more tofu burgers! peanut sauce! baby bok choy!

Once again, marinated a whole whack of tofu in my go to marinade of tamari, sesame oil, sriracha, garlic and ginger.
Shredded up some carrots and beets, and sliced up some zucchini and spinach for toppings.
On the bun (errr.... multi-grain bread): dijon mustard, ketchup, and the most delicious mayo spread ever!
I bought some super amazing liquid hickory smoke the other week, and decided that it would probably taste great mixed into some vegan mayo with a bit of maple syrup. HEAVEN! I am going to start putting this on pretty much everything.





Along side the tofu burger is some lightly steamed baby bok choy slathered with a tasty peanut sauce.
In the peanut sauce:
peanut butter (obvs) about 1/2 a cup
teaspoon of chilli paste
garlic - lots of it
small can of coconut milk
a few splashes of tamari
ginger
lots of like juice
teaspoon of rice vinegar
tablespoon of maple syrup

Mix mix mix, and add water until desired thickness is reached.
It's good to play around with the proportions a bit until you find the peanut sauce that is perfect for you.

Ps. Did you know that you can buy coconut milk in tetra packs??? It's a bit cheaper, and nice to just have hanging out in the fridge, say... to add to coffee (delicious!), or to hot chocolate, or cherry flavoured soda (vegan italian sodas, whaaaaat?). I should probably just devote a whole post to coconut milk sometime soon...

3 course meal! thai-style coconut soup, asian noodle salad with spicy peanut sauce, mushroom risotto with smokey tofu and green beans.

Recently, the Grace Gallery in Vancouver held a "40 hours of food and flicks" event, where a local chef cooked for continuous two hour sittings for 40 hours. A movie was shown for each sitting. Sadly, for me and a few of my vegan friends, there was no vegan option... so we decided to make our own fancy dinner. HURRAY!

Course 1: Asian Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Sauce.



This recipe was taken from Vegan Planet, with a few modifications. The recipe recommends using Udon noodles, which we agreed were too thick for our liking, so we used some Soba noodles instead. To the peanut sauce in Vegan Planet, we also added a few tablespoons of maple syrup, for sweetness, and the juice from half a lemon. The recipe was also modified with the addition of peas.
This salad was SO delicious! It was also super easy to make. Peanut sauce recipes are easily found in just about any vegan cookbook, or all over the internets. Try playing around with different ones until you get the right flavour for you. You can also experiment with different types of noodles (spelt, kamut, buckwheat) or varying degrees of thickness, and you can basically add any vegetables that please you.

Course 2: Thai Style Coconut Soup.



Also from Vegan Planet, but slightly modified with the addition of fresh lemongrass and thai basil. I'm not sure what i would do differently in making this soup the next time... maybe add more coconut milk? Maybe add some sweet chilli sauce? I just don't know. It was light, and refreshing, but didn't quite have the oomph that I was looking for.

Course 3: Mushroom Risotto with Smokey Tofu and Green Beans.



SO MANY MUSHROOMS! We picked up a variety pack of organic mushrooms from the farmers' market, which included shitake, portabello, pink oyster and some other kind whose name I'm not sure of. We sauteed these for a bit before adding them into the risotto. The risotto was made with a mushroom broth and then finished off with truffle infused olive oil. YUM! We also added some swiss chard.

To marinate the tofu, we took the recipe for Smokey Grilled Tempeh, from the Veganomicon (obvs, without the tempeh). We let the tofu marinate for a few hours and then pan-fried it. Smokey deliciousness!

The green beans were blanched for three minutes, put into a cold water bath and then tossed in flax oil.

garlic scapes and a sammich.

soo... life has been a little hectic and crazy lately, thus, the lack of posts. I might not begin actually posting on a regular basis until August... we'll see.

In any case, I went to the farmers' market the other week (i have been EXTREMELY lazy about farmers' market visits this year... it's pretty shameful...)

In an attempt to try something new and exciting, i picked up these



GARLIC SCAPES!

So what are they? They're kind of like a mix between a chives and green beans (only a little tougher) and they taste (SURPRISE!) like garlic. YUM!
The first time that I tried cooking them, i fried them up in a pan with some portabello, shitake and oyster mushrooms, and a little bit of Earth Balance. It was pretty tasty.




I served these with a delicious sammich.



I forget EXACTLY what I put in the main topping, but it went something like this:
1 can of chickpeas and half a package of firm tofu mashed together, several tablespoons of grainy mustard, juice from one or two lemons, 1/4 cup of tamari, a few tablespoons of tahini, pinch of paprika, pinch of cayenne, 1 tablespoon or so of vegan mayo, and 1 tablespoon of miso paste. I then chopped up some avocado, lettuce and tomatoes, and grated some carrots, and put the whole mess on some multi-grain bread. Delicious!YUM! This topping kind of fills the tuna salad sammich craving. (i miss tuna melts... *sigh*)

A note on garlic scapes:
The second time that i cooked them, I attempted to grill them on the bbq with a little oil.... not so successful. If you see these puppies at the farmers' market and decide to pick them up, I would recommend blanching them for a few minutes before grilling. They are pretty tough, so a few minutes in boiling water (followed by a cold water bath) would really loosen them up.
Also, these are only in season for about TWO WEEKS every year!! So snap them up while you can!!