Vegan MoFo: Ultimate Reuben

I made a serious sandwich.



You can make sandwiches that don't involve this many steps, cookbooks, and dishes, but the effort paid off. Here's what to do.

Make sauerkraut.

Make pickles.

Bake rye bread. The recipe I used is Petaluma Rye from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. It's mostly whole wheat bread flour, with some rye flour, and caraway seeds.



I subbed soymilk + apple cider vinegar for the buttermilk and agave for the honey. And threw in some orange zest, because I had it and why not? I also brushed it with melted Earth Balance after it came out of the oven.



Mix chopped up pickles, a splash of brine, vegennaise, ketchup, and pepper together for your dressing.



Now, make the pastrami style seitan from Vegan Diner. Combine spices, gluten, and chickpea flour...



Knead it with the liquids and wrap loaf in tea towel...



Steam until it all plumps up...



And you've got yourself a big log o' vegan pastrami!



Slice it real thin...



And we're ready to assemble.



Spread the bread with Earth Balance, and pile everything on. I've been eating these for days, so some have had Daiya mozzarella and some haven't. Optional but tasty.



Grill in a skillet, pressing well, until everything's warm (and melty if applicable) and the bread is nice and toasty.



Serving with something fresh and crunchy, like this shredded apple and beet salad from Vegan Soul Kitchen, is advisable, but that's not to say that I didn't eat one yesterday with tater tots as a side.



Sure, a lot of effort for a sandwich, but once you've got the components made, they will last for several days and you will have quick, delicious sandwiches in a few minutes. And a good sandwich is worth it.

Cookbooks Used:

Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz
Vegan Diner by Julie Hasson
Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book by Laurel Robertson with Carol Flinders and Bronwen Godfrey
Vegan Soul Kitchen by Bryant Terry

Vegan MoFo: I'm still here, plus breakfast

Well, I took an unanticipated break, but I'm still working on cooking through all of my cookbooks! I made a mistake with this one, though, and accidentally doubled up on a cookbook! I could have sworn this curried tofu scramble with arugula was from Vegan Brunch (logical, right?) but it's actually from Appetite for Reduction, which I had already cooked from. But I already had the ingredients, so I made it anyway. Of course, this means I get to make something else from Vegan Brunch! I'm thinking pierogi.



This was great! Simple, quick, and flavorful. But what's breakfast-for-dinner without something carby?



Lemon Cornmeal Currant Waffles from 500 Vegan Recipes. I didn't have lemon extract so I put in a bunch of lemon zest instead. The flavor was good, but I am picky about waffle texture. I'll take a crisp outside yielding to a light, airy inside. I knew these wouldn't be my ideal waffles, since they have all whole wheat pastry flour and cornmeal, so they were pretty dense and bready. Still tasty, and certainly hearty and healthy. But my perfect vegan waffle: definitely the yeasted ones from Vegan Brunch. Incredible.

I don't know why I don't do breakfast-for-dinner more often, it's just so satisfying.

Cookbooks Used:

Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman

Vegan MoFo: New favorite way to freeze soups & stews

And here I am yammering on about how to deal with leftovers again. That's what I get for attempting to cook 48 recipes in 31 days...scratch that. 49. Yup...I bought Vegan Pie in the Sky. I swore, no new cookbooks while taking on this project, but I've been so excited about this one! You'll be seeing something from it soon...in fact, I just made a Chocolate Olive Oil Shortbread tart crust today. How's that for a teaser?

But, my apologies, we're gonna talk about stew instead of tarts today. I made the Moroccan Chickpeas and Zucchini from Appetite for Reduction, and it's a quick, filling dinner. You can find the recipe here. I used pattypan squash, because that's what I had on hand, and omitted the baby carrots because I don't love cooked carrots.

I like freezing soups and stews, but didn't have a great method. I don't have a lot of serving-sized leftover containers, and there's not a great way to defrost those without microwaving plastic, which I try to avoid. I love my Pyrex leftover containers, but I don't want to have those stuck in the freezer for who knows how long. And if I freeze in a big container, I have to thaw it all at once. But then I found this post on The Kitchn. Muffin tins! Brilliant. Just fill muffin tins with soup or stew, and put them in the freezer until solid.



After freezing, put an inch or two of hot water in the sink, and let the muffin pan sit for a minute or so. Not too long, you don't want it to melt! The soup pellets (mmmm!) will pop out with a knife.



Put them in a bag and stash in the freezer!



To thaw, just put a few soup nuggets in the microwave for a few minutes, and serve with rice, couscous, quinoa, etc. In my muffin tins, each piece was about 1/3 cup in a regular tin, and 2/3 cup in a jumbo tin.



I froze the borscht I made using the same method, and it worked beautifully. I had a hot bowl of soup on my lunch break, and the only dishes to wash were a bowl and a spoon.

Cookbooks Used:

Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Vegan MoFo: Spicy Noodles and Leek Miso Soup

I have backlogged food I should really be showing you, but I just had to post about tonight's dinner instead. It was SO good! One dish from China and one from Japan. Both of these cookbooks are just wonderful, in pretty different ways.

Kansha by Elizabeth Andoh is just a beautiful book. It's a big square hardcover with many large, gorgeous photos, and is extremely informative and well written. I've really enjoyed reading it, and not only have I learned a lot about Japanese cooking, but it also makes me feel really excited about and appreciative of cooking. She tries to really get at the heart of Japanese food culture and explains traditions and concepts, not just ingredients and techniques. I'm not sure how much I'll actually cook from it, because many of the recipes are fairly involved and it seems to take several different dishes to make a meal, not to mention many of the ingredients are hard to find in Iowa. But if I only bought cookbooks to cook from, I wouldn't have nearly as many as I do.



I chose the Creamy Japanese Leek Soup, which has a stock make from shiitake mushrooms and kombu, sake, miso, and leeks. That's it! It is a very simple soup, but very warming and satisfying. It's flavorful, but in a quiet way. She suggests it for breakfast, and that sounds great, especially on a cold day.



The Asian Vegan Kitchen by Hema Parekh, on the other hand, is one I'm more likely to pick up often. It is less of a coffee table book than Kansha, more of a resource for vegan recipes from many different countries in Asia. The book is organized by country, and by dish category within those countries. This makes it easy to know what goes with what, even if many of the dishes are unfamiliar. It still has ingredients that can be tricky to find, but these are dishes I am more likely to make for dinner, though since some recipes involve making sauces, stocks, etc. first, they are better suited for relaxed, leisurely cooking than for weeknight dinners.



The dish I picked for tonight, though, was fairly quick and really easy to prepare. I made it a bit more complicated because I didn't have chili oil, so first I had to make my own. Here's a good recipe.



The only modification I made to the recipe was to sub in TVP for "minced soybean gluten," which I gather can be purchased in a can, though I've never seen it. Minced seitan is also suggested as a sub. I sauteed the rehydrated TVP with ginger, sake, and soy sauce.



This was even delicious on its own! I bet it would be great with shredded veggies as a dumpling filling. Next, the chili oil is whisked with toasted, ground sesame seeds and soy sauce. To serve, you heap a serving of hot, cooked udon noodles into a bowl and top with some of the sauce, TVP mixture, and scallions. Mix it all up and eat!



I loved this dish. The sauce helped the flavorful TVP pieces stick to the noodles, so each bite was really flavorful. Very spicy, aggressively salty (if you're salt-averse, you might want to reduce it a bit, but I enjoyed it), and really hit the spot.

Cookbooks used:

Kansha by Elizabeth Andoh
The Asian Vegan Kitchen by Hema Parekh

Vegan MoFo: A Suggestion

If it's getting cold where you are, but you're too stubborn to turn on your heat yet, here's what you should do. Invest in nice thick socks, put on a big sweater, and go gather up your spices.



We're making chai! The recipe is Molokai Chai from The Balanced Plate by Renee Loux, and you can find it on her website. The basic method is, you make a concentrate by simmering the spices in water and then straining it. This will keep in the fridge for at least a week.



Once you've got the concentrate made, here's how you make it into chai. For every two servings, bring one cup of concentrate to a boil in a saucepan. Turn off the heat, and steep a black or green teabag for 3-5 minutes. Remove the teabag, and add 1 cup of nondairy milk (I used soy) and 1 tablespoon of agave or maple syrup (I tried and liked both, you could probably also use sugar). I bought decaf green and regular black tea to use, so that I could have a caf and decaf option.


I lost my other pictures of the finished product, so you'll have to deal with this crappy iPhoto picture, but let me draw your attention away from the graininess and towards my adorable new mug. I just bought it on a day trip to Iowa City.

While I was there, I ate an amazing waffle with apples, sage, and from-scratch vegan mozzarella at Fair Grounds Coffeeshop, one of my favorite spots for great vegan brunch and lunch. Too bad it's a 1.5 hour drive one way. Their waffle with vegan sour cream, dill, and chunks of potato is also great. They have lots of windows and art and plants, too, it's a great place to hang out. After that, falafel at Oasis for lunch and a masala dosa for dinner at Masala, a vegetarian Indian restaurant with clearly marked vegan and gluten free options. Iowa is underrated! I capped off the day with an incredible concert by Janelle Monae, and they were giving out chocolate soymilk boxes at the show!

Cookbooks used:

The Balanced Plate by Renee Loux

Vegan MoFo: Taco Night!

So, two Christmases ago I bought Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless for my dad, along with a tortilla warmer, but it wasn't shipped in time and I ended up getting him something else. I meant to give it to him for his birthday, after all, it has lots of meat recipes, but I just couldn't part with it. I really like Rick Bayless' cookbooks, he does a great job of sticking to traditional Mexican food or at least clearly telling you when he's veering off course, and the explanations of techniques and ingredients are clear and well-written.


He does offer vegetarian options in many recipes, but he too often does things like recommending subbing cubed tofu for chicken in his Tortilla Soup recipe. The thing about chicken is that it does have a flavor, albeit a fairly mild one. Marinated, baked or grilled tofu or tempeh, or good mock meat products, will fare better. With that lesson learned, I made his Green Chile Chicken Soft Tacos with the Tempeh Asado from Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero as a subsitute for the chicken. This resulted in a tangy, flavorful filling of roasted poblano chiles, tender sauteed onions, and smoky, toothsome tempeh wrapped in fresh corn tortillas.



I used the corn tortilla recipe from Viva Vegan as well. I had Maseca on hand, but not corn tortillas, so I opted to make my own, but to tell you the truth, I'm not very good at it. Maybe I just need more practice. I topped the tacos with shredded lettuce, not traditional but definitely tasty, and roasted tomatillo salsa, also from Mexican Everyday. The photos of making the salsa got lost in the computer spill, but you can see it hanging out on top of the taco.



This was a really great dinner, but definitely a weekend project, look at all of those steps! For a simpler meal, I used the leftover salsa and tortillas to make Chilaquiles. This is how I like to make them:

Cut up old tortillas...



Fry them in a bit of neutral oil...



Drain on paper towels and wipe excess grease out of the skillet...



Pour in plenty of salsa, give it a stir, top with vegan cheese (I used Pepperjack Daiya), turn the heat down to medium-low, cover, and cook until the cheese melts. You may need to pop it under the broiler for a bit if you have trouble with melting. Serve! I didn't have much salsa left, so these weren't as saucy as I'd like, but still delicious. I topped mine with lots of cilantro, obviously.



There you go, tacos plus a peek into how I'm handling all these leftovers. I invited friends to eat tacos, that helped tremendously. And I don't think they minded. You can find the salsa recipe here, tacos here, and tempeh asado here. For the tempeh, I used the broth option because I was cooking for someone gluten free, but I've used the beer and it's delicious. Corn tortilla recipes are easy to find, there's usually even one on the Maseca bag.

Cookbooks used:

Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless
Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero

Vegan MoFo: Miso-Curry Delicata Squash

I consider myself a squash enthusiast, but I don't think I'd ever cooked with Delicata before! Man, was I missing out. Tender, sweet, and you don't have to peel it? I'm in.



This was a really flavorful, hearty meal, with several details that really made it stand out. Basically, squash, potatoes and delicata squash are tossed with a sauce containing red curry paste and miso, and then roasted.



While that's happening, you toss chopped kale with lemon juice and a bit of the paste. The kale marinates and tenderizes a bit, but the only cooking it gets was when it is tossed with the just-roasted squash mixture. That meant the dish was flecked with bright, fresh green bits, which was lovely.



Chopped cilantro and toasted pepitas finish it off. My pepitas were raw, so I just popped them in the toaster oven on a pretty low setting for a bit.



I love the texture of roasted tofu, and everything really sucked up the miso and red curry flavors.



This recipe is from Super Natural Every Day, which I love. You can find the recipe posted online, but I do recommend that you check out this cookbook! It's by Heidi Swanson, of the wonderful blog 101 Cookbooks. She really excels at heightening the flavors of veggies and grains, and my favorite dishes of hers are the big, casual platters of veggies, protein, and whole grains tossed together, perfectly complimentary and sprinkled with bits of toasted nuts, herbs, and lemon juice that really make them into something special.



Though this isn't a vegan cookbook, it's all vegetarian and much of it is vegan or easily adaptable. The flavor combinations and garnishes, as well as the gorgeous full page matte photos, inspire me even when I'm not really following one of her recipes.

I'll also direct your attention to that cookbook holder up there. I used to think these were silly, but then found myself propping open cookbooks with edges of cutting boards, which were then lopsided and tended to deliver food right onto the page, or cans and bottles that rolled off the counter at very inconvenient times. This really does make a lot of sense. If you cook from cookbooks a lot, I definitely recommend one.

Cookbooks Used:

Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson