Citrus-Marinated Veggie Sandwiches

As a vegetarian, I tend to be at a loss for ideas for sandwiches. I don't like tofu or any meat substitutes and one can only eat so much egg salad. We also prefer Mexican food, and I just don't picture sandwiches when I imagine Mexican cuisine.

But you can improvise, no?

I decided to get a bit creative when I saw this gorgeous Sourdough French loaf at the DanJo Farms stand when I was picking up our CSA. Brett and I have fallen in love with the Herb Focaccia, so I decided we needed to try this.

I wanted something spicy, yummy, filling, and at least reminiscent of Mexican flavors, so this is what I came up with...


















The local booty legend (aka revealing my sources):
no asterisk = grocery store
+ = local produce from The Root Cellar
++ = The Peace Nook (will denote whether product is local or just from the Nook)
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden
**** = the non-profit buying club, Blue Planet or Purcell Mountain Farms

Citrus-marinated Veggie Sandwiches

Citrus-marinated Onions and Mushrooms:
3 oranges, squeezed
1/2 cup lime juice
1/2 cup white vinegar
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 guajillo chiles, washed
1/4 cup cilantro *
a few dashes of cumin
1 large red onion, halved and sliced
1 pack button mushrooms, sliced

Combine and cover. Refrigerate and allow to marinate for at least a couple of hours to allow the flavors to meld.

Once onions and mushrooms are marinated, heat 2 tbsp safflower oil over medium-high heat. Remove the onions and mushrooms from the marinade and tranfer to hot oil.

Cook until caramelized and cook through, about 15 minutes.

Other Fixin's:
1/2 loaf of Sourdough French bread, sliced in half
1 avocado, smashed with a little lime juice and salt
mayo or Veganaise mixed with two chipotle chiles in adobo
pepper jack cheese or "cheese"
Preheat broiler.

Place bread halves on a pan, if using cheese, top one slice of each pair with cheese. Place under the broiler and remove when bread is golden brown and cheese is melted.

Spread chipotle mayo on the "dry" slice of bread and avocado mixture on the cheesy slice, layer on half the onion/mushroom mixture for each sandwich.

Enjoy!

*These could also be prepared to be eaten "open faced".

'Til next time!

Orange-Chipotle Anasazi Bean Quesadillas

This recipe is dedicated to Alice (in Veganland).

She declared her undying love for all things citrus when I posted about the Spicy Chipotle-Citrus Marinated Veggie Fajitas, and her comment reminded me of this other citrusy-spicy recipe I created awhile back.

Oh, and this is my 100th post! Wowsa!

I can only imagine what these tasted like in crispy tortillas, as I was only able to eat the filling (at least I could eat that!), and boy, it was good. Brett made some tofu sour cream to go with this and it complimented perfectly.

It may not look very pretty but don't be fooled, this is a sweet, tangy and spicy delicious meal. The spice level bordered on too much for Brett, so I may add the habanero just to my dish next time.

Orange-Chipotle Anasazi Bean Quesadillas

Serves 2.

1 cup Anasazi beans, cooked

1/2 yellow onion, minced

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 poblano pepper, seeded and minced

1 orange bell pepper, seeded and minced

2 serrano peppers, seeded and minced

1 habanero, seeded and minced (optional)

2-4 chipotle chilies en adobo, minced

1 tbsp adobo sauce

juice of one orange

1 tbsp brown rice vinegar

1 tbsp maple syrup

1/4 cup veggie broth

2 tbsp dried cilantro

cumin

Mexican oregano

white pepper

salt

tortillas

guacamole

tofu sour cream

picante sauce

Heat a few tablespoons of water. Add the peppers and onion and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for an additional 3-5 minutes.

Place all the filling ingredients in a medium sized sauce pan. Simmer, covered on low for 30-35 minutes or until sauce has thickened.

Layer mixture into warmed tortillas and top with guacamole, tofu sour cream and picante sauce.

'Til next time!

Spicy Chipotle-Citrus Marinated Veggie Fajitas

Ah, these were really spicy and really good. Both Brett and I agreed this meal was a major hit! I do think, though, that next time, I will reduce the amount of hot peppers in the fajitas as it was a bit on the spicy side for Brett.

The marinade really pulls the whole meal together, the sweetness of the marinade complements both the spiciness of the peppers and the savory flavor of the potatoes and mushrooms. Yum!















Veggies marinating.















Yummy cooked veggies!















This meal was served 'family style', Brett and I shared a plate of warmed tortillas, a bowl of olives and a bowl of guacamole. We each had our own bowls of veggies and sauce.

Spicy Chipotle-Citrus Veggie Fajitas

Chipotle-Citrus Marinade:
juice of 2 oranges
juice of 2 limes
4 Chiles Japones, minced (dried de Arbol chilies would be even better)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tbsp good olive oil
4 chipotle chilies in adobo, minced
3 tbsp dry cilantro
cumin
salt

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl.

The Veggies:
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 poblano pepper, sliced
2 jalapenos, seeded and sliced
2 serranos, seeded and sliced
1/4 red onion, sliced
2 cups sliced mushrooms (I used half a pack of baby portobellos and half a pack of white button mushrooms)
2 small red potatoes, sliced

Combine veggies with marinade, cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for at least an hour (about 4 hours is perfect).

Once marinated, heat a large skillet over medium heat for about 2 minutes. Add the veggies and a few spoonfuls of marinade. Cook for 20-25 minutes or until veggies are soft. You may need to add more marinade to the pan, and covering the pan with a lid will really reduce cooking time, but won't get the potatoes golden brown.

The other stuff:
fajita sized tortillas
can black olives, drained
guacamole
Jalapeno-Tomatillo Green Sauce

Enjoy!

This was really good, but if you don't like a lot of spice, I would recommend reducing the hot peppers, and maybe just adding an additional red or yellow bell pepper.

I love the combination of spicy peppers and tart, sweet citrus, it really works.

Well, I'm caught up now!

'Til next time!

Orange-Agave-Teriyaki Stir-Fry with Adzuki Beans

First off, thank you all for your kind comments on my last entry, they really mean a lot to me; it’s nice to know that people enjoy this blog.

So anyway. When deciding to focus more on whole foods and less on tofu, seitan, faux cheeses, etc., the one food I was having trouble with was Asian. Both of us really like Asian food, and beyond nuts, I was coming up short with ideas for protein sources in stir-fries that weren’t seitan or tofu. Then Lindsay (aka The Happy Herbivore) sent me a link a friend gave her to this small family farm in Idaho that sells all sorts of dry beans and lentils. They sell lots of organic and heirloom varieties of beans. So I had a look around on their site and it was food nerd heaven. Anyways, I ordered 1 lb. each of organic cranberry beans, organic anasazi beans, and organic adzuki beans.

Well, my problem with protein in Asian is no more, there are nuts, there are soy beans, and now there are adzuki beans. These are lovely little beans. I got a picture of them before cooking since they are far prettier before the color is leached out of them in the soaking and cooking process.

So for dinner on Friday nights we generally do something like a frozen pizza, order in or eat leftovers as it has been a long week at work and we go to the store on Friday nights so after lugging home a load of groceries we’re pretty physically tired as well. None of that stuff sounded good last night, so I decided to whip together a quick stir-fry, and I mean quick, I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time in the kitchen, nor did I want to eat crap food. I like to have frozen veggies on hand, as they are convenient, I much prefer fresh veggies, but sometimes it’s nice not to have to chop all sorts of stuff up. So I went the frozen veggie route. You could use whatever veggies you had on hand in this of course, but I used: peas, asparagus, carrots, green beans, cauliflower, yellow squash, celery, onions, and mushrooms. Aside from the peas (I added them in), it was one of those frozen ‘stir-fry’ veggie mixes. Both Brett and I hate celery so I picked that out.

Note: This did make a decent amount of sauce. We had some leftover afterwards, you could always cut the sauce recipe in half if desired.

Orange-Agave-Teriyaki Stir-Fry with Adzuki Beans

Sauce
1 teaspoon coconut oil (it will melt while cooking)
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
1/2 cup shoyu
1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1/4 cup agave
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup water
juice of half an orange
pinch cayenne (optional)
cornstarch dissolved in water

Stir-Fry
Mixed veggies
1-2 cups cooked adzuki beans
Hot, cooked short grain brown rice
Sesame seeds (optional)

Have all your other ingredients warming while you make the sauce, this saves a lot of time.

Heat water in small sauce pan. Add garlic and ginger and cook until soft. Add all the other ingredients except the cornstarch and water and bring to a soft boil. Add in the cornstarch mixture and stir frequently as sauce thickens. Remove from heat.

Serve over hot rice, veggies and adzuki beans. Top with sesame seeds (and more cayenne if desired) before serving.

This was very tasty, both Brett and I enjoyed it, and it only took me about 20 minutes to throw this together since the beans were already cooked and I had cooked rice on hand.

‘Til next time!

More Muffins and Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan. But First........

Breakfast wasn’t too exciting yesterday morning, I just cut up some fresh fruit (diced apples, diced pear, sliced bananas, sliced kiwi fruit, and orange segments), I splashed the cut fruit with some fresh squeezed lime juice. I use the lime juice for a bit of flavor, but more importantly, it keeps the fruit from oxidizing. I sprinkled on a little sugar and had this yummy fruit with a bowl of vegan granola and soy milk. You know one of the many things I love about fruit? It looks (and tastes) pretty all on its own, you don't have to do anything to it at all, its like one of those women who can roll out of bed, do nothing, and still look amazing - the words of a true fruitaholic.

Moving on. I was excited from my success with muffins on Saturday, I decided to make another batch of a different flavor yesterday. I think I am starting to get this whole muffin making thing down, because these turned out good as well. I ended up making one batch of batter and doing it two ways. Part of the batter was turned into Apple Cinnamon Muffins; the other portion was turned into Apple Cinnamon Raisin Muffins. Nothing really special or different about the two except raisins, but both were very good. The muffins turned out sweet, but not overly so, and were nice and moist. They go very well with coffee for a nice light breakfast (this also happened to be my breakfast this morning).

I usually like to use applesauce in place of oil wherever I can, but yesterday ran out of applesauce and ended up doing half applesauce half oil instead. You could always replace the additional oil in this recipe with applesauce.

Apple Cinnamon (Raisin) Muffins
1/4 cup Earth Balance (melted)
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
cinnamon (to taste)
just a dash of nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup soymilk
2 peeled diced apples
Raisins (as many as you like)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Add the moist ingredients and then slowly fold in the apples and raisins.

Fill muffin cups (or greased muffin tin) about 2/3 of the way full and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

For dinner last night, I made a modified version of VeganYumYum’s Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan and it was so, so, so good. The next time you get an urge for something sweet, sour, crispy, and a bit spicy, give this a try. It satisfied even the “super particular when it comes to vegan food” omni, also known as Brett.

I followed her recipe for preparing the seitan exactly, but deviated on everything else. I made some modifications to the sauce and added some veggies and served it all over brown Basmati rice.

Sweet and Sour Sauce
2/3 cup veggie broth
6 tbsp brown rice vinegar
6+ tbsp sugar (Brett likes things pretty sweet, so I put more than this in there, but for everyone else [who is not a hummingbird] start with this and add more if you need more sweetness)
2-4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp ketchup (next time I am going to try tomato paste)
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
dash cayenne or crushed red pepper flakes
pinch salt
corn starch mixed with water to thicken

Combine all ingredients except for corn starch and water mixture and heat, stirring frequently.

Turn up heat to where sauce is boiling and add corn starch and water mixture to sauce. Stir frequently until at desired consistency. Remove from heat immediately.

Crispy Sweet and Sour Seitan with Veggies over Basmati Rice
VeganYumYum’s Crispy Seitan recipe
Sweet and Sour Sauce
Chopped onions (I cooked them with the seitan)
Broccoli, cooked
Cauliflower, cooked
Hot, cooked brown Basmati rice

Prepare rice according to package directions.

Prepare sweet and sour sauce.

Start cooking broccoli and cauliflower.

Make the crispy seitan and add the onions while cooking.

Serve crispy seitan, veggies, and sauce over brown Basmati rice.

I really liked the way the seitan was done for this recipe. It gave it the flavor of a fried mushroom. I am going to be thinking about other things I can do with this crispy seitan as the flavor and texture are wonderful. It took Brett a little while to grow to like tofu in anything except a scramble, preferably a scramble stuffed into a tortilla, but he has warmed up the seitan very quickly. I can probably thank this recipe for that.

Well, that’s all for now!