A Return To College Food

By Monica on March 25th, 2008

Well, almost. Like most people, my undergrad years were filled with unrecognizable cafeteria food and late night take-out garbage. In my years at NIU, the late night, post-drinking, junk food of choice was Beer Nuggets - fried chunks of dough you dipped into pizza sauce and/or powdered cheese sauce. One could purchase an entire brown grocery bag full for about $4, a bargain for any poor, hungry, inebriated college student.

Despite how terrible they must be for you, let’s face it: fried dough tastes good. When I saw Bryanna’s 5 Minute No-Knead Bread & Focaccia, I was immediately inspired to make imitation, healthier beer nuggets. Here is the intact focaccia, made with whole wheat flour, and covered in garlic and fresh dill - luxuries never afforded to the greasy beer nuggets of my memory.

The focaccia was sliced up into approximate nugget form and served with pizza sauce and “Gee Whiz” spread from the Uncheese Cookbook, an idea from Zuckerbaby at ZB’s Vegan Recipes.

Perfectly nuggetlicious, but without all the grease and mystery ingredients. 2 entire focaccias disappeared within minutes; anything dipped into cheez is always the crowd pleaser! Bryanna’s recipe made two focaccias and two loaves of crusty bread, all with no-kneading!

But lastly, if we’re talking about college food, you can’t beat nachos. Here is the heap I prepared for my junk-food loving crowd, using Nacho Cheese Sauce from Yellow Rose Recipes. Certainly not health food, but definitely an improvement with tons of black beans, fresh tomatoes, avocados, jalapeños, scallions, and black olives.

Operation Pantry Clean Out Begins

By Monica on January 16th, 2008

Around the first of this year, I was bitten by the “clean out the pantry bug”.  The chickens delighted in all the stale cereal I threw out, and I discovered that I don’t need to buy lentils or dried beans for at least 50 years.  Short of fresh veggies, I’m going to attempt to use all the old pantry food and old freezer food before shopping again.  Thus, this week began Operation Pantry Clean Out and our first night of mystery meals began.

I have at least a dozen blocks of tofu in the freezer because I only make it to civilization about every other month & tend to stock up, so Chick’n Salad was easy enough.  I’ve finally tweaked a ‘chicken’ salad recipe to my liking, this is pretty darn authentic, I think.

I always have potatoes on hand because I cannot live without them.  But I also have a few winter squashes left over from the farmer’s market; I’m always surprised at how well they store.  How do you combine the two?  Squash Stuffed Potato Skins!  These turned out really well, sometimes mystery meals end up the best.

And finally, Bryanna’s Key Lime Bars (from the July/Aug/Sep ‘06 Vegan Feast).  As you know, I am a huge fan of Bryanna’s recipes, but I think this may be my favorite thus far.  There is absolutely no way anyone would ever know this wasn’t authentic egg-saturated key lime pie.  I’ve been to the FL Keys many times & had all the gourmet key lime pies, I’m telling you - this is better.  You may be asking how this fits into the Pantry Clean Out… I have several containers of frozen key lime juice in the freezer.  I bought a bag of key limes on sale last year, didn’t use them, and thought I’d juice the little suckers and freeze it.  Worked perfectly and I have enough left for many more pans of these amazing bars!

Chick’n Salad
1 lb. extra firm tofu, drained and pressed
2T lemon juice
1/2t celery salt
1c diced celery
1/2c raisins
1/3c diced green onions
1/2c slivered almonds
1c non-dairy sour cream
1/2t pepper
1 pinch cayenne
1/2t cumin
1t tamari or soy sauce
1/4t liquid smoke

Cut tofu into 1/4″ cubes.  Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, mix well.  Refrigerate for 1 hour.  (If you have fresh grapes on hand, slice some and throw those in as well!)

Squash Stuffed Potato Skins
~5 medium russet potatoes
2c pureed winter squash
2T EB
1t salt
1/2t pepper
1/2t garlic powder

Bake potatoes using your desired method.
When they are fully cooked, slice in half lengthwise and scoop out the innards, leaving about 1/4″ attached and skins intact.
Place skins on a baking sheet and roast at 450° for 6-8 minutes, until skins are just crispy.
While skins are roasting, combine the potato meat, squash, EB, and spices in a large bowl.  Mix well, to the consistency of mashed potatoes.
Remove skins from oven and stuff with the squash mixture.
Return stuffed skins to the oven and roast for 10 minutes longer.
Serve with non-dairy sour cream and salsa.

Xmas - Part 1

By Monica on December 27th, 2007

Hope everyone had a great holiday, whether you spent it surrounded by friends and family, or spent it like us - in pajamas, just the two of us, doors securely locked with a stern ‘go away’ sign posted. It was heaven. But we did have the obligatory familial gathering the weekend before, so there was still plenty of food and festivities.

Where to start? Appetizers, of course! As a kid, I distinctly remember this delicious, congealed glob of secretions my father called a ‘cheeseball’. The cream cheese and shredded cheddar inside not having enough saturated fat for him, he coated it in some sort of chipped luncheon meat. I had written this off as something best left to omnivores when Ahisma from VeggieBoards posted her recipe for the very same thing, sans lunchmeat which I added just for nostalgia. And wouldn’t you know it, same exact taste, a glorious vegan cheeseball. Absolutely delicious, and still very bad for you!

I also made Sauerbraten Neatballs, one of my favorites.

In previous years I served a few different main courses, typically everyone got to pick his or her favorite and I was kind enough to make them all. This year I made my favorite and told everyone to eat it or go hungry. Bah-humbug. Big surprise, everyone ate it. What we have here is the veganized version of my Babi’s Czech Beef & Dill Gravy. Seitan, dill, gravy, dumplings, damn right they ate it.

So that was dinner & then it was time to take our brandy spiked Silk Nog into the den for the American-Consumer portion of Giftmas. Ray & I made a very diligent effort to keep buying down to a minimum this year and I think we did alright. Ray bought me only eco-friendly, handmade, vegan-friendly items, and I bought him only one item he really wanted instead of 50 trivial widgets.

I do have to show off the necklace I got; I absolutely love it. A delightful vegan in Dallas creates these in various animal forms and sells them on Etsy, fully customizable.

If you’re waiting for dessert porn, you will have to wait a bit longer. I do have the dessert porn, lots and lots of seedy Xmas dessert porn, but this post is approaching novel length already and I still have to post recipes. So stay tuned, finish up your left overs this week, and I’ll get to the recipes!

Ahisma’s Cheeseball Treat
16 ounces vegan cream cheese
1 package Vegan Gourmet, flavor of your choice, shredded
1t garlic powder
1/4t pepper
2t umeboshi vinegar (or apple cider vinegar, or lemon juice)
1t Red Hot sauce
1 bunch fresh scallions, diced

Combine the spices with the cream cheese. Mix remaining ingredients with a fork. Combine the two. Line a suitable sized bowl with plastic wrap and pack the cheeze mixture into the bowl. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours.

Sauerbraten Neatballs
I used Bryanna’s recipe for “Saucy Neatballs” for the balls. I highly recommend it, but use whatever no-meat meatballs float your boat, and this recipe is for the gravy.

1T vegetable oil
1/2 yellow onion, finely diced
1 cup water
1/2 white vinegar
6T packed brown sugar
1t ginger
2 bay leaves
2T flour
2T water

In a sauce pan, heat the vegetable oil and saute the onions until soft. Stir in water, vinegar, brown sugar, ginger, and bay leaves. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Mix flour and water together, then add to gravy to thicken. Add your Neatballs to the gravy, simmer for 10-15 minutes, and serve!

Czezh No-Beef & Dill Gravy
(I’m doing this from memory, this is one of those dishes I never wrote a recipe down for, so bear with me!)

“Beef”
8 ounces seitan chunks, any kind
6 cups veggie broth
Tops and leaves of one bunch of celery
1 onion, quartered
2T peppercorns

“Gravy”
8T Earth Balance
8T flour
~4 cups reserved veggie broth
1 container Tofutti Sour Supreme, or Better Than Sour Cream
1 cup packed fresh dill
1T lemon juice
1T sugar
salt
pepper

“Beef” - To a medium pot, add the 6 cups of veggie broth, seitan chunks, onion, celery, and peppercorns. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for one hour. Reserving the broth, drain the mixture. Discard the veggies and peppercorns.

“Gravy” - When “beef” is done, melt the EB in a large, straight edged saucepan. Add the flour, making a roux, and cook for about 1 minute. Add approximately 4 cups of reserved veggie broth, +/- 1/2 a cup to form a gravy consistency. Add the sour cream, dill, lemon juice, sugar, and salt & pepper to taste.

Add seitan chunks to the gravy to heat throughout. Serve over dumplings, of course.

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?