Domestipithecus

Last night I used Vegan Dad’s recipe for vegan “corned beef.” I’m not big into the steaming of seitan meats because I have texture issues with food, but I followed his instructions exactly.What resulted was a bit more rubbery than baking yet not as hurl inducing as boiled seitan. I just can’t eat seitan that has been boiled. The rubbery, blubbery blob that forms is enough to make me gag just thinking about it.

Anyway, instead of making the reuben sandwich on the linked page, I made corned beef hash. I cut it up unevenly, just some random chopping, to try and get the consistency of the real thing. Semi-recipe below:

1 recipe of Vegan Dad’s corned beef
2 russet potatoes
1 tbsp horseradish (though I think I would have liked more, all I had was 1 tbsp)
1 white onion, chopped
2 tbsp earth balance
seasoned salt, pepper to taste

1. chop potatoes into 1/2″ cubes and put into 10″ skillet. Cover with water and bring to a boil, then simmer for about 5 min. Less if you made the cubes smaller.

2. Drain potatoes and set aside. Wipe out skillet and put earth balance and onion in. Let cook at medium heat for 5-7 minutes.

3. While the onions are cooking, chop the corned beef into uneven, somewhat small pieces. You could also coarsely grate it and I think it would be fine. I actually only used about 3/4 of the recipe and left the rest to make a sandwich for Mr. Pithecus later.

4. When the onions are ready, add horseradish and distribute evenly.

5. Add potatoes and corned beef to skillet and mix. Then flatten in the pan and let cook until that yummy crustiness forms on the bottom. Then mix around and repeat for more yummy crustiness.

I served this with some mustard greens we got in our produce box this week.  I used this recipe. I did not like it. It wasn’t the recipe, Mr. Pithecus loved it. I just don’t really like mustard greens it seems. Way too bitter for me. I don’t like a lot of bitter. I will pick the baby arugula out of any salad (and really it looks like Sigmund the Sea Monster anyway) because it’s just too bitter.

No pictures because my camera is poopy and well, hash doesn’t look very good at all. It tasted awesome. Apparently, it was even better today, straight from the fridge.

I need to blog about a new vegan restaurant in Pasadena call My Vegan next. It’s yummy and happy and vegan vegan vegan!! AND THEY DELIVER!!!!

Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to kiss me once ore even twice, but it has been a long, long time. In internet time it’s been almost a whole generation!

I have been cooking away and taking pictures when I remember. I think the wedding stuff settled down (oh the thank you cards I had to write, my hand be cramped up!) just in time for the holiday buzz. Not to mention we have THREE weddings next year (possibly 4) of good friends and relatives.

A good friend and ex co-worker got engaged in Vegas this year. She and her guy have been together for years and have been friends for even longer. I used to ask her all the time if she was engaged yet. She finally was able to beat me to the question by telling me she was This one is in June.

I think I mentioned that Boo’s sister got engaged in August. If not, Boo’s sister got engaged in August. We had all traveled to Hawaii for his brother’s wedding and she and her guy stayed an extra week. He proposed on the top of Diamond Head on their one year anniversary. Soooo romaaantic… Boo is officiating his sister’s nuptials and I will be a bridesmaid! Wait… I’m married now, does that mean I will be a bridesmatron? Ugh. This one is in October.

Our friend that officiated our wedding proposed to my other awesome friend after 5 years together. They are so perfect together and Boo and I are crazy happy for them. They are the awesomest. Is that a word? This may happen in Sept. They don’t have a date as they just got engaged this past weekend.

Boo’s cousin got engaged to his long-time love the day before our wedding. They kept it so quiet I didn’t even know until she had already flown back to their home (he stayed here to visit with family a little longer).  This one has no date and this is the “possibly 4″ I mentioned above. They talked about wanting something very small with immediate family only. Though, Boo and his cousin are very close and cousin considers Boo one of his closest friends, so we may end up going. We don’t know if this one will happen next year or in 2010.

Whew.

Married life is pretty much the same as before, with more stuff. Boo and I lived together for about a year before we were married so not a lot changed. Except we do the sappy “Good morning my wife” “Good morning my husband” thing.

So what have I been up to in the kitchen, you ask? Wait, you didn’t ask? Eh, I’m going to tell you anyway.

Broccoli and Noochy Mac.
Fresh broccoli from our box scheme

Amazing Mac and Cheez sauce from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook which is our favorite nutritional yeast (nooch) sauce

Horrible picture of the meal (it tastes awesome)

I mostly just steam the veggies we get, so this is how the broccoli was prepared. Veggies taste sooo good just steamed.

To give the noochy mac an even homier feel, I like to cook some chopped up Tofurkey Kielbasa and add it to the mix. Reminds me of a grown up version of the hot dogs and mac and cheese I had when little.

A while back I asked a friend of mine what to do with too many sweet potatoes. Our box scheme has them in there quite often and sometimes there are just too many. He had a lot of great suggestions, but I ended up doing a delicious sweet potato soup. I pretty much cut up sweet potatoes, onions, one yukon potato and garlic and then tossed them with olive oil, dried sage and thyme.

Then I roasted them until I felt they were done (sorry no real recipe here), pureed and served.

This freezes great. All pureed veggie soups do. Roasted root veggie soups are a favorite in this house so now that winter is coming there will be more of them. I love making a huge batch and using up the saved Earth Balance containers to freeze it for lazy, cold nights. A little bread for dipping and you have an amazingly comforting, filling meal.

As a side note, I have to go to Whole foods today. So. Not. Happy. Of course, it was my scatterbrainedness (bzuh?) that made this have to happen. I need Earth Balance Buttery Sticks for my sweet potato biscuits I am bringing to the Thanksvegan feast. I don’t want to use the tubs because it is softer and the biscuits may spread to much.

Yes, I said Thanksvegan. I am lucky enough to be going to Boo’s parents’ home for the holiday. An all vegan household. Mom is making her own “turkey” and sides and I will be bringing the biscuits and a Tofurkey, just because Thanksvegan isn’t Thanksvegan without it.

Oh and I made Bittersweet’s pumpkin pie “ice cream” last night that I may bring a bit of. But Boo and I might want to keep it all for ourselves. It’s crazy good.

I promise to be a bit more posty going forward. I will definitely be bringing my camera to the Thanksvegan (I love that word) feast so you all can share in the yum.

Though, I would never actually ride a horse.

Monday after the wedding, one of my oldest and dearest friends came over for a home cooked meal. This friend (I like to call her Super Girl or SG for short), drove (well, rode - I am such a control freak) cross country with me when I moved to California. We met under somewhat embarrassing circumstances, but we don’t talk much about that

I made chick pea cutlets, mashed potatoes, steamed green beans (fresh from the just delivered produce box) and gravy. Yep, an old standard in the Ape household, but SG hadn’t had the good ol’ vegan cutlet o’chick peas before. It was nummy and really, no need for pictures as I think I have made it and taken pictures more than once before in this blog.

Last night I made a nice angel hair pomodoro, minus the basil. I just didn;t have any and didn’t feel like going to get any. It was my and Boo’s last day/night before he went back to work so we were playing it close to home. We also had some Delicata squash we had  gotten in a previous produce delivery. Those Green Bags are absolutley wonderful. I have 2 1/2 week old zucchini I am thinking about cooking up tonight that looks like I got it Monday. Anyway, I cut the delicata into slices, removed the seeds and roasted with olive oil and kosher salt. They were like yummy, sweet potato tasting squash rings.

Again, no pictures as I am not sure where the camera even is at this point.

Once we get better pictures back, I will post the food and cake from the wedding. And maybe a few pix of the bride and groom

Now I’m off to do my daily Wii Fit. Boo and I got it as a wedding present to ourselves. It’s great fun!

I love produce weeks!

We have (as they say in the UK) subscribed to a box scheme. We get a box of produce delivered to our door every other Monday. For the last couple deliveries, we have gotten the mixed fruit and vegetable box. We were getting a lot of fruit as opposed to veggies and when we would look at what the all veggie boxes were getting, we would be all jealous. So we switched to all vegetables.

Boo and I love veggies. There are very few that we don’t like and the ones that we haven’t tried yet, as was the case for me with some chard one time, we are so excited to try. This is the list we got this time around:

1 Lettuce,Green Leaf
1 Peas,English(3/4 lbs.)
1 Tomato,Cluster(1 lb.)
1 Onion,Yellow
1 Chard,Rainbow
1 Spinach,Bunch
1 Asparagus,Bunch
1 Carrot,Rainbow(Bunch)
5 Squash,Zucchini
1 Tomato,Roma(1 lb.)
1 Potato,Red(1 lb.)
1 Bell Pepper,Yellow

I am so freaky excited it’s ridiculous.

Speaking of ridiculous freaky excitement. The blueberries and strawberries we got last time were starting to… fade. So I made sorbet! Its so yummy. I sort of used the recipe in my Kitchen Aid ice cream maker booklet. I cut the tops and softer spots out of the strawberries (I had a one pound container) and put them in the blender. Then I threw in the blueberries, about 4oz and about 1/4c water and blended. Then I poured in the simple syrup (made previously with 2c sugar and 2c water), blended and then poured into the already churning Kitchen Aid bowl.

The results (the picture sucks but whatever):

I also made some vegan sourdough english muffins.

Basically used an english muffin recipe but used warmed, unsweetened soy milk instead of regular milk or powdered. I had thought Dwight (my starter) had died when I went to Ireland for 3 weeks, but he’s alive and kicking and sour as ever! I love making things that look like they do in the store. I remembered the first time I made these I kept exclaiming, “They LOOK like english muffins!!”

These are more dense than the store bought ones and the holes (nooks and crannies) are not as pronounced, but I have read that the real English english muffins have much smaller holes than what we expect here in the states. And they taste great so who cares!?

We got our first organic produce delivery on Monday. It was chock full of goodies. We ordered from Paradise O on the recommendation of a fellow Rose City Knitter, subliminalrabbit.

Just look at the veggie goodness! I have only used the red chard but I see in our future steamed artichokes, a yummmmy salad, possibly Aloo Gobi and Butter Paneer Masala and and and and and…whew. I’m tiring myself out just thinking about it.

Over Thanksgiving I made my pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese frosting (all vegan). It came out better this year than last and I think it’s because I added more pumpkin puree so it was crazy moist. I always make cupcakes with any new cake experimentation first so I can taste it before subjecting anyone to a possible fail. CN has no problem with that as he gets to eat the test cupcakes.

After deciding that the cupcakes were missing something, I remembered that last year I had used Sugar in the Raw and this year I was using white vegan sugar. That made a difference in the taste so I changed the second batch to turbinado sugar (the same as Sugar in the Raw). I also added more pumpkin puree. I honestly have no idea how much pumpkin pie spice I put in, but it was until it tasted right.

The cake was fantastic, if I do say so myself. The frosting needs some help, but I’ll work on it.

Then there were the pumpkin seeds to deal with. A little kosher salt and peanut oil solved that problem.

Tuesday I had a dentist appointment. I had to get an old filling replaced. It’s all fine now. The only place that hurt when the numbness went away was the site of the injection of the Novocaine. I couldn’t open my mouth all the way for a day. So I made salami. Seitan salami to be exact.

I used the recipe in the latest issue of Cutting-Edge Vegan Cuisine newsletter by Bryanna Clark Grogan. It’s ok. Not “OHMYGODITSSALAMI!” but it’s close. It’s a little too moist for me so I put it in a very low oven to dry it out, kind of like with meringue cookies. Now it’s back in the fridge.

I also whipped up a batch of “Even Better than Veganaise” that I got the recipe for over at Epicurvegan. It’s yummy, though the recipe makes a lot. I will need to cut it in half next time. I have a picture, but it really doesn’t photograph well so I won’t be including it.

Now I have to go get ready for date night. I think we’re going to hit Crown City Brewery and add a couple more beers to our scorecard. There isn’t a lot there for us to eat, basically just a veggie burger and some sides/appetizers, but the over 100 different beers is worth a not so tasty dinner.