Fresh Spring Rolls

My mother loves Vietnamese spring rolls and I obliged her by making some before I left back to Boston College. There is no Vietnamese restaurant anywhere near me in Michigan, so it's a bit of a treat for her(and me, since I never go out to eat anymore). They are easy to make, they just take a fair amount of preparation time and finesse to make a first. If you're too impatient, you're just going to tear apart the rice wrapper and it'll just be a pile of fillings and some torn up rice paper. While this may taste nice, It's not what we're shooting for. Anyway, here's the methodology:

Vietnamese Fresh Rolls

8 Extra-Firm Tofu(a little more than half of the normal tofu package)
1/2 cup Soy Sauce
1/2 cup Oil
1/2 tbsp Curry Powder
1/4 tsp Ground Cumin
1/4 tsp Ground Pepper
2-3 Cloves Crushed Garlic

Rice Paper
Shredded Carrots
Bean Sprouts
Vermicelli(Rice) Noodles
Lettuce(I prefer Boston Bib)

Slice the block of tofu into slices that around 1/4 of an inch thick, maybe a bit more. Mix all of the top group of ingredients well and marinate the sliced tofu in that mixture. Try not to break the tofu pieces at all, that just makes your end job harder. Marinate it for at least one hour, though I usually do it for an afternoon.
Brown the tofu in a pan, cooking it well. Slice it in half length-wise, and get all of the bottom group prepped nice and ready for yourself. Dip the rice paper in warm water, put the tofu in the bottom, and all of the other ingredients on top and fold together. Yes, I'm being purposefully vague on how to do that becasue I'm giving you a video link on how to do it. Yeah, I pretty much stole the recipe. What of it?

Parsnip-Lentil Soup

I was seeking to make myself a simple carrot-ginger soup the other night but the grocery store lacked any carrots but the large woody ones; they would make a terrible soup. They did have, however, quite the large volume of parsnips so I decided to pick them up instead, due to their similar flavor. As much I love the flavor of parsnips, I didn't think they would make a good one-to-one substitute for carrots in such a place so I decided to make a different kind of soup. Having a bag of indigo lentils leftover that I needed to use(my parents don't eat lentils at all, my mother has some old grudge against them), I mixed the two thing I had to make a soup. It needs some additional spices, but I'm not exactly sure what at the moment(I'm actually thinking a bit of cinnamon, actually). Anyway, here is the basic recipe:

Parsnip-Lentil Soup

1 1/2 cup lentils(green or indigo)
4-5 medium-small parnips, scrubbed and chopped to bit size
1 large onion, in crescents
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups broth
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon sea salt, more if needed
1/2 tablespoon black pepper

Fry the onion and garlic in the pot until the onion is starting to become translucent. Add in the broth, lentils, parsnips, and bay leaves. Cook for 45 minutes or until done in your opinion, then add sea salt and pepper and serve hot. At the end here, if you want to try the cinnamon addition(I did in an individual bowl and it was nice), I would try around 1/2-3/4 tsp ground cinnamon. I would start low and move up, as it is cinnamon.

Wheat-Banana Bread

My grandmother gave me an excellent recipe for banana bread when I was younger but not only is it not vegan but it's overly white, for the lack of a better term. That is, it pretty has white flour, white sugar, and a quick road to fucking up my hypoglycemia for the rest of the day. So I decided to change some of the white flour for whole wheat flour, add in molasses, and use silken tofu instead of eggs. It's a bit dry but since I also think I used a bit too much wheat flour in it; I think if I solve one problem I'll solve them both. So here is my modified recipe, slightly different than the amounts I used, that should work out well. Make sure to use extremely ripe bananas, the ones that almost weird you out too much to eat because of their color.

Wheat-Banana Bread

1 1/4 cup White Flour
1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour
2/3 cup White Sugar*
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon Molasses
1/3 cup Oil or shortening(the original recipe used shortening, so that may give a better texture)
1/2 cup Silken Tofu
1 cup Mashed Banana(around three medium sized bananas)

Preheat oven to 350˚. Mix all the dry ingredients together. Cream all the liquid ingredients except the bananas together in a separate bowl to a smooth consistency. MIx together the dry, liquid, and bananas together and fold together with as little mixing as possible. This recipe basically works the same as a muffin recipe, so the same rule about mixing it as little as possible applies. Put it into a greased 9x5x3 loaf pan and bake for one hour. Cool on a cake rack.

*If you'd like, you can just use light or dark brown sugar instead of white sugar and molasses. It's just that amount of molasses is an inbetween light and brown sugar, as 1 tablespoon of molasses per cup of white sugar gives you light brown sugar, two per cup gives you dark brown. Do it anyway you wish really.

Orange Marmalade

I love orange marmalade. I never enjoyed it as a kid but it's unbeatable on biscuits or a nice piece of toast in my opinion, though it is quite sugary(all jams and preserves are fairly sugary though, so that's kind of unavoidable). However, since St. Dalfour decided to friggin' poison me with their "fruit" pectin, I know of no brand that makes a safe marmalade. So fine. I'll make my own damn marmalade. Here's a recipe courtesy of Kerr, with a small adaptation at the end. Make sure to buy organic produce and scrub the outside of the rinds very well; you want to get as much of the chemical and wax residue off as possible.

Orange Marmalade

2 to 3 oranges, sliced as thin as possible
2 medium lemons, sliced thinly
6 cups water
≈6 cups of sugar, have extra

Tools Needed:
At least 10 half-pint jars
Canning lids and screw caps for said jars
A large, heavy bottomed pot for cooking. This will have to hold all said involved products, so do make sure it's large enough.
A candy thermometer
Possibly a jar boiler.

Yield: It called for seven half-pints, I made eleven. Highly dependent upon the kind and size of the oranges. Always have extra jars.

Slices the oranges and lemons as thin as you can. If you have a mandolin, this works well. Otherwise use the sharpest knife you can get your hands on. Don't start adding your hand slices to the marmalade with it though, that'd be unpleasant in many ways. I did it by hand and quartered them before slicing as to make it easier. This also makes the leftover rind sizes fairly reasonable in the finished product, so it works well.
Mix the sliced oranges, lemons, and water in the pot and bring to a strong boil for 20-30 minutes, until the rinds are very soft. That means you should be able to cut one of the pieces in half with your wooden spoon really easily. Measure out this piping hot product, put it back in the pot, and add in sugar equal to the amount of juice and fruit you measured(a one-to-one ratio, that is). Add this to the juice mixture and cook it until it has a strong boil at 220 ˚F. It will gel if you put a bit of it on a plate and set it in the freezer for a moment
Now this is the important part that must be done in quick and proper succession for it work. Sterilize the jars and the screw caps, drying both afterwards. Add the lids to a small pot of water and bring to a boil to ensure a proper bond. Now, ordinarily when you make marmalade or any preserve you're supposed to process them in a hot water bath(for five minutes for this product) to ensure the proper seal. However, I hate actually doing that because it's overly hot(especially in the summer), takes a fair amount of time, and wastes resources. So instead put the still boiling product inside of the jars, put on the dried lid, screw on the twist cap as tight as possible, and flip upside down and let it sit for ten minutes. Make sure the edge of the jar is fully clean when you put on the lid by the way, or it just won't work. After letting the jars sit upside down for the ten minutes, flip them rightside up and they should seal on their own. You'll hear them pop and eventually all of them should pass the pop test like jam jars do at the store. This should happen with 30 minutes of flipping this back over. If it never happens, prepare the boiler and process in the boiling water bath for five minutes.

Marmalade can take two to four week to set, so don't be distressed if it stays a liquid for a long period; It's perfectly normal. If by some off-chance it never does set, you still have delicious orange syrup to use a condiment. Happy canning.

Roux Sauce

I have never really liked the taste of cooked tomatoes very much, which naturally ruins most red sauces for me. So when I became vegan I gave up white sauces for quite a while until I figured out how to make a roux sauce myself. I didn't come up with this recipe at all, so I'll give credits to the original source at the bottom. I prefer to have the sauce on top of noodles with sauteed brussel sprouts, belle peppers, onions, and carrots but you can use it anywhere you wish. It's really just a base sauce so it's extremely versatile to whatever you wish to do with it.

Roux Sauce

1 tablespoon oil or margarine
1.5 tablespoons white flour
≈1.25 cups soy milk*

Pinch sea salt
Pinch nutmeg
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper(as to not effect the color)
1/8 teaspoon ground mustard

Mix the oil and and flour in a heavy pan and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring well(you really don't want to burn this). Add in the soy milk in 1/3 portions, bring up to a low boil to thicken before each addition. After all the milk has been added, add in the bay leaf, nutmeg, sea salt, ground pepper, and ground mustard. Stir and cook until it is the desired thickness but have it cook for at least five minutes to get the full flavor.

*The brands I use of soymilk are either Trader Joe's organic or Westsoy organic, both only have ingredients of soybeans and water. I've never had issues with either. If you want to make your own fake milk, there are instructions on how to make almond milk in my previous posts and Veganyumyum has instructions for your own soymilk.
Source of original: http://jeenaskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/09/vegan-white-sauce-recipe-vegan-roux.html

Mujadara

I seem to have fallen in love with lentils, in pretty much any form I can get them. Which is nice because it gives me a good source of protein and iron as well as a fair amount of uncomplicated meals. This is one of those meals; however, it does take a long time to do because you need to caramelize onions. Mujadara is basically rice, lentils, caramelized onions, and a bit of spices all mixed together and eaten hot. So if you don't like caramelized onions, move on, it's basically what the entire dish tastes like. This dish is of lebanese origin and from what I've been told usually only served at more legitimate ethnic lebanese restaurants; it's not as popular as something like falafel(it is just as tasty though). Here's the recipe:

Mujadara

4 tablespoons oil
3 pounds white onions

1.5 cups green or brown lentils(red or white will fall apart, indigo will be too stiff)
2 cups long grain brown or wild rice

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Sea Salt & Pepper
Fresh parsley leaves(optional)

Slice the onions into moderately thin rings and add to a deep pan with the oil and cook on medium-low heat until the onions are very soft, around 45 minutes. Don't put a lid on this like I did, it will just make the next step take much longer. Once the onions are sufficiently soft, raise the heat to medium high and cook until they are a deep brown and have sweetened. Mix half of these with the cooked rice, lentils, and spices*. Add the other half of the onions on the top of the dish and garnish with the parsley leaves. Serves four.

*Cook the rice plain in the ordinary fashion. Cook the lentils so they are still somewhat firm but not underdone. If you let them start to break apart it will still taste fine but you'll lose the proper texture and aesthetic appeal. I recommend a cup and half of water per cup of lentils and to cook them for around 30-45 minutes.

Christmas Feasts!

Ahhh Christmas, a time of many dinners and gatherings; all full of food that will either kill me or fails to be vegan. So in other words, it is a time of cooking a plethora of meals for all the aforementioned gatherings. So I designed myself a menu of lentil soup, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts and cranberries, and potato & sauerkraut pierogies; Not all at one of course. That would be a ridiculously large amount of food, not that I object to that at all. I may have spent the entire day in the kitchen but I cannot really object to that at all either. Now after my little intro, I think some recipes are in order...

Lentil Soup

2 cups lentils, green or indigo*
4 cups water
1 bunch carrots
2-3 teaspoons thyme, preferably fresh
3 bay leaves
~2 cups kale leaves, roughly chopped
Red Wine Vinegar

Mix the bay leaves, the lentils, and the water together in a pot and bring to a boil. Simmer for 30-45 minutes, then add the thyme and and carrots, chopped. Simmer for another 1-1.5 hours, until the soup is nice and thick. Add kale leaves and mix in well, cooking for another ten minutes. Add red wine vinegar as taste individually in your bowls.

Brussel Sprouts and Cranberries

4 pounds brussels sprouts, halved lengthwise
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt & pepper

1/2 cup fresh cranberries
3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest

1. Preheat the oven to 400°. On 2 large rimmed baking sheets, toss the brussels sprouts with the oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for about 40 minutes, stirring halfway through, until the sprouts are tender and browned in spots.
2. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine the cranberries, maple syrup, ginger and lemon zest. Cook over moderately low heat, stirring, until the cranberries break down and thicken, about 10 minutes. Pour on top of hot Brussels sprouts, mix and serve.

Now, for the tour de force(in my mind, anyway)
Potato & Sauerkraut Pierogies
Dough(I recommend doubling this, or tripling if it's a larger group):
2 Tablespoons margarine or shortening (I finally found Willow Run margarine, which makes me unimaginably happy. Yes, I'm easy to please).
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup water

For filling, just make some mashed potatoes and buy some sauerkraut(if you make you're own you're twice as cool though)

Cut the dough into the flour with a fork, and mix in the water a bit at a time with your hands until it reaches the proper consistency. It may be a bit more or a bit less than it called for, whatever feels right to you and holds up well. Press between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick, more towards the former. Cut the pastry into ≈2 inch diameter circles, put a generous spoonful of the filling in the center, and fold them together. Press the edges together so there are no holes in the pierogies(I found this quite difficult, try making them a bit wet when you do this and it seems to help some). If you're confident that you actually made them stick together well enough, you can boil them for ten minutes to cook them. If not, just pan fry them until each side is golden brown. Serve hot. These also freeze well for later.

*Indigo lentils are a bit more expensive, but lentils all in all are dirt cheap anyway so there's not much complaint there. They hold up much better during cooking than any other ones(green ones hold up well though, I would avoid red or white for such a soup). Lentils are the third highest of any plant source in protein(after soy and hemp), high in iron & vitamin B1, and low in fat. Combining this with the fact that they're cheap and you're set; one of my favorite foods.