Indian in less than an hour.

Check out this lovely plate of food. My co-worker Cynthia and I were talking indian food at work and we got so hungry and inspired that we decided to go to my house and make what you see here. I made the red lentil dal and mint chutney and Cynthia made the saag aloo (spinach and potatoes). It all turned out delicious and was so quick to make. It was really just throwing everything in a pot and letting it simmer. In case you're wondering, the mint chutney was made with Tofutti sour cream instead of yogurt.

Steamed Dumplings.

Steamed dumpling for dinner tonight! Filled with tofu, kale, cabbage, carrots, spinach and garlic. Yummy!


For dipping sauces we used:
mushroom soy sauce + dark sweet soy + scallions
sweet chili sauce
chinese mustard + soy sauce

Mock Chicken Salad Sandwich and Dal Makhani

This was a quick lunch during the week. Mashed chickpeas combined with vegan mayo, celery, carrot, a touch of mustard, garlic powder and onion powder makes a delicious salad filling. I livened up the whole thing with a layer of Piccalilli relish.


I got the recipe for this tasty vegan Dal Makhani from the Holy Cow blog. It's sooo yummy! I used Earth Balance margarine and plain soymilk in mine for creaminess. I ate it with lavash bread instead of rice. Can't wait to make this again. Recipe is posted here.

Chinese-ish.

Was in the mood for salty and sweet Chinese food today and came home to make the following:


Vegan Dad's recipe for Pan Fried Tofu in Plum Sauce. Absolutely delicious.


Veggie chow mein based of this recipe from the MediterrAsian website. I substituted vegetarian mushroom "oyster" sauce for oyster sauce and added Thai dark sweet soy sauce.

Chilaquiles Casserole and Coffee-Cinnamon Tea Cake

I was craving mexican food this week and waited patiently to make this today. It's loosely based off this recipe. I made my own red sauce (recipe below), added an extra can of black beans, substituted chopped spinach for zucchini and used Daiya vegan cheddar. It turned out really yummy and satisfied my craving.

Red Sauce for Chilaquiles Casserole

Soak 5-6 dried chili peppers in hot tap water for about 20 minutes. I used a combination of anaheim and pasilla.

In a blender combine these ingredients and puree until smooth:
1 14oz. can diced tomatoes
soaked chili peppers and about 1 cup of the soaking liquid (you may add more if sauce is too thick)
2 cloves garlic
small handful of cilantro
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
salt to taste
pinch of sugar


Yum.


I also made a cake today. I used kittee's vanilla cake recipe but used brewed coffee for the liquid part of the batter instead of water. I also added a bit of cinnamon. The coffee flavor didn't come out as much. If I had coffee extract or espresso powder, it would have been better but still this is very good, especially with tea.

Potato & Kale Enchiladas

My friend Cynthia and her mom are wonderful cooks and today I got a recipe to make mole for enchiladas. The mole sauce is very simple to make with dried new mexico and pasilla chiles. Instead of baking the enchiladas in the oven, the tortillas are coated in the sauce, filled with cooked potatoes and kale and then pan fried in a little bit of oil to give a slightly crisp exterior. These are delicious!

Mole recipe from Cynthia's mom:

Ingredients:

Dried New Mexico chiles - about 5 or 6, remove seeds
Dried Pasilla - 1 or 2, remove seeds
1 garlic clove
small handful of cilantro
pinch of dried oregano
salt to taste

-Soak chiles in hot water until soft. (While these are soaking you can make your filling. I just boiled 2 large potatoes and mashed them with sauteed kale and onions and seasoned with salt and pepper.)
-After chiles are softened, blend all mole sauce ingredients together in the blender. (I added most of the water that they were soaking in to help them blend better into a nice thick sauce.)
-Pass mixture through a sieve into a pan.
-Simmer sauce with a little bit of oil for about 10 minutes.

To make enchiladas:

8 corn tortillas, softened in the microwave for about 20 seconds (or you can do this in a dry pan over heat)
olive oil

-Heat a little bit of olive oil in a pan. Dip one tortilla into the mole sauce and coat both sides. Place dipped tortilla on a plate and fill with about 2 TB of potato/kale mixture. Close up tortilla and place into the pan and brown on both sides. Do this with the remaining tortillas until you've used up the filling.


You can see the nice crust it forms from pan frying. Yummy!

Easy Weekend Food.

Today was all about simple, easy to prepare food. The risotto was oven baked which left me with not much to do as the oven did it for me! I threw in a few handfuls of bagged broccoli slaw in with the risotto for some color. The cauliflower was tossed in a bit of olive oil and I popped that in the oven on a sheet pan while the risotto cooked. The chickpea dish was simply canned chickpeas tossed with garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, mint, parsley and salt. Everything came out delicious.
You can find the risotto recipe here. You may omit the nutritional yeast if you don't have it. Tastes just as good without it. I left out the margarine which didn't affect the flavor at all. Make this, it's so good!


The coconut pudding was from The Vegan Family cookbook and has silken tofu, rice milk, coconut milk, cornstarch and sugar which simply got blended together, boiled and then refrigerated until chilled.