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

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.

Leek and Bean Cassoulet With Biscuits

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.

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

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.

Chickpea Cutlets=Love

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.

Tamale Pie

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.

White Bean Burgers with Sautéed Mushrooms and Three Spice Potatoes

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

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.

Rainbow Rice and Beans

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

Chickpea Ratatouille

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

3-Bean TVP Chili

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

3-Bean TVP Chili
yield: 8 servings

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

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

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

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

Probably not very authentic Chana Masala with Seitan

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

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

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

Not Your Mama's Meatloaf

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

Another One From Vegan Planet

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.

It's Vegan Planet week around here.

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.

Chickpea Broccoli Casserole and White Bean and Roasted Garlic Soup

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.

Black-Eyed Pea and Quinoa Croquettes with Mushroom Sauce

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.

Caribbean Beans and Rice

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.

Posole and Beer Bread

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.

Chickpea Coconut Curry

I am the queen of accidentally making dishes too spicy. Oops. I based this recipe off of an eggplant coconut curry recipe I found on vegweb. I used mochi curry that I got in the bulk spice section of the health food store and two tablespoons full was entirely too much. Lesson learned. I cooked the onion in white wine just to use up some more of it, but I'm sure that wasn't necessary.

Chickpea Coconut Curry

2 cans (15 oz. each) chickpeas
1 can straw mushrooms
1 can baby corn
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 cup white wine
1 teaspoon red curry paste
1 tablespoon curry powder (or 2 if your curry powder is mild or you really like spicy food)
1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala
1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
3/4 cup coconut milk
fresh ground pepper, to taste

In large skillet over medium heat, cook onion in white wine until softened. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil (may have to increase heat to medium-high). Once boiling, lower heat and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes. Serve over rice.

This made a ton (I would say at least 8 servings), so you might want to halve the recipe if you're only cooking for two people or so. I was expecting the sauce to cook down more, but it really didn't.

Earth Fare, why must you taunt me?

I have made this dish before, but with some vegan feta that I found at our health food store. When I went in there the other day, though, said feta was nowhere to be found. There was no longer even a place for it. I'd already planned to make this dish, though, so I just wound up using some grated Follow Your Heart mozzarella. Since it was made on the stovetop, it melted pretty well. This time I was actually able to find affordable fresh basil to use, too.