Sticky Orange Stir-Fry

I have made four things from Isa Does It this week but failed to take pictures of two. Here is our dinner from Tuesday, though, which was super great:

The sauce is mostly orange juice with some soy sauce and mirin. She calls for seitan but I used soy curls, mainly because Ben hates seitan. I also  used a yellow pepper from our friend's garden! It was good.

My Favorite Things

One of the reasons I post less than I used to is because I've built up a nice stable of vegan recipes over the past few years that have become part of the regular rotation.  The other night for dinner I had some collards and soy curls to use up so I threw together three of my absolute favorite things in the world to make a quick, balanced, delicious dinner:  yellow garlic rice from Viva Vegan, smoky soy curls from Vegan Diner, and my own basic collards recipe.

I could eat these things every day for a long, long time - the collards especially.  I recently found out that collard greens are not readily available year-round for dirt cheap outside of the South, and now obviously we can never move.

Taco Time: The Conclusion

I never posted the exciting conclusion of Taco Week!  I know you have all been waiting with bated breath.

For the fourth night, I did the Smoky Curls from Vegan Diner as the "meat." I think it was our favorite. Maybe. They were all pretty good nights, so it was hard to say.

For the fifth and final night, we had leftover soy curls and also lentils, so we just did a mashup of those.

I highly recommend Taco Week!  And am also trying to come up with new themed weeks for the future.

Right now the theme is "eat vegetables" for a while.  Like the rest of America, we are in dire need of a post-Christmas detox.

Pineapple Noodle Stirfry

I made this recipe last night from World Vegan Feast.  The instructions say it takes less than 30 minutes, which is a lie unless you already have all the ingredients chopped up and ready to go.  I had to chop up a whole pineapple and a bunch of chard and mushrooms and garlic and grate some ginger and rehydrate soy curls.... all of that before the cooking even began.  I mean, this is not abnormal for our average dinner, but it irritates me when something is billed as quick and easy and it's not.  That's one reason I really like Isa Moskowitz's books best, because her time estimates are always right on the money.

Anyway!  I did not mean to go off on a semi-angry tangent there.  Especially because the dish was great and made a ton of food.

The pineapple was sauteed in a couple tablespoons of molasses before being mixed in with everything else and it added a nice caramelized flavor.  I thought it seemed like overkill to use an entire pineapple but it ended up being just the right amount, and the slight spiciness of the sauce cut the sweetness, too.  Win!

Japanese Pan-Fried Noodles

This is a very basic recipe from World Vegan Feast of sauteed buckwheat soba noodles with shredded cabbage and carrots, to which I also added thinly sliced red pepper and soy curls.  She called for the sauce to be almost entirely vegan worcestershire sauce, but I only used half the amount she recommended, plus soy sauce and some vegan oyster sauce.

There is actually quite a bit of cabbage in there, but it cooks down a lot and also has the added benefit of bulking the meal up without adding a lot of calories.

We are pretty big noodle fans. This was good.  

General Tso's Soy Curls

This is my second dish from World Vegan Feast, which I chose because it looked super fast and because Ben is obsessed with the General Tso's tofu from our Chinese delivery place. It WAS super fast - it took about twenty minutes, which includes ten minutes of marination time. Great for a weeknight.

So, soy curls are amazing. So meaty! And this sauce was really good. However, my General Tso's connoisseur said it did not taste like General Tso's sauce. Who cares? It was a great, easy stirfry and I will be adding it to the rotation.

"B"LT with Avocado and Broccoli Picnic Salad

OK, this isn't really a February-type meal. When I was dishing it all up Ben said, "Is it summer?" Hmph. I wanted to try the smoky soy curls from Vegan Diner! I couldn't help it!

So, what you do with soy curls is rehydrate them in hot water + seasonings for ten minutes, and then you cook them however you want. In this recipe, you add soy sauce and liquid smoke to the rehydration water, then squeeze the liquid out, add more liquid smoke and soy sauce, and saute them for 5-10 minutes, until they're as browned as you like. Then add some agave for sweetness and saute another minute or so. Whoo boy, they are DELICIOUS. Soy curls are by far the meatiest thing I've eaten since I quit eating meat - the texture is actually chewy, like actual meat would be. It's sort of disconcerting, really.

Anyway, here is the sandwich I made with them. Soy curls, lettuce, tomato, avocado, and Vegenaise.

It was STELLAR.

I also made a broccoli salad on the side, based on a recipe from American Vegan Kitchen. I thought the dressing (Vegenaise/agave/apple cider vinegar) was a little thin and I will probably use a higher Vegenaise ratio next time, even though that makes it less healthy.

The soy curls are living up to their reputation. They are GOOD. We had some leftovers that I ate cold from the fridge the next day and I had to stop myself from eating the whole batch in one go. I hope they're available in stores around here sometime soon!

I HAVE SOY CURLS

Soy curls are the Hot New Vegan Item but sadly they are not yet available in North Carolina. I kept trying to be patient but one day last week I just decided to go for it and order some online (from Butler Foods). I got a personal email from the owner thanking me for my order! They are nice over there at Butler Foods.

So yesterday they arrived.

!!!!

I sort of didn't realize quite how much six bags would be. It is a lot.

I'm going to make my first soy curls item this weekend, a Smoky Curls recipe from Vegan Diner that everyone says is like bacon. What if it's like bacon??? That will be super exciting. Stay tuned.