EasyVeg

I’ve been reading through Vegan with a Vengeance for a while now, trying to get a feel for the book and trying also to decide if I like it or not. I still don’t know. There are things I really like about it, and there are things I don’t. I guess I’ll just run through my personal pros and cons regarding this vegan cookbook, and let you decide.

Good - No recipes with prepackaged food. Moskowitz really wants her fellow vegans to experience the joys of cooking with fresh ingredients.
Good - The pictures of the food look really yummy! I’ve mentioned before that pictures of food often inspire me to want to cook them.
Bad - There are only 4 pages of pictures.
Good - The book is organized well. Chapters are: Introduction, Brunch, Muffins and Scones, Soups, Little Meals Sammiches and Finger Foods, Sides, Pizzas and Pastas, Entrées, Cookies and Bars, Desserts
Bad - One-third of the chapters are devoted to sweets. I personally, am not a big dessert or cookie person. I don’t bake. And I definitely, definitely don’t bake from scratch. That makes all those chapters useless to me.
Bad - Moskowotz finds any excuse to remind the reader that she was/is totally punk rock. That’s an annoying trait in a teenager. In a 30-something (maybe 40-something), it’s just outright ridiculous.
Good - Many of the recipes have little pointers, tips, and suggestions for substitutions of certain ingredients.
Bad - These tips are called “Punk Points.” Seriously. Grow up.

I guess that’s it for now. I’m still undecided about how I feel about this book. I don’t think I would suggest it to someone new to vegetarianism or veganism, though. There are plenty of ingredients that have to be purchased in specialty stores. On the other hand, though, there are also very many recipes that use veggies and grains, and those can be found at any supermarket.

I’ve learned something new about myself over the past year or so. I love curry. I LOVE it! For years I thought I didn’t like it, but I was either being an idiot and thinking I didn’t like curry without trying it, or I had some less than savory curry at some point and swore it off. Either way, I’m glad I gave it another go because now I just can’t get enough. Here is an easy recipe from One-Dish Vegetarian Meals that had me drooling before the dish was even done! It’s that good. Oh yeah. And it’s vegan. Bonus!

Ingredients
1 Tbsp safflower oil (I used olive oil; you use whatever you want)
1 medium-sized onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1.5 Tbsp hot curry paste, or to taste (use mild or medium instead, if you don’t like it too hot)
1 - 14.5oz can diced tomatoes, with juice
1.5 cups cooked or canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained (1.5 cups is about 1 can)
1/2 cup soft or silken tofu
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 lb fettuccine
8 oz green beans, ends trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces (about 2 cups)

Directions
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 5 minutes to soften. Stir in the garlic and curry paste and cook for 2 minutes, stirring to blend. Stir in the tomatoes and their liquid, and simmer for 5 minutes to blend the flavors. Add the chickpeas and keep warm over low heat.
In a food processor or blender, combine the tofu with the coconut milk, and add salt and pepper. Blend until smooth.Stir the tofu mixture into the vegetable mixture and keep warm over low heat.
Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water. When pasta has cooked about 3 minutes, add the green beans. When pasta is al dente, drain and place in a large serving bowl. Add the curried vegetables and toss to combine.
Eat!

Tips
Wait until nearly the end to add your pasta to boiling water. Even though cooking the pasta is just about the last step, out of habit, I cooked it first, and it was done way before the curried veggies were. My pasta ended up a little dried out because of it.
Try this dish without adding the coconut milk and tofu mixture. The curried tomatoes and chickpea combo is great on it’s own!

I’m still working my way through Vegan With a Vengeance, but I must say that I’m enjoying it very much. I came upon this simple, absolutely yummy side dish, and just had to share it.

Ingredients
3 medium potobello caps, sliced 1/4″ thick
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Pinch of salt
2 cloves garlic, finely minced

Directions
Preheat a large skillet over medium-high heat for a bout 2 minutes.
Toss the mushrooms with the olive oil until coated. Place in pan in single layer. Let cook for 5 minutes, until they start releasing moisture. Turn over and cook another 2 minutes.
Add the vinegar and salt; sauté for 30 seconds. Add the garlic and sauté for 3 more minutes.

It’s easy. It’s yummy. It’s good hot or cold. It’s good in salads or sandwiches. Aren’t you glad I decided to share that one?

You’re welcome.

If you’re at all familiar with PETA, you know that they’re pretty serious about vegetarianism and veganism, and that they’d like to encourage everyone to go completely vegan. You may also know that PETA uses some of the most horrifying animal cruelty videos that would bring even the most hardened meat-eaters to tears as their encouragement.

That being said, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to find practical, reasonable advice on their vegcooking.com site.

Basically, their advice is “don’t sweat the small stuff.” The small stuff being trace amounts of animal products that may be in your food. If you are changing your diet primarily for the sake of animals, you may find this advice a little confusing. Especially coming from PETA! Their point, though, is that eliminating animal flesh from your diet has a great enough impact. Also, if you go CRAZY sorting out trace animal products from your diet, your diet will be harder to maintain, and others who may otherwise consider going vegetarian, may be turned off by your dogmatic practices.

Sage advice from the folks at PETA. I can’t believe it either.

I’ve been testing out recipes from One-Dish Vegetarian Meals almost daily since I first laid my hands on the book. So far, my absolute favorite, hands down, has been the Hot Thai Soup. Some of the ingredients are a little different. I hadn’t used them before in my cooking, anyway. And I did have to do some very careful searching of the grocery store aisles to find a few of the items. However, I was able to find almost everything I needed at my local grocery store - not a specialty market. (I’ll note any changes I made to the recipe in parentheses.)

Ingredients
6 cups water (6 cups vegetable broth - I think it adds more flavor)
1 tsp. salt (omitted because I used veggie broth)
3 lemongrass stalks, cut into 1-inch lengths
2 serrano chiles, thinly sliced
1 tsp. slivered fresh ginger (1/2 tsp. dry, ground ginger)
1 cup canned sliced bamboo shoots, rinsed and drained (I used the whole can)
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 Tbsp. Tamari
Juice of 1 lime
2 cups cooked jasmine rice
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh Thai basil, for garnish (omitted because I couldn’t find it)

Directions
In a large saucepan, combine the water, salt, lemongrass, chiles, and ginger. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
Strain the broth through a sieve (I used a slotted spoon to remove the lemongrass stalks and chiles because I don’t have a sieve), return it to the saucepan and boil for 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low and add bamboo shoots, coconut milk, tamari and lime juice. Stir well and simmer for 5 minutes.
Place 1/2 cup of rice in the bottom of each bowl, ladle the soup over the rice, sprinkle with basil leaves, and serve hot.

Tip
Tamari is just a richer kind of soy sauce. If you can’t find it, or you already have soy sauce on hand, you can use regular soy sauce in its place.

If you’ve been looking for a place to look up vegetarian or vegan friendly restaurants, grocery stores, or any other veg-friendly businesses, you’re in luck. VegGuide.Org is here to help. VegGuide is a community maintained and updated site that lists and rates veg-friendly businesses. In addition to listing and rating these places, VegGuide also lets you know just how veg each place is. It ranges from “not veg-friendly” all the way up to “vegan” with ratings in between of “vegetarian friendly,” “vegan friendly,” and “vegetarian.” The site also offers approximate price range, maps, hours of operation, whether or not the restaurant is smoke free, reviews, and sometimes even pictures of the place. VegGuide.Org arms its readers with a wealth of information.

You can also log in to the site to list or add your own favorite veg-friendly places, or rate and review a place already listed. Add VegGuide to your bookmarks, and never wonder where you can go out to eat again!

Try this quick and easy recipe from Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller. All the ingredients come right out of your pantry, so you don’t have to worry about slicing and chopping ingredients or making sure to use produce before it goes bad. Make it even quicker by using Uncle Ben’s Whole Grain Brown Ready Rice. Just pop it in the microwave for a minute and a half, and add it when the recipe dictates. It even comes in the amount required by the recipe.

Ingredients
2 cups instant brown rice
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
1/2 cup prepared salsa
1 tablespoon onion flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15-ounce) can white or red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 (11-ounce) can corn, drained
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Cook rice according to package directions. Meanwhile, combine remaining ingredients in a large saucepan and set pan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer. Simmer until rice is cooked. Fold in rice and season to taste with salt and black pepper.

Could that be any easier?

Going out to eat as a vegetarian can be a little tricky sometimes. Scanning the menu not only for things that sound good to eat, but also don’t have any meat products in them can be time consuming and frustrating. There’s really no need to worry, though.

First of all, as with most things, the more you do it, the easier it will become. After a while, you’ll be an old pro at knowing what items or entire sections of menus to avoid.

Secondly, most restaurants have vegetarian items clearly marked or have entire sections of their menus devoted to vegetarian meals. Chili’s is one such restaurant. They have on their ‘Guiltless Grill’ section of the menu a ‘Guiltless Black Bean Burger’ that is HUGE, satisfying, tasty, and of course, meatless. Also at Chili’s, you can custom order any of their regular hamburgers with a black bean burger patty instead. Obviously ordering a ‘Big Mouth Bacon Burger’ with a black bean patty is defeating the purpose, but if you’ve been missing the ‘Mushroom-Swiss’ burger, have at it!

Nobody cooks quite like mom. Whenever I visit home, I always request my mom’s calebacitas. It’s a vegetable side dish that can be paired with any Mexican entrée, or if you like it as much as I do, you can just eat a heaping serving as a meal. Here is my take on my mom’s dish.

Ingredients
4-6 Zucchini
1.5 cups frozen corn kernels
1 medium onion, diced
1 small can tomato sauce
1 cup shredded Colby Jack cheese
1 Tbsp. olive oil

Directions
Slice zucchini into 1/4″ or 1/2″ rounds. Place in a pot, and add water until zucchini are just covered. Cook over med-high heat until zucchini are tender and centers become slightly translucent. Drain and set zucchini aside.
Re-heat pot over med-high heat, and add olive oil. Add onions and stir frequently until onions are tender.
Reduce heat to med-low. Add cooked zucchini, corn kernels, and tomato sauce. Stir gently to blend ingredients.
Fold in cheese little by little, until all ingredients are mixed together.
Eat!

Tips
Don’t over cook the zucchini, as they will break apart and become mushy.

This is a recipe from New Vegetarian Cuisine. It was so quick, easy, and tasty, I found absolutely no reason to tweak it or change it in anyway. Enjoy!

Ingredients
2 cups cooked orzo
1.25 cups chopped tomatoes
1 box (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
0.5 cup chopped scallions
3 oz feta cheese, crumbled
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh mint
1 Tbsp nonfat sour cream
4 sweet red peppers

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Coat a 9″x9″ baking dish with non-stick spray.
2. Slice the tops off the peppers and remove seeds and membranes. If necessary, slice a small amount off the bottom of the peppers so they are able to stand upright.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the orzo, tomatoes, spinach, scallions, feta, mint, and sour cream.
4. Spoon the orzo mixture into the peppers, and place peppers upright into baking dish.
5. Bake peppers for 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Eat warm or cold.