hells yeah, barbecue

I was inspired by this post on the PPK forums to make smoked, pulled BBQ seitan. This was freaking awesome, y'all.

My method was a little different because I used a mini stovetop smoker, which cut down the smoking time considerably. For the first go round I smoked a chunk of seitan roast for 35 minutes. That was a little too long - the outside got too crusty, and it was starting to dry out inside. Later I smoked the rest of the seitan for 25 minutes, and this time it was perfect. The smoked seitan was shredded with forks (and okay, my fingers), and simmered in a slow cooker with barbecue sauce.

I based the barbecue sauce on the one mentioned on the PPK, with my own modifications. I like a vinegary sauce that is not too sweet.

Barbecue Sauce

• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup catsup
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon vegan Worcestershire sauce
• a few drops of liquid smoke (optional)
• pinch of cayenne
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar

Mix ingredients together, pour over seitan, and simmer in a slow cooker for 30-45 minutes. This is a cooking sauce, it's not meant for dipping at the table.

Sorry for the crappy picture, the lighting was bad and I was in a hurry to eat!

cinco de mayo

I have been slacking off on posting food porns, mostly because work has taken over my life, to the point that I have little time to prepare meals. After a few weeks of eating crappily and the resulting heartburn/upset stomach, I was craving fresh foods.

Raw tacos to the rescue! I used collard leaves for the shells, cutting out the hard stem and dividing the leaf in two. The filling consists of homemade pico de gallo, cashew cheese sauce (recipe from goneraw.com), and raw refritos from Mattye Lee's amazing zine, Frugal Raw. It's not completely raw since I used pickled jalapenos and nutritional yeast, but I'm not aiming to be a purist. I hope to eat mostly raw this summer, and I'm using this month as a transition period.

Today is also Cinco de Mayo, and what's a celebration without margaritas?

vanilla & chocolate cake

I got kittee's awesome new zine, Papa Tofu, and was inspired to make a layer cake. For the cake layers I used the vanilla and chocolate cupcake recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, and baked the cakes for 40 minutes. After cooling for a few hours, the vanilla cake was topped with ganache, and the whole cake was covered with vanilla frosting. Total sugar overload, batman! I think next time I'll put fruit or jam between the cake layers and cover the outside with frosting or ganache.

I used my new mini dough whisk from King Arthur Flour's baking catalog to mix the cake batters, and it worked beautifully. I can't wait to try it for muffin batter. They also have pre-cut parchment papers for cake pans, which are really handy.

Nourished

I made a pot pie over the weekend, to use up leftover seitan cutlets and practice making pie crust. I tried the single crust pastry recipe from Veganomicon, leaving out the sugar. I had some trouble rolling out the dough even after it was well chilled, but think I may have added too much flour. It did turn out nice and flaky. I should point out that I'm seriously lacking in pie making skills, so the recipe is certainly not to blame here. Isa's suggestion about chilling all the ingredients (even flour) really does help. I see more pie making in my future.

The filling is simply diced seitan, potatoes, carrots, onion, and veggie gravy. No peas because my house is a pea free zone. I steamed the taters and carrots for about 10 minutes, sauted the onion in a skillet with olive oil, then tossed all the veggies together with the seitan. For the gravy I used Tony Chachere's creole brown gravy mix, jazzed up with a little red wine, rosemary, and thyme. I put the filling in a Bialetti stoneware pan, topped with the pie crust, and baked it at 375F for 40 minutes. I had the last piece of pot pie for dinner tonight, and it was such a nice thing to come home to after a crappy day at work.

Seitanic Sunday

I wanted to make a vegan pumpkin cheesecake this weekend, but only had one tub of Tofutti cream cheese. Making a trip to Wholefoods while Austin is in the deathgrip of SXSW was not appealing, so I came up with something between traditional pumpkin pie and cheesecake, veganized.

Not Quite Cheesecake, Pumpkin Style

pre-made graham cracker crust
(I used Keebler, which appears to be vegan. I think.)
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 8-oz container Tofutti plain cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup soy creamer (or soymilk)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch of ground cloves

Heat oven to 350F. Put the pumpkin and cream cheese in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add remaining ingredients and blend until well mixed. Pour pumpkin mixture into pie crust and bake for 55 minutes. The pie may be a little wobbly when you take it out but that is okay. Cool the pie on a rack, then refrigerate for 12-24 hours before serving.

I also fixed the seitan cutlets and taco slaw from Veganomicon, which made an awesome sandwich. I don't like to eat coleslaw as a side dish but this was really, really good on a sammich. The seitan cutlet was just floured and pan-fried in a little peanut oil. Grilling would probably work too, but I don't have a grill pan.

tasty failures

I made a tofu quiche for dinner that did not turn out quite right. Usually I make this with a combination of soft and medium/firm tofu, but only had soft tofu on hand. result: the filling did not quite set when I baked it. The quiche still tasted good, the texture was just off. Here is the recipe I normally use:

Tofu Quiche

1 frozen pie shell (or make your own pie crust)
1 lb soft tofu, drained
1/2 lb medium or firm tofu, drained and pressed
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup soy or rice milk
1 large onion; peeled, quartered, and thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of saffron threads

Warm 2 tablespoons of the soymilk and crumble in the saffron threads (I totally stole this idea from VwaV). Let the mixture infuse for at least a half hour, preferably an hour to get the most flavor. Yes, you should have thought of this sooner. This is also a good time to press the hell out of the firm tofu. Watch some squirrel videos on Youtube while you are waiting.

Preheat oven to 350F and bake the piecrust for 15 minutes. Take out piecrust and set it someplace where it won't get soggy or cat hairs on it. Heat the olive oil in a pan and saute the onion until it is nearly translucent. Add the minced garlic and cook for a minute longer, then remove pan from heat.

Strain the saffron & soymilk mixture into a measuring cup. Add more soymilk to make 1/2 cup. Combine the tofus, soymilk, nutritional yeast, cornstarch, salt, and paprika in a food processor. Process mixture until it is smooth. Remove the blade from the processor bowl and stir in the onions & garlic. Spoon tofu mixture into pie shell and bake for 50 minutes, or until set. Let cool for 15-20 minutes before slicing, that will give it time to firm up.

I also made the Best Vegan Brownies Ever with the addition of RicemellowCreme. I baked the brownies for 28 minutes, spread a layer of ricemellow creme on top, then returned the pan to the oven and baked another 7 minutes. The brownies would have been totally vegan except I was inspired to add chocolate sprinkles on top. It wasn't until later that I checked the label and noticed the sprinkles contain confectioners glaze, which is not vegan. oops. The brownies are gooey and rich, perhaps a little too sweet but sometimes that is what you want, right?

Scalloped Potatoes & Sausage

For lunch today I made the herb scalloped potatoes from Veganomicon, and panfried some leftover vegan sausage. It was really satisfying to eat a tasty, homemade meal after a week of too much junk food. I was actually craving vegetables, which is funny because I was a veggie hater for so many years. okay, I still hate brussel sprouts but have grown to enjoy broccoli, kale, and many other vegetables I used to loathe.

While the scalloped potatoes were cooking, I made a big pile of sauteed kale. I didn't quite finish the whole plate, but it filled me up while waiting for the taters to be done. I like the taste of kale but get tired of all the chewing.

vegan sausages, stew, bread pudding

Julie Hasson of everydaydish.tv created an awesome recipe for vegan italian sausages. These sausages are so easy to make, and taste great panfried in a little olive oil and dipped in mustard. I wanted to do something more with them for dinner tonight, and threw together a quick sausage and bean stew. For dessert I made the banana chocolate chip bread pudding from Veganomicon, which is forking awesome.

For the stew I used beans from a previously cooked batch (thawed out from the freezer), but canned beans could be subbed in a pinch. Tofurkey sausage can be used if you really don't feel like making your own, but then you won't have the smug satisfaction that comes from putting together a meal with foods you made from scratch.

Simple Sausage and Bean Stew
2-3 links vegan sausage, sliced into chunks
3 cups cooked pinto beans
15 oz can crushed tomatoes (fire roasted is even better)
10 oz can Ro-tel tomatoes with green chilies
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a pot large enough to hold about 6 cups. Saute the onion and garlic for a few minutes but don't let the garlic burn, or you have failed. Pay attention! Toss in the remaining ingredients and cook over a medium flame until the stew starts to bubble. Add salt and pepper to taste if you wish. I thought the stew was salty enough, but you may be some kind of weirdo salt freak. More seasoning or herbs can be added also if you want to spice things up.

Put a lid on the pan, turn down the heat as low as it will go, and let the stew sit while you cook up some rice or cornbread to go with it. While you're at it, why not steam or saute a nice bunch of kale or spinach too.

Note: if you can't get Ro-tel tomatoes where you live, it sucks to be you, so just use a can of diced tomatoes instead and add a little jalapeno or green chilies.

backlog pics & new cookbooks

I'm an avid cookbook collector, and love to sit down and read them from beginning to end. My two latest are Jo Stepaniak's The Uncheese Cookbook and Hannah Kaminsky's My Sweet Vegan. I put off getting the uncheese book for ages because the reviews have been so mixed. I'm glad I didn't listen to the haters, because the block uncheeses alone are worth the price of the book. I made the colby uncheese with smoked paprika, and it's 10,000 times better than any commercial soy cheese.

The first thing I made from My Sweet Vegan was the chai cheezcake, which turned out great. This dessert is sweet, tangy, and spicy; perfect with a cup of tea. I don't care for tofutti cream cheese straight out of the package, but it was fine in a cheezcake.

Last but not least, maple brown sugar pinwheels from Veganomicon. I almost missed the recipe because it's at at the very end of the bread chapter, and I don't associate sweets with bread. This is why it's a good idea to actually read your cookbooks. I was too tired and impatient to let the dough rise properly when I made these, and they still turned out good. I used Hollynog in place of soymilk for extra flavor, and added cinnamon to the brown sugar filling. I'm usually a big fan of icing on sweet rolls, but skipped it this time - these really don't need it.

motherforkin' toast on a plate

I made a loaf of bread last weekend with spelt flour and oats. It's especially good toasted, and has kept really well. I adapted a recipe on the back of the King Arthur flour bag to make it vegan.


Oatmeal Bread

2 cups bread flour
1 cup spelt flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons vegan margarine
1 1/4 cup soymilk

Heat soymilk and margarine in a small pan until lukewarm (110-115F). Mix flours, oats, yeast, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Add the soymilk & margarine and stir with a big spoon until ingredients are well mixed. I always end up using my hands because it's fun, and ensures that all the flour gets mixed in. Knead the dough for 10 minutes by hand or 5-6 minutes in a stand mixer.

Place dough blob in a lightly greased bowl, turn over so the top is now oiled, and cover with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel. Let sit for 1 hour, then punch down and form into a loaf*. Place dough in bread pan, cover, and let rise until it reaches the top. Preheat oven to 350F. Bake bread for 35-40 minutes or to an internal temperature of 190F. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes, then remove and cool on a wire rack. Yield: one loaf of deliciousness.



* baking 911 has great tips on how to shape bread dough into loaves.