Vegan Spaghetti & Meatballs

I made these a while back, but it's worth it to share.

I cheated and used Gimme Lean. Even though the sausage is pretty well seasoned on it's own, I added a lot of panko breadcrumbs, paprika, parsley and garlic to punch it up more. I rolled them into little balls and baked them with a little olive oil, turning them every so often until they got a nice brown to them. Next time I think I'd make them even smaller. The sauce is just Newman's Own Cabernet Marinara with cashew cheese, starchy pasta water and garlic added to it.

Okra & Legumes with Berbere Spice Mix

I'm back! As all times when I have long absences from the old food blog, I hope to post more often. I signed up for a CSA recently so I look forward to summer when I will get tons of fresh veggies and lots of inspiration for cooking!

So about that food pictured above...Berbere is an Ethiopian spice mixture that is made of things like fenugreek, chili peppers, clove, paprika, coriander, cardamom, etc. Some folks make the blend themselves. I'm lucky enough to have African markets near where I live, so I just picked up a small container of the spice mix the other day.

I am a huge fan of
Ethiopian food, so I was excited to use the flavors in other dishes.

I decided to make some lentils (or split peas? I can't remember which these were) and cook them in a bunch of berbere. I started with onion, garlic, ginger, oil, salt, and added berbere and dry legumes. Added water and a small can of seasoned tomatoes, brought everything to a boil and then simmered until the legumes were at a tenderness I liked. I added some frozen okra and cooked until it was done.

While this was cooking, I made some quinoa: 2 parts veggie broth to one part quinoa. Bring everything to a boil, reduce to simmer, cover and cook for 15-20 mins.

Gardein Beefless Burger Open-Faced Sandwich

I know, another product from Gardein? Yes! I really like Gardein products. These burgers were great! I did have these in a "traditional" hamburger way as well as this open-faced sandwich way.

For this dish, I sauteed a bunch of onion and mushrooms together, and made a sort of gravy sauce. I toasted some bread, pan-fried the burger, and put it all together with some peas on the side.

Gardein Buffalo Chik'n Wings

Another Gardein
product. As usual, I enjoyed these quite a bit. Very saucy, and actually spicy! I served these with agave for dipping sauce, but it would be really cool to make a ranch or bleu cheese sauce for these.

Curried Split Pea Soup with Dumplings

I essentially made the curried split pea soup from
VWAV. (I make that soup regularly because it's so easy and cheap.) I added in frozen carrot slices and some whole wheat dumplings.

I had no idea how to make dumplings. I was making drop biscuits and had a lot of dough left over so I made tiny little balls and plopped them into the soup to cook. They turned out dumpling-like and tasted fine.

Another shot:

Coconut Curry with Wild Rice and Okra

This was AWESOME. I made some wild rice first. Then I started some onion sauteing in oil, added garbanzos, the wild rice, and coconut milk. LOTS of vegetable broth, curry paste and frozen carrots and okra. It was a thick stew more than anything else. I loved it, so did Mr. Coconut. It was one of those days where we did not have much food left in the house and what was left did not seem to mix. This is yet another example of how coconut milk and curry paste or powder is the great equalizer and makes anything delicious together.

Another shot:

Mini Brownies

Mini Brownies! These are actually from Pillsbury:



I filled half of them with the raspberry filling and half were plain. The raspberry filling was actually delicious! These were also great because there was no egg replacement needed.

Gardein Beefless Tips with Spaghetti

So the picture is AWFUL, I know. It was not a great day for my crappy camera. I assure you, though, that this was DELICIOUS. I think it was the first time I've had Gardein's Beefless Tips. I sauteed for a bit with onions and garlic and then added frozen broccoli and Newman's Own Garden Peppers Sauce. The beefless tips became very juicy and took in a lot of the flavor of the sauce. These beefless tips would make AWESOME veggie kabobs and I really want to make those on the grill next summer.

I really like Gardein's products. Almost every one that I have tried is really delicious. I splurged on several of their products recently so I will have a few product reviews coming up.

BBQ Seitan Ribz with Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli, and Cashew Cheez Sauce

I finally made those infamous bbq ribz from
Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. Totally worth it.

I somehow forgot the nutritional yeast and I did not have paprika at all and I used peanut butter for the tahini/nut butter. They still turned out great. I could have kneaded them a bit less and made them more thinly spread, but had quite a difficult time getting it spread out in the pan.



I made these with combination baking in the oven and grilling on the George Foreman Grill. I used Ken Davis BBQ Sauce, a favorite in my house.



Mr. Coconut liked the ribz so-so, he was more of a fan of the broccoli and cheez sauce. [on a small tangent...I have been OBSESSED with making perfect nacho cheez dip for tortilla chips this past week. I've made about 4-5 sauces in the last 7 days or so--that's a post for another day.]

This sauce was made from blending raw cashews with water, nutritional yeast flakes [nooch], mustard, pimentos, garlic salt, onion powder, and salt. The thing that has troubled me about cashew cheese is the consistency. I tried in the food processor and with a stick blender, and there was still too much grit for my taste - to the point where I was beginning to doubt all these recipes for "creamy" cashew cheez sauces.

Then I used The Magic Bullet and suddenly I understand how fantastic cashews can be for a cheese sauce! Creamy, light, airy. Delicious on broccoli!

I really liked the ribz and I am excited to try them again!

Thanksgiving 2011

America celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday and I was right there, eating along with everyone else. We had a ton of food, and tons of leftovers. Above is actually a shot of my plate this morning since I did not get a picture of the full plate yesterday.

I made chickpea cutlets and stuffing. Family supplied the rest of the food: mashed potatoes with celery root, diced rutabaga, wild rice with some other things in it, green beans with craisins, dinner rolls.

I also made a maple pecan pie recipe from
The Post Punk Kitchen:


A family member also made a wonderful salad with pomegranates, pears, raspberries, and grapes plus a wonderful vanilla dressing:

Vegan Month of Food V - Wrap Up!

Vegan Month of Food Wrap-Up!

I made 26 individual posts, and did 22 days. Not bad for my first Vegan Mofo! This was the fifth annual Vegan Mofo, and I REALLY look forward to participating next year. I've already been contemplating different themes and ideas.

What did I learn? To not hold back and post, post, post! This made me not afraid to post things, even if I've made the exact same thing or don't have a recipe. Talking about food is something I LOVE to do, so why not do it more? I am also trying to be more entertaining as my writing is seriously dry and I need to cut loose a bit. Food is fun.

So, for reference, here are the various posts I did thorughout this month. I tried to put them into similar groups, but some just had no category to fall into.

This month I posted about food trucks, twice, and
I also documented my annual visit to the MN State Fair.

Soups and Stews dominiated this month: one made okra, tomato and quinoa; one with kidney beans; one with white beans; a lentil soup; and a hard lesson learned with old beans.

I made & ate several sweet things, including breakfast:
chocolate chip cookies and cookie cannonballs; blueberry waffles which on a later day became pancake pelotas. I also tried some chocolates from Sjaaks.

I tried my hand at making seitan bites and curried seitan strips with great results.

I "baked" - sort of: I tried samosas in puff pastry and
a whole wheat chickpea pot pie.

I did a couple Asian-inspired dishes (aside from those not already listed):
broccoli fried rice and mock duck coconut curry, curry sauce from pureed butternut squash and tried out Thai Veggie Chicken.

And the other food posts with no identifiable category:
cornmeal crusted tofu with broccoli, mango/parsley/raspberry smoothie, onion tater tots, taco beans & rice, and I took a stab at a chik'n salad sandwich.


To round everything out, I showed off my empty fridge and discussed how I reuse bottles for everything.

Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies & Soft Cookie Cannonballs [Vegan Mofo]

It's the last day of Vegan Month of Food
!!!! It's been a blast doing this and I am already excited for next year, haha. I have also been thinking of different themes or putting more thought into next year's event. I'll have more on my reflections and recapping what I did this month tomorrow. Today, let's talk cookies.

Ah, cookies. I LOVE cookies. All types, you can't really go wrong. In my house, there is a great cookie debate. I like a crispy cookie to dunk into milk and then devour. I could easily put away a sleeve of Oreos. Lots of people prefer chewy, soft cookies, but I only like those if they are fresh from the oven. Mr. Coconut, on the other hand, prefers chewy, tender cookies that melt in your mouth, no milk necessary.

Did you know? Target's Market Pantry brand chocolate chip cookies are accidentally vegan. Both the crispy and chewy varieties. They taste like Chips Ahoy! I've actually found quite a few generic brands of cookies that are accidentally vegan.

No store bought cookie can top the wonderfulness of homemade, though. This is mainly because I love eating cookie dough, though.

I had a craving for cookies and happened to have all the necessary ingredients on hand, so I made THIS recipe for chocolate chip cookies from The PPK. The only thing I changed was using cornstarch instead of tapioca flour. It worked great. I used
Ghirardelli chocolate chips - the semi-sweet variety.


I must say that the dough felt a bit oily, and maybe next time I make these I'll try cutting back on the fat and subbing in flax seeds or something. I baked these for a little longer than I should have so they were quite crispy. I loved them

Since I have a small cookie sheet and could only bake 8 at a time, I pulled out my donut hole maker and went to work on delicious cookie "cannonballs". I had to cook these for much longer than the machine wanted to, about 2-3 "rounds" to get my desired texture. The cannonballs turned out great and the best of both worlds: firm, almost crisp outside with a chewy, tender inside.

I then took whatever remaining dough was left and made 3 smallish cookies and baked them in the toaster oven just to see what would happen. The cookies were still great! These were a little chewier than the oven-baked ones, mainly because I baked them a shorter amount of time.

A close up of a cannonball:



And a close up of a cookie:

Puff Pastry Samosas [Vegan Mofo]

Vegan Month of Food has only one more day left!

I experimented a bit with puff pastry today. I made a samosa mix: potatoes diced very small, cooked with small diced carrots and onions and frozen peas. I cooked the mixture with curry powder, veggie broth, garlic, and salt. I finished it with a little flour to help thicken the broth and some cilantro and parsley.

Then I spooned the mix onto thawed squares of frozen puff pastry, wrapping to the best of my ability. I baked at 400 degrees F until golden brown. The above photo was the most successful triangle shape I made.

In the end, there was too much pastry to filling, but I'm not sure how to fix this other than using phyllo dough instead off puff pastry. I would like to try more of a mashed potato approach to the mixture: make curry mashed potatoes and then mix in cooked onion, peas and carrots.

Here's a photo of the other various shapes that came out of this batch (with some cookies cooling on the edge of the photo, that's another post, though):

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.

Chik'n Seitan Bites [Vegan Mofo]

Vegan Month of Food marches on.

I need to pick up the pace for the last week of mofo! I've got more pics from last weekend, and I am happy to say that I was able to finally get more groceries to fill my empty fridge, haha. I hope to make some cool stuff for this last week of Vegan Month of Food!

This was Sunday's concoction: Chik'n Seitan bites. I used the same technique and similar ingredients as I did with These Chik'n style bites and with these seitan strips.

Roughly, my ingredients included: vital wheat gluten, a LOT of Montreal Steak Seasoning, Old Bay Seasoning, steak sauce, a little canola oil, and some water. I kneaded everything for several minutes, then tore off chunks and lined my toaster oven pan with foil and put the chunks down on the pan. I baked in the toaster oven for about 15-20 mins on 350F, flipped the chunks to the other side, and baked another 10 minutes or so.

They were really salty but also pretty tasty. I ate them with BBQ sauce.

Broccoli Fried Rice [Vegan Mofo]

Vegan Month of Food continues...

This is what I made on Sunday. I used up the rest of the brown rice we had, and sauteed it with onion, garlic, and mixed veggies. I also added broccoli to give it something more. It was tasty. I mixed in hoisin sauce, soy sauce, and sriracha.