I’ve been asked by more than one person if it’s harder to be vegan while sheltering-in-place.
The question kind of made me pause, because I forget that a lot of people think vegan food is esoteric or hard to find; one person however was specifically asking if I was having a hard time finding fresh produce. I also paused at that because I don’t eat nearly as much fresh produce as I should.
To further understanding of my people and to give everyone more food ideas, allow me to share some of the easy meals I have been eating during this intense and uncertain time that you might also enjoy. These aren’t meant to be precise recipes.
Bountiful Quinoa
Cook up 1 cup of quinoa per the package directions, but instead of water use vegetable broth (or add a couple tablespoons of veg broth powder to the water).
Meanwhile cook a diced onion and 2-3 cloves of garlic (you could also use garlic powder if that’s what you have) until soft in, eh, let’s say 3 tablespoons of oil. Add in two medium diced zucchini, two medium diced yellow squash, and cook until all soft and nice. If you can’t find these particular veggies use whatever your store has in stock.
I add a good shaking of this wonderful garlic herb seasoning blend to the veg while it cooks (all FreshJax products I’ve tried so far are *chef’s kiss* and they come in nice big jars). Then add a can of drained and rinsed black beans. Stir in the cooked quinoa and sprinkle chopped nuts (whatever you have or can get; I keep pecans around for my oatmeal). This makes a TON of food; I was able to eat it for five meals, and it kept quite nicely in the fridge.
BBQ Tofu Business
Tofu has been hard to find around here so when I get it, I buy two or three and freeze them. Fu that’s been frozen and thawed actually has a meatier texture! I take a block and press it for 20 minutes (I have a press but you could just as easily wrap it in a kitchen towel and press under some heavy cans), then dice up.
Toss yer fu in a combination of 2T olive oil, 2T soy sauce, 1T nutritional yeast, and 1T “poultry” seasoning or the aforementioned garlic-herb mix. If you don’t have nooch just go with the oil, soy, and whatever seasonings you like. Then lay it all out on a foil-lined, rimmed baking pan. Add to the pan a head of cauliflower that’s been separated into bite-sized florets and tossed in olive oil and salt/pepper. Bake the whole thing at 425F for 30-35 minutes, turning once.
Dump the whole thing into a bowl and squirt in as much barbecue sauce as pleases you. Consume in mass quantities. You can also leave off the sauce and just eat it like it is; it’s delicious. But the BBQ sauce makes it dynamite for me, southern gal that I am. (Make sure you read your sauce label to be sure it doesn’t have honey in it.) I can eat the entire recipe in one sitting if I’m not careful. If you can’t find cauliflower use broccoli – the pic to the left is actually green cauliflower, which was the only thing the store had that day.
Heckin’ Easy Curry
Of course I could tell you about how in India curry powder isn’t a thing and people make their own spice blends, and how the mass-marketed yellow sadness called “curry powder” is a relic of British imperialism, but if that’s what you have in your pantry, by all means, go for it. I have a couple of different curry blends from various spice purveyors, and honestly, as much as I’d like to say I blend and toast my own spices that would be a huge lie. I do that for special dishes where a more delicate touch is required. For a good old weeknight curry just use something in a jar. I recommend this, or this.
So start with an onion, diced up, and cook it in a couple tablespoons of oil along with 3-4 cloves of minced garlic and, if you have it, a 1″ knob or so of grated fresh ginger. This is awesome but if you don’t have ginger, no biggie. Add about 2 tablespoons of whatever curry spices you’re using and cook until your house smells like paradise. If you want this mess spicier add in a minced Serrano or other chile.
Now add some veg – whatever you’ve got is awesome, but my favorites are potatoes, cauliflower, and carrots, maybe a nice zucchini. You can also use bags of frozen mixed vegetables of whatever kind you’ve got. I almost always have a bag of frozen Broccoli Normandy, which is brocc, cauliflower, and carrots. If you only have one kind of veg, just use that! There’s no Curry Police outside. They’re in quarantine.
Throw that into the pot with the onion-spice mixture and add some wet stuff, say a 14oz can of crushed tomatoes and 2 cups of veg broth, or a bigger can of tomatoes and less broth, or tomatoes and water, whatever is on hand. Cook the whole mess together for 30-45 minutes or until the taters are cooked, which will depend on the size of the dice. Frozen veg cooks faster because it’s not 100% raw, so you could put the potato in for 10 minutes before adding the frozen stuff. Keep an eye on things because tomatoes cooking tend to explode all over.
When everything seems done stir in a can of coconut milk. (Or don’t, if you don’t have it, it’ll be tasty either way.) Heat it all through, serve with rice, or some manner of flat bread – roti is usually hard to find in megamarts but I won’t tell if you use tortillas. The whole wheat ones are strikingly similar. Just saying.