BBQ Pomegranate Tofu and Mellow Millet Quinoa Pilaf

I finally got to try the BBQ Pomegranate Tofu from Vegan with a Vengeance. I'm SO glad I did. Yum! I have leftover BBQ sauce from it, so I'll definitely be making some more. I would like to try it with some seitan or maybe with frozen tofu. Vegan with a Vengeance recommends serving this with coconut rice, but I decided to try out the Mellow Millet Quinoa Pilaf recipe from Dreena Burton's Vive le Vegan. We bought some millet at the health food store awhile ago because I was wanting to experiment with some new grains, but it's just been hanging out in the pantry ever since. I'm glad I finally found a use for it! The pilaf wasn't quite as umm....pilaf-y as I was expecting. Because millet is sticky, the pilaf had a little more of a creamy consistency. Had I realized that, I probably would have served the broccoli and cauliflower separately. Next time I make this, I'll probably spice it up a bit more, but I'm glad to have found a new recipe that uses whole grains (well, quinoa is a grass and not actually a grain, but close enough for me!).

Pizza and Blueberry-Oatmeal Muffins

I know you've probably seen vegan pizza on just about every vegan food blog, but I felt like taking a picture of our dinner last night. Stores here have started getting in Vidalia onions, so along with green peppers and mushrooms, this pizza has caramelized Vidalia onions on it (and, since those were my pieces you see in the picture, red pepper flakes). Yum!

Last weekend my boyfriend's momma shared her blueberry-oatmeal muffin recipe with me. She made it for breakfast while I was there, but since she didn't really have anything on-hand to use as an egg substitute, we just left them out. They were a little crumbly, but still very good. This morning I decided to try out the recipe replacing the eggs with flax seeds. It worked really well.

Blueberry-Oatmeal Muffins
Yield: 12 muffins

4 TB ground flax seed whisked with 6 TB water
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup plain soymilk
2/3 cup sugar
2 ts vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil (or 1/4 cup veg. oil and 1/4 cup applesauce...I was just out of applesauce when I made these)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 1/4 ts baking powder
1 ts cinnamon
1 cup frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease muffin tins.
Stir together oats and soymilk. Add sugar, vanilla, flax mixture, and vegetable oil. Combine flour, baking powder, and cinnamon in a separate bowl. Add to oatmeal mixture. Stir in blueberries. Divide batter into the muffin tins. Bake 20 minutes. Let cool in pan for a few minutes, then transfer muffins to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

Tempeh Bacon and My Haul from the Nashville Farmer's Market

This is a tester tempeh bacon recipe for mrsbadmouth. I have never had pork (or turkey, or any other animal) bacon, so I don't really have anything to compare this to, but this is GOOD. I heart liquid smoke.
I had the tempeh bacon on a TLT (tempeh bacon, lettuce, and tomato) sandwich for lunch. I don't make sandwiches for myself very often, but I really enjoyed this.

On Sunday morning we went to the Nashville Farmers' Market. There was an international market in the interior part of the market. Check out my haul! I got tamarind paste, pomegranate molasses, tahini, and chickpea (besan) flour. I'll be using the pomegranate molasses in the BBQ pomegranate tofu recipe from VWAV. I've been wanting to try it for quite awhile now, but had never found pomegranate molasses before. I also got tomatoes (from FL...it's a bit too early for Tennessee tomatoes yet) and red and green peppers from the farmers' market, but I didn't take a picture of those, except for the tomato slices on my sandwich.

Chana Masala with Seitan and Muffins That Don't Really Taste Like Donuts

We are going to Nashville for the weekend and I like to bring some food with me, just in case. My boyfriend's momma is good about making food I can eat, but I like to bring stuff with me, too, as I really don't like being a bother. I had some seitan to use up, and remembered that I had a box of chana masala spice mixture hanging out in the pantry. Hence this Chana masala with seitan thing-a-ma-jig that I came up with.

Probably not very authentic Chana Masala with Seitan

2 tsp Earth Balance Whipped (could use regular EB or olive oil)
1 small onion, diced
2 cups seitan, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 15 oz. can of chickpeas
1 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes
3 tsp chana masala spice mix (mine was by a brand called Roni...I found it at the health food store)
1 tsp chili powder

1. Melt Earth Balance Whipped in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add diced onions and cook until translucent.
2. Add chopped seitan and cook, stirring occasionally, until it begins to brown. Add minced garlic and cook until fragrant (only takes 30 seconds or so).
3. Stir in the chana masla spice mix and chili powder. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.
4. Serve over rice.

This rather odd-looking picture is a Muffin That Taste Like Donuts from Vegan Vittles. These aren't bad, but by no means do I think that they taste like donuts. I really don't get the comparison. With the small amount of sugar in the recipe (2 TB sugar and 1 TB of maple syrup per 6 muffins), I don't see how they could possibly wind up tasting like donuts. I will finish these, but I'm not sure I'd make the recipe again. I'm a blueberry muffin kind of girl.

More Test Recipes

This non-traditional fried rice is a test recipe for mrsbadmouth. I don't recall if I've ever had traditional fried rice, but I really liked this one. The vegetables you include are really up to you. I used mushrooms, onion, green pepper, carrots, broccoli, and garlic. I was supposed to make this with brown rice, but I was all out, so I used the white rice I had in the pantry. I definitely won't mind making it again so that I can try it with the brown rice I should have used.

This is strawberry and vanilla bean haupia, which is a test recipe for lolo over at VeganYumYum. Haupia is a Hawaiian dessert and is a sort of coconut pudding (it's thicker than pudding, though). This was good, but is probably not something I will make often simply because vanilla beans are so expensive. I did really like the texture and flavor of this, though. If I make it again, I will probably serve the sliced strawberries separately, but that's mainly because my boyfriend is weird and doesn't like strawberries (he says it's a texture thing, as he didn't mind the strawberry sauce....yet he doesn't understand my dislike of raw bananas).

Not Your Mama's Meatloaf

Yes, I know that's not how I normally spell "momma," but that's how Joanne Stepaniak spells it in Vegan Vittles. This is the first recipe I have tried from that cookbook, which I just checked out of the library (it's the older version). I will definitely be trying more recipes, as this one was a hit. It turned out SO much better than the last time I made a meatloaf. This one actually held together when I took it out of the pan! The main ingredient in this recipe is ground seitan. I already had some seitan on-hand that I made a few days ago (the Vegan With a Vengeance recipe), so I used that rather than trying out the recommended recipe from Vegan Vittles. The green beans are, once again, from my boyfriend's parents' garden. We stock up when we go visit them (which we'll be doing this weekend). They are so much better than the canned stuff from the grocery store. Growing up I never thought I liked green beans. It turns out that I just don't care for the French Style green beans from a can (or frozen).

BBQ Ribz

We went to Nashville last weekend and I got a new bottle of barbeque sauce from Wild Oats. When I saw Susanv's post on barbecued seitan ribz, I knew just what to do with the sauce. These were good. I've tried the Gardenburger Riblets before and didn't really care for them, but I liked these and I'm looking forward to the leftovers. I followed the baking instructions on the recipe that Susanv linked to, since I don't have a grill (or a cast iron grill pan....yet). I served the ribz with mrsbadmouth's cornbread test recipe (I only made half the recipe, since I wanted to try making it in my cast iron skillet and my skillet is small) and some green beans from my boyfriend's parents' garden.

Check out my new sponges! I found them at Big Lots the other day. They were the same price as the regular ones, so of course I had to get these.

Calzones

Last Friday I made stuffed shells to take with me to a Shabbat dinner. I had extra filling and didn't want to just throw it out, so I used it to fill some calzones. The dough is my usual pizza dough recipe, divided into four pieces and rolled out. I filled these with a mixture of the leftover stuffed shells filling (one container of water-packed extra firm tofu, one box of Mori-Nu firm silken tofu, a couple of tablespoons of vegan mayo, a splash of lemon juice, 2 teaspoons of garlic powder, basil, and oregano, 1 teaspoon of onion powder and salt and pepper to taste) and some shredded mozzarella soy cheese. I would have also added sauteed mushrooms, but I was all out. The stuffed shells filling was enough for 18 shells and 4 calzones. After filling and closing up the calzones, I cut a few slits in the top. I baked these on a pizza stone in a 450 degree oven for 9 minutes. The last time I made calzones I put some sauce inside them, too. This time I didn't and I liked them better that way--they were much less messy.

Pepper-Crusted Tofu and Mac 'n Cheeze

Last weekend I watched America's Test Kitchen and they made pepper-crusted filet mignon. Now, obviously the idea of filet mignon isn't exactly appealing to me, but I was intrigued with the idea of pepper-crusting something and just had to try it. I marinated the pressed tofu in some doctored-up (vegan Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard) homemade barbeque sauce, then roughly followed the America's Test Kitchen recipe (sorry, you have to register on their site to see the recipes) for the pepper-crust part. I didn't bother trying to pan-sear the tofu because I thought the crust would just fall right off. I baked it at 450 degrees for 15 minutes per side. While the tofu was baking, I heated the rest of the sauce on the stove over medium heat to let it reduce a bit. I liked the sauce, but my boyfriend said that, while it was good, he thought it was better suited for pork. Having never had pork, I'm not exactly sure what that means. Neither of us had ever had anything pepper-crusted before. I don't think either of us ever will again, either. I strongly disliked the texture and after two bites, scraped the crust off of mine. He thought it was too spicy and scraped most of the crust off of his, too. When I served the leftover tofu, I scaped off the crust first. So, the moral of the story is that I don't recommend pepper-crusting tofu. It was a lot of work for something that was kind of gross.

This is macaroni with cashew cheddar cheese from the Real Food Daily cookbook. The actual recipe calls for spelt noodles, but 1) I already had regular macaroni, and 2) spelt noodles aren't very appealing to me. This was good, but the cashew cheddar is certainly not a cheap recipe to make, as it calls for quite a bit of agar. I didn't use all of the cashew cheddar for the macaroni, and I put the rest in a container in the fridge to let it harden into a slice-able cheese. I had some of said cheese with some wheat crackers for breakfast this morning. It wasn't bad, but I found the cheese to be kind of stinky. It also wasn't quite as solid as it should have been, but that's my fault because I didn't have quite enough agar for the recipe.