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The Kitchen Recessionista

So, here we are, in a recession. Let's eat!

Vegan “Shrimp” Sandwiches, Kousherie, and Peas.

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I apologize for posting last night’s meal so late (that is, a day later — ahem!).  Can I let you in on a little secret?  Yesterday was my birthday, so I spent the day as a lady of leisure — volunteering, swimming, chatting on the phone with old friends.  As a result, I was feeling SO leisurely that I didn’t even fool with writing a blog post!  I was thinking of you, though, as I cooked, and felt you might like the menu.  So here it is!

Since it was my birthday, I decided to tackle a few of my favorite foods, beginning with a vegetarian version of the shrimp sandwich I used to love at this restaurant named Harry’s, down on the Gulf Coast in a little town called Carrabelle.  I used the breaded vegan shrimp from Sophie’s Kitchen, and it turned out just beautifully!  I was going to get fancy and mix up an Old Bay Aioli, but I neglected to remember that I had no Old Bay in the house.  (I hope this memory lapse isn’t a sign of old age!)  So once the shrimp was baked and the buns were toasted, we simply topped our sandwiches with some Vegenaise and lettuce and called it a day.  The end result was just like I remembered from Harry’s!  We piled our sandwiches high with shrimp, so there was protein in every bite, and the lettuce gave us a little crunch.  (And I’ll try the Old Bay aioli another time.)
Alongside the sandwiches, I whipped up a big batch of kousherie, with a few modifications from the recipe I’ve just linked to — we used macaroni instead of spaghetti, for instance, and I boiled the lentils along with the pasta.  Also, instead of making a big pot of rice, I simply warmed up two packets of Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice and added them to the mixture before serving!
The peas were a wonderful addition to our plates; English peas are some of my very favorite veggies, and we mowed down the whole pot.  Plus, they added some much-needed greenery to our surf-and-carb meal!
We paired our dinner with a bottle of Flying Dog Dead Rise, a beer brewed with — what else? — Old Bay.  Don’t recoil in horror; it’s actually a very subtle seasoning in this brew, and we love the end result.  It was a fitting way to toast a wonderful day!
:)

Orange Seitan With Rice and Spring Rolls.

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The other day, I visited our local library branch to retrieve some books I had on hold, and while I was there, I spied (OK, actually, I searched high and low, and thenI spied it) one of my favorite cookbooks, The Chinese Takeout Cookbook by Diana Kuan.  I knew it had to come back home with me for another go-round, and immediately upon its arrival I began to plot out what I was going to make and when.
Tonight’s selection?  Orange Seitan!  In the cookbook, Kuan uses chicken, but I find seitan to be a wonderful veggie substitute.  And it was!  I won’t give away all of Kuan’s recipe, because she has a book to sell, but suffice it to say, while the rice cooked I marinated the seitan, then stir-fried it (the recipe calls for battering and then frying, but I skipped that step), then added the orange sauce and heated that through until it was reduced by about half. 
As the seitan and rice both cooked, I warmed up four spring rolls in the oven, and they hung out waiting for the rest of the meal to finish up, keeping warm all the while.
I tell you what, this cookbook can do no wrong!  We ate every morsel of the seitan (and almost all of the rice), and we both loved the mingling of flavors.  The sauce wasn’t overly orangey, nor was it overly sweet – but it had a wonderful hint of both attributes, which we both really appreciated.  We’ll definitely make this meal again!

:)

Black Beans and Rice With Vegan “Scallops.”

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That’s right, friends – tonight we served up Old Faithfulwith a new twist!  Several, actually, if you count the Chesapeake Salsa we served alongside (which was spiced with Old Bay seasoning).
I’ve been dying to try the Sophie’s Kitchen vegan scallops, and tonight seemed like as good a time as any to infuse our dinner table with a Gulf Coast feel.  I prepared the rice and black beans as usual – with a Goya seasoning packet for the rice and a hearty helping of adobo seasoning in the beans – and then got to work on the scallops, which I’d neglected to thaw prior to baking and as a result had to partially thaw during the cooking process, at which time I pried them all apart and finished the cook time properly.
As usual, tonight’s Old Faithful came together in no time at all – about half an hour end-to-end.  But how would we like the vegan scallops?  Would they remind us of the Gulf Coast delicacies of yesteryear?
Well, I’ve got to be honest here about two things in particular.  First, I don’t really recall what scallops tasted like.  Like tofu – stick with me here! – scallops always tended to take on the flavor of whatever we cooked them with, so it’s really the texture that I remember.  Sophie’s Kitchen’s version did just fine on that score, though – here’s my second bit of honesty – LeeLee and I both felt like it would have been a more successful finished product had we seasoned them with something prior to serving.  Perhaps a garlic butter, or perhaps some Cajun spice or blackening rub.  Something of that nature.  But they were still very good as-is, and there wasn’t one scallop left when it came time to do the dishes, so there’s your proof.
The black beans and rice were, of course, as good as ever, and they mingled beautifully with the scallops, the Chesapeake salsa, the vegan sour cream, and, for me, the nutritional yeast (one of these days I’ll have to do a post to fully dedicate my love to nutritional yeast!).  Like the scallops, there wasn’t a single bean or grain of rice left in the pots when dinner was over – a sign of success, for sure!

:)

Sunday Cookout: BBQ Tofu Sandwiches With Yellow Squash and Tater Tots.

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Y’all, today I had a breakthrough in the BBQ-tofu department.  This is life-changing, and I mean that!  (I take my barbecue seriously, you know.)
Let’s cut to the chase.  For the first time, I used Trader Joe’s extra-firm tofu in this meal, and it held up amazingly well on the grill, even after eight hours of marinating time prior.  The tofu strips were firm, grilled evenly, and were easy to flip midway through the cooking process.  Usually, I lose a strip or two (or pieces and parts therein) when I flip them all over, but this time, I lost nary a molecule!  And that’s a good thing, too, because this particular BBQ tofu was wonderfully flavorful and tasty.
Alongside the tofu, I cooked up a sliced yellow squash – two of them, actually – from last week’s Great Country Farms box.  I placed the slices in a long sheet of foil, then topped them with two chopped garlic scapes (also from the CSA box!), a generous amount of chipotle powder, and about a tablespoon of olive oil.  I sealed up the foil with a second sheet of foil for good measure, then placed the packet on the grill for about half an hour, turning it halfway through the cooking time.
All that was left to cook inside were the tater tots – an easy addition to round out the meal!
The weather was gorgeous outside tonight – it has been all weekend, actually – so LeeLee and I had no trouble settling down in the backyard for dinner.  The summer heat is supposed to come back with a vengeance tomorrow, so we enjoyed one last breezy July night and appreciated what we had!  Great weather, tasty food – what’s not to love?

:)

Penne Pasta With Vegan Pesto Sauce.

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Y’all!  We have so much basil right now – two plants that we purchased on the first warmish day this spring, plus one more from our Great Country Farms CSA box a few weeks ago.  Over the last couple of weeks, all three plants have begun to explode, growing by leaps and bounds every time we turn our backs!
This can mean only one thing: It’s pesto season!
Tonight, I concocted a new-to-me pesto recipe that turned out just great.  I confess I didn’t measure, so this won’t be an Official Recipe, but the gist of it was: Bring out your food processor and in it place two large fistfuls of basil, a small package of pine nuts, two cloves of garlic, enough olive oil to give the mixture some binding, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper.  Then process the ingredients until they’re smooth and, well, pesto-like, and wait for your pasta to be done!
Along with the pasta and pesto, I also sautéed a diced zucchini (also fresh from today’s CSA box!), which I added to the penne once I’d drained the pasta water.  Before I knew it, it was time to serve everything up!
I was presented with a big decision to make: Do I mix the pesto in with the penne, or serve it atop and mix it in tableside?  After a brief conference, LeeLee and I elected to go the latter route, and it worked just great.  A little pesto goes a long way, and we were happy to have control over how much we put on our plates!
We both chowed down happily on tonight’s dinner; the pesto was fresh (obviously) and, while it was pretty garlicky, we happen to love garlic, so that worked out just fine.  The zucchini was a great addition to the pasta itself, and the penne was perfectly al dente and held up very well.  And we have plenty left for lunch tomorrow – if that doesn’t say Independence Day, I don’t know what does! ;)

:)

Greek Chik’n Tacos With Couscous.

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First of all, let us all take a moment to wish the United States men’s national soccer team well.  Their loss today was heartbreaking, but what a World Cup this was!  And for the second time in as many World Cups, they made it to the knockout round – not a small feat.  I’m proud of them.  (And now, in honor of my beloved former neighbors, I will root for Germany.)
Now, let’s get on with tonight’s meal!  With a heavy heart, I lumbered into the kitchen after the game to put together a dish I’ve been wanting to try for a while – Christy Jordan’s Greek chik’n tacos from over at SouthernPlate.com.  Well, truth be told, she uses real chicken, but of course in our household we found that seitan would do the trick just beautifully in its stead.  So I marinated it per Christy’s instructions, then browned the seitan for about 10 minutes in a nonstick pan.  As it cooked, I prepared a pot of couscous, which I felt would be a great addition to the Mediterranean theme!
We had tortillas left over from Sunday night’s fajita-fest, so we put them to work again tonight.  We also had half a container of No. 1 Sons spicy sauerkraut from the same meal, and found it went just beautifully atop the tacos!  Other toppings included black olives, feta cheese, and a chopped tomato topped with fresh parsley from the garden.
This was such a light-tasting yet filling meal!  We both loved the marinade; the seitan soaked it up perfectly.  And we loved having tacos that didn’t taste like the usual tacos!  The couscous was a welcome sidekick, as well, especially after being topped with a little nutritional yeast (which, admittedly, I will put atop anything at all).
Our only lamentation is that we don’t have any leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch!  But as usual, that’s the sign of a dinner well-loved.

:)

New Recipe: Vegan Creamed “Tuna” Over English Muffins.

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Creamed tuna is a longtime family favorite – my mother used to make it as a go-to dish, particularly in the summertime or when we were camping.  Since we’ve been vegetarian (for the last 15 years or so), I’ve missed it tremendously!  We haven’t had many occasions to have a creamed tuna substitute in the last decade or so – not since Tuno went off the market, anyway, which has been at least 10 years now.  So after several successful outings with Sophie’s Kitchen’s Vegan Toona, I knew it was time to give it the test of a lifetime.  How would it hold in creamed “tuna”?
The full recipe is below, but the shortened version is: I prepared a basic flour-and-almond-milk cream sauce, then added the toona to the pot – we used the Black-Pepper Toona tonight – and stirred everything around to mix it thoroughly.  I spooned the creamed tuna over English muffins, served some steamed mixed vegetables alongside, and dinner was ready!  From end to end, it took about 15 minutes of preparation time; not too shabby for a night when we were short on time and energy.  (Tonight was a shelter night for me, and LeeLee had to bring some work home to finish up.)
The finished product reminded me so much of my mother’s creamed tuna, it was amazing.  Instantly, I was transported back to my family’s dinner table (the actual table is now at our home!), where I ate serving after serving, unable to get enough.  That was the case tonight, as well; we cleaned the saucepan out!  We’re not proud.  Just hungry after a long day of work.
In short, this meal was a definitive success.  We’ll certainly make it again and again!
VEGAN CREAMED TUNA OVER ENGLISH MUFFINS
Serves two-four
What you’ll need:
4 English muffins
¼ cup vegan butter
¼ cup flour
2 cups almond milk
1 can vegan tuna
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
First, toast your English muffins.  I like to handle all four at once by opening them up and putting them on a baking sheet, baking them at about 400 degrees for 10 minutes.  Once they’re in the oven, it’s time to make the creamed tuna!
Next, make a roux by melting the butter in a saucepan and then whisking the flour in to make a paste.  Once those two ingredients are combined, add the milk and whisk continuously until the mixture becomes a cream sauce (this always takes me 5-7 minutes). 
After you’ve got your sauce in order, it’s time to add the tuna!  So spoon in your vegan “tuna” and be sure it separates nicely, rather than forming big clumps within the cream sauce.  Next, add salt and pepper, stir to combine, heat everything through, and let stand until the muffins are toasted.
To serve, simply place two muffins on a plate and spoon a heaping helping of creamed “tuna” atop each open-face slice.  Serve alongside a vegetable or salad to round out the meal, and enjoy!

:)

Sunday Cookout: Vegetarian Chik’n Fajitas With Rice.

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Ooooh, I think I have concocted a new Sunday-cookout favorite.
As I put together this week’s menu plan, my thoughts, as usual, drifted to what I could possibly grill out for our weekly barbecue.  Now, I love all the usual suspects – riffs on burgers, or veggie dogs, or tofu, or Portobello mushrooms.  But I wanted to do something different this week.  Something unexpected.
Something involving my never-been-used new vegetable-grilling pan, given to me by LeeLee a little while back.  Something like … fajitas!
So this afternoon I got to work.  I sliced my last Vidalia onion into thin half-moons, gave a red bell pepper the same treatment, and washed off a container of sliced white button mushrooms, putting them all into a large zip-top bag.  To the veggie mixture I added several tablespoons of olive oil and plenty of chipotle powder, garlic powder, and ground cumin.  Then I sealed the bag up and massaged the marinade into the vegetables, putting them back into the fridge to soak up the goodness for a while before I fired up the grill and turned the rice cooker on.
When it came time to cook, it couldn’t have been easier.  I placed the grill pan on the grill grate, poured in the veggies, and then placed four Gardein chik’n filets on the grate as well.  Every few minutes, I flipped everything around, and after about 15 minutes, the veggies were cooked through and the chik’n was nicely seared.  After I took the chik’n off, I added a foil packet full of flour tortillas just to heat them up a bit, and then dinner was ready!
Let me just say: These fajitas were fantastic.  The onions, peppers, and mushrooms had a great smoky taste – the spice blend really melded well with the grilling technique – and we loved the addition of chik’n, something we’re never able to get at restaurants!  We topped our fajitas with the works – vegan sour cream, Daiya pepperjack shreds, lettuce, sliced black olives, diced tomato, and the piece de resistance, a spicy sauerkraut from No. 1 Sons, which we absolutely adored.  Paired with the rice, the fajitas made an extremely filling meal – with plenty left over for lunch tomorrow!
With that, we’ve deemed the grilled fajitas a success.  And it’s safe to say they’ll be part of the usual suspects in very short order!

:)

Vegan Crab Cakes With Veggies and Mashed Potatoes and Broccoli.

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This dinner was a meal of two firsts and an old faithful (though not that Old Faithful!).  We’ve been on a bit of a veggie-seafood kick lately, having recently discovered the bounty of Sophie’s Kitchen (no kickbacks, I swear – I’m just enamored of the products!), and now that the CSA has kicked back up again in earnest, I’m getting a wonderful array of vegetables to use each week alongside.
First up tonight was the mashed potatoes and broccoli.  I found this recipe over at Real Simple, and tonight was its maiden voyage.  First, I chopped two large heads of CSA broccoli in the food processor, then added it to a steamer basket along with a bag of small potatoes, which I halved to speed up their steaming process.  Then it was just a matter of steaming them (I found that the cooking time took about 20 minutes – longer than the 10-12 Real Simple called for), and them mashing everything together with the potato masher, adding the mix-ins as I went.  Next time I might even add some veggie bacon for taste!
As the broccoli and potatoes steamed, I baked four vegan crab cakes in the oven at 375 for about 15 minutes, flipping them over halfway through.  When I had about five minutes left of cooking time, I heated up a bag of frozen mixed vegetables – they go with any meal!  I placed them in a serving bowl and garnished them with a little chipotle powder, my new go-to seasoning. 
Once everything was cooked fully, it was time for serving – and taste-testing!  We were eager to give all of our new recipes a try, and thankfully we weren’t disappointed!  The crab cakes were sufficiently “fishy” without being fishy, and they went great with my little fake-cocktail-sauce of mayo and spicy ketchup.  The mashed potatoes and broccoli were fantastic – I mashed everything roughly, leaving some chunks of vegetables here and there, and we both loved the texture and the flavor, which was creamy even though we didn’t use any milk.  And of course the mixed vegetables filled out the plate (and our stomachs) beautifully.
We’ll definitely give this meal – both in whole and in part – another try!  It’s a keeper, for sure.

:)

Breakfast for Dinner.

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This is another one of those meals that LeeLee and I just adore, but that for some reason I haven’t added to the menu plan in ages!  Maybe it’s because we have a home-cooked brunch at least once a weekend, or maybe it’s because I’m always eager to try out a new dish instead.  But regardless, it’s been much too long in between times for our beloved breakfast for dinner!
Tonight’s breakfast – I mean, dinner – I mean, breakfast – was a longtime favorite: scrambled eggs with drop biscuits and sausage links.  And it took no time at all.  I tend to rely on my friends at Bisquick for the biscuit mix, so all I had to do was add water and drop the biscuits onto a cookie sheet to bake them for 15 minutes or so.  I scrambled four eggs in the last five minutes of the biscuits’ cooking time, and heated the veggie sausage up before serving.

By the way — we don’t buy too many eggs these days, for both health and ethical reasons.  So when I do, I try to make a good, conscious choice.  We tried out Vital Farms’ eggs tonight and liked them quite a lot!  Of course they’re pricier than your standard grocery-store egg, but per all my research, they’re a more humane option.  And isn’t that what being frugal is all about — allowing yourself options to make better choices for your family?  Anyway, I’m not a soapboxy person (at least I don’t think so!), and I feel like everyone has to make the choices that are right for them and their families, but I did want to point that out. :)

Though it took little time – and, if we’re being honest, little effort as well! – you’d have thought I’d been working at this meal all day with the reception it got at the dinner (breakfast?) table.  We had a couple of biscuits left by meal’s end, but all of the eggs and sausage were cleared, not even a molecule left.  And I’ve already got my eye on those biscuits for tomorrow’s post-exercise breakfast.  LeeLee, look out!

:)