Beefless Stroganoff!

I adapted this from the Beef Stroganoff recipe in The Joy of Cooking. Here's the recipe:

Beefless Stroganoff
Ingredients:
a package of Gardein "Beefless Tips" 9 oz. ("Joy" calls for 1 1/2 lb. of beef!)
2-3 Tbsp. Earth Balance butter
1 large diced onion ("Joy" only calls for 3/4 Tbsp. of onion!)
3/4 lb. of sliced mushrooms, or as much as you want
salt, pepper, fresh nutmeg
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/4 c. dry white wine
1 c. tofutti sour cream


In the butter, saute the onion and mushrooms until onion is transluscent, about 5 minutes, stirring periodically. Add "beef" and wine and saute another 5 minutes or so over medium-high heat, stirring so it won't stick. Season with salt, pepper a generous grind of nutmeg and basil. Add sour cream, warm through and serve over noodles or potatoes, whatever you like.
Serves 2 


This recipe was very easy and quick. The Joy of Cooking version serves 4, and you could double the "beef tips" to achieve that amount, but I didn't, since I wasn't even sure if my carnivore would go for it, "fake meat" and all.  Guess what?  He DID! He even ate seconds and called it delicious! I'm so excited!!

We had the stroganoff over whole wheat linguine. I really wanted brown rice fusilli, but didn't want to overload my good-sport carnivore with new experiences!

Another meal that I wasn't going to feature since it is only a different combo of lots of the same leftovers I've been eating lately is this:

See those big bite marks all along the front edge? I was well into the nirvana that is assorted-vegan-leftovers-on-a-flatbread when my son walked in and said, "Wow."

"What? It's good!" I responded.

"Yeah, I think if I were vegan that would be good to me too. It just looks really healthy." he said.

"That's part of what makes it so good!" I continued.

"Seriously, it looks like you just scooped that out of a really healthy jungle," he added, diplomatically.

I started to giggle.

"That looks better than that Yoda-food you were eating the other day!" He continued.

He meant this:

One of my radicchio pizzas extraordinaire -- my very most favorite thing to eat of late. It looks even more like Yoda-food after it's been under the broiler for a couple of minutes.  I'm not offended.  Very wise, Yoda is. Honored to dine with him, I would be!  I'm just glad my son is noticing.

Paella!

On Sunday, while I was cleaning/organizing, my husband came over and said, "What were you thinking about for lunch?"

I answered, "Well, I just finished breakfast, so I wasn't. You want some soup?" as I pointed to the cans in the pantry.

"Can you make Paella?"

"Um, sorta,'"

So my vegan paella, complete with optional seared chicken was born. I am sorry, it was a rush job so I did not write the recipe as I went. Here is what I remember:

Paella
Ingredients:
1 c. brown rice
2 1/2 c. broth or water with a bouillon cube
6 shakes of turmeric (I didn't own any saffron)
half a large white onion, diced
a clove of garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
a large handful of grape tomatoes, sliced
half a cup of sliced raw spinach
1 c. frozen peas, unthawed
optional if you are catering to your omni-brethren: three frozen chicken tenderloins (for one omni-serving)
Serves 4


Start the rice and broth/water and bouillon -- I just lazily put it all in together and stirred it a little as it came to a boil. Then I lowered the heat to low and covered. From here the rice took about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the other ingredients. Add the onion, garlic, tomatoes and tomato paste. Cover and continue to cook. I found I needed to add some more warm water about 30 minutes in, as the rice was still too firm and the evaporation was happening too early. You could add half a cup here or just start out with 3 cups instead of the 2 1/2 that are on the rice package. In a separate pan, cook the frozen chicken in some olive oil over medium-high heat until browned on both sides. Keep the pan covered since the melting ice will create spatters. Once the chicken is browned, turn the heat to low and leave covered so it can finish cooking through as the rice finishes. When the rice is finished, take off the heat and stir in the frozen peas and spinach. The heat will thaw and wilt everything together. Serve it up!


Obviously, with a little heads-up, I would have had the opportunity to make this much more spectacular and much more vegan -- sausages, gardein, but my husband loved it as it was, I thought it was pretty good and, as a bonus, my picky but sometimes veganly (could that be a word, please?) adventurous daughter loved it, and opted for it sans chicken (I only put the chicken in my husband's bowl - the rest stayed vegan). She even wolfed down the leftovers on her way to workout the next day after school! (they feed them lunch at school at 10:30 -- crazy, huh?) I warned her she might get a cramp during workout, but she was starving so I let her have the healthy leftovers. As luck would have it, she had a very good workout and was no worse for the eating schedule.

This "paella" was something I wasn't inspired to do, but I was proud to have been able to bring it all together spur-of-the-moment. I was also proud it was another healthy option for my little girl!

Sound Bite Decided + Easy Gardein

I've decided what'll work best for me the next time I'm in need of a quick sound-bite to stop a server from trying to talk me into eating "just a little bit" of cheese. First let me just say that I have received a few really good suggestions from you, my readers, and some make me blush because they are complimentary, so I won't repeat them (I have some really, really sweet friends -- non-vegans too! I'm very lucky.) While I appreciate the compliments, I'm not generally comfortable touting my well-being to perfect strangers, so what I will say next time is,

"At this point in life, I only eat what I want."

That should be good enough in the heat of the moment.  There's no need to go into why I want it unless someone is curious, then I'll be happy to elaborate. If I haven't heard from you yet, what do you say to explain your choices?  I'm still interested in knowing.

I needed to use up a couple of pieces of gardein the other day, so I quickly threw something together that turned out to taste like a gourmet meal. So easy it's not even a recipe, I just sliced a shallot and four mushrooms and sauteed them over medium-high heat in Earth Balance and olive oil for a couple of minutes. Then I threw the gardein fillets in for a couple of minutes more, squeezed half a lemon over all of it and flipped them a couple of times.  That's all.  I had this with sweet potato oven fries and a green salad.  Easy and delish!

Back on Track

After the excesses, good and bad, of Thanksgiving, I am ready for simplicity again, just some unadorned, healthy food. Here's a bright fresh recipe that suited my craving well:

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Tomatoes
Ingredients:
brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved - I used a large bag from Costco
a pint of grape tomatoes
3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper


That's it -- just stir all ingredients, coating the veggies well. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Arrange veggies in a roasting pan. Roast for 20-25 minutes. This cooking time is based on the fact that I had a lot of sprouts that filled the roasting pan thickly. If you have a thinner layer, you will want to check the veggies after about 17 minutes or so. They will cook more quickly if they are not as crowded.

Here's the finished product. The sprouts were still crisp-tender, and will still be good when I quickly heat the leftovers up again in the oven. The tomatoes were hot and sweet and just beginning to burst. My favorite part is the crispy, paper-like outer edges of the sprouts.  Really, really delicious, and just what I wanted to eat!

In addition to these veggies, I made a simple salad:

So minimal -- fresh spinach, half an avocado, a couple of radishes and a squeeze of lime juice. You could also add some evoo, but I felt the veggies were rich enough with all their oil. I love the combination of radishes and avocados together. They are complete opposites that compliment each other well. My omni husband loved this salad!

Next to the salad bowl, here's my whole dinner plateful:

Again simple and easy, my main dish was a couple of gardein cutlets sauteed in a little olive oil and earth balance, then brightened with a squeeze of lemon juice, and smothered in onions and peppers I had also sauteed in the oil/butter. I topped it off with capers.  Mmmm.  Andres had the same thing, but with a tilapia fillet in a separate pan. That's right, I had two pans going! But that's okay, since all the rest was identical prep. The kids, swamped with school projects and not big fans of fish, gardein or brussels sprouts, ate leftover pasta in their rooms while working. I also gave them bowls of plain spinach which they just grab with their fingers and cram in their mouths. They always used to put ranch dressing all over the spinach, but now just leafy finger food -- isn't it funny how their tastes keep changing too? I would have done more for them, but they didn't care.

Seeing these photos again makes me hungry -- maybe a little bowl of re-roasted sprouts for breakfast?