The Week of Eat, Drink and Be Vegan!

So last time I posted about how I was participating in ThePPK forum's cookbook challenge of the week, which was to show some love to Dreena Burton's Eat, Drink and Be Vegan! Well, I can honestly say that it was a week of awesome eats!


Pumpkin-Cheese Pie

Well, let's start off with dessert, shall we? Yes, let's shall. Pumpkin cheese pie was a huge success. The only caveat being that I couldn't find a premade graham cracker crust, so I decided to be all DIY and make one from graham crackers. I looooosely followed the recipe in The Joy of Vegan Baking but I think my ratios were off, because the crust was reallllllly crumbly and crumb-like - it just basically fell apart upon slicing. Next time I'll either use a tried and true recipe for graham cracker crust (measuring my ingredients, what a pain!) or buy a pre-made regular old pie crust. Those I can find. But the filling was super delicious and wicked easy to make!

Blackened Tofu, Potato Smashers and Sauteed Spinach

Ooooh, love love love! Yay for Blackened tofu! So super easy and tasty. It was a hit all around. The Potato Smashers were super delicious and easy too, a nice change from just roasted in olive oil (and I'm guessing considerably lower in fat). The spinach was actually a curried coconut-milk creamed spinach from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Super big thumbs up to that! It's basically just some garlic and a few dried chilis sauteed briefly in peanut oil, then the spinach is added along with about 1 cup of coconut milk and a teaspoon (or more or less) of curry powder. Fabulous!

Autumn Roasted Squash Rings with Enchilada Tofu and Rice
Just the Squash recipe is from ED&BV, and it was AWESOME! Pretty easy (once you get the squash peeled - dang!) I used a local delicata squash, which I think is my favorite squash of all time. The recipe utilizes lemon juice and rosemary, not things I usually associate with winter squash - but it was delicious!!

The enchilada tofu is my fave recipe from Tofu Cookery and the rice was just some leftover mixed rice pilaf reheated with a little tomato paste. The tofu was delicious as always, but the rice - not all that inspired, really. You can't win every time I guess.

Teriyaki Quinoa, Pan-Fried Tempt-eh, and Sauteed Wild Mushrooms
Teriyaki Quinoa = awesome, easy and FAST! This is probably my favorite quinoa recipe of all time. It somehow manages to cover that weird bitter quinoa taste I shy away from. Perfect in every way!
The tempt-eh was also super awesome! Chad was a huge fan, and he's usually not all super excited about the tempeh (I on the other hand would eat it every damn day). It had a great texture and was free of tempeh bitterness that I think Chad shies away from. Woo-hoo!

How can you not love sauteed mushrooms?!? Olive oil, garlic, wine, a little soy sauce...seriously, is this not food of the gods? We have a mushroom CSA, so we are always so excited to see what kind of crazy mushrooms we have the privilege to try this week. :)

Rice and Beans with Two Tomatillo Salsas, Guac and Salad
We had like 4 lbs of tomatillos to deal with, so it was salsa time! I made one raw salsa and one cooked version, and a quick guac over leftover rice and beans. The cooked salsa definitely wins this contest. Raw tomatillos kind of squeege me out.

I'm getting so nervous for VEGANMOFO!!!! I need to sketch out a bunch of posts so that I don't fall ridiculously behind. I'm scared!

Also this week, ThePPK forums are featuring Veganomicon as the cookbook of the week to use, so stay tuned for some new-to-me awesomeness from the vegan bible!