Saturday, May 21, 2016

breakfast

Homemade berry kombucha, fresh mango, roasted asparagus with smoked salt, whole wheat sourdough with Melt, tofu scramble with red onion and bell pepper, great leftovers from Afro-Vegan.



Coconuts and Coconut Bacon


Coconuts are so cheap at Jon's, I said. Get one; it'll be fun, I said.

This was not worth it! I broke a knife, then moved on to a hammer. I'm sure my neighbors thought I was really trying to be a noise artist. Because it was a mature coconut (ha), it was harder to open than a young one. Even when I did, the coconut water was a little funky and it didn't have that much meat.

I dreamed of coconut jerky and raw coconut ice cream (though I think you might need young coconut for the latter) before settling on coconut bacon. Inspired by this recipe at fettle vegan, I just winged it and it was quite good--more like bacon bits than bacon strips.














Coconut Bacon Bits

Ingredients
1/2 c 'beef' stock
some tamari
some liquid smoke
1 TB sugar
some smoked paprika
some gochujang
some garlic powder
diced raw coconut from one mature coconut

Instructions
Mix everything together, then marinate the coconut. Cook on a baking sheet at 375 for a very long time, stirring every 5 min until crisp.






Tempeh with Roasted Cauliflower and Agrodolce Sauce

The agrodolce sauce recipe from Isa Does It is really fantastic.


Solyanka

There is no soy in solyanka. Well, actually, there was in mine, but only by a specific twist of circumstance.

I had been wondering about olives in soup and whether that would be gross or awesome. This was surprisingly great! It made a TON of soup, however, and it's not something you want to eat meal after meal. I'd cut this recipe in half next time.

As far as I can tell from the internets, solyanka is kind of a "kitchen sink" type stew, with the defining feature being a sourness imparted by something pickled. I used mushrooms instead of meat, but I also threw in some roasted tofu and tempeh I had on hand as well. I followed this recipe, except I halved the onions (still a lot of onion!), cut back on salt, and added a lot of pepper.



Vegan Mushroom Solyanka 
(recipe from Vegan Sandra)

Ingredients
3 Tbsp oil
4 medium onions (note I used only 2; also I found them to be too stringy sliced; I would chop them next time)
2 ½ cups / 200 g chopped white mushrooms or other edible mushrooms
2 large garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
½ tsp ground black pepper
2 heaping tsp paprika powder (or I used aleppo pepper, not too different)
6 cups / 1L + 400 ml boiling water
3 medium potatoes
3 large pickles
3 Tbsp black olives (pitted)
3 Tbsp green olives (pitted)
5 Tbsp tomato paste
1 slice of lemon, cut into four
2 - 2 ¼ tsp salt (I only used 1 tsp--add carefully to taste)
(fresh parsley and/or spring onions for serving)
+Black pepper, other seasoning to taste

Instructions (from Vegan Sandra)
Heat up a thick-bottomed pot. Add oil, sliced onions and a pinch of salt. Cook for a couple of minutes. Add chopped white mushrooms, chopped garlic, bay leaves, ground black pepper and paprika powder. Cook for a couple of minutes. Add boiling water and boil for 5 minutes. Add sliced potatoes and boil another 5 minutes. Add chopped pickles, olives, tomato paste, lemon pieces and salt. Cook for 5 minutes or until the potatoes are soft. Serve with chopped fresh parsley and/or spring onions and sunflower sour cream, if you like.