Magic Vegan Chef Bettie McQueef!

Miss Bettie has been on holiday for the better part of 2009!  But she wants you to know that she’s here for you and she’s going to post more often.

She’s decided that to keep the cooking muse happy, she’s going to upfit her kitchen.  Now, as many of you know Miss Bettie is what is commonly called a “Sloppy Common Slapdash Chef”.  Actually, Miss Bettie is kind of embarrassed to even call herself a chef, as she and food have had a pretty rocky relationship and often there’s no art in Miss Bettie’s culinary creations.  No art at all.

However, she and Mr Bettie have been watching Gordon Ramsay and she’s been well and truly inspired to learn about food and the tools she should be using.  She realizes that Mr. Ramsay hates vegetarians (and he must really really hate vegans!) but she greatly appreciates the way he approaches and prepares food and she’s been inspired by his cooking skills. Not to mention his delightfully explosive temper and his colorful use of expletives (Miss Bettie is a bit of a “curser” herself, imagine that!)

So, that being said, Miss Bettie will be exploring the world of cooking tools, and with the help of her friend Chef Steve, she’s going to find the proper tools and the best techniques for creating her vegan meals.

First up, we’ll be exploring the world of knives.  Stay tuned!

Hello little turnip greens! Miss Bettie is in the process of doing something very exciting!! (yes, TWO exclamations worth of exciting)!!

Miss Bettie is on a fast track to becoming a survivalist like her Canadian not-yet-informed secondary husband, Les Stroud. More about him later. For now she wants you to look at this:

As you can see above, Miss Bettie is making PICKLES! It seems easy enough, according to the New Victory Garden Cookbook Miss Bettie has pulled from her extensive stack. Just a little kosher salt (replaced with: sea salt), white vinegar (replaced: white wine vinegar and a smidge of the last of the red wine vinegar lurking in the cabinet), pickling spices (didn’t have any, just some garden dill) and water.

And apparently you MUST WEIGH THEM DOWN GOOD:

Miss Bettie is not exactly sure why they need to be WEIGHED DOWN, perhaps they explode with flavor later on.  She’s wondering if perhaps she shouldn’t leave them outside should they explode and the glass on top is insufficient to hold back their flavorful powers of destruction.

Nevertheless, she’s taking a step in learning how to put up food. With the beginnings of a fine tomato harvest in her gardens, she is thinking she needs to begin learning how to keep the food that she is growing. It cannot all be eaten at once and so it has to be preserved.

Which is where pickling comes in.  Pickling is a method of preserving food, AND making it tasty as well!  Tomorrow Miss Bettie will serve the pickles  at dinner (along with other things she has not yet determined) and she’ll see how they came out.  They’ll be left out room temp over night and tomorrow she’ll put them in a jar in the fridge.

Stay tuned for the results…

These are delish!  And quick.  And healthy. Now what more could you ask for?

Ingredients

• 1 pkg tempeh
• olive oil
• Whole wheat pitas
• romaine lettuce or baby spinach leaves
• avocado
• sliced tomatoes
• vegenaise
• organic ketchup (check the labels if you can’t find organic, stay away from anything with high fructose corn syrup. HEED BETTIE’S WARNING!!)

Heat a tablespoon or so of the olive oil in a frying pan.  Cut the tempeh in half length wise so you have two squares.  Now slice each square in half like a bagel.  From the side.  Be really careful and watch your fingers, Bettie does not want you to slice yourself.

Place each of the four squares in the frying pan and fry each side until nicely golden brown.

Mix 1 tablespoon ketchup and 1 tablespoon vegenaise and line the inside of the pita. Stuff in slices of avocado, tomato and some lettuce.  You can put anything else you think would be yummy, how about salsa for a yummy tempexiburger? Serve this delightful sandwich with a nice kosher dill pickle slice.

Bettie makes this with a side of potato salad, german or regular. You can find lots of potato salad recipes here.

Monday: Pasta E Fagioli (Pasta and Beans). Side: salad w/ vinaigrette dressing.

Tues: Chili Side:  some yummy corn chips and Mr. Bettie likes some cheddar cheese atop his bowl of. Also, Bettie’s favorite hot sauce, Tabasco Green Pepper Sauce MUST BE AVAILABLE.  She puts it on everything she can..

Wed: Black Bean Quinoa Salad (from one of Bettie’s ABSOLUTE FAVORITE VEGAN COOKBOOKS, “La Dolce Vegan” by the adorable Sarah Kramer).  Side:  served on a bed of baby spinach leaves with whole wheat pitas for scooping.  yum.

Thurs: Tempehburgers and potato salad (Bettie’s own recipe which she will share with you in the next post) and WINE.

Fri: Vegan Lo Mein Side: Bettie adds tofu to the lo mein for more protein and doesn’t serve with any sides.

Sat: Bettie and Mr. Bettie are going to a vegan wedding party on the 4th of July, doesn’t that sound fun!  Bettie will snap a few for her readers and post them here..

Well there you have it, Bettie’s menu for next week.  Don’t forget, make a little extra of each night’s recipe and you’ll have lunch for the next day!

That’s right little vegan peeps, it’s “Plan your meals for the week” Day!!  Yay!  It’s Bettie’s favorite time of the week, when she gets to plan out all the food she and Mr. Bettie have for dinner during the week, she makes her shopping list and she hopes to the veggie gods above she’s got enough cash to cover her supermarket expenses.

Hey, it’s economically tough out there and anything that makes it easier for you to

A) eat healthier

2. Eat economic-lier (this is Bettie’s word, don’t bother looking it up on dictionary.com.)

III. Prepare meals faster

Is right up her alley.  Let’s get started with the menu, shall we?

Bettie wants you to know that just because she’s vegan she’s not a whipcord.  Oh no, there’s plenty of “meat” on the bone, so to speak.  However she knows that it’s better for her to be on the thinner side (not gonna happen friends, but she does try).

She gets lots of her recipe ideas from Fat Free Vegan.  There’s even a quick and easy recipe section for when she’s put in a full day stretching glass and she just wants some FOOOOD! There’s nothing worse than working 8 or 9 full and then having to come home and cook for an hour and a half.

Bettie used to spend all day Sunday having cookathons for the upcoming week, but she’s since stopped that in favor of quick and easy recipes.  Besides, it’s easier to market a couple of times a week, this way her veggies are always fresh and haven’t been sitting in the crisper drawer for a week wilting like fresh spinach in hot water. (Hot water?  something Bettie is usually IN).

Well, MVC Bettie McQueef was gone for awhile, wasn’t she?  Yes she was.  Yes indeed she was.  But she thinks she is back, because she feels she has a job to fulfill. (Damn wordpress….where the heck is spellcheck?)

Bettie wants you to know she’s back and cooking up a storm lately.  She’s going to drag you along kicking and screaming until you realize what deliciousness can be had with a handful of grains and some fresh veggies.

Not to mention the benefits to your health, your wealth and the environment.  In the posts she has planned for you, she’ll fill you in on some delectable recipes as well as introduce you to some new people, places and links that you will most surely find interesting.

So, that being said, keep up!

Bettie also wants you to know she’ll be posting with her iPhone when she’s out and about should she encounter any good vegan info.

She wants you to know she lives in the Southeast, where barbeque and hardees are king. Not easy to find vegan options here so she wonders how much iPhone posting she’ll actually do.