Chipotle Basil Corn Chowder and Outrageously Easy Big Bread

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

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.

Fresh Blueberry Waffles with Lemon Icing

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.

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.

Hurry Up Alfredo

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.

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.

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.

More Test Recipes

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

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

Broccoli Almond Sweet and Sour Tofu

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).

Pasta Gremolata with Sundried Tomatoes and Garlic Breadcrumbs

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

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.

lolo's Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan

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.