Red Lentil-Cauliflower Curry

This was a hearty, warm and delicious curry stew, full of flavor and spice. And who could complain about how healthy it is too?

I must admit, I had all my notes for this written up just after we ate this, but of course I not only lost them but waited months before posting this.

In any case, all I can say is that I'll definitely be making this again...probably this fall or winter...so you should make it too.

Now if you don't mind, I have some peanut butter ice cream (see page 262) thawing and I must eat it now. I'll post on this later, but I'll just say it's one of the best damn things I've put in my mouth lately, especially when you eat it fresh out of the ice cream maker.

Price: About $10.
Difficulty: Moderate; fair amount of chopping.
Modifications: None (except no cilantro, or as I call, the filth of the earth).
Cleanup: How should I know? It's been at least 3 months.

This recipe is on page 186 of Veganomicon.

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.