Recipe Round-Up: The Vegan Gourmet

The Vegan Gourmet, by Susann Geiskopf-Hadler and Mindy Toomay, is one of my older vegan cookbooks that I have been revisting lately. It looks like this book may be out of print, but when I searched for it some second hand copies came up. I have posted a few times about this book, though it had been a long time since I had thought about it.

Italian-Style Wild Rice and Vegetables: This pretty dish came together pretty quickly when I cooked the rice component (a herbed blend of long grain brown rice and wild rice) in the rice cooker. This gives lots of time to cook the vegetables, which are very easy. It had tinned tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, and herbs. Once piled on top of the rice, it is sprinkled with capers for a little zing. I served this with some baked tofu and a salad.
Rating: :)



Tofu with Mushrooms and Miso: With three of my favourite ingredients, this was always going to please. And boy did it! I browned the tofu first for extra flavour and texture, and I also changed up the mushrooms. The recipe call for only six button mushrooms, I used oyster and shiitake (and I think some black fungus would be amazing as well). I left out the capsicum as well, of course. Served over rice and with a side of greens (garlicky baby bok choy in this case).
Rating: :D



Black Beans Stir-Fried with Broccoli, Corn, and Cilantro: This is a quick and fresh saute, that s on the table fast. The recipe calls for cumin seeds, but I was out so I just added some ground cumin. I left out the capsicum and chile, added extra broccoli, and instead of using tequila I used a splash of lime. I don't have tequila and didn't want to buy a bottle just for one dish. Served with white rice (which I cooked in the rice cooker), I think this was also calling out for a big scoop of avocado on top.
Rating: :)



Gingered Spinach and Shiitake Mushrooms: Using rehydrated dried shiitakes, this is a fairly pantry friendly recipe. You just need to get the spinach (though I used silverbeet here). The water used for soaking the mushrooms is used both for cooking the rice and also for sauteeing the greens. It added a nice mushroomy flavour to rice. This claims to make four main dish servings, but not really. So I served mine with some marinated and baked tofu.
Rating: :)



Ginger Lemon Stir-Fry: With 1/4 cup of lemon juice, this is quite a tart dinner! But it is balanced just enough with some brown rice syrup, ginger, miso, and soy so that it is a really nice flavour. The stir-fry includes onion, broccoli, tempeh, mushrooms, snow peas, and water chestnuts. Served over rice.
Rating: :)



Curried Lentil Stir-Fry with Fennel and Apricots: This is an unusual but yummy combinations of flavours. I don't use fresh fennel that often, but I always enjoy it when I do. The apricots in this are dried apricots that are soaked to plump them up. As well as the titular ingredients, it also had broccoli and carrots, and was served over rice.
Rating: :)



Creamy Fruit Smoothie: This is a simple smoothie, with bananas and berries (I used strawberries and blueberries), though it does have the lovely addition of blackstrap molasses. I like my smoothies thick and cold, so I decreased the amount of milk slightly and make sure that my banana was frozen as well as my berries. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup of flaxseeds, but instead I used a scoop of LSA (ground linseed/flax, sunflower seeds, and almonds). This was smooth, sweet, fruity, and had a slight yoghurty tang even though it doesn't have yoghurt.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I feel like we need to see some more Gizmo. So here she is. Miss you my sweetpea.