TVP Taco Recipe; Summer Sammich Ideas

This has been a pretty good week. I found $50 that I thought I had lost, one of my cyber-sisters sent me a Terry Blackwell book in the mail: "True Light," the Imaging Center where I had the ultrasound and the CT scan sent me a cute little "thank you" card, AND a check for $10(evidently I overpaid my c0-pay for the ultrasound!), went to the library yesterday which is always a joy, and best of all, Wednesday afternoon at work, I had the time to sit and snuggle with my nine-week old great-grandson!!! He was trying so hard to tell me about the nasty doctor that had stuck the nasty and painful needles in his little legs, bless his heart. So, I told him I understoon how he felt, and that I don't like needles being stuck in me, either. I'm sure he understood me, too. LOL!!!

I've spent the last five hours browsing three new-to-me websites, which mostly don't have much to do with food or cooking. The three of them have been added to my list of favorite websites, on the left of the page, and as of this moment I haven't checked them to see if the links work, but I will, and if they don't, I'll fix them. One is EasyEarth, and that one does have a section about food, and a few vegetarian, not vegan, recipes. The main reason I went there, tho, was to find some recipes for homemade, and "green," cleaning supplies, which I did find. Another site is TheSimpleDollar, and is one man's blog about being frugal, which another subject near and dear to my heart. The third one is Yes!magazine, and it's, well, it's about all sorts of things. I linked to it from the SimpleDollar, I think, to check out an article called "Sustainable Happiness," lol. And have signed up for the newsletter...as well as the newsletter from TheSimpleDollar, too. EarthEasy has one, but for reasons of my own, I chose not to subscribe to theirs.

About three weeks ago, I went into this little town's only...as far as I know...health food store, and altho I was extremely disappointed in it, I did fine some TVP, and some, um, wakame, I think...maybe it was dulse, but I don't think so. Anyway. So, I've been looking around for recipes using TVP, and while I've found several, this one really seemed like a good one, so I made it last night. Yup, it's a good one, and it comes from about.com, thanks to Jolinda Hackett, the vegetarian pages blogger. She does a fantastic job, and if you've never checked the vegetarian pages out over there, do yourself a favor, and do so. Sometime today. Anyway....

Ten Minute TVP Taco Recipe
2 cups each TVP and water
2 Tbs. each soy sauce and olive oil or vegetable oil
1 package taco seasoning
1 red or yellow bell pepper, cut into strips
1/4 cup salsa
flour tortillas or hard taco shells

In large skillet, heat water, over medium heat and add the TVP, stirring well. Allow the TVP to reconstitute for 2-3 minutes.

Add oil, soy sauce, peppers, and seasoning, stirring well. Allow to cook another 3-5 minutes.

Serve wrapped in tortillas or hard taco shell. Eat as is, vegan, or add tomatoes, lettuce, refried beans, sour cream, cheese.

I made some refried beans with diced onions in them. Spread a tortilla with a goodly amount of plain chevre goat cheese, plopped on some of the beans, and covered it all with a good bit of the TVP taco mix. Rolled it all up, heated the tortilla until lightly browned on two sides, and ate. I will most definitely do this again. In fact, there's a fully made and rolled up tortilla in the freezer right now, as well as a fair amount of the taco mix still in the refrigerator. I think I'm going to top a couple small baked potatoes with it and some cheese for supper tonight, along with some kind of vegetable. I can also tell you that the taco mix and a couple slices of the vegetarian smoked provolone cheese make on helluva great grilled sammich, too!!!!

Yesterday at the library, I checked out another cookbook: "The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook," by Cathe Olson, and while I no longer have little kids at home, the book is definitely a winner, seriously. One of these days I'm going to try to find it, and add it to my home collection of cookbooks. One section of her book is called "Sandwiches and Quick Lunch Ideas," and some of these sammich ideas sound really, really good. Now, for the most part, you know I won't post a recipe here unless I've tried it and can vouch for it, but this is one of those times I'm going to break my own rule(hey, at my age, that's subject to happen a LOT!!), and give you three or four sammich recipes that I think look like they would be awfully good. It would take me quite a while to get around to trying all of them myself, so, I decided to post them. And, here goes:

Spinach-Hummus Wrap...vegan

1 large whole grain tortilla or slice flatbread(lavash)
1/4 to 1/3 cup Hummus
1/2 cup chopped spinach
2 to 3 Tbs. each diced cucumbers, tomatoes, and/or shredded carrots(all optional)

Liberally spread tortilla or flatbread with hummus. Layer vegetables over hummus and roll up. Wrap tightly with wax paper, foil, or plastic wrap until ready to eat. It will keep for couple of days wrapped and refrigerated. Makes 1 serving.

Veggie-Apple Melt...can be made vegan

2 slices whole grain bread.
2 tsp. EACH Dijon mustard and mayonnaise(regular OR vegan)
4 apple slices
2 Tbs. shredded carrots
2 to 4 cucumber rounds
2 Tbs. alfalfa sprouts
2 thin slices cheddar cheese(dairy OR non-dairy)

Preheat toaster or conventional oven to 375ºF. Spread one slice of bread with mustard, the other with mayonnaise. On mustard side, place apple slices and carrots. On mayo slice, place cucumber slices and sprouts. Cover each with a slice of cheese. Place on baking sheet and bake 5 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

My apologies, because that's only two sammiches instead of three or four. I had forgotten that it was necessary to go to other pages in her book for more recipes for a couple of those sammiches, such as Beanballs for the Beanball Sub I was going to post, sigh. I'm just too darned lazy to look it up, so, again, my apologies. If you do try either of these sammiches, tho, I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me a comment. Until next time, Happy Eating!

St. Patrick's Day Vegetarian Recipes

The post before last, I told you I would find and post some St. Patrick's Day recipes, so, here they are. The first one comes from www.about.com from the vegetarian pages there. If you've never been there, I highly recommend you check them out. Hopefully my link works, but if not, copy and paste into your address bar, and then after going to about.com, type "vegetarian recipes" into their search bar. Should work just fine.

First of all, since the first recipe calls for seitan, I'm going to post the definition of seitan from about.com, for anyone that doesn't know what seitan is.

Definition of Seitan: "Altho it is made from wheat, seitan has little in common with flour or bread. Also called 'wheat meat,' 'wheat gluten,' or simply 'gluten,' seitan becomes surprisingly similiar to the look and feel of meat when cooked, making it a popular meat substitute. Seitan is also high in protein, making it a popular protein source for vegetarians....Seitan also is the base for several commercially available products such as Tofurkey deli slices.

Seitan can be prepared by hand using either wheat flour or vital wheat gluten, and is made by rinsing away the starch in the wheat, leaving high-protein gluten behind. Prepared seitan can be found in the refrigerated section of most health food stores."

I don't think that's a really good definition, but it'll have to do.

Vegetarian "Beef" and Guiness Stew

Prep time: 10 minutes Cooktime: 60 minutes
Ingredients:
Approx. 14oz.seitan, cut in thin strips
2Tbs. each soy sauce and olive oil
1Tbs. steak sauce
3Tbs. butter or margarine(vegans can use Earth Balance)
1 onion, diced, 3 ribs celery, chopped; 2 carrots, chopped; 2 med. potatoes, diced;
3cloves garlic, minced.
2-12oz. bottles of Guiness stout, OR 1 bottle and 1 1/2C veggie broth
2Tbs. flour/ 1Tbs. chopped fresh thyme(1/2Tbs.dried); 1tsp. sugar, optional.

Preparation:
Saute seitan in olive oil and soy sauce until slightly browned, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat, add steak sauce and stir until seitan is lightly coated. Remover from heat and set aside.

In large pot, saute veggies and garlic in butter or margerine 3-5 minutes, or until onions are slightly soft. Reduce heat and slowly add Guinness, gently stirring to combine. Add flour, thyme, salt and pepper and stir well[I guess this is where you would add the optional sugar.]. Add seitan and allow stew to simmer until stout reduces and stew thickens, about 40-5- minutes.

Reader Review:
"WARNING:...Guinness is not a vegetarian beverage. It contains isinglass...a byproduct of the fishing trade used to settle/clarify the stout....There are...stouts out there that don't use isinglass, so by all means, try this recipe."

And btw, I haven't tried any of these Irish recipes yet, so I can't give my opinion of any of them. But, they all looked good to me, and eventually, I do plan on cooking them. I was going to make this stew tonight, because I have some seitan in the 'fridge, but I'm not going to have time. And I don't have any steak sauce...I don't eat steak, so why would I have it, right? Anyway, maybe I can get by with a mix of ketchup, mustard, garlic, and Balsamic vinegar?

Ok, all of these next recipes come from a wonderful blogsite called "Vegetarians in Paradise." I found a whole bunch of Easter/Passover recipes there today, but, I'm not going to post them, because there are so many that I jsut do NOT want to copy them all down and then come here and post them, lol. Lazy. So here's the URL for the St. Patrick's Day recipes, and once you're there, click on "holidays" and look for Easter...or whatever holiday you choose. http://www.vegparidise.com/cookingwith83.html
Hope that works, sigh...if not, use the copy and paste, and the address bar. You knew that, tho, right?

Irish Soda Bread(Vegan)
1 1/2C plus 2Tbs. unsweetened soymilk and 1Tbs. plus 1 1/2tsp. vinegar
4Cwhole wheat pastry flour[according to "Vegan with a Vengeance," by Isa Muskowitz, you can use all-purpose flour if you prefer, or if you don't have any wheat flour.]
1tsp. each baking soda and salt.

1. Preheat oven to 425ºF and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Combine woymilk and vinegar, and set aside.

3. Sift the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Form a well in center, and add soured soymilk, stirring with a large spoon until mixture forms a dough firm enough to shape into a ball.

4. Place dough on parchment paper and form into a circle 8in. in diameter and about 1 1/2 in. thick. Using a sharp knife, make 3 vertical slits about 1/2in. deep, and 2in. apart. Then, crisscross with 3 horizontal cuts about 2in.apart(plus signs: +++). These will make it easier to slice the baked bread into portions.

5. Bake the bread 40-45 minutes or until bread forms a golden brown firm top and bottom crust[it should sound hollow when tapped on the top]. Serve immediately or warm gently to serve later.

This is not the same recipe I used for the soda bread I posted about in an earlier post, without the recipe. This one is less complicated, a few less ingredients, and I'm anxious to try it, but I don't have any flour, and forgot to buy any yesterday. Sheesh.