Black Beans Two Ways, and more commercial seitan sausage.

So, you know, part of buying a pressure cooker to quickly cook beans means that one will be cooking beans a. lot.

I have a wide variety of beans in my store room, and a quick look at the veggies needing to be eaten suggested the next stop: black beans.



I'd set the beans to soak before leaving for work, and they cooked up quickly in the pressure cooker. I was aiming for one of my favorite black bean recipes, Frijoles Negros. Except the peppers. Never really have green peppers around.

Of course, upon opening the pressure cooker, I found myself with lots of tasty broth and slightly underseasoned beans. Hm. I was too hungry to spend serious time adjusting the dish, so I finished up the plantains and one of the Field Roast chipolte sausages. These are both easily preparted with a little time in the frying pan.

And the beans were fine, the seitan sausages edible, and the platains were yummy. As the other half of this product review, I'd like to mention that the chipolte sausages, while edible, are still not as good as the seitan chorizo by Upton's, and no amount of spaghetti sauce in the world would make those Italian's acceptable. It is extremely unlikely that I will be trying any Field Roast products again. Every one of them has been a disappointment.

However, I still had me some black beans for dinner the next day.



This was actually the more successful meal: the re-spiced black beans with sauteed onions, garlic, jalapenoes, and napalm (a Thai chilli sauce called, properly, sriracha). On the side is quinoa cooked in the black bean broth and beets with olive oil and seseme seeds.

In that meal is the beginning of a comfort meal I think I will love, but since that used up the Frijoles Negros, this is as far as I have gotten.

w00t! Happy McPan!!!!

I close my eyes and I can still see that moment....

I'm in my grandmother's kitchen, and it's decorated like pretty much every other working class home in an area filled with depression bungalows. Creaky old stove, lino on the walls; it's a 1930's time capsule. I'm watching a pan, and the pan has a ... thing... on it. The .... thing .... jiggles every so often, and the pan hisses and spits.

This is fascinating.

"Why is it doing that, Grandma?"

And she looked at me and smiled. "It's a pressure cooker," she answered, as if that explained everything, and no more was said.

I don't know if she ever used it again. I don't remember any of the other Grand Dames in my family using it. Nonetheless, somewhere along the line, I learned a little bit about it, and since switching to a piscetarianism that is just a few fish meals and some honey away from veganism, I've wanted to pursue the interest born that long ago day. I cook a lot of dried beans. It takes an awfully long time. And it heats the house something fierce.

So, standing in the local Kame Apart (the only discount retailer that showed a preference for corporate donations to liberal causes based on the information collated by the apparently defunct buyblue.com), I noticed two pressure cookers on the clearance shelves. One of them came home with me.


I like to make a personal version of Red Beans. It's not in the least based on any "Red Beans and Rice" recipe, simply because it came about through my desire to have a kidney-bean mash and some rice without the overabundance of fake smoke flavor to be found in that atrocity served up at Popeye's Fried Chicken. I decided that this would be the first thing I tried in my new pressure cooker. It takes a long time to cook on the stove top, and even longer in a slow cooker.


There they are, the ingredients in the pan!

In it all went. I wasn't quite sure how it would turn out, because the amount of food in the pan was completely out of proportion to the amount of water the happy helpful instruction manual said I needed. 4 cups. That's right, four frakkin' cups. Anyone with even a little cookery experience should be able to infer that from the amount of ingredients in the picture, four cups was excessive.

Nonetheless, I followed the instructions, this being my first try with a pressure cooker and all, and when the amount of time that was supposed to pass passed, I opened the pan to find......

Kidney Bean Soup.



Goddamn delicious kidney bean soup.

I'm going to have to work on the liquid to solids proportion. However, I'm thinking that even a failed recipe, as long as what goes in is going to result in a pleasant combination, is going to produce a decent broth. The beans were certainly to proper mashing consistency, and the flavor was all there. 30 minutes versus hours and hours and hours, and the cooking did not make the house unbearably hot--an important consideration when the air conditioning in your home consists of one small window unit.

I have the recipe written down in my Box O' Cookery Happiness; the primary deviations from the usual template would be that I used the garlic/ginger paste I love because I had no fresh ginger, and I had about a cup and 1/2 of leftover cooking broth from the yams that I added to the mix. I'll write down exact-ish proportions the next time I make this.

Meranwhile, it's helpful to note this chart of suggested cooking times for dried beans. It's also helpful to note that my pressure cooker is medium pressure, only hits 10 psi rather than 15. It's going to require an additional 4 minutes time for every 10 in the chart--so something that should take 12 minutes will take 16; something that should take 30 will take 42.

Product Review: No sausage love tonight

So, while in my right well beloved Outpost Foods the other day, I noted that they had an owner special on seitan-based sausages. Now, someone stumbling through here might notice that I am fond of seitan as a meat analogue. And I'm an Outpost owner. And so the forces of the Universe conspired to get me to part with my hard-earned money and buy 2 packets of them: Field Roast brand Italian Sausages and Chipotle Sausages. They've been in business for some time now, and so I thought it would be worth trying. Mind you, the first Field Roast thing I'd tried, a grain meat analogue about the size and shape of a tube of liverwurst and made from lentils, was so disappointing that I thought I'd never touch another grain substitute.

But I love my italian sausage, and I'd had some decent "seitan chorizo" from Upton's Naturals, so I thought, what the hell, I'd give it a try.




And so there it is, the Italian sausage, served with saute onions, peas, and mashed sweet potatoes. The peas and potatoes were good. The Italian sausage?

I've got three more of 'em to choke down, because I don't spend that much money on food only to throw it away.

They are not terrible, but they taste exactly like VWG with some oregano thrown in. Maybe that tastes like an Italian sausage to someone who has not eaten the real thing in 5 years or so, but all I could taste was the gluten. I guess my next step is to freeze them (because I don't want to eat nothing but seitan any more than I would want to eat nothing but tofu could I have it) and try them drowned in spaghetti sauce the next time I eat spaghetti.

::sigh::

A Euro Mock .... Part 2 (b)

Roman Inspired Veggie Patties

Continuing with the previous recipe, it's results.

The results are a little sweet for me, and the odd thing is that it didn't get that way until I added the chickpea/fava mix. This was a surprise, because this recipe features carrots and sweet liquids. As no component of the recipe was inedible without final cooking, I tasted as I went along: I thought it would be sweet, if it was going to be so, well before the addition of more legume flour. Next time I make these for myself, that'll be something for me to adjust.

On the other hand, it's tagged "Mikey Likey" because he found them to be just fine the way they came out. The picture above was my lunch on Friday. Today, I served it to Michael on a sandwich with mayo, a little avocado, onion, and cheddar on whole wheat, and to myself on sour dough with onion, avocado, and mustard.

And I can see why he said, "Make that again, honey," because with the sharp, raw yellow onion against the slightly sweet veggie patty, there was a toothsome contrast that we don't get in typical sandwich fare. I can only imagine that the sharpness of the cheddar increased that pleasant gustatory experience for him. Mild cheddar? In my house? Blasphemy!

So I'm going to take the inventions in progress tag off of this, but I'm going to try another route for a veggie burger based on the three receipts that I used here. I really enjoy Apicius Carrots as made way back here, and I'd like to bring that flavor to a veggie patty. Furthermore, I'd like to make a veggie patty that is gluten free, and while this one is good for wheat free and certainly reduces the gluten factor, both oats and barley do have a certain amount of gluten in them.

The other thing I have noticed is that this patty took a lot longer to make than the first version. The carrots took longer to prep & cook, as did the chickpeas and the barley. The black eyed peas/leek were started and finished in a day. The cooking times are greatly shorter for all ingredients in that burger. I begin to understand why some people buy veggie patties. yeah, it's 6 bucks a pack for the ones I can eat, but hell, that's sufficiently less than my hourly salary and I didn't have to run the oven.

The primary advantage of this is that I control the contents. No fake food. Quality local ingredients. Flavors I can't get in the store.

So that's a direction I need fo go as I continue to make my own veggie patties. I'm also eyeballing the Adventist Loaf, and what I can create with that, but that's a story for another day.

A European Mock Meat. Of a Sort. Part 2 (a).

Or, a Sort-of Roman Vegetarian Patty.


Vinegar, Wine, Carrots, Lovage, Mint: some of the components cooked up into patties

This is a more experimental version of Compatible Meat Substitute/Mock Meats based on Joanna Vaught's Veggie Burger Engine.

I like "Veggie Burger Engine" much better that "DIY Veggie Burger Formula," but then, I am steeped in geektitude. :-) Major. Geeque-ti-tude. Call the list of suggested contents and proportions what you will, this is the place that I've been starting.

My goal this time was to address wheat allergies. This recipe is based on several receipts found in Apicius, so it'll be Quite. Roman. in its flavor profile when made to my satisfaction. The primary ingredients I used are listed in Apicius and the burger recipe itself is based on Apicius #31 (A sauce for oysters and shellfish), #124 ({Carrots} another way), #201 (Another gruel -- a receipt that includes chickpeas, barley, and vegetables), and #207 (Beans and chickpeas). The only non-Roman human food item in this recipe would be the oats. According to the texts I consulted (The Natural History of Pompeii and Food in the Ancient World), oats are considered fodder in Rome. The barbarians to the north ate them, but the Romans generally did not.

Roman-inspired Protein Patty/Veggie Burger/Mock Meat:

1.5 Cups cooked barley (1)
1.5 Cups cooked chickpeas
2 cups cooked carrots
3/4 cup oat flour
1/4 cup white wine
1-3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (2)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 T of honey (period) or 1/2 T of simple sugar syrup (vegan) (3)
sprig of fresh mint
2 sprigs of fresh lovage
3/4 t of ground cumin
1/2 t of ground pepper

When I mixed this together, it was still very wet. Next time I try this, I might try reducing the liquid involved. Since that was not an option, I added:

1/2 cup chickpea/fava flour
1 t cumin seed
1 t lovage seed
1 t ground pepper
and 1/2 t salt

Formed into patties and popped into a 450 oven.


(1) I don't recall precisely where I found this, but there was an instruction in Apicius to soak the barley overnight. I did so, and I got a much softer barley than I usually get in the rice cooker. I am accustomed to a very chewy product out of the cooker, and a soft product only after boiling in a stew for serious swathes of time. This was just right--a barley that was not so chewy that it seemed underdone, and not so soft that it was like mush.

(2) The vinegar I used was a locally made vinegar rather than a commercial product. Vinegar produced by a factory will have a much higher acetic acid content. This is why the amount is flexible. Furthermore, a white wine vinegar and possibly a malt vinegar would also work well here.

(3) There is a great debate among vegans and those who consider themselves vegans but are not according to the strict definition. Honey, an insect byproduct, is not vegan-it's considered an animal product by many a vegan. Others, who take the view that a bee is not an animal, don't have a problem with honey. I know bees to be insects, and so I do use honey. But then, I am not a vegan. Simple sugar syrup isn't something every period cook had in the kitchen (why waste loaf sugar making a sugar solution when there is honey about?) every day, but your other typical choices for a liquid sugar, agave syrup or maple syrup, are new world in origin.

I'll have to share results tomorrow. They're completed they're cooked and been nibbled at, but it's way past my exhaustion level and I'm off to bed. All I can say for sure at this time is that they did hold together and Miguel-san found them "good, like falafel."

Tempeh Win

Tempeh would be one of the forms of soy that I can eat--it's fermente-licious! Whee!

I usually buy it once a month and have continued to struggle with it as a meat analogue. I swear, I go places like Beans and Barley and buy a tempeh sandwhich (usually a tempeh lettuce tomato) and marvel at the magic that happened and turned that slab of fermented soybeans into slices. Taste of the sandwich? Eh, who cares, it's a bland sammy that has a reasonable protein and no cheese. However, I am well aware that if I marinate the tempeh in some tasty sauce, I'll have a much nicer slab o' protein for home use.

Two problems: I can't get it to slice like a slice of meat (how the hell do they DO that? I never get anything but crumbles) and I've yet to try anyone's marinade recipe in a way that doesn't see me choking down something I hate in order to ensure I have nutrition and fuel.

So I ignored what everyone else in the world of vegan blogging does and did what I wanted to do.

I love BBQ sandwiches, and, really, if you have a BBQ sauce that you like, putting enough on will pretty much make anything you want to be BBQ flavored taste like nothing but sauce. So the worry wasn't if I could use the tempeh to make a decent BBQ sandwich, but whether or not the tempeh could succeed without being sauced to the point that I could have just dumped a can of meatless baked beans on some toast and been done.

I'm glad to report that it worked without the use of 2 cups of BBQ sauce to 1 cup of tempeh.


Tempeh BBQ

Chop one cup of onion, 2-5 cloves of garlic. Heat approximately 1/4 cup of olive oil in a pan and sautee the onions, garlic, and one tablespoon of hot giardiniera--do not drain the oil out of the giadiniera, it carries spices that will cut the sweet of the BBQ sauce. Crumble the tempeh and saute with the onions, garlic, and giardiniera. When it is sauteed to the point of your preference, add your favorite BBQ sauce. Start with 1/4 cup and add more sauce until the dish is at your favorite stage of sauce saturation. I prefer a slightly dry mix, but lots of people love the sauce dripping out of the sandwich as they bite into the goodness.

Here it is served on toasted whole wheat bread (second slice not pictured, but I assure you, it was a sammy) with an organic avocado, organic strawberries, and organic, steamed green beans with a drizzle of fig flavored balsamic vinegar.

The figgy vinegar was good, but I think I would like to try something a little more bold with it next time.

Without a doubt, I will make this again, perhaps with a smokier BBQ sauce. When choosing, I have to recall that this is going to taste nutty rather than beefy, and choose a BBQ sauce that can work with that.

Note: This is a third coast blog, and no matter where I live, I'm always a Chicago girl. All references to giardiniera should be understood to imply the popular Chicago-style condiment.

Tomato Win

I don't really have time to do a detailed write up of this dish, but I need to at least jot down some notes, that it may be enjoyed again.

This is what happened to the leftover seiten, the leftover brown rice from the veggie burgers, 4 huge organic heirloom tomatoes, 2 large carrots, 4 cloves of organic garlic, pan drippings from the seitan's cooking broth, olive oil, a heaping spoonful of Patak's ginger garlic, and plenty of water.

Michael said, "That was a great lunch you made, honey, I'd eat that anytime."

Which would be why I am here jotting down notes instead of just hoping that the picture will remind me of what I did when I made something--when I started this piscetarian adventure, I'd take a picture of something that I felt turned out well, certain that I'd remember what I did.

I look at those pictures now, more than a year later, and ... yeah ... no clue.

I'm already kind of not certain about the delicious clam-leek-tato stew I made the other day.

So to make sure that a dish Miguel-san specifically hinted he'd want again actually shows up on the table again, here's the fast action steps:

Take the pan out of the refrigerator (you know, I have this weird habit of putting the pan with the dripping right in the fridge--it's a waste to wash out that flavor if you can use it the next day. I know it sounds weird, but if the pan is covered and your fridge is working properly, it's not a problem) and let it start coming to room temperature. Cut up the carrots and garlic, and let them begin to come to room temperature--this reallt does not take long. Now, put the carrots, garlic, and a couple of cups of water into the pot. Cook the carrots to the al dente stage. Now, chop up the tomatoes and add them to the pot with a generous sploosh of olive oil and several sprigs of fresh thyme. Add as much water as is needed to cover the tomatoes and let cook until you can mash the veggies to bits. Mix in approximately 2 t to 1 T ginger/garlic paste. Add approximately 2 cups of cooked brown rice and approximately 2 cups of sliced, onion-soup-braised seitan. Add another generous sploosh, this time a sploosh of red wine. Again, add water as needed and then allow to reduce to the thickness of a thick jambalaya. Because one is using leftovers here, it is always best to make sure it cooks at a boil for at least 10 min after the final ingredient is added.

I have some for my lunch tomorrow. MMmmmMMMMmmmmm. There was enough salt in the drippings and seitan from the onion soup. If you don't have the drippings, substitute onion granules and salt & pepper to taste, or a spoonful of onion soup base. Marmite/Vegimite/Naggi sauce might also work, as would miso if you can have soy.