Vegan Mofo day 7: get your orange on.

It's getting to be that time of year when I get super excited about all things orange and sweet and fabulous. Pumpkins and winter squash, my friends. This past weekend I attended the Pumpkin Festival in Milton, WV with Michael and our friends Becca and Max. If you remember from last year, we mostly go in order to buy locally made foodstuffs like cornmeal and pumpkin butter and salad dressings and whatnot. This year there were pumpkin milkshakes...everywhere. Michael and I got a little sad that we couldn't have one, so a couple days ago I got the fixings to make them ourselves!

punkin.

Also showcased is some lovely pumpkin butter from the festival. The milkshakes were super easy to make...I didn't measure (of course), but it's just vanilla soy ice cream, pumpkin puree, some soymilk, and a little bit of pumpkin pie spice. Yum! They were especially yummy paired with some vegan gingersnaps we found at the store. Next time I want to make a blizzard-style thing with a thicker mixture and some crumbled gingersnaps added to the whole shebang. This was a perfect treat on an evening where my throat was feeling crappy and sore. And probably healthy too - I mean you never know.

punkin's favorite cousin, butternut squash

I am a huge butternut squash fan. The eating of them, that is. I really hate dealing with the preparation, but luckily, Michael made this dinner for me on the first evening that I was feeling sick. He roasted the squash with some olive oil and just a pinch of cinnamon sprinkled on top. It was perfectly cooked...tender and sweet. Mmmm! He also whipped up the lemony roasted potatoes from Veganomicon and a felafel loaf from a box mix to which he added some chickpeas, peppers, onions, and tomatillos. Luckily, my cold is mostly in my chest (luckily?) so that I can still taste stuff. This was an excellent and filling meal. Those potatoes are spectacular. If you haven't tried them yet, you should!

super sick meal

Another night when I was still feeling icky and Michael wasn't feeling too hot either, we just had a simple supper of storeboughts. That's butternut squash soup from Imagine, some roasted pine nut hummus, and Triscuits. Super easy to make and to eat. Sometimes we just don't feel like cooking. It happens, people.

almost as good as winter squash - sweet potatoes

This is something I made before we got sick, but it is completely worth mentioning and also falls under the category of wonderful orange foods. This is the cumin-lime tofu from VegNews. You guys should totally sign up for their newsletters and join the recipe club, because they send you all these awesome recipes straight to your inbox and they rule! This tofu was out of this world delicious. They suggested pairing it with sweet potatoes, so I made a mash of sweet potatoes and a regular potato or two. That's lightly steamed broccoli with lemon zest in the back. I can't wait to make this one again. So good! I can't link to the recipe because it's only in my email and not on their site, but that's just another reason why you should sign up yourself!

Feel like making something orange for dinner? What are some of your favorite ways to cook these squashes? I need suggestions, so I don't get sick of them by January!

Vegan Mofo Day 5: photographic evidence!

See for yourselves how awesome it was: 

buns (mini loaves, really)

bun mania, seriously

sausages fit for a vegan queen...and king

the peppers that topped famous peppers because they were just that amazing

sausage inside its bread house

final result..try getting your mouth around that, buddy

Yeah, I ate mine with a fork, for sure.  I told you they were super rad!

Dinner last night was really wonderful as well...  My grandma ate every bit of tofu I gave her and all of the butternut squash pilaf I made!  And it was so pretty...  but alas, no camera.  I'll have to make it again sometime.  The tofu was the Basic Broiled Tofu from Vcon and the pilaf came from my new cookbook, Linda McCartney On Tour.  It's really a vegetarian cookbook, but most of it is vegan and the recipes that are vegan are marked with a V.  The ones that are not vegan could be easily veganized with a cheese and/or egg substitute.  The book contains recipes from all over the world, so that's pretty cool.  They're fairly simple, but..  really kind of fattening looking.  Most things seem to be fried or have lots of margarine or lots of sugar.  Needless to say, I didn't think my pilaf needed 2/3 cup of margarine or 4 Tbsp of sugar!  Still, there are some good looking ideas in there to work with, at least.  The pilaf was yummy.  Sweet, but just a little spicy.  I have 3 more butternut squashes in my kitchen, so I'm sure I'll make it again soon.  Oh, and the tofu was very simple, but actually very tasty!  I'd definitely make it again if I had a time crisis on my hands (it was pretty quick to whip up).

Today, Michael and I went to the West Virginia Pumpkin Festival.  I took lots of pictures and bought some pretty interesting foodstuffs, all of which I will blog about tomorrow!  Right now we're about to make some nachos for dinner because I am exhausted and also because we tried like 5 different types of salsa at the festival which made us feel a bit in the need of some spicy mexican food.  Tomorrow, however, I am back on the wagon for making creative meals that you will be DAZZLED by.

more mofo-ing

Oh, crap that ASPCA commercial with Sara McLaughlin is on...  must must must look away...

Ok.  Well, as promised, I made stuffed peppers and creamed potatoes last night.  Michael tried to convince me not to make the peppers, for whatever reason, and I kind of wish I had listened.  Because I did something 'creative' that did not work.  Oh well.  Lets start with cocktail hour!

Michael brought home some spiced cider and a bottle of dark rum from the store...  And although I call myself a cider-hater, it was so so good.  He rocked it up with some pieces of apples and lemon zest and cinnamon, and cloves, and pumpkin pie spice, so maybe that's why I liked it.  Who cares, because served up in our hilarious jackolantern mugs, it was just what I needed after a crappy day at work and the weather being less than pretty.

this one's mine.  i think it looks like a panda..michael says it looks more like a racoon.

Wanna see the peppers and potatoes?  Here ya go:

gotta love michael's garnish.  his plates are always prettier than mine!

The peppers were really just...meh.  The reason is that I added artichokes to it.  Normally, I think this would be just peachy, but I didn't use marinated artichokes, I just used frozen ones.  And I've finally come to the conclusion that they taste WAY different from marinated artichokes.  In fact, it was so overpowering that it completely knocked out the taste of the cherry tomatoes and fresh basil that I added (wasted).  The base was quinoa, which was chewily perfect.  Too bad it tasted like straight up baked artichokes.  

such a shame because they look so adorable in the pan.  that's nutritional yeast on top.

And, as you could probably guess, we have lots of leftovers of them.  I'm gonna suck it up and have one as a snack in a minute.  Maybe it'll taste better today.  Cross your fingers, and here's hoping.

There was a success in this meal, however:  Creamed Potatoes with Peas!  I was talking about how this is a dish from my childhood that I really wanted to veganize, and I think I came fairly close.  It's a little different, but the taste of these is so frigging awesome, I don't even care.  Welcome to a new and wonderful way to make potatoes.

oh my.  stay tuned for a recipe in a moment.

Finally, here's my (less palatable looking) plate of dinner.  I got through one pepper, but I polished off those potatoes, and had the leftovers of them for lunch.  And this comes from a certified potato-hater (mostly because they make me feel gross when I eat too many).  That did not apply in this situation.

please just feed me creamed potatoes for the rest of my life

K.  Recipe time:

Creamed Potatoes with Peas

2-3 pounds new potatoes (or any baby potatoes)

1 cup of frozen green peas

4 Tbsp vegan butter (i used earth balance)

a lot of unsweetened soymilk

1-2 cups veggie broth

1/4-1/2 cup AP flour

1-2 Tbsp cornstarch

1 Tbsp poultry seasoning (heavy on the sage)

small handful of nutritional yeast

salt and pepper to taste

Put the potatoes in a big soup pot, and almost cover with soymilk.  Leave about 2 inches exposed (this took an entire small carton of soymilk, for me...what is that, 1/4 gallon?).  Finish covering with veggie broth.  Add the vegan butter and boil until the potatoes are tender (about 20-25 minutes).  The soymilk solution will look like it's going to boil over because it gets foamy, but it won't, so don't worry.

Once potatoes are cooked, turn off the heat and give it a good stir.  Add peas, flour, and cornstarch, then stir until the sauce has thickened into a gravy-like consistency.  I'd start with 1/4 cup of flour and 1 Tbsp of cornstarch, then add more if you need it.  Once it has thickened, add the poultry seasoning (or seasoning of your choice), nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper.  

Eat.

Yeah, it's not very good for you, but sometimes you just really need some comfort food, and this is it.  Plus, it's super easy to whip up.  

Dinner tonight is still a mystery, but I have a few ideas.  I think I might go to a cookbook for this one, since last night's was sort of a debacle.  Happy Mofo-ing, kiddies!

saturday pasta, sunday beer and football chili

Saturday night I made the Lemon Cashew Basil Pesto (from ED&BV) on whole wheat pasta. I added a handful of nutritional yeast to the pesto and a handful of cherry tomatoes when I mixed it all together. Add some garlicy toast, and you are good to go!

oooh green gooodness

The pesto was more mellow and smooth than a pesto with pine nuts. I highly reccommend!

Sunday I made chili. Chili is a fall must. As you saw from the last post, we now have an abundance of peppers. A lot of them went into this chili, as you can see:

pepper and onion goodness

After 4 cans of beans and a million tomatoes, it ended up looking irresistably yumtastic.

ooooooh chili. so much chili.

it just keeps getting better.

Michael suggested we make some cornbread, and I realized we had everything for it on hand, so we whipped up the Skillet Cornbread from Veganomicon. It was perfect. Succulent, sweet, moist...corny. Cornbread is something I've missed since becoming vegan. Not that I ate it that much before being vegan, but you know every once in awhile you want something from your omni childhood and are not sure how it will turn out veganized... Well cornbread works just frigging fine.

thank you family, for my cast iron skillet birthday present

We served it up with some fresh avocado. So. Good.

decadent deliciousness

Finally, it all added up to a perfect football and beer day. The combination of cornbread, chili, and avocado was literally to die for. I would die to eat this. Maybe. Anyway, our two omni buddies, Andrew and Duff, loved it too. And my aspiring vegan friend Erin had some leftovers and I gave her the recipe in order to fool her omni family. We shall see the results!

best meal of the fall. or whenever, or always.

And tonight, I am cooking these:

i will let you know how this goes

mexi night and farmers market

Last night, Michael was in the mood for a meximeal. However, we didn't have the ingredients on hand for our usual quickfix of nachos... So we got creative! A lot of chilies were involved in the making of this nicely spicy meal.

stoplight chilies

Since we didn't have any 'meat' crumbles or tvp on hand, we gave some tofu a quick marinade of hot sauce, lemon juice, rice vinegar, cumin, and smoked paprika. It was then pan seared on the lovely cast iron skillet. The tofu we used was different from our usual brand, and it was delicious! The tofu only sat in the marinade for about 5 minutes, so the flavors were very light, but spicy, but the tofu itself had a really nice, smooth flavor unlike any tofu I'd had before, so it turned out very nice.

sizzle sizzle

I made a mexi-style couscous with a can of diced tomatoes, chilies, scallions, chili pepper and cumin. Again, the flavors were subtle, but very fresh.

lovely fluffy couscous

For a nice edible garnish, I whipped up a quick and inauthentic pico de gallo. I cubed up some red and yellow tomatoes, added some chilies, sliced scallions, and parsley, then finished with a squeeze or two of lime and a pinch of salt.

yummy fresh delicious

All this came together with some toasted whole wheat tortillas and some clover sprouts for a nice, earthy crunch. Hot sauce for added awesomeness points.

michael's plate... he's so good at presentation :)

This morning we went to the dwindling farmers market. There are less and less vendors and the veggies get less and less interesting... But we still managed to get a good haul!

like 5 different types of peppers, october beans, yellow cherry tomatoes

Teehee...Michael went a little nuts with the hot and sweet peppers while I was off searching for sweet potatoes. I think we might have to eat chili for the rest of the month to use all these up!

cabbage, sunflower head, new potatoes, turnips, sweet potatoes, apples, sweet potato squash, and an apple gourd

Right now, we are a tad obsessed with silly looking gourds. They're so funny looking and fun... Michael saw this apple gourd and couldn't resist, and I have to agree that it was too silly to pass up. I'm not sure about that sweet potato squash, I've never heard of that before, but... We'll cook it up and see what happens. I'm into new stuff. I've never cooked turnips before, either, but there ya go.

After a nap, we woke up and had some more apple pancakes. Those farmers market apples are so good as a warm, sweet topping for pancakes.

yumtastic fall breakfast

Off now to do laundry. Big Saturday cleaning fest today, wooo...

soup, nuggets, and beer

I'm almost embarassed to post these pictures, and if the dinner wasn't so good, then I wouldn't. But it was delicious, and I feel bad talking about amazing food if I don't post photos of it. So disregard the pics. Look past the blurriness. I promise that someday I will find my tripod and start taking decent photos. If we didn't eat so late at night and the lighting in my apartment was better, this wouldn't be a problem. But oh well.

So. This dinner was comfort fall food at its best. If it's possible to beat that pot pie. Well, it didn't beat the pot pie, but it was yummy on a different level. Comparing soup to pot pie is like comparing apples to oranges. Both are fabulous in their own ways, but they just aren't even close to being alike. Without further ado:

soup and nuggets = happiness

Ok, so the soup you are seeing is the One Wild Chick Soup from Eat, Drink & be Vegan. There is only one word for this soup: omnomomnomnom. Cookie monster style. Like, shove it in my face ultra fast and enjoying every moment of it: nom. This book is, to me, a little daunting because some of the recipes seem a little complicated or use ingredients that I don't just..have. Which eventually I will get over and won't bother me at all. But this particular recipe.. I had everything already in my cupboard, and I followed the recipe exactly, and it. was. wonderful. I took leftovers for lunch today, and even though it was super thick like day old soup gets, it was even BETTER (if possible) than last night. It tastes just literally like chicken and rice soup from back in the omni days. Minus the nasty meat and meat juice and plus lots of healthy ingredients (the whole recipe calls for like 1 tsp of oil). I'm gushing a little bit here...but it was that good. One last look:

i would tentatively describe this soup as 'orgasmic'

I had some leftover seitan from the pot pie, so I made a recipe for Spinach Nuggets from VegWeb. I've been wanting to make this recipe for awhile now, but have never had tofu and seitan just on hand to do it. And I'm really not energetic enough to just make some seitan for something that calls for tofu anyway. It just seems a little silly. Well, not silly. Because they were really, really good. Except for the fact that I added way too much salt. And forgot the tomato paste. The tomato paste omission didn't really matter, I don't think. But the recipe says to add extra salt to the mix because it might be flavorless without it. Maybe their seitan wasn't as naturally delicious (and salty) as mine. So if your seitan is salty to begin with, don't add extra salt. Wait and taste the mix first. Also, I baked these for about twice as long on each side than the recipe said. It really firmed up the texture and made them...handle-able. I couldn't figure out the right dipping sauce for these... ketchup wasn't it. Michael dipped his in goddess dressing, but I didn't like that. So I just ate mine plain, and they were just fine like that. Give this recipe a try. If you have a food processor, it's super easy to throw together.

anything in nugget form is tasty. i wonder why that is...

There ya go, that was our Thursday meal. Fairly simple, and highly delicious. Thank goodness it's soup season.

the only pot pie in my eyes

I thought about titling this entry "oh great, it's going to be one of those evenings..." but I decided to try to start out on a more posi note. No one wants to hear about how everything I touch today gets broken, which puts fear in my heart when the time comes for dinner making... oh wait, I guess you just did. Well, anyway. Let's try again:

Generally, I would not reccommend that anyone actually eat half a pie. But the rules get changed for the Seitan and Veggie Pot Pie I made last night. This is not my first pie venture, but it is my first pot pie venture. I pretty much made the recipe up on my own, but I borrowed a gravy technique simply for measurements from Alternative Outfitters. But I changed it some, so I'll go ahead and post the recipe here for you. It's fall, it's pot pie and soup and bread and casserole season. So get ready for a lot of that from me, because I am all about warm, yummy dinners on cool fall days. Michael calls it putting on our 'winterfat'. We vegans need to bulk up some for those cold as fuck winter months. Well, maybe I don't need to bulk up, but he does, and I'm happy to oblige and just worry about it later (ugh Spring weight loss season, how I hate you). So anyway, here's what my pie looked like out of the oven.

ok, i know it's kind of ugly. ignore that. we had crust issues.

Well, by the time came to put on the top crust, I was totally over crustmaking and rolling, and I mostly blame that on the fact that I used whole wheat flour (not pastry flour). I was out of AP, and whole wheat pastry flour is so expensive here that I tend to get frugal and not use it when I should. So... use pastry flour if you go the WW route. Or regular AP would of course be fine, but I was trying to cancel out all the fat in the crust with at least a healthy carb. The problem is that it doesn't stick to itself and just wants to flake...well...anyway. It was frustrating, and looks ugly as crap, but it tasted good (if maybe a little grainy, but that didn't bother me ONE BIT).

Also, for my seitan, I used the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, but I steamed it for 40 minutes intstead of simmering it like the recipe says. I find that simmering it in broth makes it uber salty, and simmering in general makes seitan spongey. Steaming makes it nice and firm, and the flavors you put in the seitan are the flavors you get when you eat it. So... that's just my two cents. For this recipe, I divided the seitan into 4 cutlets before steaming, and used one of them for the pie. It was about the size of my hand (so..what, like 5"x3"x1"). I'm just telling you all this so you know how much to use in the pie, because you can't use too much because it just won't all fit, unfortunately. Ok, on to the recipe.

Seitan and Veggie Pot Pie

for the crust:

5 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup shortening (or room temp vegan butter)

6-7 Tbsp water

for the gravy:

1/3 cup vegan butter (i used earth balance)

1/3 cup flour

1/2 medium onion, chopped

2/3 cup unsweetened soymilk

1 3/4 cup water

1 veggie bouillon cube

1 tsp poultry seasoning (i used one that was heavy on the sage..mmm!)

veggies/seitan:

1 seitan cutlet, chopped into 1" pieces

2 carrots, sliced

2 celery ribs, sliced

3-4 baby red potatoes, cubed (really small ones, i'd use only 1 or two regular sized taters)

handful of broccoli florets

couple handfuls of spinach

handful of peas (i forgot these and kicked myself later, but you should use them)

2 scallions, thinly sliced (white and green parts)

3 or 4 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Method:

Heat oven to 425F.

First, get your pie crust started (you could also just use frozen pie crusts...if you want to CHEAT). Mix together the flour and salt. Cut in shortening until the flour resembles fine crumbles. If you have a pastry cutter, you can use that, but I just used my hands. Sprinkle on the water and mix in (really, just use your hands, it's easiest) until you have a smooth dough. Divide into two equal pieces, roll one out to fit a 9 inch pie plate, put it in the plate and leave it alone until later. Cover your other dough ball with plastic wrap, or it will dry out (like mine did).

Next up, chop your veggies. You will steam these before they go into the pie crust to bake. This is my genius solution to steaming lots of different veggies: Get a medium pot and put about 2 inches of water in the bottom, along with your steaming apparatus (ours just fits into the bottom of the pot). Then, chop your veggies in the order they'll need to cook, starting with the ones that take the longest, and layer in the pot accordingly. Mine went potatoes, carrots, celery, spinach, broccoli. Lid it up and turn on the heat. By the time you start to smell the veggies, they're done. This took me until I was done with the gravy. Drain them when they're finished. note: the parsley and scallions (and peas if using) don't get precooked!

Ok, so while the veggies are steaming, make your gravy. Melt the buttery stuff in the bottom of another medium pot. Add the onions and cook for about a minute, then add the flour and stir until it's bubbly. Turn off heat. Pour in the soymilk and water, drop in the bouillon cube, and add the poultry seasoning (sage, thyme, and oregano would work fine). You might also want to grind some pepper in at this point, if you like (i do). Put back on the heat and bring to a boil, stirring all the while. Hold it there for about a minute, and keep stirring. You will see it thicken. Take off the heat.

Add veggies (including scallions and parsley and peas this time) to the gravy along with the chopped seitan. Stir it up and pour it in the piecrust. Roll out the second crust and fit it on top the filling. Crimp down edges (michael did this for me, i was too frustrated) and make sure you make some slits on the top for the steam to escape. Or you could do something creative like cut out little shapes and then use that dough to make nice cute decorations. I just wasn't there yet. Brush top crust with oil, if you want it to be a toasty brown (i'd honestly had enough fat content at this point though). Place pie on a cookie sheet lined with foil (in case it overflows), throw it in the oven and bake for 35 minutes. Let cool at least 10 minutes before cutting.

I really did eat half this pie. It was so amazingly delicious that I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand it!!

how on earth could you resist this? you can't. it's that simple.

So this was a huge hit. Next time, I'll use my pastry flour and do something creative and lovely with my crust. But seriously, when it's just Michael and me, presentation isn't always the first thing on my mind, especially when things like crusts are giving me fits. Forgive me? kthnx.

I think I was going to say something else, but I'm blanking. Maybe I'll remember later....

eta: I can remember one thing I was thinking about. I absolutely love having a blogname that starts with an 'A' because I'm at the top (or close) of anyone's blogroll that has added me. I know that's silly, but I just love, as a new blogger, seeing my blog on other amazing vegan blogs. Thank you to all that have added me! If I for some reason haven't added you yet, let me know and I totally will. I'm all about spreading the vegan word, friends.