Wrap parties aren't just for movie makers

Consider having a wrap party after the next football game. Or protest. Or whatever. Or just offer the materials for lunch or dinner.

Displayed here are several ingredients that can be made into wraps: avocados, salsa, sliced bell peppers, sliced tomatoes, sliced baked tofu, hummus, vegan mayo, veggie pate, little greens, and soy chorizo.

The soy chorizo can be cooked up in a few minutes in a saute pan and can be hot or cold. You might like to add refried beans and offer the option of making hot burritos.

This type party lends itself well to a group event, where each person brings one or two ingredients.

To make it even more fun and enjoyable consider taping a list of suggested groupings on the wall near the ingredients. For example, note that these ingredients go well together: hummus, soy chorizo, sliced tomatoes, avocados. For a great list of possibilites with catchy names, take a look at Vegan Express, by Nava Atlas.

Oh, one more advantage: leftovers. These kinds of ingredients move readily into other dishes later.

Quick meals from books

There are different ways to get food on the table quickly and easily. One way is to use convenience food, one focus of this blog. A good cookbook for this approach is Conveniently Vegan (see link at right). This book offers many meals that require only a few easily-found ingredients, many of which can be from the cupboard or freezer.

Another approach, also frequently used in this blog, is to put together fresh ingredients or foods that you have made yourself previously when you had a few minutes. A cookbook that uses this approach is 20 Minutes to Dinner (see also the link on the right, just added today). This book is aimed more at people who like to cook, at least some of the time. It offers directions to cook or prepare many "components" of dishes, like dried beans or "breast of tofu" or vegetarian "sausage", so that you have, in essence, your own "convenience foods". Throughout the book are some lovely alternatives to everyday items that you can usually throw together very quickly, too - like the banana milk I made today to put on my cereal (banana, cold water, vanilla and a blender). Obviously, the advantage to making your own is that you know exactly what is in it. These foods may also save money.



20 Minutes also offers a food prep and nutrition chapter, with information on what equipment you need (very little) and on getting the most nutritional bang for the buck.

Some folks have posted complaints on amazon.com that it often takes longer than 20 minutes to get dinner on the table, using this book. From what I have sampled and read, I'd say this is probably true. However, the more skilled you are with your equipment the sooner you will get that meal out there. It's probably a good idea to assume it will take a half-hour most of the time, and sometimes you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Breakfast potatoes variation

I never get tired of potato variations. This one features soyrizo - which I note keeps better than the meat version and, as I have noted before, tastes every bit as good - and fresh baby spinach. These directions make plenty for two.

1-2 Tablespoons olive or neutral oil
1/4 large onion (or 1 small onion)
1 large baking potato (can also use new potatoes)
1/3 package of soyrizo (soy version of chorizo)
1/4 pound mushrooms
handful of fresh spinach leaves
parsley, salt, pepper

Chop up the onion, saute at medium heat until a bit soft. Add the chorizo, smash around the pan, fry until it starts to crisp up. Chop up the mushrooms roughly, toss into the mix and keep turning to get them cooked a bit. While the mix is cooking, slice the potato thinly, then add. Turn over several times to mix, then cover for a few minutes to let the potato get nearly cooked through. Take off the cover, turn as needed to get to the doneness and crispiness that you desire. Near the end, throw in the spinach leaves, cover again to steam a bit. Take off the cover, cook to desired doneness. Serve sprinkled with parsley, offer salt and pepper.

As usual with this type meal the ingredients and amounts are totally in your power. You might prefer to make it with leftover potatoes, already cooked, or put the sliced potatoes in the microwave for a few minutes to cook before adding. If they are sliced thinly enough they do cook fairly quickly in the pan, so it's up to you.

Picture of soyrizo stolen from the urban granola - http://urbangranola.blogspot.com.

Hash!

So you decided to cook the other day? Or you went out to dinner and couldn't finish? So there are bits and pieces of leftovers in the fridge? And maybe you are a little leftover-phobic? Hash might be the solution. Hash can be made with a wide variety of leftovers, combined with a few fresh ingredients if you like.

Hash usually contains potatoes so if your leftovers don't include any you might want to zap one in the microwave. Hash usually contains some sort of protein thing, too, and bits of whatever else might go with it. My general method is:

Heat a tablespoon or so of oil in a frying pan. Chop up a bit of onion, toss it in. The onion usually goes first, if you are going to use it, because it needs the chance to soften up. Add any other fresh veggie type ingredient, like bell pepper, and any fresh protein thing, like the fresh mock sausage (gimme lean is one type) so these things can cook a bit and even get a little crispy, then the chopped cooked potato. Turn the heat up a little to crisp it up (I think hash should have some crispness to it), then it's nice to add a bit of spinach or other bright green leafy veg (I use frozen). Sprinkle with some paprika or red pepper (depending on your heatness tolerance and what's in the hash) and some parsley and pepper, and that's it. At the table you can give it a shake of salt if you like.

The hash pictured has onions, leftover half baked potato, leftover cooked portabello mushroom, a bit of fresh gimme lean sausage, 1/4 red bell pepper, a bit of firm tofu, sliced, and a sprinkling of spinach. It tasted great!

Trying out a new cookbook

I purchased this cookbook recently and am testing some of the recipes. From a quick review of the pages I think I will find it useful.

This is a variation of one of the dishes in the cookbook. The dish goes by the title of "sauteed cabbage/corn" (I don't know why the slash. Why not just "cabbage and corn"?)

The recipe calls for a 6-ounce package of vegan "bacon", chopped, a small green cabbage, a ten-ounce box of frozen corn, and three tablespoons of vegetable broth. My version depended on what I had in the fridge: two vegan Italian sausages, a small chunk of cabbage, a bag of frozen corn, veggie broth. The dish goes together quickly and tasted good. I suspect the cookbook version, with more cabbage (I like the Italian sausages and would probably stick with those) would taste even better than what I made.

The combination of sausage and cabbage is a good one, good country fare really. Most of the recipes in this book make no pretensions about being elegant or gourmet. There are few ingredients, most easily-available and familiar. From what I have looked over (but not yet cooked) I think it's a good book to have on the shelf and I expect to use it rather often.

A vegan thanksgiving

We cooked a simple vegan thanksgiving this year and everyone liked it. Our menu came primarily from the Farm Sanctuary's handout, which you can download. We eliminated a few of the items on the menu and added one from another site. In addition, we added a simple dish of rainbow chard with red bell pepper, because the market had bunches of fresh colorful chard and we couldn't resist.

The meal:


clockwise from left: vegan sausage pot pie, another pot pie, sweet potato biscuits, apple streusel, green beans with ginger and almonds, garlic mashed potatoes

and


Corn chowder

and

rainbow chard, sauteed lightly with red peppers in olive oil

and


vegetables, crackers, dip, plus a cup of mushroom gravy.

The recipes for everything except the pot pie and chard are on the handout linked above. The pot pie recipe is from vegcooking.com. We substituted vegan Italian sausage for the vegan chicken in the pot pie. We also used frozen whole wheat crusts - which we had to modify to accommodate the large amount of filling.

We found that the pictures on the Farm Sanctuary handout didn't all look the way they actually should. All of the dishes are easy to prepare and require no special skills. There were no duds in the menu and I intend to cook several of these recipes again. I can hardly wait, in fact.

Breakfast! Yum version of chorizo and eggs

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1966 I was 20 years old and had not ever seen or heard of chorizo.

Living in Los Angeles was a great way to find out about Mexican food, obviously. My stepmother took me to a little hole in the wall place that made chile rellenos "the right way". I have to agree with her that the usual version is pretty awful in comparison to simply stuffing the chile with cheese, then dipping in egg white, beaten, and frying. There may have been a little flour in that egg white but not much. Anyway, those days are gone, no more chile rellenos for me. Well, honestly, I'm not a vegan 100% of the time and on occasion I get something made with eggs or cheese, and I wouldn't turn down eggs from a truly happy hen. I can also imagine using a vegan cheese and that being just fine.

One thing I discovered was chorizo. I suspect that at first I was afraid of this weird sausage. But then I tried it, and like most people I tried it with eggs. I would fry the chorizo to let loose some of that fat (and get rid of it), then I'd throw in the beaten eggs and scramble it up. Served with potatoes and toast, perfect.

Now I make the vegan version and honestly I think it's better. It's lower in fat by a whole lot, it has the flavors and the crispiness I like. It's very satisfying. Here's how I do it:

1/2 small onion, chopped
1-2 T neutral oil
6 oz firm tofu
4-6 oz soyrizo or equivalent (I don't know if any other company makes it)
1-2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
salt and pepper

Saute the chopped onion in the oil for a few minutes, until soft. Crumble in the tofu, which you have drained for a few minutes. Add the cumin and turmeric and stir until it achieves that nice yellow color.

Cut open the soyrizo package and squeeze out the amount you want into the pan with the tofu. Mix together with a fork and heat. Turn a few times with a pancake turner, letting the soyrizo get crispy in spots. When it's all heated through, add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

One generous serving. Two servings not quite as generous.

Vegan Pork And Beans

A very simple, easy vegan dish is the vegan version of pork and beans.

Here's how you make it:
Take a can of vegetarian beans. Red beans work well, but you can use whatever you like. Then take a vegan hot dog or two and cut the hot dogs up into chunks. Heat up the beans, add in the hot dogs, and voila! You're done! Eat it with rice or toast.

I decided to showcase here a slight variation of veggie pork and beans. I make this version often.





Ingredients:
1 can of spicy navy beans
2 Italian flavored veggie sausages
1 cup of cooked macaroni noodles

Prearation:
Heat everything up in a pot on the stove for about five to ten minutes.


Another variation I like to make is the caserole version. Take the pork and bean mixture and pour it over crackers or toast in a caserole dish. Top with crackers or toast and bake for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees F. You can even add a bit of shredded vegan cheese on top if you like.