Palak Panir

Palak Panir
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Last one for the night! Angeline made this while I worked on the other things. This is basic palak panir, except we used niter kibbeh for the sauteeing part. We had a bit for dinner after we finished cooking, with some leftovers and a well-earned bottle of Samuel Smith's apple cider. Mmmmmm....

Miser Allecha

Miser Allecha
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

This is basically just spiced lentils and onion. Also from Papa Tofu.

I bought some injera at the ethiopian market to serve with these things. I'm really looking forward to it!

Gomen

Gomen
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Gomen, pretty much just as it is in Papa Tofu except I used the beet greens and kale that I had available rather than buying collards for it. We're having a 4th of July shindig tomorrow and Angeline suggested ethiopian food, so I took it as a challenge.

This and the next two dishes use generous amounts of niter kibbeh (spiced margarine), also from Papa Tofu. No photo of that but you can take my word for it.

Mei quin choy, shiitake mushrooms, young onions

Mei quin choy, shiitake mushrooms, young onions
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

This was inspired by a recipe in veganomicon, baby bok choy with sauteed shallots and sesame seeds. Except, I used none of those things. I used mei quin choy (there's still a bunch left...), shiitake mushrooms, and chopped "young onions," which are somewhat shallot-like in taste. Oh, and a ton of ginger. Sauteed everything but the mei quin choy for a while first, then added the MQC, a bit of soy sauce, and some apple juice. Covered to steam for a bit and then served with, you guessed it, wasabi mashed potatoes!

Mango, heirloom tomato, and fresh herb salad

Mango, heirloom tomato, and fresh herb salad
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Pretty much as it says. The herbs were just basil and mint.

Grated beet and zucchini salad

Grated beet and zucchini salad
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

With a bit of soy sauce, and served atop leftover wasabi mashed potatoes. The beets were from our CSA box and the zucchini was from the garden!

Wasabi mashed potatoes, mei quin choy stuff

Wasabi mashed potatoes, bok choy-like stuff
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

The stuff on the left is mashed potatoes with some wasabi powder. More subtle than you'd think... Inspired by Veganomicon.

The stuff on the right is finely sliced onions, fennel, and mei quin choy sauteed with some soy sauce. Very flavorful!

Raw cashew & lemon cookies

Raw cashew & lemon cookies
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Sorry for the late post, I actually made these last weekend. I soaked raw cashews overnight, let them dry, and then pureed them with fresh-squeezed meyer lemon juice. I formed them into "cookies" and dehydrated them for about 12 hours at 105 degrees. They were really nice, and I will make them again, but they didn't keep as well as I would have liked.

Grilled tofu and zucchini

Grilled tofu and zucchini
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Actually, the tofu's not grilled, because there wasn't room in the grill pan with two halved zucchinis filling it. The zucchini was fresh from the garden and the tofu was fresh from San Jose Tofu, pressed to drain a bit and with light slatherings of a maple syrup/soy sauce glaze on the cooked sides. More subtle than I expected, but nice.

Squash slaw

Squash slaw
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Well, the latest batch of beer bread came out poorly. So, here's some "squash slaw" to make up for it. Two summer squash, two other unidentified green squashed, and two carrots grated into a bowl, with the juice of a meyer lemon and a bit of olive oil stirred in.

It's really good but needs something else. Raisins, maybe?

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.

Solar-baked stuffed peppers

Solar-baked stuffed peppers
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

And, the final assembly! Two green bell peppers stuffed with spanish rice and refried beans, topped with some colby uncheese, and cooked in the solar cooker for about 4 hours. See how the uncheese browned? Nice! I wish it had melted a bit, but you can't win them all.

Refried beans

Refried beans
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Pinto beans cooked twice in the pressure cooker, with a change of water in between, as recommended on Miss Vickie's website. After draining them, I sauteed an onion in the cooker, added back the beans, some pomi, salt, and bean water, and mashed it up. This is the best version of this that I've made yet.

Spanish rice

Spanish rice
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Brown rice, pomi chopped tomatoes, cilantro from the garden, and an onion. Toasted the rice, added the rest, and cooked it in the pressure cooker for about 20 minutes or so, I think. Nice rich flavor and creamy texture!

Colby "uncheese"

Colby "uncheese"
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Here's the colby "uncheese" from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. We didn't have roasted red peppers so I tried the paprika variation. It's good, but too paprika-y and a bit dry, probably due to powdered paprika versus juicy roasted peppers. If I do the paprika version again, maybe I should use less agar to make it softer?

Anyway, the taste is really nice. Very cheesy, if not a dead ringer for real colby cheese. Goes well with crackers, stuffed peppers, etc...

Golden Pasta and Cauliflower Salad

Golden Pasta and Cauliflower Salad
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

This is almost exactly as in The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, except we didn't have bell peppers or water chestnuts, so I didn't put them in. They would have been nice for a bit of extra contrast but I enjoyed this as it was.

Sauteed Cauliflower Greens, Bok Choy, and Chard
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Angeline made the greens with contents from our CSA box, to go with the salad.

I also made the "Colby Cheez" from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, which is currently chilling in the fridge. I'll post about that when it's done.

Steamed carrots, leeks, and baby turnips; sauteed baby turnip greens

Originally uploaded by wbajzek

For lunch today I steamed the carrots, leeks, and baby turnips. The steaming water had some earl gray tea and rosemary from the yard in it; it added a subtle but nice flavor to them. When done, I poured on a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and stirred it up.

Meanwhile, I washed, chopped, and sauteed the greens from the baby turnips with a bit of grated ginger.

We still have more greens (kale, I think), so I may sautee them and serve them for dinner with the leftovers c, l, and bts from lunch.

Mac and Uncheese

Mac and Uncheese
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

This is based on the "ultimate mac and uncheese sauce" from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, plus fresh herbs and minus the powdered onion and garlic. I don't have either, and can't handle much garlic anyway, it makes me queasy. It was definitely more cheese-like than my own improvised uncheeses. It was pretty good, but next time I will not use the garbanzo flour, which has too strong of a taste, and I may need to add more mustard or something to give it a bit more zip.

Sauteed agretti and kale with ginger

Sauteed agretti and kale with ginger
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Wednesday is delivery day from our CSA, and we have a lot leftover from last week. Since I'm working from home today, I decided to prepare some as an experiment and perhaps as lunch if it turned out well.

This is agretti and kale sauteed with ginger. Actually, I steamed them for 5 minutes or so first. I think it's pretty fantastic, the sweet/salty/savory flavor of the agretti compliments the kale well, and the ginger ties them together.

I wasn't sure what to do with the agretti at first, but the stems seem to be edible so just cut the ends off and you're good to go. 

More solar cooking

leeks, carrots and greens
Originally uploaded by wbajzek

Since the last time I'd used the solar cooker, I bought an oval-shaped aluminum roasting pan, which is painted dark. The hope was that it would heat up more quickly than the cast iron dutch oven did and NOT impart that cast-iron flavor on everything. It did the trick, and has a pretty big capacity. WIth enough preparation, I could cook multiple dishes in it at once.

The dish in the rear of the photo consists of carrots and leeks roasted in the solar cooker with sage, mint, oregano, chopped crystalized ginger, and olive oil. They cooked for about 4 hours and came out a bit crunchier than I'd intended but still very good. I am not sure they would have been better off cooking longer, but since there was a lot of juice at the bottom, I wonder if covering them with foil or something would have caused them to be soften up a bit more.

I never would have thought to eat leeks like this before I read "Seitan a la Ficelle" from What the hell does a vegan eat anyway. I was so inspired by the photos that I decided to have leeks some way other than boiled for a long time in soup, and also to perhaps start posting more photos as well. To that end, sorry for the blurriness of this photo, the lighting was not good and I had not properly prepared for it. 

The mustard greens and rapini were steamed for 5 minutes and then given a sprinkling of salt, pepper, olive oil, and fresh-squeezed meyer lemon juice. This dish came out nicely, too; the greens were a bit bitter when raw but they mellowed out nicely with the steaming.