A very good veggie burger!

Do you remember Heathen Vegan's Spicy Cajun Lentil Patties from Vegan MoFo?  It was one of those recipes that I instantly bookmarked to try post-MoFo.  However, I found it calling to me during MoFo, so I gave in and made these delicious burgers.

Following the recipe, my first batch of the patties came out really tasty, but crumbly- like the consistency of a dry sloppy joe- even with added gluten.  I baked my patties instead of pan frying for ease and to use less oil, and maybe to warm up the house a little.

A bit crumbly, but totally delicious!

Last night I made a batch, deciding to use mashed squash (squashed squash?) instead of the vital wheat gluten.  That made the mixture too wet, so I ended up adding in wheat gluten.  The consistency still wasn't perfect.  I'll need to continue to experiment.  However, both attempts yielded really satisfying burgers, especially with all the trimmings and some super great buns I found at the store.  If you're in Portland, check out Portland French Bakery's Pub Buns, available at Whole Foods.

Veggie Sushi!

Recently, my friend Carly (whom you may remember from this MoFo guest post) and I got together to plan our Thanksgiving menu.  And Thanksgiving menu planning is no good on an empty stomach, so we decided to make lunch.
 
We made a lovely assortment of veggie sushi, which included various combinations of red bell pepper, dill pickles (my favorite ingredient!), cucumber, avocado, cilantro, Tofutti cream cheese, and parsley.  In some of the rolls we used quinoa in place of the rice. 



We dipped the sushi into spicy mayo (Sriracha + Veganaise) and tamari and ate it with split pea soup and a nice spinach salad with roasted cashews and miso-tahini dressing.

A lovely lunch with lovely company!  Never made sushi before?  Check out my step-by-step instructions that I posted a while ago!

What do Papa Tofu and I have in common?

A love for Ethiopian food!

This week I've been doing a little cooking from Kittee's Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food.  Kittee has done a great job of explaining techniques, ingredients, and recipes in this adorable zine.  She worked really hard on both the designs and the recipes and it shows.  I'm super happy to have it in my collection.

The recipes I've tried so far have tasted really authentic, but even more importantly, yummy!  It was hard to decide on just a few dishes to try this week.  I'll be cooking through these pages, until I've tried every recipe, and then keep going!  The most fantastic thing about zines is that the number of dishes to try is manageable.

So what have I made this week?

Don't mind the horrible state of the injera.  I wasn't gentle with the ripping.

Here you'll see (clockwise from top right): Ye'abesha Gomen (mild collard greens), Ye'miser W'et (red lentils in a spicy gravy), mushrooms sauteed in Niter Kibbeh (seasoned "butter"), and Selata (tossed salad) with Citrus Vinaigrette.

The Ye'abesha Gomen was gingery and really on par with greens dishes I've had in Ethiopian restaurants.  I loved the Ye'miser W'et the most.  I actually made that one in the slow cooker, minus the initial sauteing.  We've had variations of the salad for three nights in a row.  The citrus vinaigrette is really simple, but I love it.  It's definitely going to become a go-to dressing in my house.

Tonight I'm going to make Keysir Allecha (Ethiopian style beets) to go along with leftovers of the other dishes.  It's been really easy to prepare one dish every night to add to the plate.

Super Breaded Tofu Dinner and a Thank you!

The full title of this meal is "Super Breaded Tofu 'Fried Chicken'-y Dinner" from Rabbit Food Cookbook.

Now that's a big lunch!  (And I ate it all!)

Vegan MoFo gave me the kick in the butt I needed to cook more from this cute little book.  Last night I made the above meal, which I loved.  It contained four components:

Breaded Tofu
The tofu was wonderful!  I don't know why, but I've never done the "shake 'n bake" thing which involves throwing the ingredients for the breading in a baggie, tossing in the cubed tofu, and shaking it up.  It worked out so well.  I did stray from the recipe just a bit by baking the tofu at 350* for 40 minutes (flipping half way through) instead of pan frying it.  The result was crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside, peppery goodness.

Sauteed veggies
This was pretty straight forward- just green beans, carrots, and onion.

Mashed potato
Again, pretty straight forward.

Brown Gravy
Deeeelicious!  Again, I sort of strayed from the recipe.  Instead of using the exact dry ingredients listed in the recipe, I just threw in what was leftover in the baggie from the tofu.  This was a really, really good gravy.  There was almost this mustard taste, but there was no mustard in the recipe!  (Please excuse the 'gloppiness' in the photo- these were my reheated leftovers, which I was too lazy to heat separately.)

Also, I wanted to extend a big thank you to the lovely folks that honored me with a Liebster Award last month.  I'm going to be playing catchup in the weeks (months?) to come and will be sure to post links to some "under 200" blogs that I love.

Thank you so much:

Dawn from Veg-Am
Glauce from  All About... (vegan) Food
Christine from Christine Eats Gluten-Free And Vegan
Jeni Treehugger from Heathen Vegan

Collard Wraps and a Wrap-Up

It's the last day of MoFo!  Although I'll be able to breathe a sigh of relief, I've also enjoyed the immense amount of vegan goodness shoved in my face this month.  I'll miss it!  I've enjoyed reading so many new blogs as well as old favorites.  I look forward to continuing to read throughout the year until MoFo 2012!  On my own blog, I've been able to blog every day, with the help of a few friends, but I didn't succeed in blogging about greens every day.  Oh well!

Just a little roundup of some of my greens dishes this month! Try the collards soup!

For my last Vegan MoFo 2011 post, I decided I really needed to go out with a greens dish.  I give you "Collard Wraps with Sunflower Seed Spread".

Sunflower seed spreads are really versatile.  A creamy texture is achieved by soaking and blending the seeds.  You can add whichever herbs or flavorings you'd like.  In this version I've flavored the spread with rich miso, garlic, and parsley.  The spread is accompanied by leftover majadra, shredded beets, carrots, and red cabbage, and sliced onion and cucumber.

Collard Wraps
Ingredients:
6 collard leaves
sunflower seed spread (recipe below)
shredded or sliced veggies of your choice
prepared rice, quinoa, beans, or lentils of your choice

Method:
1. Bring a pot large enough to fit a collard leaf to a boil.  Blanch each leaf for about 20 seconds.  Rinse under cold water.  Set aside.
2. Fill the rolls with your fillings.  If the leaves are large enough (unlike mine), roll them up like a burrito so that the short ends are folded in before you roll the long side up.

Sunflower Seed Spread
Ingredients:
1 cup sunflower seeds, soaked in enough water to cover for about 1 hour, save 1/2 cup soaking water
1 tbsp miso
1 tbsp raw tahini
1 small clove garlic
pinch pepper
pinch smoked paprika
several leaves parsley (pulse a few times into it)

Method:
1. In a food processor, combine the sunflower seeds, 1/2 cup soaking water, miso, tahini, garlic, pepper, and paprika.  Process until smooth.  Add the parsley and pulse a few times so that the parsley is distributed throughout the mixture, but remains in bits.

Here are some photos of the wraps I made last time.  You'll see the leaves were a little bigger, so I was able to make wraps that retained their contents a little better.  Last time I filled the wraps with quinoa, black eyed peas, bell pepper, tomato, parsley, carrots, and the spread.

Here you'll see the leftover contents of the wraps, as a salad with the wraps in the background!






















Don't forget to enter my giveaway for homemade grape jelly! 

Yum Yum Yum Lentils and Rice

Majadra is a Middle Eastern dish consisting of lentils, rice, caramelized onions, olive oil, and salt!  Simple!  I think it's comfort food at its finest.  I've posted about this easy and satisfying dish before.  I saw this episode of Everyday Dish (doesn't Rose seem like the sweetest lady?) a while ago and have made it a few times since, tonight being one of those times.  It's great!  Perhaps the best thing about eating this dish is that it's an excuse to turn on the oven and heat up your kitchen a little after spending all day trying to fix your furnace to no avail.

You should give this a try yourself!

Rabbit Food Cookbook: Lentil Soup

I picked up a copy of Rabbit Food Cookbook when I visited Portland three years ago.  (I actually got it for a friend, but decided to keep it myself!  Shhh.)  It's an adorable little book with hand drawn pictures.  I love it.

Being the vegan cookbook collector that I am, I haven't gotten around to trying many recipes.  I have, however, tried the lentil soup recipe, which is now my go-to favorite.  It's quick and hearty, and as I've discovered, adaptable.  Last night I made a half batch, which will provide the two of us with at least two meals a piece.  I didn't have potatoes or celery on hand, so I left out the potatoes and used carrot greens in place of the celery.  Delish!

I noticed this little book is making its rounds on the vegan blogosphere.  Check out Kittee's post at Cake Maker to the Stars, which features the falafel recipe from the book (I'm going to have to make this soon!) and a GIVEAWAY, ending tomorrow morning.  Also, be sure to visit the other blogs mentioned in the post to see some of the other recipes from the book.

I have all these plants, post-mofo, which now include cooking through this little book.

Lovely Outing with the Lovely Celyn

Do you know Celyn?  She blogs over at Miso for Breakfast and during MoFo, she's doing a giveaway EVERY day.  She's kind of insane.  She's also really sweet and a pleasure to spend time with, so I was thrilled when she invited me to grab lunch at Green Wok, a vegan Chinese restaurant in SW Portland.

After lunch we headed to Barbur World Foods.  If you know Celyn's blog, you may have seen her tour of the grocery store.  It was the baklava that got me!

Oh man, I filled my basket with some tasty treats like...

Zaatar pizza!  I couldn't resist gobbling up a slice before Matt got home for dinner.  It's pretty simple, just a thin-crust pizza with zaatar on top, but they make it fresh while you wait.  It's crisp and has all that zaatary goodness, which is a little difficult to describe, but contains thyme, sesame seeds, sumac, and olive oil.  Only $3.50 for the whole thing too! 

Zataar pizza.

 

Want a bite?

 Baklava!  I haven't yet sunk my teeth into one, but I am so excited for dessert tonight!  I think I grabbed one pistachio-filled and two walnut-filled.

One for me, one for Matt, one for good luck!

Falafel!  Baba Ghanouj!  Hummus!  Barbur World Foods makes the falafel fresh, to order, too.  You'll see their house made baba ghanouj, hummus, and tahini dressing on the left.  I also picked up some cherry tomatoes and huuuge pita bread.

 To that I added fresh kale and collards from the garden, carrots and onion.  Look at me, being all "greens theme."

A mighty fine sandwich, methinks.

Lastly, I decided Matt and I would have a mini root beer taste-testing.  Plus, Celyn sold me on the rose lemonade.  I look forward to trying that tomorrow.

I had a great time!  Thank you for introducing me to a new and great place, Celyn.  I enjoyed teaming up to discuss veganism with a curious employee.  I hope this person will try some of the great vegan spots in Portland that we suggested.  (She started the conversation with us and I could see here wheels a'turnin.)

Now, Matt and I are going to sit back with our falafel sandwiches and watch some Dexter.  Cheers!

PS- Grape jelly tomorrow.  I ran out of time and sunlight today!

Easy Peasy Split Pea Kale Soup

Ever since Fanny from Cooking Vegan Food Up North visited and prepared a Swedish dinner for us, I've been making variations of this split pea soup.  Adding a swirl of yellow mustard to a soup was a new thing for me, but I love it!

The beauty of a split pea soup is that it comes together quickly and doesn't require pre-soaking the peas.  This, and the fact that I always have yellow split peas on hand, are probably the reasons that I make this dish a lot.  Oh and it's tasty, filling, and healthy!  This time I added diced bell pepper, shredded carrot, and Red Russian kale.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cups yellow split peas
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 shallots, diced (or a small onion)
2 sprigs of thyme, stems discarded
7 cups vegetable broth
2 carrots, shredded
several handfuls of kale, chopped
yellow mustard

Method:
1. In a soup pot, saute dried split peas in olive oil for a 5-10 minutes on medium heat, stirring occasionally.  Add the bell pepper, shallots, and thyme, and saute for another 5-10 minutes.
2. Add the vegetable broth and stir.  Cover pot and simmer 20-30 minutes until the peas are soft.  In the last 5 minutes, add the shredded carrot and stir.
3. Turn off heat.  Add kale to the pot, cover, and let steam for 5 minutes.
4. Top with a swirl of yellow mustard!

The Best Mung Dal

I haven't actually tried every mung dal out there, but I'm willing to bet I'd still rank this one pretty high if I had.  I first saw this recipe on the Post Punk Kitchen forum and decided to give it a try since I had all the ingredients on hand.  Since that night several months ago, I've been in mung dal heaven.

This recipe is simple and really, really satisfying.  You can adjust the spiciness level to your preferences, and add a good squeeze of lemon juice and cilantro for a fresh, flavorful taste.  I can't tell you how much I love this dish!  And so, even though it doesn't contain greens (rather, it contains green things), I'll introduce to you Mung Dal from Sonia at the Seven Spice blog.

I salivate just looking at this photo.

I don't have a pressure cooker, so when I make this soup, I soak the mung beans for 2-8 hours and then cook them until the texture indicated in the recipe.

Sorry for taking another break from my greens theme.  I just got home after traveling ALL day and decided to use a backup recipe.

Spinach Lasagna

Lasagna is one of my favorite meals.  My mom's lasagna to be precise.  In honor of my MoFo greens month, I decided to make spinach lasagna.  I've heard rumors that you can skip pre-cooking your lasagna noodles if you make sure to pile on extra sauce, so I decided to experiment.  And it worked!

Spinach Lasagna

Cashew cream sauce (recipe below)
A splash of olive oil
60 oz of your favorite pasta sauce(that's kind of a lot, so feel free to mix up a few types)
Lasagna noodles, uncooked
1 or 2 packages of frozen spinach, defrosted
Other veggies of your choice (I used black olives, sun-dried tomatoes, red bell pepper)
Follow Your Heart mozzarella, chopped
1/2-1 cup unsweetened soy milk
1/4 cup nutritional yeast

Method:
1.  Grease a lasagna pan with a little olive oil.
2. Pour about 15 oz of tomato sauce in the bottom of the pan.
3. Alternately layer the uncooked lasagna noodles, vegetables, tomato sauce, and cream sauce.  When you come to the spinach, squeeze out some of the water, but not too much.  This will provide more liquid for the cooking noodles.  I did one full layer of bechamel and then plopped down a few globs in another layer.
WARNING: The noodles will make the dish expand a little.  Don't, as I did, overfill the pan.  Leave a little room at the top.
4. Preheat the oven to 350*.
5. While the oven is preheating, place the FYH, soy milk, and nutritional yeast in a saucepan over medium heat.  Stir frequently until the mixture is melted.  Pour over the top of the lasagna.
6. Bake the lasagna, covered, for 40 minutes.  Uncover and bake for an additional half hour.  Broil the last few minutes if you'd like, to get bubbly brown spots on top!
7. For easier cutting, let the lasagna sit for 10 minutes or so before serving.

Cashew cream sauce:
3/4 cup raw cashew pieces, soaked in 1 1/2 cups water for an hour
1/2 tsp bouillon
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup nutritional yeast

Method:
Blend cashews, soaking water, bouillon, and garlic until smooth.  Put the mixture in a saucepan, stir in the nutritional yeast, and heat over medium-low, stirring often, until the consistency of a thick tomato sauce.

Other tips:
-I would have liked a thicker, layer of the cashew cream sauce.  I think next time I'll combine this sauce with a tofu ricotta for a thicker, yummy white layer.  (You can't even see the layer in this photo- It's toward the bottom.)
-Use a sauce that you like.  I've found that good lasagnas start with good sauces.

Kale Salad with Buffalo Tempeh

We eat a lot of "bowl" dishes in our house.  Last night we ate a big salad that consisted mostly of kale, but also had beets, carrots, tomatoes, and sweet peppers from the garden.  Perhaps the star of this dish was the buffalo tempeh.  Sooo...kale as a salad (unmassaged).  I topped the salad with Annie's Woodstock dressing.

Yuck!  Sorry for this horrible night-time photo!

I make this spicy, salty tempeh a lot.  In fact, I think I've determined I only really like baked, dry and slightly crunchy tempeh (like the tempeh that comes with Dovetail's biscuits and gravy- ohmigosh). If you're like me and don't love tempeh, you might still love this dish.  I love to eat this buffalo tempeh in a sandwich with arugula, thinly sliced red onion, and Vegenaise too.  Use your imagination- it's a really versatile recipe.

 Buffalo Tempeh:
several globs of Earth Balance, melted
several shakes of hot sauce (my favorite brand is Crystal)
1-2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1 package tempeh, sliced

Combine the Earth Balance, hot sauce, and garlic in a wide-bottomed glass dish.  (Like a pie pan.)  Set the tempeh in the mixture, flipping to coat it.  Let it marinade for at least an hour.  Spread the tempeh out in the dish and bake it at 350* F (I use a toaster oven) until a little crispy, about 20- 25 minutes.

Collards with Queso

It was only recently that I first tasted the amazingness that is Food for Lovers' vegan queso.  I found myself with several open jars of the queso after Vida Vegan Con, and needing a way to use it.  Horrible dilemma, I know.  Using this queso as a dip is my favorite way to scarf it down, but when the tortilla chips ran out, I turned to an old favorite: collards!

I simply steamed some collard ribbons in a skillet with some water.  When the water evaporated, I added the queso, mixed it up, and served it alongside a couscous and mung bean salad with veggies.  (Hungarian pepper, collards, and several types of tomatoes from the garden!)

Tamari Sauteed Collards

This is another really simple go-to recipe.  I love the flavor that's created when you combine tamari, apple cider vinegar, and olive oil.  I usually flavor baked tofu and cooked lentils with these ingredients.  In this dish I added pressed garlic.

This is really as easy as chopping up some collards and sauteing them with garlic, olive oil, a splash of apple cider vinegar, and a splash of tamari.  I added some Field Roast sausage that I wanted to use up and ate it with brown rice.  A simple, quick, and tasty lunch!  Try it.  It might even become a go-to dish in your home too!

Slow Cooked Chana Saag

Do you have a slow cooker?  Probably.  You've probably been slow cooking for years.  Well, I am late to the slow cooking party.  We never had a slow cooker when I was growing up and I've had literally no exposure to them.  That changed last week when my very first slow cooker arrived in the mail.

Meet our new addition!

Before it even got here, I reserved a few slow cooking books from the library.  This week, I excitedly cracked open The Vegan Slow Cooker by Kathy Hester.  I've now made two dishes from this book and they've been fabulous!  Of course I had to try a greens recipe, so I made Chana Saag (I opted to use spinach along with the chickpeas).  The Indian dish wafted its gingery, spicy aroma through my house all day.  Lucky me!

The doggles long for some chana saag.

This dish was really simple and really tasty.  I've never been to India, but Indian cuisine is one of my favorites and this Chana Saag tasted pretty authentic to me.  I opted to use a bit of leftover cashew sour cream in the place of nondairy milk.  The citrus flavor really shined too, creating a creamy dish, both rich in substance and complexity of flavor.

For a little added flavor, I topped my chana saag with cilantro.

Usually Matt takes a sandwich to work everyday for lunch, but during MoFo, he gets to take leftovers from the previous night's dinner.  Last night he was especially excited to hear there were enough leftovers for his lunch.  Just one of the perks of doing so much cookin'!

Savory Collard Pies

I love Mediterranean spinach pies.  Love.  I decided to give this recipe a try, using collards instead of spinach because I had a bunch on hand.  The dough was nice and workable and after baking, the pockets were fluffy, yet thicker and stiffer than some spinach pies I've had at restaurants.  The leftover, uncooked, filling even made a great side salad!






















When using collards in this recipe, you can skip squeezing out the excess water, but you'll need to massage the greens a little longer. Also, make sure you remove the stems from the collards!

I didn't have sumac, so I left it out, but I definitely think it would be worth it to track down the spice if you plan on making this dish.  I also skipped the cornmeal in the recipe and instead used greased cookie sheets.  I really recommend piling in the filling, using much more than the recipe says.  I think mine could have used a higher filling-to-dough ratio.

Collards and Mac

Mixing a vegetable in with your mac and cheez isn't exactly a novel idea anymore.  I've done broccoli, cauliflower, and peas, but perhaps my favorite mix-ins are collards.  I like to cut them into long ribbons so I can swirl them up with my fork, each bite having a plentiful amount of both the veg and the mac.



Kristen from the Noochy Noodle spoke really highly of the Cheezy Mac recipe from Julie Hasson's Vegan Diner.  I just got a copy of the book from the library, so I thought it would be a perfect recipe to try for this dish.  And it was!  This recipe is creamy with a great smokey flavor.  It's only been recently that I've started liking smokey flavors, so it was my first time using smoked paprika, but certainly not the last!

So how did I prepare the collard ribbons?
I started out with enormous collard leaves, cutting out the stalks (and giving them to patiently waiting doggles), and lining them up on the cutting board.

 Then, I rolled them up, lengthwise and started slicing.

I plopped the collard ribbons into a pan and steamed them for about five minutes.

For dessert I made the couscous cake that won me over at A Bug and a Fish.  However, I flavored mine with rosewater instead of vanilla and used pistachios and home-grown strawberry slices for the top.  It was quite good.  Apparently couscous cakes have been around forever, but I've never heard of them before!  I think I'm going to try making it with quinoa for a nutty, gluten-free dessert.

Oy.  It wasn't ready in time for natural light.  And I wasn't going to wait until the next day to eat it!

Lastly, I leave you with photographic evidence of Andy's method of opening a soy milk container.

Oh, Andy.

Velvety Collards Soup

This soup became an instant favorite in my house.  I opted to make a creamy, blended soup that still had chunks of vegetables.  It's a really simple recipe, taking a short amount of time to create, and allowing the individual flavors of the ingredients to come through.  Hot, satisfying, and healthy, this soup can be enjoyed right now or anytime!

This recipe makes two generous bowls of Velvety Collards Soup, perfect portions for VeganMoFo, but you could definitely double it.

Ingredients:
1 large yellow potato, peeled and diced
1 small bundle of collards, stems discarded, and chopped
1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 carrot, shredded
1/2 small onion, diced
1 sprig parsley, chopped
1 clove garlic, smashed
4ish cups vegetable broth (I just used "Better Than" bouillon and added water until the right consistency was achieved)
salt and pepper to taste
Hot sauce to drizzle on top

Method:
1. Boil the potato in water until soft (about 8-10 min).  Meanwhile, steam collards (about 5-6 minutes) until bitterness is gone and collards are soft.  Reserve about 1 cup of the potato cooking water, draining the rest.  Cool.

2. While potato and collards cool, saute the carrot, onion, parsley, and garlic in olive oil for 5-7 minutes.  Add vegetable broth.  Add half the cooked potato.

3. Blend the other half of the potato and the collards in 1 cup of the potato cooking water until smooth.  Add to the vegetable broth mixture and stir until the contents are well combined.*

4. Serve hot with a swirl of hot sauce and nice piece of sourdough and a salad!

*If you have a high-powered blender (like a Vitamix) you may need to spoon foam off the top of the soup.