Cape Codding

Early this summer I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Cape Cod, which has quickly become one of my favorite places.  There is something so exhilarating and relaxing about spending time in a place so filled with natural beauty and simple charm.  A few weeks back, a group of my friends from law school headed out to H’s house on the Cape for a weekend of baseball and beaching. 

I took it upon myself to be the food provider for the 10 of us for the weekend, and spent several days prior to it preparing for this.  Here is what I made:

1) Lower Fat Banana Bread (with chocolate chips!) from Veganomicon

2) Five-Spice Almond Cookies (which we made into Five-Star Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches, natch) from Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan

Fresh out of the oven (sorry for the craptastic picture)

Best ice cream sandwich ever (P.S.-that is not my arm!)

3) Coconut Lime Cookies from Vive Le Vegan (not pictured, but see a batch I made last year here)

4) Cumin-Cinnamon Vinaigrette from ED&BV (not pictured)…I chopped some cucumbers and tossed them with this dressing and a little oregano for a really delish salad

5) The spice mixture from ED&BV’s Blackened Tofu recipe, which I used to make cajun scallops** (not pictured, but see the results of this mixture on tofu here)
**please see my note below

6) A variation of the stuffing from Self magazine’s Couscous and Feta Stuffed Peppers recipe (not pictured)

All of the food was very well-received and appreciated, and we had a wonderful weekend!

So, about those scallops…

On the Cape the emphasis is heavily on seafood.  While I know this might be controversial to many vegetarians and vegans, I have no problem cooking non-veg options for others.  In fact, in the interest of full disclosure, that day I also made broiled haddock for the company.  My food preferences are solely mine, and I wouldn’t presume to prepare an entirely vegan menu for 9 omnivores and expect them to enjoy it as much as I would.  I feel that trying to impose my points of view on any topic (be it diet or things like politics, religion, etc.) on others can only backfire; people don’t like to be told what to do or made to feel that they are wrong…each person needs to come to his or her own decision about how he or she wants to live by making their own personal judgments.  That being said, I think it’s very important to show non-veg*ns how enjoyable vegan cuisine can be, which, if I may say, I think I did very effectively with the breakfast bread and desserts, as well as the couscous and salad.  I think every little bit counts, and each time I prepare veg food for non-veg*ns that they actually enjoy, I hope that the next time they will be slightly less surprised by the fact that they actually enjoyed it. 

Anyway, I just needed to put that out there.  I know not everyone agrees with me, and I would definitely be interested to hear the points of view of others. 

I have a ton of pictures of meals to post from the last few weeks and hope to do so soon!

Chilly Enough for Chili

Well, I am home in NJ for a week to celebrate M’s high school graduation (which takes place tomorrow night!) and to see my grandmother, who flew in from England for the occasion.  This means several things for the next few days: 1) alot of cooking, 2) alot of food in general (especially on Saturday when we’re having a party); 3) alot of fun (I believe Yahtzee is on the agenda for later this evening!).

Since moving to Boston, I’ve only been home a handful of times, and only twice in the past semester.  This is a pretty big change for me and for my family, because during college, as well as for the two years I worked afterward, I could come home from NYC whenever I wanted.  Anyway, a look at my old posts will show anyone how much I enjoy being home and cooking with my dad, and tonight was the first time in a while that we were able to get back into the kitchen together.   So we were pretty pumped, and this morning we spent some time standing in front of the refrigerator trying to decide what we wanted to make.  Then Mom made it easy for us by suggesting (read: demanding) that we make a vat of veg chili.  Normally in June, chili wouldn’t come to mind, but since it is raining and in the 60’s here, it seemed totally logical.  Sigh.  But anyways!

A big bowl of awesome

Close-up

Chili is one of the easiest and most common vegan dishes around, and I think part of its appeal is that you don’t even need a recipe to make it!  This evening’s concoction included pinto beans, black beans, crushed tomotoes, veg broth, roasted poblano peppers, corn, mushrooms, zucchini, and of course onions (one white and two small red) and garlic.  And topped with cilantro, obviously.

I also made my favorite vegan cornbread from Post Punk Kitchen to go with the chili.

Funny enough, this cornbread was one of the first vegan recipes I ever made, way before I knew of PPK or its writers, or really anything at all!  Every time I’ve made it, it was delicious.  This time, it was slightly different, as I used white vinegar with a pinch of sugar in place of the cider vinegar, and I also used some masa that Dad had on hand instead of regular old cornmeal.  The result was delicious, soft, and slightly creamy cornbread.  The biggest difference was that I had to bake it for about 55 minutes (rather than the 30-35 the recipe calls for).  But it was really good!!

Lastly, Dad and I whipped up a salsa from some green tomatillos we picked up at a local grocery store today. 

Displayed with Gran’s garnishes!

Closeup

The salsa also includes some fresh tomato, red onion, fresh cilantro, lime juice (and a bit of zest too!), and a drizzle of agave.  We ate it on crackers, but we’re going to make it again for M’s party on Saturday and probably serve it with tortilla chips.

And as a bonus, here are some extra pics of my fun family time from today:

Farley waiting patiently for dinner to begin

Me and my pup (with scary eyes!!)

Bailey observing us all (with some disdain…?)

Dad and his mum, and Farley of course!

I haven’t made any definite plans yet, but I’m sure that I’ll end up whipping up a few dishes for Saturday, so I’ll probably have some more stuff to post then!

Summer Bummer

It is June 11th, and my one-year blog anniversary was June 2nd, which I somehow missed, and that is sad.    Also, I managed to lose another digital camera to a bad fall last weekend, which doesn’t really help me in the blogging department, and is depressing because now that school has ended I’ve been doing alot of cooking and baking.  Tomorrow a big group of my friends is going down to Cape Cod to spend the weekend there, and I have this whole long summery menu of things to cook up for them while we’re there, which I’m really excited about because I love cooking in the summertime!  Of course, it is currently 56 degrees in Boston so maybe not so much.

Alright, enough bad humor.  Until my camera is fixed (or I bite the bullet and buy my third one in the last 13 months) I have a few pictures in my Photobucket that I can post for the sake of keeping up the blog…

First up is a series of photos of Dad and me making Happy Herbivore’s Chickpea Piccata. 

Here we have the patties, getting ready to go into the oven.

And there is the sauce, simmering away.

Some steamed spinach for a side dish.

The finished chickpea patties.

The finished sauce.

Overall, I enjoyed this recipe but we had to modify it a little.  The chickpea mixture that forms the patties was very dry (maybe because we used dried beans that had been soaked and cooked rather than canned?), and we had such a hard time keeping the mixture together that we ended up using an ice cream scoop to form the patties (as seen above), as well as putting lots (probably too much) of flour on them so they didn’t stick to our hands or the scoop. We did not flatten them before baking (as the recipe directs) for fear they would fall apart.  We also added a significant amount of olive oil (not HH’s style, certainly) to try to moisten the mixture and keep it together.  Also, I thought the sauce was pretty good but Dad thought it was slightly too acidic (with the bulk of the liquid being white wine and the lemon juice), and so next time we decided we’d use a little more water (in addition to that used for the cornstarch) and maybe even a dash of soymilk to even out the pH a little (while avoiding making it too creamy). 

This second pic is an old one, from last fall I believe, and it is Pumpkin Seed Crusted Tofu. 

Sserved up with brown rice and a plate of pita chips and roasted red pepper hummus

I can’t for the life of me remember where I got this tofu recipe.  If anyone has seen it before, can you please leave a comment or email me so I can give the author proper credit?  Thanks!  I usually wouldn’t post something if I didn’t know where it came from (since that is kind of the point of this blog) but they’re really pretty pictures and I’m kinda short on material at the moment. Overall this was a pretty yummy spread, nothing exceptional though.  Looking at the picture now, of course, I’m chiding myself on serving too much rice and no actual vegetables!

To wrap up, I just want to say that now that the semester has ended, I feel like a real person again, and not only am I thrilled to be back into the kitchen and back into my healthy eating and exercise habits, but I am thrilled to once again have the time to catch up on all of your wonderful blogs, from which I have been long absent. I’ll be back to commenting soon!!

The Finals Chow-down

Once again it is that time of semester when I am exceptionally busy and constantly exhausted. Law school finals are no laughing matter, and I’ve got four of them to contend with in the next two weeks, so wish me luck! After this post it’s back to studying Civil Procedure and Sales Contracts for the next 12 hours, with a 30-45 min. walk/run break. Joy.

Despite my impending exams, I’ve been feeling pretty great lately, mostly due to the major improvement in weather, and the fact that it lets me study outside! It’s also put me in the mood to cook light and edge toward more summery dishes. I cannot even express how excited I am for long, warm days and amazing summer produce…

Anyway, the theme of this post, I guess, is kind of a mixture of quick eats (suitable for finals time) and lighter stuff (suitable for days of lighter eating…yay summer!!).

First up, a beautiful Hummus & Tabbouleh Collard Salad that I threw together recently.

This baby is seriously filling, mostly due to the large quantity of raw collards that form its base.  This is 4 collard leaves, rolled into cigar shapes and then chopped, 4 T. of hummus, and 4 T. of tabbouleh.  The entire thing has less than 200 calories and contains around 8g protein and 7g fiber.   And it’s delicious, obviously!

Next is a little thing I like to call Taco Rice. 

Basically this is basmati rice that I cooked up with “taco” spices (chili powder, a little cumin, some oregano) with a similarly-spiced hodge podge of diced tomato, black bean, and Smart Ground.  This is a really fast dinner idea that works really well with variations, depending on what you have lying around that needs using up.  Last night I made another version that let me use up the remainder of a red bell pepper as well as a jalapeño.  I had the jalapeño leftover from….

GUACAMOLE!!! 

Oh my goodness.  Whole Foods had a sale on avocados this past week–$1 each.  I couldn’t resist, and made 2 batches of guacamole, one for a dinner with friends, and one just to have around.  I also shared some with our neighbors since it unfortunately lasts, like, a day.  But it was soooooo good!!!   To make this, I used 4 ultra-ripe avocados (I spent time at WF finding some that were so soft that they’d probably have to get thrown out the next day), 1/3 chopped red bell pepper (orgaaanic of course), 2 T. lime/lemon juice, 2 tsp. sea salt, a few sprinkles of black pepper, and of course, a whole diced jalapeño.  The first batch I made was perfect, but the second one was not nearly spicy enough, so it eventually contained 1 3/4 whole jalapeños as well as a couple dashes of cayenne pepper.  Perfection!

Two more things (sorry for such a long post but I have been gone far too long!):

1) Scripp Networks has recently launched a really interesting new food & beverage website, Food2.com.  They have asked me to contribute blog posts on there, which I am obviously thrilled about!!! As the only vegan contributor, I will be doing sort of product-review/trend alert sort of posts, and posting about once a week. You guys should check it out

2) I’m participating in Chocolate Covered Katie’s New Foods Challenge, and here is my first entry!  Funny enough, I discovered that there aren’t all that many fresh foods in my WF that I haven’t tried, probably because I have such a love affair with produce!  So anyway, these caught my eye and I tried them: Dark Chocolate Covered Mulberries. 

I wasn’t aware that mulberries were, like, a real thing existing outside of a children’s song, but there you are. They are delicious and right up Katie’s alley! Highly recommended.

Groovy Gravy

I got this recipe some time ago from the How to Feed a Vegan blog and as a rabid fan of Indian food, I knew I had to try it out!

Chick & Split Pea Curried Gravy

Here it is in my little container ready to take to school–better than the cafeteria any day!

I loved this recipe.  It is incredibly simple and quick, and so delicious and filling.  The recipe doesn’t call for any salt, so I needed to add a significant amount of that (maybe because the split pea soup I used was low sodium), and as per my usual, I also dumped a ton of hot sauce on top.  I served it alongside Basmati rice that I cooked up with a tablespoon of Smart Balance, two whole cloves, and about 1/2-1 tsp. of curry powder.  It was utterly delightful.

Also, I think last time I promised a dessert in this post.  It was an Oreo cake (well, actually a Newman O cake), but alas, when I tried to take it out of the pan, it slid off the plate and into the sink, which was a) gross, and b) unfortunate, because it broke into pieces, and the pieces that I tried (that didn’t touch the sink) were delish.  Oh well, another time.

Ooh! And in other news, I finally ordered myself an immersion blender today, and will have it by Friday (thank you, Amazon Prime)!!!  Now I can more easily make my soups, plus find out what all the fuss about blended grains (a la CCV) is all about!

So Close, Yet So Far Away

Good LORD it’s been a while since I posted! I apologize that I’ve been a little bit MIA from commenting also, but this semester has been crazy-train! I usually check out everyone’s blogs during class on my Google reader (I know, I’m awful), but all of a sudden they started really cracking down on us, so I am really behind, but I promise to try hard to catch up this weekend. The end of the semester seems so far away but I know finals will be on me before I know it, so I need to make sure I put school first for the next few weeks.

All that said, I have still been doing close to my normal amount of cooking.  This is something that I won’t compromise on, and I always work to find a way to fit it into my hectic schedule.   I know that alot of people, students in particular, who are committed to healthy lifestyles feel the same, and I believe that home food-prep is especially important for vegans!!

Anyways, enough of my rambling!  Even though spring is technically close, it seems SO far away, so I have continued with my soup-making.  As I’ve mentioned previously, I like to make soups out of leftover parts of veggies I eat, because not only have I paid for them, but they are just as yummy and nutritious as the other parts.   My most recent concoction was made out of the stems of organic broccoli and kale, as well as the obvious onion, garlic, veggie broth, and spices. 

Here are the ingredients hanging out in their little veggie hot tub

Here is the finished (pureed) product

This soup was just okay.  I think I much prefer a version incorporating butternut squash or something else a little sweeter, because the kale gave this soup a slightly bitter, blander flavor.   I have a squash at home so my next batch of soup will definitely use that!  Now…all I need is a new food processor.  Look what happened when I blended the broccoli-kale soup!

Be back soon with some new Indian food and also desserts!!

Woo! That Sicky Sicky Shake

Boo for being sick   I stayed home from school yesterday and spent 25 of the last 36 hours sleeping.  Because I’m able to stand up and actually walk today, I figure I’m “recovered” enough to be back at school.  Now that I’m here though, I’m realizing that I’m too out of it to pay much attention, so I’m blogging instead.  Whoops.

I started today with a little something I call my Sicky Shake.  I invented this last May when I was recovering from my tonsillectomy.   I just throw the following into the food processor and go to town: 1/2 c. Purely Decadent Peanut Butter ZigZag soy ice cream (my faaaave), 1/2 a large frozen banana, and about 1/3-1/2 c. unsweetened soy milk (I just pour it in as necessary to thin out the shake.  The end result is sweet, cold, and delicious and is a total pick-me-up when you’ve been bed-ridden.   Here’s mine from this morning:

Sorry for the weird picture.  My head is not really working properly yet.

Moving along, I said last time that I had some potato-y goodness to share.   Basically what happened was that I had a 5-lb. bag of Yukon gold potatoes that needed to get used, so I had some fun with those.

One night I decided to cut them in wedges and roast them.  A pretty elementary recipe: Cut potatoes, toss in a little olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and fresh ground pepper, bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes, turning once.  With a side of kale steamed with garlic:

The next night in order to use up a greater number of potatoes at once, I made them mashed.  I peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters, bring them to a boil then simmer then for 20 minutes, drain them, then use a fork to mash them with about 6 T. Earth Balance, 1/2 c.-1 c. unsweetened soy milk, and sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.   With a side of–you guessed it!–kale steamed with garlic:

I like to take the garlic out of the pan after steaming the kale and mix it into the mashed potatoes.  I also eat them with tons of hot sauce because I love my food spicy!  These are sooooo yummy and literally last me a whole week.  I’m pretty proud of my use of this big bag of potatoes!

As a sidenote, I know that neither of these really look like complete meals, especially to a non-vegan eye.  I actually on both occasions had planned to eat a grilled portabello mushroom with the meal, but never got there because I was full enough from the potatoes and the kale.

Breakfast of Champions

It’s been a while since I’ve done a breakfast post, so here goes.  Because my schedule this semester is so hectic and my days start much earlier, I’ve been trying out some new things in the morning.  For a few months I’d been doing the fruit-only breakfast thing a la Skinny Bitch, but I found it wasn’t working for me; it was causing me to eat more throughout the day, and since I’m trying to lose weight right now, that was obviously not a good thing. 

Last week for a quick fix I tried the French Toast recipe from Happy Herbivore’s sneak-peek cookbook.  

Here is a slice getting ready to be drizzled in maple syrup (my fave!) and gobbled up:

This was really yummy but very sweet and probably too caloric for my current needs.  I’ll save it for a future weekend breakfast treat.

I also tried out the Raw Coconut Pancakes that were posted on Vegan on Stage last week. 

Here is one decorated with banana and shredded coconut, and packed up to go to school with me:

These are delightful and felt good to eat.  However…my recipe made 7 of these and when I calculated the nutrition info, they came out to over 400 kcal each.    I froze the remaining ones and plan to eat them on all-raw days or on days when I’ve exercised particularly hard.  Unfortunately I can’t eat them for a normal brekkie right now because they are filling but not filling enough to keep me from going over my calorie limit.

I know I don’t usually do product reviews on here, but I had to share this particular gem.  I’ve been making Ancient Harvest Quinoa Flakes alot of mornings and I absolutely love them.  Here’s a bowl fresh out of the microwave (and before add-ins):

A 1/3 c. of dry flakes makes this big bowl of goodness, to which I add 1 T. of maple syrup, 2 T. of dried blueberries, a generous sprinkling of cinnamon, and a dash or two of nutmeg.  All of that comes out to about 210 kcal per bowl.  This is a really great and satisfying hot cereal which keeps me full for a while and helps set a tone of NOT over-eating for the day (which imho is what breakfast is for!).  So yay for these

Be back soon with some potato-based fun!

SouperBowl Sunday

Who am I kidding, I’m not watching the Superbowl…just tuning in every so often to check out the commercials. What I am doing is posting about one of my favorite soups that I’ve ever made, Lemon Chickpea Lentil soup from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton.

Pre-puree (complete with steam!)

Finished product

A perfect little dinner…soup and sauteed kale

This soup was SO. GOOD.  Thick and flavorful and filling.  I actually added more cumin than the recipe called for because I was loving the earthy Middle Eastern taste of the soup.  I would definitely make this again.  It was simple and it is perfect winter fare.  Anyone who has ED&BV–make this recipe!

Give Me Spiciness or Give Me Death

In case I have never made this clear, I love me some spicy food.  I don’t know if it’s the cold weather or what, but I have days and weeks at a time where I crave only spicy food, and when I eat out at any kind of Mexican, Thai, or Indian restaurant, I actually get a little annoyed if my food is not satisfactorily spicy.  Anyway the point is that I’ve been craving hot food (especially Indian!) and so this post is about a couple little Indian dishes that I have made for myself.  It works out better anyway because it’s cheap and I can control the spice level!

Last week I made a Madras curry using an organic store-bought simmer sauce that I thought looked yummy.  Here it is:

For the curry, I sauteed thinly-sliced onion in olive oil, then added strips of fresh red pepper, fresh broccoli, chopped mushrooms, and defrosted pressed tofu, then added the simmer sauce and simmered for 10 minutes as directed.  Here it is before I added the simmer sauce:

And here’s the finished product, steaming hot!

I ate the curry over basmati rice that I cooked up with Earth Balance, cloves, and a bay leaf.  Even though the simmer sauce jar says “a red hot curry sauce”, it wasn’t all that spicy, so I added a generous amount of red pepper flakes while cooking, as well as a nice helping of hot sauce before eating.   Still could have been spicier though!  Nonetheless, it was a true delight and it literally lasted me about 4-5 meals.  Not bad for a made-up recipe! 

I also dug up some pictures of a “chana masala” that I made based on a web recipe a couple of months ago.  

 

First of all, I have no idea where I got the recipe…sorry.  It had chickpeas, spinach, lemon juice, onion, cumin, garam masala, etc.  Second, it’s not chana masala, it’s definitely chana saag because of the spinach and lack of tomato-y goodness.  But I made it work for me!   It was a fairly simple recipe and one that could be recreated easily by anyone looking for a quick, easy, tasty, Indian-inspired dinner.  Of course, if you want it spicy, you’re going to need to add a boat-load of pepper and hot sauce, but it’s worth it!

I actually found out that there is an Indian grocery store not too far from me, and I want to get over there sometime this week to buy some good quality hot peppers and have some more fun in the kitchen!