A tempeh love affair

When I first came back to school, I spontaneously grabbed a 2 lb package of bulk tempeh while at the co-op instead of the usual 8 oz package that I usually get. Why, you ask? Because the bulk one is only $7 or $8 while the small one is $3 a pop. Simple economics even a budding chemist can figure out. Most of it was used to make recipes that I already knew and loved (and will blog about, since I got creative), but tonight was different. I finally tried my hand at tempeh bacon from Vwav.

After letting it marinate all day while I was on campus, I decided to keep it simple. Above is the naked open faced sandwich with toasted homemade bread, greans, tempeh, red peppers, and avocado. On top, were a generous few dollops of Caesar dressing from Veganomicon. (For some reason I was mentally unhinged enough to buy a full pound of mixed greens/spinach earlier this week. So much salad has been consumed in the past 24 hours, and more creative methods may need to be devised soon...)

The perfect surprising quickie food

So, in my last post, I made a passing comment about how calzones are my new favorite quick meal, and today I'll talk allll about them. For some strange reason, I was intimidated by calzones, and I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps because they seemed more complicated to make or required more preparation time? Who knows, but I got it in my head a month ago to try my hand at making them since it seemed more freezer friendly than sticking a ball of pre-risen dough in there.

To my surprise, they were very easy to make and a great way to get rid of random leftover things! I had made the vodka pasta sauce a few days previously, and a batch of cashew tofu ricotta to stuff some lasagna rolls the day before. The only extra thing that I had to do was to whip up a batch of pesto since I had a bunch of basil that needed to get used up. Above is my assembly line of sorts. Other fillings that I used were fresh tomatoes, marinated baked tofu, and a raw spicy corn salad that had been taking up space in my fridge.

Using the dough recipe from VwaV, I divided it up into 8 pieces to get some decently sized calzones. (Excuse the poor quality of the above picture as it was late at night.) As long as I was mindful of only putting the filling halfway and making sure there was room to seal the edges, I never had a problem with filling squirting out. I went a little crazy with fork poking (for venting), as you see below, and I cooked them for 7 minutes (or so) at 500 F. Somewhere around the ppk I also learned the trick of putting them on parchment paper before putting them on my baking stone. This method worked really great, as I could only fit two on the stone at once, and I had no sticking mishaps! (As opposed to the last time that I used my new stone for pizza, which was an absolute disaster.)

These little dudes are awesome and have frozen quite well. If you can reheat them first in a microwave then crisping them up in a toaster oven works great. Since I made several filling varieties, I always feel like I'm playing some sort of game whenever I reheat them (since I didn't even label which kinds were which). It is quite nice to find myself pleasantly surprised by the tasty flavor combination of my dinner! And, just by writing this post, I have realized that another great filling would be leftover bbq pomegranate tofu (since I made some last night) paired with leftover sautéed greens... See, calzones are a great way to get spontaneous and creative!

cherries, cherries everywhere

Last weekend my family took a mini vacation in Door County, WI when picking up my younger brother from his jazz band camp. Located on the WI peninsula jutting out into lake Michigan, this county is also known for producing as much as 13 million pounds of cherries every year. Luckily, it was the peak of the growing season, and you could find multiple pick your own farms while driving along the highway.

I got to go picking twice. The first time was with my dad just south of the town Egg Harbor, where we were staying. Picking your own is great fun as you just get handed a bucket and told to have fun! It was such a great activity, and the loaded cherry trees were absolutely gorgeous. In an hour, we each had filled a bucket of our own. The buckets are a great deal as you get several pounds of cherries. At this stand we only paid $6 per bucket, which is almost a steal considering how much they are in the grocery store.

The next day we went picking with the entire family just south of Sturgeon Bay. Again, the whole family worked on two buckets, and this farm even had ladders for pickers to use to get the higher up fruit. The buckets here were $8, but averaging $7 isn't such a bad deal. One of those bags was left with my Aunt whom we visited on the way home.

Now, what is one to do with so many cherries? Well, if you are going to bake with them, then you have to pit them. I was too lazy to buy a cherry pitter, so I used the curved end of a bobby pin. It worked out really well, actually, as the curve was just the right size to grab the pit if you go in through the stem hole. Plus, the cherries look nicer since you only have a hole on one side (if you are good and don't rip them open in the process...). After several hours pitting, two buckets of cherries were frozen to be used later in the fall and winter. Those two buckets produced 10 quart sized bags, which is a lot of cherries.

The other bucket of cherries is being used this week in a variety of ways. Yesterday about two cups were combined with a half cup of sugar and two tablespoons of corn starch to make a compote for serving over french toast. It was my first time using the fronch toast recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, and I was pleased, especially after adding a little vanilla extract and cinnamon so that they tasted like the french toast of my childhood.

Even more cherries were used this evening in a cherry cobbler along with the addition of two peaches on one side. Served with some quick banana ice cream (frozen bananas and a little soy milk blended together) for myself, it was the perfect summer evening snack.

Teese me please

So, I feel as if I am catching on to the Teese excitement, oh, several months late.  I had the chance to taste Teese while I was in Seattle at Pizza Pi in March, and I enjoyed the experience (not to mention eating a medium pizza by myself in a span of 18 hours).  This week I got to test out this vegan cheese myself.

On my very last visit to the local health food's store in Indianapolis (Good Earth), I was excited to see that they had Teese on display. Not just one, but four flavors! Naturally, I had to pick up the mozzarella style to try it for myself.  Once I was moved back home again, my dad put in the request for pizza early in the afternoon. I obliged and whipped up some mostly whole wheat crust a la Vegan with a Vengeance.  Two kinds of pizza were made. Up close above is the pesto one with chard pesto that I made on the spot. The key to the melting was shredding the Teese, which I learned from reading the blogs of  so many others before me.

Sadly, the Teese on the second pizza didn't melt as well. This one was made with the leftover soy curls in Veganomicon bbq sauce that I had served my family earlier in the week. My was it tasty.

Now I just have to figure out what I'll be doing with the rest of my Teese. I'm thinking a spinach and artichoke dip might be good. However, I better decide soon because I jet off to Europe in 14 days! 

Stereotypical Student Suppers

I'm going to share some semi-recent meals because they seem like the kind of meals that a typical university student would quickly throw together. (Plus, I feel like I've been neglectful even though it has only been a few days. Wow, this week before graduation has been going by so quickly!)

The first meal is going to sound like an odd combination, but it was surprisingly delicious. I had a little bit of pearled barley to finish, so I combined it with pesto, beets, and carrots.  The pesto is a variation on the recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance, except with Swiss chard and cashews.  (I prefer the pesto with walnuts, but I didn't have any.) Since basil isn't in season, I love using Swiss chard for pesto because it helps me finish off whatever is left in my fridge, and I just love Swiss chard. Seriously. Even though I'm moving on Monday, I almost want to get a bag just so that I can have green smoothies for breakfast, even though I'll probably have other leftovers that need to get eaten.

Here, is what seems like a simple stir-fry over couscous, but looks are deceiving.  I used some soy chorizo in addition to the tofu, and... stinky tofu! I received a jar in one of the ppk care package swaps, and this was my first experimentation with it.  I only used two cubes, and I'm not sure if I can even describe the flavor that it lent the dish.  There was a discussion about how to use stinky tofu on the ppk, and I have other ideas that I'll hopefully be able to try at home (and get my omnivore family to eat).  I also have plenty of other asian grocery goodies that could be making an appearance sometime soon as well!

I don't have any good pictures of them, but if you have a lot of Kahlua to get rid of (for me, leftover from a recent tiramisu cake), then I have a recipe for you!  I made peanut butter Kahlua cookies, and they were absolutely wonderful. The recipe is from have cake, will travel and is great if you have friends who aren't huge peanut butter lovers like me. The Kahlua tones down on the peanut butter taste just enough but allows it to still be addictive to peanut butter lovers. I'd highly recommend them.

Everything Homemade

Since going vegan, I've found bit by bit that I am a big fan of doing things myself whenever possible. (This mostly applies to the kitchen but has been known to manifest itself in other ways as well.)  For over a year, I've been baking my own bread by using my parent's old bread machine, and I prefer making the Yellow Rose Recipes version of sour cream instead of buying the Tofutti version.  Now that I've got my own ice cream maker, I've been experimenting with different recipes with that as well. However, this little installment is not about ice cream but rather falafel.

I am a huge fan of falafel.  As someone who has spent quite a bit of time in Europe, this dish became my quick vegan go-to whenever I was out and needed something to eat fast.  I couldn't tell you how many variations of stuff that I had last summer in Germany.  I think that my favorite was the late night snack while visiting a friend in Köln because of discovering that the garlic sauce there was vegan.

Regardless, the process can be a little labor intensive if making these at home, but I get a great deal of satisfaction when I am finished.  Usually I just buy a whole grain wrap to serve my falafel on, but last week I decided to take it up a notch. I had my first experience making my own pita bread.  I used this recipe from Bryanna Clark Grogan's vegan blog, and it worked well for the most part. I've misplaced my rolling pin somewhere between home and university, so I had to make due with using a long and narrow glass.  I must have stretched them out too much because they didn't manage to puff up in the oven like they were supposed to do. (I had even bought a pizza stone specifically for this purpose.)  The pitas were still good, and I just cheated aznd cut them to make my own pockets.  Combined with the falafel and tahini sauce, I had a wonderful dinner even if it took a while to prepare.

Snow Day Cooking

Okay, I'll be honest. The hinted upon snow day was really a week ago, but I felt obligated to blog about it (since I've been meaning to do so) before I blog about my dinner and bread baking tonight.  It was actually a very fun meal that involved me and two other roommates each making a dish to contribute. (Please excuse the messy kitchen in the background below.)

In the front are some frozen vegetables which were sauteed with balsamic vinegar among other things.  To the right are latkes, or "those Jewish pancakes" as my roommate likes to call them.  I always top them with apple sauce and never ketchup, because I want to do it the German way, plus I think ketchup just overpowers the potato taste.  The recipe that she used was from Veganomicon.

And last but not least, is my contribution on the left. I had a bunch of swiss chard, a great vegetable love of mine, and I somehow got the idea to make a pesto with it. I had seen recipes were spinach had been used for some of the basil, and, since I didn't have any basil, I figured that I should give it a try with chard.

It may be a bit difficult to see, but this pesto was absolutely lovely.  I followed the pesto recipe in VwaV except that I used three rather large chard leaves.  I think one of my favorite parts of this pesto was how the red stems give it these gorgeous red flakes amongst all the green.  Even though I served it on top of a lemony brown rice with white beans and tomatoes, I have plans on making this again for pizza along with the vodka tomato sauce. Such a combination could only turn out absolutely amazing and may cause me to forget to put any other vegetables on the pizza!

Coming soon: another variation on red cabbage salad with lazy quinoa and carrot cake!

Pizza Revelations

Usually, I am a huge proponent of making things from scratch whenever possible.  I've been baking my own version of a whole grain bread for over a year now, and I've recently been getting really good about cooking my own dried beans and stockpiling them in the freezer to use when needed.  Almost whole wheat pizza dough, based on the recipe in Vegan with a Vengence, normally falls into this category as well.  However, when I was at Trader Joe's yesterday, I saw their garlic and herb already made pizza dough and decided to give it a try.

Now it is picture story time! 

I don't recall who did it, but over at the post punk kitchen forums, someone decided to put swiss chard on pizza, and I thought it was an absolutely fabulous idea.  Above is the pre-greened pizza with red bell pepper, corn, and the soy chorizo (also from Trader Joe's)

There are two different sauces on the pizza since I had to improvise due to someone eating a large portion of the tomato vodka tomato sauce that I had for dinner last night but was saving the remainder for this pizza.  The left side has some homemade sundried tomato hummus instead.

The verdict? The dough was alright, but I much prefer making my own. I learn more towards a wheat-ier crust, which has a bit more bite to it. Perhaps I'll just have to make my own whole wheat version of this one.

But in all honesty, the star of the show was the tomato vodka sauce. I inhaled that side of the pizza. Seriously. How come I had never thought to use it on pizza before? I'd highly recommend doing it, because it was absolutely brilliant. Took the pizza to a whole new level.

Old pictures and Plans

In my attempt to take pictures of desserts today, I found some old pictures from Thanksgiving.

Here is the pumpkin pie I made at the last minute because my dad didn't tell me that he wanted a pumpkin pie until there was no time to make a better one. This is from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen and is without a crust. Not sure if I am a big fan of the lack of crust.  On top is some Soyatoo straight from Deutschland that I brought home just for the occasion in August.

This is just a basic scrambled tofu from VwaV with homemade vegan sour cream plus hot sauce on the side. The pancakes are from VwaV as well and are banana walnut.  Not a bad way to start the day if I do say so myself.

With the semester done and finals finished, I won't have to worry about school for three weeks. This means that I'll be at home trying to get my very omni family to eat vegan food.  Next week we'll be on vacation, but I managed to sit down with my dad and sketch out a basic menu.

Monday: Non-traditional pizza with roasted eggplant and garlic hummus from YRR, homemade 2/3's wheat crust, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, and Trader Joe's soy chorizo.  Very different but very tasty.

Tuesday: Southwestern bean chili in the slow cooker. Then I'll make corn bread to serve with it.

Wednesday: Our traditional Christmas Eve lasagna made vegan. Whole wheat pasta will be coupled with cashew tofu ricotta, tomato sauce, bell peppers, possibly spinach and some other secret ingredients.

Thursday: I'll be trying to ignore the very non-vegan slaughtered pig that the rest of my family will be eating. The sides will be vegan though, and I have decided to make myself falafel since I have a ton of chickpeas from tonight's hummus as well as parsley.

Friday: Tempeh Shepards Pie. This will be a good way to use the mashed potatoes from the day before and the tempeh that I brought home with me. Plus, a vegetarian friend highly recommended the Veganomicon recipe.

Hopefully there will be plenty of pictures and updates in the next few days and couple of weeks!

Failing at VeganMoFo

Yes, so my apologies for dropping out of VeganMoFo as it was reaching the final stretch.  School and life just started to get way too crazy, so I didn't have much time to cook awesome meals (only simple things).  With the end of the school semester approaching, things are liable to get just as crazy, but I'll probably be doing lots of baking to help de-stress.  Plus, holiday foods will be coming. To make up for my lack of activity, here are two pictures.
This falafel and tahini sauce was made sometime during VeganMoFo, but I never had time to blog about it. (The picture is actually taken from a reheated meal. *gasp*) Needless to say, I almost considered using this recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance as my meal on Thanksgiving.

This is a double layer cake of red velvet with cream cheese frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World, naturally. I made it for the birthday of one of my roommate's, who was quite obviously turning 22. I was actually going to write happy birthday, but I ran out of time and was going to be late for work. The writing was made of quick melty ganache and set up quite nicely after being in the fridge.

That recipe is absolutely amazing, so, if you haven't tried it, you better get to it soon. So good. It took a lot of control for me to let the birthday girl have the final piece when it got to that point.

VeganMoFo: Blowing the Socks off of Omnis with Cookies

Last night I went to the party, where one of the hosts had a birthday a few days ago. Naturally, I decided to bake him some cookies as a present.  After double checking to make sure he had no food allergies, I decided on Isa's Peanut butter oatmeal cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance.

These cookies are seriously addicting.  He hid the cookies after I arrived and didn't reveal them until late in the night. Everyone was raving about them and couldn't believe that they were vegan after that little fact was revealed.  One girl asked me what made the cookies stick together if I didn't use eggs, milk, or butter.  I find it interesting that people don't realize how vegan baking is so similar to non-vegan baking.  (Admittedly, I felt the same way before I was vegan.) Yes, some recipes might call for tofu, but they really don't call for obscure ingredients.

What lovely peanut butter goodness resides in these cookies. I saved three for myself (hey, they couldn't fit on the plate!) and managed to eat them for breakfast this morning. Well, I ate two, had a hot chocolate, and then ate the last one right after taking that picture. They are definitely my favorite, and my go-to recipe whenever I want to impress omnivores. In all seriousness, I have never met an omni who didn't like these cookies. Score for veganism!

VeganMoFo: A taste of fall

Tonight's post will be brief because I have a ton of homework for Inorganic and Physical Chemistry classes that is calling my name, but I wanted to share tonight's dinner.

What you are looking at is the Beet, Barley, and Black Soybean soup from Vegan with a Vengeance, albeit with a few alterations.  I don't usually plan out all of my meals for the week because sometimes I just do not know how much time that I will have to cook.  However, I try to have a particular dish in mind during the weekend for when I go shopping and visit the Farmers' Market in case there is a special ingredient or two that I would need.  This soup was what I had in mind for this week.

I have only made this once before, and it was probably about the same time as now last year.  I had noticed that beets were appearing at the market, and I figured that I should give it another try.  Oddly enough, I did not have the main herb ingredients of fresh dill and dried tarragon for which the recipe called.  Good thing that my roots are strictly German and Hungarian or else any Russian ancestors would be rolling in their graves.  (Yes, somehow the combination of beets and barley makes me think of Russia.) I substituted an Italian spice mix as well as marjoram not to mention doubling the garlic from 3 to 6 cloves.  I also tossed in a vegetable bullion cube for extra good measure.  When I was adding the beans, I felt as if I should add a little more color, not to mention healthiness, to the soup. So, I quickly chopped up some swiss chard to add to the pot.  (Yes, I hadn't used up my batch from Saturday's market yet, and I need to get my weekly fix on almost a daily basis while the cheap market chard lasts.  Store-bought just doesn't even compare.)

But how did it taste?  Amazing.  The chard adds a little something, and the barley still has a bit of bite to it and isn't mushy at all (which is a problem I can have with barley sometimes).  The wholesome feeling almost makes up for the overly large amount of chocolate that I consumed this afternoon for no good reason. Almost, but not quite.

VeganMoFo: What to do with a plethora of apples

Back home at my parents' house, we have an apple tree in the backyard.  It is a cute little thing, which grows rather crooked since my dad didn't stake it up properly when it was little. Regardless, we have been getting a lot of fruit this year after smaller harvests for the past two years. (With apples failing to grow due to buds falling off or early freezes.)  So much fruit, in fact, that my parents gave me a bucket full of apples three weeks ago. Yes, it was literally a bucket.  I had so many, that I was worried about them going bad in case I could not eat them fast enough (even though they are residing in the pantry closet, which is both cool and dark).

My solution: bake the gingerbread apple pie from Vegan with a Vengeance.  I had had my eye on that recipe for a while, and using up apples and going to a potluck was the perfect excuse to use it.  As you can see by the picture, I was a bit lazy and didn't bother to peel my apples. I don't really think that it made much difference in the final product. I would recommend reading the directions though, because I definately was all ready to roll out the dough for the crust, and then I realized that you crumble it on instead. Whoops.

I also ended up having more filling than would fit into my pie pan.  As you can see, I improvised and put it in a few cupcake liners in a muffin pan. I even saved up some of the crust so that I could sprinkle it on top of these so-called mini pies as well.

I took this pie to a potluck as soon as it came out of the oven, and it was an amazing success.  Everyone loved it, and I didn't bring a single piece back with me. (I guess it was a good thing that I had extra filling for the min pies then.) Everyone was complimenting me on it and asking for the recipe.  The taste was even better after I let it sit since I felt as if the spices weren't as strong right when it was still really warm.  It definitely feels like a quintessentially fall recipe, and I would strongly encourage using it when you need to impress people.  I can't even begin to imagine the amazingness if I were to have it with a scoop of soy ice cream.

Coming Soon: I will be making another very fall-esque dish tomorrow- VwaV's Black Soybean, beet and barley soup with beets fresh from Saturday's Farmers' market!

Veganmofo: Can one really buy too many vegetables?

This answer to this would be yes; yes you can.  (Trust me because I have done it.)  I know that I have discussed it before, but I am a big fan of Farmers' Markets. The one that I frequented in Berlin this summer was amazingly huge AND only a five minute walk from my house.  I also went to Berlin's (in)famous Turkish market once as well. That one was not quite as close to home for me. I had to take a street tram, subway, and walk quite a bit in order to get there. Luckily the unique atmosphere and cheap fruits made up for the trip length.

One problem that I have is that I like to buy too much produce at the market. I don't know what it is about local produce, but it gets me insanely excited.  Pictured here is my load from two weeks ago.  Yes, I really did buy a large  amount of red bell peppers like you see better in the second picture.  One booth was having a sale where they sold them by the pound, and, if you bought more than 3 pounds, they were only $2.50 per pound. Not a bad deal at all.  Even though I love peppers, I couldn't eat all of those in a week, so I froze them.  Peppers freeze surprisingly well, so I stock up in the fall when they are cheap at the market so that I can enjoy them all winter.  It is so easy to grab a bag from the freezer and toss a handful or two into a recipe.

With this particular catch, I was also able to get some fresh basil.  That huge stalk next to the Mangold, erm chard, was $3.  I was worth it because I made a batch of pesto using the recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance.  Sooo good. I hadn't enjoyed homemade pesto in a long while.

What did I do with my pesto? Make pizza of course.  I love the crust in VwaV so much.  I've been making it even healthier recently by substituting 2 of the 3 cups of flour with whole wheat flour.  It gives the dough a nice little crunch and makes me feel less guilty when I eat practically half a pizza in one sitting.  (This really did happen later in the week when I made the second pizza with the remaining dough. Just in case you were wondering.) 

My parents visited me the day after the market, so I put my dad to work making Veganomicon's Cashew Ricotta Tofu.  Putting some fresh tomatoes and bell peppers an top, and you have one very satisfying meal.  So good that my omnivore parents don't care that their pizza is devoid of cheese, which I consider to be a very good thing.

Coming soon: Gingerbread apple pie because I am going to a dinner/potluck tonight (where sadly, I won't be able to eat most things that others bring), so I decided to make up for it by baking a kick-ass dessert.  We'll see how that goes...