it's been a while...

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.

lazy already

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...