Mjeddrah (Middle Eastern Lentils and Rice)

For this week's entry in Vegaloca's Weekly Vegan Cooking Challenge, I continued exploring my fabulous Peaceful Palate cookbook.  This time, I went with the Mjeddrah (pronounced "mu-jed-rah"), a Middle Eastern lentil and rice dish.  The foundation is an oh-so-delicious mix of lentils, rice and onions cooked  until creamy.  It's supposed to be topped with a salad consisting of lettuce, tomatos, cucumber, avocado and green onions but, since I realized I did not have lettuce, I improvised with the remaining veggies:

All in all, I really enjoyed this dish and plan to make it again.  I had lots of left-over lentil-and-rice mix so I did try the dish later on with some newly purchased lettuce and it was very nice.  The dressing is an olive oil-and-lemon "vinaigrette" with paprika and dry mustard as the spices; I'm not a huge paprika fan so perhaps that prevented me from being wild about the dressing but it was still tasty.  I do think you need to make a lot more than what the recipe says, as 2 TBSP olive oil and 2 TBSP lemon juice really isn't much to go with the big pot of lentils-and-rice.  

Also, when I'd gone through all my fresh veg I still had some of the lentil-and-rice mix left and took it to work for lunch.  It was very tasty all on its own!  All in all, an easy, delicious and hearty meal with lots of room for versatility.

Terry's Favorite Almond Cookies

Continuing the "sweet" theme for that sweet holiday on the horizon, I'm presenting Terry's Favorite Almond Cookies from Veganomicon (which, coincidentally enough, my own sweetie got me for Christmas--thanks, hon!) for this week's Weekly Vegan Cooking Challenge over at my friend Lee's Vegaloca  blog.

These cookies are definitely not low fat (oil AND almond flour!) but they are so tasty, and at least the almond flour makes me feel I'm getting some good nutrition out of the deal.  I cut the sugar by  half and they were still plenty sweet.  I did not have sliced almonds so left off the "almond coating" but they still had nice almond flavor and I tried icing some with Tofutti "cream cheese" and it was delicious though they are also very nice just plain.  I probably won't make these too often, just because they are fattening and rather addicting, but they are good enough that I'll hanker for them even when I don't actually whip up a batch.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Chocolate Magic Cake

I've made this several times since I got Peaceful Palate for Christmas.  It's so easy to make and super-delicious!  Thought it was about time I posted to share my love:

This picture is of my first attempt when I made the icing, too.  The little unattractive "blobs" are the Earth Balance spread that didn't quite whip out the way I was hoping it would.  Tastes fabulous, though ;->  Still, ever since then, I've skipped the extra calories and just dusted the cake with a little bit of powdered sugar.  Also, I tend to cut the sugar in half when I make the cake itself--it is sweet enough and doesn't make me feel guilty.  Two more awesome things about this cake:  you mix it right in the baking pan (SO easy and pretty much zero clean-up until after you've eaten!) and, since it's vegan, I can enjoy a spoonful of chocolaty-gooey goodness in the batter while I impatiently wait for the cake to come out of the oven.  Culinary magic, indeed! :-)

(Honestly, you can probably find this recipe online though I don't replicate due to my desire to respect copyright law.  If you want some yummy, easy-to-make vegan food, do yourself a favor and get Jennifer Raymond's book-- Peaceful Palate--it's SO worth it!   And this coming from the girl who doesn't really like to cook, so it's a high compliment.)

Peaceful Palate's Pasta with Peanut Sauce

To satisfy my hankering for Thai food (without the time or expense of eating out!), I eagerly tried the Pasta with Peanut Sauce from the Peaceful Palate cookbook.   It was perfect for a mid-week dinner as it's quick to prepare and, depending on the number of people you're serving, leaves enough left-overs for a sack lunch the next day.

I found the recipe online at the Vegan Peace website (never heard of the website before but they do seem to have a lot of vegan recipes--along with other "activist" links that I have not browsed so can't comment) and they say they have permission from Jennifer Raymond to reprint her recipe so I will provide a link to their site:
http://www.veganpeace.com/recipe_pages/recipes/PastaWithPeanutSauce.htm 

I really enjoyed this recipe!  It's tasty and filling and exotic without costing you a fortune in herbs and sauces at the Asian specialty stores.  I cut the sugar way down, to about one teaspoon, but it was still sweet enough for me.   I used the red pepper flakes and it gave a little kick without being too spicy.

The recipe says to "serve immediately" and I agree that it is best when hot.  While it did make a nice lunch at work the next day, I ate it cold (as you sometimes see chilled Asian pastas in the deli section) and, while still tasty, it definitely had a stronger peanut-butter flavor and it was harder to taste the other elements.  All in all, a worthy entry for this week's Vegaloca Weekly Vegan Cooking Challenge.

Vegan at WDW

The lack of recent posts is due to my recent travels to Florida where my family and I enjoyed some time at Walt Disney World.  Apparently, the Parks have a new manager who happens to be vegan and, happily, is instating many new vegetarian and vegan dishes into park menus, from veggie burgers grilled on separate grills at counter-service restaurants, to an entire separate vegan menu at the fancier restaurants.  Here is an (unfortunately blurry) picture of just one of my many (*blushes*) servings from the buffet at Boma Restaurant, an African-styled buffet.  The chef took me around personally and showed me which items on the buffet were vegan; and, it was more than just a salad, let me tell you.  Very impressive!  So, kudos to Disney for this step and if any of you veg*n folks travel to the Disney parks, be sure to ask for the vegan menus and know you will find something yummy!

Baked Beans

For this week's Vegaloca Weekly Vegan Cooking Challenge, I decided to try the simple Baked Beans recipe from The Peaceful Palate.  I have decided that I really must start making more photogenic dishes because these looked simply dreadful in the photos so I am not posting them!  You have all seen baked beans before, I'm sure--not super attractive.  But, boy, they do taste good!

Other than the aesthetics, I was so happy with the results of this dish.  I rushed the cook time a little bit since I made these late at night and had to turn off the stove when I went to bed (I think they cooked about an hour with all the ingredients; note that the beans and onions cook by themselves for a long while first).  But, the flavors blended together nicely in the fridge overnight.  I love the sweetness and the creamy goodness!  This recipe makes a lot and it only tastes good a few days as left-overs, so unless you have a big family I'd suggest halving the recipe.  I'm also thinking this could be tasty with some cut-up veggie sausage for a nice vegan "franks n' beans" dish :-)

Black Bean Chili

On this chilly, foggy evening I was eager for something hearty, comforting and warm and found just the recipe in my wonderful new Peaceful Palate cookbook:  Black Bean Chili

I made this pretty much as the recipe specified, except I didn't have fresh cilantro (and refuse to use dried cilantro--it tastes awful to me!) and I skipped the green onions on this serving in favor of some sliced avocado (which was delicious but the photo made it look like some slimy green blobs were taking over the dish, hence the photo sans avocado).  I thought the avocado added a wonderful flavor and nice creamy texture to the chili.  I also added a bit of crushed red pepper flakes to give it a little more kick.

All in all, a dish that is very easy to prepare (you just have to remember to soak the beans the night before), hearty and delicious.  I'm looking forward to more recipes from Peaceful Palate as I continue the Vegaloca Weekly Vegan Cooking Challenge!