Chik'n Potstickers!

I made my own potstickers today! It was a lot of work, but well worth it in the end. Here is the finished product, pan fried chik'n potstickers with soy sauce/miso/ginger dipping sauce:



Ingredients:
filling:
1 bag of Morningstar Chik'n Strips, cooked, small chopped
1/2 an onion, small dice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1-1.5 cups broccoli, cooked and blended/chopped finely
to taste:
soy sauce
ginger paste
rice vinegar
toasted sesame oil
garlic chili paste

Also:
1 package of potsticker wraps, which can be purchased at any Asian grocery as well as many major chain supermarkets
Canola oil
butter for sealing edges of wrapper

Hardware:
One deep pot or pan for pan frying
One pot to boil the potstickers in (should be able to just cover the potstickers)
A station set up on a counter to assemble the potstickers and set them on a plate
a station to set/drain the finished potstickers
A tablespoon to measure out filling
a pan for the chik'n, a pan for the broccoli (or steamer)

What to do:

1. Make the filling. First, cook the frozen chik'n strips until heated through. Get the water for the broccoli boiling, add broccoli (I used frozen.)

2. To the chik'n, add onion and garlic until onion is translucent. Turn off heat. Once cool, chop up the chik'n and set into a bowl. Chop very small/fine. Blending may work for this, too.

3. Drain broccoli when it's done, let cool. Once cooled, blend or chop finely.

4. To the chi'n, add ginger, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, rice vinegar, and garlic chili paste -- all to taste. Add in the blended mush of broccoli and mix everything together. That's the filling! Other options worth trying: scallions (I didn't have any), rice noodles, rice, carrot, etc.



5. Get your assembly line ready. It's best if you can work in a left to right or right to left line: a place to set the open wrappers and fill them, fold them; next a plate to set the folded potstickers; next into the boiling water; into the frying pan with oil and finally onto a place to drain the oil and get served.

6. For filling: put less than 1T (3/4 or so) of filling into the middle of the wrapper. I buttered the edge to help it stick together, but it didn't always work. Fold in half, then crimp edges and set on plate to await boiling. Important: avoid air bubbles, avoid holes, make SURE the edges are sealed.



7. You'll know when they are done boiling because they turn transluscent. Remove and set each potsticker into the frying pan and fry either one or both sides until golden brown. Drain off excess oil, EAT!

Amy's Kitchen Non-Dairy Beans and Rice Burrito with Chips and Salsa

Just a simple beans and rice burrito with hot salsa and tortilla chips. Nothing too special. From Amy's Kitchen.

Illionois/Chicago: The Hilton Gardenview and the Sheraton at O'Hare

I had to take a short trip to the Chicago area and here are the hotel/suburban foods I had. (I plan on going back to Chicago proper sometime soon to sample all of their great vegan restaurant selections.)

First up, the airport hotel. Room Service breakfast, which is the same at nearly every hotel I've been to: hashbrowns, fruit bowl, toast, peanut butter and jelly. The Sheraton @ O'Hare:



I must say that the fruit bowl was actually quite good and all the fruit tasted fresh and ripe. The hashbrown weren't too bad. Nothing spectacular and definitely not worth the price, but that's room service for ya.

Next up, a very similar breakfast from the Hilton Gardenview: fruit, mini bagels and diced potatoes:

Illinois/Chicago Area: Stir Crazy in OakbrookTerrace

Stir Crazy is a restaurant I went to while in the suburbs of Chicago. It serves various Asian dishes as well as featuring a make your own stir fry.

I've been to a few of this style of restaurants, but I like this one the best so far for a few reasons. First, it's nice that they add your tofu (or other protein of your choosing) when they cook the ood so you don't have to take up space in your bowl that can be used for broccoli or other veggies. Second, they have brown rice as an option. Third, they were nice enough to offer up their complete list of sauce ingredients so we could figure out which ones were vegan or not.

First, the coconut curry vegetables served with tofu and udon noodles:



This was really tasty. The sauce was awesome and the tofu was really great.

Next, a make your own stirfry with lots of veggies, tofu, and brown rice:



Overall, I had a great experience there and was impressed by both the service and the food.

The Triple Rock: Cook's Revenge, Chicago Dogs and Mac & Cheese

The Triple Rock is one of my favorite Minneapolis bar/restaurants to go to. It's a punk rock bar with an attached club for rock shows and it also serves American-style bar food. Here are a few dishes from a recent visit:

The Vegan Cook's Revenge:



This is one of my favorite things to order at the Triple Rock. "The Cook's Revenge" is basically whatever the cook wants to give you, no substitutions, no refunds, you get what you get. The only request that can be made is to make the dish vegan or vegetarian rather than meaty. I've had this 100 times, and I've had just about everything under the sun from PB&J to a 4-plates of food breakfast meal. Pictured above was a bowl of goodness: pinto beans and salsa covered with veggie sausage and smashed tater tot potatoes, which was then covered with their vegan nacho cheese and topped off with star-shaped veggie sausage. It was quite good.


Vegan Mac and Cheese:



Just what it says: big elbow macaroni noodles in a nutritional yeast sauce and topped with more nooch. Served with a GIANT piece of Texas toast.

Vegan Chicago Dogs:



This is two vegan Chicago dogs topped with peppers, tomatoes, onions, relish and mustard. Served with fries (and an extra side of vegan nacho cheese.)

Other favorites of mine include the Mock Duck sandwich, vegan nachos, their housemade hummus (REALLY garlicky), and "The Best Vegetarian Sub Ever."

Baja Sol Express - Veggie Burrito Sol Bowl

I love Baja Sol because it has actual vegetables for veggie burritos and the hot salsa is fresh and HOT. They also have actual diced jalapenos rather than just pickled ones. While the burrito bowl is not the most photo-friendly food, it is quite tasty. This bowl features rice, black beans, vegetables (zucchini, red bell pepper, onion, yellow squash), lettuce, pico de gallo, guacamole, HOT salsa, fresh jalapenos and hot sauce. I also usually take a few lime wedges to add some zing.

French Fries with Seven Grain Veggie Cakes

The title says it all. I just baked some crinkle cut fries and served some mini veggie cakes as appetizers along with them. Dipping sauce are: ketchup, dijon mustard and yellow mustard.

The veggie cakes are from Super Target. A close up:



They weren't too bad, sort of like little mini veggie burgers. It would be cute to serve them on tiny buns with all the fixings.

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.

Chino Latino

Chino Latino is a local restaurant owned by Parasole which serves "Street foods from the hot zones." It's a mix of Asian, South American and Latin American foods. The waitstaff is always friendly and is willing to go to great lengths to figure out what is vegan and what is not.

This is tofu satay, which was a new offering. We usually get portobella satay, which is really tasty, but this was excellent as well. Crispy fried tofu cubes on skewers, served with sweet and sour dipping sauce, quick-pickled cucumbers, and sticky rice.



I enjoyed my skewer with soy sauce and added hot sauce. I really wish this was served with the garlic soy sauce that accompanies the portobella satay. We also had several veggie potstickers, but I didn't take any photos of those because I inhale them all too quickly. Last, but certainly not least, we had "Popocatepe" aka "nacho fries." I order it minus the dairy (cheese, sour cream, and chile de arbol sauce which apparantly has dairy in it.) It's served with pico de gallo, black beans, and guacamole.

Pizza Luce Brunch - Breakfast Burrito, Hashbrowns, "Cheese" Toast

Pizza Luce brunch, once again!



I finally had the breakfast burrito, which is the last vegan item on the brunch menu that I had not tried. It was very tasty! It's scrambled tofu with peppers, onions, black beans, veggie sausage and soy cheese wrapped in a tortilla and smothered in quinto sauce (tasted like enchilade sauce sort of) and pico de gallo and more soy cheese. It's served on top of jalapeño hashbrowns and a side of salsa. I also had a side of their awesome vegan hollandaise sauce because it's great with everything.

Axel ordered their vegan cheese toast with soy cheese (they use Follow Your Heart mozzarella) as well as jalapeño hashbrowns with a side of the vegan hollandaise.

Fasika

This is one of my all time favorite comfort foods: the veggie sampler from Faiska, a local Ethiopian restaurant here in St. Paul. It's just really tasty and nutritious: lots of lentils, cabbage, veggies, greens, split peas, all cooked in different spices and served on top of Injera, a spongey pancake-like bread made from teff flour. The best part about Ethiopian food is that you eat with your hands, using the injera to scoop up the food.

I highly recommend clicking on the above photo to fo to the Flickr photo because I labeled everything. I'll try to describe it as best as possible.

In Center: Misir Key Wot (red lentils cooked in Berbere sauce) and from L to R: Atkilt (cabbage, potatoes and carrots); Gomen (cooked greens); horseradish? puree at the top; some unknown potatoe-y thing; kik alicha wot (split peas cooked in curry and other spices); beets; and a salad with oil/spices as dressing and peppers and tomatoes.

Veggie Sushi!

Sorry for the bad photo, but the sushi is actually quite good. I'm able to get this slightly overpriced but at least freshly made sushi on campus. This is one of two veggie varieties offered: two big "mushroom shitake salad" rolls, and six smaller avocado and carrot rolls. I already spread wasabi on these and poured soy sauce on them, so they look weird. Plus it's hard to focus or get good light in this particular room.

Chik'n Fried Tofu; Sautéed Spinach and Onions

This was an awesome experiment in my ongoing search for the perfect coating for fried/pan-fried/baked tofu. This stuff was really good. The coating came from McCormick Season 'n Fry Seasoned Coating Mix.

One tub (16 oz) of tofu, pressed/drained and cubed. Coat each piece with the seasoning. An easy way to do this is placing the seasoning in a plastic zip-top bag and shake like crazy! I then pan-fried the tofu in some vegetable oil until golden brown, drained the tofu, and re-coated and did the whole process over one more time. It actually stuck to the tofu, but left quite a bit of leftover flour/seasoning in the bottom of the pan. Very tasty, though.

I also enjoyed a bowl of sautéed spinach and onions with garlic on the side:

Apples, Peanut Butter, and Medjool Date Wrap

Whole Wheat wrap spread with Parkers Farm Inc. Natural Peanut Butter, sliced Red Delicious apples, and 2 quartered and pitted medjool dates for texture and sweetness.

Yum yum yum. I've made many peanut butter and apple wraps, but the addition of the madjool dates really makes a difference. I've been adding dates to many things lately, most notably my morning breakfast oatmeal/multigrain hot cereal.

The Peanut Butter is quite good, cheaper than lots of other natural peanut butters, and it's local. So I love it.

I've also tried out and enjoyed both Hempmilk and Oatmilk as something different than just soymilk. My favorite is still chocolate almond milk. I still need to try Hazlenut milk.

--> I must note that I know all the non-dairy alternatives to dairy milk are technically not allowed to be called "milk" and are to be referred to as non-dairy beverages. Meh, I still call them "milk."

Axel's Bombastic Black Bean Dip

The Saucy Coconut Food Blog is Back in Action! I know, I've said that before only to not post for weeks on end. Hopefully this time I'll stay true to my word and post more often. Well, this is a fantastic post to come back on:

Axel's Bombastic Bean Dip!

This is seriously the best bean dip EVER. I've made endless excuses why not to make my own bean dip: laziness, "too much work," and...laziness. There really isn't a good reason why I haven't been making my own bean dip. Yet it took my fiance, Axel, to have a heavy dose of inspiration in the kitchen to get me on the "make my own bean dip from now on" train.

This is a rough estimate of the creation of the best bean dip ever, but it will be recreated soon with more details and tweaking.

What's in it, roughly:
1 can of black beans, drained
1/2 can of refried black beans
1 can of pinto beans
1 can of Rotel^TM Original Tomatoes and Green Chilies
4 cloves of garlic (or less if you aren't a fan of garlic)
good shake of red pepper flakes for spice
good shake of cumin for flavor

Directions (sort of):

1. In a big bowl, mash almost all the beans up with a potato masher

2. Add the Rotel^TM, mix thoroughly.

3. Either mince the garlic into a paste, or blend it with a hand blender, or the Magic Bullet Blender.

4. Blend the bean mixture, and also place into hot pan and cook mixture. Add some of the whole beans that were set aside before you started mashing. Leave these as whole.

5. Add cumin, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste. Fresh chilies like jalapenos, habeneros, etc., would be great.

Serve hot OR cold with chips, fresh veggies, crackers, pitas, or anything else you can think of. This dip gets better and more garlicky/spicy with each passing day, so try and save some for tomorrow!

Grilled Turkey and Guacamole Sandwich

This was my brilliant plan. I've been obsessed with grilled sandwiches lately. I've been buttering and grilling every sandwich. Then...I grilled a sandwich with just gracamole because we were out of chips. It was awesome. Will be making that in the future to accompany a tomato soup of some sort. Or Gazpacho!

Anyway, this is simply guacamole spread between two pieces of bread, with slices of tofurky deli meat layered in between. There are also sauteed onions added for good measure. The true genius is in the grilling: Earth balance spread on the outside, as well as a good dash of cumin and cayenne. Really tasty and crispy. Excellent!

Nachos!

These are just nachos made with TVP "beef," though I hydrated the TVP with water mized with taco seasoning to give even MORE taco flavor. I also sauteed half an onion before tossing the TVP in the pan to give more flavor. Then I spooned the "beef" over a small pan of nacho chips which was on top of foil for easy clean up and transportation. I shredded a lot of Follow Your Heart mozzarella on top, and broiled it in the toaster oven until the "cheese" melted a bit.

It wasn't too bad, needed something more, like salsa or nacho cheese dip.

Hearty Vegetable Soup with Toasted English Muffin

Homemade soup with lots of fresh vegetables, served with a toasted sprouted grain English muffin.

Ingredients:

2-3 garlic cloves, minced
Mirepoix (onion, chopped carrots, chopped celery)
3T olive oil (optional)
frozen veggies
1-2 Potatoes, diced/chopeed

seasonings: poultry seasoning, SALT, pepper, celery salt, oregano

1 28oz can of whole peeled tomatoes, along with 2 of those cans filled with water added to pot


1. Sautee the onion, garlic, carrot, potatoes, and celery and the dry seasonings.
2. Add frozen veg and oil.
3. Add tomatoes with juice, stir, add water.
4. Boil, then bring to simmer.
5. Cook until poatoes are tender.

DONE!

Holidays 2007: Leftovers

Not a very photogenic dish, but tasty anyway. Chunks of Celebration Roast with roasted vegetables such zucchini, carrot, and squash.

Just some leftovers from the holiday season. These particular leftovers were eaten a day or two after Thanksgiving.

Tortilla with Chipotle "Sausage," Leeks, Potatoes, and Rice Cheese

When I made this, I was looking for a sort of breakfast burrito type of meal. I had recently come across the Field Roast Grain Meat Company's Chipotle "Sausage." Field Roast makes Celebration Roast, among other things. The recipe is simple:

Sliced leeks, sautéed with sliced potatoes and the sausage until done. Pile into tortilla and melt one slice of rice "cheese" on it. Eat and enjoy.

The chipotle sausage was actually quite spicy and good. I would really like to try it with a tofu scramble to really get a breakfast burrito taste.