Vegetarian Reubens and Romance

I met my husband in the woods.

You see, there was a backpacking trip where I knew a bunch of the people and he knew a bunch of the people and all those people met up at a trail head in Olympic National Park on October 20th, 2000.  I was pulling my gear out of a friends car when a big red truck pulls up with the famous (infamous?) SARboy.  That's short for Search And Rescue and that was his trail name at the time.

I was told that upon seeing me he said to his fellow passenger, "Man, she's cute - too bad she's taken."

That's me with the monster pack!

Yep, I was not single.  Was not looking.  So that this all happened was a bit of a shock.  What happened?  I'm getting to that.  We donned our enormous backpacks (Did I mention this was to be a gourmet backpacking trip?  Someday I'll have to share the menu and recipes.) and headed up the trail.

Switch back after switchback after switchback.  Eventually it was noticed that someone had fallen far behind, it was their first time on the trail since they had gotten out of the army and that was a couple decades earlier.  A bunch of folks decided to wait for them while myself and one other girl headed on to secure the campsite.  We had gotten about a half mile or so shy of the campsite when my companion went down.  She had slipped on a root that had made a step in the trail and had come down on her ankle at a wonky angle with her full weight and the 75 pounds or so she was carrying. (I told you, heavy packs!)  So we dropped her pack and I assisted her along at a hobble till we got to camp.  Eventually everyone else showed up along with the dropped pack and went about setting up camp while I and SARboy took a look at the injured girls ankle.  You see, we were the two with medical training on the trip and so were thrown together to care for (or torture if you asked her) the injured party.  First thing was to get that ankle into the icy cold creek and set up people to make sure it stayed there.  For some reason it kept popping back out of the water seemingly of its own accord.

It became obvious to me that there was a fracture along with the severe sprain so once it was thoroughly iced I slathered a bunch of herbal salve (a slimy green murky looking thing that works wonders) onto the ankle and we got it wrapped up nice and sturdy.

The injured party decided to stay for the remainder of the trip and just keep off the foot and keep it elevated and gripe at us when we insisted it go back into the icy water.  And so SARboy and Trail Artist (yep that was my trail name at the time, I had a way of making art out of random objects along the trail) were thrown together for better or for worse.

We worked well together with little or no effort and ended up falling hard.  (Yes, there is way more to this story - but this is a food blog so I will be moving along now -maybe I'll tell more on This Northwest Life at some point - like how Mark almost caused me to break my own ankle on the way out or how he had threatened I would have to marry him if I asked him to hold my coffee mug one more time.)

It took us a few weeks of talking online and on the phone to figure it all out.  Then came the very painful part, for me, of ending a 6+ year partnership with an awesome guy and one of my best friends.  Not fun, not easy.

Eventually Mark and I agreed to meet up again for a snowshoe backpack trip near Mount Hood.  We had a blast.

When we came off the trail we had our first meal out together at a local McMenamins.  We knew it was meant to be when we both ordered Reubens and Beer.  Reubens are one of my husband's favorite things and those two things put together were why I chose a form of Reuben as the special meal for my husband of 9+ years.  (Yes, we were married 3 months to the day after meeting.  Go figure.)

Now that we have a more vegetarian bent on our eating we didn't want regular old reubens and I had seen several references to Vegan and Vegetarian Reubens.  The ones that intrigued me most were those using tempeh.  None of the recipes seemed quite right, so we winged it, as usual and ended up with a delectable, rich and amazingly messy Tempeh Reuben.  It rocked!

Here's the recipe.  The marinade was adapted from an adapted  Vegetarian Times Recipe.

Vegetarian Reubens


8 oz package tempeh, I used multi-grain, sliced in half and then down the middle to make it thinner.

The marinade:

2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup water
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon caraway seed
1/2 teaspoon dill weed
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika

Marinade the tempeh for several hours to overnight.

Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

Dressing:

3 Tablespoons mayo*
3 Tablespoons ketchup
3 Tablespoons chopped dill pickle

Combine the above and set aside.

To put the reubens together:

Slather the dressing on 2 slices of really good artisan bread - rye or a multi-grain, or a sourdough.  Layer slices of tempeh on two of the pieces of bread,spoon a little of the marinade sauce over it, top with a slice or two of swiss cheese* and a goodly pile of sauerkraut.  Put the other side of the bread on top of that.  Repeat for sandwich number two.

Heat a griddle or skillet lightly coated with oil over medium heat and grill the sandwiches on both sides till lightly browned.

Serve with a juicy dill pickle and big cloth napkins.

*This could easily be vegan by using veganaise in place of regular mayo and using a vegan swiss cheese or other vegan cheese option.

Mostly Raw Almond and Coconut Macaroons

Inspired by all of Averie's delicious sounding raw cookie balls and made up on a whim when I was needing a little somethin'.

Mostly Raw Almond and Coconut Macaroons - Makes 1 Dozen

3/4 flaked oats
3/4 cup finely shredded unsweetened cococunt
1/4 cup agave
1 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 Tablespoons coconut oil
2 Tablespoons almond meal/flour
2 Tablespoons rice milk or other non-dairy milk
Splash of vanilla

Put the oats in a food processor and process for 15-20 seconds.  Add all the other ingredients and process till a dough comes together.  Gather the dough up in tablespoon portions and roll in your hands to make small balls.

So simple!

So yummy!

So Pretty!

Sweet Potato Tacos with Chipotle Cream

These are one our favorite quick week night dinners.  It's simple.  It's delicious.

1 large Sweet Potato or Yam, peeled and diced
oil to coat the above
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and diced
2 tablespoons sour cream or vegan alternative
1 tablespoon plain yogurt, dairy or vegan
1 heaping teaspoon chipotle puree*
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
corn tortillas

Place the oil coated, diced sweet potato in a roasting pan and roast at 375 till tender - 20-25 minutes.

In the mean time blend the sour cream, yogurt, chipotle puree and lime juice in a small bowl.

When the sweet potatoes are done, warm the corn tortillas.  In each tortilla put a little of the sweet potato and avocado and drizzle the chipotle cream over the top.

Eat and Enjoy!

* Chipotle puree can be made by taking one can of chipotle chilies in adobo sauce and pureeing in a blender or food processor.  Place in a jar and store in the refrigerator to have on hand for all things chipotle.  It will keep for several months.

Vegetarian Stroganoff with Seitan

Stroganoff was a staple growing up. My mom never followed a recipe because she learned to make it alongside her mom and it was the same for me. Stroganoff is intuitive in my family. So when I started wondering what a vegetarian version of stroganoff might look like, I just winged it. At first I considered making it with lots of extra mushrooms to take the place of the beef in the traditional dish. But then I found a brand of seitan that didn't have additives that would make me sick. It was not organic, however, and that is unacceptable to me on a regular basis - so eventually I'll have to get around to making my own seitan for recipes like this.


1 package egg noodles (or egg free for a vegan version), cooked according to package directions

2 tablespoons oil
1 1/2 cups sliced onion
3-4 cups sliced mushrooms
1 clove garlic, minced
A couple splashes brown rice vinegar
1/2 cup water or broth
1 tablespoon Shoyu soy sauce
1 tablespoon vegan worstershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup sour cream (or sour cream alternative to make it vegan)
8 ounces seitan, sliced to thin bite sized pieces

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the onions and sauté till they begin to brown. Add the mushrooms and sauté about 4-5 minutes longer. Add the minced garlic and sauté a minute longer. Add the vinegar and stir well scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze. Add the water and mix well. Add the soy sauce, worstershire sauce and black pepper. Stir well, and turn the heat down to medium low. Add the seitan. Add the sour cream. Mix well, cover and let flavors blend over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, while the pasta boils.

Serve the pasta piled with yummy stroganoff and enjoy.

Mark and I both enjoyed this a lot. My husband had a euphoric expression on his face as he ate - so I think it passed the test. We both agreed that we wanted to try it with homemade seitan and that it would be just as delicious with extra mushrooms in place of the seitan as well - just not as high in protein.  Either way there was a request to make this again which I will honor - just not as often as it might be enjoyed by my husband, because unlike him I do not have two hollow legs that can be filled repeatedly without gaining an ounce!  This is a calorie-rich meal to be served up only on occasion unless everyone in your household has my husband's metabolism!

Beans and Burritos

We've had a few nights recently where we needed a quick and tasty solution to dinner. Burritos to the rescue! The ever-evolving burrito. The endless possibility burrito. A burrito by any other name...

First you have beans. Black beans, pinto beans, navy beans, kidney beans, azuki beans, cannelini beans - the list goes on and on. There are hundreds of varieties of beans. There are whole books dedicated to the bean - such as Growing and Cooking Beans and Beans A History . And there are many jokes and lyrical saying about beans.

Beans: you either love 'em or hate 'em or they get revenge. I love beans and they seem to not mind me for the most part so I'm fortunate on that account and so I eat plenty of beans. That is a healthy thing. Beans are loaded with good for you stuff.

You can cook beans in a number of ways (pressure cooker, stove top, baked, stove top and crock pot - the latter is my favorite) and there are endless rules about cooking beans (soak first, don't soak first, change the water X-amount of times, add baking soda, don't add baking soda, cook with kombu (kelp), don't add acidic ingredients while cooking, and never ever add salt until the beans are cooked through.) Everyone has there opinion. But are they "worth a hill of beans"? That's for you to decide. I take it all with a grain of salt. Except for when it comes to salt. That's the one rule I follow when cooking beans. I never add salt until they are soft. I don't like partially cooked beans and the adage that salt keeps beans from softening properly while cooking seems to be true - for me at least.

Or you can just skip the whole cooking thing and go with the far more convenient option (n0 need to plan or think ahead) and use canned beans. I do both. I have a good supply of dry beans and other legumes all looking pretty in their canning jars in my pantry and I also have a good number of canned beans on hand. I've come to only buy one variety of canned beans though. Eden Organic. Why? They are the ONLY company that uses BPA-free cans for their beans. They pay extra to do it. There cans are made specifically for them. Here's the story behind it - it's worth a read. They would can all their other items in the same cans if they could - but the FDA doesn't allow it, as explained in the article linked above. The FDA insists on BPA-lined cans for anything acidic - like tomato products. The theory is to keep the metal from leaching into the food and making it bad for you. Ironic, considering how bad BPA is for us. (I could spend days on my soap box about stuff like this, but I'll spare you - for now.) So that is why I only buy Eden Organic canned beans.

But a burrito is more than just beans, right? I suppose it doesn't have to be but let's just assume we want more than beans wrapped in a tortilla. You could add grains. Any kind of grain would do. There's the obvious and common rice. But what about polenta, quinoa, spelt, kamut, ferro, barley. All are great options. Or no grain. Whatever you like. Next you have the option of dairy and dairy alternative options - various cheeses, sour cream, yogurt. (Sour cream is my favorite.) And salsa. All the lovely varieties of salsa out there to choose from! Two common one's in our house are Muir Glen's Organic Chipotle and their Organic Black Bean. Then there's salsa fresca or salsa verde when the garden (or farmer's market) is overflowing with tomatoes and tomotillos. Finally we come to herbs and vegis. Some favorite herbs to chop up and add to my burritos are cilantro, oregano, parsly, chives, epizote, one of the hundred varieties of thyme. Green onions, fresh corn, avocado, lettuce, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers and garlic are among my favorite vegies for burritos.

Now that we have all these toppings piled onto a tortilla we get to struggle with actually getting it closed up for slightly less messy eating. Or give up and just eat it with a fork like my husband did recently when he piled WAY to much onto the poor little tortilla to even get the sides to touch.

Have a napkin (cloth, preferably) handy and chow down.

Happy burrito making.

Change the World Wednesday and Raw Foods

There's this great blog called Reduce Footprints and every Wednesday a new challenge goes out to encourage people to try and live a life a little lighter on the earth. And this week's challenge is all about food and borrowed from yet another blogger - What a Card. Here it is:

This week, "plan an oven- and stove-free day, and no cheating and going out to eat! Have sandwiches, cut up fruit, veggies with dip, leftovers from a previous dinner that you can heat in the microwave**. Plan ahead and make a pasta salad you can eat cold for a few days. Have hummus, feta cheese, and spinach on a pita or wrap. There are tons of healthy, delicious meals you can have without having to turn on the stove! As an added plus, many of the meals are quick and easy to prepare!"**I'd like to bump up What A Card's challenge ... how about including microwave-free, as well.

The day before I read this challenge I had been craving mass quantities of out of season vegis and I so gave in. My meal that night and my lunch the next day was nearly entirely Mexican - meaning most of those vegis travelled all the way from Mexico. In itself, that is hardly a "light on the earth" thing to do, but my body was saying it wanted lots of cooling raw yummy vegis. So that is what I gave it - and just happened to fulfill the Change the World Wednesday's challenge in the process.

The meal was simple vegi wrap. A soft whole wheat tortilla smothered with mayo and mustard and filled to the brim (it turned out more taco like than wrap because it was so full there wasn't enough wrap to go around all the goodies) with avocado, cucumber, several colors of bell pepper, sweet onion (from WA state!), tomato and alfalfa sprouts (also from WA state). Mark and I each ate two huge wraps (tacos) for dinner and loved every lip-smacking minute of our totally out of season no-cook meal.

As the week has progressed I got to thinking about how this no-cook meal challenge would be a perfect opportunity to try any number of raw food recipes out there. So I went searching for blogs on raw foods and found a few good ones loaded with mouth-watering recipes that I look forward to trying soon. Like the Raw Banana Cream Pie from Rawmazing or any one of these incredible salads from The Sunny Raw Kitchen. I could keep going, but I'll leave it at that and let you all explore further yourselves. As for me, well it's time to go get some dinner going and after all this thinking about, reading about and writing about food - I'm hungry!

Celery Root Bisque with Homemade Garlic Croutons

On one of the recent sunny Seattle winter days (love it!) I was cleaning out the last of the plants from our old p-patch. I had to dig out some enormous parsley plants that had gone to seed and built a root system that meant business. I got my exercise pulling those buggers out! The scent of the broken parsley roots smelled so much like celery root that it lead to a craving for celery root bisque - which I eagerly indulged in.

Celery Root Bisque

3 small to medium celery roots, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes

1 medium to large russet potato, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes

1 medium yellow onion, diced

1 cup chopped celery, including leaves

3 tablespoons butter

1/4 teaspoon celery salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper (I would have used white if I had it on hand)

salt to taste

4 cups homemade vegi stock

4 cups water

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1 cup half and half

Melt the butter in a large soup pot/sauce pan. Add the celery and onion and saute till soft, about 8-10 minutes, over medium heat. Add the celery root, potato, stock, water, vinegar and spices. Bring to a boil over high and then turn heat back down to medium/low and simmer for 20-30 minutes, or until the celery root and potato are soft. Puree the soup in a blender in batches. Return to the pan and add the half and half and warm through. Taste for seasonings. Serve with homemade croutons (recipe follows).

Homemade Garlic Croutons

2 cups 1-inch cubes of your favorite bread

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 teaspoon garlic granules

pinch of salt

Turn on your broiler.

Mix the olive oil, garlic and salt in a medium bowl. Add the bread cubes and toss till well coated.

Place the seasoned bread cubes into a roasting pan and place under the broiler till crisp, being careful to keep them from burning.

Homemade Pumpkin Ravioli with Fried Sage Butter

This post should really be titled, "What NOT to do When Making Pumpkin Ravioli".

What a fiasco. With the disastrous part being discovered upon returning home from a movie after 9:30 on a week night and still needing to have dinner. We THOUGHT we had this taken care of by making the ravioli ahead and refrigerating it until we got home. That turned out to be a bad idea. (We think.)

Here's the whole story:

It's a couple days before our anniversary and we've decided to celebrate early so as to have a whole day instead of just the few evening hours allowed us on week nights. We wanted to make a special dinner, something we could have fun with in the kitchen and yet be done in stages so we could go see a movie (something we rarely do). We set our sights on home made ravioli, something we've made several times before and always enjoy.

This time it was pumpkin ravioli, one I had seen various recipes for and articles about recently. We didn't really follow any one recipe, but made up the filling ourselves inspired from various recipes.

For the Filling:

1 can pumpkin

4 tablespoons finely grated Parmesan

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

pinch of salt

This was blended up and set aside while we made the pasta dough in the Cuisinart and then rolled it out with our pasta maker. We made a double batch of pasta thinking we could freeze the extra ravioli to have on hand for later. In the end we were glad for that extra ravioli, but not for the reason we had planned.

For the Pasta Dough:

3/4 cup unbleached white flour

1 large egg

warm water as needed

Place the flour and egg in the Cuisinart and blend for 30 seconds. If the dough comes together into a ball that does not stick to the sides of the bowl, then there is no need to add any water. If the mixture is more of a crumb, then add a small amount of warm water while the machine is still going, until a ball forms. At this point run the Cuisinart for about 45 seconds longer. This kneads the dough.

We then used our pasta maker to roll out the dough. And here is were we may have started on the path of disaster. We went one level thinner on the dough than perhaps we should of, wanting a more tender ravioli. However the moisture level in the filling may have been too much for this thin of dough.

We filled and pinched closed the raviolis and then layered them on floured parchment paper and placed them in the refrigerator. This may be the other place where things went wrong. We've never made our ravioli and then put off boiling them for several hours. The combination of the very moist filling, the thinness of the dough and the refrigeration process resulted in very fragile sticky raviolis that would not come loose from the floured paper. We lost over a third of them while trying to get them off the paper and into the boiling water. We lost the filling of several more while they were being boiled.

We still managed to get enough to have a filling dinner, thus the reason we were grateful for making a double batch. The filling itself was only so-so. I would either add some sweetener, perhaps maple syrup or agave syrup, or cut the nutmeg out and use a touch of sage to the filling.

The Fried Sage Butter that we dressed the pasta with was amazing and I plan on using it again for other pasta dishes in the future.

For the Fried Sage Butter:

1/4 cup butter

1 T olive oil

6 sage leaves cut into small strips

Melt the butter in a pan with the olive oil, then add the sage and fry till crisp.

I might even add more sage next time. Sage can be an overwhelming herb, but fried this way it was mellowed signifigantly. And oh so delicious.

We had a side of asparagus roasted in the oven with a little oilve oil and salt to complete the meal and dispite the meal not coming out as planned, it was still tasty and well enjoyed.

Apple Custard Pie

The recent issue of Vegetarian Times got me drooling. (A whole section on oats - I love oats!) And the recipe for their Apple Custard Pie with Oatmeal Crust sounded delicious. So I made it. Well my own tweaked version of it,that is. I rarely follow a recipe exactly. This time it had to do with not having some of the exact ingredients on hand - like oat milk and oat flour. I got creative and used some almond milk (that has been in the pantry waiting to be used in some recipe ever since I discovered I don't like to drink straight almond milk.) Whole wheat pastry flour had to take the place of the oat flour. Butter took the place vegan margarine, since that is what I have and tend to use if not using oil. To top it off, literally, I doubled the cinnamon and halved the sugar in the topping.

The Verdict: It came out beautifully in the presentation category. The crust was the highlight of this pie in my opinion and I am looking forward to using it for other pies in the future. The custard was nice and light with a slightly nutty taste, most likely imparted by the almond milk. The main thing I would change in the future is to slice the apples very thin and layer them in stead of using the larger wedges the original recipe called for. I think this would give the pie a more delicate texture, allowing the custard and apple to be appreciated together more thoroughly.

Here's the final recipe as I would do it.

For the crust:

1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup oat flour or whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup water

For the filling:

2 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup oat or almond milk
3 small apples, peeled, cored, and sliced very thinly.

For the topping:

1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 350 Degrees F. Coat an 8 or nine inch pie plate (I used a 9.5 but the crust would go up higher on the edges with a slightly smaller pie plate) with cooking spray or oil.

2. For the crust: Mix together oats, flour, brown sugar, salt, and the cinnamon in a large bowl. Stir in melted butter and water until the mixture forms into a crumbly dough. Press the dough into the bottom and sides of the pie plate. Bake for 15 minutes or until the crust looks dry.

3. For the filling: Whisk together eggs, sugar, and the vanilla. Whisk in the oat or almond milk until smooth.

4. In the bottom of the pre-baked crust, arrange the apple slices. Pour the filling over the apples and return the pie to the oven. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the custard has set.

5. For the topping: Blend the cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle over the hot pie. Cool on a wrack until serving.