Spicy Baby Roasted Potatoes

A bunch of us are sitting around my living room right now, stuffed to the hilt. We're trying to eat our way out of 2009. We had hummus with veggies and crackers, pigs-in-the-blanket made with Tofurkey dogs, toasted ravioli, two kinds of cookies, and these potatoes. Also, Irish Cream and Mexican Martinis, but not at the same time.

You don't need a special occasion for these potatoes. They're easy, and go great with burgers and sandwiches when you're tired of fries.

Spicy Baby Roasted Potatoes

2 pounds tiny potatoes (yukon golds or red new potatoes)
1 or 2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 1/2 teaspoon paprika, including some smoked paprika if you have it
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon curry powder or turmeric

Preheat oven to 450. Scrub potatoes, dry, and toss with olive oil. Blend spices together in a small bowl and then add to the potatoes, tossing well to coat. Spread in a single layer in a roasting pan. Roast until fork-tender, about 40 minutes.

Cashew Tofu in Sweet Chili Garlic Sauce

Some people buy sweets on impulse. Some people purchase crunchy, salty snacks. I impulse-purchase spicy condiments.

A few weeks ago, on a whim, I bought some Sweet Chili Garlic Sauce. This is tasty stuff, not too hot, sort of like Asian ketchup. I love the proportions in the Eggplant in Black Bean Sauce recipe (which has a sauce from Wandering Chopsticks) so I started with that, used the ingredients I was craving at the time, and came up with:

Cashew Tofu in Sweet Chili Garlic Sauce

1 pound firm tofu, prepared as Baked Tofu Triangles
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 cup salty vegetable broth (no-chicken style, or from a bouillon cube)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons Sweet Chili Garlic Sauce
2 green onions, green and white part, sliced
2 baby bok choy, thinly sliced
1/4 cup roasted cashew nuts, roughly chopped

In a small saucepan, stir cornstarch with a splash of vegetable broth to make a paste. Add remaining broth, soy sauce and chili garlic sauce. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until sauce turns clear and thickens. Add green onion, bok choy, cashew nuts, and prepared tofu. Heat through and serve.

Serves 2 as a main dish or 4 as a side

Orange-Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've veganized a lot of cookies in my time, and I've got a pretty good idea what works, but this time, I felt like making something that had already been tested. I've experimented too much lately. Thus, I turned to Veganomicon, and made a variation on their Chocolate-Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies. They are a hit! They turned out exactly as expected, too.

Orange-Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
a scant 1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 teaspoons ground flax seeds
1/2 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur (or additional vanilla)
1 tablespoon grated orange rind (from an organic orange, if possible)
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat together the oil, sugar, flax seeds, soy milk, vanilla, Grand Marnier, and grated orange rind. Beat until creamy.

Add about 1/3 of the dry ingredients and beat briefly. Add another third, and beat again briefly. Add the remaining dry ingredients and combine with a spoon. Stir in chocolate chips.

Cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Spoon out about 1-1/2 tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball with your hands. Once all of the balls are on the baking sheets, flatten each slightly with the bottom of a drinking glass.

Bake for 10 minutes. The recipe is supposed to make 36 cookies, but I ended up with 27.

Post Punk Kitchen Gingerbread Cookies and how to make cookie decorations

It's Christmas cookie time! We'll eat half of these practically straight out of the oven and half will go into the freezer. I'll make a different kind of cookie sometime next week and freeze half of those. Then, we'll have two kinds on hand for Christmas weekend.

These are the Gingerbread Cutout Cookies from the Post Punk Kitchen. Instead of gingerbread punks, I made stars, moons, hands, fish, Floridas, Texases (what?), cats and Christmas trees.

I've noticed before that there is an inverse relationship to how easy cutout cookie dough is to work with, and how tasty the cookies are. So, when this dough turned out to be rather sticky, I wasn't upset, as I knew the cookies would be very tender and flavorful, despite coming out of the oven a bit misshapen.

Tender cookies aren't very good to decorate with, however. Especially in a warm, humid climate, they tend to crumble on the tree. So here's how you make them sturdy and beautiful.

Cookies for the Christmas Tree, Not for Eating

1. Make all the cookies you plan to eat first, leaving yourself with slightly less dough than you think you need.

2. Take your flour back out of the pantry and start working more into the remaining dough. Whole wheat is best for the darker color, but any kind will do.

3. These cookies aren't going to darken much when you bake them, so if your dough starts looking too light from the added flour, work in some cocoa powder.

4. After working as much flour as you can into the dough, roll and cut out cookies as usual. The dough will be stiff, but your cutouts will have neat edges and hold their shape well.

5. Make holes at the top of each cookie for ribbons or hooks. A plastic drinking straw works well for this.

6. Heat oven to 275 F.

7. Bake cookies for 20-30 minutes or until completely dry.

8. Since these cookies are made to be inedible, feel free to decorate with anything you want. Fabric paint works especially well. Just make sure your decorations are non-toxic if you have pets, as they may still think these are delicious treats.

Vegan Irish Cream

I veganized this from a recipe that my sister gave me years ago. As far as I can tell, it tastes exactly like Bailey's. If Irish Whiskey isn't handy, Canadian Whiskey would make a good substitute, but not Scotch. The versions that contain eggs are supposed to keep for a month, so this should last at least as long. I'm probably going to freeze some of mine, though. This is excellent straight, but I like it even better as a 747.

Vegan Irish Cream

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup soy milk powder (I used Better Than Milk)

2 teaspoons cocoa powder

2 teaspoons instant coffee granules (I used decaf)

1 cup boiling water

1 cup coconut milk (shake the can before opening)

1 3/4 cup Irish Whiskey (I used Jameson's)

In a blender, combine sugar, soy milk powder, cocoa powder and coffee with the boiling water until smooth. Add coconut milk and whiskey and blend.

Makes about a quart.

Tofu Pot Pie

Whenever I make gravy I make lots so that I can have this pot pie later. I used to make a home made crust for it, but we all like the puff pastry one better.

Tofu Pot Pie

8 ounces tofu, frozen and thawed if you have time, cubed

1 1/3 cup sliced green beans

2/3 cup carrot slices

1 8-ounce potato, baked or microwaved, cubed

1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups gravy (see below)

1 puff pastry sheet, thawed

Preheat oven to 350F.

Bring 2 or 3 cups of water to a boil. Cook green beans for 2 minutes, drain and rinse in cold water. Gently combine tofu, green beans, carrots, potato and gravy.

Oil 4 individual casseroles (or one large one) and divide tofu vegetable mixture among them. Unfold puff pastry sheet and roll out about an inch larger in each direction. Cut to fit the tops of your casseroles. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until pastry is golden.

Serves 4

Gravy

This comes from allrecipes.com and is the best gravy I've ever had. It freezes well; just heat while whisking vigorously to bring it back together.

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup minced onion

5 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup all purpose flour

4 teaspoons nutritional yeast flakes

2 cups vegetable broth

1/2 teaspoon dried sage

1/4 teaspoon pepper

up to 4 tablespoons soy sauce

Heat canola oil in a medium pot. Sauté onion and garlic until tender. Stir in flour and nutritional yeast and cook for a minute or two. Add vegetable broth, sage and pepper. Add soy sauce 1 tablespoon at a time, tasting after each addition, until gravy is as salty as you like. Simmer gravy until thickened, stirring frequently.

Makes about 2 1/2 cups.

Taco Salad

Do you remember the beer commercials about “Real Men of Genius?” I always loved the ode to Mr. Giant Taco Salad Inventor.

A culinary invention that baffles the human mind – a twelve thousand calorie salad…Some may ask, is your taco salad healthy? Of course it is. It's a salad, isn't it?

Unlike the meat and cheese fest in the commercial, this taco salad is quite healthy. But you can still eat the bowl. Crunchy! 

4/6/2011 I'm entering this oldie but goodie in this month's House Favorites: Vegan since I made these tonight.

Taco Salad

2 10-inch (or larger) flour tortillas

olive oil or cooking oil spray
3/4 cup corn, fresh, frozen or canned

6 ounces of burger crumbles
3/4 cup chunky-style salsa
1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
3 cups torn lettuce leaves
1 small avocado, sliced just before serving

Dressing:
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce (I like Bragg’s in this)
1 tablespoon lime juice (from about 1/2 a lime)

Preheat oven to 350F. Push a tortilla into a small oven-proof skillet or cake pan to make a bowl shape. Brush or spray lightly with oil and bake for 8 – 10 minutes, until just starting to toast. Repeat with other tortilla. Set aside.

Set oven to broil. Spread out corn on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Broil 2-3 inches from the heat until corn begins to brown. If using canned corn, make sure you’ve drained it well and stir once or twice while broiling it. Set aside.

Heat burger crumbles, salsa, chili powder, cumin and garlic powder in a small saucepan.

Whisk together dressing ingredients.

To assemble salads, place one tortilla bowl on each plate. Divide lettuce leaves between the bowls and drizzle with about half the dressing. Add the burger crumble-salsa mixture to the lettuce and top with the corn and avocado slices. Spoon remaining dressing on top.

Serves 2.