Category: recipe

Citrus Multi-Grain Salad

Salad
1 cup Lundberg wild rice/brown rice blend, cooked
1 cup quinoa, cooked
2 tangerines, peeled, sectioned and cut into bite sized pieces
1 blood orange, peeled, sectioned and cut into bite sized pieces
2 scallions, sliced

Dressing
1/8 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 medium clove of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon orange or tangerine zest 
3/8 cup olive oil

Garnish
1/8 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted lightly in a dry pan   

Mix together all the salad ingredients in a big bowl. Whisk all the dressing ingredients except oil together in a separate bowl. Gradually whisk in oil or use immersion blender. Add dressing to salad, to taste. Sprinkle toasted walnuts on top. Eat cold or at room temperature. Will be better if flavors can combine for a couple of hours. 

Perfect Potluck

Actually, every vegan potluck I’ve been to has completely rocked. And this one was no exception. Outside, at the park, nice Spring day and a ton of excellent food. This thing happened way back on Sunday. I know, that’s like 5 years ago in internet time. Also, I’m a dumbass and didn’t take any pics. But that’s okay because other people did.

I brought these crustless quiches. I did make some changes to the recipe. I used olive oil instead of cooking spray in the pan. Also, I doubled the recipe, but instead of doubling the mushrooms I added broccoli. Oh, and I think I sprinkled some extra nutritional yeast in there. And, I tossed together a quick citrus grain salad that was basically just wild rice/brown rice blend mixed with some quinoa, scallions, toasted walnuts, tangerines and blood orange with a sesame citrus dressing.

Thanks to Ashley Nicole to pulling this together. I’m sorry more of our vegan lunch group didn’t make it. They missed out!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls, Take 2

Back in November, I tried making the Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls from Don’t Eat Off the Sidewalk #2 and while they tasted great, they didn’t rise properly. So I gave them another shot. And they came out perfectly. I was even 1/4 cup short of pumpkin, but just added a splash more of soy milk when the dough seemed too dry. I think last time I used a packet of yeast. This time I just used the bread machine yeast I keep in the fridge. Also, to make sure it indeed had a warm place to rise, I turned on the oven for a minute to 200 degrees F, then turned it back off and put the dough in there. I left the door open until it felt to be a good warm rather than hot temperature and left it in there to do it’s thing. So one of those things, or both, resulted in kick ass cinnamon rolls.pumpkin cinnamon rolls 

Stuff cooked but not documented

Over the past few weeks I’ve been really bad about taking pictures of food. There are various reasons: laziness, forgetfulness, ugly food, repeats, and so on. Anyway, here’s a list of stuff I’ve cooked lately but haven’t blogged:

  •  Mole Posole: This is one of those recipes I go back to again and again. It’s easy and made up of mostly pantry food. And it tastes amazing. By “prepared mole sauce” they mean the paste you normally find in that jar you can’t re-close rather than the aseptic box of sauce I used on the enchilada stack.
  • Rice Vermicelli with Soya Mince & Peas: This is from A Vegan Taste of Thailand. Another one that’s pretty quick and easy and I make on a regular basis. It’s basically rice noodles, tvp, peas and thai red curry sauce. 
  • Cumin Lime Tofu with smashed sweet potatoes & broccoli: The tofu came from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. It tasted wonderful but was a little bit too juicy. I probably could have cooked a bit longer to dry it out more, but I was hungry. As leftovers, it seemed to dry out a bit more and be about perfect. 
  • Gemelli with Asparagus and Pine Nuts: Another book I keep going back to for easy, tasty recipes is Vegan Italiano. This one was a perfect use of new spring asparagus. And what is it about toasted pine nuts that totally makes my mouth water? 
  • Savory Vegetable Pot Pie: This one is another go to recipe and comes from The Candle Cafe Cookbook. Use chicken style seitan instead of tofu and even picky omnis will enjoy it. 
  • Linguine with Broccoli Sauce and Garlic: This one is also from Vegan Italiano. It came out a touch dry so I ended up adding a bit more olive oil at the end. Still tasty and easy.
  • Three-Bean Chili with Chive-Flecked Cornmeal Dumplings: Seriously, how can this be bad? From Fresh From The Vegetarian Slow Cooker. I love coming home to dinner all ready and waiting. Okay, I did still have to make the dumplings, but it was mostly all ready.

Enchilada Stack Mole

A couple of weeks ago I picked up this box of prepared mole sauce in addition to the regular paste that I buy. It was vegan and I thought it might be good for some future lazy food. Well, the future lazy food is now the past lazy food and finally I’m getting around to posting it. It’s rare that I actually make up a recipe. I usually let other people slave away at testing recipes to see what works. But with this, there’s really nothing to go wrong. It’d lend itself to all kinds of vegetables, for example right now I’m thinking some potatoes would be nice, of course beans could always be tossed in, whatever fake meat you have, or none at all. See what I’m saying? Anyway, here’s what I did this time. I’m sure that’ll change in the future…

 dona maria mole sauce

Enchilada Stack Mole

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 1 med. onion, chopped

• 1 med. green bell pepper, chopped

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 cup chicken style seitan, chopped

• 1 med. yellow summer squash, chopped

• ½ cup frozen corn

• 1 box prepared mole sauce, pint size

• 8 corn tortillas

• ½-1 cup grated soy cheese

Spray a medium casserole pan with cooking spray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

Heat oil in a large sauté pan. Once warm, toss in the onion and bell pepper. Sauté until onion starts to soften, about 2-3 minutes. Add garlic and seitan. Sauté for another minute or two. Add squash and corn, sauté another few minutes until onion is translucent and squash is softened. Season with salt & pepper and remove from heat.

enchilada stack mole innards 

 Spread a small amount of the prepared mole sauce on bottom of casserole. Lay down two corn tortillas. Spoon 1/3 of the vegetable mixture on top of the tortillas, spread a spoon or two of mole sauce on top of that. Now do the same with two more layers ending up with two tortillas on top. Pour remaining mole sauce all over the top completely coating the tortillas. Sprinkle top with cheese. Bake about 25-30 minutes or until cheese is melted. If necessary, broil for a minute or so to melt cheese. 

enchilada stack mole