Loving Vegetarian Food...and Cake

I am not a vegetarian, but I've had some great vegetarian experiences this week, both in my kitchen and out.  I love animals, and I believe that they should be treated well.  But I am not opposed to eating meat or animal products.  I just think that we should be aware of where our food comes from and support those who provide animal products from hormone-free, well-cared for animals.

This was the last week of school, so there was very little cooking in the Whiskers' home.  There was a lot of blending.

The one night that I did cook, I made a vegetarian meal.  I was surprised at how time efficient it was.  Chopping and cooking a package of tofu is much faster than dealing with slimy chicken breasts.

I had one more CSA veggie in the fridge and decided to make an Asian dish.  Pak Choi is a Chinese green with a mustardy, spicy flavor.  It's tender spoon-shaped leaves sit atop celery-like stalks.  Chopped up, it makes for a delicious stirfry, and I was craving orange.

Asian Orange Tofu Stirfry

Stir Fry Ingredients:
1 head of pak choi
1 small head of broccoli
8 oz package of extra firm tofu
1 bell pepper
1 T grapeseed oil

Orange Sauce:
3/4 c water
1 T orange juice
2 T lemon juice
2 1/2 T gf soy sauce
3 T brown sugar
1 1/2 T orange zest
1 1/2 T minced ginger
2 garlic cloves minced
dash of cayanne pepper
1 T cornstarch
1 T water

1.  Make the sauce first, and then set it aside.  In a medium saucepan on medium-high heat, combine all of the sauce ingredients except for the cornstarch and water.  Once the sauce boils, turn off the heat and let it sit.

2.  Mix the cornstarch and water together in a small bowl until it's smooth.  Set it aside.

3.  Heat the oil in a wok on medium-high heat.  Add tofu, fry for 5 minutes, and remove it from the pan.  Place the vegetables in the pan, fry for a minute or two, and then add the orange sauce.  Return the tofu to the veggie mix along with the cornstarch slurry.  Cook for a a few minutes until the sauce has thickened.  Serve over brown rice.  Who needs takeout?

This recipe definitely gets printed and filed in the over-stuffed recipe box.  Thanks, Wheat Free Meat Free for the orange sauce recipe.  It's perfect.

This week the Husband happened to be in East Nashville and remembered my post about Aunt April's Bakery as he saw The Wild Cow.  April supplies The Wild Cow, a vegan restaurant with an extensive gluten-free menu, with their gluten-free bread and assorted yummy desserts.  Because I have the best husband in the universe, he stopped in to pick up a slice of April's gluten-free Chocolate Heaven Cake for me.  Considering that this was the last week of school, coming home to chocolate cake was an incredible treat.  Kitchen happy dance moment.

This cake was beautiful.

This cake was moist and light.

This cake was...wait!!!  Now, I trust my husband implicitly, so I'm not sure why I had to ask this.  It just sort of popped out of my mouth after I recovered from the first delicious bite.  "Are you sure this is Aprils' gluten-free cake?"  There wasn't anything about this cake that said, "I'm gluten-free."  The texture was perfect.  The plate didn't weigh five pounds.  The cake itself was light and airy.  The frosting.  Oh, the frosting.  Excuse me while I take a moment here...



Yes, of course it was April's gluten-free cake.  Of course, the Husband peppered the poor Wild Cow employee with questions about the cake, gluten, and cross-contamination issues.

The cake didn't last long.  I'm lucky to have this picture.

On Saturday, I had vegetarian experience number two.  We actually went to The Wild Cow for lunch.  I loved that I got an entire laminated menu of gluten-free meals.  No little star designating the three items on the menu that could be made gluten-free if I requested modifications.  This menu was covered with options from front to back!

I highly recommend the Prince Fielder on April's gluten-free flax bread - marinated and grilled tempeh, avocado, tomato, sprouts, cucumbers, shredded carrots, onions, Vegenaise, and spicy mustard.  Even the Husband ordered his sandwich on April's bread.

And the cold quinoa salad was fantastic.  The dried cranberries, toasted almonds, and parsley made the quinoa taste like a picnic at the park.

So, am I becoming a vegetarian?  No.  But I have to say I sure felt clean and satisfied after my vegetarian experiences this week.  There's just something about eating food from the earth that makes you feel alive and healthy.  Now that school is out, maybe it's time for some vegetarian experimenting.

What are your favorite vegetarian meals?

Hot Poppin' Sesame Seeds!

Cooking in the Whiskers' household is always done under the watchful eye of Marcy.  Her usual perch is on top of the refrigerator where she lays like a lioness, draping an arm over the door.

But tonight she wisely chose to observe a little further away from the stove.  The upright piano is high enough for her to see over the counter, yet far enough from the flying sesame seeds.






Do you know what this is?  It was my challenge for the night.











Tokyo Bekana.  It's an Asian green.  (Duh...Tokyo?)  I'd never heard of it until we joined the CSA.  At first I thought it was another bunch of leaves to toss in a salad, but it has quite a bitter taste.  So I followed a tip from our farmer and decided to cook this one. 

I figured that a dish of Asian greens had to have an Asian flavor, so after a little online research I knew that I couldn't go wrong with sesame, soy sauce, ginger, and garlic.

You could use the following recipe to cook any Asian green, but I highly recommend the Tokyo Bekana.  (I'm making myself laugh as I type about this obscure vegetable like I have more than one night of experience with it!)

Hot Poppin' Tokyo Bekana

2 T sesame oil
2 T sesame seeds
2 cloves of garlic minced
2 small pieces of chopped ginger
Mounds of Tokyo Bekana
2 T gluten-free soy sauce
1 T brown rice vinegar

In a wok, warm the sesame oil on medium heat.  Add the sesame seeds and stir until you are overwhelmed with the nutty fragrance, the seeds darken, and you wish you had a spring roll.

Next, add the garlic and ginger, but watch out!  The sesame seeds freaked out and flew out of the pan in all directions when I added the garlic and ginger.  This was quite a surprise to me, but I persevered through the stings, and I stirred, yelped, and danced in front of the stove.  All the while, Marcy watched.

After a minute, add greens by the handful, cooking them down.  In 3-5 minutes they will still be a beautiful, light, spring green, and the stems should still be crunchy. 

I served the greens with plain quinoa.  The nutty taste complimented the Asian flavor of the greens, and it was especially delicious drizzled with leftover saute sauce.

I'd love to tell you that, in addition to learning about a new vegetable, figuring out how to cook it, and being amazed that I actually had all of the ingredients I needed in my kitchen, I also served Asian-flavored salmon with a orange, soy, honey marinade.  Mmmm.  Doesn't that good?

Maybe next time.  We settled for leftover salmon that had been frozen for such a night as this. 

Remember, this is crunch week.  Six days of school to go.

So, the next time you're in the produce section of your local grocery store, pick up a bunch of Tokyo Bekana.  Ha!  Good luck with that one.

Seriously, have any of you seen this before?

When the Floodwaters Rise, Stirfry

If you haven't turned on the news lately, Nashville is in a state of emergency.  We've had 13.75 inches of rain,  9 fatalities, and over 600 water rescues.  We've been cooped up for three days watching the deluge, rivers flowing just beyond our property line, as well as images on the TV and internet such as these.

I was on my way home from a church event when the water levels on the road started to get scary.  Tornado sirens were sounding all around me.  I was thankful that the Husband traded cars with me that morning.  The Jeep's big beefy tires kept me anchored to the road.

Thankfully I made it home before the major flooding started.

This is the YMCA where I teach classes.  Behind the building is the running path where I do most of my training.

This intersection is just miles away from our home.

Thankfully our home is built into a hill, so our yard only suffered a little pooling, but flooding all around prevented us from getting out.

So, what's a girl to do with a refrigerator filled with CSA veggies,

a brand new birthday gift from the Husband,

and time on her hands?

Stir-fry!

When your county is in a state of emergency, it's not a good idea to run out to the store for missing ingredients.  So, I had to get a little creative.  I placed all of my veggies on the counter and started grouping them.  Which flavors would go together?  This is what I came up with.

1.  Golden Beet and Greens Stir-fry

Have you ever tried a golden beet?  They don't bleed like red beets, they have a subtle sweetness, and they are a good source of potassium.  The beet greens are actually more nutritious than the beets themselves as they contain twice the potassium.  They're also exceptionally high in beta carotene and folic acid.

Beets, beet greens, and swiss chard sauteed in grapeseed oil with garlic and caramelized onions was not only delicious and nutritious, it was beautiful.

I asked the Husband to describe the taste.  He said it tastes like stir-fried vegetables.  Thanks.

When I asked him to focus on the golden beets he said, "It has a bouquet of beet, a distinct nose of beet, and an aftertaste of beetiness."  Again, thanks.


2.  Turnip and Greens Stir-fry
I don't think I'd ever had a turnip before joining the CSA.  I'd seen the white and purple roots and passed them by.  But Hakurei Turnips are a delight.  They are perfectly round and pearly white.  They are mild enough to eat raw or sliced on salads, but we've had a lot of salads lately, so into the stir-fry they went.

I started with the same minced garlic and caramelized onions combination, but this time I added some balsamic vinegar, green onions, turnip greens, and spinach.  Tangy, sweet, and scrumptious.

3.  Ginger Carrot and Mizuna Stir-fry
What is Mizuna?  It's a tender, crisp, deep green Asian lettuce with jagged edges that tastes mild yet tangy.  It is often found in mesclun mixes and is used in salads, soups, and stir-fries.  I would have loved to have used fresh ginger root for this stir-fry, but flood waters made a run to the grocery store seem frivolous, especially when ordered by police to stay home.  Thankfully, I had some bottled ginger in the fridge.  

I sauteed chopped ginger, minced garlic, and onion in grapeseed oil, added carrots until al dente, and then piled on mounds of mizuna the last minute of cooking.  The mizuna quickly cooked down to about a quarter of the size. 

Sweet, sweet, sweet.  The natural sugar in the caramelized onions and carrots mixed beautifully with ginger and fresh garlic.


It was a wet day.  It was a creative food day.  The house smells spectacular.  We are well fed.  

And we are thankful.  We're thankful to be safe and dry.  We are thankful for fresh, organic food.  We are thankful for our farmers.  We are thankful for the stir-fry meals that we'll be enjoying for the next three weeks.

Our prayers are with those who are still being rescued from the flood waters and those who are cleaning up the devastating damage.