mashed potatoes! tofu! salad!

I have been trying to cut down on the soy products lately, so have been keeping tofu intake to a minimum. This is partly because I don't think that eating too much of any one thing is terribly good for you, and partly because a lot of soy is grown in huge monoculture crops. Soy is kind of like corn in a lot of ways... it's become ubiquitous...
and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
On that note... this is the first meal that I've made using tofu in weeks!
And it was delicious!

The tofu was marinated in (roughly) the following:
- 3 tablespoons of HP Sauce
- about two dashes of Hickory liquid smoke
- 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon of grainy mustard
- 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
- some water to make it more liquidy and marinadey

If there was anything else in the marinade, I don't remember what it was. Womps.
I cleaned and quartered some mushrooms before tossing them in a pan and cooking until they started to release their water. I then threw in the chunks of tofu with their marinade and basically just let this simmer until all of the water had cooked off.
The tofu was sweet and smokey and totally delicious. YUM!

Mashed potatoes!! I cooked a giant pot of mashed potatoes, and added in a parsnip for a bit of kick. While the potatoes were cooking, I wilted a bunch of spinach in a pan, and chopped up some basil.
Once the potatoes were done cooking I began the mashing process.
I added the following into the potato/parsnip mash:
- olive oil and unsweetened original almond milk (I start off by just adding a splash of each, and then slowly add more until the potatoes reach the desired texture)
- the wilted spinach
- a handful of chopped up basil
- fresh garlic, minced, to taste (I add A LOT)
- 1 tablespoon of light miso paste
- several pinches of tarragon
- lots of fresh ground pepper
- Alder smoked salt, to taste

Finally, the salad... pretty basic and classic, the salad was made of chopped up cherry tomatoes, red leaf lettuce, cucumber and pea shoots. I also shredded in some carrot. The dressing was a favourite of my friend Kate-lynn's: pretty much equal parts olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sesame oil. DELICIOUS!!

And here's the most important part! The photo!
OM NOM NOM!!



I LOVE FOOD SO MUCH!
VEGETABLES! HURRAY!

SUMMER UPDATE!!

OK... so I have not updated in a very long time. Sorry!
What with graduating and summer and some very big deadlines at work, there has just not been a lot of extra time for food blogging. Plus, I have been lazy.

I am not going to update with any super new recipes at the the moment, but I WILL post a bit of food porn from the last few months, followed by some brief descriptions.

YUM!



I went to the farmers' market and picked up some oyster mushrooms, sunburst tomatoes and... BLACK TRUFFLE SEA SALT!! FYI: Sunburst tomatoes are these tiny little orange guys, and are probably the most flavourful, lovely tomatoes that I have ever eaten in my life.
For this breakfast, I cooked up the oyster mushrooms and spinach with a bit of Earth Balance. I boiled some potatoes, and topped them with a white bean dip. Then, I sliced up some tofu and poached it (using white wine vinegar) for a few minutes. I topped the tofu off with a bit of my new truffle salt. OM NOM NOM!

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Did you know that cauliflower and potatoes take about the same amount of time to boil?? And furthermore, that cauliflower and potatoes mashed together and then baked are absolutely DIVINE? I didn't! Then I tried a cauliflower bake at a vegan restaurant, and had to make it myself. Here, I think that I mashed a bunch of Earth Balance, veggie bouillon powder (I know, sounds strange, but is a good mashed potato seasoning) and nutritional yeast into the potatoes and cauliflower.



YUM!! I remember this brunch!! The best part of all was the sauce... oh, the sauce!! It was a blend of avocado, a bit of coconut milk, some tomato paste, hickory liquid smoke, and chipotles in adobo sauce (plus a few other things... not sure what though... probably at least some lime juice). It was AMAZING! It was served with some fresh baking powder biscuits, brussel sprouts that had been chopped very finely and pan fried with sliced almonds and salt and pepper, mashed potatoes and yams, and tofu that had been marinated in some sort of agave nectar and lime juice mixture and then baked. By far one of my favourite brunches in life, ever.


OK! That's my quick update! I will try to stay more on top of things in the months to come, if only to post some food porn here and there.

Happy eating!

Tofu, roasted veggies, mashed potatoes and cheesy sauce!!

Vegan MoFo Post #3!!

I was having a group of mostly omnivorous boys over for dinner, and wasn't really sure what to make, so decided to go with comfort food. It turned out to be a good decision!

I marinated some chunks of tofu in equal parts white wine vinegar and tamari, flavoured with a huge bunch of chopped up basil. I set the tofu aside to soak up flavour while the rest of dinner was prepared.

Next, I boiled some potatoes in preparation for mashing, and put some water on in which to blanch some swiss chard. The chard was blanched for three minutes and set aside until the potatoes were fully cooked.
Mashed potatoes are a great vessel for other things... beans, greens, tomato paste, mashed up squash... if you are cooking for someone who is a fussy eater and you want to sneak more veggies into their diet... seriously... mashed potatoes... it's the way to go.
To these potatoes, I added:
-Earth Balance
-unsweetened almond milk (I don't measure these first two ingredients; instead, I add them a bit at a time until the potatoes have reached the consistency that I desire.)
-lots of garlic
-1 tablespoon of miso paste
-an entire bunch of blached swiss chard
-salt and pepper

Meanwhile, I tossed some mushrooms (lightly coated in olive oil) in the oven at 375 F to start roasting, followed by some zucchini about ten minutes later. These were left in the oven together for an additional ten minutes.

Cheesy sauce was made according to the recipe from the Veganomicon, to which I added a few tablespoons of tomato paste, and half a can of coconut milk (plus roughly one extra tablespoon of flour to compensate for the additional liquid.)

The tofu chunks were then grilled.

All of this was garnished with pea shoots and served with some lovely flat bread that I picked up at the store.

PHOTOS!!





The most satisfying part was that even the boy who had never eaten tofu before totally loved it. SUCCESS!