Spring Rolls

I really was super-excited to make spring rolls with a peanut dipping sauce. The main reason why I was so excited was that I got to make a trip to Mitsuwa, Mitsuwa is none other than the largest Japanese supermarket in the West, and it is also right down the street from my new house. Walking into Mitsuwa, I imagined finding tons of hidden vegan jewels and walking out with a full cart. Instead, I left shell-shocked, bewildered, and generally shaken, but with spring roll wrappers.
It was very, very strange to be in a store where I literally could not read the labels. Most of them had english on the back, but it was so tiny and indecipherabl, that I was not really sure of what went in anything. I perused the produce section, which had so many umeboshi products that a macrobiotatian would have thought they had died and gone to heaven. On the other hand, I do not much care for umeboshi after a particularly nasty incident with a weight-loss tea consisting of umeboshi, daikon, carrot, and (wait for it) soy sauce. Surprisingly, it was not as good as it sounds.
Back to my trip. I wandered shell-shocked up and down the aisles, occasionally picking up funny-looking boxes and straining to read the ingredients. Definitely NOT vegan-friendly. Even the breads seemed to all have either milk or butter in them. I'm sure I would have had more luck if I had gone with someone more familiar with the cuisine or the language. Fortunately, I did make it out in one piece and with my spring roll wrappers. I got home and was very excited to make my peanut dipping sauce with fresh peanut butter from the Whole Foods. Unfortunately, the peanut butter had some hard, grainy substance in it. Now, I was never emo enough to eat broken glass (I just walk on it), but if I had, this is what I imagine it would have been like.  I was very much into these spring rolls when we had them for dinner, and very much not into them the next day. So the lesson there is that they do not keep well. The other lesson is that Whole Foods puts plastic or something in their fresh-ground peanut butter, or at least they did that day.

Sesame Stir Fry

I'm sitting in bed on a Saturday morning, listening to the Hold Steady because I am that cool, and wondering what I have to say about this stir fry. Usually when I post a recipe, I have some thoughts on society or the universe or some sort of personal ramblings to relate to my readers. I think they make me seem more human, and as I understand it, writers who seem more relate-able tend to sell more books (coming soon to a kindle/i-pad near you).
When I get down to it, this recipe didn't remind me of anything or anyone. I didn't have some sort of lightbulb moment. I don't even have an awful date story to go with it, since it just served as a weeknight dinner. I just had a bunch of tahini and a lot of spare vegetables lying around my apartment.
Stir-fry is always a good dinner option, since its premise is a simple one. Any time three or more vegetables are gathered in its name, the stir fry god is there. I like to sass mine up with tofu.
The real differentiating factor in any stir fry is which kind of sauce you mix it all with. I like peanut/sesame-based sauces a lot, but I have also been known to mix soy sauce and corn-starch and call it a day. There are a number of commercially-packaged stir fry sauces you can try if you are so inclined. For this stir fry, I decided on a sesame theme with tahini and sesame seeds.
wine pairing: Sam Adam's Summer Ale

Tofu

• 6 oz. firm tofu, cubed
• 2 TBSP. cornstarch
• 3 TBSP. vegetable oil

Stir Fry

• 1/4 a white onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, mined or pressed
• 1/2 a large carrot
• 6 medium mushrooms, quartered
• 2 c. broccolli florets cut into bite size pieces
• 2 heads of baby bok choy

Sauce

• 2 tbsp. tahini
• 2 tsp. soy sauce
• 2 tbsp. unsweetened grain milk
• 4 tbsp. water

1. In a small saucepan over medium heat, whisk together the grain milk with the tahini until it starts to thicken. Add the soy sauce and water, set to the lowest possible setting, and leave it to stay warm while you work on the stir fry.
2. Toss the cubed tofu with cornstarch to coat (think Shake n. Bake) and heat the oil in a wok over high heat. Add the tofu and toss to coat, cooking until it turns a light brown. 
3. Reduce heat to medium-high and add the onions, garlic, and carrots and cook until the onions are translucent. 
4. Add the mushrooms and cook a 2 minutes, until they start to sweat. 
5. Add the broccolli and cook for 2-3 minutes.
6. Stir in the bok choy and cook everything together for an additional 3 minutes.
7. Stir in the sauce and serve over rice or noodles and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Tex-Mex Night

Let me take a few lines here to sing the many praises of the crockpot. The crock-pot slow cooker was first marketed in 1971 by Naxon. A crock pot is plugged into the wall and heats food by wattage, not temperature. As a result, liquid on the outside of the pot may lightly boil, but the food on the inside will be cooked slowly and deliciously. I love being able to throw a bunch of things into a crockpot in the morning and then come home to a delicious dinner. They are great for stews and sauces and chili.
I have a small crockpot that makes enough for 4 people, which is the perfect size for dinner one night and leftovers the next day. The center of my crockpot even comes out for easy cleaning. I have been known to cook something in my crock-pot, let it cool, refrigerate it over night, let it come to room temperature, and heat it the next day. I'm not sure how this is from a food safety perspective, but as a vegan I don't exactly need to worry about salmonella from my raw chicken, now do I?
Anyway, I threw together a recipe for vegetarian chili that came out quite good. I also made corn-bread muffins to go with it. My boyfriend doesn't like dry, crumbly corn-bread. In an effort to impress him, I set about making the moistest, sweetest cornbread I could come up with. Sometimes I have a tendency to overdo things, so the muffins came out tasting more like corn cupcakes. I will not be reprinting that recipe here, but I thought that inquiring minds would want to know about the muffins in the picture.

Ginger Tempeh

 For me, being a vegan is a constant journey of discovery. I don't see it as limiting the foods that I eat, I see it was opening up a whole new world of food I didn't even know existed. It took me this long to get around to experiencing tempeh, but I had read about how it was an amazing meat substitute, especially when you were looking for a hearty flavor. I picked up a package and I was not disappointed. Scratch that. I was far beyond not disappointed. I was actually extremely pleased and impressed. Tempeh has a nutty flavor and a consistency resembling crunchy grains of rice packed together into a loaf. Mine was about the same size and shape of a cut of London Broil, which got me to thinking about how to best prepare it. I decided to cut it into slices and marinate it in soy sauce, ginger, sesame seeds, and a little lemon juice. Let me tell you, there is nothing like the salty/citrusy combination of soy sauce and lemon juice. I would also reccomend trying this recipe with orange juice if you have it on hand. I tend to have some issues with soy sauce,  just because I am perplexed by how salty it really is. If a recipe calls for any real amount of the liquid, your sodium levels are going to shoot through the roof. A solution that I learned a few years ago is to use a solution of 1/2 soy sauce 1/2 water when you need a good amount of moisture in your recipe. It keeps the sodium in check, but you really won't notice a difference in flavor.
Now, I know that it is not generally safe food practice to use your marinade for cooking. This is because most marinades have been chilling out with raw meet for hours, which equals one nasty e-coli situation. Tempeh is a naturally fermented soybean cake. See how the two are different?

Tofu n' Broccoli

I, Nicole Williams, love tofu. These are 5 words that I could never have imagined typing a year ago. I was the girl who wanted nothing to do with that white, mushy, weird health food. I had no idea what it was even made out of, but I was pretty sure that I didn't want to know. Then, I took the time to actually learn how to cook tofu, and I realized just how delicious it can be when done correctly. I also did some research on its many health benefits including being low fat and high in protein. Studies have shown that this magical bean curd can lower bad cholesterol and triglycerides. Soy isoflavones in tofu have even been shown to reduce breast, uterine, and prostate cancer. Did I mention that it's a good source of iron?
Tofu is one of the cornerstones of any good vegan diet. Whenever I get "the protein lecture", I am quick to inform the lecturer that I eat tofu once or twice a week and get all the protein that I need. Tofu is great in all different kinds of recipes, because its nuetral flavor will easily take on whatever spices or marinade you use. So, gentle readers, please stick with me over the next few days as I present my own personal salute to tofu.

The Basics
When cooking with tofu, it's important to know exactly what kind of prep work you're looking at. Tofu comes packaged in water, so the first thing that you want to do is rinse it under cool running water. Then, I give it a gentle squeeze and lay it on a cutting board between two paper towels, pressing gently but firmly until most of the moisture comes out. It should feel like you are making love to the tofu, I promise. I'm not sure why you are supossed to do all of these things, I think that it's either to prep it to absorb flavors or maybe just so that it doesn't get mushy. The next thing I do is roll the tofu in a little cornstarch before cooking. It helps it get a nice crispy coating.

Tofu n' Broccoli

• 6 ounces of non-silken tofu, drained, pressed, cut into squares, and rolled in cornstarch
• 1/4 c. water
• 2 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. corn starch
• 2 c. fresh broccoli

Mix 2 tbsp. water, soy sauce, and cornstarch in a bowl.
Coat a pan with nonstick cooking spray and drop the tofu into it. Let it cook a few minutes until it is golden brown and then flip and brown the other side.
Add 1 1/2 tsp. of the soy sauce mixture to the pan along with the broccoli and the rest of the water.
Stir-fry for 2 minutes, then reduce the heat and simmer for 1 minute.
Add the remaining soy sauce mixture back into the pan, stir well to coat, and serve over rice, noodles, or by itself.

Quinoa Stuffed peppers

 Stuffed peppers are one of those Italian dishes that I always remember having around when I was a kid. Unfortunately, I refused to eat anything green, so I really missed out. Now that I'm older, I feel bad for my mom, because I was probably such a pain in the ass to feed. I'll try to do better with my kids, which I am not having for awhile, despite my sister passing on my mom's message to get to work on some grandkids. 
So, I grew up in New Jersey, and while my personal affiliations lean more towards Irish, sometimes I feel like I should get some sort of honorary "guidette" award. This is probably a good time to make some comments on MTV's Jersey Shore. I watched a few episodes, mostly because everyone I know kept asking me if New Jersey was really that bad. I will say this: I grew up at the Jersey Shore and 90% of the wintertime population was completely normal. However, in the summer a lot of tourists from Northern Jersey and New York come down to live in the summer rentals. They turn our quiet, classy town into Ed Hardy central and their bars start pumping house music at 180dB. It would be easy for me to rag on them, but I am grateful to the Italians for bringing such good food over to America. So, I salute you and your forefathers with my recipe for quinoa-stuffed peppers. This dish is a great way to use up vegetables that you might have on hand near the end of your grocery cycle, or to use some things that have been hanging out in the freezer. It's also a nifty use of quinoa, which is probably one of my favorite superfoods.

Doctor, Doctor

I am currently on my third day of the McDougall program. It’s a 12-day program focusing on starches, with fruits and vegetables playing important supporting roles. There are no meat or dairy products on the McDougall plan, so it’s very similar to veganism. However, the McDougall plan challenges us to make one major change in our lives: eliminating all oil.

Why do we hate on oil? Well for starters oil is fat. Pure fat. Your body loves to store fat. Personally, my body prefers my abdominal region, but maybe your body favors the derrier or thighs. Maybe you just have a fat face. We are all different in this regard. According to Dr. McDougall, fat deprives cells of oxygen and produces free radicals. Basically fat is causing damage to your body.

You may not buy into this, so let me spell it out very rationally. There are 120 calories in a tablespoon of oil. For 120 calories you could instead be eating:  17 cups of spinach, a small baked potato, over a cup of cornflakes, or 21 extra large strawberries. Out of these things, what is going to keep you full longer? What is going to be nutritionally dense enough to get your body the nutrition it needs? What is going to keep you from over-eating?

I’m 3 days into the plan, and I have been amazed at how full I have felt. I feel like I’ve been gorging myself on whole wheat pasta, vegetables, beans, whole grains, and fruit. The amazing thing is that I am losing weight again, and I have been on a pretty solid plateau for over a month. I’m still 9 pounds away from my ultimate goal, and I’m planning on McDougalling my way there.

The McDougall website has a lot of recipes on it, which I appreciate. My only gripe is that most of the recipes in the meal plan are pretty awful. It’s not that you can’t have delicious oil-free food, because you can. The cooking techniques, spices, and ingredient measures have been pretty off. Luckily, I’ve been able to catch most of them before or during cooking. Others I have had to suffer through. Check back often to see some of the things I’ve managed to come up with.

Good Date, Good Risotto

 I was really hoping to put together a bitter, man-hating cookbook full of vegan recipes and bad date stories. To further that goal, I had a friend over to cook risotto, play scrabble, and drink a bunch of red wine. Secretly, I think I was hoping for some fantastic story about burning down my apartment or him spilling red wine all over my carpet. It would have been great if he got belligerently drunk and had to be forcibly removed from my apartment. Unfortunately, all that happened was that we made a killer risotto and I got my ass kicked in Scrabble. I suppose I could always do a chapter on good dates and good recipes, but I'm not sure how many of the 23 dates I went on between January and May would make it into that category.
So, it looks like it's back to the drawing board on the whole cook-book concept, but there's more than one reason behind that. I can save all that for another post, in the meantime, let's get down to the risotto.
A risotto is created by gently pan-frying grains of aborrio rice and then slowly adding liquid to the rice as it cooks. The secret to risotto is that you have to stand there and stir the rice almost constantly for about 20 minutes. That's what makes risotto the perfect date meal, because you can do all of the exciting work and then make your date stand at the stove and stir it for you. I actually busied myself about the task of making vegan brownies, but it is entirely possible to make up a task on the far side of the kitchen, and as long as it is more interesting than stirring, you would be coming out ahead. Now, this can probably blow up in your face if your date doesn't know what they are doing. It's amazing sometimes how people manage to screw up the simplest things. I was lucky enough to leave my risotto in competent hands and we were rewarded with a risotto so rich and creamy that it's hard to believe it's actually vegan. The mushrooms and peas in this recipe pack in a solid serving of vegetables and the spices that we ended up using were delicious, if a little unconventional. I paired the risotto with a salad, although I suppose you could use it as a side dish. However, it's so delicious that you won't want to touch anything else on your plate and so filling that you don't need anything else for a perfect meal, except maybe some witty banter and a nice glass of pinot noir?

Bad Date, Good Stir Fry

So once guys find out that you know how to cook, you have basically committed to making them dinner at least once. My favorite kinds of guys are the ones who know a thing or two about cooking themselves. Sure, it adds to the pressure to create something delicious, but it also means that I'll have a skilled extra hand in the kitchen. A few weeks ago, I attempted a cooking date with a certain someone, and it did not end well. Sometimes there are just nights where things don't line up, and it was one of those nights. I was already stressed out when the date started. Let's just say that the night didn't end well and leave it at that. On the bright side, I did get to try out a great recipe for Peanut Tofu Stir Fry. However, it will always be associated with a bad date, so I will probably not be making it again any time soon.

Getting Saucy

I have a very interesting, unique personality. Sometimes, I'm in a great mood and nice to everyone around me. I can light up the world with my smile, and I really am a nice girl. Sometimes, I'm down right sardonic. The point here is that sometimes I'm a little sweet and sometimes I'm a little sour. It makes sense that one of my favorite dishes before "the change" was sweet and sour shrimp. There's this great Chinese food restaurant on Santa Monica Blvd called Jin Jiang. It looks like something straight out of Temple of Doom. At least I think it was Temple of Doom that started out in some 80's-tastic chinese night club. Am I right here?
Oh yea, so this is a food blog. Point is, sweet and sour sauce is easily made vegan. However, you need to decide what to pour it over. I've been meaning to try it with vegetables, but I really love it over tofu. I've been eating a bit of tofu lately (and balancing it out by using rice-milk instead of soy). This dish is best served over steamed rice with a side of lightly steamed vegetables. I like to go with snap peas, mushrooms, and broccoli, but really you should do what you feel.

Luck O' The Irish

Well kids it's St. Patrick's Day, and I am auto-publishing this post because chances are I am out somewhere expressing my Irishness. Please note that Irishness is expressed through the following: wearing kelly green, shouting fuckass in a Boondock Saints-esque accent, drinking Killians Irish red, and eating corned beef and ....... wait a second. As I celebrate more holidays as a vegan, I get more and more excited about turning out healthier versions of my favorites. Last year, I celebrated St. Patty's by baking Irish soda bread and making a Guiness beef stew. Now I know that Guiness uses fishscales in its clarifying process and I have decided that beef is no good. However, I was still looking for a way to celebrate my ill-considered Shamrock tattoo.
The good news is that Killian's is listed on Barnivore as vegan-friendly. Barnivore is a great site to check out if you want to know more about what animal products might be lurking in your favorite liquid treats. I also decided that instead of trying to make some sort of elaborate corned tempeh, I would go with a Shepherds pie. The funny thing is that I remember my mom making this once and I turned my nose up at it. Now, however, my palate has refined, and I absolutely devoured this recipe. It made ALOT of food, so I was glad that my sister and her boyfriend were in town to help out.

Let's Talk About "Gravy"

Gravy is a term that some people use to refer to hand-crafted tomato sauce. It implies that said sauce did not come out of a can, but rather was painstakingly prepared over the course of several hours. I have never used the term "gravy", but when I think of tomato sauce, I don't think of Prego. I think of tomato paste, like the can pictured above, whole canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, and a kitchen that smells absolutely heavenly. I love to put on a pot of tomato sauce and then freeze what's left over, so I have some on hand for pizza and pasta dishes.
I know that canned sauce is very convenient, but who the hell knows what they put in there. Usually it's a lot of additives that rack up the calories. Real tomato sauce should have no more than 5 or 6 ingredients, and as a result, it will be low in fat and full of lycopene, which is an important free radical phytochemical that fights free radicals (Thanks, Lori). If you want, you can start with actual tomatoes and cook them down or some such nonsense. Instead, I do what my mom did and I take some important shortcuts. The only time-consuming part of my tomato sauce recipe is the time it sits on the stove. This recipe is super easy and super delicious. So, grab a knife and a pot and prepare to impress the hell out of your friends.

Vegan Jambalaya, Say What?

Monday night my friend Jay was kind enough to cook us all dinner. He is just starting to discover himself in the kitchen and he made a great Cajun meal. The only downside for me was that I couldn't eat anything except the bread pudding. The upside for me was that I couldn't eat anything except the bread pudding :) 
Anyway, it really got me thinking about Cajun cooking and about how nice it might be to do a vegan recipe for Mardi Gras. Last year I made two absolutely delicious King Cakes, but they were smothered in thick, sugary, almond icing. I could have veganized that, but after Singles Awareness Day this past weekend, I really didn't have the stomach for any more dessert. Also, I'm always on the lookout for quick and tasty weeknight meals. After I finish with work and the gym, I usually am not in the mood to spend an hour in the kitchen. Not only do I not have that kind of time, but by the time I finish cooking, it's usually too late to eat dinner anyway.

Then, this morning, I realized that I had vegan sausage in the freezer, canned tomatoes, rice, and a shit ton of chili powder left over from Enchilada Saturday. I'm not entirely sure what's supposed to go into Jambalaya, but I had some at Disneyland's Blue Bayou once. I think that this pretty much makes me an expert. For this recipe, I used my favorite vegan sausage: Tofurkey's Tomato Basil. 

You need to be careful when buying veggie sausage, or any "veggie" product really. Read the ingredients, because a lot of them contain cheese or some kind of dairy by-product. Since a lot of animal-derived ingredients have complicated, hard-to-remember names, I'll either look for the words vegan on the packaging, or rely on one of the many vegan safe lists that exist out there.  
Trader Joes' Vegan Food List 
Peta's Vegan List

Veggie Enchiladas

 Ok, so the blog may be called (Mis)Adventures in Vegan Cooking, but I'm not always 100% Vegan. While I mostly maintain a vegan kitchen, I do have my occassional lacto-vegetarian moments. Sometimes, I'm cooking for carnivorous friends, which creates quite a quandary. On the one hand, I like to stick to my guns. However, on the other hand, when someone cooks for me or we go out to eat together, I expect my eating preferences to be equally weighted against theirs. I wouldn't like it if I showed up at a friend's house and was handed a steak, or showed up for a date only to be whisked away to a Churrasco restaurant. So this past weekend, I struck a happy medium and decided to share the recipe here anyway.
I started off by doing a lot of research on enchilada sauces, mostly because I had no idea what went into one, just that it was spicy and delicious and red. As it turns out, you are supposed to use chicken broth, tomato paste, cumin, and chili powder. Other ingredients like garlic and oregano are optional. I switched out the chicken broth for veggie and I was in business. I also added a clove of garlic, because I love garlic and don't think you can ever go wrong with it. Thus, we ended up with a fat-free, cruelty-free sauce that packs in a nice serving of vegetables.
Then I started to think about the enchiladas themselves. I was pretty clear on the concept: tortillas + cheese + enchilada sauce. However, it didn't feel like nearly enough vegetables. I read some recipes with spinach, but then came up with a very whimsical idea. I would add red and green peppers and onions to the middle of my enchiladas, thus creating fajita-style enchiladas. It was almost as earth-shattering a culinary moment as the pizza bagel, I am sure. If you wanted to, you could use any vegan cheese in place of the regular stuff, or I bet you could even blend together tofu and nutritional yeast, like in my vegan lasagna, and spread that over the tortillas instead.