Beanie Babies

Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon by Isa Moskowitz and Terry Romero (which have been seen frequently in the blogosphere!)

The picture doesn’t quite do them justice…

I have made these four times.  The picture is of my fourth batch, which is the only one I baked (the others were fried).  I also made these with black chickpeas that I had soaked and cooked.  I left out the lemon zest that the recipe calls for because I had no lemons, and I think I actually prefer them this way.  They smelled unbelieveable while baking!  I ate one on a whole wheat hamburger bun with agave nectar-dijon dressing and a little ketchup.  I pretty much consider these a staple in my diet.

Chipotle Veggie-Bean Burritos from Vive le Vigan by Dreena Burton

These were scrumptious.  No other words need be applied.  My dad and I made them and our only deviation from the recipe was that we used fresh tomatoes instead of the canned diced called for. (This was before the current poisonous tomato season began, obviously.)

Cheater Baked Beans from Veganomicon (except that they are technically “peas”, and we didn’t “cheat”!)

Dad and I decided to make these for J’s girlfriend’s graduation party. We thought it would be cool to soak the beans overnight before cooking the recipe rather than relying on canned, despite the fact that the recipe’s title refers to the very fact that canned beans are used! But no matter. We used black-eyed peas, which we soaked overnight, and then proceeded in the morning to make the delicious sauce (we doubled the recipe), add the beans, and put it in the oven to bake for an hour. When we took the beans out of the oven, my dad sampled them and was a little surprised to find that the peas were fairly crunchy…much crunchier than one would expect from baked “beans”. We suddenly realized that we had neglected to cook the beans before baking them!! It was pretty funny actually. We ended up pouring the huge vat of beans into casserole dishes, adding water, and microwaving them for a few minutes at a time in an attempt to cook the beans. In the end they actually came out really well and were a hit at the party (about 2/3 got eaten!). Cooking is fun :-b

Smoky Grilled Tempeh from Veganomicon

Did. Not. Like.  This is the most disappointing thing I’ve ever attempted to cook.  I can’t figure out what went wrong.  All I know is that despite all the great stuff that went into the marinade, the only thing I could taste was the liquid smoke and I just couldn’t eat it 😦 Farley loved it though 🙂

Black Bean Burgers also from Veganomicon (not pictured)

These were so-so.  I made the recipe for a barbecue we hosted when my a cappella group was visiting my house and so I doubled the recipe.  The burgers tasted good but were overly gluteny.  I think that maybe gluten doesn’t need to be doubled even when the rest of the recipe is.  If I made these again I would definitely use less.