DDOW - Romesco Rice & Garbanzo Veg Za'atar Salad - Vegan MoFo 2013

Another DDOW! This will be the last DDOW of Vegan Month of Food, but I intend to continue posting these beautiful and tasty dishes whenever I get them.

This week's featured dishes were great, as always. I mixed them together and really enjoyed it. I didn't have any greens, but it would be fantastic on top of kale or arugula or spinach. The bean salad had cucumbers, cabbage, and some fresh herbs. The rice was great too.

From the Website:

Garbanzo Bean & Veg Za’atar Salad (V, GF, soy-free, no added sugar) Za’atar, a spice mixture popular throughout the Middle East, comprises ground dried thyme, oregano, marjoram, toasted sesame seeds and salt, and also often ground sumac, which has a lemony tang. You might encounter it sprinkled on hummus at restaurants. Confession: I bought a large bag at Holy Land Deli on Central Ave, a local mecca of affordable spices. Run, don’t walk.

Rice Romesco (V, GF, soy-free, no added sugar; contains almonds) Romesco sauce is a classic Catalonian simmered sauce of mostly red bell peppers mixed with ground nuts. The carrier here is organic brown rice. You can eat this dish cold or hot. By this week, inexpensive pecks of peppers should be all over the Farmers Markets (a peck is approx 8 dry quarts, with 4 pecks to a bushel). Take advantage of the harvest bounty and make a couple quarts at home to slather on everything (can freeze).

Cheezy Broccoli Soup/Puree - Vegan MoFo 2013

This was a fun experiment. Broccoli soup was one of my favorite soups as a child. So much so, it was my choice of birthday meal shared with my less-than-enthusiastic fellow five-to-seven year olds.

The "cheez" is a mix of blended (soaked) cashews, nutritional yeast, and coconut milk beverage along with some pimientos, salt, lemon juice and a tiny tiny bit of Kala Namak (black salt).

The broccoli is 2 bags of frozen steamers along with a little bit of peas leftover from another meal. I pureed everything together and made a soup-like meal. Not terrible, not blow my mind soup, either. I garnished with black pepper and red pepper flakes along with a touch of chimichurri sauce.

Go-To Remedies for Colds - Vegan MoFo 2013

I must admit, Auto-Posting is a wonderful thing that I only started using during this Vegan Month of Food 2013.

It is great to do a slew of posts in one day and schedule them to post during busy weeks, or worse - when sickness strikes.

Well, today I've been struck.

My personal philosophy of how to cure myself while having a cold includes the following:

1. Only spend a small portion of the time wallowing in sickness. Everyone needs to feel those "poor me" sick feelings once in a while, but that attitude will not help at all in the long run.
2. Watch at least one new (to me) movie, preferably a good one. (Binge-watching TV on streaming service of choice is acceptable, but at least one movie.)
   
3. If at home during the day, watch The Chew.
   
4. Drink lots of liquids (mainly tea & water), eat berries, and drink broth. The spicier the better.
   
5. Shower. At least once. It makes me feel human again. Same goes for brushing the teeth, and probably time to buy a new head for the toothbrush.
   
6. Step outside at least once. Even if it is just to check the mail or bring recycling to the curb.

So far today, I have done very little on this list other than drink broth. (And I am halfway through today's The Chew.)

Thankfully, the broth I made today was pretty tasty and easy! Still have some left. I boiled 2-3 cups (half to three quarters of a liter) water, added a bit of a veggie bouillon cube and a small chunk of mild miso paste. I then cut up (with kitchen scissors) half a jalpeño as well as 4-5 dried chiles I had on hand. I want it to be as spicy as possible. In a small magic bullet, I blended ginger paste and 3-4 large garlic cloves and added it to the broth. Brought everything to a boil, then simmered for a minute or two. I added fresh lime juice at the end, and drank out of a mug.

Crescent Samosas with Chimichurri - Vegan Mofo 2013

What am I going to make for dinner? - this thought ran through my head all the way home. Constantly flipping through ingredients I know I have on hand and weighing out whether I needed to pick up anything on the way home.

From pasta to taco night to taco pizza, nothing seemed to feel right. My mind's eye went back into the fridge and clicks off ingredients: vegan sausage (Gimme Lean), peas...crescents. Scanning the pantry and counter, I rested upon potatoes and was sold.

Once I got home, I started washing some potatoes (little reds and yellows) and sliced them into as evenly shaped and sized pieces as possible. I tossed them in a small bowl with olive oil and crushed whole garlic cloves that I tore apart with my hands. Onto a foil-lined tray for the toaster oven. Before I placed it in to bake - I also covered the tray with foil, poking 3-4 slits for ventilation.

As the potatoes started steaming, I opened one tube of crescent dough, and laid them out on a plate to become more malleable.

I did a small dice on one quarter of a large onion and started to slowly sweat the onions in a pan. At least 15-20 minutes were spent just sweating these onions out on really low heat with a little coconut oil. Once I was satisfied with the onions, I removed them from the pan and got the Gimme Lean out. Sliced off a couple chunks, and seasoned with curry powder & paprika before sauteing in the onion pan, splitting up the sausage until they were smaller chunks and added the onions back along with the peas I had already cooked the day before.

Once the potatoes were soft, I threw them into a bowl and mashed, with a little butter (not much!), then added the sausage-onion-pea mix in with some of the potatoes. I carefully placed a big Tablespoon of the mix onto a crescent triangle, then closed the dough around it and carefully placed it onto the toaster oven tray and baked a little longer than recommended, flipping the crescents over. This made about 8 samosas total.

The sauce was similar to the chimichurri sauce I did earlier this month.

Great and fairly easy, though somewhat labor-intensive. This would be even better if there was a mixture already made and then just use the leftovers the next day inside these crescents. Next time I would probably mess around with the dough a little more.

A look on the inside:

Pad Thai with Fried Tofu - Vegan Mofo 2013

Dim bar lighting does not lend itself to food photography, but I work with what I've got. Pad Thai with crushed peanuts, bean sprouts, green onions, lemon and lime wedges, and probably some other things I am not thinking of. From Señor Wong.

Baked Tofu with Cilantro Ginger Sauce & Apple Mint Beets - Vegan MoFo 2013

Alas, this was not made by me, but it is from a local co-op's deli. The sauce on the tofu was thick and almost pesto-like in consistency. The beets were great, with hints of fresh mint and tart apple cider vinegar throughout the dish.

DDOW - Heirloom Bean & Veg Cassoulet w. Rosemary - Vegan MoFo 2013

I am a little late on posting this from last week's second part ofdelivered dish of the week.



From the website:

Heirloom Bean & Veg Cassoulet with Rosemary (V, GF, soy-free, no added sugar) A lightly braised stew of market veg and giant heirloom scarlet runner beans (and regular red beans). Good with crusty bread, a glass of wine or all by itself. Cool beans!

A hearty bean stew, basically. I realized that I have never had scarlet runner beans while eating this. They are huge! And I want more! I served this with some pretzel crackers for crunch. Great dish!