Dinner: Quick Vegan Gumbo

For some reason I like making food related to holidays that I don’t even celebrate.
Methodical Cookbook Project: Asian Eggplant Caviar with Black Sesame Buns and Saffron-Lotus Root Pickles

Another recipe from The Artful Vegan. I was especially intrigued by the idea of the pickles because 1) I am generally intrigued by pickles these days (I recently bought this book about tsukemono, or Japanese pickles) and 2) because I’ve tried to cook with lotus root before and have been completely underwhelmed. I love how [...]
Methodical Cookbook Project- Miso-Broiled Japanese Eggplant over Noodle Cakes with Walnut Miso Sauce and Wasabi Cream

I finally got a chance to try another recipe from Artful Vegan. Even though the whole point of this project is to make my way sequentially through each and every recipe in the book, I finally decided to skip one after deciding that the primary ingredients are simply not to be found in this part [...]
Christmas Dinner 2009

This year’s Christmas dinner:
Soup: Winter White soup from the book Voluptuous Vegan. It is a creamy pureed soup with roasted cauliflower, roasted garlic, potatoes, celery, etc. We garnished it with soy bacon, caramelized shallots, and chopped chives.
First Course: Fried spinach-basil ravioli stuffed with oyster and chanterelle mushrooms sauteed with shallots. Served with pepper aioli, okra [...]
Dinner 11-3-09: Sweet Potato and Kimchi Pancakes

I have an excess of sweet potatoes from the CSA, so I was happy to come across a recipe for Sweet Potato and Kimchi Pancakes on the Serious Eats site. I love sweet potato pancakes, and I love kimchi, but have never thought of combining them before.
Here are the ingredients: sweet potatoes cut into matchsticks, [...]
Vegan MoFo! Mom’s breakfast bake- a veganizing challenge!

Sunday October 25, 2009.
My mom used to make this casserole for Christmas mornings. I always had a love/hate relationship with it- it contained so many things I disliked (even pre-vegan)- eggs, sausage, swiss cheese. But somehow it all came together into something satisfying, even if I did pick out the larger chunks of sausage. I [...]
Vegan MoFo! Pizza!

Dinner, Saturday October 24, 2009. Pizza with homemade dough, Muir Glen tomato sauce, Yves veggie pepperoni, Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet monterey jack cheese. I keep hearing people complain that FYH cheese does not melt. It does, it just takes a while, and also benefits from a few minutes under the broiler.
Vegan MoFo! An experiment in onion rings

Dinner, Friday October 23. I was really craving onion rings, but didn’t want to buy frozen ones. So I decided to try making them at home, which I’ve never done before. I considered frying them but then thought of baking them. I sliced up one onion into rings and battered them with “buttermilk” (1 cup [...]
Vegan MoFo! Apples…and failure

Thursday October 22. (Photo- beautiful honey crisp apples from the campus farmer’s market. I’ve been eating a lot of apples lately!)
I think I’ve reached the point in this Vegan Month of Food blogging challenge where I’m hitting a wall, and I just have to push on through to the end. I didn’t post anything yesterday [...]
Vegan Mofo! Ravioli with tofu and squash filling and roasted garlic cream sauce

Fresh ravioli? On a weeknight?
Vegan Mofo! Vegetable and tofu rice paper wraps

Dinner, Sunday October 18, 2009.
Rice paper wraps are a great meal- quick and easy, infinitely variable. They are fun to serve to guests because everyone can choose their own combinations of fillings. Tonight we had tofu sauteed with garlic, chile paste, and hoisin sauce, mixed greens, scallions, cucumbers, lime wedges for squeezing, and shredded carrots. [...]
Vegan Mofo! Roganjosh Curry and Roasted Garlic Parathas

Dinner Saturday October 17. Totally non-traditional curry with Roganjosh curry powder from Penzey’s, potatos, chickpeas, onions, garlic, and tomatoes. But it was tasty! Served with parathas stuffed with some of the garlic I roasted the other night, and five different kinds of chutneys and sauces.
Vegan MoFo! Panko-crusted tofu with roasted-garlic Guajillo quinoa and acorn squash

Dinner, Friday October 16.
This time I was smart and started preparing things for this dinner in advance the evening before. I roasted the two pretty acorn squashes from the CSA, and also two heads of garlic, so they’d be ready to go for Friday evening and preparing dinner wouldn’t take two hours.
I also marinated some [...]
Vegan Mofo! Manicotti!

Dinner, Wednesday October 14.
Tonight I felt more motivated to make something complex. I also wanted to make something that would have leftovers that I’d actually want to eat since I know I’ll need something quick for tomorrow’s dinner. Although we just had pasta over the weekend, I was craving some kind of baked pasta dish. [...]
Vegan MoFo! Veggie Stirfry

Monday October 12, 2009. Dinner- stirfry of shiitake mushrooms, kohlrabi, turnip, kale, baby bok choy, broccoli, onion, garlic. Served with homemade kimchi and a slaw made from shredded daikon radish and carrots. All the veggies except the mushrooms and garlic courtesy of our CSA! Stirfry is the best for when you’re short of time and [...]
Vegan MoFo! Corn chowder, and the virtues of planning ahead

Well, this corn chowder was SUPPOSED to be my dinnertonight, along with some freshly-baked biscuits. But alas, the proverbial shite hit the fan at work and I was an hour late getting home, and I forgot to stop at the store on my way home to buy plain soymilk, and had to go back out, [...]
Vegan MoFo! Sausages and Ginger Snaps

Today was very nearly a Vegan MoFo fail. I got stuck late at work and had barely eaten any lunch (yeah, two apples and some peanuts just don’t do it) so I was totally ravenous and didn’t feel like documenting the preparation of my dinner. Which would have been boring anyway since it was just [...]
Artful Vegan Recipe #3- “Morel Caramelized Onion Rolls with Truffled Beet Salad and Pinot Noir Reduction”

At this rate it will take me a year to get through this book! Finally got around to making the third recipe from the appetizer section-”Morel-Caramelized Onion Rolls with Truffled Beet Salad and Pinot Noir Reduction.”
First of all, the wine. I decided to make this recipe on a whim this morning, and happily there is [...]
Dinner/CSA Veggies- Rice paper pockets, radish/carrot slaw, kimchi
The kimchi was ready to eat tonight so I wanted to make something asian-ish for dinner.
Kimchi!

I’ve been fascinated with pickled/preserved foods lately, and have been meaning to make kimchi for a while. I purchased one kind in a jar (from Essene market) that was delicious, and one kind (from Whole Foods) that was vile. I did some searching online to find a recipe that did not contain fish or shrimp, [...]
Crisp Shredded Vegetable Rolls with Tamarind Sauce, Coconut Curry, and Chile Oil, part 2

Continuing where I left off with the last post about the second recipe from Artful Vegan. After sitting all night, the chile oil got strained into a glass jar. It seems to have mellowed and blended after sitting, and tastes really nice. I only used a little bit of it in the actual recipe, but [...]
The Methodical Cookbook Project- Artful Vegan recipe #2!

I have finally accumulated (nearly) all the ingredients for the second recipe in The Artful Vegan- “Crisp Shredded Vegetable Rolls with Tamarind Sauce, Coconut Curry, and Chile Oil.”


