a vegan inkling

Breath a little cooking

2008-02-25T19:35:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to breath a little cooking life back into this blog which I have been quite neglectful of. I just returned from a week long visit to Maui which while it had beautiful beaches and lovely weather, best of all had one of the best grocery stores I have ever been in - Mana Foods in Paia. While I didn't take any pictures, I can report that Mana foods bakes excellent vegan scones fresh every day, has a large selection of baked on site vegan bars and cookies, and a salad bar that contains a number of vegan items including salads with Veganaise. So awesome that I went there almost every day!

Upon arriving back home, I cooked up some Tofu Florentine from Veganomicon, happy to be back in my own kitchen. I especially enjoyed the potatoes as I am usually too lazy to boil them before frying them, although it makes a much tastier result.

A post before the month is over

2008-01-31T20:21:00.000-08:00

Rice bowl with raw vegetable topped with a peanut sauce. I usually make a quick peanute sauce by dissolving 1 Tbsp. of peanut butter in a mixture of 2 Tbsp. water plus 1 Tbsp. soy sauce with a drop of apple cider vinegar in the pot that held the rice on hit heat until it thickens.

Chickpea noodle soup from Veganomicon which is such good comfort food.

Chocolate and vanilla muffin or perhaps it was a cupcake adapted from the matcha chocolate cupcake recipe on Have Cake Will Travel which had a nice texture.

Rice bowl from Fresh with crispy tofu and wakeme hiding under the sprouts and carrots. Topped with a tahinish sauce.

Borsch made with home grown, by my parents, beets. So sweet.
Eggplant fried in a nutritional yeast and wheat germ coating with a ranch style sauce and chopped vegetables.

Curried split pea soup looking less than apetizing though it was pretty good.

Links

2007-11-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

I've added a few more of my favorite blogs/sites to the links section. I blame these awesome blogs, in part, for my lack of posting, as they just make it too easy to spend all my time there instead of here. This salad really makes me miss summer and getting buckets of fresh organic produce homegrown by my parents. This salad is topped with cheezy croutons, and by cheezy I mean nutritional yeasty. I mixed the sourdough bread with yeast, oil olive, salt and pepper and baked them in the over.

Seattle & Fall Foods

2007-10-27T10:37:00.001-07:00

One delicious chocolate cinnamon donut from Mighty-O. So cakey, and so good.

We also had awesome burgers at Hillside Quickies, biscuits and gravy at The Globe, and a filled pancake at the Wayward Cafe. Walking or taking the bus to the resturants was a fun way to see the city.

Fresh tomato soup, fresh bread, and a watercress salad.

Red wine poached pears. Such a good way to use up leftover old red wine.

Mashed chickpea salad with veganaise, celery, and onion.
Tofu, potato, and swiss chard scramble with lemon juice and olives. This was really good. Wraps with Yves Ground Round, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, and tofu chipotle aioli

Back to School and Back to the Blog

2007-09-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

I've been very bad about updating this recently, but as I've returned to school, I am hoping I'll get back on track. Being back in school also means being home more, which means more time to get back to cooking and baking!

Chickpea curry, which I have found is much better when I blend up the garlic, ginger, onion, spices, and tomatoes before cooking them, and dijon green beans.

Refried beans (Amy's Organics), iceberg lettuce (which I consider a 'treat'!), salsa made in the processor, and topped with an attempt at a cheezy sauce which was a bit too runny. Delicious and filing.

Oven roasted potatotes and tofu scramble, which was served with the lemon cornmeal waffles with blueberries (from the PPK) which are pictured below. I made this for brunch when I had my dad and brother over.

Mixed vegetable salad with toaster croutons (bread double toasted and chopped into small pieces), which is perfect for when I'm feeling really lazy or hungry! More salad, which cooked beets and chopped basil.

I visited Seattle over Labour Day weekend and checked out some great little resturants. I'll post more on that in my next post.

Summer in the Kitchen

2007-07-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

Pesto made with my parent's homegrown basil.

Focaccia with olive tapenade on the top. Its been too long since I've made bread. My first taste of Vegenaise. I'm not sure what I think.
Tonight's dinner: tempeh with bar-b-q sauce, coucous salad, potato salad, and yellow wax bean and chickpea salad with a basil dressing. Prefect for a hot summer night. Raspberry bars - an oat, spelt, and sucanat bottom crust, fresh raspberries mixed with sugar and cornstarch, coconut, white flour, and lemon peel topping. I should have written down the recipe as this was delicious!

Back with Pictures to Show

2007-07-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

Home made radish fridge pickles - a result of buying a huge bag of radishes for a dollar.

Green Cuisine herbed tofu steam cooked with a bit of soy sauce and salab olek - yum!

Rice, pinto beans, and bok choy with a seasame miso sauce. A bit of a strange combination, maybe next time I'll use spinach instead.

Springform strawberry rhubard pie (taken at night for it looks even more odd!).

Jerk tofu from PPK (baked in the marinade) and coconut mashed yams (5 yams boiled, then mashed with salt, pepper and half a can of coconut milk).

Chickpea Rice Casserole

1 cup of brown rice cooked, then mashed, then pressed into a 8 by 13 baking dish

Several cups of baked or sauted veggies (I used mushrooms and redpeppers) spread on top of the rice base with some chopped parsley sprinkled on top

Chickpea Sauce

- 1 Tbsp miso, 1 tsp soy sauce, 1/2 tsp cider vinegar, 1/2 tsp vegetable stock, 1 cup of water (more as needed) mixed together and brought to a boil

- 2 Tbsp flour (I used spelt) dissolved in 1/4 of water and added to the miso mixture, then simmered until thickened

- 2 cups of cooked chickpeas added to mix and mashed with a potato masher until chunky, cooked for about 10 more minutes, stirring regularly

-chickpea mixture is poured on top of the rice and vegetables and baked in at 350 F about 20 minutes or until firm on the top

Cauliflower with cheeze sauce, watercress salad, and black bean burgers from Rebar.

Rice bowl with bok choy, avocado, and raw sunflower sauce (blended raw sunflower seeds, miso or salt, pepper, water, lemon juice).
Steamed pre-maninaded tempeh, bok choy, and potato wedges (boiled first).

Raw apple, date, and ground nut balls under saran rap.

Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Desert

2007-05-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

This morning's breakfast - veggie hash with tofu.

Lunch last weekend - corn tortilla salad. Next time I'll try this with a creamy dressing.

Oven curry. Standard curry ingredients mixed together and baked, so easy! This one involved potatoes, eggplant, tofu and spinach added at the end in coconut milk and spices.

Lentil soup from PPK. I love lentil soup for it is good to have a number of versions on hand.

Chai latte cupcakes from PPK. Yum, even thought I think I over mixed them - they had

some large holes in them!

Everyday Meals

2007-05-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

Tempeh sausage crumbles from the Post Punk Kitchen (http://www.theppk.com/recipes/) on rice with fresh tomato and green beans. Such a tasty way of cooking tempeh. I had this two nights in a row. Vyes Chicken Veggie Tenders with pasta and brocolli. I bought these because I found a pack of them on sale for 99 cents. Generally I don't eat faux meats with the exceptions of veggie dogs, which was perhaps why they tasted too meaty for my liking. However, there is 21 grams of protein in half a pack, which is about how much there is on my plate.

Kale sauted with gralic and hot sauce and pasta with raw cashew sauce. Yum.

Big oatmeal peanut butter cookies from PPK which stayed nice and soft even though I thought I had overbaked them. Not overpoweringly peanut buttery like some cookies.

Casserole and Lemon Tofu

2007-04-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

Now that my last paper has been handed in I'm ready for a summer of cooking (and working too)!
Chickpea, basmati rice and broccoli casserole with cheese sauce from http://letsgetsconed.blogspot.com/. Very tasty but maybe a little yeasty for me, though it had mellowed out when I ate it the next day for leftovers.

I'm pretty excited to have made tofu that has a really nice lemony flavour as some of my previous efforts didn't fare so well. I think the trick was that although the tofu didn't soak in the marinade, it was baked in a lemon juice, olive oil, gralic, thyme marinade. Yum! Served with millet with parsely and some accidentally over roasted mushrooms.

Busy with the Studying

2007-04-23T21:45:00.000-07:00

As I've been busy studying for exams I haven't been cooking anything much blog-worthy.

Lots of coffee made with a stove top espresso maker. The quintessential vegan dish - tofu scramble.

One Hit and Two Misses

2007-04-06T14:44:00.000-07:00

Eggplant Bharta from La Dolce Vegan which unfortunately had too much spices (not spicyness) for my taste. Topped with tofu raita with cilantro and cucumber.
I though I would try a roasted potato salad but unfortunately the tofu mayo took away from the nice roasted taste of the potatoes. I'm thinking a nut based creamy dressing might have been better.
A weekend lunch salad topped with warm roasted root vegetables (sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, and potatoes) topped with a creamy sunflower seed dressing. Delicious.

The camera has taken a little trip down to mexcio so there won't be any food pictures for a bit.

Muffins and Stews

2007-03-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

Blueberry banana muffins from La Dolce Vegan, made with half whole wheat flour.

Tabouli salad, made for lunches this week.

Not pretty looking but very tasty; kashmir vegetable soup from Fresh at Home, which is thickened with a spelt flour roux.

Moroccan style tempeh and vegetable tagine with millet from the Modern Vegetarin Kitchen. The tempeh was very strongely flavored but balanced out by the tagine and millet. Cinnamon soy milk granita, made to deal with my ice cream craving.

Sushi and Dinners with Sauces

2007-03-16T20:03:00.000-07:00

Sushi dinner Toshi's. All vegan except sweet potato tempura roll. We tried a natto (fermented soy bean) roll for the first time and it must be an acquired taste because it tasted pretty rotten. The two rolls on the left are wrapped with soy sheet which makes a nice change from nori.
Stir fried vegetables with peanut, coconut and lime sauce from Rebar on brown rice.
Whole wheat linginue with a pecan miso cream and spinach and miso baked eggplant from the Artful Vegan.
Rice bowl from Fresh at Home topped with wasabi dill dressing.

2007-03-03T14:21:00.000-08:00

I love vegan cooking and browsing vegan cooking blogs so I figured it was time that I started one of my own. Rebar vegan fudge brownie cake filled with coconut cream mouse.

Pressed tofu burger and thai cabbage slaw losely inspired by rebar.

Whole wheat tortilla filled with extra firm tofu, artichokes, spinach and tomato.

Corn penne with spicy roasted cauliflower with red peppers from the Modern Vegetarian Kitchen. Orange pecan loaf adapted from one of the Mooseword Resturant Cookbooks.

Black bean and yam soup.