Vegan MoFo day 3- tempeh tuna melt sandwiches

Here's tonight's dinner... well Chef Bab didn't really help all that much (he's more of an inspirational chef than functional one).

I, Peggy, made tempeh "tuna" melts. The bread is from the other day, the cheez is from Ultimate Uncheese cookbook, recipe --> Gooey Grilled Cheez. This is a great, quick noochy cheez sauce/spread. I also whipped up some tempeh tuna salad. I greased the bread up with some EB, layered on the yummy cheez and the tempeh salad, then grilled in a castiron skillet. I served this with some yummy steamed yellow and green beans.

Tempeh Tuna Salad:
ingredients:
1 block tempeh- steamed and smashed with a fork
splash malt vinegar
1/4 med red onion- diced
1/2 stalk celery- diced
1 Tb sweet pickle relish
1/2 Tb kelp flakes
1 clove garlic- crushed
dash onion powder
salt and pepper
1/4 c (more or less) vegan mayo (I used a combo Trader Joes reduced fat mayo and Vegenaise)

-After steaming the tempeh, I splashed on some malt vinegar and then allowed to cool in fridge before I mixed in all the other ingredients.
  

Vegan MoFo day 2- Chef Bab makes Oat-Wheat bread

Chef Bab helped me make some bread. We made one of our favorites "Oat-Wheat" bread in the breadmachine. This is a great loaf, it comes out soft and flavorful, and its 2/3 whole grain.

Oat-Wheat Breadmachine Bread
ingredients:
1 1/2 c. warm water
2 Tb earth balance or olive oil
1 1/2 c. bread flour
1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 1/4 c. oats
1/4 c. demerara sugar or brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp breadmachine yeast

-Cook on white bread setting, makes 2 lb loaf

BBQ seitan "ribs"

I've been looking back at my recent posts and I guess I have only been posting total vegan junk-food. I have to say that these posts are certainly not a realistic picture of how we eat in our house. We also eat lots of brown rice, whole grains, beans and vegetables, but you already know that they are vegan (and yummy).

I stayed home from work yesterday (feeling really junky), and when my appetite finally arrived it was while I was watching an episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" about a Soul Food restaurant. It was a rare episode in the fact that the food wasn't disgusting or the kitchen unsanitary. Crazy. Needless to say I started craving some serious Soul Food. I did a bit of research online and find a recipe for vegan BBQ ribs. (Yum!) There are TONS of different recipes online. About a year ago I attempted a recipe I found on vegweb.com. The "ribs" were okay, but it took a lot of work for what were ultimately bread sticks tossed in bbq sauce. I found this recipe with a different technique and lots of positive reviews  and was intrigued. I had almost all the ingredients and it was something new and fun to try. In some of the reviews it appears to be based on a recipe from the New Farm Cookbook. I didn't follow recipe to the letter, but here's what I did.

ingredients:
-2 c. wheat gluten flour
-1/3 c. nooch
-2 Tb smoked paprika
-1/2 Tb sea salt
-2 1/4 c. water
-1/2 c crunchy natural peanut butter
-1 large vidalia onion- minced
-1/4 c. olive oil
-1/2 jar BBQ sauce (or as much as you want)

instructions:
1) Combine gluten, nooch, paprika and salt in a big bowl.

2) Add in water all at once, stir with a wooden spoon quickly until all are combined (might need a little more water). You should have a firm gluten ball. Coat the ball with peanut butter.

3) Heat oil in skillet, add onion and cook until golden brown. Pour all the oil and onion on top of gluten ball. Poke with other end of wooden spoon to force some of the onion and peanut butter into the gluten. Allow to cool.

4) When mixture is cool enough to handle, use hands to mix all together. Try to mix the onion, oil and peanut butter in as much as you can.

5) Pre-heat oven to 350F. Grease 2 big glass baking dishes.

6) Pull off big hunks of the mixture with your hands (don't cut with knife), then pull, stretch and twist the gluten into little logs 4 to 5 inches long. (note: I made 8 and thought the smaller ones were the best, so maybe try to make 10). Place into the baking dishes, they will expand some while cooking so make sure to leave some room between.

7) Bake 15 minutes, then flip and bake 15 more. Coat the "ribs" with BBQ sauce and bake 10 more minutes. (40 min total)


These were freakin' AWESOME. Super chewy and "meaty". I served them with corn on the cob and mac and cheese (<-- really yummy vegan mac). The hubby and I both enjoyed our Soul Food dinner, and will definitely be making this again soon!

yellow split pea soup w/ mushrooms and chipotle

*

I've been on a serious soup kick lately... soup is so satisfying and warming on cold winter days. It's also super easy to make; I find soup foolproof, it's the type of food that can be mostly ignored on the stove, and especially when kept simple, is always delicious. This one bubbled away on the stove for most of yesterday's lazy Sunday afternoon. This was inspired by a bag of yellow split peas that's been living in my dried bean basket for a while now :) I flavored it with dried porcini mushrooms and chipotle, nice and spicy without  burning.

I topped each portion of soup with a little crumbed tempeh bacon. The hubby and I each really enjoyed this and gobbled up the leftovers at lunchtime today.

Yellow Split Pea Soup

ingredients:
-1 bag dried yellow split peas
-2 cubes veggie bouillion 
-1 cup dried porcini mushrooms
-1 chipotle pepper in adobo
-1 clove garlic-smashed
-6 cups water
-2 cups frozen broccoli stems (this was mostly to use them up, potato would do the same job)
-2 tsp cider vinegar
-salt, pepper, curry powder to taste
-crumbled tempeh bacon for garnish

-In a heavy pot, add peas, buillion, mushrooms, chipotle, garlic, water and broccoli stems. Bring to a boil, turn down heat and let simmer until the peas start to break up, this took me atleast 90 minutes.
-Use an immersion blender and blend soup until creamy. I added a little more water, cause mine was a little thick at this point.
-Once happy with consistency, add the cider vinegar and season with salt, pepper and some curry powder.  
-Garnish each bowl with some tempeh bacon crumbles.


*it's really hard to get a good picture of food during the winter!!!!

african peanut stew

African Peanut Stew over brown rice

So.. winter has finally hit Upstate NY, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I am totally under the weather and feeling junky, and needed some soul food to warm me up and make me feel better.

This is some stew I made, full of veggies and some good spice to clear out my head and fill me with goodness. Very hearty and satisfying. I love the combination of the peanut butter, chipotle pepper and root veggies. I made a huge pot full to feed us for a couple meals, cause mostly I want to be hiding under a blanket, watching Felicity. Hopefully this healthy food will heal me.

This isn't really the type of dish/meal/recipe I'd worry about making sure I have the exact veggies, or amounts of each veggies suggested, I just use what I have in the fridge that needs to be used up and seems like it would work. Same with type of hot pepper, this time I used a chipotle in adobo. (Last time I opened up one of those lil cans, I froze the extra in a tray, so now I have lil chipotle icecubes. most of the time you only really want one, not all six or so that come in a can, right?)  If I didn't have any of those, I might have just used pepper flakes, but I was pleased with the smokiness the chipotle added to the stew. Maybe if I didn't have chipotle, I'd use some liquid smoke.


African Peanut Stew

ingredients:

1/4 onion- diced
1 tsp cumin seeds-crushed
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp turmeric
1 chipotle pepper in adobo- chopped 
1 can tomatoes (i used canned whole tomatoes, and roughly crushed them/squeezed)
1 potato- diced
2 sweet potatoes- diced
2 acorn squash- (i had some i already roasted, so i just scooped out the flesh. peeled, raw squash would be great too)
2 carrots- chopped
1 clove garlic- pressed
1-1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas
1/4-1/3 cup natural peanut butter
dash vinegar (i used ume plum vinegar-cause it's way yummy)
pinch Indian chili powder
1 package frozen spinach

cooked brown rice

directions:

-start cooking onion, cumin, coriander and turmeric in a lil water, when starts to get fragrant (1-2 min), add in the chipotle pepper, cook for a min then add tomatoes, and their juice, all the root veggies, the chickpeas, and the garlic. 
-add water to the pot until it's a soupy consistency/almost covers the veggies. turn up heat and bring  to a simmer. turn down heat to a low simmer, cover pot and cook until it's thickened up a bit and the veggies are starting to get tender (20-25 min).
-add in the peanut butter, and stir it around until incorporated, this can be a lil tough if the peanut butter is thick, if you cover the pot for a min, it'll start to break up and you can incorporate into the stew. taste and season with a dash of vinegar and hot Indian chili powder, you might even want more peanut butter. 
-once it tastes yummy, add in frozen spinach, stir and cook until the spinach is thawed and all mixed throughout the stew.
-eat over rice (it would also be really good with some bread)




 

roasted eggplant muffaletta on homemade ciabatta bread and crunchy broccoli salad

Tonight's dinner was totally amazing, if I may say so myself! :) The hubby says so too.

I've been craving ciabatta bread (and having frequent day dreams in regard to one I made maybe a year back) following a recipe I found somewhere online. Well, I did a little searching and found the recipe again. I remember this bread being pretty fool-proof to make (I'm not generally very good at making bread). I located the recipe --> here.

I had a stay-at-home sunday today, the perfect kind of day to let some dough rise on the counter while lounging around trying to stay warm (and smell fresh bread in the house!). This bread is so easy to make, definitely as easy as I remember!!! The only snag was the directions call for measuring by weight... I don't have a scale so I kinda guessed with measurements. I used 4 cups of flour (Organic Unbleached White All-Purpose), and about 2 tsp salt, but then the dough was too dry and I needed to add way more than the suggested 2 cups of water. I probably used around 3 cups of water total in order to create a real goopy wet dough/batter/mixture. I'd def recommend adding water until the dough is the consistency of slightly thick pancake batter.

Also, I baked mine on a pizza stone. I was hoping that would assist with nice thick crust ( and it did!! Score.). This came out way way yummy! The inside was chewy, flavorful and full of delightful big bubbles, with a thick, chewy crust.  With such yummy bread, dinner just needed to be sandwiches. I decided to roast some eggplant, and use other sandwich fillings like olive salad and roasted red peppers.

Great dinner. I served them with our most favorite side dish: crunchy broccoli salad. I didn't really set out with any recipe in mind, but I'll post what I did this time. This was my type of dinner, slightly indulgent (what's more indulgent than fresh bread??) and hearty, but still full of veggies!


roasted eggplant muffaletta sandwich

ingredients:

1 loaf fresh made ciabatta bread 
1 eggplant, sliced into thin rounds
olive oil
balsamic
spices
roasted red peppers (I used jarred)
muffaletta chopped olive salad mix
vegenaise

-set oven to 425 degrees
-marinade slices of eggplant in olive oil balsamic and spices (i used a garlic herb spice mix) for 1/2 an hour
-roasted eggplant for 10 min, flip then roast for 5 more minutes
-slice bread, slather with olive salad and vegenaise, then stack on veggies!! yum :)


(most amazing) crunchy broccoli salad

ingredients:

2 crowns broccoli, broken into small florets (don't use stem, save for something else! OR ELSE!)
1/4 sweet onion, sliced into thin ribbons
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup roasted peanuts
1/3 cup bacon bits (obviously vegan variety, the store brand around here just happen to be vegan anyway)
vegenaise, mustard, poppy seeds, agave nectar

-mix dressing together (i didn't really measure, 1/2-3/4 c. vegenaise + 2 Tb mustard +1 Tb poppy and  squirt of agave), season with black pepper and salt
-add with everything else (except bacon bits), let sit in fridge for at least 30 min, add bacon bits at last minute so they stay nice and crispy
-WARNING: this stuff is addictive! 

Enjoy :) 

Make the bread! Do it!

baked potato pizza and buffalo tofu nuggets!!!

For our Friday night dinner, I decided to make pizza. For some reason, I can't get enough of potatoes on pizza, so this is a baked potato pizza with onions, sliced potatoes, daiya cheese and bacon bits, yum yum yum! As I was making the pizza, my hubby was very concerned that there wouldn't be enough protein in dinner, I think he was over-hungry and a lil grumpy, but I do love him with all my heart ... so I decided to make him some spicy proteiny nuggets to keep him happy and grump-free.

All in all, this was super yummy and satisfying for a Friday night. It came together quickly and was nice and junk-foody. We thought the only thing that could possibly have made it better was some ranch dressing for dipping, so maybe next time I'll do that. The Buffalo nuggets were very easy, they might become a regular snacky food for us.

oh hello yummy pizza time

Here's what I did:


Baked Potato Pizza
ingredients:
  
1 package of pizza dough (I usually make dough, but prepared is cheap and super convenient)
1 sweet onion, sauteed with a little olive oil
1 potato, sliced thinly
Daiya Pepperjack "cheese"
Bacon bits (storebrand is vegan around here)

-Preheat pizza stone in oven @ 500 degrees
-Roll out dough, top with onions, then potato, then "cheese."
-Bake on pizza stone until nice and golden... maybe 13 mins?
-Top with bacon bits!

Buffalo Tofu Nuggets
ingredients:

1 block extra firm tofu, drained
Cornstarch
Earth Balance
Frank's Red Hot

-Cut tofu into little chunks, I sliced widthwise into 8, then in 1/2 again
-Coat tofu in cornstarch
-Fry in big cast-iron skillet with some earth balance, until all the nuggets are nice and brown
-Put in big bowl and coat with Frank's Red Hot   

thai lettuce wraps and massaman curry

So.. I made this yummy dinner and I thought I would share with y'all. I have been less than motivated to blog recently. Mostly... when I cook yummy dinners, I just want to eat them and I'm too lazy to take pictures :)

This is a very Thai inspired dinner... authentic? Of course not! The lettuce wraps were a memory from a dinner at PF Changs. I looked on vegweb.com for a recipe.. found this one --> here, but definitely didn't follow it very closely. Here's what I did: (Came out DELICOUS!!!!!)


Thai Lettuce Wrap:

ingredients:

2 packages of mushrooms (white button and porcini)-chopped
1 package tempeh-cut into chunks
2 cloves garlic- minced
1 small chunk ginger- minced
1/2 c. lemongrass broth (2 tb dried lemongrass soaked in hot water, then strained)
good squirt sriracha
2 Tb peanut butter
2 Tb Bragg's- more to taste
1 head Boston lettuce 
sprouts

-In castiron skillet, med heat, add lemongrass broth, then garlic and ginger. Cook for a couple minutes then add mushrooms and tempeh and other ingredients. Cook until mushrooms are soft and mixture is moist.
-Serve in crispy lettuce leaves. We topped ours with some sprouts for added crunch

massaman curry

Massaman curry is my ABSOLUTE favorite Thai curry to get at restaurants (potatoes, peanuts and tofu? hell yes!). I got an email from VegNews with a homemade version and decided to try it. Here's a link to the --> recipe. It was definitely yummy, but needs some work. My hubby realized that there were no red peppers in the recipe, but there usually are at our favorite Thai restaurant, and I think it would have benefited from some. Since I made this for guests, I doubled the recipe... and ended up added 4 limes worth of juice to it.. The lime was way overwhelming, still tasty curry, but really really tangy. So, I think I'm going to have to tweak this recipe for a perfect at home Massaman curry.

Dinner was enjoyed by all, and the Hubby would like Thai lettuce wraps everyday.

vegan sausages- improved!!

homemade sausage w/ sauteed onion and peppers on a hoagie roll, and curried potato salad

I've really enjoyed vegandad's sausages, I've made them several times and enjoyed the satisfying meaty texture. The past couple times I've made them, I decided to start playing around with some additions/omissions.... (I LOVE playing with recipes) and well, the recipe keeps getting better and better! Today I used garbanzo beans instead of the pinto called for in the original recipe, and added in grated onion, the addition of the onion keeps them moister and allows for a much improved texture. I've definitely also upped the spices considerably. With the garbanzo beans coarse-ness, I think we've found that these are  the best sausages yet. Here's what I did:

homemade sausages

1/2 c. garbanzo beans
1/4 c. nutritional yeast
1 c. bean cooking liquid (or veggie broth or water)
2 Tb soy sauce
1 Tb olive oil
2 cloves garlic-crushed
1/4 c onion- grated
1 1/2 tsp fennel seed- crushed
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp sage
1 tsp rosemary
1 1/4 c. vital wheat gluten

-turn rice cooker onto "steam" setting, allow to heat up
-crush/mash beans until none are left whole, stir in all liquid ingredients, then add spices, then add vital wheat gluten-- dough should be very moist and spongy
-cut 6 square pieces of aluminum foil
-separate dough into 6 even pieces, form log shapes, then wrap up in foil, twist in edges into seal off
-steam for 35 min
-allow to cool in fridge, then cook in variety of ways (in frying pan, on grill, chopped up in stir fries, etc..)

 Tonight I fried the sausages in some onions and peppers, and ate my hoagie with lots of ketchup. The hubby said mustard is only way to go... we agreed to disagree and stuffed our happy faces :) :)

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 :)

diner-style breakfast

I haven't been inspired to blog much lately, mostly because we've been super busy, and posting little blurbs and pics on facebook is much lazier than posting on here :)

Today's breakfast was quite epic, so I thought I'd share with the blogosphere. Yesterday was the hubby's birthday (we were up late celebrating...) so when we woke up, we were in great need of a big satisfying breakfast. In our pre-vegan days, we would be off to Miss Albany diner on mornings like this. But as vegans in Schenectady, NY, we need to fend for ourselves when it comes to diner-y food.

The menu for our diner breakfast: hash browned potatoes, spicy tofu scramble, guacamole and EB slathered toast :) AND COFFEE!

We started the hash browned potatoes first. I used Adirondack Red potatoes from the Greenmarket. They aren't sweet like sweet potatoes, but have pretty red flesh all the way through. They are quite delicious and cook up a cool dark red/brown color.

for the potatoes:
-2 big potatoes (Adirondack Red for us)
-1/2 onion
-peanut oil
-paprika, s&p
-1 clove garlic

-cut up the potatoes REALLY small so that they don't take forever to cook.
-we started with some oil in a cast-iron skillet over med-high heat. cooked the onion a lil, then added the potatoes and spices (to taste).
-don't stir the potatoes around too much, and you'll get a nice crisp on the potatoes. stir every five minutes or so until they start to be nice and brown
-i think ours took around 2o minutes until i was satisfied. once i turned i heat off, i added the clove of garlic (minced or pressed), then stirred it around.

While this was cooking we got our tofu scramble ready. Tofu scramble only usually takes about 10 minutes to cook... so we overlapped our cooking times.

for the scramble:
-1/2 block extra firm tofu
-onion powder
-garlic powder
-turmeric
-s&p
-1/4 onion, chopped
-2 marinated hot peppers, chopped (we used some leftover peppers that were from the bulk olive bar at the grocery store, use whatever is on hand)
-handful cherry tomatoes, chopped
-2 carrots (we used purple carrots), shredded
-nutritional yeast
-vegan cheese

-in a small bowl, crumble tofu and season up with some with onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and turmeric. i don't really measure, but i am usually pretty conservative with the turmeric (only 1/2 tsp would be enough). stir this mixture around and set to the side.
-in a small frying pan over med heat, add a lil oil, and cook the onion a bit. once onion starts to cook, add in veggies (hot peppers, tomatoes, or anything you want). cook this for a minute then add in tofu mixture, cook this around until bright yellow and it starts to firm up (7-8 min)
-once it looks like firm scrambled eggs, stir in shredded carrot and a handful of nutritional yeast, it should be sticky and almost cheesy.
-we topped ours with some shredded vegan cheese (FYH monterey jack). i put it on top, turned the heat off and put a lid on the pan. the "cheese" was melty in about a minute.

The scramble came out super spicy, so we ate it with some guacamole :) We both gobbled up our breakfast and while we ate, talked about how cool it would be to own a vegan diner of our own some day...

parsnip and sweet potato au gratin!

So a couple weeks ago, I found a recipe online for a Gratin dish--> here. So I went to the farmer's market, and bought a whole load of parsnips, I got home all excited to make the Parsnip Gratin, looked online for the recipe, when I realized it was RUTABAGA gratin! I got all grumpy and was like "what the heck am I gonna do with all these parsnips???" The hubby told me to calm down, and I reluctantly decided to make the dish anyways.

I had lots of second thoughts as I was preparing the sauce and the parsnips, I believe I even canceled dinner once or twice. When it started baking, it started filling up the house with a rich cheesey smell... Then we ate it, it had great texture, and the cashew cream sauce was fantastic as a "gratin." We did agree that parsnips are a pretty strong flavor, and this gratin would be improved upon by adding other veggies. So I decided to improve upon the gratin last night. Here's what I did and, by the way, it came out great!

ingredients:

1 3/4 c. boiling water
1 c. raw cashews
1/2 c. tahini
2 T chickpea (light) miso
1 big parsnip
1 big sweet potato
1/2 small red onion
salt
pepper
thyme
nutmeg

-cover cashews with boiling water, let sit for 20-30 minutes.
-using immersion blender, blend cashews (with water), tahini and the miso. this should be super creamy and smooth
-prepare veggies! i used the food processor to make thin discs of the parsnip and sweet potato. i also chopped up the onion into lil pieces
-coat baking dish with oil.
-then layer your gratin. i started with one layer of parsnips, then a lil salt, pepper, thyme. then a layer of sweet potato and a lil onion, then more salt, pepper, thyme. then added about 1/3 the cashew cream sauce. then more veggies, spices, etc... until you've used up all the veggies, and topped with the last of the sauce
-cover the dish, and bake at 400 for 50 min. use a knife to check for tenderness. if the dish is almost done, top with garlic breadcrumbs and bake for 10 more min until golden.

Vegan MOFO day 24- Lentil Loaf and Acorn Squash

So it's officially the last day of November, and therefore last day of the MOFO. This is my first year of blogging, and I think I did a pretty good job during Vegan MOFO. I tried my best to blog everyday, and I made it 24 out of 30 days. I'm going to keep blogging, but definitely not at a MOFO pace :)

It was super fun to have so many more readers that I used to have, and I appreciate every one of you that reads this blog. I definitely loved finding so many other blogs, and reading about the amazing vegan food y'all are cooking. I love vegan cooking a lot, and it's so rewarding for me to share my ideas/food with other people.

Tonight I decided to make a lentil loaf, as I haven't had "meat"loaf in a long time. I discovered that smashing brown rice and cooked lentil creates a very meaty texture a few years ago, and I thought it was time to do it again. Alongside the loaf, I cooked an acorn squash. My parents bought a whole bushel of squash, so I got some to take home when I was over there the other day. For this squash, I cut it in half, put a lil EB on the top and baked at 400 for 1 hr.

The hubby and I were very happy with dinner, and looking forward to cold lentil loaf sandwiches for lunch tomorrow!

for the lentil loaf:
cooked green lentils (made from 1 cup uncooked)
2 cups cooked brown rice
3 shallots- chopped
garlic powder
onion powder
chili powder
1 serious squirt of ketchup
1 splash of soy milk
salt and pepper
more ketchup for the top

-yeah, i didn't really measure much when i was making this, i just kept adding ingredients and tasting to see what else i thought it needed (serious perk of vegan cooking, uncooked food=not poison)
-i smashed the lentils and brown rice together with a potato masher, then added all the seasoning.
-i put it in a greased loaf pan, topped it with ketchup
-bake at 400 for 45 min :)

Vegan MOFO day 19- Borscht

The hubby requested soup today. He actually requested a butternut squash soup, but I decided to make borscht because I had some beets and some cabbage that needed to be used up. Borscht has always been one of my favorite foods, I love the deep flavor of the beets and how tangy the soup gets. This soup brings out the Ukranian in me. Soup is pretty foolproof, you just let it all hang out on the stove for a while, then its yummy!

Here's what I did for the soup...

ingredients:
1 large red onion- sliced
1 tsp peanut oil
5 beets- peeled and cut into matchsticks
8 small carrots- peeled and cut into matchsticks
1/4 head cabbage- sliced and cut up into similar sized pieces as other veggies
1 cube veggie bouillon
dill weed (~1 T), salt and pepper
1/2 lemon

-add the onion to a large pot with a lil oil, cook for several minutes until starts to soften. add in all the other veggies. when the veggies start to cook, cover with water and add in the bouillon cube, dill weed, salt and pepper to taste.
-bring pot to low simmer, allow to cook for 30 minutes until veggies are tender and broth is bright red. taste. add salt and pepper as necessary.
-squeeze in lemon juice of the 1/2 lemon. the soup will now be tangy and wonderful
-i liked this with a dollop of vegenaise on top.

Vegan MOFO day 18- Stuffed French Toast

Today I made breakfast for my friend Kaitlin's birthday. She requested French Toast, but I decided to try to make a vegan version of the MAD Irish Toast from the Miss Albany Diner. We used to love to eat there in our pre-vegan days, but haven't been there in a long time... I can't think of anything vegan on the menu. This French Toast at the Ms. Albany comes stuffed with a walnut cream cheese and topped with Maple Syrup, which I remember having Whiskey in it.

So, I made some French Toast from a recipe I found on vegweb.com, and served two slices with some walnut maple "cream cheese." Here's the original recipe --->here. I didn't quite stick to it. Here's what I did..

ingredients for the french toast:
1/3 c. Vegenaise
1/2 c. unsweetened almond milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 T nutritional yeast
cinnamon- a couple dashes
nutmeg- i grated some in, maybe 1/4 tsp
8 big slices nice white bread- i used Heidelberg French Peasant Bread
earth balance for the pan

ingredients for the stuffing:
1 tub Tofutti cream cheese
dash cinnamon
1-2 T maple syrup
3 T - 1/4 c chopped walnuts
(stir this all together, works good with room temperature cream cheese)

for the french toast: combine vegenaise, almond milk, nooch, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg , i find this works best with a fork, it becomes a thick mixture, almost a egg-like consistency

dip the slices of bread in the batter, and fry in a skillet. i fried over med heat. i kept the cooked slices warm in the toaster oven, as i cooked all the slices (on the "keep warm" setting)

i took two slices, and spread some of the cream cheese in the middle. then poured a lil maple syrup on the top. we ate these with some tempeh bacon on the side

Vegan MOFO day 7- Buffalo Chik Pizza and Falafel

So, we celebrated with friends last night and ate MORE junk food! Alot of our recent posts have not been the healthiest food.... we've been eating what we call "fat kid food"... haha.... I promise we're not terrible people!!! But, for real, there were like NO vegetables in this dinner.

This was a falafel appetizer, made by Al-Baraki and purchased at Honest Weight Co-op, we toasted them in the oven for a couple minutes. They were super delicious!

We also decided to make some pizza, this is our best pizza recipe, it's super greasy and so amazingly yummy. Oh, and I made whole-wheat pizza crust, so that kinda makes up for the all the grease and lack of veggies, right?


Here's what we did (we made two pizzas):

For the pizza dough:
ingredients:
2 tsp active dry yeast
2 tsp sugar
1 1/3 c. very hot water (run the tap for a minute to get it as hot as possible)
3 c. white whole wheat flour
1 T vital wheat gluten
1/2 tsp salt
olive oil

-combine the yeast, sugar and hot water in a bowl, stir to combine, the let sit to activate for 5-10 minutes, until its all foamy
-in a food processor, combine the flour, wheat gluten and salt, turn on and combine
-when the yeast mixture is ready, turn processor on, and pour in the yeast mixture, let the processor run until a dough has formed, it'll turn into a ball, that will start to run around the side of the machine (you'll know)
-take dough out of the machine and knead for 5-7 minutes
-put a lil olive oil in a big bowl, put the dough in the bowl, and turn over until its all coated with the olive oil, cover dough with a clean kitchen towel and let rise for 1 hr.
-punch dough down, knead a lil, return to bowl, cover, let rise another 1/2 hr.
-divide into two pizza, or you could make one really big one i guess, roll out and make your pizza!

We topped our pizza with homemade "blue cheese" dressing, vegan cheese (we used FYH monterey jack & daiya cheddar), sliced red onion and buffalo chicken. For the chicken: we used "chicken" nuggets, cut them up into pieces, tossed them with Frank's red hot, then cooked on stove top until warmed through.

blue cheese dressing: (this makes way more than you need for the pizza)
1 c. vegenaise
1/2 tsp tahini
1 squeeze fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
dash garlic powder
1/4 block firm tofu crumbled- to make it chunky

After assembling the pizzas, they cooked in the oven at 425 for about 15 minutes, until all the cheese was melted. They were super greasy, and totally yummy. One of our very non-vegan guests remarked that it was better than regular buffalo chicken pizza! yay!

Vegan MOFO day 3- Spaghetti Squash w/ Tomato Cream Sauce

Dinner tonight introduced me to a new favorite vegetable! We bought a spaghetti squash at the Greenmarket last week, and hadn't gotten around to cooking it. I've never actually cooked (or eaten) any spaghetti squash before, but I'd heard so many times that it tastes super yummy and very spaghetti-y. I don't think I really believed people, but DAMN! yum yum yum! This was a really good dinner!

Spaghetti Squash:
Cut squash in half, scoop out seeds and other funky junk. Place on baking sheet, cut side down. Then roast in oven @ 375F for 45-50 minutes. When it's done the skin will be a lil golden and the flesh will be easily pierced with a knife. To make the spaghetti strings, just scrap the flesh with a fork, and long strings will form.

Tomato Cream Sauce: (I used lots of stuff I had left in the fridge, so I don't really have exact measurements)
1 medium onion- diced
2 cloves garlic- finely diced
1 Tb olive oil
1 Tb tomato paste
1 26 oz. carton diced tomatoes
onion powder, garlic powder, red pepper flakes and dried basil to taste (maybe 1 Tb each)
1/4 block extra firm tofu
3/4 cup coconut milk.
3 T nutritional yeast
salt and pepper
hot sauce

I sauteed the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until tender, then I added in the tomato paste and a shake of red pepper flakes. I cooked this over medium heat until fragrant (*sniff* what's cookin, good lookin?). Then added in the diced tomatoes and seasoned it up with the onion powder, garlic powder and dried basil. I simmered this on the stove while the squash was cooking in the oven.

In a separate bowl, I combined the tofu, nutritional yeast and coconut milk. I blended this together to a frothy cream with my immersion blender. When creamy, I stirred this into the tomato sauce.

I seasoned the sauce with some hot sauce, salt and pepper.

I topped the spaghetti squash with the yummy cream sauce. Then we ate it and were very happy.

Vegan MOFO day 1 - "Steak" and potatoes a la hubby

The name of this blog is Vegan Yummy by Peggy (in case you forgot). Yet tonight's entry *GASP* is brought to you by me, Danny (aka "hubby" in previous posts). Peggy had a tough day and I wanted to cheer her up, so I decided to cook up some yummy (heh) marinated tempeh and baked potatoes. I kinda doctored a recipe I found in the Veganomicon and made my own vegan equivalent of a hearty steak-and-potatoes feast.

Tempeh "Steak"
1 (8-ounce) package 3-grain tempeh
3/4 c. red wine (I used leftover cabernet sauvignon.. thanks Elissa!)
2 Tbsp bragg's liquid aminos
2 Tbsp bragg's apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp liquid smoke
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp pure maple syrup
3 cloves crushed garlic

I started by slicing the tempeh in half width-wise, then again into triangles. I DO love me a good triangle. This yielded 4 hearty triangles. Bring a medium-sized pot of water to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Drop those triangles on in! Wait 10 minutes. What to do? Read a short story? File your taxes? No! Whisk together above marinade ingredients in a bowl large enough to fit 4 triangles of tempeh.

The tempeh plumped up quite nicely in the 10 short minutes. I let it soak for about 90 minutes, turning occasionally. Meanwhile....

Potatoes take forever. I threw these in the oven like, last week. Just kidding. Probably the same 90 minutes at around 350F. Not C. That'd be CRAZY hot. When they were done I topped them with a little Vegenaise and "bacon" bits.

Back to the land of tempeh "steak". Fry em up in a little peanut oil in a cast-iron skillet over medium/medium-high heat. Took about 10 minutes, turning occasionally and drizzling with remaining glaze.

Oh. I steamed some broccoli too, garnished with a little nooch. This whole meal was awesome. One might even say... YUMMY! And it made Peggy happy. :)

-Hubbs

tofu scramble

With these gloomy fall mornings, we've been craving substantial breakfasts. Today I decided to make the hubby a tofu scramble. There are so many different versions of this recipe online, I always just do my own thing with whatever I have on hand. Here's what I did today:

ingredients:
3/4 block extra firm tofu
2 T nutritional yeast
dash garlic powder
dash onion powder
dash turmeric
dash Spike seasoning
1 T peanut oil
1/2 small red onion, chopped
1 carrot, grated
salt, fresh ground pepper and hot sauce to taste

-crumble the tofu in a bowl and stir together with nooch, garlic powder, onion powder and turmeric. your mixture should be a little yellow and slightly fragrant
-in castiron skillet, cook up the onion with a lil oil, when the oil starts to get soft, add the tofu mixture in
-season with spike, salt and pepper
-cook until the mixture isn't so moist, maybe 10-15 minutes
-stir in grated carrot, top with a lil hot sauce

This recipe would work with a whole bunch of different veggies tossed in, and with lots of different spices. I was thinking this morning that it would be good with some curry powder in it. Very filling and satisfying breakfast :)

spinachy fettucini alfredo

This dinner came out yummmmmmmy!!! Sometimes I get really excited about pasta, this was one of those dinners :) This recipe is a combination of a recipe I found on vegweb.com and a little of this, and a little of that.. Super healthy, filling and tasty! Here's what I did:

ingredients:
1 cup raw cashews
3 Tb nutritional yeast
1/2 large onion- chopped
2 cloves garlic- pressed
1 Tb earth balance (butter)
squeeze fresh lemon juice
1 tsp chickpea miso
salt and pepper
1 package frozen chopped spinach
1 lb. whole wheat fettucini
1 cup starchy pasta cooking water

-process cashews in food processor until cashews are in fine pieces, almost to a powder
-cook onions and garlic on stovetop in the earth balance, until slightly tender
-thaw frozen spinach
-add onion, garlic, thawed spinach, nooch, miso, and the pasta water to food processor.
-process until it becomes a thick creamy sauce, season with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon
-stir into pasta, and serve with vegan parmesan

holy yum yum yum