Sign Up for the Weekly Catch-Up!

The best of the blog, in your inbox.

The Kitchen Recessionista

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

Veggie Fried Rice With Sweet and Sour “Pork.”

by

veggie-fried-rice

Ahhh, Chinese takeout-at-home night! I love whipping up a takeout meal in faster time, and with better results, than we’d get if we were actually picking dinner up from someplace.

As usual, our veggie fried rice was the anchor of tonight’s dinner, but it had a twist! Instead of the usual seitan, tonight we tried out Gardein’s new sweet and sour “porkless bites” to serve alongside the rice. The prep couldn’t have been easier – just a few minutes of heating-up time in the pan and then a minute to mix the sauce in and let everything marinate – and the final result was glorious!

And the fried rice itself turned out quite nicely too. I trotted out my trusty recipe from Christy Jordan at the Southern Plate and got straight to work, omitting the eggs and tweaking the seasoning a little bit based on what I had on hand tonight (swapping onion powder for garlic powder, for instance). Within minutes, everything was ready to eat, and LeeLee and I sat down to begin the feast!

I don’t mind telling you that there’s not a single grain of rice nor molecule of sweet and sour “pork” left. Nor are there any of the four spring rolls I heated up in the oven. These things happen when we’re hungry and the food is good! Chinese takeout-at-home never disappoints.

:)

Vegetable Curry.

by

vegetable-curry

Friends, I must admit: LeeLee and I were gluttons tonight.

We didn’t mean to be, of course, but this meal, this curry sauce, it carried us away. In what turned out to be yet another winner from the Make-Ahead Vegan cookbook, tonight’s vegetable curry was such a success, so hearty and filling and flavorful, that I dare say we left scant little for lunch tomorrow. This is not something we’re proud of, but there you have it.

For a few minutes there, I wasn’t sure we’d enjoy this meal much at all. In the middle of cooking, I realized that I was missing two ingredients: The veggie broth (for the sauce) and jasmine rice (for the side)! Oh, how I was verklempt. But then I came to my senses and realized that a couple of cups of water would do the trick with a little salt (and more coconut milk than the recipe called for) – and that instead of jasmine rice, nobody would care if I served short-grain sushi rice on the side! So into the rice cooker it went and I moved on about my day.

I won’t divulge the whole recipe here, since Ginny Kay McMeans has a cookbook to sell, but suffice it to say, after 35-40 minutes of cooking, with the occasional ingredient (including my beloved cauliflower and chickpeas) added throughout the process, the curry was ready! And so was the rice, which had shed its sushi origins and adopted an Indian motif.

LeeLee and I dug in with gusto, and as I’ve already admitted, we found it difficult to say When. This was a fantastic curry recipe that we’ll look forward to enjoying again and again! And though we didn’t use this as a make-ahead meal tonight, we certainly will in the future. I’m looking forward to it already!

:)

Vegan “Beef” Pho.

by

vegan-beef-pho

Today started out as a decidedly Pho Day, what with the frosty morning temperatures and whatnot. As the hours ticked by, though, the climate warmed up a bit and I found myself shedding my jacket, but no matter: Pho was already seared firmly into my brain, and there was nothing I could do about it.

With that difficult decision made, I came home from work, gave the cat her fluids alongside LeeLee (which works much easier now that we’ve learned we can just serve her dinner while we stick her with a needle!), and began Pho Prep.

First, I minced several tablespoons of fresh ginger and two cloves of garlic. I added them both to my trust Le Creuset and then threw in a star anise pod for some authentic Asian flavor. Then I poured in a carton of veggie broth, plus a little extra water for good measure, and added a parcel of cubed seitan. Once things got to boiling, the seitan looked a little lonesome, so I added a can of Asian mushrooms and the pot seemed much more lively.

Now, this is probably a good time to say that I sort of made this recipe up as I went along. We typically enjoy tofu with our pho, but I was craving a more “traditional” (and I use that loosely, since we’re vegetarian) pho with a meatier texture. Enter seitan, my hero of the ages! And it didn’t disappoint.

When we got closer to dinnertime, I heated up a pot of water and added in plenty of vermicelli noodles, which cooked up in an instant. We drained them, flipped off the switches to the stove, and got ready to prepare our pho!

First into the bowl were the aforementioned noodles, with plenty of seitan-and-mushroom broth ladled on top. Then we busted out the add-ins – jalapeno slices, parsley and cilantro from the garden, lime wedges, and a hearty dose of Sriracha! And then we sat down to eat.

Wowza! This pho was so meaty, so hearty, and LeeLee kept repeating over and over how this was the best pho I’ve ever made. Now, I tend to take some of those proclamations with a grain of salt – LeeLee is often complimentary, and I really appreciate that – but this time I do have to agree with him. This pho really got to the essence of what the dish is supposed to be about – at once earthy and light, filling but not overly so, a blend of bright broth and fresh noodles and chewy, happy protein. We both devoured several bowls (and I even went back for a spoonful of noodles by themselves, just because!).

On the minus side, there’s no broth left over for lunch tomorrow. But there are plenty of noodles, and I feel sure we can find a use for them!

:)

Thai Peanut Bowl With Tofu and Asparagus.

by

thai-peanut-bowl

Friends, I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of apologizing to you all lately. We had a vacation and I was away. Then work got busy and I was away. And then I was just away because I was away. That last part was primarily due to a bit of a family challenge that we’ve been facing down over the past couple of weeks. I’d prefer to not delve too deeply into it at the moment – this is a food blog, after all, not my personal Dear Diary – but I did want to let you know it was lingering out there. And I’ll loop y’all in just as soon as I’m able. Promise.

And before we pivot back to the business of the day – tonight’s dinner! – I admit I have reread the previous paragraph and giggled at my use of “family challenge,” which in my mind evokes either a battle on “Family Feud” or some sort of jousting match, a la “American Gladiators.” ;) But let the record show that neither of those is the case, and that rather this is a challenging facing the family, not relatives squaring off against one another. Although that would be humorous!

ANYWAY. On to the food.

Tonight, I pulled a page from one of my very favorite cookbooks, Robin Robertson’s One-Dish Vegan, and whipped up the Thai Peanut Bowl with some brown rice on the side. (I recognize that the addition of the rice made this a two-dish meal, not one, but who cares?) And as with everything we’ve tried from this cookbook, we adored it.

I won’t delve into the entire recipe here, because Ms. Robertson has a book to sell after all, but I will just say that what makes this dish is the peanut sauce. And that peanut sauce has some mighty interesting ingredients, not the least of which is: Ketchup! KETCHUP, y’all. Now, granted, not a lot, but enough to flavor the sauce (in an incredibly non-ketchupy way). That sauce made the dish – though the tofu, asparagus, scallions, and spices certainly helped.

I am sorry to report that we have none leftover for tomorrow’s lunch – LeeLee and I each went back for heaping seconds, and LeeLee even went back for thirds. The pan was decimated after this assault, but we didn’t care. We would do it all again in a second. (Or third.)

:)

Seitan Fried Rice.

by

seitan-fried-rice-3

You know, every time I make this take on Christy Jordan’s fried rice recipe, I marvel at how quickly the whole shebang comes together. I didn’t time my process tonight, but I’d bet that the whole thing takes less than 20 minutes from beginning to end! And that includes heating up the rice (admittedly, I used Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice to speed the process along) and preparing the seitan. Not a bad turnaround for a Tuesday night!

LeeLee’s working late tonight and sent me on to the dinner table without him (he’ll be home shortly and will feast then!), so when I got home from work I fed the cat and got straight to the business of cooking. While the rice cooked in the microwave, I scrambled two eggs and set them aside. Then I added a couple of tablespoons of peanut oil to my most wok-like pan and then added in a package of seitan along with a little soy sauce and garlic powder. Once it had turned a nice golden-brown, I added the rice, then the peas, scallions, shredded carrots, and scrambled eggs, as well as some more soy sauce and a dash more peanut oil, and then tossed everything together to let the food heat throughout.

Within just a couple of minutes, dinner was ready! And there was much rejoicing, I must say. I mowed down a serving and a half, and there is PLENTY left for LeeLee’s dinner and for our lunch tomorrow. And it can get in line – we’ve also still got some baked penne left too! So we’re set for the rest of the week. All from 20 minutes’ worth of work!

:)

Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai.

by

spaghetti-squash-pad-thai

Well, now, here’s a use for spaghetti squash that I never would have anticipated!

A couple of weeks ago, I was thumbing through The Kitchn (as I am want to do) and came across a recipe that immediately piqued my interest: Spaghetti squash pad Thai. With tofu, of all things! With the CSA autumnal season in full swing and winter squashes arriving at our door every 45 seconds (or so it seems), this recipe proved to be quite timely indeed.

I’ll admit it: Though I’ve been working fairly late hours this week, I came home relatively early tonight just to put the spaghetti squash in the oven. I knew it would take an hour to bake, after all, and I was just dying to get the pad Thai party started!

So when I got home, I immediately put my biggest squash atop a baking sheet and placed it in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour, turning the squash over halfway through. In the last half-hour of baking time, I sliced up a block of tofu, pulled out my favorite cast-iron skillet, and stir-fried the tofu until it was golden brown on both sides.

Now, this Kitchn recipe and I did deviate in terms of our technique. The recipe calls for putting things in and out of the pan piece by piece; I did that once, between the tofu and egg, but otherwise I refrained. That’s probably because I neglected to purchase any spring onions, or cloves of garlic. No, rather, when dinner was nearly done I simply sprinkled some minced onion over the top, mixed it in, and called it a day! Also, in the sauce, I did not use the tamarind paste or the fish sauce (naturally), opting instead for a soy-sauce/water/brown sugar blend. I also added a dollop of peanut butter to the spaghetti squash at the last, because … well, why not?

I did, however, add the peanuts, cilantro, and red pepper flakes to the top of the dish for garnish, along with some lime. So I didn’t go completely far afield!

Oh, and did I mention that my cast-iron skillet is now smooth enough to scramble eggs without a lick of sticking? This is by far one of life’s greatest feats.

Anyway, ingredient substitutions or no, this meal turned out great. LeeLee and I enjoyed a couple of helpings apiece and polished off nearly an entire spaghetti squash between us. (Oh, that’s right – whereas the recipe called for half a squash, we used the whole thing. It’s what we do!)

The beauty of this recipe is that the “spaghetti” strands absorb so many of the dish’s flavors, without adding to the heaviness at all! The tofu, too, picks up the spices and richness of the dish, from the soy sauce to the Sriracha (did I mention I added Sriracha?) to the peanut butter and even the cilantro. In combination, it’s an amazing marriage of flavors and texture that just can’t be beat.

As it happens, we’ve got another spaghetti squash hanging out on the dinner table presently! I may have to try this squash-as-Asian-noodle thing again next week. Stay tuned!

:)

Vegetarian Fried Rice With Seitan.

by

vegetarian-fried-rice

Our travels along the Road to Fitness continued tonight with a healthy version of a takeout favorite: Fried rice!

I pulled a page out of Christy Jordan’s playbook over at Southern Plate and did a veggie version of her chicken fried brown rice, substituting seitan for the chicken, of course. (And can I just say that when it comes to meat substitutes, you could do a lot worse than a batch of seitan! Its texture and flavor are great, and like many “real” meats it soaks up whatever you cook it with. Hooray for seitan!)

Instead of using instant rice, I used two microwaveable pouches of Uncle Ben’s brown rice instead, and heated them up for the requisite time before adding them to the seitan in my trusty Le Creuset. Then I added a generous helping of frozen peas, then some shredded carrots and green onions, and then the two eggs I’d scrambled at the start of the meal (I didn’t mention that, did I), and then finally some soy sauce and garlic powder. Just like that, a one-pot meal was ready for consumption!

We paired the fried rice with some frozen veggie spring rolls (well, they were frozen; we baked them, ahem) and had a perfect takeout meal for the eating right at home! No MSG in this kitchen, y’all. And plenty of great home-cooked flavor!

As advertised, the seitan picked up the rest of the flavors of the dish without yielding any texture or inherent goodness in return, and the brown rice did a great job of soaking up the oil and soy sauce evenly. The veggies made the dish downright virtuous! Road to Fitness, indeed. We’re rolling down the highway now!

:)

Vegetable Sushi.

by

vegan-fish-sushi

Friends, the cherry blossoms have made their way straight into town here in the greater Washington D.C. area, and not a moment too soon! We were beginning to think those beloved blossoms would simply never arrive. But over the weekend, arrive they did, and in the blink of an eye they’ve already started to fade a bit. The Japanese use this transitory time to illustrate the impermanence of life – an apt comparison, that.

And life, indeed, may well be impermanent. Which is all the more reason to make sushi while one can! Gather ye cherry blossoms while ye may, and all that!

LeeLee and I had a couple of friends over last weekend to celebrate the blossoms by enjoying our annual Sushi Night (as featured this time last year in the podcast), which was a great hit and enjoyed by all in attendance. The sake flowed freely, the dumplings were steamed to perfection, the wasabi peas kept our eyes watering, and the sushi – oh, the sushi! – was in such abundance that we were all completely stuffed after the fact. By today, LeeLee and I had emerged from our sushi-fueled hibernation and were more than ready for Round Two.

There are several things to note about sushi. The first is: Leftovers don’t keep all that well. The rice turns to a mushy concrete, the vegetables go soggy, the inari dries up. (The dumplings keep magnificently, but let’s not quibble.) Talk about the impermanence of life!

The second thing to note is that sushi supplies come in huge quantities. A five-pound bag of sushi rice was the smallest I could find, for instance, and I have enough leftover nori and soy wrappers to feed an army. Also, those little fried-tofu pockets that serve as the basis for inari? They come about 30 to a pack. To say nothing of the chopsticks, which we have by the hundreds.

So tonight we decided to make good use of our sushi supplies and dig in for another go! I prepared a cup of sushi rice in the rice cooker, whipped up a sugar-vinegar sauce to blend in when the rice was cooked, and sliced up an avocado, a cucumber, and several Gardein vegan fish filets (cooked, of course). We had a bag of shredded carrots hanging around in the fridge, so I added some of them to the mix as well. I whipped up some wasabi paste, microwaved a few frozen vegetable dumplings, stuffed the inari with cooked rice, and we were ready to go!

I made a couple of different wraps tonight. The first you’ll find above – a vegan-fish-and-avocado concoction. The second was an all-veggie affair featuring cucumber, carrot, and avocado:

veggie-sushi

And by the time I had cut both rolls into smaller pieces and added the dumplings, et. al., to my plate, it had become a lot less neat and tidy (but quite tasty):

vegan-sushi

I don’t mind telling you that between us we mowed down four rolls’ worth of sushi, plus more than our share of dumplings and inari, as well as the leftover rice and veggies. “Why don’t we do sushi night more often?” LeeLee mused, and I couldn’t agree more. It’s easy to make, it’s fun to compose on the plate, and it always feels like an Event. I can think of worse ways to spend a Tuesday night, impermanent or not!

:)

Pantry Cleanout, Day 2: Vegan Orange Chik’n With Broccoli.

by

orange-chikn-with-broccoli

Pantry Cleanout week is rolling right along here at Chez Recessionista, and you haven’t seen anything yet! Up next, I dug through the freezer to come up with the fixins for vegan orange chik’n with broccoli. And it couldn’t have turned out better!

First, I opened a bag of Trader Joe’s chicken-less chik’n with orange sauce and heated the chik’n over medium heat in my trusty Le Creuset. (I set the orange sauce packet aside for the moment.) While it warmed up, I steamed a bag of frozen broccoli florets in the microwave, and by the time it was finished, the chik’n was heating through quite nicely! So I added the florets to the pot, mixed everything around, and allowed it to continue to heat.

As it cooked, I microwaved a package of Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice that I had lying around. Once it was ready, the chik’n and broccoli were as well, so I poured the orange sauce on top and stirred to combine. The sauce thickened with heat, providing a wonderful coating for the vegetables and protein!

After the sauce had heated through, all that was left was to serve the meal up! I was dining alone tonight – LeeLee was at a meeting – so I piled my plate high with half the meal and sat down to eat. The final product was great! I loved the taste of the chik’n, and the broccoli was a wonderful complement to the protein. The orange sauce coated thoroughly but yet wasn’t overpowering; a wonderful combination indeed. And the rice provided a great base for the rest of the dish to rely on! A complete, filling, and tasty meal from the pantry. Can’t wait to see what we dig out tomorrow!

:)

Vegan Spicy Peanut Soup.

by

vegan-spicy-peanut-soupBoy, this has been a soup week so far! Last night, we enjoyed Taco Soup – which I’ll feature later this week in the latest episode of our “Tiny Kitchen” series – and tonight I cracked open my quickly-becoming-invaluable copy of One-Dish Vegan, by Robin Robertson, to whip up a batch of her spicy peanut soup.

I’ve made Thai-style peanut soups and curries before, and I must admit that they’ve always fallen a little short on flavor. They haven’t been bad, mind you – just sort of bland. They’ve left me wanting more, craving the flavors of one of our favorite Thai restaurants here in Old Town Alexandria. But this peanut soup – this one, friends, is different. This soup is teeming with flavor, and what’s more, it couldn’t be simpler to make.

As is my usual policy with cookbooks that are currently still out in the marketplace, I won’t rehash the whole recipe here. But I will say that a confluence of ingredients, including but not limited to onion, bell pepper, jalapeno, coconut milk, peanut butter, ginger, and tofu came together tonight to make a magical meal here at Chez Recessonista. In keeping with the cookbook’s title, this dinner did indeed cook up in one pot, my trusty Le Creuset, and other than the slicing-and-dicing work, it was incredibly speedy to make. Half an hour of cook time overall, and dinner was ready!

I think the secret to the majesty that is this peanut soup is in the coconut milk. Admittedly, I didn’t skimp on this ingredient, and I found the result to be breathtakingly creamy. The milk mingled with peanut butter, broth, and diced tomatoes to create a wonderful base for the soup, and the tofu soaked it up like a sponge. What a beautiful blend of sweet and savory all in one bowl! With each bite, the complexity of the flavors burst forth even more. (Just for quality control’s sake, I found myself enjoying two bowls’ worth. I do this for you, you know.)

Once again, Robin Robertson has outdone herself. I can’t wait for my next adventure within the pages of her cookbook! Details to come in short order.

:)