Poblano-Potato Casserole

This is a lasagna-type thing, except with mexican flavors - layers of corn tortillas, roasted poblano peppers, a mixture of potatoes & kale, and tomato sauce, topped with pine nut crema. I have to admit that the recipe didn't call for kale at all, but I had some sitting around (big surprise) and I felt like I should mix in some vegetables if given the opportunity.

Here's another cheesecake picture, too - I had some local peaches that were starting to go bad, so I made a sauce out of them so they wouldn't go to waste. I'm going to mix some into my oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow, too. Mmm mmm good! I only added about a tablespoon of sugar, so mostly this is just peaches.

Weekend Project: Spice Cabinet Reorganization

My spice cabinet has been a stressful scene for me since I've been cooking so much over the past year or so. It's a jumbled mess, with some things in plastic bags, bottles stacked on top of each other, 2 or 3 of the same spice because I would buy more after not being able to find the one I already had, etc. I needed some other kind of solution but I don't really have the wall or counter space for one of those fancy spice racks.

Then someone on my vegan message board posted this idea of putting everything in little plastic baggies, organized alphabetically. I can totally get behind some alphabetical organization! So this afternoon my spice situation went from this:

To this!

I actually ran out of space in the box, and may get another one. The cabinet is very user-friendly at this point, though; I can actually see what's in there!

Look at all those empty bottles! No wonder I could never find anything. And here is my confession for the day: I threw all those suckers in the trash. I just couldn't face rinsing them all out for the recycling.

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!@

A New Car!

Friday night Ben and I went to Carmax and bought a new car! His Altima needed about a thousand dollars worth of work, and despite the fact that "the engine runs great!" I convinced him it was time to let go.

We had decided on a 2010 Ford Fusion, but once the salesman ran the Carfax report we saw that it had been in an accident at some point, so we went back out to drive more cars. We pretty quickly settled on the Mazda6, which I liked better than the Fusion anyway. It's shiny!

Carmax offered us $150 for the Altima, but we politely declined. The next morning Benjamin sold it on Craigslist for $750 to some guy who responded to the ad within 20 minutes. Score!

Chile Cornmeal Tofu Po'Boy

One of the most annoying things about being vegan is that it's hard to find a good sandwich, and sometimes you just want a big huge sandwich! I've been craving one lately, so today for lunch I made one of chile crusted tofu and chipotle cole slaw. It was terrific!

Miso Udon Stirfry with Greens and Beans

Yet another Appetite for Reduction recipe tonight - a superfast noodle stirfry with collard greens, broccoli, adzuki beans, and tons of garlic in a miso sauce.

This dinner is ultra nutritious to the point where I felt virtuous eating it. But it tasted good, too! So that's a bonus.

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.

Chipotle Lentil Burgers & Guacamame

It's so HOT and it's been hot forever and there's no end in sight. Ugh. Today was our fifth day of 100+ degrees, an all-time record for Raleigh, and tomorrow's "cold front" is only bringing the high temp down to 95. So anyway, I'm having a hard time coming up with things to eat, because it just doesn't seem appetizing to put hot food in my belly.

Tonight I played it simple and made some chipotle lentil burgers and guacamame (half avocado, half edamame) from Appetite for Reduction, along with a black bean/corn salsa thing that's one of our summer staples. Nice and summery. We also ate the last of Ben's homemade buns that had been in the freezer. Hopefully I can convince him to make some more soon!

Coconut Rice Salad with Tofu & Vegetables

I made this up. We were supposed to have corn chowder but we're in the middle of a week of 100 degree temperatures and nothing sounded less appealing tonight than soup. So I diced a block of extra-firm tofu, doused it in sesame oil and soy sauce, and put it in the oven. Then I put some rice on the stove to cook, and chopped up all the vegetables - zucchini, red pepper, corn, green onions - that were supposed to go in the chowder. Then I mixed everything together and added coconut milk, agave, lime juice, and a little salt and pepper. Viola! A light summer dinner.

Panko-Crusted Italian Sausage Seitan Cutlets

Man, you guys, Vegan Diner. Every single thing I've made from this book far exceeds my expectations.

I kind of couldn't believe how good these seitan cutlets were. The dough is seasoned with oregano and fennel to make it sausagey - you would be shocked at how easily the addition of a little fennel seed turns weird vegan meat substitutes into sausage. I made the tomato sauce and seitan last night - mixed up the dough, formed it into patties, and steamed it for about 45 minutes - so tonight all I had to do was bread and fry them and cook the pasta. This was very, very much like chicken-fried steak, which to this Missourian equals AWESOME.

Indonesian Tempeh with Green Beans & Peanuts

This recipe is one of our weeknight standbys, very quick and easy. It's a Vegetarian Times recipe that I've changed up a little - I steam the green beans separately, leave out the cloves and water chestnuts, and cut the oil by skipping the tempeh-searing step. Instead I crumble it raw and steam it in the water & soy sauce, add the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes once the water has all been absorbed, then add the remaining sauce ingredients.

Corn Nuts - Chile Picante con limon Flavor

Corn Nuts brand fried corn kernel food product is a delightful taste treat for the vegan couple on the go.

When we drove to Boone last weekend we stopped for some snacks and got a package of Chile Picante con limon flavored ones. This is what the packaging looked like:

This package contained 4 servings, so we each had about 2 servings of Corn Nuts during the drive. That's 9 grams of fat and a full 25% of our daily sodium requirement.

They are very delicious. My favorite thing about them is that Tomato Powder is one of the ingredients. When you suck on a mouthful of Corn Nuts before biting into the "Ultimate Crunch," you are rewarded with an authentic Tomato Powder flavor, in addition to the other interesting flavors that are going on (Citric Acid and MSG being most prominent).

As you can see from the photos of the one Corn Nut I saved to photograph upon our return home, the detailed enlarged pictures of Corn Nuts on the front of the package are accurate depictions of the product.




A strongly crunchy texture with plenty of grainy crystalline flavor particles adhering to the outside of the Nut. I ate this last one after photographing it.

So if you find yourself in a snacking situation and don't need to stave off hunger for a long period of time, but want to eat something delicious, get some of these Corn Nuts and share them with a loved one.

Heart Attack on a Plate: Vegan Version

I've been craving fried zucchini forever, and while you have the deep fryer out you might as well make some onion rings too, right?

I also made a new (to me) mac and not-cheese recipe from Vegan Diner - the sauce here is made from cashews, nutritional yeast, onion and garlic powders, salt & pepper, and water. Magically, it tastes like mac & cheese. I don't really understand it, but it sure is tasty.

I'm sure this comes as no surprise, but this dinner was awesome.

Arepas

Continuing last weekend's theme of corn-based Latin things stuffed with filling, we made arepas today. Arepas are Venezuelan, made with a special kind of cornmeal (masarepas), and look like little English muffins. We fried them on both sides to make a crust and then baked them for another 15 minutes. Instead of trying to eat them like a sandwich, we split them and put the filling - tempeh salad + avocado - on top.

I guess it doesn't make sense to serve corn as the vegetable side for a filled corn-cake-style thing, but too bad, because that's what we ate. It was a good dinner.