Taco Tuesday!

I know I'm late to the game, but I'm ready to get on board the Taco Cleanse, y'all.

I love tacos.  When my best good friend Eva and I get together for more than a day, we always have taco night.  There isn't even a question of whether it'll happen, just when.  I haven't had a lot of tacos lately because there was a recall of all the vegan mince a while back, and it still isn't back in stores.  But I went minimally fancy (nowhere near schmancy) tonight by making some stuff from scratch!

Tonight's dinner was homemade corn tortillas from Viva Vegan!, tofu chicharrones (also from VV!), and tinned refried beans (I forgot to soak beans and also I'm having an allergy attack).  I'd never made either of the VV recipes, but luckily I chose what turned out to be two really easy ones.

When Terry says if you can lift a bag of masa, you can make tortillas, she's not kidding.  These were so easy.  I was thinking about pancakes while making these, and I realised I could probably make 2-3 dozen tortillas in the time it would take me to make a single batch of pancakes.  It doesn't hurt that I have a tortilla press - it makes wee baby tortillas (well, smaller than I'm used to)! - but I bet rolling them out wouldn't take all that long either.

The chicharrones took a long time but weren't a lot of effort.  Most of the time is waiting - freezing then thawing the tofu, then pressing and marinating.  But it's about 30 minutes of actual work, which was great tonight when I was sneezing so much I thought my whole face might come off.  You can make the marinade and throw the tofu in it, then make the tortillas, then fry the chicharrones in the pan you used for the tortillas and have dinner ready in half an hour.

I'm so excited to eat leftovers tomorrow and make my co-workers jealous that my lunch is so much more awesome than theirs.

I have to say, I'm not even at the mild level of the cleanse and my mood has improved.  Now I just need to decide what to make for next Taco Tuesday!

Oh yeah, Mike insisted I post this educational video for those who might not know the difference between tacos and burritos (NB - not vegan!):

Tamales! Tamales!

I finally ate a tamale!

My best friend was visiting from Newcastle this week. We decided to make tamales. The plan was to make them Friday since we knew we'd have the most time that day. Also, since I don't have a freezer, I wanted to make them as close to the time Eva was leaving as possible since she'd be taking some of them home. As it turned out, we didn't need to worry about freezing them.

We made the Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tamales in Viva Vegan! They were delicious. They were so delicious that, despite the fact that Mike only ate one, between the two of us, Eva and I managed to eat all of them by this afternoon. They wouldn't have lasted that long if I'd been home on Saturday to eat them!



That was our meal Friday night - tamales, leftover green bean casserole (from our T'giving meal), and leftover Yellow Rice with Garlic. The beans were perfectly seasoned, a bit spicy, and the sweet potatoes were almost creamy. I could eat these daily. I've told Eva that the next time we make tamales, we're making at least twice as many as this time. I think I need to make them with seitan next time.

My first stuffed peppers - Latin style.

I can't remember if I mentioned this, and I can't be bothered to look it up. Every time there's a thread on the PPK along the lines of "What will I be served at this omni event?", someone always suggests stuffed peppers. It seems to be a thing for some people that they're always served stuffed peppers. Well, I have never been served a stuffed pepper. Even when I was omni, I never ate a stuffed pepper, not even chiles rellenos.

Truth be told, I didn't like bell peppers for a long damn time, so it's kinda understandable. But I've liked bell peppers long enough, and have been vegan long enough, to have been served this supposedly omnipresent omni stand-by. But no, no omni (or vegetarian, or vegan, for that matter) has ever offered me a stuffed pepper.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to take matters into my own hands. But having never been served a stuffed pepper, I didn't know what I should stuff in my peppers. So I asked the PPK. I ended up not using any of their suggestions, mostly because they were suggesting quinoa (I have a sensitivity) and Daiya (not available in the UK). But they did give me ideas.

There were two things that I felt my stuffed peppers needed. First, I had a block of tempeh that I bought on a whim and then didn't know what to do with, so I wanted to use that. Second, I knew I wanted to use brown rice as a grain. For some reason, I decided that I would use recipes from Viva Vegan!. This is what I came up with:



Latin Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:

one recipe Yellow Rice with Garlic made with brown rice
one recipe Tempeh Asado (see below)
one recipe Simple Latin Tomato Sauce
4 bell peppers (green or red, however you roll), cleaned, halved, and de-seeded
mozzarella-style cheeze

Method:

The best way to do this is to make the tempeh ahead of time so it can marinate for a while. I suggest making it the night before (which I didn't do), though you can probably make it no less than 30 minutes before assembly. Follow the recipe for Tempeh Asado, with the exception that you chop your tempeh roughly into crumbles to put in the marinade, then let sit for 30 minutes or more.

For the rice, you could also make that the night before. You can do brown or white rice - use about 2 1/3 c water if you do brown (rather than the 1 2/3 c called for in the recipe).

Make the tomato sauce while your oven pre-heats to 375F / 190C, after the rice is relatively cool (if you made it the same night). While the sauce simmers, you can clean et al your peppers and make the stuffing. Combine the tempeh with about 2 cups of rice (I just eyeballed it, but I didn't use all the rice I made), then add in about a cup of shredded mozzarella (or whatever cheeze you prefer). At this point, you should also line a lasagna pan with foil.

When your sauce is done, coat the bottom of your pan with a thin layer of sauce. Put the peppers cut side up in the sauce. Scoop about 1/4 c (more or less, depending on the size of your pepper) into each halved pepper. Spoon the rest of the sauce over the stuffed peppers. Bake uncovered for 15-20 minutes, until the peppers are relatively soft. Sprinkle additional cheeze over the peppers and bake for another 5 minutes or until melty.

You might want to serve these with something green like the Swiss Chard with Capers or the Brazilian Shredded Kale, but you've basically got everything you need - veg, protein, whole grains, and deliciousness (that's a vital nutrient, right?).

In case you couldn't guess, I loved my first stuffed pepper. I don't know how often I'll make them, though, because Mike didn't. Oh well, I can always invite friends over.

Papa Chorizo Frittata

I finally got around to making a recipe from Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations that I didn't make during testing. And let me tell you, Alicia didn't give all the best recipes to the testers!

I kinda feel like a jerk because I had intended to make this days ago. In fact, I had intended to spend most of last week making recipes from this book that I hadn't made during testing. I ended up falling behind when I couldn't think of anything to make, and then I pretty much just gave up on the idea. I looked through it again last night, and I really don't know why I felt uninspired. There's so much I want to make from this book!

Tonight I made the Papa Chorizo Frittata, served with Swiss Chard with Capers (no raisins) from Viva Vegan! and just some regular old roasted red potatoes.


Sorry about the shadow - pictures taken any time after 3 PM during winter in Northern Europe requires unnatural lighting.

First, I should say that I've made the Swiss chard dish so many times since I got VV. This and the Swiss chard frittata from Vegan Brunch are my favourite ways to use Swiss chard.

Anyway, the chorizo frittata was delicious. The only change I made (apart from not using the specific type of chorizo suggested) was to leave out the potatoes. I'm not a fan of potatoes in frittata - I find they draw out too much of the flavour. So I just put my potatoes on the side, and it worded fine! I also cooked this in a silicon round because everything sticks to my springform pan. I just flipped it over onto a plate and it came right out!

I definitely recommend this frittata and this book!

ETA - Last night while waiting for the leftovers to cool off for storage, I kept cutting off slices of frittata. I seriously almost couldn't stop eating. If it hadn't been for the fact that I needed the leftovers for my lunches, I would've eaten the entire thing. I wanted to eat the frittata more than I wanted to drink the hot cocoa I'd just made. Seriously. It was very difficult to pull myself away from it.

Viva Vegan mini review

Let me just get this out of the way - I know I was gonna do recipes from Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food this week. But I didn't spend enough time looking at it and ended up feeling overwhelmed and couldn't think of anything to make other than what I'd already made during testing, so I'll maybe look at it later in the week. There are, of course, recipes I want to make, but they're mostly cakes.

So, rather than try to dig up the tester forum and copy and paste my reviews from there, I decided to make something from Viva Vegan!

A word about VV - this is one of the best cookbooks I've ever owned. I've probably cooked as many recipes from VV in the 6ish months that it's been out as most of my other cookbooks that I've had for years. It's comparable to how much I made from Vegan Brunch including the cookbook challenge last year. I even bought copies for my sister and my best good friend. If you like Latin food, even if you aren't vegan, you should pick up this book.

Tonight I made the Drunken Beans with Seitan Chorizo and the Yellow Garlic Rice:


The Yellow Garlic Rice is my favourite rice dish ever. Of. All. Time. Seriously - it's amazing. I can't even bring myself to make the other types of rice because I just know they can't compare. And it's so easy! It has about 7 ingredients and takes less than 30 minutes.

This is the second time I've made the drunken beans. I kinda screwed up - I couldn't get my hands on Mexican cerveza, so I bought what I assumed to be a close enough approximation. Turns out, not so much. My beans were super bitter. Mike liked them, but I had a hard time eating them, and they made me sad. It is in no way the fault of the recipe - I loved them the first time I ate them. If I hadn't already had the beans on the stove cooking, I would have waited to make these when I realised I couldn't get the right kind of beer. I'm gonna try to doctor them and see if I can decrease the bitterness. Wish me luck!