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.

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:

First Post!

Hi there and welcome. Let's get down to the nitty gritty, shall we? What is this blog going to be all about? Food. Lots of food. All vegan food, as a matter of fact. This blog will have mainly photos: a mixture of food I make at home, food I have while going out to eat, and even various packaged products or other food items and kitchen appliances. I'll post as many recipes as I am able, of course abstaining from posting copyrighted material.

My hope is for this blog to motivate me to not only take more photos of the food I eat, but also to motivate me to cook more at home and experiment more with my food.

Well, enough talking, on with the food! Pictured above: a piece of soft pretzel from a New York Pretzel stand inside the NYNY Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV. I always ask for pretzels with no butter. What happens is I have to wait for 5-10 minutes, but I then receive a fresh and hot pretzel. In the picture above, the piece of pretzel is hanging out in some spicy mustard as a dip.

Next, a crappy picture of some food I made at home. One sliced and pan-fried apple smoked sausage from Field Roast Grain Meat Company, some brown rice, sliced and roasted brussels sprouts, and some crumbled soy feta by Sunergia Soyfoods. Overall, it was a tasty dish, but if I make this again, I would definitely add a sauce or tomatoes. It was a bit too dry. I am in love with the soy feta. I think it's great. Tangy, crumbly, and tastes close enough to feta for me. Of course, I haven't had feta in many years, so I could be wrong, but I think it is a lovely addition to salads and pasta.



This next photo is of a sandwich I made a couple of weeks ago. It consists of two toasted pieces of wheat bread from my local gas station, sliced tomato, Vegenaise spread on both slices of toast, some pan-fried Smokey Tempeh Fakin' Bacon strips, and a Original Boca Burger. For the burger, I microwaved it for a minute inside the plastic pouch to get heated and moist. I then pan fried it in a sautè pan and once both sides were slightly browned, I slathered a mixture of A-1 Original Steak Sauce (yep, it's vegan!) and chipotle sauce, and seared those flavors in. This was quite tasty:



Last, but not least, I made some miso soup today. I am convinced that miso soup can cure anything. Except maybe scurvy or a mouthful of sores. Oh, and gashes or bruises or anything other than a cold or a hangover. I make my miso soup much differently than most people and certainly nothing like how restaurants make it. I start by sautèeing some thin half moon onion slices inside a medium pot. Then, I toss in some pre-sliced baby bella mushrooms, a large finely minced garlic clove, a plop of ginger paste (about a Tablespoon), and a generous sprinkle of red pepper flakes. I then add 6 cups of water, cover and wait for the water to boil. Once it's at a rolling boil, I plop in about 1/3c of miso (I use a brown miso). Once dissolved, I sprinkle in some sliced scallions (green onions) and ladle some soup into a bowl. The bowl pictured holds 2 cups. I use dulse flakes which add some more iron and calcium.




Well, there it is. The First Post. Excellent. I'll be taking photos of dinner tonight, and hope to post them tonight as well. Until then, hope you enjoy the photos!