» Archive for the 'Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure' Category

Millet Pilaf, Faux Egg Salad

Thursday, February 5th, 2009 by cyn
milletpilaf1 Faux Egg Salad from How It All Vegan, millet from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure So a while ago I made the Tofu Egg Salad from the PPK, which was a perfectly good egg salad, but was not my tofu egg salad, the one with pickles and garlic and mustard and veganaise. I think it's the mustard that makes it so good, that or the garlic, and the pickles aren't hurting anything. This time I added some dill to it, cause I had lots of dill. I also used Indian Black Salt (which is really pink) in place of the salt in the recipe, and it gave it a freakishly eggy smell. Totally hit my tofu egg salad craving perfectly. I liked the millet pilaf. My boyfriend described it as "like couscous, but spiky." (He also refers to millet as "that birdfood stuff.") I think if I had added more water, it would have been less fluffy/spiky and more squishy/mushy. But I liked it anyway! It had peas and carrots and dried porcini mushrooms and soy sauce and it was delicious. Local: Carrots, dill, parsley, scallions

Mexican Green Rice, Hummus, Bok Choy

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 by cyn
greenrice rice from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure I had soaked the chickpeas to make some kind of chickpea salad with, but when it came time to actually make dinner, I decided what I really wanted was hummus. I remembered that in Veganomicon, Isa says the secret to really creamy hummus is to use the blender instead of a food processor, so into the blender I chuck my three cups of cooked chickpeas, some lemon juice, garlic, tahini, salt, pepper, cumin, a dash of sesame oil, some of the chickpea cooking liquid, and enough olive oil to make it about the right texture. (The sesame oil gives the hummus a delicious bit of smoke flavor, I recommend it highly!) The hummus did turn out wonderfully creamy, but it required an insane amount of poking around in the blender with a spoon to get all of the chickpeas to blend, and towards the end of things my blender was giving off a kind of Not Good smell. So I would recommend this method only if you have a blender that doesn't suck - I'm going back to the food processor, and I'm just going to ignore any slight graininess of the resulting hummus. The Mexican rice was quite good, despite me overcooking it quite a bit. (I subbed white basmati for brown rice, then followed the brown rice directions instead of cutting down on the time.) I think in the future I'll leave out the corn, as I find corn insipid, and who needs both rice and corn? It's like a big starch party. I ate the leftovers for lunch mixed in with leftover red beans from the night before and some guacamole left over from tempeh quesadillas, and it was fantastic. The bok choy I just stir-fried with some olive oil and soy sauce. I might have added some red pepper flakes too, I don't remember. (I do like adding red pepper flakes to things!) Local: Bok choy, cilantro, parsley

Granny’s Corn Casserole, Louisiana Red Beans, Chard

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 by cyn
corncass Corn casserole is a Vegan Crunk tester beans beans from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure Oh man, this corn casserole . . . I don't even like corn, and it was delicious. I served it to a friend of mine, and she was like "I would like to bathe in this." It's good, people. Deliciously, sinfully good. The three of us ate it all and scraped the casserole dish clean. I was worried it would be bland, but there are diced green chilies in there along with corn and cream cheese, and they add just the perfect amount of spice. So good! The red beans were tasty, although they turned out too watery. (This was entirely my fault, there are even instructions in the recipe telling you to drain off some of the extra water which I for some reason didn't follow.) I just decided to make them soup, and they were tasty that way. I've been making beans all the time since I got the pressure cooker, and I love it. The chard I just stir-fried with some soy sauce and a splash of worcestershire sauce. Our friend and I liked it, the boyfriend didn't. Simple, easy, pleasing to two out of three people. Local: Chard

Winter Squash Risotto, Tempeh Bacon, Salad

Sunday, January 18th, 2009 by cyn
squashrisotto Tempeh is a Vegan Crunk Tester, risotto from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure This tempeh bacon was so tasty! And I actually had all the ingredients lying around, which is nice. I like the VwaV tempeh bacon, but I never make it because I never have apple cider, and if I buy apple cider I have to figure out what to do with the rest of it. And apple cider doesn't go particularly well with gin, so it's not like I'm going to drink it. Anyway, unlike that tempeh bacon, Bianca's tempeh bacon won't leave me with a giant jug of barely used apple cider taking up half the fridge, and it is, if anything, even more delicious. Sweet, smokey, salty, it's got it all. The winter squash risotto was decidedly meh, a fact I am blaming entirely on this stupid mediocre squash the CSA keeps giving me. First it took forever to peel the damn thing, and then when it was cooked it didn't even taste good. It did have an amazing texture though - I mashed up the squash a little with a potato masher when it was done cooking, and it made the risotto even creamier than it normally is. I think this would probably be delicious if you made it with the butternut squash called for in the recipe, just don't substitute carnival squash, it will suck and you'll be sad and your wrists will hurt from hacking the stupid thing up. This did taste better when I mixed in some of the tempeh bacon, and it got better as leftovers, but still, seriously bland. Local: Salad fixins, squash

Beet Borsht

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 by cyn
borsht from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure My boyfriend said "How did you get beets to taste so good?" I was slightly less incredulous, but I agree that this was totally delicious. It was tangy and savory and super filling, and used up both some of my dill and some of the soy yogurt left over from the tandoori. I bet this would be super good with some barley thrown in, too. I got to use both the pressure cooker and the immersion blender while making this - yay for kitchen gadgets! And it cooked up super fast, thanks to the pressure cooker. I'm definitely going to keep this in mind when I get more beets from the CSA. Local: Beets, dill

Baby Lima Beans with Spinach and Dill, Mexican Pesto

Monday, January 12th, 2009 by cyn
limas Lima beans from Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure, pesto from Yellow Rose Recipes I subbed mizuna for spinach in the lima beans, since that's what I had around. I also added some nutritional yeast, just because it seemed sort of appropriate. Sometimes I just get an urge to add nutritional yeast to things. This turned out great, creamy and delicious, with a really nice lightness from the lemon juice and dill. The mizuna got a little bit stringy, so next time I think I'll chop it up finer. (To be honest, I barely chopped it all other than trimming the stems off.) This was supposed be reminiscent of creamed spinach, but I'm not sure I've ever had creamed spinach, so I can't say much about that. I can say that it was good, and it helped me get through some of the insane amount of dill I've gotten from my CSA recently. (Seriously, I have two huge bags of dill in my crisper right now. Let me know if you have good ideas for what to do with it - I've mostly been throwing it into salad dressing.) The pasta sadly turned out kind of bland. I think I just didn't add enough pesto to it, and then instead of just adding more pesto, I kept adding more salt until it was slightly too salty. I also added some shredded carrots and radishes in an attempt to liven it up, but I think I should have sauteed them for a minute first, because they just seemed aggressively raw. I liked this better as leftovers, but it was never super amazing. I think it would have been better if I'd added some lemon juice or hot sauce. I've got a bunch more of this pesto in the freezer now, so I'm hoping that it's just a matter of not adding enough of it this time. Local: Herbs, mizuna, carrots, radishes