Beanball Sub Review

BEANBALL SUB

Source: Veganomicon Cookbook

Course: Main Course

Ingredients

• 1 (20-ounce) can kid­ney beans rinsed and drained about 3 cups
• 2 ta­ble­spoons soy sauce
• 2 ta­ble­spoons steak sauce or toma­to paste
• 2 ta­ble­spoons olive oil plus ad­di­tion­al for fry­ing or bak­ing
• 2 cloves gar­lic grat­ed or minced fine­ly
• ¼ tea­spoon grat­ed lemon zest
• ½ cup plain bread crumbs
• ¼ cup vi­tal wheat gluten
• ½ tea­spoon dried oregano
• ¼ tea­spoon dried thyme
• Marinara Sauce
• 2 cups fresh spinach leaves well washed
• 4 hoagie rolls split open
• 1 recipe pine nut cream

Directions

1. Mash the kid­ney beans in a mix­ing bowl un­til no whole beans are left. (We start with a pota­to mash­er and then use a fork to get any rebel beans that refuse to mash.) You don’t want them to be com­plete­ly smooth, you should still be able to rec­og­nize that they are kid­ney beans. Add the soy sauce, steak sauce, 2 ta­ble­spoons of the olive oil, the gar­lic, lemon zest, bread crumbs, wheat gluten, and herbs, and use a fork to mix ev­ery­thing to­geth­er. Use your hands to knead the mix­ture for about a minute, un­til ev­ery­thing is re­al­ly well com­bined and firm.
2. Roll the bean mix­ture in­to wal­nut-​size balls (you should have twelve to fif­teen of them).
3. Grease a rimmed bak­ing sheet with olive oil. Place the balls on the sheet and then driz­zle them with a lit­tle more oil, to coat. Bake for about 15 min­utes, un­til light­ly browned on the bot­tom, then flip them and bake for an­oth­er 10 min­utes.
4. PRE­PARE THE recipes of the first three com­po­nents. Pre­heat oven to 350º F. Place Bean­balls on a tray and top with about 1 cup of mari­nara and all of the pine nut cream. Bake for 20 to 25 min­utes, un­til pine nut cream is light­ly browned. Spread more mari­nara sauce on one side of each roll and dis­tribute the Bean­balls even­ly among the sam­mich­es, lay­er­ing the spinach leaves over them. Top lib­er­al­ly with more mari­nara sauce. Close your sammiches, slice in half on the diagonal, and serve.

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Notes: I skipped the pine nut cream to save time and I need to plan to make it when I can use the rest of the cream in something. I used Daiya mozzarella instead and it was great. The bean balls were so easy to make. Next time I'll double the recipe and freeze some. I left out the olive oil and just used olive oil cooking spray to coat the pan and they came out fine. I want to try them with spaghetti. The texture was very much like a meatball. Veganomicon is THE cookbook. Even non-vegans would love it.

Faux Chicken Stuffed Baked Potates

chicken-less stuffed baked potatoes

Source: thetolerantvegan.com

Course: Main Course

Ingredients

• 4 Russet potatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2 garlic cloves chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped bell pepper I used orange
• 2 tablespoons Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread or another vegan butter substitute,
• 1 1/2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons water
• 8 ounces vegan “chicken” strips chopped into 1/2″ pieces. I used Trader Joe’s Chicken-less Strips
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 3/4 cup Daiya Cheddar Style Shreds
• 1/2 cup vegan sour cream

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Bake the potatoes in a microwave and let cool completely.
3. Saute the chopped onion, garlic, bell pepper and Earth Balance in a skillet until soft, 4-5 minutes.
4. In a small bowl, stir together the tomato paste and 1 1/2 tablespoons of water. Set aside.
5. In a large bowl, stir together the fake chicken, parsley, oregano, sea salt, pepper, chili powder, tomato/water mixture and 1/2 cup of cheddar. Stir in the onions and bell pepper.Cut a thin strip in the top of each potato, roughly 1/2″ wide. Use a spoon or melon baller to scoop out the insides of each potato and add it to the chicken mixture.
6. Stir the potato into the chicken mixture until fully combined.
7. Spoon the mixture back inside each potato, stacking the remaining mixture on the top.
8. Sprinkle the tops of the potatoes with the remaining 1/4 cup of cheddar.
9. Place the potatoes in a baking pan
10. and bake for 20 minutes.

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This was excellent. I didn't have green bell peppers but did have a jar of roasted red peppers. So I used that and added some corn. This is quite a meal. I couldn't finish mine. Hearty and satisfying.

Applesauce Spice Muffins/Coffee Cake

Applesauce Spice Muffins

Source: vegweb.com

Course: Breakfast

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups flour (I use unbleached but whole-wheat would probably work just as well)
• 5 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit.
2. Combine all dry ingredients together. Sift well.
3. Make 3 wells for the vanilla, applesauce, and vinegar.
4. Pour cup of cold water over the whole thing and gently mix all ingredients together.
5. Pour batter into muffin tin…you can lightly grease the pan, put those little muffin paper cups in, or just pour the batter directly into the tin. They might stick somewhat if you just pour it directly but that's okay.
6. Bake at 350 and check after 20 minutes. They may or may not need more time.
7. Serve warm with some vegan margarine spread on top. :)
8. The applesauce makes these a little dense so if you don't like that and don't mind using oil... substitute oil for the applesauce. You can either do 2.5 tablespoons oil and 2.5 applesauce or 5 tablespoon oil.. it's really versatile so do as you please.

Amount Per Serving

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Notes: I made this in a cast iron skillet as a coffee cake. I didn't need to adjust the time at all. I also added a splash of vegetable oil. It was dense but really delicious. The batter was pretty sweet but the cake itself came out only lightly sweet. It's perfect for breakfast, especially if buttered with some Earth Balance Spread. I think next time I'll add some diced apples. The original recipe used white vinegar but I had the apple cider so went with that.

Black Bean Taco Filling

I've been absent due to some dental issues and I also haven't been cooking anything too exciting lately. Tonight I made a taco filling that I found on all recipes.com. I used it in a soft flour tortilla and it was simple but tasty.

1 small onion, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped fine
1 minced clove garlic
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup salsa
1 tbl cumin
1 tbl paprika
1 tsp chili powder
salt to taste
Daiya cheddar cheese


Saute the onions and peppers. Mash the black beans and add them to the cooked onions. Add the salsa and spices, stir, cover and simmer 5 minutes.

That's it. Use for tacos or burritos and top with your favorite toppings.

"Beefy" Mac and Cheese Revised from Food Network Magazine

In my quest to make all things vegan, I thought I'd try this recipe from the October 2012 issue of Food Network Magazine called Beefy Mac and Cheese.

8 oz pasta medium (This makes a ton of pasta. Feel free to use 1/2 this amount.)

3 tbsp unsalted vegan butter

1 small onion chopped

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp chili powder

8 oz soy crumbles (I used Boca)

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 cup soy milk

2 1/2 cups Daiya Pepperjack cheese 

2 tbsp panko

1 cup frozen peas

Cook the pasta.  

In a pot that you can also transfer to the oven, cook the onions in 1 tbsp melted Origins "butter."  Once they soften add the tomato paste, chili powder and a little salt.  Stir and cook for about 2 minutes.  Add the soy crumbles and peas until heat through, stirring to break up the frozen bits. 

Meanwhile, in a sauce pan, melt the remaining 2 tbsp of butter and add the flour. Whisk to for about a minute and then add the soy milk. Whisk until the flour/butter mix has dissolved then add the cheese and stir until cheese has melted.  Add pasta and salt to taste.  Preheat the broiler. 

Add the cheesy pasta to the top of the beef mixture and sprinkle with bread crumbs mixed with cheese. (I forgot that part and just put on the panko. Oops.) Place the pot under the broiler until the breadcrumbs are golden. Warning! That happens fast. 

 Oh so creamy pasta, with a spicy finish. I loved this. So very hearty and filling. The only "complaint" was that the pasta amount was too much for me so next time I will only use half a box. 

Portobello Fajitas

This confirmed my long held belief that mushrooms are yucky. I so wanted to like portobello mushrooms. They have such a meaty feel to them.  Alas, the texture when cooked was very….mushroomy.  So no thanks.

But if you like mushrooms, as my husband does, you'll love these. He did.

2 portobello mushrooms, sliced thin
1 red bell pepper and 1 green, sliced thin (Notice the lack of red? I was so sure I had one when I shopped for this, but I didn't.)
1 yellow onion, sliced thin
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon paprika
tortillas
A splash of oil to keep everything from sticking.

Salsa and cilantro to garnish if you like. The salsa helped me eat them.

Cook the onions first to soften them. Add the peppers and cook a few minutes. Add the mushrooms and the spices and stir so that mushrooms are more towards the bottom. The mushrooms turned a bit darker in color once done.

Place mixture in tortilla and add salsa and cilantro.

Baja Style Tempeh Tacos of Heaven

Looking for THE vegan cookbook? You can't go wrong with Veganomicon.  Tonight I made this:

Tempeh marinated in soy sauce, garlic, grape seed oil, cumin and ancho chili powder for an hour and then pan fried in a cast iron skillet is my new favorite tempeh ever. And once it is combined with the lime crema (I had to use soy sour cream instead of soy yogurt because I couldn't find plain soy yogurt at my usual haunts. It worked), the slaw mix, radishes and avocado….well.   I was in food heaven. There were so many textures and flavors.

It was more effort than I usually put into a weeknight meal, what with the boiling of the tempeh, the marinating, the slicing and dicing. I did use a pre-shredded bag of slaw mix to make the slaw. The most time consuming part was heating all of the tortillas.  One. At. A. Time.  But it was worth it in the end because seriously. So good.

Ingredients used:
Tempeh
Soy sauce
Grape seed oil (I skipped the extra oil: Peanut because one was fine.)
Cumin
Ancho chili powder
Kosher salt and pepper
Minced garlic
Soy sour cream
Lime juice
Cilantro
Slaw mix
Apple Cidar Vinegar
Pickled jalepenos
Radishes
Avocado
Corn torillas
I omitted the beer for the marinade. Didn't miss it at all.

You can find the whole recipe online if you google it, but I suggest you buy the book. You won't go wrong. Even meat eaters would love this.