Life in an Organic Vegan Food Co-op

Bedtime for Blogger

2008-05-09T16:07:00.001-06:00

Soooo, you've probably noticed the lack of posts on this blog. For a while, I was traveling and now I'm doing a bit of a spring cleanse, so I haven't been in tune with the co-op. After almost a year of blogging our meals, I think it's time to take a break and let myself feel okay about not updating.

I still have some old meals that I may get around to posting at some point. Someday, I may be back. Or someone else might take over the posting. Who knows? In the meantime, enjoy our past meals and try some of our recipes!

Thanks for reading!

Whole Wheat Pitas, Marinated Tofu, Salad, Pickles

2008-03-24T19:35:00.000-06:00

Dinner 3/24 by Dan

• Whole Wheat Pitas

• Marinated Tofu

• Salad

• Pickles

Lasagna, Black-eyed Pea Patties, Hamantaschen

2008-03-20T19:24:00.000-06:00

Dinner 3/20 by Amy and Juan

• Lasagna

• Black-eyed Pea Patties

• Hamantaschen

Potato Soup, Biscuits, Swiss Chard, Berry Bars

2008-03-19T19:18:00.000-06:00

Dinner 3/19 by our fabulous guests, Lauren and Shannon

• Potato Soup

• Biscuits

• Swiss Chard

• Berry Bars

Tomato Soup, Samosas

2008-03-17T19:15:00.000-06:00

Dinner 3/17 by Jan

• Tomato Soup

• Samosas

Deep-Fried Seitan, Pineapple Sweet and Sour Sauce, Green Beans, Brown Rice

2008-03-13T19:19:00.001-06:00

Dinner 3/13 by Amy and Juan

• Deep-Fried Seitan

• Pineapple Sweet and Sour Sauce

• Green Beans

• Brown Rice

Tonight was our first experiment with deep-frying seitan. We have gotten into the habit of making a lot of General Tso's Seitan, but since I've decided to stop blogging recipe repeats, it was time to get creative.

We used Authentic Chinese Cuisine by Bryanna Clark Grogan for the batter and sauce recipes. The batter was basically a slurry of powdered egg replacer, cornstarch, water, baking powder, salt and ginger. It crisped up nicely like tempura and has a gingery salty flavor. The sweet and sour sauce was made with some canned pineapple I got from a local store that sells mostly dinged up cans and out of date food for really cheap. We don't shop there often, but it's a great way to help eliminate things from the wastestream.

The green beans were made from local organic green beans that we canned over the summer. We tried a technique that Brian used where he cooked them in a dry cast iron pan so the liquid would cook out of them. Canned beans can be rather bloated, in my opinion. A little soy sauce helped add some flavor and color.

Vegan Whole Wheat Donut Recipe

2008-03-13T14:03:00.001-06:00

First, take your favorite bread recipe and whip up a batch of dough. I like to use the recipe for Soft Sandwich Buns from The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook slightly modified to accommodate what's on hand:

1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup plus 1 tsp sorghum (or sugar)
2 Tbsp yeast
1/4 cup warm water
6 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt

Heat 2 cups of water and pour into a bowl containing the oil and 1/4 cup of sorghum. Let mixture cool. In a large bowl, place the yeast, 1 tsp of sorghum and the warm water. Let yeast mixture sit a few minutes, then add the cooled water. Whisk in 2 cups of flour and beat 100 times until smooth. Let sponge rest 10 minutes. Beat in 4 cups flour and the salt. Add enough flour so dough can be turned out to knead for 5 minutes.

Roll out until between 1/8th and 1/4 inch thick. Cut out into donut shapes of your choice. If you are going to fill them, you can cut them out using the drinking edge of a 3" diameter drinking glass. Place on an oiled or well-floured baking sheet. Cover with a towel and leave in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes.

Fill a soup pot with about 4 inches of good quality oil for frying. We used sunflower oil. Heat on high heat until around 390 degrees. Use a candy/frying thermometer to measure the temperature of the oil. Once it gets hot enough, turn the flame down to maintain the temperature.

Place the donuts into the oil. I only put in one or two at a time so that they are floating on the surface, but not touching each other. Turn over after 10 seconds and remove after another 10 seconds. They continue to brown after they are pulled out of the oil. Place the fried donuts on some newspaper or a rack so the excess oil can drip off.

At this point, your donuts are ready to eat. If you want to make them fancier, you can put them in a paper bag that has equal amounts of sugar and cinnamon and shake them until coated. Or, you can roll them in confectioner's sugar. Or you can make a simple glaze out of water, confectioner's sugar and a little vanilla. If you want chocolate glaze, add some cocoa to that mix.

Filling the donuts is easy, too! You can pipe in some cheap raspberry jelly or make some vegan buttercream from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. The donuts above feature the Vegan Vanilla Buttercream and chocolate glaze.

Enjoy!

Spaghetti Squash, Tomato Sauce, Pesto, Mac-esan (Vegan Parmesan), Breadsticks, Almond Butter Cookies

2008-03-12T19:42:00.000-06:00

Dinner 3/12 by Juan, Lauren and Shannon

Thank goodness for daylight savings. Now we have photos with natural light again! Yay!

• Spaghetti Squash

• Tomato Sauce

• Pesto

• Mac-esan (Vegan Parmesan)

• Breadsticks

• Almond Butter Cookies

Tonight's feast was made by Juan with lots of help from our guests, Lauren and Shannon. The spaghetti squash were from a neighboring organic farmer that we have been storing all winter. Lauren roasted them in the oven until they were tender, then cut them in half, took the seeds out, skinned them and boiled the insides until they were stringy like spaghetti.

The sauce options were our own homemade tomato sauce made with organic tomatoes that we canned from our garden over the summer. The pesto was made from basil from our garden. It was made into pesto and then frozen.

The mac-esan was an experimental vegan parmesan alternative. We have some macadamia meal that was given to us by East Wind Community. Lauren mixed it with some of our homemade white miso, spread it out on a baking tray and dried it out at a low temperature. The end result was crumbly and had a cheesy sort of flavor. I think it was delicious!

The breadsticks are from The Nutritional Yeast Cookbook by Joanne Stepaniak. Shannon made some with nutritional yeast and some without. The main ingredient was freshly-ground wheat from our neighbors' farm 3 miles away.

The almond butter cookies were following the recipe in Simple Treats by Ellen Abraham. They used some mystery nut butter from East Wind Community. We think maybe it's almond and cashew. Such a treat!

Whole Wheat Tortillas, Refried Beans, Nutritional Yeast Cheez, Salsa, Donuts

2008-03-06T20:19:00.003-06:00

Dinner 3/6 by Juan and Amy

• Whole Wheat Tortillas

• Refried Beans

• Nutritional Yeast Cheez

• Salsa

• Donuts

Burrito dinner! Juan made a big burrito bar for dinner. He made whole wheat tortillas from scratch using wheat grown at our neighbor's 3 miles away. The beans were refried with rehydrated onions from our garden. The nutritional yeast cheese sauce is from The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook. Topped off with our own homemade canned salsa made with this past summer's abundant harvest.

For dessert, I tried my hand at making vegan donuts. They weren't bioregional except for the whole wheat flour, but everyone needs a good donut now and again. A friend recommended using a bread recipe and suddenly it didn't seem to be so unattainable. Back in my Dunkin' Donuts days, I used to love "Manager's Specials" which (around where I lived) were vanilla cream filled (not Boston Cream) with chocolate glaze. So, I tried to recreate them. The results were surprisingly close and with them being whole wheat, I could tell myself that they were healthy. :D

Make your own with our vegan donut recipe.

Tomato Soup, Chickpea Nuggets, Mac and Cheez, Sweet Potato Fries

2008-03-05T21:25:00.000-06:00

Dinner 3/5 by Amy and Juan

• Tomato Soup

• Chickpea Nuggets

• Mac and Cheez

• Sweet Potato Fries

Tonight's dinner was all comfort food. Juan whipped up a big pot of tomato soup using organic tomato puree that we canned this past summer from our garden. Plus some dehydrated garlic and onions we also preserved from local harvests. I think he put in a little sorghum, which is a sweetener from sorghum cane, made by our neighbors over at Sandhill Farm.

Inspired by Lindy Loo's completely unappetizing-looking, yet strangely compelling chickpea cutlets shaped into nuggets, I thought I would give it a try. The results were the chickpea cutlets I know and love reborn as perfect dippable chickpea nuggets! We served them with homemade ketchup, mustard and BBQ sauces.

I've had a hankerin' for mac and cheez, so I put some together using *gasp* store bought semolina pasta (since I don't know how to make my own mac yet) using the recipe from The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook. I love it because it's baked and the cheez gets chewy on top.

Sweet potato fries were easy to make. We are using up the last of a big box we bought from a neighboring organic farmer. They are the biggest sweet potatoes I've ever seen! I just cut them up into fry shapes, drizzled them with oil and salt and put them in the oven at 450ish for an hour or so.

Seitan Potato Pasties, Herbed Brown Gravy

2008-03-03T21:13:00.000-06:00

Dinner 3/3 by Jan

• Seitan Potato Pasties

• Herbed Brown Gravy

For tonight's dinner, Jan made the vegan version of English pasties. Basically, they are little pies filled with seitan, potato and some spices. Eaten with a knife and fork, smothered in gravy. I have never had a meat pasty, but I thought they were a great idea. I hope she makes them again sometime.

Vegan Lasagna, Sprout Salad, Applesauce

2008-03-01T20:26:00.000-06:00

Dinner 3/1 by Dan

• Vegan lasagna

• Sprout salad

• Apple sauce

Mmmm, salad. It's one of those things that people find hard to believe one would miss. And yet, when you're trying to eat things that are in season, you don't usually get to have cabbage in March. The only reason we had this was because somebody here at DR had bought it for themselves and then left for a week, giving it to us rather than letting it go bad. Dan combined it with some mung beans that he sprouted and sunflower seeds to make an original dish.

An then there was the lasagna. Whipping up some noodles from semolina flour, and combining them with his trademark from-scratch same-day tofu, Dan may have outdone himself. I've been having some digestive issues from eating too much nutritional yeast, so Dan left the cheez out. I didn't miss it at all.

Amy and I took a trip to Minnesota back in September of last year and came back with a few apples from an organic orchard up there; our own apples had had their lives brutally cut short by a late frost. We managed to whip up the only fruit product of the year, apple sauce. And here we are in March, enjoying the fruits of our labor (pun intended).

Vegan Pizza Bagels!

2008-02-29T20:12:00.000-06:00

Dinner 2/29 by Brian

• Vegan Pizza Bagels

• Chocolate Chip Cookies

When the Tony's away, the Brian will play... with pizza. Starting by whipping up bagels from scratch in the morning straight out of the Farm's New Vegetarian Cookbook, Brian's only comment was how easy they were.

When it came time to make dinner, he sliced them in half and topped them with some of our canned tomato sauce (suitably spiced), nutritional yeast cheez, and as many toppings as he could find in our pantry. Shitake mushrooms, sauerkraut, hot peppers, pickled garlic, the works. Everything was fair game, and everything was delicious.

As if that wasn't enough, he then made chocolate chip cookies out of Simple Treats, my new favorite book for deserts. Okay, maybe my second favorite. But it's hard to get the ingredients for something out of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World.

Crepes with Lentils and Potatoes, Melty White Cheeze, Chocolate Pudding

2008-02-21T20:25:00.000-06:00

Dinner 2/21 by Juan and Amy

• Crepes with Lentils and Potatoes

• Melty White Cheeze

• Chocolate Pudding

Tonight's dinner was reminiscent of a meal made here years ago by a Bobolinker long flown away. The crepes were made with freshly ground organic whole wheat grown at Sandhill Farm based on the recipe from The New Farm Cookbook.

I cooked up some dried onions, dried garlic, green lentils, potatoes, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper until soft. Then Juan made up a big batch of Melty White Cheeze from Vegan Vittles by Joanne Stepaniak. We prepared them by filling a crepe with cheeze and lentil stuffing, rolled them up and then topped them with more cheeze.

The chocolate pudding was based on Mom's Chocolate Pudding from La Dolce Vegan. For the "milk" called for in the recipe (quotes in the original), Juan blended some Cashew-Macadamia butter with water. As Brian put it, "It was cocoa-splendiforous."

Chickpea Cutlets, Greek Potato Stew, Laird Peas, Brown Rice

2008-02-20T20:08:00.001-06:00

Dinner 2/20 by Amy and Juan

• Chickpea Cutlets

• Greek Potato Stew

• Laird Peas

• Brown Rice

All the world is raving about the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon. I must admit that I do like them as much as seitan, but there are mixed reviews in Bobolink. Guess that's why there's chocolate and vanilla soy cream, right?

The Greek Potato Stew was a recipe that my friend Suz blogged about over at Critical Mastication. We happened to have a jar of kalamata olives around and a neighbor generously provided some vermouth. We used some quartered tomatoes we canned over the summer from our organic garden and omitted the feta cheese. It was an amazing dish! Even Juan who does not like olives *LIKED* the dish. That's quite a testimonial!

I guess we didn't think were was enough starch or carbs in our dinner, so we made a side of brown rice and cooked up the extra chickpeas as Laird Peas.

Mashed Potatoes, Chickpea Gravy, Laird Peas, Pan-fried String Beans

2008-02-13T19:43:00.001-06:00

Dinner 2/13 by Brian

• Mashed Potatoes

• Chickpea Gravy

• Laird Peas

• Pan-fried String Beans

Tonight, Brian made mashed potatoes using potatoes from a neighboring organic farmer. The chickpea gravy recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. It's called gravy in the recipe, but it always ends up the consistency of mashed potatoes when Brian makes it. I think he affectionately called it sludge.

Laird Peas
are my favorite way to use up cooked chickpeas. They added a little bit of texture to the mash and gravy. The string beans were an ingenious use of dilly beans (canned pickled green beans) from our winter stocks. He fished out the beans and heated them up in a dry pan (drying them out) with a little Stan Sauce.

Vegan Sesame Seed Dressing Recipe

2008-02-09T11:45:00.000-06:00

We once had an intern at Dancing Rabbit named Trish who was vegan and allergic to soy and peanuts and a bunch of other things as well. To get her protein she relied a lot on seeds like sesame and sunflower. She made this dressing that I use whenever I make falafel but can also be used on salads. We call it Trish Sauce.

Ingredients

1/2 Cup water
1/2 Cup vinegar
1 tsp salt (or more to taste)
2-5 cloves garlic
Sesame seeds

Put water, vinegar, salt and garlic in a blender and begin blending. Add sesame seeds slowly, allowing them to be ground well, until the mixture thickens. If you make it too thick you can dilute it with more water and/or vinegar.

For a more toasted flavor you can toast the sesame seeds. I also sometimes substitute sunflower seeds (toasted or not) for all or part of the sesame seeds. Sunflower seeds are more bioregional for us and depending on your tastes the sesame seeds can have quite a strong flavor.

Enjoy.

Miso & Nutritional Yeast Dressing Recipe

2008-02-09T11:33:00.000-06:00

Stan over at Sandhill Farm makes a salad dressing that is so good we use it on everything and call it "Stan Suace". Its very easy to make and is great for salads, on bread and sauerkraut, on Indian dishes, and would make cardboard taste good.

Ingredients:

1 Cup Oil
1 Cup Vinegar (we use Apple Cider)
1 Cup Nutritional Yeast Flakes (aka Nut Yeast)
1 Tbsp Miso (we make our own but whatever miso you have is fine)
3-5 cloves of garlic

Add ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Some folks like to add the oil last and drizzle it in for maximum emulsification but I think the nut yeast holds it all together just fine.

The result is a delicious thick dressing with the zip of vinegar and the bite of garlic and a rich miso and nut yeast flavor.

Falafel, Whole Wheat Pita, Hummus, Trish Sauce, Peach Galettes

2008-02-08T21:22:00.000-06:00

Dinner 2/8 by Tony

• Falafel

• Whole Wheat Pita

• Hummus

• Sesame Seed Sauce

• Peach Galettes

Tony is truly gifted with breads. He has the amazing ability to make pitas from scratch. I've never tried, but I imagine there's a bit of magic involved when it comes to creating the pocket inside. To make the pitas, he used freshly ground whole wheat flour and I think that always makes them so much better than store bough pitas.

Inside our pitas, we put falafels, hummus, chopped dilly beans and a sesame seed sauce we affectionally call "Trish Sauce" named after a DR intern who made it a lot. If you're looking for sauces named after folks, you can also check out "Stan Sauce", a versatile blend based on miso and nutritional yeast.

For dessert, Tony used some leftover crust from the other night to make little freeform peach pies called galettes. The filling was made with some peaches from our orchard that we canned two summers ago. It's amazing how much flavor the canned products still retain. I'm not a fan of food in tin cans, but putting it up in jars for the winter is a whole other ballgame.

Sweet Potato-Black Bean Tortillas, Spaghetti Squash Soup, Pound Cake

2008-02-07T19:37:00.000-06:00

Dinner 2/7 by Amy and Juan

• Sweet Potato-Black Bean Tortillas

• Spaghetti Squash Soup

• Pound Cake

Juan and I decided to try making all new things for this dinner. I made the Sweet Potato-Black Bean Tortillas from Veganomicon. The recipe is listed as an alternative for the Yuca Tortillas for those of you playing at home. Yuca isn't bioregional to us, but luckily a neighboring organic farmer grew some sweet potatoes that were strangely white in color, so they seemed the perfect substitute. Our version was a little more homegrown, since we didn't use tortillas from a package. Juan made tortillas based on the recipe in Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian using flour we ground fresh from wheat grown at Sandhill Farm, only 3 miles away.

The soup was an improvisation that was the brainchild of Juan. He started with the broth leftover from making seitan the night before. He added dried onions and garlic plus cubes of skinned spaghetti squash. After boiling for a couple hours, the squash was soft and had soaked up the yummy flavor of the broth.

Juan's favorite cake is pound cake. He's doesn't get a lot of that eating with a vegan co-op, so when he saw the recipe for pound cake in Ellen Abraham's Simple Treats, he just had to try it. Forgoing the marbling, he doubled the vanilla batter and hoped for the best. The result was a cake that was a bit too light to be considered pound cake, plus it tasted a lot like sorghum (our sweetener of choice). He said next time he'll try it with some sugar and see if it's more like he remembers.

General Tso's Seitan, Brown Rice, Sesame Squash Rings

2008-02-06T20:18:00.000-06:00

Dinner 2/6 by Juan and Amy

• General Tso's Seitan

• Brown Rice

• Sesame Squash Rings

Tonight, Juan and I made our old standby, General Tso's Seitan. Normally, I wouldn't bother blogging something that's already been blogged on this site a whole bunch of times, but I thought I'd at least mention the side dish since it was a new recipe and I really enjoyed how it turned out.

The squash rings were made using a recipe from Christina Pirello's Cooking the Whole Foods Way, which is cookbook that I love. The recipe called for acorn squash, but we didn't grow any of those this past year (we grew sweet dumpling and lakota squashes), so I used some butternut squashes that we have been storing since the fall. We bought them from a neighboring organic farmer along with spaghetti squashes.

The squash was sliced into rings with the skin left on. They were simmered in a pan with enough water to half cover. Then cooked until tender enough to pierce with a fork. The sauce was made with equal parts tahini and brown rice syrup. Plus some soy sauce and parsley (we used dried, but the recipe called for fresh). Stirred up over medium heat until it thickened, it added a nice flavor to the squash. Yum!

Whole Wheat Gnocchi, Tomato Sauce, Focaccia, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

2008-02-04T20:57:00.000-06:00

Dinner 2/4 by Brian

• Whole Wheat Gnocchi

• Tomato Sauce

• Focaccia

• Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Brian made an amazing dinner from scratch tonight. Making gnocchi is no small feat. He baked potatoes, skinned them and mashed them with fresh-ground flour. After sculpting each one with a fork, he boiled them and served them with tomato sauce made with tomatoes we canned from our organic garden this summer.

He also make two kinds of focaccia — one with fried onions and the other with coarse sea salt and spices. If you'd like to try making some yourself, here is Brian's focaccia recipe. It's easy and delicious! The cookies were another creation based on the recipe from Simple Treats by Ellen Abraham.

White Bean Galettes, Baked Potatoes, and Sweet Potato Pie

2008-02-02T19:41:00.000-06:00

Dinner 2/2 by Tony

• White Bean Galettes with Sun-dried Tomato Topping

• Baked Potatoes

• Sweet Potato Pie with Vegan Whipped Cream

Tonight's dinner is one that used to be in my standard rotating but I haven't made for years. Its a bit labor intensive for a big group but for just the 6 of us it is not so big a deal.

The Galettes are a great summer or winter dish where the topping is really key. I've successfully used roasted peppers, roasted tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, and pepper relish. I think any sweet and sour, savory topping could work.

I like making flat breads and crust. I used the same crust for the pies and the Galettes which saved some time. I used our local wheat from Sandhill and would normally use oil but we had some margarine around so I used half oil and half margarine.

The pie is a great fall or winter treat. Sweet potatoes from our garden or other local organic growers can be stored all winter and this is a great dish for sorghum from Sandhill.

A delicious local meal with 75% of its ingredients from within 10 miles.

White Bean Hummus Galettes with Sundried Tomatoes Recipe

2008-02-02T19:30:00.000-06:00

White Bean Hummus

1 cup cooked white beans
1 Tbsp oil
4 cloves garlic
1.5 tsp cumin
1.5 tsp dried sage
2 Tbsp lemon juice (or more to taste)
1 tsp salt
black pepper to taste
water as needed for blending

Cook beans thoroughly, preferably in a pressure cooker. Add all ingredients to food processor and blend well.

Sun-dried Tomato Topping

We dry our tomatoes during the summer on a solar food dehydrator. We store them dry so if your are packed in oil them you can use them straight.

2 cups (packed) sun-dried tomatoes
2 Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp vinegar
1/2 tsp salt

Mix ingredients in a sealable container and shake thoroughly. Allow to moisten for at least one hour. Add more oil and vinegar if tomatoes are not moist and flexible.

Assembling the Gallettes

Roll out vegan pie crust into 3 inch squares. Put a heaping tablespoon dollop in the middle of the crust. Pinch together the middle of each side to form gallette as shown below. Top with a dab of sun-dried tomato topping. Tomatoes may scorch a bit if not moist enough.

You could also use roasted fresh tomatoes or peppers or almost any sort of relish.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-25 minutes until crust is crisp or slightly brown.

This recipe was inspired by the Millennium Cookbook.

Vegan Tofu Whipped Cream Recipe

2008-02-02T19:26:00.000-06:00

This recipe was inspired by The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook.

1 cup soft tofu
1/4 cup oil
2 Tbsp honey, sugar, or maple syrup (or more to taste)
1 tsp lemon juice
1.5 tsp vanilla
dash of salt

Blend in a blender until creamy. Serve cold.