Ed was craving some soup with dumplings. We haven’t ever really made dumplings, and I can’t ever really remember eating them, but we grabbed this recipe  and whipped up a nummy soup to cook it in.  It turned out really delicious! Tepary beans are small beans native to the Sonoran Desert and have a hugely awesome protein content (among many other health benefits). You can buy them here, or you could use another white bean as a substitute. We’re just putting the soup ingredients here, since you can go to the other link to get the dumpling recipe.

Ingredients:

-1 c tepary beans, soaked for 8 hours

-1 onion, diced

-4 cloves garlic, minced

-1 bunch of swiss chard, chopped

-4 c veggie broth

-1½ tsp dried thyme

-1/2 tsp black pepper

-Salt to taste

-1 batch of dumpling dough

Procedure:

1. Go through the soaked tepary beans and pick out any that don’t seem to have soaked any water up. 
2. In a large pot, heat up a little olive oil over medium heat. Saute the onions until translucent and just a little brown.
3. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Then add the beans and broth. Bring to a rolling boil, the reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for about 45 minutes, or until the beans are soft.
4. Add chard, thyme, pepper, and salt.  Cook for about 2 minutes, until chard is tender.  Add dumplings and cook until the dumplings are cooked through  This took about 5 minutes. Eat up!

I can’t believe we haven’t blogged this recipe.  It’s something we make often and it’s one of my favorite meals.  It’s easy and relatively cheap.  All you need is tofu and broccoli, along with things everyone should have on hand in the fridge anyhow.  It’s probably kinda fattening, but aside from the frying of the tofu, I’m pretty sure it’s good fat.  Heck, I don’t actually care- it’s good!  We eat enough salads to make up for it.

Ingredients:

-1/3 c natural peanut butter

-1/8 c tamari

-3 or 4 cloves of garlic (to taste), minced

-1/2 tsp cayenne (or to taste)

-1 T mirin

-1 T brown sugar

-8 oz very firm tofu (vacuum packed), cubed

-veggie oil for frying

-12 oz broccoli (or about 3 heads), chopped into florets

-brown rice, cooked

Procedure (make sure to set your rice to cook first!):

1. In a bowl mix the peanut butter, tamari, garlic, cayenne, mirin, and sugar.  Set aside.

2. Fry the tofu cubes in a little veggie oil over medium high heat until crispy and browned.  Drain on paper towels and set aside.

3. Bring water to boil in a large pot.  Put 1/4 cup of the hot water into your peanut butter mixture and stir- set aside again.  Salt the water and cook the broccoli for just about 3 minutes.  Drain, put a little cold water on it to stop the cooking, and set aside.

 4. Is your rice done?  Then  it’s time to get everything you set aside.  In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the tofu, broccoli, and peanut butter mixture until the sauce begins to bubble and get thick. 

5. Serve over rice and enjoy this very flavorful meal!  It serves 4, unless you’re really hungry and a bit of a pig like we are!

We were in the mood for some ultra flavorful pasta, so we made a puttanesca sauce.  The recipe that follows is not exact by any means as I did no measuring, but is more of a guideline for ingredients.  We paired this with some garlic bread- yum!  Clearly, we need a new camera.

Puttanesca Sauce Ingredients:
-1 small red onion, diced
-6 cloves garlic, finely minced
-1 tsp each of dried basil and oregano
-1/2 tsp each of dried thyme and red pepper flake
-1/4 tsp black pepper
-1/4 c red wine
-1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes
-1 15 oz can of crushed tomatoes
-1 c coarsely chopped olives (we used kalamata and green, and cut them in fourths)
-1/8 c capers and a little of the juice
-1 T brown sugar
-salt to taste

Procedure:
1. In a large pot, gently saute onion in olive oil over low heat until translucent and just slightly browned.
2. Add garlic, herbs, and peppers.  Saute another minute or so.  Then add the wine, tomatoes, olives, capers, and sugar.
3. Add salt to taste.  Toss with your favorite pasta and top with a little nutritional yeast if you like.  Drink a nice glass of that wine you used in the sauce and enjoy!

For the Super Bowl, my dad came over, which always means lots of snacks and beer! I think we outdid ourselves this year. I wanted to make something similar to the Hummus Quartet from Trader Joes, so I made a base hummus (2 cans of chickpeas, juice of 2 lemons, 1/4 cup of tahini, 1 T cumin, 3 cloves garlic, a little olive oil for smoothness, salt, and pepper– all blended in the food processor until ultra creamy), then divided it up into 4 bowls. I then made the following versions:

-Balsamic Hummus– Added a generous amount of balsamic vinegar along with an extra garlic clove
-Parsley Hummus– Added a big handful of fresh parsley along with an extra squeeze of lemon
-Jalapeno Hummus– Added two jalapenos, one with seeds and one without, as well as some of the juice from a jar of pepperoncinis.
-Sun Dried Tomato Hummus– Added a nice amount of canned, julienned sun dried tomatoes

It was delicious!! I think our favorite one was the jalapeno one, mostly because we like it spicy!

Merry Christmas (late…)– for Christmas dinner we ventured into new territory by making our own ravioli by hand.  That meant rolling it out by hand, since we don’t have a pasta maker.  We made all of the components of our meal from The Voluptuous Vegan.  The ravioli dough had chilies, but didn’t end up being very spicy.  The filling was a mixture of roasted butternut, caramelized onions, garlic, pecans, and sage.  The sauce was made from white beans, garlic, and sage.  We served it on a bed of sauteed arugula and topped it with leeks that were tossed with olive oil and toasted in the oven.  It was a lovely meal, and other than the fact that the ravioli dough could have been thinner, we had no complaints.  Thanks to Rob and Kate for the pasta cutter- without it, we would have been lost!  We drank a delicious Griffin Creek 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon from our friends Brent and Erin.

There is a pizza shop in Portland called Dove Vivi, which has one of the most delicious pizzas I have ever had. The crust is made with cornmeal, making it dense and chewy. It has a bell pepper and cashew cream, and is topped with corn, house-smoked tomatoes, and chives. The whole combination is simply magical! We decided to try and replicate the flavors in a soup. It didn’t end up looking all that great, but the flavors were actually very similar. We didn’t have any chives, so we just used some other herbs which worked quite well. As for the crust, we made the cornbread biscuits from “Vegan Brunch”. If you take a bite of the biscuit and then a spoonful of the soup, it is almost like you’re at Dove Vivi eating a slice of that delicious pizza! You can do steps one and two the day before if you want.

Ingredients:
-3 red bell peppers, sliced with seeds/ribs removed
-olive oil
-1 c cashews
-1 tsp each dried thyme, basil, and oregano
-1 large onion, diced
-4 cloves garlic, minced (more if you like)
-1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes
-2 cans corn kernels
-4 c veggie broth
-1 tsp liquid smoke
-salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:
1. Toss red bell peppers in olive oil to coat. Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until soft and darkened. Set aside to cool.
2. In a food processor, thoroughly blend the peppers, cashews, and herbs. If the mixture is a little dry, you can add a bit of water. It should be a thick paste. Set aside.
3. Saute onions until soft and caramelized over medium heat in a little olive oil. Add garlic and sauté for about a minute more.
4. Add the tomatoes, corn, broth, liquid smoke, and the cashew mixture. Cook until everything is nice and hot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with corn biscuits or corn bread.

Wow- nothing says “weekend” like Po Boy sandwiches from Veganomicon and a side of deep fried pickles. We battered the pickles up with a little flour, beer, and cayenne. So delicious, even if it isn’t the healthiest thing in the world.

Herbivore in San Francisco is one of those restaurants that usually has some pretty good food, but has never really “wowed” us. You know, it’s just aight. The sandwiches are ok, the salad is a little mediocre, and the breakfasts are pretty good. There is one meal, however, that they get right. It’s the simplest thing on the menu: Beans and Rice. The combination of beans, rice, salsa, guac, sour “cream,” jalapenos, and grilled tofu is just perfect. Is it a $10+ meal? Probably not. But it’s worth making at home… and relatively inexpensive. We just used a can of beans, avocado, made our own salsa (really simple versions, mind you- just tomatoes, onion, and garlic), and grilled the tofu with just a little salt and pepper. Really great with a nice red wine!

We are so very lucky to live in Portland, food cart capitol of the world! We have so many options of great vegan carts, but one that tops the list is Native Bowl. It’s all vegan, and they have a variety of different “bowl” meals that I’m sure are all great, but after trying the Mississippi Bowl, there’s nothing else we opt for because it’s just that good. Can you imagine our excitement, then, when our local paper published Native Bowl’s barbecue soy curl recipe ??!!!

We had to make our own version of their delectable meal! We prepared the soy curls as the recipe calls for. The bowl layers consist of brown rice, scallions, soy curls, and cole slaw*.We both agree that it was pretty darn close to what we get at Native Bowl, so for those of you who do not live in Portland, we suggest you get yourselves some soy curls (Food Fight has them and does mail order)

*Our cole slaw dressing consisted of a nice heaping spoonful of Veganaise, juice of half a lemon, and about 1/4 tsp each of salt, black pepper, and mustard powder.

Geez we need to post more on this blog. It’s not that we haven’t been cooking or eating… I’m not sure what it is. Early New Year resolution is to post more regularly. We’ll see what happens.Anyhow, the other day we made these delicious chili cheese fries. It was really simple, as the chili was canned and the nacho cheese recipe came from The Un-Cheese Cookbook. The fries were just roasted in the oven with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. We topped the whole thing with chives, jalapenos, and Sour Supreme. It’s a great Friday night meal with a good beer!