Loaded baked potato perogis- Veggie Conquest 4

The theme ingredient for the 4th Veggie Conquest was potatoes. I threw down with a whole mess 'o loaded baked potato perogies. Vegan update of a comfort food classic. The perogis are stuffed with baked russet potatoes (with the skins), tempeh bacon, broccoli, leeks, daiya cheddar cheese, and tofutti better than sour cream. They are topped with tofutti sour cream and chives; and shallots sauteed in Earth Balance. I couldn't find fresh chives anywhere, so there's a little parsley for garnish.Veggie conquest is always really fun and the food is always amazing. Following the tasting, we had a buffet dinner of dishes made by the volunteers featuring Match Meats. One of which was a beefy noodle casserole that was quite like school cafeteria beef-a-roni, in a good way. Match Meats gave all the guests a sample to take home, so lets see what I can do with some vegan ground pork! I forgot to grab a menu, so here are the other veggie conquest entries with descriptions as I remember them:

First place was a nori potato salad. Nice Asian inspired flavorsSecond place and the taster's choice was these sweet potato cigars made with filo dough and a sweet sauce. This one was a great balance of sweet and savory.

Third place went to this lovely sweet potato and corn soup. Great smoky and spicy hint of chipotle.

Honorable mentions were my perogis, and these:Gluten Free samosas. Good Indian spices. Served in little radicchio cups. These potato bites had a really interesting tamarind sauce and I love cilantro.

All in all another totally fun vegan event. Here's the recipe for the perogi. The ninja powered down quite a few, so this dish is officially omni-approved

Loaded baked potato perogis - makes about 50

Potato mixture:
2 russet potatoes baked skin on
1 head steamed broccoli
1 leek trimmed, chopped, and cooked
1 recipe tempeh bacon crumbles
1/2 tub vegan sour cream
1 8 oz package daiya cheddar cheese

Remove the peel from the potatoes and chop into small pieces. Mash potato insides with the sour cream and add all other ingredients. Mix it together well, so that every 1 tsp bite will get all ingredients.

Tempeh bacon crumbles:
1 8oz. package tempeh
1 tsp liquid smoke
2 TBS vinegar
2 TBS soy sauce
2 TBS canola oil
Optional Hickory Bacon Salt or Penzeys pork chop seasoning

Crumble tempeh into a sealable container and add liquid smoke, vinegar and soy sauce (you don't really have to measure.) Let marinate a few hours to overnight. Heat canola oil in skillet, add marinated crumbles and cook until browned and crispy. Add some bacon salt or pork chop seasoning if it needs a little extra bacony kick.

Perogi dough:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup mashed potato
1/2 cup vegan sour cream
1/2 cup water

Mix together to form a smooth ball. Add extra flour as needed so dough is not sticky. Refrigerate for 1/2 hour (up to overnight.)

Break off about an eighth of the dough and roll out thin. I used a pasta roller to number 5. Cut into circles with a drinking glass or pastry cutter. I used 2 1/2 inch diameter mason jar so they were about two-bite sized. Brush with soy milk (OK, I had a little dish and I just dunked one side in.) Fill with 1 tsp filling and fold in half sealing the edges.

Boil for about 2 minutes. Drain and saute in Earth Balance and canola oil until crispy. I found that with just Earth Balance they stuck to the bottom of the pan, so I added a little canola oil and that helped.

For garninsh: Saute a few diced shallots. Add chives to vegan sour cream.

Serve hot and top the perogis with the sauteed shallots and the sour cream and chives.

Nachos!

No really, cheezy melty stringy nachos. I picked up some Daiya at the Whole Foods in Union Square. Check out the Daiya website for a location near you or the online stores selling it. It's in real packaging now and word is they're rolling it out at Whole Foods around the country.

Daiya is definitely different than other non-dairy cheeses. It tastes good, melts well, and when melted has the same stringy texture and mouthfeel as real cheese. I find it to be kind of buttery tasting. Yum. I think I'm going to go make some more.

Awesome vegan Sunday - 2 events in Westchester NY!

Well I made it off the couch and out to TWO vegan events here in Westchester, NY this afternoon. As much as I love the vegan events in NYC, sometimes it's nice to stay close to home.

This morning I went to a vegan brunch hosted by Doreen and the Vegetarian Social Network of Westchester at Rain Water Grill in Hastings, NY. A mere 12 minutes from my house.

Although the Rain Water Grill is regularly vegetarian friendly, they made a special vegan brunch for our group with appetizers and entrees.

We all shared appetizers of fried risotto balls with marinara; vegetable flat bread pizzas with cannellini beans, leeks, and black olives; and egg rolls with eggplant, squash, onion, and carrots with a delicious soy cilantro vinaigrette. I got the fried avocado and the mango salsa was lovely. Everyone else was nice enough to let me stick my camera in their food and get a sample as well. You know, for the blog...Tofu scramble. This was really nice on the toast.
Stuffed portabella mushroom. I didn't actually try it, but it looked yummy.And the hit of the day were the blueberry pancakes. Someone was cool enough to order a second helping which we all shared. The manager said even though it's not on the menu they would be able to whip these babies up for brunch anytime and even offered to send someone out to the store if they needed the soy milk for them. That's some vegan love.We had about 12 people in all. Great group of people and a fun brunch event.

Now, I could have just gone home and vegged out with some nice Jonny Lee Miller period pieces (Emma and Mansfield Park or perhaps Byron in case you're wondering...)

but instead I ventured out to the store to pick up some provisions for a pot luck dish for an evening with Farm Sanctuary Campaigns Coordinator David Benzaquen which was kind of with The Westchester Vegan & Vegetarian Meetup Group, though it wasn't an official meet-up.

I successfully procured the fixins' for perhaps the easiest pot luck dish known to man. Four layer Mexican dip.
The Mexican dip is the one near the front of the photo. When I was 23 and vegetarian, this was what I brought when I needed to bring a dish somewhere. I usually make it with vegan cream cheese and vegetarian chili, but this time I used vegan sour cream and refried beans. It's very flexible to substitutions and always awesome.

Mexican Dip
1 package Tofutti sour cream
1 can vegetarian chili or refried beans
1 container of salsa ( I used the fresh kind from the fridge section, but jarred is OK, too)
3/4 block follow your heart cheddar or enough vegan cheese to cover the top

Layer the ingredients in a pie plate in the order listed.

I usually pop in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes, but this heated up really well in the microwave in about 8 minutes. The cheese got melty without getting dried out.

Trista made a giant pot of chili with Quorn. (This would have been awesome in the Mexican dip.)Trista's mom made this amazing noodle dish with those clear noodles used in Jap Chae. I don't remember the name, but this was lovely.Megan made an amazing lasagna.

Here's everyone hanging out enjoying the food and chit-chatting...And just when I thought I couldn't possibly eat anything else, I just HAD to have one of these fantastic chocolate chip cookies. Trista used EnerG which for some reason I never try and they were chocolate chip perfection.

David gave a nice presentation on what the Farm Sanctuary is all about and this sparked some lively discussions with the few non-vegans in the group.

Thanks so much to Trista and her family for hosting this event (8 minutes from my house.) It was beaucoup fun and hopefully we'll have more events here in Westchester so I won't always have to schlep into the city on a weekend for a vegan fix.

Today I also found out the secret ingredient for the Veggie Conquest next Sunday is potatoes. It has to be an appetizer and I'm trying to think of things I could serve to 80 people that would warm up easily in those catering foil trays with the sterno. One of the guest judges is Alexandra Jamieson who famously slimmed down her hubby Morgan Spurlock after he ate nothing but McDonald's for 30 days in the documentary Supersize Me. Wish me luck. I'm gonna need it.

Sushi to go

I feel just like Molly Ringwald in the breakfast club when I eat sushi to go. I got stuck working late and had a good half hour to kill while waiting for my train, so since I was already starving, I went looking for a snack.

There are lots of places in Grand Central to get vegan grub and my latest find is Masa Japanese. They've got a couple of good vegetable sushi boxes. Today I got the "Track 5" which includes inari, a cucumber ume roll, a pickled vegetable roll, and a gourd roll. I also picked up some yaki tofu. Pretty darn tasty for fast food. I also discovered that I can blog from my iphone. So I can enjoy my exotic dinner on the train while blogging and listening to Air Supply. Now if I could figure out how to upload Photos to the blog from my phone then I'd really be in business. Thanks for keeping company on my ride home. Sayonara!

Eggplant parmesan

Eh, I've made it before and I'll make it again. I know it's not in season, but the eggplants at the store looked pretty good for who knows where they came from. Anyways, I'll remember that when I'm drowning in fresh local eggplant in the summer.The secret to a good eggplant parm is the frying. This time I did bother to salt, sit, and rinse, but honestly I've never noticed a difference. I find that instead of breadcrumbs, just a nice flour coating makes for a perfectly crispy eggplant. I also used the Tofutti mozzarella.

Eggplant parm

Eggplant:

1 Eggplant sliced lengthwise about 1/4 inch thick

1/4 cup flour (or more if needed)

1/4 cup soy milk (or more if needed)

Canola oil

Sauce:

2 TBS olive oil

2-10 cloves of garlic

1 big can crushed tomatoes

1 tsp salt

2 TBS sugar

1 TBS Italian seasoning

(a bunch of fresh basil if you've got it)

Soy cheese

Start with the sauce. Heat olive oil and saute garlic. Add tomatoes, salt, sugar, and seasoning. If adding basil chop up all the leaves and add it. Let simmer while you fry the eggplant.

Heat oil in a cash iron skillet until a droplet of water sizzles. You don't want it too hot or it'll burn before it's cooked. Dip eggplant slices in soy milk, then coat in flour. Cook two at a time for about 10 minutes one side, then 5 on the other. Drain on a cooling rack.

To assemble the ensemble...

I use mini loaf pans, but you can do this in any sized baking pan. Put down a layer of sauce to coat the bottom of the pan. Add Eggplant slice, top with sauce, then cheese, then repeat. Bake in the oven until the cheese is melty.

I like the mini loaf pans, because I can just heat up one serving in the toaster oven and voila, yummy Italian goodness.

Garden blend vegan burrito at Chipotle in Chelsea, NYC

Check out the Chipotle in Chelsea, NYC for a garden blend vegan burrito. The garden blend is vegan plant protein (I hear it's gardein) marinated in adobo sauce and grilled. It's a little on the spicy side, but in a good way. I recommend splurging for the guacamole to cool down the heat. This is the only location in NYC that's carrying the garden blend. There's a Chipotle across the street from my office, but I went out of my way to check out this burrito and I'm glad I did.
I like the way the store blends in with the rest of the block. Chelsea is a neighborhhod in NYC. Blossom is a few blocks away.

Mmmm. Fake chickeny goodness. The seasonings are really nice. Although I appreciate the usual vegan burrito at Chipotle, the garden blend gives you something to really bite into. I didn't test it out on any omnivores, but I don't think they'd be able to tell it's fake meat.
Currently this is the only location in NYC carrying the garden blend. There are a couple of Chipotles in Chelsea, so just to be clear. The Chipotle NYC location with the garden blend is 149 8^th Avenue between 17^th and 18^th streets. Apparently there's a location in DC serving it as well. I sent Chipotle a note to let them know how awesome it is to carry this and I hope they include it at all locations soon!

Gardein Parm - and who knew Tofutti cheese was good?

OK, I didn't realize I miss cheese singles. You know the ones individually wrapped in plastic. I picked up some Gardein tuscan breasts and wanted a little cheesy topping, but the store I was in didn't have much in the way of fake cheese options. So I took a chance and picked up some Tofutti Mozzarella slices. The tofutti slices are good just plain, but melted really nicely over the gardein in the oven.The sauce that the tuscan breasts come in is just OK. I needed sauce to serve with spaghetti anyway, so I made a really quick marinara consisting of a big can of crushed tomatoes, 1 tsp salt and 2 Tbs sugar. I added a few good shakes of italian seasoning, and just heated up.

I added a dash of black truffle oil just because it's awesome, and had a good hunk of garlic bread on the side. Yummmm.

Not your mom-mom's Mac & Cheese

It's a good thing I can't watch the Oscars (thanks ABC and Cablevision) because I'm studying for a test tomorrow. It's insurance and I keep falling asleep when I try to read it. Anyways here's to diversions like blogging and cooking....

Last week I stopped in the bodega in my building for a snack and bought some Ritz crackers but when I tried to spread on some tofutti cream cheese they all totally fell apart. I was crushed. So I was trying to think about what to do with a bunch of ritz cracker crumbs. A quick internet search including ritz and vegan lead me to Lindy Loo at Yeah, That "Vegan" Shit and a lovely recipe for Mac & Cheese topped with Ritz. I followed the recipe, but I still don't see why you need to make the white sauce and cheeze sauce separately. Anyway, it was still easy and I only had half a box of elbow macaroni, so I only used 1/2 the cheese sauce and the extra pan came in handy for mixing.

The verdict? This is some super awesome mac & cheese. Too bad I don't have any stewed tomatoes or it would be just like grandma used to make. Well, not my grandma, but everyone else's mom-mom I knew growing up in Delaware.

Candle 79 NYC Restaurant Review

I'm only going to say it once, then I'm going to let it go. When you make a reservation at Candle 79, ask for a table by the window or a booth. If it's busy or last minute, then sure, the section upstairs in the back is OK, I mean it's still the same awesome food, but the ambiance can be a little underwhelming. This is the second time I've had a reservation and got stuck at the crappy table. Our waitress was awesome, and gave us dessert on the house, so that made it better. Especially since it was amazing vegan cannoli, but I'll get to that later.

Here's the (sorry, flash) photos. Cocktails, wine, apps, dinner, dessert, tea and espresso. I got the specials and the ninja got the most normal stuff on the menu. He loved it.Mmm cocktails...They both have sake. The one on the left has spiced something, and the one on the right is the French 79 and has champagne. The point of cocktails is that you don't remember what's in them. Yummy.

Eh, here it is off the menu...

The Lexington: orange-ginger spiced sake, port reduction, champagne, lemon, agave
French 79: sake, apricot nectar, lemon, black currant, agave, champagne float

With the cocktails we got a little jalapeno cornbread. Now for the apps, I got the special which was an artichoke risotto. This was really nice. Creamy and full of flavor. The chips in top are zucchini. The Ninja had the mushroom ravioli. This was really lovely. The little bits on top were kind of bacony and the sauce was rich and creamy. In fact when he asked me if I wanted to try it he said, "oh, you can't have this, it's got cream in it," and I said "um, duh, we're at a vegan restaurant, I can eat ANYTHING!" Yay!

Menu description:

BUTTERNUT SQUASH & WILD MUSHROOM-SPINACH RAVIOLI: cashew ricotta, garlic cashew cream, tomato sauce, truffle oil, sautéed broccoli rabe, crispy capers

The wine was a Chilean malbec/cab. Nice. Ah the seitan piccata. Signature dish. The seitan was perfect. Nice density, lightly fried to perfection. I've made this dish from the Candle Cafe cookbook and I really liked it. Now that the ninja knows he likes it, I'll have to try it again. Usually he turns his nose up at my fake meaty things, but he's been talking about how much he liked this all week. At the restaurant he even turned around and recommended it to the people at the table next to us who were having trouble deciding. I think that's a big thumbs up.

Menu description:
SEITAN PICCATA: creamed spinach, grilled potato cake, oyster mushrooms, lemon-caper sauce I got the seitan special, which was beautifully fried seitan with a portabella mushroom and roasted vegetables in a mild chipotle sauce. This was also really good. There were two pieces of seitan and I couldn't quite finish both but I still almost took the last little piece home it was so good. Holy cannoli, batman. I do miss cannoli. Not with this around. This was fantastic. The ice cream was coconut chocolate chip.
CANNOLI: vanilla cream filling, vanilla chocolate chip ice cream, chocolate drizzle

Kudos to the ninja for being a good sport. Especially since this turned out to be his birthday dinner and all. So Candle 79 is a safe bet if you visit NYC and want to take your omni friends out to dinner to show them the true excellence of vegan food.

Going the distance...Cake!

I made a banana bunt cake. 'Cuz that's what I do when I've got really ripe bananas. It's going the distance. Well, the distance from here to work tomorrow. When I make a cake, I make extra little ones in silicone cups so I can have my cake and eat it too.I also made some garden fresh pizzas while I was watching Olympic hockey. The sauce was from the garden. Last summer's garden. Late in the summer I finally borrowed my mom's dehydrator and saved a few pieces of summer. Just what I needed in this wintry weather. The tomatoes were from mom's garden and the eggplant and peppers from my CSA. On the left is some dried tomatoes and on the right cubed and dried eggplant. The tomatoes were in slices, so I cut them up with some kitchen scissors. OK, so the shitake mushrooms weren't from the garden, but next year I'll have to dry some 'schrooms. Red and green bell peppers on the right.This is the sauce on the pizza dough. I added follow your heart Mozzarella because that's the best vegan cheese available in the stores near me. I do enjoy tease and daiya. I ran out of cheese, so I made a roll out of the extra dough. It's trying to sneak into the photo.

Cake:
Banana Bundt Cake

The wet stuff:
1 cup canola oil
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 cup soft tofu
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp orange extract

The dry stuff:
4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder

The banana stuff:
2 cups smashed ripe banana (about 4)
1 cup strong coffee

Preheat oven to 350 and grease bundt pan.

In a medium bowl (or this cool sifter thingy,) mix all the dry stuff together.

In a separate bowl, mix the mashed banana and coffee together.

In a large bowl, beat the oil and sugar until most of the sugar has dissolved. Add tofu and blend thoroughly. Add extracts.

Alternately mix in 1/3 dry mix, then 1/3 banana, and repeat until all incorporated, but don't over-mix.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool in pan 10 min, then turn out onto cooling rack.

Once cool, you can eat as is, or make a quick glaze.

Quick glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 TBS soy milk

Blend together with an electric mixer and drizzle over cooled cake.