Veganomicon

After reading some positive reviews for Veganomicon, the latest cookbook from the author of Vegan with a Vengeance (VwaV), I decided to request it from the library. VwaV has become a go to cookbook in this household when I am looking for either inspiration or merely a tasty recipe to blindly follow. So I was looking forward to exploring this new book.

Veganomicon was already checked out so it took a few weeks before I was able to get my hands on the book. Finally, late last week, I brought home this hardcover college textbook-like book that contains a plethora of interesting looking recipes. I've spent the last few days testing a sampling of the recipes and attempting to assess whether or not the book is worth purchasing (as unfortunately, while it isn't quite priced like a college textbook, it leans more in that direction than most of the cookbooks on my shelf.) Here is what I've tried so far (sorry no pics, I wasn't thinking about that - oops)...

Chickpea-Quinoa Pilaf - I find most my meals are one pot meals. It is so easy to incorporate veggies, protein and a grain into a stir-fry, soup, or casserole, that I almost always cook that way. But still I frequently find a good recipe for a simple vegetable side dish but can't figure out what to serve with it to round out the meal. Without the traditional meat and potatoes what does one serve with sauteed greens, roasted root veggies, or carrots and kohlrabi?? Well the veganomicon answer to this is mix and match - pick a veggie, a grain, and a bean, tofu, tempeh or seitan dish and you have a meal. It isn't an idea unique to them as I remember seeing the concept in another vegetarian cookbook once (I think it was a Mollie Katzen book but don't quote me on that.) Still even if veganomicon didn't originate the idea I like knowing there are some basic dishes that just might complement whatever else it is that I am cooking.

So it was I made this chickpea-quinoa pilaf. It was super quick to make which is always nice but especially so when there are other dishes to make too. Plus it was very tasty. I don't make quinoa often enough considering how easy and yummy it is but with a tasty and easy recipe like this I just might find myself fixing it more often.


Snobby Joes - I get a little sick of the fake meats and appreciate meals that don't try to completely replicate the taste and texture of a pile of animal flesh. So while this is a take-off on the ol' meaty sloppy-joe, the use of lentils as the heart of the sauce makes it it's own unique sandwich not just a faux meat replication. However, even though I liked the lentils, the sauce needs a little tweaking. I found that it was just too dry, the powdered spices didn't even seem to get absorbed in all the way. It could be that it just needs more tomato sauce (I'm thinking actually twice as much). So while not perfect, I do feel that the recipe is good enough that it is worth experimenting with. It is nice to get new sandwich ideas as we frequently get into the hummus wraps rut!

Cheezy Sauce - frequently when it hits about 5 or 6 oclock and I haven't any plans yet for dinner we end up making a pasta and chreeze and trees meal. I have a tahini/nutritional yeast sauce that has become a pasta (and sometimes pizza) sauce staple. It doesn't taste like cheese, like the name suggests it might, but it sauces up pasta in a most tasty way. And with the additional of broccoli (trees) it is super fast meal in one pot.

The other night it hit that witching hour and about all we could think of to make was pasta and chreeze and trees. However I decided while the pasta boiled to give the veganomicon cheezy sauce a try. After all, this was our week of testing out the cookbook. Well I must say I think I like my chreeze sauce a lot better. We added some paprika and a little extra salt but it still was missing something. I realized later that the book has a special mac and cheezy sauce recipe that basically adds some tofu mixed up with olive oil, salt and lemon. This dressed up tofu would certainly add some extra protein and maybe some flavor so I do like that idea and might try it sometime but probably with my own chreeze sauce.

Seitan Piccata with Olives and Green Beans - Ok so I said I didn't like recipes that try to replicate meat but I keep selecting recipes that are take-offs of non-vegan fare. Well actually I've been vegan most my adult life so I had no clue what a piccata was and just liked the sound of this recipe. And wow, it was tasty!! My olive hating husband even said it was good. I think he even said he could learn to like olives when their flavor complements the rest of the meal as well as it does in this dish. I will definitely be making this again - anytime I can actually serve olives without getting a lot of grief I am thrilled. And as an added bonus those olives, in this case, come in an incredibly tasty meal!

Seitanic Red and White Bean Jambalaya - The first thing to say about this dish is that I love the name. I always pronounce Seitan as "Satan". Mostly just because I don't really think about it much but I really do love the reactions I get from people who have never heard of Seitan and even some who have. The list of ingredients for this recipe is a mile long. But despite that it went together quite easily and tasted great! Another recipe to keep. On a side note, this recipe says it serves 6 and I think we got 9 or 10 servings. I froze some of them b/c the two of us didn't really want to eat jambalaya everyday all week - it was good but not that good! Hope it will still be good out of the freezer.

Mushroom and Spinach Strata - I wanted to test out a brunch recipe because brunch has become a favorite social meal for us lately what with a 10-month old in the house. Plus we have to make a breakfast once a year for a bunch of carnivores at our skiclub and I am always on the lookout for dishes that aren't too out of the ordinary but are still delicious. While the aforementioned 10-month old (who has shunned plain tofu) loves this - he was gobbling up little pieces as fast as I could break them off my piece and put them on his highchair tray - I don't think it is quite up to par for company or the skihouse. The texture was pretty good and I was amazed at how well it held together. All the herbs and spices made the spinach, mushroom mixture smell (and taste) great as I was mixing that up but that wasn't enough flavor, in my opinion, for all the tofu custard. Ok, to be fair, I should say that I am not sure if I remembered to put the salt in the tofu puree and a little salt passed at the table did help the dish. But still the tofu needs something more. I am thinking nutritional yeast for starters, after all I am surprised this tofu based egg-like dish doesn't have any of that in it anyway. But not sure what else. I might try this again since the Little Guy likes it so much but will definitely play with the tofu flavorings a bit more... This recipe says it serves 6-8. Maybe for breakfast to 6-8 non-breakfast eaters or with a big spread of other foods. But in this household, even with other dishes it was more like 4 servings.

Cookies - I set out to make the chocolate - chocolate chip - walnut cookies but then realized I was out of walnuts. So I made a variation of one of the variations. (by the way, I really like that this cookbook includes variations at the end of many of the recipes. I have another cookbook that makes each variation its own recipe which I find to be so incredibly lame!!) The variation in this case was white chocolate chips and dried cherries, I used chocolate chips and dried cherries. These were chewy, rich, and tasty! Hard to go wrong with all that chocolate! I will make these again and hopefully next time will have the walnuts, b/c, while I love the combo of cherries and chocolate, the cherries get a little lost and I'd rather save those expensive dried cherries for something where they are the star player. Plus I love walnuts and chocolate.

Summary
Despite a few recipes that I tried that weren't quite up to par I was still impressed with this book. There are a lot more recipes that I'd like to try. The authors are very creative so even the recipe introductions are fun to read and the recipes themselves are easy to follow, not over complicated, and full of interesting flavor combinations. I will be taking advantage of another week with this book from the library (3 weeks if no one else has it requested and I can renew it) but I do think that it would be nice to have permanently on my kitchen shelf. So I will add it to my wish list (my birthday is coming up hint-hint).

food or funky art?

We picked up our first winter share from our CSA yesterday. Much of the share was packaged up in a crate which we took home to unload. One thing I love about the CSA is the surprise of what exactly we'll get each week. With it packaged this way it was even more exciting than normal. It felt a little like christmas digging into the crate to see what all was in there. Hiding there amongst a very large pile of carrots, a huge turnip, a handful of small celeriacs, and various other root vegetables was this stunning creature. I immediately recognized it as a cauliflower but not your average boring white brain-like cauliflower, no this is something new and different and very interesting! and this just after I my recent post lamenting the lack of new-to-me vegetables in our CSA. Apparently it is a romanesco cauliflower. I hate to cut it apart it looks so funky and fun. How can I cook this beauty so that I take advantage of its visual appeal?

brussel sprouts

Whenever I read about the experiences of others with CSA's, one of the things they are most excited about is that they are exposed to new vegetables. But I've been participating in a CSA for 5 years now and ate a lot of different vegetables before that as well. So I always sigh and think that unfortunately that aspect of the CSA is no longer available to me, my vegetable world can no longer expand. But I realized recently that I was sorely mistaken. Not only does my farmer occasionally introduce new vegetables to her repertoire (this year the daikon radish) and thus our share, but also there are plenty of vegetables that we get that I don't truly appreciate. The brussel sprout is one such vegetable.

We generally have brussel sprouts in at least one share each fall. Despite being right there in my refrigerator, I have never really taken the time to properly prepare and explore them. In fact I am sure there has been more than one year where I have found the bag of brussel sprouts still in the fridge months later all ready for the compost pile. This year I was determined to learn to love the brussel sprout, or well, at least give it a fair shake!

I started with a simple steamed brussel sprout, carrot, and leek dish with a horseradish sauce. We thought the strong sauce would disguise the taste of the brussel sprouts well. To our surprise, when steamed up fresh (this was only a day after they were picked), brussel sprouts don't need a strong sauce -- they tasted great! So the next time around I made a rice steam pot with the last of my basil in a pesto sauce. Again yummy yummy brussel sprouts. So I decided to let them be the core of a dish and made this pizza...

In addition to all those lovely brussel sprouts it has a nutritional yeast cheese-like sauce, caramelized onions, sun-dried tomatos, and capers. K said it was "yummylicious" which sounded like a complement to me. In fact we were filling out the farm survey after eating this and he considered putting brussel sprouts in his top 3 vegetables. Now that is one serious hat tip.

So I'd say we were extremely successful in learning to love the brussel sprout, now next year maybe I can figure out how to love those lovely chicories or maybe that odd-looking kohlrabi. But first I have just one more handful of brussel sprouts left. These will not go to waste this year!! But alas I must decide how to cook them. What is the best way? As I am just learning about this vegetable I need some more ideas.

sweet potato

My mom hates sweet potatoes and consequently never cooked them while I was growing up. Belonging to a CSA share, I am forced to explore vegetables that were not necessarily on my radar prior. And I have discovered that I like the flavor of the colorful sweet potato. But my repertoire for cooking these lovely vegetables is quite limited.

I thought they would make a tasty base for pizza but I was at a loss for what I could pair with that. What flavors complement or meld well with sweet potato? In addition to the sweet potato this pizza has caramelized onions, walnuts, and arugula. It was quite good. The onions complemented the sweet potatoes well and the walnuts added a nice contrasting crunchy texture. But it could be a little better - perhaps some red peppers (roasted?) would add not only a nice flavor but color too. What else?

While enjoying this pizza we discussed what else could go with sweet potato and thought that a thai-inspired pizza might be good for sweet potatoes... I will have to experiment with this some more!

teriyaki kabobs

It used to be that the only thing people could think of to grill for vegetarians would be some kabobs sans the meat. And so it was that, at any grilling party, we'd eat a few pieces of grilled bell peppers and onions with the occasional mushroom or piece of zucchini. But then the good ol' veggie burger seemed to break into the mainstream conscience. So we are now served up a dry patty that resembles a "burger" in shape only and tastes nothing like yummy grilled veggies. At least now it is a heartier meal that is significantly more filling but I find myself actually missing those lame ol' kabobs. Oh don't get me wrong, I appreciate the effort and the fact that people provide anything that is vegetarian at a grill-out. I just find the typical choices to be rather sorry considering how beautifully most vegetables take to the grill.

So I decided to take the old kabob and give it a little vegetarian pizazz. On the skewers are tofu, pineapple chunks, mushrooms, and onion, and fresh from the farm sungold tomatoes, yellow summer squash, and green bell pepper. The tofu was marinated in a homemade teriyaki sauce. They were delicious 'bobs! Of course the skewers make for a very fun and colorful presentation but are completely unnecessary and do make for some extra fiddling with getting things ready to grill.

grilled pizza

The last few days have been miserably hot and humid again. Yesterday I made K whisk the little guy and I off to a restaurant as soon as he got home from work. I wasn't craving any particular food, but was eagerly seeking a blast of cold AC. My seat in the restaurant was directly over a vent. Had I spent the entire day in an air conditioned office I would not have liked this but as I had spent most the day in our hot house I loved that my legs were turning numbingly cold.

Although the rains today did help cool things off I still was not eager to turn on the stove let alone the oven in order to cook dinner tonight. And we have too much delicious farm fresh produce to splurge with a restaurant meal again tonight. So we fired up the grill for a delicious seasonal flatbread.

• fresh basil pesto
• grilled zucchini and yellow summer squash
  
• grilled onions
• and as always passed the hot pepper flakes at the table

Despite my indifference towards zucchini and summer squash this was a tasty pizza. I'll give it an 8.

seasonal colors

I am finally feeling inspired to cook again! Throughout my pregnancy food just wasn't particularly exciting for me. Then while adjusting to life with an infant I couldn't seem to find time to cook. But now the little guy is taking longer naps during the day and I am learning to take advantage of those times even it seems too early to think about dinner. Thus it is that I had this delicious and very seasonal meal prepared early in the afternoon and ready to eat when we found the time in the evening yesterday. It was so colorful and tasty that it has inspired me to even make it the first post that expands my blog from just pizzas to a vegan foodblog as I had originally intended.

Each of the three dishes contains produce fresh from the farm.

• The crostini is topped with a fava bean spread.
• The ruby red slaw contains beets, carrots, and napa cabbage.
• The chick pea salad includes boston lettuce, cucumbers, and red scallions