Curry Sweet Potato Soup

This soup is suprisingly simple and delicious. Its topped with some croutons (bread, oil, salt, herbs, garlic, in the oven for 10 minutes) and some caramelized onions and mushrooms seasoned with salt and pepper. The soup gets a little spicy but the sweet potatoes really hold up to the spice quite well. If you want to get warmed up from a cold and rainy day, or just need a good bowl of comforting, yet exciting, soup you will really enjoy this one.



Curry Sweet Potato Soup

4 sweet potatoes, diced
1 medium onion, diced
3-4 clove garlic, minced
oil
2 cups stock or water
1 tsp each, curry powder, cumin, cayenne, paprika
1 tsp each, toasted mustard seeds, toasted coriander, ground fine
salt and black pepper to taste

In a stock or soup pot add some oil and saute the onions and garlic over low heat. Add the sweet potatoes and cook making sure not to get any color on the vegetables. After about 5 minutes add the spices and coat the vegetables. Cover with stock and simmer until everything is real soft, about 15-20 minutes. Puree the soup in a blender or with a hand blender. Adjust seasonings then serve topped with croutons. Enjoy.

spanish fritata de patatas with romesco and tempeh bacon

The many sides of the dish i made tonight.









This recipe is an adaptation of Bryanna Clark Grogan's vegan spanish tortilla de patatas and romesco sauce. I modified the recipe to mimic the vegan omelets I have made in the past because those recipes where really successful. This has an awesome contrast of textures from the crispy and starchy potatoes to the firm creaminess of the tofu. The romesco adds a much needed dash of acidity that cuts through the richness of the rest of the dish. By roasting the garlic and peppers for the sauce you achieve a great depth of flavor that makes for the best romesco sauce you have ever had.



Spanish fritata de patatas

1 box silken tofu
1/3 cup chickpea flour
1/2 cup almond milk
2 tbsps nutritional yeast
1 tsp each tumeric, curry powder, cumin
2 tbsps tahini
2 tbsps arrowroot
salt and black pepper to taste

4 small potatoes, boiled and cut into a dice
1 shallot diced
4 cloves garlic minced
1 bag fresh baby spinach
salt pepper paprika
olive oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook the onions and garlic in some oil in a 10-12 inch oven proof pan over medium heat. Add the potatoes and let them crisp up by throwing the whole pan in the oven. Make sure you season these well with salt pepper and paprika. After about 5 minutes you can add the spinach and let it wilt. In the meantime get your tofu mixture ready by blending together all the ingredients above the potatoes. It should be a pretty thick mixture. Then pour the mixture over the potatoes and spinach and mix it through to get it well distributed. Bake for about 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Let cool then slice and serve with romesco sauce and tempeh bacon.

Romesco Sauce

1 roasted red bell pepper
6 cloves roasted garlic
1/2 cup almonds
few pieces stale bread
4 sundried tomatoes
2 fresh tomatoes
1/4 cup dry red wine
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup broth
1/4 cup olive oil
oregano, thyme, basil
salt + pepper
paprika

Cook the tomatoes in some olive oil for a few minutes until softened. Toast the bread. Blend everything until smooth. Adjust seasonings to taste. Serve with the fritatta or one of the many other options.....beans, tempeh, seared seitan, grilled zucchini or eggplants, etc.


Enjoy!

French Onion Soup

I decided to whip up some soup real quick tonight. I remembered when I got the nice big crouton smothered in cheese back in my pre-vegan days, but never really got to the stuff it was floating atop. That something turns out to be one of the easiest soups to make and it sure is delicious. I still opted to put garlicky cheesy crouton on top of the soup. I had some homemade bread from yesterday that I sliced up, buttered, rubbed with a 1/2 garlic clove then topped with sliced Follow Your Heart Mozzarella cheese and threw that under the broiler for a few minutes until the cheese got all bubbly and light brown. Served atop this oniony bowl of glory I was ever so humbled. Luckily, since this is one of my favorite soups, I was pleased to see that the missus enjoyed just as much as I did. However, some of us do not like FYH Mozzarella, but that's alright cause there are so many other alternatives out there. I really want to get my hands on some Cheezly, but everywhere seems to be out of it when I try to order.


French Onion Soup

Vegan Butter
olive oil
4 red onions, sliced thin
6 spring onions, sliced thin
plus any other onions you got ( shallots, leeks, etc.)
5 cloves garlic, minced
Fresh or dried sage
fresh or dried thyme
salt
pepper
6 cups vegetable stock
vegan Worcestershire sauce
good crusty bread
vegan cheese
1 garlic clove
vegan butter



Put the butter, 2 glugs of olive oil, the sage and garlic into a thick-bottomed, non-stick pan. Stir everything round and add the onions. Season with salt and pepper. Place a lid on the pan, leaving some room for steam to get out, and cook slowly for 30 minutes, making sure not to brown the onions too much. Remove the lid for the last 20 minutes – your onions will become soft and golden. Stir occasionally so that nothing catches on the bottom. You can expidite this process, but you may want to try the low and slow so that you can get the crazy good sweetness you want. Now add the stock. Bring to the boil, turn the heat down and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.

Preheat the oven or grill to maximum. Toast your bread on both sides. Rub with half clove garlic. Sprinkle with some grated or sliced cheese and drizzle over a little Worcestershire sauce. Broil for a few minutes and put ontop of your bowl of soup. Enjoy!

Butternut squash risotto

Today I decided to break out the autumn favorite of butternut squash risotto. The creaminess of the rice and the sweetness of the roasted butternut squash is the perfect backdrop for a spicy seitan hash on top. The roasted green onions bring a bit more savory onion flavor to the party and the look nice as hell too. I feel this dish really celebrates some of the delicious harvest available at my local farmers market this time of year and really warms you up on a nice cool evening. I would suggest a nice sweet Riesling to go with this dish as it compliments the sweetness of the squash, especially the pieces that were caramelized by the roasting, and really balances out the spice of the hash on top. If you don't have seitan I would recommend some white beans, actually that probably would have been a better choice.


Butternut Squash Risotto

5 cups vegetable stock
1 cup of brown short grain rice
1 sweet onion diced
5 cloves garlic minced
white wine
1 butternut squash, peeled and diced into good size chunks
olive oil
Salt
pepper

Roast the butternut at 450 degrees and turn over a few times until caramelized and tender, about 30 mins. Did i mention you should oil up the sheet pan and squash and season aggressively with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, saute your onion and garlic for about 5 minutes, then add the rice and cook for about 5 minutes until the grains are translucent. Deglaze with white wine. Then add stock to cover, cook until it evaporates, then add more stock and stir. repeat until rice is just about done. Once this is ready your butternut squash should be good to go. Take half of the squash and puree it or "squash" it up (see what i did there, haha). Add squash to rice mixture and cook for a few minutes to incorporate the squash in really well. AT this time your rice should still be a little oozy, if not add a bit more stock and loosen it up. Finish with a bit of vegan butter and add the roasted squash chunks that you didn't mash. Top with the spicy hash, recipe follows.

Spicy Seitan or White Bean hash

1 can white beans, or 1 pkg seitan
4 good potatoes, diced small
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small eggplant, diced small
olive oil
salt
pepper
paprika
cayenne

Saute the onions and garlic in olive oil. Add the potatoes. Cook for a bit. Let it get crispy, dont mess around with it too much. Then add the eggplant and cook until it gets real tender and the potatoes crisp some more. Add beans or seitan and get them brown. Season with paprika and cayenne to taste. You may need to add a bit of water to this to get the potatoes to steam a bit too. I had too. If you dice them small enough they should cook through with only the heat of the pan.

ENJOY!

Tofu Stroganoff with Avocado Cream

So Vegan MOFO is keeping me motivated to post everyday and even get my schoolwork done. Veganism sure is great, huh?

Anyways here is the dish I made tonight. I had some really great arugula that my friend got from his CSA and i through that in to give a nice peppery bite to the creamy heartiness that is tofu stroganoff. I used kamut pasta and it was actually amazing. Not rubbery or mushy, but instead, perfectly al dente.


Tofu Stroganoff with avocado cream sauce

1 block tofu, pressed and dried, cut into good size pieces
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp tamari
1 tbsp liquid smoke
garlic, minced
ground black pepper

good handful off cremini mushrooms, chopped
1 red onion, sliced thin
4 cloves garlic crushed and minced
2 tsps dried thyme
1 bunch baby arugula
salt and pepper

1/4 cup pasta water
1 avocado
1/2 cup almond milk, unsweetened
2 tbsp nooch
5 scallions
salt
pepper

1 box of your favorite pasta cooked 1 min pre-al dente

Cook the tofu and brown on all sides. add garlic black pepper and then splash with tamari and smoke just before done cooking. Set aside. In the same pan add a bit more oil then the mushrooms. Brown them up for a few minutes then add the sliced onion then garlic and thyme salt and pepper. When the pasta is just about done add the arugula and wilt then add the pasta and the tofu back in. Toss with the avocado sauce, which is all the ingredients listed above pureed until smooth, and the pasta water to make a nice sauce. Cook for a minute when its all together just so that the pasta is done and absorbs all the sauce. You will really fuck up if you use soymilk, drink almond milk. Get into it!

Just kidding soymilk will be fine.