Tempeh Chorizo & The Girlfriend's Favorite Salad That She Constantly Asks Me To Make And Won't Shut The Hell Up About

Tempeh Chorizo

 The Girlfriend's Favorite Salad
That She Constantly Asks Me To Make
And Won't Shut The Hell Up About 

I admit that the primary reason I chose the salad was because of it's ridiculously long name. I mean, seventeen words? It's amusing to me, and intriguing. But I shouldn't be surprised. One of my favourite books by my favourite author, Tom Robbins, is Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates.

Salad didn't seem like enough of a supper. So, I chose Tempeh Chorizo because I had some tempeh in my freezer, I had bought some sherry vinegar for the salad, and therefore had all of the required ingredients.

The Tempeh Chorizo was very simple to make. I did, however, have to read the instructions a couple of times. I couldn't understand why I wasn't being told to steam the tempeh for 10 minutes before mixing it with the spices and cooking. I stood in my kitchen and seriously considered steaming it without being told-I had learned from other seasoned vegans that to pre-steam was the way to properly prepare tempeh. But I decided against it because Brian is an executive chef for Vegin' Out.
Who am I to question a professional cooks methods?
I think the next time I make this recipe, I'll try steaming it beforehand. I'm curious what difference it may make.

This recipe uses a variety of spices. Carlos came into the kitchen as I was cooking the prepped tempeh on the stove and he read the ingredients.
"Cinnamon?!" He asked with surprise.
"Yup." I responded simply.
"That seems like too many flavours." He remarked.
"We'll see. He's a chef. I am not." Pointing out the obvious difference. Carlos raised an eyebrow. I continued with questions for him, "Oh, did you not know that I'm not a chef?...Are we breaking up now?"
Carlos pressed his reluctantly smiled mouth closed tightly and looked at the floor.
When he looked up again, we both laughed. He gave me a quick kiss and left the kitchen. I made the salad.

Carlos's Creation

The Girlfriend's Favorite Salad That She Constantly Asks Me To Make And Won't Shut The Hell Up About was very simple. Two ingredients were new to me-See: Vegan for three and a half years, and I'm still trying new foods-who says being vegan is limiting?? New ingredients: sherry vinegar and hearts of palm. I was surprised that my local grocery store (an 8-minute walk from home), Safeway carries both. Which is good, because my car is literally buried in snow. I am pleased. Not about the buried car. I'm pleased about my local store having what I need.  

I am willing to say that I was nervous about the hearts of palm. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about them. But they're quite good! Carlos told me that a couple of his friends in back home in Chile, work at a factory canning hearts of palm. 

I really enjoyed the salad, too. A lot. I'm not sure I would say that it's my favourite ever, but I'll definitely, and happily, make it again.

As you can see pictured, Carlos combined the salad with the chorizo in a tortilla and added some avocado. Not surprising. He puts avocado on damn-near everything. Crazy Chilean. 
Avocado and sriracha on many items. However, he didn't add sriracha,which is really saying something.

Overall, both recipes were simple, with easy-to-find ingredients, they were tasty and satisfying.

Vegan Hungarian Torta

I've been directed to a blog with a Vegan Dobos Torta by a couple of different people. I haven't had a chance to try this version of my favourite cake made by my Hungarian grandmother, but I'm very excited to try it!

It does look very similar to my grandmother's torta, but the ingredients are very different. Obviously, the vegan version doesn't use 30 eggs. I've never heard my grandma call it a "dobos torte", and it seems completely possible that there are way more than one version out there. "Dobos torta" is basically a rich cake (thus the far too many eggs used in my family recipe) with alternate layers of sponge cake and chocolate or even mocha cream with a caramel topping.
Now, my family has never used a caramel topping, they've only ever just used the chocolate torta filling as the icing. But hey, my family could very well prefer this caramel topping once they try it!

I'll be sure to post the results once I'm able to try this recipe!

Sexy's Scramble

Sexy's Scramble

Sexy's Scramble mixture

The first official recipe made from The Sexy Vegan Cookbook by Brian L. Patton.
First off, it was perfect.
I really enjoy Brian's cooking instructions (ahem "-and don't you dare touch it.") Admittedly, it was hard to not go with my impulse to stir. Simple to follow the cooking instructions.

As you know, I always have all of my ingredients ready and prepared before I start cooking anything on account of my brain injury. I don't think clearly with a lot of stuff happening. It's hard to divide my attention. Even though he advised to crumble the tofu into the pan once a couple of ingredients were sauteing, I had the tofu drained and crumbled and ready. Everything ready on the counter. Lined up in the order it gets added to the fry pan.

Two of the ingredients are other recipes in his book. Well, one is optional, but seriously, I can't imagine this dish without the Not Yo Mama's Cheeze Sauce. It was so freaking great.

It calls for canned diced mild green chilis. Annoyingly, I neglected to put the chilis on our grocery list and therefore didn't buy any. Ugh. I made the cheeze sauce in the morning, rather than the night before. Carlos was sweet enough to run to the store in the morning. Carlos didn't want to buy packaged produce. He bought fresh jalapeno peppers to replace the mild green chilis. I used one and chopped it up. I worried it would be too spicy, but he assured me it would be fine. He was correct.

The Scramble Seasoning was stupid easy. Luckily, I already had all of the spices and was able to mix them together the night before.

The warmed tortillas were great. We just folded them up, and ate them like a burrito.

Not Yo Mama's Cheeze Sauce
& Scramble Seasoning

Carlos said these "were wonderful" in his sexy Spanish-Chilean accent. He loved it with the avocado. We have lots leftover, we'll be happily eating this for lunches this week.

The Sexy Vegan ~ March & April 2014

For March and April of 2014, the cookbook I have chosen to cook from is The Sexy Vegan: Extraordinary Food from an Ordinary Dude by Brian L. Patton.

I first heard of his work while listening to a podcast. I can't recall if it was Our Hen House or Red Radio...mmmm...Red Radio! It came out just in 2012, and I bought it right away.
I'm embarrassed to say I cooked from it only once, and it wasn't long ago. About a month ago, we had "Food Day" where I work. People were encouraged to bring food to share. A bunch of people were on a diet (after Christmas tradition), so I thought I'd bring something (absolutely vegan) that wasn't cupcakes or doughnuts. I wanted something without gluten (co-workers are gluten-sensitive), and without soy because I don't like how non-vegans often assume that all vegans eat is sprouts and soy.

I perused my cookbook collection. I wanted to see what The Sexy Vegan had to offer. All sorts of dishes I wanted to make! I decided on the Marinated Eggplant Pasta Salad. I've never cooked with eggplant before, and I was excited to try something new! In my pre-vegan days I never ate eggplant. But it's really good! Now, as a vegan,  I've eaten it in a few dishes offered in restaurants in Regina, but never cooked it on my own.

Everyone at work loved the salad! One woman even remarked that she normally doesn't care for eggplant, but she really loved it in this dish. I was so happy. In fact, my container of salad went 'missing' when I came to work the next day. I still don't really know what happened to it, but the container was empty and clean on my desk the following week. I won't ask questions.

Brian L. Patton, the author, has a YouTube cooking show. It's hilariously awesome. My understanding is that he started with the cooking videos, then got a book deal. He named the YouTube videos, "The Sexy Vegan" so that people (namely men) would click on his videos. Well, it worked. His cooking show has loads of episodes, and he now has two cookbooks published.
Nicely done Brian!