wild Javelina

Brussel Sprouts, carrots, sweet potatoes and fennel- Roasted until nicely browned, then tossed with a few cups of cooked orzo and a splash of balsamic.

Great dinner last night! This seems like a lot to type but this was super simple and came together pretty quick! The soup- with only a few ingredients, finishes with a really great flavor. The Dijon ‘chicken’ although vegan, was ridiculously rich and creamy. The salad has fast become a springtime favorite of ours, super crisp and refreshing, made up a dressing on the fly and it turned out to be a great addition!

Red Cabbage Apple Salad w/Poppyseed dressing

For the salad:
1/2 Head Red Cabbage
1 Granny Smith Apple
Toasted Sunflower Seeds

For the dressing:
1/4 cup Veganaise
1/4 cup Vegan Sour Cream
1/4 t. Garlic Powder
1/4 t. Onion Powder
1/4 t. Lemon Pepper Seasoning (or a squeeze of fresh lemon juice…I had no lemons on hand.)
1/2 T. Poppyseeds
Pinch of salt

Prep:
Thinly slice your cabbage and apple, I used a mandolin to get the apple really thin, and just did the cabbage by hand.

For the dressing: whisk all the ingredients together. (the above measurements are approximate as I didn’t actually measure- so be sure to adjust things to your liking.)

Plate up the cabbage and apples and top with sunflower seeds and dressing!

Cauliflower Leek Soup

1 Head Cauliflower 
2 Large Leeks (trimmed, white and light green parts only.)
1 T. Earth Balance
1-1/2 t. Kosher Salt 
6 cups Water
Curry Powder (to garnish)

Prep:
Thinly slice the leeks, and give the cauliflower a rough chop. Saute the leeks in the Earth Balance for about 10 minutes until they’ve softened nicely. Add the cauliflower, salt and water. Cover and stir occasionally for about 10-15 minutes until the cauliflower is fork tender. Remove about 1/3 of it and reserve. Continue cooking for another 5-10 minutes until the cauliflower has softened enough to blend. I used a hand blender, but you could use an upright or food processor as well- blend it, and add enough water to obtain your preferred consistency. Return the whole pieces you’ve reserved. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve topped with a pinch of curry powder. I don’t often make soups without a veggie stock base, but I really wanted the cauliflowers’ flavor to shine, and I was not let down at all.

Gardein Chicken Dijon

1 Package Gardein Chicken Scallopini
1/4 cup Prepared Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup  Earth Balance
1/2 cup Dry White Wine
1/2 cup Vegan Cream Cheese
1/2 T Herbs De Provence
A few pinches of Kosher Salt

Prep:
Pan fry the Gardein Chicken in a little bit of Earth Balance, turning occasionally until they’ve crisped and begin to brown on both sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Deglaze the pan with about half of the white wine, add the Earth Balance, and the Herbs De Provence- Watch the heat as to not scorch the herbs. Add the remaining white wine, mustard and cream cheese. Allow the cheese to melt and continuously stir the sauce, I used a rubber spatula as the pan was really shallow, but keep it moving.

Again the above measurements are approximate and I did a lot of tasting and adjusting along the way, you may prefer a little more mustard or like it thicker with a bit more cheese. But seriously this came out incredible! Plate your Gardein and load it up with the sauce!

This pizza turned out exceptionally well. Easily the best crust I’ve ever made- I’ll be using this dough recipe from now on for sure. Recipe from The Kitchn can be found here. The only mod I made was I added about a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar.

I hand formed the dough pretty thin- and then prebaked it at 525° for about 10 minutes, until it started to crisp and began to golden. Then I pulled it out and topped it.

For the sauce I found this recipe for alfredo sauce recipe at the ppk forums. I’ve attempted vegan alfredo before and never been too pleased with the results, but this one came out really really great! I modified it slightly by reducing the amount of garlic powder to 1 Tablespoon, and started the whole thing off by sauteing 3 cloves of fresh garlic in a bit of olive oil and adding that to the mix.

So, with the sauce done and the crust pre-baked, time to load it up. A thin layer of the sauce then some diced artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, sun dried tomatoes and just a bit of Daiya’s mozzarella.

I’m pretty stoked that Daiya is available around here now. I’ve been reading really great reviews of it for awhile now- Lets be honest- vegan cheese usually just kind of sucks, it’s always off in either taste or texture and sometimes both. The folks at Diaya seem to have gotten it right though, It melts really well, even bubbles up and gets stretchy and stringy. Texture aside- the flavor is really great… if you’re around the Cleveland area, I know it’s available at Whole Foods and Natures Bin!

Anyway- once the pizza was all dressed up, back into the oven for another 7-10 minutes. Took it out and let it rest for a few, finished it off with some fresh chopped basil and red pepper flakes. Seriously- if you’re craving pizza- make this! I’m really pleased with how it came together and cannot wait to try it again.

One of my all time favorite soups, perfect mid winter night comfort. I made up this recipe, and sort of wing it each time. Although I’ve added ‘Curried’ to the title, if you don’t have or don’t love curry- I’ve made it without before and it’s equally delicious, I just like the depth a little curry can add to the sweetness of the carrots and pumpkin. On this batch, due to time constraints I skipped roasting the jalapeno, but I prefer it roasted when time isn’t as much of a factor. Here goes:

1 onion- yellow or red
2 cloves garlic
2 ribs celery
4 medium sized carrots
2 15oz.cans pumpkin puree (Not pumpkin pie mix-make sure it’s 100% pumpkin on the label.)
1 can coconut milk
1 fresh jalapeno
4 cups (1 carton) vegetable broth
1-2 Tablespoons of yellow curry powder- adjust this to your own liking
olive oil
salt
pepper

Roast the carrots: Slice the carrots lengthwise in half, and then into somewhat uniform lengths. Toss with olive oil to lightly cover and add a pinch of salt and pepper. Wrap in foil and bake in preheated (450) oven for about 20 minutes or until tender. You can prep and carry on with the rest of the soup while these bake.

Roast the jalapeno: Just place over an open flame on your stove top turning occasionally with tongs for about 10-15 minutes until the skins have completely blackened, and the pepper has softened. Place in a glass bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let set for about 10 minutes, this will continue to cook the pepper.

Dice onion, garlic and celery,(and jalapeno if you’re not roasting.) and saute in a little bit of olive oil in stock pot or fairly large sauce pan. Add a bit of salt, and stir frequently until the veggies are softened, but not browned.

Add pumpkin puree and about half of the broth.

The roasted jalapeno should be about good now. The blackened skin should just peel off with your hands. If it’s not coming off easily or is too hot to handle still, run it under a bit of water to help. Once you have the skins removed, cut off the stem and remove the seeds and core (this is where most of the heat from the pepper is located. Removing will give you just a hint of the heat, and leave you with a lot of the flavor.) Dice it up and add to the soup.

If your carrots are ready, give them a rough chop and toss in with the rest of the soup. Simmer for about 10 minutes

Add your coconut milk, and curry powder.

Blend. I use an immersion/hand blender. However you can transfer to a regular blender or food processor as well- just blend it until its all smooth. (Be careful with upright blenders and don’t fill it more than half way to avoid face burning.)

Return to your pan and slowly add more of your vegetable broth, stir it in until you have the consistency that you are happy with. Simmer for about 10 minutes.

Taste it and add salt and pepper according to your liking.

This past week has been a tornado. I managed to find a bit of time to get some food thrown together however. Last Tuesday found me trying to get some laundry done, hosting Lost night with a few pals and attempting to work up some dinner with little produce, and some fridge items that were soon on their way out. So I stir fried it, and was actually pretty happy with the outcome. I had a box of Trader Joe’s ‘Beef-less’ strips with a fast approaching expiry date, and some black bean garlic sauce that was in a gift basket from christmas that I hadn’t tried yet, finally I found some rice noodles and decided I could make it work.

Heres what I used:

1 box Trader Joes Beef-less strips

1 red bell pepper - julienned

1 onion - julienned

1 jalapeno - julienned

2 cloves of garlic

3 green onions- sliced

handful of frozen green beans

1/2 teaspoon ginger powder

1/2 tablespoon sesame oil

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

black bean garlic sauce- to taste about 2 Tablespoons

a shake or two of soy sauce

handful of rice noodles.

Heres what I did:

Heat your wok or a large frying pan, when it’s hot add the oil, beef strips, ginger and soy sauce. Toss it a few times over high heat until you get a bit of texture added to the ‘beef’. While this is cooking, I’d get your water going for the noodles- prep them according to the directions and be careful not to overcook. Add the onion, garlic and peppers to your ‘beef’ and keep the heat going for a few minutes, until your onion starts to soften. Toss in the green beans and the black bean garlic sauce. (Go light on this at first and adjust to your liking- it’s super salty.) I lowered the heat at this point and let it go for another 5 minutes or so, the sauce thinned out covered everything nicely.

Serve it over the rice noodles, and garnish with some chopped cilantro or maybe some toasted sesame seeds. I had approached this dinner as a throw together just to get some food in me- but it came out really rad and I’ll certainly give it another go!

One of the main reasons I decided to make this blog was to record some of my cooking experiences. I suppose I’ll start doing that now.

I haven’t had much time in the kitchen this past week, which has been making me depressey and off. The combination of chopping holy shit out of my finger in an immersion blender, and an absolutely manic week/weekend at work has had me eating out a bit more frequently.

Aside from dinner, I was looking for a big pot of leftovers for lunches. I think this will do the trick, and both elements came out really well. Here are the poorly lit results:

Both recipes are vegan. The chili was based on this recipe from… and altered as noted, the pancakes are a made up/bastardized version of about 100 recipes.

White Chili:

2 cans navy beans
2 cans cannelini beans
1 package firm tofu – drained
2 anaheim peppers – diced 
2 jalapeno peppers – seeded and diced
2 cloves garlic - minced
1 yellow onion – chopped
4 cups broth (a no-chikn’ stock works great)
1 can of green enchilada sauce – medium heat level
2 limes
1 tbsp cumin
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp old bay seasoning
bunch of cilantro
dairy free sour cream
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

I added 3 stalks celery and made these mods:

used poblano peppers instead of anaheims, I used trader joes vegetable broth, and used a green tomatillo salsa instead of enchilada sauce, as I couldn’t find one that didn’t have a shit load of sugar. I didn’t old bay the tofu, and I toped with avocado instead of sour cream.

You can read the original recipe this is how I made it however:

Drain the tofu: wrap it in a towel and put it between 2 dinner plates and put some weight on top- for about a half hour, or while you prep the other ingredients: Smash your garlic and dice your onion and your celery. Heat up whatever you’re cooking in, and when it’s hot coat the pan with olive oil.

Saute the onion garlic and celery until the onion begins to soften. During… chop your peppers, then add the spices and chopped peppers. Saute for another minute or two.

Add the broth and rinsed beans, let this cook for about a half hour.

Add the tofu and enchilada sauce/salsa, cilantro and juice from about half a lime.

Let it cook for about another 15-20 minutes on a low heat.

Eat it!

For the Pancakes:

1 cup all-purp flour

1 cup corn meal

1/4 t. baking soda

1 t. salt

2 cups soy milk

1/2 T. white vinegar- i used a rice vinegar.

1 jalapeno- small dice

Mix all the dry ingredients  up- then add the wet, mix it, until it’s combined to a nice batter- but don’t beat it too bad, or you’ll have heavy, not so great pancakes. Toward the end toss in the jalapenos.

Let this sit for about a 20-30 minutes to soften the corn. Then…. heat a skillet and make just like you would make pancakes.