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 Hot and Sour Soup

So it seems that I disappeared for a few months. I actually didn't mean to do that. My GERD decided to flare up a bit, putting me back on a more bland diet, at the time as I start sticking closer to the cookbook on a lot of recipes. It seemed a little silly to just repeat the cookbook verbatim, not to mention potentially problematic in the legal arena.

This is a recipe I first made several months ago, probably in January. I took a look at two different recipes (Live Hot and Sour Soup from The 30 Minute Vegan by Mark Reinfeld and Jennifer Murray and Hot and Sour Soup from The Vegan Slow Cooker by Kathy Hester), mixed, matched, and generally messed about with until I had a Hot and Sour soup that I could both enjoy the taste of and still eat with the GERD... and that D might also enjoy.

This is the result of that experiment. This is the first time I've written it down, so bear with me.

Vegan Hot and Sour Soup

A recipe hodgepodge by Kat

Ingredients

Soup

• 4 cups of water
• 2 tsp of Vogue Cuisine Low Sodium Vegebase bouillon
• 2 tsp of minced garlic (4 cloves) 
• 2 Tbsp of minced ginger, divided
• 2 Tbsp of rice wine vinegar
• 2 Tbsp of reduced sodium soy sauce
• 1 tsp of sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp of Sriracha hot chili sauce (Rooster Sauce)
• 1 8-oz can of bamboo shoots, drained, sliced thin and cut in half
• 1 15-oz can of sweet peas, drained and rinsed
• 1 tsp of lime juice
• 8 oz of firm tofu, diced small
• 5 dried apricots, diced small
• 4 green onions, chopped

For Serving Extras

• Sriracha
• Sesame oil

Directions

1. Bring water and bouillon to boil over medium heat in a 3 quart saucepan. Add garlic, 1 tablespoon of ginger, vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, Sriracha, bamboo, lime juice, apricots, and tofu. 
2. Cook 12 minutes over medium heat.
3. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add peas and the other tablespoon of ginger. 
4. Cook 5 more minutes over medium-low heat.
5. Add green onions. Serve and enjoy.

If you would like to add addition Sriracha and/or sesame oil to individual bowls, these tend to be good additions.

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!

Coconut Curry Lentil Soup

Original version of the soup

 So I've made this soup a couple of times now, and this is the first time I could get around to writing down the recipe. Each time I made it, it turned out looking a little different. The first time was definitely more visually appealing (see below), so I'm going to offer some tweaks to the recipe I used for the second go around to try to duplicate the original recipe.

I had the soup this one is based on a few months ago at Bella Bella in Tallahassee, FL. Like most things at Bella Bella, I fell madly in love with it and had to try to make it myself. Each time I've made the soup, though, I think I've moved further and further away from Bella Bella's version and more into creating something that is a bit more mine.

I included white nuts -- also known as gingko nuts -- in the recipe because I used them the first time and felt they added something to the soup. I've only been able to find them at the oriental grocery store, though. If there isn't one of them near your home, I wouldn't worry about adding them.

This soup become something of a standard in our house, because it's very easy to make (yes, I'm shameless that way) and it reheats very well, both of which make it ideal for making in bulk for lunches at work (hence the picture of it in my handy lunch container). The recipe as it stands right now feeds two people a decent sized lunch for two days; depending on how it's put in containers, you might get one more meal for one person out of it.

Coconut Curry Lentil Soup
A recipe by Kat

Most recent version of Coconut Curry Lentil Soup, in my
handy lunch container

Ingredients

• 6 cups of water
• 4 cubes or teaspoons of vegetable bouillon
• 1 1/2 cups of lentils (I used green lentils)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
• 2 tsp of ground ginger (or to taste)
• Dash of cayenne pepper (or to taste)
• 1 Tbsp of curry (or to taste)
• 1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 can of Great Northern or cannellini beans (I used Great Northern), drained and rinsed
• 1 can of white nuts (gingo nuts), drained and rinsed (optional)
• 2 14-oz cans of lite coconut milk
• 1/2 cup of soy milk

Directions

1. In a large soup pot, add the water, bouillon, and lentils. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
2. Add garlic, onion, carrot, ginger, cayenne, and curry to the pot. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the lentils are beginning to become tender.
3. Add the drained and rinsed cans of legumes while stirring. Add the two cans of coconut milk and the soy milk. Stir thoroughly to mix. 
4. Cover again and allow to cook another 20 minutes. Stir carefully before serving.

I usually add a bit of vegan margarine (generally Earth Balance) on top of each bowl when I serve it, just to enhance the flavor a little and brighten it up. You can also add some turmeric for additional color.