Vegan Mofo- day... whatever: cooking catchup

So, I really did sign up for Vegan MoFo with the best of intentions... but then again, there is probably a reason that I don't blog all that frequently. That reason being, life is freaking busy! So, although I have not been posting every day, I sure have been cooking.

Above is a pic of our CSA farmshare I picked up last week: lots of kale, raspberries, yellow beans and radishes. The only thing that I haven't used any of yet is the radishes... there are just so many and I'm not a huge radish fan, so I'm a bit overwhelmed with them. I'll figure something out though, I kept thinking I'll try roasting them.

Here's another loaf of breadmachine bread, yep, we eat lots of bread and love it. This is a fluffy white loaf, if anyone is interesting in recipe, just let me know :)

Here's a big bowl of salt and vinegar kale chips. Kale chips are the best! I chopped up a bunch of kale, tossed with 1 Tb olive oil, 1 Tb malt vinegar and cooked at 350, for 20 min, turning once. Then I tossed with sea salt. So yummy!

Here's some more of that gooey cheez (leftover from the Tempeh Tuna Melts), I added some diced red onion and chili paste in it.

I made some "naan" bread (not authentic... probably more of a roti). Rolled out little rounds of it.
Then put some of that spicy cheez on the middle of one dough round, topped with another round , sealed edges with a bit of water.

Then fried up in my castiron skillet. Again... I'll post recipe if anyone wants it.

Wowza! Delicious!!! I also made some naan bread without the spicy cheez (the flat bigger ones in the pic). This was brought as a contribution to dinner at the hubby's dad's house. It all got gobbled up along some killer chickpea-cauliflower curry (yay! for non-vegan family cooking awesome vegan food).

Oh, and I contributed dessert for that dinner too :) Raspberry cobbler! Damn damn damn. This was good stuff. I used the berry cobbler recipe out of The Joy of Vegan Baking (super awesome cookbook!!!).

i made some food and used my BREADMACHINE!

I basically spent the past week and half sicker than I've ever been. It was a super rough time and I am so so glad to feel like myself again. It's weird to be stuck on the couch and not have the energy or willpower to do any of the things that usually are done in a day.

Now that I am back to feeling like myself, I was super glad to get back in the kitchen. I spent some time organizing the fridge, hitting the health food, grocery stores and restocking my fridge. This is the type of household chore/task that my hubby just isn't his best at... and he's been the one trying to hold our lil house together while I've been sick.

Onto my cooking catch-up,

I bought some Tamarind pulp a while back and I was tempted to make an Indian-style Tamarind sauce, like the kind that comes pretty standard at Indian restaurants with Samosas? Well.. My attempt didn't taste anything like that, but did have a BBQ saucey vibe. I had started with some Tamarind pulp, some toasted cumin seeds, some molasses and some water, then simmered this on the stove until syrupy. I let this concoction bubble away for like 30 minutes, it got thick and saucey... but I really didn't love the direction it was headed on its own.

I decided to use this sauce as a flavor component in a BBQ sauce. I started out the base of the sauce with peppers, onions, garlic, and celery. I sauteed this for a while, then added canned tomatoes, brown sugar, spices, vinegar, etc. I added in my Tamarind mixture and let this all cook together for over an hour. Then I blended it smooth with a stick blender. Came out TANGY TANGY TANGY. Had a lil with a pan-cooked Gardein chicken cutlet, tasty BBQ-y to me.

I made enough to fill three jars!  No exact recipe... but slightly structured by ideas in cookbook BBQ sauce recipes.

I also decided to put together some "Crock Cheez" from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. I used the basic recipe (Tofu, nooch, spices, Miso, etc..) I substituted Malt Vinegar for the lemon juice, and I think it gave it a bit of a "Beer-y" vibe. Like most recipes I've tried in this cookbook, it came together really easy, with ingredients I usually have on hand, and tastes like something not home-made. I referred to it as "Beer Cheez" when I packed some in my hubby's lunch.

I really enjoy this recipe, I noticed that overnight it has became really thick and really reminds me of Crock cheese I remember my parents getting in gift baskets when I was a kid.  As you can see, the recipe made quite a bit, I was able to fill up two containers. Although, I'm sure this stuff won't last long once my husband tastes it.

Whole Wheat-Sunflower Bread

The last "cooking" I did before I completely exhausted myself was baking a loaf of bread. I have to admit I've been baking quite a few loaves of bread lately. I've been slightly-obsessed with using my "new-to-me" breadmachine.  5 minutes worth of work, a little patience, and then, Ta-Da- Hot Bread!

I inherited a Breadman Ultimate from my Mother-in-Law who no longer wanted hers. I got offered it months before I actually remembered to bring it home with me from her house. I did not know what I was missing! Ever since it has arrived home, it has been getting a lot of use. I've really been quite impressed with the product that it makes, especially in regards to the amount of effort I've put in to making the loaves.

(Before I got sick) I've been making at least 2-3 loaves a week, and we've stopped buying commercially made bread.  This has definitely been saving me cash! (Flour=way cheaper than $4 loaves of artisan bread) I've really indulgently enjoyed the loaves I've made with all-purpose unbleached white flour, but I've also been searching for great tasting-healthier bread. The "French" cycle makes really wonderful, chewy "European" bread, it's hard not to eat the whole loaf.

The loaf I made last night was Whole Wheat-Sunflower, this was an all-whole wheat flour loaf. I have enjoyed the ALL whole wheat loaves, but they are definitely denser and don't offer the same chew factor as the white flour loaves. I am still looking for the perfect recipe that balances the yum-factor with the health-factor.

I have been trying out recipes I've found online, and utilizing the recipes that come with the breadmachine, I think I am going to be working on finding perfect, vegan recipes and posting them in the near future. I've definitely had to search for recipes, as many I've found contain milk powder, eggs, and other non-vegan ingredients. I find this a bit frustrating as the best tasting bread I can find at the grocery store contains the shortest list of ingredients.

I promise I will keep you posted on breadmachine adventures.

Here are some of the resources I've found online, please share with me if you have any good (and healthy) recipes!

"Fat-Free Vegan" forums- Breadmachine Recipes
"Go Dairy Free" forums- Honey 1/2 Whole Wheat Bread Recipe * Delicious
"Veg Source" forums- Bryanna's Breadmachine Recipes w/Starter

homemade bagels with roasted garlic and herb cream cheez

When I woke up yesterday morning and looked in my fridge, it looked really sad and empty, so I spent my saturday catching up on a lil cooking. We're a lil broke right now, so going to the grocery store and stocking up wasn't really an option. So I cooked a big pot of chickpeas to last the week, I also saw that we're completely out of bread, and we had some silken tofu and roasted garlic to use up. I decided to make some bagels and  make up some cream cheez.

A couple months ago I found --> this recipe on vegweb.com, I've made these bagels three times now. The first time, I used white flour and chopped up sundried tomatoes, they were AWESOME. The second time, I tried to make them healthy, I used whole wheat flour... and well they were kinda torture bagels, sooo dense and chewy and really not enjoyable at all. So this time, I went with white flour again, and they came out chewy and bagely and perfect :) I added some flaxseeds on the top, mostly because I didn't have any other seeds on hand. Great recipe, but I definitely suggest going with white flour.

For the cream cheese, I looked in The Uncheese Cookbook, I didn't really have all the ingredients for the cream cheez listed in the book, so I took the general idea and created my own cheez. Here's what I did:

Herb and Roasted Garlic Cream Cheez

ingredients:
1 c. silken tofu
1/3 c. raw cashews
1/2 head roasted garlic
1 tsp agave nectar
1 tsp salt
1 Tb rice vinegar
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
1/4 tsp dried dillweed
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried parsley
1 Tb nutritional yeast

-blended all up in a food processor, then chill in fridge 

This has a much lighter texture than vegan cream cheese that you can buy at the store, but quite tasty and I thought it tasted great on the bagels :)

i made some cheez!

Last weekend, I decided to make some firm cheez, from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, I've seen other bloggers rave about the Colby Cheez, a firm cheez, good for crackers and grilled cheez sandwiches. I gathered all the necessary groceries for the recipe, the only weird one was agar powder. I've never used agar before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I followed the "Chedda" suggestion, at the bottom of the Colby recipe. The recipe was pretty simple to follow, and didn't take very long. I decided to throw some chopped walnuts in the bottom of the dish, to make the cheez look a bit fancier :) And, it sure looked fancy!

So I brought this cheez to a family party, and served it with some crackers. The flavor was really quite nice and cheezy. The flavor was perfect with crackers, my only complaint was the texture, it wasn't perfect to me, a bit... gelatinous... I'm not sure if this is because I boiled the agar for too long. The directions said cook until completely dissolved, I didn't really see a change in the mixture that would be undissolved/dissolved. Alot of the cheez got eaten (by a bunch of non-vegans for the record). I think I'll attempt another cheez with agar, and see if I like the texture any better.

With the leftover cheez, we decided to make some cheezy-broccoli rice. I made a sauce with some plain almond milk, a splash of bragg's, a squirt of mustard, a lil sriracha and the rest of the cheez, all shredded up. I let the mixture come to a bubble, the cheez melted in completely. Then we added in some chopped frozen broccoli, and leftover white rice from Chinese delivery. This mixture came out GREAT! We definitely preferred the cheez this way :) We served it with some hot sauce glazed tempeh courtesy of The Veganomicon, and some steamed cabbage.

Vegan MOFO day 20- Charbroiled Butternut Squash and Cheezey Spinach Spaghetti

I didn't do the greatest job packing myself lunch today, so by the time I got home, I was starved! I decided to make some Charbroiled Butternut Squash recipe by PPK. This came out super yummy! The squash became super sweet, and very tender. Really easy recipe too!

I also wanted to make some pasta, as I crave it when it's cold and I'm grumpy/hungry (grungry). I cooked up some whole-wheat spinach spaghetti, tasty and nutritious! I topped the pasta with some sauce from 'The Uncheese Cookbook,' this is the Ultimate Mac and Cheez sauce, definitely not my favorite uncheese sauce, but tasty regardless. I think I liked the Melty White Cheez that the hubby made last week better....

Vegan MOFO day 16- Smokey Cheez Sauce, Yellow Cauliflower, Broccoli and Brown Rice

Tonight we really wanted to get some burritos with friends, but they needed to reschedule, so we decided to save money and make ourselves dinner instead of going out just the two of us. The hubby and I had one of those back and forth conversations.... "What do you want for dinner?" "I dunno, What do YOU want for dinner?" UGH! After a completely unproductive 5 minutes, we looked in the fridge and decided to heat up leftover brown rice and eat some vegetables.

We decided to cook up some veggies we got at the Greenmarket, we bought a beautiful head of broccoli and some yellow cauliflower. I've never had yellow cauliflower before, but our farm stand guy said it was creamy and sweet and delicious, so we bought some.

I steamed up the veggies while the hubby whipped up some cheez sauce. He used the Smokey Cheez recipe from 'The Uncheese Cookbook,' this recipe was a variation of the Melty White Cheez. This sauce called for no added oil, so we weren't convinced that it would be cheesey and satisfying, but it totally was. It thickened up and had a nice complex flavor, perfect on the veggies. I told the hubby he is officially the cheesey-sauce cook of the house :) This would be really good on some macaroni. ::hint hint::

mac n' pepper-cheese

I convinced the hubby to buy me a copy of The Uncheese Cookbook when we were at the NY Vegetarian Expo a couple weeks back. This is the first recipe I tried from the cookbook. The recipe is for Baked Macaroni and Cheeze. I didn't quite follow the recipe exactly, I used more roasted red peppers than the recipe called for, and I didn't have a lemon, so no juice. The sauce consisted mostly of roasted red peppers, raw cashews, nooch and spices--all blended up. I used whole wheat rotini, and sprinkled homemade breadcrumbs on the top. Then it baked til bubbly and golden. I was surprised how orange and cheesey the sauce turned.

This was a very healthy recipe with barely any fat in the sauce. I think it came out quite yummy, not as cheesey-greasy tasting as my usual Vegan Mac recipe. I would definitely make it again. I think I just won't make this when I want comfort food. I admit.. I added some earth balance to the top when I ate the leftovers, I think I like my mac and cheese a lil greasey :) Cool cookbook though! I can't wait to try one of the firmer cheeze recipes.

pretty baked mac and cheeze