Buncha Brunch

Testing is still going strong for Isa Chandra Moskowitz's upcoming vegan brunch cookbook, Crack of Noon. Most recently, I've been getting down with the muffins, artichokes and quiche.



As I think I've mentioned before, I'm not very good at making muffins. Despite passing the toothpick test, they almost always end up underdone in the middle when cut open. Until now. Enter Isa's Bakery Style Berry Muffins. They baked perfectly, puffed up nicely and taste amazing. They make bakeries completely obsolete in the morning.

From the outside:



Showing off the raspberries, blueberries and strawberries:



Being the savage muffin failure that I was until now, I would totally buy the book just for this recipe.

If sweet, fruity, yogurty muffins aren't your thing, how about Zucchini Spelt Muffins? They're one of your healthier muffins, but that doesn't prevent them from being damn tasty. I had to overbake them a bit to get them right, but that may just be due to my muffin disability. Despite being healthy, they're all kinds of sweet and awesome. The homeless guy in front of Grace Plaza really seemed to like them.

They're so cute and round:





If "real" food is more your thing, check out this Caramelized Onion Quiche:





When I first read the recipe, I thought "Onions? That's it? No garlic or anything? Snooze." I was so wrong. This stuff is so good. I've been eating it for lunch every day, so it's almost done and that makes me sad. It's very easy to make, though prepping the onions does take quite a while.

If you want something that looks (and sounds!) a little more impressive, how about Simple Stuffed Artichokes With Ginger And Chervil?

Ooooo steamy!





For those not in the know (like me a week ago), chervil is fancy pants, fairly hard to find, parsley. Look for it at greenmarkets. It tastes sort of like a cross between parsley and licorice (it's not strong; I hate licorice but like this anyway), and is smaller than regular parsley.

Artichoke prep is always a pain in the ass, but this isn't too bad. Removing the choke is definitely easier when you're artichoke is cut in half, but this still doesn't take a huge amount of time. It just looks like it does. The steaming definitely takes longer than the prep, and that's inactive, so if you're me, you can spend that time picking choke bits off the floor. The stuffing for these things is so good. I think I'm going to try stuffing zucchini or something with it. Something slightly less spiky than artichokes.

All is Full of Brunch

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Mine was great. I spent most of it cooking, then had a nice brunch picnic with my friends for Memorial Day.

SPOILER WARNING: The following post contains pictures and descriptions of testing recipes from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's upcoming vegan brunch book, Crack of Noon. If you want to be surprised by the book, don't click!



(all outdoor photos below this point were taken by my friend Adrienne)

For me, the most important part of brunch is potatoes. I was tempted to bring three different types, but behaved myself and stuck with two:





First was Red Flannel Hash: a nice, smoky mix of potatoes and beets, sauteed, then baked. I still don't know if I like beets (I have trouble getting past the garden smell), but I've liked them whenever I've used them in one of Isa's recipes and that's good enough for me.

We also had Samosa Mashed Potato Pancakes, which are basically just flat, doughless samosas. All the goodness of the filling, none of the hassle of making dough. Win! They're one of those recipes that I have trouble believing came out of my kitchen because it tastes so professionally restauranty. Technically, the pancakes are fried, but don't let that put you off; look how dry my pan is:



The oil is pretty much a non-issue.

No brunch would be complete without pancakes, so we had Gluten Free Buckwheat Pancakes:



They're thick and hearty and kind of healthy. Lovely topped with agave nectar and fresh berries. As you can see at the link above, you need four different kinds of flour to make them, but don't let it put you off. They're worth it and you never know when you're going to need quinoa flour (seriously).

For protein, we had Spicy Pinto Sausages and Beer Battered Tofu.





The sausages are an adaptation of the Spicy Italian Vegetarian Sausage recipe from Everyday Dish. It's super cool. You make a seitany dough, divide it up, wrap it up in tinfoil so it looks like a bunch of Tootsie Rolls, throw it in a steamer for a while, and viola! Sausages. It couldn't be any easier. And it's even forgiving of the occasional cock up (I was short one half cup vital wheat gluten). The texture is great, and the spices are serious.



The Beer Battered Tofu is a vegan twist on the fish part of fish and chips. Yup, deep frying for brunch. These were great with a bit of malt vinegar (and even without).

For something a bit more like a "normal" breakfast, we had a Mexicana Scramble. It's great, but very vegetabley. I usually think of scrambles as having more tofu than vegetables, but this is so tasty, we'll let it go.*



I felt like we should have one straight vegetable dish, so I made Poblanos Stuffed With Coriander Seed Mushrooms. If you like spicy, you'll like this. Personally, I can only eat them cold, when some of the spice is held at bay.



I also grilled up some tortillas, in case people wanted to make breakfast burritos.

For dessert, we had Pain Au Chocolat and Orange Pecan Crumb Cake.

I'm an idiot and forgot to photograph the Pain Au Chocolat. It's the easiest thing in the world to make, and it's amazingly tasty and elegant looking. It's one of those desserts that's bound to impress if you don't tell people how you did it. I filled ours with berries and I think my face died and went to heaven when I ate it.

I don't like citrusy cakes much, but the pecans and nutmeg in this one balance it out nicely. It's pretty light, so most people were able to eat a piece, even after all that brunch. Now that I'm writing about it, I'm really looking forward to the leftovers when I get home.

I used the wrong sized pan, so the shape is messed up, but you get the idea.





I had some leftover beer batter and vegetables, so I fried up some shiitake mushrooms, cauliflower and broccoli. Yum!




* After eating the Mexicana Scramble and Beer Battered Tofu, people commented that I got the texture of the tofu really firm and nice. Slimy tofu is the worst feeling in the world. The secret: if a recipe calls for either firm or extra firm tofu, go with extra firm. And if it tells you to press the tofu, press the crap out of it. Seriously. For at least an hour. If you don't have to press it, just shake it out lightly and squeeze it between your hands a bit to get out as much of the moisture as you can.

In Recovery

After all the baking I've been doing, when it came time to cook for this week, I wanted to make something fast and easy, to give myself time to recover. Healthy would be good too, but it wasn't a priority. I just wanted to get out of the kitchen before midnight, after the Mother's Day festivities (dinner and a movie - Iron Man. The whole family loved it, even my grandmother, who went in saying "I don't like that nonsense."). Chickpea Broccoli Casserole from Vegan With a Vengeance to the rescue.



If you have a food processor, the active prep time for this casserole is probably about ten minutes. But if you have one of these, don't use the slicing blade to slice the chives. You may have better luck with the S-blade, but I don't know. With the slicing blade, I ended up with really long, thin chives. And I left them that way. It's all good.

The hardest part of this was mashing all the chickpeas because I didn't use a large enough bowl. That's it. There isn't even a fancy spice blend (though I'm sure you could add it, if you wanted to). Just olive oil, vegetable broth and salt. I didn't even have to mince any garlic!

This is probably the healthiest tasting dish I've made from one of Isa's books. It tastes very good, but it sort of tastes like how you'd expect vegan food to taste, which is not what I expect from an Isa recipe. That said, with all the crap I've been eating lately, "health food" was a welcome change.

It's not the prettiest or fanciest of dishes, but it's filling (and healthy and easy) and that's good enough for me.

Dont Fear the Seitan

So I was all psyched up to make Julie Hasson's famous sausages this weekend when my friend said she'd gotten BBQ seitan at a restaurant. Follower that I am, I wanted BBQ seitan too, so I made the BBQ Seitan and Crispy Coleslaw Sandwich from Veganomicon. Isa and Terry say the sandwich is based on one they had at 'Snice and few things can recommend a recipe to me more strongly than a comparison to 'Snice, so I was sold. I made Simple Seitan, Backyard BBQ Sauce and Home-Style Potato Rolls (all from VCON), put it all together with some coleslaw (included in sandwich recipe) and a bit of Vegannaise and died and went to heaven.

I know a lot of people are wary of making seitan. After The Lambs' Brains Debacle of '08, I understand why (thanks to Trina for that visual). But this was my second time making the Simple Seitan, and it's wonderful yet again. Clearly, it wasn't beginner's luck. This is just a fool proof way to make seitan. And to prove seitan making isn't scary or difficult (just time consuming), I'm going to take you through it with pictures (I think I did this last time, too, but I definitely took more pictures this time). In case you're not interested in all that, here's what my mouth is going to see as soon as this is posted:



The beginning of making seitan isn't much different from baking. Mix your dry ingredients (in this case, vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast):



Mix your wet ingredients (oil, garlic, soy sauce and some other stuff):



Combine your wet and dry. Mix it up, knead it for a while and cut it in thirds:



Throw it in a pot with some broth, bring it to a boil, simmer for a while, drain:



Tada! Your seitan is done and ready to be used in the recipe of your choice. It was my choice to slice it up:



And grill it in a grill pan brushed with peanut oil:



I think grill marks are sexy:



I tossed the grilled seitan in the Backyard BBQ Sauce and re-grilled:



Hot grill lines:



Don't forget to make your coleslaw:



Then, slice a roll in half, give it a little shmear of Vegannaise, a drizzle of BBQ sauce if you have bigger balls than me (the Backyard BBQ Sauce is too spicy for me plain, but it's perfect in the sandwich), pile on your coleslaw, top that with seitan, squish down the top bun and have the best lunch ever. It's one of the many recipes I've found in Veganomicon that leave me thinking "I can't believe this came out of my kitchen!"

Passover, Post the Fifth

It's over! Someone pass me a bagel because Passover is officially over. Let's talk about what I ate for the last two days.



Pictured above is the Broccoli-Potato Soup with Fresh Herbs from Veganomicon. What a nice soup. Someone used the last of my dill, so I used a tablespoon or two of rosemary instead and I couldn't find dried tarragon, so I used fresh, but it was still very nice. The herbs are added at the end, so you can still taste each individual flavor instead of just having a mass of taste. Nice.

I also steamed up some asparagus with some garlic and lemon in the water, then threw it in the oven with some olive oil, salt and minced garlic. As usual, that was inhaled by my family in less than no time. I learned a valuable lesson from this holiday: to get my family to eat vegetables, all I need to do is add oil, garlic and heat. Spiffy.

For lunch today, I heated up some of the leaves left over from my artichoke hearts and made a dipping sauce for them from a bit of softened margarine, one clove minced garlic, the juice of one-quarter lemon and a bit of salt. It was my family's first time eating artichoke leaves and they seemed to like it enough (though it didn't drive them wild or anything).

Remember those Brussels sprouts I thought I'd be able to eat with dinner, just not in large quantities? I was wrong. They were SO bitter that I was only able to eat about two halves, then had to stop. Even with mashed potatoes (which make the whole world better) and the portobello mushrooms from Yellow Rose Recipes. What the hell? I have no idea how that happened and don't even know if it's possible to salvage the things. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thus concludes our five-part series on my first vegan Passover. Thank you and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Passover, Post the Fourth

What the hell does a vegan put on matzo? If you're me, everything.

Cream cheese was always my go-to matzo spread, but that's no longer an option. Peanut butter is out, so I tried almond butter this year but didn't really care for it (I don't like peanut butter either). Jelly made it a little better (less sticky), but I still didn't like it much, so I thought it'd be best to make my own spread and decided on the Roasted Garlic Artichoke Spread with Fresh Oregano from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. Here's a picture of it on it's way into my belly:



As written, the dish should take about an hour to make and should yield great, garlicky, artichokey goodness. But I couldn't find canned artichoke hearts that were kosher for Passover (and didn't even know they can be bought frozen), so I bought ten fresh artichokes and had to prep them before making the spread.

I used this page as a guideline to prepping my artichokes, putting about half a lemon, two crushed garlic cloves and a few shakes of dried parsley in the steamer water. I was using a relatively shallow pot, so the lid was slightly ajar, filling the whole house with the fragrance of the steam. I think I should keep a pot of that on the stove at all times. Seriously. It's such a great aroma.

After they steamed for 35 minutes, I pulled off all the leaves (it didn't occur to me until I was writing this to stick them in cold water before doing that, so it was slow going since I kept dropping the hot artichokes back into the bowl), set them aside to eat tomorrow, chopped up the hearts and made the spread.



Delicious? Indubitably. Spread? Not so much. It'd make a great pizza topping (there's something very pizza-esque about the taste; I think it's the dried oregano), but doesn't really stick to things like matzo, and I wanted a spread, dammit, so I broke out the potato masher and smashed the crap out of the artichoke pieces. Viola! Instead spread.

The next day, I broke out my copy of Vegan With a Vengeance and made the Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Toasted Garlic, which was super easy and fast to make, even when I left the sprouts in the oven a longer than suggested because I like everything super well done. I thought they'd get brown, but they didn't. Weird.



They taste good, but slightly bitter and horseradishy. Maybe that's because they'd been sitting in my fridge for a while, or I just didn't cook them long enough. I'll be reheating them in the oven before I eat them next, so they'll get a bit more cook time (and brownness) that way. As they are, I don't think I'd eat a bowl full of them alone (unlike the Cornmeal-Masala Roasted Brussels Sprouts from Veganomicon), but they'll be great with dinner tonight. They're also great on matzo, over the Roasted Garlic Artichoke Spread.



It's quite possible that this may be my last Passover post (four posts for eight days - not bad), but I'm not sure yet, so I'll leave you with the suspense of not knowing. Ha!

Passover, Post the Second

After I finished making everything I did on Friday, I pretty much fell into a coma and didn't wake up until around 6 PM Saturday and did nothing but eat and read for the rest of the day. Awesome. I got myself all rested up for the cookfest that was Sunday.



The first thing I realized was that I hadn't done anything with all those portobello mushrooms from Thursday night/Friday morning; they were still marinating. I grabbed them from the fridge, and at first I thought they'd frozen because the contents of the container was one solid block. Then I thought they went bad. Turned out the oil I used had solidified in the fridge. Whew! I stirred it all up a bit and it all broke up and was fine. Not realizing the Yellow Rose Recipes recipe makes way more marinade than the Veganomicon one does, I followed the Veganomicon instructions for roasting portobello mushrooms, doubling the cook time because the oven was set to 250 F and I couldn't change it. About halfway through, I realized I was being dumb and that the mushrooms would never really roast while sitting in the soup they were in. Maybe they'd boil, but not roast. So I ladled out about half the marinade, which improved things.

The texture of the mushrooms came out very good, but the taste was a little weird. Kind of sour. I love sour food, so that's fine. My parents tried them and decided to leave it all for me, though.

Next, I made the Broccoli Vinaigrette from The Jewish Vegetarian Year Cookbook. Here's the weird thing about this vinaigrette: there's no vinegar in it. There is, however, plenty of garlic and a huge portion of awesome. This is another one of those did-I-really-need-a-cookbook-to-tell-me-that sort of recipes. Super easy, yet, because it's me, full of fail. I didn't have a steamer basket for Passover, so I decided to try steaming my broccoli in a strainer. A plastic strainer. Well, I hope my mother likes her new abstract strainer sculpture. Even if she doesn't, she liked the broccoli, so that's OK. My father liked it so much he asked for seconds, even though he usually can't stand to look at the stuff. My brother had to be restrained so I'd have some left to photograph. Good stuff.

Here's a mushroom, the broccoli and the Green-Wa. A very nice meal:



I also made the Diner Home Fries from Veganomicon. Those were too good. They didn't even last until I was able to use my camera! The cooked pepper made my grandmother worry about her agita again, but it didn't bother her at all and again, my brother didn't eat around the green bits. The peppers and onions cook just long enough to be tender but still maintain some crunch, which is great when mixed in with the soft potatoes. I'd eat these every day if I wouldn't have to fight my family for them.

I really pulled out all the stops for dessert.

First, there were Tea-Poached Pears in Chocolate Sauce from Veganomicon. This is the perfect dessert to make if you're cooking for someone special and/or are serving a really heavy dinner. Most people I know are impressed by desserts that come with sauce poured on the plate. There's just something classy about it (unless it's a mess). If you have the skills to make designs around the edges, even better (I don't, but when I accidentally dripped, I decided to drip all around to make it look intentional). Also, it's nice and light. It's not really rich, or fudgy or a heavy cake. It's just fruit. Really, really good fruit. It takes a few steps to make, but it's not difficult (though whoever you make it for will probably think it is).



And I made The Conscious Kitchen's truffles. They're going to get another post all to themselves, so for now, just know they're lovely. Delicious, rich, impressive-looking and easy, though time consuming.







Don't worry, I'm not done with Passover yet!

Passover, Post the First

According to Gothamist, hospitals see "an uptick in total patient volume during Passover...[largely due to] Dizziness from [cleaning] fumes, slips from highly buffed floors or wet bathroom tiles...knife wounds from cutting food, burns from stovetops, and even fingers chopped up in blenders." I only have two cuts and a burn, so I consider myself lucky. Doubly lucky since I did most of my cooking while half asleep.

I'm a sabbath observer, so I had to make sure most of my Passover food was ready by Friday night. I took Friday off from work and started my food prep Wednesday night. And, like all responsible people would, went to see Colin Meloy Thursday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg (side note: he is the cutest thing on two feet. I stood there the whole time wishing I'd baked him cookies). Due to transport issues and my inability to shut up and leave when I'm hanging out with friends, I got home at 2 AM. In case that wasn't bad enough, my mother was still in the kitchen, so I wasn't able to get to work until 3. I ended up not sleeping at all until after dinner Friday night. Oy vey!



Almost every recipe I picked for the holiday used vegetable broth or stock, so the first thing I had to do was make the vegetable broth. Naturally, I made the one from Vegan With a Vengeance. It's such a staple in our house that even my mother made a double batch of it to feed the family and to use in all her cooking (Wednesday night was dedicated to chopping vegetables for all the broth). You'd think after making the broth over a dozen times, I'd be able to make it without screwing it up, right? Wrong. Somehow, I'm unable to tell the difference between parsley and cilantro and ended up accidentally substituting the latter for the former. I didn't even realize it until it was time to use the cilantro in another dish and I didn't have any. D'oh! Thankfully, I like cilantro, and I was just using the broth as an ingredient, not eating it straight, so it didn't make a huge difference when combined with the other ingredients in my dishes.

While that was simmering for 90 minutes, I grabbed Tofu Mom's recipe and made matzo balls. Lots of lots of matzo balls.



And started the crust and the filling for my Raw Apple Pie. I don't have a Passover blender or food processor, just a Smart Chopper, and trying to do all those dates in there nearly made me want to stick my head in next. I hate that thing. Definitely getting something better for next year. But I got it done and had plenty of time to let the filling soak and the crust firm up in the fridge. I tried to get all decorative with a flower in the middle and some golden raisins to garnish, but I don't think it worked so well. It didn't really matter since it completely fell apart when we cut into it, but it was still tasty, which is the most important part.



And I prepped my portobello mushrooms, prepared my marinade and put everything together for Yellow Rose Recipes' grilled portobellos. It was so easy to put together that I forgot I don't have a grill pan for Passover. I decided to roast them instead, after they marinated for 24 hours.



While I'm on the subject of Yellow Rose Recipes, I need to talk about the Braised Cauliflower. I know I say this about everything, but it's really the easiest recipe ever. The aroma when the cauliflower was cooking in the margarine was amazing. My mother kept asking what was in the pan and refused to believe it was just cauliflower and margarine. I was almost disappointed when I added the broth and everything started smelling like it instead of yummy, popcorny, cauliflower. As the broth cooked off, the fragrance came back, better than ever, and joy was had. My family really enjoyed this. It's a side dish that's so simple it compliments everything. Even my grandmother ate one floret and deemed it good. She never eats vegetables, so that's high praise indeed.



I wanted to make the Indian variation of the Yellow Rose Recipes Green-Wa, but couldn't find kosher for Passover curry powder. Instead, I found this handy guide to making your own spice blend that could be deemed "close enough" by some people. Those people don't include me. Not because I'm so discerning, but because I only had red pepper flakes and no matter how much grinding I did with my new mortar and pestle, I just couldn't powder them.



I used that "curry powder", substituted the coconut milk for the soy yogurt and was about to start chopping my herbs for the Green-Wa, when lo and behold! I didn't have any cilantro! Oh yeah, it was all in the soup. So I chopped up the parsley and stuck that in the quinoa instead. And I completely forgot to even add the curry powder until the very last step. I made numerous mistakes with this recipe, but it's very forgiving. The current dish is somehow almost bland, in a good way, but still burns my tongue. My brother ate loads of it; he especially liked putting it on chicken. I can't say I love the recipe as I made it, but it gave me an idea of how it would taste if I didn't completely screw it up. Will definitely try again when I'm not completely out of it.



The last thing I made before the sun set on me was Herb Roasted Potatoes from Vegan With a Vengeance. Holy crap, those are good! I took the time to chop my herbs up nice and fine and got them really well done and my family went crazy for them. Even my grandmother ate a significant portion of them, and usually just looking at spices gives her "agita", and my brother didn't even pick out the onions. Victory!



A couple more pictures from Day One:






Stay tuned for Passover Cooking: Day Two!

Know Your Pantry

It's always important to know what you have on hand. If you don't, you may have your heart set on having something for lunch, only to discover you can't have it (or have to change it) because you're missing a key ingredient.

Take Fat Free Vegan's Vegetable Fried Quinoa, for example. When deciding to make a double recipe of this, it would be really helpful to know you only have one-half cup of quinoa left at home (2 cups required). Refusing to be discouraged, I substituted rice for quinoa and it was super tasty (and easy), but I'm sure wasn't the same.



I'm trying to use up all my grains before Passover anyway, so it could have been worse. This recipe allowed me to use up the last of my quinoa and my basmati rice. One-quarter cup basmati rice. Just when I thought I was going to have to get take out for lunch last week, I found a bag of brown rice with more than one and a quarter cups in it. I was ready to rock.

Quinoa has a shorter cook time than rice, but I threw it all in together anyway, so it took a bit longer to prepare than written. Thankfully, the extra cooking didn't make the quinoa gross. I think that may be because the quinoa didn't really get overcooked since so much of the water had been absorbed by the rice by the time it would have been a concern.

I used baby carrots because I'm lazy like that. I also used the whole bok choy, not just the leaves; I didn't want to look for something to do with them. Both the carrots and bok choy stalks contributed a really nice crunch to the dish.

Overall, I really like this recipe. It's relatively healthy, simple, quick and tasty. It will definitely become a staple when I start having staples (since going vegan, I've made something new almost every time I've cooked and hope to continue the tradition for quite some time).

Meal Fit For a King

Damn. I can't believe I've been keeping this blog for so long and still haven't fixed the layout. It's so ugly. I swear I'll get around to it one day. Really. Honest.

Thankfully, none of you are here for my graphic design skills (or the lack thereof), you're here for food.

Have I mentioned how great Yellow Rose Recipes is? Not today? Well, it's great. Even today. Every day. The last day I used it, I made the Pasta E Fagioli and White Beans and Kale. It was a meal fit for a king...or at least a Soprano.



The Pasta Fazool was great. I had a load of fusilli on hand, so I didn't bother buying the recommended twisty pasta. I guess we can call it Fusilli Fazool. Fazooli? Whatever. Unfortunately, my local Whole Foods didn't have the dry beans needed, so I went with canned. I didn't add any salt, though, so it was still good. I topped it with some of the vegan parm from the same book, and it was delightful.

Remember my spinach confusion and the suggestion I try kale instead? I did. I LOVE it. I bought more than needed to make the White Beans and Kale and have been using it as a base for salads ever since. Hooray for kale!

Also, hooray for this recipe. The white beans really complement the kale, which is even tastier than usual after marinating in lemon juice for hours. It also takes about ten seconds to put together (kale doesn't cook that long), so it's a great side to make after work or on a busy day. Please to be eating this. You will thank me (but really, thank Joanna. She made a wonderful book full of awesomeness).

Seitan the Second

Many moons ago, I tried the Simple Seitan recipe from Veganomicon with much success. More recently, I tried the Seitan Cutlet recipe from the same book with significantly less awesome results. However, I paired it with the fantastic Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes so all was not lost.



I don't know if it was the nutritional yeast in the Simple Seitan that made the difference, but this seitan looked and felt different right from the start. It was very elastic and wouldn't really knead, even when I added some extra water. When it was time to put the cutlets in the baking pan, I couldn't even flatten them out into cutlet shapes; they just snapped right back to being blobs.

When I tried to eat them, cutting was a chore and they stretched almost as much as hot melted cheese (though they got less stretchy after sitting in the fridge for a while). I was able to feel the lemon zest in them, but didn't know that was what it was at first, and kept picking it out of my mouth. Even when I knew what it was, it still felt gross in my mouth. I made these a few weeks ago and still have four (of twelve) in the fridge. I ended up ordering take out on two days because I didn't want to eat these. I suspect the last four will go in the trash, but I'm hoping some sort of saving inspiration will strike before that happens.

Spinach confuses me. For about a billion years, I was told spinach is high in iron and if I'm not going to eat meat, I have to eat my spinach and my broccoli. Then I read that spinach contains a compound that blocks iron absorption. The more I Googled, the more confused I got, so I brought the question to the PPK and here's what I learned, in brief:

Cooking the spinach helps break down the compound that blocks iron absorption.
Vitamin C aids iron absorption so eat it with tomatoes or orange juice or something.
Kale is better*.

This recipe gave me two of the three: the spinach was cooked and some tomatoes were thrown in, so I think it was OK, ironwise. That's good news because it's amazing, tastewise. It's chock full of onions and garlic and awesome. And it's super fast to make, so please do.

When good seitan goes bad:



Doesn't that look tempting (the correct answer is no)?



*At the time I made this dish, I hadn't cooked kale yet, but I have now and they were correct. I now love kale. It'll be a June wedding.

Yellow Rose Ridiculousness

Ridiculously delicious, that is.

All my cooking was from Yellow Rose Recipes this week. I made the Asparagus with Spinach and Artichoke Cream Sauce, Kasha Varnishkes and Mushroom Gravy (to top the kasha). NOM!



That up there may not look like much, but it's the Asparagus with Spinach and Artichoke Cream Sauce and it is DIVINE! I didn't really expect to like the sauce much because it has quite a bit of nutritional yeast in it, but you don't taste the nutritional yeast in this at all. It's just creamy goodness. I think this is my favorite use of nutritional yeast to date. I was home alone when I made this, plated it, photographed it and ate it. Since I was alone and this sauce was SO good, I did something I've never done before: I licked the plate clean. I've had this as part of my lunch every day since and it takes every bit of willpower I have to refrain from licking the container I bring it to work in.

This is another dish that looks and tastes impressive but is super easy and pretty fast to make. Also, it makes a lot. The recipe calls for two pounds of asparagus. Well, I've eaten all my asparagus and still have about a third of the sauce left. So I'm picking up more asparagus tomorrow. I'm always pleased when I can stretch out my sauces more than expected. It makes me feel virtuous for not abusing the added fat, calories, etc.

For those not in the know, kasha varnishkes is a pretty standard Jewish dish. It's basically farfalle with buckwheat. Kasha is another word for buckwheat. Varnishkes is another word for damn tasty*. The recipe adds cumin to the mix, which is not standard, but it adds a nice kick to it. I've always loved kasha varnishkes and was sad when my mother pointed out that all the store-bought ones are made with egg noodles. Now I can make it better than the appetizing section of any kosher supermarket. Score for the vegans!

(random fact: another popular Jewish dish that is often eaten side-by-side with kasha varnishkes is egg barley. Egg barley does not actually contain eggs and the store-bought type is usually vegan. Go figure!)

Another way Joanna de-traditionalized the dish (which is great. I've been eating the same damn thing for 27 years!) was the addition of mushroom gravy. In all my years of eating this stuff, I'd never had it with gravy. This was a great idea. And her gravy takes about five seconds to make and tastes spectacular. I don't know if this is always the case, but for me, it tasted even better the second day. I think I added too much lemon juice, but by the next day, all the flavors merged together into a pool of awesome. I also kept my mushroom pieces pretty big (I used a pre-sliced mushroom blend), so it's more like a sauteed mushroom topping than a gravy, but that's how I like it. The book suggests doubling the gravy recipe to go with this, but I've been getting by just fine with the single recipe.



Detail of the buckwheat and bow ties:



All together now:




* Kidding!

The End of the Affair

I got so many cookbooks during the holiday season that it feels like eons since I've made anything from my favorite one, Veganomicon. I almost feel dirty. Like I've been having one night stands with all my other cookbooks. This weekend, I was back to my Veganomicon and I'll never forsake my darling again!

I made the Red Lentil Cauliflower Curry and Sauteed Collard Greens.

OH. MY. GOD. THAT CURRY! AMAZING!



If you have this book, go make this curry right now. If you don't have it, go buy it, then make it. If you can't afford it, tell me and I'll get it for you for your birthday...or just send you some curry. YOU MUST HAVE THIS CURRY!

I put it over basmati rice and every forkful has me thinking "I made this? Me? This is crazy. I know I didn't get it from a restaurant, so I must have made it. WOW." I used purple cauliflower, which is all kinds of pretty, but I think the parsnips really make it. The sweetness of the parsnips combined with the spiciness of the dish is just crazy good. I could eat it by the pot.

The collard greens are really good too. My father has said he hates collard greens many times. He almost refused to taste these, but I finally talked him into it and he was shocked. He works in the food industry, so he had to know what I did to make them so good, so he could go tell the cook what to do (I've seen the collard greens they make where he works. They start frozen and are boiled or steamed to death. The look more like collard greys. Nasty.). I think the liquid smoke is what really gave them their kick (I didn't have the seitan broth mentioned in the recipe, so I used vegetable broth, shoyu and liquid smoke). Yum.

As you can see, my Veganomicon reunion was a happy one. I'm not allowing myself to buy any new cookbooks until I've made five things from each I already own, so you can expect cooking from some of my other books in the coming weeks, but I shall never stray to far from my Nomnomnomicon, I swear.

Im a Hero!

Either I'm an ordinary person with an extraordinary ability, or I finally started playing with my Giftmas present from the awesome Paula Dines: How to Garnish by Chef Harvey. You be the judge.



I'm a huge dork, so the first thing I had to try when I got this garnishing book was the tomato rose. It got a lot easier when I used a sharper knife. It'd probably look even nicer if I'd broken out my good knives, but I didn't want to spend that much time on cleanup. It's a good thing to know for my next (first) fancy dinner party, though.

Next, I tried to make cucumber crabs. These didn't go so well. I don't know if I didn't cut the legs thin enough or didn't leave them soaking long enough, but they all snapped when I tried to bend them. Oh well. Another time.

The cucumber shark and zucchini whale were great fun and don't look half bad for my first try. They're sort of smiley, like Disney sea life. At my friend Lauren's suggestion, I had to float them out in a quinoa ocean. Good times.

Tonight's dinner will be the most oddly-shaped salad ever. Which is a far better way to end a long weekend than with a mountain of baked goods, really.

Quin on Quinoa*

Last weekend, as an antidote to my ten thousand pounds of baked goods, I did my cooking from Fatfree Vegan. I made the Creamy Herbed Coleslaw with Grape Tomatoes and Quinoa and Red Lentil Cutlets. Yum!



I had half a head of cabbage left over from the previous week's Garden Vegetable and Bean Soup and decided to put it to use in coleslaw. The recipe calls for eight ounces of cabbage. Shredded, my half head made eight cups. For people outside the US, eight cups cabbage = one metric assload. So I brought it with me to the previously mentioned holiday celebration. It turned into a potluck of sorts and one of my friends was nice enough to veganize the recipe she brought (which was awesome and I will definitely make it soon and post all about it). The tomatoes really made the coleslaw into something special. Unfortunately, when I bought them, I didn't realize just how much slaw I'd be making, so I didn't have as many tomatoes as I could have. D'oh! I definitely want to try this again with different vinegars and more tomatoes.

The cutlets are really good, too. I doubled the recipe and it made enough to eat some every weekday, share some with my family on Friday night and still have some left. They'd probably be really good on a bun with some lettuce, tomatoes, pickle and ketchup. Sort of like those "veggie patties" that were the only vegetarian option at some restaurants back in the early 90s. They always tasted good but were disappointing compared to what everyone else was eating. These are not disappointing because you make them yourself.

This was my first time working with quinoa, and now I see what all the fuss is about. It couldn't be easier to make and seems really versatile. And since it's a seed, not a grain or a legume, it's technically kosher for passover (unfortunately, some say it's not because it's processed in plants with regular flour), so I may actually have something to eat this April. Wooha!



* For the unaware, quinoa is pronounced keen-wah. If you didn't know that, you probably thought my name is Quin. Incorrect!

Ratatouille: Not for Rats

No, I didn't see the movie, but I made fatfreevegan.com's Roasted Ratatouille a couple of weeks ago and it was quite good.



I doubled the recipe and ended up with a metric assload of roasted vegetables. Seriously. I still have some left and have no idea what to do with it because no one wants to eat it anymore. We all have it coming out of our ears.

I liked this because it wasn't vegetablescookedinsauce, where everything tastes the same. It was nice to be able to taste the flavor of each vegetable and the grape tomatoes really made the whole thing pop (I'm not a fan of cooked tomatoes, but I actually looked forward to getting a forkful with tomato in it from this dish). I also used yellow and orange peppers, so the dish had a lot of color going on.

Raw:



Cooked:

Baked Beet Cakes

I've had leftover beets and shallots and and Horseradish Dill Sour Cream and things from when I made the Veganomicon Autumn Latkes sitting in the fridge for a while, so I decided to try Fat Free Vegan's baked adaptation (scroll about halfway down, they're shaped like hearts) last Wednesday.

For some reason, my brain just didn't want to follow the instructions. It seemed to think that since it had already done beet cakes once, it knew what it was doing and didn't need to pay attention to what was printed out.

It was wrong.



I kinda just shredded all the vegetables and let them cook in the water together. And my breadcrumbs were ground so fine they looked like they were flour again (I did them in advance, in the blender, because I didn't have a food processor yet. Shredding the vegetables in the processor was a DREAM). And I don't think I chopped the fennel finely enough. I may have made them a bit too big and didn't have them in the oven long enough too.

Despite all that, they were still edible. Not my favorite things, but I ate them for lunch two days in a row.

So now I know: even when I fuck them up, beets are OK.

This is the recipe as printed, not as I made it.

Beet Cakes

2 cups peeled shredded beets (about 3 average sized beets)
1 cup peeled shredded carrot (or parsnip) (about 1 average sized carrot)
1 cup peeled shredded sweet potato (1 average sized sweet potato)
1 shallot, finely chopped (about ¼ cup)
½ teaspoon salt
several dashes fresh black pepper
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, chopped (or caraway)
1/2 cup rolled oats, quick cooking
1 cup homemade whole wheat bread crumbs, plus additional for covering

Took the grated beet and carrot and just about covered with water and cooked for 10 min until it was soft. Drained well and reserved the liquid to use for the sweet potato. Cut this into smallish cubes, cooked just covered with the liquid for 15 minutes until soft, drained (reserving liquid - I hate to throw away cooking water if I can find some use for it) and mashed with a little of the liquid. Mixed these two together and let cool for 10 minutes. To this I added the shallot and seasonings as well as 1/2 C rolled oats (quick cooking but not instant) and 1 C Homemade WW breadcrumbs. Mixed well until combined - it was a little moist but not sticky. I used a 1/4 C measuring cup and scooped out 1/4 C fulls which made a nice patty shape, covered in breadcrumbs, flattened a little and baked on a tray lined with tinfoil for 30 min at 400F, turning them after 15 minutes. They didn't brown up or anything but were very good!!

Happy Channukkah!

I still have food from last week to discuss, but the holiday is almost over and I want to post this before I miss it.



Vegetable Menorahs! A cute idea, executed less than skillfully. I probably should have asked someone who can cut in a straight line to do it.

Made of butternut squash roasted with rosemary and thyme, zucchini roasted with garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper and asparagus grilled with garlic and salt, according to the recommendations in Veganomicon.

And in case anyone's wondering, my parents got me a food processor for Channukkah and I love it. My life has changed already!

(kinda)

My First "Ethnic" Dish

I can't believe I'm still posting about what I made Sunday on Friday.

Anyway, before I cooked the Big Family Dinner (now to be known as the BFD), I made my food for the week: Cornmeal-Masala Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Spiced Yogurt Sauce over basmati rice, all from Veganomicon. This was my first time cooking with anything beyond the typical parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. I'd picked up a couple of packets of garam masala at The Brooklyn Kitchen (they have a nice selection of spices, one tablespoon for $1. That way you get to work with the spice a little and see if you like it before committing to a whole jar. I love the idea. I used less than one packet in everything I made Sunday, so it may seem expensive, but it's actually not a bad value for spices that aren't usually used by the boatload) and was really excited to have the opportunity to use some.



See that picture up there? I wish you could taste it through your screen. Hell, I wish I could taste it through my screen because I ate the last of it on Wednesday and could go for more right this minute. I don't know when I'm going to make it again, though, because I'm trying to get myself to keep trying new things. But I will be making the Spiced Yogurt Sauce on Sunday to accompany a vegetable plate for my family's Channukkah party (I'll also be making other things, but my mother is bringing a dairy dip for the vegetables, so I decided to whip up something quick that I can eat too).

My family was not pleased when I told them I was making Brussels sprouts. My mother complained that the whole house would stink while my father whined that he hates Brussels sprouts (he had no answer when I pointed out this was to be my lunch for work, not for him. He's gotten used to having some of whatever I cook, which is great, really). I told them to shut up and wait until it was all done before complaining.

I'm not sure if I did the Brussels sprouts right. When I mixed everything together for the crumbs, I didn't get crumbs. I got a mush similar to the consistency of matzo ball batter (is it called batter?). I added some extra cornmeal and chickpea flour to dry it out a bit before adding it to the sprouts. I also kept them in the oven significantly longer than indicated in the recipe. This was partly because my mother kept saying "They can't be done, I don't smell them yet!" and partly because the crumbs didn't seem to get brown. I took them out of the oven when the sprouts' top leaf layer started scraping off when I mixed them around. I don't know if that's considered overdone, but I really liked the texture they came out, so I think I'll be using that as my personal guideline from now on.

The consistency of the sprouts was great, but the crumb topping was sometimes a bit too gritty for me. Again, I'm not sure if I did something wrong, but I felt like it was exfoliating my teeth. It wasn't uncomfortable to eat, but it did feel a bit weird. I probably just need to get used to it.

Tastewise, it was AMAZING. My father tasted one sprout after telling me a long story about his traumatic childhood sprout-related event and started laughing because he liked it so much (but not as much as the asparagus) and couldn't understand how something could taste like such crap when one person prepares it and so much awesome when someone else does. My mother really liked them and kept going on and on about how they taste like they came from a restaurant. My brother kept coming down to the kitchen to try to steal more while I was preparing dinner.

The Spiced Yogurt Sauce takes about 15 seconds to make and tastes just like the sauce you get at an Indian restaurant. I wanted to drink it out of the prep bowl (but didn't!). I've been putting it on everything, all week (it's great with the Brussels sprouts, other vegetables, bread and melba toast but didn't suit rice cakes so well).

And I love basmati rice. It's so buttery and fluffy and...perfect.

The funny part of all this is that as I started cooking, I asked my mother if she likes Indian food. She said no, of course. As soon as I opened the packet of garam masala, I thought "Oho! That's Indian food, right there, in this packet. This is going to be great" and held it up for my mother to smell. She liked it. And when I cooked everything, put it all together and had her taste it, she liked it. I asked her what happened, I thought she doesn't like Indian food. She shrugged and replied: "And I thought you couldn't make matzo ball soup without chicken and eggs, that asparagus is gross and cheese made from nuts is disgusting."

Plated:



Raw:



Braaaaaaains:

Tofurky!

I made a Tofurky Roast (mine came stuffed but gravyless and was meant to serve four) on Sunday. I also made a bunch of other things, but this post is dedicated to the Tofurky.



That there is really what you see when you take it out of the box. Looks kind of like a football, kind of like a ham, and just kind of funny, doesn't it?

It doesn't look much more appetizing unwrapped, though:



The box tells you to surround the roast with one quartered onion, two quartered potatoes and two carrots. That leaves you with really enormous potato pieces, so I halved some of mine again.



Then comes the "baste": one tablespoon olive oil, three tablespoons soy sauce (I use nama shoyu, even on this) and some dried sage. Mmmm.



Then you cover it up and throw it in the oven for an hour and fifteen minutes. When it comes out, it looks something like this:



Add more baste, put it back in the oven for ten minutes, uncovered, and (if one is to believe the packaging) it's done:



It kinda looked done and felt done when I stuck a fork in it (not that I really knew what "done" would look and feel like), but the vegetables were nowhere near cooked, so I wrapped the Tofurky in foil and left it on the stove top to be warmed by the heat of the oven and the pots on it while the vegetables cooked.

I make fun of Tofurky and similar mass-produced synthetic meats a lot. I call them science experiments, Igor food and other insulting things. But look at the Tofurky's ingredients. I can pronounce everything on that list. They even go the extra mile to let you know their stuff isn't genetically engineered. Pretty responsible, I think.

I served the Roast as part of a family dinner of sorts on Sunday night (more on that later). My brother was first to try it and exclaimed "Wow! It's turkey!" I was shocked! "Really?!?" "No, but it still tastes good," he laughed, finished off his portion and asked for more. My mother actually liked the included stuffing better than what we had at Thanksgiving. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it too. So much that I spent all of Monday looking forward to eating the leftovers when I got home from work (with a biscuit, not in a sandwich). It was still tasty after two minutes in the microwave. I don't think the texture changed much either.

Carving the Roast (which kept rolling away until my brother held on to it while I cut):



Sliced. Mmmm....stuffing.



Looks kind of like a hard-boiled egg, doesn't it?



Thus concludes our photo essay on the Tofurky Roast. Have a good night, get home safe and don't forget to tip your bartender.