Grilled Vegetables

 

Vegetables on the grill are so delicious that the prominence of meat in the many grilling events I've attended over the years is somewhat befuddling. All you need is some produce and a bit of creativity, as we found out yesterday at Tomales Bay. 

The sky was overcast and it was gently drizzling the whole time, but it did not deter us from going for a nice swim in the chilly bay, where we had a couple of pelicans for company. They swam and flew very close to us--how exciting!

The pelicans reminded me of how much I love Judy Irving's terrific documentary Pelican Dreams. In fact, that's the movie that pushed me to become vegan, because I realized, while learning about the environmental threats faced by these beautiful birds, that everything is interconnected, and that the best thing I could do for all animals--farm animals AND wild animals--is to stop consuming them in any form.

But back to the vegetables. After our swim, we sliced up a potato, a yam, and a red onion, removed the less-exciting parts of several green onions, sliced up two Field Roast sausages lengthwise, and removed the stems from an entire bunch of rainbow chard leaves. We set all of this up in one layer on foil, drizzling olive oil and sprinkling cumin on our bounty.

Setting up the grill is easy, but time consuming. It calls for a match, some kindling (we used splinters) and coals. We started by lifting the grid (and cleaning the ashes inside), and then by making a little fire with the splinters and doctoring it to health. This requires some patience when there's wind and a drizzle, but is certainly doable. Then, we gently and carefully placed the coals atop the little fire, taking care not to extinguish it.

The idea behind cooking on charcoal is as follows: when oxygen (in the air) meets carbon (in the charcoal), they produce CO2 (they also sometimes produce CO, carbon monoxide, which is why doing this indoors is a very bad idea.) A by-product of the chemical reaction is heat. You can tell that things are going okay by the coals starting to become white and ashen. When the process starts, it's time to put down the grid and layer the foil atop it. It helps with steaming if you cover your food with a second piece of foil.

Everything on the grill was delicious, but I was particularly fond of the chard and sweet potato. The grilling process imparted a smoky and wonderful taste, which you can sort-of-but-not-accurately recreate at home by adding liquid smoke. The big discovery was how unnecessary meat was. While the vegan sausages were great, the vegetables were terrific, and I can see us trying with eggplant, green beans, and tomato slices next time.

Finally, before heading home, don't forget to extinguish the fire!

Stop Bragging and Gloating about Eating Bacon

In the aftermath of the World Health Organization report published yesterday, which linked red and processed meat to cancer risk, several of my friends have recurred to Facebook to reiterate their commitment to stuffing their faces with bacon, because it's tasty, goddammit, and because the minuscule increase in risk is not worth giving up their delightful pleasure. As a reward for this sentiment, they get "likes", and "mmmm, bacon", and smiley emoticons.

I understand why people do this. They cling to what they know and are used to, they don't want to change, and they therefore reject new information that contradicts their old ways. It's the oldest heuristic in the Kahneman and Tversky bag of tricks. Moreover, if they post about their desire to cling to their habit, they're bound to get "likes" and other confirmations from people who are also reluctant to let go, which strengthens their resolve to stick with it.

I also understand how easy it is to ignore the realities of what one is eating as long as one is not directly confronted with them. Any disruption of this ignorance (such as a new report or a vegan's presence) reminds people of things they don't like to think about, such as that the meat on their plate once swam, walked, flew, enjoyed the sunshine, and wanted to continue living. Or that the meat on their plate came from someone who lived their lives in conditions comparable to those in a concentration camp before being deprived of life. It's not a comfortable thought; we all like to believe that we are good people, so it's easier to ignore our complicity in something horrible and go back to one's meat-eating support base and get some pats on the back.

Nonetheless, reading these posts throws me into an abyss of distress. I get that it's hard for people to let go of what was traditionally on their plate. But to take moral relish in the killing of pigs for taste? To openly revel and boast in opting for participating in the world's vilest, cruelest industry and in the suffering of living beings because it's tasty, goddammit? It's particularly disturbing when it comes from people who I know are committed to world improvement in all other aspects of their lives. From people who cry out against much lesser cruelties on a daily basis. I guess the human rights buck really stops with "human", even though the desire to live, the love of our offspring, and complex emotions of fear, pain, and suffering, are common to all of us.

When things like this happen, I'm reminded of J. M. Coetzee's The Lives of Animals. Like his heroine, Elizabeth Costello, "I want to find a way of speaking to fellow human beings that will be cool rather than heated, philosophical rather than polemical, that will bring enlightenment rather than seeking to divide us into the righteous and the sinners, the saved and the damned, the sheep and the goats.”  But how do I cope, every day, with friends and acquaintances that I know to be kind, good, moral people, and who participate in the most horrific crime against other living beings every day without batting an eyelash, and feel it is appropriate to gloat and boast about this? It's a contradiction that is really hard to live with.

Please, open your eyes. If you cut back on animal products--or, better still,eschew them completely--the taste sacrifice you'll supposedly make is minor (as this blog proves, it's non-existent!) and you'll exit the vilest human crime on earth. The cancer prevention is just a side benefit.

Chamin 2.0: Halloween Version

I really hope some of you got to make my four-color chamin recipe from a couple of weeks ago--it really rocked. I'm posting yet again about chamin because I've made some seasonal improvements to the recipe and it came out even more wonderful (and more nutritious!) than the previous installment.

Essentially, what I did was replace the white potatoes with a squash and more carrots, making the meal more orange and less white. I also did away with the rice and put in mung beans instead. It came out phenomenal, and I'm thrilled to have a hot meal for the rest of the week!

Tofushuka

This morning I happily found a way to veganize one of my favorite egg dishes, shakshuka. Old-timer followers of this blog may recall that I once posted a shakshuka recipe here, and I've rather missed it. But FEAR NOT. It's very simple: All you have to do is, in lieu of the egg, crumble some tofu into the red sauce. The texture is a bit different, but I have to say that the taste is remarkably similar, and it delivers a heap of protein.

I'd use about 85 grams of tofu (a two-inch-by-two-inch-by-half-an-inch block) for every cup of sauce. This really requires some generosity with the sauce.

New Smoothies: Carrot Pineapple and "Poached" Pear

The new Vitamix is a thing of marvel, and it has inspired me to create new types of smoothies. Every morning I make up a new recipe. The latest two successes have been really special:

Carrot Pineapple
1 cup soymilk
1 carrot
1/2 cup pineapple chunks
1/2 cup chard
1 tsp turmeric


"Poached" Pear
1 cup almond milk
1 pear
2 plums
1/2 cup unsweetened cranberry juice
2 cloves
1 tsp cinnamon

Morning Tofu Scramble

It's been a long morning; I started working at 5am and will be working until 10pm. Fortunately, I have a brief lull getting from home to the office and managed to make myself a decent breakfast:

100gr extra-firm tofu (about 3/4 cup crumbled)
1 tbsp chopped onion
1 garlic clove, chopped
12 cherry tomatoes
2 cups chard leaves, sliced into ribbons
3 large mushrooms
1 tbsp hot sauce
1 tsp olive oil

Heat up olive oil in pan. Add onion, garlic, and mushrooms, and sautee until they soften a bit. Add chard and tomatoes and sautee a few more minutes. In a little bowl, crumble the tofu and mix with the hot sauce. Add to pan and stir fry with the vegetables. Yum!

UPDATE: Great variation - pesto sauce in lieu of the hot sauce, and a little bit of Miyoko's Kitchen mozarella! Also marvelous.

Four-Color-Chamin: Vegan and Satisfying

Despite the fact that El Niño has not arrived yet, I found myself in a winter preparatory mood (I know, I know, it's 75 degrees outside) and made chamin, the cold-weather, slow-cooked wonder my grandma used to make on Saturdays. Typically, we'd all show up, eat a fresh salad and a big plate of chamin, and then essentially collapse in a diagonal fashion and fail to move for hours. The vegan version is much lighter than the one that includes big chunks of beef and stuffed guts.

My recipe changes a bit every time I make this, but this time I decided to follow the advice of an expert and made one of Ori Shavit's recipes. I had no red quinoa, so I substituted it for red kidney beans, and included black dal and white beans as well. Here's the recipe, translated to English, with my changes and modifications:

1 cup black dal
1 cup white beans
1 cup basmati rice
1 cup kidney beans
2 russet potatoes, thickly sliced
3 sweet potatoes, thickly sliced
3 carrots, thickly sliced
1 red onion, coarsely chopped
5 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
3 prunes, chopped
3 bay leaves
5 sage leaves
blackened spice to taste (I used 1 tbsp for the whole pot)
salt to taste (I used 1 tbsp for the whole pot)
7-8 peppercorns
olive oil

If possible, soak the beans and rice in water overnight; if not, no worries (this is a slow-cooked recipe.)
In a heavy pan, heat up a bit of olive oil and sautee the onion, garlic, bay leaves and safe leaves. After a few minutes, add the potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots, and sautee for a few more minutes. Then, place and layer that whole mixture at the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker. On top of it, arrange the rice and beans in four distinct areas (each in every corner), add prune pieces, peppercorns, salt, and blackened spice, and carefully cover with boiling water. Set slow cooker to "high" for three hours. Then, add boiling water to cover again, and set slow cooker to "low"for twelve hours.

This improves when reheated, refrigerates and freezes wonderfully, in case you don't have a horde of people coming over for the weekend.

Almond "Feta"

This was a massive pantry day! We made three loaves of seitan--Italian, Berbere, and Cajun--and froze most of them. And I also made almond "feta", which is now happily brining in the fridge.

The recipe comes from Miyoko Schinner's The Homemade Vegan Pantry, which is turning out to be an extremely useful resource. Here's the process:

Step 1

2 cups blanched almonds
1 cup liquid from sauerkraut
a bit of salt

I soaked the almonds for a few hours in water, then drained them and processed in the blender with the liquid and salt. I poured the remaining mixture into a container and put it on the counter to culture. With the warm weather we had, it cultured the following day! (how do you know? you taste it to figure if it's tangy.)

Step 2

2/3 cup water
2 tbsp agar powder

I simmered these together on low heat until the agar dissolved and solidified. Then, I turned off the heat, added the almond mixture, and whisked. I then poured the mixture into a container lined with cheesecloth and placed it in the fridge for a few hours.

Step 3

water
salt

The cheese is ready and solid! I cut it into four pieces and placed them in a different container, pouring salt water on top. I'm told it will be wonderful and improve as time goes by.

Oh, and just for fun - here's what we had for dinner: fresh sourdough with hummus and mature ful, green ful lightly steamed with lemon juice and za'atar, caprese with vegan mozzarella from Miyoko's Kitchen, and a cucumber-dill salad. It was atrociously hot and this is all we could manage. The only thing here that might not be obvious is the ful topping on the hummus, but all there was to it was opening a can and sauteeing it a bit with sliced onion and some baharat.

UPDATE: The cheese came out wonderful!

Step-By-Step Seitan

I've been wanting to make homemade seitan for a while, ever since I took Psalm Lewis' wonderful cooking class. At that workshop, we made vegan pot pie with seitan made from scratch--it's not difficult, and with all the ingredients on hand you can have a nice and reliable protein source for cheap. This morning I bought some vital wheat gluten and other essentials and followed Psalm's recipe:

Ingredients

Step 1:
1 cup vital wheat gluten
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
 2 tsp baharat (I did that in lieu of poultry seasoning, but I imagine anything meatlike would do)
1 tsp mashed garlic (the original recipe calls for garlic powder)
1 tsp paprika
3/4 cup cooked and mashed beans (I used black-eyed peas, which is what I had around the house)
1 tbsp Bragg's liquid aminos

Step 2:
broth or bouillion or dried vegetables

I measured and mixed the dry ingredients, then added the wet ingredients, and kneaded them into a ball--actually, more of a loaf shape--which I then left to rest for 15 minutes.

I then made some broth, placed the loaf in it wrapped in cheesecloth, and let that simmer for 30 minutes.

Then, I let the content of the pot cool somewhat before taking the seitan out of it.

I let the seitan cool completely before slicing it into 1/4-inch cubes, some of which I froze and some placed in the fridge for immediate use. Yum!

Update: Here are some of the seitan chunks in a nice tomato-based ragu. It came out absolutely delicious.

Collard Pesto and Caprese

To your left is a nice, summery Italian meal: pasta with a Pesto of Hidden Value and magical caprese. All of this is vegan, with a helpful hand from Miyoko's Kitchen!

First, the clandestine pesto. I added an entire giant bunch of raw collard greens to the classic recipe, to which it adds some intense green color and a bit of flavor. It's the newest addition to my old bag of tricks--I try to add leafy greens to everything I make, partly because of their fabulous calcium content--and pesto is the ideal delivery vehicle for it.

To make this marvel, you'll need:

1 bunch collard greens
4 large garlic cloves
3 tbsp pine nuts
1 cup basil leaves
olive oil (in a bottle that allows drizzling)
salt
a dollop of Miyoko's Kitchen Double Cream Chive

Cut collard greens into ribbons and place in food processor. Process until very thinly chopped. Add garlic, pine nuts, and basil, and continue processing; slowly drizzle olive oil from the top as you're processing everything else until it reaches a consistency you like. Add a few small chunks of Miyoko's Kitchen cheese, if you like, and continue processing until more or less homogenous. Mix with pasta and serve.

Second, the caprese: this salad was one of the grand loves of my pre-vegan life, and today a marvelous thing happened: I received my shipment of Miyoko's buffalo-style vegan mozarella. We had a giant heirloom tomato lying about, so I sliced it, placed a piece of mozarella on each slice, and decorated each with a basil leaf.

Now that I've eaten this salad I can happily say that veganism does not entail even a shred of sacrifice, and all my culinary pleasures are well satisfied without cruelty. Thank you, Miyoko!

Summer Hosting: Stuffed Mushrooms and Eggless Salad

Sunday Streets, a city-organized block party occurring in a different neighborhood every month, was in the Excelsior today. Salsa and rock bands, booths, food trucks, and lots and lots of happy people on bicycles.

On a whim, we sent out an email inviting friends over for an open house today, so I made some cool snacks: it's always good to serve some cherry tomatoes, carrot sticks, and blanched green beans, and I had a winter truffle cheese from Miyoko's Kitchen. I also roasted an eggplant and served two fun inventions:

Eggless Salad

1 block extra-firm tofu
1.5 tbsp Just Mayo or Vegenaise
2 tbsp good quality brown mustard
about an inch off a leek, just the white part
1 large dill pickle
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp chana masala/garam masala powder
salt and pepper to taste

Mix mayo and vegenaise in a mixing bowl. Slice leeks very finely, then cut through to obtain thin strips. Cut pickle into small cubes.

Crumble entire block of tofu into bowl. Add leeks and pickle and mix well. Season to taste and keep refrigerated.

Stuffed Mushrooms

20 white or brown champignon mushrooms
1-2 tbsp Bragg's Liquid Aminos
2 tbsp parsley
3 onion cloves
2 tbsp strained tomatoes
1 vegan sausage (I like using Field Roast)

Carefully remove stems from all mushrooms. Place stemmed mushrooms on a tray and sprinkle Bragg's Liquid Aminos on top. Slice sausage into twenty discs and place one in the hollow of each mushroom. Finely chop the stems, parsley, and garlic, and mix with strained tomatoes. Spoon a bit of the mix on top of the sausage in each mushroom and bake for about 30-45 mins or as long as you like until the tops are browned.

Fantasy Vegan Cookbooks: Perfect Photos, Perfect People, Perfect Food

Right after polishing off a plate of veg, bean, and potato salad, I realized something interesting: I was inspired to make these very simple dishes after spending last night gushing over Rich Roll and Julie Piatt's The Plantpower Way. Is it just me, or have vegan cookbooks massively improved in production, photography, and design recently?

Fancy cookbooks are all over the place; our local cookbook store, Omnivore Books,  has tons of gorgeous exemplars. But I think that in vegan cuisine this trend is a conscious effort to counter an opinion that may still prevail among some meat eaters--namely, that veganism is ascetic, joyless and prohibitive, and that we don't enjoy our food. Which is why I'm noticing beautifully-photographed and conceptualized books devoted to the pleasures of veganism.

The Plantpower Way is a classic example. It's essentially a coffee-table cookbook full of pictures of Rich Roll, the lawyer-turned-ultra-athlete, and his very good looking family (gorgeous yogini wife and four exceedingly handsome teenagers.) The book is so saturated with images of these folks' beautiful house, great clothes, and fantastic food, that it gave me the uncomfortable feeling that these folks' happy family life is a sex scandal waiting to happen. :) If you have a cynical bone in your body, you have to ask yourself whether these folks are always as happy and brimming with vitality as they are in the photos (and whether collaborating with their teenagers on such a nutritious diet is always successful). But if you are willing to suspend your disbelief a bit and engage in the fantasy lifestyle of the Rich and Famous, these folks are the poster children for happy, healthy vegans. The recipes are also pretty great, and despite the elaborate photographic appeal not all that cumbersome, if you have a good blender and food processor. The text is all about optimizing nutrition, throwing greens in whenever possible, and other principles--occasionally it veers into not-uncommon hooey about "food vibrations"--but the recipes themselves seem very tasty. Even though the book admonishes us to make our blends (smoothies) more about vegetables than fruit, and to eschew the nut milks, the recipes themselves don't feel masochistically healthy, have a healthy share of fruit and other yummy ingredients, and there's a whole chapter on latte coffees and teas that features abundant nut milks. I should mention that these folks have a mysterious aversion to onions and garlic, presumably to make their meals more palatable to kids, but I grew up eating tons of onions and garlic in the Middle East as a kid and am surrounded by children who love both. But what do I know? Your pleasure in this book depends on how fantasy-prone you are, or on how much you're willing to "live with your imperfections" (as these perfect folks instruct us) and enjoy the recipes without turning green with envy at the time and resources that make this diet possible.

The Plantpower Way is not the first exemplar of this trend, of course. One of the first cookbooks I bought last year was Pure Vegan, which does not feature fancy characters but does have luxurious, hedonistic recipes. The sweets and desserts section is particularly marvelous, and I've made the olive oil and pistachio cake from this book with great success (even neater if you bake it in a bundt pan!). On the health-hedonism spectrum, I'd say this book falls toward the latter end. Some of the recipes are elaborate and involved, but some only seem so because of the gorgeous photography. There's not a ton of information here, but it is certainly an inspiringly beautiful book that I like to leaf through when I plan a party or something of that ilk.

Then, of course, there's The Oh She Glows Cookbook, which evolved from the famously beloved blog of the same name. As with the Plantpower Way, the book features beautiful people living in a beautiful home, exquisitely photographed cooking and enjoying beautiful food (according to the blog, there's now a baby in the mix, also!). This one also promises to be fairly hedonistic, and there's a good mix between elaborate and simple recipes. There are also some practical make-ahead solutions, which are far less fancy-schmancy in terms of preparation than the excellent photography would suggest. And again, the sweets and desserts section is interesting and useful, at least to those of us that still indulge in added sugars once in a while.

Finally, no round-up of fantasy vegan publications is complete without Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Diet and her lifestyle blog, The Kind Life. This book is an intro to veganism, full of thoughts from Silverstone, who talks about being a celebrity invested in a cause that is near and dear to her heart. There are some photos (beautiful people, beautiful home, beautiful food...) but the recipes are not a big part of it. It's more of an introductory text for folks for whom Silverstone might open the door to compassionate eating and living. The website is full of sweets, baked goods, and hedonistic recreations of non-vegan foods--made with healthy ingredients and sometimes credited to other vegan cooks. A nice transition, perhaps, for new vegans.

I enjoy these books mostly as visual inspiration, but I find the humorous and down-to-earth work of Isa Chandra Moskowitz, and the practicality and pioneering inventiveness of Miyoko Schinner, more useful on an everyday basis. And, of course, my beloved classic by Phyllis Glazer is at this point the foundation of my cooking style. I'm probably going to continue inventing my own recipes, but looking at the pretty photos for inspiration and presentation.

Three Simple Salads

I woke up in the mood for something simple and nostalgic for lunch and dinner. My grandma and I talk on the phone every day, and her stories about her family reminded me of the salads she used to make for us when I was little. They are a mix of Russian and Egyptian cuisine, simple and flavorful.

The bottom 50% of the plate is filled with a simple vegetable salad with romaine, raw zucchini matchsticks, cherry tomatoes, red onions, parsley, and a very simple dressing: 1tsp mustard and 1tsp apple juice (I made an enormous bowl and ate it all up; this is just the remainder).

In the top right corner is a bean salad, made from the leftover Christmas lima beans:

1/2 onion, thinly sliced
3 cups cooked beans
olive oil
salt and pepper

Caramelize the onion in a bit of olive oil. Meanwhile, place the three-or-so cups of leftover cooked beans, with a tablespoon of olive oil, into the food processor. Add salt and pepper. After processing it for a few moments, add half of the caramelized onions and process again to the desired consistency (I like it a bit chunky), and finally mix it with the remaining onions and placed in the fridge.

And in the top left corner is a quick potato salad. I'm not as pro-potato as I was when my metabolism was faster, but I still like it a lot, so this is a special treat.

4 medium-sized potatoes
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
big handful parsley
big handful other herbs (chives, green onion, oregano, thyme)
3 dill pickles
1 tbsp Just Mayo or Vegenaise
salt and pepper to taste

Microwave, bake, steam, or boil the potatoes until soft, then dice them up (my grandma always peeled them, but I never do). Place in a mixing bowl and add a very thinly sliced 1/2 onion, and the thinly sliced parsley and other herbs. Add the pickles, thinly diced, and mix with vegenaise, salt and pepper.

Orzo with Vegetables

When I was a kid, one of my favorite comfort foods was "ptitim", otherwise known as orzo or by the misleading name "Israeli couscous". This short and springy wheat pasta is unrelated to the original semolina couscous, and actually has an interesting recession-era history. In the 1950s, during the age of austerity in Israel, Prime Minister David Ben Guryon ordered the Osem factory to come up with a cheap alternative to rice. Ptitim came to be known as "Ben Guryon rice." They are now manufactured in various shapes.

Here, sometimes people cook them like pasta--boiling in a lot of water, then draining--but that's not the best method, I think. This basic recipe is pretty easy, but today I dressed it up with lots of wonderful vegetables straight out of our CSA box. Here's what I made:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion
3 carrots (I used one purple, one orange, and one pale yellow)
1 summer squash
5 mushrooms
1 cup whole grain orzo
1 cup boiling water
1 tbsp blackened rub
1 handful fresh parsley

Heat olive oil in a small pot (and keep the lid nearby). Thinly chop carrots, onion, squash, and slice mushrooms. Saute onions until translucent, then add other vegetables and orzo. Cook in olive oil for about 2-3 minutes, or until the orzo begins to be a bit golden. Then, add the water and the blackened rub, lower the heat and cover the pot. Cook for about 10-15 minutes or until all water is absorbed; if water is absorbed and orzo is still a bit too al-dente-ish for you, add more water and cook a few more minutes. When all water is absorbed, fluff up with a fork, then put the lid back on for a couple of minutes. Serve with fresh parsley sprinkled on top.

Christmas Lima Beans

This evening we ate Christmas Lima Beans, toasted with lemon juice and massaged kale (with olive oil) and lightly seasoned with a teaspoon of Pike Market dipping herbs. We also had a large platter of crudités with tahini and sliced, roasted potatoes.

The reason I mention this very simple but delicious meal is that I keep encountering vegan cookbooks that call for super complicated dishes that try to recreate, in a healthy/compassionate form, convenience food with animal ingredients. It's nice to eat that way once in a while--I made the mac-and-cheese pretty recently and it was yummy--but the bottom line is that, regardless of your eating regime, eating more simply and relying mostly on vegetables and fruit is a good idea.

I also mention this because there are many, many kinds of interesting and delicious beans in the world, and they are so flavorful that they don't require much fuss to make a good meal.

Terrific Vegetable Soup

I just made a big pot of wonderful vegetable soup. For some reason, the combination of vegetables yielded a gentle, fragrant soup, perfect for a cold day.

2 leeks
4 Celery Stalks
2 large zucchini
8 mushrooms (I used brown cap mushrooms)
2 medium-sized potatoes
2 tbsp hawayej mix
2 tbsp dried, ground vegetables

Slice everything thinly, cover with water, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 45 mins or longer.

Stunningly Wonderful Carrot Soup

I've just made a simple and marvelous carrot soup! I'm not usually fond of pureed soups, but I had fresh organic carrots and coconut milk and this turned out to be a rousing success. Here goes:

5-6 carrots
1/2 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp baharat
1 tsp cumin
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup water or broth

Heat olive oil in smallish pot and add onion, garlic, ginger, baharat, and cumin. Sautee for a few minutes until fragrant. Add carrots, water, and coconut milk. Cook for 10 mins, or until carrots are soft. Puree the entire thing in the blender and eat. Enough for two big bowls or four little ones.

Just for a few days! Casa Corazones blog

Just for the next three days, I'll be blogging about the comings and goings of robins and other small birds on the electrical cables around my backyard. Enjoy!

Middle Eastern Summer Dinner

Our friend Daniel is staying with us for a couple of days, and we were very happy to host him and his son for dinner. It was a nice summery affair--corn on the cob, roasted eggplant with tahini, salad, green beans in tomato sauce, whole wheat pita and hummus--and it was quickly gobbled up before I had a chance to take a photo.

A few fun tips:

• After lightly cooking fresh corn on the cob, it's nice to give it a rub with a bit of vegan butter (thank you, Miyoko Schinner!) and Dipping Herbs. 
• Take a big eggplant. Use a knife to make about ten slits in it, and stick half a garlic clove (sliced lengthwise) in each slit. Wrap in foil and bake for 45 mins. The garlic melts inside the eggplant and lends it an amazing flavor. Slice lengthwise and serve whole with tahini on top or on the side. The guests scrape out the eggplant goodness.
• The wonderful spicy tomato sauce used in khreimeh (a Libyan fish dish) can be used to sautee green beans. Lots of taste, none of the suffering.

Vegan Mac-n-Cheese

I was craving something creamy and delicious this evening and settled on a vegan version of mac-n-cheese. This is not my recipe; I made it using Isa Chandra Moskowitz's classic recipe.

A couple of small substitutions: the pasta is Tolerant lentil pasta (boosting the protein component of the meal) and the seasoning, rather than standard pizza seasoning, is Pike Place dipping herbs. I didn't sautee the onion and garlic in oil before adding to the blender (I'm sure it would have improved the sauce, though not by much, as it was damn tasty as it was). Other than that, the recipe's there and I can attest that the results are, indeed, comforting, creamy, and fantastic.

Squash-Kasha Patties

Still living off the soaked kasha from two days ago! Today, I mixed about a cup of it with a cup of pureed butternut squash, added some herbs and flavorings and grilled patties made of the mixture. It was very tasty, especially served atop mixed sautéed leafy greens, but didn't have as  much of a cohesive structure as I'd hoped. I'll had to add some chia in water next time I make patties.

What with this, the flax crackers, and the lovely vegetable broth slowly brewing in the slow-cooker (from all the stems and ends of the vegetables I used today), I think I'm good, foodwise, for a few days.

Flax Crackers

To the left: an image of the very first batch of (oddly shaped) flax crackers, made in my new Excalibur dehydrator.

I used to eat these quite a bit after falling in love with them at Cafe Gratitude; they made theirs with grated carrots and whole flax seeds. Then, I bought ready-made varieties, but their prohibitive price made them something to be enjoyed on an infrequent basis. But, as it turns out, I have a huge bag of ground flax in the freezer, and the equipment necessary to make it into a tasty batch, so I set out to make some.

There's really nothing to it: you mix the flax with water until you get something that has the consistency of yogurt. You let it sit for a few moments, during which the mixture thickens a bit, add seasonings (I threw in a generous handful of blackened cajun seasoning) and, using a rubber spatula, smooth it over a dehydrator tray (or three) until it's a fairly thin layer (I'd say, about the thickness of two flax seeds.) I left mine working overnight, and was pleased to have a ready-made batch in the morning; just ate two of them and they are delicious.

I bet the following varieties would also be fabulous, but haven't tried yet:

• grated carrots (Cafe Gratitude style), possibly with curry or masala seasoning
• with a hefty spoonful of tomato puree, a bit of thinly chopped garlic, and some dried basil or oregano
• with thinly chopped onions, parsley, and sumac

For lunch, I plan to have squash-kasha patties served atop sauteed collard greens. Good times!

Adventures in Fruit Rolls

The curious object in my hand is a fruit roll piece made of strawberries, mango, and melons, with a generous addition of ground flax seeds. I used to love eating fruit rolls, or as we called them, "fruit leather", as a kid, and started incorporating them into my feedings as I started swimming long distances in open water: they were flat and easy to pack, and delivered a satisfying sweet jolt. I typically bought the ones with no sugar added, but they came in a fairly limited assortment of flavors; imagine my joy when I figured out I could make some of my own using my new Excalibur dehydrator (buy directly from the factory: they have some great deals.)

This is my second attempt so far, and it has been a partial success. I put ripe strawberries, mango, and melon pieces in the blender with some lemon juice, because I remembered that pectin was an important ingredient in many commercial leathers. I added flax seeds and pureed the mixture. Then, I spilled it over my silicone mats and shook them a bit to guarantee an even spread, and started the dehydrator at 135 Fahrenheit. After about six hours I got what you see here. I suspect that a thicker layer would be more flexible and less brittle, but would take longer to dry; I'll try that next time. But I should point out that even the mistakes are tasty, and I plan to continue experimenting.

The thing also makes fabulous banana and strawberry chips, and I plan to use it to make seed crackers soon.

Kasha with Greens, Squash, and Mushrooms

I just found out something amazing! You can soak kasha (buckwheat) in water, and the result is just as tasty as cooked kasha.

It was the result of a happy accident; I intended to soak it for just a couple of hours, but forgot it in the soaking pot for a day and a half. Ah, well, I thought - I'll just cook it up. But then I tasted a couple of kernels and realized it didn't really need any cooking - just a quick turn in the pan that already had a stir-fry from yesterday in it.

Chad had made himself a dinner of greens, squash, and mushrooms, and ate it (probably) over pasta. I got about 8 leaves of young chard, and a handful of spinach, from our garden, threw it in there with the stir fry, and added a few handfuls of kasha. The result was extremely tasty, and improved with a generous sprinkling of nutritional yeast while cooking, as well as a tiny bit of truffle salt.

Chard from the Garden!

These are two or three chard plants from our garden, fresh and ready to eat!

I stir-fried them with tofu, garlic, ginger, coconut aminos, and sriracha, and served the whole thing over rice noodles. There's nothing like eating vegetables straight from the garden.

We have great plans: tomatoes of four kinds, cucumbers, okra, and herbs. So far, the tomato plants seem to be doing fine. I hope there's lots and lots of fruit, because I just got an Excalibur Dehydrator and I plan to dry lots for the winter season.

Mini Pita Sliders

We had lovely guests over the weekend, and yesterday I made a Mexican brunch for them that included short-grain brown rice and Rancho Gordo pinto beans. This morning, as an airport sendoff, I used some of the leftover grains and beans to make them travel sandwiches, and there was enough to make a tasty breakfast for us, too. 

Serves four:

1 cup brown rice, cooked
1 cup pinto beans, cooked
1/2 white onion
1 tsp olive oil
4-5 drops liquid smoke
1 tsp coconut aminos
1 tsp nutritional yeast
2 whole-wheat pitas
2 tbsp tahini or vegenaise
vegetables and herbs according to taste (I used some of yesterday's pico de gallo and cilantro)

Chop onion finely and brown in olive oil. As the onion is browning, in a mixing bowl, mash together brown rice and beans. Add onions to rice and bean mixture. Add liquid smoke, aminos, and nutritional yeast.

Make eight small balls out of the mixture and place in hot pan. Flatten the balls with wooden spoon. Brown 5 minutes, then flip and brown other side for 5 minutes.

Cut each pita into quarters. Coat insides with tahini. Place a burger in each quarter, then garnish with vegetables and herbs.

Bon Appetit!

Spring Stir-Fry

This simple and delicate dish combines many spring flavors and uses vegetables from our CSA and rosemary from our garden.

6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 tbsp safflower oil
3 green onion stalks, thinly sliced
1 pound green beans, with the ends trimmed
3 summer squashes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 cups chickpeas, cooked
3 twigs rosemary
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp lemony pepper
2/3 cup white wine

Heat up safflower oil in a wok. Add garlic, ginger, and green onions, and simmer a bit. Then, add green beans, squashes, and chick peas, and stir fry for a few minutes. add herbs and wine, cover wok, and cook for 10-15 mins, or until wine is absorbed and beans are cooked but perky.

Leek Fritters

It's Passover Eve! Hurrah! And we are invited to celebrate this holiday of spring, freedom, and questionable historical existence, with our good friends of 15 years from the East Bay!

Our friends are having the entire meal catered, and we were told not to worry about food. But I assume most of the invitees are not vegan. On one hand, I don't like disrupting other people's plans for the meal; on the other, I don't want to just bring clandestine tofu blocks for the two of us and ignore everyone else around the table. Also, in the off-chance that anyone around the table eats kosher under the Ashkenazi rules, I don't want to flood the table with soy or other beans. I've come up with two solutions and I plan to do both!

Solution 1: bringing a "cheese plate" of Miyoko's Cheeses. YEAH!

Solution 2: making amazing leak fritters!

Ori Shavit's wonderful blog is full of terrific vegan recipes, with an entire section devoted to Passover that I'm sure I'll be using for years to come. I used her leek latkes recipe with a few minor substitutions. For non-Hebrew readers, it's as follows:

5 leeks, white and light green parts
4 tbsp matzo flour
1 large onion
4 garlic cloves
1 large fistful parsley
1 large fistful cilantro (I substituted oregano and sage)
celery leaves from 5 stalks
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp Hawaiiej  (I have the real deal, but you can substitute with cumin and cardamom)
safflower oil and potato flour for frying

Cut each leek into three pieces. Place in a pot, cover with water, boil and simmer for 10 mins. Drain.
Then, place cooked leeks and all other ingredients into food processor and process until smooth.
Heat safflower oil in a large pan.
Place spoonfuls of the mix into the pan (you can dip them in potato flour to assist the frying) and fry a few minutes on each side, until firm and golden.

House Anniversary Dinner

On Friday night we celebrated one year since we closed on Casa Corazones, and were very happy to host our realtor, who is a classy, hardworking, wonderful person, for a nice colorful dinner. No pix remain, but here is what I cooked:

Inauthentic but Tasty Posole Soup (big pot, lots of leftovers):
- 1/2 pound dry hominy corn (I like the variety from Rancho Gordo)
- 1 can chickpeas
- 6 carrots
- 1 bunch dino kale
- 1 onion
- 4 garlic cloves
- stock/dried vegetables and water
- fresh parsley

Cook posole according to instructions. Then, add other ingredients, cover with water/stock and cook for 45 mins. I served the soup with freshly baked Bialys from a local bakery.

Salad
A fresh romaine lettuce with 1 avocado and 1 red grapefruit.

Steamed Asparagus
This one's a no-brainer, of course, but consider steaming it above the soup, so you get two things done at once.

Greens, Mushrooms, and Tempeh
A nice stir-fry of chard, button mushrooms, and sliced tempeh. I happened to have a marinated variety on hand, but you can easily marinate your own in soy sauce or Bragg's Aminos with some orange juice, garlic, ginger, spices, and hot sauce.

Caramelized Cherry Tomatoes
I found two tomato baskets for cheap at the grocery store, so I halved each of them, placed them with the sliced side up on a tray, drizzled them with olive oil and added fennel seeds, sumac, and nigella seeds. They were ready after about 20 mins, and I garnished them with fresh oregano before serving.

Tiny Bite-size Baked Potatoes
The little potatoes were cute and inexpensive, so I bought a lot of them and baked them whole with garlic, rosemary from the garden, some truffle salt, and a drizzle of olive oil.

Berries
Our guest brought fabulous cakes and I bought chocolate-mint vegan cookies. All the desserts were served with a big tray full of berries of all kinds, which I drizzled with juice from one tangerine and sprinkled with lavender tips.

This was a fun lesson in serving an entirely vegan meal without advertising it as such.

Tomato-Vegan-Sausage-Sauce

I've just put on the stove a version of one of my favorite pasta sauces. made with a tomato base and some vegan sausage. This particular version has the distinction of containing everything we have left over at home, because our fresh CSA box arrives tomorrow. Making the most of it, I'm using Pomi chopped tomatoes for a delicious and hearty meal.

6 green onion stalks
4 garlic cloves
1 tsp olive oil
10 large button mushrooms
2 Field Roast sausages
1/2 container (or 1 cup) Pomi
1 cup water
big handful containing all or any of the following: parsley, rosemary, oregano, sage
1/2 tsp paprika

Chop onions and garlic thinly and give 'em a minute in the wok with olive oil. Proceed to slice mushrooms and vegan sausages and add to the wok. Follow up with paprika. Give it a spin until the mushrooms and sausage begin to brown. Add pomi, water, and herbs, lower heat somewhat, and simmer until sauce thickens. Serve atop pasta, rice, quinoa, or anything, really.

Spring Food Sharing!

Today, the Vernal Equinox, turned also to be the Grand Day of Spring Food Sharing, which was fantastic! It started with a trip to see friends in Berkeley who have recently had a baby. My standing thing to do for friends with kids is cooking up a storm and packaging the food in individual frozen servings, so they can quickly and easily defrost and eat it. Happily, I had a beautiful lentil stew from yesterday, which I brought the friends:

2 cups green lentils
3 large carrots
3 large tomatoes
1 fennel
3 celery stalks
1 package rainbow chard
5 garlic cloves
1/2 can tomatoes
1 tbsp cumin

Mix all ingredients in slow cooker, cover with boiling water, and set to cook on "low" for ten hours. Delish!

From there I headed on to Oakland for an Equinox ritual, which was springy and delightful. You can see our gorgeous altar in the photo. One of the activities was dyeing hardboiled eggs, which no longer appeals to me knowing what I know about the egg industry. But there was an alternative--sowing seeds and getting clippings of succulents--and we did a wonderful ritual for rain using reclaimed water, which I really appreciated. I need to start thinking about ways in which we can use reclaimed water and gray water here at Casa Corazones. Our garden consists of natives, which need a lot less water than exotics, and yet, if we are wiser about collecting shower water we can water them with that. The drought is a very serious source of concern, which means we may need to switch to growing things that require less water.

Our post-ritual feast included a lot of wonderful vegetable dishes. I summarily ignored the chicken and cheese and went for a green salad with edible flowers, two varieties of hummus, roasted asparagus, starfruit and strawberries and blackberries and blueberries, and my two contributions to the feast:

Fennel and Cucumber Salad

1 fennel
4 cucumbers
2 Meyer lemons
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp lemony pepper

Thinly slice fennel (bulb and leaves) and cucumbers. Combine in a bowl with juice from the lemons and the spices.

Broccolini and Blood Orange

20 broccolini stems (or two big broccoli heads)
1 blood orange

Cut broccolini or broccoli into florets and steam until bright green and cooked but still lively and crunchy. Peel and slice up orange into little bits. Combine with broccolini.

I really hope my friends, who were lovely company, enjoyed all the vegetables and may have been persuaded that a meal that consists mostly (or exclusively!) of plant foods is fantastic. This one certainly was!

For this evening, I'm plotting tofu and mushrooms in soy-orange glaze, served over quinoa.

Homemade Hummus

Just finished making hummus for the week ahead! It's delicious and not too difficult. Here's our home recipe:

3 cups dry chickpeas
boiling water
1/2 jar raw tahini
4 small lemons
for garnish: paprika, parsley, olive oil, pine nuts

Place chickpeas in pot or slow cooker (we prefer the latter, as it saves a lot of time if you start in the evening and make the hummus the next day.) Soak them in boiling water, about a couple of inches above the chickpeas, for a couple of hours. Then, turn on the heat or the slow cooker and cook until the chickpeas are tender. Remove the foam a couple of times and add more water if necessary.

Place chickpeas, water, and tahini in blender. Add juice from lemons and blend slowly until creamy. Garnish with olive oil, pine nuts, paprika and parsley, or save a handful of chickpeas to garnish. Serve warm or cool.

Caterer Review: Golden Era

Last week's book release party at Hastings was catered by Golden Era, the vegan restaurant right behind school on Golden Gate at Larkin. In its previous incarnation, Golden Era was a tribute to the Supreme Master cult, and I stayed away because the pamphlets and constant TV adulation infomercials annoyed me (this is also why I no longer frequent Ananda Fuara, which is run by the Sri Chimnoy cult, and would love for my vegan eating-out options to be cult-free.)

But it seems that the move to Golden Gate and the new, swanky decor have improved the situation. No longer does one see cult references--only pleasant service and delicious pan-Asian food. I love eating there for lunch, and asked the event organizers to use Golden Era to cater my book release. It's my party, and I wanted the refreshments to reflect my ethics--I wouldn't feel comfortable celebrating with animal products.

Golden Era delivered with panache and grace! There were a million rolls and dumplings: tofu rolls, avocado rolls, vegan wontons, curry rolls in tortillas, various dim sum offerings, and vegan "drumsticks". The fake meat, in the Buddhist tradition, was so fragrant and delicious that one of my vegetarian colleagues almost left, thinking there was "nothing for him to eat." Highly recommended.

Easy Stir-Fry

I'm off to Phoenix for a conference and a book event - very exciting! I have no idea what the food will be like, so I decided to have once last glorious meal at home, in the hopes that it's vegan marvelousness will last me until Saturday night. The good folks at Albert and Eve regaled us with three broccoli heads, so I used a giant one for this recipe, as well as half a superfirm tofu package. It was easy peasy.

1 broccoli head, cut into florets, including cubed bits of the stems
1 tsp safflower oil
1/2 package super-firm tofu, cut into cubes
100gr buckwheat soba noodles
3 garlic cloves
1 cubic inch ginger
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp Sriracha

Heat up oil in wok and some water in a pot. Mash garlic, slice ginger thinly, and add. Then, add tofu cubes, the sriracha, and half of the soy sauce, and brown on both sides. Then, add the broccoli florets and the remaining soy sauce - you may need to add some water, as well - and stir-fry. While this is happening, cook soba noodles al dente in the pot. Strain and add to the wok, and stir-fry the noodles with the veg-tofu combo. Serve right away.

Pickled Turnips

Our CSA adventures continue to reward us with great produce. We've expanded our box from 1-2 people to 3-4 people, even though there's only two (humans) at home, because we eat a lot of vegetables--they constitute the bulk of our diet--and because we frequently have friends over for dinner.

When we asked for turnips, though, we didn't know we were going to get TWELVE! Turnips are wonderful vegetables, but even I was stumped as to what to do with so many within a week. Enter my beloved friend Dena and her pickled turnip recipe. Dena is one of the overlords at the wonderful Israeli pickling, fermenting and curing blog Feedhamutzim, and always has terrific recipes that involve bacteria friends.

I changed the recipe a bit, because I didn't have some of the ingredients, and ended up doing this:

 8 turnips
2 golden beets (if you use red beets, the turnips will turn a pleasing pink color. I simply didn't have any at hand.)
6 garlic cloves
2 tbsp mustard seeds
2 tbsp peppercorns
3 tbsp salt
2 lettuce leaves
2 mason jars, slightly larger than normal (I can see making this in one giant jar. It's an art as well as a science

Slice turnips and beets thinly and pack into jars. Add 3 garlic cloves, 1 tbsp mustard seeds and 1 tbsp peppercorns, as well as 1.5 tbsp salt. Cover with water to the rim. Place a lettuce leaf right at the rim of the jar and screw the lid on tightly. Let sit for three days and you're home free.

These are a lovely addition to any salad or dish, and are especially pleasing with falafel.

Kale Chips

Kale has become quite the celebrity in the last few years, to the point of parody, and with good reason. But I've liked and enjoyed it ever since I came to the States and cook it frequently. One of my favorite recipes is kale chips, which are delicious and ridiculously easy to make. I've always made them with curly kale, like these folks, but our CSA box arrived with Dino Kale instead, so I used that.

This lunch batch is purely kale and a tiny drizzle of olive oil, but there are many variations on that theme:

• massage the kale in lemon and avocado
• sprinkle a flavored salt
• add cajun spice
• add finely chopped garlic cloves 

The important things remain constant: preheat the oven to about 350 Fahrenheit, make sure the leaves are properly massaged in oil, place them in one layer on the baking sheet, and don't let them burn. 

CSA Showdown!

 We're drowning in excellent produce!

As we contemplate which CSA to join, we're ordering produce from a number of great places. What you see in the photo, save for the big pumpkin in the back, is the combined loot from two deliveries: Albert & Eve and Farm Fresh To You. The produce is fresh and wonderful in both boxes; we get more or less the same stuff (unsurprisingly, as both outfits send out organic, seasonal, local produce); and the price is comparable. We're going to have to make some tough decisions, and I'm even considering going with both CSAs on alternating weeks!

In the meantime, this became a good problem to have, and I decided to get cooking. I ate some fresh tangelos, tangerines, and apples, and am waiting for the pears to ripen. Which, as a friend informed me, does not happen on the tree, so it's worth a wait. 

Meanwhile, for lunch, I'm having steamed broccoli and kale chips. I'll devote a separate post to the latter. As to the former, since I'm also making a giant pot of soup, with carrot, squash, celery, beets, beet greens, onions, and broccoli stems, it made sense to simply steam the broccoli florets atop the soup, thus getting two things done at once. I found this magical steamer/colander, flexible and pliable and shaped like a cabbage leaf, at the Denver Museum of Art store, and use it almost on a daily basis. Steaming something over a cooking soup is a classic time and space saver, and as a bonus, the steamed vegetable on top comes out more fragrant.

Japanese Rice Treats - Onigiri

Chad had to head out to martial arts and decided to prepare Japanese rice treats for the potluck. I learned something new!

We started with 3 cups of lightly milled brown rice and cooked them in 6 cups of water. Then, we split the resulting rice into two bowls, left some of it unseasoned and seasoned the remainder with lots of yasai fumi furikake. Ordinarily, rice seasoning has some dried fish in it, but this one is completely vegan.

We made big balls out of the unseasoned rice, hiding an umeboshi plum in each ball and decorating each ball with a wee bit of ume on top. We wrapped them in nori. This process, be forewarned, requires a little bowl of water to dip your fingers between balls, as the rice is (and should be) somewhat sticky.

For our next trick, we made onigiri: wetting our fingers throughout the work, we sculpted oblong shapes out of the furikake-seasoned rice and wrapped each with a nori strip. This was somewhat complicated by the participation of the household cats, who adore nori, and especially Archer, who snatched several of the ready-cut strips from our very hands. But eventually we managed to make something like 30 cute little units. I'm sure the folks at martial arts training will love to snack on this and am delighted to have learned something new!

Brunch with Northwest Friends

It was delightful to host two good friends from Port Townsend, WA, for brunch yesterday! While usually, when I host folks that are used to mainstream food, I try to be non-intimidating in my menu choices, our friends are both avid cooks and one of them is a real expert on pickles and fermentation. So, I proudly served the house kombucha (made from jasmine tea) with the following menu:

• Kale with Oranges and Ginger
• Mushrooms and Vegan Sausage with Caramelized Onions
• Roasted Yams with Rosemary
• Fruit Soup

All vegetables and fruit in the menu came from our CSA bag. And it was all pretty easy to make.

For the kale, cut large (1-inch) strips out of an entire package of dinosaur kale. After sauteeing a bit of garlic and ginger in some olive oil, add the kale, a peeled, sliced orange, some veg broth, and sautee till the kale wilts.

For the mushroom hash, thinly slice one onion and caramelize in olive oil. Add 3 cups of button mushrooms, 3 sliced vegan sausages, a bit of hot sauce, and some Ajvar Mild Vegetable Spread. Cook until everything is the desired consistency.

For the roasted yams, slice yams and sweet potatoes pretty thinly and place, in one layer, on an olive-oiled baking sheet. Sprinkle with sliced onion cloves and fresh rosemary. Bake at 350 Fahrenheit for 20-30 mins.

For the fruit soup, see the compote instructions and add a dash of brandy. This time I used pears in lieu of the apples and it turned out wonderful.

The kombucha deserves a post of its own sometime in the near future.

No-Nonsense Working People Soup

I'm home after a very long workday, which followed an all-night grading session; it's been a good day, but I'm wiped out and ready to go to bed early. Happily, it's super easy to whip up a quick dinner soup when one has recently cooked pinto beans.

3 carrots
2 green zucchini
5-6 celery stalks
big handful parsley
big handful cilantro
1 1/2 cup pinto beans, cooked
1 teabag Numi Savory Tea
2 heaping tablespoons Ajvar mild vegetable spread

Cut vegetables into 1/2 inch cubes. Mince herbs. Place everything in a pot and cover with water or broth. Gently place Numi teabag atop the soup and let cook for 25-30 mins.

Old Skool Stir-Fry

 In the spirit of using up all our produce before our first CSA box arrives, here's an old-skool stir-fry, full of vegetables and wonderful things.

3 carrots
2 large zucchini
3 beets + beet greens
a bunch of asparagus
3 garlic cloves
1 square inch ginger
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp vinegar
1 tbsp hot sauce
1 tbsp sake
1/2 package extra-firm tofu
1 spoon safflower oil

Chop vegetables into sticks or cubes. Cut tofu into 1/2 inch cubes. Mince garlic and ginger.

Place garlic, ginger and oil in wok and heat up until fragrant. Then, add soy, vinegar, hot sauce, and sake. Add tofu cubes to wok and sautee until coated with sauce. Add vegetables and stir-fry atop a medium-hot burner for about 20 mins. Serve over brown rice.

A Memorable Meal at Greens

I love cooking so much, and enjoy inventing recipes at home, that lots of what passes for a vegan entree in restaurants is simply not that appealing... but sometimes it's really worthwhile to go, because truly great places make things I would not take the trouble to replicate at home. Last night, happily, was such an occasion! I met with friends at Greens, the wonderful vegetarian restaurant at the Marina. Since it was Saturday night, we ate their prix fixe dinner.

Greens is a phenomenal restaurant if you're a lacto-ovo vegetarian; less so right off the bat if you're vegan. But there are some vegan options too, and many of their dishes can easily be made vegan without the cheese. Their fennel salad was terrific, as was my appetizer - a little salad of grilled artichokes, radicchio and a cleverly sliced delicata squash with warm Italian butter beans. They simply served it to me without the cheese!

The entree I got was a filo roll stuffed with savoy spinach, yellow finn potatoes, English peas, ginger, chilies, and cilantro, and drizzled with coconut tamarind sauce and grilled serrano salsa verde. They served it with coral lentil dal, roasted carrots and cauliflower. It was a sophisticated and layered dish, certainly way more complex than I would make at home.

For dessert, I ordered the coconut rice pudding and a vanilla rooibos. It was delicious and came with a quince compote that reminded me of my grandma's cooking.

It was really good times, but a bit too rich for me; I started this morning with tea and a soymilk smoothie (bananas, strawberries, raspberries). For lunch I'll simply steam some asparagus, beets, carrots, and zucchini over some brown rice that I'll cook with a bag of Numi savory tea. I'm trying to use up all of our still-good produce for things I can pack and take with me to work Mon through Wed. On Wednesday afternoon we're getting our first box from Albert and Eve!

My New Cookbooks

To get excited about the transition to veganism, I lined up all my vegan cookbooks in a row. Lots of new ones, as well as some old favorites. Here are the ones I've been using recently:

Afro Vegan: Fabulous! Lots of work, but the authentic condiments and spices are exciting.
The Asian Vegan Kitchen: Ditto. Really great recipes, with no compromises as to the authentic ingredients and spices.
Pure Vegan: Fancy book with pretty pictures. Pretty unrealistic - lots of effort involved - but the things I've made from this, such as the pistachio cake, came out fantastic.
True Brews: terrific advice on kombucha brewing, which I follow to the letter and get fantastic results with every batch. I'll post something about kombucha soon.
Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World: Funny and useful little book! The carrot cupcakes are fun.
The Vegan Slow Cooker: A bit of a disappointment: their recipes use canned beans, etc. I make my own stuff from scratch.

Which vegan cookbooks do you like?

Catering Book Release Parties!

I'm happily expecting two book release parties--one at work, on 2/11, and one at Book Passage, in the Ferry Building, on 2/25, at 6pm. The invite is for the latter event is here, and I hope you'll come and bring friends!

As I started to prepare both events I realized I'd feel really bad if the food served did not align with my ethics. I really find it difficult to justify eating animal products (for us humans; my cats are a different story, and one we shall discuss another day.) So, my workplace is kindly accommodating me and ordering a nice spread from Golden Era Restaurant which, to my great joy, is located right behind school. I imagine their kale smoothies will be a bit too much to expect folks to contend with, but their wonderful rice paper tofu and avocado wraps are sure to please.

For the bookstore event, I'm having the good people from Local Love treat all of us to wonderful vegan morsels. I'm really excited about the menu, and am keeping it a surprise even though I love chatting about it; suffice to say, the colors on the table will match the green and orange on the book cover.

I'm so glad about the proliferation of businesses serving folks like me, and I'm sure all attendees, vegan and nonvegan alike, will enjoy their fresh and delicious fare.

Chia Bowl

Another delightful breakfast I've come to enjoy recently is a nice chilled chia bowl. This consists of allowing chia seeds to soak in almond milk and turn it into gelatinous goodness. Even better with lots of lovely fruit, and can be mixed with fruit from chilled compote. Here goes:

1 bowl unsweetened almond milk (plain or vanilla)
1 1/2 tbsp chia seeds
1 cup any fruit, thinly sliced

At night, place seeds in almond milk bowl to soak. In the morning, garnish with lots of fresh fruit. Voila.

Warm Compote

After the dire predictions, #hellastorm, the monstrous Bay Area storm, turned out to be far less horrendous than we expected, but any excuse for warm breakfast fare was welcome. And I've kept up the habit, even though the drought is back and the days are sunny and cool.

My favorite thing for breakfast nowadays is some warm apple compote with a few bits of dried fruit for taste. I make it in the slow cooker, though I'm sure you could make a very decent version on the stove. Here's how I make enough for the two of us:

3 apples
handful of raisins
2 dried apricots or mangoes
3 cloves

In the evening, chop apples into cubes and thinly slice apricots or mangoes. Place everything in slow cooker, cover with water, and turn on to "low." Wake up in the morning to a fantastic breakfast.

Welcome to the Casa Corazones Pantry!

Hello!

I'm not even sure who's reading here anymore! I let this blog fall by the wayside for several years, writing instead about prisons and finishing my book. But there's been plenty of kitchen action going on! We are now happy homeowners and occasional farmers in the Excelsior neighborhood of San Francisco, and despite working long hours outside the house we try to make it a priority to cook and eat together at home. I recently turned forty, am still swimming and started riding my new awesome bicycle, and we're raising the world's most fantastic two cats, Spade and Archer.

The good news, foodwise, are now that I've returned to veganism after a 20-year hiatus. It feels good to be ethically comfortable with what I eat, and many of the compromises of the last few years had started feeling like unsatisfactory rationalizations. Chad eats cheese and eggs, but less and less now that what we eat together has no animal products.

Produce

Our happy neighborhood location means that our produce shopping is usually done at Casa Lucaz, which has a lot of fresh produce. We try to shop seasonally, even though they stock imported, out-of-season items; their prices and kindness are hard to beat.

We also grow some of our vegetables and fruit in our backyard! We have a lemon tree and enjoyed our own tomatoes all summer long. Right now we have kale and chard outside, and fava beans, and many herbs in the back, and we're hoping to have heirloom corn and more tomatoes next summer, as well as other vegetables.

Our very busy lives mean that we are not as diligent about shopping as we should be, and I'm therefore looking for a CSA. Next week I hope we'll be getting our inaugural box from Albert & Eve Organics, and I very much hope to renew the tradition of posting the recipes we make with the contents of our box.

Legumes and Grains

Another big novelty is that we are now the happy owners of not only an enormous kitchen and a fabulous 1950s Wedgewood stove, but also a couple of slow cookers. I'm finding them indispensable and frequently use them for cooking beans, vegetables, oatmeal, and my favorite--warm compote for breakfast.

Lots of the home cookery relies on beans, which we buy canned from reputable, decent places, or dry from the good people at Rancho Gordo. Our favorite brown rice is the lightly milled Sukoyaka brand. And we like brown rice pasta from Tinkyada.

Soy, Tofu, and Analogs

The world of vegan convenience foods has sure changed since the last time I was vegan! At home we regularly stock unsweetened soymilk and almond milk, preferably from Westsoy. Delicious, albeit expensive, cheeses are available as well, and I treat myself occasionally to the creations from Miyoko's Kitchen and Chao Slices. Field Roast makes wonderful sausages and other alternatives to meat. And the new Just Mayo is a big hit around here, too.

Nuts and Dried Fruit

We try and buy these snacks in bulk; Alfieri often have a booth at the Heart of the City Farmers Market.

Please stay tuned for upcoming fabulous recipes!