Vegan roasted garlic and tomato hummus!

Ingredients for roasted garlic and tomato hummus - tahini, lemon juice, roasted tomatoes, olive oil, chick peas and roasted garlic.

It took me a long time to create hummus I liked as much the hummus I could buy in the store - which is the opposite of how cooking usually works. One week, however, I heard some tips listening to Lynne Rossetto Kasper on the Splendid Table. She gave three tips that helped me make great hummus: First, use a blender, not a food processor; second, more olive oil doesn't mean smoother hummus; and third, if you really want to go the extra mile - peel your garbanzo beans.

This recipe makes a rather large batch of hummus.  I love to eat a thick layer on veggie-sandwiches.

Complete Ingredient List:

1. 1 c. (uncooked amount) dried chick peas
2. 2 medium tomatoes
3. 1 head garlic
4. 1/4 c. olive oil
5. 2.5 TBS tahini
6. 1 TBS lemon juice
7. 3-5 TBS water
8. Salt
9. Pepper
10. Parsley (dried or fresh) to garnish

First, soak, cook then shell the chick peas.

Chick peas pop right out of their shells once cooked - it's not absolutely necessary, and you likely lose some fiber, but it makes smoother hummus and is a weirdly satisfying task for me.

 Second, roast the tomatoes and garlic.

Slice and seed the tomatoes, place them on a foil covered sheet, brush them with olive oil, salt and pepper and put them in a 425 degree oven for about 20 minutes. (I use a toaster oven). At the same time, cut the top off of a head of garlic, drizzle olive oil in the opening, wrap the whole head in foil and place in the oven along side the tomatoes. I leave the garlic about five minutes more than the tomatoes.

Tomatoes go in the oven like this, brushed with oil, salt and pepper.

Roasting the tomatoes concentrates the flavor.

You can roast garlic right along side the tomatoes, wrap it in foil though. When it's done, allow to cool then squeeze the roasted garlic into a bowl.

Third, use a blender to mix the chick peas, garlic, tomatoes, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice and water. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Fourth, garnish with fresh or dried parsley, if you want. Chill before serving.

Finished roasted garlic and tomato hummus.

Justin's Super Vegan Burgers

Justin's Super Burger with fried mushrooms and onions.

This is another entry about food you can freeze. Putting these together takes some work, but once you're done you can take them straight from the freezer to the frying pan. I like to eat mine with mushrooms and onions, or avocados. Vegenaise or homemade vegan mayonnaise is also a nice touch.

Like usual, the recipe is divided into steps, but keep in mind you can be doing many of the steps simultaneously. For me, the recipe yielded 13 great big burgers, it might make 20 of the store-bought size.

Complete Ingredient List:

1. 2 c. brown rice (uncooked amount)
2. 1/2 c. lentils (uncooked amount)
3. 1/2 c. rolled oats
4. 3 TBS ground flax
5. 2 TBS canola oil 
6. 1 medium sweet onion, minced (about 1 c. minced)
7. 4 cloves garlic, minced
8. 2 TBS soy sauce
9. 1.25 c. broccoli, chopped in small pieces
10. 1.25 c. corn (if frozen, set out to thaw)
11. 1.25 c. carrots, chopped in small pieces (I happened to have baby carrots and I did 1/2 rounds)
12. 2 TBS chili powder
13. 2 tsp. garlic powder
14. 1/2 tsp. salt
15. 3/4 c. minced cilantro 
16. 1/4 c. water
17. 3/4 c. vital wheat gluten

First, cook the brown rice. You can use the package instructions, I used the cool technique found here. The rice turned out perfectly, but one commenter did raise an interesting question about whether you lose nutrition cooking rice this way. I'll do some research, but I continually have problems cooking brown rice, so this might be my new method.

Second, cook the lentils. Gently boil about 20-30 minutes, until tender, but not mushy. Time varies depending on the lentils used.

Third, process the rolled oats and flax. Put the oats in a  food processor, I usually throw the flax in too, even though it's already ground. Set aside, but don't wash the food processor, you'll need it again.


Fourth, saute the onion and garlic. Put 1 TBS of the oil in a pan, heat over medium-high, add the onion only, cook for 5-7 minutes.

N. I had a bit of left over poblano pepper from another recipe which I sauteed at this stage, I didn't include it because it isn't necessary, but I mention it because it would be easy to makes lots of variations on this recipe.

When the onion has softened, turn down the heat to medium low, wait for the pan to reduce head a bit, add the garlic and cook about 90 seconds.

Add 1 TBS soy sauce, continue to cook 90 seconds more. Remove from heat, set aside.


Fifth, steam the vegetables. I combine all the veggies into a steamer (I use a colander over a boiling pot of water) and cook for about 6 minutes. I don't know if the term al dente applies to vegetables, but that's how you want to cook them - so them still have some crunch, but aren't raw.

N. A good rule of thumb for the chopping the veggies is that all the pieces should be about the size of the corn kernels, or a bit bigger.

Sixth, mix the spices, oil and soy sauce. Mix up the chili powder, garlic powder, salt, 1 TBS canola oil and 1 TBS soy sauce in a small bowl.

N. Use whatever spices you want.

Seventh, mince the cilantro.

Eight, mix together what you've done so far. Using a great big bowl, stir together the rice, lentils, rolled oats with flax, onion and garlic mix, veggies, the spice mixture and the cilantro.

Initially, your mix should look about like this.

Ninth, process 2.5 c. of the mixture with 1/4 c. water. Using a food processor, blend 2.5 cups of the mixture, with about 1/4 c. water. Stir the processed mix back into the un-processed mixture.

Tenth, add the vital wheat gluten. Knead the mixture for about 3 minutes, or until strings begin to form.

Things get a bit ugly once you blend part of the mixture, but it helps everything stick together.

Eleventh, refrigerate the mixture. I did mine overnight, but I'm sure a couple hours would be fine.

Twelfth, prepare the burgers for freezing. Set wax paper on a cookie sheet. Drop the burger mixture on the sheets (for great big burgers, I use a heaping 1/2 c. measuring cup). Shape into round burgers, (I use the back of a large spoon). Cover with another sheet of way paper and freeze for about 8 hours.

Justin's Super Vegan Burgers, ready for freezing.

Peel off of the wax paper and freeze in freezer bags, or whatever method you prefer. When pre-frozen on wax paper, the bags remain entirely clean, and reusable.

To cook:

Heat about 1 TBS oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook directly from the freezer for 5-6 minutes per side. Serve with buns and whatever garnishes you'd like.

Vegan Twice Baked Potatoes with Smoked Paprika

The ingredients for twice baked potatoes - I forgot to include nutritional yeast.

Another quick entry here - a simple conversion of an old favorite recipe made with butter, cheese and milk. I threw the potatoes in the oven when I had it on for another recipe. I threw the baked potatoes in the fridge and made them the next day.

Two baking potatoes

Small head of broccoli, finely chopped

1/3 soy milk (plain, unsweetened)

1/4 cup margarine, softened

1 tsp garlic salt
2-3 TBS Nutritional Yeast

Smoked paprika

Bake your potatoes. (Poke several fork holes, put in the oven unwrapped and bake for about 1hr at 375 - time varies depending on size)
Allow the potatoes to cool enough to handle.

Boil broccoli for about 90 seconds, drain, rinse.

Cut potatoes in half, carefully scoop the filling out of the potato skin, put in a large bowl.

Add the broccoli, milk, margarine, garlic salt and nutritional yeast to the potatoes.

Mix well with a wooden spoon or an electric mixer.

Spoon mixture back into the potato shells. (I like to overstuff mine, and only filled three of the four potato skins)

Sprinkle with smoked paprika.

Place on a baking sheet and cook at 375 for an additional 20 minutes.

These potatoes are filled, sprinkled with smoked paprika, and ready for a second baking.

Finished! Serve to hearty up your favorite meal.

Vegan Fire Roasted Tomatoes

Roma tomatoes, brushed with olive oil, ready to go in the oven at 425.

This is a simple recipe - and I'm not 100 percent convinced that it's worth it. I'd like to hear other opinions. I made a second round of chili, using the same recipe I made awhile back, but with less chilies.

This time I "fire-roasted" my tomatoes, which really just means I halved and seeded them, brushed them with olive oil and roasted them along side my peppers at 425 for 25 minutes.

They came out looking like this:

Roma tomatoes after 25 minutes at 425.

I peeled them and used them in my chili. I did a taste test, and they are much more flavorful than raw tomatoes. The question I was left with is whether the flavor would concentrate in the same way if I put them in the chili uncooked.  IDK. Thoughts?