Mark and I have been a schosh wary of attempting certain ethnicities of foods- some Chinese and Thai, some Mexican, etc.  We can just get better food at a restaurant that has people of that particular ethnicity preparing the menu and food.  Or so we thought.  Score a huge point for IV tonight for whipping up a dern good stir fry in as copy-cat authentic a manner as possible.  The veggies were crispy!  The tofu firm and yummy!  Ironically, I did not learn how to make tonight’s meal from someone from China or Thailand.  No.  I learnt it by observing the cooking prowess of a Spanish-British-Canadian in Iceland.  That’s right.  Thank you Juliana España Keller for showing me how to make a decent Asian dish.  Here goes nothin’!

Authentish Summer Stir-Fry

• 1.5 cups uncooked brown rice
• 3 cups water for the rice
• 1 large white or yellow onion, cut into petals
• one head of garlic, each bulb peeled and cut into thin slices
• a smallish chunk of ginger, sliced finely
• a head of broccoli, chopped into florets
• a handful of snowpeas, whole
• about 1/2 cup Chinese cabbage, coarsely chopped
• 2 small to medium-sized carrots, cut into thin diagonal slices
• about 1/4 cup fresh coriander, leaves only (no stems)
• 3/4 of a 1 lb. block of tofu, frozen, then thawed
• 3 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1 tsp chili sauce/paste
• 1 tsp thai curry past (any flavor)- we used red
• tamari to taste
• sesame or peanut oil to taste (for sauteing)

Start brown rice cooking first.  It takes about 40 minutes to cook and that’s about how long preparing the meal took, so it was ready right on time.  Next thaw the tofu in the microwave and press.  Cut into slices as pictured and set aside.  In a saute pan, drizzle a hefty amount of oil and about half of the chili paste, curry paste and hoisin sauce.  Add a touch of tamari.  Throw in a little bit of the garlic, onion and ginger and bring up to medium/hot and add tofu.  Allow tofu to brown on both sides, checking it periodically.   I would cook at about low-to-medium heat.  You can start the veggie part of the stir fry while the tofu is browning on one side, but be sure to keep an eye on it and flip it in time.  Once tofu is finished, remove from heat and put pieces on a plate.  Pour remaining oil/sauce onto cooking veggies.

While the rice and tofu are cooking, have all of your veggies ready to go.  Add the rest of all sauces (and a little tamari) and some oil to a wok or large saute pan and bring up to high heat.  Add veggies in batches, starting with onions, ginger and garlic.  Toss them in oil/sauce mixture on high heat, adding a small amount of water to create some steam- about a minute.  While they’re still very crisp, add the broccoli, carrots and snow peas.  Stir them continually for about two minutes or so.   Add a little more water to create a little more steam to cook the broccoli to al dente.  Next add the coriander and cabbage.  Toss in with the rest of the veggies, adding a bit more oil or water or both if necessary.  Add a little tamari.  These last ingredients barely need time on the heat, as they will continue to cook once the wok is removed from the heat source.  Be mindful that the veggies should remain crisp and the stir fry is finished when the broccoli and snow peas are a very bright green.

Place stir-fry in a large bowl (to stop the cooking process) and add the tofu.  Pour any remaining sauce over the mixture and stir.  Serve with the brown rice.  Hooray!

Growing up, I ate a lot of leftovers. My parents both worked two jobs so it was much more efficient to make a few big meals and then eat leftovers on off nights–especially since I could heat them up myself. Since you can’t always eke out a full meal from a single leftover, you often have to combine things or eat separate dishes. My mom referred to this as “Grab ‘n’ Growl”, a term passed down through the generations in my family’s unique (read: very bizarre) lexicon, which posits a family as a bunch of Neanderthals scavenging the fridge for food, battling over the best bits. Closer to the truth, perhaps, than we’d like to admit.

With Amy in Budapest, it’s officially grab ‘n growl week. This is sort of weird, since it’s just me, but I feel less lonely if I growl. Since I tend to do most of the cooking, the swingin’ bachelor life doesn’t necessitate eating cold beans out of cans, scratching my crotch, and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. I may prowl the house growling, but I can still drink whiskey from a glass. What the bachelor life does invoke, however, is my occasional need to purge the refrigerator of leftovers and about-to-go-bad food. On a small scale, this is best accomplished in a single meal. But with Amy gone–taking her need for delicious, inventive cuisine with her–I’m free to do a major purge, using up everything in strange and sometimes wonderful/sometimes not combinations.  In other words, this isn’t generally the kind of food I’d foist on other people.

But from the ashes doth arise the phoenix! Behold these Curried Potato Everything Cakes aka Poor Man’s Pakora:

These puppies used up mashed potatoes, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, kale, and a scosh of raw sushi filling, as well as some leftover Chik’n Almond Bake and crushed crackers for the breading. For combining so many different–and somewhat disparate–ingredients, these were actually pretty awesome. The cracker/Chik’n Almond Bake combo was the key.

I enjoyed this with leftover Avocado Wasabi Salad ala Vegan Yum Yum:

Remember that Roasted Poblano Chili? The leftover beans (I still haven’t mastered the exact yield of dry beans when you cook them) were a perfect base (along with rice, obviously) for beans and rice.

On Saturday, I made a green Thai curry out of a small smattering of frozen veggies (ack! I know), tofu, and the leftover raw Siamese Dream Soup.

And finally, last night I made a version of Zuppa Toscana, using up the rest of the mashed potatoes; some dilapidated turnips that didn’t make it into the Potato, Turnip, & Rosemary Soup; and the unused tempeh (we get it in bulk) from the Smoky Tempeh Hummus Wraps.

That’s a lot of food! As I’ve chiseled away at out leftovers (and this post), it’s become clear to me that we both cook and shop for our palettes, not from our resources. Forgive me if I’m stretching here, but this, in a general sense, is one the key problems with the American food industry. You can get as much of anything, from anywhere, at any time, as you want.  The variety comes from the store, not from your kitchen and brain.

Equally problematic is the amount of time between trips to the grocery store. Like most Americans, we tend to go once a week, if that. We task ourselves with predicting what our future selves will want to eat–based on what? How can we know what we’ll want to eat 3 days from now? This means that as the week wears on, we become less satisfied with our choices and less likely to cook with what we bought. Scanning our half-full fridge, nothing looks good. So we either (a) settle on something merely “acceptable” or (b) give up completely and go out for dinner. I’m not against going out to eat, but I think it should be a deliberate choice–because you want to, not because you need to. But (a) is a bit of a crapshoot; on nights when I’m feeling creative, it’s a fun challenge and usually turns out pretty tasty. On off nights, it’s a burden and “edible” suffices.

One solution to this is to shop more frequently and buy less. This also helps ensure the freshness of your food. The other solution, I’m afraid to say, may be getting comfortable with “pretty good” some of the time. Maybe it’s been a good week for culinary creativity, but I feel like I’ve eaten pretty well with nary a thought of hitting up the grocery store (okay…that’s not entirely true…when I ran out of soy sauce, I felt a ripple of panic). This may owe, in part, to the very fact that I’ve used up almost everything in the fridge; my choices have dwindled as the week wore on. While some choice is certainly good, a lot of choice, it turns out, is actually rather bad (think about your occasional trip to an all-vegan restaurant–it’s almost paralyzing; you’re not accustomed to so many choices). The problem with too many choices is our tendency to weigh any single choice against the combined best parts of all the other choices. While this doesn’t actually change how good any single choice is, it does change how satisfied we feel.

So my final thought, in this lazy cognitive meandering, is that our enjoyment of our food is often based on our frame of reference. Given my limited options, what I came up with seemed really good–as soon as I’d eliminated the other possibilities. This is the fulcrum on which “leftovers” become “leftover surprise”.

Rrrrrooaawww!

Since we’re just babies at raw, we’re still soliciting help. Our friends Danielle and Becky came to the rescue this week with info on raw sushi. This isn’t to be confused with eating raw fish, of course; rather, it’s about subbing (in this case) an almond carrot puree for the rice in standard sushi. In theory, you should really plan ahead and soak the almonds for 8 – 10 hours. Or, you can cheat like we did, as outlined below. We rounded the meal out with the Siamese Dream soup stolen from What the Hell Does a Vegan Eat Anyway? , in turn stolen from RAWvolution. Stealing from our favorite thieves.

Raw Sushi

We stayed pretty true to the sushi recipe, except I only soaked the almonds for about 30 minutes. To make up for this, you’ll want to add about 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup of olive oil. I’d recommend soaking…but that takes more foreknowledge than I usually have. You might also consider peeling the almonds, as that’s supposed to make them even tastier.

For veggies, we used spinach, cucumber, beet, and yellow pepper.

You’ll notice that we cut it like a wrap, rather than standard nori-roll style. These are quite a bit softer than rice-based sushi, so they’re a lot tougher to cut small. For the sake of your sushi’s dignity, stick with the deli cut.

Siamese Dream Soup

This was very much like a raw Tom Khai, and almost mindlessly simple to make. The recipe calls for coconut water, which we didn’t have handy, so we used 1 can of coconut milk and 1 cup of water. The recipe also calls for 3 cloves of garlic–which is way too much. We tend to double the garlic in most recipes, so don’t write this off. One clove of garlic will suffice.

What’s really interesting about this soup, is that you almost don’t notice it’s raw. Cooking only tends to mellow the flavor in garlic, ginger, and coconut milk. So you can get away with using less, without losing any flavor. In a lot of ways, this is one of the key points of eating raw. Humans picked up cooking largely as a way of killing the harmful bacteria in meat. As vegans, we don’t really need to cook…though now that we’ve picked up the habit, it would be a tough one to kick without major motivation.

Since cats don’t cook, Wobbly Bob (AKA The Beast) decided he had some useful skills to lend:

Every once in a while, “Use whatever is about to go bad” isn’t an act of desperation, a culinary hail mary; it’s a reminder to your current self that your past self had BIG plans. Stop cooking like a jerk and use those Brussels sprouts, green and red peppers, onions, carrots, potatoes, mushrooms, tofu, and quinoa. So maybe this is a little extreme in that I used everything–but the result was a pleasantly awesome surprise: Roasted Veggies, Quinoa, & Teriyaki-Glazed Tofu.

We’ve had roasted vegetables on the brain since Amy’s birthday dinner at Eve and only now just got around to trying our hand at them post-Eve. We used a greater variety of veggies than she did, so ours turned out pretty different, but were still pretty tasty.

Roasted Veggies & Quinoa

Veggies

• 1/2 large green bell pepper, cut into bit-size pieces
• 1/2 large red bell pepper, cut into bit-size pieces
• 1/2 large white onion, cut into petals
• 1/2 large purple onion, cut into petals
• 1.5 heads of garlic, minced coarsely
• 4 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1 large carrot, peeled and cut into disks
• 1 bag  (~4 cups) of Brussels sprouts, cut in half

Quinoa

• 2 cups quinoa
• 4 cups veggie stock

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Toss the veggies in a high-heat oil in a 13″ x 9″  baking pan/casserole dish. Salt and pepper. Toss some more. Salt and pepper some more. Pop it in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove and stir, adding oil if things seem dry. Pop it back in the oven for another 15 minutes and stir again. Finally, bake for a paltry additional 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare your quinoa. Bring the veggie stock to a boil (or bring water to a boil and toss in your bouillon). Add in the quinoa. Cook until the broth has boiled off and the quinoa is soft enough to eat, but still a tad crisp (unless like it mushy, in which case you can cook it as long as you like). Salt it, if need be.

Serve the veggies on or adjacent to the quinoa. Fantastic!

For some reason, I’ve also had a wild hare to make baked glazed tofu. I was finally spurred into action by Zoa at The Airy Way, who in turn was inspired by this recipe from Vegan Planet. I followed the marinade recipe exactly, but the tofu just didn’t have the zang I was hoping for when it was done. Maybe I didn’t marinade it long enough? Is 2 hours sufficient? So I decided to augment the remaining marinade and create a drizzly/dipping glaze, which did the trick nicely.

Teriyaki-Glazed Tofu

• 1 lb tofu, pressed and cut into thin triangles
• 6 tbsp soy sauce (or gluten-free tamari)
• 6 tbsp orange juice
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tbsp peanut oil
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp soybean paste

Marinade

Combine half of all of the above ingredients, except the soybean paste, cornstarch, and peanut oil. Marinade the tofu in this. For a long time. 2 hours didn’t seem like enough to me. I’d recommend overnight, if you’re the kind of person that can start preparing a meal that far in advance (which I am not). Bake the tofu at 425 degrees, 15 – 20 minutes to a side–flipping when nicely browned. Like cookies, these will firm up once they sit out for a few minutes, so try not to overcook them (though even overdone, they’re still delicious).

Meanwhile, combine the remaining ingredients, except the soybean paste and cornstarch in a small saucepan over medium heat. Slowly whisk in the cornstarch, thickening. You can use a little less if you like the sauce more drizzly. Finally, stir in the soybean paste. Remove from heat and either drizzle on the tofu or pour into small dipping vessels.

Magnifico!

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.

Hi ya’ll.  Amy here filling in for Mark with my first post on IV.  He spent the entire evening helping me stretch the canvas for a ten-foot painting, so he deserves a break.  It’s salad time…just in time for your fall crop of lettuce.  Sadly ours got eaten by hoggish vermin.  We’ll take better precautions next year.

Mark and I each take different approaches to preparing a salad.  I tend to put ANYTHING in the fridge on some lettuce and voila!  Mark has a more regimented approach.  We can agree that any good salad has some sort of protein such as nuts, seeds, or beans.  We both also really enjoy a good homemade dressing.  So here we have, for your consideration, two salads- the first is a collaborative effort and the second is one of my weird (but delicious!) creations.

Salad 1: We had this one the other night.  Let’s call it Chloe’s Fall Salad.  I’m giving cred to our friend Chloe for the dressing recipe.

So of course you can put anything you like on this salad.  The apples are what make it a “Fall” salad.  Copycat these moves if you want to replicate the tastiness in the photo.

Salad:

• mixed red leaf  and green leaf lettuce washed and torn into shreds
• shredded carrots (we use a cheese grater for this)
• toasted pine nuts (pop raw pine nuts into a pan on medium heat, stirring constantly until aromatic)
• thinly cut apple slices
• pepper to taste

Chloe’s Dressing:

• 2 tbsp tahini
• 1 tsp pomegranate molasses (you can get this at Whole Foods or Middle Eastern grocers)
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• fresh chives, finely chopped
• water to desired viscosity

Mix all ingredients in a blender.  Measurements are approximate.  I just kind-of keep dumping ingredients in until it tastes right, so feel free to doctor to suit your preferences.  Stores for weeks in the fridge (if it lasts that long!)

Salad 2: Amy’s “Everything Goes” Salad (furreal people)

This particular salad contains:

• green leaf lettuce, washed and torn into shreds
• chopped red onion
• cooked corn from the cob (we save ours in the fridge so it’s cold when put on the salad)
• blueberries
• hemp seed
• pepper to taste

Dressing (my take on a Japanese sesame ginger dressing):

• 4 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 6 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp soy sauce (or gluten-free tamari)
• 2 tsp sake
• 4 tbsp freshly grated ginger (or from a jar)
• 3 tsp vegan sugar
• 10-12 baby carrots (or 2 medium-large carrots)
• 5 tsp tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup chopped onion

Combine all ingredients in a blender starting with liquids and gradually adding solid ingredients and blend until smooth-ish.  Add water if necessary to thin.  Again, measurements are approximate.  We like this dressing to be rather sweet, so feel free to cut the sugar down some.  You can also substitute agave nectar or another sweetener of your choice.  This one saves for weeks too.

Let us hear your favorite salad mix-em-ups and dressings.  The more unexpected, the better!

Hulk love salad. Hulk green. Salad green.

This salad was kinda fun. Yes. I just said a salad was fun. This is a cooking blog and I am vegan…so…this can’t be that big of a shock. Instead of lettuce, it uses raw kale marinated in a creamy Asian avocado dressing. For additional power and/or flavor, it features wakame (a seaweed) and sprouts.

Salad Fixins

• 4 – 6 cups chopped kale (ideally lacinato/dinosaur)
• 1/4 cup dried wakame
• 1/2 cup (alfalfa/bean/broccoli) sprouts
• 1/4 cup almond slivers
• 1/4 cucumber, cut in to small wedges

Dressing

• 1/2 avocado
• 1 clove garlic, pressed or grated
• 1/2 – 1 tsp ginger, grated
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tbsp peanut oil
• 1 tsp soy sauce/gluten-free tamari/shoyu/Braggs
• 1/4 cup water
• juice from 1/2 of a small lime (~1 tbsp)

You can start this one out with the dressing–just combine all of the dressing ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Simple!

Now on the the salad part. I’d been wanting to revisit the kale salad idea since Breaded Tofu and Mushrooms on Steamed Kale. Strangely, VeganYumYum posted a kale salad recipe at almost the exact same time (even cutting the kale the same way!). Hers used raw, rather than steamed, kale, though. The trick is to put the dressing on in advance and let the kale marinade for a bit, softening it up. Genius! I love steamed kale, but you usually want a cool, crisp salad, and steaming makes it warm. Warm makes hulk angry.

So.

Cut the kale into thin strips (if using lacinato/dinosaur kale) or in to thicker strips and pieces of using “normal” kale. Now you just toss the kale in the dressing and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the wakame by soaking it in water for 5 minutes. Use a lot of water. These bastages expand a lot. Strain. You may even want to squeeze them out a little bit. Cut them into thin strips (in piles…unless you have like 6 thousand years to spare).

Once the kale is done marinating, toss into serving bowls/plates/bowl-plates. Pile wakame in the center of each bowl. Place sprouts around the edges and sprinkle on the cucumbers and almond slivers. For added deliciosity, douse lightly with soy sauce and fresh ground black pepper.

Become calm once again. Revert to human form.

This recipe was reverse-engineered from our favorite dish at our favorite restaurant–Alice and Friends in Chicago. I don’t know if they’ve received divine cooking knowledge from the Supreme Master, but pretty much everything they make is awesome–the secret is a small menu with no filler.

This was surprisingly easy to reproduce. Which is surprisingly easy to say, having not eaten there in two years.

• 5 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and cubed/half-disked
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 HEAD, yes, HEAD of garlic, minced
• 1/3 batch (1 package) seitan, cut into bite-size pieces or strips
• 4 cups water
• 2 cups veggie stock (I like to use the seitan broth)
• 2 tbsp soy paste
• 1/2 knob ginger, grated (or 2 tsp minced)
• 3 tbsp chili paste
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• salt, to taste
• pepper, to taste

I’ve adapted this to what’s in my kitchen and/or what’s available at the Asian market down the street, but to be really authentic, you probably want: dwaenjang (Korean fermented soybean paste), gochujjang (Korean fermented red chilli paste), and gochugaru (coarse red chilli powder) in place of their more general versions listed above.

In a large-ish pot, sautee the onion, garlic, and ginger over medium heat until soft. Add the water and veggie stock. Dump in the seitan and veggies. Add the spices, chili paste, and chili powder. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for at least a half hour, but ideally 45 minutes to an hour. It doesn’t take that long at Alice and Friends…maybe that’s what the Supreme Master’s been trying to tell us. I’m sure she’d (you have to admit, it’s a little refreshing that equal rights has finally penetrated the cult leader circle) want me to let to tell you: the secret to Asian food is time. Let it simmer.

Note: Secret not gleaned from actual Asians.

Put on some brown rice (we like brown basmati with this). When it’s done, your Runaway Potato should be too. Serve over rice and with lightly steamed sesame kale. Prepare for Transcendance.