Recipe Round-Up: Celebrate Vegan

Wow wow wow! I feel up to writing a recipe round-up post! I had a follow up with my surgeon a couple of days ago, who gave memtwo thumbs up, and I go back to work tomorrow. The last week I have finally started feeling more like myself, and able to move around comfortably, I just still get tired easily because I spent the last five weeks not doing much of anything. But I am on track to being back to normal. But the better new normal, with no more uterus to ruin my life. Hurrah!

This next batch of round-ups will be coming from Celebrate Vegan, by Dynise Balcavage. You can see the one previous post I have from this book here. I love menus, and this book is full of menus for different sorts of celebrations. But as life goes on, I have had less energy to pull off big menus. I know this will sound ridiculous, but my brain was in such a set pattern of: if it is in a menu you have to make the whole menu, that it took me a while to let go of that and decide I could just make individual recipes that appealed to me. I know I know, but honestly. Brains. Don't try living in mine, it is exhausting.

A little note on the book itself, it is not a book I would really recommend. It is has a load of menus for specific days around the world (new years celebrations, American celebrations, International celebrations, religious-based celebrations), as well as milestone celebrations and everyday celebrations (a sick day menu will forever seem like a strange choice to me, if I'm sick I don't want to be making three courses). But there is little thought or consideration given to the meaning behind some of these celebrations (particularly from other countries or religions), and it also includes a Columbus Day menu with a very flippant entry. I am not American but I know that Columbus day is NOT a day to celebrate. So, don't go out of your way to get this book. With that ringing endorsement, let's get into the first batch of recipes. Wow. I have written a lot before even getting to the food!

Esther's Baked Falafel and Smoky Tahini Sauce: I often find store-bought falafels to be dry, so I like to make me own. I know they should be made with dried chickpeas as the starting point, but I have no issues with a recipe calling for tinned chickpeas. So much easier. This is a very simple recipe, and I like that they were baked. It still called for quite a bit of oil in the baking process, but I cut way down on that. The flavour was nice. It was a fairly small recipe, I got nine little falafels, but served with rice, green beans, and the sauce it was a good dinner. As for the sauce, it made a bunch! It was quite lemony, so I would cut down on the lemon juice and up the smoked paprika next time.
Rating: Falafel :), Sauce :)



Tofu with Broccoli and Black Bean Sauce: I'm a sucker for a broccoli and tofu stir-fry! The sauce was easy to make, and uses those little packets of fermented black beans that you get at the Asian grocery store. I used the lower amount of soy sauce required to make it, and it had just the right level of salt for me. This made three serves with white rice and spinach.
Rating: :)



Good Old-Fashioned Macaroni Salad: This made three big servings of macaroni salad, especially when served with some sausages and cucumber as a great summer-time dinner. I left out the raw onion and capsicum, and added extra celery and carrot. I also added some peas because I will add peas to almost anything, and I used white pepper in place of cayenne. The recipe says to leave overnight if possible, or at least a few hours, I made mine the morning of. It was quite sweet, so cut down on the sweetener!
Rating: :)



Japanese-Style Mashed Potatoes #1: One of the recipes in the book is for mashed potatoes, and it has a huge range of variations that you can flavour them with. This one included the regular suspects of some vegan butter and milk, but also miso, scallions (I sauteed mine lightly first due to my issues with raw onions), and sesame oil. I also used white pepper in this, and didn't add extra salt because the miso and Nuttelex made it salty enough. I served it with some roasted broccoli, a schnitzel (in lieu of katsu), and vegan kewpie and tonkatsu sauce.
Rating: :)



Polish-Style Mashed Potatoes: This version added some horseradish as well as chives. I added an extra big dollop of horseradish, as I love the flavour! I served this with kraut, spinach, and a schnitzel topped with some dill and mustard sauce out of a bottle from Ikea.
Rating: :)



Seitan Kebabs with Smoky Yoghurt Dipping Sauce: First up, I rarely have the energy these days to put things on skewers, so rather than grilling skewers I left out the skewer process entirely and just sauteed the whole thing. I used Meet strips for my seitan, which you can get from Coles. They are marinated for several hours before cooking. The sauce was a bit on the sweet side, though I had left out the cayenne. It could also have been smokier. I just love the flavour of smoked paprika so much! Served with roasted potatoes and baby spinach.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Abby comes downstairs several times a day now! She's still wary of things, but also spends a lot of time happily relaxing in the sun room. This is a little sofa we have in the sun room that she sits on occasionally, and she looks very pretty on it!