This recipe was adapted from one I read in last month’s Bon Appetit for Chicken-Lime Fajitas. It translated nicely to being vegan and was totally delicious, though it left me with a lot of cabbage to use up (that’ll be posted later.)

Tofu-and-Lime Tacos

You will need (to serve 2):

Taco shells or tortillas (I’m a soft girl, Rob’s a crunchy guy.)
2 cloves garlic, minced
Olive oil
Green onions
1 lime (for juice and zest, get extras if you want to garnish the plate)
3/4ths block extra firm tofu
Red cabbage
1 avocado
Cilantro
Salt and pepper

In a bowl, mix about 2 TBS olive oil with your garlic, the juice and zest of one lime and some salt and pepper.
Now, slice your tofu into finger-sized lengths. Whose fingers? I dunno, your fingers? You figure it out. Place the tofu pieces in a large Ziploc bag and pour the lime mixture over. Leave a little bit of the liquid in the bowl, you’re gonna use it later. Toss and shake the bag until the tofu is nice and coated. Throw (you can gently place, if that suits you better) the bag into the fridge to marinate for an hour or so. Turn the bag over once if you think about it to make sure it marinates evenly.

Once it’s been in there awhile, grab your trusty big skillet (you can carefully pull it from your closet, if you want. Why are cooking terms so violent??) and start it heating over medium-high heat on your stove. Once it’s nice and hot, dump the contents of the tofu bag in, getting as much liquid in the pan as possible. I think I actually added a bit of water to the mostly-empty bag and dumped that in the pan in order to get all the oil and lime juice out. To the skillet, add some chopped green onions if you so desire. This is what it looked like in my pan:

Cook until, well, it’s the doneness that you like in your tofu. What are you really looking for in tofu? When you find the right doneness, you’ll know.
While the tofu is cooking, slice two leaves of red cabbage into strips. You could grate it, I guess, but I liked the slightly thicker strips that slicing provided. Place the strips in the bowl with the leftover lime marinade and toss them around with about a TBS of chopped cilantro, to just very lightly coat.

Then check on your tofu. Is it done yet? Is it all you dreamed it would be?

It probably isn’t. So, take your biggest knife and slice around the pit of the avocado so you can essentially break it in half. To get the pit out, WHACK it with the knife so the blade is stuck in the pit (this needs to be violent) like so:

This illustration confuses me, as I’ve never seen an avocado so tiny as compared to those giant fingers. But you get the point!

Now your tofu is probably done. Remove it from the heat and arrange tacos as follows: taco/tortilla, tofu, cabbage, avocado. Finish the whole thing with some chopped cilantro.

Here are mine in tortillas:

And here are Rob’s in hard tacos:

It’s been awhile since we made these, but if I remember correctly, Rob’s only beef with them was that the cabbage consistency was a little TOO crunchy when raw, especially in big chunks. I personally liked it, but if that sounds like it would be a problem for you, by all means throw the strips in the pan and cook them around with the tofu until they are done to your liking.
Then again, what are you really looking for in cabbage?

So I finally installed a spam comment blocker, and all is well with the world.

Except the flu.
I was seriously laid up all weekend, leaving the house only to go to an optometrist appointment I’d had scheduled for about a month, and to pick up some groceries yesterday afternoon when I was feeling a bit better.

So needless to say, I needed some soup and I didn’t feel like inventing any. Normally I don’t publish other people’s recipes, so this is an exception. I made Chickpea Noodle Soup, recipe by Isa Chandra Moskowitz who wrote Veganonicon, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and Vegan with a Vengeance (catch the pattern?) She is also one of the masterminds behind The Post Punk Kitchen, a site I waste many a work hour on.

So here we go. I made a few adjustments to this, and they are noted below.

Chickpea Noodle Soup

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large yellow onion, sliced thinly
1 cup chopped baby carrots
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups sliced cremini mushrooms
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed in your fingers
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons mirin (optional, and I didn’t use it)
1/3 cup brown rice miso (made a substitution here. Apparently our local grocery store chain had some dispute with their miso supplier and had yet to find a new one, so they didn’t have any. To substitute, I found one of those packets of instant vegan miso soup and poured the powder into a bowl, removing the dehydrated chunks of tofu and green onions and used that. A little shoddy, but it did the trick. I am sure this soup would be much better with actual miso. Sigh.)
6 cups water or vegetable stock (used 4 cups vegetable stock, 2 cups of water and one veggie bouillon cube)
1 (15-ounce) can, drained and rinsed (I used two cans for MORE CHICKPEA)
6 ounces soba noodles
Spinach

In a soup pot over medium-high heat, sauté the onions and carrots in the oil for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic, mushrooms, and herbs, and sauté for another 5 minutes. Deglaze the pot with the mirin (or just a splash of water). Add the broth/water and the chickpeas. Cover and bring to a boil.

Once the broth is boiling, break the soba noodles into thirds and throw them in. Lower the heat to medium so that the soup is at a low boil. Cover and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the miso and stir until it’s incorporated. Taste and adjust the salt, and add a little extra miso if you would like a stronger, saltier flavor. (At this point, I also added a few handfuls of spinach. You could also use escarole, kale, chard or whatever you have on hand.)

This soup was delicious. The recipe makes enough for 6 servings, and I definitely ate it for lunch on Saturday and Sunday and still have a whole lot left over. One thing to note is that soba noodles will continue to soak up broth in the fridge, so have a little extra broth in a separate container to mix in (I boiled 2 cups of water with a veggie bouillon cube, and a pinch each of thyme, rosemary and celery seeds.)

Even Rob liked this. Seriously, discovering that Rob likes chickpeas has been a revelation in our house. He ate around the mushrooms, but otherwise cleaned his bowl. SHOCK AND AWE!

All comments are closed until I install a Spam blocker. Good lord!

Pupcakes

I’m starting a category called “Not Vegan and Not Very Healthy” because the bulk of things I’ve been posting here lately are vegan, but Laura’s baking isn’t and sometimes I eat non-vegan breakfast and the like. This is why I say, “I eat mostly vegan.” Simple as that. I win. Besides, these could be easily veganized.

Anyway, I think Laura should start her own cupcake business? Why? Because of this:

If you didn’t look at those and smile, then you are a cold-blooded, heartless monster. Especially the black one at the top with the white eye. Awwww!

They were:
3/4 c flour
3/4 t baking powder
pinch of salt
1/3 c white sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened at room temp
1 t vanilla
1/4 c milk
Bake in an oversize cupcake pan (6 cups on a pan instead of 12) at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. But when using the enormous cupcake pans, you have to watch them closely.

Frosting:
1 stick of butter, softened,
3 cups powdered sugar,
2 T milk
2 t vanilla.
Mix the frosting together and separate them into bowls to do different colors. Put them in frosting bags with different tips to make different fur textures. The eye balls are blobs of white frosting and black gel. The ears are graham crackers cut into triangles, and she put frosting on some of them. The tongues are Bubble Tape bubble gum that she used kitchen shears to shape.

It’s important to note that these cupcakes were inspired by Murphy.

He looks thrilled to have a cupcake made in his image, doesn’t he?

Yeah.

Butternut Squash and Black Bean Chili

I made a big batch of this stuff for RAMBOTHON, which was this year’s version of ROCKATHON, in which a bunch of people came over to mine and Rob’s house early in the day, and we watched all three old Rambo movies and then walked to the theater to see the fourth. All that blood and guts and violence can really make you hungry, and this chili went really fast. Actually, in honor of RAMBOTHON, I’m renaming this to…

BLOOD AND GUTS CHILI

Okay. This was what I used to feed about 8 people, so by all means, scale back if need be.

You will need:
Olive oil
1 or 2 white onions, diced (pureed! You know the story). I used one big one and one small one
3 chili peppers (I’ll get to this in a minute)
2 medium butternut squashes
Handful of grated carrot
1 big can of pureed tomatoes (oh, how I wish it was summer…)
1 big can of whole peeled tomatoes
2-3 cups vegetable broth, depending on how thick you like your chili
2 cans black beans, drained
2 cans garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
Lots and lots of cilantro
Lots of chili powder- 4 or 5 TBS?
Salt

Start out by roasting the squash. Now, you could cube it raw and sauté it in the pot but I don’t have a sharp enough knife to do this without losing a finger. Thus, we get out the saw and cut the squash in half and roast it that way. Think I’m joking? Here.

Yes, I realize this is actually a rutabaga. I didn’t get pictures of Rob cutting squash with the saw, but you get the idea.

Anyway, you’ll cut/saw it in half, scrape out the seeds, drizzle it with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place the halves cut side up in a 13×9 in pan (or whatever) with an inch or two of water in the pan, and roast it for 35-40 minutes at 450 degrees. Once it’s done and cooled, you’ll be able to slice it and cut the peel away easily. Cut into cubes and set aside.

Okay. Heat some oil in your biggest pot and sauté the onion and carrot together for a few minutes. Add the diced chili peppers.

(Oh, about those. I use these little red guys but it is difficult to tell how spicy they will be. My advice is to buy more than you need and taste them first. Use the leftovers to make salsa or something. Anyway, I used three in this. Also, this is not my photo, and in googling the phrase “red chili pepper,” I got many photos of Anthony Kiedis.)

So, add the diced chili peppers and cook for a minute or two. Stir in the chili powder (which, by the way, is not spicy. Why is that??) until well incorporated, or so it looks.
Add the cans of tomatoes with liquid, the vegetable broth and about ¼ tsp salt. Bring this to a boil and then reduce heat to low. Simmer about 30 minutes, stirring every so often and breaking up the big tomatoes.

After 30 mins, stir in the chickpeas and black beans. I think I really used about 1.5 cans of each, not 2. Add the cubed squash and bring the whole thing back to a boil. Simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat, add handfuls upon handfuls of chopped cilantro. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

Sorry the pictures are so dark.

This was actually a monumental meal in our house because it revealed that ROB LIKES CHICKPEAS. After insisting for months that he didn’t (having never eaten one.) This changes things. I honestly can’t remember the hot dog count for this one, so I’ll just say MAXIMUM AWESOME and leave it at that.

No, that’s not true. We eat a buttload of squash, but mostly butternut (because it’s so versatile.) But recently I decided to branch out into the world of acorn squash, and I’d say it was a pretty good showing.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Acorn squash is also considered a ‘winter’ squash, and they are typically smaller than butternut, ranging from one to three pounds. They can be found in most grocery stores, and best of all, they aren’t a total pain in the ass to cut in half. They look like this from the outside:

(Not my photo. I only bought one squash, ya see?)

So anyway, these little guys are perfect for baking or roasting or STUFFING, and I love stuffing things, so that’s what I did.

For this (to serve 2) you will need:
1 large acorn squash
1 yellow onion, diced (or pureed if you are me and have a boyfriend who hates large chunks of onion)
spinach
rice, cooked according to package directions. (I think this would be awesome with wild rice, but white was all I had on hand.)
chickpeas, drained and rinsed
olive oil
cumin
chili powder
garlic powder

Begin by cutting the squash in half width-wise and scraping out the seeds. Drizzle some olive oil in the cavities and sprinkle with plenty of salt and pepper. Place them, cut-side up, in a baking dish with about two inches of water and bake at 375 degrees for around 40 minutes, depending on the size. I’d recommend checking on it after about 30 minutes to see how soft it is.

Once it’s cool enough to handle, scrape out the soft flesh inside, leaving an inch or so on the skin so that the squash retains its shape, because we’re going to be stuffing it. Reserve the flesh. (Doesn’t “Reserve the Flesh” sound like an awesome name for a metal band? “Hi, we’re Reserve the Flesh and this song is called TOUCH THE WOUND!”)

Anyway. In a big skillet, saute your onion in a bit of oil for a few minutes. Dump in the reserved squash and use a wooden spoon to break it up into little pieces if need be. Add a big, big handful of spinach to wilt and stir for one minute. Add the rice, chickpeas and spices, a little extra salt and pepper and heat through.

Once your stuffing is thoroughly heated and you’ve tasted it six or seven times to get the spices right, remove it from the heat and carefully spoon it back into the two halves of the squash shell. Place them back in the baking dish (without the water) and bake for about 10 minutes, just until everything is nice and hot.

I served this with a spinach and radish salad, which I dug and Rob sneered at. I wish I’d added some sun dried tomatoes or even roasted red peppers to the stuffing, because it just looks so bland, even though it tasted pretty good. Rob was really skeptical of this one…like, really REALLY skeptical but he ended up enjoying it. He gave it 8.5 hot dogs (for the surprise factor!)