Category: Vegan MoFo

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#VeganMoFo Day 12: Favorite cookbook

It’s safe to say I’m an Isa/Terry fangirl. Who isn’t? They both make veganism delicious, accessible, and empowering, not to mention a little bit punk rock. It isn’t just the recipes–it’s the ideas, the methods, components that I always return to. The books are well-organized with useful serving suggestions, menus, and solid indices. I use them all regularly, buy them for friends and family, and share recipes posted on theppk.com anytime someone asks me about vegan cooking.

So… I have to pick one?

Vegan With a Vengeance was the first vegan cookbook I bought for myself. I used it before I even went vegan (but was cooking for my longtime-vegan boyfriend). It came highly recommended by no less than John Darnielle on his old site Last Plane to Jakarta (maybe on the forums?) – specifically for the tofu ricotta recipe. Somehow, I needed that in my life.

Immediately I loved her approach to cooking. No apologies; endless room to make it your own. It resonated like whoa. My first copy got unbelievably filthy and filled with notes. The black eyed pea-quinoa croquettes with mushroom gravy were divine. I make the rum chocolate pudding cake all the time, though never with rum (amaretto or bourbon, depending on what I’ve had on hand). The maple-walnut cookies were my first-ever success with vegan baking; I made that thing my own and baked several dozen batches of what turned out to be chocolate chip trail mix cookies over the years for friends and for myself. (OK, a lot for myself.) The tofu ricotta was some kind of miracle at the time.

I know the books have become more refined and, in many ways, more interesting since that first one, and I’ll admit I use Appetite for Reduction or Vegan Brunch (shout-out to that book for basically being a bunch of mini-recipes that can be used for ANY meal, honestly) or Vegan Eats World (my mom made the BEST SPANAKOPITA EVER from there) or Isa Does It (signed copy from an event in Santa Cruz! so dorked out!) probably more often now, but you can’t forget your first. It’s not why I went vegan – Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals is what finally pushed me over the edge – but it sure as hell made me feel like I COULD do vegan, easily, creatively, joyfully. Thank you, Isa.

Note about the pictures: uhh… some of my books are hiding. So this is only part of my Moskowitz/Romero collection. They are all well-loved.

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#VeganMoFo Day 11: Focus on a nutrient

Listen, I don’t want to misrepresent: my knowledge of nutrition is very, very surface. So trying to be all, “Here’s all about this one specific thing!” feels disingenuous. My usual philosophy is just “eat the rainbow,” and it’ll all work out. But I can make something I’d normally make and tell you how it’s high in…something-or-other.

I cook tofu, quinoa, and kale a lot. Tofu and kale are both known to have decent amounts of calcium; quinoa is high in magnesium, which is important for calcium absorption. So, hey: let’s have a calcium dinner!

The tahini sauce (my usual recipe–tahini, lemon juice, garlic, hot sauce, nutritional yeast) and beets are just there to round things out. Plain steamed kale and quinoa plus simple baked tofu isn’t terribly delicious. Tahini sauce makes ANYTHING super-yum.

Anyway, here’s to strong bones, etc. etc.!

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#VeganMoFo Day 10: Something blue

Technically, food isn’t blue. But you can get pretty close: blue corn, blue potatoes, purple kale, red cabbage, black krim heirloom tomatoes… so why not combine them all in one dish?

Organic blue masa becomes blue corn tortillas – yum.

Purple potatoes and kale are sauteed with onions and garlic, then deglazed with water and lime juice for tanginess and stuffed into said tortillas, then smothered in mole negro sauce (from Oaxacan Kitchen) and baked.

Served with black beans (seasoned with onion, garlic, and oregano), lime juice-marinated cabbage, and diced heirloom tomato.

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#VeganMoFo Day 9: Most retro recipe

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Or…OK, the most retro recipe I can make that doesn’t completely repulse me and/or my boyfriend.

I went with meatloaf because everything about it feels very vintage Home Ec class. Admittedly, it’s not the kind of thing that I have fond memories of eating, but it’s simple enough to put together, and the Oh She Glows recipe pics made it look damn near enticing. Plus, boyfriend’s having a moment over black lentils, so I’d just cooked a huge batch. Seemed like fate.

The loaf I made and cooked about ¾ of the way two days ago–figured I could whip up the glaze and pop it back in the oven to finish while I prepped the sides. What meatloaf-based retro dinner doesn’t have sides? But again, I gotta balance the theme with our actual life/dietary needs and preferences, and I didn’t want to just make mashed potatoes. I went for some things that look beautiful at the market lately: winter squash and green beans.

As a kid, my mom always cooked acorn squash as a side by cutting it in half, scooping out the guts, and baking it with a pat of butter and spoonful of brown sugar. It made me learn to love squash, and while I don’t need to add sugar now, the preparation sounded like a good one to fit the “vintage” theme. I went with a delicata squash, which has flat sides and thinner flesh that lends itself to cooking that way. And, it turns out, this method pops up repeatedly in cookbooks from the early 20th century and beyond! Soooo retro.

Finally, green beans. Not green bean casserole; too processed and gross. But some simple preparation. One of these recipes that calls for half a stick of butter plus some kind of spice or herb. It seems there are a lot of these. Butter is easy enough to sub; I have a lot of herbs just taking up space in my fridge. No-brainer.

How was it?

I hate celery; boyfriend hates raisins. The lentil loaf featured both. But you know what? Pretty good. I also added some big fat slices of tomato with salt – it was in the high 90s today, temperature-wise, and I really needed something cool. The colors are good, and the textural and flavor contrasts work for me. Overall, the plate felt like some kind of weeknight dinner at a home with a decent garden (am I overreaching to say a Victory garden? probably)–homegrown veggies to fill in with a meaty main. And ketchup.

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#VeganMoFo Day 8 … Failure on a theme-level, success on a dinner-level. Pasta, kale, cabbage, tomatoes, black lentils, herb dressing with almond puree and lemon. Just needed to get dinner together with a minimum of heat, and this was all sitting around, just waiting to be used.

Sauce was the following, thrown into a Vitamix: handful of almonds, water to cover, juice of one lemon, two cloves of garlic, one scallion, some fresh dill, a little more fresh parsley, several rough-chopped basil leaves, generous shake of nutritional yeast, squirt of Just Mayo, black pepper. Turned out creamy and green but a bit thin, though not too thin for this application.

P.S. I’d still gladly make a new vegan friend, I just didn’t manage it today. I’m not that outgoing.

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Pretty much spent Labor Day on food projects for MoFo, and washing dishes for those. Only one was for today’s theme. I like cooking a lot, but this may have been too much.

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#VeganMoFo day 7: Make/eat something inspired by a book or movie

Tampopo is a Japanese cult favorite 1985 movie about food obsessions. It features several humorous vignettes about dining and eating and manners, but the main plot revolves around a struggling ramen shop owner/cook who seeks help from a cowboy-styled stranger to make the perfect ramen. This involves a lot of stealth competitive research to steal the secrets of great broth, noodles, and toppings, until she finds her restaurant is the busiest spot in town.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9m6FoSw4jE]

The trouble with Tampopo is that – aside from one sketch involving an egg yolk – it makes me crave delicious noodle soup, but there aren’t many places around that serve a veg-friendly ramen. And if the movie is to be believed, making great ramen is complex and time-consuming.

I like cooking, but I am not terribly patient, so to attempt great (or at least tasty, passable) ramen, I turned to the recipe developed by J. Kenji López-Alt at the Serious Eats Food Lab. He uses science and everything! (You may also have followed his now-annual adventures in veganism.) Sure, it’s a lot of steps, but I’m not afraid of a project.

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This required a hell of a lot of ingredients…

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First we start the broth (not pictured: broiling the garlic, onion, and ginger ‘til they’re a tiny bit charred)

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Then roast some diced sweet potato and beech and maitake mushrooms with Japanese chili-sesame spice

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Then simmer fresh shiitakes with more ginger, scallions, and a crapload of soy sauce and mirin for a tangy sauce

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Also make a ‘shroomy infused oil with dried porcini and shiitake mushrooms

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AND THEN! Strain the broth, make it creamy by pureeing some of the sweet potatoes and bring it up to almost a simmer WHILE AT THE SAME TIME cooking the ramen noodles (oh right, those)…

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Finally, mix it all together in the bowl with a mixture of miso paste, tahini, garlic, and some of that soy-mirin sauce, add the noodles, add the toppings, and…

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BON APPETIT.

Holy shit, this took like almost 3 hours to make and I basically had it for breakfast. But WORTH IT.

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#VeganMoFo Day 6: Recreate a restaurant meal

One of our favorite things to eat out is actually a dish we assemble ourselves: a roll-your-own fresh roll platter with faux fish, rice paper, and fresh herbs and veggies. Versions of it can be found at many Vietnamese and vegetarian Asian fusion-type restaurants, but we get ours at the Vegetarian House, a vegan mainstay in downtown San Jose, where it’s called the Sea Fruits Grill. The whole thing is enough for a very satisfying meal for two, and it’s fantastic in the summer heat.

Here’s their original:

A pretty big chunk of the work is assembling the components. It features mints and basils you’re not likely to find in many places, though luckily the Bay Area is incredibly diverse. The platter typically has: rice vermicelli with chopped scallions, thin slices of cucumber, mint, Vietnamese perilla, and Vietnamese coriander, with a big hunk of something meat-like and a bowl of warm water to soften the rice papers.

Vietnamese parilla has a strong minty flavor with an almost smoky edge

Vietnamese coriander doesn’t look or taste much like cilantro, but has a pleasant fragrance, so give it a try, haters!

Vegetarian House’s fake meat is a really tasty, flaky fish substitute wrapped in seaweed and crusted with ground peanuts and sesame seeds. Seldom satisfied with fake meat available in the grocery store, I wanted to try the recipe in Miyoko’s Homemade Vegan Pantry cookbook, which relies on yuba for substance, seaweed for flavor, and agar to hold it all together.

Yuba is the ‘skin’ that forms on top of soymilk as a byproduct of making tofu, and it’s chewy and a little bit slimy and can cook up crispy and flaky

The result: not precisely like the original at all, but still tasty and fun to eat! We also made a couple adjustments for nutrition (wilted kale instead of lettuce) and, well, negligence (I forgot to pick up a cucumber so I used julienned carrot), but it worked well. I even picked up the parilla and Vietnamese coriander at a local Asian grocery for a little authentic flair.

The just-barely-dampened rice paper is placed on a clean plate, where it continues to soften and become pliable while you pile on the fillings

Tuck in the top and bottom then roll tightly from one side to the other

Enjoy with a sweet/sour/spicy dip, like peanut sauce or mock nuoc cham (like that from Vegan Eats World)

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#VeganMoFo Day 5, part II: Best BLT I can make, with homemade marinated tempeh bacon, heirloom tomatoes, avocado, lettuce, Just Mayo, and Dave’s Killer Bread

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#VeganMoFo Day 5: falafel wrap overlooking Silicon Valley before a Neko Case show.

I posted this already, but the panorama shot made the actual falafel pic get lost, so… Apologies for the repost.

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#VeganMoFo Day 5: Best? Sandwich Ever! Well, okay, a pretty good sandwich – falafel wrap – with a lovely view, just before the Neko Case concert

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#VeganMoFo Day 4: Weird food combo you love

Maybe it’s a cop-out, but I can’t think of a single “weird” food combo I love. I watch so much food TV that any oddball combination I’d try seems based in legit cooking techniques. I even tried asking by boyfriend if he could think of something that fits the brief:

Boyfriend’s been vegan since he was 15, more than half his life. I can only claim five years or so. But it dawned on me: veganism IS the weird food combo, if you ask non-vegans.

I like pizza with NO cheese.

I like tahini sauce on kale.

Beans and wheat gluten make great sausage.

Nutritional yeast and tempeh belong in spaghetti.

Avocado replaces mayo on a sandwich.

And who needs cream when you can puree cashews and water in your Vitamix?

So I’ll keep experimenting and trying new things, because sometimes the weird becomes the favorite. Veganism forces this creativity by taking away a lot of obvious ingredients. It’s why I don’t agree when people say veganism seems too difficult: are you kidding – it’s not hard, it’s a challenge! Who doesn’t like a good challenge, especially when the cause is so important?

If you’re reading this and you haven’t taken the vegan plunge (heh), what’s so weird that you’re afraid to try it?

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Tonight’s dinner is an everything-in-the-pot spiced stew: onions, garlic, tomato sauce, sweet red peppers, serrano chillies, collard greens, tempeh, black beans, yams, zucchini, cilantro, cumin, and coriander. Not too shabby.

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#VeganMoFo Day 3: Quick, easy, and delicious

Often my idea of a “easy” meal still requires multiple steps and several pans dirtied. At the very least, I’ll typically use the rice cooker, glass baking dish in the toaster oven, and a skillet on the stove, plus at least a bowl or two for prep and mixing and a smaller container or blender to make dressing. The beauty of this recipe – which I have to admit is the only one that’s made it into my repertoire from Color Me Vegan – is that it’s a mere two pans, and only a handful of ingredients, and it comes together quickly. It’s my go-to on days I work from home and don’t want to take a long break. Plus, it’s not bad to look at.

I’ve made it my own, to a certain extent – I seldom follow recipes to a “T” unless they’re complex (or baked) – but it’s very simple. For two big portions, you’ll need:

  • Pasta of your choice, as much as you want to serve – something ribbon-y works best, a fettuccine or even a looser short pasta like these Baia Pasta corkscrews
  • One small or medium red onion
  • A few cloves of garlic
  • One small or half a large head of purple cabbage
  • Pinch of dried thyme and red pepper flakes
  • Handful of nuts or seeds of your liking (original recipe uses pinenuts; I often use hemp or pumpkin seeds)
  • Nutritional yeast and basalmic vinegar, to taste
  • Olive oil to cook

Put on a pot of water to cook the pasta and when it boils, cook it according to package directions.

While it’s boiling, prep the vegetables: quarter the onion and slice it thinly, and add it to a hot, oiled skillet to cook down while you shred the cabbage. (If you aren’t handy with a knife, the slicing blade on a food processor might work too; I get perverse pleasure out of slicing cabbage super-duper thinly with a big knife, though, but YMMV) Getting it perfect isn’t the point; it’s going to cook down a bit anyway, so the texture is not critical. Add the cabbage when ready (the onions should be starting to brown by now), along with the red pepper flakes and thyme. When the cabbage has cooked down some, add a little more oil if the pan is dry and add minced garlic (I often use a microplane; it really preserves that garlic punch while dispersing garlic flavor evenly). Add the nuts or seeds after that. If you like, you can toast them a little first, or clear space in the pan to toast them there, as long as you remember not to let it burn.

By the time the pasta is ready, the vegetables should be too. Drain the pasta and reserve a little bit of cooking liquid. Sprinkle the vegetables with nutritional yeast and add the pasta with some cooking liquid and stir to combine. Add more nutritional yeast or vinegar if you like, and eat it.

The same basic idea could be used with other veggies – I’ve done it with shaved brussels sprouts to great effect – or add tasty braised tempeh to bulk it up.

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#VeganMoFo Day 2: Recreate and veganize a childhood favorite

Lasagna is always a popular favorite. We made it as a family for as long as I can remember. My high school best friend and her mom had their own version that they made for holiday gatherings. One family vacation in Victoria, B.C. we dined at an Italian restaurant and were served seafood lasagna by mistake (but I loved it – listen, I wasn’t always vegan).

So I wanted to make a lasagna that more closely resembled the kind I had when I was a kid – ooey gooey cheesy lasagna. Except, confession time: I *hate* Daiya and the other “melting” vegan cheeses. They’re like the uncanny valley of food.

Since going vegan, the lasagna recipe I’ve used again and again is the version in Appetite for Reduction – the roasted cauliflower-tofu ricotta sub is rad, and an unexpected crowdpleaser: I once served it at my grandparents’ wedding anniversary/family reunion (the vegan option next to my mom’s giant trays of the normal stuff) and got compliments from people other than my health-conscious mom. But that’s not what I wanted to make today. Nothing about roasted cauliflower and tofu reminds me of my suburban Northwest upbringing.

Earlier this year, my local Whole Foods started carrying Kite Hill’s almond ricotta, and I couldn’t wait to have a reason to use it in a pasta dish. What better excuse than the MoFo? Along with that I’m layering spinach, tempeh crumbles (seasoned like Italian sausage), and sauteed mushrooms with a simple homemade marinara sauce, whole wheat lasagna noodles, and cashew cream on top to ape the gooeyness of a mozzarella topping.