Vegan Pizza Bagels!

Dinner 2/29 by Brian


• Vegan Pizza Bagels

• Chocolate Chip Cookies

When the Tony's away, the Brian will play... with pizza. Starting by whipping up bagels from scratch in the morning straight out of the Farm's New Vegetarian Cookbook, Brian's only comment was how easy they were.

When it came time to make dinner, he sliced them in half and topped them with some of our canned tomato sauce (suitably spiced), nutritional yeast cheez, and as many toppings as he could find in our pantry. Shitake mushrooms, sauerkraut, hot peppers, pickled garlic, the works. Everything was fair game, and everything was delicious.

As if that wasn't enough, he then made chocolate chip cookies out of Simple Treats, my new favorite book for deserts. Okay, maybe my second favorite. But it's hard to get the ingredients for something out of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World.

Crepes with Lentils and Potatoes, Melty White Cheeze, Chocolate Pudding

Dinner 2/21 by Juan and Amy



• Crepes with Lentils and Potatoes

• Melty White Cheeze

• Chocolate Pudding

Tonight's dinner was reminiscent of a meal made here years ago by a Bobolinker long flown away. The crepes were made with freshly ground organic whole wheat grown at Sandhill Farm based on the recipe from The New Farm Cookbook.

I cooked up some dried onions, dried garlic, green lentils, potatoes, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper until soft. Then Juan made up a big batch of Melty White Cheeze from Vegan Vittles by Joanne Stepaniak. We prepared them by filling a crepe with cheeze and lentil stuffing, rolled them up and then topped them with more cheeze.

The chocolate pudding was based on Mom's Chocolate Pudding from La Dolce Vegan. For the "milk" called for in the recipe (quotes in the original), Juan blended some Cashew-Macadamia butter with water. As Brian put it, "It was cocoa-splendiforous."

Chickpea Cutlets, Greek Potato Stew, Laird Peas, Brown Rice

Dinner 2/20 by Amy and Juan



• Chickpea Cutlets

• Greek Potato Stew

• Laird Peas

• Brown Rice

All the world is raving about the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon. I must admit that I do like them as much as seitan, but there are mixed reviews in Bobolink. Guess that's why there's chocolate and vanilla soy cream, right?

The Greek Potato Stew was a recipe that my friend Suz blogged about over at Critical Mastication. We happened to have a jar of kalamata olives around and a neighbor generously provided some vermouth. We used some quartered tomatoes we canned over the summer from our organic garden and omitted the feta cheese. It was an amazing dish! Even Juan who does not like olives *LIKED* the dish. That's quite a testimonial!

I guess we didn't think were was enough starch or carbs in our dinner, so we made a side of brown rice and cooked up the extra chickpeas as Laird Peas.

Mashed Potatoes, Chickpea Gravy, Laird Peas, Pan-fried String Beans

Dinner 2/13 by Brian



• Mashed Potatoes

• Chickpea Gravy

• Laird Peas

• Pan-fried String Beans

Tonight, Brian made mashed potatoes using potatoes from a neighboring organic farmer. The chickpea gravy recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. It's called gravy in the recipe, but it always ends up the consistency of mashed potatoes when Brian makes it. I think he affectionately called it sludge.

Laird Peas
are my favorite way to use up cooked chickpeas. They added a little bit of texture to the mash and gravy. The string beans were an ingenious use of dilly beans (canned pickled green beans) from our winter stocks. He fished out the beans and heated them up in a dry pan (drying them out) with a little Stan Sauce.

Vegan Sesame Seed Dressing Recipe

We once had an intern at Dancing Rabbit named Trish who was vegan and allergic to soy and peanuts and a bunch of other things as well. To get her protein she relied a lot on seeds like sesame and sunflower. She made this dressing that I use whenever I make falafel but can also be used on salads. We call it Trish Sauce.

Ingredients

1/2 Cup water
1/2 Cup vinegar
1 tsp salt (or more to taste)
2-5 cloves garlic
Sesame seeds

Put water, vinegar, salt and garlic in a blender and begin blending. Add sesame seeds slowly, allowing them to be ground well, until the mixture thickens. If you make it too thick you can dilute it with more water and/or vinegar.

For a more toasted flavor you can toast the sesame seeds. I also sometimes substitute sunflower seeds (toasted or not) for all or part of the sesame seeds. Sunflower seeds are more bioregional for us and depending on your tastes the sesame seeds can have quite a strong flavor.

Enjoy.

Miso & Nutritional Yeast Dressing Recipe

Stan over at Sandhill Farm makes a salad dressing that is so good we use it on everything and call it "Stan Suace". Its very easy to make and is great for salads, on bread and sauerkraut, on Indian dishes, and would make cardboard taste good.

Ingredients:

1 Cup Oil
1 Cup Vinegar (we use Apple Cider)
1 Cup Nutritional Yeast Flakes (aka Nut Yeast)
1 Tbsp Miso (we make our own but whatever miso you have is fine)
3-5 cloves of garlic

Add ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Some folks like to add the oil last and drizzle it in for maximum emulsification but I think the nut yeast holds it all together just fine.

The result is a delicious thick dressing with the zip of vinegar and the bite of garlic and a rich miso and nut yeast flavor.

Falafel, Whole Wheat Pita, Hummus, Trish Sauce, Peach Galettes

Dinner 2/8 by Tony



• Falafel

• Whole Wheat Pita

• Hummus

• Sesame Seed Sauce

• Peach Galettes

Tony is truly gifted with breads. He has the amazing ability to make pitas from scratch. I've never tried, but I imagine there's a bit of magic involved when it comes to creating the pocket inside. To make the pitas, he used freshly ground whole wheat flour and I think that always makes them so much better than store bough pitas.

Inside our pitas, we put falafels, hummus, chopped dilly beans and a sesame seed sauce we affectionally call "Trish Sauce" named after a DR intern who made it a lot. If you're looking for sauces named after folks, you can also check out "Stan Sauce", a versatile blend based on miso and nutritional yeast.

For dessert, Tony used some leftover crust from the other night to make little freeform peach pies called galettes. The filling was made with some peaches from our orchard that we canned two summers ago. It's amazing how much flavor the canned products still retain. I'm not a fan of food in tin cans, but putting it up in jars for the winter is a whole other ballgame.

Sweet Potato-Black Bean Tortillas, Spaghetti Squash Soup, Pound Cake

Dinner 2/7 by Amy and Juan



• Sweet Potato-Black Bean Tortillas

• Spaghetti Squash Soup

• Pound Cake

Juan and I decided to try making all new things for this dinner. I made the Sweet Potato-Black Bean Tortillas from Veganomicon. The recipe is listed as an alternative for the Yuca Tortillas for those of you playing at home. Yuca isn't bioregional to us, but luckily a neighboring organic farmer grew some sweet potatoes that were strangely white in color, so they seemed the perfect substitute. Our version was a little more homegrown, since we didn't use tortillas from a package. Juan made tortillas based on the recipe in Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian using flour we ground fresh from wheat grown at Sandhill Farm, only 3 miles away.

The soup was an improvisation that was the brainchild of Juan. He started with the broth leftover from making seitan the night before. He added dried onions and garlic plus cubes of skinned spaghetti squash. After boiling for a couple hours, the squash was soft and had soaked up the yummy flavor of the broth.

Juan's favorite cake is pound cake. He's doesn't get a lot of that eating with a vegan co-op, so when he saw the recipe for pound cake in Ellen Abraham's Simple Treats, he just had to try it. Forgoing the marbling, he doubled the vanilla batter and hoped for the best. The result was a cake that was a bit too light to be considered pound cake, plus it tasted a lot like sorghum (our sweetener of choice). He said next time he'll try it with some sugar and see if it's more like he remembers.

General Tso's Seitan, Brown Rice, Sesame Squash Rings

Dinner 2/6 by Juan and Amy



• General Tso's Seitan

• Brown Rice

• Sesame Squash Rings

Tonight, Juan and I made our old standby, General Tso's Seitan. Normally, I wouldn't bother blogging something that's already been blogged on this site a whole bunch of times, but I thought I'd at least mention the side dish since it was a new recipe and I really enjoyed how it turned out.

The squash rings were made using a recipe from Christina Pirello's Cooking the Whole Foods Way, which is cookbook that I love. The recipe called for acorn squash, but we didn't grow any of those this past year (we grew sweet dumpling and lakota squashes), so I used some butternut squashes that we have been storing since the fall. We bought them from a neighboring organic farmer along with spaghetti squashes.

The squash was sliced into rings with the skin left on. They were simmered in a pan with enough water to half cover. Then cooked until tender enough to pierce with a fork. The sauce was made with equal parts tahini and brown rice syrup. Plus some soy sauce and parsley (we used dried, but the recipe called for fresh). Stirred up over medium heat until it thickened, it added a nice flavor to the squash. Yum!

Whole Wheat Gnocchi, Tomato Sauce, Focaccia, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Dinner 2/4 by Brian



• Whole Wheat Gnocchi

• Tomato Sauce

• Focaccia

• Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Brian made an amazing dinner from scratch tonight. Making gnocchi is no small feat. He baked potatoes, skinned them and mashed them with fresh-ground flour. After sculpting each one with a fork, he boiled them and served them with tomato sauce made with tomatoes we canned from our organic garden this summer.

He also make two kinds of focaccia — one with fried onions and the other with coarse sea salt and spices. If you'd like to try making some yourself, here is Brian's focaccia recipe. It's easy and delicious! The cookies were another creation based on the recipe from Simple Treats by Ellen Abraham.

White Bean Galettes, Baked Potatoes, and Sweet Potato Pie

Dinner 2/2 by Tony



• White Bean Galettes with Sun-dried Tomato Topping

• Baked Potatoes

• Sweet Potato Pie with Vegan Whipped Cream

Tonight's dinner is one that used to be in my standard rotating but I haven't made for years. Its a bit labor intensive for a big group but for just the 6 of us it is not so big a deal.

The Galettes are a great summer or winter dish where the topping is really key. I've successfully used roasted peppers, roasted tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, and pepper relish. I think any sweet and sour, savory topping could work.

I like making flat breads and crust. I used the same crust for the pies and the Galettes which saved some time. I used our local wheat from Sandhill and would normally use oil but we had some margarine around so I used half oil and half margarine.

The pie is a great fall or winter treat. Sweet potatoes from our garden or other local organic growers can be stored all winter and this is a great dish for sorghum from Sandhill.

A delicious local meal with 75% of its ingredients from within 10 miles.

White Bean Hummus Galettes with Sundried Tomatoes Recipe

White Bean Hummus

1 cup cooked white beans
1 Tbsp oil
4 cloves garlic
1.5 tsp cumin
1.5 tsp dried sage
2 Tbsp lemon juice (or more to taste)
1 tsp salt
black pepper to taste
water as needed for blending

Cook beans thoroughly, preferably in a pressure cooker. Add all ingredients to food processor and blend well.

Sun-dried Tomato Topping

We dry our tomatoes during the summer on a solar food dehydrator. We store them dry so if your are packed in oil them you can use them straight.

2 cups (packed) sun-dried tomatoes
2 Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
1/2 tsp salt

Mix ingredients in a sealable container and shake thoroughly. Allow to moisten for at least one hour. Add more oil and vinegar if tomatoes are not moist and flexible.

Assembling the Gallettes

Roll out vegan pie crust into 3 inch squares. Put a heaping tablespoon dollop in the middle of the crust. Pinch together the middle of each side to form gallette as shown below. Top with a dab of sun-dried tomato topping. Tomatoes may scorch a bit if not moist enough.

You could also use roasted fresh tomatoes or peppers or almost any sort of relish.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-25 minutes until crust is crisp or slightly brown.

This recipe was inspired by the Millennium Cookbook.

Vegan Tofu Whipped Cream Recipe

This recipe was inspired by The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook.

1 cup soft tofu
1/4 cup oil
2 Tbsp honey, sugar, or maple syrup (or more to taste)
1 tsp lemon juice
1.5 tsp vanilla
dash of salt

Blend in a blender until creamy. Serve cold.

Vegan Sweet Potato Pie Recipe

This recipe was inspired by The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook.

2 cups sweet potatoes
1 cup soymilk
1/2 cup sorghum, honey, or maple syrup (or 3/4 cup brown sugar)
1 Tbsp Molasses (optional - not needed if you use sorghum)
3 Tbsp oil
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp powedered ginger
1/4 tsp powdered cloves
1.5 tsp cinnamon

Boil or pressure cook peeled sweet potatoes. Mash or blend in food processor. Add rest of ingredients and mix thoroughly. Pour into unbaked vegan pie crust. Bake at 400 degrees for 50-60 minutes.

Serve with Tofu Whipped Topping.

Spicy Moroccan Black-eyed Pea Stew, Cheezy Breadsticks, Soy Delicious with Dulce de Coco

Dinner 2/1 by Juan and Amy



• Spicy Moroccan Black-eyed Pea Stew

• Cheezy Breadsticks

• Soy Delicious with Dulce de Coco

Tonight Juan and I tried to keep it simple, but tasty. Juan made the stew based on a recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian cookbook. Since we hadn't soaked any beans the night before, our options were limited, so we went with black-eyed peas. Besides beans, the stew also had dried onions and dried garlic from this past summer that we dried in our solar dehydrator, the last carrots from the garden, and some potatoes from a neighboring organic farmer. The spices were very interesting — cinnamon, allspice, and

I made the breadsticks. They were from The Nutritional Yeast Cookbook by Joanne Stepaniak. They were really easy to make and a nice treat with the stew. I used fresh ground wheat grown at Sandhill Farm, three miles from us. It's amazing what a difference fresh-ground flour makes in a recipe.

While we were in town, Juan and I picked up a quart of vanilla Soy Delicious to eat with the leftover Dulce de Coco. Yum!