This was easy enough. What do you do with leftover BBQ seitan? Make pizza. I used the crust(quick and basic!) and the pom bbq sauce
On vegweb, the issue came up about how to make a good vegan white cake. I've never had "issue" with any (vegan) cake, but some wanted a vanilla tasting cake that was dense but light in texture (not sure how that works.... its been too long since I've had "omni cake." Regardless, several of us have made it our mission to try to figure this mess out. My attempt, seen here, is the chocolate cake that works well, subbing cornstarch for the cocoa powder. It tasted good, but I don't think it is what they were looking for. THHF thought of using icewater and got good results; this is my next plan of attack. However, the cupcakes I made this weekend had a nice "dense fluffy" to them. Perhaps the trick is to MESS THEM UP.
One of my favorite "its hot and I don't wanna eat!" dishes is cold rice salad. It's easy to make, doesn't' involve the oven, but still provides all the flavor and texture I like from more complex recipes. I have a basic "recipe" I use when making rice salads, but it's easy to sub in what you have or what you like. Essentially, this one is chopped veggies (celery, carrots, green onion) mixed with equal parts short grain brown rice, spelt, and brown lentils (all cooked first!). The dressing is raspberry balsamic vinegar (best_score_ever!), a little salt, and olive oil. After it sat in the fridge for a day, the raspberry flavor really came out in the grains. It was super good! Oh, and I like to add nuts to theses. This one had pecans. YUM! And currents. As you can see, I can't remember what I put in my foods most of the time. Good think I only buy vegan food, which makes everything I made vegan by default!
Today we had the Summer Corn Chowder (or whatever the whole name is) from Vcon. I don't know what made me think it was a good idea to make soup, since it was 10000 degrees out, but I did it anyways. Actually, this started with a fennel bulb I got in my weekly CSA box. I don't like fennel (or anything with a licorice taste) so I was looking for a recipe that might hide it well. This recipe did the trick! It was pretty quick and easy, seeing that I even got really badass and made my own broth in the pressure cooker. I was going to get fresh corn but it was mega pricey at the store (3 for 2 bucks!). So I said "screw that!" and used frozen. Yumm, corn. DR and Cammers were pleased, to say the least, as they sweated their way though a couple bowls of the stuff.
Another day that it was too hot to cook. I decided to clean out the veggie load from the CSA and make a big salad. Actually, DR wanted salad so I made one for her. And me. I was feeling a bit lazy.
This was a "cheater" recipe since I essentially took the Cold Udon Noodles from VWAV and stole the sauce recipe to adapt to what I had chilin' in my kitchen: buckwheat noodles, chard, and a mega lack of peanut butter. Cammers was coming over and I knew he had peanut butter so I told him to bring it with for dinner, since I was making noodles. He showed up with a jar of White Chocolate Wonderful. Great. I yelled at him. I managed to find a little spicy peanut butter to make this dish and it worked pretty well. DR confirmed her dislike of chard. I got dinner done.
I figured out the fastest, easiest way to make tofu when you don't feel like cooking: scramble, add salsa, nooch. Heat and eat! So easy! So fast! Such a crown pleaser! But this time I went a big beyond this "easy" model and first fried up some hashbrowns, which added some potato goodness to the tofu scramble. DR was quite pleased by this, since she loves potatoes. I tossed a ripe avocado on top. I swear, for having few ingredients, this tasted fantastic! Much better than my crappy picture of it suggests. The avocado with the salsa-tofu.... totally yum.
