Urban Vegan Tester – Nicoise Salad

(Modifications made to be raw)

It’s not unusual for me to eat a whole salad spinner bowl full of salad, and I didn’t stop with this one, either.  I love the combination of ingredients for this salad and also the dressing!

Urban Vegan Tester – Spicy Udon Noodles

It’s the first food blog picture taken at Lando’s house!  With his black plates.    This definitely smelled good and I was able to snatch up some whole-wheat Udon.  I think Lando will like it and it was very easy to make. 

Pasta with Seitan, Mushrooms, and Sun-dried Tomato Pesto

The cream sauce is made from silken tofu, roasted garlic, and vegan parmesan.  I used brown rice pasta, mixed that together with some basil, and then added the finished seitan and mushrooms.

The seitan and mushrooms were marinated with lemon juice, garlic, and basil: 

The pesto topper has sun-dried tomatoes, live sprouted almonds with marinara spices, basil, garlic, olive oil, and salt, the Vegan With a Vengeance recipe with a little less oil.

I hope he likes it! 

Hoison-Glazed Tofu Stuffed with Shiitake Mushrooms

From The Vegetarian Meat & Potatoes Cookbook, the stuffing has shiitakes, garlic, green onions, and ginger, sauteed in peanut oil.  I am baking the stuffed tofu as opposed to sauteeing it.  I hope it turns out to be a good meal for a special someone’s return home!

Sweet & Sour Soy Curls

Sweet & Sour Sauce from Authentic Chinese Cuisine

This is onions, garlic, and mushrooms sauteed in peanut oil, with soy curls, snow peas, and red bell pepper.  I had the sweet and sour sauce already made and coated the vegetables, fungus, and legume strips with it, adding a little bit of sambal oelek for spiciness.

I am serving this with a millet-teff polenta with spinach and sesame oil, inspired by Vegan With a Vengeance’s spinach & millet polenta.

Fiesta Salad

Mixed greens with cilantro, kale, jicama, mango, carrots, corn, avocado, clover sprouts, a green pea-adzuki-lentil sprout blend, and a spicy Liquid Gold nutritional yeast dressing (with hemp).

Rajmah, from Mr. Marcus

Kidney beans, onions, ginger, tomatoes, and a Rajmah spice mix (http://aroracreations.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=31).

Dal

With ginger, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and coriander seeds.

Pressure Cooker, Salad Spinner, and Miser (or Yemisir) Wat w/ Couscous

 

Finally, today, I made two purchases that had been a long time coming:  a salad spinner and a pressure cooker.  I used to tell myself that I liked watered-down dressings, therefore, I didn’t need a spinner.  I also used to wait hours for legumes to cook.  My only regret:  using the automatic release knob for steam.  The stove is a complete mess!  I feel like I saved 5 min. by automatically releasing the pressure but gained an hour’s worth of cleanup time.

I did make some fresh vegetable broth for the couscous; however, what was pressure-cooked was the legumes for the miser wat.  I used merely 1 T. of coconut oil and 1 T. of roasted peanut oil to saute the onions, garlic, and ginger, then added my homemade berbere for the seasoning.  I wanted more peanut flavor but not a lot more oil, so I added 1 T. of roasted peanut oil to the couscous.  That’s at least four servings and less than 1 T. of oil per serving, much better than most Ethiopian restaurants as far as fat content.  Don’t get me wrong, I think some fat is healthy, just not 4 T. per meal.

The wat and the couscous were a great combination.  I love injera, but couscous just sounded delicious to me.  As the late comedian Mitch Hedberg would say with regard to rice, it’s great when you’re hungry and you want two thousand of something. 

Guest Star, Tunisian Chickpea Soup

Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen

Coming to you all the way from California….some hot chickpea soup to combat the freezing weather and subsequent snow that covers the www.vegan.com headquarters.  This is one of my favorite soups ever, with cumin, carmelized onions, and harissa.