A Life about Transition

Ok. I admit it. I’m lazy sometimes. But even in my most laziest mode, I do think I can come up with some neat recipes. Here’s one that K loves with the vegan mayo or a bit of ketchup or both.

A little too much mayo but still, oh-so-good.

2 medium onions, diced

1-2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 Mexican Chipotle Field Roast Sausages, sliced (you can order them from Vegan Store)

1-2 red bell peppers, diced (optional)

1 bag of Cavendish Farms Hash Browns

1-2 tablespoons of vegetable/olive oil

salt and pepper to taste (optional)

In a large wok or pan, heat the oil. Sautee the onion and garlic until the onion is translucent (about 2-5 min, depending on your stove). Add the red peppers and stir fry about 3-5 minutes. Add the sausage and cook covered about 5-7 min, stirring occasionally. Finally, add the hash browns. Cook covered, stirring occasionally. This will take the longest, especially if the hash browns were frozen. Ensure that the mixture is well mixed (the hash browns will absorb some of the chipotle flavour and colour so don’t be surprised if they appear a tinge red). Add more a touch more oil if the hash browns are burning too quickly. Cook covered, stirring regularly. Add salt and pepper if you want. This will take between 15-30 minutes depending if the hash browns are frozen or not.

Once all of it is cooked, serve in bowls or on a plate with a side salad. Should feed about 6-8 servings (depending on the size of your “serving” )

Enjoy.

I thought, since I’m at home this week, I’d make most of the dinners. I am, however, a rather lazy cook and often look for things that are simple, easy and will last a while (or so I hope). So crockpot/slow cooker recipes as well as large stew/soup recipes are favourites of mine. It also helps stretch that ever shrinking dollar. K and I had been talking about what soups she likes and she does sorta like Amy’s Black Bean but said that often they lack a “omph” as far as flavour/spicyness goes. So I thought why not make a nice spicy black bean soup for her? The internet happens to be my favourite recipe book ever. And in my searches I found this simple recipe: Black Bean Vegetable Soup. I pretty much stuck to the recipe with two exceptions:

1. I used a slow cooker at the end rather than a soup pot. I stuck it on low and let it simmer away for a couple of hours. The apartment smelled great!
2. I add in some cajun spices my aunt gave me over the holidays. Lots of ‘em!

It wasn’t enough to cure K’s cold but was good enough for her to have two huge bowls of it. The recipe technically feeds 8 but I think K ate enough for 4! (I also had two small bowls myself along with some bread and vegan mayo I made). K’s cold, however, got worse over night and she canceled a date with a dear friend to stay at home in bed. Of course, everyone knows what the fix is for that: chicken soup. But since we’re vegan, that’s a definite no-no so I searched for some nice vegan “chicken” soups. And found this one on About.com. Again, I stuck with the recipe as is but made a few minor changes:

The local grocery stores have “vegetable soup kits” in their produce aisle. I got one that cost me about $3.25 and had all the basics needed for soup: turnip, leek, onion, celery, fresh basil, fresh parsley, carrots, parsnip. I used that to replace some of the ingredients listed. I added a couple of potatos.

• Used pre-minced garlic and added a couple of large slices of ginger
• Used Whitewave StirFry Seitan Strips and coated them with salt and pepper (next time will marinate over night in No Chicken Broth)
• Used 8 cups of No Chicken Broth
• Used 2 cups of vegan vegetable sea salt and herb bouillon
• Add a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme to the parsley/basil bundle
• ground in the fresh pepper and added in about another 1-2 tsp of black pepper
• added sea salt
• added cajun spice (about 1-2 teaspoons)
• used 2 tbsps sunflower oil (didn’t have any olive oil on hand)
• let it simmer for two hours and served with saltines (salted kind)
• added 2 cups of water after removing the bundle

This is comfort food. It’s not about diets and losing weight. And it definitely seemed to help K a bit.

After doing some research I think I found one of the keys to a decent vegan mayo recipe: safflower oil and proportion. This, at least, creates a creamy vegan mayo. I’m still trying to figure out how to make a thicker version but for now this is actually pretty good. One of the important factor is the ratio of about 2.25 parts of oil to 1 part soy milk (unsweetened, non-flavoured kind). Basically, my recipe is this:

1/2 cup of unsweetened, unflavoured organic soy milk
1 1/2 cups of safflower oil
2 tbsp of apple cider vinger
2 tbsp fine sugar (avoid using raw sugar or other larger sugar types as they will not disintegrate properly)
3/4 tsp of mustard powder
3/4 tsp of sea salt
1/2 cup of extra firm silken tofu
pinch of cajun spice (optional — or other spice; fresh chopped garlic also good alternative)

Make sure the soy milk is chilled. I suspect this helps thicken the mixture even more. Add the milk to a blender or food processor and blend it well. It should be rather “frothy”. S-L-O-W-L-Y add the oil. This may take upwards of 10-15 minutes to do but it helps ensure that the oil is blended thoroughly with the milk. Stop the blender/processor and carefully scrap the sides down. Add the vinager, sugar, mustard and sea salt. Blend all of those with the liquid. Once thoroughly blended, chop up the tofu, add it to the mixture and blend until smooth and creamy. At this point, the mayo is ready for serving. Store your mayo in a mason jar and mark when it was made. I suspect it’ll last (if not eaten too quickly) for about 7-10 days in the fridge. If you want it to have a “kick”, make the last ingredient mixed in (after the tofu) your spice of choice. You can also stir this in afterwards to make a creamy dip for things like chips, veggies, etc. This also makes a nice alternative to soy spread on things like toast and/or in sandwiches.
Enjoy!

Wow. Hard to believe that two years have passed. K and I first met online just over two years ago. And two years ago on Thanksgiving I asked her out officially. Our first year was hard because of distance and life’s challenges but we survived it. Every day I realize how lucky I am to not only have a job, a roof over my head and a path to where I’m going but also have this beautiful woman beside me. There are times where her beauty makes me want to cry in joy and love. Most people are shocked at our age difference but quite honestly, I’ve never noticed. With K I feel totally alive, younger than I am and whole. We laugh lots. We’re silly at times. We have great “adult fun” and we even just enjoy being with each other. I’m totally thankful that this woman walked into my life when I least expected it. And hope that it lasts the entire rest of my lifetime.

I love you, K!

Tonight I made a tofurky for us as well as mashed vegan sweet potatoes with a mushroom gravy since we won’t be together for Thanksgiving (she’s visiting family back in Los Angeles).

Linus’ Vegan Mashed Sweet Potatoes:

4 regular yams/sweet potatos
2 Idaho potatos
2 small onions, chopped
4-5 shitake mushrooms, thinly sliced and chopped
4-5 garlic cloves, diced
olive oil to coat pan in
soy spread
mushroom broth
ground sage
1-2 tbsp of vanilla soy creamer
salt
pepper
garlic powder/salt
onion salt

Clean and cut the potatos into chunks. Put into a pot of boiling water and let boil until all are soft. In a pan, sautee and brown chopped onions on med-low heat in olive oil. I use a heavy iron skillet and add water when the onions potentially stick (about 4-5 min). Stirring often can lessen sticking problems When the onions are browned, add garlic and sautee until brown (about 2-3 min). Finally, add mushrooms and sprinkle salt, pepper and sage. Mix it thoroughly and turn heat to low and cover.

While the mushrooms/onion mix is cooking, draining the potatos and put back into the pot. Mash with fork or wooden spoon if masher isn’t available. Add soy spread, 1/4 cup at a time. In regular mashed, milk is used to make them creamy. In vegan option, soy spread can be used. Add soy creamer to help. As the mixture becomes more and more creamer, add salt, pepper, galic powder/salt and onion powder to taste.

Once mushroom/onion mix is cooked, mix into potatos. Serve hot.

Linus Mushroom gravy (modified from Tofurky recipe):

4 cups of organic mushroom broth
1/2 cup of unbleached flour (although I used wheat flour)
2 tbsp of olive oil
4-5 shitake mushrooms, thinly sliced and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
sage
salt
pepper
5-6 drops of Louisanna Hot sauce

In a pan, sautee and brown chopped onions on med-low heat in olive oil. I use a heavy iron skillet and add water when the onions potentially stick (about 4-5 min). Stirring often can lessen sticking problems When the onions are browned, add garlic and sautee until brown (about 2-3 min). Finally, add mushrooms and sprinkle salt, pepper and sage. Mix it thoroughly and turn heat to low and cover.

In a pot mix the olive oil and flour, heating at low-med heat. Add broth. Cook thorough, mixing with a whisk to ensure all the lumps are gone. As it heats it will thicken. Once thick, add mushroom/onion mix. Cover and heat on low-med heat, stirring out lumps occassionally. This should take about 10 min. Then add hot sauce and continue to cook on low for another 10 min.

I’ve created some on-the-fly recipes for those moments I don’t want to spend lots of time in the kitchen to make things. The following three are quick lunch/dinner recipes but do require some prep beforehand.

1. Quick “creamy” spaghetti

For this recipe, prepare your spaghetti as usual. We prepare a whole box in advance and save it in the fridge. We then take what we want in regards to the pasta, put it in a bowl, pour our favourite vegan tomato sauce over it (we’ve found a few brands that don’t list any animal products in them) and then add some pats of vegan soy spread (Earth Balance). Microwave for about a min, take out, mix and then add spices to flavouring. Enjoy. It actually reminds me of those cans of spaghetti I used to have as a child. K adds Nutritional Yeast to hers to give it a nutty flavour.

2. Seitan, Hummus and Tomato Toasted Sandwich.

We actually don’t have a toaster so we toast our bread in a pan. I then take about 3-6 minutes to sautee some seitan stripes. The seitan can either be store bought or you can make your own (see recipes here). Once the bread is toasted, I put hummus on each side and slice the tomato thinly, layering it on each piece of bread. The seitan is flavoured with various spices (I tend to go basic and use salt and pepper or use the spicy seitan recipe). Once the seitan is cooked to my liking, I layer the thin slices onto the bread, close the top, add a side pickle.

3. Quick salad.

As much as I liked my hot meals and prepared food, sometimes I need something simple. I’ve been trying to introduce less processed and more natural (raw?) diet. Take a head of romaine, chop it into small bite sizes. Put into bowl. Dice a tomato and a red pepper. Mix. Add vegan dressing of choice (I’ve been using a balsmatic shitake mushroom one of late) and then enjoy. I also often enjoy this without dressing and sometimes add a handful of chopped baby spinach.

All-in-all each recipe takes about 10 minutes to finally prepare. And that’s really handy when the days start at 6am and don’t finish until 7pm.

In an effort to make the kitchen more interesting, I’ve been experimenting with various seitan recipes. Seitan is turning out to be easier to make than I thought. And even tastier than I expected. My previous seitan experiment was ok but rather bland. Yesterday’s experiments turned out better than I expected and today I had an even better surprise.

First I started with this chicken seitan recipe. I found that as I was making it, I couldn’t help but think of when I used to eat chicken. Today, I wouldn’t be able to stomach it (physically, mentally and ethically) but I now began to realize where the taste really came from: the herbs added and how it was cooked. If you really want to get down into it, chicken is a bland flesh to eat so you have to season it. The same can be said of seitan. Once I had prepared the seitan, I took out about a third of the recipe and let the rest cool in the pot, marinating further in the seitan broth. It’s interesting how this recipe uses kelp to “salt” the seitan, an nice alternative in my opinion.

I then did the Spicy Seitan Wings as per this recipe. Now, I have a huge sweet tooth and often find spicy meals too much. My taste buds tend to be overly sensitive and aware of spices. This mixture was actually ok and we used a plain hummus as a dip for the “wings” and fresh cut tomatoes. I also had a Corona (a vegan beer!) on the side, in addition to my usual water. It was really good. Texture wise it wasn’t too rubbery and actually had a good sensation to it. After dinner, I took about a third of the remaining seitan and put it into a container with the left over spicy sauce, shaking it vigorously to ensure that all pieces got a good coating. I figured marinating overnight in the sauce will add further flavouring to the seitan the next day. How right I was.

This morning, as a late breakfast/early lunch, I took some romaine lettuce, topped it with some diced tomatoes and a bit of Goddess Dressing. I took some of the spicy marinated seitan (about 3-4 strips) and sliced and then diced them. I then sauted and cooked them for about 5-8 minutes before adding them as a topping to the salad I had made. It was perfect. The balance of the creamy (vegan) dressing with the fresh, cold veggies against the spicy hot seitan was perfect.

A great alternative to the usual.

I figure if I ever got bored with technology I could become a vegan cook. Perhaps open my own restaurant or something. I do like to try new recipes and then experiment with them further. Today was no exception. I’m a big fan of seitan, a faux meat made of gluten flour. The texture is actually quite surprising and it depends on how you “flavour” it that gives it more of a texture.

Yesterday I made Homemade Seitan. It was surprisingly easily, although the vital gluten flour is a bit expensive at $8/bag. A bag has about 2-3 seitan recipes in it so cheaper than the pre-boxed versions of seitan. And nothing says love like homemade, eh? Once that was ready I then used one sixth of the seitan in a  Garlic Pepper Seitan recipe. I think I need a rice cooker because this would have been great over some long grain white rice (I know, bad for you). But it tasted great and none was left by the end of the evening.

I took (about a sixth of the original batch) more seitan today, sliced it relatively thin and then made grilled seitan, spicey mustard, tomato toasted sandwiches. YUMMY!! It’s amazing how great this tastes. I think next time, I’ll have K make one of her nummy salads and we can have salads and sandwiches for a lunch/dinner. The nice thing about seitan is that it does keep for a while