A Different Black Bean Soup

Ah, that vegetarian staple, Black Bean Soup. So many recipes, and most taste the same. Well, this one is certainly different. It is from The Vegan Table, by Colleen-Patrick Goudreau. It has coconut milk and bananas! I swapped out the ginger for ground coriander, and only pureed it part way, but otherwise used the recipe exactly. This was quite good, and my ten year old enjoyed it, too!

Sweet Chili Lime Tofu

This is the Sweet Chili Lime Tofu from Vegan Yum-Yum. It is indeed yummy. I really enjoy this cookbook. The photographs are beautiful and the food is delicious. Check it out!

I Want Bread

Well, being a gluten free vegan means lots more cooking than I normally do. Although I love to cook, I hate having a big pile of pots and dishes when it is just me eating. So usually I'll cook a few days a week and supplement with leftovers and prepared stuff. But lately I cook almost every night, and eat the leftovers for lunch (along with rice cakes with almond butter and apple butter from a local farm, yum!)



Can I tell you how very delicious this dish is? It is from "A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen" by Jack Bishop. It is the Green Lentil and Roasted Vegetable Salad with Mustard-Tarragon Vinaigrette. I was looking for something to do with the turnips left over from $127 Vegetable Soup. Here they are roasted with some red onions, and mixed with lentils (didn't have the fancy French green ones so used plain old supermarket brown) and a wonderful dressing. I almost ate the whole bowl by myself, it was that good. The dressing called for fresh tarragon, which I didn't have. Can I get in a plug for good spices? I had dried tarragon from Penzey's, a huge spice store in Wisconsin. It is far superior to the supermarket variety, and I think really made the dressing. We used to have a retail Penzey's where I lived in NY. They don't have one here in Chicago, but they do have mail order. Check it out!




This is jerk sauce that I put over baked tofu. It's made mostly of scallions and lime juice and spices.



Since we were having Carribean/Cajun food that night, I made red beans and rice. They were good - they have a little peanut butter in them. And lots of red and white pepper. The white pepper is kind of smoky, eh? The recipe is from of Nava Atlas's old books - can't remember the name. It has recipes from all different regions of the country. I had white rice to be traditional and it was really good!




These are chickpea crepes from the new "Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health." I have never worked with chickpea flour before. They were nice and spicy.



Curried Yellow Pepper Soup from the Moosewood Book. Nice and sweet - a little bland, even though I inadvertantly doubled the spices!

Here is the jerk sauce recipe. It's really good with tempeh or seitan (marinate and grill).

3 cloves garlic
4 scallions, chopped
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 large jalapeno
1/4 c tamari
1 T worcestershire sauce (or Pickapeppa)
1/4 c fresh lime juice
2 T oil
2 T brown sugar
1 1/2 t dried thyme leaf
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t allspice

Blend all until smooth.

Well, all that good cooking and what I really want is a PBJ on whole wheat!

Pan Seared Artichokes

Usually I make this dish in a non-stick skillet, which doesn't do much for browning foods. All my non-sticks were occupied, so I used my old-fashioned plain stainless steel. I was surpised and delighted to find that the artichokes actually caramelized in the pan! Maybe because of the sugars from the sun-dried tomatoes? It was delicious over brown rice ziti. (And the pan wasn't any harder to clean than a non-stick pan.)

Cawfee Tawk

This is the East Coast Coffee Cake from Vegan Brunch. I thought it only appropriate to present it with the proper accent. Yes, we really do tawk like this in New Yawk. I have had to lose my accent here in Chicago - they don't much like NY'ers here! This was pretty good, although I like my own crumb recipe better (see Thanksgiving post).



Of course I made the chocolate chip version.




I am trying to do my gluten free, sugar free, alcohol free, (fun free) diet again. A little too much celebrating over the holidays! This gluten free cereal is yummy. It is a blend of rice, corn, sorghum, and buckwheat. Perfect for these single digit temperatures we've been having!

$127 Vegetable Soup

Why is it that you can't go to the grocery store for just one thing? Such was the case when I went in to buy only ingredients for this delicious veggie soup, but ended up spending $127. Well, this soup actually might be worth that much - it is that good! My friend made it for me when we went to his house for a party - they kindly always make me something I can eat (the "regular" people got shrimp gumbo - boy, did they miss out).

This soup is called "Mike's Vegetable Soup," and it comes from one of Paul Prudhomme's books, in case you are browsing in the library. I don't know which one, but it is an older one back from the days of lowfat cooking. If you can imagine that Paul Prudhomme was ever on a diet, I think the book said he lost 100 pounds using the recipes in this book. The spice list was so extensive that even I had to buy three that were not in my cabinet. But the soup was still easy to make. It has a wonderful smoky flavor, although no smoke flavoring was used. Also it has apple juice in it! It sounds weird, but I urge you to seek out the recipe. If you are interested but can't find it, I can e-mail you the recipe. By the way, those big orange chunks are not squash, but rutabaga - something I would never think to make soup with. Try it!

An Oily Dilemma

Well, once again I can't get the photos out of my camera. It is so frustrating to have to constantly shut everything off and start over! So in the interest of time, here is a post without pictures.

I know I have mentioned a few times that my muffins/cupcakes have come out with oily bottoms. Well, today I made chocolate thumbprint cookies from VCON, and again, oily bottoms. Now I have made this recipe before, and did not have that problem. I think in the past I have used canola oil from Spectrum. Lately I have been using Trader Joe's. It sounds crazy, but I can't think of any other difference. Does anyone have this oily problem?

On another note, you know how those low carb people always try to make mashed potatoes with cauliflower? Well, I am not a low carb girl by any stretch, but I was trying to find a way to enjoy cauliflower. I just steamed it until very soft, and mashed it with some lemon juice and Earth Balance. It was really quite good! Although not a sub for mashed potatoes!

Hopefully, pictures next time!