appetite for reduction's baked falafel

Just a quick entry tonight, since I am so busy--work job is really picking up. I'm hoping I'll have time to write some substantial entries (with actual recipes, even) over the weekend, but in the meantime, a couple posts on some quick weeknight dinners... since quick weeknight dinners are all I have time for!

I have already written about my love for Appetite for Reduction's Baked Falafel recipe. I especially like it because it's a quick dinner, so I often make it on weeknights. ESPECIALLY if I can find whole wheat pita bread!

There's so much else in this falafel wrap that it's hard to find the falafel. I like falafel with either Isa's Green Goddess dressing (above; the recipe is also in Appetite for Reduction) or some kind of creamy (think Ranch) dressing, but a light tahini sauce is good too.

purple carrots

When any of us think of carrots, the first thing that comes to mind is a bright orange vegetable. But if you do some research into the history of carrots (I know, I'm a dork), you'll find that orange carrots are a relative novelty compared to  the other colors of carrots.

Remember when I wrote about yellow carrots? Until the 1600s, carrots were usually one of two colors: yellow, like I posted about before, and PURPLE.

The lighting is bad here... but these carrots were actually really dark! I got them from my CSA, and had first thought they must be a trendy new breed of carrots. Little did I know it's actually a very old strain!

A little internet sleuthing (supported by the Carrot Wikipedia page) tells me that orange carrots were cultivated in the Netherlands in the 1600s in honor of the House of Orange. Before that, any recipe that called for carrots either had white-ish, yellow, or purple carrots!

They taste just the same as orange carrots, but feel much more historic (ha ha). Here we enjoyed them raw in a salad.

last day of VeganMoFo!

Happy Halloween! Though this picture is from a couple years ago, I'm wearing the same thing today:

The husband and I just got back from our honeymoon in New Orleans, and while we had an awesome time, and ate a lot of awesome food, coming home was really nice. (Even though our heat is broken...) Especially nice was being able to have a big healthy meal; while all our restaurant meals were great-tasting, I never feel quite as healthy eating out as eating at home. So when we got back from the airport, I made us a big greens-and-tofu dinner. I was too hungry/distracted to take pictures, but this is another home-from-travel meal I made a while ago: a big salad with chickpea salad on top.

It feels good to sort of detox with greens after decadent eating for so long. But expect a New Orleans food post soon!

Happy Halloween, and happy last day of VeganMoFo! It's been a really busy month, but I'm glad I was able to participate. I am sorry I couldn't read more blogs, though--I guess I'll have plenty to catch up on in the (hopefully) slower month of November.

grilled romaine hearts

It's grilling season! Just like I believe all vegetables get tastier when roasted, I believe that all food is better grilled.

Grilled tofu, corn, and bread with a (not grilled) salad, from last summer.

I'm a big fan of the smokey flavor charcoal/wood-burning grills impart, but I take what I can get. Being city dwellers, we don't have a grill, nor do we have a place to put one, but we have a cast-iron grill pan, which is the next best thing. I like that grill pains allow you to control the temperature (and therefore cooking time) a lot better than a real grill can.

Grilled romaine hearts are delicious, quick, and simple. They are, in fact, so easy to make that I almost feel embarrassed giving you a recipe. It's been a while since I've posted an actual recipe, though, so I'm going to do so anyway.

Grilled Romaine Hearts
If this dish is a side to a big meal, one romaine half per person will do. If it's a small or simple meal, use one heart (two halves) per person.
2 hearts of romaine
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste (a few shakes of each)

Heat your grill. If you're cooking with a grill pan, you want to heat it on medium. While it's heating, pull away any outer leaves on the romaine hearts that look limp or are falling away from the rest of the heart. Cut the hearts down the middle, length-wise, so you have two long, matching halves.

Brush each side of the romaine hearts with olive oil, then set them down on the grill, cut side down. Shake a little salt and pepper over the side that's facing you.

Cook for about 2 minutes; the edges should look a little wilty in parts and brown in others. (If your grill/pan isn't totally hot yet, this could take 3-4 minutes, but watch it closely.) Flip the hearts, sprinkle this side with a little salt and pepper, then cook till that side is brown/wilty, another 2 minutes.

That's it! The only garnish you need is a little more salt and/or pepper, if you are so inclined. The grill turns what is essentially salad into a sophisticated-tasting side dish.

You'll have to cut it with a fork and knife, but that will give you a reason to use all those steak knives you have in a drawer and rarely have a reason to use. I like to think it adds t the sophistication. Serve with whatever else you have on the grill/pan, like here with grilled tempeh on a bed of grilled onions. Grilled avocado is also a great topper, to keep with more side-salad-like ingredients.

choose-your-own quinoa salad

Due to some renovations in our building, we haven't been able to use our oven or stove for 8 days. We went out for dinner once last week, but neither of us are keen on going out too often, so I've been making all of our meals using our rice cooker and toaster oven. This is not much fun, let me tell you. But I do feel pretty inventive, and I'm definitely using the rice cooker to the utmost of its abilities! So far I've made pasta, soup, paella and quinoa in the rice cooker. You may hear more of my rice-cooker meals if we don't get the gas hooked up today, but I'm really hoping we do. It doesn't help that for the last week, I've been craving warm, stove-cooked meals, since Boston's been looking like this:

We can finally see the sun today, though, thank goodness. Anyway, while I've been wanting warm meals in the evenings, I usually have cold food for lunch, including leftovers, sandwiches, and salads. One good lunch salad I've picked up from the boyfriend is a simple, easily customized quinoa dish. Before I moved in and took over on the cooking, he used to make it each weekend so he'd have something to eat throughout the week. I get bored of having the same food every day, so I make it a little less often (or in smaller amounts), but it's a good staple to have, especially if you have a busy week ahead (or a week without an oven/stove...) and want something that will fill you up.

You can use any grain for this, really, but we like quinoa because it's so high in protein. The body takes longer to digest proteins than other kinds of food, so you'll be fuller longer.

Because we change up the flavor of ours every time, instead of a recipe, I'll give you the components. Think of it as a Choose-Your-Own Quinoa Adventure!


This one has balsamic vinegar, olive oil, sage, rosemary, cranberries, lots of black pepper.


Choose-Your-Own Quinoa Salad

• Quinoa. If you're eating this as your entire lunch, you're going to want to bet on almost 1/2 C (dry) quinoa for each serving. So if you want it to last you all week, go for about 2 Cups of quinoa or a little more. Boil 2 parts water, then add 1 part quinoa, cover and reduce the mixture to a simmer (so, for two cups of dry quinoa, that's 4 cups of water), the way you'd cook rice or other grains, for 20 minutes or until all the liquid has ben absorbed. Put all the quinoa in a big bowl, and add the remaining ingredients.
• Vegetables. To keep up the "salad" aspect of this dish, aim for at least 2-3 cups of veggies. Carrots, celery, onions, and some kind of chopped green (spinach, chard, kale) are good go-tos for any combination of other ingredients, but you can vary your veggies by what you have and what you feel like eating. You can just add them to the cooked quinoa raw, or, if you're like me and prefer your veggies a little softer, toss them into the pot in which you're cooking the quinoa during the last 5 minutes of cooking, so they soften a bit.
• Liquid. I think 1/4 C oil and 1/4 C vinegar are pretty essential, but you can use any kind of oil and vinegar you want, to help vary the dish. Sometimes I use balsamic, sometimes apple cider vinegar. Sometimes I use olive oil, othertimes sesame oil for an asian flavor, and sometimes canola oil so the other flavors in the dish can shine. Add more of either ingredient to taste after you've finished adding all the components. You can also add a couple tablespoons of soy sauce or coconut milk or orange juice or any other liquids at this stage; the quinoa will soak up additional liquid as it cools.
• Seasonings. Herbs and spices! You want at least a tablespoon of (dried) herbs and/or spices, and up to 1/2 C fresh. I like sage and rosemary for a fall-tasting one, or dried ginger and garlic for asian flavors, or curry powder for an Indian taste. Italian seasoning and herbes de provence are good blends, too. Add 1/2 tsp salt and up to 1 tsp pepper, then adjust to taste.
• Protein. Optional, but tossing in some beans, cooked tofu, olives, or toasted nuts can give you more interesting textures, and help keep you fuller longer.
• Fruit. Also optional, but I love adding dried raisins, currants, or cranberries to contrast with the vinegar and salt.

Mix it all up in a large bowl, and then keep it in the fridge. If you are making it to eat the same day, try to let it sit for at least 30-60 minutes to help the flavors develop.

This one (eaten at my desk at work) has Asian veggies and flavors--bok choy with carrots, celery, and scallions, seasoned with sesame oil, soy sauce, mirin, rice vingar, and some teriyaki-cooked tofu.

filo cups!

I like working with filo. It tends to take a lot of time to make something out of it, but whatever you make ends up in such a cute little package, or crisps nicely when you bite into it - it's worth it. I recently had 4 sheets of filo in my freezer. 4 is not enough to make a pastry of substance. What, then, could I make?

Remember my french toast cups? I have since decided that anything you can bake in a muffin tin is 1000x more fun to eat than something you can't. AND SO:
I was so relieved when these came out of the oven (and then out of the muffin tins!), because I wasn't sure it would work. I've seen them in restaurants, but I always suspect that restaurants use magic in making pastries. You know, like in that scene from Sleeping Beauty, where the fairy godmothers break out their wands to make a birthday cake?

Filo Cups

4 filo sheets
canola/veggie oil for brushing

Preheat the over to 350. Lightly brush the insides of a muffin tin with oil.

Lay one filo sheet on a piece of parchment paper. Lightly brush the top layer with oil, then put another sheet on. Oil that one. New sheet. You get the idea. Oil the top of the 4th sheet, then carefully cut the pile into 12 squares. Place each square into a muffin cup. The edges are floppy, but there's probably a prettier way to arrange them than I did above.

Bake 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove from oven; allow to cool completely before pulling out the cups.

I turned one into a cute little salad cup for lunch:
It reminded me of a cuter, healthier version of those big deep-fried tortilla things some restaurants use for edible salad bowls.

But the other 11 went on to become dessert! Fruit fillings are pretty standard for filo cups, but I had just found a recipe for Vegan Lemon Curd, so I made that!
This is it right off the stove. It's pretty viscous-y; it solidifies a bit further after it's chilled a while. I used arrowroot instead of cornstarch, but it turned out great. So I poured that into the filo cups, added a bunch of chopped strawberries, and voila:
Fruit cups fit for a dinner party!

Warning: Filo cups do not store well; they get stale, or, once filled, they get soggy and lose that fun crispyness. So 1.) make them the day you want to eat them and 2.) once you've made them, EAT THEM ALL.*

*-Enlist friends.

going green

In honor of St Patrick's Day and Spring occuring in the same week, I present a spread of green food!

My first homage to my favorite color is this lovely little kohlrabi. I have often passed kohlrabi in the produce department, thinking, I will use you someday when I know how to use you, kohlrabi. Then one day I decided I might as well just try it, because that someday would never come.
I brought him home, peeled him, chopped up him and his greens, and boiled them in a tiny amount of water (I think of this as being like steaming, but with fewer dishes to wash afterwards) until tender, and topped him with a mixture of dijon mustard, black pepper, and olive oil.
Results: Delicious! I thought it tasted like cauliflower, maybe a little sweeter. Kohlrabi = success!

Sauces with mustard, in them, by the way, are my new favorite way to top anything. Like Kale and peas (and some corn):
This mustard sauce was mustard, lemon juice, black pepper and olive oil.

And this yummy-yet-unphotogenic salad was all green!
Ingredients: 1 Green Apple (shredded), a lot of spinach, 1 Tbsp Pepitas, 1 Tbsp lime juice, 1 tsp olive oil.

Finally, forget the years of abstaining from animal products: I think what REALLY makes me a vegan is that I made this smoothie one day for breakfast and loved it.
Ingredients: 2 big fat kale leaves, 1 over-ripe banana and a handful of frozen mango chunks.

Look, even my smoothie's contemplating going outside to the lovely (though chilly) spring weather...
I'm breaking down and getting a new computer in the next week or two, folks, so expect more from me soon!

other people's recipes

while I love to be creative and make up my own meals, I have too many cookbooks and too many amazing fellow vegan bloggers to go too long without making other people's recipes. This entry is a bunch of recipes I've stockpiled.
These little babies are the Acorn Squash and Black Bean Empanadas from veganomicon. They were deLICious, especially the dough. My only complaint was that by the book, they should be triangular. First of all, no. That is just not how I want my empanadas to look. Second of all, it is SO much harder to make a triangle than a half circle! Observe:

Also from veganomicon, the Pumpkin Saag:
It's a little mushier, I think, than it's supposed to be, because 1.) I used butternut squash instead of pumpkin and 2.) one of the friends I served it to is allergic to peanuts, so I skipped the peanut oil and added some coconut milk for extra flavor. Still delicious and a big hit.

One of my FAVORITE finds from this post: the chocolate covered vegan's Sauerkraut Salad.
Yum! I made it for my mother when my parents visited and we loved it. I left out the bell pepper (because I'm allergic) and tossed in a bit of chopped chard stem for the same effect. It got better as it got older, too (which, I guess, is the point of sauerkraut).

Curried Lime Tofu from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan:
Pretty, flavorful and not as much work as I find a lot of dreena's recipes to be.

And Creamy Chickpea Soup with Moroccan Spice Oil, from the voluptuous vegan!
The soup itself is very simple - it's pretty much hummus, but thinner, and being the chickpea fanatic that I am, I loved it. It was very plain, but the moroccan spice oil added a nice, warm, complex flavor. I was very proud of myself for taking the time to make it! I made a really tiny batch because I didn't know if I'd want to save any - but next time I'll make more.

Have I mentioned how I feel about the voluptuous vegan? I'm torn as to whether I like it... There are some good, simple recipes, but most of them are elaborate and time-consuming. All the ones I've tried have been tasty, though. I guess this would be a fantastic book in it if you have loads of time and are planning and ritzy-but-intimate dinner party.

That's it for the savory stuff. On to sweets!
Double Chocolate Pecan Chippers from the everyday vegan! I used agave syrup instead of sugar, so they spread out while they cooked. I ate too many.

AND FINALLY!
Chai Latte Cupcakes from vegan cupcakes take over the world!

I'm not a big fan of refined sugar, even organic, so the mass amounts of confectionary sugar involved in making frosting scares me. Instead of making mounds of icing, then, I tend to use glazes or ganache. The Brown Rice Caramel Glaze worked brilliantly (although I didn't have soymilk powder; I improvised by decreasing the liquid in the recipe and just simmering down some soymilk for a while). It just took a little longer for the glaze to set:
I brought these to a small dinner party and all 12 of them disappeared.

I've decided to make every cupcake in vegan cupcakes take of the world. Green tea cupcakes are next!

potato-style sunchoke salad

My mother is mostly Irish. We had some form of potato - mashed, baked, boiled, friend - at least 4 nights a week when I was a kid. To mom, my nightshade allergy is a tragedy - what's worse, I got it from her! She's been able to tolerate nightshades pretty well for most of her life, except eggplants and peppers, but her allergy has gotten worse. Poor mom has had to cut back on potatoes!

I'm okay with this (sweet potatoes are soooo much tastier than their starchy nightshadey counterpart), but my mother misses her potato dishes. A customer of hers recommended Sunchokes (Jerusalem Artichokes), so we tried them on Thanksgiving. We mashed them and threw in a good deal of vinegar and dijon mustard - delicious! but not too potatoey. So the goal for Christmas dinner was to imitate all those mayonaise-drenched potato salads of my mother's childhood.

I washed 'em (aren't they cute?),
sliced 'em
and boiled 'em until tender (apparently I didn't wash 'em too well, though - look at the scuzz on the righthand side! ew).
the water turned a deep yellow color...
but they stayed pale!

With the addition of 2-3 large spoonfuls of Vegenaise, several TBSP apple cider vinegar, parsley, diced onion and celery, we had a delicious Potato-Style Sunchoke Salad:


Mom was very happy. After this, though, I want to try some sunchoke recipes that don't try to disguise the sunchokes. They're so tasty!

I've heard cassava/yuca/manoic is another really good - and convincing - replacement for potato. Maybe I'll give that a try soon...

The Thanksgiving Post!

...a little overdue. But I now have my camera cable back, so there will be pictures! hooray!

Thanksgiving in upstate New York was chilly but lovely. Some culinary highlights:

A Festive Chickpea Tart from VegNews:

Good, very flavorful, and because you puree most of the chickpeas, it was very quiche-y - not especially beany or grainy, so non-veg people liked it, too.


This was my mother's idea: a Sunchoke Salad for those of us who can't enjoy the mashed potatoes (she's allergic to nightshades, too). I'd never had a Sunchoke before (also known as Jerusalem Artichokes).
They're bumpy, swollen root vegetables that look like a cross between ginger and a potato, but have a definite artichokey taste when boiled. I recommend these! Christina Pirello uses them in Cooking with Whole Foods a lot. Here they are boiled and mashed with lots of vinegar, some salt and a dash of dijon mustard.

This is a phenomenon known only to my mother's side of the family: Pea Salad.

Imagine potato salad, but with peas. Peas, celery, onion, vegenaise, and to make up for the lack of egg, I put in silken tofu and a generous pinch of turmeric. No one ever believes me, but it's delicious.

THIS was my triumph of the day:

A Double-Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake from the Fat Free Vegan. It was my first attempt at vegan cheesecake, and it went well. It tasted just like pumpkin pie, and was AWESOME.


There were loads of other Thanksgiving foods in addition, of course - candied sweet potatoes, rolls, salad, corn, mashed potatoes, as well as some foods for the non-vegans, but all you get are the ones I made. It was embarassing enough to be taking pictures of food around my family (they think the whole "me having a food blog" thing is hilarious and nerdy) - I went minimalist.

And finally... our family pets enjoying the leftovers:

they're so cute.

Hope you all had a great holiday!