2 Days of Cornbread Buns Courtesy of The Urban Housewife!

Anyone that knows me knows how much I love corn. Hell, I think it should be its own food group! You can have it in many of its multiple forms for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks! So when I was reading The Urban Housewife’s  blog and she posted a recipe for cornbread burger buns, I knew I had to make them! I sure am glad I did, they are delicious!  

Cornbread Burger Bun

I thought it would be a good idea to make a BBQ veggie burger patty to go with the cornbread bun. Boy was I right – the BBQ with the cornbread was fantastic! I used Trader Joe’s Kansas City Style BBQ Sauce because I just plain love this stuff! I used red kidney beans and millet for these burgers and they creepily looked like meat burgers but the flavor was incredible. Here’s a close-up of the patty:

BBQ Burger

And the recipe:

BBQ Burgers

 Yields aprox. 6 burgers

 15 oz. can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

½ cup onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ cup red bell pepper, diced

½ cup mushrooms, diced

1 cup cooked millet

1 cup breadcrumbs

¼ cup BBQ Sauce

½ tsp. onion powder

½ tsp. garlic powder

½ cup corn

 Directions:

In a food processor add all of the ingredients except the corn. Process for a few seconds and scrape down the sides. Process for a few more seconds and check the consistency. You may need to add more breadcrumbs until the mixture is neither too wet nor too dry. The mixture should be a good consistency for forming patties. Taste the mixture and adjust the seasoning to your taste. Add the corn and incorporate by hand. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and put in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. Form patties and cook in a cast iron skillet with a bit of oil for approximately 5 minutes per side.

On the 2nd day, I decided to use the left over burger mixture and create a kind of “sloppy joe” filling because again, I thought this would be tasty with the cornbread buns.  I sauteed half of an onion, half a red bellpepper, and 2 cloves of garlic in aprox. 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Then I added the crumbled up burger mixture and let this cook for about 5 minutes in a cast iron skillet. Then I added 1 small can of tomato sauce and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. I added about 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce and a bit of pepper and let it simmer for 5 more minutes. This is what I got:

Sloppy BBQ Joe

And sloppy it was indeed but the flavor with the cornbread bun was outta this world! I also made some coleslaw following the recipe from Veganomicon!

Coleslaw

All in all it was 2 days of cornbread deliciousness! Thanks Melisser!

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Cheater Lasagna!

Cheater Lasagna!

Why “cheater” you ask, well, because it doesn’t have any noodles and I used jarred pasta sauce! This can easily be made on a weeknight as long as you have your components made ahead of time, so its super easy! Here’s what I did: I took one japanese eggplant and one medium zucchini and sliced the lengthwise – these are your “noodles”. I made the cashew ricotta from Veganomicon! I used 1/2 an onion, 4 cloves of garlic ( I like garlic you can use less), 1/2 of a red bellpepper, and about 6 shitake mushrooms – all sliced and sauteed in a little olive oil. I also used some Trader Joe’s Organic Marinara Sauce – use whatever kind you like. The topping is stale whole wheat bread ground up in a food processor with some oregano, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder – I used about a cup of these breadcrumbs and added 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast!

To assemble take a baking dish and lightly coat the bottom with olive oil. Place a layer of eggplant as your base. The next layer is the ricotta, then the rest of the eggplant. Add some sauce to the top of the eggplant and then add the sauteed veggies. A layer of the zucchini is next and then some more of the ricotta. The last layer is the rest of the zucchini, some sauce, and then the bread crumb mixture. Cover with foil and bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 45 minutes. Uncover (test with a knife to ensure all your layers are cooked), raise the temp to 400 degrees and bake for about another 15 minutes until the top is golden. Let cool before slicing or it might fall apart! This is what it looked like:

Cheater Lasagna

It was sooo tasty! I totally did not miss the noodles or the cheese! The cashew tofu ricotta bakes up wonderfully and all of these flavors worked very well together.

Veggie Lasagna

I will definitely be making this again!

Homemade Bagels, Part Deux!

As promised, here is the 2nd installment of my life with homemade bagels…

Homemade Bagels!

Aside from eating these toasted with Earth Balance, I decided to make some veggie patties so I could make bagel sandwiches! I had some leftover cooked wild rice/brown rice combo and decided to make red kidney bean wild rice patties. Here is the recipe I made up:

Red Kidney Bean Wild Rice Burgers

Yields aprox. 6 burgers

 15 oz. can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

½ cup onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ cup red bell pepper, diced

1 cup crimini mushrooms, diced

1 ½ cups cooked wild rice

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. parsley flakes

½ tsp. sage

½ tsp. chili powder

1/2 cup cornmeal

 Directions:

 In a food processor add all of the ingredients except the cornmeal. Process for a few seconds and scrape down the sides. When it is well incorporated start to add the cornmeal a little at a time. Process for a few more seconds and check the consistency. You may need to add more or less cornmeal until the mixture is neither too wet nor too dry. The mixture should be a good consistency for forming patties. Taste the mixture and adjust the seasoning to your taste.

 Transfer the mixture to a bowl and put in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place a silicon mat, parchment paper, or lightly grease a cookie sheet. Form the dough into balls and press into patties of the desired size.  Bake for 15 minutes and then flip the burgers and cook for an additional 15 minutes.

I didn’t have any breadcrumbs so I used cormeal as a binder instead. I was really pleased with the result as the cormeal gave the patties a nice crunchy texture!

Red Kidney Bean Wild Rice Burgers

These were so yummy and it brought me a sense of accomplishment that I hade made everything myself in my kitchen! So if you’ve never tried to make homemade bagels, I highly recommend you head over to Kamutflake Girl’s  blog and grab the recipe for these tasty bagels!

I also made this pumpkin cheesecake from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook  with a pistachio, date, and cardamom crust.  It’s tasty but wasn’t quite the texture I expected – more pumpkin pie than pumpkin cheesecake! The inspiration for this came from Swell Vegan’s beautiful raw pumpkin pie!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

And if that isn’t enough I scored some beautiful portabella mushrooms at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market and had to bust out the Weber! Of course these mushrooms couldn’t just go any any store bought bread so I had to make some Rosemary Focaccia Rolls from Veganomicon! I used Isa’s recipe for the marinade from here.

Portabella!

The sandwich is the grilled portabella, grilled red peppers and green onions, red leaf lettuce, some Vegenaise, and some grilled japanese eggplant – simply delicious! Funny story: while at one of my favorite vendors at the fm, I came across these beautful japanese eggplants. I knew they were eggplant but I wasn’t certain of the variety. I asked what they were and the lady told me they were japanese eggplant. I replied that they were beautiful but I wasn’t certain what I’d do with it. She said “why cook it and eat it of course!” We both looked at each other and started laughing hilariously – classic!

A Ton of Stuff!

I just realized I haven’t posted anything for days even though I have been cooking. I’ve been crazy busy with the new pup, some nice distractions,  and we had some pipe problems in my building which have resulted in scores of repairmen! So on to the food! First up I made some Rosemary Focaccia Rolls using the recipe from Veganomicon:

Rosemary Focaccia Rolls

I just love the way these turned out. My kitchen smelled wonderful as they were baking!

Rolls!

I used them for black bean burgers:

Black Bean Burger on Rosemary Focaccia

I finally was able to try a vegan donut from Dee’s Bakery, all I can say is YUM!

Vegan Donuts!

If you live in Los Angeles get your @ss up early and head over to Intelligentsia or the other various places that carry these donuts, they are definitely worth the effort!   UPDATE: DON’T PATRONIZE! PLEASE SEE THIS!

I also made a Mexican Chocolate Cake that has cayenne pepper in it. I’ve decided that I have a bottle of the world’s hottest cayenne pepper because I just put in a teeny tiny pinch and this cake is on fire! I used the recipe from here.

Mexican Chocolate Cake

It looks all nice and sweet but its on fire! I tell you! It’s actually really tasty with some vanilla vegan ice cream and berries.

Fire in your mouth!

I have also been trying out more tester recipes for Terry’s Vegan Latina book but I think I’ll save those shots for another post – til then…

Marinated Asian Tofu!

Marinated Asian Tofu and Coconut Rice

Tonight for dinner I made Marinated Asian Tofu from Veganomicon . The inspiration came from this Get Sconed! post from several weeks ago. My tofu is not as pretty as Jess’ but its not bad for my first time grilling tofu. This recipe is quick, easy, and delicious. Just press your tofu, get the marinade going, chuck it all in a bag, and a little while later grill. I probably left it marinating for several hours because I got busy and almost forgot that I was making dinner! So the tofu really soaked up all the flavors and was fantastic.

I also made coconut rice – 2 cups of jasmine rice, 1 can of lite coconut milk, 2 cups of water, zest and juice of a small lime – put it all in the rice cooker and a little while later I had sweet, sticky, fragrant rice! The veggies are Trader Joe’s  frozen Soycutash. This whole meal was very flavorful and super easy to make.

So now that I’ve been trying to blog what I am eating I just want to say “THANK YOU” to all of the countless vegan blogs out there – this is hard work! Not only do you have to prepare the food THEN you have to place it attractively on a plate, try to get a decent picture before the food gets cold, and then you can actually eat your meal! And that all happens before you start the post…whew…it is great fun though and I can see why people enjoy it, I certainly am!

Now I have to go back to brainstorming about what I’m gonna prepare next…til next time.