We’ve Been Artful Vegans

Saturday night we made “Broad Noodles with Southeast Asian Peanut Pesto and Five-Spice Baked Tofu” from The Artful Vegan. Though we’re not big fans of pasta, we thought it was time to make a noodle dish, so we were happy to find one without tomato sauce. This recipe is an array of interesting flavors that come together for a light but satisfying entrée. It’s probably one of the easier recipes from this book. You can bake the tofu, make the pesto, and cook the fettucine ahead of time, then it all comes together like a quick stirfry.

I’ll begin with what I found at the farmers market Saturday morning.




The peanut pesto is to be made with fresh roasted peanuts, so I was glad to see the peanut vendor Saturday morning. I used the green beans and one-third of the monstrous zucchini (which was $1) for side dishes. The hot chilies were used several times. The gala apples are for baking a nonvegan cake for my mom (who doesn’t have or want a stove) to take to the IGNC Fall Fiesta. My parents are very active in the Austin Chapter of the IGNC and I’ve been baking for their events for many years.

Now for the dinner. First I baked the tofu in the five-spice sauce. The house smelled so good while it baked. It baked for about 40 minutes, until it had a caramel glaze.

After you shell almost half a bag of peanuts (boring!), you make the pesto. I must say as a peanut lover eating her first fresh roasted peanuts, these were amazingly delicious. The pesto was a wonderful blend of the peanuts, cilantro, mint, Kaffir lime leaves, lime juice, and chili pepper.

While the fettucine cooks, prep your stirfry veggies, and when the noodles are done, stirfry, and you end up with this:

For myself, I reserved some pesto and added it to rice and then put some veggies on top, so my wheatfree soyfree plate looked like this:

I HAD to have a bite of the real deal. My rice version wasn’t anywhere near as good as the noodle version. The peanuts in the pesto gave the noodles a parmesan look and feel. If you have The Artful Vegan, I recommend you give this recipe a try.

Early in the day I made tortilla size sesame seed crackers from the King Arthur Baking cookbook. Chase liked them; I didn’t. All I can say is they certainly look homemade.

I also made a salad. Do you ever substitute zuke for cuke? I always leave the skins on, but I recently ruined a cucumber salad because of some very bitter skins. So I’ve been subbing in raw zucchini in a lot of cucumber salad recipes. I made this simple salad of zucchini, mango, purple onion, cilantro, lime juice, and S&P. We ate lots of this.

While Chase stirfried, I steamed the green beans and tossed them with lots of garlic, some cilantro, and a spicy red pepper. We ate all of these – yum!

Finally, a dessert of my own creation (mostly) with not spectacular results. Here’s the step-by-step.

The crust was super fantastic, better than I dreamed of. It was inspired by “Barley Coconut Crust” from ExtraVeganza. I mixed together 1-1/2 cups ground oats, 1 cup toasted unsweetened coconut, ½ cup sweetened coconut, 3 tablespoons brown rice syrup, 2 tablespoons canola oil, and a pinch of salt. I pressed it in the pie plate and baked it at 325 degrees for 30 minutes, until very brown.

When cool, I layered on sliced bananas.

I made a double recipe of “Banana Cream Pudding” (which is really vanilla pudding on top of bananas) from More Great Good Dairy Free Desserts. I only used half of it. This was an omen that I had just goofed. I poured the pudding on top of the bananas.

I put the pie in the fridge to set. After a few hours I took it out to finish. It didn’t spill out, so I was hopeful the pudding had set well. I topped it with toasted coconut and “Ultimate Chocolate Sauce” also from MGGDFD. I only made half a batch of that, thank goodness, because it truly is the ultimate in chocolatey goodness.

Isn’t it beautiful? Too bad the pudding didn’t set.

I think I didn’t cook the pudding long enough. The recipe says to simmer one minute, but maybe since I doubled it I should have cooked it longer. I was terribly afraid of ending up with rubber, so I didn’t want to overdo. But this deserves another attempt. The crust is like those Nature Valley granola bars that are really crunchy, and the coconut flavor is so nice. The pudding was made with my cherished Mexican vanilla that imparts such a wonderful flavor and my bananas were the perfect ripeness. And then topped with Ultimate Chocolate Sauce. Oh, yeh, it deserves another shot.

Chase and I are going to a vegan baking class at Whole Foods on Wednesday night. I have a few questions I need to ask! I’m not familiar with the guest instructor. Here’s a description of the class.

Vegan Baking 6:30–8:30 p.m. $45

Lex Townes, Chef, Veg Advantage

Lex Townes trained at the New York Restaurant School, has more than 20 years of experience in the restaurant world and now works solely on developing vegan and vegetarian dining options with Veg Advantage. Here is your opportunity to add some innovative recipes to your dessert repertoire! Lex will demonstrate and discuss techniques for creating scrumptious vegan desserts, as well as share tips on substitutions you can successfully make to convert favorite recipes to favorite vegan recipes. Guests will sample: Avocado Key Lime Parfait; Chocolate Layer Cake with Vegan Mousse; Coconut Ginger Ice Cream Sandwiches; Fruit Tart with Lemon Pastry Cream.


I hope I have time for a broccoli salad before class because I’m not used to a dinner of desserts only! If any of you have any questions for the chef, let me know before Wednesday evening and I’ll be glad to ask him.

I promise to visit you all soon!