BBQ Pomegranate Tofu and Mellow Millet Quinoa Pilaf

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

Pizza and Blueberry-Oatmeal Muffins

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

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

Blueberry-Oatmeal Muffins
Yield: 12 muffins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Probably not very authentic Chana Masala with Seitan

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

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

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

More Test Recipes

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

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

Not Your Mama's Meatloaf

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

BBQ Ribz

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

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

Calzones

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

Pepper-Crusted Tofu and Mac 'n Cheeze

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

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

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).

Jambalaya and Cookies

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

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

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.

Calcutta Curried Potatoes and Cinnamon Rolls

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

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

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

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

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

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.