BBQ Tempeh and Lemon Dill Coleslaw

This is kind of awesome. John made a special bbq sauce with orange juice and rind, brown sugar, ketchup, and vinegar and poured it over some prefab garden vegetable tempeh. Then he baked it with some sauteed onions and peppers, and I made some creamy lemon dill coleslaw.

The coleslaw was just half a head of cabbage, sliced, mixed with some vegenaise, salt, pepper, dill, celery seed, and lemon juice. I like it really lemony so I used the juice from a whole lemon, and just enough vegenaise to moisten it. The lemon coleslaw and the orange bbq sauce made a nice pair, but I wish I'd done something kind of Asian-inspired, like ginger and lime coleslaw. Maybe next time.

Quinoa Salad

I finally got around to buying a big bag of quinoa from the bulk bins. I've had quinoa before, and I know how healthy it is, but I just never really think of it. Quinoa is technically a seed from a bush, but you treat it like a grain when you're cooking with it, and it's like a little vegan nutritional messiah. I looked at the directions on the bulk bin and it was the same as what you'd do with rice on the stove top, so I had the bright idea to use my rice cooker. It was a little unnerving, actually, because I love my rice cooker and I'd be really sad if anything happened to it. Some people do all manner of crazy things with theirs, but mine so far has been used exclusively for rice. It turned out really good, though, and the whole house had that toasted sesame seed smell.

After I cooked up a big batch, I started looking for things to do with it. Vegan with a Vengeance has a couple of recipes, but they're both kind of warm and heavy sounding and I just wasn't in the mood. I thought about doing the pineapple quinoa stir fry from Veganomicon but I really wanted to do something with ingredients I had on hand. As I often do, I searched food network, thinking I'd find something I could modify. What I found was a lovely Emeril recipe that, while I did modify it, is vegan to begin with. Looking at it again, I really didn't modify it all that significantly. I used three clementines instead of the supremed oranges (I hadn't ever heard the term supreme used in this way before, but I intend to use it liberally henceforth), and I also omitted the olives and reduced the olive oil to 1/4 cup (really, it was plenty, and I probably could have used even less). I probably used more parsley than it calls for, because I love fresh parsley and I didn't measure it. The omission of the olives was a measured choice: I only had Spanish olives and they seemed too savory for the rest of the salad. I opted to add a little more salt, instead.

The salad turned out fantastic. The onions added a little kick and the clementines and golden raisins were like little sweet nuggets of yummy. The quinoa and cumin both have a wonderful nutty flavor. I'm totally making this again for a summer picnic or something.

Impromptu Pasta Salad

I made a big batch of pasta the other night and only sauced my own serving, thinking I might get creative with the rest of it. Today for lunch I was craving something substantial, so -- while it's not terribly creative -- I made pasta salad. My mom makes a pasta salad with chicken and peas, and for some reason I can taste the chicken in this one even though it's not the same recipe at all. It's just cooked pasta, frozen peas, chopped celery, vegan parmesan, vegan mayo, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Yum.

Salad Love

As the introduction to the salad chapter in Veganomicon suggests, salads are something of an enigma among vegans and vegetarians. People seem to assume it's all we eat and, all too often, it's the only option available at many restaurants. But I have a confession: I love salads. I love them with all kinds of fancy toppings. The one I made for lunch last Thursday, pictured here, was topped with lemon oregano soy feta, sliced strawberries, clementine sections, chopped walnuts, and a light honey mustard vinaigrette. The one I had for dinner Friday night had crushed tortilla chips, salsa, mozzarella, and chili. Especially when I'm trying to watch calories, salads are such a staple food for me, but the stereotype is the reason you don't see my lunch fare more often.

Lunch Time!

I'll go ahead and make another post, since I'm sure Sarah will be thrilled to see the corn chowder pushed off the bottom of the page. Here are a couple of things I've made for lunch this week. The first is hummus, which I ended up making with no oil or lemon juice. So, just chickpeas, tahini, cumin, and garlic. Loads of garlic. I finished off the rest of it in class last night and felt inhibited about talking to anyone afterwards. The salad has cabbage, sugar snap peas, grape tomatoes, green leaf lettuce, and I think some baby carrots with a honey mustard vinaigrette.

The second one is my lunch from today. On New Year's Day, my mom had me run by the store and get some cabbage since she's super traditional and insists on black eyed peas and cabbage for good luck. I was going to skip out this year but she sent me an email saying she'd already made vegan black eyed peas and rice with vegetable broth. How adorable. I couldn't say no. When I got to the store, cabbage was on sale for 25 cents a pound, so I bought two heads thinking I'd just nosh on them for a while. I'm totally in love with this vegetable now. Not only is it in the salad pictured above, I've also started making this stir fry every other day. It's cabbage, soy beans, and a little rice. The sauce is a rough approximation of the one from Veganomicon that accompanies the butternut squash spring rolls, using rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar (I use splenda), sesame oil, sriracha, and some ginger.