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Appetite for Reduction’s Chili-Lime-Rubbed Tofu, Mashed Yuca & Kale Salad

Well, by the end of this past weekend I finally had unpacked and organized all of my remaining kitchen items. (A few things had to be returned to their owners or donated.) I made out a meal plan for the week, for what seemed like the first time in ages, and headed to the store. I’ve been favoring AFR lately in an attempt to make my cooking life a little simpler and leaner. And I even managed to make a couple of dishes from it in the midst of being half unpacked the last few weeks.

This ended up being 3 courses of mixed latin fusion inspired goodness.

The Kale salad was of my own invention to use up some ripe mango and avocado I got from my mother. I used kale because I’m addicted to it and crave it all the time, but I snuck in a little chiffonade of basil since I had just bought it and it smelled so good. It made for a very nice, fresh contrast. I added black beans and some super fresh corn to give it a sort of mexi vibe, and dressed it very lightly with lime juice, a tiny mist of olive oil, a pinch of salt, and some fresh ground smoked black pepper.

Mango, Avocado, Kale salad

1 bunch of kale, stems removed, ripped or chopped into tiny pieces
10 basil leaves, cut into chiffonade or chopped finely, optional
1 mango, small dice
1 avocado, small dice
1 can of black beans, well rinsed
1 tbsp. of red onion, chopped finely
fresh corn cut from one ear
lime juice, to taste
olive oil, optional
salt & pepper

I was going to try Isa’s suggested Mashed Yuca with Cilantro & Lime, but both stores I went to were curiously out of cilantro. I was already planning on buying the Goya frozen yuca instead of buying fresh, since that’s all I’ve ever seen my family use, and it was easier. That’s what’s in that pot there below on the right, 2 small bags worth. I had a little red onion left from the salad, so that’s the pink you’ll surely notice in my final result. I used this and 2 big cloves of garlic to make a quickie mojo, because I just can’t imagine eating yuca without it. So I’ll put my little version here as well. It sure tasted good. But honestly, just the yuca straight out of the salted water tasted amazing. I love yuca. I had never made it before. I did use Isa’s suggestion for reserving a cup of the cooking water to mash with.

So I made a double batch of the tofu, because Thomas is a tofu eating machine, and I wanted some leftovers to eat with the leftover salad for lunch the next day. (PS- I did, and they were extremely delicious together!) So that’s me putting fork holes in two bricks of sprouted, prepressed tofu. The only thing I didn’t double in the marinade was the oil. I stuck with just the 1 tsp. and I used less salt in the rub, and not quite double the chili powder.

In the marinade…

With their rub on…

Baked, flipped, baked some more & outta the oven…

Ty’s Mojo Infused Mashed Yuca

2 lbs of frozen yuca chunks (I used the Goya Brand), cooked according to package directions/taste. I like mine a bit “al dente” for lack of a better term. Yuca will get mushy, but for me the perfect texture is still firm on the inside.
1 c. of reserved cooking water
1 tbsp. finely chopped onion
2 large cloves of garlic, very thinly sliced
mist of olive oil
2 tbsp. lime juice, split

Directions:

1. In the last 5-10 minutes of yuca cooking, spray a small skillet with a little olive oil and lightly fry up onion and garlic. As it gets dryer, splash in 1 tbsp. of lime juice, and cook down.

2. Drain yuca and return to pot or to a large bowl you can mash it in. Remove the fibrous little strings in the centers of the chunks, preferably with a fork so you don’t burn your fingers. Add “mojo” mixture, additional lime juice and enough cooking water to get to your desired consistency. Mmm! This made a wonderful bed for the tofu.

Final Thoughts…

So if you’re really cool, you could knock this out in 30 minutes flat. If you make the salad while the other 2 cook. I’m not that cool, so it took me somewhere between 45-60 minutes so that I could include dancing and beer drinking too. If you haven’t checked out Appetite for Reduction, it’s worth checking out. The recipes are a lot simpler than let’s say the Veganomicon, but still packed with plenty of flavor and guiltier items too like corn bread and onion rings, etc. I like it so much I even bought the kindle edition with the intent of selling back or giving away my hard copy, but don’t think I will after all.

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Categories cookbook review, food pix, food tips, recipe testing, recipes

Angelica Home Kitchen custom sammies

7 Feb

When I asked Thomas yesterday what he’d like to eat in the next few days, he asked me to make the yummy sandwiches I accidentally came up with a while back trying to recreate the Sam or I sandwich from Angelica Kitchen in New York. Instead of the kraut and seaweed that appear on said sandwich, I use oven roasted carrots and onions, and some steamed greens. For variety, any of their sandwiches can easily be made into a bowl, by serving over a grain instead of bread. All of the recipes come from their cookbook, Angelica Home Kitchen (available cheapest on their website). I was happy that at least if we were eating cooked food, we’re eating some quality macrobiotic deliciousness! Regardless, after eating some of the leftovers for lunch today, I couldn’t help but notice the difference in how I felt eating cooked food again. I missed the lighter feeling of eating raw, and am thinking lunch is probably a great time to continue to do so.

The recipe for Soba Sensation sauce makes a lot (a whole spaghetti jar’s worth) but I’m going to use the rest of it over a package of soba noodles later in the week as a bed for some [made from their cookbook] Candle 79 crusted seitan. Oh and P.S., Thomas is making seitan this week, the long way, from actual bread flour using Candle’s recipe. So wish him luck! ; )

Baked Tofu with Lemon-Rosemary Marinade, pg. 105

I made a double batch because there is a tofu eating monster that lives in my house, and also because the other recipes make so much!

Oven-Roasted Onions and Carrots, pg. 168

Steamed Greens, pg. 99 (Just steam them for 5 minutes. That’s it.)

Soba Sensation Sauce, pg. 209

That’s a tasty sandwich! Served on sprouted grain bread.

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Categories cookbook review, food pix, recipe review

High Raw, Week Two: Kale Salad & Thai Wraps

22 Jan

So this week we continued on our raw journey, though it wasn’t full raw; we added in some grains. Thomas had some grits for breakfast a few days this week, and we had that brown rice. We also ate a whole loaf of sprouted grain bread, most often toasted.

After I made the brown rice to go with the beet burgers on Monday, I ate the leftovers for lunch Tuesday with some sunflower seeds, nutritional yeast, and dijon mixed in. It was tasty and filling, but it felt heavy after all my raw food eating, and all I craved for the rest of the day was a kale salad, in the worst way! So for dinner I came home and made a BIG kale salad adapted from The 30 Minute Vegan‘s Rainbow Kale Salad, pg. 138 (amongst other things, I added a pear for some sweetness), and a whole lot of Thai Wraps adapted from RAW FOOD real world. This made so much that we were able to eat this yumminess for days (the latter is actually an appetizer recipe for 12), a major plus.

Kale Salad

1 bunch of kale, stems removed and chopped into tiny pieces
1 half green cabbage, shredded and chopped
1 grated carrot
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped finely
1/2 yellow bell pepper, chopped finely
1 green pear, finely chopped

Dressing:

1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp. evoo
1 garlic clove, grated
1 tsp. maple syrup
1 tsp. braggs
pinch of cayenne

Directions: Combine salad ingredients in a very large bowl. Whisk dressing ingredients and massage dressing into salad with clean hands. Let it sit in the fridge or out for a little while to let the flavors absorb, and the kale soften slightly.

I made a lot of adjustments to the Spicy Thai Vegetable Wraps, RFRW pg. 143. I cut the oil in half for the chopped raw cashew mixture, which worked just fine. I used green instead of savoy cabbage, and for the almond butter sauce, I halved the recipe, and had more than enough sauce to coat it completely. I also used a combination of lemon and lime juice, and instead of a red chile, a little cayenne and red pepper flakes. My bean sprouts went bad, so sadly they were also left out. Also, I ran out of basil, so I just used a little more cilantro and mint. I didn’t bother at all with the tamarind dipping sauce, since they were plenty tasty on their own. So I ended up with…

Thai Wraps

1/2 c. raw cashews, chopped
1/2 tbsp. sesame oil
couple pinches of sea salt

1/2 green cabbage, shredded

2 tbsp. maple syrup
2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tbps. lime juice
2″ piece of ginger, chopped
pinch of cayenne
pinch of red pepper flakes
3/4 tbsp. braggs
1/2 c. almond butter

1 bunch of collard greens, stems removed and cut down the middle into two halves
2 small carrrots, cut into matchsticks
1 ripe mango, cut into thin strips
large handful of cilantro, finely chopped
large handful of mint, finely chopped

raw cashews, sesame oil, sea salt, mixed in a small bowl

maple syrup, lemon juice, chopped ginger, cayenne, crushed red pepper flakes, braggs, and almond butter blended in blender and tossed into green cabbage

ready to assemble

take the stem out of the collard leaf and use half for each wrap

fill and roll

I ended up with 10 beautiful wraps. 12 if you don't have any halves you don't like.

Results:

The leaves were really sturdy and thus, made these keep really well. So we were able to eat these delicious and fresh tasting wraps for days. The flavors complemented each other well, all the different textures were nice together, and provided a lot of crunch. Once they were all assembled, I thought they would’ve looked like pretty little Thai enchiladas if I had drizzled them with some tamarind dipping sauce, but I was already ready to be out of the kitchen and eating at that point, so I didn’t bother! ; )

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Categories cookbook review, food pix, food tips, rambling, recipe review

More Veganomicon Shepherdess Pie!

25 Oct

I was just finishing up my lunch of leftovers and had to share! I made the awesome Veganomicon Shepherdess Pie last night, with the same tweaks as last time (1 tbsp. liquid smoke in the tempeh) and (nutritional yeast in the smashed potatoes), PLUS I threw a finely chopped, medium carrot in there too, and it was super yum! If you don’t own the Veganomicon, or lack someone nice enough to let you borrow it, you should probably add it to your wishlist or shopping cart, and stat! : )

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Categories cookbook review, food pix, recipe review

20k Baking Night: Vegan Pie in the Sky’s Voluptuous Pumpkin Pie

22 Oct

So a few exciting things to report in this post.

First, thanks to all of you reading the blog out there. At the time of this writing, cpv had just passed 20,000 hits. Pretty exciting for me!

Second, I received my copy of Vegan Pie in the Sky this week, Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero’s latest volume on pies, tarts, and such. I had it on pre-order for the last couple of months, and was thrilled when I came home one day and it was waiting for me. The first recipe that caught my eye was the Brownie Bottom Peanut Butter Cheesecake. Just look at that title! Need I say more? After a thorough reading, I placed an amazon order for things I would need to become a Vegan Pie in the Sky goddess… springform pans, a tart pan, pie weights, and agar powder. (I only had agar flakes. They expressly warn you against using the flakes!)

Invigorated by said agar powder’s arrival, I flipped through the book one more time. I found this recipe for pumpkin pie, which is actually their adaptation of the one from The Vouptuous Vegan, and decided to give it a try since I had all the ingredients. That, and I’ve been meaning to kick off my preparation posts for Thanksgiving. This is actually going to be the 1st of several posts about Thanksgiving related foods as we get closer to the holiday. Since this is my 1st Thanksgiving spent at home fully vegan, I want to make sure that I have some well tested recipes to bring to the occasion.

Third, we finally got a cold front, so the weather dropped to the low 60s, and I opened up all the windows, preheated the oven, and got into a serious baking groove! Yay! : )

Now on to the pie…

I was pretty excited that the instructions called for making the pie filling in the blender. Not only did that let me use my Vitamix for something other than green smoothies for once, but it also made it a super easy to make! I happened to have some whole wheat vegan pie crusts in the freezer from last year, when I was going to attempt pumpkin pie (!) so this was a pretty good excuse to put those to use. I used two cans of squash* for the 3 c. of pureed squash called for, and one was pumpkin and the other was butternut squash. This seemed to work pretty well except maybe it was just a little more than three cups, because the pie plate seemed pretty full on what poured out of the blender, so I didn’t even bother scraping it out.

*So yah, you may be thinking, huh? butternut squash? But Isa gives you the greenlight on using any winter squash you care to try. And that canned pumpkin that a lot of companies sell to you under the pumpkin name is usually not pumpkin, anyway! It’s generally a combination of different winter squashes like Hubbard, Boston Marrow squashes, butternut squashes and/or the Dickinson pumpkins that Libby’s uses. Google it!

If you're using canned pumpkin, I recommend using one of these small spatulas that are perfect for scraping cans.

Everybody in! Could a recipe get easier than this? Just blend after adding it all.

Ta-da!

Pour in the pie crust.

Fresh out of the oven.

After cooling in the fridge over night.

Results:

Well, this pie isn’t THEE pumpkin pie for me. The biggest thing I have against it is the consistency. When it came out of the oven, it seemed to still be very liquidy. After a night of chilling in the fridge the filling still only firmed up to a pudding texture, and it formed a thick skin on top. That being said, it is still pretty tasty. I would probably make it just a little more spiced if I made it again. When I tasted the batter out of the blender, I wasn’t convinced it was sweet enough, but after the tasting the completed pie, I thought the sweetness was just right.

My mom’s standard pie is the Libby’s pumpkin pie recipe that comes on the can label (since 1950!). I may try to duplicate that by special ordering some vegan condensed with vegan evaporated milk, while there’s still time. I’ll probably also take another stab at an existing vegan pumpkin pie recipe. Any suggestions? If all else fails, I may attempt a pumpkin pie cheesecake instead. I will keep you posted!

EDIT:

I bought some SOYATOO! Soy Whip to top my pie with and it is absolutely DELISH! So much for making home made vegan whipped cream! ; ) This pie tastes even better on day 2 with the whip, and firmed up a little bit more. Plus, the whip makes it a bit prettier. I just ate two slices for breakfast!

**** 11/23/11 Final Edit, day before Thanksgiving:

After many trials I finally perfected my own pumpkin pie recipe! Ty’s Perfect Pumpkin Pie!

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Categories cookbook review, food pix, recipe review

Veganomicon’s Tempeh Shepherdess Pie

7 Oct

Here’s another recipe that I made awhile back, and was meaning to tell you about. It’s the Tempeh Shepherdess Pie pg. 167, from the Veganomicon cookbook. We were having another couple over for dinner, and I decided to go for a big pan of vegan comfort food lovin’ for our guests. This recipe does not dissapoint. I’ve often stated that I have an aversion to mushrooms, but over time I’ve realized that they add a really nice flavor, and if I chop them up finely enough, they don’t even bother me! So that’s exactly what I did here with the 8 oz/3 c. of mushrooms called for. I have been using baby bellas or shiitakes, in this case I used the former.

Tweaks: I added some liquid smoke to the tempeh mixture, and some nutritional yeast to the mashed potatoes based on reading some reviews. I think these were wise choices, as they upped the flavor ante. Nutritional yeast really makes mashed potatoes spectacular, and I always use it when I make them. Oh, and I used canned peas, because that’s what I had, and Braggs for tamari/soy sauce.

Results: This is true comfort food right here. Hot food for a crowd that you’re proud to serve and really isn’t all that hard to make. Perfect for weeknight entertaining.

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Categories cookbook review, food pix, recipe review

The Angelica Home Kitchen’s Orange-Poppyseed Layer Cake

5 Oct

While I was trying out new recipes from The Angelica Home Kitchen cookbook I realized that I had a whole bag of oranges that would be perfect for making this orange poppyseed cake! It happened to work out that it was also right around Thomas’ birthday, so I made the cake two days before, and managed to frost it just before the clock struck midnight and his birthday began! I also gave it the proper Star Wars decorations that any birthday cake honoring Thomas should have.

I’d never made a layer cake before, or even frosted an entire cake, only cupcakes, so I divided the work. Doing the cake a day ahead worked out pretty well, because the cake was well cooled and easy to work with, and I was all fresh to start on the frosting the next day. I think the hardest part of this recipe was the orange zesting. It calls for 6 tablespoons of zest altogether, 4 for the cake, and 2 for the frosting, which is a lot! I had Thomas come in and relieve me when my hands started to get sore. At least the number of oranges it took for the zest (6-7) was about the amount you need for the fresh orange juice required, so no weird zested oranges to keep! I didn’t have as much poppyseed as required by the recipe (1/3 c.), maybe only half as much, but it still worked out fine.

The frosting was a learning experience too. All the frostings I made in the past were powdered sugar & butter/shortening based. This one is macrobiotic and made with tofu, agar agar and olive oil and maple syrup. After mixing it all you let it sit in the fridge to firm, cut it into pieces and then process until smooth. Even with 3/4 cup of maple syrup I thought it wasn’t quite sweet enough and added about 2 tbsp. of agave syrup.

Results: This is a macrobiotic cake! You can’t really tell by the cake part, but the frosting is definitely different than traditional or vegan cakes. It is only moderately sweet, and after you get used to that, it provides a nice contrast with the sweet cake. (Because of the frosting though, I’d be hesitant to serve it to non-health food eating people, but hey, you never know?) I thought the flavor of this cake really improved after a couple of days in the fridge. It was delicious, and we ate the whole thing over the course of the week. I bet the lemon variation of this cake would be especially awesome. I’m excited to try more of the desserts in this book. It’s a good way of showing your palette that you can enjoy desert without all that insane sweetness. I’ve never been a super big fan of sweets, so this is especially good for me!

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Categories cookbook review, food pix, recipe review

Veggie Samosas & Pear-Apple Chutney

4 Oct

I made a giant batch of The Angelica Home Kitchen’s Pear-Apple Chutney pg. 108, a while back to go with some lentil soup, and had a ton leftover so I decided to make some yummy veggie samosas to eat it up with. Worth mentioning is that the recipe called for currants, which I couldn’t find, so I used raisins instead. Also in lieu of using a tied up cheesecloth sachet, I just added the cloves, sticks of cinnamon, cardamom pods and bay leaf into the pot, and fished them out at the end! : )

I turned to The Indian Vegan Kitchen for some samosa guidance. Luckily she had 2 recipes, one for the filling and dough, and one with instructions on how to use frozen puff pastry dough. I already had the latter in my freezer, so I decided to go the easier route with her Quick Vegetable Pastries pg. 62. Even with the frozen dough, it still takes a bit of work and diligence as you have to roll it out and stuff 25 pieces. It turned out that I had about half of the filling left when I was finished, so you can definitely use both sheets of pastry dough if you want or need 50 pieces. (I’m going to combine these fragrant leftover mixed vegetables with some leftover enchilada filling I have and make leftovers enchiladas!)

Results: These two recipes tasted great together! The cool chutney was a nice touch served with the flaky, spicy little bundles. This filling is super delicious and really comes through the pastry.

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Categories cookbook review, food pix, recipe review

Vegan Fire & Spice’s Tempeh Cacciatore & my Baked Penne

25 Sep

Here I prepared another awesome dish from Vegan Fire & Spice and served it with some of my very own Baked Penne for an awesome vegan Italian feast! James was over, and he & Thomas were getting their costumes ready for Thomas’ Superhero birthday party, which was last night. James is a meat and potatoes type of person and didn’t like the tempeh, but had a GIANT second helping of my baked penne, so that was a pretty good compliment. Especially since the penne is loaded full of things he would hate to know he ingested like TVP, nutritional yeast, and vegan cheese. : ) I used brown rice penne here too, just to check it out. It smelled sweet when it was cooking, but was fairly indiscernible in the dish. I used some shallots in the penne sauce for extra flavor.

The Tempeh Cacciatore was outstanding and Thomas & I were only sad that we served it to James without having him try a piece first so there would have been more for us! A sauce full of tomato and carrot that just felt like Italian home cooking, and gave the tempeh wonderful flavor. I’m definitely hooked on this book and will be making lots more from it in the future.

brown rice penne

fresh out of the oven!

cacciatore sauce

A really great pairing!

and in our costumes! James (Deadpool), Thomas (Symbiote Spiderman), Me (Black Cat) and our friend Eric (Wolverine)!

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Categories cookbook review, food pix, recipe review

Angelica Home Kitchen’s Three Bean Chili w/ Seitan

18 Sep

Next on my list of things to try from the Angelica Kitchen cookbook was the Three Bean Chili w/Seitan, pg. 98. Black beans, kidney beans, green lentils and seitan give the chili its variety of flavors and protein punch. Dried ancho pepper, chipotle peppers (I put in 3 instead of just two, and left the seeds in for extra heat) and sun-dried tomatoes make up the base of the sauce without any chili powder at all. At the restaurant, they serve it with a huge piece of the Southern-Style Cornbread, pg. 158, so I made sure to cook a batch in a skillet while it simmered away. I ended up using all of the cooking water from the beans for the chili and it was still pretty thick, so I simmered it covered for almost all of the time. I thought it could use a little sweetness, and added about a teaspoon of tomato paste, but I could have used more. Once served, the sweetness of the cornbread provided a nice contrast.