Recipe Thursdays (on a Sunday)- Anatomy of a Quality Salad w/ Cashew Feta Cheese

I'm sorry I haven't posted as often.  I've been working forty hours a week to pay for my car damage so I haven't written as much as I'd like.  But yesterday and today a few people mentioned to me in passing that they liked to read my blog and I was soooo flattered so I decided to finish up this piece and set it free on the internet.  Enjoy! 

One night I had a liiiiittle too much wine and Amazon one-click purchased a 5 lb bag of cashews.  I have since cancelled my Prime membership (may it rest in peace) because it turns out that my parents have one and that it is $80!! Whoops. 

Anyways, so I have a LOT of cashews.  I decided to find a few recipes in my Isa Does It cookbook that will utilize them! 

Did I mention I have a lot of cashews?

I love love love love feta cheese.  I used to put it on everything.  Wraps, salads, pizzas, frozen meals, it tasted perfect on everything.  It was salty and creamy and I missed it.  A few months ago I wouldn't even consider making a salad without a decent amount of feta on top.  I gradually weaned myself off of it and I compensated by adding more balsamic vinegar and a lot of fresh pepper and salt and some lemon juice. 

Going through my Isa Does It by the great Isa Moskowitz I saw what I had been waiting for.  I listed the recipe that's in the book (with a few tweaks to fit my personal tastes) below. 

Next up, I'm going to make a tofu feta but right now this has been working great for me!  I added an additional tablespoon of red wine vinegar and a splash of balsamic vinegar because I loooove vinegar and I adjusted it from 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt to 1/2 of a teaspoon because I accidentally put that much in last time around and it tasted gooood! 




Cashew Feta
1 cup cashews
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
splash of balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste

Directions:  Put the cashews in a saucepan with a decent amount of water, bring to a boil and then cover and boil for 30 mins.  Drain the cashews and put them in a bowl and then mash them up so they look like crumbled feta.  Add all of the other ingredients and stir.  Let it sit in the fridge overnight and in the morning you have cashew feta!

A delicious, delicious salad from the past

 In Isa Does It, she pairs the cashew feta with a quintessential Greek salad but you can really go anywhere with this.  I usually end up putting it in a wrap but my absolute favorite thing to eat this with would be my salad.  I average about one salad a day.  I love salad.  I would eat a salad for all three meals if I had the time/could. 

I regard salad construction as an art and I am an artist. You are so lucky that I am here to teach you how to make a good salad.

How To Make A Salad by Katelyn O'Brien

1) Choose your green. I will not touch iceberg lettuce with a stick. I don't like it I don't even consider it a vegetable. When making a Katelyn salad you should probably not use iceberg lettuce. I stick with baby spinach or rucola. They're both very flavorful and compliment the flavors of the things I like to throw on a salad. 

2) Choose your bean. I like to add some protein in my salad because when I eat a salad, it's the whole meal. I alternate between canned black beans and canned chickpeas but I've used kidney beans before. For some more protein you can throw some quinoa in there. 

3) Choose your FRESH veggies. Chop up whatever you have on hand! I usually end up with bell peppers, avocado and broccoli. 

4) Choose your CANNED veggies. I have gotten myself addicted to sun dried tomatoes packed in oil. I put them in wraps and on sandwiches and they taste so good in salads. I almost always use Kalamata olives too. 

5) Choose your crunch. Walnuts on salads are my favorite but I went through a sunflower seed phase. 

6) Choose your extras. I like to sprinkle on some chia seeds for some more nutrition and a few twists of freshly ground pepper. I will also include some chopped up seitan or tofu! 

7) Dress that salad up. Choose your dressing of choice!! I usually stick with balsamic vinegar mixed with some larrupin sauce. Yummmm. My mouth is watering so hard right now. 

Now go make your salads my students.   Also I got the Veganomicon cookbook in the mail a few days ago and I am SO. PSYCHED.

Nothing is really new in my life.  Peter and I took another trip downtown and just walked around and enjoyed the beautiful weather.  Here are some pics!

oh hey Peter

The Egg Castle

Vesuvio

Sunset oooOOOOoooo how romantic

Ciao ciao! - Katelyn

Recipe Thursdays - Vegan Lasagna

I am obsessed with lasagna. Nothing satisfies like layers of tomato sauce, noodles and cheese cooked to perfection.  Making a lasagna without cheese might sound like sacrilege, but I assure you that this lasagna lives up to expectations!
I got invited to a dinner party at my friend and former neighbor, Erika's new house and I told her I would bring a dish.  I spend a lot of time on Pinterest (code for: I am obsessed with Pinterest and have over 1000 recipes pinned - see my Vegan board HERE ) and I very fortunately stumbled upon THIS recipe for vegan lasagna with a "Basil Cheeze" sauce. 

My attempt at being artistic pre-oven.

 I was so excited to make it because I was still riding my mushroom stroganoff cashew sauce high. I was like 95% sure that I had all of the ingredients that I needed. Unfortunately I was very wrong. I had no basil, no zucchini and maybe a cup of spinach. I was pretty close to not making it.

But I had to, I was a superhero. I could do anything. Anything I made was going to turn out phenomenally. I MADE VEGAN CHEESE. I COULD DO ANYTHING.

So I made a risky move, I substituted baby spinach for the basil. I was so scared that it wasn't going to work because after all it is a "Basil 'Cheese'" sauce. And because I didn't have any spinach left to put in the vegetable mix I threw some kale in that beeyotch.

Vegetable mix 1.0

IT.
WAS.
AWESOME.

I undercooked it a little bit but other than that it was amazing.  The next time around I used the basil that the recipe actually called for but I kept the kale because I really liked it in there and I added mushrooms.

NEW BLENDER. WHAT IS UP.

In the future I think I would use less nutritional yeast.  I've found that in most recipes that call for nutritional yeast, I always wish there was a little less.  So in this recipe I would probably add less yeast and more cashews to get a creamier and less tangy flavor. 

In the recipe it says to be careful to not under-season the vegetables because they will taste bland.  Well let me tell you, my vegetables were so perfectly seasoned that it was ridiculous.  I splashed some balsamic vinegar in there, I twisted my garlic and pepper grinder copious times and I'm pretty sure that I added some red pepper flakes.  It wasn't too much though.

I'd have to say that my favorite part about this dish was the assembly.  Repeating the tomato sauce, noodles, "cheese" sauce and vegetable layers didn't feel like work.  I genuinely enjoyed piecing it all together and it really didn't take long at all. 

And it wasn't ugly at all either

Overall the dish was a success.  My friend Lesly even said that it was very good and I know that if it tasted terrible, she would definitely tell me that it tasted terrible.  I think it could have benefited from a little bit of fake meat.  I think that an Amy's Sonoma burger would have tasted really great in this recipe and I am going to try it in the future.  Also next time I have more time on my hands I'll be using my own tomato sauce! 

All done! So delicious I can't even.

  Dinner at Erika's was great.  She ordered pizza at a place where you can literally get it by the meter.  She got me my own little meter of marinara.  There was so much pizza.  Where at a traditional dinner party there would be a table runner, here there was pizza.

She also flawlessly made martinis for everyone.  At the end of the night after everyone left, Erika, her husband Alessandro, Peter and I had prosecco poured over mango sorbet as dessert and it was delicious.

mmmm prosecco and sorbet

Hey self, looking good.

ciao ciao! -Katelyn

Recipe Thursdays - Mushroom Stroganoff

As many of you know, I got my Isa Does It cookbook in the mail.  Since I've gotten it, I've made a few recipes which I'll blog about in the future but my favorite so far has been the Mushroom Stroganoff.  I'm not going to type out the recipe because I'm too lazy, but you can find the recipe HERE.

I didn't make it with the tofu because I was kind of crunched for time and wasn't sure if I was going to make it out of the house in time so I sacrificed what I'm sure would have been a delicious addition to this dish.  Also I used bowties (or "farfalle" in Italian which basically means "butterfly") instead of fusilli because I love bowties and think that they are just so darn cute.

Mushrooms and onions sauteeing with garlic and thyme. 

 In the past, I had been intimidated by cashew-based sauces, so this was my first one ever.  It was so easy! It just seemed like so much work... the soaking and the blending.  I really thought I was too lazy for that.  In Isa Does It, Isa Moskowitz, the author says "ABS" or "Always be soaking", so now I always make sure to have some cashews soaking in case I need to use them.  I really really really want a new blender though.  This must be what it's like to be a grown up... to want a blender more than anything else. 

Adorable little bowties cooking

 I remember growing up my mother would make stroganoff and I would flip out.  It was my favorite.  Sometimes I would put soy sauce in it because I was a rebel.  Making this recipe in the future, I think I would add more mushrooms because I love mushrooms.

The mushrooms and onions soaking up the white wine and tomato paste

 This being my first time making a cashew based sauce, I was bound to screw it up a little bit and I did.  I didn't blend the cashew and vegetable broth mixture enough.  I thought maybe it was the blender, but on one of the next recipes that I tried I blended longer and the results were better, so this was my bad.  But it was still great!  The sauce thickened in about five minutes and it was so so tasty.

The sauce thickening

I was really proud of myself for this recipe because 1) it was my first cashew-based sauce 2) I made it really efficiently in a short amount of time 3) it was delicious! I had TWO people tell me, so I know I'm not deluding myself. 4) I used my mom's cheap Chardonnay from a box as the "dry white wine" ingredient and it was still amahhhhzing.

yumyumyumyumparselyyum

It was so good that I forgot to take a pic before I started eating.  Whoops.

Also I binge-read this one blog called Vegan Runner Eats and THIS is by far my favorite post on there.  It teaches you how to maximize the health benefits of your plant-based diet by eating certain foods together.  It's really interesting and I really recommend reading it.  She's also a really good example of how cutting back on meat, eggs and dairy (or eliminating it completely) can help your body run more efficiently!  She runs marathons!

ps. here's a bonus pic of the delicious bruschetta I got at dinner last night at Il Cerbero.

yummm. and of course wine.

ciao ciao! -Katelyn

UPDATE: I made this today with some sautéed seitan and I added a few splashes of soy sauce and it was amazing!!