Mar 5, 2011

chinatown scramble and coffee cake

Brunch

For today's brunch I continued to cook from American Vegan Kitchen for the Post Punk Kitchen Cookbook challenge and made Chinatown Scramble and Hubby's Home Fries. Mikel and Kate chose the scramble and I chose the home fries - you can't go wrong with anything endorsed by Jim.

The scramble calls for mushrooms, peppers, scallions, five-spice, bean sprouts and snap peas. I had a few adjustments to make, and as it was it was kick-butt-good; I'm sure if I had had the snap peas, bean sprouts and shiitaki, it would have been even better. David totally loved this and kept going back to the pan for more.

As predicted, Jim's Home Fries were fantastic. It is as simple as you can get with potatoes, but that is part of what makes them perfect. Even Cat, my picky potato person, loved it.

For a little bit of sweet I made Around-the-Clock Coffee Cake. I love coffee cake and this one lived up to my expectations. I added a half package of chocolate chips I had lying around.

A big typo here, though!
The pan the cookbook calls for is a 9 inch square pan. This is way too small and the batter needed to be baked in 2 such pans or equivalent. I wound up with half the cake on the bottom of my oven, so make sure to use a big enough pan. In any case, the outcome was worth a little mess - although the kids were disappointed to have lost half their sweet.

My pan was not deep enough, which is where my error, not AMK's error, was. I did wind up with half of the cake on the bottom of my oven, but that was because of my own fault, not American Vegan Kitchen's. My deepest regret to calling fire in the middle of a packed theatre and sounding a false alarm. Lesson learned the most difficult way: with cake on my face, as well as the oven.
My apologies, Tami!


Cost Breakdown

tofu: $2
spices, herbs: $1
onion, garlic, pepper: $2
mushroom, lime: $1
peas, ginger: $1
potato: $3
Total to make 5 serving of both:
$10.00






Mar 4, 2011

21st century tacos

Continuing with the American Vegan Kitchen and PPK cookbook challenge, today's dinner was 21st Century Tacos.

These are made with TVP granules, tomato sauce and spices.

Yeah, well, who does not know how to make a simple taco? and what is so special about this taco recipe? I was thinking the same thing when I was perusing her recipes. Luckily, I needed something pretty simple and quick to make and so I thought a taco recipe was ideal.

Like most of Tami's recipes, this one delivered with ease, simplicity and flavor. These surprised me. I thought I was going to make your old run-of-the-mill tacos, and instead I made a spicy (to taste), flavorful and totally gourmet taco filling. The toppings, of course, are up to you. I put lettuce, tomato, sour cream (vegan), olives and onions on mine. Fabulous!

I sauteed the reconstituted TVP before I added the tomato sauce to enhance the flavor more.

A note about Tami's recipes: while the list of ingredients are longer, most of the ingredients are spices and flavorings that need to be added at the same time. Just measure them into a small container and add them when needed.
When 7 out of the 10 ingredients are spices, the list only seems long.


Cost Breakdown

taco shells: $3
TVP: $1
tomato sauce, spices and flavorings: $3
toppings:  $2
onion, garlic, peppers: $1
Total to make 12 tacos;
$10.00