The Quantum Vegan

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of veggie sandwiches.  But even with all of the possibilities those offer, it’s nice to switch things up once and a while.  Since we had both whole wheat bread leftover from making stuffing and Nayonaise from my mom’s mayo-free deviled eggs (which I hope we can replace with deviled potatoes next year), logically it followed that we should have mock tuna.  I’ve had this recipe from Happy Herbivore bookmarked for a while, and once noodled around with adapting it for a church potluck,  but had never made it to have at home.

Needless to say, it turned out delicious!  I’ve had other mock tuna in the past, but with tempeh instead of chickpeas.  The tempeh version is heartier, but the chickpea version is just as tasty.  I may cut down on the celery in the future, though, because although the flavor was good, the texture was a little wet.  I do like that both the chickpeas and celery can be chopped in the food processor; it made the whole process go like lightning.

So I’m not complaining.  A little whole wheat bread, lettuce and tomato, and a couple zucchini pickles, and both my mom and I were good to go for lunch.

Though my immediate family is still omni enough that Thanksgiving continues to include meat, a few bits of veganism did make an appearance this year!  One was an encore of a well-liked dish from last year, a fabulous Thanksgiving Dressing from VegWeb.

The other was this:

Bryanna’s Vegan Pumpkin Pie, suggested to me by CupcakeKitteh via Twitter.  A slight miscalculation lead my mom and I to be looking for pie recipes after the Thanksgiving grocery shopping was done.  Many of the recipes I found sounded delicious, but called for silken tofu or full-fat coconut milk, neither of which we had on hand.  We live enough of a distance from the store for it to be impractical to run out for one ingredient, so we needed something that used only what we had.

This pie fit the bill.  Simple ingredients, quick assembly, awesome flavor.  I love any excuse to break out the KitchenAid!  We used a little less nondairy milk than was called for, fearing a full cup would make it come out soupy, but I think we could have put all of it in without a problem.  For the crust, my mom updated her traditional recipe to use whole wheat pastry flour, non-hydrogenated shortening, and agave nectar.

I’m not much of a pie eater, but even I enjoyed this!  It set up well and the balance of spices was very good.  Add a little nondairy whipped “cream,” and viola!  A new Thanksgiving dessert tradition.

Question for the comments: What dish(es) did you give a vegan makeover to this Thanksgiving?

I was going to make this two separate posts until I realized that the dishes kind of go together.  Both involved black beans, both were new and slightly unusual recipes in the Quantum Vegan household, and neither turned out quite the way I expected.   (Not that this is a bad thing.)

Meet the black bean and wild rice mixture from 1,000 Vegan Recipes!  Why is this deserving of an exclamation point?  Because I have an almost obscene love of wild rice and rice in general.  It’s true; I’m a grain geek.  So when the co-op had a wild rice blend on sale, of course I jumped on it and brought home a container.

This was a pretty simple recipe.  Black beans, wild rice, tomatoes, and some spinach.  However, as you can see, it came out a little more soupy than I was imagining.  I think it was intended to be a bit on the moist side, but not quite so much.  This particular wild rice blend may require less liquid than was called for in the recipe so, in future, I’m going to have to reduce it to avoid winding up with bean and rice soup.  The flavor was good, though–simple and savory with a hint of green from the spinach.

Fast forward to Brazilian Black Bean Stew, also from 1,000 Vegan Recipes:

An adventurous amalgamation if I ever saw one.  This recipe stood out to me a few times in the past, but I always went by it because of the combination of ingredients.  Black beans, red onions, peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and, of all things, mango!  There’s also supposed to be a banana, but I’m sadly allergic and had to leave it out.

Two things with this recipe.  One, I thought the amount of liquid it called for was on the low side (only 1/2 cup of vegetable broth), so I added a little more as it was cooking.  Two, I should have bought a riper mango.  The one I had was a bit too firm, which I think undermined the intended texture combination of the dish.  But again, a good flavor, though perhaps not the best eclectic dish I’d ever had.

Pretty though, no?  I would make it again, probably with a full cup of broth and a smaller, softer mango for better texture.  Texture can really make or break a meal!

November means whonky weather in the Northeast, and this week has been no exception.  One day it’s freezing cold with bitter winds, the next rain is cascading down from the sky while the temperature steadily climbs.  No matter what it’s doing, it’s almost always a good day to try another soup recipe, right?

We had a butternut squash hanging around that was given to us by a family friend, and I decided it was high time to use it up in, what else, butternut squash soup!  I went for the recipe in 1,000 Vegan Recipes, but left out the suggested swirl of cranberry sauce and orange juice.  I was looking for pure, unadulterated butternut squash soup, and this recipe delivered!

I’m not going to say too much about the incident with the food processor that left about half the soup’s liquid all over the kitchen counter…I’m sure you can imagine.  Needless to say, the Black & Decker got a good cussing out and will likely be replaced by something without funky seal problems in the near future.  Either that or it will stay relegated to the cabinet unless it’s needed for something like hummus, which doesn’t splurt everywhere if something goes wrong.

Messiness aside, the soup came out great.  It was thick and creamy, due in part to the potato the recipe calls for and probably also to my not adding quite enough liquid back into the pot to replace what the food processor dumped.  I’m not sure I would have wanted it any thinner, though!  The texture was good and hearty, as was the flavor.  There seemed to be a little something missing, spice-wise, which I would like to figure out and correct next time.  Because, with butternut squash soup, there is always a next time.  (Fresh ginger instead of ground, perhaps?)

While searching for something to go along with the soup, I stumbled upon an ingenious salad recipe, also in 1,000 Vegan Recipes. It called for spinach, figs, toasted almonds, and Fuji apple in a balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing.  Talk about wow.  I’ve always been fond of adding fruit to salads.  I love the combination of savory dressing and sweet bits of dried or fresh fruit.  This would be a great salad to make in quantity and share, which I might do the next time there’s a potluck lunch at my church.

Question for the comments: What’s your favorite unconventional salad ingredient?

Ever since I first tried oven-roasted beets, I’ve been wanting to have them again.  Roasting brings out such a nice sweetness that beets don’t need any fancy adornment.  So last night I took about a pound of beets, peeled them, sliced them up, and roasted them kind of like veggie chips with a spray of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt.

I don’t think I need to say how awesome they were.  To go with them, I made the basic broiled tofu from Veganomicon, served up on a bed of quinoa and mixed kale and chard.  My only complaint about the tofu was that it turned out a bit too soft on the inside, but that could easily be fixed either by turning it halfway through the cook time or draining it more than I did.  Regardless, it gave me a good excuse to try out the broiler on the new stove!

It turned out to be one of those meals that looks elegant but is actually simple to prepare.  Nothing needed to cook for more than half an hour, and just about everything except the tofu was able to cook at the same time.  I wound up having to pop the beets in under the broiler for a few minutes to warm them back up, but overall everything came together without a problem.  It tasted pretty amazing, too!

Just as a side note, I know I haven’t gone back to the series on eating disorders that I intended to write.  I still do mean to write it, but probably won’t get a chance to start until December.  It’s a tough subject to talk about, much less blog about publicly.  They’re going to be the sort of posts that take a while to put together.  But if there’s anything in particular that you’d like me to cover when I do write them, please let me know!

There comes a time when, no matter how healthy you like your meals, no matter how much you aim towards quality whole foods, you just plain need the veganized version of something that’s bad for you.

Or, you know, you have some leftover tempeh and the “We Will Rock You Three-Layered Nachos” from 30-Minute Vegan have been staring at you for months, begging to be made.

It was a bit of both for me when I whipped these up last week.  I had half a block of tempeh hanging around, which I usually make veggie burgers out of, but this time I wanted something different.  I already knew I liked the nacho cheese sauce, since it’s what I’ve been making to pour on quesadillas, so I pulled out the cookbook and went to it!

My mom and I love blue tortilla chips, and using them for the recipe made it look kind of pretty.  And it certainly didn’t hurt the flavor any!  I didn’t have any canned refried beans on hand, so I drained some canned blank beans and threw them in the food processor with a little water and some spices.  I find that works well when I need refried beans in a hurry and don’t want to dirty a pan.

I cooked up a bit of rice to have as a side and seasoned it with chili powder and cumin to keep with the Mexican theme.  The nachos were crunchy, chewy, cheesy, and all-around nacho-y.  Normally I shoot for dinners that have a little more going for them in the vegetable department, but these were a nice treat.  They’d also make a great dish to take to a party or potluck!

As I mentioned, my posts have been a little spotty due to the vast amount of word count I’m trying to crank out for NaNoWriMo.  It’s been going pretty well despite a little incident yesterday involving my netbook, an inopportune restart, and 1,300 words that will never be seen again.

So what does this have to do with cookies?  Well, my local NaNo region has a very sweet municipal liason who’s been at the job for four years running.  She’s always trying to accomodate everyone even though our region is really too large for one person to handle.  In recent years, my various dietary restrictions have made me the odd man out in the group when it comes to choosing eateries to hold NaNo events at.  Thus, as a lighthearted apology for being a pain in the butt when it comes to food, I’ve taken to bringing at least one vegan thing to our yearly library-based write-in.

Orange agave chocolate chip cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.  Oh yeah, they’re good.  As if I could wait until the write-in to eat some.