26. Feijoada and Orange Rice

I love oranges - they're so sharp and sweet, and the flavor works with so much, including chocolate. But I would have never thought to combine orange and rice. Lucky for me, I have Terry Hope Romero's Viva Vegan.

I made Romero's Savory Orange Rice, Brazilian Style, as an accompaniment for Portobello Feijoada.



These dishes worked perfectly together. The Feijoada is good, but the rice stole the show. Though it's savory, there is a sweetness to it thanks to the orange juice. I could probably eat this rice every day forever.



This was just one more pair of dishes that prove, scientifically, without doubt that Viva Vegan is worth its weight in gold.

11. No Cookies, and Two Viva Vegan Beauties

I had every intention of coming home and photographing the beautiful chocolate chip cookies I made and posting about them. But this is what I found:


a guilty-looking dog, and an empty tin.







I was not happy to say the least, but my back-up supply of Mint Oreos cut my tantrum short.



Besides, cookies are not the only delicious foods in my house. After reading the PPK thread on favorite Viva Vegan picks, I was excited to try, among many others, Quick Red Posole and Gallo Pinto.

The Quick Red Posole with Beans lives up to its name. It is in fact quick, red, and contains beans. But it's also a flavorful, red stew that was the perfect remedy when I came home from work with the beginnings of a cold. I slept for three hours, drank 40 oz. of water, had some posole, and returned to bed. The cold is gone, and I declare posole to be the medical breakthrough of our times ... or of pre-Columbian times.

And this is the first time I've used or even had hominy. So as you can imagine, it was a pretty exciting experience.

I took author Terry Hope Romero's suggestion and topped this lovely dish with cool, salad-like ingredients - lettuce, sour cream, and avocado - and blue tortilla chips.



"Gallo Pinto" means "painted rooster," but this refried beans and rice dish is 100% vegan friendly. The flavor is incredible, and the dish is immensely satisfying. It tastes like something you'd eat at a restaurant and try to pretend that you don't even know what MSG is, since something this good must be triple marinated in it.

The majority of the time spent on this dish was waiting for the beans and rice to cook, and then for the rice to cool in the refrigerator - that's what "cold cooked" means. I had no idea before this. This is an excellent quick dinner if you've already soaked your beans.

The dish comes together very quickly, and is best served in fine crockery, such as the Blues Clues bowl pictured here.



If you don't own Viva Vegan, I can't urge you to get it enough. Every single dish I've made so far has been a fantastic, make again and again, pleasure. This is a desert island cookbook for sure.

I'm becoming a real live cook!

I'm pretty proud of last night's dinner! I had planned on using all of the yellow summer squash and the green patty pan squash collected from CSAs and friendly coworkers (as I'd finished off the zucchini and yellow patty pans the night previous -and promptly had the zucchinis replenished). I also determined that I need to use up the many, many cherry tomatoes I'd acquired.


So good they're emitting light!

As I was looking over my grains, millet fresh on my mind, quinoa protested by the household, tired of the rice, out of barley, not feeling the bulgur, I spied my long-neglected jar of corn meal. I've had the first Savvy Abby post I'd read on my mind for some time and dinner immediately came together:

Cumin Chili Squash over Corn Bread topped with Fresh Gazpacho Salsa Dressing!

The above post was about hot water cornbread. I'm not giving away any secrets when I say that this is essentially cornmeal and hot water mixed, formed into cakes, and fried.

For mine, I used two cups of cornmeal, 3 diced jalapenos, a big pinch of sugar (will probably go for more next time), some granulated garlic, and enough water, added slowly, to form a paste.



Before I fried those up, I sautéed the squash in oil, waiting until they were tender to add cumin, chili powder, and salt. Once they were removed from the cast iron skillet, I added more oil and fried the corn cakes without washing. Cross-contamination can be your friend.

The Fresh Gazpacho Salsa Dressing is one of my favorite recipes, but sadly it is not my own. It comes from Terry Hope Romero's Viva Vegan!. The only adaptation I made was replacing the chopped tomatoes with halved cherry tomatoes. This Gazpacho is a cool, and refreshing all-purpose topping and I'm glad I own the book for it. (However, it's not my favorite from Viva Vegan! - my heart belongs to Yuca with Cuban Garlic-Lime-Mojo Sauce).

There is one more component that I left out of my already uncreative title: black beans and corn. I lazily tossed them with lime juice before assembling my meal.



All in all, an easy meal to make and lots of complimentary flavors and textures to enjoy. It's also perfect as lunch the next day! I'm proud because it used up a lot of ingredients I had around that needed using, it's delicious, it's filling, and I didn't have to think very hard to do it. It was a very intuitive cooking session. This leads me to believe that my recent experiments are helping me to become the kind of cook I want to be!