"Beef", Pepper and Asparagus Stir Fry

I was intrigued by how much Vegan Dad's beef seitan actually looks like stir fry beef, so I decided to give it a try. It's definitely pepper season at the CSA, so I thought I'd showcase them in this stir-fry along with the "beef". I left it simple, seasoned with a home-made stir fry sauce of tamari, ginger, garlic, chili oil, and scallion. The flavor of the "beef" is very nice, and the texture was good too after the initial fry. However, when I threw it back in the mix to add the sauce the seitan ended up just a bit mushy. It wasn't inedible, just not as firm as I would have preferred.

Miscellaneous

I'm back from Chicago, again with no food pictures to share with you. As a matter of fact, I'm back with no food anything to share with you. I went to Chicago with a non-vegetarian friend, so we didn't even venture to any of the veg only restaurants that Chicago has to offer. Therefore, my eating consisted mostly of pasta with grilled veggies, cheese-less veggie pizza, and burritos sans cheese. Don't get me wrong, I ate a lot of good food, but it was your typical vegan finds at conventional restaurants, ya know?

I do however have a few miscellaneous food items to share with you. First, there's this Terriyaki Stir Fry that I made up on Tuesday evening. When I got home Monday evening I was faced with a ton of CSA veggies from the previous week. Uninspired and at a loss for what to do with them all, I diced them up and threw them in a stir-fry. Damn good idea, as this was one delicious stir-fry. It consisted of eggplant, zucchini, summer squash, onions and green pepper. Once the veggies were stir-fried I hit it with a little home made terriyaki (Mirin, Shoyu, and sugar) and a few dashes of dried red chili. I served it over white jasmine rice with a side of crispy fried tofu and called it a meal.

A few days later I tried out the tofu fritatta from a recent Vegetarian Times issue. It's a combo of diced, sauteed veggies mixed with some tofu and vegan cheese, topped with tomatoes and baked until firm. The concept and the flavor of this dish were both superb. Unfortunately, the consistency was a bit off. The recipe didn't call for the tofu to be pressed before processing with the cheese, but I think that pressing the tofu first would have gone a long way toward fixing the consistency of this dish. So, I will definitely be trying this recipe again, only with pressed tofu. When I get it just right I'll share the recipe with you..........for now, you'll just have to enjoy the photo.

Golden Bowl

This is a recipe from I think June's issue of Vegetarian Times. It comes from The Grit restaurant in Athens Georgia. It won a spot as one of VT's top vegetarian restaurant menu item picks. I don't know if it's deserving of the award. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but it was really nothing special, just stir fried veggies and tofu over brown rice....how's that for stereotypical vegetarian fare? Honestly, I've had better vegetarian items at non-veg restaurants. The one fantastic thing about this recipe is that my kids liked it (it's that lack of complex flavor thing again!!)