Miso and Vegetable Curry with Jasmine Rice

Last night, I was feeling rather tired and rushed with an editing project that needed to be finished sooner rather than later. Normally when that happens, it's my cue to break out the delivery websites or start making instant mashed potatoes. Last night, though, neither of those options sounded particularly good, so instead I took to the web to try to find something... and sadly, still, nothing sounded good.

Susan Voison's Thai Green Curry with Vegetables and Tofu sounded the best of everything, though I lacked a few most of the ingredients to make it. So I did what I do and improvised. In this case, I improvised a lot, enough that I feel comfortable calling this one of my own.

It was an overwhelming success in my house, as well as a surprise hit on Facebook. It will be a repeater.

Miso and Vegetable Curry with Jasmine Rice

A recipe from Kat

Ingredients

• 1 tsp of sesame oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 cup of vegetable stock
• 6 spears of fresh asparagus, woody ends removed and chopped small
• 1 cup of fresh broccoli, florets only, chopped small
• 8 oz of tofu, chopped small
• 2 cups of soy milk or almond milk or coconut milk (I used light unflavored soy milk)
• 1-2 Tbsp of reduced sodium soy sauce or tamari
• 2 Tbsp of white miso paste
• 1 cup of uncooked white jasmine rice
• 1.25 cups of water (for rice)
• Gomashio to taste (see note below)
• Black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat sesame oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add onions. Cook until tender. Add garlic. Cook approximately a minute. 
2. Add vegetable broth to pot. Allow to come to boil and add asparagus, broccoli, and tofu.
3. Add soy milk and soy sauce. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring frequently.
4. In another pot, bring water to a soft boil. Add jasmine rice, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes. (My rice was finished by this point, but some may need to cook further or set for 5 minutes to absorb any remaining liquid.)
5. Add some liquid from vegetable mixture to miso paste. Stir until it reaches a creamy consistency. Remove the vegetable mixture from the heat and add miso into the pot.
6. Serve miso curry over rice with gomashio on top to taste.

Gomashio

Gomashio is a Japanese condiment sometimes served with various rice dishes. It can be difficult to find in grocery stores, so if you cannot find it, it's very easy to make.

Take toasted sesame seeds and salt (or your salt substitute of choice--I used a mixture of salt and kelp). A good ratio is 5:1 (5 parts sesame seeds to 1 part salt), though it can go as high as 15:1. Grind them together with a mortar and pestle. Serve over the rice and curry.

Vegan Brunswick Stew

Apparently, this is to be the time of the crappy pictures. What can I say? Generally I'm better at taking photos than I have been proving lately, even on my iPhone, which is what I used on these. To be fair, though, I was trying to balance on the Starbucks eating counter while I was getting jostled by people sadly in need of their caffeine injections, hereto referred to as "coffee zombies".

I'm from Georgia originally. If you know nothing else about the South, we love our food. Brunswick stew was one of the hardest things there was for me to walk away from when I went vegetarian.

Joy of joys, though, I finally found a recipe online for vegan Brunswick stew. (This is, amusingly, what led me to find The Chubby Vegan and, via that site, Meet the Shannons.) Naturally I had to try it out on D and myself. It turns out that it made enough to feed 2 people lunches for 5 full days, with no leftovers.

The verdict? Next time I won't use quite as much liquid smoke. I will also shop around a lot more and see if I can't find butter beans instead of lima beans. (They're the same things, but lima beans are much larger and starchier than butter beans, also called baby lima beans.) I left out the tomatoes and toned down the spice in deference to my GERD. Next time, I will slightly reduce the amount of liquid smoke used, also in deference to my GERD.

Vegan Brunswick Stew
A recipe by Beth Pitchford of SeedStar, found on The Chubby Vegan, adaptations by Kat

Ingredients
Sauce

• 1/4 cup of vegan margarine (I used Earth Balance)
• 1 3/4 cup of ketchup
• 1/4 cup of yellow mustard
• 1/4 cup of white vinegar
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tsp of black pepper
• Dash of cayenne pepper or crushed red peppers, to taste
• 1/2 oz of liquid smoke
• 1 oz of vegan Worcestershire sauce
• 1 oz of hot sauce
• 1/2 Tbsp of lemon juice
• 1/4 cup of brown sugar

Stew

• 1/4 cup of vegan margarine (still Earth Balance)
• 1 small onion, diced
• 4 cups of vegetable broth or 4 cups of water + 4 vegetable bouillon cubes
• 2 packages of frozen vegan meat (I used Morning Star Crumbles)
• 1 can of English peas (also called sweet peas or early peas)
• 1 can of creamed corn
• 1 can of sweet kernel corn
• 1/4 cup of liquid smoke
• 1 bag of frozen butter beans (baby lima beans) or lima beans

Directions
Sauce

1. Melt margarine in a large sauce pan over medium-low heat. Add ketchup, mustard, and vinegar. Stir until smooth. 
2. Add the garlic, peppers, liquid smoke, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and lemon juice. Stir until smooth.
3. Add brown sugar. Stir until smooth.
4. Stirring constantly, keep at a low simmer for 10 minutes.

Jimi helped with the cans

Stew

1. In a very large stock pot (I used a 12 quart stockpot to be on the safe side), melt margarine over low heat. Add the potatoes, onions, vegetable broth (or water and bouillon), and the veggie meat. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring occasionally. 
2. Add the can of peas with its liquid, the butter beans, the two cans of corn, the liquid smoke, and the sauce. Cover.
3. Cook at a low simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Serve hot, and enjoy!