tempeh bacon

I went to Indonesia with my dad and stepmom last winter and one of my favorite discoveries there was tempeh. Seriously. It's like a vegan dream come true. It has so much flavor. I made tempeh bacon tonight while Zach was out with a migraine and it is incredible. Well, I didn't let it cook enough to get crispy like bacon, but it still has a lot of flavor. I've never cooked bacon in my life, haha.
I got it from this recipe, but had to modify it a little bit (I didn't use all of the maple syrup-- I have an aversion-- and I used paprika in lieu of cayenne.)

I used about 2/3 of a package of tempeh, slice them up really thin and threw them in the marinade. For some reason, the marinade wasn't as liquid-y as I would have liked. I might go with more soy sauce next time.

Anyways, I threw the bacon in with a lettuce-orange-tomato-carrot salad I made. Eat tempeh, everybody.

Graham cracker biscuits.

So, the graham crackers didn't turn out as terribly as I thought they would. In fact, Zach ate two or three. They actually turned out more like biscuits because I didn't roll them out enough, which is okay except I can probably only eat a half of one instead of three, haha. They're not too sweet, which is fine since I guess biscuits aren't usually sweet...
In all seriousness, I am happy with these. When I make these again, I'll be sure to roll the dough out more and sprinkle more cinnamon and sugar on them. Also, we ran out of agave and I didn't really want to use honey so I just added a little more brown sugar (I would suggest adding regular sugar, unless you have agave or want to use honey).

I had to buy all purpose flour (it calls for both whole wheat and all purpose), but I made sure to get unbleached and unbromated. I also had to buy margarine, but I bought the Albertson's brand for 1/2 the price of the Earth Balance cost.














Recipe: (from Vegan Yum Yum**)

Graham Crackers
Makes at least 24 3×3″ Crackers

2 1/2 Cups Graham Flour or Stoneground Flour or Whole Wheat Flour
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
1/4 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 Cup Agave Nectar (or a little more sugar mixed with water)
3/4 Cup Water

Mix the all the dry ingredients together. Cream together Earth Balance and sugar. Add vanilla and agave and beat with a whisk until smooth. Add a little of the flour and a little of the water to the earth balance/sugar mixture and combine. Continue adding in flour and water, a little at a time, until all flour and water is added. Work the dough with your hands until everything is evenly combined.

Divide dough in half and cover. Let rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Preheat oven to 325º F. Roll out the dough into a rectangle that measures approximately 11″x15″. Trim edges. Using a knife or a pizza cutter, cut the dough into squares or rectangles (I cut mine into 3′x3′ squares). Prick the squares with a fork.

Bake for 30-40 minutes at 325º F or until the crackers are turning golden brown around the edges. You can sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top of the crackers during the last 10 minutes of baking if you like.

Remove from the baking sheet and let cool on a wire rack. See the video above for visual directions.

** Look up the Vegan Yum Yum cookbook on Amazon. We seriously use it the most out of all of our cookbooks.

graham crackers!

Going to attempt these (just the crackers) today...wish me luck



Edit: Oh, did I say I was making graham crackers? I actually meant graham cakes. These may or not be posted soon....

Creamy, cheesy polenta

(Sorry for the bad picture quality. I used my camera phone because I was too lazy to get the camera--oops!)
Once upon a time, Zach and Christina went to Winco to buy some bulk items. We accidentally got...20 cups of polenta and we just made our first polenta meal since we bought it. Anyways, we made the soft broccoli polenta Isa Chandra Moskowitz's book Appetite for Reduction. Man, was it good. It was really easy to make and the only thing we needed to buy was broccoli. I didn't exactly follow the directions (covered it at first, then uncovered it for the last 10 minutes...it was supposed to be the other way around), but it turned out great! Zach said it tasted cheesy to him and though I haven't had cheese in many moons , I agree.

The ingredients were simple:
4 cups vegetable broth (we used bouillon cubes)
salt to taste
a few pinches of pepper
1 cup polenta grits
4 cups chopped broccoli

You slowly pour the polenta into the boiling broth, while whisking it in. Then add the broccoli, turn the heat to low, and leave it uncovered for 15 minutes (or entirely ignore the rest of the instructions and do whatever you want). Make sure you stir it quite a bit; after the 15 minutes, turn the heat off and leave it covered for 10 minutes.

Then eat it and be sooo full!

We're alive!

We didn't die! We still eat. This semester just really started to take its toll on us and we are tired. We'll be back soon :)

Easter Brunch

Happy Easter to everyone! We had a really good Easter complete with brunch, a bike ride, church, and a really good dinner.

We don't go to church until one o'clock so we were pretty hungry. Since it IS Easter, we decided we wanted to have something good and Easter-y (what? That's an adjective, right?) rather than just snacking. While I did important things like read vegan food blogs, Zach made us some real good french toast. In fact, it was so good that I forgot to take any pictures of it.

He used one egg (1 tbsp flax + 2 tbsps water), 3/4 cup of soymilk, a tbsp of cinnamon, tbsp of sugar, dipped the bread in it, and sprinkled powdered sugar on top when they were done. They were really good! We saw a recipe that called for bananas in the toast, so we might give that a try next time.

Our local grocery store Broulim's sells this great bread called Grandma's for only $1.99, so we always buy that. We really like both the whole wheat and sprouted grain.

happy earth day!

(photo courtesy of: here)


Learn how to celebrate Earth Day right by visiting this website!
Also, a lot of people are having picnics, but I'll be at work all day, so have a picnic for me.