The first Sunday of Summer 2025 was HOT. Here in the South Suburbs of Chicago, we had temperatures in the 90s Fahrenheit all weekend.
Claudia had prepared a potato and green bean salad for a Midsummer party that we attended on Saturday Evening, and par cooked enough extra to grill on Sunday. She also made a nice green salad, and I grilled some Tofurkey Vegan Polish Sausages that we served with sauerkraut and mustard.
Claudia described it as “Summer on a Plate.”
This recipe came from Rainbow Plant Life. I cheated a bit with the spices, opting for some pre-ground things instead of toasting them all from scratch. The meal still took a couple hours altogether to prepare, but it was well worth it.
I think I’ll try a double batch of the full fledged version one of these weekends.
For Sunday Dinner the day before St. Patrick’s Day this year, in addition to the traditional corned beef and cabbage I decided to try making a Jackfruit version. It was my very first experience preparing, cooking or eating it, and it exceeded my expectations in every way.
I had intended to pick up some prepared Jackfruit, but when I asked if they had it at our neighborhood Jewel, the produce guy said “sure – right over on that table.” Turns out there were two (humongous) whole Jackfruit at a decent markdown. So I grabbed the smaller of the two and headed to check out.
When I got back home, I checked YouTube for tutorials on how to prepare it, and was a little daunted but decided to give it a try anyway.
The first step was to cut the thing up into pieces, just about like you would when you’re slicing up a watermelon to serve. Except Jackfruit contains this white sticky substance inside that looks and behaves for all the world like latex. So I put some newspapers down on a table on the back patio, sprayed my knife with cooking spray, and went to work. It was messy, but not as bad as I had expected.
I boiled the pieces in a large stock pot for about twenty minutes, and once they had cooled a bit I removed the husks with a paring knife, and picked through the sections for the seed pods. They say that the seeds can be used to make Hummus, but this time around I just discarded them.
Once the sections were all picked clean, I put them back in the stock pot with pickling spices and some beet powder to marinate overnight. On Sunday Morning, I drained them, spread them out on a baking sheet, hit them with a little more seasoning, and baked them for an hour at 375 °F.
Finally, I pan fried enough portions for the three Vegetarians at our table just before serving to warm them up.
Even though it was quite a lengthy and involved process to prepare and cook the Jackfruit, I would definitely do it again. The texture was very much like corned beef, and the taste was marvelous and savory. I think that doing a long cook with it on a smoker and topping with Carolina Barbecue Sauce would be most excellent.
For Sunday Dinner this week, Claudia made a recipe she found on a Vegan Recipes Group on the Book of Faces. It was incredibly delicious and hearty.
She made a double batch, and it fed four of us nicely (we each had seconds). This was a huge hit with everyone at the table, and it was better than any Stroganoff I’ve ever eaten (including the decidedly beefy variety that we used to make).
We served this over wide noodles, and garnished with paprika and parsley.
Ingredients (for the double batch):
2 pounds of mushrooms, sliced (she used button and cremini)
2 onions, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
olive oil for sautéing
2 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 T tomato paste
2 t paprika
2 cups of cashew crème fraîche (see recipe below)
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
Sauté onions and garlic.
Add the sliced mushrooms and cook until they release their moisture and start to brown.
Whisk together vegetable broth, cashew crème fraîche, soy sauce, tomato paste, paprika, salt, and pepper.
Cashew Crème Fraîche
1 1/2 cups cashews, soaked overnight then drained
1/2 cup water
3 T olive oil
2 T lemon juice
1 T nutritional yeast
1/2 t salt
1/2 t dried thyme
Blend for about a minute in Vitamix or other high speed blender.
The crème fraîche on it’s own would make a fantastic Alfredo style sauce for pasta.
We made a special cake in Claudia’s favorite color for her Birthday this year.
Almost every year since we have been together, Claudia has requested an Angel Food Cake with berries and Cool Whip icing for her birthday. Since it falls just after the holidays, she has said that she’s had enough of rich foods by the time her birthday arrives.
In October of last year, she shared a recipe from the Shaireen’s Delight Facebook Page, tagging me and our child, saying “My next birthday cake?”
I’ve only baked cakes from mixes in the past, and those only rarely, so I was thankful that I had a couple of months to review the recipe and work out my anxiety about before actually baking.
It turned out really good, although quite moist and dense – almost like the texture of brownies. I think this is because I overworked the batter, adding the purple food coloring a little at a time and remixing it each time. If I were to make the recipe again, I would just go for broke when first adding it, and hope for a little airier crumb.
Not bad for a first attempt at a scratch cake, though. Kid did the decorating, and it turned out right pretty.
We used sparkler candles, and they were quite trippy. Would probably opt for something simpler next time.
Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!
Our friend, Kristin, gave us some ears of Blue Corn from her garden recently, so I decided to cook up nixtamal and press some tortillas. It was my first time working with quicklime.
The kernels weighed out at a little over half a pound after shelling the ears, so I added them to two quarts of boiling water and a couple tablespoons of pickling lime. After boiling for half an hour, I covered the pot and let the corn soak overnight in the solution.
After rinsing and scrubbing by hand, the cooked nixtamal went into the food processor with 1/4 cup of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of raw sugar and 2 tablespoons of avocado oil. Processed smooth, it was ready for the tortilla press.
Six smallish ears made eight nice tortillas. I considered cutting them into triangles and deep frying into chips, but decided to just load them up with some pintos and salsa. They were very, very good.
There’s something especially satisfying in taking a home grown product through an old fashioned process like this, rather than just mixing up store bought masa, no matter how high the quality. This is definitely something I’ll take the time to do again.
I’ve been listening to the Spirit of the Camino podcast lately on my morning runs. In the first season, there’s a lot of discussion about the culture of Portugal, where Nick and Wendy live. They mentioned Cataplana at some point, and I was intrigued.
I researched recipes online and ran across a couple that were either Vegan or nearly so, and adapted them.
It seems like the three essential ingredients are tomatoes, bell peppers and onions, so those feature prominently in my version. I’d love to try the “authentic” dish one of these days, to learn whether or not my spice and herb mix was close. I can’t vouch that this recipe would pass as a genuine Cataplana in Portugal, but it sure was tasty.
I didn’t have an actual Cataplana dish to cook in, so I used a 6 quart stock pot.
Sauté:
Season With:
If you wanted, you could probably use Tarragon instead of the Oregano. It might be a little more typical of Portuguese seasoning.
Once all of that mess is combined and fragrant, I added some garden fresh green beans that we had on hand, and stirred them around in the mixture.
Deglaze:
Add:
Cover and cook until the veggies are tender. I added some frozen peas toward the end, so they could warm through, but not get mushy.
You could also add or substitute whatever other vegetables you would like. Zucchini and Eggplant would be good choices. Perhaps Snow Peas or Chick Peas as well. If you wanted to add some spicy peppers, they should work fine too.
We served this with some “take and bake” Italian bread from Aldi. The soup was savory, tangy and nicely sweet. It must’ve been beginner’s luck, but this goes right onto my list of favorite soups.
If you’re not Vegan, you could add some shrimp, clams or whitefish.
Here are links to some of the recipes I reviewed.
https://vegancooking.livejournal.com/3345350.html
https://www.veganbearchef.com/vegan-cataplana.html
https://food52.com/recipes/41744-portuguese-cataplana
http://yumblog.co.uk/archives/9727
https://www.luisa-paixao.us/blogs/life-in-portugal/cataplana-the-5-best-recipes
Paella is one of those dishes that seem to put everyone in a festive mood. When I first began making it five years ago, I did my best to keep it as authentic as I could, which I thought meant including pork, poultry and shellfish.
As our family moved more and more toward plant-based cooking, I substituted Vegan Chorizo for the pork, but always included shrimp and chicken atop the pan for the folks around the table who still consumed them, thinking that it really wouldn’t be Paella without them.
I was delighted to learn recently that Paella de Verduras is also a traditional dish in Spain. I decided to try this vegetable-only version for supper the last evening that my sons were back in the US for a visit. From start to finish, the meal took about an hour and a half to prepare, so it’s not a quick weeknight meal, but I was still able to pull it off in time to eat at a decent hour even beginning after the work day ended.
Broth for the Rice
Sauté 5 cloves of garlic in some olive oil. Add 3 T of tomato paste and 1 1/2 T paprika and let it caramelize just a bit. Add 2/3 cup of Sherry and a quart of veggie stock. Since I was leaving out clam juice this time to keep things Vegan, I added a splash of apple cider vinegar and some soy sauce to kick up the umami a bit, and then let this boil for a few minutes to bring all the flavors together.
On the Grill
I fired up the Weber Genesis gas grill and started by grilling some strips of Red Bell Pepper, and some chunks of Zucchini and Eggplant that I’d hit with olive oil, salt and ground black pepper. Then I got my Paella Pan good and hot, and sautéed a couple of Spanish Onions in some olive oil. 3 cups of medium grain rice went in next, and then the broth. Once it cooked with the grill closed for 15 minutes, I rotated the pan a quarter of a turn and put the grilled veggies on top. After another 15 minutes, I turned the pan again and topped it with jarred artichoke hearts, some pimiento stuffed olives and frozen peas. From there on, I just checked and rotated the pan every five minutes or so until it looked like things were pretty well done. I grabbed a spoon of rice to check for doneness, and then brought the pan in to rest at table for a little while before we ate.
I think everyone enjoyed this, as there were few leftovers. It was every bit as tasty as the meat and seafood version. The only thing I will change next time is to get a little more seasoning into the broth. Maybe some salt and some red pepper flakes or cumin or somesuch.
Ingredients list is below, in case you want to try it yourself. If you don’t have a Paella pan, you could use a large iron skillet or Dutch Oven and cut the recipe in half or thirds. One of the tricks is to not stir the rice after you add the broth. The dark, almost burnt crusty rice closest to the pan is part of what makes the dish unique and tasty.
Ingredients
¡Buen Apetito!
Whenever I run across recipes from Weber Grills these days, my first thought is often “I don’t eat that.” When I am conscious, my second thought is “How can I adapt this to not use meat?”
This Chorizo and Potato Hash with Egg recipe is a perfect example. It’s the sort of thing that would have had me running to Jewel for Chorizo and firing up the Genesis back when I was carnivorous. So when it hit my inbox, I was intrigued, then momentarily disappointed. Then I realized that I already had a recipe for Chorizo made with plant-based meat that I’d been wanting to try. I’d also had good luck with Tofu Scramble in the past, and although it’s not quite the same as a gooey, runny egg yolk dripping over the potatoes, I figured it would stand in nicely.
So I filed the recipe away in my Evernote, hoping I’d remember to get around to it. On a recent trip to Aldi, they had Beyond Beef bulk burger on sale, so we picked up a couple packages, and I finally remembered to put this meal together for Sunday Dinner this week. I opted for cooking indoors, just for the sake of efficiency, but I’ll definitely make this again on the cast iron plancha out on the Genesis this summer.
The Chorizo seasoning comes from America’s Test Kitchen’s Cooking With Plant Based Meat.
This is supposed to be enough for 12 ounces of ground plant-based meat, but it did fine to season a full pound of the Beyond Burger.
I used two pounds of potatoes, cubing them with the skins on, and soaking them in a bowl of water with a little salt and white vinegar until I was ready to cook. Once they were in the pot and about starting to boil, I sautéed the Chorizo in my wok with a little olive oil. When it was done (five or six minutes) I removed it to a bowl, deglazed the wok with a splash of vinegar, and then sautéed a diced green bell pepper and yellow onion. Once those were done, I removed them, and added the drained par-cooked potatoes. I debated on using another type of oil, but at the temps I was cooking the olive oil was just fine. The potatoes were seasoned with cumin, paprika, Ancho Chile powder and black pepper. They cooked for about fifteen or twenty minutes, and then I added the onion and pepper back in to cook for awhile, and then finally added the Chorizo.
My tofu scramble turned out good, although I added a bit too much dry mustard. The recipe calls for prepared Dijon, so I should have cut back a bit using the powder. Once it was on top of the hash, with a little salsa and scallions, it was fine.
This was a hit even with the carnivores in the household, though Claudia did make actual scrambled eggs for herself and her mom. She brought out some soft corn tortillas and folks were putting the hash and scramble into those for seconds.
The hash turned out better than any I’ve ever made. It occurred to me that I could adapt this recipe for Corned Beef Hash using my Pastrami seasoning instead of the Chorizo spices. I might add a little Vegan Worcestershire next time.
I will definitely make the Chorizo again as well, and use it this summer when we cook Paella.
I used Field Roast Italian Sausage in this one, and Great Northern beans. I also started with Olive Oil and added some Wright’s smoke seasoning instead of using lardons or bacon. Otherwise, I pretty much followed the same process as I did when making faux Cassoulet before.
The photo above is how it looked before going into the oven.
I can’t claim that this version was vegan, since I did top it with chicken thighs for the carnivores, and some of the fat from that would have made its way into the beans. Plus, I added the Knox gelatin, which is not plant based.
Tasty, and I’m honestly not sure that it needed the Field Roast. The beans might be hearty enough on their own.