Friday, February 26, 2010

Enchiladas......


Last night I served enchiladas for my co-op meal. They were avocado cashew enchiladas with a side of Mexican quinoa. The enchiladas were stuffed with avocado, cashews, tofu, cilantro and spices and topped with a homemade tomatillo sauce. I sprinkled them with a bit of FYH cheeze. The Mexican quinoa was a new recipe I created. We loved it. It was simple and tasty with a hint of lime from the vinaigrette. We finished off our quinoa last night, so I am tempted to make some more for my lunch today. Such goodness. The Mexican quinoa is the kind of meal you can eat hot or cold. We really enjoyed last night's dinner. I hope everyone else did too.
I would also like to say "thanks" to all the co-op ladies. I posted a message Monday stating that I would not be cooking this week due to Arthur being so sick. Everyone was so kind and brought meals for my family. Since I was banned from the kitchen I would have been grabbing food from the freezer or eating sandwiches. You ladies rock! Fortunately, Arthur's fever broke and the puke fest stopped so I was able to cook. I just wanted to say thanks again. You are all greatly appreciated. Hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Comfort Food on a snowy day!

That's right, it SNOWED today. Not just dinky little snow either! It snowed huge fat flakes for several hours, although it never quite got below freezing, and it was 70 degrees two days ago, so the ground was too warm for any actual accumulation. I almost wiped out carrying a baby down the driveway to the car to do this food delivery, though, so it was slippery enough!

Anyways, dinner tonight is Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon, mashed potatoes, white gravy, and steamed broccoli. If there was ever a type of day that demanded white gravy, today was it! In addition to smothered in white gravy, they are excellent between two slices of bread with a smear of Veganaise (manna from heaven, that stuff!) or a smashed avocado. If you're feeling fancy, add some lettuce and onion and tomato.

I'm worried some of the cutlets cooked for a smidge too long, so I'm sorry if any of them are tough. Microwaving them in a damp paper towel can soften them up if necessary!

Friday, February 19, 2010

Mardi Gras Meal

Sweet potato cornbread

(tasty dish, ugly picture)

Well a post Mardi Gras meal that is. For my co-op meal I made red beans with a vegan andouille sausage. Some not so dirty rice, sweet potato cornbread and coconut heaven cupcakes for dessert. The meal was quite easy to make. Throw the beans in a big pot and let them simmer all day with spices. I doubled the sausage recipe. After they were steamed I sauteed them in a skillet with a bit of oil. The sweet potato cornbread recipe comes from the cookbook How it All Vegan. And the cupcakes are from Vegan with a Vengeance. We really enjoyed the meal and the cost to make the dish was around $12. You can't beat that price and it fed 8 adults. Yippee!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Italian night

I realize that last night was Fat Tuesday & I should have done something a little more topical, but I decided to make myself a belated birthday dinner from last week. My birthday was Friday, but we were so wrapped up in party preparation for my 4y/o (whose birthday was Wednesday) that my day flew by without even a mention.

Stuffed shells are a favorite around here, although normally too expensive for a co-op meal. The sale stars aligned this week with pasta sauce AND silken tofu both on sale this week, so I was able to get Muir Glen organic sauce for only $2.50 a jar, and boxes of silken tofu for only $1.29 each! Plus, I had about 12oz of baby spinach in my fridge leftover from making spinach quiche for the party.

The jumbo shells were stuffed with basil tofu ricotta, modified from Vegan With a Vengeance and mixed with steamed & chopped spinach. It took a little over 4 boxes of tofu to make enough shells for 4 families. The jarred sauce is poured over & topped with a sprinkle of nutritional yeast. I used 2.5 jars of sauce total.

The side dishes were polenta fries from Vegan Lunch Box and garlicky sauteed green beans, two more favorites for me!

I was hoping to make a dessert to round out my birthday meal, but I took a birthday nap instead! Ahhhhh.

The meal cost about $27.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Tacos!

I made "Peccadillo Tacos" from Easy Vegan Comfort Food and served them with corn tortillas, guacamole, lettuce, and tomatoes. I also made "El Paso Pilaf," a spanish rice-style pilaf from vegweb.com.

The taco filling was a TVP-base, and I liked it more than I thought I would. I am picky about my TVP, so we usually do bean tacos around here. It did get a little soggy towards the end, so I probably should have cooked it a few more minutes to evaporate out a smidge more water. David said he would have preferred flour tortillas to the corn, but 10 flour tortillas cost the same as 50 corn, so our bank account overruled him!

This meal cost about $20.

Chowdah!


A couple of weeks ago I created a recipe for a roasted poblano chowder. We like it a lot. So, I thought I would share the recipe with the co-op. Since the weather is turning cold, this seemed to be the perfect meal to warm up to. I served it with some homemade bread and a chocolate chip streusal coffee cake. Enjoy.

Roasted Poblano Chowder
olive oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 poblanos, roasted and chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 1/2 c carrots, sliced
1 jalapeno, chopped (optional, if you like it spicy)
1c pototoes, diced
1c corn
1t black pepper
2t salt
3t cumin
3c seitan, sauteed in oil until crispy, cut into bite-size pieces
1 bunch cilantro, chopped-use leaves only
8c veg broth
1-12oz container "sour" cream
1c flour
1/2c margarine

In a stock pot, saute onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add celery, carrots, jalapeno, potatoes, and corn. Saute another 5 minutes. Add poblanos and spices, stir. Add broth, "sour" cream, cilantro and seitan. Bring to a boil, once it starts to boil, turn down to a simmer. Let simmer 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender. While the chowder is simmering, in a skillet, melt the margarine. Whisk in the flour, do not brown the flour/margarine mix. Remove 1 cup of broth from the chowder, whisk into margarine/flour mix. Once the cup of broth is incorporated, add another cup, whisk again until well blended. Pour into the stockpot. Simmer chowder for another 5 minutes until it has thickened. Serve with a crusty bread. **To roast poblanos, insert a fork in the poblano and hold it over the gas burner until the flesh of the pablano turns black.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

What's that smell?

Asparagus! Tonite I served a spicy tofu and asparagus dish with a side salad and dessert. The recipe comes from Vegan Fire and Spice. It was not as spicy as I would have hoped. Actually it was not spicy at all. I added more pepper flakes to my plate. I was happy the asparagus stayed crispy. There is nothing worse than soggy asparagus in my book. I felt the meal was just "okay". I have definitely made better and will remember that if I cook this dish in the future, I will kick up the heat a notch or two or three.

Now dessert, that was my favorite part of the meal. Wow! This cake was delicious. A publishing company asked me to review some vegan cookbooks. The first book they sent was a vegan dessert cookbook. That's a tough job, bake some awesome desserts, eat them and then do a review on it. So, I decided to make the peanut butter cup cake. It was moist and delicious and tasted like peanut butter cups in a cake form. Oh my. I usually make a dessert for the weekend and never during the week. But since I need to bake some of the recipes in order to give the book a proper review, I thought it would be nice to share it with the co-op since all the other ladies have brought us such wonderful desserts. Next week shall be another dessert from the book. Cookies, cake, cheesecake? Stay tuned.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Little bit of India

Tonight's meal was Punjabi-style Aloo Gobi, sauteed mustard & turnip greens, dry-cooked garbanzos, and brownies (!).

The Aloo Gobi came from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, which is a great source of authentic international recipes. They tend to be on the more complicated side, with lots of spices added at just the right time, but the results are always amazing!

The dry-cooked garbanzos came from Alternative Vegan, a smaller vegan cookbook with a heavy Indian emphasis. The recipes eschew any "omni-subs" like tofu, soymilk, or seitan, so it's a great way to incorporate more produce & grains into a meal. (Also, apologies for forgetting to remove the curry leaves from the beans. They're just there to impart flavor, not for eating!)

The greens were simply sauteed in olive oil with salt & pepper. The turnip greens were from the store, but the mustard greens were from my garden!

Oh, and the chapatis! They turned out a bit (okay, a lot) denser than I wanted, because I forgot to let the dough rest before flattening & cooking. The gluten didn't tangle/form enough to catch the CO2 bubbles and tough, flat chapatis were my punishment. They seemed to taste good enough, but they were a bit toothsome!

Last but not least, my favorite part of the meal was the brownies! This is a recipe from vegweb.com, and amazingly, these were the lowest-fat part of the meal. Only 2T oil to make a 9x13 pan, and you'd never know it!

This meal cost about $18, with $6 of that for the cauliflower!