Archive for yum!

Lost Coconut Custard Pie with fresh strawberries

October 22, 2009 · Filed under cookbooks, dessert, yum!

I add ‘with fresh strawberries’ because Veganomicon’s Lost Coconut Custard Pie is not a dessert to be served to the faint of heart without plenty of good fresh unsweetened fruit on top. It is incredibly sweet. My son said something I imagine I will never hear from his mouth again–  ’I think it is too sweet for me.’

The tartness of the berries made it perfect, absolutely delicious… use organic strawberries because the pesticide commonly used on strawberries especially in California is frightening indeed!

Without the berries the sweetness overwhelmed. It isn’t just the amount of sugar, which is considerable– it is the naturally sweet flavor of coconut milk and unsweetened coconut.

I am not your coconut person. I wanted to make it specifically because my husband loves strawberries. And he liked it. He doesn’t have the sweet tooth that plagues me and the kids– so a dessert he enjoys is something indeed.

I used a ready made shortbread crust (gasp! sacrilege!). Isa has plenty of crust recipes in Veganomicon but I am just too intimidated by crust. I just wanted to try the pie. And it was good. Really good. I know I can make a vegan shortbread crust myself… maybe some day when I have a real kitchen again.

It was easy. Only two ingredients were a little hard to get. I had to mail order agar flakes,  a kind of gelatin made from seaweed instead of from animal bones, supposed to add some kind of nutritional value but I do not know what– ten dollars just to make a pie! But I can use it again.  I used unsweetened coconut flaked very small, not like the huge flakes of Baker’s you find at the grocery store. I found it at Henry’s. The smaller coconut flakes are more appetizing to me. I am just not a coconut person.

And because we are moving out of our teeny weeny apartment in LA tomorrow and checking into another teeny weeny apartment in San Diego Monday… well, we had to use it or throw it away and it wasn’t going to eat itself. Thank goodness for those strawberries!

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As the week winds down: Chick Peas Romesco with Garlic Saffron Rice and Chick Pea Cutlets with Mustard Sauce, plus Pound Cake

October 10, 2009 · Filed under cookbooks, dessert, easy, family meals, yum!

The Veganomicon cook book is such a score. Thank you Mom and Dad! It was my Christmas gift year before last and we have eaten so many good meals from it.

I made the soy yogurt pound cake last night, the lemon variation… the recipe is a little temperamental but it turned out YUM, YUM. I am heartbroken that in this land of Good Karma Rice Ice Cream and Mushrooms that Actually Taste Good, I cannot find agar flakes… I am dying, DYING to make up the coconut pie and put strawberries on it. I just know my husband will LOVE IT. Phoo. But I digress.

Supper tonight was Chick Pea Cutlets with Mustard Sauce, and Vidya’s South Indian sauteed Cabbage.

I will sing Vidya’s praises in another post. I want her to write a cook book. Problem is, she does not measure! She just knows. I will follow her around the kitchen one visit, and write it all down. Her cooking is fresh, flavorful, bright veggie heaven, often wrapped in beautiful light rice crepe thingies. But that is another post for another time.

The cabbage and cutlets weren’t particularly suited to each other but I wanted to use up the cabbage before it went bad. I HATE to see produce goes bad, and it happens far too much at my house. And I digressed again! But I hate to give you an incomplete picture of the vegan doins at our house.

Anyhoo… Chick peas Romesco is a brilliant, sassy, tangy little dinner, chick peas simmered in a slightly hot (as in spicy) sauce of tomatoes and roasted  red peppers. Deee Lish, especially served with the Veganomicon Saffron Garlic Rice. Son ate two bowls, husband gave it a thumbs up and ate thirds, little girl ate the chick peas but not the rice or the sauce. She will get there.  At least she got some protein.

I LOVED the Chick Pea Cutlets. In my opinion it was fine dining good but chicken fried steak satisfying.  You could really get your teeth into them, you know? And so flavorful with the Mustard Sauce– dijon mustard, cooking sherry, garlic, thyme, veggie broth, capers, soy sauce MMM!– also from Veganomicon. It was a real delight. And the little ‘un just slopped ketchup on ‘em and ate ‘em up.

This is another recipe that needs doubled if you are cooking for more than a couple of hungry people. I recommend that you fry, not bake. I baked and it made them dry and crunchy. A good soaking with plenty of olive oil before baking might have helped… also my delightful husband helped me make them and did not realize there was vital wheat gluten in them and so helpfully kneaded them even more than I already had… next time I think I will also cheat and food process the chick peas before I start. Forget mashing, too difficult.  So don’t handle these too much.

I wish you food even close to as good as what I have enjoyed cooking and consuming these these past couple of days. I just bought a sewing machine… it is about to be my husband’s turn as I shift domestic gears. Glad he is a good cook.

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Early week: Cauliflower and Cremini Mushroom Pot Pie with Olive Biscuit Crust

October 10, 2009 · Filed under I don't actually like vegetables, cookbooks, family meals, meat eater pleasers, yum!

Veganomicon’s cauliflower pot pie– heavenly! My meat eater husband said this is lovely. It tastes like meat! My son ate seconds. The only one not pleased was my six year old but she is crazy cause it was gooo ood.

Cremini mushrooms are a whole different experience from their pale, tasteless, icky counterpart the usual supermarket mushroom. But the white supermarket mushroom was all I could get in Alabama. I have never even laid eyes on a Cremini before.

I hate cauliflower AND mushrooms, but this was soooo good. The herbed white sauce is the best I have ever tasted and the biscuit topping is lovely too.  Just don’t handle the dough much, makes it tough.

Isa says to cut the biscuit topping into diamonds. Nothin’ doin’. In an expression of my feelings for the family I cook to feed each day and my sublime joy when I cook– hearts, duh!

If you make this for a family of more than two or three hungry people… I suggest you double it.

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This week: Salad, Stuffed Shells, Sweet Potato Pie

September 25, 2009 · Filed under cookbooks, dessert, family meals, keep up your b12, keep up your omegas, kid pleaser, meat eater pleasers, salad, sweet potatoes, what you *don't* have to give up, yum!

My Dad and Dr. Mercola are on a tear about how dangerous it is to eat large amounts of unfermented soy products such as tofu. I agree and tend to cook from whole food and use rice milks and ice creams instead of soy, but sometimes tofu or other soy products are just such a fantastic shortcut you just can’t do without it.

This week, per my meat-eater husband’s request, I made homemade tomato pasta sauce with fresh herbs and poured it over shells filled with Vegan with a Vengeance Tofu-Basil Ricotta. Even my picky kids had seconds. Delish.

The good thing about Tofu-Basil Ricotta (besides being soooo tasty smothered in homemade tomato sauce) is the nutritional yeast. Let’s be honest– the vegan diet can be dangerously short on B12. Long term effects of B12 deficiency can be very scary. Nutritional yeast helps right that imbalance. And it is tasty, tasty, tasty, too.

To go with, I served a salad based on a Nicola Graimes recipe– slivered blanched almonds, golden raisins, oranges. I added a few perfect mint leaves, citrus champagne vinegar, a little sugar, a pinch of sea salt. I sneaked in a huge nutrition punch with Udo’s 3-6-9 Flax, Sesame and Sunflower oil. You couldn’t even taste it, or its odd flavor simply complimented the mixture, one or the other. I served it on spinach leaves– c in the oranges makes the iron in the spinach available to your body– and it was so delicious, like a dessert. The kids even ate it, always the hallmark of vegan food success.

Finally… my stepson loves Pie. Any Pie. He is too big for me to pick up and throw on the bed or throw myself on him and tickle him like I could do when he was small, so I do a lot of communicating through food.

He requested sweet potato pie. I once claimed to make the best sweet potato pie in Alabama and perhaps throughout the southland. It involved eggs, butter, sweetened condensed milk, and resembled butterscotch pie rather than sweet potato. So good!  What to do now that I am vegan? I hadn’t as yet found a good enough substitude.

But Albertson’s had organic yams, and I resolved to be brave and try.

I was dismayed to find that any recipe called for egg replacer or tofu. How could I thicken without those? Egg replacer often has a ‘taste’ and I honestly am trying to get away from the tofu.

So I decided to experiment. I mashed together 1 stick Earth Balance nonhydrogenated vegan margarine, 1 HUGE sweet potato baked in the microwave, a cup of organic sugar more or less, a half teaspoon of allspice, a half teaspoon of salt (go easy on the salt, it is WAY too easy to oversalt!) and a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice. I heated this to melt the margarine, and then mixed 1/2 cup of flour with water to make 1 cup to thicken, and continued adding rice milk  (1/2 cup or a bit more, maybe?) and cooking til it was pudding consistency.

You have to cook flour puddings to a boil, stirring constantly to avoid scorching, to get rid of the floury taste. Once it boiled and cooled a bit  I added a full big dessert spoon of bourbon vanilla from Trader Joe’s and poured it into a storebought shortbread crust and chilled. Nutrition + pie – tofu or egg replacer = …

My son had two slices for breakfast. Ahh… he knows the way to my heart.

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Last week: Delicious, satisfying Stuffed Peppers and Tomatoes

September 25, 2009 · Filed under I don't actually like vegetables, cookbooks, yum!

My friend Kim gave me Nicola Graimes’  Vegan Recipes and I carried it with me across the country along with my beloved Vegan with a Vengeance and Veganomicon.  I tried several recipes, and they were quite good.

Once upon a time Bryan and I made stuffed tomatoes with onions fried and tons of fresh spinach wilted in bacon grease (!),  sour cream, onion, bacon, and salt and pepper. The resulting delicacy was so good as to send you into a swoon. I am thankful I no longer have a taste for that stuff… but if you can get bacon from ethically raised pigs… I would recommend it.

What am I saying???

We no longer do that. But if you still do that… anyway.

Back to vegan.

Since we don’t do that any more I was itching to try this recipe. It was something different but so very good, and low carb, only the rice was ‘bad’ and there was very little of it.

This would be a wonderful use for fresh, local, in-season or homegrown tomatoes especially. The filling is a tiny bit of cooked brown rice, almonds, herbs, onions, pulp and seeds from the hollowed out tomatoes…  fresh and light but also full of protein and flavor. So satisfying!

The weakness of the cookbook– which others might see as a strength– is that instead of prescribing how much salt and pepper to use, she says ’season well with salt and pepper.’ What does well mean? Without a baseline amount I risk oversalting and ruining the food. I have friends who don’t salt much. How they manage I don’t know… but this would be great for them.  Mmm, mmm!

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rich, delicious comfort food soup

March 24, 2009 · Filed under I don't actually like vegetables, cookbooks, family meals, kid pleaser, yum!

Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero’s Veganomicon is so full of amazing recipes. I tried out the simple, delicious chick pea noodle soup last night.

It helped me use up produce– a yellow onion, what was left of a bag of carrots, and a couple handfuls of whole mushrooms– that would have gone bad otherwise.

It was fast and easy and my baby tore it up, and liked it enough to take a thermos of it to school for lunch today.

Nobody in my town has ever heard of Soba noodles, so I just used a combo of spinach linguine and mini farfalle– added some visual interest.

I had soy miso, not brown rice– still delicious, though I did start out with 1/4 cup and taste as I added, as advised, to keep the soup from being too salty. 

I use vegan veggie boullion cubes– cheap and tasty.  I have no idea what the hell mirin is, so I used cheap pinot grigio (in an environmentally friendly cardboard bottle, natch) to deglaze the pan.

I hate mushrooms, and nobody in my town has heard of cremini mushrooms, so I just used up some I had in the house from a marinara I made. My baby loves them, I gave her all of mine, everyone’s happy.

And between the wrong deglazer, the wrong  mushrooms and the wrong miso the flavor of this soup is as rich as any made with meat stock.

You gotta try it! And doesn’t every kid like noodle anything?

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It’s too bad I can’t cook (or, black bean enchiladas)

December 2, 2008 · Filed under I don't actually like vegetables, family meals, kid pleaser, mexican, sweet potatoes, yum! · Tagged , ,

I really, really need to find another tagline.

I first encountered black bean enchiladas/burritos with the extra flavor and nutrition kick of sweet potatoes in Leanne Ely’s awesome Saving Dinner cookbook. It sounded gross to me but we had enjoyed nearly every recipe from that book so I decided to trust her and try it.

They can be enchiladas or burritos… I think I make them up as burritos, with no sauce and no baking, just cause I’m too lazy to take those later steps. Green chile and soy sour cream sauce and other additions for these that I find as I surf the internet for recipes sound appetizing… but I get so darn hungry.

My husband doesn’t like ‘em so much, but I adore them, and I adore the nutrition.

I love to serve them with a big bowl of Leanne Ely’s depression fighting, attitude adjusting, no winter weight gaining, cancer stopping veggie soup done up Mexican style. For my nonvegan friends I throw some real cheese on top of or inside the burritos/enchiladas. But they are nutritionally complete on their own.

I am a recent convert, so I am not raising my child vegan, just asking her to taste what I make and adding this or that if it will get her to try new things. Vegan is weird anyway… and then, we do eat a lot of exotic food. Middle Eastern, Indian and Mexican foods are not always that kid-friendly.

So when I am feeding kids I add even more cheese and call them ‘cheesy burritos’ or ‘cheesy enchiladas’.

You can get away with a lot, with kids, just by adding the word ‘cheesy’ to the name of the food.

And then all they see is the cheese, and they don’t really even have time to say ‘ew’. It’s just so good, by the time they take the required one bite (especially if you were smart enough to let them get good and hungry before supper) it’s too late.

They’re already hooked on something that’s also good for them.

Tonight I used this recipe from chef #788844 on Recipezaar:

http://www.recipezaar.com/Sweet-Potato-Black-Bean-Enchiladas-292128

But I did NOT use corn (that just seems like a bit too much) or green chiles (didn’t have any).

I cut up and boiled a huge sweet potato skin-on in hopes of preserving some of the nutrients lost when you peel.

I used my food processor to chop up a big onion nice and fine, not into a paste, but small. I sauteed that for a bit in olive oil, added a couple teaspoons of minced garlic, a can of black beans and the amounts of cumin chili powder and coriander called for. I let it cook for a bit just to be sure, but in the end I decided it needed more salt and chili powder. So you could add those a little at a time if you wanted, til it tasted good to you.

I used small tortillas and got about 15 or 16 little enchiladas out of them. I made a small pan with no green enchilada sauce for the little one.

I thought longingly of Karina’s recipe for homemade green chile sauce for her prizewinning enchiladas here,

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/budgetrecipechallenge/recipe2.php

but just dumped green enchilada sauce sparingly on mine so they wouldn’t be too hot.

It is not necessary to use soy analogs, as my husband calls them. A lot of people are against them for various reasons. A lot of vegan cheeses are YUCKY. But I need to buy stock in Tofutti- I love so many of their products, and I love these burritos with a smear of their guacamole-flavored Better than Sour Cream.  

Cooked sweet potatoes are an awesome food for infants/toddlers– my friend’s baby eats them like crazy and my child ate them like crazy and still does at five– just mashed with a bit of butter, or cut up into cubes.  They are very nonallergenic (sorry, not sure how to say that correctly) and they are such a wonderful whole food. 

I keep them on hand and feed them to my friend’s baby every chance I get. I use every sweet potato recipe I can find that sounds even remotely good. I veganize non vegan recipes– believe me, Kim without her sweet potato pie is not a pretty thing. And the hummingbird cake– HEAVEN! 

Sweet potatoes are supposed to be a fertility booster too– that was the original reason I started forcing myself to find every possible way to actually eat them myself, as opposed to just giving them to the little one.

But now fertility isn’t so much an issue… and I just love sweet potatoes. They are awesome in so many ways.   YUM!

So give this one a try. Hop it up any way you’d like.  If you’re put off by the sweet potato thing at first, just smother it with cheese, make up that homemade chile sauce, or use my favorite Better Than Sour Cream. Green salsa mixed with Better Than Sour Cream is darn good too.

I wish you many benefits to your health, your family’s health, your karma, and a healthier environment as we step away from factory farming for meat dairy and eggs– not only insanely cruel to animals but also making us very sick.

Enjoy! Salud! Skal!

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