Dijon Pecan Tofu

Food tastes better when it rhymes. That's what inspired my latest cookbook creation. But really, it just so happens that pecans and dijon mustard taste great together. I found that out tonight when I ate my first batch of Dijon Pecan-Encrusted Tofu:

Now, the picture doesn't really do this dish justice. My borrowed camera doesn't do well in low lighting, so I had to use a flash and it's out of focus in the foreground (which bugs the crap out of me). But the tofu was marinated in a "chicken" marinade, dipped in a dijon sauce, and breaded with pecans, flour, and thyme. Then I fried it up. Though the coating was very tasty, I think texture-wise, this breading would better suit a batch of seitan. So I'll try it again soon with seitan before adding the recipe to my cookbook files.

Speaking of my cookbook, I'm setting a New Year's resolution to finally set up a tester site. I've been creating and filing away recipes for almost a year, and it's time to set some testers loose on this stuff to make sure I don't have some crazy palatte or something. I'll keep ya'll posted.

I served the tofu with some Road's End Organics vegan mac and cheese, courtesy of Lindsay's awesome care package.

Sorry for the god-awful picture...

I love this stuff, but don't buy it often enough! Tastes like creamy, noochy mac without all the time spent making a nooch sauce.

And I also roasted some Brussel Sprouts:

Honestly, these could have cooked a little longer. I was in a huge hurry to go Christmas shopping before the mall closed (it's a 20-minute drive out to the suburbs), so I rushed the sprouts. But I left the rest in the oven while I ate, so my leftovers will be much better tomorrow.

DOGGIE UPDATE: As most of you know, my doggie Datsun had a tumor removed last week. His doctor called me on Monday to let me know that his biospy came back and, in the great words of Arnold Swarzenegger, "It's not a tuma." It's some kind of benign lump thing with a long medical name. So yea!!! Thanks for all your positive words and thoughts!

Cooking with Liquor

The only thing better than drinking alcohol is cooking with alcohol. And my favorite liquor-friendly food blogger, Lisa of Show Me Vegan, has a knack for what alcohol goes best with what flavors. When I saw her recipe for Chipotle Bourbon Sweet Potato Quesadillas, I knew they'd be great. So I made them tonight:

And my suspicions were correct. This was a creative and tasty spin on the traditional vegan sweet potato/black bean quesadilla.

The sweet potatoes, which are baked for 30 minutes prior to combining the rest of the filling, are spiked with Wild Turkey. Though I typically hate whiskey and bourbon when drunk alone (it smells like vomit), its taste was the perfect complement to the sweetness of the potatoes and the spiciness of cloves. The recipe called for dried apricots, but I left them out because I forgot to buy them (oops!).

The baked, mashed potatoes are then mixed with black beans, corn, and chipotle powder (though I used a whole chipotle pepper). And then the filling is stuffed into a tortilla folded over and fried lightly in a skillet. I used the Food for Life Wheat-Free Brown Rice Tortillas for the first time and I absolutely loved them. They had a chewier texture than a traditional flour tortilla, and I'm a huge fan of chewy.

Served with a simple salad of field greens and Amy's Woodstock Dressing, Lisa's quesadillas were a quick, satisfying weeknight meal. I suggest you head over to her blog now and check out the recipe.

Quickest Dinner Ever

Some nights, I love to spend hours slaving over an extravagant meal. But other times, I'm just hungry and need sustenance as quickly as possible. Tonight fell into the latter category. I spent the weekend visiting my boyfriend in Clarksville (3 hours from Memphis), and I arrived home just in time for dinner. I was famished so I whipped this Spicy Kung Pao Beef-less Stir-fry in minutes:

How did I conjure such a meal so quickly? I cheated, that's how. I used this Simply Asia Stir-fry Meal kit and a box of Trader Joe's Beef-less Strips.

I don't usually splurge on convenience items, like the stir-fry kit, but they were on sale at Big Lots for $2 a piece. I believe Whole Foods sells these for about $4 here. I couldn't resist a sweet deal like that. The kit comes with rice noodles, sauce, and Asian veggies (baby corn, water chesnuts, bamboo shoots, carrots, and mushrooms). I also added some green onion and extra mushrooms that were about to go bad in my fridge.

And I'd picked up the beefless strips at the new Trader Joe's in Nashville last time I was there. I'd read about them on a few blogs, and since I love all things faux meat, I had to scoop some up when I had the chance. These are excellent and I'll definitely be stocking up next time I go to Trader Joe's. They also make chicken-less strips that I'd like to try.

Hot Damn!

I finally ordered my copy of The Dirty South Cookbook/Hot Damn and Hell Yeah: Recipes for Hungry Banditos a few weeks ago. I don't know what took me so long considering that I am, in fact, a "Dirty South Vegan."

This book, published by Microcosm, is really two cookzines bound together. One half of the book is The Dirty South Cookbook, with Southern favorites like Yvette's Aunt Cathy's Potato Salad and Almost Paula Dee's Blueberry Buckle (the "n" is left off of "Deen" for some reason). Flip the book over and it's Hot Damn with mostly South-of-the-Border inspired dishes (i.e. Chili Con Non-Carne, homemade corn tortillas, etc.).

Flipping through the pages, I noticed a recipe for Vegetable Mountain with Gravy, which sounded intriguing. Honestly, anything with gravy sounds intriguing. So I made it for dinner last night:

It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but it's a pile of mashed potatoes loaded high with sauteed spinach, red bell pepper, carrots, mushroom, and onions. And then it's all doused in a healthy portion of gravy (note: I put way more gravy on this after snapping the photo ... just didn't want it to look like a gravy blob in the photo).

Though the book includes an easy gravy recipe, I used the packet of Road's End Organics Savory Herb Gravy that Lindsay sent me in her vegan care package. I'd tried the mushroom gravy flavor before, but never this one. It reminded me of steak sauce, like an A-1 taste. Definitely hearty and the perfect topping for this savory pile of taters.

I Love Miso Mayo!

Don't get me wrong. I heart Vegenaise. But I've just discovered a new love, and his name is Miso Mayo. I'd seen him in Whole Foods a time or two, and though I was attracted to his colorful packaging, I didn't think he shared my vegan beliefs. Luckily, Miss V of Miss V's Vegan Cookbook is really into him too. She wrote about Miso Mayo in a blog post a few weeks ago. Intrigued, I picked up a bottle at Whole Foods.

Miso Mayo is made from expeller-pressed canola oil, miso, cider vinegar, organic gluten-free tamari, and onion. It tastes very different from Vegenaise, which is more reminescent of omni mayo. Miso Mayo actually reminds me of the cheap tubs of French onion dip that I used to devour as a kid. I LOVED that stuff with chips. And though it's not exactly the same, the onion in the mayo lends it a similar flavor.

For lunch today, I used some of the alternative mayo to make this Miso Mayo Tofu Eggless Salad:

Served on sprouted grain pita bread with sunflower blue corn chips, the stuff made a filling and quick lunch. Here's the recipe.

Miso Mayo Tofu Eggless Salad
--------------------------------------------
1 lb. firm tofu
1/4 cup Miso Mayo
2 Tbsp. dill pickle relish (I used my Granny's homemade stuff, but storebought it fine!)
1/2 tsp. turmeric
2 Tbsp. diced red onion
salt and pepper to taste

Crumble tofu and stir in miso mayo, relish, onion, and spices. Eat and enjoy!

And in case ya'll were wondering, Datsun's surgery went fine. I won't know anything about the tumor until biopsy results come back, but the vet thinks the lump looked more like a cyst. Datsun's kinda drugged up right now and he keeps stumbling around the house. But, as you can see here, he still wants to play with his dirty old ball:

I've been telling him "no ball" all night because the vet advised against activity. But it's so hard to resist that cute puppy face!

Raw Food Tuesday

My monthly "first Tuesday of the month" raw food cleanse couldn't have come at a better time. I'm sure my body is kinda pissed over all that crap I ate on Thanksgiving day (and the next day and the next day and the next). So raw food day was my chance to tell my tummy that I'm sorry for being such a processed food-loving glutton.

My belly was totally pleased with this Raw Steel Cut Oatmeal with Apples, Cinnamon, and Raisins:

I adapted it from a recipe in Jennifer Cornbleet's Raw Food Made Easy. She used oat groats, but I only had steel cut. So I soaked them for two days, and then blended them with a 1/2 cup of raw almond milk, an apple, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, some maple syrup (probably not raw, but the book recommended it), vanilla, and a pinch of salt ... oh and added raisins in the end. It's not all that pretty, but it tasted great.

For lunch, I ate a Giant Garden Salad with Agave Mustard Dressing:

There was a crap ton of veggies in this salad — carrots, cherry tomatoes, radishes, cucumbers, red bell pepper, and avocado (I also intended on adding mushrooms and green onion but accidentally left those at home when I went to work this morning). The dressing recipe was also from Cornbleet, but I substituted raw agave for the honey in her recipe.

For my pre-workout snack, I thawed out a few Raw Brownies that I made and froze during last month's raw day. They were perfect crumbled up with a banana.

And for dinner, I made Zaphod's Universal Chi Live Tabouli from Vegan Fusion and the Conquering Lion Cashew Cheez (also from Vegan Fusion):

Sorry for the crappy flash photo, but my borrowed camera doesn't do well with low winter lighting.

The tabouli was made from sprouted wheat berries, which I sprouted in a jar in my pantry for two days. It was yummy! And it went great with the cashew cheez spread on buckwheat crackers. The cashew cheez (made with cashews, red pepper, cilantro, onion, and garlic) is hands down my favorite raw dish, followed closely by raw garlic "mashed potatoes" (made with cauliflower). Crap, now I'm craving raw mashed potatoes ... ah, maybe next time.

BTW, ya'll please think happy thoughts about my doggie Datsun! He's having surgery in the morning to remove a tumor from his tail. We don't know yet if it's a bad tumor or a benign one, but just think positiveness!

Homemade Bagels!

For the past several days, I've been subsisting on Thanksgiving leftovers and restaurant food. But I finished my last Field Roast and dressin' sandwich tonight, and I'm ready to come out of foodie hibernation. What a better way to start than with Homemade Whole Wheat Poppy Seed Bagels:

A LONG time ago, Mihl of Seitan Is My Motor made some tasty-looking whole grain bagels using all kinds of healthy flours and seeds. I remember thinking, without reading the entire recipe, that it sounded really hard. So I just forgot about it. But then a non-foodie co-worker mentioned that she'd recently made some, and I thought, if Mary can do this, so can I (btw, click on the "Mary" link to see her "In the Bluff" blog ... and despite the name, she isn't naked).

I chose an easier recipe than the one Mihl gave out, mostly because I didn't have lots of flours on hand. Instead, I used this recipe from Baking Bites. I substituted whole wheat pastry flour for the bread flour and skipped the egg wash. Oh, and I used one teaspoon of salt rather than the tablespoon called for because that sounds crazy ... even to a salt lover like me.

Though bagel-making turned out to be pretty easy, it was also quite labor intensive. Kneading, waiting for dough to rise, shaping, letting dough rest, boiling in water by four-bagel batches, and finally baking in the oven for 20-ish minutes. Whew!

Luckily, I made plenty and froze some for later use. I ate one and a half (cause they're kinda small-ish) this morning spread with Brother Juniper's Blueberry Spread and the Rich Tofu Cottage Cheese (sans the garlic though) from The Uncheese Cookbook. I took a picture of the dressed bagels, but it was ugly. Sorry.

See ya'll tomorrow on Raw Food day!!!