Vegan MoFo 2014 - Newsday Tuesday Two-fer!

It's another Newsday Tuesday, and today it's a two-fer!  Do radio DJs still do Two-fer Tuesdays?  I had a love/hate relationship with them because sometimes you'd get 2 songs by Adam Ant or The Cure or The Smiths, and sometimes you'd get 2 from The Eagles or something.

I made two more recipes from Cookin' Crunk today:  the twice-baked potatoes and the Mint Julep Brownies.

The taters took a while because of the baking, but if I'd done it right (cooking the leeks while the taters cooked), it might not have taken so long after that.  I was distracted and didn't pay attention to what I was doing, so it took longer than it should have.  But luckily it didn't affect the outcome.

These were so good!  They were totally worth the time and effort, though they really weren't that difficult.  I would totally recommend making these.  Though now I have pretty much a whole leek to use up, and I'm not sure what to do with it.

I made the brownies while I baked the tatties.  They didn't turn out quite so well.  I don't know why, but they didn't bake all the way through.  I had them in for an extra 10 minutes and they were still nearly raw, so I had to put them back in the oven.  Even after an extra 20 minutes, they're still gooey, and they're meant to be cake-like.  Mike liked them, but I can't take them to work like I'd intended.  And since I'm not a huge brownie fan, Mike will probably end up eating most of them (and he's already eaten about 1/3 of the pan).

Vegan MoFo 2014 - Newsday Tuesday: Cookin' Crunk Breakfast Lasagna

It's Newsday Tuesday!  I can't remember if I explained why I chose to do my food experimentation on Tuesdays.  It's not just because it rhymes.  Mike works late on a Tuesday, so I have more time to make stuff without someone else constantly asking me when dinner will be ready.  He's usually home at the weekend, so Tuesday is pretty much the only distraction-free day I can do stuff like this.

Today's recipe cuts two carrots with one knife as it's also part of my project, Cooking Through Cookin' Crunk.  If you're new to the joint, I'm attempting to make all of the recipes in Cookin' Crunk before I turn 40.  When you think about the time frame (I started last year and have another 5 years to go), it doesn't seem very ambitious.  But having this project has helped get me out of a cooking slump a couple of times, so it's better than letting my cookbooks moulder on the shelf while I eat 18p ramen all the time.

I almost didn't make tonight's recipe - I've been sleeping really badly lately and got home exhausted and already hungry, which is a terrible combination for cooking something with this many steps.  It has so many steps!  You have to

1. make cheese sauce
2. peel, slice, and cook the potato
3. slice and cook the sausage
4. make tofu scramble
5. layer and bake everything

But if you overlap some steps (make the sauce while the tatties cook) or make stuff ahead of time (the recipe kinda assumes you've already made the sauce), it actually comes together pretty quickly.  It's not a regular weeknight meal (OK, technically it's breakfast), but it's not a half-day project.

As you can see, we had this with some garlicky asparagus on the side.  I figured we needed something green.  Obviously this isn't really pretty, and, as per usual, it's dark and shadowy.  Sorry 'bout it.

For those of you in the UK, I used the Fry's slicing sausage/polony.  It probably affected the taste because it doesn't taste anything like US breakfast sausage, but it was still tasty.  And that was the only substitution I made!

So, yeah, this was super delicious and totally worth the effort.  I would absolutely make this again, and from the way Mike was all but licking his plate, I think he'd be OK for me to make it again.  Plus, now I have 2 days' worth of breakfast and I was able to use the leftover cheese sauce in the burritos I made for my lunches (leftovers from taco night, woo!).

Newsday Tuesday – Waitrose soffritto passata

It’s Newsday Tuesday, where I make/have food that’s new to me!  For a minute I thought I’d failed at it – I forgot that I actually have made the recipe I was gonna talk about.  But then I realised that one of the components is new to me, so it worked out!

I was at Waitrose the other day stocking up on frozen stuff (I got garlic and ice cream, but they didn’t have shallots) and happened upon a new item – jarred soffritto.  I quickly scanned the ingredients for anything non-vegan, not bothering to note the bizarre stuff some British person decided was supposed to go into sofrito, and, seeing that it was safe, bought a jar.

It wasn’t until I got home and had a good look at it in comparison to a recipe in Viva Vegan! that I realised that this is some kind of Euro-sofrito.  Sorry, soffritto.  It contains carrots and celery instead of peppers*.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  Regardless, I used it in a couple of recipes, and it was actually pretty good.

I made the Viva Vegan! Latin Baked Tofu with it, but due to the lack of Latinness, I added a bit of cumin to it before I poured it over the tofu.  I also made the Cuban black bean soup, which saved me a ton of time standing at the stove (but not much in the actual cooking process, which took FOREVAH).

Mike and I really liked it over the tofu, and we really liked the soup, so I can’t really say it’s a terrible product.  It just wasn’t what I expected.  But I guess I should’ve known, since I got it at Waitrose and not Lupe Pinto’s.  Still, I would give it the seal of approval – even though it was different, it was still tasty!

And since I don't have a picture of any food, here's a kitty tongue:

*A quick search tells me that this is Tuscan-style soffritto.  So I guess my Latin baked tofu was actually Italian baked tofu.