Tofu and Vegetables in Ginger Cilantro Broth

Early into VeganMoFo, I saw this recipe on Mo’s blog and it totally appealed to me. Especially since I think we were in the middle of the great flood of 2009. What’s more appealing on a gloomy day than an lovely bowl of soup. Especially one with such bright flavors.

I did make a couple of small changes. There were only a few sad looking jalapenos at the farmer’s market so I grabbed a serrano instead. And I chucked in a sliced clove of garlic with the ginger because I just couldn’t help myself. Oh, and I almost forgot, I also chopped up a couple of romaine lettuce leaves and chucked them in the bowl. This was really easy and totally satisfied the pho craving I’ve had lately. Well, for now. But it’s easy enough to bust this out another time pretty quickly.

obviously, im not a food stylist...
obviously, i'm not a food stylist...

Puréed Spicy Sweet Potato & Peanut Stew with Chickpeas

Wow, the Puréed Spicy Sweet Potato & Peanut Stew with Chickpeas from Dreen Burton’s Eat, Drink & Be Vegan is so tasty! Sweet, spicy and just a hint of peanut to it. The chickpeas I used were some dark colored dried ones I picked up at the Indian grocery. When cooked up they seem to hold their shape really well without being hard at all. Kind of lentil-like that way. The recipe makes a ton, so I froze a bucket and have still been eating off of it this week. I love it when healthy tastes great! Also, if you’re watching pennies, this is pretty cheap to make.

VeganMofo Droppings

Even though I had my camera stolen and essential didn’t post the last week while preparing for the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival, I still somehow managed to get in more than 20 VeganMofo posts. Go me! 

Anyway, I have a couple of posts in me to catch up. This one will be the random assortment of food pics I took.

This was a quickie dinner thanks to the cheezy sauce I blogged about before.

 

Cheezy pasta & green beans with garlic bread
Cheezy pasta & green beans with garlic bread

 This lovely grill thali from Madras Chettinaad was a tasty break from baking for the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. By the way, this is one of my go to restaurants for mixed veg/non-veg company. 

 

Grill Thali
Grill Thali

I had some pumpkin in the freezer that I’d roasted and some home made stock, so I thought a pumpkin soup would be a good way to use some of that up. I started with this recipe, veganized it and skipped the cream/honey part at the end altogether. Also, a lot of the comments complained about it being bland, so I added a teaspoon of cayenne, a tablespoon of cumin and used ground cloves instead of whole so I wouldn’t have to try and fish them out later. The whole teaspoon of cayenne made it pretty spicy, so go lighter or skip it if you’re not into that. Monday night we ate this with grilled teese sammiches, but I failed to take a pic. So here it is with the pj&j as I ate it tonight. If I wasn’t lazy, I’d type this up in a nice new recipe, but I am, so there.

 

Oh, there’s more coming. A whole pile of Boston pics and another fabulous vegan potluck.

Food on my desktop

There are a few photos cluttering my desktop that I keep meaning to post. I say cluttering, but it isn’t like I ever see my desktop. It’s all open apps and exposé around here.summer spaghetti with corn and tomatoesThis is Summer Spaghetti with Corn and Tomatoes from Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone by Deborah Madison.  I’ve had this cookbook for over ten years but still find myself going back to it. Yeah, it’s not exactly summer around here but sometimes you need to step away from the roots and indulge a little. I considered using canned tomatoes but was able to find some nice grape tomatoes and they were lovely. It also gave me a chance to use the Sunergia Soy Feta I picked up at Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe. I never expect soy cheese to be spot on, but I found this to be a nice substitute. It doesn’t quite crumble like feta, but shredding works fine. And the smell seemed to have that requisite cheese stink. The little cardboard outer package for this has been sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for me to blog about this forever. I’m glad I can finally throw it in the recycling bin.stir-fried bok choy with roasted peanutsThis is another one from Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone, Stir-Fried Bok Choy with Roasted Peanuts. To make it a main dish, I rehydrated some fake chicken pieces I picked up from the Asian market a while back. I can’t remember which variety of bok choy I ended up using. I tend to just choose whichever one looks good that day, or even a different sort of green. I think this might have been Shanghai bok choy though. This always comes out nice, but this time I actually used the called for peanut oil instead of just canola. It really does add flavor so I recommend doing that.posole with red chile podsOh, and another one from Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone. If I’d paid attention I could have said that once at the top, eh? This is the Posole with Red Chile Pods. We’re lucky enough to have a number of hispanic markets around here where you can find a bunch of different dried corn varieties. Here I used a red one. The base for this soup is very simple. It’s the condiments that really make it. Here I have cilantro, avocado, soy feta and a lime wedge piled on top. There are more suggestions in the recipe, but this combination suited me just fine.