cinco de mayo means vegan tamales

I used to love tamales, but I have not had them for years (since pregan days). I decided that I need to make them and am so glad that I did. The only part that was "labor intensive" like everyone and their mother says about tamales is the wrapping. Kind of obnoxious, but put on some good music and you're golden for the afternoon. Plus, you get better as you go along.
As far as the specifics go, the filling is made with: onions, shallots, garlic, green onions, one pepper, a bunch of tomatoes, Mexican squash, and pinto beans. As for spices: chili powder, cayenne, lemon pepper (was going to use real pepper and lime, but the quality of my lemon pepper is superior to my pepper), fresh cilantro, crushed red pepper flakes, cumin, and oregano. Yeah, I like spicy stuff. I just chopped everything up (and squished the beans up) and it came out to be an awesome consistency like refried beans but had all this stringy-ness because of the cooked down squash which made it more meaty looking. The dough was a modified version of the recipe on the package of the masa corn flour. I used 2 cups masa, 1 2/3 c vegetable broth, 2/3 c oil, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt. It turned out beautifully, considering I just randomly decided to lessen the broth and use oil as the fat (I couldn't find any shortening other than Crisco which has hydrogenated oils in it). My "steamer" is non-existent, so I punched a bunch of holes in the bottom of a pie tin and held that above water in a huge pot with... erm... a bunch of random metal kitchen items. Let's not talk about my odd kitchen habits. I don't know what else to say other than TAMALES ROCK!

It has been way to long since I have posted anything. I give you: delicious soup! This soup was probably one of my favorite soups I have ever eaten. I was planning on making a tester recipe for a new cookbook coming out, but someone had already tested it and it looked like it would take a long time to make it so I skipped out on that soup and used a lot of the same ingredients for a soup that was completely different. Basically, this is a potato leek soup with a base "chicken seasoning" (which was a recipe tester) making kind of a creamy broth. It also contains shallots, green onions, garlic, chickpeas, and spinach. Delicious.

teese?!

This, is TEESE. Teese is a new vegan cheese by Chicago Soy Dairy (Made by and for vegans!). Me and a friend ordered some off the internets because we are cool like that and made pizza of course, but then I had leftovers and I put it to the test in the toaster oven quite a few times. The picture is of a "Tuna melt" I made with chickpea salad (my favorite!) and teese. Chickpea salad is a very occasional dish for me because veganaise is out of this world expensive, but I made a discovery: the low fat TJ's mayo is accidentally vegan. Go buy some!

Anyway, to properly enjoy chickpea salad one must mash chickpeas, mayo, mustard, relish, and celery/celery seed. What a delight!

The promised popcorn. This is really good, actually. Pop popcorn and put on soy sauce and some kind of sea vegetable. Yum! Also, soy sauce and nooch. Also, nooch plain. Also, chocolate.

Good 'ol popcorn! So versatile and cheap. Also, a really good something to snack on when you feel like going through the motions of eating (no wonder it's so popular for the theaters).

vegan loaves!

This is my first experience with a "loaf" of any kind. For some reason I just wanted to try one out and I was not disappointed at all. I used the "magic loaf generator" thing-y at Vegan Lunch Box and had fun with it. I actually put in ingredients I didn't have and had to sub stuff anyway. I also put I would use vegetable juice as a liquid and didn't feel like making vegetable juice so I just left it out and it was still really... well, not moist but definitely not completely dense or anything. Anyway, I ate it with sauteed kale and toasted pine nuts and red quinoa. It made a good meal for a few days!

stir fry goodies

These are actually from before I got new veggies from the organic farm and I was using them up. I basically throw any veggies in a frying pan with a bit of olive oil, cook it and call it a stir fry. What can you do?

This stir fry was basically an entire bunch of kale, some cabbage, green onions, and garlic with some tamari, and pepper. Basically the easiest, cheapest thing I could possibly make. With the lentils it was quite enjoyable and made for a super hearty meal. Also, I got in a lot of veggies, which isn't my normal "broke" doing.

This second one was probably one of my favorite stir- fries I have ever made. I think it might have just been one of the few delicious, substantial meals that I had, though, so maybe I'm wrong about that. Anyway, in it there is turnips, green onions, zucchini, cabbage, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and I think that's it (but the veggies are besides the point, you can make it with anything). The delicious part of this stir fry was the sauce I used. I combined in a small bowl a bit of water, soy sauce, cornstarch, cayenne, chili powder, sugar, and lemon. YUM. There is something about spicy+soy sauce that is so good together. Plus, I added in the sugar and lemon for good measure.

The tale of two lasagnas

So I broke down and went to the store twice. I spent $7 one time and $10 the next. Oh well, I got two excellent meals out of it.

One: Traditional lasagna
This was the meal I spent $7 on. It would have been more, but I got the pine nuts from work. Anyway, What I did was made the "savoury filling" with tofu (1/2 pakg), portabella mushrooms (2), and a baked potato (that was also from work). I sauteed all of that with olive oil and Italian seasonings. For the "cheese" I made a pine nut ricotta. For this I used a bunch of pine nuts, tofu, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and salt. It turned out really well!
Anyway, the picture sucks, but it was really good!

Two: Mexican lasagna.
I don't really have a picture that does this stuff justice, either, but WOW. I think this was the best Mexican food I have ever made (ok, I guess it depends of whether I am in a burrito mood, but this was outrageously good). What I did with this was made a filling with tomatoes, red onion, peppers, garlic, and fresh parsley. I added chili powder, cayenne, oregano, cumin, salt, and pepper in the way of seasonings. It basically looks like salsa and you cook it forever and let the flavours meld together. In order to make this a "lasagna" I layered corn tortillas, refried beans, my filling, and soy cheese (could easily omit, but I had a craving for the salty grossness that it embodies). The avocados I just put on the side (but they definitely added to the dish if eaten in the same bite!).
The Mexican lasagna was the winner!