Entries Tagged 'Salads' ↓

At long last! It’s finally tomato harvesting time! We got tons of lettuce, are still getting kale, and have been getting green beans and cucumbers for a few weeks now, but there’s something momentous about that first big batch of tomatoes. Something that says, “your garden has arrived.” Everything leads up to tomatoes; they’re the climax. The winter squash and fall kale are the denouement, with canning, perhaps, as an additional baby climax.

My friend Simon (fellow vegan, drummer for Ineffable Robot [new tracks up soon!]) was in over the weekend and we ate largely from the garden. The first night, we had Shells al Pomodoro and Cucumber Salad.

Shells al Pomodoro

• 4ish medium-sized tomatoes, gutted and diced
• 6 cloves of garlic, diced
• 1 small green bell pepper
• 1 fresno chili, seeded and diced (optional)
• 1 large handful of fresh basil, chopped
• cooked shells (or noodle of choice)
• salt & pepper, to taste
• olive oil

In a medium-large pan, saute the garlic in olive oil for a few minutes, until it just starts to brown. Toss in the tomatoes and peppers, cooking until tender. Salt and pepper to taste. A minute or two before serving, stir in the basil. Serve over pasta. Easy! Delicious!

Cucumber Salad

• 2 – 3 cucumbers, cubed
• 1 tomato, gutted and cut into medium-sized pieces
• rooster (Sriracha) sauce (to taste)
• 2 tsp curry powder
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 – 2 tbsp olive oil
• toasted pita or tortilla, chopped (optional)
• salt & pepper, to taste

Toss everything together. That’s it.

Be forewarned: this was not one of my best efforts. We had something similar a few weeks ago at an Indian restaurant and I really liked it, so I thought I’d attempt my own version, what with all of those cucumbers to use up. It was a little spicy, because I went overboard with the rooster sauce. I think I also over-soy-sauced it, so add everything little by little. I’ll have to return to this at some point to perfect it. We have a LOT of cucumbers.

The next day, we biked 20 miles (and 20 miles back) to a neighboring town to try out the Red Pepper, a raw vegan restaurant. After the ride there, we were mighty hungry. We got the Italian Pizza and the Raw Tacos, both of which were quite good. The pizza’s crust was probably its standout feature. The tacos were made with a seasoned walnut “meat”. It was pretty amazing. The “shells” were just lettuce, though, so this was a bit more like a salad than tacos. We got some energy shakes for the ride home, which were also good, though I was a little over-full, and thus kinda sluggish for the ride. 40 miles of super hilly terrain is a lot harder than I thought it would be (we biked 25 flat miles two days later, and it was a cinch, comparatively). We were so pooped when we got home that we couldn’t be bothered to cook, so it was vegan pizza time.

We made homemade brats (the best batch ever!) the next night, but that post, friends, is forthcoming.

The next night we rocked this Tempeh & Kale Stew (we’ve also got tons of kale right now):

This stew is very much like the Spicy Potato & Kale Soup, but with carrots, and minus the spicy and parsley. It was pouring out, so this was something of a summer rarity, but very appropriate.

Slimetime’s since hit the road, but I still have lots of maters to use up, so last night I rocked a chili.

There’s no chili better than one made from your heirloom tomatoes, especially if you’re growing multiple varieties. The freshness and variation in flavor really take the flavor in interesting, often inimitable, directions. This particular batch was made with Black Krim (our favorite–dense, not too sweet, not too acidic, very flavorful), Supersonic Orange (a new one this year–very tangy), and Oaxacan Pink (gigantic, fairly sweet). It made for a somewhat sharp, but slightly sweet chili–a perfect chili for crackers. Outstanding!

As Mark mentioned I am currently at a residency at the Philadelphia Art Hotel, run by two amazing people, artists Krista Peel and Zak Starer. I am all set up in a the top floor of a row-house in the East Kensington neighborhood in a studio room adjacent to a kitchenette where, thankfully, I can once again prepare all of my own food. My fellow resident, Danielle Rante, and I are becoming fast friends, along with our other roomie, her dog Kanga.

Lo and behold, Danielle is vegan and Zak and Krista are vegetarian, so it was easy for us all to agree on a local eatery the other evening–the Memphis Taproom–which is in our neighborhood. They serve local beers on tap and have a great selection of vegan food on the menu, as the lady half of their operation is vegan. Danielle and I each got the yummy Smoked (Tofu) Coconut Club with fries.

As great as that meal was, it’s not really representative of how I’m eating here. I love getting to see how other (foodie) vegans prepare food for themselves, and Danielle is teaching me a lot in the health realm. At our house, we tend to eat a lot of starches- regular noodles and breads and decent quantities of them. I think of starch as one of my small indulgences. However, since Danielle and I have prepared some simple meals together–of mostly fresh produce and whole wheat pasta, for example–I realized how great (and how much better for me) whole wheat pasta, or sprouted grain bread can be.  One of my favorite new snacks I’ve learned from her is simply lightly toasted sprouted grain bread with part of an avocado smooshed on top, drizzled with some honey (we’re honey eaters) with a sprinkle of salt.

The (Mostly) Raw Kale Salad above was my lunch today.  I learned from Danielle to rub the kale with a bit of olive oil and salt and let it sit to soften it a bit while preparing the other veggies. This makes it easier to eat. This salad also has an herbed salad mix stirred in with the kale, chickpeas (the not-raw part), diced green onions, blueberries, shredded purple cabbage, half an avocado- chopped, carrots and some hummus on the side. In addition to the oil and salt, it has a dash of balsamic vinegar and some cranks from a pepper mill. It was perfect!

I don’t know where I first came across this recipe (if you can call it that; it’s so simple), but grapefruit and avocado has been one of my favorite hot weather treats for a while now.  Chop a chilled ripe grapefruit and chilled avocado half (I like it when it’s still slightly firm) and mix them together.  I top them with seasalt and pepper because I put salt and pepper on everything.  I find that duo actually brings out the sweetness in the grapefruit.  Enjoy!

I’m curious what everyone else’s favorite hot weather snack is?  I know there are a bunch of good ones out there, so let’s share the wealth.  If you have a foodie blog, you could link to your vegan recipes in the comments.  Thanks everybody…and stay cool!

So you probably know by now that we here at Irreverent Vegan aren’t down with the container action. We’ve made great inroads over the last few years toward ditching a lot of the packaging and buying more stuff fresh and/or in bulk. At this point, our worst offenders are probably soy/rice/almond milk/creamer and orange juice (which, yes, comes from Florida…so it’s really kind of an eco-no-no anyway…what’s next our bananas?!). So, after getting a soymilk maker for Christmas (the SoyQuick 930p), I figured that–6 months later–it was high time to make our own soymilk.

Observe, a glass of delicious, frothy, homemade soymilk (with a cookie from like a month ago–why won’t it go bad?!):

I figured right now–in the throes of pseudo-bachelorhood–would be an ideal time to experiment; Amy’s in Reykjavik, so I alone am left to deal with the disastrous-or-delicious consequences of home soymilk production. My hope is that by the time Amy returns, I will have perfected homemade soymilk, deftly replacing our pre-packaged soymilk with my own, like a ninja in the night. Instead of just making one batch to start with, like a normal person, I decided that I must make two batches, one sweetened, one unsweetened, duplicated poor results be damned! While this is an idea that I will someday return to, once I’ve perfected my recipe, I don’t recommend it for the first batch. Here’s why, numbered for your convenience:

1. I somehow lost the instruction book and some of the parts [this is unusual; SoyQuick was prompt with their PDF instruction book email]
2. One of these parts was a cup. But it’s not actually a cup, as in “1 cup”.
3. The recipe called for 2 cups of soy beans. But not 2 cups as in “2 cups,” but rather 2 cups as in 2 of the included cups.
4. Whoops.
5. I decided to go with recipe on the SoyQuick site, for reference, when I really knew that Zoa over at the Airy Way was the true expert.
6. As Zoa points out, Julie’s recipe (on the SQ site) conveniently edits out the entire filtration part of making soymilk, which, truth be told, is 90% of the work. There’s no way you can filter everything with a gold coffee filter. Go with Zoa’s process–multi-step filtration.
7. It was a bit bean-y. I now understand that this is a result of using like 30% more beans than I should have.
8. Next time, Gadget.

All of that being said, for a first batch, this was pretty darn good soymilk. I’ve been using it every day in my breakfast shake, to savory and creamy result. I’m not sure if I would actually dunk a cookie in it, as I grossly lead you to believe in the above photo. But I can imagine a point when that will be the case. And that’s what matters. It’s not what you made, but what you will make.

While I knew about okara (repeat after me: okara is not okra, okara is not okra) from the Airy Way, I was a little overwhelmed by it at first. It’s like a soybean mashed potato. This stuff just had to be awesome…but what to do with it? Zoa uses it in her version of our version of Joanna Vaught’s Seitan Chik’n. Where else to go with this amazing stuff? On this, dear readers, I will have to get back to you.

In this grand knowledge’s stead, however, I give you The Soy Flowchart!

Despite my mixed success with batches 1 & 2 of soymilk, the enterprise in general has been great: soymilk for my breakfast shakes and okara to make seitan, which in turn has contributed to 3 outstanding meals thus far (part of the Cooking For One regimen).

Meal 1: Chik’n Caesar Salad

You might remember this one.

Meal 2: Rosemary Chik’n Bowties

This was an offshoot of the pasta from the other night, this time including okara seitan and mushrooms. Additionally, I used bowtie noodles and sliced the garlic into thin slivers instead of dicing it. Lastly, instead of a variety of herbs, I decided to focus on just fresh rosemary. Good choice.

Meal 3: Summer Solstice Salad

Okay, so I’m a couple days late; the summer solstice just passed. But. The pertinent fact remains that it’s this particular time of year that you can get lettuce, asparagus, and the first inklings of tomatoes from your garden and/or the local farmer’s market. There’s a very small window when you can get both a local tomato and local asparagus. When you can, you should. Toss in a little okara seitan, some toasted almonds, and douse lightly with olive oil and a dash of salt and pepper.

This is probably one my top salads. I almost felt guilty eating this by myself, it was so awesome.

Stay tuned for:

Soy Beans vs IV: Round 2

and/or

How many things can Mark make with okara seitan?!

A guest post by our pal Ryan!  Let’s hope he behaves himself… 

I wanted to call this Mod’ed Polenta with Lemon Asparagi and Chickplease but my hands were slapped, and I was told NO because it isn’t nice for folks searching for a delicious dish with asparagus and chickpeas. I could have told the hosts of this guest post to go stuff it and f-off, but I guess I can surrender to a bit of authority for a moment in pleasing some friends.

After an afternoon of working in a hot and sweaty room, staring at computer screens, a dish that was light and delicious was in order. So Mark, Amy, Val and I (of imjustdoingthisthing) cooked down a delicious meal. Amy in her quest to eat healthier found this amazing looking recipe on FatFree Vegan Kitchen. Since the recipe is mod’ed I’ll try to really only point out the differences and save pixels (mods of ingredients are in italics).

Alright, I probably didn’t need to re-post the recipe and wasted more pixels than I wanted to, so here is where I am going to save on pixels. The polenta and the chickpea/onion mix of goodness were cooked as suggested by the FatFree Vegan Kitchen recipe, go there for how to cook that part. The asparagus was the big change and if you have ever read Val’s and my blog (another shameless plug) you would know that I like to grill. In preparation for the grill: rub the oil on the asparagus, sprinkle on the salt, pepper, paprika, sesame seeds, and thyme. Toss on the grill, over a medium high heat, and cook until al dente. Be sure to flip them over once so that you get nice purty grill marks on both sides. Once done remove from the grill let cool (to handle) and chop them into 1-1/2 to 2 inch bits. Pour some lemon juice on, sprinkle the zest on top, and add salt and pepper to taste if necessary.

We had a salad on the side made of freshly picked lettuce  and radishes from the IV garden, carrots, red onion, tomatoes, and candied pecans lightly tossed in vegan caesar dressing. Our bellies are full. Hopefully you will one day enjoy this meal.

Alright this has been fun; hopefully someone will at least spell check for me before posting. This is Ryan signing off from a guest blogging stint.*

*Amy here: I think Ryan was an all-around superlative guest!  (and spelling…checked!)

It’s…(drum roll)…Chik’n Caesar Salad!

But why?

1. A friend was eating a chicken-y version at the bar the previous night
2. It’s grilling season
3. Seitan chik’n cutlets are like crack, except they probably won’t destroy your life
4. It’s the salad that eats like a meal!

Caesar Dressing

• juice of one lemon
• 2 tsp dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup good quality olive oil
• 2 heaping tablespoons Veganaise ™
• 2-4 tsp vegan worcestershire
• plenty of fresh ground pepper
• pinch of sea salt
• 4 big cloves of garlic, finely minced or crushed in a garlic press
• several sprinkles of homemade vegan parmesan (recipe below) to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and whisk briskly until smooth.  Transfer to a cruet and chill.

Homemade Vegan Parmesan

• 1/2 cup raw pine nuts
• 1 tbsp white or yellow miso
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1-2 tsp salt (to taste) (careful-we like our salt!)

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until ground to fine crumbly bits.  Try to stop before the mix gets pasty.

Seitan Chik’n Cutlets

It’s worth reposting this, since (a) we’ve strayed a bit from the traditional course, and (b) we’ve been making them every few weeks. The thing I love about these–the genius of them–is the cutlet form. Flattening them out makes them dense and very easy to work with in other recipes. In the not-too-distant-future (lalala), I’m gonna rock the PPK’s version as cutlets.

• 2 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tbsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tsp granulated garlic
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups cold water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 4 cloves of garlic, pressed or minced
• fresh rosemary and thyme sprigs
• fresh oregano and sage leaves
• 2 bay leaves
• 8 cups cold unchicken/veggie broth (we use the bulk unchicken broth from Frontier ™)

In a large bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients, mixing well (I like to use a fork for this, since wheat gluten is so light). In a smaller bowl, combine the garlic and water. Mix the garlic-y water in with the dry ingredients. Knead into a uniform dough.

Fill a large pot with the cold broth and add the herbs and bay leaves.

Rip off a piece of dough in roughly golf-ball-sized chunks and ball it in your hands. Using wax paper or a ziploc bag, flatten the ball out as thin as you can. It’ll stretch back once you peel if it off the paper/bag. Drop it into the broth. Repeat for the remainder of the dough. After you’ve dropped the final bit in, let them all sit in the cold broth for 10 minutes. Then, bring the water to a gentle boil, reduce heat, and cover, cooking for 1 hour. Remove from heat and let sit for 30 minutes. Note: These aren’t super zesty on their own; that’s part of what makes them awesome in so many different dishes. They’re now ready to grill/bake/bread/fry/eat raw caveman-style.

Finally, building the salad

• Green leaf or romaine lettuce, torn into bite-sizeable shreds
• 2 seitan chik’n cutlets, grilled and cut into strips
• 1/4 large purple onion, cut into thin slices then quartered
• croutons (we make our own out of old bread–just cut into cubes, douse with olive oil and herbs/spices, and bake at 400 for 10 – 20 minutes, until crunchy)

Grill two cutlets until they’re cooked through and, ideally, have grill marks. Grilling is about grill marks more than anything. Take heed.

Fill a large bowl with the lettuce, onions, and croutons. When the cutlets are done, cut them into strips and add them to the rest of the salad. Toss the whole thing lightly with the salad dressing.

Then eat, eat, eat…and keep eating, all you want. It’s salad.

Amy’s triumphant return from Budapest brought Grab ‘n’ Growl week to an end, as well as a large bag of authentic Hungarian paprika. Given these two fantastic new developments, it was time to cook it the hell down.

We’d been searching for a good recipe for Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup for quite some time, never really satisfied. I recently stumbled upon this one from Sweet Cheeks in the Kitchen, in turn nabbed from the Candle Cafe Cookbook. It was sufficiently awesome that it required almost no modification–we added half a cup of soy creamer; that’s it. I also learned something really interesting: when a recipe calls for a dry white wine, it’s acceptable–nay, preferable–to use a dry vermouth. It’s cheaper, dryer, and saves better than an average white wine.

Not surprisingly, we rounded the soup out with breadsticks and an amazing salad based on our recently acquired paprika.

The salad was inspired by VeganYumYum’s Avocado Wasabi Salad, with paprika taking the central role in place of wasabi.

Check it:

Paprika Cashew Chickpea Salad

Cashews & Chickpeas

• 1 cup raw cashews
• 2 tbsp paprika
• 1 cup cooked chickpeas
• 2 tsp sugar OR enough maple syrup to coat the cashews
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 1 tbsp soy sauce/tamari/shoyu
• salt & pepper, to taste

You can approach the cashews one of two ways: baking or sauteing. We sauteed them, but our friend Ryan has baked them with better results. So.

Baked Candied Cashews

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a medium-sized bowl, coat the cashews in maple syrup. Once thoroughly coated, toss in 1 tbsp paprika, oregano, salt, and pepper. Bake until brown, stirring often.

Fried Candied Cashews

In a medium-sized pan over medium heat, saute the cashews in high heat oil, coating in sugar, 1 tbsp paprika, oregano, salt, and pepper. Cook until the spices and oil have congealed. Remove from heat. Note: they’ll seem soft at first, but they’ll firm up.

Paprika Chickpeas

In the same pan (if such a beast was used) as you cooked the cashews, saute the chickpeas in the soy sauce and remaining spices, until well coated and no liquid remains, salting and peppering to taste.

Salad Dressing

• 1/4 cup hummus
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp honey/agave
• water, to desired consistency

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth.

Finally, the salad

Toss the chickpeas, cashews, some diced purple onions, and cherry/grape tomatoes (optional) in with some fresh lettuce and enough dressing to coat lightly.

Amy decreed yesterday that today would be Raw Food Tuesday (stolen shamelessly from What the Hell Does a Vegan Eat Anyway), which probably means that we shouldn’t have had that Chik’n Club Sammich for lunch…we did, however blaze a new trail in raw food dinners. Well, a new trail for us: rawsage & pesto-laden zucchini-based pasta with mushrooms.

Eating raw is something you hear about or read about and know that it has to be awesome, that you’d feel like a new person if could get over your need for hot things; if you didn’t love cooking; if bread weren’t so tasty. You even know that you don’t have to always eat raw, just that now and again it’d probably be really good for you. But when it comes time to dig in, you give in to the temptation of cooking. Well, if you’re anything like us you do.

Not that we’ve never eaten raw–just had a big ol’ salad for dinner or gone to a raw restaurant–we just don’t tend to “cook” raw.

This recipe is from The Complete Book of Raw Food, a book we’ve owned for years and scarcely cracked open. The results from our first foray were largely good, with a few minor caveats. The rawsage, while delicious, was pretty much just a zesty pesto. It wasn’t at all solid and tasted closer to pesto than to sausage. The zucchini turned out pretty tasty, and worked fairly well just using a grater. It probably would have been fluffier–and thus more enjoyable–if we had one of those spiral-y duders. I halved both recipes (since they were supposed to serve 4) and was surprised at how little there was. I thought we’d be scavenging for more food within minutes of completing the meal, but it was astonishingly filling. One small plateful and we were both very satisfied. In general, I hear that raw food is more filling (since none of the nutrients have been cooked out), so you typically don’t need to eat as much of it.

We made a few modifications, so check it:

Pesto Pasta & Rawsage

Rawsage (aka Zesty Pesto…errr…Zesto!)

• 3/4 cup raw, shelled pumpkin seeds
• small handful of fresh basil
• 1/4 head of lettuce
• 2 – 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 cup onion powder
• 1/4 cup olive oil (less if you’re going for something more solid)
• 1.5 tsp dried sage
• 1/2 tsp fennel or caraway seed
• 1/2 tsp salt (optional)

Grind everything together in a food processor. Try it without the olive oil if you want to get these into proper patties. Just add it little by little to get the desired consistency. For this recipe, you’ll use half of it in the pasta; so if you’re going for patties, start with no olive oil and use half of ground mix to make patties. Then add 1/8 cup of olive oil and grind some more for the pesto part.

Raw Pesto Pasta

• 1 medium-sized zucchini, spiraled or grated
• ~ 6 small-medium-sized mushrooms, sliced very thinly (optional)
• sun-dried tomatoes, soaked until soft and sliced (optional; we didn’t use these this time)
• 2 large handfuls of spinach
• Zesto! from above, or perhaps a few frozen pesto cubes
• olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and/or pepper to dress

In a medium-large-ish bowl, mix the zucchini, mushrooms, and Zesto!/pesto. When the zucchini-noodles are nicely coated, toss a handful of spinach into a plate, bowl, or, ideally, bowlplate. Spread the pesto pasta over the spinach. Garnish with sun-dried tomato strips, rawsage patties, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and/or pepper. Be forewarned: this is really filling!

If you’re like us, you often feel nostalgic for things that maybe aren’t that awesome. But there’s a context, a larger experience that imbues them with something better, gives them a prominent place in our happy memories. The Olive Garden is one of those for us. For both of our families, it was one of the “going out to eat someplace ‘fancy’” defaults. When we (independently of each other) became vegetarian, it became an even better option, since there were still many things on the menu we could eat. Once we became vegan, though, things got a little dicier. Depending on who you ask, the minestrone, breadsticks, capellini pomodoro, and salad are or aren’t vegan. The pasta may or may not have eggs. The marinara may or may not have meat broth. The salad dressing definitely has cheese in it–there are no vegan dressings.

Since (a) we’ve never been able to get a straight answer and (b) we now live in an area with other family-suitable options (namely, Chinese), we don’t eat at the Olive Garden any more. But every once in a while, we get the hankering for the enveloping warmth of minestrone and hot fresh breadsticks–and a big ol’ vegan salad. So last night, we created some real “hospitaliano”–vegan style.

The minestrone was only slightly modified from this excellent recipe.

Olive Garden-style Minestrone

• 1 medium-sized white onion, diced
• 4 – 6 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
• 1 stalk of celery, diced finely
• 1/2 medium-sized zucchini, cut into small one-inch pieces or half-moons
• 1 small carrot (or half of a large carrot), grated
• a large handful of Italian/Spanish-style green beans (the flat ones–you can sub normal green beans in a pinch), cut into one-inch pieces
• 4 large stalks of kale (the curly kind), cut from the stalk and chopped coarsely
• 4 cups (2 cans) of cooked kidney beans
• 2 cups (1 can) cooked cannellini beans or white beans
• 4 cups (1 large can or 1 large jar) cooked tomatoes, with their juice
• 4 cups veggie broth
• 3 cups water
• 1/2 cup small shell pasta
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley, minced
• 1.5 tsp dried oregano (1.5 tbsp fresh, minced)
• 1/2 tsp dried basil (1.5 tsp fresh, minced)
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme (1 tsp  fresh, minced)
• salt & pepper, to taste
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup red wine (optional)

As you’d expect, saute the onion, garlic, and celery in a large pot over medium heat–in the oil of your choice (I recommend choosing safflower). When the onion has gotten soft, add in the broth, water, tomatoes, carrots, and herbs/spices. Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. In a separate pot, cook the shells. When they’re done–but al dente–remove from heat, strain, and blanch with cold water. This will help prevent them from getting as bloated and mushy in the soup. A lazier person may decided to add the shells directly to the soup. But you wouldn’t do that. This is hospitaliano.

Once the 20 minutes is up, add in the remaining ingredients and cook until the zucchini and green beans are tender. It’s this crucial step that allows you to trump the Olive Garden–you can add veggies in at the end, ensuring their crispness, a paean to non-flaccid vegetables.

Now let’s trump their bread.

We used this recipe, unmodified, but reposted here for your convenience.

Breadsticks

• 1 1/3 cups of water
• 4 tsp melted Earth Balance ™
• 4 cups of flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp yeast
• additional melted Earth Balance ™, for brushing on top
• additional salt, for sprinkling on top
• granulated garlic, for sprinkling on top

Combine all of the dry ingredients, minus 1 cup of flour, ideally in a mixer, using the bread hook attachment.

(We like to keep a giant thing of flour on hand so we can make bread any time we want.)

If you don’t have a mixer, you can theoretically mix by hand and then knead (we just got one for christmas and this was it’s maiden voyage–it was awesome). Combine the wet ingredients in a separate bowl/cup and then add slowly to the dry, while mixing. Now add in the remaining flour. Once the dough is mixed well (about 2 minutes in the mixer), roll out in to 16 long pieces. (We made about 12 and they were slightly fatter than the Olive Garden’s, but still awesome.)  Cover them and let them rise for at least 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees, Fahrenheit. Brush the bread with Earth Balance ™ and sprinkle salt on top.  Bake for 15 minutes. When you take them out, brush with Earth Balance ™ again and then sprinkle with granulated garlic.

And finally, the salad.

The salad, to be faithful to the OG original, should have lettuce (obviously), croutons, purple onion, roma tomatoes, black olives, peppers, and shredded carrots. We didn’t have any fresh tomatoes or black olives (which I don’t like) on hand, so we had to make due with some sliced zucchini instead. We made the croutons fresh, from a piece of bread cut into squares, lightly doused on olive oil, salt/pepper/garlic-ed, and toasted. The original salad should also have some sort of cheesy mayonnaise vinaigrette dressing, which we didn’t deign to copy. Instead, we made this vinaigrette, slightly modified.

Italian Vinaigrette Dressing

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1/2 tsp fresh dill
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp dried basil
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp agave nectar
• pepper to taste

Combine ingredients in a cruet and shake well.

When you’re vegan, you’re family!

Of all the soups on this Earth, the Thai Tom Kha is among my favorites.

We were introduced to it at the Thai Pavilion in DeKalb, IL–where I was introduced to Thai food in general. There seem to be lots of varieties of this tofu & coconut soup–some sweet and rich, others more savory–and the Thai Pavilion’s was sweet. Perhaps because that’s the Tom Kha I first loved, it’s the one I love best, and the one I’ve been striving for years to reproduce at home–with mixed levels of success. I had half an acorn squash and shloads of tofu on hand from the Indigenous Scramble, and a hankerin’ for soup, so this seemed like the perfect time to once again attempt a Tom Kha. This version is only slightly modified from Nancie McDermott’s Real Vegetarian Thai, a book I’ve been faithfully neglecting for years. Also, this version was pretty awesome.

Tom Kha w/Acorn Squash

• 2 cans of coconut milk
• 1.5 cups of veggie stock
• fresh ginger, cut into about 20 quarter-sized disks (the recipe calls for galanga, but we never seem to have that on hand)
• 10 peppercorns
• zest from an entire lime (in theory, kaffir lime leaves are more authentic, but also harder to come by)
• 1/2 lb extra firm tofu, drained and cubed
• 1/2 acorn squash, skinned and cubed
• 6 mushrooms, cut into fourths (or slightly smaller if they’re large mushrooms)
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp soy sauce (or gluten-free tamari)
• 4 stalk of lemon grass (we left these out and it was still delicious; you can also use lemon grass powder)
• 1 tbsp brown sugar (optional)
• green onions, chopped
• salt, to taste

In a medium to large pot, bring coconut milk and veggie stock to a boil. Add in the ginger/galanga, lime leaves/zest, peppercorns, and prepped lemongrass (if using) and reduce heat to simmer. We had leftover baked acorn squash, I just removed to skin and cubed it. For firmer squash, you’ll want it uncooked–which means that you’ll need to pare off the skin, then cube. Add the squash and mushrooms and bring back to a boil, cooking for 10 minutes. Add in the remaining ingredients, cooking until the tofu is heated through and has acquired some of the soup’s deliciosity.

This is best served (and we think traditionally) with rice on the side. Take a spoonful of rice and dunk it in the soup, occasionally grabbing some tofu, squash, or a mushroom. Place contents in your mouth. Rejoice.

We had this with a “Thai” salad–essentially a Western salad, but with a Peanut Sesame Ginger dressing, peanuts, sliced clementine, and a bit of wakame on the salad.

Thai Peanut Sesame Ginger Dressing

• 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp peanut oil
• 3 tbsp water
• 6 tbsp safflower oil
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp soy sauce (or gluten-free tamari)
• 1 tbsp freshly grated ginger
• 1 tbsp natural peanut butter
• 1 large carrot, peeled
• 1 tbsp red thai curry paste
• 1 tbsp chopped onion

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth.