Cooking in my sister’s apartment

Small kitchen, but nice lighting

My sister just moved into a new place . . . her first one-bedroom apartment.  She was living in a teeny tiny efficiency apartment with a kitchen that was smaller than my bathroom.  Hell, the kitchen was smaller than her bathroom.  The whole place was roughly the size of my living room.

But that’s over now and she moved into a nice, medium-sized one bedroom in the suburbs of Minneapolis.  And she has what I would consider a real kitchen now.  It’s still on the smallish side, but workable.  It is a bit under-furnished compared to my kitchen.  But most people’s kitchens are, especially if they’re not wanna-be gourmet chefs like yours truly.

Her kitchen has the basics.  Which means I was back to cooking simple, supermarket friendly vegan food.  With no fancy appliances or co-ops that my sister was willing to drive me to, I had to cook with what was there.  And what was there ended up being the components to one of the best meals I’ve made in a long time.

Portabella Sandwich, Potatoes, and Olive Salad

I normally don’t like Portabellas.  I find them boring, cliche even.  I usually go for more interesting sandwich fillings . . . tofu with exotic marinades, sietan sliced thinly and grilled, sliced avocados, et cetera.  Portabellas are so pedestrian.  Every restaurant uses them to placate vegans because they don’t know what else to cook.  And then they butcher the preparation, leaving them whole so it feels like biting into a hunk of organ meat.  Ugh . . . My bad past experiences have led me to avoid them ever since.

The day I came up with this recipe, something struck me.  It’s easy.  It tastes good.  The ingredients are readily available.  And it’s certainly not your typical, pedestrian, just plain bad portabella mushroom sandwich.  That, and the side dish:  rosemary roasted fingerling potatoes balances out the strong, salty mushroom.  They have almost a creamy texture and flavor.

The potatoes couldn’t be simpler.  They hardly warrant a formal recipe.  I never use one, anyway.

Get a bag of fingerling potatoes.  I’m not sure what size.  It looked like a pound or a pound and a half . . . something like that.  If they’re the fat kind of fingerlings, cut the big ones in half lengthwise.  Otherwise, just leave them whole.  Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.  Throw the potatoes into a bowl.  Pour a few tablespoons of oil over them, a combination of olive oil and canola oil.  (We’re roasting these a bit too hot for just olive oil alone.)  Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.  Add 1-2 teaspoons of rosemary, crushing it with your fingertips.  Toss all this together.  Dump it into either a 9×13 pan or a large, rimmed sheet pan.  Roast for 20 minutes.  Stir them around and roast for another 5 to 15 minutes, depending on how thick your ‘taters are.  TA DA! They’re done.  Eat ‘em up!

As for the Mushroom sandwich . . . that’s a bit more complicated.

Portabella Mushroom Sandwich with Grilled Onions

Ingredients:

The Marinade:

• 1-inch chunk ginger, peeled
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce or tamari or shoyu (whichever you have)
• 1 tablespoon lime juice (or rice vinegar in a pinch)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

The Rest

• 2 5 to 6-inch portabella mushroom caps
• 1 loaf ciabatta bread
• 1 tomato, sliced
• 1 small onion, cut into 1/2 inch thick rounds
• alfalfa sprouts
• olive oil for brushing

The Method

Gills up, y'all!

Grate the ginger and garlic with a microplane or other fine grater over a small bowl.  Add the rest of the marinade ingredients and whisk together.

Take the center stem out of the portabellas, it gets too tough when cooked; place them, gill-side up, into a wide, flat dish (a pie pan or a baking dish should work nicely).  Whisk the marinade one more time and pour it evenly over the mushrooms.  Let these hang out for 20 to 30 minutes.  Move them around occasionally so that the marinade gets everywhere and really penetrates the mushrooms.  (I love it when I can use the word ‘penetrate’ in a recipe.)

The onions and shrooms are almost done!

Heat a large skillet over medium heat.  Cast iron works best, but nonstick is okay, too.  If you’re using cast iron, add a little bit of extra oil here, a couple teaspoons should do.  When it’s good and hot, put the mushrooms in, gill-side down first.  Next to the mushrooms, put two slices of onion in the pan.

This is a good time to warm up your bread in the oven . . . which I definitely suggest.

Let the mushrooms and onions cook undisturbed for five minutes and then flip everything over.  Let this cook for 4 to 5 more minutes depending on the size and freshness of your mushrooms.  When the portabellas are done, they should be nice and golden brown on the top like in the above photo.

Move the onions and portabella caps out of the pan and on to a cutting board to let them cool a bit.  This is when I slice the tomatoes and take the bread out of the oven and cut it into sandwich-sized chunks and split it in half.  I usually get 3 or 4 sandwiches out of one loaf of ciabatta, depending on how big it is.  This recipe is only for two sandwiches, so you’ll have leftovers.  You can use ciabatta rolls, if you like though . . . anyway . . .

Slice the portabella caps on a bias.  Meaning, cut them into strips, but hold the knife at roughly a 45 degree angle against the board.  It’s easiest to use a fork to hold the mushroom in place while you cut it.

Brush soft interior of the ciabatta with olive oil.  For each sandwich, place a sliced portabella cap, a few rings of onion (probably not the whole slice), two or three slices of tomato, and a good fat pinch of alfalfa sprouts.  Cap the sandwich and eat!  Om nom nom . . .

This recipe makes 2 sandwiches.

If you’re making the roasted potatoes with this sandwich, it’s best to start the mushrooms marinating and then deal with the potatoes and get them in the oven.  Once the potatoes have baked for 20 minutes, you can put your mushrooms and onions in the pan.  Then it all comes together quite nicely.

My sister and I ate the sandwiches and potatoes with some olive salad we picked up at the grocery store.  The supermarket close to her place has an olive bar . . . and we loooooove olives.  Feel free to substitute this with some green leafy salad or other salads.

My triumphant return!!!

Howdy!

I haven’t blogged in a while . . . I know. I’ve been busy with school and personal things. And I was convinced that I wasn’t good enough for you all . . . (sob sob).

Anyway! I’d like to announce my triumphant return! I have photos for two new posts on the way! YAY! Some new, delicious recipes. And lots of snarky comments!

Write to y’all soon.

<3 Kate

PS: I have pink hair now!

Ugly Food

I was feeling lazy last night.  All I wanted to do was put warm food in my mouth and watch a movie.  Problem was I didn’t have anything I could just warm up and eat . . . which meant I had to cook.

I groaned at the thought.  I’d been grocery shopping all day and had tons of interesting food laying around my house but no energy to put ingredients together into a meal.  Eventually, I dragged myself into the kitchen and decided to make the laziest food I know how to:  Hobo Packets.

I don’t know if the term “hobo packets” is politically correct.  I don’t really care.  I can tell you that they taste pretty good though.  There are lots of variations on them.  The method is mostly referred to as “packet cooking” in general.  But hobo packets, in my mind, are specific type of packet cooking involving variations on a set of ingredients:

• cheap, readily available protein (usually hamburger)
• onions
• roasting vegetables (usually carrots)
• potatoes
• sauce

I’ve encountered several recipes for hobo packets.  Most of them cite the reasoning for the name “hobo packets” is that they are made of cheap food, can be cooked on just about any heat source, and you don’t need a plate to eat them off of, you just eat them right out of the foil!  So, they’re designed by/for those people who don’t have proper kitchens to cook in . . . hobos, really.

Because of this, these make awesome camp food.  You don’t have to cook them in the oven  as instructed here.  You can just bury them in the hot coals of a campfire for an hour or so.  Like I said, just about any heat source will work.  And you can make the packets themselves in your kitchen before you leave, store them in a cooler and then just cook them up at dinnertime.

The concept was pretty easy to veganize, since the only non-vegan ingredient in them was meat and there are TONS of meat substitutes available on the market.

Just as a note, I don’t know that I would recommend subbing tofu in this dish for the faux meat.  This is a wet cooking method.  And I find that tofu has a more pleasing texture when it is fried or baked.  Maybe thawed frozen tofu would work?  But I haven’t tried it.

As I said, I was being lazy last night.  So I made ugly food and when I took photos of it, I made no effort to make them look good.  I didn’t frame well, I used a flash, it was kind of like I was trying to take bad pictures.  Today, I photoshopped them . . . to make them look like lomography!  (It’s one of my favorite techniques and the tutorial I base my technique on can be found here.)  Be sure to click on the pictures in this post, they get bigger and they’re prettier that way.

So, without further adieu, it’s time for a lomographic adventure through . . .

Hobo Packets!

I make my hobo packets with two components, the food component and the sauce component.  When all the vegetables cook in the packet, they leak out flavor all over the place and add to the flavor of the sauce that ends up in the bottom of the packet.  I layer my ingredients in a specific way . . . kind of.  They fall all over the place anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

Food Stuffs:

• Vegan Meaty substitute, either a patty made of 1/4 tube of light life hamburger substitute or 1/2 a bag of Morningstar Farms chik’n strips (or try other things . . . whatever you have laying around, really)
• 1/2 a medium onion, thickly sliced
• a handful of baby carrots or 1 large carrot cut into large chunks
• 3 large mushrooms, quartered, or 6 smaller ones halved
• 1 medium sized potato, roughly cubed into about 3/4 to 1 inch pieces

Sauce Things

• extra virgin olive oil
• Annie’s BBQ sauce (oh so good!)
• tamari, soy sauce, braggs, or shoyu
• hot sauce (optional)
• salt and pepper

Here’s what you do . . .

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Get yourself a big ol’ piece of aluminum foil, about 18 inches long or so.  I put it right on top of a cookie sheet, even if it’s bigger than the pan, just so I don’t have to move over there later.  Then, schmere about a tablespoon of olive oil in the middle, making a puddle big enough to put your fake meat on, about 5 inches in diameter.

Now, put your meat on top of the puddle.  Lay your slices of onion on top.  Then put the carrots on top of the onions.  At this point, you’ll probably want to start pinching the sides of the foil together so you’ve got yourself a little bowl shape.  After about the third layer, ingredients start falling all over the place, and if they do that, the packet gets really difficult to seal at the last step.  I also throw some salt and pepper on at this point, just to season up the aromatic vegetables.  The salt also helps them expel some water when they’re cooking.

Now put the mushrooms on top of the carrots and the potato cubes on top of those.  Ta da!  All of you food components are in the packet.  Now it’s time for the saucing.

Start by putting another sprinkling of salt and pepper on top.  You need to make sure everything is very well seasoned, otherwise your packet will be bland.  No one wants a bland packet . . . that sounds dirty . . . moving on . . .

Really, you can use any sort of sauces you want on top.  The one’s I’ve listed in the ingredients section are what I’ve found make the best sauce for this dish.  Feel free to experiment.

Drizzle everything with a good dose of olive oil, a tablespoon or two.  Next shake on some soy sauce.  Just a teaspoon or so.  Then, pour on 2 to 3 tablespoons of the barbecue sauce.  Lastly, add some hot sauce if you’d like to give it a kick.  It’s okay that all of this ends up on the potatoes.  It all slides down through the vegetables, picking up flavor on the way, and simmers through your protein of choice.  Because the packet is sealed, it circulates all the flavors are locked in and sort of percolate through your food.

Next, you need to seal the packet really, really well.  Crimp the edges of the foil all the way around the food two or three times to prevent all the delicious from escaping.  If your packet is already on a cookie sheet like I advised, great!  If not, put it on one.  Then stick it in your preheated oven.  This bakes for 1 hour.

Yeah, it takes a while, but it’s worth it.  Go start a DVD while you wait.  If you’re really hungry, make yourself a side salad like I did.

When your hobo packet comes out of the oven, let it sit and cool for at least five minutes.  Ten would be better.  Then put it on a plate and carefully open it up.  There’s a lot of steam in there, and you don’t want it burning you in the face.  Make a little bowl out of your aluminum foil and and eat!

The quantities I gave you up above make a lot of food.  So, if you’re not really hungry, use less.  I was FULL after I ate the whole packet last night.  Granted, I did have a salad beforehand.

Oh, the sauce is really the secret to this meal.  The sauce ingredients seep through all the vegetables and pick up all kinds of deliciousness.  There’s a good puddle of awesomesauce at the bottom these packets once they’re baked.  Usually, after I’m done eating, I sit there licking the sauce up with my fingers.  Classy, I know, but it’s soooooo gooooood!

In the end, this recipe did the job of satisfying my craving for warm, simple food while I curled up in a blanket on my sofa, watched Rushmore, and drank a whiskey sour.

Double Mocha Chip Cookies

I <3 Caffeine

I love coffee.

I love chocolate.

I love coffee and chocolate together.

I remember the first time I had chocolate covered espresso beans.  I bought a big box of them from Trader Joe’s because I thought they’d be a good study snack.  I sat down at my desk and tossed a couple into my mouth.  Chewing, my eyes grew wide with excitement.  “They tastes like mochas!” I said, smiling a big, goofy, open-mouthed grin.  I continued snacking on them while studying.  Sometime later, around midnight, I realized I’d eaten half the box . . . it was then I remembered that they were caffeinated . . .

Yeah.

In preparation for the fast-approaching school year, I’m working on my caffeinated study snacks.  In general, it’s difficult to find truly vegan chocolate covered espresso beans.  So my latest attempt is a cookie based on the flavors of those delicious nuggets of joy.

There’s an ingredient in there that may be a surprise:  ground coffee.  Yes, you can eat coffee beans.  No, the texture isn’t off putting.  Yes, there is a lot of caffeine in them . . . that’s why they’re in there.  You want to use a really high quality coffee in this recipe.  You’re going to be tasting the beans themselves, not just a drink brewed from them, so they better taste pretty damn good.  I used Peace Coffee French Roast beans.  They’re my favorite, and I’m a fan of ethical coffee.

This recipe is based on one I found on VegWeb a while ago and have been using pretty much exclusively for my chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies are pretty much the standard when it comes to vegan cookies.  So they made a good base for this recipe.

Ingredients:

The Dry . . .

• 2 cups unbleached flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 – 1 cup vegan semisweet chocolate chips
• scant 1/4 cup good quality coffee beans

The Wet . . .

• 4 tablespoons instant espresso
• 1/4 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup granulated unrefined sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar or sucanat
• 1/2 cup light flavored oil (vegetable or canola)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/4 cup cold water

Method:

The Dry . . .

Your beans should look about like this. Click to enlarge.

(Before you start mixing your dry ingredients, it’s a good time to put the kettle on the stove for the boiling water you’ll need in the next step.)

Preheat your oven to 35o degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder together until thoroughly combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.

In a good ol’ fashioned blade style coffee grinder, give the coffee beans about 5 1-second pulses.  I shake the coffee grinder a bit between each pulse, just to make sure things are more or less evenly ground. You want a really coarse grind on the beans, but you don’t want chunks so big that when you bite into the cookie you feel like you’re crunching into beetles or something . . . eeew.

Stir your ground coffee into the rest of the dry ingredients and dig yourself a nice little well in the center.  That’s where you’ll be pouring your wet ingredients later.  Set the bowl aside.

The Wet . . .

In a small bowl, mix the instant espresso powder with the boiling water and stir.  Set this aside so it can cool.

In a medium size bowl, mix the granulated sugar and the brown sugar.  Add the oil and stir very, very well.  Stir in vanilla.  Add the water to your espresso mixture to cool it down, and pour this into the bowl, mix well.  I use a whisk at this point to get everything emulsified.

What you should have now is a very dark looking syrupy mixture.  It’s delicious . . . taste some, I dare you.  It’s like pure espresso/sugar madness!  Anyway . . .

The Rest . . .

Pour your wet mixture into the dry mixture.  Mix well.  You may need to use your hands because this makes a very stiff, very sticky dough.

Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.  Using your hands, take about three tablespoons of dough and make a rough ball.  It should be a bit larger than a golf ball.  It doesn’t have to be perfect, you’ll be squishing these in a moment anyway.

As a side note, the chocolate chips don’t like to stick to the dough very well, so be sure to bury enough of them into each ball so that there is a goodly amount of chocolate in each cookie.

Because these cookies don’t spread very much, and come out of the oven about the same shape as they went in, you’re going to need to squish them.  Using something flat, in my case, the bottom of a stainless steel measuring cup, squish the balls of dough down to about 1/2 an inch of thickness.  Again, they don’t spread very much, so you don’t need to worry about having much space between them 1/2 – 1 inch is fine.

As a hint, the dough likes to stick to anything it can, including what you’ll be using to flatten it with.  What I discovered (after I squished the first pan of cookies) is that using another piece of parchment paper on the bottom of your squishing device works wonders for getting them to release cleanly.

Bake at 35o for 10 minutes.  Turn the pan around about half way through the baking time if your oven tends to bake unevenly.  You want these to be soft when they come out of the oven.  I baked my first batch a little too long and now they’re a little firmer than I had hoped.  If you like firm cookies that are quite suitable for dunking, bake these 2-3 minutes longer.

See, not much bigger than when they went in.

When they come out of the oven, allow them to rest on the pan for 2 minutes.  Then, transfer them to a cooling rack. and allow them to cool completely (yeah, right) before indulging.

Yields 20-24 cookies.

These are VERY caffeinated.  The espresso concentrate is about 10 shots worth . . . and then there’s the coffee beans . . . and the chocolate.  I haven’t calculated how much caffeine is in each cookie, and I don’t really want to.  All I know is that when I sampled one, I was quite alert afterward.  Still am.  That’s why I’m blogging in stead of sleeping.

Bonus:  This is Mr. Lucky.  He’s trying to “help” me take good pictures for the blog . . .

I'm helping!

UPDATE!

Oh lordy these are good.  After they cooled, I stuck the cookies in a freezer bag and put them in the fridge because I like it when the chocolate resolidifies in my chocolate chip cookies.  When the flavors blended overnight in the fridge these got SO TASTY!

I thought they were kind of mediocre when I tasted them last night but my good christ these are delicious.  And the ground coffee in combination with the chocolate chips makes these taste like there’s bits of chocolate covered espresso beans in them.

OMG I wanna go eat the whole batch!

Just another quick note . . .

Using the internet, I did go and estimate the caffeine content of these cookies.  I couldn’t find statistics on the caffeine content of just coffee beans that weren’t brewed, so I’m guessing based on chocolate covered coffee beans.  My estimation is that these have somewhere between 60 and 80 milligrams of caffeine per cookie.  Two cookies contain more than a cup of coffee.

I ate two this morning in stead of drinking coffee . . .   And then I had one at work when I was on break.

Snackies

I'm feeling snacky . . .

Lately, I haven’t been interested in eating “real” meals.  I just want to eat snack food.  Not necessarily junk food, but snacks . . . Or what they’d serve you in a restaurant and call appetizers.  The awesome thing about snack foods is that they are really easy to make.  Also, when you make a meal out of small snacks, you can satisfy a lot of cravings at the same time.

Yesterday, I felt like eating edamame.  And also felt like having tortilla chips and hot sauce.  And also wanted a strawberry milkshake . . . at the same time.  Which led to the array of snack food you see in the photo above.

Edamame:

• 1/2 of a 12 ounce bag of frozen edamame, in the shell
• sea salt
• tamari (or soy/shoyu)
• sriracha hot sauce
• sesame seeds

Steam the edamame for 3 minutes.  (You can boil them or microwave them according to the package directions, but steaming keeps the nutrition in the beans.)  I use a big bamboo steamer, because it looks impressive . . . and it’s the only steamer I have.  Transfer the edamame to a medium size mixing bowl.  Sprinkle with sea salt, shake on a teaspoon or two of tamari, squirt on about a teaspoon of sriracha and shake on a teaspoon or two of sesame seeds.  Toss to coat all the bean pods.  Transfer to a serving dish (I use the mixing bowl to throw my shells in later) and allow to cool a bit.  Serves 1-2

Edamame can be served hot, room temperature, or chilled.  Whatever you like.  For that particular mix of seasonings, I like it to be warm to room temp.

Edamame can be a little tricky to figure out, so if you’ve never eaten it before, here’s what you do.  First, suck all the seasoning off the outside of the pod (I don’t know if you’re supposed to do this, but it certainly tastes better this way).  Then, pop the beans out of the shell and eat them.  Lastly, throw the shells away.  If you have edamame at a restaurant, they’ll usually give you a separate bowl to throw them into.  Like I said, when I’m eating it at home, alone, I just use the bowl I used to season them in.  If you serve this at a party, or for someone you’re trying to impress . . . use a clean bowl, okay?

Tortilla Chips

I like to make my own tortilla chips.  They’re better for you and they come out all warm and toasty.  Also, you can control the amount of salt/other seasonings on them.  Here’s how to make one serving of tortilla chips for snack time . . .

• One 8 inch tortilla, cut into 8 wedges
• Canola oil in a spray can (I use Spectrum)
• salt

Heat a toaster oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (I’d guess that you can use a regular oven for this, but I never do).  Line the toaster oven’s baking pan with heavy duty aluminum foil and then spray it very well with the canola oil spray.  Arrange your tortilla wedges on the pan so they are in one layer.  Spray both sides of the tortilla wedges with oil and then sprinkle salt on them.  They don’t need much, so don’t go overboard.  Bake until they are golden brown and crispy.  Usually, this takes about 10 minutes.

You can use any sort of tortillas you like for this.  I’ve been successful with flour, whole wheat, and corn tortillas.  The ones in the photo there are some tortillas I got from Target that I’m trying to use up because they’re not all that good . . . they didn’t make very good chips either.  But as long as you start with a tortilla that tastes pretty good, you’ll end up with good home-baked tortilla chips.  You can dip these in salsa or hummus . . . or do what I do and just put hot sauce all over them.

I swear I’m addicted to hot sauce.

A Strawberry Milk Shake

• 3/4 cup soy milk (less if you like it thicker and have a REALLY good blender)
• 1/2 cup vanilla soy yogurt
• 6-8 Frozen strawberries
• 1 Tablespoon Agave Nectar (or maple syrup . . . or sugar, whatever sweetener you like, really)
• A handful or so of ice

Put everything into a blender and blend.  Really guys, it’s a milkshake.  It’s not that complicated.

So then, once I had all these snacks made, I decided it was movie time!  What goes better with snacks than a good movie.  So I put Shawshank Redemption in the DVD player and settled in.  About two minutes into watching Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman battle corruption at a New England prison . . . I wanted popcorn.  Not just any kind of popcorn . . . cheezy popcorn . . .

Cheezy Popcorn

• 1/4 cup popcorn kernels, popped
• 2 tablespoons margarine, melted
• nutritional yeast
• salt

Pop your popcorn however you see fit.  I like to do it on the stove, but you can use an air popper if you so desire.  Put your popped corn into a big mixing bowl and then drizzle it with the margarine while mixing.  Once you’ve got it mixed really well, start sprinkling on nutritional yeast and salt.  I used about 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast and half a teaspoon of salt in total.  Use your judgment.  Taste it and adjust your seasonings until it’s delicious!  This definitely makes enough for two people, possibly three or four.  I couldn’t get through half the bowl.  Of course . . . I did have other snacks occupying my tummy space.

Let’s fast forward to today when I started getting hungry for lunch.  Again, I didn’t want a meal sort of thing.  But you know what did sound good . . . barbecued fake chicken wings, like the ones they have at Chicago Diner.  The unfortunate thing is that I am nowhere near Chicago Diner.  Despite the fact that those barbecue wings are totally worth driving 8 hours for, I have neither a car nor the funds to do such a thing.  Sigh . . . So, I made my own.

Sticky . . . smoky . . . om nom nom!

This is one of the more complicated snack foods, because it involves making two sauces and then the actual faux chicken pieces.  So I made it a bit easier on myself by using the frozen fake chicken strips that Morningstar Farms makes.  As much as I hate to admit it, I usually have a bag of them in my freezer for quick meals and when I get a serious protein jones.

Vegan Ranch Dressing

I don’t know a former omni vegan out there who doesn’t seriously miss ranch dressing.  So I’ve been working on perfecting my vegan ranch for years now.  I think I’m getting closer with this one.  This version requires a food processor.  My food processor came with a mini work bowl, so I used that, because this recipe doesn’t make very much.  If you have one of those mini food processors, that will probably work, too.  You’d probably be able to get away with using a blender.  I haven’t tried it, though, so attempt at your own risk.

• 2-3 cloves garlic, peels removed
• 1/2 cup vegenaise
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon ground mustard
• 2-4 tablespoons unsweetened soy milk
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley

Place garlic in the small bowl of a food processor and pulse a couple times to chop it up a bit.  The garlic doesn’t have to be minced to perfection just yet, so don’t worry about it too much.  Add the vegenaise, onion powder, salt, pepper, and ground mustard.  Process for about 30 seconds, scrape down the sides, and process for about 30 seconds more.  Scrape down the sides again and start the food processor, with the machine running, slowly add about a tablespoon of soy milk (you can add more later if you’d like your dressing thinner).  Scrape down the sides yet again and yet again, start up the food processor.  SLOWLY stream in the olive oil (if your machine doesn’t have a feed tube, just add a little bit at a time and scrape down the sides each time you stop the processor).  The oil needs to be emulsified into the dressing.  Granted, this shouldn’t be too difficult because there’s already mustard and vegenaise in the dressing, but I just like to be sure, so I add it very slowly.  Add in the sugar (raw garlic has a pretty sharp bite, this cuts it down just a little).  If you’d like your dressing thinner, now’s the time to add more soy milk, just don’t go too crazy.  No one likes watery ranch dressing.  Once all this looks like dressing, scrape down the sides one more time and taste.  Adjust the seasoning if you see fit and add the dried parsley.  Pulse a couple times to get it mixed in (it’s mostly for color) don’t leave the processor running too long, though.  You don’t want green dressing.

Scrape all this into a bowl and let it hang out in the refrigerator so the flavors can blend while you make the rest of the dish.

Kate’s Famous BBQ Sauce

I like my barbecue sauce sticky, sweet, and smoky.  This is a good sauce to use when you’re coating some sort of meat replacement that’s going to be cooked a bit longer.  What I’m saying is that this sauce should be cooked further once it’s cooked.  I’ve been making versions of this sauce for years, and it’s really really good when it gets to caramelize a bit.

• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon prepared mustard
• big ol’ pinch of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
• 1 tablespoon molasses

In a small, microwave safe bowl, mix the ketchup and brown sugar first.  Then, add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.  Microwave on high for one minute, stirring about half way through.  Set aside.

Barbecued Faux Chicken sticks with Ranch Dressing

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• salt
• 1/2 of an 8 ounce package of Morning Star Farms’ Chik’n Strips Meal starters
• One recipe Kate’s Famous BBQ Sauce (No, you can’t substitute bottled barbecue sauce, it doesn’t work.)
• Vegan Ranch Dressing for dipping

Heat an 8 inch skillet over medium heat, add the oil and sprinkle it with a little salt (this keeps the chik’n strips from sticking to a stainless steel pan.  I don’t know why it works, I just know that it does).  Once heated, add the chik’n strips.  Cook these, turning occasionally, until they start to turn a deep brown color (I even let some of them get a little blackened, they’re good that way).  Once cooked, turn the heat down a bit and add the BBQ sauce.  This will sputter and spit at you, so be careful.  Cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce has thickened considerably.  You should be able to pile everything in the middle of the pan and the sauce won’t run out to the edges.  Pile this on a serving plate and let it cool a bit before you eat it.  Serve with some of the Vegan Ranch Dressing for dipping.  Serves 1-2.

Granted these aren’t the same as the ones at Chicago Diner, but they definitely satisfy that craving and they’re friggin’ tasty.  You can eat them with your hands if you’re brave or with fork if you’re blogging while eating them (oh god, they were good).  Also, feel free to drench them with a good Louisiana style hot sauce (like me) if you like a spicy barbecue flavor, or if you’re just addicted to hot sauce (like me).