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.

Gardener's Pie topped with Mushroom Miso Gravy

Yes, I am aware of the season and that the combination of sultry heat and overbearing humidity do not exactly make lengthy cooking endeavors involving a stove very desirable. However, who doesn't love a good gardener's pie? Seriously, who doesn't love a mashed potato topped casserole containing green, beans, and protein-s?

I was lazy in making this dish that I opted to spend the extra cash and use Gimme Leans soy crumbles instead of hydrating TVP or lentils. I usually don't make gravy for my gardener's pie, but I developed quite an obsession with miso gravies. It's been my go-to gravy for seitan cutlets, biscuits, you name it. I recently tried a variation with scallions. In this recipe, I threw in the remaining two tablespoons of dehydrated ramps I had gotten from Tyb's parents. Ramps, glorious ramps.

Gardener's Pie topped with Mushroom Miso gravy

5 medium red potatoes, washed and quartered
2 tbs olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 package Gimme Lean soy crumbles
1 stalk broccoli
1 1/2 cups kale
1 tsp thyme
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried parsley

Preheat over to 450 degrees. Boil potatoes in salted water on a large stock pot until they are easily pierced with a fork. Drain potatoes and reserve 1 cup of the cooking water. Prepare mashed potatoes according to your own personal recipe. (I like mine creamy for gardener's pie, so I add 1/2 cup of the reserved cooking water. Plus, that's where all the nutrients are, silly!)

Now begin the filling! Sauté garlic and onion in olive oil on medium heat until onion becomes translucent. Add carrots and celery and sauté for an additional 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients along with the remaining 1/2 cup potato cooking water and cover. Cook for about 20-25 minutes. Prepare a baking dish with olive oil and spoon filling on to baking dish, covering the bottom. Next, spoon on mashed potatoes and smooth out as to completely cover the filling. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until your potatoes turn golden and roasty.

Mushroom Miso Gravy

1 tbs olive oil

6-8 baby bella mushrooms, sliced

1 tsp dried dill

1 tsp onion powder

1-2 tbs red miso paste

1 tbs soy sauce

1 cup water

Sauté mushrooms in oil until they become soft. Add dried herbs and sauté for another minute. Add miso, soy sauce, and water and whisk until miso is completely dissolved. Reduce heat to simmer and stir continuously until gravy is thick.

Tomato Basil Cream Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti with Seitan Sausage

Yes, this meal was a mouthful, in regard to the title and nom factor. I've recently developed this obsession with blending tomatoes and cashews together. I would like to eventually experiment with other nuts, though. Heh, heh, experimental nuts.

My mom sent me home the other day with not only a belly full of BBQ tempeh, roasted potato medley, and green beans, but she sent me home with a load of fresh herbs from her garden. All the basics: chives, thyme, rosemary, sage, cilantro, and basil.

I recently bought the Vegan Yum Yum cook book, and I gotta say, it f*cking rules. There are several recipes that weren't on the site, and as the cover suggests, these are definitely decadent AND very doable recipes. Meaning I want to make sweet, sweet love to her baked macaroni and cheez recipe.

The tomato basil cream recipe sounded delicious and simple for sure, but I wanted to up the ante with some forbidden wheat gluten: Italian-style seitan sausage. I altered the recipe found in La Dolce Vegan and let it simmer in the tomato cashew sauce with some fresh basil.

This was the first time I ever tried spaghetti squash, and holy sh*t. The squash's innards just collapse into this stringy mass of, well, squash noodles. They have a nice crunch that nicely contrasts the typical texture of spaghetti noodles. Also, quite a few less carbs.

Hasn't anybody learned, don't trust a lady who cooks with sriacha?

Looking for a way to spice up that already relatively perfect ramen?

Let me backtrack a bit: I'm a complete ramen fanatic. I've yet to find a more comforting, delicious, and cheap food. The fact that it comes in a pouch with cooking directions and a spice packet just makes it all the more appealing. Several months ago, while drinking grape Rosie, my dearest friend Jess offered me her ramen enhancer: nix the seasoning packet, add soy sauce, nutritional yeast, and sriacha. Oh my stinkin' gawd. It was outrageous. It was so tasty, unlike my bottle of Rosie, that I thought it'd be wise to chase the Rosie with some cock-sauced-noodles. Ramen + Rosie = everlasting love.

I must caution: later that night, her boyfriend and I attempted to recreate the atrocious love affair that occurred between the ramen noodles and Rosie. We, meaning his tard ass alone, fudged up the measurements of each additional ingredient, consumed too much sriacha which was accompanied by to much Pabst Blue Ribbon, and set our bowels on fire.

For your safety:

2 tbs nutritional yeast
2 tbs soy sauce
2 tsp sriacha

Adjust measurements to your taste, inebriation, and sexiness.

-courtesy of the brain of Jess.

Hodge Podge of Sorts

I haven't been posting much lately because a) I haven't had access to the interwebz and b) things have been a touch whirl-windy because Tybrus and I just moved into a new apartment, which would explain my lack of interwebz and the access to it.

Nonetheless, I have been cooking up a storm, despite the fact that the cute, rustic stove in my new apartment has broken heating coil along with a broken hinge so the oven door can't shut which only adds to wildly incorrect temperature gauge. I've been using the side oven to cook in for the time being but I mean, srsly, when I set it to broil it barely reaches 350.

Breakfast classic: beans on toast, topped with cheddar Teese and accompanied by some English breakfast tea.



Give peas a chance! Peas?!?!

So, in my infinite wisdom, I discovered that most split pea soup recipes require a ham hock. Bleh! Ham might be one of the most unethically farmed meat products in the industry and just seems totally unnecessary in an already delicious soup. It ended up thicker than I wanted, but by no fault of the recipe- Ty had gotten an immersion blender for his birthday and I got excited. I went a bit overboard on the blending.


an awful picture of some superb stuffed shells

I stuffed the shells with my tvp mixture and some ricotta. I made up my own tofu ricotta cheese instead of depending on old faithful- Sara Kramer's recipe- and it was great. I used silken and it had a better texture than the crumbly medium tofu. My best shells yet! (I ate about 9 of them in one night!)


Asian noodles with zucchini and tofu

This meal reaffirmed the fact that I FORKING HATE WATER-PACKED TOFU!!!1 It takes forever to prepare, it doesn't hold flavor well at all, and it has an awful texture. I had some tomato carrot flavored noodles that I picked up from the Asian market and wasn't sure how to use them- I didn't know how strong the flavors would be. I figured squash would work well with the flavors. I should've left it at that! But, nooooooo, I gotta go around sticking friggin' soy in everything! Srsly, never again. It wasn't a total loss, though.

And now, a resolution: I will be leaving town to visit my father, step mother, and siblings this coming Monday, and when I return, I plan to do a raw diet. I don't know if I'll necessarily abide by the cooking temperature boundaries or not. If anyone has any cooking tips, recipes, or advice let me know. I imagine it is going to be a tad trying for me being that I eat carbs and gluten like it's going out of style (stuffed shells are a testament to this) but I'd really like to get healthy and maybe drop a few pounds. Wish me luck!

Product Review: Nacho Teese

This plate was shameful. Just, shameful. Tybrus and I cooked some refried beans and soy chorizo and topped it with gooey nacho Teese and and all the essential salad fixin's. I gotta say, though, this flavor of Teese wasn't all that I'd hoped it be.

Teese has been hailed as being one of the most quality soy dairy products out there and at a reasonable price. Unlike its cheddar and mozzarella counterpart, nacho Teese is kind of watery and really runny. It wasn't as spicy as I would've liked either. My recommendation to you is that if you do decide to purchase some nacho Teese, add some jalapeno to it. But, honestly, you could probably make a more enticing nacho cheeze sauce in your on home, with better results, and a bit cheaper, too!

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.