[VeganMoFo] Day 28: Miso Pho

7oz or so pho noodles (thick rice noodles), boiled and drained as appropriate
peanut oil (or whatever kind of oil you prefer for sauteing)
1 cup diced onion
a big hunk of minced ginger
maybe 10-12 cloves of minced garlic
3-5 cups vegetables of your choice (I used about 2 cups shiitake mushrooms and 3 cups broccoli florets)
12oz seitan (you could use some kind of beans too -- I might try it with adzukis next time)
8 cups water
3-4 Tbsp miso (I used red miso; I've done it before with brown rice miso too)
2 cups sprouts (I used a mix of chickpea, sweet pea, sunflower, alfalfa, and bean sprouts)
1 Tbsp 5-spice powder
1/4 cup lime juice
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 Tbsp sriracha (or to taste)
soy sauce, tamari, or Bragg's liquid aminos (to taste)
toasted sesame oil (to taste)
crushed peanuts, cilantro, mint (garnish, or you can cook them in earlier if you like)

Heat the oil in a soup pot. Saute the onions till translucent. Add the ginger and garlic, cook for another minute, then add the seitan (or beans) and veggies. If you're cooking cilantro and/or mint into the broth, add them now too. Let this cook for a bit while you take your miso and dissolve it in 2 cups of water, whisking to help combine it. Pour all 8 cups of water (including the 2 in which you just dissolved the miso) into the pot and stir well. Bring to a boil. Add the sprouts. Reduce heat to a simmer and let it hang out like that for a while, maybe 10-15 minutes. Stir in the lime juice, nutritional yeast, and sriracha. Taste to decide how much soy sauce and/or sesame oil you want to add.

Put some noodles in a bowl. Serve the soup over the noodles. (I've tried cooking the noodles in with the soup. They soak up all the liquid and I end up with just soggy noodles. Delicious soggy noodles! But not soup.)

[VeganMoFo] Day 20: Teacup Peanut Sauce

Sometimes you just need a little sauce, not a lot. Of course, you could always make more than you need, and save the rest for later...or, you could just make a little sauce!

Enter: teacup!

1 Tbsp peanut butter

1 Tbsp soy sauce or Bragg's liquid aminos

1 Tbsp rice vinegar

1-2 tsp nutritional yeast

1 tsp ginger powder

1 tsp sriracha

Put all the ingredients in a teacup. Whisk 'em.

I had some frozen dumplings which I pan-fried and then dunked in this sauce. It was just the right amount for an 8-dumpling dinner (for someone who likes sauce a LOT :-) )

Fun Fact: If you take the word "peanut", turn the "n" on its side, and shuffle the letters...you get "teacup"!

[VeganMoFo] Day 18: Purple Power Smoothie

I couldn't get a photo of this delicious smoothie that adequately demonstrated its magnificent purpleness. So, imagine the purplest, creamiest smoothie you can possibly conceive of. Now magnify by 50%. TA DA!

I used:
1 banana
1 avocado
1 cup blackberries
1 1/2 cups soy milk
a handful of ice cubes


and then I put them in the blender!

[VeganMoFo] Day 17: Chinese buffet - this time with photos!

My dad and I sing together in a choir which rehearses on Tuesday evenings. Before rehearsal, we go out to dinner together. My dad is not a vegan at all, so until recently, we always chose restaurants that had both vegan and non-vegan menu options. But about 2 weeks ago, I was talking to him about the vegan Chinese buffet that I love so much, Su Tao Cafe, and he agreed to give it a try. Well, now he loves the place and we eat there every week!

Here are some of the things we ate:

clockwise from top: sauteed green beans, curried chickpeas, edamame, pepper "steak"

clockwise from top: lo mein with broccoli and mushrooms, chile garlic noodles, General Tso's "chicken", phoenix "chicken" with lemon sauce

things we also ate, not pictured:
spring rolls
avocado sushi
broccoli fritters
"chicken" and potato curry
gingery-garlicky kale salad
adzuki bean salad
brown rice

[VeganMoFo] Day 15: Pumpkin Walnut Puffs

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

I hear a lot of chatter about waiting till fall for pumpkin. Personally, I am happy to eat pumpkin every day of my life, but it's extra-special in the fall, and the weather has finally cooled down enough that I feel like it's the right time of year. So, to celebrate, I decided to try to come up with a new pumpkin cookie recipe. I did some research, threw stuff in a bowl, blobbed dough onto cookie trays, and out came these puffs.

I wasn't expecting them to turn out quite so puffy, so I'll be interested to experiment with the chemistry of this cookie concept and see how the texture might change. Personally, I prefer my cookies crisper, but I've noticed that most people seem to prefer "fluffier" cookies, so if you are a fluffy-cookie-preferer, these will be right up your alley :) I brought them to my a cappella rehearsal tonight and they were wildly popular.

Note: I use very generous spoonfuls for spices, so my "1 tsp" is probably more like 1 1/2, and if I make this again I would probably use even more of all the spices than I actually used. So keep that in mind if you're making these, and adjust to your preference.

Yields: about 2 1/2 dozen cookies
1 can pumpkin puree (15oz, about 1 1/2 cup)
2 Tbsp coconut oil, melted
1/4 cup soy milk (you can try another plant milk if you prefer)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp maple syrup
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp cloves
2 cups flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine the wet ingredients (pumpkin, coconut oil, soy milk, vanilla, and maple syrup). Whisk them together till you've got a nice creamy mixture. Add the spices and mix them in thoroughly. Sift in the flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir or knead to form your dough. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts, stirring or kneading them in so they are well-distributed throughout the dough. Drop fat teaspoonfuls onto baking trays. Bake for 13-15 minutes.

[VeganMoFo] Day 14: Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Today my friend came to visit me and we went to the Mid-Autumn Festival Special Buffet at Su Tao Cafe. Su Tao is a vegan Chinese restaurant in Malvern, PA, about 12 minutes from where I live. They have a regular buffet every day, $9.95 for lunch and $12.95 for dinner. For holidays, they have Special Buffet, $20 a pop, featuring many fancier dishes in addition to their usual fare, and ice cream is included in the meal (normally you pay extra for ice cream).

I did not get any photos, because I was too busy paying attention to my friend and my food, and by the time we'd finished eating, most of the food was all gone. But you don't need to see pictures of it to know that it was AMAZING. Here are some of the things I ate:

garlicky sauteed bok choy
deep fried daikon puffs
gingery-garlic raw kale salad
golden eggplant triangles
giant puff dumplings with seitan and veggies inside
zucchini pancakes
spicy lemon "chicken"
crunchy shiitake mushrooms in sesame sauce

For dessert, we shared a dish each of butter pecan and cream'n'cookies ice cream, though we had to do some serious negotiating with our bodies to find room for any more food. My friend and I have both been vegans a long time, so perhaps we have evolved extra stomachs ;-)

I eat here pretty often, so next time I'll try to remember to get some photos!

[VeganMoFo] Day 13: Yom Kippur

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Today is Yom Kippur, the Jewish holiday of atonement. It is traditional to fast on Yom Kippur, if one is able.

I am not able to fast, but my blog is!

See you tomorrow.
<3 <3
cq

[VeganMoFo!] Day 12: Two-Step Tofu

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Some days you just need to eat something without having to put too much effort in, right?

1/2 block of tofu, mashed up in a bowl

your favorite peanut sauce

1. Dump peanut sauce all over the tofu

2. Mash it up again.

I've been eating tofu this way since before I stopped eating meat. It's still my favorite way to eat tofu. Okay, maybe it is my second-favorite. I'll share my favorite later in the month.

In case you were wondering, this is my favorite peanut sauce: House of Tsang Bangkok Peanut Sauce. It is very hard to find. There is one grocery store around here, the Malvern Wegman's, which carries it. The only other places I've ever found it are the South Side K-Mart in Indianapolis, and a Korean market in my parents' hometown which has recently gone out of business, to the great chagrin of those of us who have been shopping there for over 20 years.

It's the best peanut sauce I've ever had. I can't even make peanut sauce as good as this stuff, so if I can find it and afford it, I usually don't even bother. It's just that good. It used to be called "Padang Peanut Sauce", so when I saw this stuff on the shelf and the other stuff no longer there, I freaked out a little bit, but then I bought this and it turned out to be the exact same thing.

[VeganMoFo!] Day 10: I really really really like popcorn. (and Vulcan Fire Salt.)

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

As you might have guessed from the title of this post...I really, really, really really really like popcorn. Really. A lot.

A couple years ago, I discovered that I could pop popcorn on the stovetop. I knew, in theory, that it was a thing that could be done, but I had never actually tried it, out of fear that I might set something on fire or something silly like that. But then I learned how to actually do it without burning anything, and my life has changed forever. No joke.

It's taken a little tweaking to get the proportions and strategies just right, but this method yields exactly the amount of popcorn I want to eat, at the ideal level of crispness for my personal preference.

2 Tbsp plus a teeny bit more vegetable oil (canola oil is fine, but do not use olive oil!)
a little bit less than 1/4 cup popcorn kernels

Before you start, make sure you have the bowl in which you're going to serve the popcorn ready and sitting right next to the stove. When the popcorn is done popping, you're going to want to get it out of the pot RIGHT AWAY, so have that bowl ready and waiting!

Put the oil in a small-to-medium sized saucepan/pot. Turn the heat to medium, a little on the low side if you know your stove runs hot.
Put 4 unpopped kernels in the pot. Cover the pot.
As soon as all 4 kernels have popped, put the rest of the kernels into the pot. IMMEDIATELY remove the pot from the heat.
Now dance around the kitchen shaking the pot for 30 seconds. Keep the lid on and keep those kernels moving! Some may start to pop while you're doing this. That's fine.
Return the pot to the stove. The popcorn will start popping like mad very quickly, if it hasn't already. DO NOT go do something else...stay right there with the popcorn! As soon as you can count to 3 between pops, it's done. Remove it from the heat RIGHT AWAY and pour the popcorn into the serving bowl. Do not leave it in the pot even for a minute or it will burn.

TA DA! Popcorn!

Popcorn in my favorite purple popcorn bowl.

My current favorite way to season popcorn:
1 Tbsp melted Earth Balance soy butter
1 1/2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tsp smoked cumin
a few shakes of garlic powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp Vulcan Fire Salt

What's Vulcan Fire Salt? Oh, it's just THE BEST STUFF EVER. You can order it from The Spice House, which is an independent, local-to-Chicago business that sells every imaginable spice and a few you couldn't possibly have imagined, like...this one. A friend of mine works there, so I got The Grand Tour when I went to visit Chicago last year, and when I saw that a thing called Vulcan's Fire Salt existed, it was obvious that I needed to become one with it. It's amazing. If you like anything at all spicy, give this stuff a try.

4.5oz jar of Vulcan's Fire Salt from The Spice House. Ingredients list is shown: Salt, Louisiana chile, garlic, Habanero Chile, shallots, pepper, lime, Pimenton, cumin, allspice & vinegar.

[VeganMoFo!] Day 9: Smooth Like Smoothie

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Tonight I was in the mood for something a little sweet. Not a lot sweet, but a little sweet. I had some berries in my fridge that were getting ready to cross over from "food" to "not food", so I put them to good use in this simple smoothie.

~1 cup berries

1 banana

1 Tbsp peanut butter

~1 cup soy milk

~1 tsp raw ginger

Place all ingredients in blender. Blend. TA-DA!

[VeganMoFo!] Day 8: The Caper of the Chunky Monkey, episode 2

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Previously on CQ's Vegan Food! In Space!: Yesterday I posted about my preliminary attempts at Chunky Monkey Cookies. I mentioned that they were no-bake cookies, and that I would report in on their effectiveness after they'd sat overnight.

AND NOW, THE CONCLUSION!

They are not no-bake cookies. I came back this morning, poked 'em, and they just sort of...globbed at me.

Not to be outdone, I fired up the oven and baked them for 10 minutes at 350F. I let them cool, then put them in a giant tupperware container and brought them to my a cappella group's rehearsal. The container was full when I went to rehearsal, with about 35-40 cookies in it. This is what the container looked like at the end of rehearsal:

This is because I realized, toward the end of rehearsal, that I hadn't actually eaten a cookie myself, so I made a mad dash, grabbed the container with the last cookie in it, and disappeared into the night.

[VeganMoFo!] Day 7: The Caper of the Chunky Monkey, episode 1

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

A few months ago, I encountered a recipe for "chunky monkey" cookies, combining chocolate and bananas and nut butter into a tasty-looking little blob of cookieness. I decided I wanted to try this myself, so in keeping with my typical culinary practice, I looked up a bunch of different recipes, said to myself, "hmm, that looks interesting," then ignored them all and did it my own way.

These are no-bake cookies, but they'll have to sit overnight, so stay tuned for Episode 2 tomorrow to find out if these are actually as delicious as I think they're going to be ;-)

3 very ripe bananas
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
1/2 - 3/4 cup peanut butter (any nut or seed butter should be fine)
2 cups oats
1 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar

Mash the bananas in a large boil. Add the melted coconut oil and peanut butter. Stir together until you've got a nice creamy mixture (you can use a hand mixer if you want; I just used a wooden spoon and pure determination). Add all the other ingredients and combine thoroughly. Spoon heaping teaspoons onto cookie sheets and let sit overnight.

[VeganMoFo!] Day 6: Fennel-Walnut Spaghetti

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Have you met my buddy Fennel?

We are the best of fronds!

:)

This morning, I had this beautiful fennel sitting in my fridge and decided to make a pasta dish that would highlight its unique, sensual flavors. This is what I ended up making.

noodles (I used multi-grain spaghetti, about 4oz before cooking)

1 Tbsp olive oil

6 cloves garlic, minced

1 bulb fennel

1/4 tsp Hungarian paprika (leave it out if you don't have it, but I was sure glad I had it!)

1 tsp fennel seeds (not essential since there's already plenty of fennel, but I'm always happy to put more fennel in with my fennel!)

a handful of parsley, chopped

several handfuls of spinach leaves

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

2 Tbsp nutritional yeast

salt and pepper to taste

Boil and drain the noodles according to package instructions.

Remove the fronds from the fennel (I put mine back in the fridge to use for soup later on!). Slice the bulb into bite-sized pieces. Don't worry about the tough parts; they'll soften up when you cook them.

Heat the olive oil medium-low in a large pan. Add the garlic and let it cook for a minute or two; it's cool if it starts to brown a little but don't let it burn. Add the chopped fennel, and the paprika and/or fennel seeds if you're using them. You could add a little salt and pepper now, or wait till the end. Saute, stirring frequently, for several minutes. It will start smelling reaaaaaaaaally good pretty quickly. Add the parsley and spinach, stirring them in with the fennel, and then add the lemon juice, cooking till the greens wilt. Add the balsamic vinegar and stir in the nutritional yeast, then turn off the heat and taste for salt and pepper. 

Combine the fennel mixture with the noodles and stir well to evenly distribute.

[VeganMoFo!] Day 5: Dim Sum!

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Last night I met up with my friends Amy and Ronald, who I know from the Post Punk Kitchen message boards. Both are visiting from overseas, so it was great to get to hang out with them in person! I've met both of them before, but not in a long while. We had dinner at New Harmony, a Kosher Chinese restaurant in Philadelphia with an all-vegan menu. New Harmony's specialty is the "all-you-can-eat dim sum". They have a menu of options, so you can select your favorites, but I usually just tell the server to "bring us whatever's good" and let them work their magic. 

We each started with a bowl of wonton soup.

Then the dim sum fest began!

vegetable pancakes! These are fried and served with a mayonaissey sauce.

spring rolls and scallion pancakes!

stir-fry! tofu, broccoli, bok choy, carrots, and zucchini in a gingery-garlicky sauce!

taro cakes! Taro is a sticky root vegetable and it's one of my absolute favorite treats.

bao! These are doughy dumplings stuffed with vegan pork.

dumplings! I don't remember what was in them, but it was tasty.

There was also another dish of little round dumplings in assorted colors and configurations, but I seem to have not taken a photo of it.

dessert! The fried coconut triangles are simply to die for!!!

[VeganMoFo!] Day 4: The Great Sprouted Sunflower Seed Hummus Escapade, episode 1 of ?

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Recently, a new raw foods cafe called Raw Can Roll opened up near me, in Devon, PA. My mom, who is not vegan but loves to eat vegetables, was here visiting a few weeks ago and we went to go check it out. We were very impressed with the food, particularly the hummus, which was made from sprouted sunflower seeds. Well, I had some sunflower seeds languishing in the back of my pantry, so I decided to give it a try in my own kitchen. I put the seeds in a jar of water to sprout.

My first challenge was that I did that whole process improperly. I was supposed to leave the seeds in the water for 24 hours, then drain out the water, rinse the seeds and put them back in the jar without adding more water. I made the mistake of putting fresh water back in the jar, which meant it took about 4 days for them to even begin to sprout a little. I think the seeds were also a little past their optimal consumption date, which gave them a sharpness in flavor that wasn't unpleasant but wasn't really quite what I was going for, and also probably contributed to their "failure to thrive".

But, I pressed forth. The final result was okay, for a first try, I suppose. I'll try it again sometime with fresh sunflower seeds and take care to sprout them properly next time! Or maybe I'll just go to Raw Can Roll and let them do it for me. :)

What I did:

1 cup "sprouted" (sort of) sunflower seeds
1/2 cup lemon juice (I started with 1/4 cup and ended up adding a whole lot more)
2 Tbsp tahini
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic (start with one)
a few spritzes of Bragg's liquid aminos (it needed salt, but it needed liquid more)
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp Hungarian paprika

I put all the ingredients except the spices in the food processor. I pressed the HIGH button a lot. I had to help it along a lot, and I ended up needing to add a lot more liquid than I'd anticipated.

I tried to get a photo of it, but it turns out it's not very photogenic. But I am eating it on crackers right now! It's not bad, just not quite what I was hoping.

[VeganMoFo!] Day 3: Thunder Millet

I c

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com
all this "Thunder Millet" because it's thunderously awesome. And spicy. It's one of my go-to dishes for when I just want to get thunderclapped in the face by some spectacularly flavorful food without too much effort. (If I want to make something that requires more effort, I'll make my "Beef"abulous Stew.) It's loosely inspired by the Ethiopian Millet recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's cookbook Appetite for Reduction, which I highly recommend (and it's usually pretty hard to sell me on anything with a name like "appetite for reduction", so trust me, this is a REALLY good cookbook.)

This is a dish with a lot of flexibility for creativity and personal preference. At the bottom, I've got some notes about proteiny things I've added to the dish. Also, realistically if I'm making this just for myself, I'm going to make it WAY hotter than I would make it for anyone unless I knew for sure they would appreciate my preferred level of face-melt. I've tried to modulate the recipe for "this is how I'd make it if I were serving it to a friend who has said that they like spicy food, but I haven't yet calibrated their definition of 'spicy food' to mine, so I'm playing it a little on the safe side here". You can always make it hotter, but you can't really undo it once you've done it. ;-)

1 ½ cups millet

3 cups water

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

8-10 cloves garlic, minced

1-2 Tbsp fresh ginger, minced or mashed (or 1-2 tsp powder if you don’t have fresh)

a handful of cilantro, chopped (unless you hate cilantro)

1 tsp fennel seed

2 Tbsp cumin

2 Tbsp curry powder

1 Tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp smoked hot paprika and/or 1 tsp chipotle

4 medium tomatoes, diced with juice included (or use 2 cups of canned diced tomato)

several handfuls of spinach leaves

soy sauce or Bragg’s liquid aminos to taste

½ cup lemon juice

several handfuls of peanuts

hot sauce as desired

Put the millet and water in a pot. Bring it to a boil, stir well, then turn the heat all the way down and cover the pot. Cook for about 15 minutes, till it’s nice and fluffy. Give it a good few stirs to keep it from getting soggy-bottomed, then set it aside.

Heat the olive oil in a pot (probably one that’s a bit larger than the one you just used to cook the millet). Saute the onion till translucent. Add the garlic, ginger, cilantro, and fennel seed (in that order), give it a minute, then add the rest of the spices. Stir everything a few times, then add the tomatoes. You’ll be glad you included the juice, because that will now zap up everything that was sticking to the bottom! Cook this all together, stirring frequently, while the tomatos cook down. Stir in the spinach and the rest of the liquids (soy sauce or Braggs, and the lemon juice). When the spinach has wilted, stir in the millet. You may have to break it up a bit if it’s all chunky-like, but once the sauce starts mixing in with it, it’ll do its happy saucy millet thing. Add the peanuts and taste to see if you want to add more hot sauce.

I usually add something proteiny to this to pump it up a notch and give it more textures (I love textures). When I made it this afternoon, I sliced up 2 Field Roast chipotle sausages (they’re vegan, and they’re AWESOME), sauteed them in a little oil, then added them to the pot. I’ve done it before with tempeh and other kinds of seitan (prepared the same way, sauteed in a little oil first), and I’ve done it with red beans and with sprouted black lentils* (added at the same time as the tomatoes).

*OHMYGOD THOSE ARE GREAT, I’ll make something with them later this month and you will see.

[VeganMoFo!] Day 2: Lemon Soup with Chickpeas and Kale

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

A few months ago, I was chatting with my friend Eric, who's got some stellar recipes over at AstroNOMZ that you might want to check out if you like deliciousness. He was doing something with chickpeas, and somehow his mentioning chickpeas set off a craving so fierce and insatiable that I must have tried a dozen new chickpea recipes in a month. And believe it or not, I'm not even sick of them. Chickpeas are GREAT.

So, at some point during the Vegan Month of Chickpeas (VeganMOoCh?), I was flipping through my "I totally have to try this recipe someday..." file and found this Avgolemono-without-Avgo recipe from my friend Desdemona's blog (also chock-full of magnificent recipes). Just a few days earlier, I had been playing around with the Chickpea Rice Soup with a Little Kale recipe, and ended up putting quite a bit of lemon juice in it (and, well, a lot of kale...I don't really know how to do "a little" kale). So I took some elements from that recipe...particularly, the chickpeas, and the kale, and the rice...and started cooking in the general direction of the Avgolemono recipe, and suddenly I had this elegant pot of lemony-wonderful soup.

I make this pretty often now! Here is how I made it this week.

 2 Tbsp soy butter (or olive oil, but I like it much better with the soy butter)
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
a handful of fresh chopped dill
a handful of fresh chopped parsley
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup lemon juice
5 cups vegetable broth
2 1/2 cups soy milk
1 tbsp cornstarch
4 cups chickpeas (pre-cooked or from a can)
1/2 lb kale, chopped into bite-size pieces (I like the stems, you can chuck 'em if you don't)
1/2 cup nutritional yeast (optional; I like the texture and flavor it adds, but if you don't like it or can't get it, don't sweat it)

Melt the soy butter (or heat the olive oil) in a large soup pot. Add the onion and saute till translucent. Add the herbs, cook for a minute or two, then deglaze with the apple cider vinegar (pour it in and stir to "clean up" the bits that are sticking to the bottom of your pot). Add the lemon juice and vegetable broth, bringing it to a boil. While it's getting ready to boil, whisk the cornstarch into the soymilk until it dissolves. Pour this mixture in with the broth, bring it back to a boil, then add the chickpeas and kale. Turn the heat down to "low" and let it simmer, covered, for about 10-12 minutes. Stir in the nutritional yeast and add salt if needed. I'll usually add a teaspoon of Vulcan Fire Salt at this point, because it's GREAT. I serve it over brown basmati rice (the best rice!)

[VeganMoFo!] Day 1: banana fana fo firfry

It's VeganMoFo! What's VeganMoFo? Find out at http://www.veganmofo.com

Today I had lunch with my friend Joan! Cooking with a friend is the best! We come up with combinations that would never have occurred to either of us on own. My friend is not vegan, but she shares my love of delicious food and my "mad scientist" approach to cooking (and life...which is why we're friends), so we set about to make a stir-fry out of whatever we could find in her kitchen. When she pulled out a banana and started slicing it up to go in the stir-fry, I knew this was going to be a memorable lunch!

Here is approximately what we did:

vegetable or canola oil for sauteing

1 medium onion, coursely chopped

several cloves garlic, minced

2-3 tbsp ginger, minced or grated

a handful each of sunflower seeds and almonds (any nuts work!)

1 banana, sliced into rounds

veggies -- you can use any you like; we used the following:

baby potatoes, sliced in half

cauliflower florets

brussels sprouts

yellow cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

spinach

optional: peanut sauce, hot sauce, any sauce you lke

Saute the onion in a little vegetable/canola oil until it is translucent. Add the garlic and ginger and saute another minute, then add the seeds/nuts so they start getting nice and toasty. Add the banana slices and veggies, starting with the most dense ones (like potatoes and cauliflower) and ending with the lighter-weights (like spinach). Stir-fry until all your veggies are the texture you prefer your veggies to be when you put them in your mouth. Add sauce if desired.

Moving in

I am moving my vegan food blog here!
It used to be here, but now it's right here.
I'll be posting this year's VeganMoFo posts here!
If this experiment turns out to have been a good idea, I will migrate the vegan food posts from the other blog here.

I'll make it pretty later.