More from Viva Vegan!

Greetings from Planet Houston!

(The astronaut cow statue at Houston's IAH airport)

I'm back in Houston after having to testify in a trial in New York City.  I had forgotten how much I loved New York's vegan food.  During the short time I was there, I ate at Candle Café and Blossom, two of my very favorite restaurants.  I love Houston, but I don't know if a day will ever come that I can go out for a nice fancy dinner and order seitan in a port wine-mushroom sauce.  A girl can always dream.

In the spirit of yummy vegan food, here are the results of my most recent projects from Viva Vegan!  As I mentioned in a previous post, I made the Red Chile Sauce (page 45) and wanted to use it in the Red Chile Enchiladas (page 135).  To do so, I also had to make the Steamed Red Seitan (page 34) and Pine Nut Crema (page 45).

The Steamed Red Seitan didn't look like I thought it would; it was more tan than red.  

I eventually realized that I had only used half of the amount of tomato paste that I was supposed to use.  Even though I had gone slightly off-recipe, it still turned out delicious.  It was shockingly moist.  I've heard people talk about meat that falls right off the bone (gross) or melts in your mouth.  I imagine this seitan was the vegetarian equivalent.  

The recipe yielded twice as much seitan as needed for the enchiladas, so the night before I made the enchiladas I used the seitan to make a quick meal for Boyfriend and I- sautéed seitan, onions, and black beans with yellow rice and avocado.  Boyfriend LOVED the seitan.  All of the recipes I've made from Viva Vegan! have scored major points with him.

I also made the Pine Nut Crema ahead and refrigerated it until I was ready to make the enchiladas.  I tried out the Pine Nut Crema after I made it and was skeptical.  I'm not vegan.  I'm vegetarian, so I know what cheesy sauces are supposed to taste like.  This sauce tasted like tofu mixed with pine nuts.  At that point, I had a feeling I was not going to be thrilled with the enchiladas.  I made them anyway, and was pleasantly mistaken. 

The enchiladas were filled primarily with waxy potatoes and Steamed Red Seitan.  They were bathed in the Red Chile Sauce and topped with the Pine Nut Crema.  In the interest of full disclosure, I used some low-carb onion and herb tortillas instead of the corn tortillas that were called for.  I also ended up only making half of the recipe, since the full recipe would feed six people and I was only cooking for myself: one fresh meal and two quick reheated lunches.

The Red Chile Enchiladas were what I imagine meat enchiladas are supposed to taste like.  If I had grown up on this kind of food, or even if I had ever eaten a meat-filled enchilada, I'm sure these enchiladas would make great comfort food.  I'm happy to report that the Pine Nut Crema, in combination with the Red Chile Sauce, really did taste like a creamy cheesy sauce.  That kind of taste is very hard to accomplish with a vegan recipe, but Master Terry managed, of course.  The only down side to this meal is that it does take a lot of effort.  Since I made most of the ingredients ahead of time, it came together rather quickly.  Still, I think the next time I make enchiladas I might opt for a semi-homemade version using pre-made enchilada sauce and Daiya "cheese" on top. 

This cookbook might be too good.  I decided to give myself a little distance from it because I've been neglecting so many of my other cookbooks that I want to try out.  My newest one, "Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey", by Najmieh Batmanglij, has been begging me to experiment with it.  So, Latin America may have to wait for a bit while I head over to Persia.

Review of Viva Vegan!

Things are starting to settle down.  I graduated last week, moved out of my old apartment, and am now officially living in the new place in Houston, but I'm still awaiting the arrival of my belongings.  May was a busy month, and the last two weeks I've only cooked a handful of meals for myself.  I hate that.  Hopefully that will change soon.  I have big plans to finally make a dent in my long list of recipes to try out.

For now, I want to gush over the few recipes I did get to try in May.  I bought Viva Vegan!, the new Latin cookbook from Terry Romero, and it is truly amazing.  I've made 6 recipes, and they have all been fantastic.  This is my favorite cookbook.  I have over 30.  That's a big deal.

First, I made the Quinoa-Oyster Mushroom Risotto (Quinotto) on page 130.  It's supposed to be like a risotto with quinoa, but it didn't remind me of risotto at all.  No matter, because whatever it was, it was delicious.  It was the best quinoa I've ever had, and I've had some damn good quinoa.

The next thing I made was the Chimichurri Baked Tofu on page 100, which required making a batch of the Chimichurri Sauce with Smoked Paprika on page 43.  The fresh chimichurri sauce was bright green and tasted very fresh.  When baked with the tofu, it took on a darker color and a smoky flavor.  I loved the sauce both ways, and had some of the fresh chimichurri on the side with the chimichurri baked tofu and quinotto.

My next project was making the Annato-Infused Oil (Aciete de Achiote) on page 31 and the Yellow Rice with Garlic on page 96.  I found the annato seeds at Central Market in Houston.  They're bright red and give the oil its orange flavor, which in turn put the yellow in the yellow rice.  I don't know how to describe the flavor of annato, I just know that I like it.  The oil keeps in the fridge, and during my time off before graduation, I used it to sauté vegetables that I served over the yellow rice.  It gave the vegetables something special.  The yellow rice was also delicious because of the annato flavor.  I'll be making it over and over again.  The recipe calls for white rice, which is what I used, but I'm going to see how it turns out with brown rice.  I'm sure it'll be quite different, but I do like my whole grains.  Below, the yellow rice mixed with mushrooms, spinach, and onions sauteed in annato-infused oil.

The last recipe I tried was the Red Chile Sauce on page 45.  I loved this sauce, but haven't found the right pairing yet.  I tried it with the yellow rice and sauteed vegetables, and it was good, but not quite right.  I made enchiladas with what I had on hand (black beans, mushrooms, and onions) but the flavor of the enchilada filling and the red chile sauce didn't mesh correctly either.  Last night I was thinking that this sauce would be better with enchiladas filled with potatoes, spinach, and maybe seitan.  Then, I looked in Viva Vegan! and saw the Red Chile Enchilada variation of the Potato-Chickpea Enchiladas with Green Tomatillo Sauce on page 135.  Its stuffed with potatoes and the Red Steamed Seitan (which I've yet to try but have heard is, like everything else in this cookbook, fantastic).  I think making the Red Chile Enchilada is the solution for what to do with the giant container of red chile sauce in my freezer.

I love this cookbook.  Love it, love it, love it.  Don't be surprised if you see more of it on this blog.  I use most of my cookbooks for inspiration, but I'll continue to be cooking the actual recipes in this one.

Recipe Reviews from Vegan Yum Yum

I recently tried out two recipes from the Vegan Yum Yum cookbook: one great, one bad.  The first recipe was the Sweet Chili Lime Tofu with Collard Greens and Quinoa:

This tofu dish was delicious- sweet and slightly spicy!  The quinoa and sauteed collards were light in flavor, and when I make this again I'd make extra glaze and keep the collards and quinoa simple.   The real star was the glazed tofu.  Lolo (from the Vegan Yum Yum blog) adds sugar to her sauce for the tofu, which is what makes it "glazey".  I rarely add sugar to anything, but after making this dish I've been adding it to my stir fry sauces quite often.  I also loved her "tofu geometry"- cutting the tofu into triangles.  I am unreaonably finicky about making sure I fry each piece of tofu on at least two sides, and I've found that cutting the tofu into triangles instead of squares really makes it easier to flip the pieces with a spatula.

The other recipe I tried was the creamy broccoli dal, and I'm sorry to say it was very disappointing.  I would love to hear whether anyone else has made it and what they thought of it.  When I had my first bowl of soup, I thought the spices were lack-luster and the soup was not as creamy and thick as I had expected.  I tried the soup again the next day, since broccoli soups tend to be better the next day, but it was just as blah as it was the night before.

Despite my disappointment in the Creamy Broccoli Dal, I still wholeheartedly recommend Vegan Yum Yum's cookbook.  Soon after I bought the book, I made the Red and White Cauliflower Bake and the Baked Mac and Cheeze.  The Mac and Cheeze was pretty good (although not as good as the real thing), but the Red and White Cauliflower Bake was AMAZING.  It has a layer of marinara sauce, then creamy cauliflower, tofu ricotta and finally bread crumbs on top.  It was so creamy that eating it felt sinful, but when I calculated out the nutrition facts it wasn't too bad: about 480 when the casserole is divided into 4 large servings.

I recommend you check out www.veganyumyum.com, if you haven't already.  If you like what you see, buy the cookbook!

Seitan Tikka Masala

"India's 500 Best Recipes" by Shehzad Husain, Rafi Fernandez, Mridula Baljekar, and Manisha Kanani is one of my favorite cookbooks. The cookbook has a section devoted to vegetarian main dishes, but my favorite way to use the cookbook is to vegetarianize the meat dishes. It's incredibly easy and usually just requires that I substitute seitan for chicken. I've had plenty of vegetarian Indian food in restaurants, but have never found a restaurant with vegetarianized versions of Indian meat dishes. Now I don't have to miss out on "chicken" tikka masala.

Seitan Tikka Masala

Makes 4 servings

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsp minced ginger
• 1 green chili, seeded and diced
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 6 tbsp tikka paste
• 1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• Three 8-ounce packages seitan
• fresh cilantro to garnish

Instructions

1. Cook the onion, garlic, ginger, and chili in the olive oil in a large pan for 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste, tikka paste, and water to the pan and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.

2. Remove from heat and blend the mixture in a blender or food processor until it's smooth. Return the sauce to the pan and mix in the lemon juice, yogurt, and seitan.

3. Let the seitan simmer in the sauce for 10 minutes, then serve over rice or with naan. Add cilantro as garnish.

Cookbook Review: How it all Vegan!

I bought "How it all Vegan!" a while ago, but didn't really appreciate it until I decided to go vegan. This is not a coffee table cookbook nor a cookbook you flip through for inspiration, and there's no food porn. But this book is more than your typical cookbook- it's a guide to living a vegan lifestyle. My favorite part of this book is the list of ingredients to watch out for and an explanation of why each one is not vegan friendly. If I had kids, I'm sure I'd make use of the "Vegan Kids Stuff" section, which has recipes targeted at kids and fun things for kids to do in the kitchen, among other things.

The book has vegan versions of a lot of the dairy foods I'll miss: sour cream, grated Parmesan, and cream cheese. So far, I've only tried the garlic dill cream cheese on p. 86- pictured above with the book. I can't really say that it tasted like cream cheese, but it was yummy. And it made a nice addition to a tofu sandwich I made- and devoured!