Veg love - Kale!

So I think this week I'm going to have a new theme - veggies that I now know and love (really, love, can't live without them), that I either never ate before going vegan or didn't like or even one that actually used to make me physically ill.  But now I love them all. 

First up - kale!  Kale is my new best friend.  I'm not a big fan of it just as it is raw, but cook it or dress it up in a massaged salad, and man!  So tasty, and it has great nutritional value.  I'll get into those a little more in a later post, for now I'll share a little recipe I made on the fly on Friday.  My mom requested I bring a veggie for Kol Nidrei dinner (the meal before the fast starts for Yom Kippur), so I picked up whatever looked good at the farmer's market and figured I would figure something out.  I'd tinker with it a little, so feel free to play around with this one, but I was pretty happy with the results.  :-)

Kale salad with chickpea cutlets and baked potato (serve with vegan sour cream :) )

Warm Kale and Cauliflower Salad

Bunch of kale, probably a little less than 1/4 peck
Half a head of cauliflower
1 onion
1 lemon
1/4 C+ golden raisins
salt to taste

Chop onion and saute in olive oil.  Chop cauliflower.  Add after a few minutes and saute until soft. 

While those are cooking, chop kale into smaller pieces, or simply tear the greens off the stalks - unless you would to leave the stalks in for some crunch.

Add salt to taste, a little pepper if you'd like.  Add the kale, and saute until just wilted.  While wilting down squeeze the juice of one lemon into the pan, and add the golden raisins.

Serve and enjoy! 

High Holiday allergies

Ok I know I said I was taking today off... but I wanted to put out a quick post on one of my personal "whys" of veganism.  I started this journey for health reasons, though it has become in large part about compassion for animals.  However, at this time of year I am reminded full force of the health reasons.

Every single year on the High Holidays, for my entire life, I would get sick, somewhere between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  Really really really sick.  All I could imagine was that since the Jewish holidays are very tied into the seasons, that it must be that my body did not handle the seasonal change well, and that's why it would always coincide with the High Holidays.  Ever since I've been vegan - I haven't had a problem at all.  And here it is Yom Kippur tonight, and I seem to be golden.  I love that I can see yearly the affect that this lifestyle has had on my body.  How living naturally and with a plant-based diet seems to allow my body to function at a stronger healthier level. 

Just wanted to share that with you quickly, as you think about making this choice.  :)  Shana tova, and to my Jewish readers - g'mar chatimah tova!  May you have a good and meaningful fast. 

Veganizing Your Favorites, part 5 - No Bake Candy Cookies

ETA 1/18/13: Please visit this recipe and others over at my current site A,B,C,Vegan.  :)  Look forward to seeing you there!

Wow, week 1 is over!  I'm taking the next 2 days off for Yom Kippur (can't write about food when I can't even eat any!), but here's the 5th and final (for now :) ) installment in the Veganizing Your Favorites series.  Next week will be new and exciting adventures.  I'm thinking about exploring the new vegetables I've come to love ever since starting this journey....

So, no bake cookies, candy cookies, whatever you call them - they're absolutely delicious.  Piles of chocolate-y, oat-y, goodness.  I got the recipe for these from a teacher back in elementary school (I can't remember *why* that happened), and I've been making them ever since.  So quick to make (though they need to dry overnight), so easy, and are always a hit.  It took a couple tries to veganize the recipe correctly, but now they are absolutely identical to the original.  Enjoy!!

Somehow I don't have my own photo of these (?!), so this one is thanks to Creative Commons.  Original can be found here.

No Bake Candy Cookies

3 ½ C quick oats
¾ stick Earth Balance
½ C creamy peanut butter (A variety that is not too oily, one that doesn’t need stirring. Jif works perfectly - natural peanut butters do *not*, as much as I would prefer them.)
2 C white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
½ + 1/8 C soy milk
¼ C cocoa

1. Combine milk, sugar, cocoa, and earth balance.  Bring to hard boil, then boil 1 min.  Remove from burner, stir in peanut butter until dissolved.

2. Replace on burner (do not turn back on!) to keep warm while you stir in oats and vanilla.  Mix well. 

3. Drop on wax paper with teaspoon, fairly quickly.

4. Allow to dry on counter overnight.

Makes about 4 dozen. 

Veganizing Your Favorites, part 4 - Pot Pie!

Ok I have to be honest.  I didn't even really like pot pie growing up.  But my brother made this version for me last year, and I was converted instantaneously.  The flavors are so rich, so fresh.  The sauce is creamy and delicious.  It's full of veggies.  And I love anything doughy, so with a good pie crust... it was just meant to be.  I loved it so much that I had to go home and recreate it practically the next day. 

As we head into the colder months, this is the perfect filling, warm, comfort food to keep you cozy in the winter.  :)

Before going into the oven...

...and after.

Veggies!

Pot Pie

Ingredients:
1 big / 2 small red potatoes, cubed
1 C sliced carrots
1 C frozen green peas
1/2 C sliced celery
1/2 C frozen corn
1/3 C earth balance
1/2 C chopped onion
1/3 C all-purpose flour
1/2 t salt
1/4 t black pepper
1/4 t celery seed
1/3 t garlic powder
3 1/2 C vegetable broth
1 1/3 C soy milk
2 9" pie crusts

1.  Preheat oven to 375.

2.  In a saucepan combine veggies - potatoes, carrots, peas, celery, corn.  Add broth to cover and boil for 15 minutes.  Remove from heat, drain, and set aside.

3.  In the saucepan over medium heat, cook onions in margarine until soft and translucent.  Stir in flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and celery seed.  Slowly stir in vegetable broth and milk.  Simmer over medium-low heat until thick.  Remove from heat and set aside. 

4.  While pans are going, brush bottom of crusts with soy milk and bake for 5 minutes. 

5.  Combine veggie and sauce mixtures, place in bottom pie crust.  Cover with top crust, seal edges, and cut away excess dough.  Make several small slits in top to allow steam to escape. 

6.  Bake in the preheated oven for 40-45 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly.  Cool for 5-10 minutes before serving. 

Veganizing Your Favorites, part 3 - Chik'n & Cashews

This post is very near to my heart.  My father cooked dinner pretty often in our family, and he had taken a Chinese cooking class earlier in his life, so we often had 2 dishes that hung around from that class - beef and snow peas, and chicken and cashews.  Chicken and cashews became one of my absolute favorite favorite dishes, and what I would always request for my birthday meal.  My brother came to always request it too.  My dad passed away before I became vegan, but we've continued the tradition of having this dish for my brother's birthday, using my dad's recipe, so for the past few years I've been trying to figure out how on earth to veganize it successfully. 

An important lesson for today - don't be afraid to experiment, and don't be afraid to try again if the first 1, 2, or 3 times don't really quite work out.  If you want to make something, if you keep trying, you will eventually be able to figure it out.  :)  As I did with this!  I cannot put into words how absolutely excited I was to finally successfully recreate chicken and cashews.  I could not stop talking about it the entire night; I'm sure I drove my family crazy.  Every other sentence out of my mouth was something along the lines of "Oh my gosh this is good!  I'm so excited!  It finally worked!  So happy!"  :)  I would even venture to say it's actually better than the original.  Somehow it's just bolder, more flavorful, richer. 

The secret ingredient - seitan.  Tried it with tofu - failure.  But seitan... seitan worked amazingly.  If you've never had it, or heard of it, I liked this page for an explanation of what it is, and its history.  It basically is a meat made from the protein portion of wheat, and has been traditionally used in Asian cooking for a long time.  This was one of my first forays into using it, and it was an absolute success.

 I added some broccoli to get myself some extra nutrients - and because it's tasty.  :)

Chik'n and Cashews

1 package unflavored seitan

1 T hoisin sauce

2 T light soy sauce

2 tsp sherry

2 tsp cornstarch

1/8 tsp pepper

1 1/2 T peanut oil

2 scallions

2/3 C cashews

salt to taste

1. Mix seitan with hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sherry, cornstarch, and pepper.

2. Using only the white part, cut scallion into 1/4 inch pieces.

3. Heat peanut oil in wok (if you have one, otherwise any saute pan will do).

4. Stirfry scallion until slightly brown.

5. Add seitan and sauce mixture, stirfry constantly over medium heat for about 2 minutes.

6. Add cashews, mix well.

7. Add salt to taste.

Serve hot over rice. 

Share with your loved ones and give them a hug for me.  :)

Veganizing Your Favorites, part 2 - Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ladies and Gentlemen, I've discovered the secret to veganizing cookies.  Crisco!  Crisco.  It's so simple.  How did I not figure this out before?  Maybe others in the world out there had already figured this out, but somehow it had escaped me.  Every vegan chocolate chip cookie, or the like, that I've had has never been... quite right.  They're usually too oily - which makes sense, since many recipes call for oil instead of butter.  Which just doesn't quite work.  And no recipes that I've found have quite captured the essence of a true original tollhouse cookie.

And then 2 days ago it dawned on me - what about Crisco?  I thought this aloud as I was eating with my mother, and she said yes, she was pretty that's what my grandmother (her mother) had always used.  !!!  It's taken me until now to figure this out but somehow my grandma figured it out probably 75 years ago?! So this post is in honor of my Grandma Lorraine, which seems appropriate after yesterday's was in honor of my Grandma Allese.

Beautiful, buttery, YUM.  

This recipe will introduce you to the concept of egg replacer, which I used to replace the 2 eggs.  Next time I will try flax seed meal, another great egg substitute, but for the first time around I wanted to see how they tasted as close to original as possible, since the flax would add a bit of a nutty flavor.  Egg replacer you should be able to buy at any Whole Foods store, and potentially even at a regular supermarket.  The one I use is called Ener-G.  Just follow the instructions on the box to replace each egg in a recipe.  The great thing about Ener-G is that it lasts in your pantry, and one box is equal to 112 eggs!

Veganized Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 C Crisco
3 T water
3/4 C sugar
3/4 C brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 Ener-G "eggs"
3/4 C whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 C all purpose flour (Can use all all purpose flour - wanted to make these a teeny bit healthier)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 C vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Add Crisco, water, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla to mixing bowl, beat at medium speed until creamed together.  Add eggs, mix in on low speed.

Gradually add flour, baking soda, and salt and mix until fully incorporated.  Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown.  First sheet may need a little bit extra baking time.

Enjoy!

Note: I recommend storing in an air-tight container with a piece of bread, just like my grandma always did.  Keeps the cookies soft and chewy.  :)

I swear I will not only be writing about desserts - I don't even eat them that much, but for some reason I've become a baking fiend lately!  Tomorrow's post - chick'n and cashews.  :-)

Veganizing Your Favorites, part 1 - Pecan Pie

I started this idea a bit with the kugel recipe in yesterday's post, and I wanted to continue along those lines as a good starting place for this blog.  For those new to this world I know it can be daunting to think "what am I going to eat," and to feel like you're never going to be able to have your favorites again.  Well one thing that will happen is your tastes may changes (more about that later), but more importantly, you don't have to give up your favorites!  You can veganize almost anything out there to be just as good, and sometimes even better, than your old favorites.  Today's post is a quick one (I wanted to post something to celebrate the start of VeganMoFo!) to introduce what will be at least a 4 part series for the week on veganizing your favorites.  Today is a recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen; the rest of the set will be my own recipes made up myself as I veganized my childhood favorites.

Potentially there will be a better photo to come when I fix my card reader so I can use my real camera, but here's the iPhone photo for now... :-)

YUM!!!  I can just see Thanksgiving at my grandmother's table as I look at this picture.  She always made pecan pie, and always made me my own 2nd one to take home with me.  Man did I love her pecan pie.  I don't remember if this one tastes exactly like hers, but it absolutely tastes amazing, and exactly like pecan pie should.  The gooey sweetness is absolutely perfect - I can't recommend this recipe highly enough.  

Notes: 1. I used a whole wheat crust; worked beautifully.  2. I had to bake closer to an hour to get it to set properly.  3. SO EASY.  I couldn't believe it; pecan pie seems so fancy.  If you need a nice, quick, elegant dessert, especially in the Fall... here's your recipe.