For vegans who miss puchero: Vegan MoFo #8

Holy crapparoni, I’ve missed 2 days of MoFo’ing. I gotta get my ass into shape…

What I’d like to share today is a vegan version of another childhood favorite: puchero.

I think this dish is something every Filipino family has its own version of. Puchero actually came from Mexican and South American cuisine. It arrived in the Philippines via Spain and I guess, puchero is one good thing we can thank our colonizers / slavemasters of 300 years for.

Puchero, Spanish for “stewpot”, comes from Argentina, Uruguay, and Spain. According to Wikipedia, the preparation and ingredients of the dish vary by region. Spain particularly likes chickpeas while Argentina and Uruguay like theirs meat-based. Puchero is usually made up of a soup of meat and vegetables.

Here in the Philippines we use chicken, beef, cabbage, baguio pechay / Chinese cabbage, and potatoes. We also like having boiled saba / cooking bananas served on the side. For families who can trace their roots to Spain (fun trivia, on my paternal grandfather’s side we get our Spanish blood from a friar), we like adding chorizo / pork sausage and chickpeas. I believe puchero is usually eaten as a hearty soup but for those with Spanish influences, we like ours soup on the side, meat and veggies served separately, and with rice.



















I fondly remember the Sunday puchero tradition upheld in my family. We usually chop up the meat and veggies and mix it with rice, tomato sauce, olive oil, and vinegar in a huge wooden bowl. Each of us had an assignment, whether it’s chopping the meat, or the veggies, or pouring the sauce. My dad usually added the final touch, whether it was a splash of vinegar or a dash of salt. It was a family affair and it was so satisfying to sit down and eat the fruits of our labor.

When my brother Michael and I turned vegan, we no longer joined in this tradition. We missed the family food preparation. When everyone else would enjoy the puchero, we would have some completely different vegan meal.

Last Sunday we had puchero for lunch and for the first time we were able to enjoy a vegan puchero! It felt completely familiar at once and incredibly satisfying to eat. We missed our puchero. For our version we cooked our vegetables (cabbage and baguio pechay) and saba bananas in gently boiling water until tender. Chickpeas, usually an afterthought, became one of the main stars of the dish. We cooked ours in garlic, onions, tomatoes, salt and pepper.

And I confess, I missed chorizo – or rather, the smoky saltiness it imparts. Luckily I had a stash of homemade vegan chorizo (off Isa’s Vegan Brunch cookbook) in the freezer. I threw in a couple of chorizos in a sautee pan with about 1 inch of water and simmered them until tender. I then sliced the sausages in half, and then in quarters diagonally. So as not to throw out the now flavorful cooking liquid, I sautéed some sliced onions in it with a splash of olive oil until tender. After setting the onions aside, I added another glug of olive oil in the same pan and fried up the chorizos.


Eating puchero after years of no puchero was… nothing short of amazing. We didn’t have the time to slice up the chorizo and veggies and mix it up with chickpeas, rice, tomato sauce, olive oil and vinegar like our family usually does but it was rewarding just the same. I got bits of everything and couldn’t even fit rice onto my plate.

If you come from a family that regularly eats a meat-based puchero – you can have your puchero veganified! So to summarize:

1. Cook vegetables and saba bananas separately from the meat.
2. Gussy up your chickpeas – cook them with garlic, onions, and tomatoes.
3. Fry up your favorite vegan chorizo, either store bought or homemade. Check out Julie’s Spicy Italian Sausages, they’re a good substitute.
4. The puchero seasonings – tomato sauce (cooked with garlic and onions), olive oil, and vinegar – are already naturally vegan!
5. Mix everything together and dig in!

A day for the animals, a hearty Indian-ish dinner, an attempt at homemade vegan cheese

A day for the animals
















Photos by my coworker, Jeanette Mactal

So I finally got to visit the PAWS Animal Rehabilitation Center in Quezon City 2 Saturdays ago with a couple of coworkers, bringing gifts of food for the shelter dogs and cats. After the feeding activity, Anna Cabrera, the Philippine Animal Welfare Society Program Director, gave us an orientation and tour of the facilities. Let me just tell you, WOW. It's really amazing what PAWS does to help the plight of Pinoy dogs and cats, also known as askals (street dogs) and puskals (street cats). The place was brimming with 36 dogs and 184 cats (as of September 5), all looking for their forever homes. The feline quarantine area was full of days and weeks old kittens. The canine quarantine area had its own fair share of sadness. The guy up there was rescued from the dog meat trade. A lot of them were abused and abandoned by their former owners. The rehabilitation PARC gives them is amazing. It's really different when you're sitting pretty at work and at home with theoretical veganism, and when you see animal cruelty staring at you literally in the face. Hearing their rescue and rehab stories truly is a testament to the philosophy of living compassion and non-violence in one's life.

Anyway, the day-for-the-animals was made complete when my vegan brother (who tagged along at this office volunteer activity) and I stopped for awesome practically-fast food veggie burgers at Good Burger in Pasig, across Tiendesitas. It's sooo nice to be able to eat vegan fast food! Good Burger sells veggie burgers with the option to remove non-vegan items, such as mayo and cheese. They also sell chicken burgers, which is insane... I mean, I would think meat eaters would go for beef rather than chicken when it comes to burgers. I seriously doubt their chicken burgers were any good... Oh, and after the Good Burger lunch, my brother and I spent the afternoon making:


Julie Hasson's Spicy Italian Sausages, recipe here.

Excellent excellent day. We hung out with the shelter dogs and cats, scarfed down veggie burgers, and made a ton of veggie sausages.


Indian-ish dinner
On the Tuesday after the PARC visit (2 Tuesdays ago), it was so nice to sit down and have a hot hearty meal after a grueling day at the office. I was supposed to ride home with my brother on that day but it was pretty traffic from his office to mine -- he ended up arriving at my workplace at around 7:30. So we headed to the nearby mall, specifically Powerplant, for a satisfying dinner at a restaurant, particularly Wild Ginger.



Wild Ginger is one of the few restaurants in Powerplant that has good vegan options, and I'm not even talking about tomato sauce + noodles. They have legumes! I've eaten there several times but it was my first time to try their dal and spinach chapati sandwich, which was really good. I call it an Indian-ish dinner because I'm not certain Indians would use 2 chapatis to make a sandwich. It looked more like a no-cheese quesadilla. It usually comes with a yogurt dip which is easily do-withoutable. It was topped with basil, but I think it would've been better if topped with cilantro. The cumin and (I think) coriander really shone, and the dal wasn't dry at all.

I also had the Asian tomato soup -- awesome as well. It was flavored with lemongrass, a pleasant surprise, chili, and cilantro.

Soup and sandwich -- such a Western meal, yet it was Indian.


An attempt at homemade vegan cheese


Eek, I know, what a crap looking photo.

With the success at making vegan sausages under my belt, I decided to venture out and make my first vegan cheese. "Mostarella", to be exact, from the pages of The Uncheese Cookbook. I'm glad that it doesn't taste like dairy cheese. It has cheese-like qualities -- it's savoury, slightly sour, and it melts. The sourness can be attributed to my addition of tahini and a combination of lemon and calamansi juice. I'm glad I finally experimented, although the results were just alright. I guess I don't miss cheese that much that I'd want to scarf down the fake stuff. It is a nice alternative topping on toast, which I usually have it on in accompaniment to a bowl of beans for breakfast. It actually does spectularly in vegan lasagna, together with Veganomicon's tofu ricotta. By the way, that tofu ricotta is pretty good stuff in Italian-inspired dishes.

Orecchiette with chorizo and peppers

If there's one thing I wish this country had, it's vegan sausages. You can't find a decent vegan sausage anywhere. I've tried Tofurky's Italian Sausages in the US but sadly, it was a short love affair. There is a local purveyor of mock meats in Manila -- I've found their stuff in the shelves of Makati Supermarket -- but I'm sad to say they, well, suck. It's like tasteless texturized "food". I've stopped buying them actually, and am just finishing up my stash. They aren't so bad when you make adobo, but it's the garlic, soy sauce and vinegar that make it completely different.

What's a girl with no commercially available vegan sausages to do? Make your own. I am in love with Everyday Dish / Julie Hasson's spicy Italian sausages which were sooo easy to make. I love them. They're great when you fry 'em up with tons of onions and peppers. I also like Fat Free Vegan / Susan's pepperoni -- in sandwiches or fried up with garlic and tomatoes.

Here's another super easy recipe by Have Cake, Will Travel / Celine: seitan chorizo crumbles. Super easy to make. I highly encourage you to try it. I used a nonstick skillet and the only thing I regret is not doubling the recipe.



While you're at it, make this easy pasta dish which I threw together for a huge family lunch one Sunday in May. Smoky thanks to the addition of smoked paprika. I used orecchiette which nicely cupped the crumbled chorizo, so you know you're getting a good amount of chorizo in every bite. I tend to be lazy with chopping veggies, so I left the garlic cloves whole, onions in long slivers, and peppers in chunks. Feel free to slice them more finely, but why fuss?


Orecchiette with chorizo and peppers

1 recipe of seitan chorizo crumbles, cooked (I recommend doubling it!)
2 1/2 cups dried orecchiette
3-4 tbsp olive oil
1/2-1 head of garlic, peeled (leave cloves whole)
2 medium onions, sliced into slivers
3 or 4 bell peppers, any color, sliced into wide chunks
2-3 tsp smoked paprika
salt and pepper to taste
cayenne pepper (optional but recommended)
roasted tomatoes (optional but recommended -- I made mine plain roasted with salt and pepper)
zest of 1 lemon (optional)

Cook the orecchiette according to package directions.

In the meantime, heat olive oil in a skillet on medium-high heat. Toss in the garlic and shake around until it turns golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon. Add in the onion and saute until translucent. Add in the bell peppers, paprika, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. Toss around until the skin of the peppers wrinkle up and turn brown. Add in the crumbled chorizo, garlic, and cooked orecchiette. If there are brown bits at the bottom of the pan, add in a splash of water to loosen things up.

In the serving dish, arrange the roasted tomatoes on top of the orecchiette. For color and decoration, grate the zest of 1 lemon on top and add in a few sprigs of parsley.

Tofurky Noche Buena & New Year (plus a recipe)

Christmas 2008 was my first time:

1. To celebrate it as a vegan

2. To celebrate it out of the country

3. To have a Tofurky roast

4. To not cook all day for Noche Buena / Christmas Eve dinner

Normally I despise all store-made, pre-made, catered, pick-up-from-the-restaurant food, generally for special occasions and particularly for Christmas. I belong to the school of thought that homemade food that usually takes all day to make is real food. This is why I'm not a big fan of fake meat. We made an exception to the all-day-cooking rule for Christmas because we were celebrating it in my tita's (aunt's) home abroad. Funny, we spent both Christmas Eve and New Yearís Eve days doing laundry at a Laundromat in Alamo (10 in the family + 1 week of no laundry = 5 loads in the washer); while my brothers waited at the Laundromat my parents and I went to the grocery for Christmas Eve / New Year's Eve dinner.

So anyway, I finally made peace with the fact that I couldn't pull an all-day cooking thing for Noche Buena so I bought a Tofurky veggie roast. This was super easy to prepare; aside from what came in the box I had to prep potatoes, carrots, olive oil, soy sauce, and some sage. It only took one hour in the oven and I had to use the toaster oven because the real oven was being used to cook the dead bird (why oh why must we celebrate an occasion with a cruel death... why?). The tofu-seitan roast had a wild rice and mushroom stuffing and gravy. Good dinner, although I would've preferred something more homemade, like a roasted vegetable dish with tofu and a homemade pie.

2007 was my first Christmas as a vegetarian and the complete opposite of 2008 -- I spent ALL AFTERNOON AND NIGHT cooking and baking. I even remember what I made -- a baked lentil loaf with roast garlic gravy. I was the only veg person then so I had to cook my own food, all by myself. It was pretty sad because there were a ton of people fixing the dead bird / cow while I was going crazy making gravy -- roasted garlic and veggie broth included -- FROM SCRATCH, ALONE. It was about 100 degrees F / +30 degrees C in the kitchen; everyone was in pretty Christmas clothes while I was in a sweaty shirt. So, I guess I really shouldn't complain about the speediness of the Tofurky (by the way the loaf turned out weird but the gravy was a hit to the omnis)...

New Year's Eve dinner was something more semi-homemade, I'm happy to report. Brother #5 and I discovered Tofurky sausages during the Christmas break and made a stir fry out of it. We used Tofurky Polish Kielbasa but the Italian works well too (we actually prefer Italian over the Kielbasa, but we only had Kielbasa on hand then). For the vegans with no access to Tofurky you could use your canned fake sausages (arghh I despise that stuff, it has no taste!!) and just add more spices. I've included the 2 options in the recipe below although I have to confess I haven't tried it with the spices yet.

New Year Tofurky sausage and zucchini stirfry

Ingredients:

splash olive oil or vegetable oil

1 package of 4 Tofurky sausages, any flavor (Italian or Polish Kielbasa)

2 white onions, sliced into half-rings

5 egg tomatoes, sliced into chunks

2 zucchinis

salt and pepper to taste

chili pepper (optional)

To prepare the sausages: slice the sausages in half lengthwise, then slice it into thirds crosswise at a diagonal.

To prepare the zucchini: slice the zucchinis in quarters lengthwise, then slice it crosswise so it's about the same size as the sausage chunks.

Heat the oil in a skillet at medium heat. Fry the sausages until they get a nice crust on both sides, then remove the sausages from the pan.

Heat more oil in the skillet. Add in the onions -- when the onions have turned transparent / caramelized, add in the tomatoes. Cook until the tomatoes have melted into the onions -- add salt and pepper and chili to taste. Place the mixture in a dish and put the fried sausages on top.

Heat more oil and sautee the zucchini slices. Add salt and pepper to taste and be sure to scrape up the brown bits at the bottom of the pan. Lay the zucchini on top of the sausages, and serve.

Variation:

If you live in a non-Tofurky world, you can use canned or frozen vegan sausages (about 540g). The ones I find here in Manila have zero taste and need to be spiced heavily.

Slice the sausages according to the directions above. Place the sausage chunks in a bowl and drizzle in some oil, salt and pepper.

Add in either:

2 tsp paprika, chili pepper (optional), 3/4 tsp ground mustard seeds, and 1 tsp crushed fennel seeds

or

2 tsp paprika, chili pepper (optional), 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cumin, 1/8 tsp allspice

or

2 tsp paprika, chili pepper (optional), 1-2 tbsp crushed fennel seeds, 1/2 tsp dried oregano, 1/8 tsp ground all spice

Toss the sausage-spice mixture together. Usually the canned veggie sausages here are Vienna Sausage-like in texture, so you might want to coat them in cornstarch before frying to get them nice and crisp. Then, fry as directed above.

NB: spice mixtures inspired from Fat Free Vegan's Veggie Pepperoni, Seitan O' Greatness, and Julie Hasson's Spicy Italian Sausages

Photos of the Tofurky roast courtesy of brother #4 aka Jose Gonzalez.