Country Fried!

Hey ya'll! I finally got around to re-testing one of my favorite cookbook recipes last night. And this time, I took some much-needed advice from my testers (thanks testers!). Here's my new and improved Country Fried Tempeh Steak with Soymilk Gravy:

It's not health food. That's for certain. It's breaded, fried, and smothered in definitely-not-fat-free gravy. But it's good. And sometimes that's what matters. Fried foods are great in moderation (or so I choose to believe).

On the side, I tried Susan V's Wasabi-Roasted Asparagus from Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen:

It was tasty, but next time I'm adding WAY more wasabi. Susan's recipe calls for as little or as much as you want, based on your personal taste for spiciness. Since I love the sinus burn from wasabi, I needed much more. I used 3/4 teaspoon of wasabi powder and I could barely taste it. Even still, the sesame oil gave the roasted asparagus a tasty flavor.

I also made a batch of Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread from Bean Vegan:

Stephanie (Poopie Bitch) gave me a jar of sourdough starter that she made from her batch (which she got from Bazu in the mail). This was my first time working with the starter (which I've named Lestat, like the vampire ... cause it will live forever so long asI feed it), and I was really impressed with the strong sourdough flavor. I slathered a slice with Earth Balance and ate it with this meal.

On a final sweet note, I made these Neopolitan Bars from the April issue of VegNews:

They're one of Hannah Kaminsky's (of My Sweet Vegan fame) recipes, and man were they delicious! The cake part was a bit like a blondie spiked with my hand-picked organic strawberries. These are topped with a rich chocolate ganache. My only complaint — the ganache recipe calls for way too much liquid. I had to add extra chocolate chips to make it creamy, and though the picture in the magazine shows the ganache all firmed up, mine never set. Still tasted delicious though!

It's All About Balance

I try to squeeze in most of my food groups with every meal (except for fruit, which I drink in my morning juice). Sometimes, the balance doesn't always work so well, but last night's dinner was pretty food pyramid-friendly. My protein and green veggies combined for this Swiss Chard & Baked Tofu:

This is my favorite way to prepare chard. I first tried the recipe (which I found here) last spring when I was doing a week-long local eating project. I had bought Swiss chard for the first time at the farmers market and didn't know what to do with it. I stumbled on the baked tofu and chard idea while googling. This batch of chard also came from the farmers market.

Warning: The tofu in this dish is not heavily seasoned, and that's kinda how I like it. But I also like raw, unseasoned tofu, so you might want to add some soy sauce to the marinade if that's your thing. I'd like it that way too. I'm not very picky.

On the side, I probably downed a couple servings of carbs with this Cheesy Stovetop Rotini from The Uncheese Cookbook:

It also had red bell pepper and walnuts, so that's more veggies and protein (plus awesome omega-3's). The sauce was very unlike my own recipe for cashew cheeze sauce, which is much heavier on the nooch. I liked the Uncheese version, but it was definitely different. It didn't contain any butter or oil, and the taste of tahini outweighed the nutritional yeast flavor. Good for mixing things up a bit.

Organic Strawberry Fields Forever

Every year around this time, I start dreaming up all sorts of uses for fresh, juicy strawberries as I anticipate my first batch of hand-picked, organic berries from Windermere Farms. I've been salivating over thoughts of shortcake for weeks now. Thankfully, all my dreaming paid off on Saturday when I dove into this gorgeous Strawberry Shortcake:

You can find the recipe here. The "shortcakes" are actually sweet vegan biscuits topped with sugared strawberries and creamy Soyatoo. Yum, yum!

Stephanie (Poopie Bitch), her husband, and I hand-picked a combined eight pounds of organic berries (I got five pounds, she got three) at Windermere Farms on Saturday morning. Windermere is a small locally-owned farm in Raleigh, a suburb of Memphis. Farmers Frieda and Ken Lansing grow strawberries (and later lima beans and squash) every year, and they're certified organic!

Last night, I used more berries to make this Strawberry Pop from Vegan Soul Kitchen:

I won't divulge Bryant Terry's recipe since it's printed in his cookbook, but it's basically a carbonated, healthy version of strawberry soda! A tall glass of this was super-refreshing in our 80 degree temps!

Vegan Food Swap #2

Last month, a few of my friends and I held our first Vegan Food Swap, in which we all made a dish and split it up four ways so we'd each have plenty of leftovers for the coming weekend. We held the second installment of Vegan Food Swap last Thursday at my house with only three of the original participants.

Stephanie (of Poopie Bitch) made these awesome BBQ Seitan Sandwiches with Coleslaw and Homemade Buns:

Since it was a swap and not a potluck, we weren't eating right away. Steph packaged two buns for each participant, and we stored seitan and coleslaw in separate containers. Steph's buns were so freakin' amazing! I'd never tried fresh baked buns before, but these may convince me to start making my own.

Nic brought Vegan Tortiere:

This was stuffed with all sorts of deliciousness - Gimme Lean sausage, black olives, celery, peppers, onions, potatoes (I think). And the crust is really biscuity and light. I still have a few servings of this left and I can't wait to dig in.

I made my Tofu Manicotti with Raid the Garden Marinara:

It's a recipe I'm considering adding to my cookbook, though it's not really a Southern dish so maybe I shouldn't. But it's basically manicotti stuffed with ricotta-like herbed tofu. The sauce is made with whole tomatoes and it's super chunky and vegetable-y (yes, I invented that word). I served this with a salad of fresh farmer's market lettuce!

Bandito Burrito

Remember that song "Banditos" by the Refreshments from like 1990-something? It was all: "So just how far down do you wanna go/We could talk it out over a cup of joe/And you could look deep into my eyes/Like I was a supermodel/Uh-huh."

Anyway, this meal — the Bandito Burrito from Vegan Bites — got that song stuck in my head for days:

I don't usually follow recipes for burritos. I just shove some seasoned beans and rice and veggies in a tortilla and stuff it in my face. But I've been wanting to make more recipes from Vegan Bites, a book designed for vegan singles. All the recipes only make a couple servings. This one made for two burritos, filled with pintos, red bell pepper, corn, jalepeno, and onion. I topped my filling with melted Nacho Teese. Yum!

Check out that sexy kale on the side:

I picked up a huge batch from one of my favorite farming couples — Keith and Jill Forrester of Whitton Flowers & Produce — at the Memphis Farmers Market. I sauteed it with a little oil, garlic, and plenty of sriracha. Nothing beats fresh greens from the farmer's market.

Sausage 'n' Biscuits

Since I'm on a bit of an Uncheese Cookbook kick, I couldn't resist making a batch of the Chedda Biscuits for breakfast this week:

These are unlike any biscuits I've ever made. For one thing, they're drop biscuits so they don't have the smooth look of my homemade rolled-out biscuits. That explains the funky shape.

I also load my homemade biscuits down with non-hydrogenated shortening and soy margarine because I believe those things are necessary to create a fluffy, flaky biscuit. But Joanne Stepaniak's uncheese recipes tend to be on the low-fat side, so this recipe didn't call for any fat.

The result? A much drier biscuit than I would have liked. However, these little guys — flavored with nooch and dill — had a savory kick that would be perfect for dipping in a creamy bowl of soup.

I served my mornin' biscuits with Tempeh Breakfast Sausage from Judy Brown's Guide to Natural Foods Cooking, an old vegan hippie cookbook I found at a thift store:

These were tasty! They're made with crumbled tempeh and flavored with miso, sage, garlic, and cayenne. The patties don't hold together very well, but they were perfect stuffed in between heavily Earth Balanced biscuits (hey, I had to add some fat in there!).

Hey testers! My Mint Julep brownie recipe is up on the tester blog....just so ya know.

Eggless Frittata

I've been loving faux eggy dishes lately — omelettes, tofu "egg" salad, quiche, and frittata. When I stumbled onto the Frittata recipe in The Uncheese Cookbook, I knew I had to give it a try. Here's the finished product, a tofu-based pie baked with potatoes, green bell peppers, onions, and pureed tomatoes:

It set quite well while baking, but I couldn't wait the suggested 10 minutes afterward to dig in. Due to my impatience, it didn't plate well, but it tasted amazing in between bites of buttered sprouted grain toast:

At opening day of the farmer's market (yea!!!), I picked up a mystery green labeled Baby Jean:

The seller told me Baby Jean were the young shoots of fresh greens (she didn't say what kind of greens and I didn't think to ask). When she informed me that it tasted a lot like broccoli rabe, I knew I had to give it a try.

I found simple instructions for sauteeing broccoli rabe on the Internet....simply saute with a little oil and minced garlic and toss with salt:

The result — Delicious! I wish I'd bought more than one small package. It tasted like broccoli and collard greens got together and had a baby. Maybe that's why they call it Baby Jean.