I know, I know, it’s lame that my triumphant return to blogging is sans photo, but I just perfected my new tofu scramble recipe, and it was so good that I forgot to take a picture.

This recipe is my attempt to recreate a tofu scramble that we were served at The Gentle Gourmet, a vegan B&B in Paris. We visited about a month ago, and I finally think that I have out amazing host’s recipe down.The real trick is that it’s more of a hash than a regular tofu scramble. I use firm tofu that isn’t packed in water (you can get it blocks at either Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s). I’ve figured out that this is the way to go as far as tofu is concerned, because you just have to give it a quick squeeze to release any excess moisture, instead of having to press out the liquid for 15 minutes.

Le Scamble de Tofu

1 c. potatoes, diced

4 oz. of tofu cut into 1/4″ cubes and dredged in cornstarch

1/4 bell pepper, cut into slivers

4 medium-sized mushrooms, sliced

1/2 c. frozen spinach (that’s 1/2 c. while it’s still frozen).

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1/4 tsp. dried minced garlic

1 tsp.  sea salt

1/4 tsp. dried thyme

1. Dice potatoes, cut peppers, and slice mushrooms. Then, take the frozen spinach and defrost under warm running water.

2. Add  2 tsp oil and garlic to a skillet, heat over high heat, tilting the pan to coat. Add the potatoes and cook for 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the thyme and black pepper.

3. Coat the tofu in cornstarch and add to the pan, along with the mushrooms. Cook for another 4-5 minutes, until the mushrooms begin to sweat and the tofu starts to brown.

4. Add the peppers and cook an additional 2 minutes, then add the spinach and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated (about 3 minutes).

5. Season with sea salt to taste and serve.

Anyone who knew me between the years 2000 and 2004 can probably attest to my love of Applebees, specifically their apple chimi-cheesecakes. Let me break it down for you: they take about half a pound of cheesecake filling, toss in some glazed apples (you know, to make it healthy), wrap it up in a giant flour tortilla, deep fry it, and roll it in cinnamon. You may think that they stop there, but you still have to add a scoop of full-fat vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of caramel sauce. I would estimate that it comes in at 1000 calories, safely.

As a complete tangent, I was just looking up nutritional information online. Applebees has discontinued the chimicheesecake ( a responsible choice IMHO). However, this bullshit site has a user-submitted recipe that they claim comes in at 140 calories. I was so infuriated that I created an account to respond. I mean, come on, a tortilla has 120 all by itself.

Anyway, I made a vegan version that is much lighter, but still not something I would reccomend for the faint of heart. We had it on New Years Eve and paired it with When Harry Met Sally (which was actually a brilliant combination).

A conundrum exists when it comes to chocolate chip cookies at Christmas. On the one hand, they are delicious and always seem to disappear faster than the other cookies. On the other hand, they don’t feel very festive or Christmas-y. Every year, I assemble a Christmas Cookie tray and fill it with different types of Christmas cookies, and every year without fail, chocolate chip makes the cut.  In a way, they are my fallback cookie, in case all of the other cookies come out tasting like dirt. They’re also easily the most accessible of all vegan cookies, because everybody is used to them. A chocolate chip vegan cookie is a must easier sell than, say, a pressed spritz cookie with naturally-colored vegan sprinkles. With chocolate chip, there’s no explaining or hard sell; people just pick them up and munch away.

For these particular chip-filled little darlings, I veganized a reduced-fat recipe by substituting egg replacer for the egg whites (yes, the original recipe uses egg-whites) and using earth balance instead of butter. Helpful hint: melting the butter before using it allows you to use less. It’s some kind of miracle of science or physics that allows you to cut the fat in the recipe, which is a good thing because you will want to eat twice as many of these cookies. They are seriously that good.

Oh my. When the special Holiday menu went up in place of the vegan taquería sign at the Venice Whole Foods, I was worried that it had gone away forever. But, the food never seems to have disappeared and the sign is back. If you are looking for a place to enjoy delicious vegan Mexican food, then you need look no further than that Venice Whole Foods. They have nachos, tacos, and burritos, all made with a blend of gardein vegan “chicken” and peppers.

My nachos consisted of tofu, black beans, daiya, salsa, and guacamole, and they were AMAZING. At 7.99 a pound, they seemed a little pricey, but I’m getting so used to Whole Food’s pricing structure that I don’t even bat an eyelash at this point. I think we can all agree that Nachos are one of the few foods that are always better when someone else makes them.  So, I’m going to urge you to run, not walk, to Whole Foods and order up some vegan nachos, tacos, or quesadillas, because if they continue to sell, Whole Foods will continue to offer them, and I can rest easily knowing I have a vegan nacho hookup whenever I need it.

Without really meaning to, I turned last week into kind of a curry-themed  week. We started off with delicious samosas and rounded out our week with a Thai coconut curry(more on that later).  Having eaten my fair share of samosas, I decided that I was obviously qualified to make my own. Rather than rolling out my own dough, decided to take the shortcut of using frozen pastry squares. I did a minimal amount of internet research to put together this recipe, which worked out well as far as the potato filling was concerned. However, I really wish that I had watched some sort of youtube video on how to assemble the little bastards. I started my first samosa will a rolled-over architecture that ended up pushing filling everywhere. Then, my boyfriend modified the technique by creating little pastry purses. They held up better during the stuffing process, but opened up in a very strange way during baking. Luckily, they were absolutely delicious, so they didn’t last long enough for me to really notice how weird they looked. That realization only came a few minutes ago while I was reviewing my pictures.

It’s worth a tangent to discuss the accompanying mango chutney. I’ve heard of mango chutney on all the fancy-pants food network shows, as it seems that chefs are always serving things like “spicy habenero elephant tusk…. with mango chutney” or “tandoori fois gras….with mango chutney” or “roasted duck liver with shaved fennel…..and (wait for it) mango chutney!”. They made it seem like a big deal, so when I was at the Samosa House grocery section and saw a jar of this most-precious condiment, I snapped it up. Now, sometimes I build foods up in my head so much that they are sure to be disappointing when I finally try them. Mango chutney was not one of those foods. It was sweet and refreshing and delicious. I actually could have kicked up the spice a notch on my samosas, because the mango chutney possesses some kind of mystical g cooling property.

Currently, I would list my favorite dish as tofu lettuce wraps. I found a recipe on the Whole Foods i-phone application and decided that I had to give it a try. During my preparations, I discovered hoison sauce, which is possibly the most perfect sauce ever created. It’s sometimes referred to as Asian barbeque sauce, and it’s a key ingredient in the lettuce wrap filling in addition to being used as a dipping sauce after assembly. These lettuce wraps are ridiculously easy to make, and you can check out the recipe for yourself here. When I made them for a party, my secret ingredient was an extra cup of bean sprouts, which I added with the other vegetables. It added a nice extra crunch to the filling, and bean sprouts are just plain delicious.

Oh Paula Dean, how I envy you sometimes. Unbound by concerns for health or ethical food, you blazenly start every  dish with butter, sugar, and shortening. You laugh in the face of high cholesterol and heart disease when you add bacon to everything. You’ve never met a fry daddy you didn’t love. To be clear, I love Paula Dean, and I have read from more than one source that she doesn’t eat her signature food all the time. I believe her, because if she did, she would way 800 pounds and she does not. I also have to give Paula credit, because all of her recipes perfectly capture the audacity of American southern cooking. Naturally, when I wanted to make authentic beignets for Christmas Breakfast, I turned to the master. I took Paula’s recipe for cafe do monde beignets and appropriately veganized it. It was fairly straightforward, and I think that you can achieve good results with the following steps.

1. Replace the eggs with egg replacer powder and pre-mix it before adding to the evaporated milk.

2. To make evaporated soy milk, take 2 cups of soy milk and bring them to a simmer. Let it boil on the stove for 20 minutes, or until it reduces to half its original size.

3. For god’s sake, cut this recipe in half, because even then it made over 2 dozen beignets, and they do not reheat or keep well.

You may have noticed a lack of posts around here lately, and that’s because things have been ridiculous. In addition to working (which would be enough to keep anyone else busy), December has been filled with Christmas shopping, cookies, and lots of working out to make up for aforementioned cookies. I had the Vegan Ladies of LA over for a Vegan Cookie Exchange, which was a tremendous amount of fun. It’s been a real whirlwind of activities, and here we are on Christmas Eve. I just mixed up a very special recipe that I am going to share with you all: Coquito. As I understand it, Coquito is a Puerto Rican egg-nog-ish drink made with plenty of coconut milk. My mom makes it at Christmas, and it’s always delicious. Coquito is best served chilled over ice (this is to mask the taste of the rum), with a sprinkling of cinnamon and nutmeg. It is literally like Christmas exploded in your mouth, so you’d better enjoy, or you may find yourself the center of the classic Christmas Carol Trope.

one pumpkin pancake recipe to rule them all

I already have one pumpkin pancake recipe, and it’s pretty good: rich, pumpkin-y, not too sweet. It uses molasses, which at the time of recipe-creation, was something I always had lying around the house. Now I’ve finally managed to clear the multiple bottles of molasses out of my cupboard, but that doesn’t mean that the pumpkin pancakes need to stop. So, I came up with a new and improved pumpkin pancake recipe. These pancakes are amazing. They’re light and fluffy while still providing the intoxicating tastes and aromas that pumpkin has to offer.

This recipe makes an obscene number of pancakes, 20 to be exact, but that gives me an opportunity to share my perfect pancake freezing tip. Let the pancakes cool to room temperature, and then cut squares of parchment paper, a little smaller than the pancakes themselves. Layer a pancake, a piece of parchment paper, and another pancake. Keep going until you have a stack tall enough that it fits snugly inside of a plastic bag, and slip them inside. When it’s time to reheat, there will be no frozen stuck-together pancakes.  Also, you can reuse the pastic bags as often as you like, since they’re just pancake-freezing vessles now.