Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I made the sancocho soup last week. It was a nice, hearty soup with lots of flavour but I didn't love it.

Last night I made the chipotle, potato tacos with mushies instead of seitan - YUM! I have leftovers for lunch, lucky me :)


That would be SO much fun!


I really liked the red beans

made the red posole last night - it was super good! The hominy had me a bit scared, but I ended up really liking the chewiness it added. Topped off my bowl with some crushed tortilla chips, romaine, cherry tomatoes, and a wee bit of zucchini.

I made tamales last night! I made like 100 million mistakes but oh hot damn were they good! We made an improvised, clean out Vegimator's fridge cause he's moving filling: soyrizo, potatoes, zucchini, carrots, cilantro, peppers, onions, and mushrooms! Sooooo good with some guac on top. And we made the side street corn to go with it! It was aMAIZEing ha.

I cooked a few meals from Viva Vegan this week. First, I tried the eggplant torta. I used canned vegetarian refried beans instead of making my own, but otherwise followed the recipe. These came out really well. My husband said, "Wow. These are actually really good." (He wasn't sold on the idea of a bean and eggplant sandwich.)

I also made the Mojo Tofu and served it with a side of Arroz Con Coco. I had to sub basmati rice for the long grain white rice (turned out I was out of it), but otherwise followed the recipes. I enjoyed both of these dishes. I love the technique for baking tofu that this book uses -- the chewy texture is great. My only complaint was that the rice recipe seemed to be missing some steps. The ingredient list does not include white pepper or shredded coconut and both of these are mentioned in the recipe steps. I added a few dashes of white pepper and a generous tablespoon of toasted coconut. The pepper seemed about right, but I think I should have added twice as much coconut. I still loved the rice.

I love the coconut rice too, bcakes


Yum! I was worried the first time I used hominy too but I really like it.


Haha! And now I want tamales.

Just made the Colombian grilled arepas with corn and vegan cheese. SO GOOD. I want to try more arepas now!! Definitely the sexy avocado-tempeh ones!

I've read Viva vegan from cover to cover about 9 times and only made the guatita and coconut rice (which were both spectacular). So yesterday I made a batch of steamed white seitan, used a quarter batch to go with Mojo Oven Roasted Seitan and packed that into a Cubano Vegano sandwich. I didnt have pickles so i didnt use them, but holy moly, I am eating it right now at work and its the best sandwich ever. I chucked one loaf in the freezer and used the remaining two to make Arroz con Seitan. I had to make so many subs cos my pantry was a bit sparse - red onion for yellow, red pepper for green, corn and broccoli for carrot, diced tomatoes for tomato sauce and no olives since I hate em. I also dont have a dutch oven or enamel pot so I cooked it in a steel one, and it burnt to the bottom really badly. Still, very excited to eat this tonight.

I finally used aji amarillo, I made the yellow grilled tempeh but with portobellos instead, yum.

Aji amarillo is great hey?
EMERGENCY QUESTION: Can I use Harina PAN instead of maseca for tamales? It's all I have :(

I don't think so but I googled it and a few sites listed tamales as a use, try a small batch?

Actually, I remembered I have some 'corn flour' that I purchased from the Latin grocer, I'm pretty sure it's the same stuff...you can use it for tortillas...gah! I don't know. I'm just reading the book now and it says don't make it with the PAN :( oh well!

For the annatto-infused oil, the book says, "You may also find ground achiote powder; use 1 teaspoon per tablespoon of oil." Does that mean to just mix the powder and the oil when I'm ready to use it in a recipe, or to heat it and store it like with the seeds?

I tried mixing the annatto powder with the oil at one tablespoon of oil to one teaspoon of powder, and it really didn't work -- it ended up as just oily powder. So, it seems like I've got to use less powder, but then am I supposed to strain it? How? Cheesecloth or something seems right, but I'd think that the cloth might just absorb the oil rather than straining it.

Did you heat the oil before adding the powder? If not, heating it might help it to dissolve.

I made the Tropical Pumpkin soup last night, I thought I wouldn't like it because it is pumpkin-based but I really enjoyed it.

No, I didn't heat the oil. I would experiment some more, but my stash of annatto is limited, so I'll wait for a definitive answer from someone who's made the oil with the powder before.

I made the Cuban black bean soup a couple nights ago, and it's probably the best black bean soup I've had. It also helps that both of my kids love black beans (and almost any non-killer spicy black bean soup in particular), so it was a dinner without complaints!

This was my understanding of it, which Terry may correct if I have it wrong, where the recipe says "2 Tablespoons of Annatto infused oil" just use 2 teaspoons of Achiote powder, put in whatever you are making at the same time as the other spices.

This is what I did with the Arroz con Seitan and it was fine.

Mat.

I love this soup so much that I haven't made very many other recipes from the book. They all sound great, but it is like going to a restaurant and trying not to order the same thing when you don't want to risk the new thing not being as awesome as your favorite.

Yeah, I have the achiote powder too and either just use it straight up (1 tsp in lieu of 1 tbsp of annatto infused oil) and if it's a bit "powdery" and needs a bit of wet, I usually blend it in a bit of oil (I do this when making the yellow rice, for example, heat some oil and powder together and proceed with recipe).

I think I actually prefer the annatto-infused oil between the two so when my powder runs out, I'll just make the oil from here on in.

I'm going Pupusa-crazy. They're super easy and gluten-free. AND I feel like a pro-chef, because I conquered my dough-anxiety with the masa harina flour. Water and salt! It's such a nice break from 4 different flours, baking soda, xanthan gum, blah blah blah.

I read the directions many times and couldn't quite figure out how to shape the pupusas, but I went on YouTube and watched about five different videos, and it seems that just making a small pancake shape (not very wide),adding in the filling, folding the pupusa in half and back into a ball shape before you flatten it works pretty well for a lot of people. So if you're a visual person like me, I'd recommend watching the process on YouTube first.

The curdito cole slaw and tomato sauce are great, but if you're in a rush/lazy, salsa tastes good too. :)

SuzannaBanana - pupusas are so good! I want to make them again soon.

I forgot to mention, I made the cachapas a month ago and even though I added less sugar, they were way too sweet for me.

Last night I made the potato-kale soup with homemade gf chorizo and I used kale from my garden, I really liked this soup. And now I only have 57 recipes to go!

I'm making the seitan/mushroom empanadas tomorrow. Debating whether to make the seitan in VV or use the vcon seitan I already have in the fridge. Thoughts?

After my last post here I figured I'd better try something new, so I made the Latin baked tofu. It took awhile but it was pretty easy, and very good! I made mine with sofrito con tomate piled on top and guac on the side.

The other day I made the arepas with corn & cheese plus the carrot jicama salad (I used parsnip) and it was a really good meal.

Today I made the pumpkin and cranberry (borlotti) bean soup, it's really good, I like the addition of spice from the chilli and now I'm done with the soup chapter.

I really like arepas (the corn and cheese were the first I tried). I'm so glad this book taught me about them. Thanks for the tip on using parsnip for the jicama salad, we don't get jicama here.