Recipe-less stuffed mushroom plate

Baby bella mushrooms stuffed with more mushrooms, vegan sausage, panko bread crumbs, red peppers, onions, garlic, olive oil, red chile flakes, oregano, pepper and salt. Sprinkled with paprika. Cooked at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Mashed potatoes with Earth Balance, salt, pepper and soymilk.

Baby spinach sauteed with olive oil and garlic very very briefly.

Mushroom, onion and red wine tarts

Mom got me cute little tart pans; I thew together these babies to put 'em to use. Ingredients: (filling) mushrooms, onions, garlic, red wine, olive oil, sea salt, black pepper, red chile flakes, rosemary, oregano, thyme, (crust) whole wheat pastry flour, water, canola oil, salt. A little bit of bacon-flavored Cheezly is grated on top.

Vegan philly cheesesteak!

Tomas made the basic seitan from Veganomicon a few weeks ago, and when I put the leftovers into the fridge, right next to the Cheezly vegan cheeses I had given Tomas for x-mas, a cartoon light bulb brightened over my head: vegan philly cheeseteaks! Sorry the photo is a bit wonky from being taken at night/while I was starving and impatiently looking at a really delicious sandwich. We just toasted some regular sub type bread in the oven and sautéed mushrooms, green bell peppers and onions with salt, olive oil and red pepper flakes. The seitan was re-heated in a separate pan so it could get a little crunchy. For the sauce I made a roux of flour and canola oil, then added shredded nacho and white cheddar Cheezly, and added a little bit of garlic and onion powders, dijon, lemon juice and tomato paste. Totally irredeemable junk food—but totally delicious and fun dish to veganize since it seems just so improbable.

A word on Cheezly; this is the best commercial vegan cheese I have tried, but it is tricky to get in the U.S. Everyone seems to be out of it lately, I hope we can get it again soon!

More festive foods

I saw a recipe for something like "maple mustard glazed potatoes and green beans" in VWaV while I was planning my x-mas dinner contributions and spending time with the family. I thought it looked pretty yummy, but we ended up going with the standard amandine preparation anyway. I knew I'd make it for myself eventually, but alas, when I returned to my apartment I realized I had left the cookbooks at my parents house. Arg! Anyway, I decided to improvise my own recipe and it was *awesome.* It included: maple syrup, dijon mustard, olive oil, red pepper flakes, lemon juice, black pepper and sea salt. You whisk it up (the mustard makes the whole thing emulsify perfectly). I poured the mixture over some veggies in a casserole dish and baked until tender at 375 degrees. I've already made this again using brussels sprouts and I think the monster butternut squash on my kitchen table awaits a similar fate. Maybe also beets...or sweet potatoes. These are great on their own, but some leftover veggies/sauce + cranberries + pecans + baby spinach = best...salad...evvvver.



New Years Eve food included some store bought taro and red bean steamed dumplings and massive amounts of fried veggies (onion rings, sweet potato fries, whatever else was in the crisper...?) for no especially good reason other than perhaps a latent desire to give all of my otherwise healthy young guests some early coronary events. Anyway, my friend Momo and I created a very effective deep-fried assembly line and the best dish of the night was really his idea: champagne tempura batter! We dipped some baby bella mushrooms and some green beans in it and I have to say, the mushrooms were really the star here. I mean seriously, perfectly puffy, golden, fatty, little mushrooms. Nom. Nom. Nom. Everything was served with an impromptu aioli (roasted red pepper, vegenaise, white beans, garlic, basil, sea salt, pepper).

Champagne tempura:

*1-1 1/3 cups liquid: we used almost all cold champagne, but you can use water too. If you use champagne you'll probably need more liquid.
*1/2 cup AP flour
*1/2 cup rice flour
*2 tbs ener-g egg replacer powder
*pinch salt
*pinch sugar
*pinch red pepper powder

*mix egg replacer with liquid, whisk until frothy, add rest of ingredients.
*dip your veggies (mushrooms strongly suggested,) and roll in panko if desired.
*fry in canola or safflower oil.
*remove veggies from fryer, drain.
*finish with lots of black pepper.

Enjoy! And happy new year!

Noodles with eggplant, green beans and mushrooms

A Chinese style noodle stir fry: eggplant (Italian), baby bella mushrooms, green beans, sesame oil, peanut oil, sesame seed, almond slivers, scallions, fresh ginger, garlic, black pepper, siracha, ume plum vinegar, tamari, brown sugar and cornstarch.

What to do with chickpea flour?

Besan "quiche" with baby portobello, onion, walnut and chard. Dressed with red pepper aioli and basil pesto.

So I bought some chickpea (besan) flour my beloved local Indian market a few weeks ago without any immediate plan of action. I've been browsing some recipes (crepes, "omlettes," etc.) in the meantime, but when Roommate brought me hope a copy of The Voluptuous Vegan I was excited to find several recipes using this stuff. I tried out a quiche-like recipe though I changed it quite a bit. Mainly, I Italian-ized it and cooked it in a pie plate instead of a tart pan. It took much longer to firm up, and I still wanna tweak the seasonings a bit, but this was really yummy with whole grain toast, and homemade aioli (roasted red peppers, garlic, vegannaise, fresh basil, salt, pepper) and pesto (basil, olive oil, pignoli, vegetable broth, lemon, garlic parsley, pepper, nutmeg, oregano). Interestingly it reminded me less of egg than it did poultry. I might play that up next time and try a thanksgiving version with cranberries and sage. The crust is screaming for some breadcrumbs too. In any case, I'll post my exact modifications sometime when I have it down perfectly. In the meantime... someone should come over and eat the left-overs... There's a lot here!