Squirrel’s Vegan Kitchen

I’m am just overflowing with chickpea love! I swear I could eat them everyday in every meal. I could eat them in a box, I could eat them with a fox. I could eat them in a train, I could eat them in the rain. They are absolutely my favorite legume. The flavor, the texture, the versatility… but rather than wax romantic all evening, I’ll get on to the pics, saving the best for last.

Jim is really digging on the pumpkin cinnamon rolls from Don’t Eat off the Sidewalk and he actually made the dough for them last weekend! Once again, we made the dough the night before and let it slow rise in the fridge. Once again we added in raisins and I smeared them with Tofutti cream cheese frosting.

I made a tempeh scramble seasoned with nooch and sea salt and a little sage and some shredded veggies, zucchini, etc. On the side was a delish Oregon pear. I love the variety of local produce we are lucky enough to indulge in all year round here. There’s always something. This was a D’Anjou pear, which I think has the perfect stone, sweetness and juiciness.

When I was growing up in a western suburb of Minneapolis we had a local Chinese restaurant in a strip mall by our house called China Star. I’m sure many of you have China Star’s in your backyards, but nothing was like this place. Jim and I used to go eat there for Christmas dinner it was so good. This was, of course, pre-veg. Anyway, I used to always order Chicken with Broccoli, which also has those perfect crinkle cut carrots in them. The sauce was dark and garlicky and thick, more like a glaze. In all my travels around the US I have yet to find a brown sauce with broccoli that can compare. This has become a life calling for me. Whenever I try a new Asian restaurant I always try their broccoli in brown sauce just to see. Alas, it has yet to happen. Sure, many of them are good, but they aren’t the same.

So, in true DIY fashion, I decided to finally try my hand at it. I suck at making Asian-inspired cuisine and while this turned out okay, it was pretty much down there with my other past attempts.

I started with some sauteed minced garlic and incorporated a cornstarch and veggie broth liquid into it, along with a fair helping of soy sauce. It was okay, but I used aseptic veggie broth, which was way too strong and lent an oddly buttery flavor to it. I used some hydrated textured soy chunks I picked up at Food Fight many months ago. I can see why they only carried them for a month or so. They were not very good. I picked mine out and Jim ate them up. The veggies and rice were steamed perfectly at least! You can’t win ‘em all.

Chickpeas! Chickpeas! So amazing and versatile! Breakfast this morning featured Isa’s Fronch Toast, which is, naturally, made with chickpea flour. I made it using this wonderful Breakfast Toast we have been buying from Nature Bake, which is Dave’s brother’s bread company, which is their family bread company. It is a nice dense but moist wheat bread, speckled with walnuts, raisins and orange zest.

Each piece was topped with thawed strawberries and dollop of Ricemellow Fluff. And, of course, cheezy chickpeas on the side.

And for dinner tonight, chickpeas revisited. It’s a recipe that I have been working up all week and I was so excited to finally try it. I’m happy to say it was a great success and I’ll be making it many times.

I’ll post it when it’s tweaked, but it is simple and involves chickpeas, tomatoes, garlic, zucchini, purple kale, kalamata olives, and capers. I served it with some whole wheat olive bread that I picked up at the Whole Foods Formerly Known As Wild Oats.

It’s been awhile since I’ve baked much and I love having a big muffin to eat for breakfast, so tonight I made some muffins from Robin Robertson’s Peanut Butter Planet.

They are peanut butter and cranberry. She has the recipe written for dried cranberries, but I used frozen. They are quite tasty, as is everything else I’ve made from this book. I can’t wait for breakfast!

And what would a post be without a kitty picture? Linus can get sad when I’m away, even if it’s just out for dinner with friends, so he waits by the door for my arrival.

Such a cute and goofy boy. He wasn’t actually waiting for me, he has no patience for that, but whatever he was doing, he was doing it with style.

Later this week I’ll have a yummy review of the wonderful vegan Vietnamese restaurant that just opened up near us. It’s really fantastic, I’ve eaten there twice in the past week and I really hope they thrive and that Portlanders get over their fear of traveling further than 10 city blocks to support them. We have another veg Vietnamese place in town (Van Hahn) that I tried really hard to like, but their food is always so greasy and unpredictable and I always feel sick from greasiness after eating there. Anyway, this new establishment, Nhut Quang, is crazy good (try the Lemon Grass Tofu Sticks and Steamed BBQ Bun!) and I am in big time food love with them. That and more in the next installment of “The Chickpea Lover Chronicles”.