island burger

Liz, a terrific lady over at Cooking the Vegan Books, and a fellow cookbook tester, suggested I get Caribbean Vegan by Taymer Mason, since we share the love of island food and the love of Habaneros (or is that Scotch Bonnets?) 

I open up my adventure of this cookbook with a burger. Mikel asked for a burger to be on the menu and this satisfied both of us.

The Island Burger uses TVP for the burger base. Nice and easy, I thought, that is unless you are one of those people who cannot stand a huge list of ingredients; this one recipe has over 20 ingredients. I do not mind the list of ingredients since I know it can sometimes take a bunch seasonings to make a dish great.  As an additional work-load, you are asked to make one of the ingredients in the ingredients list - Bajan Seasoning.  There is also a recipe for the Barbecue Sauce that goes on the burger and a recipe for the bun - Salt Bread - that the burger goes on. 

Naturally, the only way to tackle a recipe with this much to do is to:

 (1) come to terms with it - it isn't going to get shorter unless you cut something out, but, then how do you know what to cut out without affecting the result? 

(2) plan to make it at the right time. Don't make a recipe like this in the middle of the week while the kids are crying for food and you've just come home from work. Which includes planning a Weekly Menu (name of this blog- check out the tab "Weekly Menu" to get some complete weekly menu ideas. Once you are good with both (1) and (2), the task isn't work, but instead becomes fun.

The recipes in this book feed my yearning for the fiery little pepper, but since I can't get Scotch Bonnet peppers as readily as Habanero peppers (and I can't really discern the difference between the two anyway- even Ghost Peppers have that same flavor profile to me), I use them interchangeably. 

It seems to be an authentic cookbook worthy of the islands and worth the effort. Many times cooking something out of your comfort zone can seem challenging. However, consider that once you have met the challenge the first time, you can easily do it again.

If you are jonesing for a burger, but you don't have this book, try this one.

ethiopian

When Tami, over at Vegan Appetite and author of American Vegan Kitchen, posted a contest for PaPa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food, I knew there was no way I was going to wait to just lose in the contest, so I hurried over to Kittee's blog to grab her zine. Besides, I knew I was going to have to have it, so I didn't want to take the chance away from someone else.

I love, love, love Ethiopian food and the complete lack of a vegan cookbook on the topic was depressing. Until this little zine came along.

She covers how to throw your own Ethiopia food party and gives you all the essential recipes to start cooking your Badookie off. 

She has a gluten-free injera, (flat-bread), recipe, the niter kibbeh, (flavorful cooking fat), recipe and a berbere paste recipe. It's all here to get you started. 

I made the injera, niter kibbeh (you can't skip it), dinich siquar allecha (sweet potatoes), ye'miser w'et (red lentils in spicy stew), and ye'takelt w'et (mixed vegetables in spicy stew). It was all amazing! The two w'ets used the same red spicy gravy, but they were still distinct enough that they were able to stand on their own. 

All vegan, all Ethiopian and all gluten-free. And leftovers? Just as amazing. But, like Kittee says, don't even entertain for a second to have it with rice. Although I've erred in the past regarding this, I now concur.

Dinich Siquar Allecha (Sweet Potatoes)

Ye'Takelt W'et (Mixed Veg in Spicy Gravy)

Ye'miser W'et (Red Lentils in Spicy Gravy) with Selata (Salad)