I don’t have much of an intro for this one. I wanted vegetable barley soup so I made some. That’s about the long and short of it. I worked from home today so I was able to bake a loaf of bread, which I thought would be a good accompaniment to the soup, so that worked out well. And it provided enough leftovers for two or three lunches this week. There isn’t really much else to say about vegetable barley soup, except for the fact that I did use a secret ingredient: read the recipe for details!

Vegetable Barley Soup

1 large or three small shallots, diced
2 carrots, chopped into large bite-sized pieces
2 stalks celery, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
5 cups vegetable stock or vegan “beef” broth
1 14.5 pound can diced tomatoes
1 medium or 2 small potatoes, chopped
3/4 cup pearled barley
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup frozen green beans
1 cup frozen pearl onions (I figured if I was using pearled barley, pearl onions were only appropriate)
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
3 Tbsp (or to taste) grated fresh horseradish (the secret ingredient!)
freshly ground pepper to taste

In a large soup pot or Dutch oven, heat a bit of oil and sauté the shallots, carrots, and celery for two minutes.

Add the garlic and sauté for another minute.

Add the broth, tomatoes, and potatoes. Bring to a boil.

Add the frozen veggies, bay leaves, thyme, and smoked paprika.

Return to a simmer, then reduce heat to medium low. Add the secret ingredient, horseradish, to taste. Horseradish wasn’t in the ingredients photo because I didn’t think to add it until after I’d already started making the soup. My culinarily-inclined friend gave me a jar of fresh horseradish that she had preserved last week and I’ve been wondering how I should use it. Then it dawned on me that it might be good in this soup. And it was: it added a nice pungent dimension.

Cover and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. After covering my soup pot, I turned around to find Tigger in his usual spot: sitting – very prim and proper – on the very edge of the kitchen island, half dozing off but retaining a modicum of alertness in case I walk near him (in which case he will stick his paw out, catch my arm in his claws, and pull me over to him).

Tigger is one of those cats who can actually smile. It’s one of the things I love most about him.

So I rewarded him for being so cute by giving him some nutritional yeast, for which he goes bonkers.

Anyway, when you’re finished playing with the cat and the soup is ready, season with freshly ground pepper and remove the bay leaves.

Serve with freshly baked crusty bread. This is a loaf of Jeffrey Hamelman’s Rustic Bread, which like every other loaf I’ve made from this book, came together and baked beautifully.

It was really good used to sop up the soup.

I don’t know why the soup caused this expression on Mark’s face:

He seemed a little disconcerted when he found out that barley was to be a big part of his dinner, so maybe that was the problem, although I’m not sure he was sure exactly what barley was before eating it. He wasn’t quite as rapturous about the soup as he has been about other meals (including Saturday’s Soon Tubu Jjigae), however, I thought it was really very good and I definitely intend to make it again. It’s very comforting.

Leftovers should be even better than the first day, however, barley absorbs a lot of water, so you’ll almost definitely have to thin it out. I find that this condensed version is all the easier to carry to work, though, and at lunch time I just add a bit of almost-boiling water from the hot water dispenser, which also reduces the reheat time necessary in the microwave to about a minute.

One of the best meals I had in San Francisco (and I had a lot of great meals) was the first one: tofu stew at a Korean tofu house in Japantown. As I promised at the time, I decided to replicate it tonight.

There aren’t many vegan recipes for soon tubu jjigae on the internet, in fact, I didn’t find any. Everyone seems to want to put clam juice, beef, and shrimp in it. And egg. But none of that stuff is necessary. The important features of soon tubu jjigage are 1) tofu and 2) spiciness, both of which I can produce in spades.

The first thing you need to consider is your tofu. I wouldn’t dream of making soon tubu jjigage with anything but homemade tofu. The tofu is just too big a part of the dish and I’m used to homemade. So I have to urge you to try making it yourself. I ordinarily make an extremely firm tofu, using as much coagulant as I can get away with without it turning bitter and pressing it under about 25 pounds. Because I wanted a much softer tofu for the stew, I cut back on the amount of coagulant I used (I used nigari as usual, but if I’d been thinking more clearly, I’d have used the calcium sulfate I have because it makes a softer tofu AND adds calcium), and I used just 1.5 pounds (a new bottle of agave nectar, to be precise) to press it.

If you simply can not be bothered to make your own tofu, buy fresh soft tofu from an Asian market if at all possible. If you can’t find fresh, buy the best soft tofu you can find at an Asian market. Sometimes it comes in tubes and it’s usually in the produce department. If you don’t live near an Asian market, you can resort to using silken tofu in a box.

Soon Tubu Jjigae

3 1/2 cups water
1 4″x4″ square kombu
1/4 cup dulse, snipped into bite-size pieces with kitchen shears (optional)
1 handful arame (optional)
2 tsp vegan chicken bouillon (or enough to flavor 4 cups of water at half-strength)
1 Tbsp Korean red pepper powder
6 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp sesame oil
1/2 cup cold water
3 Tbsp arrowroot
6 Tbsp gochujang (Korean chili pepper paste) (Susan V of Fat-Free Vegan has a substitute you can make if you don’t live near a Korean grocery store in this post, but get the real deal if at all possible.)
1 cup cabbage kimchi
2 carrots, julienned or shredded
1 pound soft tofu, preferably homemade
1/2 bunch scallions, chopped

Place the seaweed(s) in a soup pot with the 3 1/2 cups of water and simmer for 10 minutes.

Remove the kombu. (You can chop it up into bite-sized pieces and put it back in if you wish.) Add the garlic, red pepper powder, soy sauce, sesame oil, and “chicken” bouillon. Simmer for five minutes.

Mix the cold water and arrowroot together in a small bowl, whisking to ensure there are no lumps, then add to the soup. Add the gochujang, whisking to make sure it is dissolved. Simmer for another five minutes.

Add the kimchi and carrots.

Chop the tofu into 8 large pieces.

Add the tofu to the stew.

Stir the tofu into the stew, allowing it to break up a little bit, but mostly maintaining the chunks.

Simmer for 5 more minutes, then add the scallions.

Raise the heat a little and cook for another couple of minutes. In restaurants, soon tubu jjigae arrives to your table very, very hot, so let it get very bubbly.

I served the soon tubu jjigae in individual-sized cast iron pots, which even have lids to keep the stew warm while I run around taking photographs. Here’s one of the pots:

Mark was fascinated by the “little cauldrons”.

Serve with several banchan.

The verdict on this one was very good. Mark commented that he tasted “several layers of flavor, followed by a nice spiciness.” He proceeded to clean his cauldron, then steal tofu from mine. Afterwards he told me to announce it had the Mark Seal of Approval.

Brachtune doesn’t care much for tofu, or stew for that matter, but she does love chopsticks.

Tigger prefers red pepper.

(His fur is wet because he took a little shower in the kitchen sink. He’s very weird.)

Possibly the best parts of a Korean meal are the banchan, or little side dishes, that almost always accompany it. They usually include kimchi and pickled vegetables (and often tiny little dead fish). I could make an entire meal of banchan. I like to make my own, although since I like to serve four or five different kinds at a time, I often supplement my homemade banchan with a few ready-made items from Super H; they always have several vegan varieties (you do have to watch out for fish sauce). Tonight I made a bean sprout “salad” and a cucumber “salad”. I’m putting salad in quotes because I don’t really know what to call them. I spend enough time at Super H that you’d think maybe I would have picked up Korean by osmosis by now, but it’s still Greek to me. (I hilariate myself. (“Hilariate” is a perfectly cromulent word.))

Although I don’t know what to call these little dishes, they are very fast, easy, and even cheap. Throw them together before embarking on the preparation of a Korean meal, let them marinate while you make the main dish, and then everything will be ready at the same time. Easy!

Bean Sprout Banchan

2 cups bean sprouts
2 tsp seasoned rice vinegar
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
4 drop stevia (or 1 tsp sugar)

Place the bean sprouts in a bowl. Bring a kettle to boil, then pour the boiling water over the bean sprouts to cover. Let sit for 2 minutes, then drain.

Mix the remaining ingredients together in a small bowl …

… then toss with the bean sprouts.

Cover and let marinate in the refrigerator for at least half an hour before serving. Sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired.

Verdict? At dinner, Mark said he particularly liked the bean sprouts and seemed impressed when I told him I made the recipe up. Not that it’s a particularly difficult or involved recipe, in fact, it seems a little silly to bother taking credit for it. But it went over very well!

Cucumber Banchan

Imagine 2 cucumbers in this photograph.

2 cucumbers
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp seasoned rice vinegar
2 tsp Korean red pepper powder

Slice cucumbers as thinly as possible, on a mandolin if you have one. Toss with the salt and let sit for 15 minutes.

In a small bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients.

Squeeze the cucumbers dry, then toss with marinade.

Now, I’ve always just marinaded the cucumbers in the past, however, this time I decided to get fancy and use my new pickle press. If you don’t have one, just let the cucumbers sit in the marinade. But if you want to use a press, put the cucumber into the press and tighten it:

Then refrigerate for at least half an hour. Notice how the liquid has come up through the holes in the “presser foot” of the press:

Simply drain the liquid off before unclamping. Then serve!

Verdict? Nice and crisp, however, not spicy enough for my tastes. I might toss in some more red pepper after pressing next time. You could barely taste the pepper. But I like cucumbers, so it was good anyway.

I’ve been wanting a Japanese pickle press for a while, but all of the ones I’ve seen have been pretty big and I feared they’d take up too much room in my refrigerator and make far more pickles than two people could reasonably eat. I probably could never make too many traditional dill pickles for Mark to consume, but I generally intend tsukemono to accompany a single meal and only need two servings at a time. So when I saw a small press at Soko Hardware in San Francisco’s Japantown last weekend, I snatched it up. I also picked up a tsukemono recipe book, Easy Japanese Pickling in Five Minutes to One Day. This book is not completely vegan, but it is mostly so.

Many Japanese pickles are made by extracting excess water from veggies by applying weights to them. The plastic pickle presses you can find in Japanese markets (or online) work by applying pressure in the form of a spring that clamps a lid down onto the pickles. A special press is not at all necessary, however. In fact, this particular book describes how not to use a press. Instead, it suggests placing the pickle ingredients into a bowl, covering with plastic wrap, and using cans or other weights to press the pickles.

I chose a simple pickle (most of them, in fact, are quite simple) last night, using my new press instead of the cans-in-a-dish method recommended by the book. The pickle press simply eliminates a little extra work (and plastic wrap, which I try to avoid) and also provides easy storage of leftovers.

Nakata-Style Cabbage Pickle

400 grams cabbage (check out that “baby” cabbage I got at Wegmans! It weighed 412 grams: perfect!)
2 tsp salt
2-3 Tbsp water
1/2 carrot, julienned
30 shiso leaves (I used fewer, but was very glad to be able to trim my rampant shiso plant, which for some reason is not only not dead, but thriving)

Core the cabbage.

In the words of the book, “Slice to fit a small rectangular container.” Their pickles ended up retaining layers, looking a bit like a cabbagy petit-four, but I made mine “scattered”, much like the sushi I served it with. So basically I just chopped the cabbage into bite-sized pieces:

Place the cabbage in a bowl and sprinkle with the salt and water. Mix together using your hands. Let sit for 15-20 minutes to soften.

Meanwhile, julienne the carrot and cut the shiso leaves into bit-sized pieces (I used kitchen shears). When the cabbage is ready, squeeze it dry, then layer in a pickle press (or a rectangular container), alternating with rows of shiso and carrot.

If using a pickle press, put the lid on and tighten the screw as much as possible:

If you don’t have a pickle press, cover the vegetables with plastic wrap, place a small plate or bowl over them, then put a can or other weight onto the plate or bowl.

Let the pickle stand for 30 minutes. Makes six servings.

This was a nice, light, “clean”-tasting accompaniment to our meal, even if it didn’t look as pretty as the picture in the book.

Mark requested “tofu and rice” for dinner last night and looking for inspiration, I flipped through Asian Vegan Kitchen. I decided to make Scattered Sushi from that book. Wegmans didn’t have the lotus root called for, so I substituted dry tofu (which also satisfied Mark’s tofu request). At the author’s suggestion, I substituted bamboo shoots for the shiitakes because as previously discussed, I hate mushrooms.

Scattered Sushi

Before running up to the grocery store, I stuck a piece of kombu into 4 cups of water. This gave me enough dashi when I got home to prepare the meal below and make 2 servings of miso soup.

4 ounces dry tofu, cubed (original calls for 3.5 ounces lotus root, soaked in vinegared water)
1/2 cup dashi
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 Tbsp sugar or 6 drops stevia
pinch of salt
1 medium carrot, julienned
4 Tbsp dashi
1/2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sugar or 2 drops stevia
pinch of salt
1 8 oz can bamboo shoots, shredded (or 10 dried shiitake mushrooms)
2/3 cup dashi
3 Tbsp sugar or 18 drops stevia
2 Tbsp mirin
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 cup snow peas, strings removed, and chopped in half
sushi rice
1/2 cup white sesame seeds, toasted
pickled ginger for garnish
1 sheet toasted nori seawood, cut into strips, for garnish

Prepare sushi rice. I guess I should do a tutorial on this sometime, but all I do is cook it in a rice cooker, then cut in seasoned rice vinegar and salt with a rice paddle when it’s done. I don’t even measure those things, so it wouldn’t be much of a tutorial. Just follow the instructions on your package of sushi rice, then season with sushi vinegar and salt to taste.

Combine 1/2 cup dashi, 2 Tbsp rice vinegar, 1 Tbsp sugar or 6 drops stevia, and a pinch of salt in a small saucepan. Add the tofu or the soaked lotus root and cook for 3 to 4 minutes (until lotus root, if using, is tender). Drain and set aside.

Combine 4 Tbsp dashi, 1/2 tsp rice vinegar, 1 tsp sugar or 2 drops stevia, and a pinch of salt in the same small saucepan and cook for 2-3 minutes over medium heat, until the liquid is almost absorbed. Drain and set aside.

If using shiitakes, rinse and soak in water for 5 minutes, then remove hard stems. Place the mushrooms or the bamboo shoots in the small saucepan with 2/3 cup dashi, 3 Tbsp sugar or 18 drops stevia, mirin, and soy sauce and cook over medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes. The liquid may be nearly or completed absorbed if you are using mushrooms, however, it probably won’t be with the bamboo shoots. Drain if necessary and set aside.

Blanch the snow peas in salted boiling water. Drain and set aside.

The book didn’t suggest serving the scattered sushi with the typical soy sauce and wasabi you’d eat regular sushi with, but I wanted to try out the real wasabi I’d gotten from Penzey’s, so before assembling the sushi, I mixed some up so it could sit for a few minutes:

To assemble the dish, place sushi rice in a bowl, then “scatter” with sesame seeds, the prepared vegetables, pickled ginger, and nori slivers. Serve at room temperature.

Best served with miso soup and pickle!

Mark rated this meal as “simple but very good” and gobbled it up very quickly. Speaking of Mark, as much as I loved being in San Francisco, it was very good to be back in my own kitchen with my two favorite boys:

Tempeh SUCCESS again! Yay!

I checked Asian Vegan Kitchen out of the library last week. I hadn’t heard of it before, but I couldn’t resist any book with a title containing the words “Asian”, “Vegan”, and “Kitchen”. In looking for a dish to showcase my homemade tempeh, tonight I chose Spicy Tempeh from this book.

2 Tbsp peanut oil
3 shallots, diced
3 cloves garlic
1 medium tomato, chopped
4 dried red chilies, sliced
2 slices galangal
4 Tbsp palm sugar
2 salam leaves
1/4 cup (60 ml) water
1 Tbsp tamarind juice
1/2 tsp salt
14 oz tempeh, sliced into thin strips, deep-fried
1 cup peanuts, deep-fried
2 Tbsp kecap manis
celery leaves, for garnish
red bell pepper, sliced, for garnish

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan and saute the shallots, garlic, tomato, chilies, and galangal for 2-3 minutes over medium heat.
2. Add the palm sugar, salam leaves, water, tamarind juice, and salt. Stir over medium heat until the palm sugar has dissolved.
3. Add the deep-fried tempeh, deep-fried peanuts, and kecap manis. Stir constantly over high heat until the sauce has caramelized.
4. Stir with rice, garnished with celery leaves, and red pepper.

I made a few changes, the most significant being I didn’t deep fry anything. I pan-fried the tempeh and just used roasted peanuts. Since the peanuts were salted, I omitted the salt. I used bay leaves instead of salam leaves, and I used tamarind concentrate, not juice, which made it sort of “sweet and sour” in addition to “spicy” (and salty), but i liked it that way.

Mark liked it!

Tigger was ambivalent.

In other news, I will be in San Francisco, my favorite US city (shh, don’t tell New York!) from Saturday through Thursday, so if you don’t hear from me for a while, that’s why. I’ll have my camera and laptop, though, and SF is a vegan haven, so I may pop in to say hi. I’m fairly familiar with SF, but if anyone has any suggestions for must-see or must-eat items, drop me a comment!

It’s another Pig-approved post!

When my mother saw my Smoked Seitan Butt post and noticed it included vegetarian bacon bits, she thought I might like to try veganizing the following recipe of my grandmother’s:

Bean and Bacon Chowder

1 lb. pea beans (washed)
16 slices bacon (1 lb.)
2 cups chopped onions
2 (28 oz.) cans tomatoes
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. basil
1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
4 beef bullion cubes, dissolved in 4 cups boiling water
2 T. sugar

Simmer beans in 4 cups water for 3-4 minutes in Dutch oven. Cool 1 hour. Drain water. Fry bacon until crisp; crumble and add to beans. Save bacon drippings. Saute onions in drippings until golden. Add to beans with tomatoes, salt, pepper, basil, tomato paste, bullion and water, and sugar. Cover and simmer 4-5 hours or until beans are cooked. Makes 4 quarts.

So that’s exactly what I did yesterday! Here’s my version; I’ve also halved her amounts:

Bean and Non-Bacon Chowder

8 oz navy beans
1 small or 1/2 large onion, chopped
1 cup diced UnPork
1 28 oz or two 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes (fire roasted is good here)
2 tsp vegan “beef” bouillon
1/4 cup vegan bacon bits
1 Tbsp sugar or 9 drops stevia
1/2 tsp basil
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 cups water

Soak the beans overnight. (Or you can quick-soak them as described by my grandmother above.) Dice the UnPork.

In a Dutch oven (preferably cast iron), heat some olive oil. Add the onions and UnPork …

… and cook until onions are beginning to caramelize and UnPork is crispy, deglazing the pan with white wine (or broth or water) as necessary.

Add the tomatoes and tomato paste and bring to a simmer, then add the bouillon and stir to combine.

Add the rest of the ingredients, …

… cover, and simmer for 4 to 5 hours or until beans are done.

If I had realized that this was going to take 4 to 5 hours even after soaking the beans for what turned out to be 24 hours, I would have made it in the pressure cooker, which I suspect would have taken 45 minutes. I was thinking it would take 2 hours. We probably could have eaten it after 2 hours, but I wanted the beans to be softer, so I kept staving off hunger with a slice of beer bread and waiting another hour…until it was midnight. I also had to add water to thin it back out a couple of times. Next time it is definitely the pressure cooker!

I can’t say that I remember eating this at my grandmother’s, but the aroma was very familiar, so I guess I remember smelling it.

Serve with a loaf of crusty (and preferably beer-filled!) bread and salad.

Something about this chowder made Mark want to pose like a senior portrait. Mark is a unique individual.

This is unrelated to food (although he did write an article for Gourmet magazine), but David Foster Wallace is dead. This is especially shocking to me because I am actually currently reading Infinite Jest. RIP, David.

The Smarkster isn’t feeling well today and among his complaints is that he’s hungry but doesn’t want food. I suggested soup and he asked if I’d make tomato soup. It’s so easy that although I wanted to make it as quickly as possible for him, I figured I might as well take pictures and write it up for the blog while I was at it. I just went to Penzey’s last weekend and have a bunch of new spices I’d love to have played with, but I figured if Smark wasn’t feeling well, it wasn’t the right time to experiment.

Quick and Non-Experimental Tomato Soup

1/4 onion, diced
1 small or 1/2 large carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
14.5 ounces vegetable stock or vegan broth (1 tomato can-full)
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp thyme
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
fresh basil for garnish

Saute the onions, carrots, celery, and garlic in a soup pot.

Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes.

Remove from heat and remove the bay leaf. Let cool for a few minutes, then blend, either with an immersion blender or in batches in a regular blender.

Reheat if necessary and garnish with fresh basil. I didn’t have any fresh basil so I threw a small cube of frozen basil in the pot and stirred until melted.

Here’s hoping Smark feels better!

Caution, soup is hot!

I forgot to give him a lemon wedge, but if I were serving myself, I’d probably squeeze a little lemon over it. I think fresh lemon brightens everything.

I put a loaf of Jeffrey Hamelman’s beer bread into the oven to bake just before starting the soup. I plan to serve it with dinner.

There are two things that bread bakers hope to achieve in every loaf of bread, but which sometimes seem to happen randomly, perhaps when Fornax is smiling upon you: oven spring and a crust that literally crackles as it begins to cool after removing from the oven. Oven spring is the extra rise you get a couple minutes after putting the loaf into the oven. This you can control a little bit, in fact, scoring (slashing) is done to control how oven spring affects the bread (by giving the crust a location to expand), but it seems like some loaves spring right up in the oven and others don’t much at all – and that the only deciding factor is luck! I’ve made three different kinds of bread from Bread so far and all of my loaves have had great oven spring. And when I pulled this beer bread from the oven, it started crackling delightfully as I was taking its picture!

I have been really happy with the loaves I’ve baked from this book, and there are so many, many loaves to go! It’s an excellent book and the loaves are a pure delight and joy to bake. Everything just seems to go so smoothly when I follow these recipes. If you are serious about learning to bake bread, I highly recommend this book, although it’s pretty intensive and there are only a few photographs (there are simple drawings that illustrate techniques where necessary). If you are thinking only casually of getting into bread baking, you may find Peter Reinhart’s books a bit more accessible. You could start with this book, but you’ll have to be prepared to read in order to learn the techniques…not look at pictures. For someone who pretty much has the hang of the basics of bread baking but who wants more practice, this book is absolutely perfect.

I can’t wait to taste the beer bread. It’s made with roasted barley, whole wheat flour, and BEER! I only made one loaf instead of the two the recipe was scaled for, which meant I had half a beer leftover this morning. Which meant I drank half a beer before breakfast this morning. Was that wrong?

I felt like veganizing another old recipe tonight. This is my grandmother’s recipe for Chili Con Carne, which I picked out because I thought topping it with one of the new Cheezly flavors that arrived Friday would be a good way to test the cheese out. I often find myself wishing I had discovered my interest in cooking long before I did so that I could have apprenticed myself under my grandmother before she died, or better, that she had lived longer. I’m positive she would have happily helped me make vegetarian meals. Here’s the original, rather vague recipe:

Cook ground beef, 2 onions, and pepper until brown. Add 1 can tomatoes and 1 can kidney beans. (Pour broth off kidney beans before adding.) Combine 3 Tbsp. vinegar, 2 tsp. salt, 3 Tbsp. Chili powder, and dash red pepper. Simmer 40 minutes.

So I set about looking for beef substitutes. First I thought of TVP, which would have also been good for nostalgic purposes, reminding me of all the times my college roommate and I made huge pots of Fantastic’s Chili, but I discovered I had less than a cup of TVP. Next I thought of bulgur, which is a great texture for chili, but I had even less bulgur. But I probably had enough of both combined, so that’s what I did. You could use one instead of the other and still have great results, although you may have to adjust the amount of water. Bulgur requires more water than TVP, so just keep that in mind.

Grandmother’s Chili Con Carne

1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes (I used fire-roasted)
1 can kidney beans, rinsed
4 cups vegetable or vegan “beef” broth
1/2 cup bulgur
3/4 cup TVP
3 Tbsp vinegar (I used white wine; apple cider would have been good too)
3 Tbsp chili powder
minced hot pepper or hot sauce to taste (reduce the amount of vinegar if you use a vinegar-based hot sauce)

Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, then add a small amount of oil. Add the onions and cook for 2 minutes.

Add the green pepper and cook for another 2 minutes.

Rinse the beans …

… then add to the pot with the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil, …

… reduce heat to medium low, and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes, until the bulgur is soft and the chili is as thick as you desire.

If you like, top with shredded vegan cheese and/or vegan sour cream.

The Nacho-flavored Cheezly was really good, both by itself and on the chili. I love Cheezly. As for the chili, it was good. I will definitely make it again. It was simple, easy, and very fast: a great weekday meal.

As Tigger and I were busy in the kitchen prepping the chili, I heard thundering cat paws in the living room. Quickly and quietly, I grabbed my camera and tip-toed into the room, viewfinder to eyeball and finger on shutter. Despite my stealth, Brachtune, who had been enjoying a Tigger-free reprieve and batting around one of the Cat Toys For Cats, heard me approaching and immediately stopped playing and started walking towards me. It’s so impossible to catch her playing; she always abandons her games and approaches me looking for love.

Then she gets her face so close to the camera, I can’t focus.

It’s much easier when she’s half asleep.

A fact about me: I’m from Baltimore, hon. Which means that although I haven’t eaten a crab in 20 years, I know that if you don’t put Old Bay on them, you aren’t doing it right. It also means that I miss eating crabs from time to time. Not so much any more, in fact, they kind of gross me out these days, but I totally miss crabs more than, say, steak.

So when I was rooting through some old family stuff and came across a newspaper clipping for an Imperial Deviled Crab recipe, the gears in my brain started churning. Could I? Possibly? Should I even dare attempt to veganize a recipe chock full of seafood, cream, butter, and eggs?!

Yes! Yes, I should!

I’m not sure how old this clipping is but I’m nearly certain it came from The Baltimore Sun. It says it’s the Rennert Hotel’s recipe and originally came from a book called Eat, Drink and Be Merry in Maryland by Frederick Steiff published in 1931.

Here’s the original recipe in its quaint little imprecise format:

Simmer the flakes of 2 crabs and 1/2 a chopped onion in butter, season with salt and cayenne pepper, add 2 cups of thick cream sauce, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a teaspoonful of English mustard, a little chopped chives, bring to a boil and bind with the yolks of 2 eggs. Add a little green and Spanish pepper chopped fine. Fill crab shells, spread a little French mustard and a sprinkle of bread crumbs over the top. Place a small piece of butter on each and bake in the oven until brown (15 to 20 minutes). Serve with lemon.

My first challenge was the crab itself. I had a block of homemade tofu that needed to be used today or else, so tofu crab it was. But I didn’t want to spend all day marinading it in something to make it taste seafoodish. So I did the following, which was all just on impulse more than for any thought-out reason.

Tofu Crabmeat

The only tofu I had was already in the pot cooking so I had to use a stand-in in the ingredient photograph.

1 lb tofu (pressed unless it is homemade and very firm)
4 cups water
1/4 cup dulse
1 Tbsp MSG (I got this idea from the UnSeafood recipes in Simply Heavenly!, but you can just omit it)
1 tsp kelp powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp Old Bay
1 tsp dry mustard

The reason for the Old Bay is Old Bay is necessary for crabs, period. The reason for the mustard is there is this stuff in crabs called the “mustard”, which looks and I guess tastes sort of mustardy (and what it really is is pretty gross), so mustard just seemed appropriate.

Anyway, put all ingredients except the tofu into a pressure cooker and bring to a boil. Cut the tofu into four slabs as depicted in this photo:

Put the tofu into the pressure cooker as well …

… and bring up to pressure, then cook for 20 minutes. Bring the pressure back down by placing the pot in the sink and running cold water over it before removing the lid. Remove the tofu …

… and dice it.

At this point I felt the texture of the tofu was interesting, but maybe not quite as firm as I wanted it. So I microwaved it for two minutes, which did seem to firm it up a bit.

The funny part about making the tofu crab is I didn’t tell Mark anything at all about my intentions. He had no idea what was in store for dinner. But he came into the kitchen while the tofu was in the pressure cooker and exclaimed, “Are you cooking crabs!?” So it sure smelled authentic! That might be because crabs smell like Old Bay, of course. But with the seaweed as well, it did smell very seafood-y and crabby. And since olfactory senses are very tightly tied to the sense of taste, that’s half the battle right there!

The next step was making the “thick cream sauce” mandated by the recipe. I’m not a big lover of rich, heavy cream in savory dishes (or even sweet dishes for that matter). Fettucine Alfredo and the likes just aren’t for me, so I don’t really have a go-to recipe for heavy cream sauces. What I did have on-hand was some MimicCreme because I use it in ice cream. So here is what I threw together for the “thick cream sauce”:

Thick Vegan Savory Cream Sauce

1 Tbsp Earth Balance or other vegan margarine
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups unsweetened MimicCreme
1 tsp vegan “chicken” bouillon

In a small but heavy pot, melt the margarine. Then whisk in the flour to make a roux.

Add the salt and the MimicCreme, whisking constantly until completely smooth. Bring to a simmer and add the bouillon. Continue whisking until smooth and thickened.

Okay! With those two hurdles out of the way, I was ready to embark on the real adventure!

Imperial Deviled Tofu

1 large shallot or 1/2 onion, diced
1 pound tofu crab meat (recipe above)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp chives, chopped
1/2 green pepper, diced
1/4 cup pimento, diced
1 Tbsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp dry mustard
1 recipe thick vegan savory cream sauce (recipe above)
egg replacer for 1 egg (I used En-R-G)
1 cup bread crumbs (I used panko), divided
2 Tbsp dijon mustard
sweet paprika, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

My cast iron skillet is a getting a workout lately, isn’t it?! So…in a large skillet, heat a small amount of oil or margarine, then add shallots or onion and fry for a minute. Add the tofu “crab”, salt, and cayenne pepper, frying until shallots are soft, about 5 minutes.

Add the chives, Worcestershire sauce, dry mustard, green pepper and pimento.

Fry for 2 minutes. Add the cream sauce.

Bring to a simmer and add the egg replacer. When it thickens, stir in 1/2 cup of the bread crumbs.

Remove from heat and divide amongst two ramekins or other individually-sized serving dishes. Top each with half of the remaining bread crumbs, spread each with 1 Tbsp of the dijon mustard, and sprinkle each with paprika.

Cook for 20 minutes or until brown and crispy on top.

And here it is plated:

Verdict from Smark? Well, he’s busy killing something in World of Warcraft tonight, so he’s eating down in his man-cave. He came up to get a helping of the crab dish and took a bite before going back down. “It’s really good,” he said, “but not as good as what you made Saturday night.” Well, I could handle that, I thought. Mark doesn’t lie, at least not convincingly, about my food, so if he said it was good, I figured it was good enough to post here.

But guess what? Before I had even finished photographing my meal for you and sitting down to eat myself (with Tigger and a book), Smark resurfaced, announcing, “This was so good I need a second serving!”” he said. “Are you revising your earlier opinion?” I asked. “Yes! The ‘crab’ is really, really good! It tastes like real crab – I think. The texture is great!”

So with that, I think it moved into the realm of “would make again”. I might try to perfect the tofu crab recipe. Since I make my own tofu, I’m thinking I can infuse it with seafoody flavors while I’m making it. Sounds like a pretty fun experiment, eh?

By the way, one of Tigger’s favorite places to sleep is Mark’s laptop bag. It’s his little nest.

I’m really lucky I married someone who loves Tigger as much as I do.