Polenta, Sausage and Mushroom Stuffing

This stuffing is from Nava Atlas' Vegan Holiday Kitchen 

I doubled the amount of polenta, and I wanted crispy pieces, so I pan fried the additional polenta instead of oven roasting. And of course I had to change the seasonings a little.

Here is half of the polenta, mixed with mushrooms, Field Roast Italian "sausage", celery and red onion.

 After mixing it all together, it gets roasted again. Then put into a large serving bowl and sprinkled with toasted pine nuts.

 Look at that beautiful crispy "sausage"!

 

Sundried Tomato Quinotto

I heard you could cook any grain in the risotto style - dry saute then keep adding broth until done- so that's what I did with quinoa. It turned out great  - plus you could tell when the quinoa was done by the little curly q's they have when they open up. 

Not really a recipe, but here's what I did:

 I had a jar of this sundried tomato paste that I thought would be good to mix in. First I sauteed a few cloves of garlic and some shallot in a tiny bit of olive oil. Then I added dry quinoa (about 2 cups) to the pan. It's a large flat non stick pan with high enough sides that everything stays in the pan - not all over the stove.  Stir the dry quinoa for a few minutes until it gets toasty - I also added about 1 T Earth Balance so it wouldn't burn.

When toasted, I added a little less than a cup of white wine and stirred some more. Then you add veg broth (2 or 3 cups?) one ladle at a time until all is absorbed and quinoa is done. About 20 minutes or so. The quinoa didn't absorb the same way as rice, but it was fine in the end. Once the quinoa was cooked, I stirred in the jar of tomato paste and added some fresh chopped basil. A little salt and pepper. 

Serve either by itself

Or top with some balls. They really went well together.

These were "My Balls" from the Sexy Vegan cookbook. Made with walnuts and tempeh - Recipe here

I am still looking for the best balls. Could it be these? More balls 

I had some delicious balls last weekend made by a local restaurant. I don't have the recipe but I know they are made with mushrooms and potato! Sounds like I will be playing around with more balls soon.

Sexy Vegan Balls -tasty!

No, not those kind of balls! Really? It's a food blog. Not that they couldn't be tasty.....

But no, I mean these- 

 This recipe is "my balls" from the Sexy Vegan cookbook. They sounded really good so I doubled the recipe. And they were better today than when I baked them last night. Tasty, as I said. But I'm still searching for the ultimate vegan balls. 

More on that tomorrow along with Sundried Tomato Quinotto recipe I've had in my head for a while and finally got around to making. 

Pom!

On sale at a local market - huge pomegranates! Didn't know how long they would last, so I cut it up and took out all the seeds:

 Don't they look like jewels?

I figure if they keep like this at Trader Joe's, they should last til the end of the week. 

(unless I eat'em all first).

Mofo Chopped Challenge- Brunch!

The Challenge: brunch!

The basket ingredients: 

 Butternut squash, popcorn, rosemary and apricot preserves.

The Result: 

 Rosemary and Popcorn Flour Socca Brunch Sandwich with Apricot Glazed Tempeh

Here's what I did:

 First I popped the corn in a small amount of olive oil. I added a sprig of rosemary to infuse the flavor a bit. Then I put the popped corn in the vitamix to make "flour".

 It was very fluffy but I used half popcorn flour and half quinoa flake "flour" because it was too fluffy to work on it's own. I got the idea for tarts here: K's Veg Recipes. I mixed up the flours with salt, chopped rosemary, almond milk, apple cider vinegar, and water. I forgot the oil- but it still worked.

 Tofu egg slice from this blog: weeklyveganmenu

 

Glazed tempeh - apricot preserves, Braggs, and a dash of liquid smoke. Fried in nonstick pan and added a little water to deglaze. This was sooo good! 

  I roasted the squash in the oven, but it wasn't a sweet squash- in fact it was more yellow than orange. So after they came out of the oven, I sauteed with some maple syrup.

Almost ready to put together- the sauce in the middle is hummus, sun dried tomato paste and a tiny tiny spoonful of Veganaise. 

Assembled! Socca, sauce, tofu egg, butternut squash, glazed tempeh, arugula and socca top.

 

Delicious!

Qia Cereal

 

Have you seen this stuff?

 A friend of mine (who is an athlete) told me about it.

 You put 2 Tablespoons in a bowl. Yes you read that right- 2T!

Add 4 Tablespoons of almond milk and wait five minutes for cereal to thicken up. It actually does get fairly thick.

It tastes good- gives me energy- but I'm still hungry! I looked on the website and it suggests stirring the 2T into oatmeal as an alternative. I will have to try that tomorrow.

Lemon Mousse Cake

I made these lemon cakes for another vegan dinner party -(love those!) and the hostess does not eat sugar or flour. At all. Not on special occasions, not on vacation. Not at all.

So here's what I did: 

 I took the yellow cupcake recipe from VCTOTW and used part almond meal and part quinoa "flour" (I ground up the quinoa flakes in the vitamix) in place of white flour. I used Zsweet in place of the sugar. And since I wanted a lemon cake, I added some lemon juice and lemon extract.

They came out great! Light and fluffy, and moist! I baked them in my square muffin pan. I wasn't sure my substitutions would work and thought this would be easier than trying to cut a cake without it falling apart.  To make sure they would stay moist I brushed the tops with a little lemon syrup. (lemon juice, zsweet and water)

I made the mousse with soaked cashews, a little silken tofu, vegan cream cheese, chia seeds to thicken, lemon juice and some coconut cream.  Tried to pipe onto the cakes but was too soft. So I just refrigerated the mousse overnight and before serving used a small ice cream scoop to top the cakes with the mousse. It looked much prettier than the two seen here- but forgot to take the camera to the party. At least they tasted good!

Taco Salad Twice

 Pinto beans, olives, pico, guac, "sour cream", tortilla chips

 close up

 Black beans instead

 New favorite chips - Garden of Eatin' yellow corn chips. 

Coming soon- GF sugar free lemon mousse cake!

Rainy Day Lentil Soup

Perfect day for this soup! I didn't name it - that's what it was called on Fat Free Vegan blog - here's the recipe: FFV Rainy Day Lentil Soup

I upped the cumin and spinach a bit but otherwise made as written. I know ... I can't believe it either! 

AFR Caulipots and Kalamata Tempeh

Some thoughts about this recipe:

 The caulipots were delish! I used 1 tsp earth balance instead of the olive oil. 

Do not marinate your tempeh planning to make tomorrow and then leave in the fridge for 3 days! This was a little bitter- possibly because I didn't steam my tempeh like Isa says to do. Or maybe it soaked too long in the marinade, which itself was somewhat bitter. 

Somehow three of my favorite things - kalamata olives, garlic, and red wine didn't come together quite the way I had imagined. Will have to try this again and cook the same day and see what happens.

Garlic salt helps! 

Apple Pie Cheezecake

No, I know that cheezecake isn't all that healthy - but if you have to have something sweet then this is just a little better for you than the traditional version. 

I was making dessert for a dinner party (Yay for vegan dinner parties!) and a friend of mine also follows a mostly sugar free, flour free diet. So how to please the "regular vegans"?  

Here's how:

 Saute some honey crisp apples with a tablespoon of coconut sugar and a dab of earth balance. (the black spots are chia seeds- no need to use them as there isn't enough "sauce" to need thickening and then the chias don't swell up)

 Grind up some nuts for the crust. If adding dates, grind the nuts first then add the dates. Trust me - I know from experience. Or you could add a little maple syrup to the nuts to form a dough.

 Press dough into springform pan

 Add 1/2 of your favorite cheesecake batter

 layer apples on top of batter

 Add the rest of the cheesecake batter

 Smooth out the top and bake as directed in your cheesecake recipe.

And enjoy!