Super Easy Noodle Stir-Fry

This isn't a recipe so much as it is simply me telling you how I made a noodle stir-fry that was both simple and delicious. In short, I cheated: I used a bottled sauce and frozen stir-fry vegetables.

The sauce was mostly the Soyaki stir-fry sauce / marinade from Trader Joe's (which is actually quite good, I think) and a little bit of chili garlic sauce.

One thing I used for this stir-fry that isn't actually "super easy" was some seitan that I made. You could either omit this altogether, make some yourself, or buy some seitan, tofu, or whatever you want to use.

I used frozen vegetables and it turned out great, but I can't guarantee that everyone will have the same results. I find if you have an electric wok that can get super hot, you can sear the frozen vegetables really quickly and they'll taste really good. Before I had an electric wok and I tried stir-frying with frozen vegetables, I wasn't pleased with the results. When I'm feeling especially cheap, I'll buy these huge bags of frozen stir-fry vegetables from Costco:

So, anyway, the first thing I did was cook some udon noodles, rinse them with cold water, and let them sit while I did everything else. You could use linguine or fettuccine if you can't find or don't have udon noodles.

Second, I added some peanut oil to the wok, set the dial just below the hottest setting, and let it heat up. I added the seitan and stir-fried it until it was brown on all sides.

I then removed it, turned the heat all the way up and stir-fried the vegetables for a few minutes.

After that, I turn the heat down just a little bit, and added the seitan, the noodles and the sauce. I'm not sure of the exact measurements on the Soyaki sauce; it was probably 1/4 cup or something. The chili garlic sauce goes a long way, so a tablespoon or so makes the dish pretty damn spicy. After cooking everything together for a minute or two, it was ready to eat. Yummmmmmmm.

Sunshine burgers with vegan cheese and sauteed mushrooms and onions

Today for lunch, I made two Southwest Sunshine Burgers in a cast iron skillet, and also cooked some mushrooms and onions in a bit of oil in the same pan. I added some Tofutti mozzarella slices to the burgers after I flipped them, so it could cook for a while. All I had to do was add the burgers with some Vegenaise, ketchup, mustard and mixed greens to a whole wheat bun, take some photos, and enjoy! You should try it some time!

Wow... I started a blog, posted a few times, and then fell off the face of the earth. That's never happened before! Oh wait, that's pretty much every blog. I really do intend to update this a little more, but I guess I haven't been coming up with that many recipes on my own lately. Work's been pretty busy, and I've been pretty lazy. Soon!

Mini post: chile de arbol salsa

I just thought I'd share this super simple recipe for salsa that is good for the winter or early spring, when tomatoes aren't in season. It's made with dried chiles de arbol, canned tomatoes, garlic, onion, cilantro, and some spices. 

Chile de Arbol Salsa

1 oz dried chiles de arbol (about 40)

1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes

2 cloves garlic

1/4 cup onion

1/2 cup cilantro 

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp ground Mexican oregano

1/4 tsp salt

Toast the chiles de arbol in a pan on the stove until they start to darken. You should stem them for sure, and remove the seeds if you don't want a super spicy salsa. I did want a super spicy salsa, so I left the seeds in. It was probably spicier than a lot of people would prefer, but I apparently burned my tastebuds off long ago and like food so spicy it hurts. Rehydrate chiles in a bowl of warm water about 45 minutes. Add all of the ingredients to a blender and puree. Pour the salsa into a saucepan and simmer for about 20 minutes. Let it cool for an hour or however long, and you've got some salsa. 

Make your own vegan ravioli!

A few years ago (3 at least), my brother Nick and I were at our parents' house and decided to try making our own ravioli. I don't remember why, but I think it had something to do with looking through a recipe book and discovering how easy it actually is to make pasta dough. We didn't have any fancy equipment, so we just rolled out some pasta dough with rolling pins until it was relatively flat, and went from there. The outcome was delicious, but it was definitely tedious enough that it hardly seemed worth it. Not too long after that, my mom was at one of those Bed, Bath & Whatever stores, saw a pasta machine on sale, and decided to pick it up for me. I didn't use it right away, because I lived in a crappy house that had a pretty nasty kitchen in which I rarely did much cooking. I've moved twice since then, but never got around to using the pasta machine, despite that fact that it was something I'd always meant to do. Three years passed and my sad little pasta machine sat in the basement, unused.

Then, I saw this post in Walking The Vegan Line and got inspired. After making Isa Pizza from Vegan With A Vengeance last week and discovering how truly delicious the combination of her tofu-basil ricotta and pesto was, I decided to use that very combination as the filling for some ravioli.

The pasta dough was just 1 1/3 cups of semolina flour and 1/3 cup of water, which I rolled with my pasta machine. I'd definitely recommend spending the $30 or so it costs for a pasta machine, but you could definitely use a rolling pin if you're up to the task. If you've got VWAV, I'd suggest making the tofu-basil ricotta and pesto recipes, but you could really fill the ravioli with whatever the hell you want. 

As you can see from this mess, you're going to want to do this on a table or somewhere similar, but you definitely need some space. 

To make the ravioli, all I did was cut the flat pasta in half lengthwise and then slice it every 3 inches or so. There is a ravioli attachment available for my pasta machine, but it totally seems pointless. This method is easy enough. I put the filling in the center, leaving plenty of room around the edges to press the two pieces together.

Cover the bottom piece of ravioli and the filling(s) with the top piece, and use a form to press down and seal the pieces together as pictured here. After you're finished putting everything together, boil the ravioli for about 3-4 minutes in a large pot of salted water. Top with whatever sauce you want, and enjoy!

After my ravioli was cooked, I topped it with some cold sauce, some spinach and some teese and microwaved it for about a minute. It was hands-down the best vegan ravioli I'd ever had! Now, I can't help but think about all of the delicious vegan ravioli I could've been making for the past 3 years.

Simple Seitan Pepper Steak

This is a veganized version of my mom's pepper steak recipe. I uploaded this to VegWeb a while back, but I thought I'd post it here as well. 

Seitan Pepper “Steak”

1 to 1½ pounds seitan, cut into strips

½ to 1 teaspoon salt (or to taste**)

1 large onion, chopped

1 cup vegan “beef” broth

3 tablespoons soy sauce (or tamari or bragg's)

1 clove garlic, minced

2 green bell peppers, cut into 1-inch pieces (could also use red)

2 tablespoons corn starch

¼ cup cold water

2 tomatoes, peeled and cut into eights (or a can of diced tomatoes, drained if tomatoes aren’t in season)

1 tablespoon canola oil

3 to 4 cups hot cooked rice

Cook the rice before you do anything, because the pepper "steak" doesn't take terribly long to cook. I use brown rice, so I start the rice way before I start cooking the rest of it.

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Sauté the onions and seitan, until the seitan starts to brown and the onions are tender and translucent. Stir in broth, soy sauce and garlic; cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add green bell peppers; cover and simmer 5 minutes, or until peppers are tender.

Blend corn starch and water, stir gradually into mixture. Cook stirring constantly until mixture thickens and boil; boil for 1 minute. Add tomatoes and heat through.

Serve over rice.

* 15 minute preparation time is assuming you don't make your own seitan. I do make my own seitan, so the preparation time is actually several hours, but the majority of the time is for simmering. I find that the "faux beef" recipe from La Dolce Vegan works well for this recipe.

** I use low-sodium vegan "beef" broth, so I add a decent amount of salt. If you use a "beef" broth with the normal amount of sodium, you may want to adjust accordingly.

Awesome Sauce Pasta

I made this for dinner tonight and it was delicious, so I decided to take a photo of it and post the recipe. I can never think of what to call recipes that I just whip up, so I am calling this Awesome Sauce Pasta, and you're just going to have to deal with it.

Awesome Sauce Pasta

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 zucchini, chopped

1 onion, diced

2 cups sliced mushrooms

4 leaves dino kale cut into thin strips (chiffonade)

1/2 lb tofu, diced

salt & pepper to taste

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

3 cups (dry) small pasta (like rotini or penne)

1 cup olives (I just used regular ripe/black ones, but any kind would work)

2 tsp olive oil

sauce:

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 tbsp sweet white cooking wine

5-6 (or more) cloves of garlic, minced

1 tsp salt

1 tsp red pepper flakes

Cook the pasta before you do anything. Put the tofu in a container with a little bit of balsamic vinegar and toss it around. Put it on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and bake it for about 10 minutes or so at 350. Put the sauce ingredients in the container you used for the tofu and give it a shake.

Heat the olive oil in a big skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions; saute until soft. Add the zucchini, red bell pepper, sliced mushrooms, olives, tofu, salt, pepper, oregano and basil; saute until the zucchini is soft. Add the cooked pasta; saute for a few minutes. Add the sauce and kale; cook until the kale is done. 

NOTE: Normally, I add diced tomatoes when I make pasta like this, but I didn't have any this time around. It tastes better with the tomatoes, though, in my opinion.

DIY Vegan Frozen Pizzas

I generally don't eat frozen foods, but sometimes I'm feeling really lazy or just want something convenient late at night. Before I was vegan, I turned to frozen pizzas in such instances. Unfortunately, when it comes to vegan frozen pizzas, there are only a few options, and most of them are extremely expensive. I decided to try making my own frozen pizzas, and it actually worked.

I'd post recipes, but really, the technique is more important than the recipe. I made the dough in my bread machine using a recipe in a bread machine book. The sauce I made in the Vita-Mix using a recipe in the Vita-Mix book. I used FYH vegan mozzarella (but will be using Teese next time), and then topped the pizzas with bell peppers, onion, mushrooms (marinate them so they don't burn) and seitan o' greatness.

Because I made the dough, sauce and seitan o' greatness myself, it's all relatively healthy. I didn't add a ton of salt to anything, and I didn't put a ton of the vegan cheese on. Making everything myself made this fairly cheap per pizza, too. I made 6 pizzas for less than $20. 4 of them were the frozen ones, and 2 of them were the pizzas my girfriend and I had for dinner the night before. 

Assemble the pizza on wax paper on a baking sheet and stick it in the freezer. If you freeze them this way beforehand, sticking them in bags will be much easier. I made mine rectangular so they'd fit in the vacuum sealer bags. I've found that you need to make the crust as thin as you can when you're freezing it. Otherwise, the dough doesn't cook all the way through by the time the rest of the pizza is done. 

 

You can stack them in the freezer. Mine only took about an hour or so to freeze. 

(none of that fake meat stuff is mine! haha)

After they were frozen, I vacuum sealed them. You could get a huge ziploc bag if you don't have a vacuum sealer.

The real test: baking the frozen pizza worked fine. It was delicious! 450 for about 15-20 minutes or until it's done. Next time, I'm going to be more adventurous with the toppings. Cook it right on the rack, or get one of those pizza pans that has holes in it. If you use a cookie sheet, it won't turn out very well. I tried a pizza stone, and that didn't work very well either; the bottom was too cripsy before the dough was fully cooked.