Vegan Recipes and Plant Based Cooking

  Every once in a while I get the urge for some dessert and so I bake. I'm not a particularly gifted baker, but I do all right. I'm an intuitive baker. It's pretty easy for me to eyeball measurements and improvise a vegan and or low carb recipe equivalent.  These are soft, chewy, cakey cookies. They're kind of a hybrid muffin/cookie. If you're a fan of oatmeal cookies, like I am, then you'll want to try these. The oats are obviously carbs, but for a cookie/cake they're pretty low in carbs and high in protein thanks to the tofu. Overall, they're a mostly guilt-free dessert for both your body and your conscience.  The tofu acts as a substitute for the butter and eggs. But tofu doesn't have much fat, so the peanut butter adds fat, additional binding and lots of flavor.  It's a pretty simple recipe with very few ingredients and not a lot of steps. You can have yourself some delicious vegan oatmeal cookies in under 30 minutes. Ingredients 1/2 block si...

This is jalapeno cornbread reimagined as a sauce, but it's also low carb and vegan. It's also protein rich thanks to the use of tofu as the base. If this interests you, then go forth and be merry.  Ingredients 1/2 block soft tofu, plus 2 tbls of the packing water 1/4 cup frozen corn kernels 1 jalapeno, chunked 3 cloves garlic, chunked 2 tbls olive oil 2 tbls nutritional yeast 2 tlbs white vinegar 2 1/2 tsps salt Add to a medium sauce pot the tofu, tofu water, corn, olive oil. jalapeno and garlic. Cover and simmer on medium low until the pepper is tender and its bright green has faded.  Allow to cool on a cold burner in the pot without the lid for 5 minutes.  Add to a pitcher blender or food processor. Add remaining ingredients as well.  Puree until smooth.  It's a little bit sweet thanks to the corn. It's also a little bit heat. It's acidic from the vinegar. It's creamy from the tofu. It's salty from the salt. It's umami from the yeast.  If you don't...

 If I've learned anything from all the TV cooking shows that I watch, it's that it's the sauce that brings it all together.  Making vegan sauces can be a challenge. Especially if you're like me and unwilling to use commercial vegan butter.  The reason I don't use it is because it's made from palm oils. Those really aren't good for us. Anything hydrogenated is also not good.  I try to stick with olive oil as my fat.  Also trying to thicken commercial plant milks can be tricky. Various brands and types have a range of stabilizers and emulsifier which can mess with your efforts to thicken them.  While you can thicken cow's milk or cream with only heat and patience, the same is not really true for plant based milks. It might work for soy milk. I haven't tried it.  For a creamy sauce I use a roux. Olive oil and flour thickened into a paste. The classic roux ratio is 1:1, but plant milk reacts a little differently.  If I'm trying to thicken 1.5-2 cups ...

 Crispy tofu is a little tricky to achieve, but all it really takes is patience. As Alton Brown is so fond of saying, "Your patience will be rewarded." Still, texture is only part of the equation. We still need flavor. Tofu from the package has less than zero flavor.  I came up with a dry rub that makes it taste, for lack of a better word, meaty. It's a handful of fairly common spices and then you just cook it up in a frying pan.  However, working with tofu does require some prep work ahead of the cooking process. As many already know, tofu often needs to be drained and dehydrated. For crispy tofu this is essential.  It's no big deal. Drain the liquid. Wrap the block in a kitchen towel. Place it in a bowl or tray in the fridge for a few hours with a light weight on the top of it.  For my crispy, meaty tofu we cut it into like sized cubes and then we toss it in the spice mixture.  Once evenly coated cook the tofu in a large frying pan over medium high heat. ...

  The thing I love about brownies is that it's relatively easy to make them low carb. You just replace the flour with cocoa powder.  To make them vegan you replace the eggs with some other binding agent. In this case I used a combo of peanut butter and ground oatmeal.  Personally I think that a good brownie must be fudgy and dense. If not, it's simply chocolate cake and I don't really care for chocolate cake. But I am crazy about brownies.  This particular vegan brownie also uses sugar alternative. It's truly low carb.  Still it uses common ingredients. Nothing obscure.  Ingredients 2 1/2 cups cocoa powder 2 tsps baking powder 2 tsps salt 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 cup ground old fashioned oats 2 tbls peanut butter 2 tbls olive oil 1/3 cup sucralose sugar alternative 1/4 cup almond or plant milk, original style Water in 1/4 cup increments as needed I used old fashioned oats and ground them in a spice grinder.  Stir together the dry ingredients in a medi...

  I thought I'd try to do a cauliflower puree. Vegan. No cream. No butter. I kept it pretty simple.  Ingredients 2 cups cauliflower florets 1 cup water 1 tbl olive oil 3 cloves garlic 2 tsps salt 1 tsp black pepper 2 tsps dry basil 1 tsp crushed pepper flakes Simmer all ingredients in a medium sauce pot over medium heat.  When the cauliflower is tender enough to mash with a spoon remove from the heat and let cool for 10 minutes.  Use an immersion blender or a pitcher blender to puree and emulsify.  It's the flavor of tomato sauce without the acid bite. It has the silky texture of cauliflower with a strong italian backbone.  Shown with crispy dry rubbed tofu cubes, broccoli salad and easy sriracha mustard sauce. 

I haven't really been experimenting with recipes much lately. I've been on a broccoli salad regiment for about a month. Nothing worth posting. No messing around with most other stuff.  However, an overabundance of kale prompted me to get creative. I landed on kale soup. Tossed in some arugula because I love that bite it brings.  It's definitely a soup, but I enjoyed it as a dressing for my aforementioned broccoli salads. Can't have too many greens.  It doesn't take long to make, but has the depth of flavor of something that's been simmering a while. It's an easy and tasty way to incorporate even more nutrition into your meals.  Eat as a soup if that's what you're feeling. Use it as a sauce to enhance something else. Use it as a salad dressing that's way better than anything you can buy at the store.  Kale and Arugula Soup Ingredients 2 small shallots, diced 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 serrano pepper, minced 4 cups kale 2 cups arugula 1 1/4 cups wat...