Oh, where did I go?  I don't know how I just don't seem to have enough time to blog more often nowadays.  I gotta quit the fast lane, as soon as possible, for my sanity.  The good news is that we will have our long vacation very soon, in August.  I didn't cook much, but I did conjure up a new vegetable stew for myself.  It's really effective for losing a few pounds since summer is more or less here.

 

 

1 large yellow onion, cut into half moons
3 green bell peppers, julienned
8 garlic bulbs, pressed
2 Russet potatoes, cubed
4 Roma tomatoes, finely chopped and juice reserved
1/2 hot water
1 large zucchini, halved and then sliced thinly
2 bunches of asparagus, tips reserved and the rest cut into 1/2-inch slices
1 cup fresh edamame, rinsed
1/2 cup (tightly packed) fresh basil, torn into pieces
6-7 fresh sage leaves, torn into pieces

1 1/2 tsp. dried thyme, crushed
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Sauté onions, peppers and garlic for about 10 minutes until softened.
2. Add potatoes and cook covered for 4-5 minutes.
3. Add tomatoes and hot water.  Mix well and cook covered for 1-2 minutes.
4. Add zucchini, asparagus and edamame and mix well.  Cook for another 10 minutes on low-medium heat.
5. Add herbs, mix and heat through.  Remove from heat.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Serve.

 

I had this veggie stew in the beginning of a difficult diet.  It helped quite a bit because it was very satisfying but pretty light.  Of course, I haven't been all that disciplined.  I wish I had just stayed with vegetables alone.  But making Lolo's Easy Tarte aux Pommes is a great pleasure, before, during, and after the process.  It was really easy to make, and it smelled good and tasted good.  If you want a little treat for your weariness after a long day, make this and you will have a smile on the face when you dig your fork into it.

 

And I'm ashamed to report that I also made the vegan English muffins again.  I ate them with a lot of vegan margarine and apricot preserves.  This was obviously for a fattening diet.

 

I tried out a very simple yet ultra-yummy recipe of Nava Atlas - Stewed Tofu with Corn and Tomatoes.  I've always enjoyed Nava's recipes because they are simple, straightforward and often involve a balanced and tasty combination of commonly-used ingredients.  No fancy schmancy, and no fuss.  Vegetables, grains and tofu taste good on their own, and we shall try to remember that whenever we cook.  My variation of this recipe: I added a small onion (cut into half-moons), 2 celery sticks, half a red bell pepper, bok choy, and I used fresh cilantro and basil as suggested.  I also subbed packaged fried tofu so I avoided pan-frying firm tofu squares.  The stew is full of different textures and different tastes that blend well together.

 

And I'm really glad to announce that I finally tried the chocolate pudding Purplesque made a while ago, recipe by courtesy of Jugalbandi.  This is clearly the best chocolate pudding (vegan or non-vegan) I've ever had.  It's so chocolatey and rich that we practically inhaled it.  I didn't even have a chance to photograph its complete form before it was chilled.  My husband, who doesn't like any dessert, ate half of the pudding when it was still warm.  The photo below was what was left for me.

 

It's been cold and it's been snowing.  I'm not a big fan of very spicy food but even I was converted temporarily by this winter.  I actually was looking forward to making this chili - Kidney Bean and Quinoa Chili.  The original recipe is called Black Bean and Quinoa Chili by Melody Polakow of MELOMEALS.COM.  I only had red kidney beans and I love them so that's about the only thing I changed.  This chili was very easy to make, and it gave me the zap I needed for my tongue.  Oh, I made my chili a little more soupy because it's still snowing outside and I wish I could be warmed up by swimming in the chili.  By the way, why is it so cold this year?  The global warming apparently doesn't just make the summer hotter.

 

With the chili comes the cornbread.  In case you never knew of this super simple and awesome cornbread recipe by Isa Chandra, here it is again.

 

As if the chili is not enough, I made the Jerk Tofu and served it with steamed spinach on the side.  This wonderful recipe is also by Isa Chandra.  The tofu came out exactly like Isa's description, sort of like barbeque, sort of like curry, sort of sweet, and sort of savory.  It is absolutely satisfying!  This tofu has just become my favorite tofu dish.  And my take on the name of this dish: it's called jerk tofu because if anyone wants to steal my tofu, I'll definitely say "jerk off".

 

Is it a crime that I had the jerk tofu with spinach together with some vegan fluffy biscuits?  I saw a wonderful fluffy biscuit recipe on Elly's blog a few days ago.  I haven't been able to get it out of my head.  The photos looked really fantastic.  I had to make these biscuits.  I had no choice.  So I took the original recipe and veganized it.  My photos don't do justice to these biscuits (what's with the lighting anyway?) but rest assured they taste really good.  They are really fluffy too.

These are the few things I did to veganize this recipe:

1. Put 2 Tbsp. of cornstarch at the bottom of the measuring cup and continue to measure out 1 cup of all-purpose flour to make 1 cup plain cake flour.  This is for those of you, who are like me, who don't usually have cake flour around.
2. Use 1/2 cup of chilled vegan margarine (cubed 1/4-inch each) and about 2 Tbsp. canola oil to replace the butter.
3. Measure out 3/4 cup unsweetened soy milk and add 1 to 1 1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar to curdle it for at least 2 minutes.  This is to replace the required buttermilk.
4. Brush the tops with soymilk.  You can also consider using a little melted margarine in the soy milk.

 

So I'm going to do the first food porn in 2008.  I know the previous post is already like food porn.  You know, the more the merrier.  The first picture is the Moroccan Tagine with Spring Vegetables (VwaV, page 178).  I've wanted to make this dish since ages ago but for whatever reason, I waited a long time, and I waited until all of my green beans went bad.  So unfortunately, the beautiful green beans didn't feature in this tasty and rich tagine.  We still thoroughly enjoyed it because an extra zucchini always can make us happy.  Major ingredients include tomatoes, carrots, lentils, zucchini, spinach, raisins, cilantro, and mint.

 

I made the irresistible BBQ Pomegranate Tofu (VwaV, page 149) once again.  It's definitely one of my all-time favorite tofu dish.  I managed to whip up a much better BBQ sauce this time.  Thick and really like BBQ.  Lucky me!  Somehow the photo turned out to be very orange-colored.

 

Now the tofu smothered in the beautiful and yummy sauce.  I still don't know how Isa measured up the amount of sauce for a tofu dish so accurately.

 

And finally, the beautiful BBQ Pomegranate Tofu.  I really love these BBQ tofu pieces.  I think I can live on this dish for like a month.

 

I've been wanting to make cinnamon rolls in the last two days and I couldn't decide which recipe to follow.  Every recipe promises to yield really heavenly cinnamon rolls.  I was sitting on those recipes for a few hours and as the time went by, I just picked the Quick Cinnamon Rolls (recipe by Vivacious Vegan).  Quick and vivaciously yummy!  Now I'll definitely try all the other cinnamon roll recipes in the near future.  Below are the naked rolls.

 

Now the beautiful cinnamon rolls after icing.  I've always thought that cinnamon rolls are more for the eyes than for the taste buds.  They are just perfect as an orgasmic ending to the food porn.

 

I had a few large eggplants in my refrigerator as if I had planned out this way on the last shopping day.  No, the truth is that I grabbed everything without planning.  So the result was a very nice eggplant-y stew: Tomato and Roasted Eggplant Stew with Chickpeas (Veganomicon, page 179).  I felt like I was roasting vegetables for hours.  The first batch of eggplant slices got burnt because I was a little careless.  Those slices were already browned before I flipped them so I should have skipped the flipping and another 15 minutes of roasting.  But I still don't know why the eggplant slices completely turned into charcoal.  It took forever to get rid of the smoke in the kitchen too.  But the final verdict is that it is so worthwhile.  You have to try roasted eggplants, roasted peppers and roasted garlic together, for once.  For any eggplant lover, this is the eggplant paradise!

 

Yesterday I made a loaf of Lower-Fat Banana Bread (Veganomicon, page 228) so now I'm stuck with a big jar of applesauce that I have to use up within 10 days.  Therefore, I'm seeking recipes that require a lot of applesauce, like applesauce muffins, applesauce cookies, applesauce whatever, at this point. 

This week is turning out to be a VwaV week.  I made another 3 things from this awesome cookbook - Stewed Tofu and Potatoes in Miso Gravy, Sesame Asparagus, and Mexican Chococlate Rice Pudding.

 

For Stewed Tofu and Potatoes in Miso Gravy, I didn't do much different.  I just added fried tofu and sliced button mushrooms in addition to the recipe.  Also, I used an expensive Chardonnay in cooking because I didn't get white cooking wine.  The stew surely turned out fantastic, probably because of the extra Chardonnay I accidentally poured into the stew. :-)

 

Sesame Asparagus was so easy to make too.  However, I didn't have toasted sesame oil, so I sort of just dashed some sesame oil in olive oil and sauteed everything.  I sprinkled black sesame seeds on top in the end, which produced a very striking photo.

 

Finally, let me come to the big flop of the day.  I started making this Mexican Chocolate Rice Pudding full of enthusiasm but I ran out of white rice in the beginning.  I only had less than 1/4 cup.  I was already hard bent on making this pudding though.  So I foolishly started cooking brown basmati rice instead.  The 30-minute fun turned into a 3-hour saga of fighting with the hard-ass basmati rice.  In the end, my husband had to put all the cooked stuff in the blender to get the smoothness.  Amazingly the pudding turned out great!  I was so glad that it wasn't a wasted effort altogether.  Subsequently and naturally I ate too much of the pudding.

 

 

This vegetable stew came out amazingly tasty.  We had to mix it with our kamut pasta.  The recipe is below.

 

1. Peel four to five medium-sized potatoes, cut them into pieces.  Boil these potato pieces in a pot.  We usually cut potatoes into medium-sized chunks.  If you cut your potatoes into small pieces, then it takes less time to cook.  While waiting for the potatoes to cook, cut two carrots and two to three zucchini into slices.  Stick a fork into some thicker potato pieces to see whether the center is getting softer.  When the potato pieces get almost soft, put carrots and zucchini into the pot to boil too.

 

2. When all vegetables are boiled, drain the water and leave them in the pot.  Add in some extra-virgin olive oil and mix well so that you can leave the vegetables in the pot without spoiling them.

 

3. Boil two sweet corns separately in another pan.  When the sweet corn is cooked, cut the corn off the cob and put it in the vegetable pot.  You can also use canned sweet corn (check the label for preservatives though).

 

4. When boiling the sweet corn, fry two thick pieces of extra-firm tofu.  Make sure all six sides are golden.  When this is done, cut the fried tofu into small pieces and also put into the vegetable pot.

 

5. Cut two onions and plenty of garlic (we used a lot) into small pieces.  In a third pan, sauté onions and garlic.  While waiting for onions and garlic to brown a little, slice the mushrooms.  Then when the onions and garlic turn a little brown, add in the mushrooms.  It only takes a couple of minutes to finish cooking the mushrooms.  When done, dump everything into the vegetable pot.

 

6. Now you should have all the vegetables (potatoes, carrots, zucchini, sweet corn), fried tofu pieces, sautéed onions, garlic and mushrooms in the pot.  Add in Italian herb seasoning (oregano, marjoram, savory, thyme, basil, rosemary and sage), cajun spice, salt and pepper, and finally the hot chili sauce (or dried chili pepper flakes).  Mix everything well.  If necessary, pour in a little more olive oil.

 

Your vegetable stew is then done.  You can serve it just as it is.  We loved it so much that we simply cooked some kamut pasta and mixed it with the fried-tofu mushroom vegetable stew.  This vegetable stew tastes even better the next day.  Enjoy!