We made ribs.
And grilled pineapple, and corn on the cob, and a green salad with berries and pistachios and a blackberry vinaigrette. I'm not going to share that recipe with you because it wasn't very good. Too seedy. If I were to try it again, I would make a blackberry syrup and strain it before adding it to the other salad dressing fixins. Which means I probably won't be having a whole lot of blackberry vinaigrette in my future, too much work for berry weather. I'll just eat them.
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No, I'm not talking about the famed plant sale that takes place each spring, but the much smaller event that we celebrated at my house last week. The much anticipated harvesting of the first two ripe, smallish, imperfect tomatoes was honored with a pizza and two BLTs. In my book, that's a party. That pizza was delicious. My favorite kind. Simple, quality ingredients. Perfect. And unfortunately you can't see the tomato in that BLT. It was diminutive, I must admit, but it was just enough tomato to contrast with the salty tempeh bacon. Both the pizza and the sandwich were the best way to enjoy the first tomatoes of the season. They really bring out that round tomatoey sweetness. MmmMmm. Bring on the summer.
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I was going to send half the pie to work with Paul, but I just don't think that I can part with it.
Ingedients:
8 oz. good dark chocolate
1 c. soy creamer (or soy milk if you don't have creamer)
1 brick firm silken tofu
about 2 Tbsp. agave nectar (to taste)
1/2 tsp. vanilla
tiny pinch of salt
chocolate cookie crumb crust
1. Make a gananche: Chop up the chocolate and put it in the food processor. Heat the soy creamer in the microwave until it is boiling. Pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute. Then, process until it is smooth and glossy. Sherry Yard, whose technique I use here, says to pulse the machine three times, scrape down the sides, and pulse three more times.
2. Let the ganache cool for a few minutes. Then, crumble the tofu into the food processor. Add the vanilla, 1 Tbsp. of agave nectar, and the salt. Blend until combined. Taste. Add more sweetener to adjust to your liking.
3. Pour the chocolate mixture into the prepared crust, and let chill in the fridge overnight.
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Friday night I found myself with a bag of spinach that needed to be eaten, a couple of russet potatoes left over from my first foray into gnocchi making (intentionally undocumented), an open container of soy sour cream, green onions, and some marinating breast of tofu. This rare confluence of ingredients prompted our very own vegan steak house dinner. I found a recipe for creamed spinach on Recipezaar, convinced Paul that it would be delicious, and it was. Here's the recipe:
Vegan Steakhouse Creamed Spinach
3 Tbsp. margarine
2 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp. chopped onion
1 bay leaf
1 whole clove
1 c. soy milk
1 bag spinach
salt and pepper
1. Melt 2 Tbsp. marge over medium heat.
2. Add flour and stir until golden, about 5 minutes.
3. Sir in onion, bay leaf, and clove.
4. Gradually whisk in soy milk.
5. Continue whisking until mixture boils and thickens, about 10 minutes.
6. Reduce heat to low and simmer 5 minutes longer, stirring frequently. Mixture should be quite thick.
7. Remove bay leaf and clove.
8. Dunk spinach in a pot of hot water and swish it around until it's wilted. Remove from hot water and stop the cooking by immersing the spinach in a bowl of ice water.
9. Squeeze out excess water from the spinach.
10. Finely chop the spinach in a food processor. (I ignored the instructions here and did this by hand. Next time I'l follow the directions. In the finished product I wished that my spinach had been finer.)
11. Add spinach to warm sauce and stir to combine and heat through.
12. Stir in last Tbsp. of marge.
13. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
14. Serve at once. (It gets kind of goopy when you let it sit around.)
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I love going out for breakfast. Sitting someplace with the Sunday paper and a cup of coffee. Having somebody else do the dishes. Today, I was going to write about some of my favorite breakfast spots in Los Angeles, but for various boring reasons (like abject poverty) we decided not to go out this morning. And what a fortuitous decision that was. We managed to bring the diner into our very own kitchen with Vegan Chicken Fried Steak and Gravy and Scrambled Tofu. So freakin' good. Shockingly good. MMMmmm good. Yes, we will now eat fruit and vege for the rest of the day as we don't usually fry our entire breakfast, but for a special weekend meal I think it was worth it.
We started with Beefy Seitan Cutlets from My Nonna's recipe. Then we dredged them in seasoned flour, dipped in a tofu-creamer-beer mixture and coated again with flour. Then, into the frying pan. We poured cracked pepper gravy over the top and served it with some basic scrambled tofu and sourdough toast. Diner delicious.
Vegan Chicken-Fried Steak (serves 2)
(based on this recipe from the Recipezaar website)
Seasoned Flour:
3/4 c flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp.cayenne
Wet Stuff:
1/4 cup firm silken tofu
1/4 cup soy creamer
1/4 cup beer
Seitan Cutlets
Whisk together flour mixture in a shallow dish or on a plate. Combine liquid mixture in blender or food processor. Dip each seitan cutlet in flour, then in the liquid mixture, and again in the flour. Fry in hot oil for about 5 minutes, flip and cook for another 5 on the other side. Serve with gravy and scrambled tofu.
Gravy
2 Tbsp. marge
1 1/2 Tbsp. flour
1 c. soy milk
salt and pepper
Melt margarine in a saucepan over medium-low heat, add flour and stir unitl it begins to brown. Slowly whisk in cold soy milk. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let simmer a few minutes until the gravy has thickened up to your liking.
Basic Scrambled Tofu
2 Tbsp. marge
1 very small onion
1 block firm tofu
1/4 c. nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste
Melt butter. Saute onion. Drain and rinse the tofu. Crumble it into the pan. Sprinkle nutritional yeast, salt and pepper over the top and stir to combine. Let it sizzle until you want to eat it. (A couple minutes for me, Paul likes it browner.)
Happy Sunday. Pass the coffee.
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