What I Do When I Don't Have a Job

Vegetarian Pho

2011-05-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup with beef or chicken broth, noodles, meat, and vegetable add-ins: basil, lime, bean sprouts.

Vegetarian Pho can be made with vegetable broth, rice noodles, a veggie protein (tofu, seitan, etc.) and the same vegetable add-ins.
I LOVE Pho on cold days that take hold of Portland in the winter. The broth is VERY hot because it is supposed to finish cooking the rare meat that is served with the dish. It's hard to find a restaurant that will serve Pho with a veggie broth instead of the usual beef and chicken. They exist, of course (Portland!), but this was a fun experiment to cook at home.

For the broth:
This was a large meal for multiple hungry people so I used two 32 oz. boxes of vegetable broth and even a little extra water to start. Then I added in a handful of cilantro stems, basil stems, some green onions sliced the long way, two clusters of star anise, a cinnamon stick, and a dash of soy sauce. I realized that this is a long list, but the broth is what makes the soup!

I let the broth simmer for 15 minutes and then cooked a package of wide rice noodles according to the directions.

While the soup and noodles are getting cooked, I prepared the vegetables for people to add into their soup (all of these are optional, so fun!):

Basil leaves, Cilantro leaves, lime wedges, Hoisin sauce (a thick, sweet sauce), Siracha (spicy chili sauce), bean sprouts, fresh jelepeño slices, sliced tofu or seitan (I might even add this into the broth for a couple minutes before serving so it becomes warm)

When everything is warmed and the noodles are ready, poor the broth into a bowl with a handful of noodles and then go to it with the condiments! Note: I have the one photo of this delicious soup because my other computer broke before I could upload the rest of the saved photos. Dang.

Mini Vanilla Strawberry Cupcakes

2011-05-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

Cupcakes are really taking over. At least that what Groupon is telling me when today's coupon (for cupcakes!) sold out at 6:57am...

What's really popular is weird flavors, unique toppings and an ingredient list inclusive of every dietary need or want.

Now I present some not so special but delicious miniature cupcakes that were made for the birthday gathering of a friend who is equally cute and colorful! It was a hectic day for me and I hurried the batter together then let it sit for two hours in the fridge while I went off to work. Here are the ingredients (I mixed the dry, then added the wet):

1 1/2 C flour
1 C sugar
1 t baking soda
1/4-1/2 t salt
1 C water
1/3 C oil
1 T mild vinegar
1 T + 1/4 t vanilla

I used vanilla extract because I had a friend who is allergic to nuts. I bet that extra 1/4 t extract could be easily swapped with almond, rum, lavender, peppermint... anything that sounds nice!

My main squeeze, Bree, gave them a hint of red and baked them to perfection while I was away. According to her, she has no idea how how long each batch was in the oven but it was definitely preheated to 350 degrees. I might check them after 10 minutes and take them out when they are plump and firm, and when you stick a fork in and no batter sticks on the return.

With some store bought icing (no time to make our own!) these cupcake were looking good for their birthday party debut.

Note: Big cupcakes would be fun too, but I only have a mini cupcake baking pan. Big ones might need to cook for a little longer.

A benchmark. And a Kale Tahini Salad.

2011-04-05T16:30:00.000-07:00

Happy 100th post! This is a pretty big deal and I feel like it is perfectly timed with something fantastic: a new job! I might be inclined to change the name of this blog now... though I've grown pretty attached the long and painfully bland name that I started with: What I Do When I Don't Have a Job. I'm open to suggestions.

Even thought this seems like an occasion for a fancy post, I have nothing fancy to share. But, recently, I did learn about the benefits of including more raw foods in my diet after watching the documentary Food Matters. To sum it up, let's eat more salads and make our bodies feel better. I'll start today with this salad.

Kale Tahini Salad

Lemon Tahini Dressing:
1.5 T tahini (Mine isn't raw, but it's what I had and I'm not even worried about it)
1 lemon, juiced
~1/2 T soy sauce
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 t olive oil (or more if you want, whatevs.)
sea salt, to taste

Salad stuff:
Kale, carrot, red cabbage, almonds and probably walnuts

I mixed the dressing together and then tossed it with the salad stuff and let it sit for 10 minutes. The flavors of the dressing come together in this time and also kind of soften the raw veggies. Vinegar and citrus do a good job of "cooking" vegetable without heat, too. Weird, right?

Another photo close-up:

Oh, and in other news, Bree and I adopted this cute dog just the other day. Not a big deal. Introducing Tiffin!

He actually does have ears even though you can't see them in either of these pictures.

Cilantro Cabbage slaw in Tempeh Tacos

2011-03-14T21:14:00.000-07:00

Cabbage is a must in many taco recipes. My most strong association with cabbage and tacos is in fish tacos... But nevermind that, alternatives like tofu, seitan, soy curls and tempeh lend themselves well to the flavors of a taco! A photo:

This meal started a lot like all of my other meals: What do I have on hand? Green cabbage, cilantro, yellow onion, lime, corn tortillas, tempeh and a BUNCH of spices. I don't know about you, but, this sounds like tacos centered around a cilantro cabbage slaw.

For the tempeh (this flavor is not as important as the slaw. The slaw is a star of these tacos.):
~4 oz. tempeh crumbled
juice of 1/2 of a lime
spice to taste with: salt, pepper, cumin, nutritional yeast, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, etc.
veggie oil to coat (so the spices stick and so the tempeh doesn't stick to the pan.)

Crumble tempeh into a bowl and let marinate, mixed with spices, for an hour or so.

For the slaw:
~2 Cups finely sliced green cabbage
~1/8 Cup chopped cilantro leaves
1/8- 1/4 Cup thinly sliced yellow onion
1 Tbsp canola oil
juice of 1/2 of a lime
dash of cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Prepare all these things in a bowl and let sit in the fridge for a bit. 30 minutes will do, but a couple hours is best. For example, I went to a movie and came back to perfectly marinated slaw and tempeh!

Brown the tempeh in a pan or skillet. Soften and heat the corn tortillas by slowly heating them in a pan on the stove until they can bend without breaking. Sometimes heating them with a sprinkling of water and a lid is helpful. Leave the slaw cold; the crispness of the slaw is refreshing and the flavors are more pronounced when they are raw.

My only regret with these was that I didn't make enough!

Peanut Butter Cups, and Vegan!

2011-03-10T11:58:00.000-08:00

Reese's peanut butter cups are very delicious to a lot of people. It is hard to find a version without milk products in it. In a moment of brilliance, Bree suggested making our own and not only were they awesome but they made me feel my favorite: really fancy! Check it out:

The above photo is an extreme close-up. The size of these cups are about 1 cubic inch, or, the size of a scantly-filled mini cupcake.

An unhelpful fun fact: I actually prefer the "pieces" of Reese's; the bite-sized candy coated version of the peanut butter cup. Me and E.T. would make great friends! It's true! And, I know this makes me a weird outcast and makes you wonder, "Then why are you posting this blog?", but these peanut butter cups were so good that you don't need to like the original!

For the outside, melt:
1 1/2 C chocolate chips, melted
A dash of soymilk for flavor
and cupcake wrappers (I am using a miniature cupcake pan, so I have mini paper wrappers)

For the filling, melt:
3/4 C Peanut Butter
1-3 Tbsp powdered sugar (or to taste)

These cups are made in three steps and in between each step, they are placed in the refrigerator to cool and harden. No baking needed! So, first: Heat the chocolate. You can microwave it, or do it on the stove top in a sauce pan (which I did), just be careful not to let the chocolate get too hot because it will burn. If it burns, turn the heat lower.

Once soft, use a spoon to put a dollop of chocolate into the cupcake wrapper. The chocolate will cool pretty quickly so work diligently to spread the chocolate so it covers the entire bottom of the wrapper and spreads up the sides a little. This is creating a kind of chocolate shell to hold in the peanut butter. There should be some chocolate left over to use as the "lid" for these cups. So leave it warming once your little wrappers have their bottoms. Set these in the fridge to cool until hard.

Soften the peanut butter and the powdered sugar in another saucepan while the first phase is cooling in the fridge. Taste test the peanut butter filling to make sure it is sweet to your liking and also that it is soft enough to be squished into place. Once chocolate has cooled take the pan out of the fridge and put a small spoonful of peanut butter in each cup. After making sure I there was some peanut butter in each cup I went back a lightly pressed it down into the chocolate, making sure to leave enough room in each for the chocolate topping. Set in fridge to cool.

And last, but not least, finish off the peanut butter cups with the last of the melted chocolate. Use the spoon to smooth out the tops and make sure they extend to each side of the paper wrappers. Cool again. After this, it's all done! The explanation took a long time, but the process is fairly straight-forward. Chocolate layer. Cool. Peanut butter layer. Cool. Chocolate layer. Cool. Eat!

Cutting these peanut butter cups in half shows off the layering. It is very pretty to me. My mini cupcake tin only allows for 12 treats at once which turned out to be plenty. These little guys are rich, sweet and very satisfying. Keep them in the fridge for storage. They melt more quickly than your average, shelf stable, store-bought version.

I'll have to try Quick Bread another day.

2011-03-09T13:43:00.000-08:00

With a narrow window with which to bake something yesterday, I turned to a Quick Bread to avoid the rising time needed for a yeast dough. With not a lot of ingredients on hand, I took a chance on an experiment with a whole wheat quick bread.

Quick bread is a type of bread that doesn't use yeast as a leavening agent. Instead, a chemical leavener like baking soda is used in combination with and acid like lemon juice or buttermilk. Or even water will work to create a reaction that produces carbon dioxide to raise the dough a little bit. Common baked goods that are quick breads are: brownies, biscuits, scones, irish soda bread, etc.

I took a fairly non-traditional recipe for a vegan quick bread and made it even more wild. Here it is (but I don't suggest you use it):

In a large bowl:
1 C Whole Wheat flour
3/4 C Brown Rice flour
1/4 C Flaxseed meal
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum (a thickener, since I used a rice flour which is generally less elastic than wheat flour)

In a smaller bowl:
1 C soy milk
1 T vegetable oil
1 1/2 T agave syrup (honey can be used too)

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Mix together the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately. Stir wet stuff into the dry. The resulting dough is wet and thick. Great. Place on a greased baking sheet and cook for 20 minutes or until the bread sounds "hollow" wet the bottom is tapped.

And, oh dear, where to start? The original recipe called for half whole wheat and half oat flour. I think I made a mistake by substituting rice and flax... the dough didn't rise very much (which I thought was fine because quick breads are dense). The dough might have been too wet because it sucked up the oil as it cooked and then fused to the pan! Horrible. Lacking finesse, I tore the bread in half when trying to remove it from the sheet after 25 minutes of cooking. After a period of 10-15 minutes cooking my curiosity had gotten the best of me, so I sliced into the loaf to find the most doughy center I've ever seen for such a brown (and close to overcooked) crust.

So I'll have to try this again another time and follow the original recipe a little more closely. On a different note, here is a picture of our new kitchen. You also have a peek at the dining room/living room area:

What you can't see is the washer/dryer bhind me in the lower right corner and the bathroom door behind and to the left. What you CAN see is proof that this is indeed a basement with the outline of the stairs in the upper right and a large white air duct to the upper left. Woo! Basement.

Dutch Oven Bread

2011-02-26T12:34:00.000-08:00

I am very excited about a lot of the things I cook. But I'll say it: I was the MOST excited about this loaf!

I love to make bread and bread-like things. Flat breads, dinner rolls, loaves, sweet things... whatevs! After tooling around with various recipes and talking to other bread making friends, I learned that the really good stuff comes from using a dutch oven (a cast iron cooking pot with a lid) to cook your bread.

Dutch ovens keep in the moisture of the dough while cooking, creating a loaf with a golden, crispy crust and the soft, moist inside. And, as far as I have read, the "no knead" method is the most preferred for dutch ovens.

"No knead" is exactly what it sounds like. Many breads are kneaded for 7-15 minutes to properly mix the ingredients and to kickstart the yeast. Kneading is definitely a learned skill and is fairly sensitive to outside input like adding too much flour and temperature (of both your hands and the room). But with the no knead approach, the mixed dough sits for 6+ hours (preferably over night), slowly rising and fermenting, while I sleep soundly or go about my daily business. After a few more steps and barely 5 minutes of total dough handling, the loaf is in the oven!

I have not created my own recipe for no knead bread and suggest you search the internet for "no knead bread recipe" (there are many, and they are all very similar) if you have a dutch oven and want to make bread that tastes as good as the loaf you get at your local bakery when you want something fancy. My hopeful next step: dutch oven kalamata olive bread!

Hybrid Bagel Dogs

2011-02-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

The other day I really wanted to make some bread. I hadn't enough flour for a loaf so I got creative. The end result was a half bread, half bagel, hot dog sandwich! Not too bad.

I searched the internets for "pigs in a blanket", found a simple recipe as a template, then changed it completely. Here it is:

In a small bowl mix:
1 Cup warm water
1 Tbsp yeast
1/4 Cup sugar

Let this sit for 5 minutes while the yeast activates and dissolves. It gets all bubbly and aromatic.

In a mixing bowl add:
2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 Cup whoel wheat flour
1/2 of an egg (I know, it's weird. I used Ener-G egg replacer, though, so I just mixed up enough to make half of the suggestion for one egg)
1 tsp salt
1/8 Cup oil
1 Tbsp rubbed sage
1 tsp coarse Black pepper

Knead the dough for maybe 7 minutes until it is elastic, but not sticky. Then set the dough in a warm place, bowl covered with a towel and rise for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size. Note: A lot of times I will let the dough rise in a clean, lightly oiled bowl. The dough tends stick to the crusty floured sides of the mixing bowl when it's left in it to rise. Not necessary, but I prefer it.

Next! On a lightly floured surface (above, I used parchment paper) I rolled out the dough into a circle 12-18 inches in diameter. Then I cut it into 8 "pizza slices" and to rolled a sausage in each one. Because I didnt want to go to the store I only had two whole sausages to work with so I cut them in half and then half again, lengthwise. I would suggest just buying enough sausages or hot dogs to use a whole one in each roll. Mine sausage pieces got a little lost in all the dough, as you can see.

Roll a sausage in each slice, from the wide part to the pointy part. Once rolled I set the bagel dogs on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal and let them relax a little while the oven pre-heated to 350 F. Cook for 15-20 minutes, until golden! Some of the dogs got the vegan cheddar cheese treatment. The jury is still out on weather that was a good idea or not...

Some thoughts: These are like a re-envisioned hot dog, but I think I got carried away with it. The sage and pepper tasted nice but didn't go so well with the ketchup and mustard I wanted use as dippings. Next time, I'll tone it down by using regular veggie dogs and an unseasoned dough.

Learning to Cook in New Spaces

2011-02-23T11:51:00.000-08:00

I've recently had a major move out from my apartment of 4.5 years. My new apartment, aside from being in a very exciting location and living with my main squeeze, Bree, is nothing like my old apartment. Here are some photos of the moving-in process:

After years spent cooking in the same space I probably could have made a meal even if I were blindfolded and set on fire. Now cooking is ridiculous. I wait for 15 minutes for my water to boil to then realize that I turned on the wrong burner, I lost my black pepper for days and, worst of all, I thought the oven was broken until Bree realized that it just wasn't plugged in! Oops. But, really, why was it unplugged in the first place?!

But, as it usually goes, things are better every day. I am back to cooking and baking and happy to announce that without any major travesties the first meal in the new apartment was this: Fried tofu squares and rice pilaf with sauteed kale and onions! Not bad. I wish I had some black pepper though.

It only gets better from here!

Valentines Cookie Crafting

2011-02-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

We should honor more holidays by decorating cookies. Sugar cookies make a great "canvas" for my artsy self who also wants sugar all the time.

Since college, I have had a yearly get together with my friends to make paper crafts in honor of Valentine's Day. Mostly I accomplish nothing because I am too busy making inappropriate, funny and ironic cards for friends. I expect nothing less this year, and I even want to literally join crafting and sugar (instead of crafting while eating sugar).

Sugar cookies are easy. True, I like cooking. But I also love cooking when it's easy. Look online for a recipe or try this one (I don't think it was the best, but who needs "best" when you are decorating with icing and sprinkles, right?):

In a mixing bowl:
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 C sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (My cookies taste a bit salty, so you could get away with adding less)

In smaller bowl:
1/2 C oil
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp maple syrup (I used agave, but honey might do... or just more sugar and a little water)
1 egg (I used Ener-G egg replacer)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, then go ahead and stir the wet ingredients into the dry until they are well mixed. I ended up adding a little more water to make the dough stick together better. When I tried to roll it out the first time it all turned into crumbles. That is how I knew it was not wet enough.

I used a cylindrical glass cup to roll the dough, but those of you who have actual baking tools, use them! Once thin, no more than 1/4 inch thick, I cut out heart shapes (cute!) and then also "broken hearts", because I think I'm hilarious, and placed them on a baking sheet. In the oven at 375 degrees F until the cookies brown at the edges: 5-7 minutes.

As you can see by some of the darker hearts below, even a minute late and the the cookies are overdone! So pay attention. Don't dance in the living room waiting for the timer to go off...

Oddly, by themselves, these cookies taste like graham crackers. But I kind of love it.

Vegetarian Wontons

2011-02-07T14:10:00.000-08:00

I recently had wontons for dinner two nights in a row. I'm not bashful about this dinner repeat, though, because they are just so fast (both to prepare AND cook), adaptable and cheap!

Some back story (because I needed it, too):
Wontons are a type of dumpling that are very popular in Chinese cuisine. Common fillings include shrimp and pork as well as veggies like ginger and carrots. They are wrapped in 3-inch, square wonton wrappers (which I conveniently bought in a 50-pack and the store for less than two bucks). Bree and I went the vegetarian route and from our endless options we settled on two: ginger, carrot, cabbage and tofu ricotta with spinach and basil.

Night one: Carrot, zucchini, ginger (made about 25 wontons)
2 small carrots
2 small zucchini squashes
1 inch of fresh ginger root
All ingredients are finely shredded and mixed together. Be careful with the ginger because I put twice as much (perhaps 3 inches) in my filling and the bite of the ginger was so strong it kind of wiped out the other flavors. And cleared my sinuses... I suggest starting with a little at first.

A dollop of the filling goes in the middle of each wrapper. To seal them I used my finger and some warm water around the edges then folded it over and onto itself, pressing to make sure they stuck. Boil in water for 3-4 minutes and collect with a slotted spoon. Some of the wontons started sticking together after cooking. With olive oil, I lightly covered the freshly cooked wontons so they would slide around each other instead of fuse together.

But I forgot to take a photo. Dang.

Night two: Tofu ricotta with spinach, garlic and basil (made about 12 wontons, perfect for two people!)
7 ounces of firm tofu, pressed to remove excess liquid
1 large handful of fresh spinach
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 handful of basil leaves, or to taste
salt, pepper and nutritional yeast, to taste

In a pan on medium heat with a dash of oil, add the garlic and cook it until it is browned and smelling awesome. Then throw in the spinach and cook it until it starts to wilt. This wilting shouldn't take long; spinach is sensitive.

In a food processor add the tofu and spinach and garlic. Blend for a few seconds until it turns into a nice mush. Then add the basil leaves and blend again. Last, add the spices and taste it to make sure you are liking what is happening. I added more basil and pepper.

Just like before, I added in a spoonful of filling to each wrapper and "glued" them together with water. I had some fun with the wrapping and folded all the corners into the middle. This is absolutely not necessary, but it made me feel fancy. Again, They were cooked for 3 minutes.

Bree topped her wontons with a little more fresh basil, vegan mozzarella, and olive oil.

I will definitely be making more wontons in the future. This meal is probably most appealing to me because of all the variations I can create. I love having options, and with these, I feel boundless!

Why aren't you making Kale chips?!

2011-02-02T07:00:00.000-08:00

I recently got together with a good friend and made a great meal. But, I think there was one obvious star: Kale chips! Seen below cuddling closely with the onion, mushroom, pasta dish they went with.

Oven cook time is about 5-8 minutes at 400 degrees F until the Kale is crispy to the touch, or crunchy to the bite. Note: I tear the whole Kale leaves into bite-sized pieces before baking.

It recently came to my attention that some people are adding olive oil to the Kale before baking it (or worse, they hate Kale chips altogether! Shame.) and that is fairly unnecessary. All we need to do is evaporate the water present in the vegetable and it will dry out and become crunchy. I usually add a little salt, pepper and nutritional yeast to the kale when I put it in the oven. But you should also try all of your favorite seasonings too!

Kale is great.

Grilled Teriyaki Tofu

2011-02-01T17:59:00.000-08:00

Grilled food is really delicious to a lot of people. Just because I eat the diet of all vegetables doesn't mean I shouldn't get to grill my food. The slight char and smokey flavor that comes with the finished product is spot on! During a recent visit to my family (and father who grills everything, all the time) I made this Grilled Teriyaki Tofu.

I've always liked cooking with my Dad because (he'll tell you himself) he has a lot of knowledge and mostly good ideas about cooking (maybe I'll talk about his "panini brick" later). I had an especially good time trying to create acceptable vegan versions of what my Dad had already planned for dinner. This is the best one by far. I was so impressed with this photo that I showed it to everyone around me multiple times.

Here's the rundown:
Extra firm tofu, pressed and cubbed, then skewered. I used a great store bought Teriyaki sauce to marinade this badboy for maybe 45 minutes. I rotated the tofu to make sure the sauce was evenly coated. Actually, I turned it every 2 minutes because I was so excited! Thrown on the grill for 2 minutes on a side and, rad, it's done.

Accompanying this tofu is wild rice cooked in vegetable broth and diced Shiitake mushrooms, and steamed green beans.

And a picture of my Dad's cat, Topaz, because he's such a dreamboat:

Kenyan Cilantro Pesto

2011-01-20T15:00:00.000-08:00

While visiting my brother in Kenya, we made a delicious meal using cilantro as a pesto base.

Cilantro pesto with Penne

Pesto is not hard if you are flexible. Ingredients can be changed depending on what you like. I generally use either cilantro (some know it as coriander) or basil as a base, nuts, garlic and olive oil. Traditional pesto will have cheese but I find this unnecessary with the dominant flavors of garlic and cilantro. Then it's up to you to add other flavors if you want.

1 bunch fresh cilantro, washed with the big stems taken out
1 small bag roasted cashews (I used a large handful)
2-3 garlic cloves, quartered
olive oil, at least a couple spoonfuls
salt and pepper to taste

Optional:
1 fresh hot pepper (pili pili), sliced in rounds
Almonds, pecans, walnuts, pine nuts are all options instead of cashews
Other spices for specific flavor pairings

All the ingredients are thrown into a small blender/food processor (thanks to Cassandra!) and mixed until they turned into a fine pulp. If you don't have a food processor you can use a mortar and pestle to grind the ingredients into a paste (and also give yourself a pat on the back because you've just done it the hard way!).

I add more oil when it seems too dry and more nuts and spices until it tastes nice. Mostly, the pesto should be able to spread around the desired pasta or gnocchi easily enough without being chunky. And that's it! I might also be so inclined to add this pesto to bread or use as a a dip for a vegetable platter.

Going away... then coming back.

2011-01-19T16:29:00.000-08:00

Alright everybody, it's true: I took a siesta to Africa!

Panorama of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

But also equally true is that I am back and can't wait to start posting again. While I had high hopes (some might say too high) of posting WHILE visiting my brother Alan in Nairobi, it didn't work out because everything else was so exciting (Terrible bus rides! Malawi! Baby elephants! Swahili!). But don't just take my word for it: Take Alan's word for it from his blog.

We were able to create a couple really delicious meals with our ultimate highlight being Gnocchi (store bought) with Cilantro Pesto (homemade!). But meals definitely took a back seat to having fun:

Randi having fun on the street

Alan having fun with a bus

Stay tuned for a post on what I am now calling Kenyan Cilantro Pesto! And remember to check out Alan's blog (linked above) for witty writing, mediocre to awesome pictures of me, him, and Eastern Africa and general insight into Kenya today.

Breakfast sammies!

2010-12-14T09:26:00.000-08:00

A good while ago I made some breakfast sandwiches with seitan sausage, tofu "eggs" and onions on homemade bread... Then I completely forgot about them and they got lost in the maze of photos on my camera. Good thing I check before I erased everything from the memory card, because I found these great photos!

The onion was sliced and cooked until soft and tranlucent. Meanwhile, the tofu was pressed, then sliced thinly and coated in a mixture of nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, turmeric, garlic and oil. Then cooked on the skillet until crispy around the edges.

The sausage was, again, sliced thinly, then cooked on the skillet (which already has oil in it from the tofu!) until browned. I think I put mustard on mine too, so it wasn't so dry.

Israeli Couscous Salad

2010-12-11T11:35:00.000-08:00

Israeli couscous is an oversized version of the "grain" you probably already know. And the mouth-feel is amazing! Truly.

It's like my mouth is at Chuck-E-Cheese in the ball cage!

I use the term "grain" very loosely because it is actually more like tiny wheat pasta bits, or balls. Either way though, I think it can be interchanged with the mother of all grain/seeds, Quinoa, in any dish as long as you aren't catering to your gluten-free friends. Bree made a salad including kale, red onion, chopped almonds, apple and olive oil vinnaigrette.

Those who know me know I love things in miniature. When making this dish I discovered that the opposite is also really great: miniature things in big! Just look at them, so fun!

Bottle Garden

2010-12-05T14:00:00.000-08:00

Miniature gardens are really, really cute!

Robot in the garden

Terrariums are all the rage these days, so I decided to make my own using an old milk bottle I found years ago at a cheap thrift store. Ever the frugal person, I simply went outside and picked cute, little plants from my front yard: a tiny succulent, and even tinier weeds.

Dried lavender, small rocks and a robot make me feel like this is a real life little world! I love to look at it!

The bottom of the bottle is lined with gravel, then damp soil then plants. I didn't have any activated charcoal around (oops!) so I hope things don't get too moist and smelly. Only time will tell, I suppose.

Chickpea Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese

2010-12-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

This soup is a recipe from the Vegan Yum Yum cook book. It is mostly a tomato soup with cayenne pepper (and a few other spices) and a can of chickpeas all blended together.

Bree had a loaf of sourdough lying around and some spare Daiya mozzarella shreds so we made grilled cheese to go with the soup. A dash of basil and pepper and this meal still has us revelling!

Kale Hazelnut Lentil Soup

2010-11-30T17:22:00.000-08:00

This soup blew my mind. And it was easy. A friend made a soup using some of these ingredients and I added some more that sounded good:

Ingredients:
4-6 leaves of Kale, ripped into pieces
1 leek, sliced in rounds
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 med. yellow potatoes, cubed
1 cup lentils
2 carrots, chopped
hazelnuts
2 Tbsp bulk fresh herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme), diced
2-4 Cups veggie broth
salt and pepper, to taste

How it was made:
Start by cooking 1 cup of lentils in 2 Cups veggie broth, 3 cups water in a large soup pot. All of the soup will need to fit in here, so make sure you are using a big pot). After the lentils have been cooking for around 15 minutes add in potatoes (and any spare springs of the herbs). Continue to cook until lentils and potatoes are soft.

While the lentils cook, saute carrots, onion and leek in olive oil. After they start to soften (turn translucent) add the herbs, salt and pepper, and hazelnuts. Cook for another 5-10 minutes.

Add the veggies and nuts into the lentil and potato pot. Don't forget to take out the springs of herbs if you added them in. No one wants to bite into a twig...actually, maybe some people do. You decide. Add the kale and let it soften for a minute or two. Before moving on.

Now, I bet the soup can be eaten as is, but I used a hand held immersion blender to make the soup thick and more homogeneous, eliminating bigger pieces of kale, carrot and hazelnut. You could also do small batches in a blender, or food processor. I also noted that the soup was more thick than I intended, so I took the liberty of adding 1/2 cup more water. Again, you decide.

Completed with a couple slices of rustic bread, this meal is incredibly filling and very nutritious.

Mini Pizzas: Why choose one topping?

2010-11-21T15:34:00.000-08:00

Delicious! But more importantly, so cute!

This started out as a regular recipe for one large pizza. Instead of one, I made 15 by dividing the dough after the first rise.

Flavor concepts: Basil tomato, onion, on a garlic olive oil base. And pear, carmelized onion with a rosemary olive oil base (Not including that weird one in the back of the above photo. I was getting ride of spare toppings by that time).

The picture above is blurry, but I like it!

Skillet fajitas, Skillet 911

2010-11-17T14:35:00.000-08:00

These days I feel like a winner. I just got a cast iron skillet, and guys, it's really amazing. It grills, it sautes, it bakes. Really great.*

I made grilled onion and seitan fajitas with black beans and jalapenos. The seitan was great, but not by me. The secret is in the skillet! (Congrats to the red dinosaur for making an appearance)

*Update: I almost ruined the skillet, y'all. For all my care and caution, I nearly cooked the season right of out this skillet by forgetting it on the stove, an event which suggests some character flaws that I don't want to admit. BUT, my door has been opened to the world of re-seasoning skillets with heat and oil. And I'm totes making lemonade out of this lemon.

I scrubbed off the gray soot that covered it and rinsed it out with water. Then evenly spread veggie oil over the surface and placed it in the oven on low heat (250-300) for a bit to let the oil set, maybe an hour. Presto! Beautiful again. Phew. Now I want to go to the Goodwill and find more skillets to re-season and claim as mine.

Apple Sausage Dogs

2010-11-17T14:20:00.000-08:00

These weren't your normal hot dogs!

Homemade pickles turned into homemade relish for these hot dogs with Smoked Apple Sage sausages.

The strong flavor of the sausages still tasted nice with your average hotdog fixings. The seitan sausages were made from a couple combined recipes found by searching the internet with "smoked apple sage seitan sausage". I've made them before; they look like this.

The relish was actually just diced dill pickles, jarred some weeks ago. Next time I will dice in some red onion with the pickles. I also think a sweet relish would be nice to go along with the apple sausage.

Metal or Glass?

2010-10-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

I have made my last two loaves of bread in a metal pan and I wanted to see if I can see a difference in how the bread turns out when cooking in glass. Here is the run-down: Glass absorbs heat and retains it more than metal (cooking your dish quicker, browning more), so the oven should be set for 25 degrees F lower than with a metal pan. Also, baked items tend to stick more to glass bakeware...

But talking about it is boring. I made a flax loaf in my pyrex dish:

The verdict? It was kinda hard to get the bread loose from the pyrex, even though it was well greased! But the crust is really nice and brown and I think I would still use either pan.

Pickles, part 2

2010-10-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

Some photos surfaced of the original pickling process as well as the finished product. Without the cucumbers in them, them mason jars looks like terrariums!

Next time, more dill will be used to cut the spice of all the peppers.

And, here, a deli sandwhich with the dill pickles on homemade whole wheat flax bread:

Potato and Spinach Salad, Lemon-Mustard Dressing

2010-10-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

This dish is something I ate at a potluck and have been trying to re-create ever since. I have mostly not had luck trying to make up the recipe on the fly. Today I took a little time and came up with something that resembles the original dish.

3 Cubed and boiled potatoes
Fresh spinach leaves
Optional: other veggies that sound good to you

Dressing (whisk together ingredients while potatoes cook):
1/8 Cup olive oil
1/8 Cup Lemon juice
2 tsp stoneground mustard
Zest of 1/2 a lemon
1 garlic cloved diced or pressed very small
salt and pepper to taste

I cooked and drained the potatoes and put them in the bowl and poured the dressing over them while still hot. Let them sit for a couple of minutes and prepare the spinach to add. I added a large handful of spinach and ripped it into pieces easy enough to eat. I pickled some green beans recently that sound pretty good in this as well as the sliced onion I added.

Some words on Hazelnuts

2010-10-15T07:30:00.000-07:00

This post is a shot-out to a very tasty local tree nut: The hazel nut, sometimes referred to as Filberts (depending on shape). And as Bree noted, Filbert would be a great name for a small-ish dog. Phil for short!

Raw hazelnuts in a chop salad.
Roasted hazelnuts.
Roasted hazelnuts in a salad.
Hazelnuts in my steel cut oats.

I revisited brown sugar rosemary hazelnuts and was just as satisfied by them as when I first posted.

To roast:
Place shelled nuts on a baking pan and cook for 5-10 minutes at 375, until golden brown. Then take the nuts out of oven and use a dishtowel to partially remove some of the skins from the nuts. These nuts are hot (!) so be careful. Sprinkle with salt or add a glaze and cook a little more.
Glaze:
Pour a desired glaze of the nuts and toss in a bowl until nuts are coated. Cover the baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the coated nuts over the surface. Then pop it ack into the oven and cook until sugar is bubbly and thick. And as before: separate nuts from each other once out of the oven so that they don't stick to each other as they cool.

As fall sets in, I'd love to roast more nuts. It makes my apartment smell good and stay very warm!

Pickling Vegetables

2010-10-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to pickle vegetables but just never followed through. Spear-headed by the suggestion from Bree, we pickled some cucumbers (pickles!), grean beans (dilly beans!) and red onion with cauliflower. the whole event was filled with awe, excitement (mostly me), and lots of preemptive congratulatory statements.

Here is the only photo I took of the entire process:

This is a picture of the cucumbers and green beans awaiting the water/vinager/salt solution. Inside, each jar has fresh dill sprigs, garlic, and pickling spices that include black pepper, mustardseed, and dried hot red pepper.

In the future I would love to pickle beets, peppers and maybe even carrots or something...

Because everything needed a change...

2010-09-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

I have made bagels before. Mostly of the everything variety (poppy seed, garlic, onion, salt, etc). Nothing else seemed like a good idea until now. Introducing, the jalapeño cheddar mini bagel!

I used to always order these at my local bagel shop. It didn't seem possible in the vegan world. But now Daiya makes a melty, cheddary, salty version of my favorite cheese. And I always love a way to insert the spicey jalapeño into a meal.

Don't be fooled by their lack of golden doneness (the lighting did something weird): They are pretty fantastic.

Oh... and I made some everything bagels, too.

Guilty pleasure chili

2010-09-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

Mostly, I don't consider chili to be a junk food. I use beans, fresh produce and spices and slow-cooked in my Crock Pot.

The chili below was no different... But then I added Daiya shredded cheddar cheese.

Then came the Fritos. They added an awesome crunch and their saltiness went great with the unsalted chili mixture.

It might have been the happy hour talking, but this was the best homemade chili experience I've had in a while... maybe ever.

Note: The chili seen here is a three bean (black, kidney, garbanzo) chili with green, yellow and red bells peppers, Kamut (an ancient wheat grain), whole corn kernels, onion, garlic and spices, topped with fresh cilantro, green onion, and Daiya cheese.

Pizza dough on the quick.

2010-09-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

"Lately" my food craving has been pizza. This is largely due to the addition of the vegan wonder cheese, Daiya, to many of the local food stores. But with or without cheese, pizza is a still a versatile meal made simpler by this quick dough recipe I used last night.

2 1/2 Cup flour
1/4 ounce dry active yeast
1 cup warm water
1 Tbps oil
a dash of salt

Mix water and yeast together and let sit for 5 minutes until it's all bubbly and thick. Add this mixture to the flour and salt, add oil. I stirred with a wooden spoon until the dough was mostly together and then kneaded it by hand on a lightly floured surface for a couple minutes adding a little flour when it got sticky. The dough should be soft, moist and a little shiny but won't stick to your hand or the kneading surface.

Put in a oiled bowl to rise for 15 minutes (oiled so the dough won't stick when rising!). Then turn it out onto a flat surface and shape into your ideal pizza. Sauce, toppings, oven. I cooked it at 375 for maybe 20 minutes. I just made sure the crust was looking golden brown before I took it out of the oven.

Note: It might be beneficial to pre-bake the dough for 5 minutes before adding toppings too. That would just cut down on the amount of time the pizza needs to cook in the oven with the toppings on it. Some toppings can be time sensitive in the oven, like spinach.

Steak and Slaw

2010-08-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

Colorful red cabbage slaw with well marinated tempeh steaks. Just some pretty photos today because I've covered slaw and steak before: Here and here, respectively.

A different angle:

Sliced almonds, chopped pecans, red cabbage, kale, carrot, onion, red wine vinaigrette.

Coconut Lime Pops

2010-08-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

Hot days call for cold treats. Everybody knows this. But I've been so distracted with summer that I have been forgetting to make popsicles that I planned on so many months ago when it was still wintry in PDX. Recently I followed through, though, with Coconut Lime popsicles:

1 can light coconut milk
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 shredded coconut
zest of 1 lime
juice of two limes!

Mix together and pour into popsicle molds (Don't have molds? You could use ice cube trays or small dixie cups and popsicle sticks). When frozen, eat! For aesthetic flare I put some coconut shreds at the bottom of each pop which didn't actually different in the end.

Flavored ice cubes would be fun in mixed drinks. Lemon cubes... or berry cubes in a soda drink. Endless options!

Pecan Flaxseed Granola Bars

2010-08-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

I usually ride my bike to get where I need to go and hunger comes with the territory. So I try to pack protein-rich granola bars in my bag to fill the gap between bigger meals. For those of you who buy granola bars from the store you know that they only come in packs of 6 bars. That is a box a week! What?! Homemade granola bar time.

Granola bars are so variable. Pretty much anything that you have on hand will work as long as you have the big stuff: oats, nuts, flour, sweetener (any will do), and something wet to hold it all together.

What I used: pecans, peanut butter, milled flax seed and flax seed oil, coconut shreds, chocolate chips, maple syrup, agave, applesauce, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and a little baking soda because lots of recipes online had it in there.

General dry measurements:
2 1/2 Cups oats
1 Cup flour
1/2 Cup brown sugar
2-3 Tbsp milled flax seed
1/2-3/4 Cup chopped pecans
coconut shreds and chocolate chips to taste (maybe a scant 1/3 Cup each)
1 tsp baking soda

Even more general wet measurements:
1-2 tsp flax seed oil
1-2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Cup applesauce
1/2 Cup peanut butter
1 Tbsp agave
<1 Tbsp maple syrup

I really didn't pay attention to the measurements because I was just looking for a dense granola batter. It isn't supposed to be like cake or banana bread viscosity. And it definitely took a little muscle to mix this stuff together. I added more applesauce to get all the dry ingredients incorporated. Once together, I put it in a greased 9x13 and evened it out to the corners.

In the oven at 400 degrees for ~20 minutes until the edges were browned and the whole thing mostly just looked like extreme oatmeal cookies.

I let the granola cool for 10 minutes and then sliced them into recognizable bar shapes.

Intuitively, letting the granola cool a bit allows it to firm up and hold shape when slicing. When they cool completely they are hard (Well, more hard. Mine never got crunchy) and able to be separated the rest of the way. I think I could cook these longer to make them more crunchy. They also tend to crumble and I think it is a result of them being a little on the dry side before baking.

As far as replacing store bought granola: I'll count these as a win!

Pesto Pasta with Tempeh Bacon

2010-08-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

I was pretty tired having just spent the weekend with some of my favorite people at a wedding in the bay area (!!!) and when I finally got home I just wanted a fast meal. I was pleasantly surprised with this meal and how quick it was to create with so little ingredients!

With brown rice pasta and pesto on hand all I needed to do was make some bacon. Facon. Tempehcon! Whatevs.

I chose the marinade recipe below, and while it was more sweet than I wanted, it was still nice:

2/3 of a package of tempeh, cut into thin strips
1 Tbsp olive oil
1-2 Tbsp agave or maple syrup (I used 2 Tbsp, but 1 would have really been enough)
1/2 tsp cumin
dash of cayenne
1 tsp liquid smoke
1-2 tsp soy sauce (gluten free!)
1 tsp black pepper

I would add chili flakes to the bacon next time, too. Once marinated for 5-10 minutes these bad boys were cooked in a pan with olive oil until browned (or a little burned in this case).

First time with Gazpacho

2010-08-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

Once, for a short time, I worked in the Deli of a food co-op where all the food was the best I'd ever had. For the hot summer days they made a gazpacho that was so popular people would ask for it even before the weather was ready to give us sunburns. So now I'm thinking, "If it's that popular, I should make it". All it has in it is fresh veggies with a tomato base and spices. Not hard right?

Right. It is very easy in fact! Almost any desirable fresh veggie can be added to gazpacho once the base is made. Here is how I started:

4 fresh tomatoes, cubed and season with oregano, basil, salt and pepper

1/2 fresh cucumber, peeled and cubed

1 cup cold water

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup white wine vinegar and a couple tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

1 clove garlic, crushed

These were all put into my blender and pulsed until liquidy but still chunky/lumpy. No need to puree this, it is a chunky cold soup! Then I added my veggies of choice:

1 yellow bell pepper, chopped

1 yellow onion, chopped

1-2 sticks celery, chopped
1/4-1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
herbs and spices to taste: salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, basil

Again, I pulsed until the mixture until the veggies were chunky. I also added a little more balsamic vinegar to taste. Since I had a french bread baguette left over from a picnic the night before I made croutons for topping. And avocado. And more fresh cilantro.

Pecan Tassies

2010-08-01T12:47:00.000-07:00

July was a high for me but a low for the WIDWIDHAJ blog. Admitedly, a poorly chosen in-the-moment title because, in fact, I do have a job which keeps me busy outside of the kitchen in addition to many fun visitors last month! I did however manage to squeeze in another tassie recipe that I'll share. (Notice the "Nairobi" mug! A favorite cafe of Alan's in Kenya)

For the dough, see my older mixed berry tassies. For the filling! Check it out:
1/3 to 1/2 Cup chopped pecans
2/3 Cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp Earth Balance
1 tsp vanilla
Equivalent of 1 egg (I used 2 Tbsp water, 1 Tbsp oil, 2 tsp baking powder)
dash of salt

I beat together the soft/liquid ingredients and then added the pecans and salt.

One word of caution: You (read: Me. I did this) may be inclined to fill the tiny tassies to the brim with the pecan filling, but refrain. They will rise when baking to meet the rim of the pastry and even bubble over a little, so fill them 1/2 to 3/4 full.

I enjoyed these even more than my mixed berry tassies. They are approved by my family and would make a great impression if brought to a dessert potluck or bake sale.

Picnic at the Bluffs

2010-07-08T11:09:00.000-07:00

Days off are awesome. They are even better spent with people you love. A good friend was in town and we went to a great lookout park and had a picnic centered around Quinoa Salad.

Bree and Liz casually take in the view. Optimistically, I brought a frisbee, but it was just so hot that I got lazy and ate food instead. Fine by me.
The salad was very different than the black bean one I posted recently. The stars of this salad (besides quinoa): spinach, kalamata olives, red onion, cucumber (grown by Liz!) and tomatoes. We chopped them into whatever size we wanted and mixed them with a couple cups of cooked quinoa.

I also made a lemon vinnaigrette to give the salad a little moisture. Here is the approximate recipe, as requested!
~1 Tbsp Olive oil
~1 Tbsp White wine vinegar
~1-2 Tbsp Lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Fresh cherries, pretzels, quinoa salad and mimosas! What a great picnic.

Mixed berry Tassies in Miniature

2010-07-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

A local bakery makes something called "tassies" that look like tarts to my untrained eye. I'm sure I'd be able to get away with either name, but will go with "tassies" since they sound foreign to my ear and, therefore, more fancy! Additionally, they looked easy to make and I like that.

The dough: These are mini tassies, so I only need half as much dough to fill my two mini muffin trays.

1/2 Cup vegan Cream Cheese, scant
1/2 Cup vegan butter substitute
1 Cup flour

Cream the butter and cream cheese together, then add the flour. Mix until just holds together.

My warm hands wanted to melt the dough so I put it in the fridge to cool really quickly. The dough was rolled into ~ 1 inch balls and squished into the muffin wells.

Once completed, I put the muffin trays into the fridge and started on my berry filling:

2 Cups mixed berries of your choice
1/3 Cup brown sugar
1-3 Tbsp flour

I cooked the berries over medium heat until they released their juices. Then I added a the brown sugar and flour to thicken the filling. With the oven preheating to 400, I filled each tassy with filling to the brim and then placed them in the oven to bake for 20 minutes.

Presto! Mini tassies that were gone in less 24 hours. Below, Bree gracefully lifts these tassies out of the muffin tray before the sugars harden them in place.

The choices for fillings are endless. Pears would be great in this! I would like to try some nuts sometime, too. Pecans, cashews... I bet this will go well with savory stuff too.

Scones or Biscuits?

2010-06-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

Wait a minute, these scones look just like biscuits!

The name definitely depends where you live in the world.

This is a great recipe for Lemon Maple scones from the VeganYumYum cookbook. Instead of the suggested pairing of clotted cream and blueberries I chose to make a cherry compote of sorts from fresh cherries I got at the store yesterday.

I'm learning to love biscuits! They are awesome with both sweet and savory pairings and I usually have the ingredients on hand at any given moment (flour, salt, butter, soymilk, baking power).

You should make biscuits.

Quinoa Black Bean Salad

2010-06-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

Cold grain and bean salads work really well with warm summer days. Additions of spices are limitless, really. Yesterday I chose quinoa, black beans, green onions, cilantro and corn.

According to me (and this Wikipedia entry) Quinoa is a really special "grain" (in quotes because it isn't technically a grain, I learned) because of its intense nutritional value. It's a complete protein with lots of dietary fiber and, when cooked, it looks like each piece has a cute little tail!

The salad:
3-4 Cups cooked quinoa
1 can black beans
1 uncooked ear of corn
minced cilantro and green onions, salt and pepper to taste

Just add these all together and eat. It's so simple, and better yet, the salad gets better as it sits because all the flavors develop. I added a little lemon vinaigrette at an attempt of more flavor and it was almost negligible. Here is a picture of the salad before adding the quinoa:

This would be a great salsa all by itself.

Note: I've had decent results with a lentils, onion, olives and spinach combo, too.

Whole Wheat Flax loaf

2010-06-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I baked a plain old loaf of bread. Today I had some extra time on my hands (and a loaf of Dave's Killer Bread that is about to be finished), in fact, enough time to make a loaf of sliceable bread for my coming work week.
A number of weeks ago I bought some milled flax seed to up my intake of Omega-3 fatty acids. I thought bread would be vehicle for my flax and, apparently, so did everybody else because there are tons of whole wheat/flaxseed bread recipes floating around the web. I'm not a very original person.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup milled flaxseed
1 3/4 cups warm water
1 tbsp sugar (the recipe said honey, but I had none...)
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp dry active yeast

I mixed these ingredients in a regular bread-making kind of way. Water, sugar and yeast. Dry stuff. Mix. Knead for 10 minutes and set to rise until doubled. Punch down and place in breadpan. Rise again for 45 minutes and then bake. So easy...

A photo essay:

After baking I shared a couple slices with Bree wherein I had a range of emotions: disappointment, excitement, confusion, and contentment. Probably in that order. But really, this bread is good and I am happy to have my PB&J on it tomorrow.

Nontraditionally flavored pizza...

2010-06-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

I had a long, hot day at work so I decided to come home and make myself exactly what I wanted when I walked in the door: pizza! It's hard though, because when you walk in the door you don't always have the ingredients for success. Luckily tonight I had red bell, onion, peanut butter and potatoes. Great stuff for a Spicy Thai Pizza.

How it all went down:

First was a peanut sauce made from peanut butter, water, a little oil, Thai chili sauce, and a dash of soy sauce. Then I went ahead and put chili flakes in the dough to a) make it pretty and b) try to compliment the spicy peanut sauce I had just made (in the end, I don't think it did much for flavor). The potatoes were cut thin and baked until soft in olive oil, S&P, nutritional yeast and garlic. Red bell and onion were sliced thin for topping.

Once the dough was ready I gently spread into the familiar square shape of homemade pizza and spread the sauce and layered the toppings.

Some comments: I wish there was more sauce. While baking the pizza in the oven for ~20 minutes the sauce seemed to reduce (since there was no cheese to make it stay gooey and oily) and I would layer the sauce a little thicker next time. I might also brush the crust with olive oil before placing it in the oven in an attempt to have it brown while cooking.

This was a great break from my typical red sauce base. I look forward to trying more alternative pizza combos in the future.

Chapati

2010-06-08T15:54:00.000-07:00

My brother taught me how to make chapati when he visited Portland a couple years ago. He was visiting from Kenya and he taught me how to make chapati the way the Kenyans do. I'm not sure if I still do it the way Alan taught me, I make it every now and again and I always think of him way off in Nairobi where you can get fresh chapo on the street corners in the mornings.

I used 3 parts white flour and 1 part whole wheat flour for these, in addition to a teaspoon or two of salt, 1-2 cups of warm water and a clove of garlic, pressed.

Once the dough was formed I kneaded it with my hand until all the dry parts came together in a bowl.

Then I went through the process of rolling out the chapatis one by one, starting with spreading the dough with my fingers, then rolling it out flat.

When the dough is rolled into a thing rectangle I spread some oil over the top and divided it into even strips. These are rolled-up and set aside for final flattening and cooking.

As far as I can tell this rigorous process just works the oil into the dough, helps divide the dough into even portions and let's you listen to a whole one hour podcast.

In a heated skillet I sprayed some oil and cooked the chapati on both sides until browned and puffy with air holes.

I think these are best eaten warm with a curry, stew or a simple cup of sweet chai.

Tempeh Cabbage Wraps

2010-06-08T10:47:00.000-07:00

Crumbled tempeh is a very desireable food for me these days. I made some Tempeh Tuna Salad the other day and liked it so much that I marched right back to the store for some more tempeh to crumble. Cabbage wraps sounded easy but also fancy. Two of my favorite concepts.

While at the store I thought of some good toppings for a tempeh-filled wrap and what I chose was: carrot, cucumber, onion, and avocado. All of these fresh veggies went very well with a ginger dressing that I used to flavor the tempeh (and use the rest as a sauce over the top).

The tempeh cooks quickly with a little olive oil to start and some dressing poured in for flavor after a couple minutes. Once it started to brown I took the pan of the burner and the wraps were ready to be assembled with the sliced veggies as a topping and leaves of cabbage for the wrap.

So fast! So fancy! They present very well (even better than these mediocre, blurry photos) but are a little hard to eat because the cabbage was crisp and didn't go into rolls very well. A more flexible leafy green might be easier for wrapping because they won't break in half.

Sweet!

Sweet Potato and Pinto Bean Stuffed Tortillas

2010-06-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

I made these in honor of a a recent air trip back home to San Diego. Plane flights and airports are always hard when it comes to food. As it is you can hardly get free water and airport food can be fairly pricey and considerably underwhelming. I made these potato stuffed tortillas as a meal for my travels. (Note: These photos don't do justice to how great this meal was.)

In picture above: Two open-face tortillas in the foreground and one finished product in the background.

Ingredients:
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 can pinto beans, drained
2 cloves garlic, minced (or pressed)
Spices! ~ tsp cumin, turmeric, black pepper
dash of salt and Tapatío hot sauce

First, I heated up water to boil my potatoes (and added them sometime during this process) and while that heated I started with the beans in a bowl. With a fork I mashed the beans until there weren't any whole ones left and added the garlic and other spices to taste.

Once the sweet potatoes were soft I drained them and added them to the bean bowl. They were mashed with the other stuff and some more spices and hot sauce were added again for taste. With the filling complete I spread it about 1/4 inch thick across a tortilla, added avo slices and some jelepenos and closed with another tortilla. Each filled tortilla was heated an oiled pan in medium until it each side was browned and a little crispy. This batch made me 6 filled tortillas.

These stuffed tortillas were surprisingly delicious for a meal consisting of what I had on hand. I also like these because the ingredient combinations could go anywhere.

Vegan Cinnamon Rolls

2010-05-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

When I started cutting meat and other animal products out of my diet, I kind of thought that also included sweet treats like ice creams, candies, and baked goods. Man alive, was I wrong: I can TOTALLY be just as unhealthy with my eating as before! I like to keep my health foods in check with Cinnamon Rolls. The recipe I used here advertises itself to be as close to those ridiculously huge, sticky, gooey, buns found at malls and airports throughout the country. You know the ones. And they do a pretty good job.

I had about 2.5 of these bad boys yesterday and thought that was enough to tide me over. I brought them to my book club meeting and we made a good dent in them. Along with that, my housemate and my outrageous sugar tolerance, I am finishing the last of the rolls in a about 10 minutes (right after I post this blog!).

Here a before and after frosting picture set:

The frosting is a vegan cream cheese frosting made with Tofuti cream cheese. In the future I would like to use a cashew cream...

Next time I make these, I'll try to isolate one of the rolls for a delicious picture. Yum.

Hot Dog Sandwich

2010-05-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

After a somewhat long day with bikes, children, and lots of coffee, you know what? It's dinner time! It's not fancy cooking time, though, so I used a sausage I made recently thrown in with with grilled onion, mustard and relish on toasted Dave's Killer Good Seed bread. A hot dog sandwich.

As I do, here is an extreme close-up:

The onions were al dente but I didn't mind at all. I also think the relish was a great addition, though I see how that might be weird to some people too. Does that sound good to anybody else?

Fajita baked tofu

2010-05-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

I got this recipe online for a marinade for "fajita" tofu or vegetables. I feel a little weird calling my creation fajitas, though, because I ended up a) baking the tofu and b) making a veggie bowl with baked cauliflower. Most definitely not fajitas.

Marinades make me feel like a cooking genius! They flavor my food so well and I feel like I don't even try. I get to watch 30 Rock or Fringe then put a dish (or two in this case) in the oven and, bam! dinner is awesome. Today I also tried out a new kitchen gadget: The Misto. It's a pump-action oil sprayer that I purchased in order to reduce the amount of oil I use to cook. The teacher in me gives it a check plus, plus.

Fajita marinade:

1/4 cup water
1/8 cup lemon juice

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
~1/4 tsp. Oregano
~1/4 tsp. ground Cumin
~2 tsp. sugar
1-3 tsp. of Tapatío
1/8 tsp. Liquid Smoke

I prepared my tofu as I normally do, then marinated it for maybe 20 minutes on each side. While all that marinating was going on I cut the cauliflower into popcorn-sized florets and seasoned them with olive oil, s&p and nutritional yeast. I put the tofu in the oven for 20 minutes and when I flipped them I put in the cauliflower as well for 20-30 until the tofu looked browned and the florets were soft.

Everything was thrown together with some sauteed onion and fresh cilantro. I am extremely pleased with this meal. At the last second I had a thought to add a cilantro-garlic dressing I made a couple days ago. Here's another photo with the added dressing.

I had to stop myself from being ridiculous and finishing off the tofu and califlower because they tasted so good with the dressing. It's a good thing, too, because a) I would have then eaten an entire package of tofu and b) I would have eaten an entire head of cauliflower and (most importantly) c) I would have not had room for ice cream.

Not-so-spicey Italian Sausages

2010-05-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

I haven't made seitan lately, so I decided to jump back into it with a Spicy Italian Seitan Sausage recipe from the internet. I am pretty sure that if you search for those key words you too can find this recipe (or one similar!).

Some necessary and perhaps predictable ingredients include: vital wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, flour, soy sauce and water.

Some fun ingredients include: paprika, chili flakes, fresh minced garlic and ground allspice.

You'll notice that these are nicely shaped like sausages. I divide the dough into 1/2 cup portions and roll them up in tin foil with the ends tightly twisted to cook. While cooking (steaming in the pot) they plump up into the foil.

These weren't as spicy as I wanted them to be so next time I will not skimp on the chili flakes. But these links are perfect for those in my life who don't handle the hot so well. Extreme close-up!

I have been happily eating these Italian sausages the past days with pasta or polenta and marinara sauce. Pretty satisfying.

Bread Pudding featuring: chocolate! berries!

2010-05-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

I had some of a french baguette leftover from a couple days ago. While stuffing has been the main contender for dry or stale bread, today I decided to make bread pudding for three reasons: it has less ingredients, less prep time and more sugar! I've only had bread pudding once in my life, many years ago. If I'm not trying to be fancy there are definitely some simple and fast recipes floating around the internet.

I ripped up the bread and poured my soy milk (2-3 cups), sugar (heaping 1/2 cup) and cinnamon (to taste) mixture over it. In an attempt to soften the bread I let it hang out in the liquid for a couple minutes and then packed it into my Pyrex bread pan to bake for 30 minutes.

Not convinced that this pudding looked delicious enough, I added softened mixed berries and chocolate chips as a topping in the last 15 minutes of baking.

Honestly, it would have been great without the chocolate. Two thumbs up for bread pudding!

Cabbage is my new Kale

2010-05-09T23:24:00.000-07:00

I was compelled, once again, to buy some cabbage at the store. This time around I chose green cabbage. My original idea was veggie wraps with a ginger dressing until I realized that cabbage would do better as part of a filling instead of the wrap itself. So, as I do, I then became excited to make a giant salad with added protein from lentils. Delicious as a meal and great for leftovers the next day!

The dressing was a ginger soy dressing:

2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger root
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup rice vinegar
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
Agave to taste

This recipe made a good amount of dressing but no problem: I want to put it on everything! I'll have to make it again because in a clumsy moment I dropped the dressing jar and spilled it all over the floor. Dang.

16 Bean Soup, what?!

2010-05-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

I used a dry bean mix of 16 kinds of beans (plus barley) found at the store. The brand was Fiesta, which is accurate, because these beans totally looked like a party: colorful, in all shapes and sizes.

I agree that the colors of the cooked beans don't look so great, but I assure you the taste is off the chain! I'm pretty sure I owe it all to the chicken bouillon cube (vegan) I used for the broth. Also, the salty tortilla chips were great and reminded me of Tortilla Soup. I can imagine making tortilla chip strips for Tortillas soup in the future.

Pinwheels

2010-05-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

Recently I learned how to make a paper pinwheel so here is what I did with it (this wood piece is probably 2 inches by 3 inches):

I made some pinwheels out of some colorful vinyl strips, too. I took them over to B's house where she is babysitting a particularly pretty bundle of decorative mossy branches thinking that I'd fasten the pinwheels to the branches in honor of Spring. But as it turns out B has another, smaller, dead tree and the vinyl "flowers" looked great tied to its smaller branches with sewing thread. No pictures of those though. Darn.

Ginger Lemon Soother for my tired voice

2010-04-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

My life has gone zero to sixty in how much I use my voice to talk to people (on the six days on, one day off schedule). As a result I am losing my voice. I have a sore throat and lately I've been coughing at night because my throat is itchy. What a terrible and uncomfortable situation!

After some internet searching I found a delicious recipe with only a few ingredients. Lemons. Ginger. Water. Honey (or I have also used Agave).

I used about 2 inches of ginger peeled, then cut into thin rounds and put into about 4 cups of water heated to a boil. Then I let that simmer for 15-20 minutes. The result is full of ginger spice! I put the ginger tea into a glass jar (with a lid!) with a juice of one lemon and sweetener to taste.

With all my talking and sometimes LOUD direction giving to unwieldy children on bikes (for my job) this gives my throat a little relief. I like it warm OR cold!

omg, Homemade Teriyaki Sauce

2010-04-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

So simple. Sweet and salty with a kick from raw ginger.

~3 tbsp Soy Sauce*
~1 tbps White wine vinegar*
1 tsp sugar
a splash of red wine
freshly grated ginger and garlic to taste
*very approximate; as with most of my cooking, I didn't pay attention to how much of anything I added. If it doesn't taste awesome, just play around with it!

Poured over thinly sliced tempeh and marinated for a couple minutes. Then cooked up in a pan until crispy.

Kale. Onion. Cucumber (briefly marinated in white wine vinegar). Teriyaki tempeh. (The focaccia was a regrettable addition and I didn't finish it.)

Potato Tacos are all the rage

2010-04-24T22:40:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been noticing a fun addition to the alternative-to-meat options at my favorite food places: Potatoes!At taco stands I have been sticking to soyrizo because a) I like it and b) it is something that I don't think I can make yet. But I wanted to give potatoes a fighting chance and they are easy for me to make.

Here's what went down:
Seasoned, roasted white potatoes
Raw kale
Raw, diced onion
Pinto beans (seasoned with salsa verde)
Yellow corn tortillas

On the potatoes went: nutritional yeast, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper, olive oil, and a dash of Tapatio hot sauce. These make a nice flavor but I could have used more. More of everything. Maybe some lime, too.

I heated the tortillas in a little oil to warm them and make them a little more durable for the hardships of taco life. It works very nicely, though I worry about the amount of oil used. Pouring oil from the bottle is imprecise and usually yields too much for my needs. For this I plan on investing in one of those hand pump oil misters so that I can easily spray the minimum needed to get the job done.

Topped with the beans, onion and some sliced jalepeños and more hot sauce, these were a satisfying meal. I even had seconds and so did Bree!

Sage Rosemary Focaccia

2010-04-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

I have tried my hand at making many breads. Over the course of my year making various breads I have learned that I prefer to make free form loaves as opposed to bread pan, sandwich-sized loaves. I like the variation in the final product.

I also love breads to dip in sauces, oils and herbs. It was just yesterday when I realized that Focaccia might be perfect for this. A quick internet search revealed that toppings for Focaccia are only limited by imagination. I like this a lot! But I will start simple with two herbs: sage and rosemary.

Sage I had, rosemary I did not. No problem: A quick walk through my neighborhood, equipped with my morning coffee, yielded a fresh sprig of rosemary.

Pre-bake photoshoot:

Post-bake photo:

I got a bit distracted listening (read: dancing) to Lady Gaga and the bread cooked about 4 minutes too long and, as a result, is slightly dry and a dark. But the sage and rosemary taste great together and I am not too concerned about the dryness. Focaccia is a bread I will definitely make again!

I love roasted Cauliflower.

2010-04-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

Cauliflower is a vegetable that is (or was) largely overlooked in my diet. My memory of cauliflower is from relish trays at family gatherings where I dip it into ranch alongside carrots, radishes and broccoli florets. It never occurred to me to use it in any other way until recently. Maybe that is because the all-white coloring of this veggie betrays its nutritional value. Cauliflower, in fact, is not devoid of nutrients! It is a nice source of protein as well as a champion of Vitamin C and other daily essentials. Who knew?

Because I am an aspiring Fancy Person, I tried to slice the cauliflower in a cross-section to show its nice "branches". I got about two good pieces in and the rest became popcorn-sized bites. Oh well. My favorite seasoning to date is olive oil, salt and pepper, and lots of nutritional yeast. (un)Fortunately for you, I am not including the one ugly photo of this meal that I took right before my camera ran out of batteries.

Roasting cauliflower takes 10-15 minutes and it is a great addition to a meal. Continuing with my cheating theme for busy days, I added cauliflower to sauteed kale, long grain brown rice and a prepackaged chana masala.

Chili con... seitan!

2010-04-07T08:07:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that I'm a copycat. So, when a friend of mine mentioned that she was going to use her crock pot to cook something delicious I was like, "Ooh, yeah! I want that too."

I love chili from a crock pot. But I thought after making a couple of chilis with just beans and veggies it's time to step it up. So, I stepped it up with a seitan sausage experiment.

I made a small batch of seitan seasoned with chili flakes, Worcestershire sauce and other spice regular and cooked it until it was almost firm. Then I shredded it by hand into little pieces and fried them until firm. The texture and and flavor of the seitan was very pleasing by itself. I was ready to stop right here, but I was so excited that I had already invited people over for a chili dinner and couldn't turn back.

Not too long ago I learned that peppers, in general, are very good for your health in many ways. They help with respiratory problems, digestion and even knock out some of the daily vitamins. Isn't it crazy that the green bell pepper has more vitamin C than an orange? Anyways, I chose red bell pepper and poblano for this chili and sauteed them with garlic and onion with all of my chili spices before putting them into the crock pot.

In appearance this chili con seitan is not dissimilar to a Wheatberry chili I made a while back. The mouth feel, though, is very different with the seitan offering its own spin on meaty toughness. I think I'll make my seitan more ground in my next batch. And, as I find with most chilis, the leftover were even better than the original!

Cooking in Advance

2010-04-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

It feels really good to eat homemade food. For me, this extends all the way to bringing a lunch to work instead of buying one (In fact, right now it is really exciting for me to even get to say the words "bring a lunch to work"!). Homemade lunches are harder to pull off with a busy schedule and I can easily to fall into a routine of PB&J sandwiches.

I try to plan ahead so that I can provide myself with delicious, healthful meals that don't take my whole morning to prepare. This week I decided to roast some bell peppers with onion. I love them in my sandwiches and had a great time eating them in pasta, too.

Mini Bagels!

2010-04-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick look at some mini everything bagels I made. Really adorable. They are more laborious than bread to make, but the end result is so pleasing. And I love anything in miniature.

For anyone thinking about getting into the homemade bagel scene, what are you waiting for?! You can have something this cute in your kitchen too!

Sweet Chili Sauce

2010-03-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

I recently made Coconut Curry Polenta which was pleasing, but missing something: the sweet chili sauce. I even mentioned it in the blogpost, but it didn't occur to me to make my own until the next day.

Here's how simple it was:
Rice Vinegar
Water
Tamari Soy sauce
Chili flakes
Garlic
Sugar

After finding a recipe online, I put all the ingredients together in a small saucepan and let it reduce by half. I had my sugar jar on hand so that I could add more if needed. This is a perfect compliment to my polenta and I am excited to use it for salad rolls, stir fries and whatever else I can imagine. Below, I put it on the last of the polenta with some freshly roasted peppers and onion:

So easy, I can't believe I've never made it before!

Coconut Curry Polenta and Chop Salad

2010-03-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I had an amazing meal at a bar during happy hour. My mind was blown when I ate the coconut curry polenta with sesame sauteed veggies and sweet chili sauce. I've never had a more tasty polenta!

As I tend to do, I then tried to make my own version of this dish. Since I didn't have a recipe for the curried polenta I made one up, substituting half the cooking water with coconut milk and various other spices (Thai hot sauce, tamari soy sauce, curry powder, grated ginger).

I cooked the polenta until it was a thick and hard to stir, then spread it in a pyrex dish to cool. As it cools, the polenta hardens and can be handled easily and prepared for any recipe. However, this batch is probably limited by its dominant curry flavor.

Earlier, at the store, I mysteriously wandered over to the cabbage and got a head of red cabbage. It inspired me to create a chop salad with collard greens and orange bell pepper. For the salad I made a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, cumin, curry powder, and turmeric. I was attempting to have the salad have similar flavors to the polenta.

Overall, I am very happy with this meal. Upstairs, my friend Casey roasted some asparagus to go along with it (and her plates are a fun color, so the meal looks very pretty too).

My only critique is that the polenta could have had a more rich flavor; it got a little lost next to the salad dressing. In the future I think I'll sauté some veggies to put with the polenta instead of the salad.

Plant Update

2010-03-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a little while since Bree and I replanted some overgrown (read: neglected) houseplants of mine. After some tough times (mostly for me) it seems that many of the transplants will survive. Some, however, are still looking week and pale. The plant in the front pot of this picture is having a hard time:

Below; To the plant on the left: goodbye. To the plants on the right: hello long, happy life.

This was the first time that I have ever grown houseplants that needed to be transplanted. While I am especially critical of myself in most parts of my life, I feel particularly bad for these little plants that are dying. When my bread doesn't rise properly I am disappointed, but I don't have to look at it every day as it wilts and turns colors.

I guess I still have some stuff to learn about plants. And I'll try to not let this discolor my future of plant-friendly homes.

Meatball Subs

2010-03-24T22:53:00.000-07:00

An easy go-to meal that I have had recently is the Meatball Sub. It's pretty basic, very fast and decidedly satisfying. Lately I've been getting a meatless alternative in the frozen aisle of my grocery outlet. I even stocked up this time around because you never know when the outlet won't have them for cheap anymore. Note: I get crazy about food reserves from the food outlet... you should see my canned goods!

My sub only has three main components: bread, meatballs, pasta sauce. Easy! Though, because I think I'm fancy, I usually make a nutritional yeast cheese sauce to add to it. I have no idea what measurements I use, but here's what always goes in the sauce: nutritional yeast, water, garlic, oil (to cook the garlic a little), salt and pepper. Other variants are: chili flakes, soy sauce, flour (to thicken). I usually cook everything until it gets warm (with a baguette sliced and put in the oven to brown) and then throw it all together.

Casey added mixed greens and more yeasty sauce to her sub.

Apparently these subs were so good Casey got them all over her fingers AND pants.

I think this sub can be very convincing for those looking for a meaty sandwich. As I ate one for lunch the other week I was delighted with the idea that people had no clue that my meal was completely vegan. I felt like an undercover agent. And I liked the idea that people can easily eat vegan, or accidentally do, and don't even know it.

But am I trying to make my meals as close to the "real thing" as possible to fool people, trick myself, or "pass" in public? Orm with all the positive things I am learning about the vegan diet, do I want people to actively see that I am choosing to not eat meat?

I guess for now I'll eat my food however I like and leave my dietary statements to myself. I'm not so political anyways.

Cheating with Soup

2010-03-18T16:43:00.000-07:00

Making handmade and homemade meals is one of my favorite things to do. But I'm not always in the mood for a long cooking session (especially with my new jobs all starting soon!) or don't have lots of stuff to work with. Pre-made soups are perfect because they allow me to have the majority of the cooking already done, and I can just add some stuff to it and and feel like a champion chef. And I like that!

Things I do with canned/boxed soups:
-Add a can of beans. Probably something that I think goes with the soup.
-Add a grain. Some of my favorites are brown rice, barley, and buckwheat.
-Garnish the heck out of them. Bread, cilantro, spices!
-Pour a soup over some cooked pasta; I like thicker and more creamy soups for this, but I am sure it can work for whatever
-Cook my own veggies and add them

Yesterday I found a Split Pea soup and thought it sounded nice, but not enough. I fried up some polenta rounds to add to the mix. I've never paired these two things together, but I did look at the ingredient list for the soup and decided I'd go for it. The polenta was fried in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper until browned.

This bowl is not mine (Casey, why do I have your bowl?). I've just noticed that it strongly adds to the yellowness of this dish. It's an everyday struggle for me to break free from monochromatic meals. Oh well, this was pretty good still.

Smoked Apple Sage sausage

2010-03-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago I declared that the best veggie sausage in the market is made by Field Roast. I still think this is true, but I no longer feel like I'll spend so much money on them because I can make them at home! In true form, I constructed a recipe from multiple online sources so that I could pick and choose which ingredients I wanted (read: had) and which I didn't.

The dominant flavors were these:

Fresh Braeburn apple
Rubbed sage leaf
Liquid hickory smoke

Ohter things that my delicate palate may or may not have been able to taste: cayenne pepper, sea salt, ground pepper, thyme, Tamari soy sauce, garlic

The end result was firm, flavorful and fun to look at! They tasted great with Patatas Bravas, in a sammie with veggies and all by themselves (browned in a little olive oil).

After getting to know a little about gluten and how it behaves, I am excited to experiment. Once the liquid to vital wheat gluten ratio is set up, the seasonings seem limitless. Any ideas on good sausage flavors out there? Spicey Italian is one I always like. Perhaps something with orange?

Leftovers + Spices = Stuffing

2010-03-13T13:05:00.000-08:00

I had many meals with the seitan I made a couple of days ago and, honestly, I am ready to move on. However, I hate to throw food away. I decided to attempt a vegan stuffing because it is a taste that is very different from the other meals I've made lately. I have some of a baguette leftover from a dinner the other night, seitan, some fresh veggies, and a cupboard full of spices.

Here's what I chose to do:
1/4 Baguette cut into cubes (or a size that seems appropriate for eating)
1/2 cup seitan cut into small pieces
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 yellow onion, diced
generous dash of thyme, rosemary, basil, and oregano
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 to 1 cup Veggie broth (I used a low sodium one)

I sauteed the seitan, celery, onion and spices in a bit of olive oil for about 5 minutes. In a bowl I combined the bread and the sauteed goods with the broth. With the oven at 350F, I put the mixture into a Pyrex bread dish and cooked it covered for 15 minutes and uncovered for about 10 more, until golden brown.

Before I put it in the oven:

My end result wasn't as salty as I usually prefer (I suspect that I over-salt everything) but still very flavorful. Next time I might even add more rosemary and slice the seitan a little bigger so that it can compete with the bread.

Seitan: the wheat meat

2010-03-09T21:01:00.000-08:00

(You might want to sit down for this post, it's a long one)

Seitan is one of a handful of mock-meats that can be interchanged easily for meat in a recipe. I find it desirable because of its density and texture, which sets it apart from tofu which can be softer and more fragile. Seitan is just wheat gluten that is seasoned and cooked. It's made by washing away the starch of wheat flour with water until just the insoluble, elastic gluten is left. It is often hidden as a thickener in your food and you don't even think of it (I'm looking at you ice cream!).

In my world, Seitan takes a back seat to more accessible, less expensive, and more healthful meat substitutes like tempeh and tofu. Even the biggest grocery chains carry tofu readily. And I hesitate using the word "substitutes" because I am not looking for seitan to replace the void of a piece of meat. I appreciate seitan, for what it is, how it tastes and how it can be used in different recipes; not because of how closely it comes to beef.

It's been a while since I made something entirely new to me. So today I am excited to be making my own seitan. Really, the only thing I needed to do was buy some Vital Wheat Gluten from the store. Then I added water and spices from a recipe I found on the Post Punk Kitchen website. Besides some important details about temperatures and cooking, the whole process is fairly easy. I'll use photos to document my process:

Add the wet ingredients to the dry.
Once everything was mixed I formed it into a log and cut it into 3 parts and boiled it in veggie broth. This part looked pretty unattractive, I admit.
After cooking, then cooling, I sliced the seitan and browned it in nonstick pan. Then I scrownged together some burger material and made this delicious dinner sandwich!(The above photo is before I browned the seitan. I'm questioning even putting this photo up because it looks so weird)The final product tastes remarkably like meatballs or a burger, while the texture is firm yet chewy. This is definitely the seitan I know. I look forward to branching out with the seasoning and shaping of this seitan. Sausage links, watch out, I coming to get you!

Doorstep surprise

2010-03-07T17:33:00.000-08:00

I stumbled into this cute little guy the other morning. He was waiting for me at my doorstep and I can only assume he came from the the lobby of my apartment. There was once a small action figure that I was very much planning on adopting (or rather, adopting on behalf of a friend) but was convinced otherwise. Perhaps it belonged to someone, right?These two make a great pair.

People will give anything away. Or maybe, people will take anything when it's free; I sure do.

Crafting small things

2010-03-04T12:48:00.000-08:00

In the past 5 months I've taken to crafting in a small way. Literally: I like to make little collages on wood sample flooring squares that are about 2 x 3 inches in size. I've decided, or maybe discovered, that this is a good outlet for my overly observant nature and attention to detail.
As the months go on I am learning new ways to be creative with the squares. At first it was just magazine clippings applied with rubber cement then glossed with Mod Podge (the Decoupager's best friend). Then I found some small bottles of paint for free in the lobby of my apartment, and again at a local non-profit called SCRAP where there is a lot of random, donated, craft-like materials and supplies. Now I've decided to get fancy (yet again!) and buy some light weight beading wire and crimp beads to make the collages hang from anywhere.

My ideas for surfaces to hang from are: a wooden door (i have one in my living room that was free on craigslist), scrap wood from the side of the road, find something at SCRAP that I can nail into, or use push-pins in the wall. I don't want to do that last one because I am really not supposed to put holes in the walls of my apartment.

Peanut Sauce goes with everything, right?

2010-03-03T14:59:00.000-08:00

Well, I sure think so. I even licked this right off of my spoon after mixing it altogether.

The List:
1/2 C crunchy peanut butter
1/2 C coconut milk
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 Tbsp Tamari soy sauce
2 Tbsp fresh ginger, finely grated
juice of 1/2 good sized lime (probably optional)
1 Tbsp Thai Siracha Chili sauce added slowly to taste
1/2 water

In a small sauce pan I sauteed the ginger and garlic in a tiny drop of oil on medium for a couple of minutes to cut their spiciness. Then I added everything else and mixed. Easy! With the chili sauce, I added it little by little so that I didn't overshoot my spice level. I feel like with peppers, one minute you can't taste anything and the next your sinuses are completely cleared and running uncontrollably.

Next time I won't let the sauce heat for so long. I dilly-dallied while adding the chili sauce and the peanut butter started separating. I don't mind stiring it (or heating it) before eating, though, because it still tastes wonderful.

I also dipped Rye crackers into this sauce. And it was, predictably, very good with rice noddles, baked tofu and fresh cilantro.

Pasta Salad (with beet water)

2010-03-02T11:20:00.000-08:00

After boiling some beets the other day I saved the dark pink water on a hunch that I could use it for something else.

The internet yields many useful and everyday ideas for beet water, most of which take advantage of the tendency of beet juice to stain anything it touches: egg dye, facial toner, hair dye, colorant for various foods, a liquid addition to soups. And there was one weird one: Faux grape jelly. Bleh.

I decided to make a pasta salad, cooking the pasta in the beet water. I thought it would be pink, but not this pink! The pasta even gained a very slight, sweet taste of beets.
What I had on hand: white onion, green onion, diced olives, pepperoncinis. I almost added some fake sausage but was really into the flavors of the raw onions and didn't want that to be overshadowed. Pasta salad always has this distinct flavor and I realized this flavor is vinegar. So I added white wine vinegar (to taste) with olive oil and salt and pepper. As a pasta salad, it is middle of the road. Visually though, I am a very happy camper.A completely non-related note to those who comment on the blog: I love it! And I want to respond to each post but I cannot, yet, figure out how. Sad. This is my blog and I don't know how to work it. Hopefully I'll make some breakthroughs soon.

Re-potting is not so bad

2010-02-27T18:14:00.000-08:00

I must be the cruelest plant keeper ever. Just look at how long I made my plant, Girly, wait until she got a new home:
I think this is 2 years too long. Talk about a root ball (!!). Girly's upper half got very long and unwieldy and it was time for me trim her back. She is now in three separate pots.

While I was at it, I re-potted several other house plants that I have inherited from several previous housemates. I had help, though. Look at all the care and attention B gives this little guy:

A family photo.

Of course, after a short day of planting we got thirsty for some Bubble Tea. Tapioca balls and appropriately wide straws can be purchased at your local Asian market for very little money. I would probably be inclined to add them to almost anything. Iced coffee, sweet juice, Italian soda, whatevs.

Delicious!

Homemade Soda Making

2010-02-26T15:34:00.000-08:00

These days, I have sugar cravings in the form of soda. I don't know what's gotten into me! I've been able to satiate myself with some wonderful Columbia Gorge juices (Red Ginger Limeade is such a winner!), but now I think it is time for the real thing: homemade soda.

Ginger ale is very easy to make:
1 empty 2 Liter plastic bottle
~ 1 C of sugar
~the juice of 1 lemon (or lime. I love lime!)
1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
2 Tbsp. finely grated fresh ginger
water, to fill the bottle almost full (a couple inches from the top)

The levels of ginger, citrus, and sugar can all be changed according to personal preference. For example, for an extra bite in my soda I add more ginger and less sugar. Today, I realized I had barely any ginger, so I added the juice of 1 lemon AND 1 lime. I had maybe a teaspoon of ginger so I added that too. My hope is that it will be a more Sprite/7up taste with a slight zing of ginger in the end.

After putting all the ingredients in (dry stuff first, then the lemon and ginger) I swish them around in the bottle before filling it with water. A note: Yeast feeds off of sugar. So I want to make sure the yeast is evenly distributed in the sugar and juices and that's why I swirl everything around before letting it all sit. The mixture then sits for about a 1.5-2 days in a warm dry place. My bedroom.

Another note: The plastic 2 liter is important because this mixture becomes pressurized as it ferments. A glass bottle could explode if you left the bottle capped for days and days. But it shouldn't get to that point, the soda is done after a maximum of 2 days.

When the soda is ready, the bottle with be very VERY firm. Put it in the fridge overnight to stop the fermentation process (this works because the yeast gets too cold to be actively eating the sugars. Brrr.). The bottle should be opened with care so that it doesn't explode everywhere. Just like any other soda, open it pole, pole (slowly, slowly) as they say in Sawhili. I even take it a step further and open it over a sink. But, I am cautious person.

Pour the soda over a strainer and into some glasses and your are done! Photos to follow...

Breakfast Disaster

2010-02-24T12:10:00.000-08:00

Oh dear...

That lid just flew right off of the large (too large!) salt container. (Edit: The salt washed away in a colander and it was all okay after my initial freak out.)

It started with beets...

2010-02-23T14:01:00.000-08:00

This was a wonderful meal that just kind of happened as I walked through the grocery store. Well, really, Bree and I had this great adventure involving a warm drink (Toddy!) in a thermos at some bluffs overlooking the river at sunset. It was nice but then it was cold and we were hungry and had beets on our minds.

It's hard for me to describe the meal because there ended up being many parts instead of one bowl of every ingredient, like a stir-fry. I suppose that's what lists are for:
-Beet and a pear mixed green salad with White Wine Vinaigrette
-Smoked Apple Sage sausage
-Sauteed beet greens and fried Polenta rounds

Beets are wonderful and sweet and their leaves are actually very nutritious and largely overlooked in the leafy-greens department. I lightly sauteed the leaves in a little Earth Balance until they wilted and served them with the polenta and sausage. The polenta was fried in a combination of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and course salt and pepper until the surface was crispy and golden.

The sausage is made by a company called Field Roast from Seattle, WA. This is the most delicious veggie sausage I have ever had in my life! They are pricey at around $6.99 for four links, but they are very much worth the splurge (especially when on sale for $4.99). I lightly browned the sausage in a pan after slicing it into little rounds.

As for the salad, I boiled the beets and cut them into small cubes and added them the the thinly cut pear and onion. Usually I don't boil veggies because all the good stuff boils out into the water but I've saved the beet water and look forward to reusing it today. It would be nice to use the beet water in a fresh juice of some sort but I don't have that technology so I might use it to make a pink pasta salad of some sort. A quick internet search yields many interesting results for beet water usage, though.

Toddies in a Thermos

2010-02-22T21:16:00.000-08:00

Don't tell the authorities, but Bree and I totally went to a public place and drank whiskey from a thermos. Hot toddies with lots of fresh ginger were a great way to end a long weekend of sun and bike riding.

Now I am really never one to break the rules, ask anyone, but this was just so right. The timing was wrong as the sun had already set, but it didn't matter because the bluff we sat at overlooks a busy train yard. I could probably sit there for hours and take it all in. Downtown Portland can be seen easily as well as many bridges, the West Hills and all the people of Portland on their way home.

It's only February and I am so excited to revisit sunsets at the Bluffs in the approaching warmer months. With or without alcohol, but definitely with friends and loved ones.

Sweet Potato Bread

2010-02-16T14:57:00.001-08:00

My friend Casey made some homemade ice cream. Even more exciting than the fresh ice cream is its main ingredient: sweet potatoes! After a visit with her this morning, I am the lucky recipient of all of her leftover pureed sweet potato. The internet has shown me that there are many websites dedicated to recipes for leftovers. I think a lot of this is directed towards holiday cooking when we might use things like pumpkin pie filling, cranberries, and in my case sweet potatoes, and then have the remnants that no one wants to eat a couple days later.

And so here I am making bread again. After my modestly successful Honey Oat Bread I guess I am feeling pretty awesome. Awesome enough to attempt a braided bread recipe. How fancy.

The initial mixing was beautiful:
In the bowl is soy milk, honey, pureed sweet potato (with a little yam for coloring), dried thyme, yeast, water and oil.

The next step was adding the liquids to the dry stuff: flours, salt, and some corn meal.

I kneaded the dough to the desirable soft-but-not-sticky consistency and let it rise for 1.5 hours next to my radiator. After doubling, I separated the dough into 6, foot long "ropes" and braided two loaves. They rose for another hour until they were very plump.

In the end they only needed to cook for 35 minutes in the oven until they were golden brown and had that hollow sound when tapped on the bottom. The hollow sound is still something of a mystery to me. I can probably convince myself that any sound coming from the bottom of my loaf sounds "empty". The sweet potato is hardly noticeable in the final product; I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the bread turned out wonderful and even better, beautiful. Braided loafs are great because I get to play with the dough more than I normally would. Imagine the fun shapes my imagination can create! Circles, spiral buns, tricolors!

Warmed and slathered with Earth Balance this bread is a great morning treat.

Immersion blenders are great!

2010-02-15T13:11:00.000-08:00

This weekend Bree and I made a surprisingly tasty soup using an immersion blender. This is a great kitchen gadget. It purees your food inside the bowl it is already in so that no clean dishes are dirtied. I like this because I will do almost anything to reduce the amount of dishes that need to be washed.

We saw the name "Diva soup", immediately made fun of the name, then saw the short ingredient list and thought, "Oh, okay!"

Here's what was in it:
2 parsnips
2 fennel bulbs
~4 garlic cloves
1 leek
2 cups veggie broth (we used a bouillon cube)
some thyme, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar

The parsnips, fennel, and garlic were all chopped or cubed and roasted in the oven until soft with some olive oil and a splash of balsam. The leek was sauteed until soft and put in with the heated broth. Once roasted, the veggies were put in the broth and blended until smooth.

I sliced some pieces of a baguette and, with a little extra oil and seasonings, toasted them in the already hot oven for a couple of minutes. The soup went well with the bread and I was pleasantly filled up but still not sure why it was called Diva Soup...

Note: I have seen a lot of recipes that use an immersion blender to make soups thicker. By separating a portion of soup and blending it up then adding it back into the original. Sounds good for future soupventures. Another note: I don't cook with meat but I am willing to bet that this is probably not appropriate for meaty soups. Bleh.

Tempeh Steak and Potatoes

2010-02-11T12:43:00.000-08:00

So last night was a great meal: Tempeh steak, Smashed Potatoes and Asparagus.

Marinade for tempeh:
-1/4 C Tamari Soy Sauce
-1/4 C Rice Vinegar
-1/8 C Water
-1 Tbsp Honey (heaping)
-2 cloves garlic, minced
-1/2 inch piece of ginger, minced
-some olive oil
~1/8 tsp of each: ground pepper, chili flakes, cinnamon, ground clove

I cut an 8oz piece of tempeh into thin wedges (about 8-10 pieces) and lightly scored them with a knife. And let them marinade for 2-3 hours, flipping a couple of times. Then cooked them in a non-stick pan until crispy.

For the potatoes I loosely copied the "Crash Hot Potato" recipe from the VeganYumYum blog. I boiled some medium round yellow potatoes until soft. As an experiment in flavor, I used a veggie bouillon cube in the boiling water (it didn't end up making much of a difference). Once soft I put them on an olive-oiled baking sheet and did the "smashing" with the lid of a glass jar. Having a larger surface area to smash with helped keep the potatoes intact instead of crumbly. Spices aplenty (I bet any spice you love on potatoes will do great!) on the top of these some as some more olive oil and then into the oven at 350 for ~20 minutes or until the spuds get a cooked crispy look. When the potatoes were done I added some Earth Balance because it is delicious.

I roasted the Asparagus with olive oil, lemon, and course grain sea salt in the oven at the same time as the potatoes. 10 minutes was all they really needed and I think mine were a little overdone. Still tasty, though.

Most surprising to me was how well the potato complimented the tempeh! I will definitely make this again.

What I might make

2010-02-10T14:33:00.000-08:00

I have been keeping a list of things that I want to eventually make. Okay, well it's mostly mental. But what's the point of having a blog where I share my cooking adventures if I don't write about them. So, now I share:

-Home made Seitan: I think this could be easier than it sounds. And, hey, I've never cooked with straight up vital wheat gluten! How fun.
-Dark chocolate truffles: I'm under the impression that people spend their whole life perfecting this craft. Bet you five dollars I'll try once, be unsatisfied and never try it again.
-More baking! More bread, cupcakes, and Cinnabon!
-Solid vegan cheese: I have made cheese sauces and now I want try making cheese rounds to slice.
-Blended matcha green tea lattes. I have no blender.

Okay, bye.

Two Bean Wheat Berry Chili

2010-02-08T17:04:00.000-08:00

Two Bean Wheat Berry Chili with fresh avocado, cilantro and lime! Also starring: kale, carrot and yellow bell. (Yikes, such a huge, blurry photo...)I left out tomatoes because I wanted to try a chili that wasn't dependent on a couple cans of diced tomatoes. I think it turned out okay even though it was a little visually underwhelming. The lime added a great tang to the chili that I'll have to do in the future.

Super Bowl Snacks

2010-02-07T14:15:00.000-08:00

Super Bowl Sunday presents a fantastic opportunity for me to showcase my traditional American culinary skills. jk! This is what I made:

-Homemade tortilla chips, baked and lightly salted
-Rosemary Garlic Hummus, laboriously mashed by hand (I probably won't do this ever again.)
-Salad Rolls with Peanut Sauce

I haven't watched a Super Bowl game in a handful of years, but I look forward to being with friends today to eat snacks and watch the "big game". Also, I like that there are millions of other people all having potlucks with their friends today, too. It's like America's potluck day!

Baked Tofu

2010-02-06T20:51:00.000-08:00

While I mostly use various Tempehs instead of tofu these days, I thought I'd buy tofu when I saw it on sale. I was very fond of a spicy baked tofu sandwich at a Deli where I worked, so let's try to recreate it!

Marinade:
5-6 Tbsp Tamari Soy Sauce
1-2 Tbsp Rice Vinegar
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 tsp Red Chili Flakes (or to taste, I am going through a "spicy" phase of my life)
3 cloves pressed garlic

I am using one block of firm tofu. After pressing the tofu to get ride of the excess liquid, I sliced it length wise in pieces about 1/2 inch thick. This seemed like a nice, thin, size for a sandwich. It is pretty disappointing biting through a thick piece of tofu. This is only topped buy unseasoned pieces of tofu. Eww...

So! I let the slices marinate for at least 30 minutes, turning the tofu over halfway through to ensure that each bite is delicious. With the oven prepped to 350 degrees, I cooked the slices until browned and slightly crispy; about 45 minutes for this batch. I also saved the excess marinade to pour over the tofu halfway through cooking.

While the end result wasn't quite that of my memory, it has a good salty flavor and a nice after taste of garlic and chili. Without much sandwich stuff, I chose to make some salad rolls! That's a peanut sauce I made with some crunchy peanut butter, fresh ginger, sesame oil and coconut milk. I even have enough left over to cut into appetizers for the Super Bowl tomorrow. Lucky me!

Bread is Hard.

2010-02-05T15:15:00.000-08:00

Bread is something that is so commonplace and simple. Water, yeast, flour, salt. What can go wrong?

I made a loaf of bread yesterday. While I've attempted several loaves before, something is always different: the aesthetics of the final product, the taste, the feel, and I really have no idea why. Okay, part of the reason is that I can't stick to the same recipe (and really, having a science background I should know better than to have more than one variable in my experiment). Months ago I think it was my misunderstanding of the order of operations with ingredients. And then I think it was my kneading. And then the rising... But sometimes I truly don't know. Now I see why people buy Bread Machines. Perfect every time!

I suppose, though, I don't only make the bread to eat the bread. I like the challenge and I like the process. I am learning that you can't rush bread. It will always rise in time, sometimes faster and sometimes slower, and I can just wait for it and listen to a podcast, read my book or go for a walk around my neighborhood.

Rosemary and Brown Sugar Roasted Hazelnuts

2010-02-03T17:15:00.000-08:00

I am very excited about this post. From start to finish, this small treat is the most different thing I have tried in a long time! Hand picked (from the ground) Hazelnuts from around Portland, roasted and then glazed with this marinade I made up:

1 cup roasted Hazelnuts (it's all I had!)
<1/4 cup brown sugar ~1/8 tsp chili powder or to taste 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar a splash of white wine vinegar (probably negligible) a couple turns of ground pepper a small squeeze of lime fresh rosemary from around the corner of my apartment The marinade was thick and I added more rosemary once the glaze was on and put them back in the oven until the glaze looked bubbly and sticky. As they cooled I spread them out on parchment paper so that they didn't end up stuck together. Sugar cools like hard glue!

So that I could maximize the use of my oven, my side project was Roasted Yams in Chili Lime marinade. I made a salad of sorts adding cooked crumbled Tempeh and fresh Avocado and cilantro, recycling some lingering ingredients of recent meals.

Proof of popsicles!

2010-02-03T13:26:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Casey I have some visual proof of the, what I'll call, Almond Ginger Cream popsicles I made the other day. They separated slightly in freezing, but as it turns out, the color variation looked nice. And, well, clearly I'm having a good time.

I am very excited for summer to come now because, among other obvious reasons, I will make so many popsicles to enjoy with friends!

Upcoming food stuff: Roasted Hazelnuts! My housemate had some of the shelled nuts laying around. I found a brick outside my apartment and used a very solid rock I picked up back in my Geo-days to crack them all open. I'm off to find a fresh Rosemary sprig. Oh unemployment, you treat me so well... kind of.

Grouping similar foods

2010-02-02T17:12:00.000-08:00

As a person who cooks alone I can't finished all the food I make. My girlfriend contributes her best and my friends can also be counted on. But usually there are leftovers of various items that are unavoidable. Repeat offenders in my kitchen: cilantro (sold in the bunch), beans, lime, coconut milk. To combat these leftovers I will sometimes try to buy groceries that can all be used together in various recipes. An easy example presented itself today.

Last night I met with some friends for a fun dinner involving Cosmos (delicious!) and Sex and the City (hot!) and I contributed a dish of Vegan Polenta and Black Bean Enchiladas. What's left? Cilantro (awlays), nutritional yeast nacho "cheese" sauce, lime, black olive slices, and a little red enchilada sauce. Knowing this would happen, I grabbed corn chips and fresh salsa at the store and made a nice helping on Nachos tonight. Just adding in kidney beans and chopped onion.

Now, I understand that nachos are basically enchiladas remixed. But I'm okay with that. The polenta in the enchiladas was what was left after a potato scramble the other day.

With finished product leftovers, I make "grab and go" containers for myself so that I don't make bad food decisions in a hurry (i.e., an entire bag of Veggie Booty for lunch), or I convince people to take them with them to work the next day.

Craft set-up

2010-02-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

A quick shot of a craft space I set up for myself the other day. I found the table for free in the lobby of my apartment (and the chair in the bottom left)! I'm not so concerned with my terrible sizing job on the photos because I made a significant breakthrough with my camera: re-formating the memory card.

Winter popsicle experiement

2010-01-31T14:51:00.000-08:00

I recently acquired (found for free in the lobby of my apartment) a cute plastic Popsicle tray. How fun, right?! It is very cute and colorful and I'd love to make seasonal frozen treats with fruit and maybe veggies. Some ideas I had:

-Watermelon Basil (or mint, or lime)
-Tangerine Lime
-Cucumber Lime Chili
-Raspberry Lemon
-Strawberry Coconut

(Note: The dinosaur returns to the blog! He's had a bath since we last saw him.)

I pretty much want these all in my mouth! Unfortunately it is winter and these fruits aren't locally available unless they are shipped from distant lands and handled by many people. So I got to thinking about what I have in my home that I can use: chocolate, lime, peanut butter, almond butter, ginger, avocado (questionable for my abilities), soy milk. Well creamy chocolate ginger sounds awesome. Ginger lime is a good combo, too. Chocolate peanut/almond butter? Sure!

Let's see what happens!

A Good Cook Book

2010-01-28T12:16:00.000-08:00

For a while now I have wanted a cook book to reference while I'm creating my masterpieces (achacha! or achacha). More and more I am realizing that I don't want concrete recipes but, instead, something informative about grains, fresh produce, baking and cooking methods so that I can build on what I am learning every day. As it is I can barely make myself follow one recipe at a time. I usually search several blogs to create a hybrid recipe that gets me really excited. I suppose I've been lucky, too, because I have mostly made good-tasting foods instead of disasters.

At least, I've been told they are good...

So I guess I'll just keep searching the blogs with my eyes peeled for the book of my dreams.

Tempeh Tacos

2010-01-26T18:18:00.000-08:00

I found a new kind of tempeh that I have never seen before: Spicy Vegetable! It inspired me to make some, kinda spicey, but no less awesome Tempeh Tacos for dinner tonight.

Sauteed green bell pepper, onion and strips of tempeh. At the very end I threw in some kale so it could get softer. Uncooked kale can be a little hard to handle for me sometimes.

There were also black beans seasoned with garlic, ground pepper and red chili flakes.

All wrapped up in a corn tortilla and topped with jelepeños, Tapatío hot sauce, and fresh lime!

I'm actually still sniffling and wiping my runny nose. They were good and next time I'll not add the chili flakes... or so much hot sauce...

Oh, Tempeh Bacon, you're good

2010-01-26T12:51:00.000-08:00

A friend recently mentioned having Tempeh Bacon for breakfast and it sounded so delicious that, obviously, I had to run out an make it. After review of a couple marinade recipes here is what I did:

4 Tbsp Tamari Soy Sauce (GF)
1 Tbsp Tapatío hot sauce
1.5 Tbsp Liquid hickory smoke
Garlic powder
Ground pepper

1 package Five Grain Tempeh sliced thinly (like bacon!)

I mixed the ingredients then marinated the sliced tempeh until most of the liquid was absorbed (let's say 20 minutes), then cooked them in a little olive oil on medium heat until they were brown and slightly crisp on both sides (let's say 3 minutes per side). If I felt like some of the slices weren't bacon-y enough, I poured a little extra marinade on them while they cooked.

Yesterday was a great day of food with both Vegan BLTs for lunch and a mixed veggie and bacon salad with homemade vinaigrette for dinner. Check out that BLT: avocado, lettuce, tomato, onion, and tempeh bacon on toasted bread.

Single Speed

2010-01-25T13:12:00.000-08:00

My "new" bike. It doesn't have full fenders, a rack... or more than one gear. When I ride it I get wet, carry a heavy backpack and go up hills very, very slow. Jealous?

I love it!

Weekend food

2010-01-24T17:45:00.000-08:00

A couple more photos of food that happened this weekend.

Reheated Three Bean Chili with Cornbread and that homemade ginger ale from a couple days ago. I used cilantro for the first time in my recipe and it added great flavor when cooked in my funny red Crock Pot.

I'm still getting the hang of picture-taking and I see, now, that these photos are blurry. Sorry.

Roasted Seasoned Yellow Potatoes. Raw onion is my main squeeze these days so I added that along with avocado, jelepeño and Tapatío hot sauce to the final product. The yellow is nutritional yeast flakes.

Instead of adding seasoning after I place the potatoes on the cooking sheet, I have learned to season them in a bowl first. With the help of olive oil the spices more evenly coat the potatoes.

The pill bottle is one of many that I use to hold spices. They are much better for grab and go cooking than the plastic bags they come in when I buy them from the bulk bins.

The day I found a camera

2010-01-22T11:09:00.000-08:00

I have been given hand-me-down digital cameras for years from friends and family and never use them. It's a good thing I started this blog, because now I have a use for the cameras.

For your viewing pleasure: Peanut Butter Oat cookies with a Chocolate Drizzle... and a small red dinosaur I found in the lobby of my apartment building.

The dinosaur was covered in dirt and I probably shouldn't have put in on the cookies. But, oh well, I think it's funny.

Time on my hands

2010-01-21T22:30:00.000-08:00

Underemployment, unemployment and seasonal work is proving to be difficult. There is a certain kind of reassurance of self-worth that comes with a job and steady employment that can't be covered by all the amazing, supportive people in my life. No matter what the job is, the fact is that, "Yes, I went to work today," and it feels good. So without a job I've tried to find a way for me to give myself that sense of a hard days work.

I spend my day in my apartment trying not to get sucked into internet gossip sites. I slowly ride my bike through the varied neighborhoods of Portland. I look up job postings and probably send out an application every other day. I look up recipes and brainstorm new meals. I look up times and places to volunteer. I make art. I invite friends over to eat the food I make.

And it makes me feel good. And it helps take the sting away from unemployment.

Here's what happened today:
-Went to the library to look for a book to read while I wait for the book I want to read to come in. No luck.
-Went to the bank. ATM check deposits are hard for me. I like the real person interactions much better, even though they take longer.
-Stopped at Grocery Outlet to replenish my coffee supply. I found a bottle of organic shampoo and conditioner that were $3.99 marked down from $17.98! It's a small miracle that I didn't buy them with such an astounding price difference...
-Had a great dinner with a friend: slow-cooked Vegan Three Bean Chili and Cornbread. I've never made cornbread so moist and I probably never will again.

The beginning...

2010-01-20T17:27:00.000-08:00

My name is Randi and I don't have a job. In its place I spend a lot of my time thinking about, buying and preparing food.

And riding my bike.

While I am slowing concluding that I must have some diagnosable problem with writing cover letters and sending in resumes, I am discovering my love of learning to cook and bake. You know those hip, cute, popular food/craft blogs where everything is local or fresh and handmade? I want that. So I started this.
--
Today I made Lime Ginger Ale with some left over grated ginger from my rice noodle, basil lunch dish. It will be ready in about a day and a half.

A friend recently went Gluten-free and gave me a large supply of oats. As a result, yesterday, I made Peanut Butter Oat Cookies with a semi-sweet chocolate drizzle. My first impression was raving: over cooked, dry, no flavor. But today they are softer and taste awesome. Delicious!