Showing posts with label soy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soy. Show all posts
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Sunday Lunch
I have a bunch of cookbook reviews on deck, but until then, here for your delectation is today's lunch: chipotle baked tofu from Vegan Eats World, yellow garlic rice from Viva Vegan, and "kaleidoscope chard" from Trader Joe's, cooked according to the directions on the package. All the colors made me so happy.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Greek salad with tofeta
After the success of the cheezy broccoli soup, I was leafing through The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook to see if there was anything else I wanted to try. I've had that book for a while, but I tend to make the same couple of recipes. We came across the recipe for "betta feta" made with tofu, which to me has always just sounded way too weird, but feta is one of the things my girlfriend misses from pregan days, so she decided to make a batch. It sat in the refrigerator in its brine (made from salt, water, miso, and vinegar) for a week, and we faithfully shook it up every day. On Saturday I mixed up some Greek diner-style vinaigrette, and we had Greek salad for lunch:
The tofu even crumbles like feta. It kind of freaked me out a little bit:
Does it taste like feta? Not quite, but to someone who hasn't eaten feta for years it seemed pretty darn close, especially when I ate it combined with the vegetables and vinaigrette. I added some cold brown rice for starch, and this made a complete meal.
We have enough left over for a few more salads, and will probably make this again, maybe in the summer when we can get real tomatoes at the farmer's market.
The tofu even crumbles like feta. It kind of freaked me out a little bit:
Does it taste like feta? Not quite, but to someone who hasn't eaten feta for years it seemed pretty darn close, especially when I ate it combined with the vegetables and vinaigrette. I added some cold brown rice for starch, and this made a complete meal.
We have enough left over for a few more salads, and will probably make this again, maybe in the summer when we can get real tomatoes at the farmer's market.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
How I learned to stop worrying and love tempeh
Since I first encountered it as a college student, tempeh has been one of those foods I've wanted to like more than I do. It's high in protein and fiber! It's made from whole foods! It's fermented! But I've always thought it tasted kind of nasty, and I've avoided it for years. My girlfriend disliked it too, so I had no reason to try cooking it.
I'm not sure how it happened, but lately we've been talking about giving tempeh another try. Maybe it's because I decided seitan is a trigger food for me, and stopped making it. We both felt like it would be nice to add a little more variety to our protein options. I was looking through my copy of Vegan Eats World and found a recipe for tempeh chorizo that sounded easy and tasty (except for the tempeh part). We figured that might be a good gateway recipe since the seasoning would help disguise the tempeh. So we bought a package of tempeh and it was hanging out in the fridge, waiting for the weekend, when I do most of my kitchen experiments.
Then we went out to dinner to celebrate a friend's birthday. I have to say that with the exception of sushi, I'm not really a big fan of eating out these days. Most restaurant food has crack in it (read David Kessler's brilliant The End of Overeating to learn about how this is done deliberately), and when I find some that doesn't, I usually think I could make something tastier at home. So these days I eat out almost entirely for social reasons, and do what I have to do to make the food work.
We ate at One World Cafe, which is sort of the tempeh of restaurants. It has a lot of vegan options on the menu, and the kitchen uses organic produce when they can. It's wheelchair accessible. It's in a convenient location, although the parking is less than ideal. We want to love it. But the food just isn't that great. I know I can get brown rice, veggies, and tofu, though, so at least I don't have to carry a protein option in my purse.
My girlfriend decided to order curried veggies and tempeh over rice noodles. The dish looked beautiful, and the flavors were good, but the salt and oil in the dish were just overwhelming. I expect restaurant food to be saltier than what I cook at home, but this was really over the top. She couldn't finish it, and neither of us was tempted to take the leftovers home. I thought to myself, "I can do better than this," and on Friday night I decided to try.
I used this recipe as a guide, and came up with this:
That's tempeh with carrots, Shanghai bok choy, and fresh basil, in a sauce made with onion, garlic, curry powder, Bragg's, and coconut milk. I am not a fan of packaged curry powder, but I had some homemade Madras curry powder from a recipe in 660 Curries, and it worked well. I used an 8-oz package of tempeh and enough veggies to make two generous dinner servings. And we broke the tempeh barrier. We loved it. What can I say? Pan frying plus coconut milk makes everything better.
I did make a huge mess, though, and even working in shifts we were not able to get the pan completely clean. Next time we are going to try baking the tempeh in the oven to get it brown, and then adding it back to the veggies when we add the coconut milk. I think that will work a lot better and will also reduce the fat in the dish (although nothing can make this low-fat, because soybeans and coconut milk). We'll try out different veggies, too. This dish is a keeper.
That was Friday dinner. You know it really broke the tempeh barrier, because I made the tempeh chorizo for breakfast the next morning:
I followed the recipe in Vegan Eats World pretty much to the letter, except I used a lot less oil. I've never had "real" chorizo so I have no idea whether this tastes anything like it, but it's yummy so who cares. This is a great weekend breakfast dish that I will definitely make again.
And that, my friends, is how I learned to stop worrying and love tempeh. Watch for more tempeh recipes, and much more from Vegan Eats World, in future posts.
I'm not sure how it happened, but lately we've been talking about giving tempeh another try. Maybe it's because I decided seitan is a trigger food for me, and stopped making it. We both felt like it would be nice to add a little more variety to our protein options. I was looking through my copy of Vegan Eats World and found a recipe for tempeh chorizo that sounded easy and tasty (except for the tempeh part). We figured that might be a good gateway recipe since the seasoning would help disguise the tempeh. So we bought a package of tempeh and it was hanging out in the fridge, waiting for the weekend, when I do most of my kitchen experiments.
Then we went out to dinner to celebrate a friend's birthday. I have to say that with the exception of sushi, I'm not really a big fan of eating out these days. Most restaurant food has crack in it (read David Kessler's brilliant The End of Overeating to learn about how this is done deliberately), and when I find some that doesn't, I usually think I could make something tastier at home. So these days I eat out almost entirely for social reasons, and do what I have to do to make the food work.
We ate at One World Cafe, which is sort of the tempeh of restaurants. It has a lot of vegan options on the menu, and the kitchen uses organic produce when they can. It's wheelchair accessible. It's in a convenient location, although the parking is less than ideal. We want to love it. But the food just isn't that great. I know I can get brown rice, veggies, and tofu, though, so at least I don't have to carry a protein option in my purse.
My girlfriend decided to order curried veggies and tempeh over rice noodles. The dish looked beautiful, and the flavors were good, but the salt and oil in the dish were just overwhelming. I expect restaurant food to be saltier than what I cook at home, but this was really over the top. She couldn't finish it, and neither of us was tempted to take the leftovers home. I thought to myself, "I can do better than this," and on Friday night I decided to try.
I used this recipe as a guide, and came up with this:
That's tempeh with carrots, Shanghai bok choy, and fresh basil, in a sauce made with onion, garlic, curry powder, Bragg's, and coconut milk. I am not a fan of packaged curry powder, but I had some homemade Madras curry powder from a recipe in 660 Curries, and it worked well. I used an 8-oz package of tempeh and enough veggies to make two generous dinner servings. And we broke the tempeh barrier. We loved it. What can I say? Pan frying plus coconut milk makes everything better.
I did make a huge mess, though, and even working in shifts we were not able to get the pan completely clean. Next time we are going to try baking the tempeh in the oven to get it brown, and then adding it back to the veggies when we add the coconut milk. I think that will work a lot better and will also reduce the fat in the dish (although nothing can make this low-fat, because soybeans and coconut milk). We'll try out different veggies, too. This dish is a keeper.
That was Friday dinner. You know it really broke the tempeh barrier, because I made the tempeh chorizo for breakfast the next morning:
I followed the recipe in Vegan Eats World pretty much to the letter, except I used a lot less oil. I've never had "real" chorizo so I have no idea whether this tastes anything like it, but it's yummy so who cares. This is a great weekend breakfast dish that I will definitely make again.
 |
| Breakfast of champions: temprizo, reheated baked potato, and a very ripe banana. Om nom nom. |
Friday, February 1, 2013
Broccoli cheezy soup -- a decadent meal in a bowl
It all started with the squasheeta.
I came across this recipe for "butternut squasheeta" and had to try it, partly because I'd never made a squash-based cheez recipe before, but mostly because I loved the name. I mostly followed the recipe -- I included a generous tablespoon of the optional miso, and only used one teaspoon of olive oil to roast the squash, which turned out to be plenty -- and it was great. I made this ahead of time and didn't use any water. It was velvety and thick and beautifully orange (and like an idiot, I didn't take a picture). When it was time to actually eat it, I heated up the portion we were going to use with some plain unsweetened soy milk to take it from a spread to more of a sauce consistency.
The only problem with this orange goodness is I was having trouble fitting it into my meal planning. See, a standard dinner at my house is starch, legume, vegetable. Butternut squash is a starch, but squasheeta cries out to be eaten with more starch -- over pasta if you eat pasta, or rice, or a baked potato. The first night we had it, I ate it with rice, broccoli, and a side of baked tofu. That was good, but after that I was having trouble figuring out how else to eat it.
Yesterday it occurred to me to make it into soup. I had about half the squasheeta left at that point, and I knew I wanted to add protein so the soup could be a complete meal. Silken tofu to the rescue! Here's what I did:
Broccoli Squasheeta Soup
Makes 2 meal-sized servings
About 1/2 recipe butternut squasheeta
12-oz package silken tofu (I used extra firm)
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
2 T lemon juice
1 generous T white miso
unsweetened, plain nondairy milk of choice (I used almond, because that's what was available)
1 lb broccoli florets
First, put some nutritional yeast in your cat's food dish, so he doesn't drive you nuts while you're cooking. Actually, lock the more rambunctious cat in the bedroom, and give the more well-behaved one (who also knows how to open doors) some nooch in his food dish.
Puree the silken tofu until it is very smooth. I was feeling lazy so I just dumped it in the cooking pot and used my immersion blender.
Add the squasheeta and stir to combine. Now you have a yellow mass of creamy goodness that tastes kind of bland.
Add the nooch, lemon juice, and miso, and use the immersion blender again to combine and make very smooth. Turn on the stove
Slowly heat up the soup mixture, stirring in milk of choice until you get to the consistency you want. At some point you will want to cover the pot because it'll start blorping and spitting all over the stove.
Add your broccoli florets. I used frozen broccoli and dumped it directly in the soup. You could also use either fresh or frozen and cook it separately. When the soup and broccoli are hot all the way through, it's done!
Tell the cat he'll get his when you're finished.
My girlfriend pronounced this the best cheezy soup I've ever made. I'm thinking it's the super smoothness of the squash and tofu. In the future, if I didn't already have squasheeta on hand, I think I would just use some plain baked squash, processed until it was super smooth, and add additional miso, lemon, nooch, and maybe some garlic powder. If you're allergic to soy, you could follow Jo Stepaniak's suggestion and use pureed white beans instead of tofu, but it won't be as rich and decadent tasting.
It was really good with some of this sprinkled on top:
My latest Trader Joe's purchase. Smoked paprika, garlic, and salt in a cute little grinder. Essentially, it's calorie-free vegan Bac-os. Om nom nom.
I came across this recipe for "butternut squasheeta" and had to try it, partly because I'd never made a squash-based cheez recipe before, but mostly because I loved the name. I mostly followed the recipe -- I included a generous tablespoon of the optional miso, and only used one teaspoon of olive oil to roast the squash, which turned out to be plenty -- and it was great. I made this ahead of time and didn't use any water. It was velvety and thick and beautifully orange (and like an idiot, I didn't take a picture). When it was time to actually eat it, I heated up the portion we were going to use with some plain unsweetened soy milk to take it from a spread to more of a sauce consistency.
The only problem with this orange goodness is I was having trouble fitting it into my meal planning. See, a standard dinner at my house is starch, legume, vegetable. Butternut squash is a starch, but squasheeta cries out to be eaten with more starch -- over pasta if you eat pasta, or rice, or a baked potato. The first night we had it, I ate it with rice, broccoli, and a side of baked tofu. That was good, but after that I was having trouble figuring out how else to eat it.
Yesterday it occurred to me to make it into soup. I had about half the squasheeta left at that point, and I knew I wanted to add protein so the soup could be a complete meal. Silken tofu to the rescue! Here's what I did:
Broccoli Squasheeta Soup
Makes 2 meal-sized servings
About 1/2 recipe butternut squasheeta
12-oz package silken tofu (I used extra firm)
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
2 T lemon juice
1 generous T white miso
unsweetened, plain nondairy milk of choice (I used almond, because that's what was available)
1 lb broccoli florets
First, put some nutritional yeast in your cat's food dish, so he doesn't drive you nuts while you're cooking. Actually, lock the more rambunctious cat in the bedroom, and give the more well-behaved one (who also knows how to open doors) some nooch in his food dish.
Puree the silken tofu until it is very smooth. I was feeling lazy so I just dumped it in the cooking pot and used my immersion blender.
Add the squasheeta and stir to combine. Now you have a yellow mass of creamy goodness that tastes kind of bland.
Add the nooch, lemon juice, and miso, and use the immersion blender again to combine and make very smooth. Turn on the stove
Slowly heat up the soup mixture, stirring in milk of choice until you get to the consistency you want. At some point you will want to cover the pot because it'll start blorping and spitting all over the stove.
Add your broccoli florets. I used frozen broccoli and dumped it directly in the soup. You could also use either fresh or frozen and cook it separately. When the soup and broccoli are hot all the way through, it's done!
Tell the cat he'll get his when you're finished.
My girlfriend pronounced this the best cheezy soup I've ever made. I'm thinking it's the super smoothness of the squash and tofu. In the future, if I didn't already have squasheeta on hand, I think I would just use some plain baked squash, processed until it was super smooth, and add additional miso, lemon, nooch, and maybe some garlic powder. If you're allergic to soy, you could follow Jo Stepaniak's suggestion and use pureed white beans instead of tofu, but it won't be as rich and decadent tasting.
It was really good with some of this sprinkled on top:
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
How to go vegan
Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times's "Well" blog has put up a nice post titled "How to Go Vegan." She interviewed my favorite vegan blogger, Susan Voisin, and the post has generated a lot of great comments. In fact, some of the comments are better than the original post. It's worth a read, and it inspired me to come up with my own list of "how to go vegan" tips.
- Do it for the animals. Lately it seems like a lot of people are adopting vegan diets, or veganish ones, for their health. A vegan diet can certainly make you healthier -- it's done that for me -- but from my perspective, that's more of a side effect than the main goal. My personal experience is that if I'm trying to make a dietary change for my own health, I'm much less likely to stick with it than I am if I'm doing it for ethical reasons. Read about factory farming. Check out the pictures and videos Compassion Over Killing has taken at farms and slaughterhouses. Watch "Meet Your Meat." I know, I know, PeTA, but they really have done some good work here. Visit a farmed animal sanctuary, get to know the animals, and hear their stories. Your mileage may vary, but my own experience has been that even after a significant health scare (or series of scares), compassion for other creatures is a much stronger motivator than fear for my own well-being.
- Don't neglect umami. Umami, the "savory" taste, is one of the things people miss most about meat and cheese. Seeking out vegan sources of umami -- miso, tomatoes, nutritional yeast, mushrooms -- will help make your meals yummy and satisfying without animal products.
- Skip the substitutes, at least in the beginning. Commercially available vegan substitutes for meat and dairy tend to be highly processed, full of salt and fat, expensive, and not very satisfying. Especially in the beginning, they will seem like very feeble substitutes for the real thing. Daiya cheese, probably the best vegan cheese widely available in the U.S., may satisfy your Velveeta jones, but it won't take the place of a good aged cheese, and if you expect it to you will just be disappointed. On the other hand, six months after you last tasted "real" ice cream, a bowl of So Delicious coconut milk ice cream -- especially the Turtle Tracks flavor, OMG -- will really hit the spot (so much so, that I can't eat it any more).
- Expand your culinary horizons. Take this opportunity to learn new ways to plan a meal, and explore new tastes. If you don't cook now, learn (or you can be one of the laziest vegans in the world, but I don't recommend this). There are a zillion vegan recipe sites on the Web -- Fat Free Vegan and the Post Punk Kitchen are two of my favorites -- and many of the recipes are quick and easy. Explore cuisines that have a strong tradition of meat-free cooking. Asia is now your favorite continent.
- Learn to love beans. Cheap, high in protein, high in fiber, low in fat, and very satisfying -- beans are the word. Beans are how you get protein-rich satisfaction without relying too heavily on soy products and fake stuff. There are so many varieties, you could eat a different bean every day for weeks. Dry beans are cheaper than canned and, in my opinion, healthier and tastier (and there's a much greater variety available), but canned beans are also very good and with canned beans, you don't have to plan ahead to have a great meal ready when you want it. I eat beans at pretty much every meal. Yes, including breakfast. Baked beans on toast are a traditional part of an English breakfast, but it's also worthwhile to expand your concept of what constitutes appropriate breakfast food. There's no law that says you can't eat the same things for breakfast you eat for lunch and dinner, and in my opinion "lunch and dinner" foods can be a much more appropriate way to start the day than the sugary crap so many people eat for breakfast.
- Abstinence is easier than moderation. Again, your mileage may vary, but this is my experience. If you keep eating animal products "once in a while," you won't lose your taste for them, nor will you really learn how to thrive without them. Just quit. When it gets hard, watch Earthlings.
I do have a criticism of the Times post. It focuses completely on food, and there's a lot more to being vegan than that. Finding nice winter clothes and shoes that don't contain animal products can be a challenge, and you may need to start shopping for cleaning products and personal care stuff at the health food store to find things that aren't tested on animals (or made by a parent company that tests on animals). Shoes, sweaters, and lip balm have been the toughest ones for me, but it's all doable, and there are a lot more choices now than there were even a few years ago. It's not that hard. And it's worth it.
What are your best tips for new and aspiring vegans?
What are your best tips for new and aspiring vegans?
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Vegan Kheema!
In my last post I said I would be back with a picture of my textured soy protein creation. Feast your eyes on this Indian yumminess:
That's a bed of cooked millet, topped with Mock Kheema adapted from The Indian Slow Cooker, and surrounded by Punjabi-Style Cabbage from Vegan Indian Cooking. Anupy Singla, I love you.
I've talked about The Indian Slow Cooker before. It's not a vegetarian book, but most of the recipes are vegan. I love, love, love this book because the recipes produce huge quantities of yummy Indian food with very little effort. The other recipes I've made have all been bean dishes, which I have especially liked because unlike traditionally prepared Indian legume dishes, they do not call for any ghee or oil.
The kheema recipe is different. Traditional kheema is made with lamb, and apparently it's supposed to be greasy, so there is a full half cup of oil in it. I never cook with anywhere close to that much oil, but I wanted my first try of the recipe to be at least semi-authentic, so I didn't cut back. The recipe is so big, and the serving size is so tiny, that I figured out there is only about a teaspoon of oil in each serving. I've never eaten kheema before, so I don't know how authentic this version is, but I do know it's delicious.
Anupy's recipe calls for packaged "meatless grounds" like the Boca crumbles, but I thought since so many spices were going into the recipe I could use plain textured soy protein. I figured out that 8 oz of dry TSP, reconstituted, is about the equivalent of four bags of frozen crumbles, which is what the recipe calls for. Here it is as I adapted it:
8 oz dry textured soy protein crumbles (about 5 cups), reconstituted with an equal volume of boiling water
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 red onion, peeled and chopped
1 4-inch piece of ginger, finely chopped in the food processor
10 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped in the food processor with the ginger
1 6-oz can tomato paste, mixed with 2 cups boiling water until smooth
4 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
6 bay leaves
1/4 cup ground cumin
1/4 cup ground coriander
1/2 tsp cayenne
2 T smoked paprika (or regular paprika, if you don't have smoked)
1 T salt
2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp garam masala
2 cups frozen peas
Put everything except the peas into a 6 quart slow cooker and mix well. Cook on high for 3 hours. Add the peas and cook for another 10 minutes or so.
The result is rich and spicy (but not too hot) and wonderful. I figured out that a serving is 1/3 cup -- that contains the same amount of protein as a cup of cooked beans, about 14 grams. This recipe makes a lot. I may end up having to freeze some.
Here's what it looks like close up:
My girlfriend thought the texture was scarily similar to ground beef. I don't actually remember what ground beef is like, so to me it is just yummy. Put it on top of a bed of cooked grain and mix it in. Om nom nom.
I think next time I will cut back on the oil somewhat -- although my girlfriend begged me not to cut back too much. I might try 1/3 cup, certainly no less than 1/4 cup.
How do you say "bon appetit" in Hindi?
That's a bed of cooked millet, topped with Mock Kheema adapted from The Indian Slow Cooker, and surrounded by Punjabi-Style Cabbage from Vegan Indian Cooking. Anupy Singla, I love you.
I've talked about The Indian Slow Cooker before. It's not a vegetarian book, but most of the recipes are vegan. I love, love, love this book because the recipes produce huge quantities of yummy Indian food with very little effort. The other recipes I've made have all been bean dishes, which I have especially liked because unlike traditionally prepared Indian legume dishes, they do not call for any ghee or oil.
The kheema recipe is different. Traditional kheema is made with lamb, and apparently it's supposed to be greasy, so there is a full half cup of oil in it. I never cook with anywhere close to that much oil, but I wanted my first try of the recipe to be at least semi-authentic, so I didn't cut back. The recipe is so big, and the serving size is so tiny, that I figured out there is only about a teaspoon of oil in each serving. I've never eaten kheema before, so I don't know how authentic this version is, but I do know it's delicious.
Anupy's recipe calls for packaged "meatless grounds" like the Boca crumbles, but I thought since so many spices were going into the recipe I could use plain textured soy protein. I figured out that 8 oz of dry TSP, reconstituted, is about the equivalent of four bags of frozen crumbles, which is what the recipe calls for. Here it is as I adapted it:
8 oz dry textured soy protein crumbles (about 5 cups), reconstituted with an equal volume of boiling water
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 red onion, peeled and chopped
1 4-inch piece of ginger, finely chopped in the food processor
10 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped in the food processor with the ginger
1 6-oz can tomato paste, mixed with 2 cups boiling water until smooth
4 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
6 bay leaves
1/4 cup ground cumin
1/4 cup ground coriander
1/2 tsp cayenne
2 T smoked paprika (or regular paprika, if you don't have smoked)
1 T salt
2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp garam masala
2 cups frozen peas
Put everything except the peas into a 6 quart slow cooker and mix well. Cook on high for 3 hours. Add the peas and cook for another 10 minutes or so.
The result is rich and spicy (but not too hot) and wonderful. I figured out that a serving is 1/3 cup -- that contains the same amount of protein as a cup of cooked beans, about 14 grams. This recipe makes a lot. I may end up having to freeze some.
Here's what it looks like close up:
My girlfriend thought the texture was scarily similar to ground beef. I don't actually remember what ground beef is like, so to me it is just yummy. Put it on top of a bed of cooked grain and mix it in. Om nom nom.
I think next time I will cut back on the oil somewhat -- although my girlfriend begged me not to cut back too much. I might try 1/3 cup, certainly no less than 1/4 cup.
How do you say "bon appetit" in Hindi?
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Do the Math
I thought organic textured soy protein was expensive -- at my local health food store, it's $4.65 for an eight-ounce bag, as opposed to two dollars and change for a pound of the not-organic, Archer Daniels Midland (ew) product. Then I did the math. A meal-sized serving of organic TSP costs 14 cents. That's if you're truly eating a meal-sized serving (about 1/3 cup reconstituted) as opposed to a ginormous American-style serving of protein, of course. But with rice and a big salad, for dinner? It totally works.
Later today I'll have pictures and a recipe.
Later today I'll have pictures and a recipe.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Baked apples stuffed with snausage
I conceived and made this dish a while ago, but never got around to posting. It seems like a good Thanksgiving dish to me, so I'm putting it up now for the benefit of any last-minute types who are looking for a vegan protein to add to the plate.
I love baked apples and have always made them as a sweet dish. My favorite way used to be to stuff them with chopped dried fruit and nuts. This time around, it occurred to me that baked apples could be a savory dish. I stumbled on a meatful recipe for baked apples stuffed with something disgusting like ground up pig muscle, and it occurred to me that I could stuff mine with vegan sausage.
The easy and peaceful way to do this would be to buy some vegan sausage, stuff it into the cavities left when you core the apples, and bake. But I had to make my own sausage. I looked at recipes calling for textured soy protein, tofu, tempeh (I don't actually like tempeh, but periodically think I should try to learn to like it), and seitan, and settled on one using frozen tofu.
I cored the apples, stuffed the cavities with snausage mixture, and baked as usual until the apples were done. The snausage started to get brown too quickly, and so I covered the apples with foil for a while. I would recommend starting out with them covered, and then uncover for the last 10-15 minutes of cooking.
They look cool when you slice them open:
Verdict: this was fun, but I wouldn't make it the same way again. I ended up with way too much snausage for the number of apples I had, and ended up nuking the rest and just eating it for breakfast one morning. I also didn't think the snausage was tasty enough for the amount of trouble that went into making it. The dried herbs didn't integrate with the frozen tofu very well; you could kind of distinguish them in your mouth. If I were going to do this again, it would be because I wanted snausage for some other purpose, or had some leftover snausage lying around. Maybe when I finally attempt the bean and seitan sausage that has taken the internets by storm, I'll seek out a few baking apples and give it another try. I wouldn't use Italian snausage, though -- I'd recommend something more like a breakfast snausage flavor. If you want to try this with store-bought snausage, I would try either the Tofurky snausage links (because I like all the Tofurky snausage products I've tried), or splurge on Field Roast sage-and-apple snausages, which I've never tried but don't they sound good?
I love baked apples and have always made them as a sweet dish. My favorite way used to be to stuff them with chopped dried fruit and nuts. This time around, it occurred to me that baked apples could be a savory dish. I stumbled on a meatful recipe for baked apples stuffed with something disgusting like ground up pig muscle, and it occurred to me that I could stuff mine with vegan sausage.
The easy and peaceful way to do this would be to buy some vegan sausage, stuff it into the cavities left when you core the apples, and bake. But I had to make my own sausage. I looked at recipes calling for textured soy protein, tofu, tempeh (I don't actually like tempeh, but periodically think I should try to learn to like it), and seitan, and settled on one using frozen tofu.
I cored the apples, stuffed the cavities with snausage mixture, and baked as usual until the apples were done. The snausage started to get brown too quickly, and so I covered the apples with foil for a while. I would recommend starting out with them covered, and then uncover for the last 10-15 minutes of cooking.
They look cool when you slice them open:
Verdict: this was fun, but I wouldn't make it the same way again. I ended up with way too much snausage for the number of apples I had, and ended up nuking the rest and just eating it for breakfast one morning. I also didn't think the snausage was tasty enough for the amount of trouble that went into making it. The dried herbs didn't integrate with the frozen tofu very well; you could kind of distinguish them in your mouth. If I were going to do this again, it would be because I wanted snausage for some other purpose, or had some leftover snausage lying around. Maybe when I finally attempt the bean and seitan sausage that has taken the internets by storm, I'll seek out a few baking apples and give it another try. I wouldn't use Italian snausage, though -- I'd recommend something more like a breakfast snausage flavor. If you want to try this with store-bought snausage, I would try either the Tofurky snausage links (because I like all the Tofurky snausage products I've tried), or splurge on Field Roast sage-and-apple snausages, which I've never tried but don't they sound good?
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Vegan Yogurt Rant
Shit! Better make those chick peas now! Get the pinto beans out of the slow cooker! Run across the street to get more chick peas! Never mind that I just cooked a metric fuckton of chick peas for other dishes! Must! Use! Yogurt!
I reacted this way because plain vegan yogurt can be ridiculously hard to find. I went to three different stores in search of this little cup, and the store where I finally found it is not on my regular shopping route. If I miss my window with this yogurt, it will be a while before I get out there again.
Then I thought, wait a minute. What if this yogurt sucks? What if it disappoints you, like so many other vegan yogurts? Before you go nuts, taste it. So I stuck my finger in and tasted it. It tastes . . . okay, but nothing like the plain yogurt I remember from pregan days. It has no tartness at all. It's more like vanilla pudding than anything. So I stuck it back in the refrigerator and went about my pinto beany business. I'll be throwing the yogurt in a smoothie, either later today or for breakfast tomorrow morning.
I'd had my suspicions about this yogurt. A 6 ounce container has 13g of sugar, which just sounds insane. But it was the only plain yogurt I could find in that size, and the recipe only calls for a quarter cup. At the health food store across the street I can get Wildwood soy yogurt, which sounds more promising -- only 3g of sugar per serving, and no actual "sugar" in the ingredients -- but it only comes in quart containers, and every time I've seen it the date has been a week or less away. And what if it sucks? I've been burned by soy yogurt in the past -- there was that one batch of onion dip I don't even want to think about (I learned my lesson and use silken tofu for that sort of thing now).
Plain yogurt is the one dairy food for which I have not found an acceptable vegan substitute. I used to love plain yogurt and ate it with all kinds of savory dishes, usually to cool down something spicy. Now I just do without it. I occasionally buy sweet flavors of vegan yogurt, usually because I'm taking antibiotics or have a sore throat and want something that will be smooth going down, but never plain. Usually I do just fine without yogurt in my life, but this particular chick pea recipe spoke to me, and for some reason I didn't want to go the silken tofu and lemon juice route again.
Have you found a vegan yogurt that satisfies? If you have, please share it in the comments.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Experimental Chili
The first thing I actually made with the roasted poblanos was refried beans, but the first thing I thought of making was chili. After some googling, I settled on a recipe from the Irreverent Vegan as a starting point, and followed Mark's instructions for roasting the poblanos, as well.
I said starting point, right? I referred to Mark's recipe a few times, but basically did my own thing. I post the result here not because it was so amazing (it's perfectly fine chili, but not necessarily something I would make again), but to show how my twisted thought processes work when I'm playing with a recipe.
I said starting point, right? I referred to Mark's recipe a few times, but basically did my own thing. I post the result here not because it was so amazing (it's perfectly fine chili, but not necessarily something I would make again), but to show how my twisted thought processes work when I'm playing with a recipe.
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