Brussel Sprouts Ruled my Week.

Exhibit A.

Roasted with Lime and Garlic.

Carrying home a locally grown, giant stalk of brussel sprouts from Uncle Paul's produce market last weekend was pretty damn joyous. In retrospect, I wish I had written a DW-style song about it. I had two strangers remark at the big, green stalk leaning on my shoulder on my walk home! They seemed impressed.

For $2.49, I had the centerpiece of my next few meals and a whole lot of roasted brussels in my future. Growing up, my family never ate brussel sprouts. I doubt I really knew what they looked like until I was in college. My family did have an appreciation for a variety of green vegetables, so I assume that my mom had been cursed with over boiled brussels when she was younger and banished them from her life.

My go-to way to cook brussel sprouts is to roast them with freshly squeezed citrus juice. I saw it on a cooking show a few years ago, tried it at home, and the method stuck.

The first way I rolled with my new sprouts was to roast them with lime juice, garlic, coarse sea salt, black pepper and a little bit of extra virgin olive oil.

I subsequently roasted more with lemon juice, crumbled Papa G's savory tofu, more garlic and cremini mushrooms.

Next up is a hodge podge meal that I like to think was more creative than desperate, but it goes both ways. I was obviously going to cook with brussel sprouts, but I wanted to do something different, and didn't have a lot to work with. And I was fiercely craving Pad Thai Kitchen, but wanted to continue on my home cooked meals streak.

Exhibit B.

Pad Thai Woon Sen with Brussel Sprouts and Seitan.

I loosely based the sauce on the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, sliced the brussels, used homemade seitan from The Urban Vegan cookbook and threw some crumbled peanuts on top. I was worried the brussels would overpower the dish's tangy flavor, but they didn't - and it hit the spot.

Out of the Oven.

Roasted Cremini Mushrooms.

New Seasons had local, organic creminis on sale at $2.99/lb, so there I was, filling a bag. These were roasted at 425F with balsamic vinegar, a touch of olive oil, coarse sea salt and sliced garlic.

Double Apple Cake, from The Urban Vegan.

I made this with homemade apple sauce and McIntosh apples, all thanks to the Portland Apple Festival. I want to hug the spices in this. So. Autumn.

Whole wheat pizza.

Last week, I made pizza with homemade marinara, spinach, black & kalamata olives, FYH Mozzarella and a little shredded Melty White Cheezly.

I'd heard talk of FYH recently improving their formula and melting being easier than ever. I've been lucky with the majority of my FYH melting attempts over the years (psst, spritzing with oil or water can help), and it's been my long standing go-to, dependable soy cheese. How wild is the availability of nondairy cheeses these days!?! Cough, cough, when I was younger, I remember buying expensive blocks of FYH from Lifethyme in NYC and taking them on the Fung Wah bus with me back to Boston, before there was anywhere in that city that carried it... This is back when my college cooking repertoire included 123s and Chreese, fire roasted tomato sauce, TLTs, pizza and take out, basically.

I really liked my delightfully spoiled-vegan combination of soy cheeses on this pizza. I think Cheezly attempts to capture the aged cheese taste better than any brand I've had, and for that I applaud it. I'm not into it plain, but melted, it's tasty paired with other components.

Red Kuri Appreciation.

Three years ago, I had a couple Portland autumns under my belt and leaned towards red kuri as my favorite squash. Everyone else at the FarMars seemed gaga for pumpkin, spaghetti and delicata but roasted red kuri was my pick. Clearly I then went onto red kuri overload, because I've gone another couple years without it. It was time to change that this month, and change that I did.

The red kuri has a soft, sweet taste and fabulously orange insides.

Red Kuri Squash, I appreciate you.

This past weekend, I mashed you with sea salt and cinnamon...

And roasted your seeds with smoked paprika, sea salt, chili powder and some more goodness....

In fact, I made myself a cute little lunch for Monday in this recycled container from Sonny Bowl...

It had mashed red kuri squash, cheesy rice (I know, I used sushi, I was out of brown and inspired by Native Bowl, shh) and oven 'fried' chicken seitan nuggets.

Oven Fried Chicken Seitan Style Nuggets and Melty Swiss Uncheese

The Melty Swiss Uncheese is from the classic Uncheese Cookbook. Sometimes nothing beats a homemade cheesy sauce! I heart all the white miso in this one.

The seitan nuggets are from the Urban Vegan cookbook, and the breading is ala Bryanna Clark Grogan, aka the legendary BCG.

From The Urban Vegan: Citrus Scented Berry Muffins and Rapini Paninis

Citrus Scented Berry Muffins

...except that I had local cherries in the freezer, so I used those. I asked the bottom shelf of my haphazardly packed freezer for berries, and it spit out sheets of nori and a block of adzuki beans. I didn't want to alter the recipe too much, so I opted for the more accessible cherries.

This muffin has nutritional value (soy flour and spelt flour make frequent appearances in UV) and tastes straight from the Blacksheep Bakery counter. Yeah, I like fluffy white bakery-style muffins, I'm human, but sometimes you want something more morning appropriate.

It's an easy recipe with a few extra special elements to give it that Urban Vegan edge.

I made these on one of Portland's first cool fall night, and my kitchen smelled wonderful.

Citrus Scened Cherry Muffins

Cafe Velo at the downtown farmers market

On Wednesday, I warmed one up in a toaster oven and had it with a cup of my

beloved Cafe Velo Stumptown from the nearby farmers market. I choose the Kenyan single origin roast, that promised the flavors of huckleberry cobbler and molasses.

The evening before, I made Rapini Paninis from The Urban Vegan for dinner. I used an organic french baguette from New Seasons and Mozzerella Cheezly. I thought for sure I wouldn't like this Cheezly after trying it from the fridge, but I'm satisfied & intrigued by it once melted. And how can you ever go wrong with rapini? Never.

Rapini Panini

From The Urban Vegan: Spaghetti Carbonara

Vegan Spaghetti Carbonara

Isn't this a nifty idea? Take a brand new cookbook, decide on a recipe, make it, and post the results! Who knew blogging could be so simple? How MoFo!

This dish is from the brand new, captivating Urban Vegan cookbook. I received it last week to review*, and couldn't put it down this past weekend. I was pouring over the pages, trying to decide on what to make first. I haven't been this enthusiastic over a non-PPK cookbook in a long ass time.

Dude, I'm saying this and there aren't even photos! It just covers so much ground - there are so many vegan dinner parties waiting to be born from this book!

With tempeh bacon still invading my thoughts from the Fakin' Fest, I turned to the Spaghetti Carbonara first. It was indulgent, saucy, smokey, noochy (hello, nutritional yeast!) and buttery (hello, Earth Balance!).

What was I thinking making this for myself? This was definitely a special guests meal, but I was treating myself.... The dry white wine was a sweet touch - I adore how much wine is in this book - for cooking & accompaniment!

I served the dish with fresh parsley, as advised, and a side of roasted rapini with crushed red pepper and coarse sea salt.

Whoa, my goodness.

Next up? Her unique rapini panini!

*like I wouldn't have bought it anyway!! It's well documented that I think Dynise is fabulous. Sorry, the interview is down on the old Herbivore Magazine site, but you get the point.

cookies, portabella cheezesteak & snow

Cranberry White Chocolate Biscotti -

 a tester for Terry and Isa's upcoming Vegan Cookie Book - cookie testing is back!  I believe the book is due out in late 2009.

Karla and I volunteered this past weekend as waitresses at the most recent Apron Activists dinner at Sweetpea - Dinner for the Doggies.  We poured 400 glasses of water and brought plates to and fro tables - I had Vegan Addict at one of mine, how a-dor-a-ble!  We were lucky to take home a cookie doggie-bag each after the guests had departed with theirs.  We usually go on a date to these dinners, like we used to at the Red & Black benefits, but our wallets needed a break and we decided to help out as we could.

The cookies: including sparkled ginger, peanut butter, chewy chocolate chocolate walnut and another cranberry white chocolate biscotti.

Philly Portabella Cheezesteak - a test recipe for Urban Vegan's upcoming cookbook! 

Bear with me with for the poor photo, but last week I made another one of 

Isa's Swiss Chard Frittatas.  I had previously made it as a test recipe for Vegan Brunch last winter and posted it here.  I had chard, tofu and wanted to use my oven and there ya go.  I love how easy it is - keep an eye out for this book!

And Portland has snow! Real snow!  It's may not be snowball fight snow, but it has yet to be rained or slushed on, and for that I'm giddy.  Photo by Karla.

More test cookies on my next post!