Mango Fried Rice & Coconut Curry

I haven't been blogging much but I'm continuing to cook from Isa Does It pretty much every night and so far there have been zero duds. It's super fun!

Here is a thing I made a couple weeks ago - mango fried rice. She says to put toasted cashews in it but I didn't feel like dealing with that, so I put some tofu in for  protein instead.

I also made this freaking amazing coconut chickpea curry with kale.

I always think I will be bored with curry but I'm usually not, and this one was especially good with the full-fat coconut milk base.

Harira Take 2

I made a harira recipe from Bean by Bean last year and really loved it. This one from Isa Does It is totally different, and a quick scan of internet recipes shows it is probably more authentic compared to the standard (lamb-containing) recipe.

It looks just like a boring noodle soup but it was really hearty and spicy and flavorful, full of chickpeas & lentils & eggplant. I used ramen noodles because I had some to use up (which is funny, since the previous blog entry reveals I used Japanese noodles the last time I made harira, too), but noodles all taste the same so it's fine.

Stuff

Nothing too exciting here, but I made Guatita again last week (recipe: Viva Vegan), a peanut butter stew with chickpeas & potatoes, but this time topped it with avocado, cilantro, and pickled red onions. It was a good call.  Pickled red onions are one of my top discoveries of 2013 and they are so easy - I just marinate onions in red wine vinegar and a little sugar and they are ready in an hour but keep for weeks.

Ben and Todd also had a photoshoot at an old school Raleigh restaurant downtown, Mecca, for their band. The whole thing was pretty awesome. This photo makes me wish Ben was on facebook, because this would be a perfect cover photo!

Navajo Tacos

We made a new thing last night! I had almost talked myself out of going to the trouble, but once I said, "Do you think we really need to deep fry bread?" out loud to Ben I knew the deal was sealed. He will NEVER say no to deep frying anything.

You were supposed to roll the dough into 6 inch circles.  Haha.

but, you know, ugly still tastes good so who cares.  We used a stock pot to fry because our deep fryer is not big enough to handle 6 inch roughly circle shaped items.

Here is Ben being fake cheery about having his picture taken while he fried things.

Yummmmm.

So this recipe is in Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day, and is essentially fried bread with taco fillings piled on top. The protein is "chickpea chorizo," according to the book, but I am sort of over this vegan/vegetarian thing of calling non-meats by meaty names when they do not even come close to resembling the real thing (example: eggplant bacon. Just no).  The chickpeas were delicious in their own right, without being compared to meat. They were spicy and tomatoey and good. I did un-veganize it by adding some Mexican queso fresco, but that's okay.

They were good.  Really, really good.  I could only eat one and a half of them.

Indian Supplies

My mom is awesome and also got me The Indian Slow Cooker for my birthday.  It's not a vegetarian cookbook per se, but most of the recipes are naturally vegan, which makes sense because the author has been vegan for most of her adulthood.  She has a second book called Vegan Indian Cooking, which I do not have.  (Yet.)

Last week I made the Punjabi kidney beans from this book because it was the only one for which I had all the ingredients.  My one complaint is that the recipes make a huge amount of food, and there are only two of us in the McClure household - but mainly I am making these things to eat for breakfast throughout the week, so if I get five breakfasts out of one recipe and have to throw some food out on Friday night, I still figure I am coming out ahead.  Also, the kidney beans are awesome and the recipe is online.  You should make them.  The cinnamon is key.

Today I drove the million (20?) miles to the Around the World Market, which is the best Indian market in the Raleigh area.  I got SO MUCH STUFF.  I made a list of all the sorts of beans I was supposed to buy, but then I got there and found I had not included enough detail on the list, so decided to play it safe and if they had versions of the same bean that were split, whole, etc., I went ahead and got them all.  I figure we will eat them eventually.  Plus they were only $3 each (or less!).  And now we are all set for at least a couple of months if there is an apocalypse.

I also replenished my stock of tamarind concentrate and got a huge bag of cinnamon sticks for $1.25, some paneer (not vegan!), and spices for Chana Masala.  And also some pad thai noodles, which for some reason they sell at very affordable prices at the Indian market.

I am SET.  Lots of crockpot Indian stuff coming our way this winter.

Persian Eggplant Stew with Edamame Dill Pilaf

The weather people said all week that it was finally going to get coldish today, so although I found them hard to believe, I put this warm & hearty fall-like menu on the schedule.  Amazingly, they were right!  It was 83 yesterday and 53 today.  FINALLY.

This stew and pilaf are both from World Vegan Feast, a cookbook I tend to avoid because so many of the recipes seem like they'll take forever.  The pilaf was super quick to put together, once I cooked the rice, but the stew did sort of take forever.  It wasn't active time, but it had to simmer for 45 minutes and then bake for another 45, which means it is strictly a weekend recipe.  It was really good, though - chickpeas and tomatoes simmered with quartered limes (which made me feel fancy somehow) and then poured over roasted eggplant for baking.

The pairing seemed weird in my head - limey tomato and chickpeas + strongly dill-flavored rice - but it worked very well.  I do like everything I've made from World Vegan Feast and I know I need to give it a closer eye for recipes that can be made during the week.

Beans and Greens and Pasta

This is a recipe from Bean by Bean, but really it's more like a general guideline: greens sauteed in olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes, with some beans and lemon juice thrown in at the end to heat through, served over pasta.  She offers up a lot of different combinations of various greens and beans, but I went with the basic suggested one here - chickpeas & chard.

It was really easy and quick, and tasted great. I had some walnut "parmesan" in the fridge so I sprinkled that over the top.  Good for a fast weeknight dinner.

Crockpot Eggplant Curry

I love my crock pot and The Vegan Slow Cooker!!

This is a simple eggplant curry to which I added chickpeas, and served it over rice. I also cooked some collards on the side for greenness.

It's a shame eggplant looks so nasty in pictures because it is gooood when it gets all smooth and velvety after being in a crock pot for nine hours.

Crockpot Biryani

I'm in love with this whole crock pot thing. So easy! This is a bunch of cinnamon/curry vegetables and chickpeas over brown rice.

One other thing I've started doing is cooking up a big batch of brown rice from scratch and freezing it in two cup portions. I've been buying pre-cooked frozen brown rice for ages but this is way cheaper!

Chickpea Noodle Soup & Garlic-Dill Bread

This winter has been basically like winter in Los Angeles. I think we've had less than 10 cold days. It's weirdly disorienting and I'm going to be a little disappointed if we don't get a little snow or ice or something before the brutal Southern summer pops back up again. We had one chilly day today, sandwiched in between two full weeks of 60+ degrees, so I made the most of it with homemade bread and soup.

This garlic-dill bread is from Vegan Diner and was maybe the easiest bread I've ever made. No yeast! It took about five minutes to mix together and stick in the oven. It came out looking kind of like a huge biscuit, but the inside was moist and bready and delicious.

The soup is a Veganomicon recipe I've been trying to make for two weeks, but I kept forgetting to get the called for mushrooms at the grocery store. I went to the store today and forgot them again (seriously, why are the mushrooms in a completely different area from the rest of the produce?), but decided to go ahead and make it anyway. I added some celery to fill in for the bulk of the mushrooms and it worked fine. This is very reminiscent of good old canned chicken noodle soup, except without the massive amount of salt and weirdly gelatinous broth.

We have a fire in the fireplace and ate our soup and tomorrow it will be 62 degrees again.

Moroccan Zucchini & Chickpeas

This is an Appetite for Reduction recipe I hadn't tried yet, chickpeas and vegetables in a cinnamony broth served over brown rice. It probably would have been more authentic to serve it over couscous, but brown rice can be microwaved from store-bought bags and, as far as I know, couscous cannot.

It was good! Very vegetabley.

Christmastime!

It's Christmastime!!

OK so I am a couple days late. Ben and I had a very, very nice Christmas weekend together - I left work early Friday and we hardly left the house all weekend, except to take long walks. We did miss our families, but it's awfully nice to have a quiet Christmas every once in a while.

Christmas morning I made pumpkin pie oatmeal in Christmas ramekins! I haven't made this recipe for over a year and I have no idea why. It's super fast and delicious and it reheats wonderfully. I have some leftover canned pumpkin so I'm going to make some more tonight for weekday breakfasts. I used canola oil in place of butter in the oatmeal mixture, and earth balance for the topping. Otherwise, the recipe is already vegan.

Sorry for the blurry picture. I need to stop using my iPhone for blog pictures, probably.

Christmas dinner was chickpea cutlets with mustard sauce, herb-scalloped potatoes, kale, and cranberry sauce. I was going to make roasted baby carrots, too, but I was scared I wouldn't like them and realized I'd rather just eat an extra chickpea cutlet instead.

For dessert I made the Vegan Diner's Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding recipe, except I used a loaf of sour cherry chocolate bread I found at the grocery store. I also used full-fat coconut milk instead of light. Living on the edge! It was off the hook awesome and took no time at all to put together.

Let's wrap this up with some cat pictures. We are becoming increasingly insane about these guys.

Banana was curled up for his afternoon nap (usually 12:00 to 7:00 p.m.) and Benjamin thought he looked cold so he gave him a little blanket. Banana was not terribly amused.

But Papaya had a terrific time with all the boxes and paper left over from present opening.

Merry Christmas!

Potato-Spinach Curry with Chickpeas

Due to a combination of laziness and a company Christmas party, Ben and I ate big restaurant meals two nights in a row and it was very taxing! I can tell my body is getting older because if I eat too much I'm up all night. For serious! Anyway, it was time for detoxing back to our normal diet and I was glad.

I made Appetite for Reduction's Potato-Spinach Curry and added some chickpeas for protein. Served over brown rice, it was exactly what I needed.

Curried Chickpeas & Greens

This is one of the Appetite for Reduction recipes I hadn't tried yet - a quick, easy, delicious curry of kale & chickpeas over brown rice.

Very good for a fast weeknight dinner.

Baked Falafel Salad

Look how cute these heirloom tomatoes are! I've decided to quit wasting money on crappy tomatoes at the grocery store and just buy the expensive ones. It's only a couple of dollars more and they actually taste good! These were kind of lemony.

I used them in a greek-style salad with the baked falafel from Appetite for Reduction. These falafels look kind of weird, but the flavor is good and you save yourself about 6000 calories (give or take) by not deep frying them. We're spending the Labor Day weekend in St. Louis with friends and I know there is going to be some serious eating going on, so I'm trying to do a pre-tox sort of thing. So anyway, the salad is red leaf lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, and local cucumber tossed in Veganomicon's tahini-dill sauce, thinned with some vegetable broth to turn it into salad dressing. And toasted whole wheat pita on the side.

Chickpea Piccata, Revised

The last time I made this I wasn't thrilled with the raw arugula. It was supposed to become wilted by the heat of the sauce but it did not. So this time I threw the arugula in with the chickpeas to make sure it wouldn't be crunchy.

Definite win.

Roasted 40-Clove Garlic Chickpeas & Broccoli

This doesn't actually have 40 cloves of garlic in it, but it does have ten, which is a lot. I made this once before, early in the blog, and this time made some israeli couscous (Trader Joe's Harvest Mix, specifically) to go with. It was a nice wholesome dinner after today's lunch of pizza.

And here's the pizza. We went to the Mellow Mushroom, where they have vegan cheese, but either our waitress or someone in the kitchen was not that bright because when I specified vegan cheese on the Mega Veggie pizza, they replaced the mozzarella but still included the feta. Drat! If it hadn't taken forty freaking minutes to get our food I might have sent it back, but I just shut up and ate it. SIGH. Poor little cow.

It was pretty good, though. I can't lie.

Portobello Salad with Spicy Mustard Dressing

I've been wanting to make this salad forever, mainly because the picture of it in Veganomicon is so pretty. Mushrooms are hard, though; they seem to go bad almost instantly so if I'm not planning to use them the day I go to the grocery store, I don't even bother to include them in the weekly meal plan. Today, however, was grocery day and I needed a light dinner so it worked perfectly.

I've made this salad dressing before - it's just spicy mustard, red wine vinegar, maple syrup, and olive oil - and it is fantastic. The salad is romaine, thinly sliced red onion, chickpeas, and avocado, topped with marinated roasted portobello mushrooms. It was really, really good.

And then we ate dessert. Did you know July 30th is National Cheesecake Day? Well, now you do. I finally made my first vegan cheesecake (recipe from Vegan Diner), and also made a sauce of fresh raspberries and blackberries to go on top.

It worked! It tasted like actual cheesecake! And I know this for a fact, because Ben is not completely vegan and just ate dairy cheesecake on Friday. He was very impressed. Hooray!@

Eggplant-Chickpea Curry with Cranberry-Cashew Biryani

I made this once before but didn't post it, possibly because curried eggplant does not look too appetizing.

It's great, though. I always wondered how Chinese and Indian restaurants get eggplant to be so smooth and velvety; the answer, apparently, it to cook it at low temperature for a long time (in this case, about 45 minutes).

Normally I would just serve a curry like this over plain rice, but Appetite for Reduction suggests pairing it with Cranberry-Cashew Biryani, so that's what I did. It's rice cooked with Indian spices, onion, and garlic, and with peas, dried cranberries, and cashews stirred in at the end.

Goddess Nicoise Salad (Take 2)

I feel like we've been a bit heavy on the frying lately, so I'm going back to Appetite for Reduction for most of our meals this week. I made this once before and remembered it fondly, but it's been a while. One taste of that dressing tonight and I was kicking myself for waiting five months before making it again.

There are lots of veggies in here - red leaf lettuce, cherry tomatoes, green beans, potatoes, roasted red pepper, and then chickpeas mashed with capers. It was a really hearty salad, plenty of food for dinner.