The final cook book for the year, December's recipe was from Vegan Pie in the Sky. This is by the same authors as August's Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, so I knew it was likely to contain some good treats!
I have to admit, though, I'm not much of a pie person, in general, which is why as best I recall I hadn't previously made anything from this book. (I believe I acquired the book in a swag bag from one of the VegNews yoga retreats. P.S., I don't think it's official yet, but rumor has it they might be reviving their yoga retreat! I don't know if life would allow me to attend again in the near future, but I'd definitely highly recommend it!)
Anyway, I'm not much of a pie person. Fruit ones mean the fruit is soft and soggy (ew), and other kinds are usually some kind of mushy pudding grossness (eww). But chocolate can overcome all odds, so I'm usually content with a chocolate creme pie of some sort, thus I figured the old-fashioned chocolate pudding pie was worth a shot. I also made the crust from scratch with the book's graham cracker crust recipe (after all, if I must consume pie, at least it's a good vehicle for graham cracker crust and whipped cream).
Graham Cracker Crust
Difficulty: 2.5 out of 5. Difficulty was perhaps due to assumptions on my part, not the recipe. It gave an ounces of graham crackers that should yield the given amount once crushed, and so I just used what should of been that, given the total ounces of the box, and failed to actually measure once crushed. It seemed to be too much in total, and I had to add more oil and milk, and actually ended up making two 8-inch crusts instead of the one 9- or 10-inch crust specified.
Enjoyment: 5 out of 5. It's hard to screw up a graham cracker crust so much as it to make it unenjoyable! It crumbled a bit instead of holding up perfectly once the pie was made, but it still tasted good!
Likelihood to make again: 3 out of 5. I'm not terribly likely to need a pie crust again, but if I did, I'd make this one.
Old-Fashioned Chocolate Pudding Pie
Difficulty: 4 out of 5. It sounds simple, but somehow things weren't mixed together well enough once I started the heating (to thicken) process, and some stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan and started burning. It didn't hinder the remaining mixture, but added a slight burnt taste to the whole thing. I thought I was following the instructions, so I'm not sure how I could have avoided this.
Enjoyment: 4 out of 5. The slight burnt taste dampened the experience a bit, but it wasn't bad at all, even so.
Likelihood to make again: 2 out of 5. Still not a huge pie person. It's not something I'd make to have around for my own daily dessert. But if I needed to make a pie for something, this would be on the short list.
November's recipe (caught up in December) was from Vegan Lunch Box Around the World - a follow up to the first Vegan Lunch Box cookbook that was my recipe source for October. Like the original, it's simplified kid-friendly recipes, but this one has menus and recipes organized around various countries and cultures.
I picked out a recipe that seemed to be a good cross between something I should like and branching out of my comfort zone - black eyed peas and potatoes, in the Africa menu. I generally like legumes, and I definitely love potatoes, but this has some spaces that are not what I would normally go for.
Black-eyed peas & potatoes with cilantro and lime
Difficulty: 2 out of 5
There was surprisingly little chopping! Just garlic and potatoes (and cilantro and juicing a lime, but that was added at the end so easily done while the rest was cooking). Everything was done in one pot. I did have to add more water than specified (to let the potatoes cook properly), but otherwise the instructions were clear and seemed to work.
Enjoyment: 2 out of 5
I didn't dislike it as much as I thought; I was nervous by what seemed to be rather large quantities of spices, but knowing it was adjusted for a kid's palate I put it all in anyway. It actually ended up need a bit more flavor (Abe added salt, black pepper, and red pepper to his serving). But it was just ok.
Likelihood to make again: 1 out of 5
I might do something with a similar base (beans and potatoes), but with different spices or sauce. But the particular spices (cumin, chili, tumeric, etc.) just didn't work for me.
October's new recipe was from Vegan Lunch Box, a cookbook meant to make food for your 8-year-old. Which is perfect, since my food preferences are essentially that of an 8-year-old. (I really should try things from this book more often, as even the more adventurous recipes are kept relatively simplified.)
Since there was phyllo dough in the freezer left over from May's recipe, I decided to try the phyllo triangles in this book, which are actually quite different than the previous one attempted. Rather than a grain/greens/nut combo, these used a tofu filling.
To go along with it I picked a brussels sprouts preparation. Dude. I just now realized, typing this out, that it's brusselS sprouts. There's an S. It's not brussel sprouts. Am I dumb, did everyone else already know that?
Phyllo triangles
Difficulty: 3 out of 5
Although still some assembly required, there were fewer steps to prepare the filling than the other phyllo triangles had.
Enjoyment: 3.5 out of 5
Not fantastic, but fine. The filling was somewhat reminiscent of a tofu eggless egg scramble, due to the texture and somewhat the spices. I'd totally eat it again if someone else made it.
Likelihood to make again: 2 out of 5
It's a lot of work for something that's just ok.
Best brussels sprouts
Difficulty: 2.5 out of 5
There was sauteing, then boiling and simmering. The liquid added never quite got as syrupy as I thought it was supposed to. But all stove top in one pot, nothing too complicated.
Enjoyment: 3 out of 5
I think because something wasn't working quite right with the liquid (not turning into a syrup), they ended up just a bit soggy. The texture looked like it would end up all right after the first step, sauteing, but then the liquid was added and things just didn't quite turn out right.
Likelihood to make again: 4 out of 5
This seems like it has potential. I usually like veggies, including brusselS spouts, best when roasted, so the sauteing helps keep this in the general genre I should like. With some modifying or fixing of the liquid step, keeping it more syrup and less soggy, I think these really could be good.
September's recipe (finally caught up in October) was from Vegan Junk Food. This cookbook really does live up to its name - it has all sorts of restaurant and take-out imitations, along with multiple dessert chapters.
Because I apparently have a thing for it, I picked the takeout orange tofu to try. (Orange chicken was the only thing I liked at a Chinese restaurant when I was a kid. Pre-vegetarian, obviously.) (I was also going to make the takeout fried rice to go along with it, but am lazy.)
Takeout Orange Tofu
Difficulty: 3 of 5
There are a couple steps - making the sauce and coating and frying the tofu. The frying the tofu part is not exactly easy, but made less difficulty by the fact that I've done it before (in January for a similar recipe, and helping Abe with it on other occasions. Hey, practicing cooking skills makes them easier! Who knew?!
Enjoyment: 3 of 5
The sauce was fine. The tofu was nice and crispy right after frying it, but then made sort of soggy by adding the sauce. I'm still befuddled by how any fried tofu can remain crispy with any sauce added, if sauced after the fact, or can be made crispy in the first place if you add the sauce and marinate it first. Ok, but not fabulous.
Likelihood to make again: 2 of 5
The components (tofu + sauce) were decent on their own, just didn't quite work.
But - likelihood to use their method to fry tofu again - 5 of 5! It's not really a novel way, it's just a flouring thing, but I found this clear, step by step instructions to doing so, and it worked really great to make it crispy. I also, upon reusing this for a different purpose, used a method that must be what restaurants do - coated and fried strips of tofu, and then cut into bite-size pieces. It made it sooooo much easier to flip them in the pan to get all the sides fried evenly. Yes, that means once you cut it into pieces there are sides not fried at all, but I still think it works better than the alternative of small pieces that are all unevenly fried anyway because you can't flip them all at once exactly the right way.
Fried tofu (not-orange-sauce-coated) on salad:
August's recipe (caught up finally in October) was from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, a cookbook by the Post Punk Kitchen team. (We also have their pie book - that's on deck for December's recipe!)
Abe has also made some other cookies from the book, that have all been pretty good - blackstrap gingersnaps, tahini lime cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, fruity oat bars, lemon bars.
For my foray, I went for a classic: cowboy cookies.
Cowboy Cookies
Difficulty: 2 out of 5
It's your standard cookie preparation - dry ingredients in a bowl, wet ingredients in a bowl, fold in dry ingredients. The got a little bit difficult to work with by the end of scooping out the cookies (maybe it got too warm?), a bit sticky, but otherwise no problems.
Enjoyment: 4 out of 5
Who doesn't enjoy cookies? :) They taste just a smidge on the healthy side of the spectrum (they're not, by any means, healthy - you should see the amount of oil in the recipe - but the nuts make it feel a bit like they are), but overall quite good as anything that involves chocolate chips generally is.
Likelihood to make again: 5 out of 5
I already have made them again!
July's recipe (caught up in August) was from one of my oldest vegan cookbooks, Vegan Bites. The tagline is "recipes for singles", and I really did use it a fair amount when I lived on my own. The recipes are all relatively simple, and are smaller batches. It also has a good opening chapter on vegan pantry and cooking basics.
One of my first exposures to using tofu in a tasty way (as opposed to plain and uncooked with ketchup, which is allegedly how my sister enjoyed it when we were kids) was in this book, the seasoned tofu tidbits that my mom convinced me to try one time while visiting me. The peanut butter cookies and the lemon cake were also staples of my limited cooking repertoire for a while. (Which reminds me, I should make the lemon cake sometime soon! Haven't made it for a while, and it's really quite delicious!)
For trying a new recipe, I picked something that didn't appeal to me much before - the tofu and vegetable hash. It's along the lines of any sort of tofu scrambled "eggs" recipe, with lots of veggies mixed in. I haven't ever really loved any such scramble, but not hated it either.
Tofu and vegetable hash
Difficulty: 2.5 out of 5
There aren't too many steps, though there is a fair amount of chopping and preparation.
Enjoyment: 2 out of 5
It was ok. I'd eat it if Abe made and wanted me to have it as a healthy breakfast, but I didn't like it enough to be worth making myself.
Likelihood to make again: 2 out of 5
It was fine, but just fine. It is a decent way of working more veggies into something breakfast-like, at least. I'd eat it again, but probably not actually make it again.
June's cookbook for a new recipe (caught up and actually done in July) was the Vegan Bible. It has some introductory content with some good background info about eating vegan and stocking your pantry, along with a wide variety of types of recipes, from breakfast to dessert. Every recipe even has a color photo, which as I think I've mentioned before I find super helpful, in both picking and preparing a dish.
Abe has made some soups from the book (that's what all the bookmarks are, things he's made or wants to make!), which I wasn't a huge fan of, but a lot of other things looked appealing. Due to having some zucchini on hand to use up, I decided to go with the dragon tofu. It looked essentially like any basic Thai style stir fry that I would like at a restaurant. (Though anything tastes better at a restaurant, when you didn't have to do the work, eh? I'm definitely on that side of things rather than your hard work making it taste good!)
I ended up limiting the included veggies to just the zucchini and spinach, leaving out the bell pepper and squash, just to keep things simple.
Dragon tofu
Difficulty: 2.5 out of 5
A few steps involved, chopping and marinating the tofu, lots of veggie chopping, and then stir frying everything. But nothing too hard included within any step.
I wasn't really able to blend the sauce together - it asks for creamy peanut butter, and we buy the fresh ground in store (where it's a machine filled with peanuts that get ground as you pour it into your container), so it's not quite as creamy as the recipe probably intended. It's not crunchy peanut butter, but was nonetheless a bit harder to blend with other ingredients.
Enjoyment: 2.5 out of 5
It was fine. It's a stir fry with a soy sauce base. There's tofu and veggies. Nothing particularly special about it, but nothing wrong with it.
Likelihood to make again: 0 out of 5
I'd recommend it, I suppose, but not planning to make again myself. Again, it's fine, nothing wrong with it. But it's nothing special, and it's tainted by an argument that occurred the same night. Really no reason to want to recreate it.
I do think it would be improved by include the wider variety of veggies that the original recipe calls for - bell peppers and yellow squash, in addition to the spinach and zucchini. Having fewer items included I think did contribute it to be a bit boring.
In May I made a recipe from the New Vegan Cookbook. This book has some really creative ideas. Creative as in... a bit far out there for my taste (e.g., tomato-chickpea curry in eggplant shells, baked beet and brown rice salad), but Abe has tried a couple other things from it and enjoyed them. The book itself is very colorful and photo-heavy - leading to rather definite decisions on my part as to what looks worth trying - or not!
I picked the phyllo triangles filled with kale, pine nuts, and currants - essentially a spanakopita type of thing. No cheese (which always makes anything good!), but a flakey carb, so that made it sound pretty good to me.
I ended up subbing dried blueberries for the currants (couldn't find), and just a basic cheap white wine for the sherry, but otherwise followed the ingredient list and directions.
Phyllo triangles filled with kale, pine nuts, and currants blueberries
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| Filling |
Difficulty: 4 of 5. No one thing that difficult, but lots of steps - toasting the pine nuts, cooking the kale, sauting other stuff, folding the triangles. If it tasted absolutely amazing maybe it'd be worth the work, but something that's just fine, not necessarily worthwhile. On the plus side, the instructions, while lengthy, were quite clear and easy to follow.
Enjoyment: 3 of 5. It was fine. I was concerned a bit because I'm not a fan of lots of things mixed together (yes, I basically have the taste buds of a 5 year old); but the various textures and tastes actually melded together quite well. I'd totally order it in a restaurant. But not completely spectacular.
Likelihood to make again: 2 of 5. Again, fine, and even kind of fun to make once and have the chance to use phyllo dough, but not necessarily worth the work of making again.
April's new recipes were from How It All Began, the book for which The Garden of Vegan is a sequel. Both have a lot of recipes for vegan basics and favorites, and tips for vegan living. This one even has some cleaning product and toiletry recipes.
I picked one of my favorite things - breakfast for dinner! Scrambled eggs and french toast - sans any eggs. I've come across variations of such recipes before, but never tried them before. The eggless egg recipes just freak me out a little, particularly because they usually include some spices that I'm not used to; french toast is something I've hesitated on because I don't have any skills at effectively making french toast even in the traditional manner. Take away the normal ingredients and I would think it'd be even easier to screw up.
I wouldn't say either of these turned out perfectly - they tasted fine but were a little difficult to handle and certainly weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing.
Scrambled eggless eggs
Difficulty: 2 of 5 - Not too much too it, other than keeping an eye to make sure it didn't stick to the pan.
Enjoyment: 3.5 of 5 - Tumeric and cumin are not flavors I typically love (but are typically used in egg alternative recipes like this), but they really do blend well in the overall recipe and the taste truly is eggy and pretty good.
Likelihood to make again: 3 of 5 - Though eggy in many ways, it nonetheless doesn't really have all of the egg properties that make eggs worth eating, in my opinion. But perhaps worth trying to acquire a taste for it as I'm aiming to reduce my egg consumption.
Fabulous french toast I
Difficulty: 4 of 5 - The general procedures are the same as traditional french toast - mix batter, dip bread, fry. It was hard to prevent the bread from sticking to the pan, though, plus there was a very small sweet spot for how long to dip the bread - too long as it got gooey and fell apart.
Enjoyment: 3 of 5 - It didn't crisp in the same way as good french toast does, but I've never accomplished that at home with tradition, either (I love french toast, but usually rely on the good stuff at restaurants, instead of making mediocre at home).
Likelihood to make again: 2 of 5 - Kind of like the eggs, it hit some surface qualities, but ultimately didn't have the oomf that makes the actual thing so amazing.
Up this month for new recipes was a book I received as a present a couple years ago, Great Gluten-Free Vegan Eats. While eliminating gluten is something I would never do without a severe medical need, too much of anything is never good, so I wouldn't mind having some options of recipes in my repertoire that happen to not include wheat. It's a very pretty and well-organized book, even color-coded sections, which gives it some automatic points.
Some of the recipes are gluten-free by substituting non-wheat flours, but a fair number are items that just happen to be gluten-free, so I picked a couple of those. Upon reflection, perhaps two items that didn't really blend together well in a single dish.
There are definitely other items in the book I'd like to try, but I've been aiming for healthier options for this monthly goals. But the croquettes and some of the desserts in the book have not been ruled out for future cooking.
Drenched pad thai salad
Difficulty: 4 of 5 - No one piece was terribly hard, but it just involved a lot of steps and components, and it'd have to be really incredibly delicious to be worth it. It wasn't.
Enjoyment: 2 of 5 - The tofu was pretty good, the taste of the sauce was ok, and the concept of the zucchini noodles wasn't bad, but the texture of the sauce on the zucchini noodles was really bizarre and gross. Even Abe thought so, and he'll pretty much eat anything.
Likelihood to make again: 2 of 5 - The sauce might not be so bad on real noodles (might make the whole thing less slimey feeling?). I actually think I might do the marinade on tofu again. But the whole package, not so much.
We don't have a spiralizer, but using a vegetable peeler to noodle-ize worked just fine, and I was able to get some relatively nice long strips with that. We also lack a grill of any kind, so I sauted the tofu and pineapple on the stovetop, which is one of my standard ways of preparing tofu, so it also worked out. I was kind of worried about the marinade including Chinese 5-spice, as that contains both anise and fennel, and I typically don't like that licorice taste, but it somehow worked and wasn't too overly strong in the end.
Cinnamon roasted cauliflower
Difficulty: 1 of 5 - Just cut the cauliflower, coat with oil and the cinnamon mixture. Can't get much easier than that.
Enjoyment: 3 of 5 - I'm not sure if I didn't let it bake long enough? I didn't get as crispy as I would have expected, but I was afraid of letting it burn. Kind of a weird flavor profile, in my opinion, as I'm used to cinnamon in sweet dishes.
Likelihood to make again: 3 of 5 - I think I would want to add at least a touch of sweetener to it, and bake longer and hope that might help the texture a bit.
Continuing down the list alphabetically, February's new recipe from existing cookbook was from the Garden of Vegan.
The sequel to How it All Vegan, I've had both of these cookbooks for a really long time, and I'm not sure why I've so rarely made things from them!
The recipes are mostly things that are fairly simple and straightforward (there's even a chapter on getting by in a dorm room - I just relied on the cereal station and ice cream bar to eat vegetarian on the meal plan in college myself, but these ideas probably would have been a bit healthier). From flipping through it, there does seem to be a slight abundance of tofu-based recipes, but otherwise a variety of types of dishes, genres, etc.
I picked the fried tofu sandwich and nutty pasta toss to try. I'm very much a carbitarian, but these seemed like a nice balance of a carb with protein (tofu, obviously, in the one, and a nut-based sauce for the pasta).
Fried tofu sandwich
Difficulty: 3 of 5 - The fairly brief instructions (plus my lack of existing knowledge and common sense) for sauteing the tofu resulted in a splatter of Braggs when it hit already hot oil. Otherwise, a fairly easy method of preparing tofu.
Enjoyment: 4 of 5 - I cut the tofu really thin - about 1/8" - and loved how it resulted in basically crispy all the way through.
Likelihood to make again: 4 of 5
Per my preferences and what we had on hand, I used Earth Balance margarine instead of mayo (cause mayo is gross), and used spinach and pepper slices for the veggies. We kept it open faced since we had plenty of carbs for the meal with the pasta going along with it.
The instructions with the tofu simply say to saute the tofu in oil and Braggs. So... I took that to mean heat up the pan, add both oil and Braggs, then add the tofu. Don't do that. Since the oil was hot, adding Braggs to it just splattered all over the place. Per Abe's advice, after removing the pan for the heat to cool back down, I heated it back up, put in oil. Then put in the tofu, which brings down the temperature, then poured Braggs over the tofu while in the pan. Flipped after a few minutes, then just a minute or two on the second side.
Nutty pasta toss
Difficulty: 2 of 5 - Fortunately had Abe's supervision by this point (after the Braggs-in-hot-oil incident) so he helped me with the food processor that I haven't used before, but that was really the hardest part.
Enjoyment: 4 of 5 - I love anything pasta-based, and this was no exception. I was a bit worried that the parsley or lemon in the sauce might stand out and overpower the dish, but everything blended together nicely for an almost creamy sauce.
Likelihood to make again: 5 of 5 - Pretty easy to make, and a great way to use up whatever veggies are around before they go bad.
Again subbed in the veggies we had on hand rather than those specified, but followed more precisely for the sauce. We used almonds for the "nuts, your choice". I was actually really disappointed that Abe ate up the remaining servings and I didn't have any left for lunch this week!
For this month's "new recipe from existing cookbook", I decided to start alphabetically and make something from Chloe's Kitchen.
I'm pretty sure I received this cookbook gift, probably a couple years ago, but somehow hadn't really gotten to looking through it much. There are a lot of appealing things in here! Including a whole section of desserts, but my purpose here was to practice my skills (and train my tastebuds) on healthy dinner-type foods, so I selected the "Orange you glad I made crispy tofu" and "teriyaki wok vegetables", served with quinoa.
Orange you glad I made cripsy tofu
Difficulty: 4 of 5 - The frying tofu adds an extra step that I personally find difficult and slightly scary. One could probably do this by pan frying rather than deep frying, though, and it'd be a bit less intimidating.
Enjoyment: 3 of 5 - It is largely dependent on how the tofu frying turns out, in this case not completely great. The taste was still fine, but my expectation of the texture - while possibly set too high - was definitely not met.
Likelihood to make again: 3 of 5
A spin on Chinese orange chicken (the only Chinese food I had tried and liked before going vegetarian) - I can't say it tastes exactly like its muse (but, granted it's been about 17 years since I last had it), but it's pretty tasty! It's a definite change of pace from my usual tofu (usually go more herb-y), which is nice for mixing things up occasionally.
We didn't follow the directions in the recipe for frying the tofu, as Abe already has a method for doing so (though I don't think this batch was the best he's ever made it - not nearly as crispy as usual, unfortunately); he thought the cornstarch coating would not only add an extra step but make the frying more difficult. To compensate for the salt in the coating, I added a little salt to the sauce.
I also wasn't clear on how the strips of orange peel (not zest, it says 1/4-inch strips of peel) worked with the sauce, so I skipped that, but let some of the pulp squeezing the orange juice into it, as I assumed it had to do with intensifying the flavor. The recipe doesn't say how long it should take for the sauce to boil down, but it turned to be about 10 minutes.
Teriyaki wok vegetables
Difficulty: 2 of 5 - Not a 1 really only because the sauce is cooked separately first, but otherwise it's a pretty simple stir-fry.
Enjoyment: 4 of 5 - The teriyaki taste still has some room to grow on me, but I didn't dislike it.
Likelihood to make again: 5 of 5
This is dish is a pretty simple stir-fried vegetables, with a homemade teriyaki sauce. I'm not sure I've ever had non-homemade teriyaki sauce before, so I can't really compare it on that aspect, but it was good.
We made a few subs on the specific veggies included (ended up with: carrots, broccoli, cabbage, onion). Abe was in charge of the initial cooking of them, and found the 10 - 15 minutes (initially, plus a few more after adding the sauce) was absurd (even for the vegetables originally included in the recipe), bringing that down to about 5 minutes.
The cookbook overall:
There are large, pretty pictures for most (at least half?) of the recipes, which is something I definitely appreciate - I'm a picky eater, so having a visual concept of the finished product makes it that much easier to evaluate the texture and likelihood that I'll like something. Although, now I realized that these two recipes happen to be ones without pictures! It has a lot of pretty typical American or American-ized type dishes, all made vegan. Flipping through it, there are very few recipes I wouldn't mind eating if someone else cooked them (the bar to motivate me to really want to cook something is really high).
There seemed to be some minor issues with instructions - e.g., there's no way the veggies needed to be cooked for 15 minutes, and there wasn't a time given for how long the orange sauce should take to thicken. But overall fairly easy to follow.
Graham Cracker Crust
