Hoppin' John

I'm originally from Texas, but I never had Hoppin' John (a supposedly traditional Southern New Year's dish) until I moved to Massachusetts. Now I like to make it every year - and it's really easy to make vegan. My version usually uses spinach instead of collard greens, just because it's what I have on hand, and veggie sausage. This year I included carrots because I have a bunch in the fridge, and it added a nice sweetness.

Ingredients

brown rice

black-eyed peas (1 c dried makes about 2-3 c cooked)

water to cover the peas

1 T powdered veggie broth (I get mine in bulk at Whole Foods)

1 t smoked paprika

2 t cumin

4 links veggie sausage, diced

1 onion, diced

2 carrots, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 pkg frozen spinach

2 T Bragg's liquid aminos

2 T nutritional yeast

black pepper to taste

Method

After soaking peas for about 8 hours, drain and rinse well, then return to your pot. Add enough water to cover by at least 2 inches, then add your (salt-free!) veg broth powder, cumin, and paprika. Bring to boil, lower heat, and simmer for about an hour.

Meanwhile, cook your brown rice.

About half an hour before the peas are done, start preparing the rest of the ingredients. First, in a large sauté pan, brown your veggie sausage in a little cooking oil. Remove from pan, give it a wipe (or not), add a little cooking oil, and sauté your onion and carrots until softened. Add your spinach and a ladle or two of the cooking water from your peas and stir. Cover and simmer until the spinach is cooked. Add your sausage and mix well, then set aside until the peas are done. Once they're finished, combine your veggies and sausage with your peas. At this point, you may want to remove some of the water -- it depends on how much liquid you started with and how soupy you want the final product to be. I went for a stew-like consistency rather than a soup, but it's up to you.

Season the whole thing with Bragg's, nooch, and black pepper to taste and serve over brown rice (or mix the rice in with everything else if you like).

Brown bread in the bread machine

I love my bread machine. It's an Oster 5838 ExpressBake Breadmaker that I've had for a number of years. The best thing about it? I can make homemade bread in an hour. Seriously! The ExpressBake setting works really well. There were only 3 recipes in the 1-hour ExpressBake section of the instruction book, though, so I haven't used that setting as often as I would like. Recently I decided to attempt to modify one of the recipes (the Onion Soup bread) to make a whole wheat version, and it turned out great! If you try this in a regular breadmaker, I can't guarantee that it will turn out right, but here it is for posterity.

1 c + 2 T hot water (115-125 F)

2 T oil

2 T blackstrap molasses (the healthiest sweetener)

1 c bread flour

1 3/4 c whole wheat flour

1/4 c oats

1 t salt

2 T ground flaxseed

4 1/2 t quick rise yeast

Place all ingredients in bread maker in order shown, making sure that the yeast does not come into contact with any wet ingredients. Set breadmaker on ExpressBake 58-minute setting and hit start. Let cool completely before slicing!

Eating Animals

Tonight I finished reading Eating Animals, the book by Jonathan Safran Foer that's been getting all kinds of press. I liked most of it, agreed with most of it, and am giving a copy to my mom for Christmas. I am glad the book is so thorough in describing problems with our current animal agricultural system, and I think that's where it needed to focus in order to be most persuasive to the greatest number of people.

Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of people are taking in the arguments in Eating Animals and concluding that the solution lies in abolishing factory farming, not embracing veganism (and I think that's probably by design). That's what happens when you focus on the animal welfare story instead of the animal rights story. Even if "happy meat" is a total myth, people really really want to believe that it's possible.

Here are some quotes from the book that I thought were particularly interesting.

From p. 109:

In the past fifty years, as factory farming spread from poultry to beef, dairy, and pork producers, the average cost of a new house increased nearly 1,500 percent; new cars climbed more than 1,400 percent; but the price of milk is up only 350 percent, and eggs and chicken meat haven't even doubled. Taking inflation into account, animal protein costs less today than at any time in history. (That is, unless one also takes into account the externalized costs -- farm subsidies, environmental impact, human disease, and so on -- which makes the price historically high.

This is the kind of information that most people don't know, but it makes total sense. If in fact "Americans eat 15o times as many chickens now as we did only 80 years ago" (p. 137 in the book and mentioned in several interviews he's given), it's because of this.

By the way, according to the "Broilers: production and income" worksheet found on this page, there were 34 million broiler chickens produced in 1934 and 8.7 billion produced in 2oo4 -that's 256 times more in 70 years.

Here's another interesting passage (p. 220-221):

The idea of robustly humane animal agriculture isn't so much seen as objectionable to most people who work in the name of animal rights as it is hopelessly romantic. From the vantage of animal rights, the animal welfare position is like proposing we take away basic legal rights for children, offer huge financial incentives for working children to death, place no social taboo on using goods made from child labor, and somehow expect that toothless laws advocating "child welfare" will ensure that they are treated well.

In a section discussing Michael Pollan's work, Foer writes (p. 229):

...virtually all of the time, one's choice is between cruelty and ecological destruction, and ceasing to eat animals... A meat industry that follows the ethics most of us hold (providing a good life and an easy death for animals, little waste) is not a fantasy, but it cannot deliver the immense amount of cheap meat per capita we currently enjoy.

And here's a great, persuasive section from p. 257-258:

A good number of people seem to be tempted to continue supporting factory farms while also buying meat outside that system when it is available. That's nice. But if it as far as our moral imaginations can stretch, then it's hard to be optimistic about the future. Any plan that involves funneling money to the factory farm won't end factory farming... If anyone finds in this book encouragement to buy some meat from alternative sources while buying factory farm meat as well, they have found something that isn't here.

If we are at all serious about ending factory farming, then the absolute least we can do is stop sending checks to the absolute worst abusers. For some, the decision to eschew factory-farmed products will be easy. For others, the decision will be a hard one... the ultimate question is whether it is worth the inconvenience. We know, at least, that this decision will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve public health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in world history... How would making such a decision change us? ... One of the greatest opportunities to live our values -- or betray them -- lies in the food we put on our plates.

Finally, in the closing passages, he writes this (p. 266-267):

It shouldn't be the consumer's responsibility to figure out what's cruel and what's kind, what's environmentally destructive and what's sustinable. Cruel and destructive food products should be illegal. We don't need the option of buying children's toys made with lead paint, or aerosols with chlorofluorocarbons, or medicines with unlabeled side effects. And we don't need the option of buying factory-farmed animals.

However much we obfuscate or ignore it, we know that the factory farm is inhumane in the deepest sense of the word. And we know that there is something that matters in a deep way about the lives we create for the living beings most within our power. Our response to the factory farm is ultimately a test of how we respond to the powerless, to the most distant, to the voiceless -- it is a test of how we act when no one is forcing us to act one way or another. Consistency is not required, but engagement with the problem is.

Pasta with veggie sausage, kale, & cabbage

The last few weeks of the CSA, we received lots and lots of cabbage. I currently have 5 HUGE heads of cabbage in my basement! I must say, it's getting a little old - we've been eating cabbage every day for a while now. I made cabbage soup, put cabbage in my stir-fries, and used it in the braised veggie sausage dish I made on Sunday. I think I need to try making sauerkraut and kimchee.

Anyway, this recipe arose from the need to find more uses for cabbage. It turned out really well and was super easy and quick.

About 4 servings cooked pasta (I used whole-wheat rigatoni, but penne or spirals would work just as well)

2 links veggie sausage (I used my homemade sausage from Sunday), diced

1 medium onion, diced

1 shallot, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 28 oz can diced tomatoes

2 t Italian seasoning

1 medium bunch kale, de-stemmed and roughly chopped (I used a combination of purple and green curly kale)

1/4 to 1/2 head green cabbage

1-2 T Parma! (vegan parmesan), optional

In a large pan, saute the onion and shallot over medium heat until softened. Add the sausage and cook, stirring frequently, until lightly browned. Add the garlic, tomatoes, and seasoning, stirring to combine. Add the kale and cabbage, reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until kale and cabbage reach desired doneness. You may need to add a little water. If you have room in your pan, add the pasta and stir to combine. Otherwise, you can ladle pasta into bowls and top with sausage and kale. Sprinkle with Parma! to serve.

Vegan Dinner Party

We had our neighbors over for dinner tonight. They're not vegan, but are very open to vegan dishes and very willing to make vegan food for us. I made a very autumnal menu:

• Arugula and mesclun salad with radishes, carrots, walnuts, and cranberries
• Homemade onion soup bread
• Homemade seitan sausage braised with Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and radicchio
• Mashed parsnips

Finished off with an apple-cranberry crisp that our neighbors brought. It all came out really well and they both had seconds!

Moroccan Unchicken & Veggies

I had some leftover couscous from the stuffed squash recipe, so I decided to make a Moroccan-themed dish. Consulting various recipes, it looked like the spice blend should be cinnamon, paprika, cayenne, turmeric, garlic, and lemon juice, and that a garnish with fruit would be appropriate, so I came up with this. I love how the kale stands out against the yellow of the rest of the dish, and it tastes really, really good - a nice change of pace.

Moroccan Unchicken & Veggies

1 T olive oil

1 red onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, smashed

1/4 t cayenne

1/2 t paprika

1/2 t turmeric

1 t cinnamon

1 T lemon juice

1 T Bragg liquid aminos

1 can tomato sauce or diced tomatoes with liquid

1 package Trader Joe's Chickenless Chicken Strips or similar

1 head cauliflower, chopped

2 carrots, peeled & chopped

1 small bunch kale, de-stemmed and chopped

1/2 head radicchio, chopped

About 1 1/2 c couscous, cooked

1/4 c raisins (optional)

1 T vegan parm/nutritional yeast (optional)

In a large pan, saute onion in the olive oil over medium-high heat until softened, then add garlic and spices and stir. After about 30 seconds, add lemon juice, Bragg's, and tomatoes, and stir to combine. Add unchicken, cauliflower, and carrots, lower heat, and cover. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add kale and radicchio, stir, cover, and cook for another 5-10 minutes or until kale reaches desired doneness. Stir in cooked couscous or serve on the side. Serve garnished with raisins and vegan parm/nutritional yeast.

Soyrizo and Kale Stuffed Delicata Squash

Quick, easy, and yum! Delicata squash rinds are edible, which is nice. Plus they have a sweet taste that pairs nicely with a somewhat spicy soy chorizo.

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 delicata squash, halved, de-seeded
Olive oil for sauteeing
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 link of soy chorizo, crumbled or diced (I used Trader Joe's brand)
1 small bunch kale (or spinach), destemmed, chopped finely
2 c dry whole-wheat couscous

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 400 F. Place squash, cut side down, in a baking dish and add about 1 c water to the pan. Bake for about 30-35 minutes. Alternatively, cook the squash in a covered dish in the microwave, on high, for 6 minutes per pound.

Place couscous in a large bowl and cover with about 2 c boiling water. Cover and let sit while you make the rest of the meal. Fluff with spatula or fork before serving.

Saute onion till softened, then add garlic and soyrizo. Saute for a few minutes. Add chopped kale and a little water if needed and cook, stirring, over medium heat until kale is done to your liking (took about 3 minutes for me, but I like my kale with a little tooth to it).

To serve, place couscous in a bowl or on a plate, then top with half a squash and spoon the soyrizo-kale mixture into the squash.

Lentils and rice in the rice cooker

Just returned from a week in California, eating restaurant food for every meal. It's good to be home - I miss my own cooking when I'm away!

I have a Zojirushi 5-1/2-Cup Rice Cooker that I absolutely love. It makes amazing brown rice, which I make at least twice a week. Tonight I decided to experiment with making both lentils and rice together in the rice cooker.

I used brown jasmine rice from Trader Joe's, by the way - very good quality, organic, not too expensive.

2 rice cooker cups brown jasmine rice, rinsed (rice cooker cups = 180 ml, about 3/4 c)
1 rice cooker cup dry brown lentils, washed/picked over
2 c water (approx)
1 t minced garlic
1 t olive oil
1/2 t garam masala
1/4 t cumin seeds
1/4 t salt

Add all ingredients to rice cooker, stir, select brown rice setting, and hit start!

I served this topped with sauteed onions, kale, and tomatoes, along with fresh cilantro, a little Bragg Liquid Aminos, and nutritional yeast.

Ditalini-Veggie Sausage Soup

Definitely soup weather here, plus I'm still getting tons of veggies in my CSA share that need to be incorporated into various dishes. Soups are awfully forgiving and you can hide all kinds of vegetables in them! This recipe uses onion, bell pepper, radishes, carrot, garlic, and celery.

Ingredients:
1 T oil (EVOO or canola)
1 onion
1 green pepper
2 homemade or commercial veggie sausage links (I used this recipe, which is the best veggie sausage recipe I know of)
1 14 oz can diced tomato
1 28 oz can crushed tomato
2 28 oz cans of water
4 radishes
1 large carrot
1 stalk celery
8 cloves of garlic
1-2 t Italian seasoning
2 c dry ditalini pasta (small tube-shaped, about half a box/4 servings)
1 t mushroom base (or 1 un-chicken bouillon cube)
2 T nutritional yeast, optional

Method
Cook ditalini according to package directions in a separate pot or in your handy microwave pasta cooker. At the same time, add oil, chopped onion & green pepper and saute over medium heat. Add chopped sausage and saute until browned. Add tomatoes and water and bring to a boil. Chop carrot, radishes, and celery, then add them to the pot. Add cooked ditalini, lower heat. Add the rest of the ingredients , stir, cover, and simmer until carrots reach desired tenderness (about 20 minutes).

Soup x 2

I don't know about you, but when the weather turns in September, all I want is soup! So here are two soup recipes I made this week.

Italian Mish-Mash Soup
Olive oil
1 onion
2-3 cloves garlic
1 squash/zucchini
1 bunch kale
1 bunch dragon beans
2 homemade seitan sausages or Field Roast Company Italian sausages
1 c cooked quinoa
Broth/water to cover (~8-12 c)
1 tsp tahini (optional)
1 tsp balsamic vinegar (optional)
1 bunch fresh basil (optional)
1/3 c nutritional yeast (optional)

Directions: in a large stock pot, saute the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until softened and fragrant. Add chopped squash, kale, beans, faux sausage, and quinoa and stir. Add veggie broth/stock/water sufficient to cover the veggies. Bring to a low boil, then reduce heat and simmer until kale is done (~20-30 minutes). Depending on your taste and the flavorfulness of your stock, add the tahini, vinegar, basil, and yeast while simmering. Serve with a crusty bread and green salad.

Creamy Pesto Potato Soup
Olive oil
10 medium Yukon gold-style potatoes
2 medium fairy eggplant
2 medium leeks (white and light green parts)
2 homemade seitan sausages or Field Roast Company Italian sausages
1 bunch fresh basil
4 cloves garlic
Broth/water to cover (~8-12 c)
1 T Bragg liquid aminos (optional)
1/3 c nutritional yeast (optional)
1/3 c soy creamer (optional)

Dice the potatoes and eggplant and thinly slice the leeks. Add to a large stockpot with about 1-2 T olive oil. Put on low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add broth/water to cover and add remaining ingredients except creamer. Bring to a low boil then reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are done. Remove from heat, stir in soy creamer (if using) and either blend half in a blender or use your immersion blender until soup is about half blended.

Curry

Curry

Tonight's dinner was really fantastic: a Thai-style coconut milk curry with maifun (thin rice noodles), green beans and sugar snap peas from my garden, tomatoes from my garden and the CSA, broccoli, onion, garlic, basil, and cilantro from the CSA, and extra-firm tofu. Also included a little homemade peanut butter, red curry paste, Bragg's liquid aminos, and rice vinegar. Forgot to add ginger and lime juice, but there was already so much going on with this dish that I doubt it would have made much difference. The coconut milk, garlic, curry paste, basil, cilantro, and Bragg's were all blended in my food processor and added at the very end, along with the tofu. I actually had seconds, it was so good (I never have seconds!).

Kitchen Garden Day

table of goodies

Today we had a few people over to celebrate home-grown food. The food was really good! Afterwards we walked around the garden and discussed all the things we're growing. If you're not growing your own food, you should! So many reasons:

- Fun
- Thrift
- Grow varieties you can't get in the store
- Know where your food came from
- Food is fresher and maybe even more nutritious (if you grow organically)
- Connection to nature
- Totally egalitarian (everyone eats)
- Great exercise
- Satisfying and fulfilling

Not that I would want to be responsible for growing everything we eat - nor do I think we could do so, on just 2/3 of an acre - but I love being able to step out the back door to pick ingredients for dinner!

Soba with squash & green beans

Soba with squash

Tonight I made soba noodles with squash and green beans from my garden, adapting a recipe from Whole Foods. It turned out okay, but not great. Not sure what it lacked, but it seemed oddly flat. Pretty, though!

1 (8.8-ounce) package uncooked soba noodles
1 T canola oil
2 carrots, thinly sliced
1 large onion, sliced
1 T ginger paste
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 T Better Than Bouillon mushroom base
4 summer squash
3 T low-sodium soy sauce
1 1/2 cups water
1 T rice vinegar
1 bunch green beans
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 bunch basil leaves, chopped
1 block baked tofu, diced
1 t rice flour (optional)

Method

Prepare soba noodles according to package instructions and drain well. Toss with a little sesame oil and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add carrots, onions, ginger, and garlic and cook for 3 minutes. Add squash, mushroom base, soy sauce, water, and vinegar and cook for 3 minutes more. Stir in green beans, tofu, cilantro, and basil and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until green beans are bright green. Add cooked noodles and toss gently to combine. Add rice flour if desired to thicken sauce.

Cherry pie ice cream

The cherry pie ice cream we made last night (using the Wheeler del Torro recipe) turned out amazing. I probably wouldn't put that much cinnamon in there next time, but otherwise it was fantastic. I can't wait to make more of the recipes in there!

Non-dairy ice creams

This afternoon, we went into town for a Boston Veg. Society event featuring Wheeler del Torro of Wheeler's Frozen Desserts. He gave out samples of a couple of different kinds of vegan ice cream - a chocolate cherry and a mint chocolate chip - both were fantastic! We picked up a copy of his book, The Vegan Scoop, which he autographed for us. We're making the Cherry Pie recipe right now, using our own sour cherries from the bushes in our front yard. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

Hopefully, this will really help Mark keep on the vegan path - he has a total sweet tooth and is susceptible to the ice cream aisle in the supermarket.

Lentil stew with potatoes, greens, and mint

Made a very hearty and spicy lentil dish for dinner this evening. Used the CSA potatoes, beet greens, and garlic and my own mint.

Time: about 1/2 hour
Serves: 4

Ingredients

* 1 Tolive oil
* 2-3 garlic cloves, chopped
* 1 onion, chopped
* 3 cups water or vegetable broth or no-chicken broth
* 1 cup lentils, rinsed, picked over
* 4-6 red potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
* 1 T lemon juice
* 1 bunch fresh spinach, kale, or beet greens
* 3/4 t cumin
* 3/4 t dried or 1/8 c fresh thyme
* 1/4 t cayenne pepper (optional)
* 1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and onion and stir 30 seconds. Add water/broth and lentils; bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 10 minutes. Add potatoes; cook, covered, until potatoes and lentils are tender, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes.

2. Add lemon juice, greens, cumin, thyme, and cayenne. Cover and simmer until greens are done. Mix in mint. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

Indian food and sour cherries

We got a half bushel of potatoes in last week's CSA delivery, so I've been looking up good potato recipes. On Friday, I made Aloo Mattar (potatoes and peas). Turned out delicious!

We have a few pounds of sour cherries to process this weekend - bounty from our cherry bushes. Thinking about making a batch of freezer jam and dehydrating a bunch to use in my oatmeal in place of the cranberries I usually use. I've also got some currants I need to use up. Should be a good time!

Seitan burritos

Tonight's dinner was an effort to use up the last of my homemade chicken-style seitan (from this recipe - best chicken-style seitan ever!). I sliced up three seitan pieces into thin strips and sauteed them with 5 scallions (leftover from last week's CSA share). Meanwhile, I topped two whole wheat tortillas with refried black beans, some red-veined Italian chicory leaves from my garden, some fresh cilantro (also from last week's CSA share), and veggie cheese slices. Once the seitan was browned, I put half on each tortilla, folded them up into burrito-like bundles, placed into a small baking dish, and topped each with salsa. Popped the dish into the microwave for a couple of minutes and... done! Quite yummy.

I should note that I'm originally from Texas, so Tex-Mex is one of my favorite cuisines. I'm still getting used to eating it without a lot of cheese, though.

Purpose

[update, 2014] Unfortunately, I haven't had the time to keep this blog updated over the past 4 years, but I hope to get back to it at some point!

[original introduction]
Why start this blog? Mainly because I needed to motivate myself! I enjoyed documenting what I cooked and ate, and hoped this would be a resource for others as well.

I have been vegetarian for many years, and mostly cooked vegan during the time that these posts were written. My wonderful vegan friends have been inspirational, as have the vegan bloggers and podcasters I follow.

I used this blog to keep notes on food, recipes, and related issues. It's mainly for me, but if it helps someone else, all the better!