New recipes

I’m home alone again for a few weeks, but this time I’m trying to avoid the unhealthy laziness (and busy-ness) that took over last time Andy was away.

At the same time, I am fairly busy, and it’s stinking hot here... so I don’t want to spend heaps of time in the kitchen. So I’ve been trying out a few new recipes that don’t take much effort—I’ve found La Dolce Vegan a key resource for this style of cooking.

To use up the baby wombok from the fridge, I flipped through cookbook indexes until I found La Dolce Vegan’s Tomato Cabbage Soup. It was too hot for soup, so I left out the stock and served it over rice. I also added 5-spice powder, because I was using chinese cabbage and it just seemed appropriate. It was good, and took about 10 minutes on the stove.

With the leftover rice and the other half of cabbage, I put together a variation on Indonesian-Style Rice with Tempeh from Vegan Planet. Instead of tempeh, I crumbled up some seitan from the freezer. Topped with cucumber, this was a perfect meal for a hot day.

Cooking for one, at least for me, means constantly trying to keep up with using veggies before they go off. Somehow I ended up with about 12,000 potatoes (maybe I exaggerate) so to use them up I tried a recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance—Stewed Tofu and Potatoes in Miso Gravy. Instead of tofu, I used more seitan, and I added some corn to the mix as well. I expected this to be a very heavy meal, but I was pleasantly surprised. The combination of white wine, thyme and miso makes for a delicate and tangy gravy.

Expect even more new recipes in the weeks to come, as I've been taken on board by Urban Vegan as a tester for her upcoming cookbook!