» Archive for the 'Veganomicon' Category

Lettuce Risotto, Tofu with Orange Juice and Warm Spices, Strawberry Rosewater Cobbler with Lemon Poppyseed Pastry

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 by cyn
lettucerisotto Lettuce Risotto from Vegetarian Times, tofu from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen Another tofu recipe from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen. I've just been working my way through them; they all use this fry and then glaze method that I'm into, and they're all super tasty and take about fifteen minutes. The lettuce risotto was from the March issue of Vegetarian Times, it's apparently Todd Oldham's favorite recipe. The recipe calls for endive & some other specific lettuce, but I just used several handfuls of this spring mix from my CSA. This turned out really good, it may be my new favorite non-salad thing to make with lettuce. I really like how the lettuce gets all wilty and sort of weaves through the risotto. This also features red crushed pepper and capers, which are two of my favorite things. strawcobbler1 from Veganomicon I've been looking for something to do with all these strawberries from my CSA, and the Strawberry Cobbler from Veganomicon caught my eye. This was way easier and quicker than a pie, and super tasty. strawcobbler2 My friend Liz described it as "Like strawberry sauce over lemon-poppyseed scones" and I was like "Yep, that's pretty much what is." But in the tastiest way possible. Local: Lettuce, orange, strawberries, tofu

Roasted Root Vegetable Salad

Friday, May 1st, 2009 by cyn
roastedrootsalad The boyfriend was eating dinner somewhere else, so I wanted to have my usual salad-for-dinner, but with a twist. I think I was inspired by Another One Bites the Crust, who keeps showing pictures of delicious looking root veggie salads. I made a batch of Roasted Roots from Yellow Rose Recipes, and then mixed it up with some mixed greens and a batch of the Maple-Mustard salad dressing from Veganomicon, and I threw some walnuts in for some crunch. The result as incredibly delicious - the root veggies were warm, and they wilted the greens a little, but in a nice way, and all the flavors went together fabulously. The walnuts were perfect, they added a great crunchy counterpoint to the soft roots and lettuce. I originally wasn't even going to take a picture of this since it's just a salad, but it turned out too good not to share. Local: Greens, root veggies

BBQ Seitan and Coleslaw Sandwich

Thursday, April 9th, 2009 by cyn
bbqsammitch from Veganomicon The boyfriend made this, for he is on a total sammich kick. I made the seitan a couple of nights before, and he used Stubbs Spicy BBQ Sauce. We used little sourdough rolls for the buns, so they were tiny adorable sammitches (or "sliders" as I hear the kids call them). These were totally delicious, all full of BBQ & coleslaw goodness. Pure summertime in a sandwich. The saddest part of this is that the boyfriend didn't even eat any of this, because his stomach started to bother him halfway though cooking! But he made me dinner anyway, because he is awesome. Boyfriend says: "This was fun to make, but kind of complicated." Local: Cabbage, carrots

Black Beans with Chipotle Adobo Sauce, Rice, Bok Choy & Broccoli

Saturday, April 4th, 2009 by cyn
blackbeans beans from Veganomicon I made these beans using dried black beans and my pressure cooker, and it took about fifteen minutes. They were super tasty, too. I don't know why I didn't make these before, but they're definitely going to go into my regular rotation. The rice is this psuedo Mexican rice I've been making a lot lately. I totally love the rice you get at Mexican restaurants, but I can never make a decent version of it at home. This is super easy, and it comes pretty close. I make it using my baked rice method, and I saute a couple of tablespoons of Mexican seasoning mix with the rice before I add water. I had a little bit of bok choy and a little bit of broccoli, and I figured since my favorite way to make both of those things is sauteed with a little garlic and crushed red pepper, I could just mix them together. This turned out pretty good. I used less olive oil than usual, and honestly, it's better with more olive oil. Local: Bok choy, broccoli

Lentil Salad, Roasted Asparagus

Monday, March 30th, 2009 by cyn
lentilsasparagus from Veganomicon This was the perfect light dinner. The asparagus I impulse bought at the market because it was on sale and I was excited about asparagus. So fresh and green and spring-like! So not a root vegetable, and yet also so not cabbage. I roasted it using the directions in the front of vcon, just with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic, and I put a little lemon juice on it once it was out of the oven. This was so delicious, I ate all of mine and a couple of spears off my boyfriend's plate, and I didn't even feel guilty - I mean, I was just getting my veggies! The lentil salad was also super fresh tasting and delicious. Cooking the lentils in veggie broth made them totally flavorful and delicious, and once they were mixed with a vinaigrette dressing, carrot, radish, diced tomato and red onion, the result was great, really bright and flavorful. I ate leftovers of this for lunch for a couple of days, and it just got better. I especially liked the use of tarragon in this. Local: Carrot, radish

Escarole with White Beans and Capers

Friday, March 20th, 2009 by cyn
endive from Veganomicon This is one of the few vegetable recipes from Veganomicon that I hadn't made yet, and I'd meant to make it forever and ever. I mean, it's got capers! And white beans! I like both those things. And while I wasn't actually sure what an escarole was, I thought I'd probably like it. But I've been avoiding buying new vegetables since I get so much from my CSA, and while they do like to give me strange greens like mizuna and flat leaf broccoli, so far there's been no escarole. But while I was up staying with my parents for my great aunt's birthday, my mom gave me an escarole head! Straight from her garden, with instructions to wash it carefully because it had been grown under some sort of tree and was filled with little leaves that did not belong to it. (Sometimes homegrown produce has a downside.) My mother has an amazing garden, it's filled with terraced plant beds and extends out my parents' backyard into a vacant lot owned by the city. All through my childhood I was always being sent out to clip some of the rosemary that cascaded down the front of our yard, or to pick some herbs from the garden on the side of the house as my mother cooked. Every time I go up to visit, my mom sends me back with something from the garden. So the fates had finally aligned to give me an escarole, and I knew I had to make this recipe. I cooked up some white beans in my pressure cooker and used up the last of my capers, and it was delicious. Isa's description of escarole as getting soggy in a good way is precisely correct, it reminds me of bok choy a little in texture, but with a nice bitterness to it. (I think it was a little too bitter for the boyfriend.) Honestly, if you had asked me before I would have said I'd never eaten escarole before, but its presence in my mom's garden makes me think I've probably had it snuck into a salad or something, and just didn't know it. But now that I know about it, I'll definitely eat it again, given a second chance. Local: Escarole

Lasagna

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 by cyn
lasagna Based on the Veganomicon recipe, and I'm sorry this picture is terrible I don't think I've ever made a non-vegan lasagna. I remember the first one I made, the lasagna from How It All Vegan. It was four or five years ago, when I was living in Philly. My roommate at the time, Phil, had made it once before. Phil was a much more ambitious cook than I was at the time. I cooked far more often, but I usually made things like pasta with Trader Joe's marinara sauce doctored up with meatless meatballs and frozen vegetables. When Phil cooked, he made things like vegan lasagna and vegetable tempura and chilled fruit soup, and they always turned out great. I think we ate most of the pan of lasagna the night he made it. So when I finally made the lasagna for myself, it was the most complicated thing I'd even made. I even made the sauce from scratch. I think it took me all day, and it was delicious. Now, of course, I've made several lasagnas, and when the boyfriend requested one, I thought "Sure, that sounds good." I decided to make one loosely based on the Vcon lasagna. I cheated and used sauce from a jar, and I added some nutritional yeast to the cashew ricotta because I love me some nutritional yeast. For the veggies I used frozen spinach, swiss chard, carrots (I shredded them up), and frozen mushrooms, and I sauteed them all together in olive oil with some salt and pepper. I topped the whole thing off with a mixture of bread crumbs and nutritional yeast - I've been putting this on top of everything since then, too, it's so good. It still took me three hours to make this even with prior lasagna experience, and halfway through I realized that I was making a ridiculous amount of food and had to invite everyone I know over for dinner all super last minute. But my boyfriend said it was the best lasagna ever, and my friends all liked it, so it was totally worth it. Local: Tofu, chard, carrots

Refried Beans, Cabbage Easy Stir-Fried Greens Style, Cajun Creamy Rice

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 by cyn
cabbagebeansrice beans from How To Cook Everything Vegetarian, cabbage from Veganomicon, rice from Vegan Dad Everything in this dinner was good, but surprisingly the big winner here was the cabbage. Seriously, I had two friends over for dinner, and at the end the four of us were like "Is there any cabbage left? No? Really? Awwwww." I think basically you cannot go wrong with soy sauce + rice vinegar + sesame oil. It's the law. Next time I'll probably add some garlic chili sauce - I left it out this time because one of the aforementioned friends can't handle spicy food. The refried beans were very tasty, as refried beans tend to be. My one complaint with the recipe is that it doesn't add any vegetable broth or anything to the beans when you smash them up. (I always add vegetable broth or bean cooking liquid, it makes them creamier and more awesome.) I also halved the amount of oil involved, but I was making a double recipe. The rice was satisfyingly creamy, and had a lot of potential, but it turned out kind of bland. To be fair, the recipe said I might want to kick the spices up, but I was kind of scared to because I didn't want to make it too spicy. I did add some smoked paprika, cause me and smoked paprika are bffs. Local: Cabbage, red bell pepper, parsley, carrots

Creole Stuffed Peppers, Sauteed Collard Greens, Ciabatta

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 by cyn
stuffedpepper stuffed peppers and greens from Veganomicon, Ciabatta from Cooks Illustrated This is the first time I've made bread using a biga/poolish (the little chunk of bread dough you leave out overnight to ferment), and it was widely acknowledged as the best bread I've ever made. The recipe made two loaves so I froze one of them, because we never manage to finish more than one loaf before the bread goes stale, but then I had friends over the day I made this and they finished off the entire first loaf (by itself! Without peanut butter or earth balance or anything on the bread at all). I cleverly veganized the recipe by subbing soy milk for milk, and I also used active dry yeast instead of instant yeast. (I use active dry yeast because I bought a giant sack of it at Costco, I just let it sit in whatever water is required for the recipe for ten minutes before I add it to the other ingredients and it works fine.) The only trouble I had with the recipe was shaping the loaves - the recipe clearly says that you should press the dough flat with your finger tips before putting it in the oven, and it has a picture and everything, so that's what I did, but my loaves came out kind of focaccia shaped instead of the nice rounded ciabatta loaf shape they have in the picture in the magazine. Maybe I pressed too vigorously ? I don't know. The creole stuffed peppers were very good, and I'd like to give a big shout out to smoked paprika, because I am pretty sure that's where their greatness comes from. I do wish they'd had some rice mixed into them though, because in my head you can't really have stuffed peppers without rice. I also kind of liked that the peppers were cut in half lengthwise and then stuffed, instead of cutting the top off and stuffing them - I think it's a much larger stuffing to pepper ratio this way. The collard greens were easy and delicious. I used the easy veggie broth + liquid smoke version of this recipe, and it was still super good. Local: Peppers, collard greens

Tamarind Lentils, Simpler Than Pilaf Baked Rice, Parsley Salad

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 by cyn
lentils Lentils from Veganomicon, rice and salad from How To Cook Everything Vegetarian Oh tamarind lentils! You are so delicious. And so easy to make. And so delicious. And now that I finally acquired tamarind paste, I will make you all the time. Although, I must say, you are quite sweet, it is almost unseemly. But your delicious tartness makes up for it, and somehow you are just so satisfying. Oh yes. So I finally found a method of rice that actually works for me. You start the rice on the stove, bring it to boiling, and then stick it in the oven. And then your rice turns out delicious, cooked through consistently and not crunchy on the top and mushy on the bottom. And you get to use your pretty red dutch oven! I am totally using this rice method all the time now. My rice curse is no more! Plus I used a variation where you add some cinnamon and cloves and cardamom pods and it was perfect, delicately spiced in a way that complimented the lentils wonderfully. I liked the salad, but the boyfriend thought there was too much lemon in the dressing. (Probably my fault instead of the recipes, I was sort of messing around with proportions of things.) The original recipe for this is all parsley, but I chickened out and used a variation that's about half and half lettuce/parsley. It was surprisingly good, especially since I tend to be fairly dubious about parsley. Local: Parsley, lettuce