Vegan MoFo Day 17- Mushroom Quinoa Pilaf, Kale Salad
Tonight I decided to make something super-duper healthy to make up for all the fried and cheesy things I’ve been eating lately. I wanted to make something from Jae Steele’s book Get It Ripe since I’ve had it for a while now and haven’t actually made anything from it. It seems like a nice book, probably the sort of thing that would have been great to have when I was first becoming vegetarian/vegan, which pretty much also coincided with learning how to really cook instead of just opening cans and freezer bags. The recipes look simple and really healthy and there is also a lot of great nutritional info at the beginning too.
There are also unfortunately two of my cookbook pet peeves present in the book- #1- cutesy spellings of things like “cream” – she uses “creem” instead, even to the point of calling things “creemy.” I get it, it’s not cream. But we don’t need to go inventing weird words. People already think vegan is weird without this sort of thing. I have another book that uses “mylk” instead of “milk” and it drives me nuts. And #2- a lasagna recipe with “ricotta” made from tofu, soymilk, and sea salt. That’s it. When I was vegetarian and considering the idea of becoming vegan, I made a lasagna with a similar kind of bland tofu filling, and it was gross, and it probably contributed to my “but I can’t give up CHEESE! Tofu is gross!” mentality and delayed my realization that delicious vegan food is not only possible but easy. When I make tofu filling for lasagna or stuffed shells I include some or all of the following: tofu, tamari, tahini, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, onion powder, crushed red pepper, oregano, fresh parsley, fresh basil, roasted garlic, roasted red pepper, salt, pepper. You know, seasonings. Tofu has so little flavor on its own, and it takes a while to learn how to work with it properly, so it really irritates me when I see recipes that have no seasoning whatsoever in the tofu.
I decided to try the Mushroom Quinoa Pilaf and also the Green Tahini Dressing on a kale salad. A real nutritional powerhouse of a meal! Quinoa has an unusually complete protein content for a plant. Kale is full of vitamins and antioxidants. I used to hate it but I’ve started to like it more.
My salad also contained shredded carrot, daikon radish, some sort of unidentified slightly spicy green pepper I found in the fridge (not a jalapeno), some sliced pepperoncini, and also flax seeds and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast.
For the pilaf I got some beautiful oyster and trumpet mushrooms. The recipe called for creminis but said you could substitute white or oyster mushrooms. The recipe said to boil them with the quinoa, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do that to these nice big mushrooms, so I sauteed them with a little olive oil and shallots and a splash of tamari and then mixed them in at the end, along with some chopped chives.
Both the quinoa and the salad turned out really good (if not very photogenic)! I’d definitely make the salad dressing again actually, it was really tasty and a nice change from the usual vinaigrette. And I actually enjoyed kale! The quinoa was nice too and I think I need to try to make it more often.
