vegan recipes: a list thread

Breakfast Couscous (appealing to both vegans and non-vegans alike!)
feeds 4, or 3 or even 2 if you're reaaaally hungry; can easily be halved, just do the math
use 3/4 cup of liquids if you like drier couscous; 1 cup if you like moister couscous. I prefer drier.

3/4 or 1 cup orange juice
3/4 or 1 cup vanilla rice or soy milk
lots of cinnamon, to taste
1 cup french style couscous
lots of dried fruit (raisins, craisins, etc.)

Bring liquids and cinnamon to a boil. Stir in dried fruit and couscous, and remove from heat. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Fluff with fork and serve.

It's so tasty and so easy!

do you think a chocolate version of this could work? still using oj, but maybe choc soy milk and a little cocoa powder? or is that totally wrong?

Injudra

1/2 pound dry brown lentils
1 cup long grain rice
3 - 4 large onions
1/2 cup olive oil
salt, pepper and cumin to taste (i use a lot of cumin)
if you want more vegetables add some cabbage or carrots or have something on the side.

good for casseroles w/noodles or rice and peas or whatever

mock bechamel sauce

1 onion chopped fine
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cup water/veg stock
soy sauce/sea salt

saute onions on medium heat...add garlic...add flour while stirring and cook 3-5 minutes...add water/stock+salt soy sauce and keep cooking and stirring

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/03/post_26.php

made this last night. very tasty, and VERY cheap (esp. if you already have a big bag of red lentils).

― lauren, Saturday, October 4, 2008 12:31 AM (2 weeks ago)

lauren, i was going to post this link, i make this often, it is very very good. i sometimes use persian red lentils for it, they take longer but they are delicious.
i love all lentils, they are one of my main foods.

the injudra looks great, artdamages, do you slow cook the onions first to sweeten them?

yeah i didnt give instructions for that recipe. i cook the rice and lentils seperately (ive experimented w/cooking them in the same pot, but it doesn't ever work out) and cook up the onions by themselves on medium heat adding the garlic and cumin later then mixing that into the lentils when they are done.

i dont like crunchy onions so i tend to cook them to death and use huge amounts of them to make up for it

i'm going to make that.

yay for lentils!

is injudra another name for mujadarah? it seems like the same thing. so tasty, esp. if you used caramelized onions. i'm really into caramelized onions lately.

looks like it is the same.

xpost to rubyredd:

OMG that sounds to DIE; I'm going to try it next time I have choc soymilk!! OJ + choc is heaven.

or orange + choc, i mean.

So peeps, my two "OMG CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT" foods before going vegan were mac n cheese (R.I.P.) and steamed pork dumplings. The former is all but hopeless in recreating accurately, but the latter I think I could get down pretty damn close with seitan and proper herbs and spices. Anyone ever tried this?

p.s. real dumplings, NOT that cabbage-filler bullshit. cabbage sucks.

i really hate the texture of seitan, so i never tried cooking with it when i was vegan. with that in mind, i'd try using finely-crumbled tempeh mixed with herbs and a tiny bit of a cornstarch/soy mixture. sadly, though, nothing tastes like pork.

Cabbage rocks!

U guise i need some tofu recipes that will bring the house down. All the ones I've made so far range from "eh" to "pretty good the first few bites" but I need something mind-blowingly delicious.

i just came across this recipe the other day:

http://www.monsoonspice.com/2008/08/sweet-chilli-lime-tofu-with-wok-steamed.html

it sounds delicious.

yay for this thread!

i just purchased How to Cook Everything Veg AND the Veganomicon recently, but haven't had a chance to put them to work yet. But Bittman's great, in my experience.

You absolutely HAVE to try the Penne Vodka in Veganomicon--it's the best thing I've made vegan. The Black Beans in Chipotle Adobo sauce was killer too, the black beans were absolute perfection but the chipotle sauce was a bit too sweet and oniony for my tastes.

made the sweet chili lime tofu! it's awesome.

tell me about quinoa? I have never heard of it. does anyone know how hard it is to find in the UK? would something else do for that recipe? cook's thesaurus has suggestions: http://www.foodsubs.com/Grainoth.html

I am quite fond of quinoa and can get it here in the US in both white and red varieties at Whole Foods and health food stores. I mostly use it as an alternative to rice/couscous/other grainy type thing as a side dish for meat/fish/chicky. But for a light vegan dish you could toss it with any sort of cooked veg with some sort of dressing (a lemony vinaigrette is good), maybe chuck in some toasted almonds or other nuts, maybe some raisins or currents or dried cranberries if you are into that sort of thing. Basically you can treat it exactly the way you would couscous, although the cooking bit is different.

quinoa's easy enough to get in the uk: it'll probably be in your supermarket, albeit perhaps in some kind of confusing ethnic food/vegan diet/special items aisle. that said, i never saw the red variety. learning about bulgar and quinoa really expanded my grain-based-meal horizons.

Quinoa's great for breakfast too - a nice crunchy change from oatmeal, etc.

Thanks guys. Like I say, I had never heard of it until I read the tofu lime chilli recipe, but it turns out they sell it in Tesco.

I just started using it a week or so ago - apparently there are brands that are pre-washed and others you need to rinse before using. Some kind of bitter stuff (natural protective coating?) has to be washed away.

for real, for breakfast? just quinoa with milk on?

Nope, with a little butter and brown sugar or jam, like I do with Malt-o-meal.

which, ya know, isn't vegan. Do vegans use margarine instead of butter?

i get vegan margarine. i can't remember what it's called; whole ... garden or something. i am not vegan but have vegan aspirations, though.

Margarine isn't vegan? I thought it was just vegetable oil and water whipped up smooth.

earth balance is a good butter substitute, i think

would something else do for that recipe?

oh, definitely! in fact, since we were out of quinoa i used basmati rice. it's less about the type of grain and more about the spices you cook it with, i think. and, speaking of spices, i didn't have cardomom pods so i used dried whole star anise. not the same flavor, but it worked very well.

"Tempeh" has started looking like internet-speak to me..

OMG EARTH BALANCE IS MY LIFE. It's got such a rich buttery taste. They've also got the Soy Garden variety, which is still tasty but less OMG BUTTER, which I like to use in some things instead of the original buttery spread.

Also I don't think I've posted it here yet: Google Books has a "preview" of Veganomicon that seems to half the entire book, if not more:

http://books.google.com/books?id=tjN8uJETBpIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=veganomicon

I had a "melted chocolate and pumpkin spice" sheet-cake on Friday that was vegan and OMG delicious, and I do NOT make a beeline for the vegan goods in general. Wow my mouth. I think it's still tingling a little.

The only downside, vegan-wise, was that the richness made me want a glass of milk on the side.

veganomicon looks pretty great. there are some kind of lasagne noodles involved in the lasagne - is there a vegan substitute?

i think i need pictures in recipe books to get me excited enough to cook. i might try kosheri (rice + lentils + onions + stuff) tonight; at the moment i just want to eat things i can scoop with a spoon.

hey, vegan/veg people (and anyone else who enjoys tofu) - you know about the freezing thing, right? if you freeze your block of tofu (firm/xtra firm), then thaw and squeeze out before cooking, it gets really "meaty" and super-absorbent.

do I need to do that for the sweet chili lime thing? I have my tesco.com order set up and am getting ready to pull the trigger on this.

don't be nervous! i didn't freeze it this time around bcz i was lazy, and anyway it's not specified in the recipe (which is SO forgiving - don't be afraid to customize it). it's just something to keep in the back of your mind.

Ooh here's that cake recipe: I can highly recommend it: http://vegandad.blogspot.com/2008/10/chocolate-pumpkin-pudding-cake.html

that does sound good. if all vegan baking focused on stuff like this that can be done really well without dairy, then it wouldn't have such a bad rep.

Yeah, except for the soy milk it's not really substituting anything. It does call for oil instead of any other shortening, I think C used coconut oil? Anyway, whatever, it was awesome.

i have to say, though, that there is a vegan bakery in chicago (or maybe evanston) that produces the most amazing, rich, homestyle vegan birthday cakes - "buttercream" icing and all.

I think tofu is a bit more exotic here than it is in the U.S. I like it, but I don't think I've ever had it outside a restaurant, and I didn't even realise Tesco stocked it. I was all ready to go to the Chinese supermarket. I will steel my nerves by getting good and drunk when I cook it, which will hopefully be later this week.

i think selling souls to the devil was involved somewhere down the line.

xpost - srsly, don't sweat it! it will be awesome. is there anything in particular you're worried about re: cooking?

that I will not be drunk enough

haha, no it will be fine. I gather the problem with tofu is it can be too sloppy, but it probably ends up tasting the same whatever.

No because I really only use yogurt as a medium to put fruit in, so the sourness isn't something I prioritize.

I'm mostly on board with vegan cooking/baking, but one thing that I'm yet to be convinced of is nutritional yeast. My favorite vegan food blogger calls it "vegan golden flakes" or some such, especially as a way to simulate the savoriness of e.g. cheese, but what I've used it in hasn't elevated my recipes that much. Maybe different brands are better? (I have a bag of Bob's Red Mill.)

I've only really used it to make "vegan white cheddar popcorn". It did have a note of 'artificial cheese flavoring' but it was just one element in a pot pourri of gross.

Sticking to salt and grapeseed oil from now on. Thanks for the reminder to throw that canister of fish food in the garbage.

nutritional yeast alone is not the wave rly, but add it to cashew cream to make a cheesy sauce

It’s def overrated but it does provide some umami that otherwise be lacking in vegan food

i like to use it a few different ways. processing cashews with nutritional yeast, salt and garlic powder makes a really good faux parm imho.
Salads tossed with a vinaigrette do nicely with ny added
Thrown into a vegan alfredo sauce in lieu of parm
Have made polenta and replaced parm with the stuff and that worked quite well, too, imho

A family friend who went vegan last year calls it "nooch."

that is the name

TFW you decide you can't make a chickpea dish because your ice cube tray for aquafaba is full.

haha this is a v particular issue to have

For the past couple weeks, I've been experimenting with vegan brownies (well, brownies and brownie cookies) with the added challenge of avoiding coconut oil, and I think that I've figured out a way to use regular vegetable oil without the brownies coming up super dense: add some cornstarch. I'm not quite sure about the proportions as I eyeballed the amount I put in but it was something like 1-3 Tbsp for what ended up being 4-5 Tbsp of oil and 1 cup of flour.

have you ever tried black beans?

or another mild tasting bean like adzuki might work too

Black bean brownies were some of my earliest baking experiments! I guess I should revisit them.

I've hit upon a perhaps even easier fauxgurt recipe: blend one ripe avocado in a food processor, then add one block of silken tofu (along with taste
enhancers .ije juice from a lemon, 1 tbsp apple Cider Vinegar, 0.25 tsp salt), blend till smooth.

I could never quite get the cashews as smooth.

This shakshuka was fabulous when I made it a few weeks ago and I was looking forward to making it again last night, but I was out of tomato paste and when I went to my supermarket they didn't have any in a tube. :(

I've made this about 3 times and it's pretty idiot-proof: https://www.pickuplimes.com/recipe/vegan-gado-gado-with-sun-dried-tomatoes-186

looks good as hell

Yeah I love it! Some of the substitutions I make: broccoli (make sure to peel them) instead of green beans, tahini instead of peanut butter, and srirachi because I don't have sambal oelek. Perfect blend of savory with a touch of sweet.