Vegan meatball sandwiches we made the other night:
Vegan meatball sandwiches
Ingredients:
Directions:
Combine. Eat.
I tried to make another chickpea crêpe this morning, using this recipe. Epic fail. It was way too thick, stuck to the pan, and I had to cook it forever to get it past gooey stage. I didn’t have asafoetida, garlic paste, or ginger paste, so I guess I subbed too many things? Or maybe I just needed to make sure the batter was a lot thinner. Next time I’ll start again with the VegNews recipe and try my variations from there.
Unfortunately, I spent most of this beautiful late summer day in front of the computer, working on the show (at home and at the studio). This evening, though, I was able to hang out with the hubs for some much-needed time together—sans kids.
I’ve also had a chance to read a novel over the last few days, something I’ve been going without for a few weeks. I’m working on Wichita by Thad Ziolkowski. It took me a few tries to get into it, but now I’m flying and am halfway through. Problem is, the egregious amount of typos and errors is distracting and sometimes confusing. We’re talking whole words omitted or repeated in the wrong place, in multiple areas of the book. I don’t understand why this is happening more and more in the books I’m reading lately. Why aren’t modern books being properly edited?! Or am I losing my mind? {Don’t answer that.}
I tried a new Robin Robertson recipe tonight {from VegNews Magazine}. Although I’ve used chickpea {garbanzo} flour before for batter in french toast, etc., it’s never occurred to me to try a crêpe. And a quick internet search brings up all kinds of tasty-sounding variations.
Chickpea Crepe
Crispy Chickpea Crêpe ingredients: chickpea flour, salt, pepper, minced fresh rosemary or basil, water, minced red onion, pitted kalamata olives.
I used basil and capers {instead of olives}. And I forgot about the onions, even though I had plenty available. The verdict: not bad. Hubby happened to come home just as I was trying it—he had a piece and liked it {before he knew it was made out of chickpeas, which he doesn’t usually care for}.
Even though I really like chickpeas, I think things made with chickpea flour have a slight aftertaste. The flour has a really strong taste before cooking, but even after there is still a slight hint of something that you have to get used to. Nevertheless, I’ll try this again. It’s a quick and easy way to put together something filling that’s not made of wheat. {We bake our own bread, and there’s always plenty of dough or baked slices around, and I get tired of it.} It also might work for a breakfast dish.
Today I happened upon this idea. I thought it might be fun for the girls to make these at my step-daughter’s birthday party coming up on Monday. Of course, we had to do a test first. {We just happened to have the sprinkles, so we thought, “Why not?!”}
We didn’t even last an hour before pulling them out of the freezer and having a couple. The bananas were still a little soft, which made them taste kind of like a creamy banana peanut butter cup—delicious! I’m sure they will be good frozen solid as well.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Vegan Bon Bons, with Sprinkles
Vegan Pizza Day 2012
We had some omnivore friends over for dinner, and it happened to be Vegan Pizza Day. I made two pizzas: one was brushed with herb oil (see below) and then had artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, capers, and white Daiya. The other had a red sauce, pineapple, tomatoes, capers, and white Daiya. The first one was my favorite.
{Both were better than the pizzas I threw together last night. Those had crusts that were way too thick and doughy for my taste.}
I experimented with two ways to make thin crispy crust this time:
For the first one, on the advice of Roberto Martin in Vegan Cooking for Carnivores, I bought a cheap pizza screen. (I thought a pizza screen was a pizza pan with holes in the bottom. I now realize that he probably meant the actual “screen” kind—mine might be more accurately called a “crisper”). I made sure to roll the dough out very thin, about the size of the pan, and then placed it in the pan.
For the second one, I also rolled the dough out super thin, this time slightly larger than my pizza paddle. I then pre-baked the dough on the baking stone for about 10 minutes. After that, I removed it, put the toppings on, and baked it the rest of the way fully dressed.
Both crusts came out pretty crispy. The pizza screen one might have been a little bit crispier, but it was also on the bottom rack. The one on the baking stone took longer to bake, but I think this was mostly due to the thick layer of toppings. So, as it turns out, I didn’t necessarily need to buy the pizza screen/crisper, but it was a little easier to deal with and would be pretty easy to use in the BBQ once the weather gets super hot here.
This was the first day that I’ve spent a little time flipping through Vegan Cooking for Carnivores, which I have out from the library. It’s where I got the recipe for herb oil. Fresh rosemary {Trader Joe’s}, basil {farmer’s market}, thyme {lemon thyme from our herb garden}, olive oil, garlic {fresh, from farmer’s market}, salt, and pepper in the Vitamix = yum! Isn’t is a pretty green? There is a ton left-over (another larger jar plus this one), and I’m sure I will be putting it in/on a lot of things over the next few weeks. In general, I’ve cut back on cooking with oils, but I will use the herb oil sparingly for that little extra something in a variety of dishes. I’m already thinking of pasta, sauteed kale…
Beezelbarb 