"Mauve"lous Miso Soup

I have discovered that I really like miso, especially in soup!  It makes a delicious stock no matter what else I add to the pot.  And since realizing this, I have started playing around more with miso in my cooking.  It certainly doesn't hurt that soup is so easy to ad-lib.  It is forgiving enough a category as to inspire my timid culinary heart.  Besides, it's pretty darn hard to botch a soup, miso or not!  Therefore, this recipe is the result of such open creativity. 

This soup is very simple.  It's not going to win an award or anything.  But it is warm and yummy all the same.  What surprised me and made me smile was that when it was finished simmering, I lifted the lid to give it a final stir and low and behold, my creation had turned pink!  A pink soup!  Even the tofu turned pink!  What an unusual sight, yet still absolutely charming, artistically accented by green peas and flecks of parsley!  I simply fell in love with it, in appearance and in taste.  Funny thing is what else could I expect!  When you see a certain something in the ingredient list below you'll understand why.  :)  

When I shared my miso soup with my mother, she immediately approved and deemed it "mauve"lous.  So that's how it came by it's clever name.  "Thanks Mom!"  I hope you find it "mauve"lous as well.  :)

"Mauve"lous Miso Soup
Makes four large servings

Organic Ingredients:
4 cups water
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup red cabbage, chopped
7 oz. (1 cup) extra firm tofu, cubed
4 tbsp Bragg's Liquid Aminos
4 tbsp mellow white miso
1 tbsp dried parsley
1/2 cup peas
black pepper, to taste

Instructions:
Heat water to a boil.  Add onion, garlic, cabbage, tofu, and Bragg's.  Stir.  Adjust heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.  To the pot, add miso, parsley, peas, and black pepper.  Stir.  Simmer for another 5-10 minutes.  Serve and enjoy!

"Tuna" Salad Sandwich

The other day, I found myself dearly wishing for something tuna-fishy.  Not actual tuna, no no, but just something similar, to soothe my cravings.  Enter blogger, Zucchini Breath, at "Big Raw Vegan Blog".  She is full of earthy, tasty, raw, compassionate goodness over there!   While roaming her web address, I found a wonderful adaptation on this old classic.  Sometimes I get scared off by recipes that appear difficult to put together, but her chickpeas formula looked simple enough, even for timid little me!  :)  And it was well worth the easy effort!  I didn't have any nori, nor dulse, available for my first batch, but still, it was tasty.  For my second trial, I made certain to include the seaweeds and also a dash of relish--it was even more delish than before!  Sandwich heaven!  I admit to using more Vegenaise than some people might like, and I did leave out the vinegar, but really, this recipe is ready to go, hardly an adjustment needed.  I hope you give this "tuna" salad a try-- it doesn't disappoint!  For the ultimate sandwich, pair it with a couple of whole-wheat toasts and some freshly cut, organic tomatoes and lettuce, even cucumber!  Or wrap it up in a leaf of collard greens along with some thinly-pared veggies and homegrown alfalfa sprouts!  Enjoy!  Makes two large servings.

"Tuna" Salad Sandwich

Organic Ingredients:
1 15oz. can garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
1 or 2 celery ribs, finely chopped
1/4 cup sweet onion, finely chopped
1/3 cup Vegenaise
1 tbsp Bragg's Liquid Aminos
1 tbsp sweet relish
2 tsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 or 2 tbsp dill weed
2 tsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp onion powder
pepper, to taste
2 tbsp ground nori (equivalent to half a sheet)
1 tbsp dulse, finely chopped



Instructions:
Open the can of chickpeas, drain off excess liquid, and pour into a large, wide bowl.  Use a fork or a potato masher to crush the beans.  Smash them to a consistency similar to tuna, or to your preference.  Set aside.  To finely chop the celery and onion, use a food processor.  If you don't have a fancy machine, no problem, just mince them down to size the old-fashioned way--with a knife!  Add these veggies to the chickpeas.  Now, measure in the Vegenaise, Bragg's, relish, lemon juice, dill, nutritional yeast, onion powder, and pepper.  Stir lightly; set aside.  Next, grab the nori and dulse.  Hopefully, you have these two seaweeds in a dry, flake form, already ground up, and easily measurable.  If not, here's what you do:  For the nori, take half a sheet, roll it up tightly, then gently cut away at the edges of the roll.  It will start to flake apart.  After a few minutes, you should have the approximate two tablespoons.  Add it to the bowl.  To prepare the dulse, pinch a tablespoon sized section from the dry, crinkled mass.  Rinse this small amount under gently running water, to wash away impurities.  Once wet, the dulse will start to break apart, even between your fingers.  Just chop it a little and manipulate it until it is mostly in fine pieces.  Or use your handy food processor.  Add it to the bowl.  Finally, give the mixture a thorough stirring.  Hooray, it's finished!  Ideally, cover and refrigerate for an hour or more before serving to let the nori hydrate and the flavors blend.  But if you can't wait that long to enjoy your "tuna" salad, I understand.  :D

Miso Happy Soup

My blogging friend, Michal, inspired this mild, tummy-warming broth.  She calls it "Miso Happy Soup"!  Cute and clever, huh?!  Me so happy I found Michal!  Me so happy Michal makes delicious soup!  And although I did not follow her list of ingredients or ratios to the letter, the heart of this recipe still belongs to her.  In honor of this, I will continue to call the meal by it's witty nickname!  Thank you for the inspiration, "Earth Muffin!"  Makes four full bowls.

Miso Happy Soup

Organic Ingredients:
4 cups distilled water
1/8 cup Bragg's Liquid Aminos
1 clove garlic or 1 tbsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup onion
2 carrots, sliced long and thin
1 russet potato, cubed
6 ounces firm tofu, cubed
1/2 cup peas
4 tbsp mellow white miso
1 tbsp parsley

Instructions:
Heat the water at low simmer.  Season with the Bragg's, garlic, and pepper.  Add the onions, carrots, and potatoes.  (If you're using a leftover baked potato, you can add it later with the tofu and peas, since it only needs to be warmed up, not cooked through.  Same if using leftover cooked carrots or onions.)  Simmer on medium-high heat for 15 minutes.  Now add tofu and peas.  Simmer 5 more minutes.  Add miso and parsley, and give the pot another minute to assimilate the miso.  Now it's done and ready to serve!  Enjoy!

Happy Vegan Valentine's Dinner!

It was a very enjoyable Valentine's Day!  Jordan and I didn't have the funds available to go out to a restaurant or fundraiser this year.  But we more than made up for any imagined loss. 

Before stuffing our bellies we went on a four mile walk together.  It was such a nice day; it seemed a pity to spend all of it being indoors!  And I must say, it was a good thing we did burn a few extra calories, because we ate far too much later on!  :)

It took us hours to get our holiday dinner on the table; we went all out, tonight!  But it finally came together beautifully... 

I prepared an organic tossed salad of red leaf, red kale, and baby spinach, and all the organic trimmings: tomatoes, avocados, red cabbage, cucumber, carrots.  Oh and I can't forget the dressing of equal parts organic flaxseed oil and fresh-squeezed lemon juice, with a dash of Bragg's Liquid Aminos.  It was a dense salad, yet so sweet, flavorful, and refreshing! 

Days before, we concluded that a whole-wheat spaghetti dish would be dinner's main course.  But what kind of sauce would we choose? While cruising the blogosphere many weeks earlier, I chanced upon a tantalizing Alfredo recipe, courtesy of Matt at "My Veggie Kitchen".  And tonight seemed like the perfect setting for Pasta Alfredo!  The only problem was I'd never made this before!  We decided to give it a try anyway.  I quickly pulled up the recipe for easy reference.  It was then I belatedly realized that we didn't have half of the listed ingredients.  Oh well.  We forged ahead without them, forced to make some adjustments on the journey.  Matt's recipe called for cashews, but all we had was walnuts or hazelnuts.  We picked walnuts.  We didn't have shallots, but we an ordinary onion, which we utilized.  We didn't have unsweetened soymilk, but we did have the "original" variety, so we used that.  Lastly, we didn't have the wine.  We didn't sub anything for that.  After all our changes to the actual recipe, it's doubtful that our version tasted anything like Matt's!  But we still liked it!  We did note that it was missing something in it's flavor and texture.  But it WAS missing something--a lot of somethings!  :)  Yet it was warm, creamy, and fun to eat; a buttery, saucy dish, completely out of the ordinary for us! 

We hardly ever bake breadsticks.  But tonight was special so we did!  We followed my sister, Marcy's recipe.  It was fun!  We took turns kneading the dough, and stood at the counter together rolling it into traditional snakelike shapes.  But then I had a brilliant idea...  Bend the breadsticks into hearts!  I pinched them in just the right places and Voila! Breadstick Hearts!  They looked so cute!  Unfortunately, that's about as great as they got.  The recipe originally called for white flour and we used all whole-wheat.  And since we don't bake bread very often, we have little understanding of the repercussions of swapping one flour for another.  In hindsight, we probably should have added more liquid to the dough and slightly shortened the cooking time.  Maybe the yeast never activated.  Still, I'm still not sure that any of these ideas would have been the correct solutions.  Sadly, the end result turned out to be quite heavy instead of light and fluffy; they never really did rise properly.  And they were much drier than we'd have liked.  But we managed to enjoy them.  I remarked to Jordan that they would have made far better pretzels than breadsticks!  At least they looked appealing!  :)

We also added "Wagon Wheels" to the fare!  Jordan peeled and cut the carrots, and set them on the stove to cook.  They almost met a sorry demise, as we did not add adequate water to steam them for the allotted ten minutes; the "wheels" started scalding to the sides of the pan!  Luckily, Jordan smelled smoke and we managed to rescue them before the whole pot of carrots turned black!  Gratefully they still tasted yummy, even after that extra dash of drama! 

To top everything off, with no help from me, Jordan whipped up his specialty dessert, "Jordan's Chocolate Cake"!  Yummy!  He actually baked the cake before our walk.  He frosted it after we got back.  He works so efficiently!  (Unlike me!) 

After working in the kitchen for nearly three hours, the meal was at last ready!  I took pictures, Jordan lit candles, we said a prayer, and then finally,

...we stuffed ourselves silly!  

It was a long time coming, but it was worth it!  Good food and good company!  What more could we ask for?! 

I was so happy to be spending the evening with my very own Valentine!  Jordan always works on Sunday night, so it was extra special of him to take work off to be home with me!  And even though he didn't buy me a sparkly Hallmark card or boxes of chocolates or even flowers, none of that was what I really wanted--just him.  His presence made the very best present!  With Jordan by my side, walking and talking, cooking and eating, my evening was complete! Thank you, My Goo! I love you! 

I hope your holiday, at home or abroad, was just as grand, or more so, than ours! 

 Happy Vegan Valentine's Dinner! 

Simple Sushi

I actually made sushi!  And it was simple!  Hence, the title--not very original, but very true!  This dish was inspired by Minh Nguyen from her DVD "Going Raw! with Ronnie and Minh".  She explains how to make sushi free of any cooked ingredients.  So that's what I did!  Minh suggests a final dipping sauce of nama shoyu (raw soy sauce), but since I had none, I used Bragg's Liquid Aminos, which is raw, too.  I also got some personal help from my blogger friend, Raw Oz Gal, who told me how to make cauliflower "rice"!  Ingenious!  And don't forget to use chopsticks; it's actually easier to eat sushi traditionally than it is to use a fork.  You really should give this recipe a try!  Seriously!  It's fun to prepare and fun to eat!  Makes approximately 32 servings or enough for three to four people.

Simple Sushi


Organic Ingredients: 

a small bowl of water
four sheets of raw nori
half head of cauliflower, minced
half a cucumber, thinly sliced
half a red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 or 2 avocados, thinly sliced
spinach (optional)
red leaf lettuce (optional)
alfalfa sprouts (optional)
Use any favorite veggies!  Be creative!
Nama Shoyu or Bragg's Liquid Aminos
raw wasabi (optional)



Instructions:

Rinse all your vegetables; set aside.  Cut the cauliflower into florets that will fit comfortably into your food processor and let the machine do all the work!  When the cauliflower is well pulverized and grainy, like rice, set aside.  Remove the curved ends of the pepper, and cut into thin strips.  Peel and core the avocado(s) and cut thinly.  Peel and thinly cut the cucumber, as well.  Now you're ready to build!  Make sure your work area is dry.  Place a sheet of nori down flat and spread the cauliflower "rice" on first, staying mostly in the center but extending all the way to the opposite ends of the paper.  (Leave the nori's other two ends free for rolling.)  Layer in some bell pepper now; use those short strips to make a long strip down the center that follows the "rice".  You can add more ingredients if you want to, like the lettuce, etc., layering in the same way.  Now, let's roll this serving!  Put that small bowl of water nearby.  Dab your fingers into the liquid and then run them along one of the free ends of the nori.  Begin rolling up all the ingredients, tucking the dry nori end under.  Seal the sushi roll with the wet end.  Use a large sharp knife to cut the roll into bite sized pieces. (Chances are your nori already came with pre-drawn cutting lines that you can use as a guide!)  Slice gently, sawing with very little pressure, so the sushi doesn't get squashed down or pushed out of the open ends.  Serve these round little bites on their sides so they don't roll away!  (It's also easier to appreciate their beauty turned that way!)  Now repeat the instructions until all the ingredients are used up!  Don't worry if your sushi doesn't look like mine, or looks different every time--it's okay!  Sushi is a work of art-- always fresh and exciting!  Using individual bowls, pour an appropriate amount of Bragg's for dipping; add wasabi carefully because it's hot; a little goes a long way!  If any ingredients are left over, store them in the fridge for more sushi tomorrow, or simply toss them into a salad for later.  Enjoy!

Spicy Garlic Toss For Noodles

If you enjoy garlic, this is the sauce for you! To cut down on the spiciness, omit the cayenne and lessen the pepper to your liking.  Also tastes wonderful on cruciferous veggies, such as broccoli.  Makes 2-4 servings.

Spicy Garlic Toss For Noodles

Recipe adapted from How it all Vegan!, page 83,
By Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer, 1999.

Organic Ingredients:
4-6 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
2 tbsp grapeseed oil
1/4 cup distilled water
2 tsp Bragg's (or soy sauce)
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/8 tsp (or less) dried pepper
1/4 tsp sea salt
dash of cayenne pepper


Instructions:
In a small saucepan, sauté garlic in 1 tablespoon of oil on medium-low heat until garlic is translucent. Be careful not to burn. Add the water, remaining oil. Bragg's, paprika, basil, thyme, pepper, salt, and cayenne and bring to a boil. Simmer for 8-15 minutes. Toss with wheat spaghetti or linguine. Or serve sauce straight out of the pot if you prefer.

Merciful Meatless Sloppy Joes

This burger mix is merciful because no cows were harmed in the making! Most every Fourth of July, Jordan and I share this delicious dinner with the entire family. But that doesn’t stop us from enjoying it all year round. For maximum fun, eat the meal outside under a shady patio or deck.  Be sure to serve it on top of organic whole-wheat toast. Makes 3-6 large helpings.

Merciful Meatless Sloppy Joes

Recipe adapted from How it all Vegan!, page 112,
By Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer, 1999.

Organic Ingredients: (two part)

Tomato Sauce:
1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 6oz. can tomato paste
2/3 of a 28oz. can of diced tomatoes (or 2 large tomatoes, chopped)
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp pepper

Everything Else:
1 cup boiling distilled water
1 1/2 cups TVP (textured vegetable protein)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium green pepper, chopped
remaining 1/3 of the 28oz. can of diced tomatoes (or 1 large tomato, chopped)
3 tbsp of sweet-pickle relish
2 tbsp of Bragg's (or soy sauce)
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
dash of cayenne pepper
dash of allspice
dash of sea salt





Instructions:

Sauce: In a blender/food processor, blend together the garlic, tomato paste, diced tomatoes, salt, basil, oregano, and pepper until you reach the desire consistency. Set aside.

TVP: In a medium size bowl, pour the boiling water over the TVP and set aside for about 15 minutes.

Everything Else: In a medium size saucepan, sauté the onions in a little water on medium-high heat until translucent. Lower heat to medium and add the peppers, remaining diced tomatoes, relish, Bragg's, chili powder, cayenne, allspice, salt, and sauce. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add TVP to saucepan and stir together. Simmer on medium-low heat for another 20-30 minutes.