Tofu Po'boys

A couple of times a year, I stock up on veggie "fish", either at the Asian market, or at a vegan Chinese restaurant that has a cooler from which the proprietors sell various meat substitutes for the diners to take home with them. The fish is wrapped in seaweed and sliced into oval-shaped slices.

Although the "fish" is extremely delicious, I've wanted to come up with my own tofu version for a while. For one thing, the veggie fish is expensive: $8 for a 600 g package, which works out to be $6 a pound. Also, the two places that carry it are on the other side of town. Finally, I wouldn't want to share what I make with you if I thought you couldn't get the primary ingredient! If you do have the veggie fish available, though, you can make this by skipping the nori step and the flour-dredging step and dipping it directly in the batter.  Speaking of the batter, I came up with it by replacing some of the flour in a classic tempura batter with cornmeal. It's a great batter, because leftovers have a nice texture when reheated the next day. Try it with some button mushrooms sometime.

I'm linking this up with Meatless Mondays, Vegan Monday, and It's a Keeper Thursday.

Tofu Po'boys

1 14-ounce/400 g package firm tofu

1 sheet nori, torn into pieces

1/2 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup all-purpose flour, divided

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup cornstarch

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon oil

1 cup water

Canola oil for frying

Drain the tofu and press for 20 minutes or more: wrap the tofu block in a dish towel or several paper towels. Place on a plate, top with another plate, and add some weight. The weight can be a heavy skillet or a few full cans.

In a blender, grind the nori with the Old Bay seasoning and salt.

Put 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour on a plate or pie pan.

Cut tofu into three slices and then cut each slice into four strips. Sprinkle about half the nori mixture onto the tofu and press into the slices. Turn the tofu over and repeat with the remaining nori mixture.

In a large skillet, heat about an inch of canola oil to medium-hot, 365 F to 375 F.

Combine the remaining 1/2 cup flour with cornmeal, cornstarch, baking powder, sugar, salt, 1 teaspoon oil and water. Stir until smooth. Dredge each tofu strip in the dry flour (this will allow the batter to stick), then dip in the batter. Fry about 1/2 the strips at a time. Cook until golden on the bottom, turn over, and cook until the other side is golden. Drain on paper towels.

Serve on buns with lettuce, tomato and cocktail sauce.

Cocktail sauce:

1/4 cup ketchup

1 teaspoon prepared horseradish

A few drops Tabasco sauce (optional)

Combine all ingredients. (I usually take everything to the table along with spoons and small bowls and let everyone mix their own.)

Serves 3-4

Fourth of July Punch or Sangria

I found the cutest recipe ever for Sangria on a blog last year. She sliced star fruit to make her Sangria look like the U.S. flag, just in time for Independence Day on July 4. It was ingenious. But why should the adults have all the fun? I decided that when I made the Sangria, I would make a non-alcoholic punch, too. I wanted something more interesting for the punch than fruit juice, so I used fruity herbal tea in place of the wine.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find star fruit at either of two grocery stores, despite having seen them just a couple of weeks ago. So I got creative and used a white gaya melon and cut out stars with a small cookie cutter. If you can't find star fruit or gaya melon, you could cut stars from a honeydew or cantalope.

I'm sending this over to Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Chris of Mele Cotte.

Happy Independence Day!

Fourth of July Punch

The best tea for this is one that is pink, such as one that contains hibiscus. The photo above is the punch, not the sangria.

3 cups fruity herbal tea (I used Republic of Tea Flowering Fruit Tea)

2 cups ginger ale

1 cup strawberries

2/3 cup blueberries

2/3 cup fruit stars (from one star fruit or cut from a melon)

Combine all ingredients. When serving be sure to include some of the fruit.

Makes just under 2 quarts including fruit.

Fourth of July Sangria

Use white or rosé wine for this as you will not be able to see the stars in red wine.

1 bottle  wine

2 shots brandy or cognac

2 cups ginger ale

1 cup strawberries

2/3 cup blueberries

2/3 cup fruit stars (from one star fruit or cut from a melon)

Agave nectar to taste (about 3 tablespoons)

Combine all ingredients. When serving be sure to include some of the fruit.

Makes just under 2 quarts including fruit.

Curried Roasted Potato Salad

This is the second of three posts about great food for summer get-togethers. The first is here.

My oven doesn't get the kitchen as hot as cooking on the stovetop does, so I roast vegetables a lot during hot weather. Since veggies are super tasty this way, it's a win-win situation.

I saw a homemade vegan mayonnaise recipe recently and thought potato salad would be a good opportunity to test it. From reading the comments on the original mayo recipe, I learned that light soy milk doesn't let this get thick, so when I mixed up some soymilk from Better Than Milk powder, I made it double strength. It thickened up nicely in the blender. The homemade mayo and  curry powder take this way beyond the realm of ordinary potato salad. 

I'm linking this up with the Hearth 'n' Soul blog hop. 

Curried Roasted Potato Salad

1-1/2 pounds potatoes

1 tablespoon canola oil

1/3 cup minced celery

1/3 cup minced yellow onion or sweet onion

1/3 cup canola oil

1/4 cup soy milk or creamer, the thicker the better

1 teaspoon curry powder

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar

Preheat oven to 400 F. Scrub potatoes and cut into bite size pieces (I like the pieces on the large side).  Toss with 1 tablespoon canola oil and roast until tender, about 30 minutes, turning the potatoes once or twice while roasting. Transfer to a serving bowl and stir in the celery and onion.

Combine canola oil, soy milk, curry powder, and salt in a blender until creamy. While the blender is running, add the vinegar a few drops at a time and blend until thick, about 3 minutes. (The mixture may thicken, get thin , and then thicken again.) Stir into the potatoes. Serve warm or cold.

Makes 3-4 servings.

Lentil-Mushroom Sliders with homemade buns

This post and the two following are all about great food for summer get-togethers.

I love tiny food and I've been wanting to make sliders since I first became aware of the trend a few years ago.  These would be a good way to get your friends and family to try something new. It's hard to resist food when it's so miniscule and cute.

I based these on my veggie loaf recipe, replacing the celery with mushrooms and the brown rice with quinoa. Adding the quinoa means dirtying another pan, but they also hold together better than burgers with rice in them. They freeze well and it only takes 2 or 3 to make an entrée-sized serving.

I made homemade buns for them, basing those on the Millet-Pepita Bread.  

I'm linking this up with Meatless Mondays and Vegan Mondays. This is also going to My Legume Love Affair, created by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook and hosted this month by Aqua of Served with Love.

Lentil-Mushroom Sliders

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup diced onion

4 ounces cremini mushrooms, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup lentils

2 cups vegetable broth, divided

1/2 cup quinoa

1/3 cup walnuts

2/3 cup rolled oats

2 tablespoons ground flax seeds

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon sage

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/4 teaspoon thyme

1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste

Heat olive oil in a pot. Sauté onion until tender, about 3 minutes. Add mushrooms and sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sauté a minute. Stir in lentils and 1 cup vegetable broth. Bring to a low boil, reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for 30 minutes or until lentils are tender.

In a small pan with a tight-fitting lid, bring quinoa and 1 cup vegetable broth to a low boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 15 minutes or until quinoa absorbs the broth.

Pulse walnuts in the food processor until most of them are a powder. (This works best with frozen walnuts.) Transfer to a bowl. Add remaining ingredients, rolled oats through salt. Stir in the quinoa when it's cooked.

Transfer the cooked lentils to the food processor and pulse to mash them, leaving the mixture a bit chunky. Stir into the quinoa mixture.

Form into balls about 1-3/4 inch in diameter, then flatten into patties about 2-1/2 inches across. Brush a baking sheet with olive oil, put down the patties, and brush the tops with more olive oil. Broil for 5-6 minutes a side.

Makes 18-20 patties, 6-10 servings. 

Sesame-Millet Slider Buns

1 cup warm water, about 105 F

1-1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 cup white flour

1/3 cup millet

1/3 cup sesame seeds

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons agave nectar

1 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten

1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour (or more as needed)

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together water, yeast and white flour with a fork. Cover and let stand for 45 minutes to 1 hour. This sponge will bubble up and double in volume.

Add millet, sesame seeds, oil, agave nectar, salt and vital wheat gluten and mix into the sponge with a fork. If you're using a stand mixer with dough hooks to knead, turn it on now. Work the whole wheat flour into the rest of the ingredients.

Knead with a mixer on low for 5 minutes or turn dough out on a floured surface and knead by hand for 10 minutes. If your dough is too sticky to work with, add more whole wheat flour a tablespoon or two at a time. When the dough has been kneaded enough it will not stick to your hands and will spring back when touched.

Place dough in an oiled bowl and cover loosely with a clean dishcloth or paper towel. Set aside to rise until dough doubles in size, about 1 hour.

Divide dough into 18-20 balls and flatten to about 1/2 inch thick and 2-1/2 inches across. Place the buns on a cookie sheet with the sides touching and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.  Heat oven to 375 F. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden on top.

Grilled Vegetable-Lentil Soup

As promised, here is the soup I made from the grilled vegetables from yesterday. It's a big bowl of smoky vegetable goodness. Since you can freeze it, you can have that goodness on a night when the weather or your available time won't let you grill.

I'm sending this to No Croutons Required, hosted this month by Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes. This is also going to My Legume Love Affair, created by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook and hosted this month by Aqua of Served with Love.

Grilled Vegetable-Lentil Soup

1/2 recipe of the Versatile Vegetable Grill

5 cups vegetable broth

1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes

1/2 cup red lentils

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste

Fresh basil leaves for garnish (optional)

Dice the vegetables. Simmer the vegetables, broth, tomatoes, lentils, oregano and salt for 15 minutes until the lentils are tender. Garnish with basil if desired.

Serves 6.

Versatile Vegetable Grill

Can you believe it's getting too hot to grill here? The weekend before last when I had planned to make this, it hit 102 F here officially. Unofficially - that is, according to the thermometer in my car - it was 105 F. I had to wait until later in the week when the high was back to the mid 90s, otherwise grilling would have been no fun at all.

A little bit Mediterranean and a little bit Asian, this  is one of the most versatile recipes for grilled vegetables I know. Usually, I serve it with pita bread, hummus and some fruit on the side, but the grilled veggies have also made their way into paella, on top of noodles, and this time after serving it the usual way, I made soup from the leftovers. I'll post the soup recipe tomorrow, but I wanted to make sure the recipe existed on its own on this blog, too, since I make it at least once a summer.

Versatile Vegetable Grill

1 sweet onion, sliced and divided into rings

2 red bell peppers, cut into about 6 pieces each

1 small globe eggplant or two chinese eggplants, about 3/4 pound/350 g

1 large zucchini, sliced into coins

4 large portobello mushrooms, cut into quarters

Marinade:

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup mirin

6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1/3 cup fresh basil, cut into strips

Place all of the vegetables in a watertight container or zip-top plastic bag. Whisk together marinade ingredients and pour over vegetables. Close container and turn upside down to coat the vegetables. Marinate for an hour or longer, turning the container once or twice.

Heat coals. Drain vegetables and cook on a grill pan until tender. Serves 4-6.

Rigatoni with Summer Squash, Vegan Sausage and Breadcrumbs

Squirrels* are jerks**. First, in February, they ate all my cauliflower, just as the first one or two were starting to bloom. Then in  April, as soon as I set out my squash seedlings, which were also just starting to bloom, they ate those.  This after I let them eat their fill at the bird feeder and even give them popcorn and tortillas. Ingrates!

So, I was anticipating having way too much squash to deal with later this summer and looking forward to all of the creative things I was going to make with it.  I'll just have to try out all of my ideas with supermarket squash, which is cheap and in season right now.  I saw this recipe for crumbed zucchini in Vegetarian Planet and thought it would be a great way to use lots of zucchini or squash. And since I still had some homemade seitan sausage in the freezer, I added some, which turned out to be the right choice. This dish is great if you want pasta but don't want tomato sauce or a cream sauce with it. The toasty, garlicky breadcrumbs really pull the ingredients together.

*To be fair, my vegetables might be being eaten by one of the other creatures that lives in my yard, like a possum or a raccoon. Or a vegetarian chupacabra.

**What we actually say about squirrels I won't print here, except to say that it starts with an "s" and ends in "heads."

I'm sending this over to Presto Pasta Nights, hosted this week by Kirsten of From Kirsten's Kitchen to Yours , and linking it up with Simple and in Season.

Rigatoni with Summer Squash, Vegan Sausage and Breadcrumbs

If you don't have homemade seitan sausage handy, 2 links of Tofurkey sausage will do nicely.

8 ounces/225 g rigatoni

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

4 fat cloves garlic, minced, divided

2 slices whole wheat bread, crumbed

1 pound/450 g yellow squash, cut into short, thin strips

1/2 teaspoon salt

black pepper

7 ounces/200 g vegan sausage cut into small pieces

Set a big pot of water to boil for the rigatoni. When water boils, cook rigatoni according to package instructions, drain and set aside.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet. Add half the garlic and the bread crumbs. Sauté until crumbs are toasty and set aside.  Add the remaining oil, garlic and the squash. Sauté until squash is tender. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the sausage and heat. Stir in the rigatoni and serve.

Makes about 3 servings.

Pumpkin-Walnut Oatmeal Cookies and learning to cook

I first learned to cook from my mom Eloise. At first it was mostly cookies. One of my earliest memories of us cooking together was when I put cinnamon candy noses on reindeer-shaped cookies, for Christmas when I was three. 

The cookie recipe was from a bag of Brownulated sugar (a cross between brown sugar and white sugar). Later, I laboriously copied the recipe in case it disappeared from the package. When Mom died seventeen years ago, I found most of our old favorites.

We also made Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies from the chocolate chip package and oatmeal cookies from the Quaker Oats box.

 

I have happy memories of making these seven-layer bars, one of the first things I made on my own.

I was so proud of the first recipe I invented when I was seven or eight that I typed it. Even though I couldn't spell "sugarless" or "dough", I knew exactly what I wanted to make: A dough of butter, flour, egg, salt and baking powder with grated cheese stirred into it. We never made these, but I imagine they would taste like cheese straws. 

Later we cooked savory recipes, often in Girl Scouts. This spinach salad recipe is the precursor to this recipe I made recently.

My sister was the quiche expert. I remember those quiches fondly, and kept making similar ones once I was out of the house on my own.

When I was 12, one of my birthday presents was a pizza "oven", a special pan that sat over an electric stove burner so that you could make a "perfect" twelve-inch pizza.  I never made a yeast dough for these so the crust was more like a biscuit.  I remember those pizzas fondly. 

I learned what to do with various spices from my mom. She didn't make spaghetti sauce like a lot of other people made at the time. Hers was so much more than just meat, tomato sauce and a half-teaspoon of Italian seasoning. 

When I was in college, I visited Mom one weekend. I showed up early on Friday while she was working, so I went to her lab, where she was a medical technologist. She showed me their sample petri dishes that they kept for diagnosis of various things like ringworm. It was a little bit gross, but interesting too.

Later, I went back to her apartment to start some chili, which she was going to help me finish when she got home. She had just started making it with ground cumin in addition to the chili powder and promised me it would be really tasty.

I opened the can of beans, saw some white stuff floating around on top, and freaked. I was sure the beans had botulism. I called her at work and she convinced me to set them aside in the refrigerator. It turns out the white stuff was just pork fat. The chili was delicious.

I never did find her curry recipe, which was so Westernized as to be unrecognizable as authentic curry, but which is comfort food to me now. I found out later that it was "Country Captain Chicken." I've made a vegan version of it many times since I discovered what it was called.

Mom wasn't dogmatic about making recipes exactly the same way every time. She liked to experiment a bit, and I've inherited the trait. When my son was small, I planned to make some classic oatmeal cookies, and then discovered some pumpkin in the freezer. I threw it in, added some nuts, and this has been a House Favorite ever since. I'm  also linking this up with  the Hearth 'n' Soul Blog Hop and Sweets for a Saturday.

Pumpkin Walnut Oatmeal Cookies

The moisture from the pumpkin gives these the texture of little cakes. You can freeze the remainder of the pumpkin and use it later in some pancakes or muffins.

1 tablespoon ground golden flax seed

3 tablespoons water

3/4 cup canola oil

Scant 1 cup pumpkin (1/2 of a 15-ounce can)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or additional AP flour)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 cup walnut pieces

3 cups rolled oats

Beat together the flax seed and water until the mixture thickens. Add canola oil, pumpkin and sugars and beat on medium-high until creamy. Add vanilla and mix briefly.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flours, soda, cinnamon, salt and cloves.  Using a large spoon, add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture, beating briefly on low after each addition. Do not over-beat. Stir in the last of the flour by hand with the spoon. 

Stir in the walnuts and rolled oats. Let mixture stand for a few minutes to thicken while you heat the oven to 375 F.

Drop by spoonfuls onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake for 9-10 minutes. Cool for a minute on the cookie sheets, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Makes about 36 cookies.

House Favorites: Vegan - May Wrap Up

Sunny and fresh describes all the entries in House Favorites: Vegan this month.  I'll have one of everything, please!

Adj at Tattoos and Champagne realized that most of the guests she had invited to her spring BBQ were vegetarians and vegans, so she had her first ever vegan BBQ. Among other delicious dishes, she made Grilled "Meatballs" and Potatoes and finished the meal with her friend's delicious Apple Crisp. 

The always irreverent and hilarious K Jackson was doing a cleanse earlier this month and made raw zucchini into Zucchini Bin Laden: Zucchini Noodles with Pesto at Epicure What Ails You. It's "seriously good and seriously easy to make."

I made my old favorite Spinach and Strawberry Salad with creamy agave-Dijon dressing.

I also made a favorite Grilled Vegetable Tortilla Soup, something I've been making since last summer.

Caffettiera of La Caffettiera Rosa is back this month, this time with Risi e Bisi, or risotto with peas. If you are doing a spring cleanse yourself, here is another great dish to have. All the little details she puts into cooking the dish make it special. 

At The Beet Reporter, Krista made Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Shortstacks with Lemon-Thyme Drizzle. These go together almost as quickly as you can say the name, and are a nice light alternative to Eggplant Parmesan. 

Raven and her husband have learned to make Thai food at home to satisfy their cravings. He makes his version very hot, so she makes "Mellow Yellow" Thai Curry as a delicious counterpoint.

Our collection of House Favorites is growing nicely. Thank you all for your entries this month. I hope you'll enter something in next month's event.

House Favorites: Vegan - June Announcement

As food bloggers, sometimes we get so caught up in trying new things that we forget about the dishes that we make all the time. These are the recipes we make repeatedly for house guests and potlucks. The ones our families won't let us skip on the holidays. Our beloved signature dishes. Our house favorites.

What are your house favorites? This is a monthly blog event where you can show them off. It will run from the first day of the month to the last. I'll have a writeup of all the entries by the fifth of the following month. The rules are simple:

    1. Your dish needs to be vegan. This means no meat, fish, dairy, honey or their derivatives.

    2. You should have made this at least three times and consider the recipe "finished." Any course is welcome, from appetizers to desserts. Variations on your favorite dishes are welcome.

    3. In your blog post, please mention House Favorites: Vegan, and link to my main page: http://chezcayenne.blogspot.com.

 4. Use Mr. Linky at the end of the monthly announcement to enter your post.

Of course older posts are welcome, but please limit your entries of older posts to one a month, or reblog about them during the current month to enter more. There is no limit to the recipes you've blogged about during the current month. 

Feel free to enter your House Favorites: Vegan entries in other blog events.

You are welcome to use either of the logos here, but it's not required.

If you have a recipe that's not vegan, but you can veganize it without changing the character of the recipe much, blog about your vegan version and send it in - there's no need to make the vegan version three times. If a vegan ingredient is an option, make sure that you mention it in the ingredients list and instructions. (e.g. Your ingredients list can say something like 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil and your instructions say heat butter or olive oil.)

Non-food bloggers can participate too. Do you have a favorite message board that welcomes vegan recipes with photos? Post your recipe, a photo and a link back to my main page on the message board. Then use Mr. Linky and leave a comment here.

Questions and comments are welcome at housefavorites [at] gmail [dot] com.