Wednesday, August 4, 2010




Chocolate-Oat Bars (Source: Accidental Vegan)
1/4 cup plus 1/8 cup canola oil
1/4 cup plus 1/8 cup unsweetened creamy peanut butter
(The recipe called for 3/4 cup vegan margarine but Earth Balance is pricey and if used in baking, seems to disappear too quickly for my liking! So, I decided to try using canola. However, I thought peanut butter would be a tasty addition to this recipe and thus decided to add some as another butter substitute. Great results!)
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup unbleached flour
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 t fine sea salt
1/2 t baking soda
1 cup rolled oats
10 oz vegan chocolate chips.
Combine all ingredients except oats and choc chips until smooth. Add oats. Spread 2/3 cup mixture into 8x8 baking dish coated with cooking spray. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle choc chips over bars. Spread with a spatula. Sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture over chocolate chips and bake an additional 15-20 min. Let cool and cut into bars.

Asian Soup (Source: Vegan on the Cheap - I made a ton of adaptations to this recipe like adding extra veggies and increasing the sriracha for a bit of spice. In the future, I would also leave out the vinegar)
1 T oil
5 green onions, chopped
2 t grated fresh ginger
2 minced garlic cloves
5 cups vegetable broth
1 T sriracha sauce
2 T hoisin sauce
2 T rice vinegar
2 T soy sauce
1 8 oz package white mushrooms, sliced
8 oz cooked chow mein or other long noodles
1 small can water chestnuts
1 small can bamboo shoots

In a large pot, saute the garlic, onion, and ginger in oil for about 2-3 min. Add the broth and the next 4 ingredients (through mushrooms) stirring after each addition. Simmer 5-10 min. Add remaining ingredients. Serve.


This meal wasn't quite as good as I was hoping but it was still pretty yum. The scallion flatbreads were really a pain - my mom helped a ton with these (she did all the rolling out which was really time consuming) and they were yummy but not worth the work. The soup was pretty good but I think it would have been better without the addition of the vinegar at the end. The dessert I made was super fabulous! My parents were here visiting which is why I got to have the treat of cooking a fun meal (instead of leftovers!!). I am not going to post the scallion flatbread recipe as the recipe is hugely long and they were more trouble than they were worth. The original recipe can be found in Veganomicon. NOTE:I had leftover soup for dinner tonight and it was very yummy a few days after the day I made it! Keith asked to try it too and loved it. So, I would say this was a "make again" recipe!

Also made a tasty Asian slaw but didn't get a picture.

Asian Slaw (Source: Adaptable Feast)
1 lb napa cabbage
1 shredded carrot
1/2 t salt
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 t celery seeds

Toss cabbage and carrots together and set aside. In a small saucepan, combine remaining ingredients and heat until sugar dissolves. Pour over cabbage mixture. Let sit for 15-30 min. Serve.

1 comment:

  1. This all looks so good :) That Asian soup is on my list! I love mushrooms all day long, and in every way!

    ReplyDelete

Crispy Herbed Potato Stack

Crispy Herbed Potato Stack
I was going to try a recipe for herbed scalloped potatoes and at last minute decided to do something fast and easy. I made up the recipe and it was yummola! I layered sliced russet potatoes in a baking dish, drizzled with olive oil, and then sprinkled with coarse sea salt, fresh ground pepper, basil, rosemary, paprika, and garlic powder. Then I baked them at 425 fr about 45 minutes. They were crisp and very flavorful!

My thrown-together salad today - after discovering I had no leftovers for lunch!

Tamale Fixings

Tamale Fixings
Plain pintos (for Keith), pintos, corn and onions; corn, jalepenos and Daiya; mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, and chard

Making these was a bit time-consuming but kinda fun! They didn't turn out as good as I had hoped - the outer tamale part (not the filling) just wasn't as flavorful as tamales I have had in restaurants. I have another recipe I will try for the dough next time. Tamales are one of my favorite foods so I won't give up on this one!

"Buttermilk" Blueberry Pancakes

"Buttermilk" Blueberry Pancakes
I modified one of my favorite pancake recipes to make it vegan and then I added blueberries. Turned out quite yummy. Soymilk sours and thickens well - very similar to buttermilk. I have been really impressed with it's ability to substitute for real buttermilk.

"Buttermilk" Blueberry Pancakes

Egg replacement for 1 egg
1 1/4 cups soured soy milk (put 2 T vinegar into a 2 cup glass measuring cup. Add enough soy milk to equal 1 1/4 cups)
2 T canola oil
1 cup flour (I wouldn't recommend whole wheat or whole wheat pastry - it really takes away from the fluffiness of these pancakes)
1 T sugar
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
Blueberries, optional

Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and stir just until combined. Heat griddle pour about 1/4 cup batter for each pancake. Sprinkle blueberries on pancakes after ladling onto griddle. Cook just until golden on both sides.

Veggie and Seitan Lo Mein

Veggie and Seitan Lo Mein
Overall, this was fabulous! However, I don't think the seitan added much so I would just leave it out next time. The lo mein also needed about double the sauce so I would simply do that next time for added flavor. This was especially spicy and yummy with some Sriracha drizzled on top. I made our favorite veg egg rolls to go with this and it was truly a Chinese treat!!

Veggie Seitan Lo Mein

I really did my own thing for this recipe so I am just going to outline the instructions and include the sauce recipe. I heated oil in a large skillet and added 3 minced cloves of garlic and about 1 cup of half-moon cut onions (I was out of green onions but next time I would use green onions as I like them a lot in Chinese food) and about 1 cup matchstick-cut carrots. After about 5-6 minutes, I added about 1/4 lb of whole green beans. I cooked these veggies until tender. Meanwhile, I cooked a 16oz package of chow mein noodles. Once the veggie mixture was cooked, I poured the sauce on the veggies, heated through and tossed with the noodles. Next time I would double the amount of sauce and have adjusted amounts below to reflect double recipe.

Sauce (Source:Adaptable Feast)
3 T soy sauce
3 T rice wine (I used 3 T rice vinegar and 1 t sugar as I didn't have any rice wine)
3 t sugar
4 T black bean garlic sauce
Mix all ingredients and toss with above mixture.





Chinese Broccoli Wontons in Ginger Soy Broth

Chinese Broccoli Wontons in Ginger Soy Broth
Pretty yummy. I found that steaming the wontons worked much better than the recipe suggestion to boil them. The broth was very mild and a bit too mellow for us. Still pretty yummy though. I added extra veggies to the wontons and scallion to the broth. The seasoning in the wonton filling was quite tasty!

Chinese Broccoli Wontons in Ginger Soy Broth (Source: Vegan Yum Yum)

(As usual, I modified several things so it's not exactly the recipe in Vegan Yum Yum!)

1 cup chopped broccoli
3/4 cup shredded carrot
1/2 cup chopped scallions
1 T oil
1 t fresh ginger, minced
1 clove fresh minced garlic
1/2 t hot chili sauce (such as Sriracha)
1 t hot Chinese mustard
2 T plus 1 t soy sauce
4 cups water ( I think this might have been more flavorful had I used vegetable broth or faux chicken broth???)
6 slices fresh ginger
1 T mirin (I used a splash of cooking wine as I didn't have mirin)
1 1/2 t sugar
2 t rice vinegar
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup chopped scallions
16 wonton skins

For filling: Heat oil in skillet and add broccoli, ginger, garlic, carrot, onion and cook until veggies are crisp tender. Add chili sauce, mustard, 1 t soy sauce and stir to combine. Remove from heat and set aside.

To make wontons, take one skin and place in diamond shape. Fill with 1-2 t filling. Fold in half to make a triangle and moisten edges with water and pinch sides to seal. Set triangle in front of you with point up and take the 2 side points and bring them together in front to cross. Set aside and prepare remaining wontons. When finished, place wontons in a steamer basket and steam over pot of boiling water until translucent.

Meanwhile, in a pot, combine remaining ingredients (except wontons) and simmer 10-15 min.

Place 3-4 wontons in bowl and ladle broth over wontons. Serve.