Veganmofo: Favourite blog post oldie

Sometimes the simplest of posts are the best. There are so many brilliant vegan food blogs it almost seems like a cop-out to call on the ppk's blog. But heck, it's just so swell.

Obviously Isa has all kinds of amazing recipes, tempting photos and glorious colour close up shots of said food.

But one of the posts I love refering people to, especially students, is the big old pot of bean post!

So simple, but sometimes contextualizing a plan for say.. what do you really do with that giant pot of beans you just cooked? hits it home.

PPK Blog What to do with a big pot of beans.

Meal planning is something I'm a bit obsessed with and it makes a lot of sense yet somehow I never seem to be able to stick with even my looses planning attempts and these kind of voyeuristic posts really help me get a feel for planning.

Plus beans are the go-to food for cheap living, so there is a bonus

Black Beans:
Day 1 ? Black Bean Burgers
Day 2 ? Chili
Day 3 ? Sauteed with Greens
Day 4 ? Tamale Pie
Day 5 ? Black Bean and Quinoa Salad
Chickpeas
Day 1 ? Dill Hummus Sammiches
Day 2 ? Moroccan Chickpea Stew
Day 3 ? Falafel
Day 4 ? Chickpea Samosas
Day 5 ? Chickpea Hijiki Salad Sammiches
White Beans
Day 1 ? Pasta Fagioli
Day 2 ? White Bean Quinoa Croquettes
Day 3 ? Roasted Garlic and White Bean Soup
Day 4 ? White Bean and Tempeh Sausage Patties
Day 5 ? Vegetable Soup with White Beans

Chickpea Salad Variant with pickles!

Obvious these are just some guidelines but what are your favorite bean dishes? or beans even?

My Chickpea pot might look more like this

Day 1 Chickpea Cutlets
Day 2 Chana Masala (I use kittee's dal recipe or YRR)
Day 3  Chickpea Salad (which I though I'd blogged about before. Lazy style onion/celery/garlic/chickpea/vegan mayo +acid)
Day 4 Pot pie!
Day 5 Chickpea Noodle Soup Vcon
Day 6 Scrambled Chickpeas!

Day 7 Salad with chickpeas on top (because they are so good! Or Roasted chickpeas)

My black bean list would include tacos, YYR Refried Black Beans, AFR Mango Black Bean Salad, and YRR Black Bean Soup

Veganmofo Hump Day!: Flash mob!

That's right it's mid-mofo time! To celebrate, we're taking part of the Veganmofo-Hump-Day-Flash-Mob and promoting fellow vegan artist Leslie Hall in all her Gem-glory!

She's written a song for the occasion which you can listen to on Kittee's site here: Click me!!

So rock out to her new tune and check out more amazing videos on her site!

Lyrics, because they are just too awesome:

I eat the finest cuisines, in the finest of places  Stuff my mouth full and always say thank you.  But if it's raised in a cage, and it can't even move, if it's hormone filled and in a bad mood.  I'm gonna pass on that.  Reach for something better.  The only milk I'll drink comes from the nipple of a soy bean. Veggies make you live forever, and they seem to taste much better. when they're cooked and grown with love.  So give a chef who knows what's up a hug. Momma just can't seem to get it, Papa he just rolls his eyes. When I tell them I'm much healthier, they just say that it's all lies.  But beans, nuts, fruits and veggies can really fill the belly.  Get you vitamins you need, shiny hair and extra speed.  Don't take that meat-wich any further, I want a marinated, deep fried, hand-tied mushroom burger.  I like it!  We gotta stand strong for our feathered furry sometimes scaly animal friends and their little babies.  'Cuz I wouldn't want to live in a cage in a dark warehouse killed at an early age.  Pumped full of hormones, sleeping in my feces.  Never met my mother, raised by machines.  Never get sunshine never get green, but that's just me.  [That girl loves fruit leather.]  So ask us what we're eating.  Delicious and repeating, fruits and veggies are so nice.  With a slice of tempeh,  yes, I'll have that twice.  Don't forget the legumes!

FoodNetworkFriday (FNF!): Spicy Cherry Ribz!

This week's recipe, originally from Guy Fieri,, for sppicy cherry ribs. First off, this sauce is amazingly complex, like you can almost feel/taste it's flavour changing in your mouth. Not at all what I would describe as a BBQ sauce, but yet still rich, smoky, sweet, spicy, savoury blending all at once.


I made a few changes because canned cherries do not exist in CANADA. I tried every store, spoke to managers, they were not having it. I could have cherry jam, cherry pie filling, frozen cherries or fresh. Fresh ones were on sale, so I used those (which was messy! but so good). I also didn't measure my ginger/garlic, instead i opted to use purees of both 3 spoons of ginger and 2 heaping spoons of ginger. I was also tempted to add a little brown sugar to my sauce but held off.

For my ribz, I decided to utilize the beautiful and head sized portobello caps I had from costco. As such, I should have reduced the amount of spice rub used but didn't. I sliced halfway through the caps to create tear-able riblettes. Brushed the top sides of the caps with mustard as the recipe suggests, and then just shorta dumped the rub on and mixed it a bit.


Then they went covered into the fridge for way longer than required (I sorta forgot about them for a week).
Mushroom version

Bringing us to today! I cooked up the sauce as the recipe describes, painfully pitting and chopping cherries. As a result my final sauce was kinda jelly like, thick with little sweet/sour cherry bombs throughout. I smushed them up while cooking, but I kinda liked the chunks. In the future I may try blending the final sauce for a smoother glazing approach.



I baked the rubbed mushrooms and last minute sliced a bit of seitan I had into sticks/ribs. The seitan wasn't rubbed or marinated, just brushed on both sides with olive oil. I baked at 350 for 15 minutes on one side while the sauce cooked, flipped then another 15 on the other.



Reduced heat to 250, and here came the tough part. I couldn't choose between a light glazing/brushing of sauce to create an extra crispy sell served with additional sauce OR if I should stick with the recipe and dump the whole mess into the pan to broil. I started with a light coating on side, baked for 10. It looked pretty good, but after reading all the other posts decided to flip everything and then liberally cover with sauce and bake for another 15. Then out and flipped once more with everything bubbling, stir around the sauce and broil for 5-6 minutes.


The results were amazing!!The seitan developed an amazing colour/glazed coating. Nice and crisp while soft and chewy in the middle. But the mushrooms really stole the show! they were moist, meaty, chewy and simply amazing. The texture was out of this world.

Seitan Riblet

Here's the thing, through baking the mushrooms let out a LOT of water which I drained and all was good. But i really should have drastically reduced the rub because while baking, mushrooms sweating, spicy ribz rub ran everywhere and mixed into the sauce. So my ribz where extra hot! The baking and additional Cayenne really turned up the heat! So I would try halving the rub next time, or maybe try leaving it out. In the mean time I'll be eating these tasty babies in small batches.

Mushrooms had such a unique meaty feel.

To round out the meal I mashed some taters in skin mixed with an amazing Vegan-mayo styled dill/chive/garlic dip from the Farmers Market. It was very similar to a super thick cream cheese/sour cream dip. Making a nice creamy, slightly tart, with a bit of bite, extra flavourful side dish! And added some steamed veggies for colour!
I even had enough for lunch for work! yum!

I'm also planning to use some of the remaining seitan/mushroom ribs for a rib sandwich if I can find a nice, easy, cooling,creamy slaw to serve it with. Another idea I toyed with was serving the ribs pho style atop a rich noodled broth with veggies.

More photos on Flickr.

Veganmofo: Cheesy Potatoes!!

The other day I needed something for breakfast, and as my luck would have it Ms. Kittee herself was waking up and logging on. So I asked the expert who told me these three magical words: nooch, oil and Potatoes.



Scalloped potatoes it was!

Now, unfortunately there aren't any real measurements here just simple steps.

First:

Slice your potatoes as thinly as possible and pre-heat your oven to 350.

2nd:
Combine nooch and oil in a measuring glass. I had a cup or so of nooch the first time, but the flakes deflate when they get wet, so you might have to play with it a bit.



I used a fork to whisk the nooch and olive oil together with salt and pepper. I also added a bit of soymilk for creaminess. You'll know when you get the right consistency because it will be thick, creamy and saucy.



3rd step:
Toss your potatoes slices into a casserole dish and cover in sauce. If you need more sauce, repeat step two until adequate sauce coverage is achieved.



Step 4:
Cover in tinfoil or lid if you have one. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes covered (until potatoes are soft and sauce is bubbly). Then increase to 400, remove lid and cook for 15 minutes of until edge brown.



Optional: I added some vegan cheese to the mix, but it's totally not needed!
I do recommend you serve these hot! I find the next day the sauce tends to really dry out and they are more like nooch crusted potatoes.



For a more complete meal serve with some baked tofu and greens. Yum!

A day in the kitchen and couch

Today Zoe and I watch movies all day while cooking up a variety of stuff.
First up WW ginger carrot muffins a-la-Zoe.

I'll be asking her for the recipe a basic WW muffin to which various add-ins/changes can be made.
For these she chopped my candied ginger chunks and grated two carrots.

So I figured today would be a cooking day, and I pulled out Yellow Rose Recipes to make the tamale pie I never got to try during testing. Being out of corn meal and a few other essentials, I made a bastardized version of my own. Using crushed corn chips in place of the polenta, follow your heart cheddar and Joanna's Nacho sauce for the top, Yves Mexican crumble (had no tvp T.T), and a way to big can of kidney beans with a smaller can of corn (no frozen). Also, no tumeric or cummin so I just left it out (SHH!). Still turned out amazing.

Next up Zoe stewed lentil stew all day to produce this gloriously thick rich filling bowl.

And I decided to do banana bread, a-la Kittee.
Which lead to making Kittee's peanut butter fudge, but Zoe wanted chocolate and coconut fudge... so we just added some. And added a little more of everything else.

**photos to come.

Cooking for the family, backlogged

i am currently recovering from surgery so most of my food looks pretty gastly. But this may give me the chance I needed to get back to posting the older stuff.


This meal actually had my mother eating tofu, which was interesting. I loved it and I think zane did too. Isa's Baked tofu from theppk.com very few modifications, pressed tofu for a few hours and as usually it was frozen first.


Wild mushroom couscous that was sitting in the pantry, along with the some toasted almonds and broccoli in lemon juice with brags. And candied Carrots from Kittee's site.




I also made some brownies, Isa's recipe again although I accidentally used regular tofu instead of silken, so they were a little dense but still good I found. Live and learn.