Does the fun ever stop? Recipes 24-28

Before leaving town, I made a few more recipes to try and up my numbers. I made a lovely Latin baked tofu from Viva Vegan for dinner Monday night (I think!) that both hubby and I loved. He liked it better than the orange mojo tofu, though I still preferred the orange mojo. It doesn't matter either way, both are scrumptious. Definitely will make again!
I also made a lovely dinner on Wednesday with fresh basil and tomatoes from the CSA share. Tuscan bread and tomato soup from Italian Vegan Kitchenwas easy to make, and very tasty, though it is more of a porridge than a soup. I actually have a picture of this, but it's kinda strange looking. It wasn't strange looking when I cooked it, honest. I must not be that good at food photography yet. Still, I'd call it a keeper. A+
Another quick recipe from the same book was a baked potato with bay leaf. I know, I know, hardly a complicated recipe, right? I cut a potato in half, put a little olive oil and bay leaf and salt in, and cooked it in the oven. I admit that I may have chosen this recipe in order to bump my numbers up a little bit without adding a lot of extra work or extra leftovers, but I really did like the idea of a baked potato cooked this way as well. I have been a little at a loss as whether I'd like baked potatoes any more without my sour cream, and thought that this would be an option worth trying.
The baked potato was good, and I might make one like this in the future at some point, especially since it is so easy and I almost always have bay leaves and potatoes on hand. However, it wasn't so amazing that I couldn't wait to eat another one. I'd call it an A-.
Although I almost forgot about them, I also made two new recipes from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar before leaving town last week. Wednesday I made the basic chocolate chip cookies, which were good, and soft. The only thing I have to hold against them is that they were not the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had. I'm not saying this to knock them, I enjoyed them. However, they don't beat Otis Spunkmeyer (other than in Vegan Cred) and they don't beat the Baker's new veganized chocolate chip cookie which I am sure has way more fat and sugar, but is crispy and soft and sweet and salty all in the right proportions. It could have been my fault, but the cookies were so soft that they were falling apart a little. I probably should have baked them another minute, damn the instructions. (B +)
Now that I've made brownies with tofu, I feel like I've earned my vegetarian badge! I made the brownies that were termed more like the "box" brownies, since box brownies are my favorite kind. If you want cake, make cake. Cakey brownies are not my cup of tea. Now, to get the right consistency with box brownies, I have to take them out of the oven a couple of minutes early. This is not something I took into account with these brownies, and I got fair-tasting, a little dry brownies. This again, is probably my fault, and I should probably tinker with this a bit. My oven, when baking, almost always needs to cook things an extra couple of minutes past the max recommended time. I assumed this when I made these, and this assumption had me check them when they were already comfortably done. I will say that the batter was quite tasty, however!
I made seitan and green salsa today, but have not uploaded the pics yet.... will update you later. Happy cooking!

#21-23 Were Not Good Numbers

My house's foundation. Diamonds. My abs. These are all things that I would want to be rock hard. However, not the new roll recipe I am trying for lunch. I should have known that when I kneaded the dough and it was stiffer than cement, or when I had to add an extra half cup of water and it was still bone dry. But that's how the parsley pesto rolls I made today turned out. Herby, whole wheat hockey pucks.

Let's take it back a notch here. It's a 500 Vegan Recipes day on the home front. I actually might make even more recipes this evening for dinner, but for lunch I made the aforementioned parsley-pesto, parsley pesto rolls, and carrot cumin soup with parsley pesto dollops which I had meant to make yesterday but could not until the Baker helped me to work the food processor.

The pesto we made last night. Since I had loved the parsley-pesto walnut sauce from Donna Klein's book, I was greatly anticipating this pesto. However, I don't really like it. I think the Baker put his finger on it why. He said it tasted to him like a combination of pesto and hummus. I know this makes me a bad vegetarian, but I am not a fan of hummus. This really saddens me, because I love chickpeas in all kinds of things, however, I don't like this beany pesto. I thought that if it were an accent in something it might be better, but it wasn't any better in the (hard) rolls or (baby food-esque) soup.

So, the rolls were not my first visit to the baking picnic. I've been making yeasted rolls since I was a pre-teen and yeasted home-made bread from scratch for about a decade. So, you've got to understand that this wasn't a first-time baking snafu. I think it's a lot of flour for 6 rolls, and not enough moisture. I'm disappointed because I've loved so many bread recipes out of this book so far. None of them, as of yet, have been yeasted, but the blueberry cornmeal bread is out of this world.

The carrot cumin soup was okay, but it looked a little bit like baby food. I didn't like the texture, but the taste was fair. However, it was not enough to make it into my soup pantheon. I don't think a soup with the main part carrot is really something I can stand behind. It's too sweet for my soup tastes, yet again. I have to stay away from these sweeter soups.

77 to go. It would be awesome if I could finish 30 before the end of the month!

More New Recipes!

I did a bunch of cooking on Wednesday night. For #17, I made the fig compote from Italian Vegan Kitchen that I'd been threatening to. It is basically soaked dried figs, baked in a simple syrup, and lightly topped with toasted walnut pieces. I enjoyed it quite a bit when it was warm, but I probably should have toweled off the figs after soaking, they were a bit soggy in the pan. As they cooled down, they were also not as tasty. However, this was a fairly simply, yummy desert. A-
#18 Was a recipe for chard. I got a big bunch in my CSA box Wednesday, and decided to make quick work of it. One of the problems with having a list a mile long of lovely vegan cookbooks is that sometimes there is a recipe that I want to cook, and I'm sure it was in that book. No, perhaps in the other one? I think to find the recipe for chard and raisins with capers I must have looked through 10 books before it surfaced in Viva Vegan. Now, one of the reasons I needed to make quick work of this chard was that I had never last year found anything to do with my chard that satisfied me. I much prefer kale, and stick it into pretty much everything when I'm not sticking in spinach. For a chard recipe, and the first time I've ever had capers, it was not bad. Will I run out to the grocery store and buy chard to make it? No, but I can see making it again when I get some chard in my CSA share. B-
Wednesday really was a big orgy of cooking. Earlier in the day, I decided to use up some overripe bananas. But what to do? I love banana bread, but I thought there might be another recipe I could use these bananas in that would count to my summer goal. I looked through the index of Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar and spied a neat looking gluten-free cookie that used quinoa that didn't quite fit my bill, but made it onto the "gotta try" list, and spied two banana cookies. I decided to make the banana oatmeal breakfast cookies, as they required a bit less fat and no refined sugar, but relied on agave and brown rice syrup instead. I know it's not a kale salad, but why not?
My verdict was that they were all right. I was a little low on dried cranberries, and more of those might make these pop a bit more, but really, I prefer banana bread. The Baker, too, said that they reminded them of banana bread. In order to convince myself not to eat too many, I dropped off a bag at the gym, and the Daves loved them, or at least liked them enough to try and convince me to drop cookies off more often. Personally, they are all right, but I wouldn't sell my soul for them like the fig bars in the book. B
After a lovely trip to the Indian buffet yesterday afternoon for lunch, I decided that all that naan and white rice for lunch should prompt a healthier dinner. I went for a recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, a balsamic strawberry salad. The balsamic strawberries are mouthwateringly good (I told you I love the fruity stuff!) and on top of arugula, my husband loved the peppery punch. However, I'm not as big on the peppery flavor, so next time, I think I will have my strawberries on baby spinach instead. I love this recipe. It is simple, flavorful, and healthy. I think I ate a bowl of strawberries covered in balsamic vinegar all by myself. And all without adding sugar or oil!
So balsamic strawberry salad made up #20, and I was poised to eat, I mean make, a couple more today. I got out my ingredients and started loading them into the food processor. This was my first time piloting the processor on my own, the Baker being at work. Then it happened. For the next 20 minutes, I pushed and shoved and wiggled, but I couldn't get the machine to close. This shut down the rest of my cooking day, as the planned recipes all hinged around the parsley pesto I was going to whir up in the food processor (from 500 Vegan Recipes). Drat. I made an old standby soup instead, and promise to get on with the pesto tomorrow after my hubby helps me figure out the processor tonight.
80 to go! Happy cooking!

Recipes #12-16

I've been busy trying to catch up with recipes here on the old farm, I mean, suburban house. One of the recipes I'd been meaning to try was from Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, a chickpea and quinoa salad with balsamic vinaigrette. Since it involves a recipe for salad and one for dressing it counts as two recipes. Score! I followed with two more soups and one pasta from Donna Klein's Italian Vegan Kitchen.

Let's start with the salad. My husband loved it, and the flavorful dressing, which prompted me to try and work through my fear of food processors. Making the salad was painless, and I like the concept, but in practice, the salad was far too savory for me. I haven't been a salad person for very long. In fact, it's been about 2 years that I've been eating salad, and so far for me to like them they need some sort of fruit component. I've liked apple pie salad (lettuce with an apple sauce with cinnamon), strawberry and spinach salad, apple and spring mix with a hazelnut or walnut or citrus vinaigrette. Those choices have expanded the foods I've eaten considerably, but I'm still not at a place where I can enjoy such a savory salad. I'm disappointed, but I can live with it. C for me, A for the Baker.

The next two soups were far too average as well. The split pea with tomato and spinach was all right, but it had a sweet tinge to it I didn't find appealing. The no-fat added minestrone had its heart in the right place, but since the veggies weren't sauteed in even a little oil, the recipe amounted to a boiled veggie soup. Neither of the soups were bad, both were good enough for me to finish. However, I consider myself a bit of a soup afficianado, and to make it into my soup rotation, a soup really has to have something special. I'm considering re-making the minestrone with a tablespoon of olive oil, and sauteeing the mirepoix first. It's likely that that might make all the difference. Split pea gets a C, minestrone gets a B-.

The next recipe is a keeper, if a bit saucy. I made spaghetti with rosemary and red wine red sauce. The sauce is pretty darn good, though with the 12 oz of pasta, overpowered the noodles a touch. If I make it again, I think I would even out the ratio of sauce to noodles a bit by adding the full pound of noodles. I also think an extra clove or two of garlic wouldn't hurt... no surprise there, huh?

My plan had been to make a fig compote for desert tonight and bring my count up to 17, but between the soup and the pasta for dinner (not to mention the bread and sunflower seeds I ate while waiting for dinner)and I found I was just too full to eat any more. Perhaps you'll see the fig compote here tomorrow. Until then, happy cooking!

Recipes #9, 10, 11

Being incredibly sick for the last week put me behind in my cooking challenge. I was out with about the worst sinus infection I've had in a decade. I was hoping to get a leg up early on to make up for vacation next month, but here I am, running 4 recipes behind instead.

The Baker made me a tomato Florentine soup during my illness that was from Italian Vegan Kitchen. The soup was wonderful; a mirepoix with a few herbs including fresh basil, spinach, and ditalini. It was perfect sick food! I will definitely make it again, although it would definitely be better when adding my home-made herbed croutons! I made a very simple chickpea-tomato soup from the same book yesterday, pictured here. It is basically a tomato soup with rosemary and chickpeas, blended, then add ditalini. It too, was incredibly good (and made with half the oil in the recipe). I believe it will quickly become a pantry recipe, as there are very few evenings when I don't have canned tomatoes, garlic, and canned chickpeas and rosemary on hand. Use my immersion blender, and it can be ready in about half an hour.

In between the two soups, I got back out my copy of Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar and tried to assuage my oatmeal raisin cookie craving. The resulting cookies get a B from me, though it could have been my fault. The oatmeal, for me, was not mushed enough into the bulk of the cookie, and felt too grainy for my taste. I think I may have used the wrong kind of oats. It required quick cooking, and I don't think that's what I used. They weren't labeled as such. Of course, they weren't labeled slow cooking either, so I'm just not sure!

So, 11 recipes down, 89 to go! I am a little quick-breaded out for the moment, and am still waiting on the cherry tomatoes and basil at the CSA to come into season to start whipping out some more of the pasta and soup recipes, but so far, I'm overly fond of Donna Klein's Italian cook book. Now it's time for me to stick my nose into a book and figure out what's next!

Recipes #6 , #7, and #8

Sometimes the time gets away from you! I have only made three new recipes since I wrote last, though I have made more food from scratch than that.

One of the problems with cooking 100 new recipes in roughly 100 days is not that I don't have enough that sound interesting to me, but that even over the summer with a reduced teaching schedule there are constraints. The leftovers I have to finish eating (without the Baker's help the last few days since he's had some kind of stomach virus), as well as the unpredictability of whether or not I will like something after working on it and getting hungrier for 2 hours, and the huge bags of greens I've been getting from my CSA it means that I sometimes either don't have time or it doesn't make sense to make something new when I have so many pounds of salad greens and leftovers from a previous meal clogging my fridge.

One way around this was making cookies! I decided to make snickerdoodles from Kris Holechek's 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes. I considered making the Vegan Cookies Take Over Your Cookie Jar version instead, but I didn't have enough Earth Balance butter. Kris' version substitutes some with applesauce, something I've been doing a lot with my baking lately.

The snickerdoodles, if I may say so myself, were pretty darn good. They did take longer to cook than expected, which happens a lot with my oven, and I did accidentally cook the second tray too long. The first was perfectly textured and chewy, the second, too hard. Also, I threw a lot of the sugar/cinnamon mixture away that I had rolled the cookies in; I think I would halve it when using it again. I also thought the cinnamon was a touch too heavy in the mixture.

The Low Down: Will I make them again? Very probably, though with all the baked goods I do make, I'm not sure they will feature in my rotation again soon. The breads and muffins I make require less fat and sugar, usually, and I don't have to get out the mixer. A-

The next thing I did was to make some seitan while baking up those cookies on Friday night. The jury is still out on the seitan, as I packaged it up and put it into the fridge for use in a later recipe. It was easy to make, and looked and smelled good however. It was Isa Chandra Moskowitz's recipe from Appetite for Reduction and I plan on making many more seitan recipes this summer for comparison.

Last night I made a socca, or a garbanzo bean flour pancake type recipe from Donna Klein's Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen. The idea of these had intrigued me for a while, and I thought my iron skillet sufficiently seasoned to try. However, while it was fairly simple to make, the results were not pleasing to me. It turned out the way it should have, it just didn't suit my personal tastes. Reminded me of an omelet, in taste and texture, and a slightly underdone one at that. I'm not a big fan of eggs, was one of the easiest animal products for me to give up.

It's just another one of those recipes that are just fine, I'm sure, but remind me why I'm the picky gourmet. Some things don't suit the kinds of flavor profiles that I like. That's okay. But sometimes, a new flavor profile is exciting or inventive in a way that expands my palate. I can't always tell when this will happen, and that is part of the fun of this journey. 92 recipes to go!

Recipe #5

Tuesdays and Thursdays, for at least three more weeks, are my busier days. I teach from 9-1, get home at around 2, and have rehearsal for Annie in the evening (I leave at 6). Granted, it's not as busy as the school year, when I teach from 8:30 to 4:20, don't get home until 5, and then have to leave again at 6 for rehearsal, but it is busier than Monday and Wednesday when all I have to do is grade and work out.

So I knew yesterday that I would want to make something a little less challenging yesterday, which is why I opted for a simple side dish and only one recipe.

Let me tell you, I was not disappointed. I chose the Green Beans with Walnut Sauce in Vegan Italiano by Donna Klein. They are quick to make, and incredibly yummy. I ate them fairly fresh, and prepared the walnut sauce (which is more of a walnut/parsley pesto) in my blender, but it would have gone better in a food processor. Since I'm still afraid of the food processor and not sure how to use it, I went for the blender and had to do a lot of pulsing and scraping.

When I ate the beans, they were awesome, but I thought I would like to add another clove of garlic. One of the few things I love more than garlic is more garlic (except in cookies and cakes)! And fresh from the pot and blender, more garlic might have been nice. However, since I could not eat 1 1/2 pounds of beans alone, I put the rest in the fridge. After the Baker got home from work, he ate some and the garlic in them was much stronger. Perhaps after marinating, the flavors grew stronger?

I will make these again. And again. I'm not sure it's my favorite green bean recipe, but it is close. Grade: A