Your Vegan Mom

Gauva Cheese Turnovers

If you come to my house for Valentine's Day, it is required (not optional) that you bring a valentine for all those present.  I love the elementary school version of the holiday that celebrates love for all your pals in a non-icky-long-stem-roses kind of way.  

In this vein, this is my valentine to you.  Each of you.  Inspired by a long ago lazy afternoon spent with good friends at that purple Cuban cafe on Sunset in Silver Lake.  

These turnovers should be accompanied by big steamy mugs of cafe con leche, and of course, people you really like.  

Guava Cheese Turnovers

• 1 17.3-ounce package puff pastry sheets (I use Pepperidge Farms.)
• about half a tin of Guava Paste, cut into thin (1/4 inch?) slices
• 2/3 cup raw cashews
• scant 2/3 cup plain soy yogurt or one 6-ounce container (I really like Wildwood.)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• pinch salt

If your puff pastry is frozen, get it out of the freezer.  Open it up and let it thaw on the counter. 

Now let's make the cheese.  Grind the cashews in a food processor to a a pretty fine meal.  Add the yogurt, vanilla, and a pinch of salt.  Process again until smooth and creamy.  

Arrange a rack in the center of your oven, and preheat to 400 degrees.

When the pastry is pliable, unfold it on a floured counter or board, and cut each sheet into four smaller squares.  

Place a generous tablespoon of cheese onto the middle of each square.

Arrange a slice or two of guava paste on top of each dollop of cheese.

Fold over to make a triangle.  Seal edges with the tines of a fork.  With a sharp paring knife, cut a few little slits in the top of the pastry to allow steam to escape.  

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown.  

 Happy Valentine's Day, Love. 

Vegan Charcuterie and the Sandwich Project

I love Michael Ruhlman.  (Have you read Ratio?)  So much so that when he published an exhaustive and well-recieved big fat tome on Charcuterie, I wanted it.  Even though, you know, we don't eat meat, be it salted, smoked, cured, or otherwise.  So I resisted, and bought my father-in-law a copy of that other book instead.  

But then last week when Marly emailed to ask if I would  be interested in veganizing a sandwich for a series she was calling America's Top Ten New Sandwiches...Veganized!, I saw my chance.  

She had been simultaneously intrigued and grossed out by this piece in the Huffington Post featuring new-fangled sandwiches from all over the country.  With fillings as outlandish as deep-fried lasagna and as obvious as bacon, these sandwiches were ripe for the veganizing.  Now all she needed was a ragtag team of writer-cooks and enthusiastic eaters to make it happen.  

I was quickly assigned The Spuckie from a sandwich shop in Boston called Cutty's.  The original version is packed with hot capicola, salami, mortadella, hand-pulled mozzarella, and carrot-olive salad.  We could do the salad part, but clearly some deli meat research was in order.  The baby and I headed to the library.

Back at the dining room table with my big fat book of meat (It also features recipes for homemade sauerkraut and preserved lemons.  Am I rationalizing, or do I totally need to own this book after all?) I read through visceral instructions on cramming various body parts into something or other's lining and finally skimmed to find seasonings for mortadella.

Six...no...eight (?) logs of seitan later, we were all super-happy with the meat-free results.  You can find the recipe for the complete sandwich involving three different kinds of seitan (I know!  It's an admitedly labor intensive recipe.  But you can make it way simpler by just going to buy some flippin' vegan deli meats.) at NamelyMarly.  

She will feature ten crazy new vegan sandwiches over the next couple months all developed by different bloggers and inspired by the sandwiches in the original article.  One is filled with barbecue and macaroni and cheese.  And there's another that layers sausage inside maple-currant bread pudding.  Eep.  I'm so excited.   

Meat-free Mortadella

• 1 12-ounce package firm silken tofu 
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup Bragg's Liquid Aminos
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground mace
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 2 cups vital wheat gluten
• 1 cup green olives

Add all but the vital wheat gluten and olives to a food processor.  Pulse until combined while leaving small bits of tofu (those will visually, at least, mimic the little cubes of fat in the traditional sausage).  

In a large bowl, stir the tofu mixture into the vital wheat gluten until you have a soft seitan dough.

Form the dough into a fat oblong ball.  Push the olive into the seitan.  Wrap tightly with aluminum foil.  Place in the prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees for 2 hours.  

The seitan will feel soft when you take it out of the oven - it will firm up considerably as it cools.  Let cool completely before slicing thinly for sandwiches.  

Makes about 2 pounds of seitan