Chana Saag, Brown Basmati Rice and Two Chutneys

Date:  10/28/2011
Cook:  Jen G.
Menu: Chana Saag (Indian Greens with Chickpeas), Brown Basmati Rice, Green Chutney and Sweet Carrot Chutney

The Vegan Slow Cooker continues to be a great resource. Tonight I made Chana Saag (with kale) and served it with brown rice and two chutneys: a green chutney and a sweet carrot chutney. It was my first time making both-- I'd add some salt to the green chutney next time, and less sugar to the carrot chutney. Heaped in a bowl all together, it was a delicious meal.

I delivered the goods to Jen at one of our local bookstores, where we gathered around Terry Hope Romero, who was swinging by our fair town to talk about baking, pie, Thanksgiving, life and stuff like that. Oh. I have a new book about making pies. Yes. Vegan Pie in the Sky.

There is a Boston creme pie calling my name.

Mushroom Hot Pot

Date:  10/24/2011
Cook:  Jen C.
Menu: Mushroom Hot Pot with Black Pepper Grilled Tofu

Jen cooked up a delicious mushroom hot pot, inspired by today's post on the PPK. It was another instance of me feeling very grateful for meal group since I had a long and unpleasant day, including driving for 6 hours and eating lunch at what some people refer to as the world's worst restaurant (without hyperbole). Living in such a vegan-friendly place, one does get a little accustomed to restauranteurs taking veg*ns into account.

Jen's soupy meal was deliciously flavored and added much needed warmth and flavor to my day. It was eaten so quickly that there is no photographic evidence of it's existence.

Burritos Filled With Potatoes

Now this is an autumnal meal I can appreciate.

Date:  10/20/2011
Cook:  Jen G.
Menu: Mashed Potato and Edamame Burritos with Quinoa; Tortilla Soup

Mashed Potato and Edamame Burrito Filling from The Vegan Slow Cooker intrigued me and I must say...it was delicious! It was really simple and makes a very tasty eating time experience. I made Tortilla Soup from La Dolce Vegan and it was chock full of black beans and corn and brothy and good. I also cooked up a pot of quinoa to throw into the mix.

I had two regrets about this meal. One was that I left the burrito filling in the slow cooker for waaaaaay too long and the condensation from the process caused the filling to become more watered down than was probably warranted. I hasten to add that it was still delicious. The other concern was that my tortilla chips for the soup were hella stale, dude. Learn from my errors, friends.

Jen C. and I got to have this meal in each other's presence because she came over to make felt flowers as favors for a shower we were planning. Mashed potato burritos and craft night...heavenly.

Sweet and Sour Tofu, Tomato Basil Salad, Rice and Bread

Date:10/06/11

Cook:  Jen G.
Menu:  Sweet and Sour Tofu, Tomato Basil Salad, Brown Basmati Rice and A Loaf of Bread

I don't eat raw tomatoes, but a pretty little salad like this one makes me wish that I did. Also, I don't have a great track record with rice preparation but this batch came out well!

The tomato basil salad was fresh from our little garden. The basmati brown rice was fresh from the shelf of a nearby Trader Joe's. The sweet and sour tofu recipe was from The Vegan Slow Cooker. (I slow cooked it a little too long so it was somewhat on the mushy side, but the flavors were still delish). 

One hard working slow cooker. Note that my meal somehow didn't look as nice as the photo in the cookbook. Paging my food stylist...

And the bread....I always love to talk about how much I love the No Knead Bread recipe published a few years ago in the NYT. It is nearly foolproof and I have proven this a few times by seriously mucking up the directions. I heartily and nerdily enjoy coating it with different seed/grain combos each time (um, btw: wheat germ kind of burns in the 450 degree oven). Today I used half whole wheat flour and half white for the dough and chose to coat with some Irish oatmeal mixed with a bit of coarse sea salt and black sesame seeds. Our loaf came out really nicely.

My love for the No Knead Bread knows no bounds.

Aztec Salad

I want to lick the screen of my computer.

Date: 05/12/2011
Cook:  Jen G.
Menu: Aztec Salad: Broiled Marinated BBQ Tempeh Served on a Bed of Greens With a Quinoa Salad, Topped With Roasted Tomato Balsamic Vinaigrette and Pan-Toasted Spiced Pepitas

The recipe for this Aztec Salad is in Crazy Sexy Diet by vegan darling Kris Carr (a book I highly recommend, not just for its fabulous recipes but because it gives great insight and guidance into living a healthier life). 

Ahhh.  Aztec Salad.  This is possibly one of the most delicious things that I have ever eaten.  The combination of all of the different flavors was divine.  I will admit that it took some time in the kitchen -- the tempeh needed was steamed, marinated and THEN broiled, the tomatoes roasted, the quinoa cooked up, the pepitas seasoned...yadda yadda...but it was so very worth it.  I did used a prepared BBQ sauce (such cheatz!) though the recipe gives you ingredients to make your own.  I know you will love this so please give it a try!  And trust me when I say that the dressing is key!  Report back to me on how loudly your taste buds sang with delight when they first met a forkful of this treat.

Forty Clove Broccoli and Chickpeas, Rice Salad, Millet

Date: 05/05/2011
Cook:  Jen G.
Menu: Forty Clove Broccoli and Chickpeas, Rice Salad and Millet

Appetite for Reduction continues to be an awesome resource.  I highly recommend this book-- I've really enjoyed cooking from it! I LOVED the idea of this recipe for a few of my favorite taste sensations (garlic/broccoli/chick peas) all in one dish, and I enjoyed making it as well.  It is definitely very garlicky but in an extremely delicious way.  The cool rice salad and millet provided some nice balance.

Tip Top Tofu Loaf, Wheatberry Rice Salad

Date: 04/28/2011
Cook:  Jen G.
Menu: Tofu Loaf, Wheatberry Rice Salad

I felt like trying something new, so I cracked open the old standby La Dolce Vegan, closed my eyes and pointed to a recipe.  Almost!  The tofu loaf was new to me but very yummy.  I haven't made a loaf in a while, so this was nice to bake up.  I think next time I might make it with gravy and mashed potatoes, the way a proper loaf slice should be served.  On this particular night, I accompanied it with Wheatberry, Rice and Lentil Salad.  It was very good and healthy.

Pineapple Cashew Quinoa Stir-fry and Green Salad

The week before last, I was really out of commission and emailed my meal groupers to let them know that I couldn't make my usual Thursday meal.  Flexible as ever, they responded, "no problem!!" and were content to let it go.  However, I wanted to do a make up because it is what felt right to me-- not a huge meal but something light that if they wanted to augment they easily could.  The meals that they delivered that week were really important- and delicious.

I'd thought of doing beans and rice, which I have kind of had a craving for lately, nothing fancy, just plain old black beans and white rice with salsa (a meal I ate almost daily in law school, along with many other of my fellow SALDFers).  I digress.  I ended up making Pineapple Cashew Quinoa Stir-fry from Veganomicon.  Check out the link for some awesome photos not taken by me of the meal coming together.

I made a few changes (more veggies, different pepper, a bit of apple juice in with the pineapple juice while cooking the quinoa) and the few bites I had I thought were really nice albeit a touch bland.  I gave a bowl of it to my kid, who picked out the broccoli, and the rest went to my meal group, along with a simple green salad with vinaigrette.

Sloppy Lentils, SUPER Red Soup and Kale Chips

Date: 03/21/2011
Cook:  Jen C.
Menu:  Sloppy Lentils, Six-Shades-of-Red Soup and Kale Chips

Jen dropped this delicious meal by and we eagerly dished it up.  I'd been eying the Six-Shades-of-Red Soup from Color Me Vegan and it was really nice.  I also loved the lentil sloppy joes.......mmmmmm......but I must say-- the most surprising thing was the quantity of kale chips that my kid sucked down.  I've made kale chips before but they were roundly ignored.  Funny how that works.

Baked Spicy Orange Ginger Tofu, Mac & Shews and Avocado Salad

Date: 03/17/2011
Cook:  Jen G.
Menu: Baked Spicy Orange Ginger Tofu, Mac & Shews, Avocado Salad; Chocolate Cake with Mint Frosting

I was craving comfort food and had heard many good things about Mac and Shews, so I decided to try my hand at it.  Not familiar with it?  Its basically mac and cheese in which the creamy sauce is a fabulous combination of soaked cashews, lightly sauteed onions and garlic and a roux.  It was very very good.  It is definitively not sauerkrauty, though making this DID serve as a reminder to me that around minute 7 of making a roux, I generally begin thinking to myself that I might have something better to do with my time than push grease and flour around a pan for 15 minutes of my life.  But I persevered.  I saw later in the comments to the recipe that someone had added truffle oil to theirs and that sounds like it would be delicious.  I added boring old spinach to mine.

I wanted to make some tofu, too, and I chose Orange Ginger Baked Tofu.  The marinade made a lot of sauce and I ended up baking it for WAY more time than it called for--like maybe by an hour.  I also added some chili oil to make it spicier (which definitely occurred!).  I thought that it was really delicious.

I wanted a nice blob of green on everyone's plates -- it WAS St. Patrick's Day after all -- so I crafted an avocado salad very similar to the one found here.  My parents had generously brought us two boxes of gorgeous looking and tasting avocados recently so I was happy to make such a delicious salad.

For dessert, I baked a wacky cake and sent small containers of green mint frosting (the frost-yer-own situation was because the cake hadn't entirely cooled when it was time to deliver).

My son and I hopped on our bikes to deliver this meal and it was really pleasant as it was a very pretty and warm early spring evening.  It felt lovely to be pedaling dinner to people we appreciate.

Tofu Rice Balls with Miso Walnut Sauce, Lentil Soup, Coriander Bread

Date: 03/03/2011
Cook:  Jen G.
Menu: Tofu Rice Balls with Miso Walnut Sauce, Lentil Soup, Coriander Bread and Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

From Stefanie:

Tonight's dinner was really yummy. I really enjoyed the flavor tones and textures -- the lentil soup had a clean earthiness that is really satisfying. The tasty tofu balls were fun to pick up and dip, and had just the right amount of chewiness, and the miso walnut dipping sauce is soooo good - salty and sweet and savory.  I even put some on the salad. Dessert choc-chip blondies. My son, an avowed meat eater, ate everything with gusto.

Welcome Stefanie!

Date: 03/02/2011
Cook:  Stefanie
Menu: Chickpea Curry with Rice, Spinach Salad with Walnuts and Strawberries and Mango Coconut Fruit Salad

Jen and I extend a very warm welcome to Stefanie, who is giving mealgroup a whirl for the month to see if it is a good fit for her family!  Stefanie thoughtfully took the time to write up some of her thoughts about her initial experiences with us:

I'm happy to have joined this group. Its the end of my first week, and I'm totally psyched about cooking and being cooked for. First meal was Jen C's: spicy burgers, oven fries, succulent edamame succotash and satisfyingly rich choc-chip cookies. All of these treats were different for me, and fun. I especially enjoyed the burgers.  Then it was my turn to cook. Coming from a big family (but living as a twosome now), it felt good to cook for a group again. Preparing food for the group gives me incentive to make a proper meal and try new recipes.

Last week I got a new cookbook entitled Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking by Yamuna Devi. It inspired me to make a chickpea curry. In the intro to beans, the author states that sprouting beans increases their vitamin, mineral and protein content. So I sprouted the chickpeas for a couple of days before cooking. I also prepared a spinach salad with strawberries and walnuts, topped with poppy seed dressing: 1/4 c each olive oil and Japanese "seasoned" vinegar, 3 teaspoons poppy seeds,  1/4 teaspoon each fresh grated ginger and garlic, pinch of salt, 1/4 tsp black pepper. Mix well into salad before serving. Dessert was mango coconut fruit salad: frozen blueberries, mango and cherries dressed in mango coconut milk yogurt with 1/2 c. shredded coconut.

Lentil Quinoa Stew and Chipotle Sweet Potato Biscuits

Date: 02/24/2011
Cook:  Jen G.
Menu: Quinoa Stew, Chipotle Sweet Potato Biscuits and (perhaps slightly stale) Banana Muffins

I've been wanting to do a little more crockpot cooking and so I found this recipe, which fit my requirements of being a healthy, straightforward and yummy sounding crockpot recipe.  It was all that, and so I really recommend the recipe-- very good, and good for you!  I thought that a savory baked good that had a spicy kick to it sounded good to accompany the stew, so I made the sweet potato biscuits that I made in the early part of 2011 and added a few chipotles and adobo sauce to the batter.  They came out really well, I thought, though apologies to Jen and her family, as well as mine: they were a tad undercooked.  I love these biscuits, though!  If you don't mind sacrificing a few nutrients to the microwave, they are really easy to make if you nuke up the sweet potato while you assemble the dry ingredients-- then mash up the sweet potato, add to the mix and pop them in the oven.

We had a few banana chocolate chip muffins left over from a couple of days earlier that I threw in, as there was no one in my household who was interested in them (sigh).

Edamame Pesto

Date: 02/17/2011
Cook:  Jen G.
Menu: Spaghetti with Edamame Pesto, Green Salad and Cupcakes

I really thought I would make split pea soup for last night's dinner, but then the temperature spiked up into the very, very high 50's for us and I didn't have it in me to make a hearty warming soup on such a beautiful warm day.

Instead, I wanted to make a pasta dish.  I was thinking of a red lentil sauce that I sometimes make, but opted instead for an edamame pesto from Appetite for Reduction.  Served not on fancy vegetable-y linguine but plain spaghetti, along with a salad and for dessert--cupcakes from Sweet Avenue.

I enjoyed this meal but I'm extremely partial to pesto, so that goes a long way, right?

Quinoa, Kale and Bean Stew and Biscuits

 

Date: 01/12/2011

Cook:  Rachel
Menu: Quinoa, Kale and Bean Stew and Garlic Cheese Biscuits

I cannot thank Rachel enough for dinner tonight!  I was so hungry when I got back from romping in the snow (add air quotes if you please -- I am not really the snow romping type) with my kid.  You know that kind of hungry where you feel like you have just been out in some really cold weather for quite a while and now you want to fill yer pie hole with something warm and comfort-y?  Yeah?  Then I really must recommend this meal to you!  We got home to find our meal awaiting us, and that was such a wonderful moment! The tasty stew was full of vegetables and hearty goodness, and the biscuits complemented it perfectly. 

We worked up an appetite doing wintery things like this...

...and came home to eat this!  YAY! (again, poor photo does not do nom food justice)

Chickpea Rice Soup with Cabbage

Rachel's generous meal fed an extra person at Jen G.'s house - served up with salad, and hummus for the yummy bread

Hi there! Its Rachel here with another wintery missive from Suburban Vegan Meal Group!  I made dinner for my lovely friends on Wednesday night, and since it was a cold evening, I thought it would be the perfect time to try out Isa Chandra Moskowitz' Chickpea Rice Soup with Cabbage.    The soup is an easy, filling dinner, perfect for a weeknight, especially if paired with salad and bread.  The fresh dill elevated the taste of the more mundane ingredients - chickpeas, cabbage, carrots, brown rice.  The rice made it a very hearty meal, and I used only a tablespoon of oil for enough food to feed 7!   We had an interesting experience with the dish as well, because two of us found it too salty, while the others thought it was perfect.  I tend not to add a lot of salt to my food, so for me, the 1 tsp along with the broth made it saltier than I would like. It was interesting to see how different our perceptions were!  And it highlights another benefit of Meal Group - if something ends up not being the perfect dinner for you, you're not left with a week of leftovers.   I loved the dish, and would absolutely make it again, but will probably use a low sodium broth and omit the salt, and let people salt the soup for themselves.  I've included the recipe here, and am intrigued by some of the variations - I bet this would be delicious with mushrooms. http://www.theppk.com/2010/12/chickpea-rice-soup-with-cabbage/#comment-14734   I'm really looking forward to seeing what Jen G. makes tonight!

Potluck Night and The Veg Edge

So much food that it doesn't even all fit in the picture!

 Date: 12/9/2010
Cooks: Jenna, Jen C., Jen G. and Rachel
Menu: A burrito bar with starring black beans, rice and some fantastic guacamole; a roasted beet, shallot and pecan salad; deluxe macaroni and cheese; zooma zoom zoom butternut rancheros and chocolate chip sunflower seed cookies

Allow me to tell you: Thursday night was a fantastic night if you enjoy good food (which we do).  Instead of doing our three nights of meal group sharing this week, we decided to combine our cooking energy into one night and have a potluck at our friend Jenna's house so that we could all hang out and watch a veg-centric show on The Cooking Channel called The Veg Edge (by the way, check out the amazing looking recipes in the sidebar).  While the show itself had some hits and some misses, the food and the company were both outstanding.  We all ate a TON, and left Jenna's full and happy.  Thank you Jenna, for hostessing!

Good Good Things Indeed

Date: 11/4/2010
Cook: Jen G.
Menu: Island Teriyaki Tofu w/ Noodles, Broccoli & Cauliflower; Brownies and Hemp Bliss

I was feeling completely uninspired to cook today. Not only is the rainy, cold weather bringing my mood down a few notches, but the entire STATE canceled school today (and tomorrow) so that teachers can go confer about being great educators. I support that in theory but in practice it means that the pleasant rhythms of my Thursday were rearranged...I'll spare you the details. This time.

On top of it all, this week's meal share group is down another person today as Jen C's daughter is also off on an exciting sojourn! Remembering this, and as mentioned, feeling uninspired, I must admit that Jen C. came VERY close to having a bean and rice bowl from Chipotle delivered as her meal today! (Note that I would be extremely thrilled for that to be delivered to me.)

So there I was, driving home in a grey car on a grey day feeling kinda colorless, when I remembered that I had just read about a VEEHHHHHHHRRRRRY tasty sounding meal on our friend Jenna's site, over yonder on Good Good Things. It sounded not just good but fairly straightforward too, and I had to stop at the store anyway so hey, why not pick up some marinade?

I followed Jenna's directions, but not very well. For example, I do not own a tofu press. I didn't cut all of my tofu into triangles. I accidentally dumped a bunch of marinade into my hot frying pan so the tofu sorta just cooked in its marinade instead of getting that nice fried flavor. HOWEVER! The entire meal came together pretty nicely. By far the best thing was that Jen C. came over for dinner and we had a really pleasant evening together. My partner made brownies for dessert (coincidentally from a recipe given to me by Ms. Jenna Good Good Things), which are THE BEST EVER, and we topped them with some Tempt ice cream while we played Clifford Bingo with my kid.

Veganize It, Don't Criticize It -- Flashback to a Fave

Today is Wednesday and it is Rachel's day to cook. However, since the third member of our triumvirate is off having a lush, gorgeous trip exploring beautiful places that are neither suburban nor Garden State-ish, Jen C. and I are on our own for dinner tonight. I thought that I would take this opportunity to reflect on one of my favorite meal share dinners to prepare -- it was a lemony pasta dish that was featured in one of this summer's Vegetarian Times. I was unsure about whether or not the lemon flavor would be overwhelming, but I (and therefore we) gave it a try anyway. I was really pleasantly surprised at how quick, and tasty, this dish was...and, important for meal share purposes, it was easy to double!

The recipe is very basic; I like to accessorize most of what I eat with legumes and this dish was no exception. I added both garbanzos and some finely chopped greens. Delicious! Next time I might even add something from the milder side of the allium family - I'm thinking chives or lightly sauteed leeks or scallions would be very tasty indeed without overpowering the light, creamy lemon flavor.

Finally, I am also a big fan of veganizing non-vegan recipes and of course, that is just what I did - easy to do in this recipe by simply using a vegan cream cheese.

Without further ado: the recipe for Linguine in Lemon Cream Sauce. If you try it, let us know how you liked it!