Baked Tofu with Asparagus

Quick and easy tonight. The tofu was iron chefed. I put soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, oil, oregano, and red pepper flakes in a baking dish and added some water and sliced tofu. It went into the oven for 20 minutes, got flipped, and then back in for another 20 minutes. It worked really well and I didn't even have to press it! I roasted some asparagus on the side, dressed with oil, salt and pepper.

Calzone with Spicy Seitan

This meal was a lot of fun. I can't remember why I wanted to do something complex this week, but I've been in a good mood. The diss is coming along, my students aren't driving me too batty, and making new stuff is fun. My buddy Megan was telling me about how she made some smokie moz cheeze from the Uncheese Cookbook. After a mixed review, she offered to give me some. I thought, sweet! What could I do with this? Some ideas went thought and I ended up with calzones. However, our scheduals didn't line up (Thursday is her busy day - she is also a PhD student) and I was left cheezeless. So I told Scoots and DR to get some FYH while I made Soyrizo Seitan. Yeah, you heard it: seitan made with soyrizo. It was pretty good! I've included the recipe below. I would suggest BLENDING THE HECK out of the wet mix. I just mixed it and it was, um, fun kneading the seitan. I made pizza dough and wrapped hunks of baked seitan in with some cheeze. The sauce (yum!) was silken tofu blended with a little agave, lemon juice, and spices, including a touch of cinnamon. It was savory and sweet and went well with the spicy calzones.

Soyrizo Seitan

wet
1/2 package (1 "link") vegan soyrizo
1 c tomato juice

dry
2 c VWG
1/4 c (or so) nutritional yeast
spices: garlic powder, onion powder, paprika. I didn't measure. :)

Blend the wet together (if you want soyrizo chunks, just mix). Mix into the dry, adding a little more tomato juice (1/4 c or so total) to make a nice dough. Knead it for a bit and allow to rest for the gluten to relax. Cook as desired. I rolled mine into a fat log in foil because it was very delicate because of the chunks'o'soyrizo. I baked it for a while in the oven and then unwrapped it and sliced it up. The soyrizo adds a lot of flavor and gives it a looser texture. Megan and I have talked about messing around with mixing different protiens with the VWG to see what textures we get. I guess adding soyrizo doesn't do anything great, but it isn't too shabby!

Roasted Fennel and Beet Salad

Yeah, I thought I was nuts too when I came up with this. I had a ton of beets (thanks to Cammers and my CSA box) and some fennel that needed to be eaten, so I thought about what to do with them. I figured I would roast them and add them to some grain dish, similar to how I have dished up roasted veggies in the past. However, when I got my CSA box and it's gallons of salad mixes, I decided to just toss them on top of the lettuce with some dressing. For the dressing, I made the spicy mustard dressing in Veganomicon, subbing in agave for maple syrup. It was fantastic enough that DR ate her beets and then even snunk some into the salad she packed herself for work tomorrow. Winner! I love roasted anythings. Roasted fennel is up there with foods that make me drool.

Fettuccine with Leeks and Butternut Squash

Okay, I have to admit I used whole wheat "normal" spagetti noodles for this, but to each their own. This is a recipe from Pirello's Cooking the Whole Foods Way, which is 100 percent vegan if you get the newest edition. She as a vegan (pretty sure she said that) macrobiotics past and has a cooking show on PBS. My friend and I used to watch the PBS cooking shows a couple years back, but I don't remember ever seeing this show. Anyways, it is a fantastic cookbook with lots of fun and new ideas in it--something for every mood. I especially like that she uses a lot of different veggies in different ways than my other books. It is also cool that she talks a lot about her journeys with vegan and macro (she is a cancer surviver) and how the recipes really promote health and life. This recipe was pretty good, although the dinner crew wasn't thrilled. The sauce is leeks and squash that are cooked with some spices and liquids and then blended into a puree, which is then used on the pasta like a sauce. I made some frozen mixed veggies to go with them, but they are under my "pile" in the bowl. For fun (and because I had one) I included some fennel greens.

Lentil and Butternut Squash Stew

This is a recipe from Students Go Vegan and a repeat make for me! It is a very easy and fast recipe and I'm not sure why I don't make it more often. It is lentils and butternut squash (duh) but it also has a touch of cumin in it, a little cinnamon (!!!) and, to finish it off, ORANGE JUICE! The juice really rocks the flavors out. This time, I used some leftover canned pineapple juice I "found" in my freezer (surprising I find anything in there), which was equally good. The leftover squash (it was HUGE - I made a double batch and still had squash left even though I added extra) got roasted with a little oil and salt and used as a fancy topping. We are clever at chez Puppy.

Mixed Veg Delight

I went back to the "everything and the kitchen sink" style dinners to try to clear out some odds and ends I had piling up in the fridge. Here, I roasted a head of cauliflower and some green beans with oil and salt/pepper. Then I braised some random greens and splashed them with some oil and balsamic vinegar. For the "main dish" I boiled some lentils with chopped sun dried tomatoes and garlic and then splashed on some vinegar and oil. Very simple but very good, especially when tossed on top of some quinoa. Sadly (and strange enough), the next day I was eating some of these lentils/quinoa for lunch at school and they tasted oddly simular to boiled chicken (or at least how I remember it tasting like...).

Tortillas with Cilantro Sour Creme

I got a TON of cilantro to try out the cilantro sour creme in Veganomicon. I was planning on making some enchiladas (inspired by the vcon kale and potato enchiladas) but, in getting my 9x13 pan out, I discovered that it somehow got chipped and had to go to Pyrex heaven. So we went and got a vegan pizza instead.

So tonight I got out the cilantro and whipped up some of this tasty sauce. It made a ton and we might need to be eating it for the next year, but it was worth it. It's flexible and could be used in a lot of ways. I served it with some potato tortillas, which were corn tortillas stuffed with cumin, cilantro, and lime seasoned mashed potatos. It was delish!