Hashed Brown Potatoes, Grilled Daiya Cheddar Cheese Sandwich

I was excited to purchase Daiya vegan cheese today from Whole Foods Market. I have had this cheese, non-soy and surprisingly with peas as one of the ingredients, before, but only a few days ago did it become available for retail purchase.

I was photographing a family this evening; I picked up shredded cheddar-style Daiya on my way home and made a simple dinner for myself (my wife had already eaten on her own), grilled cheese with pickles, and hashed brown potatoes.

Chopped Polenta with Vegan Sausage

I came up with the idea of using a tube of prepared polenta and chopping it quite fine in the Vitamix blender. I did just that, using

1 2/3 tubes of polenta, and putting it in the Vitamix, running at variable speed of 4 (out of 10), for a few seconds. I also chopped in the Vitamix an onion and 3 vegan smoked apple sage sausages. I started this sauteeing. After about 10 minutes when the sausage was browning, I added 2 chopped zucchinis, cooked a few more minutes, then added some corn kernels. I cooked a minute or two, then served with a wild-brown rice combination and tomato. Yum!

Breaded Jerk Tempeh with Coconut Milk, Baby Red Beet "Greens" ("Reds"?) and Roots

Today we received our box from our "online farmer's market", Papa Spud's, and it included baby red beets with greens (which are even more nutritious than the roots!) intact, as well as green beans (and avocados, kale, tomatoes, and strawberries). I decided to use the beets and most of the beans today, plus one of the tomatoes.

Like I described in March 2007 and again in July 2008, I made a steamed beet dish. I simply cut the very bottom and very top from the beet roots, cut the roots in half, and put in a vegetable steamer for 25 minutes. About 5-6 minutes later, I started beans, with the very ends cut off, in the steamer so they would steam for about 20 minutes. In the last 5 minutes, I put in the beet greens (well, they were a deep red color, so -- "reds"?!). I served with just a little salt.

For the main dish, I cut up pieces of tempeh and dipped each piece into a bowl of liquid jerk seasoning, then dredged in bread crumbs. I started sauteeing, and a few minutes later added thin half moon slices of red onion, also dipped and dredged. When the tempeh was crispy and brown, I drizzled in three tablespoons or so of canned coconut milk. We both liked dinner (my daughter had already eaten)!

Sweet Potato - Yukon Gold Saute with Tempeh and Key West Mojo Criollo Sauce

The Full Frame Film Festival went by so quickly! It was four very full days, but felt like it was just a day and a half or so. I saw great films on topics such as a fascinating and funny Japanese mega-inventor, a Brazilian artist who creates art of and for workers in the world's largest landfill, a biography of Daniel Ellsberg and a film of a woman adopted from Korea but who was switched at the orphanage for the girl originally to be adopted.

For tonight's dinner, I cut a sweet potato and two small Yukon Gold potatoes into 1/2 inch discs, halving again the wider pieces. I started sauteeing them over medium-high heat. After 6-8 minutes, when the potatoes were just starting to brown, I added half of a package of tempeh, cut into small crumbles, approximately 1/4" cubes. A minute or two later, I added half of a red onion, cut as thin half moons, and sprinkled a little Key West Mojo Criollo sauce (purchased from Trader Joe's) on top.

While this was all cooking, I had two Swiss chard leaves, and prepared them. I snapped off the thick stems below the leaves and removed them. I then cut across the leaves, stem and all. A minute or so after adding the Mojo Criollo sauce, I added the Swiss chard, as well as a little salt, paprika, and dried tarragon. I cooked another 3 or so minutes till the chard was cooked down a bit, mixed in a little Eat in the Raw's Parma! vegan "Parmesan cheese", and served over a wild and brown rice blend.

Bread Crumb Stir Fried Collard Greens, Water Crackers with Baba Ganouj, Watermelon Radish

Tonight is going to be my last dinner probably till Monday; we're lucky to live in an area with great festivals, such as Full Frame, the country's largest documentary film festival, which is on essentially 10a-midnight this Thursday-Saturday, and 10a-9p or so on Sunday. I am a film reviewer for a magazine, and always look forward to covering this event. My film schedule is pretty packed and some days I barely have a few half hour breaks - I hope that the press room has some reasonable vegan vittles.

As a preamble for tonight's dinner, I made a tasty cantaloupe - strawberry - vanilla coconut milk yogurt smoothie/juice in my Vitamix blender. Yum!

I found a recipe online for stir fried kale, and used it to make a main course, but with collard greens instead of kale. I used my Vitamix to chop an onion; I cut the onion into five or so parts and simply ran the machine at 3 or 4 on the variable speed dial (out of 10), dropping onion parts in one at a time. I did the same with the half leftover from yesterday of the lovely garlic with greens we got this week.

I started sauteeing the onion and garlic over medium-high heat. When it softened and cleared up a bit, maybe after 4 minutes or so, I added a third of a cup or so of bread crumbs, and stirred them till they turned lightly brown.

In the meantime, I used the wet method of chopping in the Vitamix. I cut off the protruding collard greens stems and, where the stem was reasonably thick in the center of a leaf, I hand tore the leaf away from the stem. In thirds, I put the greens into the blender, then added enough water to let the leaves float. I briefly (5 seconds?) ran the blender at around 5 on variable speed, which nicely shredded the leaves coarsely.

When the bread crumbs browned, I added the shredded collard greens and cooked for a few minutes till the greens were slightly wilted. I added some dried oregano and salt, and served. It was quite good! (My wife told me that in her part of India, Maharashtra, besan, or chickpea flour, is used instead of bread crumbs to make greens dishes like this; I should try that sometime!)

I also served some sesame water crackers with baba ganouj that my wife had purchased yesterday. Some watermelon radish slices completed the meal.