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.

BBQ Lentils

I know, sounds weird doesn’t it. Well they taste dang good. Who would think that lentils cooked till tender and then have BBQ sauce added to them would be so good. This is something I usually would have for lunch, but felt like having them for dinner tonight, since I am still trying to use up the stuffing and eat some different veggies from time to time. I also didn’t feel like making something new or complicated. Easy is best sometimes. Now I will confess that the rolls you see are not vegan. These are the left over potato rolls from Thanksgiving and the ones at Publix were not vegan, much to my surprise really. The only reason I can think that they have egg and milk is that they must have an egg wash to get brown in the oven. Potato rolls usually don’t need egg, since the potato more or less replaces any need for egg in the recipe. Funny thing though, I was at a Wal-mart Neighborhood Market a couple of days later and their potato rolls are vegan. Who would have guessed. Oh well, know what to buy next time. I would have made them from scratch, but since my kitchen is not really conductive to making bread, had to go store bought.

I also need to eat a least a few servings of lentils every week, since I am anemic. I tried taking vitamins in the past, and wouldn’t you know it, they upset my stomach (just my luck). So I have to treat it with diet. Since I like lentils, broccoli, and even spinach to a certain degree, it is not that hard. I just have to figure out how to get it into my meal plan. I figure if I do this and eat enough of other things, the iron will take care of itself.

The BBQ sauce is something I found at Food TV (if someone could figure out how to veganize the entire recipe, it might be interesting). And another confession, is that it contains Hoisin sauce. I know, made of soybeans, not supposed to eat. However, it didn’t seem to make up a large portion of the ingredients and I wanted to test my tolerance to soy proteins. The good news is that I can tolerate it, but just barely. I can have it about 2x a week and that is it. After this batch, I am not making any more, since I want to have a sauce that won’t bother my stomach. The reason I wanted to try it, is that the base is ginger beer. Since I happen to love ginger beer, I really could not pass up a BBQ sauce based on it. And it is a really good sauce. Kind of thin, but really good. However, I have at least 4 other BBQ sauce recipes I want to try, including the one Becks made up and also one from Bryanna Clark Grogan made with whiskey (yea for Jack Daniels being vegan). It would have been nice to be able to tolerate a bit of soy protein, but I guess that will not be true for me.

That is all for today. Tomorrow will most likely be something new also. I found a recipe for Eggplant Bharta in La Dolce Vegan and just had to try it, since I am trying to eat eggplant, when possible. And it also makes a good one pot meal with hopefully few leftovers. Since I am cooking for two the next two weeks, that will be important.

Smoked Paprika Seitan

Sorry, but no Burmese Tofu tonight. I was going through my refrigerator today and realized that I had a some left overs that needed to be eaten. So I thought I would introduce you to your other new friend, seitan.

For those of you that are not familiar with it, seitan is basically wheat gluten that is flavored then simmered/poached, steamed or baked. It was invented by the Zen monks of Japan as a meat replacement. Now some vegans/vegetarians will not eat seitan since the taste and feel can be quite similar to meat. However, if you are not eating tofu, then this will be your primary meat replacer. It is acutally fairly versatile and recipes for it abound both on the net and in vegan cookbooks. However, it does take a bit of practice to get good at making it, since the technique can be a bit tricky. I am far from a seitan expert (at least for now), so if you are having problems, may I suggest that you check out the both the forums at postpunkkitchen.com or over at VeggieBoards. Each of these places has recipes as well and at PPK you can get the original baked seitan (at least as far as I know) from Lacheis, the Seitan O'Greatness.



This was my dinner tonight. It is an adaption of a recipe from Rachel Ray for Cashew Chipotle Chicken. I'll put the recipe below, but here are my adaptations. I cheated and used a whole bag of pepper and onion stir fry, green beans replaced the peas, smoked paprika in place of the chipotle and I skipped the cashews since they don't seem to work with this variation as well. I also realized halfway through that I didn't have any water chestnuts, so those are missing as well. The last two replacements are light agave nectar for the honey and dark agave nectar for the maple syrup.

Chipotle Cashew Seitan with Brown Rice Recipe
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 large onion, 1/4 onion finely chopped, 3/4 thinly sliced
2 cups quick cooking brown rice
4 cups vegetable stock
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 pounds seitan meat: cut into 2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons grill seasoning blend (recommended: Montreal Steak Seasoning blend by McCormick)
2 to 3 tablespoons tamari dark soy sauce, eyeball it
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
10 to 12 water chestnuts, whole
1 cup frozen green peas
3 tablespoons chipotle in adobo (2 peppers and their sauce), available in cans on the international foods aisle or substitute 1 1/2 tablespoons ground chipotle powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin, a palm full
2 to 3 tablespoons light agave nectar, 2 healthy drizzles
1/4 to 1/3 cup real maple syrup, eyeball it
2 to 3 tablespoons chopped cilantro or parsley leaves, your preference
1 cup raw cashews

1 In a medium pot over medium heat combine 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan, and 1 tablespoon butter. When butter melts into oil, add in the chopped onion, cook 2 minutes, then add rice and cook 3 minutes more. Add stock and cover the pot. Raise heat to bring stock to a rapid boil. Once the stock boils, reduce heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until rice is tender, 17-18 minutes.

2 While rice cooks, make the seitan. Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add vegetable oil, 2 turns of the pan, then the seitan. Season the seitan with grill seasoning. Brown the seitan on both sides, season with soy sauce then move off to one side of the pan. Add the remaining onions, garlic and peppers. Cook 2 to 3 minutes then add water chest nuts and green peas and mix vegetables and meat together. Add the chipotles and cumin. Toss to coat. Glaze the mixture with agave and maple syrup and turn off the heat. Add in the chopped cilantro or parsley and the cashew nuts.

3 Top rice with cashew seitan and serve.

Servings: 6
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Recipe Source

Author: Rachael Ray
Web page: Chicken Style Seitan Cutlets, from YRR, but feel free to use your favorite.

Tomorrow, promise, will show you the Burmese Tofu.