My lunch at the office most days consists of leftovers from dinner the night before. Every once in a while, however, I end up without something to take for lunch. What I will often do on those mornings is throw together a very quick soup. It’s little more effort than buying canned soup, yet tastes better, is cheaper, and is better for you. I keep dehydrated veggies, such as celery and bell pepper on hand for real time crunches, although if time allows, I will use fresh. If you use fresh, just chop them finely so they cook quickly. Although this is usually a weekday meal, I made it this morning (Sunday) for breakfast because I went on a spice extravaganza at Penzey’s on Friday (there’s a store near my office) and after filling all my spice jars at home later, had small amounts of some of the dehydrated veggies left over that didn’t fit, so I figured I’d use them up. And I wanted breakfast in a hurry!

Better-Than-Canned Vegetable Soup

1/2 onion, chopped finely (you can used dried minced onion if you are really out of time – I’ve done so many times)
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed (you can use garlic powder, maybe 1/2 tsp, if you want to be even faster)
1-2 Tbsp dehydrated celery (or 1-2 stalks fresh, chopped finely)
1-2 Tbsp dehydrated bell pepper (or 1/2 pepper, chopped finely)
1-2 Tbsp dehydrated tomato (or just use more tomato sauce, or canned diced tomatoes, or 1/2 fresh tomato, or whatever you want)
4 cups vegan broth, any flavor
1/3 cup tomato sauce or 2 Tbsp tomato paste – what I often use, including today, is leftover pizza sauce: that’s what’s in the red refrigerator box above.
freshly ground pepper and other spices/herbs to taste – my pizza sauce had oregano and red pepper flakes in it, so I didn’t add any more seasonings and it was perfect
1/3 cup small pasta shapes, such as alphabet, tiny shells, orzo, small macaroni, etc.

If you are using fresh onions and/or garlic, put a small soup pot over medium heat on a burner, and add a small amount of olive oil to heat up while you prep the onions and/or garlic:

Then saute the onions and garlic for a few minutes.

If you are using dried onion and garlic, just put the soup pot on the burner and turn it on. Add the broth, turn up the heat, and bring to a boil.

Add all the dehydrated veggies.

Measure the pasta.

Add the pasta and tomato sauce to the pot, as well as any seasonings.

Turn down the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes. When I’m making this before work, this is when I’ll go hop in the shower or eat breakfast. Since I’m not working today and wasn’t in a hurry, I spent the 15 minutes doing this:

Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

Let it cool – at least slightly – before placing a serving into a container for transport to work, or just dig in.

It’s not a culinary masterpiece, but it’s decent, costs next to nothing, and doesn’t contain all the sodium (and in many cases high fructose corn syrup or other sugars) of canned soups, and considering the small deli in my office building contains very few vegan options, it saves me a trip out of the building in search of lunch.

I don’t really have an intro for this one. I wanted to use up the rest of the cheddar Teese and dreamt up a sort of Smark-Os made with ramen. (I didn’t actually look at the Smark-Os recipe until after I’d made this dish and was surprised how similar they are.) When Mark asked what it was I said, “it’s Smark-Os made with ramen, so I guess it’s smark-ramen…smar-ramen….Sma-ramen!” (rhymes with shamen!)

Sma-Ramen

2 large shallots or 1/2 large onion, minced
6 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 stalk celery, minced
1 carrot, minced
1/2 tsp red chili pepper flakes
1/8 tsp fennel seeds
2 cups vegan “beef” broth
1 14.5 ounce can tomato sauce
2 frozen basil cubes, or 1/4 tsp dried basil
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 package vegan ramen noodles (chuka soba)
1/3-1/2 cup shredded vegan cheddar cheese – use a nice melty sort
vegan Parmesan or Dragonfly’s Bulk, Dry Uncheese Mix, for topping (optional)

Mince the shallot or onion, celery, carrot, and garlic. Shred the “cheese”.

Heat some olive oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Add the shallots and fry for two minutes. Add the garlic and fry for a few seconds. Add the carrots and celery, as well as the red pepper flakes and the fennel seeds. Fry for 7 minutes or until veggies are soft.

Add the “beef” broth and bring to a boil.

Add the tomato sauce and basil; bring to a boil again. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add the ramen, breaking into pieces if so desired. Cook for two minutes.

Add the shredded “cheese” and stir. Cook for three more minutes.

Swirl the ramen around a chopstick to help it break up and cook evenly.

Ramen should take about 5 minutes to cook thoroughly.

Serve, sprinkling with vegan Parmesan or the “uncheese” mix if desired.

This was darn tasty and very fast. Vegan “hot dogs” would not be unwelcome in this dish.

The Toonse continues to wear her cone. One thing that makes me feel especially bad for her is she can’t properly groom herself and I know that’s got to be driving her mad. That and having had a fractured wrist when I was 13, I know how frustrating it is to experience the itch you just can’t scratch. And at least I could stick a pencil down my cast! So I think it’s important for me to give her at least a couple of hours a day without it, even if I have to stand over her and monitor her constantly the entire time to make sure she doesn’t dig at her ears. Which she does, almost immediately after I remove the cone. But I cleaned her up real good tonight and afterwards she wasn’t quite as itchy. And she had the chance to eat a meal without having to awkwardly maneuver her mouth out of the cone, and then clean herself up to her satisfaction afterwards.

I know she really appreciated the break.

When she has the cone on, I can tell her mouth feels really itchy because she wants to clean it so badly.

I don’t think I really gave much thought before to how a cat would feel if deprived of the opportunity to groom herself.

I think they’d feel much the same as I would feel if I weren’t allowed to shower.

So I feel it’s important to give her this chance each day.

Until it results in this:

Also,

Happy Birthday, handsome. I miss you, buddy.

Craving salad, I sort of went overboard with the romaine lettuce the other night. I bought both hearts of romaine and baby romaine, and although Mark and I have been having big salads for dinner every night for three nights, I still have more romaine than you can shake a fork at. Short of eating tossed salad three meals a day, I was wondering what to do with it all, when I remembered one night last summer when our friends Luke and Lanet invited us over for a grilling extravaganza. Lanet loves to cook as much as I do and visiting their house for dinner is always a treat because although she’s not vegan, she likes to experiment and is always trying new vegan dishes out on me. On this night in particular, she was grilling just about every vegetable imaginable, including romaine hearts. Mark and I thought that grilling lettuce was very avant-garde, but it was really good. We don’t have a real grill here, but I do have a George Foreman, so I thought I’d try grilling up some romaine on that. It worked pretty well, though Lanet’s was better.

Grilled Romaine Hearts

1 -3 romaine hearts, depending how many servings you’d like (a serving is 1/2 a heart)
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame sauce
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cider vinegar
1 piece of ginger, size of a child’s pinkie finger
3-4 drops sriracha

Mix together all ingredients except lettuce in a small bowl.

Chop the romaine hearts in half lengthwise.

Rub your (clean!) hands in the marinade, then rub the lettuce all over with it.

Place two halves at a time on an indoor electric grill (only one half is pictured here because Mark is working late so I saved his half for later):

Close the grill and cook for about 3 minutes or until lettuce is wilted and beginning to brown.

I hardly ever buy tofu. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did, other than the other week when I was I recovering from my trip to Australia and didn’t think I’d have time to make it, so I picked some up at Super H while I was there. I haven’t needed it and it was about to expire, so I decided I’d use it up tonight. I thought I’d broil it in a barbecue sauce similar to the ole pork chop sauce. It’d have been better with homemade, but it was decent.

Broiled Barbecue Tofu

1 lb extra-firm tofu
1-2 Tbsp sesame oil
1/2 cup brown sugar (loosely packed unless you like your sauces pretty sweet)
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1 can crushed or diced tomatoes
sriracha to taste

Preheat the broiler on high.

You can press the tofu if you’d like. My homemade tofu doesn’t need pressing, and this Asian brand was very firm, so I didn’t bother. Slice it into thick slabs like this:

In a broiler-proof pan, preferably cast iron, pour 1 to 2 tablespoons of sesame oil, then place the tofu slabs in the pan in a single layer, turning them over to coat both sides in the oil.

Place under the broiler and broil for 10-15 minutes or until golden on top. Flip each piece over and return pan to broiler.

Meanwhile, whisk together the remaining ingredients except the tomatoes.

Add the tomatoes, and unless you are using already-crushed tomatoes, whir an immersion blender through them a few times. It doesn’t need to be too smooth.

When the tofu is beginning to blacken, remove from the broiler.

Pour the sauce onto the tofu and make sure it’s evenly coated. This photo isn’t out of focus so much as the pan was just very hot and steamy:

Place pan back in oven and cook for another 3-5 minutes or until sauce begins to thicken:

Okay, so I grilled some romaine and got one of the hearts out of the way, but I still had a bunch of baby romaine left over, so I made a side salad as well. SO MUCH LETTUCE. I thought a good mustardy dressing would go well with the barbecue flavors of the other dishes, so I made:

Sweet Shallot Mustard Dressing

1 small shallot
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
juice of 1/4 lemon
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 scant Tbsp agave nectar
pinch of salt
pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Place all ingredients in small food processor or chopper.

Process until smooth. (If you don’t have a food processor, just mince the shallot finely and combine all ingredients.)

Enjoy on a tossed salad.

And here’s the whole meal:

It was pretty quick and easy to throw together, although the whole tofu broiling business was a little more involved than I’d have liked. Namely, it took a lot longer than I was anticipating and also the house got pretty smoky. I think I’ll probably just stick to baking or pan frying.

Another issue with broiling the tofu was my cast iron skillet needed special cleaning. Now, I am very attached to my cast iron skillet. It’s an antique and it’s seasoned to perfection. I’m probably somewhere on the midpoint of anal retentiveness when it comes to cleaning it, though. On one hand, I would consider murdering anyone who dared put soap on it or soaked it or tried to scrub it. On the other hand, although you are supposed to clean cast iron while it is still warm from preparing the meal – that means before you sit down to eat – I refuse to eat cold meals. (This fact also explains why my pictures of my plated meals are usually so crappy; I hate spending precious time trying to make them look artistic or good.) Clean-up after my meals is pretty easy because I wash all my prep stuff while I’m cooking, but the final pots and pans always sit on the stove while the meal is consumed, then any leftovers are removed and put away and the pans are cleaned. By then they’ve cooled. My skillet is so well seasoned this hardly ever matters: not much sticks to it. But when I’ve baked something onto it, like broiled barbecue sauce, I need to do something to loosen the baked-on food without scrubbing my seasoning off. It’s really no big deal, though. All you have to do is pour some water into the pan, set it over medium-high heat, let it come to a boil, and boil for a minute or two:

Next – and this is very important – remove any cats that are lurking at your feet between the stove and the sink (mine are ALWAYS there and I don’t want to spill boiling water on them), don a heavy oven mitt, and carry the pan to the sink, pouring out the water.

See that little bit of sauce? It’s all that didn’t get removed when I dumped the water out, and it slid right off when I rinsed the pan briefly – absolutely no scrubbing. Then I dried with a towel (ALWAYS dry cast iron immediately) and spritzed lightly with olive oil.

Honestly, some people think cast iron is high maintenance, but I find it a lot easier to clean than most other things!

And now for a bit of cat news:

Poor Brachtune is a conehead. She somehow got an ear infection and then managed to scratch herself when it got too itchy, so the doctor said she has to wear a cone while it heals up. Sigh. I feel incredibly bad for her about the cone. It’s breaking my heart! Especially since last night I let her take it off while we were hanging out for a few hours and she didn’t try to scratch once. But then when I got home tonight, I took it off and she promptly starting scratching herself. After three chances, the cone went back on.

She looks like Little Kitty on the Prairie here.

After seeing someone ask how to pronounce Brachtune in the comments last time (it’s Brock-toon), my mom suggested that I explain how she got her name. But this post has been really long, so I’ll save it for next time. So you have that to look forward to!

Finally, tomorrow – April 1 – would have been Tigger’s 16th birthday. My sweet April Fool. I miss him more than you can imagine.

I usually go to Trader Joe’s about once a month and stock up on stuff. Last night was a Trader Joe’s night. I found a new product: “Beef-Less’ and “Chicken-Less” strips (I assumed I’d be able to find a link for you but alas, no) in the produce department and decided to pick up a package of each for making quick dinners after late nights at work. And somehow the very next night became just such a night. I got home around 8 and wanted to make something fairly fast, so I broke out the “Beef-Less” strips and threw together an “orange beef” stir-fry. Ordinarily I’d have preferred to use a fresh orange so I could use the zest in the dish as well but I didn’t have any and it was already late, as well as rainy and dreary, so I just used orange juice from the fridge instead of running to Wegmans.

Chinese-Style Orange Beef

1 package vegan “beef” strips, such as Trader Joe’s Beef-Less Strips
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 hot pepper, sliced
1 head broccoli, chopped into florets
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1/2 cup orange juice
2 Tbsp shaoxing wine (or sherry)
2 Tbsp agave nectar
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp chili paste
1 Tbsp bean paste
1 Tbsp cornstarch
2 Tbsp cold water

Chop the broccoli and steam until crisp-tender, leaning towards crisp (it will cook another minute or two in the stir-fry, so under-cook slightly).

Chop the bell pepper, slice the hot pepper, mince or press the garlic, and if desired, snip the “beef” strips into bite-sized pieces using kitchen shears.

Whisk together the orange juice, agave nectar, shaoxing wine, soy sauce, chili paste, and bean paste.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and water.

Heat a wok over medium-high heat, add 1-2 Tbsp peanut oil, then add the garlic and hot pepper. Stir fry for 30 seconds to a minute.

Add the bell pepper; stir fry for a minute.

Add the “beef” strips and fry for 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the broccoli and fry for 30 seconds or so.

Pour in the sauce and stir, then add the cornstarch mixture and stir until the sauce thickens and becomes slightly shiny.

Serve with rice.

This was a pretty good, fast meal. The “Beef-Less” strips were okay. I’d probably buy them again as they were very convenient and tasted fine. I asked Mark what he thought of them and he said, “pretty good”. I asked him if he could be any more specific because I wanted to review them on the blog and he said, “they are better than I could do!” But then he added, “they aren’t as good as that secret seitan recipe you made a couple of times. That was sooooo good. You should make that again.” He was talking about Kittee’s Gluten Log; it was a test recipe when I first made it. So I guess that’s that. But Kittee’s recipe, though amazing, really needs to be made the day before for best results and the Beef-Less strips can be ready in 3 minutes, and on some days, convenience wins.

The following events have all occurred recently:

• My second batch of sauerkraut finished fermenting.
• I made my first batch of tempeh in about a month.
• A package of cheddar Teese arrived on my porch.

I was therefore thinking about how to incorporate these items into my evening meal; after all, tempeh is best as fresh as possible, and I’d already opened the Teese to taste it. So let’s see: tempeh, sauerkraut, and “cheese”…what can I possibly make with that? Well the obvious answer, of course, is everyone’s favorite: reubens, but we didn’t have any bread and although Wegmans is right down the street, I’d already been there once today – and separately, so had Mark – and had no intentions of returning. So what I did instead was make a reuben casserole, which also allowed me to use up the 5 leftover lasagne noodles I’ve had in my cupboard forever. This was a win all around.

Reuben Casserole

4 ounces pasta, any sort (I broke up some whole wheat lasagne noodles)
6-8 ounces tempeh
1 1/2 cups sauerkraut
1/4 cup vegan sour cream
1/4 cup tomato sauce or ketchup (you may want to add a tiny bit of sugar if you use tomato sauce)
2 Tbsp pickle relish
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/4 tsp Indian black salt (or sea salt)
juice of 1/2 lemon
shredded vegan cheese (cheddar Teese worked perfectly; a portion of the “cheese” recipe in this post or pimiento cheese would also be great)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the pasta; cook until al dente, then drain.

Admire my tempeh. I know I keep forcing you to look at pictures of my tempeh…I’m still always amazed when it turns out so well, and after the lackluster packaged stuff I had the other night, I’m so glad I finally got the hang of making it.

Chop the tempeh into bite-sized pieces.

Heat some oil in a skillet, then fry the tempeh pieces until beginning to brown.

Mix together the sour cream, tomato sauce or ketchup, relish, lemon juice, mustard, and salt.

If you are using a solid “cheese”, shred it.

In a medium-sized casserole dish, place the pasta, tossing it with a tiny bit of vegan margarine or oil.

Add the tempeh in a layer.

Top with the sauce …

… then the sauerkraut. (By the way, I made mine with caraway seeds this time; if yours is plain, you could toss some caraway seeds in with it.)

Top with the “cheese”.

Cover and bake for 20 minutes; remove lid, then bake 10 minutes longer.

It’s not the prettiest thing to photograph a serving of, but it sure was tasty!

Mark liked it a lot. So did I. As for that cheddar Teese, it’s okay, but quite frankly it’s no Cheezly. I didn’t like it by itself on crackers that much, while amazingly we can eat Cheezly that way. It did, however, melt nicer than cheddar Cheezly (though I find mozzarella Cheezly melts perfectly), and I think it would be good in grilled cheese sandwiches or maybe even a quick mac & cheese. I think its best use may well be topping casseroles like this one.

In other news, I woke up on Sunday with Locomotive Breath inexplicably stuck in my head, so I was rocking out to some Jethro Tull in the sunroom. When Mark popped in, the following ensued:

And in cat news, sometimes Brachtune looks like an owl. I took this picture of her and promptly had the Dead Kennedys’ I Am the Owl stuck in my head the rest of the day.

Brachtune is so gorgeous, I’ve often wondered why she doesn’t get a modeling career and support us for a change.

This morning I was thinking about what I could do with the extra can of jackfruit I had leftover from making jackfruit tacos, when it dawned on me that the texture of cooked jackfruit would cause it to stand in very well for crab, and I suddenly decided I wanted to make crab soup. I remembered I had two crab soup recipes from my mom’s recipe box, but when I looked them over, neither seemed particularly appealing. One of them included all sorts of things I can’t even identify like “ham hock” and weird parts of cow. (I think that recipe was really “Old Bay soup” and not “crab soup”, though it also had crab in it. I don’t think most Maryland crab soup has heaps of weird meat in it.) The other was more my speed but called for a lot of frozen vegetables, where I’d rather use fresh. So I simply set out on my own.

The first thing I did was soak some dried lima beans. Now, I haven’t been entirely truthful with you. I’ve made it sound as if the only vegan food I don’t like is mushrooms. But the fact of the matter is, I also dislike baby lima beans. I’ve always hated them. At least, I think I still dislike them. I should probably try them again and make sure, but one just sort of rarely comes across lima beans in one’s daily travels, so I never even think of them. It’s kind of a pain to be vegan and hate mushrooms because people always want to feed mushrooms to vegetarians, often as a meat substitute. But no one cares if you hate lima beans because everyone else hates lima beans too. Or at least rarely eats them. The good news is, however, that I like LARGE lima beans, and I keep dried ones on hand for the infrequent times I realize I want them. So I measured 1 cup of dried large limas into a pot, covered with water, brought to a boil, boiled for two minutes, then turned off the heat and let them soak for an hour (actually, it was much longer, but do it for at least an hour.)

When the soaking water the lima beans are in is cool enough, pop each bean out of its “jacket”. Now, I hate hulling soybeans in this fashion and refuse to do it (I crack them while they are dry, then rinse the hulls off), but it’s actually kind of satisfying to hull large limas: they pop right out. It’s almost like popping bubble wrap. Return each hulled lima to the water to continue soaking.

Next I made the “crabmeat”:

Mock Crabmeat

1 large can young green jackfruit, packed in water (make sure it is “young green” jackfruit and that it’s not in syrup)
4 cups water
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp dry mustard
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
all the seaweed you can find in your house, totaling about 1/4 – 1/2 cup depending on the type. I used kombu, dulse, hiziki, and arame.

Place the water in a pot and add the rest of the ingredients except the jackfruit. Bring to a boil.

Drain the jackfruit and rinse.

Add the jackfruit to the pot …

… reduce heat, cover, and simmer for a half an hour or until jackfruit is tender …

… then drain, allowing the seaweed to cling to the jackfruit.

Now you can assemble the soup. That is, if you have Old Bay on hand, you may assemble the soup. If you don’t, you’re going to have to get some. I’m sorry if that upsets you. Ordinarily I consider all of my recipes sort of suggestions or starting points and assume that if anyone makes them, they’ll make substitutions and changes as they see fit, because that’s how I approach all recipes that I read. In this case, however, I really must insist you use Old Bay. Maryland Crab Soup contains Old Bay: end of story. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, crabs ARE Old Bay. I don’t know that there are many traits that I have that mark me as a native Marylander, but if I have one, it’s that I know that crabs in any form require Old Bay. I think a lot of large grocery stores in the United States – even those that are not on the East Coast – carry Old Bay, but you can get it online. Heck, if you ask me to, I will MAIL you some Old Bay. I really will!

Maryland “Crab” Soup

1 recipe mock crabmeat (recipe above)
1 cup dried lima beans, soaked
1 large onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1/2 small head garlic (about 6 cloves), minced or pressed
1 red chili pepper, minced (can substitute hot sauce or dried chili flakes, or omit if you are a sissy)
4 carrots, chopped
2 medium potatoes, diced
2 cups green beans, trimmed and chopped or french-cut
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 can diced tomatoes (I used fire-roasted)
1 small can tomato sauce
3 cups vegan “beef” stock
3-4 Tbsp Old Bay seasoning
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

You’ll want to cook the lima beans separately. If you have a pressure cooker, you can do this quickly: pressure cook for about 5-7 minutes, until they are soft, then drain. Otherwise, boil the limas in water for 2-4 hours or until soft. They won’t cook in the soup because the acidity of the tomatoes interferes.

Chop the onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes. Mince or press the garlic. Mince the hot pepper. Chop or french cut the green beans.

In a large soup pot or a Dutch Oven, heat some oil, then add the onions and fry over medium heat for 3 minutes.

Add the celery, garlic, and hot pepper; fry for 2 minutes.

Add the carrots and fry for 1-2 minutes.

Add the diced tomatoes and the tomato sauce.

Add the “beef” stock, potatoes, and any seaweed leftover from the jackfruit cooking.

Shred the jackfruit using your fingers. It should fall apart easily.

Add the green beans, jackfruit, corn, cooked limas, Old Bay, and Worcestershire sauce to the soup.

I chopped the carrot greens up and added them to the soup as well. You could also use parsley. Or you can skip it.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for an hour.

Serve with saltines or a crusty bread. Goes well with beer.

Is it really spring?! I noticed this one random, lonely flower in the middle of our yard today.

Happy Spring!

I’m one of those people who can’t function when talking on the phone. I freely admit this: it’s why I refuse to use my cell phone in the car. Talking on the phone makes me stupid – it’s true. Fortunately for the world, I hate talking on the phone and very rarely do it. There are few people I enjoy talking on the phone with: Fortinbras is one of them, and my friend V is another. V called me tonight from her home in San Francisco, firstly to apologize for treating me so horribly in my dream last night, and secondly to place yet another request that I make San Francisco my home. (A request I’m not willing to turn down…why isn’t San Francisco my home?) As she managed to call just as I was amassing ingredients and brainstorming recipes, tonight’s meal was conceived and constructed using only half – or less – of my brain. It turned out surprisingly well under the circumstances. Another mitigating factor in tonight’s meal was I really need to go grocery shopping. Having used up my green pepper I officially now have NO fresh vegetables. Yikes!

Sweet and Sour Tempeh

12 ounces tempeh, chopped
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
3″ piece ginger, minced or grated
7 ounces (about 1/2 can) diced tomatoes
1 Tbsp (or to taste) chili paste
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup orange juice
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 veggie bouillon cube
1/2 cup diced pineapple (fresh, frozen, or canned; if canned in in syrup, omit or cut back on the agave nectar)

Prepare all of the solid ingredients: chop the onion and green pepper, mince or press the garlic, mince or grate the ginger, chop the tempeh, measure the tomatoes and pineapple chunks.

Mix together the liquid ingredients: the soy sauce, agave nectar, rice vinegar, water, chili paste, and orange juice. Add the bouillon cube. I microwaved it for 30 seconds in order to get it to dissolve.

Heat a wok over medium high heat and add a small amount of oil. When the oil is hot, add the onions and fry for two minutes.

Add the garlic and ginger. (There are dried chili peppers in this picture because I used them but in the future I’ll just use the chili paste for all the heat, so it’s all I’ve called for.) Fry for one minute.

Add the green pepper and fry for a minute.

Add the tofu and stir fry for two to three minutes.

Add the tomatoes and fry for another minute.

Add the pineapple.

Add the liquid ingredients. Turn up the heat and let boil for a minute or two until slightly thickened.

Serve with some sort of grain. Because I was only using half my brain, I absentmindedly put some rice in the rice cooker before starting the rest of the meal, but later I thought I’d have really liked quinoa with this meal and was disappointed I hadn’t thought of it.

This was pretty good, as I said, for being made while I was under the influence of cellphonis stupidis. However, I used packaged tempeh for the first time in months, because until this week I hadn’t really had time to get back into my regular routine of making all my staples, and all I can say is: wow. Is homemade ever MUCH better! The packaged tempeh – the same brand I used to always buy before I started making my own – was bland, poorly textured, and insipid. I have soybeans soaking now to make my own tempeh tomorrow…whew! I’d gotten so used to homemade I hadn’t realized that it’s a million times better than store-bought!

I baked some kaiser rolls while I was making dinner! They are another test recipe for Peter Reinhart. They’re good. I’m going to be heartily recommending this book when it comes out!

In other news, Mark got a fish. His name is Atticus Fish. Mark loves Atticus Fish with all his heart.

Atticus Fish is a bit silly.

Brachtune finds him fascinating!

Mark and I visited the Parental Homestead yesterday, and my mom gave me some “chili bowls” to match one of the sets of Chinese teacups I have:

So of course today I made my grandmother’s chili! And to accompany it, I made Peter Reinhart’s cornbread, which I present for you today in vegan adaptation.

Cornbread, a la Peter Reinhart

6 oz (1 cup) cornmeal
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
2 cups minus 2 Tbsp soy milk (the vinegar + soy milk should weigh 16 ounces)
8 slices vegan bacon strips
8 oz (1 3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
.75 oz (1 1/2 Tbsp) baking powder
.05 oz (1/4 tsp) baking soda
.25 (1 tsp) salt
2 oz (1/4 cup) brown sugar
2 oz (1/4 cup) white sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp En-R-G egg replacer + 6 Tbsp water
1.5 oz (2 Tbsp) agave nectar
1 oz (2 Tbsp) vegan margarine
16 oz (2 1/2 cups) corn kernels (frozen or fresh)
1 1/2 Tbsp corn or vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Place 2 Tbsp vinegar in a liquid measuring cup …

… then add soy milk to make a total of 16 ounces (2 cups), whisking together.

Mix with the cornmeal, cover, and set aside. The original recipes says to allow to sit out overnight, but I just let it sit for a few hours this afternoon.

Arrange the vegan bacon on a baking sheet sprayed with oil. (I had two different kinds.)

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until crispy. Crumble and set aside. Reduce the oven temperature to 350.

Here’s my tip for softening or melting margarine: just measure it into a small glass bowl and sit on the stovetop while the oven is on.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

In a small bowl, whisk together the En-R-G and the water.

Whisk the agave nectar into the melted margarine, then whisk in the En-R-G mixture:

Whisk the margarine/En-R-G mixture into the cornmeal mixture:

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry and whisk or stir until thoroughly blended.

Stir in the corn kernels (I did not manage to get a non-blurry shot of this step.)

Pour the oil into a large cast iron skillet (or a 10″ round cake pan, or a 9×13″ rectangular cake pan, both of which are suggested by Peter Reinhart), then stick the skillet or pan into the oven and allow to heat up for 5 minutes. Using heavy oven mitts, remove and tilt to coat entire skillet. Pour in the batter.

Sprinkle with “bacon” pieces, gently pushing them into the batter. My “bacon” was already pretty crispy, so I also sprayed the “bacon” with water so they wouldn’t burn.

Place in the oven and bake for 30-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (Reinhart says this will take 30 minutes but I had to leave mine in for 45.)

Allow to cool in the skillet or pan for 15 minutes before serving. Cut into wedges (or squares, depending in the shape of your pan).

The cornbread got a thumbs-up from Mark!

Here’s the chili in my new bowl:

Brachtune didn’t help me make dinner today, although in general she’s still been acting like my shadow.

She doesn’t appear to miss Tigger, although I sure as hell do. Yesterday at the Parental Homestead, Mark and I looked at the many pictures my mom had saved of Tigger on her PC and we found ourselves laughing at nearly every one of them. He was a very silly cat. Last week I would have just cried. So I guess I’m doing better, but it still really sucks. Brachtune is trying her hardest to get me through it, though.

From my mom’s photos, I realized just how much weight Brachtune – who probably has cancer – has lost. Here is she looking much heavier a few years ago:

And here she is today:

Why do cats have to be mortal? Mark and I will eventually adopt new cats, that I am sure I will love, but the thing is, Tigger and Brachtune were and are THE cats for me. They are nothing alike, but between the two of them, they had/have the two kitty personalities that I think go with my personality. As far as I am concerned, Tigger and Brachtune could have just lived with me until the day I died and I’d have been perfectly happy.

Anyway, if you can imagine how crazy I am about my cats and multiply it by 100, you have a rough idea of how crazy my parents (and my aunt) are about their dogs. They brush Shannon’s teeth every day. He has tartar.

Sophie got her teeth brushed too, but I wasn’t fast enough with the camera to capture it. Here she is waiting for Aunt Lynn to meticulously prepare her “dessert buffet” of doggie cookies and snacks.

Sophie is a bit wary of Mark, so she spent a portion of the day under the sofa.

She’s hyperactive, however, so the sofa-hiding only ever lasted a minute or two at a time.

I want to thank everyone for their kind words about Tigger. Tigger was a bit of a momma’s – and in the second half of his life a daddy’s – boy, and I used to have to do a lot of defending of him to people he’d slashed. A lot of people who knew him in real life were scared of him. Scared of that sweet, adorable, lovable little guy – can you believe it?! It really makes me happy to know he had such a following on my blog and that the internet saw him for who he really was: a beautiful, funny, and wonderful cat with a huge personality. I still cry when I think about him, and this first post will be a little depressing without his presence, but I did manage to get a couple of Brachtune pictures to help fill the void.

I’m still adjusting a bit to being back in America. I was jet lagged a bit for a couple of days – couldn’t sleep – and then Mark’s mom and aunt were here for a couple of days, and what with missing Tigger, things haven’t yet seemed quite “normal”. I worked late tonight but I’d promised Mark Brussels sprouts for dinner, so I tried to think of a quick yet interesting accompaniment. (How many girls have husbands they have to try to please by finding meals to go with Brussels sprouts?! Honestly, though, Mark would have been perfectly happy to eat the sprouts and nothing else.) I sort of just pulled this together based on ingredients that seemed like they’d go with with my Brussels sprouts. It turned out quite well.

Bacony Beany Spelt Pasta

4 oz. spelt pasta ribbons
2 tsp olive oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
6 sliced tempeh “bacon”
7 oz. diced tomatoes (about half a can)
4 leaves Swiss chard
2/3 can Great Northern beans
1/4 tsp Australian habanero sauce (or other hot sauce to taste, or red chili pepper flakes to taste)
1/2 cup vegan stock
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Prepare the pasta as directed on the package. I found that it took significantly less time to cook than stated on the package, so if you aren’t used to spelt pasta, make sure you check it frequently.

Mince the garlic.

Chiffonade the the chard. (That’s sort of fun to say.)

Rinse the beans.

Crumble the tempeh bacon.

In a large skillet or wok, warm the olive oil, then add the garlic.

Saute for 20 seconds, then add the tempeh bacon and fry until beginning to crisp.

Add the tomatoes and their juices; cook for two minutes.

Add the chard and cook for another two minutes.

Add the beans and stir.

Stir in the stock and hot sauce or chili flakes. The hot sauce I used was purchased for Mark at The Rocks Markets in Sydney. Mark’s a hot pepper and hot sauce aficionado and I tend to buy him the hottest sauce I can find when I travel as a souvenir. I warned the seller of this sauce that Mark didn’t like “sissy” sauces and his “extra hot habanero” had better really be “extra hot”, and it is quite good! It’s pretty hot, but in small doses it has a really nice flavor and it worked well in this dish. Use whatever type of heat you like if you can’t make it to Sydney!

Add the drained pasta and toss, then warm through before serving.

Goes well with roasted Brussels sprouts and Australian red wine!

Brachtune has taken to following me around the house, much like Tigger used to. In fact, I think Tigger was oppressing the poor thing because she’s been more active lately than she has been in a while. So although I miss my constant orange companion in the kitchen, The Toonse was at my feet the whole time I prepared tonight’s meal.

Would it be wrong of me to tell Brachtune that it’s much easier for me to get a good angle for her photos if she jumps up on the island like Tigger used to do?

I know it’s not that hygienic to let my cats walk on the counters, but it can’t be that hygienic for me to be rolling around on the floor to take their picture either!

The Toonse is just too well-behaved!

I have a few more pictures to share from Australia, but it’s getting late so I’m going to postpone them for now. Koalas and kangaroos, oh my!

Still at Mollymook Beach and enjoying the ability to make meals at my leisure and an oven that works, after the frantic pace of seeing Sydney and an inoperational oven at Smuck’s. Luke had been talking up his specialty dish, Mexican Chicken, which to Smuck’s delight he was planning to make during our stay here – apparently Mexican food is fairly rare in Australia and good Mexican is practically nonexistent – and since I would obviously not be partaking in that endeavor, I thought it would be sporting to have a Mexican meal myself. In the tiny grocery in Mollymook, I was amazed to find several different kinds of vegan canned “meat” and quickly decided that along with a taco kit and some chopped veggies, I’d have myself a nearly instant Mexican meal I could make quickly without getting in Luke’s way or fighting for use of kitchen appliances.

Ironically, although I found the canned meat I needed, Luke did not! Turns out Luke’s recipe calls for tortilla chips, Ro-tel tomatoes, Velveeta, and some product called “canned chicken”. Luke had already come to the conclusion he was going to have to buy a fresh jalepeno to add to his tomatoes because Ro-Tel does not exist here, and I guess he was planning to use real cheese instead of that Velveeta crap, but what tripped him up was the non-existence of canned chicken in Australia. Talking about the recipe in the car with Smucky’s mum, she said no such thing existed in Australia and had no idea what he was talking about. I also had no idea what he was talking about. I had no idea they put chickens in cans. Faced with the fact that he was able to procure just about none of the ingredients of his much-hyped dish, Luke gave up. He ended up – and I’m sorry to have to report this – grilling kangaroo meat instead. He and Smucky both liked the kangaroo meat (Smuck hadn’t had it in ages; it’s really not very popular here); I found it quite disgusting (though I obviously didn’t eat it). I still made my tacos though. It’s rare I make dinner in all of 10 minutes, but I did and it was not bad!

Mollymook Tacos

1 taco kit containing taco shells, taco seasonings, and taco sauce
1 can vegan “minced meat”
2 leaves lettuce, torn or shredded
1 small tomato, diced

Remove the “minced meat” from the can and place in a microwave-safe bowl.

Add the taco seasoning and stir well. Heat in microwave for 3 minutes or until warmed through.

For easier application of taco sauce to tacos, remove from foil pouch and transfer to another vessel. I found this little plastic shot glass, or as Luke assessed it, “old-fashioned eye wash cup”.

Heat the taco shells in the oven for 5 minutes or until warmed and crisped. I think the box said to use a 190 degree Celsius oven – I have no idea what that is in Fahrenheit and as I’m typing this up at the beach without internet, I can’t check – but I just stuck it in the already-warm oven at whatever temperature Luke had just baked frozen chips (fries to you Americans).

To assemble the tacos, fill first with the “taco meat”, then top with the lettuce and tomatoes and finally the sauce.

This isn’t something I’d make at home very often, if at all. I usually avoid “kits” of any sort in preference of making my own seasonings and sauces. It’s also not something I’d ordinarily risk insulting your intelligence in regards to by posting as a “recipe”. The point of this post has really been to demonstrate that it’s possible to make a easy, cheap, convenient vegan meal in a tiny beachside town in Australia.

In regards to the “minced meat”, I’m pleased to announce it was actually pretty good. In fact, both Luke and Smucky tasted it and gave it their approval, Smucky’s enjoyment of it coming as a total surprise as he is quite scared of fake meat and vegan food in general. Luke said he would be willing to purchase and consume this product, and coming from a man who’d just eaten kangaroo for dinner, that’s saying quite a bit. I’m a bit skeptical of canned vegan “meats”, myself, but I’d buy it again, although at home I’m more apt to make something myself using whole foods.

I leave you with images of something I’ve never before witnessed. Smucky doing dishes!

He was so very intent on it! I found it hilarious!

I spent the day after making these tacos swimming in the ocean and lazing on a sunny beach while Mark was at home shovelling what he described as “a foot” (but what I believe was a few inches) of snow from our driveway at home. I felt a little bad about that…but not so bad that I didn’t think it was great! The water is so clear here that standing in it chest-deep you can see your feet. I can’t see my feet in inch-deep water at home!

After enjoying some time on the beach, I went for a walk around the neighborhood and took these pictures:

I wanted to swim in this pool, located at a hotel called Bannister.

There is, of all things, a small rain forest that overlooks the beach just down the road from our beach house. Halfway through there is a park bench situated on a clearing overlooking the beach. Pig enjoyed the view.

Mollymook Beach.

I don’t know what this is.

On the return home, about 20 rainbow lorrikeets flew out of this bush (which I happen to be obsessed with). I wasn’t quick enough to capture their flight and they refused to come back.

Just outside the house, I found another native animal: