Turning Veganese

Jul 07 2012

Thoughts

Another One Lovely Blog and Overdue Thank Yous

Oh, boy. We got nominated AGAIN for the One Lovely Blog award, this time by methodpile over at girl sounds. Thank you thank you thank you! Christie addressed our last nomination so I’m gonna take this one and provide you with seven fresh factoids.

1. Christie mentioned that we met through Twitter. Our first conversation had something to do with an oversized t-shirt, peanut butter, and an elusive creature called a love octopus. You never know how your best friendships will begin.

2. My Mom worked in a chemistry lab for a food corporation, analyzing the nutrition value of meat products. So, I grew up on hot dogs and bologna and cold cuts and sausage.

3. I ate a pizza puff almost everyday for lunch my first semester of high school. No one accused me of being too skinny after that semester.

4. I often eat salad without any dressing, especially now because RANCH IS KING and I don’t eat ranch anymore.

5. Red wine can make me sick but red wine sangria makes me happy.

6. I don’t like wearing deodorant. That smell you’re wondering about? It’s me.

7. Roses are red, violets are blue, cooking’s more fun when you’re cooking for two (or more).

Now, on to the nominations — including long overdue shout outs to those who have nominated us for awards in the past:

1. Our first ever award nomination was from the wonderful Luminous Vegans back in February. I love this blog for the creativity of the recipes, the beautiful photos, and the personal tidbits. I aspire to be more like the lovely lady behind this blog. Thank you for our Liebster Blog Award!

2. Another overdue thanks goes to Emerging Vegan Sistah who nominated us for the Versatile Blogger Award. Transitioning to a vegan (and, in this case, potentially raw vegan) diet can be challenging, but this perspective from a “single-mother, lawyer, student and entrepreneur with an active Christian lifestyle” makes it seem easy… and FUN!

3. The Beach House Kitchen also nominated us for the Versatile Blogger Award. Thank you! Lee and Jane are awesome. The recipes here are way out of my league. There is a great sense of love and dedication here to good food, good people, health, and nature.

4. veghotpot has great recipes, photos, and style. There’s a lot of great personal stuff to go along with the food posts! Uber thanks to her for our Kreativ Blogger award!!

5. Filipino and Vegan. Nope, I’m not describing myself. I’m talking about the bodacious ASTIG Vegan. This blog is the bomb. I want to try making everything. Filipino food CAN be vegan AND delicious. No excuses, kababayans.

Since this is our second One Lovely Blog award in one week, I won’t list the rules again. Christie, Brent, and I appreciate all the recognition and love that we get. It’s really humbling… and also results in us giving each other virtual high-fives and shouting “F#&* YEAH!!” really loudly. Thank you to everyone who has nominated us! Be sure to check out the blogs we’ve listed.

Wooooot! –Melissa

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!

Tagged bell pepper, chili, cilantro, coriander, cream cheese, cumin, curry leaves, garlic, ginger, gluten-free, Indian food, lime, mushrooms, onion, tofu, tomato, turmeric, vegan, vegetarian, zest

Jul 05 2012

8 Comments

Thoughts

Gadgets for Budgets!

I managed to find a used soy-milk maker for $30 bucks (SoyQuick, retails for about $120) on eBay a few weeks ago and we’re pretty excited about the end products. It’s definitely a device that can help your budget and keep you from heading to the store late at night for a carton of milk.

The first step fr this particular machine is to soak and wash the soybeans. We soaked for 8 hours (instructions call for at least 4 hours to overnight). Ours needs about 1/2 cup of beans.

The next step is to fill the basin to the fill line with water (we used distilled water) and the cup with beans and then we put it on the counter and pressed the button. It heated the water and ground up the beans and before we even expected it, we had made our own soy-milk. It was incredibly easy and as you can see the machine is kind of deadly looking: perfect for my favorite guy to make his contribution to kitchen life.

The end product consists of 2 things: a cup of spent beans (above) and the milk itself (below). Not all of the beans got ground so we might use a little less than 1/2 cup next time and see if the milk is as awesome, maybe a heaping 1/3 cup.

Based on our preliminary work with the machine, our *very* conservative estimate is that we can get about 3 gallons of soy-milk from a 26 ounce bag of organic soybeans that we bought for just under $5. That’s a STEAL! You can also use almonds, cashews, flax seeds (which I’m particularly excited about) or whatever kind of beans, seeds or nuts make your day. If you’ve got an allergy and can’t risk cross contamination, this might be your bag. I’m also excited to add carob, cocoa and maca to flavor our milks and add extra nutrients.

I’m also trying to figure out what to do with the ‘waste’ product from making soy-milk which is the cup of spent beans. I’m hoping that they can be incorporated with the pulp that results from making vegetable juice to make crackers that are vegan, gluten-free and loaded with fiber instead of calories.

This is Christie and Brent, signing off!

Tagged budget, dairy-free, flax milk, milk, nut milk, soy-free, soy-milk maker, vegan, vegetarian

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

Tagged achiote, annatto, bagoong, chinese long beans, eggplant, filipino food, green beans, kare kare, peanut butter, rice, seaweed, sitaw, soy curls, vegan

Jul 03 2012

12 Comments

Thoughts

One Lovely Blog

VeganMonologue recently nominated Turning Veganese for the One Lovely Blog award. I’m about to give our seven titillating tidbits. Since there are three of us working on this blog, we often find it difficult to coordinate when we get awards so I’m throwing myself headlong into addressing this little beauty.

1. I met Melissa through Twitter so this particular blog is really born of the internet.

2. As a child, my first phrase was “Somma dat, mommy!” while pointing frantically at broccoli from the shopping cart while visiting our local supermarket.

3. As a toddler, my highchair was moved to the far end of the dinner table after repeated incidents of my picking broccoli and asparagus off my sister’s plate, biting off the head and returning the stalk to her plate.

4. I was literally afraid of raw tomatoes until I was 16 years old. That summer I made myself sick eating cherry tomatoes while working on the family farm.

5. Raw carrots give me the hiccups.

6. I don’t like plain white rice.

7. I found a stray black and white kitten in a parking lot last November that had been run over by a car. It’s skull had been crushed but it was still trying to walk and was crying pathetically. I spent 30 minutes agonizing over whether I should break its neck or take it to a vet, not sure which would cause it more suffering. Please spay or neuter your pets!

Okay, that was depressing so let’s get to the fun and exciting part: nominations!

1. I recently started following Vegan Charlie and am blown away by the honesty of a personal journey. It’s a kind of honesty that’s missing from a lot of blogs about relationships with people and food. I hope you’ll check out her writing.

2. Another new follow has been girl sounds. It’s mostly graphic but with an eclectic personal twist covers some of my favorite topics: art (mostly) and food (occasionally).

3. I’ve been following making/listening for a while and it’s always a succinct foray into a meal and the music that flavored it. I suppose I’m a sucker for the elegance of suggestion rather than depiction.

4. I’ve been internet stalking Nina and the Heartbeat for months now and she always surprises me with something that can make me stop long enough to pay attention and read the whole thing. Music and vegan food from the perspective of someone who shows deep reverence for the world around her is what this blog has to offer.

5. Elle’s vegan food diary is a blog that I aspire to be more like. She covers really interesting vegan foods with exotic flare and visually stunning images. She’s given me loads of ideas and caused me to drool copiously and frequently.

There are scads of blogs that I’d love to nominate but I’m sure have already gotten the honor so I’m passing it on to these blogs in hopes that they can get more of the attention they deserve. Thanks again to Vegan Monologue for the nomination. I know I can speak for Brent, Melissa and myself when I say that we’re grateful for the recognition and our egos are currently expanding.

The Rules of One Lovely Blog:

• Link back to the blogger who nominated you

• Paste the award image on your blog, anywhere

• Share 7 facts about yourself

• Nominate 5-15 other blogs you like for this award (last time it was 5, this time it’s 15…so do what you can.)

• Contact the bloggers that you have chosen to let them know that they have been nominated

This is Christie, signing off!

Tagged one lovely blogger award

Jul 02 2012

7 Comments

Main Dishes, Recipes

Eggplant Parmesan for Dummies

My sister and I decided to have another one of our cooking challenges where we take a dish and make traditional and vegan versions of it. Our next dish was eggplant parmesan. I looked at several vegan recipes and decided that I was going to follow this one from Oh She Glows. It was a good plan until I botched a critical step (thus the ‘dummies’ part of the title). It doesn’t matter because I ended up with a great version of vegan eggplant parmesan anyway!

Vegan (and Soy-Free) Eggplant Parmesan

1 fat eggplant (I paid an arm and a leg for an eggplant from a place that rhymes with Shmole Broods and then saw prettier looking ones for $2 at a farmers market the next day. BLAST!)
1 c unsweetened and unflavored almond milk
3/4 c whole wheat pastry flour (use a gluten-free flour for a GF version)
1 tsp white wine vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp Italian seasoning
2 c breadcrumbs
1 jar pasta sauce (I used Organicville Italian Herb pasta sauce)
1 pkg Daiya shredded mozzarella or other vegan mozzarella cheese

I cut my eggplant into 1cm slices and ended up with 14 slices. I then sprinkled some salt on the slices to draw out some of the water –I’m afraid I may have drawn out some of the flavor as well– and let it sit for about 30 minutes.

Okay, now here’s where I screwed things up. While the eggplant was chilling out, I was supposed to mix together the milk, flour, vinegar, and spices. Instead, I mixed all that and the bread crumbs. Um. Yeah. Dummy. Oh She Glows calls for the eggplant slices to be dipped in the batter and then coated with the bread crumbs. There was no turning back once I added the bread crumbs, but I will say that it all smelled very good and mixed together nicely.

I had to get over my mentally challenged moment and work with what I had (big thanks to my sis for calming me down). First, I preheated the oven to 450 degrees. Then, I grabbed a deep roasting pan, sprinkled the bottom with the bread crumb mixture, laid the eggplant on the crumbs, and then topped it off with the rest of the bread crumbs. I stuck it in the oven and let it bake for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, I put a pot on the stove to cook pasta to go with the eggplant parmesan, cursing myself the entire time for being unable to follow a brilliant and simple recipe. I chose this spinach spaghetti from Shmole Broods. I tossed it in olive oil and freshly minced garlic.

After the eggplant had been baking for 20 minutes, I poured the entire jar of pasta sauce into the pan, sprinkled some more Italian seasoning on top, and baked for another 15 minutes. Then, I topped it off with the shredded Daiya (I didn’t use the entire package but you can) and baked for another 5 minutes.

It tastes as good as it looks, and I hope it looks good to you. Wondering how the traditional version turned out? We didn’t make one — this version worked for everyone, including my Italian brother-in-law.

I can now say that I’m pleasantly happy with how this turned out. I undoubtedly would have found a way to screw up the breading of the eggplant, and I probably would have ended up with a lot of unused breadcrumbs. This worked out quite well and is how I plan to make this dish in the future. –Melissa

Tagged almond milk, daiya, daiya mozzarella, eggplant, eggplant parmesan, italian, mozzarella, pasta, soy-free, spinach spaghetti, vegan, vegetarian

Jul 01 2012

5 Comments

Snacks

Salsa Verde!

I know a lot of us have probably seen these in a local grocery store or farmer’s market and didn’t know what to do with them. This is a refreshing traditional preparation that’s quick and easy for company or just to enjoy yourself.

Friends, meet tomatillo! I love making salsa verde with these babies so here we go. You’ll need the following:

juice from 1 lime

1 generous pinch of vegan sugar

1 pinch of salt

1 jalapeño

1/4 cup cilantro, stems and/or leaves

5-6 lemon or lime sized tomatillo, husks removed

I hate wasting things so I usually save the stems from my cilantro when I use the leaves for a garnish. This dip gets blended up anyways so nobody will know but you that you. Fun fact: cilantro stems keep their unique flavor and aroma when frozen.

I spray a baking sheet with olive oil and bake them at 355F/180C on the top rack next to the broiler burner so that they blacken, usually for between 5 and 10 minutes. I’ve definitely taken a few tomatillos out of the oven to discover one was on fire. Don’t worry (put the fire out first, okay?) just blend them as usual after picking off any parts that are papery from being burned.

Then I throw all the ingredients into a blender and blend until everything is uniformly chunky or smooth, depending on your preference. This salsa is awesome on corn chips, tacos, burritos, whatever you want that needs a tart, spicy kick

This is a quick easy recipe that’s sure to please. We hope you get to try it!

This is Christie and Brent, signing off!

Tagged dairy-free, detox, easy, gluten-free, jalapeno, lime, low-calorie, quick, salsa, salsa verde, tomatillo, vegan

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

Tagged broiled vegetables, brown rice, cinnamon, cumin, dates, garlic, iron, lentils, onion, persian food, protein, rice cooker, vegan, vegetarian

Jun 30 2012

2 Comments

Cooking, Recipes

Rice Cooker Cuisine: Persian-Inspired Rice & Lentils

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

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

Tagged broiled vegetables, brown rice, cinnamon, cumin, dates, garlic, iron, lentils, onion, persian food, protein, rice cooker, vegan, vegetarian

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.