Curried Udon Noodle Stir Fry

This was a nice, basic stir fry that was good and acceptably tasty, but not overly delicious and with an obvious lack of depth of flavor.

With that said, though, I actually would make it again but would probably doctor it up a bit more with maybe a little bit of curry powder. And frankly, the way I douse on cayenne pepper on most of my meals anyway, I don't necessarily need the dish to have a ton of flavor. Actually, the less flavor in the dish the more I can actually taste the cayenne.

The seitan was "interesting." I've used their boil method but this dish was the first time I tried their oven method. I expected the seitan to be a little drier and meatier, but it was actually quite rubbery. That was, until I sauteed the crap out of it and gave it a nice brown crust. That helped decrease the rubberiness and increase the chewiness (in fact, the next night I took the leftover seitan, cubed it, sauteed the hell out of it in some garlic and oil and put in on pizza. It was just like "beef" jerky. Delicious!)

Cost: About $9-$10.

Difficulty: Moderate. This required 3 primary cooking dishes.

Modifications: Powdered instead of fresh ginger. Regular soy sauce instead of shoyu, which I couldn't find.

Cleanup: Not too bad, but not quick and easy.

This recipe is on page 200 of Veganomicon.

Pasta Della California

There isn't a pasta dish I don't like (although I bet there are lots of unholy pasta dishes with cilantro in them). This one didn't change that, but it'll probably go on one of the lower rungs of the goodness scale.

It was fairly easy to make. The sauce was light and a tad refreshing, thanks to the lime zest and juice. And I even liked the avocados, despite being a little wary of them. But overall, there was no real depth of flavor or strong flavor. I love my pasta served with a sauce that has either strong flavors or richness.

So in the flavor sense, I still rate this as good, but on my health factor scale, I'll give it an excellent, thanks to the broccoli, arugula and avocados (with their good fats). Between the health factor and easy prep and cleanup, this one will probably be made again in this house.

The expense of this dish was a bit prohibitive, however, running around $14 (yikes...that's more than I realized at the time of buying the ingredients). So then again, maybe I won't make this again. I'm just so cheap cheap cheap.

The recipe is on page 192 of Veganomicon.

Broccoli Potato Soup With (No) Fresh Herbs

Simple, healthy, warm and easy. This soup (and a glass of wine, of course) was a great way to wind down on a cool fall day.

This was one of the easiest dishes I've made from the book. And easy usually pleases me. It was also very healthy, with just a few simple ingredients.

While I can't claim it was amazing, which is partly because I'm just not a "soup person," it was undoubtedly good.

I admit that I didn't use any of the fresh herbs. When I saw each would cost me $2-3, I couldn't bear to part with those dollars just for a soup garnish that would be tasted and gone in the flash of a pan. Sometimes the condiment or topping can make or break a dish, but in this case, I wasn't too worried about it.

One tip: Our immersion blender didn't do much to the broccoli other than spin it around, so I ended up putting about 1/3 - 1/2 of the broccoli, along with some broth, in the blender. This gave the soup a bit of added thickness and color, too.

This was also one of the cheaper dishes I've made in a while. It was roughly $6-7. And since it was one pot, the cleanup was also a breeze.

Because of the healthiness, simplicity and price of it, I'm sure we'll make it again on a cold winter night.

This recipe is on page 138 of Veganomicon.

Broccoli-Millet Croquettes

Okay, this was easily the most time consuming recipe yet (although having only gone through 5 I can't say yet where this will stack up in the end, but I sure hope it remains one of the most time consuming).

I was supposed to prepare the broccoli/millet combo the day before, as the recipe suggests. However, I forgot. Ask my husband if that's a surprise. Anyway, he offered to do this step for me. He started at about 530. I got home from work at 545 and then took over for him, thinking dinner would be ready by 730 at the latest. Woops.

I think with the exception of about 15 - 20 minutes I was active from 545 until, yes, about 810. That's over 2 1/2 hours from start to finish. Looking back, I can't understand why it took so long, but I digress.

One tip: The cooling step really is important. I actually did follow the instructions and let it cool for 45 minutes...even stirring often, but it probably needed another 1o to 15 minutes, so about an hour would suffice. If the mix is made a day ahead of time then no worries.

The patties were a bit unruly and didn't hold together well. It wasn't a total disaster, but several of them folded or lost some pieces. I actually added about 1/3 cup of breadcrumbs to the "batter" as it seemed a bit wet still. I don't know if that made things worse or if they would have been worse had I not done it.

Anyway, the rolling of the balls and frying of 3 batches added to the time, so if you can use a bigger frying device, then you'll save some time.

As for the sauce, I made one of the recommended sauces, the white bean aioli. One word comes to mind. Garlic city. Okay, that was two words. They said to use six cloves. I used 3, although they were rather large. Let's just say our throats were irritated for a long time afterwards, and I had the same problem today eating it for lunch.

Taste-wise, the croquettes were delicious. A little crispy on the outside and creamy/grainy on the inside. They reminded me of latkes, which I used to thoroughly enjoy back when I dated a Jewish guy who had a great cook for a mom.

The aioli was basically like Hummus (really garlicky hummus, and why is there a k in garlicky?) without the tahini. It was tasty, although to be honest, I think I'd be just as happy with a nice nayonnaise with some garlic mixed in. Sure, it's probably not as "pure" and doesn't have the protein the beans do, but I'll admit it, I can be lazy at times. Haven't I already admitted that?

So while it was a dish we would be happy to eat again, I'm not sure if I'll be motivated to make it again anytime soon. Fortunately, I have a whole cookbook ahead of me so I don't have to worry about it for a while.

This is on page 51 in Veganomicon. And sorry, I forgot to take a picture this time.