Everyday Vegan: Taking Stock

When you start to cook as a vegan, one of the basic ingredients you may have difficulty replicating is chicken stock. In my omnivore incarnation in the kitchen, I don’t recall using much beef stock, but my pantry always contained a good supply of chicken stock.  As a kid, I remember my grandmothers making chicken stock out of the leftovers and bones of Sunday chicken dinners to be used in other recipes later in the week. When I was an underemployed 20-something in Southern California,  I made many a batch of chicken stock to use and freeze.  Good chicken stock added so much flavor to so many recipes, I couldn’t imagine finding a substitute…

and I never learned to make my own vegetable stock.

So about two years ago when I thought I’d just experiment with vegan cooking, I went off to my local health food store in search of a chicken stock substitute.  As with most things healthy in this country, decent vegetable stock in a box or can cost more than chicken stock and contained way too much sodium even for this lover of salt.  I started with the little cubes, then noted even the health food store version contained 42% of my daily allowance of sodium.  Why didn’t I just use pound of salt instead? I was desparate, and as we in the northeast prepared for what became snowpacolypse, I hastily grabbed a little canister off the shelf hoping it would make decent soup during the storm.

Trust me, the last week of 2010 provided a lot of time to experiment with chicken stock alternatives.

I discovered that my snow induced purchase of Vegebase was a truly brilliant bit of happenstance.  Add a tablespoon to a cup of hot water and you have what looks and tastes like cup a soup with only 5% of the daily allowance of sodium.  Through winter colds and soup making Sundays, I burned through my stash of Vegebase.  Branching out, I used it as stock for curries and stir frys.  As of this posting, I’ve yet to find a recipe this vegan stock didn’t work with and in many ways enhance. Here’s a picture of what I call “soup with all the vegetables that need to be used now“.

No, I’m in no way affiliated with the producer of Vegebase.  I’m just an everyday vegan home cook making her way in an omnivore’s world.

Everyday Vegan: Chorizo!

I love cooking magazines and while there are a few good ones for vegans, I like the challenge of reading magazines with general recipes and trying to make them vegan.  Cooking Light makes this easier for its readers with The Enlightened Vegetarian section.  Granted, they place these recipes at the very back of each issue, but I foil their plans to hide these great options by reading the magazine back to front!

The April 2011 issues has an exceptionally large amount of vegetarian recipes that are either already vegan or easily altered.  My favorite thus far is Paella with Soy Chorizo.  I substituted cumin for the saffron – I don’t keep saffron in the house, am not a fan of tumeric the usual substitute for saffron, and truly believe that cumin (along with cilatro) makes every dish that much more delicious.

First step, locate soy chorizo.  In my part of New Jersey, we have to travel to get to any decent store.  I realize this every time I visit my parents in Plano, Texas, where every store is a mile away.  Every store.  A quick google of “soy chorizo” revealed that Trader Joe’s carried a decent product and, by coincidence, a Trader Joe’s recently opened in Shrewsbury. While not around the corner from my house in Wall, I teach on Tuesday nights in Fair Haven and could easily swing by to pick up this necessary ingredient.

The recipe requires only half the package above, so I’m going to be experimenting with other options for using this spicy meat substitute.  Don’t think I’m a fan of vegan products masquerading as meat; in fact, I recommend to people who are new to the lifestyle to avoid them.  They just don’t taste “right”.  However, this soy chorizo is delicious!

The recipe itself does take a bit of time to make, so it’s definitely a weekend choice for me.  Excellent leftover, this made enough for dinner for me as well as two lunches. On the spicy meter, it’s not burn your taste buds jalapeno hot, it’s more a mild pleasant taste, but if you are like @JenAnsbach and pretzels are your version of spice, this isn’t for you.   Below you can see my finished version; it’s not yellow like the original recipe but I loved it!

Lulu Paste

Last time I counted them, I had almost 90 cookbooks. Quite a few were gifts, a couple I bought for myself, and the rest were finds at the library book sale, garage sales, and thrift stores.  I like to concentrate on one or two cookbooks for a few months, try out new recipes, alter some others, then I refer to them as needed.  One that I always have out on the table is Veganomicon, and if you are thinking of going vegan or are new to that type of diet, this is the best basic cookbook you could buy.  I also have a notebook with family recipes, and recipes I’ve either found on the internet or come up with myself (more on that later in the post).

Vintage cookbooks make up a small part of my collection, and my favorite is the Better Homes and Gardens 1953 edition.  My grandmothers and my mother swore by this cookbook, and I got my first copy as a wedding gift.  I used that version so much it eventually fell apart and I had to replace it.  I love the 1953 edition best, probably because it reminds me of meals and kitchens from my childhood but also because the ingredients just scream post-war America.

For example, take this one at the beginning of the Appetizers and Beverages section.  That’s a “Liver-sausage Pineapple” in the center made with (you guessed it) liver sausage, frosted with gelatine and mayonnaise, and studded with stuffed olives.  The only thing pineapple about that is the “real pineapple top”.  What you do with the rest of the pineapple is anybody’s guess!  I also enjoy this entry from the Jiffy Cooking section:  the Crown Roast dinner made with canned luncheon meat and I assume the pineapple left over from the that appetizer.  I distinctly remember eating a very similar “roast” on Sundays as a child.

One recipe not found in this cookbook is Lulu Paste. For decades, I thought my Grandma Gesin created this dip that she served at family get togethers, card parties, church events, you name it. My mother still talks about how incredible that recipe was and passed it down to me in 1994. This morning I googled it. Not original, definitely a recipe from America in the 50s and 60s, and one that I just can’t figure out how to make vegan! The cream cheese is easy – there’s a vegan version, and I can use Earth’s Balance for the butter. The red and green peppers, onion, vinegar, sugar and pimentos, all vegan ingredients. It’s those damn egg yokes!

Eggs are a vegan cooks nemesis. My mission? Make a vegan version of Lulu Paste. If anyone has a suggestion regarding the egg yokes, please comment!  I’ve tried flax goop and cornstarch; no go.  Thinking maybe silken tofu but I don’t think it’s quite up to the job of an egg yoke. Stay tuned for the next episode of the Lulu Paste Challenge!

Everyday Vegan

Since I’ve been waiting for the Verizon FIOS guy since 8 a.m. and am running out of things to do, I thought I’d write a bonus weekend post.  I’ve been vegan for almost 2 years and have a lot of wonderful vegan recipes I’ve come up with.  One of my goals for 2011 is to share some of these recipies with a wider audience in order to demonstrate that vegans do eat real, delicious food!

Today’s post is vegan mushroom barley soup.  I don’t have a picture of it, but I did make it yesterday when I was down with a wicked head cold.  This is a hearty winter soup and can be made on the stovetop or in the crockpot.  I generally have all the ingredients on hand except the portobellos so this is an easy last minute meal.

Enjoy!

VEGAN MUSROOM BARLEY SOUP

Ingredients

1 cup boiling water

1 oz. dried shitaki or porcini mushrooms

olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 large carrots, sliced

2 stalks celery, diced

2 portobello mushrooms, sliced into bite sized pieces

2 cloves garlic

dried thyme

dried rosemary

4 cups vegetable stock

3/4 cup barley

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1/2 cup frozen corn

salt and pepper

Soak dried mushrooms in boiling water for about 10  minutes.  Saute onions, carrots, celery, and mushrooms in oil until just tender.  Add garlic, thyme, and rosemary and cook for approximately a minute.  Take porcinis or shitakis out of their soaking liquid and cut into small pieces.  Add to saucepan along with their liquid.  Add vegetable stock, soy sauce, corn, barley, and salt and pepper and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to simmer, cover for approximately 30 minutes.  For a thicker soup, add more barley, perhaps a cup.  Serve with rosemary toasted garlic bread.

This can also be prepared in a crockpot.  Put all ingredients in 3 quart pot and cook on low for 6 – 7 hours.  I generally do this stovetop, but it’s just as good out of the crockpot!