Vegan MoFo - First Post Fajitas!

I'm planning to use Vegan MoFo as a motivator to get back into posting often -- but for this first week of September, we're up in Wisconsin with not much internet services, so posts will be sparse until we're home. BUT, the reason we're up here is related to our MoFo theme -- we're holding our vegan wedding reception up here!

We arrived on Saturday equipped with photos from cookbook pages, Vegusto and Just Mayo packed in ice, & ingredients lists for everything else we need... and that's just the cooking part. Lots of other prep work to be done (and I had initially imagined this as a low key event.....)

Anyway, as a kickoff post, a pre-wedding-reception meal -- easy to make, healthy (ish?) and delicious. We had some fajitas with onions, peppers, vegan chicken, and homemade tortillas, as well as the summer tomato salad from Cookin' Crunk.  

Thanksgiving food

(I know this is late for Thanksgiving, but wanted to post in advance of any Christmas or New Year's meals people might need ideas for!)

Thanksgiving has its drawbacks--it's based on a misleading story and it has turned into a tradition of killing and eating turkeys and then watching the news about people duking it out over stuff on sale (I know of more people who make fun of black Friday shoppers than who actually go shopping, which is kind of just as bad?)

I will take any excuse to cook a big meal once or twice a year, though. But our family Thanksgiving tradition, if we ever have kids, will be to explain what actually happened when Europeans came to the 'new world' here, and also how life was much better for turkeys before that time.

This year, we ordered a few vegan smoked goose packages from May Wah and cooked those along with a ton of other dishes:

Too much for one photo!

I'll try to list the dishes from top to bottom: We've got cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, store-bought rolls off to the side there, gravy, brussels sprouts, smoked non-goose, stuffing, and green bean casserole. And lots of wine, of course!

Recreating perfection?

During the past few trips to Busboys and Poets, I've branched out from the usual selection of $9 dollar sandwiches and appetizers (seriously though, those appetizers are filling) and tried some entrees for a few extra bucks. That's kind of a lie, the first time I tried an entree was because Dan's mom ordered their orzo dish a few weeks ago, and she let me have a bite. But, with that bite, it instantly became my new favorite dish.

And, since I now have a job to go to instead of blogging every day (sorry!) I can afford to buy my own $14 entrees sometimes. So, last weekend when we went there with a friend, I ordered the pan-seared basil tofu. My new new favorite dish!

Sorry, trendy restaurants --> crappy photos, but yum!

This was pretty much perfect (if you like tofu, but even if you don't love it) and I ate it in like 5 minutes. It's really not enough food for a dinner, so if you're already spending the $14 on the entree, go ahead and get an appetizer or a side. I was lucky & had Dan's calzone (also amazing, but not quite as mind-blowing as this) to share.

I didn't really have conscious plans to try and cook something like this at home, but then Dan started talking about tofu and quinoa the other night... we pretty much made this same thing, but subbed the tomato cream sauce with chipotle remoulade.

Pan-seared tofu over quinoa and chipotle remoulade

It came out really well. We didn't have the same quality of herbs to really get the tofu right, but the pan-sear turned out pretty well (OK, not as beautiful as theirs, I'll just have to keep trying!) The broccolini, which Dan sauteed with some lemon juice, margarine, and salt & pepper, was a really nice touch. We added raisins and sun-dried tomatoes to the quinoa -- I could do without the tomatoes, actually, but quinoa went great with tofu and broccoli.

There's not really a secret recipe here, but we based the quinoa & chipotle remoulade off my mom's stuffed peppers dish here. Pan-searing the tofu (or is this pan-frying?) just meant rubbing the tofu with some herbs and cornstarch, heating up a pan with a thin coating of oil, and letting the tofu sit there for a few minutes on each side. This is the same way I cook up marinated tofu to put in soups and stuff (see blog header!) so it wasn't really anything new, but putting the meal together was pretty novel for us -- and delicious.

I'll try to blog some more this weekend, I have such a backlog of photos to put up! Enjoy November, everyone.

An eventful week makes for boring cooking

I'm a little self-conscious of posting 'boring' foods like spaghetti and soup on here, or posting too much about eating out... but we haven't made anything novel since those scalloped potatoes (yes, a sad life when scalloped potatoes are 'novel'.) What we have done is make some spaghetti, ramen-not-the-instant-kind, eat bibimbap at Rice Bar, and order veggie Chinese food from Peking Garden in Adams Morgan. I think last week we made a pretty great vegetable soup, too. So, I'll share what I've got photos of...

Vegetable/pasta soup, in our inherited chipped bowl--we only have one nice bowl, this is not it!

Linda's scalloped potatoes

About a year and a half ago, someone called "Linda" on Twitter started following me. Their handle was @scallopedpotato. I'll let you find the account on your own--there's something endearing about the seven tweets on there, see for yourself.

I've never actually made scalloped potatoes. I don't know if I've even had them, maybe something resembling scalloped potatoes that my mom used to make, but I paid way more attention to pasta casseroles than layered potato dishes as a child*. After finding some good potatoes at the local farmer's market, we decided to, uh, scallop them? this weekend.

Scalloped potatoes--not the most attractive dish--and broccoli

Black bean stew & pineapple salsa

Did you know that pineapples and black beans go really well together? Something about contrasting colors, maybe, or just sweet and savory together... on Friday, we made a black bean stew over brown with sour cream and pineapple salsa.

Sorry for the kind of awful picture, we need more attractive bowls for this stuff!

Sweet potato gnocchi

Yesterday I was reading a list of "The Ten Healthiest Foods on the Planet". I don't really pay much attention to lists like this, since I like to figure out what foods make me feel good and healthy & also help the planet to be healthy, and try base my diet off of that... but we needed ideas for what to cook. I sent the list to Dan, and said to pick anything but garlic, avocados, and obviously, salmon. From this, we came up with a plan to make sweet potato gnocchi--maybe not the most healthy way to prepare a healthy food, but certainly enjoyable!

Sweet potato gnocchi with herb white sauce

Red on red

When we were thinking of dinner yesterday, Dan mentioned quinoa, which I knew we had a package of somewhere buried in cabinets. I knew we also had veggie beef in the fridge, from H-mart, as well as carrots, spinach, and onion. We've also had a bottle of red wine hanging out for about six months that we haven't yet broken into. So, with all these need-to-use ingredients in mind... veggie beef in red wine sauce over quinoa? Sounds pretty good.

I also thought it would -look- good, until I brought out the package of quinoa and realized it was red quinoa. Red on red? And it's not even February... well, either way, it turned out well, and would be a great dish for Valentine's Day!

A lot of red, with some green and orange for balance.

Lasagn-yum

On Monday (technically Labor Day, but we didn't really 'celebrate') we decided to make lasagne (lasagna?) with spinach, mushrooms, and tofu. We had the tofu already, but went to the store to buy noodles, tomato sauce, spinach, and mushrooms. The cashier--who was working on Labor Day, mind you--recognized our ingredients, and asked, "You guys making spinach lasagne?" ...how did he know! We also bought wine and some frozen juices, which he suggested we mix together. Not such a bad idea.

Lasagne we did make, and I'll share the (very easy) recipe with you!

Out of the oven.

Seitan sausage paella

**This is a recipe posted a little over a year ago on our former blog. We're re-posing because it's a good recipe for summer, and it's still summer out there, as DC heat reminded us this week. Enjoy!

This is the only photo we got of the paella, sadly. Other photos not of paella will accompany this post.

Every time I cook something that has potential to be spicy (as in spicy hot, like chili peppers on a Thai menu), I cook it in a way that fulfills that potential and then some. My own threshold for that kind of spice is so high that only certain brands of salsa and a few four-chili dishes at restaurants can hit it. Dan’s tolerance is about on par with mine, so if we cook to our respective levels, it usually works out for both of us. Since I’ve started cooking for more guests after moving into the JASCastle , though, I’ve gotten some cues that maybe not everyone can enjoy the same kind of heat in their food--mainly due to remarks like “wow, this is spicy--good, but...really spicy”.

Almond Alfredo sauce

Sorry for another week of absence -- it's not that I've been that busy, it's that I haven't undertaken many interesting endeavors in the culinary or gastronomical spheres. I did make something good last night, though, even though I was the only one who got to enjoy it! I used this recipe to make an almond-tofu Alfredo sauce, which we've made once before, and it turned out really well.

Marinara, Alfredo, pasta, and some broccoli...

Summer Squash Fajitas

Summer squash was our choice vegetable of the week from the Columbia Heights Community Marketplace, which goes on every Saturday. With the DC summer in full force, we decided to bring our own heat to the table and cook up some squash fajitas. The preparation is super fast and can probably be done in 20 minutes or so if you have pre-made tortillas (but it's much more fun to make your own...)

Green (and red) green curry

We got the idea of brussels sprouts in a curry from the Fojol Brothers Volathai food truck here in DC, which offers a "Green Green Curry" with brussels sprouts, green peppers, and other greens. We made our own twist on this, with red peppers for a slightly different color palette.

What we eat

Here's some samples from the past few weeks of what we've been eating, besides pie. Maybe we can make this a weekly thing, if I can remember to take photos (Facebook friends probably think I'm heavy on the food photos, but that's probably less than half of what we actually cook/bake...)

Soba with greens and veggies

This is a soba noodle stir fry, with bok choy (or pak choi or what have you), peppers, onions, and carrots, mixed with a homemade sauce and topped with toasted almonds. This was a recipe from the book Wild About Greens, which was a gift from my mom. Bok choy is one of my favorite greens.

Wonton soup and scallion pancakes

We also made our own scallion pancakes (recipe; we subbed about 1/3 of the flour with whole wheat) and wonton soup last week. We made our own wontons filled with tofu, scallions, and ginger. The broth was made with soy sauce and some miso paste, as well as other seasonings. The soup and the pancakes were both really yummy but kind of labor intensive, but I'd make them both again. 

I made these cookies yesterday, the chocolate coconut cookies meant to resemble a certain Girl Scout cookie. These are from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, one of the most awesome cookie-cookbooks. These are really good and actually pretty easy to make. The cookbook has other good recipes as well, like peanut butter chocolate pillow cookies, which I've made many times...

We've also been eating some good food we didn't photograph, like caramelized cabbage and onions with macaroni and Daiya, sautéed squash burritos, fried zucchini sticks, and marbled vanilla & chocolate cupcakes. Unfortunately, we've also been kind of sick as of late, which means today my lunch was nuts and tea. Hopefully that will pass soon!

Italian "sausage" sandwiches

So good!

Imagine an Italian version of a Philly cheese steak, with italian sausage, peppers, onions, and marinara sauce... ok, maybe more of an Americanized Italianized Philly cheese steak. Anyway, doesn't that sound good? I thought so, too, so I decided to make some seitan sausages and mix them with onions and peppers to try it out. It was great! The sausages turned out really well, and since I love marinara sauce, the sauce-topped sandwich was fantastic. I know some seitan-skeptics, but this one is flavorful and comes out tasting great when thinly-sliced and sautéed with peppers and onions. Alternatively, you could buy Tofurkey's vegan sausages, or another type, and save yourself some time. Recipe follows, for the sausages and sandwich assembly.