failing at vegan mofo

It's cold outside. We are scraping by on very little money this month. Not many groceries (ok, zero groceries) have been bought. This is all I want to eat:

chowdah

But we're out of tofu and mushrooms. That's another version of the manhattan style chowder from the idiot cookbook, by the way. We didn't have spinach, so we added (the last of our) frozen green beans. There's also some cubed silken tofu in there and some (bargain bin) shiitake mushrooms.

It's just been a lazy fall around here so far. We need to get motivated to be more creative. I guess I'm just pouty because I've gotten 3 new cookbooks in the last couple months (Vegan Brunch, Everyday Vegan, and Urban Vegan), and can't make pretty much anything in them since I can't go on a huge grocery binge. Bummer!

Oh, ok, Woe is me, I know. Hopefully I'll get out of my funk and have something good to post soon. Complaining gets me nowhere!

what to do with all those veggies?

First off, I would like to say that I am so excited, because I've fallen in love with a new apartment.  It is consuming all of my waking (and sleeping) thoughts.  Michael and I are going to look at it today, as he hasn't seen it yet...and everyone should cross their fingers for us that we decide to get it and are able to move into it in 2 weeks time.  Because it would be so awesome.  Even though the kitchen is rather small.  I don't know where on earth I would put things like this rad farmers market haul:

beets, tomatoes, potatoes, summer squash, purple peppers, spring onions, and cabbage

more tomatoes, including adorably colored little ones, new potatoes, more purple peppers, green peppers, white cucumbers, and a ginormous zucchini

There is barely enough space in our kitchen for it all.  That's our haul from Saturday...we spent $30.  Which isn't too bad, considering how many tomatoes and peppers we got.  I already started freezing some peppers (this new place, should we choose to get it [hope!], is only 2 blocks from our current apartment, so transporting food and frozen stuff won't be a problem, thankfully) so that we'll have plenty when it's after their season and they get all crazy expensive in the grocery store again.  

Anyway, you might wonder what we do with all these veggies during the weeks, that we have to buy so many every Saturday.  Well, like I said, we freeze some (cabbage, besides the peppers).  And we eat a lot of them (um, tomatoes) on sandwiches.  But sometimes it's nice to do something a bit fancier.

scalloped pofabutatoes

Michael loves potatoes.  And I love noochy cheeze sauces.  Other scalloped potato recipes we've tried have really fallen short of both our expectations, but I found this one at Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.  Anything that Susan stamps with her little girl's approval...yeah, we'll love it.  And this was certainly a hit.  We totally finished that whole pan in one night. 

soup?  in the summer?

Hey, guess what?  Soup is easy.  We ate this summer squash soup, also from fatfreevegan.com, along with the potatoes.  I made mine a little differently...leaving out the celery (didn't have any), adding some zucchini and more broth.  Then I stupidly added a bunch of cayenne to it (I honestly don't know what possessed me) and some garlic powder (which got a little pervasive).  Still, the soup was awesome.  It was so creamy...velvety, almost.  I never thought that summer squash would make a good soup, but there you go.  It does.

cheezy potatoes of awesomeness

You can seriously count on Susan to make a ridiculously fabulous, failproof recipe.  I don't think I've ever tried anything of hers that I didn't like.  The woman should write a cookbook.

But honestly, all I've really wanted to eat since July started is stuff like this:

raw, honest veggies

Michael and I both work a lot of evenings now, which means that one or both of us don't get home until after 9, which in turn means that we are tired.  One night I got off work at 11:30 to fine this lovely raw and fresh plate of awesomeness.  On top are zucchini shreds, something I've fallen in love with recently.  Super thinly sliced (you'll need a mandoline) raw zucchini and summer squash make a lovely little salad with a little olive oil, vinegar, and thinly sliced basil.  Don't get me wrong, those tomatoes were rad, too, but I am a tad bit obsessed with that salad for now.  

You can even see it here, blurred in the foreground:

another very late night dinner

You'll have to pardon the crappiness of this one...it was seriously like 2 in the morning when I took that photo.  But yeah, you see?  If I'd been taking photos of everything we eat recently, you'd be seeing it a lot more (but we've been doing reruns, like ruebens and such).  Anyway, this scramble was super tasty.  It had been awhile since we had one...but the real star of this meal was those potatoes.  Yeah, they're roasted, but we microwaved them first so they only took like 10 minutes to roast in the oven.  Smart, eh?  Anyway, they only have some seasoned salt, pepper, and paprika on them, but they are so, so good.  

Next up is yet another Michael dinner (he's been terribly helpful lately with me working evening shifts).

cabbage rolls!

Apparently, these were a pain in the ass to make because they have a lot of preparation, but all I had to do was enjoy them, so...  Anyway, they're stuffed with some sort of tempeh/tahini mixture and they were a totally rad use of a giant head of cabbage we had from another market haul.  So yummy!

fake meat - the ultimate in laziness

I ventured to the grocery store last week to pick up fruit and some veggies we can't get at the market, and got some sweet stuff on sale.  Like those fancypants carrots and fresh brussels sprouts, and uh...  some fake chicken breasts.  They have Gardein stuff in our Kroger now, which is highly exciting, but then also bittersweet, because it's madly expensive.  There was a dollar off coupon on this package I got (2 chicken patties in a Tuscan sauce) and I was mega tired, so I splurged the $4 on them.  And they're really good!  The texture is a little too meaty for us (checked and then rechecked the package after cutting into them...but they're vegan for sure), but the flavor was nice and the sauce they came in was seriously delicious.  It reminded me a little of a Lean Cuisine sauce...which for most of you probably sounds totally gross, but I lived off those things for about a year before I met Michael, so it was sort of a fond memory.  I mean...sort of.  Anyway, I also made the mustard sauce from Veganomicon (my favorite sauce, ever) to go with the steamed carrots and veggies.  All of it mixed together was pretty damned phenomenal.

openfaced sammies are sammiches too.

I'm going to finish up with a couple of lunches.  I've been trying to do hearty, but not weigh-me-down lunches recently, as Michael's been working doubles and then I go in to work in the evenings and need to be filled up without feeling like taking a nap afterwards.  I made this openfaced sammich twice this past week.  We had some leftover rye bread from ruebens.  Topped with some red pepper and green olive hummus that I'd made, fresh red tomatoes, and fresh basil, it hits the spot, fills me up, but leaves me ready to go for the rest of the day.  

more lunch options

I made this curried chickpea salad a couple weeks ago, and it was awesome.  I never ate it on bread, just like this, in big clumps, and I was happy as a clam about it.  I honestly don't remember what all is in there...chickpeas, onions, celery, carrots, vegenaise, leftover fake cheese that we'd made, lemon juice...and lots and lots and lots of curry powder.  And some cayenne, for a kick.  Paired with some fresh veggies, like this white cucumber (green on the inside!), it's terribly tasty.  Nom.

So don't forget to eat lunch.  And be creative with your veggies.  And...wish us luck on the apartment again!

it can't rain all the time...

But it certainly will if it's the fourth of July and you have plans for grilling.

cheating nature

Luckily, Michael and I have this lovely little electric grill (bequeathed to me by my parents) that works just fine in a pinch.  Which is good, because we had some major grill plans.

zucchini/summer squash/seitan kabobs

We'd gone to the farmers market that morning (absolutely no sign of rain at that point, mind you), and bought loads of veggies (see end of post for the haul).  I made a quick half batch of seitan and we kabobed (kabobbed?  can I make that a verb, please?) the hell outta some fresh squash and zucchini with it.  Michael is the official grillmaster because I have ladyhands and tend to get burned.  He probably gets burned too, but whines less about it afterwards.

beautiful spring onions

Hey, guess what?  Spring onions are totally rad when you grill them.  The only bad part is that we ate without knives and you can't really bite them at this point, so be ready to have an entire onion in your mouth for a bit.  Unless you care to use a knife, that is.  (wuss.) 

land of forgotten watermelon

We also grilled watermelon, but were too full afterwards to eat it.  FYI: fresh off the grill, it just tasted like hot watermelon.  

combofabulous

That all combined into this monster plate: steamed green beans with dill and lemon, new potato salad, kabobs, corn on the cob (just...corn), grilled onions, and a fresh white cucumber.  Thinking back, here's what's local from the market: beans, potatoes, squash, zucchini, corn, the onions, and the cucumber.  Not bad, eh?  It was all delicious and I just have to say that we do a pretty darned awesome holiday spread, even when it's just the two of us for dinner.

Oh, almost forgot!  Michael whipped up this lovely antipasta style salad for lunch earlier in the day.

my talented boy :)

Red and yellow tomatoes, yellow beets, white cucumber, green chili, artichokes, and basil with a nice balsamic vinaigrette drizzled on top.  All local except for the artichokes.

As for the market, here's what we got:

squash, zucchini, yellow beets, corn, jalepenos, hot green chilis, spring onions, rhubarb, red tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green bell peppers, and white cucumbers.

All for $20 on the dot.  I felt a bit nervous about our abundance of tomatoes and peppers and such yesterday (plus was being a lazy bum on the sofa most of the day and didn't feel like cooking anything too involved)...so I asked my good friends of the PPK for suggestions on just what to do with all that veg.  The perfect reply came for...gazpacho!  Honestly, I've never really liked gazpacho (salsa soup, anyone?), but Michael loves it and I needed to use up stuff, so I made it. 

yellow gazpacho

And you know what?  It was awesome!  As a confirmed gazpacho hater, I must say that my gazpacho kicked ass.  So easy too...here's what I did:

Yellow Gazpacho That Is Better Than All Other Gazpachos

3 medium yellow tomatoes

1 medium red tomato

1/4 of a large white onion

1/2 green bell pepper

3 green chilis

1 small cucumber (mine was white)

3 cloves garlic

1/2 -1 tsp cumin (to taste, really)

about 1/2 cup water

2 tsp olive oil

3 or more Tbsp red wine vinegar

juice of 3 limes

salt to taste

Roughly chop your veggies (seed the peppers), put them in the blender with everything else, and blend it.  Yeah, that's it.  Refrigerate it if you want it cold (I did and it ruled).  For a nice chunky garnish (chunks are good, friends), dice up some more tomatoes, onions, bell pepper, cucumber, and a jalepeno, drizzle with lime juice, and add it to your soup.  Mine was mega spicy, but that's the way we do shit around here.

As for the rest of those chilis?  What to do, what to do....

this'll work for now.

i live, kind of.

So, I got the flu.  It knocked me on my ass.  'Nuff said.  

As a form of apology, please accept these delicious meals, in electronic form:

all kinds of rad

These are the Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes from Isa's blog.  They are pretty much the bee's knees.  Wait, is that vegan?  Regardless, is it too 1925?  Oh well.  You should make them.  As you can see, I burned mine slightly, but all in all, I'm pretty damned proud of my frying skills.  Cause I made this all by my lonesome one night.  I substituted tahini everywhere that the recipe called for Veganaise because I was all out of my trusty Nayonaise.  Still was totally awesome.  That remoulade on top is key, as well.  Make it all together when (not if) you do.  That soup in the background is the asparagus and spinach soup from Nava Atlas' Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for all Seasons (here on out called 'the soup book' because I gaurantee I will not want to type all that out every time I use the book).  It was a nice and simple soup, very fresh tasting and mighty easy to pull together.  I'm pretty smitten with this soup book.  You'll see.

giada pasta

Giada basically makes me want to vomit.  I hate most things about her.  She's too gorgeous and skinny to be this chef who makes all this fattening food.  She smiles too much and her teeth are too white.  Her shirts are too low cut.  And tight.  Which is probably why Michael was watching her show one day and got the idea for this pasta she was making (jk, but seriously).  It's cherry tomatoes roasted with garlic and capers and lemon juice (um, hello) and breadcrumbs on top of all that.  Then you mix it in with some pasta that you coated with parmesan (we've got a stockpile of vegan parmesan, it rules).  I got to pick out that fun pasta...I think it was called 'Wacky Mac'.  I could not resist.  Could you resist wagon wheels in your pasta?  Really though, this pasta was amazing.  So rich and creamy, somehow.  It had a lot of oil in it.  And it was wonderful.  Before the pasta, we ate this:

ceasar spectacular

As always, dressing recipe from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.  It's so fabulous.  I keep wanting to make the ceasar dressing from Veganomicon, but...I never have silken tofu.  Ever.  I kind of loathe it.  Plus, what is up with it needing to be fresh and not vacuum packed?  Really?  I love that cookbook, but so many ingredients just will not ever be found in West Virginia.  Ever.  Not to say I don't sub stuff in all the time.  It's just kind of a pain when I'm hungry and grouchy.  Anyway, that's all fine and well because the uncheese recipe is a favorite.  We added red bell peppers to our salad for some color and sweetness.  It ruled.

black bean quinoa mango etc

Ah...speaking of Veganomicon...  I made these two salads from it for a book club meeting I had a while back.  This one was a hit, but thank goodness the girls like cilantro.  A cup of cilantro?  Are you freaking kidding me?  I didn't add that much.  I mean, it tasted good.  I liked it.  But I think I just have a moral dillemna about adding that much cilantro to anything.  

This one was good too:

brooklyn deli pasta salad

I've never had pasta salad from a Brooklyn deli.  I get it though.  It's simple.  It doesn't need to have all kinds of complicated ingredients because the beauty is in the simple flavors shining through.  It was yummy.  I did think it was a little bland though, and added about a tablespoon of some mustard that Michael had made (I know!) to spice it up and add another dimension.  Because, no matter how important simplicity is, I am always up for fucking it up haha...  Oh well.

While we're on the subject of cold salads...

lunch perfection

I made a big pot of quinoa when I made that salad for the book club so I could have a base for some lunches the following week.  So on Monday when I came home for lunch hungry and in a hurry, this came together fairly quickly.  It's diced mango, sliced radishes, the quinoa, and green onions in my favorite poppyseed dressing.  It was light, but filling and darn tasty.  

On Cinco de Mayo, I went to a party and needed to bring food.  My taste buds had not yet bounced back from the flu (I feel like I missed a lot of good food during this time)...  So Michael made the food for it!  Coconut black beans with mango and avocado.

not really that mexican, but whatever

People went apeshit over this stuff.  It is good, though, I've had it many times before.  The beans get so creamy when you cook them with coconut milk, and the avocado only adds to that effect.  Then the mangos add the perfect amount of sweet...  Add some cayenne, cumin, and salt (and maybe some lime juice) and you're in business.  It's seriously the easiest and tastiest little meal to make.  I like to just eat it with a spoon, but it would be good wrapped in tortillas or eaten as a dip with chips, even.  And evidently, it is good party food.

So I don't know about where you live, but it's been raining pretty much nonstop here for the past 10 days.  Well, as I write that, the sun is shining, but it did rain earlier today, I swear.  Rain's cool and all, but sometimes you just get sick of it.  And what better way to chase away the rainy day blues than with a giant bowl of soup and some fresh bread?

bread-like, anyway

Those up there are the Onion-Rye Scones from the soup book.  It was serendipitous because Michael and I had just broken our pantry challenge (finally) and had bought some rye flour on a whim.  This was perfect also because you don't have to wait for it to rise.  That's another thing I like about that book, the breads are all quick breads that can be made in the time it takes to make the soup you're making to go with it.  Nifty!  These came together sort of quickly (it took the longest to saute the onions) and ended up being quite delicious.  My taste buds were in and out during this meal, but they were sort of sweet and salty and generally awesome.  I thought they'd rise more... and I would not really call these 'scones' per se, but... whatever.  Call 'em what you like, I just call them tasty.  And good for dipping into soup.

rainy meals are the best

mock clam chowder

We ate the 'scones' with the clam chowder recipe from the same book.  Now, I must tell you that I used to be quite the eater of clam chowder.  Creamy, salty, sweet, chewy...  I couldn't get enough.  We're talking New England here, not Manhattan.  Don't you dare put tomatoes in my clam chowder.  Or mock clam chowder, that is.  It's just wrong.  Anyway, if you didn't know it already, oyster mushrooms are the best substitute for clams out there.  The recipe calls for baked tofu, but we had oyster mushrooms in the fridge and used those instead.  And it was good.  Michael also added some dried veggie flakes to the soup for some color.  My only complaint is that there was way too much frigging corn in this soup.  It calls for 3 cups.  Next time I'd only put in 2 or 1 1/2 cups, because by the time you got to the bottom of your bowl, it was like you were forcing yourself to eat all this damned corn and it got kind of more filling than I would have liked.  Regardless, this is the best mock clam chowder I've had since becoming vegan.  Highly reccommended.

When you're on a pantry challenge, you find yourself making some interesting stuff.  Flavor combinations that never occured to you before suddenly sound like the most genius ideas ever.  Mostly because you're starving and detoxing from having your regular ingredients on hand.  What?  I'm out of turmeric?  I'm sure mustard powder will be fine in this, then.  At least it'll be yellow.  Huh?  No more nayonaise?  Well, tahini's creamy.  I'm sure that'll be great.  And in this case, no frozen blueberries for those muffins you are craving?  Who needs 'em when you've got strawberry jam?

aren't they purty?

This is a creation that apparently tasted amazing, but I didn't really taste much of it...  Stupid taste buds, and all.  But I was hungry on a weekend morning and we had no oatmeal or cereal or fruit.  Muffins are a generally good catch-all for random ingredients.  And I had strawberry jam and lemons.  The general idea (i.e., the measurements for flour/liquid/baking soda and powder) came from the Blueberry Lemon Muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking.  They would probably be great with blueberries.  But they were damned fine with strawberry jam, too.  I also added some fresh minced basil to the batter, but no one could taste it.  Next time I'd add more, because I bet it would add an awesome flavor dimension.  Anyway, basically I just made the recipe without the blueberries and put them in the muffin cups, then went back and put a teaspoon of straberry jam on the top and swirled it around with a toothpick.  I thought this would fully integrate the jam, but as you will notice, it did not.

lovely little things though

It all stayed on the tops of the muffins, so there was this division of rich, lemony bottom half and sweet, sticky strawberry tops.  What I'm saying here is that these were awesome.  Michael ate like 8 of them in one afternoon.  And my friend Becca ate one when we went to the movies and said they ruled.  So.  Even without properly working tastebuds or a pantry stocked to the brim with fabulous ingredients, I (and you) can make stuff work that will blow people away.  Skip your next grocery trip and get creative.  

I have more to show you from the pantry challenge and all that, but I'm kind of tired from all this thinking and typing and remembering.  Plus, I don't want to spoil you with too much awesomeness at once.

please excuse this post full of pictures of awesome food

I'm so far behind!  Really, this is just going to be mostly pictures from meals that I barely remember eating.  It's been way too long since I've posted, so here's my catchup work:

There's no rhyme or reason to the ordering here...  I'm just going down my list in alphabetical order, then Blogger is going to switch them around backwards for me (hey, thanks, Blogger).  Therefore first up is our dinner from last night!  Michael and I have been doing a bit of a pantry challenge due to some lack in funds for ...well, everything.  Earlier this week I cooked up a pot of kidney beans (my first dried bean experience!  I overcooked them!...oh well).  From the leftovers, I made these kidney bean burgers.

it looks like it's going to eat me instead

These were a concoction of beans, a little wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, bread crumbs, onions, garlic, spinach, basil, oregano, dill, and tahini.  Baked for about 30 minutes on each side at 350F.  They were downright tasty!  Though I could have added more salt to them, for sure.

Next up we have some Indian food that I made based on a cookbook recipe.  I have this cookbook that's all curries that I hadn't looked at in forever...then a friend wanted to borrow it, but left it at the house and, flipping through, I realized that not only could I veganize a crapload of the recipes, but there were also many that were already vegan.  Doh!  This is one of them...  It's chickpeas with lots of cilantro (I do like it in Indian food, after all), cumin, dried coriander, tomatoes, carrots, soy yogurt (my addition), peas, coconut milk (also my addition)...  

also good for breakfast 2 days later

Those are supposed to be spiced potato  pancakes in the background, but they fell apart in the skillet and became fried mashed potatoes instead.  This was really delicious...and I can't wait to revisit this cookbook!

Oh...haha....  And here is something I veganized from Paula Deen.  Yeah, you read that right.  

waffles with chili

See, except she put butter in every single waffle hole, then put chili on top, then added cheese and sour cream.  We got a waffle maker from Michael's parents a few weeks ago and this was our first (and so far, only) endeavor.  I used the lemon corn waffle recipe from VWAV, except without the lemons.  They tasted nicely like cornbread in waffle form.  Except the recipe made so much batter that we basically just ate waffles all day long in various forms.  

Here we have a pasta salad that we added Boca chicken patties to:

creamy and fabulous

We used my basic awesome pasta salad recipe, and it was rad.  I'll get you that recipe at some point, but not today, my loves.

Oh, here's some of that cashew cheese (the blue algae kind) with crackers.

happy snacky

Seriously, Dr. Cow cheese is the best fake cheese ever ever ever.

Now for some seitan.

steamed to perfection

I generally use the basic seitan recipe from VWAV, then tweak it here and there.  And I steam it instead of simmering it, because I just like steamed seitan better.  And so does Michael.  So there.  Anyway, these we tried to make like steaks and used some steak seasoning on both sides before steaming, so that it kind of got embedded on the outsides.  

Then we did this with them:

proper awesomeness

After grilling them on the Foreman, these were perfect sliced super thin and served with lemony couscous and green beans.  I did make the seitan a tad too salty, but I cured that with the leftovers...  I sliced up another and put it in a pita with some sweet poppyseed salad dressing.  The sweetness balanced out the salt perfectly.  

And now for a sausage overload.

oh tofurkey

As you can see, some of this is from before our pantry challenge.  We went on a sort of Tofurkey sausage binge a couple weeks ago.  For this one, I made a tofu scramble with kale (awesome!) and Michael roasted some potatoes and baby sweet peppers.

And here's more:

sausage sausage sausage

These were a different flavor, but I don't know which.  Roasted all together with fingerling potatoes and more baby sweet peppers.  All of this was stuff Michael brought back with him from when he was out of town.  We can't afford the fingerling potatoes here!  It's weird, one of those sausage flavors reminded me of a food from my childhood...  My family used to go to Christmas dinners at the house of my Polish godparents.  They always had stuffed clam shells.  The sausages tasted identical to whatever was inside those clam shells.  Weird!

Oh, here's some canned minestrone that I took a pretty picture of:

slurp

Ate that with the cheese and crackers you saw earlier.  Nice little lunch, really!

Wow, this one's really old.

but really good

That's the Thai Chick-un Pizza from Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan.  It was uhhhhmaaaaazing.

like, so amazing.

I highly reccommend that you make this pizza.  Right away.  We had loads of the sauce leftover, so a couple nights later I used it to make some Thai peanut veggies over rice.

also really good.

Even if you don't feel like making the whole pizza (which you must be crazy, if that's the case), at least make the sauce.  It's freaking delicious.

Ah, here's the first dinner I made out of the pot 'o' beans from earlier this week.

taco casserole

This is beans and corn with a packet of fajita seasoning layered with mini corn tortillas that I got on sale forever ago, the nacho sauce from Yellow Rose Recipes, tomatoes, and black olives, all baked for about 30 minutes together.

Then, we did this to it:

!

Topped off with lettuce, guacomole, and scallions.  This was seriously so delicious.  You can imagine how pissed I was when I dropped a plateful of it on the floor.

Next up's another little snack that Michael brought back from Indiana.

spring rolls

Well, frozen spring rolls that we baked in the oven.  They were really good.  Gingery.  We ate them with different sauce packets that were in the fridge...duck sauce, soy sauce, hot mustard.  By the way, Evansville, Indiana, has a crapload of vegan food available.  Awesome!

And here's something that was just ok:

falafel from like 3 weeks ago

I used the recipe from VWAV, and...  it tasted good.  But when I went to fry it, the balls literally melted in the oil.  Maybe my oil was too hot.  Anyway, we had to fish out the bits and reform it all into balls and then broil it to get them to stay together.  They were still mushy.  Tasty though.

Last but not least was another on the fly dinner made from the last of the treats Michael brought with him.

wild rice tempeh

We roasted the wild rice tempeh (the only kind we can get here is plain old soy) with carrots, leeks, and potatoes (and some more wild rice) in a fake beefy broth.  I made a stuffing with almonds, dried cranberries, and cayenne pepper (the stuffing bread I used was leftover from Thanksgiving!).  It was a tad too moist, but tasted good.  Brussels sprouts rounded it all out.

And I'm done!  If you've made it this far, congratulations.  I promise from now on to be as prompt as possible with my posts so that they don't drag on quite so much!