Vegan quiche closeup

Vegan quiche closeup
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

This is more or less the same recipe as last time, but I used whole wheat flour instead of chickpea, garden-fresh zucchini rather than broccoli, and the crust contains sunflower seeds, cashews, and pine nuts. I also baked this in the regular oven, since I'd already preheated it to cook the crust and I wanted to be able to have some of this for lunch. To atone for the non-solarity, I made some beer bread again in the solar cooker, which I had already preheated anyway. I will post about that when it's done.


Looking back through the archive, it seems that I never posted about the previous one, although I did take a photo of it. Nevermind, then, this one came out better anyway :) The recipe's from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.

Spanish rice, black beans, peppers & seitan, cilantro "pesto"

Spanish rice, black beans, peppers & seitan, cilantro "pesto"
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

A multi-part preparation... Something I am not always motivated enough to do.

Item one: Spanish rice, made with brown rice, vegetable stock, and a can of stewed tomatoes, the contents of which had been run through the food processor.

Item two: black beans. soaked overnight and then cooked in the pressure cooker.

Item three: Seitan with red, yellow, and green bell peppers, all sauteed with a bit of olive oil, salt, and adobo seasoning. The adobo smelled quite strong, but the flavor was subtle. It's on the old side, so I don't think I can consider that a "rule."

Last but not least, the cilantro "pesto" that I made last night.

We assembled these things artistically into our bowls and had another nice meal on the porch, in the lovely spring cupertino weather. The leftovers were all mixed together for the sake of reducing dish usage. I think it'd make really nice burritos, but I don't think buying bunch of tortillas when we'd realistically only need two or three makes sense, because at the moment I don't expect that any of our other leftovers would make particularly appetizing burritos. 

A bit of cleaning up along the way, and the kitchen is a lot less of a disaster than it could have been considering all the dishes, tools, etc involved. If only I were always so disciplined. 

Holiday stuffs

Nothing surprising here. Stuffed acorn squash much like last time, but substituting replacing the channa masala spice blend with basil, oregano, and sage from the garden. It was a hit at the party we went to! Today I'm making another veggie pie/tortiere with onion, carrot, fennel, and those same garden fresh herbs sauteed together. At the end, I added cashew butter and nutritional yeast to try to make it gooify, as a "problem" with this type of dish is that it tends to fall apart when serving. This stuff lined the bottom of the pan, with a middle layer of cooked green lentils and black beans and topped with mashed potatoes from yesterday. I smeared on a bit of olive oil in hopes that the top will brown a bit.

As for the fennel, I used both the bulb and one of the stalks, which took on a surprisingly different flavor once sauteed. I think this will be one of my best dishes yet.

another veggie pie/tortiere

This time I sauteed some thinly sliced onions and celery with herbs, then thinly sliced potatoes and sunchokes. I layered those in the pan, added a can each of kidneys, pintos, and corn, then covered it in baked squash and baked it all for 30 minutes. I've made this kind of thing lots of times, but this is definitely the best.

Something different

I baked a couple of acorn squashes tonight for dinner, and reheated some mashed potatoes (made in a fairly normal way, but w/ almond milk instead of regular). We also had a bunch of green and white beans, so I sauteed those in a cast iron skillet with olive oil, minced onion, marinated tofu from the farmer's market, salt, pepper, and sesame seeds. I've done this kind of thing before and the beans never came out right, but this time I periodically deglazed the skillet with water and and put a lid over the top so the beans would get steamed. It worked well and I was pleased with how they came out.

Pancakes, Pupusas, Soup

Quick post:

Saturday morning, I made pancakes for breakfast. Whole wheat flour, brown rice flour, baking powder, soymilk, vanilla extract. Awesome! Angeline chopped up mango and banana for the topping.

Made pupusas using masa harina and loosely following this recipe. For the filling, I made refried black beans and mixed them with leftover cooked acorn squash. Again, I felt it was lacking something, although the bean/squash mixture is extremely tasty on its own. I think cheese was the missing ingredient, so maybe I will try again in a few weeks and make an interesting sounding uncheese.

Finally, I made some soup. I boiled asparagus, broccoli, and chives until soft in broth with thyme and marjoram. Pureed that and set it aside, and made a roux with brown rice flour and olive oil, added almond milk and then mixed the puree back in. I thought it was too sweet at this point, because of the almond milk, so I added a bit of salt, more spices, and some basil. It was nice, a sweetish soup with an herbal finish to it.