Broccoli makes me happy

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies!

2009-12-04T07:08:00.000-08:00

I've been gone from this blog a while. But here I am and here is what is going on with me in the vegan/food department:

First, I got the news yesterday that my Vegan Pomegranate Chocolate Chip Cookie that I entered into the LiveMom Cookie Bake-Off was the winning cookie! I won a massage with Sara Ballard LMT and a $25 gift certificate to HEB. I really like the way the pomegranates pop when you bite into one. They are so pretty--like little jewels!The Pomegranate Chocolate Chip cookie recipe is at the end of this post. It was inspired by this cookie and a trip to Whole Foods where I saw some pomegranates. And I thought, why not put them in a cookie!

Here are some other cookies I have made over the last two days. I guess I'm on a cookie kick this week. Little gingersnaps cut into little pumpkins and leaves and circles. They are just the way I like them --hard and crisp and gingery. The recipe was actually called Moravian Wafers and came from a Dec. 2008 Cooking Light Magazine.
Below are Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies from Post Punk Kitchen. They go really well with Bourbon.
I joined a vegan dinnershare which is amazing in so many ways. 3 days a week we get dinner delivered to our door which means I don't have to do anything for dinner, not even think about it at all. And one day a week I cook for our family plus the 3 others. It is an all day affair making enough food to feed 16 people and my kitchen is a mess afterwards, but my kitchen is always a mess and I love cooking for other people. And I just love cooking, so it is really fun.

I just finished reading Julie and Julia. I know I'm kind of late since it has been out a while and now there is a movie and everything (which I haven't seen). But I don't get much of a chance to read or don't make the time or whatever. I really enjoyed it and was inspired by it and it was one of the reasons I wanted to start blogging again.

I made these Chocolate Caramel Crackers the other day. So yummy. I will be making more.
Here are some links to other things I have been wanting to make--possibly as Christmas gifts for people.
Candied orange slices
nut brittle
vanilla extract

Vegan Pomegranate Chocolate Chip Cookie

1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup oats
3/4 cup vegan chocolate chips (I like the dark chocolate ones)
3/4 cup pomegranate seeds
about 1/4 tsp zest of an orange (one clementine is just the right amount)
5 TBS almond butter
2 TBS vegetable oil
5 TBS soymilk (or other non-dairy milk)
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray cookie sheet with Pam or use a silpat.
Sift the flour, baking soda and salt into a large bowl. Add the oats, chocolate chips, pomegranate seeds and orange zest.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the vegetable oil, soymilk, vanilla and almond butter until smooth. Add the brown sugar and mix until well combined.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well with a big spoon or spatula. At the end I get my hands in there to do the mixing.
The dough is pretty sticky, so it helps to put it in the freezer for about 5 minutes before putting it onto the cookie sheet.
Scoop out between 1 and 2 TBS dough per cookie and roll into a ball and place on cookie sheet. Flatten slightly with your hand onto the cookie sheet.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and leave on cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Then remove cookies to cooling rack to continue cooling.

Makes between 2 and 3 dozen depending on how big you make them.

A Sweet Father's Day

2009-06-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend we went to visit my parents and I took my Dad some chocolate chip cookies. I always use the Nestle Toll House Cookie recipe. I usually substitute Ener-G Egg Replacer for the eggs. But I was out so I used flax seed 'eggs' instead. I could tell a slight difference, so I prefer the Ener-G Egg replacer, but they were still delicious.
On Sunday we were back at home and celebrated Father's Day for my husband. I made him a German Chocolate Cake. The recipes were from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The basic Chocolate Cupcake recipe--which I doubled and put into two 9 inch cake pans. I made the Coconut Pecan Fudge Frosting and put it between the layers and on top. I doubled the frosting recipe also, but really didn't need to. I guess I could have iced the whole cake, but I didn't want it to be overly sweet. I have the rest in the freezer waiting to be used.

We also grilled some veggies and tofu and served them over rice. My husband actually did the grilling. I know, making him cook his own Father's Day dinner. But he enjoyed it!

German Apple Cake

2009-06-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

Making this cake originated the way a lot of my meals/cooking adventures do. I have one ingredient that I want/need to use and I look through my cookbooks for something to make with it that also includes items I already have on hand. So I had some apples that were not going to last much longer. I thumbed through The Joy of Vegan Baking and found this recipe for German Apple Cake. I did not have any margarine, but luckily there was a variation that suggested cutting the margarine and adding more applesauce to make this low-fat. Bonus! I turned out beautifully. I keep pointing at it and asking my husband, "Did you see the German Apple Cake I made?" The taste is very simple and fresh--barely sweet. It was really good with my coffee this morning.Now to tell you about two exciting give-aways going on:
1. Musings From the Fishbowl is giving away a copy of Sweet Freedom by Ricki Heller (Diet, Dessert, and Dogs). If I was lucky enough to win a copy, I could join in on Sweet Freedom Saturdays.
2. Wing It Vegan came back from a blog break just to give away a Lexen Healthy Chef. This thing is a food dehydrator, rice cooker, steamer, and yogurt maker! Sounds amazing to me. I would love to win one!

Fresh from the garden

2009-06-18T12:33:00.001-07:00

It is really hot here, but my garden is managing to produce some tomatoes and green beans. My mom came in town and brought a bunch of basil and other herbs from her garden. Rosemary, oregano, parsley. I used the basil and parsley to make some pesto. Added some green beans and yellow pear and cherry tomatoes. And a delicious meal was made.

Simple, cheap eats

2009-06-15T08:27:00.001-07:00

Here are two recent meals I have made that were cheap and easy to make. First up is Vegan Mom's Scrambled Tofu that Vegan Dad mentioned the other day on his blog. I make tofu scramble pretty often, but I never use a recipe so I just throw in whatever I have--veggies, spices, nutritional yeast. It always turns out just fine, but when I saw Vegan Mom's recipe, I thought it would be refreshing to just make a basic scramble--nothing extra thrown in. And it was really nice! I liked the addition of mustard and because I had some directions to follow I actually cooked the tofu long enough to make it a nice dry consistency. I'm sure the lack of veggies in it also kept the tofu from staying to wet also. I really liked it and I'm sure I'll be making it again. My mom even took a bite and liked it! She is not a tofu fan. I'm working on her! :) hi mom.

Next up is Fideo. I've passed by those little yellow boxes of noodles for many years not quite knowing what to do with them. I discovered this recipe at Vegan Explosion and found it to be pretty good for such a simple and very inexpensive meal. At 33 cents a box you can't go wrong, plus my 3 year old liked it. Vegan Explosion has a lot of great looking recipes that I would like to try. Horchata, flour tortillas, Avocado pie.

Quinoa Corn Chowder

2009-06-12T19:18:00.000-07:00

The other day, as I was looking through my cookbook shelf, I found a loose recipe that I just had to make. It was a page torn out of a Jan/Feb 2008 Vegetarian Times Magazine. The recipe was Quinoa Corn Chowder. I, of course, didn't have all of the necessary ingredients so it became a variation. I didn't even have an onion, which really would have made this better. But it was still good. The quinoa gives the chowder a nice texture. Feel free to add an onion, take something away, etc. Here is my version:

Quinoa Corn Chowder

1 large red-skinned potato, cut into small dice
1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into small dice
1 red bell pepper, cut into small dice
3/4 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained
4 cups fresh or frozen (defrosted) corn kernels
1 1/4 tsp salt, plus more to taste
freshly ground black pepper
1-2 TBSP lime juice

Add 4 cups of water to a soup pot and bring the potatoes to a boil over high heat. Add the quinoa and red bell pepper and boil uncovered over medium-high heat for 10 minutes.
In a food processor, process 3 cups of the corn kernels with 1 cup of water to make a coarse puree.
After the 10 minutes of cooking time, stir the corn puree and the remaining 1 cup of corn kernels into the quinoa/potatoes. Add the salt and pepper.
Continue cooking about 2-3 more minutes or until quinoa/potatoes are tender.
Remove from heat and stir in the lime juice.

The original recipe called for a lot of things that I did not have and that would probably make this an even better soup: cilantro, green olives, scallions, leek or onion. The red bell pepper and sweet potato were my additions.

Enchilada Casserole

2009-06-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

Enchilada Casserole
12 corn tortillas
1 can refried beans
1 recipe awesome nacho dip (without the rotel)
1 onion
1 zucchini
1 yellow squash
1 cup corn
3/4 TBSP season salt
1 14.5 oz can enchilada sauce

I made homemade corn tortillas using masa mix and water and my new tortilla press. They were small and thicker than store-bought tortillas. I think store-bought would work, especially with some overlapping, but the thickness of the home-made worked really well to hold up to all the layers.

Make the Awesome Nacho Dip and set aside.

Chop the onion, zucchini and squash into small dice. Saute the onion in a little oil until translucent. Add the zucchini, squash, corn (run under hot water first to thaw a bit if using frozen), and season salt. Saute for about 4-5 minutes.

Start layering:
(I used a small round casserole dish, an 8X8 square pan would work also)
4 corn tortillas on the bottom, 1/2 the can of refried beans, 1/2 of the Awesome Nacho dip, 1/2 of the veggies, 4 more tortillas, 1/2 can enchilada sauce, second half of beans, nacho dip, and veggies. 4 more tortillas and the rest of the enchilada sauce.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. Let cool and then top with shredded lettuce and tomatoes.

We took a little family vacation last week to San Antonio and had a good time. Luckily, the hotel/resort we stayed in had a full kitchen which helped us save money and allowed us to cook up some meals in our room. Nothing special, just some pancakes one morning, some chili dogs another day. I don't know why I'm so surprised that San Antonio doesn't have very many vegan choices in restaurants. I wanted to thank AtXvegan from Eat'n Veg'n Vegan Food and Recipes for her suggestion to go to Green in San Antonio. Even though I was not blown away by the food at Green, it was nice to go somewhere all vegetarian. We tried the Chicken Fried Wheat Meat, the Popcorn Tofu Po-Boy, and the Green Burger (home-made veggie burger). All were okay, but I would probably order something different if I went back. There were parts of each that I really liked--the gravy on the wheat meat was tasty and the buns of both sandwiches. I also really liked the vegan chipolte ranch dressing that came with my side salad. The good thing is there are lots of other choices on the menu, so if I go back again, maybe I will find something I really like!

Funny story (or maybe not so funny): We were walking down the Riverwalk and all the restaurants have their menus outside along the sidewalk so you can see if you want to eat there. So I was looking at one at a tex-mex place just to see what they had.
The host guy asked, "Are you looking for something in particular?"
I said, "Vegetarian options."
He said, "We don't have any."
I couldn't believe he wasn't even willing to try to find something vegetarian on the menu. I wasn't even asking for vegan--I didn't want to blow his mind. Oh well, I thought it was pretty funny.

Cranberry Nut Bread and Suggestions needed

2009-05-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

This may possibly be the first thing I've made from The Joy of Vegan Baking. It is the Cranberry Nut Bread. It made a really big loaf and was great for breakfast or snack. Just good all around. I used candied orange in it and it has orange juice and orange and lemon zest, so it was very orange-y. And then the cranberries and Nuts of course--Yum!

On another note, we are going on a little trip this week to San Antonio. Does anyone have any suggestions for Vegan/Vegetarian places to eat while we are there? I actually lived in San Antonio for about 6 months in the late 90's, but I can only remember two places that I used to eat (A Mexican food place off Broadway and Twin Sister's Cafe). Hopefully there are more than that.

Lentil Soup that turned into Potato Soup

2009-05-27T20:04:00.000-07:00

I do this a lot. I look through my many cookbooks, just trying to find something to make for dinner that does not require a trip to the grocery store. So the other night I just knew I had a bag of lentils around somewhere so I started making Tomato-Lentil Soup with Brown Rice from The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen. I started sauteing the carrots, leeks, and garlic and then realized after searching everywhere that I had no lentils. The good thing was, I hadn't gotten too far and what I had done was pretty much a good start to any soup. I did have some potatoes, so I found this recipe for Hearty Winter Potato Soup in How It All Vegan. It turned out great. Potato Soup is always a winner.

What was I thinking?

2009-05-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

I really missed blogging! I've been making some yummy food that I just felt the need to share with others. So it was either this or make ALL of my Facebook updates about food.
So let's jump right into it....
I made this delicious quiche for a potluck this weekend. It is a polenta base and a vegetable-tofu quiche on top. It is from the Millenium Cookbook. My husband always hates it when I make something I've never tried before for a potluck. I know, it is risky. But when I told him it was a Millenium recipe he was okay with it. And it turned out well. I took it to the potluck about an hour after it was done baking. So it had plenty of time to cool. But really, this dish was even better the next day after it had been in the fridge all night. I need to make Polenta more often and do more with it.This noodle dish is a favorite of mine. Many years ago my friend gave out little cookbooks she put together of her favorite recipes for Christmas. This is a variation of one of them. The official recipe is Sesame Asparagus Noodles (not sure where she got the recipe). Here I just used the sauce and put it over soba noodles and some frozen mixed veggies (you could use whatever fresh veggies you have also). Very quick and easy to put together.

Sesame Noodles

1 package Soba Noodles
1 to 1 1/2 cups frozen mixed veggies
2 Tablespoons sesame oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tablespoons vegetable stock (or water)
2 Tablespoons dry sherry
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon chile oil*
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tablespoons toasted sesame seeds.

Boil the Soba noodles and veggies together for 5 minutes. Drain and run under cold water to cool it off. Place into serving bowl.
Mix the sauce together: sesame oil to garlic. Pour sauce over noodles and veggies. Toss together adding the toasted sesame seeds.

*I used 1/4 teaspoon of the chile oil and it wasn't too spicy for my 3 year old.

For Memorial Day we couldn't resist cooking out on the grill. We weren't feeling overly inspired so we just did Boca Burgers and corn. My husband was in charge and did a fine job with the burgers. He forgot about the corn though and it burned. I made a little side dish with the veggies I gathered from our garden yesterday. Green Beans, Tomatoes (cherry and yellow pear) and a little Ichiban Eggplant. This dish I actually did in the oven, not on the grill. I roasted them all together with a mixture of vegetable broth, lemon juice, and olive oil. Well, it was supposed to be vegetable broth, but it ended up just being water since I forgot to add the veggie broth paste. I don't think it mattered too much. Almonds and salt and pepper were added about half way through the roasting time, actually the tomatoes too. I'm excited to get even more veggies from our small garden.

short and sweet

2009-05-04T05:44:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to jump in to say that I am taking a break from my blog for a while. That is probably obvious since I haven't posted in so long. I'm trying to get my pet sitting business going strong after a break. And my husband is starting his own business. So hopefully, once I get into a groove with all that I can start posting again. I'm definitely still cooking!

Easy Comfort Food

2009-04-23T14:45:00.001-07:00

I made this simple Carrot, Spinach and Rice Stew last night for dinner. It is from the New York Times food blog, Bitten. There is a lot of great inspiration over there. I made it to the Farmer's Market yesterday and got a bag of assorted greens: beet greens, arugala, etc. So I used that instead of the spinach. I also used a suggestion from one of the comments which was to add chickpeas. So good. Cooked to the point that the rice was kind of mushy, which I think is what made it such a comfort food for me.

Happy Earth Day!

2009-04-22T11:05:00.000-07:00

So far I'm having a really nice Earth Day! I took my boys to Whole Foods where they were having some booths and activities out in front of the store. Olen was shy and didn't feel like participating in the activities, but we shopped a little, got some snacks and played on the playground. I hadn't been to Whole Foods in forever--it just isn't on my way anywhere and is too expensive to do my regular grocery shopping at. But it certainly is a nice treat every once in a while.
Some of the treats we got were freeze dried fruits (Just Fruit Salad), Plantain Chips, cranberries (I'm thinking of making some granola bars with these), and dried green beans(which got a yuck from Olen). Also got some hummus and pita chips, smart dogs, and Earth Balance.

Later this afternoon we have plans to go to the farmers market which sounds like a perfect Earth Day activity to me. Can't wait to get some veggies!

Earlier in the week we did some grilling. Seitan Ribz, potatoes and swiss chard. The swiss chard I cooked inside and the potatoes were similar to the Crash Hot Potatoes. I boiled them until fork tender and then cut them into big chunks and put them onto the grill in a grill pan to get crispy. Very nice sides to go with the Ribz which are a favorite around here.

Also baked some tofu the other day. It is a recipe from the Vegetarian Times Vegetarian Entertaining cookbook. The recipe is Tofu Teriyaki Bites. I made these last week to go in a cold Sesame Noodle dish. This week they never even made them onto a plate. I just kept walking by the stovetop where they were sitting on the baking sheet and eating them off. I had specifically made them to pack in my son's lunch because he liked them the week before with the noodles. Of course he didn't eat them this time.

I give in

2009-04-18T22:06:00.000-07:00

I could only take it for so long! HappyVeganFace keeps making these Crash Hot Potatoes and taunting everyone with the yumminess. And then Shellyfish had to go and mention them too. So I just had to make them. And they were every bit as good as they say. I know, they are just potatoes, but the smashing then baking really makes for a nice surface area to get all crunchy and yummy. I really enjoyed them. My smashing got a little out of hand because I didn't quite boil them long enough so the middle wouldn't smash very easily so I kind of just smashed all the skin off. But really they turned out wonderfully and the skins were all crispy and delicious. Check out the others who have made them for better pictures.

Another recipe out there tempting me was Jennshaggy's Vegan Mozzarella. Mine didn't quite turn out like hers though. I think I may have gotten impatient and not let the mixture come up to a boil, maybe just a simmer. So the agar did not set properly and the result was very soft. Or it could have been that I substituted Mimicreme for Silk Soy Creamer. Not sure if they are similar or not. It wasn't a complete loss though. I was able to use some as a ricotta cheese type substitute in Lasagna Rolls. These had the cheese, spinach, zucchini, onion, garlic and parmesan cheese substitute rolled up in lasagna noodles. Then covered with tomato sauce (which was just a can of diced tomatoes with basil added and smashed a little more with a fork) and a little more parm substitute and baked.

I just made it up as I went along and it turned out pretty well.

Grilled Vegetable sandwiches on Foccacia

2009-04-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

The weekend consisted of visitors and Easter fun. I'm starting to realize that when we have people in town, I don't cook much. We ate out and we cooked on the grill a lot. Easy stuff like veggie dogs and tofu and veggies. It was a beautiful weekend for it. I intended on making Alisa's Cinnamon Rolls, but somehow never got around to it. I hope to soon.
On Monday I made Quinoa Salad again. This time I added an avocado and measured the lime juice (1 TBS). I'll update the recipe on the original post.

Yesterday I had my best friend Gina over for a delicious meal. The best part was that it was completely spontaneous, we both used up veggies that were about to go bad in our fridges, and I didn't have to go to the grocery store to make it. (I was putting off grocery shopping until today).

So she brought over corn and we roasted it on the grill. I made some homemade Foccacia bread from The Vegan Gourmet. I love foccacia, but have maybe made it only once before. I cannot even express how delicious this bread was! I grilled the veggies I had on hand: sweet potato, eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, onion.

We each had two pieces of foccacia with a little Veganaise on them, some fresh basil leaves from the garden and the grilled veggies. Oh so good!Olen and Jeff enjoying the meal

And now for some Work In Progress Wednesday:
A baby blanket I am crocheting for a friend of mine that is having a baby soon. I got the idea from Joelle's Giant Granny Square blanket over at The Purl Bee. It is the perfect project for leftover yarn. I'm using all cotton yarn. And it is just a big granny square, what could be easier than that? It is turning out so cute, I'm not going to want to give it away.

Quinoa, tofu and let's pretend it is Wednesday

2009-04-09T20:47:00.001-07:00

I made a very tasty Quinoa salad the other night. It was a combination of two different Quinoa recipes. One from Veganomicon and one from Vegan Planet. Here is a recipe. I didn't do much measuring. I'll make it again and update the recipe. I'll also have to take a picture. The one I took came out badly. (even worse then the tofu picture below).

Quinoa Salad

1 cup Quinoa, rinsed
2 cups vegetable broth
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 mango, peeled and diced small
small handful garlic chives, minced
small handful cilantro, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
splash of lime juice (I used bottled, fresh might be 1/2 to 1 lime)
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the quinoa in the vegetable broth. I used a rice cooker, but however you want to make it.
Put cooked quinoa into a bowl and add the rest of the ingredients and mix together. Serve at room temp or cold.

To go with the salad I made some baked tofu. It was a loose version of a recipe from The Voluptuous Vegan. I didn't have all the ingredients, so I just went with what I had. If you have this cookbook, you have to make the Chocolate Coconut Cake with Chocolate Fudge Frosting. I used to make it whenever I made a cake for special occasions.

These veggies here are what went into the Masaman Curry I made. My friend Jam owns Thai Fresh and makes the best Thai food and teaches thai cooking classes. I took one a couple of years ago and learned to make about 4 dishes. This is a really easy one. I definitely cannot make it as well as she can, but it works.
I didn't get my W.I.P. in yesterday, so I'm doing it today. I just finished these little cuties tonight to put in Easter baskets for my little boys. I filled them with rice. So cute I can't stand it! This was the stitch-a-long project for March. Better late then never.

Breakfast for dinner

2009-04-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

I love having breakfast for dinner. Last night we had Biscuits and Sausage Gravy with Tofu Scramble.
I got the biscuit recipe from Jewish Vegan and they were the best vegan bicuits I have ever made! Usually mine come out all hard and dense and flat. Not the case with these! Check out her recipe and blog post for pictures. Hers look way better than mine. Her main tip for making them fluffy was folding the dough over before rolling it out. Next time I'll probably roll them out even less and make bigger fluffier biscuits. The sausage gravy I kind of made up. I browned some of the leftover Italian sausage from the Sicilian Bread Pie and added flour and soy milk to make the gravy. For some reason the gravy came out tasting kind of sweet. Not sure if it was the fennel in the sausage or what. I also used whole wheat pastry flour because I had just used up the last of my unbleached white flour in the biscuits. So who knows. It was okay. My Tofu Scramble was just kind of thrown together with some squash and zucchini, nutritional yeast and tumeric. Nothing special. But all together it was breakfast!

Speaking of Breakfast....This month's Vegan Culinary Experience (online magazine) is called What's for Breakfast. I haven't got a chance to check it out yet, but I look forward to looking at all the recipes. Alisa of One Frugal Foodie turned me on to the Vegan Culinary Experience and I thank her for that. I also thank her for the Cinnamon Roll recipe she currently has up on her blog. I have big plans to make these for Easter morning breakfast.

Sicilian Bread Pie

2009-04-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned how much I love all of Bryanna Clark Grogan's recipes? Well, I do. For Italian food, Nonna's Italian Kitchen is the best vegan cookbook out there. Okay, I guess I haven't actually tried all the vegan Italian cookbooks out there, but this one has everything!

Sunday night I made Sicilian Bread Pie. It was filled with a broccoli and vegetarian Italian sausage filling. The 'crust' is pizza dough. Here is a picture of the inside before I put the top crust on. It is steamed broccoli and crumbled spicy Italian sausage (a recipe from the book). This sausage is really great. It is tvp and tofu based with lots of great spices like fennel and garlic and crushed red pepper. I usually make a double batch so that I have plenty for all kinds of things. Like pizza or adding to pasta sauce. Back to the pie...I then topped the filling with halved yellow pear tomatoes and a generous sprinkling of Cashew sprinkle (soy parm substitute) from the cookbook. On went the top crust and into the oven. It took a while from start to finish, but it is so tasty and now I have leftover sausage to use. The pie is good hot or cold and goes well with some marinara sauce to dip it in.

Speaking of pizza dough, I think I've finally found the perfect thin crust pizza dough recipe. I was browsing the New York Times food blog, Bitten, and came across this post and recipe. It made a beautiful thin and crackery crust. Just what I've been looking for. Now I just need to find a vegan soy cheese I like. I used Follow your Heart on this one, but not a big fan. I need to order some Teese and try it.

Perfectly Simple

2009-04-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

A big pot of beans is so simple and filling. But top it off with some sauteed greens, some Tahini Miso Sauce and a tortilla on the side and it is perfect!

Yesterday I made a 2 lb bag of pinto beans. That's a lot of beans. I sauteed up some spinach with garlic and red pepper flakes and made some more Tahini Miso Sauce from Vegan Gourmet. Yum!

I love buying kitchen stuff from the restraunt supply store. Not too long ago I got these condiment bottles which are perfect for holding sauces and dressings. It also came in handy yesterday for putting the Chocolate Ganache onto the cupcakes.

cupcakes and stuff

2009-04-01T13:46:00.000-07:00

First off, I would like to wish my wonderful Brother-in-law a Happy Birthday!!!! I am so happy he and my sister found each other those many years ago. He is a great brother-in-law and a terrific Uncle to my boys. These cupcakes are for him. Now hopefully they will make it to his house before we eat them all.
They are Chocolate cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting inside and Chocolate Ganache on top. And you gotta have sprinkles for a birthday celebration. All the recipes were from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

I made car shaped 'cupcakes' earlier in the week for no reason at all. Just really wanted to use my car pan. I made Vegan Cream Cheese Icing for these and we just put icing and sprinkles on as we ate them.
I bought some tempeh my last grocery trip planning on making Tempeh Meatballs to go on top of pasta and tomato sauce. However, as I started simmering the tempeh in the soy sauce/water mixture I realized I did not have any tomato sauce. I thought about making some, but I was just not feeling that dedicated to being in the kitchen a long time. So, I searched around on the Internet for something to make with my tempeh and found the Tempeh Wingz from Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk. These are something I've always intended on trying, just never go around to it and forgot about it. Plus, my husband does not like tempeh, so I don't buy it very often. Well, he used to not like tempeh. After trying these he said if it tasted like this more often, he would eat it. I had to make a few slight changes to the recipe, but nothing major. As I said, I was already simmering the tempeh in a water/soy sauce mixture so that was different. And I didn't have any Panko, so I crushed up some Matzo crackers instead. And finally, I didn't have any agave nectar for the sauce, so I just used some leftover barbeque sauce I had. It was all very good. Like I said, even my tempeh hating husband liked them.

And finally, a little Work In Progress for you:
These are some Rock Babies that I made for a friend of my son's that just turned 3 years old. They have been in a weekly playgroup together since before they were 2. His mom blogs over at Savvy Source and has all kinds of great ideas for activities to do with your preschooler. There is a tutorial for the rock babies on Resurrection Fern.
I had planned on joining the stitch-a-long this month, but didn't quite get around to it. I got the patterns drawn onto the fabric, but I still need to stitch them and sew them into little softies. I still plan on doing it by Easter as gifts for my boys, so I'm sure they will turn up on my next W.I.P. Wednesday.

What we've been eating

2009-03-30T14:59:00.001-07:00

On the menu this past week and weekend was a lot of old favorites. The dish to the left is actually a new one, but it was similar to a typical pasta salad I would make. It was Orzo with Olives, Broccoli, and Basil. It also had mushrooms and tomatoes in it. The recipe was from Vegetarian Planet.

We've been eating on the lasagna below all week. It is Spinach and Mushroom Lasagna from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. It makes a lot and is very dense. I actually just ended up freezing half of it for later.

And last but not least, some delicious junk food. Nachos! These had refried beans, Boca ground meat substitute, spinach, tomatoes, salsa, and cheeze sauce. The cheeze sauce is called Awesome Nacho Dip and is from a website called Veganism for the Meat Eater. I don't even remember how long ago I found this recipe. Before I started reading vegan blogs, so a few years ago. For the nachos I made the dip without using the rotel, but I make this a lot with the Rotel and just use it as a dip. I've tried many other cheeze dips and this is the one I always go back to. It is easy to make and I always have the ingredients.

Sunny Sunday Meal

2009-03-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday was such a beautiful spring day I just had to cook outdoors again. Well, a lot of this was made indoors, but I did use the grill for some of it.
I made Susan V's Barbeque Seitan Ribz. I love these things and make them often. They start off in the oven and then you finish them on the grill. To go with the Ribz I made baked potato and sweet potato fries (these were in the oven). And on the grill I made some asparagus. Both were simply seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Happy Vegan Face posted a Kung Pao Tofu recipe a while back. Kung Pao is my favorite chinese dish. I think I went overboard with the amount of veggies and rice in proportion to how much sauce I made, but the flavor was great. Just could have used more sauce.
I made some onsies for a friend of mine having a second baby soon. I used the freezer paper stencil technique which always turns out so nicely. My mom drew the pictures (Thanks Mom!). I only took a picture of the robot, but the other one was a duck pull toy. I have a few other friends having babies soon, so I might be making some more. I have lots of crafty projects I need to work on. A birthday present for my brother-in-law, a birthday present for a friend, those new baby gifts and the WIP stitch a long bunny and bear which I was planning to make for boys for Easter gifts. Better get going!

ABCs in 123

2009-03-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

What is fast and easy to make, has veggies in it, and is gobbled up by my 3 year old?
Alphabet Soup!

Alphabet Soup

1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1 15 oz can petite diced tomatoes
1 cup vegetable broth
1 cup water
1 1/2 cups frozen veggie mixture
1/2-3/4 cups alphabet pasta

1. Combine the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, broth and water in a large saucepan.
2. Bring to a boil
3. Add frozen veggies and pasta and rapidly simmer for 8-10 minutes.

See, I told you, as easy as 1...2...3.

Back to the routine

2009-03-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

So SXSW is over. My husband is back home (he works for SXSW and was gone the whole time working), my mom went back home (she was in town helping me out with the boys), and now we are back to our daily routine. Which means back to cooking!

While my mom was still in town I made us some Vegan Chicken and Dumplings. She used to make the meat version all the time when I was a kid and it was one of my favorites. So I was happy to find a vegan version a while back. I have the recipe typed into my recipe manager on my computer and just have the source written down as the internet. So I'm not sure where exactly I got it. It uses the Morning Star Farms chicken strips and the dumplings have rosemary, basil and oregano in them. It is easy to make and such a comfort food. Sorry I can't find the recipe to link to, but Here and here are some vegan chicken and dumplings recipes that look great. I would say the first one is the most like the recipe I have.

On Saturday I cooked up a really delicious recipe from The Vegan Gourmet. Beets and Greens wtih Bulgur and Miso Tahini Sauce. I have made beets only once before and I really like them. I had never eaten the greens until now though. I love greens. I always feel so good after eating them. The absolute best part of this meal was the Miso Tahini Sauce. So yummy! After the bulgur and beets were gone I ate it with sauteed spinach and then today I had some falafel smothered in it. I will for sure be making this again.

This meal reminded me of Diet, Dessert and Dogs post on meals in a bowl. She has lots of good ideas for grains/greens/veggies and sauce combos. Check them out at her new website and while you are there enter her giveaway for a big jug of maple syrup. I'm completely out of maple syrup, so I hope I win!

I also made Veganomicon's Corn Edamame salad for the first time last week. I was inspired by Two Vegan Boys--she made this a while ago and it just looked so good.

I mentioned in my last post that I went to a SXSW panel on foodblogging. So I wanted to write a little bit about that. There were 5 panelists from all ranges of food blogs. Here is a write-up from Gourmet about the event. What I learned from the panel was there are a lot of different kinds of food bloggers out there. Some that post a few times a week, some that post a few times a day. No one way is better then the other as long as you are consistent with what you do. Kalyn of Kayln's Kitchen stressed how important good pictures are. I'm going to have to work on both of those--consistency and good pictures. Most of the panelists actually made money from their blogs with advertising and such. So that was interesting to hear about. I don't think it is a goal of mine right now, but nice to see people doing what love and making money from it.

I have some good meals planned for this week. I'm so excited to be back to our normal routine.

So much going on...

2009-03-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't been cooking too much lately. SXSW is going on here in Austin, TX. It is a big Interactive, Film, and Music Festival that started March 13th and goes on until March 22nd. I am going to try to make it to some of everything. Tomorrow I plan to go to a panel discussion about food blogging. Should be very interesting, I'll report back.

On Friday night I had my sisters and some friends over and made a big pot of chili for us all to eat Frito Pie style. I also made Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies that Bryanna Clark Grogan recently posted the recipe for. They were really good. Rich, but not overly sweet. Almost light and fluffy.

My son loves alphabet soup and I finally found some alphabet pasta at a little Mexican market near my house. It was okay; it could have been better. I really wanted to put more veggies in it, but all I had was celery and carrot. As soon as I get to the grocery store I'll have to make it again and post a recipe. My son liked it though.

I just pulled some Double Chocolate Chip cookies out of the oven. I usually just make a veganized version of the Toll House Cookie Recipe. They are my favorite. But I thought I would try a new recipe today and went with the Millenium Cookbook. They are good, but a little too healthy. Not something I should really complain about I guess.

Sorry no pictures.

Muffins and such

2009-03-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

I made some delicious Breakfast Muffins yesterday. They are another recipe from My Vegan Cookbook. He has so many recipes I want to try. They have pineapple and carrots and oats. I can't stop eating them. I wish my son would try them, but he won't even take a bite. Oh well, more for me.
I love this mug. I got it on etsy for my husband for Valentine's day a year ago. I should have gotten two. But he shares, so it is okay.

I didn't have anything done for W.I.P. Wednesday. I have been working on my garden though. We had to build a fence around it so the dogs won't get in and tear it up. So far I've planted carrots, beans, 3 different tomatoes, Ichiban eggplant, zucchini, red bell pepper, basil and hot jalapenos. It is raining here, so that should give them a great start. But it is also cold, so I covered them last night. It didn't freeze, but I didn't want to take any chances.
I had some leftover Lime Pickled Red Onions and some avocados from my salad and it seemed that both of those items would be really good on a black bean burger. So I made Veganomicon's Black Bean Burgers. I used the Grapefruit Mojo Dressing on the bun and it was a good combo.

Salad and Dinosaurs

2009-03-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

This is another salad from the Millennium Cookbook. This time I made the Ruby Grapefruit, Avocado, and Pickled Red Onions with Baby Spinach and Grapefruit Mojo Dressing. Whooo, that is a long title. It had a lot of components. I made the oil-free version of the Dressing. It was tangy, sweet, spicy and minty all in one. The Pickled Red Onions were marinated in lime juice and zest. Also on there were Chile-Lime Toasted Almonds which added a nice spicy crunch. All together it made a really pretty and delicious salad.

There are a lot of great recipes in this cookbook. Most of them have a lot of components, but so far everything I've made has been well worth it. Here is what I've tried and recommend:
Marinated Seitan Medallions
Brownies
Millennium Tofu Spread
Fat-free Mashed Potatoes
Millennium Pizza Dough

Wow, that is not very many. There are so many more recipes to try. My husband suggested throwing out all our other cookbooks.

I got some dinosaur pancake molds at a garage sale the other day. 3 dinosaurs for $1.25! A great deal. Here they are in action.

With some leftover silken tofu I had, I decided to make Chocolate Covered Vegan's easy tofu pudding. I melted some chocolate chips and peanut butter together in a bowl in the microwave. I added the tofu and some agave nectar. Then I used my immersion blender to blend it. Not the best idea. It was a full bowl and it kept splattering everywhere. Ate it all up, no picture. It's pudding, so I'm sure you can imagine it.

Grilling out

2009-03-07T12:26:00.000-08:00

It was a beautiful day to grill outside on Friday. I had some left over lentils and rice from Thursday's Vegan Swiss Steak, so I used them to make Lentil Confetti Salad. This is a cold salad from The Vegetarian No-Cholesterol Barbecue Cookbook.

This is a great cookbook for veggie burger recipes, salads and basic grilling tips.I also used the rest of the red, yellow and green bell peppers and grilled them with some tofu. I didn't use much in the way of spices on these. In fact, none at all on the veggies. So it probably could have used some, but sometimes it is nice to just taste the veggies. So not much to say about this meal, except that it was a nice summery meal on a beautiful 'is it spring yet?' day.Check out those grill lines!

Blender Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

2009-03-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

My blender has been getting a lot of use lately. For breakfast I tried Chocolate Covered Katie's Banana Bread Blender Cereal. What a great idea! I'm not sure if it was supposed to come out thick enough to eat with a spoon, but mine was more like a smoothie. So I sucked it up with a straw. I was almost done when I remembered to take a picture. I made another variation today for breakfast. Cereal, soy milk, peanut butter and vanilla soy yogurt. Breakfast in a cup! Katie has all kinds of breakfast ideas, so go check them out. You will also want to enter her contest to win a whole case of Jocalat Bars while you are over there.

My blender got put to use again to make Caesar Dressing. The recipe was the Oil-Free Caesar Dressing from The Millennium Cookbook. Check out their website for info on the Millennium Restaurant in San Francisco and their cookbooks. I also made the Oil-Free Croutons to go on the salad. Since I made my salad with spinach instead of Romaine lettuce it wasn't a very traditional Caesar, but tasty none the less. I will for sure be making the croutons again. It was a great use for some potato rolls I had sitting in the freezer.

The blender also came in handy when making the sauce for this Vegan Swiss Steak recipe I found at My Vegan Cookbook. I really enjoyed this dinner. It reminded me of something my mom used to make when I was a kid.

Whatever we have dinner

2009-03-04T13:33:00.000-08:00

Today was grocery shopping day, so last night I had to rummage around in my fridge, freezer and pantry to come up with dinner. And it turned out great!
I found a block of firm tofu that I had forgotten about in my fridge. The expiration date on it said March 1st. So I knew I had to use the tofu in whatever I was making. I also had pasta. So I went to Notes from the Vegan Feast Kitchen (Bryanna Clark Grogan's blog) and searched tofu and pasta. One of the recipes that came up was Bryanna's Quick Creamy Sauce for Pasta. It actually called for Silken tofu, but the firm I had worked just fine. I made the sauce and boiled the pasta. Then looked around for veggies. I cut the extra 1/2 block of tofu into small cubes and sauteed it with some carrot, diced up small and some frozen corn and frozen pearl onions that I had thawed. It came together quickly and was very tasty. Actually, I found out I'm not a fan of pearl onions. I ate around them. I'm sure I'll be making this sauce again though.
As I mentioned last week on W.I.P. Wednesday, I have been working on a bracelet idea. Here are the results of my first and second attempts. The first attempt, I really like the pattern, but the closure was a big button that I didn't like (not shown). The second attempt I used pearl snaps for closure. I like this better, but the striping pattern I did made it look like a sweat band. Not what I'm going for. I'm also experimenting with widths and as you can see from this picture I need to figure out a more finished look for the backs.
Work In Progress for sure!

Soup and Crackers

2009-03-03T09:25:00.000-08:00

You may not be able to tell from the picture, but last night I made Alisa's recipe for Rich and Creamy Potato Miso Soup. Check out her blog to see what it is supposed to look like. I used up the last of my big bag of Fingerling Potatoes on this. So my soup was purple since there were purple potatoes in the bag. I also may have used more than the required amount of potatoes, because my soup was closer to mashed potato consistency. I should have added more water or broth. But I'm not complaining! I love mashed potatoes and this recipe was delicious.
After making the soup, I was really wishing I had some crackers to go with it. So I made some. I've been wanting to make Celine's Cheezy Quackers for probably over a year now. I'm so happy I finally did. I cut some of them into hexagons, so the shape and the way they puffed up reminded me of Oyster Crackers (which don't contain any oysters). Did you ever used to eat those? I remember eating them growing up.
This soup reminded me of my sister, April. She loves potatoes and miso and I think she would really like this soup. Potatoes are so great because they are inexpensive and you can do so much with them. Perfect for a starving artist. Okay, she's not a starving artist, but she is a very talented fiber artist. You should check out her Etsy page.

Yesterday as I was out and about I decided to stop at Daily Juice Cafe. Daily Juice has been around for a while in Austin as a juice and smoothie bar. They recently opened an all raw foods Cafe on Duval and 45th street that I had been wanting to try. I went with my two kiddos in tow (3 years old and 6 months old). It is all Vegan, gluten free, raw and organic. We got the Banana Nut Smoothie (peanut butter and banana)--YUM! And for eats the Chile Con Queso. Here is the description off the menu: "Crispy organic corn and yam chips served with walnut chorizo, fresh guacamole, mango-habenero chutney, daily salsa, and our creamy red bell-cashew queso." I wish I had brought my camera so I could take a picture. It was a really beautiful presentation. The red-bell cashew queso was my favorite. It had the walnut chorizo on top and I really liked them together. The daily salsa was eaten all up very quickly, I liked it a lot. The mango-chutney was good--spicy and sweet, but just not what I was in the mood for. My son ate the guacamole and didn't share much of the smoothie with me. The best part of the whole trip was this little room they have just to the left of the entrance. My son wandered in and I'm so happy he did. It has a low table that you can sit at on pillows or tiny stools. So perfect for him. He said, "This stool is just for me." And there was a book shelf in there with all kinds of books and some puzzles and games. We did a puzzle and played with jacks and little plastic frogs while we waited and during our lunch. The whole place is really friendly and inviting with lots of windows. I really enjoyed my time there and look forward to going back to try everything on the menu. Plus the desserts--which looked fabulous!

Polenta Pie

2009-02-27T20:58:00.000-08:00

In a previous post I mentioned a Sausage Polenta Pie that was made in the slow cooker. It tasted good, but was by no means a pie and looked a mess. Not that I expected a pie to come out of my slow cooker. Anyways, I decided to adapt this recipe into an actual pie.

Vegan Sausage Polenta Pie

2 Vegan Italian Sausages, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 14.5 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 bunch swiss chard, chopped
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 cup cornmeal
3 3/4 cups veggie 'chicken' broth
1 TBS margarine
1/4 cup vegan parmesan cheese

In a saucepan, combine cornmeal and broth. Bring to a boil; cook while stirring over medium heat until thick, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in margarine and half the parmesan cheese. Let this rest as you combine the rest of the ingredients (from sausage to oregano) in a bowl.

Lightly oil a pie pan. Spread 1/3 of the polenta in the bottom of the pan. Add Sausage/tomato mixture to pan. Top with the remaining polenta and sprinkle with the remaining parmesan cheese.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for 10-15 minutes until it starts to brown a bit on top.The pie is kind of soft. Not so firm that you can cut a perfect piece, but that could possibly be fixed by using a lower vegetable broth to cornmeal ratio when making the polenta. Or cooking the polenta longer to make it thicker. You can also replace the tomatoes with roasted red bell peppers or even try other veggies instead of the swiss chard. I used Julie Hasson's Italian sausages and Bryanna Clark Grogan's cashew sprinkle for a Parmesan substitute (from Nonna's Italian Kitchen).

Here is a picture of a lunch we had the other day. I wanted to roast some cauliflower I had, so I decided to fill the oven with all kinds of things while I had it on at 400 degrees. I made roasted cauliflower, broccoli and fingerling potatoes. I also roasted some chickpeas and some tofu nuggets. The veggies and chickpeas just had olive oil and salt and pepper on them. Then I made a 'cheese' sauce from a recipe I've been using for a long time from VegWeb.

Lots of exclamation points in this post

2009-02-25T13:29:00.000-08:00

Tonight for dinner I made a recent recipe from The Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. You just can't go wrong with a FFVK recipe! Her version was Tofu, Tempeh, and Butternut Squash in Slow-Cooked Peanut Mole.
Since I didn't have tempeh or butternut squash, my version was Tofu, Sweet Potato and Cauliflower in Slow-Cooked Peanut Mole. And I just cooked it on the stove top for an hour instead of using my slow-cooker (which was an option in the recipe). This was really tasty! And it goes together pretty quickly. I served it over brown rice.

The recipe calls for frozen tofu, so I suggest you all put some tofu in the freezer and make this very soon!

And you know what today is....
You might not think this is much to show for a Work in Progress, but to me it is a big step toward starting a project I've been wanting to do for a while. I finally made it to the store to buy snaps!
These snaps are for some bracelets I'm experimenting with making. It is a project that has been in my head for a long time.

Wednesday also means Top Chef Finale! So excited to see who wins!

Cactus part II

2009-02-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

Here is another recipe I came up with using the cactus.

Marinated Nopalito Salad

2 cups fresh nopalito
1 onion, halved and thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pickled jalapeno or about 12 pickled jalapeno slices, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup lime juice
1 15 oz can black beans
1 cup frozen corn, thawed
2 roma tomatoes
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 tsp. salt
pepper to taste
more pickled jalapeno, minced

Puree the garlic, jalapeno and olive oil in a mini food processor. Stir in the lime juice. Pour over the nopalito and onions. (I boiled my nopalito for 7 minutes in salted water first, but it may not be necessary). Place the mixture in the fridge and marinate overnight. Add the rest of the ingredients and serve.

I used tortilla chips to scoop it up and eat it. It would also be good with spinach or lettuce over tortilla chips like a taco salad. I definitely think it needs something crunchy like the chips.

Have you eaten cactus?

2009-02-23T13:23:00.000-08:00

the cactus in front of my house

Nopales is the vegetable made from the pads of the prickly pear plant. It is high in fiber and vitamins A,C, and K. Nopalitos is the term used once it has been cleaned and prepared for eating. Here in Texas you can buy it fresh or jarred. I bought some fresh nopales from my grocery store the other day. They actually have a person cleaning the thorns off of the pads and slicing it up for you right there. Visiting a friend in Mexico once, we walked outside and picked a young pad off of a plant and cooked it up for breakfast. I forget how or what we ate it with, but it was good. Here in Austin, I used to go to a small Mexican food place with former co-workers for breakfast and pretty much the only vegan option was nopalito and potato tacos. Those tacos were the inspiration for these enchiladas:

half eaten enchiladas

Nopalito Potato Enchiladas

2 cups fresh nopalitos
10 fingerling potatoes (about 2 cups)
1 onion, diced
1-2 TBS oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp seasoning salt
18-20 corn tortillas
margarine
20 oz can enchilada sauce

Rinse the fresh nopalitos. Boil the nopalitos in salted water for about 7 minutes. Drain and drop them into a cold water bath to stop the cooking. Boil the fingerling potatoes until fork tender and drain. When cool enough to handle, cut potatoes into small dice. Heat the oil in a saute pan over medium high heat. Add the potatoes and shake the pan to form one single layer and keep them from sticking. Let those saute for a few minutes to get brown and crispy on the bottom. Stir them to get the other sides brown and crispy and add the spices. Stir to coat the potatoes. Add the onions and stir. Saute for a few minutes. Drain the nopalitos and add to the pan, stirring.
onion, potato, nopalito filling mixture
To prepare the corn tortillas: rub each one with margarine on both sides. Heat a cast iron griddle and soften the tortillas by letting them cook on the griddle about 15 seconds each side. You want them to soften and get a few brown spots on them. The time it takes on each side really depends on how hot the griddle is. The main thing is you want them to be soft and pliable so they don't break when you roll them.

Assemble the enchiladas: Place a small amount of filling in the tortilla and roll up. Place into pan seam side down. Line them up in a single layer if possible. If necessary you can stack them some. Pour the enchilada sauce over them. Cover with foil and bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.
they could have used some garnishes

My ingredients made 18 enchiladas that I split between 2 baking dishes (an 8X8 and an 11X7) You should be able to fit them all into a 9X13 inch dish.

I've never used the ones in the jar, so I'm not sure if the preparation would be the same. You may not need to do the initial boiling if you use jarred. Also, I should warn you that cactus is somewhat like okra in that it has the slimy factor going on. If you have an aversion to this, like my husband, you may not like cooking with it. It can be eaten raw, so skipping the boiling step may help it be less slimy. I might do that next time.

More to come using the cactus!

Chili and a boring pizza

2009-02-22T19:51:00.000-08:00

This Chili recipe is a basic chili that can be tweaked in many ways. We have even used a version of this to enter and win third place in a Vegetarian Chili Cook-off.

Chili

1 TBS oil
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 large onion, diced
6 cloves of garlic
1 4oz can green chilies
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. pepper
3 TBS chili powder
1 TBS cumin
1 8oz can tomato sauce
2 15oz cans diced tomatoes
2 cans beans (pinto, kidney, or black)
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups TVP

Heat the oil over medium high heat. Saute the onion for about 4 minutes. Add the green bell pepper and saute for 4 more minutes. Add the garlic, green chilies, salt, pepper, chili powder and cumin. Stir to coat the onions and peppers in the spices. Lower the heat to low and add the beans, tomato sauce, tomatoes, water and TVP. Raise the heat and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 45 minutes.

Serve with saltines or cornbread or as Frito pie--YUM!

You can use any combination of beans that you like in this recipe. I like pinto and kidney best. You can also make this as spicy as you want. The recipe as written is mild. To make it spicier you can use 2 cans of green chilies or use beans with jalapenos added or add some cayenne.
You can also use more or less water to make this thicker or thinner. It will thicken as it cooks.

Here is a pretty boring pizza I made. It was kind of a pain to make because of a few things. First, I was making it while trying to not ignore my kids. I usually cook during nap times but this was not nap time. Second, I made the sauce from Vegan with a Vengeance and it called for 4 tsp of salt. I thought that seemed like a lot, but for some reason I went ahead and put all 4 tsp. in. Yuck! I didn't want to make a whole new batch of sauce though, so I added a can of diced tomatoes. This helped, along with just spreading it thinly on the pizza. Third, my can opener broke and I was having no fun trying to open cans. So by the time it got around to topping the pizza I was a mess and was in no mood to do it. So I put on some mushrooms and Italian Sausage and called it a day. When I originally set out to make pizza I was planning on making Melty Pizza Cheese from Bryanna Clark Grogan's Twenty Minutes to Dinner. One of these days I'll try it. I wish I would have remembered the roasted red bells and the Vegan Parmesan that I had in the fridge. Oh well. I had no problems eating half of it in one sitting.

Last Minute Baking

2009-02-19T10:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at around 5:00pm I found out about a local Austin family that are having some major medical issues with their 6 month old baby. Their story really touched me since I have a 6 month old and can only imagine how scary it would be if he was really, really sick. You can read about Ike here:

So yesterday, I was reading about Ike and his family and all that is being done to help the family and I saw that there was going to be a bake sale today near UT campus to raise money for medical bills. So I got to baking as quick as I could.
I made two recipes from Vegan with a Vengeance. Well, slightly altered recipes based on what I had in the fridge and pantry. No time to run to the store.

Blackberry Chocolate Chip Blondies

I didn't even think to look and see if I had any raspberry preserves before I started baking these. And of course I didn't. But luckily I had a container of blackberries. So I followed the recipe for the Raspberry preserves using them.

Lemon Carrot Muffins

This recipe for Lemon Poppyseed muffins was going along just fine until I got my poppy seeds out and they looked funny. Kind of clumpy. Not good. So I decided to grate some carrot and add it in. It added some nice color too.

I'm so happy that I got to participate in some small way in helping little Ike-a-saurus. I only wish I could have posted this earlier in the day so that those of you in the area could have gone to buy some baked goods. But I know there will be more bake sales. You can go to the events page and see what else is planned to raise money for this family.

Quiche and W.I.P. Wednesday

2009-02-18T05:33:00.000-08:00

This beautiful Quiche is thanks to Bryanna Clark Grogan's recipe she posted the other day. I used broccoli, swiss chard, mushrooms and roasted red bell peppers as the veggies. Yum! I loved it.

I'm a little late, but the W.I.P. roundup last week of all the love bears inspired me to make one. Perfect gift for a little friend.

Go here to see a list of all the participating bloggers.
Guess I'm not feeling too chatty today. That is all.

This and That

2009-02-16T20:58:00.000-08:00

I haven't been cooking much this weekend. At least nothing too memorable. I did get a valentine package in the mail from my mother-in-law. Besides all the goodies for the grand kids, it had some fun baking stuff for me. She is the best at getting me all that fun baking stuff that I would never buy for myself.
Here is what I got:

A baking pan to make car shaped cakes--my 3 year old is going to love this. A fun monkey spatula. And a family baking kit that includes a little rolling pin, cookie cutters and cookie mix.

I made a tofu scramble the other day. It had broccoli, peas, fingerling potatoes and tofu--Bryanna's Breast of Tofu to be exact. I love making this tofu. It is an easy marinade to mix up and then you can keep the tofu in the fridge to be used for all kinds of things. I usually pan fry the tofu slices and make sandwiches or put it on a salad. For some reason this time when I made it the tofu slices did not stay together. I either sliced them too thin or the tofu I bought was softer then what I usually get. So I figured it would be best to just make it into a scramble.

I stuffed the tofu scramble into some potato rolls. It was a fun idea and nice and portable, but I have to say I really prefer it with toast. Something about the soft tofu with the crunchy bread is so good.

I'll try to get to cooking this week.

Potatoes--savory and sweet

2009-02-12T16:25:00.000-08:00

I made two dishes using fingerling potatoes today. Fingerling potatoes are my favorite. They are just so cute. Plus, I have a 5 lb bag to use up.

First, I made Potato Cakes. These were Full of Beans' entry into the Veg etable Love 2009 contest. They were delicious. The caramelized onion give them such a great flavor. I served mine over Lentil Rice Pilaf. The Pilaf is from a box--the Casbash brand.

I wish I had time to try more entries in Vegetable Love before voting ends. These Potato Cakes caught my eye and I had all the ingredients to make them. Well, the cakes anyway, not the topping. Soooo good!

Next I made some Vegan Almond Joys. This is my second attempt at these. The first ones were too sweet. I had used sweetened coconut the first time. This time I used unsweetened and it was much better!
Here is the recipe:

Vegan Almond Joys

1/2 cup potatoes (I used 2 fingerlings)
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup unsweetened coconut
2 dozen almonds
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Boil the potatoes in lightly salted water until fork tender. When cool, peel and dice. Put into a bowl and mash with a fork. Use a hand mixer to mash the potatoes further. They will become pebbly. Add one cup of the powdered sugar and blend with the hand mixer until the mixture becomes wet. Add the 2nd cup of powdered sugar and mix again. It should then thicken up and become the texture of icing. Add the coconut and mix again.
Place the bowl in the freezer to firm up the mixture.
Form the mixture into 1 inch balls that you then shape into ovals. Place onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper and press an almond into each oval. When the mixture starts getting sticky return the bowl and baking sheet to the freezer for a minute or two to firm up. I could usually make about 6 at a time.
This makes about 2 dozen candies. (I got 22).
Place the baking sheet with all the candies into the freezer to get really firm. While you do this, melt the 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips over a double boiler. Dip the candies into the melted chocolate, completely coating them and returning them to the wax paper. To keep them firm enough to not melt in the chocolate, I dipped about three or four and then returned the whole pan to the freezer for a minute to firm them up again. My method for coating them was--drop a candy into the chocolate, spoon chocolate all over it, pick the candy up with the spoon and push it gently off onto the wax paper.

W.I.P. Wednesday and Random Dinners

2009-02-11T06:57:00.000-08:00

I know I said this blog was about vegan food, but I also love to knit, crochet, and do needlework. So I've decided that I need to participate in Work In Progress Wednesdays hosted by Musings From the Fishbowl. In reality, I'm hoping it will keep me on top of the crafty projects that I want to do. So here is my first WIP.

Some embroidery. I'm almost done with it, so I'll have to start something new to keep up next week. I have some requested projects I need to do. Like knitted drumstick holders for my brother-in-law and plant holders for our house.

Now for the food. Here is what I've been cooking up lately:

Triple Corn Soup from Fat Free Vegan. I don't have a vitamix, but she gives directions for a regular blender. It was really good soup. Very interesting flavor for such simple ingredients. I don't think I got mine as smooth as I was supposed to, but I liked it.

Stir Fried Bok Choy and green beans over brown rice. Simple and delicious.

Cabbage and Green peas with Chick peas. I needed to do something with a leftover cabbage and found this recipe for Bund Gobi and Mater. I added chickpeas to it to make it more of a complete meal.

Sausage Polenta Pie in the crock pot. I was adapting a recipe from a non vegetarian crock pot cookbook I got at a garage sale. I used Julie Hasson's Italian sausages and Bryanna Clark Grogan's cashew sprinkle for a Parmesan substitute (from Nonna's Italian Kitchen). It also had roasted red bell peppers and tomatoes in it. While this actually turned out tasting really good, it was far from a 'pie'. I'm not sure what I would call it. It was really soupy right out of the crock pot last night. But it firmed up today when I had leftovers. The flavors of the Italian sausage were really great incorporated with the polenta. I think I'll work on this dish without the crock pot and see what I can come up with.

For your littlest valentines

2009-02-09T21:10:00.000-08:00

A valentine for my little man

I decided I needed to make more heart shaped cookies. I was inspired by this recipe on Little Birdie Secrets (one of my favorite crafty sites).

Chocolate drizzled shortbread cookiesIngredients:
2 cups unbleached, all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup margarine (I used Earth Balance)
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:
Cream together margarine and sugar. Add almond extract and mix well. Add flour and mix well. Use your hands to completely combine and form a smooth dough ball. Sprinkle on some flour if sticking to your hands. Roll out the dough and use a cookie cutter to make your favorite shapes. Bake at 300 degrees. The mini hearts I made took 8-10 minutes. Larger cookies will take longer. Bake until just beginning to brown at the edges. Cool cookies on rack. Melt chocolate chips in double boiler or microwave. Line up the completely cooled cookies on wax paper. Drizzle chocolate across one way and then the other. Put in the freezer to cool.

cookies with chocolate drizzled on

bowl of little heart cookies

This is only about 1/3 the number of cookies the recipe made. The first third I dipped in chocolate like the original recipe called for. But I thought the drizzling would be faster, and it was. Another 3rd got eaten before I put chocolate on them.

We took some to share with some of my 3 yr. old's friends. They are perfect for little fingers.

OEM enjoying a cookie. One of many!

A bouquet for your Valentine

2009-02-08T19:23:00.000-08:00

Celery Roses would be a great appetizer to serve to your Valentine while you are putting the last minute touches on the rest of your meal. This is my entry for Vegetable Love 2009.

Celery Roses

filled with Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sun Cheese

Ingredients:
1 bunch celery
1 cup raw, shelled sunflower seeds
2 TBS lemon juice
2 TBS Ume plum vinegar
3/4 cups roasted red bell pepper, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped

Directions:
1. Put the sunflower seeds in a bowl and cover with water 1-2 inches above the seeds. Soak the seeds for 6-8 hours.
2. Rinse the seeds many times to wash away the skins that float to the top of the water.
3. Add the soaked seeds, lemon juice, ume plum vinegar, garlic and red bell pepper to a food processor and run until smooth. Stopping to scrape down the sides every so often.
4. Put the Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sun Cheese into the fridge to chill for a few hours.

Assemble:
1. Chop off the end of your celery. Keep it to give you an idea of how the celery will go together to form the roses.

2. Wash and dry your celery stalks and trim off ends to make them all the same length. Line them up with the wide ends all on one side.3. Fill the celery stalks with the sun cheese.
4. Cut the stalks in half.
5. Using the halves with the wide ends, nest the celery stalks back together to look like the end you cut off.
5. Wrap your bundled celery in plastic wrap and refrigerate.
6. Refrigerate the remaining stalks until ready to serve.
7. Remove bundled celery from fridge and remove plastic wrap. Slice into 1/4 inch thick slices and carefully place roses onto serving dish. They can be delicate.
8. Arrange roses and stalks into a bouquet as pictured.

*Sun Cheese based on a recipe in Casa De Luz Community Cookbook: Sauces, Dressings, Condiments, and Spreads

I heart cookies

2009-02-07T12:11:00.000-08:00

Peanut butter filled chocolate cookies and a glass of soy milk

I definitely have a love for anything sweet, but cookies are my favorite. They are just a perfect hand held treat.

The other day I was in the mood for some kind of chocolate/peanut butter combination. So I went to Fat Free Vegan Kitchen and used her handy search tool to search veg blogs. This is the first recipe that came up. They looked delicious and even better, I had all the ingredients already. I also had a heart shaped ice cube tray that I just bought in the dollar bins at Target. Gotta love the dollar bins! So I decided to get into the valentine's spirit and make little heart shaped peanut butter filled chocolate cookies.

There will surely be more heart shaped treats to come.

What's for dinner?

2009-02-05T12:03:00.000-08:00

Here are a few things we have eaten this week (no pictures, sorry):

Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon over pasta with marinara sauce. Can you believe I've only made these twice considering how popular they are in vegan blog land. I have to say, they are not something I'm in love with. I liked them better this second time and I think that is because I baked them. I think I just need to find a good recipe to use them in. Something saucy.

On Superbowl Sunday we had chips and guacamole. We are not big football fans, but you gotta have guacamole on Superbowl Sunday! It was a beautiful day here in Austin. Spring-like weather. So Jeff grilled Veggie Brats and veggies (onion, green bells and red bells). We had them on hoagie rolls with just a little marinara sauce. Oh so yummy!

I got a nice cabbage from the farmer's market on Wednesday and made some more chinese food from Chinese Meatless Cooking by Stella Lau Fessler. This time it was Stir Fried Rice Noodles with Vegetables. The recipes in this book don't make very big portions, at least not by my standards. We ate it all up with no leftovers.

So if anyone has any suggestions for the chickpea patties and for what to make with most of a head of cabbage, let me know!

Good things take time

2009-02-03T13:07:00.000-08:00

This is so true when it comes to a good slow cooker recipe.
I made Robin Robertson's Slow-Cooker Seitan Pot Roast today. I've made it many times and love it. It smells so wonderful when it is cooking. I have to admit, I was skeptical on how it would turn out the first time I made it. But it firms up nicely and makes a very flavorful, juicy seitan roast. And the veggies are a nice bonus! It helps to know your slow-cooker when making this. Robin's recipe suggests a cooking time of 4 hours on low. I have to put my slow-cooker on high to get it done in that time frame. She talks about this in her recipe. Make sure to check out her blog, Vegan Planet, for all kinds of great recipes.

Okay, enough writing about it...I'm going to go eat some!

Giveaways and contests

2009-02-02T06:13:00.000-08:00

Two exciting things going on at vegan blogs I read:

1. Susan V. at FatFree Vegan Kitchen is having her Vegetable Love 2009 recipe contest. Check out her blog for the rules.

2. Wing It Vegan is having a Juicer giveaway. You just have to leave a comment on the post with what kind of superhero powers you would like to have.

I better get busy creating something for Vegetable Love 2009. I have an idea in mind.

Tofu nuggets

2009-02-01T11:55:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick and delicious recipe for you:

Tofu Nuggets

1 package firm tofu
1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.
Combine flour, nut. yeast, salt and garlic powder. Drain the tofu and pat dry. Cut the tofu into 1/2 inch cubes.
Coat the tofu in the mixture. The best way to do this is to put the tofu and mixture into a paper bag and shake. Place the coated cubes onto the baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes, flipping them once half-way through the cooking time to brown all sides.

The great thing is, while you have the oven on at that temperature, 20 minutes is just the right amount of time to roast most veggies. Last week I cubed up a butternut squash and tossed it with olive oil, salt and pepper and added it to the baking sheet alongside the tofu nuggets.

This recipe is also kid approved. OEM loves dipping his in ketchup. I like dipping them in barbeque sauce.

Stay tuned: I'm working on a recipe for Vegan Almond Joys.

Pancakes and The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook

2009-01-29T13:27:00.000-08:00

Breakfast this morning was Chocolate Chip Pancakes. I used the recipe from The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook. It is a very basic recipe that I always have the ingredients for and the batter comes together very quickly. I usually add something like blueberries or nuts or chocolate chips. I love pancakes!

The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook was one of the first vegan cookbooks I bought when I became vegan. It has a lot of good, basic recipes. The copy I have is the original edition published in 1978. There is a new edition available now.
Here are some of my favorites:
Jala-pinto Dip--which I use in tamales and as refried beans
Chocolate Pudding--another one with ingredients I always have on hand
Tofu onion dip

It has a section on making tofu which I have tried once or twice. I would like to try it again sometime. There are also some recipes for using the soy pulp that results from making tofu.
It is very well worn. I don't have the cover anymore and it has come apart so the pages are not in order anymore. I don't even know if I have all the pages. I think it is time for a new one.

Fried Rice

2009-01-28T13:08:00.000-08:00

Last night I made some Fried Rice for dinner. My husband has been experimenting with the wok lately. I have never been that great at using our wok, but after watching him make some great meals from it I decided to give it a go. We have been using a cookbook called Chinese Meatless Cooking by Stella Lau Fessler. I picked it up at a garage sale or thrift store a few years ago. It is not a vegan cookbook; in fact it even includes fish sauce in some recipes. But I just make substitutions as needed.
The fried rice recipe included Five-Spice Pressed Bean Curd Cakes which I had made earlier in the day. That involved pressing the tofu, simmering it in a marinade and then letting it sit in the marinade for at least 4 hours. Once you have that on hand and some freshly steamed or leftover rice, the Fried Rice comes together very quickly in the wok. Seriously, like 3 minutes of cooking time. We are finding that you really have to have everything prepped and ready to go when you are using a wok.

Today I used some more of the Five-Spice Pressed Bean Curd on a bagel with soy mayo and spinach. It made a great sandwich.

Bagels

2009-01-27T12:57:00.000-08:00

I have a Toastmaster Bread Maker that I have had for almost 9 years and I decided to pull it out the other day. The original motivation was pizza crust. Then I started looking through the recipe book that came with it and decided to make some bagels also. I had used this recipe before and remembered liking them.

They are very basic. Just water, sugar, salt, bread flour and yeast. The bread maker does all the work to make the dough. Then I made the dough into 8 bagels and let them rise. Boiled them in sugar water and brushed them with an ener-g egg replacer 'egg' and topped half with poppy seeds and the other half with sesame seeds. They then go in the oven for 25 minutes.

The results are yummy bagels that I've been enjoying for my breakfasts.

Jumping in

2009-01-27T08:50:00.000-08:00

Hello! I have been reading vegan food blogs for a few years now and thinking about starting my own for some time. Well, finally I started thinking about so much that I decided to jump in and do it. I really enjoy being in the kitchen cooking and baking. I love sharing my food with others and this blog is a good way for me to do that without inviting everyone over for dinner.

I am mostly a recipe follower when I cook. I have many cookbooks and love trying new recipes from them and the many blogs out there. I hope to start adapting and creating new recipes so that I have some to post here for you.