Tartines and Seitan and Red Potato Salad

Because I do not watch television, I miss out on cooking shows. Which I have discovered are awesome, not only for inspiration and carnivorous recipes to veganize, but also for handy tips and techniques. Therefore, I feel lucky and grateful that I had the spirit of enterprise to find Food Network online, and thus begin watching. Food Network's website boasts videos a-plenty from various chefs, but I am currently drawn to Barefoot Contessa. The recipes are great, and I have a list of meals to veganize, however my favorite part about the show is Ina Garten, who is just about the most pleasant, adorable woman ever. I like watching her make food for all of her friends and her cute little husband. But I could go on forever.

Inspired by Barefoot Contessa, I made tartines, paired with a main dish salad from The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook, one of my birthday presents from Jeffrey. Tartines are french open-faced sandwiches, usually served as a first course to a meal. Ina's tartines consisted of bleu cheese and tomatoes, and another batch made with smoked salmon and cucumbers. In the spirit of veganizing this, I had to come up with something, and settled on a vegan bleu cheese I found at Whole Foods (which is AMAZING), sauteed mushrooms, and avocado.

I made a loaf of sourdough bread on Sunday, and simply toasted it for a bit in the oven, then layed slices of bread with bleu cheese and sauteed mushroom. Then, back in the oven for ten minutes, followed by a layer of avocado.

The salad was even better than I imagined, with thin, crispy slices of sauteed seitan, red potatoes, shallots, and a dressing of garlic cloves, olive oil, and sherry vinegar.

Pizza

I have been meaning to post my pizza recipe for a long time, but the pie is usually eaten before I get a chance to take pictures. I have used several different toppings for pizza in my day, but the most recent and most popular lately is cremini mushroom and sausage-style seitan. I also threw some leftover black olives and jalapeno on as well, and it was delicious. If you choose to make your own pizza dough, which I do, more recently with the aid of a bread maker, you can find a good recipe in Vegan Planet. If you use a store-bought crust, which I used to do, you are still fine. But I think the homemade crust is better.

Ingredients (to make one 12-inch pie):
pizza sauce, storebought or homemade, enough to cover the crust, or more if you like a saucy pie
vegan mozzarella cheese (one again, I used FYH)
sausage-style seitan (from La Dolce Vegan)
five or six cremini mushrooms, sliced thinly
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
whatever other ingredients you may have hanging around

Method:
Saute the onion, peppers, cooked seitan, and mushroom in a bit of olive oil for about five minutes. Prebake the crust at 450* for about five to seven minutes. Spread pizza sauce on the crust, followed by grated cheese, then the toppings. Bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes. Cut into eight slices and serve.

Seitan Reubens, Coleslaw, and Smashed Potatoes

I love reubens, and I just remembered that I forgot to put a nice big slice of Swiss cheese on the seitan reuben I had for dinner this evening. Oh well, probably didn't need the extra fat. These reubens are made with crispy seitan, homemade vegan Thousand Island dressing, and sauerkraut, of course. They are served on the homemade buns that I make at least twice a week now (Jeffrey loves them). The buns are from Vegan Dad's hamburger bun recipe. I like to make a lot of smaller buns for two little sandwiches instead of one big one. I also like to throw some seaweed gomashio ontop of some of the buns. The Thousand Island dressing is simple:
2 tbl Vegenaise
1 tbl ketchup
1 tbl pickle relish
1/2 tbl lemon juice

Coleslaw is a no brainer, with:
4 C shredded cabbage
1 shredded carrot
1/4 C Vegenaise
1 tbl natural brown sugar
1 tbl rice vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

The smashed potatoes are also fun:
6 small Yukon Gold potatoes
olive oil
salt and pepper
paprika

Boil the potatoes until very tender. Place on a baking sheet and lightly mash the tops with a fork, until the potatoes are coming apart but not completely demolished. Drizzle olive oil over the potatoes, then shake some salt and pepper over them. Bake in the oven at 450* for 15 minutes. Shake some paprika over the potatoes and serve.
Yummy dinner.

Tortas

A few weeks ago, my officemates and I decided to go to Tortas Paquime. We noticed the menu sitting in the lunchroom one day and thought it might be fun to try something new. I was surprised at the mention of "vegetarian" on this menu and therefore became even more excited to try it. Plus, they had waffle fries with melted nacho cheese, and that was the clincher. We thoroughly enjoyed the place, and my torta of avocado, tomato, jalapeno, and mayonnaise was delicious.


I thought to myself, while eyeing my officemates' marinated pork torta, "I could so veganize this." Which I did. I made some bollitos and some beef-flavored seitan. I threw together some chopped romaine lettuce, a mixture of Follow Your Heart cheddar and monterey jack cheese, pico de gallo, guacamole, and chopped jalapeno, then piled the whole mess on the bun, after spreading it with Vegenaise, of course.