Soba noodles with green avocado sauce, tempeh, and cabbage-tatsoi stir fry
The sauce includes the following, thrown in a blender until creamy: 1 overripe avocado, splash of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sesame oil, squirt of gojuchang, bit of green onion, handful of torn spinach leaves (to amp up the green), and a little water.
The tempeh was pan-fried in a cast iron skillet with sesame oil and soy sauce until brown, then I cooked the veggies (green cabbage, baby tatsoi, julienned carrots, green onions) with red pepper flakes in the same pan.
Maaaaybe a little too much soy sauce, but pretty good.
Tonight’s dinner includes mung dal, garlic-ginger kale, toasted cashew and tomato salad, and freshly griddled scallion roti
This was the best luck I’ve had with flatbreads probably ever, in terms of texture. The recipe is very simple: 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, 1 cup water, then kneaded in some chopped green onion for funsies (guess what I stocked up on at the market this week?). My usual inclination is to get the dough so it’s a little too dry; I let this stay a bit tacky and just used flour when flattening it out into roti, which I did with my hand, much like working a pizza crust. Cooked in my trusty cast iron skillet with some oil, it got brown and bubbly but remained soft and pliable. Definitely gotta do that again.
The dal is easy – mung dal has the wonderful quality of pureeing with a simple whisking once cooked, so that went in the multicooker with turmeric, ginger, and salt. After it was cooked and pureed, I threw in a little frypan on oil, toasted cumin and mustard seeds, cayenne, and coriander.
I made some quick tempeh-black bean chili with an onion, jar of whole tomatoes, red pepper flakes, ground ancho chilies, cayenne pepper, cumin, coriander, three cloves of crushed garlic, and a splash of soy sauce to season. It came together very quickly and cooked down to a fairly thick chili – you don’t really want to eat a soupy chili over a potato.
To complement that, I made a green sauce by throwing the following in the VitaMix and letting it go until it was a nice, smooth, creamy consistency: handful of cashews, smaller handful of toasted pumpkin seeds, ripped up baby spinach, a few sprigs of cilantro, two chopped scallions, a tablespoon of nutritional yeast, a pinch of salt, and enough water to blend.
The potatoes were just microwaved, because goddamn, 45 minutes is a long fucking time to leave something in the oven.
There’s also some wilted chard and red cabbage, just to add more veggies.
For boyfriend’s dad’s birthday we took our inspiration from the cuisine of Korea, with kimchi pancakes (recipe from “Vegan Eats World” and kimchi from Toofu at the Campbell Farmers Market) and brown rice bibimbap. His wife brought a non-vegan dessert that I complemented with coconut ice cream and strawberries (from two farms, so we could taste test – another favorite thing of his dad). It turned out pretty well.
Soba noodle stir fry with cabbage, onions, asparagus, red bell pepper, carrots, and chives plus sesame-soy baked tempeh. Probably one of the faster things I’ve thrown together, too – about 30 minutes.
Red wine-almond cheese reduction over roasted brussels sprouts, russet potatoes, and homemade snausages
Sauce was a healthy pour of red wine, three dollops of fresh almond milk cheese (Kite HIll), three cloves of garlic, a pinch of thyme, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes pureed in the VitaMix, then simmered down with a scoop of Earth Balance, and finished with a splash of soy sauce and balsamic vinegar.
Snausages are Italian sausage-style from Vegan Brunch.
Tonight’s sauce is… Almond butter orange sauce! Put two scoops of creamy almond butter, a splash of soy sauce, a few pieces of picked ginger, juice of one orange, three cloves of garlic, a generous squirt of gochujang hot sauce, and a few sprigs of cilantro in a blender with a splash of water and blended until creamy. Expecting good things when paired with rice, pan fried tofu cubes, and kale.
