Recipe Round-Up: Appetite For Reduction (Handheld edition)

Popping back into Appetite For Reduction with some final photos to share. The last chapter of the book is called The Importance of Eating Sandwich. It has a number of sandwich and wrap combinations using components from throughout the book. Additionally, there is also a Taco Bar and several baked potato toppings. These are their stories. As previously, I'll just rate the overall sandwich, etc. Reviews of components can be found in my previous posts for this book.

Buffalo Wrap: Buffalo tempeh and cool slaw in a wrap. I added some lettuce. I also served it with some greens and some mac and cheese (which I had leftover from serving with the tempeh and the slaw the night before).
Rating: :)



Open-Faced Portobello Reuben: Sliced Grilled Portobellos with Caesar Chavez Dressing mixed with ketchup on dark rye, sauerkraut, and a dill pickle on the side. I had a bit of salad on the side as well, topped with some leftover dressing. This was nice, though not quite what I think of when I think of a reuben. An interpretation of a reuben.
Rating: :)



Caesar Chavez Wrap: Cos (aka romaine) lettuce with sauteed seitan (I used some seitan I had leftover from another book), sliced black olives, and Caesar Chavez Dressing. This was nice and crunchy, with some strong flavours.
Rating: :)



Thanksgiving Leftovers Wrap: Oof, that's a bad photo. But it is simply some Veggie Pot Pie Strew wrapped up with some cranberry sauce.
Rating: :)



Taco Night: There is a range of recipes from the book that are suggested for your taco spread. From the list, I used Guacamame, Unfried Refried Beans, Portobello Chimichurri, and Fresh Tomato Salsa Dressing, along side some lettuce. I served them with some chard taco shells for nostalgia, they are the taco shells of my youth. Other suggested additions that I did not include are Chili-Lime-Rubbed Tofu and Steamed Plantains. I loved the combination of all these flavours together!
Rating: :D





Baked Potato #2: With Surefire Seitan, Sauteed Kale, and gravy (I used gravy from a gravy mix, but the recipe in the book is for Silky Chickpea Gravy).
Rating: :)



Baked Potato #4: With black beans, sauteed spinach, and Red Velvet Mole.
Rating: :)



Baked Potato #5: Buffalo Tempeh, Caesar Chavez Dressing, and roasted zucchini (which I used instead of grilled).
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I've mentioned that we have a few neighbourhood kitties that come through out yard, this one of our more recent visitors. A very cute little white cat with tabby splotches. Yesterday, I saw them right up on our deck and peering in our back door! The audacity! Thankfully Dim Sim was snoozing in her chair cave, blissfully unaware of this invasion.

Recipe Round-Up: Appetite For Reduction (Bowl edition)

I'm trying something a bit different at the moment, by posting a few times about a book so that I can get out all of the photos I have to share! So you may see two or three posts about the same book in my recipe-round ups, and I may post more than one recipe round-up post a week... or not, I'm back at work now so who knows. We'll see how things go. Anyway, still in the wonderful Appetite For Reduction for a bit longer. After all the recipes, there is a chapter called Elements of a Bowl, which is a list of suggestions for combining different sauces in the book with a grain (or noodle), a bean, and a green to create some wonderful delicious and tasty bowl meals. I'm just going to list the components of the bowls here, any changes I made, and give my rating for the overall bowl, I've already rated and reviewed the sauce and dressing recipes in previous posts.

Mexicana Kale Bowl: Brown rice, black beans, steamed kale, steamed sweet potato, Red Velvet Mole, fresh cilantro.
Rating: :)



Supergreen Bowl: Quinoa, steamed kale and broccoli, edamame, Green Goddess Garlic Dressing, fresh parsley and chives. I added some peas and served it over baby spinach rather than steaming kale.
Rating: :)



Peanut-Lime Tempeh Bowl: Quinoa, steamed broccoli, sauteed tempeh, Peanut-Lime Dragon Dressing.
Rating: :D



Nori Bowl: Brown rice, steamed broccoli, adzuki beans, Carrot-Ginger Dressing, shredded nori.
Rating: :)



Mediterranean Bowl: Bulgur, roasted cauliflower, chickpeas, Caesar Chavez Dressing. I used brown rice instead of bulgur, added some baby spinach, and I roasted my chickpeas in Braggs and nutritional yeast for some extra flavour.
Rating: :)



Romesco Bowl: Quinoa, white beans, grilled zucchini, Romesco Dressing. I also added some flaked almonds.
Rating: :)



Vegan Bowl: Brown rice, baked tofu, steamed kale, Caesar Chavez Dressing.
Rating: :)



Soba Bowl: Soba noodles, steamed broccoli and zucchini, black beans, Green Onion-Miso vinaigrette. I roasted the zucchini and broccoli instead of steaming. Also the vinaigrette is normally made with red miso, but when I made it for this bowl all I had was white.
Rating: :)



Gravy Bowl: Brown rice, baked tempeh, steamed kale, Silky Chickpea Gravy.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Even more sitting on me! She is quite fond of a snuggle and snooze on my chest. I am not complaining.

Recipe Round-Up: Appetite For Reduction

Appetite For Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz is one of my favourite cookbooks, and one of my most used. I reject diet culture, but I don't think about this book like that. It is full of delicious recipes, in true Isa style. However, it does have a teeny bit of nutrition stuff and calorie information in it, so if that is a trigger for you maybe skip it (or message me if there is a recipe that catches your eye!). You can see my previous posts on this book here.

Chipotle Lentil Burgers with OMG Oven-Baked Onion Rings: I made a half recipe of these to get three burgers. They have onion (it calls for red onion, but I used the inner rings of my white onion that I used to make the onion rings), zucchini, cilantro, and lentils in there. I used a smidge of tomato paste in place of the chipotles in adobe. I found this burger mix to be very soft and wet, and needed to add some extra bread crumbs to firm it up (I added an exgtra 1/4 cup). The Onion Rings were the true revelation of this dinner. Deep frying is not something I want to do (it is scary) and I can't eat a lot of deep-fried food before feeling sick, so these oven baked onion rings were a lot of fun! I used one onion and got 8 rings, and a half amount of the mixture. You dip the onion rings in a wet mixture and then into crumbs. I found that even with trying to shake them off after the wet mixture, my dry mix ended up very gluggy by the end. They still went nice and crunchy in the oven, but I needed to bake them for a few extra minutes at the end. I'd also decrease the salt in it next time as they were a bit too salty.
Rating: Burgers :) , Onion Rings :)



Grilled Portobellos: This is a simple way to get some lovely juicy mushrooms on your table. They are marinated for at least half an hour (I did two hours) in a white wine-based marinade, and then grilled. I did mine in the George Foreman grill and it only took a few minutes. Let cool and slice for whatever you want! You could also leave them whole and put them in a burger as the patty.
Rating: :)



Butternut-Apple Soup: Not surprisingly, this is quite a sweet soup. I made a 1/3 recipe to get one lunch sized cup serve, and I also had some grilled cheese on the side. It was a very thick soup, so I added a smidge more stock. Like a fool, I realised afterwards that I had forgotten to add the ginger, which would have been wonderful. I topped it with some bacon bits.
Rating: :)



Smoky Split Pea Soup: This soup has a great smoky flavour, courtesy of smoked paprika. Yellow split peas and carrots give it a bright colour, though you could use green split peas if you wanted. I served this with some bread and salad.
Rating: :)



Curried Chickpeas and Greens: I scaled this recipe down roughly, using one tin of chickpeas, 300g of kale, and on 400g tin of tomatoes... so it wasn't an exact scaling down. This made about three serves. It is that comforting vegan combination of beans and greens and, served over some brown rice, grains.
Rating: :)



Thai Roasted Root Vegetable Curry: This has a combination of roasted swedes, parsnips, and brussels sprouts, as well as sweet potato and carrots. I had extra sweet potato, so I did increase the water added a little bit. I tried making this using a smidge of green curry paste, but honestly green curry paste is just far too hot for me in any amount (where as I can take a small amount of red curry paste), so I found it a bit of the spicy side.
Rating: :) (from people who could handle the spice)



Chipotle Chili with Sweet Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts: This photo has been languishing a long time waiting to be shared... nine years in fact. Eeep! I have such a huge backlog of things to share. So I did actuall ymake this with chipotles in adobo, and it was OK because this was back before I lost all my heat tolerance. This also has pinto beans in it, and was served over some rice with a salad on the side.
Rating: :)



Quinoa, White Bean, and Kale Stew: Greens! Beans! Grains! This is a filling soup! It says it makes 8 serves, I got five. It has a lovely and easy herb blend (made from dried herbs), and then is also full of veggies such as leek, potatoes, carrots, and parsnips. It is lovely with a bit of nutritional yeast or balsamic vinegar drizzed on top. (Another one from the 9 years ago file... good thing I always make notes!)(
Rating: :)



Smoky Tempeh & Greens Stew: This is a nice, satisfying stew. I recommend making sure the tempeh is really well browned, otherwise it is a bit watery. The greens in this are kale and peas (which I used instead of baby lima beans), but it also has carrots and onion. It is a lot of greens, which is lovely, plus a hefty amount of smoked paprika (which I love).
Rating: :)



Irish Stew with Potatoes & Seitan: This is definitely the sort of stew you want on a cold winters night. It has potatoes, seitan, carrots, and green beans in it, and the broth has beer as well. I use a pale ale because I don't like strong beer flavours. Served with some bread and salad for a satisfying meal.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Another day, another sitting on me. Yesterday I was doing some core exercises on the floor, and Dim Sim thought it would be a good time to come and sit on top of me. She sat on me while I did my last two exercises, and then proceded to keep me trapped up her (all 2.4kg of her) for the next 40 minutes!

VeganMoFo 2019 #3: A is for Appetite For Reduction (Recipe Round-Up)

One of my favourite cookbooks is Appetite For Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I don't subscribe to weight loss or diet culture, but I don't think about this book like that. It is a wonderful book full of lots of great recipes and with loads of flavour. You can see what else I have cooked from this book here.

Pad Thai Salad: I love Pad Thai, and this salad has a lot of the same flavours. In its original form, it is a veggie-full salad with cos, bean sprouts, red onion, carrots, and coriander. I bulked it up a bit by adding some cold cooked brown basmati rice and some chopped radish. I left out the raw onion, and cur way back on the beansprouts (using a tin rather than fresh). The best part is undoubtedly the delicious Peanut-Lime Dragon Dressing, which is less dragon for me because I left out the sriracha. This dressing is drinkable! It also has quite a strong lime flavour, so I didn't bother serving the salad with extra lime wedges for squeezing. I got two serves out of this.
Rating: Salad :), Dressing :D



Red Lentil & Root Veggie Dal: There is nothing quite like a big bowl of comforting dal. As well as the usual lentils, this one also had parsnip, turnip, and carrots. There are a lot of spices involved as well, giving a nice flavour. I served it over some brown basmati rice, as suggested.
Rating: :)



Lentil & Eggplant Chili Mole: A few alterations were made to this - leaving out the capsicum, and dialling the chili waaaaay down. The combination of brown lentils and eggplant made this nice and satisfying. I love mole, the lovely depth that the cocoa brings to the tomato in the sauce. I served this over some rice.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



When you are a cat, the world can be your bed. Make a bed wherever you feel like. In a cat bed, on a human bed, in a pile of clothes, in a basket, or on a blanket. Dim Sim isn't a huge fan of cat beds, but I don't want her to miss out on the MoFo fun! So we'll be a little flexible. Dim Sim thought this folded up blanket was just the thing for a little snooze.

Samhain and Yule 2019

Following on from my post last week, here are my food celebrations for the other two sabbats that have already been and gone this year. If you missed the last post, have a quick read to see what they are all about and what they mean to me.

Samhain (April 30th, 2019)

Samhain in the Northern Hemisphere is October the 31st, which everyone knows as Halloween (which has its origins in Samhain). Samhain is considered the new year of the wheel of the year. You can have a lot of fun with food for this, there are traditional foods but you can also go the fun Halloween route if that is your thing. Though given that it is not Halloween here for another 6 months I generally just go with something more traditional.

Punk-Kin Pasta from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer: I got the idea to make this from Bianca's blog, she always posts about her sabbat feasts and I often search on her blog for some witchy food inspiration. This is a simple but tasty little dish, with a very easy sauce made from a tin of pumpkin puree. I did thin it out a little but adding some pasta water, a splash of oat milk, and a sprinkle of stock powder. The sauce also has sauteed chunks of sausage in it, and I used Field Roast Apple Sage. An excellent combination. Sprinkled with a bit of FYH Parmesan. I used 250g of pasta, which was enough for 3 serves.
Rating: :)



Jen's Raisin Soda Bread from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer: I had planned on making some sort of cute fancy dessert, but ended up going for something simple with a quick soda bread recipe. This is quite dense and doesn't rise as much as some other soda breads that I have made. I had planned on using currants instead, as I am not the biggest fan of raisins (I just find them very sweet), but then I discovered that I was out of currants and only had raisins. This also has caraway seeds in it, though I misread and only added 1/2 tsp instead of 1/2 tbs. This was good with a bit of butter, and as the recipe said was even better the next day.
Rating: :| but only because of the raisins, otherwise would be :) if it had currants (or even sultanas)



Yule aka Winter Solstice (22nd June, 2019)

Normally Yule is the sabbat where I make the biggest effort food wise. I love making either Christmas or winter menus from my cookbooks, and I had planned to do something similar this year. But then I was working late on the actual day,and I then I was super sick. So I went for very simple, and even then it had to wait a week. Oh well!

Portobello Pepper Steak Stew and Caulipots from Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: I am a huge fan of the caulipots recipe with AFR, which is mashed potato and cauliflower. Not because of any caloric concerns, but just because it is tasty and a fun way to get some cauliflower into your life. The book has several flavour variations, and while I had made all of them I hadn't actually ever made the original one. But now I have! And I topped it with this lovely warming stew, that has slices of seitan and portobello mushroom. It is meant to have red and green capsicum, but I used carrot and celery instead. And I left out the chili flakes. This had a lovely, savoury flavour. Really it was only three serves with the caulipots. I have saved a bit of the leftover stew to make a wrap out of at a later time (it is currently in my freezer), which Isa suggests and a fun way to enjoy it as well. This was a great combination, served over some baby spinach.
Rating: Stew :), Caulipots :)



Baked Apples from The Joy Of Vegan Baking by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau: This is a very simple recipe. I halved it to make two apples as I was only serving two people, and I used granny smith apples. Apples are cored (but still leaving some flesh at the bottom) and half-peeled, filled with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon, ad baked. After baking the apples were lovely and soft, and the filling was very runny! I served it with some So Delicious Snickerdoodle Cashew Ice Cream (my favourite ice cream).
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Speaking of witchcraft and Samhain and Halloween, have a black cat! She is pretty magical! Did you know that even to this day, black cats are the hardest to adopt out because people some people still think they are bad luck? I have met several people who say that black cats make them nervous. Obviously this is ludicrous! So give a black cat a home, or at least a pat if they want it. Black cats are awesome!

New Year

I am not really into celebrating the new year. It is just a moment of time, and nothing really changes between one day and the next. I am certainly not a fan of staying up until midnight just to watch the clock tick over, that is way past my bed time! But over the past couple of years I have adopted a couple of new year food traditions that I quite enjoy.

New Year's Eve is always pizza and pie night. I make a couple of pizzas, and a sweet pie for dessert. This generally leaves enough for cold pizza for lunch the next day, because I love cold leftover pizza. It is almost better than fresh hot pizza!

Plain Jane Pizza from Vegan Pizza by Julie Hasson: This is a simple pizza with tomato sauce, homemade pepperoni crumbles, and FYH mozzarella. The crumbles are a mix of seasoned TVP and quinoa, and come together very fast. Because I am me, I only added the slightest hint of chili to them, giving a nice mild pepperoni (a lot of the vegan pepperoni on the market is a bit too spicy for me). I used Julie's Easy Peasy Pizza Dough, which is the easiest dough ever and what I normally use as my base. This was a good pizza, though was sadly a bit dry the next day if eaten cold.
Rating: Pizza :), Crumbles :)



Green Bean Casserole Pizza from Bake and Destroy by Natalie Slater: I've never really had green bean casserole, so this was a fun way to try it out. I used a half recipe of 'I Love the Dough', also from this book, to make the base. It is not as easy as Julie's recipe, but was relatively simple enough and worked nicely. The topping is a mix of green beans, mushrooms, french fried onions, yoghurt and others. It makes quite a lot, but all fits on the base. I would recommend baking the base a little bit on its own first, as the topping is quite heavy and the centre of my crust was a little soggy. It is topped with more french fried onions. This was also my first time trying the onions, I bought a packet off a US import store. They are OK, though so salty. I prefer Asian-style fried shallots.
Rating: Pizza :), Dough :)



Blackberry Custard Pie from The Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking by Dana Shultz: This pie is filled with a custard mix of cream cheese and silken tofu, that is easy to blend up in the food processor. The crust is simple to make, though softens quickly. I would suggest blind baking the crust a little bit next time, as while the filling set up perfectly the base of the tart was pretty blonde. Even though it is blackberry season here, we couldn't find any at the shops when the time came, so I used frozen blackberries and it was fine. They recommend this pie is best eaten fresh, though can be kept for a couple of days. I would agree, I finished the last piece the following day and it tasted good but structurally was not as pretty.
Rating: :)



After food, I watched a bit of Buffy, then went up to bed with Dim Sim and was asleep by 9.30. I didn't have anywhere to go in the morning (there is no morning yoga class on New Year's Day), so we had a little lie in a snuggle in the morning, before getting up and getting to the serious business of NYD breakfast, which is always pancakes!

Blueberry Chocolate Pancakes and Cashew Maple Butter Cream from Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton: I made a few substitutions here. First up, these pancakes were meant to be carob, not chocolate, but I am not a huge carob fan and certainly didn't want to buy a bag of carob powder for a couple of TBS. So I used cocoa powder. The recipe has no sweetener, but does use vanilla soy milk. I only had regular oat milk, so I added a heaping TBS of coconut sugar. I used frozen blueberries in the batter. I found the batter was quite runny, so I might use a bit less liquid last time. I used a 1/4 cup scoop for the pancakes, which worked well. I needed to cover the pan to get them to set through in the middle. These pancakes ended up tasting very nice, they were not particularly sweet but had a deep flavour. Then I made the cream. The cream is a blend of maple butter (I got some just for this), silken tofu, vanilla and nut butter. It was meant to be macadamia butter, but I had cashew. It was delicious. I made a half batch, which was just right for the pancakes. Especially delicious when it was layered between a stack of pancakes, it was quite decadent!
Rating: Pancakes :), Cream :)



I have also adopted the southern US tradition of eating black-eyed peas and greens for dinner on NYD. Not because I think it will bless me with any particular prosperity or luck for the year ahead, but mostly because after pizza, pie, and pancakes, eating some beans and greens sounds pretty good! Normally I have to make up a batch of black-eyed peas from scratch, but our supermarkets have FINALLY been blessed with them in tins, so I don't need to plan ahead so much.

Hottie Black-Eyed Peas & Greens with Ginger Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Apples from Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: I downsized this recipe a little bit from using two tins of beans to just one. I still used a full bunch of kale, though. Because I reduced the beans, I also reduced the liquid a little bit. Oh yeah, and I left out the hot sauce because nope. So I guess they are Mildy Black-Eyed Peas? I used smoked paprika to get a nice smoky taste to them. They were lovely and savoury, which was nice served with the sweet vegetable mash. This recipe was so easy! I was worried that I would screw up the sweating of the apples and potatoes, either burning them or undercooking them, but it was perfect. I added extra ginger, and didn't add any agave as it was sweet enough.
Rating: Peas & Greens :), Mash :)



I am not one for making resolutions any more. My main goals for the year are to hug Dim Sim a lot, and to make pizza once a month. I feel they are achievable! What did you get up to for New Years?

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



The face I woke up to on NYD.

VeganMoFo 2017 #20: Sushi Bowls

20th: Deconstructed dish – Hipster style food. Serving it on a slate is optional.

Super deconstructed hipster food leaves me a bit meh. Not to say it can't be good, and often does look very pretty. But I don't have time for fussing like that at home. So here are a few sushi bowl recipes I have made from different books. I love sushi, and it is not that hard to make, but for a quick and easy meal, a big sushi-inspired bowl is certainly welcome. No slates here, just big bowls. I that these three recipes all sound very similar, because they are, but it is a classic combination!

(Spicy) Sushi Bowl from Vegan Bowl Attack by Jackie Sobon: Of course I made this unspicy. The spicy comes from a homemade spicy silken tofu based mayo. I skipped this all together, and used some kewpie mayo and a sprinkle of shichimi for a subtle spice. As well as the usual suspects (cucumber, radish, avocado, nori, edamame), this also includes mango, which was a lovely fresh addition. Served over seasoned sushi rice. The recipe calls for daikon radish, but I just used some sliced regular radishes (I needed some for another MoFo challenge). This says it makes 4 servings, but we finished it off between two of us, served over baby spinach.
Rating: :)



Sushi Roll Edamame Salad from Appetite For Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: This yummy, big salad has chopped cos lettuce, brown rice, cucumber, carrot, edamame, nori and avocado. It also calls for quite a lot of sliced green onion, but I just used a sprinkle. It is topped with a Green-Onion Miso Vinaigrette, which has 1-2 cups green onions (I used the lower amount). This dressing is made using red miso, but I have made it a couple of times and it also works well with white miso, so whatever you have on hand.
Rating: Salad: :), Vinaigrette: :)



Deconstructed Sushi Bowl from But My Family Would Never Eat Vegan by Kristy Turner: Sushi rice is topped with our regular friends: carrots, cucumber, avocado, nori and radishes (though these radishes are lightly salted first). The radishes were meant to be watermelon radishes, but we don't have anything that pretty here, so regular radishes it was. Instead of edamame, this bowl calls for lemongrass or chile-roasted tofu. I chose the lemongrass option, and it was lovely. It also has a simple dressing of tamari, vinegar and mirin, and was topped with pickled ginger and sesame seeds.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post - Month of Sahara



As well as sitting not-on-tables, Sahara also sat on the bathroom sink every morning to supervise me having a shower. Also to make sure I could never forget that she was waiting for her breakfast. It is strange showering now without her presence.