Portobello Caps, White Asparagus and Quinoa Salad - MoFo Post 6

Remember when I used to manage a veg*n restaurant? From time to time I will help them out with catering or waiting tables when they are short-staffed on weekends. I love everyone there, it's 3 blocks from my place, the food is bomb and I just generally enjoy being there, when it doesn't involve me being the boss! Today I spent my afternoon catering a wedding with them on a Spirit of Boston Cruise on Boston Harbor. I was scared shitless going into it, not because of the job but because I get seasick. I popped some Valerian Root and made sure I had an empty stomach going into it, just to be safe. I didn't get seasick and actually had an awesome time. Luckily it was buffet style so once we set up and left the dock we had a lot of downtime while the ceremony and cocktails were going on upstairs. Because I live here I don't generally do anything considered touristy but it was so nice to be able to see Boston from the water, I just wish I had thought to bring my Nikon. I did get a few crappy pics on my phone though...

Once I realized I wasn't going to get seasick, claustrophobic or just be generally anxious I started getting really hungry. I was able to snack on some bread and scarf down a bowl of amazing vegan Italian Wedding Soup before we had to start serving. After the festivities, while we were cleaning up, I was able to get another small bowl of soup, half a veggie burger and a tiny piece of vegan Black Forest Cake.

I was done and home by 5 and found myself very hungry again. I don't generally do much on Saturdays except lay around with the bf and/or the pups all day being lazy so being out and about (read: not lazy) about, like a normal person, had me feeling hungry again. I was also feeling exhausted so dinner had to be something that required minimal energy. All I wanted was pajamas, wine and bed. (I currently have all 3 as I write this)

A few days ago I decided this Saturday nights dinner was definitely going to include portobello caps as the main part of whatever meal I ended up with. I also decided, once my bf confirmed we had quinoa, that I would make our favorite quinoa salad so now all I needed was to settle on a side vegetable.

As I was wandering around the market I happened upon some white asparagus. I have never cooked or eaten white asparagus before so I decided to buy it, just for funsies. Also, to be perfectly honest, the tops sort of looked like a penis which made me want to buy it more (food porn anyone?) After all was said and done, I will likely not cook white asparagus again.  Not that it wasn't tasty, because it was, but it required a little more effort than green asparagus and definitely more effort than I wanted to put into a vegetable this evening. I bought it thinking it would be the same as green, toss it in the steamer, sprinkle with some salt and lemon juice and voila, delicious veggies but nope. While I was sitting outside of the market waiting for my cab I decided to google the difference and see if I needed to prepare it any differently ( I should've done this while I was in the market, but whateves). Apparently white asparagus needs to be peeled and is more fragile to handle than it's counterpart. I definitely did not have the patience to peel them by hand so I busted out the potato peeler and like an idiot I was holding the stalks in my hand like a potato peeling them, forgetting their fragility and ended up snapping quite a few. Everything I found said to boil them but I wasn't sure how I felt about that, I hate boiling vegetables, I prefer sauteing, broiling or steaming them. I boiled them anyways, gently.

For the shrooms, I marinated them in Bragg's Liquid Aminos, rice vinegar, vegan worcestershire sauce, olive oil and chopped garlic. I didn't use any measurements, just mixed and added things until it made my taste buds happy. It had the perfect balance of sweet, salty and tang. After I had a glass of wine, they sat for a bit, I threw them in a frying pan with the marinade so it could cook down a bit.

It was pretty quick to pull together once I got the friggen asparagus prepped and turned out the be exactly what I needed after a long afternoon on a boat.

Why I haven't blogged in 5 months...

Because I suck. No, seriously, I do.

I can't believe I have let so much time pass without writing anything but...........My culinary motivation has been pretty much nonexistent lately. I've been talking to a good friend about this recently and have realized mainly why the motivation hasn't been there; I don't often have people around to share food with and I've been lazy. Also, it gets fucking expensive when you are cooking for one but still cook like there is a whole army to feed.

Before, when I was posting fairly regularly, I had people to cook for all the time. I was living both at home and at my best friend Jeremy's house. There was always someone more than willing to eagerly wait while I cooked a fantastic meal and then photographed it before letting them dig in. That is where the excitement came from, sharing my passion with others, not only here but in real life. Seeing the expressions on the faces of my loved ones when I cook something tasty is one of the best feelings to me. Now that I live alone, I cook more for my dogs than I do for myself. The past 6 or so months have consisted mostly of takeout, eating out and cooking boring meals not really worth writing about. Sure, they are delicious but I don't find a lot of pleasure in writing about eating out (unless it's a fantastic new vegan restaurant that needs to be shared with the world) or bowls of rice, fake chicken and veggies.

I have been feeling the itch to really get back into the kitchen and the vegan blog world. Luckily, I now have good reason. I have been reminded of how much I used to love it and it doesn't hurt that the fantastic folks over at The Vegg have sent me a sample of the new Vegan Egg Yolk to review! I am going to be cooking up a fucking storm this weekend and will be photographing it the whole way and will be back to tell you all about it. I've got quite the menu planned so stay tuned, I'm not dead, just lazy and boring.

Chana Masala with Saffron Scented Rice - The Lazy Way

My experience with Indian food has been very limited thus fur in life but I've yet to be disappointed. On my last trip to what could possibly be the best Indian market in my general area, Shivaa Bazaar, I found some ready to cook spice mix packets. I don't normally use pre-made anything if I can help it and would almost never blog about it. Almost. I prefer to make everything from scratch but because my Indian repoirtore is pretty much nonexistent I decided to pick up a few of the packets to see if they were something I liked and would want to make from scratch in the future. They are also great for those nights when you are too lazy or don't have time to cook.

I have never had Chana Masala before but when I saw the ingredients on the label I was sold. Another selling point was the fact that it A. contained chickpeas and tomatoes and B. I only had to add chickpeas and tomatoes! I had a feeling I wouldn't be let down and as usual my gut was right(though it usually is when it comes to food!) Chana Masala is a very popular dish in Indian cooking and I can see why. The combination of all of the spices give it an extremely savory flavor with the cumin really coming through.

I also made some half assed Saffron scented rice to go with it. I got a jar of it from Santa in my stocking this year and had not used any of it until tonight. I have never cooked with saffron and because it is a pretty expensive spice and not something I would normally buy for myself I have been saving it until I felt a dish really warranted me busting it out. Tonight was that night. I did plan on making it the proper Indian way but the lack of rice, time and energy I had just didn't allow for that to happen. I didn't realize I was out of rice until I was already home and had the saffron threads soaking so I had to use rice from the nearest convenience store, who of course only had shitty Minute Rice. The rice still came out pretty good even though I didn't soak the threads nearly long enough and again, had to use not so great rice.

All in all this lazy night dinner was pretty successful and I am really looking forward to making Chana Masala from scratch as well as proper Indian Saffron Rice.

MoFo Mish Mash Veggie Soup

So after my last post(all of like 2 hours ago) I was really beating myself up over not regularly posting for MoFo (how else am I going to become a famous vegan blogger?!?! I kid, I kid) so what did I do? I headed straight into the kitchen to make something. The thing was, I didn't feel like actually cooking anything or making a mess but in addition to wanting something to blog about, I actually needed to eat dinner too. I had (and still have) a ton of leftover broth from a batch of seitan I made the other day and some veggies that really needed to be cooked so I decided a little chopping wouldn't be so bad.

I wasn't sure how the combination of the different flavors was going to be but it was perfect. The sweetness of the potatoes, the buttery cauliflower, the kick of the poblano combined with the "meatiness" of the beans really was surprisingly delicious and definitely hit the spot.

I am really proud of myself for also actually writing it down as I went along so I can remember what I did in the future. I apologize in advance for the terrible photo below but to be honest, my camera is in my car, it's locked and the keys are upstairs, I can't find my slippers and I don't want to get my favorite purple tube socks wet and dirty so using my cell phone was really the only option.. Okay, I'm just lazy.

Anyways, on to the soup:

Mish Mash Veggie Soup

The great thing about this soup is the freedom of substitution if you don't have one or some of the ingredients. This was literally a soup I made just to clean out some of the stuff in the fridge. This would be really great with green beans, kale, diced tomato or whatever other veggie you like in soup

2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
1 poblano pepper, chopped
2 tblspn olive oil
1 14 oz can of beans(your preference, I used kidney)
5 1/2 cup veggie broth (I used the leftover broth from making Seitan the night before)
1 lg sweet potato cut into bite size pieces
1/2 head of cauliflower cut into bite size pieces
Salt
Pepper
Other seasonings to taste.

Heat olive oil in soup pot and add garlic, shallot and poblano. Cook until garlic and shallot are tender and translucent.

Add veggie broth, veggies and beans. Cook until sweet potato is fork tender, about 15 minutes.

Scoop out about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of veggies only and put in Vitamix or food processor and puree until smooth. Add back into soup and stir to combine. You can do this with more veggies if you like a thicker broth, just be sure to use more veggies than the recipe originally calls for otherwise there won't be much to the soup.

Serve.

 

 

Short & Simple

Normally a single 26 year old like myself would never stay in on a Friday night but after the long week filled with endless car problems and little to no sleep I barely had energy to take pre-made frozen food out of the freezer and put it in the oven, never mind showering, getting dressed and going out. And normally I wouldn't take the time to blog about pre-made frozen food unless it was something new and exciting, which is what is happening in my mouth as I type.

Tonight my dinner is consisting of good ole' Boca Chik'n Nuggets and some AMAZING sweet potato fries. Don't get me wrong, I love sweet potatoes but they aren't anything special, unless they are the new Spicy Sweet Potato Fries by Alexia. They are the perfect balance of sweet potato flavor and spice. I mean, really perfect. They are made with chipotle peppers to give them a little kick. They are fabulous on their own but phenomenal when dipped in Veganaise mixed with some pureed garlic. I have always used Alexia's regular sweet potatoes when I am too lazy to cut and bake a fresh sweet potato and they never disappoint. I didn't have any expectations when I put them in the oven other than it was a quick meal for a lazy night. If I did have any other expectations, they surely would have been blown away. I'm pretty surprised at how impressed I am with a frozen food as simple as this. This is definitely something I am going to be recreating with fresh sweet potatoes next time.

You can just see the chipotle goodness speckled all over them!

You can also see a very patient but disappointed lab/bloodhound(clearly not my 7lb vegan dog) who was waiting for the bite that never come. Yup, I ate dinner on the couch with my feet up and my laptop where it belongs, on my lap. 

That's all for tonight. I need to rest up for my exciting day of vegan baking with my brothers girlfriend tomorrow. I will be test driving some recipes for the bake sale portion of a craft fair that benefits the Milton Animal League next weekend. I haven't baked in awhile so I gotta make sure my stuff is good right? Or am I just looking for an excuse to bake?You'll never know..... muah hahahaha(that was my evil laugh) Anyways, expect a sweet(pun intended) blog on the treats either tomorrow or Sunday.

Also, expect a post soon on Gizmo's homemade vegan dog food. 

Hasta!