Friday, January 28, 2011

Chilaquiles, PDX Vegan Deeeeluxe Style

Chilaquiles are a recipe my abuelita taught me that basically involves frying up a bunch o' tortillas that need to be used up pronto, and whatever else you can toss in with 'em, plus some yummy sauce over everything.  They are amaaaazing hangover food (grams didn't teach me that.)

Basic recipe is as follows...

Ingredients

-Oil for frying
-Stack o tortillas, cut into strips of whatever shape & size you like (3-4ish tortillas per eater? I dunno, I usually eyeball it)
-Garlic chopped up
-Onions chopped up
-Some sort of sauce--I usually mix a can of El Pato sauce with some salsa or enchilada sauce.  Pretty much anything with a tomato/chiles base works.
-Salt
-Pepper
-Lime
-Cilantro

Optional:
-Cumin (adds some nice flavor)
-Fresh tomatoes
-Avocado
-Greens (chard, kale, etc.)
-Tempeh or veggie sausages
-Beans on the side ('specially if you have no other protein)

What'cha do with 'em

Fry the tortilla strips in oil til they get crispy.  Grandma always deep-fries, but I usually try to dry-fry with just a bit of oil.  Takes a while.  Practice yer Spanish in the kitchen with yer eagerly waiting friends while you wait.  When they're starting to get crispified (the tortillas, not the friends), make a hole in the center of the pan, drizzle a lil' more oil and add the onions and garlic to it.  These can be put in at any time, I just don't like 'em to get overcooked.  About minute later, add yer sauce.  Just mix it all up together until the sauce soaks in and it starts to get crispy again.  Add salt & pepper to taste and then squeeze some lime juice over the whole deal.  Garnish with cilantro, (avocado, etc.) and you will have something like the deeeeeeelicious looking picture that Kelsey took in my kitchen. =)

¡Buen provecho!

Monday, January 10, 2011

This recipe makes my tofu say: MISO YUMMY




Get it!?! I called Big Dawg to get that tasty miso recipe so I could rub it all over my tofu and bake it in the oven. He didn't have one so I improvised:

1/3 c miso
~2 tbsp oil (I used grapeseed, it's all I had)
~2 tbsp apple cider vinegar (recipe called for rice, but alas...)
~2 tbsp soy milk
~2 tbsp bragg's
salt
honey
powdered ginger
garlic would have been good (but I didn't have any)

THESE ARE ALL APPROXIMATIONS as I just dumped a bunch of stuff in a bowl and got to mixin. I brushed this all over thinly sliced firm tofu then topped it off with some delicious nutritional yeast. I flipped 'em once after about 15-20 minutes at 450 (may require more or less time depending on how well you press the extra water outta yo' tofu), put on more miso, more nutritional yeast and added sesame seeds - let them cook for about 5 more minutes and voila, heaven! Then I exclaimed: YOUSO YUMMY, MISO TOFU. I even took a picture but I can't figure out how to upload it...?

Sunday, January 9, 2011

How to Cook a Tofurky Roast that You Forgot to Thaw Before the Big Feast

So it happens, right?  You waited til the last minute to read the package on the Tofurky Roast?  Then you realize it shoulda been thawing for 24hrs already but you've only got an hour and a half until it's s'posed to be the star of the show?

I frantically googled to find a sneaky trick for this debacle and found none!  So here's what we did, and hopefully someone else in a frozen Tofurky googling-frenzy will discover our solution to save the day.  You're welcome. =)

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Follow the package instructions, but bump up the temp to 430-ish degrees.  Leave it in there for about 45 mins to an hour, then take it out of the oven and CUT THE ROAST IN HALF.  This may require sawing through some still-frozen stuffing.  Put the inside facing up, put the foil back over the top, and continue cooking for the remaining time.  Voilà!

The resulting roast may be a tad bit dryer than a thawed Tofurky, but it was still hella yummy and we didn't have to wait a billion hours for it to cook (as per the box directions for a frozen roast).

Yay!  Three cheers for vegan procrastinators!