Vegan Mofo day 1: i'm back.

I figure the best way to get back into blogging is to start up with Vegan Mofo again. I know I've been a terrible bloglady as of late, but I do have a reason or two. September was a bit insane. My birthday was at the beginning of the month and I got...engaged! Yep, Michael popped the question and I said yes and ever since, the wedding (ok, mostly the food) is all I can think about. We're getting married next October, I have a year to plan, and it is consuming most of my waking thoughts. So...excuse my little absence from the blogworld last month. I've still be cooking and eating and farmers marketing, so let's jump right in with a quick overview of some tasty things that have been brewing in our kitchen.

Might as well start with my birthday foods.

what better way to begin a post than with cake?

Excuse the crap photo of my lovely birthday cake. This is our family's (accidentally vegan) wacky cake that I have been eating since my very first birthday (presumably). My mom dutifully makes this for me every year, even though I'm 27 years old and living 3 hours away. I think it's because the last time I tried to make it, I royally screwed it up, thus disgracing my family name. Anyway. She now tops it with the chocolate buttercream icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World...and it is even more divine than ever. We also found some sorbet (raspberry and lemon) to go along nicely. And she made two cakes, so Michael and I ate on this for over a week. (My mom rules.)

That evening we went out and I forgot to take pictures of my Mexican veggie pizza, but Michael and I made a trip to Athens, OH a few days prior and I remembered to bring my camera.

best balls on the planet

We traditionally go to Casa Nueva for my birthday dinner, as they have nice vegan food and a great beer selection and prepare local and seasonal fare. This year we started with tofu albondigas meatballs in their housemade bbq sauce (which was fantastic) atop a bed of jasmine rice. I could have eaten a couple plates of these and been done with dinner and it would have been just fine. They were amazing. Stayed together perfectly. The sauce was sweet and tangy, with some flavor that reminded me of my mom's Christmas molasses crinkle cookies, which sounds weird, but was in fact awesome.

adorable little salad

Next up was a salad comprised of baby greens and sprouts and a terrific lemon-basil vinaigrette. Perfect.

yum yum

Our entree was a stacked enchilada with seasoned tofu and the veggies of the day (tomatillos and green beans). It also contained a vegan queso cremosa (uh...fake cheese sauce) and was topped with some smoky salsa. The tofu was, as always, delectable, and the addition of those two strangely compatible vegetables was a huge hit. The beans lent a nice crunch while the tomatillos were smooth and nicely sour. I could barely finish this, but finish it I did. We took a nice, long walk afterwards.

Sometime before or after that, I made these things:

sweet and sour chipotle tempeh with sweet potatoes

This recipe is from Eat, Drink, and be Vegan...and I didn't really like it. Michael loved it, don't get me wrong, but it was just a teeny bit too sweet for me. I've never really liked the main part of my dinner meals to be sweet, so this isn't too surprising. Still, it was delicious in its own right. Just not the right that goes up my alley.

this looks like an octopus

But it's not. I made some seitan cutlets (my own concoction) and layered it all up with some couscous and steamed spinach. Michael made a lovely little mango salsa to top it all off. This was a delicious and relatively easy little meal.

goddess garbanzos

Another recipe from ED&BV. The true hero of this mixture is the apples in the salad. They add this lovely little crunch and just a hint of sweet. I'm assuming this is supposed to feed a family of four for 2 days of lunches, but we polished it off in one sitting.

lemony garlic pasta

Gosh, another ED&BV recipe. I had forgotten I made so many this past month! This one was stellar. Absolutely amazing. It wasn't overly saucy, but there was plenty of sauce to stick to the noodles...incredibly garlicky...and some walnuts added a good crunch and some protein. That woman is amazing.

And that's it for me today. I have to be at work in a little bit and Michael is nursing some horrible sickness that has been going around (and somehow I haven't caught it yet). I need to force some soup into him (some impromptu thing I made with fake chicken bouillon, scallions, garlic, ginger, chili garlic sauce, and noodles...and it's pretty tasty for the non-sick, too). I still have backup food to show you, so expect to see me back here tomorrow!

totally rad and surprisingly easy dinner

And sort of healthy.  

seitan parmesan

Ok, super easy components:

1. Basic seitan recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance with the following modifications: Instead of 1/2 cup soy sauce, use 1/2 cup of water; add a tsp of onion powder and a crapload of poultry seasoning and one golden seasoning packet; steam 40 minutes (made into cutlets and wrapped in foil) instead of simmer.

2. Bread those using breadcrumbs and rosemary mixed together (some old bread + rosemary whirred around in the food processor).  For the wet part, we did soymilk with about a Tbsp of ground flax mixed in.

3. Spray a baking sheet, put them on, bake at 350F for about 25 minutes.  Then your seitan is all done.

4. Make teeny skinny strips of zucchini and summer squash and boil them for like 2 minutes, then drain.  That's your pasta. 

5. Pile up veggie-noodles, add your favorite pasta sauce, top with seitan and some fake cheese.  We made the buffalo mosterella cheese from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook (which was also totally easy and delicious and cheap).

Also, we reconstituted some dried morel mushrooms and cooked them up in some Earth Balance.  They were rad on the side.  Anyway, it's a healthier alternative what with baking the seitan and using veggies as the noodles.  Not too heavy for your tired and hot summer belly.  And fun to make!  And easy!  You are doing yourself a serious disservice if you don't try this.  I mean it.

my first vegan potluck!

And only 4 out of the whole group were actual vegans!  Cool friends I have, eh?  It wasn't even my idea.  Here's documentation of everyone's adventures in vegan cooking.  Don't mind my yellowed photos.  I tried to color correct, but they were unbelievably yellow, even after I adjusted my white balance.  No clue why.

bean salad by susie

Susie couldn't even stay to eat anything, and she still brought something!  Lovely bean salad with lots of crunchy red onions and mango, if I recall correctly.

black bean potstickers with pineapple salsa

Made by the fabulous Ruth and Ben.  Ruth has experience in vegetarian cooking, and it shows.  She totally rocks out some awesome food now and then.  These were no exception!  Spicy and salty and with just the right amount of sweet.  I could have scarfed these all night.

mini sausages and sundried tomato-basil pesto sauce

Michael and I made this stuff.  As usual, I adapted Vegan Dad's sausage recipe (this time only adding 1 tsp of fennel seeds, and adding a tsp of dried basil).  Did you know you can get 32 mini sausages out of that?  Now you do.  The pesto sauce was rehydrated sundried tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, olive oil, and salt.  They paired nicely, I thought.  Everyone seemed to like 'em.  You can't go wrong with sausages.

felafel by shannon

Who doesn't like felafel?  I love it, that's for sure.

couscous, also by shannon

Nice and salty, with a kick of curry.  I cannot get enough couscous in my life, which is good, because there were two kinds!

couscous by allison, bruschetta by lauren

Allison's couscous had a more Mexican edge, and was equally wonderful.  Lauren's bruschetta was bangin', fresh, and tasty!

sweet/regular mashed potatoes, red beans n rice

By Kristy!  Those potatoes were so good.  And the beans and rice.  I was so spoiled, you guys!

roasted asparagus, red beans and rice again

I think Kristy might have made this asparagus as well.  It was tender and delicious.

banana bread!

Also by Kristy.  This was seriously the best banana bread I have ever eaten in my life.  I'm sad because I only had room in my tummy for a little bite of it, and forgot to steal a piece to eat later.  Another vegan couple (they exist here!) came later and brought a super creamy and fabulous mac n cheeze, but I didn't get a picture of it.  Take my word that it was beautiful and yummy though.

Aren't my friends the best?  There was very little complaining about the lack of meat ;)

Don't forget you still have until midnight (EST) on Thursday to enter my contest to win some rad books!

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!

pizza mania

Yeah, that's right.  But first, let me show you some other meals.

broiled tofu, rice w/peas, mint & dill, turnip greens

This meal was a labor of love.  By labor, I mean that I not only burned my arm on a hot pan, but I also cut the shit out of my thumb while chopping herbs.  By love, I mean that, in theory, I really love this meal.  In actuality, it was just ok.  I have a confession to make:  I don't know how to cook rice.  I mean...I get how to do it.  But for some reason, my rice never works.  It doesn't matter if I do it on the stovetop or in my rice cooker.  The stuff sticks to the bottom and burns.  This rice wasn't even done all the way.  Al dente rice is not that great.  However, it was saved by the amazing flavor combo of mint and dill.  I've blogged about this before, but seriously, if you haven't made anything with these two herbs yet, you're doing yourself a disservice.  Anyway, that's broiled tofu with some sauce Michael brought home from Hibachi, but it was reaaaallly salty.  And turnip greens are gross.  Sorry!  Anyway, it was ok.  I didn't starve that night, in other words.

shredded seitan w/shallots and 'green beans'

I could have sworn we had green beans in the freezer.  Apparently not, haha...  I've found, though, that brussels sprouts sub in nicely for any vegetable.  Because they rule.  This was a recipe from Vegan Planet, and it was just ok.  Not overly flavorful.  But not bad.  In fact, this is my general experience so far with this book.  So many of the recipes look amazing!  But then...  they're just ok.  But not bad.  I mad the manhattan 'clam' chowder too, but it's not even worth blogging about, really.  It was so-so.

grilled cheeze w/tomato soup

Now this was good.  This is the gooey grilled cheeze recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.  I was skeptical.  But it was amazing!  It tasted a lot like the grilled cheeses of my youth.  Creamy.  Salty.  Yummy.  I did add in about 1/4 cup of cashew cream (cashews blended with veggie broth) and then added a slice of tomato when I grilled them.  Seriously, they were so, so good.  And easy peasy to make.  That tomato soup is a hodgepodge of canned soup, diced tomatoes, soymilk, and nutritional yeast.  It was ok, but a little sweet.  I like a salty tomato soup more.

And now, on to the main event.  Pizza.

simple pizza, italian style

So, last night we made pizza.  I read the pizza novel in VWAV and decided that it needed to be done.  The dough turned out amazing.  I finally got some yeast that works (this strangely [ha] makes a big difference in whether or not dough rises...who knew).  This first one was a skimped version of what we originally meant to make, just because we really needed pizza immediately and couldn't wait to put on the rest of the ingredients.  And yeah, you might say that all pizza is 'Italian style', but you're wrong.  I've been to Italy.  They don't put a whole lot of shit on their pizza there.  The pizza I got in Italy had:  like 3 slices of tomato (thin slices), a sprinkle of basil, garlic, and a teeeeny tiny sprinkle of mozzarella.  Well, we didn't do mozzarella, but we did add marinated artichoke hearts.  This was freaking amazing.  Simple, but delicious.  

Granted, this is what I usually want my pizzas to look like:

loaded

But simple is good too.  This one had all that other stuff (minus artichokes), plus onions, spinach, broccoli, red bell peppers, and FYH mozzarella.  It was yummy, as well.  But strangely, not as much so as the former.

And, because these pizzas were SO good...  yeah, we're having pizza again tonight.  The dough is rising right now.  Gimme a break, it's Monday and I'm not motivated to do much else.

Oh, and Michael also wants Mac n Cheeze, so we're having that too.  Nothin' wrong with that, my friends.  Once in awhile, anyway.

Jessica tested, Michael approved

So, for whatever reason, the internet is working.  I'm actually stealing someone else's right now, which hasn't worked all through the previous week, but right now, is.  I'm taking advantage and posting; hopefully it won't die on me halfway through, right?  First off, I know I said I had recipes for you, but upon retesting one of them, I realized that the first time was a fluke.  It was a seitan recipe that was defreakinglicious.  I tried to recreate it last night, from memory (but now taking notes) and it didn't taste the same.  Therefore, I have more testing to do.  The other recipe was for a butternut squash and leek risotto.  That's pretty self explanatory though, and again, I didn't write down what I did specifically, so I forget.  I am completely lame, I know.  I do have some scraps of paper with notes on them, however, and really do plan to make these happen again so that you can have the recipes, because they are the ultimate in yum  Want to see how yummy?

i admit to my use of flash

I was so hungry by the time I churned this out that I almost forgot to take a picture.  This plate was actually sitting on my lap at the time of said picture taking, and no flash just wasn't cutting it.  And I also want to point out that I spent over an hour yesterday looking for my tripod and can't find the damned thing.  I really do want to take better pictures of my food.  There is no reason for me not to.  Well, now there is, because apparently my tripod has gone the way of the buffalo.  

At any rate, that's the seitan cutlet that I'm talking up, and dude, seriously, it was amazing.  Denser than the usual recipe, which I like.  I'm not a fan of 'fluffy' seitan.  This one is not.  Fluffy, that is.  On top is a gravy Michael mixed up that had orange zest in it and it was the yum.  In the back you see my risotto which was creamy and savory/sweet.  And it had leeks, with which you cannot go wrong.  

tempeh blt

This is a sammie that had all odds against it, and still turned out delicious.  We wanted BLTs, but had no fakin bacun, but there was a package of tempeh in the fridge.  However, we didn't have, like, any of the ingredients for the marinade in VWAV, so we winged it.  And hello buddy did it turn out wonderful.  I do remember the recipe for this one, but not the specific measurements.  I was going to go figure it out real quick when I transfered the pictures from my computer to Michael's desktop for uploading, but then the internet started working and I don't want to jinx myself by moving one inch.  This one I will have for you, tomorrow probably, since I'll be doing W.I.P. Wednesday.  

Our friend Chase, who was here on New Years and loved our food was here for both of the above  meals and loved all of it.  I don't think he finished his risotto, but he only left like 2 bites, so it couldn't have been that bad.  I figure if something is omni-approved, it must be fairly decent.  Well, unless that person has terrible taste.  So I guess the jury is still out.

Anyway, on to more exciting things:  I am testing recipes for a future vegan cajun cookzine by Sarah (she doesn't have a regular blog up yet, so I can't link to anything for you) called Cookin' with my Craw-Daddy.  Here are my first two attempts!

Creole Stuffed Mushrooms

Or, Muffuletta Mushrooms, she hasn't decided on the title.  I like muffuletta better, personally.  Anyway, these were really good!  Very spicy and sausage-y (but using TVP, nothing 'fake') with a fabulous taste of olives.  I was highly impressed with this one.  I'm no expert on cajun cooking, but if spiciness and tastiness are key, then...there ya go!  And for those of you (coughmecough) that don't really love mushrooms, Michael and I decided that the mixture would be completely wonderful stuffed into red bell peppers as well.  Michael did love the mushrooms though, and ate them all up with no hesitation.  Success!

Smothered Potatoes

This is another spicy, spicy creation.  The method for cooking the potatoes is pretty genius and they are perfectly tender, with just the right amount of kick.  I'd say these would be rockin' with a tofu scramble.  They weren't at all bad with the mushrooms, either!  Anyway, you should definitely look forward to getting this zine, and keep checking back here because more recipes are being posted for me to try out regularly.  I'm so happy to be a tester for something, especially something as yummy and awesome as this!

Just for kicks, here's my plate:

messy at best

You can see that I put a bunch of nutritional yeast on my tatoes and used a lot of the leftover mushroom stuffing to top one of my seitan cutlets (that the recipe isn't ready for yet).  

soup 4eva

Since it's so freaking cold here, and also since Michael and I both have been a little sickly, we've been eating a lot of soup.  In fact, I'm making more tonight.  The above specimen is something Michael whipped up for our lunch this past week.  It's a carrot soup, but not like a creamy one.  It's brothy (which I love), but still has carrots pureed up in it.  Just the perfect amount of spice and hotness and wonderfulness inside.  He also made some couscous that was bangin'.  His goal was to make everything in the same color family (warm toned oranges).  Totally worked.

And just to prove to you how cold it is here:

kitchen window frostastic

Guys, that is not the type of frosting that yours truly gets excited about.  In fact, quite the opposite is true.  Stay warm, everyone!  

I still have other news that I am bursting at the seams to tell you about, but...  I can't yet.  What!  hahaha...  

p.s. happy inauguration day!