Zucchini Bread Contest

Our CSA holds an annual zucchini bread (well, summer squash baked good) contest -- but I've always been afraid to enter. People always have preconceived notions about vegan baked goods, and I didn't really feel like dealing with it. But! This year, I put on my big girl pants and entered. I submitted two things -- chocolate summer squash bread and lemon zucchini muffins. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures. (Sorry!) Well, the results are in . . . and those lemon zucchini muffins were apparently a hit!

Here's what I won! A container of fresh raspberries and blackberries, and a tote bag with the name of our CSA on it. The berries were super delicious. Hooray for lemon zucchini muffins!

Falafel and Cucumber-Tomato Salad

Last night, I made a cucumber-tomato salad and some falafel for dinner. We had a bunch of cucumbers and more tomatoes than you could shake a stick at -- so what better way to use some of those veggies up? And who doesn't love falafel?


For the cucumber-tomato salad, I used a bunch of CSA veggies: three small cucumbers (probably about two average sized cucumbers), one and a half giant tomatoes, and two small onions. The onions were chopped up and lightly cooked with some garlic before mixing with the other chopped veggies, for the same reasons as the last time I made a cucumber salad.

Since there was more of a middle eastern vibe to this meal, I wanted a hint of mint in the salad -- but I had no fresh mint. Instead, I made a small cup of mint tea and used that as the liquid when I cooked up the onions and garlic, letting it completely cook in. The veggies were tossed with a bit of lemon juice, a bit of lime juice, and a bit of olive oil -- then they just sat together in the refrigerator, letting their flavors mingle until it was ready to be served!

Falafel is another one of those quick and easy meals. I baked them this time, since we were bringing dinner over to the home of our friends who are moving out -- and their entire apartment is in boxes. Much easier to throw a tray in the oven than make a mess with the stove! Ahead of time, I mixed two cans of chick peas with few splashes of lemon juice and a variety of spices -- some cayenne pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, turmeric, and salt; this mixture was mashed all together with a fork, then I added a bit of chickpea flour to help bind the falafel balls together.

I made fourteen moderately-sized falafel balls in total, brushing them with a bit of olive oil on both sides before putting them in the oven. I had never baked falafel before, so I cooked them for the first 10 minutes on 350 before realizing the oven needed to be much hotter if I wanted the falafel to get crispy; the last 25 minutes were cooked at 400. Halfway through the baking time, I flipped the falafel over and made sure they still had a bit of oil brushed over them to keep from drying out.

They were delicious! The whole meal is easy to make -- and you can make it all ahead, heating up the falafel when you're ready to eat. The warm falafel coupled with the cold salad is a really great contrast, and the spices of the falafel are balanced nicely by the crisp coolness of the vegetables in the salad. Definitely a great meal for a summer night!

Vegan Omelette with Jalapenos, Potatoes, & Pepper Jack 'Cheese'

I am closing in on the perfect vegan omelette. I swear. I'm not quite there yet, but it is slow and steady progress from the last attempt at a vegan omelette. Last time, the outcome was a little too fluffy; this time, not quite fluffy enough. The taste is there -- the kala namak and chickpea flour combination are definitely where it's at! --, but the texture needs to be just right.

It's getting close though; so close I can almost taste it! I am definitely going to make another attempt this week, so hopefully I'll have an actual factual recipe to post soon instead of being a tease with only pictures.


Pretty though, isn't it? It's stuffed with home fried potatoes, a red jalepeno, a green jalepeno, and pepper jack style almond cheese. The home fries were cooked with garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, and a little sea salt; the cayenne pepper gave them a nice little kick! The red jalepeno was nice and sweet, with just a hint of spice to it; the green jalepeno lacked that sweetness but was a bit hotter than the red, giving a different layer of heat to the overall flavor. Finally, the almond cheese bound all of the filling together and gave the oozy cheesiness that I look for in an omelette. Totally delicious.


(Full disclosure: I probably wouldn't have posted another recipeless post about the vegan omelette, but I am compensating for the fact that I forgot to take a picture of a meal I wanted to post earlier this week! The missing meal was a lime basil pesto -- yummy pesto goodness with a hint of citrus! -- over rotini. If we get more basil at the CSA this week, I will try again! Pinky swear!)

Mexican Cucumber Salad

A couple of days ago, I made a big batch of black beans to use in various recipes; once the beans are cooked instead of dry, they need to get eaten -- so I was looking for a way to use the beans with some of the vegetables from this week's share. We had a nice cucumber, so I decided to make a cucumber salad with a Mexican-style twist.


Neither P nor I are fans of the bite that raw onions have, so I cooked the onions a bit with the beans to mellow their flavor a little. Other than that, this meal was basically of the chop'n'toss variety; chop up the ingredients and throw them all together in a bowl. Extremely easy, though it does take a little bit of time, since I wanted to let all the flavors mingle together in the refrigerator for awhile before serving.

It was the perfect meal for a hot night: cool and fresh, with a delightful tang from the lime juice. P ate his with a few warmed corn tortillas, but I ate mine just as is. It would surely be delicious with the addition of a diced avocado -- or a few dashes of hot sauce, if you're into that!

Mexican Cucumber Salad

• 2 cups black beans
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 cucumber, diced
• 2-3 small tomatoes, diced
• 1-2 hot peppers, minced
• 4 tbsp lime juice (or the juice of two limes)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro
  
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• salt and pepper, to taste

Optionally, you can first cook up the onions with a bit of water to mellow their flavor; I cooked them with the beans, because the beans needed to cook a tad longer -- and then let the whole thing cool in the refrigerator while I chopped the rest of the vegetables.

In either case, combine lime juice through salt and pepper in a bowl and mix well; add the vegetables and beans to the mixture and stir to evenly distribute the liquid. Refrigerate about half an hour, to allow the juices to mingle. More juice should form as the salad sits, so be sure to mix the entire salad again before serving.

Curried Chick Peas, Chard, & Potatoes

One of our family favorites -- you know, the standard meals that we have a million times a year, the one you whip up quickly when you have no time to cook -- is curried chick peas and green peas. Sometimes I throw potatoes in there too, or chik'n pieces . . . however the mood strikes that particular night. Well, we didn't have any peas in our CSA this week, but we did have a bunch of delicious-looking chard -- and some potatoes from the farmers' market. The chard looked super fresh and awesome, and was just begging to be devoured -- so I decided to mix up the ol'favorite with some chard.


The potatoes get diced and cooked first, in a little olive oil and a good-sized amount of curry paste. While P and I use a fairly hot curry paste, you can use whatever level of spice fits your personal taste. After sauteeing a little bit so the outsides of the potatoes are heading down the road into crispy territory (and are well-covered in curry paste), I put the lid on the pan to steam the potatoes for a bit so they can get nice and soft. While the potatoes are cooking, I wash and chop the chard, then open a can of chick peas. The chick peas -- and any stem bits of chard -- get added to the potatoes first, stirred up so they get their own nice thin coating of curry paste. Finally, the leafy chard gets added last, since it doesn't need to cook very long before serving. The whole meal comes together quickly, and is one of my favorites!

Kalesanga

Tonight I made a giant tray of kale lasagna -- which I affectionally refer to as kalesagna. Since I made it with rice noodles, the whole thing was also gluten-free . . . though we ruined the effect by having slices of farmers' market whole wheat bread on the side.

I made my first kalesagna right after Aunt Karen died, to bring up with us when we went to be with the family; it felt Karen-y to me when I made it -- so it seemed particularly appropriate to make a kalesagna as part of my season of Karen.

The lasagna is made up of layers of tomato sauce, sauteed kale, and tofu ricotta; I had a bag of Daiya mozzarella cheese still hanging out in our fridge from before, so I used that for the top of the kalesagna.

The tofu ricotta I always make is based on the ppk's recipe, though I have made it so often now that I never look at the recipe or measure anything; in fact, when I just now looked up the recipe, I was a bit surprised to see it called for salt. My variant is a bit different from that recipe, but it is essentially the same thing. I've seen lots of vegan ricotta recipes out there, but this one is definitely the best. Even if I don't exactly follow it anymore, it's still definitely the best starting point for making your own ricotta. Plus the recipe is super simple, and throws together quickly -- always a bonus.

July in a Nutshell

Life has gotten busy, hence I haven't posted anything in almost three weeks; I've still been following the plan, it's just that the time for documentation has gotten scarce.  My summer class started, plus we had some car-related adventures leaving us stranded in Massachusetts for a few days.  Fun!

While I didn't document everything over the past three weeks by any stretch of the imagination, I do have a few highlights here to share -- from those few times when I actually remembered to bust out a camera!

Pinto Bean Burgers

I made these pinto bean burgers for the fourth of July, and we grilled them up at our friends' house.  Sarah, the lady of the house, also made some killer potato salad -- also pictured on the plate!  Sarah & Will had slices of soy cheese at their house, as well as some tomato and lettuce from the farmers' market.  The burgers themselves were an improvement on the black bean burger I'd made previously; much sturdier for grilling while being a bit lazier of a recipe.

• 2 15 oz. cans of refried pinto beans
• 1/3 c. whole wheat flour
• 2/3 c. vital wheat gluten
• 1/3 c. cornmeal
• 1/3 c. salsa
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional, to taste)
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a bowl until well mixed; if the mixture is too liquidy, add more flour or cornmeal as needed.  Divide into eight balls on a plate and refrigerate for at least an hour.

After cooling, flatten the balls into patties and grill at least five minutes per side until well-cooked.  Extra burgers can be placed between wax paper, wrapped together, and frozen until needed.

Vegetable and Gardein Kebabs

Again, at Sarah and Will's house, we made our first ever kebabs.  Although we all like kebabs, none of us had ever made them ourselves.  The peppers and tomatoes were from the farmers' market and the onions were from our CSA; the fake meat is gardein.

Sarah had bought wooden skewers to make s'mores, but she had plenty of extra skewers for the kebabs!  This picture is pre-grilling, though the kebabs looked a bit different after cooking.  Everything was supertasty, but the most notable thing for me was how deliciously sweet the onions were.  I was ambivalent about grilled onions prior to our kebab experience, but now I am a devoted fan of the grilled onion.  Mmm.

Swiss Chard Quiche

The swiss chard quiche was so good in principle, and such a disaster in practice.  The crust puffed up in all the wrong places, the chard was not soft enough . . . basically, this was a lesson in what not to do for quiche!  I used the crust recipe from Vegan Brunch and the tofu filling recipe from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.  The idea of the quiche was a good one though, and I'm not giving up on it!  I will defeat the quiche by the end of this summer, mark my words.

We have stopped getting greens from the CSA though, so I'll have to figure out another vegetable that is good to quicheify.  More on the quiche saga as it unfolds!

The last two photos are not actually foods I prepared -- though they are foods I enjoyed!

Blueberry Pie

This is my friend Sarah's famous blueberry pie.  It is as good as it looks . . . and maybe even better.  She makes it every fourth of July, with fresh blueberries from the farmers' market.  Did I mention that it is super good?  I'm not normally a huge fan of blueberry pie, but I absolutely make an exception for this deliciousness.  In fact, even the picture is making me crave it.  I don't remember her exact recipe, but I know it involves blueberries and lemon juice and no sugar.  And some kind of magic.  Yum.

Moroccan Sweet Potato Stew

Our friend Jimmy made this and brought it over to our house in early July.  His mother cut the recipe out of a magazine for him -- and we both thought it sounded fabulous.  Being the wonderful guy that he is, Jimmy whipped up a batch and brought it over to share with me and P.  It was super delightful, and we ate it over plain couscous.  Here's the recipe!

• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed with press
• 1 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 3/4 c. vegetable broth
• 1 c chick peas
• 1 large (about 16 oz) sweet potato, peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
• 2 small (about 6 oz each) zucchini, cut into 3/4-inch chunks
• 1 c whole-grain couscous
• 1/4 c loosely packed fresh mint leaves, chopped

In a nonstick 12-inch skillet, heat oil over medium heat.  Add onion and cook 8 to 10 minutes or until tender and lightly browned, stirring occasionally.  Stir in garlic, curry powder, cumin, and allspice; cook 30 seconds.

Add tomatoes, broth, chick peas, and sweet potato; cover and heat to boiling over medium-high heat.  Reduce heat to medium; cover and cook 10 minutes.  Stir in zucchini and cook, covered, 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Meanwhile, prepare couscous according to package directions.  Stir mint into stew.  Serve stew over couscous.