Black Bean and Rice Tacos w. Toasted Corn Tortillas

This was something I whipped up when I had very little in my pantry. These ingredients are all staples in my pantry.

The only item that isn't necessarily a staple would be the quick-cooking wild rice blend. I always have a lot of brown rice on hand, and sometimes minute white rice. This particular brand is really easy to make: I boil one small can of veg stock (about 1.75 cups, not sure on ounces) and add a little olive oil or butter. Add in one cup of the rice and drop down to a simmer for 15 minutes, then remove from heat and keep covered for another 15 minutes or so.

I seasoned up a can of drained and rinsed black beans with some standard sauteed onion and garlic and cumin as well as salt.

Sauces and condiments are a huge staple in my house, and El Yucateco green habanero sauce is a favorite of mine. According to the company's website, this particular flavor of hot sauce registers 9,000 on the Scoville Scale. For reference, according to the scale as listed in Wiki, a bell pepper rates as a "0" and a jalapeno is in the 2,500-8,000 range. This sauce is the radioactive-green looking stuff on the tacos.

Another pantry staple in my house is a stack of corn tortillas. They are pretty cheap and can be frozen so long as you fry or, in my case, toast the tortillas after defrosting. Corn tortillas fall apart pretty easily if they don't get some structural integrity from frying or toasting. I came up with toasting as an alternative to pan-frying for a healthier alternative. I remove the tortillas from the freezer and pry off 4 (or less/more) tortillas. I then microwave them in a stack until they are *just* defrosted. Then place in toaster oven until they become more sturdy. Don't toast for too long or you'll get a crispy tostada rather than a usable taco shell.

one more pic:

Fried Okra Bites w. Hot Sauce

Straightforward snack: we discovered these fairly cheap frozen breaded okra bites at Super Target from a generic (not a Target-brand) brand of frozen vegetables. The instructions require them to be fried, and once I opened the package I saw why: the breading coating the okra is not cooked through and needs to be fried rather than baked. It *might* work to bake it, but I seriously doubt it.

I ended up pan-frying about half the package in vegetable oil until golden brown overall with more crispy ends. I served it with Frank's Red Hot Sauce. These are pretty delicious, though somewhat heavy due to the amount of oil the pieces hold even after pressing out as much as possible in paper towels.

Teese Vegan Cheese Review: Teese Quesadilla

So this is a quesadilla made with Teese cheese (see below for long review and thoughts on this new product). I served it on a sprouted grain tortilla and garnished with cilantro. Green Mountain Gringo was also served with it. GMG is my favorite mass-marketed shelf-stable canned salsa, second only to Salsa Lisa which is a company based right here in Saint Paul. GMG has great flavor to it, and the "hot" is actually REALLY hot. Salsa Lisa always tastes really fresh and is kept in the refrigerated section of the grocery store. Salsa Lisa also has a hot flavor I like because it is actually very hot.

The quesadilla wasn't too bad, but overall I don't really care for Teese cheese.

And now a thorough review of Teese:

Teese is a fairly new (though old news by now) vegan cheese. When it first became available to the public, it swept across the vegan food blogosphere like wildfire. It finally came to my local Whole Foods late last year, so we had to try it out.

I've made and tried my fair share of vegan cheeses. There will never be a true replacement for "real" cheese. It's been so long since I've had cheese (over 5 years) that I don't really remember it. What I look for in a vegan cheese is something vaguely reminiscent of what I do remember. I tend to favor homemade or restaurant house-made recipes over the mass-marketed cheeses. The one vegan mass-marketed cheese I like are the rice slices from Galaxy Foods. The mouthfeel mimics the over-processed Kraft singles. My thought is, if you're going to eat something that processed, why not choose the vegan version?

Okay, back to Teese. Word out in the vegan food blogosphere was that Teese melted awesomely and had a great texture, taste, etc. I tried the nacho cheese sauce, the "hard" cheddar, and the mozzarella. The sauce was weird, and I thought pretty gross overall. Of course, I'm spoiled because The Triple Rock, one of my favorite restaurants in Minneapolis for vegan eats, has mastered a vegan nacho cheese sauce which is nutritional yeast based.

I can't remember what we tried the mozz on, but I seem to vaguely recall we put it on a cheeseless pizza from Papa John's or something. It was adequate.

So last, but not least, I made a quesadilla with the cheddar Teese and a sprouted grain tortilla. I placed the tortilla in a warm pan sprayed with some non-stick oil. I shredded a lot of the Teese and placed it on one half of the tortilla and folded the tortilla in half. I cooked it by placing a weight (like a heavy lid) on top of the tortilla itself. I also flipped the whole thing at least once. The Teese got melty, that's for sure. However, it did not stay that way for long.

[I expected this as the thing that makes cheese melty is a milk-derived protein called Casein. A lot of "non-dairy" and "lactose-free" cheese contains this protein and makes it not vegan.]

Unlike the other main mass-marketed cheese available, Follow Your Heart(aka Vegan Gourmet), the Teese solidified into a more plastic texture. It was not very appealing. I also felt that the Teese did not stay in it's melted state for very long, at least it was a much shorter time than FYH. The texture & overall mouthfeel in Teese's melted state was pretty good, and I would say even better than FYH. Teese is interesting because it didn't disintegrate and morph into a pool of oil if heated too much, which is a major downside of FYH. Again, I couldn't get over how...plastic...it was. When bits of cheese fell out of the tortilla and onto the hot pan, it never turned to oil, it just became crispy and strangely plastic-like.

Overall, it wasn't too bad. I don't think I will be dropping that much money (something like $6-9 USD per what I believe are 10oz tubes). Those tubes are also a great disappointment compared to the resealable package offered by FYH. I'll stick to homemade stuff and my occasional indulgence of the rice-based single slices.

White Bean and Potato Soup with Crispy Garlic Rounds

I found this in random folder and saw it had not been uploaded. I vaguely remember making this, but it was a long time ago. I'm pretty sure it started with onions, garlic, salt and some other seasonings. White Cannellini Beans, canned, were drained, rinsed, and added. Then some water, possibly veg. stock. Then sliced potatoes, I'm guessing gold russets. Cooked until tender and mashed/blended until at a consistency I liked. I don't have a large blender nor do I have a stick blender (though it's on my wish list) so it's not really possible for me to puree. That's okay as I tend to like most of my soups to be a bit thick and hearty.

I garnished with fresh Thyme and served with some crispy garlic rounds.

VWAV: Curried Split Pea Soup 2, served with roasted vegetables and melba toast

I've made this before, and it is the only thing I've made from Vegan With a Vengeance the popular vegan cookbook that is ubiquitous in the vegan food blogosphere and beyond. I actually may have made a few other recipes, but this is the only one I always have the ingredients for by default and it is SO EASY to make, I keep going back to it.

This time around, I served it with roasted vegetables that I tossed and marinated in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The vegetables I used: red, yellow, and green bell peppers; zucchini and yellow squash. I cut all the veggies into as Placed on cookie sheet and roasted in oven until tender then placed under broiler to get some of that charred roasted flavor.


I garnished the soup with shredded carrot, which is how it is recommended to serve in the cookbook. I highly recommend this because it gives a great added texture and flavor layer to the soup. I also served with pieces of melba toast, which I am always in love with because they are miniature in size and adorable.

A second photo, this time of the whole plate. (I LOVE the lighting I was able to get for this photo. I've found it is still hard for me to get decent lighting for most of my photos, but I'm working on a makeshift lightbox for the future.)

The Great Cake Waffles Experiment: Chocolate and Vanilla

I love making cake, but the problem I have with making most desserts is that I don't typically have tons of people to share the dessert with. So when I make a large number of cupcakes, cookies, or just a big cake, Mr. Coconut and I end up gorging on all of it within 2 days or some of the dessert goes bad.

My solution came in the form of my waffle iron. Genius, pure genius.

I've seen/read/heard of other folks using waffle irons for cooking things other than waffles. I also know I am not the first person to think of cake batter in a waffle iron, but nonetheless it was a delicious experience.

I used Cherrybrook Kitchen brand cake mix in vanilla and also chocolate. Cherrybrook Kitchen is an awesome brand of cake, cookie, and other baking mixes that are allergen free, which makes all of their products vegan. They also have a decent line of gluten-free mixes. These are available at Whole Foods, Super Target, and local co-ops in my area.

It took a while to get the timing and amount just right. I used my Belgian waffle iron, which made for some extremely delicate pieces that fell apart easily. A regular waffle iron with smaller squares or pockets, whatever you want to call it, would probably be better for a more sturdy piece of cake. I sprayed the waffle iron with non-stick spray, ladled in what I figured out to be the perfect amount, closed the waffle iron and waited. My iron has a self-timer with a green light that indicates when you should pour in the batter and a red light which indicates when it is done. I found I had to wait for a minute or two after the red light came on in order to get the cake in one piece.

All in all, light, fluffy cake was done within minutes. I was able to store the pieces in the fridge in an airtight container for a lot longer (and a lot easier) than a whole cake. I used some frosting from Pillsbury that is "accidentally" vegan and decorated with sprinkles. I couldn't frost easily because I was too impatient to soften up the frosting enough to spread on the delicate pieces -- so no photo of the frosted end result.

Here's a shot of the vanilla pieces in the waffle iron: