Friday, October 31, 2014

Bibimbap

Delicious and easy bibimbap recipe from the asian vegan kitchen cookbook.


Chickpea "Tuna" Salad

Vegenaise never fails to help reproduce the tastes of childhood in middle America. This is basically tuna salad but with mashed chickpeas instead of tuna. You could try harder to make it taste fishy (as I did with this tempeh "tuna"), but really the effect is about all the other ingredients. I used minced scallions, celery, carrots, and pickles, along with the chickpeas and the vegenaise, plus mustard, salt, and black pepper. I was amazed by how easy and delicious it was.

I'm also thinking that if you want to avoid vegenaise you try using this cashew "yogurt" that worked so great in another savory dish.


Friday, October 24, 2014

Cucumber Onion Raita with Cashew "Yogurt"

I seriously have no idea where October went. Does anyone know? Can you send it around my way so we can catch up? Eep.

A post on findingvegan (which I now can't find!) about using a thick cashew milk instead of yogurt in a cucumber salad left me wondering why I'd never thought to do this before! I first tasted Indian cuisine only 3.5 years before going vegan, so for most of my Indian-food-loving life, raitas have been that one thing on the vegetarian thali plate ya don't eat. And only rarely do I think, I'm missing out because the mellow creaminess of the yogurt really complements some of the other dishes on the table. Most nondairy yogurt weirds me out a bit, but cashews? That is brilliant.

This was stupidly easy and also delicious. Also you could easily tweak the seasonings used for a more western-style set of flavors (dill and parsley instead of turmeric and mustard seeds?).

Cucumber Onion Raita with Cashew "Yogurt"

Ingredients
6 persian cukes, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
pinch turmeric
pinch salt
*
1/2 c cashews, soaked and rinsed
3/4 c water plus more as needed
1-2 tsp lemon juice
salt to taste
*
2 tsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
*
pinch turmeric
cayenne and salt to taste
*
8 cherry tomatoes, halved (optional)

Ingredients
1. Pour hot water over the cashews to cover and let them soak for at least five hours. If you're in a hurry, you can simmer the heck out of them on the stove to speed things up.
2. Combine the cucumbers, onion, turmeric, and salt in a large bowl. Mix well and set aside.
3. Drain the cashews, then put them in the blender with about 3/4 c water. Adding more water as needed, blend until you have a thick and smooth mixture with a consistency somewhere between pudding and yogurt. Remove from blender and put in a pyrex measuring cup. Add lemon juice and salt until it tastes kind of like yogurt.
4. Over high heat, heat the oil in a small frying pan with the mustard seeds. When the seeds start to splutter, cook only a few seconds more and then remove from the heat.
5. Add oil and mustard seeds to the cashew mixture, then pour the cashew mixture over the vegetables and stir it in. Add pinch turmeric and cayenne and salt to taste. I mixed in some cherry tomatoes at the end as well. Serves about 4.




Saturday, October 4, 2014

Kale Salad Wow



Kale Saladwow

Ingredients

blanched kale

1/2 c edamame

1/4 apple, diced

1-2 stalks (raw) bok choy, diced small

tahini dressing:
     tahini
     mustard
     white wine vinegar
     olive oil
     garlic powder
     salt

6 oz tofu, browned with:
     tamari
     liquid smoke

6 cherry tomatoes, halved

2/3 c toasted walnuts