Today I felt like giving another go at a vegan bacon substitute. There are quite a few recipes available on the internet for this, such as this one and this one. My variation is most similar to the former link.

¼ c water
1 T soy sauce
5 drops liquid smoke
1 t garlic powder
1 t onion salt
1 portion of firm tofu (I used a Miso tofu patty from the H&S), crumbled in to bits

Heat the liquids at a low temperature in a frying pan, and add the crumbled tofu pieces and spices once the liquids have begun to bubble. Heat the mixture until the liquid has evaporated and the tofu has become brown and crispy. This took me about 25 minutes as I had the stove on a very low setting.

The final result tasted fantastic, and was not too far off the last store-bought stuff I tried.

- Aly

I had forgotten what an amazing workout it is to box with WBK! If you are interested in non-competitive boxing training, I would highly recommend them! I can not think of any activity which has brought me greater pleasure, aside from seeing Daft Punk live at the Bell Centre last summer. I was too exhausted to prepare a meal from scratch after class, but was desperately in need of a high calorie meal! Here is what I came up with:

Clockwise from upper left: 1 container of yoso vanilla soy yogurt with 1 c of blackberries and half a banana, 2 T of hummus with 5 olives, 8 baby carrots, and half a whole wheat pita with 1 T of PB (although I am allergic to tree nuts, peanuts are still cool as far as I know!) and the other half of that banana.

It did the job!

- Aly

Yes, I cooked a lot this weekend!

This recipe came to me from Romina over at Vegan For One, but the original is from the Happy Herbivore. The recipe calls for 1 tbsp coriander… which I’m pretty sure is the same thing as cilantro, and I LOVE fresh cilantro, so I put in 4 or 5 tbsp. I also cooked up a pot of Thai Glutinous Rice (for lack of other options), but unfortunately this rice so so sticky that it’s hard to mix with the dal. Still, the recipe made a TON of lunches for O.B. and I. I’m looking for some vegan naan to go with it, but no dice so far.

- Maureen

Mmmm. White potatoes. So cheap and easy, but a rare occurence on my menu. I often microwave sweet potatoes (yams) and add brown sugar for a 5-minute, vitamin-packed dinner. But being as I’m a university graduate and all… well, it’s time for a bit of a classier recipe.

Adapted from The Garden of Vegan:

10 small red potatoes, quartered
5 cloves garlic, halved
1 small onion, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp dried dill
2 tsp fresh rosemary
1/8 tsp each salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 C. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients and toss well until potatoes are well covered. Spread out on a 9X13 baking pan. Roast for 35-45 min (actually mine took 60 min). Stir occasionally to prevent burning. Enjoy with ketchup like I’m doing right now. MMMMMM.

- Maureen

Also, I probably shouldn’t do another post about The Table, but this restaurant is just soooo amazing… so I’ll hide it at the bottom of another post:

Clockwise from rotini: sundried tomato rotini, mushroom gravy with tofu over a bed of red quinoa, phyllo roll with um, chewy/seedy filling, some gross mashed carrot stuff that I didn’t like, tempeh cubes, a tofu ball, corn fritters with mango chutney, and grilled tomatoes.

]]> http://madaboutudon.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/roasted-red-potatoes-w-dill-and-rosemary/feed/ Maureen http://madaboutudon.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/mothers-day-baked-tofu/ http://madaboutudon.wordpress.com/2008/05/11/mothers-day-baked-tofu/#comments Sun, 11 May 2008 22:15:28 +0000 Maureen http://madaboutudon.wordpress.com/?p=52

Okay, this baked tofu has nothing to do with Mother’s Day. In fact I made it yesterday.

Now, onto the evolution of baked tofu! I’ve been trying out different ways of avoiding Herb And Spice’s delicious yet expensive baked tofu slices.

Experiment 1: Canola oil and Montreal Steak Spice

Experiment 2 (left): Marinade in half soy sauce, half water, plus a liberal splash of lemon juice, garlic powder, and Montreal Steak Spice.
Experiment 3 (right): Marinade in the new PC Blue Menu Soy and Ginger light salad dressing.

My favourite was Experiment 2.

Directions: Drain tofu. Marinade overnight. Bake at 350 for 20 mins.

-Maureen

O.B. goes bananas over this recipe.

Ingredients:

1 cup soy milk
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp each of baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon
1/2 cup Earth Balance (margarine), softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
5 mashed ripe bananas

Heat oven to 350 C. Grease a 9X5 inch pan. Whisk soy milk + lemon juice, and set aside. In a bowl, combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In another bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light. Beat in vanilla and bananas. Stir in flour mixture alternatively with soy milk mixture. Mix and pour into pan. Bake for 40-60 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.

-Maureen

Whoo!! Guess who graduated university? ME! It hasn’t really sunk in that the exhausting yet exhilarating roller-coaster ride that is university is finally over. So much has happened since I defended my thesis last Friday, including moving in with my Omnivore Boyfriend (henceforth referred to as O.B.), and commencing full-time work at the university (a job I previously held part-time). But things have calmed down a bit so here is the first of what will hopefully be a delicious barrage of cooking photos this weekend.

Gluten-Free Chunky Pasta Salad (can anyone think of a better name?)

Ingredients:

• 1 large cucumber (cut in half and diced thickly)
• 1 yellow pepper (sliced)
• 1 can black beans
• 2 cups bean sprouts
• 1 can black pre-sliced olives
• 1 pkg Eden Organic Flax Rice Spirals
• PC Honey Dijon salad dressing to taste

This made a huge amount of pasta salad… 7 or so servings. I’ve mentioned before that I have a habit of picking out random, awesome sounding pastas from the health food store or Chinatown, but the Flax Rice Spirals were… meh. They tasted kinda like whole wheat pasta which you can buy for a hell of a lot cheaper than $3.59/box.

-Maureen

I made lunch for a omnivorous friend yesterday who was curious about the sorts of things I can eat with my allergies. I was quite nervous about this at first as I always want to leave my friends with a good impression of vegan fare! I ended up preparing roasted brussel sprouts, a salad and a pasta and mushroom combination:

It is going to be difficult, but not impossible, to get school stuff in to my photos now that the semester is over ;)!

I used the FFVK’s fantastically simple and delicious roasted Brussels sprout recipe. The blob of hummus in the salad was also inspired by various FFVK posts. The pasta dish was a mixture of Eddie’s vegetable confetti pasta, shiitake mushrooms, fresh oregano, onion and various herbs and spices. It turned out pretty well!

On a distantly related note, I had the pleasure of going to a vegan brunch today (I wish I had had my camera!) where I was introduced to Yoso, a tasty soy yogurt which was definitely more palatable than any other soy yogurt that I have tried!

- Aly

Whoo! I just finished my last undergrad exam EVER. I’m celebrating by not working on my thesis and posting on Mad About Udon. Go team procrastination!

I made Indonesian Satay last week for a birthday dinner. It was easy and delicious, mostly because I bought the sauce pre-made from a company called Sharwood’s. The sauce wasn’t labelled as vegan but a quick survey of ingredients showed that it is.

I boiled Shanghai noodles from Chinatown for about 5 mins, and rinsed and drained them.

I chopped up one red bell pepper, de-stringed two cups of snowpeas, and defrosted about 2 cups of frozen vegetable. The snowpeas and pepper were microwaved for 2 mins each first. This mixture was sauteed in the Satay sauce until the veggies were tender, about 15-20 mins.

I boiled some TVP chunks and then microwaved them in Satay sauce. Ordinarily I would cook the TVP with the veggies but as my dinner date was omni, we cooked our TVP and chicken separately.

Et voila! Yes, that’s a huge portion and I didn’t eat it all, but I was going for the best picture. It was delish.

-Maureen

Aly asked what other people use as a mayo substitute. I like to mix BBQ sauce and mustard to give a tangy punch that every sandwich begs for. Truth is, I’d never tasted mustard once in my life until it was accidentally given to me at Subway with BBQ sauce, and I was hooked.

I also love hummus as a condiment so I’ll share my favourite recipe for this garbanzo goodness.

Chunky Olive Hummus:

• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 15-oz cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
• 2/3 cup tahini
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 tsp each salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup chopped, pitted black olives
• 1/4 cup olives (any form, but pitted, to blend)

Crush garlic. Mix garlic, chickpeas, lemon juice, water, oil, salt, pepper, and non-chopped olives, and blend in a blender or food processor until desired consistency (I like chunky). You may have to add more liquid. Don’t worry about adding too much, because runny hummus can be dried out by leaving it uncovered in the fridge overnight.

Stir in tahini and chopped olives.

Hummus is expensive in stores, and people are generally too busy or lazy to make it themselves… so this makes a great gift! Nothing says “I appreciate your existence” like a homemade batch of creamy, delicious hummus. (For variety, substitute pesto, sundried tomatoes, or roasted red peppers for olives).

This hummus tastes great on whole wheat bread with baked tofu, sprouts, BBQ sauce, and mustard.

-Maureen