I'm not creative enough for an interesting blog title!

Food, food, and more food

2008-09-08T11:06:00.015-04:00

I'm terrible at writing titles for these posts. Anyway, I have neglected this blog for over 6 months now. Life has been busy, crazy, all those things that distract you from blogging. I have intermittently been taking pictures of my food, so without further adieu...

After having an amazing veggie burger with teriyaki sauce & grilled pineapple in Maui last summer, I decided to try something similar at home. Here I used my go-to Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomican, some delicious teriyaki, and fresh pineapple that I grilled myself. Of course, anything with pineapple is probably delicious, as you'd expect, but I really enjoyed this.

I had leftover pineapple, and I remembered once having pineapple mushroom pizza and liking it. So, I made it happen, with a whole wheat crust & FYH vegan mozz. Yum. I actually made 2 of these, all for myself, bwahahahaha.

Lentil Sloppy Joes. No idea where I got the recipe from. They were very tasty, even if I did overcook the lentils a bit. No biggie, I still ate these for lunch for basically a whole week.

Cauliflower, peas, peppers & soy curls in some kind of Indian sauce I made (I forget! this was ages ago!) over jasmine rice. Yummmmmmmm.

I believe this was vanilla poundcake with a lime glaze from... Veganomicon? I made it twice, it was tasty-licious!

This is one of my favorite dishes EVER! I actually make it quite often. It's from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, and while I forget the exact name, it's something like Polenta bake. It's just so easy and delicious and I never tire of it.

Hm. I don't quite remember what this was. I do recall thinking everything looked very pretty all chopped up, and I remember eating it (vaguely). Maybe Pineapple Cashew Stir fry? As you can see, I went on a huge pineapple kick. Okay fine, when am I NOT on a pineapple kick...

No clue what exactly this is... whole wheat pasta & peas in... vegan alfredo sauce? That's my guess at least.

And now, for my most recent dish, which was absolutely delish...

Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Gratin, adapted from a NYT recipe that was featured in their series on eggplant recently. Really I just subbed a bunch of nutritional yeast for the parmesan cheese. I am sad that I only have 1 serving left, but I will definitely be making this again. I'm sure it didn't hurt that I used eggplant and tomatoes from my CSA share, and homemade breadcrumbs, either. I'm going to go eat more of this right now!!!

...And we're back! (again)

2008-03-03T19:27:00.014-05:00

Finally! This will just be to catch up on things I've made since the last time I posted, which was in (gulp) November. I really did have every intention of updating, but life frequently gets away from me. Unfortunately I have very little recollection of the order in which I made things at this point =P

First up, Winter Squash Stew with Pinto Beans & Corn, a la Fat Free Vegan. My pictures will never be as beautiful as hers, but Susan's recipes are always perfectly delicious. I have yet to be disappointed!

Next up, Pumpkin Spice Bread from the PPK. I kind of wish this had been more pumpkin-ey and more spice-y, but now I know what do adjust for the next time. It was tasty nonetheless and I had it for breakfast for a few days.

This is an absolutely amazing cake that I made 3 times within 2 weeks for different functions (well, one just for myself) - and no one cared that it was vegan! It was that damn good. It's the Cranberry Upside Down Cake recipe from the Urban Vegan. The photo is the first one I made for myself; you can see that I had a bit of trouble getting it out of the cake pan, but that never happened again. This cake was just wow all around - tangy cranberries, a slightly lemony cake... how can you go wrong?

But I had some cranberries left over... what to do? Add them to the pumpkin spice muffins (VwaV) that you've been having a love affair with for months! This added a whole new dimension of awesomeness to these muffins.

I made them multiple times, actually, since I made the cake multiple times and kept having a small amount of cranberries left. I brought a giant batch of them to the final exam for my evil class, figuring we all need something tasty in our bellies, and boy did these go quickly. Naturally I was procrastinating by making the muffins instead of studying, but that's just what I do.

Back in November I gave the Veganomicon Chickpea Cutlets o' greatness a try, after seeing them appear on so many of the other vegan food blogs. I made a portobello mushroom gravy to go with them (some fried, some baked, just to experiment). Sadly, I wasn't impressed this first time, but a month or so later I gave them another shot and figured out what I was doing wrong: not kneading enough! You really need to beat the crap out of the "dough" (or at least I feel like I'm beating the crap out of it!). Then they come out much more tender and tasty. I now keep chickpeas permanently stocked in my pantry, just in case I get a craving.

I continued baking in the weeks before Christmas with this Vanilla Pound Cake (Veganomicon). It was nice and moist, and had a good flavor, but it just didn't do for me in the "pound cake" category. I'm still trying to figure what would make it pound cake-ier in terms of texture. The flavor works well though, and it was very good warmed up with some blueberry sauce.

Since I had more time to cook once classes were over, I went for Veganomicon's spicy tempeh and kale (I think that's where the recipe was from??). The flavors were good (how can you go wrong with kale?!), but I think I'm having issues with tempeh because its texture was just bleh to me. I think I'll try it with tofu next time.

Then Christmas came rolling around and I needed a gift for my landlords downstairs and our upstairs neighbors. I absolutely did not want to go out shopping, so cookies it was! I gave them a dozen each of VwaV ginger snaps (which I've made previously), Veganomicon Almond Cookies (so good! very German tasting), and chocolate chip cookies (I think also Veganomicon?). Naturally I made a few "extra" for me to nosh on. I neglected to tell everyone that they were vegan (I think they'd have ditched them if they knew), but they got rave reviews from the recipients (and me!)!! It was worth all the effort baking them the weekend before Christmas.

Now, these were a total impluse buy at Whole Foods and really expensive, but it was soooooo worth it just to try them once. These are Sweet & Sara vegan marshmallows!!! I haven't had marshmallows since I went veg at 13, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But oh my heavens, these are almost exactly how I remember marshmallows! A little denser, but the flavor is spot on. Pathetically, I kept roasting them over a burner on my gas range; then the texture and flavor were absolute perfection. I just wanted to stuff them all in my mouth! They were a really great one time treat.

I hadn't eaten brussels sprouts since probably middle school. One day I decided it was time for the sprouts and I to have a reunion, but how? Someone gave me the brilliant idea to roast them, and they were FABULOUS. I'm actually about to have them again this week (the last time I made them was January). Just cut the suckers in half, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper to coat, throw on a pan lined with parchment, roast, and bingo! Sprouty awesomeness! Who'd have thought that such a detested veggie could be so succulent and delicious?

And finally, random meals that I threw together:

Quinoa pasta with lemon herb sacue, Temp-teh from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan (my impulse gift to myself while Christmas shopping!), and lemony steamed kale.

The use what you have dinner: spinach & mushrooms with tofu feta (storebought - didn't love & had to use up somewhere) and Tamari Chickpea spread from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan (which I am absolutely obsessed with... probably because it has vegan mayo in it, mmmmmmm).

Obviously there were many more things made over the last few months (I lost my pics of my Thanksgiving extravaganza!), and even more delicious things consumed, but alas, this is the only photo evidence. Well, not all, I've already started amassing more pictures on my other memory card :) Stay tuned!

coming soon...

2008-01-30T11:08:00.000-05:00

I do realize that I haven't posted in quite a while. I have, however, been taking pictures of my food to share! They're just still on my camera. The end of last semester nearly killed me, and let's just say I wasn't eating all that well or interestingly. Then came winter break (though I was still working full time) and I enjoyed not being forced to do anything I didn't want to do. I did quite a bit of cooking though, including Christmas cookies for my upstairs & downstairs neighbors (I didn't tell them the cookies were vegan, hehe; and they LOVED them! I'm so sneaky). In addition to trying out new Veganomicon recipes, I also bought myself a little giftie while Christmas shopping: Eat, Drink & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton. I've been enjoying it so far, and there are pictures to come (I think). I know I didn't photograph what I call Mexican Lasagna, but it was great and my coworkers said it smelled delicious too. Anyway, eventually I will get around to posting my pictures soon - the new semester has started and that means more time for procrastination! And procrastination now includes going to the gym :)

If I'm in the kitchen, I'm probably procrastinating.

2007-10-16T20:48:00.000-04:00

There's nothing like midterms to make me want to get in the kitchen. It's a productive way of procrastinating. And at least if I fail out of grad school, I will have delicious food to eat.

I've been seriously abusing the deliciousness of spaghetti squash lately. I need to find something new to do with them, but they are so yummy as is. My organic CSA has an orangetti variety, which I like better for no particular reason. I've been putting together different sauces to top the shredded squash with, like the arugula pesto and tomato sauce below (I couldn't decide which to have, so I made both toppings). I think I might try spaghetti squash pancakes next.

Not one to waste things, I've been taking the seeds from all the sqashes I've cooked and roasting them in the toaster oven. Most people think you can only do this with pumpkin seeds, but almost any squash will do (pumpkins are squash too! Yay curcurbitaceae!). Once you've cleaned, washed, and dried off the seeds, toss with a scant amount of olive oil - just enough to coat - and some salt. Then you spread them on a baking sheet or piece of foil and stick them in to cook for ~30 minutes at 300 degrees, or until slightly crunchy. They're great just with the bit of salt, but I've also been adding some curry before roasting, which is so, so good, and also what is pictured below.
I've been doing a lot of baking as well. I made the chocolate chip cookies from VwaV (thumbs up all around, including those who received some as birthday gifts), which I forgot to photograph. They were eaten too quickly (mostly by me). I tried to make some peanutbutter cookies from VwaV for a coworker's party, but something went horribly awry and the result was not fit for human consumption. Believe me, I tried to eat them. I still have no idea what went wrong. But sometimes you just have to get back on the horse, so I made these tasty but not overly impressive chocolate thumbprint cookies with strawberry preserves.

I got some tat soi (or pak choi, depending on your mood) in my CSA share last week, and I had to figure out what to do with it. I looked at a bunch of different recipes for cold tat soi salads and came up with this cold sesame tatsoi, pictured here with quinoa pasta and more homemade tomato sauce. Yes, I know they totally don't go together, but I tend to eat my foods one at a time, so it worked out.

I marinated the tat soi in a bit of tamari, rice wine vinegar and an eensy bit of sugar. I let it sit too long though (overnight, oops), so the saltiness of the tamari was too much for me. Anyway, then right before serving, I mixed in a little sesame oil and sesame seeds. If it wasn't for the saltiness, I'd have given this a big smiley face or whatever you give yummy things.

I've also been excited by all the varieties of apples coming in to the farmer's market. A special treat my mom used to make is baked apples. I still make them her way: get as much of the core out without breaking through the bottom, fill the hole in the middle w/ a pat of [soy margarine] and a lot of brown sugar, then sprinkle with cinnamon and bake until soft. My brother and I used to douse these in whipped cream, which I kind of miss doing, but it's still tasty.

Before and after pictures. The apple shouldn't um, explode like that, but you get the idea. It was really strange though, some of the juice got on the pan and as it starting getting crispy it seriously smelled like marshmallows roasting!

I also made my first attempt at making applesauce from scratch, and it was AWESOME. I kind of winged it after reading a few recipes, but it came out perfect; hopefully I can replicate it in the future, since I plan on freezing a load of this stuff. Basically I peeled, cored and sliced the apples, put them in a pot with ~1 cup of water, ~1/2 cup of brown sugar, a bunch of cinnamon, the juice of half a giant lemon, and some long peels from the lemon (to be taken out later). Cook until the apples are soft, pick out the lemon peels, and put through the food mill (I did it on the chunkiest setting). Then taste and see what it needs; I put in a teeny bit more (white) sugar, a splash of vanilla, and some more water to thin it out because it was too chunky even for me. It is FABULOUS. Okay, I'll stop raving about it now.

[Blogger pictures not working now. Grr.]

And because I am always looking for more ways to add sugar to my diet (HA), my favorite way to prepare butternut squash: load the cavity with brown sugar!

[Blogger pictures still not working. Grr.]

Adventures in Deliciousity

2007-09-21T19:19:00.000-04:00

This post is brought to you by... the color green. At least, last night's dinner was very green:

Some wilted swiss chard and gnocchi with pesto. The chard and basil for the pesto came from my wonderful organic CSA. Yum!

Sorry for all the crappy pictures I have to show you here, but I do a lot of my cooking rather late and the light stinks when I actually get around to taking pics. Since I haven't posted in a million years, I have a lot to share!

I got these cute pattypans one week. I knew someone had posted a recipe using pattypan squashes once, so after some digging, I realized it was this Patty Pan Squash Stuffed with Cajun White Beans recipe over at the FatFree Vegan blog (I <3>

These had everyone at work drooling, and inspired a coworker to make some stuffed squash like this for some friends coming over that night! So easy and tasty.

My CSA share has provided me with a ridiculous number of green bell peppers. I really do like them, but it has become a real challenge to find new and exciting things to do with them. Here is one iteration of many stuffed peppers I've had recently:

This one is brown rice, onions, tomato sauce, herbs and Morningstar Chik'n Strips thrown in because I had to use them up (wasn't a huge fan). It came out good, but my coworkers teased me about eating so many "stuffed" vegetables.

I thought I'd share a picture of these gorgeous beans we've been getting. They were first labeled "Magic Beans" at the CSA pickup and I didn't know why (subsequently, they were labeled Rattlesnake beans, and I don't know why they're called that either).

Then I steamed them and learned why they are magic!!

It's a little dark, but if you look closely, there are no more purple stripes on the beans! I was really confused when I made them for the first time. They would be fun for kids I think. They're pictured here with the Creamy Tomato Sauce from Vegan YumYum, which I've made several times with my handy dandy Magic Bullet, proving that it is good for something besides smoothies and pesto. I hate Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese, but at least you can't taste it in this recipe, and it's another quick and easy sauce to whip up. I also ate it with just some bread once (LAZY).

There was also a night where I ate this delicious stuff with just some really good italian bread:

It was my first attempt at making tomato sauce myself (a la Joy of Cooking), and it was so amazingly delicious, which is why I just sopped it all up with bread. I think it was because it was such a good tomato week from the CSA share. I have yet to recreate the awesomeness of this first attempt - subsequent tries where significantly more lackluster in the taste department. I will keep plugging away at it though, because hot damn, that first sauce was so good!

I also had a ridiculous amount of zucchini at one point, so I went wild and pureed it into soup. Tasty, but not very filling. I have a relatively high metabolism, so I need calories!

Aaah, calories... seek and ye shall find. I wanted to make something sweet as a goodbye for my intern, so I decided to give the raspberry chocolate chip blondies from VwaV a shot:

Holy crap, these were AMAZING. Danny doesn't even like raspberry and he said they were great (he requested future batches be made with strawberry preserves instead). My intern thought they were awesome, as did everyone else who tried them. Especially me. So decadent and delish. I never thought I'd like a blondie as much as this. Here's a pic so you can see a little more of the detail pre-cutting:

I have to say, everything I've baked from VwaV has gotten absolutely rave reviews from vegans and omnis alike. Not to mention how much I've enjoyed eating it all! The chocolate chip cookies are on deck for my next baking venture.

Over the past few months, I've seen a ton of people make Jess of Get Sconed's version of the New Farm mac 'n cheese. I finally couldn't resist and gave it a shot. This is the only picture I managed to take before I scarfed it down.

Wow, this was so good! It was nice and creamy, unlike other vegan mac and cheeses I've tried to make. I added some english peas I had frozen a couple months ago, which worked out perfectly. I will definitely be making this again!

There are other meals and other pics but I think this has been long enough already. I knew I'd get back to this once school started - anything to avoid homework!!! My mom is worried about me going to school on Monday; the president of Iran will be there for a Q&A with faculty and students. She's convinced I'm going to get blown up or something, even though I will likely be off campus before he even arrives. Gotta love mom :)

on the road again

2007-07-31T20:54:00.000-04:00

Well, not literally on the road, more like in the air... Through a happy coincidence and proper alignment of the stars, I managed to finagle a budget friendly trip to Maui, which is where I will be for the next week. If it's anything like Oahu, I will be eating a lot of the Luna bars I brought and cereal. Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised!

See you when I get back!

...and we're back!

2007-07-27T20:15:00.000-04:00

Oh poor flog, I have been neglecting you. I lost a bunch of pictures and got annoyed with cooking for a while. But there's still a lot to catch up on! Here's what happened in the interim...

Well, there was my birthday, first of all! We had a little party at my brother's in Connecticut. The fam had burgers and dogs while I had a grilled portobello. And this delicious pineapple upside down cake that my mom made. I'd never had this cake before, despite my ridiculous love of pineapples! The six candles are for the number of years past twenty... now starts the downward slope to thirty!!!As a birthday gift, I begged my brother to get me popcorn, like he had for Christmas. He gave me a small sampler pack of gourmet popping corn for my air popper, and I loved it so much I wanted to try all the varieties. Here they are in all their colorful glory:
Then I had a plethora of blueberries because I can't stop buying them when they are in season. So, I decided to make the Blueberry Coffee Cake from VwaV. It made WAY more than I figured it would... I have a habit of not reading recipes all the way through (I just read the ingredients to make sure I have them) and didn't notice it required a 9x13 pan! So I brought half of it in to work, where it was positively DEVOURED within two hours, and some went to Danny's parents, who asked him to bring over more the next day. I think that solidifies the omni-approved rating for this recipe, yes? :) Here's how I had it after it cooled:

Last week I decided to try the VT Chicago Diner mushroom veggie burgers that I saw on Eat Air and Don't Get Mad, Get Vegan. There's no way these would hold up on the grill, but they sure were tasty. A lot of them fell apart, usually in half, so there were a lot of halves matched up on some wheat toast. I made up my own sauce to go on them because I didn't want to make the red pepper aoli; it was veganaise, ketchup, mustard, onion powder and a lot of hot sauce to give it some kick. I call this Condiment Sauce, and it goes on many things when I can't figure out what else to use.

I was trying to figure out what to do with some of the goodies from my organic CSA share, and decided I wanted to use the cauliflower and peas for something Indian flavored. I found this recipe on the fatfree vegan site and it sounded perfect to serve with some basmati rice. Well, the spices needed some major adjustment and it just wasn't saucy enough for my liking, but it wasn't terrible. I probably won't use this recipe again.
That brings me to tonight, where I still had to confront a lot of my CSA share veggies. We got some basil this week, so I knew I had to make pesto, so that meant pasta, but what else? I have a ridiculous amount of zucchini, so that went in, as well as a CSA onion. Why an onion? Because these are the best onions EVER. I ate a bunch of the sauteed onions before they even made it to the pasta. Here's the end result - I cleaned my whole plate tonight!
I was so happy to have an almost exclusively organic and local meal (the pasta sadly wasn't) - the zucchini, onion, basil, and garlic all came from good old Farmer John from Starbrite Farms! I've still got lettuce, swiss chard, tons more squash, fava beans and kale to use before the next delivery on Tuesday! Unfortunately I'll be away at a wedding tomorrow and Sunday, which makes it difficult, and then I am off to Maui for a week, so Danny's parents will be getting all my veggies!

Experiments and other yumminess

2007-06-28T21:43:00.000-04:00

Somehow, in my somewhat short lifetime (26 years on Monday!), I have never made pancakes, vegan or otherwise. I've generally been a cereal/oatmeal eater, though on holidays my dad will sometimes make a fancy breakfast. Yesterday, despite it being 80 degrees and atrociously humid at 8:45 AM, I decided I wanted to make pancakes. But I don't have any syrup, I thought... but I do have blueberries from the farmer's market! To be honest, the pancakes were really a vehicle for the blueberries.

This being my first attempt at pancakes, they came out somewhat mediocre. I used the VwaV recipe, and a blueberry sauce recipe from the Joy of Cooking that I recalled a friend making for crepes a while back. Abominably delicious blueberry sauce over lackluster pancakes still = pure joy. And lots of sweat. I don't know what possessed me to cook when it was that gross outside, but this was the result:

Today I had to have blood taken for some tests, and thus was fasting since 8:30 last night... knowing I had extra pancakes and sauce waiting for me in the fridge this morning nearly killed me. If you tell me I can't eat, all I will want to do is EAT. So when I got home, I had pancakes. And then again for dessert tonight!

Earlier in the week I made one of my favorite sauces, which is an altered version of a recipe in the original Uncheese Cookbook (there's a newer "Ultimate Uncheese" out these days, which doesn't include this recipe). I make it all the time when zucchini is in season, as it is a zucchini fontinella sauce. I had more garlic scapes from my CSA, so I threw them in instead of scallions.

I've had so many veggies from my organic CSA already that I can hardly keep up; I've been sharing some of my bounty with Danny's parents, and they've been enjoying that too. Here's some of the best peas I've ever had in my life with some broccoli (all from the CSA) with some mushroom rice pilaf. I generally like my veggies prepared simply - moderately steamed with a little earth balance margarine, and usually some nutritional yeast. This was accompanied by a giant salad (I've been getting 2-3 heads of lettuce per week!).

mini quiches and burritos

2007-06-08T21:46:00.000-04:00

So many people have been raving about these tofu mini-quiches from the Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen. I finally got around to trying them, and everyone is raving for good reason! I didn't use baking cups, since I didn't have silicone ones; I just put the batter in my muffin pan and they came out just perfect. No problems getting them out of the pan.

These had the recommended mushrooms & green peppers (I did leave out the tahini/cashew butter btw). I can definitely see trying this with other veggies like broccoli or spinach. They are very light, not too filling, so you'll need a lot of them for a meal, but they're very, very tasty.

After spending hours with melting chocolate and chocolate molds making the favors for Sunday's bridal shower, I decided to make burritos for tonight, and the future!

These were almost entirely organic; the beans, brown rice, mushrooms, peppers, green onions, and the tortilla. The corn is actually from the farmer's market last August (I love my vacuum sealer!!), and still had that sweet summer taste. I used Amy's Organic refried black beans since they're already nice & seasoned, and a roasted tomato taco sauce (from a bottle) to top it all off. I made a bunch of these to freeze, since I realized I could make yummy burritos like the ones I buy at the store. I was kind of pissed at myself, because after all was said and done (and in my tummy), I remembered that I had also bought some organic baby spinach to throw in these too! Bummer.

Here's a pic before I stuffed it into my mouth:

My organic CSA starts next week! Hooray!

neglect

2007-06-06T22:08:00.000-04:00

Oh, dear food blog, how I have indeed neglected thee. Since school finished for the semester, there has been little excuse besides my laziness. Except that I lost my appetite for a period of a few weeks. This often happens to me when the weather begins to warm (and warm it did, with a number of 90+ degree days here!); I simply don't have the desire to eat, much less cook. But my appetite has finally returned, though I've gotten out of the habit of taking photos of my fare.

I also seem to have lost a number of photos in the abyss. I know I had pictures of when I made fiddleheads, as well as of the black eyed pea and quinoa croquettes from Vegan With a Vengeance. I like those a lot, especially with a mushroom gravy. It made everyone at work jealous. I'm sure I'll make them again, and hopefully will take pictures.

In the meantime, I went to the Candle Cafe in NYC with some friends last week, and here is what we ate (all vegan!):

my Indian Plate special - so so... I should know better than to get Indian food at a non-Indian restaurant

The Paradise casserole (I think that's what it was) - sweet potatoes, black beans and millet, very tastyThe spicy Cuban sandwich (wasn't mine and I didn't get to try it)

You can also see that it only occurred to me to take pictures well after we started eating, and I didn't even manage to take pictures of our dessert. I also gobbled up a chocolate peanutbutter rice milk & soy ice cream smoothie ::drool::

it's been a while...

2007-05-15T19:57:00.000-04:00

No, I have not forgotten thee, dear food blog. The end of the semester just threw me for a real loop and I didn't get around to much cooking, much less posting.

Once, several years ago, I made a seitan pot roast - the one in Vegan Vittles. I had never eaten seitan before and didn't really know what I was getting into. That pot roast came out less than stellar, though edible, and I stayed away from seitan for several years after that. However, I didn't know until maybe a year ago that seitan comes prepackaged! No muss no fuss! But it's expensive. At least I figured out that I enjoy it and it is not always like that funky pot roast; in fact, it can be quite tasty (e.g. the seitan portobella stroganoff in VwaV).

But reading all the vegan food blogs let me see that many people make it themselves and find it tastes better that way. What the hell, I thought, I'll give it a shot. So I did, using the recipe in VwaV:
It came out... okay. I don't know if it's the recipe or if I did something wrong, but I just don't like it the way I like the storebought stuff. And hot damn, it sure made a lot. I should have gone into this seitan-making thing with a plan!

One thing I made with it was the tangerine seitan mentioned on Eat Air a while back. This too was just okay, mostly because the seitan was odd tasting:

Luckily the broccoli in the sauce was delicious. Sadly, I think I'm pretty much a sucker for almost any sauce if it's on steamed broccoli. Sigh.

At this point things got into crunch time for school, and I had to start whipping out those soups I made and froze over spring break. I've tried to come up with ways to change them up, especially the tomato garlic, which is a little plain (on purpose). Here I added some cooked orzo and italian spices for tomato soup yumminess:

And finally (at least in terms of pictures I have), was tonight's random creation, the portobella cheezesteak sandwich:
It was just some portobellas sauteed and seasoned with salt, pepper & onion powder. Then I took some of Follow Your Heart - Vegan Gourmet's cheddar and melted that over the 'shrooms. Having never actually eaten a cheesesteak, I can't vouch for authenticity. My friend Lisa would probably turn her nose at these (she's a Philly girl and cheesesteak afficionado), but it was pretty tasty. The only other cheesesteak type sandwich I've ever had was a vegan one at Gianna's in Philly (well, I assume it was vegan, there was a scandal about their "cheese" back when...). If I were to make this again, I think I'd make more of a sauce out of the Follow Your Heart instead of just melting it on top. The cheddar flavor was just a little too intense this way. Nonetheless, it was quick, easy and tasty, plus gave me an excuse to eat yummy bread.

sandwich yumminess

2007-04-27T21:41:00.000-04:00

I've come to realize that some of my favorite meals are sandwiches. I especially like tofu egg salad. When I was little, I ate peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches every day; the only other one I'd rotate in was egg salad. After going vegan, I needed something to substitute and came up with this:

This is my own recipe, modeled after the way my mom made egg salad:
1 box firm or extra firm tofu, mashed up
1/2 cup Vegenaise (more if you think it's a little dry)
1/4 cup diced celery
seasoned to taste with:
~3-4 tbs nutritional yeast
~1/4 tsp curry
~1/4 tsp ground mustard
enough turmeric to make it nice and yellow
1/4 tsp onion powder
a few sprinkles of parsley, salt, and pepper

The curry & ground mustard give it a nice kick, and I have to eat it with diced celery for the crunch because otherwise I feel like I'm eating mush, plus that's how I always ate it as a kid. I like to eat this version freshly made over toast; this time it was 12 grain. And by the way, Vegenaise is awesome. I can and do eat it right out of the jar.

This week I also made the Maple Dijon Glazed Potatoes and String Beans from VwaV. I got a preview of how it turned out from Eat Air and it looked tasty. And indeed it was tasty:

It was good, but not mustardy enough for me, even though I put an extra tablespoon of dijon in it. Next time I know! It's definitely a good side dish, and a way to get myself to eat string beans. Growing up I didn't like them; I didn't realize this was because my mom cooked the hell out of them. She does this with a lot of veggies because that's how she likes them: mushy. I think this is why I didn't realize that I actually did enjoy many vegetables until I was much older and cooking them for myself to a non-mushy consistency. Anyway, while I don't have an undying love for string beans, I will eat them, and more than the 1 per meal that I was forced to consume as a child.

There's not a whole lot of inspired cooking going on at the moment, mostly due to school finishing up for the semester. Hopefully in the next 2 weeks that will change... I can't wait to show off all sorts of fun things once my CSA starts in June! Though I've heard that it's been a cool spring for the northeast, so it might take a while for things to get going.

Cram it all in...

2007-04-22T20:39:00.000-04:00

The title of this post is how I feel about life a lot of the time... I'm trying to cram as much as possible into this little life of mine. Today was about cramming family, cooking and schoolwork into the day (well, laundry too).

After babysitting my cousins and staying over my aunt & uncle's last night, we stopped at the in-laws' on the way home. We've been together since my pre-vegan days, so his parents have had to adjust to my eating choices as well, since they love to feed us. One thing I don't have a picture of for your viewing pleasure are the empanadas they made me. Previously all his parents made were meat or cheese empanadas; when I stopped eating cheese, it was a travesty that I could not take part in the empanadas (they're a big deal in the family). However, this sparked an empanada revolution! Soon eggplant empanadas came along... a cousin who is a chef made some chipotle mushroom ones for New Year's. Other family members have asked, why does she get all the cool empanadas?? Well, why not? There is a world beyond carne y queso!! Anyway, there were eggplant empanadas waiting for me today at the in-laws' apartment for lunch. Yum!

In between paper writing and laundry, I decided I wanted to make some vegan cookies for my class tomorrow, in honor of our field trip on the topic of ecological restoration. I chose the Ginger Cookies from VwaV:
I think some of them came out a bit too molasses-ey, but still tasty. Next time I might cut the molasses a little. I always wonder how cookbooks come up with the numbers of cookies that will come out of a batch; the book says 2 dozen, and I sized them like the book says and I got about 3 dozen. Oh well.

To further avoid folding laundry and writing about NYC's 2030 green goals, I made the orange ginger tofu triangles from The Voluptous Vegan. It's simple because you let the tofu marinate, pour off some of the marinade, and then bake. Easy peasy! While that was going on I even made a smoothie, some rice and garlic-ey spinach to go with the tofu. I only realized I was out of brown rice when I couldn't find it in the pantry, so white rice it was, cooked in my handy dandy 3 cup rice cooker from CVS.
I'll be having this for lunch tomorrow as well. The nice thing about the tofu is that it's pretty good cold as well, so I will throw it on salads and such as well.

Speaking of salads, I found a new salad dressing that I am really enjoying:

Now, mind you, I have no idea if it actually tastes like caesar dressing; I haven't had that since I was a wee lass. But it's very tasty in its own right; it has a nice blend of spices and a bit of a mustardy taste. It tastes like something that I can't put my finger on, but in a good way. Plus it's got omega-3s and is organic! It's good to break out of my italian dressing rut once in a while.

always a hit, sometimes a miss

2007-04-12T21:04:00.000-04:00

What do you do when you have some... let's just say 'aged'... kale waiting in the fridge? This!:

Baked kale is my absolute favorite way to prepare this healthy green leafy vegetable. It's so easy too, just tear it up, spray with a little olive oil, sprinkle with salt and garlic powder, and bake. Voila, melt in your mouth crispy kale bits! You can't go wrong. My parents thought I was nuts when I made it at their house a few times, but kale was never a vegetable that had crossed the threshold of the house when I lived there. Mom & Dad are not particularly adventurous with their veggies...

Anyway, the kale was made as an accompaniment to a new recipe I decided to try out: VwaV's fettucine alfreda (but using spaghetti). I started to worry after I toasted the pine nuts and they smelled weird; I'm pretty sure they were fresh, unless the stuff in the bulk bin at Whole Foods was old. Here's what dinner came out like:
Sadly, I can't say that I'm much of a fan of this sauce, which is unfortunate because it certainly made a lot. It just has an odd flavor. It's not inedible, but I think I'm kind of done with it. I'm not sure what I was expecting from it but this sauce just tastes funky. Sorry, VwaV, you know I love you, but this didn't do it for me.

I'm so excited!

2007-04-03T21:29:00.000-04:00

This is not entirely food related, yet it is completely food related. In my efforts to eat more in line with SOLE (Sustainable; Organic; Local; Ethical) principles, and my efforts to fill my apartment with plants (to Danny's dismay), I decided to try to grow a little of my own food. Off I went to the Seeds of Change web site to order some organic seeds. Sadly I did not find organic potting soil. But I planted tomatoes and 3 kinds of squash (tahitian, delicata, and french zucchini that are round!). I forgot that it takes a freaking long time to actually get any food out of this, but I am nearly at the point where I will reap my rewards:

This effort has been fraught with problems. I was under the impression from what I'd read on indoor cultivation that shaking the tomato plants would be enough to pollinate them... yeah, didn't happen. The ones that have set are ones I decided to try pollinating myself.

On the other hand are the squash plants... apparently the zucchini plant is solely male because it has only produced male flowers for literally months. The tahitian squash still just has some really large buds. But here is my pride and joy:

It was the only female bud on the delicata plant and I pollinated and set the fruit just like the old days. I spent a year working in the plant breeding department as a field trial assistant, breeding various squashes, peppers and melons mostly, so I am well versed in how to handle this. There's a new female bud, so hopefully there are more squashies on the way!

Experimental goodness

2007-04-01T20:13:00.000-04:00

I got an avocado on sale at the ghetto Pathmark down the block the other day, and it was perfectly ready today. Naturally I did the only truly respectable thing you can do to an avocado: make guacamole! What I usually make is super simple - mashed avocado, a minced fresh garlic clove, salt and lemon juice. Yes, lemon, not lime, though either is okay; I just usually have lemons in the fridge, less often limes. Today I got slightly fancier and added some ground cumin and dried cilantro, but I almost always stick with the basic. And I never mar my guac with diced tomatoes... raw tomatoes are disgusting! I wasn't really in the mood for chips, so I had two of these babies for lunch:

Toasted organic whole wheat bread, a la whole foods brand. I like cheap & tasty. I also had a baby romaine salad. Oh man, I can't wait until my organic CSA starts in June!!

Tonight I decided to experiment a little by making the Tempeh & White Bean "Sausage" Patties from Vegan With A Vengeance, partly because I had all the ingredients on hand. I was a little afraid because I don't like meaty tasting things, and I never ate sausage in the first place; I was quite picky. But I like tempeh and I like beans, so what the heck. As I was making it up, it seemed kind of icky and didn't smell good, though that may be a result of my allergies (thanks NJ pollen explosion!). So instead of cooking all of the half batch I made (as the mix will keep a few days), I just made two patties:
Despite tasting nothing like sausage, I was pleasantly surprised. These ended up pretty tasty. Yay! I think I need to adjust the seasonings a little b/c I kind of just threw stuff in since I was making a half batch AND using dried instead of fresh herbs. VwaV, I shall not doubt you again; you have not failed me thus far.

And now, may I present...

2007-03-30T19:38:00.000-04:00

the yummiest sandwich ever. I cannot express how much I love it. Here it is in all its glory:

Tempeh reubens have to be my favorite sandwich. I never had a real reuben with meat, though supposedly that is my dad's favorite sandwich and my mom made it for him all the time back in the day. Anyway, you can barely see the marinated baked tempeh underneath the homemade vegan Russian dressing and delicious sauerkraut on the toasted organic whole wheat bread. I was looking forward to this sandwich all day. I use the recipe in the Candle Cafe Cookbook, which I don't actually own. A few years ago when I was super broke and working 2 jobs just to scrape by, I spent a lot of time photocopying recipes from all the cookbooks I couldn't afford, since the Nyack library had tons of them and I could get free photocopies at the library I was working in at nights. I've only made a couple of the recipes I copied from the book, but this one is definitely a repeat.

It certainly doesn't hurt that an important ingredient is sauerkraut; it makes just about anything better. I guess it's my German blood shining through but I love sauerkraut and I always have. It sounds sacrilegious but I prefer it from the can. Why? It's more sauer! The stuff you boil in a bag just hasn't been sitting in the juices enough to get sour. I also love that there's a stand at our farmer's market that sells pickles and sauerkraut; they let me try it to make sure it was sour enough for me, and it is delish. When I was younger and my family would have hot dogs for lunch, I would just eat the sauerkraut (since I didn't eat meat); sometimes I would eat nearly a whole can of it, kind of making myself sick in the process. Who am I kidding, I still do that. For every bit of kraut that went on my sandwiches, I ate an equal amount on its own. Usually Danny walks in and takes it away from me before I get a chance to really gorge myself, and he reminds me how nauseous I'll feel later if I eat it all. Sigh. Since I still have leftover kraut, I plan on trying to make a seitan sauerbraten. I can't remember if I ever ate the real version as a child; I'm sure I did, but I honestly don't remember what it tastes like at this point. I do remember loving leberkase (though when little we called it 'livercase') smothered in mustard. I don't think I realized it was actually liver. I have a feeling that's not really veganize-able, nor am I entirely sure I'd want to try.

I made more VwaV muffins Wednesday night. This time the carrot raisin ones, since I had an abundance of carrots (oopsie at the grocery store). Unfortunately I forgot to bring my raisins home from work, so I just made them without. I brought some muffins to work with me and just stuck some raisins in there, which isn't the same, but tasty nonetheless. Not as good as the other 2 muffins I've made from VwaV, but I take pride in the fact that there's about 1/3 of a carrot in each muffin. You can see the lovely orange specks and all:

Since I'm only one person (well, I also bring some in to Aleksei at work), I freeze a bunch of them to eat at my leisure. Is it weird that I share more food with my friend in the cubicle next to mine than I do with the boyfriend I live with? Oh well. I can't help it if Danny has bad taste in food (he likes easy cheese!).

lazy already

2007-03-28T22:11:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's sad. I'm slacking on the posting already. I'm sure I'll get tired of this soon. I think I'm only going to post the interesting food from here on out.

I've been trying to figure out ways to spice up all the tomato soup I made and froze so that it doesn't get boring. The soup is good on its own but something extra is nice. Over the weekend I bought some pre-packaged mexican style baked tofu to throw in my soup, which I did yesterday:
Unfortunately, the mexican tofu was NASTY. I forced myself to eat some of it, just to get some protein in me, but hot damn, I'll be staying away from that stuff in the future. If you were wondering, it's the Whitewave brand baked tofu. My verdict: yuck. At least it didn't affect the yummy flavor of the soup itself too much.

Tonight I made one of my favorite easy weeknight meals: rice noodles & broccoli with the Thai hot and sour sauce from The Saucy Vegetarian. Really it's a hot and sour peanut sauce. To be honest, I haven't used this cookbook for much else besides this recipe. But I love it. The sauce is quick and easy to make, and as long as I have limes in the fridge, I have all the ingredients in the house.

For some reason I always make it with broccoli, no other veggies. I guess I just love broccoli. Even when I was younger and only ate 3 vegetables, broccoli made the cut. Yum.

Just coming out of the oven are some Carrot Raisin muffins (well, without the raisins) from Vegan With a Vengeance. I've loved the other 2 muffins I've made from that book (pumpkin spice and apple pie crumb cake), and I had an abundance of carrots since I accidently bought way more than I needed, so I figured why not. Sadly I forgot my raisins at work, so I will stick them in as an afterthought in the morning. Generally I don't like vegetables in my baked goods, so I'm not sure how I'll feel about these muffins, but it was worth a shot. They look nice and carrot-ey and smell lovely too. We'll see...

I lied.

2007-03-25T22:50:00.000-04:00

Yes, I lied about Friday's dinner. I ended up making a giant plate of spaghetti & vegan meatballs with steamed broccoli w/ earth balance soy margarine and a sprinkling of nutritional yeast. The only vegan meatballs I will eat are Nate's Brand (or Trader Joe's, which is actually their private label Nate's); even Danny likes them, and he doesn't even like meaty meatballs! I wasn't very hungry but the broccoli had to be eaten or thrown out, so the plate ended up looking like this:

If you know me at all, you know that if you put food in front of me, I will eat it. I have some sort of psychological issue that leads me to do this. Only in the past several years have I learned to stop eating when I am just full, versus oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-hurl full. Whenever I ate out at restaurants I would end up feeling the latter; I have finally taught myself that it's okay to take a doggie bag.

Yesterday I didn't need a doggie bag when we went out to dinner for my friend Veronica's birthday. We were planning to eat at the uptown Carmine's (so, Italian food) but the wait was ridiculous, so we went next door to a Mexican place, randomly named Mary Ann's. I was pleasantly surprised that they had a vegetarian burrito with all sorts of yummy veggies AND tofu! You don't often find tofu on the menu at Mexican restaurants. The burrito came with rice and black beans, but sadly sans tofu. I didn't realize this until I was halfway through, and it was tasty, so I didn't care too much. I was so hungry that I forgot to whip out my camera and take a pic. Oops. But you know you don't mess with me when I am hungry, so...

Today was food shopping day, which means I spent yesterday poring over my cookbooks. I am completely unable to "just wing it" in the kitchen. You'd think after years of cooking for myself, I'd be able to do something, but no. It's the same way with crocheting - I need to have a pattern; I can't just freehand. Oh well. Anyway, there's some exciting food coming up this week. I started tonight with a marinade that I came across on another food blog, Eat Air; they used it on portobello mushrooms, which is what I did as well:

So tonight was Ginger Sesame portobellos, steamed kale with some of the ginger sesame marinade on it (tasty!) and homemade garlicky mashed yukon gold potatoes. I'll be having this again tomorrow for lunch. Everything was tasty, but the portobellos were quite too salty from me. Maybe I need to go easier on the tamari next time, or find some low sodium tamari. I was glad I had the potatoes to ease some of the saltiness. Mashed potatoes are one of my favorite foods ever. I only really discovered them in college; my mom had always made them from the flakes in a box, and I didn't know any better. After talking with a friend about mashed potatoes, I decided to make my own and OH MY LORD there is a world of difference between real and boxed. I like to leave the skins on, since they are nutritious and I like my potatoes kinda lumpy anyway.

2007-03-23T23:27:00.000-04:00

The following makes me want to vomit:

Yes, it's just squash, but everytime I cut a squash open, I want to retch. This is because I spent a year working in plant breeding, working to breed disease resistance via strategic crosses. When you breed squash, what you really care about is the seeds. I spent so much time de-seeding squash of all kinds that I can't stand to smell raw squash; I have flashbacks. It was especially fun when you finally get to the squash that has sat out far too long, waiting for you to get to it... there came a point where I had to tell my boss I just couldn't do it, when the pumpkins were collapsing on themselves and smelling putrid. Oh I'm nauseous just thinking of it!!

Anyway, I had a lovely breakfast today...

This is Bob's Mill 10-Grain cereal (whole grain wheat, corn, rye, triticale, oats, soy, millet, barley, brown rice, oat bran, and flaxseed) mixed with organic peanut butter, sliced banana and raisins. Yum!

For lunch I whipped out some of the frozen egyptian lentil soup and added some of the steamed squash (hence the bit about squash). No pictures because I was too busy going bonkers at my desk today.

Nearly every day when I come home, I am starving, so I make myself a smoothie. I tend to always make the same one - frozen strawberries, frozen tropical mix (mango, papaya, banana and pineapple), soymilk and flax seeds. If I'm feeling cheeky I'll do blueberry banana. Today I used rice milk instead of soymilk and it came out a little oddly colored:

At least, that's not my normal smoothie color. It tasted different too. This is why soymilk is good for some things (smoothies) and rice milk is good for others (cereal). I was still hungry after the smoothie but not ready for dinner, so I had some hummus and my favorite crackers, Back to Nature Crispy Wheats. I don't care what I'm dipping in, as long as I'm eating Crispy Wheats. Okay, that sounds wrong (but oh so right).

Dinner is still up in the air... I am feeling quite lazy. It might just be time to whip out the Amy's mattar tofu paneer meal I've been saving for just such an occasion. I just thought of making Thai hot and sour peanut sauce from Saucy Vegetarian for some rice noodles but I realized I brought my peanut butter to work yesterday. Bummer. Maybe tomorrow.

Starting my flog

2007-03-22T23:05:00.000-04:00

I intend to use this flog as a way to inspire myself to eat better, as well as gain some accountability for the crap I sometimes eat. Working full time while going to grad school almost full time often leads me to eat poorly. Yes, I take a vegan multivitamin, but I should try to eat actual food sometimes.

Lately I've been craving comfort food, so I bought myself the cheddar flavor of the Follow Your Heart vegan cheeze. I've had and liked the mozzarella (I can only eat it cooked though, cold is blech), but I tried the monterey jack flavor and found it to be super nasty. I'm not sure I ever ate the dairy version of monterey jack, so I'm not a good judge. Anyway, I was a little nervous trying the cheddar style, but it's not too shabby. I don't know if it's cheddar, but it came out pretty tasty as mac & cheeze:

Note that I use whatever pasta shapes are left; this is a mix of rotini and shells. Fun! I had it with an organic mixed greens salad w/ Whole Foods brand organic italian dressing.

For dessert I had some leftover Mexican rice pudding, from Vegan With a Vengeance. It's chocolatey, but not fabulous. I thought I liked rice pudding, but maybe I don't. Or maybe I just messed it up =P I realized that I've only had rice pudding maybe once or twice in my life. I know I did once in a Greek restaurant, but that may have been something else entirely. Anyway, this is edible, though now it has gotten kind of watery...

Last week was spring break at school, so I took the week off from work as well. I desperately needed a vacation. I really missed cooking, so I decided to go wild and make stuff to freeze so I could have decent meals when I went back to school & work. I have a FoodSaver vacuum sealer, which I love. In the summer I buy fresh veggies at the farmer's market and freeze & seal them, and eat them all winter long. Anyway, I decided soups would be easiest to make and freeze and I picked four kinds. I randomly discovered that I have the Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special book, which is more than half soup recipes, many of which are vegan or easily veganize-able. I made the tomato garlic (yum - and you can mix other stuff in for variation), egyptian lentil (delish), non-cream of broccoli (eh, okay; there was an incident... I'll tell you some other time), and parsnip pear (not so tasty). So now my freezer looks like this:

Most of the door and almost the whole bottom shelf are filled with packets o' soup. Yum. Is it weird that a picture of my freezer open instinctually makes me want to close the freezer door?

Things I didn't take a picture of (not used to flogging yet):
Breakfast: Oatmeal with peanutbutter; raisins
Lunch: tomato garlic soup with some curried tofu that Aleksei donated to me (went VERY well together, mmmm need to do that again)
Snacks: whole wheat carrot raisin muffin (also donated by Aleksei; he keeps me fed!); homemade smoothie with frozen strawberries & mixed tropical fruit, soymilk and flax seeds

Let's see how long I keep this sucker updated...