Watermelon Tuna Bowl

Watermelon Tuna based on this recipe.

Served with rice, avocado, cucumber and jalapeno pickle, green onion, sesame seeds, scrambled egg.

The texture was smooth and interesting, but the "tuna" still just tasted like watermelon. It was an interesting experiment, but I don't think I will try it again.

Indian Food Fest

Red Lentil Dahl (not exactly the same recipe, but pretty close)
Crunchy spicy potatoes (so so good!)
Naan
Rice

With lunch the next day:
cucumber
orange

Orange Chi'ken lunch

Trader Joe's Orange Chi'ken
Rice
Chard
Carrot
Bell Pepper
Cucumber
Kimi
Hummus

Tempeh Rice Lunch

Ingredients
Rice
Cilantro
Lime
Tempeh
Onion

Method
Cook rice in rice cooker. After cooking, add chopped cilantro and lime juice.

Cook up a couple of tempeh bacon slices and onions on the stove top.

Notes
Served with kimchi, carrot, avocado, hummus, and blood orange.

Bonus picture of a tea sample I have from Upton. This tea from Indonesia is amazingly tasty. I had everyone smell the tea after I opened it. Too bad I can only have a 1/2 cup a day due to my caffeine intolerance.

Winter Rice Salad lunch

Ingredients
Rice
Chickpeas
Chard
Butternut squash
chipotle powder
olive oil

Tahini Sauce
2 parts tahini
2 parts soy sauce
1 part black vinegar
1 part rice vinegar
0.5 part hot sauce
1 partish water

Method
Preheat oven to 400F.

Cut butternut squash is half lengthwise. Clean out seeds and place cut side down in a baking dish with high sides. Fill the bottom of the dish with water to cover about 1/2 inch of the squash. Bake for about 30 minutes until the flesh is soft.

Drain and rinse chickpeas, saving brine for Aquafaba experiments, if desired. On a baking sheet covered in parchment paper lay out chickpeas and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil and chipotle chili powder or any other spices desired. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes until chickpeas are firm. They crisp up more as they cool down.

Cook rice in rice cooker. Can you cook rice any other way? I argue that there is only one way to cook rice and that is with a rice cooker.

Chop up chard into bite size pieces.

Whisk everything together for the tahini sauce adding more water if needed to get tahini to blend nicely.

In a bowl place rice, a couple of spoonfuls of butternut squash, chickpeas, chard and drizzle with sauce. Mix until blended together.

Notes
This was super tasty and a great way to use up the butternut squash that has been sitting on my counter for the past 3 months. The tahini sauce was adapted from the Vegan Yum Yum cookbook.

This is what it looks like before mixing everything up. The squash sort of disappears in the dish.

The salad was served with carrots, apple, and hummus.

Soy Curls with rice and broccoli

Back by popular request (well, one person requested that I start posting again)!


Sorry for the crappy cell phone photo! Sometimes the delicious food does not want to wait for the good camera to get out for the party.

Have you heard of soy curls? They are the new faux meat of choice here in Portland and I have really enjoyed trying all the different takes on them around town. I first tried them in a Buffalo "Chicken" sub at the Sweet Hereafter (all vegan bar) and fell in love. My next taste test was at the Double Dragon with the Orange Sesame Soy Curl sandwich. In a Mexican iteration, Los Gorditos allows you to add soy curls to practically any menu item so I had them in Gordito form, which was delicious. The latest soy curl consumption came from Canteen (another all vegan place) in the Southern bowl (see below).


The Southern Bowl and Apple Ginger Greens smoothie from the Canteen.

My husband was walking by the vegan grocery store after work a few weeks ago and picked up a package of soy curls for us. We just finished cooking through the 1lb bag (which lasted about five meals for the two of us) and I am eager to go pick up another package (or twelve). The texture is what I find so amazing about them. They are very substantial and don't break down like tofu can do. They also really do take up whatever flavour you put on them (like tofu is SUPPOSED to do) and don't require several long steps to get a good texture consistency (pressing, then marinating, then cooking it just right), just some rehydration, some sort of sauce, and go. They are wonderful!

Other things we tried with our package of soy curls:
- rehydrating and sautéing them with veggie broth, white wine, and butter, served with rice and vegeteables
- rehydrating with veggie broth, then sautéing with cumin and chili powder for use in fajitas

Ideas that look tasty from other food blogs:
Mongolian Soy Curls
BBQ Soy Curls
Sesame Soy Curls
Thai Soy Curl Pizza
Smokey Soy Curl Chili
And for more ideas, Pinterest seems to have a lot of recipes for these amazing bits of awesome.

Ingredients
warm veggie broth
1/4-1/3 cup of soy curls (for 1 VERY large serving or two normal size servings)
sweet chili sauce

fresh ginger, minced
fresh garlic, minced
broccoli, chopped

rice
water

Method
Start cooking rice in whatever method you choose (I can't live without my rice cooker).

While the rice is cooking, put the soy curls in the veggie broth and allow to rehydrate and marinate.

In a skillet over medium heat, add some olive oil and sauté the garlic and ginger for a few minutes until fragrant. Add the broccoli and some of the veggie broth (about 1/4 cup) from the soy curls. Stir, then cover and steam for about 5 minutes until the broccoli is to the desired doneness. I like it more on the crunchy side than soft. Taste for salt and pepper needs. Remove broccoli from pan.

In the same skillet used for the broccoli (no need to wash it!), add the soy curls with about 1/4 cup of the veggie broth and several glugs of the sweet chili sauce. Sauté over medium high heat until the broth has evaporated and the chili sauce is coated around the soy curls.

Serve soy curls with the rice and broccoli.

Notes
Seriously, get your hands on soy curls. This was a winning dish and I can't wait to get another package for more experimentation!

Orange Tofu with rice and broccoli

We bought a tofu press this week. This one to be exact. It is essentially two plastic cutting boards with screws on two sides to compress the tofu. It is amazing. I looked at the reviews for both this one and the Tofu Xpress and decided to go with the simpler gadget. It took about 20 minutes to press the block of tofu down to dense deliciousness. For the first go with the press, I decided to use the resulting tofu in an orange sauce over rice with broccoli. I used a combination of three recipes for the orange sauce (Food52, Vegetarian Ventures, and the PPK).

Ingredients
1 16 oz package extra firm tofu, drained and pressed
olive oil

zest from 1 orange
juice from two oranges
2 - 4 T rice wine vinegar (I think the higher amount balances out the sweet and salty well)
1 T maple syrup
1 - 2 T soy sauce
2 inch chopped fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic
Sriracha (or a fresh chili, or red chili flakes)
1 T cornstarch

rice
water

1 head broccoli
olive oil
salt
pepper

green onions, chopped

Method
Press tofu using whatever device you fancy until it is firm, dense, and dry. It took about 20 minutes with our new gadget.

Cook rice in whatever way you fancy. We have a cheapo rice cooker and I'm not sure how I cooked rice without it.

Preheat oven or toaster oven to 400F. Chop broccoli into pieces and coat with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Put on a small pan in a single layer and place in the oven. Cook for about 15 minutes until the florets are a bit burnt and the stalk is tender.

While the tofu is pressing, rice is steaming, and broccoli is roasting, whisk together all the ingredients for the sauce in a medium bowl. Taste and adjust sauce, although not too much, the character changes a bit when it is heated. Make sure there are no clumps from the cornstarch.

When tofu is done pressing, cut into slices. Heat some olive oil in a cast iron pan over medium heat and add slices. Cook on each side until crispy, about 10 minutes all together.

Once the tofu goes into the pan, add the sauce to a large high sided skillet. Heat the sauce over medium heat until it starts to bubble and thicken and turn off the heat. Stir every so often to keep the sauce from becoming too stiff. Add the broccoli and tofu to the sauce when they are done and stir to coat. Serve over rice with fresh green onions.


Notes
We both loved the texture of the tofu after pressing it and the sauce was delicious. The tofu was chewy and not mushy at all. I am a tofu press convert. I cut the tofu into cubes and because I didn't marinate the tofu before cooking, the tofu was a bit bland in the middle. I suggest cutting thin slabs for this dish or marinating in the sauce before cooking. I am eating the leftovers for lunch tomorrow and perhaps the sauce will soak in by then.

Vegetable Bowl

As the day was winding down at work today, I was trying to decide what to make for dinner. We had several vegetables near the end of their lives and I knew that we had a lot of lentils and rice in the pantry. Thus the vegetable bowl with lentils and rice was born!

Serves: 2 (with about 1 cup leftover lentils, and 1 cup leftover vegetables)

Ingredients
Lentils
1/3 - 1/2 cup brown lentils
1+ cups water
cumin
chipotle powder
turmeric
smoked paprika
salt
pepper

Rice
1 "cup" rice
1.5 "cup" water
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

Vegetables
1/2 medium butternut squash
3 stalks broccoli
1/2 onion
4 stalks rainbow chard
olive oil
salt
pepper
basil
rosemary


Method
Lentils
Measure and rinse lentils. Place in a small saucepan and add water and spices. Cover and bring to a boil. Turn to a medium simmer and stir every so often to prevent sticking. Cook until the lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.

Rice
Using the "cup" measuring device from your rice cooker, measure and rinse rice. Put rice in rice cooker with the water and cumin seeds. My very simple cooker has one setting, but if you have a fancy pants cooker, you might want to set it specifically to the type of rice you are using. Cook until rice is done.

Vegetables
Preheat oven to 400F.

Peel and cut butternut squash into 2 cm pieces. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cut broccoli into 4 cm long pieces, place on prepared baking sheet. Chop the onion into large pieces and place on baking sheet. Any other "roastable" vegetable can be used here - carrots, beets, potatoes, etc. Drizzle with olive oil, salt, pepper, basil, rosemary, and anything else you think would be tasty. Stir vegetables to coat.

Place in oven, and bake for about 25 minutes or until tender, flipping vegetables over halfway through. You can also bake the remainder of the butternut squash at this time, but if you leave it in large pieces, it will have to bake for longer.

While the vegetables are in the oven, chop chard into 2 cm pieces. Sauté in a cast iron pan with olive oil, salt, and pepper, until wilted.

Grab a bowl, put in a scoop of rice, a ladle full of lentils, half the roasted vegetables, and half the chard. Repeat with second bowl.


Notes
This was delicious. I was reminded that we need to do vegetable medley dinners more often. We get a lot of produce with our food box delivery and I hate seeing portions of it go to waste each week. My husband was a big fan of this meal.

Other ideas for combinations:
Quinoa, beets, sweet potato, spinach
Quinoa, kale, carrots, potatoes
Rice, kidney beans, onion, carrots, jalapeno, cilantro, avocado
Rice, white beans, cabbage, onion, thyme
Millet, chickpeas, carrots, chard, onion (inspired by Vegan Richa)
.
.
.
The possibilities are endless!

Cooking for my parents

Last week I was in Colorado for a conference. The weekend before the conference, I spent a few days seeing my sister and her family, my aunt, uncle, cousin, and my parents. It was good to see everyone!

I made a couple of things for my parents during my brief visit.


My dad had some vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast. So I decided to make vegan sausages.


Look at all the cast iron! I am super duper jealous.


This was the best way I could come up with to steam them.


What my mom was doing while I was cooking. Making a quilt for my nephew!


Chickpea gluten sausage, broccoli and carrots, and brown rice.


My mom and I were chatting and she started looking through my food blog when she came across the recipe for the Bubble Up Pizza Bites. She made some dough in her bread machine and then we rolled out pieces and filled them with tomato sauce, olives, and mushrooms. She put cheese on half of them. We rolled the toppings so that the dough was completely enclosing them. I think it works better that way, even though it is no longer "bubbling up". Pretty tasty!


My parents had two bananas reaching the end of its life. I decided to make some banana bread with it before I left. I used the recipe from here and it came out a bit dry, but it was still tasty. I did not use the sesame seeds on top, although they sound really good.

Notes
Lately, my seitan has not been coming out super duper well. It is slimy and not well formed. I'm not sure what changed in my seitan skillz, but they are lacking now. My parents were nice enough to eat the seitan and say that it tasted good. Also, since we have gotten the rice cooker, I have a hard time making rice on the stove top, this came out a bit gloopy. Not my finest culinary moment.

Dinner Club: Beet Burgers, Curry Fries, Blueberry Cobbler

Tonight we had another dinner club with our friend Trevor. He has mentioned several times that he really enjoys beets, but doesn't eat them enough. When I saw the recipe for beet burgers from the PPK website, I knew I had to make them for him.



The recipe for the beet burgers is from the PPK website. The only deviation I added was about 1 tablespoon of cumin powder. I decided to do the suggested pairing with the baked curry fries, although my curry powder was very sweet and I almost thought I had used cinnamon rather than curry powder on the fries. These were very good, the technique of boiling the potatoes first before baking is involved, but it resulted in a good texture for the fries. I put too many fries on my baking sheet so they did not crisp up enough.

For the cobbler, I looked at the recipe from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker for blueberry cobbler and adapted the following to use up our 1.5 pints of fresh blueberries from our food delivery.

Blueberry Cobbler for the Slow Cooker
Ingredients
1.5 pints fresh blueberries
1/4 cup or less sugar
1 T cornstarch

1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup or less sugar
1/4 cup oil or softened butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Method
In a 3.5 qt slow cooker (you can also use the same amount in a 1.5 qt slow cooker), add the blueberries, sugar, and cornstarch. Mix to coat. In a bowl mix the oats, sugar, oil, and cinnamon. Spread over the top of the blueberries. Cook on high for about 1.5 hours or until the top is crispy. Serve with Coconut Bliss Ice Cream.




Notes
Everyone agreed, this was one of the best things we have eaten in a while. My husband and Trevor both eat meat and they were very pleased with the tastiness of the patty. I had my husband eat some of the patty dough before he cooked it up and he said that not only does it look like meat, it tasted a bit like ground beef as well. So very tasty. The cobbler was good as well, but the real star was the beet burger.

Indian Food Fest

Earlier this week, my friend Sonic sent me a text message wanting to hang out. Being in the middle of my semester and completely swamped with classes and research and proposals, oh my! I asked if we could meet for dinner this evening because my husband was having a man date. Everyone needs to eat, right? She came over, drank some home brew, chatted, and ate delicious food. I almost killed our lungs, when I put chilies, spices, and other hot things on the hot cast iron pan. The vapors came up and into coughing fits we went. I opened up the window and and door and put on the fan to try and blow the vapors away. Other than that, a successful dinner!

I was planning on making samosas using phyllo dough as the pastry, but we were getting too hungry to wait for it to bake, so we just ate it as is.



Ingredients
Aloo mattar based the samosa recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance
cumin seeds
mustard seeds
coriander seeds
potato, diced into cubes
onion
carrot
garlic
ginger
peas or edamame
curry powder
turmeric
cayenne pepper


Red lentil dahl
onions
garlic
ginger
hot chilies
red lentils
water or broth
curry powder
turmeric
cumin powder
sriracha


Method
Aloo mattar
Bring the potatoes to boil in a sauce pan. Boil until the potatoes are tender, about 10 or so minutes. Drain and set aside.

Heat a cast iron pan over medium heat and add a bit of olive oil. Add the seeds and stir constantly until they start popping and turning brown. Add the onion, carrot, garlic, and ginger to the pan. Stir to combine. Add any spices to the pan. Turn on a fan, so the vapors don't kill your lungs. Stir to combine. When the potatoes are done, add them to the pan, along with the peas or edamame. Use a potato masher, or the back of a spoon to mash everything together. Add a spash or two of water to help combine everything. Taste and adjust seasonings.


Red lentil dahl
Sauté the onions, garlic, ginger, and chilies in a bit of olive oil over medium heat in a sauce pan until the onions are browned. Add the red lentils and enough water or broth to cover the lentils. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer until most of the broth is absorbed by the lentils and it is pretty mushy. Add seasonings and sriracha and adjust to taste.

Serve with rice and fresh fruit.


Notes
This was quite delicious. The dahl was super duper easy to put together. I forgot to start boiling the potatoes before I sautéed the vegetables, so they had to hang out for about 10 minutes until the potatoes finished.

As evidence that we did eat the deliciousness, I present: Sonic!


Nom nom nom

Rice Pudding

I was still trying to use up the rest of the leftover rice I mentioned in the last post, and thought rice pudding would be fabulous for dessert.



Ingredients
1 cup cold, cooked rice
1 cup coconut milk
cardamom pod split and seeds extracted
splash of vanilla extract
maple syrup, to taste


Method
In a small sauce pan, combine the rice and coconut milk over low heat. Stir frequently to keep the rice from sticking. When the rice absorbs most of the coconut milk, add the seeds, vanilla, and maple syrup. Remove from heat and serve warm.

Notes
I had some local blueberries to put on top which added an contrast in textures. This was delicious. This recipe is pretty much a repeat of one I posted before, but now I have a picture!

Cabbage Rolls and Sea Vegetable/Cucumber Phyllo Purses

With the school year starting in a few weeks, I really want to get back in the habit of not eating out very much at all. I plan on making my lunch be what we had for dinner the night before. If I can just remember to pack the lunch boxes at night, I think that will work out just fine.

I was in the mood for cooking this evening!



Recipes from:
Inca Parcels (cabbage rolls with rice instead of amaranth) from Vegan

Sea Vegetable and Cucumber Phyllo Purses from Real Food Daily

Notes
This is the picture of our lunches that I packed tonight. Included with the parcels and purses are hummus, cherries, carrot sticks, corn nuts, and mini peanut butter crackers.

The phyllo purses are amazing. The texture is fabulous, the taste is outstanding, and they are fun to eat! Two thumbs up from both of us.

The parcels are just okay. The rice filling is pretty tasty, but when wrapped in the cabbage, the cabbage seemed to make everything taste very bland. I'll probably just eat the rice filling tomorrow and keep the cabbage separate.

Also, we still really really really like our Planet Box lunch boxes. They are just about the right size for us and are super cute. We get comments on them every time we eat lunch. I love them.

Sushi Salad

The other day, I had leftover rice in my fridge and I was going to make sushi with it, but the rice had dried out too much to stay together in a roll. So I just threw all the vegetables I had cut up into a bowl with the rice.



Ingredients
1 cup cold cooked rice
1 sheet nori
avocado
cucumber
carrot
smoked tofu
sriracha mixed with vegan mayo


Method
This is for one serving. Chop up the vegetables and tofu, combine with the rice in a bowl. Cut the nori into squares and mix into salad. Top with the spicy mayo sauce.


Notes
Hmm, this was really delicious and much much easier than rolling sushi rolls. I made this for my husband and he really enjoyed it.

Thai Green Curry

I had been wanting to make my own curry paste for a while and when I saw this on the Fat Free Vegan blog, I decided it was time to do it.



I followed the recipe pretty closely from the blog.

Notes
Making curry paste is incredibly easy with a food processor. Put everything in and pulse until combined.

I did not use tofu in my curry and for vegetables used potatoes, carrots, and onions. I also used a can of coconut milk and kale.

I served with jasmine rice.

We both really enjoyed this a lot. The curry paste has a fantastic taste and I used about twice as much as was called for in the recipe. I like things hot!

Risotto

Unfortunately, I made this about a month ago, and I can't remember how I did it. I do remember it being freakishly tasty though.

Looking at the picture I believe the ingredients are:

Arborio rice
Better than bouillon vegetable paste
shiitake mushrooms
onions
garlic
kale
fresh oregano

I know that I followed the standard recipe for risotto - heat up a pot of broth to simmer and add 1/2 cup measures to the rice/vegetables. Maybe it was using the farmer's market veggies that made it so tasty.

I remember us talking about this meal all evening and my husband telling the guys on the game he plays how tasty it was. So make risotto, it is good.

Golden Glow Stuffed Squash

I love all the squashes and root vegetables available in the winter time. I love their earthiness, stoutness, and deliciousness. I love them roasted, stuffed, pureed, and mashed. So I was happy when I saw this recipe in Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker because how could I not like stuffed squash?





Ingredients
winter squash, cut in half, seeds removed (I used an acorn squash)
cooked rice
onions
garlic
carrot
thyme
rosemary
sriracha sauce


Method:
Cook the filling vegetables over a medium heat (onions, garlic, carrot) until softened. Add the spices and rice and stir until everything is coated. Fill the squash cavity.

In a slow cooker, add some water in the bottom, then place the squash inside. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours.

--------
I think this was overcooked. It was bland and boring. The filling in the morning was really tasty and flavorful. Somewhere over the course of the day, all the seasoning melted away. In order to eat the squash, I covered it sriracha sauce. I seem to do that with everything. Really, I do use other flavors.

My husband took a few bites and then threw out his half.

Sushi Night!

This past weekend, I decided that I was craving some sushi and I hadn't started anything in the slow cooker to have anything for dinner, so we had sushi!





I made two batches, one with white jasmine rice and the other with long grain brown rice. My rice cooker makes the rice pretty sticky, so having it stick was not an issue. I liked both batches and my husband preferred the white rice one.

Ingredients:
rice
rice vinegar
sugar
nori
fillings

soy sauce
wasabi
pickled ginger
sriracha-veganaise sauce (I use this on pretty much everything)

Method:
Cook rice on stove or in rice cooker until done. Move to a glass bowl and mix to cool. Add about equal parts of rice vinegar and sugar to the rice. I had about 2 cups of rice and added about 1 T each. Mix together and allow to cool further. When the rice is warm and manageable, lay out a nori sheet on a bamboo rolling mat. Cover about 2/3 of the nori with a layer of rice, making sure to go out to the ends. I had to use my hands a bit and if your hands are wet, then the rice will not stick to them. In the middle of the rice, place any fillings. We had avocado in one and cucumber/avocado/tofutti cream cheese in the other. Roll using the the mat to make a firm roll. Use a sharp knife and cut into rolls.

Serve with all your favorite dippings.





Sushi is really easy to make. We are going to add it to our easy to prepare meal list on nights when we don't really want to cook.

Coconut Rice Pudding

Yesterday, I had leftover coconut milk and rice from my failed dessert and awesome dinner. I didn't have any room in my small fridge to store them, so I decided to try and make a rice pudding with them.

Ingredients:
Coconut milk
rice, cooked
vanilla extract
cinnamon
crushed cardamom
maple syrup

Method:
Heat the coconut milk in a pan over medium heat. I used about equal proportions of milk to rice. When the milk starts to bubble around the edges, add the rice and lower the heat. Stir to combine. The rice will absorb the milk as it heats. Add the vanilla and spices. Combine and continue heating until most of the milk is gone. Taste and add any maple syrup for sweetener.

Both my husband and myself thought this was really really really good. I was surprised at how well it came out. Next time I have coconut milk and rice to use up, I will be making this again.

Tofu Stir-Fry

Last night I wanted to make BBQ Seitan from Fatfree Vegan, but when I went to make it, I did not have enough wheat gluten. I decided to try to make it with what I had (1/4 cup vital wheat gluten) and baked it, but it came out so so badly. Thinking quickly, I decided to make stir-fry.





Ingredients:
tofu, pressed and drained (I cut them into triangles)
marinade sauce (chili paste, soy sauce, Better than bouillon paste, water)
vegetables (I used oyster mushrooms, onions, broccoli, and carrots)
garlic, minced
ginger, minced
soy sauce

Preheat a cast iron pan over medium heat. Add olive oil and sauté vegetables so that they all finish at the same time. First onions and carrots until soft, then broccoli, garlic, and ginger. Finally add the mushrooms. I like to sprinkle a dash of soy sauce over the vegetables at this point because it seems to make them cook faster. Remove vegetables from the pan.

In the same pan, fry the tofu until browned on both sides. Pour the marinade sauce as the tofu browns. When tofu is done, add the vegetables to the pan and stir until everything is warmed through.

Serve with rice.

My husband thought this was fantastic. It came out well for just being thrown together.