a tentative menu

so we are talking about doing a secret vegan dinner club. by invitation some people can buy in to a dinner event that we will put on at my house and this is what i am thinking that i will cook. maybe you can be invited!



vegan dinner party (ideas/possibilities)

appetizer:
   duo or trio of southern inspired sliders on biscuits, texas toast or corn muffins

- sweet potato/tofu burger

- bbq portabello with carmelized onions

- southern style sausage + gravy

- fried green tomato with spicy mayo



entree course:

pass around family style soul food offering-

smothered fried chicken w/ onion gravy

baked mac & cheese

collard greens

dirty rice w/ sausage

fried okra

black eyed peas with chiffonade of kale (hot or cold?)

candied roasted carrots

cabbage & apple cole slaw

corn and arugula salad




dessert course:

bruleed whole peach; halved and filled with homemade vanilla icecream, pecans and lavender scented crumble

or

strawberry shortcake w/ fresh mint, homemade rosemary icecream

or

cinnamon sticky buns with cinnamon icecream

a perfect winter vegan pot pie.

you will need the following:

oven. preheated to 350.

a dutch oven for cooking. i use a 6 quart mario batalli dutch oven. most lines of cook wear from celebrity chefs are garbage but his is actually pretty good and i use my dutch oven quite often. it is my favorite piece of cook wear. this piece didn't cost as much as le creuset but it's getting the same job done.

one yellow or white onion chopped

one parsnip or any other root vegetables that make you happy. turnips would be nice!

carrots. about four large ones or small ones equalling about four large ones. we used a bunch of rainbow carrots that we got at whole foods (getting them from a farmer is cheaper.. whole foods is so expensive yikes) and supplemented with a few big basic carrots that were in my fridge. chop these into small pieces.

a carton or four cups of vegetable broth.

three medium sized russet potatoes. peel two potatoes and cut them into 1-2 inch pieces for boiling. you will use this to make a mashed potato type of thing. wash your third potato and cut it into thin slices to go into your pot pie with your other veggies.

peas. i used a half a bag of frozen ones. if you can get fresh peas i envy you.

one carton or approximately two cups of white mushrooms.







(OPTIONAL) Gardein chicken. we used one bag of the scallopini gardein "chicken" in our pot pie. this is completely optional and i really don't feel like it added that much to the pie. it's up to you if you want a chicken pot pie or a vegetable pot pie. this pie is very flavorful, hearty and filling without the inclusion of fake meat but of course Gardein is delicious in everything. we cut ours (while it was frozen) into small cubes and added it in at the very last minute before the pie went into the oven.

soy milk. i used the unsweetened kind. the regular one would be fine also.

two table spoons of earth balance or whatever kind of vegan margarine you like.

a little olive oil.

all purpose flour

cold water. when i came home from the store i put a big cup of water into the freezer so that it could get cold while i was working on putting groceries away and getting my ducks in a line.

vegetable shortening

spices. we used tumeric, poultry seasoning (don't worry this doesn't have any poultry in it), onion powder, and thyme. plus salt and pepper of course. feel free to use whatever you like but i think that the poultry seasoning is pretty crucial. salt and pepper are also important, of course. from there you can use any flavors that appeal to you!

 more after the jump

where for art thou, vegans?

hi guys!

can you tell me how you are finding this blog? i want even more people to find it! i have two posts coming up.. one is for a vegan vegetable and "chicken" pot pie that is absolutely delicious and healthy and amazing-- the other is for vegan collard greens and fried chicken which i am cooking as i type this.

anyway! say hi and let me know how you found me.

xoxo
annaliese

someone made my vegan sweet potato burger!

tezzie who follows me on twitter sent me a message earlier after she made my burger recipe!

and she took a pretty picture of it too! totally a way prettier picture than the ones that i posted. buttt someone ordered me a point and shoot camera from my amazon wishlist and when it comes it will greatly improve the quality of pictures in my blog postings. if you make something from one of my recipes please let me know what you thought and send a picture if you can!

a friend from another site told me that they made this recipe and the burgers fell apart. i didn't have any trouble at all keeping them together in patty form but adding about 1/2 cup of cooked rice to the recipe would probably make them more fool proof.

i am very pleased that people are enjoying this blog and enjoying the recipes. soon i will be posting a vegan pot pie recipe that i came up with a couple of days ago. it was delicious. =)

i noticed that tezzie has some other food pictures in her twitpic. you can follow her @bigdreamsinc on twitter

xoxo

a delicious sweet potato, tofu burger!

i still owe you guys a vegan macaroni and cheese/vegan soul food post but that entry is going to be soooo intense so for now i must placate you with this burger that i made in the days following the vegan soulfood extravaganza. i had a giant (the biggest i've ever seen) sweet potato sitting around because i had planned to make a sweet potato casserole with our vegan soulfood but it never happened. the result was this.



to make 2-3 burgers you will need:

one reasonably sized sweet potato. don't get a huge one like me unless you want to be eating sweet potato for a week straight. sliced into 1-2 inch cubes

1/3 container of firm tofu, press the water out with some paper towels and then crumble with your hands

one carrot. grated using a cheese grater thing or minced with a knife.

1-2 stalks of celery. chopped into small pieces. i cut mine in half long ways and then chop it into smaller pieces if its a big one.

1 medium onion. chopped.

a handful of cashews. i dropped them into a blender and so they were all crushed and chopped up into a rough kind of powder.

your choice of herbs and spices. i used salt, pepper, a little sage, a little curry powder, and nutritional yeast. is that a spice? i don't really know wtf it is but i like the way it tastes and vegans are into it.

a little fresh parsley. finely chopped.

buns or bread of your choice.

cheese of some kind if you wanna. condiments are fun. use whatever kind you want. we put mustard, vegenaise and pickles on ours. they were delightful.

BEHOLD! THE WORLD'S LARGEST SWEET POTATO!

i'm not foolin' around guys. that's a ten inch chef knife sitting adjacent to that beast of a sweet potato. it was huge. i used about 1/4 - 1/3 of it.

chopped it up like thissss

when you are finished chopping you want to drop those guys into a pot of rapidly boiling, salted water.

while those are cooking you are going to want to start cooking your mirepoix. this is the part of the blog where i teach you a fancy word.

see this picture..


carrot, onion, and celery-- often referred to as "aromatics" are the flavor base for tons of different stuff.. soups, stews, stocks and other things. in this case they are going to flavor your burger and create nice textures as well. put them into a saute pan while your sweet potato is cooking in the boiling water and cook them until they are softened.



in my case i am cooking them in a crappy non-stick wok--- probably because i was too lazy to wash my saute pan. that's ok though.

when your potatoes are fork soft and your mirepoix (remember that the onion, celery, carrot mixture) is cooked down combine those items in a large mixing bowl with your tofu and cashews and mash everything together with a wooden spoon or a manual potato masher.


season with your choice of herbs and spices + parsley which tastes good and makes everything pretty. everyone should have fresh parsley on hand. you can toss it on top of anything and make it look like you did a really good job of cooking.

taste the mixture as you go to see what kind of flavor you are coming up with. tasting while you cook is really important.


give everything a good stir with a fork to make sure that your ingredients are distributed evenly and form into patties using your hands. i like to make a big ball and then squish it down to achieve a nice even patty.

i cooked my burgers in the same pan that i used to cook my mirepoix. add a little oil to the pan, put the heat on medium-high and let them cook for a couple of minutes on each side until they are golden.


remove from pan and serve them however you like. ours went like this. potato buns, pickles, vegenaise, mustard and a sprinkle of daiya cheese.


these are really inexpensive to make and more delicious and healthy than a gardenburger. ta-da!

if you decide to make this meal take some pictures and show me! let me know what you think. =D

and if you love me and you want to buy me something for my kitchen visit mywish list! my chef knife is dull. need sharpeners!

"the best quesadilla ever"

first i should mention that these pictures were taken using my iphone just like the pictures of the vegan reuben that are in my last post. i have a proper camera that i will use to take pictures once i get a china ball to light up my kitchen. for now these shoddy quality snaps will have to do.

tonight i went to my favorite little locally owned grocery store, figueroa produce, to try some bbq that they have in from some guy named nick. the bbq was okay. i've certainly had better but for "california bbq" it was alright. i might go back on sunday when nick is doing a sampling of his full offering of bbq delights and taste the other items to see if there is something i like better but otherwise i will stick with bludso's which has, by far, the best bbq in los angeles. anyhow, enough about bbq. some of you are probably about to cry thinking of all of the dead animals. nom nom nom.

while i was waiting for my sandwich to be prepared i walked around and grabbed some fresh produce and decided to make a quesadilla.

to most people i assume a quesadilla is just a tortilla with cheese melted inside of it. these people are really missing out. this format can really provide a delicious means to get all kinds of stuff into your mouth. not just cheese. this vegan quesadilla is healthy and really fucking delicious. zane said it was the best quesadilla he has ever had. hence the title of this blog.

you can use whatever is in season and available locally where you are. eating local ingredients is really important to me and should be important to you as well. i had a swell of guilt the other day when i realized that gardein products (a really great vegan faux-meat line) come all the way from canada. you can imagine the strain that this might put on the environment... an environment that is also important to animals.

my ingredients were as follows.

one yellow spanish onion roughly chopped.


four zucchinis. these guys were smaller than i am used to seeing them. if they were average sized then i would have purchased two.



cut them up like so


two fresh jalapenos. sliced. if you want less heat then you should remove the seeds. that's where the big heat is.


one ear of fresh corn.

removed from it's cob with a sharp knife. like so!



three portabello mushrooms. stems removed and sliced into strips.


a couple of tomatillos. if you don't have access to these then you could use a regular tomato but these are sooo delicious. i cut mine into little pieces. 'little' is the technical term. oh and remove their little outer leaf thing first. i don't think you're supposed to eat that!



these are purple potatoes. they are sooo pretty. one of my favorite ingredients to use. if you don't have purple potatoes available at your local grocer or farmer's market then you can use ANY potatoes.


slice your potatoes into thin slices. about twice as thick as a kettle potato chip. i think i used two potatoes. the above picture is misleading.

a little daiya cheese...

and last but not least..

tortillas! these were in size ginormous. also a technical term. ginormous.


heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a skillet over medium heat while you are chopping your onion. add your onion and jalapenos to the pan and begin to caramelize.


when the onions begin to look clear and magical add your sliced potato.




salt to taste and don't forget to stir occasionally.


in a second pan add a teaspoon or so of oil and over medium-high heat begin to cook your cook zucchini.


allow zucchini a minute or two to get started before reducing the heat to medium and adding your portabellos. season with salt and pepper and cook for a few minutes until mushrooms and zucchini are soft.





in the last moments of cooking your potato mixture you should add the tomatillos.


i used a little bit of daiya cheese on zane's quesadilla and a little bit of non-vegan cheddar cheese in mine. i am convinced that daiya cheese gives me a little bit of a stomach ache but zane loves it. it's also possible that my stomach ache was caused by the fact that the last time i ate it was after consuming a great deal of alcohol and then eating it on about 8 slices of pizza... i will definitely eat it on occasion but i had some leftover cheddar to use so i went ahead and finished it off.

my stove has a griddle in between the burners so that is what i used to melt the cheese and form the quesadilla. if you don't have a griddle then any pan that fits your quesadilla will be fine.

a few sprinkles of cheese is the most that i recommend here. the vegetables should be the star of the show. cheese is just a little treat and helps hold your tortilla in place. do not PILE cheese on or it will get greasy. =(






i folded my quesadilla into a half moon and set my heavy pan that i cooked the potato mixture in on top of it while it was on the hot griddle to help hold it together/press it down.


cut into three or four slices and ta-da! magical vegetable quesadilla. we ate ours with a little bit of fresh pico that i bought at figueroa produce. their house-made salsas are awesome. i was wishing that i had an avocado to slice and put on top. next time..

scientists grow bacon from stemcells

so read this:

scientists grow bacon in a lab using stem cells from pigs

apparently some dutch scientists are using stem cells from pigs to grow meat in a lab. let's pretend that said meat is delicious. vegans-- would you eat this? the article says that it has the potential to greatly reduce the need for slaughterhouses if they could make it work. pretend that there are definitely no health risks (aside from the health risks associated with consuming any bacon) associated with this lab meat and that it tastes delicious. does it still violate your morals in regards to your food consumption?