» Archive for October, 2007

Homemade Gnocchi

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 by cyn
gnocchi.jpg from Vegan with a Vengeance My roommate Dafna and I spent halloween rolling gnocchi. They turned out pretty good, but I think I need a ricer to really get the lumps out of the potatoes. That or a lot more patience for these sorts of things. We ate these with homemade pesto, but I don't have a picture because they all sort of melted together in the bowl. They were still tasty, though. I think next time I need to be careful to lay them spread out & flat after they come out of the water, and then maybe saute them or something. There almost certainly will be a next time, because I was shopping with my friend and he convinced me I should buy the giant ten pound bag of potatoes for fifty cents more than the five pound bag, and then when I got home I found two ancient potatoes mouldering in the back of the pantry, so I ended up using one potato from my giant bag o' spuds. So if anyone has any potato recipe recommendations, please let me know.

Cajun-Style Collards, Not-So-Dirty Rice

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 by cyn
greensrice.jpg from Vegan Planet I used the Trader Joe's Southern Green mix for the greens, and used roasted diced tomatoes with green chiles (I forget the brand name). The greens turned out awesome, with just the right amount of spicy. Also, I didn't have file powder, so I put in some seasoning salt instead. The "not-so-dirty rice" (dirty rice with fake ground beef) was also good, although a little bland by itself. Mixed in with the greens, it was perfect. So this meal was tasty and made me feel very nutritionally virtuous, but it did involve using three different pans and the rice cooker, which I felt was a little excessive. I guess if I had made the rice on the stove, it would have only used three pans, but still.

Calzone

Monday, October 29th, 2007 by cyn
calzone.jpg Ingredients: Trader Joe's Pizza Dough, tofu ricotta from Vegan with a Vengeance, crimini mushrooms, yellow bell pepper, spinach, garlic, onions, Braggs, balsamic vinegar I love Trader Joe's premade pizza doughs for making pizza or calzones super easy to make. I rolled out the dough for this while I was sauteing the veggies, and then assembled it and stuck it in the oven at 400 degrees for twenty minutes. It turned out crispy and golden outside, and made a big fat calzone that I was eating for lunch for days afterwards. I think this would be even better with pesto in it.

Tofu Scramble

Sunday, October 28th, 2007 by cyn
scramble.jpg based on Vegan with a Vengeance Ah, the noble tofu scramble, words cannot express my love for you. This one features some super firm nori tofu from San Diego Tofu Dairy, cut into cubes because it was too firm to crumble, and man, it was some of the tastiest tofu ever. The veggies are mushrooms and some spinach (thrown in at the very end so it wouldn't over cook), and I used a teaspoon of cumin and three teaspoons of Penzey's smoky seasoned salt for the spices. It would have had salsa, but all of my salsa had been in my fridge for eons and was sort of dubious looking.

Creamiest Mac n’ Cheez Ever

Thursday, October 25th, 2007 by cyn
creamymac.jpg from Yeah, That Vegan Shit Pretty much everything Lindyloo says about this recipe is completely true - it was ridiculously, amazingly creamy, and also a little bland. I think I might try this with a different cheez sauce component, maybe with the nacho style cheez from The Uncheese Cookbook. I even added spices to it because I knew it was going to be bland, and it still turned out pretty bland. So next time: spice the hell out of it. I think I forgot that even though the cheez sauce itself tasted pretty good, adding the roux and the pasta was going to bland it up. I'm tempted to go on an obsessive quest to try different cheez & spice combos until I come up with The Perfect Mac n' Cheez, but a girl can only eat so much delicious, delicious mac n' cheez without feeling guilty about it. I tossed some broccoli in this because broccoli makes mac n' cheez healthy, for reals, and also some baked tofu, and I topped the whole thing with panko cause that's what I had in the bread crumb department. Surprisingly, this recipe is also Omni Roommate Approved. (I always feel weird feeding fake mac n' cheese to the omnivores, since it's so obviously weird and vegan and filled with nutritional yeast. But sometimes they like it, apparently.)

Sesame Soba Noodles

Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 by cyn
tahini.jpg from Vegan Planet This sauce was totally delicious, all salty and sesame. I think I'll switch up the vegetables if I make this again, though, because I found the peas/carrots/bell pepper combo too sweet to go with the tahini based sauce. I did get to use my food processor to shred the carrots, which was fun. This recipe is also omni roommate approved.

Creamy Mushroom Soup

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 by cyn
mushroomsoup.jpg from Horizons: The Cookbook I must say, I was underwhelmed by this. It just seemed like it was missing something, especially considering it contained a ton of crimini mushrooms and half a tub of Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese, and I love both of those things. I think maybe I didn't put enough salt in, as I have the tendency not to with things that say "salt to taste" instead of giving specifics. I had leftovers of this going on forever, and it did get better as it sat around and the flavors mingled, as these things tend to do. I added some nutritional yeast and flavored salt to most of the leftovers, and that made it taste pretty good. But the other day I got super crazy and added some tofu ricotta and some extra garlic sriracha sauce, and it was really, really good. So I think maybe it just needed some more garlic and a little kick to it. One of the things I did like about it was the strong rosemary flavor it had going on. Oh, and also after I flung soup all over the kitchen trying to puree this in the blender, my roommate was all "Um, you know we have an immersion blender, right?" Sometimes I am not so smart.

Pear and Cranberry Tart

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 by cyn
tart.jpg from Vegan with a Vengeance I think this would have worked out better if I'd used less pear - it turned into more of a jumble of pear than an artfully arrangement. I made this during the fires, because natural disasters make me want to bake. I've been really into pears lately, too, I think they're pretty much my favorite fruit. This turned out tasty, if not gorgeous.

Penne with Pesto & Other Stuff

Sunday, October 21st, 2007 by cyn
pestowsheese.jpg Ingredients: Penne, pesto from the freezer, herbed tofu, smoked cheddar sheese, fake bacon, spinach, nutritional yeast. I realize it looks like I had pasta/pesto/tofu combinations for dinner practically two days in a row, but in reality these meals happened a week apart. This featured some smoked cheddar Sheese I bought at Food Fight Grocery in Portland. I had heard amazing things about Sheese, and I have to say that on first taste I was slightly disappointed - it definitely had a little bit of a soy taste going on. But then I remembered what other vegan cheese tastes like. (Ass, mainly.) And then I ate a lot more of it, much of it on crackers. Then I started craving it every time I got drunk. Now I'm sort of stalking Sheese on the internet. In summation, Sheese is not as good as I remember real cheese to be, but it's a lot better than all the other fake cheese. It tastes kind of like those bright orange cheeseballs you eat at Christmas. I want to try all of the flavors, now.

Veggie Curry

Thursday, October 11th, 2007 by cyn
curry1.jpg I made this giant curry with all of the veggies in my fridge right before I left on vacation. In it: Eggplant, string beans, baby bok choy, bell pepper, mushrooms, onion, garlic, curry paste, coconut milk, braggs. I stir fried the veggies for a while with some braggs, then once they were tender I added the coconut milk and curry paste. It turned out really tasty, and I managed to prevent coming back to a fridge full of spoiled vegetables.