Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook (8 page)

Read Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook Online

Authors: Isa Chandra Moskowitz,Terry Hope Romero

Tags: #food.cookbooks

Slurry:
A mixture of liquid and starch (usually flour, cornstarch, arrowroot powder, or tapioca starch) that’s used to thicken soups and stews. The reason for making a slurry is that you can’t add starch to hot things directly or it will clump up. Once the starch has been broken down in the water, it thickens a dish nice and evenly. We use this method a lot, so figured we might as well let you know the proper culinary term.
 
 
 
Sweat:
In a heated skillet, partially covering a sautéed food and letting it steam until tender.
 
 
Whisk:
Quickly stirring a liquid ingredient, or combination of ingredients, to mix and lightly beating in a little air. Usually done with a whisk, but often a dinner fork will do just as nicely.
LOWER-FAT COOKING
 
F
irst things first: this is not a diet cookbook. We love oils and nuts and avocados. They are essential for making delicious meals out of healthful foods. They are often crucial when cooking vegan, because plant foods are, in general, significantly lower in fat than animal-based foods. Flip through the pages and it will become clear that we’re not shy when it comes to using olive oil or cashews and, of course, we usually leave room for dessert. Second thing: We are no strangers to diets of all kinds. We’ve tried many of them with some success, and some failure, over the years. Now that dozens of studies
 
 
have shown that vegans are less likely to be obese and vegan diets bring greater weight loss, one of the more interesting misconceptions about eating vegan is that you’ll be instantly skinny the day after you eschew cheese or bacon. Not so true. We’ve encountered many vegans who struggle with weight issues just as much as their more omnivorous fellow dieters, and we’re not sure of the reason, either. Maybe it’s because making all this delicious food will make you want to eat more of it? Or, it could be people are a little unclear about how to eat healthy if not eating the standard American diet of meat and potatoes. French fries are vegan, right?
Practice Low - Fat Vegan Cooking
 
Even if you’re perfectly happy with your weight, you might want to trim some of the fat from your diet. It’s been recommended by many heath impresarios and nutritionists that we should up the fiber, vegetables, and protein in our diets and keep the fat in check anyway. This might even be just the kind of cooking you flirt with a few times a week, while leaving the weekends open for occasions of full-fat desserts and fried foods.
Lucky for vegans, not only is cooking with less fat not rocket science, it isn’t even seventh grade biology class. For the most part, the staples of a vegan diet—legumes, grains, vegetables, and fruit—are all naturally low in fat, as are tofu, tempeh, and seitan. The plant foods we eat that do contain significant fat, such as those aforementioned nuts and avocados, can easily be eaten in moderation. So what we need to look at are the preparation methods we use when cooking our foods. And as you’ve probably deduced, we’re talking about oil here.
AVOID
NO
-FAT COOKING
 
Way back in the ’80s when people thought that “mousse for hair” was a good idea, fat of all kinds became the cold-war level threat to the country. You couldn’t enter a supermarket without tripping over a fat-free cookie, salad dressing, or tortilla. So like good little dieters, we tried this fat-free business. And yes, while the pounds did come off (temporarily), we were one hell of an angry, cranky bitch the whole time. Now, in this new enlightened century, we’ve learned that some fats, namely high-quality, minimally processed vegetable oils, are good for you. And make you happy. Olive oil; cold-pressed nut oils; canola, safflower, and even unprocessed coconut oil are just a few of these fatty good guys. They contain lots of healthful antioxidants, help you feel full for a longer amount of time, aid in digestion, and just taste good. Cooking-wise, oils provide the necessary medium to keep vegetables moist and tender during cooking, not to mention that they “transport” the flavors of cooked foods like no other.
Now, here comes the less-than great news: you can have too much of a good thing. Yes, sopping up that fresh, crusty bread in herbed olive oil may not clog your arteries like saturated fat will, but over time it can make those jeans just a little tighter. So especially if you have weight loss in mind, keep those wonderful oils in your cupboard and in your salads, entrees, and other dishes. Just use less of them.
SAUTÉ WITH LESS OIL
 
Maybe the most obvious thing in the world, but happily it’s the easiest thing to do. First off, the venerable non-stick skillet is your friend here (see page 14). With your high-quality, nonstick skillet in hand, you can approach recipes with a critical eye as to how much oil is really necessary to get the approximate degree of browning and crisping. Usually if a food is just going to be browned or lightly grilled, less than a tablespoon of oil should work. Depending on the “sticky factor” of the item, it might require more or less. A spray bottle filled with oil is a godsend here, as it will distribute only the lightest coat of oil evenly over whatever you are cooking.
For sautéing veggies, tofu, tempeh and seitan, you can substitute vegetable broth for most if not all of the oil. Our favorite method is to use a tiny amount of oil to initially lightly brown that tofu, tempeh, asparagus, and so on, then add the broth to finish the job. Technically this might be braising, except that we may or may not find it necessary to cover the pan. If you’re cooking a tough vegetable that requires a longer cooking time (such as cauliflower or broccoli), then covering the pan is the way to go.
When sautéing garlic and onions as the base of a soup, stew, or sauce, you can usually get away with only a teaspoon or two of oil. Here’s a little trick: Put a teaspoon or two of oil in a pool on one side of your pan, don’t coat the entire pan. Now, add your onions and garlic to the oil. Sauté in that little corner of the pan, preferably using tongs. When moisture begins to release from the onions, usually after 3 minutes or so, you can spray on a little more oil. Then use broth to cook them further, if needed. Many of our soup and stew recipes call for two tablespoons of oil, which really isn’t very much when divided among six to eight people, but you can use this method if you want to reduce the fat even further.
ADD MORE VEGGIES
 
It’s also a good idea to boost meals with more fresh vegetables in place of other calorie-dense items, whether or not you’re trying to drop a few pounds. Particularly these should be of the leafy, green variety (spinach, bok choy, etc.) with the addition of red vegetables (tomatoes, red peppers, etc.) and a few other colors to that rainbow. So have that pasta, but instead of two cups of pasta with one-half cup of veggies, have one cup of pasta with two cups of veggies. See our vegetable section for a million ways prepare veggies. Well, a couple dozen at least.
 
When NOT to Cook Low-Fat!
 
BELIEVE it or not, there are key times when you don’t want to cook low-fat meals:
 
 
Situation 1: First-Time Vegan Food-Tasters
They may not know it yet, but your flesh-eating dinner guests are going to go vegan.
Someday.
And part of your devious plan is to render them speechless with a most outrageous richly sauced seitan piccata, creamy garlic mashed potatoes, and “buttery” cookies slathered with homemade chocolate-hazelnut spread. This is where you want to pull out all the stops and smother them with tender, loving fat. Don’t let their first memory of vegan eating be steamed kale and fat-free bean balls.
 
Situation 2: Holidays, Birthdays, Special Occasions
Similar to Situation #1, you want to illustrate that vegan cooking does not exclude the good times. Many holidays are based in ancient beliefs celebrating that new babies continue to be born, the crops have returned, and that we didn’t starve to death this winter. Save the oil-free lentil soup for an occasion other than Passover. Isn’t eating matzo for eight days a trial and tribulation enough?
 
Situation 3: Sad Times
Okay, maybe we’re going to get into trouble with psychologists for saying this here, but there’s nothing wrong with a stack of chocolate chip pancakes when you’re dealing with a serious emotional crisis. Loss of family, friend, pet. The big stuff. If you’re normally working hard at watching what you eat, how much you exercise, read labels, and so on, then you know what you have to do when you’re ready to get back on track. And you will, since you’re made of the tough stuff.
 
Situation 4: Party Times
A lot like special occasions, but with potentially more people. Potlucks and picnics fall into this category. You don’t want to be known by your local rotary club as “The Blanched Tofu” boy or “The Poached Spinach” lady, now do you?
 
 
EAT LOW-GI FOODS
 
Choose foods that are low on what’s called the “glycemic index.” Don’t worry, you don’t need to be a nutritionist to figure out what those foods are, it simply means carbohydrates that are digested more slowly, raise your blood glucose more evenly, and keep you feeling fuller longer. Basically, you want unrefined carbohydrates, so instead of white rice choose brown rice, eat fruits rather than sugary desserts, and consume more whole grains such as quinoa and millet. Hey, this book you’re holding in your hand even has some recipes for those things! For more info on the glycemic index (including where foods rank), visit
www.glycemicindex.com
.
USE YOUR SPRAY BOTTLE OF OIL
 
See Spray Bottle (page 15) in the kitchen equipment list. It’s a dieter’s best friend.
HOW TO COOK A VEGETABLE
 
(OR, THE ART AND SCIENCE OF TRANSFORMING EDIBLE ROOTS, SHOOTS, LEAVES, AND FRUITS OF AN ARRAY OF PLANTS WITH CRITICALLY APPLIED HEAT, OILS, AND SEASONINGS SO THAT THEY WILL BE EATEN WITH GREAT PLEASURE AND THE LEAST AMOUNT OF COMPLAINING)
 
Dear Veganomicon,
I don’t know where to begin. I’ve been eschewing meat and dairy products for years but I can’t bring myself to eat vegetables. They are often so bland and flavorless I presume that if I ate my napkin I might acquire the same amount of fiber, without the “ick” factor of having to eat something green. But, I have heard that there are some advantages to eating these things that grow in the dirt. Whatever should I do?
Yours truly,
Cautious of Carrots
 
O
kay, we’ve never received a letter like that. However, we know that they are out there, reckless vegans and vegetarians who are pulling the green and orange blocks out of the bottom of the food pyramid and replacing them with things fried, sugary, and bready. We don’t blame them. We blame society, or more exactly a society composed of limp, boiled broccoli; iceberg lettuce salads; and canned mushrooms. Don’t even get us started on “baby” corn (that ain’t
our
baby!). For those of you who love vegetables, this will be a tribute to everything glorious about the delicious part of the plant kingdom. At the very least, it will get you excited about roasting an extra bulb of garlic or two next time you fire up the oven. Learning how to cook vegetables so that they’re flavorful, enticing, and exciting is about the best thing you can do to help spread the word about veganism, hands down. This chapter is organized according to different methods to coax the most flavor out of your veggies, to give you the skills to last a lifetime. Notice we’re not a big fan of boiling (except for the occasional root vegetable, of course). It’s so last century and kind of a mean thing to do to vegetables, if you think about it.

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