Chickpea Scramble, Take Two

I hope all of you in the US are enjoying this Thanksgiving eve. Hopefully, your weather is better than ours in Florida is at the moment. Fall has definitely arrived here, but that has brought us rain off and on all day today. It may clear up tomorrow, but we have a front in the area, so who knows. It has cooled down, no more highs in the 80s, but the humidity is still here. Once that goes away, the weather will be great. But I really shouldn’t complain about the rain. We need a winter with high rainfall and a normal rainy season next year to have our drought declared over.

I am not doing a lot of cooking for Thanksgiving, don’t really need to with just the two of us. I will be heating up the Celebration Roast and potato rolls (from Wal-Mart) tomorrow, make the mashed potatoes and gravy, roast a sweet potato for me and steam some corn. Neither one of us is into really big meals, so that will be enough. And I will most likely have some Celebration Roast leftover to make some sandwiches on Friday and even possibly into Saturday. This is fine; since I will be the only one eating any leftovers (my other half doesn’t like to eat them).



However, I have done some cooking. In fact, I made the Chickpea Scramble again, but this time tried to give it more of an Asian flavor. I added baby bok choy and cooked the bok choy and red bell pepper in vegan oyster sauce before adding the chickpeas, rice, corn, green beans and shredded carrots. It worked out really well; the vegan oyster sauce definably changed the flavor profile of the dish. The next time I do this Asian variation however, I am going to use more Asian vegetables, such as baby corn and water chestnuts. In fact, I am also looking at doing a Mediterranean variation and a Latin America variation (with black beans) as well. This recipe just has so many possibilities.

All for today, and I will come back on Friday to show you my Thanksgiving dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving

Breakfast for Dinner, Part 2

Yes, I am doing it again. This time it was with the Chickpea Scramble (from Vegweb), more of the Sweet Potato Hash (from VwaV) and a Flatout wraps.

I know I have been promising this for a little while and finally got to it tonight. I did make two minor changes to the recipe though. No mushrooms, because my mushrooms went bad in the refrigerator and no sour cream because I didn’t have any soy free vegan sour cream. However, I don’t think it hurt the dish. It may not photograph well, but does taste quite good. And it will most likely be great in a wrap with some cheese. I don’t know if it should be called a scramble or maybe stir-fried rice for breakfast, since it seems more like a stir-fried rice recipe. Along that line of thought, I may season it differently next time with some yellow curry and smoked paprika. In fact I think you could season this in a few different ways. You could go Italian, Indian, Cuban or Asian; depending on the spices or sauces you added. It could be most versatile.

P.S. What is going on with Blogger.  Is anyone else unable to import pictures from Flickr or other services on the web. 

I Do Eat Sweets

If any of you have taken the time to look through some of my past posts, you would think that I live a fairly virtuous life, as far as food goes. One thing I don’t talk about a lot is sweets. And to tell you the truth, I don’t eat a lot of surgery things. Since I don’t really eat a lot, I try to no fill up on empty calories. However, I do like to have a treat every day and sometimes will make something special for a holiday. Today I want to tell you about two things I had over Labor Day weekend.

The first is this huge brownie I made and put some Coconut Bliss ice cream in between the layers. The recipe for the brownie is a clone of the No Pudge Brownie mix that I found up at Recipezaar and is vegan if you omit the egg whites. The mix even works with the single serving recipe for the No Pudge Brownie. Here I made a quadruple batch (but would have been just fine with a double or triple) and then split the brownie in half and filled it with Coconut Bliss ice cream. And I drizzled some chocolate syrup over it just to add more chocolate (I’m a chocoholic). These brownies are as dense and fudgy as the store bought mix and the ice cream was great as a filling. And just to let you know, my regular daily treat is a single brownie made with coconut milk yogurt, chocolate if I can find it.

The second is an interesting cake I found at Vegweb called a Cinnamon Roll Cake. I made this because I felt like cinnamon rolls, but don’t have the space to make them in my kitchen, so this seemed like an acceptable substitute. On top is a fudgy chocolate icing and some coconut. Just the way I used to enjoy cinnamon rolls as a kid. I altered the recipe a bit and put the cinnamon layer in the middle, since I wasn’t sure how it would work with a regular frosting, instead of a glaze. Also quite good and I really need to make this again. Maybe around Thanksgiving.

So as you can see, I do eat the sweet stuff occasionally. But like all things, I do try to keep it in moderation.

Just a reminder that I am not posting on the weekends and I will see you all back on Monday.

Nufu Tofu and Sweet Potato Cakes

No, you are not misreading the title of this post. That is a new product from Sunergia Soy Foods and it is a tofu made from peanuts and seasoned with wither ginger or herbs and hickory. And how do you make a tofu from peanuts you ask, why just like regular tofu. First you make peanut milk, then you add nigari, then you press it. Viola, peanut tofu. Oh, and it doesn’t taste like peanuts.

For dinner I had BBQ Nufu Tofu with Sweet Potato Cakes and a simple salad. The tofu cooks up just like regular soy tofu and even looks white when one takes it out of the package. It has the same feel and slices up quite easily. Place it in a pan and it browns up, just like tofu would do. After it had browned on both sides, I put some BBQ sauce (Bryanna’s Bourbon Barbeque Sauce, page down to find), turned off the heat and let it sit in the sauce. I don’t know if it soaked up any of the sauce, but since it comes pre marinated and seasoned, that may not matter. The Hickory and Herb did meld well with the BBQ sauce I used, and would most likely work well with almost any BBQ sauce.

On the side I have Sweet Potato Cakes. This is something I found up at Vegweb. The base is sweet potatoes, but they also have corn and shredded zucchini. Oat flour and panko breadcrumbs act as a binder. If you like sweet potatoes, needless to say, this is a dish for you; since it is a very different way to eat your sweet potatoes. These would be great to bring in a lunch, since I think they would reheat well in a microwave or could be eaten at room temperature.

My other side dish for tonight is just a simple salad of romaine, shredded carrots and grape tomatoes. On top is some Annie’s Naturals French dressing. Annie’s makes a quite good French dressing, which is both vegan and soy free.

As for my kefir experiment, I think I was overloading my system a bit; so I have cut back to only 2 oz a day. Since I don’t want to try to eat the soy yogurt until I have had at least two quarts of kefir, that will push off the final test at until early September. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Salads, Seitan, Sandwich and Kefir

Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it. And this is only the last two days.

First the salads. It is still hot and humid here in Florida, so salads are still a large portion of what I am eating. My lunch is composed of two of whichever ones I have in the refrigerator at the moment. For today, my lunch was PJs Fresh Corn Salad and Miso Lentil Salad. I have been working on the corn salad since last week. It makes a ton, so if you need something to take to a potluck, this would be a good dish. The Miso Lentil Salad is my protein for lunch and also some probiotics, since the dressing is miso and apple cider vinegar.

The seitan is Dr. Pepper Seitan from Vebweb. I had high hopes for this, but am not really fond of it. Partly because I still have not figured out how to do baked seitan and partly because I don’t really like the BBQ sauce. It just has too much oil for my tastes. On the side is Southwestern Corn and Black Bean Slaw from Healthy Eats up at Food TV. This is a contribution from their vegetarian blogger, who is a regular poster. I am not normally a fan of coleslaw, but this is quite good. And you should try her Papaya Salsa Slaw from her blog Dine Dish Delish.

The sandwich is part of dinner tonight and was inspired by a post this week up at Dine Dish Delish. She had an open face sandwich of naan, spicy mustard, apple and soy cheese. Here I took the concept and made a sandwich of naan, baked eggplant slices and my mozzarella cheese. Once it cooled down enough to eat, it was quite good. On the side is some more of the Green Bean and Chickpea Salad from Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen.

The last thing for today is kefir. For those of you who do not know what kefir is, it is cultured milk that has its origins in the Caucuses Mountains. In doing some research on the web, I discovered that in 2006 some scientists in Taiwan found that (and this is in laboratory mice) it reduced the allergic response to both soy and milk proteins after drinking either soy or milk kefir. That got me thinking that maybe it could help me tolerate soy better, at least enough so that I could occasionally eat it. To that end I am going to drink one cup of the coconut milk kefir for the next 8 days, that would be two quarts, and then eat a soy yogurt to see the results. If it works well, kefir might become a regular part of my diet. I bought the kefir today and will let you know how it is going tomorrow.

Salads using Mayonnaise

I have been eating two salads lately that have mayonnaise as part of the salad dressing. One of them is a pasta salad that you would not even realize that mayo was part of the dressing and the other is something I picked up from VeganYumYum.

The pasta salad is called Main Dish Delish Summer Pasta Salad and I found it up Vegweb. Here I am having it with Lentil Rice Salad for a quick and easy lunch. Even though one cannot tell from looking at it, the dressing on the pasta salad does have mayo in it. Of course, with only ¼ of a cup with 8 oz of vinaigrette, you really can’t expect to see the mayo in the salad anyway. By the way, this salad makes a ton and if you are looking for something to bring to work or to a picnic, this would be the perfect thing. No one would ever suspect that it is vegan.

This second salad is something that I saw over at Lolo’s blog, VeganYumYum. It basically is a BLT salad; with raw kale, tempeh bacon (I used mushrooms to make my bacon) and cherry tomatoes. When I saw this, it looked intriguing and I was wondering if my homemade, nontraditional mayo would work. I cut the kale in as thin strips as possible and thoroughly massaged the dressing on them at least 6 hours before eating dinner. By dinner time, the kale was wilted and “cooked” in the dressing. The mushroom bacon is just thinly sliced Portobello mushroom caps, marinated in VWAV tempeh bacon marinade and then fried in a dry pan till crisp. The tomatoes are grape tomatoes, since I like those better than cherry tomatoes. All in all it was quite good, considering that this is most unique thing I have ever eaten.

So as you can see, even a homemade mayo works quite well, in many recipes.

Salads for Dinner

Hi to all of you from hot and steamy Florida (except today it rains, go figure). Summer has definitely set in here with daily highs in the 90s, thunderstorms in the afternoon and tons of humidity. So hot and humid, that for the time being, I have decided to cook and eat hot food as little as possible, especially since I spend most of my days in an unair-conditioned apartment. That means that for the moment, anyway, I am living off of salads. At least I finally have my recipe book back, so that is a bit of help. This past week I made three, two of which make a ton, so I definitely have had enough to eat.




This is what I had for earlier last week. It is two of the salads I made for this week and a simple pizza made on some of my frozen Naan bread. The salad on the right is called a Basque Salad, and is something I found up at AllRecipes. It is a simple salad, with green peppers, tomatoes, onions, and cucumber in a simple vinaigrette. You guys should be impressed, I did all the prep work myself. The salad on the left is a Lentil Rice Salad I found up at vegweb. They’re both really good. The Naan pizza is just Naan, pizza sauce, and a cashew cheese. A very nice dinner to have on a hot night.

The Basque Salad has also been useful and other dishes as well. I have chopped up the veggies and made them into a sandwich. It also works well in a wrap.



As the third salad I made last week is called a Rainbow Chopped Salad, and I found it at Food Network, if you can believe it. It has bell peppers, carrots, radishes, and broccoli in an Orange Oregano Vinaigrette. I’m having it with a veggie burger I found up at vegweb. It’s really easy to make, stays together well, and freezes well. It also lets me put some mushrooms into my diet, since no veggies are stipulated in the recipe..

So as you can see, even though it’s hot and humid in Florida, I’m still eating pretty well.