Florida on a plate, biscotti

Last I checked, it's gonna be in the low 30's tonight . . . which is just crazy to me. I decided to warm up by making a wonderful Florida inspired meal of black beans, yellow rice and fried plantains. I grew up eating this food so I still really enjoy eating it, especially with hot sauce splashed all over everything. The black beans had onions, garlic, sea salt, black pepper, oregano, tomato paste and a bit of red wine vinegar at the last minute of cooking. The yellow rice is just a pre-seasoned packet of yellow rice that turned out to be accidentally vegan. OHHH, and fried plantains . . . what until the skin turns black on the plantain (trust me!), peel and thinly slice on a bias, fry in canola oil (or olive oil) on low-medium heat until golden brown. Frying on a lower heat insures the sugars develop in the plantains before they burn. If you've never had a fried plantain, you best get ya one and try it now. It's like eating dessert with your dinner. The beans and rice are usually topped with a thinly chopped sweet onion, but tonight we had red onion, which was still very tasty.

I also made the hazelnut-chocolate biscotti from Veganomicon (pg. 241) that turned out pretty awesome. It is not a super sweet cookie but has a deep, rich taste. Making biscotti is a two-step process but these are so worth it if you are a biscotti fan. Even though I no longer drink coffee, these were still good on their own . . . and I'm sure even better dunked in a latte made with hazelnut milk.

Sushi!

We finally got our hands on Veganomicon and the very first thing we made was the Spicy Tempeh Nori Rolls (pg. 47). We couldn't stop there, so we also made a few of our own creations. I did the prep including making the rice, tempeh mixture and cut the veggies. I also made a sweet and spicy dipping sauce that had soy sauce, Thai chili sauce, agave nectar and sesame oil. Jared did the rolling and then I cut the rolls. We were a good team on this!
The Spicy Tempeh Nori Rolls were fantastic! They had the Nori seaweed, rice, tempeh mixture (tempeh, Vegenaise, chili and sesame oil), green onions and avocado. I highly recommend you make these. We also made four other rolls that contained some combination of grated carrots, cucumbers, green onions, avocado, spicy tempeh mixture and toasted black and white sesame seeds. Jared was even able to make an inside out roll which was very impressive! It was a lot of work, from start to finish about an hour to make all the rolls. When we sat down to eat, they were gone in about ten minutes!!! My fears of making homemade sushi are gone and we can't wait to make these again!

Village Pizza, Cookies

I haven't felt too much like cooking lately. I think because it's been kind of cold here in Atlanta (30's-60's) which a big change from Tampa, Fl. My warm and cozy comforter has been too seductive to want to get out of bed. So, in times like this, we are thankful to have, Village Pizza, an awesome pizza place that offers up an incredibly delicious vegan pizza. This pizza has vegan mozzarella, faux sausage and pepperoni, onions and green bell peppers (it also comes with black olives and mushrooms, which we skip since I don't like them). Despite some of my food intolerances, I do sometimes eat things that don't always agree with me. Luckily, I didn't feel too lousy after eating this pizza, probably because I rarely eat these things now. Sorry this isn't a very good picture, our camera has been acting up. This picture definitely doesn't do it justice.

Even though I haven't felt like cooking, the baking bug has bitten me. I made two different kind of cookies. The first batch was the Apple Butter Cookies from The Damn Tasty Vegan Baking Guide. These scream cold weather, so if you have this book, give these a try.

I also made up a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I based off of a few different sources. My version is very naughty. They have Earth Balance buttery stick margarine, turbinado sugar, brown sugar, molasses, vanilla extract, unbleached all purpose flour, baking soda, sea salt and loads of chocolate chips. Next time I will add some pecans or walnuts to these.

PB & J Balls

When we are running low on baking items in the pantry (like flour, sugar, chocolate chips, etc) I make some sort of peanut butter ball since we always have peanut butter in the fridge. I made up this recipe a while back since I was having a sweet tooth attack and have been making different versions of it since, including some with melted chocolate!
Preheat oven to 275
Melt together in a medium pan on medium heat:
2 rounded tbsp natural peanut butter
2 tbsp Earth Balance
3 tbsp agave nectar (you could probably cut this to 2 tbsp)
3 tbsp maple syrup (you could probably cut this to 2 tbsp)
a dash of sea salt
Once all that is melted together, take it off the heat and stir in a splash of vanilla extract. Next, fold in 1 1/4 cups rolled oats and 1/3 cup of either pre-roasted almond pieces or slivered & blanched almonds toasted in a pan.
Spread out the mixture in a thin layer and bake at 275 for about 15 minutes. Take the mixture out of the oven and let it cool for a few minutes. Once cooled, I spread half the mixture with raspberry preserves and the other half with blueberry preserves. The last step is a messy one. Pinch golf ball sized pieces off and roll into balls. I got 15 balls out of this batch. When I make these chocolate covered, I basically make a chocolate ganache out of dark chocolate chips, soy creamer and Earth Balance (melted together in a double boiler) and dip the peanut butter balls in half way.
The lighter ones are the raspberry PB balls and the darker ones are the blueberry PB balls. I let these cool completely before I start sampling them. They can be stored in the fridge wrapped up or well covered and left on the counter top.

grilled veggie fajitas with guacamole

Probably one of my favorite kitchen items is my large, very heavy grill pan. It was one of our wedding presents and I am so glad we have it. A couple of nights ago I made Jared these fajitas. I cut thin strips of green bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, red onion and zucchini that I lightly coated in canola oil, sea salt and garlic. I grilled them on a VERY hot grill pan until they were all soft.

I also made guacamole that had Haas avocados, lime juice, red onion, garlic, Thai chili sauce, hot sauce, sea salt and black pepper.

Luckily I found some very vegan friendly flour tortillas and blistered them up on the grill pan. Stuffed with the veggies, guacamole and a touch of salsa, Jared was in gastric heaven.