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!

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
• 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
• 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
• 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.

No, this is not a hilarious dance performed by the natives to this continent–it’s a tofu scramble made with local ingredients, namely wild rice and acorn squash. I like to imagine this as the Thanksgiving Breakfast, pilgrims and natives alike feasting cruelty-free on tofu and native crops. No one gave anyone smallpox and everyone lived happily ever after. The end. Manifest Destiny only required that the food was delicious.

We made this for a brunch this morning (well, this afternoon). This being the Year of the Brunch, it’s been a real challenge to make a sufficient variety of breakfast foods without (a) repeating ourselves and (b) overlapping with what others are making. Remember that brunch where you all made potatoes?

This was inspired by a scramble we had some time back at Seva, a local vegetarian restaurant. It’s a little labor intensive for your usual breakfast, so it’s more ideal for a brunch-type scenario. Accordingly, this recipe is for a double batch–so be sure to halve everything if you’re only feeding a few people and/or don’t want a ton of leftovers.

Indigenous Scramble

• 2 medium-sized white onions, diced
• 2 lbs of tofu, drained
• 1/2 medium – large acorn squash
• 1 cup (uncooked) wild rice
• 2 cups water
• 1/3 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 2 tsp herbs d’provence
• salt & pepper, to taste
• high heat cooking oil

Preheat your over to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Cut the acorn squash in half and place on baking sheet in a small drizzle of high heat cooking oil (like Safflower). Bake for 30 – 40 minutes, until you can remove the skin, but the squash is still solid enough to cut into pieces. Don’t worry too much about overcooking it–it’ll still be awesome, but you’ll lose a little something in texture.

Meanwhile, in a medium-sized saucepan, heat 1 tbsp cooking oil over high heat. Add in the wild rice, tossing, and cook for about 3 minutes. Add in the water, bring to boil, then reduce heat and cover, cooking until the water is gone and the rice is done.

Meanmeanwhile, saute the onion in oil in a large pot over medium heat. Once the onions are soft, add in the tofu, crumbling. Now add in the nu yeast and the turmeric. When the squash is done, peel the skin off and cut it into bite-sized pieces. Add it to the tofu. When the rice is done, add that too, Finally, add in the spices, salt, and pepper. Mix it up. Eat it up.

I’ve been salivating internally ever since I saw Lisa’s Chik’n Club Sammich during Vegan MoFo. Wait. That seems kind of gross. I wasn’t literally salivating nonstop for three months. I would need an IV to maintain that level of salivation. And you might too.

As you’ve probably learned by now, we’re not super into processed stuff, so I’d really been meaning to make a version using all fresh, homemade ingredients. We used our famous chik’n almond bake breaded tofu (thought this would have been superb with breaded seitan strips too). It was after 9pm when we started, so homemade bread wasn’t in the cards for this incarnation, but also would have been awesome (we just toasted some sandwhich bread). What’s worse, I totally forgot Lisa’s coup d’grace: fakin. Fakin’s a little labor intensive, so the fresh homemade route won’t yield a quick sammich in a pinch. We did, however, make homemade baked fries (we cut these into fry shapes and left out the cayenne) to round this out as one of those perfect healthy “unhealthy” meals that we often crave.

Chik’n Tofu Strip Club Sammich

• 1 lb of extra firm tofu, frozen then thawed
• bread
• lettuce
• purple onion
• tomato
• fakin (optional)
• chik’n almond bake
• safflower oil
• Earth Balance ™ or Vegenaise ™

You’ll want to freeze then thaw a pound of extra firm tofu. This makes it a little spongy and more firm–a better texture for chik’n and also nice in some stir fries. We try to keep tofu in both states on hand. It’ll keep for a very long time in the freezer.

Preheat the oven 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Thaw your tofu. When it’s thawed, squeeze all the water out and cut into strips–you’ll probably want them to be about 2″ x 1/2″ x 1/4″. The strip size is really a matter of preference though. Coat each strip in safflower oil then in the chik’n almond bake. Place on a baking sheet  and cook for about 15 minutes on one side, flip, then cook for about another 10 minutes–until brown and crispy, but not burnt. They will crisp up a scosh upon cooling.

Toast some bread (or pull some fresh bread from the oven). Slather the sammich spread of your choice on said bread. Place as many tofu strips as will cover a piece of bread on once piece. Then add the fakin (if using), lettuce, tomato, and onion, in that order. Cut in half if it strikes your fancy. Serve with fries. Or not. It’s your meal.

So what makes this a “momelette” instead of an “omelette”?

The letter ‘M’.

I give this 9 points for looking awesome, 8 points for tasting awesome, and 6 points for being kind of like a traditional egg momelette, or “omelette”, if you will.

We modified this recipe from VegWeb.

Tofu Momelette

• 1 lb extra firm tofu, drained and shredded into long strands
• 1 small – medium white onion, diced
• ~ 6 medium-size mushrooms (optional), diced
• 1 small – medium green bell pepper, diced
• 1 small tomato, seeded and diced
• 1 clove of garlic, pressed or grated
• 1/8 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp nu yeast
• salt and pepper, to taste
• Earth Balance(tm)

The interesting part of this recipe–the key to it, you might say–is using a cheese shredder to shred the tofu into long strands (use large-holed face/shredder). This makes it pretty malleable, but not so crumbly that it’s just a scramble. A smaller–but no less crucial–key is to cook the vegetables separately.

So.

In a large non-stick (or well-seasoned) pan, melt enough Earth Balance to lightly cover the bottom of the pan over medium heat. Don’t front like regular oil is gonna get you out of this one. This is much better with Earth Balance. Next, pack down enough shredded tofu to make a solid circle, as big around as you’d like your momelette to be (ideally, use half–then you get two momelettes). It shouldn’t be loose like hash browns. Cook on this side until the bottom starts to brown–this took at least 10 minutes on our stove.

Meanwhile, in a different pan, but also over medium heat, sautee the veggies (and mushrooms, if using) until they are soft. You may use oil here if you wish.

When the time is right, flip the momelette. Let it cook for about 5 minutes, then spread half of the veggies on one half of the momelette. Fold the non-veggie-fied half onto the veggie-fied half. Cook for a few minutes, just for good measure then flip and cook for a few more.

Serve with ketchup, catsup, or salsa.

Occasionally you have to scratch the unhealthy itch. Today, that itch was Egg McMuffins(tm). Well, my 10-year old conception of what an Egg McMuffin might be like. I guess, the itch was the word “McMuffin”. Because I wanted to use the word “MarkMuffin”.

Now, this is a fairly easy itch to scratch–if you don’t mind using store-bought processed fakin. However: Amy found an awesome recipe on VegWeb for tofu fakin, so today was the day to rock it.

The Fakin Part

• 1 lb extra firm tofu
• soy sauce/tamari/shoyu/braggs
• my new best friend (aka Liquid Smoke(tm))
• maple syrup (optional)
• nutrional yeast

Cut the tofu down to about an inch thick (or as thick as your peeler will allow). Shave it into thin slices with a vegetable peeler. This is the magic step. You cannot substitute or change this step in any way. Unless you want terrible fakin. In a large, flat container of some sort, pour enough soy sauce to cover the bottom. If the pan is about 6″ x 9″, you’ll want to then add about 1.5 tsp of Liquid Smoke, 1 tbsp of nu yeast, and 1 tsp of maple syrup (I think I prefer it without this, but some folks like a tinge of sweetness in their fakin). The amounts will all go up if you’re using a larger container, obviously.

Toss as many slices of fakin as will cover the bottom of the pan. Swish the marinade over the top. Let these sit for at least 10 minutes, then fry them in a small amount of oil over low medium heat. This will depend on your pan, but if you cook at too high a heat, you’ll get crisp edges but slightly soft fakin–and most people want this crisp. Cook until it’s crisp.

Rinse, wash, repeat. Lather.

You can do this with several containers or use a lot more liquid if you want to speed the process up.

The “Egg” Part

• 1 slice of tofu, about 1/4″ thick, and 2 – 3 inches square
• garlic powder
• onion powder
• nu yeast
• salt
• pepper

Fry up the tofu in a bit of oil in a pan over medium heat. Sprinkle on sundry powders/granules. When the tofu starts to brown on the bottom, flip and sprinkle the other side with powdery sundries. When the part that was the top but is now the bottom starts to brown, it’s done.

The Preparation

Toast an english muffin (ideally Rudy’s) and slather with Earth Balance. Pop on the “egg,” then the fakin, then the top muffin. Outstanding!

It was the best of quiches, it was the…well, I guess, okay, of quiches?

Here’s the gimmick: one quiche is almost entirely from scratch, the other is almost entirely from pre-packaged ingredients. In the battle of the century, which will win?! Sundaysundaysunday! Be there!

(Genius battle plan devised by Amy)

Obviously, we were pulling for from-scratch, as we try to keep our consumption of packaged/processed foods to a minimum.

Pre-packaged ingredients on the left; fresh, local, organic ingredients on the right

We unveiled these bastages at yet another brunch (this summer’s been lousy with the things)–to mostly omnivores, served alongside a “real” quiche. About half of each was eaten, which isn’t half bad given the competition, but isn’t as good as being inhaled within minutes.

The consensus, ultimately, was that the more homemade-y variety was superior, though the soysage in the faux-ass quiche was much better then the tempeh crumbles that I invented (poorly) for this recipe. Additionally, even though I took precautions against it (by using 1 block of non-silken tofu), neither quiche ended up as springy as a “real” quiche. Amy likes to think of these as “breakfast pies”. To me, that sounds a lot like “breakfast failures”.

So color this a “work-in-progress“. Consider some improvements below!

L’ Quiche au Naturale

Filling

• 1 lb extra firm tofu
• 1 pkg extra firm silken tofu*
• 1.5 – 2 cups chopped kale or spinach**
• 1/2 large white onion, diced
• 1/3 large green bell pepper, diced
• 1 tbsp tahini
• 1 tbsp white miso
• 1/4 cup nu yeast
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 cup faux milk beverage (preferably, unsweetened)
• 1.5 tsp arrow root powder
• tempeh sausage crumbles
• faux-made cheez

Tempeh Sausage Crumbles

• 1 pkg or a 5″ x 3″ x 1/2″ block tempeh***
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1.5 tbsp soy sauce/tamari/shoyu
• 1 tbsp liquid smoke(tm)
• salt and pepper (lots of pepper), to taste

Faux-Made Cheez (nabbed [and modified slightly] from Scrumpdilly)

• 2 cups water
• 1/4 cup raw cashews
• 1 cup nutritional yeast flakes
• 2 Tbsp. cornstarch
• 1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. onion powder
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. cumin

Crust (I know, this shit is getting ridiculous. That’s what being awesome means.)

• 2.5 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 cup ice-cold water

* As far as I know, this only comes in packages. Fuck. Being good is so hard.
** Whatever is available locally. Kale seems easier to find in our neck of the woods.
*** Our local coop sells locally made tempeh in bulk. This is in Ypsilanti, MI. You can find this. If you can’t, use homemade seitan.

Directions

Crust

Sift 2.5 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour into a large mixing bowl. Cut in (with two battling butter knives) 1/2 cup butter or shortening (Earth Balance makes both). You want the mixture to form large crumbs. You may need up to an additional 1/2 cup of butter or shortening–but take it easy. You want crumbs, not giant shortening boogers. Once you’ve got this crumb-ified, add in 1/4 cup of ice water, a little at a time until all the crumbs are sticking together. You want this just wet enough. Knead the dough into a big ball then separate into two smaller balls. Put this in an airtight-ish reusable plastic bag or plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least four hours. Then roll and rock, in that order. Easy!

Tempeh Sausage Crumbles

Chop tempeh into crumbles. I’ve documented this ad nauseum in the biscuits and gravy post.  In a large pan, brown the tempeh over medium heat in soy sauce/tamari/shoyu and liquid smoke, tossing in remaining ingredients once the tempeh is coated. Cook until nice and brown. Fantastic. You are a champion.

Cheez

Follow Jennifer’s recipe, sans pimiento and jalapeno.

Filling

In a medium-sized pan, over medium heat, sautee the onion, garlic, and green pepper until soft. Combine the water and arrow root powder. In a food processor, or Vitamix(tm) if you won the lottery, blend all of the filling ingredients except the kale and sautee-fixins, along with the arrow-root-water. In a large bowl, combine the sautee-fixins, the kale, the tempeh sausage crumbles, and the filling. You may want to save a few tempeh crumblins to sprinkle on top of the quiche.

Finally

Pour the filling into the crust. Drizzle faux-made cheez (and crumblins if you saved any) on top of the filling. Bake for about 45 minutes at 375 degrees. Tada!

L’ Quiche au Faux

• 1 lb extra firm tofu (packaged and sealed [oooh! Go with Whitewave(tm), they're total bastards!])
• 1 pkg extra firm silken tofu(Mori-nu(tm))
• 1.5 – 2 cups chopped store-bought, bagged or boxed spinach (go with the box, that’s really offensive–fuck you nature!)
• 1/2 large white onion, diced (I think some places you can buy this pre-packaged)
• 1/3 large green bell pepper, diced (you’re gonna have to do this yourself…maybe you can put some cans in the garbage to offset the positive effect?)
• 2 tsp salt (is it still possible to get pre-Gandhi British tax-oppression salt? If so, use that.)
• 1/2 soysage log (Litelife(tm))
• 1/2 block of cheddar or nacho cheese (Follow Your Heart(tm))
• 1/2 block of mozzarella cheese (Follow Your Heart(tm))
• 1/4 cup faux milk beverage (preferably, Silk(tm), oh, where to start…)
• 1.5 tsp arrow root powder (sorry, arrow root powder is totally awesome!)

Directions:

In a medium-sized pan, over medium heat, sautee the onion, garlic, and green pepper until soft. In a different medium-sized pan, over medium heat, sautee the processed soysage. Use a spatula to mash it into largish bits.

Combine the water and arrow root powder. In a food processor, blend all of the filling ingredients except the spinach, soysage, and enough faux cheese to sprinkle on top, along with the arrow-root-water. In a large bowl, combine the soysage, spinach, and the filling. You may want to save some soysage crumblins to sprinkle on top of the quiche.

Pop the filling into your convenient store-bought crust, sprinkle on some processed soy cheese and soysage, and bake that badboy for about 45 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit or 463.555 degrees Kelvin.

Au Naturale on the left, Au Faux on the right

Possible Improvements to Au Naturale

• Use seitan instead of tempeh; this will improve the taste and will work better as larger chunks
• Use VeganYumYum’s cheese from the Mac & Cheez instead of Scrumpdilly’s nacho sauce (which is great, but not really suited to this)
• add broccoli (duh! what was I thinking?)
• tone down the salt (I know, I know, hard to believe I could ever say such a thing)
• add in something “bready”–bread crumbs, bread makings, anything to make this a little lighter–more like a bake and less like a pie

With no end to brunches in sight, I’m sure I’ll come back to this at some point. In the meantime, I’d welcome any comments/suggestions/anti-quiche hatemail.

And for the record, the Nip is all about the natural:

Due to recent advances in brunch frequency technology, this summer’s been a veritable brunchfest. For the triple-T brunch, we made a Southwest Scrapple. Yes. Scrapple. Not “scramble”. I decided this was a scrapple because it features not only tofu, but tempeh as well. But also because it felt like a scrapple. I didn’t even really know what scrapple is.

Well, it turns out scrapple is like a breakfast meatloaf made of congealed pig scraps and various flours. Sounds like just the kind of thing worth emulating. I’d sooner eat my words than crapple, so “scramble” it is.

Southwest Scramble

• 1 onion, peeled and diced
• 1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 small can of diced mild green chilis
• 1 cup cooked or 1/2 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 lb tofu, drained
• 1 package tempeh, cut irregularly
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 4 tbsp nu yeast
• salt and pepper to taste

Like most scrambles and probably most crapples, this is pretty simple. In a large-ish pot, sautee the onion, green bell pepper, and chilis in oil, over medium heat. When the onions and bell pepper begin to soften, add in the tempeh and cook for 5 – 10 minutes, until the tempeh starts to brown a little bit. Crumble in the tofu, mashing up the remaining large bits with a spatula. Do it with gusto. But without alacrity. Once everything is mixed well, add the spices and nu yeast, in order. Finish off with some fresh ground salt and pepper.

Garnish with sliced avocado and salsa.

It will look like this in a pot, if you make this correctly and your pot looks exactly like ours:

Well…not my first failure…and certainly not my last. But this is the first time I’ve documented a failed recipe. Behold:

For me, a big part of cooking is experimentation. It’s what makes cooking an art, what makes it exciting and enjoyable.

But it doesn’t always turn out how you expect, sometimes for the worse. You’re never gonna discover anything truly awesome if you don’t take a chance now and then. This means, of course, that you will occassionally FAIL. Not usually in a colossal way. Just in a “huh, that was kinda weird” way. It always seems like a good idea going in.

Okay. I admit it. I knew this one would be a little out there. Using steamed kale, cut into strips and flash-fried, in lieu of noodles or rice–not normal. In my head, it seemed so refreshing, so summer-y and healthy. And I’m still not entirely divorced from the idea. I mean,  it looks awesome (this is exactly how I pictured it last night when I dreamt it).

And truth be told, I kinda liked it. I overdid the kale a bit, and the mushrooms seemed superfluous, added just because they were there.

But this is the kind of thing you never see on a cooking blog–the stuff that didn’t quite work, the process involved in making something truly tasty. In a sense, this is the most important thing to share. It’s hard work coming up with recipes and no one has a special connection to the recipe gods. You should feel empowered to play, to know that the cooks you esteem the highest play too. And if they don’t, they’re total dickbags. Face!

Now. Here’s your assignment, should you choose to accept it: make this bullshit. Maybe it’s not as weird as I thought. Maybe you have a sweet idea about how to make it awesome. I’m imploring you, yes you, to take a stand, make a difference. For your fellow Earthling, make some bizarre-ass shit tonight!

The recipe, if you please (and thank you):

Mushrooms and Breaded Tofu on Steamed Kale

• 1 large bunch of dinosaur kale, deboned and cut into 1/2 inch wide strips, about 3 inches long
• several handfuls of mushrooms, halved or quartered, depending on size
• 1/2 lb tofu, frozen, thawed, then cut into thin, short strips
• 1 handful green beans
• peanut oil
• sesame oil
• soy sauce
• 1/4 cup white wine
• chik’n almond bake
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper
• salt & pepper, to taste

Begin breathing life into this monstrosity by mixing 2 parts soy sauce to 1 part peanut oil in a small bowl and preheating your Toast-R-Oven(tm) to 425. Pour the chik’n almond bake into a shallow bowl. Now. Toss the tofu in the sauce and coat well in the bake. Pop it in the oven. This will undeniably be the best part of your meal, so treat it like a fragile newborn kitten.

In a medium saucepan, sautee the mushrooms over medium heat in white wine, peanut oil, and soy sauce. Once tender, remove from heat.

In the same pan, pour in a scosh of water. Lower heat and toss in the kale. Cover and let steam, being sure (a) to stir it every minute or so and (b) not to let it burn. For the love of god, DO NOT LET IT BURN. Unless, like me, you are one of five human beings who kind of like the taste of slightly singed kale. It should be tender, but just barely cooked. Once it’s tender to your liking, toss in peanut and sesame oil, adding a dash of crushed red pepper for shits and giggles.

Remove from heat. You can put it plates, bowls, and/or bowl-plates right off. It doesn’t need to be, nay, shouldn’t be, piping hot when you serve it.

Now.

In a small pot, bring water to a boil and toss in the green beans. Cook them for about 5 minutes. Then toss them in the very same pan you’ve been using all along and briefly sautee them in peanut and sesame oil, dashing on some salt and garlic powder–for about a minute. Don’t burn these either. You’ve made it this far. Stay with me.

Take your tofu out of the oven. It should be browned but not burnt.

Now. You’ve just got to put it all together.

Make it pretty and maybe it won’t even seem weird:

Serve with the remaining white wine, preferably before-hand to get your victims…err…guests where you want them. To open their minds, man.