Your Vegan Mom

Lunch

I'm not on a diet, just out of bread. And lunch was actually two of these BLT wraps with a smidgen of vegenaise in each, followed by cookies. The vegenaise is crucial. Do you know that thing that a slice of fresh tomato and a dollop of creamy sandwich spread do? They mingle and become this new pink glop that is an essential element of the BLT experience - far more critical than the bread. The romaine leaf was clearly not the best wrapper, that big ol' crispy stem made for more of a messy lettuce taco than a tidy wrap, but the fresh crunch it provided more than made up for the messiness. And a fingers-dripping-pink-glop sort of lunch is good every once in awhile, it forces you to stop whatever else you're doing and just savor the contrast of salty and creamy and crunchy and cool and the sweet tang of a pretty decent slice of tomato.

Happy Friday. I hope you had a good lunch.

March Salad

1 bunch watercress, chopped
1 cara cara orange, cut off peel and chop into small segments
1 avocado, peeled and diced
1 smallish handful toasted pistachios

squeeze of lime juice
drizzle of agave nectar
shake of salt
shake of cayenne

Toss and serve.

Notes: Tonight I'm going to use romaine rather than watercress. Also, I'm going to roast a beet, dice it and throw it in hot? Maybe. I love hot and cold contrast in a salad, but then you have to eat it fast, because I don't love everything kind of warm in a salad.

Thoughts? How would you improve on this "recipe"? What is you current house salad?

Another little note: I just made a quick version with romaine because I was embarrassed by the lighting in the watercress photo. Oh my, is that a good salad.

To Market: Cara Cara Oranges

90 cents a pound from Thys' Ranch at the Torrance Farmers' Market last Tuesday. I cannot get over these oranges. So beautiful, so delicious...is that a touch of melon? I will show you what I've been doing with them tomorrow. (Besides, of course, gobbling them up.)

Seedy Pancakes

Best pancakes ever? Maybe. That's what Saveur magazine proclaimed in their special 100 issue. Of course, I did mess with the recipe quite a bit. I figured that as long as I was using flax meal in lieu of eggs, I might as well add some more seeds, and some toasted oat bran to ratchet up the nutty crunch. So I made them a bit more wholesome than intended, but with each pancake cooked in a pat of (vegan) butter, they were still suitably decadent for a weekend breakfast.

1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. toasted oat bran
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 c. sunflower seeds
1/2 tsp. salt

2 c. soy milk
2 Tbsp. vinegar
4 Tbsp. melted butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 Tbsp. flax meal
6 Tbsp. warm water

In a medium bowl, combine the milk and vinegar and set aside. Whisk the flax meal with the warm water and set aside until thickened. In a large bowl, whisk together the other dry ingredients. Once the milk-vinegar mixture and flax have both thickened, melt the butter, and stir the wet ingredients together. Add the wet to the dry, stirring quickly and firmly to just mix. (I know you've heard it before, but don't over mix your pancakes. Also, once the batter is combined, it's time to cook pancakes, so make sure that your griddle is hot and your breakfast eaters are hungry.) I used a 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat to cook the pancakes. I did use a scant tablespoon of butter for almost every one, which resulted in deliciously crisp edges, but it really gives breakfast an almost deep fried feel that I think I'll save for special occasions. As promised, this made 8 large pancakes.

Oh happy weekend!

Simple Sesame Noodles

Man alive I have so much to tell you. The backlog of good food has been steadily mounting as the days have passed without my writing. It just gets worse and worse. It's hard to break the cycle. And this really is an awfully silly place to do it. I really ought to return with something grand, something to show for my absence, but this dish is just so simple, and it's simply what we've been eating. I've probably made it four times this week with different combinations of vegetables and noodles. Plus, I already have the picture taken, the recipe written, and I can't say the same for anything else that I would like to share. I need to go perfect the tempeh recipe, write down the cocktail recipe, take a better picture of the pancakes, and find out if I can publish the sauce. And I'm really having trouble finding the right words to describe my lunch with the ladies last weekend. Perhaps they can tell you about it? Oh, and we're moving to Shreveport, just for three months, but still, there's a lot to sort out. Any words of wisdom for a vegan family in Louisana?

Creamy Sesame Sauce for Noodles
2 T. tahini
2 T. tamari
2 1/2 T. seasoned rice vinegar
1/2 T. chili garlic sauce
2 T. agave nectar
1/2 T. toasted sesame oil

Mix that together. It won't want to blend, but once you toss it with the hot noodles, it will. Also, set aside some of the cooking water to add to the noodles if you need to thin out the sauce a bit. In the picture above, I boiled shelled frozen edamame along with the skinnyish udon from Trader Joe's and added raw shredded carrot at the end, but the combinations are limitless. However, garnishing with black sesame seeds is essential for both prettiness and subtle crunch.

This makes enough sauce to coat one serving of noodles and about a cup of vegetables which will then make a nice little meal for two people.

(I know that working in fractions of tablespoons is odd, but this is not the sort of dish that requires precise measurements. I got out a tablespoon so that I could find a common language for us all, rather than suggesting you put in a bit of this and a bit of that. Also, in a meal as easy to put together as this, I highly value only dirtying one measuring implement.)