Eat Air - A Vegan Food Log

Product Review: Curry Love

2009-07-07T21:58:00.004-04:00

We love curries and we're also all about convenience these days so we were thrilled to have a chance to review these new simmer sauces from Curry Love. They're vegan and organic and come in three varieties: banana ginger, red Thai, and yellow Thai. The general idea is to sauté some veggies, pour in the sauce and simmer for a few minutes. The Curry Love folks offer a wealth of recipes on their web site but alas, only one of them is vegan. At any rate, we've been getting a lot of great fresh vegetables from our CSA and we're always in a hurry so we mostly kept it simple. First up we tried the yellow Thai curry with cauliflower, zucchini and seitan. I sautéed the veggies and seitan in a little oil for a few minutes then added the curry sauce, covered the pot and simmered until the veggies were tender. The result was a very quick meal that tasted like it took a lot longer to prepare.

Next up we tried the red Thai curry, opting to do something similar and have it with broccoli and seitan. This was my favorite of the lot, with a variety of subtle flavors and a nice little kick.

Finally, we had the banana ginger curry using just a slew of veggies (some from the CSA and some not): yellow squash, kale, carrots, red bell pepper and onions. Plus pineapple - always good in a curry I think. (Fresh pineapple would've been best but I opted for the convenience of canned.)

Overall we definitely enjoyed our Curry Love experience. We especially appreciated the convenience. It's great to see new products like this come out that are specifically labeled as vegan (though more vegan recipes on their web site wouldn't hurt).

Pasta Stir Fry with Beet Greens

2009-06-27T21:27:00.004-04:00

We've gotten beets several times from our CSA and thankfully the greens have always been included. You can use beet greens in any recipe that calls for greens. They're a little more delicate than kale or collards, though they don't cook quite as fast as spinach. We got shiitake mushrooms once too so I threw together this stir fry one night and we had it with pasta.

1 lb. pasta, cooked
2 Tbs. peanut oil
1 carrot, sliced diagonally
1 bunch beet greens, sliced
3 oz. shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 spring onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp. minced ginger
cilantro for garnish

For the sauce, whisk all this together in a small bowl:
1 c. veg. broth
1 Tbs. rice vinegar
2 Tbs. soy sauce
2 tsp. maple syrup
1 Tbs. cornstarch

Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a large wok or skillet. Add carrot and cook for 2-3 minutes stirring frequently. Add beet greens and mushrooms and cook several more minutes until all the veggies are starting to get tender. Add onion, garlic and ginger and cook for another minute. Stir in the sauce and cook just until it starts to thicken. Finally, add the pasta, mix well and turn off the heat. Serve garnished with chopped cilantro.

Lettuce Wraps

2009-06-21T21:23:00.002-04:00

Almost every week so far from our CSA we've gotten two heads of Bibb lettuce. So yes, we've been eating a lot of salads but we also realized early on that the shape of this stuff lends itself perfectly to lettuce wraps. The first time we did them they were totally raw, the next time the filling was cooked. The raw filling recipe we used was the Garden Pate from Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. We found this book at our library a while ago and really enjoyed this recipe so I wrote down the ingredient list. I don't remember if there were more detailed instructions but all I do is buzz all this stuff in a food processor until it's well blended:

1 c. raw almonds, soaked in water for several hours then drained
1 Tbs. minced fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp. salt
3 carrots
2 stalks celery
1/4 c. chopped onion
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
1/2 c. raisins

We also did lettuce wraps with tempeh. I went the quick route and didn't marinate the tempeh first but you might consider marinating it in the soy sauce/maple syrup/lime juice/chili paste mixture. You can use the other half can of bamboo shoots in a stir fry another time.

Tempeh Lettuce Wraps

1 Tbs. peanut oil
1 can water chestnuts
1/2 can bamboo shoots
1 stalk celery
1 medium carrot
8 oz. package tempeh
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp. minced fresh ginger
3 Tbs. soy sauce
1 Tbs. maple syrup
1 Tbs. lime juice
1/4 tsp. chili paste
2 Tbs. chopped cilantro
1 tsp. sesame oil

Cut the water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, celery, carrot and tempeh into a small dice. Heat the peanut oil in a large skilllet or wok and cook all of the above for 5-10 minutes until the tempeh is starting to brown. Add the ginger and garlic and cook another minute. Then add the soy sauce, maple syrup, lime juice and chili paste and cook several more minutes until most of the liquid is absorbed. Turn off heat and stir in the cilantro and sesame oil. Serve wrapped in lettuce leaves.

Product Review: WK Pacs (or Indian cooking made easy)

2009-06-17T22:15:00.004-04:00

Recently the folks at Waverly Kitchens asked if we'd like to sample their WK Pacs, which provide a foolproof way to create an authentic Indian meal at home. Not being ones to ever turn down a good Indian meal we were happy to oblige. The WK Pacs include the spices and instructions you need to cook your own three course Indian meal. Ours included the Chola (chickpeas), Potatoes & Peas (a sabji, or dry vegetable dish) and a Spinach Raita (yogurt dish, or soy yogurt in this case).

I've dabbled in Indian cooking before and have even learned some tips from Indian friends in the past but this was probably the most authentic tasting Indian meal I've made. It's all in the spices and that's what you get from the WK Pacs. Plus a shopping list and straightforward instructions. Honestly, I'm not sure if we'll sign up for a subscription but this allowed us to enjoy a great home-cooked Indian meal and there's certainly something appealing about doing that every month.

Back Soon!

2009-06-13T20:10:00.004-04:00

I've decided to end the hiatus so I hope we have some readers still out there. Within a week of putting the blog on hiatus we decided to sign up for a CSA for the first time and I've really been wanting to write about the produce we're getting and what we've been doing with it. For starters, we've been getting a lot of lettuce and some nights we'll just have a big salad for dinner. Like this one with two kinds of lettuce, arugula, spinach and radishes all from the CSA, plus carrots and Tofurkey sausages.

We've also done lettuce wraps a couple of different ways. Stay tuned for recipes. Another thing that has inspired me (and all the rest of the vegan world) to cook recently is the release of Vegan Brunch. I'm hoping to find time to delve more deeply into this incredible book but not long ago I did manage to make an awesome tofu omelet with spinach and mushrooms.

Finally, we've had the opportunity to review some cool new products recently so stay tuned for some product review posts as well. Our little guy is 13 months old now and keeping us as busy as ever but I'm hoping to get posts up at least a few times a month. Thanks for sticking around!

Seitan, Mushroom and Veggie Stew

2009-03-29T12:26:00.000-04:00

First things first. A recipe will follow but the main point of this post is to announce that I'm putting the blog on hiatus for an indefinite period. This is our 600th post but it'll also be the last for a while. It took two years to get to 500 posts and another year and a half to get another hundred up. Which says something about the amount of time we have now. Not that quantity is more important than quality, but I'm having a harder time with the quality these days too. I'm generally happy with most of the recent posts but I'm struggling more to come up with creative ideas for posts and more importantly, to find the time to actually execute those ideas. Most of our meals lately are repeats of things that have already been posted here. I do have a number of ideas rattling around my brain and I hope to eventually find the time for them. Maybe as I do I'll save them and get back to posting once I have some things in the can.

At any rate, a huge thank you to all our readers for the comments and inspiration these last 3+ years. Keep us in your feed readers or otherwise stay tuned - I hope we'll be back here in the near future. (We're not totally done with blogging either because Darlene is about to start a mommy blog - if you're interested in that, she'll be here.)

Now for the recipe - I had some seitan patties that were seasoned in sort of an Italian sausage style and I was looking for a way to use them. When I went to our local produce market I found some nice broccoli and yellow squash, and also a decent deal on dried porcini mushrooms, so here's what I came up with.

1 c. dried porcini mushrooms
1 c. boiling water
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 lb. seitan, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. dried marjoram
1/2 ts. dried basil
2 roma tomatoes, diced
1/4 c. red wine
1 medium yellow squash, quartered and sliced
2 c. broccoli florets
1/2 tsp. salt or to taste
fresh ground pepper to taste

In a small bowl, pour boiling water over porcinis, let stand for 15-20 minutes, then drain and dice mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid. Meanwhile, in a large pot, cook onion in olive oil over medium heat for a minute or two then add seitan. Cook for several more minutes until seitan and onion are starting to brown a little then add garlic, marjoram and basil and cook another minute. Add tomatoes and wine and cook a couple more minutes, then add squash, broccoli, salt & pepper, plus the mushrooms and their soaking liquid. Bring to a boil then cover, reduce heat and simmer until broccoli and squash are cooked to your liking, 5-10 minutes. Serve with rice or pasta.

Even Easier Curry

2009-03-20T22:14:00.004-04:00

A few months ago I posted about this curry recipe I saw on Good Eats. It was quick and easy but nowadays I'm always looking for quicker and easier. Thankfully an Indian market recently opened right next door to my office. It was there I found this chana masala spice mix.

We tried it once with chickpeas and tomatoes per the package instructions, but I also figured it would be good to use with the aforementioned curry recipe. Oh sure, grinding and/or mixing your own spices is really the way to go but that takes time. For this shortcut I minced a couple cloves of garlic and cooked that in oil with a couple teaspoons of the spice mixture for about 30 seconds. Then I added some frozen veggies and a can of chickpeas and cooked until they were heated through. I added soy yogurt at the end and we had our "curry" over brown rice. Quick and delicious!

Blueberry-Walnut Scones

2009-03-14T07:17:00.005-04:00

It was another morning where I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep, so I went into the kitchen to make something for breakfast. Something different from our usual oatmeal that is. My first thought was to make something fun we haven't tried before but with creativity lacking at 6 a.m. I turned to a tried and true recipe - scones from Vegan with a Vengeance. I jazzed them up a bit by adding blueberries and walnuts, the combination of which I think is quite delicious. So now I'm going to cheat a little (ok, a lot) by essentially just copying Isa's recipe here.

3 c. flour (I used 2 c. white and 1 c. whole wheat pastry)
2 Tbs. baking powder
1/4 c. sugar, plus extra for sprinkling on top
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 c. canola oil
1 1/4 c. soy milk + 2 tsp. cider vinegar
1 c. frozen blueberries (or fresh if you've got 'em)
3/4 c. chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 400° and lightly oil a sheet pan (or 2). Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl then gently mix in the soy milk/vinegar and canola oil. Now fold in the blueberries and walnuts. Drop by 1/4 cupfuls onto sheet pan, flatten the tops just a bit and sprinkle with a little sugar. Bake for 12-15 minutes until slightly browned on the bottom.

Cooking with Beer

2009-03-11T21:09:00.004-04:00

I'm not a huge beer drinker but I do like to toss back a cold one now and then. I think it's fun to cook with alcohol too, so when I saw the article on cooking with beer in the latest issue of Vegetarian Times I made it a point to try some of the recipes (4 of the 5 recipes are vegan too - bonus!). Plus this gave me an excuse to pick up a variety pack of local brew. A few days ago I made the Tempeh in Hearty Mushroom-Lager Sauce. It was simple to make and tasted amazing. Basically it's a mix of button and shiitake mushrooms simmered in beer with fried tempeh added at the end. We had it over red quinoa with some nice chard on the side (that I also simmered in beer).

Last night I made the Ale-Braised Cabbage with Leeks, and this was also a winner. Especially with tasty seitan patties on the side. I still have plenty of beer in the fridge so maybe I'll try the black bean chili next.

Food for Baby

2009-03-08T16:16:00.004-04:00

Our little one is eating more solids these days and we've been trying to make as much of his food as we can. We occasionally get the pre-packaged stuff but it's not that hard to make food for him ourselves. We buy organic fruits and veggies, fresh where we can but sometimes frozen, and cook them until soft. Then we puree them in a food processor and freeze individual portions in ice cube trays. We store the little cubes in a container in the freezer and then thaw one or two at a time in a ramekin with a bottle warmer (and when I say 'we' I mean the royal 'we' because it's mostly Darlene doing this).

What's been cool for us about doing this is that it's made us appreciate how tasty and beautiful plain unadulturated fruits and veggies can be. What we have on hand at the moment is shown below - apples, cherries, mango, pears, spinach, cauliflower, red lentils, sweet potatoes, carrots and red quinoa.

He's eaten all of these, though with varying degrees of enthusiasm. His favorite fruit is pears and his favorite veggie is sweet potatoes.

Vegan and Cheesey

2009-03-01T17:34:00.005-05:00

Not long ago a wonderful vegan friend gave us a gift certificate to Food Fight Grocery. It's the best gift we've received in a long time, and that includes what we got each other for Christmas. We got some yummy snacks (Tings are so addictive!) but perhaps what we were most excited about was the opportunity to try Sheese, the vegan cheese that everyone's talking (or blogging) about. We opted for the sharp cheddar style and the blue style and we already had in mind an application for each one. In the last post I mentioned that we had the cheddar style on a taco soup, but what we really wanted to do was make tacos. We also got a boxed taco filling mix from Food Fight so this was a super-easy weeknight meal. We toasted blue corn taco shells and added the taco filling along with salsa, shredded lettuce and shredded Sheese.

It's been a long time since either of us has had cheese but this stuff really reminded us of the dairy-based stuff (but without the cruelty). It shreds well and tastes great - in fact I'd go so far as to say it's hands down the best vegan cheese I've had.

Another obvious application is pizza. We weren't sure about how tasty the mozzarella style would be so we went the very non-traditional route. Neither of us were vegan in college and we both have had our fair share of Buffalo chicken wings in the past, especially since Darlene grew up in Western New York. Wings are frequently served with blue cheese dressing and we were seeking to create a similar flavor profile using the blue style Sheese. The sauce for our pizza was a mix of equal parts hot sauce and melted Earth Balance margarine. On top of that was some chicken-style seitan; more hot sauce went on top of that, and our pie was topped with the shredded Sheese. It didn't melt all that well but that didn't bother us because this was one awesome pizza! I had some dough and a little of the sauce left so I also made bread sticks topped with the sauce. Quite the fun and tasty meal!

A Week of Soup

2009-02-23T15:15:00.007-05:00

I have to start by giving credit where it's due because this was Darlene's idea. She thought the week of breakfast was fun and since it's winter it might also be fun to try a new soup recipe every night for a week. This started after she made a variation of the Pho recipe from Quick Fix Vegetarian. This recipe is itself a variation on a Vietnamese beef noodle soup, using seitan instead of beef. We didn't have seitan so she made a quick seitan batter (wheat gluten and water), then tore off little pieces and cooked them with the soup. She also added a can of coconut milk, which isn't authentic but sure was good.

The next night our fridge was looking sparse but we did have canned chickpeas so I made this chickpea soup recipe I found in a back issue of Vegetarian Times. It was fairly light, like more of a first course, but we had it with a salad and bread and it made an OK dinner. Here it's garnished with chopped parsley and chili oil.

We started next on a trio from Veganomicon. First up was the Spicy Peanut and Eggplant Soup. Only we couldn't find eggplant so we went with sweet potatoes instead. I know, sweet potatoes are quite different from eggplant but they really worked well with this peanut butter and tomato based soup.

Next it was a quick minestrone from Quick Fix Vegetarian. Honestly I've had better minestrone but this was thrown together quickly with canned tomatoes and chickpeas and frozen vegetables and it made for an easy weeknight meal.

Then it was back to Veganomicon for the Baked Potato and Greens Soup with Potato-Wedge Croutons. We baked the potatoes ahead of time so the soup came together fairly quickly, but it definitely took me longer than the 30 minutes suggested in the book. But I admit to being a rather slow cook. At any rate, it was worth it as this was an awesome potato soup with kale and earthy spices (I never would've thought to put fennel in potato soup). And the cornmeal-breaded and fried potato wedge on top was the perfect accompaniment.

The last in our V-con trio was the Ancho-Lentil Soup with Grilled Pineapple. I never would've thought to put pineapple in lentil soup either but it worked well. This was another weeknight meal so we simplified it considerably by skipping on the homemade ancho chile powder and just using store-bought chile powder. I'm sure it's much better with homemade but this was the quick version. It would also be better with fresh grilled pineapple but in our quick version we used canned pineapple that we sautéed in a little Earth Balance.

Last but certainly not least was the Taco Soup from Nava Atlas' Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for All Seasons. This is a newly released re-issue of her excellent book Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons. This particular recipe is not much different from a chili. It was excellent on its own, but was made even more so by the addition of some righteous vegan cheese. And that's a story for another post.

Brunch

2009-02-15T21:52:00.002-05:00

I'm finally getting around to posting about last weekend's brunch. When our baby was born, a number of friends from work brought dinners over for us. And nine months later we finally got around to returning the favor and feeding them. Here was the menu:

Praline Baked French Toast
Herb Roasted Potatoes
Roasted Asparagus
Tofu Scramble Caribbean Style
Seitan Breakfast Patties
Cranberry Crumb Muffins
Vanilla Scones / Chocolate Chip Scones

The French toast is a veganized Food Network recipe that we've posted about before and it definitely seemed to be a crowd favorite. The potatoes were Yukon golds roasted with olive oil, rosemary, salt & pepper, and the asparagus was roasted almost the same, sans rosemary.

My Sweet Vegan and Vegan with a Vengeance were the source for the muffin and scone recipes, respectively. And if you don't have either of these books, rush out to your nearest bookstore (or to Amazon) and buy them now. Go! For the scones I used the basic scone recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance, added the insides of a vanilla bean and a teaspoon of vanilla extract, then I divided the batter in half and added chocolate chips to one half.

I've posted about my seitan patties a number of times before and I'm always futzing with the recipe but I think I've settled on a definitive (for now) recipe for the breakfast-style patties:

3/4 c. + 2 Tbs. wheat gluten
1/4 c. chickpea flour
3 Tbs. nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. onion powder
1 1/2 tsp. ground sage
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/2 c. white beans (cooked or from a can)
3/4 c. water
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 Tbs. soy sauce

In a large bowl, mix together wheat gluten, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, salt, herbs and spices. In another bowl, mash the beans very well with a potato masher then mix in water, oil and soy sauce (you could do this in a blender too). Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mix very well then divide into 8 equal portions. If you have a kitchen scale now would be a good time to use it but if not you can just eyeball it. Form each portion into a thin 3" patty and place on parchment paper on a baking sheet. Bake at 350° for 15 minutes, flip patties then bake another 10 minutes. You could serve them straight from the oven but to bring them up to another level fry them in a little Earth Balance margarine for a couple minutes on each side first.

That brings me to the tofu scramble. In all the time I've been writing this blog I've never posted my tofu scramble recipe. That's in part because there are a bazillion tofu scramble recipes already on-line. And I think it's like what I've heard said about curry powder - that there are as many recipes for curry powder as there are cooks in India. I think there are also as many tofu scramble recipes as there are vegan cooks. All that said, here's how I like to do my tofu scramble and also how I changed it up for this brunch.

Basic Tofu Scramble

2 Tbs. olive oil
1 c. diced onion (1 small or half a large onion)
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 tsp. salt, or to taste
1 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. turmeric
fresh ground black pepper to taste
1 lb. firm or extra firm tofu, drained and pressed (or at least patted dry)
2 tsp. lemon juice
3 Tbs. nutritional yeast

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Add onion and cook until it starts getting soft, then add garlic, paprika, turmeric, salt & pepper and cook another minute or so. Add lemon juice and stir quickly then crumble tofu into the pan and stir well to coat with all the seasonings (it doesn't have to be finely crumbled - a few larger chunks are OK). Continue cooking and stirring occasionally for 6-8 minutes, then mix in nutritional yeast. Cook for another minute or two then remove from heat.

For Caribbean style replace the lemon juice with lime juice and add to the spices:
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/4 tsp. allspice

Then towards the end, stir in the following:
3 Tbs. diced mango
3 Tbs. diced papaya (or more mango)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 large carrot, shredded
2-3 Tbs. chopped cilantro

Not the best picture but here's how it looked for brunch.

3 Weeknight Meals

2009-02-08T20:26:00.007-05:00

As I was moving around some cookbooks and magazines the other day I came across an old issue of Vegetarian Times that had a section on "5 Weeknight Meals". And this must have been from back in the good 'ol days of Vegetarian Times because all five recipes were vegan. I thought it would be fun to get away from our old standbys and try some new recipes for a week. The only thing is, a couple of these recipes didn't seem to me to be as quick as promised so I only made three of them.

First up was a red lentil soup with spinach and cauliflower. The recipe called for parsnips and I couldn't find parsnips at the store but we did have cauliflower on hand so I thought, well... they're both white... I think I like cauliflower better anyway. I didn't quite make this in the less than 30 minutes that was indicated in the recipe but it was worth the extra time.

Next we tried a warm chickpea salad that we served over mesclun greens and this one was quick, easy and delicious. Quick because the main ingredients came from a can or jar - chickpeas, artichoke hearts and sun-dried tomatoes. Pretty much anything with artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes is a winner in my book.

And that brings us to the Seared Tofu with Orange Glaze. The recipe called for a side of watercress but we had collards instead. The tofu is just dipped in flour and pan fried, then the glaze that goes on top is reduced orange juice, soy sauce, sake, scallions and garlic. This was a simple and tasty way to cook tofu, one we'll have to file away for future reference.

Update: I didn't take the time to look up the recipes when I originally posted this but they're all on-line.

Red Lentil Soup
Warm Chickpea Salad
Seared Tofu with Orange Glaze

Follow me on Twitter?

2009-02-04T21:19:00.003-05:00

All the cool kids are using Twitter these days so I decided to jump on the bandwagon. It's kind of an experiment and for now I'm mainly using it as an extension of this blog. Either I don't have time to update the blog as often anymore or more likely, we're cooking things that just aren't very blog-worthy. I'll use the Twitter feed to post short but more frequent updates (that will most likely be all food-related). So follow me on Twitter if you want (@eatair) or just check the feed on the sidebar of the blog to see what we're up to food-wise (when we're not updating the blog).

Split Peas 2 Ways

2009-01-31T20:41:00.003-05:00

I know. I've been neglecting the blog. But it's been a lot of the same 'ol in our kitchen lately. The best I could come up with for this post is two disparate but delicious uses for the venerable split pea (both of which we've posted about in the past). The first thing that comes to mind when you think split peas is soup right? Last week I made a monster pot of split pea soup. We ate a bunch and froze some for later. I should write down the recipe too because it came out great. It was a fairly standard split pea soup but I added a package of Fakin' Bacon and also a little barley to give it some extra oompf.
We also had an Ethiopian meal again recently. A co-worker is moving and she gave me a barely used package of teff flour that she didn't want to pack. And the only thing I know how to do with teff is make injera. And in this case, three Ethiopian stews to accompany it. The injera and split pea alecha recipes were from Vegan Lunch Box, the collards were mostly following this recipe, and I sort of winged it on a spicy red lentil and tofu stew but it came out good.

Charlottesville Restaurant Update

2009-01-21T21:37:00.003-05:00

With apologies to those of you who aren't from around here (and that's probably the majority of you), I thought I'd spend some time updating our restaurant post. This was prompted by our first dinner out since before baby was born. The last time we ate out was right before he was born. We went to Mesob, our local Ethiopian place that is sadly no longer in business. That was over 8 months ago and it was high time to head out again, so for Darlene's birthday recently we got a babysitter and headed to the downtown mall.

When Himalayan Fusion first opened we looked at the menu and it didn't really strike our fancy. It looked mostly Indian and though there were a number of vegetarian dishes it didn't seem particularly vegan-friendly. We've walked by there countless times since then and we finally got around to scoping out the menu again over the holidays. To our delight, 6 or 7 of the vegetarian options said "vegan option" next to them so we made it a point to give this place a try. Not only does the menu list what entrees are vegan but our waiter was knowledgeable about what appetizers and breads were vegan (the samosas and pakoras, and only the roti for the breads). Darlene's Aloo Palak (spinach and potatoes) was excellent, as was the Nepali-style dal that I had. We'll definitely be heading back here when time and finances allow (which unfortunately could be months from now).

We also managed to go out to eat recently (with baby in tow) at Eppie's, also on the downtown mall. Again, we had glanced at their menu in the past and not thought much of it, but someone gave us a gift certificate there so we tried it out. This is more of a cafeteria-style place and the main draw for us was their vegetable plates. They have numerous "veggies" that you can get in various combinations. My first thought was, "well we're in the South so all their veggies probably have a ham hock in them", but their menu clearly indicates which veggies are vegan. We each got a 3-veggie plate so we sampled almost everything that was vegan: collard greens, broccoli, sweet potato, cole slaw, black beans and brown rice. It was mostly basic food but tasty and good to get such a variety all at once.

Since I don't have any food pictures for this post will you be satisfied with kitten pictures instead? This is Ginger, the latest addition to our family. (And yes, that's a baby toy she's playing with.)

4 meals inspired by 1 recipe

2009-01-13T21:46:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to trying another recipe from the Real Food Daily cookbook before it had to go back to the library. Back when I first posted about this book a commenter recommended the Ying and Yang salad so I looked it up and it sounded awful good. It's a big salad with raw red cabbage, napa cabbage, daikon, carrots and green onions and is topped with marinated baked tofu, sesame seeds and an outstanding peanut sauce. Like many other recipes in this book it was a little involved to put together but so worth it.

But what to do with all the leftover veggies? There was definitely a lot of cabbage left over. The first thing I thought about was this salad from a back issue of Vegetarian Times that we go back to on occasion. So I made the same salad from RFD but with the dressing and marinated tempeh from the VT recipe.

I really had a hankering for that peanut sauce again though so for a quick meal the next night we had pasta (whole wheat spaghetti in this case) with broccoli and that luscious peanut sauce.

And finally, I still needed to use up the rest of the cabbage so I made a bit of a German inspired meal - cabbage stewed with plenty of vinegar, and my bratwurst-style seitan patties (still a work in progress but these were petty good).

Another Week of Breakfast

2009-01-03T13:25:00.013-05:00

The last week of breakfast post was one of my favorites (and yours too), so I thought it'd be fun to do it again since I took off work for the holidays. I've been off since Christmas day but it took a couple days to get my bearings and I started last Saturday with miso soup. I used leftover mushroom soaking liquid from Christmas dinner, plus miso, silken tofu, brown rice and minced chives.

On Saturday night I made granola using my favorite Alton Brown recipe, so Sunday breakfast was granola with soy yogurt and homemade apple jam.

On Monday I made crepes. My German grandmother used to make me eierkuchen for breakfast when I was growing up (which literally translates into "egg cake"). This is similar to though a little thicker than a crepe, and is often served spread with jam and rolled up. For these I made a maple tofu cream with silken tofu, maple syrup and lime juice, and there was some more apple jam in there too - not exactly authentic but we enjoyed them.

Tuesday was seitan breakfast patties with hash browns and a bagel. The seitan patties were another variation on this recipe and I think I nailed it this time. I left out the apple and went back to using mashed white beans, plus I increased the salt to 1/2 tsp., the sage to 1 1/2 tsp. and the red pepper flakes to 1/2 tsp. After baking I also fried them in a little Earth Balance to get them nice and brown and crispy on the outside. If you want to see how I make my hash browns, it was my first ever attempt at a video.

On Wednesday I made Tangerine-Cinnamon Rolls. The last time we did this was on New Years Day 2007 and we thought about making this a New Years Day tradition but ended up doing it a day early.

On Thursday, New Years Day, we made Darlene's Paula Deen veganized Praline French Toast (I also added some chopped walnuts to the topping). This could easily become a New Years tradition too.

Finally, on Friday we had Sambhar with Idli, a South Indian soup and rice dumpling that can be eaten at any time of day. We've made both of these from scratch in the past but this was from packaged mixes that are available in any Indian market.

No donuts this time but we managed to do something different every day and also keep it different from what we did last time. So now you have 14 scrumptious vegan breakfast ideas.

Christmas Dinner 2008

2008-12-28T14:12:00.000-05:00

The Voluptuous Vegan served us well for last year's Christmas dinner and that Seitan Bourguignonne recipe has been on my list for a long time so there you go. We sort of followed the menu idea in the book, starting with a simple salad of mesclun, carrots and an orange champagne vinaigrette (which is a fancy way of saying I mixed Trader Joe's orange champagne vinegar with olive oil, mustard, salt & pepper). The menu suggestion is to serve the seitan with mashed potatoes and parsnips but I wasn't too keen on the look of the parsnips we found in the grocery store so I made mashed potatoes and celery root instead.

Speaking of the grocery store, the first thing that dawned on me, shortly after arriving, was that this is not an inexpensive meal. Start with the alcohol (red wine and mirin) and already we'd spent more than we do for most meals. Then there's the shiitake and porcini mushrooms (we subbed plain 'ol button 'shrooms for some of the shiitakes), and red bell pepper isn't cheap this time of year either. Having said all that though, this recipe makes a lot. We had it for dinner three nights in a row and there's still a little left over. Oh, and the flavor. Layer upon layer of rich complex flavor. Definitely something worthy of serving company. And worthy of a holiday meal too. Especially Christmas, what with the red pepper and green peas and all.

Quinoa with Seitan and Vegetables

2008-12-23T21:21:00.001-05:00

I've managed to check off at least a couple of things from my list. The Sauteed Seitan with Mushrooms and Spinach from Veganomicon made for a fairly simple but very delicious meal a few nights ago (sorry, no pictures of that one). I also went back to the test kitchen with my seitan patties this past weekend. This time it was for sort of a chorizo style, seasoned with smoked paprika, cumin, oregano, cayenne, fennel seed and garlic. And once I made the seitan the idea for this quinoa dish started formulating. Actually it was going to be a rice dish but we were out of white rice and I didn't feel like waiting for brown rice, so quinoa made a fine substitution. Here's how it went down.

1 lb. seitan
3 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 med. onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
pinch saffron
14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes
3/4 c. water
1 c. quinoa
1-2 c. broccoli florets
1/2 c. frozen peas
salt & pepper to taste

Short version: cook onion in 1 Tbs. olive oil; add garlic, thyme, paprika, saffron. Add remaining ingredients, bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes until liquid is absorbed. Meanwhile chop the seitan and fry in 2 Tbs. olive oil until nice and brown. Stir into the quinoa at the end.

To Do

2008-12-13T21:44:00.004-05:00

I know it's been a lot of the same 'ol same 'ol when the best thing I could come up with to post about was a tofu scramble. Actually I did manage to make the Pumpkin Baked Ziti from Veganomicon for a holiday potluck but I've already posted about that. So now I'm resorting to a post not about something I've cooked but about some things I'd like to cook. Maybe one of these days soon. In no particular order...

Seitan Bourguignonne from The Voluptuous Vegan. Might try this for Christmas dinner.
Sauteed Seitan with Mushrooms and Spinach from Veganomicon. Something fairly simple I might get to soon.
Cajun Meatloaf from Vegan Dad. Well, I'd really like to make almost everything that Vegan Dad posts.
Continue experimenting with my seitan patties.
Re-visit the Apple Uglies. But instead of apples use pears and ginger.
Delve more into the Real Food Daily cookbook. I checked it out from the library again but I've hardly touched it and now it's due in 3 days. Maybe I can renew it...
Another video. Any requests? Is anyone actually reading this?

So what's on your list?

Simple Wraps

2008-12-07T21:41:00.004-05:00

Are there any Annie's Goddess Dressing fans out there? Well here's an idea for you. Put some rice on a tortilla, add whatever veggies you like, slather on some Goddess dressing and roll it up. This was a quick meal from a few nights ago. I had already cooked brown rice and a couple sweet potatoes the night before. When it was time for dinner on this night, I started by cooking a couple chopped scallions and some garlic in olive oil in a cast iron skillet. Then I added a can of black beans and the sweet potatoes. I mashed this mixture up a little bit, cooked until it was heated through, then put it on whole wheat tortillas with the rice and Goddess dressing. If you're not a fan of the Goddess then pick your own personal favorite.

On another note, if you visit this blog in a web browser you may have noticed that I updated the template. When I did that, the blogroll and other links that used to be on the side went away. I added some links back based on what was in my Google reader but since I rarely use Google reader that wasn't an exhaustive list. So if there was a link to your blog there before and there's not one there now, my apologies - hopefully I'll get around to adding it again soon.
I'm still not totally happy with how the site looks so if I can ever find more time I'll probably keep futzing with it.

Thanksgiving Feast 2008

2008-11-29T07:36:00.006-05:00

How many of you out there in veg-land have had a Tofurkey on Thanksgiving? Or at any other time? I was just trying to remember Thanksgivings past and I realized this was at least our 12th vegan Thanksgiving meal (and there were one or two more that were vegetarian and possibly vegan). In all that time we'd never had a Tofurkey. Our centerpiece has most often been a layered vegetable pie of some sort but the point has always been to cook from scratch and highlight the vegetables. That can take a lot of time though, something that's in short supply this year. Now it's all about convenience so we went with the Tofurkey. We still spent some time in the kitchen cooking other dishes but not nearly as much time as in years past. The Tofurkey comes with stuffing and gravy, and to complement all that we also made roasted potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce and pumpkin cheesecake.

For the potatoes I just roasted Yukon golds with olive oil, rosemary, salt & pepper while the Tofurkey was cooking. Like the last 2 years, the cranberries were a modified Emeril recipe. I wanted to try at least one new recipe though so I made the Green Beans with Walnuts and Shallot Crisps from the latest issue of Vegetarian Times. These were definitely a step up from your standard green beans. And finally there was dessert! Darlene made her pumpkin cheesecake again this year and it was fabulous! (In fact we just had some for breakfast...)

Though I missed our over-the-top Thanksgiving meals from years past just a bit, the Tofurkey was pretty good and very easy to prepare. The Tofurkey itself, and the gravy in particular was a bit salty for our tastes but that's what happens when you don't control every aspect of your food preparation.

Dessert was a big highlight for us as always, but also for baby Jonas. No, it'll be a while before he has cheesecake but we did save a little of the plain pumpkin that went into the cheesecake and he thoroughly enjoyed it.

As for us, we thoroughly enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner and eating up the leftovers too. Including these waffles with cranberry sauce we had for breakfast yesterday. We hope you all had a happy vegan Thanksgiving!

Easy Curries

2008-11-23T08:43:00.003-05:00

Finding vegan recipes on the Food Network is a rare thing indeed but sometimes you find one that's super easy to veganize. This Vegetable Curry recipe from a past episode of Good Eats is a case in point. Just swap in soy yogurt and you're good to go. This comes together in a snap and the variations are endless. We followed the recipe as is once last week and last night we swapped the mixed vegetables with a bag of frozen chopped spinach and a can of chickpeas. Both variations were excellent.