As Autumn as it gets

If a perfect summer day includes a beach, ice cream, and hot shirtless dudes, today was the Autumn equivalent. It started off with brunch at a friend's house: pumpkin apple cinnamon muffins, pumpkin pancakes, and tofu scramble with Field Roast apple sage sausages.

After we ate, we headed out to Afton Apple Orchards. It was slim pickings (literally), as most of the apples we found were past their prime. We opted out of jumping the hayride out to the "good" trees, so we picked out pumpkins instead. After that, we headed inside to buy fresh cider.

Tonight I came up with a delicious Autumn side, but I'm eating it for dinner by itself. I've never tried delicata squash before, and I'm now adding it to my favorites. This came together really quickly, and will make an appearance at Thanksgiving.



Roasted Delicata Squash with Cider Cream Sauce
serves 6 as a side

1 cup apple cider
1 cup cashew cream or soy creamer
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp chipotle or cayenne powder
1 delicata squash, washed
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 small onion, sliced into thin half moons
salt & pepper
6 strips tempeh bacon (I used the Turtle Island Smoky Maple ones, because they are the BOMB)
2 tbsp chopped walnuts
1 tbsp maple syrup
dash cayenne

First, make the sauce. In a small saucepan, bring the cider to a boil and reduce by almost half (about 15 minutes). Whisk in the cream, mustard, and chipotle powder. Keep stirring, lowering heat slightly. Keep an eye on it, stirring frequently, until the whole thing is reduced to about a cup.

Preheat oven to 375°

Cut the ends off the squash. Cut in half lengthwise, and scoop out the guts and seeds. Then cut into 1/2 inch slices, widthwise. Toss the squash slices with 1 tbsp of the olive oil, 1/2 tsp salt, and generous twists of pepper. Lay the slices on a baking sheet covered in parchment. Roast for 15 minutes. Flip the slices and roast an additional 15, or until they are tender (you can eat the skin!).

In a medium skillet, heat the other tbsp oil. Cook the onion and tempeh until the onion starts to turn brown. Throw in the walnuts and maple syrup. Toss to coat. Cook for about three more minutes. Serve over squash with the cider cream sauce.

Curry and the Cackler

I almost murdered someone tonight. Well, okay. I probably wouldn't have murdered him if I'd had the green light, but I sure did fantasize about crushing his face with my elbow a few times. It was the DRUNK MORON next to me at Louis CK's show tonight. Everything else was awesome; I went with my best friend, we got fourth row tickets, and Louis was hilarious. But, man. Even this dude's buddy looked like he wanted to disappear into a hole in the ground. Imagine Ricky Gervais's laugh, only less endearing, and he kept saying shit like, "Oh man. This is some funny shit!" and commenting on stuff. Really? This guy must not watch Louie at all, because I was waiting for this guy to become a target, and there I am. Next to him. 

Anyway, before the show, I made Coconut Curried Tempeh. I accidentally poured about a half cup of crushed red pepper into it (yikes!), and even though I scraped most of it out of the pan, it wound up so so so spicy. Luckily, my friend is a big fan of spicy. 

I had to do this in parts, but it came together pretty fast. I think next attempt, I'll bake the tempeh, because I like it crispier, and it's hard to get that texture when you're stir frying in water instead of oil.

Coconut Curried Tempeh

makes 4 servings

1 16oz package tempeh, sliced into two flatter pieces, and then into bite sized pieces

1 tbsp Bragg's liquid aminos

1 sweet potato, peeled and diced

1 onion, cut into thin moons

1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp minced ginger

2 tsp red curry paste, or curry powder

1/2 lb green beans

1 can light coconut milk

In a large, nonstick pan, blanch the tempeh in about 1/2 inch of water and Bragg's for about 3 minutes. Set aside on a plate. Put diced potatoes and a cup of cold water in the same pan, and cook until almost tender. Pour off the water. Throw in the rest of the veggies, tempeh, and curry. Stir fry until brown, adding spritzes of water to keep from sticking. Add a little more water, cover and steam for about 4-5 minutes. Stir in coconut milk. Serve over brown jasmine rice.

Catching up.

Oy, I have not much of an excuse for staying away for so long. One is that I am lazy, and the other is that I lost my camera. But then I found it, so laziness wins out.

Much stuff going on in the little vegan world in Minneapolis. I'll start with two fun and successful bake sales! The first one was to benefit Kinship Circle; an organization organizing rescues for abandoned and injured animals after the Haiti earthquake. The Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale (Twin Cities style) took place at Ethique Nouveau on April 24. Here are some pictures from both (this was also my chance to get some shots of the new store!) :

This tree is in the front window. I love that they bought Aqua Globes.



Beautiful jewelry, handbags, and cosmetics.





Those avocado brownies were awesome. Really. I swear.



These cranberry-almond muffins got many five-star reviews.



Celeste's truffles. By popular demand, they also appeared at the next bake sale.



These are mine. Lemony macadamia white chocolate scones, and double chocolate muffins.



On May 14, I attended a sushi class at the home of Ciree Linsenman. I had a blast (hanging out with other vegans usually is), and found out that assembling sushi is really not that hard. I'm looking forward to having some friends over to roll our own. These pictures were taken with my new Samsung Behold II phone, as I had misplaced my camera. As you can see, it takes pretty okay pictures of food, while my digital camera leaves much to be desired. I guess six years is long enough. Time to get a camera that takes good food pictures, dammit.

Gobo Boats: red quinoa with pickled burdock root. Color is from beets.



Tavo Tavo Maki.



Tavo Tavo Maki, pre-rolled.



Rainbow Inari parcels.



Black Dragon Back Roll (in the back, with the bok choy sticking out).



Coming soon: Waffles! Iron Chef! Skin Trade movie premier! Stay tuned.

Smoky Tempeh Stew with Greens

Feast your eyes.



A year from now, when you get this book, remember to use artichoke hearts instead of lima beans. Unless you're some kind of lima bean freak. Freak.

VFaS: The final chapter

Tonight: Asian. Vietnamese Noodles with Tempeh and Peanuts.



This recipe earned three little chiles on the spice scale, so I expected dinner to kick my ass tonight. It didn't, until I added a little sriracha to it at the end. I will say that this dish made me appreciate tempeh, finally. I give it chance after chance, but haven't been able to really get into it (and certainly never thought it was worth the gas). I like the tempeh sausage/white bean gravy from VwaV, but otherwise I couldn't care less about it. I gave it it's last chance tonight to prove me wrong.

This is what tempeh was made for. Fried crispy, and then doused in chili oil and vegan "fish" sauce. Then tossed with udon noodles, shredded carrot, scallions, and cabbage? Dear God. Divine. Like I said, add a little more heat if you want (I even upped the ante with some chile-spiced peanuts as opposed to regular roasted ones). I recommend this served cold, over some shredded cabbage and cucumbers. Yum.

Overall, I really like this book. It's not very brave with the heat, so you've been advised. But I'm also the Queen of Congestion, so I might just be desensitized to anything that might actually clear up the shit in my head. And chest. And nose.

Paella. Kinda sorta.

For the Mediterranean-Europe section of VFaS, I chose to make the Paella because the best way to judge a cookbook is by it's most involved recipes. At least it is for me.

Anyway, I set out to pick up some tempeh tonight because I had everything else, and planned to make Isa's chorizo sausages for the sausage portion of the recipe, but then don'tcha know Tofurkey Italian Sausages were on sale, so I got those, too.

Well, I should have got some green beans, because the farmers market batch didn't hold up well in the fridge. Slimy. I went down to the corner store, where I picked up the lone, frost-covered bag of frozen green beans and when I got them home and dumped them into a colander to thaw them, they were beige.



So, I chopped up a red bell pepper and threw it into the pan with some kale. It's not true to the recipe, but hey. I'm on a tight schedule here, and nine o'clock at night is no time for a babe like me to be traipsing about the city looking for green beans. I also wasn't prepared to do any of the other chapters, so it's bell pepper and kale or a bunch of excuses and another picture of Mischka, and I'm starting to scare myself with my obsessive cat picture-taking.



It turned out fantastic. I underguessed on the kale, and it barely causes a speck of green in there, but I added more peas and we're good. Hey, and I got to use my gigantor pan! Next time I make this (and I will), I will a) add more liquid, b) leave out the tempeh because with all those meat analogs, it's a friggin' sausage party in there, and c) add artichoke hearts. It's not as spicy as I'd hoped, so I'd say add more of the red pepper flakes.