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Cookbook challenge! (from PPK) 11. Vegan Fire and Spice

A group on PPK is doing this, and I think it's a great idea! We're going to go through a group of cookbooks to try new recipes. Join in, post what you made, what you thought, and some pics! Do whatever weeks you want, however many days per week you want, and however many recipes you want-one, some, all, whatever! I want to be on the same time frame as PPK (so I can do both), so we'll do the rest of this week VCON (through Sunday), and start anew on Monday, with the next book. I've included a couple options, too. I think we might throw VCON in again, later, so we can have more time with it. Let's do it! (sorry about the day/time difference for you outside USAers!)

In order of use:

- VCON (Thursday, 27th-Sunday, 30th)
- VWAV (Monday, 31st-Sunday, 5th)
- VB (Monday, 6th-Sun, 12th)
- Yellow Rose and/or Radiant Health, Inner Wealth (Monday 13th-Sun, 19th)
- Eat Drink and Be Vegan and/or Vegan Table (Monday 21st-Sun, 27th)
- Vegan Planet (Mon, 28th-Sun, 4th)
- Vegan Soul Kitchen (Mon, 5th-Sun, 11th)
- Vegan Vittles and/or VCON )Mon, 12th-Sun, 18th)
- How It All Vegan
- Get It Ripe
- Vegan Fire and Spice

eta: if you want to follow the ppk challenge, it's here: http://www.postpunkkitchen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=102840&p=1

Ally, I thought the tofu would indeed make a good breadfast, yours looks good.

I needed something fast to make after work and before yoga class:  Tess to the rescue.  I made the Morroccan Quinoa and it's very tasty.  I had raisons on hand and used those and I used orange zest and fresh squeezed OJ.  Very good! 

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I love looking at pictures of my recipes that other people have made. Tweety, looking at my moroccan quinoa on your plate makes me far too happy!
:)

p.s. looks like a really healthy meal, too!!

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I had some co-workers/friends over for dinner last night and wanted to make something special, so I did Italian. I made:
Artichoke, kalamata, and sun dried tomato mini-pizzas with garlic and rosemary
These were a little expensive to make (gourmet-type ingredients) but really easy and quick to assemble. They were also extremely delicious and my guests were very impressed!

Spinach-strawberry salad (I think I already reviewed this one, and it was really good as always!)

Lemon asparagus linguine
this was delicious! Perfect for the asparagus (I had lots of it because it was on sale!) and my guests loved it. I really enjoyed the different textures in this dish and the taste was fresh and delightful.

For dessert, I made the Blackberry peach goodness and it was so wonderful. Very light (even though I doubled the topping) but rich in flavor.

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It's a new week and I'm still rising to the challenge.  I used EDBV and made cumin lime tofu.  It was kind of spontaneous but I was pleased to pat myself on the back as a cook that I had all the ingredients, but "Allspice" so I just used cinnamon.  It was pretty good and super fast to make.

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I guess I could say that I made the hummus recipe from VT, but I really just made my usual "recipe," which happens to contain all the same ingredients. I mean, it's hummus. There's nothing special about this particular recipe, and it's kind of shady that it's in the book. ; ) I did notice that she has 1/2 a lemon (with 2 cans of chickpeas), and that's ridiculous! It needs way more than that. I used 2 whole lemons, and it wouldn't have suffered with more.

Nice job, tweets!

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Hardly a "challenge" but I used the recipe in VT to make a salad dressing.  I made the creamy miso dressing.  I didn't have "seasoned rice vinegar" whatever that is, but had regular rice vinegar.  I used pure sesame oil.  Very good, but I think I'm going to use a little less vinegar next time because it was strong

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I made the no queso nacho dip last night. I followed the recipe, except added canned tomatoes, and some leftover Mexican spiced TVP. I can't imagine the dip without tomatoes. I first ate it just dipping a tortilla in (she says "pour it over tortillas"...which just sounds messy), but later made a quesadilla with it. It is so good in a quesadilla! Mine dip ended up a little too runny, because I added too much tomato liquid, so it would have been even better thicker (for the quesadila). There's nothing special about this particular recipe, because it is like so many others, but I definitely recommend the quesadilla making.

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I made the dark leafy greens with sesame miso dressing from VT, using kale. I never have mirin, so I just added a bit of water, and I didn't bother with the blanching of the kale. I just cooked it for a bit, to soften. I used red miso. It's nothing special, but was ok on quinoa. Healthy!

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A little early for Vegan Planet, but I combined two recipes. I made the jerk spiced portobello steaks, and used those for the stuffed mushroom burgers.

Jerk spiced portobello steaks
-I used 2 mushrooms, instead of 4, and didn't think to cut down on the salt! I used these for the recipe with the "nestled" burger, so mine was fine. P's was too salty, and not enjoyable. I guess the spices are ok. It wasn't spectacular. Very easy, though.

Stuffed mushroom burgers
-The spices gave a nice flavor to the burger, but I don't think both are needed at the same time. It was a little much.

Vegan Planet was one of the first vegan cookbooks I got, and I'd only made about 5 recipes prior to these 2.

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I made the sesame broccoli stiryfry from VP, but added some baked tofu. I used garlic powder instead of garlic (lazy), and didn't use the bell pepper. I also added some crushed red pepper. We had it over rice. It's pretty good, but I expected some more flavor from the hoisin sauce. My sauce was too thin, and cornstarch didn't thicken it up enough, but it didn't matter much. I would just have liked it sticker. An ok dish.

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Scallion pancakes with sesame seeds
Really good! As I was making them, I didn't know if they would be worth the work, and they didn't seem like they would be that flavorful, but they are tasty. I was happy to be able to do the food processor method, because I got my larger processor not too long ago, and it was really easy. I do think the 1 cup water is too much, and I didn't let mine rest for the full 30 minutes. I used whole wheat pastry flour. Oh, and I made 4 medium/large pancakes instead of the 2 giant ones. Really great with the sauce.

Ginger lime dipping sauce
I was sure that I had a lime, but I guess I only bought lemons. It was really, really good, though. I didn't measure, but probably got pretty close to the measurements...except the 1/2 cup of soy sauce (I don't think I used that much..seems like a lot). I also did sriracha instead of the flakes. This came out better than I was expecting. Really flavorful!

Balsamic glazed carrots and kale
I only had 3 carrots, so I used about 1/2 a huge kale bunch. It still made a lot. I did pepper flakes instead of cayenne. I didn't boil the kale with the carrots, because it doesn't need to cook that long. I just parboiled the carrots, then added the kale, and the rest of the stuff. Pretty good. Up there with good kale recipes.

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I made the Irish soda bread, because I didn't know what else to make, and it's a good day for baking. Maybe I just don't like Irish soda bread, because I didn't like the JOVB one either. I liked this one more, because it wasn't sweet. It didn't take near 45 minutes, and was getting too done on the top, but not totally done inside. It's just pretty bland, which is to be expected from the ingredients. It was easy...

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Not so dirty rice-Well, I kind of made this. It's definitely one of those recipes that is open to many substitutions. I used a zucchini instead of bell pepper, the boca chopped instead of crumbles, cayenne sauce instead of tabasco, some fennel seed instead of thyme (don't like thyme), and a jalapeno instead of cayenne. I also used 1 cup of leftover dark beer, plus 1 cup of water to cook the rice. It turned out pretty well. You know, nothing amazing, but it's good. It came out a bit too spicy for my sick nose. I like what the dark beer did to the rice-made it actually look "dirty"! This would be a good size dish for a Cajun meal.

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I think this will be my last VP recipe before moving on to VSK. All in all, I wasn't very pleased with any of the recipes I tried. : \

Garlic sauce
-It could have been partly due to my mood, but this was not very appetizing. The balsamic didn't seem to fit with it very well, and the smell was weird. It wasn't all that bad on roasted broccoli with lemon, and I guess I'll use the rest of it as an addition to another sauce, or something. I love garlic, and don't want to waste it. I did forget that I ran out of foil, and I had already pulled the cloves from the garlic head, so I had to roast them without the foil top, and one exploded! I had to take them out at that point, but they were mainly soft. I won't make the recipe again.

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Gee Ally, you rock at the challenge!

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Vegan Soul Kitchen week.
I was wanting to make the okra strips, but no okra at the store!

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Carrot cayenne coleslaw

Pretty good slaw! Simple, too. I didn't use purple cabbage, but that would have been pretty. I used yellow instead of dijon mustard, and ACV+rice wine vinegar for the vinegar. I forgot the sesame seeds! P hates even the mention of the word "slaw," so this was just for me.

Cumin cayenne mashed potatoes with caramelized onions

Good! I do think I like regular mashed potatoes better, but this was a nice version, and I like his method. I used soymilk, and rosemary instead of thyme.

Served with greens, and BBQ tofu with homemade sauce.

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Hi, everyone, this is my very first post on VegWeb. I just discovered forums and your great thread on Friday, and got so excited, but put off posting until I could buy Planet Vegan and try a recipe. I made Tofu and Vegetable Lo Mein, pg 261. It was good; it was really fast to put together, and is a flexible recipe that you can easily substitute vegetables. It calls for napa cabbage, carrots, onion and snow peas and green onions, but I'm sure you could use julienned green beans or mushrooms or zucchini. The carrots are grated. I didn't have the snow peas, I decided to grate broccoli stems to sub for the peas (both green?), and it turned out fine (not as good as snow peas, but better than a trip to the store). I was going to use frozen peas, but then realized the rest of the veggies cook in 2 or 3 minutes, so frozen peas would have to be thawed first. That might take me a couple minutes, and I was hungry!

This dish is a lot like a noodle dish that we get at a hip fast food Chinese restaurant where we pay at least $10. for it including tax and tip. They add some whole cayenne peppers to the oil (the kind you pick out unless you're a fire-eater), and maybe some slivered black mushrooms, and chopped roasted peanuts on top. VP's recipe is pretty inexpensive to make apart form the oils.  I subbed grapeseed oil for the peanut oil it called for, but I did have the toasted sesame oil. The grapeseed oil was OK, but I think the peanut oil would add a subtle flavor that would make the dish more authentic, and yummy. The spices were light, but I'd rather the spices were understated than overstated. The ginger, garlic, toasted sesame oil and tamari flavor combo rocks. Next time I'm going to make it with the specified  peanut oil and snow peas, maybe pump up the aromatics a bit.

This noodle dish would be good paired with the Vegetable Spring Rolls With Spicy Peanut Sauce, on page 44; or maybe the Szechwan Hot and Sour Soup on pg 75. I might have tried em, if I had a little more time, but I got the cookbook late Saturday, and, Sunday I just HAD to be a the World Veg Festival in San Fran's Golden Gate Park!

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Thanks for that great first post, lily!  ;)b

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Thanks, AllyChristine. You replied so fast, that I hadn't finished correcting my typos yet. U R Fast!

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Hi LilyRoze, thanks for the great post!

I'm a little late this week, but I did make some dishes from the Vegan Sould Kitchen.  I was goingto lift a picture from my Facebook page, but seems to be down.  

I made the mustard cornmeal crusted seitan and it was not bad.  A nice 'nugget' like like taste, very unique.  I dipped them in his bbq sauce recipe which is most excellent.   I had on the side the roasted root vegetables with roasted-garlic lime sauce.....very good.

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