[VeganMoFo!] Day 6: Fennel-Walnut Spaghetti

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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 3: Thunder Millet

I c

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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

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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

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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.