Caprese Salad with Daiya [Vegan Mofo - Bonus!]

That's right, a bonus second post for Vegan Month of Food Day One!
A beautiful caprese salad, made with slices ofjalapeno garlic havarti Daiya wedge.
Yeah, Daiya made a "hard" cheese. The wedges come in cheddar, jack, and the above-mentioned jalapeno garlic havarti flavors. The havarti tastes what I remember pepper jack cow cheese tasting like -- and that was one of my faves to eat on crackers or plain. So it was delightful to make the caprese salad with Daiya.

The tomatoes and basil are from the aforementioned CSA. I also drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil over the salad as well as fresh sea salt and fresh ground black pepper. I loved it, Mr. Coconut did not care for it. ("Too cheesy" was the complaint. Pfft.)

What is a CSA? Well, it stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and it involves getting a weekly supply of produce from a local farm. I did a lot of research and chose a farm that had a drop-off site near me. It's been fantastic getting fresh, organic produce every week since June 8th. (The season of my farm goes through most of, maybe all of, October.) I'll be talking more about CSAs and specific details of my experience with it. (Spoiler alert: I'd like to do it again next year.)

One more photo:

Zucchini Noodles with Spaghetti [Vegan Mofo]

Happy Vegan Month of Food!

It's the first day of Vegan Mofo VI, and my second year participating. (But it's my first year signed up on the official blog roll!)

Even though at the end of October last year I was pumped and wanted to come up with a theme, I do not really have a plan for this year. I will be focusing a LOT on all the photos I've been taking of dishes using ingredients from my CSA from Featherstone Farm. That means a lot of fresh produce will be featured, like the dish pictured above (and below).

I sliced up a few zucchini with my mandoline v-slicer so they were shredded into long thin noodles. I tossed the zucchini noodles in a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and added to a pan of cooked spaghetti noodles that was mixed with sauteed onion and garlic. I tossed the whole thing until well-mixed. This is a great way to "hide" vegetables - the pasta noodles and zucchini noodles blend together really well, texture-wise. If you add red sauce, you can't taste them at all. I enjoy the taste of vegetables, so it's a non-issue for me.

Here's one more picture:

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.

Chik'n Style Seitan with Pasta

I thought about the seitan strips from yesterday all day and how I could improve or experiment with the flavors and seasonings. So I did.

Recipe:

dry ingredients
1c vital wheat gluten
3T nutritional yeast flakes
about .5-1t Old Bay Seasoning
a dash of Montreal steak seasoning

wet ingredients
.13c soy sauce/shoyu
.5c veg stock
.25c water
1T olive oil

Again, heat up oven to 375 degrees F. Mix dry ingredients and wet separately, then combine. Mix well until ball forms, then knead. I rolled into a cylindrical log, and sliced up as thin as I could. Lay onto lightly oiled cookie sheet and bake for 5-8 mins on one side, flip and then other side. I was getting impatient, so I wound up pan frying after baking to crisp up some of the pieces.

I served on penne pasta with organic strained tomatoes as my sauce, seasoned with salt and pepper.

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.

Mini Wheel and Mini Farfalle Pasta with "Meat" Sauce

The picture doesn't show the perspective very well, but the pasta really is miniature versions of these shapes. The "meat" sauce was made by cooking Whole Foods brand vegan meatballs in pasta sauce and then crushing them up with a potato masher. Adding extra seasoning like olive oil, salt, garlic salt, pepper, and cumin helped punch up the sauce even more.

Pan Fried Tofu

Best. Tofu. Ever.

I have officially become addicted to this style of tofu because it's super easy and gives the satisfaction of pan-fried fatty goodness.

Ingredients:
extra firm tofu (16oz)
salt
pepper
canola oil
optional: Montreal Steak Seasoning or garlic salt of some sort

How to do it:

1. Take a block of extra firm tofu (the water packed kind, not the hermetically sealed silken kind.) Cut the whole block in half, then into 1/4" thick slabs. Drain/press the tofu with paper towels to get more of the moisture out.

2. In a frying pan, put 2 T of canola oil in it and heat it to med-high.

3. Season the side of the tofu facing you with salt, pepper and optional seasoning. Lay that side down in the pan and season the new side with same ingredients. You should be able to fit about 3-4 slabs in the pan, depending on how big your pan is. Allow each side to fry until golden brown. (5 minutes on each side?)

4. Remove tofu, place on paper towels or tea towel to remove extra grease, re-salt if necessary, enjoy in a sandwich or as-is.

The salt is just right on these and makes the oil taste more like a buttery sauce than just canola oil. The Montreal Steak Seasoning, which I'm obsessed with, adds a lot of flavor, too.