Vegan Start — Making it a bit easier to eat with a conscience

Fortune Cookies

by Rena on March 5, 2012

Every year I try to come up with something new and fun for Mishloach Manot, for Purim. Last year, I made caramel apples, and did a whole clown theme. This year I’m making Chinese food. If I’m making Chinese food, what could be more fun than fortune cookies? Like my hamatashen, this recipe didn’t come easily to me. After a few trials and errors this is the final product.

1/2 c. flour
1/3 c. + 2 tbsp. sugar
1/3 c. water
3 tbsp. oil
1 tsp. almond extract
1/2 tsp. salt

Mix ingredients together.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Pour tablespoon fulls of batter and spread to round circles, about 2 inches in diameter. (Only make 2-3 at a time)

Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until edges start to brown.

Lift cookies with spatula, place fortune in center and gently fold in half.

Lean bottom center on edge of bowl to bring points down.

Cool in muffin tin until hardened.

You need to make only a couple at a time because they harden pretty quickly once they are out of the oven. If you make too many, you’ll be left with a bunch of hard cookies that will still taste good, but there will be no way to stick in a fortune.

These little suckers are going to accompany fried rice and vegetable stir fry made with seitan. My daughter wants to decorate more cupcakes, so we’ll be sticking some of those in too. I know, it breaks the theme, but I don’t think anyone will really mind.

I like to make whole meals for Mishloach Manot. Most people give cake and cookies, and other types of junk food, but I like to make a meal. BV (before vegan) my favorite Mishloach Manot that we would get was a pizza pie from our neighbors. It was just what we needed to energize us while putting together our own Mishloach Manot. Giving hot food that people can eat immediately makes me happy. If I can show people interesting vegan food, even better.

Happy Purim!

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Fajitas

by Rena on February 22, 2012

A few weeks ago, my girlfriends and I had another vegan night. When trying to figure out what to make, I went with something near and dear to my heart – Tex-Mex food. After all, I am from Dallas. Every so often I need to refresh my Texan pallet with some good ol’ down home cooking.

I don’t know why, but Mexican food just hasn’t taken off in Israel. A long time ago, during my pre-vegan days, I used to love going to a restaurant called Amigos, in Jerusalem. It was the only place that I knew of to get real Mexican food. It closed down more than 10 years ago, and I haven’t had a fajita since. That is, until I made them myself out of seitan.

1/2 recipe seitan (or 1 package store bought seitan)
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 c. cilantro, chopped
3 tbsp. lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil for frying
2 onions, sliced thinly

Cut the seitan into thin strips.

Mix all the ingredients together, minus the onions.

Let marinate for at least an hour (overnight is better)

Heat oil in a skillet and fry onions until translucent.

Add seitan and cook until heated through

One of the cool things about using seitan is that you don’t have to worry about how long you cook it. By the time it hits that pan, it’s already been cooked through.

For the night with the girls, we had grilled veggies, guacamole, red rice, corn bread, soup and salad to round out the meal. To top it all off, I made Mexican Wedding Cookies from The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur. I have to say that that cookbook is one of my favorites.

The food was great, but more than enjoying what was on our plates, we just had a great time talking and spending time together. With everyone’s busy schedules, it seems to be something that has become increasingly more difficult to do. Food is a great excuse to come together. We really should do it more often!

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Homemade Hot Dogs

February 8, 2012

The Super Bowl was a few days ago. Why should I care about that? I don’t, per se, but it did give me an opportunity to convince all my kids to be home so that we could have a “tailgate party”. I know, there were no gates involved (no tails, either) because we were in [...]

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Easy Seitan

January 24, 2012

There are certain food staples in any vegan diet. There are veggies, grains, beans and tofu. Not everyone in the non-vegan world knows about seitan. Basically, seitan is wheat protein. It looks and acts a lot more like meat than tofu and it tastes really good. I would say that it tastes like chicken, but [...]

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Asian Grilled Tofu

January 16, 2012

I seem to have less and less time lately. I’d love to have time to make meals with a ton ingredients, but that’s just not going to happen. I guess even if I had the time I probably wouldn’t use it to make gourmet meals, but it’s nice to think that I might. That’s why I always make [...]

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Minestrone Soup

December 14, 2011

It’s kind of weird here in Israel. It is the middle of December, but we still have some really nice days when you can walk around in a t-shirt. The winter started off with a bang, raining a ton about a month ago. The last couple of weeks have been pretty dry. Over here, wet [...]

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Zucchini Souffle (aka Kishuim Kugel)

November 22, 2011

Thanksgiving is in a couple of days. Last year I spent some time talking about Tofurkey. This year, I don’t think that I’ll be making Tofurkey again, but I will make all the side dishes that the family loves. My family isn’t all that big on tofu to begin with, so we’ll be having some [...]

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My Vegan Travel Chulent

November 4, 2011

I have been traveling way too much lately. Don’t get me wrong, I love going to new places and experiencing new things, but now that I’m kosher and vegan, I need to do a lot more thinking about what I’m going to eat. Kosher is harder than vegan, but when you throw the two together, [...]

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Pumpkin Pie

October 16, 2011

I started using a CSA. I had no idea what a CSA was until my cousin started talking to me about the amazing vegetables that he was eating every week. If you are like me and need some translation, CSA means Community Supported Agriculture. They have them all over the world. The idea behind them is to [...]

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Vegan Honey Cake

September 23, 2011

It seems that most women that I talk to this time of year ask “what are you making for Rosh Hashana?” They aren’t looking to me in particular to figure out what to make. It’s just that most people are overwhelmed with the holiday and are looking for something different. After all, this year is [...]