Red Rice, Yellow Squash, Spinach, Mushrooms

We’ve been on a uncommon grain kick lately. Trying all sort of cool sounding, and looking, grains that are more than just what, rice and pasta. Queue red rice.

We had been browsing over at Sevananda and saw the package and figured “why not?” so we picked up a pack. Well, we’ve since bought several more packs as it’s been that good. A little less chewy than barley but with a lot more texture than even brown rice and a ton of “earthy” flavor.

It paired very nicely with some yellow squash my wife received from a woman at work. Some garlic-sauteed spinach and baby portabella mushrooms and a complete meal was born.

VPS – Caramelized Onions, Spinach, Yellow Squash, Purple Barley, Oven Dried Grape Tomatoes, Eggplant

That sure sounds like a lot more than it seemed! The biggest difference tonight was the 100% whole wheat crust. Whole wheat pizza dough has a tendency of being tough, overly-chewy and sometimes dry. But last week I made a half and half dough and it worked out very well, so I thought I’d give 100% a shot.

The verdict? Not bad, but not as good as “regular” pizza dough. I think I’ll stick with the half and half from now on – and my wife agrees.

Most of the toppings were leftovers from the week, which was a great way to get rid of them all at once. The squash, spinach and onions were leftover from a sandwich we made earlier in the week and the purple barley (yes, it sounds weird to have barley on a pizza, but it totally worked!) was leftover from even earlier. For the “sauce” I used some grape tomatoes that I oven dried, packed in oil and froze for just such an occasion (and I still have the flavorful oil left!). No more Teese left, so it was all Daiya which was more than OK with us.

The only downside was the eggplant. It looked really good at the farmer’s market this morning so we picked it up. I sliced it thin, salted it for about a half hour and layered it on top of the Daiya. Unfortunately, it was just a little too chewy/tough which made not only eating it difficult but also cutting it. We ended up just taking it off and eating the rest of the pizza – an experiment not likely to be repeated in the future.

Vegan Pizza Sunday – 11.15 – Pesto, Roma Tomatoes, Spinach, Red Onion, Artichokes

A tradition we’ve started when football season got underway is Vegan Pizza Sunday. Every Sunday (that I have off from work) we sit around all day watching football and I make some kind of vegan pizza. I’m going to try and make it a regular feature here as well.

Pizza for us is like the soup of the day at a restaurant – a way to use up the odds and ends we have in the fridge. We have yet to hit a bad combination of toppings and tonight was no exception.

I started with a half whole wheat crust (all whole what just doesn’t work out the same way it does with all high-gluten flour) that had some basil pesto incorporated to give it some more flavor.

I don’t typically use a tomato sauce, opting for some kind of roasted tomatoes, fresh tomatoes or pesto. Tonight I had some oven roasted roma tomatoes that were strategically placed around so that each slice would have one. I brushed pesto around the tomatoes and covered the whole thing with spinach.

I had a little bit of Teese leftover so I used that, but it was mostly Daiya. I grabbed a 5 pound bag from Cosmo’s so I’ll have plenty in my freezer to use.

Some julienne red onion and artichoke hearts finished the whole thing off.

Baked on 500 for 25 minutes it was perfect. Everything was soft tender and flavorful. Another winning combination, but it’s not likely to be duplicated.

Quinoa Burritos

Sometimes, no matter how much we plan, something wholly unexpected happens. And sometimes it was better than the original plan. This is one of the those times.

I had been planning on making a quick vegetable stir-fry to put over quinoa for dinner. I already had the quinoa mostly done when my wife arrived home from work and asked what was for dinner. It didn’t really matter what I would have said, because she had a craving for burritos. Thinking on my feet, I switched gears entirely and came up with these.

As I said, the quinoa was almost done already, but I had time to add some cumin, which is all you really need to make anything taste Mexican. I had one remaining can of refried beans (the last can as I’ll be making them from scratch moving forward), so I got those hot as well.

Some baby spinach which would have been in the stir fry got marinated in a little bit of peach-mango salsa. This was our first time trying it and it was a success – we’ve purchased it many times since.

Then it was time to build the burritos. Whole wheat tortilla, spread a little Tofutti sour cream, refried beans, marinated spinach and the cumin-infused quinoa.

As I said, this wasn’t planned but it worked out way better than I was planning on making. We will certainly be having these again.

Updates coming, I promise

Work is starting to slow down and I can get into the kitchen at home again. I’ve got some stuff stashed and ready, but don’t want to post it until I can be sure they’ll be a steadier stream of updates.

We interrupt the complete dearth of meaningful posts

to inform you that vegan cheese has finally hit the big time. Daiya is as good as it’s been billed – leaps and bounds above Teese (which was no slouch, either). Hopefully they don’t pull an Emes on all of us.

Shiitake Mushroom and Bok Choy Udon Noodles

I love Asian-influenced noodle dishes. Lo mein, udon noodles, buckwheat noodles. But I’ve always reserved them for dining out. Why? I can’t make the sauce taste as good as a restaurant. Until now. Well, almost.

There’s a particular udon noodle that my wife and I love. It’s precooked and in the refrigerated section at the Dekalb Farmer’s Market. They’re pillowy soft and gigantically thick and work well as a quick stir fry or as a ramen-type ingredient. I’ll take a picture of the packaging next time I pick them up.

While we were there, I also grabbed some shiitake mushrooms and some baby bok choy. I like baby bok choy leaves, but the stalk has never been my favorite. So I came up with a way to make it a bit different this time around.

I trimmed the leaves into bit-sized pieces and gave a pretty fine chiffonade to the stalk, keeping them separate. I sauteed the stalk in some garlic oil until tender and added the mushroom. As soon as the mushrooms released all of their water, I added the udon noodles, the sauce and the leaves of the bok choy, stirring just until hot. This way, the stalk of the bok choy was tender and the leaves still crunchy – the best of both worlds.

The sauce this time around was some kind of crazy concoction of the following: cherry butter (by McCutheon’s), soy sauce, dijon mustard, sweet chili sauce, teriyaki sauce, no chicken base (by Better Than Bouillon), dried ginger and cornstarch. I was on a roll and didn’t measure anything or write it down, and considering I made this over a month ago, the fact that I can remember everything (I hope) I put into it is an accomplishment all on its own. The key was the cherry butter which has a wonderfully complex flavor filled with vanilla and cinnamon. It’s become my favorite jam/jelly and I routinely enjoy it with whatever nut butter I’ve made (walnut was the most recent).

While it was no restaurant-quality, it did relieve some of my fears of being able to duplicate it at home and I can’t wait to try it again.

Krispy Kreme-Style Doughnuts, Veganized

I’ve started deep frying again. I got rid of my Fry Daddy several years ago and never looked back. But you just can’t beat a deep-fried french fry. Really, it all started with me wanting to make my own potato chips (something I still plan on doing). Then I realized I could make doughnuts, too.

I had made the baked ones before (bought a mini doughnut pan and everything – used it once), but never the fried variety. So, with family in town, I decided to treat them for breakfast. Twice. I knew I didn’t want them to be like the baked variety, leaving me with Krispy Kreme-styled (read: yeast raised), so I went about finding a recipe. I came across this one and veganized it straight up. Ener-G for the eggs, soy milk for the dairy milk and Earth Balance for the butter. I also cut the recipe in down by half.

I then found this video which gave me a comfort level of being able to pull it off, so I went about it.

The whole process is pretty easy and anyone with a modicum of confidence in the kitchen (less would suffice as well) should be able to pull these off. I fried mine in my 3-gallon pot with less than 1.5 gallons of oil (to prevent it from burning down my house – I also have a fire extinguisher right next to it every time I fry something and turn off the burner when adding anything until I know it’s splatter free before turning it back on).

After removing the doughnuts from the oil I drained them on the paper towels and either glazed them (mmmmmmmm) or coated them in cinnamon and sugar (less, but still mmmmmmmm). There is nothing like still-warm fried doughnuts for breakfast. Just be prepared: it’s like a two hour process and you should start it accordingly. We ended up having them more for lunch, but that didn’t put a damper on their enjoyment.

I made them again the second day (bigger batch) but ran out of all-purpose flour, so I had to sub whole wheat. I also think I didn’t put enough yeast in the dough (I don’t measure it anymore), so they were a bit dense. I want to experiment a bit more with the recipe so I can get a good-for-you-if-you-ignore-the-fact-that-they’re-fried recipe in place.

Mango Salsa, Hummus

For years, I’ve been telling my wife I’d make her mango salsa. And for years I’ve put it off. So, I wasn’t surprised when a mango ended up in our basket at the farmer’s market, whether I was conscious of it or not. But there it was when we got home and I was left without choice. Fruit salsas are a great summer treat and are really easy to prepare.

I diced up the mango and added some chopped cilantro, sugar, salt and a very tiny amount of cumin (very tiny). I finished it with a quick splash of Simpy Orange with Mango Juice to give it the necessary consistency. Let the flavors marinate for a few hours or overnight (or several days in my case as I ran out of time) and you’re good to. Enjoy with your favorite chip, rice or chicken subsitute.

For months I’ve been meaning to make hummus. I bought the dried beans, but they sat in my pantry forever. Until I decided to just do it. So I soaked the beans overnight and boiled them until tender. Puree in the food processor with tahini, roasted garlic, olive oil, salt and black pepper. It took me a while to find the right consistency, so I kept adding varying amounts of tahini and olive oil until it looked right (well, actually, a little looser than what you’re expecting as it will set up a bit when refrigerated). The only problem? I oversalted it. A lot.

So a few days later, I put it all back in the food processor with more soaked and boiled beans and it came out much, much better. Frankly, and not to boast, I like it better than most of the of ones you can buy in the store. The other problem? I made too much. Like a half gallon, which is a lot of hummus for two people. But, it can be frozen with very good results. So I put it in smaller containers and froze it so I can pull it out as needed.

Vegetable Lasagna

We’ve been trying to eat more locally (much to the chagrin of my wife, who thought I was crazy before). So, we hit up a few of the local farmer’s markets to see what kind of produce we could find. It’s pretty hit-or-miss, but a few weeks ago, we managed to get a good haul:

Roma Tomatoes
Zucchini
Yellow Squash
Eggplant
Vidalia Onions
Bell Peppers
Shiitake Mushrooms
Peaches

We had gone into the shopping day with the intention of making two things: marinara sauce and lasagna with said marinara sauce, so we got exactly what we needed (and a few peaches).

I made my standard marinara sauce with the tomatoes, onions and bell peppers and thinly sliced the the squashes and eggplant, salting them to draw out the water. We did have a difficult time finding whole wheat lasagna noodles. It seems as though when I don’t need them they’re everywhere and when I’m looking specifically for them I can’t find ‘em. We settled for some organic noodles with jerusalem artichoke flour, which were pretty good.

To approximate the ricotta cheese, I had an idea that turned out to work extremely well. I took some Teese and put in the food processor, added roasted garlic oil, dried basil and some breadcrumbs until it go to the consistency of ricotta. Perfect. And delicious. My first attempt a few years ago was a disaster. I tried using mashed cannellini beans and vegan parmesan. Not terrible, but not even close to giving the same flavor or texture.

Layer up the lasagna as follows: thin layer of sauce, noodles, Teese, vegetables, repeat. I finished mine with julienned shittakes and sauce, foregoing the traditional final layer of cheese. Bake at 350 degrees until you can easily insert a fork all the way through to the bottom of the pan (about 40 minutes). Lasagna is one of those really easy dishes that pack a lot of “wow” when entertaining.