Slacker...

Life as I know is chaos. I'm running here and there and back again. Spent some time up at the little house (see my other blog for more info) and I'm getting ready to visit the folks for Thanksgiving. This time it's a 9 hour (or so) drive. I'll likely leave around 4 am on Wednesday to avoid as much traffic as possible.

As far as cooking goes, I've been relying on old standbys. Any and all experiments have come from Vegan Dad's plethora of recipes and I'm loving his creations. We tried the Chickenless Wings and they were well received. My personal favorite was the Vegan Mini Meatloaves made with tempeh and vital wheat gluten. I think I added a little too much water, as they were not as firm as I thought they would be. We had mixed reviews with them.

Other than that, I sampled the Trader Joe's Italian sausageless sausage. The texture was good, but having never been a fan of Italian sausages (there's a spice in there that I don't like - fennel?). But once again, the texture was so much better than the Tofurky sausages I've tried in the past. We also found a pizza place that uses Cheezly soy cheese on their pizza and it was actually pretty good. Typically we just get black olives on our pizza when we go out and at home olives and onions (I cut them super thin), but we decided that to go with the Cheezly we would order lots of veggie toppings to give it some balance. Cheezly had a strong flavor - not bad, but different enough to require some other flavors to balance the whole thing. I also picked up some Newman's Ginger O's and they are great! I'm not a huge sweets eater, but a cookie or two now and then really hit the spot and I love ginger cookies!

Thanksgiving with the family is coming, and since I've tried Tofukey (yum!) and Quorn roast (next time I'll try not to overcook it), I needed to find something different for the big day. I picked up a Celebration Roast. I've been wanting try this for a long time and I'm looking forward to Thursday. Not sure what other offerings I'll have, but I'm looking forward to the weekend.

Until next time.. Hopefully I'll get the camera out too!

Notes to self:

Vegan Dad's Grilled Mexican Tofu is even better the next day when it is mashed up and eaten like a sloppy joe. Oh, and check for foil before mixing up seitan sausages. Steaming in a bowl doesn't work very well.

Off to make another batch of sausage!

Oops, I Did it Again...

We ate Vegan Dad's Mexican Tofu.... AGAIN! I still haven't tried the beans he created with it, but that BBQ sauce is amazing! It was a little spicier than last time, but with a baked potato it is fantastic!

A couple nights ago we were talking about a review of the book "Eating Animals" in some magazine (the name of it escapes me right now) and I mentioned remembering reading a review somewhere, maybe in a blog (this story is going somewhere, I promise) and how the author seemed to carry the message well, but stopped short of giving up (or discussing in depth) dairy. We talked about how we feel like hypocrites because we still eat cheese and have been eating eggs lately too. If we say our motivation for being vegetarians is centered around our feelings about the cruel practices involved in the production of animal products, how can we keep eating cheese! Cheese is the gateway to allowing some animal products back in to our kitchen. The eggs, an occasional tuna sandwich, maybe some shrimp. So, once again we make that commitment to a vegan eating. The eggs are long gone from the house, we finished or tossed the last of the cheese last night and we start today free of those terrible things that some people call food, and stand by our decision to stop eating animals.

Roasted Corn Chowder

I'm working hard at not being lazy these days. I was so tired earlier that I really wanted to take a nap around 11:30. Instead, I headed up to the kitchen and got busy.

For quite a while, I've really wanted to veganize the Roasted Corn Chowder that we made in school. So, with original recipe and pencil in hand, I set to work in the kitchen. I also wanted to make the soup in a quantity that I can enjoy. I recently made the One Wild Chick Soup from "Eat, Drink and Be Vegan." It was great, but after having it for lunch 4 days in a row and still having a big container of it in the fridge, I know I'll never finish it. I hate to toss stuff, but I had enough. I'm still working on the corn chowder recipe, but today's version of it was pretty good AND it made just enough for two hearty servings! Yay!

To go with my soup, I made Vegan Crunk's Whole Wheat Beer Bread. Very yummy! I used Bad Penny Brown Ale in it. We didn't really care for the beer and had some leftover bottle on hand. However, added to the bread, it gave it a taste almost like a rich, wheat sourdough. It paired very nicely with the sweet corn in my soup. I can't wait to try it again with a different types of beer.

My lunch really hit the spot and although I still want a nap, I think I'm recharged for a little longer.

Grilled Mexican Tofu

Words cannot express the awesomeness of this tofu!! We prepared it in a grill pan, and served the tofu (sans beans) over mixed greens and paired with guacamole. I added a baked potato so I could cover it in the BBQ sauce. It was the perfect combination of sweet and spicy. The leftovers made fantastic sandwiches for lunch today!

Thanks VeganDad! Another wonderful recipe!

Into a new month and a new direction

I fell off the Vegan MoFo bandwagon and took a nose dive straight into the crazy world of my life. Things have changed a bit for me. I'm living in this little city, yet I still have a house 7 hours from here that I have been trying to sell. Nothing was happening with the house and I got very little feed back from the realtor. So he's fired, and when my lease ends here, I'm headed back there for a little while. I can't afford to live in two places and I can't let the house sit empty. So, I'm trying to go every few weeks, mow the lawn, tidy up and work on improving it so I can sell it. The house was built in the 1950s, so it needs a little bit of TLC.

Since I'm running back and forth between these two little towns, and I'm turned upside down and inside out by all of this... I have withdrawn from school. I can't concentrate and I know I won't be able to attend next semester. Am I disappointed? Hell, yeah! Like I said, things are so crazy now, it's just unbearable to think about how my life is going to change in a few months. So, I'm not focusing on that right now.

I think I'm slowly pulling out of this haze of depression and will be back to loving my kitchen.

VeganMoFo - Arepas with Corn

Well hello yummy! Dinner last night was a grand success. Another tasty item for my collection of recipes that use pantry staples. I always seem to have these ingredients on hand, so it's great to know that I can pull this together with ease and confidence that everyone will enjoy it.

The original recipe is from Mark Bittman and appeared in The New York Times in early September. I made some simple substitutions to make it vegan and it was awesome!

I left out the cheese, substituted unsweetened soy milk for the regular milk and Earth Balance for the butter. I used frozen corn as suggested and used a small jalapeno from our plant that had turned red (I thought the color would be better). The only problem with the recipe was that it didn't seem to thicken into a soft dough, so I kept adding more cornmeal to thicken and then placed in the refrigerator before shaping to firm it up some more. Then I just scooped some out and almost tossed it back and forth in my hands to get it to shape. They cooked up just fine, sliced easily with a serrated knife and then filled. I used a can of black beans, rinsed and drained. I heated them up with a little salsa and some diced fire roasted tomatoes. I had blended the tomatoes with a stick blender because although I'm allergic to tomatoes, I have found that I can tolerate the pureed ones.