Sunday, January 30, 2011

It's Been Awhile...

And I'm still here! Just been busy, annoyed with the dating scene, hitting the gym, and of course cooking some grub! Here is some of the food porn I managed to take the last few weeks.

Of course there were tons of enchiladas/ burritos eaten since I make a batch of homemade refried beans weekly. I love Viva Vegan's recipe for Yellow Garlic Rice and pretty much have that in my regular food rotation as well. I love stuffing these puppies with refried beans, rice, and roasted or baked potatoes :)

Also in my regular food rotation is Garbanzo Bean Salad, this time I topped the spread with some curry powder, I really enjoy it this way.
Asparagus was on sale a few weeks ago for $.99/lb so I bought 3 bunches of it and enjoyed it roasted with salt, pepper, and garlic powder alongside some pasta topped with Ragu and Tofurkey Italian Sausages.
I also enjoyed my asparagus sauteed with Trader Joe's Soyaki Sauce, my fave!
I made a big batch of the asparagus pictured above and added it to a Hoisen Tofu Stirfry along with carrots, onions, and green bell peppers that needed to be used up.
Vegweb is having a cooking challenge and last week's cookbook of choice was Vcon so I made a few recipes to participate in the fun. First up was Red Lentil Cauliflower Curry which turned out phenomenal but seemed more like a dahl than curry.
I also made the Tamarind Lentils using brown lentils that unfortunately didn't cook enough as I am not an experienced lentil cooker and this was my first time cooking with brown lentils but the flavor was fantastic.
The I made BBQ Black Eyed Pea Collard rolls, which was my first experience using collard greens and black eyed peas. I loved the rolls but the homemade Backyard Barbecue Sauce from this book was just too sweet for my tastes and I scraped all the extra sauce off the top since there was sauce inside the rolls as well. I also got 2 extra rolls out of this recipe.
I also made the Qunioa Salad with Black Beans and Mango. All my coworkers that I shared this with enjoyed it, I thought it was okay and was bummed how quickly it went bad... I threw the rest out after 3 days.
Lastly, I got a crap ton of lemons from a coworker so I decided to make a Lemon Loaf Cake. I screwed this up and added the whole amount of sugar to the batter since I feel the directions should have said, divided so my idiot self wouldn't have added the whole amount. I also used white sugar since for some reason I didn't seem to notice the recipe said to use brown. I added an extra cup or so of flour to my batter and the cake ended up turning out really good. I was going to make the glaze but it looked way too watery for me when I cooked it so I just left it off.
I am planning on making recipes from VWAV for next weeks cooking challenge and hope to post some pictures. Sorry to leave you guys and girls hanging!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

An unplanned Mexican themed week 1/3-1/9/11

I started off the week with some bomb homemade potato salad... So yummy!
This week I ate a lot, and I mean a lot of bean burritos, tacos, enchiladas, nachos, etc.
I make a big batch of refried beans every week: Soak 2 cups of dry pintos overnight in water, rinse, boil them for 2 to 2.5 hours on medium heat with a quartered and peeled onion, 4 bay leafs, and s & p, drain and remove bay leafs, whirl the beans in a food processor with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of pickled jalapenos and some added salt to taste... perfection every time!

Bean and brown rice enchiladas topped with salsa, guac, olives, and Tofutti sour cream
I also had some leftover Viva Vegan Red Seitan that got thrown into this weeks Mexican mix in tacos, enchiladas and even piled on nachos:

Tacos made with Viva Vegan Red Seitan sauteed with onions, topped with Tofutti Sour Cream, guac, refried beans, and cilantro
I also made the tacos into enchiladas by just rolling these puppies up and covering them in salsa
I also pan fried the seitan and put it top of some nachos... These nachos weren't that great since I didn't have any plain soymilk to make Melty Cheese, I just used the cheese recipe from VW's Cheesy Bean and Cheese Enchiladas, it was alright
I decided to try a homemade tofu marinade I found on VW... called Tasty Tofu! A Zesty Herb Marinade... I added only half the oil and thought it turned out pretty good, though not even close to as good as my Teriyaki Tofu
It was pretty tasty heated up and placed in a sandwich though :)
Today I snacked on some sushi rice (calrose rice + rice vinegar + sugar + salt) and some roasted seaweed slices :)
I also made my insanely loved Vegan Taco Soup... I'm selling a few bowls to coworkers next week for some cash for salad... Score! Love this stuff and ate a bowl topped with Tofutti Sour Cream... Heavenly! I always sub about 1/2-1 cup TVP for the vegan beef crumbles... Just add it in along with the canned veggies.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Some boring stuff I've been eating... 12/20/10-1/1/2011 Happy New Year!

Yep I admit this blog is very boring and I'm sorry. I have been a lazy bum when it comes to creating anything new or taking pictures of everything... I mean seriously, how many pictures of Rainbow Salad, Teriyaki Tofu, and yes like 5 of the pictures I'm about to post, do you want to see?! But here are my boring old pictures in all there glory :)

I hit up my local health food store, Mother's Market, and got a slice of vegan pizza... Hot damn this was good and yes I took a bite before I took the picture! They supposedly use Daiya cheese, which I don't like, but this was legit! I dipped my slice in vegan ranch <3
I also got some Asian-y, Seitan-y stirfry, also good... I liked the pizza better though.
Last weekend I made a typical vegan staple, a Tofu Scramble, and added some leftover Roasted Breakfast Potatoes to the mix... Yummmm (My bro even ate some!)
I also made VWAV's Pancakes topped with some cheapy Aunt G "syrup" (They don't even call it maple syrup anymore, probably cause maple isn't in the ingredients) and Rice Whip Cream. I had to add more flour though to the recipe this time... Maybe because I used pre-sifted it makes a difference?
I also made my weekly batch of Refried Beans, I'm over the "Smokey" bit and just add canned jalapeno slices instead. Perfection every time.
I used the beans to make some yummy bean burritos topped with store bought guac.
I also made a double batch of Viva Vegan's Gallo Pinto. I always double the vegan worchestire.
Yesterday I made my favorite recipe, Viva Vegan's Peruvian Seitan Skewers, yes I know you've seen these a million times!
Lastly, another tried and true vegan staple, Garbanzo Bean Salad Sandwiches, topped with seaweed flakes (Called Rice Seasoning at the Asian market... Sesame seeds, salt, sugar, seaweed) for a "tuna" feel
Hope you all had a good New Years! Mine was pretty rough and I have plenty of new bumps and bruises to prove it! Fun though :)