Whole Grain Tortillas

This recipe is from the cookbook Whole Grain Vegan Baking by Celine Steen and Tamasin Noyes.

Recipe: see page 113 of Whole Grain Vegan Baking.

I made these tacos using the Whole Grain Tortilla recipe in the book. That looks like meat, but is actually Trader Joe's Beefless Strips, which are vegan.

I picked this recipe because it seemed like it would be fairly quick. Mixing the ingredients went fast, but I was using a single cast iron pan to cook them, one at a time, so that did take me awhile... about 40 minutes to make 12 tortillas. And all of that was standing over the stove making sure they didn't burn. So, it turned out to be a lot more work than I figured.

My big concern was whether they would be able to be folded into tacos, or if they would break. I kept them covered like the instructions suggested, and that kept them moist, and it worked. I tried folding them into a burrito, but they weren't stretchy enough for that. But these were great for tacos, and I really liked the fresher taste of these homemade tortillas.

I put the leftover tortillas in the fridge and they were hard the next day. I was thinking of frying them up as tortilla chips, but decided to try steaming to get them softened. That worked out great and they folded nicely without breaking and I had tacos again.

Be sure to check out the stops on the The Whole Grain Vegan Baking blog tour. May 26 is my official day. I'll have one more post then.

Ingredients: white whole wheat flour, whole spelt flour, finely ground cornmeal, baking powder, vegan milk (Trader Joe's Unsweetened Soy Milk used here), salt, oil.

Onion Caraway Whole Wheat Loaf

This recipe is from the cookbook Whole Grain Vegan Baking by Celine Steen and Tamasin Noyes.

Recipe: see page 57 of Whole Grain Vegan Baking.

It's been awhile since I've posted, but I just received this new cookbook and wanted to break it in. I told you before I had a new oven installed a few weeks ago. I had all sorts of problems with the old one. It was one of the really cheap ones and it did not handle baking duties very well. Everything always turned out uneven. This one is really nice. It beeps when it reaches the preheat temperature. No more guessing. And did you know there is a specific rack in the oven for bread. I didn't know that. It's amazing what I learn when I read manuals.

So, the first recipe for vegan bread that jumped out at me was this one for Onion Caraway Whole Wheat Loaf. I looked interesting because, well, it had a pretty picture, and I'm a chump for pictures of pretty food (There are over 100 recipes in the book, and over 40 of them have photos.). And also, it looked really easy. There was no kneading or rising time involved on this one. Prep time was only 5 minutes or so, then it was in the oven.

This bread has a very hearty flavor, similar to rye bread. That comes from the caraway seeds and the beer. Then there are toasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas) that give it a nutty taste. This isn't the type of bread you would want to make sandwiches with because it is so crumbly, but it would complement a bowl of soup or chili.

I had a little bit of a problem with the pepitas. On the first loaf I made, they weren't sticking to the bread, so when I went to slice it, pepitas went flying. By the time I sliced the whole loaf, all the seeds had popped off. It didn't make for much of a photo, so I made the loaf again and pressed the seeds into the dough a little before putting it in the oven. That helped some of them stick a little better, but a bunch still fell off.

I am participating on the The Whole Grain Vegan Baking blog tour. May 26 is my official day, but I will be posting more on this book between now and then. Be sure to check out the other stops on the tour to see what other bloggers are doing with the recipes.

Ingredients: whole wheat pastry flour, baking powder, caraway seeds, onion powder, toasted pepitas, cornstarch (or arrowroot powder), vegan beer, oil, salt.

Tofu and Kale Spanakopita

This recipe is from the cookbook Vegan Planet by Robin Robertson.

Recipe: see page 386 of Vegan Planet.

Traditional spanakopita is a Greek dish consisting of spinach, feta cheese, and phyllo pastry dough. In this veganized recipe, the feta is replaced with tofu and lemon juice, and the spinach is replaced with kale.

The taste was kind of bland. Normally that wouldn't bother me as long as the dish is healthy or low calorie or low sodium, but the calorie count was high from the phyllo and olive oil. But still, it was kind of fun making this. I've never used phyllo pastry dough before, or made spanakopita.

Ingredients: kale, firm tofu, phyllo pastry, yellow onion, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, nutmeg.

Irish Stew with Potatoes and Seitan

This recipe is from the vegan cookbook Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

Recipe: see page 258 of Appetite for Reduction.

Saint Patrick's Day is coming up and I decided to go through my vegan cookbooks to see if I could find something appropriate, as well as something that didn't involve the use of artificial green food coloring. Now, granted, I don't have that many cookbooks, but this was the only Irish-style recipe I could find. But that's okay, because this was in Appetite for Reduction, a vegan cookbook with healthier recipes, so it was exactly what I was looking for.

While this stew was cooking it had an amazing aroma from the garlic, onions, thyme and beer. It gets cooked in beer for a little bit before the potatoes, carrots, green beans and seitan are added. As you can imagine, it a very savory smell. By the time it is finished, everything is swimming in a thick (very low-fat) beer-scented gravy.


The only thing I didn't care for was the lemon juice that was added at the end. It gave the dish a citrus flavor that seemed overpowering. I will leave that out next time I make this.

Ingredients: seitan (I used Trader Joe's Beef-less Strips), onion, Yukon Gold potatoes, carrots, green beans, garlic, olive oil, dried thyme, bay leaves, beer (Dos Equis), broth (Trader Joe's Low-Sodium Vegetable Broth), tomato paste, all-purpose flour, lemon juice, salt, pepper.

Cheater Chili

This recipe is from The Vegan Slow Cooker by Kathy Hester.

Recipe: see page 69 of The Vegan Slow Cooker.

Taste on this vegan chili is fair. It's not any masterpiece of a recipe, but it's not trying to be. The real attraction is the extremely short prep time, which is 5 minutes or less.... the amount of time it takes to open 5 cans and combine them all in the slow cooker. This would be a good recipe for when you are pressed for time in the morning, and you want to have dinner ready and waiting when you come home. You can set the slow cooker before you leave, and bingo, vegan chili ready when you come back.

BTW, those are cornbread muffins in the background. I'm looking at the photo now and realizing they kind of look like cupcakes. I made the cornbread recipe from the cookbook Appetite for Reduction, but didn't want take make a whole batch, so I did half and poured the batter into muffin liners.

Ingredients: black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, corn, canned diced tomatoes, garlic, chili powder, liquid smoke, Tabasco sauce, salt, pepper.

The Incredible Green Sandwich

This recipe is from Vegan Sandwiches Save The Day by Tamasin Noyes and Celine Steen.

Recipe: see page 20 of Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day.

This sandwich uses the Green Monster Bagels from my previous post. It puts some home made guacamole on the bagel along with some fresh spinach and sprouts. It tastes good, and is very fast to assemble if the bagels are already made (that's a little less than 3 hours in itself, so plan ahead). The sandwich did get a little messy after I bit into it. The guacamole squished out the sides, and through the hole at the center of the bagel. The taste was really outstanding when the bagels were still warm from the oven.

Ingredients: avocado, garlic, scallion, jalapeno, fresh cilantro, lime juice, olive oil, fresh baby spinach, sprouts, Green Monster Bagels (recipe on page 178).