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!

As many of you know, about once every two months we get a major fiendin’ for Mexican food. Our local options aren’t great, and among those, the vegan selection is pretty much bean flautas. So. We scratch the Mexican itch by making one of several different feasts, almost all involving guacamole, (homemade) refried beans, and then some variation on tacos, burritos, enchiladas, tostadas, quesadillas, or the infamous taco salad. On a good day, the feast involves Mexican rice. As you’ve learned by studying the Soymilk Flowchart, we’ve been on a crazy okara seitan chik’n kick lately. So we decided to switch things up and make spicy chik’n tacos–with refried beans, guacamole, and Mexican rice!

These things rocked a camel’s ass! Don’t get me wrong–I love a good tempeh taco any day–but these were a really nice change of pace. The beans and rice were probably the best we’ve made as well. This, I think, owes to the more traditional kitchen food chain we employed. Beans are usually made with some sort of fat and or stock and rice is almost always made with chicken stock. We used the leftover stock from our batch of seitan. We cook the seitan in Frontier ™ brand unchicken stock, which (a) gives the seitan a more chicken-y flavor and (b) produces a really nice stock–more robust than the unchicken stock on its own. What started way back with our soymilk is now working its way into the finer flavors of our Mexican feast.

You may already be familiar with our guacamole and refried beans. And you should definitely acquaint yourself with seitan chik’n: ours or Zoa’s okara seitan recipe.

Spicy Chik’n

To make the chik’n, follow one of the recipes above. In a bowl, mix up some taco seasoning. Add about 1/4 cup of water–just enough to make a medium thin paste–like a thin smoothy. Toss the chik’n patties in the mixture–one patty per person (the mixture will cover about 4 patties)–coating well. Store in a sealed container and refrigerate–the longer the better, for deeper marinade penetration (dirty!). When your beans and rice are just about done (or are just finished and on low heat) toss these guys on the grill, cooking until you get delicious grill marks on both sides. They should probably also be cooked thoroughly, but hey, you know what you like. Cut into cubes or strips, as per your preference.

Mexican Rice

We researched a ton of authentic Mexican rice recipes and cobbled this one together out of what seemed to be the common ingredients: rice, onion, garlic, tomato, stock.

• 2 cups long-grain rice (we used brown basmati)
• 4 cups chik’n stock (ideally from seitan)
• 1/2 medium-sized yellow onion, diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, diced
• 1/2 large tomato, de-boogered and chopped coarsely
• salt, to taste
• green onions, cilantro, and/or lime to garnish (optional)

In a medium-sized saucepan, saute the rice in oil over medium heat, until it begins to brown (or turn browner, in the case of brown rice). Add in the onion, garlic, and tomato, then the stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover, cooking until the rice is soft and the stock has cooked in. If the rice finishes before the stock has cooked off completely, you can remove the cover and turn the heat up briefly to evaporate the remaining stock.

We served these in home-baked corn tortillas, with sides of refried beans and Mexican rice, and with a green onions, cilantro, lime, and a Corona ™, to garnish.

The Indian Feast Saturday night would not have been the same without pakora.  We especially like that our version is baked, not deep fried.  If you know anything about us here at IV, you know that we leave frying to greasy spoons and love adapting fried recipes to delicious (and healthier) baked ones almost as much as we like converting meaty, cheesy, eggy dishes to delicious (and healthier) vegan versions.

When we told our friend Mad Dog about this recipe last night, she nearly squealed with glee.  We hope you receive it with just as much enthusiasm.  Adapted to vegan from this recipe, it sure was fun to make (even more fun to eat).  At the last minute, we got the bright idea to make dhaniya dipping sauce to accompany the fresh pakora.  Ken was a champ and served as our runner, heading out the local food coop for a big bunch of cilantro (in southeast Asia, it’s called coriander) to make it happen.  Without further ado, we give you:

Baked Pakora and Dhaniya (Coriander Chutney)

Pakora:

• three medium-sized soft-skinned potatoes (such as red or yukon gold) or peeled russet potatoes, grated
• one large onion (any color), diced
• one overflowing handful of chopped spinach
• any other veggies you might want to add such as grated carrots, peas, or diced cauliflower.
• 2 cups chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp red pepper (optional)
• 1 1/2 tsp dried coriander (cilantro)
• 1 1/2 cups water

Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients (flour, spices, herbs, baking power).  Stir in enough water to make a batter.  Do it a bit at a time, making sure that is it about the consistency of pancake batter.  Ours was a little too thin, but didn’t affect the overall deliciocity of the outcome.

In a separate bowl, combine all veggies, and mix well with your hands.  Pour the batter into the veggies, stirring to a homogeneous consistency.

Use a spoon to ladle little bundles of battered veggies onto an oiled cookie sheet.

Bake for 8 minutes, then flip and bake for 10 more minutes until toasty around the edges.  This batch made about 30 pakora for us, but the final quantity really just depends on the size you make each one.

Dhaniya

(We used this recipe and are rewriting it here with some measurement and ingredient changes.)

• one large bunch of fresh coriander (cilantro), leaves peeled from the stems
• a one-inch square chunk of fresh ginger, grated on a ginger grater (or about 1 tbsp of dry ginger)
• 4 cloves of garlic
• the juice of half of a lemon
• a whole green chili (we used half of a poblano pepper since that’s all we had)
• 1 tsp mustard powder
• 1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
• enough olive oil to make into a sauce (1/4-1/2 cup)

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.  If you want enough dhaniya to accompany all of the pakora in the recipe above, I suggest at least tripling this recipe.

Holy hell, these things are killer! Here’s the recipe I followed on PPK’s Facebook page. I pretty much followed the directions exactly, but I used a yellow onion, which worked out great. We did use some of the smaller rings in addition to the largest rings (love those little guys!) and also made our own breadcrumbs in a food processor instead of using storebought. Those are the only changes.

I would like to try them sometime with the suggested Videlia onions, we just never seem to have any on hand. One suggestion: be sure to time these so that you can eat them AS SOON AS they come out of the oven.  We waited a bit and some of them got a little flaccid as a result.  We served them with BBQ seitan sammiches with the leftover BBQ sauce from the other night, and grilled spicy asparagus (in season- huzzah local eatin’!). This time to maximize the BBQ deliciocity-to-chik’n ratio, Mark cut the seitan cutlets into strips, coated the outside with the requisite rub and sauce and grilled away.  Once finished, he coated with more sauce.  See?

A yummy mid-sping chilly night of grilling and baking goodness, to be sure!

There are two popular types of yellow dal–the heavily-spiced, tomato-y Indian version and the subtle, lemon-y Middle Eastern variety. At home, we tend toward making the Middle Eastern version–especially since our favorite Middle Eastern place Al Noor went out of business.

With the soup in mind, I need something else to round the meal out. Traditionally, this would be falafel or hummus & pita, but I’d just made hummus two nights ago and require substantial motivation to bust out the falafel. I was hankering, instead, for something more like pakora. I didn’t have any chickpea flour on hand, though, so I had to rethink things a bit. I came up with lightly breaded spinach-potato dumplings–to be eaten in the dal. Traditional? Nope. Delicious? Indubitably.

Middle Eastern Yellow Dal

• 1 large white onion, diced
• 4 – 6 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
• 2 cups yellow lentils OR yellow split peas (not quite the same, but either will work; yellow lentils can be tough to find)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander seed
• juice from 1/2 lemon (or more, to taste)
• 9 cups of water
• olive oil
• salt & pepper, to taste

As you can see from the ingredients, this is a pretty simple recipe. I’ve of the school that a dal should generally be simple, letting the flavor of lentils or split peas really come through.  All you want to do is accent this flavor, not cook on top of it.

In a large pot, saute the onion and garlic in olive oil over medium heat. When the onions are soft, add in the lentils/peas, stirring well. Let the lentils/peas cook for a few minutes, then add in the water. I like to add the water piecemeal–just enough to cover everything–and cover. This allows you to control exactly how thick or thin your dal is, but also requires a little babysitting. You can probably just add all of the water, cover, and occupy yourself with something else for a good 2 hours. Lentils/split peas take a while to cook.

When the lentils/peas finally get soft and are breaking apart, add in the spices and lemon. Cook for another 15 minutes or so.

Breaded Spinach-Potato Dumplings

• 3 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and cut into large pieces
• 1/2 lb spinach
• 1/4 cup flour (or chickpea flour, for gluten-free)
• 3 tbsp cornmeal/corn flour
• 2 tbsp almond meal
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander seed
• safflower oil
• salt & pepper, to taste

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a medium-sized saucepan, boil the potatoes until they are soft–almost as soft as if you were making mashed potatoes. If you are using fresh spinach, steam it until it’s soft, then cut it into shreds. If you’re using frozen, you can boil it for a few minutes in the same water you used for the potatoes. I used frozen, but almost always prefer fresh. In a large bowl, mash up the potatoes with the spinach. Stir in the flour. You want the mixture to be thick enough to form balls. Add more flour if needed.

In a small bowl, mix the remaining dry ingredients. Form spinach-potato mixture into balls, roll in the oil, roll in the breading, then place on a baking sheet. This should make around 18 – 20 dumplings.

Bake 20 minutes to a side, or until nicely browned and somewhat crisp.

Serve in the soup:

Perusing Chow Vegan, we stumbled on this post about chili fries. This seemed like just the thing on an unseasonably warm fall day.

Unlike Chow Vegan, we love beans, so we pressure-cooked some up and made our own chili. We followed the recipe for Spicy Baked Potato Chips, but cut the taters into fry shapes and left out the cayenne, since the chili had enough kick on its own.

We topped it with Follow Your Heart cheddar which, while helping to scratch the cheese part of the chili cheese fry itch, wasn’t ideal. Don’t get me wrong–these were awesome–we just don’t eat a lot of processed stuff and these types of cheeses always feel really processed to me. A homemade nacho cheese probably would have been a better choice, but we’ve been a little nooched out lately and most faux-cheese recipes are centered around the nooch.

Cheese aside, the awesome thing about these is that, though they felt like a total indulgence, they’re actually not bad for you. The fries (a bit of a misnomer here) are actually baked (using a high heat oil–safflower) and the chili was made from scratch with canned tomatoes, freshly cooked black beans, carrots and celery from our garden, and onions from a local farm. Once you get over the psychosomatic “I destroyed myself” feeling, you realize you actually feel pretty good after eating this. Huzzah!

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!

So this is actually a recipe for Hoppin’ John, but it’s so frighteningly real, you’ll jump back with terror.

I should note in advance that I’ve never actually had non-vegan Hoppin’ John. I do know, however, that it’s usually made with ham. This version uses homemade fakin’ to reproduce (with frightening accuracy) that “hammy” quality. But in a good way. Not the gross way.

Jumpin’ John

• 1 medium-sized yellow onion, diced
• 1 medium-sized tomato, diced
• 1 rib of celery, diced
• 1 medium-sized green bell pepper, diced (optional)
• 4 cups cooked–or 2 cans–of black-eyed peas
• 4 strips of fakin, cut into smallish pieces
• 1 cup long grain brown rice (I used brown basmati)
• 2 cups veggie stock
• 2 tsp thyme (or 4 large sprigs)
• 1.5 tsp paprika
• 1/2 – 1 tbsp liquid smoke
• 2 tbsp soy sauce (or gluten-free tamari)
• salt and pepper to taste

First things first, let’s start that brown rice in the veggie stock–pour the rice and stock into a medium saucepan and heat on high until boiling. Reduce heat and cover. Brown rices take 4-eva.

Now, with that out of the way, let us, you and I, sautee the onion, celery, and green pepper (if using) in a medium to large-ish pot, over medium heat. Wonderful. In the meantime, I think it would be splendid to fry up some fakin. Don’t you? Yes! Let’s.

I had leftover fakin from Tofu MarkMuffins, which doesn’t save terribly well anyway (it starts to get crumbly within a week or so, unless you freeze it). Additionally, you will most likely have a fair amount of tofu fakin crumblins. These perform like a true champeen in this dish. You will also likely have leftover fakin juice, which will work like a sweatshop laborer to make this dish as tasty as possible. In this event, you will not need the soy sauce and Liquid Smoke.

Barring the use of homemade fakin, you might find it convenient and/or enjoyable to use a store-bought variety. In this event you will most like want to “ham” things up by adding the afore-mentioned soy sauce and Liquid Smoke.

But I digress. The fakin should be in small pieces and should be fried lightly in a frying pan over medium heat, in the cooking oil of your choice. You just want it cooked, not crispy. This isn’t Bone-Crunching John.

While the fakin is cooking and once the onions are soft, add in the diced tomato, then the spices, mixing well. Now add in the black-eyed peas.

When the fakin is done, add it to the mix.

When the rice is done, add that too.

Salt and pepper to your smallest of heart’s content.

For the first 25 years of my life, I thought orzo was okra. Now, in recent years I’ve warmed up to the idea of a vegetable that has fur, but it’s not hard to understand why I would have assiduously avoided this miraculous beast. But fear not, dear readers! Those dark days are past! Orzo, we now all know, is not furry. It’s got all the carbaliciousness of pasta, in a fun rice form. And it only takes about 5 minutes to cook. Forsooth!

This recipe is the platonic form from which all other orzo recipes arise. Also, I think you’d be better off as just friends.

Orzo

• 2 cups orzo
• 4 cups veggie stock
• 3 – 4 handfuls of mushrooms, halved or quartered, depending on size
• 6 stalks kale, deboned and chopped
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 can (2 cups) of cooked chick peas
• olive oil
• vegan buttery spread
• 1/3 cup nu yeast
• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary, diced
• 1 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper
• salt, to taste
• pepper, to taste

In a large frying pan, sautee then onion and mushrooms in a bit of olive oil over a medium heat. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan over medium heat (at a medium pace, using a medium for guidance), melt the butter, adding the orzo when the butter has melted completely. When the orzo starts to brown, add in the veggie stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover.

Once the onions start to brown and the mushrooms are tender, add in the herbs, spices, and kale, mixing well. Add in the chick peas. The orzo should have been done eons ago, since it only takes about 5 minutes. You can now safely add it to the mix in the frying pan. Once it’s mixed in, add the nuyeast and salt and pepper to taste. Stir! Serve! Enjoy! Love it like you would a sibling. A sibling that you really like. To eat.