Rice Noodles with Spicy Peanut Sauce

Rice Noodles with Spicy Peanut Sauce

Instant Vermicelli Rice Noodles - about half a container 

1 package of flax tempeh, chopped into small 1/2-inch cubes

1 Tbsp olive oil 

1 yellow onion, diced 

5-6 cremini mushrooms, sliced

1 large carrot, sliced

1 1/2 cups broccoli, chopped

Peanut Sauce (modified from Vegan on the Cheap by Robin Roberston):

1/2 cup crunchy honey roasted peanut butter 

1/3 cup Braggs Liquid Aminos

3 Tbsp rice vinegar

1 1/2 Tbsp light brown sugar

2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil

2 tsp grated fresh ginger

1 1/2 tsp Asian chili paste

water

For the sauce, mix the peanut butter, Braggs, vinegar, and sugar. Add the oil, ginger, and chile paste and stir until smooth and well blended. Taste to adjust seasonings - we like it hot, so sometimes we add some cayenne pepper too. Add some water to achieve desired consistency - we like it to be fairly thick but wet enough to coat all of the veggies and noodles. 

Next prepare the tempeh - preheat a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Once the skillet is hot, add the tempeh cubes and brown on each side. Set aside. 

Using the same skillet, heat some olive oil and add the onions. Cook until translucent and then add the carrot. Cook until tender, and add mushrooms and broccoli, cooking through. 

Cook the rice noodles according to the package instructions. 

Mix a little bit of the sauce in with the rice noodles to coat. top with vegetables and more sauce. 

Chickpea Cutlet Parm with Homemade Tomato Sauce

One of my favorite foods when I was little was chicken parm. Coming from an Italian family, the dish was served at many family gatherings. I remember a warm house with lots of hugs and smiles and loud chattering at a crowded table.

20+ years later, I still crave good Italian food, but it's surprisingly hard to come by in the vegan world. When we go out to eat, our options are Thai, Indian, and Asian fusion. Most Italian places would cringe at not being able to use cheese or eggs in their preparations.

A while back, we prepared Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon (if you don't have this book - you need it. I promise). J remembered this and asked if I thought we could do a twist on Chicken Parm using them. I said, "Why not?!" and we've tried it out on friends twice now. Everyone loved it! Below you'll find our modified version of Isa's cutlets as well as J's homemade tomato sauce recipe. The sauce recipe makes a lot so be prepared to save some in your fridge for another meal or you can freeze it for one of those crazy nights when you don't have time to cook!

Chickpea Cutlet Parm with Homemade Tomato Sauce

Chickpea Cutlets (modified from Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero's cookbook Veganomicon):

Makes 4 cutlets

1 cup canned chickpeas, drained
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
1/4 cup of homemade vegetable stock
2 Tbsp Braggs or soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, grated with a microplane or minced
8-10 fresh basil leaves, chopped/minced
1/2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1-2 fresh sage leaves, chopped/minced
1/2 tsp Hungarian paprika


In a mixing bowl, mash the chickpeas with the olive oil until there's no whole chickpeas left. Add the rest of the ingredients and knead for about 3-5 minutes, until strings of gluten have formed. If you've never used wheat gluten before, as you're kneading, you'll notice that the mixture will get a little more tough and you'll see these "strings" of the gluten forming. You aren't done until those have formed - that's what will hold it together and give it the meaty texture.

Next, divide the mixture in half, and then divide each half again so that you have four balls of dough. Knead each again for a moment or two and then stretch them out on a flat surface until they're formed into rectangles about 6 x 4-inches. They'll be fairly thin - about a 1/4 inch thick.

Preheat a non-stick pan over medium heat. Cook each cutlet for about 6-7 minutes on each side - browning them a bit.

Justin's Pasta Sauce
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
1 small carrot, peeled and chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped
1/2 yellow paper, chopped
1/3 to 1/2 of a poblano pepper, finely chopped
8-10 mushrooms, chopped or sliced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Tbsp fresh oregano, chopped
2 Tbsp fresh basil, chopped
1 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 Tbsp fresh thyme, removed from stem and chopped
1 vegan veggie bouillon cube (or 1 tsp bouillon powder)
Salt & pepper to taste (about 1 tsp each)
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 bay leaves
2 six ounce cans tomato paste
1 twenty-eight ounce can crushed tomatoes
5-8 fresh tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup of red wine (make sure to get vegan red wine!)
1/2 cup of homemade vegetable stock (optional)

In a large pot, saute the onions, carrots, peppers, mushrooms, garlic, oregano, basil, parsley, thyme, salt, pepper, and bullion cute in olive oil over medium heat until the onions are translucent. Stir in the brown sugar, cayenne pepper, bay leaves, tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, and red wine. Cover and let simmer on medium-low heat for 30-40 minutes, stirring often. If sauce is too thick, add stock.

Putting it All Together!
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a baking pan, layer the bottom with tomato sauce and some fresh basil leaves. Lay the cutlets on top and top with a few spoonfuls of sauce and sprinkle with mozzarella flavored Diaya. Bake for approximately 10-15 minutes, until the cheese melts.

In the meantime, prepare a box of spinach linguine in lightly salted boiling water. When the pasta is al dente, save 1/2 a cup of the starchy pasta water and drain the pasta. Dump the drained pasta back into the pot with 1-2 Tbsp of Earth Balance, 1-3 ladles of pasta sauce, and the 1/2 cup of starchy pasta water.

Use tongs to plate by pulling mixed pasta out of the pot and twirling down onto the plate (this creates a neat pile that looks beautiful). Add a little more sauce on top. Place one of the cutlets next to the pasta and garnish with some fresh basil leaves.

Long Overdue Vermont Vacation Review

For our third anniversary, J and I decided to take a little trip to Vermont for a long weekend. Normally, when I go on a trip I have this antsy anxiety to "just get there." I'll try to leave as early as possible and drive without stopping - "Don't drink anyone so you won't have to pee!" This time, however, we decided to make the drive feel like part of the vacation and now, as we start planning a trip to Pennsylvania for my friend's wedding this spring, I'm ready to do the same thing! Although it adds time to your day, it makes the commute MUCH more fun and you find little treasures you may not have if you'd blown right through. Below is a little recounting of our trip - with of course, a focus on the wonderful vegan food we encountered!

So - the night of our anniversary, we were still in town and J made us an INCREDIBLE dinner - Vegan Shepard's Pie (recipe to come, I promise!).

The next morning, we got up around 8 a.m. and were out the door by 9. We headed on over to OhNo Cafe in Portland, Maine for our favorite breakfast sandwich and Coffee By Design's Ethiopian blend coffee - our favorite, which is almost always on tap at OhNo. It's a baily bagel grilled, then made with hummus, spinach, avocado, tomato, and soy sausage. It's the kind of sandwich that I will randomly crave and immediately need. Like right now....as I write about it...I'm wanting one. Have you ever had a baily bagel? They originated in Poland and have this awesome little garlic, salty mix in the middle on the top. I just love them. Especially grilled. Ok, I need to stop...

We got on the road and headed down toward New Hampshire, landing ourselves in North Conway, New Hampshire. I used to live in Fryeburg, Maine which is about 20 minutes outside of North Conway and it was nice to be back in town. We stopped in at The Met Coffee House, an awesome coffee house/art gallery right outside of the North Conway Train Station. I got a soy coconut latte and J got a soy chai latte. Right by the register they had vegan cookies by the Alternative Baking Company so we got a peanut butter cookie and an espresso chocolate chip cookie. I'd seen Alternative Baking Company's cookies before but hadn't tried them and they're not too bad - a little dry, though. We liked the espresso chip one better than the peanut butter, which didn't have a very strong PB taste.

We sipped our coffees, nibbled the cookies and walked around town doing some window shopping at Penguin Gallery and Zeb's General Store before jumping back on the White Mountain Highway.

The views, of course, were stunning. J had never driven the White Mountain Highway before so it was a real treat for him!

We arrived around 4:00 in Burlington and were pretty hungry. After walking around a little, we found a nice map of the city streets and discovered that Burlington has a Dobra Tea House! Dobra is one of my favorite places in Portland - it's the perfect place to relax and enjoy tea and little treats. The atmosphere is foreign - you ring a bell to call your server and there is floor seating on pillows. When I'm there, I forget about the time flying by outside. So we stopped in to relax and enjoy some rooibus tea and a hummus plate. They have a great selection of vegan snacks and treats and they're all clearly marked on their menu. 

Afterwards, we walked around gazing in shops, stopped at the Lake Champlain chocolate store for dark chocolate dipped orange rind (the girl behind the counter knew exactly which items were vegan!), and then went to dinner at American Flatbread. We've had American Flatbread before - they sell their frozen pizza at Whole Foods in Portland and it's not too shabby. The interior of the restaurant reminded us A LOT of our own Flatbread in Portland, but the pizza was not quite as good. It wasn't bad, but the crust didn't have much flavor and their tomato sauce, made with oven roasted tomatoes and peppers, had a strange taste to me. The best part of the meal was the beer we tried - Sasquach - made with butternut squash. It was so delicious that we bought a "growler" full of it to take back to our room! 

The following day, we had a lovely brunch at a restaurant called Magnolia Bistro. It was clearly a hot spot for brunch, especially with the local college population, and there was a long line out the door and we must have waited about 30-40 minutes - but it was worth it! I ordered tofu scramble with tofu sauce and J ordered a veggie bean burger. It was super, super yummy. J's burger even came with a vegan potato salad on the side - something I'd never seen before. 

After breakfast we walked down a big hill towards the lake where the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center was. ECHO is fairly small and we were kind of glad we ended up going on a discount day because the price seemed sort of high for what we got. It was fun though, and there was a really lovely little exhibition on the origins of the race. 

We spent some time walking around the lake, which is just beautiful and then walked around town some more and found street performers and vegan cupcakes at My Little Cupcake.

That night we ate at Bueno Y Sano. I had thought it was more like a restaurant when I found it online, but it was more upscale fast food. Nonetheless, they had options we could easily veganize and they had seitan (almost every restaurant in Burlington had seitan - it was awesome!). 

The next day, we got on the road home fairly early and stopped in this little tiny town called Jackson, Vermont to grab some breakfast at the Lovin Cup Cafe. The Cafe is right on the main street and is inside what looks like someone's apartment. I ordered a sesame seed bagel with hummus and lots of yummy veggies and J got a focaccia panini made with seitan, sauerkraut, and maple mustard. Can you tell that I love bagel hummus sandwiches???

We drove home taking less stops because we missed our furbabies and wanted to get home to get ourselves all set for the week to come. Of course we sucked in the view on the way! 

All in all it was a wonderful trip and we'd love to go back and explore Vermont some more. We'd like to do a spring or earlier fall trip so we can get in some hiking and exploration. Someday!

Polenta "Caprese"

Caprese salad is made with some combination of fresh (uncooked) mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes. J made his own take on it using cooked and fresh ingredients and polenta to replace the mozzarella. It was incredibly delicious. The polenta was nice and crispy and the juice of the tomato softened it slightly. We used our own basil plants to top it off. Try it out and let us know what you think!

Polenta "Caprese"

Polenta, prepared in advance - J made a creamy polenta and veggie saute the previous night. We put the left overs into an 8 x 8" glass dish, spread it out smoothly, covered with plastic, and put it in the fridge. The next day, the polenta was nice and firm. We used a cookie cutter to cut it into circles and then sliced those circles in half (not through the top - through the side, still maintaining the circle shape). We had about 10 circles.
Roma Tomatoes - sliced into circles - one per polenta ring
Fresh basil
2 Tbsp Earth Balance
Olive oil

In a skillet, melt the Earth Balance. Fry each ring of polenta, allowing it to get a little darkened (we actually like a little char) and crispy.

In another skillet, add a little olive oil and heat the skillet. Fry each ring of tomato.

Plate: Alternate polenta and tomato slices, fanned out across the plate. Top with fresh basil leaves.

Spiced Lentils with Mashed Cauliflower and Delicata Squash

Spiced Lentils with Mashed Cauliflower & Delicata Squash

1 small yellow onion, diced
olive oil
1 small carrot, chopped
1 cup mixed french lentils
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 1/2 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp cumin
salt
3/4 - 1.5 cups veggie stock (Depends on how soft you like your lentils. We like them a bit firm so I used 3/4 of a cup.)

1 small delicata squash, cut into rings and seeded

1 small head of cauliflower, chopped
2-3 Tbsp soy creamer or almond milk
1 1/2 Tbsp Earth Balance
salt & pepper
1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne

In a pot, cook the onions in some olive oil until translucent. Add carrots and cook until softened. Add in spices, lentils, and veggie stock. Cover and simmer until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Once the liquid's absorbed and the lentils are cooked, remove from heat and set aside.

While the lentils are cooking, steam the delicata squash for 5-10 minutes until bright yellow-orange and tender. Remove from pot and set aside.

Steam the cauliflower for 20-30 minutes until very soft. I mean very - like falling apart soft. Remove from heat and drain off the water. Return cauliflower to the pot and mash with a potato masher after adding in Earth Balance, soy creamer, salt, pepper, and cayenne. After mashing it a bit, get it really smooth by transferring it to a food processor. Process until it looks like mashed potatoes.

To plate: Place a base of the mashed cauliflower in the center of a plate. Top with some of the lentil mixture and 2-3 squash rings. Sprinkle with a little salt and if you like, drizzle a little olive oil on top. Serve!

Serves 3-4.

Warm Breakfast Quinoa

So for the past few weeks I've been "sort of" doing the anti-inflammatory diet I mentioned several posts ago. The week I decided to start, I got a stomach virus and the only food I could keep down was pretzel rods - not all that gluten-free. Following my illness, I was pretty much on track until J and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary last week with a vacation to Vermont (more on that to come).

Although I've been loosely following this "diet," I must say, I do feel a bit better. I feel like I've got more energy and I'm not craving things quite as often. My general daily routine is to have my Warm Breakfast Quinoa dish around 7:30 a.m., then, as recommended by a former guest poster, I drink Bolthouse Farm's Green Goodness mixed with protein powder around 10:00 a.m. Sometimes I'll eat some almonds and pecans around 11:30 a.m. and then I have a salad lunch between 1-2:00 p.m. Occasionally I''l have some fruit in the afternoon at work, but I'm normally good until I get home. Dinner varies every night - last night J made polenta and veggies.

I thought I'd share my breakfast recipe with you, though. It's become a real favorite for me, topping my love of oatmeal even. It's warm and cozy in the early morning and packed with protein and antioxidants to get you on your feet. I make a big container of quinoa every week or so and I'm good to go for days. Remember - quinoa quadruples in size when you make it so a little does go a long way!

Warm Breakfast Quinoa
1/2 cup cooked mixed quinoa (I mix the red and plain quinoa - there's also black but our Whole Foods just stopped carrying it...which bums me out big time because it's my favorite kind!)
1 Tbsp chia seeds
1/2 cup defrosted frozen or fresh blueberries
1 Tbsp Sunbutter
1 Tbsp local honey
1 Tbsp chopped pecans
almond milk

I begin preparing this overnight so that the chia seeds have time to plump up and aren't crunchy. If you make it the morning, I'd suggest removing the chia, unless you like crunchy tiny little seeds that get stuck in  your teeth. So the night before - I put the quinoa in a bowl and sprinkle on the chia. Then I mix in the blueberries and a splash of almond milk - just enough to absorb over night. I cover it up and leave it in the fridge.

The next morning, all of the milk is absorbed and the chia seeds have plumped up. I add in the sun butter and honey and put it in the microwave for 2 minutes. I sprinkle on the pecans and top with some more almond milk, just as you would with oatmeal.

Curry Pumpkin-Apple Soup

Our fridge was nearly empty and I was craving a cozy fall soup. I've almost always got pumpkin and coconut milk on-hand, so a soup was born! If I were to make it again, I would add some grated ginger. If you want to try adding that in - I'd do maybe 1/2 to 1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger and add it in when the onions are almost finished cooking.

Curry Pumpkin-Apple Soup

Ingredients:
1 yellow onion, diced
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 small carrots, peeled & sliced
1 med. Granny Smith apple, peeled & diced
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp coriander
1 can pureed pumpkin (plain! not pumpkin pie filling!)
1 can light coconut milk
1/2 cup prepared vegetable stock
2 tsp cayenne (or really to taste - we like things super spicy)
salt & pepper to taste

1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1/4 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp salt

Heat a pot over medium heat. Cook the onion in olive oil until translucent. Add carrots, apple, curry powder, coriander, and salt and pepper to taste. Continue cooking until the vegetables are soft. Add pumpkin, coconut, and vegetable stock. Cook. Then use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth. Return the pot to heat and add in cayenne, salt, and pepper to taste. Once you have it at the desired spice level, remove from heat.

While cooking the soup, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Dump a can of drained garbanzos into a metal or glass pan. Sprinkle with curry powder, cayenne, and salt. Roast for 40-60 minutes until the outside is a bit crispy, checking the beans every 20 minutes or so and stirring them up.

To serve - fill bowls with soup, then top with several of the roasted garbanzo beans. Enjoy!