Hot and Sour Soup: A Recipe Review

My sister and I have been obsessed with our crock pots lately. I've have had one for a while (it hadn't seen much use until recently) and my sister just got one. We have been emailing and texting each other for weeks detailing the contents of our crocks and what we are planning to make in them. That led to to come across this recipe. It pretty much had me at "frozen peas". For some reason, I am obsessed with them. I actually just scored a 5 pound bag at Sam's Club. Yep, that obsessed.

This soup turned out to be super tasty, but mine did not look nearly as pretty as the one on the recipe page. Thank goodness my sister is mailing me back my camera charger, because these iPhone pictures suck even more than my usual photography.

This soup turned out to be super tasty, but mine did not look nearly as pretty as the one on the recipe page. Don't let this bland soupscape fool you, there was plenty of flavor here. The only things I tweaked with this recipe was double the liquid, double the peas, quadruple the garlic, and use 100% shitake mushrooms, as opposed to a mixture of shitake and button mushrooms. Shitakes rock the house, and I know where to buy them almost as cheap as the much less exciting button shrooms. I also only cooked this on low for about 4 hours. Actually, if you don't have a crock pot, I am pretty sure you can just toss this all on your stove and have it ready as soon as the mushrooms are cooked. The most time consuming part is chopping everything up.

I ate almost half of this soup last night, and I enjoyed another bowl tonight with some baby carrots, and "omelets" I made with some okara leftover from my soy milk making adventures.

I'm full.

April Concert Bonanza

Oh boy...I just pulled a three day concert bender in two states and damn am I worn out! It was all totally worth it though. With all of my business trips and concert attendances, it seems that vegan cooking may have to take a back seat for a while. I am also being super frugal with food in order to fund my concert addiction. Here are some great finds from the past week:

Vegan Tempeh Reuben from French Meadow Bakery in the Uptown district of Minneapolis. Yes, I finally got to try an infamous tempeh reuben! It was pretty delicious, but it needed a lot more sauerkraut and the bread, though delicious, was a little greasy. I even got the choice of adding chips and salsa as my side. French Meadow blew my mind. They had an extremely extensive menu, loaded with vegan options. I really want to go back and try their tofu scramble, just to see if it's nearly as good as mine.

For dinner that same day I ate at Senor Wong in St. Paul. This place was crazy, just check out their menu. It's an eclectic mix of Asian and Mexican food, with elements of both in some dishes. I ordered the only item that already came vegan, the mock duck tacos. I wanted to get a picture but it was pretty dark in there. They were fabulous and came with a bunch of fun sides like pickled jalapenos. Dinner was very reasonably priced, even if the drinks were not. Plus, even if you order Asian food there, they still bring out chips and salsa. This was my kind of place.

Yesterday I stopped in my college town on my way back from Des Moines. I ended up eating at a plain little restaurant in the back of a middle eastern grocery store. Everything is made from scratch in house, and they have a pretty extensive menu that includes a lot of vegetarian/vegan options. Like this:

This was the best humus I have ever had in my life. I dove into it before thinking of taking a picture because it looked (and ended up tasting) super delicious. It was homemade and simply but elegantly garnished with olive oil, tomatoes, kalamata olives, little pickle spears, parsley, and big pinches of paprika. It came with some pita bread, which I was not too impressed by. I ended up eating most of it with a fork.

On to my metal binge. I will post the shows by day and add a quick review of each band.

Day 1: Decibel Magazine Tour @ Station 4, St. Paul, Minnesota

In Solitude: Power metal band from Sweden. They sounded really good, and were all very talented musicians. The vocalist was wearing some kind of dead animal around his neck. Perhaps a fox or a mink or something. It was interesting to watch him head bang with it on. Also, his English was not very good.
The Devil's Blood: Female fronted, mellower "metal" band. I did not care for them, too slow. My companion thought that they could have used an unusual instrument to complete their sound, like a sitar or synthesizer. I think they could have shut up and quit putting me to sleep.
Behemoth: The headliner and definitely my favorite black metal band. They are from Poland and have been around forever. They opened with my favorite song and ringtone of almost two years, "Ov Fire and the Void". It was performed well, but I kind of wish it wasn't their first song. After witnessing them perform "Alas, Lord is Upon Me", I am pretty sure it is my new favorite Behemoth song. They wore their corpse paint and had some neat light and smoke machine effects. It was really creepy to see the vocalist with a shaved head as opposed to his long black hair. This was probably a result of his recent battle with Luekemia. Overall, a great show.

Day 2: Soulfly's 15th Anniversary Tour @ People's Court, Des Moines, Iowa

I met up with my dear friend and guitarist from my college band for this show. It started early and there were six opening bands. Most of them terrible. The first one was a local act from Des Moines. They were decent I guess. The vocalist was super duper short, and had the bodily proportions of a rotisserie chicken. The next band was another local one and it pretty much all went downhill from there. I'm not even going to mention names because they don't deserve the recognition. One of them had a super nasty female "vocalist". She was obviously a product of her record company, and she sounded like a pinata full of bats being beaten by a flaming stick. The only opening band worth a mention was called Incite. They probably weren't even that good, but compared to the other turds that played before them they were gods.

Until Soulfly came on. I'm not even a huge Soulfly/Sepultura fan, but Max Cavalera is a god and they kicked some major ass. I even spent about half of their set in the mosh pit, that's how much fun I was having. I have some bruises from it, but that's all part of the fun.

Day 3: Cannibal Corpse's Torture Tour @ People's Court, Des Moines, Iowa

I have seen Cannibal Corpse several times before but HOLY CRAP THIS WAS HANDS DOWN THE BEST SHOW OF MY LIFE. Even better than the epic Meshuggah performance I witness in February 2009. Sorry Meshuggah, you will have a chance to redeem yourself next month. Here is a breakdown of the bands:

Arkaik: Never heard of them before, but they were brutal and definitely made a fan of out of me.
Abysmal Dawn: They were even better than Arkaik! I had never heard of them either, but now I want to buy all of their albums.
Exhumed: I had high hopes for this popular deathgrind band, but they really didn't do much for me. They sounded good and everything, but their stage presence came off as a little fruity in my opinion.
Cannibal Corpse: Wow, just wow. These guys were definitely at their best. They completely blew me and my buddy away. They are probably the fastest band you will ever hear live, and they are just too brutal for their own good. Just when you think that human beings could not possibly play instruments any faster, they speed up and a guitar rips out a crazy solo that sears over everything. The vocalist, Corpsegrinder, has an amazing stage presence, and is easily the undisputed headbanging master of creation. They played everything I wanted them to play also. I won't list the songs here, because their titles are pretty explicit. I left this show feeling like I never really knew what death metal was before I got there. A great end to a great vacation. Except maybe the getting punched in the throat in the mosh pit part.

Spring Cleaning

I have been heartily embarking on a mission to clean out my cupboards and freezer of all of the stuff I have been hoarding. An additional plan has been put into action to drain the condiment reserves from my refrigerator before the door falls off. So I haven't done too much exciting cooking lately besides thawing frozen soups, boiling dried beans, emptying cans of vegetables, and putting hot sauce on everything. I did manage to make some pretty tasty "cupboard soup" as I like to call it, made by dumping a bunch of random things into a stockpot and boiling with some herbs and fresh garlic. This batch turned out pretty tasty. And red.

To make this I used:

• One large can of Hy-Vee brand tomato juice
• One can of Sam's Club brand diced tomatoes with juice
• One can of Hy-Vee brand french-cut green beans with liquid
• One can of Hy-Vee brand diced beets with liquid
• One can of Aldi brand sweet peas
• One small can of Aldi brand sliced mushrooms

The reason I am naming names here is because ONE OF THESE CANS WAS FULL OF SAND!! I know that I am a cheapo, and I can I only expect as much from time to time, but seriously. I know that vegetables grow outside, in the dirt, exposed to any potential filth that may be tracked in by animals or whatever. I know that some vegetables are hard to clean due to their delicate nature. I still kind of wish I hadn't haphazardly dumped everything into the pot at once so I knew who peed in the pool, so to speak. Not that I would necessarily complain. I work as a quality control coordinator for a food company, so I know how much it sucks to get a customer complaint. But I expect bottom-shelf canned vegetables to be mushy and rubbery, darn it! Not peppered with crunchy sand! This soup cost under $5 to make and so far I have enjoyed it for 4 meals. And I still have half of it left.

Is It Spring Yet?

I feel like I have skipped a winter. Not quite as much as when I moved to Florida a couple of years ago, but really: where is all the snow, Minnesota? That being said, I probably angered some winter gods and inflicted a blizzard or two upon us all. But seriously. It was 63 degrees a couple of days ago. In the first week of March!

I am really looking forward to a couple of things this year. Residing in only one state is at the top of this list. I have an asparagus patch in my yard, and I am planning on growing some tomatoes, peppers, and herbs in pots on my patio. I can already feel the press of spring when I go to the grocery store. Asparagus is abundant and affordable for a change. I picked up a couple of pounds at Hy-Vee the other day and created this dish.

Roasted Asparagus Caponata

I am a big fan of roasting vegetables, and asparagus is no exception. The asparagus spears were cleaned, trimmed, then tossed in a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then roasted at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. I made the sauce by simmering a can of diced tomatoes with garlic, Italian herbs, and diced red bell pepper. At the end I tossed in some capers and garnished with a bit of nutritional yeast for that parmesan effect. This was ended up being a side dish to accompany some stuffed peppers.

I know it's kind of hard to see what is going on because I made a last minute decision to smother things with Daiya. Sometimes you just gotta! It really added a nice dimension to the dish and helped everything stick together. To make this, I cut some red bell peppers in half and stuffed them with a mixture of brown rice, lentils, carrots, onions, garlic, tomato paste, nutritional yeast, tamari, and red wine vinegar. I baked them at 350 until the peppers were tender. One thing I am glad I did was add some water to the filling and in the baking dish before tossing it in the oven. Otherwise I think things would have dried out a bit. Here is a picture of my dinner all together:
What a great meal! Rarely do I eat more than one dish at a time, or use plates for anything. It was nice to have a real sit-down meal for a change!

Northern Hospitality

I went to Alaska a couple of weeks ago to spend time with my amazing sister, and went off to Wisconsin again the day after for business. I have been meaning to post this trip recap for a few days, but of course, life got in the way again. Anyway...

Anchorage is a very vegan-friendly city. Like everything else in Alaska, dining out can be very expensive. There are a couple of places I have to stop at each time I am visiting. Like Middle Way Cafe (I don't think they have a website). Middle Way is a fairly standard hippie-infested coffee shop/cafe. My dad took me there for lunch one day, and I was slightly bummed to miss their breakfast menu by about 20 minutes. I asked what a popular vegan lunch item was, and the cashier recommended the vegan version of the avocado melt.

This was literally the best sandwich I have ever had. I might have said that about some other sandwich before, but this one overruled all. I mean, it was stuffed with veggies and warm, gooey avocado slices, smothered in melted Daiya and Vegenaise. Sinful, but delicious. Speaking of sinful, I also had a vegan chocolate cupcake with cardamom coffee buttercream frosting.

Holy crap this was good. I don't think I have had such an indulgent vegan dessert since I lived by Vegan Treats a few years ago. I am not usually a cake/cupcake person, but I had to try one since it was vegan and looked so good. The frosting was very saturated with cardamom. Not in a bad way, it's just a spice you don't come across a lot.

A couple of days later, my sister and I drove to Girdwood and took the tram up the mointain at Aleyeska resort. Awesome pictures were taken.

We were going to go into Girdwood for lunch but the place we had in mind was closed until dinner. Lame! She took me to another amazing hippie restaurant instead, the Organic Oasis. We decided that we wanted to try a wheat grass shot, so we got a couple of them freshly prepared with ginger.

These were okay to sip very lightly. Gingery, grassy, not too strong. Then we took the rest as a shot. GROSS. The shots were super sludgy in the bottom, and I mean that in the most unpleasant way possible. If you want to simulate our experience, mow your lawn, scrape a bunch of crap off of your mower blades, and eat a big blob of it while stuffing fresh ginger root up your nose.

With my entree, I was offered a selection of soups. They were all vegan too! I was leaning towards the coconut potato soup, but our waitress informed me that it was slightly sweet. Not really my thing. I followed her recommendation and ordered the jewel yam stew.

This soup was a little underwhelming. It was pretty plain. Just some yams, zucchini, herbs, and not much else. What did it for me was the homemade bread slathered in tahini that it was served with. Why did I not think of this?? Probably because I don't usually eat bread. For my entree I had the "Vegan High Protein" wrap.

Like the avocado melt I had a few days prior, this blew my mind. I love love love tempeh, and this wrap included a big slab saturated in hummus and vegenaise, with some fresh veggies tossed in and some spirulina to give it that creepy blue-green hue. My sister opted for the tofu salad which was also accompanied with amazing tahini bread.

We actually learned a lot about tahini on this trip. Mostly that it is amazing on everything. We experimented with some salad dressings at her condo and made our own tasty blend of tahini, lemon juice, tamari, garlic, and ginger. Yum! We even brought a batch of this to my dad's house for a family dinner. My family and even my closest friends still crack me up when it comes to my diet. I am lucky that both of my parents and my sister all love vegetables almost as much as I do, but they still freak out when it comes to feeding me. My dad went all-out to make certain that I was included in the rare family meal. The dish that amazed me the most was his braised tofu.

This dish was quickly gobbled up by the entire gang. I can't tell you how it was made, because it seemed complicated and I didn't pay attention. It was full of tasty tofu slabs and green veggies. I did witness my dad slicing up some seasoned seaweed to toss in at the end. I took note to add seaweed to my stir-fries because it kicked ass.

After returning from my sub-arctic vacation and yet another business trip, I realized that I forgot my camera charger in Anchorage. Oh well! I guess it's more craptacular iPhone pictures for a while, but better that than nothing. Someday I swear I will get a nicer camera and learn how to take decent pictures. There are a lot of vegan blogs out there that make me jealous!

Nearly-Instant Mexican Style Soup

I returned to my house after a week-long business trip two days ago. Tomorrow, I am flying to Alaska to visit my sister. The day after I get back, I am off on another business trip. I am fighting the urge to scream. Especially when a prolonged absence from my job means I come back to my desk looking like this:

Thanks guys! You shouldn't have!

Traveling this much is stressing me out, and causing me to miss out on one of my favorite things in the world: grocery shopping for produce. For the past couple of days, I have been surviving on things in my freezer. This is actually a good thing, because my freezer is hella full at the moment, but I miss cooking! Tonight I decided that I had to do something. I needed to eat dinner and a lunch before leaving tomorrow anyway. So here is what I came up with:

Not pictured: garlic. But you already know I add that to everything anyway.

Once again, it definitely pays to have a well-stocked pantry! These humble ingredients came together to make one satisfying, nutritious, tasty meal! Here is a breakdown of the magic that went on in my kitchen. You could easily dump just about anything into this meal.

Ingredients:

• One jar of salsa. Whatever you have on hand/already open in your fridge. I happened to have some Newman's Own black bean and corn salsa. I recently bought a few jars of this brand because it was on sale for $2.50. Normally it is almost twice as much
• One can of refried beans. I got the idea to add this from this recipe. The Casa Mamita brand from Aldi are the best in the world. I'm not kidding. And unlike most refried beans, they are fat free.
• One can of diced tomatoes. I chose to add it with the juice because my salsa was not very tomato-heavy. I buy cans of these at Sam's Club for around $6 an 8 pack. They are great to have on hand to dump in pretty much anything.
• Jarred jalepenos. I buy these at the dollar store.
• One small white onion. Brought to you by Aldi.

Method:

Basically, I just dumped everything in a pot, then added diced onion, jalpenos, and crushed garlic. It was a little thick, so I dumped in about a cup of water. No additional salt or spices were needed. Stir everything up and bring to a boil. How long depends on how cooked you want your onions. I didn't boil mine very long because I love to stir raw onions into my soup anyway.

Even before it was done, I was lamenting over the fact that I was out of vegan sour cream, but this soup honestly didn't need it. The refried beans made it super creamy without it. I did have some tortilla strips on hand to jazz things up a bit.

Not the sexiest looking soup, but holy guacamole it was delicious! It made made 3 large servings and was entirely fat free! (If you don't add any tortilla strips). It cost around $5 to make, and the entire batch came in at under 700 calories. I am glad that I do not have any long business meetings tomorrow though, tee hee hee.

Speaking of business meetings, being a vegan stuck in Wisconsin for a week is not fun! I made sure to book a hotel room with a refrigerator and microwave, and I packed plenty of Clif bars. I did manage pretty well with catered lunches after my dietary needs came up. My company's corporate office building actually had a great catering service and an on-site cafe with a huge salad bar, so I fared pretty well. Too well maybe. I ate heaps of blueberries, raspberries, and pineapple off of our daily breakfast fruit tray, and they even started bringing in custom meals for me. Like this pizza:


There was also salad every day. And one afternoon they brought in a giant bowl of freshly made salsa and a trough of fresh tortilla chips. I was totally expecting to starve all week, but quite the opposite occurred.

Taco Tuesday

I was driving home from the gym today, thinking about what to make for dinner. I was toying with the idea of making a batch of lentil salad to eat the rest of the week, but I was also feeling kind of lazy. Even too lazy to boil lentils and chop up onions! Suddenly, the idea of TACOS popped into my head. They would require slightly more work than lentil salad, but I could not stop thinking about them now. Taco Tuesday it was!

Now I try not to buy/eat a lot of processed or pre-made vegan products. But sometimes they are on a really good sale, and I do enjoy trying out new products. Also, these items aided me in whipping up some badass tacos in record time.

On the top left corner is Daiya vegan cheese. I've been a vegan for going on 3 years, and I honestly do not even care about cheese anymore. But there is something about the melty goodness of Daiya that keeps me buying a bag every couple of months. Only when it is on sale, because it can run upwards of $5 a bag. If it hits $3 or less, I buy a bag and toss it in the freezer, where it keeps indefinitely.

On the top right corner is some Westsoy chicken-style seitan. I usually avoid gluten-heavy items like this, but it was also on a good sale and I was very curious to try it. My mom buys Westsoy's tofu almost exclusively and I must admit that it is very good. So I figured I would give this seitan product a try. It wasn't what I expected.

I guess the last fake chicken type product I bought was Gardein, which is pretty creepy close to the real thing. This was pretty much just plain seitan. I prepared it by sauteing it with some minced garlic and a buttload of my homemade taco seasoning. Then it wasn't bad. It was going to be covered in other forms of taco-themed goodness anyway.

The other products that helped make my tacos possible where Toffuti's Sour Supreme and Food For Life's Sprouted Corn Tortillas. Sour Supreme is a staple in my fridge. It lasts forever and I love it stirred into soups, chilis, and stroganofs. Obviously, it's also great Mexican food. I had never tried Food For Life's corn tortillas, but I have never had a product of theirs that I was not absolutely crazy about.

To assemble my tacos, I first melted some Daiya on a couple of tortillas, then added the seitan.

I then proceeded to go crazy and top these suckers with sour cream, chopped onions and tomatoes, green olives, pumpkin seeds, salsa verde (Pace brand), and a squeeze of lime.

I dried not to dwell on the fact that I really wish I had some cilantro for these, and genuinely enjoyed the hell out of them! I have been going through a "put green olives on everything" phase, and they added a nice tang along with the salsa verde and lime juice. The pumpkin seeds added a nice textural contrast as well. Now that I am typing this up, I just remembered that I totally forgot to add hot sauce!! Good thing I have enough leftovers for at least 2 more meals.