Japanese Mushroom and Tofu Soup

I am still on a soup kick.  Vegan MoFo came at the right tome for me.  Soups!  This is a soup I always love when I get the rare chance to eat it when I at a restaurant.  I decided it could not be to difficult to make, and I was correct.  It takes some preparation work but nothing to strenuous.

This soup makes enough to feed the family for a few days.  I made it to go with my deli slices for work time lunches.  If you would desire less, half the recipe.


Japanese Mushroom and Tofu Soup

 

3 stalks of bok choy (chopped)
4 cloves of garlic (chopped)
21 oz of udon noodles (cooked)
1/2 pound of extra firm tofu (cubed)
2 cups of seitan (cubed)
2 cups of shiitake mushrooms (chopped)
8 cups of water
1 cup of enoki mushrooms
3 tablespoon of miso paste
2 tablespoons of onions
2 tablespoons of sesame oil
1  1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce

2 teaspoons of garlic chili paste
1 teaspoon of fresh ginger


In a large pot, add the 8 cups of water, soy sauce, and the miso and bring to a simmer.

Meanwhile, in a skillet, add 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, all of the ginger, garlic, onion, chili paste, shiitake mushrooms, seitan, and tofu and fry for 10 minutes on med heat.  This should allow the seitan to brown a bit and the tofu to begin to get a little golden color.

Once the broth is simmering and the mushrooms / tofu / seitan mixture is cooked, add the two together into the large pot.  Be cautious not to splash the hot liquid out of the pot.  Do not let the broth simmer or the miso will burn.  Add the noodles and cook until soft.

While the noodles are cooking, add the bok choy and remaining sesame oil and continue to stir frequently.  Allow the soup to cook for 10 minutes, then add the enoki mushrooms and remove from the heat.  Let the soup steep for another 5-8 minutes and serve.  Garnish with black sesame seeds and green onion if desired.

Wraps, Fries, MoFo

These Deli Slices have been the best thing on The Life since Seitan Steaks!  After a hectic late morning food gathering in the community, I was craving some quick lunch.  As I swung the fridge door open, I spotted it!  The deli slices.

Cutting a large chunk off, chopping it up, slicing some onions, and frying it all in some oil.  Slathering some vegan mayo on a warm tortilla with the fried deli slices and onions made a great lunch!

As the people close to me know, I often to not make the healthiest choice about my food, especially when I am alone.  Recently, there was a basketball game on that I had been looking forward to and I had yet to make dinner.  Noting that there was no one around to advise against it, I opted for 4 potatoes worth of homemade french fries for dinner!  It was delicious and made for a great game time dinner.

It is about 2 weeks into Vegan MoFo and I have been on a roll.  I have posted everyday!  It has been fun and I hope I can keep it up!

Easy Lunch and Chickpea Failure

I invited Ashley over for lunch, after her class and before I had to leave for work, which typically results in a late lunch.  I had some left over eggplant and portabello mushrooms.  Ashley encouraged me to do something with them and I did!

Nothing innovative, simple fried some onions and garlic, drenched them in pasta sauce, added the sliced eggplant and mushrooms topped with vegan cheese.  Baked it for a bit and it was great!

However, we also decided to try a chickpea dish that was a total failure.  In fact, it was so bad that neither of us finished our plate.  Yuck.  Win some, lose some.

Quality photoshop skills, do not deny it.

Deli Slices

Simply put, I am spending to much money at work buying those pre-packaged vegan deli slices.  I had made something similar to this previously but wanted to work on it  before I shared.  Well, here it is, wonderful and going to save me lots of money at the store and the environment many plastic wrappers.

Deli Slices

15 oz of white beans
2  3/4 cups of wheat gluten
2 cups of vegetable broth
1/3 cup of oil
2 tablespoon of sage
2 tablespoon of rosemary
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of onion powder
1 tablespoon of garlic powder
1 tablespoon of crushed chipotle pepper


1 tablespoon of oregano
1 tablespoon of paprika

1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon of black pepper
1 teaspoon of salt


Boil the 2 cups of water.

In a large bowl, mash the beans until they are smooth.  Once smooth, add the oil, onion powder, garlic powder, crushed chipotle peppers, sage, salt, rosemary, cumin, oregano, paprika, soy sauce, and black pepper and mix well.  Add the boiling vegetable broth and mix again.  This should be a very watery deep red color.

Add the wheat gluten and quick and vigorously mix.  The mixture will thicken up and become difficult to mix very quickly.  Make sure there are no "dry" spots, everything should be moist.

Once the wheat gluten has been mixed in efficiently, dump the gluten mixture onto a cutting board and loosely form into a log shape.  The dough should be very moist and slightly oily.  Then place it on aluminum foil and roll like a burrito covering all of the dough.

Steam for 1 hour.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Remove from the steam and place in a baking pan.  Bake in the over for about 45 minutes, this will allow the dough to swell and fill out.  After the dough has been in the oven for about 25 minutes, flip it to allow even cooking.  Allow an hour or so for cooling.

Although this recipe takes awhile to make much of the labor work is very simple and only takes a few minutes.  This might be a great recipe to make while doing some housework or watching a basketball game!

Raspberry Muffins

Raspberries are one of my favorite foods.  I rarely get the opportunity to cook with them however.  Mostly it is because I can not stop eating them long enough to have anything to cook with.  This time, I forced myself to resist the temptation of my favorite berry.

It was time for muffins and they were damn good!

Raspberry Muffins

2 cups of flour
2  1/2 cups of raspberries
1  1/3 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of non-dairy milk
1/2 cup of apple sauce
1/4 cup of shortening
1 tablespoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla


Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar and baking powder and mix well.  Add the raspberries and gently stir.  Adding the raspberries here will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin when cooking.

Add the apple sauce, milk, vanilla, and shortening.  Gently mix by hand until the flour is moistened.  There should be no dry flour.

Line a muffin pan with paper baking cups.  Fill each baking cup with 2/3 of the muffin batter.  Bake for 35 minutes.  I like to sprinkle my muffins with some crystallized sugar just as I pull them out of the oven.

I am a huge muffin guy.  I should really make them more often.  These reminded me of long road trips with friends to protest nuclear power plants with big brown paper bags full of muffins I made for the crew.  Several of us would live of my vegan muffins and some dumpster dived fruits and veggies for several days.  Good times, good muffins.

Special thanks to Miss V for the tip of how to keep my berries afloat!

Green Bean Casserole

I had good intentions to make enough food to get me through nearly a weeks worth of posts but I never got around to it.  I was able to throw together a nice recipe late in the evening that turned out very well.

This makes enough for your entire family to eat, twice.  If you want to make a smaller amount, half the recipe and use a pie baking dish!

Green Bean Casserole

1  3/4 pounds of french cut green beans
3 cups of unsweetened non-dairy milk
2 cups of french fried onions
1 cup of vegetable broth
1 cup of nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons of vegan sour cream
2 tablespoons of garlic powder
2 tablespoons of onion powder
1 tablespoon of salt
1 tablespoon of black pepper
1/2 tablespoon of corn starch

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a 13x 9 baking pan, add half of the green beans and half of the french friend onions.

In a mixing bowl, add the vegetable broth, non-dairy milk, sour cream, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, corn starch, and nutritional yeast and mix until smooth.  Use a blender if available.

Pour the liquid into the beans and stir.  Then add the remaining beans and french fried onions and gently mix again.  Bake for 1 hour and let sit for at least 30 minutes to thicken.


Before being vegan, I do not ever recall having green bean casserole so this was something I was unfamiliar with.  It came out rich and flavorful.

French Toast

It was a lazy Saturday morning.  I slept in (relatively), after a long few days at the jobby job.  I have some big plans today and intend on having some fun.  I need to have a 24 hour break from all the work recently.  To start my day off, I did something I rarely do, breakfast.

This is a quick and easy dish I used to make on the regular about 10 years ago.  It has been at least 2 since I last made it but the recipe came back to memory like riding a bike.

French Toast

6 slices of bread
1/2 cup of vanilla non-dairy milk
1 tablespoon of vegan margarine
1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon
2 teaspoons of nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of almond extract (optional)
1/2 teaspoon of cardamom (optional)


Heat the margarine on med heat on a non stick skillet.  Make sure the pan is fully up to heat before you begin cooking.

In a large bottomed bowl, add the non-dairy milk, cinnamon, nutritional yeast, vanilla, almond, and cardamom and mix vigorously.  The cinnamon will appear to settle near the top.  Gently dip each slice of bread into the mixture and place on hot skillet.  Allow to cook for 4-5 minutes and flip.  Repeat until all slices have been cooked and are a golden brown color.

Cop-Out

Friday's are brutal for me.  For my readers, it means you get a cop-out post.  Typically, Thursday's are a double shift (15 or so hours) and I do not get home until about 2-3am early Friday morning.  I get to sleep in a bit before I am headed back into work for another 12 hour shift at 3pm to 3am.  Brutal.

Needless to say, it is the main reason why I do not have much time or motivation to cook and post decent blogs toward the end of the week.  Someone please buy a few houses and help me get my life back!

Either way, in the spirit of keeping up with Vegan MoFo, I wanted to drop a quick post.  I found some pictures of food that I have eaten recently and several pictures of the recent Smoky Mountain trip that I had yet to share.  Enjoy the cop-out post.

Ranch Dressing used for some soy chickens.

soy ice cream as a bedtime snack

Yum. Just Yum.

I am an anti-capitalist.  I try my best to avoid promoting any company on my blog.  I do not want to give any corporation a free place to advertise.  Rarely, I make an exception with a place like Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe.  I feel confident that they, in large part, share my ideals, including those outside the realm of veganism.

However, there is occasional a product that blows me away.  There is a product that I would want other vegan people to enjoy despite my issues with the consumerism of the vegan world.  Vegan MoFo seemed like the place to encourage readers to eat something amazing.

If you have had these, you know what I am talking about.  If you have not and you see a box of these in your grocery store freezer, get them.  Vegan packaged products have seen many improvements in the last 2 years, this may be the best.  Sadly, I can not bring myself to give you the name of these products.  You will know when you see and taste them.

Balsamic Roasted Veggies with Tempeh

As I have said before, I really enjoy autumn cooking.  Soups and roasted vegetables are two of my favorite dishes.  I expect that Vegan MoFo will bring many of those types of dishes to my posts.  Since I have already dropped some soups on the reading masses, I figured it was time to get into the oven, so to speak.

I enjoy shopping.  It is so much fun, I will shop for a variety of things and find it relaxing and amusing.  The only part of shopping that I am disgusted by is the register.  My solution?  I avoid it.  I simply do not buy anything.  It is something that has gotten me the label of frugal but it has also helped me buy a home and take as many vacations as I can find the time for.  Last night, I was on the phone with Jamie while doing some shopping and she accused me of being quick to spend money on food!

Bah!

For her information, today I was wondering the aisles of the grocery store looking for ideas for today's MoFo post and it took me almost 40 minutes to buy three items.  Several hours later, I was eating an early dinner.

Balsamic Roasted Vegetables and Tempeh

2/3 of an eggplant (peeled and sliced)
3 portobello caps (cubed)
5 cloves of garlic (chopped)

15 oz of tempeh (cubed)
1/2 cup of oil
1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons of onion (chopped)
1 tablespoon of fresh basil (chopped)
1 tablespoon of smoked paprika
1 teaspoon of jalapeno pepper (chopped)
1 teaspoon of oregano
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of pepper


Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a glass oven pan, add 1/4 cup of oil, garlic, jalapeno pepper, and onion.  Roast in the oven for 3-5 minutes.  This will release some of the flavor of the garlic and onions.

In a bowl add the remaining oil, balsamic vinegar, oregeno, salt, pepper, eggplant, mushrooms, tempeh and toss until covered.  Add the mixture to the already roasting garlic and onion mixture.  Roast for 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven, add the paprika and stir well.  Return to the oven and roast for an additional 15 minutes.


Sadly, the picture does not to the flavor justice.  Mushrooms, tempeh, and eggplant all have a similar color after they have roasted, something I did not think about.  I added some chopped scallions and additional smoked paprika to the top to make the picture pop a little more.  The paprika was great but do not bother with the scallions.  This dish was a last minute thought, I actually did not decided what I was going to do until I was half way done.  It surprised me, it is extremely good, especially for this nice wet autumn day in Atlanta.

Make this.