Cumin Quinoa

Cook  1 cup quinoa (2 cups water will be needed)

While quinoa is cooking, in your big frying pan, the one with high walls, heat about 2 tablespoons olive oil.
Add 2 cloves pressed garlic.
1 can corn
1 can chickpeas
1 cup frozen peas
1 carrot, peeled and diced

Add quinoa when it is done.  Add another tbsp olive oil.  If things start drying out, add a little more.

Add spices:
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp coriander
2 tbsp cumin
grind in some pepper, maybe about 10-15 cranks
3 tsp salt, add more to taste

Sweet Potato Pancakes

I got the base for these from the weekly Meatout Monday email I receive and served it at my Winter Solstice Party last Tuesday.  (I'd recommend signing up for the emails to get weekly recipes and news. Vegan outreach is another good place.)

4 cups of grated sweet potatoes, packed  (about 3 or 4 sweet potatoes)
2 Tbsp grated yellow onion, drained of excess juice  (about 1 or 2)
1 Tbsp diced fresh parsley (dried works in a pinch)
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Add all ingredients in a large bowl and mix everything.  Add vegetable oil to a skillet and heat it.  Take approximatley 1/4 cup handfuls and roll/flatten them into disks and then put them into the frying pan.  Press on them with a spatula to help them hold together better.  Cook until brown, flip, and then cook the other side til brown.  If it start to fall apart a little bit, push with the spatula and let it cook a little longer.  Each side takes about 4 minutes.  Repeat until all the mixture is gone.

Christmas Eve Menu 2010

Last night I made Christmas eve dinner for my family (8), neighbor, and 2 friends.  Here's what I made:

Guacamole with tortilla chips
Roasted Garlic on French bread

Lasagna
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Cumin Quinoa

Vegetable Soup
Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Apple Crisps

For  my parents and older attendees, it was their first time having a full vegan meal.  My mom told me she could eat vegan a lot more often if it was like that.  My grandma said she was worried about my nutrition when I first became vegan, and she thought all the food must be bland, but now she changed her mind.  That's why I love sharing my food with everyone.  It makes it fun to surprise people.

Thanksgiving Menu 2010

So I went a little crazy for thanksgiving, and even though only 4 people came I still made enough food for about 25 people.  I sent everyone home with a tupperware of food, and I still had leftovers for about a week.  Here's a list of what I made, with links to recipes I've already posted, and I'll hopefully be posting the rest soon.

Appetizer:
Stuffed Mushrooms
Hot Apple Cider

Entrees:
"Chicken" Pot Pie
Mashed Potatoes
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Quinoa loaf (good with mushroom gravy)
Green Bean Casserole
Candied Squash
Rice Pilaf and Apple Sage Sausage

Desserts:
Blueberry Cheesecake
Apple Crisps
Oreo Pie
Vegan Jello (you can get it at whole foods or vegan websites like veganstore.com or veganessentials.com)

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

So I went with some friends the other day to a restaurant called Old Town Social, and I got these really delicious  roasted Brussel sprouts.  Of course, within a few days I had to figure out how to make them myself.  Here's the recipe I've come up with, which is just as tasty as what we had in the restaurant.

20 brussel sprouts, cut in half (top to bottom)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or pressed.

Add the garlic and the olive oil in a bowl and let the garlic infuse for a little while, while the brussel spouts steam.
Steam the brussel sprouts for about 10-13 minutes (a steamer is a great investment for any cook).  When it is finished, put the brussel sprouts into the oil and mix them around.  Put all of this into a baking pan and put it into the broiler of your oven at 350.  Let it cook for 10 minutes, then rotate or mix it with a spoon and let it cook for another 10 minutes.  Take out, and serve.

Lasagna

Last night was my office Christmas party, which was a blast.  Since it was catered, I decided to bring a veggie option to share (there's 4 of us now!), and also because I like cooking for large groups of people and am starting to be known for my tasty vegan food.  I brought apple crisps, which has been a favorite since I made it at a baking class at work, sausage and stir fried rice, and I wanted to bring some lasagna too.  So this recipe was born, half from something I found online.  It was all gone by the time I came home, and a few people who didn't know I brought it didn't even realize it was vegan, which is usually how I tell it something was a success or not.

Preheat the oven to 350.  Get a square baking pan out and ready.

Sauce:
2 cans tomato sauce 15 oz
1 can tomato paste  6 oz
1 yellow onion, chopped
about 4 oz of fresh mushroom, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed
1 tbsp basil
1/2 tbsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
dash of cayenne
1/2 a bag of morningstar ground crumbles

Heat this all up together and stir well.  When everything else is heated up and ready to use, take a package of firm tofu and crumble it into the pot.  Stir this in, trying to make sure there are no clumps that are too large.

Take some lasagna noodles and start layering this, the sauce and fresh spinach leaves.  Start with noodles on the bottom, sauce, spinach.  I made the mistake of making the sauce layer too thick, so maybe make it 1/4 inch thick.  Don't put noodles on the top layer because this just burned and I had to pick it off after I baked it.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Peppermint Truffles

Silk has a few holiday flavors that have recently started showing up in stores.  My favorite is the peppermint chocolate milk (they also have nog and pumpkin spice) and I'm going to be very sad when its season is over.  They've got an amazing recipe on the side of the carton for these peppermint truffles, which aren't that much of a pain to make (aside from crushing the candy canes) but taste delicious.

First, finely crush about a dozen candy canes.  I used a hammer and the bottom of a flat bottle.  Then filter it with a sieve.  

If you have a double broiler, great.  If not, what I did was I set a metal mixing bowl on top of a pot of boiling water, which worked reasonably well.  Then you combine:

12 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I used a bag of vegan chocolate chips from whole foods)

1/2 cup silk mint chocolate

1 TBSP earth balance or other vegan butter.

Once this all melts into a nice, creamy mixture, add:

1 TSP peppermint extract or flavoring

Pour this into a shallow pan and put into the refrigerator for about an hour.  You'll want to check on it every so often so that it doesn't get to solid.  Whatever you do, don't leave for an adventure and let it set for several hours, or it will get too hard and you'll have to reheat it and it will become a mess.

Once its done, scoop out about a teaspoon at a time and roll it into little balls with your hands.  Then roll it in the crushed candy cane (or you can use cocoa powder but that's not sweet enough for my tastes).  Re chill it, and serve.  Super delicious.

Pass Along Recipe - Baked Potato Soup

I just wanted to pass along a great recipe I found for Baked Potato Soup.  This was one of my favorite types of soup back in the day, and its great to find a recipe that replicates the taste and creamyness so well.  Its great topped with Daiya cheese, tempeh bacon, and green onions.

http://www.cestlavegan.com/2010/11/loaded-baked-potato-soup/

I'll post some recipes from Thanksgiving soon.  Everything turned out really well, but I made way too much food.  Sometimes I get over zealous about showing how delicious vegan food can be.

Vegan Thanksgiving - Potential Menu

Thanksgiving is my second vegan thanksgiving that I have at my place for coworkers and friends who work too late or have nothing else to do on Thanksgiving.  Here's my preliminary list for the holiday menu:

Cranberry Walnut Bread
Tangerine Sorbet Cups
Blueberry Cheesecake
Coconut Whipped Cream
Strawberry Sauce
Vegan Jello
Oreo Pie
Pecan Pie
Apple Crisps

Chicken Pot Pie
Candied Squash
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Mashed Potatoes
Spiced Quinoa with Cranberries and Nuts
Stuffed Mushroom/ Pepper Caps
Green Bean or Brussle Sprout Casserole
Steamed Veggies

I'm looking for more suggestions too.

Tofurky Pizza

So a while back I saw on a vegan outreach enewsletter (which I highly recommend signing up for) that Tofurky was coming out with a line of vegan pizzas in the fall.  I was super excited the other day when I finally saw one at whole foods.  I finally tried it with Steve tonight, and it was amazing.  It had the crispy crust that you can only get from frozen pizza.  I haven't had frozen pizza since I was in France a year and a half ago and this was as good as any frozen pizza I had, and probably better than most (because it had the right kind of sauce).  They use daiya cheese, so its great on that front.  We would have gone out to get a second one if it hadn't been 11 o'clock at night and the store hadn't been closed.  I'll definitely be eating more in the near future.

http://www.tofurky.com/tofurkyproducts/pizza.html

Nerd Blizzard Adventure

When I was a kid, my favorite thing to get at dairy queen was a nerd blizzard.  It was basically just nerds mixed with vanilla ice cream, but it was really delicious and a great sugar rush.  But now dairy queen doesn't even make them anymore, and they wouldn't be vegan anyway.  So I figured out how to make my own.  This isn't a recipe exactly, but just a suggestion for a delicious treat.

I took some so delicious soy ice cream and let it soften for a while.  Then, I dumped it in a tupperwear container and mixed in a box of nerds.  Sometimes its hard to find them, but I got them at Walgreens.  I just mixed them around and then refroze it, and it tastes really similar to what I had as a kid.  If you leave it for more than, say, 12 hours, the ice cream dissolves the shell of the nerds a little and makes it taste even more amazing.

Chickpea Snack

This is a really simple but tasty snack.  Its basically just roasted chickpeas, but I could eat it all the time, and chickpeas are really healthy.

Heat up about 2-3 tbsps of olive oil in a frying pan.
Dice one medium yellow onion and 3 cloves of garlic and throw it in the oil.
Let this cook for about 1-2 minutes, until it softens a little.

Add a rinsed can of chickpeas to the mix.  Allow this to cook for about 5-7 minutes, until everything starts to brown a little.  Serve it up and salt and pepper it to taste.

Posting should become more regular again.  I'm in my own studio apartment and just got my internet hooked up. My cat broke his hip somehow while at my parent's place, but he's doing much better now.

Ruby Rhubarb Ginger Crunch

Got the base for this recipe from my farm CSA's newsletter for last week when they brought Rhubarb.
I changed things around to improve it.

3 cups Rhubarb, chopped
1/2 cup blueberries
1 cup strawberries
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger

Combine rhubarb and other fruit with the sugar.  Mix well, let it stand about 5 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350.
Butter a pie pan.  Add the other ingredients to the fruit mix, and pour all of them into the pie pan and spread evenly.  Bake 20 minutes.

While this is cooking, make the crunch topping.

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup quick oats
4 tbsp earth balance butter

Combine all of these into a bowl and mix well. When the base is done cooking, pull it out of the oven and pour the crunch topping over it, and spread it evenly over the top.  Bake the crunch for another 30 minutes.  Wait a little while for it to cool down, but eat while still warm.

Vegan Cookout with my Sis

Yesterday I went out to the suburbs where I'm from to visit my sister.  She's vegetarian and will someday be vegan, once she leaves home.  We were originally planning to go kayaking and boating in the river by us, but due to all the flooding it was too dangerous.  We were going to grill, but then apparently my parents got rid of their grill.  So, we just cooked inside.  Pictures will be posted later, but here's what we made:
Apple Sage Sausages
Pasta Salad
Grilled Eggplant Slices
Corn on the Cob
Ruby Rhubarb Ginger Crunch
Pan con Tomates

Bacon Cheeseburger

Another vegan cooking night, cooked by me and Steve, and sampled by our friends.  These turned out so delicious that it prevented me from socializing until I was done (which is saying something for me).  We had some roasted red potatoes tossed in olive oil on the side.

Bacon:
Fry two packs of tempeh bacon (we found it at whole foods) with olive oil until slightly crispy (or super crispy if you're me).  Set aside.

Cheese:
We used pre-sliced rice cheese, I forget the brand name.  Its there mainly for a cheese texture, I can't really taste it distinctly anyway.

Burgers:
Gardenburger Vegan Burgers, fried in olive oil in a frying pan on the stove.

Bun:
We used nature ovens buns, toasted in the pan after the bacon was cooked (or you can toast it in a toaster).

Avocado Spread:
3 Avocados, mashed
1/2 large tomato
1/4 cup chopped red onions
Salt, to taste
Button Mushrooms, chopped (maybe 4 or 5)
Mix well

Toppings:
Just like with our vegan pizzas, the toppings were thicker than the rest of the thing.
Slice into thin layers:
Red pepper
Tomato
Avocado
Red Onion

Spinach (or lettuce, or both)

Also, sliced pickles, but we forgot these.

Condiments:
Ketchup, Mustard, and/or A-1, depending on your liking

Stack deliciously, and good luck fitting it into your mouth.

Easy Pasta Salad

This makes a good, summery lunch.

Serves 4-6

1 box pasta, any cool shape

3 medium tomatoes, cut up
1 pack fresh basil, perhaps 8oz, chopped
1/2 large red onion, diced
1 red pepper, chopped
1 head broccoli, chopped

Cook pasta, then put into a large bowl.  Add chopped vegetables.  Add any sort of Italian salad dressing.

For an alternate style, you can use the basil and roasted garlic gnocchi from rising moon organics (not all of their products are vegan, but this one is) instead of the pasta.  They sell it at the whole foods around here.

Crispy French Bread with Avocado Spread

This Sunday we decided to make tasty sandwiches for lunch.  However, we also found that the bread and avocado spread would be good snacks by themselves.

Bread:
We bought 2 baguette style loaves of bread from whole foods, one white and one whole wheat.  You cut them open and separate the top from bottom, cut them in half, and then cut them in half again.  If this is for an appetizer, maybe cut them even smaller, into 4in pieces.

In a container, combine
1tbsp rosemary
1 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic

Mix well, and allow to sit for at least 15 minutes to allow flavors to mix.

Using a spoon (or even better, a little brush), scoop up olive oil and brush it onto the inside part of the bread, as evenly as possible.  Divide it up between the pieces of bread.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Lay the prepared pieces of bread on baking trays, olive oil side up.
Cook until the edges are becoming crispy, 8-12 minutes.

Spread:
Mash 2 avocados in a bowl.  Add:
Crushed or finely chopped 2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 tsp lime juice
1tbsp Italian salad dressing
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion

Mix well.
For a spicy version, add 1 chopped jalapeño pepper.

Once the bread cools, put the spread on it.

I don't have any pictures yet.  Oh darn, I'll have to make it again. :P

Vegan Baking with Beth on Wednesday.  I'm making blueberry crisps.  Recipe was tested yesterday and was delicious.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

I got some Rhubarb from the food coop, so Priya and I decided to make some Strawberry Rhubarb Pie.  You can make it with actual pie crust, but we didn't have any/were lazy, so we used some pre-made pie crusts that I had (the kind from Aldi doesn't have honey, nabisco does, and I'm not sure about keebler).

Start by chopping up about 4 cups of rhubarb (the celery like stalk parts).  Put these into a colander with a bowl underneath.  Pour 3/4 cup agave nectar over the chopped rhubarb and leave it for an hour or two.

While waiting, you can chop 2 1/2 cups of fresh strawberries.

After the allotted time, preheat the oven to 350.

Take half of the agave nectar that drained through the rhubarb and mix it in a saucepan with 6 tbsp of arrowroot on low heat.  Continue heating until mixture thickens, then add the rest of the agave nectar.

Mix the rhubarb and strawberries in the bowl.  Add the agave nectar mixture from the saucepan.  Mix in 1 tsp cinnamon and 2 tbsp flour.  Stir.

Pour this into the pie crust.

Bake for an hour, then refrigerate for a few hours to set it.

This pie goes great with the coconut milk whipped cream.

Tomato Cups

I'm almost done with my first translation project!  I'm translating a NPO website and I only have 6 (out of 67) pages left, and I've done it all since May.  It's due Thursday, and I should be done in time.  However, I've been spending most of my free time doing that (or working or hanging out with friends) so there hasn't been much recipe posting.  Here's a quick one that we made the other night at the summer solstice party.

Tomato Cups
(fits into the category of raw food)
Idea was found on: http://www.living-foods.com

You want about 1/2 as many tomatoes as people will be there.  So I probably should have made 3 instead of 6 (I always make too much food and pawn it off to people at work)

For 6 people:
Take 3 medium tomatoes.  You can experiment with various sizes or flavors (cherry would be good but small) for different effects, but this is how I did it.

Cut the tomatoes in half.  Use a spoon (a grapefruit spoon would probably have worked great, if I had one) to scoop out the innards of the tomato, leaving a centimeter or two thick shell.  If its much thinner, you won't get much taste except for the tomato.  Keep the innards.

Chop the following:
Tomato innards
1/2 of a small sized cucumber
1 celery stick
1 green onion
1/4 cup red onion
1/4 cup cilantro or parsley
1 tbsp mint (fresh, not dried)
1 clove garlic (actually chopped, pressed won't work right)

Combine in a bowl and add:
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp lemon juice

Foster Kitten - Fawcett

I took back Little Man and Little Kevin on Wednesday so they could be neutered, vaccinated, and adopted.  I came home with a new four month old foster this time (possibly my last one for the year - not having a car has made things difficult) named Fawcett (named after Farrah Fawcett).  She's super cute, a little skittish, but she loves being petted and purrs like a rumble pack.  She's all white, except for two brown marks that look like eyebrows, a brown splotch on her heel, and a calico tail.  They said she was part Siamese.  I'll keep her until the beginning of July.

Don't forget, if you live around Chicago, that Kevin and Little Man are going to be at PAWS on Clyborne looking for homes!  The adoption coordinator said they should be there by today.  Please consider adopting them, or another kitten, if you live close enough to come by!

Kevin has the stripes and Little Man has the spots.  They were so sweet and cute!

Summer Solstice Menu

So, since agnostics don't really have a lot of holidays, and you can never have enough parties with friends, I decided to throw a summer solstice party.  It was a lot of fun.  I put on my summeriest dress, made clover flower garlands from flowers that I picked by the lake, and celebrated the start of my favorite season and the day jam packed with the most sunlight for the year.  I tried to cook food with a natural theme, meaning little to no cooking (so as not to over heat my already hot apartment), no processed foods, and everything from fresh vegetables and fruit.  Recipes and pictures will soon follow, but here's the menu.  If you want to know the recipe to any one in particular, comment and I can put it up first.

Snack
Omega-3 trail mix with cranberry

Main meal
Tabouleh and guacamole wraps
Asparagus and orange salad
Everything salad, with edible wild flowers
Tomato Cups
Aztec Platter

Dessert
Homemade nectarine sorbet
Fruit salad
coconut milk whipped cream

Pictures will be up as soon as my computer situation is settled.  Michael got me a new computer for my birthday today.  Also, foster kittens have officially been swapped.  Kevin and Kitten Little (Little Man) are back and ready to be adopted, and I now have 4 month old Fawcett (as in Farah Fawcett).

Whipped Cream

When I found out how easy this whipped cream recipe was, I was fairly upset at how long it had taken me to find.  I hadn't had whipped cream (something I ate in copious amounts both straight from a redi-whip can and also made from heavy cream by my mother) in almost a year.  It's so simple to make, and has that airy, fluffy taste that makes whipped cream delicious.  I found this from a video online and then figured the proportions myself.

Ingredients:
2 cans of coconut milk (full fat, not the beverage)  Thai Kitchen was the brand I used and it worked perfectly
1/3 cup powdered sugar

Pretty much everything must be refrigerated about 4 hours or more so that it is the temperature of the refrigerator.  This would be:
The cans of coconut milk  (you could just keep a few cans in the fridge so that you can always make whipped cream, if the mood strikes)
A metal mixing bowl
The beaters of the egg beaters or kitchen aid.  Or I suppose one could try a metal whisk, but you have to do a lot of stirring.

Once the cans are properly cold, poke a hole or two in the bottom with one of those bottle opener things and drain out the liquid.  Make sure the hole is in the bottom.
Then open the top and take off the lid.  There should be a creamy white layer about an inch or two thick at the top.  Scrape this out and put into the metal mixing bowl.  Repeat with the other can.

Whip this a little by mixing it.  Add the powdered sugar and continue to whip until it is all mixed in.  Do not over mix it.

Use on pies and cakes, or just eat it strait.  It's delicious.  It tastes a little like coconut.

Sunday Vegan Dinner Party

Last Sunday, one of our friends from Michael's work invited us over for a vegan dinner party.  We cooked some pretty tasty stuff together, and then ate and talked together with some more friends.  We had a great time, and I was really pleased by how well all the food turned out.  Here's a brief run down of our menu:
Appetizers:
Potstickers (the Trader Joe's ones are vegan)  with Ginger People dipping sauce
Apple Sage Sausages, cut up into circles (to be eaten with toothpicks or put on pita crackers)
Melon and grapes



Colorful Salad

Entrees:
Gardien Beef Stir Fry

Stuffed Mushrooms and Bell Peppers

 Desserts:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Blueberry Mini Cheesecakes with Strawberry Sauce and Whipped Cream

All food prepared:

Weekend Food Adventures

This weekend, I've been cooking up a storm.  I'll have lots of new recipes to post, but I just wanted to talk about the cooking adventures.  On Wednesday, I was in the mood for dessert and experimented making some chocolate chip cookie bars (which turned out really well), and some peanut butter "kiss" cookies like the kind my grandma makes (peanut butter cookies with a hershey's kiss in the middle).  Of course, I can't use hershey's kisses, so instead I used some Ghiradelli baking chocolate (the semi sweet kind is vegan).  I took a basic peanut butter cookie recipe from peta, and tried to modify it, but it wasn't quite sweet enough, so I will be working on that more.  Desserts in hand, I went over to a friends house where we do pretty much weekly Vegan cooking.  This week, we made a really interesting avocado pesto pasta dish.  It was really tasty, but to make it even better next time, I'm going to add sauteed veggies to the pasta.

After a wild goose chase on Thursday, I picked up my first batch of produce from my farm CSA at Uncommon Grounds.  It's from a southern Wisconsin farm called Harvest Moon.  In this batch I got spinach, rhubarb, asparagus, cilantro, radishes, chard, and garlic scapes.  I'm in the process of finding a recipe for the chard and scapes, but I've used most of the spinach, rhubarb, and asparagus.

Priya was up this weekend, so that meant a lot of cooking.  We made my Aunt's Fruit Pie, and then some Apple Sage Sausages and Quinoa.  We played Taboo with some friends, attempted to get drunk and pretty much failed (although we discovered fruit smoothies with pomegranite schnopps are delicious).  The next day, we had star fruit and made strawberry rhubarb pie.

On Sunday, a friend of Michael's and mine from from his work wanted to have a dinner party with Vegan food, and cheese and wine.  I'll talk more about this in a separate post.

Chickpea and Kale Pasta

I made this recipe as an experiment, not expecting it to be very good.  Surprisingly it was delicious.  It's a great way to sneak in a good portion of kale, and the chickpeas and pasta compliment each other  very well.  I got the idea for the recipe out of a book called Leafy Greens.

Kale:
Take about a pound of kale (2-3 cups), wash and rinse it, and then cut the leaves off the stem.  I threw away the stems because they take even longer to cook than the leaves, and detract from the taste.  Chop up the remaining green.

Add them to a pot of boiling water for about 15 minutes (kale takes a long time to cook, but don't let them get to smushy)

Pasta:
Standard directions, use one of the larger shapes or perhaps spaghetti would work too.  Cook about a pound.

Skillet (put this in about 7 minutes after you start the kale):
Add 1 tbsp olive oil in a skillet on medium low heat and add:
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 red pepper
4 tbsp minced parsley
salt and pepper, to taste
1 can chickpeas, drained

As soon as the kale is done, add it to the skillet as well.  Fry everything for another minute, then toss with the (drained) pasta.

Gardein Beef Stir Fry

Gardein makes some great mock meat meals that are pretty high in protein and tasty.  They have recently started selling some gardein beef tips at a nearby whole foods.  Michael really likes them, and after I made this recipe said it was the kind of thing we should make once a week.  Our version of meatloaf.  

This recipe should make enough for 4 people.

In a saucepan, start preparing 2 cups wild rice.  I think its the standard 1 cup water for every 1/2 cup rice and it cooks for about 40 minutes.

About 20 minutes into the rice, chop up:

1/2 a red pepper

6-8 broccoli crowns

6 brussle sprouts (or some cabbage finely sliced might work as a good stand in)

5-7 asparagus tips

2 scallions (or 1/4 cup finely diced onions)

3 or 4 cloves of garlic

Combine these and a bag of the gardein beef tips into a frying pan with a few tbsps olive oil, cover, and saute them for about 10-13 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Once the vegetables soften, it is done.

The next step can be done in one of two ways.

You can put some of the wild rice on a plate, top with the veggie mix, and then drizzle some ginger sauce on it (the kind I mentioned in this post).

Or, combine everything in a large bowl and pour on maybe 1/4 cup of the ginger sauce (not so much that its soupy, but enough that it coats everything) and mix well.

Rosemary Veggies and Potatoes

This is half a remake of this recipe, and half a new experiment that had a different flavor I liked.  Basically, it involves more veggies.

Peel and chop 1 potato into cubes.  Put into a frying pan with a few tbsp of olive oil on medium-high heat.  Let them fry while you chop the other vegetables, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to brown all sides and adding more olive oil if needed.

Chop
3 stalks of asparagus
3 brussle sprouts (really tasty in this)
4 broccoli crowns
1 scallion
2 cloves garlic
8-10 sugar snap peas

When the potatoes look soft (you can poke them with a fork), add these to the frying pan as well.  Cook for about another 5-8 minutes, until vegetables are tender.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Foster Kittens - Little Kevin and Little Man

First off, no I did not get to name the foster kittens.  I would have named them something awesomely nerdy like Spock and Tuvok.  Kevin is a workable name, but I can't think of a good nickname for little man, besides just little or something unrelated.

That being said, the kittens are awesome!  I got them this morning and they are adapting well.  Right now they are sleeping, after exploring all day.  They are very jumpy, but I am teaching them that pets are good and so is being cuddled.  We'll see how the first night goes and if they'll keep us up all night.  The other cats are somewhat disgruntled and want to know what sort of party is going on in here and why they can't come in.

I get them for about 2 weeks, until around the 21st.

While at the PAWS foster center, I noticed they had a goal on their white board for fostering.  1,200 kittens rescued from Animal Control this year.  So far it was somewhere over 400.  They provided food and a carrying case, and a long list of numbers in case something goes wrong.

Updates as time goes on, but so far I'm enjoying the experience.

Little Kevin

Little Man

Foster Kittens

Quick, fun update:
I get my foster kittens on Monday!
I got permission from my landlady to take in 1 or 2 sets of foster kittens for a few weeks each.

Fostering kittens basically works like this.  When warm weather hits, mother cats start having kittens.  Lots of them.  When they're found and taken to Animal Control, there's so many it overwhelms them.  They call other local shelters.  However, kittens derive a large portion of their immune system from their mother's milk, so if they are not with her, they will be too immunocompromised to be able to stay in the shelters.  So, for the period until they are old enough to receive their shots and be spayed/neutered, they need foster homes to help take care of them.  Shelters will only agree to take as many kittens as the have foster homes for, so after Animal Control fills up, it has no choice but to euthanize some of the kittens.  By taking in two foster kittens, that's two less that will be put down.  Then, once they're old enough, PAWS (the shelter I'm working with), will put them in their adoption center and find homes for them.

I'm really excited to be able to help.  To me being vegan is about doing less harm and more good in the world whenever possible (ahimsa).

Pictures will be posted.  You are warned of the impending adorable-ness.

Peanut Butter Rice Crispy Treats

I made this vegan version of rice crispy treats (gelatin free) for the pizza party the other night.  It's pretty simple, and topped with the same stuff that you put on puppy chow.

Treats:
1 cup sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup peanut butter
6 rice crispy cereal

Combine the sugar and corn syrup in a saucepan and put on medium heat.  Cook until the mixture becomes bubbly, stirring so it won't burn.  Remove from the heat and add the peanut butter.  Put the cereal in a large mixing bowl and put the mixture on top.  Mix well.

Spread the mixture in a 9x13 in. pan.

Topping Sauce:
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup vegan butter
2 tbsp vanilla

Melt all together in a small sauce pan.  Pour the sauce over the cereal in the pan.

It's good warm, or chilled to completely harden the chocolate topping (otherwise it will stay the consistency of the peanut butter).  Cut into squares and serve.

Vegan Pizza Party

Sorry about the break in posting, but its been a busy week.  Last week I had a vegan pizza party, went to the green festival at Navy Pier with Priya (and volunteered afterward sorting through trash to recycle everything and stabbed my finger on some broken glass), worked, had a day of translation meetings (which went awesomely), cheered Michael on at a 5K, cooked, and visited my dad for the weekend.  It's been a lot of fun, but not a lot of time for posting.  So anyway, here's a much delayed post on my awesome pizza party.

Priya graciously made the crust while I was still at work, using wheat flour, which turned out pretty tasty and seemed to compliment the tons of vegetables pretty well.  I just read an article that basically said if you want better, more flavorful crust, you have to make it the day before and let it rise more.  As it was, we let it rise for at least two hours, so I will have to try this next time.

Crust:
 3 cups whole wheat flour
1 package active dry yeast
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 cup warm water (not too hot or cold or the yeast won't grow, around 110 degrees)

Combine flour, salt, sugar, and yeast.
Add oil and water.
It works better if you allow it to rise for a little while, but I've also used it right away, so it doesn't hurt.

Spread this out in a greased pan, using your fingers to gently push it to all corners of the pan.

Using a spoon, spread some pizza sauce around (we used ragu, you can also make your own but I didn't have the ingredients.  I think you might be able to use 2 parts tomato sauce, 1 part tomato paste, and then a few tbsp oregano, but that sounds how you start spaghetti sauce so don't quote me on that).

Now comes the fun part.  We basically topped our pizza with every vegetable we could think of, so just add what ever you want.  I would advise trying new things, if you're not sure you can add something to a corner of the pizza, some other topping to another.  You could make it like a pizza venn diagram to explore the intersections of taste.  Or you could just do what we did and pile on tons of veggies until the vegetable layer is 4 times as thick as everything else.

Our toppings:
Tomato, red pepper, red onion, white onion, olives, spinach, parsley, garlic, broccoli, mushrooms

Isn't it ironic that I hated any type of vegetable topping on pizza until I became vegan?  Now I adore it.

Anyway, we finished by topping it with daiya mozarella cheese, which melted nicely and tasted great.

Bake at 375 for about 25 minutes.

	Once I start getting stuff from my CSA (June 11th!), I'll have to make pizza again.  This is making me hungry. I also made peanut butter rice crispies for dessert, but that is for another day.

Strawberry Sauce

This strawberry sauce recipe is a great topping for vanilla cakes, and this cheesecake recipe, and probably other stuff too.  You need a full pint of strawberries for this recipe.

Put the following into a blender:
Six regular sized strawberries, green tops cut off
2 tsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp almond milk (if it doesn't have enough liquid, add another tbsp)
Blend this together until it is smooth.

Cut up the rest of the strawberries from the pint, put into a bowl or tupperware container, and pour the sauce on top.  Mix and keep refrigerated until ready to use.

Blueberry Lemon Cheesecake

I love this cheesecake recipe.  Its based off some recipe I found on the internet a while ago, I don't remember where from.

1graham cracker pie crust (the one from Aldi is honey free, if you avoid honey.  The nabisco honey graham crust doesn't, if you don't.  Both are vegan otherwise).

Preheat oven to 375.
Combine in a blender:
2 packs (16 oz total) vegan cream cheese (I use the tofutti brand)
1/3 cup sugar
6 tsp EnerG egg replacer
2 tsp vanilla
Juice one lemon, and zest about half of it.
1/2 pint blueberries (washed)

Blend these ingredients together until thoroughly mixed.  Pour into pie crust.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, then chill in the refrigerator for 12 hours (its agony to wait for it!)

I'll post the strawberry sauce recipe later to put on top.

5/21/10 9:40 PM: Here's the sauce recipe.

Rainbow Salad

If you want a colorful dish that can double as a pretty centerpiece, try this rainbow salad.  I got this idea after I made a salad with as much variety as I could think of, and it ended up looking very pretty and colorful and getting comments when I ate it at work.  As always, you can adapt it to personal tastes.  One thing a rainbow of colors in your veggies means is that there's also a variety of health benefits, vitamins, antioxidants, and nutrients.

Start with a colorful lettuce mix in the base.  Try to find one that has red leaf lettuce and red cabbage, along with the usual mix.  If not, you can always get it separate and add it.  Chop this and add to large mixing bowl.
Add spinach (good source of iron, especially if consumed with vitamin C (which there will be plenty of), because it helps your body absorb more iron.)
1 pack of cherry tomatoes, halved
2 orange tomatoes, cut up
1 red pepper, chopped
1 yellow pepper, chopped
1/2 red onion, cut up
1 can kidney beans, rinsed thoroughly
1 zucchini squash, peeled and cubed
1 cucumber, peeled and sliced
2 avocados, chopped
1/2 cup sugar snap peas, diced

Mix thoroughly and add your favorite dressing.

Here's an example of a rainbow salad I made last summer.  Pretty much all the produce came from my local farmer's market.  All the colors came out very vibrant, the sugar snap peas, pepper, and cherry tomatoes added a bit of crisp sweetness that was nice, and it was quite delicious.

Weekend Adventures

This past weekend Michael and I went up to visit his family and we ended up having quite a few cooking adventures.
We made some pretty delicious basil pesto pasta, and I got to experiment a little with my puppy chow recipe.  We didn't have enough powdered sugar, so we tried to make more using granulated sugar, a little corn starch (the internet told us to), and a food processor.  It did powder it a little, but not all of it, so it was a bit gritty.  However, I found out that crunchy peanut butter is really delicious with puppy chow, because the bits of peanut end up coated in the chocolate mixture and sugar as well.  I'd add a bit more peanut butter to the mix though to compensate.  I also made cranberry walnut bread at Michael's request for the barbecue we would be going to on Sunday with more of his extended family.

Saturday morning Michael and his family surprised me with some vegan waffles and raspberry sauce, which were really delicious.  It was a great surprise.  I'll hopefully be able to post the recipe later.

On Sunday, we went to the barbecue at his Aunt's.  We brought some vegan sausages (the field roast apple sage brand - highly recommended), which were well received, and also some gardenburger black bean burgers.  Michael's mom was also nice enough to make a vegetarian version of her pasta salad, which was really good and had lots of veggies in it.  All in all, it was a great weekend!

Translation for MFA

I just got back from a meeting with MFA (Mercy for Animals), and they want me to translate their Vegetarian Starter Kit into Spanish!  It's a volunteer position and I have until July 2nd to translate the approximately 30 page booklet, so I'll be busy, but I get to engage in two of my passions - animal advocacy and languages.  The booklet has some tasty recipes, so I'll have to try cooking some of them.

In other exciting news, I also got into the University of Chicago Translation Certification Program.  Classes start in October, but are mainly online.

MFA website:
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/

The PDF of what I'll be working on:
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/VSK.pdf

Black Bean Tacos

 Black bean tacos are full of protein and very delicious.  I love mine loaded with veggies.

To make the black beans:

Strain one can of black beans and rinse.

Finely chop 1/4 cup white or yellow onion.  Saute this in a very small (1 or 2 tsp) olive oil until it softens in a small pan.  

Add the black beans and set to medium-low heat.

Add 1/2 tbsp cumin

2 tsp chili powder

1 tbsp tabasco sauce, adding more if you like spice

Cook these for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, dice 

1 tomato

2 avocado

about 1 cup lettuce

1/4 cup red onion

Heat up some corn or flour tortillas by either heating them over a frying pan or wrapping them in foil and placing them in an oven on low for a few minutes.

Combine toppings in tortilla, adding some daiya vegan cheese if desired.

Two variations I've made recently.

Vegan Lunchbox Cupcake Photos

I've made quite a few cupcake batches in the past month, and they've all been super delicious.  I got the two recipes from a great vegan cookbook, Vegan Lunch Box.  It's a vegan mom who's published recipes and photos of what she packs her son for lunch everyday (he's in grade school).  It's a lot of very creative stuff.  Since I would feel bad simply reproducing the recipes here straight from the book without changing any aspect of them, I'll just put up pictures of them.

These are the triple chocolate ones, they tasted best with the Vanilla frosting.

These are the vanilla ones, they tasted best with the chocolate frosting.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

In the last two weeks, between muffins and cupcakes, I think I've made at least six dozen cupcakes/muffins.  I've already posted my vanilla frosting recipe, but I've found the most amazing chocolate frosting to go with it.  Its a recipe from one of my cookbooks, with adaptations.  If you want some really interesting recipe ideas I highly recommend the book, Vegan Lunch Box.  I paired this with her white cupcakes in my latest cooking demonstration at work, and everyone loved it.  I got a lot of comments about how "you can't even tell its vegan".  The frosting is really what makes it though.  Here's my adaptation:

4 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup earth balance butter or another Vegan butter
5 tbsp soy milk
2 tsp vanilla

Basically mix all of the above in a large bowl, either by hand or with an electric mixer.  It should come out the consistency of that kind of frosting you get in the tubs in the grocery store, thick and creamy.  If its too thin, add a little more powdered sugar and cocoa powder in a 1:4 ratio, stirring.  If its too thick, add soymilk 1/2 tbsp at a time, stirring. It should give a little resistance when stirring.

Another tip is if the butter is not fully melted and is not mixing well, you might be able to leave it on top of the stove (depending on your type of oven), and the heat from the oven will help melt it.

Anyway, it ends up absolutely delicious.  I've noticed that this goes best with the vanilla cupcakes, and the vanilla frosting goes best with the chocolate cupcakes.

Vegan Ultramarathoner

I read a lot of vegan news during the day (ex. Did you know Mike Tyson is now vegan? Can you say Irony?), and I found this article about a vegan ultramarathoner. It talks about his diet and helps to dispel the myths about vegan athletes(it also mentions some other meat free athletes). He's pretty impressive (for example he will be running a 24 hour marathon soon to see how many miles total he can do in that time). I barely have the patience to do three miles with Michael (I prefer biking/roller blading).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/sports/13runner.html?ref=sports

Just goes to show that as long as you are aware of proper nutrition and give your body what it needs, you can do amazing things (I'm looking at you, Standard American Diet).

Aloo (Potato) with Madras Simmer Sauce

Another thing I picked up in Hong Kong is a love for Indian food. For years I've talked people out of going out to Indian restaurants because I wasn't really a fan of curry. But then in Hong Kong, we stayed in a hostel where the base floor was full of vendors, many of whom were Indians or Pakistanis. I found out that I love samosas, and that many other Indian dishes are delicious. Here's something Michael and I made up last night:

In a frying pan combine:
2 cubed potatoes (the kind with very thin skin that are a light yellow color. If you use russet I would suggest peeling them)
1 can Chickpeas
1/2 a bag frozen peas
2tbsp olive oil

Cover and allow to simmer until the potatoes are thoroughly cooked, so for about 15 minutes. Add more oil if needed.

Take a jar of simmer sauce (we used Seeds of Change Madras simmer sauce) and put about half the jar in (more if you like spices)
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Mix thoroughly and allow to simmer on low for another 5 minutes.

Serve with nan bread.

Easy Japanese Lunch from Jewel

I just wanted to jot a quick note to share how finding Vegan food isn't always that difficult.  Today I went to the Jewel near my apartment (in Chicago), because they usually have a sushi case near the front.  Not only did they have vegan sushi (with an adorable "vegetable only" sticker now residing on my desk hutch), but their vegetable gyoza was egg and dairy free!  So I got a great Japanese lunch for less than ten bucks on my way home from class (2 days left!).

It comes with everything you need, soy sauce, ginger, and wasabi.  I used the sweet ginger chili that I mentioned in the last post for a dipping sauce for the gyoza.  Super delicious, super easy, and vegan!

Also, if you see the little chopstick holder in the picture (under my yellow chopsticks), it's something supercute I picked up from Japan!