Chickpea Cutlets

I just love these things. For me, they're one of the best things from this book. Unfortunately, my husband has "issues" with the texture, which is one of the things I love best about them.

The resultant texture is a balance of soft, spongy and meaty. They can be a bit "chewy" but again, that's something I really enjoy. Having to work for food makes it taste better.

And they're super easy to make.

I've made these several times and my favorite adaptation, as seen in the picture, is to brush some barbecue sauce on them after they're fried up. Deliiiiiciouuuuuuuuuuuus.

We paired this with the Prospect Park Potato Salad along with the suggested roasted asparagus.

Price: $4-$5 (nice!)

Difficulty: Simplicity city for the cutlets themselves, but when also making the potato salad and asparagus it trends it more toward the "not so bad" category.

Modifications: None

Cleanup: Easy for the cutlets only, "I'd rather be watching TV right now" for the entire meal.

This recipe is on page 133 of Veganomicon.

Prospect Park Potato Salad

The best thing about this potato salad was how the diced cucumber gets all nice and "pickley."

Other than that, to me it falls into the good or a little better than passable categories. I've made it a couple of times already, so that at least confirms we liked it well enough. I think I tend to prefer slightly creamier, somewhat less vinegary salads. The dressing was a bit runny, so consider cutting down slightly the wet ingredients if you try this.

Actually, aside from the cucumber, another great thing is the light and bright yellow color, thanks to the turmeric. So in terms of appearance it gets an A.

This round, we paired it with the Chickpea Cutlets, which I barbecued. Those are one of my favorite things from the book, although I can't get my husband to get excited about them.

If you're cooking for two or three, you probably want to halve the recipe unless you like eating potato salad for lunch all week.

For 1/2 recipe:
Cost: $6-$7.
Difficulty: Muy simple.
Modifications: I doubled the sugar. We like our potato salad a bit on the sweeter side.
Cleanup: Clean before you know it, with the best part being you don't have to clean the bowl that day if there are leftovers.

This recipe is on page 91 of Veganomicon.

Almesan

This is my first post for "Sauces and Fillings." I'm pretty sure I've made others but just haven't posted them separately. If so, I'll get those added.

Anyway, their fake "parmesan" recipe is a total hit in this household. We used to spend $4 on a small bottle of fake vegan "parmesan," and it was full of fillers. This version is just as tasty, if not tastier, is less expensive and we know exactly what's in it: just 4 basic ingredients.

It has a great nutty taste and texture with just the right amount of tang from the lemon and a hint of bitterness from the toasted sesame seeds. I add about a half tablespoon of nutritional yeast to give it just a bit more tang, but you really don't need it. I'm nothing if not a king of doctoring things up.

To prepare this, I like to use a coffee grinder and blitz the hell out until it's mostly fine with a few larger chunks of almonds.

We use this on pasta, rice and risotto dishes and anything else that calls for parmesan. In fact, we use a lot more fake "parmesan" now that we know how to make it at home.

Cost: About $1 - $1.50 per recipe. We usually double the recipe.
Difficulty: Way easy.
Modifications: About 1/2 tablespoon of nutritional yeast.
Cleanup: Super easy.

This recipe is on page 207 of Veganomicon.

Green Pea and Lemon Risotto With Roasted Red Peppers

This was an easy and delicious meal and was a great balance of creaminess and richness with lightness and brightness from the lemon and peas.

We topped this with some Almesan, which I have to admit is a really awesome homemade version of grated "parmesan." Oh, and of course some toasted pine nuts, which in my opinion is basically a must for any risotto dish.

I'm not sure I was a huge fan of the roasted red pepper slices (and I *know* my husband wasn't... he's got issue with big chunks of a lot of different things). To me they added maybe a bit too much of a contrast to the much milder risotto. Next time I may try chopping them up to see if the flavors integrate more smoothly.

Price: $13-$14. So yeah, maybe a bit on the higher side.
Difficulty: Easy.
Modifications: Topped with Almesan and toasted pine nuts.
Cleanup: Easy.

This recipe is on page 199 of Veganomicon.

Mac Daddy

When I read the ingredients for this recipe I wasn't sure it would be any different or better than versions of "mac n cheese" I've already made. I was mostly right.

The sauce was different than others I've made, mostly due to the addition of flour, which I thought was a great way to make the sauce cheesy, and the lemon juice, which to me made the sauce a bit too tangy. I prefer the richer, creamier type sauces. I know they exist; I had the most amazing "Mac N Yease" at a local vegan restaurant, Plum Bistro, a few months ago. I think the Mac Daddy sauce was on the right path, although I'm not sure yet what's needed to make it purely decadent.

I'd give this dish a B. All in all, it was good and I wouldn't mind eating it again. Not a resounding endorsement, I know, but hey, in order to appreciate the really fantastic meals you have to have some just plain good meals sometimes.

I paired the pasta with a large side of tater tots (one of my biggest vices) and some sauteed kale. They did a nice job of balancing out the tang of the pasta.

Difficulty: Simple.
Cost: $6-$7 (excluding the sides). About $10-$12 with the sides.
Modifications: None.
Cleanup: Average.

This recipe is on page 195 of Veganomicon.

Lasagna Marinara With Spinach

Okay. I must admit, this was probably, for me, my piece de resistance of lasagnas (and maybe most anything else) that I've made.

One word of caution: Be prepared to drop some dough for this dish. It was probably twice as much as anything else I've made from the book so far, but it makes tons (almost quite literally) of lasagna that could last two people 3 or 4 days (especially if you're dinner hogs like we are). And the leftovers were just as delicious each day.

This was so rich, so creamy, so delicious and was accompanied by wonderful aromas. This was the first vegetarian lasagna I've made that even had that traditional lasagna smell to it. I'm not sure how to describe it but it was definitely there.

And let just say that the pine nut cream is definitely NOT optional! That stuff is so damn good and was definitely the crown on this dish. There's so much flavor in every bite of that stuff and just a little went a long way in every bite.

This was a lot of work, for sure. But the amazing smell of the marinara sauce early on kept me excited throughout the entire preparation process.

A couple of notes here: Make sure you bring your tofu (for the 'ricotta') to room temperature first. I thought my hands were going to fall off they were so cold. Also, despite 2 lbs. of greens seeming like a lot, they really cook down and were just the right amount in the end. So don't skimp on those either.

Besides how decadent it tasted, it was packed full of nutrition. There was a ton of protein from the tofu and noodles and of course lots of vitamins and minerals from the greens and tomato sauce. I used about half spinach and half rainbow chard.

I could go on and on about this, but someone is at the door. But if you're a lasagna lover, you MUST make this. But do it on a weekend if you want to get to bed at a decent hour.

Cost: About $27 (yowza!)
Difficult: Hard.
Modifications: I used the truly no bake noodles and split the greens between spinach and rainbow chard.
Cleanup: Moderate to difficult.

This recipe is on page 196 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.