Sunday, September 30, 2007

Potato Wedges

In Oregon they're called JoJos. In the rockies they were called potato wedges. Apparently in grocery store delis they contain chicken fat. I've been craving these thick potato wedges coated with a crusty skin for awhile.

Potato Wedges:
2 potatoes
3/4 cup four
1/4 cup nutritional
1 teaspoon seasoning salt
1 teaspoon your other favorite spice


Preheat oven t0 425 F and cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper
Cut the washed potatoes into 8 long pieces (in half, in half again, and one more time in half.)
Mix the dry ingredients.
If your potatoes are still wet from washing and cutting you can coat your potatoes with the flour mixture right away. If your potatoes are dry, dip them in water (or a combo of water/flax meal) then into the flour mixture.
Place on the covered cookie sheet sheet and bake 15-25 minutes until golden brown and a bit crunchy on the outside.
Sprinkle with salt and serve.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Super Easy Meals

Coconut Eggplant Curry:
1 eggplant
1/2 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 can coconut milk
curry paste
1/2 teaspoon chili flakes
basil leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onion and garlic, add the eggplant, coconut milk and curry paste. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Add basil and cook 3-5 minutes.
Pour over rice and serve.

This was such an easy meal with so much flavor. I can't wait to make it again.


It doesn't get much quicker than this:

Neatball Sandwich:
4 prepackaged frozen meatballs
Pasta sauce
soy parm
Hot dog bun or other bread-like holder, like a tortilla in my case.

Cook the meatballs in the pasta sauce. Once it's cooked through, add to the bun. Sprinkle with soy parm and call it a meal.

Creamy Tomato Pasta

I've moved onto fall, but I still have some summer produce in my kitchen. This recipe makes a nice sauce as well as having some firm vegetables in it.

Creamy Tomato Pasta:
2 tomatoes (one yellow and one red, for color)
1 zucchini
1 Tablespoon Wildwood garlic Aoli
1 Tablespoon fresh chives
1 Tablespoon fresh oregano
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the pasta as normal.
Saute the chopped tomatoes and zucchini in olive oil for about 7 minutes.
Add the aoli and fresh spices and let cook 3-5 minutes or until tender.
Pour over the cooked pasta.

Almond Cookies

These cookies mark my first atempt at making gluten-free cookies and the result was wonderful!

Almond Cookies:
1 1/4 cup whole almonds
1/2 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 flax eggies
two pinches of cinnamon
1 pinch of salt

Grind the almonds into a meal, but not too much or else you'll make almond butter
Mix the almond grounds, sugar, cinnamon and salt.
Melt the coconut oil, add the flax eggs, and vanilla.
Mix together. Roll into balls, flatten, mark with an almond and bake for 13 minutes at 350F.

Alterations: Add chocolate chips (I did to half these but wasn't sure about the gluten content since I bought it in bulk, so I kept them instead of giving them away as a gift) Add chopped cherries or your favorite fruit.


It was my mother-in-law's birthday a few weeks ago so I made her some chocolate cupcakes. I like the way they came out with such little effort.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Harvest Moon Roast

I honestly thought life would slow down after we bought the house and after the wedding, but I guess it's not in my nature. I took on four freelance jobs which has been really exciting helping make the world's first Vegan Mini Mall come to life. It's been great working with Food Fight Grocery, Scapegoat Tattoo, Sweetpea Baking Company and Herbivore Clothing and Magazine. When your clients are fun, it makes working fun. Problem with these jobs was that I was also working my full time day job. Note to self - don't take on four freelance jobs at the same time, specially when they all have the same deadline.

When those jobs started wrapping up I ended up getting hit by a car on my bike! Nothing too major, just some major bruising and a few deep cuts. But the limping around kept me out of the kitchen, thus - me not posting.

This is a bit more personal I normally am at this blog because I was tagged by Pauline to do the name meme. It stressed me out. My name is Webly. I could think of words to describe me, but I didn't have all those letters in my name: Driven, Loyal, Trickster, Creative. See, it doesn't spell anything!

Enough with the personal, on to, the Harvest Moon. It's beautiful tonight. I celebrated by making a wonderful fall meal.

Harvest Moon Roast:

1 squash of your choice. I forget which one I used, a dark orange one.
1 medium potato
1 medium fuji apple
1 or 2 ears of corn
3-4 cloves of garlic
1-2 teaspoons rosemary
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 425 F.
Cut the squash in half, scoop out the guts. Peal the squash with a good peeler or a sharp knife. Cut it into 1/2 to 1/4 inch cubes.
Spray a pan with olive oil spray and lay the squash out and place in the oven for about 10 minutes.
Peel and cut the potatoes into a similar size as the squash.
Add the potatoes to the squash, spray with olive oil, and roast for 10 minutes.
Chop the garlic and set side.
Peel and chop the apple into the same size pieces as the squash and potato.
Add the apples to the roasted squash and potatoes. Add half the garlic and the rosemary. Mix and roast for 10 more minutes.
De-cob the corn.
Add the corn and garlic to the roast and cook 10-20 minutes longer - depending on how you like your roast.
Add salt and pepper to taste, toss.

Bundle up, serve on bright colored plates, and eat outside under the Harvest Moon with your favorites.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Cheese and Crackers

Vegan Vittles was one of my first vegan cookbooks. There are many recipes I love in this cookbook but I tried a new one recently and it was a big hit - Classic White Uncheese.
Unfortunately Joanne Stepaniak does not like her recipes to be spread across the web so I cannot repost the recipe. But I can encourage you to buy the book because there are many great recipes in the book like: Muffins that Taste Like Dounuts, Sticky Buns, Ribs, Black Bean Soup, Uncheeses and more.

I probably had to spread cheese on about 15 crackers to take this picture with just a few. I kept putting them on the plate and they would keep disappearing. Mr. Bolsh would come in and take a few handfuls, like he didn't think I noticed. He called it Fake Cheese Wiz because it kind of tasted like cheese wiz without the gross flavor.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Breading

This is my favorite breading for anything from tofu to eggplant.

Basic Breading:
1 cup corn flakes
3 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon seasoning

Blend all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until small crumbs remain.
You can always add other spices depending on what you're cooking. Garlic powder, onion powder, basil, oregano and cumin are always good.

Breaded tofu with a side of roasted corn salad.
The tofu was marinated in a soy sauce and powdered vegetable broth.

Canned wheat chicken with roasted vegetables and rice.
My local Asian grocer has a variety of canned fake meats. I pick them up every once and awhile. This canned setian I breaded and baked before serving with some roasted veggies over rice.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Apple Pie

This was another test recipe for Julie Hasson's new pie book.
I might have cooked the topping a bit too long, but the almond crumb topping tasted wonderful with the apples.

Monday, September 03, 2007

Simple Meals and Pie

I got a new tool - a julianner. It makes cutting quicker!

I was a bit too excited to use my new julieanner and didn't think about the whole of my meal because I was too hungry and excited. I started cutting the carrots, but I was already boiling rice noodles and sauteeing garlic. Then went the sun dried tomatoes. It really wasn't a good meal, but it looked good and the salt really helped. This was one of those times when you understand the importance of a flavored salt when it makes a meal.
Skinny Oven Fries:
These tasted much like hash browns. The potatoes were sprayed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt before baking.


Melon Baller!
Another fun kitchen tool, but doing an entire watermelon - it's a lot of work. I always wanted to serve punch out of a watermelon so I balled most the melon. I forgot to take a picture of my watermelon punch bowl though!
I threw in some leechies for color.


Coconut Cream Pie with Lime Sauce:
I am still working on my pie recipe. This recipe is a mixture of this recipe and a vanilla tofu pudding recipe. Unfortunately, the pie didn't set. But it tasted damn good!

Sunday, September 02, 2007

New Farm Crackers

These were great, though I only had a couple fresh out of the oven. I went away for a half hour and came back and they had disappeared! I hear these are LOVED by kids.

New Farm Cookboook's Cheezy Crackers:
1 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
2 Tablespoons oil
2/3 cup soymilk or water

Mix the dry ingredients, then add the oil and milk. Knead into a smooth ball. Preheat oven to 425 F and oil two cookie sheets. Divide dough in half and roll out each layer on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle top with caraway seeds or sesame seeds, if desired and toll in lightly. Cut into squares. Bake 7 to 10 minutes until golden brown.


Things I learned about these with a tip from Michelle.
When you roll them out, roll very thin, brush with a light oil or melted earth balance, fold the dough over and roll over again lightly. This is create flaky layers like gold fish crackers.
These are fun to cut out with cookie cutters. and have dino crackers!
I used half chickpea flour to mix up the flavor a bit.