Sjaak's Chocolate Peanut Butter Bites &Chocolate Orange Bites [Vegan Mofo]

Vegan Month of Food is almost over.

I stopped by the co-op yesterday and picked up some delicious chocolates from Sjaak's. Little individually wrapped peanut butter chocolates and orange chocolates. The peanut butter chocolates are the ones pictured above, from Sjaak's site.

Awesome and delicious. I really want to get a giant bucket of both flavors, haha. I really enjoyed both, Mr. Coconut preferred the orange ones.

Thai Veggie Chicken [Vegan Mofo]

Photo from: http://www.onestopnatural.com/index

Vegan Month of Food continues!

A product review for Karen & Sisters Veggie Thai Chicken.

They sell all sorts of interesting macro and vegan items at a store nearby, so I like to try them out from time to time. I had this product the other day, and it wasn't bad. Chewy, thin strips made of TVP, with carrots, cabbage, onions, and other seasonings/spices. It can be eaten cold or warm. The texture is interesting, I thought for sure it was made of wheat gluten, but checked the ingredients to be sure.

I heated mine up, and ate it with soy sauce and sweet and sour dipping sauce. It was a great lunch. Filling, and tons of protein. It would work great in a larger stir fry or other rice/noodle dish.

Pancake Pelotas with Smoky Maple Tempeh Bacon [Vegan Mofo]

Vegan Month of Food continues, only 4 more days!

So I got a donut hole/cake pop maker from Bella Cucina. The first thing in my head to make: "pancake pelotas" (as named by Mr. Coconut) -- aka waffle balls, aka Pancake Puffs, aka aebleskivers.

These were SO MUCH FUN to eat. I cannot emphasize that enough. The sheer delight of popping one of these adorable little waffle balls into my mouth with vegan butter, syrup and a piece of smoky maple tempeh bacon from Tofurky --- my mouth exploded with joy. It took a while to make these, but they were pretty easy: pour batter into holes, close the device, and then pop out the little puffs when done.

The tempeh bacon was quite delicious, also! I will DEFINITELY be making this entire breakfast again, hopefully this weekend.

I really want to make donut holes and/or cake pops with this thing too. I am also imagining all sorts of food I can make into adorable little round balls. Miniature food is awesome.

more pictures:

Curried Seitan Strips [Vegan Mofo]

Vegan Month of Food continues, and I need to pick up the pace!

This was from last week, another experiment with vital wheat gluten to see if I could make edible treats easily. Most recipes for seitan take an hour or more, but I like these quick and easy ways of frying them or baking them. I used the same techniques as my last seitan experiment 2 posts ago, but changed up the ingredients. I made a miso-soy sauce to add into the vital wheat gluten, a bunch of curry powder, some hoisin sauce, some soy sauce. Next time I think I will go for more miso because I couldn't really taste it, but these were still delicious.

I wound up baking these off as larger strips, like chicken fingers almost, and then cooling them and slicing into strips. I put them into a dish that I served with bean thread noodles, okra, & broccoli with a sauce of hoisin, soy, miso. It was really good. These reminded me of the steak/chik'n strips I buy once in a while, but WAY cheaper and kind of fun to make.

Here's a shot of the strips before going into the larger noodle dish:

Bajillion Bean Stew: A Lesson Learned [Vegan Mofo]

Vegan Month of Food continues!!!

So pictured above is "Bajillion Bean Stew", as I named it. Looks good, right? Sounds good: black beans, pinto beans, butter beans, split peas, lentils, white beans, black eyed peas, etc. I added mixed vegetables, potatoes, and okra.

Well, it was awful.

Problem #1: Old Beans.
I've had them for a long time, I don't even know how long. That made for gross tasting stuff. All the problems below are pretty much moot because of this one, but I'll lay them out anyway.

Problem #2: Too many beans in one mix.

Too many mixed dry beans made for ridiculous cooking results. The butter beans were just right, which meant the lentils, split peas, and other small beans were nearly decimated.

Problem #3: Wrong seasonings.

I have been out of veggie stock/bouillon cubes for a while, and that would have given the stew some depth.

Problem #4: Okra, overcooked.

I put the okra in too soon and this resulted in weird consistency throughout the stew.

So, a pretty big disaster despite high hopes. This is what Vegan Month of Food is about, though: posting everything - the experiments gone wrong included. I was really disappointed because it was a TON of food that was wasted, but it was inedible. That's saying something, because I will eat just about anything, even bland *blech* stuff, to not waste it. Ah well, it took a decent picture and it is chalked up to food lesson learned.