Mustardy Tofu with Quinoa and Kale

Another round of recipe testing. This time, a mustardy dressing that I decided to slather on some tofu. Looks cute, no?

Also tried my hand at the quinoa again, adding a lot more garlic. *drool* Good stuff!

The last bit here is my "go to" kale recipe. DR doesn't like kale but she'll eat it if I make it this way. Steam the kale and then drizzle with a touch each roasted sesame oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. Toss well and chow down!

Simple Split Pea Soup

I've been neglectful of the blog for quit a while it seems. I don't even know what I've been doing to take up my time but I do know what I wasn't doing -- a lot of interesting cooking! The semester kicked my butt. On the bright side, I got the next dissertation chapter DONE and discovered that teaching 4 classes won't kill me.

So now that it is a break period, what is a little vegan to do? How about cook and eat and test some sweet recipes for my friend's new cookbook that will be coming out soon. I'm not sure if I can introduce you to these recipes yet, but I will tell you about this split pea soup I made. YUM. So simple. As you can see, you see carrots and celery. There are also peas in there. I ate a bowl and went back for another and realized I was stuffed!

Oven Glazed Tofu with Garlic Quinoa

YUM! Another test recipe for my friend's new cookbook. I've only tried a handful of recipes so far but this book will be a winner just like her first book, Radiant Health, Inner Wealth. You can actually order this book online or check out her blog for some of the recipes from this book.

This is a simple baked tofu with an amazing quinoa under it--it has like half a head of garlic in it but is made in a fun way so you don't kill any vampires. I want to make more with twice the garlic but need to get more quinoa first. :D

Cajun Tofu Wrap

This wrap is too good for words. I'll stop typing now.

Actually, making this for the test kitchen reminded me of how YUMMY tofu is in a wrap. Yummy and easy. My mind was blown.

Fried Veggie Rice

This is called "things to do with leftover rice." Actually, it is simple: you fry it! DR asked me to make her a lunch to pack the other day and I tossed this quick spread together based on a recipe I found on vegweb. I would post the recipe but vegweb is slower than molasses today. Shesh.

Pepper Curry

I've made this recipe before and I was thinking about it when I went on the hunt for a curry to make for DR. I remembered it as easy (bonus) and simple (double bonus). So I made it again. It met those criteria but something was missing - not sure what. The flavor just wasn't where I remembered it being. Oh well. Maybe it was the fancy curry powder I used....

But it is good overall. Tofu, broccoli, sweet bell peppers, baby corn, water chestnuts, and other goodies over rice.

Beet and Avocado Salad

This was a very simple salad. We always get a lot of beets in our CSA box and recently we have been liking them more and more. I guess they are growing on us! I steamed the beets and let them cool before slicing them. I also cut up some lettuce and avocado and tossed it with the mustard dressing in VCon. Ground hazelnuts finished it off. Simple and yummy!

Asian-style Seitan and Kale Salad

Since purchasing my steamer, I've been making a TON of kale (if you haven't noticed in the more recent posts). It makes cooking greens sooo easy - wash and insert. Steam. Eat.

This dish was an attempt to making something that the crew I was feeding (DR and LF) would like. I had the seitan left over from lunch meatz adventures. Here, I steamed the kale to soften it before plunging it in cold water to cool it off. After spinning it to remove the water, I was left with a nice base for this salad. I added avocado, seitan, onion, asperigus and carrot. The dressing is seasme oil, soy sauce, rice vinigar, and some seasme seeds. Very quick and very good! Kale and avocado are like a dream together.

Blueberry Cheezecake

Cheesecake for DR's birthday. This is the second time I've made this recipe and I added lots more lemon - lemon zest, lemon juice. Wait, it already had lemon juice. But still, it needed more lemon to be a LEMON cheesecake.

But it was good. We ate the whole thing quicker than I want to admit.

Enchiladas!

There is nothing I can say about these enchiladas. They are the best thing I can make. Everyone loves them. Blah blah enchiladas!

The filling is brown rice, "burger" crumbles, and a ton of mushrooms. I cook this and add some chili powder and cumin. Fill tortillas and drown in sauce. Interestingly enough, the sauce is actually from a Betty Crocker cookbook my mom gave me for my 21st birthday. It is the only recipe I use because it is very easy and very tasty.

The sour cream sauce is actually a new recipe I came up with. It is raw! Cashews blended with apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, a little salt and some water. DR loves it and keeps asking about it. I guess I'll have to make it more often.

Pasta with Chard and Mushrooms

Here is one of my creations using the lunch meat seitan. As I noted in my last post, this stuff is awesome.

The pasta is very basic and easy. Saute an onion in a couple tablespoons of olive oil, add sliced mushrooms and cook until they are soft and ready to rumble. Add chopped seitan.

Meanwhile, boil water and add pasta. During the last 2 minutes or so of cooking, add in washed and chopped chard. Drain and then toss with the onion/mushroom/seitan mixture. Add a little salt and balsamic vinegar and stir to combine. Ta da!

Veggie Lunch Meat

Lunch meatz. Oh my, this stuff is good. I decided to invest in a plug in steamer (both to save on gas but also because my little steamer can't handle our vegan veggie load!). I knew that some recipe writers were making steamed seitans, so I decided to get to work on it. I found this recipe on Vegan Dad's blog for veggie lunch meat. OMG this stuff is GOLD. Easy to make and the flavor is mellow enough to cook with but also tasty just cut up and munched on. I've made some recipes with it recently. I'll be making this more often. I can't wait to try some different flavors.

Mushroom Gravy and Kale

It is pretty obvious that DR and I took the KALE CHALLENGE this last week. All that means is that we bought a TON of kale to eat and we will eat it all!

DR really likes mushrooms and she likes gravy, so I made the Awesome Mushroom Gravy from vegweb. She had hers with kale and steamed potato and I made some brown rice to add to my plate. It was a nice, quick dinner and the gravy was mighty tasty! I think gravy gets a bad rap for being fattening or boring, but I've seen so many awesome ways different vegan recipes have used gravy - full of veggies and good things - that I think it is a good part of a balanced vegan diet! It makes me want some tempeh sausage gravy with biscuits. Yum!

Kale and Seitan

I came up with this recipe the other day. I just put it over on vegweb, so that is really exciting! I made the "lunch meat" recipe from vegandad's blog, which is a bean-gluten loaf that is steamed and then baked to a yummy finish. It works really well in this recipe since it absorbed the "juices" well and held its shape.

This recipe is also good if you mash avocado into the cold leftovers, as I found out the next day. Enjoy!

Kale and Seitan

1 huge bunch of kale (about 8-10 cups sliced)
2 c seitan, sliced, cubed or chopped
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp ginger
2 TB canola oil
1 tsp sesame oil
2 TB soy sauce
2 TB rice vinegar

Clean and chop kale. Steam for 5-10 minutes, or until bright green and softer. You could also dunk it in boiling water for a couple of minutes, uncovered, under bright green if you don't have a steamer.

Meanwhile, slice the onion into thin half moons and mince the garlic and ginger. Heat the oils in a large skillet or wok over medium heat and add the onion, ginger, and garlic. Cook, stirring often, until the onions are just translucent. Add sliced seitan (if it is packaged in water, drain it first) and stir to heat though.

Around this time the kale should be done. Take the kale and add it to the skillet/wok and stir to combine. Heat for a couple more minutes or until kale is done to your liking. I tend to like it pretty "crunchy."

Turn off heat. Sprinkle on the soy sauce and rice vinegar and stir to mix everything together. Enjoy! You may want to add the soy sauce and vinegar to taste. I have given approximate measures but I don't measure it.

Candy!

My friend Megan and I went on a candy making adventure. And hamz. But the post here is about candy! We are prepping up for the Egg-less Extravaganza this weekend. It will be fun. Vegan potlucks are always fun.

Anyways, the candies of the day included York-a-like Peppermint Patties, caramels, marshmallows, choco-nut clusters (Veg Times, above), and peanut butter cups (from our brains).

The choco-nut clusters were easy enough. Melt chocolate (here, semisweet). Put in cup. Insert goodies. For some I used a raw nut and fruit mix (almonds, pecans, walnuts, cranberries, etc) and the other I used candied ginger and sesame seeds. Fancy!

The other event of the day was the Peanutbutter Bac'n Candies. Megan made some "truffle style" (rolled in chocolate and then in bac'ns) but my pics of them look like crap. So, instead, I have my PB Bac'n Cup. Yup. The filling is peanutbutter with bac'n bits in it. This is coated in chocolate and topped with more bac'n. What is the world coming to? Needless to say, we made them for our boys.

Herbed Tofu Lasagna with Zucchini

I made this for Easter dinner (see below post re: "Easter"). I asked DR what she wanted and this is what she gave me. The recipe is in the April 2006 VegTimes and I had to make some creative adjustments to deal with the fact that the grocery store I went to was having a bad produce day. I only had two zucchinis, so I added some frozen artichoke hearts. This was a good sub! I also forgot about picking up fresh herbs (well, half forgot: the parsley looked bad and basil was not found). As a result, I used some dried italian herbs in the tofu filling, which was suprisingly easy and tasty. The addition of some toasted pine nuts is what made it a winner. I think.

Turnovers!

For Easter Weekend (not that we celebrate it; DR is more into celebrating bunnies and baskets of candy) I made some mixed berry turnover using the puff pastry that was left over from the loaf I made for Cougi's dinner. My freezer likes to burn things quickly, so this seemed like a great way to get around that issue.

The idea was very easy. Thaw dough. Open up (mine was folded in thirds) and dump berries in the middle. Fold sides over. Bake. Cool. Eat. Yum! I plated them with some soy vanilla icecream and a blueberry sauce I picked up at Trader Joes. It tastes good on everything.

Yukon Gold and Baby Spinach Masala

Again, I'm on a big kick with the newest issue of VegTimes. They have a set of 30 minute recipes based on coconut milk, so when I saw this recipe I decided I would pick up what I needed to make it happen. It's a really easy recipe: potatoes are steamed and then mixed with a spiced coconut milk. Spinach is added and then you eat it. Well, there is also lime juice, cilantro, and lots of garlic and ginger (which was fun to cut up together). I used my awesome slicer to cut up the onions. Not sure why I don't do that more often....

Tom Kha Tofu

I went though a few ideas for dinner tonight before stumbling across this recipe in the March '09 Vegetarian Times. I was on the hunt for a quick and easy noodle stir fry dish and discovered that the one I was thinking about making involved things I didn't have. I'm pretty flexible in subbing out veg and whatnot, but not so great at subbing out key condiments that don't have a viable sub. I ran across this soup and commented that it met the dinner requirement: used the veggies we had and tofu, which DR had started pressing while I was coming home from work. I've always been a bit iffy about coconut milk based soups, but I gave it a whirl. It was good! DR ate two bowls and kept making happy sounds. I better not loose this--I'm sure we'll be making it again. This reminded me of why I like VegTimes - lots of really quick recipes. I should be better about making recipes out of them more often!

Raw Sushi

I found a ton of pictures in my "food to post" folder (lovingly called "food porn" on my desktop) that got pushed to the sides as I worked on other things. So i decided to post them all on different days. To make myself look cool.

This is an experiment in raw sushi. Sprouts, avocado, mango, and carrots rolled into sweet and crunchy little bites. I really started to like avocado and mango together with both my introduction to the Mango Sushi Wrap (from the now missing Beans and Greens) and from a tempeh with avocado/mango salsa recipe from my friend Tess's cookbook. It's a fantastic book and totally worth the green. All I have to say is YUM.

African Beans with Polenta

I can't for the life of me remember where this recipe came from. It was either in a cookbook or on vegweb.com, but I remember having my eye on it for a while before I got to making it. It is an African dish (it kind of annoys me that it is "African" vs. more specific - the whole monoculture thing bothers me since Africa is a VERY diverse place. But again, I don't complain about all the Indian dishes I make. I'll have to think about this some).

The dish was easy to make. Cook down some onions, add coconut milk and spices (mostly turmeric, hence the awesome color). Pressure cook some pinto beans and add to the mess. Cook up some soft polenta. Make balls with polenta and add to bean mix. Done. Now that I think about it, I think this is in Students Go Vegan. The fact checker me would check but the lazy me who is blogging and chatting with a ladyfriend will not. :D

Tofu, Carrots, Cabbage

I went on a big macrobiotic kick over winter vacation (always into something I guess!) and started to play around with macro cooking. I wouldn't say this is a great example of a macro meal, but it is more macro than anything else I normally make. I really like how simple macro meals are - no fuss, easy.

This meal is a scrambled tofu, boiled carrots, and fermented red cabbage (this is the kind of stuff that makes my dreams come true - it melts in your mouth AND is tangy!)

Cougi's Special Day

I've been really really bad about updating the blog - it's been like 2 plus months! The semester has been nuts (to say the least). At first, three preps seemed okay but I find that the grading never stops. Oh well, live and learn.

This meal I put together for DR and Cammers to celebrate the one year anniversary of the passing of our beloved Cougi. I wanted to do something "homemade" and wholesome, to keep DR happy. But I didn't want to do anything too normal. So enter: Phillo wrapped bean and nut loaf.

This loaf is from a little "vegetarian" cookbook that I got for a couple bucks at the craft store. If you craft at all, you know what I'm talking about. Most of the recipes are not vegan, but most can be converted easy by swapping out dairy for subs. The best recipe from here to date is this loaf. I first made it a couple years ago for Easter when I hosted "the boys" from the lab at my old apartment (I guess that was over two years ago.... regardless). I made two and one fell on the floor. I stood there in shock and sadness and S picked it up off the floor. I can't remember how it found its way to the trash, but it did becaue it was covered in cat fur.

Along with the loaf, i made some kale, roasted carrots, and mashed potatos and gravy. Yum.

Lentils Ballz and Pasta

I was helping my friend RC pull wallpaper in her new house and she had made some veggie soup with "lentil balls" in it for lunch. I was impressed enough trying them in the soup that I decided to make some for dinner. She used the Chickpea Cutlet recipe from Vcon, subbing in french lentils for the beans. I only had red lentils, so I used those in the recipe, along with some good sourdough we picked up at Honest Weight. Paired them with pasta and this made a pretty quick and nice meal. I think these would be good in a sandwich also.

Carrot-Beet Salad with Raw Sundried Tomato Cheeze

It as been a while since I've posted. Finals, winter break, sickness, holidays, family visiting, and other random madness (snow storms!) left me with just a bit of time to keep from going crazy! I did spend some time thinking about life and figuring out how to deal with some of the issues I've been having on a personal level. This lead to some heavy reading in macrobiotics and raw foods. I'm not sure where things will really end up in terms of my diet and cooking, but for now I'm working on cleaning things up!!

I've been inspired by the raw chat thread on vegweb so I decided to make some raw stuff today. I have some crackers (sweet apricot flavor) in my dehydrator and I made some quite excellent sundried tomato cheese from Ani Phyo's book Ani's Raw Food Kitchen. It was a bit thick, so I used a scoop to make "cheese balls" for the top of this salad. The base is spinach and the pink "stuff" is carrot and beet that were grated in my food processor. Ha, that made a mess! Topped it with sunflour seeds and some flax oil. The cheese is really strong, but tasty. It would be easy to thin it down to make a spread or dressing.