Tempeh sausage pizza with fresh heirloom tomato sauce and onions and peppers with a simple side salad
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Author: vegansneedsauce
Not every meal is a winner. Sometimes things don’t quite gel. It happens. It’s still good. We all gotta eat.
Goddamn this is blurry. Like I said, nothing’s perfect.
This was a roasted tofu, kari squash, and red onion dish from Big Vegan by Robin Asbell. This is pretty tasty, though my squash took longer to cook in spots for reasons I can’t figure out. My oven usually does a good job.
To go with it, I attempted to combine a kale salad with soba noodles (by request). It didn’t work out as well. I didn’t dress it enough–should’ve made a sesame dressing instead of the simple rice vinegar and sesame oil drizzle–and the noodled clumped up when I tried to mix them in with the kale. Ah well. It does balance things out pretty well.
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Tofu chimichurri (baked) with rice pilaf and garlicky sauteed spinach
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Falafel salad and beet hummus
Occasionally we like to go to my boyfriend’s mom’s house and cook a meal together, taking advantage of her lovely garden and bountiful lemon tree. Today I suggested we take on a kinda-Greek theme–hummus, falafel, all that. I like having an excuse to plan a menu outside the usual weeknight dinner.
To keep it simple, we went with the falafel salad from Salad Samurai, hummus with beets, chopped fresh veggies to fill in the gaps, and some store-bought whole wheat pita.
It was pretty good.
The hummus was of my own devising. What we threw in the food processor:
- Can of chickpeas
- Dollop of tahini
- Splash of olive oil
- Juice of one meyer lemon
- Half of a small beet, precooked a little so it’s tender
- A few sprigs of dill, chopped
- Several cloves of garlic
All in all, a successful meal.
Later, we went to the beach and made a sand castle, just for the hell of it. And we saw dolphins (maybe).
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Veggie pasta with chickpeas
It’s the weekend, and I’m at the end of my weekly stash of vegetables. So what’s for lunch?
What’s in there:
- A bunch of broccolini, roughly chopped
- The last chunk of a small head of green cabbage, roughly chopped
- Some spinach
- Shallots, thinly sliced
- Four cloves garlic, grated
- Splash soy sauce
- Pinch red pepper flakes and dried thyme
- A can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- White wine to cover and simmer
- Rotini pasta
- Nooch BECAUSE EVERYTHING NEEDS NOOCH
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Fridays, I rest
At least when it comes to cooking. After a long and busy work week (and how is it that short weeks always feel just as long?), I don’t want to stare at my fridge and dirty kitchen. The weekend is for picking up the pieces, but Friday night is for respite, however brief.
Did we want to take our chances with the food trucks at the San Jose art walk downtown? I haven’t got the energy. How about a shorter walk, to that convenient palace of all things vegan and Supreme, the Vegetarian House? I’ve got a headache (on a Friday night, always) and that place is always loud. Then let’s hit on the thing that always feels just right: the homey, wonderful lentil stylings of our favorite Ethiopian restaurant, Mudai.
We’ve been going for years and the offerings have seldom varied, but the prices are right, the favors are always great, the atmosphere is unassuming and comfortable (OK, maybe a little less than pristine, but that only adds to the charm in my book), and the waitress greets us with a kind smile and usually knows what we’re going to order but leaves us a few minutes with the menu anyway. (She also typically remembers we are vegan and makes sure we get the non-clarified butter seasoning.)
If we order right, we clean the plate. The base is a veggie combo: a thick chickpea purée, spicy red lentils, stewed greens, and gently spiced potato, carrot, and cabbage. If we’re feeling hungry, we get an extra side of spicy ater kik, a garlicky stew of split chickpeas. Eaten with plenty of fresh injera, the best part is the bottom, where all the sauces and oils and spices have soaked through. It’s like home cooking from a home unlike the one you (probably) grew up in, but every bit as comforting.
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Fabulous roasted purple cauliflower seasoned with oregano, red pepper, and nooch. Dino kale salad with shredded carrots, cabbage, and cherry tomatoes in an almond butter-garlic-lemon dressing. Pan-fried tempeh triangles with soy sauce. Yum.
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So I guess the tahini sprung a leak…
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Fajita bowl dinner
The suggestion request via text was kale with black beans and rice in lettuce cups. We don’t have any more lettuce, and, well, I don’t think kale necessarily goes with black beans (I’m weird about that kind of thing). So the final plan was brown rice cooked with black beans, veggie fajitas, and a standard assortment of accoutrements to make this bowl happy.
The beans and rice were straightforward, unadulterated. Cooked the rice, added the beans near the end, mixed. Probably could’ve done it pilaf-style and it would’ve been tastier, but eh. Effort.
Fajitas–or really, a Southwestern-inspired vegetable stir fry–included:
- 1 yellow onion, quartered and sliced
- 1 green jalapeno, diced
- Several large cremini mushrooms, halved and sliced thick
- 1 yellow and one green bell pepper, sliced into 2" slivers
- 4 cloves garlic, microplaned into oblivion
- 1 tsp each coriander and cumin
- Handful cherry tomatoes
- Juice of one lime
I cooked them in my giant cast iron skillet, adding new items slowly in hopes of bringing out their best flavor and texture. It did sit around a bit long at the end, though, so the colors were lost. Ah well.
Then there’s the fixins: shredded cabbage, leftover homemade salsa from Sunday night, fresh avocado, toasted pumpkin seeds.
Verdict: could use more spice and salt. But filling and tasty.
I’ve been meaning to make Isa’s green lasagna for a while now, but I’m short on lasagna noodles today. I do, however, have a bag of whole wheat pizza dough–for everything I’ll make from scratch like it’s no big deal, I can’t be bothered with anything yeasty–and figured the same ingredients would do well in that format. I am not convinced I’m wrong.
Of course, that’s a bit rich–needs something crisp, cool, and tangy to accompany it. Like a salad. Easy peasy. No magic here, just a julienne peeler and stuff from the market.
And put it all together…I’m a happy camper.
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Putting one giant zucchini to good use… Savory zucchini bread and pureed zucchini brownies.
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Serious question: what am I going to do with all this grated zucchini? Thinking some kind of savory quick bread…
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Typical meal-planning
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Starting off the month right…
…with pancakes for breakfast on a holiday Monday.
I have an old recipe for “fat free” pancakes memorized. It’s probably not the best recipe for pancakes, but I picked it off of VegWeb ages ago and it’s been the easy go-to ever since.
The basics, because I’ve tweaked this to my own liking over the years:
- 1 cup of flour – I used ½ whole wheat pastry and ½ almond meal
- ½ cup applesauce – I buy the snack packs because it is the only use I ever have for applesauce so a jar would just spoil
- 1 cup water or non-dairy milk (water will produce a thinner batter)
- 1-½ tsp baking powder
- pinch salt
- splash vanilla (yeah, a SPLASH, who wants to measure that much in the morning?)
- blueberries if you’ve got ‘em (I didn’t today)
The important thing about cooking pancakes, in my experience, is the equipment. You need a really good nonstick surface–ideally, a well-seasoned cast iron pan–and a super-thin but sturdy spatula. Some basic cooking oil is required. Get it warmed up to medium, medium high heat. Pour batter in a third or half a cup at a time, depending on how big you like your pancakes (and how much room your pan has; you should have a few inches all the way around if you intend to get the spatula under there).
It takes practice to learn your pan, your stove, your technique. That “first pancake is garbage” idea is only really true while you’re still working out the kinks. So you put the batter in–see how fast and how thin it spreads on its own. How long it takes to warm through, indicated by the sleepy tiny holes and the viscous bubbles that grow and pop. The way the edges dry out and you can see the browning just on the underside when the batter cooks and begins to pull away from the pan ever so slightly. Making the perfect flip, no wrinkles or chunks left behind.
They weren’t perfect today, but they were tasty. A little on the thin side. Good with a drizzle of maple syrup and the market-fresh strawberries and raspberries. And I was too hungry to remember I meant to blog about the food, with pictures, until the last bite was in my mouth.
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Hummus twist
Pretty basic, but:
- 1 can cannelloni beans
- 4 cloves garlic
- about 1/3 cup almond butter
- splash or two white wine vinegar
- nutritional yeast and a pinch of salt
Blended in the food processor until nice and creamy. Good with bread (but what isn’t) and fresh slice tomato.