Satanic Secret Ingredient

Christmukkah part 2. Again, your album to listen to while cooking today is the Peur Panqiue demo tape on repeat! 

Easy Vegan Latkes

We celebrated Christmas in the Marais district of Paris this year and December 25th is the 6th day of Hanoukka, so I wanted to make something traditionally Jewish to go with our dinner. I don’t own a grater or a potato masher, since I live in a furnished apartment near Paris and I don’t have the money to buy these items, nor do I want to, since I will be moving away next year. Thus, here is my simplified version of traditional latkes.

 These cute candle lighting vans were driving around on Rue des Rosiers while people gathered to purchase delicious Jewish falafels. Here’s a view from the window.

• 5-6 medium potatoes, washed, roughly chopped
• 2 carrots, grated (or peeled if you have no grater like me)
• 1 1/2 onion, finely minced or roughly chopped, as you prefer
• 2 tsp salt, pepper
• 2 tbsp vegan margarine

Boil 2 L of salted water in a medium pot while you peel the potatoes and carrots. Only peel them if they seem dirty, peeling veggies really reduces their flavour. Grate the carrots (if you don’t have a grater, just peel the carrots with the peeler into thin strips, that’s what I did) and when the water boils, add the chopped potatoes. Boil for 10-15 min on med-high. Once cooked, drain the potatoes.  

Mash the potatoes with a fork, adding the margarine, salt, pepper, carrots and onions.

Okay, this part is fun, heat about 1/2 cup of sunflower (or whatever) oil in a frying pan, medium heat. Fry up those latkes! To be more calorie conscious, use 1 tbsp of oil per 4-5 latkes. Make them thin enough that the carrots and onions are able to cook from raw. Drain off excess oil onto a paper towel, or rag and serve with apple sauce, vegan sour cream or saurkraut.

Cauliflower Parsnip au Gratin

Sorry, not the best photo. It’s below on the left, beside the Hamburger mac ‘n cheese from the last post.

• 1 head cauliflower roughy chopped
• 2 parsnips chopped into 2cm squares
• 1 kolrhabi (optional)
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp vegan butter (We love St-Hubert Bio)
• 3/4 cup Daiya or other vegan cheese 

In a large pot, boil 1.5L of salted water. Roughly chop the veggies (chop parsnips smaller since they are more dense), cutting off any brown parts and peeling where necessary. I dumpstered all the veggies for this recipe from the marché Pyrénées for a Food Not Bombs dinner, so I had to give them a good scrub and peel them all. Heat the oven to 180C or 350F. Steam the chopped veggies for 10-15min, don’t over steam them, just until the parsnip is softly pierced by a fork. Mash them up with a fork, the salt and vegan margarine, then lay the spread into a baking dish and sprinkle them with vegan cheese (or a nutritional yeast cheese sauce). Bake for 15-20 min or until browned on top. Turn on the broiler for the final 5-10mins to really brown it on top. Next time, Part 3: Desserts!

Hey vegan blog readers. It’s Amanda today, sharing recipes I used this Christmukkah. The ones I am posting here turned out pretty delicious! Sadly, my peanut butter chocolate fudge was a delicious failure, so until I have a recipe for fudge which I trust, I won’t post it here. Also, I should buy a measuring cup. That would help. Oh yeah, the recipes are a mix of imperial and metric measurements…because it’s more fun!!! Well, mostly because I live in France but grew up in Canada. If something is unclear or you don’t know what 500g of pasta looks like, ask me or look at the package volume and estimate. Anyway, your album to listen to while cooking today is the Peur Panqiue demo tape on repeat! Just the kind of powerviolent energy you need, no post-caffeine hangover.

Roasted Topinambour (Jerusalem artichoke) with other veggies

Roughly chop the following veggies:

• 1 red pepper
• 1 zucchini
• 6-8 peeled topinambour roots
• 5 mushrooms 
• 6 cherry tomatoes
• 2 onions or 3 shallots
• 2 carrots

Season them in a bowl with the following spices:

• 2 tbsp dried chives
• 1 tbsp salt
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil
• 2 tsp paprika

Spread them out evenly and bake the mix for 1hr on 180 celcius or 350 fahrenheit or for more caramelized veggies add 2 tbsp of maple syrup and bake for longer (2hrs) at a lower temperature (150). 

Steak Haché Macaroni and Cheese

Easy because it uses a store-bought ground beef/steak haché. I like this Sojasun haché, you can’t get it in Canada, but Yves or Morningstar work just as well.

• 1 package Sojasun haché végétal or Yves Ground Round
• 1 minced onion
• 2 tbsp vegan margarine or vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp soy sauce

Boil a medium pot full of water with a pinch of salt. While the water is heating, sauté the minced onion with margarine and once it’s clear, add the faux meat and soy sauce. Sauté until browned, about 10min on medium, stirring every few minutes.

• 500g pasta
• pinch of salt
• 2 L of water
• 1 small package of soy creamer (100ml) (Bjorg brand in France)
• 2 tbsp vegan margarine
• 1/2 cup Daiya or other vegan cheese (optional)
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast 
• 1/2 tsp turmeric for colour
• 1 tsp sea salt

Set aside. Add 500g or so of fusili, macaroni elbows or whatever pasta you like to the boiling water and let cook until al dente. Drain pasta and return to pot. Add the creamer, margarine, vegan cheese, nutritional yeast, turmeric and sea salt to the pot and cook on low until everything melts. Add faux meat mixture. Enjoy! 

Even though Amanda and I are currently on different continents, we are still on the same wavelength.  Yesterday she made the vegan sausages while I was here making vegan biscuits and gravy.  So we thought it’d be fun to add this to the collection.  

Mega Green Vegan Biscuits-n-Gravy Both recipes below are adapted from Vegweb.com recipes I came across awhile back.  I used to make the biscuits found in this recipe, but I find these ones to be much more delicious because of the nutritional yeast, and they are fluffier. So let’s get started!  First you’ll need something to listen to, a kitchen without music is a dull kitchen indeed.  Let me recommend, Salome. The  Terminal album is heavy for all of your garlic chopping needs. Time: You’ll have enough time to still enjoy the Salome album while your eating this feast.  (It’ll take less than an hour, unless you are making your own sausage, so maybe prepare that in advance.) Who it’ll feed: 2-3 hungry people, or more if you don’t eat as much as my friends and I do.   The Biscuits 1 2/3 – 2 Cups Flour (unbleached white or wheat) 1/3 Cup Nutritional Yeast Flakes 5 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 5 tablespoons of vegan margarine (almost) 1 cup nondairy milk 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (optional) Dash of cayenne or more! Instructions: Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit Add the apple cider vinegar to a measuring cup, then add the nondairy milk until you have one cup of the combined mixture. Let this hang out and curdle while you mix the other stuff. If you aren’t familiar with this process, this is your “buttermilk,”  you can also use a lemon juice/nondairy milk mixture as well. In a separate bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients.  That’s the flour, nutritional yeast flakes, baking powder, salt and optional cayenne pepper. Cut in the margarine. Some people use one of those fancy tools, or a fork or knives.  But I find the quickest way is to just use my hands.  Do this until your dough is nice and crumbly. Now add your “buttermilk” in. If things seem too wet, this is where you might want to add a bit more flour to jump up to that 2 cups.  Drop 1-2 large spoonfuls of the batter on a lightly oiled baking sheet.  Leave some room in between each, they expand a bit. Bake for 10-12 minutes.  

Now you need your VEGAN SAUSAGE GRAVY!!! I’ll actually start sautéing the sausage while I’m preparing the biscuits. Better yet, if you have a friend around the house, one of you can make the biscuits while the other prepares the gravy.

So, Amanda, one of my best friends who is currently living in France actually made her own sausage yesterday, while I was over here making biscuits-n-gravy.  We are adding both of these to the awesome vegan collective recipe blog she started up,Satanic Secret Ingredient.  Check it out!  It’s really easy and fast to make your own sausage and it’s great in this recipe.

Now you need your VEGAN SAUSAGE GRAVY!!! I’ll actually start sautéing the sausage while I’m preparing the biscuits. Better yet, if you have a friend around the house, one of you can make the biscuits while the other prepares the gravy.

Vegan Sausage Gravy

• About 140z of your favorite vegan sausage.  This is the equivalent of a tube of Gimme Lean Sausage or 2-3 of your own homemade sausages….it’s ok if the amount varies.
• Couple of tablespoons of olive oil or vegan margarine for sautéing.
• 2-3 Cups of water (or more if you want more gravy)
• 3-4 Tablespoons of flour (and/or cornstarch)
• 5 cloves of garlic (more or less)
• salt and pepper
• 2 Tablespoons (or more, to taste) of Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (or soy sauce if you really want to do that instead)
• 1 jalapeño (optional, but you should really do it!)
• cayenne pepper (to taste and optional, but again, just go for it!)
• Handful or two of chopped kale
• 1 green onion chopped (to sprinkle on at the end)

Instructions: Preferably on a cast iron skillet over medium heat, crumble up the sausage in the oiled pan. While the sausage is browning, start chopping your garlic into little pieces. Throw them in the pan. Chop up your jalapeño and toss those in as well… I throw in the seeds, too. Let all of this sauté until your jalapeño pieces have softened and things are toasting to a golden brown on the edges. Measure out your water and in the measuring cup whisk the flour and/or cornstarch into it.  You may have to do this in a couple of batches. Scoop out the contents of your skillet into a separate container– perhaps the plate you’ll be eating off of later, this way you’ll have less dishes to wash.  Don’t scrape anything off that has stuck a bit, that thin layer is great for flavor for your gravy. In the same skillet, add the water/flour mixture and turn up the heat.  Bring it to a boil and make sure you keep whisking otherwise it’ll get gross and clumpy.  While this is happening, I start dumping in the pepper, Bragg’s, salt, and cayenne. Use a lot of pepper. Once your gravy has thickened  (if you are struggling with this, you may want to make a paste out of cornstarch or flour with a bit of water and add that to your mix to help thicken it more) you can add all that delicious stuff you scooped out earlier, back into the skillet. Now toss in the kale.  Mix it all in.  Try a bit of it….. probably needs more salt and pepper. More pepper! Once the kale is heated to your liking, I like mine to still be a bit crunchy, pile it on your biscuits which should be done by now. Sprinkle the chopped green onions on top. Add more pepper. DEVOUR! Why make lots of biscuits when you can make one large biscuit!?!  For some of our Annual Thanx-4-Nothing Vegan Potlucks, I came up with this weird concoction.  Seems to often be the agenda of these parties.  So I made BISCUITS-N-CRAZY pizza. A quick How-To-Make BISCUITS-N-CRAZY Pizza: Follow recipe above for the biscuit dough and gravy. Bake the dough in a spring-form cake pan.  (Note: I haven’t tried this with the Savory Biscuit recipe above, only the other linked one, but it should work.) While that’s baking, prepare your vegan sausage gravy. Take the biscuit out of the pan and place it on something else a bit larger. Pile on the gravy and then shred some vegan cheese on it. You may want to reheat this all real quick to get the “cheese” to melt. Once ready, sprinkle on the green onions, slice it up and eat it up!