food Archives - Page 55 of 93

POM Wonderful POM Tea

When someone emails me and says “hey, can we send you free stuff?” my answer tends to be “hells yeah!” This never happens of course. Except for the POM Wonderful people. They sent me some juice a while back that I used in various ways. This time they wanted to send me POM teas. Sure!

Four teas arrived: Pomegranate Lychee Green, Pomegranate Hibiscus Green, Pomegranate Wildberry White and Pomegranate Blackberry Tea. I usually drink my tea unsweetened or lightly sweetened so I gravitated towards the two light teas, the hibiscus and wildberry. I liked the sweetness level of those but my overall favorite was the lychee. Since lychees are sort of a perfumed, floral experience, no one will be surprised by this given my love of rosewater, lavender, etc. in food. I can see myself craving that one from time to time. The non-light teas weren’t hideously sweet. I just don’t need as much sugar as they provide. And to me 140 calories is a lot to blow on a beverage. Yeah, the bottle is supposed to be two servings. But seriously, who drinks half?

Fake Meat Log

If you are vegan, vital wheat gluten is your friend. In these times, it’s good to know that you can make your own seitan and vegan lunch meat way cheaper than buying it pre-packaged. Plus, you control the ingredients.

Recently, Vegan Dad posted this recipe for a lunch meat that uses white beans. I knew I had almost exactly the amount called for taking up room in my freezer. And since I’ve been busy baking breads lately, I needed some lunch meat. Sometimes you need a change from peanut butter & jelly.

I did make a couple of changes to the recipe. I did not use the fennel seed because Kevin hates it. Also, instead of steaming then baking, I just baked it longer, about an hour and a half or so. This turns out to be a nice mild lunch meat. There are plenty of recipes out there for something spicier if that’s what you want. This made two good sized logs for me. Great for a family, but I would probably half the recipe for myself in the future. Although I can toss one in the freezer for future use or just keep baking bread and I’m sure it’ll disappear soon enough. 🙂

A Southern Dinner

Friday night I made Kevin really happy by cooking something that was fried. I had starred this recipe for Country Fried Seitan Steak in Google Reader and planned to cook it some time this week. I already had the seitan, so just need to bread it, fry it and make the gravy. Oh, and make the collards and cook sweet potatoes to mash. It was a whole stove kind of meal.

I wouldn’t change anything about the seitan steaks. The breading was lovely. Seasoned nicely. The gravy seemed a bit bland to me so I added two tablespoons of nutritional yeast. Perfect! The sweet potatoes I steamed in the pressure cooker. It all came together really well but isn’t the kind of meal I would make on a standard week night. Too much work and too many dirty dishes. To add to the chaos, I was also baking off a whole wheat sandwich bread that turned out to be just cool enough to slice and eat with dinner.

Treats that don’t make you fat

How do you make delicious treats that don’t make you fat? You get them out of your house!

A friend of Kevin’s was having a vegan out of town guest and wanted to get some goodies. He’d been by the Atlanta Vegan Bake Sale and asked us to do a couple of things for him. Well, “us” is me, but that’s fine. This is the best kind of baking. I get to taste a little, and get the rest out of my house. I mean, how could you walk by these and not shove one in your mouth?

You also need breakfast for an out of town guest, right? How about cherry almond scones? Turbando sugar is the perfect grain to sprinkle on top. Damn, I would totally eat one if these if I had one here right now. See? That’s the problem with keeping that sort of thing around.

More Daiya adventures

Because we know people (hey!) we got to sample Daiya in yummy pizza form and also got some of each flavor of shreds to take home. I did a couple of bullshit things with them last week because I’d already done the weekly shopping. But this week I could plan for it.

What’s an easy thing to do with melty vegan cheese? Quesadillas! Kevin fried up the chorizo with onions, I made a quick salsa and corn & pepper salad. Sometimes the best food comes from improvisation.

What else do you do with yummy vegan cheese? Lasagna! This is the spinach lasagna from Yellow Rose Recipes. I made a half batch so we wouldn’t be swimming in it. Worked really well and the leftovers reheated nicely in the oven.

Okay, so I know you’re intrigued. So where can you get this magical Daiya cheesy stuff? Oh look! Cosmo’s has it in stock. Seriously, get on that. Heck, Teese is on sale this weekend, so get some of each.

This post brought to you by the letter Manhattan. I blame it on all typos and general weirdness. My tongue is kinda numb.