Crafty Vegan Food Adventures #4

I was a cooking fiend yesterday. I love throwing things together on the fly, especially when they turn out as delicious as my Friday Snow Day spree. I didn't take pictures of most of what I consumed because I was a ravenous beast. However, everything I made was so quick and delicious that I wanted to share.

For breakfast, I had a bowl of steel-cut oats with cinnamon and maple syrup. This held me over for about 45 minutes. Something about the cold makes me constantly hungry. Nevertheless, I waited until noon to throw lunch together.

I carefully considered what we had in the apartment (minus the emergency rations since big mean boyfriend wouldn't let me touch them :P) and decided I needed to use up my portobello mushroom, spinach and avocado. From there, I came up with a spinach salad topped with roasted portobello and a dijon dressing, my favorite go-to. I marinated the mushroom in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a clove of garlic before roasting it on foil for about 10 minutes in a 425 oven. To make the dressing, I mixed together a little olive oil (around a teaspoon), about 2 teaspoons of red wine vinegar (it's also delicious with lime juice instead), about a tablespoon of dijon mustard, and three dashes of cumin. Just cut up the mushroom when it's done and top the spinach with it and the dressing. On the side, I had guacamole and whole wheat tortilla chips. I rarely make guacamole at home because my love is allergic to avocados, so I didn't have all the ingredients. So, I mashed up the avocado with the juice from half a lime and a couple of spoonfuls of chunky salsa. To make the chips, I used SnackFace's method from two whole wheat tortillas (365/Whole Foods brand). I topped with salt and cayenne. The whole meal was delicious!

Almost immediately after, I decided to make a vegan cappuccino in my French press. I read about the process initially on Hungry Hungry Hippie's blog, but then I read somewhere else that you don't even need a special frother -- a regular French press works. So I made my French press coffee, cleaned out the press, heated some almond milk for one minute in the microwave, threw it in the press, and pumped. The result was surprisingly authentic. Now, non-dairy milk does not froth up as much as the cow variety, but it's close. I topped with a dash of cocoa powder and a little sugar. Delicious! I'm making another one today.

And I actually have pictures of the rest of my food! I bought chickpea flour recently to make these insanely good Brussels sprouts and have wanting to try something else with it. I have Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian cookbook, which I love to read but barely use. She has a super-easy recipe for farinata that I decided to whip up for dinner. Oh my goodness, it was ridiculously easy and insanely good. Basically you sift together 2/3 chickpea flour and 1/3 teaspoon of salt, then slowly combine 1 cup of water to remove all the lumps. Let it sit for 30 minutes. The basic recipe doesn't have any spice, but I added a teaspoon of Italian seasoning here. Preheat the broiler. Now put a tablespoon of olive oil in a 12-inch, oven-safe frying pan (mine was only 10-inch but worked great). When it's hot, pour in the batter. Then top with black pepper and another two tablespoons of olive oil. (I only used one more because we were out. Tragic!) It'll cook about 4-5 minutes, until it starts to firm. Once this happens, transfer it to the broiler for about four minutes, until it's golden and gets a few brown spots. Eat it as soon as you can get your hands on it! The recipe says it serves 2-4, but I ate six of the eight pieces all by myself. Here's a picture taken in my kitchen with terrible lighting after I had eaten half the farinata:

I topped it with crushed red peppers for a little more kick. I think it would be awesome with some sun-dried tomato and cheese, if you're so inclined. A blurry close-up:

If I hadn't made it myself, I would have sworn it was full of eggs. It had such an interesting, frittata-esque quality.

My taller half and I needed -- yes, needed -- dessert. I'm low on a lot of supplies, including white sugar, chocolate chips (totally out), and vegan butter (also totally out). Luckily I found a cinnamon coffee cake recipe in The Joy of Vegan Baking that worked with what I had. I'm not going to reproduce the whole recipe here, but you can find it by using the "search inside this book" feature on Amazon. Anyway, for a cake with no butter in it (canola oil instead), this sure tasted rich and buttery. The topping was my favorite part, though I omitted the walnuts because my love is not a fan. Check out the first two tiny pieces I ate:

Mmm . . . so good! I actually preferred this room temperature to warm. It was even better as breakfast this morning with a mug of Choice Irish Breakfast Tea. (And you gotta love our Paris map plates. They're from Target.)

So that's my Friday cooking adventure. The snow stopped falling, but not before it left us several inches (4-8 is the area report -- I'm not good at estimating). Still, we're hoping things will clear up enough for us to get out this evening. We have tickets to see August: Osage County tonight, so here's hoping we won't be snowbound!

Crafty Vegan Food Adventures #3

After a long, snowy, not-so-healthy weekend, I was dedicated to getting the week off to a good start. Here's what I ate yesterday.

I started the day with my breakfast of choice for the past couple of weeks: whole wheat bread with peanut butter (please excuse the missing bites!). I also had a mug of Moroccan mint green tea at work.

I had a morning snack of a banana -- a little yellow-brown for my taste, but still good.

For lunch, I wanted a huge salad, so I headed to Jason's Deli. The result:

It was so good! What you behold is several kinds of lettuce, yellow and red bell pepper, broccoli, baby carrots, artichoke hearts, mushrooms, red onion, a little bit of bean salad, hummus (upper left corner), cherry tomatoes (which I didn't eat, but I tried), and sunflower seeds topped with Italian dressing. I also had one of the organic flatbread crackers and four apple slices. So, so good! Artichokes are officially my new favorite salad topping.

For an afternoon "snack," I made some French press coffee. Here it is right after I plunged it. (Not the sexiest term, eh?) And yes, I did make that hot pad specifically for my French press.

Dinner was a bowl of chili made using Glue and Glitter's recipe and some TLC crackers.

We upped the spices, as always, and it was quite tasty. I think we'll add even more beans and tomatoes next time 'cause that's how we are. It was such fun to use my slow cooker again. I really need to make more stuff with that little baby. It's so convenient, and boy the apartment smelled good.

After dinner, we watched the American Masters documentary on Louisa May Alcott. It was so good! For dessert, I sliced up some pineapple and had some Celestial Seasonings Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea. I totally neglected to take a picture, but I think you can imagine it.

It was a good eating day, and I feel back on track. Tonight we're making baked potatoes and crossing our fingers that the snow doesn't fall too heavily again tonight.

Crafty Vegan Food Adventures #2

These are the tasty vegan treats I ate yesterday.

I often start my morning with a delicious bowl of oatmeal, enhanced by pecans, maple syrup and lots of cinnamon.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit to photographing today's breakfast. I forgot to take the picture yesterday, but it was identical.) Oatmeal is filling, warming and healthy first thing in the morning. Yum!

I often go out for lunch, so I decided to hit up Big Al's. It's one of my favorite places. The food is healthy and easy to veganize. I opted for the avocado sandwich, minus the cheese. (It also had lettuce, tomato, sunflower seeds and onions.)

And I got a delicious pineapple-strawberry smoothie to go with it.

I had to eat a little later than usual because of an all-encompassing morning project, so I didn't end up needing a snack. For dinner, I roasted up fingerling potatoes, a pound of asparagus and two portobello mushroom caps. All had garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. I added rosemary to the potatoes and mushrooms and balsamic vinegar to the latter only. Check out this mouth-watering plate:

If you've never roasted veggies before, all I did was preheat the oven to 425˚, clean and chop the veggies, drizzle olive oil in a 9x13" baking dish, move the veggies around to cover them with oil, and top with tasty things. Twenty minutes later, I had dinner. I now have the rest of the asparagus and another mushroom for tonight's dinner. There are no potatoes left because I ate the first half of them Monday night.

While preparing dinner, I had one piece of Endangered Species chocolate (the dark chocolate with orange flavor). I had another piece after dinner. I ate these too quickly to photograph, but here's a picture I stole off Photobucket:

Around 9:30, I needed one final snack, so I had two clementines, arranged as artistically as I can because I thought it would make a nice picture.

They were sweet, juicy and delicious -- a perfect dessert. I may be a little obsessed with them at the moment.

So there's where my calories went yesterday. After a long weekend of dairy, processed foods and sodium, my body has been craving veggies and fruits. I am really looking forward to tonight's leftovers.

Crafty Vegan Food Adventures #1

Here is my yesterday in food.

I usually have oatmeal with pecans, cinnamon and maple syrup for breakfast, but after about two solid months of it, I decided to make a change. I didn't want anything sweet, so somehow I decided on an English muffin spread with refried black beans and salsa. Yes, that's really what I've been eating shortly before 8:00 in the morning. With orange juice, of course. My camera had a foggy lens apparently, so it's hard to see. Behold the close-up:

It's a weird breakfast, but it's ridiculously filling and delicious! The English muffins are Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain brand -- hearty and tasty. The beans are 365 (Whole Foods) spicy refried black beans (fat-free and vegetarian), and the salsa was made by love's incredibly talented coworker. The orange, as always, is Tropicana Homestyle (some pulp).

At work, I had a mug of my favorite tea ever:

It's Harney & Sons' White Christmas Tea. I served it in my gorgeous mug from Forever Tuesday.

This was my raw lunch. Feast your eyes upon half a head of endive, cherry tomatoes, raw sunflower seeds and tahini sauce. The sauce was a variation on this recipe. It should also have included avocado chunks, but sadly I cut into the little bugger only to find brown spots throughout. This salad was still surprisingly filling, and man that sauce is good. I followed it up with a not-so-raw one of these:
These soft chocolate chip cookies are once again from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I'll post the recipe if anyone is interested.

I was going to eat an apple for a snack, but lunch kept me surprisingly full. I did manage to chug down about 64 ounces of water throughout the work day, too. So here's dinner:

These are leftover baked falafel from the night before covered in -- yep -- more tahini sauce (not gravy, as the picture seems to indicate). I got the recipe here. I think I messed up the spice ratios because the falafel itself was terribly bland, but coated in the garlic-heavy sauce, it was tasty and filling.

I had more orange juice and another cookie (OK, too) for dessert. All in all, my diet wasn't as produce-heavy as I would have liked (damn you, avocado!), but it was still a fairly good eating day. I definitely got my fiber, thanks to Loops.

Tee hee, I got plenty of dietary fiber, too.

So that's my Wednesday in food. I hope you enjoyed! I plan to do another post next week.

Crafty Vegan Food Adventures

I read a lot of vegan food blogs mostly because I think almost constantly of food. A lot of my favorites, including The Voracious Vegan, do regular posts of everything they've eaten that day (called Everyday Nums on her blog). I think it's interesting, so I have decided to do the same thing on my little writing corner. My plan is to do this weekly, but I am committing to nothing at this point. Tomorrow I will feature all of today's yumminess. For the moment, though, I wanted to share my new favorite quick, easy, delicious dinner: cornbread with chile beans.

I will be the first to admit that dried beans taste a lot better than canned ones. They're also a lot more work and require planning, so I always keep some canned beans around just in case. We'd had a thing of Whole Foods brand seasoned chile beans for, well, I have no idea how long. I was cold and cranky and tired Monday night, but seeing them in the pantry gave me a little (read: very, very small amount) of cooking energy. The result:

The cornbread is one of my favorite vegan baked goods. It takes minutes to prepare, and it is every bit as good as dairy-filled recipes I've made. Borrowed lovingly from The Joy of Vegan Baking, here it is:

Ingredients

1.5 cups non-dairy milk (I used rice)

1.5 Tbsp white vinegar

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup unbleached white flour

3 Tbsp granulated sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 Tbsp canola oil

.5 to 1 cup whole corn kernels (optional -- I skipped them this time)

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease an 8x8 baking dish.

2. Combine milk and vinegar in a bowl, set aside.

3. Mix together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Add the milk mixture and oil (and corn, if using), stirring until just combined.
4. Pour mixture into the baking dish. Bake 25-30 minutes. Makes 9 servings.

To make the chile beans, open the can and pour into a saucepan. Heat them. Add spices if you'd like. Yep, that's all I did. I put cayenne, black pepper and some chile powder on them. They were fine by themselves, but served on top of the cornbread, they were amazing. Divine convergence.

Look for more food from me tomorrow!