11/30/2011 1 Comment Chili and Cheeze CrackersChili is not really picture pretty, but it sure is tasty. It has been "cold" for these parts (not by Michigan standards, but by Arkansas standards), so I decided it was time for a pot of chili. This was the result. This is vegan--the "ground meat" you see here is actually TVP crumbles. I soaked 1/3 cup each of pintos, black beans, and kidney beans last night, then this morning I threw the drained beans, a chopped onion, three garlic cloves, some chili powder, a 14 ounce can of diced tomatoes, a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes in my crockpot. To prep the TVP, I put a cup in a bowl with garlic and onion powder, a few dashes of liquid smoke, and a hefty bit of chili powder. That got put in the crockpot, too, after it rehydrated for a few minutes. I also rinsed out the bowl and threw the rinse water in the crock pot. It doesn't get any easier than that. To go with the chili, I decided to make some vegan cheez crackers from the Simply Heavenly! monastery cookbook. I've made these before, and I usually use the pasta maker to get the dough really thin. I decided to roll these by hand this time, as I knew I would blog about it and wanted to show you how thin I was able to get them by hand. Here's the recipe: 2 cups flour (I used white whole wheat) 2 teaspoons of baking powder 1/2 cup nutritional yeast 1/2 teaspoon of salt 1 teaspoon garlic powder 1 teaspoon of chili powder (the best is chipotle chili powder, but regular is ok) 2 Tablespoons of oil 3/4 cup water Mix this up and knead it a bit. The consistency should be play dough like and it won't really be sticky. Roll out in small batches and get it as thin as you can. I used a trick from Julia Child and oiled my hands, the rolling pin and the cutting board instead of using more flour. Cut as you like and put on baking sheets. Sprinkle with salt. The recipe says to bake these off at 375 for 5-7 minutes, but my cooking time on these is always longer (much longer) to get them crisp. Just keep an eye and nose on them so they don't burn. Maggie says that she'll pass on the vegan stuff, but she'd love some treats. She's not peed in my shoes or on the bathroom rugs lately, so maybe this treat thing is working out.
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11/30/2011 1 Comment My recent cooking adventuresFirst off, from PV (That's what we call Crescent Dragonwagon's book, "The Passionate Vegetarian", around here) we have cornbread stuffed tomatoes with a tomato gravy. This was a stick-to-your-ribs kinda dinner. It was an especially good way to use up the end of the heirloom tomatoes with some leftover cornbread. I will be doing this again, but will probably not do it until the garden provides more tomatoes next year. I can't stand grocery store tomatoes. Tomatoes are NOT supposed to be crunchy!!! For lunch yesterday, I had Tandoori Tofu with eggplant. I ate it with some leftover basmati rice with green lentils. This I will DEFINITELY do again. Just be forewarned, if you don't like spicy, this is probably not for you. Dinner last night was from the new "Vegan Slow Cooker"Cookbook. Angel gifted this to me for my birthday. It's got some awesome sounding recipes. This is Garlic-Tofu Mushroom Lasagna. It was pretty tasty. Mods I made were to double the garlic, but I used roasted garlic instead of raw. I am all about roasting. It just adds so much flavor. I also used some vegan "mozzarella" rice shreds on top, just to make it seem more "cheesy". There was still some thin sliced eggplant left from making lunch, so I threw that in, too. This was worth doing again, but next time, I will make sure I have more "bechamel" sauce to put on top, as the top layer of noodles was a little dry around the edges, so was a little chewy. All in all, I liked this one. Next time I think I will saute' a few onions with the 'shrooms. The "bechamel" sauce. I didn't adhere to the vegan code at our Thanksgiving dinner, but I only ate a little turkey and ham. Combined, they equaled one normal serving. Then afterward, Ben, Shelly, W and I went hiking on one of the trails in the Buffalo National Forest. It was a beautiful day. Now to figure out what I am making next from the "Vegan Slow Cooker". There's a Chili Relleno Casserole that looks promising! So, the full-time gig is an awesome thing, but it also means I have been on the road. A lot. So, that means that sometimes you wind up eating odd things.
My first trip in November, I planned pretty well. I mapped out the route to the Kroger, and on the way to the hotel from the airport, I stopped and bought supplies for the visit. My hotel has a small fridge and microwave, so I bought some Healthy Choice steamer/pasta things and their frozen potstickers (they have no meat!), as well as some baby carrots, some fruit, whole wheat pitas, a box of salad greens, and some red pepper hummus. Silk has those four packs of soy milk, so I got one of those too. The Asian Kitchen noodle bowls are also pretty good. So, I managed to not eat in restaurants and I had fruit and peanut butter with my pitas in the mornings and carted my little soy milk with me and had a grand time. The second trip, I hauled some McDougall's vegan soup cups with me, and I planned on hitting the Thai place (which I did, twice). We had some meetings where folks were nice enough to order veggie sandwich for Angel from Panera (more hummus!), too, so work lunches were covered. A colleague took me to lunch for my birthday, too, so that was a big bowl of greens. And, I figured out that Bob Evans makes a pretty good bean soup (I know that stock was probably not vegan, but oh well). The Thai place supplied dinner for me four nights (big portions=two meals from each order), and I now have a desk drawer full of soup cups for future trips. The hotel leaves fruit out all day long, too, so I can grab a banana in the morning, an orange later, and an apple in the evening. Traveling is pretty easy, really, with a bit of planning. I spent roughly the same amount both trips on food, too. Gone are the days where being out of town is an excuse to eat poorly--when you eat right, you also don't feel like someone beat you up on your trip and there's no real "recovery" time when you get home, which is nice. 11/3/2011 2 Comments Try it, you'll like it!Remember how I said a few posts back that I was tweaking the pumpkin/squash soup? I am getting very, very close to what I want! I had a couple of Little Dumpling Squash and wanted to do a roasted squash soup with them. I started with this recipe, but it didn't take long before I totally changed it up, and I am pretty happy with the results. Of course, I veganized this recipe as well. I was going to use a quart of chicken stock I had in the freezer, but after thawing, its quality looked a bit questionable, so I didn't use it. It wasn't vegan, anyway; and that's what we're into these days! I am going to post it here for mutual usage (read: so I don't lose a stupid piece of paper upon which I have written said recipe). Try it out, and if you do, shoot me a message and let me know how you like it! Roasted Squash and Red Pepper Soup 2 Little Dumpling winter squash, cut in 1/2 and scoop guts out 2 onions, peeled and quartered 1 WHOLE bulb of garlic, wrapped in foil 2 whole red bell peppers (I used a couple I had already roasted and froze) Put these three ingredients on a cookie sheet, place in a preheated 350 degree oven for about an hour. Open the door a couple of times and say, "Ohmythatsmellssogood!". When the squash and onions are good and soft and starting to carmelize around the edges, remove from the oven and let them cool. After the squash are cool enough to handle, scoop the flesh into a food processor along with the onion, garlic and peeled roasted peppers. You will probably have to do this in batches. Put all of your puree into your soup pot. Add: 1 cup almond milk 2 cups vegan "beef" bullion (2 tsp powder mixed into 2 c water; not 2 c of powder!) 1 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp pepper 1 1/2 tsp curry powder 1 tsp of Chipotle Tabasco hot sauce (Love this stuff!) Heat through, serve up with a garnish of fresh cilantro, or not. Cilantro is one of those herbs that people either love or hate! I love it and it adds a bright note to the soup. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
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The Two Fat SistersRenee and Angel welcome you to their blog. Hopefully we can change our name some time. In the meantime, watch as we try to get there. Archives
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