Cuppies and Sammies

I don't have much time for this post, and I'll be visiting my boyfriend through Monday. But until then, I'll leave you with this tasty Reuben-Esque from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch:

It's basically a tempeh bacon reuben with the traditional sauerkraut, some melted Teese, and homemade Thousand Island dressing. Tasty, filling, skinny-ish.

And for dessert, have a Strawberry Cupcake from The Joy of Vegan Baking:

I made these spur-of-the-moment for Stephanie (a.k.a. Poopie Bitch's) birthday on Wednesday night. She texted me at noon that day to let me know it was her birthday! What's a friend to do with only a couple hours to spare? Make these tasty cupcakes, that's what. Even though it was VERY short notice, I couldn't let a birthday go by without sweets.

Gumbo!

Hey ya'll! Because no Southern cookbook is complete without a gumbo recipe, I developed this tasty Tempeh Gumbo last night:

Honestly, it was my first time making gumbo, but I followed some roux-makin' instructions from an omni recipe. Then I added no-chicken broth, the mandatory okra and tomatoes, some other yummy veggies, and my favorite faux-meat-of-the-moment, tempeh. I love how a good roux creates a thick, hearty stew. Perfect for warmin' my bones on these cold winter nights. Memphis actually got a light dusting of snow Tuesday night — a rariety in these parts.

My friend Greg came over last night to try and connect my borrowed computer to the internet, but no luck (something about a missing network driver? I dunno ... I don't speak computer). But while he was there, I fed him a bowl of gumbo, and he gave it a thumbs up. He's picky, so his approval is a good thing.

No soup or stew is complete without bread. So I baked a loaf of Whole Wheat Beer Bread for gumbo-dippin':

This recipe will also be going into the book. But it's so simple that I'll share you all now.

Whole Wheat Beer Bread
------------------------------
3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 Tbsp. evaporated cane juice (or white sugar if you please)
1 tsp. sea salt
12 ounces of tasty vegan beer (I used New Belgium black English ale, but PBR will work too!)
1 Tbsp. soy margarine

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients. Add beer. Stir to combine. Pour into a lightly greased loaf pan. Bake for 30 minutes, and then brush margarine over the top. Bake an additional 20-25 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Third Time's a Charm

Remember my twice-failed Dijon-Pecan Seitan recipe? I had a vision of creating a pecan-encrusted, dijon-flavored faux meat for my cookbook a few months ago, but I kept getting it all wrong. First, it started as a fried Dijon-Pecan Tofu, but the tofu texture was too light for the heavy pecan topping. Then, I used the pecan and mustard breading on seitan, but the wheat meat soaked up too much grease in the frying process.

So I decided to change the breading up a bit and bake the stuff. Now I give you Dijon-Pecan Seitan with a Maple-Butter Glaze:

By golly, I've finally done it. This variation is definiately a keeper. The seitan is breaded in a dijon-pecan batter, baked, and then rolled in a maple-soy margarine glaze. It has the sweetness of a honey mustard with the delightful crunch of toasted pecans.

I served the seitan with Orange-Ginger Beets from The Complete Vegan Kitchen:

I can't believe I used to hate beets! I mean, as recently as a few months ago. Beets have been the final frontier for me. After I went vegan, I learned to like every vegetable I used to hate in my lacto-ovo days ... except beets. They always tasted like dirt. Ick! But apparently, you just gotta know how to cook 'em. Now I love them roasted, in borscht, or boiled and seasoned using the above recipe which accents beets' earthy flavors with fresh ginger and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

Here's the whole plate. I also opened a jar of my Granny's home-canned green beans:

Skinny Chocolate Pancakes!!

When I eat anything from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, I can't help but feel good about it since the recipes are low in sugar, loaded with nutrient-rich food, and made with whole wheat pastry flour. Even though I only use whole wheat pastry flour for everything I bake and I never, ever use white sugar, there's something nice about having Rory and Kim's seal of approval.

I had that good feeling when I ate these Chocolate Pancakes this morning:

The only sweetener in the batter is a couple tablespoons of maple syrup, and as you can see, I've drizzled a little more on top. But maple syrup is vitamin-rich, so I don't feel bad about that. The chocolate part comes from 1/4 cup of cocoa powder. And since I used a non-stick skillet (thanks mom, she gave me one of her gently-used non-stick skillets over Christmas to make room for her new set), I didn't even use any oil to fry these up. There are a couple tablespoons of safflower oil in the batter, but that's good fat.

These were perfect with a couple slices of my Tempeh Bacon and a glass of fresh orange juice. I made a whole batch of mini-pancakes on Sunday night, and I've been re-heating a couple each morning. It's the first time I've pre-made pancakes (got the idea from another blog but I can't remember which one), and they heat up wonderfully in the microwave for about 30 seconds. They taste just as fresh as if they'd just come out of the skillet.

Curry In a Hurry

I've had a major craving for Indian food for months. I can't seem to fulfill it. I make Indian food, buy Indian food, it doesn't matter. I want more, more, more. That was the case with this Coconut Curry Tofu on Green Jasmine Rice from Hot Damn and Hell Yeah:

I made it last week and finally finished off the leftovers yesterday, but I still want more Indian food. Not that this didn't hit the spot. It was just a temporary fix. I think Indian food is probably a bit like crack.

But back to this curry dish, all I can say is, um, hot damn. Yea, it's that good. The tofu is fried on high heat with Indian spices. Then it's simmered with coconut milk and canned tomatoes. It's served over jasmine rice mixed with a herb puree and shredded coconut. Yummy, yummy!

By the way, does anyone know if they make brown jasmine rice? I hated to buy white rice, but I couldn't find a whole grain version at Whole Foods. And jasmine rice has such an awesome flavor.

Absinthe Cupcakes!

Last night, my friend Greg celebrated his 29th birthday. He hates sweets (yes, he is crazy), but I discovered last year that he will eat cake if there's booze in it. Last year, I made Bacardi 151 cupcakes. They were a huge hit, but I didn't wanna repeat myself this year. So I scoured the internets for ideas and found a recipe for Vegan Absinthe Cupcakes:

Lucky for me, the people who used to live in my house left behind a bottle of Absente brand absinthe. I'm no fan of the stuff since I hate the licorice-y flavor of anise. But Greg prides himself on a prized bottle of absinthe that he snuck onto the plane back from Scotland a couple years ago. So I knew he'd appreciate these.

The verdict? Greg ate two, so he must have liked them. And the anise flavor wasn't overpowering like I thought it'd be. Not my favorite cupcakes, but not bad. Other people raved. You either love licorice flavors or you hate them.

On another sweet note, I woke up early today to make Lemon Bars from The Joy of Vegan Baking:

Food Awareness, our local veggie group, held a meeting and potluck today to discuss our plan to get vegetarian options on the menu for Memphis City Schools lunches. My contribution were these bars, and man, were they good! I adore lemon-flavored everything, and the buttery shortbread crust was to die for. I'll be making these again.

Two awesome surprises came in the mail this week - copies of Kittee's Papa Tofu and Amey's (of Vegan Eats and Treats) Gastronomus Maximus cookzines!

I had to re-order Papa Tofu since I gave my old copy away, and Amey was super sweet and offered to gift me a copy of her adorable little zine. I can't wait to make her borcsht and Kittee's stuffed tofu pockets and injera.

Cookie Monster

I've been craving cookies lately. And on Tuesday night (a.k.a. Barack Obama night), I realized I had an unopened bag of vegan white chocolate chips lurking in my pantry. I also realized that the next day (Wednesday) was my co-worker Mary's birthday. So I made a quick run to Kroger for macadamia nuts. An hour later, I was licking the bowl while these tasty Vegan White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies baked in the oven:

Yum, yum! White chocolate macadamia cookies were always my fave in my pre-vegan days. But I haven't been able to find cruelty-free white chocolate around here. Thankfully, my super-cool dad placed an order from Vegan Essentials for these chocolate chips and some Teese last month.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them at first, so I stored them away for a rainy day. Then it hit me — I must use my chips for cookies! I used the Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, but subbed 1 cup of white chocolate chips for the regular semi-sweet chips. And I also folded in 1/2 cup of chopped macadamia nuts. And as usual, I used whole wheat pastry flour in place of the all-purpose.

I brought a batch to work for Mary's birthday and I still have a secret stash at home that I'm working my way through. That recipe makes a crap ton of cookies!

Note to testers: I'm still off-line at home. Grrr! I've tried using different modems and all kinds of stuff. But nothing seems to work. My dad says the computer that I'm borrowing from him may have something wrong with it that's preventing me from being able to connect to the internet. I'm really ready to get back to posting recipes on the tester site! Hopefully, it'll be resolved soon. I will keep ya'll posted.