Recession food, granola, and enchiladas

Hi everybody! I've been away for a while because my computer was in the shop for most of the last week - after four years, it was starting to lock up and generally act funny, all of which seems to have been fixed by the brilliant folks at the computer shop. They also backed up all of my music and pictures - a project I've been putting off for a long time, and felt better having in the hands of pros. While away from the internet, I caught up on some reading -with real books! Imagine that. Also snapped a few food pics, as follows.

Last week, NPR did a week-long series on feeding a family of four for under 10 bucks, asking celebrity chefs for recession food. The only remotely vegan one (and we all know nothing is cheaper than cooking vegan, especially with whole foods, but never mind that) was this Andalusian take on chickpeas and spinach, from Jose Andres. Do check out the link, with a much prettier photo. The creamy, rich sauce comes from frying whole garlic cloves, then chunks of bread, in lots of olive oil. The fried bread, garlic, and oil is blended - which tasted so awesome - and then used as a thickening base for the cooked chickpeas. I eat lots of chickpeas, but this was a revelation - great stuff. Andres did a cool show on Spanish food on PBS too, worth a look.

I hadn't made the Snobby Joes from Veganomicon before this. Here they are, in all their snobby glory, on top of some quick beer bread made with Hamms and sun-dried tomatoes, next to a cabbage coleslaw. The beer bread is from Donna Klein's Vegan Italiano, a good weeknight bread, since the beer is a shortcut substitution for waiting around with yeast and rising and all that jazz. This bread went from mixing bowl to oven to table in less than an hour.

Here's a mess of granola, with golden raisins and dates. I made this with brown rice syrup, which I had almost forgotten in the back of the fridge. The results were super - very crispy, and brown rice syrup will be my new granola standby. It's also the main sweetener in Clif bars, and they're always good.

Here's a bowl of golden granola in breakfast mode, with banana, mango, and almond milk.

Finally, a rocking enchilada recipe inspired by a green enchilada sauce in one of Rick Bayless' cookbooks, which I'm always checking out from the library. The sauce is from my canned green tomatoes with chiles and cilantro, in place of traditional tomatillos, thickened with a little masa harina. The filling is mostly leftovers, with kale, seitan, and baby bella mushrooms. Crumbled on top is some vegan monterey jack cheese, from Jo Stepaniak's The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. It's a block cheese that crumbles very nicely, made with cashews and tofu along with other vegan cheese usual suspects like nutritional yeast, tahini, and lemon juice.