Category Archives: Grilling & Smoking

How to grill, and how to smoke. Weird for vegans, but there’s lots of stuff out there to grill.

Meatless Enchiladas That Will Have Them Begging for More

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In case you haven’t guessed, I love roasted vegetables. I’ll stuff them, make salsas, chop them up in salads, put them on a dinner plate with portabello mushroom burgers… And now, here’s one more use for roasted veggies: stuff them into corn tortillas, topped with sauce and cheese (soy or real, your choice), bake in an oven for just a little while, and serve with smashed black beans, arroz, and calabacitas. Add guacamole, herbed “sour cream” and roasted salsa, and you’ll have your kids, your neighbors, and your mom begging for more. Please, don’t forget the guacamole.

Enchiladas take less time than you might think, especially if you get the rest of the family involved in rolling them. Follow these recipes and in under an hour you’ll have dinner on the table –  and happy diners.

Roasted Veggies

 Ingredients

  • 1 Italian squash
  • 1 yellow squash
  • 1 red onion
  • 1 red pepper
  • Salt

Process

Slice up the ingredients and place on a sheet pan. Coat with a little herb oil, and broil in an oven (If you are a grill master, stick em on the grill, blacken the peppers, and cook onions and squash until tender). Remove vegetables when tender, and the skin on the peppers look wrinkled. Be careful, all the veggies might not cook at the same time.

Chop all the veggies up into bits. You want them small enough so you can roll them in tortillas. Add a little salt and pepper. Use in Roast Veggie Enchiladas, or as taco filling.

 Roast Veggie Enchiladas

 Ingredients

  • Corn tortillas-enough for 2-3 per person
  • Roasted Veggies
  • Cheddar Cheese, or Daiya cheddar soy cheese
  • Tomatillo Sauce
  • ½ cup diced tomatoes
  • Cilantro for garnish

 Process

Dip tortillas in a small amount of warm oil. Lay out on a work surface and stuff with Roast Veggies and cheddar  or vegan cheese, then roll up the tortillas. Lay into a baking pan big enough to hold the amount you are cooking. Top with Tomatillo Sauce and more cheese. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes, or until the cheese melts. Top with diced tomatoes and sliced black olives.

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The Fantastic, Amazing and Versatile Chili Pepper

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Korean chili pepper dryingOne of the main ingredients I cook with is chili peppers. Jalapenos, Serranos, Anaheims, New Mexico Reds, Poblanos, Pasillas, Cayenne, all these chilis and more have a home in my kitchen.

There are approximately 25-30 kinds of chili peppers, and in that family there are multiple varieties. Chilis give flavor to dishes, and some great health benefits as well. A hot chili pepper has more vitamin C in it than an orange.

Chilis hail from the South American continent. Along with tomatoes and potatoes, they were part of the new food group that traveled over to Europe from the New World.  Long chilis already existed in India and Asia, but the chilis discovered on the South American continent were a whole new variety.

One of the problems in identifying different kinds of chili peppers is that there are different regional names for the same chili. Pasilla and Poblano chilis get mixed up more frequently than others. A Pasilla is long, with wrinkles on the top end, and a tapered tail, like the Anaheim. A Poblano is fat like a sweet green pepper, with dark green flesh and a pointed end. I once sent a friend on a hunt for a Poblano, and she came back almost in tears because she asked in three different grocery stores, and got three different answers, so came home with nothing. I learned, if I want chilis, shop for them myself.

When naming a  chili in a recipe, I will try to give more than one name for it, because it could be called something completely different in your area of the world.

I can expound upon the virtue of the chili all day. Jalapenos make up part of the mirapoix I use in my dishes. There is a depth and essence that chilis bring out when combined with other food that elevates the humblest of soups to greatness. Chilis can be roasted, baked, fried, stuffed, sauteed, caramelized, pureed, dried and crushed. They play well with all sorts of other food stuffs and make great sauces and soup bases. When caramelized, chilis impart a rich, smoky flavor to any dish.

When smoked, a jalapeno becomes a chipotle. When put into a sauce called Adobo, it is sold in a can in the Supermarkets. Years ago, I found a recipe for the Adobo sauce in a cookbook called The Border Cookbook by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison. Eventually I learned how to smoke my own chilis.

Chipotle, or the Smoked Jalapeno is expensive when found in the produce section of the grocery store. I believe it was $12.99 per pound the last time I was in a store. Now, a smoked jalapeno does not weigh very much, but I can buy them for .99 cents/lb in season, and fire up the smoker and smoke them myself. With the cost of smoking chips, it probably runs $4.99 a pound.

I am fortunate to live in the Southwest where we find chilis year round. The harvesting season is usually between late August and Mid-September. That’s when the Anaheims and New Mexico Reds have matured and are sold by the bushel, not by the pound. In Sante Fe, New Mexico, there are chili roasters on every major street corner. I couldn’t walk any where in that town without smelling roasting chilis. (Still one of my favorite smells of the year).

Chilis are used as garnishes at tables, and there is an entire cult of the chili motif. If you want to, you can buy just about any kind of table ware, decorations, wall paper and even furniture with a chili pepper design. There for a while it was a fad for chefs to wear pants that had chili peppers on them.

Whatever your plans for the chili pepper, I hope to be a guide for how to use them in cooking. Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore a few of my favorite chili recipes, and how chilis interact with other ingredients.  Please, if you have questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you.

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Smoked Tofu

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I had a bad experience attempting to smoke vegetables and tofu. I am a determined chef, therefore, I tried again.

I searched the internet for some kind of information on how to set up a charcoal grill for smoking, especially smoking chiles. The results were depressing, and I found loads of information on how to use an electric smoker, how to smoke pork meat, and other topics that I wasn’t looking for.

The most useful information I could find was what temperature to smoke at. I realized that the mistake I made on my first attempt was that my grill was too hot. I needed to make sure that the grill was at a low temperature.

I set just a few briquettes on the grill. I am using hardwood briquettes from either Trader Joe’s or Whole foods. They have no harmful chemicals and can be thrown into the compost pile. If you have neither of these stores in your area, look for natural hardwood briquettes that say things like “can be composted” and “no harmful chemicals”. I use a fire starter brick. It’s called A-OK fire liters, and it is specifically for starting charcoal and wood fires. There are some products out there that say they are not to be used for starting these kinds of fires.

I use mesquite chips, but you can use any hardwood of your choice; hickory, apple, maple, oak, pecan, cherry, as long as it is hard wood. Soak the chips at least half an hour to an hour. Fire up the briquettes and wait until they turn white. This is very important. You want your smoker to be about 200-225 degrees otherwise you will burn your food. Add the chips to the charcoal, and let them start smoking. Have your tofu pressed, seasoned or marinated, and ready to go. Use a sheet pan, or some other kind of shallow barrier between the tofu and the heat. I oiled mine with a little olive oil and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

I closed the lid, periodically checking to see if I needed to add more chips. At the same time, I decided to make chipolte (smoked jalapeños). The tofu was finished a long time before the jalapenos. But the trick to smoking vegetables is that you need to pull all the moisture out. I ran out of chips before the chipolte was finished. I let them sit overnight on top of the stove, and this morning fired the oven up to an extremely low heat and finished drying the chiles. I’ll leave them out for a couple more days before sealing them in a jar and using them every so often for a Smoked Coconut Curry sauce. Eventually I’ll be able to purchase a dehydrator.

Back to The tofu. It was done in an hour or so. I was pretty impressed. Took it off the grill, and let it cool for awhile before putting it away.

My partner came around for a sample. Yummy was the response. It was so very good. I believe next time I’ll try a spice rub on it…that should be heaven.

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It’s almost here

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Summer is coming. It is time for fun, food and outdoors. The best way to get the vegan grill hopping is with a grilled vegetable salad. Just thick slice and oil up a few of your favorite veggies, fire up the BBQ, and grill. Mix with your favorite greens and beans, and don’t forget to invite some friends.

Grilling vegetablesI’m lucky to have a swimming pool this summer. I am still looking for a grill. Hopefully it will be soon, and then I can share some other great tofu and veggie recipes.

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