Sunday Cooking and VWAV Reviews

I cooked a shit ton of food today and probably spent half the day on the kitchen, which me being the odd ball that I am, and not having a car at the moment, actually enjoyed it.

I started off my cooking frenzy with VWAV's Carrot Raisin Muffins. These turned out pretty good and I got 2 extra muffins out of the recipe. I thought these could be a bit sweeter (never mind i just ate another one), my brother thought they were fantastic. I give this recipe 4 out of 5 stars.

Next up, was VWAV's Lemon Gem Cupcakes. These were an epic fail for me but I do admit, I really suck at making desserts and baking. First off, the cupcakes didn't rise much and ended up sinking once they got out of the oven. No big deal right?

I will just cover them with the frosting. I go to make the frosting, another epic fail. I used EB buttery sticks for the recipe and something went wrong and I had to maybe double the powdered sugar and it was still runny and now way too sweet. Next fail, the cupcakes stuck to the liners. I was pissed, I ate a few, and threw the rest away :(

I then made my weekly batch of jalapeno flavored refried beans and

4 Rainbow Salads for my work lunches

Next, I had some brussles that needed to be used up so I prepped them (discarding gross leaves, cutting off the stem, and slicing them in half), coated them with some cooking spray and seasoned them with S&P and roasted them at 350F for 30 minutes (bigger ones might take a bit longer)... Feakin delish!

I then proceeded to make VWAV's Curried Split Pea Soup and this was a winner! First time cooking with split peas and this turned out great, thank God.

I also made VWAV's BBQ Pomegranate Tofu and it turned out alright. I left off the pomegranate seed topping cause that just seemed like a pain in the ass to do. The texture of the baked tofu was awesome but again, another BBQ sauce recipe from this book that just didn't tickle my fancy, too tomato-ey and sweet, and way too much for this recipe! I say you could easily half the BBQ sauce meant to bake the tofu in, I didn't even put the full amount on the tofu and ended up scraping the sauce off. It was way too much! Not a complete fail, but I won't be making this again. Though I will use her tofu baking technique: 2 tablespoons oil + 1 tablespoon Braggs, cut the tofu into 8 pieces, place tofu in the oil and Braggs mixture until completely coated, bake at 350 F for 30 minutes, turn over after 15, and add sauce and bake an additional 15 minutes. Perfect texture!

 Lastly, I made a batch pf Viva Vegan's Yellow Garlic Rice, I always make this dish when I have some cilantro to use up, I also used half an onion too and sauteed it along with the garlic... Yum

VWAV and some other stuffsssss

I have a deep love for easy teriyaki peasy tofu stirfys... To coat or not to coat my tofu with cornstarch is always the question... Coat is usually, pretty much always the winner! I have been making my own teriyaki sauce lately, basically just a mixture of garlic, ginger, Bragg's (or soy sauce), brown sugar, pepper, and maybe some sesame oil. I have also been adding crushed red pepper flakes to give the dish some spice. And I found this jar of garlic ginger paste at the Persian market that makes things so much easier to throw together.

My first teriyaki tofu stirfry was coated tofu with some carrots, collard greens, broccoli, asparagus, and onions for the veggies... Fail proof as usual.

 The second teriyaki tofu stirfry was coated as well and as always, delicious! For the veggies I used the carrots, onions, edamame, and asparagus.

 I made my weekly batch of fat free refried beans, this was my little dipping setup served with tortilla chips :)

I made a super delicious cherry banana smoothie, made with 1 non frozen banana, 2 big handfuls of frozen cherries and a cup of vanilla soy milk... Fantastical!

I made a double batch of VWAV's Chickpea Cutlets cause of all the hype they come with, along with VWAV's Mushroom Gravy and some of my homemade mashed potatoes that I seasoned with garlic and dried parsley... The Cutlets were a total fail for me, I baked them and they seemed undercooked so I left them in the oven for longer, forgot about them and they turned out hard as a brick so I threw them away... This pick shows the underdone Cutlet. The Gravy was awesome though!

Lastly, I made VWAV's tried and true Stuffed Peppers which I have pretty much mastered. I always use 5 peppers instead of 4 and when I'm selling them to coworkers, I cut them in half for easier tupperware packing. I mix in the cilantro now and probably double the amount instead of using it as a garnish. Legit as always.

Peace, Love, and Veganess <3

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!

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.

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 :)

Another week of goodies: 12/13 through 12/19

This week I made quite a few things...

Homemade Refried Bean (With pickled jalapenos added) and Roasted Breakfast Potato Burritos covered in green taco sauce

VegWeb's Cheesy Bean and Cheese Enchiladas made with homemade enchilada sauce, I used Viva Vegan's Red Chili Sauce Recipe and subbed tomato sauce for diced tomatoes, turned out perfect.

Now if only I could figure out how to roast dried chili's without practically killing myself from the insane fumes it produces... Any tips let me know! I almost killed both me and my brother, we were coughing for 30 minutes on and off! But my enchiladas were good, I even added extra sauce :)

I made Viva Vegan's Yellow Rice with Garlic to go along with my enchiladas, phenomenal as usual.

I also made VWAV's Stuffed Peppers and added some homemade Refried Beans with added pickled jalapenos and sold it to 3 coworkers for lunch... $4 a pop gave me enough money to buy some tofu and veggies I needed for salad stuff

I also made VegWeb's They Won't Know it's Vegan Lasagna, I subbed VegWeb's Sausage Crumbles for the ground beef sub

This is a shot of the last of the lasagna, I actually ended up making 1 big lasagna and 1 small lasagna with odds and ends of ingredients that I still had left... I actually liked the small one more because I added leftover roasted brussels for the veggie filling... YUM!

Yesterday it was raining so I was in the mood for soup. I made VegWeb's Corn Chowder.

I was craving some of VegWeb's General Tao's Tofu so I made it yesterday as well.

It was my brother's birthday Thursday and I finally got around to making him some chocolate cupcakes using THIS recipe. Turned out perfect! I smothered them with store bought vegan frosting :)

See ya again next week :)