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::

Vegan MOFO day 14- Roasted Veggies, Peanut Sauce and Brown Rice

Tonight's dinner wasn't the most photogenic, but it tasted fantastic. We went to the Greenmarket this morning, and I knew I wanted to use some of the veggies I had in the fridge. I decided to roast up a butternut squash and some beets. I cut them up into like cubes, tossed with a lil olive oil, sprinkle of salt, and generous fresh ground black pepper. These roasted at 400F, for about an hour.

While the veggies were in the oven, I tried to figure out the rest of the meal. I threw some brown rice in the rice cooker, and decided to make some sort of sauce to go over this all. I decided to make some spicy peanut sauce :) I really like peanut sauce, I wasn't convinced that this would all taste good together, but in the end I was quite impressed with how the sweetness of the squash and beets played off the spiciness of the peanut sauce.

We eat peanut sauce fairly often, as it comes together so quickly, and requires no cooking. I used my standard peanut sauce recipe, that I posted here ---> on vegweb.com, I smashed up, then stirred in, half a baked sweet potato that was hanging out in the fridge from the other night. In the sauce, I skipped the thai curry paste and didn't use much brown sugar, as the sweet potato was so sweet.

Not the prettiest dinner, but the flavors were great, and it was filling and nutritious!

Vegan MOFO day 8- vegan mac w/cauliflower

It's the first slushy snowy day we've had this year. The kinda of day that makes me crave comfort food. While I was at work today, I was thinking about what I wanted for dinner, I knew I wanted some of the cauliflower that we bought at the Greenmarket yesterday....but I wasn't sure what else. Then I realized that vegan mac and cheese sounded super yummy. When I got home from work, the hubby had cookbooks already opened up in the kitchen, one was open to cauliflower, and my cookbook was opened up to vegan mac!!! Talk about a mind-reader! We did a little dinner teamwork. We boiled the cauliflower and tossed them into my standard vegan mac recipe --> here. The hubby had a genius idea to top the casserole with some daiya cheese and breadcrumbs. Satisfying and cozy! Now... its cuddletime.

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

curried acorn squash soup with salad

This is tonight's veggie filled dinner. I realized that I have not been eating a ton of raw veggies lately, so I knew I wanted to have a big salad with dinner tonight. We got a bunch of salad veggies from the Greenmarket this morning. Here's the yummy salad I came up with: butter and red leaf lettuce, grated raw beets, sliced red onion, carrots, and pumpkin seeds, tossed with a lil balsalmic vinagrette. I really enjoyed the raw beets in the salad, their juiciness really made the dressing coat all the veggies.

I made a hearty soup for dinner. This was the kind of soup that warmed my soul, rich and flavorful, full of veggies too, so it was super healthy!

here's how I made the soup...

ingredients:
2 Tb olive oil
1/2 red onion- diced
1 large clove garlic- chopped
1/2 inch ginger- grated
1 tsp mustard seeds
2 small potatoes- cut into large chunks
1 acorn squash- peeled, seeded, then cut into large chunks
5 small carrots- peeled, then cut into large chunks
3 c. broth (i used 1/2 c. chickpea cooking broth, 1/2 c. kidney bean cooking broth, 2 c. water, 1 veggie buillion cube)
3 T curry powder
1 can coconut milk
salt, pepper and mango chutney to taste

-I heated the oil, in my big heavy soup pot, over med heat. I added the onion, garlic, ginger and mustard seeds, I cooked this together until fragrant (maybe 8 min).
-I then added in all the other veggies and the broth. I turned up the heat until I saw some small bubbles. I simmered this for about 25 min until the veggies started to get soft.
-I then added in the curry powder, and coconut milk. I used an immersion blender right in the pot, until the soup was completely smooth. I seasoned my soup with salt, pepper and 1 spoonful of mango chutney.
-I let the soup cook for about another 2o min.

We ate the soup with a lil dollop of EB on top and a slice of yummy bread. soup soup soup <3

roasted golden beets and fingerling potatoes with spicy tempeh

Well.. I bought some golden beets at the Greenmarket last sunday. Years ago, I ate some dish made with golden beets when my brother was a student at the Culinary Institute of America. (I got to eat lots of yummy vegetarian food in their restaurants while he went to school there yum yum!) Now.. I've always loved beets, but damn golden beets are amazing!!

I have never spotted golden beets at the Greenmarket or at Hannaford before. So when I saw these beauties at the market, I had to grab them up! We also bought some amazing fingerling potatoes from an adorable little girl. Her family has a little stand, and they sell no-spray heirloom beans, potatoes, and garlic. We bought a bunch of varieties of cute lil potatoes, some red ones, some yellow ones, even some blue ones.

For dinner tonight, the hubby and I used some teamwork. He cut up the potatoes and the beets, and tossed them with some olive oil, salt, pepper, crushed fresh garlic, thyme and a lil Spike seasoning. We baked them for about an hour at 400. I added some red onion to the pan about half way through.

We also made some baked tempeh. We cut the block of tempeh up into triangles, steamed them for like 10 minutes. Then I coated them thoroughly with Frank's RedHot and a lil peanut oil. They needed to bake for about 2o minutes.

This dinner came out really yummy, and was totally satisfying. I love tempeh, it's so hearty. I like dinners when I have an excuse to use a steak knife (I could definitely have just cut the tempeh with the side of my fork, but I used a steak knife anyway!)

ps mustard and horseradish sauce added to the yum yum! WHAM-A-JAMA!

corn chowder

Delicious corn chowder for dinner tonight :) We ate this with some Rustic-Italian bread we bought at the Greenmarket this morning. The chowder was full of farm fresh veggies: leeks and rosemary (from my parent's garden), garlic, potato, red pepper, corn, and carrots from the Greenmarket.

ingredients:
2 leeks- cleaned and thinly sliced
1 Tb oil
1 red pepper- diced
2 carrots- diced
4 small red potatoes- diced
3 cups water
1 veggie bouillion cube
1 cup chickpea cooking broth
2 Tb fresh chopped rosemary
3 ears corn- cut off cob
1 cup frozen corn
4 bulbs roasted garlic
2 cups unsweetened almond milk
1/4 cup nutritional yeast

-cook leeks in oil, over med heat until slightly soft, add pepper, potato, carrot
-add water, broth and bouillion cube, cook over med heat (low bubble) for 30 min
-add rosemary, and fresh corn, season with salt and pepper
-in blender, combine corn, almond milk, roasted garlic and nutritional yeast until smooth
-add corn mixture to soup, and stir until combined
-heat through for 5 more minutes

-serve with chewy bread :)

corn dip and mexican millet

It has been a lovely long weekend spent with my wonderful husband and lil puppy dog. We've been running around, seeing friends, and family and eating lots of good food! We originally had plans to have a 'Mexican night' with my brother and sister-in-law's family tonight. But the whole family isn't feeling well :(

We decided to cook the dishes we were planning on contributing at our house and enjoy a quiet night at home.

For an appetizer, I made my corn dip :) This stuff is super addicting! All the produce (for the whole dinner) was fresh from the Greenmarket yesterday, so the flavor of the fresh corn, and peppers were amazing in this dip! We gobbled it up with some tortilla chips.
For dinner, I was planning on making Mexican millet as a side for tacos. Since we didn't end up having the ingredients for tacos, we ate the millet, with some canned re-fried beans and some more corn chips. And we both added a lil dollop of Vegenaise, cause we can't resist the stuff!
I've made this Mexican millet recipe (from the Veganomicon) many many times, but it definitely turned on the best tonight. The secret? I followed the recipe exactly, for once :) I even topped it was some fresh lime juice. yum-my! I think I could eat this stuff every day.

jalapeno poppers and mexican millet

These were some crazy spicy poppers I made the other day. I found a standard popper recipe online, substituted Tofutti cream cheese, used some peppers we bought at the Greenmarket, and one from Nancy's garden. These were crispy and delicious, nice and greasy from the Tofutti. The peppers were super super spicy.. I could only eat one. I remember being able to eat like 8 poppers when I used to order them from a pizza place in my prevegan days. This was a very successful experiment
I also made this Mexican millet from the Veganomicon. yum yum yum. I could eat this stuff everyday. I even put a dollop of Vegenaise on top for creaminess.

corn on the cob, roasted fingerling potatoes and chicken-ish nuggets

This time of year is great for vegetables. People give me zucchini at work, my parents give me tons of tomatoes, neighbors give me cucumbers, its awesome! Every sunday, the hubby and I make a trip down the Greenmarket in downtown Schenectady, right now the market is bursting with delicious produce. Last weekend, we discovered a stand that sold these amazing fingerling potatoes, each bin was potatoes of a different color: pink, red, white, yellow, purple and purple speckly ones. We got some of each. For this dinner, I roasted the potatoes in the toaster oven. I really love my toaster oven this time of year, mine has a convection feature, so it cooks, roasts and toasts perfectly, and doesn't make the kitchen all hot. For the potatoes, I tossed them with a lil olive oil, salt and pepper. Roasted at 425 for around 30mins.. You can't really tell that they are all different colors in my pic. As they roasted, the intensity of the colors faded. Even though, we lost some of the color that made me buy them they sure were delicious! Creamy and almost sweet. The purple ones did stay bright purple on the inside. yum-my! I've learned that bright colored food are the healthiest. So I'm going to pretend these potatoes were super healthy too :)

The corn on the cob was also from the market, I simply boiled it on the stovetop. My dad always said to boil corn for 7 mins in salty water. So thats what I do :) I have to say my favorite cooking method for corn on the cob is the grill, but when the grills not on, boiling works fine. All the corn I've had this summer has been super yummy. Corn must like humid and hot NY summers.

We had chicken nuggets for dinner too. They were Gardein brand, they came with some hot sauce, as they were supposed to be "wings." We weren't really in a wing-mood, so we just pan-fried and tossed with fresh chopped parsley and some lemon juice. I have to say they were pretty yummy, chewy and chickeny without being too chickeny.

I'm not really the biggest fake-meat fan, it freaks me out a lil because its so damn processed. These nuggets were our second "Gardein" purchase. A couple months ago we bought the Tuscan chicken cutlets (from the refrigerated section of Hannaford).... those were super gross. These chicken wings came in the freezer case, I thought they had a way better texture than the refrigerated chicken. I probably won't be buying Gardein again anytime soon regardless..

mashed taters, smokey tempeh and corn on the cob!

This is tonight's dinner. It starts with the fresh corn we found at the farmer's market this morning! I love fresh corn :) The farmer's market was wonderful today, so many people out, and so much variety in the produce. We brought our friend Kaitlin, and we all had a fabulous time. We got some spicy pad thai for lunch from the thunder mountain curry booth. I love them because they ALWAYS have something vegan and yummy. In addition to the corn we had smokey tempeh from the Veganomicon. And some super yummy mashed potatoes. For flavor: I mashed in some vegenaise, horseradish, onion, garlic, soy milk, salt and pepper and fresh chopped parsley.
Dessert was: Tofutti Marry Me bars. Oh my, are these delicious!!! Just like the fudge bars I remember.... and a nice cool down on a hot and humid summer day!