Your Vegan Mom

Donna Klein's Sesame-Orange-Glazed Tofu Nuggets with Broccoli and Red Bell Pepper

I'm going to tell you right now - this is a bit more labor-intensive than what I would usually make for dinner on any given Thursday, but it was just so delicious that I could see it becoming a regular in our kitchen.  Maybe I can get a kid to dip cubes of tofu in sesame seeds.

I was skeptical of the recipe too.  I feared the tiny seeds wouldn't stick.  I thought they would just burn in the hot oil.  I thought the sauce had too much hoisin, and that it probably shouldn't be there at all.  I hate steamed broccoli.  And it was kind of a lot of work for something that I was pretty sure wasn't going to work.  

But it did.  As soon as I pulled one plump little pillow of sesame encrusted tofu from the sweet tart sauce and popped it in my mouth, I was totally hooked.  And I needn't have feared the still crisp broccoli.  

The recipe comes from Donna Klein's new cookbook, The Chinese Vegan Kitchen.  She spent a year in Hunan province, where the food is spicy and fresh, teaching English in a middle school and committing herself to learning all about Chinese home cooking.  We are so fortunate that she came home and wrote a book about it.

Miyoko Schinner's Cashew Cream Cheese

I hold out the jar in disbelief.  "Smell this," I command Paul.  (And then the next day Felix's teacher and two other parents at the preschool as well.)

Mark Reinfeld's Raw Pear (or Plum!) Tart

I should have listened.  The recipe called for one cup of finely chopped pitted dates.  I did not do that.  Instead I threw a big rounded cup of somewhat dry whole pitted dates into the food processor along with the raw pecans and a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg to make the crust for Mark Reinfeld's raw tart.  I did this despite the fact that I had never made a raw tart before and the author of the well-tested recipe has cooked professionally for twenty years, founding a much loved restaurant that I always wanted to visit.  He has co-authored five cookbooks and recieved many honors and awards for his vegan cuisine, and still, I decided that I probably knew better.  

Anupy Singla's Aloo Tikki

Over the summer when Desmond's swim teacher asked him what his favorite food was, he answered, "Indian food."

I'm not sure if that is entirely true or if that was simply all he could recall eating.

Cookbook author, Anupy Singla is completely responsible for my recent obsession with Indian cooking and my five-year-old's worldly palate.  She's an Indian American Mom and former reporter who so, so successfully translates complex Indian flavors to the time constraints of the home cook without dumbing down the dishes one bit.  Her recipes are realistic and super flavorful.  

Kale Quinoa Empanadas

That's me wallowing in the corner.  I'm even having chocolate for lunch.  (It's really good.  Have you had the little dark chocolate bars that come in packs of three at Trader Joe's?  Silky.  At 290 calories apiece we'll pretend that I had a nutrtionally dense, low calorie salad before the chocolate, and then really, it's not that bad a lunch.  Except I didn't have the salad, and now I'm wondering about the provenance of this chocolate and thinking that I need to learn more about how to not support child slave labor and really under no circumstances is chocolate lunch.  Again, that's me moping in the corner.)