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The Kitchen Recessionista

So, here we are, in a recession. Let's eat!

Old Faithful With a Chik’n Patty.

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You know, midweek meals can sometimes be a little difficult.  The full weight of the workweek is upon us, complete with all sorts of after-work activities and early-morning workouts, and the Florida State football game – I mean, the weekend! – seems so very far away indeed.  So sometimes, you’ve gotta call on your best dinnertime friends for help.  Sometimes, you’ve gotta call on Old Faithful.
I’ve waxed poetic on Old Faithful – aka black beans and rice – a hundred times in these pages, but let me just add another stanza here today.  For my money, there’s just nothing more comforting, hearty, filling, and tasty than this good old Cuban favorite!  It reminds me of my Florida home (and reminds me I can’t seem to find good Cuban bread this far north in the D.C. area).  And it’s always there for us.
So tonight we settled in to steaming plates of black beans and rice, complete with chik’n patties for extra protein, and topped the plate high with vegan sour cream, Daiya cheddar, Tabasco, and salsa.  I even added some nutritional yeast to my dish (because I’ll eat it on anything); LeeLee abstained.  Either way, it was a perfect meal for a rainy midweek night, when patience was short but appetites were huge!

:)

Hallo, Germany, Part 1: Vegan Currywurst With Pommes Frites.

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Now, I have to admit, nobody played along last week when I polled the audience as to my location.  This hurt me for a minute, there.  But still we press on here within these pages!  (Only teasing about being hurt, by the way.)

We visited Berlin, friends!  And we had a wonderful time.  LeeLee was in Germany on business, and with the hotel and his airfare paid for, we had only my flight to cough up the money for, making the trip almost reasonable (if not entirely Recessionista).  Who could pass up a trip to Germany – a country, I should add, I have never visited?
Let me tell you: I am now a fan.  Berlin was fantastic – the culture, the people, the sights, and, yes, the food were all just wonderful!  I’ll regale you with stories about our adventures in pieces and parts over the upcoming weeks, but I will share now that seeing sights like Checkpoint Charlie in the flesh (so to speak) was something I’ll never forget.  It was just an amazing week, from beginning to end.

Yes, I did pack a beer stein in my carry-on for the flight home.  And on the food front, I brought some ideas home with me as souvenirs!
Tonight we embarked on our Germany Reminiscences series with a hearty helping of vegan currywurst, complete with pommes frites.
I took the easy route with the frites and used a bag of frozen steak fries from Safeway; while they baked, I prepared the currywurst!  Tonight was cool and rainy, so no outside grilling for us.  Instead, I pan-fried four Tofurky beer brats, turning them over every so often to warm up evenly.  Near the end of the cooking process (with about five minutes left) I added a hearty helping of sauerkraut over the top for extra flavor, which I feel helped the dish significantly!
As the brats and frites cooked, I prepared my currywurst sauce!  I poured a generous serving (about a quarter to a half a cup) of spicy ketchup into a shallow serving dish, then added a spoonful of Just Mayo for creaminess, and, finally, the spices: pepper, onion powder, and, of course, curry powder to taste!  I was pretty heavy-handed in my spice additions, but the sauce was all the better for it.  Then I mixed the sauce thoroughly and waited for the rest of dinner to be ready.
In short order, it was, and I began the final preparations!  I sliced the beer brats into coins like I saw the food carts do in Germany, then added a generous spoonful (or two, or three) of curry sauce on top of each brat.  Then I arranged my frites to accompany the meal – dolloping a bit of sauce atop them, as well, for good measure!  And then we feasted.
What an amazing dish!  It warmed our spirits on a cool damp night, and more importantly it made us remember our wonderful trip to Germany, a country we both fell in love with.  The best part?  We’ve got two brats (and plenty of frites) left over!  I can’t wait for lunch tomorrow, when I can go back on vacation right there at my desk.
Hooray for Deutschland!

:)

New Recipe: Vegan Shrimp Po’ Boys.

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Now, y’all know I’m a Gulf Coast girl, and so I suppose it was only a matter of time until I put together a po’ boy for us to try here at home!  I do love some good old Cajun flavor, and Louisiana-style restaurants are hard to come by up here in the DC area.  So the other day, it hit me: I need a po’ boy.  And I need it ASAP.
Enter tonight’s vegan shrimp po’ boys!  So easy to make, so wonderful to eat.
I served our sandwiches alongside some sweet-potato fries, so I got those cooking first – seven minutes or so at 425 just to get the juices flowing.  Then I placed a package of Sophie’s Kitchen breaded “shrimp” in the oven as well and heated it for another seven minutes to defrost the shrimp a bit so I could separate them.  Then I set everything in for another 10 minutes and prepared the bread!
The key to this dish is to have a fresh, untoasted baguette at your disposal.  I waited until the last minute today to buy mine just so it would be as soft as possible – a necessity if you’re not going to heat it up!  I cut a hunk (that’s the technical term) off of the bread, sliced off the end, and then sliced each hunk lengthwise to make a top and a bottom to the baguette.
Next, I spread some Just Mayo out across each slice.  Like a good Southerner, I tend to be a bit heavy-handed with the mayo, but add as much or as little as you like!
Then it was time for the add-ons (proportions in the recipe below).  A little Tabasco does wonders when it soaks into bread, and atop that I added a layer of shrimp, like so:
And then several slices of tomato, some leaves of lettuce, some diced pimientos, and some Creole mustard.  Put the top on the sandwich, slice it in half, and you’re good to go!  Served with sweet-potato fries, you’ve got a wonderfully flavorful and filling meal that just can’t be beat.
It’s amazing to me that a sandwich as simple to make as a po’ boy can be so addicting.  I’m not sure whether it’s the tang of the mustard, the crunch of the lettuce, the surprise of the pimientos or the chewy shrimp (real in my past life, vegan in my current :)), but the sum of the parts is a wonderful experience indeed.  You ought to try them today!
VEGAN SHRIMP PO’ BOYS
Serves 2-4
What you’ll need:
1 package vegan shrimp (we used Sophie’s Kitchen)
1 fresh baguette
4 tbsps. vegan mayonnaise (or more or less, depending on the number of sandwiches and your preference)
Tabasco, to taste
1 tomato, sliced thinly
Romaine lettuce, to taste
1 jar diced pimientos
4 tbsps. Cajun mustard
First, bake the shrimp according to package instructions.
While it cooks, cut your baguette crosswise to make as many sandwiches as you like.  Then cut each section lengthwise to create a top and a bottom to each portion of the baguette.
Spread the mayonnaise evenly across each slice, then top one slice of each sandwich with a few drops of Tabasco.  Next, wait for your shrimp to cook.  This allows the Tabasco to soak into the bread – a wonderful experience!
When the shrimp is ready, line them up along the bottom half of each sandwich.  Then top the shrimp with several slices of tomato, and next the lettuce.
On the top half of the sandwich, add a tablespoon or two of Creole mustard.  Then top that with several teaspoons of diced pimiento (or to taste).  Next, place the top half of the sandwich onto the bottom and slice each sandwich in half crosswise.  Serve, and laissez le bon temps rouler!

:)

Vegetarian “Beef” and Hash Brown Casserole.

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Friends, please forgive me for my radio silence last week.  LeeLee and I took a little trip – can you guess where?  (Let me know in the comments!)
Believe it or not, this was actually a Recessionista adventure.  LeeLee was traveling on an all-expenses-paid fellowship, and so everything except for my airfare and personal expenses were taken care of!  It’s not a bad way of sightseeing, if you ask me, and I’ll tell you all the details in upcoming blog posts, when I tackle some veg versions of the local cuisine.  I can’t wait to experiment with some new flavor profiles!
But on to tonight’s dinner: “Beef” and hash brown casserole!
I’ve made this meal quite a few times, and it never gets old.  Not even when you take into account the fact that this can easily feed our family for five or six meals (either lunch or dinner)!  It’s just that good.  And it extends forever.  Even when our appetites are ravenous, we can’t get through even a small percentage of this recipe!  It’s a great way to stretch your ingredients and reduce your daily prep time.
And the final results are just great.  We love the heartiness that the veggie beef and potatoes give the dish, served in tandem with the sweet tang of the spaghetti sauce and the creaminess of the cheese on top.  Next time, I think I’ll add some pinto beans to the mix as well for some extra pizazz!
At any rate, it’s good to be back home and back on the blogging wagon.  Look for some international flavors to pop up on the blog in the next few weeks!

:)

Mama’s Potato Soup.

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It must definitely be fall now – the first kettle of potato soup went on to boil tonight!
Every year, we welcome my mother’s potato soup recipe back into the fold with open arms.  It’s so simple to make, and so wonderful to eat: Tonight, we added about eight smallish peeled potatoes (from our Labor Day weekend potato-picking excursion), half a diced onion, some parsley from the garden, and some salt, pepper, and garlic powder to the good old Le Creuset with just enough water to cover everything.  Then I heated the French oven to a rolling boil and lowered the heat to Medium, cooking the potatoes for about 25 minutes, or until they were wonderfully tender and ready to be mashed.
I drained most of the water off and added a pat of butter and some soymilk to its place, and then I got to mashing.  I like some chunks of potato in my soup, so I left a few pieces here and there, but within minutes the soup had a wonderfully thick consistency and was ready for serving!
As usual, LeeLee and I put in our favorite add-ins: He likes vegetarian bacon bits, and I like Goldfish crackers.  You can’t mess with the classics!
I regret to inform you that we had very, very little soup left by the end of dinner.  But not to worry – with 40+ pounds of potatoes to burn through, we’ll definitely make this meal again soon!

:)

Vegan Beef With Bordelaise Sauce and Ribbon Noodles.

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Straight from the BettyGoes Vegan files, here comes tonight’s dinner!  We’re big fans of Gardein’s “beef” tips here at Chez Recessionista, and I knew this meal had the potential to hit the spot in a big way.
As the weather turns more crisp and cool, I’m always looking for ways to bring the comforts of autumn to the dinner table – anything involving both “beef” tips and red wine is a pretty good start!  Tonight, I slightly modified the recipe from the Shannons’ cookbook (a good proxy for it can be found on their blog, too) and got straight to work.
A few things I did differently than the recipe you see at that link: Instead of cooking the beef separately first, I just sautéed it right there in the Le Creuset along with the onion.  I omitted the thyme (because I forgot about it) and instead of a bouillon cube I used two ice cube-sized blocks of frozen veggie broth.  Further – and this was a mistake, looking back, since the sauce didn’t thicken up without it (duh) – I omitted the flour because I confess I get so tiredof whisking flour to make a roux!  Honesty is a core value on this blog, y’all, so there you have it.
Thank heaven the final result wasn’t the worse for wear!  LeeLee and I mowed down every last piece of beef and onion (and all of the sauce, too), and there are enough ribbon noodles left for some sort of lunch for tomorrow.  We’ll definitely make this recipe again – it was absolutely delightful!  Another success by the Shannons.

:)

New Recipe: Vegan Shrimp and Grits.

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I’ve made no secret of the fact that I adore the new vegan seafood products on the market today.  Shrimp was the very last animal meat I gave up – growing up on the Gulf Coast, I fell in love with shrimp early and it was my very favorite treat for years!  Only recently have I found a vegetarian protein to take its place, and friends, there’s just no turning back.
Tonight, I had a hankering for one of those good old Gulf Coast meals that I used to adore so much but haven’t had in more than a decade.  Shrimp and grits?  Yes, please!
I started with a cup of quick-cooking grits with a pinch of salt and set them to low heat.  (As the grits began to simmer, I baked the shrimp in the oven to get them prepared.)  Once the grits had a little bit of firmness – not a lot, they weren’t done, but just a little texture to them – I added a small can of diced green chilies to the pan and stirred well.  A couple of minutes later, I added two tablespoons of tomato sauce and stirred well again.
Now, let me tell you a little secret about how I make grits: I don’t cover them, as it says to do on the package.  Once, back in college, the lid to my saucepan was dirty and I didn’t feel like washing it, so I left it in the sink and cooked the grits “topless.”  Lo and behold, the Earth did not spin off its axis, nor did the sky fall.  Nor, even, were my grits any worse for wear!  So now I cook them topless every time.  And every time I am pleased with the results.  You just have to stir them a little more often, is all.
But back to the cooking process. 
By the time the shrimp was fully baked, the grits weren’t far behind – they’d thickened up nicely by this point and were quite nearly ready to eat.  So I proceeded with the final step of the recipe and added 1 cup of Daiya cheddar shreds to the saucepan, stirring after each half-cup until the cheese was fully melted and had blended into the rest of the dish.  Then it was time to eat!
We spooned big helpings of the grits onto our plates and topped it with a hearty dose of shrimp.  Then we dove right in and cleared our plates – and went back to the stove for seconds!  Unfortunately, there’s not a shred of shrimp and grits left in the kitchen at the moment – but fortunately, we loved every bite.  You will, too!
VEGAN SHRIMP AND GRITS
Serves 2-4
What you’ll need:
1 package vegan breaded shrimp (we used Sophie’s Kitchen)
4 cups water
1 cup quick-cooking grits
1 small can diced green chilies, drained as best you can (they’re liquidy little suckers)
2 tbsps. tomato sauce
1 cup vegan cheddar cheese (we used Daiya)
Salt, to taste
Place the shrimp into the oven to bake according to the package instructions.  (We cooked ours at 375 for 15 minutes.)
Next, prepare the grits.  Set four cups of water to boil in a medium saucepan.  Once the water is boiling nicely, add one cup of grits and salt to taste and stir well, then turn the heat down to Low.
After about 5-7 minutes, add the diced green chilies to the saucepan and stir well to combine.  A couple of minutes later, add the tomato sauce and stir well again.
Once the grits are almost to the texture and thickness you prefer, add the cheese in half-cup increments, stirring well with each addition to combine.  The cheese should blend in beautifully with your grits.
Next, when the shrimp is finished baking, pull it out of the oven and get ready to plate your dish!
Spoon a hearty helping of grits into the middle of a dinner plate, and then top the grits with however much shrimp you like.  (We tend to be heavy-handed with it, admittedly.)  Add a little extra salt if you think the grits need it, and most of all, enjoy!

:)

Sunday Cookout: Grilled Vegan Scallops With Green Beans, Acorn Squash, and Apple-Pear Salad.

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Friends, tonight marked several firsts on the Recessionista Grill!  And I can’t help but spoil the surprise right here at the top of the broadcast: The final results were all just great.  I love when a maiden voyage gets to its destination safely!
Let’s start with the vegan scallops.  We tried these a little while ago as part of an indoor meal, and I confess we weren’t 100% blown away by the final product.  The problem, we determined, was that we expected the flavor profile to be bursting straight out of the box, when what was necessary in actuality was a bit of seasoning before cooking.  So with that in mind, this morning I defrosted a box of Sophie’s Kitchen’s vegan scallops in the fridge, and this afternoon I brought them out to room temperature, sprayed both sides with cooking spray, seasoned the scallops with one of my favorite barbecue rubs, and placed them on two rosemary stalks.  (LeeLee and I like to buy “barbecue rosemary” each year at the nursery; this is the first time we’ve ever actually used the stalks on the barbecue!)
Once the scallops were prepared, I set them aside and worked on the other dinnertime components.  I snapped the ends off of the green beans (bought just yesterday from our friends at Bigg Riggs Farm) and placed them in their standard foil packet with a pat of butter and some chipotle seasoning, and then I sliced an acorn squash (which arrived a couple of weeks ago in our box from Great Country Farms) into half-moons to accompany the meal.  Then it was time to light up the grill!
The green beans went on first, allowing for about half an hour’s worth of cooking time.  Next went the acorn squash with a total cook time of about 20 minutes – I flipped the crescents over halfway through.  Finally, with 15 minutes left in the cooking time, I placed the scallops on as well, turning them every 5 minutes or so in order to get them fully crispy-cooked.
As everything grilled, I prepared one last side dish inside: the apple and Asian pear salad I made a few weeks ago!  I topped the dish with honey, cherry pepper spice, and some feta cheese, and brought it to the table to wait on dinner.
Within short order, the green beans, acorn squash, and scallops all made their way off the grill, and we dug in.  The scallops weren’t lacking for flavor this time around, let me assure you!  I think I’ve found out their secret, which shouldn’t be a secret at all: Like seafood scallops, this vegan variety requires a bit of finesse work to make them fun to eat.  How quickly we forget the ways of the sea!
The acorn squash – another first on the grill – turned out incredibly tender and flavorful, not needing much in the way of additional seasoning.  And the green beans and salad both got the job done in terms of satisfying our appetite – as usual!
What a great autumnal meal this was!  I’m already looking forward to next week.

:)

Vegetarian “Beef” Lo Mein.

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We haven’t made an Asian meal in awhile!  Tonight, I decided we were well past due at Chez Recessionista and dove right in to one of my favorites – lo mein!  (For the record, fried rice is also a fave around these parts.)
When LeeLee called to say he was on his way home, I sprung into action.  I knew he was about 40 minutes away, which gave me plenty of time to get everything together!  First, I boiled a package of lo mein noodles in my trusty French oven, determined to keep this a one-pot meal.  Once the noodles were finished, I drained them and left them in the colander, which I carefully placed atop my dinner plate so as not to dirty up another bowl or pot (again, bound and determined!). 
As the noodles rested, I added some sesame oil to the bottom of the pan and threw in a package of Gardein “beef” tips.  As they began to heat up and brown, I added several handfuls of snap peas (a favorite snack during football games, by the way), and several more handfuls of shredded carrots.  Next I tossed in a can of water chestnuts and another half-can of bamboo shoots.  I specify a “half-can” because I confess I don’t really care for bamboo shoots, but LeeLee likes them, and so we split the difference.  All in the name of a happy marriage, you know!
Once the vegetables and beef tips were heated through and tender, I added the noodles back in, along with another splash of sesame oil, a half-cup or so of veggie broth, some rice vinegar, and some chipotle powder.  I tossed the vegetables in with the noodles thoroughly with my trusty tongs and brought the whole French oven to the table!
And then: We ate.  And we ate well, friends.  Each of us put away a couple of helpings apiece and there was still plenty left over for lunch tomorrow!  We loved the diversity of textures, from the crisp-tender snap peas to the chewy, hearty beef tips to the slight bite of the lo mein noodles.  And the flavors were powerful yet not overpowering – a wonderful example of Asian takeout made at home!

:)

Chicken-Free Pot Pie.

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Tonight, there was a crispness in the autumn air that hasn’t been around for quite some time, so I knew that we needed something especially hearty for dinner.  Enter a new pot-pie recipe I found from perusing my library copy of Betty Goes Vegan! 
I’ve mentioned this cookbook, written by Annie and Dan Shannon, a few times on the blog recently, and I must say I’m still in love with it.  I just adore how so many homestyle meals can be made vegan with very little trouble; their explorations are every veg cook’s gain!  I have yet to make a recipe from Betty Goes Vegan that disappoints; everything I’ve tackled thus far has been pitch-perfect.  That’s not due to my cooking skillz, I might add.  It’s just that this book is so descriptive, so accessible, that it’s hard not to fall right into lockstep with the Shannons!
Anyway, getting back to tonight’s chik’n pot pie.  The Shannons actually have a similar recipe up on their blog, so I’ll direct you to that if you’re not interested in the whole cookbook as of yet.  I will say that instead of making my own pie crust, I used a veg version from Whole Foods, and instead of making my own gravy, I used a vegetarian mushroom gravy from Safeway.  All in the name of expediency on a Tuesday night!
I heated everything up together and put it into a pie crust, and then topped the pie with the second crust and baked it for about half an hour.  The crust was nicely browned and the gravy was bubbling steadily after 30 minutes, so I brought the pot pie out to cool and, 10 minutes later, dug right in.
Success!  I loved how the flavors mingled and how the gravy served as a binder as well as seasoning.  The peas and carrots, green beans, celery, and of course the chik’n all went together beautifully and filled the pie plate perfectly to the brim! 
Furthermore, we’ve got plenty of pot pie left for lunch tomorrow – a fact that we’re both incredibly happy about!  We’ll definitely make this dish again; I can already see it’ll become a fall-and-winter staple!

:)