Tag: veganmofo17

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Food Blog Vegan MoFo

#VeganMoFo Day 3: I Read an Article About Protein-Packed Vegan Foods So You Don’t Have to (But You Probably Will Anyway If That’s Your Thing)

A.K.A. I Am Not A Nutritionist, But I Know How to Google

Listen, if you’re here, you probably already know that getting your protein as a vegan, like, ain’t a problem. That shit’s in everything. It’s B12 you gotta look out for, but let’s not get into that. But I went ahead and looked up some allegedly high-protein ingredients and picked a few to invent a meal out of. It’s like Chopped! But without the egos and arbitrary time limits and referring to dead animal parts as “proteins” (noun)!

  • Tofu – 10g protein / ½ cup
  • Quinoa – 4g protein / ½ cup
  • Spinach – 5g protein / 1 cup cooked
  • Sun-dried tomatoes – 6g protein / 1 cup
  • Lentils – 18g protein / cup
  • Pepitas – 9g protein / 1 oz.

From this, I propose: Baked tofu with a sun-dried tomato and pepita pesto, garlicky sauteed spinach, and a quinoa-lentil pilaf. Oooh. That sounds pretty good. Pantry ingredients include: garlic, onion, lemon, parsley, olive oil. I WILL NOT BE UNDERSEASONED. DON’T BORE NINA. (Wait. That last one is a different show.)

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Pesto: Throw all of this in a food processor and make a paste.

  • 1 cup sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, patted dry
  • â…” cup pepitas, toasted
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • Small handful of parsley, torn
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • Olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste

Smear half the pesto in the bottom of a baking dish, spray with olive oil, add tofu slices to fit, then spray with more olive oil and cover with the rest of the pesto. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes on each side (I used my toaster oven).

Pilaf: Saute the onion in olive oil, add bouillon, then add washed lentils and quinoa until a bit toasty. Transfer to multicooker, add 3 cups of water, and cook for about an hour. (I used the brown rice setting on my VitaClay.)

  • 1 medium yellow onion, minced
  • ~1 Tbsp. vegetable bouillon
  • ¾ cup French green lentils
  • 1 cup quinoa
  • 3 cups water
  • Salt to taste

Spinach: Wilt spinach in a big pan with a little olive oil. Add a pinch of salt and minced or microplaned garlic to your heart’s content. Splash with a good vinegar of your choosing. Serve.

  • 2 bags baby spinach (12 oz. total)
  • At least 4 cloves garlic, minced or microplaned
  • Olive oil, salt, and your favorite vinegar (I used balsamic)

The result is not the most photogenic dish I’ve made, but it’s pretty tasty. It could use a sauce, though. Why didn’t I make my usual tahini sauce?!

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Food Blog Vegan MoFo

#VeganMoFo Day 2: I Didn’t Get Fat Eating Kale

OK, to be fair, I was fat before I went vegan, but I also didn’t experience any kind of miraculous weight loss after I did, because god dammit, I LOVE SUGAR and I WON’T BE SHAMED. Anyway, among my favorite homemade junk foods is any kind of cookie, period, which I sometimes just make into a “bar cookie” (i.e. I put all the dough in a pan so I can eat it with a fork) because I’m the only one in my house who’s going to eat any. Ooooh. Evil. I try not to do it too often and seek out healthier alternatives.

One of the most fun ideas in Isa Does It is adding rosemary to chocolate chip cookies. GOD. IT’S SO GOOD. But I use a different recipe, because I like oats (fiber! so virtuous!) and try to use less refined coconut oil than her recipe calls for. That’s really an “occasional” kinda fat, and my junk food consumption is more frequent.

So I usually start with the “Monster” oatmeal & chocolate chip cookie recipe from Big Vegan, skip the raisins–I like ‘em, but they’re a bit much–and sometimes add chopped rosemary from my overgrown weed-addled garden.

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Food Blog Vegan MoFo

#VeganMoFo Day 1: Reinventing Beans & Rice

One of the most basic vegetarian dishes is beans and rice. It really gets around: all kinds of beans, all kinds of rice, all kinds of seasonings and regional styles. You’ve got your Hoppin’ John with black-eyed peas, black beans and lightly seasoned white rice accompanying Costa Rican cuisine, Spanish rice and refried pinto beans (usually smothered in melted cheddar cheese, ugh) on any plate of American-style Mexican food… I mean, I can’t begin to claim any preparation of it I’d make is truly revolutionary. It’s beans. And rice. But I can give it my own spin. It’s MoFo!

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First there has to be a sauce. A lot of rice dishes are seasoned with tomato sauce, so I’ll start with that: but roasted, for full effect. And I’ve got a couple poblano peppers, which are extra-great roasted. So I tossed some plum tomatoes, seeded poblanos and an onion with a little oil and salt and stick it in a hot oven until things are brown and blistered, then threw it in the blender with garlic to make a nice sauce.

I set aside most of the sauce and blended the little bit left in the blender with water to cook rice, then cooked a batch of brown rice in my clay pot cooker. It smelled SO delicious. Then I let that chill overnight to develop flavor, and everything comes together easily the next day: saute the rest of the sauce with some cumin and chili powder, add the beans, then add the rice, and stir to combine and taste. (It needed a dash of soy sauce.)

Served with marinated shredded cabbage and smoked jalapeno sauerkraut for crunch and tang.

And avocado. Duh.

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Food Blog

HELLO! THIS BLOG LIVES! Mostly for VeganMoFo, coming soon to a corner of the internet near you.

After last November – that terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad election; breaking my foot; not getting to finish all my awesome planned VeganMoFo projects – I pretty much abandoned this platform in favor of just posting shit on Instagram, which I do with a regularity that alarms me.

But I’ll make an effort to do more than my haphazardly hashtagged posting o’er there and write some stuff on here again. For a while.