On Top of Spaghetti...

Spaghetti squash, that is! I bought a spaghetti squash for the first time the other day and nearly killed myself in the process of opening it. I wish I were joking, but the truth is that if I had made one false move, I would've had a very sharp knife permeating my body in any number of places. I started off trying to cut it in half lengthwise with my Wusthof Grand Prix santoku knife (I only tell you the brand so you know that my knives are good, strong, and sharp and should be able to slice through a squash...or so I thought) and could not do more than scratch the surface. I decided to try slicing it widthwise and promptly got my knife stuck, which means that I spent five minutes trying to carefully pry it out without winding up with a knife in my eye. I thought using my thinner Wusthof Grand Prix chef's knife might do the trick. I was wrong. I got the chef's knife wedged in, too. At one point, I considered using the santoku knife to get the chef's knife out, but that was a horrible idea and the smarter side of me vetoed it. It took me a solid 20 minutes to finally cut the thing open, wedging the knife in, then rocking it carefully back and forth until I was finally able to open it widthwise, then cut the halves lengthwise. It was quite a production.

Once I got it open, I baked it, cut side down, on a sprayed cookie sheet for 40 minutes. Then, it took me another 15 minutes to meticulously scrape all the spaghetti out of the rind. At this point, I'm thinking to myself that spaghetti squash had better be pretty darn good after I paid over $6 for it (my mistake, as I thought the Whole Foods sign said $1.99 each and not per pound; Trader Joe's sells them for just over $2 each) and nearly killed myself.

The squash tasted good baked, but I really wanted to try it a little more caramelized. I consulted Veganomicon and found a recipe for Spaghetti Squash Mexicana. I used the recipe as a loose guideline, but I took the easy way out and simply used the beans, corn, hot sauce, and spices from the recipe, plus a 4 ounce can of diced jalapenos. For the squash, I sauteed it in 4 ounces of mild green Ortega taco sauce until it started to caramelize a bit. It turned out to be an incredibly delicious meal; one I looked forward to eating every day for lunch as long as the leftovers lasted.

I'm not sure I'd ever be brave enough to buy another spaghetti squash, but I have a great recipe to repeat if I do!

Vegan Cookbooks Take Over the World

At least they've taken over the "bestsellers" shelf at the Borders in Century City. Rock on, vegan cookbook authors!

Asparagus and Sun-dried Tomato Frittata

For VeganMoFo, I've set a personal goal to prepare more recipes from my cookbooks. It's not often that I get home from work on a weekday in enough time to actually prepare a meal, which means that I read my cookbooks far more than I use them. I'm doing my very best to rectify that situation.

Wednesday night, I ate dinner and then set to work on this frittata, a recipe I'd never made before from Vegan with a Vengeance. Despite my multiple accidental attempts to ruin this dish, it turned out beautifully!

I'll start with the mistakes I made: I completely missed the step to add the soy sauce, mustard, and nutritional yeast to the tofu until after I'd added the veggies to the tofu. While it would've been nice for those flavors to have melded with the tofu ahead of time, I don't think it affected the taste at all. Then, I forgot to set the timer when I put the frittata in the oven. Luckily, I realized my timer error quickly and only left it in the oven a few minutes longer than the recipes states.

I made a couple substitutions, as well. Obviously, I omitted the onion. I used dry sun-dried tomatoes instead of oil-packed (significantly decreasing the amount of fat in the frittata) and increased the amount by maybe double. My asparagus was thin and I used about 6-8 ounces of it instead of the 3 stalks indicated in the ingredients list. Sadly, I didn't have any fresh basil, so I used 2 tablespoons of dried.

I'd describe this frittata as a baked tofu scramble and a delicious one at that. It's hearty, quick, easy, flavorful, and healthy. I'm thrilled that I tried this because it's something I can see throwing together at the last minute for a satisfying meal. I've mentioned before that I've never made a tofu scramble at home (I know, I know, what kind of long-time vegan has never made a tofu scramble at home?), so I'm going to claim this as my first one.

Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Have I ever told you that chocolate mint is my favorite dessert flavor combination? I had to give these fantastic Sweet Freedom test recipe cookies away so as not to eat them all myself. There are hardly any words to describe how wonderful these cookies are!

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

It's actually in the 90s without a cloud in the sky, but I thought I'd pay homage to one of my favorite children's books with this title. Over the weekend, I made Happy Herbivore's test recipe for Grammy's Meatless Balls (yes, that is their real name). Aren't they adorable? They're also very tasty!

While this recipe isn't available for your cooking pleasure yet, she is offering her first collection of delicious recipes here. The meatballs will follow very soon!

P.S. Happy 100th post to Hugger Food!

VeganMoFo 2008

Happy October and welcome to the VeganMoFo 2008 kick-off post! I thought I'd begin the festivities with another Follow Your Heart love-fest. Guess what I did, though! I ordered something completely new to me this time. Are you proud? Behold, the Follow Your Heart Chilaquiles:



From the menu: Crisp Organic Corn Tortilla Wedges, Sauteed with Scrambled Tofu and a Zesty Tomato Salsa. Sprinkled with Feta Cheese (Optional). Served with Black or White Beans, Spanish Rice, Guacamole and Sour Cream.

I ordered mine with vegan cheese, no guacamole, and no sour cream, opted for the white beans, and requested a side of grilled banana. What a delicious meal! It was spicy and hearty; a wonderful way to start the day (this was a 10 a.m. brunch a few weeks ago).

I apologize for the hastily and poorly taken photo (not that my photography skills are ever anything to write home about, but this is pretty bad). There's a story behind it! You may recall past posts in which I mentioned how wonderfully supportive my dad is of my veganism and how we always brunch at Follow Your Heart when he is in town. He even has his own "usual" there, although he strayed this time and ordered the amazing pumpkin pancakes with cranberry sauce (wow, those were good!). That's not the story, though.

This time, my dad's wife joined us for brunch. I'll just come out and say it: She's awful at vegetarian restaurants. She'll order something not offered on the menu and it's just plain rude, in my ever-so-humble opinion. This time, she wanted fruit salad, but she only wanted berries in her fruit salad. That's it. The poor, perplexed server explained that they had fresh strawberries, but the raspberries and blueberries were frozen and only used to throw into pancake battery for berry pancakes. So, my dad's wife ordered strawberries with frozen blueberries and raspberries. Yes, you read that correctly. Let's just forget for a moment the fact that Follow Your heart has the very best fruit salad know to humanity: It contains fresh mango, papaya, dates, and more (depending on the season, of course, but theirs isn't simply under-ripe melon is the point). To me, it's stunningly rude to order something that is not only not on the menu, but that is ridiculously picky. For goodness's sake, order plain toast or order nothing but your black coffee (or better yet, don't come to brunch when you know you have issues being polite at a vegetarian restaurant). Don't create extra work for the server who is clearly just trying to do her job with a smile. I mean, seriously, if I can grin and bear it when forced to dine at a steakhouse where I can have nothing more than a plain baked potato, she can order something off the darn menu at Follow Your Heart.

There was a bit of humor in all this, though. When our food arrived, I quickly took the photo of my meal and my dad's wife snapped, "Why are you taking a picture of your meal?" I coyly responded something along the lines of "Oh, it's just a super secret project I'm working on." This response garnered knowing, conspiratorial smiles from the wonderful couple sitting to my left who was clearly enjoying their vegan food and the show at our table. My dad's wife turned to my dad and asked whether he knew about this "super secret project." He dismissively said something about a cookbook project (I don't discuss this blog with my family). Then, the couple at the next table looked on in horror as my dad's wife dumped her partly-fresh, partly-frozen fruit out of the pretty goblet it was in and onto a spare plate that was on our table. There was nothing sweeter than seeing them snicker and roll their eyes at each other when they saw her food. Too bad she won't change her ways. It's funny to me that she's spent time in Thailand and would never order that way at a Thai restaurant, but she thinks it's perfectly acceptable to order that way at a vegetarian restaurant. Oh, well; it's she who is clearly missing out on all the greatness that vegetarian restaurants have to offer! How someone can pass up the magnificent food at Follow Your Heart, one of the most omni-friendly vegetarian restaurants in the world, in favor of frozen berries is beyond me.

I'm going to try my hardest to write almost daily during VeganMoFo and I can't wait to read everyone else's VeganMoFo entries!

This Is Only A Test...

I was gifted a half day off of work today and deemed it necessary to take complete advantage of this miracle. Of course, that meant I chose to make soup and bake on a day that was 100 degrees F. When will I learn?



This is Spaghetti Soup, a delicious test recipe for the incredible Happy Herbivore. Here's the latest news about Happy Herbivore's next e-cookbook. You can (and most definitely should) buy the inaugural issue here.



I've also had the great fortune of being chosen as a tester for Diet, Dessert, and Dogs's upcoming cookbook Sweet Freedom. This is her wonderful Old Fashioned Spice Cake.