DDOW: Scarlet Barley; Black Bean Veg Salad

Another treat from Delivered Dish of the Week! This week is Scarlet Barley as well as a Black Bean Veg Salad.

From the site:

Scarlet Barley. Vegan, soy-free, no added sugars; contains gluten. A brilliantly hued beets & barley dish from Moskowitz’ Appetite for Reduction vegan cookbook. Factoid: beets have 6 times the iron of carrots. Women, eat your beets!

Black Bean Veg Salad. Vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, no added sugars. Spiked with citrus & crunchy veg to complement the earthy barley dish.

Verdict: Both are delicious! My only regret is that I didn't order more than a pint. I mixed both together and added a kale/spinach mix to make a super-healthy and tasty salad!

Lumberg Farms Organic Brown Rice Pasta w. Veggies and Sauce

Not the best photo, I know. I way overcooked this Lundberg Farms Brown Rice Pasta with Mushroom and Leek Sauce, so it turned into a bit of a gloopy mess, but it was still edible. I added a ton of spinach, mushrooms, peas, and baby heirloom tomatoes from Trader Joe's.

I tried a different variety of this pasta and sauce mix a while back and enjoyed it. That time I was able to cook it perfectly and the pasta held together. Ah, well, live and learn - I am pretty hit or miss cooking gluten-free pasta, and this was a slight miss but only due to me, not the product.

Pho Noodle Soup with Tofu

Ack! This week completely escaped me for food blogging!

Hopefully this week I will be more consistent.

This week also marks VegFest Minneapolis 2013! It is coming up already! I will be volunteering at the festival, so come check it out!!!! Lots of fun and food!

OK. So the photo above is a quick soup I threw together. Again, I got major help from the Pacific Vegetarian Pho Soup Base that I added to thinly sliced garlic and onions. I threw in vermicelli rice noodles, then removed from heat and stirred in some "power greens" which was a mix of spinach, baby kale and baby red chard (mainly spinach).

For the tofu: I grilled them on the George Foreman Grill for a bit, then slathered on some quick cilantro-ginger-hot pepper sauce, cut into mini triangles and set on top of the soup.

What can I say? The temperature is dropping here and soup is comforting and fairly easy to make.

Sandwich Saturday - Tofurky Bologna & Vegenaise

Whoops! Fell a little behind this week. Thought I would post a sandwich Mr. Coconut made last week that he insisted I photograph because it looked so nice. It tasted great, too!

DDOW - Spicy Chile Verde w. Beans - Vegan Mofo 2013

As promised, here is the Spicy Chile Verde with Beans from this weeks Delivered Dish of the Week order. From the website:

“Spicy Chile Verde with Beans (V, GF, soy-free, no added sugar) An opportunity to see why chef Crescent Dragonwagon in her book Bean for Bean insists there is no substitute for Santa Fe Green Chilies from New Mexico. With green bell peppers.”

This had a ton of vegetables, as you can see. It actually had quite a bit of broth, too, but for the sake of the photo, I emphasized the veggies and beans.
I enjoyed this dish – it was a satisfying lunch that I will have more of tomorrow. I added a little bit of spinach because I add greens to as many things as possible if I have them around, and adding them to soups is one of my favorite ways to incorporate greens easily.

It was not quite what I expected – but then again, most of the dishes I have received so far are different than what I expected – and that is great. I love the semi-unexpected surprise of trying new foods or foods prepared in different ways than I would. It has been really invigorating and inspiring for my own cooking.

Next week for DDOW, I will be getting (and blogging) a container of Zucchini Linguine with Raw Tomato Sauce as well as a container of Heirloom Bean & Veg Cassoulet with Rosemary. Sounds great!!!!

Cous Cous w. Mushrooms and Veggies - Vegan MoFo 2013

It started with mushrooms.

I just wanted to cook some mushrooms.

Home, after an uneventful but nonetheless long day, especially after running to the grocery store to pick up a few things.

Hungry, but also too tired to think of such complexities of putting an actual meal together. Yet tossing a chik patty in the microwave and calling it a day was not appealing. Plus the groceries needed to be put away. Ugh. So it started with the mushrooms.

Nothing special - just some shiitake mushrooms from the store. Pan, toss, sizzle.

Kale!, I thought - I have KALE. That would be great with mushrooms. It's worked before.

So kale went in, more groceries placed inside the freezer.

Whoa, totally forgot about these veggies! Luckily, they were only from a couple days ago, so the cooked frozen veggies went in, along with their coats of olive oil. Then went some already cooked previously mentioned Trader Joe's Harvest Grains Blend along with a handful of spinach. Last, but not least, went in a tiny bit of Trader Joe's Vegan Mozzarella Shreds.

Creamy, carby, comforting.

CSA Green Pasta Bowl [Vegan Mofo]

Day 13 of Vegan Month of Food!

CSA Green! We are nearing the end of 7 days of green theme. This dish was delicious: penne pasta tossed/sauteed with asparagus, fresh oregano, olive oil, spinach, garlic scapes, onion and garlic. I am pretty sure the vegetables, garlic, onion, and oregano were all from the CSA, though the spinach could have been purchased at the grocery store.

Tempeh Bac'n BLT

Whoa! Way too long with no posts!

Today I bring you a Tempeh Bac'n BLT: new-ish Earth Balance vegan mayo, Tofurky Maple Tempeh Bac'n, tomatoes, red onion, and spinach.

I enjoyed the EB mayo, pretty decent stuff. It is sold at a price that is way more expensive than Vegenaise in my area, so I just picked it up to try it out. I might get it in the future once in a while if it's on sale and ends up being cheaper than Vegenaise.

I've got a lot of pics stored up, just need to resize and upload to Flickr. I am also planning some pretty big new food adventures in the coming months, including some theme months and before you know it, Vegan Mofo will be here again!

I am trying to streamline my photo to blog system, and hopefully I will be able to get it down to a science so it doesn't take up too much time and I can focus on cooking and writing rather than the technical side of things.

My favorite go-to free online photo editing site shut down so it's been hard to get my groove back. I am playing with a couple of programs to see what is easiest and fastest for me.

So far I have enjoyed PicMonkey.

Stay tuned for more!

Curry Tofu Spinach in Tortila

This is my first take on Amy's Indian Spinach Tofu Wrap -- which I am obsessed with. However, at $2+ I can't afford to eat it everyday, particularly when thinking about how cheap the ingredients are. This was made pretty simply -- drained tofu (firm or extra firm) sauteed with onion and garlic and curry powder. Add in spinach until doneto my liking, placed in an Ezekial 4:9 Sprouted Tortilla and enjoyed - many times! It was perfect with sriracha and a coriander chutney I like to get. I can hardly wait to try my hand at more of a saag approach to this once I am getting more spinach on a weekly basis.

Coconut Curry Squash Sauce Revisited: Now with Okra! [Vegan Mofo]

Vegan Mofo is continuing! I hope I can actually keep up with this but fear that I will fall off the map again, so to speak. Ah well, revel in more delicious food experiments!

I was gifted another butternut squash, so I decided to revisit the Coconut Curry Squash Sauce to see how to improve it.

This time around, I tried to write down a recipe. This is what I've got so far:


600g cubed butternut squash
60g onion
1 can (15oz?) coconut milk
15oz can garbanzo (chickpeas) drained and rinsed
2-3c baby spinach
.75 10oz frozen okra
2c broccoli
3t red curry paste
1t curry powder
salt


Ok. So that's my made up recipe. I will say that this time around my coconut to squash ratio differed quite a bit. I used less squash and still the same amount of coconut milk (1 can) to see if the sauce could thin out compared to last time.

I measured the squash and onion, and had cans of garbanzos and coconut milk. Everything else is a guess/estimate.

I cubed up the squash, and steamed it until soft with some water. In a separate pan, I sweated finely and roughly chopped 60g of onions in some olive oil with salt.

I mashed the squash, then added the coconut milk and onion and curry paste. I pureed with my emulsifier blender until smooth.

I added the frozen okra and broccoli, and waited until they were almost done before adding the spinach and garbanzos. Throughout all of this I would add salt to taste. Really, vegetable broth or cubes would have been handy, but I had neither. I think that broth is the missing element in this sauce and will add depth and complexity to the flavors. Next time!

As the rest of the sauce was cooking, I made rice noodles (which takes all of 5 minutes, really).

I served the dish over noodles and used soy sauce and hot sauce to season further. I also served over brown rice after the rice noodles were gone. All delicious. I hope to continue to work toward an actual usable recipe with this one day, but it's getting better!

Chik'n Salad Wrap [Vegan Mofo 2011]

Vegan Mofo Day 3 (ok, day 2 of me posting, but doing great so far)!!!


It's been great to challenge myself on making something blog-worthy everyday, even if my camera is full of fail and I hate it.

Tonight: Morningstar Chik'n Griller patty, heated and mashed up. Mixed in some Vegenaise, salt, pepper, dijon mustard, dill pickle juice, sweet pickle relish, and minced onion. I didn't have any celery or I would have added that, too. I heated up a tortilla, put a bunch of spinach on it, then spread the chik'n salad on top of the spinach and wrapped it.

Served with my sad looking potato chips. But they were tasty! I garnished it all with some flat leaf Italian parsley. I liked my wrap, even if I still hate my camera for frustrating photo shoots.

Pasta with Spinach, Sauce and Sausage

This was an impromptu dish for dinner. I had some Gimme Lean hanging around, so I took about half the tube and seasoned it with red pepper flakes, oregano, and fennel seeds. I shredded some onion and garlic into a pan, sauteed, and added the sausage. Then cooked it until browned up to my liking.

The sauce was another experiment from a few days ago. We have no red sauce in the house, but TONS of tomato paste. So, I figured I would try to make sauce from that. I started by shredding half an onion with a grater, and roughly chopped 4-5 small cloves of garlic. I sauteed these in a pan with some olive oil. Added some oregano and salt. I used 2-3 cups of "not chik'n" broth for more depth and 2 cans of tomato paste (the small 6 oz ones). I just kept simmering and stirring and adding water as needed to smooth everything out. It turned out great! I've been rather impressed with myself for that sauce.

For this specific dish, I made elbow macaroni and spooned over some fresh spinach. I poured the sauce over the noodles and put the sausage bits on top. A super-yummy dinner!

Peanut Curry Sauce from Ruam Mit Thai

Not the best picture, from inside a box of takeout, but this is one of the BEST dishes around. Pha Ram Long Song from Ruam Mit Thai in Saint Paul. DROOL: Red curry, coconut milk, crushed peanits, served over steamed spinach and (the way we order) with fried tofu. Can also be done with mock duck, but they fry the tofu to order, so it's always delicious. Plus, they separate everything out for takeout so nothing gets soggy. yum yum yum yum

Snobby Joes with Coleslaw

I've made vegan Sloppy Joes plenty of times, with "beef" crumbles, tvp, or lentils. However, I've never made it from scratch, I've always just used a can of Manwich. I finally decided it was time to just suck it up and make it from scratch. Well, that and I had a TON of lentils that I just barely burned a few of while trying to make the lentil meatballs yesterday.

I used an oldie but goodie from The Post Punk Kitchen, Snobby Joes.[link to recipe] Pretty straightforward. I didn't really modify anything other than using red and yellow small sweet peppers because I had a ton of those and no green bell pepper.

I served the mixture on Arnold's Multi-Grain Sandwich Thins along with spinach and a small bowl of coleslaw

The coleslaw was just a boring bag of shredded coleslaw, BUT with the awesomeness that is Organicville's Non-Dairy Coleslaw Dressing. I like it quite a bit as it hit the spot for my strange coleslaw craving of the past few weeks.

Here are more photos!

A closeup

Penne Pasta with Kicked Up 'Meat' Sauce

I've been eating a lot of pasta lately: it's cheap and filling and easy to make. However, I can easily get in a rut with pasta. I love Newman's Own pasta sauce, but just red sauce and pasta can get old.

I thought for a bit how to kick up the red sauce I had in the house. After a moment or two, I came up with a plan and began. (No real measurements, but the next time I do this I'll get more specific.)

Ingredients:
1 jar Newman's Own Cabernet Marinara (or any red sauce you like)
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 med-large onion, small dice
.75c TVP (crumbles, dry)
1 can vegetable broth
fennel seeds (1T I think?)
salt
1/2 package fresh spinach


I started by sauteeing the onion and then the garlic. I added fennel seeds to the mix, to saute and toast them a little. I added some salt, then poured a little of the veggie broth in and let everything simmer for a minute or so. I added the jar of sauce, stirring everything together. I kept adding veggie broth to thin out the sauce and prevent the pre-seasoned red sauce from super-concentrating in flavor.

I added TVP, stirring and allowing it to hydrate in the sauce to soak up the flavors. I then added the spinach and turned off the heat, stirring until the spinach had adequately cooked in the sauce.

Pour over pasta of choice and enjoy!

Soft Tacos

Here's my attempt to make tacos photogenic. Atop a lightly toasted flour tortilla: taco-seasoned TVP, refried black beans with garlic, fresh sweet corn with lime juice and cilantro, rotel tomatoes with habaneros, chopped cilantro, Tofutti sour cream. I added fresh spinach and taco sauce before folding up as a taco and eating.

I know I said that the next taco night I'd make my own tortillas. I still plan on making my own, I just need to get a cast iron pan first. I know I can do it without one, but I'd like to get one anyway and this seems like the perfect excuse.

Double Decker Tacos!!!

Taco Night! If you follow the Flickr-linked photo above, you'll get complete labels on the fillings.

Taco night is awesome. And last night was no exception. Refried beans makes excellent "glue" to hold a soft flour tortilla to a hard corn shell. Perfect. Morningstar crumblesSomeone pointed out to me that Morningstar changed the crumbles ingredients and it's no longer vegan. Grr, stupid ingredient change! Boca crumbles are still vegan. with spicy taco seasoning was the "meat" for this dish. Other layers include: homemade garlicky guacamole, diced tomatoes, chopped black olives, chopped onions, spinach instead of iceberg lettuce, chopped cilantro, and spicy taco sauce.

It was delicious!! I believe that another taco night, or perhaps some taco pizza, will happen very soon.

Another pic:

Pasta with Chik'n, Spinach, Artichoke Heart, and Tomatoes

Rotini whole wheat pasta, freshened up with pan-fried Morningstar Chik'n strips and sauteed spinach, tomatoes, artichoke hearts. Seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil.

Vegetable Pot Pie with Spinach

If you couldn't tell, I'm a fan of spinach. This is a vegetable pot pie from Amy's Kitchen served with a generous portion of sautéed spinach with olive oil.

Sausage Patties with Steamed Broccoli and Spinach

Gimme Lean made into sausage patties, pan fried and served with a side of steamed broccoli and spinach. VERY simple breakfast, high in protein and nutrients.