vegansaurus!

Megan Rascal’s Super-Fast, Super-Easy Lentils and Couscous

Here ye, here ye! A delicious meal you can make in under 20 minutes! Under 10 if you practice. Yes! It is true! I eat this about once a week and I love it. You will too.

First I want to give mad props to couscous—I love you, man! I know people aren’t supposed to say stuff like this but I’m an excellent cook. I just am. Deal with it. But something is wrong with me! I am incapable of cooking rice. It’s actually pretty impressive, I fuck it up without fail. Not only do I consistently burn the rice on the bottom of the pan, it always boils over and gets weird rice goo all over the stove.

Like I said, impressive. But guess what? I do not care anymore! Why? Because couscous is here to save the day! That shit cooks in FIVE MINUTES. Even whole-grain couscous! Screw brown rice with its 40-minute simmer time! Whole-grain couscous is high in fiber and still takes just five minutes to cook (you know, after you boil the water).

Ok, let’s get started. Ingredients:

1. Couscous (I recommend whole-grain)
2. 1 can Amy’s lentil soup
3. 2 cans beans (whatever kind you like, I use kidney ‘cause that’s my fav)
4. Garlic and/or onion
5. Salt and pepper to taste

Boil your water and cook the couscous as described on the box. It’s easy.

Now, chop the garlic (and/or onion) and sauté it in a pan over medium heat with a splash of olive oil. After the garlic has cooked a little, add the can of lentil soup. Let some of the liquid simmer off a bit. Then rinse your beans and add them to the mixture. Add some pepper and let it simmer for a bit. After a few minutes, add some salt and ta da! It’s done! Like I said: super-fast, super-easy! Just like me! Yay! Enjoy.

That, my friends, is it! There are other things you can add, it’s basically whatever you happen to have in your kitchen. Fresh basil is always a good idea. Try adding corn—trust me, it’s good. Zucchini and tomatoes are also pretty good! But it’s damn good with the few ingredients I listed above.

Vegansaurus Visits Veggie Conquest NYC

The East Coast branch of Vegansaurus had the privelege of attending Veggie Conquest, a new amateur vegan cooking competition in New York City. It’s described as an event for “vegans, vegetarians, omnivores, raw foodists, fruitarians, and whatever-other-tarians with a love for food.”

Here’s how it works: a secret ingredient is picked a week before the event and is emailed to those who’ve signed up as chefs. No recipes are allowed! Each competing dish is evaluated by three judges, who score on taste, originality and presentation. There’s also an opportunity to win a “taster’s choice” award.

In person, the event is run really well. I’ve been to other open food events and have never left as well-fed as I was here. The competing dishes are served to each taster by volunteers followed by a buffet-style presentation for main dishes and dessert. This time around, the desserts were provided by Sweet & Sara, vegan marshmellow queen.

The secret ingredient this time was squash. Up for prizes were Butter-Nutty Squash Dip, Squash Chips With Watermelon salsa, Squash-Stuffed Mushrooms, and Smoked Chili Buttercup-Squash-Filled Zucchini Blossoms. My personal favorite were the stuffed mushrooms, which won second place. The winner of both the taster’s choice and judge’s choice was the very unique smoked chili buttercup squash. Rather than describe dishes to you, I took a video of all the chefs describing their process and attempted to get a little competitive, which kind of failed. These are all very nice people!

Thanks to Jessica of Veggie Conquest for letting us into the event and letting me harass her chefs!

Joel’s Moderately Fancy Meal: Savory Bacon-Cheddar Waffles and Another Waffle That Will Not Get as Many Hits as One with Bacon!

A couple days after the family vacation that gave rise to that freaking awesome black bean and peach soup HAVE YOU TRIED IT YET I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT, I found myself trapped in the limbo between CSA deliveries. Not a lot of fresh veggies in the house, but the bread I was getting ready to bake wouldn’t be done until the next day*, and a man’s gotta eat. One thing I always have is various forms of carbohydrates—flour, rice, big spoonfuls of sugar in a pinch—so carbs it would be. I took stock of what little I had in my fridge, took a look out the window at my planter garden, and made today’s recipes based on two principles: (1) breakfast for dinner is perfectly acceptable, and (2) why settle for “perfectly acceptable” when you can fancy shit up, Moderately Fancy Style.

Please to note, you don’t have to be some kind of crazy sourdough-bakin’ fool to follow these recipes!** I made them by modifying my stock sourdough waffle recipe, but you can just as easily add the extra ingredients to a plain old baking powder waffle recipe and it will be almost exactly as delicious. You won’t have that tang of sourdough, so you may want to add a little vinegar (which will also help your waffles get big and fluffy), but that’s up to you and the flavor you’re looking for!

Savory Waffles Two Ways (serves 4)
Ingredients
Waffle batter
1 cup unfed sourdough starter
2 cups soy milk (you can sub any other non-dairy milk or even water, in which case omit the vinegar)
2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt

Savory additions
2 large onions
1/2 cup shredded bacon-cheddar Cheezly
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp. cayenne
1/4 tsp. Tabasco sauce
1/2 cup basil leaves, chopped
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp. sea salt

As with everything sourdough, the waffle batter is a long process (though nearly all of it is waiting). The morning of the day you’d like this for dinner, combine the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and let sit for a few minutes to form an ersatz buttermilk. Then add the starter and sugar, stir well, and stir in the flour. Loosely cover the bowl (I use a kitchen towel), and let rise until bubbly. This should take about eight hours.

When the batter is ready, add the oil and salt. Stir to combine. Then heat a little olive oil in a pan on low. While it warms, dice the onions. Add them to the pan and cook until the onions are translucent and starting to brown. Add them to the waffle batter and stir again.

Now we’re in the final steps. Begin to heat your waffle iron. (What? You don’t have one? That’s ok, this can also be pancakes!) Divide the batter into two equal portions (or more, if you’re making more varieties. Don’t divide more than four ways without increasing the recipe, or you won’t have enough of each). Add the Cheezly, the spices, and the Tabasco to one, and the basil, nutritional yeast, and sea salt to the other. Stir them both to combine (but not with each other). Then make waffles as usual.

To serve, dress the basil waffles with flavorful olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The cheddar waffles are flavorful enough that they should be eaten on their own, hot off the iron.

Variations
The largest omission in this recipe is that the basil waffles should clearly have a fresh tomato diced and tossed into the batter. I didn’t have one on hand, but if you do, go for it. If you don’t, add some tomato paste to the onions shortly before they’re done, and sauté it all together for a few minutes. Also, consider using balsamic instead of apple cider vinegar when making the batter.

I hope it’s clear that this is more a template with two examples than it is a set-in-stone recipe. There are hundreds of delicious variations on the savory waffle theme; I hope you’ll come up with some of your own. Here are some more suggestions:

mozzarella and marinara
sautéed wild mushroom
corn and jalapeño
black bean and peach (what, it is a very good flavor combination!!)
pepperoni and green olives
feta and thyme

Enjoy!

* Sourdough takes a long time, but you can’t rush perfection!
** Although if you want to be and don’t know how, leave a comment! More sourdough recipes could be arranged!

This has been an installment of Joel’s Moderately Fancy Meal, brought to you by Joel, of Joel and Nibbler.

Recipe: Romesco Sauce!

If you’re vegetarian or vegan (or anyone) in San Francisco and you haven’t been to Ubuntu in Napa you are living life in 2D and you need to BE HERE NOW (aka GO THERE NOW.)

If you have been to Ubuntu, or you’re one of the million minions in the Oprah Army you’ve no doubt experienced the wonder of the chickpea fries with romesco sauce.
I have (been there, not the Oprah thing), and it’s something I’ve thought about day in and day out for months on end. DELICIOUS FRIES AND ROMESCO COME TO ME. But something else I’ve been thinking about since my last visit is, what the hell is Romesco sauce? My curiosity was again sparked by a recent encounter with it in another (unrelated) delicious dish, and I got to researching. Which is to say, I checked out Wikipedia.

Of course it’s from Catalonia in Spain, where everything delicious and awesome lives (have you ever been to Barcelona!? You will never want to come back!) Also, “Tarragona”!? What is more delicious than fresh tarragon? Practically nothing. Also it turns out Romesco is naturally vegan. Originally made by fishermen as a fish accompaniment (or so says the internet), it pairs well with a variety of things (I like it over couscous.) So I got to work making my own, and I suggest you do the same. Speaking of work, it’s kind of a big project, so settle in.

I synthesized this ingredient list from a couple different recipes, and altered it along the way. But basically you need:

1. 1/4 cup almonds (I used the tamari-roasted ones from Rainbow; yum!)
2. 1/4 cup hazelnuts (I couldn’t find these so I used Brazil nuts. It worked, but I’d go for the hazelnuts if you can find them.)
3. 1 head garlic
4. 1 slice stale bread (you can lightly toast it to approximate the staleness, if it’s not. I used a French bread; Italian loaf would work well too, like a pugliese?)
5. 2 ripe small/medium tomatoes
6. 1 jar roasted red peppers, drained
7. 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar (or less, depending on your taste)
8. 1 tsp. chili flakes
9. 1 tsp. or so chopped fresh tarragon. No, the recipes didn’t call for it but it makes everything better, trust me. How wrong can it be if the sauce is from “Tarragona”
10. pinch smoked paprika

Also, you need a food processor of a decent size. (What did old Spanish fishermen do without food processors, I would like to know?)
First, you need to roast the garlic. Cut off the pointy top, remove some outer skin, rub olive oil on the head (see how you are, pervert!?), and stick in the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes until the inside is mushy.
While that’s happening, place both kinds of nuts (hehe nuts) (ed.: slut!) into the food processor and process until grainy (fine is okay too.)

Heat some olive oil in a pan. However much oil you want, I don’t care. Do you think the Catalonians care? They are too busy living out loud, probably bathing in olive oil. They laugh in the face of your few teaspoons!

Anyway, fry the stale bread in the olive oil for a few minutes, then put it aside. Then put the tomatoes in the same pan with the bready oil. These should be chopped up already. Sorry I forgot to tell you that. You might need to add some more oil to the pan for the tomatoes. Do it up, skinny!

Take the tomato pan off the heat before they burn. Tear up (or cut up) the fried bread and throw it in the food processor with the nuts and start it going, kinda slow. Proceed to add the tomatoes and keep it going. Then take the roasted garlic (oh shit is that still in the oven!? you need to get it out before it turns all gross and crispy!) and squeeze the mushy garlic into the processor with the other stuff. Finally, start feeding the drained roasted red peppers into the processor and puree it all together.  While it’s running, finish it off with the vinegar, spices, some salt and pepper. Probably more salt than you just put in.

Mine came out more orange than red, like a thick tikka masala sauce but with a completely different (and delicious) taste. Refrigerates and reheats well too.

Pour over chickpea fries, couscous, your body (ed.: slut!), etc. Enjoy!

Megan Allison is visiting us from Guerrilla Curatorship, where she has been too despondent to post much about urban policy miscellany given the sad state of domestic affairs, and is instead turning to food for comfort. Don’t be surprised if she expatriates to Barcelona.

Recipe: Vegan Reese’s Pieces sayWHA?

+ =

Faturdayians have a way with discovering new, delicious, predominantly unhealthy (read: good for the soul/streed cred) methods of combining already awesome foods to produce new superfoods. Not these superfoods—BORING! Let us put this in an easy-to-understand equation:

Dandies vegan marshmallows + peanut butter = the exact flavor of Reese’s Pieces candy, also known as rainbow explosions.

(minus all that animal cruelty bullshit.)

Seriously. FatBelly about lost it when partaking in his nightly ritual of shoveling spoonfuls of PB into his face, he haphazardly tossed a Dandie into the mix. The results caused temporary apartment mayhem, followed by sugar-infused ecstasy, and of course more makeshift vegan Reese’s love.

What are you waiting for? Get some Dandies and get going.

You’re welcome.

We found this bit of genius on itsfaturday and let me just say, they Speak Truth to (the) Power (of Deliciousness). I don’t know what I’m saying (clearly) but HOT DAMN, that is one tasty treat.

Joel’s moderately fancy meal: Chilled Black Bean and Peach Soup with a Caramelized Peach-Onion Relish!

I spent this past week on vacation with my family. We ended up in a little vacation-centric town by the side of Lake Michigan, where fresh fruit is plentiful (tis the season to u-pick blueberries!) but most everything else is in short supply.

Being the tight-knit clan of epicures that we are, and perhaps also because after some 30 years my mom has gotten tired of cooking for the entire family, we agreed beforehand to split up the meals: some made by my parents, some by my brother and sister-in-law, and some by little ol’ me. The catch: while everyone else was driving, and so brought all the kitchen staples they’d want, I was flying, and was therefore severely limited re: the explosive liquids, suspicious powders, and extremely sharp implements that mark my usual cooking experience.

In the end I used some of that lovely fresh Michigan fruit, in combination with the kitchen staples of others, to whip up (and please excuse me as I lapse into the vaguely smarmy language of Top Chef) a play on a black bean and citrus soup. The days were hot, so the soup was cold; and the oranges weren’t biting, so I went with peaches. Here is what I did.

Chilled Black Bean and Peach Soup with a Caramelized Peach-Onion Relish
Serves 5

Ingredients for the soup
1 pound dried black beans (about 6 cups cooked) or equivalent canned
2 quarts bean cooking liquid or stock (or tap water if using canned beans)
2 large onions, chopped
2 medium fresh tomatoes (or equivalent canned), chopped (skins are fine)
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 large peaches, coarsely chopped
red wine vinegar
1/4 cup chopped cilantro (or to taste)
salt, black pepper, and cayenne to taste

Ingredients for the relish
3/4 cup olive oil, divided
2 large onions, sliiced into 1/2 inch thick rounds
3 large peaches, quartered
2 tsp red wine vinegar
salt and plenty of black pepper

Cook the black beans your favorite way. Reserve the cooking water. If you’re using canned beans instead, you can use the time you’re saving to feel bad about yourself for using canned beans.

In a large stock pot or dutch oven, add a couple tablespoons olive oil at medium heat. Cook the onions until translucent, then add the garlic, tomatoes, and a little cayenne. When the tomatoes start to wilt, add the beans and your chosen liquid. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, it’s relish time. In a small pan, heat 1/2 cup olive oil on high heat until it’s shimmering, just short of smoking. Carefully drop in the onion slices, spacing them out so that each makes maximum contact with the pan. Cook for a few minutes, until the bottom surface of the onion is deeply colored, verging on blackened.  Flip the slices and repeat. Ideally, the outer surfaces of the onion are deeply caramelized but the inside is still raw. Take the onion out with a slotted spoon and set aside. Repeat the same procedure with the quartered peaches. Finally, mince the onion and peach, and toss with the oil and fond from the pan.  Season generously with salt and especially black pepper, and toss in the vinegar and remaining 2 Tbsp olive oil. Refrigerate.

At this point you should have a few minutes left before the 20 minutes for the soup are up. Add a little more oil to the pan, and caramelize the chopped peaches for the soup in the same way. When the 20 minutes end, add the peaches and cilantro to the soup, along with salt, pepper, and a little more cayenne. If your peaches are not particularly sour, add a little vinegar to bring out the rest of the flavors. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

If you have an immersion blender, blend the soup until smooth. If not (and I didn’t, and it sucked; every kitchen should have an immersion blender), either plunge the soup pot into an ice bath for 10 minutes, or wait several hours for it to cool. Then transfer to a blender and puree. Now that it’s room-temperature, taste for seasoning again. It may need more salt, but don’t add too much; remember that much of the flavor will come from the relish. Refrigerate.

Take the soup and relish out of the refrigerator at least 10 minutes before serving (or longer; a room-temperature service is fine). To serve, ladle the soup into shallow soup bowls. Either add a few tablespoons of relish to each bowl yourself, or pass the relish at the table. Finito!

Variations:
Use red onions instead of white in the relish. Or use sweet onions, but don’t bother caramelizing them. Replace half the peaches (in both the soup and the relish) with uncooked cucumbers. Try it; you’ll be pleased. Replace half the black beans with small white beans, and use smoked paprika rather than cayenne.

This has been an installment of Joel’s Moderately Fancy Meal, brought to you by Joel, of Joel and Nibbler.