winter welcomes soups

Even though it's much warmer here than I'm used to this time of year, I have still been craving soups. Last night I made a soup from Veganomicon called Baked Potato and Greens Soup with Potato Wedge Croutons, except in place of idaho spuds and kale, I used red potatoes and spinach. What's particularly tasty about this dish is the potato crouton - it lends texture to the soup as well as a bit more heat. And what a great way to get in some greens!

rating:

3.5 pineapples

Viva Vegan Lasagna

This week my boyfriend cooked for me. He made a vegan meatloaf alongside mashed potatoes & peas, the image of which he refused to have published here. He said it looked like a TV dinner, but it was tasty none the less. The other night we decided to attempt vegan lasagna together.


















The recipe called for 4-6 slices of vegan mozzarella, diced. Well, Whole Foods only had a huge block of vegan mozzarella, and my boyfriend was in charge of cutting that. So we had huge cubes of "cheese" that didn't melt - tasted good, but didn't melt.
I'm really hesitant to try recipes from VegWeb because, like the one we used, some aren't very well written. This one continually called for 'a package of this, about a package of that,' in place of actual measurements. The faux ricotta came out green, and in my opinion, kind of gross.



















We had fun constructing it together, but I had considerably less fun actually eating it. I don't even know if any of the cookbooks I have contain a lasagna recipe, but I really hope to find one I like.

rating:

1 pineapple

pink pig cupcakes

Not much of a story here. My boyfriend loves pigs, and we stole the idea for these cupcakes from the cover of a magazine. We didn't use any recipe, just boxed mix, omitting eggs.



These were easy & fun to make. Tasted as good as a boxed mix cupcake could.

rating:

3 pineapples

Tempehtation

VWAV's TLT Sammiches are incredibly delicious! Start with the Tempeh Bacon recipe; remember this has to marinate for at least an hour, but I find it tastes best if left to sit over night in the fridge. Once you've got that, it takes about 10 minutes to cook the "bacon" (which by the way holds zero resemblance to the animal version, but tastes very good all the same) and slap these monsters together. Imagine it: toasted bread, hummus, tempeh bacon, onion, tomato, lettuce, alfalfa sprouts... mmm my mouth is watering just describing it.

I served it along with another dish from VWAV: Herb-Roasted Potatoes. Now those were a big hit! I didn't have fresh herbs so I had to use dried; they were still very yummy but I imagine even more so had I been able to use fresh.

These recipes both made enough to have the same the next day. Certainly a left-over I look forward to! Because this is so tasty & satisfying, and better still - so quick & easy to make, I plan on coming back to this again & again.

rating:

5 pineapples!

burrit....ohhhh :(

Because it's something I've never had before & because I love burritos, I tried LDV's Black Bean & Sweet Potato Burritos. I had some kind of dish in NYC that involved black beans & yams, so I figured this should be just as tasty.

Well, it wasn't. It wasn't inedible, granted I only finished half my burrito. This might be a good dish for someone who wants to sneak healthy black beans & yams into their diet, but for someone like me who loves both and loves traditional burritos even more - not a good meal to make. That being said, I will not be revisiting this ever again. At least they looked pretty.

rating:

2 pineapples

..... also, if anyone knows how to fold burritos that information would be extremely helpful.

baker beware

The following cookies should only be baked for others; take great caution in being alone with these.

That Isa really knows her sweets! Her Big Gigantoid Crunchy Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Cookies recipe in VWAV is amazing. It calls for a considerably large amount of vanilla, which makes the peanut butter taste especially creamy. These came out a great texture, soft in the middle.

rating:

5 pineapples!

Tofu Potpie

I can never cook this without thinking of my sister - she LOVES this dish!

I'll admit - I've sometimes used frozen, ready-made pie crusts, but for this pie I used a recipe from LDV called Wolffie's Quick Whole Wheat Pie Crust. I doubled the recipe since I needed a bottom & top crust and substituted half the flour with whole grain pastry flour. It is one of the better crusts I've ever made.

I always use VWAV's Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy recipe while I'm baking the tofu, for which I typically whip up a marinade at whim. (This time it involved a bit of white vinegar, olive oil, rosemary, thyme, oregano, black pepper, and soy sauce.)

Thrown into the potpie were: carrots, peas, corn, potato, tofu, & the gravy. It baked at 350 for far too long so I kicked it up to 375 to get the top to brown, but was impatient yet, thus the rather light appearance of the top crust. Oh, and I always carve a design atop the pie. I have several photos of these pies - one with 26 that I made for my sister's birthday, one with a tree for Christmas, etc.

Here's what the filling looked like:

I let the gravy get too thick this time, that would have been easily fixed by adding water, but I was making this very late in the evening and was simply too hungry to care much about perfection - edible worked for me.

rating:

4 pineapples