Post Punk Kitchen Forum

This looks fantastic! I am definitely making this asap.

I made the Roasty Soba Bowl with Misto Tahini with a few changes. This was on the PPK blog. Following the info on the write-up, I used what I had around the house. I did not use soba as I was in the mood for rice. So brown basmati. My veggies that I had were brussels, broccoli, and carrots. And I made some maple tempeh for the top. It was soooo good I had two nights in a row for dinner.

all right, i just finished steaming another batch of sausages (the cherry sage recipe, with dried apple pieces in place of cherries) and, sadly, they were not as successful as the Italian ones. maybe the allspice and cloves go well with the cherries, but they pretty much overwhelmed any apple or sage flavor*. next time i'll probably omit those spices, decrease the ground ginger, and up the sage. maybe also throw in a bit of rosemary for good measure.


* i used fresh sage because the plants grow all over Bristol and the rubbed sage in the bulk containers didn't smell of much. maybe that was a contributing factor? i know, i'm not supposed to stray too far from the recipe the first time, but i was pretty confident i wasn't doing anything that would screw it up.

it's superawesome and only uses a teeny bit of oil. i made another loaf the next day and reduced the sugar a bit without the bread suffering. i think it's fun to do the zebra cake technique instead of random marbling too. also i should add that i blend my bananas with the liquid ingredients...dunno if it makes much difference..i've been doing that ever since i saw the technique in VCTOTW.



i don't have this week's cookbook, so i'm continuing with isa/terry books.

today i made AFR hottie black eyed peas and greens (collards). i used cooked BEPs instead of canned, and i got to pour a lot of hot sauce in the cooking water cause i found a giant bottle of awesomalicious hot sauce at dollar tree this week. (seriously, stuff from the dollar store shouldn't be as good as this sauce. they also have a great buffalo sauce too.)
BEPs and collards are one of my favorite foods. i usually have mashed potatoes with them but i am on a diet (the batch of cookies, no potatoes diet)

i also made VCIYCJ espresso chip cookies...with some mods according to what i had. i used coffee powder (and doubled it) instead of espresso, i used half regular oats, because i didn't have enough quick oats...and i added a bit more cocoa. i also used chocolate chunks... so they look nothing like the picture!






and here is the surprisingly delicious cheapo hot sauce that everyone needs to go get...now.

The marble banana bread is currently in the oven and if the bread tastes as good as the batter, oh man, am I in trouble! My house smells like heaven right now.

Yeah, this looks like something I'd love! I would probably sub the collards for kale because I've got 2 pounds of kale in my fridge currently!

I cheated and used a PPK blog recipe for my last recipe this week. Pumpkin oatmeal cookies! They were rad.

iphone photo:

If you can get vegan butterscotch chips get some and add them! There is no better cookie than the pumpkin oatmeal with butterscotch chips.

how did it turn out?

Super delicious! Ate a slice with EB right out of the oven! (My kids loved it too!)

I also had the moussaka from V'con tonight and I agree (as does my family) that it rocks. I enjoyed making it but it seemed to take forever because of the million interruptions that I had. Even if I'd worked in peace it probably would not be on my list of week night dinners to make. But I bet it would do well to be made a day or two in advance and then popped in the oven (maybe schmear on the pine nut cream just before baking). Anyway, awesome.

Another winner from V'con I made this week was the Spaghetti Squash Mexicana. It was really good considering I was out of avocado (doh!) and didn't have any coriander seeds (I just used more cilantro). I think next time I'll either really up the beans or do something heavier on the side because I don't feel like the meal stuck very long. But it was tasty, especially with some salty corn chips. It's on the make again list.

My third recipe for the challenge was basic broiled tofu (again, from V'con), which I've already posted about. My mom commented the other day that she would really like some of this as a regular feature in the fridge because she thought it would be handy to throw into this or that...or even make a sandwich from. Go mom!

I'm glad to get so much use out of V'con this week! I don't have this week's cookbook so I might poke around online and see what I can dig up or maybe I'll just continue using the Isa/Terry books that I have. It's great trying these new things and putting my cookbooks to use.

I made belgian pumpkin waffles from VWAV for breakfast this morning. They were so good and my house smells like fall now. :)

I think I will use this recipe for my first MoFo post.

I didn't manage to get any good pictures, but this week I did three recipes from VWAV. I made the curried split pea soup for lunches and froze half of it for later use. Then I made the Ethiopian seitan and peppers for dinner on Saturday, and on Sunday made the maple-mustard string beans and potatoes. All recipes I'd never tried before, all delicious.

The moussaka is definitely a time intensive meal, it's not an "after work" quick to table dinner for sure! Next time I will make on a Sunday and then bake and add pine nut cream when I have it for dinner.

I don't have any other vegan cookbooks so may just keep doing V'Con or I found some recipes from VegNews online I'm intrigued by as well as the VegNews Vegan Food Galore Pinterest page.

So I don't have this week's cookbook but I've found a few recipes on Bryanna's blog that I want to try out; Quinoa Taco Bowl, Creamless Creamy Tomato Soup, and Creamy Broccoli,Cauliflower,and White Bean Soup (it's getting cooler here in PA). There's a few desserts on the blog that I may make if I have extra time (ha ha, extra time, who am I kidding?)

I slacked off majorly but my personal goal is 1 recipe/week which is more than I'm doing now :)

Anyway, last week, I had a fresh pot of black beans with no flavorings. I was flipping through Veganomicon and saw the recipe for black beans with chipotle adobo sauce. The recipe calls for canned beans but thought it was a nice recipe to turn plain beans into something more exciting. I liked it for what it was and thought it was an interesting idea to make a chipotle sauce when I'm not feeling very inspired.

I made the grilled portobellos from AFR (p. 103) over the weekend and finished off the last of them for dinner tonight. I ate them straight up the first night, but tonight I put them on a toasted ciabatta roll from Trader Joe's along with some roasted red peppers and onions (chopped red peppers and onions, olive oil, rosemary, salt/pepper roasted for 15-20 min at 450) and a heavy slathering of The Sweet Life's lemon garlic aioli. So, so good. I foresee myself making these on a regular basis just to have them on hand for quick meals.

had a can of pistachio paste..made the pistachio pudding pie from VPITS, minus the topping cause pistachios were not in my grocery budget today. used a dollar store graham cracker crust.
it said chill 3 hours but i only waited one before cutting a slice for myself...firm enough to slice, still a little jiggly.
also, pistachio paste is the best thing in the world.

Pistachio paste? I need it!

im way behind on this. i have not been feeling all that great so i havent been cooking much or been online almost at all.

i did manage to make the Portobello salad with spicy mustard dressing last week. it was so simple and so good. i loved the portobellos and the mustard vinagraiette.

tonight i made the broccoli polenta. so good. i hadnt eaten much all day and i just ate a ton of the polenta. i topped it with the roasted red pepper coulis from the Vegan Table and had leftover portobello salad on the side

I almost forgot. I made the Red Velvet Mole from AFR at the weekend. Everyone else seems to think it's amazing, but I just thought it was alright. Not mind blowing, but not bad. I don't feel like it's different enough from chili to make it worthwhile, given all the ingredients in it. I mean, I know it's meant to be a sauce in and of itself, but I just don't think I could be bothered most of the time. It just feels like it's missing something. Or maybe it's just what I'm eating it with. I have a feeling it would be amazing in or on a tamale.

I decided to hold off on posting all of my photos until MoFo so that I don't need to take the extra step of putting them on flickr. Here are my review for week 1. All recipes are from V'Con.

Tzimmes - Easy to make and yummy (very little active cooking time). I have no idea why I never made these again after testing them.

Cutlets with Sweet Onion Sauce - The cutlets were good as usual. I wasn't super excited about the onion sauce. It was, indeed, sweet and oniony, but I thought it was missing something.

White Beans with Mushrooms - casserole variation - This took a bit of time with the presoaking of the beans and then the boiling time. I decided that I don't really like the taste of tarragon, which is the predominant flavor in the beans, which meant I didn't love this recipe. If you like tarragon, you would like it. I might make the recipe again and substitute a spice I like more such as sage or rosemary.

I had the Mexican street corn (or whatever it's called) from Viva Vegan! with my dinner tonight. It was alright. I think I prefer my corn with just margarine and salt. Though, in fairness, you pretty much can't get corn with the husk still on here, so I just roasted it in the oven with foil, so maybe that affected the taste.

I picked Vegan with a Vengeance, and I’m finally getting around to posting some of the stuff I’ve made.
First up was the Chickpea & Spinach Curry, it was pretty good but I tend to prefer saucier curries and this one was a little dry for my taste, still really good though and I gobbled it up. I would have preferred to use diced tomatoes instead of the whole ones since I’m not a huge fan of big chunks of cooked tomato. Overall, the spices and flavors in it were pretty great.


Made the Spiced Indian Rice with Toasted Almonds to go with it. I really like this one, the spices were perfect and didn’t overwhelm the dish and I liked the crunchy bits of almonds.


Also made the Potato Edamame samosas, but used peas in place of the edamame. These are super time consuming, but totally worth the effort, I absolutely love the filling. They hold up really well in the freezer too. Instead of making a half batch I figured if I’m putting that much effort into I should make them all, so I’ve been taking them out of the freezer and popping them in the oven for a few minutes whenever I get a hankering.

Was feeling lazy one night so I made the Chickpea Broccoli Casserole. It was ok but I wasn’t a huge fan of the semi cooked onion. I guess I didn’t slice it thin enough for it to cook properly. I think it would have been better if the onions were caramelized beforehand and sprinkling some additional breadcrumbs of herbs on top before baking would have been nice. It was pretty good for a quickly thrown together meal.