Your Vegan Mom

The Rice Plate, or Sharing Lunch with a Four-Year-Old

While Paul was working out of town (for 6 weeks!  Did we talk about this?), this was the go-to lunch for Felix and me.  I would make a big pot of rice at the beginning of the week, and then I could stick all this on a plate for us to share when he came home from school.  It's totally conducive to the addition of leftovers - in particular slivers of fried tofu.  You grab a piece of seaweed, spread it with some gochujang (unless you're four), pinch up some rice, top with avocado, dip the sticky rice ends in toasted sesame seeds and eat.  Or eat it any way you like.  It's finger food or fork food - the perfect sort of meal to keep a kid interested while you chat about his day at preschool.  And it's totally simple and delicious to boot.  

On the topic of rice, the insert for my beloved wedding present rice cooker is looking a bit scratched up after 10 years of constant use, so I've been employing this method of rice cooking with good results, though I prefer it cooked for 5 minutes longer here where soft and sticky is preferable to light and fluffy.

And related to nothing at all, but I want to talk about it anyway, Wheeler del Torro's new cookbook just showed up in the mail, (along with a copy to share with one of you guys) and I had to force myself to put it down so that I can savor it like a novel this weekend.  It looks really good.  We'll discuss further.  

What's for lunch at your house?  

Carrot Ginger Soba Noodle Soup

"My favorite part of the soup is everything," said the 3 1/2 year old, pausing to eye the carrots and tiny cubes of tofu and long slurpy soba noodles before taking another bite.  

Roots and an Unexpectedly Delicious Sandwich

My friend, Kiley, dropped off a big bag of root vegetables that she had inadvertently stockpiled - weeks of CSA overflow.  There were turnips and rutabagas and watermelon radishes and a long bumpy piece of horseradish, but I didn't know that when I opened the bag.  Apart from the horseradish, they all looked like turnips.  

Chloe's Fettucine Alfredo

Freaking Felix, dudes.  So, I missed April, pretty much just that whole glorious strawberry and asparagus filled month - there was a back thing and then a sick thing - but now I feel fantastic.  I walked the kids to school this morning and planted corn and beans in the backyard.  (The man at the nursery says there isn't room in my 18 inch border for the third sister.  So, swiss chard and collards and some nasturtiums and zinnias are going to fill in.  What do you think, garden experts?  Ridiculous plan?)  So, I just now sat down with every intention of catching you up on the stack of recipes and cookbooks that are beginning to teeter... and here's Felix, singing, with 2 1/2-year-old, supposed-to-be-napping gusto, "wild west music...wild west music" at 1:45.  That's 45 minutes into nap time if you're keeping count.  That's 45 minutes into my time.  Now he's found some maracas to accompany...and he's using something as a drum.   

I'm not going to investigate.  I need to use this relative quiet.  Top of the list of books I want to discuss?  Chloe's Kitchen by youngin Chloe Coscarelli.  Have you read it?  Cooked from it?  I'm loving it.  Her fettucine alfredo has become an absolute staple in our house and actually in several other houses nearby.  (I'm a bit evangelical about good recipes.)  The sauce is so simple and decadent-tasting - I love having a jar in the fridge for super fast dinners or instant grown-up lunches.  

That's my lunch up there.  The sauce is smothering slithery fettucine and pan-seered broccoli and tempeh and slivers of garlic.  It's good.  I considered pouring a wine prop but stuck instead to my unphotographed pint of water for afternoon productivity's sake.  I'm not one to let a good wine prop go to waste.  

Paul and I also loved the spot-on Chinese restaurant-style vegetable moo shu.  The homemade Chinese pancakes elevated the dinner to date night cuisine.  The tempeh-based burgers are on the menu for dinner tonight, and then there are 15 pink sticky notes marking other recipes I've been meaning to try like the Artichoke Walnut Pesto Crostini and Jalapeno Cornbread Poppers with Whipped Maple Butter. 

The cookbook is full of of super accessible recipes.  They're easy, full of ingredients you've heard of, look like things you already eat, and have delicious results.  

I totally recommend it.

Fettucine Alfredo
Excerpted from the book Chloe's Kitchen: 125 Easy, Delicious Recipes for Making the Food You Love the Vegan Way by Chloe Coscarelli, published by Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc.  Copyright © 2012. 
Serves 4 - 6  

• 1 pound fettucine
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup raw cashews or blanched almonds*
• 2 cups water
• 2 teaspoons white miso paste, optional (Except I think this is totally not optional.)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Chopped fresh Italian parsley, for garnish

Bring a pot of heavily salted water to a boil.  Add fettucine and cook according to package directions.  Drain and return to pot.  

Meanwhile, heat oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat.  Add onions and let cook until soft.  Add garlic and let cook a few more minutes.  Remove from heat.

In a blender, combine onions and garlic, cashews, water, miso paste if desired (again, yes, add the miso), lemon juice, salt, and pepper.  Process on high until very smooth, about 2 minutes.

Toss hot pasta with sauce until noodles are evenly coated.  Adjust seasoning to taste.  If sauce gets too thick, add a little water, 1 tablespoon at a time.  Garnish with parsley and serve.  

*If you are not using a high-powered blender, such as a Vitamix, soak cashews or almonds overnight or boil for 10 minutes and drain.  This will soften them and ensure a silky smooth cream.  

Down Home Cooking

We just got back from our first honest to goodness family road trip.  

With two children and one borrowed mini van, we sauntered along the beach in Santa Barbara, sampled wine (and grapes) in Paso Robles, met South African penguins in Monterey, hugged grandparents in Pacific Grove, dug a big hole with a gaggle of cousins in Sacramento, and hiked shady paths to gaze at the Golden Gate Bridge spanning the San Francisco Bay.

We ate well.  

There was an excellent picnic of big fat marinated beans and fancy crackers and olives and quince paste and almonds on the patio of the winery, and the best chips and salsa of my life from Bridget Parker's booth at the Paso Robles farmers market.  We had carrot milkshakes and surprisingly good tempeh burgers from a hippie joint in Santa Barbara when we discovered that Pizza Guru was way too far to walk from the beach with two small children.    The boys had their first shirley temples.  Paul and I spent a lovely afternoon in a modern day tiki bar in Pacific Grove tipsily wading through the very nice list of tropical drinks and vegan snacks - the spicy charred edamame were a revelation.  The spring rolls were adequate.  

When Sugar Plum Bakery was sadly closed for the holiday weekend, we ran into friends from school in a pub in Sacremento that serves a very respectable tofu scramble for brunch.  

I got to cook with my sister-in-law with the tomatoes and zucchini from their huge garden.  

And then on one of the last afternoons of our trip, Desmond and I sat on a park bench together above the coastal trail in Golden Gate National Park and shared a snack picnic that we had picked up at Walgreens on the way.

While the boy happily crunched his life's first pringle and we passed back and forth a can of mixed nuts, Desmond looked at the trees and wildflowers and the path that curved around to who-knows-what-next-adventure, and said, 

"I just can't leave our vacation."

So we agreed that we would remember this moment forever, and then we ran down that trail, and discovered a red tailed hawk perched in a tree just above us, and we talked to a man about the trolley cars that used to run all the way along the cliffs, and then when the trail forked we changed each other's minds and raced down a gazillion stairs to the beach below.  Desmond climbed on the old wooden pilings and together we balanced on a make-shift teeter-totter. 

And now we're home.  And while I write about this it does make me a little sad, there is one place that I am so relieved to finally be - 

My. Own. Flippin'. Kitchen.

The seitan and chips and donuts and tropical drinks and giant sandwiches and cans of chips were good and all, but man am I happy to go back to the way we normally eat.

It is now rice and beans and vegetables all the time -  which is good, because, also, we are totally broke now that we're back from gallivanting around wineries and San Francisco.  

One of the first things I made when we got home was a big ol' batch of The Sauce.  You know, The Sauce?  We've talked about it before, but I'm actually going to write down the recipe today.  It's originally from The Spot in Hermosa Beach, so it's old school vegetarian fare, but it is so addictive-ly creamy delicious smothered on that virtuous bowl of rice and beans and vegetables.  I hadn't noticed how many little tweaks we've made to the recipe over the years.  I always just made the mental conversion - canola oil for almond (cheaper), nutritional yeast instead of brewer's (we're not that old school vegetarian), a little less oil, a different kind of tofu, scale everything down 75% to compensate, until finally I realized that I ought to just write it down the way we make it.  

It is what I crave when I'm away from home - this perfectly simple hearty sustenance.  

The Sauce
Hey!  Does that sound like a ton of oil?  I know.  But it makes a huge batch, and I've actually reduced it a tiny bit from the original recipe, which incidentally, you can find here.  Also, I always pour this over something almost or completely fat-free like rice and beans and steamed vegetables.  My kids prefer to use it as a dip - wet your hands and turn the rice into little dip-able balls to eat with lightly steamed broccoli and carrots.  

Makes: about 3 cups
Takes: about 5 minutes 

• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup Bragg's
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1/4 teaspoon kelp powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Spike
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 clove of garlic, smashed and peeled
• 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon tamari
• 1 12-ounce package firm silken tofu

Blend all ingredients until smooth and creamy.  

We love this sauce drizzled (or more accurately - heavily poured) over the House Tofu with spinach and rice or over a simple bowl of rice and beans and vegetables (the other day I even just warmed some fresh-from-the-can black beans under hot water - don't tell Gourmet Magazine).  It was delicious on top of tempeh and broccoli and rice the other day.  My kids like to dip steamed vegetables and rice balls in it.  And if you have leftovers, you can even turn the sauce into seitan cutlets.