MOFO - Day 5 - Chipotle Peppers

Chipotle chiles are all the rage these days. The chipotle is actually a smoked jalapeno. According to the Gourmet Sleuth website, these tasty smoky peppers date back to the Aztec civilization. The Aztecs took to smoking the chiles because jalapenos proved to be difficult to dry without rotting. All I know is that they are a delicious addition to many dishes and I am personally a little addicted them. The chipotle is considered medium heat rating 5000 - 10,000 on the Scoville Heat Index. You can use these delectables in soups, sauces, stews, dressing, marinades, shoot I've even used the powder in sweet baked goods. Speaking of powders, you can find chipotles in their dried pod form, chipotle powder (which is getting easier to find in many grocery stores) and my favorite form, chipotles in adobo (in a can). The canned variety is usually found in the ethnic aisle of your grocery store in little cans. If you haven't experienced the lovely smokiness of the chipotle, your life is just not complete. Find some, try them and your dishes will be transformed into smokey loveliness!

I will be sure to feature a few recipes this month with chipotles no doubt, But today is another very long day for me, so I leave you with a picture and a promise of yumminess to come.

Behold Robin Robertson's Smoky Chipotle Portobello Tacos from her upcoming cook book.

I always feel funny when I don't include recipes in my MoFo posts, so I'm going to share a soy free version of Chipotle Ranch I came up with. It is also really good as a dip on tortilla chips in it's thicker form. This is for all of the mayo haters in the house!

No Soy/No Mayo Version of Chipotle Ranch Dressing

Makes 1 1/2 cups

1 cup raw cashews

1/2 cup water (in addition to soaking water)

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon dried parsley

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon granulated garlic or garlic powder

1 teaspoon granulated onion or garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika

2 chipotle chiles (canned in adobo sauce), leave seeds intact

Cover raw cashews with enough filtered water to come 1/2 - 1 inch over cashews. Soak overnight. Drain water and do not reserve. Pour all ingredients, including 1/2 cup water, in food processor or blender and blend until smooth. Let chill for at least for hours before using.

MOFO - Day 3 - More Jalapeno Fun

Today's post is going to be short and just slightly sweet. I've got a busy day ahead of me: a full day of work and two school assignments to complete before midnight. So forgive my lack of inspiration for the day. Thankfully others are inspired and inspiring me! I am fortunate enough to be a tester for several talented and fabulous cook book authors. It keeps my fridge and my tummy full of all sorts of wonderfulness. This tasty looking post hails from Carla Kelley's upcoming project. I like to think she developed this recipe just for my MOFO theme...but that would be a bit egotistical. I can say that this was a nice change from normally sweet carrot soups. It has a spicy anti-oxidant kick! As an added boost it is believed that jalapenos have an anti-cancer quality. Yay soup!

Spicy Carrot Soup

MOFO - Day 1 - Welcome to the Month of the Chile

Welcome to MOFO 2010! My theme for the month is Chiles and Chilies. I will be posting some of my own original recipes. I also plan on featuring some of the dishes I have been testing for Tami Noyes, Carla Kelly and most recently Robin Robertson. I will be sprinkling my posts with a little education and trivia about different types of chiles. I may stray from my theme a bit to do restaurant reviews (if they have chili dishes you know I'll be on that). I also plan on bringing you a preview of Kelly Peloza's new book The Cookie Connoisseur. It is my goal to post every day. It is an ambitious goal and I will do my best to fulfill it. For those of you who signed up for the RSS feed, I know that you will be inundated with blog mania. I hope you will stop in often. It's going to be a hot month at the Vegan Conversion Challenge, grab a beer or a tub of sour cream to cool things down and enjoy the ride!

Today I'm going to start very simply. Salsa is a basic condiment, but the variations are anything but basic. Most everyone has their favorite recipes or favorite places to eat salsa. I love to make my own just the way I like it. When I was a young teeny bopper I was lucky enough to work in a family friend's Mexican restaurant that went out of business years ago. They had a salsa that was really unique tasting,  chunky and addicting. It is the inspiration for my style of salsa. I love big chunks of tomato,  lots of cilantro and a nice kick from jalapenos and chiletepins. Now like many people I know, my salsa is never really made exactly the same way. Here is a general guideline for a tasty salsa that you can use anywhere you want to use a great tomato style salsa. Feel free to change it up to your liking.

Chipotle Tomato Salsa

Makes 4 cups

2 fresh jalapenos
2 cloves minced garlic
1 cup loosely packed cilantro
3 large green onions
1 - 15 oz can organic tomato sauce
1 tablespoon adobo sauce (from can of chipotles in adobo)
3 chiletepin (Scroll down for more information on chile tepin)
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 - 28 oz can of fire roasted diced tomatoes

In food processor add jalapenos, garlic, roughly chopped green onion (white and light green part only) and cilantro. Thinly slice the dark green part of the green onions and set aside. Pulse a few times to chop into smaller pieces. Add can of tomato sauce, adobo, tepins and black pepper and blend for about 30 seconds until vegetables are chopped small. Add diced tomatoes and pulse once or twice to combine, being careful not to pulverize the diced tomatoes. Keep those babies chunky! Pour into large bowl and stir in slice green onion. You can serve this right away, but the flavors really pop if you let it sit in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Will keep for up to two weeks in the fridge.

Chiletepin

The chilitepin, also known as the Birdseye pepper scores a whopping 50,000 - 100,00 on the scoville scale. Here in Arizona they are pretty easy to find in local grocery stores that carry southwestern spices and chiles. Other parts of the country it may be a little more tricky. You may have to order them online...or you could talk me into swapping with you or mailing you some!! In 1997 this powerful little pepper became the official state native pepper of Texas. Here is another interesting fact-oid: the Wild Chile Botanical Area in the Coronado National Forest near Tucson, Arizona has the largest number of chiletepin chile pepper north of Mexico. 

You must use caution when using the chilitepin. They are sold in dried form in a nice safe little pod. You experience the intense heat when you crush them. Make sure not to touch your eyes if you accidentally touch them after crushing them or you will be crying for sure. I love heat and these add a beautiful dimension of heat to your dishes. If you are not a fan of hot stuff, this might not be your kind of pepper. But for me and those who like hot stuff, these are awesome in salsas and bean dishes.    

Happy Halloween

This post is going to be short, but very SWEET! Short because we're about to embark upon MOFO and I'm going to be a blogging fool for the next month. Sweet because I made some sweet treats for Halloween that I felt were worth sharing.

For those of you in the Phoenix area, there is a crazy cake decorating store called ABC Cake Decorating Supply at 28th Street and Indian School in Phoenix. They have an unbelievable selection of everything cakes!!! I could stay there for days. While I was there I picked up some adorable Halloween decorations. I whipped up a batch of Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cupcakes and topped them with orange colored cinnamon buttercream. I used my fabulous bat sprinkles and cupcake toppers to come up with these. Trick or Treat? Why treat of course. The tricks come later.

November is MOFO - Chilies and Chiles - Need Your Suggestions Please!!!

Well ladies and gentlemen it is almost Vegan MOFO time. For those of you who aren't familiar with MOFO, it stands for vegan month of food. It takes place one month a year. It is designed to encourage food  bloggers to give their blogs some love. The goal is to blog each day of the month. In years past it has been in October. This year November is the big month. Each year I try to do a different theme. Last year's was lots of fun. I veganized many of your favorite recipes.

This year I thought I would do some regional southwestern, chile and chili laden, desert dwelling deliciousness. Yes it's going to be a hot one!!! I love all things chile. It makes my tongue scream for mercy, it makes my brow sweat, it makes my man happy. Yes chiles my dear readers, rock my world, and soon I am hoping they will  rock yours!

I'd like to enlist your help this year. I have some tasty ideas, but I'd like to hear what you'd like to see created. I'm going to do my best to try and create 30 dishes for the 30 days of November. While inspiration often comes to my little head, your ideas will be sure to make MOFO something special.

If you have something chile-ful that you'd like to have specially created for you leave a comment on this post and I will see what I can do about creating your special dish. It could be a dish you'd like vegan-ized, it could be a couple of ingredient you'd like to have iron-chefed, it could be some crazy concoction you thought of but never made. I want to try it! I've been a little lax posting recipes lately. I'm hoping you can help me get back into the swing of things.

So leave those suggestions and I'll see what I can come up with. Who knows, I might just tack on a giveaway for those of you who play!

Caliente November! Aribba!

To get the party started here's a nice pair from our garden.

Tailgating Vegan-Style

Last weekend I made my triumphant return to the Grand Canyon. OK it wasn't so much triumphant, but it was awesome. A few of the Laurie Scouts headed up to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It was gorgeous. The Aspens were turning bright yellow and red, the air was crisp and clean and the beauty of the canyon was beyond description. Sadly, I forgot my camera. Duh! I did take  a few shots on my phone, but I can't find my USB cord. So no aspens for you today my dear readers.

Thankfully my friends remembered their cameras and took some lovely pictures.

So about 545am we headed down the North Kaibab trail. The mission was set out. We were all to hike together until the bridge, where I would make the trek back up 2200 vertical feet on my own and they would continue on to Ribbon Falls. Now, I have to share with you that I was not being a slacker. I had a back injury earlier in the summer and could not properly train for the 16.6 miles we had planned for the day. But when the world hand you lemons, make lemonade.

In this case I made lots of vegan goodies!! We agreed that since I could not make the whole trek this trip that I would be in charge of the post-hike tailgate. Keeping in mind that my friends are going to be tired, ravenously hungry and certainly not vegan, I wanted to make lots of stuff to replenish their bodies and make their mouths very happy. After much though I decided I needed some savory, some sweet, some salty.

I dug into my many archives of cookbooks and test recipes and came up with my menu: From Julie Hasson's upcoming Vegan Diner I made Garlic Dill Cheese. It tastes very much like dill Havarti. I love this recipe, but oddly this one got passed over for some of the other treats.

For the sweet, I made Gluten Free Chocolate-Chocolate Chip cookies from Carla Kelley's testing. The hiking gang loved them! I think one of them ate like 4. My friend said they reminded her of brownies in the best way. They were very yummy.

I wanted to make something hearty and tasty and tailgate friendly that would also travel well. I decided on the Muffulleta from Veganomicon. This sandwich has been very well received by my friends in the past. I am not an eggplant fan, so I subbed grilled zucchini. I highly recommend trying it this way whether or not you like eggplant. It was super yummy!

Next I made a version of my own salsa. I'd provide the recipe, but it is always just a little bit of this and a little bit of that. So it is never the same, but it is always a winner. I served the whole kit n' kaboodle with authentic tortilla chips (a new brand at my WF that is kick booty), organic crackers and fresh crudite. I got rained on twice waiting for the hiking gang to return. So the food had to go in and out of the truck a couple of times. But all in all the hikers were very happy with their special vegan tailgate.

My friends brought festive Halloween decorations. You can see them here.

Muffuletta with Zucchini

Food Network (Friday) Challenge - Anne Burrell's Braciole

Well we are at it again. Food Network Friday is morphing. I am going to call it Food Network Challenge, so that I can post on any day! I don't think I have ever attempted anything of Anne Burrell's before. This week the crew took on her Braciole recipe.  Check out Vegan Appetite for every one else's creations. This reminds me of an Italian version of Roulade. Admittedly, I didn't want to head to the grocery store today, so I took some liberties with this recipe.

I made AVK seitan. I separated the seitan in two equal portions and tried two different methods. I will get into that later.

For the stuffing, I did an empty out the fridge version.

1 3/4 cup stale bread cubes

1 2/3 cup unsweetened soy milk

1/2 cup rehydrated soy curls (in veg stock), corsely chopped

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke

1 cup Mushroom and Walnut pate (leftover from a test recipe)

6 oz. fresh organic spinach, chiffonade

2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

1/2 cup Daiya Italian blend cheese

1/4 cup vegan parmesan

Salt to taste

1 recipe AVK seitan dough, uncooked, divided in half. One half was portioned out to 4 equal portions. The other was left whole.

To make stuffing:

In medium sized bowl pour soy milk over bread cubes. Let milk soak in. In 10" iron skillet over medium heat saute soy curls in olive oil until just starting to brown. Add soy sauce, maple syrup, and liquid smoke. Saute until dark golden brown. Add pate and heat through. Add spinach. Stir in then turn off heat. Once it cools slightly add to bread mixture. Stir in pine nuts, Daiya and vegan parmesan. Set aside until ready to stuff seitan.

For the first version, which may be the only version that works, I took each of the four portions of the dough and flattened them into rectangles. I spread 1/8 of the stuffing on to each rectangle and rolled each one jelly roll style. The ends were sealed to keep the stuffing in. Each roulade/log was wrapped in aluminum foil, leaving enough room for expansion. The roulades were then placed in a steamer pan for 1 1/2 hours. The roulades were cooled unwrapped and placed in the freezer to cool and firm up. In the mean time I started the sauce.

I followed Anne's recipe pretty closely. Because I didn't have to braise beef for 2 1/2 hours, I reduced the amount of water to only 1 cup. I found the sauce to be pretty boring, so I added a parmesan-ish cheese mix from some other testing I am doing. It still didn't have as much flavor as I would like. But I left it as is. The stuffing had lots of flavor to make up for it. In the mean time the roulades had chilled. I placed them in the sauce pot and let them simmer for about 20 minutes. The roulades were removed from the pan, sliced and plated over penne pasta. The sauce was ladled over the roulades. I sauteed up some fresh carrots, zucchini, broccoli, and mushrooms with garlic, italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Simple but perfect for this dish.

Here is a little bit better shot of the Braciole roulades.

It was tasty, but for the time involved, I'm not sure I'd do it again. The stuffing with the mushroom pate was absolutely amazing. I need to find another use for it! If I did make this again, I'd make sure to jazz up the rather boring tomato sauce by adding more Italian style spices and more crushed red pepper.

My other version was a dream of using my solar oven to bake up a large stuffed roast. I was not able to get the oven over 275 today and it just wasn't enough to get it done, sadly. I did roll the larger roast like I did the smaller ones. It is still in the oven. We'll have to see if it can be saved after the epic fail in the solar oven...to be continued.