I tend to cook all day on Sundays. I generally begin the day baking bread, making tofu, and usually one or two other things, such as pizza today, then later I make something fairly involved for dinner. It’s my domestic day. Today started off strong – I got my tofu mojo back – but I started getting what I suspect may be a sinus headache and all I wanted to do was read the rest of the afternoon. So all my plans for an extravagant dinner went out the door and I instead made something very simple and very comforting, although since it simmered for so long, it still felt a little bit like I was putting a normal effort into it. Really, though, prep time for this is next to nothing if you have seitan on hand. I had some in the freezer, so I was good to go.

Simple Seitan Stew

1 lb seitan, chopped into bite-sized chunks
wine or sherry for deglazing, optional
4 small cooking onions, peeled but left whole
2 huge carrots, chunked
4 small to medium potatoes, chunked
4 cups vegan “beef” broth
1 cup tomato sauce
1 Tbsp Marmite
1 tsp Kitchen Bouquet
2 bay leaves (I used 4 because they were fresh and young and I think less potent)
1/2 tsp (or to taste) freshly ground pepper
2/3 cup frozen peas
1 Tbsp malt vinegar, optional
2 Tbsp cornstarch + 3 Tbsp cold water

Brown the seitan in some oil in a heavy Dutch oven, deglazing the pot with wine, sherry, or broth. Place the rest of the ingredients except the frozen peas, vinegar, and corn starch into the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are soft, probably 45 minutes to an hour. Add the peas and the malt vinegar if you wish – mine tasted sort of sweet and I wanted to cut that a little bit. Remove the bay leaves. Whisk together the cornstarch and cold water in a small bowl, then stir into the stew and simmer another minute or two until thickened. Squish any onions that are still whole to break them up.

Serve with crusty bread.

What’s that you say? You won’t leave without a kitten photo? Well, I guess I can scrounge one up for you this time. Gomez has taken to helping me cook.

Well, I don’t know if weather GETS more perfect than it was today, and I was looking for any excuse to be outside. Grilling seemed like a good one. I’d been checking out the offerings at the farmers market this morning with an eye towards what would make good grilling fare and had the idea to grill some stuffed peppers. And that’s what I did.

Grilled Stuffed Peppers

2 large bell peppers
1/2 medium onion, diced
1 chili pepper, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 cup minced or grated seitan (I used Zoa’s chicken-style okara seitan)
1 cup crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce (I used about 1/2 cup each)
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 cup cooked rice
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbsp Dragonfly’s Dry, Bulk Uncheese, or vegan parmesan
grated vegan cheddar, optional

Dice the onions, mince the chili, press the garlic, and dice the seitan.

Remove the top of the peppers, remove the seeds and white membranes, and dice the removed tops.

Slice the peppers in half.

Heat a heavy skillet over medium high heat, add some oil, and when it’s hot, add the onions, then cook until beginning to brown.

Add the chilis and minced bell pepper, cook for a few minutes, then add the garlic.

Add the seitan. Ignore the tomatoes in this picture – I forgot the seitan and added the tomatoes like a doofus, so I pushed everything out of the way, moved the skillet so it wasn’t over the heat, and added the seitan to the other side of the skillet that was over the heat, then browned it before mixing it all together. Cook until the seitan is beginning to brown.

Add the tomatoes/tomato sauce, soy sauce, rice, and pepper; cook for a few minutes, then stir in the uncheese.

Stuff into the pepper halves.

If you’d like, top with shredded vegan cheddar.

Prepare the grill. I don’t know enough yet to tell you how hot you want it; I know it never seems hot enough for me, which is something I’m working on. If you have a grill wok, put the peppers in that; otherwise, put them directly on the grill.

Close the lid and grill until the bottoms of the peppers are charred. Check out the awesome plate/platter I scored at the thrift store for $3 today! Have I ever mentioned I have the best thrift store luck?!

These were the best stuffed peppers I’ve made! By the way, you can make them in the oven – just don’t cut them in half; stuff them whole and bake at, I don’t know, 375 Fahrenheit for 45 minutes or so? I can’t give you an exact time because I haven’t done it that way yet, so check on them.

I hope everyone’s weekend is going well.

I’m not going to lie to you: I love tinned tomatoes. I have several cans of several different kinds in my cupboard at all times and freak out if the supply gets low. Mark claims all my meals are red because they all contain tomatoes, and they are usually from a tin. Unless I’m eating them raw, I rarely see the need to waste money on expensive fresh tomatoes when tinned ones taste better, which is true at all times except summer. I do cook with fresh tomatoes sometimes during the height of tomato season when they are cheap(ish) and abundant, but really Mark and I have a hard time keeping fresh tomatoes around long enough to cook with them – we eat tomato sandwiches nonstop during the summer. I wanted badly to start growing and canning my own tomatoes, but I have a black thumb, so I rely on the farmer’s market. Sometimes, though, I get a little overzealous at the farmer’s market and buy more than we can handle. Before they went bad, I wanted to do something with the tomatoes I had on hand, so I decided to roast them. Because I wanted a light dinner, I also decided to use the roasted tomatoes in a soup. Hence

Roasted Tomato Lentil Soup

3 – 5 ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 head garlic, peeled
olive oil
8 cups vegetable broth
1 cup lentils
1/2 cup pearled barley
2 large carrots, chopped
4 small potatoes, chopped
several leaves cabbage, chiffonaded
other leftover veggies – I used a few stalks of asparagus, chopped
1/2 tsp thyme
3 small dried red peppers
freshly ground salt and pepper, to taste
2 oz small pasta, optional

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Spread the tomatoes, onions, and garlic on a baking sheat and toss with olive oil.

Roast until beginning to char, 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally. When you remove it from the oven, smash the garlic up a little bit.

Meanwhile prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Put the rest of the ingredients except the optional pasta into a pressure cooker.

Bring up to pressure, reduce heat to low, and cook for 15 minutes. Release pressure using the quick release method. Return to burner over medium heat, add the tomatoes, onions, and garlic, as well as the pasta if you are using it, and simmer until pasta is al dente. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, simmer the soup for 45 minutes or until barley is cooked, then add the pasta. Add the tomatoes whenever they are done.

This was definitely screaming for some crusty bread, but alas, bread never lasts until Thursday night.

So, I was wondering: have you ever seen a cat cuter than Torticia?

Didn’t think so. She’s watching her brother climb all over me in this picture.

Speaking of her brother, LOOK HOW HUGE GOMEZ IS:

This is going to sound weird, but in this picture he looks like an old friend of mine from the record store I worked in in college. I’ve never thought that when looking at him in person, but something about this picture (which doesn’t really look like Gomez to me) just really looks like the friend.

This picture captures more what Gomez looks like to me – with his super cute huge round eyes – but it’s hard to take a good picture of him because once he sees me, he gets up and comes trotting over to the camera…which is exactly what Brachtune used to do. (Speaking of whom, I had another dream that the ghost of Brachtune came to live with us…I must miss that girl a lot.)

I was wondering tonight what the kittens should be for Halloween….