A ‘ham’ trifecta!

By Monica on December 14th, 2007

Since last week’s faux-meat-roast experiment went well, I thought I’d try out another one of Bryana’s masterpieces. Baked ham was a Christmas staple in my yesteryears, so what better time to press my luck and try the vegan friendly version out?

Despite the very disturbing Tofu/Baco’Bit smoothie that you have to make as part of the ham recipe, this turned out excellent! There was even a twinge of “I shouldn’t be eating this, it tastes too much like ham”!

‘Ham’ going into the oven (sans cooking broth). Yes, it looks just like a giant wad of Silly Putty.

‘Ham’ coming out of the oven. As you can see, I didn’t have pineapple slices, but I did have chunks! Good enough!

And onto the plate, with a side of scalloped potatoes.

Another thing I love about Bryana’s creations is that while these ‘roast-type things’ take a long time to create, they leave you with enough food to make at least a few meals from. With the left over ‘ham’, the next night we had ‘Grilled Ham’ & Cheez Sammiches!

And with even more ‘ham’ remaining, what better to make than ‘Ham’ & Bean Soup?

In keeping with the theme, I made enough soup to feed a sizable vegan commune. That way I can freeze it for lazy nights, or take it to work for lunch. Feel free to half the recipe if you prefer.

‘Ham’ & Bean Soup
32 oz. dried navy beans
14 cups water or broth
3-4 cups diced ‘ham’
1 large onion, diced
6 carrots, sliced
6 stalks celery, sliced
2t salt
2t pepper
5 bay leaves
1t thyme
1t rosemary

Rinse beans and throw into a large stock pot. Add water/broth and bring to a boil. After boiling for a few minutes, remove from heat, cover, and let sit for about an hour.

Add ‘ham’, onion, salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour, or until beans are soft.

Add carrots and celery and cook for another 30 minutes, or until carrots are soft.

The Processed Food Post

By Monica on December 4th, 2007

I only cook when I’m in a good mood, never when I’m sick, never when I’m upset about something. Given last week’s crapiness, Ray was officially in charge of feeding us, a very scary proposition. He will never live down the day he attempted to make me grilled cheese by pouring several cups of oil into a sauce pan, floating the bread in it, and adding cheese. Or the day he lit the microwave on fire making popcorn. I could go on.

So it should be noted that while these entrees may not qualify as haute cuisine, they are drastic improvement for my cooking challenged husband. It should also be noted that I spared you photos of the Ramen noodles and toast. Thank me later.

Up first we have everyone’s favorite Gardenburger Riblet. We all eat them, most of us just have the decency not to blog about them. Mine came with some extra healthy frozen french fries.

You know it was coming - Chinese take-out. At least we got our veggies for the day.

Now, I did have to help a little bit with this one as it involved an actual recipe (V’con Cheezy Sauce), and I did top with green onions, but that’s the extent of the credit I’m willing to accept for the canned chili-cheese baked tater.

“I can has cheezy sauce?”

Below is Ray’s signature dish, if you will. The Ray Burger. He’s actually gotten quite crafty at sprucing up the Boca Vegan Grillers; this one had sprouts, cucumbers, onion, tomato, ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, Vegenaise, and lettuce. To boot, Pina Coladas!

And last, but not least, pizza. Can you tell I’m a toppings whore? The more the merrier. In fairness, Ray didn’t make this but I was not on my A-game, so I’m still blaming him. He’s used to it.

Sunday I was trapped in the house all day by foul weather and was in a cooking mood, so I spent all day cooking and baking actual food. I promise we will return to our normally scheduled, unprocessed program shortly!

You stupid cow.

By Monica on November 27th, 2007

There hasn’t been a tremendous amount of cooking going on at home lately. By the time we get Sampson taken care of, dinner time is 10:00 at night so we’ve been surviving on spaghetti for 2 weeks now. Good thing I love pasta! This is what I’ve had time to drum up though:

VWAV Tempeh Reubens. Delicious and oh so gooey as the dressing drips down your arm whilst trying to eat it! I added a slice of Tofutti mozzarella since I’ve never found soy swiss cheez.

A lentil based Shepherd’s Pie, made after watching last week’s episode of Kitchen Nightmares when Gordon schooled the Irish pub on how to properly make one. Now, I did not pipe adorable little mashed potato puffs onto the top like Gordon, but I also didn’t fill the pie with dead things, so I think we’re even! Eh, dead things or not I love watching him, even if he would call me a ’stupid f-ing cow’ for refusing to pipe mashed potatoes.

Seitan Chick’n wings from Vegan Vittles. They tasted good, but like my Oktoberfest Wiener experiment, they had more of a poofy bread texture than a meaty texture. Seitan experts, what am I doing wrong?

And finally, a bread machine rye bread. I am not pleased with this so there shall be no recipe yet, though the chickens enjoyed it just fine and it sure looks lovely! I was hoping that I could cheat and make good Czech rye bread in the bread machine instead of kneading and sculpting and lighting the oven… nope. Not yet anyway.

My Wieners, Let me show you them.

By Monica on October 16th, 2007

So Joni posted this recipe for seitan wieners just in time for Oktoberfest.  Smothered in kraut and mustard, they look amazing!  While my experience with wieners is subject for another blog entirely, my experience making gluten flour into edible food items is very limited.  At the risk of sounding like a vegan newb, I was amazed at how the gluten turned into a rubbery mass almost before my eyes, like some sort of mutant, delicious silly-putty.  So much fun, I can’t wait to experiment more!

To be expected, Joni’s professional wieners turned out much prettier than my amateur wieners.  I don’t know if I didn’t wrap them tightly enough in foil or what, but my wieners grew quite sizeable in the oven.  I know wieners often have a mind of their own and are prone to doing all sorts of undesirable things, but two of my wieners came bursting out of their foil wrappers in the oven and became massive super-wieners about 4″ thick!

The rest of the wieners did not break their protective foil barriers, but they were still impressive in girth.  They barely fit into a bun, but I stuffed them in anyway and covered them up in saurkraut and mustard.  A credit to Joni’s recipe, they tasted fantastic despite whatever error I made to make the wieners swell up like they did.

And what could be more appropriate to serve with Oktoberfest wieners than a side of German Potato Salad from La Dolce Vegan?