Saturday, November 20, 2010

Days 6 & 7 - Pancakes at Last!

Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday.  There's a lot to get through, so let's see...

Thursday Night
"Snobby Joes" and Onion Rings
I made Vegan Sloppy Joes and Baked Onion Rings from The Post Punk Kitchen.  The sloppy joes (or snobby joes, as they're called on the website) were pretty good.  I was getting really sick of lentils by that time though, so I don't think that I enjoyed them as much as I might have otherwise.  The onion rings, on the other hand, were quite tasty.  I mixed up the recipe at first, adding only 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs rather than a full cup.  As such, my onions weren't as coated as they should have been, but they turned out well anyway, better than a regular onion ring to my thinking.  I apologize for the totally awful picture, but it was late and kind of dim in my house and everything just looks washed out, even my happy yellow plate.

Friday
I was so ready to throw in the towel yesterday.  Somewhere around 5:00 I decided that I was tired, and headachey, and just wanted to order a pizza, dammit.  I didn't want to cook or clean and I was sick of beans and lentils and everything else.  I was sick of my kitchen being a mess.  I really wanted a damn pizza.  But, I persevered.  I realized I hadn't had any coffee all day, thus explaining the headache, so I got some caffeine in me and invited my brother and my mom over for dinner.  Dinner was quite tasty - vegan chili with faux sausage crumbles and baked tortilla chips for some crunch.  Plus wine, naturally.  I'd made chili before a bunch of times so I just decided to wing it.  This is what I came up with:

Vegan Chili
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large (very large in my case) sweet onion, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped up very small
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tube of vegan ground sausage substitute - I used Light Life Gimme Lean ground "sausage"
1 Tbsp cumin
3 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 Tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 bay leaves
1 large can (28 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained
2 Tbsp tomato paste
3-4 cups of veggie broth
2 15-oz. cans of beans, drained and rinsed - I used one can of black beans and one can of white beans
If you want - 1 big chunk of ginger, added with the beans to make them easier on your stomach.  It won't change the flavor. 
For garnish - tortilla chips, chopped green onions, cilantro, and Toffuti Sour Supreme (a sour cream substitute)

Heat oil in a large soup pot and add onions and celery, sauteing until translucent (about 8 minutes).  Add garlic and sausage substitute and break up with your spatula until it starts to brown.  Add spices and saute for about 1 minute until everything is mixed together.  Add bay leaves, diced tomatoes and tomato paste and stir in.  Add about 2.5 cups of veggie broth.  Bring to a boil.  Once it's boiling, turn the heat down to low and simmer for about 45 minutes (or longer if you'd like).  At the end, add the beans and enough of the leftover broth to get the chili to your desired consistency (I used about 3.5 cups total).  If you're using the ginger, add it at this point.  Continue to simmer for about 10 more minutes to get all of the flavors to meld together, and then add any additional spices to your liking (mine was pretty spicy already, so I left it alone).  Remove the bay leaves and the ginger piece (I hadn't yet found mine in the mass of chili and my brother accidentally ate it, prompting a "what the hell?").  Serve with tortilla chips, green onions, cilantro and sour cream.

To make the tortilla chips I just chopped up the leftover tortillas that I'd made for the enchiladas, put them in a bag with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of sea salt, shook them up, and baked them for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees.  They weren't at all like store bought tortilla chips, but were thicker and less salty.

I wish I had a picture to post of the chili, but we pretty much ate it all, which is a good recommendation.

And now, pancakes!  I got up super early this morning to go for a run with some girls that live in my new neighborhood and decided that it would be a great morning to test out Calvin's pancake recipe.  I'm pleased to say that they more than lived up to my expectations.  They're yummy and thick and the perfect vehicle for maple syrup.

Flax eggs
Pancakes a la Calvin

1.5 cups unbleached flour
2 Tbsp wheat germ
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 cup oatmeal

2 flax eggs (to make a flax egg, put 1 Tbsp of whole flax seeds into a coffee grinder and pulse them until they're finely ground.  Then add 3 Tbsp water and whisk together.  The mixture will get gooey and egg-like in its consistency.  For this recipe, make two of them)
1 cup almond milk
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
Water as needed to thin batter (I used a little bit less than a quarter of a cup)

Make your flax eggs.  Mix all of your dry ingredients together and then whisk in the wet ingredients.  Make like you would regular pancakes.  Mine made 11 pancakes total.

Pancakes with maple syrup after a long run = happy, happy me.
So today is my last day of the experiment.  I have no idea what I'm going to make for dinner tonight, maybe edamame pesto and french bread (if I can veganize something that relies so very heavily on butter).  I'll report back tomorrow with the results of the experiment!

1 comment:

  1. Oh. Your pancakes look so pretty!
    ...I wish I was at your table for the veggie chili :(

    ReplyDelete