Your Vegan Mom

Blue Cheese

 

During a rare afternoon of leisure snatched from the chock-full to do list, I found myself wandering around the big fancy whole foods in El Segundo after a long chatty lunch and stroll with my mom.  This style of grocery shopping is not compatible with my wallet, and so it is good that it is a rarity.  However, on this occasion it led to a delicious discovery: Sunergia Soy Bleu.  

Have you tried it?  Given, it's been awhile, but I swear, this stuff tastes and smells like blue cheese.  Now you might think that a soy-based product that tastes and smells like blue cheese would not be a good thing, but you would be wrong.  It is delicious.  After getting it home, I cut myself off a little sample, and if I had any less will power, there would not have been any left for Paul to try, let alone for our scrabble date night pizza.  Paul, a professed blue cheese hater, liked it too.  He claims that this is evidence that it does not in fact taste "just like blue cheese."  I say his palate has matured since the cheese eatin' days of youth.  You be the judge. 

Salsa and Margaritas

You don't have to be in California to have margaritas and guacamole for dinner.  I discovered last Saturday that, in the absence of bountiful organic limes and lemons, a highly passable cocktail can be produced from bottled citrus juice.

We're Not in California Anymore Margaritas

2 oz. tequila

2 oz. sour mix

splash of triple sec

Shake with ice and serve on the rocks.  That's one serving by the way, but it would be much better to just use those proportions and pour a whole bunch in a pitcher with some ice.  It's nice to share.

Sour Mix:

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Put that in a small sauce pan over medium heat.  Stir until the sugar is dissolved and let simmer for about 1 minute.  Set that aside to cool for a moment.

3/4 cup lemon juice

3/4 cup lime juice

Stir the juice together.  Stir in the simple syrup.  Your sour mix is ready to be turned into margaritas.

With your margaritas you will have some kind of chips and salsa.  It is a moral imperative.  I am certain that you have something in your fridge or pantry that can be turned into salsa.  

One Particularly Delicious Salsa, or Guacamole Depending On Your Perspective :

(I had envisioned the avocado staying in contrasting chunks with the mango, but of course, when you stir up a ripe avocado it mushes up into its own special fiesta bowl and that's just fine, so call it what you will.)

1 avocado, diced

1 mango, diced

1/2 a medium red onion, finely diced

1 jalapeno, finely diced

lime juice (I used 3/4 of a lime's worth.)

about 1 Tbsp. minced cilantro

salt to taste

Chop the onion first and let it soak in cold water while you do the rest of the chopping.  This will mitigate its sharpness.  Drain your onion, and mix all that together.  The lime juice and salt should be added to taste.  Use a spicier chile if you want to.  I bought serranos for this purpose, but they disappeared, so jalapenos were used instead.  

In my inauthentic opinion, it's the lime juice, onion, chile, and cilantro that make this particular style of salsa, so you can substitute the other parts with whatever you have on hand.  Of course, tomatoes are traditional here.    

The boy had a black bean tamale along with his quacamole since he wasn't getting the all important margarita nutrients. I bought the tamales frozen at the Whole Foods when we were in Dallas last weekend.  What a great instant meal!  The boy loved it.  

Happy Weekend Y'all!  (The farmers market opens tomorrow!)

Show and Tell: the high chair

I miss my kitchen.  Sure, I brought the essentials with me, but I'm missing that indistinct home quality it has.  I think it's the light.  On his blog, Michael Ruhlman recently wrote about what he considers to be essential in the kitchen, and it's a good list.  Did you see it?  It would be really helpful for anyone setting up a home or trying to decide what to shove in the suitcase and bring with them to... oh, say, Shreveport.  Unfortunately this article came too late for me, but it mostly jives with what I decided to take.

One huge item that I did wind up cramming in the suitcase that, not surprisingly, didn't make Ruhlman's list is really more a piece of furniture than an essential kitchen tool - the high chair.  That's right.  The flippin' high chair fit in my flippin' suitcase.  Yes, it's a pretty big suitcase, but standard big, not steamer trunk big, so this is obviously one radical high chair.  

It came from Ikea.  It cost like 20 bucks.  It has minimal nooks and crannies where gunk can lurk, and it's not bad to look at.  I love it.  

Now, is it wrong that reading Ruhlman's article kind of makes me pine a little bit for a pie maker?  Just a little bit, and I don't need a fish spatula, so there's that.  And, do you see the light in this kitchen?  Doesn't

 it make you sad?  

The Story of the Magic Beans

Once upon a time there was a bag of beans. They looked like ordinary beans if a little on the small side. Just by looking at them you would never know it, but they were magic.

New to town, and knowing nothing of the special powers of the famed local legumes, a little boy and his mama innocently grabbed them off the shelf of the neighborhood Kroger. They brought them home and cooked them, more or less, according to package directions:

Cover with 10 cups water and a generous drizzle of olive oil. Simmer about one hour. Saute 1 minced onion and 1 clove garlic in a teaspoon of butter. Add to the bean pot along with a pinch of thyme, a bay leaf, salt and pepper. Gently simmer for about half an hour or until the beans are soft and flavorful.

That very night they ate those magic beans with sauteed spinach over rice. The next day they ate the beans again. This time the mama just threw some shredded kale and cubes of smoked tofu right into the pot. Again, with a bit of rice and a shake of hot sauce, they had a delicious meal. You might think the story ends here, but we couldn't rightly call those beans magic if that were so.

When the family woke up the next day, there were still beans in the pot. Maybe even more beans than the day before. The family sure liked those beans, but they were ready for a change. Thinking quickly, the papa grabbed a fork and smashed them up. Good thing too. If it weren't for his quick thinking and agile bean smashing that pot would have lasted until the wee babe was a grown man himself with children of his own to tend to. The papa added some vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast and cajun seasoning and turned those beans into seitan cutlets!

Along with mashed potatoes and gravy, those southern bean cutlets made a hearty meal.

The next day was bright and sunny and the family decided to go on a picnic. Dressed as cutlets, the beans came too. With apple-pecan coleslaw and a view of Caddo Lake, the family gobbled up that seitan.

But there were still some left! The next day, while the baby was sleeping, the mama was h-u-n-g-r-y. She sliced a cutlet thin, simmered it with barbecue sauce, heaped some left over coleslaw on a bun and enjoyed an excellent sandwich all by herself.

And wouldn't you know? That wasn't the end of those beans. They turned up the next night in cutlets again coated with a sweet hot sauce glaze. Before they skipped town for good, they made one last appearance as strips of buffalo seitan on a bed of mixed greens drizzled with buttermilk ranch.

Now I can't be certain where or when those beans will turn up again, but I can say that that happy bean eatin' family lived happily ever after.

The End

Liz Lovely has Cookies for You

How happy was I after stumbling off of that dipping and rumbling flight, after finding that all 70 pounds of our entire lives' possessions had not chosen to make the last leg of the journey with us, looking forward to a shower and a change of clothes and a cocktail, to discover not only my loving husband waiting for me in Shreveport, but also a box of cookies!

The wonderful people at Liz Lovely were somehow under the misconception that my opinion was influential, and am I ever happy that I did not disabuse them of this notion.

These are some good cookies. The Ginger Snapdragons are big and soft and chewy, spicy with fresh ginger, and, dare I say it... better than homemade. This cookie magic does not come from any kind of unrecognizable chemical combination though, the ingredients are all, not only kitchen shelf staples, but also certified organic and Fair Trade wherever possible. Now I know statements like that can be incredibly misleading, but when I say "wherever possible" I do not mean, "They can't use organic flour, it's just not cost effective." I am instead referring to the fact that there is not organic certification for things like (Vermont well) water and (sea) salt and (would somebody please come up with artisanal) baking soda.

In addition to the ginger, that, by the way, went quite well with that little dram of bourbon, we also had a four pack of dark chocolate covered sandwich cookies. This classic vegan oreo-style treat finds its fancy pants in a gorgeous draping of high quality dark chocolate. The crunchy cookie in its velvety coating was a treat indeed. Fortunately, in the name of research, I had to horde most of them for myself.

This company impresses the pants off me. 5 people in Vermont putting out an exceptional product in the most conscientious fashion. This is the kind of shopping that is just good for everybody. Now excuse me while I go join their fan club.

Oh, but first, leave a comment for an opportunity to win your very own sampler box. You could tell me about the best cookie you've ever had, or just say, "I want cookies," or if you think it will help, you can always talk about how much you like me. In any case, I'll pick a winner at random and pass on the info to the Lovely people.