DIO (Do it Ourselves) Vegan-Bo-Began Cookbook???

Hey kidz,
I got inspired while surfing the world wide innertube today and thought--why don't we bust out a paper version of our deeeeee-frickin-licious island-inspired vegan dinner nights blog?  Many of us have found ourselves far away from coconut trees and ocean breezes these days, and I for one would love to have a little keepsake full of recipes and memories from that epic Vegan Dinner Night Era.  Who's in?

If you're interested, email me at: carlyn.arteaga@gmail.com with (1) your fav recipe (or two or three) (2) a brief memory of a Hawaii VDN (3) any ideas for how you'd like this to all pan out.

I'm thinkin this would come to fruition in the early Spring.  Lemme know yer thoughts!

Chocolate Beer Waffles, baby!

I was introduced to these waffles during my favorite VD (Vegan Dinner, NOOOT the other VD) theme: BREAKFAST FOR DINNER, by my FAVORITE LADY, Ms. Becky Super Vegan! The original recipe is from Vegan Brunch authored by an equally amazing woman: Isa Chandra Moskowitz. You can check out the book here AND she also has a bunch of other amazing recipes posted on her website.

These waffles are great for bribing people to take you to your driving test, or to get free rides to work from friends when it is too cold and you are just too grumpy to ride your bike to work.

CHOCOBEERWAFFLES

Makes 6, 6-inch round or 8, 4-inch square waffles

INGREEDAMENTS:

1 &1/2 C flour

1/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tes b. powder

1/2 tes salt

1/2 C sugar

1 C almond milk

3/4 C porter, or other dark beer

1/4 C canola oil

1 tes pure vanilla extract

+ cooking spray for the waffle iron

1. Preheat waffle iron. Sift flour, cocoa powder, b. powder, salt & sugar into a large mixing bowl.

2. Make a well in the center and add almond milk, beer, oil and vanilla

3. Spray waffle iron, cook, eat!

I recommend that you serve it with Cashew butter! Take roasted, unsalted cashews and process with a little oil, water, sugar and salt, or if you want to skip the additives, I would soak raw cashews and just blend them!

Anybody want to give this a go with me?

I figure we have enough people to blog almost everyday about super tasty vegan treats!

http://veganmofo.wordpress.com/

Tomato Onion Relish (Goes great with Hummus and Pita!)

1 onion (finely chopped)
3 garlic cloves (minced)
1 T fresh thyme
1 T oregano
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp red pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/4 cup lemon juice
4 tomatoes (chopped)

Bring all ingredients EXCEPT tomatoes to a boil in frying pan. Turn down heat once it starts boiling and let simmer for 20 minutes. Add chopped tomatoes and mix together!!

Hummus!!! (VJ's style!)

40 oz garbanzo beans (two and a half 1# cans, drained)
3/4 cup Tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/8 cup olive oil
1/2 T salt
1 T minced garlic (or more if you love garlic)

***Put all ingredients in to food processor and blend until smooth and delicious!

Naan...na na na naan, na na na naan, na na naan, na na naan, na na na NAAN!!!

Such delicious vegan naan, makes you break into song.

Ingredients

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 3 tablespoons soy milk
• 1 egg-replacement
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 4 1/2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic (optional)
• 1/4 cup vegan butter, melted

Directions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise. Let it rise 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume.*
2. Punch down dough, and knead in garlic. Pinch off small handfuls of dough about the size of a golf ball. Roll into balls, and place on a tray. Cover with a towel, and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.*
3. During the second rising, preheat grill to high heat.
4. At grill side, roll one ball of dough out into a thin circle. Lightly oil grill. Place dough on grill, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned. Brush uncooked side with butter, and turn over. Brush cooked side with butter, and cook until browned, another 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from grill, and continue the process until all the naan has been prepared.

*As I am always making this when I want to eat it, I have never ever waited an hour for the rising, or done the second rising at all...maybe this will make it fluffier and even more scrumptious if you have the patience, but it still turns out as an absolutely deeelish flatbread if you only let it rise once for about 15-20 mins.

Recipe snatched/adapted from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Naan/Detail.aspx

Best Banana Bread bo began

james with his legendary banana bread in zero gravity
at hi-pdx reunion jan 2011!!!

First of all, you must love bananas and bread to enjoy this tasty delight. Second you need access to an oven. If you don't personally have an oven, call a friend and tell them you will make this recipe for them, and then maybe they will let you cook at their place. Once you are in the kitchen you will need:
2 cups flour ( simple white flour works best, some granola enjoying earthy people enjoy wheat flour. There is no reason for this phenomena to exist)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 pinches salt ( kosher please)
3-4 very ripe medium sized nanners(banana lover slang for banana).
1/3 cup oil (any kind works, olive oil gives it a rich bourgeois flavor)
1/2 to 1 cup sugar (you don't really need much sugar, it's all personal preference)
1/4 cup soymilk ( i like plain, some perverse people that lack properly developed taste buds enjoy vanilla, once again, personal preference)
1 teaspoon vanilla

To begin, find yourself 2 bowls, one very large and one medium bowl. Take the smaller bowl and put in the flour/baking soda/salt. let it chill while you do more baking.

Take the larger bowl and whisk the sugar and oil together. Then mash in the bananas until they are sufficiently mashifified. I am usually pretty lazy, so they don't need to be too mashed to be made into delicious bread. After that, add in the soymilk and vanilla. I sometimes add a pinch of cinnamon, but be careful as a little cinnamon goes a long way.

After this, mix in the dry ingredients and stir until it makes an awesomely gooey banana bread mixture. Its should slowly goop off of a spoon, if its too dry i add soymilk till i find the texture of my liking. if too wet i add more flour.

If you like chocolate, at this point you should add a cup or two of chocoalte chips. really anything can be added, ive made it with coconuts, cashews, raisins, oreos, etc. it is all good.

once you are done, get a bread pan and your mix should fill it about 1/2 way. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes, depending on how you like it. i poke it with a chopstick to see if it is ready. once the chopstick comes out dry, you should take it out.

Final Reminder: Baked good are like marijuana, they are meant to be shared. So if you make a delicious banana bread, don't bogart that shit. Go out and share it with your friends, neighbors, employees, fuck buddies, casual acquaintances, just share that shit.

Enjoy

Vegan Eggs Benedict!!!

I got the basic recipe from: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=32293.0

Ingredients:
3 English muffins

1 pkg fake canadian bacon (they have it at down to earth)
1 lb tofu (it calls for soft tofu, but I used medium-firm and it was still OK!)
3 tblsp soy sauce
3 tblsp vinegar
a bunch of spinach
1/4 c. salt water

garlic powder

Hollandaise Sauce:
2 tblspn earth balance
1 c. unsweetened soymilk (IMPORTANT!!!! "ORIGINAL" DOES NOT MEAN "UNSWEETENED"!!! found that one out the hard way!)
5 tblsp nutritional yeast
lemon juice to taste (prob about 1/2-3/4 of 1 lemon)
1 tblspn cornstarch
salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, tumeric
dill weed (optional....i didn't use any because they didn't have any at down to earth, but dill in hollandaise is yummy!!!)

1. Cut the tofu block into 3/4"-1 inch thick squares (to cover english muffins). mix the soysauce/vinegar in a bowl, then marinate the tofu in it.

2. Make hollandaise sauce: melt earth balance over med. heat. Add the nutritional yeast, 3/4 c. milk, and spices. in a side bowl, mix 1/4 c. soy milk with the cornstarch until lumps are gone. add to the stove. bring to a boil, stirring constantly, and the sauce will thicken. reduce the heat to keep warm (or take off stove and cover)

3. Make spinach: put salt water and spinach into a pot or frying pan. cover, turn on heat, let steam until the spinach is wilted. put aside.

4. Heat the tofu: put the tofu in a frying pan with a little bit of the marinade. Pan fry until lightly brown on all sides. put aside.

5. At the same time, pan fry the fake canadian bacon. put aside.

6. Toast the english muffins, spread some earth balance while still hot to melt.

7. Assemble, in order from bottom to top:

english muffin

canadian bacon

tofu

spinach (sprinkle a little garlic powder/blk pepper on top of the spinach

hollandaise sauce

The trick to this recipe is to multitask, especially if you want to serve it warm. If you're slow (like me!), you can assemble it in your own time, and then wop it in the oven to warm the whole shebang up before serving.

Comfort Foods: Fried Okra

Fried Okra
Who says vegan food has to be healthy?

Fresh okra is usually available at local farmers' markets here in Honolulu, but I've been feeding you guys the frozen stuff when I make fried okra for vegan dinner. Okra gets kind of gooey and sticky when it's wet, which is helpful for making the batter stick before frying, so I like the frozen stuff. If you use fresh okra you will want to slice it into 1/4 inch rounds, and discard the stems. (You can buy the frozen stuff pre-chopped.) I recommend soaking fresh okra in cold water for at least an hour before attempting to coat it with cornmeal.

Ingredients

Okra (I think I made 1 pound for vegan dinner)
Cornmeal (2 cups?)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder


Preparation
If using fresh okra chop it and soak in cold water for at least an hour prior to preparing.

If using frozen okra, you'll want to defrost it completely before frying. I usually run it under warm water or just soak it in the refrigerator for an hour or so just like I do with fresh okra.

Combine cornmeal with cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper and garlic powder in a large bowl.

Drain the okra and toss it with cornmeal/spices mix until well coated. At this point, I usually end up having to add more cornmeal than I originally measured out.

Heat a skillet with about 1/4 - 1/2 inch of oil in it over high heat.(My southern mother recommends peanut oil because of its high smoke point, but I always use canola oil and it works just fine. Canola can withstand pretty high temperatures too.)

Fry okra in the oil until crispy and browned. Drain on a plate lined with paper towels and sprinkle with salt. Best served hot.

Comfort Foods: Vegan Gravy

So... this is the recipe I used to make gravy for biscuits and gravy on Comfort Foods night. But I'm not sure how well I followed it?

I do remember it took way less than 8-10 minutes to thicken the gravy. Also, I didn't do any "chopping" or "mincing." I just put half an onion and five cloves of garlic in our food processor and pulverized them.

I used more than 1/2 tsp dried sage, but I think that's a good starting point. Add more as you taste, etc...

Vegan Gravy

Ingredients
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 tsp nutritional yeast
4 Tbs shoyu
2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Directions

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in flour, nutritional yeast, and soy sauce to form a smooth paste. Gradually whisk in the broth. Season with sage, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, stirring constantly, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until thickened.

Rice Milk

Ingredients:
Cooked rice, water, sweetener
1. Combine cooked rice with four times as much hot water in a blender
2. Blend until smooth
3. Sweeten to taste with sugar, vanilla, agave or whatever you like
4. Pour into pitcher and chill, filter through cheesecloth if you don't like pulp

Nut Milk

Ingredients:
Nuts, water, sweetener
1. Soak Nuts overnight
2. Add nuts to blender
3. Add twice as much water as nuts to blender and blend until mixture is smooth
4. Sweeten to taste with sugar, agave, vanilla or hot sauce if you like
5. Pour into a pitcher and chill, you can filter the liquid through cheesecloth or something if you don't like pulp.

Baking Soda Biscuits

2C flour
5t baking powder
t salt
3T shortening
2T margarine
2/3C non-dairy milk/liquid/water
Sift in dry ingredients. Cut in shortening and margarine. Add liquid and mix well. Roll out onto floured surface until 1/2 inch thick and cut with circular thing, or just shape into biscuit looking things. Bake at 450 for 12minutes on prepared baking sheet. These are nice and flaky

Julia & Eric's Superb Coconut Coleslaw

-cabbage (grated)
-carrots (grated)
-beets (grated, canned or fresh)
-lime to taste
-splash or 2 of vinegar
-some coconut milk
-some salt 'n' peppa

(this is exactly how it was written in my journal...any corrections???)

SG's Amazing Beet Hummus

-3 beets
-2 Tbl tahini
-5 Tbl lemon juice
-1 clove garlic
-1 Tbl cumin
-1 Tbl lemon zest (2 sm lemons)
-1 pinch sea salt
-pepper

cook beets, peel, cube, & blend!  soooo deelish & such a fantastic color!

(I just found a couple of beet recipes in my journal from a previous dinner night.  I figured if you shared with me, you wouldn't mind sharing with all.) =)

Easy Bagels

1 cup warm water
2 1/4 teaspoon aka 1 package yeast
3 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoon salt
Spices
2 tablespoons sugar

Proof the yeast in a bowl. Mix flour and salt together. Add yeast and water to flour and mix. Add any spices now. Cover and let rise 1 hour. Divide into 8 pieces and roll into 1 inch thick ropes. Wet the ends and stick together. Cover and let rise on an oiled baking sheet for 15 minutes. Boil 3 inches of water in a pot, add sugar, then add dough and boil for a minute, flip as they boil. Drain and place back on oiled baking sheet. Top with any spices. Bake for 10 minutes at 500F or until browned nicely. Play around with types of flour and spices and post your comments.

Label feature added!

In the right hand column - at the bottom, you will notice a new gadget called "labels." When you make a post please give it a few "labels" - the kind of dish, main ingredients, etc. It will serve as a sort of table of contents for the lazy user (*ahem* James) and a nice way to browse recipes when you have specific ingredients in mind, etc. I went ahead and gave some posts labels, but feel free to go back into your old posts and label 'em!

Coconut Sorbet

Coconut Sorbet

~C Sugar

~C Water

½C Coconut Milk

2/3C Shredded Coconut

Lime Squeeze

Add water and sugar to a pot and bring to boil, stir constantly until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes to make a light syrup. Add coconut milk, shredded coconut and lime, mix, then pour into a bowl and freeze 1 hour. Mix again and freeze1/2 hour. Mix again and freeze completely. Let stand before serving.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

These are super easy and all you need is vegan chocolate and peanut butter. Melt chocolate on a double boiler, then spoon into a greased cupcake pan (How to use a double boiler-get two pots of similar size, put water in the bottom one, then the chocolate in the other. Heat the water on the stove and put the other pot on top, in the water). Put the cupcake pan in the freezer until the chocolate hardens. Spoon peanut butter on top of the chocolate. Heat more chocolate and put on top of the peanut butter, put in freezer again. Try to keep the layers of chocolate thin, so you don't break your teeth on frozen chocolate.

Garlic Jalapeño "Sour Cream"

This is an amazing recipe I stole from Becksters & she got it from the The Voluptuous Vegan:

-1/2 lb soft silken tofu
-2 Tablespoons lemon juice
-3 Tablespoons canola or veggie oil
-2 teaspoons rice vinegar
-3/4 teaspoon salt
-1/2 jalapeño, deseeded & destemmed (I like using a red jalapeño cuz it makes a pinkish tint)
-garlic cloves to desired garliciness (I used 3)

Throw everything in a blender or a food processor and swirl it up til it's nice 'n' creamy!   yyuuuuummmm...

Kale Garbanzo Bean Thing

I love the meals that you make when all that is left in your fridge/cupboard is random odds and ends that seem like ridiculously strange and possibly horrible combinations, yet somehow end up delicious.

This was one of those.

So what you do is go to your yard where you should have kale growing (if you don't, then start growing some!), cut a couple of handfuls of leaves, de-stem, rinse, and chop up the leaves into big strips or chunks. Then, go to your cupboard and maybe you just happen to have some garbanzo beans and three cloves of garlic hiding behind your dwindling reserve of ramen noodles. If you do then you're in luck!

Mince the garlic and cook it up in a bit of oil. Add some spices to the oil. My spice rack always seems to have a gagillion things in it so I used paprika, tumeric, chipotle, and bragg's amino acids. Just enough to flavor it. Then add the handfuls of kale and a half of a can of garbanzo beans. With a heavy wooden spoon, smash up the beans a bit. Not to a goop, just a little mashed up. Stir, let the kale steam a little bit with the cover on, (you might want to add a tiny bit of water) and viola! A delicious meal and you don't have to go to the grocery store for another day. Tastes great with leftover brown rice and questionable week old baked tofu.

SUSHI RICE KRISPIESSSSS!!!!!

So being a student, I feel the need to cite my source for this recipe: http://mommyknows.com/birthday-party-candy-sushi/.

No, I don't follow a "Mommy Knows Best" blog, I stumbled upon it, I swear!

Anywho, For the Rice Krispies, I made a whole tray, so it made a good amount. I'm sure you can cut the recipe down if you need to, but I'll let you work out those measurements. Here's what I used:

3 containers Vegan Marshmallows from Down to Earth (aisle 2!). I used 1 box regular, and 2 boxes of toasted coconut. I think the coconut flavor made a big difference!

1 stick Earth Balance

6-6 1/2 cups Rice Krispies

First, melt the earth balance over med-low heat, then add the 'mallows and wait a few mins (about 5) for them to melt, too. Turn the heat off and add the Krispies, mix well, then press it onto a cookie tray covered with wax paper. Let them cool for a while. You want it to be about 1/2 inch thick.

To make the sushi rolls, cut a square out of the krispies that is the same size as a fruit roll-up. Roll up the twizzlers inside the sushi, cover with the fruit roll-up, then slice like sushi!

For ngiri, cut a small square of krispies, put a swedish fish on top, and put a piece of fruit-by-the-foot around the concoction.

Vegans & Commies?!? *GASP!*

Yo kidz, just FYI - Everyone who signs up as an author will also be granted admin priviledges.  I stepped up to get it rolling, but there is no Big Bruddah --This is a community project -- feel free to post, tinker, change, add, share, etc.

Strawberry sunomono

2 cucumbers

A smallish basket of strawberries

Rice wine vinegar

Vegan sugar of sorts

Just a little bit of soy sauce

Honey (optional)

Black Sesame seeds

Peel the skin off of the cucumbers. Cut the cucumbers into super thin slices. Cut the strawberries in thin slices too. If they're huge strawberries then quarter them then slice. Mix together in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together equal parts of sugar and rice wine vinegar and a few drops of soy sauce. If the sugar doesn't dissolve fully, then add a tiny bit more vinegar but don't overdo it. If you're a honey-inclusive vegan, whisk a teaspoon of honey into this concoction.

Pour the sauce over the cucumbers and strawberries, mix, garnish with the black sesame seeds and voila! delicious cucumber salad.

Haitian Doughboys!

This is a pretty simple recipe - basically a funnel cake with 'naners and some delicious spices.

In-gree-da-ments:

1 egg (I used egg replacer)

1 c. flour

1/2 c. sugar

Pinch of salt

3 bananas pureed (or 6 apple bananas, which is what I used)

1/2 c. water

1/4 tsp. each of vanilla, cinnamon & nutmeg

Oil for frying!

Dee-reck-shuns:

Mix dry ingredients! Add wet ingredients! Fry! Coat in sugar! Devour!

I mashed my bananas by hand and found that they weren't mashed enough - so after mixing it all together I threw it in the blender to get a smoother consistency. The recipe says that it should be a thin, pancake batter consistency but mine came out fairly chunky (still pourable) and still worked like a charm.

I was going to post a real picture but I couldn't resist this one...

Black Bean Pomegranate Nachos

Ingredients:

-can or two of black beans
-can of corn
-green onions
-1 bell pepper
-chips
-1 pomegranate
-whatever else you wanna toss in there

To Prepare:

1. Open & separate the pomegranate seeds from the pulp by breaking it all apart in a bowl of water.  The seeds will sink to the bottom of the bowl & the pith will float on the top where you can scoop it out.

2. Finely chop the green onions and the bell pepper.

3. Dump chips in a dish and top with beans, corn, onions, & pepper and put in the oven for 5-10 mins

4. Take out and sprinkle with pomegranate seeds

5. YUM!

Post!

oh, vegan dinner folks!--if you wanna post recipes (like if you'll want to ever, even if not right now), send me your email address so i can add you to the authors list.  maaaahaaalooooo!  


carlyn.arteaga@gmail.com

Ok, this is supposed to be a recipe blog, but lacking one at the moment, I'm gonna start it off with a vegan joke:

Q: Why did the tofu cross the road?

A: To prove he wasn't chicken.

Hahahahaha!!!