Wednesday, December 31, 2008

New Year's Eve - from the couch

I'm staying in for New Year's Eve this year and I couldn't be happier about it. I picked up some more Dr. Cow cashew cheese to bring to a New Year's Day party tomorrow and we'll see how the omni foodies like it.

Side effect of going to a cool health food store in the village (Life Thyme, again, 6th ave btw 8th & 9th sts) is the prepared dishes in the deli. Most of what I saw is vegan and much of it is raw, too. This is a roasted vegetable pie with butternut squash, zucchni, kale, collard greens, eggplant and, quinoa. It was pretty darn good. I really should eat more vegetables.


Happy New Year from the couch, ya'll!

Monday, December 29, 2008

Cash Shoes and Cashews - Payless and Dr. Cow Cheese

I got three pairs of vegan work/walk to work shoes for a total of $42.98 at payless. That sum usually buys barely one shoe. I don't know about all payless shoes, but everything I looked at was all man made materials. All three are surprisingly comfortable and now I can release some leather work shoes to a thrift shop.

I also finally picked up some Dr. Cow's nut cheese. If you miss stinky french cheeses, don't hesitate and get some now. If you don't live in New York you can order it online. I got mine at Life Thyme near Union Square.


I'm serving this with some nice yellow tail shiraz I got for a Christmas gift. It's just me, but it's so fancy I had to be "serving it" somehow. This is hands down my favorite veganized something I've had yet. You'd never know it is cashew cheese. The cream cheese is mild and has some bite and the aged is pungent and earthy.Next time someone has a wine and cheese party, I'm totally bringing this.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Dark Days week #6 - Pasta! No really, I made the pasta.

Spaghetti with simple sage butter (earth balance) sauce. Earth Balance vegan butter appears to be made in NJ. For today's purpose, that's local enough. At least I'm paying attention to where my food comes from. Honestly, I would normally use the fancy Italian olive oil. Sometimes you gotta support the global economy, too. The flours are from King Arthur, and the dried sage was fresh when I got it at the last farmer's market.

Anyway, making your own pasta really isn't nearly as complicated as Barilla wants you to think. In fact, with the assistance of my bread machine and the pasta maker, it barely took more hands on prep time than opening a box of dried pasta. And playing with dough is always kinda fun.

Basic pasta dough:
1 cup semolina flour
1 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 cup water (+ about 2 TBS if needed)
1/2 tsp salt

Put ingredients in bread machine on dough cycle and make sure all the flour absorbs into the ball of dough, and add more water if needed.

I removed it once mixed and put it in the fridge for about a 1/2 hour (some recipes say an hour, but, I was hungry.) I pulled out the pasta maker from the depths of the cabinet and dusted it off. Next, I put on a pot of water to boil. Now for the fun part. I rolled out a piece of dough - 1/4 of the dough for one serving. Rolled as a flat sheet, then ran through the spaghetti rollers and voila, pasta.
If you're making an entire batch, you can put the noodles on a broomstick to dry. I didn't because I don't have a good place to balance the broomstick and I get upset when inevitably I drop some precious noodles on the floor. So since I'm cooking them immediately, I just dust them with some flour, pulled apart any guys that were sticking together and laid them on the dough mat until the water was boiling.
Fresh thin noodles cook in roughly 1 minute, so as soon as I dropped in the noodles, I made the sauce. Melted 1 TBS vegan butter, 1 garlic clove, 1 tsp dried sage (from farmer's market) and a little seasoned salt. When pasta is al dente, drain and give a brief saute in the butter sage sauce. Take quick photo, ignore bad lighting and photography skills, then eat.
Aren't you glad it wasn't another pesto or squash recipe?

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Evening with a vengence! Biscuits and Gravy.

Why oh why don't I make new recipes more often. I read them, think, hey, that looks good, then like a year later-by the power of greyskull-I finally whip it up.



A. Somehow a conversation with the ninja today turned to biscuits.

Me: I'm having a cup of tea.
Him: With biscuits?
Me: Uh, no, but like, do you mean biscuits like British for cookies or like biscuits and gravy? Because I guess either would go well with tea. Since it's afternoon, I guess cookies would be better, but I suppose you could be having tea with breakfast so it could go with biscuits and gravy.
Him: Uh, whatever. I like cookies and biscuits.

B. I've got some tempeh in the fridge that is embarrassingly past it's sell by date.

C. I'm bored and want to cook something since I just read the entire new Veg News.

D. I'm hungry. Now.

E. Grab Vegan with a Vengeance from the shelf. Check index for tempeh recipes. Debate several recipes.

F. Make: Tempeh Sausage crumbles and Baking Powder Biscuits and White Bean Tempeh Sausage Gravy.

G. Marvel at both how easy and fast this is to make from conception to table and again wonder why I haven't made everything from this cookbook yet. The ninja will be happy when he gets home to have biscuits. Too bad the mustard sauce is gone, or I would have had to go all Slingblade and have biscuits with mustard sauce. Mmm,hmm....maybe next time.

More ninjadillas and pizza and an alien cat

It's not a real vegan food blog until ya post some cat photos.

Miss Lizzie and Mr. Darcy chill out while I'm cooking up vegan goodness at Mom's. Those are all cookbooks on the shelves behind the sofa. Mom may be missing a few vegetarian cookbooks from the stash...hope she doesn't read this soon...

For Christmas leftovers, I made ninjadillas. The filling is the seitan from last night sliced up in some store bought pasilla sauce. Pasilla sauce is ancho and pasilla peppers with OJ and garlic. I threw some black beans and cooked brown rice in the filling and let it simmer a few minutes. Grilled it up on some spinach tortillas with soy cheddar and served it with chipotle vegenaise, green salsa, and some sliced grape tomatoes.
I also made more of the artisan bread dough. This time I used King Arthur white wheat flour. We made pizzas out of it and there's still dough for mom to make more fresh bread herself.
The pizza is topped simply with some jarred tomato sauce and Follow your Heart cheddar which melted beautifully.

Just in case she tries to fool you with her cuteness...Lizzie has been captured in her true alien form...

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas with Seitan!

When I visited mom earlier this year I made seitan and didn't eat it all while I was here. It's the vcon recipe and I froze it with the broth and all.

So today I thawed it out, then coated it in cornmeal, and fried it up. I'm bringing this to a friend's for dinner tonight and there's enough for me and anyone curious enough to try it. I could have made gravy with the broth, but I'm bringing the remainder of the vcon mustard sauce instead. I snuck a taste of smaller piece already and it's totally yum. So in case anyone was wondering, frozen setian is da bomb.

And I whipped up some rolls from the artisan bread dough. I made a few yesterday, too, and they are so easy and totally spectacular. Good thing mom got me that earth balance, but the ninja even likes them plain.
Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Home for the holidays! Cutlets and mustard sauce.

What to make at mom's...cutlets, mustard sauce, corn, baked potatoes...oh yeah. Now where the heck did she put her copy of the Veganomicon? In the end I couldn't find it, so I had to pull out my awesome Amazon Kindle where I have yet another copy of the vcon for just such travel emergencies.
I wanted to make the vcon chickpea cutlets, but despite mom's wealth of pantry goodies, there were no chickpeas to be had. So I subbed some kidney beans. The wheat gluten might have been a billion years old and the breadcrumbs a little stale, but in the end I got something resembling a cutlet. I thought I'd give the vcon mustard sauce a try and I'm so glad I did. Mom didn't have any sherry, so we found some dry vermouth (probably older than me) which worked just fine.
Mom stocked up on vegan goodies for me. There's some vegenaise, follow your heart cheddar cheese, earth balance and soy milk! Surprisingly, all came from the local supermarket not known for exotic ingredients. I'm impressed.
Merry Christmas Eve and have a wonderful holiday!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

There's no "I" in keyboard...and cupcakes!

Yeah, this little disaster was brought on by Vogue. I was opening the magazine out of it's plastic packaging when it burst out onto my keyboard cracking off the letter I. Veg News would never do this to me.
Ugh. At least it still works, but it's cramping my words a minute typing speed, and it's rather annoying.
So I'll cheer myself up with some cupcakes!!! It's the basic golden cupcakes and buttercream frosting from VCTOTW. For some reason my husband really likes red frosting, so there's a lethal dose of food coloring in there.


Um, it does make 12, but I had to test one before sending these puppies out to take over the world. Yum.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

More celebration field roast!

Fastest meal ever.
Slice 4 thin pieces of celebration roast. Put in toaster oven with 2 pieces of bread and toast. While that's toasting, mix a little ketchup, relish and vegenaise. Pull out toast, spread on vegenaise mix, and pile on the roast. I didn't have sauerkraut, otherwise I would have called it a ruben. Open a bag of chips, and voila dinner!

The celebration field roast is so versatile. It's great sliced for sandwiches cold or hot. You can bake it whole and serve as a centerpiece. You can fry slices or just toast them.
What I usually do is slice 2 pieces about 1/2 inches thick and simmer in a cup of vegetable broth. When hot, remove loaf and add a cornstarch slurry to make a gravy out of the broth. Yesterday, I added some extra chopped mushrooms to the gravy which made it even better.

The field roast sausages are really good too. Versitile as well, you can cook them whole and serve in sub rolls. Slice them up and serve in spaghetti or on pizza. Chop them up and put in burritos or pasta sauce. The other bonus is that the plastic "casing" is twisted sealed between each sausage and the unused sausages stay freshly sealed in the package, so they don't go bad quickly.

Iron Man was OK. Better than Daredevil and Spiderman, but not as good as Batman or X-men. I know this is Robert Downey Jr's blockbuster comeback, but really this film would be lost without him. He's funny. The weird facial hair works. The story is predictable, and the foreshadowing is so transparent, you know what's going to happen before it does. But, hey, it's a superhero comic book story, and it delivers. Also there's NO WAY Gwenneth could possibly run in those shoes. No way.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Mid week dinner - comfort food

Celebration field roast with mushroom risotto, mushroom gravy, and squash.
Nothing more right now. I'm watching Iron Man.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Dark Days Challenge - Local Pizza!

OK, so according to google maps King Arthur Flour is 247 miles from my house, so we're going with a local food shed of 250 miles! Rock on. It's a bit of a stretch, but I want to use the vital wheat gluten to make seitan count as local. I love KAF anyway because it is a great company.

I also joined a CSA for 2009 and will be picking up a surprise package every week of all kinds of locally grown veggies and fruit when it's finally in season-OK around June. It'll be like an iron chef challenge every week!

A CSA (community supported agriculture) is where a farm sells shares of produce before the season starts. Then when the produce is harvested, the farmer packs up a box of whatever is picked each week of the growing season and gives it out to the participants. I pay money in December so the farmer can buy the seeds and stuff, then around June, I'll pick up a box of fruit and veggies each week. It works out to about $40 a week for veggies, fruit, and corn. Find one near you...http://www.localharvest.org/


So today's local meal is going to be pizza! Since I don't have any tomatoes saved from summer, I'm going back to my trusty pesto that reared it's head in last week's spaghetti squash. Also roasting a carnival squash.


Basic pizza dough recipe


1 cup water
1-2 TBS olive oil (optional)
1-2 tsp sugar (optional)
3 Cups all purpose flour
3 TBS vital wheat gluten (optional)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp or 1 packet yeast



Mix all ingredients together and knead until smooth elastic ball forms. Coat large bowl with olive oil and place in kneaded dough. Let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Punch down and knead briefly into ball. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. For 4 personal pizzas, divide dough into 4 pieces and roll out to desired thickness. Place on baking sheet, top with sauce and (vegan) cheese and desired toppings. Bake 10 min.


Pesto
1 Heaping (Lovin') Spoonfull each
Chopped basil (mine was frozen with olive oil)
Nut butter (I used almond from Tierra Farms)
Olive oil
Big pinch or so of salt
1 clove of garlic


The lighting in my kitchen bites, but pizza 1 is mashed squash spread on the dough and dollops of pesto and pizza 2 is the bizarro version with pesto spread on the dough and pieces of roasted squash on top. Both are sprinkled with Penzey's Pizza seasoning.

Fried spaghetti

Yeah, I just ate fried spaghetti for breakfast. It was kinda awesome. I made the pasta for lunch yesterday by mixing the artichoke dip with the sauce from the lasagna. The combination made both better.

I heart New York. I just had two days of fun with friends.

Friday we had our company party during working hours which is nice. Watching your boss do the congo at 2 in the afternoon is pretty entertaining. After, a few of us went for Ethiopian food which was totally killer as always. That injera is some good stuff.
Followed up by watching my friend sing Iberian Christmas songs in a chorus at St. Patrick's cathedral on the lower east side.
Saturday, after running around doing crazy errands all morning, I met my cousin, her husband and another friend for dinner and a show. Dinner was at Blue Smoke which is a BBQ joint, but they have the most amazing homemade BBQ potato chips and I got a veggie burger with fried onions and mushrooms slathered in BBQ sauce and that came with even more salt & vinegar chips. Happy vegan dining in unlikely places.
Then we went to see Spring Awakening. It was really good, but let me just say, don't see this with your parents or on a first date. I've seen Avenue Q, and the uncomfortableness of puppet sex is nothing compared to the teen lust of the first few songs of Spring Awakening. The performance was great. The main guy was Hunter Parrish from Weeds. Duncan Sheik won a Tony for the music. Every time I go see a show, I can't believe how I don't do this more often. There are tons of ways to get cheap tickets in New York and with so many shows closing, I'm going to have to make more efforts to support the arts. Next, I'll have to go see Harry Potter naked in Equus.

Friday, December 12, 2008

I feel so honored and special - Twice!

I was given the coveted proximidade award by Joanna and Pixiepine.Here's a little info about this award:
"This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

I'd like to thanks the academy and would like to futher honor the following individuals for their awesomeness:

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Artichoke Sunflower Spread

Last week when I was defrosting my ancient freezer, I forgot to put back the bag of artichokes, so they've been thawed in the fridge all week. They're still good, but I needed to use them now.

I found the artichoke sunflower spread in Robin Robertson's Vegan Planet. I had some raw sunflower seeds and the time to soak them, so this was a snap.
The only thing is that the recipe calls for 2 cloves of garlic, and I wasn't thinking that this isn't cooked, so I picked 2 giant cloves of garlic. Tastes yummy, but I am definitely keeping the vampires away. Hopefully, I'm keeping a cold away, too. Anyway, err on the side of 2 smallish to normal garlic cloves for polite company. I also used celery salt for the salt since I have that giant overdog salt from the snarky vegan. I spread it on some crackers and topped with a little smoked paprika to make it pretty. This would be great to take to a pot luck or holiday party!

In addition to the giant Vegan Planet, Fire and Spice, and other books, Robin is seeking testers for her new cookbook of 1000 vegan recipes. I hope she picks me to help out! Check out her site Vegan Planet for the details.

Dark Days Challenge#3-Pesto spaghetti squash and brussel sprouts

Sometimes I do plan ahead. I had chopped up some summer basil with olive oil and stashed it in the freezer for just such an occasion. This is my first attempt at spaghetti squash, and although clearly it's meant to come out in strands like spaghetti, it was kind of hard to get a good pile that actually looked like spaghetti in a photo. The pesto squash is paired with some fresh local off the stalk Brussel sprouts and a local Cabernet Franc from Millbrook winery.

Spaghetti squash
Pesto
Brussel Sprouts
Wine

Roast spaghetti squash. I baked mine at 375 for about an hour. Maybe I cooked it too long and that's why the strands kind of mushed together. Still yummy. The squash flavor just plain is nice also.

Pesto: 1 Heaping (Lovin') Spoonfull each
Chopped basil (mine was frozen with olive oil)
Chopped toasted squash seeds (from squash)-mine are borderline too toasted
Nutritional yeast (or something like parm cheese)
Nut butter (I used almond from Tierra Farms)
Olive oil
Big pinch or so of salt
1 clove of garlic (I forgot it, but it's good anyway)
My squash was already warmed from baking, so I just mixed it with the pesto and voila; lunch.
The brussel sprouts were roasted with some olive oil and I just added a bit more oil and some fresh local rosemary, sage and seasoned salt to dress them. They're just as good mixed in with the pesto squash.

As I said before, the dark days challenge is not vegan, but locavore. Vegans are representing in the East (me), South (Brett and Jennifer) and 2 from the West Chessa and Bethany. The challenge is to try to make and write about 1 meal a week that is 90% local during the dark days of winter.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Bacon blue cheese cheddar burger - not cheating. It's all vegan goodness.

Maybe I'm just hungry, but this is the best vegan burger I have ever had. It's not the individual parts, but rather the whole that has just made my night. In the immortal words of U2 it is even better than the real thing. I don't usually power down an pile of relatively processed faux products, but this bad boy really hit the spot. There's a veggie stuffed potato in the background to redeem myself. I don't think it's doing much. I wish I'd made fries.

1 TBS crumbled blue scheese
1 tsp Vegenaise
1 tsp ketchup
1 tsp relish

Vegan lasagna for everyone!

We had a pot luck luncheon for a co-worker friend who was leaving the company. I brought vegan lasagna! And homemade garlic bread.

Here's my version.

Lasagna noodles
Sauce
Tofu ricotta
Soy cheese

Lasagna noodles-store bought, dry lasagna noodles

Boil noodles until al dente and drain or...don't

Note: The Barilla "no cook" variety is made with eggs, so you may want to just go with the old school version and boil them. Conversely, the normal old noodles don't have to be boiled if you add an extra cup of water to the sauce and make sure the sauce comes all the way to the top of the lasagna in the pan. If you do this, make sure you cook covered 1 hour, the uncovered another 1/2 hour. First hour cooks the pasta, next 1/2 dries out the sauce.


Sauce: I made a big pot-this makes more than you need for the lasagna-I have about 4 cups leftover
1/4 cup olive oil
1 onion
20 (yes I said 20, but you can use less) cloves of garlic
1 eggplant (mine was not small)
1 green bell pepper
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 can whole peeled tomatoes (broken into small pieces)
3 TBS Italian seasoning (or combination italian friendly herbs, oregano, basil, marjoram, etc)
2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar (test first, you may need less if tomatoes are already sweet)
1/2 cup dry red wine

Chop onion, garlic, eggplant, and bell pepper very fine or in food processor. Add olive oil to a large pot and saute vegetable mixture. When vegetables are softened, add remaining ingredients including juice from tomatoes and let simmer until veggies are cooked and sauce has thickened stirring occasionally.

Optional uncooked noodles version: make a runny sauce; puree 2 cups of sauce and 1 cup of additional water/broth so you have a not thick sauce. Use this on the first and last layers.

Tofu Ricotta (adapted from vcon)
1 package soft/silken tofu
1 bunch fresh basil
1 big handful spinach
Juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp salt
2 Tbs olive oil

Drain tofu and place in large bowl. Mix tofu with a fork so it's broken up, but not smooth. Chop basil and spinach and add to tofu. Add lemon juice, salt and olive oil and mix together. The mixture will be fairly wet.

Soy Cheese:


Preheat oven to 375

Assembly: (unboiled regular noodles version)
Place 1 cup runny sauce in bottom of 13X9 pan. Add layer of noodles, top with 1/3 ricotta, 1 cup sauce (make sure to get a good amount of the veggies in it) and 1/4 soy cheese. Repeat until you fill the pan. The last layer should be just noodle, runny sauce and cheese. Make sure the sauce comes up to the top of the noodles. Cover with foil and bake 1 hour. Test a piece of the noodle to make sure it's cooked. Tuck in any pieces that may be poking out and crispy. Remove foil and cook additional 1/2 hour.

If you did boil the noodles, you don't need the runny sauce or the extra 1/2 hour cook time, just remove foil and turn up to 450 for 5 min so the soy cheese melts.


Garlic Bread:
1/4 recipe artisan bread dough from the fridge-or 1 baguette
5 cloves garlic chopped
1/4 cup olive oil

Make bread: let cool
Saute garlic in oil
Slice bread almost all the way through, but leave the bottom so the loaf still holds together.
Put spoonfull of garlic oil mixture into each slice and then wrap in foil. Heat in oven 375 about 15 min.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Veggie stuff about Twilight...Seriously

OK, "vegetarian" vampires who hunt wild game instead of humans is kind of a misnomer, but there were some real veggie friendly surprises in the film.

A. When Bella is first in the diner the waitress specifically says something about Bella and her gardenburger.

B. Then in the same diner, later in the film, the waitress again hands someone their "veggie plate," while Bella eats a big salad

I was happy that someone clearly meant to put these veggie friendly tidbits in the film.

If I haven't gushed enough about my love affair with this series, I'll say it again now. The writing is gripping and engaging, although geared towards a teenage audience. If you like Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, any invocation of Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, or Romeo and Juliet, you should give these books read.

Win a signed copy of Thanking the Monkey by Karen Dawn!

I'm went to the book signing tonight in NYC with Karen Dawn for Thanking the Monkey. I already have a copy, so I'm going to pass one along to YOU, dear reader. This book is awesome. So send me a brief comment on why you should be the lucky winner!

Tara of http://snowyvegan.blogspot.com/ won a personalized book already because she commented before I went tonight. She volunteers at a cat shelter in Alaska and is an awesome vegan yogini!

I figured it wasn't really fair that I had about 4 hours between posting and when I went to the reading, so I'm giving y'all another shot. I got a 2nd signed book to give away. You have until Sunday 12/7 at 5pm EST to comment. What can I say winning stuff is cool and I like a little competition with a twist. And really this book is great.

Commenting at all is enough to get you entered, but I thought it would be fun to showcase anything you do to help animals/promote veganism, or whatever you want to say.

http://www.thankingthemonkey.com/

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Ninja burritos!

Yeah, the ninja (my husband) loves these. The filling is different every time, but I get to feed him vegan and he cleans the plate. I like spicy, but he is sweats at anything hotter than black pepper, so I try to give it more flavor than spice.

Secret 1: fry the burrito-it's more like a quesadilla, but I don't always use cheese, so the queso part doesn't really apply. Ninjadilla?
Double secret 1: I make annatto oil by steeping 1TBS annatto with 1/2 cup corn oil. Put oil and annatto in fry pan and heat on medium until the annatto sizzles and remove promptly. I store it in a salad dressing bottle in the fridge. The corn oil stays liquid when refrigerated. The oil makes stuff like rice look really mexicanny and gives the tortilla a nice orangey color.

Secret 2: chipotle mayonnaise. Blend a little chipotle powder or a whole canned chipotle with a little veganaise. You're going to have to play with a blend that works for you according to your spice preference and potency of the chipotles you're using. Also works with vegan sour cream or yogurt, but I still prefer the mayo sauce. I don't think the ninja has any idea it's mayo. Smoky, spicy, saucy goodness.

Today's filling was a big 'ole mess of stuff I had hanging around. I used some frozen sofrito, the rest of the filling from yesterday's jacket potatoes-roasted veggies, potatoes, and stuff, added about 1/4 block of extra firm tofu, and about 1/4 cup TVP that I seasoned with penzeys taco seasoning.

I like to use the cast iron skillet to fry the ninjadilla. Put in a little annatto oil to cover, place the tortilla on flat and cover with soy cheese if using (today I had follow your heart cheddar) then place filling on just one half. Once the tortilla is softened, fold in half and heat until crispy, then flip and let the other side crisp up.
Serve with a big dollop of chipotle mayo and enjoy. Mexican rice and beans go well with this, and/or can be used in the filling.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Dark Days Challenge #2 The real stuffed potato

OK, so apparently they are also called jacket potatoes. Cool.

This started out a little more local, and then I just started throwing in things that were in my fridge. I've got more stuffing than jacket.

Local:
1 potato
1/2 acorn squash
handful of roasted veggies like: carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, purple potato, leeks, fennel
2 garlic cloves
1 small shallot
toasted seeds from said acorn squash (but I can't find them-hope the ninja didn't toss them)
herbs-thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley, whatever you like.
Spinach and mushrooms (mine aren't actually local-but I've got an order in for some mushrooms)
Vegan extras:
Smart bacon
Follow your heart vegan cheddar style soy cheese
Unsweetened soy milk

Bake potato, squash, and roast garlic, shallot and veggies (can be done in advance) scoop out insides of potato and squash. Mix it all together add spinach and herbs and add some milk or broth to the mixture if it's dry. Top with cheese if you like and bake another 10-15 min at 400 to melt cheese or heat through.

I cooked the squash, potato and veggies yesterday before going to the movies, to tonight after work, all I did was saute the garlic, shallot, fake bacon, mushrooms, and spinach then add the potato, squash and veggies. Topped with soy cheese, baked, and am ready to enjoy. The soy cheese would get meltier eventually, but I'm hungry now...

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Dark Days Challenge #2 Under construction....

I've got a stuffed baked potato comin' atcha. Roasted veggies piled high. This is gonna be so totally better than any old boring 'tater skins...

But I've just GOT to go see my vampire boyfriend in Twilight first. So I'm headed into the city on this dreary day for a movie with a friend.

I'll post the local goodies Monday. Meanwhile, you can check out what everyone else is up to. http://urbanhennery.com/dark-days-08-09/

Cheers!

Leftovers schmleftovers

I was gonna just make a thanksgiving sammich..but I had this bit of sauerkraut in my fridge, that really just needed to get out of the way (for all the other leftovers and some bread dough.)

So I whipped up a thanksgiving ruben instead. For un-turkey day I made chickpea cutlets because I never did get around to that stuffed seitan. I also lucked out with my friend Nicole's mom's green tomato relish for the russian dressing. I'm definitely going to have to get that recipe (it's local in Ohio!)


Easy ruben:

2 pieces rye bread
1 TBS Veganaise
1 TBS Ketchup
1 TBS relish (or diced dill pickles)
1/4 cup sauerkraut
1 chickpea cutlet (or some other sammich protein-deli slices work, too)

I tend to skip the swiss cheese element, as I think the sauce/sauerkraut is the important sammich flavoring.

Lightly toast bread. Mix veganaise, ketchup, relish and spread on toast. Heat up cutlets and sauerkraut and make sammich.

A little messy, but totally yum.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Jenn is Thanking the Turkey

Just thought I'd treat my post like my facebook update.
The ninja agreed to a vegan thanksgiving, and I get to stay home and cook whatever I feel like today.

There's some broth already simmering on the stove.

Slim pickings at the last Tarrytown farmer's market last weekend, but I still have a bit of a stash to cook from. The grocery store is actually open today, but I think I'm still going to try to cook from just what I have.

We're looking at roasted veggies, squash, potatoes, the usual side dish affairs. Got stale homemade bread and some sage to make stuffing from scratch. I'm going to make seitan, and it's probably going to be cutlets, but I'm really thinking of trying to make a stuffed seitan like the field roast celebration roast thing. Making bread. Ah, it's really a holiday just for me. I can spend the entire day puttering around in the kitchen and it's considered normal. More later...

In case you didn't see the cool turkey loaf post from Susie on the PPK forum. This is the coolest not-a-turkey ever...http://www.postpunkkitchen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=41447&p=1

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Dark Days Challenge #1 Local food-Roasted veggies

OK, here goes...

This is going to be a meal for me, but it's all veggie with no grain or protein (because that's what I had that was local.) I gathered what I could from the last Tarrytown, NY farmer's market of the year. Lots of perfect squash and potatoes, the cauliflower had frozen, and the sparse broccoli left was broken up and sold by the stalk, a few fresh herbs to dry and it's time to say good-bye 'til next Spring.

Roasted acorn squash stuffed with roasted broccoli, cauliflower, purple potatoes, leeks, carrots, and fennel.

Simple preparation, I roasted the veggies on a baking sheet and popped them in the squash half. Topped with toasted squash seeds, rosemary, oregano, sage and warmed in the oven.

This made two, so I'm saving one to bring for lunch this week.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Pimping the Vegan Babe...

I attended NYC's Vegan Drinks last Thursday and I met Brooke who runs the awesome website vegan babe.
"Vegan Babe is a free weekly newsletter and website covering the newest beauty, fashion and lifestyle trends for chic and faithful vegans, as well as those simply curious about compassionate alternatives."
Check it out! Click here to sign up for the newsletter.

Here's some picks for vegan winter coats.

Friday, November 21, 2008

From the pantry...New challenge

I'm no Morgan Spurlock but I think 20 days of not grocery shopping, bringing my lunch, and eating only items I already had in the house went pretty well.

The fridge is emptier and the plastic storage tubs a little lighter, but I still have a ways to go. What I'm going to do starting now is to try to only buy what I'm going to use that week and continue to whittle down the pantry surplus. Bringing my lunch has been a really good thing and I'm going to keep that up as well.

I am also participating in the Dark Days local food challenge. One day a week, I will prepare a meal using 90% local ingredients. This is not a vegan group, but there are a few other vegan's participating.

My local suburban farmer's market has its last day for the year tomorrow. The Union Square market in NYC is year round, so I'll have to check that out. This will be a challenge indeed, but I think I can make one meal a week local, right?

Thursday, November 20, 2008

NYC November Vegan Drinks - Beer me


Pantry Raid day 20 - Health food tastes good

It's not just because I'm hungry, my canned lentil soup is pretty good.
Yet another reason to be glad I'm cleaning out the pantry. This can o'soup expired 9/26/08, and the rice is the brown and wild rice mix I brought in for last week's make-my-co-workers-eat-vegan-and-like-it lunch.
I didn't make enough for lunches this week (I had my artisan bread with frozen TJ's veggie burgers up 'til now.) So I'm glad I found the lentil soup and was smart enough to figure out how to work the can opener on my swiss army knife.
Lentil soup on brown rice is about as hippie health food as I'm gonna get. I'll have to try to make my own and spice it up a bit. I know there's a bag of lentils in the pantry...

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Thanksgiving Turkey Adoption

I'm totally copying Tara, but with good reason. It's Turkey time! Adopt a Turkey from the Farm Sanctuary!
We both adopted Phoenix. For 25 bucks you can sponsor a Farm Sanctuary turkey!
No, you don't get to take him home, but you can make sure he's taken care of at the awesome Watkins Glen farm sanctuary. Start a new holiday tradition today! Sponsor a turkey.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Pantry Raid Day 17 - Sage pasta

Yeah I know, pasta, burritos, pasta, burritos, but after a long day at the office I can whip this up in 20 minutes and I'm not popping lean cuisines into the microwave.

1. Boil water. Add salt. Add pasta. Cook until al dente.
Meanwhile...

I had some sage from the farmer's market that I had dried. Air dry for a few days then store in an airtight container. Better than commercially dried.

I chopped 3 sun dried tomatoes and put it in a small bowl with about 1 TBS sage and a good sized pinch of salt. Added about 1/4 cup boiling water to rehydrate the sage and tomatoes.

Sauteed a garlic clove in some olive oil and add the sage and tomatoes. Saute a few minutes and add a little water so it's a light saucy consistency. When the pasta is done, add to saute pan and stir a few minutes so pasta absorbs the sauce. Voila! Dinner in a flash.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Pantry Raid Day 16 - Vita Mix Rules!


Oh, Joanna you just had to go and ask about the vita-mix. I thought I raved in the MoFo, but I don't think I ever got to it. I have not the words to describe my love for what may just look like a blender....this bad boy is expensive for a reason. It's got a 2 horsepower motor.

My first crush came when I worked in a restaurant at age 16 and when the bartender got busy, I got to make the "virgin" drinks. Then I actually bartended and made more than my share of coladas for the boardwalk bar. The perfect blended drink should be thick enough so a straw stands up, not have ice chunks, and be able to pour from the blender. Vita mix delivers every time.

Basic rule of frozen drink thumb is put in some ice or (frozen) fruit and then fill up to the level of the ice/fruit with liquid (juice, daiquiri mix, colada mix, whatever.) Blend on high for not even 30 seconds, and pour and enjoy.

Yeah, you can do this in a normal blender, but I'm telling you, the consistency is better from a vitamix. One of the bartenders used to make a dirty banana with the whole super ripe banana, peels and all. Perfect consistency.

So when I moved to Boston and got a real job, I missed the vita-mix. I really did. I bought mine probably 10 years ago, at some point in my life when I had extra cash, like tax refund or bonus or something. It was roughly the same price then, expensive. I think I paid slightly less than $500 for both the wet and dry containers. The dry container grinds grains.

Works as well now as the day I got it. In fact, I don't even use it enough. The dry container lets you grind whole wheat berries, then there is a recipe for bread where you add the ingredients and the vita mix kneads the dough, and you just bake. I haven't made it for awhile, but it's totally awesome and super fast. (Sorry, Jo, there are lots of other gluten-free things you can do with it.)

And purees soup to velvety consistency. There are speed controls, so lower speeds will give you chunkier results.

The newer ones look like they have better handles, and there's an additional smaller container.

My friend Mandy's brother inherited her mom's vitamix when her mom upgraded. Forcing Mandy to shell out for a new one. She bought hers around the same time as me. All still work great.

They use them at Jamba juice, and whatever one I see in malls. Orange Julius, maybe? I haven't been to a mall for awhile.

I need to use this more for nut milks. I think I made almond milk a million years ago.

Makes perfectly smooth hummus.

I could infomercial on and on.
They do sell refurbished ones, too, that are a little cheaper.

One of the chefs in the raw book suggests that every time you use your old blender, set aside a dollar and when the motor blows, you'll have some savings to buy a vita mix. Really, you'll never ever need another blender.

Here's my green drink from this morning. 2 frozen bananas, 2 TBS Trader Joe's Very Green powder stuff, some white grape juice that came off some TJ's jarred pears, and some OJ.

And unrelated to the vita-mix, here's another loaf of bread from my now chilled artisan bread dough. The chilled dough was easier to work with and stayed ball shaped. Made a nice puffy loaf. I can't wait to dig into this.