Fresh Tofu and Strawberry Salad with Mosto Cotto

If you are interested in the quickest of complete meals, this is what I ate most of last week after our move.

We found a nearby restaurant that makes its own homemade fresh tofu. Tofu made without any preservatives, they warned us it would spoil faster than commercial tofu. We got some for take-away and quickly ate through it.

I thought I knew a lot about tofu but this was different. Airy and light. (Despite my description, this is not silken tofu since they sell that too and I got the regular fresh tofu). Because it was so fresh, it was silky smooth and I did not feel the need to do anything to it. No marinade, no baking, no frying, simply nothing.

It was a perfect addition to a quick salad. I added it to some other local specialties (fresh strawberries!) and made it into a simple salad after biking home from work. Pictured here with mixed greens and cucumber with a drizzle of mosto cotto, with a nod to my previous Vegan Green Power Bowl.

Do you ever eat plain tofu? Ie, straight from the package? If so, what is your favourite way to eat it?

I am sharing this with Shaheen’s Eat Your Greens.

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Vegan Bigos (Polish Sauerkraut Stew) + Great Vegan Protein Book GIVEAWAY

Lest you think I have bounced back from my surgery in record time and couldn’t wait to go back into the kitchen, I am working on some sharing some special meals prior to our trip. Truthfully, my appetite has taken a while to bounce back and we suspect my standard vegan diet contained too much fibre for my (at-the-moment) delicate gut.

As we move towards spring produce, this quick and easy stir fry with mushrooms, cabbage, sauerkraut and soy curls is delightful with a hit of fresh dill. The recipe is from The Great Vegan Protein Book and was originally called “Cabbage-n-Kraut with Seitan” but I alternated the main protein source, swapping seitan for soy curls. After a taste test form Rob, he told me I had just made a vegan version of the national Polish dish, Bigos, traditionally known as a Hunter’s Stew with different kinds of meat simmered with cabbage, sauerkraut and mushrooms with a touch of tomato. Score!

For those concerned with protein sources as a vegan, The Great Vegan Protein Book helps by tackling that question directly. Main vegan protein sources, legumes/beans, whole grains, nuts/seeds, tofu/tempeh and seitan are highlighted in the recipes. Ingredients less often thought as protein-dense, such as nutritional yeast and vegetables such as mushrooms, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, are also highlighted making recipes that are quite diverse. There are also snacks and desserts, including a No-Bake Choco Cashew Cheesecake with 9 g protein per serving.

All recipes include the protein content of each dish, although no other nutritional information like total calories which is a shame. Certainly the dishes featuring tofu, tempeh and seitan contain the most protein. Examples include Tempeh Banh Mi (41 g protein/serving), Higher Protein Sausage (86 g protein/sausage), Sesame Seitan Super Salad (55 g protein/serving), Pecan-Crusted Seitan Cutlets with Brussels Sprouts (51 g protein/serving), Braciola (68 g protein/serving) and Homestyle Potpie (47 g protein/serving). There is also a Beans and Greens Bowl with 23 g protein/serving and the BBQ Lentils with 12 g protein/serving.

Personally, I like to plan my meals around some sort of vegan protein. Once you figure that out, the rest of a balanced meal naturally takes place. Beans will contain protein and carbohydrates, tofu and nuts contains protein and fat, etc. Rounded out with some vegetables, this is how I try to craft my eats. This book is welcome to my cookbook collection with its varied and balanced meals.

Thankfully, the publisher allowed me to giveaway the cookbook to a reader living in the United States or Canada. To be entered in the random draw for the book, please leave a comment below telling me about your favourite vegan protein and how you like to cook it. The winner will be selected at random on May 1, 2015. Good luck!

Recipes from The Great Vegan Protein Book shared elsewhere:

Apple Breakfast Farro Burrito (with a giveaway, too)

BBQ Lentils

Seed and Nut Ice Cream

Unicorn Tacos (with a giveaway, too)

Wild Rice Pilaf

High protein seitan recipes shared here previously:

Vegan Chorizo Sausage

Seitan Sausage Buns

PS. I am sharing this with Cooking with Herbs, Bookmarked Recipes and Vegetable Palette.

Quick & Easy Salsa Chickpea Tacos

Did you know that Trader Joe’s is not in Canada? The closest thing we have (well, those who live in Vancouver) is Pirate Joe’s. They temporarily renamed themselves Irate Joe’s as they were being sued by TJ’s. TJ’s lost but is continuing to appeal. In any case, we’re getting our fair use of TJ’s while still in Houston.

Sadly, though, it took me 10 months to locate their perfect salsa. Their chunky salsa is totally my favourite. Perfectly spiced with a robust tomato flavour, I love it. I also managed to go through a container in less than a week.  I started adding it to everything.

In fact, this is such an easy recipe, it is almost non-recipe. I envision this as the perfect travelling meal – mix and eat. Until then, it will have a happy place in my kitchen.

Mix some salsa with chickpeas and chopped bell pepper. Throw it overtop some shredded broccoli and carrots for more crunch on a taco shell, and you’ve got a meal.  I topped mine with a healthy dose of nutritional yeast which became creamy and gooey with the extra salsa. Totally not optional for those who love nooch.

I may go into salsa withdrawal. Can anyone recommend a good recipe? I cannot imagine it being hard to make. 😉

PS. I am sharing this with Souper Sundays and this month’s My Legume Love Affair hosted by Susan.

Quickie Balsamic Miso Chickpeas and Baby Bok Choy

Guys, I am loving ALL your ideas for quickie meals – both your suggestions for your easiest cooked and raw meals.

Are some recipes too simple to share?

How about stir fries? Rob’s go-to stirfry is tofu and broccoli (precut frozen veggies work well for those who don’t want to chop veggies), smothered in sweet chili sauce. Easy peasy.

But sometimes, simple wins. I don’t need lots of colourful veggies. One will do. I don’t need lots of spices. Simple can work too and it does not need to be bland.

I originally spotted this recipe in High Protein Vegan (see my review earlier) but it had me scurrying to a new-to-me blog The Stone Soup. Jules focuses on meals with minimal ingredients and minimal prep. While the blog is not vegan, Jules nearly always includes ways to make each meal vegan-friendly with lots of possible substitutions.

This recipe stems from Jules’ quickie method of cooking vegetables: shallow steam cooking in a frypan along with balsamic vinegar and miso. Do I know how to steam veggies in a frypan? Yes! But I never would have thought to combine it with a simple dressing of balsamic vinegar and miso. I really liked the idea of pairing the dressing with baby bok choy and chickpeas, so I went with it.

I didn’t sear my veggies as Jules’ recommended in her video, but I do not feel like it detracted from my version as the dressing pulled it all in together nicely. Sweet and tangy balsamic vinegar juxtaposed against the salty miso and earthy beans and greens. I preferred this fresh but only because my leftovers were quite watery. I have been more likely to eat more beans instead of making an additional side of grains, but grains are nice to sop up delicious juices.

Do you think some recipes are just too simple to share?

PS. I am sharing this with Bookmarked Recipes.

Roasted Onion Flowers (Easy!)

Happy Thanksgiving for those celebrating it today.

Part of the reason I have not fallen victim to “what will I make for Thanksgiving?” thinking is that Rob and I are travelling for the weekend. I have been invited to no less than 3 separate Thanksgiving feasts, but instead we’re leaving America.

And yes, I realize today is Thanksgiving, which may be a bit late to share such a fun dish for Thanksgiving… although, I implore you to consider it for your next fancy dinner. It is ridiculously easy. Have some onions? Oil? Balsamic vinegar? Salt? I thought so!

I have been meaning to make these ever since Natalie shared them last year, but really they are roasted onions, cut whole and roasted such that they open like flowers. The pink ones are more pretty but I tried it with Peruvian sweet onions as well.

I packed them into a pan/skillet and roasted away. I actually forgot to remove the tin foil for the last 10 minutes, so they should be a bit more charred should you actually follow the directions. 😉

One onion obviously makes a lot of onion. So feel free to split them in half (or more) when serving. Although, I love onions, especially roasted onions, so I could easily eat the whole onion in one go.

What were your favourite dishes for Thanksgiving this year?

This is my submission to this month’s Bookmarked Recipes.

Miso-Kimchi Vegetable Stir-Fry with Bean Curd Skin

Miso-Kimchi Vegetable Stir with Bean Curd Skin

I really wanted to call this Miso-Kimchi Vegetable Stir with Tofu Intestines, because isn’t that what you think of when you see it, too? In truth, I know what I am talking about. I would consider myself an expert at what the small bowel looks like. (For the record, Rob thought it was inappropriate)

In case you were curious, a google search for tofu intestines still pulls up what I am describing:

Also known as yuba, bean curd skins are made from the thin skin that forms on top of the tofu while it is being made. It can be bought fresh, frozen or dried. If it is dried, it needs to be soaked for at least 8 hours but the fresh ones are ready to go, as is. A bit more googling, taught me that yuba has been gracing higher end restos lately. I would believe it. Because let me tell you, they pack the nutritional punch of tofu with a nice, new texture.

While they were new to me and Rob, this did not stop Rob from making a fabulous random stir fry. Tender crisp vegetables are a must for a stir fry (broccoli and carrot here) along with your typical aromatics, like ginger and garlic. While the tofu intestine bean curd skins were an amazing textural foil amongst the vegetables, the flavour explosion came from Rob’s addition of kimchi and miso to the mix. Yeah, bliss.

Now for a shout-out to Viet Hoa, the grocer where we found the tofu intestines. It is possibly the biggest Asian grocer I have encountered. They have a lot of fresh produce and aisles upon aisles of other Asian goodies. They honestly have a whole section for noodles and a large room solely for rice. Sadly, their brown rice selection is not as plentiful and they don’t stock our favourite brand (but I did find whole oat groats amongst the rice, crazy eh?). Total props goes to their tofu selection which covers nearly an entire aisle. Not only are there multiple varieties of traditional tofu, they also had fun bean curd shapes, such as these tofu intestines and small bowties. However, it was their selection of mock meats that made our jaws drop. As you know, I don’t usually eat mock meats (other than the seitan I’ve made myself), but they had an entire freezer aisle dedicated solely to vegan mock meats (see below: Rob snapped some photos with his phone). I am not talking Gardein and the like. Mock chicken, salmon and ham but also mock abalone and sea cucumber made from seitan or soy. Explore a bit more and they have dried seitan and bean curd in fun shapes, as well. I swear, I have never seen so many versions of mock meat/tofu in one place.

Have you tried bean curd skins? Think they look like intestines? Had enough of the kimchi recipes yet? 🙂

This is my submission to this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Lucia.

Raw Watermelon Candy

Here is another ridiculously easy treat!

While I have gushed over simple dehydrated fruits and veggies before, here I am raving about dried…… wait for it…. watermelon!

I usually don’t like to play guessing games with my food. However, I had fun sharing it at work, letting people tell me what they thought. First yay or nay. I had 90% yay. Then I let them guess what they were eating. Not a single person guessed watermelon. I had a lot of votes for pepper (due to the seeds, methinks) and other fruit due to the sweetness.  Lisa described them as bubble gum which comes from the sticky sweet consistency. But once I let out the watermelon secret, you can catch a glimpse of flavour in the background. Isn’t it funny how fickle our tastebuds can be?

It is certainly the special texture of the dried watermelon that I adored. Chewy and sweet. I made version plain and also salted with and without chile flakes. With a combination of hot-salty-sweet, the salted chile flake version was my favourite. Rob concurred. Rob mused it would be eerily similar to jerky if we added liquid smoke. Not that I know what jerky tastes like, though. 😉

I just realized that not only are simple recipes easier to make, but they are also a lot easier to type up afterwards. Enjoy! 🙂

This is my submission to this week’s Raw Food Thursdays and to this month’s Bookmarked Recipes.

Easy Cheezy Chickpea Salad (& How I Am Stocking My Pantry)

When I chat with friends from home, I field many similar questions. Have you finished unpacking? YES!!!! How am I finding the heat and humidity? Not that bad… Is Houston friendly for cyclists?  My route to work is actually pretty devoid of cars, so I can’t complain. How is the food… and the veggie selection?  One of my friend was interested in how I triaged the stocking of my fridge and pantry. What did I buy first? What were my perishable and non-perishable necessities?

Since we were without a kitchen for almost a week when we arrived, I continued with my travel-friendly eats: overnight oats with chia seeds and protein powder for breakfast, hummus with carrots and crackers for lunch and snack, and easy eats for dinner once I made my first grocery run. We hit up the closest grocers (Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Fiesta Mart) to scope out our new neighbourhood and begin our pantry. See below for what I commonly keep in my kitchen.

After the Zesty Lemon Cilantro Chickpea Salad, this was the next salad I made. This salad is almost too simple. Only four ingredients, or five if you include salt or pepper. Chickpeas, lemon juice, nutritional yeast and leafy greens. Definitely more than the sum of its parts. The lemon juice is tart and the nutritional yeast tames it into a creamy dressing. Marinade the chickpeas and use the extra sauce to toss with your favourite leafy greens. This is also a good travel-friendly meal if you stash nutritional yeast in your bag, of course, along with a knife to cut the lemon. Don’t we all travel this way? HAHA! 🙂

Without further ado, this is my culled pantry list:

Perishables

Produce: apples, bananas (for Rob), carrots, lemons/limes, green onion, onions, garlic, ginger (cilantro is a common staple, depending on my menu)
Bonus: tofu and tempeh.
Leafy greens if salads are on the menu

Non-perishables

Beans:
canned beans (chickpeas, black beans, kidney beans)
dried beans (chickpeas, black beans, lentils (red, green))

Grains:
Oats (rolled oats and steel cut oats)
Quinoa
Brown short-grain rice

Flours:
Chickpea flour (for Rob to make chilla)
Masarepa (for Rob to make arepas)

Seeds:
Chia seeds
Flax seeds
Sesame seeds
Tahini

Vinegars:
Balsamic vinegar
Apple cider vinegar
Rice vinegar

Oils:
Extra-virgin olive oil, for salads
Coconut oil, for cooking
Toasted sesame oil

Nuts:
Almonds
Raw cashews
Nut butter (peanut butter is Rob’s favourite)

Canned/other foods:
Salt
Bragg’s liquid aminos or low-sodium tamari
Nutritional yeast
Mustard (preferably Dijon)
Sweet chili sauce (for Rob)
Sriracha (for Rob)
Tamarind concentrate
Dried fruit (dates, raisins, coconut, cranberries)
Sun-dried tomatoes
Canned tomatoes (I usually only get whole tomatoes and less commonly crushed)
Tomato paste
Miso
Nondairy milk
Coconut milk
Agave or maple syrup
Tea/tisanes (coffee for Rob)
Baking soda (also for cleaning)
Protein powder

Herbs and spices (at least):

Cumin
Coriander
Cinnamon (sticks and ground)
Cardamom pods (green)
Aleppo chili flakes
Turmeric
Smoked paprika
Rosemary
Thyme (I don’t use this that often)
Basil (I don’t use this that often)
Oregano
Bay leaves
+ all the ingredients for my veg stock powder (parsley, dill, garlic granules, onion granules, etc)

I have had a much larger pantry in the past but I am trying to keep things limited to what I will consume in a year. What are things that I have missed that you cannot live without?

This is my submission to Deb for this week’s Souper Sundays.

15-Minute Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes

Have you ever had this burning craving for something?

Today it was cheesecake.

I don’t know why, but I wanted cheesecake.  It was all I could think about at work.

Cheesecake.

A heavy, decadent slice of cheesecake.

I have a great no bake Toblerone cheesecake recipe that I haven’t made in years, but I didn’t have Oreo cookie crumbs nor cream at home.  Plus, I wanted one slice, not an entire cheesecake.

I contemplated making Kevin’s no bake blueberry cheesecake, which serves 2, but again I didn’t have any cream or graham cracker crumbs.

If I were to head to the grocery store to buy those items, then I may as well pop over to a restaurant and buy a slice of cheesecake.

So I looked for the next best thing: chocolate. Oozing, creamy chocolate. A molten chocolate lava cake. A cake where the outside is cake-like but you are surprised in the middle with soft, oozing chocolate.

Spotted at The Pioneer Woman, this recipe was perfect for molten chocolate cakes. After I halved the recipe, it served 2. I had all the ingredients in my pantry already.

In the time it took to preheat my oven, I had already whipped up the batter. I spread it between 2 ramekins and in 15 minutes, I had my chocolate fix! Quick, easy, decadent and now a very satisfied feeling.

This was the first time that my stomach screamed at me to finish taking my photos. Especially as I watched the ice cream melt before my eyes, amongst the warm oozing chocolate filling… Thankfully, as good as it looked, it tasted even better. I quickly snapped a few photos so I could eat this in all its warmed glory.

There was a dense chocolate cake exterior, but inside the middle was soft and silky. Thick, but decadent. Unbelievably rich and filling. As a note for next time, I used bittersweet 72% chocolate and found the cakes a bit sweet. Next time, I’ll scout out unsweetened chocolate or decrease the sugar.

This is my submission to the Chocolaty Dreams Virtual Party.