Superbowl food!

I love buffalo wings.  I discovered this love at some point during college, which means I missed out on all the tasty buffalo wings to be found in my hometown of Kettering, Ohio, but better late than never.  Then I became vegan.  And now I love vegan buffalo wings, which are a little tougher to come by.

For this year's SuperBowl, I was determined that Tom Brady wanted me to have vegan buffalo wings.  So I bought some vegan chicken nuggets from Whole Foods, a bottle of buffalo sauce, and found myself a recipe for vegan ranch dip.  There's a lot of recipes out there for vegan ranch dip, and they all involve vegan mayonnaise (made from tofu), apple cider vinegar, and not much else.  I had no dill so used cilantro instead.  I later found a recipe involving cashews that I'll have to try next time when I have time to soak the cashews in advanced.  Those nuggets were goooooooood!  I will definitely be getting them again.  Even some of the non-vegetarians at our SuperBowl party pronounced them delicious!

I also made a white bean rosemary hummus, which also turned out well, once I remembered to put the vinegar in (it needs some acidity!)  3 cups of white beans, 1/4 cup of tahini, 1/4 cup veg broth, 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar (i used white balsamic), 2 cloves of garlic mined, and some rosemary.  Great on crackers, baguette, veggies, and especially good as a spread on the sweet potato sandwich I made later on!

Best sandwich ever

Flour has always been a favorite lunch spot for me for their breadth of vegan and non-vegan options.  They recently introduced a sandwich that blew my mind: roasted sweet potato, walnut pesto, green apple, kale, blue cheese (which I omit) on ciabatta (I sub wheat bread and ask them to grill it).  After weeks of having this sandwich for a post-church treat, I decided to make my own.

I found a recipe for walnut pesto and used the leftover sweet potatoes from the Hoppin' John recipe.  I used Ezekial bread.  I used spinach instead of kale because, well, it was closer to the top of the veggie drawer.  And I had made a lot of white bean rosemary dip, as in 3x what I needed for the weekend, so decided to spread some on there.  And then I grilled it on the stovetop like how we made grilled cheese sandwiches when I was a kid: one skillet on the bottom, the other on top to weight it down.

Amazing.  Best sandwich ever.

 

Hoppin' John

Building on Cecyl's affinity for beans and rice, and hopefully to curb the carnage in the energy markets, I attempted Hoppin' John the other night.  The recipe I used was from the Thug Kitchen cook book so was slightly different - instead of using rice, it used sweet potatoes.

I learned several things:
1) Dried japaleno peppers are insanely hot.  The recipe called for 3-4 adobo peppers, we had dried jalapeno peppers and I put in 3 of them, and thinking I was all Tamar Adler and stuff, I dumped in the water that I'd soaked them in as well.  Hooooolllyyyy ****.  I like spicy food, but that was intense.  You know how Asian restaurants have one, two, or three chili peppers on the menu when something is expected to be spicy?  In Thailand, they actually ask you if you want one, two, or three peppers in it.  I learned early on that one pepper was plenty of spice for an American!
2) There are many options to make a dish less spicy - and they kinda work.  You want to increase acidity or sugar, so I added some lemon juice, a can of diced tomatoes, and a couple of carrots.
3) Roasted whole sweet potatoes are a great thing to just have in the fridge.  As are wilted greens, which the Thug Kitchen recipe also calls for.  The wilted greens recipe is very simple: 6 cups of greens (ie kale, chard, collards), 1/2 tsp of olive oil, 1 Tbsp of water, 2 cloves minced garlic, 2 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp soy sauce.  Yumminess ensues.

Cecyl came home and pronounced the dish delicious.  The spiciness mellows out after a few days and we've been enjoying them since. 

Tamar inspires

Took a page out of Tamar Adler tonight: combined leftover chicken and steak with sliced mushrooms and a bit of broth and wine and rosemary and garlic. Turned into a delicious stew type thing that we enjoyed with thick toast and fresh parsley. btj

Curried lentil yumminess

As we hunkered down from Snowmageddon 2015, that meant plenty of time to cook!  And even Whole Foods was open 10am-6pm!

I tried the udon noodle soup recipe again for lunch - and this time I didn't overcook the vegetables.  Turns out, they do best when you throw them in about 2 minutes before you're done.

We also recreated the fabulous cauliflower riced pilaf from the other night, which was just as glorious.  That dish is going to have to make it's way to the Thanksgiving table this year.

And then, I found a new favorite recipe!  The other day, I wanted to make something with lentils and cashews because, well, Cecyl loves cashews.  All the recipes were for curried lentils with cashews, so I picked one and then improvised.  I'm not a fan of jalapenos, so I omitted those.  I substituted coconut oil for olive oil (cuz who doesn't love coconut oil, and it goes great with curry), and canned tomatoes for regular tomatoes (let's face it, they're out of season).  Instead of zucchini, I added sweet potatoes and collard greens.  And I added extra spices plus some garam masala.  OMG, there are no words.  I may have gone back for thirds.  Okay, maybe I had fourths.  It was so yummy. 

I've also gotten in the habit of making my own vegetable stock, which is very easy when you just take all the peels from your onions/carrots/garlic/etc while you're cooking and toss them straight into a pot of boiling water on the back burner, and then strain into a mason jar when you're done and throw it in the refrigerator.  So okay, it always tastes a bit like whatever the last vegetable dish was that you were cooking, but it's perfect to have on hand for the next cooking adventure and I prefer it over store-bought vegetable stock. 

Food for an upset tummy

I had a nasty stomach bug last week.  After a few days of saltines and the BRAT diet, I wanted a little more variety but knew my stomach couldn't handle much.

I recalled that Kichiri is frequently consumed as part of ayurvedic cleanses because it is very easy to digest.  I found a simple Kichiri recipe and whipped it up.  First of all, I found that you have to be sure to buy split moong beans that are shelled.  I bought the ones with shells on, and the shells tend to come off during cooking and float around.  Be sure to buy the yellow ones at the grocery store that have been shelled (the beans have green shells).  In the first batch, I tried it with ghee.  It was very buttery.  The second time, I tried it with sesame oil and I preferred the taste.  I'd also recommending cutting the oil/ghee in half and doubling the spices.  In addition to the cumin and turmeric, I also added coriander and ginger root.  Cecyl loves it too!  And he adds cashews to it...

Breakfast poses a conundrum when you have stomach issues - what to eat when you wake up with an upset tummy?  I'd recalled seeing "morning miso" at Kripalu so thought that might be a nice way to start the day.  I just bought some miso paste from Whole Foods and created a little "miso kit" to take to work for breakfast.  I put a few scoops of miso, some cubes of tofu, and a handful of spinach in a tupperware container.  When I felt up to eating, I put the miso, tofu, and spinach in a mug, poured in some water, and stirred it up - and voila, miso soup!  I bought some wakame and spring onion yesterday, so I'll try adding those this week.

I had a great lunch at Douzo this week that involved delicious and tummy-soothing vegetable Udon noodle soup.  Oh those yummy chewy noodles!  On Friday, I decided I'd figure out how to make my own Udon noodle soup.  I took my first (and last) trip to C-mart, the Chinese grocery store a block away from Whole Foods.  I braved my way through the fish smell to find rows upon rows of noodles, seaweed, sesame oil, and tofu.  I'd browsed lots of different Udon recipes and decided I'd make one with a bunch of different vegetables.  The fresh noodles I got from the grocery store were very yummy.  For vegetables, I added snow peas, watercress, mushrooms, bean sprouts, carrots, wakame, and tofu.  I kinda overcooked the vegetables, so would recommend chopping them all in advance and only cooking them for 5 minutes.  The noodles were fresh and seemed cooked already, so only needed a few minutes.  I used miso paste as a base and added in some soy sauce as well.  Turns out, wakame has a very intense flavor, so you probably only want a pinch (I used too much).

Some new vegetable dishes

Thanks to a New Year's resolution to try at least two new recipes each month, and an amazing new Whole Foods that opened just a few blocks away, Cecyl and I will be doing lots of cooking this year!

With a snowstorm heading directly for us, we figured it would be a good time to cook up a few new recipes.  We wanted to try some new recipes and make items that could be taken for lunch during the week.

On the menu for tonight:
Butternut squash with sage, garlic, and pine nuts (we had this dish last night at tapas restaurant and wanted to recreate it)
Braised cabbage
Hashed brussels sprouts with lemon zest - per Mom and Dad's recommendation
Cauliflower "rice" pilaf

Once we set everything out, we realized it wasn't exactly the most organized, sensical meal as it was mostly side dishes.  Whatever, it was delicious and filling! 

The hashed brussels sprouts initially were a surprise as we were expecting a crispier consistency, but they grew on us.  The lemon and cumin marriage is lovely. 

For the braised cabbage, I modified a recipe from the Thug Kitchen cookbook - it was green cabbage, half an onion, a few cloves of garlic, a few cups of veggie broth, covered and put in the oven at 350 for 1 hour and 20 minutes.  Seemed a bit boring at first, but was definitely livened up by some balsamic vinegar drizzled on at the end and overall had a nice, complex flavor (for cabbage).

Cecyl's favorite was the butternut squash.  Next time I do the recipe, we'll double the amount of sage and garlic we use.  We livened it up by sprinkling fresh sage on it at the end.

My favorite was the Cauliflower pilaf.  Soooo yummy and perfect and with delicious spices, it got me excited to put riced cauliflower in everything!  Perhaps next time I make khichiri, I'll try it with riced cauliflower.  I'm also interested in making trying a riced cauliflower risotto.  Next time we make it, we're going to substitute cashews for pine nuts and see how it tastes - Cecyl is obsessed with cashews and would put them in everything if he could.

For dessert, we were delighted to see that the new Whole Foods carries hand-packed pints of FoMu ice cream, which is a coconut-based vegan ice cream made at the FoMu ice cream shop in Allston.