Chickenless Stew & Dumplings

Stew made with vegetables and soy curls with herbed dumplings. Perfect food for fall.

As for the previous post, yup, the secret project is vegan Yorkshire Pudding and between the two of us, I think we've got it pretty close. When Lelly and I get the recipe perfect, then maybe we'll release it publicly. Maybe.

Chickenless Stew & Dumplings

Stew

• 1 large onion, diced
• 2-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 large starchy potatoes, diced
• 1/2 pound baby carrots (or diced carrots)
• 2 cups sliced mushrooms
• 2 cups (approx) TVP chunks OR soy curls OR seitan OR one to two cans of chickpeas (drained)*
• 3 cups seasoned/salted vegetable stock**
• 1 cup unsweetened soy milk
• seasonings #1: salt, pepper, sage, poultry seasoning (start with about 1/2 tsp of each, less if using ground sage)
• seasonings #2: thyme, marjoram, sage, dried parsley (start with 1 tsp of each but less if using ground herbs)
• 1 or 2 bay leaves
• 4 tbsp nutritional yeast

*use a 1/2 pkg of soy curls, rehydrated. If using TVP chunks then rehydrate in broth first, squeeze out liquid, dust with flour and pan fry in oil first (gives it a better flavour).

**If you’re using bouillon cubes, you can use enough for 4 cups. So if your cubes are 1 cube to 2 cups water, use 2 cubes.

Dumplings

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2-3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp dried herbs (anything you want)
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1/2 (approx) cup soy milk

Directions

1. In a heavy pot, brown the onion, garlic, potatoes, carrots and mushrooms until onions are translucent and mushrooms are cooked.
    
2. Add in the TVP/soy curls/seitan/chickpeas and brown for a minute or two.
    
3. Add in the vegetable stock and soy milk and both sets of seasonings to taste (tastewise, it will come together more after cooking) along with the bay leaves and the nutritional yeast. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, then cover and simmer.
    
4. Check every 10 mins or so and stir. Continue cooking until potatoes are very soft (maybe 30 mins), checking and adjusting seasonings.
    
5. Make the dumplings by combining the flour, baking powder, salt and herbs. Then add the oil and soy milk and stir well. The consistency of the dough should be really really sticky.
    
6. Drop dumpling dough onto the simmering stew by heaping spoonfuls making sure the dumplings don’t touch. You should get about 5-6 large spoonfuls. They should just be on top of the stew, not submerged. Cover and continue to let simmer for about 15 mins. The dumplings will expand. Check one of the dumplings by cutting it in half to make sure it’s cooked through.
    
7. When the dumplings are done, remove them to a separate plate and stir the stew really well so that some of the cooked potato disintegrates into the stew and thickens it (you could opt for using a cornstarch slurry here if you want but the potato does a pretty good job).
    
8. Serve up the stew and put some dumplings on top with a pat of margarine over the dumplings.

Project...

What the hell is that you ask? I kind of don't want to say since I have no idea how close it is to what it's supposed to be.

I can say though that it was pretty good and it's beginning to be a little project of mine along with Vincent and Lelly. :)

"B" is for "Broccoli"

Oven roasted broccoli and cherry tomatoes (from our garden) topped with crumbled Cheezly.

The broccoli and tomatoes were tossed with a liberal amount of olive oil, salt, pepper and nutritional yeast and then roasted in the oven (425F) for about 30 mins and then topped with crumbled Cheezly. Simple but delicious.

What's peeking out in the top right corner is some homemade mushroom gravy. Not pictured: slices of seitan roast and rice pilaf. I just wanted to focus on the broccoli for this post.

Roasted Okra and Jalapeño & Vegetable Gratin

Oven roasted okra and jalapeño & vegetable gratin.

The okra was tossed with olive oil, salt & pepper and garlic powder and oven roasted until tender. The gratin had jalapeño peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, Teese, Tofutti better than cream cheese and panko breadcrumbs. There's also some mushroom pizza in the background (top left) that was leftover from yesterday.

I used about 10-15 peppers and didn't wear gloves when cutting/handling them. My hands were burning for a few hours. Tomato sauce (jarred) was the only thing that seemed to get them to stop burning.

Mental note: wear gloves when handling hot peppers or don't bother with them at all.

ETA: And pronounce it right, people! :D (thanks Vincent for the link)

ETA Again: Do try oven roasted okra. Not as good (IMHO) as breaded and deep fried okra, but it's a lot easier and still super tasty.

Seitan "Parmesan"

Seitan, breaded and fried with Cheezly "mozzarella" on top of spaghetti with homemade slow-simmered tomato sauce.

We had a ton of tomatoes to use up along with some green pepper, mushrooms and celery. I though that was the start of a great sauce so I chopped, seasoned and simmered until the sauce was thick and very reduced (about 2 hours). I didn't bother peeling or de-seeding the tomatoes because I don't mind the skins and seeds.

I whipped up a batch of seitan in the meantime to go along with it. We had some really crappy seitan yesterday (not made by me) so I wanted to made some good stuff today. I used Joy's basic seitan (tester) recipe with my own modifications and with Italian herbs and then simmered, chilled, breaded and fried it.

I literally spent all afternoon on this dish, making everything from scratch aside from the Cheezly and pasta noodles. Was it worth it? I think so!

Vegan Gumbo

This weekend I was pretty much laid up on the couch due to some back pain (sciatica, not fun!) so the boy made me gumbo on Sunday night with his mom's recipe (we also had some okra kicking around). They lived in Lousiana for a time and he has some Cajun blood in him. His mom is not Cajun but apparently she made the best roux back then. Roux takes a lot of patience due to the constant stirring and let me tell you, she has the patience of a saint so no wonder why her gumbo rocked. :)

Anyway, It was the first time I'd ever had gumbo and I loved it! He substituted Field Roast "Mexican Chipotle" flavour vegan sausages for the Andouille. We both thought it added just the right amount of heat to to the base. As you can see, I doused mine with a lot more hot sauce.

Gumbo's not the prettiest thing to photograph and I suck at plating and lack the patience, but I had to get a photograph to show his mom (she reads my blog). He did a great job on this. :)

I think next time, I'll try my hand at this. I wonder if I'll have the patience for making a dark roux. Probably not, but it will be fun to try.

Breaded & Fried Seitan (Vegan Tonkatsu)

I'm a seitan junkie so I love trying lots of different ones. The basic seitan recipe is a tester recipe for Joy Tienzo with a few of my own modifications thrown in. Texture was perfect: dense but not rubbery, tender but not spongy.

After cooking (simmering in broth), I let them cool in the fridge and then dredged the pieces in flour, soy milk and panko crumbs, then fried them and topped with tonkatsu sauce. On the side: mushroom rice pilaf and brussel sprouts.

Apricot Glazed Tempeh (variation)

Tester recipe for Joy Tienzo.

The original recipe uses seitan but Joy wanted someone to try this with tempeh.

While still delicious, I think I much prefer it with seitan since the taste and texture of the tempeh tended to overwhelm the flavours of the glaze/sauce.

Hot Basil Eggplant

Thai inspired eggplant dish — tester recipe for Joy Tienzo.

The dish was an excellent balance of sweet, savoury and spicy. I'm definitely making this again!

CSA Haul

We didn't pick up as much as the last few times but we still got quite a lot of yummy produce! Oh, and that's Abigail licking Mr. Marbles in the background. :)

• 2 bags of green beans
• 2 bags of other beans/peas (not really sure what type — sort of a cross between a snow pea and a snap pea)
• 4 asian eggplants
• 1 bunch leek
• small basket of cucumbers
• small basket of tomatoes
• 3 orange/yellow tomatoes
• 2 small heads red cabbage
• 2 bunches swiss chard
• 2 bunches tuscan kale
• 1 large zucchini
• 1 small basket of white onions

Bonus Pics: Shadow & Abigail

Pizza!

I decided to make pizza for lunch today since the boy is also here "working from home." Actually he is doing a bit of work, so...

Store-bought crust (spelt), topped with green pepper, mushrooms and two types of Cheezly (mozzarella and white cheddar).

I think I mentioned that I bought TEN packages of Cheezly on sale a little while ago. I still have 6 packages left in the fridge!

Vegan Alfredo & Broccoli

Lunch at the home office. Note the TV remote top right. :)

Vegan alfredo with broccoli. Inspired by the recipe here.

I didn't end up measuring anything threw this all together to taste: vegan margarine, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, dried parsley, some creamy Sheese, soy milk, nutritional yeast and topped with crumbled Cheezly and hot chili flakes.

Grilled "Cheese"

Vegan grilled "cheese" — two different types.

Top: Creamy Sheese Garlic & Herb
Bottom: Cheezly Mature White Cheddar

The Cheezly was much much better than the Creamy Sheese

Buffalo Tempeh

Tempeh based on the "wingz" recipe here with a few changes along with some homemade vegan ranch dressing.

Fettucine and Panko Breaded Eggplant

Fettucine tossed with olive oil, garlic, oven roasted tomatoes, spinach, basil and hot chili flakes. Eggplant breaded with panko breadcrumbs and shallow fried.

For the oven roasted tomatoes, I cubed Romas but left the yellow/orange cherry tomatoes whole. Then I tossed liberally with olive oil, salt, pepper, minced garlic and some sugar. It went into a 425F oven for about 45 mins.

I know it's summer but I've been doing a lot of oven roasting lately!

Oven Roasted Kale

Tuscan kale tossed with olive oil, dark toasted sesame seed oil, soy sauce, agave nectar and then roasted in the oven at 425F for about 10-15 minutes. Topped with sesame seeds.

I think this is my new favourite way of preparing kale. The kale gets a little crispy in parts and the rest is tender. Next time I'll let it roast a little longer to get crispier.

You can also see some grains of rice hiding under the kale.

Christmas in July

Okay, not really but I decided I wanted a big dinner tonight so I made a Tofurkey roast, mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans and homemade mushroom gravy.

It totally heated up my entire house with the oven on but it was worth it!

CSA Haul

Our CSA haul this week includes*:

- 2 little baskets of tomatoes
- 3 cucumbers
- 4 white onions
- 1 melon
- 2 heads of broccoli
- 2 bunches of tuscan kale
- 2 kohlrabi
- 2 eggplant
- 2 green peppers
- 1 small green cabbage

* Nosy cat Annabel not included.

Seitan Roast with Agave Apples (Take Two!)

Made this again with a few alterations. Delicious! Oven roasted cauliflower on the side and apple slices (kind of hard to see) at the top right.

The original entry is located here.