Category Archives: Cooking

Jul 06 2012
3 Comments
Cooking

Tofu Rogan Josh

So… Indian food… awesome… yeah. I’ve got a few Indian colleagues and one of them gave me her recipe for lamb rogan josh and I did my best to veganize it.You’ll need the following:

1 package water packed tofu, pressed and chopped into bite-sized chunks.
1 package of baby bella mushrooms, quartered
1 green bell pepper, cut into bite sized pieces
1-2 tbsp corn oil or other oil suitable for frying
5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 big toe sized piece of ginger, minced
1 pinkie sized piece of turmeric, minced
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
15-20 curry leaves
2 tbsp of vegan cream cheese
1 teaspoon of red chilli powder
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 14oz tin of peeled plum tomatoes
1 lime, juice and zest, cut in half
curry leaves, to taste
salt and pepper to taste (garam masala works instead of pepper)

Getting the ingredients together was the hardest part. Finding fresh curry leaves was a mission but we did… did you know they grow on trees? I didn’t know that before our quest for curry leaves. They’re pretty important for this dish so I recommend seeking them out.
To start, add the onion to a large pot with the corn oil and fry it on high temperature until the onion starts to become translucent. Add the garlic, turmeric, curry leaves and ginger and keep frying. Add the dry spices and zest and keep frying.This should look and be very dry. When the spices become fragrant and everything in the kitchen smells awesome

Add the tomato, 1/2 lime juice and cream cheese and mix. If you’ve got a hand blender, now is the time to use it. Otherwise, before the tomato gets too hot, put it all in your blender and mix until smooth.

Add the tofu and mushrooms and allow to simmer for at least 45 minutes so the tofu takes on the flavors of the dish. Stir in the green bell pepper and coriander 10 minutes before serving.

So we served this with quinoa and red wine and it was not too far off from what I’ve had in restaurants: tart, creamy, herbal and rich. Did I mention I love Indian food?

It was loaded with veggies, protein and exciting herbs. Even if it wasn’t authentic, it’s still delicious and good for you. We hope you get to try it.

This is Christie and Brent, signing off!

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Jul 04 2012
5 Comments
Cooking, Main Dishes, Recipes

Kare Kare

Kare Kare is a Filipino dish that is usually made up of oxtail and vegetables in a peanut butter sauce. It’s also one of my favorite things to eat, like, ever. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present: Easy Vegan Kare Kare.

1 cup soy curls
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 a big eggplant, cut into about 2 inch chunks (approx. 2 cups)
1 cup sitaw (Chinese long beans), cut into about 2 inch pieces — regular green beans are fine, too
2 tbsp peanut butter
1/2 tsp achiote powder (optional)
olive oil
salt

First, take your one cup of soy curls and rehydrate them. While that’s happening, prepare your veggies. Any type of eggplant will do. You can put in as much veggies as you would like and even drop the soy curls altogether if you’d like. Eggplant and sitaw are the usual veggies we use; we also use bok choy most of the time. The sitaw came from the freezer… I can’t wait to show you guys the fresh ones once they start to pop up in my Dad’s garden.

When the soy curls are ready, drain the water. In a medium pot, heat up the olive oil and brown the garlic and onions. When it stats to get fragrant (and before the garlic starts to burn), toss in the soy curls and saute them with the onions and garlic. Once they’ve dried out a little, it will be time to add your veggies.

Toss the eggplant in first as they will take a bit longer than the beans to cook. Then, add about a cup of water to the pot. Cover and let the eggplants cook for about 5 minutes.

Add in the beans and then cover it again for a few minutes.

Once the veggies are cooked, stir things up a bit. Then, make a well in the center of the pot and put in the peanut butter. The PB should melt completely and acts as both a flavor and thickening agent.

Taste the sauce and add some salt to taste. Add the achiote powder as the final step. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but this gives the kare kare its reddish color.

You can eat the kare kare on its own, but I prefer to have it with white rice. The soy curls are a good protein to use, particularly because it is reminiscent of tripe (I know… gross) which is also used a lot in kare kare. What’s the green stuff, you ask? Kare kare is nothing without some bagoong or salted shrimp paste. I was so super jazzed when I found this recipe for raw vegan bagoong on ASTIG Vegan. I couldn’t follow it exactly because I don’t have any dulse, so I improvised and crushed up about 4 sheets of salted seaweed snack instead. It’s wacky, but it actually worked really nicely as a bagoong substitute.

OMG, you guys. You have no idea how excited I am that this recipe worked. BTW – Happy Independence Day. Be safe! –Melissa

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Jun 30 2012
2 Comments
Cooking, Recipes

Rice Cooker Cuisine: Persian-Inspired Rice & Lentils

This dish was my attempt to recreate the dish I had at Noon-O-Kabab a few weeks ago. As you’ll see, my creation doesn’t look anything like adas polo, but it was easy to make, made my kitchen wonderfully fragrant, and was a pretty good replication in terms of flavor.

Ingredients:

1 cup brown rice
1 cup lentils (I used red)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 an onion, chopped
2 dates, pitted and chopped
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

I put the brown rice and lentils in my rice cooker pot, rinsed them, and then added water to fill up to the 2 cup line. I did measure out the water this time around for those of you who don’t have a rice cooker: it was just under two cups of water. I also want to note that the rice was slightly undercooked, so I will go with 2 and a half to 3 cups of water next time. I put the pot in the cooker and then turned it on.

Immediately after pushing the “on” button, I prepared the garlic, onion, and dates. I then heated some olive oil in a pan and browned the garlic, onion, and dates along with the spices. When the onions were nearly translucent, I removed it from heat and then added it to the rice cooker pot, stirring it in to the rice and lentils. Tip: use a wooden spoon or spatula when mixing stuff around in a rice cooker! Anything metal can scratch the pot and that is no bueno.

I stirred the mixture every 5-10 minutes to keep it from sticking. It stuck a bit anyway. Sigh. The above photo how it looked when the rice cooker first thought it was finished. I gave it a quick stir and pushed the “on” button again, and it cooked for at least another 5 minutes.

Finished! I had a moment of panic at first (uhhh… where did my lentils go! I need my protein and iron!) but the lentils had gotten mushed in with the rice pretty quickly.

I sprinkled some salt and pepper on tomato, onion, and bell pepper and broiled it in the toaster oven for about 10 minutes. They were a great accompaniment to the rice and lentils.

Mmmmm… cinnamon…. –Melissa

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Jun 30 2012
2 Comments
Cooking, Recipes, Uncategorized

Rice Cooker Cuisine: Persian-Inspired Rice & Lentils

This dish was my attempt to recreate the dish I had at Noon-O-Kabab a few weeks ago. As you’ll see, my creation doesn’t look anything like adas polo, but it was easy to make, made my kitchen wonderfully fragrant, and was a pretty good replication in terms of flavor.

Ingredients:

1 cup brown rice
1 cup lentils (I used red)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 an onion, chopped
2 dates, pitted and chopped
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

I put the brown rice and lentils in my rice cooker pot, rinsed them, and then added water to fill up to the 2 cup line. I did measure out the water this time around for those of you who don’t have a rice cooker: it was just under two cups of water. I also want to note that the rice was slightly undercooked, so I will go with 2 and a half to 3 cups of water next time. I put the pot in the cooker and then turned it on.

Immediately after pushing the “on” button, I prepared the garlic, onion, and dates. I then heated some olive oil in a pan and browned the garlic, onion, and dates along with the spices. When the onions were nearly translucent, I removed it from heat and then added it to the rice cooker pot, stirring it in to the rice and lentils. Tip: use a wooden spoon or spatula when mixing stuff around in a rice cooker! Anything metal can scratch the pot and that is no bueno.

I stirred the mixture every 5-10 minutes to keep it from sticking. It stuck a bit anyway. Sigh. The above photo how it looked when the rice cooker first thought it was finished. I gave it a quick stir and pushed the “on” button again, and it cooked for at least another 5 minutes.

Finished! I had a moment of panic at first (uhhh… where did my lentils go! I need my protein and iron!) but the lentils had gotten mushed in with the rice pretty quickly.

I sprinkled some salt and pepper on tomato, onion, and bell pepper and broiled it in the toaster oven for about 10 minutes. They were a great accompaniment to the rice and lentils.

Mmmmm… cinnamon…. –Melissa

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Jun 29 2012
12 Comments
Cooking, Lazy Vegan

Vegan BLT… like a party in your face!

This is so simple I feel like I’m cheating by posting it.  We wanted BLT this Monday. We’ve got a reliable source of vegan gluten-free bread so the next step is to make it awesome.

All you need is some smoky maple bacon tempeh. We bought outs pre-flavored but a tablespoon of maple syrup and drop of liquid smoke or pinch of smoked paprika works perfectly. We sprayed a pan lightly with some olive oil and sauteed it until it was browned lightly.

We mixed up some chipotle lime mayo by combining the juice from 1/2 a lime, a heaping tablespoon of nutritional yeast, a pinch of vegan sugar, 1 carton of silken tofu and 1 8 ounce tin of chipotle peppers (this will make it REALLY spicy) use 2-3 peppers for an amusing kick of spice) in the food processor and blending until smooth.

I spread that on a piece of bread, added some tomato and spinach, so technically it’s not really a BLT, it’s a TST but who’s counting anyways.

These babies disappeared really fast.

This is Christie and Brent, signing off.

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Jun 28 2012
1 Comment
Cooking, Recipes

Ginger Squash Soup FTW!

Sometimes when it’s raining sideways and the sky is grey (which happens often in South Florida during the summer) you just want comfort food. We decided that squash soup with ginger and grilled cheese would fit the bill for a pair of hungry martial artists so this is what we gathered:

1 piece of ginger, (this will make it spicy and fragrant, add as little or as much as you like. Our piece was a little smaller than my palm)

1 carton of silken tofu

20 ounces of squash puree

1 tbsp Thai chili paste

1 tbsp syrup or sugar

1 cube of bouillon

1 pinch of cinnamon

1 pinch of nutmeg

salt to taste

I blended up the tofu (I used a box of Mori-Nu soft silken tofu) and ginger until it was creamy and combined it with the squash in a large pan. I used 2 boxes of Cascadian farms frozen winter squash puree.

I added all of the seasonings, adjusted them as needed and stirred until it was thoroughly mixed and heated through. I also happened to pick up some vegan gluten-free olive bread at a local market and melted some Follow Your Heart mozzarella in the oven. It took about 7 minutes at 350F/180C to get bubbly and melty.

The earthy buttery savory flavors in the grilled cheese perfectly complimented the spicy floral sweet squash soup. Brent isn’t a big fan of squash but when I mentioned making a similar soup with carrots, he got excited. This particular dish is remarkably low in calories for how rich and creamy it is. The whole pot has about 320 calories and easily feeds 2 hungry people. It’s loaded with fiber, vitamin A and protein in addition to antioxidants and trace nutrients from squash, soy, chili, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger that are of particular interest to scientists.

This is Christie, signing off!

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Jun 23 2012
3 Comments
Cooking, Recipes

Polenta Balls

I really wanted just a simple salad for dinner tonight, but I wanted something to accompany it. So I came up with this simple and yummy and versatile recipe using instant polenta.

Polenta Balls

4 tbsp instant polenta
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp nutritional yeast
1/4 tsp cumin (optional)
1 cup boiling water

First, I combined my dry ingredients in a bowl while the water heated up.

I added the boiling water and mixed it all together until it thickened and was the consistency of polenta.

I shaped the polenta into little balls, placed them on a baking sheet, sprinkled some salt on them, and baked them in the toaster oven for 15 minutes at 325 degrees. While they were toasting, I made my salad.

My salad should have been prettier, but my avocados were gross, I forgot ‘cheese,’ and I forgot to get some olives. It was still good, though: a nice mix of butter lettuce, tomatoes and green onion tossed together with some olive oil, lemon, salt, and pepper.

The polenta balls turned out exactly how I had hoped: crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. I’m excited to try making more with different spices.

Yay! Polenta Balls! –Melissa

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Jun 19 2012
5 Comments
Cooking, Lazy Vegan

The other Lazy Vegans: Macaroni and “Cheese”… and PEAS!

This is a post about a product that I really love:Leahey Gardens Mac&Cheese. I love this product because it’s quick, easy and delicious.

They make gluten-free and regular and it’s the answer for your friend who “can’t live without” macaroni and cheese in a box. Brent and I have a twist on this recipe because even though it’s pretty good for you right out of the box, we like vegetables.

I add peas… about 1 and a half cups. I also add a generous dash of flake red pepper and Italian seasoning when preparing the cheese sauce. This recipe is also very good prepared with water, for the record. This means it’s great for travel anywhere with a microwave.

This is the finished product, ready to be enjoyed. It’s already rich in B vitamins thanks for nutritional yeast in the sauce and the peas add a whollop of protein. Enjoy!

This is Christie and Brent, signing off!

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Jun 09 2012
1 Comment
Cooking, Recipes

Sweet & Spicy Tofu

This recipe is so easy that I considered putting it in the Lazy Vegan bucket, but the end result is so delicious and potentially impressive that it’s more of a Secret Weapon Vegan Recipe. It involves few ingredients, few steps, minimal labor, and doesn’t take a lot of time. The “sauce” can be applied to any veggie or protein, so it’s also versatile.

This dish is inspired by how my Mom used to bake chicken when we were growing up. She would buy a bunch of drumsticks, coat them with plum sauce, and just bake. Again… so easy, yet really tasty!

Sweet & Spicy Tofu

1 block extra firm tofu
1 tbsp plum sauce
1 stem green onion
1/2 tsp chili garlic sauce or crushed red pepper (optional; add more or less for desired blandness/spicyness)

I got the plum sauce and chili garlic sauce from your everyday grocery store. I would recommend Lee Kum Kee brand for the plum sauce. My market didn’t have it and Dynasty brand worked just fine. I used a block of tofu from a package of fried tofu, bought at the Asian market. I cut the block into strips, but you can cut it into any shape you would like.

I coated the tofu strips with the plum sauce and chili garlic sauce. Add as much as you’d like! I heated up some oil in a pan and quickly chopped the green onion. Then I threw the coated tofu into the pan. I would have preferred to bake instead of fry, but I was really hungry and too lazy to wait for the oven to heat up. Beware: this is a messy fry. If you bake, make sure you get as much liquid as you can out of the tofu.

About two minutes after I put the tofu in the pan, I got a handful of the meaty green onion pieces and added it to the pan. I let it all fry for another minute, flipped the tofu, and then let it fry for another minute after that. Yeah. This only took about five minutes. Keep in mind that I started out with tofu that was pre-fried and already dried out. (Sidenote: my niece came into the kitchen to find out what smelled so good while this was frying.)

I topped the tofu with the rest of the green onion bits. The sugar in the plum sauce gives this a nice coating. I ate this with some rice and steamed broccoli and was very, very happy! –Melissa

Jun 08 2012
3 Comments
Cooking, Main Dishes

Vegan Rainbow Bake!

I was feeling adventurous today so we made something a little different. I picked my ingredients based on an inexplicable urge to eat more colorful foods: orange sweet potato, indigo blue potato, and vivid green Brussel’s sprouts.

This is what we used:

1 sweet potato, cut into bite sized pieces

8 small blue potatoes, cut into bite sized pieces

1 lb Brussel’s sprouts, cleaned and cut in half

1 tbsp fresh chili paste

2 tbsp capers (optional)

juice from 1 lemon

1/3 cup of veganaise

I put the vegenaise, capers, lemon juice, and chili paste into a bowl and mixed it.

Then I added the potatoes and sprouts and mixed them until everything was evenly coated with veganaise sauce.

I put everything onto a foil lined baking sheet and baked it 45 minutes at 350F/175C.

It came out moist and flavorful and crisp and caramelized around the edges.

We will probably do this again: the spicy lemony sauce went well with the herbal flavors in the sprouts, the creamy sweetness of the sweet potato and the starchy comfort of he blue potato. It was filling and full of vitamins and minerals.

 

This is Christie, signing off!

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