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!

Red Beans and Rice With Vegetarian Chorizo.

by

Tonight, LeeLee and I were in a bit of a time crunch – he had to rush off to a meeting about 40 minutes after we arrived home, and I had a laundry list (which included real laundry!) of things to accomplish before my head hit the pillow (which still has not happened).  With that in mind, red beans and rice came to the rescue with rapid speed!
Within three minutes after arriving home, I’d managed to feed the cat, put the rice into the rice cooker (using an oversized shot glass as a measuring cup, I might add, because all of my other measuring cups were in the dishwasher and I was too lazy to hand-wash them – I know, I know), and open a can of red beans into a saucepan.  As everything cooked, I knocked off a couple of chores, and when the rice cooker turned off, I heated up a package of Lightlife chorizo in the microwave.  No, I didn’t use a sauté pan, because who had the time?  We were on a deadline, people!
And the end result was as tasty as usual.  Red beans and rice is our Other Old Faithful, our go-to when schedules are tight.  It’s filling, it’s hearty, it’s tasty, it’s healthy – what’s not to love?
No leftovers, but that’s OK.  We’ve still got some Easter dishes to finish!

:)

Vegan Pad Thai.

by

On the heels of my adventures in Pad Thai Soup a couple of weeks ago, I decided to try out the more traditional version of the dish tonight.  And so, armed with a recipe from the great Robin Robertson’s Vegan Planet, I got home and went straight to work in the kitchen.
Thai and Asian dishes are always very daunting for me – they have a ton of preparation steps – but once you get right down to the cooking, they’re really not difficult at all.  The same was true for this Pad Thai recipe!  Once I got through the prep work, I was home-free.
As the rice noodles cooked, I sautéed the tofu in peanut oil, and then stir-fried some bell pepper, garlic, and scallion.  Then I added a diced tomato along with some seasonings – soy sauce, rice vinegar, brown sugar, and the like – and tossed the tofu back in.  By this point, the rice noodles were also finished, so I added them in and tossed everything around, dousing the pan with a little more peanut oil for good measure.
The end result was good, but “just” good – it lacked a bit of the peanutty taste I’ve come to know and love about restaurant-style Pad Thai.  I’m certain I read the directions properly and followed suit in my cooking; the peanut oil just didn’t add enough of that nutty flavor for my liking.  But LeeLee and I solved that tableside!  We just went into the cabinet, pulled out a jar of peanut butter, and added a spoonful to each of our plates, blending it in with the hot noodles.  Voila!  Extra peanut flavor in no time.
Even with our dinnertime hack, though, this wasn’t the best dish I’ve ever made.  I was glad to try it – and I love Robin Robertson! – but this just wasn’t my favorite.  It was edible, it was even enjoyable, but it wasn’t quite up to par.  Oh, well.  Not every recipe can win the Michelin Five Stars! ;)

:)

Old Faithful.

by

Tonight was Animal Shelter Night, and by the time I got home, LeeLee and I were both hungry and had neither the time nor the taste for tomfoolery.  The ingredients for black beans and rice – or, as longtime readers of this blog know it, Old Faithful – were close at hand, and a half-hour later the finished product was sitting on the table, ready for consumption.
I think one of the things I love most about Old Faithful – other than the taste, of course – is the versatility of the dish.  For instance, tonight we had some leftover lettuce, onion, and tomato on hand from Sunday night’s cookout, and so I diced everything up to add as garnish (or, perhaps more accurately, as a side dish – we tend to be a bit heavy-handed with the garnish around here!).  I pulled out a new bag of Daiya pepperjack cheese to add atop the meal, and we still had a wonderful jarred salsa from last week’s tostadas, plus some little spicy pickled peppers from a cocktail party this weekend.  And last but not least, I always keep several cans of black olives on hand for salads and suchlike – they fit in just beautifully with tonight’s dinner, as ever.
I’ve gone over and over the actual making of black beans and rice, so I won’t go into a long dissertation again here.  Suffice it to say, the rice blended nicely with a packet of Goya seasoning during its stint in the rice cooker, and I spruced up a plain can of black beans with some adobo seasoning during the cooking process.  We were both in need of a little extra protein, so I added a chik’n patty to each plate – instead of baking them, I microwaved them, because again, who had the time for tomfoolery?
And the final result was, as ever, delicious and spicy.  The salsa and pickled peppers added a little extra kick, which we both really enjoyed, and the vegetables gave us some much-needed greenery in today’s diet.  :)  Once again, Old Faithful came through for us – it always does in a pinch!

:)

Veggie Burgers With Peas and Tater Tots.

by

First of all, let us just take a moment to breathe in the long-awaited spring air (pollen optional) and thank the Powers That Be for finally making it out of winter and into our very first cookout of the season.
Yes!  You heard me right!  Finally, finally, after several false starts over the last month, I fired up our trusty Aussie grill, complete with a showroom-new grill grate and ash dump, and got to work.  First up was an aluminum grill pan teeming with English peas (seasoned with black pepper), which I covered with foil and cooked for half an hour or so.  As it cooked, I baked a sheet of tater tots in the oven indoors (because I still can’t figure out how to make them nice and crispy on the open flame – but give me time!).
While the peas and tots warmed up, I opened up a beer and sat down to leaf through the latest Real Simple.  But not just any beer – a Double Take from a six-pack that LeeLee and I picked up today while at the Safeway.  Why am I mentioning this?  Because said six-packs were on sale for 50% off – on top of a pre-existing sale!  So a $7.99 sixer cost us $3.  Which, as LeeLee pointed out over dinner, means each bottle is precisely $0.50.  Fifty cents!  Now that’s what I call spring fever.
When I was about 10 minutes from dinnertime, I put four veggie burgers onto the grill to warm up, and before long they were sizzling and juicy.  As I took them up, I put two buns on to toast.  I like to cook with a wide-open heat (if it can’t be grilled at full steam ahead, what’s the point?), so they were nearly too brown in no time. ;)
The results were springtime personified.  Everything tastes better after being grilled, and tonight’s meal was no different.  The first cookout of the season always adds extra flair – the newness of the year’s Sunday cookouts hasn’t work off yet!  After the winter we’ve had, I doubt we’ll settle into complacency any time soon.  Veggie burgers, 50-cent beers – what’s not to love?

:)

Vegan Grilled-Cheese Sandwiches With Tomato Soup.

by

Roundabout 10 a.m. today, LeeLee called to say he’d been pulled into a meeting for tonight – a meeting, I might add, where they’ll serve nice appetizers and wine, so let’s not feel too sorry for him.  ;)  I had originally planned on making black beans and rice for dinner tonight, but once I’d be dining alone, I decided to forge a new path!
So once I got home and got hungry (for once, the two were not synonymous), I pulled a container of soup out of the freezer and began to warm it up in a saucepan.  I’d enjoyed the other half of this soup several months ago and froze the leftovers for just such an occasion as tonight’s!  (I admit, as well, that I’m a bit relieved to be cleaning out the freezer; I need more space for some Easter goodies!)
When the soup was almost hot enough, I plugged in my trusty sandwich press and prepared a grilled-cheese.  Atop two slices of bread I added some Vegenaise and two slices of Daiya cheddar, and then sliced a Roma tomato to sit in the middle of the sandwich.  Once it was assembled, I put it in the press and let it cook until the cheese was bubbling out and the bread was nicely golden brown.
And then it was time to eat!  I used a couple of leftover tostada shells from last night as a dipping vessel for my soup, which gave it a nice crunch.  And dinner was fantastic!  I didn’t have a single morsel left by the end, and if the Wonder-Cat had gotten her way, she would have helped.  (What you don’t see in the photo above is Lucky, sitting atop the coffee table just off to the left of my TV tray, watching intently, waiting for the perfect moment to strike!)

:)

Vegetaran Pho. Very, Very Hot Vegetarian Pho.

by

With all the craziness we’ve had, schedule-wise, the last couple of weeks, I completely forgot to tell you a story about our latest round of vegetarian pho!  It’s a cautionary tale, so beware.
I’ve made this pho recipe a hundred times, all with great success.  When you get right down to it, it’s an easy meal to make – the only time-consuming part is the hour spent baking the tofu strips to add in at the last!  And this instance was no exception.  The tofu baked beautifully, the noodles cooked up as they should, and the broth was as tasty and flavorful as ever.
The problem, we learned too late, came with our mix-ins.
Upon serving the pho, LeeLee and I always add lots of fresh vegetables to the top of the dish.  Basil, bean sprouts, jalapenos, and Sriracha are mainstays, and last Sunday was no different.
What was different – again, we learned this much too late – was the spiciness of our jalapeno. 
Without thinking twice, LeeLee and I each put four or five slices of the pepper into our bowls, then (and this was another mistake) doused the whole dish with a liberal helping of Sriracha sauce.  Then we dug in … and that’s when we saw, crystal-clear through tear-streaked eyes, the error of our ways.
The HEAT!  The SPICE!  The cough-inducing, grabbing-for-water, can’t-breathe PAIN!
This was perhaps the hottest jalapeno either of us had ever eaten in our lives.  It was so hot, in fact, that after a few more minutes of attempting to gamely choke down spoonful after spoonful, we threw in the towel, threw out the pho, and served ourselves some leftover noodles from the colander, topping them with more baked tofu and vegetables – but not the jalapeno.
So our planned pho became an unplanned tofu-with-noodles dish, with a sinus-clearing intermission.  It could’ve been worse!  And we’ve learned a valuable lesson: Always, ALWAYS check the heat of your chilies, even those you’ve used a thousand times.  You never know when a pepper will jump up and slap you in the face.

:)

Pad Thai Soup.

by

First of all, please forgive me if the typeface, links, and such are all wonky tonight.  I arrived home to find my beloved laptop will not boot up — all it does is give me a sassy blinking file folder! A quick scan of the Apple site shows it may not be serious — in that I may not have lost all of my data — but I’m taking it to the shop tomorrow for a thorough once-over. Please send it healing vibes if you’re so inclined!

So tonight I come to you from my faithful iPad, which explains any text wonkiness you may experience. With any luck, I’ll be back in business tomorrow!
Now, let’s talk about tonight’s dinner.
I made Pad Thai Soup tonight, and let me cut right to the chase: It was fantastic.  It’s not nearly as heavy as traditional pad Thai, which was just fine with me!  I typically stay away from pad Thai at restaurants because I find it to be a bit peanut-buttery for my taste, but in soup form, sans any creaminess, the favors hit just right.
I started off by bringing a pot of water to a boil in order to cook my rice noodles.  This is probably a good time to admit that I’d never cooked rice noodles before. I didn’t put together until this weekend that the “rice sticks” in the Asian food aisle at the grocery store were actually rice noodles, so I always selected soba or udon noodles instead. Now that I’ve seen the error of my ways, I will rectify the situation in future meals!  I’m a huge fan.
While the rice noodles sat in their hot-water bath, I prepared the stock.  A carton of broth (plus a couple of cups of water for good measure), half a container of sliced mushrooms, some garlic powder, one diced shallot, several tablespoons each of soy sauce, brown sugar, and Sriracha, a quarter-cup of lime juice — everything went into my trusty Le Creuset and came just to a boil.  Once the broth was bubbling, I turned the heat to low and let the soup simmer while I baked my …
VEGAN SHRIMP!
I cannot TELL you how hard it is to find vegetarian shrimp around these parts.  Where my family lives in Florida, you can just go to the Publix and buy some Yves veggie shrimp like a civilized human being. Up here, it takes an act of Congress just to find any vegetarian seafood — and even then the selection centers primarily on veggie calamari.  
So when I went to Whole Foods earlier today and spied the Sophie’s Kitchen breaded “shrimp,” my heart sang with joy.  I knew it would be perfect for tonight’s soup!
I put the shrimp in the oven and let it warm up. By the time it was finished, the noodles were ready to be drained and the soup was heated through.  All that was left was to chop some cilantro, green onions, and peanuts, and we were on our way!
I already gave away the ending to this story — we lapped our soup up in no time and went back for seconds right away.  And there’s plenty left for tomorrow!  Broken laptop or no, the night is looking up.
:)

Vegan Spinach Lasagna.

by

Hello, friends.  Long time no talk!  I apologize for my radio silence – I was away at a conference and had only the very best intentions of blogging from the hotel room, and then we hosted LeeLee’s family for the week and had only the best intentions of blogging once they’d gone to bed.  But good intentions did not yield any blog posts!  I apologize for that.

I’m back on the wagon (and in the kitchen) today, though – with only the second homemade meal I’ve cooked in the last two weeks!  Usually, LeeLee and I like to go out on Saturday nights, but we found ourselves craving something healthy and homey.  My mother’s spinach lasagna recipe fit the bill, as usual!
I’m not following her regular recipe precisely to the letter tonight, however.  Instead, I’m using tofu to replace the cottage cheese and vegan cheese to replace the dairy mozzarella.   We’ve been trying to eat less dairy and eggs at home for a number of reasons, and what better time to experiment than with a tried-and-true recipe that only the two of us will eat this weekend?  No dinner party to prepare for; nobody to “show off” for.  This gave me the perfect opportunity to test some substitutions.
So, here’s what I did.  First, I made the sauce by emptying two cans of tomato sauce into a saucepan, then adding a diced onion, a jar of sliced mushrooms, and some basil, oregano, garlic powder, and sugar.  As that simmered, I defrosted a package of chopped spinach and added it to the mix as well.
Once the sauce had come together nicely, I put the lasagna together.  First, in a normal-sized lasagna pan, I added a half-cup or so of sauce to the bottom, just giving it a nice base layer.  Then I added one layer of uncooked lasagna noodles, then a container of extra-firm tofu, which I crumbled with my hands to give it a ricotta-like texture.  Next, I added about half of the remaining sauce, spreading it out nicely, and then topped that with half of my vegan mozzarella.  Then I added another layer of lasagna noodles, the rest of the sauce, and finally topped it with the rest of the mozzarella.
I covered the lasagna with aluminum foil and placed it into a 350-degree oven for an hour.  In the last 15 minutes of the bake time, I added a loaf of garlic bread to the oven and tossed a fresh salad to accompany the meal.  Once the timer dinged, dinner was ready, and LeeLee and I feasted while watching the latest installment of the NCAA basketball tournament!
As far as the vegan substitutions went, they didn’t miss a beat.  The lasagna was as comforting and hearty as ever, and the taste was fantastic.  LeeLee felt the taste was slightly different — though “just as good,” he insisted — from the dairy version, but I confess I didn’t notice any change in the taste or texture at all.  The only difference I did notice was the slight lack of cohesion when slicing pieces of lasagna for serving; when I do it over again, I’ll use Daiya mozzarella rather than the Trader Joe’s brand (the Daiya tends to hold up a little better in baking).  Either way, I will definitely feel comfortable serving the vegan version to friends, family, and other dinner guests!  And I’ll bet that most of them won’t even notice the lack of dairy.  The secret’s in the sauce, as usual!
:) 

Cuban Sandwiches With Yellow Rice.

by

I tell you what, the DC area has nearly every cuisine and nationality represented in its restaurants, except for one glaring omission: Cuba!  I’m a native Floridian, and Cuban cuisine is certainly near and dear to my heart.  I confess that until I moved to another state, it never occurred to me that some grocery store bakeries didn’t have Cuban bread or that a strong cup of Cuban coffee was an art not appreciated (nor replicated) nationwide.  And a good Cuban sandwich?  Forget it.
So LeeLee and I have brought a little taste of the South (WAY South!) with us up here to ol’ Virginny.  And now that I have a new sandwich press – purchased on Black Friday and used weekly, so I suppose it’s not quite as “new” as it once was – there’s just no stopping us from making a good Cuban sandwich any time the mood strikes.
Our version is vegetarian, of course, but it still packs a wallop.  Having no access to Cuban bread up in these parts, we improvised by using the same steak rolls we used the other night (well, not the same ones as the ones we used for our buffalo tofu, but from the same package – work with me, here!).  Atop these rolls, we slathered some mayonnaise, then a long pickle slice, then Tofurky peppered deli slices, then Lightlife “ham,” then several rounds of vegetarian pepperoni, and, finally, some Daiya provolone slices.  Put the top on, place the sandwich delicately into the press, and five minutes later, voila – Cuban sandwiches!
I served some yellow rice alongside the sandwiches – always welcome.  If I’d had a little cup of black beans, I’d really be set!  But alas, sandwiches and rice were the only components on the menu tonight.  We found a way to survive.  ;)

:)

Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie With Cabbage.

by

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
I don’t know why we don’t make shepherd’s pie and cabbage more often – we always love it!  But sadly, this is one of the few times each year that we take the time to make this meal.  At least with the pie, I have a little bit of an excuse – it requires several different components and, as a result, a bit of time.  With the cabbage, I’ve got no good excuse at all!  I suppose I do use up the cabbage we get each year with our Great Country Farms CSA shipments, but that’s about the extent of it.
And it’s a shame, too, because we polished off almost an entire head of cabbage tonight at dinner and put a considerable dent in the shepherd’s pie itself!  LeeLee made it clear that his vote was solidly in the “Make this more often” camp, and I have to say, I agree.  It’s comforting, filling, hearty, and delicious.  And, multiple steps aside, it’s not difficult to make.
I always use a recipe I got from PETA a hundred (or perhaps a dozen) years ago, and it hasn’t failed me yet.  This time, instead of using a canned mushroom gravy, we used the frozen Tofurky brand, and it was so tasty.  I kept the rest of the recipe intact and was, as usual, very pleased with the results!
Now, I said this dish takes time to make.  Thank goodness that St. Paddy’s Day was on a Monday this year; this afforded me lots of time on Sunday to put everything together!
As the potatoes cooked, I prepared the “meat” filling.  Instead of blending everything in a bowl as the recipe calls for, I cooked the ingredients together in a pan to allow the flavors more time to mingle, and then I poured the veggie mixture into the bottom of my favorite ceramic pie plate.  By the time those shenanigans were over and done with, it was time to prepare the potatoes, which I did with my beloved potato masher.  A little almond milk, a little butter, and I had a fine crop of mashed potatoes just waiting to top the pie!
And so it did, just moments later.  Once I was pleased with the optics of the dish, I placed a sheet of foil over the top and put the pie pan in the refrigerator.  When I was ready to bake it tonight, I just cooked it at 350 for about an hour (maybe an hour and 10), and it was perfectly warm.
In the final 15 minutes that the pie was in the oven, I steamed the cabbage, which I’d pulled off the head with my hands and seasoned intermittently with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper.  (When it arrived on the table, I also sprinkled my serving with some nutritional yeast, which I adore.)  The shepherd’s pie and cabbage paired just beautifully with one another – and with the Guinness we served alongside dinner!

:)