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 left last week for a return trip to Budapest to finish a video collaboration, make new work, and prepare for an opening there (if you’re in or around Budapest, be sure to check it out). She’s kicking so much ass it’s hard not to feel ineffectual!

Since she was flying at night, we had time for a nice dinner. Here main requests were “protein power and potatoes”. After rummaging around the intertubes for a while, we decided to kick it eclectic-style and settled on:

• mashed potatoes
• sauteed mushrooms
• Vegan Dad’s Crispy Cajun Chickpea Cakes
• steamed broccoli
• carrot, beet, and lettuce salad, tossed in a light vinaigrette

Chickpea Cake Mixins

Bright, crispy, and delicious

Okay. So it’s not really white; it’s more of a yellowish-brown. But you get the idea. This is a lighter, more savory, more mellow version of a normal chili, substituting light beans–like white beans, chick peas, and navy beans–for the traditional dark beans–kidney beans and black beans. Mild green chilis, seitan, and a smidgen of nooch give it body instead of tomatoes. Props to Amy for conceiving of this genius chili.

While it’s not strictly necessary, this is a great candidate for cooking using bulk items. You can pressure cook the beans together (for this batch we didn’t have navy beans on hand, so used 3 cups each cooked chick peas and white beans–about 1 cup each dry, pressure-cooked for 35 minutes). We used our old seitan standby–the PPK’s to magically convert wheat gluten into seitan. You’ll probably want to have this on hand in advance. Admittedly, we used frozen corn and canned green chilis…so this guy wasn’t totally package-free and local. But it’s worth noting that it probably cost about $6 to make this–one of the many superpowers of our friend the bulk item.

White Chili

• 1 can (2 cups) white beans
• 1 can (2 cups) chick peas
• 1 can (2 cups) navy beans
• 1 cup corn
• 2 4oz cans (1 cup) mild green chilis, diced
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 6 -8 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
• 5 small potatoes, peeled and cubed (optional)
• 1/4 cup nu yeast
• 6 cups veggie broth
• 2 cups water (optional)
• 1/2 batch (1 package) seitan, diced
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp cayenne
• salt, to taste
• pepper, to taste

In a large pot over medium heat, saute the onions, garlic, seitan, and chilis, adding them in order. Add in the potatoes if you’re using them. Once the onions are very soft–close to translucent–add in the beans and corn, then the broth, then the spices, and finally the nooch. Bring to a boil, then cover, cooking until the potatoes are soft–about 15 minutes. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, until you’re ready for the supreme white chili action.

If you like your chili a little brothier like Amy does, add in the additional water.

Best served with fresh croutons, if brothy, or crusty bread, if thick.

What better way to kick off Vegan MoFo III than with the quintessential fall soup: Chick Pea Noodle. I don’t know what you heard from those Campbell’s jerks, but the chick pea–not the chicken–in noodled soup form, is the quintessence of fall. Chick peas bleed fall.

Chick Pea Noodle Soup

• 10 cups of veggie/unchicken broth
• 3 cups (1.5 cans) cooked chick peas
• 2 carrots, peeled and cut into semi-circles
• 2 stalks of celery, cut into smallish pieces
• 1 medium-sized onion, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp ground almonds
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1.5 tsp ground mustard seed
• 2 cups dried shells (or equivalent amount of whichever noodle you like best and/or have on hand)
• salt and pepper, to taste

In a large pot over medium heat, sautee the onions, celery, carrots, and garlic. Once they’re soft, add in the stock, then the spices and almonds, then the chick peas. Once the soup comes to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for at least 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare your noodles. When they’re done, rinse them under cold water, then add them to the soup. This is better than just tossing the noodles in the soup dry, as that will make them bloated and soggy, like a fetid corpse washed upon a shore. Disgusting.

The soup. conversely, is delicious.

A few nights ago, we had a Mediterranean feast.

We had a falafel plate with toasted pita and hummus

and fattoush

The hummus turned out great. The fattoush was okay–the Mediterranean place down the street makes a better one, though. I’m not sure about using mint in the dressing. The falafel was total blandyland. We baked it instead of frying it, which maybe explains a little, but in general, it didn’t have any kick to it like a good falafel does. Also, it wasn’t very firm. Has anyone had any luck with homemade baked falafel?

Hummus was probably the first “exotic” thing I ever ate as a vegan, and has remained one of my favorite snacks for nearly a decade. Over the years, I’ve had a wide variety of hummus recipes–starting with the one in How It All Vegan (the first cookbook I ever owned, I think), which has onions and soy sauce and all manner of craziness. In these, my golden years, I’ve settled on a more traditional hummus, a simpler hummus, a more humble hummus.

Hummus

• 4 cups or 2 cans of chick peas
• 1.5 tsp cumin
• 1/8 – 1/4 cup of lemon juice (to taste)
• 1/8 cup of olive oil
• 1/2 cup of tahini
• salt to taste
• 1/2 medium-sized white onion, sauteed (optional; sauteed with the garlic, if you’re going this route)
• 2 – 4 cloves of garlic (optional)

Yep, that’s it. Blend all of the above ingredients in a food processor until they’re as smooth as Barry White’s deep soulful voice.

Should this produce a less-than-excellent hummus, you might consider the following:

• if you’re using canned chick peas, cook them for 20 minutes
• attempt to remove all of the thin shells by gently massaging the chick peas in water and spooning out the shells when they float to the top
• experiment with different brands of chick pea and tahini–you’ll be amazed at how different they can be
• use dry chick peas and cook them yourself (ideally, with a pressure cooker)
• add the tahini, olive oil, and/or lemon piecemeal– you can always add more

You can make this seem really fancy by serving it with a few things you probably have on hand anyway–a drizzle of olive oil (I like to make a little pool), a sprinkle of paprika, and/or some minced garlic (ideally in the olive oil pool).

You can also make this like 100X healthier by baking some pita to eat with it instead of chips.

The first step to failure is making up the name for something that already has a name, probably. If I weren’t too lazy, I’d know what the name for an Indian curry made from chick peas and zucchini is called. But instead, I just used the words for each: chana and toree. Hey, it works for Aloo Gobi, right?

Actually, this wasn’t a failure, per se, but it wasn’t as savory as lots of other curries I’ve made. The zucchini made it kind of “watery” tasting. It did, however, make it a very attractive dish. So if you’re in the mood for a really mellow curry, this could be just the guy for you. But I wasn’t, so it wasn’t. Thus, it was not a success.

Allow me to impart a nugget of wisdom wrested from the gaping maw of failure: It’s okay to give some of your zucchini away. Now, I’m not admitting defeat; I’m not saying that a sufficiently crafty person couldn’t make an average of 2.75 zucchini-based meals per week. But from a utilitarian perspective, you would maximize overall happiness by giving some of your zucchini away and focusing on making meals with zucchini that you really like, not just adding zucchini to every recipe you know, willy-nilly.

And anyway, it’s not like we’re talking about kale here. Adding zucchini to everything doesn’t really confer any great health advantage.

But.

The pretty picture above has piqued your interest nonetheless. So here you go:

Chana Toree

• 1 large zucchini or 1/2 of a REALLY large zucchini, diced*
• 2 cups cooked chick peas, rinsed and drained
• 2 large tomatoes, diced finely
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1.5 tbsp curry powder
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 cup veggie stock
• salt, to taste

In a large-ish pot over medium heat, sautee the onions and garlic in oil until they are soft and starting to brown. Toss in the zucchini, mixing well. Add in all of the spices, taking care to coat everything. Cook for about 5 minutes, then add in the tomatoes, chick peas, and veggie stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and let simmer for about 2 hours. Serve over rice, couscous, or quinoa.

* Cut the zucchini into about 2″ lengths. Cut those in half lengthwise, then cut the halves in half, then again. In other, simpler, words, cut the slices into eighths lengthwise. Now cut those slices widthwise into about 1/8 – 1/4″ little triangles. While this does nothing for the actual taste of the dish, it does look attractive, which in turn may trick folks into thinking it’s more delicious than it actually is. Presentation is often a subterfuge.

We made this with homemade naan, which was awesome.

Here is how it looks in a blue pot, which also lends to the transference of attractiveness to deliciousness:

Complementary colors are also a culinary subterfuge

As you have recently learned (you have been following along, right?) from making black bean burgers: The secret to vegan grilling is pre-baking or pre-steaming.

Whilst unearthing this fantastic culinary nugget, it occurred to me, strangely, for the first time: hey, I could make a grrrrrillable chick patty. Why this never occurred to me before, I can’t tell you. It’s too sad.

But occur it did. Like a Mack truck.

When I first grilled one of these and saw the perfect charred-in lines, I might have actually giggled. But deeply. Like Barry White thinking of something funny he saw on TV.  Behold:

Grillable Chick Patties

• 2 cups (1 can) cooked chick peas
• 1/4 grated/microplaned/finely diced carrots
• 2 sprigs fresh / 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup ground oats
• 1 tbsp ground flax seed, mixed with 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 dash cayenne pepper
• ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 batch chik’n almond bake

Preheat oven to 375. Place a pan of water on a low rack. This will keep things moist.

Prepare the flax seed and water–this needs to sit for about 10 minutes, until it becomes sort of gelatinous. This is the equivalent of 1 egg and can be used as a binder in lots of other recipes.

Rinse and drain the chick peas thoroughly. It’s important that you think of them as “chick peas” and not “garbanzo beans,” as that would ruin the play on “chick.” In general, “garbanzo” people are not to be trusted.

Add in the carrots. Mash. Mash it up.

Add in the ground oats and spices and mix/mash thoroughly.

Oil a baking sheet. Form the mix into patties–this will make 3 decent-sized burgers or 4 smallish guys. I recommend going with 3. Actually, I recommend making a double, triple, or quadruple batch–since it doesn’t really take much more work and these can be refrigerated or frozen. Pop the patties on the cookie sheet and bake 10 minutes to a side.

They can be grilled immediately or refrigerated or frozen.

Serve on a lightly toasted (right on the grill) bun with lettuce, tomato, onion and either Earth Balance ™ or Vegenaise ™.

We had this with smashed potatoes and mushroom gravy.