Vegan MoFo! Post #10: Potato Chipotle Soup

Much has happened between my last post and now!

First of all, my roommate and I revamped our Chipotle Taquito recipe a bit and ended up with a delicious soup recipe. Here's the recipe:

P o t a t o  C h i p o t l e  S o u p

Ingredients:
-5 large brown potatoes, chopped into chunks (about 1 or 2'' ea.)
-2 TB canola oil 
-1 large yellow onion, diced
-2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (canned variety)
-1.5 TB of adobo sauce (from the can of chipotle peppers)
-2 cloves of garlic, minced
-1 TB earth balance
-sea salt, to taste
-a hearty handful of fresh cilantro, de-stemmed and chopped up

_

Add the potatoes to a pot of water. The water level should be higher than the potatoes. You want about a 2:1 ratio of water to potatoes. Bring to a boil and then turn down to medium-high heat.

In a frying pan, saute the onions and garlic in the oil until soft.

Once the potatoes are very soft and mushy, smash them up with a fork or potato masher. Add the earth balance and sea salt and mix well. Add the onions, garlic, chipotle peppers, and adobo sauce and continue to mash together with the potatoes. Add more water as needed - you want the mixture to be watery, soupy. Cover and let simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in the cilantro and let simmer for another few minutes.

Serve with cilantro as garnish.

I also spent some time at Occupy LA recently. I helped facilitate a discussion on why it's imperative that animal rights and environmentalism be part of this movement. If you're interested in joining me and others in this effort, shoot me an email. This revolution belongs to everyone. 

photocred: http://evolvefish.com

In other news, our all-you-can-eat vegan brunch in honor of Dia de los Muertos is only days away! It's been a long time coming and I'm really excited to throw this event. LA doesn't currently have ANY all-you-can-eat vegan brunch places, and it's about time that happens! I'm also really happy to be donating a portion of our proceeds to the wonderful animal rights organizations, ARME. Check out quarrygirl's advertisement of the event for more details, especially if you're interested in coming!

S'all for now!

Vegan MoFo! Post #9: Announcements and Chipotle Potato Taquitos!

I've got some good news: I'm finally getting over my flu! It's been an annoying two weeks of constant nose-blowing, coughing, achiness, and general blah. It's also put a huge damper on my Vegan MoFo-ing! But I think this flu is coming to its much-anticipated end.

I've got some other exciting news: My roommate and I are planning a pop-up brunch cafe at the end of the month. It'll be an all-you-can-eat, Mexican style vegan brunch in honor of Dia de los Muertos. We're going to donate a percentage of our proceeds to a wonderful animal rights organization, Animal Rescue Media & Education (ARME). I'm thrilled to be bringing the community together to enjoy some vegan food, recognize this awesome Mexican holiday, hear some good beats from our DJ, and help a cause that I feel passionate about.

photo cred.

If you live in or around Los Angeles, you should come over and celebrate with us! Buy your tix in advance and you can save money plus be automatically entered to win a number of cool prizes.

In preparation for this event, my roommate and I have been performing many kitchen experiments in which we test out foods we plan or hope to serve. Although we didn't list taquitos on our finalized menu, we're working on perfecting a taquito recipe to add to the list. Everybody loves taquitos.

I think our experiment was a success. Here's what we did:

Chipotle P o t a t o  T a q u i t o s

Ingredients:
-4 red bliss potatos, chopped into 1'' pieces
-plenty of canola oil 
-1 yellow onion, diced
-a hearty handful of fresh cilantro, de-stemmed and chopped up
-10 small corn tortillas (about 6'' diameter)
-3 chipotle peppers, chopped (we used the canned variety of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce)
-1 TB of the adobo sauce from the jar of chipotle peppers
-1 tsp cumin
-1 tsp garlic powder
-1 tsp salt
-1 tsp paprika
-a dash of black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Oil a cookie sheet and set aside.

Boil the potatoes in a large pot until very soft. Drain. Mash potatoes with a fork or large utensil. Add the spices (except black pepper), the chipotle peppers, and the adobo sauce. Mix well.

Saute the onions in about a TB of canola oil until softened. Add the cilantro to the onions and saute for another minute or two. Add a dash of black pepper and stir.

Add the onion mixture to the pot of potatoes. Stir well.

Warm some canola oil in a frying pan using medium heat. Turn down heat to low. One at a time, saute each of the corn tortillas for about 45 seconds, flipping over frequently. Continue adding canola oil as needed. The goal here is to keep enough canola oil in the pan to get the corn tortillas to soften.

Spoon about 2.5 TB of the potato mixture onto a tortilla. The potato mixture should be placed in the middle of the tortilla, forming a line across the diameter of the tortilla. Gently roll the tortilla until you have an inch or so left to roll. Before you finish rolling, spread some more potato mixture along the remainder of the tortilla (the part you haven't rolled yet). This will serve as a paste to keep the taquito closed. Finish rolling the tortilla and place on the cookie sheet, seam side down. Repeat for each tortilla.

Bake for about 10 minutes, then flip the taquitos. Bake for another 10 minutes.

Serve with hot sauce, salsa, or guacamole!

Chopped cilantro and onions

Potato-onion-spices mixture

Taquitos!

Vegan MoFo! Post #8: Curried Split Pea & Chick'n Soup - Medicinal and Delicious

Curry contains a wealth of disease-fighting herbs and spices. I mean, below I offer a mere brush of the wonders these spices can offer. There is so much more and I encourage you to continue reading up on the many health benefits of curry!

Curcumin, found in tumeric, is thought to possibly help with arthritis and protect against heart disease and Alzheimer's. It may prevent colon cancer by reducing precancerous polyps [1], as well as other cancers, including cancers of the breast, blood, and stomach [2]. The way curcumin works to reduce or slow the growth of precancerous polyps as well as other precancerous masses is by inhibiting the enzyme aminopeptidase N (APN) [2]. Remember capsaicin, the natural substance that makes chili peppers hot? Well not only is capsaicin useful for fighting colds, but it's also helpful in reducing pain and increasing blood circulation [2]. Speaking of fighting colds, garlic is also thought to fight against cold and flu viruses [2] [3]. Cardamom and ginger are both useful in aiding digestion [2] [3].

C u r r i e d  S p l i t  P e a  &  C h i c k ' n  S o u p
adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance

Ingredients:
1 TB olive oil
1 can Companion brand mock meat in Curry Chicken*
1 medium-sized yellow onion, diced
3 carrots, sliced
3 stalks celery, diced
1 large red bell pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 TB fresh ginger, minced
2 tsp red chili pepper flakes 
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamon (I ground mine fresh, using a mortar & pestle)
a generous pinch cinnamon
2 tsp sea salt
8 cups water
1 lb dried split peas
fresh cilantro for garnish

In a large pot, combine the 8 cups water and dried split peas. Add a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and then immediately turn down heat to low. Allow to simmer until peas are softened (about 30 - 45 minutes).

In a pan, saute the onions in the olive oil until almost translucent. Add the celery, carrot, and red pepper and continue to saute until soft. Add the mock meat, garlic, ginger, spices, and salt, and saute on low heat for another five minutes or less.

Add the contents of the saute pan to the large pot. Stir together with the peas. Allow to simmer for at least another 15 minutes, but longer is better. I allowed mine to simmer for about 40 minutes.

Serve over jasmine rice, with fresh cilantro on top.

*If you cannot find Companion brand canned mock meats, any mock meat will suffice!

This is sold at my local Asian market.

Curried split pea soup over jasmine rice, garnished with fresh cilantro!

Vegan MoFo! Post #6: Brian's Special Vegan Banh Mi

You'll recall that I recently bragged about my roommates' plentiful and delicious vegan cooking. Well, here's the recipe for one of the dishes they made the other day! 

Banh Mi (pronounced "bon ME") is everyone's favorite Vietnamese sandwich. If you live in a major city, you very well may have had it before. It's traditionally made with meat, lots of meat, and, in Vietnam, it is typically a fast food (take out). My roommate's vegan version replaces the meat with tofu and it's deeeelicious. 

 

 Brian's Special Vegan Banh Mi

Ingredients:
-pickled daikon and carrot shreds (available at your local Asian market)
-1/4 avocado, sliced
-1/2 jalapeno, sliced
-Vegenaise
-Sriracha
-a small handful of fresh cilantro
-about 4 pieces of fried tofu, cut into small (approx. 2'' x 2'') squares or rectangles
-baguettes

Line the inside of the baguette with Vegenaise and Sriracha. Add the tofu, then the jalapeno, avocado, pickled daikon and carrot, then the cilantro. That's it!

Vegan MoFo! Post #5: Friendship Is When People Know All About You But Like You Anyway

Oh man, this is like Foods That Heal, Foods of Various Cultures, and The Barebones Kitchen all rolled up into one tasty blog post.

So, I woke up still not feeling well today (for those of you who may've missed my Sinus-Zap Tea post, I've been dealing with a flu-virus-type-thing for the last few days). Today, I am home from work, and yesterday, I even (gasp!) skipped my MoFo post of the day.

But here I am, bringing you vegan tasties, and you know how?

...Because I have fabulous roommates, that's how! I stumbled out into the kitchen this morning (cough, afternoon), my groggy-eyed, hair-like-a-birds'-nest self, and behold! THIS was going on:

 Brian: Do you want a Brian's Special Vegan Banh Mi?

 

 Olivia: Yes, in fact, you can try this Some Kinda Spicy Potato Pancake Thingie! that's still hot:

Yeah, that's a Hello Kitty toaster. Deal with it.

Olivia (adding): Want some Frickin Pumpkin-Spiced Coffee, too?

Me: Um, YES.

Dinero: Can I have some?

Typical cat, right? But he's so cute, so he gets away with it.

Refrigerator magnet: 

I just love this quote. The one on the green magnet, not the word salad thing above.

 I'm going to link to the 3 recipes above...very soon!  Two of the recipes are linked now! Working on the third. In the meantime, you should click on the linkz to said fabulous roommates' astrology and painting sites.

xoxo,
foodchain

Vegan MoFo! Post #3: Capellini with Vodka Sauce

Foods of Various Cultures...

Hands down, my favorite pasta variety is capellini. I love the delicate texture, and how the thinness provides more surface area to pick up even the lightest of sauces and flavors.

That said, vodka sauce is not, by any means, a light sauce. It's okay. It's still a great pairing, trust me.

It is common in Italian cuisine to use alcohol to bring out the flavor in tomatoes and other vegetables. This is often accomplished with wine, but vodka sauce uses, well, vodka. This was my first time making vodka sauce and I totally winged it. I didn't even know I was going to be making vodka sauce until mid-way through the process of making it. If you tend to shy away from free-style cooking, I encourage you to experiment with whatever's in your kitchen. No recipe, no plan, just go with it and feel liberated! When it comes to cooking, I'm a firm believer in not having firm beliefs. This is why there is jalapeno in my vodka sauce.

So, in the spirit of experimentation, take this recipe as a guideline rather than a formula!

C a p e l l i n i  w i t h  V o d k a  S a u c e

Ingredients:
1/2 red onion, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced 
3 large-ish roma tomatoes, diced
2 cups of mushrooms, diced - I used white button
1 1/2 cups basil, cut into fine shreds
1/3 cup French Onion style Tofutti cream cheese 
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup tomato paste 
2 ounces of vodka (or, one and a half shots)
sea salt to taste 

Saute the onions until softened. Add the jalapeno and garlic, then the tomatoes, then the mushrooms and 1 cup of the basil.

Heat some olive oil in a separate, large pot. Add the tomato paste and cook until almost boiling. Add the ingredients from above, along with the vodka, olive oil and water. Stir. Add the cream cheese and stir until evenly distributed (the sauce should lighten). Bring to a boil and then immediately turn down to simmer. Cover and let simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Salt to your taste.

When serving, garnish with the remainder of the finely shredded basil.

What I'd Do Differently Next Time:
Incorporate the vodka earlier. I think this would enhance the flavors of the vegetables even more than adding the vodka when I did. Use more roma tomatoes.

I served this with a side of broccoli and Tofurkey Italian sausage.

Nanny Foodchain's Tarallucci Cookies! My FAVORITE

Like, oh my god, my favorite cookies ever were the ones my late Grandmother ("Nanny") used to make every xmas. She called them "tattalouch" but I think the more widely-known name is "tarralucci." Let's call them that so that people searching the vast interweb can find this recipe.

I've been wanting to resurrect this recipe for a few years now, but as the original recipe was not vegan, I knew it'd be a challenge. I also knew I could do it, and this year, I did. So here you go, the veganized version of Nanny Foodchain's "tattalouch"/tarralucci cookies.

N a n n y  F o o d c h a i n ' s  T a r r a l u c c i  C o o k i e s   O M G  M y  F a v o r i t e  E v e r 

Dough Ingredients:

5 cups flour
6 tsp of Ener-G Egg Replacer + 8 TB of water, thoroughly mixed together
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup Earth Balance
1 cup unrefined sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup vanilla soy milk
1 tsp lemon extract (a little more if you're feeling lucky, or use lemon zest if you're feeling fancy)
1 tsp vanilla

Icing Ingredients:

1 cup powdered sugar that's not processed through bone char
However much vanilla soy milk it takes to make the mixture into a pasty liquid
1 tsp lemon extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. After you mix the dough ingredients together, flour your hands, then take a chunk at a time and roll it between your hands until it forms a log. You'll want the log to be roughly the size of a small dog's turd. Think maybe the size of the turd of, say, a 2-month old Pitbull puppy named Sprinkles at a kill-facility. Once you have your log, twist it into a little, swirly pile. Repeat this process until you have no more dough.

Bake for roughly 10 minutes. Maybe more. The bottom of each "pile" should be golden brown around the outside. The insides will be cake-like.

Don't wait for the cookies to cool. Take your icing mixture and spoon it over each cookie. If you want, decorate by sprinkling Florida Crystals or some other form of vegan sprinkles on top. Hey, adopting Sprinkles is vegan, by the way.


Another hey, sometimes Nanny Foodchain liked to dye the dough red and green. You could probably get yourself just a little beet juice and dye the dough a nice pink OR red. Not sure if food coloring is vegan. I haven't used it in years. Anyone know?

I just want to bite into that lemony, vanillay, cakey goodness.

Swirly piles!!!!

haaaaaay.

And did you know these cookies are famous now?

Vegan MoFo! Day 4: Stuffed Shells Because I Love You

This recipe is another one among my favorites, right up there with kale salad and Death Row Mac 'n Cheese. I must credit my former housemate, Muckford, for discovering the original recipe somewhere on the internet a while ago. I've modified it slightly, but only slightly. This is another one of those recipes that delights vegans, omnivores, and Italian families alike.

In fact, legend has it that one of my uncles, a lover of all dishes meat-and-cheese-related, had no idea this was vegan until I told him. After he ate a plateful. I believe his words were something like, "This is vegan, really?! It tasted exactly the same as regular stuffed shells." Hell, I'm betting even babies and dogs would love these shells, but please, please, don't test that hypothesis. Because I love it so much, let's repeat that one sentence real quick: "This is vegan, really?! It tasted exactly the same as regular stuffed shells."

I am tagging this as "students," too, because it can be made cheaply, and we all know students are poor.

The following, I share with you, because, CYoFC readers, I do love you. <3


V e g a n  S t u f f e d  S h e l l s

Ingredients:

About 40 jumbo shells
3 jars tomato sauce
2 pounds firm tofu
2-3 cups of baby spinach (optional)
1 & 1/3 cups low-fat vegan mayonnaise
1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
2 teaspoons salt
4 teaspoons dried parsley
4 teaspoons dried basil
4 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder

NOTE: If you don't want to make this much (the above serves about 12), just halve all of the ingredients. Don't forget to halve the seasonings and salts, though!

Directions: 

• Cook the pasta according to directions the on the box
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
• Drain the tofu well and pat dry. With a fork (or potato masher), mash the tofu, vegan mayonnaise, nutritional yeast, salt and seasonings together until the texture resembles ricotta vegan cheese. Yep, no blender or food processor needed here. OPTIONAL: include 2 cups of baby spinach leaves in the mix before you mash it.
• Cover the bottom of a large baking dish with a thin layer of pasta sauce. Using a small spoon, fill each shell with a scoop of the tofu mixture. Lay each stuffed shell gently on top of the pasta sauce, seam facing up. (FYI: The original recipe said seam facing down, so choose what you will.)
• When the baking pan is full, pour the rest of the tomato sauce evenly over the shells. Sprinkle with a small amount of nutritional yeast. OPTIONAL: gently arrange a baby spinach leaf over each shell. The vein of the leaf should run perpendicularly to the seam of the shell. This will make your tray of shells look prettier, and your friends/family may think these are actually basil leaves. Mine did. Extra cooking cred points, score.
• Bake for 30 minutes or so.  

This looks complicated and daunting, but really, the basic steps are 1) cook the pasta, 2) mash together the fillings, 3) put sauce and pasta in the tray, 4) fill pasta, 5) cover pasta with more sauce, 6) bake.

In da tray.

What do I mean by "jumbo shells," you ask? Here's a photo:  

There they are, looking all jumbo and menacing.

 

Yep, that's an American flag napkin. I made these for our 4th of July party like two years ago. When I was in preschool, I used to do stuff like refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance or sing My Country 'Tis of Thee, so making "foreign" food on a patriotic holiday is pretty standard for me.

iMangia, my pretties! 

Love,
CYoFC