» Archive for April, 2009

Carrot-Cayenne Coleslaw, Blackened Tofu Slabs with Succotash Salsa, Braised Carrots

Thursday, April 30th, 2009 by cyn
tofucoleslawcarrots Tofu and coleslaw from Vegan Soul Kitchen, carrots from the New York Times We made this meal for one of our Wednesday night Lost nights a while ago. (We invite a couple of friends over to watch Lost with us, and feed them beforehand.) The boyfriend made the tofu & coleslaw, but I made the carrots. I used the NYT recipe as a base, but changed it up like this: 1 pound carrots, sliced 1 tablespoon olive oil Salt and freshly ground black pepper 2 cloves garlic, minced 1/4 cup soy sauce (I used some leftover marinade) 1/4 cup water or vegetable broth lemon juice from 1/2 lemon Dill 1. Heat up olive oil, saute garlic for 30 seconds or a minute 2. Add everything except lemon and dill. Bring to a boil, then cover and adjust heat so mixture simmers. 3. Cook, more or less undisturbed, until carrots are tender and liquid is almost gone, 10 to 20 minutes. Uncover and boil off remaining liquid, then add lemon juice and dill. This is my new favorite way to make carrots - they turn out super delicious, and not overly sweet and boring like they sometimes can. The lemon juice at the end is really essential. The tofu was super delicious - it had a spice rub that made it all spicy, and then the salsa rounded it out nicely. We used frozen corn and lima beans because that's what we could find, but it turned out really tasty anyway. The coleslaw was also very tasty. It wasn't as spicy as its name suggested (I mean, it says "cayenne" right there in the recipe title, I expected some kick), but it was very flavorful. It uses a vinaigrette dressing instead of the usual mayo, which made it lighter but still super tasty. We used Muscat Champagne Vinegar from Trader Joe's, which gave it a nice citrusy kick. Boyfriend says: I really liked the method for cooking the tofu, the way it coated the tofu in olive oil and then putting it in the spice mix, and how long I cooked it really cooked the flavors in. I thought it turned out nice. It was nice cooking for more people. Local: Tofu, carrots, cabbage

Chilled Citrus-Broccoli Salad, Pan-Glazed Tofu with Hoisin Sauce

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 by cyn
broctofu broccoli from Vegan Soul Kitchen, tofu from A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen I sort of accidentally had a little five person dinner party the other day, and this is what I served. The broccoli was not incredibly exciting, but it was very tasty. It was pretty easy to make, although it had to chill for a while, which I always find difficult to schedule into my dinner plans. The tofu was cooked using this method I'm using a lot lately - you fry the tofu until it's golden and crispy on both sides, and then you add a sauce to the pan and simmer it down into a thick glaze. The sauce really sinks into the tofu, and the outside edges get crispy and chewy and delicious. It makes tofu with a great flavor and texture, only takes 15 or 20 minutes, and you don't have to remember to do anything ahead of time. I was afraid I wouldn't have enough food for everybody, since things were so last minute, but I made two packages of tofu, served it over rice, and made one of the guests bring over some bread. (We had it on the side, with Earth Balance.) Bread is my new favorite thing to tell people to bring over for dinner - it goes with pretty much everything, it's an added insurance that there will be enough food, and it's not hard to use up any leftovers. Anyway, there was plenty of food, and everyone seemed to like it, so score one for the impromptu dinner party. Local: Broccoli, tofu, orange, lemon

Giant Chocolate Cupcake with Peanut Butter Frosting

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 by cyn
giantcupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World I promised my boyfriend that if he bought me this pan I would use it to bake him a cake, and he bought it for me that very day, going to the mall and everything. Then I didn't make him a cake until two or three weeks later, because I am a terrible girlfriend. This is the first cake I've made using this pan, and it turned out a little wonky. I doubled the cupcake recipe, but I probably should have tripled it, as I didn't have enough batter to fill the pan all the way, and the shapes came out a little wonky. The cake also turned out a little dry around the edges - next time I'll cook it at a lower temperature. However, so far the giant cupcake seems to be a hit. This is recreation of one of the cupcake variations I made for the boyfriend's last birthday, so I knew he would like it. All of my friends seemed suitable impressed, or at least willing to eat cake. So now I just need to work on creating the perfect giant cupcake.

Braised Cabbage, Smoked Tofu

Sunday, April 12th, 2009 by cyn
braisedtofu cabbage from Orangette Orangette makes this with a poached egg, which obviously I wasn't going to do. I wanted something to go with it that had some of the characteristics of a poached egg - protein-filled, soft, savory flavor without being too flashy or overwhelming. I thought of tofu, of course, and then I thought of my stovetop smoker, which I haven't used for too long. I marinated the tofu in a mixture of soy sauce and vegetable broth with a little bit of sriracha mixed in, and then smoked it with hickory wood chops for twenty minutes. The result went beautifully with the braised cabbage - it had a little bit of flavor from the marinade, and then a lovely smokiness. Not bland, but subtle, and nice with the cabbage. The boyfriend described the cabbage as "peasant food," which is probably a pretty good description. Fortunately, I come from a long line of peasants, and find peasant food comforting and delicious. The cabbage was amazingly tender and flavorful, especially with the carrots and onions. I highly recommend consulting Orangette about anything cabbage related, her recipes are always delicious. Both of these recipes were also sort of "Stick it in the oven/on the stove and go read a book for a while" recipes, which is nice. Local: Cabbage, carrots, tofu

Mexican Bowl

Saturday, April 11th, 2009 by cyn
mexibowl2 components, refried beans from Yellow Rose Recipes mexicanbowl assembled The boyfriend came home from his friend's house with two huge, extremely ripe avocados from their garden, so I decided the best way to use them was Mexican Bowls, featuring lots of guac! For the guac, I mashed up the avocados with a fork, and then mixed in lemon juice (half a lemon's worth), salt, pepper, garlic powder, a little cayenne, green onion and cilantro. I actually prefer garlic powder over real garlic in gauc, I feel like it mixes in better. I bet that using a garlic press would work pretty well too, though. Anyway, this guac was incredibly delicious. We ate half of it on the bowls, then we went out to the bar with some friends and came back and ate the rest on chips afterwards. So good. I made my super-simple-cheater Mexican rice, sauteing half an onion and a couple cloves garlic and then adding a couple tablespoons of Mexican seasoning, a cup of basmati rice, and a cup and half of vegetable broth. It was way tasty and flavorful. I sauteed some chard and beet greens with braggs and garlic, which is maybe my favorite super-simple way to cook chard. The refried beans I made from Yellow Rose Recipes, I think it's my favorite refried bean recipe ever. It always turns out delicious and super-flavorful. I like to mix some pinto beans in with the black beans for a little variety, I think it makes them creamier maybe. Plus the pinto beans turn this awesome purple color when you soak them together. I served this with more green onions and garlic and some radish to sprinkle on top. (I just feel like there's radish hanging around on the plate a lot when you get Mexican food, and I had a bunch so I decided to throw some in.) All and all, it was a very tasty bowl of food. I totally mixed mine all together and had new awesome flavor combinations in every bite. It was basically a burrito without the tortilla, with a lot of awesome. Local: Avocados, chard, radish, cilantro, onions

Spaghetti and Tempeh Meatlessballs, Salad

Friday, April 10th, 2009 by cyn
tempehmeatballs tempeh meatlessball from happyveganface, marinara from Yellow Rose Recipes I've been meaning to make Dan's Temeph Meatlessballs forever, and I was thinking it would be pretty awesome to make some straight up spaghetti and meatlessballs. So I made up a batch of the meatlessballs (using my homemade tempeh). They were super flavorful, and easy to make - I was pleasantly surprised by how well the tempeh mixture held together. To go along with it, I made a batch of marinara from Yellow Rose Recipes, which was super easy to make, but so tasty - just straight up classic marinara. (I kicked it up a notch by adding some extra crushed red pepper and using a can of fire-roasted tomatoes with green chiles.) I think this was my boyfriend's favorite meal ever, he went back for seconds and was like "Finally, a properly saucy pasta!" I made some salad to go on the side, cause you gots to get your greens. Local: Salad fixins

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

Risotto with Sausage and Swiss Chard, Salad

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 by cyn
risotto veganized from Bon Appetit My awesome boyfriend bought me a bunch of magazine subscriptions a while back, including Vegetarian Times and Bon Appetit. Bon Appetit seems to vary widely in how many readily veganizable dishes they offer in an issue, but in the last issue they had a whole section on things you can do with swiss chard. When I saw this risotto I was like "Oh yes, that is going in my mouth." I just swapped out the sausage for Isa's sausage and used nutritional yeast instead of parmesan. Easy peasy! I also adapted it to use my pressure cooker. Pressure cooker risotto is the best thing ever - no stirring! Takes no time! Creamy and delicious! And I added the chard stems in with the onions. I don't understand recipes where they tell you to discard chard stems - chard stems are delicious! And so pretty. I always just chop them up and throw them in the pan at the same time as the onion. (Assuming there's an onion in the recipe.) This was super tasty and filling and made a ridiculous amount of food. It fed three people for dinner, and then made me three lunches during the week. Ridiculously good. Local: chard, salad fixins

Ale-Braised Cabbage, Sausage

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 by cyn
cabbagesausage sausage from Isa's blog, cabbage based on a recipe in the March issue of Vegetarian Times My boyfriend wasn't going to be home for dinner, so I was originally planning on having salad for dinner. The boyfriend hates salad-for-dinner and is only moderately okay with salad as a dinner component, while I occasionally enjoy it. Plus it's super easy to make and lets me feel virtuous. (Not that my salads are actually healthy or low-calorie, mind you, usually they involve a quarter cup of olive oil and everything in the fridge that isn't nailed down, but the concept of salad is healthy, and that's enough.) But then I realized I needed to make some seitan sausages for risotto I was making later in the week. And I realized that ale-braised cabbage goes much better with sausage than salad. And here we are. The sausage turned out delicious. I used black beans instead of pinto beans, since I had some left over. They were super easy to make, and full of spicy delicious goodness. I have no idea why I don't make these more often. The ale-braised cabbage was good, although it turned out a little bit bitter for my taste. It might have been the beer I chose. I also used green cabbage instead of red, and I think red probably would have been sweeter and maybe counter-acted the bitterness of the beer more. Still, it was decent. I ate this with some of the bread that Beany brought over, and it was delicious and filling and satisfying. I felt like I should be eating this meal in a pub, or in Germany. Local: Cabbage, dill

Japanese Asparagus Dengaku, Udon Noodles with Grapefruit

Monday, April 6th, 2009 by cyn
aspargusnoodles Noodles and asparagus from Vegetarian Times, website and April issue, respectively I had noticed this noodle recipe on the Vegetarian Times website, and sort of thought that it looked good, and then that week we got two grapefruit from our CSA and I was like "Perfect! I shall make the crazy grapefruit noodles!" It worked well with the peanut butter sauce cravings I've been having lately, too. I used carrots and radishes and frozen peas instead of their vegetables (they use radishes, bell pepper and snow peas), and udon noodles instead of soba because that was what I had. The fact that they talk a lot about "grapefruit supremes" in this recipe was fun - I got to learn a new cooking technique and spend a lot of time imagining an all-girl, all-grapefruit Motown group. This turned out really good. It had a really nice other stuff to noodles ratio, the peanut sauce was nice and spicy and peanutty, and the grapefruit sort of broke up throughout the noodles and added little sparkly citrus bits. It also made awesome leftovers for lunch. The asparagus was really good too. You spread a miso-tahini-maple syrup mixture over it and then roast it, and it gave it just the right amount of salty-sweet goodness. I think roasted asparagus is pretty much my new favorite thing in the world. Getting really excited about vegetables is something that's been happening to me a lot more since I started getting the CSA and no longer have control over which vegetables I get - suddenly I'm thrilled about asparagus and broccoli and all the other new goodies that are showing up. Plus I can't wait until tomatoes come back into season! Local: Asparagus, carrots, radishes, cilantro, grapefruit, tofu