Tag Archives: yup it’s vegan

Blog Recipe Round Up: Curries

May 15, 2018

This curry round up has taught me one vital lesson. I am spoiled. Yes my idea of what a curry is, is slowly becoming quite narrow. After cooking so many dhal recipes and such from Vegan Richa’s cookbook I have learned how to create so much depth and flavor to a curry dish. Now, when I stumble upon a recipe that uses plain curry powder, it makes me a little sad.

Yes, there are some curry recipes on here that just uses the yellow spice mix, and some don’t. Some are called a curry and a yummy, but deep in my heart I know it is just a stew. So read and enjoy my most recent round up!

Kohlrabi Curry

This is a very odd recipe, I’ve never seen a curry made this way. First you roast the kohlrabi then you cook the rice, then saute the aromatics, then add the kohlrabi to the aromatics. Very weird, but it works. She also uses chili powder which works surprisingly well with everything.

The recipe says it only take 30 minutes to make, which isn’t fully true, it can be more if your oven is really old and takes 20 minutes to preheat. My second complaint is that the recipe really only makes enough for two very hungry people. I might be interested next time doubling the recipe. And I was using a pretty HUGE kohlrabi too!

My word of caution is to peel the kohlrabi well. I didn’t and it was very tough in some parts. My husband described it as being stabbed by the curry. This is an easy fix.

Bottom Line: Yummy, easy

Chana Masala

This is one of my summer favorites. When my CSA is producing tons of tomatoes, it isn’t a big deal to use up three pounds of tomatoes in one dish. In my area, that many tomatoes can cost $9 overall or $12 organic. It isn’t the worst amount of money when you consider that it makes 4 servings, etc, etc. But when your cheap like me, it is a big deal.

What I find interesting about using fresh tomatoes instead of tinned is that you get two very different Chana Masalas. Canned results in a sweet dish, and that is how most Westerners learn how to make Chana Masala. That is all fine and dandy, but I like how this dish is practically all the same ingredients but show how you can get something totally different with a few tweaks. The end results is a tangier curry that was awesome. I love any chickpea based curry, and if you like Chana Masala you might to give this a try.

Bottom Line: Pricey with tomatoes, super yummy

Roasted Red Pepper, Chickpea and Spinach Curry

I pretty much picked up on this recipe since it looked simple and used cocktail or cherry tomatoes. I do have to say it is insanely easy. Roast some bell peppers, saute onion and garlic, then blend with a bunch of stuff. Then mix with spinach, chickpeas, and tomatoes, and bake. It might take over an hour to make, but the active and clean up time is pretty minimal. I also had the brilliant idea of using pasta instead of rice. I think both would of worked well, but I am slightly more partial to the pasta. The rice would of been good at grabbing onto the thin sauce.

I think the only downside to this curry is that it probably needs more salt… or rather more defined amounts of salt. I think the author sprinkled more salt onto the bell pepper than I did. So in the end the sauce was a little bland and I sprinkled a lot of coconut aminos on it. Which is fine and still tasted amazing. I will definitely make this dish again in the future. You could speed up the cooking process by using jarred red bell peppers.

Bottom Line: Super easy, lots of down time

Tofu Tikka Masala

Here is the biggest flaw in the recipe, you slow cook for a total of only 4-6 hours. Sucks. Most people use their slow cookers before they go to work, making most people out for 8+ hours. I know that isn’t how everyone has it, but most. So that is my number one complaint. It isn’t a big deal if, say, you want to make this on the weekend, or perhaps if you are a stay at home mom. Maybe you can come home during your lunch break? There are many situations where you can make this.

Oddly this is the second curry on here that uses cherry tomatoes. Odd, but I am loving this idea. I get so many cherry tomatoes from my CSA, and sometimes, I can’t just eat them raw in salads and wraps. I liked how they created sweet little bursts of flavor in the sauce. Slow cooking REALLY makes the flavors come out in the sauce, and I will be making this again for sure. I think in the future, I may want to bump the tofu from 1lb to 1 1/2lb. I was able to cut cubes for Wolfie and cover it in extra sauce. Baby approved.

Bottom Line: Great for stay at home moms or people who can come home for lunch to prep

Tandoori Cauliflower Chickpea Bowls with Creamy Cashew Raita

This dish I am on the border of printing out and making more often. It was pretty minimal work. Blend the raita up, chop and toss the cauliflower in a quick sauce, bake, and assemble. Pretty simple. It is also pretty darn healthy. I served it with a little bit of leftover brown rice instead of greens, though just the greens would of been tasty as well.

I have two complaints. One, which isn’t as big of a deal, is that there was SOO much leftover raita. I am not 100% sure what to use it for, but I will have to think of ways to use it up. The second complaint is that I wish there was a LIITTLE more flavor to the cauliflower. I didn’t use a whole head of cauliflower because it looked like there was too much for sauce. So I think if I made this again, I would double the sauce coating. Maybe even toss the chickpeas in it?

Bottom Line: Lots of extra raita, wish for more sauce, OVERALL YUMMY!

One Pot Curried Lentils and Enlgish Peas

I like how easy this recipe is. Very simple, but surprisingly large amount of flavor. It calls for green lentils, but I went for brown since they were the only ones available. I am sure green lentils would of tasted better, because I don’t know many people who prefer brown. Oh well.

This dish is as simple as saute the onion and garlic, add water, coconut milk, and lentils and simmer. Then toss in the peas and broccoli, cook JUUUUST a little longer, and that’s it. This involves very little chopping and prepping. This is something I would feel very comfortable leaving for my husband to make. This will get printed and filed away for him to make one day when he needs to make dinner on his own.

Bottom Line: Yummy, easy

Posted by Jennifer in Food Review, Reviews Tags: isa does it, recipe roundup, tartes and recreation, tasty kitchen, the full helping, the post punk kitchen, The PPK, Veggie Chick, yup it's vegan

4 comments

Blog Recipe Round Up: Tacos

December 6, 2017

Oh boy are there a million tacos out there! We are just barely scratching the surface with what’s out there. And even though they are all over pinterest, I think this was one of the hardest compilations to get together. Why? I think tacos are just way too easy to stray away from the original recipe. But I did it! So check out the recipes below!

Falafel Tacos with Sriracha-Tahini Sauce

This recipe is actually an amazing weeknight meal. Aside from my kitchen being so small that taking out the food processor is a pain, it is a super meal. All you need to dirty up is really the food processor, a baking tray, and cutting board. And while the falafels bake, you can clean up most of the dishes. Brilliant! The dinner made pretty much spot on what it would make- granted if you eat only two tacos. That can be hard since they are so tasty, but two tacos has 16 grams of protein. Not too bad considering my husband at three- which would be 24 grams of protein. Downside, I think the sriracha-tahini sauce was a little too thick, but then again I was getting to the bottom of tahini where they was very little oil.

Bottom Line: Quick and easy weeknight dinner

Beer and Lime Cauliflower Tacos

There’s been a lot of hub-bub with Thug Kitchen and if their writing is mocking African Americans. Although I find the juxtaposition of harsh language in a medium that uses flower language funny, I do think they could of done it without singling out a certain culture. I never really intended to check out Thug Kitchen, but I found this really yummy recipe that I just wanted to try badly.

Did the recipe hold up? Umm…no. The salsa was pretty darn spicy. Which to me isn’t too big of a deal except there was a lot of hot sauce in the cauliflower portion. I like it when you divide the heat up within certain ingredients, not piling on everything hot. The cauliflower was very watery from the beer, which makes me wondering if it would of worked better as sort of a “refried” cauliflower filling? And overall there were WAY too much onion flavor. I didn’t even use as much as they recommend since I didn’t have them, like adding more green onions!

There were some great flavor combos, but there should of been more finessing with the cooking process. Maybe saute the onions in the cauliflowers, only spice in the salsa, etc. Overall it isn’t bad though.

Bottom Line: Alright recipe, needs more streamlining.

051215-o

Sweet Potato Pecan Tacos

There is so much flavor going on with these tacos. They are easy to make and great for a more fall based taco when sweet potatoes are in season and when the temperature is going down (to turn the oven on). The great thing about the recipe is that the author is very open to variations so I did and found ways to improve the taco.

One thing I found needed improvement in the recipe is the texture. She has a smooth bean spread and soft sweet potatoes that probably have a nice outside texture from roasting. BUT I felt like it needed a little extra tooth, and adding quick pickled shredded cabbage I think did the trick. Avocados are also a major must as well, if it is in your price range.

I loved the flavor from the coconut cream, but it seemed more like something that would be great as a dressing. The blog post does suggest that this dish makes a great salad, so maybe I missed the memo that the cream was just suppose to be a dressing? Maybe, maybe not. But I wouldn’t bother with it unless you want to make a salad over a taco.

Bottom Line: Super yummy, but needs a lettuce or cabbage paired with it.

Black Bean + Tempeh Tacos with Cashew Cheese Sauce

This recipe is pretty easy and fast to make. What is both nice and disappointing about this recipe is how flexible it is. There aren’t any specifically highlighted flavors, which I tend to like from a taco recipe. But it does give a recipe for a very flexible taco filling that you can pretty much do any day of the week. Don’t have avocado? You’ll be fine. Don’t have cabbage? Just use lettuce. So I could imagine using this recipe as a basic structure to make on a busy weeknight.

I did NOT make the cashew cheese sauce mostly because I had some homemade vegan sour cream that needed to get used up. But the recipe for the cashew cheese sauce looks pretty good, and would of made a great addition to the tacos. Overall I think this is a recipe I might use again, it only took about 15 minutes to make. And as mentioned it is pretty flexible for interpretation, and she makes sure you still get your greens.

Bottom Line: Great recipe for starter vegans.

Tequila Lime Baked Tofu Tacos with Chipotle Crema

This recipe involves a lot of planning, but overall pretty easy. What takes the most amount of time is freezing the tofu, thawing it, pressing, then marinating. None of those steps take particularly long, but you need to think ahead. I think most vegans don’t know how to plan these steps since these are mostly common for meats. But I found that I froze the tofu one day, the next day remove and let thaw in the fridge. Then the day of making I pressed for an hour (it wasn’t fully thawed at the time), and marinated it before heading into work. That way it took a 30 minutes to bake giving lots of prep and clean up time.

BUT I do have a problem with the recipe. Although it was easy to make, there wasn’t nearly enough fat. The overall result was super acidic, but I wish she put a little oil in the marinade, or used cashews for the crema. Aside from that, I was totally happy with the results. There was a little extra of tofu for leftovers (hubs and I had three tacos each) so if you have a big family, you might want to double the tofu.

Bottom Line: Needs a little more fat, but tasty overall

BBQ Eggplant Tacos

Hmm… how do I feel about these tacos. So many emotions. First let me talk about prep work. It is pretty easy. I spent most of the time working on the peach-lime chutney. It wasn’t too hard, but it does involve a lot of fine chopping, so it was probably a total of 30-40 minutes, but worth noting there was lots of time to do other things. In fact I made the fennel slaw while the chutney cooked up. So all I had to do was roast the eggplant and put together the tacos when it came to dinner time. Dividing up the work makes the clean up more manageable.

Flavors have been interesting. I can’t say I hate and I can’t say I love it. My husband summed it up as minty and fruity. I think we both weren’t huge fans of the mix of fennel and peach. I think I might want to “dilute” the fennel by adding a little cabbage next time. Also I didn’t like how the eggplant “shredded.” I mean it kind-of did, but it was mostly just mushy shreds. I would probably just use beans or jackfruit in the future.

And it is worth noting that I had uneven amounts of food. I get it- when your recipe calls for one fennel bulb and mostly nothing else, you are going to have varied amounts. I ended up with a full little jam jar of the chutney. We had NO eggplant leftover, and there was enough slaw for maybe one two extra tacos. Not the worst, but something to keep in mind if you hate leftovers.

Bottom Line: Lots of prep, mixed emotions