Cool Kool-aid

Since I haven't been doing much actual cooking, I thought I'd cross-post this quasi-culinary entry from my Fiber blog... Enjoy!

Cool Kool-aid: "Selma, her friend Elise and I did an experiment today with Kool-aid dyeing. Using some Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool and red (Fruit Punch) yellow (pineapple and mango) and blue (blue raspberry lemonade). We wanted to compare dyeing in the microwave to the 'sun tea' method.

Following the general guidlines of Kristi's Knitty article, we used ziploc bags for the 'sun tea' dyes and glass dishes for"

(Via The Hook and I.)

No food news...

Still trying to eat out of the pantry--we had veggie dogs for dinner, but I thought you might enjoy this quasi-culinary link (well, there's an egg mentioned...)

The Store at Home

James is out of town, the babysitter is on vacation... Basic household tasks are more of an adventure with kids in tow, so I've avoided grocery shopping in favor of reducing bulging cupboard stores.

Tonight, whole wheat spaghetti with sauce from a jar--doctored with herbs, marinated artichoke hearts, and chick peas. Served with steamed broccoli. I didn't figure it warranted a picture, but the kids liked it, and for once, I have plenty of leftovers. Yeah!!

Technorati Tags:
vegan, vegetarian, dinner, cooking, italian, pasta

I should have taken a picture

I'm staying with my friend Cynthia in Seattle--last night she made homemade avocado sushi, it was delicious! (And beautifully presented) Her sushi rice is just great--she uses rice vinegar and a little sugar. To go with the sushi, we had edamame, vegan spring rolls and pot stickers.

On my first night here, I was staying with my friends Hans and Steph, and we got take out from one of the best Thai restaurants I've ever eaten at which just happens to be right here in hip, happenin' West Seattle. I ordered Rama Tofu and Phad See Ew (minus the egg, extra tofu). It was just as I remembered. Yum.

They have the best potatoes here in Washington State. I miss having great vegetables year-round now that I'm in Maryland. I was picking some things up from Hans and Steph's house last night, and they were just finishing dinner. Hans wanted me to taste the fingerlings that he had cooked in olive oil and rosemary--they just melt in your mouth. They're tiny and good. I don't think he even par-boiled them.

Tonight Cynthia and I are making our very favorite peanut curry, so stay tuned!

Seattle Bound

The kids and I are headed to Seattle tomorrow for Spring Break--so I probably won't be doing much cooking--tho' Stef, who I'm staying with for part of the trip has just taken a Pad Thai class and wants to fill me in on some secrets she learned, so there may be a little bit. I do expect we'll be eating some great food, so I'll try and post once or twice. Have a great week, everyone!

Polenta Lasagne

Tonight we had a veganized version of the Polenta Lasagna with Creamy Mushroom Sauce from the current issue of Vegetarian Times. It was creamy and good. I don't make recipes from magazines very often, but Selma loves polenta, and I had been searching for some new ways to serve it. I used to make recipes all the time from Natural Health magazine--back when they were vegan.

Technorati Tags:
vegetarian, recipe, dinner, cooking, italian

Not Posting, But Still Eating...

I've haven't had much computer time the last few days--no babysitter and lots of knitting to do. On Monday night, I was looking through The Garden of Vegan for some inspiration and I came across a peanut butter noodle recipe. I didn't want noodles, but the sauce sounded good... I fried some tofu with sesame seeds, made my own version of the peanut sauce which included peanut butter, soy sauce, vegan worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, and some hot water. The sauce coated 1 lb of tofu and 1 lb. of broccoli nicely. I also made my Rice Balls but didn't have time to make the simmered sauce, so I just mixed soy sauce and agave for a sort of teriyaki sauce.

It was delicious--but for the three of us, we had less than 1/2 cup of the broccoli and tofu left--there were a few rice balls left over which were great cold the next day.

Technorati Tags:
vegan, vegetarian, recipe, dinner, cooking, tofu

A Nice Surprise!

After an afternoon with a dozen crazy 6-8 year-old crocheters, I came home and was surprised to see James was already here... He'd picked up the baby from my neighbor's and they were wrestling on the bed. I threw myself down, exhausted... "I don't want to make dinner!"

"Do you want me to make it?" He asked... Awesome. James (who's not vegetarian but happily eats that way at home) made Emfudeky (phonetic spelling), It's a Syrian family recipe, which is basically a clean out the fridge stir-fry. We eat it with toast. Yum.

I rarely, if ever, post off-topic, but I got this e-mail from my brother today, and I just had to share:

I created this ad for the 2007 Chevy Tahoe. Enjoy.

http://www.chevyapprentice.com/view.php?country=us&uniqueid=5e09558a-119c-1029-98eb-0013724ff5a7

More on this campaign and its subversion.

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004255.html

I'm looking forward to seeing more of these ads. Do you think Chevy had no idea this would happen? I guess some ads have already been censored. I wonder how long John's will stay....

A Food Meme?

Ruthie mentioned TVP corn dogs the other day, and Katie took the idea and ran with it making mini-stuffed corn muffins. I couldn't get the idea out of my head so tonight I tried it--a few changes: I used regular sized muffin tins, I also used Gimme Lean sausage instead of TVP (not pre-cooked) and I added a heaping teaspoon of Salsa on top of the sausage.

The Verdict? The cornbread is a little too sweet--we all agreed these will be better tomorrow for breakfast. If I do it again, I might reduce the sugar and add some green chilis and Follow Your Heart cheese to the batter... They were easy to make, though--to go along with them we had steamed spinich tossed with Earth Balance and Vegan Parm. Selma ate tons of it!

Off the wagon already!!

I was teaching tonight, and was out driving the mom wagon until 5:30, so cooking was sort of out of the question... I should have planned ahead earlier in the day, but lacked inspiration--I gotta be reading these great vegan blogs you all have more! We had frozen pesto pizza with tomatoes and broccoli (yum) and the new Muir Glen canned organic split pea soup--too salty, but pretty nice flavor--not so great texture. It made me want to make my own pea soup!

Dinner Diary

After a winter of trying to avoid cooking as much as possible, I've resolved to cook more and eat better. So tonight I pulled out the recipe books. From The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook by Joann Stepniak, I made Cheesy Broccoli Rice--it was quick and easy takes just one pan and got rave reviews from James and Selma. I contemplated adding some tofu to the casserole to have a one-dish meal, but decided against it. Instead, I made Amazing Oregano and Olive Fried Tofu from VegWeb--it was really yummy and disappeared completely--so much for leftovers! I used to cook everything in huge quantities, and now I'm just as likely to make "just enough." I need to think bigger. Not sure what I'm making tomorrow, any ideas?

Technorati Tags: vegan recipe vegetarian food

Selma Turns Six!

IMG_1177.JPG
Originally uploaded by plainsight.

Selma chose a Scooby-Doo theme for her sixth birthday... The cake is a double layer version of my Creamsicle Cupcakes which I hadn't made since last summer. For frosting I made a vegan buttercream loosly based on a recipe from VegWeb. (I added more chocolate, some orange juice and changed the proportions.)The cake vanished, so we don't even have any leftovers for tonight! I'll be making a batch of cupcakes tonight to bring to Selma's school tomorrow.


Technorati Tags: vegan recipe vegetarian food

Drink your Chocolate

It's not new news that hot chocolate is healthy, but since the weather is getting colder, I thought we could use a reminder... I like to eat a few pieces of chocolate as a pick-me-up when I'm lagging in the afternoon, but today, I was chilled and thought it would be much nicer to drink my chocolate bar. Here's what I did:

Put 2 ounces of your favorite chocolate in a mug.
(I used 73% organic dark from Trader Joe's but I think I'd prefer a slightly more sweet one next time.)
Add 8 ounces of soy milk
(I use Silk Unsweetened)

Microwave for about 2 1/2 minutes.

Stir well.
Don't burn your mouth!
Enjoy.

The result is a thicker richer hot chocolate than you get from cocoa (which has little or no fat) -- it reminds me of the hot chocolate you can get in Italy and Spain which I think is thickened with corn starch.

Camp Cooking

We're staying at my family's cottage in the north woods of Wisconsin, and since it's our first night here, we had to make dinner using only what we had brought along or what we could find in the cupboards.

My mom decided to make salmon patties with a can of wild alaskan salmon she found. We had eggs some leftover corn and salad ingredients. I had brought up a box of shelf-stable silken tofu, so I decided to make tofu patties--we'd use most of the same ingredients. Mom made a corn relish (corn, onion, green pepper, cumin, coriander) as a side dish, and I put some of it in the with the tofu--we also used dehydrated onion, some chopped celery and I added turmeric a 1/4 t. of baking powder to mine. We didn't have any flour we crushed some crackers and added them to the "dough."

It was delicious, quick and easy (especially since Mom did most of the chopping!)

Food for Vegetarians

IMG_1724.JPG
Originally uploaded by plainsight.

I love this sign--it's a huge billboard atop a building in the industrial district of Seattle. It sits across the street from Starbucks headquarters. I've only eaten at the place once. The food was good, fast, chinese food--nothing fancy, lots of vegan choices, and they were very friendly to Selma who was about two at the time.

Although Seattle is a pretty enlightened city, there are lots of restaurants where it's hard for a vegan to find something to eat. In Takoma Park, where we've just moved, the local pizza joint has a vegan cheese option, and most restaurants label their menu choices "Vegetarian" and "Non-Vegetarian" in a veg-centric sort of way which I like.

Dinner Diary

Tonight I was planning to make falafel, but Selma said she'd prefer pasta, so we had whole wheat spiral noodles mixed with Whole Foods organic sauce, Light Life Smart Ground and topped with soyco vegan parm. We chose frozen broccoli as our vegetable. So much for cooking from scratch! Tomorrow it's falafel for sure...

What's for Dinner? Fried Rice Recipe

So I've been having a bit of dinner inertia lately. I wonder, if I make a point to post a small entry about each night's meal, perhaps I'll put more thought into it or be more inspired.

I tend to do a lot of shortcut cooking these days--like using dehydrated onions or meals made with prefab veggie meats, but if my daugther Selma is getting healthy balanced meals, I don't worry too much about it. It does cost quite a bit more when you don't do things from scratch, and after a second week in a row of $100+ bills at Whole Foods, I'm thinking I should find ways to economize.

Tonight we had veggie fried rice. I make 1 1/2 cups of brown rice in the rice cooker early in the day. (It's also a great way to use up leftover rice) Then right before dinner I saute some frozen veggies ( 1 c. peas, 1/2 c. carrots, 1/2 c. green beans) and some dehydrated onion in canola oil. I add the rice and 1/2 lb. crumbled soft tofu or 4 beaten eggs for a non-vegan version.

Season with nama shoyu (soy sauce) and gomaiso (a sesame-seed seaweed mixture), and a dash of toasted sesame oil to taste.

If the rice is pre-cooked the whole meal takes about 15 minutes to make.

Yum!

Technorati Tags: vegan recipe vegetarian food

Barbecue Memories and Onigiri (Rice Balls)

We spent the last year in Princeton, NJ living in tiny Butler graduate school housing. The row-houses were small and old, and the kitchens were tiny, but we shared a lot of food with our neighbors. When the weather was warm, you'd find Aaron firing up his grill and everyone would bring their family favorites to share. One neighbor, Junko, would bring Japanese rice balls which she'd grill over the fire, basting with a tamari-based sauce. They were delicious!

I've since learned that these rice balls are called onigiri and they are a traditional picinic food in Japan. While there are many recipes online the ones I read seemed more complicated than the simple treasures Junko made.

Last night I tried my hand at recreating them. I cooked two cups of sushi rice in 3 cups of water. Then I used what I had around the house to make a teriyaki-ish sauce:

2/3 cup Nama Shoyu (an unpasturized, raw, cultured soy sauce)
1/2 cup dry sherry
2 Tablespoons organic sugar
1 ounce rice wine vinegar

I simmered this mixture until it had reduced by about half.

When the rice was done, I donned latex gloves, because the little I have read about rice balls said they had to be worked while hot. I scooped about 1/3 cup of rice onto a plate and placed 1/4 t. of brown rice miso in the center. Then I started forming the balls with my hands.

The rice seems to like a lot of "hand-holding." As you squish it together, the grains loose their individuality and "become" the ball. The traditional shape for rice balls is a triangle, so I shaped it with my thumbs and index fingers, and placed it on a plate, covering with plastic-wrap to keep it from drying out. The mixture made 1 dozen.

I made the balls in the afternoon, and kept them covered on the counter until we were ready to grill several hours later.

When the grill was hot, I placed the balls on the grill and basted the top side with the sauce. After about 10 minutes (or when the grill lines were clear on the first side) I turned them over with a spatula, and basted the already grilled side. 10 more minutes or so, and they were done.

It worked beautifully. It's an easy treat that would go great with grilled vegetables, teriyaki tofu or an edamame salad.

Technorati Tags: vegan recipe vegetarian food

Creamsicle Cupcakes

I have made these cupcakes 3 times in the last few days in various forms for various summer parties. They're so easy! A dairy and egg-free cupcake is great even for non-vegans because so many kids these days have food allergies.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a cupcake pan with papers before you start so you can put the batter in the oven quickly.

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup unbleached flour
1 cup sugar or other dry sweetener
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt

Wet Ingredients:
1 cup orange juice
scant 1/3 cup canola oil
1 T. vanilla

Leavening magic: 1 1/2 T apple cider vinegar

In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients. Mix with a whisk. In a medium bowl, combine wet ingredients and whisk. (If you're planning for a party and want to do some prep the day before, you can mix the wets and drys in their separate bowls but wait to combine until just before you bake.)

Pour the wet ingredients into the large bowl with the dry mixture and stir well to combine. Add the vinegar to the batter and stir lightly just until the vinegar is incorporated. Pour batter into cupcake tins filling each well 3/4 full.

Bake for 20 minutes or until cupcakes are firm and golden brown.

Remove from pan to cool, and frost or glaze as you'd like (a chocolate ganache or soy butter cream works great--but a powdered sugar and orange juice qlaze would also be good)

Technorati Tags: vegan recipe vegetarian food

Currant Affair...

Sorry about the bad pun... I was making a great red rice salad today from the Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special. The recipe called for currants, but my local grocery store didn't carry them, and since it was Independence Day, I couldn't go roaming around Maryland looking for dried tiny little grapes.

Instead, I just chopped the organic raisins I had into tiny little pieces. It worked great, and it's a less expensive ingredient.

Currants are actually a type of raisin made from the zante or champagne grape, so flavor-wise, the recipe shouldn't change too much.