i know everyone and their mom has been talking about how great veganomicon’s chickpea cutlets are, so i had to try them out. guess what? everyone was right. they were so easy to make and they tasted delicious.

at quarrygirl, we like to do things a little differently—so we decided to make a chickpea cutlet sandwich, but with the protein sandwiching the carbs.

quarrygirl sandwich with mashed potatoes and veganomicon’s chickpea cutlets

i baked my cutlets in the oven (frying seemed just too decadent) and they turned out just right: crispy but not overly dry. i imagine they would be much better fried, and contain millions more calories. i think i will give a try next time anyways.

yo vegans: first off, if you haven’t already, go grab a copy of veganomicon asap. i’m not easily pleased, nor am i a very good cook….and everything i’ve made from that cookbook tastes swell. secondly, once you have it, rush home and whip up some chickpea cutlets. the blog hype was right: they totally kick ass.

no sandwich required. i wonder what i will make with this recipe next time. i’m thinking a chickpea cutlet burrito….? the possibilities are endless.

as the summer rapidly approaches, it’s handy to have an arsenal of cool, refreshing meals that can be whipped up in less than 15 minutes. enter veganomicon and pete’s tofu to go.

veganomicon’s corn & edamame sesame salad, atop spinach leaves with asian dressing

pete’s tofu 2 go ready made tofu, with mango wasabi sauce (and we added in some chili garlic sauce as well)

so simple to make and ready in minutes, this was the perfect meal for a scorching hot evening spent sitting on the couch with a bottle of wine. there was just enough to satisfy without leaving us full, bloated and feeling guilty.

more pix after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

so i finally got around to making a meal from the much raved about cookbook, veganomicon. i picked what appeared to be the easiest recipe in the book (i cannot cook), did some ingredient hunting at the local health food store, and i was in business. special thanks to your vegan mom for pointing me in the direction of nature mart for their bulk bins of vital wheat gluten.

veganomicon’s black bean burger with sautéed mushrooms, sprouts, tomato, onion, avocado, vegenaise and colman’s english mustard.

in the end, these burgers turned out great…although i was a little worried during the process. after i had done all my fancy ingredient shopping at nature mart and whole foods, while in ralphs i realized i’d forgotten to buy bread crumbs. argh!!—all the varieties they offered contained whey, nonfat dry milk, or (shudder) egg whites. i decided it wasn’t worth the trip in la traffic to the nearest health food store just for one ingredient, so i used crumbled up hamburger buns instead. i think this resulted in my patties falling apart a little bit, but i just kept cooking them (longer than the recipe suggested) and they turned out just dandy.

more pix after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »