vegan mofo: trying out my new cookbooks

Last week I mentioned that I had received The Vegan Table, Urban Vegan, and Quick & Easy Vegan Comfort Food. Well, of course I had to try all three out ASAP.

First up, Quick & Easy Vegan Comfort Food. I had some spinach that had to be used up so I elected to make the spinach and cheeze scramble. I added about double the spinach called for, but it cooks down so small that it hardly seemed like I was eating such a huge amount of spinach. I really liked the seasoning in this recipe. I made it a wee bit more spicy, but other than followed the recipe.

I had just bought some TVP, so the sloppy joes in Urban Vegan called my named. I omitted the oil as well as the sugar. I feel like I really can’t judge the recipe because the TVP I bought, while cheaper than my regular brand, is so gross. It smells bad, it has a weird taste, it’s just ick. I learned my lesson, back to my old brand I go. From what I could tell, the sauce recipe was really good…even though I omitted the sugar it was still plenty sweet for me. But then again I don’t like overly sweet sloppy joe recipes. I didn’t have any buns, so I served it on a sprouted tortilla.

Finally, The Vegan Table. I made the eggplant and carmelized onion “lasagna.” I had my doubts about this recipe….olives and raisins together? Are you mad? But I went with it and was pleasantly surprised…it was actually really good! The taste is so complex, there are so many different taste sensations going on…but they harmonize. This would probably be fabulous in the summer with fresh tomatoes, eggplant, and basil, but ah well. We do what we can here in the north.

vegan mofo: winter already?!

Look what happened yesterday.

And to make matters worse, it’s supposed to snow all weekend. What?! This is way too early for snow, even for the Canadian prairies! The leaves haven’t even fallen from the trees yet! Sigh…

Anyway, once I trudged home through the snow, I decided to use up some veggies by roasting them in the oven. Here is some eggplant, zucchini, and red pepper. I also threw in some tofu.

I also tried out a new type of squash (well, new to me). The lady at the farmer’s market called it an “African squash.” A Google search just revealed recipes for squash and yams and I was unable to find out too much information about it. But anyway, it’s about the size of a baseball and dark green, as you can see here:It was extremely difficult to cut in half…I ended up getting my knife stuck more than once. I roasted it up in the oven and to my surprise it was kind of stringy like spaghetti squash…in fact, it pretty much tasted like spaghetti squash too. Delicious loaded with salt and pepper.

Well, week 2 of Vegan MoFo is over! I shall return on Monday with tales of our Thanksgiving dinner. It’s just the two of us this year though so I am trying to scale back. Really, I am. *cough*

30 Day Detox: days 18-23

Wow, I’ve been bad at keeping this thing up to date. Such is life once school begins again.

Day 18

Before I went to the gym I had a handful of raisins. When I got back I had a smoothie with protein powder, flax, psyllium husk, frozen berries, and soy milk. Later for a snack I had a peach.

For lunch I had a salad with mixed greens, lemon tofu, and balsamic vinaigrette. I also had 2 nectarines.

That night for dinner, I had the Moroccan Tagine with Spring Vegetables from Vegan with a Vengeance (in keeping up with the PPK Cookbook Challenge). This was sooooo good…even my veggie hating husband liked it. I served it on top of quinoa.

Day 19

For breakfast I had another smoothie with frozen berries, protein powder, flax, psyllium husk, and soy milk. I also had a peach.

That day for lunch I had a very similar salad as Day 18 greens, lemon tofu, and balsamic vinaigrette. I also had 2 nectarines. Later on for a snack I had some kale chips.

For supper that night I made the mango summer rolls from Vegan with a Vengeance. I gotta say, this recipe didn’t really do it for me. I have issues with fruit in savoury dishes. I thought I would try these to branch out, especially since we’re in the middle of a heat wave and these didn’t require me to do much cooking. Anyway, a lot of other folk on the internet seem to love these so I think it’s just me and my weird fruit issues.

Day 20

I was out of things to make smoothies with, so after the gym I had protein powder mixed with water, as well as a bowl of oat bran with agave and cinnamon. This was okay, but I missed my morning fruit.

For lunch I had a salad with spinach, romaine, radish, quinoa, tofu, and balsamic vinaigrette, as well as an orange. Later on for a snack I had two peaches and some cucumber.

It was still so hot that night that I didn’t have it in me to cook…I had some refried beans cold out of the can mixed with salsa. That’s right, I ate cold beans out of a can. And I liked it.

Day 21

I was still out of smoothie making materials, so for breakfast I had a tofu scramble loaded with veggies (onion, carrot, broccoli, mushrooms, and spinach) as well as an orange.

For lunch I had a salad with romaine, radish, broccoli, carrot, snap peas, chickpeas, and balsamic vinaigrette, and another orange.

For supper that night I made the braised cauliflower with three seed sauce from Vegan with a Vengeance. This was surprisingly really good. I always passed by it when flipping through the cookbook without giving it a second thought. The only reason I made it is that I had a head of cauliflower to use up ASAP. I also made a chickpea soup, based on the punk rock chickpea gravy recipe.
Day 22

Before I went to the gym I had a banana. When I got back I had a smoothie with protein powder, flax, psyllium husk, soy milk, and frozen fruit. Later on I had a nectarine.

For lunch I had leftover chickpea soup and braised cauliflower. I usually don’t have a problem with leftovers, but I did not care for the cauliflower the next day at all…I couldn’t finish it.

That night for supper I made the corn chowder from Vegan with a Vengeance. This certainly wasn’t photogenic so I won’t make you look at a picture of ugly soup. This was alright, but I think it could use some tweaking. It was a tad too sweet for me, I think next time I would omit the maple syrup.

Day 23

I went for a really long bike ride in the morning. When I got back I had a banana and some protein powder mixed with soy milk.

Later for lunch I made myself a salad with greens, sauteed asparagus, roasted tomatoes, tofu basil ricotta, and olives. I also had a peach.

That afternoon I had some cherries and a nectarine for a snack. For supper I made the Ethiopian Seitan and Peppers from Vegan with a Vengeance…but subbing tofu for the seitan. This was alright…I honestly don’t think I would make it again. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t the most flavourful thing ever either. Perhaps it’s better with the seitan. I also had a pear and some more cherries.

Well only one more week to go for the detox!

Next week’s cookbook challenge is Vegan Brunch.

30 Day Detox: days 3 and 4

Day 3

For breakfast I had a sliced banana with blueberries and soy milk, along with a clementine. Yum, I love fresh fruit for breakfast!

We’re still in the depths of a cold/rainy spell and so I really wanted something warm for lunch. I roasted some eggplant, zucchini, beets, carrot, and half of a tomato that was floating around in my fridge. I put this on top of baby greens and romaine and topped with a maple mustard dressing I threw together. I also had the last of the leftover chickpea broccoli casserole but I will spare you more pictures of that.

For supper I made Susan Voisin’s smoky refried bean soup. I adore this soup so much…I posted about it awhile ago. For dessert I had the last of my blueberries.

Day 4

Before I went to the gym I scarfed down a banana. When I got home I made a smoothie with protein powder, mixed frozen berries, soy milk, psyllium husk, and flax. I put it in a bowl to eat with a spoon because I saw someone else on a blog (can’t remember who! sorry!) do it and I was curious about it.

I was really hungry that morning and as a snack I had another bowl of the refried bean soup.

For lunch I had a salad with romaine, baby greens, sprouts, broccoli, snap peas, radish, carrot, and tofu with a vinaigrette that had rice vinegar, mustard, and some nutritional yeast.

That morning I received a package from Robert Cheeke. Robert was kind enough to include many free samples, including a VEGA Vibrancy Bar, which I had for my afternoon snack. These bars sort of remind me of a Lara bar, but are less sweet. It was pretty good.

For supper that night I had even more of the refried bean soup (can you tell I really love that soup?) which I didn’t take another picture of. I also had some swiss chard sauteed with garlic. The two dishes didn’t go together at all but I wanted to use up the chard.

That night for a snack I had some snap peas.

EDIT: Aha, thanks for jogging my memory Nora! It’s Nora over at Pride & Vegudice that eats her smoothies in a bowl!

au revoir!

Alright so I’m headed to Montreal tomorrow and I will be gone for a week. The main purpose of my trip is to attend a conference, but I’m staying an extra few days to do some sight seeing. Which will of course include a stop (or two) at Aux Vivres for some delicious vegan food.

In the meantime, here is a picture of some zucchini pasta I made. This isn’t raw. I used some marinara from the freezer (based on the Veganomicon recipe). For the “noodles,” I cut the zucchini into pieces resembling pasta, boiled for 1 minute, then drained. Even the bf liked it. He’s not the biggest veggie lover in the world so I was pretty surprised.

even more misc. foodstuffs

It seems as though my posts these days are always just a hodge podge of misc. foodstuffs. Well, keeping with that theme, here are some things I’ve eaten the past few days. First up, eggplant paprikash from Susan V. This was really good! Susan served her’s over pasta and next time that’s probably what I will do as well. Instead of using her sour cream recipe I used the last little bit of Tofutti Sour Supreme I had in my fridge. Even the omni bf liked this stuff. Well, as much as he ever likes a vegetable dish.

Next up, I revived the baked chimichangas. I took some refried beans, red pepper, tomato, corn, and green onion and rolled it up in a sprouted tortilla. Here it is before being rolled up:

I rolled it up, sprayed it with cooking spray, and baked it at 400 F for about 15-20 minutes. Delicious! I topped it off with some salsa and hot sauce and ate the leftover filling on the side:

I had some zucchini in my fridge that had to be used up. I remembered Susan V posting a microwave potato chip recipe and I was curious to see if it would work with zucchini. Like she says, there is a fine line between crispy and burnt. My second batch was inedible. The first batch was pretty tasty though. Not sure if I would make it again as I’m not much of a chip person, but I’m glad I gave it a try.

Fat Tuesday Eats

Since yesterday was Fat Tuesday, I decided to try my hand at some Cajun cooking. Living way up here in Canada, Cajun food isn’t something I’m very experienced with. First up is Happy Herbivore’s Cajun Chickpea Cakes. These babies are delicious! The mixture was pretty dry and crumbly and wouldn’t stick together, so I added some additional tamari as well as some water, worked like a charm. I simply adored the spice combo in these cakes. Since they are fat free they are a bit dry, like she says, so I suggest dipping them in something.

We also had Susan Voisin’s Eggplant Creole. This was good, but I feel like it’s missing a flavour. However, I have no idea what that flavour is since I know nothing of Louisiana cooking. Maybe my ratio of tomato to eggplant was off? Mine certainly turned out a lot saucier than her’s looks in the picture. Not sure. The heat was there, but it lacked a certain “zip.” That being said, it was still quite good and we enjoyed the nice fresh veggies. I served this over quinoa instead of rice.

Vegan MoFo: Sweet & Sour & Spicy Eggplant

Last night for dinner I made a sweet & sour eggplant dish, with some cubed up left-over tofu. I’m not sure why. Generally speaking I don’t really care for sweet and sour dishes. I never have. It’s like my palette can’t handle two different tastes at once, it’s weird. At this point I was playing around with the dish and added a bit of sriracha, so then it was sweet and sour AND spicy. I think this dish has potential, but the recipe, or lack thereof, isn’t quite share-able just yet.

Vegan MoFo: Eggplant Paremsan…sans parmesan

We bought a few gorgeous looking eggplants at the farmers market last time we were there. One of my favourite vegetarian (pre-vegan) dishes was eggplant parmesan. I mean…fried eggplant smothered in cheese…what could be better? Well I wanted to try again at making a vegan version. Last time I tried baking the eggplant and while it was good, it just wasn’t AS good.

So I looked around and found this recipe on VegWeb. It was pretty good. I didn’t really follow the directions for the sauce…I just kind of did my own thing to make a ragout type tomato sauce. We both loved it without the cheese…but I think a little mozza Follow Your Heart wouldn’t hurt anything.

And now that I’ve sat in my lab on campus blogging about eggplant, I suppose it’s time to get back to work.

Cheezy Jalapeno Cauliflower Bisque

We had a few jalapenos in the fridge that I wanted to use up, so I decided what a perfect time to try cheeze jalapeno cauliflower soup from the PPK. Based on the reviews, and my own love for thick, creamy soups, I did change the recipe a bit. Excuse the bad picture, but we all know I am inept at taking soup pictures.

Cheezy Jalapeno Cauliflower Bisque (Adapted from PPK)
-1 head cauliflower, chopped into small florets
-2 tbsp. olive oil
-1 large onion, diced
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-3 jalapenos, seeded and minced (keep some of the seeds if you want it spicier)
-1 1/2 tsp. salt
-2 tsp. paprika
-1/8 tsp. turmeric
-1 tsp. cumin
-4 c. water + 1 veggie bouillon cube
-2 c. water
-2 tbsp. arrowroot (or cornstarch)
-1 c. nutritional yeast
-1/2 c. frozen corn kernels
-1/4 c. salsa
-1/2 tsp. lemon juice
-2 tsp. dijon mustard

1. In pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and saute until tender (about 5 min.). Add garlic, jalapeno, salt, paprika, turmeric, and cumin. Saute for additional 2-3 min. Add 4 c. water and the bouillon cube. Cover with a lid and bring to a boil.

2. Mix arrowroot and 2 c. water together in a separate bowl/measuring cup/whatever. Stir until dissolved. Add this to the soup. Also add the nutritional yeast. Stir until dissolved. Lower to a simmer. Once simmering, add the cauliflower and corn kernels. Cover and let simmer for 20 minutes, or until cauliflower is quite tender. Towards the end, add the salsa.

3. In batches, transfer the soup to a blender and blend for a few seconds. You don’t want it to be completely pureed, I like to still have some chunks of veggies in there. Alternatively, just use an immersion blender in the soup pot. Once it is blended, transfer back to the soup pot and heat the soup back to temperature. Taste to see if the salt/pepper/spice suits you. If not, tinker around with it. When done, serve.

Serves 4.

I think this soup would also work quite well with potatoes instead of cauliflower. That would definitely make it more filling. I ate just this soup for dinner (along with bread) and found I was hungry again in a little while. It’s definitely a soup to be eaten along with something else.