Vegan Mofo #22: Seitan Stew from The Hague...

When we were in The Netherlands back in March we stopped in the Hague on our way from Brussels to Amsterdam. It was it was only scheduled to be a pit-stop, a one day adventure, a chance to see the Peace Palace, some other historical landmarks and the Girl with the Pearl Earring. I had not intended to fall in love with The Hague, but I did. The people there - and everywhere in The Netherlands really - were so friendly, the city was so calm and peaceful, a really nice change of pace from busy Brussels and crazy Amsterdam. I wish we had been able to stay their longer, and I wish we could have eaten more of the local food.

Our trip to The Netherlands inspired me to check out some books on Dutch cooking, and in one of those books I found a recipe for ‘Duck Stew from The Hague’ That sounded interesting to me, and since I’d already tailored my go-to seitan Chicken recipe to be a bit richer as a stand-in for Duck I thought I’d give this stew a try. It didn’t turn out quite like I thought it would, but it was still good. I have the feeling that it is lacking something though I can’t quite put my finger on what. I’ll have to play around with it in the future to get it just right, but overall I thought the experiment went well. The stew was tasty, and rich, and I liked the combination of red wine, olives, mushrooms and onions. Put olives in anything and I’m bound to eat it.

Seitan Stew from The Hague

Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Nondairy Butter
1 ½ lb’s Chicken Style Seitan
1 Large Onion Diced
2 Cups Vegan Chicken Broth or 2 Cups Water + 2 Vegan Chicken Bouillon Cubes
1 1/4 Red Wine
1 tsp Dried Tarragon
1 tsp Dried Thyme
1 tsp Sea Salt
Ground Black Pepper to taste
1 ½ Cups Pitted Green Olives
1 Leek (White and Light Green Part Only) Sliced
2 Cups Button Mushrooms Sliced
6 Garlic Cloves Minced
1/4 C All Purpose Flour
½ Bunch Parsley Minced

- Heat a splash of olive oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add seitan and brown on all sides. About 8-10 minutes. Remove from heat.

- Melt the nondairy butter in the pan, add the onion, and leek. Saute for 5 minutes until tender.

- Add the Mushrooms, and Garlic, saute for another 5-10 minutes until veggies are soft.

- Add in the flour, and stir to combine, coating all veggies.

- Add in the stock, wine, olives, seitan, tarragon, thyme, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine, bring to a boil then reduce heat and let simmer for 40 minutes.

- Add parsley and stir to combine. Serve in large bowls with toasted bread and extra parsley for garnish.

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 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

9 Days of Valentine's: Part 1...

I interrupt this Whole Foods Cleanse to talk a little about the holidays. Valentine’s Day is next Saturday and while my husband and I don’t do anything particularly special for most occasions, y’all know I’ll take any excuse to cook a lavish meal. Valentine’s Day is actually one of my favorite holidays to cook for, and the reason is that it’s a low-key holiday. Meaning I’m typically celebrating with only my husband not a house-full of people. I can cook whatever I want on a small scale and keep it as simple or fancy as I want and even if I go all out crazy, there isn’t any stress. Valentine’s Day is also the perfect opportunity to cook something challenging and fancy, but also romantic - because lets face it, even if you love to cook as much as I do, ‘romantic’ food on a not too special Tuesday in June just seems out of place, you know?

Normally I choose dishes that are European, despite my favorite cuisines being Asian and Indian, European food just seems sexier and more romantic doesn’t it? For example last year I went French and Dutch with Seitan Filet mignon, and a potato dish, the year before I went Eastern European with Blintzes for breakfast, then Italian for dinner with Seitan Scallopini and a Green Salad with Roasted Garlic dressing, and Tiramisu for dessert. In 2012 we had waffles for Breakfast, and Italian again for dinner with Caponata and a dish of Rotini with roasted beets, onions, sun-dried tomatos and spinach. Dessert was chocolate cherry cheesecake! Of course every year there is also wine or sangria and lots of it.

French Onion Soup

This year was no exception. After a little over a month of eating nothing but whole foods, mostly raw, sugar-free, gluten-free I’m ready for a little decadence, and I am super craving some down-home, comforting European flavor. I am particularly in the mood for rich French food, and seeing as how my husband and I will be in Europe again next month - Paris being one of our stops - what better cuisine to celebrate the holiday of love with, but the decadently romantic food from the city of lovers? Of course, as usual, I could not narrow down my choices, in the end I found myself starring at a sheet of paper with 9 different meal ideas written down. I spent about 2 minutes trying to cut 8 dishes off the list before I said “To hell with it, I’m making them all” and that is how my husband and I decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day for 9 days instead of 1. Some people might think that’s a little crazy or excessive, but so what? There’s a great quote in the FX series “Fargo” in which Billy Bob Thorton says to Martin Freeman “You live your life like there are rules. There are no rules.” truer words have never been spoken, THERE ARE NO RULES! Life is short, enjoy it the way you want to!

So, with that being said we started off our Valentine’s Day week with a bowl of French Onion Soup, from Mark Reinfeld’s lovely book “The 30 Minute Vegan’s Taste of Europe.” I love this book, and I really don’t use it enough. I was pretty excited to try this recipe out because it just sounded good, and really there’s nothing better then a steaming hot bowl of soup on a cold Chicago evening. This is a simpler French Onion Soup recipe then those I’ve tackled in the past, and so since I had an excess of time last night I let the onions and the soup cook down a lot longer then the recipe calls for. I like my Onion soup really caramelized, and it turned out pretty good. The ingredients are simple, onions, red wine, vegetable broth, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, salt and pepper. Once that’s done you slice some baguettes, brush them with oil, sprinkle them with salt and broil them. Then you plop a toast in a bowl of soup, add some vegan mozzarella and you can either serve as is or broil it a few minutes to let the cheese melt. I didn’t bother with the final broiling, and it was great as it was. The toast was particularly fantastic, especially drenched in the slightly sweet, somewhat savory soup.

Portobello Frites 

For our Main Course we had Portobello Frites from Rich Landau and Kate Jacob’s book “Vedge” this is another book I don’t use near enough, but everything I have made out of it has been out-of-this-world-fantastic! These Portobello Frites were no exception. Portobello Mushrooms stand in for steak. You brush the caps with olive oil, garlic, shallot, and salt then roast in the oven for 20 minutes. Once they pop out, you mix red wine into their cooking juice add a bit of veg stock, Dijon mustard, and tarragon and then simmer the sauce in a pan on the stove until reduced. Meanwhile you bake some potatoes, slice them into wedges and then fry them in a deep-sided skillet on the stove. Serve the Mushrooms smothered in the wine sauce, with a hearty helping of Frites. Oh my, perfection! Seriously, my favorite thing about the whole dish was the wine sauce covering the mushrooms. I even smothered my Frites in it.

So that was our first day of celebration. Check back tomorrow to see the Mixed Italian/French meal I have planned for tonight.

Vegan Mofo #31 - Donna’s Spicy Hunan Hot Pot...

Vegan Mofo #31 - Donna’s Spicy Hunan Hot Pot 

The Region - China
The Book - The Chinese Vegan Kitchen
The Author - Donna Klein
The Recipe - Spicy Hunan Hot Pot
Page #46
Difficulty - Easy
Duration - Roughly 20 minutes

By now it can be no secret that I love soups, so when I saw this recipe in The Chinese Vegan Kitchen for the Spicy Hunan Hot Pot, and saw that it only takes about 20 minutes how could I resist? Hunan Is a region in south central China. The cuisine in this region is known for it’s diversity and it’s liberal use of chili peppers, shallots and garlic. Hot pots are also a popular cooking method there, and seeing as how I’ve never made a Chinese hot pot before now would be a good time to try it out.

This particular hot pot contains ginger, garlic, shiitake mushrooms, vegetable broth, water, soy sauce, brown sugar, chili paste, sesame oil, rice noodles, tofu, bok choy, green onions, cilantro, and more hot chili sauce for garnish. It comes together faster then you can believe, the most laborious time is spent chopping, and once that is done you throw everything in the pot and simmer till done. It makes a perfect quick weeknight or weekend meal, and tastes so darn good.

As I said before I’m not normally a fan of plain tofu diced up in soup but I liked it here as it provided a cool smooth contrast to the spicy flavor. I also loved the use of bok choy and cilantro the colors of which really made the dish pop!