Tinkery.

WWHFDLN*

Well, here is an old favorite... Baked Lentils. First introduced to me by a dear friend, I veganized this recipe. No honey here, folks. We are not beegans (this is vegan humor for vegans who eat honey)(I think).

I also doubled it and went from honey to corn syrup to maple syrup, a much better choice.

Obviously this recipe is up for much tinkering. So that makes it fun. Plus, it's super easy, cheap and filling!

2 C lentils, rinsed and picked over
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/4 C olive oil
1/4 C maple syrup
1 T onion soup mix
1 t garlic granules
1 t salt
1/4 t pepper
4 C water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large pot that can go from stovetop to oven, saute the garlic in the oil. Add the salt, pepper and spices and mix well. Add the lentils and mix well, stirring for a bit until most of the water is evaporated. Add the maple syrup and water, stir well and cover. Bake for 60 - 90m or until tender. Serve with rice. Makes about 5 C.

*What We Had For Dinner Last Night

Sophisticated and Intelligent

WWHFDLN

Hello, my lovelies!
I was so pleased with this quick supper, mostly because of the bread!

You see, I took my favorite, Chickpea Pizza, and baked it in my skillet ala Whole Wheat Skillet Flatbread/Grandma's Cornbread Made Vegan... and it worked!

Chickpea Flatbread

2 C gram/besan/chickpea flour
1 t cumin
1 t salt
2 C water
1 T oil

Sift the dry ingredients into your mixing bowl.
Use your whisk to mix it well, then add the oil and then the water. Beat on high until well combined. Set aside.

Oil your skillet with the 1 T oil, making sure to get up the sides about halfway.

Place the skillet into the oven and preheat it to 400 degrees.

When the oven is ready, whip the flour mixture one more time, pull out your skillet and pour the batter in (it is really liquidy).

Bake for 20m, remove from oven and flip carefully (I used two spatulas for this) and bake 10 more minutes.

Cut into 8ths and serve.

Super filling, high in protein and they taste great.

Still reading "Infinite Jest", enjoyable, really invested in the characters at this point. Will be interesting to see how it all wraps up. I want to say something witty like, "David Foster Wallace is the more sophisticated, intelligent older brother of Douglas Coupland." or something, but that's not quite it... I am really enjoying his descriptions of the settings. He had a really great capability to capture the ethos of different subcultures.

Go Forth And Pasta

Woo! I made pasta, people!!!

I was looking for tofu balls recipes yesterday and somehow stumbled upon this... I guess I've been inspired!

Oh, truly, truly I say unto you that lo, it was good! How fun to make pasta, and seriously, it was not really that hard.

I had bought some semolina flour a while ago from the coop, it was on sale, I guess because ?they are discontinuing it?!? Figures, once I get my pasta groove on, my source dries up!

And the tofu balls were really good! I've made tofu balls before, one recipe used peanut butter, but these were quite good, held together well and taste great! It was so serendipitous (or was it ordained?) that I had wheat germ and everything to make these. Gotta be careful, sooooo tempting to just pop one in my mouth as I pass by the refrigerator! Nom, nom, nom.

My best advice for both the tofu balls and the pasta is- really coat them with flour before frying/boiling.

Other than that, go forth and pasta!

In other news, my husband desired that I set the record straight and desmirch his name re: he does not go around quoting "Silence of the lambs". So, for your reading pleasure, I give you the Space Ghost episode in which Zorak tells Branford Marsalis that he "will eat your liver, with some fava beans and a fine Chianti. (sup sup sup sup sup) Oh, and some gum.". By the way, do NOT go to youtube and type in gum, disease. Trust me.

We'll see about that!

WWHFDLN

So, I made some chili. Had a hankerin' for chili.

My latest favorite way to have chili is to use pineapple in it. And cocoa. And chocolate.

I had this can of jackfruit in syrup waaaaay in the back of my pantry and I thought I'd substitute the jackfruit for the pineapple. Some vegans have used it in BBQ as a sort of meat substitute.

Well, it turned out okay, except sort of strangely stringy. I think the jackfruit is a fibrous fruit and the stringy (like cat-hair thin, not like in those pictures) aspect was a little off putting. The taste was great, though. But next time, I'll probably just use pineapple again. At least I got the spice ratios worked out for a tasty chili supper.

Plus, I had it with Grandma's Cornbread Made Vegan, so who can complain? I make it just like the recipe, except without the egg replacer. Bah, egg replacer. If you have a cast iron skillet, I highly recommend you make this cornbread right away!

Jackfruit Chili

1 20 oz can jackfruit in syrup (the sweet kind)
1 can black beans
1 can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 can diced tomatoes
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T oil
1/4 C TVP
2 C water
1 ancho chile, deseeded
1 T chocolate chips
1 1/2 t cocoa
1 t cumin
1 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon

Saute your onion, then garlic. Add cumin, cinnamon, chile, chocolate chips, cocoa and salt.
Cut up the jackfruit into smaller pieces.
Add the beans, tomatoes, jackfruit, TVP and water amd mix well.
Bring to a boil, cover, lower heat and simmer until thick.


Here is a Crusty Potato Galette. I used some of the suggestions from the comments and made a few changes...

I shredded the potato. I rolled it up in 2 teatowels and squeezed out as much liquid as I could (that was fun!). I tossed, in a large Ziplock, all the potatoes and some oil. I sauteed a red onion with some garlic and the rosemary and tossed that in the bag as well, with the potatoes. I should have tossed in some salt and a little pepper. As it turns out, I salted and peppered every layer and ended up over salting and over peppering it up.

But it was still pretty good.

Those yellow beans were blanched and frozen from this summer. Gotta remember how good it is to crack those puppies up when it's January! So yummy! Served naked, (no, not me! the BEANS) they were deliciously sweet.

I must admit I am having an affair on "Infinite Jest". I justified it to myself (oh, isnt' that always the way!) because I did not want to lug that behemoth to the gym. So I started reading "The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and it's pretty fun so far. A complete stranger at the gym confessed she has started it 3 times and has yet to finish it! Well, we'll see about that!

More Orange Food

WWHFDLN

So, I'd been craving this garbanzo paprikash dish for a while now, but when I went to make it, I decided to make a few changes...

How's that for a surprise?

Anyway, I've made this before (follow that link to see other iterations) with crumbled, thawed tofu in the sauce and this time I thought, "Why not add it right in?". I've been making most of my sauces in the blender lately, as well, so I plopped a package of silken soft tofu in there along with the paprika and nutritional yeast.

I also dropped out the brown sugar that I usually add in and only used 1 T of the oil to lighten it up. I mean, it's already got ketchup in there, right? No need to be adding extra sugar, too. Also, the onion soup mix I use probably has lots of modified (shudder) corn syrup solids in it or something...

And I made the dumplings in the food processor and they turned out lovely! Nice and light and fluffy... I will definitely make the dumplings in the food processor from now on!

The orange color and creaminess from the tofu I did not dig, hence the post title... but it was worth a shot and now I know.

Creamy Garbanzo Paprikash

1 package of soft silken tofu
2 T paprika
1/4 C nutritional yeast
1/4 C ketchup
1 T onion soup mix
1 t salt
1 clove garlic

1 T oil
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cans garbanzo beans, drained

dumplings
2 C flour
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
4 T Earth Balance margarine
1/4 - 1/2 C water

Bring a large, and I do mean large, like seriously large pot of water to boil. This will take a while.

Meanwhile, blend all the sauce ingredients in the blender, scraping down the sides to mix well.

Saute your onion in a large pot, add the garbanzos and cover to let them cook a little.

Add all dry ingredients to processor, add butter and pulse until texture is like coarse meal. With processor running, pour water through the chute slowly, waiting a few moments between each small amount that you add, until the dough starts to form a ball and clears the sides of the processor.

On a floured surface, roll the dough into a thick snake, cut the snake into 1" bits. Use your hands to make the bits into balls and coat these with flour. When the water is boiling, add a bunch of salt to the water and turn the heat down a little, you want a rolling boil. Using a slotted spoon, lower your dumplings into the water, and once you've got them all in there, cover the pot and set the timer for 10m. DO NOT PEEK AT THE DUMPLINGS. Lower the heat if there's a lot of steam pouring out or anything.

Dump the sauce over your onions and garbanzos and mix well. Let simmer until the sauce is pretty thick.

When the 10m is up, remove the dumplings and add them to the pot with the garbanzos and sauce. Mix gently and serve.


Here was another good supper!

Wild Rice Pilaf with Sweet Almond Sauce

I used this recipe as a base for the wild rice part and then mixed it all up with some white rice.

1/4 C Earth Balance
1 C broken wild rice, uncooked
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 carrot, grated
2 T vegetable broth powder
1 t salt
3 C water

sauce

1/4 C almond butter
1 T soysauce
1 T sugar
1 clove garlic
1/2 C water

Melt the Earth Balance in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Saute the onion, then garlic. Add the carrots, vegetable broth powder, wild rice and salt. Mix well. Add the water, mix well, cover and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer 40m or until the wild rice is tender.

Blend the sauce ingredients together on cook on the stove until thickened.

Boy, this was really nice. I've made wild rice before and it's been pretty bland, but this was very tasty.

I have been powering through "Infinite Jest", alllllmost there! I can't wait to see how things come together- they're starting to, and the beginning of the book is soooo long with these completely unrelated stories going on, it's like, so exciting when a few of the character's paths cross. Why do I have this sneaking suspicion that he's not going to go the extra mile and make it all 'work out'?

If You're Into This Kind of Thing.

WWHFDLN

Ho, ho, ho...

Here is the bastard child of my 'Manwich Delight' and 'Dan's Saturday Night Special'... proceed with caution.

No, really, it's good. If you're into this kind of thing. Are my midwestern roots showing?

1 C elbow pasta
1/2 C TVP
1 can corn, drained
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T oil
1 t salt

sauce;
1 can tomatoes, undrained
1/4 C nutritional yeast
2 T sugar
1 T HP sauce
1 t salt
1 t garlic granules
1/2 t prepared mustard
4 green olives (optional, I have been weirdly throwing olives into all my sauces lately... it's a compulsion)

Boil your pasta, along with the TVP. Stir fairly regularly because the TVP sticks.

Blend up the sauce ingredients.

Saute the onion and garlic, then add the sauce and corn and mix well. Simmer while your pasta and TVP boil.

Mix in the TVP and pasta and simmer until the sauce is thick.

Yum!

I Offer You.

WWHFDLN

Well, here it is... the infamous Indian Spiced Tofu! No, not really, it's not infamous, I'm just being silly, but it is a quick easy way to make a fast supper...

I followed the instructions almost to the 'T', except I used 1 t of salt as opposed to 1/2 t salt and I added 1 t of curry powder. Oh, and I left out the ginger. Oh, and I used the food processor to chop the carrots and garlic. And I crumbled the tofu with my hands.

It's easy peasy and it tastes good too. My favorite part is when you leave the mustard seeds in the pan until they start popping.

Still reading. I offer you a link about the author.

Bother.

Cashew Alfredo Sauce

So, another quick supper...

Tried this sauce and it was goooood...
V. nice.
This was just roughly half a box of pasta, the sauce and a can of peas.

Here's how I made it;

1/2 C raw cashews
1 clove garlic
1 T olive oil
1 T Earth Balance
2 T nutritional yeast
1 t salt

1 1/2 C pasta water

Boil up your pasta.
In a blender, blend the cashews, garlic, nutritional yeast and salt.
Scrape down sides and blend again until all cashew pieces are roughly uniform.

Take 1 1/2 C of your pasta water (you can even let a few of those noodles 'accidentally' slip in there- the starch is what thickens the sauce) and pour it into the blender and the blend! blend! blend!

Drain pasta, return pot to stove, toss in your Tablespoon of Earth Balance and your T of olive oil, toss in the pasta and peas and dump the sauce over all that. Mix well and serve hot.

Gah, no progress on the reading, I know, I know. Those Chabon books are taunting me from the bookshelf- 'read us, read us, elizabeth, we're so entertaiiiiining'...
Hey, I read somewhere that he never even ties up the loose ends at the end and there's no closure, surely that's excuse enough to stop, right?!?
Bother.

Tedious and Time Consuming

Here is WWHFDLN...
I think Sundays are becoming soup night. My husband requested red lentil soup, but I just couldn't bring myself to make the same thing again, a week later. So I did the next worst thing, I made the lentil soup I've been making so much this fall and winter!

Middle Eastern Lentil Paprika Soup

1 C brown lentils, rinsed
2 T oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T parsley
1/4 C ketchup
2 T vegetable broth powder
2 T HP sauce
1 T paprika
1 t curry paste
2 bay leaves
1 t salt
8 C water

Saute onion, then garlic. Add everything else except the water and let cook a few minutes. Add the water, bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer 30m.

Made this with my go to bread recipe, left out the vital wheat gluten, let it rise a lot longer on the first rise (do breads with potato tend to have longer rise times, or what?).

Good bread

4 heaping C flour
1/2 C potato flakes
1/4 C sugar
1/4 C oil
1 scant T yeast
1 T salt
2 C water

Preheat oven to 170 degrees. Grease your loaf pans.
Mix 'er all up in your big 'ol mixer, change to the knead hood and knead 3m or so.
Dump out the dough, oil that bowl and put the dough back in, turning to oil both sides.
Cover with a damp tea towel and place in oven to rise 1+ hour.
DON'T FORGET TO TURN OVEN OFF!
Ahem.
Preheat oven to 170 degrees again.
Knead dough for 10m or so. Cut in half, shape into rectangle, roll out into even bigger rectangle. Roll up short side, tuck under ends and place, seam side down into loaf pan.
Cover with tea towel and place into oven, turn off oven. Rise 45m.
Take towel off.
Leave loaves in cold oven, turn to 400 degrees and bake from cold oven for 30m, cover with tinfoil and bake 10 more minutes.

Boy, typing that all out makes it seem so tedious and time consuming.

Okay, here, above, we see the progression of what really occurred when we ate this quick and easy black bean and potato skillet dinner... yes, I do live in Minnesota, why do you ask? Hey, it was very tasty that way! I think it tasted better!! Food snobs...

Oh, and in the background there you can see the homemade tortilla chips I made... mmmm.

Quick and Easy Black Bean and Potato Skillet

1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 T oil
5 or 6 small potatoes, scrubbed or maybe 2 med large ones
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 C your favorite salsa
1/2 t cumin

Saute your onion and garlic, add the beans, cumin and salt and mix well. Add salsa and mix well. Cook for a few minutes until salsa liquid has mostly evaporated and then add the potatoes and mix gently.

Serve with chips.

And finally, here we have Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon. I paid really good attention to the directions this time (go, me!) and fried them instead of baked them and they were yummy!! Much better than the chewy patties I made before...
Served with some cheezy sauce, sorry, don't have the recipe before me, I think it was my latest incarnation of that bean based one (a can of white beans, undrained, 9 green olives, clove garlic whizzed in blender and heated up).

No news on the "Infinite Jest" front, not much reading this weekend.

Well as well.

WWHFDLN

Mesir We't

Man was this good!

I was just cruisin' the PPK forums and found this, was like, Hmmm, I've got those curry spiced moong dal and rice just lingerin' in the fridge... I have all those spices... I think we'll have this for dinner!

I was a little leery about the cloves and allspice, but was like, what the hey and just added them in there. So good. Seriously, I did not monkey around with this recipe at all (which is unusual. I just left out the tomato paste). Go make it.

I also made pitas to go with, which was just an excellent choice, if I do say so myself.

Of course, I think it was the 1T of paprika that sold me.

Pitas

2 1/2 C flour
2 t salt
1 T sugar
1/4 C vital wheat gluten
2 t yeast
2 T olive oil
1 C warm water

In your mixer, mix 1 C flour (can use ww), vital wheat gluten, salt, sugar and yeast. Add oil, then water. Mix until smooth approx. 3m.

Stir in the rest of the flour 1/2 C at a time. Dough should form a rough shaggy mass that will clean the sides of the bowl.

Change to hook and knead 3m.

Divide into 8ths, roll into balls on a flour covered counter and cover with a wet tea towel to rest 20-30m.

Rip off 2 lengths of foil the width of your oven rack. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

When dough is ready, roll out into circles on flour covered counter. Place four onto one of your foil sheets, run over to the oven, open it and pull out your rack, run back to the counter, carefully pick up your foil with the pitas on there, walk over to the stove and put them on the rack. Bake for 5-7m until browned and puffy.

Roll out your other 4 pitas and repeat.

Stack and wrap in foil to save, if you have any left.

These freeze well and the recipe doubles well as well.

Still enjoying "Infinite Jest". Glad I didn't bail.

Actual Farmwork

WWHFDLN*

So, here it is, my lovelies...
A riff on my Camel Pockets, basically the same dough/pastry with different innards. Yum! Okay, okay, I know it's a calzone, peeps, don't get your undies all in a twist!

Crust;
5 C flour
1 T yeast
1 heaping T salt
1/2 C oil
2 C water

Mix it all up in the mixer, rise, covered with a wet tea towel, in a turned off 170 degree oven for 30m. Scrape onto a floured counter and knead a little, adding enough flour to prevent sticky mess.
Cut into 8 and cover with wet tea towel again.

While dough is rising, prepare your innards.

I used the recipe for Tofu Basil Ricotta
using some of the basil I had pureed with oil this summer... so good. Oh, and I used frozen tofu, it crumbles really well into a 'ricotta' like texture.

I also used the last of the tomatoes from the summer out of the freezer, just blended them up with oil and salt and oregano and garlic and cooked it on the stovetop until it was thick.

So, ricotta like substance and tomato sauce. There you go.

Now, roll out your dough balls into ovals, place half of the oval (you know, the half where you're going to put your fillings?) right on to your greased cookie sheet.

Place a big spoonful of each filling on there, wet the edge around the filling with water (I keep a bowl nearby for this), fold over the dough and press shut with your fingertips.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15m or until golden brown.

*What We Had For Dinner Last Night

Yikes! I'm burning through the freezer goods at a breakneck pace! And here it is only January. Whatever shall I do? It's just sad when you're nearing the end of the CSA produce, plus my CSA is not going to be existent next year, boo. I will miss seeing the chickens, the horses (doing actual farmwork like plowing!), and of course all the good people there.

No news on the reading front.

No Suprise

WWHFDLN

Fava bean dip!!! I tell you, the life of a vegan is a life of an adventurer! I was at my local big box grocery store the other day and I saw a can of fava beans! Check that, first I saw a bag of fava beans in the 'ethnic' aisle and grabbed them, THEN I saw the can and was like, ahhh, who'm I kidding, I'm never going to soak and cook these beans, and I put them back and grabbed the can.

ANYWAY, I always am reminded of some sketch my husband quotes about some fava beans and a nice Chianti- would that he were here to clear the mists in my mind and reveal what exactly that sketch is from... the Tick? a Simpsons episode? Spongebob Squarepants? (no, not that last one).

So I was wondering what I'd do with these fava beans, when I saw Jewbacca's post on her lima bean hummus and then I think I plugged fava bean into food blog search which I believe led me to Fava Bean Dip.

So I decide to halve the recipe because I only had one can of fava beans and then I dumped them into the food processor, added the FULL amount of oil, dumped some of that out into the rice cooker, and realized I was out of cumin. AAAAaaaaagh!

Anyway, it turned out fine, so phew. Pretty darn good, in fact. If I ever see another can of fava beans, I'll snap them right up!

Then, since I was at food blog search, I looked up whole wheat flatbread and found this at bitchincamero (which in turn reminded me of a Dead Milkmen song I used to listen to). "Skillet flatbread?!?", I says to myself. Well, it had to happen. I love the cornbread I make in the skillet, and this sounded good, plus it hailed from Mark Bittman!

So I made that, too. It turned out really crispy (I used the lower end of the continuum of water- anywhere from one cup to three and I used 1 1/2). Next time I may use more water, or flip it at 20m instead of 30m. Soooooo easy and so good! Whee! I'll be making this again.


And finally, I made (sortof) Spiced Lentils and Rice from Fat Free Vegan. And I learned something new! A long time ago when I made Mallika's Rajmah, I complained about how when I make rice in my little cheapo rice cooker (no fuzzy logic here, oh wait, there IS lots of fuzzy logic, just not with the rice cooker) it foams and spurts all over, so my solution had been to rinse very thoroughly the rice, and that has worked pretty well. But, in reading Susan's recipe, I discovered that she has had the same problem and just coats the bottom of the rice cooker with oil! So I tried it, not rinsing the rice or even the lentils (notoriously foamy) and it worked!!! Whee!

So I made my rice and lentils a little differently, but it was so simple and easy I'll probably make it again. Nothing beats throwing stuff in a pot and letting it go!

1 1/2 C rice
3/4 C moong dal, or yellow lentils
1/2 t curry powder
1/4 t turmeric
1 t salt
4 C water

This takes about 45m or so. If it's not dry, add 1/4 C more water and restart.

Oh, and we had green beans from our CSA that were frozen in the freezer. With fake bacon bits.

Here is another lovely dinner. Tofu with peanut sauce.

In the background there is some butternut squash I roasted for like, an hour at 350. I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, coated the cut sides with oil, added a sliced clove of garlic to each little cup and added some more oil in there and mixed it all up. Then, when I scooped it all out, I just mashed the garlic in there. Yummm....

For the last half hour the squash was baking, I added the tofu marinating in the peanut sauce and let that bake, flipping the triangles over halfway through.

Oh goodness, I liked this sauce.

1/4 C + 2 T smooth peanut butter
1/4 C soysauce
2 T brown sugar
spash of rice wine vinegar
1 clove garlic
1/2 C water

Whizz in blender. Press your tofu- cut the block into thirds longways and then in half the other way and then into triangles. Place these on a cutting board or countertop and cover with a tea towel. Put your heaviest pot on there and add some cans of stuff in there too. Let sit for up to 30m.

Pour a little of the sauce into a 9 x 13" pan, to cover the bottom. Place the triangles of tofu in the pan, and cover with a little less than half of the sauce. Put in 350 degree oven for 30m, flipping halfway.

Meanwhile, cook the rest of the sauce on the stove on med low heat, to thicken it.

Serve over rice and top with the rest of the sauce.

Still reading "Infinite Jest". No suprise there.

Hooray!

WWHFDLN

Another attempt at perfecting my tater tot hot dish...
This time I forgot to heat up the green beans (used 2 cans this time) and the sauce- d'oh!
I canna' believe I didna' nuke the beans!!!

So here's what I did this time;

1 pkg tater tots
2 cans green beans, drained
1 package Morningstar crumbles
1 T oil
1 onion, chopped
1 t paprika
1/2 t chili powder
1/4 t pepper

sauce

1 can pinto/navy/northern/cannelini beans, not drained
1/3 C nutritional yeast
8 green olives
1 clove garlic
1 t salt or to taste

Bake tater tots as directed.
Blend sauce ingredients, adding a little water to get a thick, pourable consistency.
Pour into a medium saucepan, add green beans and heat on med low.
In a large skillet, saute your onion in oil, then add the crumbles and spices and mix well. Heat over med high heat until browned.
In a 9 x 13" pan, layer the tater tots, green beans in sauce and crumbles on top.
Nom.


We also had red lentil soup this weekend, which I've made before. It turned out very tasty. For some reason, this time I used 3 C red lentils... and I changed the spices... so I think I'll repost it here...

Red Lentil Soup

3 C red lentils
1/4 C olive oil
1 onion, chopped fine
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
8-10 C water
1 t cumin
1 t coriander
1 t sumac

In a large pot, saute the onion in the oil until browned. Add the garlic and saute for a few minutes.
Rinse lentils until the water runs clear.
Add spices to onion garlic mixture and mix well, stir over med high heat for a few minutes.
Add lentils and mix well.
Add water and bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer 20m or so until lentils turn mushy.
Remove in batches to blender, or if you're fancier than I, use an immersion blender.
Serve with bread.
Makes a lot of soup, but it's good and freezes well.

Still reading "Infinite Jest" people.
Gonna be reading it for a looooong time.
Really enjoying the AA parts.
Renewed it! Hooray!

If Someone Has Requested It

Hello! Happy New Year! I'm excited about this year... so many possibilities!

Here (above) is What We Had For Dinner Last Night (WWHFDLN). It was pretty good, almost like creamed spinach, although I haven't had anything 'creamed' in a while so I really don't know. It was tasty, anyhow.

I had 2/3 of a extra firm silken tofu left from the cabbage dinner (I used 1/3 of the tofu for a 'sour cream') so I decided to make Esme's Special Sauce (a staple in our house), and add the tofu to that. I blended it all up and then put it over the noodles and spinach.

Of course then I added too much of the pasta water to the sauce when I dumped in the pasta, so then it was like all soupy. So then I put it back in the pot, back on the pot, and stirred in 1 T of cornstarch mixed with 1 T hot water and stirred and stirred until it got thicker. Hoo boy!

So finally dinner was served.

Here is a rough approximation of the sauce;

3 T tahini
2 T miso
2 T soysauce
2 T olive oil
2 T Dijon mustard
2 T nutritional yeast
1 t salt
plus the silken tofu

Boil up your pasta, steam/defrost your spinach, and mix it all together, hey!

I liked the sauce, I'll probably try it with something else, perhaps one of my beloved casseroles...

And here is the Earthy Lentil Soup from "Vive Le Vegan". It was good! It's nice to have another lentil soup in addition to my other favorite lentil soup...

No news on the reading front, I'm kinda nervous because it's due in a few days and I'm only halfway through and if someone requests it then I'm doomed, DOOMED! I tell you! because then I can't renew it (if someone has requested it). You understand. Feel my pain.

There Was An Endnote to the Endnote

Good Evening (said in a voice like that Masterpiece Theater guy), no actually, it's morning, but I just wanted to imagine saying "Good Eee-ven-ing" with a deep voice, stuffy English accent and especially with that three syllabic stretch on evening, emphasis on 'Eee'.

Hey, what did you get for Christmas? I got a soapstone deep dish pizza pan (woo!), a clay baker (to make fake turkey in), some Chabon books, a gift certificate for our local kitchen shoppe (again with the woo! I'm torn over 1)many little things or 2)a pressure cooker), a book called "Curly Girl" so I can start to get a handle on the girls curls and Bryanna Clark Grogan's "20 Minutes to Dinner".

So I made a recipe last night from it- cabbage and noodles which is just as it sounds! It was good, although we are not huge cabbage fans. The cookbook has many great recipes and ideas in it, I'm glad to have it for inspiration.

I am of course still reading "Infinite Jest". It's gotten more interesting to me as more characters are added and it's not quite so masculine as the beginning was when it was super focused in on the main character. I will be interested to see if these different plots are ever woven together? And I also must amend a statement I made earlier about footnotes having footnotes- my good husband reminded me that the notes at the end of the book are called ENDnotes and the notes at the bottom of the page, you know, with the asterisk, are footnotes. My apologies. So I was reading an endnote when I discovered there was an endnote to the endnote. Whatever.

A Footnote to the Footnote!

Well, it's snowing here- slated to storm, actually. I just got a good night's sleep in who knows how long, we've got most of our Christmas stuff done (did all the cards last night- phew!) and so now we have just a few trips planned today to run errands to the COOP, the library and the Bikery, our local coffeeshop. I hope you and yours have a great Holiday season and get to spend lots of time with loved ones!

Here is some spaghetti with bottled peanut sauce and some of that fake chicken stuff and a bag of frozen vegetables. Yes, we like to live it up here...

But, even better yet, here are Snickerdoodles!!! Whee! I got to use my whisk attachment for my mixer which I hardly ever get to use. Oh, baby, were these good, it was a good thing my husband took them to work and I only got to eat a half of one! Next time I will roll them in the cinnamon sugar, roll them in between my palms to soften them a little and reroll them. Yes, I am AR, thank you very much. Isn't the cracking bee-yoo-ti- ful? I guess that's from the chilling of the dough. What a great thing to know. Go, make these now. They are really simple and really good.
And lastly, inspired by Guava's Shepherd's Pie, I made this! Man, I didn't even get you guys the money shot it was just so good. Imagine some peas and corn and carrots floating around in the gravy. I used some red wine in the gravy and the mashed potatoes mixing with the gravy... mmmmmm... heaven! I used my favorite Baked Veggie Stew with Biscuits on Top recipe. Maybe I'll have to try Vegan Dad's version next...

Still reading "Infinite Jest"- I got to the part where I quit last time, you wanna know how I knew it? I was filled with the same bafflement, that's how. I was reading a footnote and THERE WAS A FOOTNOTE TO THE FOOTNOTE!!!!! Srsly, folks, this book truly takes a commitment to read, not to mention that it's sort of hard to read in bed when you have to hold up this thing that weighs like a ton. Really, I can read a big book, I'm a big girl now, but when I have to keep flipping to the back to read footnotes, it gets exhausting. I should skip the footnotes, but I'm paranoid I'll miss something crucial and you really can't let things go with this story. Well, anyhow, I'm commited. We'll see if it's fate is better than that of "In the Name of the Rose".

Pay More Attention

Ohhh the excitement!
Well, it was good, if not real pretty...

I used Your Vegan Mom's Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix (thanks to her handy dandy widget search box I found that so quickly!). Thanks, Vegan Mom!

Cheesy Vegan Rice and Broccoli Casserole

2 C rice, uncooked
1 C Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix
1/2 bag frozen broccoli

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Oil your 9 x 13" casserole.
Nuke your broccoli and chop into smaller pieces.
Get your rice started.
Mix 1 C Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix with 2 C water over med high heat, stirring until thick. Remove from heat and mix together with broccoli and rice in a big bowl.
Pour into casserole, cover with foil and bake 30m, last 10 uncovered.

So, nothing fancy, but it was good hot food on a cold, cold night. Plus I have a cold, so, blah. Not much energy for inspiring foods.

Started "Infinite Jest" which I requested from the library...
Okay, I have started this before, I don't know when or how or why, but everything I'm reading is familiar. This time, however, I have a lot more patience and interest. So we'll see how far I get. It is a huge tome. I've told myself that if I bail, I will at least write the page number down somewhere so I can pick it up again later. Now I'm faced with either re-reading what I already read, or trying to skim ahead to find where I left off. I think I'm just going to reread and pay more attention this time.

So Fun!

What We Had For Dinner the Other Night

Again with the chili topped sweet potato! Yes, but it's so good! I must have a vitamin A deficiency or something...

this time with black beans, added some cocoa to the mix...

and served with Grandma's Cornbread Made Vegan. Oh, and I've made that cornbread quite a few times, never with the energ egg replacer and it's been juuuuust fine. Make it in a skillet, make it now.


And hey, I tried Vegan Mom's Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix, and lo, it was good.

I did not have raw sunflower seeds on hand, so I used 3/4 C rolled oats and it was fine.

Boiled up half a box of elbow mac (2 C worth), mixed it all up, topped with 10 crumbled Ritz crackers (yes, Virginia, they are vegan). Baked at 350 for 30m or so. Verrry nice. Even better the next day, reheated with a little added oil and some broccoli... for lunch, of course!

That's all I gotz for ya today, have given up on "The Name of the Rose" or whatever it's called. Reading another Aubrey-Maturin O'Brien novel, this one's not as good! Boo! It starts out on land, or as seagoing folk say, shore. Booo-ring.

Christmas presents are rrrrrrollin' in!!!! So exciting. Frigid cold here, snowing. Ahh, Winter.

Oooh, oooh! Not least but last, here's my presents for various and sundry people (neighbor who we hope to have watch cats, daughter E.'s teachers).


So fun!!

Too Saccharine Sweet

WWHFDLN

Yes, that perennial favorite, Baked Veggie Stew with Biscuits on top.
Well, I had been trying to get my hands on some wine to use in this gravy (Bryanna suggests port/sherry/Marsala), for example I stopped at a liquor store on the way home from our cut your own tree expedition (St. Croix Valley Tree Farm is really nice), but just came home with a bottle of Merlot mixed with something that starts with "C". Black Opal. I have no idea. It didn't even have a cork in it!! It was a twist off!
But I digress, so we had this last night and this time I used the gravy recipe with nutritional yeast where you toast the flour and nutritional yeast and it came out lumpy and liquidy but that was okay. And I spiced up the veggies and Boca by adding some paprika, pepper, garlic and onion powder.
Next time I will add a T of Earth Balance to the gravy. Sorry Bryanna, but it's got to be done.

1 16 oz bag frozen mixed veg
1 pkt Boca 'ground beef'

gravy
2 1/2 C water
1/3 C flour
1/3 C nutritional yeast
2 T soy sauce
1/2 t salt
few shakes Kitchen Bouquet

dumplings
1 C flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 C water

Oil a 9", round, covered casserole. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Nuke veg and Boca together in microwave safe bowl, covered, for 10m with 1/4 C water.
Prepare gravy; brown flour and nutritional yeast over high heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add water, soy sauce, salt and Kitchen Bouquet. Whisk well, return to high heat and whisk until thickening, reduce heat and simmer 5m.
Stir together dumpling ingredients with a fork to make a stiff dough.
Add a dash pepper, salt, paprika, onion and garlic powder to veg and mix well. Pour into casserole. Pour gravy over veg and then top with spoonfulls of biscuit.
Bake uncovered 15m, covered 15m. Yum!

Ain't it purdy.
Here is another repeat, pasta with lentils.
Very yummy, filling and cheap, cheap, CHEAP!!!
I spiced it up with some cumin because I can never leave a recipe alone and it was good. Also some onion and garlic powder, sensing a theme here?

Pasta with lentils

1/2 16 oz package pasta
1 C brown lentils
1 1/4 C water
1 T olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 C tahini
1/4 C water
1 t cumin
1 t onion powder
1 t garlic powder
1 t salt
dash pepper

Boil pasta.
In a large pot, place lentils with 1 1/4 C water and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer 30m or until lentils are tender.
Saute onions, garlic in skillet.
Add onions and garlic, tahini, water and spices to lentils in large pot.
Mix well.
Toss in pasta and mix well (it helps if you just spoon out the pasta with a slotted spoon right into the large pot because the extra pasta water makes it easier to mix).
Serve hot.

I made my bread recipe and added some potato flakes which I had read about somewheres. Yo, it was good!!! I get ridiculously excited when I can change a recipe for the better. Note, I also added more oil and sugar. The kind of potato flakes I got at the coop come in these little packs so all I have to do is rip one open and it's so easy! Whee!

My Bread Recipe, the newest incarnation;
4 heaping cups flour
1/3 C sugar
1 pkt potato flakes (about 1/2 C)
1/4 C vital wheat gluten
1 scant T salt
1 scant T yeast
1/4 C oil
2 1/2 C water

Mix it all up, oil a bowl, plop it in there and turn to cover with oil, cover with wet tea towel and place in low oven (170 degrees) turned off for 45m.
Plop onto flour covered countertop, knead a little (10m), cut in half, roll out into rectangle, roll up short side, tuck ends under, plop in greased loaf pans and place back in low oven, turned off, again with the wet tea towel 45m.
When risen, take off towel, turn oven to 400 (you're starting from a cold oven, here) and bake 40m.
If having a really dark top bugs you, cover with foil toward the end.

And here is another repeat (sensing yet another theme here, now I'm repeating my 'sensing a theme here' statements, gah I'm repetitive). Yes, this winter will be the winter of working through the classics, I believe. Quick Tofu Mutter.
Anyway, this time I used more potato and peas to balance out the tofu and more curry paste, soy sauce, garlic.
Yum!
Make this today!

Quick Tofu Mutter (I think I found this on vegweb or somewheres, but I can't find it again)

1 pkt extra firm tofu, chopped
1 C frozen peas
3 potatoes, cubed
2 T Patak's curry paste
2 T soy sauce
3 cloves garlic, minced

Start rice.
Start water to boil for potatoes.
Dice tofu, place in 9x9" microwave safe dish and nuke 1 1/2 m.
In a small bowl, mix curry paste, soy sauce and garlic.
Pour over tofu and mix well.
Cook potatoes until tender (10m?), remove from heat, do not drain and add frozen peas to thaw.
Nuke tofu 1 1/2m, stir, then nuke another 1 1/2 m.
Pour tofu into serving bowl, drain potatoes and peas and add to tofu and mix well.
Serve over rice.

Reading "The Name of the Rose" or whatever that Umberto Eco book is called, man is it tedious. Sorry, literary people. There's a lot of talk and theology which is very interesting and all, but man is it slow!
So, to reassure myself that, yes, I can actually read quickly, I guess, somehow I ended up getting "Bridget Jones Diary" and and Elizabeth Berg book from the library yesterday and read them both in one day!!!! Bridget Jones Diary was fun in a fluffy way, the format got sort of ridiculous after a while. Then the Berg book I really super enjoyed, it was the third in a series, "True to Form". I liked what she had to say, her insights into life, didn't think it was too saccharine sweet etc. etc. Feel like I'm wildly vaccilating in my choices of reading material.

Oh, P.S. thanks for all the great feedback about the tater tot hot dish... was kind of embarrased to post it, but so pleased with the reaction!

Hooray For Food!

Hokay, lotta catch up to do here...

I made a Tater Tot Casserole, and lo! it was good.

1 pkg tater tots
1 can green beans
1 pkt Boca crumbles
1 T oil
1/2 onion, chopped
dashes chili powder, pepper and paprika
salt to taste

sauce
1 can pinto/northern/cannellini beans, undrained
1/3 C nutritional yeast
1/4 C (half a small jar) pimentos
6 green olives
1 t garlic powder

Blend sauce ingredients. Mix with green beans in a med. saucepan over med high heat.
Bake tater tots as directed (yes, they're vegan).
In a large skillet, saute onion, then Boca. Season with spices and salt to taste.
Place tater tots in casserole dish (I think mine's 3qt), pour sauce with green beans over and top with Boca.
Yum!

This is a variation of a sauce I use pretty often, it's nice because it's lowfat and so then the tater tots aren't so bad, right?, right?!? Anyway, I didn't have any lemon juice so I thought I'd try olives and it worked!! I am also sick of hunting down jars of pimentos so I think I'll just use green olives and if it turns a weird color I'll just add some paprika. Hoorah.

Yo, I am fancying it up 'round here! I made French Lentil Soup from Veganomicon with 2 C Merlot and it was good! This was my first venture into cooking with wine land, so that was fun. It was some cheap brand called Barefoot. Next up in Cooking With Wine, Marsala/Port/Sherry in my new favorite gravy recipe.

I made some Cheezy Quackers to go with some veggie soup. I thought they were great, but my husband did not, boo!
Oh, and soooo long overdue, I won! I won!!!
Thank you For The Love Of Guava!!!!! You are too sweet!
I felt so warm and fuzzy when I found out she had nominated me, so I love to pass on the love by nom-nom-nominating these fine bloggers...

I nominate
Cooking For A Vegan Lover because she has a cute cat and she posts great recipes (she actually made VeganYumYum's Seitan Roulade! Kudos!). Check out her Holiday Menu- drooool!

I nominate
The Pink Apron because she ate vegan for November, and because she needed some cheering up, plus I love her recipes and funny anecdotes (gosh that sounds weird, but it's true!)!

I love
That Pain In The Ass Vegan (already nominated, d'oh!) because her posts are informative and funny and personal and righteous.

I nominate
Adventures in Vegetarianism becuase she has a well stocked freezer, she introduced me to Hummus en Fuego and because she made the effort to travel vegan stylee!

I love
I Am Not A Rabbit (already nominated too! Geez!) because her household is now completely vegan!! And because her cat is cute! And because I like to read her posts and she photoshops turkeys for American visitors!

In reading news, I finished "Master and Commander" (you know, the book the movie was based on?) and it. was. teh. awesome. No, really, I did really enjoy it and I even made a special trip to the library to get the next one in the (16 BOOK) series, but of course they did not have it. Boo. So I think I have the 9th one or something. We'll see if they're stand alone books or not. You cannot beat a book about sailing, I mean, it's practically pirates, and the author really makes you love the main characters.

Currently I am reading "In The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco, I have heard lots about this author and I saw it at my library run, so I grabbed it and so far so good, although it is quite long, it's turning into a whodunit which is not usually my usual thing, but hey! why not, right? Lots of interesting theology details and so forth and crazy characters. So far it's working.