Tag: veganomicon

About to commit blasphemy

I realize I’m the last vegan in the world to try the Chickpea Cutlets in Veganomicon. But I’m a Chickpea Cutlet virgin no more. From all the hype on the intarwebs, I sort of expected nothing short of a multiple orgasm upon tasting these things. Eh, not so much. I mean, they’re good. And I’ll make them again. They’re similar in texture to these Ultimate Veggie Burgers which I like to keep around in the freezer. The mustard sauce did take the cutlets up a notch, that’s for sure. So I’d make that too if you planning on eating as a cutlet rather than on a bun.

Spiced Match Meat Kebab

You know those spicy Persian ground meat kebobs? I’d been thinking for a while that Match Meat would lend itself well to this. So I decided to give it a shot. And I was right. Instead of making it into kebobs, I just formed it into patties and pan fried it. It would be even better on a grill. These were spicy and delicious. Here I’m eating it with Israeli Couscous from Veganomicon and some mixed veggies.

Spiced Match Meat Kebab

  • 1 lb. ground beef style Match Meat
  • 6 tablespoons grated onion
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 4 tablespoons paprika
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 2 teaspoons dried oregano leaves
  • 2 teaspoons dried mint leaves, crumbled with your fingers
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Combine Match Meat and onion in a large bowl; set aside. Heat oil in a 10″ skillet over medium-high heat. Add paprika, salt, cumin, oregano, mint, and pepper and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 45 seconds. Pour the spice mixture over the reserved Match Meat mixture and mix thoroughly with your hands.

2. Divide mixture into 4 portions and roll each into a thin cylinder about 10″ long and 1″ thick. Slide a flat metal skewer (see page 100) into each cylinder and press the Match meat around the skewer. 

3. Meanwhile, build a medium-hot fire in a charcoal grill or heat a gas grill to medium-high (alternatively, heat broiler and position rack 7″ from heating element or just form into patties and pan fry). Grill or broil the kebabs, turning once, until browned, about 4 minutes per side.

Adapted from this recipe.

Forgetful

I keep forgetting to take pictures of food. I’m cooking food, I’m eating food, just not taking many pictures of it. Mostly it doesn’t matter, but I’m kind of bummed I forgot to take a pic of the Mini Wellingtons from Vegan Lunch Box that I made for Xmas dinner. I used some of the laminated dough I had made before that was hanging out in the freezer. The odd thing is that in the past I’ve had a lot of trouble with the Earth Balance oozing out of the dough and essentially frying rather than baking whatever I was making. That didn’t happen at all this time. Huh. I wonder if that’s because I froze and thawed it. More experimentation is necessary. 🙂

For breakfast Xmas morning, Kevin made pancakes. We had them with some Match Meat Breakfast Sausage and purple potato hash browns.

I also made a bunch of cookies that I’ve been trying to distribute before they all go in my mouth. There were white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, chewy chocolate raspberry cookies from Veganomicon and gingerbread cookies. I’m dumb and only took a picture of the gingerbread cookies:

With the extra time off, I tried to make a few items to freeze. The recipe floating around for Apple Sage Sausage caught my eye, so one day I whipped those up. So far, we’ve eaten them for breakfast in a sort of hash form with more purple potatoes and a bit of red bell pepper. The colors are so pretty!

Because there weren’t enough sweets in the house with all those cookies hanging around, I decided to make Egg Nog Cupcakes. Well, Soy Nog Cupcakes. Other than REALLY wanting to stick to the pan, they came out great. Also, I left the booze out of the frosting and made up for it with more Soy Nog, although I don’t think it needed the extra liquid. I gave a bunch away at work so I wouldn’t eat them all.

Random Collection of Food

I don’t feel very writey right now, but here are a few food pics that have been piling up.

The Cajun Tofu from Yellow Rose Recipes has turned out to be a great quick week night dinner star. Once you have the spice mixture around, the rest can be made up of staples I keep around. This time we had it with some of the collards that are filling my freezer and some hash browns that cooked up quicker because I diced ’em smaller. Oh, and that’s a little bowl of home made apple sauce.

When I saw this fairly quick recipe for bread bowls, I knew I’d eventually be dumping come Cholent from Veganomicon into them. I was right! The dry milk powder was replaced with soy milk powder.

Trying to keep the healthy cruise diet going, I baked up some Asian tofu and ate it on a salad of raw kale and bok choy seasoned with sesame oil.

And finally, this Peanut Butter Quick Bread recipe looked interesting. I thought it would be even more interesting as Peanut Butter and Jelly Bread. So that’s what I did. The bread itself is not all that sweet like a lot of quick breads, so the jelly does not make it too sweet. I veganized by using a flax egg and soy milk as replacements. The recipe worked in both bread and muffin form.

Cold Weather Food

I thought yesterday morning was cold. Especially when Grover escaped as I was letting when I let Tak out for her first pee. Chasing him around the yard for ten minutes all bleary eyed at 5:30am was not much fun. He runs, he meows, he runs some more. I think he finally let me catch him when he realized he was cold. It’s a good think he’s a handsome cat. See?

 

Im too sexy for my fur, too sexy for my fur...
I'm too sexy for my fur, too sexy for my fur...

On to food. If you haven’t made the Cholent from Veganomicon, this is the perfect time for it. After chasing Mr. Short Bus cat around the yard, I swear I would have eaten this for breakfast if I’d had any left. So warming and satisfying. The tvp chunks have the perfect chew to them. It’s like the stew my mom made growing up without all the death. Hell, next time I might even make it with biscuits on top like she did if I don’t make it into a pot pie form.