Jewish Vegan

My first sourdough bread!

2008-02-29T18:07:00.003-05:00

I'm sorry I've been neglecting this blog. Sometimes life gets in the way, and sometimes I'm just lazy about updating. I've started a new job, which I really like. I still cook on a regular basis, but sometimes I just don't feel like taking a picture. Also, we have several favorite meals, and there doesn't seem to be much point in blogging about a recipe I've already featured on here before.

Until recently (read: when I made these loaves), I'd never had sourdough bread. My boyfriend kept raving about it, though, and when we found some dry sourdough starter when we are at the new Whole Foods in Nashville, he begged me to make it. It took me awhile to get around to it, but I finally did. Truthfully, I didn't get successful bread until the second try. Ideally, the starter should be doing its thing at around 80-90 degrees. The instructions that came with mine said that if it was too cold in your home, to put it in an oven with only the oven light on. I'm sure that would work just fine, except my oven is old and does not have such a light (but oh what I wouldn't give to have an oven that had one!). As such, it took my starter longer than the instructions suggested it would to actually be viable. In my sourdough ignorance, I tried to use it before it was ready and man was that dough tough. And it didn't rise; not one bit. So I threw it out, waited several days (and a couple of more feedings) and actually got my dough to rise. Woohoo! I'm told the sour flavor will grow stronger over time, but my first (okay, technically second) attempt was certainly not bad. And now that I've got the starter going, my boyfriend says he wants to try making the next loaf.

A Rare Salad

2008-02-12T21:16:00.001-05:00

I don't eat a lot of salad. I don't know why, as I like it just fine. Sometimes I get salads at restaurants, but rarely ever do I make them at home. I've been eyeing the Caesar salad recipe in Veganomicon, though, and I finally got around to making it today. The only other time I've tried capers (which are in the salad dressing), I didn't like them. It wasn't just a mild dislike, either. I found them completely unappetizing. Nevertheless, I got it in my mind that I wanted to try this recipe. I have no idea whether or not I still dislike capers on their own, but I loved this salad dressing. I never ate Caesar salad before going vegan, so the only thing I have to compare this to is the vegan Caesar dressing at a local restaurant called Sunspot. It's been awhile since I had that stuff, but I think I like this recipe better. It's creamy and tangy and, well...just plain good.
I made the roasted garlic croutons per the Veganomicon recipe as well, but I used cracked wheat bread. I was going to buy French or Italian bread when I went grocery shopping, but all the stuff that Earth Fare had, which they supposedly baked in-house, contained L-cysteine. Seriously, Earth Fare.....what gives? Is that really a necessary ingredient? (Hint: the answer is no.)

Indian Yumminess

2008-02-11T18:03:00.001-05:00

I'm fairly certain that there isn't much you can do to potatoes to make me not like them. Even so, these Samosa Stuffed Baked Potatoes from Veganomicon still rank very high on my list of favorite ways to eat potatoes. And as a bonus, they're not nearly as bad for you as a baked potato loaded with Earth Balance and Tofutti sour cream.

To go with the potatoes, I made Red Lentil-Cauliflower Curry, also from Veganomicon. I am so glad that we have discovered a love of cauliflower. This recipe made a ton, but that's okay because it was delicious and we enjoyed eating the leftovers. I didn't serve it with any rice at first, since we had the potatoes alongside it, but once we ran out of potatoes, I made Saffron-Garlic Rice (yet another Veganomicon recipe) to go with it. Garlic is pretty much one of our favorite things ever, and we can't get enough of that rice recipe. I used to love those Near East rice pilaf mixes, but they are horribly high in sodium, so I never felt very good about eating them. I now found a yummier replacement, and it's less expensive to boot.

Clearly this is not part of the Indian meal, but this is the Skillet Corn Bread from Veganomicon, which I served with chili. I was intrigued by the jalapeño-onion variation, but it calls for putting cooked jalapeños and onions on top of the cornbread mixture. I like my jalapeños mixed into the batter, so that is what I did. This was my first time making skillet cornbread. My boyfriend had an old large cast-iron skillet that I never used because he had cooked meat in it. We got a wire brush attachment for our drill and removed the old seasoning so that I could re-season it and use it for vegan stuff. I guess I did a decent job of seasoning it, because the cornbread didn't stick at all. Yay! I love my "new" skillet. It sure is heavy, though. The skillet cornbread turned out great, even though I strayed from the recipe a bit. I was running a little low on plain soymilk, so I made up the difference with some plain soy yogurt. I'm always playing with new cornbread recipes, but I think I'll be sticking with this one now.

I'm a slacker about posting, but not cooking.

2008-01-31T15:12:00.001-05:00

While the veggie burger recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance is still our favorite, I just had to try the black bean burger recipe from Veganomicon. These turned out very well, and the flavor of the burger wasn't overpowered by the bun and condiments and whatnot, which is always a plus. These were also much less time-intensive than the VWAV recipe, so when I want some veggie burgers but don't have much time to devote to making them, I'll definitely turn to this recipe again.

And yes, those are baked beans that you see on the plate along with the bean burgers. I was having a rather forgetful day. See, I made these burgers and even went so far as to make the buns from scratch. In all the time that I was opening and closing the fridge that day, I never once noticed the leftovers from the evening before sitting on the top shelf of the fridge just waiting to be eaten. I'm the one that made dinner the night before, so how I could so easily forget about having done so, I don't know. It wasn't until I went to put away the leftover burgers after dinner that I noticed the other leftovers. Woops. And the baked beans were because I was going to serve broccoli with dinner, but forgot to cook it until it was too late.

While we were in Portland, I got a copy of Yellow Rose Recipes. This crispy beer-battered seitan was the first recipe I tried from it. It was messy to make, but very good. I actually liked it better the next day, but I think that was because I like seitan better after it has been in the fridge overnight. I made the seitan for this recipe (also from YRR) the earlier in the day, so it didn't sit in the fridge for all that long. I look forward to trying more recipes from YRR. Right now I'm eyeing the mustard-crusted seitan, since I still have more seitan to use.

The new issue of VegNews contains a macaroni and cashew cheese recipe. I don't usually get VegNews (I'm not really big on magazines), but I saw some pictures of the recipe in the Food Porn section on the PPK and really wanted to try it. I found a variation of the recipe here. I'm so glad I tried it. This might be my new favorite vegan mac and cheese recipe. And, for those of you that don't care for nutritional yeast....don't worry, this recipe doesn't call for any!

These are the jelly donut cupcakes from Veganomicon. Sorry, no inside pictures. These are so neat. You put a spoonful of jelly on top of the batter and it sinks down into the middle during baking. Apparently a lot of other people have trouble with this (the jelly either doesn't sink at all, or it sinks down to the bottom), but they worked just fine for me! I also like that they don't have any frosted. Granted, I like frosting, but it can be a lot of work, so it's nice to have cupcakes that are delicious and pretty without it.

We went to vegan heaven!

2008-01-29T16:47:00.000-05:00

Before the holidays, my boyfriend called me from work one day to make sure my calendar was clear for MLK weekend. He was buying plane tickets for us, but wouldn't tell me where. Turns out, he got us tickets to Portland. Woohoo! He said that was a really hard secret to keep, and everyday and he wanted to break down and tell me where we were going. He did finally tell me a few weeks before the trip, so that I could plan where I wanted to go (and have any clue what to pack). I didn't take a ton of food pictures while we were there; I'm still a bit shy about taking pictures of food in restaurants, but we did get a few.

Bamboo Fries from Nutshell. Warning: These are so good that it is really easy to eat too many of them and then be too full to enjoy your actual dinner.

Jamaican Barbeque Plate from Nutshell. Very good (especially the stuffed orange and the dumpling things), even if I didn't eat much of it due to the bamboo fries.

Tandoor Fire Roasted Vegetable Plate from Nutshell:

Salad from Blossoming Lotus (I tried beets and liked them! I didn't like the salad dressing, though.):

My boyfriend's dinner at Blossoming Lotus. It was the chef's special; I think it was teriyaki.

BBQ Tempeh Platter from Blossoming Lotus. Their tempeh is awesome! I want to know their secret. We also got a small thing of soft serve ice cream (chocolate almond) there, but for some reason didn't take a picture. I must have been too excited about the soft serve.

Blossoming Lotus wasn't actually on my list of places to eat while we were visiting, but we walked by it one afternoon and it was packed and looked really good, so we decided to go there for dinner that day. I'm so glad we did. It was delicious. Sure, the atmosphere is a little odd, since you're eating dinner in a yoga studio and all, but it was kind of nice to eat dinner in a quiet restaurant.

Mission 3: Butternut Squash

2008-01-09T13:58:00.000-05:00

Mission 3 of Operation "Let's Eat Some New Vegetables" had us eating butternut squash. Normally I'm not much of a squash fan, but I'd heard such good things about butternut squash that I decided to give it a go. This recipe was simple. I just cut the squash in half (which wasn't nearly as difficult to do as it is with spaghetti squash), then roasted it cut-side up at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes (until fork tender). I'm not sure if it matters whether you roast it cut-side up or down, but thought it was worth mentioning. I scooped out the squash and mixed it with a bit of brown sugar. It's that simple. And really, it tasted pretty close to mashed sweet potatoes. The texture was a little bit different (read: stringier), but otherwise it would have been difficult to distinguish the two.

Technically this was mission 4 or 5, but I don't have photographic evidence of the other vegetables we tried at my boyfriend's parents' house. We had fried yellow squash (which is really sautéed, not so much fried) and turnip greens. We both liked the homegrown squash, which was much softer and melt-in-your-mouth-y than I expected it to be, but only I liked the turnip greens. This is why you won't see much in the way of greens as part of Operation "Let's Eat Some New Vegetables." My boyfriend finds them bitter and just doesn't like them. Spinach was a stretch for him. He liked it at first, but said he started to find the leftovers bitter. I don't taste any bitterness in spinach, but to each his own.

Leek and Bean Cassoulet With Biscuits

2007-12-20T21:48:00.001-05:00

How on earth do you post pictures side-by-side in blogger?

Anyhoo, this is the leek and bean cassoulet with biscuits from Veganomicon. This dish is comfort food at its best. It's a sort of vegetable stew with biscuits baked right on top. Yummy! My boyfriend tried to convince me that since he'd never had leeks before, that this should count as Mission 3 of Operation Let's Eat Some New Vegetables, but I voted him down. After all, we eat onions all the time and they are both from the same genus. I didn't pick out a new vegetable at the store the other day, so there probably won't be a new mission until after New Years (we are going to visit his parents in Nashville all next week).

Something I have noticed about Veganomicon is that when they tell you approximately how long a recipe will take from start to finish, they are actually right. That might sound like a small thing, but someone the times are rarely right for other cookbooks, so this makes me happy.

Mission 2: Spinach

2007-12-17T20:39:00.001-05:00

Mission 2 for Operation "Let's Eat Some New Vegetables" brings us the mushroom and spinach strata from Veganomicon. I am pleased with myself for getting my boyfriend to eat spinach without complaint. Normally he's quite scared of the stuff and has even pleaded with me not to add it to lasagna. I picked out this recipe to make before we went grocery shopping yesterday. When we were in the produce section, I simply said that I needed some spinach and picked some out. He did not even question what I was going to do with it. I was already working on the recipe when he came home from work, and he said that it smelled good. Not once did he balk that it contained spinach. And....he loved the dish! (As did I.) It uses blended up soft tofu (with some other ingredients) as the base of the custard, which is poured over the vegetable and bread cube mixture. I should have taken a picture of the whole dish, as it was pretty neat looking.

The spicy yogurt tempeh is a test recipe for frecklefoot (another ppk member) of One Chubby Vegan. It was tasty and I was glad to find another tempeh preparation that my boyfriend likes (although I think his favorite will always be tempeh wingz....I can't really blame him on that one). Mine didn't turn out to be all that spicy at all, though. Most of the other testers have reported that theirs was, though, so either some of my spices weren't as hot as theirs, or I just like things spicier. Either one is certainly a possibility. I will still make this dish again, but will add more spice to it probably. I'd also like to try baking it. I tend to like to try the same recipe both pan-fried and baked, to see which we prefer.

We have finally finished all of our stuffed mushrooms (there were several meals between the previous post and this one). They were good, but I was getting kind of tired of them. Perhaps that's why people usually serve stuffed mushrooms as party appetizers, as there are more people around to eat them.

Operation "Let's Eat Some New Vegetables"

2007-12-17T20:21:00.001-05:00

This is our first meal from Operation "Let's Eat Some New Vegetables." Said new vegetable is cauliflower, mainly chosen because 1) we never use it and 2) it was on sale at the grocery store. I got the idea for popcorn cauliflower from mollyjade on the ppk forums. You cut the florets off the head of cauliflower, toss with olive oil, and roast at 400 degrees F, stirring occasionally (which I did not do...woops), until the cauliflower is soft and the edges begin to caramelize (approximately 45 minutes). Serve sprinkled with seasoned salt or your favorite seasoning. It really did remind me of popcorn (probably due mostly to the seasoned salt, but still). Mission 1 from Operation "Let's Eat Some New Vegetables" was a rousing success.

I served the cauliflower with tempeh wingz from Issue 1 of Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk and some stuffed mushrooms. Said stuffed mushroom recipe was just kind of made up, mainly because I was missing ingredients for just about every stuffed mushroom recipe I found. They were good, but there sure were a lot more mushrooms in that package than it looked like at first glance. We had enough mushrooms to fill both a 9x13" and an 8" square glass baking dish.

Sesame Tofu

2007-12-12T15:21:00.000-05:00

Somehow this picture slipped through the cracks when I was looking through all my backlogged food pictures. I got the recipe for sesame tofu from the Whole Foods' website, and the only change I had to make was subbing agave nectar for the honey (and I left out the scallions because I did not have any). This was good, but I don't know if I'd make it again. I think I'm just not a huge fan of sweet sauces at dinner.

And here's some more....

2007-12-12T15:17:00.002-05:00

I finally got around to trying the pumpkin cinnamon rolls from the second issue of Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk. I have no clue why I waited so long to make these, because they are awesome. They were nice and soft with just a hint of pumpkin flavor. For those of you who haven't ordered the second issue yet, she put the recipe up on her blog. The only change I made was I used a 9x13" pan, as a 9" square pan just seemed to small to me. Normally I like my cinnamon rolls covered in cream cheese (Tofutti non-hydrogenated, of course) icing, but these were good with just the glaze.

For Hanukkah, I made the potato latkes from Veganomicon. Sorry I didn't get a very good picture of them. These were good, but I am undecided as to whether I prefer latkes with or without matzah meal. They had more body this way, but still...I'm just not sure. I like both, though. Last weekend we had a family Hanukkah celebration in Columbia, SC. We spent the night at my parents' house in Greenville, then drove down to Columbia just for the day on Saturday. I brought the leftover latkes to serve with dinner Friday night and my dad really liked them (I'm sure Momma would have, too, but she wasn't there...she went to go help out my sister with her new baby). At the family Hanukkah celebration, they made me some vegan latkes before they fried the non-vegan ones. My aunt even made me vegan cookies (Mexican wedding cookies from The Joy of Vegan Baking, which she got me for Hanukkah).

I brought some dessert with me to the family Hanukkah, so there were vegan cookies galore. I got this sugar cookie recipe from A Veg*n for Dinner. I didn't use any food coloring for the icing, though, as I avoid artificial colors and the natural food colorings are just too expensive for me right now (and I've never seen them locally anyway). I also made the sparkled ginger cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance, but I didn't take a picture because I've also blogged about them before. I have learned that my family is scared of the word ginger, but if I call them "molasses cookies," they are okay. Crazy people.

This is the hot and sour soup with napa cabbage and woodear mushrooms (I may have muddled that name up a bit) from Veganomicon. My cabbage was being stubborn about coming off the head of cabbage neatly, so I cut it up in the food processor instead. The only other time I've had hot and sour soup was at a restaurant in Richmond, VA called Panda Veg. It was good, but homemade is better (and quite simple). Awhile back we were at a Whole Foods and we found this little package of dried woodear mushrooms for a reasonable price. We'd never even heard of woodear mushrooms, but we bought them anyway, then couldn't think of a use for them. Veganomicon arrived and ta-da, finally a recipe that calls for them. This soup is both spicy and filling and the leftovers reheat well.
Hanging out behind the soup are some homemade fried wontons. They would have been spring rolls, but I was having a ton of trouble with the rice paper wrappers. I got so frustrated that I defrosted the wonton wrappers that I had in the freezer and decided to use those. I know that wontons are normally boiled, but I already had the oil all set to fry, so I just went ahead with this. They actually turned out pretty well this way. The filling was napa cabbage, red cabbage, dried shiitake mushrooms, Morningstar Farms chik'n strips (they'd been hanging out in the freezer for quite awhile, so I figured I might as well use them in something), soy sauce, sriracha sauce, ginger, and garlic.

I'm still here. No, really, I am.

2007-12-12T14:12:00.000-05:00

I have been a really lazy blogger in the past month. As you can see from all of these pictures, though, I haven't been so lazy about cooking and baking.

We went to my sister's house in North Carolina for Thanksgiving. In addition to the vegan Thanksgiving meal I brought with me, I also brought some blueberry muffins for breakfast. I want to make the ones out of Damn Tasty, but I didn't have any soy yogurt. I found this recipe on VegWeb. I had all of the ingredients and it got such good reviews, that I figured it was worth a shot. The results were...meh. Despite turning out fairly pretty, if I do say so myself, the muffins weren't very flavorful (okay, they were downright bland) and were rather crumbly. I definitely don't plan on trying that recipe again. I don't know...maybe they'd be better with a teaspoon of vanilla and some sort of binder.

For Thanksgiving, I made whole wheat dressing/stuffing from homemade bread. I didn't really follow a recipe on that one, just looked at several different recipes to get a basic idea of what I should do, then went from there. This turned out well, but I should have let the bread dry out a bit more before I used it.

I also made the holiday cranberry sauce from Veganomicon. It got rave reviews from everyone who tried it (even my incredibly picky-eater sister tried it...I was impressed). I also made the mashed spiced sweet potatoes from Veganomicon, but I didn't take a picture because I've blogged about them before. They are so simple and everyone loved them, too. My brother even ate sweet potatoes for the first time. Have I mentioned that my siblings are not very adventuresome eaters? My brother's girlfriend is getting him to try new foods, though. One day, I will get my siblings to actually eat vegetables (besides corn, which they already eat).

This is the rustic white beans and mushrooms from Veganomicon. This recipe made a TON. I would probably cut it in half the next time I make it (and I will make it again....my boyfriend saw me make it, but didn't get to have any because he went to his parents' house for Thanksgiving. He said it looked good and asked me to make it another time, though.). I was going to have this as the main part of my Thanksgiving meal, but my boyfriend insisted on getting me a Tofurky when we were at the store. I do like Tofurky, but I sure can't get it to slice very neatly. Every time I try, the stuffing crumbles and spills right out. I think their stuffing recipe could use some work, personally.

One night I decided to be adventurous and make homemade sweet potato gnocchi. Oy, what a pain. I have no idea how people manage to shape gnocchi into anything remotely attractive-looking. It tasted good, but was a little gummy. It also made quite a bit and there is more waiting for me in the freezer. I served it with a homemade sundried tomato cream sauce, but I didn't write down what I put in it and it's been a couple of weeks now, so I don't remember. I know I used pureed canellini beans as the base, though.

Veganomicon and Beyond

2007-11-19T14:47:00.000-05:00

I know I've posted plenty of pizza on here, but this time I made the sauce from scratch! I used the marinara sauce recipe from Veganomicon. It was so simple and, despite the short list of ingredients, made a very flavorful sauce. We ate the rest of the sauce on some gnocchi. I think I enjoyed this sauce more than the bottled sauces I've tried, and it is much cheaper to make.

Can you tell just how much I love Veganomicon? This is the Saffron-Garlic Rice, served with Morningstar Farms chik'n strips and sautéed bell peppers. My boyfriend said this might very well be his favorite rice yet. Garlic and onions can do no wrong around here.

I think I have a problem. I am addicted to testing recipes for others. These Buffalo Breakfast potatoes are a tester recipe for Frecklefoot over at the PPK. You can check out her blog here.
I did something silly at the grocery store recently. Even though Texas Pete hot sauce has never failed me, I bought the generic stuff because it was cheaper (not that Texas Pete is all that expensive). Little did I know that the generic stuff has no spice to it at all. It shall henceforth by known as "not hot sauce". So, these potatoes tasted great, but it was all tang and no heat whatsoever. I'll definitely be making them again, but with a different hot sauce in the future.

Sadly, the vanilla-yogurt pound cake is all gone. We were in need of another dessert last night, so I chose the Chewy Chocolate-Raspberry Cookies from Veganomicon. My boyfriend was skeptical, but in the end the cookies won him over. He said he would have eaten the whole batch if I'd let him. The introduction to this recipe in Veganomicon says that they are wonderful as ice-cream sandwich cookies. I'll be trying that this summer!

More from Veganomicon

2007-11-16T11:10:00.001-05:00

I served the leftover ED&BV Kinda Corny Muffins with Veganomicon's Chile Cornmeal-Crusted Tofu. I did the baked version, but forgot to spray the tofu with oil, so it was a tad bit dry. The flavor was still very good, though, and I would make this again. I am sure I would also like it fried, but I was trying to be a bit healthier. There was tons of extra coating, so I battered and fried (yeah, so much for the healthy thing) some mushrooms. My boyfriend came in the kitchen, found me coating the mushrooms, and said, "oooh, somebody loves me!" (He'll probably kill me for repeating that, but he meant it to sound goofy, I promise.) We had the carrots with the Black Creek Ranch Dressing from The Native Foods Restaurant Cookbook. It's peeking out of the top right corner of the picture...I don't know why I didn't take a purposeful picture of it. It's really good and so simple.

For dessert we had the Vanilla-Yogurt Pound Cake from Veganomicon. I haven't had pound cake in, ohh....at least a decade, but the wait was most definitely worth it. This might just be one of my favorite desserts yet. It's so moist and full of flavor. We still have plenty left, but already I want to make another. The strawberry sauce on top is homemade. I don't follow a recipe for it, but it is frozen strawberries, sugar, a splash of orange juice, and a cornstarch slurry.

Kinda Corny Muffins

2007-11-15T10:19:00.001-05:00

For my first recipe from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, I chose the Kinda Corny Muffins. I subbed all purpose flour for the spelt flour, though. A lot of the recipes in this book call for various flours that I just don't normally keep on-hand. I support the use of whole grains and know that I most definitely need to use more, but I wish she had advised when it was okay to substitute a different kind of flour. Luckily, all purpose flour subbed in just fine. Because I just can't leave well enough alone, I also added in some chopped chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. I probably should try a recipe as-is before adding in ingredients, but I really liked the chipotles in these. My boyfriend ate four muffins, plus part of mine that I wasn't finished with, but made the mistake of leaving half-eaten on the shared plate. I'd say these get two thumbs up from us.

Questions and Answers

2007-11-13T15:00:00.001-05:00

I found this list on Food Snobbery is my Hobbery and thought it would be fun to answer it.

1. Favorite non-dairy milk?
Blue Diamond vanilla almond milk. I really wish that it had more vitamins and such added, though. Next is Soy Dream vanilla enriched.

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?
Home-style potato rolls from Veganomicon
Chile Cornmeal-Crusted Tofu from Veganomicon
Adzuki Bean and Millet Burgers
I want to make something from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan, too, but I need some inspiration

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?
Melted Earth Balance and nutritional yeast. I used to really like Braggs and this Thai seasoning, but I bought what I thought was the same Thai seasoning recently (Frontier Co-Op brand) and it makes me sneeze when I get anywhere near it. D'oh.

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?
Well, the chocolate cake I posted about yesterday sure made a mess of my oven on the first attempt, but the results were still edible (and tasty!), there was just less cake than there was supposed to be.
Hmm....I once tried to make baingan bharta (an Indian eggplant dish) and the spices in the recipe I followed were just all wrong.

5. Favorite pickled item?
Kosher dill pickles

6. How do you organize your recipes?
I have some in Mastercook (I'd love to share Mastercook recipes with people, if anyone wants to trade) and some on index cards in a filebox. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd combine them all into Mastercook.

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?
I really want to compost, but it's not so feasible right now since we're in an apartment. We're planning on doing it once we get a house, though. For now, I use the garbage disposal when it's appropriate, and the trash when its not.

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods...what would they be (don't worry about how you'll cook them)?
black beans, rice, and hot sauce

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?
Breakfast for dinner! It was so exciting anytime we had it, even though I now realize that French toast, pancakes, or especially oatmeal for dinner meant my parents didn't really feel like cooking that night.

10. Favorite vegan ice cream?
Purely Decadent Turtle Trails (it got me liking pecans!)

11. Most loved kitchen appliance?
Cuisinart food processor

12. Spice/herb you would die without?
Cumin

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?
Molly Katzen's The Enchanted Broccoli Forest (but I hardly use it...any suggestions?)

14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?
Raspberry

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?
My parents have really liked the bumble berry and apple pies I've made for them. And really, who wouldn't like pie?
As far as non-desserts, it's hard to say. I serve pretty much everything I make to my omni boyfriend (I don't like calling him omni, though...I feel like I'm calling him names), but he's used to vegan food and a bit more open-minded about it than some of my other non-veggie friends would be.

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?
Tofu, then tempeh as a very close second. I definitely like both of them more than seitan.

17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?
Dinner

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?
My mixer, some happy hippie soda, and the Shabbat candlestick holders

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
Vital wheat gluten, homemade whole wheat bread, corn

20. What's on your grocery list?
black beans and chickpeas (so far)

21. Favorite grocery store?
Locally, Earth Fare. I also really like Whole Foods, but we don't have one here (closest is 3 hours away). Same goes for Trader Joes.

22. Name a recipe you'd love to veganize, but haven't yet.
My aunt just gave me the recipe for my great aunt's cinnamon cookies. I plan on veganizing them.

23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa's because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?
Squirrel's Vegan Kitchen
Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen
Get Sconed
Now that I've figured out this whole Bloglines thing, I'm reading a lot more. I was too lazy to check each one before, and now Bloglines does it for me!

24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?
Pretty much any dark chocolate with mint bar. Mmmm.

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?
Agave nectar

26. What food are you embarrassed about liking?
Babyfood applesauce. I don't know what it is about it, but it's so much better than the regular stuff.

Your turn!

Chickpea Cutlets=Love

2007-11-12T20:54:00.001-05:00

These are the famed chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon. Somehow mine never look like everyone else's, but we like them as is. This time I baked them rather than pan-frying them. It's not pictured, but I served it with our favorite mustard sauce (dijon mustard, vegan mayonnaise, agave nectar, sriracha sauce, and just a touch of hot sauce). The roasted potatoes (and onions and garlic) were made by my boyfriend. The green beans came from a can. One of these days I'll learn to cook my own green beans. I was going to serve these with the home-style potato rolls from Veganomicon, but I wasn't feeling well and took a nap when I should have been preparing the yeast dough. I still want to make them, though. I saw some pictures of the potato rolls somewhere (can't remember where or I'd share the link with you) and it really made my mouth water.

Hot Fudge Cake

2007-11-12T20:35:00.001-05:00

My boyfriend's momma recently gave me this recipe. She said it originally came from Taste of Home magazine. I veganized it and changed the pan size, as it called for a 12x12 pan, which is a pretty rare size. The first time I made this, I wasn't thinking clearly and decided to make it in an 8" square pan. I briefly considered putting a cookie sheet underneath it in the oven, as I suspected it might overflow, but for some mysterious reason I rejected that plan. Boy, was that a mistake. Sugary chocolate goo seemed to have surgically implanted itself on the bottom of our oven. I had to scrub....and scrub....and scrub to get that stuff off. On the plus side, our oven has never looked so clean.
I do not know the science behind this recipe, but somehow you wind up with a wonderfully gooey chocolate sauce underneath a layer of chocolate cake. Who can say no to that? Well, diabetics and celiacs can I'm sure, but you know what I mean.

Hot Fudge Cake
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/8 cups sugar
9 tablespoons cocoa, divided
3/4 cup soy milk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 cups hot water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar with 3 tablespoons of cocoa. Stir in soy milk, oil and vanilla until smooth. Spread in ungreased 9x13" glass baking pan. In small bowl, combine brown sugar and 6 tablespoons cocoa. Sprinkle over batter. Pour hot water over all, do not stir. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Serve warm.

Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk, Issue #2

2007-11-08T13:24:00.000-05:00

This is just a friendly public service announcement to let you know that Issue #2 of mrsbadmouth's zine, Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk, is now available. You can order it here.
I didn't test too much from it this time around, as things have been busy, but I still highly recommend it!

Tofu Paprikas

2007-11-08T12:10:00.001-05:00

When Isa posted this tofu paprikas dish on her blog the other day, I just had to try it. I'm not even sure why, since I had never heard of the dish before and I don't normally care much for cream sauces. Nevertheless, she somehow sold me on the idea. This was really tasty. The sauce wasn't too heavy, which I think is what I normally dislike about cream sauces. My version didn't have much spice to it, which I suppose means that my Hungarian paprika wasn't very spicy. I'd like to try this again with a hotter paprika. I think I should join Spicy-Food-Eaters Anonymous.

The Best Pumpkin Muffins

2007-11-05T11:07:00.000-05:00

Despite my awesome new cookbooks, I haven't forgotten about my other ones. These pumpkin muffins are from Vegan with a Vengeance. They taste great and are very aptly named (although they are technically the only pumpkin muffins I've ever had). They rose really well and my boyfriend wants everyone to know that he had something to do with that (he helped me make them and now thinks he is the king of sifting. The wine he was drinking while helping me might have something to do with the claim.). I am taking these with me on our trip to NC that I mentioned in my previous post. I prefer to bring vegan food with me so that I don't have to rely on others to provide food I can eat. It seems that when I do bring food along, there is also other food I can eat. If I don't bring stuff with me, there is nothing for me to eat. I have learned just to bring food along, just in case.

Hot Sauce-Glazed Tempeh and Mashed Spiced Sweet Potatoes

2007-11-05T10:54:00.001-05:00

I can't put my copy of Veganomicon down! Dinner last night was hot sauce-glazed tempeh, mashed spiced sweet potatoes, and steamed broccoli (obviously the latter was not a Veganomicon recipe). The tempeh was so good. Ideally it should be grilled, but I followed the broiling instructions since we don't have a grill or grill-pan. It is spicy without being unbearably so, and the tempeh had a great texture. I love tempeh, but my boyfriend only seems to like it in certain applications...this was one of them. I'd like to try tofu in the same marinade. And I want a grill pan (or a grill, but we don't have anywhere to put that until we move).

The mashed spiced sweet potatoes might just be my new favorite way to eat sweet potatoes. I think I found a winner to bring with me to Thanksgiving (even if my family doesn't actually like sweet potatoes). I am really looking forward to the leftovers of this meal. There are actually only leftovers because I instructed my boyfriend to leave me some so that I could take it with me on our short trip to North Carolina. I have a new nephew (my first!) and we are going to his bris tomorrow.

Meet my new nephew! He was born on October 29th (18 Cheshvan). 5 lbs 15 oz and 18 inches long. I can't wait to meet him tomorrow!

Barbecue Tofu Sandwiches with Herb-Scalloped Potatoes

2007-11-05T10:41:00.000-05:00

I finally got my copy of Veganomicon!!! I did a little dance at the mailbox when I opened it and found that my books (I got Eat Drink & Be Vegan as well) were FINALLY there. Word to the wise: don't preorder books from Amazon. Apparently their policy is first-come, last served. We preordered the books in mid-August. I knew that they were going to ship together, so if one came out first (which ED&BV did), I would have to wait for the other to come out before they would ship. It took Amazon almost three weeks after Veganomicon was released to ship my books. Calling or emailing them resulted in garbled messages that didn't even apply to my situation. Amazon, your poor business practices have lost you yet another customer. Preordering books is supposed to mean that we get them as soon as they are released, not that you offer them for sale on your website to other customers before you have fulfilled all of the preorders.

On Friday night I made barbecue tofu sandwiches (served with hominy). For some reason I didn't love these sandwiches, even though I liked the barbecue tofu on its own, and I liked the homemade whole wheat bread (I used this recipe, substituting maple syrup for the honey). We had leftover sandwiches for Saturday night, but needed something to go with them. I found the herb-scalloped potatoes recipe in Veganomicon. We had all the ingredients on-hand and LOVE potatoes, so this was the first recipe I tried. I'd never had scalloped potatoes before, but these were great. I told my boyfriend that and he said that these were better than most scalloped potatoes. High praise. I can't wait to try more new recipes!

Neverending Baked Ziti

2007-10-16T11:41:00.000-04:00

I got it in my head last week that I wanted to make bazed ziti. I don't know why, since I'd never had baked ziti before (and neither had my boyfriend) and I didn't have a particular recipe in mind. The results turned out really well, but dear gosh what was I thinking when I made a whole box (16 ounces!) of pasta. I thought we were never going to finish this.

Baked Ziti
Serves 8-10 (so you might want to cut this in half if you're not cooking for a small army)

16 ounces ziti pasta, cooked according to package instructions
1 jar of pasta sauce (might want a bit more if you like your Baked Ziti on the saucy side)
15 ounces extra-firm tofu, drained (or however much one thing of tofu weighs)
1/4 cup vegan mayonnaise
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
3/4 ts dried basil
3/4 ts dried oregano
1/2 ts garlic powder
1/4 ts onion powder
1/4 cup plain, unsweetened soymilk
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
Mozzarella soy cheese, shredded or grated

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Place tofu in large bowl and mash with fork. Mix in the vegan mayonnaise. Stir in nutrional yeast, basil, oregano, garlic powder, and onion powder. Add soymilk and stir again.
Place a few tablespoons of pasta sauce on the bottom of a glass 9x13" baking dish.
Add mushrooms and remaining pasta sauce into the bowl and stir everything together. Stir in cooked pasta, then pour the mixture into the baking dish. Top with soy cheese and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and broil for 3-5 minutes.

Thin Mint-Esque Cookies

2007-10-03T15:37:00.000-04:00

This is such a simple recipe, but they taste so good. You'll want to hide the rest of the cookies from yourself because they're so addictive (much like the Girl Scout version, even though it's been years since I had them). I stumbled across the recipe on RecipeZaar awhile back.

Thin Mint-Esque Cookies
1 1/2 lbs. chocolate (dark, semi-sweet...whatever you'd like....I usually just use a bag of vegan chocolate chips and cover as many of the crackers as I can)
1/4 teaspoon peppermint oil (or 1-2 teaspoons peppermint extract)
72 Ritz-type crackers (I usually use Late July crackers...in the picture are the Whole Foods brand)

1. Melt chocolate, either in the microwave or in a double-boiler.
2. Stir in the peppermint oil/extract.
3. Drop crackers one at a time into the chocolate mixture, being sure that the crackers get completely coated.
4. Place on wax paper to harden. (I put them into the freezer for a few minutes, then store them in the refrigerator in an airtight container.)

Tamale Pie

2007-10-03T15:27:00.000-04:00

This tamale pie was a difficult dish to photograph, especially since it wasn't exactly a pretty dish in real life, either. It was good, though! I based it off of this recipe. I didn't have all of the ingredients that the recipe called for, so I just used that as a jumping off point. I'll write up what I actually did, instead. Even though this is called tamale pie, it doesn't come out in neat slices (or at least mine didn't). You'll need to spoon it onto plates.

Tamale Pie
Filling:
1 medium white or yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 TB oil
1 ts chili powder
1/2 ts cumin
1 15 oz. can refried black beans (I used a spicy version)
1 15 oz. can kidney beans, drained and rinsed (I would have used pinto beans if I had them)
1 ts salt
2 TB tomato paste
1/2 c frozen corn
1/2 lb. button mushrooms, sliced
Crust:
2 c boiling water
1 c cold water
1 1/2 c cornmeal
1 ts salt
1/2 ts chili powder

Sauté vegetables for filling. When onion becomes translucent, add spices and crushed garlic.

Add refried black beans, kidney (or pinto) beans, and tomato paste into vegetables. Add remaining ingredients. Adjust seasonings and set aside.

Stir cornmeal into 1 cup cold water. Then stir cornmeal mixture into 2 cups boiling water. Add crust spices. Cook and stir until thick.

Press 2/3 of the cornmeal mixture into the bottom and sides of an 8 or 9" pie plate. Pour the bean mixture into the crust. Top with remaining cornmeal mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Apple Almond Crumb Pie

2007-09-24T11:52:00.000-04:00

Here's another test recipe for Julie Hasson: apple almond crumb pie. The crumb topping is actually supposed to have sliced almonds in it, but I like my almonds ground up, so that's what I did. I think apple pie may very well be one of my favorite desserts, and this recipe was certainly no exception. Lucky for me, it is apple season. I am really enjoying the crumb topping options Julie has for many of her pies, as my favorite part of the pie is definitely the filling rather than the crust.

Paella with Tomatoes

2007-09-21T10:28:00.000-04:00

We recently picked up a copy of The New York Times. I flipped through the dining section, not really expecting to find anything applicable to vegans. I was surprised to find a vegan paella recipe (assuming you use vegetable stock), especially since I always thought paella had shellfish in it. The paella with tomatoes recipe by Mark Bittman can be found online here, although I'm not sure if you'll need to log into the NY Times site in order to view it. Since I had the recipe in mind when we were at the Nashville farmers' market, we got local roma tomatoes there. Yum! Unfortunately we don't have an oven-safe skillet, so we had to make this on the stove-top. It worked all right, but I plan on trying it again in the oven once we get said skillet. I served this with sautéed chickpeas and artichoke hearts (I added some spices and such, but can't remember what I used besides nutritional yeast). This was very good, but we both agreed that we might add a little heat to it next time (cayenne or red pepper flakes, I suppose).

Long Time No See!

2007-09-21T10:18:00.000-04:00

Sorry it's been so long since I posted. We went to the beach for a week, then we went to Nashville for a couple of days. I have been cooking, but I don't usually blog about what I cooked unless it is something new. We have a lot of repeats. What can I say? We like our comfort food.

This is bengan bharta (eggplant). When we were in Nashville, we went back to the farmers' market. At the international store there, we got various Indian spice mixes, one of which was for bengan bharta. We got lots of veggies at the market too, including eggplant and local tomatoes. I followed the basic recipe on the spice mix box, but it really didn't have much heat to it, so I added a bit of red pepper powder (also found at International markets). I tasted it and then decided that I'd made it a little too spicy, so I added some plain Silk soy yogurt. I really wish I hadn't done that. Before that, it was tasty, but a little too spicy. After the soy yogurt addition, it had a sourness that I really didn't care for. Oh well, I'll know better for next time not to add Silk soy yogurt to Indian food.

Chipotle Basil Corn Chowder and Outrageously Easy Big Bread

2007-08-30T13:40:00.000-04:00

This Chipotle Basil Corn Chowder is another test recipe for lolo at VeganYumYum. I can't believe that I grew up not liking corn. When I finally did start liking it a little tiny bit, I only liked it on the cob. My, how times have changed. This soup was wonderful. It had just the right amount of spice in it. I thought it was a great summer soup, but it would be great in cold weather, too.

To go along with the corn chowder, I made the outrageously easy big bread from VegWeb. Sometimes I'm a little leary of the recipes on VegWeb (particularly because so many of them are hardly recipes at all), but this one got such good reviews that I figured it was worth a try. I didn't follow the directions for how to shape the bread, as I thought it would turn out nicer the way I did it. I found this recipe to be a little odd, mainly because of the instructions to sprinkle the yeast over water first, and then add that into a partial dough. I like recipes that call for proofing the yeast first, as I like to know early on whether my dough is going to rise or not. This recipe worked out just fine, though, so I guess I shouldn't be too picky. We have so much bread to eat up before we leave for a week-long beach trip.

Creamy Tomato Barley Risotto...and Boston Cream Pie for dessert

2007-08-26T17:26:00.001-04:00

This creamy tomato barley risotto is a test recipe for lolo at VeganYumYum. I don't often like creamy non-dessert things, but I am absolutely in love with this. I think I want to have it at least once a week for the rest of my life. Seriously. Recently I have noticed that we eat a heck of a lot of rice, so it's nice to have some other grain recipes to use. I served the barley risotto with baked Italian-marinated tofu (and mushrooms) from Vegan with a Vengeance.

This not-so-pretty-to-look-at (but yummy to eat) Boston Cream Pie is half from Damn Tasty and half from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I didn't have all of the ingredients for the cake recipe from Damn Tasty, so I used the golden vanilla cupcake recipe from VCTOW (I doubled the cupcake recipe and baked it in two 9" cake pans). The pudding layer and the chocolate ganache are both from the Damn Tasty recipe. This was my first time both making and eating Boston cream pie. It was indeed damn tasty.

Peach Pie

2007-08-14T10:36:00.001-04:00

This peach pie is another test recipe for Julie Hasson at Everyday Dish. The lattice crust wasn't actually a part of the recipe, but I recently saw them make one on America's Test Kitchen and I wanted to try it for myself (they used a ruler when cutting the strips on ATK, so theirs came out a bit neater than mine). Peach pie just seems like a perfect summer dessert, although using my ancient oven that heats up the whole apartment probably doesn't seem like the perfect thing to do in summer. I had to use frozen peaches for this because we don't have much to choose from in the way of fresh peaches around here this year. Sadly, there was a late frost that killed off most of the peach crops in Georgia and South Carolina. The only peaches I've found in stores around here have come all the way from California. I tried one anyway, because I really love peaches, but it just wasn't the same. *sigh* Maybe next year....in the meantime, I'm good with this pie made from frozen peaches. It tasted great, and I imagine it would be even better with fresh peaches.

Fresh Blueberry Waffles with Lemon Icing

2007-08-13T18:09:00.001-04:00

These blueberry waffles with lemon icing are another test recipe for lolo at VeganYumYum. This was my first successful attempt at making waffles. Woohoo! My previous attempt was with a recipe from some Peta cookbook that I checked out of the library. That recipe clearly had too much leavening ingredients in it, as the batter started rising even though it hadn't sat very long. I was a little scared to try my hand at waffle-making again, but I am so glad I did! I made the full batch of lolo's recipe, so I have several waffles waiting for me in the freezer. Yum! The lemon icing was a very nice touch. Lemons and blueberries go so well together.

Samosas and Pie. Mmmm pie.

2007-08-07T12:01:00.000-04:00

On Saturday night, we were running kind of low on groceries. Normally when we are running low, dinner centers around tofu, but we were out of that, too. I decided on samosas. Rather than following a recipe, I just sort of made this up as I went along. Unfortunately I didn't write down the ingredients, which is sad because these wound up turning out really well! I was feeling gluttonous, so I fried these. The dough was flour, Spectrum shortening, and either water or plain soymilk...I can't remember which, but I'm leaning towards water. I put the dough in the refrigerator while I made the filling, which was potatoes and green peas and some spices (brown mustard seeds, cumin seeds, coriander, garam masala, chana masala (spice mix that came in a box), and salt....I think that's it). I boiled the peeled (and chopped) russet potatoes first for 12 minutes, then cooked everything over medium heat in a couple of tablespoons of oil. Once assembled, I fried the samosas for a few minutes on each side, until golden brown. The tamarind chutney I served the samosas with was store-bought. Our health food store had it on closeout. I'm glad we bought it because it turned out to be very good.

This is a bumbleberry pie with an oat crumble topping, which is a test recipe for Julie Hasson. This pie turned out absolutely awesome. I made the crust from scratch per one of her recipes, too, and it was so simple and tasty! I often eat the filling out of pies and leave the crust for my boyfriend, but this time I liked the crust so much that I ate my whole slice. In case you aren't familiar with bumbleberry, it is a mixed berry pie. I used a bag of frozen mixed berries, so this had strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries in it. The filling thickened up so nicely, too. I am so excited to test more pie recipes for Julie!

White Bean Burgers with Sautéed Mushrooms and Three Spice Potatoes

2007-07-28T17:33:00.000-04:00

I got it into my head earlier in the week that I wanted to make some sort of white (cannellini) bean burger. I wasn't very successful at finding a recipe, so I decided to just make something up as I went along. Unfortunately I don't have a recipe to share with ya'll, as I didn't write down any measurements as I went, but this included one 15 oz. can of drained cannellini beans, two sprigs worth of fresh rosemary, dried thyme, salt and pepper, all purpose flour, ground seitan, and breadcrumbs. If you can't tell by the last three ingredients, my mashed up beans were kind of wet and I was having a hard time getting a mixture that was firm enough with just the flour. After adding somewhere around 1/2 cup of flour, I was worried that they were going to have too much of a flour-y taste, so I switched to the seitan and just a bit of breadcrumbs. I cooked these in a lightly-oiled cast iron skillet over medium heat.

The three spice potatoes are a test recipe for lolo at VeganYumYum. Who doesn't love roasted potatoes? Okay, so I know a number of people who don't like potatoes at all, but I don't understand those people. The spice combination on these was probably an odd match for the Tuscan-inspired white bean burgers, but I wanted to test the potato recipe and I also really wanted to make the white bean burgers. What's a girl to do?

Seitan Black Bean Burgers

2007-07-24T13:15:00.000-04:00

This black bean burger is another test recipe for lolo at VeganYumYum. The burger should have corn in it, too, but I goofed and just assumed that I had some in the freezer. In the future I should probably verify that I have the ingredients on-hand before I start making a recipe. Even without the corn, though, these were very good burgers. They were a little more like a typical burger than the usual veggie burger recipe I use (from Vegan with a Vengeance). While my boyfriend and I agree that we still prefer the VWAV recipe, we will definitely make this one again as well. It was so fast to make (minus the time I spent making the seitan), and the burgers hold together well, making them perfect for traveling. I served the burgers with leftover hashbrowns/home fries, if you're wondering what else is on the plate.

Breaded Tofu with Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans

2007-07-19T09:45:00.000-04:00

This dinner was actually "quickly" put together because I hadn't planned what to make and it was already dinnertime when we got back from seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on Saturday. I say "quickly" because who chooses to make mashed potatoes from scratch when trying to make dinner in a hurry? I don't like using tofu when it hasn't been pressed, so I sliced it and pressed the slices while the potatoes were boiling. I then dipped the tofu slices in a mixture of soy sauce, broth powder, water, and nutritional yeast and coated it in some seasoned flour (all purpose flour, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, and onion powder). I let that dry for a few minutes, then dipped the tofu in the broth again and then coated it in bread crumbs. I fried the tofu for a few minutes on each side. For something I put together on the fly, it turned out really well and I plan on making it again (perhaps baking it when I have more time to spend on it).
For the mashed potatoes, we cut peeled potatoes into chunks and boiled them for 15 minutes (or until soft). We drained the potatoes, then mashed them with a couple of tablespoons of Earth Balance Whipped, then stirred in plain soymilk until the consistency was right. I'm not sure how much soymilk we wound up using, as my boyfriend was in charge of making the potatoes while I was coating the tofu.
Sadly we are all out of the home-canned green beans, so we used some organic canned ones from the grocery store. They are still good, but not as good as the home-canned ones. We prepare the beans by heating them on the stove with a bit of salt, lots of freshly ground black pepper, and some liquid smoke. Mmmm....

Italian-Marinated Tofu and Portobella Mushrooms Over Saffron Risotto

2007-07-10T10:12:00.001-04:00

I have learned an awesome (and FAST) way to make risotto....in my pressure cooker! The tofu and portobella mushrooms are marinated in the Italian marinade from Vegan with a Vengeance. I followed the baking instructions for the tofu and sautéed the portobellas in a cast iron skillet while the tofu was finishing up in the oven. The incredibly simple risotto recipe follows.

Saffron Risotto with Red Bell Pepper

2 TB olive oil
1 yellow or white onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 1/2 c arborio rice
1 ts salt
pinch of saffron
3 1/2 c vegetable broth
ground black pepper, to taste

Heat olive oil in pressure cooker over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, and red bell pepper and sauté, stirring occasionally, for two minutes. Add rice and stir to coat with the oil. Stir in salt, saffron, and vegetable broth. Lock lid in place and bring pressure cooker up to high pressure over high heat. Once pressure cooker has come to high pressure, reduce heat until it is just high enough to maintain high pressure (for me this is between medium and medium-high) and cook for five minutes. Release pressure with a quick-release method. Stir in black pepper to taste and serve.

Hurry Up Alfredo

2007-07-03T18:42:00.000-04:00

Last night I served the leftover seitan nuggets with another lolo test recipe, Hurry Up Alfredo (so named because the dish hardly takes any more time than it takes to cook the pasta). The sautéed mushrooms weren't part of the recipe, but we both love mushrooms so much, so I tend to add them wherever they work. This was good, and I don't even normally like cream sauces. I'm not usually a fan of really rich food, but this was creamy without being too rich for me.

100th Post! And lolo is McAwesome.

2007-07-02T15:21:00.000-04:00

This is another test recipe for lolo at veganyumyum (check out her latest post about her upcoming cookbook!). These are seitan nuggets, also known as almond fried seitan (and yes, to make up for the fried portion of dinner, we had two vegetables). These were so good! I served them with a mustard sauce I like to make, which is equal parts vegan mayonnaise and dijon mustard mixed with a bit of agave nectar and hot sauce. lolo thinks they make a pretty good McNugget substitute and I agree, although you might want to take that with a grain of salt, since I haven't had McDonald's in the past decade. I used the Vegan with a Vengeance seitan recipe for these.

Since we sadly do not own a grill, we roasted the corn in the oven. We found directions online which said to remove the silk, then wrap it in foil and roast at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 8-10 minutes. That wasn't nearly long enough! It took more like 30 minutes, and probably could have used a few more minutes. It was very good, though. I love fresh corn. I can't wait to try making it on a grill, but we won't be getting one until we move into a house.

Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk!

2007-06-26T12:56:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-25T10:04:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-22T09:16:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-22T09:06:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-12T19:49:00.001-04:00

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

2007-06-11T11:34:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-08T09:30:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-06T13:57:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-05T17:04:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-03T14:59:00.001-04:00

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

2007-06-02T21:48:00.001-04:00

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.

BBQ Pomegranate Tofu and Mellow Millet Quinoa Pilaf

2007-05-31T20:31:00.001-04:00

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

2007-05-30T17:42:00.001-04:00

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

2007-05-29T17:17:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-24T18:42:00.001-04:00

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

2007-05-23T19:58:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-23T19:44:00.001-04:00

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

2007-05-09T11:47:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-08T16:58:00.000-04:00

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

2007-05-03T13:11:00.000-04:00

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.

Broccoli Almond Sweet and Sour Tofu

2007-04-27T14:52:00.000-04:00

This is another test recipe for lolo at VeganYumYum, but this time it's a recipe that she already had up on her blog, so I can link you to it (here and here). I forgot to garnish it with sesame seeds, but it was good as is. I liked the sauce much better than the last time I made it (she updated the recipe at some point in between).

Jambalaya and Cookies

2007-04-25T15:18:00.000-04:00

This is the Jammin' Vegetable Jambalaya from Robin Robertson's The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook. Yes, I know that's kind of a goofy name for a recipe. I suppose that when you come up with as many recipes as Robin Robertson does, coming up with creative names can be a challenge. This jambalaya was good. I've never had non-vegan jambalaya, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I liked the flavor in this. I used Tofurky Chipotle Franks as the "sausage" in this. The recipe wound up not being very spicy at all. It was good that way, but I would like to try it again substituting some chipotle pepper for the hot sauce. The recipe says to serve this over long grain rice. I thought I had enough rice, but when I looked in the pantry, I discovered I was wrong. I did have a bag of barley, though. I took this as an opportunity to try out Alton Brown's recipe for baked barley (substituting Earth Balance Whipped for the butter). It was so easy. I will definitely use it more often in the future (and his recipe for baked brown rice, too).

These are the Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Post Punk Kitchen. By no means are these cookies remotely healthy, but my do they taste good.

More Tester Recipes

2007-04-23T20:59:00.000-04:00

I know that I just posted the tempeh wingz and the jalapeno poppers, but tonight I served the leftovers with a biscuit recipe that I tested for mrsbadmouth. I still prefer the biscuit recipe that my boyfriend's momma gave me (because they're fluffier), but these were a little easier since I didn't have to roll them out.

These are apple zucchini muffins that I also tested for mrsbadmouth. Historically I have not been a fan of zucchini (or squash), but I remembered having zucchini bread years ago and liking it, so I was willing to give these a try. I'm so glad I did. These are really good. Despite having whole wheat flour in them, they're pretty light, and they have a good flavor.

Pasta Gremolata with Sundried Tomatoes and Garlic Breadcrumbs

2007-04-23T16:21:00.000-04:00

This is another test recipe for lolo at veganyumyum. The title of the recipe tells you pretty much all that I can share about it. This is fantastic (assuming that you like parsley...and I do).

I felt like including a photo of the dish I had this in just because I love it. This is an antique serving bowl that belonged to my great aunt. I really have no idea just how old it is.

Bar Food for Dinner

2007-04-23T12:31:00.000-04:00

I know these pictures aren't the best. Sorry about that, but we were hungry! I have made the tempeh wingz before. They are a test recipe for mrsbadmouth. We really liked them the first time we had them, so ouila, here they are again. I was going to try upping the spiciness a bit this time, but then I ran out of hot sauce, so I didn't.
The jalapeno poppers are a test recipe for lolo over at veganyumyum. Sorry I didn't get a picture of the filling, but you can see it over at lolo's blog. These were very good, but sadly my jalapeno was too hot for me and I couldn't eat more than one. I am convinced that I picked one up that was hotter than the others, as my boyfriend ate three of them and said he hardly detected any spiciness at all. Meanwhile my lips were tingling. D'oh. I have leftover filling and I'll be using it as a dip today for some whole wheat crackers.
The other part of the meal was just a can of hominy. Mmmm. We love the stuff and can quickly finish off a can just between the two of us.

Calcutta Curried Potatoes and Cinnamon Rolls

2007-04-18T16:34:00.000-04:00

This is Calcutta Curried Potatoes (served over yellow rice) from Olive Trees and Honey by Gil Marks. The subtitle of the recipe says that it would be called Aloo Bhaji. I added peas to the recipe (along with cutting the recipe in half....we still had enough for two nights, so four servings in all), which I know would change the name of the recipe, but I can't remember the word for green peas. This was a good recipe that I would make again. It had a lot of flavor without being overly spicy. I don't know that it would be considered a very authentic Indian recipe, based on the spices called for, but then again the cookbook is referred to as "a treasury of vegetarian recipes from Jewish communities around the world," and I know nothing about Jewish communities in India. Olive Trees and Honey is a huge cookbook. Many of the recipes are not vegan in the least (for instance, the recipe for Sephardic potato croquettes calls for 6 eggs, plus an additional egg for the coating!), but I look forward to trying more of the vegan or easily veganizable recipes.

For the cinnamon rolls, I used this recipe, substituting plain soymilk for the milk, Earth Balance Whipped for the butter, and Ener-G egg replacer for the egg. Although I have a bread machine, I decided to make these by hand because I was worried that 6 cups of flour was too much for my machine. I didn't use the frosting recipe included in that link. Instead, I beat an 8 ounce tub of Tofutti non-hydrogenated cream cheese with 2 tablespoons of EB Whipped and 1 3/4 cups of powdered sugar. These turned out really well. They are much softer than the previous ones I made. Don't ask me why I didn't cut the recipe in half, though. Twenty-four cinnamon rolls is a lot for two people! Our refrigerator is now busting at the seams with cinnamon rolls. Not that we're complaining or anything....

Blackened Tempeh

2007-04-16T21:21:00.000-04:00

Blackened Tempeh (Real Food Daily), Maple-Mashed Sweet Potatoes (The Vegetarian Meat & Potatoes Cookbook) and steamed broccoli (no recipe for that, of course).
The blackened tempeh was really good and just spicy enough. It probably would have been better suited on top of a salad, as it was kind of dry just on its own. I didn't have any lettuce, though, so no salad.
The mashed sweet potatoes were the first recipe I tried from The Vegetarian Meat & Potatoes Cookbook, which I just got today. I had $15 in Borders' Holiday Rewards to use up (they're redoing their rewards program, so people could cash them in early). With a 20% off coupon, I wound up paying less than $2 for this book. Woohoo! Anyway, as far as the recipe goes....maple plus sweet potatoes is a very good combination. Adding apple juice into the mix is, well, not quite as good. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't bad, just not something I would be likely to do again. Next time, I will stick with soymilk or coconut milk. It doesn't need much extra liquid anyhow.

Despite My Absence, I Have Been Cooking

2007-04-12T20:48:00.000-04:00

Sem Aur Khumbi, from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. The English name of this dish is decidedly less exotic-sounding: Green Beans with Mushrooms. This was the first dish I made from the book, which I currently have checked out of the library. I added some of the Morningstar Farms chick'n strips to it. They really weren't necessary, but we had some hanging out in the freezer and my boyfriend really liked them when he tried them recently. This dish was really good and I would definitely make it again, although I'd probably cut back on the cayenne next time. The recipe calls for a whole teaspoon of it and I found it quite spicy (and I don't even have the spicier cayenne....the health food store had two different heat-levels in the bulk spice section and I bought the less spicy one--boy am I glad I did!). I served this over organic whole-wheat couscous. I was excited to discover that Fantastic Foods started making a whole wheat version.

Vegan with a Vengeance samosas (potato and green pea) with homemade mango chutney. These took forever to make, but they were really good. I was going to take the easy way out on the chutney and just buy some already made (either mango or tamarind), but all of the ones I found had either high fructose corn syrup or refined sugar, so I bought a mango and figured I would wing it on making my own. It worked out quite well.

Tempeh hot wings. I am testing some recipes for mrsbadmouth over at the Post Punk Kitchen, and this was one of the first ones I tried. I'd never had regular wings before, but I was told that this was a milder sauce. It was really good and I definitely plan on making this again.

Lovin' Spoonful O' Cornbread. This is another test recipe for mrsbadmouth. It is a sweet, moist spoon bread and we loved it. I was sad that we didn't finish it before Passover started. The recipe calls for creamed corn, but I didn't go with my boyfriend to the grocery store and he came home reporting that all of the creamed corn at Kroger's had refined sugar in it. As such, he bought me a regular can of corn and figured that I would be able to make my own creamed corn. I must say, homemade creamed corn is much tastier than the awful canned stuff that my daddy tried to make me eat when I was growing up.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie, another test recipe for mrsbadmouth. The filling was much better than the store-bought crust. It's possible that I just don't like graham cracker crusts, but until I do some more experimenting, I am choosing to blame the Arrowhead Mills crust. My boyfriend didn't seem to mind the crust, though. I ate the filling out of my piece and he finished the crust. I like having a boyfriend that can eat more than I can. It means I waste less food.

A True Southern Meal

2007-03-27T08:58:00.000-04:00

The other night, while eating leftover lasagna, my boyfriend told me "I've been looking forward to this meatloaf all night." "Umm...you're eating lasagna." "I know, but I have really been wanting meatloaf, so that's what I'm pretending it is." Cue the vegan meatloaf. I used this recipe (which is actually the first recipe that comes up if you do a google search for "vegan meatloaf"). The taste was pretty good, but it didn't firm up enough, even after sitting for 20 minutes. I would probably search for a different recipe in the future.

The mashed potatoes are this recipe, subbing plain soy milk and Earth Balance Whipped (we hardly ever buy the regular Earth Balance, as we like the texture of the Whipped one, or even of Soy Garden, better...plus, EB Whipped is organic and regular EB is not). The gravy is just the Pacific Foods brand mushroom gravy. I bought the small box of it after Thanksgiving when it was on sale, but it's just been sitting in the fridge ever since. I don't often have a need for brown gravy, so I'm not entirely sure why I bought it.

The green beans are actually from my boyfriend's parents' garden. His momma cans the beans each year. They're so good!

I made a really stupid mistake with the biscuits, hence their lack of fluffiness. My biscuit recipe calls for self-rising flour, and I always sub regular flour with added baking powder and salt. This time, it wasn't until I'd mixed the soy milk into the flour and shortening mixture that I realized I'd forgotten said baking powder and salt. I kneaded it into the dough, but it just wasn't the same. Woopsie.

These are Fig Not-Ins from Vegan with a Vengeance. Before cooking the filling on the stove, I ran it through the food processor. I didn't have quite enough figs, and I wanted them to have a raspberry flavor, too, so I added some raspberry jam to the mixture. It worked nicely! The cookie part is a little harder that I recall Fig Newtons being, but these are still very good. They sure aren't the easiest cookies to put together, though.

lolo's Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan

2007-03-17T20:55:00.000-04:00

lolo over at the ppk posted about this Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan. She posted the recipe on her blog, VeganYumYum, and I had all of the ingredients, so I just had to try it. In case you can't tell, I made a batch of seitan recently and I've been trying to use it up. I couldn't decide which of these pictures I preferred, so I posted both.
This was pretty good. I definitely liked the method for making seitan crispy and will try it again with other sauces as well. The sweet and sour sauce was a little vinegary for me, but I think that adding some apricot preserves to it next time will fix that. I also forgot to add the salt, so I'm sure that didn't help.

Another One From Vegan Planet

2007-03-13T13:07:00.000-04:00

The actual title of this recipe is "Baked Polenta with Red Beans and Fresh Tomato Salsa," only I used pinto beans and jarred salsa. I had a can of pinto beans on-hand, but only dried kidney beans and I hadn't planned ahead. Plus, pinto beans sounded like they went better with salsa than kidney beans would. I also left out the cilantro in the recipe, simply because I didn't have any, and instead of a small amount of scallions, I used a chopped yellow onion. This was really good. I was worried my boyfriend wouldn't like the polenta, as I fixed a dish using the polenta that comes in a tube a couple of years ago and he didn't care for that stuff that much. Turns out that he loves homemade polenta, though. Yay! Don't be fooled by the title of "baked polenta." You do bake it, but you cook it on the stove first, so you still have the 30-40 minutes of stirring. Now I know how to make grits from scratch, too! I would use white cornmeal for that, though.

Red Curry Seitan and Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

2007-03-12T16:50:00.000-04:00

This red curry seitan was such a simple "recipe" (I made it up on the fly). I cut up seitan into bite-size pieces and browned it over medium heat. I added chopped onions and a red bell pepper and cooked them until they were softened. I meant to add a can of straw mushrooms, but I managed to forget it despite the fact that I had it sitting out on the counter. I then whisked approx. 2 teaspoons of Thai Kitchen red curry paste (would cut that back a little next time) into one can of coconut milk. I added this mixture, along with some chopped fresh basil, to the pan of seitan and veggies and let cook until it was heated throughout. Except for the time it took to make to cook the brown rice, this was the fastest dinner I've made in awhile. We had enough for leftovers the next night, which was good because we got home from our day-trip to Atlanta pretty late.

My boyfriend took me to Atlanta this weekend as a belated Valentine's Day present (I was sick on Valentine's Day, so he couldn't surprise me then like he'd wanted to). We ate lunch at Soul Vegetarian, then went to Ikea, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods. At Ikea I got a large whisk (my other one was getting rusty in the handle, plus this new one is silicone-coated so that it won't scratch my pots), a mortar and pestle, a wok ($7!!!), and an apron (also $7!!!). We spent entirely too much money on food, but it was a fun trip. I long to have a Trader Joe's here.

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes, from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, of course. So cute! Cutting a Newman-O in half is not as easy as you'd think.

Jerk "Chicken" over Coconut Mashed Sweet Potatoes

2007-03-07T21:11:00.000-05:00

The other day I learned that these Morningstar Farms chik'n strips are actually made by Garden Protein International. I have been avoiding Morningstar Farms products for quite some time. For one thing, they make very few vegan products (check this out if you want to contact them to encourage them to cater more towards vegans), but they are also well known for using genetically modified soy. Upon reading on the Garden Protein website that their products are non-GMO, I decided to give these a try. I have mixed feelings on supporting Morningstar Farms. On the one hand, I am giving my money to a company that does things that I disagree with (not that there are many companies that I agree with 100%), but on the other hand, I feel like if vegans don't support new vegan products that come out, the food industry won't see a demand for them and we won't see many new vegan products in the future.

This product was just okay. I wasn't wowed by it, but it wasn't bad either. There is quite a bit of salt in it (but the only other salt I added to the dinner was in the sweet potatoes), but I often expect that from prepared products. Mainly we tried this out of curiosity. I like seitan better, and it's certainly cheaper to make.

I used the jerk marinade from the Millenium cookbook (the recipe was for Grilled Jerk Seitan, if you're looking for it), only I left out the cilantro because I didn't have any. I marinated the defrosted chick'n strips for about half an hour, then took them out of the marinade and cooked them on the stove along with the green peppers for a few minutes. I added the rest of the marinade to that and heated that up. The sweet potato recipe is the one that accompanies the Grilled Jerk Seitan recipe in the Millenium cookbook, although the book refers to them as yams. I never call them yams. The coconut mashed sweet potatoes were definitely my favorite part of this meal. I wish the picture had turned out better, but I didn't realize it wasn't a very good picture until after I'd eaten my dinner. Oops.

Seitan Nuggets

2007-03-06T10:08:00.000-05:00

Last week I bought these red potatoes at the produce market and knew that I wanted to roast them. It took me a little while to figure out what I wanted to serve with them, but I finally settled on these seitan nuggets (and green beans). I used the seitan recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, then cut the seitan into nugget-sizes and coated them in some seasoned flour. I let that dry for a few minutes, then dipped them in plain soymilk and then coated them in seasoned bread crumbs. We use the Edwards and Sons brand of bread crumbs. They are expensive, but last for quite awhile. It's so hard to find bread crumbs that aren't full of funk. Even the panko bread crumbs I found at the Asian market contained hydrogenated oil. No thanks! Anyhoo, I baked these nuggets at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, then flipped them over and baked for 10 minutes more. They turned out pretty good. I'm sure they would have gotten more of a crispy coating had I fried them, but I try to keep frying to a once-in-a-blue-moon sort of thing.

Chag Purim! (a little late)

2007-03-05T14:00:00.000-05:00

"Chag Purim" is "Purim Holiday" in Hebrew. Purim is a Jewish holiday celebrating when Queen Esther saved the Jewish people by foiling Haman's plot to kill all of the Jews (it is the story told in the Book of Esther). The cookies that you see above are called Hamantaschen. They are traditionally served on Purim. There is some confusion over just what the three-cornered cookies are supposed to symbolize. Some say it is Haman's hat, some say his ears, some say his pocket, and others say the name derives from something else entirely. Nonetheless, they are tasty cookies. This is the first time I made a vegan version. I used this recipe, only I creamed together the Earth Balance, sugar, and vanilla first, and replaced the 1/2 cup water with almond milk. I used an all-fruit raspberry jam and chocolate chips as the fillings. This recipe needs some tweaking, as the cookies spread a bit more in the oven than they should have (I'm thinking reducing the baking powder and using one or two "eggs" worth of Ener-G egg replacer might work), but they still taste very good.

The Conclusion of Vegan Planet Week

2007-03-05T13:54:00.000-05:00

This is Indonesian-Style Rice with Tempeh. The tempeh is crumbled up, which is why it's not really visible in the photo. This was my least favorite of all of the recipes from Vegan Planet that we tried last week. My boyfriend actually liked it quite a bit, though, so it might just be a personal preference and not a knock on the recipe. The recipe calls for one or two hot red peppers. Said red peppers were nowhere to be found in Knoxville last week, so I used two hot green peppers (I don't know exactly what variety they were...Kroger's doesn't seem to believe in accurately identifying their peppers). I couldn't decide if they were going to be more or less hot than the red peppers would have been. I wound up adding two peppers and I could barely detect any heat in the dish. Maybe the spiciness is what I was missing in this recipe.

Basic Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

2007-03-01T17:18:00.000-05:00

I am absolutely in love with this peanut butter frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. It's not too sweet like frosting so often is. I swear my boyfriend told me one day that he doesn't really like peanut butter mixed with chocolate, so I hadn't made these cupcakes even though I wanted to (I'm not going to make cupcakes if I don't have someone to help me eat them). Then one day he swore that he never said such a thing and that the cupcakes sounded tasty to him. And tasty they were. With the frosting not being too sweet this time, I can even eat a whole cupcake!

It's Vegan Planet week around here.

2007-03-01T17:05:00.000-05:00

Before we go grocery shopping on Sundays, I sit down and pick out a few recipes to make for the week. This week everything I picked was from Vegan Planet. On Sunday night we had Not-So-Dirty Rice, but I didn't take a picture of it because I've posted it on here before. We added mushrooms to it this time, which made it even more awesome. Have I mentioned how much we like mushrooms?

This is a Red Bean and Sweet Potato Curry served over brown rice. It uses curry powder, so it's not exactly an authentic curry, but it was simple to make and pretty tasty. The recipe suggests pureeing a portion of it and then mixing it back in if you like a creamier sauce. I might try that in the future (I was in a hurry the night I made this).

This one is Tofu and Vegetable Lo Mein. I hadn't had snow peas in a very long time and had forgotten how good they were. The recipe said to use either eggless Chinese noodles (that's not very specific...I'm pretty sure there are different kinds of Chinese noodles) or linguine. I went with whole wheat spaghetti since I already had it on-hand. There is shredded cabbage hiding in there, even though you can't really see it. I have no desire to sit there and actually shred cabbage, so I just buy it already shredded for coleslaw. The lo mein was good and, like the other recipes above, simple to prepare. I haven't really come across anything in Vegan Planet thus far that I've found to be complex to make. There will be another recipe from the book coming up here. I think it was an Indonesian rice dish that I picked out.

Cheddar Biscuits!

2007-03-01T16:57:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to make some sort of cheddar biscuit for awhile, and I finally got around to doing it. I used Follow Your Heart cheddar for this, and was surprised at the results (seeing as how I don't think the FYH cheddar tastes like much of anything at all). I used the biscuit recipe my boyfriend's momma gave me, but added 1/2 cup flour and 3/4 teaspoon of baking powder to make up for the extra liquid I would be adding with the melted soy cheese. I didn't think the soy cheese would melt into the biscuits very well if I didn't melt it ahead of time. I melted a cup of shredded cheddar soy cheese into about 1/4 cup of plain soymilk on the stove and added 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast for some extra cheesy flavor. I prepared the biscuits as directed in the original recipe and added the melted soy cheese mixture along with the "buttermilk". I followed the original recipe for baking them. They didn't turn out as fluffy as their predecessors, but were still pretty good.

Chickpea Broccoli Casserole and White Bean and Roasted Garlic Soup

2007-02-21T20:01:00.000-05:00

Both of these recipes are from Vegan With a Vengeance. I really really really wanted to like this chickpea broccoli casserole. I love chickpeas, broccoli, and onions, so what's not to love? I don't know....this just didn't do it for me. It was too dry, but that part might have been my fault. I cooked up some dried chickpeas for this. Maybe using those rather than canned ones meant I should have added more broth to the recipe. I'm not sure. This recipe doesn't call for much of anything in the way of spices. The blurb above the recipe recommends trying it as is first to see if you like it, before doctoring it up. If I make it again, it definitely needs to be doctored up for me. I later put some cheesy sauce on top just to add a little something. I suppose it had to happen sometime that there would be a recipe in VWAV that didn't rock my world.

P.S. I still love you, Isa. No hard feelings.

White bean and roasted garlic soup is SO good...and easy, too! I love roasting my own garlic, as our apartment smells wonderful now. After I had my wisdom teeth removed about a year ago, I was really burned out on soup for awhile. I am glad I am past that now. Now the problem is that it's starting to get too warm here for soup. I chose to pretend that it wasn't 60 degrees out today, as I really wanted to try this soup.

Jewish Cookies!!!

2007-02-21T19:50:00.000-05:00

I was at Ross recently, just wandering around, and I spotted these awesome cookie cutters on clearance. They were only 99 cents! There is a Chai (Hebrew word for living), Star of David, Torah, menorah, dreidel, Kiddish (prayer over wine) cup, and a shofar (ram's horn...I like my vegan version much better).

With my new cookie cutters, I just HAD to make some sugar cookies. I used NoWhey's recipe from the PPK. I used Ener-G as the egg replacer. Normally I use flax seeds as my egg replacer, but that doesn't work for sugar cookies (unless you like little brown flecks in your sugar cookies). Later I dipped these in a chocolate ganache, but somehow I never got around to taking pictures of the chocolate-covered cookies.

Lots O' Food

2007-02-19T17:57:00.000-05:00

Valentine's Day dessert. Brownies from theppk.com and caramel sauce from the Vegan Chef (the recipe is on there as Vegan Caramel Sauce...the site doesn't let me directly link to the recipe). I've made the caramel sauce before and really like it. This time I used dark brown sugar by Wholesome Sweeteners. I think I liked it a little better with a lighter brown sugar, but it was still good. The brownie recipe was a little too cakey for me, but I am generally a fan of fudgy, non-cakey brownies, so that doesn't mean anything was wrong with the brownies. And I could ignore the cakey-ness with the sauce on top!

Jerk Seitan, from Vegan With a Vengeance. Not a pretty picture, but a tasty dish. Green peppers + onions = mmmmm. I made the seitan from scratch. I used the other half of the batch for spring rolls on Valentine's Day. Why I didn't take pictures of said spring rolls, I don't know.

Stuffed Shells. We love these and I've made them several times, but just as I was about to eat this last night, it occurred to me that I've never taken a picture. I don't follow an exact recipe. It's loosely based on the Baked Stuffed Shells recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook (well, I follow the baking instructions, at least). We like soy cheese melted on top, but this is only baked at 350 degrees. It's hard to get soy cheese to melt at that low of a temperature. I heat some plain soymilk on the stovetop, whisk in the grated soy cheese and whisk until it is melted (I also added in a bit of nutritional yeast, since the soy milk tones down the soy cheesiness a bit). Once the soy cheese is melted, I add a couple of tablespoons of flour and whisk until the mixture thickens. I then pour the mixture over the stuffed shells. You can see some of the cheesy sauce on the left side of the picture.

Black-Eyed Pea and Quinoa Croquettes with Mushroom Sauce

2007-02-08T21:07:00.000-05:00

Yet another fabulous recipe from Vegan With a Vengeance. The mushroom sauce is particularly awesome. The croquettes were fun to make, and I like how the bread crumbs on them make them look like toasted coconut-covered marshmallows. I hadn't made quinoa in a longgggg time, but this recipe reminded me of how much I like it. It has much more protein and calcium than most other grains, so I definitely need to start using it more often.

Teriyaki Tofu (Take 2)

2007-02-08T21:02:00.000-05:00

This is more of a product review than anything else, as I've posted a teriyaki tofu stir-fry on here before. This time I marinated the tofu in Soy Vay's Veri Veri Teriyaki sauce, then baked it according to the instructions for the Asian-marinated tofu in Vegan With a Vengeance. Please ignore the veggies underneath the tofu; that's certainly the last time I buy the Kroger brand of mixed veggies! Anyhoo, we've been wanting to try the Soy Vay teriyaki sauce for quite awhile and finally bought a bottle last weekend. It's not bad, but I found it a little too salty. There is also quite a bit of sugar in it. You could really tell how sugary it was after baking the marinated tofu, as a lot of the sugar caramelized on the tofu and the pan. I liked all of the sesame seeds in the sauce, but overall, I don't think this was really worth the money and don't plan on buying it again. They still get credit for a cute brand name, though.

Brooklyn Pad Thai and Quiche....I think

2007-02-07T16:39:00.000-05:00

This is the Brooklyn Pad Thai from Vegan With a Vengeance. Sorry the tofu looks kind of weird. We have established that my boyfriend likes the texture better of tofu that has been frozen (and then, of course, defrosted), but clearly I have not gotten the hang of this. I can't seem to do it without the tofu getting all crumbly. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Despite my crumbly tofu, this was good. Spicy, but not too spicy. I halved the recipe and it still made a ton (way more than the 2 servings that half of the recipe should have been).

This is the quiche recipe from Celine's blog, but with mushrooms added (and green onions instead of chives because apparently the cultural mecca that is Knoxville does not choose to recognize the existence of chives). Hers is much prettier to look at than mine. I've never had quiche before, so I really have no clue, but I think it should have firmed up more than it did. This wound up being really rich. Is cheesy quiche normally so rich? There's nothing wrong with rich food, it's just not my cup of tea. If I try to make a vegan quiche again, I will probably try it with tofu. It seems like it would be firmer that way. Oh well, new recipes are fun to try anyway!

Mustard-Battered Tofu, Baked Risotto, and Green Beans

2007-01-31T08:28:00.000-05:00

The recipe for the tofu can be found here, but in case you don't feel like clicking on the link:

Mustard-Battered Tofu

1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. garlic powder
2 cups unbleached white flour or whole wheat pastry
4 Tbsp. nutritional yeast (optional)
3 Tbsp. yellow mustard
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp. baking powder
2 to 3 lb. tofu
3 1/2 cups vegetable oil

• Mix together the salt, onion powder, pepper, garlic powder, flour, and nutritional yeast in a deep bowl.
• In a separate bowl, dilute the mustard with 1/2 cup water.
• Add 1/3 cup of the flour mixture to the mustard mixture and stir. Add the baking powder to the dry flour mixture and mix.
• Dip chunks of the mock chicken into the mustard batter, then drop each chunk into the flour mixture and coat with the desired amount of “crust.”
• Fry the chunks in hot oil on medium-high heat in a large skillet or deep fryer until crispy and golden brown, turning as needed.

I didn't use any nutritional yeast in mine, simply because I was all out of it. I only used one package of tofu (which I'd frozen and then defrosted), and I definitely should have halved the rest of the ingredients. This was really tasty, though, and it doesn't have a really strong mustard-y flavor. Shortly after this picture was taken, I dipped my tofu in ketchup. Mmmmm mustard and ketchup. My boyfriend willingly took all of the leftovers for lunch today, so I give this two thumbs up.

The baked risotto is from Nava Atlas's The Vegetarian Family Cookbook (you can see a little bit of the cookbook peaking out of the top of the picture--woopsie). This recipe was so much easier than making risotto the traditional way. Honestly, the one time I made it "traditionally" before, I didn't really like it. That was just me being picky, though, as I don't really like creamy non-dessert stuff all that much. I still had arborio rice to use up, though, and noticed this recipe and thought I'd give it a try. It bakes for an hour, stirring every 15 minutes. At first I thought it wasn't going to work at all, as the first couple of times I stirred it looked remarkably like it had when I first put it in the oven. The last time I stirred, though, it had magically turned into something resembling risotto. I thought it was going to be a little too liquidy, so when I was supposed to add a cup of water at the last stirring, I only added half a cup. It's really thick now, so I probably should have followed the directions, but honestly I kind of liked the texture better than the previous time I'd made risotto.

The green beans are nothing special. They are organic ones from a can. I added black pepper and a bit of liquid smoke. They're actually pretty good for beans from a can.

Double Mushroom Barley Soup

2007-01-22T09:29:00.000-05:00

Yet another recipe from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure. This was, of course, delicious. I originally had checked this book out of the library to make sure that I liked it. I have fallen in love with it and gone ahead and bought it. I highly recommend it. The double mushrooms in this soup are buttons and dried shiitake. After we spent entirely too much money on the shiitake mushrooms at the health food store, we just happened to go to an Asian grocery store the next day and found them for MUCH cheaper. Lesson learned. I also found vegan spring roll wrappers there, which I am very excited about, but have yet to use.

Chocolate Cupcakes!

2007-01-19T18:33:00.000-05:00

This is a basic chocolate cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I haven't actually eaten one yet, as I'm saving it for dessert, but I had a bit of the frosting and mmmmmm. The top of the frosting reminds me of a kewpie doll. I finally made was able to use my pastry bag without any catastrophes (I'm still not very good at it, but at least I didn't wind up with a big glop of frosting like I usually do). I got new cupcake liners yesterday. I know that you can't see it very well, but it has these hippie-looking flowers on it. So cute!

Potatoes and Onions, Thai Style

2007-01-18T21:19:00.000-05:00

This is another (hit) recipe from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure. Potatoes and onions, what's not to love? After it was done cooking, I added some Lightlife Chick'n Strips to make it a meal. It's cooked in coconut milk. My boyfriend said that the texture was pretty close to clam chowder. I wouldn't know, as I've never had clam chowder (or any other kind of shellfish), but now I want to play with the basic recipe to make it into some kind of chowder. I'll never really know if it tastes like clam chowder or not. I guess my boyfriend will have to be the taste tester on that one.

Fluffy "Buttermilk" Biscuits

2007-01-15T20:27:00.000-05:00

This is another recipe from my boyfriend's momma. I am forever in her debt for teaching me to make some decent biscuits. Mine were always kind of hard and dense before, but not now! Folding them over several times while rolling them out really is the trick.

Homemade "Buttermilk" Biscuits

2 cups self-rising flour (sifted) (I subbed 2 cups all purpose flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt)
¼ cup shortening (I used the spectrum stuff and it worked great)
¾ cup "buttermilk" (soymilk + vinegar)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Place sifted flour into bowl, add shortening and use pastry blender or fork to cut shortening into small particles.
Add "buttermilk" a little at a time until a medium-soft dough is formed. (More may be needed if dough is too hard.)
Turn out onto floured surface, and dust with more flour. Pat with hands to form ball. For flat biscuits, roll out and cut. For tall biscuits, fold dough in half and pat down about 3 or 4 times then roll out and cut. Place in pan with edges touching. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 – 13 minutes or until golden brown. Yum!!

Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies

2007-01-15T20:18:00.000-05:00

Another cookie recipe from Vive le Vegan. I've made these many times before; they are really awesome. We were grocery shopping this weekend and we walked past the maple syrup. My boyfriend asked if I needed any. I said I was all out, but that it's expensive so it could wait until I really needed it for something. "Or...we could have some more cookies." So the maple syrup went into the cart. And the rest is history.

Caribbean Beans and Rice

2007-01-15T20:09:00.000-05:00

This was the first dish we made using the pressure cooker my boyfriend got me for Hanukkah. I must admit that even though I am the one who asked for a pressure cooker, I was scared to use it. Have I mentioned that I scare really really easily? This recipe came from Lorna Sass's Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure. If this recipe is any indication of the quality of the rest of the book, it is an AWESOME cookbook. We absolutely loved this dish. I think it was one of my favorite dinners yet. I thought I was going to find black-eyed peas to be an odd addition to a Caribbean dish, but they were really good. The only substitution I made in the recipe was to use two jalapeños instead of a red chili pepper, but that was because I already had the jalapeños on hand and needed to use them up.

Broccoli-Mushroom Casserole

2007-01-15T20:00:00.000-05:00

As promised, this is the recipe I shared for the Recipe Exchange. It is actually my boyfriend's momma's recipe. She has made it for years in a non-vegan version. When we were visiting for the holidays, she veganized it for me. I liked it so much that she gave me the recipe for it. The casserole in the picture does not have any soy cheese on it, as I was all out. I liked it just as much without the soy cheese, though.

Broccoli-Mushroom Casserole

5 tbsp. Earth Balance, divided
1/3 cup diced onions
1/2 pound fresh mushrooms - sliced
White pepper, to taste
Garlic powder, to taste
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. cooking sherry (optional)
1/4^th cup all purpose flour
2 cups plain soy milk
1 cup raw rice, cooked according to package directions
16 oz. fresh or frozen broccoli, cooked until tender
1 cup vegan soy cheese (mozzarella or cheddar style), optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sprinkle onions and mushrooms with garlic powder, white pepper and salt, then sauté in 3 tbsp. Earth Balance and 1 tbsp. cooking sherry until onions are tender.

In saucepan, melt 2 tbsp. of Earth Balance, remove from heat and add ¼ cup flour. Stir until blended, it may be lumpy. Add 2 cups soy milk a little at a time, stirring with whisk until smooth. Return to medium heat and stir until thickened. Add mushroom mixture to sauce and stir to combine.

In large bowl, combine rice, broccoli, 1 tsp. salt and sauce. Pour into large casserole dish and sprinkle with soy cheese. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes or until bubbly.

Recipe Exchange

2007-01-12T10:35:00.000-05:00

A couple of days ago I received this email about a recipe exchange:

You have been invited to participate in a recipe exchange. (for the 2 names above, vegan recipes or non-meat, vegetarian recipes, thanks!)

Please send a recipe to the person whose name is in the number one position above (even if you do not know her or him), preferably something quick and easy without too many ingredients.

Then copy this letter into a new email, move my name to the number one position, and put your name in the number two position. Only your name and mine should appear on the list when you send out your email. Send the email to ten people. If you cannot do this within seven days, please let me know so it will be fair to those participating. You should receive 36 recipes.It is fun to see where these recipes come from. Seldom does anyone drop out because we can all use recipes. The turnaround is fast because there are only two names on the list. Bon Appetite!

I have enough people now and sent off my email--thanks!

Bagel (soy) dogs!

2007-01-09T20:40:00.000-05:00

I saw these bagel dogs on bunnyfoot's blog and I just had to try them. They are so cute (and tasty)! I was thinking that my package of Yves' veggie dogs had eight links in them, but after I'd already divided the dough in eight parts, I realized there were only six in the package. Hence the twist of bagel dough you see in the picture. The success of the bagel dogs has boosted my confidence to actually try making bagels. I promised my boyfriend a couple of months ago that I would make some. I should probably deliver on that promise.

Coconut Lime Cookies

2007-01-09T20:34:00.000-05:00

One word sums up these cookies: yum! The recipe is from Dreena Burton's Vive le Vegan and boy are these some addictive cookies (especially for my boyfriend. He would close the container and tell me he was done, then I'd turn around a little while later and catch him eating another one). They are light and fluffy cookies. My boyfriend dubbed them albino cookies, as he said he'd never seen a cookie turn out so "white." We're weird, what can I say? We are also in love with the chocolate chip cookie recipe from Vive le Vegan. Boy does Dreena know how to make some awesome cookies. My only complaint is that they tend to use quite a bit of maple syrup. She's Canadian, so I want to say that maple syrup is just cheaper there, but she lives in British Columbia and I've never known that province to be famous for it's maple syrup or anything. Then again, I've never been there, so what do I know?

General Tao's Tofu

2007-01-07T18:16:00.000-05:00

This recipe received such rave reviews on vegweb that we just had to try it. I doubled the sauce because I reallyyyy like sauce. It was really good, but I highly recommend cutting back on the sugar. I didn't use as much sugar as the recipe called for and I still thought it was a bit too sweet. For the tofu, I used frozen tofu for the first time. I don't normally plan meals far enough in advance to have time to freeze and then thaw out the tofu, but I finally got around to trying it. I thought the texture was a little odd, somewhere between springy and gummy, but my boyfriend said he actually liked the texture. He also said that this meal got two thumbs up from a carnivore (his words, not mine....technically he'd be an omnivore).

Posole and Beer Bread

2007-01-07T17:58:00.000-05:00

The posole recipe came from Lorna Sass's Short-Cut Vegetarian. This might be one of the easiest dinners I've ever cooked. It's sort of a stew (with tomatoes, hominy, black beans, and corn along with some spices). Apparently posole is another name for hominy, although I'd never heard that name before reading it in the cookbook.

The beer bread was another incredibly simple recipe to go with the posole stew (I really feel the need to add the word "stew" to the recipe's name, as it's more than just hominy). I found the recipe here. I used one of the beers my boyfriend had in the fridge, which was an ice brew. I thought that was synonymous with light beer, but apparently it is not. I could kind of taste the bitterness of the beer, but my boyfriend said that ice brews have a slightly higher alcohol content. We'll have to try this again with a "better" beer. The crust got kind of hard, but it was still soft inside. Maybe I'll just turn the oven down a bit next time.

Time Warp Lemon Squares

2007-01-07T17:50:00.000-05:00

These were tastier than they look, I promise. The recipe is courtesy of vegweb. They weren't a pretty yellow color because I used flax as the egg replacer. I'm sure Ener-G would have made them look prettier, but I don't normally use the stuff. It's so pricey. I would maybe buy some to use in recipes like this if they came in tiny boxes for a reasonable amount of money, but I don't want to spend more than $5/box for something that's going to just sit in the pantry for years.
I recently read that to help clean the microwave, you should boil some water in it for a couple of minutes. It helps loosen up the icky stuff stuck in there. To make it smell good, you can add lemon slices to the water, so that's what I did with the lemons after I was done squeezing and zesting them.

Bryanna's Soy Nog Muffins

2007-01-07T17:42:00.000-05:00

I kept hearing such good things about soy nog (especially the Silk brand), so I really wanted to try some. Now, I've never had egg nog either, but I was disappointed with the stuff. To me, it had an odd banana-ish flavor that I wasn't expecting. I didn't want to be wasteful and just pour the stuff down the drain, so I was excited when Bryanna posted this recipe for some vegan eggnog muffins. I left the cranberries and pecans out of mine because 1) I'm picky and 2) I didn't have any. My topping wasn't as pretty as hers because I was out of Earth Balance and Smart Balance Light does not create a crumbly topping. It was still tasty, though.