Pasta Puttanesca

Not much to say except... you must make this. (Oh, and the picture doesn't do it justice!)

I know, normally Pasta Puttanesca has anchovies in it, but it's plenty easy enough to make without. You won't even miss the annoyingly salty dead fish. Do make sure you include the capers though, even if you're not sure you'll like them. They totally make this dish.


PASTA PUTTANESCA!

1 tbsp flavorful olive oil
3 cloves garlic, smashed through garlic press or grated finely with a microplane grater
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil
2 tbsp capers
1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives (not the generic black salad olives, please!)
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, or less to taste
dash salt and pepper, to taste
1 tbsp olive brine (adds that sharp salty taste!)
2 (28-ounce) cans Roma plum tomatoes, broken into pieces, (just crush them with your bare hands like Emeril does, or mash with a potato masher) with juice
About 1 lb. cooked pasta


Lightly saute the garlic in olive oil for a minute or two - really, just warm it enough to start it cooking, do NOT brown! Add the basil, capers, olives and red pepper flakes, and cook for another two minutes.
Reduce heat to low, and add the brine and tomatoes. Cover and simmer for at least fifteen minutes.

Serve over pasta, sprinkle with Nutritional Yeast if you want and I always add a few more capers (no, those are not overcooked peas in the picture! Please!) 'cause I love the things!!

Oven Fried Potatoes

I was craving those gross, greasy convenience-store Jo-Jo potato wedges tonight.
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Don't ask me. I'd like to blame PMS or something logical, but in reality I just LIKE crispy, salty, fried, potato-ish things...




Thus, the invention of this recipe.

Easiest, Crispy (oven-) "Fried" Potatoes.

4 medium Yukon Gold or Russet Potatoes, scrubbed and sliced 1/4 inch thin (aprox).
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup fine breadcrumbs or finely crushed crackers (I whiz it in the food processor for a couple seconds...)
2 Tbsp. cornmeal
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. EACH: salt, lemon pepper, dried parsley, onion powder.
pinch of cayenne
1 Tbsp. olive oil
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Mix all dry ingredients together in a tupperware type container with tight fitting lid.
Slice potatoes, put into mixing bowl, drizzle oil on them and mix with your hands until all potato slices are lightly coated.
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Put 1/2 the potato slices into tupperware, snap on the lid and shake until all pieces are coated. Lay on a cookie sheet, pieces can slightly overlap.
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Admittedly, the filling doesn't stay on THAT great, so be careful when laying them out...

Repeat with rest of potatoes.

Mist with a little olive oil. (Or cooking spray if you don't have an oil mister).

Bake at 450 degrees until potatoes are soft and start to brown - about 15 min. or so. (If you want, you can turn them half way thru cooking time, but it isn't necessary.)

Turn broiler on for a moment and WATCH carefully and let potatoes get a little browner. When they're done to your liking, remove.


Enjoy!!

Tofu Benedict Florentine (and the perfect Hollandaise)

I have been on a quest for the perfect vegan Hollandaise for several years now...

I think this is close to perfect, but now, I have to admit I don't remember what "real" Hollandaise tastes like.

I can assure you it is buttery-lemony-eggy delicious though, (OK, tooting my own horn, sorry) and if you're missing Hollandaise, give this a try.

First of all, though, ya gotta make my "Cashew Alfredo Cream Sauce" (Yes, I tend to hate multi-step recipes that require several different sub-recipes before you get to the main point, but you wanted vegan Hollandaise, that's no easy task!!)

This is a great way to use up leftovers of the "Alfredo" sauce. What, you never have leftovers? Well, neither do I, but I was trying to make you feel better about having to make TWO entire recipes. OK, so quit whining and make the Alfredo Sauce already (with maybe less garlic if you want though, it doesn't matter, really).

HOLLANDAISE SAUCE

3/4 cup Cashew Cream Alfredo Sauce
1/4 cup soymilk (optional)
3 T. Earth Balance or Soy Garden Natural Buttery Spread, melted and kept very warm
1 T. fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp India Black Salt (kala namak or sanchal)*
1/2 tsp. yellow mustard (like French's or any generic stuff)
pinch of white pepper or a dash of hot pepper sauce
tiny pinch of turmeric (less than a 1/16th of a tsp—more makes a phony-looking color)

Heat the Alfredo sauce until simmering (add some soymilk if it's horribly thick) —pour into the blender container along with the Black Salt, pepper or hot sauce, and add the lemon juice and mustard.

Blend well, adding the melted Earth Balance slowly through the hole in the lid while the machine is running. Blend until the mixture is completely mixed.

Taste and adjust seasonings (usually more lemon or mustard, though if it's too strong, add some more soymilk). Pour into saucepan on stove and stir with wire whisk until heated thru.

*This salt has a slightly sulphuric or "eggy" taste. It is an important ingredient for the traditional flavor in the sauce. Most Indian/Asian markets sell it, or you can get it online. It's a staple in our scrambled tofu as well! Good stuff!

**Disclaimer** OK, I have only made this three times. It thickened for me just fine each time, but as with all recipes, I eyeballed the ingredients the first time, I admit. If it DOESN'T THICKEN satisfactorily for you, add 2 teaspoons cornstarch to a little soymilk and mix in to sauce, stir with wire whisk over heat until it thickens.

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For the above, I lightly steamed some spinach, put it on toasted English Muffins with some of my favorite tofu scramble (any recipe you like). Cover with Hollandaise and serve.

Vegan Brunch! ("Quickie Too", in Tacoma)

I swear I still cook, I've just been doing a lot of repeats lately so I don't have much in the way of original ideas to post.

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That said, the boy and I decided we were tired of the standard Puget Sound-style drive-thru coffee-stand breakfasts (as you can see, we're BAD about that!) and we decided to venture out for some "real" breakfast food.

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We decided to do Sunday Brunch at "Quickie Too" over in Tacoma, and as always, the food ROCKED!

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Quickie Too is an all-vegan cafe owned by the same people who have Hillside Quickie and Hillside Quickie Sandwich Shop in Seattle. They call their food Vegan American-Soul Fusion which pretty much translates into GOOD! If you're ever in Seattle, or Tacoma, check them out!

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We started with these incredible melt-in-your-mouth blueberry muffins, tea and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Totally tasted as good as it looks!

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Our Brunch platter came loaded with tempeh "bacon", a seitan "steak" with gravy, grits, fried plantains, fluffy biscuits, scrambled tofu, cinnamon apples, homefried potatoes, something with sweet potatoes...

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I'm serious, ALL of that!! And even though we've been here before, we dug in so fast, we didn't THINK to take a picture, it was that good.

Hope you all had a restful, enjoyable weekend.

Happy Earth Day; And Let Me Rant A Bit...

I suck at remembering special occasions, birthdays, anniversaries, even Earth Day. But just so I don't sound like a totally unprepared slouch, I'll try to make it appear as if I planned something special...

Let's see... To celebrate Earth Day:

• I ate vegan, significantly reducing my carbon footprint - more significant, some statistics say, than driving a Hybrid car (of course, I've been vegan every day for the last five or so years)


• And I used my new reusable grocery bags instead of paper or plastic. (I've had the bags for months, in the trunk of my car... forgetting to use them!)


• And we carpooled (my kids and the neighbors', trading rides to and from school as we've been doing all year).


• We've reduced our household trash output by 75%! I set out the recycling and trash this AM and I realized I am down to one small can a month of 'regular' trash (our neighborhood has a great recycling program, I can say that, but we've also reduced what we use drastically.)


• I air-dried a load of laundry (which I have done with shirts and things for years, I have a dryer phobia, I don't know.)


• I used my own travel mug at Starbucks this morning rather than a paper cup.


• And I purchased three organic hemp shirts today, in my slow attempt to use less cotton. (Don't even get me STARTED on cotton, it's the latest Earth-saving bandwagon I'm jumping on...)

Did you know:

Using 4.5% of the global land area, cotton requires 22.5% of the world's insecticides and 10% of the world's chemical fertilisers. Globally, the World Health Organisation estimates 3m instances of pesticide poisoning and 20,000 deaths each year, mainly among poor cotton farmers in developing countries.
The simple act of growing and harvesting the one pound of cotton fiber needed to make a T-shirt takes an enormous toll on the earth’s air, water, and soil, and has significant impacts on the health of people in cotton growing area.
United States farmers alone applied nearly one-third of a pound of chemical fertilizers and pesticides for every pound of cotton harvested, and this amount is significantly higher in less regulated countries.
Cotton crops are grown in 19 states, and account for twenty-five percent of all the pesticides used in the entire U.S. Some of these chemicals are among the most toxic and dangerous ones classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Yet environmental impact studies estimate that 90% of those chemicals end up in the soil, air and water around the fields and not on the crops themselves.
(Organic cotton is slightly better; it doesn't use the pesticides, but still leaches nutrients out of the soil, and uses a great deal of water and land inefficiently).

But enough ranting. Think about it though.

To top off the day, my daughter made vegan cookies. (recipe here).

Happy Earth Day!!

Green and Red

OOooohhh "Cheezy" Chile Rellanos and Tempeh (not-Carne) Adovada.

I dared make these pretties for my good friend Shaun, red-blooded, lifetime New Mexico resident and extremely picky chile critic...
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He was impressed.
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Actually, I was too. Yum.
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Sometimes I worry needlessly that stuff won't turn out right...
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Now, dear blogger-readers, if you're thinking this looks familiar, you're right, this is a repeat. How un-original am I?
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Anyway, the recipes are here: Chile Rellanos and here: Tempeh-Not-Carne-Adovada. Only this time, I topped the chile rellanos with panko breadcrumbs and skipped the sauce over them, oh man... they were cheezy inside, crispy on top... perfect!
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Here the chiles are before I baked them; aren't they cute, all lined up in the pan, before they bubbled and ooozed everywhere?

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Enjoy. Hope everyone has a great week.

My Newest Favorite Restaurant

While Shaun was here, I took him to breakfast at my new favorite Restaurant here in the Seattle area.

Squid and Ink.

This funky little place is not far off the freeway in Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood. If you're passing thru, check it OUT!

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Oh, man, I LOVE LOVE them for so many reasons; 1) it's got that whole indie/punk/DIY vibe, 2) it's open late, and 3) the food is delicious, VEGAN and hearty. Oh, and 4) it serves breakfast till 4 p.m.

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The menu is full of warm, cozy vegan yumminess; we certainly did our best to sample plenty of it...

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First up, to explain this scary picture; that Canadian (more specifically Quebec) favorite "Poutine"; which is basically a dish consisting of French fries, topped with fresh cheese curds, covered with brown gravy.

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We dug right into the vegan version (which may explain the messy photo) which was quite deelish.

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Admittedly, neither of us have ever had the"original" to compare, but who cares? Fries, gravy and creamy melting curds of vegan cheese... sounds pretty dang good to me. Rich and decadent too, we brought lots home!

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I probably shouldn't admit how much we ordered, but I'll say we also brought home leftovers of incredible vegan fish and chips, and perfect crispy, salty sweet potato fries.

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On previous visits I've had the seitan-fried steak and gravy, one of my all-time favorite meals EVER!

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More fun restaurant food to follow. (Just what I need!).

Happy weekend!