I’m very all about cheap snacks, even (and especially) if I have to make them myself.

So anyway, I was standing at the checkouts at work when I saw a magazine called Fine Cooking. It had some fine looking crackers on the cover with the caption “Home Made Crackers.” I spent a ton of time looking through the stupid magazine for “Home Made Crackers,” but came up with nothing. For some reason, the inside of the magazine called the crackers “Three Seed Crackers,” which is a pretty crappy thing to do.

I was hoping to just jot down the recipe, but it was too long and I figured that it would be online somewhere. The Fine Cooking website has a ton of recipes! So I searched for “Home Made Crackers” and “Three Seed Crackers,” but came up with nada. So I typed in “crackers” and with a bit of searching found “Seeded Crackers.” Same crackers, three different names. Brilliant marketing.

Well, anyway, I decided to make these multi-named crackers. I don’t really care for seeds on or in stuff (same goes for nuts), so I just made salted crackers. Fun, no?

Here’s the recipe…

1-1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour; more for rolling
scant 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tsp. table salt
3 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil (I used one part olive oil, one part canola oil)

Preheat oven to 450F

In a large bowl, whisk the all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, and table salt. Add the olive oil and 1/2 cup water to the flour; stir with a rubber spatula until it collects into a soft, crumbly ball of dough. Use the spatula or your hands to press the dough against the sides of the bowl to gather all the stray flour.

Set the dough on a lightly floured work surface and portion it into thirds. Pat each portion into a square. Set two squares aside and cover with a clean towel. Roll the remaining dough into a rectangle about 1/16 inch thick and 7 or 8 inches wide by 14 or 15 inches long. Whenever you feel resistance, lift up one edge of the dough and sprinkle more flour underneath before you continue rolling.

The recipe then rambled on about how to cut them and when to put the seeds on them. It warned “Don’t bother trimming the edges; rustic edges add character.” Awesome, huh? Edges add character. What I want more than anything from these crackers is character.

Bake these for about 10 minutes. The best thing to bake them on is one of those cookie sheets with the air in them. Hopefully you know what I mean. Otherwise, the bottoms could burn. They should be browned, but not burned. Quite tasty.

Sorry for the crappy pictures. They were taken with a webcam.

The first thing I ever learned how to cook was scrambled eggs. From that, I would always make egg sammiches. I took two pieces of extremely white bread, slathered them with ketsup and then ate ‘em up.

Well, I’m older and wiser now. I don’t eat white bread and I don’t eat eggs. So my option was one: make scrambled tofu and put it on wheat bread.

Here’s what you’ll need:
-1 package of extra firm tofu, 14oz.
-1 T “butter” (I use Earth Balance) – for fryin’
-1/2 t hing
-1/2 t black pepper
-1/2 t coriander
-1/2 t salt
-1/4 t black salt
-2 t nutritional yeast
-1 t tamari
-1/2 t turmeric

And here’s what you do:
1) Mash up tofu with a fork while you put the dab of “butter” in a skillet or wok and get it ready to fry. Med heat is fine. Here, I throw in the hing and the black pepper and fry them for a spell. Not long though.

2) Put the mashed up tofu into the skillet and stir it around a bit. There shouldn’t be any danger of it sticking just yet. Here, I put the coriander, salt, black salt and nutritional yeast into the mix.

3) Let it fry for a few minutes, stirring it (after all, it’s scrambled tofu). After those few minutes, it’s time for the tamari and turmeric. This will turn it an eggy color.

4) Let it fry until it starts to stick a bit. Parts of it will get a little crispy and start to brown. That’s when you know you’re finished. Toast up some bread, get some ketchup and do it up!

A couple of stray thoughts…
*Thanks to Kurma dasa for the black salt idea! Black salt in very sulfuric and makes it taste a bit eggy. I may even start adding 1/2 teaspoon rather than just 1/4.

*Ok, let me grippe a bit about vegan bread. WHY does vegan break have to automatically equal small? The slices are thin and the loaves are too small and too short. What gives, vegan bread-makers? Let’s have normal-sized vegan bread. Oh, and please, no nuts in the bread, ok? Just normal bread.

Enjoy!

A few days ago, Sarah perfected her pizza crust. It’s pretty amazing. I’m not at all one for baking, so I’m glad she thought of something. She posted about it on her blog and here it is on mine as well!

Here’s what you will need…
-2 1/2 tsp yeast (or one small packet)
-3 cups unbleached flour
-1/3 cup warm water
-1 tsp salt
-1 cup warm water

And here’s how to do it!

*preheat your oven to 200 degrees

1) Add the 1/3 cup warm water to the yeast in a small cup. Mix the yeast and water until it’s dissolved and then let it stand for about 10 minutes. While you’re waiting measure out your flour and salt in a medium sized bowl.

2) After 10 minutes, add the yeast mixture to the flour. Mix together with a fork.

3) Add 1/2 cup of warm water and again mix.

4) Add another 1/2 cup of warm water and now kneed with your hands until it’s one big sticky ball of dough.

5) Cover with a towel and place in over for about 10 minutes.

6) After ten minutes, remove from oven and let rise for another 10 minutes.

7) Set the oven heat to 450 degrees.

8) Sprinkle some flour on a baking sheet and gently pry the dough from the bowl. You’ll probably need to sprinkle some flour on the dough so it doesn’t stick to your hands and it doesn’t stick to the bowl again.

9) When the dough is out of the bowl, gently powder it with some more flour and stretch it out a bit. Now you can put it on the baking sheet and stretch it to the edge of the sheet.

10) All you have to do after this is add your sauce and vegan cheese! Try mine!

11) You only have to bake the pizza for about 8-10 minutes. the crust will be done, but it’s not too hard! of course you can bake the pizza longer depending on your likes and needs.

I’ve had quite a few devotee-made pizzas. Some are pretty good, some are … interesting. See, the “problem” lies in the garlic issue. Devotees don’t cook with garlic or onions. But most pizza sauces contain garlic and/or onions. That means that we have to make out own. This is where it gets interesting.

Many devotees make pizzas with a lot of toppings. Personally, I’m a traditionalist. I like a plain old cheese pizza (vegan cheese, in my case). No fake meat, no cauliflower, no eggplant or bittermellon (seriously, I’ve seen a few pizzas with bittermellon as a topping).

But that’s not the point of this. The point here is pizza sauce. And pizza sauce is not pasta sauce. There’s a difference. At least, there should be. With me there is. Pasta sauce should be an outspoken flavor. Pizza sauce should be noticeable, but only in a “hey! this pizza sauce doesn’t make me barf!” sort of way.

And here’s how I make mine…

Ingredients…

- 1 14ish ounce can of crushed tomatoes
- little olive oil for frying
- 1/4 t hing
- 1/2 t basil
- 1/4 t oregano
- 1/8 t marjoram
- 1/8 t thyme
- 1/4 t black pepper
- 1/4 t salt
- 1/2 t sugar

how to…

1) oil in pan, medium heat – wait till hot, add hing and fry
2) add can of crushed tomatoes
3) add spices
4) let simmer for about 20 or so minutes.

This should make enough for two pies.

I make the sauce and Smartz makes the dough. I don’t know what she does to that though. It’s always really good though. For cheese, we use Follow Your Heart.

So whatever you like to put on your pizza… even if it’s bittermellon, give this pasta sauce a try. The folks who have had it seem to really like it.

Dear Olivia,

Here is the vegan mac & cheese recipe you requested. But first, how about some back story, ok?

I’ve had boxed vegan mac & cheese and quite honestly, it sucked goat. Horrible stuff. But then I visited Ryan and Jaime some time ago and they made what they called “pasta meat.”

While “pasta meat” does indeed contain pasta, it contains no meat. Oddly, it doesn’t even contain fake meat. The whole thing comes from a dish they make for Taviri, their boy. They make this mac & cheese recipe and then fry up some sort of fake meat. Taviri, completely unaware of the existence of real meat, assumes fake meat is simply “meat.” And since this dish is almost always served with fake meat, the dish has been coined “pasta meat.” I believe it’s even called that when the fake meat is absent.

So here is Vegan Mac & Cheese (a theme and variation on the legendary Pasta Meat)

Ingredients:
1/2 lbs of pasta – I like shells or elbows

1/4 c Nutritional Yeast
1/2 c Plain soy milk (don’t use vanilla, ok?)
2 T Earth Balance “butter”
1/2 t salt

How to do it:

1. Cook the pasta, drain and put back into pot
2. Add the vegan butter and give it a stir or two
3. Add the nutritional yeast
4. Add the salt
5. Add the soy milk and stir just like it’s regular ol’ mac & cheese

Once it’s creamy, you’re done. Yay!!

If it’s too creamy for you, decrease the milk and nutritional yeast a bit. I like it creamy.

One of my favorite dishes to make is stir fry. It’s exciting! I like frying things. It fills the apartment with the scent of doing something. Most cooking does this, but stir fry does it best. It’s like when you walk into a temple and you smell them cooking. It gives me the feeling that something good is going on here. If I don’t smell cooking, I get suspicious!

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to come up with my own szechuan sauce recipe for years now. I’ve looked it up and tried to figure some stuff out, but nothing really did it for me. The onion/garlic to hing ratio is always a factor. And different brands of hing are different in their potency. So basically, the rule is “don’t use a whole lot of hing – measure what you think it should be and then take a little bit out.”

If you’re a good cook, the folks you’re cooking for will never taste the hing. If you can taste it, you’ve added too much.

I’m going to show you how I do my stir fry. Add whatever vegetables you like. I like broccoli. Tofu is a must.

Here’s what you’ll need-

Sauce:
6 T – Tamari
2 T – Dark Sesame oil
4 t – Sugar
1 T – Corn Starch
1/8 t – Crushed red pepper flakes

Other ingredients:
1 T – Dark Sesame oil (for frying)
1 t – Hing
2 t – Fresh ginger (finely chopped)
1/4 t – Crushed red pepper flakes (or more for hotter)

1 14oz package of extra firm tofu
1 red bell pepper
broccoli (see picture for how much I used – I usually use a bit more though)

And here’s how:

prep: clean and chop veggies, cut tofu into cubes, make the sauce and stir it with a whisk so there are no lumps
1) put the T of Dark sesame oil into a wok, head it on med high. Fry hing, ginger and crushed red peppers for 30 seconds.
2) Add bell pepper and fry for 60 more seconds
3) Add tofu and fry for a few seconds – don’t let things stick to the bottom.
4) Add a bit of sauce to the mix – maybe half of it. Fry for 30 or so seconds
5) Add broccoli and remaining sauce and fry until the broccoli is tender enough to eat. But careful it doesn’t get gummy – that’s just nasty.

And you’re finished!

So now I have a recipe of my own and don’t have to rely upon store-bought garlicy and unofferable sauces. This is every bit as good, though I’d like to make it a little thicker and I’m sure I eventually will.

I’ve been trying to come up with some more recipes lately. I have one for pasta sauce that I’m pretty certain of, as well as one for pizza sauce (it’s different, you know?). I’m also working on one for Szechuan sauce.

The reasons are several (most of ‘em federal)¹. Firstly, I do my best to cook without onions or garlic (keeping in the Vaisnava tradition). Also, if I make it myself, I know it doesn’t contain wacky stuff I’d rather not eat. And it’s just fun.

One of the problems with some recipes is that they call for whole tomatoes, which are often expensive and hard to get. On the other hand, some recipes call for prepackaged ingredients. My recipes fall in between that. No prepackaged spices (and thus no garlic, etc), but I used canned tomatoes. They’re cheaper and I know how to work with them.

Here we go!

Ingredients:
1 28oz can of diced Italian tomatoes
1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes
1/2 c TVP
1/4 c olive oil
4 dried chipotle peppers
1/2 t hing
1 carrot (cut up on largish chunks)
2 T butter (of the vegan variety)
1 t basil
1 t sugar
1/2 t black pepper
1/2 t marjoram
1/2 t oregano
1/2 t salt
2 T nutritional yeast
2 bay leaves

And here’s how to play along…

prep – open the cans (drain the diced tomatoes as much as possible), mix the spices (except for the hing) and soak the tvp
1) Oil in pan and fry the hing and the dried peppers and fry for a minute (careful they don’t explode – seriously). Add the TVP and fry for another minute Add the carrot and fry for yet another minute.
2) Add the whole can of tomato chunks and fry for another minute (it’ll be more like boiling at this point).
3) Add butter and spices, frying for a bit more – not long (again, more like boiling).
4) Add crushed tomatoes, nutritional yeast and bay leaves.
5) Mix and let cook for at least 30 minutes.
6) To serve, remove carrots, peppers and bay leaves.

People like to do different things with pasta sauce. Some like it spicy or smoky (I like it both, thus the chipotle peppers). Play around with it and make it your own.

1. Couldn’t resist a PE reference, you know… [↩]