TLT's for Brunch

I've always had a problem finding a vegan bacon recipe that I could enjoy. Either they were way too sweet from all the maple syrup or entirely too bitter due to the use of apple cider vinegar. Alas, in my darkest hour of vegan bacon failure, I discovered a worthy recipe at Healthy.Happy.Life. (It was also a recipe that took probably less than 10 minuets to make, which is key upon rolling out of bed around 12ish in the afternoon.) I found the recipe a tad too sweet, still, and recommend cutting the amount of maple syrup in half. The marinade is intended for basically only half your standard ounce block of tempeh, but I doubled the recipe without incident.

Loaf of bland stupidness!

Tempeh Oat "Meat" Loaf with Steamed Kale and Cauliflower/Hominy Mash

Goddamn it. I found a recipe in an old issue of Veg Times for a tempeh and oat "meat" loaf. I was immediately intrigued by the combination of oats and tempeh and the simplicity of the recipe. I was furious to discover that the aforementioned simplicity would yield a lack of spices which would in turn yield a lack of flavor which would THEN yield a big bland loaf of bleh. Not to mention after 55 minutes in an oven the loaf still wasn't firm! Ugh.

However, the mash was bangin'. I've been trying to think of alternatives to our typical potato side dish for meals and I had a head of cauliflower just laying around. I don't think I had ever consciously eaten hominy until I made this. Hominy gives a kind of sweetness to the mash that you wouldn't normally get from mashed potatoes.

Cauliflower Hominy Mash
1 head cauliflower, chopped
1 15 oz can hominy
1/2 cup soy milk
2 tbs Earth Balance
1/4 Tofutti sour cream
1/4 cup fresh chives, minced
salt and pepper to taste

Blanche cauliflower for five minutes. Add to food processor with hominy, soy milk, and EB. Blend until it achieves desired consistency. Add mixture to bowl and mix with sour cream, chives, and salt and pepper.

Four meals: all delicious.

Recently, I became an avid follower of a food blog called Healthy. Happy. Life. The recipes are so delicious and simple. I stumbled upon it in cyberspace while searching for a good mashed sweet potato recipe. This was the recipe I found. It was awesome because it allowed me to find the lemon pepper tempeh recipe, as welll, which was based loosely on the new Tempehtations, which I'm too cheap to buy. I ended up not really following her recipe for the sweet potato mash, but everything was delicious. Accompanied by roasted garlic asparagus.

Ty's parents recently began receiving free subscriptions of Vegetarian Times. I was elated to hear this. Ty's parents send the issues to us after his mom gets the chance to write down some of the recipes she wants. This was a recipe for Rigatoni Puttanesca. (Obviously I used bow ties.) It called for half a tube of Gimme Lean Soy Sausage and it was great. The recipes in Veg Times are great because they usually only make two servings, and I'm typically only feeding two.

After receiving the aforementioned free issues of Veg Times, I rediscovered the occasional joy of making something overtly complicated and a little less instant. Behold Vcon's Baja Grilled Tempeh Burritos. My alterations: green cabbage instead of purple, fresh jalapenos instead of pickled, PBR instead of dark beer. What can I say? I'm a class act.

I saved the most comforting for last. Country Fried Seitan with mashed potatoes and more roasted garlic asparagus. With the exception of the asparagus, I would say this is your standard down-home Southern meal. The broth I used for my seitan was the "chicken" one found in La Dolce Vegan! I think the gravy came from Vegweb, or something..

Let me know if you want recipes!

Vegan MoFo is Upon Us!

.. and, I am damn excited. October is the ideal month for me for the following reasons: 1) an entire month dedicated to the delicacy that is vegan fewd nomz, 2) my birfday is this month, and 3) HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEEEEN. This means that I have thirty one days to cram as many horror movies into one month as humanly possible. From 80's horror to 90's, from 70's exploitation to Universal Monsters, from Japanese horror to.. You get the idea. I admit, I've cheated and already gotten a head start on my horror movie intake. What can I say?

I haven't posted a lot of late and not due to lack of cooking. If you haven't noticed it's late September which means I've been back in school for almost a month. And, it's kind of kicking my ass. Also, when I've been cooking, it's been evening time meals where I'm trying to relax. Taking pictures of my food has been the last thing on my mind when a big plate of tastiness is sitting in front of me. Anyway, without further ado, here is what I've been cooking up.
















This was my second illness soup: Asian Mushroom Noodle Soup. It was inspired by a recipe I found in one of my mom's many low-carb cookbooks. One thing I will never submit to is this low-carb craze we find ourselves in. Carbs 'til death! The recipe in the book called for pork, so I subbed seitan. This recipe is really basic and really anyone could make it on the fly. It incorporated cabbage, carrots, button mushrooms, and wheat spaghetti noodles. (Soba noodles would've been MUCH better, though.) This was a really healthy meal and even the sodium content was very mild.















Remember that tempeh stew I made like, a post ago? The left over tempeh was used to make these: Tempeh burritos. I didn't do anything special. I steamed tempeh with some soy sauce and then topped it with some homemade peach mango salsa. Does anything sound more elegant than 'peach mango salsa'? I think not.
















This hearty red lentil pasta sauce is one of my favorites that I've made recently. Next time, though, I'd rather make it with a different pasta, one that holds sauce a bit better. This is a great alternative to those fatty fake meat grounds that you usually throw in your pasta sauce to make spaghetti.















About a year ago, I couldn't stand the taste of tahini. I would avoid making homemade hummus just to avoid it. I found it impossible to cook with and even more impossible to scarf down. Tahini is definitely an acquired taste, but once you do acquire it, you're hooked. Using tahini in sauces and such is all about combining it with the proper amount of water. Tahini has a very potent nutty flavor and needs water to counteract it and tone it down. I love love love this recipe for soba noodles with tahini sauce! This was my first time cooking soba noodles and I couldn't stop snacking on them while I waited for the rest of my meal to finish cooking. Such an awesome flavor. A note: I think next time I make an alfredo sauce I will mix equal parts tahinia and water to the garlic, soy milk, margarine mixture. Tahini with the right amount of water has a bit of a cheesy quality that is absolutely delicious.

Tempeh Stew

This past week has been utterly horrid due to the fact that I seemed to have caught that cold that's been going around. It's been awful. Sore throat. Sniffles. Hacking cough. The works. Regular customers at my place of employment have even been teasing me and claiming that I have Swine Flu. Jerks. :( So, in an attempt to remedy my illness, I decided to be a little old-fashioned and whip up some hearty soup. And, it was hearty in deed. This soup is very low maintenance and since you cook the tempeh with the broth, you don't have to steam it beforehand. Could this have been more simple? Negative.

Tempeh Stew for the Sickly

1 cup red lentils
2 cups water
1 bay leaf
1 veggie bouillon cube
1 can chickpeas
2 medium tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste
8 oz. tempeh

In a large pot, hydrate lentils with water through bay leaf on medium heat. Add more water if lentils start to stick. This is soup, after all. Add remaining ingredients, save the tempeh. Before the chickpeas are fully cooked, add tempeh and cover. When tempeh is desired texture, remove from heat and serve.

Loose leaf tea! And, a hearty breakfast.

So, Dave and I are proud tea fanatics. Really, we're passionate about caffeine, in general. It's easy to support this addiction because I work at Starbucks, which entitles me to either a free pound of coffee a week or a pack of Tazo brand tea, either of my choosing, of course. Because, there's always such an abundance of both at the apartment, we very rarely try other kinds of teas, let alone superior loose leaf.















For about $30, we got like, 6 tin cans of loose leaf tea from Adagio. Each small tin is good for about 10 cups of tea. We got the green tea starter package, which came with the tea steeper thing and four kinds of green tea: gunpowder, citron green, genmai cha, and hojicha.
And, damn. So good. This thing is so easy to use and I'm pretty mad that I didn't manage to conjure up this simple design.
















Dave and I also ordered two extra sample size tea cans. I'm a huge Earl Grey junkie and Dave's been wanting to try darjeeling tea. There ya' have it.
















Along with our starter set, Earl Grey sampler, and darjeeling sampler, we got complimentary stuff, too! Because I entered in my date of birth when setting up my account, they sent me Scorpio tea. I guess they have a line of astrological or horoscope teas. I have no idea what it is, really, but it smells fantastic. I know that there is real dark chocolate in it, but I don't know if it contains dairy. I still need to email Adagio and find out. Along with it, we got one of those weaved flowers that blooms in your tea water. Talk about clever fuckin' marketing. They send me one of those, but not the pretty transparent tea pot to make it in. Alright, Adagio, you got me.





















And, above you see it in action. Setting atop your tea mug pushes something up that makes space for the liquid to come out but not the loose leaf tea. And, that mug- it rules. It was one of Dave's birfthday presents and it have the actual molecule for caffeine on it. How perfect.















And, this morning I made brunch which is probably the best meal of the day. I think I've assigned myself this recipe as my signature tofu scramble recipe. It's kind of an adaptation of Julie Hasson's and the one I posted from It Ain't Meat Babe. It was accompanied by some tempeh bacon from VWAV, which I wasn't very happy with. Abrupt post ending, commence.

A Resolution

After recently breaking a button on my absolute favorite pair of pants, I have sworn to begin eating healthier. Unfortunately, half of these cooking endeavors don't reflect that-in the slightest. I haven't been doing a whole lot of cooking of late. Dave and I had Happy Dragon the other night and have primarily been living off of ramen noodles. I plan for that to change, as well. Less talk, more post.

welfare biscuits and gravy.

I refer to these as "welfare biscuits and gravy" due to the fact that I made the biscuits using friggin' Bisquick because I'm intensely lazy. The sausage, or as we like to call it in the ol' Steffie-Quinonez household 'soysage', is Smart Grounds and that white gravy is literally the easiest gravy one could ever hope to make. You brown 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, add 1 cup soy milk, whisk vigorously, and salt and pepper to your heart's content. I add lots of onion powder, too. Simple and comforting. I also made some hash brown patties for Dave, but the picture was too low quality. They were little round, brown blurs. Tasty, round, brown blurs.

wonderfully simple banana nut bread

This recipe is really basic. I highly recommend adding some raisins or chocolate chips to the mix. A healthy amount of cinnamon could only help, as well. I've found that banana bread is always better the day after you make it-after it's sat out for a night while wrapped in foil and moistened to day-old bliss. Yum!

Finally, my attempt to eat a bit healthier. I've been wanting to experiment with various tempeh recipes, mainly, though, because I can't stand tofu. I know, it's a ridiculous thing to say because it takes on the flavor of whatever it's cooked with yadda yadda.. But, I think it's the texture more than anything else. I love using tofu to add texture to things like pies and potato soup, but eating it as itself is just.. bland.

This dinner not only marked the beginning of my new diet but was also mine and Dave's first encounter with couscous. Friggin' YUM!

am I the only one who thinks curries are so photogenic?

steamed sprouts, roasted pine nut couscous, and creamy curried tempeh.