Romesco!

Have you made romesco yet this year? This complex and flavorful Catalonian sauce is perfect for grilled spring and summer vegetables. It can be time consuming to make, but it keeps well and the flavors improve with time in the fridge. Make a big batch and eat it with grilled veggies, rice, sandwiches, and crusty bread all week long.

This recipe is cobbled together from several others and has served me well. Feel free to tweak the ingredients, but please don't skip the sweet smoked paprika. After one whiff you will want to dust your mustache with it every morning.

Romesco sauce

Makes about 2 1/2 cups.

1 yellow onion
2 red bell peppers (if you are not a huge pepper fan, sub a third tomato for one of the peppers)
2 ripe tomatoes
1/4 C extra virgin olive oil
2 T Sherry vinegar
2 cloves garlic
1/3 - 1/2 C almond meal (DIY by grinding 3/4 C almonds in a coffee grinder or food processor)
1 slice bread, white or wheat, stale or toasted, torn into small pieces
1 t sweet smoked paprika (also known as pimenton de la vera; available in fine food stores or spice shops)
1/2 t chili powder
1/2 salt, plus more to taste

Preheat oven to 400. Rub onion, peppers, and tomatoes lightly with olive oil and roast in a pan with sides for 45 minutes, turning occasionally. Remove from oven and immediately cover with foil or place in a plastic bag for 15 minutes (this traps the heat and humidity and helps the skin separate from the vegetables). Peel the onion, peel and seed the tomatoes and bell peppers and place all the vegetables in a food processor.

Toast the almond meal by moving it quickly over medium heat in a dry pan on the stove, or spreading it in a thin layer in a baking dish and sticking it in the oven for about 8 minutes while the veggies are cooling. Add 1/3 C of the toasted almond meal to the food processor.

Add the remaining ingredients (olive oil through salt) to the food processor and blend until smooth. The consistency should be similar to ricotta cheese: soft, but thick enough to spread. If your veggies are larger and result in a thinner sauce, add the remaining almond flour. You can further thicken it by adding more toasted bread.

Allow the sauce to cool and serve at room temperature. Eat it by the spoonful, spread it on toasted baguette slices, serve it over rice with grilled tofu, spread it on a sandwich, or plop a huge dollop of it in the center of your plate and surround it with grilled or oven roasted vegetables.

I made it this week and brought it to a friend's house for a grilled vegetable extravaganza. Nomnomnom:


Grilled spring onions with romesco.


Feast! Sandwich with grilled eggplant, vegan mozz, fresh basil, and romesco. Grilled corn, brussels sprouts, onion, asparagus and tofu with romesco.

Bonus wiener-in-a-babushka:

The Thanksgiving Menu

I have agonized over this menu. This is the first time I am hosting Thanksgiving on my own (usually I cook everything but the turkey at my parents' house), and the first time I am replacing the turkey for anyone but myself.

I am usually not the least bit apologetic about denying meat to people I cook for, but some reason omitting The Thanksgiving Turkey is intimidating to me. I keep googling pictures of live turkeys to remind myself how ridiculous it is worry about it.


Bubbles, a turkeylet rescued by Farm Sanctuary. Go to their website to adopt a turkey.

Anyway, here's the menu:

Appetizers:
Aged Cashew Cheese with Crackers (Dr. Cow)
Maple Cinnamon Caramel Corn (Hooray Vegan Zine)

Main:
Seitan Chops Smothered in Apples and Ginger (Post Punk Kitchen Blog)

Sides:
Seriously Decadent Mashed Potatoes (Hooray Vegan Zine)
Rosemary Mushroom Gravy (Hooray Vegan Zine)
Green Bean Casserole (FatFree Vegan Kitchen)
Cranberry Walnut and Sage Stuffing (Hooray Vegan Zine)
Cranberry Orange Relish (FatFree Vegan Kitchen)
Garlic Roasted Acorn Squash (See instructions below)
Roasted Fennel and Hazelnut Salad with Shallot Dressing (Veganomicon)
Potato Rolls (From a bakery cuz my oven will be stuffed already)

Dessert:
Pumpkin Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream (Bryanna's recipe)
Chocolate Chip Cookies (Post Punk Kitchen Blog)

Beverages:
Hot Spiced Cider (There's a guy that makes it local)
Pumpkin Beer

Garlic Roasted Acorn Squash, courtesy of freeganvegan on the ppk:
Cut acorn squash in half, scoop out seeds, place 2-3 garlic cloves in each half, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and bake. The squash and garlic get roasty toasty together, then you mash the roasted garlic in with the squash.

Pictures in a week! Happy Thanksgiving Ya'll!

Nothing Says I Love You Like Caramel Corn

This is a sneak preview from the zine. It's seriously addictive, travels well (Care packages! Holiday gifts!), and is super easy to make.

6-8 C popped corn (Or one bag microwave popcorn)
Handful or so of peanuts (optional)
¾ C packed brown sugar
6 T vegan margarine (I use Earth Balance)
3 T pure maple syrup (Agave syrup or corn syrup works also)
¼ t salt
¼ t baking soda
¼ t vanilla

Preheat oven to 300. Combine popcorn and peanuts (if using) in large baking sheet that has sides.

In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, margarine, syrup, and salt. Stir over medium heat until mixture boils. Cook without stirring 5 minutes more. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda and vanilla. Pour over popcorn and stir gently, coating popcorn. Bake at 300 for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, stir, and bake 5 minutes more. Remove from oven, stir, and carefully pour the popcorn on another large baking sheet. Stir carefully with fingers to separate while cooling. Serve when completely cooled.


That's Christopher Columbus the cow in the background, in case you were wondering.

And huge thanks to all the awesome Hooray Vegan testers: Cait (Cornfields and Cookies), Elizabeth, Erin (Sundays in the Kitchen with Betty), Heather (The Liberal Vegan), Jennifer, Kristy, Lila, Lisa (panda with cookie), Mary, Stephanie. Visit their blogs and Etsy shops!

I have some news.

I have been a bad web logger. Two weeks without a post? For shame. But VeganMofo (Vegan Month of Food, in which we write about food like mad) is soon, and I will be blogging my little heart out.

But that is not the news. This is:

1. I am making a zine! It will be out in a few months (there are wonderful testers hard at work), all proceeds will go to an animal-type charity, and it will be called Hooray Vegan Volume 1: Cures for Veganphobia.

2. I got a cake stand! This may seem like no huge deal, but I have wanted one for a long, long time. It seemed like a luxury. Why buy a cake stand when you can just stick it on a plate and cover it in foil? So it turns out it is a luxury, but almost a necessary one if you love to bake. I christened it with a pineapple upside down layer cake (a zine tester!), and it made a world of difference. This cake was a bit ugly (I couldn't find my pastry bags, so the only frosting is in the middle), but it looked so lovely once placed in its shiny new glass case. I would call this situation lipstick on a pig, but the cake was actually delicious, and probably better versed in foreign policy than certain Alaskan governors.

The cake was eaten too quickly for pictures, but I did manage to get a picture of the no bake cookies (another zine recipe) as they were cooling.


So good, so nostalgic. 

Anyway, look out for the zine, and get ready for Vegan Mofo. This fall is going to be great.