vine and dine + stroganoff-stuffed potatoes

So this is the last post in the Vine and Dine series - unless something happens and it gets resurrected, like Food Network Friday, which is being continued, albeit with a twist, over at Kelly's blog, Three and a Half Vegans. Be sure to check her out and see what she has up her sleeves.

As for V&D, at least for now, Tami's Tempeh Stroganoff-Stuffed Potatoes is the closing cookalong. I am thrilled that she chose to end the series cooking from American Vegan Kitchen. It is only appropriate and, lucky for us, happens to be scrumptious.   

This is another of those recipes from AVK that slipped under my radar. Having not made this recipe yet, I was pleasantly surprised.  I guess it didn't seem like a main dish (although that is the section of the book it is in!) because it is a stuffed potato and we all know potatoes are always a side dish. Tami doesn't conform to expectations, and turned the side-dish potato into a main course.

I added more mushrooms to her recipe (doubled it) and cooked it a bit longer than the recipe calls for, but that is because we love out 'shrooms golden brown and sauteed really well. After baking the potatoes, scooping them out (use an ice cream scooper), mashing them and introducing them to the sauteed tempeh and mushrooms, you re-stuff the potatoes and bake for a few more minutes. 

Combine creamy potatoes, crunchy potato skin, crispy tempeh and mushrooms and this dish is no longer a side thought. If you haven't made this yet, get to it. A refreshing green salad to cut through the richness completes this dish, along with a - no surprise - red wine. David and I chose to indulge in a Cabernet Sauvignon from Arcane cellars. We received this wine as a gift a while back and saved it for this perfect occasion and perfect meal.  

Thanks, Tami, for all the inspiration and cookalongs, not to mention all your fantastic food!

vine and dine + blue plate special wheat-meat loaf

Back for another round of Vine and Dine. We are finally cooking something from Tami Noyes' first cookbook, American Vegan Kitchen. This makes me happy. On top of getting to pair wine with AVK (did anyone really need any excuse, though?), the ladies somehow managed to choose a recipe that I had not yet made from the book. Although I had before made a wheat-meat loaf from AVK, Southwestern Wheat-Meat Loaf, this was new territory for me. Just goes to show you that you can love and use a cookbook and still have undiscovered treasures within it. 

This was a delicious and easy recipe to make (once you have the seitan). Homey and comforting. My only addition to Tami's written word was ketchup. I couldn't resist! Sorry, Tami. Even my kids gave me a funny look, but in the end the tomato did ketchup to their taste-buds. (Sorry, again :)

The whole family enjoyed it. This was most likely the first Vine and Dine that the kids loved as well as we did, so double thanks to Vegan Appetite for picking a kid-friendly dish. However, I am not sure that my kids can be called 'kids' much longer; both teens (16 and 15) are officially in college. Community college, tis true, but Mikel is now a full-timer heading to University of Southern California for their film school and Catt is looking to get her Associates by the time she is 17. With these credentials, they are no longer allowed to act like kids and whine about their dine. (I'm on a roll - stop me now!)

Naturally the Blue Plate Special Wheat-Meat Loaf was served up with traditional Mashed Potatoes and Homestyle Gravy. Felt like we were sitting in a diner! Do diners serve Frey wine? 

Speaking about the wine, one Frey was not enough for us, we went all the way from the white to the red. I love red wines (in fact, David and I have decided that we will be staying with reds from here on) and I love Frey vineyards, if for no other reason than that it was the first wine that came to our attention as being vegan, more than a decade ago. Loyalty, you could call it. I am sorry to say that we were not too impressed with their Merlot. And since we weren't that impressed with their Natural White either back a few weeks ago, it might explain why my hubby was reluctant to post a review about that one.

However, he did manage to put something together for this Merlot and here it is below.

We paired the 2009 Frey Vineyards Mendocino Merlot with the American Vegan Kitchen’s Blue Plate Special Meatloaf and this merlot is a velvety complex wine with the nose of cherry, pear and blackberry combined with earthy undertones and a touch of spice.  I thought the wine would go better with spicier fare and partaken with the meatloaf it seemed wanting.  I guess had I added some “Heat” to the loaf, the wine would have been more satisfying but I was happy with our selection, none the less, just not ecstatically so.

     

PPK - american vegan kitchen III

Take Three.

PPK and AVK. Great pair!

Tonight's American Vegan Kitchen (by Tami Noyes) meal was the Southern Fried Seitan with Mashed Potatoes and Homestyle Gravy. It is so much fun to watch the kids' reactions when we are having something they love! And they loved this. I doubled the recipe (which calls for a measly 4 seitan cutlets) and doubled the mashed potatoes and gravy while I was at it. David had just enough to take to work the next day. It's like the kids fill up on the good stuff in anticipation of all the vegetables that will be coming their way sometime in the future. Like I said, so much fun to watch. 

There really is nothing much to report with this recipe. Awesome. That covers it. I made the seitan the day before and then the rest was easy to put together. Peeling the potatoes was the biggest pain. I did add more than twice the milk called for for the mashed potatoes, but I'm pretty sure that is a personal preference and is optional. The gravy kicked some potato rear - super tasty. 

I usually make the gravy last and then I am scrambling to put it all on the table before the food gets cold. This time I made the gravy while the potatoes were cooking and covered it with a plastic wrap to keep it from developing a 'skin.' Worked out very well. I just reheated it a bit when the seitan were nearing their final cooking. 

The only thing I forgot this time, and the kids cheered, was a vegetable dish. Potatoes count in some countries, right?

I did manage to get a dessert made, though! Priorities, folks. Cherry Turnovers. Tami's recipe uses a pie crust, but being lazy by this point, I used puff pastry. The store had it on sale and I wanted more of a turnover than a hand-pie. Not to mention I didn't have to make the crust. So good! And so quick to make. Get the filling made well ahead of time, though, since it needs to cool thoroughly.

We felt like we were celebrating something with this meal. Isn't Hug A Vegetarian Day coming up?

PPK american vegan kitchen apps

Post Punk Kitchen continued with American Vegan Kitchen.

Tonight we enjoyed a trio of appetizers from AVK, by Tamasin Noyes.  We have a Halloween Party coming up and I figured since Tami has some great apps in AVK I would use my family as humane test-subjects. The kids asked if indeed this was dinner, but, my all-powerful-and-knowing-self knew they wouldn't need more food after these.

Baked Poppers with Lime Cream, Deli Reubenettes and Stick-to-Your-Ribs Pot-Sticker.

Quite a line up!

The Poppers are supposed to be jalapenos, but I wanted the kids to try them, so I used small sweet peppers. David and I really liked these and even some of the non-pepper-hating-kids (Cat) liked them. They turned out crispy and crunchy from the oven - just make sure to broil them a bit at the end if the panko seems to be too light. 

AVK Correction: The oil in the 7-in-1 Seasoning Recipe (p. 53) is not supposed to be in there, so omit it. 
(This has been confirmed with Tami.)

Next, the Pot-sticker. The filling was a breeze to assemble! That is when the wind was knocked out of me ... those little wrappers take a village to assemble, forget raising any kids... unless you raise them to help assemble their dinner. No wonder people who are in the know gather in groups to assemble these diminutive packages of food...tamales, stuffed cabbage, pot-stickers, raviolis, egg-rolls, steamed buns, etc. Good thinking, folks! Nevertheless, they are worth it! Stuff and seal..stuff and seal..stuff and...

Last, the Deli Reubenettes stole the dinner by a long shot. NONE of these were left over and I even made about 1/2 a recipe more than the book allocated. Call it a mother's intuition. I changed up the presentation (and therefore the assembly) of these since I was so tired of encasing food in small packages. Instead of stuffing the filling into a triangular package of puff pastry, I cut the pastry into rectangles, baked them, separated each square into two parts, topped each part with a tablespoon of filling and a dollop of the dipping sauce. The puff pastry goes a long way with this method, and my back is saved from a proportional amount of packing-pain. Win-win. And totally a do-again. Nice job, Tami. This is on the Halloween Party platter, but Cat suggested we add green food-coloring to the dipping sauce to make it festive. Ye-ah!

From left: Jalapeno Poppers, Reubennettes, Potstickers

PPK - american vegan kitchen

Post Punk Kitchen has begun their Cookbook Challenge! For the next 11 weeks, they are challenging the veg community to dive into their vegan cookbooks (assigned weekly) and post to their heart's content. Last year I participated in the week that Tami's American Vegan Kitchen was up, and I am doing so again this year. It is a challenge in itself to not duplicate recipes I've already made and posted about, but I will do my best.

Leafing through the book, Spaghetti Pie with Arrabbiata Sauce jumped out at me, mainly because it looked easy to make. If you turn to the page, perhaps that might not be your first thought upon scanning the ingredients list as it spans the left side of the page. On closer inspection, it becomes a relief that one-third of said ingredients are spices, easily and quickly measured and added to the recipe. The spaghetti is put into a pan, the tofu mixture is added on top and the arrabbiatta sauce (spicy tomato sauce) is spread on top of that. The whole thing is baked and then devoured. At least that's what happened at our table.

We only had a slight problem when it became obvious that the pound of pasta, 2 or so cups of tofu mixture and about a quart of tomato sauce was definitely not going to fit in our baking pan and needed to be divided among two pans. When making it yourself use your judgment. It actually turned out for the better; we scarfed one pan and have the other one waiting in the fridge for the weekend.

Since we are challenging ourselves, the kids challenged me to make dessert. Well, why not? I seldom make sweets and AVK has plenty of it. Chocolate Chip Quick Cake was the natural choice, in keeping with the theme. Very quick (Tami's right!) and delicious. It made just the right amount, too. With five of us, there was nothing left over and no one argued about the last slice since there was none. Perfect. 

Spaghetti Pie

Chocolate Chip Quick Cake