March Cookbook Challenge!

From the lovely minds of the PPK, I've signed back up for a cookbook challenge to cook at least a few things from an honest to goodness book.

I also signed up for a cookbook swap with the Halifax Veg*n FB group, and got two cookbooks from another HRM Vegan. So this Month I am cooking from those.

So Far~!
Challenge : Cook from the book
Book : Martha Stewart's Meatless
Impressions: lots of easy/basic intro to making vegetables taste good, reliance on fresh ingredients and simply showcasing basic cooking techniques.

This is likely a book I really enjoyed flipping through and have bookmarked about a million things to make, but for the most part I will likely use this book for inspiration or a basic direction rather than a true every day go to book. Like a lot of non VEGAN specific authors/books, it does some pretty tasty vegan dishes and sides but mostly its a lot of making vegetables not taste bad and nothing that is super mind blowing (but maybe PPKers/authors like Isa, Terry, Joanna, Kelly, Katie, Kittee, Julie, Joni etc have ruined me for other authors)

Now the good stuff, photos and recipes tried!

Roasted ChickPea/Eggplant Stew
This was super easy and one of those dishes I could see myself turning to when there is wayward eggplant in the fridge on a busy week night. Eggplant aside, I always have the rest of the ingredients if I sub dried herbs for fresh (because im not a millionaire).

I love that the recipe has everything roasting on one pan all at once to make it an easy throw together, the stew was very thick and tasty the next day with Vegan Naan for lunch. It was pretty earthy and salty, and definitely good but not something I would go out of my way to make

Roasted Chickpea/Eggplant Stew PG136-137

Italian Baked Eggplant with Seitan

This was another recipe that was pretty easy to make because I had a huge batch of julie (everydaydish.tv) famous seitan sausages I needed to use up. The recipe looks way fancier in the picture, but I left my roommate jae in to prep and he said he found it a little cumbersome/involved for a week night meal. The end result was good, but someone not quite what I envisioned. I might try this one again with a more hands on approach, overall it was a decent filling one dish meal but the steps of breading the eggplant wasn't as low key/tasty as I had hoped. Still good and gave us lots of leftovers and didn't feel like we were missing anything by eating this by itself (since it has eggplant, tomato, spinach and seitan)

PP. 168-168

It also photographs much better.

There is another eggplant dish, I am regretting not trying for a simple dip. I have a feeling the simpler recipes are where this book will really shine showcasing vibrant fresh produce and ingredients w

I think in the future, I would try breading all the eggplant, it seems like this dish aims for a more casserole like dish and our presentation might be to blame for it's middle ground achievement.

I still really love reading through this book and have a weak spot for Martha, so while I wouldn't pay full price for this book and feel it's target is better suited for non-veg*n looking to learn how to eat more vegetables or even learn how to cook some veg*n food. I will probably buy this guy used or on sale, because I am a sucker for well edited books with lots of photos

Veganmofo: Lunches!

Lunch is an often neglected when it comes to the food enthusiest. Dinner is the main show, brunch has it's fans, breafkast can be impressive and lunch is mandatory.

Well I figured it might be neat to have some lunch worth braggin about.

Today's Lunch is brought to you by YRR and the ever fantastic lunch buddy leftovers!

A few years ago I began toying with the idea of Cooking my way through a cookbook, the book I choose was Yellow Rose Recipes by the Lovely Joanna Vaught. After all it was a kick ass book, with good old fashion belly pleasers. As always life got in the way, and a year later I'm still working on it.

 So here is YRR's Delightful Cajun tofu in bento format

This one was pretty simple, wild rice in the rice cooker, produce box veggies in the steamer and leftover YRR Cajun Tofu.

For storage sakes and added flavour, I went with BBQ dipping sauce kicked up with Blair's Hot sauce (review to come). Simple and Tasty

VeganMofo: Cheap Eats, Recycle your leftovers!

Making a large batch of foods definitely saves you on two major resources time and power. But sometimes eating the same thing for weeks (especially if you live alone, and you wind up with even more meals/portions) makes your stomach turn, or heck you get bored with whatever it was.

This is where leftover recycling comes in, a concept I first hear about from the amazing Cheap Vegan Guru Stephanie (author of the Cheap Vegan series of Zines).

 

Leftover recycling allows you to enjoy one meal for a variety of days in different ways and helps strench out your food and time budgets. 

This meal was a combo of leftovers from earlier in the week. I had made the AFR Not-refried beans earlier in the week, some leftover kidney beans from when I cooked up a lbs of them to make the beans + in sauce, plus some chick-in brown rice (brown rice cooked in vegan chick-n stock from bulk barn), steamed carrots from a meal I cooked for the boy and I and the crumbs of Kale chips.

The beans were used with chips originally, rice was a side for some meal same with carrots. So tonight's meal was essentially a bowl. Rice topped with the re-fried bean, kidney beans in sauce, kale chips, steamed carrots topped with some cock-sauce, salsa and Daiya.

 The result was a nice creamy dish that doesn't photograph well but tastes great. Alternatively, it would also be great in a wrap as a burrito. MMM burritos.

So there it is, recycling your leftovers one simple way. Stay tuned for more examples, because this made more than I could eat!

Simple Cheap Eats

Some leftover stew from Fatty Fatty Boom Boom! zine and leftover baked potato fried with some spices.

I'm a terrible MOFO'er: Late night student eats

As the end of term draws near and dealines loom my time in the kitchen becomes non-existant... as do my meals. In efforts to rectify that I made time to make diner, which is a shame because it was so easy to throw together I should make time to do it everyday.


Bonus for when times are tight and limited cook a bit extra, or make 3-4 things. You can save a little bit of everything to throw into a lunch container for the next day which is what i did.
First I made a simple stir fry with frozen mixed veggies, soysauce, squirt of plum sauce, lemon juice, chili oil, sesame oil and seeds. Very tasty, super easy way to make sure you get at least a bit of green.

frozen stir fry mix (broccoli, cauliflower, baby carrots, yellow carrot coins)
-sesame seeds, chili oil, toasted sesame oil, garlic, plum sauce, red chilis, all spice, mustard seeds, lemon juice, soysauce.
fry together, string often

The rest of the meal was less green with some roasted red potatoes and vegan chicken strips from super store. Again, it doesn't have to be fancy as long as your eating something during the long days.

Roasted potatoes:
diced red potatoes
canjun spice mix, texan spice mix, veggie grill spice mix, paprika, pepper, olive oil.
Bake at 400 shake/stir every 15 you can bake these with the strips to save time. After the 1st 15 minutes push potatoes to one side to add mock-chicken. Continue baking until done.
Salt AFTER they are finished, otherwise potatoes tend to absorb salt.

I topped the strips with some thai sweet chili heat sauce and tucked a small portion of each into my amazing Green-go containers! <3 they are fantastic.
Be sure to let your leftovers cool before placing the lid, otherwise these suckers will steam up and lose their texture. Place in the fridge and grab on your way out the door to study!

VeganMofo: Simple Diner for a busy week day

Listening to Violent Blue rant about porn and sex censorship, furries, tribbles, steve jobs, masterbation and 4chan raids.

Thinking about sex positive teaching and chowing down on the leftover potato salad mash from Iron Chef and my heartwood Cheezesteak special from the Vegan Anniversary Celebration.

Glorious saucy shot:


Foodporn because that's all you mofo'ers really care about.


Potato close up with the lovely homemade pickles <3

Sandwich on kamut bread: