Testers: baked tofu and avocado mango salad. Both are amazing.
(Local BBQ sauce and homemade mulled cider in the background)
Tester: Flying Massaman Curry (holy crap so good!)
And finally, the vegan vanilla cake I made for my niece’s birthday party yesterday.
We don’t make pizza too often, but it is a household favorite. It’s usually his thing. He has his own crust recipe and is often the one who takes charge and makes the whole thing while I try to restrain myself from making little suggestions. This is hard for me, but I know I have to keep my mouth shut because I hate it when people butt in when I’m cooking. Needless to say it’s rare for us to really cook together. Usually one person cooks, the other tells stories and opens the wine. Our collaboration happens more in the planning stage. So when he suggested pizza the other night I said yes. But we didn’t have tomato sauce. I didn’t want either of us to have to run to the grocery store at seven so I came up with an alternative. Someone at work had made a curry pizza and that got my thinking. So instead of tomato sauce I made peanut sauce. Instead of sausagey crumbles we had teriyaki tofu, instead of olives a few broccoli. In the crust we worked in some cilantro, red pepper flakes, and garlic. In the end it was amazing and opens up a whole new realm of pizza ideas. Thanksgiving pizza? tandoori pizza? enchilada pizza?
I got an awesome email this afternoon telling me I could be a tester for Terry Hope Romero’s new cookbook. After signing in I spent the next forty five minutes going through all the recipes hoping there was something there I could make tonight. I went through dozens of amazing looking descriptions only to get to the ingredient list and realize I didn’t have one thing. I could have still made stuff, but that defeats the point of testing, which is to make things as written to see how they’ll turn out for readers. I almost lost hope and was just going to settle for salad when I came to the Colombian Coconut Lentil Rice. I have that, and that, omg and that too! So I set out for the kitchen and came out with this.
So good, so comforting. I think this is going to be a lot of fun. And lots of pictures.
Fall means chili. I love chili and eat it year round, but it’s meant to be eaten in fall. That’s when it feels more perfect. Crisp days and the sound of wind blowing through fallen leaves. What’s even better is crock pot chili. Everyone knows the best chili cooks for hours and what better way than the crock pot. I have to admit, I often forget we own a crock pot. I actually can’t even take the credit for this pot of chili since he made it while I was at work. This one was perfectly spiced and had a good amount of liquid. I hate thin chili.
I was all set to eat my chili with just bread (don’t worry we had Earth Balance it just wasn’t on the bread yet) when he remembered we had some Daiya cheddar in the fridge and oh my. It made my night. Growing up my mom made lots of chili. Lots of incredibly spicy chili. So spicy I could barely eat it. To counter that my brother and I would load it up with cheddar cheese and saltine crackers until it was so stiff it wasn’t technically ‘chili’ anymore but rather some weird uncooked casserole. Luckily the chili in my life is not one-dimensionally hot. It’s full of spices and complex flavors that don’t need to be muted by add-ins. Though I still can’t resist the cheese-y stuff if I have it.
This doesn’t have much of a recipe. A big can of Mrs. Grimes Chili Beans, a can of tomatoes, some onions and a sweet potato, chili powder plus extra cumin and ancho, salt. I keep meaning to experiment and try other types of chili – white chili, beer chili, chili sin carne, etc. – but I love this and can’t seem to move past it.
The other night we ate green. Everything was green. The kale salad, herby quinoa tabbouli, and sumac tofu with baby bok choy and broccoli was delicious and the perfect image of what my dad imagines me eating every day. If only I could eat this every day. Kale salad is one of my favorite things and the tabbouli was a great way to use up lots of fresh herbs from our CSA (maybe a little unconventional with cilantro but it worked really well in contrast to the parsley). I purposefully bought sumac last week to make this tofu after seeing Amey post about it here. All in all an awesome meal.
The tabbouli was based on the one in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, the kale had a golden beet, tahini, soy sauce, and maybe lime juice? Too many kale salads to remember specifics.
Part of my goals for VeganMofo was to cook out of cookbooks and cook French food. Both of which I’ve done a pretty good job of for once. I still have Around My French Table from the library (which I should really just buy) and made this stuffed pumpkin from it. The recipe is also posted on NPR here. Obviously I left out the bacon, cheese, and cream. I had some leftover stuffing mix – you know, the crappy bag of MSG laden bread cubes that sells for $.99 after Thanksgiving and my boyfriend loves so I’ve had a bag in the cupboard for a year now because I hate packaged stuffing. Well it was perfect here. I mixed up half a bag of that with a chopped onion, salt, pepper, garlic, a big handful of Daiya cheddar, and some vegetable stock so moisten everything a bit. I stuffed it into a really pretty blue-green squash. I never found out what type of pumpkin/squash it was but that’s ok because I didn’t love it. It was a little dry and stringy for my tastes, I’ll stick with my preferred kabocha squash. It was still a fun experience though.
I’m not usually a fan of fruit in my entree. Raisins and apples can go in salads and citrus gets a pass. At least I thought I didn’t like fruit in things. During my French cookbook obsession I found a recipe for a chicken-sweet potato tagine with prunes. It sounded weird enough that I might like it. I’ve done raisins in tagine before and thought it was ok and I happened to have two pounds of prunes that really needed to be used it. Don’t worry the recipe didn’t call for two pounds, more like eight prunes. The only change I made to the recipe was to swap chickpeas for the chicken. It does call for a lot of saffron which I miraculously had. This was the first time I made something that had a very strong and distinct saffron flavor and I can’t say I loved it. Possibly the mix of saffron and prunes, each very distinctive, might have been overwhelming. It was good that night for dinner but I couldn’t bring myself to eat the leftovers the next afternoon.
I served it with couscous and some sauteed chard and mushrooms. The tagine recipe is from Around My French Table.
It’s no secret I love France and French food and Dorie Greenspan’s cookbooks. I picked up Around My French Table a few weeks ago from the library. And then rechecked it out today. And am adding it to my Christmas list (along with far too many other cookbooks). I love the stories and ideas as much as the recipes. I don’t mind non-vegan cookbooks because I enjoy veganizing things. 
Like this here Tofu á la Diable which means devil tofu. I guess it was supposed to be scary hot since dijon mustard is soo spicy (/sarcasm). I added some cayenne to mine and it still wasn’t very devilish, but it was super tasty and easy. Mix together some strong, good dijon mustard, a minced shallot and a minced garlic clove, some cayenne pepper, and a little water or wine to thin. Dip tofu slices in this then press into panko breadcrumbs. Drizzle with melted EB if you so desire and broil for a few minutes (watch the breadcrumbs closely, they like to burn). Flip and broil a few more minutes.
Next time I might marinate the tofu and make some sort of sauce for it. Along with it I had some kale salad (because I’m addicted to it) and celeriac-potato mash. It was supposed to be puree, but it didn’t want to cooperate with my brand new ricer. This was my first time trying celery root and I really like it. I’m not usually a fan of celery unless dipped in peanut butter, but I will add the root into regular rotation among the mashed veggie set.
Saturday night I went to the World Food Festival that’s going on in a nearby city. I’ve gone with my mom for several years with one goal. Ethiopian food. It’s one of my favorite cuisines and is particularly hard to find where I live. Thankfully Minneapolis isn’t too far and they know the joys of injera and w’et. So this year I bee-lined for the Ethiopian Association’s stand and ordered a veggie platter. I always get such a warm reception, especially when I get it with injera and ask for an extra piece. But I wolfed it down far too quickly and was then left sad and injera-less. The only other treats at the food festival that are vegan are drinks so this was dinner.
Now I’m home and rather sad that I have to wait until next year. Or do I? I talked to one of the cooks at the stand and asked where I could get injera and he recommended a halal store that would carry it, or if I needed a lot he gave me his phone number to call if I ever needed lots of it. So I have the injera source, the next was the seasonings. I’ve been meaning to make berbere and niter kibbeh for a while but just never get around to it. Until I was forced to clean out my cupboards yesterday and realized I had everything for it. By the afternoon I had a 1/2 c. jar full of berbere and a bunch of niter kebbeh. By the evening I had an almost empty jar of berbere and much less niter kebbeh. But I also had an awesome Ethiopian feast.
I used the second berbere recipe on this site and the niter kibbeh from Kittee’s zine Papa Tofu. I believe it might be out of print now, but don’t despair! She just came out with Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food which I have on my list of cookbooks I need to buy. The other recipes I made yesterday, including the niter kebbeh, were from Papa Tofu. In the foreground is the shimbra asa w’et (chickpea “fish” in onion wine gravy baked instead of fried), back right is the yemiser w’et (lentils in spicy red gravy), and back left is my version of atkilt wat (cabbage dish).
A while back I finally sat down and made enchilada sauce from scratch. I’ve wanted to do this for years but never got around to it. This goes for a lot of things ‘from scratch’. I cook a lot of stuff at home and try not to rely on store bought portions of recipes, but sometimes it’s just easier. Canned sauces, tins of curry paste, pre-mixed curry powder. I suppose to a lot of folks cooking anything at home means ‘from scratch’ but to me it means you started out with identifiable single ingredients. Someday I’d love to make homemade curry pastes and powders. Maybe seeing how easy and tasty the enchilada sauce turned out will inspire me. But for now I’m happy with my sauce.
I’m trying to recall now, but I think this was based on the recipe in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I liked it a lot but would like to use a mix of peppers next time, maybe anchos, guajillos, and New Mexico chiles.
Enchilada Sauce
4 dried ancho peppers
1 tbsp. oil
1 med. onion
3 cloves garlic
15 oz. can of roasted diced tomatoes
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
salt and pepper
1/4 c. fresh cilantro, chopped
Remove seeds and stems from peppers and cover with boiling water. Heat oil in a saucepan, add onion and cook for several minutes, until it begins to color. Add garlic. Mince soaked peppers and add to onion, if it seems dry add some of the soaking water. Cook for a couple minutes then add the tomatoes, sugar, salt, and pepper. Cook for 15-20 minutes, until it has thickened. Add cilantro and take off heat. When slightly cooled run through a blender or food processor.
This made enough for one 9×13 pan of enchiladas. The recipe I used for the unpictured final product was from the Fall 2011 Penzey’s catalog, a recipe submitted by Dane Kuttler. I was intrigued when I first saw the recipe because you boil the sweet potatoes in vinegar and soy sauce. I just had to try it. I usually make up my own filling as I go along but it usually includes sweet potatoes, can of black beans, can of diced tomatoes, and spices. For this I tried to stick with the recipe but clearly changed a few things for vegan and health reasons.
Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas
5-6 ww flour tortillas
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled if desired
1/4 c. soy sauce
1/3 c. apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp. canola oil
1 medium onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ancho chili powder
1 15-oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 c. Daiya vegan cheddar cheese, divided
1 batch enchilada sauce
Preheat oven to 375ºF.
Wash and chop sweet potatoes into bite sized pieces. Put the potatoes, soy sauce, and vinegar into a medium saucepan, cover with a lid, and boil until potatoes are soft and liquid is mostly absorbed, about 20-30 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Saute onion, garlic, cumin, and ancho until fragrant, be careful not to burn the garlic. Add the black beans and a little water or more vinegar and turn heat. Let it warm through then take off heat.
When the potatoes are done slightly mash then, then mix the black bean mixture and potatoes together. Add 2/3 c. vegan cheese and mix in. Put a third of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of a 9×13 pan. Fill the tortillas with a few good spoonfuls of filling and place seam down in pan. Continue until pan is full. Spread the rest of the enchilada sauce over the top and sprinkle on the rest of the cheese. Bake for 25 minutes, or until cheese is melted and the sauce is slightly bubbling around the edges of the pan. Cool slightly and enjoy.
Cornfields and Cookies 