Vegan recipe week, the conclusion

I loved Veganomicon. If I had bought it, it would probably be worth it just for learning the trick of boiling tempeh. There are a number of recipes that require some "out there" ingredients for a lot of people. The recipes I tried, though, were absolutely fantastic. For people who think that eating vegan or vegetarian means losing flavor, just give this cookbook a try.

You can even force the recipes on your friends! At the end of the book the authors put three pages of menus for various occasions or styles of food.

The appendix is nice in that they break out the recipes by categories (soy-free, gluten-free, low-fat, under 45 minutes and supermarket friendly) so that you can still find stuff to make even if you live in Bismarck, North Dakota.

I did try one other recipe this week which I botched. It was supposed to be the fresh-type rolls you get in Thai restaurants but for the life of me I could not find rice wrappers. I tried wontons but that just flopped. The filling was a mix of rice noodles, pumpkin seeds and butternut squash. Cooked too many noodles and messed that up also. Made a nice cranberry-chile dipping sauce (once again the blend of fruity/tart, sweet (it uses sugar) and spicy) that went well (and I always love cooking with cranberries).

Next time I put in an order for books I'm getting myself a copy of this awesome cookbook. I highly recommend it for everybody, carnivores and veggielovers alike.

The plan is to return to the regularly scheduled schedule for next week. I'm just about done my editing (so close I'm procrastinating on that last little tough bit) so my schedule should free up a bit.

Almost there

The last recipe for vegan cooking week is a dessert. The ridiculously named fudgy wudgy blueberry brownies. A better name for them is delicious.

Since I'm not vegan, I'm not going out of my way to get vegan chocolate and a bit of soy milk.

Preheat oven to 325. Grease a brownie pan. Melt 2/3 c chocolate chips. In a bowl mix 10 ounces of spreadable blueberry fruit, 1/4 c milk, 3/4 c sugar, 1/2 c oil, 2 t vanilla extract and 1/2 tsp almond extract (I added more vanilla). Add 1.5 c flour, 1/4 c cocoa powder, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt. Mix in the melted chocolate. Add 1/2 c chocolate chips and 1 c blueberries. Put in pan and bake for 45 minutes.

Since there's no egg, more oil is used to hold it together. I worried that the brownies would be greasy but they were pleasantly moist and not greasy at all. The blueberries add a nice touch and is another example of what this cookbook does well - add flavors, often unexpected, to make something even more yummy than normal.

Really, I would make these before I ever made regular brownies again. But then I'm the guy who brought in a chocolate tofu cake to work for my birthday so caveat emptor.

Still running behind

OK, vegan recipe week hasn't been as good idea as I thought. Not because of the recipes - those have been awesome - but because I haven't had time to cook and write about them plus my camera has been less than enthusiastic about letting me put my picture online. I can see them on the camera itself but letting you see them? Forget it.

So day four of this, which is being posted Saturday but will be dated Thursday, was yet another delicious and unusual recipe. Pineapple-cashew-quinoa stir fry.

This was also another easy recipe to make, mostly just chopping. Open a can of pineapple chunks in pineapple juice. Drain the juice into a saucepan. Add a cup of water and a dash of soy sauce. Add a cup of quinoa and bring to a boil. Cook until done.

Saute a pair of scallions, a pair of garlic cloves, a serrano chile, some fresh ginger, a red bell pepper and a cup of peas in some oil. Add basil and mint. Add the quinoa, pineapple and cashews. Add 3 T soy sauce and 1 T mirin.

That's how I made it. They like things in a different order and also added a few tablespoons of vegetable broth at the end.

Lots of flavors going on. Really didn't need the mirin as all the pineapple made it sweet enough. The serrano gives it a nice heat. The cashews give good texture. Just an all around nice recipe that you can whip up pretty quick.

Vegan recipe week, Dia Tres

I was having problems with my camera which accounts for the lateness of my adding this post. Still no picture. Sorry.

I absolutely loved this newest recipe, a chickpea romesco. Essentially it's a thick tomato sauce which I served over rice.

Like the previous recipes, this was pretty easy (I'm liking that about this cookbook). Roasted two red bell peppers in the oven. Peeled them and tossed them in the food processor with two cans of diced tomatoes. Pureed it together. Chopped two shallots, three cloves of garlic and a serrano chile and sauteed them in oil until the shallots got golden. Poured in the tomato mixture and let it simmer. Added a dash of vinegar and sugar. Pulverized a third cup of almonds and added that. Added some fresh thyme (the recipe called for dried thyme and rosemary). Simmered some more. Added two cans of chickpeas (garbanzos). Simmered for about twenty minutes. Serve.

I've been real happy with everything so far. A lot of flavors that intermingle well.

Vegan recipe week, Tag Zwei

I had laid out a bunch of recipes I wanted to cook from the Veganomicon this week but I still have yet to acquire all the ingredients. As a result, I was faced with fixing a dinner for which I had yet to plan. I went with the Hot Sauce-Glazed Tempeh.

The recipe offers a bunch of both other recipes and simple foods to accompany this dish. I went with spinach and mashed taters and was happy with the choice.

I'm not normally fond of tempeh. I have eaten quite a bit of it in my lifetime but I cannot say it is one of my favorite foods. The last time I bought some it stayed in the frig for so long that the soybeans continued to ferment and the gasses inside the package caused it to balloon up. Not good.

This recipe, however, may change that. First off, I was struck that the first step is to boil the tempeh in water to get rid of the bitterness and make it ready for marinating. I had never heard that before and it seemed to work.

The marinade/glaze for the tempeh is very easy. Half a cup of wine (I used some ancient Georges DuBoeuf Beaujolais that has been hanging out in the frig since well before the last time I had tempeh), 1/4 cup hot sauce, 2 T olive oil, 2 T soy sauce, 3 T lemon juice, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 tsp cumin, 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper. I marinated the tempeh for about an hour and then broiled it in the oven. It was delicious. I was expecting it to be really spicy but it ended up having a nice tangy flavor with a bit of a kick. The side dishes went well with it and I put some of the residual marinade from the tempeh pan onto both the taters and spinach. It was very filling. I only ate about 2/3 of what you see on the plate (which is probably suitable for two people anyway) and I was eating way past my standard dinner time due to a busy schedule (as opposed to the recipe taking eons) and was hungry.

Definitely will eat this again and I think I may cook up some chicken in the next day or two with the leftover marinade.

Vegan recipe week, Day One

I've been feeling a little under the weather for the past 36 hours or so. Woke up yesterday feeling really sore and attributed it to a hard workout the day before. As the day went on, though, I started to have a congested head and sore throat which carried into this morning.

I'm not a believer in pharmaceutical products. I avoid them at all costs. My solution to colds is Asian soups. As it so happened, I had lunch with a former co-worker and we had Thai food. Had some soup and began to feel better.

I still felt like some soup was in order this evening and so I went with a soup recipe from the Veganomicon. Ancho-lentil soup with grilled pineapple.

Cookbooks like this one drive me a little nuts. One of the problems with most vegetarian cookbooks (and many cookbooks in general) is that they assume you live in sunny California like they do and have access to a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Either that or you live in New York City and have an abundance of farmer markets. While I do feel that produce is much more accessible here than it was in Delaware, I still don't have access to everything that this cookbook calls for (either because of unavailability or cost). All this is to say that sometimes I take some liberties.

One of the things that grabbed me about this recipe is that you make your own chile powder. Why it's necessary, I don't know. You're to take a couple dried ancho chile peppers, remove the seeds, and grind them into a powder. I was thrilled recently to find de arbol chiles dried and have a whole bag of them so I went with them instead. Added a tablespoon each of ground cumin and coriander (I ground my own coriander but my cumin is pre-ground) and there's your chile powder.

That's the toughest part of this recipe. Saute an onion and a trio of garlic cloves, all chopped, in a saucepan with some oil. Add a couple bay leaves and a dash of salt. Add two cups of lentils. Add eight cups of liquid (I used two of vegetable broth and six of water). Add the chile powder. Simmer until the lentils are cooked. Puree half the soup to thicken it up a bit.

While it simmers, you're to grill some fresh pineapple rings. I opted to broil canned pineapple rings. Toss some pineapple in a bowl, add some lime juice and Tabasco and serve.

I'm always a little leery of lentil soups. I like them but they tend to have a strong earthy taste and often feel heavy. Not this one. The chile powder and hot sauce give it a nice bite and the acid from the lime and pineapple bring it out. It had a very Asian feel to it and really helped loosen up the congestion. It was a very light soup and bore no resemblance to any lentil soup I've ever had previously.

All in all, I'm very impressed with the debut from this cookbook.