetable Dal from Appetite for Reduction from last week or so.

Sigh. This was just kind of blah. We used Muchi Curry powder from WF, and it just isn't that good. This dish relies on curry powder for much of the flavor, and if you aren't feeling the curry powder, you won't be that into the end result. I wonder though if its the lack of oil too, because I'm starting to wonder if you can make delicious low fat things. Except we do love the phanch phoran cauliflower dal from Fat Free Vegan (we double the spices in that recipe) - which has even less fat. Maybe we just aren't curry powder people? I liked the rutabega though, its my first time eating rutabega. Very sweet, kind of like a sweet potato but more juicy. Or like a white carrot but more potatoey. Also, who doesn't love parsnips?

This is recipe maybe #2 or #3 from AFR, Jon loved the onion rings, I didn't think they were oniony enough. We will keep trying though...be both LOVE sweets so much its nice to eat healthy things when you aren't stuffing your face with cupcakes and cookies, so you can feel like you are getting nutrition.

So excited, tonight, I'm making the ratatouille stew from Lorna Sass's pressure cooker cookbook. Plus the pressure cooker mushroom olive polenta to go with it.

Okay, I did promise you recipes. Jon got two Indian recipes from his Mom recently, and one was Lamb Biryani, which he decided to veganize. They were recipes from his childhood which he misses, though his Mom never followed recipes really, so who knows how the Lamb Biryani really was. The original recipe calls for and ENTIRE CUP OF GHEE. Yes, for only 2 lbs of lamb and maybe 1-2 cups rice, a cup of ghee. No wonder the boy had freakishly high cholesterol in High School (okay, probably that was from eggs & bacon for breakfast every day of his life, but the cup of ghee couldn't have helped). He reduced the fat to 1/2 cup and used earth balance. (will post recipe when I figure out where Jon stashed it).

The seitan turned out really awesome, we were quite impressed with its tenderness. Jon said it was as tender as veal, which of course creeped me out. We will totaly use that seitan recipe again. The recipe itself though, was too sour for my preference. I added agave nectar to the end product, which made it better. I felt it was kind of greasy with not that much other flavor besides the sourness, or maybe the sourness was so dominant I couldn't taste the other stuff. Jon disagreed.

Sunday morning, I made Matt of My Veggie Kitchen's chick'n burgers http://www.ourveggiekitchen.com/2010/11/chickn-burgers.html

which we liked a lot. We used Appetite for Reduction's cashew-miso mayo (at the back of the book), but I added extra water till the flavor was less strong because it was initially too strong for us. But thank the FSM we finally found a non-mayo-esque mayo replacement, for Jon is a mayo-hater. I also made Robin Robertsons' herb sandwich bread from Vegan Planet, but, due to my uncontrollable desire to eat more whole wheat, I put in a lot more WW flour than was called for and in addition to it being super hard to knead, the crust turned out tough and the bread was too dry unless you toast it, in which case its quite tasty - though next time I'll surely double up on the herbs. I really just need to bite the bullet and get Peter Reinharts book about WW breads and get baking. Just imagine Jon, delicous, healthy, fresh made bread EVERY WEEKEND! Isn't that worth having one or two more measely little* cookbooks on the shelf?

Back to cooking. So after the chick'n sanwiches and non-mayo, and sandwich bread, I made Taymer Masons vegan holiday ham. http://caribbeanvegan.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/vegan-ham-glaze-for-caribbean-vegan-holiday-ham/ However, instead of steaming it for 40 mins I did it in the pressure cooker for 20. I guess that was wrong, because it was totally raw - even after baking 20 mins in the oven afterward. The flavors were really awesome, if, according to Jon, not ham-like. I used low sodium soy sauce and so that was probably an issue, and I reduced the smoke flavor out of fear, that was another mistake. I really want to try this again, but with a longer cooking time. Its a great flavor combo. In our Carribean theme, I also made 2 bunches lacinato kale with bajan sauce (from chow.com) except with some changes:

4 large garlic cloves peeled
4 scallions (white and tender green parts), cut into 1-inch pieces
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves (didn't have fresh so used 2 tsp dry thyme instead)
1 Scotch bonnet chile, seeded (I didn't have this so instead used 1 tsp red pepper flakes and 1 tsp sriracha chili sauce)
One 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped (we keep peeled diced frozen ginger in our freezer, so I used that)
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
salt to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine all except salt in food processor and pulse into a fine paste. Season with salt.
Then I put some oil in the pan, added half the paste, and then added the kale...cooked a few mins, added the rest of the paste.

We loved it, and I can't wait to make it again! Also, since I had the oven on so much, I plopped some sweet potatoes in a baking dish in there and let them roast until done (oven was around 350-400 during various times). I just waited till I poked them with a fork and they were super soft. I took:

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut shreds
2-4 tbs dark rum
2-4 tbs maple syrup

soaked that for 1 hr, then heated up on the stove till some evaporation occured (not until it was dry - just moist). I added 1/4-1/2 cup soymilk to the sweet potatoes, mashed them, and topped them with the coconut and some candied pecans I'd made. We really liked that a lot! We'll certainly have Caribbean night again - and if you haven't made the jerk seitan from Vegan w. Vengeance and coconut rice, (which you must make your seitan from scratch for that its a million times better), its awesome, and that would be an excellent sub for the faux ham should you want to have your own Caribbean night.

Finally, I made some coconut cookies, just made up a recipe. They turned out super crispy. I think too greasy for my tastes though. However, we still have a ton of coconut shreds in our house, so gotta do somethin' with em. Not posting the recipe because they were okay but not really share-worthy.

*size of little cookbooks may vary, and may indeed weigh up to 5 lbs, and contain up to 500 pages.

Pizza like I remember from pregan days!

2010-12-30T08:30:00.001-08:00

You have to immediately stop what you are doing, (if at work, feign ilness), get someone to care for your pets, and drive/fly/bike/ride the rails to Philly (short for Philadelphia, PA) now and order this pepperoni pizza from Blackbird Pizzeria. You will not regret your decision.

Yes I borrowed this image from a yahoo review. That is because when you are either eating this pizza or even contemplating it, all other thoughts leave your mind. There is no room for things like "I should photograph this". I have no excuse for the polenta I made - because while it was good it wasn't mind blowing.

The location for the restaurant is exactly the same place as a former omni establishment which served both standard and vegan sandwiches and offered vegan treats dessert. Now its 100% vegan and thank the flying spaghetti monster it is! The sausage is from a specialty company in Chicago, and the cheese is a combo of mozzarella and cheddar daiya, and the sauce is really, really, really good. The crust is crisp and if you are an east coaster like me, you will really appreciate it as a re-creation of the pizza you thought you would never have ever again.

For Christmas we got 3 vegan cookbooks, and I'm very excited to start whipping up some delights from them! We got one called fresh & fast vegan pleasures which I hadn't heard of before, a pressure cooking book by Lorna Sass, and Isa's new book Appetite for reduction. The pressure cooking book I wanted because we have a plug-in pressure cooker and I want to use it more often, especially if it will save us time. Also, we want to eat really healthy (I say this as I am eating a candy cane) until the wedding, when we will revert to eating like pigs, as usual. Anyhow, I want good skin for my wedding and I'm hoping - well, after Jan 1 and all the candycanes are gone I can really stick with a skin-friendly plan.

I made the planned dishes and also, an unecpected one. I made the spaghetti squash leek polenta from Vegan Yum Yum with flavor sauce. I don't know what to call it. White sauce? Cheezy Sauce? Its really not that cheezy. I guess its white but white sauce sounds like it tastes boring, which it doesn't. I wouldn't eat the sauce on its own but with the polenta it was quite delicious. I was very happy to have a new way to eat spaghetti squash, and I really liked this even though I'm not too big on plain old polenta. Also we felt healthy for eating this, and it was a good way to clean out our cookie-stuffed bodies. Not that it made us "go", but you get the idea.

I had a request to put root vegetable recipes on the blog. I will definately do so, but right now we have almost no food in the house so we have to do some research and ingredient buying before I can post anything.

Holiday Eats & My Crazy Packing List

2010-12-17T07:11:00.001-08:00

My bus trips to work today were awkward. In addition to a giant suitcase with Christmas gifts for my whole family, I have a smaller food/clothes/cookbooks suitcase, which contains two 32 oz. jars of salsa, ready to ride the train with me up to my Grandmothers this evening.

I know it sounds odd, and I guess it is, but I want to make one of our favorite and onmi-friendly dishes, the Black Bean & Sweet Potato Enchiladas from Vegan Planet, and sub-par salsa just won't do. I am trying hard to make omni-friendly dishes that I can share with others, and I don't want them thinking 'oh, this is vegan food, its really not that good'. Especially with this recipe, it would be extra sad because with good salsa, it is really, really good. (Okay, so I have never actually tried making it with bad salsa, but this would not be a good time to start).

In addition to the enchiladas, I am making Snobby Joes from Veganomicon, spaghetti and gimme lean meatballs (I'm even bringing breadcrumbs in that suitcase, breadcrumbs are often not vegan from the normal stores), and finally, "tuna fish" sanwiches made from Vegan Planet. Okay, the final one is not really that accessible to ominis but when I made it last time for my Mom she LOVED it and asked for the recipe. And she eats real tuna! So of course I had to toast and grind some dulse (kombu) and bring a small container of that. And three boxes of silken tofu.

For my Uncle's gift I will be making him JOVB lemon bars. Given that my Mom would have tried to pressure me into using that bottled lemon juice "its easier! it tastes just the same!", and the fact that my Grandmother does not possess an electric juicer*, Jon kindly zested and juiced the required lemons for me and placed them in my new adorably small tupperwares for transport up North.

*I too, made fun of Jon for owning an electric juicer, but it is lightning fast and does a top-notch job - no muscle required. Its a very classic style (probably 15 years old).

What else is in my suitcase? Well, nutritional yeast (of course, I am vegan after all), tahini, earth balance buttery sticks, a tiny sample pack of parma, a tiny sample pack of Chreesy mozzarella sauce. Joy of Vegan Baking, Vegan Brunch, and a bunch of printed-out recipes from other cookbooks. Ground psyllium husks for egg replacer, Energ-G egg replacer powder, gluten flour, vegetarian beef broth cubes. I know you are thinking holy heck, what DIDN'T she pack. Well, the answer is: espresso powder, high quality soy sauce, and miso. I gave those some strong consideration, but in the end I felt I could probably live without them.

Just to sum up my weirdness in a list format, the vegan packing list:

2 32 oz. jars high quality salsa
1 strip toasted and ground kombu
3 TBS ground psyllium husks (as egg replacer)
4 TBS Ener-G Egg replacer
vegan breadcrumbs
gluten flour
vegetarian beef broth cubes
parma (vegan parmasean cheese substitute)
Chreese Mozzarella style packet
3 boxes silken tofu
Freshly squeezed lemon juice
Lemon Zest
Gimme Lean Ground Beef Style
Tahini
Nutritional Yeast
Earth balance buttery sticks
2 bags vegan chocolate chips

In my defense, I will be there 12 days, I won't have a car for the first five, and the walkable grocery store is very traditional. Also...I'm a weirdo.

:)

Dedicated to the Hummus Sandwich

2010-12-15T09:22:00.001-08:00

We used to eat a lot of Hummus sandwiches. It was easy, it contained a lot of veggies which made us feel saintly. But I got SERIOUSLY bored. They tasted so...healthy. Jon likes a hummus with very little tahini, which just made it healthier tasting :(

Then we had our Star Trek party, and in our food research, discovered:

http://veganyumyum.com/2008/02/hasperat/

A hummous sandwich with a twist! The shredded carrots and sliced cucumbers are marinated with 50% rice vinegar and 50% soy sauce. You also add horseradish and sriracha chili sauce! Wow, what a HUGE difference. We served this to my Mom and Dad when they came to visit and my Mom loved it so much she now serves it to her friends from the Civic Club and Red Hat Club. I wonder if she explains to these ladies that this sandwich is an interpretation of a sandwich mentioned in a tv show about travelling through space, and this dish is in fact from another imaginary planet. Perhaps not.

Anyhow, we recently discovered a new possibility for this sandwich, which you wouldn't think would be a big deal but I LOVED it. We steamed some kale instead of using cucumbers. Then we added the steamed kale and carrots to the 50/50 vinegar soy sacue mix, and marinated about 10 mins and drained. We just stuffed that into a pita with hummus and it was super good. We also used store-bought hummus. I will try this recipe again and let you know if it was the store-bought hummus or the use of the kale.

Oh, while thinking of Vegan Yum Yum, we made the Spicy Tomato Soup from that book. It contains lots of interesting spices and chickpeas. It was amazingly good though and so so so easy! All you need practically is canned tomatoes and canned chickpeas (perfect for winter). As I have previously mentioned, quarter the salt from her recipes. Then at the end, if you need to add more salt, do. But you can't remove salt, and she prefers much more salt than Jon and I, and possibly, you, do. Dang, I totally gotta make that soup for my Mom and Dad, they'll love it. The list of cookbooks I just HAVE to haul up to my Grandmothers on the train just keeps growing....

Gardein's Beefless Tips make an appearance

2010-12-14T08:51:00.000-08:00

In an effort to make this week easy, given my final exam is on Thursday, I decided to get some pre-made/easy items for dinner. One of those was Gardein's beefless tips, which I'd put in Mushroom Stroganoff before and yowza, so good! Strangely, I cannot stand veggie burgers because they remind me too much of hamburger, yet I can wolf these guys down with relish. So Jon simmered some garlic in olive oil, then added the beefless tips and red wine. He kept reducing and adding more red wine until he was happy with the flavor, and we mixed it together with the tinkyada rotini and some pasta sauce. Very yummy....but I couldn't even finish my lunch portion. I ate too many french-style green beans. Sigh. Well, I'll eat the rest later.

Did I mention my seitan disaster? Well, here's a recap in case I didn't. I attempted to save time by not boiling the seitan (Vegan Dad can do it with his hot wings, right?). Well, this did not turn out all delish like those Vegan Dad hot wings. I smashed the slices out and baked them, and baked them, and baked them some more until unfortunately they became like bready chewy sponges. I have been eating this mistake this week. I guess it could be worse...the flavor is okayish. Well, its non-offensive anyhow.

I don't know how I'm going to maintain any self control next week with the cookies I'll be making, and I'm sure I will probably bake a bunch of stuff and eat chips. Well, there's always Jan-May to get lookin' good for the wedding. 1.5 weeks off plan won't kill me. It'll probably make it harder in the end, but...cookies!

Mihl's Vegan Macaroons

2010-12-13T12:38:00.000-08:00

Yup, I went to WF and bought psyllium husks. They were in the health food section, being a fiber supplement as they are. I made Mihl of Seitan is my Motor's vegan macaroons, and they turned out great, or so said my macaroon loving friend. I was never a macaroon kind of lady. It was actually quite funny. I tried one, Jon tried one and I said "are they like normal macaroons?". We couldn't remember. Then we both admitted to not really ever liking macaroons when we weren't vegan. Oh well! At least the macaroon-loving recipient of the gift love them! They have a chewy texture and very coconutty flavor.

(will put up picture soon!)

Next up in Holiday Baked Good Gifting: Lemon Bars from Joy of Vegan Baking!

In other news, apparently I was anemic during the summer and unaware. I went to the Dr. this past week and she said "Let's test your blood to see if you are still anemic" I said "anemic, I am anemic?!?!". She said, yes, didn't you check the lab results hotline? No, I figured they would call if something was wrong. Anyhow, after the re-check I am actually 100% normal, without having done a single thing to correct my deficiency! I guess I must have eaten enough iron in my diet. I even stopped taking a supplement that contained iron during that time (I switched to Dr. Joel Furman's vitamin with no Iron because the latest research supports not taking iron unless you need it). Here I was for a week eating blackstrap molasses like it was going out of style. I even discovered that 1 TBS of cocoa powder has 10% of your daily iron. That is pretty crazy. Just make some blackstrap molasses cocoa-powder heavy hot cocoa (make sure you do it with non fortified soymilk though b/c otherwise the calcium interferes with your iron absorption), and that is one iron rich, delicous snack (as long as you add plenty of normal sweetener too). During the time I thought I was anemic, I found biking uphill suddenly VERY hard and tiring, and climbing stairs was also exhausting because I was constantly visualizing my deformed red blood cells weakly transporting not enough oxygen to my muscles. Not surprisingly, when I found out my anemia cured itself, I perked RIGHT up! I am so glad everything is fine now, I was sure my Mom was going to be very, very upset with me if I was anemic. Phew! I will make an effort now to get more iron in my diet, because I take Nexium (an acid reducer), and that also reduces your body's ability to absorb certain vitamins, among them: iron, calcium, and B12.

Chocolate Chip Cookies and some thoughts

2010-11-28T14:52:00.000-08:00

Often I make a mini-batch of chocolate chip cookies (super mini actually - I quarter the recipe from vegan cookies take over your cookie jar), which I feel is just the right # of cookies. Today, I don't know why, but I made a whole truckload of them. I made the recipe from Joy of Vegan baking. I'm trying to figure out which recipe meets my definition of the perfect cookie better. However, I was only able to consume two cookies before I was pretty full (yeah, probably overdid the raw batter consumption this time..) Anyhow, I wished cookies didn't have so many calories and I could eat more of them without feeling ill. After Jan 1, there won't be too many cookies in my life - I'm going on a diet. Actually, in preparation for this diet I think I've gained 7 pounds, just thinking about the future deprivation! Also this semester has been rather stressful with marathon homework events.

I have this odd perfect baked good issue, where the first time I eat a particular baked good, it is awesome and wonderful, but all subsequent times its just okay. Some things seem to transcend this problem, but very few.

J. was very thoughtful and got me a wonderful present from Sur La Table recently: stackable cookie cooling racks. I had read that cookie racks helped your cookies to crisp, so I'd been putting the cookies on the toaster oven slide out wire rack but couldn't fit all the cookies usually. These stackable cookie cooling racks solve the kitchen space issue because they are stackable and we have a teeny kitchen, though not teeny in an adorable way which is endearing, just annoying.

For the purposes of science, I went to eat another cookie, and I think this cookie is closer to the perfect cookie for me. I used 1 TBS less flour than was called for, and 3/4 tsp salt (however, I will use 1 tsp salt next time as per the recipe). I baked them longer than the recipe stated because mine weren't browning. When you cook them long enough (without burning them), they get delightfully crispy while remaining chewy inside.

Now, onto thoughts. J. forwarded me the article about the former vegan previously known as "The Voracious Vegan". In the past I have read her blog, but as I recall there were too many green shakes on it, so I stopped looking at it. I'm just not that into green shakes. Regarding her transition to an omnivorous diet: I can see if you don't feel properly healthy on a vegan diet and then stop it, but what I can't understand is why then the need to try and say it is unhealthy for everyone, and how eating meat is necessary for everyone, and how eating local meat is the better choice for the environment, not eating local vegetables and grains. You could instead say that being vegan was not right for your particular physiology, and it might be fine for others.

J. and I discussed what if one of us fell into poor health and somehow we were able to find out that this was due to a lack of animal products in our diets. I think I would try to see how small a quantity of animal products I could eat and still be in optimal health. I think the best would be to find, through friends, a hunter with excellent aim, and ask him/her that when they go next to an area with a significant overpopulation of deer, to invite me along and I would be responsible for transporting the corpse to a butcher and then taking the meat home. I might need to make some space for a large freezer so that I could store the deer meat for a long period of time. I would find out what was required for me to live in good health, and eat only that. I'm not sure if I could stomach eating meat - because after not having eaten it in over ten years, I have grown to really dislike the smell and I hate having to walk through the hall to our condo when someone in the building is cooking meat, it grosses me out. However, I think if I sliced it thinly and maybe blended it up, I could somehow combine it with enough other strong tasting ingredients that I could eat it without really thinking about it. Maybe a mexican casserole with cheddar flavored daiya. I love taco seasoning and it might be strong enough of a cover flavor.

However, we are very, very lucky not to have such a difficult choice to make. We both enjoy excellent health for which we are very grateful. I hope that if you do find yourself in that situation of needing to eat meat due to a physical intolerance of the vegan diet, that you will consider the above solution rather than simply eating all types of meat from any source. Obviously you would want to research the most eco friendly wild animal food source appropriate for your region.

On the note of a Mexican casserole, I think maybe I will make a taco-flavored seitan Mexican casserole. Sorry to my lovely Jon (who just said "why are you calling me J. on your blog, that's weird!" I told him it was to protect his privacy. He said there are a million people named Jon so he didn't think it would reveal his identity :) ), who I don't think would like a Mexican casserole like the one I'm thinking of making.

Thanksgiving Post

2010-11-28T14:04:00.001-08:00

I recall when I went vegetarian someone asked me "you aren't even going to eat turkey for thanksgiving?!?!" Of all the things I would miss, turkey certainly wasn't one of them! And now, many years later, I don't like tofurkey either. However, I did miss the tom turkey tofu from Vegan Vittles this year, because I forgot my nutritional yeast and we were cooking in a non-vegan's kitchen. So I'm making it tonight, yay! I might bake it (its much better fried), but I'm feeling lazy.

I did make - from the Joy of Vegan Baking - the pumpkin pie recipe which is perfection. However, the crust didn't turn out so well for me. I used the spectrum spread as my fat, and even chunked and froze it according to the recipe, however once I got it out of the freezer I could hardly work with it. I didn't use my food processor (though the recipe calls for that), because I just was too worried about overmixing. The crust was non-workable, I had to add a lot of extra water to get it to roll out. Then it was too hard - it was crisp but not soft and flaky yet crispy. So not the worst crust I've ever had, I have had much much worse, but not ideal either. I think I will try the 50% marg. 50% spectrum spread option next time...I feel like I did that 2 thanksgivings ago and had great results. Since J. is a pecan pie fan, I made a pecan pie topping from Vegan Cookies Take over your Cookie Jar (used for the pecan bars), and after baking the pumpkin pie for about 20 mins placed the topping on, and baked another 28 minutes. Sadly we had to wait for it to set, because we really wanted to dig in immediately. I think next year I will go with apple pie because apple pie a la mode is really heavenly.

You can kinda see the edge of a large white bowl with a salad consisting of: thinly sliced sunchokes, salad turnips, some fresh cranberry vinagrette, and lettuce. I highly reccomend salad turnips, they are awesome (even though turnips just sound gross, don't they?), but sunchokes aren't worth the 35 minutes it takes to peel those little bastards. They are like 25 individual pieces of ginger, and we've all been there peeling a fat load of ginger, and cursing.

I also made some dressing (I think that its called dressing when outside the turkey, stuffing when inside) with leeks, celery, bread, poultry seasoning, oil, vegetable broth, salt and pepper. It turned out okay, but I prefer the way my Mom makes it. We would have used onions but we had some leeks we wanted to get rid of. That was an issue and also I forgot to use margarine and instead used canola oil to fry up the leeks and celery. Other dishes included two type of greens from the farmers mkt, mashed sweet potatoes and mashed white potatoes.

J. made a badass butternut squash coconut curry soup. Yes, I'm finally posting an ACTUAL recipe on a food blog. Sorry its so rare but I can't bring myself to post cookbook authors recipes on the internet when they should be earning $$ for their hard work. This recipe was provided by J's coworker.

FALL SOUP

1 butternut squash
1 T vegetable oil
1 medium sweet onion
1 T fresh ginger grated
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 tsp Thai red curry paste
4 cups veggie stock
2 ripe pears, peeled and chopped
1/2 to 1 apple, peeled and chopped
1 t salt
2 tsp brown sugar
14 oz can low fat or regular coconut milk
Cilantro

Cut squash in half, scoop out seeds and place cut side down on oil baking
sheet. Bake at 375 F until tender, about 50 minutes. Once cool enough to
handle, scoop out flesh and set aside. Heat large soup pot to medium, add oil, sauté onion until tender. Add ginger and curry paste; sauté 1 min, stirring constantly. Add squash, stock, pears, apple, salt, cinnamon, and sugar, bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes. In blender or food processor, puree in batches. Return to soup pot, bring to a simmer, and stir in coconut milk. Cook until thoroughly heated. Garnish with freshly chopped cilantro.

I think to save time you could easily sub pears canned in pear juice or water so save yourself having to peel the pears. We felt next time we'd use low fat coconut milk, the recipe was awesome but we'd like to try it lower fat. I have to warn you against purchasing a generic/store brand of coconut milk though. Just don't do it. I have learned from experience that a high quality brand of coconut milk is just one of those things worth paying a little bit more for, especially when you are talking about lower fat coconut milk.

Popcorn on the cob

2010-11-28T13:07:00.000-08:00

When J. told me about this, I was in disbelief that it was even possible. How could you pop popcorn that was still attached to the cob? Why had I never seen this before? It was probably a year ago that he told me about it, and then I'd forgotten all about it.

J. arrived home recently from a business trip and handed me a bag of a few dry ears of corn (which look exactly like the type you hang on your door in the fall), and explained that three of the ears were popping corn!

We placed three of them in a brown paper bag, set the microwave for about 2 mins or so, and out they came, two cobs of popped corn. Some of the kernels fell off of the cob when they popped but a lot stayed on. They were dear, because the kernels were much, much smaller than commercially available popcorn - so teeny and adorable. The only thing is that you have to let it cool a bit because some unpopped kernels stay on the Cob and are really, really hot and will burn you if you bite down too soon.

Here's the popped cobs:

In case you're sick of hearing about popcorn, I do think about other things... sometimes. In this case, a wonderful product I found at WF (or maybe J. found it), which we used to make awesome awesome "beefy" seitan amongst other things.

Better Than Boillon No Beef Base

Then after falling in love, they stopped selling it. I was sad, and kept thinking maybe they would carry it again, or I should buy it on Amazon. Last time I was at WF I actually went through every single one of the better than bouillon jars (they had probably 40 in total) and checked every label. No such luck. I purchased their vegetarian chicken stock goo, but it just didn't cut it. I don't know if I just never liked chicken stock or if this was just not that flavorful, but it wasn't anything like the wonder and glory that is their vegetarian beef broth goo. Yes I'm calling it goo..its just is too goopy to be called a paste.

After all that effort, I asked customer service how many jars were in a case. Only 6, sign me up! I will be getting a call hopefully soon when my 6 jars come in. I am SO EXCITED to make seitan london broil, and seitan pho (I just saw the pho recipe on Bryanna Clark Grogan's blog and felt inspired/excited to try making pho). I remember when I was probably 8 years old and I was filling out some sort of kids beauty contest questionnaire and they asked what your favorite food was and I wrote "London Broil". What a weird favorite food for a kid, no? I recall my Mom said "say pizza instead, they like a generic kind of person in these beauty contests and pizza is as common a favorite food as you can get". I believe I was also encouraged to write down "world peace" as my #1 wish. :)

Popcorn, how do I love thee?

2010-11-20T19:10:00.000-08:00

We had a bunch of people stay at our place for the rally for sanity/and or fear, and from one of these folks, J. learned of a wonderful and magical trick you can use at home - for popcorn!

I have a special relationship with popcorn: a love relationship. And actually, whenever J. goes out of town, its on. However, when you buy one of those popcorn boxes, with the some ridiculously small # of popcorn bags in it - is it really three? Geez, thats tiny. Anyhow, whatever number it is, clearly they have no idea how much popcorn I'm able to consume. Case in point - last night: the equivalent of four bags. (I think...maybe it was just three - it was my dinner - as if that somehow excuses my behavior). So popcorn never lasts around our house. Pretty much if it exists, I eat it and then we don't have it for a long time because I try to limit my purchases of irresistible (chocolate chips) things.

So you know how the popcorn is in a papery type bag? Well, guess what, you can just put the same amount of unpopped corn into any old regular brown paper bag and achieve the same results! Seriously! Its that easy!

"Recipe"
1/4 cup popcorn kernels
place popcorn kernels in a brown paper bag, and fold the top down. Place it in the microwave so that the folded part is facing down and will be held down by the weight of the bag. Press the popcorn button on your microwave, for a 3.5 oz bag. About 2 minutes. Actually, with our microwave I found 2 mins or 2 mins 5 seconds is best. 2 mins 10 seconds is the timing for our microwave's popcorn button but I find that some of the kernels get a little burnt that way. Actually, you have to choose between either a decent quantity of unpopped kernels or some burnt kernels. I choose the former.

The great thing? You can re-use the brown paper bag a lot of times---until it gets too many holes in it from flying popcorn hitting the sides (yes really that happens), or it gets too oily. Even dry unoiled popcorn has some natural oil on it which will eventually make your bag look oily.

This is very eco-friendly, since you can buy bulk popcorn kernels from the store (in a re-usable container!), there's no plastic around your brown paper bag, and no cardboard box every 4th bag of popcorn. The only remaining issue is who wants to eat plain popcorn?

The resolution:
Either A: Melt 1-2 tsp earth balance in a small bowl in the microwave and drizzle on top of your popcorn while kind of shaking it around and mixing it up for even coverage
or B: Spray popcorn with can of spray oil, then quickly throw some nutritional yeast and salt on it. You have to mix it around a bunch and keep spraying different layers of the popcorn with oil and adding nutritional yeast and salt. I really , really need to buy some popcorn salt. Normal salt is too big and thus...too heavy to stick nicely onto popcorn.

Tempeh Tacos with Kale and Chili Paste

2010-11-14T10:03:00.000-08:00

So this photo is not great because you can't even see the tempeh, but I have to get back to my HW, no time for a fancy photo shoot. This was based on the Veganomicon recipe, which is supposed to have cabbage and not kale, pickled jalapenos instead of garden mutt-peppers (look like jalapenos, taste mostly like a bell pepper), and also some lime crema but I only had 1 lime. Sigh. I did happen to have two starting to get wrinkly ancho chilis, 1 red hot pepper of some type, and two itty bitty green hot peppers of some other type. I roasted them all in my toaster oven (I love you toaster oven), 10 mins on each side at 350. Then I put them in the seed grinder and pulsed and shook that think around until they were all blended. I hate cleaning that thing though, I'm sure you do too.

It was late and I didn't feel like busting my butt to bike to WF before it closed (I guess I could have biked to harris teeter but it never occurs to me - plus the roads are scarier to get there). We were also out of corn flour, so I decided to make some wheat flour tortillas. I used the joy of cooking recipe (except I didn't have vegetable shortening so I used 2TBS earch balance + 2 TBS oil), and you end up with a VERY wet dough. Its hard to knead. I added flour but then gave up and then just massaged the mass of wet sticky dough thoroughly stuck to my hand. After 4 mins "kneading", I then separated them out into their litle 8 balls, and let rest overnight b/c I didn't need the tacos until today.

Today I took the very wet balls out of their little plastic wraps, and had to add a lot of flour to the surface of them and the cutting board to roll them out properly. It was hard to get them round but I'm not picky. The instructions say to use a pizza stone or an inverted baking sheet. I used the inverted baking sheet. It worked much better once the baking sheet was warm in terms of cooking in a decent amt of time and not being raw in the center like the first ones, but it was hard to get the tortills onto the hot surface laying flat, because they are so thin and flexible, the tortillas kept folding up on top of themselves and were tricky to flatten out without making holes in them or burning myself on the baking sheet.

So, was it worth it to make my own tortillas? Well, they certainly weren't gummy, which I find most white flour tortillas to be from the grocery store. However, I try to buy whole wheat tortillas which aren't gummy, which is much easier than making my own. At least I know I can do it, if for some reason elecricity becomes really cheap and tortilla-making machine labor very expensive and it makes financial sense to make my own tortillas.

Back to the tacos themselves. I marinated the tempeh overnight and then fried it up in the morning. I had sliced the kale thinly and put with the salt and vinegar overnight. However, Kale is not cabbage, and really it doesn't do too well raw. At least not curly Kale. It was still very raw. I sauteed it for a few mins to get it soft enough for the tacos.

To assemble, I slathered a tortilla with the chili paste, added the tempeh, and topped with the kale. It was pretty good, but I wished I'd put more chile powder in the marinade. I wanted more spice. Also I kind of wished I had salsa or that lime I would have needed for the lime crema.

Next time I will try to make this with cabbage, because I love the cabbage slaw I used to get from the El Salvarean place which unf. closed down. I also made a double recipe since I had a ton of kale, which possibly is calling out to be eaten with some chickpea cutlets (also from V-con). We'll see how my HW goes...

Roasted Eggplant Stuffed Tomatoes

2010-11-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

This is a great summer farmers market recipe from Vegan Yum Yum. We made it what seems like 150 years ago, but really it was just during the summer and I finally - well, I can't say learned because its too easy really - accepted that I would need to upload my own photos and not rely on J. to do it for me. He used to do it so often and I didn't feel like dealing with it. Actually, its so ridiculously easy and not at all a big deal.

I can't post the recipe due to it being in a cookbook, but I can say it involved sliced bread, roasted eggplants, and of course tomatoes. The only issue with this recipe is it tasted like the ocean. That is how salty the recipe was. Please use caution if you have this cookbook and make this. I would add maybe 1/4 what she calls for. If not for the crazy amount of salt, I know I would like this recipe a lot and I will definately make it again with much less salt.

Roasted Eggplant & Caramelized Tomato Pasta Sauce

2010-09-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

I was a pasta sauce virgin till last night. I made my first ever homemade pasta sauce - and I was ridiculously proud of myself! I was just beaming. The recipe is from Vegan YumYum, which I can't praise enough. Here is the reason why you need to go buy the cookbook - farmers market ready recipes. If you are into local food, the environment, eating sustainably, you really need to shell out the minor amount of dough for this cookbook. Many times I go to the farmers mkt and there are a bunch of veggies staring at me and I wonder what the heck else can I do with these guys? Then you check your cookbooks and realize you have to go buy mangoes or yucca or some other crap they import from somewhere far away.

Now, I haven't made most of the recipes from VYY yet, but the ones I have made were very tasty and also didn't require some tropical or hard to find thing. Its very local food friendly.

I'm not going to post the recipe here, b/c you need to go buy the cookbook, but I will say I substituted fresh tomatoes for 50% of the canned and thusly added 2 tsps of tomato paste b/c it needed a bit of sweeness/mellowness. Also I added maybe 1/4 cup of water because I had drained the can of tomatoes and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to but it was looking a bit too thick. Also I used an immersion blender to blend it all up.

We also made a simple pizza topped with garlic infused olive oil and sliced tomatoes in a variety of varieties. It was our typical pizza though we used 2 cups white whole wheat and 1 cup AP flour. So a little drier than an all white flour pizza, but still quite tasty. J. spent much time organizing the tomatoes in a symmetrical fashion. Here's a picture:

How not to make campfire stew + Vegan s'more challenge

2010-09-09T10:25:00.000-07:00

Observe, it is pieces of charcoal shaped like carrots, sweet potatoes, and field roast sausage - fun! This actually was an excellent concept and had we followed a few simple rules, it probably would have been really tasty.

Ingredients:
2 sweet potatoes, chopped small
1 potato, chopped small
4 carrots, sliced
some red wine, spices, salt, pepper, mirin ( I think)
2 field roast sausages, sliced

We took about 1/2 of that mix along for our camping out dinner, and placed half of each into a SINGLE PIECE OF TINFOIL which was GENTLY PINCHED CLOSED, and slid it down into the really hot bottom part of the fire. Now, as with any fire, you need to adjust log positions, add more wood, etc. During this time, our single piece of tinfoil - only milimeters thick - of course tore, and the steam which was produced while cooking forced open the tops, so ashes from the wood fell into our stew. Also, due to being exposed to the flames, much of the stew itself became charcoal.

The biggest fan of the stew? our dog. Yes, even the carrot shaped pieces of charcoal she found quite delightful, but we were concerned about the impact on her digestive system so we only let her have a few pieces. (by that I mean, she ate the few pieces which fell to the ground as we were transferring the stew to the table, but we did not actively feed her pieces after that).

If I did this again (and I certainly hope to once I get an extremely thick bunch of puffy things to sleep on top of in the tent instead of that weak ridgerest which let every rock and stick bruise and jab into me) I would wrap the stew in several layers of tinfoil, making sure the ends that get cinched alternated sides so the steam would have a hard time busting through.

Onto smores!

I know you want to be a healthy person who doesn't eat 100% crap, but really, don't use mi-del graham crackers for your smores, they are tasty but they crumble apart just removing them from the package. yes, I know mi-del has honey, and I could care less, because I just don't care about bees, I'm a mean and awful person, how could I not care about bees, those poor souls, they are just crying out for my love!

Getting your sweet n' sara square marshmallow to melt without burning the outside, over a campfire is an elusive, you might say impossible task. We tried a variety of techniques - the standard hold on a stick over the fire (burned the outside, inside was solid). We tried placing a graham cracker on tin foil on the grill and placing the marshmallow on top - graham cracker burned, marshmallow barely warm. We tried setting the marshmallows directly on tin foil and placing on the grill over the fire. The portion of the marshmallow which melted became permanantly stuck on the foil, and the rest was not even soft.

The best technique we developed at home, which was microwaving the marshmallow for about 20 seconds or so on top of the graham cracker, then place it into the toaster oven with another graham cracker with chocolate chips on it, and toast to desired doneness.

This is reminding me of that x-mas when the fiance purchased me a bag of Chicago soy dairy's dandies (marshmallows), which are petite, and I must have consumed 20 cups of hot cocoa and dandies. It was AWESOME. I think we will try dandies next camping trip, but we will need a very slim stick to hold them, since they are teeny.

Odd Mushy Cassarole

2010-07-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

I had four or five yellow squashes. Not a huge fan of yellow squash in the first place, I have to admit, so I decided to shred & disguise the squash in a tofu-based casserole. They leaked out so much water when they cooked that the casserole is more like a spread...it has the texture of a soft boiled egg. Its not great, but not horrible either. I think the better plan would have been to chop them and some carrots up, fry up some onion in margarine, then add the carrots & squash and possibly add a cheese-esque sauce to it. I was trying to use up stuff in my fridge though. In that I was successful, but this is giving me the 'you will have to freeze me because you will get tired of me and my not that good weirdness'. If only I had black salt, maybe I could make it seem like a soft boiled egg and eat it on margariney toast? I need that and a cherry pitter, since I just bought two containers of cherries from Trader Joes on a whim. I feel a cream cheese cherry danish coming on...but no time to actually bake! Sigh...

Gluten Free Carrot Cupcakes

2010-07-13T11:25:00.001-07:00

These were super good. I used Bryanna Clark Grogan's high fiber flour recipe again (except for I replaced some of the brown rice flour with Arrowhead Mills AP Gluten free baking mix out of concern for my overworked seed grinder grinding up brown rice). I felt it would be ideal for a carrot cake recipe. I was exactly correct. I attended a friends wedding, and one of her friends is on a gluten free diet, so I figured, take care of all the special needs at once, and earn some points for team vegan. I really think this is an excellent form of outreach, as well as a nice thing to do.

The recipe I used for the cupcakes was (aside from the substitution of the GF flour) from Vegan w. a Vengeance. I used walnuts instead of macadamia nuts, and I skipped the coconut, and subbed water for the pineapple juice. I did also add a little more oil than the recipe called for. For the icing, I wanted to do a cream cheesey style icing, but didn't feel like going to Whole Foods for faux cream cheese, so I made 'sea foam icing' from Vegan Vittles, which involves dissolving agar flakes in maple syrup on the stove. Has anyone ever gotten agar flakes to ACTUALLY DISSOLVE? Because they end up like little clear grains of rice floating around, and are chewy and kinda knarly in fact. So I had to strain the little bug-egg like wierdos out of the maple syrup, then the icing wasn't coming together, I had to add powdered sugar and then xanthan gum. So not exactly the best texture ever. I would like to work with agar appropriately, I wish some cookbook was actually honest about what an annoying non-dissolving product it is. I am going to grind it in the seed grinder next time before trying to dissolve it.

I really enjoyed the cupcakes a lot. I couldn't tell they were gluten free. Its nice to be able to say 'I couldn't tell it wasn't the real thing', when I have actually eaten the real thing recently, as opposed to say, the many cheese-like substances or faux meats where I haven't eaten 'the real thing' in so long that I have totally lost perspective.

The brother of the bride is vegan and brought vanilla cupcakes from 'The Joy of Vegan Baking'. Man, they rocked! I enjoyed them so much.

Faux Crab cakes + Okra Tomato Facon Goodness

2010-07-09T08:05:00.001-07:00

Once again we made a recipe from Vegan Brunch, the faux crab cakes (called chesapeake cakes). They aren't listed under crab cake, so I actually added crab cake to the index in pencil, because really, its a fake crab cake and I can't seem to remember 'chesapeake cakes'. It was about 9pm when I started these babies, so as you can imagine, I was like "I'm not staying up all night to fry these" and I baked 'em instead. Yes, I know that's always a huge mistake, and why we need a deep fat fryer. I'm not trying to gain 10 lbs. or anything...but think of it: perfect hash browns, latkes, "crab" cakes, and whatever other patties and etc. we end up baking out of laziness which could taste 100 times better. The remoulade was crazy flavorful, which is a good compliment to the fairly bland flavor of the cakes. I feel like I can't give a thumbs up or down to this recipe, because I know first hand how much of a difference baking vs. frying makes. When I make them again, I will fry them and let you know.

Onto Okra and Facony goodness! Now, I'm not a huge okra person. The snotty texture is groady. However, this recipe came out non-snotty and totally tasty! The recipe is adapted from Cooking Light's Stewed okra with Tomatoes and Bacon.

3 Facon Bacon Tempeh bacon slices sliced into 1/2-1 inch squares
1 cup chopped yellow onion
1 chopped green bell pepper + 1/2 chopped red pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
4 cups sliced fresh okra (about 1 pound)
14 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained
1 to 2 teaspoons hot sauce
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preparation
1. Heat 1 tbs oil, then add facon slices in a fry pan with high sides over medium-high heat until crisp, flipping to other side to fry evenly. Remove facon from pan, leave any oil in pan.

2. Add another few tsps oil, Add 1 cup onion, green bell pepper, and garlic to pan, and sauté for 5 minutes or until tender. Add okra, tomato, hot sauce, vinegar, salt, thyme, and black pepper. (at this point it still looks snotty. Don't worry, that goes away, keep on going) Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until okra is tender. Sprinkle with facon and mix in.

Also, I made a beet salad that was kind of gross. I made a dressing for it and it was too runny, so I added maybe a tsp of xanthan gum (my new friend), and then thought, eh, why not add another, doesn't look thick enough. BAD IDEA, xanthan gum just takes a few mins to thicken up, so I had what would have been a rockin' beet salad covered in goo. It was like the slime from ghostbusters. Will post pix tonight. Hopefully. I am making gluten free carrot cupcakes, so it may not happen, but I'll try!

Ground Cherry Custard Pie with Crumbly Topping

2010-07-06T07:18:00.000-07:00

Yum! We had a bunch of pineapple tomatillos (also called ground cherries, because they are sweet and non-tomatatillo-ey), and didn't know what to do with them. I just received Vegan Yum Yum (the cookbook by Lauren Ulm) as a present. In it, she has a recipe for a berry tart. Her cream/berries are uncooked, but I figured, really these little guys need cooking, they are too firm uncooked. I wasn't sure how the tofu/coconut milk based cream would come out baked, but it turned out very much like an egg custard. First I made a pie crust and pre-baked for 10 mins (please use a pie crust edge cover, I didn't and mine burned as a result), then I added the blended up silken tofu/coconut milk cream concoction (full recipe in Vegan YumYum) to which I added about 8-10 basil leaves. I then added the peeled pineapple tomatillos (ground cherries) and mixed them around (probably should have mixed those together in advance). For the crumbly topping, I pastry-cuttered together about 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, 6 TBS margarine, 8 finely minced basil leaves, and 1/2 tsp salt, and a wee bit of soymilk till it was moist looking but not wet. That made extra though, so I had about 1/4 cup leftover. The basil was in there to compliment the pineapple flavor of the tomatillos. I baked for maybe 40 mins? Just till the center started puffing up. It rocked, except the crust edges which I burned. I think I'll make flan using the cream recipe for the cream tarts in Vegan yum yum, I think it might work well. I really have a problem making a decent pie crust without the use of shortening. Yet I don't stock shortening because I hardly ever make a pie crust. Also I always try to add a little ww pastry flour to my crusts, and my crusts end up a bit tough. Not sure if that's why, or I overmix and activate the gluten. Future research will be helpful. I can't post the recipe because its in the cookbook so I figure there is likely some type of copyright protection there. Sorry folks! At least my postings about the cookbook might help you deicide to purchase it or not.

Gluten Free Vegan Donuts

2010-06-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

I had a donut party, where we ordered vegan donuts from vegan treats. But in case anyone with gluten intolerance showed up, I made some gluten free vegan donuts. I got very excited about the glazes, and made strawberry (with actual crushed strawberries!), peanut butter, mexican chocolate, and pineapple. I sort of used bryanna clark grogan's gf flour recipe Gluten Free High Fiber Flour Mix, except that after stressing out my poor seed grinder with just 1 cup of brown rice (to make brown rice flour), I decided it had gotten too hot and so for the rest of the brown rice flour I used Arrowhead Mill's otherwise useless GF baking mix. Its otherwise useless because it is gritty and made gritty brownies. However, as a component of the donuts, along with the other flours (tapioca, potato starch, flax seed, soy flour), it worked really well. They turned out tasting much healthier than a normal donut, but still very tasty and worth eating. They were really best the first day, so if you make something like this, make it on the day of the event. I have extra gf flour which I think would make lovely waffles or muffins. Even though I halved her gf recipe it still was more flour than I needed. I got both a normal and a mini donut pan. Though, the batter was super super thick (even with extra soy milk added), and wasn't going into the pans nicely, so the mini donuts look more like donut holes really. Another note I think is relevant is that I think brown rice flour and tapioca flour might be smoother purchased from the store because I'd imagine they have some sophisticated grinders which do a better job than a seed grinder at home. That's just my guess.

Pasta and Lentils

2010-06-24T07:52:00.001-07:00

Yesterday evening, due to miss my bus because I waited for the shuttle instead of walking (will I ever learn?), I decided to see what I could pick up at the metro stop farmers market. I had been inspired to make lentils & pasta by the 'seitan is my motor' blog. Interestingly, when I initially read about it, I thought 'how odd to combine lentils and pasta', and had no interest at all in trying it myself.

At the farmers market, I picked up two ripe gorgeous tomatoes labeled as 'dirt grown', and some cucumbers and kale. Once I got home & tried a bit of the tomato, I was immediately filled with questions: why weren't the tomatoes we got last week from the other farmers market this good? what variety is this? Is this frankenfood? Because it wasn't organic and I guess I get a little worried about non-organic tomatoes being some weird hybrid of donkey/algae/tomato. That donkey gene sure added the extra oomf the tomato has always needed, a need which we were unaware of until now. I will have to inquire about it next week. Let's just say the tomato was suspiciously good.

Recipe:

Add water & 2 cups rinsed lentils to pot, add garlic powder, thyme & 1 bay leaf, boil
Boil water & cook rotini (about 3 cups), drain when done
Saute 4 cloves of diced garlic in olive oil, add kale and cook until wilted and more tender
Dice 2 large tomatoes, set aside
Once lentils are done, drain & cool for a few minutes

Mix pasta, lentils, tomatoes, and kale, add salt to taste. Then, add lots of cumin. Yes, it sounds wrong, but it really is delicious!

I took this photo in my new portable photo studio! I am a terrible photographer, but boy does the portable photo studio make me look like less of a terrible photographer! I need the studio, its my special crutch.

Lentil Soup & Vacation Eats

2010-06-23T11:17:00.001-07:00

Lentil Soup with Harissa and Homemade bread. We went on a mini-vacation visiting J.'s relatives and had the opportunity to cook each night - or at least assist. The first night, we assisted in the prep work for a lentil soup which included onions, garlic, herbs & spices, tiny diced carrots, tiny diced zucchini, canned tomato - and a first for me: Harissa. The harissa recipe was from Vegetarian Planet, and included jalapenos, garlic, cumin, caraway and possibly something like roasted red pepper to make it reddish, I don't know if the recipe was followed exactly - but it was red, and delish! It was exactly the perfect thing to add to lentil soup.

I had imagined I would want to make awesome breakfasts each morning, but there were graham crackers in the house, and that pretty much killed any such plans. I just feasted on graham crackers and bananas each morning, and then didn't have the drive to make pancakes or anything. Oddly, graham crackers are one of those things I have little self control around - they are just so sweet and crunchy!

We made black bean + sweet potato chili, basically chili powder, cumin, onions and garlic, canned tomatoes, cinnamon, smoked paprika (now I know why everyone loves smoked paprika), oregano, cocoa powder, canola oil & a bit of maple syrup.

Later that night I decided to make the cornbread biscuits from vegan brunch. Oh dear, these were so good, so, so so good. I was kind of freaking out about them, so that I was being a bit protective of them. Of course, I didn't make a whole recipe, only a half recipe, that was the problem. Picture not exactly stellar, I know.

Nextly, we made homemade pizza with follow your heart cheese. Homemade pizza is good, but we make it frequently, so I'm not going into details.

For fathers day, we made cashew cream & berry sauce crepes from Vegan Brunch and a sad, sad attempt at hash browns which stuck to the pan super bad. The cashew cream was good..though we should have put more lemon zest in, and the crepes were annoying. I could not get them to come out satisfactorily, and they took exactly forever to cook. I have to say, Vegan Brunch is turning out to be a fantastic investment. Twice already I've done up some 'extra lentils I had cooked & frozen' a la Ethiopian style from that cookbook, and that is such an incredibly quick and satisfying meal (except instead of tomatoes I used a small qty of tomato paste) (I bought the injera though, as we are surrounded by awesome ethiopian restaurants). I should mention that I'm very hard on cookbooks, I am very critical and picky about food. Well, I don't dislike a lot of foods, but there are some people who like just about any dish - even if its low on flavor, or has a flavor combo that isn't quite right, so I'm picky in that sense. One of the best things about the kitchen (aside from all the wonderful space in it - our kitchen is teeny), was the knives. It made cutting so much easier, I felt like cutting was not so bad or hard at all. Usually my knife skills are pretty low.

Mu Shu (or Moo Shoo) Tempeh

2010-06-11T07:31:00.001-07:00

I had a major craving for Mushu, so we picked up a small head of green cabbage, shiitakes, some carrots, and we had some tempeh in the freezer. Also purchased some of 'the ginger people's' plum ginger sauce. I consulted the Joy of cooking (yes, the modern version does have vegetarian & vegan recipes), and found they had a mushu tempeh recipe. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, but their reccomendation was equal parts sherry & soy sauce, and some sugar to flavor the veggies & tempeh. That's pretty much what I did, except I used Agave since I didn't want to worry about making sure the sugar was totally dissolved. Basic recipe:

1 small head green cabbage, sliced finely by your handy food processor
4 carrots, thinly sliced also by the food processor (I didn't shred them, b/c texture wise it would have been wrong).
equal parts sherry & soy sauce
4 tsp. chopped ginger
Agave or sugar to taste
1 bunch chopped scallions
tempeh cut into little short strips
shiitakes cut into thin strips
toasted sesame oil

I fried up the tempeh & shrooms & scallions & ginger separately and flavored them separately.

Put some soy sauce & sherry on the cabbage & carrots, but ultimately poured off much of that b/c it had gotten so diluted from the cabbage juice. Then after cooking, I made more sauce separately with the agave, sherry & soy sauce and poured that over the cabbage & carrots. Then I mixed in the mushrooms & tempeh.

We used white flour tortillas; not as good as chinese pancakes, but a time saver, and good enough. J. liked the ginger people plum sauce and I was like 'this doesn't taste like plum sauce'. I was sad about that. It tasted like watery tamarind paste. Very sour in a tamarindy way. Next time, real plum sauce. But I figured we could use the 'plum' sauce from the ginger people as a tofu marinade in the future, for some asian style dish. My mushu craving was indeed satisfied, plus you just gotta feel good about eating that much green stuff and it tasting good. Yeah, sugar, oil and salt, I know, its loaded, but probably a ton less oil than a chinese restaurant would have put in.

Next up: Peanutty/Coconutty/Spicy Chili Saucy Seitan in lettuce wraps. Yum!

I forgot to take a photo, I'm sorry. But you know, as good as it tasted, everything was kind of brown looking from the sauce, so how good would it have looked anyhow?

On Seitan

2010-06-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

Since normally seitan doesn't have the best texture in my opinion, I tried the trick of adding 1/4 cup of chickpea flour to make it more tender. It did indeed make it more tender, but nowhere near as awesomely tender and fantastic as the seitan I had at Horizons in Philly. The seitan I had there was so tender, it was freaking me out. It was amazingly tasty, unbelieveably tasty. I want my seitan to be that awesome. Anyhow. This did improve the tenderness, but it was still kinda chewy. Much less spongy though. Perhaps next time I will add oil to the seitan as well, or peanut butter, to see how that affects the texture.

With the seitan, we had a sad Asianesque dish with soba noodles, leftover marinade as sauce, and sparse veggies. With the 2nd half of the seitan, J. made Asian style peanut dish with brocolli and quinoa. We had a jar of peanut sauce. It was actually pretty yummy. You can't go too wrong with peanut sauce though. Peanut butter is just awesome.

I haven't got a memory card installed in the camera. That's my current excuse for no pictures.

Faux Cookie Dough

2010-06-03T08:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I saw someone else's post to a glamour mag. recipe for faux cookie dough, consisting of peanut butter, old fashioned rolled oats, wheat germ, and a mashed banana. So I made that for my breakfast this morning. Folks, this did not taste even remotely like cookie dough. It tasted like banana with peanut butter and dry flakes of oats mixed in. The only thing I can say in this breakfast's favor, is that it had major staying power. Probably won't eat that again though.

Sorrel-Caper Tofu

2010-06-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

One of the farmers at the farmers market grows sorrel. Its quite good in potato soup, has kind of a lemony tartness to it. J. looked it up in the Joy of Cooking, and lo and behold, due to its high oxalic acid content, its toxic in large doses. Lovely. No mention of how much one would have to consume for it to hurt you though, thanks Joy. Though apparently spinach has the same stuff in it, and Popeye is healthy as a horse, so let's not worry about it.

J. made a variation on one of my favorite ever recipes, lemon-caper tofu, which contained the following:

tofu
Garlic
Nut Yeast
Soy sauce
finely chopped sorrel
capers

It was a very simple recipe, made to taste, which is why no quantities. The tofu was cubed. Would go well over couscous, but being lazy, I ate it on crackers.

I'm in the process of reading my camera's instruction manual. Soon there will be photos!

In other food news, I brought an avocado to work because I purchased it on impulse on Sunday. I read about a pudding made with avocado, raw cacao and raw agave, and thought, hey, I have cocoa pwdr and sugar, I can make that! So I mixed sugar with a teeny bit of hot water to make a simple syrup, then added cocoa powder and half of the avocado. It was super rich and quite yum. Then, against proper common sense, I did the same with the other half. Really, that is way way too much fat to eat in such a short time. My belly was hurting a lot. Plus, the 2nd half tasted much more avocadoey, and I'm not sure if it was the proportions, or just I was getting kind of sick of the pudding. Ugh. Anyhow, I'm over it now.

Mexican Food Weekend

2010-06-01T06:22:00.000-07:00

This weekend we made some salsa fresca (the hothouse tomatoes weren't exactly up to snuff, but it was still good). Salsa fresca is just

2.5 lbs de-seeded tomatoes,
1 cup white onion,
2 jalapenos,
1/2 tsp salt, and
2 cloves of garlic.

If you want, you can add a bit of sugar esp. if tomatoes aren't the best. We got some tortillas from the local latino grocery store (not awesome, but way better than WF corn tortillas which are like leather). We threw some Amy's Organic vegetarian refried beans with some fried onions and chayote squash, some spices (cumin, probably something else), and ate that for a few meals.

Then we made zuchini-corn hominy soup, (
2 zuchini,
1 can diced tomatoes,
1 7oz can herdez salsa,
2 cups veggie broth,
1 can golden or white hominy,
1 yellow onion fried up with 2 tsp mexican oregano,
and salt n pepper to taste.) Its a surprisingly good soup given how simple it is (so easy!), but next time I'll add pinto beans because the soup has hardly any calories in it. Plus we eat the soup with corn tortillas and that would make it a complete protein.

Our final Mexican-themed food item this weekend was Mexican salad. It rocks. It calls for lettuce, chipotle-lime-date dressing, lots of cilantro, mexican-fried tofu, and most importantly, the Garden of Eatin' Red Hot Blues Chips, crushed up, added at the last minute. You can add sliced avocado to this (yum!), you can add diced red bell pepper or cucumber, we even added salad turnips once. No problem. The Chips and the tofu and the dressing really carry the salad, so you can add things that maybe don't match exactly and its still fine.

For the dressing:

3 tbs lime juice
2 dates
oil to your liking
agave nectar to taste
balsalmic vinegar to taste
chipotle chili powder to taste
cayenne pepper to taste

For the tofu:

2-3 tsp mexican oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1-2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder or to taste
1/2 tsp onion powder or to taste
1/2-1 tsp paprika

blend those up together in a spice grinder or with mortar & pestle
Set in a bowl. Dredge tofu till lots of the spice sticks to the tofu (lots of spice should be on the tofu). Fry in hot oil a few mins each side.

The only downside was that we got the lettuce at the farmers mkt. I don't know why I never learn. In addition to numerous minute slugs and little flying type bugs, I discovered a red centipede, and a scary, scary spider amongst the leaves of this lettuce. Frighteningly, I discovered the centipede and spider on the THIRD wash of these leaves. When I save enough money to buy a home where I can have a garden, will my garden have that many bugs in it? I sure hope not, otherwise I'll have to move all lettuce production into a sun-room or a greenhouse, because I'm not spending 45 obsessive minutes on debugging lettuce every time I want a salad.

Got a new camera! Has a large book I am reading. Haven't gotten to the 'how to charge your camera part' yet, so it lies dormant. However, that means, blog will soon have photos and be worth reading!!!!! So, so, so excited.

Thai Curry, Mashies & Cabbage, Tomato Quinoa Red Pepper

2010-05-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

Last week my fi was eating all his meals on the company dime due to some conference, so I decided to indulge in eating things he wouldn't like. 1. was just some basic "I am lazy pasta" with sauce. Turns out, it was too boring for me too! Plus I had to eat a ton of it since the eat-o-matic was not there to share it with me. Sigh. Anyhow, onto my next adventure, 'beefy' seitan with mashed potatoes and purple cabbage sour kraut. Well, it was not exactly sour, but it was kinda sweet cabbage from a jar. I was hoping just for purple sourkraut, but unf. I didn't really read the label. Next time. Actually the dish was really good and I felt extra good because it was purple so probably had some purple nutrients I don't normally get. Made the seitan with faux beef broth instead of water (to mix with powder stuff). So it had a nice flavor. Need to work on tenderness though, texture was kind of like the offspring of a rubber band & a sponge. Friday, at WF I found a can of bamboo shoots by native essense I think the brand was? Anyhow, I do enjoy them in a curry at restaurants, so I thought I would try this brand. It was quite good! I used the usual thai curry paste from the thai grocery store (looks like a cat food can, but has thai writing on it and curry paste inside!), added a can of coconut milk, brocolli, matchstick-cut carrots, the can of bamboo shoots, simmered that till slightly tender, and then poured that over some short grain brown rice. BTW, I shall now mention my almost militant stance against white rice & white bread. I grew up eating the stuff, but then when I read all about whole foods and how they are better, over time I learned to love the brown rice & ww bread. Now I can barely stand white rice or white bread. How odd is that? I do use white flour for baked goods, because they aren't good for you anyhow so lets stop pretending, but I do like to use ww pastry flour as well - usually a mix of white and whole wheat pastry flour works well. We've discovered you really can't go 100% whole wheat for a pizza crust and expect it not to be dry and gross.

Wierd Food

2010-05-14T08:24:00.001-07:00

I had some leftover 'mayo' that I'd created with some silken tofu, oil, mustard powder and vinegar for the bhan mi sandwiches we enjoyed recently. I was thinking 'what on earth can I make with mayo?' Enter, the Hellmans mayo web site. They put mayo in cake even! Cake! I saw a recipe that called for mint, and we also had leftover mint (from our recent mojitos). The recipe was basically mayo, dijon mustard, minced onion, mint, and peas on pasta. I didn't have any regular pasta, so I boiled up some soba. The verdict? Not bad really. You would think it would be gag worthy, but its similar to pasta salads I've had in the past. The mint is nice actually, and you would not think it would pair with onion or mayo, but its not bad. No prize winner, but just mildly flavored and not at all disgusting tasting, though it probably sounds disgusting, food.

Vegan Cheese Tasting

2010-05-03T06:39:00.000-07:00

We had some company recently so we decided to load up on some unhealthy snacks. We got corn chips - the round kind, and daiya, and sheese, and while they were here we headed up to pangea, and on impulse bought some dr. cow. So we had a cheese tasting. We put the daiya on the corn chips and melted in the toaster oven, and served the sheese and dr. cow uncooked. People really liked the dr. cow and nachos, the sheese was good but not the favorite. I am so in love with Dr. Cow. It has such a bitchin aged cheese flavor. Jon was like 'it tastes like cashews and tahini' and I was like 'blasphemer! it tastes like awesome, awesome aged cheddar!!'. I ate it on apples in the morning, just as I remember eating strong cheese on apple slices as a kid. Yum! Since we had sheese lying around, we made a super tasty (cucumber-tomato-sheese-lemon-herbs) greek wrap like you might do with feta, that was the perfect application for sheese. We also made chili daiya cheese dogs, and I had a mushroom daiya cheese vegi-dog like I remember from Mexico (well, I didn't have the dog part in mexico since they didn't have vegi-dogs there). So we got many of our cheese-based comfort foods of childhood taken care of. We heard they recently re-formulated teese so we'll see how that turns out.

Stinging Nettles/ Mexican Salad

2010-05-03T06:28:00.001-07:00

We were really excited to see stinging nettles being sold at the farmers market last weekend, since the Millenium cookbook has a recipe for stinging nettle ravioli, and I love exotic-sounding ingredients. We got lazy/busy and didn't make the ravioli, instead we just cooked up the stinging nettles, being careful not to actually touch them while raw, only after they were cooked, because as the name suggests, they will sting you. They were hairy, and reminded me of a cat's tounge. It was like eating something with fur all over it. Pretty nasty, I was unable to finish my portion. I'm quite pleased that I didn't bother making ravioli, because that would have been a tragic waste of time.

Onto salad! I combined mexican oregano, chipotle chili powder, cumin, paprika and salt to make a coating for tofu. I coated the firm tofu in the mixture, and then fried them up with a minimum of oil and then cubed. I took regular salad greens, added cilantro, crushed up 'red hot & blue' or something like that blue corn chips, and topped it with date-lime-chipotle chili dressing. That was just lime juice, a date, rice vinegar (teeny qty), and chipotle chili powder. I loved that salad, and I can't wait to make it again.

Weekend cooking: Healthy Soups & etc

2010-03-23T10:50:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went to visit my grandmother who is ill right now. I made two healthy soups: french lentil from 'Voluptous Vegan' and 'Brocolli and Potato' from Veganomicon. I also made the quinoa cashew stir fry from Veganomicon, though I sub'd white rice for the quinoa (not reccomended), because I was concerned quinoa was "too wierd" for my grandmother. I also made the bananna flapjacks from Vegan Brunch and I must say they are the best pancakes I have had in YEARS. I must admit, I did coat the pan in earth balance when cooking the pancakes, I always do because I like my pancakes that way. I just really loved those pancakes, so fluffy, actually almost too fluffy, I feel I could have reduced the baking powder and still had excellent results.

The brocolli soup was just too healthy tasting though. Kinda blah, and I followed instructions exactly. I think it would be improved with some cashew cream and nut yeast. I froze single serving sizes of the leftover soup. Its worth fiddling with anything with broccoli to get the recipe right, rather than just giving up because its so good for you and its good to eat it in a variety of ways so as not to get bored with it. Once I purchase a camera I can take photos of these foods I make and then the blog would be something people might want to read! :) I hate food blogs without food pictures. I also need to buy a new winter coat before they run out of all the on-sale coats. And practice guitar. And do my taxes.

Mushroom Stroganoff

2010-03-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

Last night I finally satisfied my ongoing mushroom stroganoff craving properly. I have made previous attempts and they just stank. I modified a recipe from Vegetarian Times cookbook, and instead of using soy sour cream & silken tofu, just used Wildwood brand plain soy yogurt. It worked out quite well. Well, actually I think I should have made it stronger, b/c I made the sauce perfect, but then when it got on the pasta it became a bit too mild for me. However, it shouldn't be hard next time. It involved soy sauce, sherry, dried ground yellow mustard, dried dill and a dash of paprika. Half an onion, 8 oz. pasta, 1 container Wildwood soy yogurt in plain (the only plain yogurt that's not all sugary tasting - what are the other yogurt makers thinking, really?). Also one clove garlic. I winged it with the qty of flavorings, just to taste. I served with haricots verts (skinny string beans), because I love them and was too lazy to make dinosaur kale which I think would go well with this. Also I added Gardien's new veggie "beef" tips - not a necessity but they were in the freezer and they worked well in the recipe. I recommend slicing them up thinly so they spread evenly throughout. If I'm going to do a food blog I really need to get a camera. While I'm at it, a new computer, and since I'm spending loads of dough, why not a new dresser, trundle bed, and wall-top storage cabinets? Ah, life would be grand! However, I am super indecisive so shopping is hard for me. Having those things already is nice, but the whole 'which should I go with' and researching and stuff, I don't like. I'm greatly troubled that I might get the wrong thing and regret it later.