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 9- Taco Tuesday!

Today is Tuesday, so we decided to have tacos. We mostly used the 'Baja Tempeh Taco' recipe out of the Veganomicon. We didn't make the suggest lime-creme, and I made the cabbage slaw a lil different, I didn't use jalapenos, and I added a lil dollop of vegenaise. I'm not very good at sitting right to recipes. We stuffed organic blue corn taco shells w/ chili-Beer marinated tempeh, a spicy cabbbage slaw, some salsa, and our friend Kaitlin made a pineapple guacamole! Seriously yum :)

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

veggie pizza appetizer

This is a vegan-ized version of one my family's classic snacks, this was the go-to dish for my parents to bring to work parties,and it was a favorite snack at all our family holiday dinners. I made this for one of my work functions a couple of years ago, in my pre-vegan days. Someone requested that I make it again... so I decided to makeover the recipe. It really didn't taste any different than I remember, and I remember it being TASTY!

Here's what I did:

ingredients:
-2 packages refrigerated crescent rolls (the reduced fat version is vegan, full of weird ingredients, but vegan still)
-1 tub Tofutti cream cheese
-1/3 c. Vegenaise
-1 small red onion- finely diced
-about 1 c. fresh broccoli- cut into really small florets
-about 1 c. grated carrot
-about 1 c. tomato (i used cut up yellow and red cherry tomatoes)
-1/2 c. vegan parmesan cheese (i used 'almesan' from the veganomicon)

Roll out the crescent rolls onto baking sheet, meet end to end to form a pizza crust, bake according to package instructions. Allow to cool completely.

Mix together the creamcheese, vegenaise and onion. Spread mixture on the crust.

Arrange veggies on top, sprinkle with 'cheese.'

Tastes best after being refrigerated overnight.

pizza before being cut up :)

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.

green chili skillet cornbread, refried beans and noochy veggies

The star of tonight's dinner was definitely the cornbread. I had a green chili pepper from Nancy's garden on my counter, so I decided to make the skillet cornbread recipe from the Veganomicon. I cooked the chili pepper with some onion, and added it to the top of the corn batter before it baked. Such an easy yummy recipe, and we ate the bread warm from the oven, and boy was it good :) The beans are leftover refried beans that my parents made, creamy and satisfying (and all I did to tweak was add some chili powder, needed a lil more heat!). The hubby contributed ti dinner with some sauteed pepper, carrot, garlic and zucchini, cooked with nutritional yeast and Bragg's.

I got fancy with a lil cherry tomato garnish :)

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.

cook-out food :)

The hubby and I hosted a cookout the other night. Here's some goodies from the night: I made my spinach-artichoke dip. It's a hit every time :)

ingredients:
1 block silken tofu
1 1/2 c. vegenaise
2-4 cloves garlic
salt
pepper
1/4 c. nutritional yeast
1 package frozen spinach
1 can artichoke hearts

-using blender, combine tofu, vegenaise, garlic, salt and pepper to taste and nooch. make it super creamy!
-once mixture is texture of sour cream and totally smooth, fold in frozen spinach (you might want to thaw spinach, and squeeze dry) and chopped artichoke hearts (i like to chop them a bit smaller than they come in the jar/can).
-combine mixture, spread into baking pan (10"by 10")bake 20-25 min @375 it's done when slighty brown and bubbly
-serve with chips/crackers

For the main course, we had a couple pasta salads, hot-sauce tempeh from the Veganomicon and some corn on the cob. It's was a beautiful night with friends on our great deck! :)

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!

Taco Tuesday!

We had a super fantastic taco night last night! :) I used recipes from the Veganomicon to make baja marinated tempeh, spicy slaw and mexican millet. I didn't follow any of the recipes exactly, but I used the general idea and everything came out super yummy. Other ingredients in our awesome taco bar included some Newman's Own salsa, Guacamole (courtesy of awesome neighbor Leah), Organic Blue Corn Taco shells and Daiya Cheddar cheese (courtesy of awesome friend Kaitlin). We were all very happy with our tacos!

Oh oh oh! I also made a Cilantro-Lime Creme for the tacos, I made this up myself and I thought it was a key topping :)

ingredients:
1 box silken extra firm tofu (the cardboard box kind, not water packed)
1 Tb olive oil
juice of 1 lime
dash apple cider vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup fresh cilantro

-blend everything until really creamy, i use an immersion blender for several minutes

Raisin-Millet Soda Bread

Today, I made the Whole-Wheat Millet Soda bread recipe from the Veganomicon, I substituted raisins for the currants and coriander for the caraway seed. I love warm yummy bread on a rainy afternoon!

Southwestern Corn Pudding, Red Beans & Rice

This was last night's "Lost" night dinner with friends :) I made the Southwestern Corn Pudding from the Veganomicon, I've seen it on so many other vegan blogs and it sounded delicious. I thought it came out super yummy, I'll probably go a lil lighter on the cilantro next time, but overall so creamy and delicious!

I made brown rice in the rice cooker and made up a red bean recipe as I went along :) I'm definitley going to make beans like this again!

ingredients:
1 small onion-chopped
3 cloves garlic-minced
2 stalks celery- chopped
1/2 red bell pepper- chopped
3 c. red kidney beans (i had these precooked in my freezer, so i just let thaw out on the counter for the day)
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp liquid smoke
salt
liquid from the beans/water

-sauteed onion for a bit in a lil oil, then added the garlic, celery, red pepper
-add in the beans and spices, liquid smoke, etc..
-cook for an hour or so until the beans break down in a creamy saucey concoction
-top with a lil hot sauce :)

yummy corn pudding!!!!

easter food :)

i forgot to take pictures of everything we made for easter... we made potato rolls, broccoli salad, gimme lean sausage w/ fried peppers and onions, and lemon bars.

this is the dough for the yummy country-style potato rolls (Veganomicon). they came out super tasty!

and pretty! aren't they yummy-looking?? my omni sister-in-law said that "you can totally bring these over for dinner again" and "they kind of taste like bagels"

these are lemon-bars from The Joy of Vegan Baking... i think im in love with vegan lemon bars.