Week five was a banner week for new recipes!
Here’s what I made:
Chunky miso vegetable soup
Falafel burgers
Seitan and wild mushroom stew (with homemade steamy beany sausages)
Tempeh agrodolce over grilled polenta (with homemade polenta)
Chunky miso vegetable soup
I'd make this again, super simple!
I made 0 substitutions (but 1 addition!)
This would freeze fine
This was the first recipe I made when I was finally starting to feel better again and I also forgot to take a picture of it, sorry! So instead, I bring you a picture of my absolute favorite miso which I used to buy in California, and only realized it was made in Western North Carolina when I moved out here. It's so good!
During the week I will often do a speech-to-text note on my phone to record my immediate reaction to a dish and the translation of this one starts as, "The chunky me so bad soup," which made me laugh.
If you need to use up a lot of miso, this is a good recipe for you. I also think that the veggies could be pretty flexible depending on what you would like. My one addition was lemon juice at the end. I'm notorious for not properly measuring my vegetable bouillon, so maybe I just under salted it a bit (which is hard to do when you're using miso) but I felt like this just needed something at the end. The flavors get into the veggies more the next day for sure.
Falafel burgers
I probably won't make this again
I made 3 substitutions
This would freeze fine
I am not a big at home veggie burger person, so I have sort of been avoiding these since I started, which granted isn’t that long but there it is. I also absolutely hate cumin, so I made a pretty big substitution in this recipe right out the gate (I used a chimichurri spice blend instead).
The recipe says to form them using 1/4 cup mixture per patty, but that just seemed to small for a burger to me, but perhaps their size also made them fall apart a bit?
They did manage to stay in a patty-like shape. The other substitutions I made were using a regular burger bun (I couldn't find a good mini pita) and the sauce.
Last month, I made the red hot tahini sauce from Isa's holidays cookbook for the first time and it is SO GOOD. It's basically just a mixture of tahini and Franks hot sauce, which I love. The recipe suggests to use a miso tahini sauce on top. And while I don't see myself making this again as a burger, I would use the ingredients to make a bowl or salad with similar flavors.
Seitan and wild mushroom stew
I would definitely make this again. Contender for new fave!
I made 0 substitutions (but ended up adding a lot more water than called for)
I think this would freeze fine (and I might try it!)
It's cold again this week in Asheville and I'm here for it. I have too many stews and curries left to cook for it to be spring already!
The biggest positive surprise so far this week was the meaty beany sausages in this recipe. I haven’t made seitan in a long time, but I remember it being a lot tougher than this. This came together so easily and I would definitely just eat it on its own or as a sausage with some peppers and onions. If you've been curious about making seitan at home, I definitely recommend this recipe. I like that she also has a gluten free substitution for this protein in this recipe as well!
This thickened up a lot faster than the recipe said it would (I also finished the recipe in 30 mins instead of the allotted 45 in the cookbook which was good because I was hungry!) so I just added some extra water. The broth is amazing, and the carrots are probably my favorite veggie in this stew. This is a new winter classic for me I think!
Tempeh agrodolce over grilled polenta (with homemade polenta)
I would definitely make this again. In fact I'm pretty sure I have made this before and just didn't make a note in the cookbook.
I made 0 substitutions
You could definitely freeze the sauce!
I am the queen of buying packaged polenta from the store (you know, in those weird tubes) and leaving it to decay in my fridge. It's a terrible habit. This time, I bought the cornmeal and made the polenta, and it came out lovely with a better texture and flavor than the premade stuff.
A friend of mine recently cut out gluten from their diet, so I thought this would be a perfect recipe to invite her over to try. I didn't realize it was also her first time trying tempeh, but she liked it! She did remark on its peanut-looking appearance, which is accurate. The trick to good tempeh which I've learned from Isa is to steam it. I also marinated this batch overnight.
The tomato sauce for this recipe is a sweet-and-sour sauce that is super unique and tasty. I made a special trip to the store to get the fresh basil this called for, and almost completely forgot to add it! It does add another layer of flavor.
This recipe is super delicious and I would make it again, but probably with some modifications to streamline the cooking process because...
...this recipe uses a lot of pots/pans. Like this:
You need a pot to steam the tempeh
You need a pot to make the polenta (if you make it right after the tempeh, you could use the same pot)
You need a grill pan to grill the polenta
You need a sauté pan to cook the tempeh
You need a saucepan to make the sauce
I ended up just using my grill pan to cook the tempeh as well as the polenta because I just could not dirty another dish. This would be a great recipe for trying out tempeh though, so I definitely recommend it.
Weekly reflection
I wouldn't generally cook this much food in a week from recipes, but I love physicality of cooking, and after being sick last week it was really nice to get cooking again. I made a nice bowl of food with leftover ingredients this week as well. I had some pasta with green beens, parsley and cilantro, and pinto beans, seasoned with red wine vinegar and olive oil. It was really good! Finding ways to use leftover herbs when a recipe only calls for a small amount is something I'm trying to be better at, so putting it in pasta or into a salad is an easy way to do this.
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