despite the craziness, we have still been eating

I have had my face buried in textbooks and been so in my head lately, that I just haven't had much free fun time to catch up on everyone's blog or even update my own too often. Mad props to all my blog friends who have busier schedules than myself and still manage to keep up with our interactions. I need to pencil in my blog time, for sure!
This past weekend, although a very sad one, did include some good food. Since Jared and I couldn't officially celebrate our third wedding anniversary last Wednesday (since Jared was working), we ended up going to one of our favorite places, Doc Chey's, for lunch on Friday. I got my very favorite dish there called Spicy Garlic Eggplant with Tofu.

On Saturday we made taco salads for lunch. I cooked up some tofu crumbles with chili powder, cumin, cayenne, salt and black pepper along with a can of drained kidney beans and a splash of salsa to put atop a bowl of chopped romaine lettuce, diced tomatoes, chopped avocado and diced red onion. Since it was a salad, we used my dad's tostada vinaigrette that we call Rex Sauce (mixture of white vinegar, water, canola oil, salt and sugar) and a splash of sweet Thai chili sauce. I also placed a few corn chips on the side to crunch over top. Yum!

On Saturday night, I was feeling like having a good ol' plate of food that is good for the soul. I made fried tofu triangles that were coated in cornmeal, chipotle powder, chili powder, cumin, lemon zest and salt (inspired by the Chili-Cornmeal Crusted Tofu out of Veganomicon) along with some Cajun style red beans and rice and corn on the cob. I'm sad to say that the red beans and rice was a tad bit disappointing but what else might you expect from a packaged product? The tofu was addictive and the corn was sweeter than pie!

Okay, so after class today, dropping off the recycle items, laundry and studying, I really hope to catch up on everyone's blog today!!!

St. Patrick's Day Twice Baked Potatoes

The kitchen has been pretty inactive the past week or so with me not really wanting to cook and then have to clean up. I haven't even felt like grocery shopping! Today though, I was bit inspired and motivated by some of my left over Naughty Goddess Dressing I did make this past weekend to dip veggies in (we were serious snackers this weekend with sandwiches, chips and veggies with various dips, etc). My Naughty Goddess Dressing has Tofutti cream cheeze, Tofutti sour kream, Vegenaise, a bunch of green onions (whites and greens), a handful of fresh parsley, garlic powder, salt, celery salt, black pepper and agave nectar all blended together until it turns a very nice shade of green. I baked 4 medium Russet potatoes at 425 for 60 minutes. Once they were baked I carefully cut the very top off of each potato, scooped the insides out and added a little plain soymilk, a generous amount of Naughty Goddess Dressing, a little more salt and pepper and combined everything with a potato masher. I then stuffed the hollowed out potato boat skins until they were over flowing. For some of the potatoes, I also add a little Vegan Cheddar block and fake bacon bits to make "loaded" versions. I then baked the stuffed potatoes at 425 for about 20 minutes or until the tops were slightly browned.
As you can see, they turned out quite nice and had a lovely (and natural) green hue for St. Patrick's Day!

gotta love comfort food and the Yellow Rose Recipes cookbook

Ever since I got my copy of Yellow Rose Recipes on Saturday I have been non-stop in the kitchen. Joanna's cooking style and ingredient lists are very similar to my own recipes, so I was very excited to get my hands on it. This cookbook is a great example of how I would want my own cookbook done: comfortable, healthy (or at least with health in mind) and beautiful!
The first thing I made was the Baked Mac and Cheese (pg. 136) because I am out to find the perfect vegan mac and cheese. This version started like the rest I've tried- cooking the pasta and making a roux with nutritional yeast but something I had never tried was using vegan cheese in a recipe. I have been pretty disappointed with most of the faux cheeses on the market, but so far my favorite cheddar style faux cheese has been the Vegan Cheddar block from Galaxy Nutritional Foods. It still doesn't taste like cow's milk cheese, but it is a nice alternative, especially in this recipe! I did make a couple changes to the recipe because, well, that's what I do. Instead of rice milk, I used soy milk, used crunched up whole wheat crackers on top and I also added ground mustard and onion powder because salt, pepper and nutmeg just didn't give it enough punch. With my adjustments for our taste buds, it is the best mac and cheese I have had being vegan. I had a little mac and cheese with a big salad that had spring mix, tomatoes, onions, red bell pepper, avocado and a homemade sherry vinaigrette.

I also made the Chicken Style Seitan (pg. 128) despite not clearly understanding the cooking directions. I wasn't exactly sure how long I should have boiled the seitan, so I only boiled them for a few minutes and then let it set for about an hour in the hot broth. Whatever I did, it worked. This whole process took a long time for some reason, all the measuring I think . . . but it was still very tasty. I coated a couple pieces in a little all-purpose flour and garlic salt and sprayed a fry pan with olive oil cooking spray and browned these babies up!

The last thing I made out of Yellow Rose Recipes was the Very Berry Muffins (pg. 24), again with a few adjustments. Instead of egg replacer powder (not a big fan) I used ground flax seed and water slurry. I couldn't find any cheap fresh berries at the farmer's market so I used a strawberry, blueberry and blackberry frozen mix and added a little strawberry extract along with the vanilla extract to up the berry punch. The last adjustment I made was that I added a container of strawberry soy yogurt because I like the taste and texture soy yogurt lends to muffins. They turned out very good and made the house smell like sweet berries.

This last picture was from dinner last night. I found a purple cauliflower at the farmer's market that was just screaming out my name. While I don't cook things that scream I ended up roasting this head of cauliflower with just a bit of olive oil cooking spray and salt. I also made garlic herb mashed potatoes that were made with roasted garlic, fresh chives and fresh parsley. The green beans were blanched and then cooked in large fry pan on very high heat with a bit of canola oil until they were a little charred. I added soy sauce, agave nectar, sesame oil and sesame seeds to the green beans at the last minute. This is just a standard veggie plate special at our house, but because the cauliflower was so beautiful, I had to post about it.

TVP: CHUNKS VS. GRANULES (they both win)

My soy sensitivity has gotten better now that I have not been eating soy, namely tofu, as much as I use to. I have been slowly adding soy products such as soymilk, tofu and TVP back in to my diet over the past few months. Tofu still gives me problems, but everything else, including TVP has been okay. I have been experimenting with TVP the past few days and fell back in love.
I have used TVP chunks in soups and stews but my favorite use of TVP chunks is to make TVP Teriyaki Jerky. This was one of the first things I made when I first became vegan because I loved the jerky at the store, but it is so expensive for what little amount you got. I discovered why it was so pricy . . . it takes TIME to make your own. I have done different versions and I have yet to come up with a set recipe but my favorite kind has about a cup of tropical juice blend, about a cup of pineapple juice, couple splashes of soy sauce, couple squirts of agave nectar, a couple tablespoons of natural sugar, a couple large peeled pieces of fresh ginger and about five large fresh garlic cloves (kept whole). In a saucepan, I combine these ingredients and heat until everything is dissolved and has had some time to thicken a bit. In the mean time, I rehydrate the TVP chunks (about a cup or so) with boiling water. I placed the drained, rehydrated TVP in the cooking liquid and cooked it down until it was syrupy. I drained the marinated TVP, placed it on a cookie sheet and into my oven at 175 degrees for about an hour (tossing it a few time through out). What results is a mighty fine homemade version of TVP jerky. If you've never made homemade TVP jerky, give it a shot one lazy afternoon. It tastes great on it's own as a snack or chopped into small pieces and used in place of baco-bits like in salads, on baked potatoes or in twice baked potatoes.

TVP granules are excellent as taco fillers but my favorite use of the granules are in chili. I make this batch of chili mostly when I'd like some leftovers around for chili dawgs. So, tonight's dinner (and chili dawgs tomorrow!) was my Cincinnati style chili. I sautéed a sweet onion in canola oil until they were translucent (probably my favorite culinary word) and added some TVP granules in with the cooked onion for a minute or two so that the TVP gets a nice coating of oil so it won't be too mushy. I then added in agave nectar, garlic salt, black pepper, chili powder, chipotle powder, cumin, cinnamon and cocoa powder along with a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, a can of pinto beans and a can of dark red kidney beans. Once everything was heated through, I blended most of it with my immersion blender until it looked mostly ground up. I do like to keep some of the chili with whole beans so you can see what kind of beans are in it. I added a few crunched up corn chips on top to make it extra tasty.

chik'n potpie: inspired by my mom and step mom!

Yes, more comfort food. It's still cold out and I have wanted to make this for a long time now. Growing up, my mom made potpie about once a week with store bought piecrust, chicken breast, frozen mixed veggies and chicken gravy. During college, I lived with my dad and step mom and use to make them this chicken pot pie every once in a while. After I moved out, my step mom, Delia, made what she called a Mock Lori Chicken Pot Pie with puff pastry instead of piecrust. So, I made her version tonight since I have yet to use puff pastry as a vegan. Pepperidge Farm's frozen puff pastry IS vegan, by the way. I used some frozen chik'n strips that I browned up in a pan. Once the chik'n was browned I removed it and instead of frozen veggies I sautéed carrots, celery, onions together with olive oil, poultry seasoning, sea salt and black pepper. In a separate pan I parboiled potatoes and frozen petite peas. I combined the chik'n, sautéed veggies, potatoes and peas together. I then made gravy with Earth Balance buttery stick margarine, all-purpose flour, a box of veggie stock, sea salt and black pepper. I mixed the chik'n & veggies in with the gravy, added it to a casserole pan and topped the mixture with one thawed puff pastry. I baked the potpie at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes until the top was golden brown. The gravy wasn't as thick as I would have liked, but it was still AMAZING!
Right out of the oven:

Served and about to be eaten:

veggies n' dumplings

Pre-vegan days, I was a huge chicken n' dumplings fan. Now that I think of it though, I was, and still am, more of a dumplings and broth fan. Tonight it is going to be 24 degrees and has been a steady low 40's/high 30's all day so I wanted something both nostalgic and warm. I was originally just going to make a veggie and bean soup, but wasn’t in a bean kinda mood. So, I sautéed onions, celery and carrots together with olive oil and sea salt until translucent. Then I added a few diced small red skinned potatoes, a box of veggie stock, water, a bay leaf, black pepper and dry thyme. Realizing this wasn't a very substantial soup, I decided to thicken the broth and make dumplings. In a small pan I combined two tablespoons of flour and two tablespoons of margarine to make a roux. I added probably two cups of the broth (with a few bits of veggies) from the soup until it looked like a very thick gravy. I added the gravy back into the bigger pot of veggie soup and watched as it became stew-like.
I like a fluffy, biscuit like dumpling, not the dense, chewy kind that sink to the bottom. If you like a chewy dumpling, this is NOT for you.
The dumpling recipe I came up with was:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon natural sugar
1/4 cup of vegan shortening (I use Spectrum brand)
3/4 cup plain soy milk WITH 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together and cut the shortening in with your fingers until it resembles wet sand. In a measuring cup, mix soy milk and lemon juice together and be amazed (it gets soooo thick!). Add soymilk/lemon juice mixture to the flour mixture and stir until it just comes together. Drop by the tablespoon into the simmering pot of stew-like soup, and cover with a tight fitting lid for 15 minutes. These dumplings will get a bit soaked through after a while, but I actually like that feature.
This definitely hit the spot on such a cold night!

very busy weekend in the kitchen

I'm not sure what got over me, but starting Friday and ending a few minutes ago, I spent more time in my kitchen than I have in a very long time. It was an awesome weekend of good eats!
First things first . . . As soon as I saw these Spicy' N Sweet Maple-y Nuts from Bazu's blog, I knew I HAD to make them. These are some of the best spiced nuts I have ever had.
Make these now. Right now.

Here is a beautiful loaf of French bread I made, which has been the BEST batch of bread I have made in my new bread machine. It had the least amount of ingredients and took the most amount of time (5 HOURS!) but it was so worth it.

I cut all the crust sides off and made garlic toast with them and used the non-crust white inside of the bread to make these croutons.

I used the crouton recipe in Veganomicon (pg. 81-82) and also made the Caesar dressing recipe. I was trilled with the croutons and thought the dressing was pretty good but not like Caesar salad dressing. I'd make it again though.
Friday night I made an Asian Noodle Soup. A few weeks back I had made an Asian inspired veggie broth out of onions, carrots, celery, garlic, ginger, black pepper and soy sauce and froze it. I thawed/reheated the broth and in my steamer, steamed cabbage, zucchini and baby bok choy. For the noodles, I used an eggless wonton wrapper, cut into strips, which I found in the frozen section of our local Asian market. I boiled the strips of wontons separately (which only took like a minute), added the cooked noodles to a bowl with the steamed veggies and broth ladled over everything. Topped with green onions, this was very filling and an awesome way to use up extra wonton wrappers.

Saturday, I made the Blueberry Streusel Muffins from the Damn Tasty Vegan Baking Guide. My new favorite thing is using soy yogurt in my baked goods because they lend such a nice sour note that really brings everything together. This time I used a blueberry flavored soy yogurt, which turned the batter purple. These are probably my favorite muffins and they taste great with any fresh or frozen berry.


Today I made one of our old stand by meals . . . the beloved tostadas (although, they look more like nachos). These had blue corn chips, some chipotle pinto beans I blended up, tomatoes, red and green onions, some of my Dad's famous Rex Sauce (sweet & vinegary), sweet Thai chili sauce and some of my homemade guacamole. Jared added some left over cut up romaine lettuce on his. I never get tired of these.

And last but not least . . . my new favorite dinner. Veganomicon's Chickpea Cutlets (pg. 133), garlic mashed potatoes, green beans and soy sausage saw mill gravy (same stuff I pure over my biscuits when we have biscuits and gravy).

testing, testing

Well, I have tried out some potential problem foods including onions, garlic, tomatoes and potatoes. All went pretty well but I think I am going to continue to limit my consumption of these foods . . . since I could eat onions, garlic, tomatoes and potatoes every day. Onions seemed to be the problem child out of the four which is a bit heart breaking. I'm not sure I will completely get rid of onions in my diet, but I think I can eat them in moderation and definitely try not to eat them every day. I have been eating loads of bok choy, rice as well as salads like this one that had romaine lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, grated carrots and cucumbers.

I don’t think Jared should suffer since he doesn’t have any aversions to foods so I somehow mustered up the will to make a few things for him this weekend.
Saturday morning, I made him breakfast in bed with banana pancakes (my basic pancake batter with a mashed up banana) topped with strawberry sauce made with frozen strawberries, agave nectar and maple syrup. Jared was very happy, but tried not to rub it in, too much anyway.

I also made Jared a Thanksgiving inspired meal to thank him for working so hard every week, working long hours every day, doing a difficult and thankless job (he's a stock broker) while I still look for work. He was my official taster for almost every one of these items since I couldn't eat most of the things I made him. I made some more cranberry jelly, green beans, mashed red potatoes with sea salt, soy creamer and whipped Earth Balance, along with stuffing that had celery, onions, apples, veggie stock, poultry seasoning (just the name, not actual poultry in the seasoning)and Earth Balance buttery sticks that was made on the stove top but baked in a casserole dish in the oven. Lastly I made a pan gravy with browned all purpose flour, whipped Earth Balance, sea salt, black pepper and veggie stock. The only thing I could safely eat were the green beans since they were only seasoned with sea salt and sunflower oil and I tasted a potato after it was boiled but before it was mashed with all the soy products. JARED WAS BLOWN AWAY BY EVERYTHING! The only thing I didn't make on the plate were the potato rolls Jared found at the grocery store bakery, which ended up being accidently vegan. Jared likes to make mashed potato, stuffing and cranberry jelly sandwiches with them. From start to finish, it took about two hours to make this meal, so that's good to know for holiday meal planning in the future.

you gotta try this mac and cheeze

I was scanning through LiveJournal's VEGAN FOOD PICS and came across this beautiful looking mac and cheeze. It almost looked too good to be true so I had to test it out. Oh my god. This seriously was the best vegan mac and cheeze I have yet to try. It had just the right amount of nutritional yeast (meaning, it wasn't over powering) and was super creamy. The recipe can be found here. I used original/plain hemp milk instead of soy milk, shell pasta and added both black pepper and cayenne pepper. I used crushed crackers on top, although I'm sure toasted bread crumbs would be great too.

fried green tomato sandwich

Pre-vegan days, I loved a good ol' BLT. One of my favorite BLTs was from The Flying Biscuit called the Fried Green Tomato BLT Sandwich that had turkey bacon, fried green tomatoes, lettuce, cashew-jalapeno relish & goat cheese. We do still go do The Flying Biscuit with out of town guests since they do have some vegan options but I have now been forced, happily, to make my own fried green tomato BLT at home.
To make my version I heated up three slices of fakin' bacon. Once the fakin bacon was very crisp, I thinly sliced green tomatoes and coated them in flour, corn meal and a seasoning blend I made from Sarah Kramer's La Dolce Vegan! (Veganica.com's Cajun Spice, pg 303). I shallow fried the tomatoes in canola oil. I also sliced up avocado and red onion and opted to skip the lettuce. Flying Biscuit's version has a jalapeno cashew relish that contains honey, ground cashews, cilantro and jalapeno. So, I made my own sweet spread that had Tofutti cream cheese, whipped Earth Balance and agave nectar (whipped together with my hand mixer). While my spread wasn't the same as their relish, it did give me a sweet contrast to the rest of the sandwich and a creamy texture that goat cheese or mayo would have given. The bread was just a toasted everything bagel from the farmers market. This was pretty awesome and filled me up after playing tennis (if you could call it playing) with Jared this morning.

the ultimate comfort food: biscuits and gravy

Wednesday, at 2 am (so, Thursday morning) Jared's shoulder popped out of socket in his sleep. This is a recurring thing from a football injury in high school, that happens about every year and a half to two years . . . so, we are not strangers to ER trips at all times of the day or night. As you can imagine, this is a very painful thing for Jared and we try to talk about all sorts of things (food and music are the usual suspects) to keep his mind off of the pain and to make time go by for both of us. So, we talked about what he would like to eat when we got out of there and of course after we got to go to bed. As his personal short order cook, biscuits and gravy was requested. We finally got home about 7, fell asleep about 8 and slept til 2 in the afternoon. So, we had breakfast for lunch and biscuits and gravy is what Jared and I had.
I got the biscuit recipe from Love Like A Vegan's blog and they turned out great, not as pretty though. I'm not sure why but I didn't end up having to use as much soy milk as the recipe called for. The gravy was my version of years and years of me paying attention to how my Grammie made her breakfast gravy (hers either had bacon or sausage bits & grease). I first browned 4 heaping tbsp of unbleached all purpose flour in a frying pan under medium heat for only a few minutes (watch closely!). I took the browned (not scorched/burnt) flour out and added a touch of canola oil to fry up 3 frozen veggie sausage links, along with a glug of maple syrup. After those browned, I mashed them in the pan until they were very crumbly. I took out the sausage crumbles and added 4 tbsp of Earth Balance (buttery sticks) to the pan. I made a roux with the Earth Balance and browned flour, added sea salt and fresh ground black pepper. Once the roux cooked for a few minutes, I slowly added soy milk until the gravy came together at a thickness we liked . . . we like our gravy on the thick side. If you like a thinner gravy, add more soy milk. I then stirred in the sausage crumbles. I can't even tell you how much this was right on to how my Grammie's gravy taste. We were kind of amazed actually.

spicy corn chili, crazy bread

We ate at Raging Burrito this past weekend and I finally tried their vegetarian chili atop a lovely salad with lettuce, spinach, carrots, red onions, corn chips, guacamole and salsa fresca. It inspired me to make chili tonight. I made my chili with TVP granules, yellow corn, pinto beans, kidney beans, tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, chili powder, chipotle powder, cumin, cocoa powder, garlic, sea salt and agave nectar. I blended some of it with my immersion blender and topped it off with a few corn chips. The smokey chipotle and rich cocoa powder is a surprisingly awesome addition! The texture is sort of like a Cincinnati style chili, which I suspect would be amazing on a hot dawg as a left over meal.

My dad pointed out that this bread I made looks like monkey bread. After some research, most of the recipes I found for monkey bread calls for a refrigerated canned biscuit with loads of butter. Since I made my own yeast bread, skipped the butter and balled it up myself, I decided to call this crazy bread instead. I made another batch of yeast bread as I did a couple posts back and rolled the dough into 21 balls in four different sizes and strategically placed the balls in the loaf pan for a second rise. They were topped with an olive oil and agave glaze and baked until brown and beautiful.

Besides the taste, the best part is pulling apart the pieces.

mashed potatoes: 2 days, 2 ways

Last night I made baked tofu and loaded mashed potatoes. The baked tofu was a hit with Jared but wasn't very photogenic. The mashed potatoes looked as good as they tasted though. The potatoes were made with red skinned potatoes, several cloves of roasted garlic, sea salt, black pepper, soy creamer and whipped Earth Balance. They were topped with chopped green onions and a shake of vegan "bacon" bits.

We had left over mashed potatoes last night so I added the remaining chopped green onions to the mashed potatoes and this morning I made potato pancakes. I added a "eggy" binder of ground golden flax seeds and water and added that to the mashed potatoes with a bit of unbleached white flour. I shaped these into rounds/ovals and fried them in a little canola oil. Usually I poke a hole in the center for extra crispiness but these were a fragile batch and I was unable to do it this time. This is the BEST way to use up left over mashed potatoes and something both my Grammie and dad have done over the years. Nothing taste better than tradition.

dawgs in a blanket, sundae

I couldn't call these pigs in a blanket since they are pig free and using the correct spelling of dog just didn't seem right either, so I opted for the Georgia way of saying things and called these Dawgs in a Blanket. These were just a quick lunch of veggie dawgs wrapped in crescent roll dough (which are vegan!), one sprinkled with sesame seeds and sea salt and the other just with sea salt. I also made an Agave Dijon mustard sauce for dipping. They only took about 15 minutes in all to make/bake and boy were they good!

And to satisfy a sweet craving I made sundaes out of better pecan soy ice cream with homemade caramelized pecans on top. Yum!

Cheezy Gemelli Bake

Tonight I made a mac and cheeze dish with gemelli pasta, which are short rods twisted together in a spiral pattern. The cheezy sauce was made from a margarine and flour roux seasoned with sea salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, onion powder, ground mustard and a pinch of turmeric for color. Hemp milk and soy milk were added to the roux and nutritional yeast stirred in at the last minute. I added the cooked gemelli pasta and cheezy sauce together, added to a baking dish coated in margarine and topped with fresh bread crumbs I toasted with olive oil. Since the dish was already cooked, it was just baked off to get a brown top and sides.
So good!
As to not be totally out of control we had a salad with romaine lettuce, tomatoes, grated carrots, celery and green onions topped with a homemade miso dressing that had miso paste, fresh lemon juice, soy sauce, water, sesame oil, grated ginger as well as black and white toasted sesame seeds.