9 Days of Valentine's: Part 9....

Sadly our 9 days of celebration have come to an end. Part of me is really sad about it because we were having so much fun and eating so much delicious food. But, the other half of me is really happy to finally go back to eating salad, like... just salad... till like.... the end of time. Ha.

Our last hurrah was quite the meal indeed. It had everything you could ask for in a grand dinner. A salad, a hearty main course, a decadent dessert, and a bottle of good wine.

We started with the Italian Chopped Salad from Chloe Coscarelli’s book “Chloe’s Italian Vegan Kitchen.” Now, if I’m being honest I wasn’t expecting much from this salad. I made it because it had a nice picture and it was super easy and I had everything called for on hand. I figured after a week of vegan meat and decadence we could use a little veg. But man, oh man was this salad fantastic! Seriously, it was about 1000 times better then any Italian Salad I’ve had in any Olive Garden type restaurant.

The salad contains romaine, tomatoes, green onion, kalamata olives, basil, chickpeas, salt, pepper and crumbled tofu. The dressing is a simple mixture of olive oil, red wine vinegar, agave, salt, Dijon mustard, and garlic. It sounds so easy but you wouldn’t believe the flavor. Normally I don’t like raw tofu in my salads but I liked this a lot because it was just 7oz and it was just enough to give the salad a texture of cheese. If I didn’t have a main course that needed digging into I would have eaten this entire salad myself it was that good.

But speaking of main courses, for our final celebratory meal I chose another dish from Alicia C. Simpson’s book “Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations.” Truly the Fusilli in Cabernet Sauce with Portobello Brisket sounded too good to pass up. There are a few steps involved in making this meal and I ended up not evening getting started until after 8:30pm but surprisingly the whole thing came together really quick.

First things first, make your portobello brisket. Lucky for me sometime in the afternoon I went over the recipe and saw that while you could get away with only marinated the shrooms for 20 minutes it was best to do it longer. So I think I ended up letting these marinate on the counter top for about five hours. Turning them over occasionally. The marinade is made with olive oil, red wine, garlic, shallot, Dijon Mustard and tarragon. Once you’re done marinating you roast these guys in the oven for 20 minutes then slice them up when they cool down a bit. The smell is heavenly.

While your shrooms are roasted make your sauce. It’s fairly simple, shallots, garlic, Cabernet Sauvignon, agave, basil, red pepper flakes, rosemary, salt, stock, crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. Combine all that in a pot, then let it simmer.

That’s the hard part, once all that’s done you plate your pasta, drench it in some sauce, scatter some sliced shrooms on top and serve. I actually decided to drizzle a little of the extra mushroom cooking liquid over top of my pasta. The marinade sauce was too good to go to waste and when combines with that meaty, earthy mushroom liquid that seeps out during cooking - OH MY!  My husband and I really had to control ourselves and not go back for seconds because we knew a great dessert was in store for us.

For dessert I went back to “Chloe’s Vegan Italian Kitchen” and made her Tiramisu. This was actually a super last minute decision that kind of hit me for no reason. I was just flipping through the book and the picture looked so good, and I thought it might be a nice finish to our celebratory week and I just happened to have everything on hand - except the ingredients to make the coconut whip cream but I did have a tub of So Delicious Coco Whip in the freezer! - The thing is, it’s strange that I would want to make a Tiramisu in the first place because it’s never been a dessert I was crazy about. Sure I’ve had plenty of non-vegan versions in the past and thought they were so-so. I’ve made a couple of vegan versions myself and thought they were better then their non-vegan counterparts but still kind of hum-drum. Chloe’s Tiramisu though, is out of this freaking world! No lie. Probably, hands down the best tiramisu I’ve ever made and ever eaten anywhere! My husband who’s also never been a huge fan of Tiramisu agreed completely and had we not already been so full from dinner we might just have finished off the entire bowl.

I love how ridiculously easy Chloe’s version is. You make a vanilla cake, cut it in cubes soak it in coffee and rum, layer some whip cream over top, dust it with chocolate and repeat. She says to leave it in the fridge overnight - which we did. - and then it’s ready to eat. Of course I used store-bought whip so it might taste different with home-made, but I’ve been using Chloe’s book for a while now, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a recipe fail from her. She is amazing, and she is especially amazing at dessert. Seriously, this girl should be right up there with Vegan Cook Book Goddess’s such as Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Terry Hope Romero, and Joni Marie Newman.

So that’s it, I hope y’all have had as much fun following our celebration as we did creating it.  I’m definitely sad it’s over, but don’t worry, I have a few more cool posts planned in next week and a half before I leave for Europe.

PS: And incase anyone was curious though we loved every meal of the past 9 days our favorites were. Coq Au Vin. Osso Bucco. Seitan Parmesan with Garlic Green Beans, Potatoes with Germolatta and Red Velvet Cupcakes and Italian Chopped Salad, Fusilli in Cabernet Sauce with Portobello Brisket and Tiramisu. In no particular order, they were all fan-freaking-tastic!

9 Days of Valentine's: Part 7, The Big Day...

So, this is it, what we finally ended up having on the big day. We started off with a bang - did you expect anything less? - I got home form work Saturday morning to find my husband had decked-out my desk in all sorts of Valentine’s Day love. A bouquet of flowers, a Valentine’s Day balloon, a stuffed skunk holding a heart, some heart-shaped decorations strung up across the desk and the bookshelf and a card. I really did marry the most amazing, thoughtful man in the world. After I marveled at his little surprise I set about making breakfast.

Crepes were on the menu, Chocolate Hazelnut crepes to be exact.  The recipe comes from the French chapter of Mark Reinfeld’s book “The 30 Minute Vegan’s Taste of Europe.” I am not a skilled crepe maker. I love to eat them, but they always fall apart on me. I like to say it’s because I don’t have a proper crepe pan, but that’s just an excuse. In the end though some of my crepes fell apart I at least got enough good ones out of the deal for a halfway decent picture, and broken or not they were all freaking-delicious! Also, much easier then one might expect crepes to be. The batter comes together quickly and because they’re so thin they cook up fast too. The chocolate hazelnut filling is simply made with hazelnut butter, cocoa powder, soy milk, and sweetener. I thought these might be too nutty for my picky husband but he loved them. They were just perfect. Really the recipe should have been served with strawberries, but I was fresh out and so I used blueberries instead and I think it worked just as well.

So that was it until dinner. We went French for breakfast and decided on Italian for dinner. For our feast I used Alicia C. Simpson’s book “Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations” which I’ve come to realize I don’t use often enough! And I made the Seitan Parmesan as well as the Garlic Green Beans from her chapter on Valentine’s Day. I chose the seitan Parmesan because it sounded sexy, and Valentine’s Dayish, also because there was a time when my husband loved Chicken Parm. Personally I have never really liked Chicken Parm, I’d never eaten it until I moved to Chicago and I wasn’t particularly impressed. I made the non-vegan version a couple of times on my husband’s behalf but I was never crazy about it. Holidays though - at least for me - are about making things you don’t normally make, and about finding something special to cook for your loved one. This seemed to fit the bill on both counts and so I was curious to try the recipe out.

First you need to make a seitan ‘chicken’ which Alicia provides a very quick and simple recipe for making. Actually this is probably one of the simplest ‘boil’ version seitan’s I’ve made, and probably one of the most delicious too. Seriously, the broth SMELLED like chicken. I also loved that her recipe only called for water and seasonings unlike so many other boil recipes that call for 6 cups of broth. Honestly, I don’t have the money to waste on using 6 cups of broth to make a few chunks of seitan. This is probably one of the most economical recipes I’ve made.

So, once that’s done you bread your seitan, bake it, then cover it in sauce and vegan mozzarella, bake some more and voila! Amazing! Seriously, dish wins second place in my favorite for the week, and actually, might even tie for first place. It was incredible! Trust me when I say the price of the book is worth this recipe alone!

Of course the green beans were damn good too, but then I have a soft spot for sauntered green beans. She uses garlic, oil, shallots and almonds in the recipe as well, only I left out the almonds since my husband is not a fan. I have to say these were super flavorful and a good accompaniment to the seitan.

I also decided to make the Roasted Potatoes with Germolata from Chloe Coscarelli’s book “Chloe’s Vegan Italian Kitchen” these were super simple and yet super delicious. It’s just potatoes roasted in olive oil, salt and pepper, then once cooked they’re tossed with a mixture of minced garlic, parsley, oil, grated lemon peel, and more salt and pepper. It sounds simple, but these were some of the best potatoes I’ve ever had.

For dessert we had the Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting also from Alicia’s book “Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations” I can’t tell you how good these were, the cakes were super moist and so full of flavor I loved every bite. However I had a bit of a problem, actually I had several problems all day. 1) I didn’t have enough gluten to make a full recipe of Chicken Seitan, so it’s a good thing I always keep seitan on hand in the freezer. I used a chub of Mediterranean Seitan from Terry Hope Romero’s “Vegan Eats World” for the Parm. In the picture the Big cutlet is Alicia’s and the two small cutlets are the chub from the freezer cut in half. 2) I didn’t have any lemon so my husband had to go to the store on the way home. 3) I ran out of powdered sugar. I thought I had enough but I was wrong. So instead of cream cheese frosting I had a cream cheese glaze - still delicious though. 4) I also ran out of cream cheese! I thought I had enough and I might have only when I opened the container it had got moldy! So instead of cream cheese I used vegan sour cream, it may not be exactly the same but similar enough that an unsuspecting pallet may not notice. In any case it turned out and none of these problems are any fault of the authors.

To wash everything down I made the Ginger Champagne Cocktails form Alicia’s New Years Eve chapter. These were super good. Loved the ginger bite!

And that was our Valentine’s Day. Of course Valentine’s should have been the last hurrah but I started cooking my 9 days a little late, so I have 2 post Valentine’s meals to talk about. Check back tomorrow to see Day 8.

9 Days of Valentine's: Part 6...

On day 6 of our Valentine’s Celebration we went Italian again - are you sensing a theme? French, Italian, French, Italian, French, Italian..... what’s more romantic then that?

For our sixth day I decided to try another dish I’ve never had before either in vegan or non-vegan form, and that’s Ossobuco. Like Foie Gras, Ossobuco has got to rank amongst some of the worlds most controversial dishes. Everyone has an opinion about it, some people love it and defend it fearlessly, others hate it and demonize the people who eat it. The reason? Traditional Ossobuco is made with veal, and veal is undoubtably one of the cruelest meats you can eat. Even when I was a meat-eater I never ate veal for moral reasons. I have no idea what it tastes like, because the flesh of malnourished-crated-baby-cows has never touched my tongue - but, that doesn’t meant I can’t heartily enjoy a vegan version of the famed dish.

The dish as it happens originated in Milan, and there are two versions. One made with tomatoes, and one without, this is the kind without tomatoes. Typically Ossobuco in Milan is served with risotto, but is also sometimes served with polenta or mashed potatoes. Annie and Dan Shannon who penned “Betty Goes Vegan” chose to go the mashed potato route, and really, I think that was truly wise.

The Shannon’s recipe is fairly simple. Bread some vegan beef, fry it up, and then simmer it in apple juice, garlic, vegan beef stock, tamari, white wine, bay leaves, lemon peel, parsley and salt. This dish makes a rich thick gravy that’s so freaking good you’ll want to lick it right off the spoon and scrape it out of your cast-iron skillet. They keep their mashed taters simple too, red skinned potatoes, non-dairy milk - I used coconut - pepper, and Earth Balance. So once everything is done cooking you scoop some potato onto your plate, top it with the Ossobuco and make sure you give yourself a generous dollop of that delicious, mind-blowing gravy.

I have to say, I’m having a lot of fun cooking this week. Every dish I’ve made has been great. The Coq Au Vin is still my favorite but the Shannon’s Ossobuco comes a close second. Say what you will about “Betty Goes Vegan” and as a health-conscious person and a holistic health practitioner I totally understand the criticisms, but damn if their recipes aren’t fan-freaking-tastic! And really, we could all use a break once in a while, sometimes it’s just nice to eat something naughty, so get down off your high-horse for a while and enjoy life! That’s my philosophy anyway.

Check back tomorrow to find out what we ended up eating on Valentine’s Day itself. I promise, it’ll be delicious!

9 Days of Valentine's: Part 5...

For Day 5 of our celebration we went French once again with another recipe from Annie and Dan Shannon’s book “Betty Goes Vegan” This time I picked the Coquilles St. Jacques which sounded both fancy and interesting to me. I’ve never had Coquilles St. Jacques before - vegan or otherwise - in fact I’d never even heard of it until I picked up this book. Most likely this is due to the fact that most of my life I had a strong aversion to seafood and even after I grew to like some sea-dwelling creatures I never liked Scallops.

Coquilles St. Jacques in the pan before transfer
into the tart pans

The recipe that The Shannon’s use in their book is one made famous by Julia Child, but what The Shannon’s don’t tell you is that Coquilles St. Jacques is really just French for Scallops. In fact, it’s a very particular kind of scallop not the actual name of a specific dish, and so if you went to France and ordered Coquilles St. Jacques what you’d eventually end up getting would probably not be this exact dish - unless you could specify in French how you wished your scallops to be prepared - but I digress. Coquilles St. Jacques Scallops are popular in France as well as Spain and there are many ways to prepare them, though this recipe - thanks to Betty Crocker and Julia Child - seems to be the most common preparation in North America.

Fresh from the Broiler 

The Shannon’s version of the dish includes hearts of palm, artichoke, mushroom, red onion, and vegan shrimp - I used Sophie’s Kitchen Vegan Prawns - sauteed in butter. White Wine, Herbs de Province, lemon juice, parsley and a few other seasonings are thrown in to simmer, and then the whole thing is scooped into individual tart pans, topped with breadcrumbs and vegan mozzarella and broiled just long enough to melt the cheese and toast the bread. It looks fancy, and sounds like a lot of work but really this was a super quick and easy dish. Now, I’m not exactly sure why the Shannon’s used vegan shrimp rather then vegan scallops in the recipe considering Coquilles St. Jacques literally means Scallop of Saint James, but my guess is it’s possible that their book was written - and published - before Sophie’s Kitchen Vegan Scallops were on the market, or before they were widely available. Had I known prior to writing this post that scallops were supposed to be used in the non-vegan dish, I might have replaced the vegan shrimp with vegan scallops. In fact, I might just make it again with that switch in mind, anyhow, Sophie’s Kitchen Prawns were nevertheless a good fit here. They had the texture of shrimp, a subtle flavor that reminded me of actual shrimp and the whole dish tasted great together.

Because one can’t survive on Seafood Tarts alone, I also made a side of Potato Gratin Dauphinois from Robin Robertson’s book “Vegan Without Boarders” This is basically your standard gratin - or scalloped potatoes for you North Americans, - made with a home-made cashew cream, vegan sour cream, and vegan cream cheese. There is absolutely nothing healthy about it, it is rich beyond belief but it is oh so good! Possibly one of the best gratin’s I’ve made. Sprinkled with a little sliced green onion this made the perfect accompaniment to our Coquilles.

Then, for the Coup de Grace I made the decadently delicious and super easy Molton Chocolate Cake from Joy, Angel and Jorge’s book “Vegan Holiday Cooking from Candle Café” This recipe was also suppose to include a raspberry coulis but as I said to my husband ‘ain’t nobody got time for that’ and so I sliced some fresh berries instead. The cake is a pretty standard chocolate cake, the batter you pour into some greased muffin cups then you stuff about a tablespoon of chocolate chips into the middle and bake for 20 minutes until the cake is mostly cooked through but the middle is still soft. Flip the cakes out, and serve with berries or coulis. The minute you cut into your little cake all that ooey-gooey chocolate from inside comes drizzling out, making every bite heavenly. Though this particular cake doesn’t have a European element, it was featured in the books Valentine’s Day Chapter and so that was good enough for me.

Check back tomorrow, we’re going Italian yet again!

9 Days of Valentine's: Part 4...

For day 4 of our Valentine’s Week Celebration I decided to go Italian again with another dish from Chloe Coscarelli's book "Chloe’s Vegan Italian Kitchen." I ordered this book pretty much as soon as it came out but with all the cook books I own I haven’t had much chance to use it. I was particularly happy to pull it out for Valentine’s Week, and Chloe’s Pasta Carbonara with Shiitake Bacon was one of the first recipes I set my sights on.

To be honest I’m not sure if I’ve ever eaten a non-vegan Pasta Carbonara before. I sure ate a lot of pasta growing up, and all different kinds but I can’t recall if Carbonara ever made it into rotation. Considering it uses a lot of bacon, and my family never ate much pork it’s probably safe to say I didn’t. I have however made vegan carbonara’s, and I’ve always enjoyed them.

Chloe’s version is a little different then Carbonara’s I’ve made in the past. Most of the ones I’ve made have contained peas, and a rich non-dairy cheese or cream substitute, also some kind of store-bought vegan bacon. The most obvious difference in Chloe’s version is that she makes her own Shiitake bacon which is super easy and way more delicious then most store-bought vegan bacon. The only thing I did different to the recipe was add a touch of liquid smoke for added smoky flavor. Otherwise this was perfect.

The Carbonara sauce too is a little different. It’s very simplistic in it’s ingredients using tofu as the base. This makes it somewhat less rich then the vegan versions that use fancy diary subs but it doesn’t make it any less satisfying. What I always love about Chloe’s dishes is that they’re packed with flavor and yet so simple. The ingredients list is usually short, the cooking method is relatively simple, she makes vegan food easy, and accessible and she can make it as fancy or as comforting as you want. One of the greatest things about this dish is how quick the sauce comes together, you basically just blend it all up, then pour it on the hot pasta and let it sit for a few minutes to warm through and thicken. Voila, dinner done!

Seriously, this is a damn good dish, that shiitake bacon is so worth it! If you’ve never had shiitake bacon you need to make some now!

Check back tomorrow, we’re going French again, and there’s dessert!

PS: Before you ask, I put a whole ton of parsley into my bowl, that's why it looks so green! and it's topped off with a nice home-made Nooch based Parmesan.

9 Days of Valentine's: Restaurant Edition...

No Chicago is not snow-free this winter
I forgot to take a picture of the front yesterday so this is
a picture I took during the summer

Are you wondering what the surprise I talked about yesterday is? Well, it’s that my husband and I found out that for this entire week one of our favorite restaurants The Chicago Diner is having a special Valentine’s Day Menu. Now, despite having already picked out 9 Romantic dishes to cook for our little celebration, once we caught sight of the menu we really couldn’t pass it up.

In our relationships I’m the one that does the cooking, I cook everyday regardless of how busy I am, how tired I am or how sick I am. - I typically need to be either very sick or very tired, not to cook. Each evening I cook dinner, many other days of the week - though not necessarily every day - I also make a breakfast or lunch depending on what our schedules are, and how hungry we are. So on average I make two meals per day. My husband doesn’t cook at all, and that’s alright with me. He can make a killer pot of pasta, and an amazing jambalaya and occasionally he surprises me with these, but usually when he wants to ‘give me the gift of food’ it involves taking me out for dinner. Which is just as good in my opinion since we don’t often go out to eat.

Of course going out on actual Valentine’s Day would be a nightmare. We usually avoid going out on actual holidays, opting instead to celebrate early to avoid crowds, so we decided to hit up The Chicago Diner yesterday, in the late afternoon when we figured the ‘holiday’ crowd would be at it’s thinnest. We were right. We had The Diner virtually to ourselves and we enjoyed a nice leisurely meal, of laughs and love and damn good food. The Valentine’s Menu was limited to 1 appetizer, 1 entree, and 3 dessert options. Which was nice. Don’t get me wrong, I love having options, but there is such a thing as having too many options you know?

For drinks we ordered milkshakes, because hello, it’s THE CHICAGO DINER! Milkshakes are a must! My opinion was that we could have wine anytime, but you can only have milkshakes every now and then. I got my usual Peanut Butter Cookie Dough shake which is out of this world, my husband got his usual mocha which is also very good.

We got the appetizer which was Dates stuffed with Jalapeno’s wrapped in Vegan bacon. Oh my god were these delicious! Seriously, one of the best appetizers I’ve ever had. These were sweet, salty, savory, with just a touch of spice and they were served with a sweet tart sauce that tasted like Tamarind. So amazing, I wish we’d had more.

Since the Diner’s appetizers are so good, and my husband is a hungry man we decided to order a second appetizer off of their regular menu. The Thai Chili Wings. These are incredible, I think I’ve mentioned them before but I’ll do it again. They’re seitan wings, drenched in a sweet spicy Thai chili sauce, served with a squeeze of lime and Sriracha Ranch for dipping. Fan-freaking-tastic. Though we had a hard time decided between this and the Poutine, such a difficult choice always.

Our entree was a braised Portobello Mushroom cap served on a bed of creamed leeks, with a Potato-Daikon Cake, and asparagus. Man, this was good too! That mushroom was so chewy and delicious, the asparagus was cooked to perfection! The leeks were perfect, sweet and savory and buttery, and the potato cake, oh boy, well that was my favorite part. Like eating a German Potato Pancake - almost.

For dessert I went with the Strawberry Rose tart, which was a chocolate crust, a strawberry coulis in the middle, with rose essence and rose petals, topped with some whip cream. This was amazing! It wasn’t too sweet, and the contrast between chocolate, strawberry and rose were all wonderful. I loved that the rose flavor was very prominent but not overwhelming.

My husband chose the Chocolate Whoopie Pie with Lavender filling. He gave me a bite and this was just as good! Subtle lavender cream in the middle of two big, soft, moist chocolate cakes in the shape of hearts. Also served with a delicate whipped cream. Amazing!

Interestingly despite all that food we left The Diner feeling pretty good. Honestly most of the time we leave the diner my husband and I either feel like we’re going to throw up or die. And I have to say that isn’t any fault of the Diner, it’s all on us. We always order WAY too much food, and we always eat it all! This time around I don’t think we necessarily ordered less food, but it was the kind of food we ordered. It was mostly vegetable based, when normally at the Diner we stuff ourselves with seitan, tempeh, poutine, bread, burgers and all the bad, decadent stuff. Yesterday we ate relatively ‘light’ by comparison and left feeling perfectly satisfied and happy. The Diner always makes us happy, and this was a lovely way to celebrate an Early Valentine’s Day.

So if this all sounds good to you, and you live in the Chicagoland area be sure to drop by The Chicago Diner sometime this week. I think Saturday is your last chance for the Valentine’s Day menu so get there fast! And check back tomorrow for Part 4 of our celebration.

The Chicago Diner - 

Halsted Location 
3411 N Halsted St
Phone: 773-935-6696
.
Logan Square Location 
2333 N. Milwaukee Ave
Phone: 773-252-3211