Late Summer Succotash

So to hell with E and maudlin moments of wistfulness and nostalgia... Back to food! ; )

Like the dirty blankie calling to comfort me, like that bottle of beer at the back of the fridge with my name on it, like that crack pipe hidden in a loose brick in my wall, who else could I turn to in my hour of need but the Vegetarian Times?

And what better recipe to use than one that just makes me quiver and tingle and shoot laser beams from my eyes all because the only reason it is not marked as vegan is... *seriously: hold on to your pooters and manjunk and any loose marbles in your pockets*... it has 1 T. of butter in the ingredient list. That's it.

Oh hell yes, VT--smack my ass and call me Sally, that's how infuriated I get with you sometimes. ONE TABLESPOON OF BUTTER, which of course can easily be substituted for non-hydrogenated vegan margarine with absolutely *no* decline in taste. *gasps of shock, horror, dismay, orgasm* In fact, I just left it out entirely (I tend to half the amount of oils/butters that VT calls for as a lot of their dishes are a bit oily for my taste). And as I'm sure you've probably already guessed, the dish was nonetheless absolutely delicious, despite the veganizing of the recipe.

And although the VT really deserves to get roughed up a bit, this may be one of my favorite recent VT recipes. It is so fast and easy that it will blow your mind ("That's what she said!"). And it has this *MIND-BLOWINGLY* delicate flavor to it that just makes you want to melt all over the seat you're sitting in. It is *absurdly* simplistic in its choice of herbs and dressing (just fresh basil and parsley with a bit of drizzled apple cider vinegar), but its simplicity brings out the powerful punch of all the veggies within. *AND* this recipe finally clarified what the hell "sauteeing" is to me. Make fun all you want, but I always just sort of thought "sauteeing" was just a fancy-people word for "cooking shit in a pan." BUT NO! Sauteeing means that you cook food in a skillet over medium-high to high heat WHILE KEEPING THE FOOD IN CONSTANT MOTION so that your veggies crisp up without sogging and also caramelize into those perfectly crisp, delicate little veggies that make your heartstrings purr.

That is the scientific definition of "sautee."

So yeah, check this recipe out. It'll seriously take you like 15 minutes to whip up, it's that simple. And it's *SO* good.

Oh, and the VT apparently thinks that this recipe makes enough for 6, but I'm thinking you'll be lucky if you get 3 servings out of it (if you're eating it for lunch and not as a side), so be forewarned.

INGREDIENTS:

• One 10-oz. pkg frozen baby lima beans, thawed


• 1 T. olive oil (or 1 T. vegan margarine + 1 t. olive oil)


• 1 small red onion, diced (1 c.)


• 1 clove garlic, minced


• 1 c. corn


• 1 c. cherry or grape tomatoes, halved


• 2 T. chopped fresh parsley


• 2 T. chopped fresh basil


• 1 T. apple cider vinegar (or white balsamic vinegar)

DIRECTIONS

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, and sautee 5-7 minutes or until it begins to brown. Add garlic and cook one minute more.

Stir in lima beans and sautee 5 minutes. Add corn and tomatoes and sautee one minute more, or until heated through, but tomatoes have not released their juices. Remove from heat and stir in parsley, basil, and vinegar. Serve warm or chilled.

(adapted from p. 70 of the Sept. 2007 Vegetarian Times)

South of the Border Couscous Salad

I am such an f-ing VT slut.

I'm all, I HATE YOU, VT! You're a sonofabitch and I don't want to get wit' you no more! and then 5 minutes later I'm like Oh, VT, oh do it to me dirty like that again! Oh yes, VT! Yes yes!

Yeah, what can I say: yet another tasty recipe from the magazine I love to hate to love.

'Cept I used tri-colored couscous instead of wheat. Take THAT, VT! OH SNAP!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 t. ground cumin


• 1/2 t. salt


• 1 c. uncooked whole-wheat couscous (or tri-colored)


• 1 15-oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed


• 1 c. fresh or frozen corn kernels


• 1/2 c. chopped red onion


• 1/4 c. cilantro, chopped


• 1 small jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced, optional


• 3 T. fresh lime juice


• 1 T. roasted garlic–flavored olive oil (I used 1 T. olive oil + two minced cloves of garlic--slabaaam! VT tends to over-oil stuff, in my humble opinion)

DIRECTIONS

Combine 1 1/2 cups water, cumin, couscous, and salt in your Rice Cooker and cook it until Rice Cooker says it's done (Rice Cooker is all-knowing, like heavenly Jeebus).* Transfer to medium bowl, fluff with fork, and let cool to room temperature.

Fold beans, corn, onion, cilantro and jalapeño, if desired, into couscous. Stir in lime juice and oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and add more lime juice, if desired.

*Alternately, you can combine the water, cumin, and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil--then just add couscous, stir, and return to a boil. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand 5 to 10 minutes, or until liquid is absorbed. (If you're one of those stank-ass rice-cookerless motherf-ers, that is.)

(Original recipe from the Vegetarian Times)

Quinoa, Corn, and Zucchini Medley

This week has been long. Incredibly long. Gut-wrenchingly, testicle-piercingly, nipple-pinchingly long.

What this has to do with this salad, I'm not sure. But I'm tired, and it felt somehow necessary to mention it.

I'll make it relevant though by stating that if you whip up this salad, your guts will *NOT* wrench, your testicles will *NOT* pierce, and your nipples will *NOT* pinch. How's that for a recommendation?

See, in THIS picture, it's NOT pinching your nipples:



And in this one, it's not piercing your testes:



INGREDIENTS:

Salad

• 1 c. quinoa


• 1 c. canned corn, drained*


• 1 med. zucchini. diced


• 4 green onions, thinly sliced


• 1/4 c. chopped cilantro


• 2 T. chopped fresh mint


• 1/4 c. pine nuts

Dressing

• 3 T. olive oil


• 2 T. orange juice


• 1 T. lemon juice


• 1/4 t. grated lemon zest


• Salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Cook your quinoa in whatever way you choose, with a 2:1 water-to-quinoa ratio (I used my rice cooker).

Make your dressing by whisking all your dressing-ingredients together.

Once your quinoa is cool, mix in all your salad ingredients and drizzle the dressing over the top.

(Make 4-6 servings)

PS. You ever notice how some of these cooking magazines take ridiculously long to explain a rather simple set of directions? This recipe was one such example. I just included my Occam's Razor, Cliff's Notes set above to spare you.

PPS. This is actually quite a good recipe--I usually get sick of my lunches by the end of the week, but I looked forward to this one. I particularly enjoyed how the mint kinda counter-balanced the green onions. It made my palate feel all well-rounded and shit.

(My modifications are asterisked. Original recipe from the Vegetarian Times, May/June 2007, p.40)

Toasted Almond Quinoa Salad

As I've mentioned on prior occasion, I'm a big fan of Nature's Bin, a natural-food store just a hop-skip-and-jump from my house, particularly because of their freakishly good (and freakishly vegan-friendly) deli selections. (You can witness the glory of their deli-food HERE.) And one of my all-time favorite things to get there is their quinoa salad--it is tasty, light, healthy, clean, and crisp. It is good good stuff. (Another favorite of mine is their delectable vegan spinach pie--I don't think I've ever been in that store without nabbing one.)

Anyways, as I've also mentioned before, one of the reasons I love Nature's Bin so much is that on the labels of most of their deli-dishes, they list out the ingredients. This is a vegan cooking-nerd's wet dream.

So this week, I finally decided to try duplicating their quinoa salad for myself. That way I could make it in bulk, I could make it whenever I wanted, and I could cow down on it for way cheaper.

And duplicate it I did. I will probably end up tweaking the soy sauce/lemon juice ratio the tiniest bit, but nonetheless, I was proud of myself for getting so close to the original. I *did* mix it up just a little by using both black quinoa and regular, and I recommend it. But it's not a necessity.

Either which way, this makes for the perfect lunch or the perfect picnic dish. And (almonds aside) it's fat-free.

NATURE'S BIN VERSION


MY VERSION


INGREDIENTS:

• 3 or 4 c. cooked quinoa--I used half regular, half black quinoa


• 1 c. slivered carrots (or shaved would work too)


• 1/2 c. thinly-sliced scallions


• 1/3 c. slivered or shaved almonds, toasted


• 1 handful parsley, finely cut


• 3 T. soy sauce


• 1 T. apple cider vinegar


• Juice from one lemon

DIRECTIONS

Mix the quinoa, carrots, scallions, almonds, and parsley in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix the remaining ingredients. Drizzle over the quinoa mixture.

Let sit for an hour or so to absorb the flavors. Serve.

Makes 4-6 servings

Two-Quinoas Salad

So I am back. In black. (In actuality, I'm black in lime green and mustard--it's spring, folks! I'm not wearing black when it's actually been nice and in the 70's finally all weekend!) Anywho, E, the boy, in all his diligence, patience, and computer-savvy wisdom, managed to finally fix my computer this weekend. So PICTURES!! HURRAY!! Long motherf-ing overdue, I must say.

Which means now it's time to play catch up, and I do that by starting with one of my favorite recipes from last week:

Have Cake, Will Travel's Two-Quinoas Salad.

Now one quinoa's good in and of itself--so just imagine how mind-blowing TWO quinoas would be in the same dish.

Yeah. You hadn't thought of the possibility, had you?

Anyways, originally I had just planned on making this dish with regular quinoa only (since I didn't have the "red")--but then I happened to be moseying past some grains and legumes and stuff at the WSM when I saw, guess it, BLACK QUINOA. I'm not sure that it's the same as red quinoa, but I figured, hell, close enough. So I nabbed some.

And lemme just say, if you can get your hands on some, you must, because it's SO. DAMN. GOOD. It's like the wild rice of the quinoa world. Regular rice rocks, but if you can mix it up with some wild rice, well, hells yes, your tummy will be hop-skip-jumping gloriously all over the place. Same with quinoa. The regular stuff is tender and yummy, but add in some black quinoa, and you've got a bit more texture and oomph, a bit more muscle, a bit more crunch, a bit more heartiness. It's good good stuff.

And so is this recipe. What first attracted me to it was the intermingling of fruit and veggies. I was like, Blueberries?? And fricking PEAS???? Um, what?!?? I didn't think it could pull it off, but it totally did. The blueberries and the dressing add a bit of springy sweetness while the veggies and beans add a bit more heft. Talk about good spring yumminess. This is totally totally it.

The only changes I made to the recipe were a) I left out the pecans (they're damn expensive, peeps--and I figured I could live without) and b) I halved the amount of oil. And truth be told, next time I make it, I am probably not gonna use ANY oil at all. Not because it tasted horrible WITH the oil, but mostly because it didn't add too much excitement for me, and I could just as easily do without the fat and calories. I definitely recommend though, if you ARE gonna use it, just using half the amount. Even then, it was a bit oily (though delish).

Variations have been included below...

INGREDIENTS:

Salad:


• 3 c. cooked quinoa [I used regular and black, but normal alone is fine if you can't find red or black]


• 1/4 c. raw pecan pieces (optional)


• 1/4 - 1/2 c. blueberries [I used frozen, just let thaw a little bit before eating]


• 1/4 - 1/2 c. green peas [I used frozen, just let thaw a little bit before eating]


• 1/2 cup cooked kidney beans


Dressing:


• juice of a 2 small lemons


• 2 t. grated lemon zest


• 2 T. rice vinegar (I used sweetened)


• 2 T. olive oil (next time I'd omit)


• 1/4 c. chopped red onion


• 2 garlic cloves, pressed


• salt and pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS

Place all ingredients in a medium sized bowl, and mix.

Prepare dressing in a small sized bowl, and whisk it well. Drizzle onto salad ingredients, and enjoy!

Thanks, Have Cake, Will Travel!

The Infamous Seitan Recipe o' Greatness

Mother of god--when I actually have a rare burst of spare time on a weekend with absolutely nothing I'm obligated to be doing, man, do I cook. (And watch way too many movies--but movies are good, what can I say.) This weekend it was ribz, sweet potato fries, orange chocolate-chip cookies, peanut butter brownies, baked seitan, pizza, and Steph's sockarooni pasta. Utter madness.

Where to start?

Well, I guess I'll head off the week with the Seitan Recipe o' Greatness which has spread through the vegan internet community like chickenpox. Or like leprosy. Or like the blustery snow this weekend over the streets of Cleveland.

I've been itching to try baking this seitan since I first saw it, primarily because it was WAY too easy-sounding to make. I've made the VwaV recipe before, but it requires too much effort for someone as lazy as me. Mixing stuff and throwing it into the oven: that's my cup of tea.

And this recipe is the cutest (if a recipe can actually be cute). 90 minutes after tossing this log o' goodness in the oven, it came out all red and pretty and looking like an animal-friendly Pepperidge Farm salty log o' saltiness. It was so cute that I just wanted to keep squeezing its cheeks and mumbling "Oh isn't the little loggy the cutest EVER! So cute, little loggy loggy. A-boo-boo-boo. Is da loggy cute? Yes it is! Loggy loggy."

And it was tasty to boot. Like I've mentioned before, I'm always skeptical when people act like a recipe is the second coming. But man, this was good stuff. I enjoyed nibbling on it all by itself. And it also tasted delightful tossed on a sammich.

My hopes for the future: to try out some variations on the cute little loggy log. But until then, I definitely recommend the recipe, as it is a good (and ridiculously easy) one.

Oh yeah, and months after having baked my vegan ribz, thinking that there was a different between vital wheat gluten and vital wheat gluten flour, I finally realized that the two things are THE SAME DAMN THING. Yeah. I'm a dolt sometimes.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1.5 c. vital wheat gluten


• 1/4 c. nutritional yeast


• 1 . salt


• 2 t. paprika


• 1/4 t. cinnamon


• 1/4 t. cumin


• 1-2 t. pepper


• 1/8 t. cayenne pepper


• 1/8 t. allspice (I skipped this)


• 3/4 c. cold water


• 4 T. tomato paste


• 1 T. ketchup


• 2 T. olive oil (I used canola because I was out of olive oil)


• 2 T. vegetarian Worcestershire sauce (or soy sauce--I used soy because I had no Worcestershire)


• 1-3 cloves garlic, crushed well (I just sprinkled in garlic powder to taste)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 325°.

In a large mixing bowl mix dry ingredients. Mix the rest of the ingredients (liquid ingredients) in a smaller mixing bowl. Whisk well until mixed.

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix well, then knead for several minutes.

Form into a log (6-8" long), wrap tightly in foil, twisting ends. Bake for 90 minutes. When done baking, unwrap and leave out to cool all the way. Then wrap it foil or plastic and refrigerate. Slice to use as desired.

[Oh, and belated side-note: For those of you who are vegan or have been privvy to another vegan's gas, you already know that vegans have 100x more filthy disembowelingly nasty farts than the rest of the human race. {{It's the veggies!}} Anyways, this seitan will a) triple the frequency of your gassiness for the day and b) somehow manage to quadruple the raw-egg stench of it to the point that you might actually be able to blind someone with your farts and/or take over the White House with them. I swear, yesterday after eating some of this for lunch, my cats every once in a while would look at me with a "Are you fucking kidding me? Did we do something wrong and you're trying to punish us??" look. So be forewarned.]

Peanuttified Coleslaw

On Sunday, I busted out the recipe for the Nappa Cabbage Salad with Peanut Dressing that I'd been eyeing in the Vegetarian Times--I knew I was gonna have to try it already after having seen it mentioned again on Two Vegan Sisters last week.

When I got to the grocery store, however, I realized I was feeling utterly lazy--so when it came down to the choice of either buying a head of napa cabbage (which the recipe called for) and the already pre-shredded bag o' various types of random cabbage (aka, instant coleslaw shreds), I opted for the latter. When I got home, I realized as well that I only had seasoned rice vinegar (which is SWEETENED rice vinegar), so I ended up making some adjustments to the quantity of brown rice syrup so that it wouldn't end up being overly sweet. I also only had regular sesame oil rather than toasted, regular soy sauce instead of low-sodium, and crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth, so I decided to suck it up and make do. I also realized I only had powdered ginger and didn't feel like running back out to get the fresh stuff.

Needless to say, the recipe ended up a wee bit different than the original, but after all was said and done, I really really liked it nonetheless. Granted, the original recipe could very well be leaps and bounds better than my version. But then again, my version was cheaper and lazier. And ain't nothing better than that.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 T. chunky natural peanut butter


• 3 T. seasoned rice vinegar


• 1 T. soy sauce


• 1 t. brown rice syrup


• 2 t. water


• 1 T. sesame oil


• 1/2 t. powdered ginger


• A few dashes red pepper flakes


• 4 c. shredded cabbage/coleslaw mix (I used from the prepackaged coleslaw bags)


• 1 sm. red pepper, sliced


• 1 handful of slivered carrots (also bought in a bag)


• 3 green onions, sliced

DIRECTIONS

To make Dressing: Whisk together all ingredients in bowl.
To make Salad: Toss all ingredients with dressing in serving bowl.

* * * *
I am still skeptical about it only having 160 or so calories per serving, but if that IS the case, all the more power to them.

{{For some reason writing about this peanutty coleslaw got that old Kriss Kross song "Jump Jump" stuck in my head. I don't even WANNA attempt to figure out why.}}

"Daddy Mac'll make you... JUMP JUMP!
Kriss Kross'll make you... JUMP JUMP!"

(Adapted from The Vegetarian Times)

Rerun

This weekend I made one of my favorite go-to recipes yet again: my friend Kristen's super-easy salsa chili. It seriously is one of my favorite easy-peasy recipes because it's beyond simple and because you can craft a completely different-tasting dish out of it each time with just a few very simple changes.

Basically, the main ingredients of the recipe that make it thrive are the three types of beans you pick out and the salsa. What's so delightful about it (and what I like to do each time I make it) is switch up the beans and salsa I use to get a completely different experience.

This time when I made it, I used kidney beans, black beans, and pigeon-peas (which I've never had before, and which ROCK). For the salsa, I used Arriba's Mexican Red Salsa which, as a stand-alone salsa I would NEVER EVER eat having tried it now, since it tastes more like a spicy spaghetti sauce to me than it does a tasty salsa--but it works well with the chili. It has a certain sweet zinginess to it that I found appealing.

It makes a buttload, so it'll make for a good number of lunches or dinners for the week.

And holy mother of god, if you top it with half of a diced up avocado like I did on Tuesday, you will just wanna explode all over the place. Good stuff.

Buttery Kidney Bean and Avocado Salad

As any of you who've been reading this blog for more than five minutes knows, I've had a long-standing and torrid (and sexy, and kinda sweaty) love affair with the avocado. Quite frankly, if I had a harem list of foods like I do my harem-list of famous-people (see My Personal Harem list in the sidebar here for more), the avocado would be my Julian Casablancas, my #1 go-to food. It is sexy and it sets my insides all a-flutter. It is, dare I say it, the perfect food.

So although this is not any real complicated recipe, is not even really a "recipe" per se, I felt the need to share it with you today. Because over the past week, my love of avocado has been reaffirmed (I've been lucking out with perfectly ripe avocado after perfectly ripe avocado from the market for the past couple weeks), and I recently realized that, if I were into threesomes, it'd most certainly be the kidney bean that I'd invite to join me and Avocado.

Seriously. Kidney beans and avocado? Surprisingly damn good. I think it's because as beans go, kidney beans are one of the more buttery ones in consistency, just like an avocado. And they are rich-tasting and velvety in consistency, JUST LIKE THE AVOCADO! And they're damn sexy!!!! JUST LIKE THE AVOCADO!!!!! I mean, seriously, how could you NOT let them go at it with each other knowing all that?

So yes. Though this seems almost not even worthy of its own recipe, given the simplicity of it, I figure it's worth noting if for no other reason than to get you out there and dabbling with an avocado-kidney bean threesome. (And yes, it's healthy, it's super-easy, and it's MAGICAL to eat. MAGICAL!)

INGREDIENTS:

I've included guess-timated proportions for the anal-retentive of you, but truly, it all comes down to portioning it out the way that makes you most tingly in your nether-regions.

• Shredded/chopped lettuce (About 1 cup)


• Kidney beans (About 1/2 to 3/4 cup)


• 1/2 of an avocado, diced


• One plum tomato, diced


• Salsa (1/2 to 3/4 cup)

DIRECTIONS

Toss lettuce in a bowl. Heat up the kidney beans in a microwave until hot. Toss the kidney beans, avocado, and plum tomato on top of the lettuce. Top off with salsa (not pictured here, otherwise it'd make a really boring picture).

Fire-roasted Quinoa and Black Beans

On Sunday, I decided to finally whip up Life Among the Trees' Quinoa and Black Bean Dish that I'd been eyeing for some time so that I'd have something for lunch all week. And let me tell you--it's fricking easy as all get out *AND* it tastes good *AND* (yes, I know you saw it coming) it uses Muir Glen's fire-roasted tomatoes. So seriously: how could you go wrong with this?

I only made two modifications to the recipe (mostly because I wanted to try to make it more soupy than dense--the end result was kind of borderline between the two) and that was to use canned corn and to use only ONE 15-oz can of black beans. It leaves the dish very potently tomatoey, but I likey.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 t. vegetable oil


• 1 onion, chopped


• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped


• 3/4 c. uncooked quinoa


• 1 1/2 c. vegetable broth


• 1 large can of fire-roasted tomatoes


• 1 t. ground cumin


• 1/4 t. cayenne pepper


• salt and pepper to taste


• 1 c. corn kernels (I used canned)


• 15 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained


• 1/2 c. chopped fresh cilantro (optional)


• A dollop of vegan sour cream per serving (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic, and saute until lightly browned.

Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with vegetable broth and fire-roasted tomatoes. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes,

Stir frozen corn into the saucepan, and continue to simmer about 5 minutes until heated through. Mix in the black beans and cilantro. Top with vegan sour cream.

Easiest Peasiest Couscous Ever

I swear to you, if you're looking for a freakishly quick lunch recipe, this is the one for you. It may not 'cause you to explode into a month-long orgasm, but trust me--it's tasty. And quick quick quick quick.

This recipe is for two servings.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/4 c. whole-wheat couscous


• 1 c. orange juice


• 2 T. soy sauce


• 2 T. water

(you can mess around with the soy sauce/water ration if you find your couscous is too salty--I've already adjusted it once, since I originally used 4 T. soy sauce and no water--but you may find it too salty still)

• 1-2 stalk celery, diced


• 1/2 of a red pepper, diced


• 4-7 baby carrots, shredded

DIRECTIONS
Toss the OJ, water, and soy sauce in a saucepan and bring to a low boil. Remove from the heat, and throw the couscous in the saucepan as well. Let sit, covered, for about 5 minutes or so. Fluff. Add your vegetables. Stir. Eat. Marvel at the fact that it took maybe 10 minutes to whip this baby up. Worship Lindy Loo and send her lots of money.

International Quinoa Salad

So I've been intrigued by quinoa for a while for several reasons:

1) it is spelled way differently than it's actually pronounced (my friend D's technique for remembering the pronunciation is to think of "Joaquin" of "Joaquin Phoenix"-fame and switch the syllables around: "keen-wa"--he is brilliant, yes, especially since I'd been referring to it as "kwi-no-ah" for weeks); and

2) it looks way too much like the little suction cuppy things on the tentacles of octupi:



Thankfully, it doesn't taste anything like them suction cups though!

For about three weeks I've had a box of quinoa sitting in my kitchen waiting to be used, and finally finally finally I was moved into cooking-action upon stumbling across Fat Free Vegan's International Quinoa Salad recipe--as soon as I saw them little octopi-suction cups in her picture, I knew that it was the quinoa recipe I was bound to tackle.

And I must say, there's a lot of chopping of vegetables, but short of that, it's a really simple recipe. The only change I made was to cook the quinoa in my rice cooker at a 2:1 ratio of water to quinoa (for this specific recipe, I used 1.5 c. quinoa and 3 c. water). And I used 1/2 t.'s worth of red chili peppers *in adobo sauce* (with the adobo-y-ness rinsed off) due to easy access.

The end result was a delicate and simple (but flavorful) salad with a clean and summery taste, perfect for a picnic or a family barbecue. I definitely think the avocado adds a lot to the dish (the creamy richness contrasts with the clean crisp flavor of the rest of the salad) but it is also a wonderful dish even *without* avocado garnishing it, given all the other contrasts housed within it--between the spicy peppers and the cool mint, the crunchy cucumbers and the softer quinoa. All in all, it's probably one of my favorite dishes I've made in the past few months or so...

THE RECIPE: Fat Free Vegan's International Quinoa Salad

And to top it all off, the box of quinoa I bought has this sweet little booklet in it that offers up recipes (some examples can be found HERE) and gives you about 15 billion different ways to cook it, from braised to quinoa-croquettes to alternatively-colored quinoa. And the recipes are arranged by the season: I got the Fall/Winter booklet this time around, so if you happen to be standing in the grain aisle and see someone fishing through all the boxes of quinoa, looking for the Spring/Summer edition, that'd be me. =)

E's Club Sammiches

On Friday night, E decided to make us a very sweet deli-style dinner which included some of the most genormous sandwiches I've ever eaten.

SAMMICH INGREDIENTS
(MAKES TWO HORRIFYINGLY LARGE SAMMICHES):

• 4 slices of homemade vegan peasant bread, toasted


• One package of Tofurkey brand hickory-smoked "turkey" deli slices


• One package of vegan bacon, fried


• 4 slices of vegan mozzarella cheese


• Lettuce


• Tomato


• Veganaise

Pile up all these ingredients onto two glorious sets of homemade bread slices and, voila, you have two killer club sammiches. Serve with crispy all-natural kettle chips and a deli-style pickle.

This dinner was one of the most filling dinners I've had in a long, long while. And one of the gassiest. But we won't go there.

Bean and Bourbon Soup

Despite our Weekend o' Bourbon, I realized on Sunday that I still had about half a bottle left. Erf. However, this inspired me as I was cooking a batch of soup on Sunday afternoon, and I decided to spice it up a bit with some of the bourbon. Now, I know that 1 T. of bourbon doesn't sound like a whole helluva lot, especially when you start making this recipe and see what a gigundous batch of soup it makes, but trust me, you will taste it. And it will be good.

Once upon a time, I used to have something against broth. I generally refused to eat soup because of the broth--if you can't CHEW it, then you're not really EATING it, are you? I think not. For the same reason, I never really was a fan of applesauce or mashed potatoes. But thankfully, I've been converted over to the soup-train! Glory allelujah! And now I'm all about the broth!

Point being: I originally intended to make a brothier soup with these ingredients, thinking that some of the ingredients would contribute water to the broth when they cooked. But apparently they didn't contribute as much as I had thought, so this ended up being a much thicker soup than I'd originally hoped. You could probably call it a stew, it's thick enough, but I'ma call it a soup, since it's not got that heavy, meaty, belly-weighted feel to it (though after reading this, I suppose their ain't much difference between the two anyways).

However, if I were to make this again, I'd probably only use half a pound of beans for the recipe, that way I'd have more broth to dip in. If you add the whole pound, you will have lots and lots o' beans and very very little broth; if you add half, you should have lots and lots o' broth and much less beans (which is what I'd opt for if I were you); and if you add a small child or a large teepee, you might not technically have "soup" anymore. So keep that in mind while cooking.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb. - 1 lb. of some sort of 16-bean dry beans (I used Goya's 16-bean soup mix) depending on how brothy you want the soup to be, soaked until beans are tender


• One 28 oz. can of whole peeled tomatoes, food processed


• One 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes


• 1 sm. can of corn, drained


• 1 large red pepper, diced


• 3 jalapenos, deseeded and diced


• 2 cups vegetable broth


• 3 cloves garlic, minced


• 1 t. cocoa powder


• 1 T. bourbon


• cayenne pepper, onion powder, and salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

Simmer all of the above until tender.

Only major tips: Make sure them beans are soaked to the point of being tender before cooking them, as they don't seem to tender up in the actual soup...

Orange-Bourbon Shishkabobs w/ Tofurkey Kielbasa, Blueberry and Wild-Rice Salad, and Mint Juleps, to Boot!

As mentioned earlier in the week, Saturday night I had plans to party it up Mark-Twain-style, and so we busted out the barbecue, the mint juleps, and the Mark Twain and had ourselves a sweltering, church-going, plantation kind of night! Why, you ask? Well, mostly just because I wanted to try out this Orange-Bourbon Marinade recipe I'd stumbled across and wanted to use for shishkabobs, which meant buying some bourbon, which in turn meant finding uses for bourbon, which in turn meant finally trying a damn mint julep, which in turn meant (of course) reading some Mark Twain.

Saturday afternoon, I whipped up this extremely simple (but flavorful) marinade and tossed some baby 'bellas, onion chunks, and diced up tofu into it to marinate throughout the afternoon and into the evening. I also boiled up some red baby potatoes so that we could throw them on the skewers as well and they wouldn't take excessively-long to grill.


ULTIMATE INGREDIENTS OF THE SHISHKABOBS:

Extra-firm tofu, chunks of onions, and baby 'bellas, all marinated in the Orange-Bourbon Marinade
One red-pepper, chunked
One green-pepper, chunked
5 red baby potatoes (pre-cooked and sliced in two)

Orange-Bourbon Marinade: RECIPE

E also found himself with a hankering for kielbasa that afternoon, so he picked up some Tofurkey kielbasa for us to grill up as well, along with a homemade batch of peasant-bread that he'd made the night before.


To top all that off, I picked up some no-cook fresh ears of corn at the market on Friday--I love this corn way the hell up... It is so gloriously sweet and tender that you can eat it right off the cob without ever needing to cook it. If you haven't tried it, you must.

And finally, I whipped up a batch of Blueberry and Wild-Rice Salad that I'd also been eyeing all week, and damn was it good. The most complicated part about the recipe was the dressing, but it was well-worth the grating effort. The only adjustments I made (or would make in the future) were that I used a variety of dried fruit (since I didn't wanna spend $6+ on buying a bag of apricots and a bag of cranberries) and in the future, I would probably cut the amount of oil in the dressing in half (if not more) as it was much greasier than it needed to be, especially for a fruit and rice salad. But seriously, well-worth the time and effort as it was wonderfully flavorful and summery-tasting.


Blueberry and Wild-Rice Salad: RECIPE

And of course, the night wouldn't've been complete without some homemade mint juleps... Man alive, these babies were strong--I'd imagine there's a helluva lot of drunken southern ladies sitting out on their porches, fanning themselves desperately on a nightly-basis if these really are the cat's pajamas down south. =)


INGREDIENTS (For one mint julep):

Ice
3 oz Jim Beam bourbon
5+ sprigs of fresh mint
1 t. sugar

Mix and try to make it through to that last sip, as it is the best one.

All in all it was a very spirited and fun evening, and I'd definitely recommend both recipes for grilling out with friends or family. I'd've said all that in a mock-southern drawl, but you'd just end up making fun of me. =)

OBLIGATORY READING: "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain

Road-Trip Noshes

So as I mentioned, I was in VA Beach this past weekend, which meant no cooking. However, I did manage to whip up a few goodies for the car-ride down. I had some pesto, cilantro, celery, and a jalapeno that were near the end of their lives, so I decided to utilize them so they didn't rot in the fridge over the weekend and made the following.

Pesto Pasta Salad

Macaroni Noodles
Pesto (preferably homemade)
Vegenaise (or some other vegan mayo)
Walnuts
Diced celery
Dried cranberries

Coat the noodles in a mix of pesto and mayo to taste. (If you make the pesto yourself, you may wanna just cut back on the amount of oil you use so your mouth doesn't feel like an oil-slick after you finish chowing down.) Then toss in the remaining ingredients, also to taste, and EAT IT ALL WHILE SITTING NEAR PORT-A-POTTIES AT A REST STOP WHILE A BIRD LANDS ON YOUR TABLE JUST INCHES AWAY AND TRIES TO STEAL SOME OF YOUR FOOD!

Black Bean Dip



1 small can black beans, drained (liquid reserved)
1/2 of remaining liquid
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large handful of cilantro
Juice from 1/2 of a lime
1 jalapeno, deseeded and diced

Throw all of the above into a food processor and BLEND THAT SHIT UP! This was a yummy recipe, but not nearly as spicy as I would've liked it to be (despite it being a fairly large jalapeno), so I'd recommend throwing in some cayenne pepper as well. Unless you're a wuss. You're not a wuss, are you? Huh, wuss?

Eat while driving through Pennsylvania or Maryland with a nice bag of Fritos Scoops. Well, not the BAG itself, but the Fritos inside. Otherwise that would probably taste like crap.

Roasted Couscous and Cranberry Salad

For a holiday cookout this past weekend, I decided to whip up a couscous salad of my own invention. Roasty stuff sounded good and fitting, so this was the end result:

INGREDIENTS:
1 box of plain couscous
1 bunch of asparagus
1 roasted red pepper
1-1.5 cups of toasted walnuts
A couple fistfuls of dried cranberries
Some homemade Roasted Red Pepper Dressing

Make the salad dressing the night before so that the flavors have a time to do their little copulative thang overnight. Whip up a batch of couscous according to the directions on the box or the bag. In the meantime, roast the asparagus for a few minutes in your broiler, with a little bit of olive oil. You can probably get away with roasting the red pepper at the same time, you'll probably just need to remove the asparagus before the red pepper. Post-roasting, dice up the red pepper into small pieces and cut up the asparagus into small chunks as well. Toss both over the couscous and mix. Crumble up your walnuts a little bit and then toast them. Toss those babies into the mix along with your dried cranberries and mix. Add the roasted red pepper dressing to taste and refrigerate for a couple hours to again let the flavors tango. Serve at room temperature.

A very nice mix of rich roasty flavor coupled with a sweetness from the cranberries will make your insides wanna make sweet sweet love to you. If insides could do that.

Makes enough to take to a picnic--about 4-10 servings, depending on how big of pigs folks are.

*Tip: Always roast your nuts. *Stifled giggle* It makes them a lot bigger *snicker* in flavor and brings out an even nicer, richer fullness on your tastebuds. Read some directions on how to toast 'em.

Tofu and Pesto-Mayo Sammich

Ok. So back a few months ago (four or five now, at this point) when I was still eating vegetarian (and not yet vegan), my absolute favorite sandwich used to be this sammich at my local sammich shop La Bodega that had fresh basil, tomatoes, a hunking slice of boccini, and pesto mayo, all on a couple large slabs of ciabatta. I was a bit sad when this occasional luncheon treat came to an end. There is little I like more on a sammich than fresh basil and ripe tomato.

BUT THEN!

This Saturday it dawned on me that maybe I could figure out some sort of alternative to satisfy this occasional craving. I had made and frozen some extra pesto (since I overbought basil on Friday) and I had a brand new jar of Veganaise in my fridge, so the gears in my brain started whirring. I nabbed some fresh rosemary bread that I had bought for Friday's dinner and sliced it up. I then topped it with some fresh basil leaves, some sliced roma tomatoes, and I mixed together some pesto and Veganaise and smeared it all oopy goopy on the other slice of bread. I then sliced up a leftover chunk of tofu into a couple thin slices and fried it up. Still piping hot, I slipped the tofu onto the sammich and chowed down while it was still steaming away.

Of course tofu doesn't have the same flavor as boccini, but it DOES have a remarkably similar consistency.

So Sunday, I tried again for both E and me. This time, I fried the tofu up in a tiny bit of olive oil and some rosemary. Much more flavorful though still not exactly like boccini, of course. But gorged on remarkably nummy pesto-mayo, I couldn't complain. Next time, I may try frying it up in a bit of lemon juice with rosemary and see how that goes. I also recommend pressing it because I'm certain it will fry up much better that way (I was just too hungry and lazy to do so on the weekend).

Any which way, this is a good sammich, and now I have a much lower-fat way to satisfy that La Bodega fix.

Sidenote: I have heretofore eliminated the VERDICTS section, mostly because it makes me sound like I'm tooting my own horn (which in turn sounds like a suspicious euphimism for, um, doing things to yourself that will make you get hairy palms). I will offer up suggestions, but no more ratings.

Topless Tofu-Salad Sammich

Click HERE for more topless pictures

Everything always looks better in a slight state of disrobement (except for old men in thongs), so I give you the Topless Tofu-Salad Sammich. As I've said before, I usually don't post about lunch-stuff, mostly because I'm usually lazy and just jam a hotdog or pbj in a sack with a piece of fruit and drag it in. But the other night I felt a bit more inspired, so I whipped up this sammich.

I have no exact measurements--it's kind of a "to-your-taste" kinda thing. But here's the ingredients anyways.

INGREDIENTS:

About 1/4 block of extra-firm tofu
About a handful's worth of diced up celery
A couple of tablespoons of Vegenaise (or some other vegan mayo)
Some dried basil
Some salt (but don't accidentally spill a bunch in there while refilling your salt shaker like I did or you'll end up dehydrated all afternoon)
A handful of walnuts
A couple slices of hearty grain bread

TO MAKEY:

Smoosh up the tofu in a bowl with a fork. Then add the Vegenaise and mix around. Then toss in the celery and basil, and swirl again. And then finally, take those walnuts and crumble them up between your palms and sprinkle the small bits and pieces in, and mix one last time. (The walnuts add a nice crunch.) Throw it all on a slice or two of hearty grain bread (I used a 7-grainer from the WSM)--you can leave it open-faced like I did if you wanna enjoy the flavors more, but just make sure the whole thing doesn't end up in your lap. Though it *IS* a topless sammich. So perhaps an afternoon rendezvous in your lap wouldn't be TOO terrible.

VERDICT: A

COMMENTS: A vegan friend who taste-tested said, "i remember having tofu salad at tommy's [a local veggie restaurant] once. i think i like yours better, though"--yip yip!

Half-Assed Strawberry-Avocado Salad

I rarely blog about my lunches because quite frankly, they usually suck. But this was pretty good...

Ingredients:

• Balsamic vinaigrette dressing (just some oil and balsamic vinegar thrown in together)


• Diced up strawberries left to sit in the salad dressing overnight


• Chopped up spinach


• Walnuts


• One dreamy avocado, scooped out seductively with each bite

Throw it all together. Eat. Marvel at the wonder that is the avocado. And then blog a little letter to it later, telling it how you feel:

Avocado, you rock my world. You make me tingle. You are sexy and smooth and suave and a bit feisty. You are the Strokes of the fruit world. I wanna marry you and have your babies. We will make sweet sweet glorious love for all the world to see because they're naughty like that too. Avocado, I heart you.

Seriously though, eating avocado always makes me feel naughty (and the combination of juicy, dripping strawberries didn't help any). I swear to you, it is the only food that actually has an aphrodisiacal (is that a word?) effect on me--sooooooooooooooo not good in the workplace. But if you ever wanna woo me into the sack, all you've gotta do is spend $1 at the Westside Market and you've got yourself a good start.