Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk!

Remember all those recipes I've been testing for mrsbadmouth? Well, her zine is done and you can order it here. It's only $2.50 through paypal or $2 through snail mail (plus an extra dollar for shipping if you are outside the U.S. or Canada). I definitely recommend it, if not just for the tempeh wingz alone!

Pictures of the recipes I have tried:

Tempeh Wingz

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Lemonade

Biscuits

Apple Zucchini Muffins

Vegetable Fried Rice

Tempeh Bacon

Tempeh Bacon on a TLT Sandwich

Butter Chik'N and Naan

Both of the dishes we made for dinner last night came from VegWeb recipes. I'd never had butter chicken or naan before, but both recipes looked pretty interesting to me. I used Morningstar Farms chick'n strips in the butter chicken recipe. They were pretty good, but I am still not wild about their texture. It's a little too authentic for me (but I have no idea if it really is authentic or not, since it's been 10 years since I had chicken). I think when (yes, when) I make this again, I will use seitan. Since I didn't want to buy a whole jar of sunflower seed butter, we bought some hulled sunflower seeds and made it into sunflower seed butter in our food processor. It was fun! I also used a few tablespoons of plain soy yogurt in place of the Silk creamer. Does anyone know what red chili powder is supposed to be? I used cayenne in its place, but only used a scant half a teaspoon.

Here is the naan recipe. I really have no idea why it says to let the dough sit for two hours in a warm place, since there is no yeast in the recipe. I let it sit for a little under an hour and it seemed to work just fine. I used Ener-G as the egg substitute and WholeSoy plain soy yogurt. I would really like to try the Wildwood brand of soy yogurt, but I've never seen it around here.

Rainbow Rice and Beans

This is another tester recipe for lolo at VeganYumYum. I know rice and beans sounds like a pretty simple dish, and this was easy to make, but it was also delicious. There is Worcestershire sauce in the recipe and that was also a lolo test recipe (conveniently so, as I had all of the ingredients and was going to put Worcestershire sauce on my grocery list anyway). I should have put peas in this, but I was all out, so I used some green peppers instead to still have something green in there. There is also corn, but it seems to be mostly hiding in that picture. This is a dish that we'll definitely be making more often.

Seitan Edamame Curry

Awhile back, someone on the ppk posted a Chickenish Baked Seitan recipe. I finally got around to trying it last week, but honestly I wasn't too impressed. I didn't love the texture. Maybe I'm just used to the seitan that is simmered on the stovetop, though. Also, this was really hard to flip over halfway through. It's rather large and it's friggin' hot after having been in the oven for an hour, sitting in boiling broth. I made it, though, and I didn't want to waste it. The first night with it we had seitan steaks covered in leftover Pomegranate BBQ sauce. The next night I made this curry. It was really a "use up the leftovers" kind of meal. The couscous was already in the refrigerator. For veggies, I used mushrooms, onion, and edamame. I thought edamame sounded kind of strange in a curry, but I was running low on vegetables. It was actually really good! We need to eat edamame more often. The sauce is a mixture light coconut milk, vegetable broth, and a teaspoon of red curry paste, thickened up with a bit of cornstarch.

Enchilada Casserole

I know this isn't a good picture by a longshot, but this enchilada casserole tastes good. I promise! It is from Nava Atlas's The Vegetarian Family Cookbook. I like to add mushrooms to the bean mixture (really I like to add mushrooms to any dish that they go well in). The spiciness of this dish depends on the kind of salsa you use (you can use mild green chilis instead, too). This is the recipe that taught me to extend my soy cheese by melting it into some soy milk and thickening the mixture up with a bit of flour. I have used that trick many times, since it is so hard to get soy cheese to melt well in the oven if you aren't cooking at a very high temperature.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Here's another one from Damn Tasty!: peanut butter cookies. These turned out awesome. They are much softer than peanut butter cookies usually are, which is a very good thing to me. My boyfriend's parents were visiting this weekend, so I decided to make a dessert to have around. These were a hit (and I'm the only vegan of the bunch)!

Chickpea Ratatouille

This is the Chickpea Ratatouille from Vive le Vegan, served over whole wheat couscous. I've been meaning to try this for so long and I'm glad I finally did! I've never made more traditional ratatouille (eggplant and zucchini prepared in such a fashion aren't really appealing to me, although I love eggplant in Indian and Chinese food), but I really enjoyed this variation. This was really simple to make, too (minus the fact that I started from dried chickpeas, so the dish took a bit more planning for me...but this time the chickpeas turned out really well in the pressure cooker). Everything is prepared in one large casserole dish and it goes in the oven, only taking it out to stir once during the cooking time.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Shells

These are the Chocolate Peanut Butter Shells from The Damn Tasty! Vegan Baking Guide (by Kris, of Squirrel's Vegan Kitchen). Holy yum! These are so rich and tasty. She actually has this recipe up on her website if you'd like to try it out, but her book is fantastic and I highly recommend that you get a copy.

3-Bean TVP Chili

I've been in the mood for chili lately, so despite the hot, humid weather we've been having, I made a pot. Hopefully I'll continue to be in the mood for chili for the next few days, as it seems to be impossible to make just a few servings of chili.

3-Bean TVP Chili
yield: 8 servings

1 1/2 cups TVP, reconstituted in vegetable broth
1 large onion, diced
3/4 lb button mushrooms, sliced
1 TB olive oil
1 15 oz. can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 oz. can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 oz. can of vegetarian baked beans (I used the Whole Foods brand)
1 14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes (crushed would be fine, too)
1 15 oz. can of refried black beans (I used the Whole Foods brand)
1/2 cup vegetable broth
3 TB chili powder
3/4 ts salt
1 ts cumin
1/2 ts cayenne
1 ts garlic powder

1. To reconstitute the TVP, place it in a bowl and pour vegetable broth over it until it is just barely covered. Let sit while you cook the onions and mushrooms.
2. Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onions and mushrooms and cook 7-10 minutes, until onions are translucent.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir. Raise heat to medium-high and bring to a slight boil. Cover and reduce heat to low and let cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for 30 minutes.

Cheezy Rice and Broccoli Casserole

This is the cheezy rice and broccoli casserole from Joanne Stepaniak's The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. I tried to make this once before and, due to a momentary lapse in my critical reading skills, totally ruined the recipe. The recipe calls for either umeboshi paste or salt. You aren't supposed to use the same amount of salt as you would umeboshi paste. In fact, it rather clearly says "or salt, to taste." I missed that "to taste" instruction on that ill-fated attempt and had to throw out the incredibly salty mess I had made. This time I followed the directions much better. And the result was tasty. Cheezy enough for me, but I don't know if it would taste cheesy to a non-vegan.

Rich Vegan Brownies

I found this recipe on the vegancooking group on livejournal last year. I really liked it when I made it, but I had a bit of an accident the last time I made it about a year ago. Since the recipe calls for melted soy ice cream and I wanted to make my brownies right then, I put my ice cream in the microwave to melt it. Now, I know better than to put metal in the microwave. I am POSITIVE that I did no such thing, but yet the microwave started sparking on the inside as though I had done just that. I quickly turned it off and unplugged it, but there was this little burnt hole inside it. It was never the same again. When I told my daddy about the incident, he said "there must have been some metal in your ice cream." Well holy crap, I certainly hope not! I had to throw out my microwave. Since I was moving in about a month (by the way, oh friendly neighbors in Richmond...I am a small girl and that microwave was heavy and awkward. Thanks for just watching me struggle with it on my way to the trash cans.), I didn't want to buy another one, so I did without until I moved. I am accustomed to my modern conveniences. It was an annoying month, as exam-time means very little time for cooking.

This time I was patient and just measured out the soy ice cream and waited for it to melt on its own. I used Purely Decadent Cookie Avalanche. This time I doubled the recipe. What can I say? We like our chocolate. These are good. Not cakey at all. I'm sorry, but brownies should not be cakey. Here's the doubled (and slightly modified) recipe:

1 1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 c all purpose flour
1/2 c cocoa
2 ts baking powder
1/2 ts salt
1 c melted soy ice cream (the flavor is up to you)
1/2 c vegetable oil
2 ts vanilla extract
1/4 c chocolate soy milk (vanilla would work, too--you might need a little more, depending on the consistency of your batter)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 11x13" baking pan (or line with parchment paper).

Mix together all of the dry ingredients. Add in the wet ingredients and stir until just-blended. If your batter is too thick (read: difficult to work with), add in a bit more soy milk. The batter will be a little thicker than most non-vegan brownie batters. Spread into 11x13" pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.