MoFo Day 16: Blandest of the bland

[I accidentally deleted the pics of this dish from my camera.... oops!]

Years ago, I was milling around Borders (RIP) and found Appetizers, Finger Food, Buffets and Parties for $5. It's a huge book with pictures of every recipe and it's reasonably veg-friendly. Since it's the same price as a magazine, it was definitely worth the cost just to look at all the pretty plating. My sister made a few very simple recipes (salsamole and caprese sandwich skewers) that she liked, but in 5 years, I've never cooked out of it. Perhaps that's a good thing, because the Avocado Tabbouleh Wraps I made were so bland I didn't finish them, and I like bland food and hate wasting anything.

They're exactly what they sound like... very plain tabbouleh and some mashed avocado in a tortilla. My first clue that this wasn't tested/edited should have been that the recipe said it made 6 servings but only called for 4 tortillas. And they were served like wraps, not cut into cute slices or something. Even after sitting for 6 hours, the tabbouleh was still really bland. It only called for 2T each of parsley and mint, for 1 cup of uncooked bulgur. One great thing about metro Detroit is that there are as many falafel shops as McDonalds due to the large Middle Eastern population. I have a pretty good idea of how tabbouleh should look and taste, and this wasn't happening. I added a lot more herbs and lemon juice and it got a little better, but still not great. The "avocado" part was mashed up avocado with lemon juice and red onion. That can't NOT taste good, but it wasn't delicious enough to mask the wheat tortilla and wheat salad. I threw away half the tabbouleh because there was too much and it wasn't good enough to eat on its own. I ate wraps twice at work, but only because I was too busy to step away from my desk long enough to even go downstairs to grab something.

While they weren't inedible, they were definitely not enjoyable. Sad day for MoFo :(

MoFo Day 15: Bars!

[I accidentally deleted the pics of this dish from my camera.... oops!]

The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur is one of those beautiful books that I immediately fell in love with and bought without considering whether I’d actually use it. I love the classic peanut butter cookies, and my sister got rave reviews on the biscotti she made last Christmas, but otherwise I never look at it. I guess I’m a cookie purist and most of the recipes are inventive. Also, I have no self-control and if I bake a batch of cookies, I will eat all of them immediately, so I try to avoid random baking.

I was looking for a dessert to take to my parents’ house for dinner and my MoFo cookbook options are dwindling. I had some butterscotch chips and coconut in my pantry and thought the Seven Layer Bars would be a good option. Keebler and Nabisco both make vegan graham crackers and I’ve never had a problem finding them. The universe conspired against me today, though, because I went to four grocery stores looking for them (Detroit Meijer, Hazel Park Kroger, Ferndale Foods, and finally Western Market in Ferndale). Western Market is the place I would least expect as it’s a small, gourmet market, but they had BOTH Keebler and Nabisco. When it rains, it pours, right?

The recipe has you make a graham cracker crust and top it with chocolate chips. Then you make a caramel to top the chocolate. I way overcooked my caramel. The recipe could have been more specific about cooking time and method, but I should have researched “soft ball” stage before my first candy-making attempt. By the time I took it off the stove, it had reduced a lot and didn’t spread in the pan. I poured the glob in the middle of the pan and tried spreading it, which melted the chocolate and made a mess. I soldiered on and added the coconut, butterscotch chips, and nuts and attempted to press them into the thick chocolate-caramel glob in the middle of the pan.

I served it for dessert with ice cream and it was good, but really sweet. There wasn’t much added sugar – just 3T of agave in the crust and 1/3 cup of brown sugar in the caramel. I would definitely omit the agave from the crust next time. About 50% of the coconut, butterscotch chips and nuts fell off between serving and consuming, but that was because of my caramel mistake, not the recipe. I prefer the Magical Coconut Bars in Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, but these are more like traditional 7 layer bars, if that's what you're going for.

MoFo Day 14: Vegan Brunch Basics

Vegan Brunch is the only cookbook I've ever preordered. As soon as I heard it had recipes for tofu omelets and cinnamon rolls, I had to have it. I made both the first week and they were amazing. I've made a significant amount of the recipes in this book. I love that it has a ton of options - bagels for ambitious mornings, peanut butter waffles for gluttonous mornings, quiche for fancy mornings, polenta rancheros for cold mornings - and they are all delicious. I was having a difficult time choosing from so many great recipes, so I opted to go with the basics: Basic Scrambled Tofu and Tempeh Bacon Revamped. Those are two of my brunch staples and I haven't used a recipe for either in at least 5 years. I was curious to see how my versions would stack up against Isa's.

I took a few liberties with the tempeh bacon. I didn't read the recipe before going to the grocery store last night, so I had to use pizza sauce instead of tomato paste and vanilla-infused maple syrup instead of plain. I was also in a hurry, so it only marinated for 30 minutes instead of an hour.

A while back, I saw a link to 19 Signs You've Been Vegan Too Long on Buzzfeed. A lot of their lists are pure cliche, but this one was dead on. I do all of those things. See #9 below. After years of struggling with tempeh packages, I realized it would be much easier to cut through the center back.

While the tempeh was marinating, I got started on the tofu:

(I write the names on the top of my spices so they're easier to pick out of the cupboard. #winning). I usually put a ton of veggies in my scramble, so I was skeptical that I would like it with just garlic (not even an onion!), but I gave it a shot. In this recipe, you brown the tofu, then add spices mixed with water and then a ton of nutritional yeast. As with the tempeh, I didn't read the recipe before going to the store so I bought firm tofu instead of super firm. It took a little longer to brown but otherwise it was fine.

While the tofu was cooking, I pan-fried the tempeh. I rarely fry things, so I'm always astounded by the mess it makes all over my stove. I initially planned to make hashbrowns because I still have half a bag from my breakfast soup, but I didn't have enough large skillets.  

 

I portioned it out into four servings, poured a cup of coffee, and patted myself on the back for making one of the most delicious breakfasts I've ever had. Seriously, this tofu scramble is AMAZING. I'd serve it to omni's without hesitation. The spice blend is perfect and the nooch (vegan for 'nutritional yeast') adds the perfect amount of coating. The tempeh bacon is also fantastic. The maple syrup lends another flavor layer and helped get that caramelized edge that I love. I just want it to be tomorrow morning so I can eat this again!

MoFo Day 12: Swiss cheese waffles

Vegan with a Vengeance was one of the original “cool” vegan cookbooks. It seems like a great new one is being published every week now, but back in 2005, there weren't so many options. A number of my standard recipes are in here - I’ve made the reuben and tempeh bacon so many times that I don’t need the recipe. The pizza crust and chocolate chip cookies are my go-to’s. And I’ve never tasted a better cake (bakery, restaurant, homemade, whatever) than the Raspberry Blackout Cake. Sadly, though, glossy new cookbooks tend to grab my attention and I rarely think of this one when I’m looking for recipes. 

In the spirit of using my neglected small appliances, I made Lemon Corn Waffles with Blueberry Sauce. I was skeptical about cornmeal in waffles, but the Cornmeal Waffles in Vegan Brunch blew my mind. It’s crunchy and savory and delicious and amazing. So with great expectations, I set off: 

The recipe is pretty standard vegan waffle/pancake fare: sift flours and baking powder, add milk/oil mixture and mix until just combined. The blueberry sauce was also pretty standard: cook fruit, thickener and sweetener until soft. Everything was going well until cooking time. No matter how long I cooked them, they were soggy. The batter was pretty thin, but I hadn’t used my waffle maker in a year (at least), so the issues were likely caused by operator error.  They turned into a very sad pile of swiss cheese: 

The blueberry sauce turned out fine, and the waffles taste good, they’re just more like lemon grits than waffles. Fortunately, though, lemon grits drowned in blueberry sauce isn’t a bad combination! I foresee lots of waffles in my future as I get reacquainted with my waffle maker.

MoFo Day 11: Real Salad Daily

Club sandwiches have always been one of my favorite foods. Whenever I see a vegan club on a restaurant menu, I order it. Back in 2010, I was planning a trip to Los Angeles. While researching restaurants, I found quarrygirl had recently rated the club sandwich at Real Food Daily as the best in LA, so I had to make a stop there. During the four days I was in LA, I ate at RFD three times (I mandated the first, the next two were at my omni companion’s request – that’s how good it was). Fast forward to 2012 and I saw The Real Food Daily Cookbook on Amazon for a pretty low price. The book has a lot of tempting pictures, and one that has always stuck out is the Mexicali Chop Salad with Crispy Tortilla Strips and Lime-Cilantro Vinaigrette. Since the past few days have been over 90 degrees, a citrusy salad sounded perfect.

I’ve been pretty good about following recipes exactly during MoFo, but I got lazy on this one. The recipe made six servings, so I halved it. I don’t mind eating the same thing all week, and I even kind of like soggy salad, but not after six days. I used canned beans (didn’t plan ahead to soak dry beans), and left out the cayenne pepper (I was out), celery (forgot to buy), and maple crystals (it was raining and I was hungry, so I didn’t want to go on a scavenger hunt). Aside from roasting the red pepper and baking the tortilla strips, this was really easy. I considered buying tortilla strips, but I’m glad I didn’t. These were fantastic. With a glass of wine, this was the perfect dinner for an Arrested Development marathon.

MoFo Day 10: [bad seitan pun]

With MoFo one third complete, I'm making steady progress through my stack of cookbooks. I'm surprised I waited this long to use Chloe's Kitchen since it's my newest acquisition and every recipe sounds fantastic. I think I started salivating when I saw the picture of Mongolian BBQ Seitan, so that's what I went with. The recipe is posted here.

The book claims this is "almost effortless to make." I'd dispute that, but it wasn't difficult and would have been super fast, except I had to wait an hour for the brown rice to cook. Poor planning aside, it's stir-fried mushrooms, seitan and snow peas in a reduced hoisin-based sauce. The seasonings are fresh ginger, cinnamon and cloves. I couldn't get over it smelling like gingersnap cookies while I was making it, and that stuck with me while I was eating it. Next time I'll skip them entirely.

One funny thing about this book is that it has a bunch of pictures of the author in it, with a weird open-mouth smile staring back at me whenever I turn a page. Chloe came on the vegan scene when she won Cupcake Wars, and I always wonder how she stays so thin while developing all those dessert recipes. When I portioned out the four servings, I figured out why:

Portion control! I really like books that list calorie information with recipes - not because I'm counting, but it gives me an idea of whether I need to make sides. These are pretty small portions. It certainly won't hurt me to have a smaller lunch, but I'm training for the Free Press Marathon with morning runs, so I get really grumpy at work if I don't have a decent sized lunch. Or I go buy McClure's Garlic Dill Potato Chips, which are the most amazing thing on the planet, and inhale the entire bag before I even get back to my desk.

MoFo Day 9: Nostalgia Pancakes

Vegan Planet will forever hold a special place in my heart as my first cookbook. It was a Christmas gift shortly after I went vegan in 2004. As a college sophomore, my cooking skills were light and my knowledge of food beyond the SAD was nonexistent. I learned more from this book than any textbook that year. A few of the recipes were failures, but a lot of that was not knowing that the griddle had to be hot BEFORE putting the french toast on it or that you're not supposed to stir rice while it's cooking. I had some major wins, too: the Pan-Fried Tofu and Watercress with Lemon-Caper Sauce is my standard dish for introducing people to tofu and I make the Tempeh Simmered with Tomatoes and Sauerkraut every time I have an open jar of sauerkraut. It's a solid book of simple recipes that I overlook too often.

I've been trying to branch out and make the more challenging recipes I always skip over during MoFo, but laziness got the best of me and I chose Flax-Berry Pancakes because I already had all the ingredients. The recipe is posted here.

They're pretty standard vegan pancakes, using flax seed and water in place of eggs. The recipe specified to use a blender to mix the ground flax seed and water, whereas every other recipe ever says to mix with a fork. I used my immersion blender as a compromise, but a fork would have worked just as well.

I've never been good at making pancakes and these were no exception. As usual, I overmixed the dough and had the heat too low at first. The batter also didn't spread, so my first batch were sad, gummy, pale patties rather than pancakes.  With higher heat and manually spreading the batter, they were looking pretty decent by the end.

That's tomorrow's breakfast, complete with vanilla-infused maple syrup from my sister (thanks sister!). Judging from my QC, I'd say these were pretty good, and definitely healthier than my standard vegan pancakes since they use flax seed instead of oil for binding.