Friday, August 10, 2007

Tofu Rancheros, Tomato Creme Sauce, 'n Naked Cupcakes

Tofu Rancheros, or rancheros del queso de soja, according to the handy Bable Fish online translator. This was just some leftover tofu scramble (tofu and onion browned, splash of tamari, some nutritional yeast, turmeric, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper) placed a top corn tostadas with refried beans, Tofutti sour cream, tomatoes, avocado and salsa. Man, what a yummy way to start the day!
In need of a quick dinner last night, here's Vegan YumYum's Fresh Tomato Cream Sauce minus the Fresh. I just used about a can and a half of no salt added tomatoes and then followed her recipe in a sauce pan, adding then mixing to some whole wheat angel hair pasta and some steamed broccoli. What a wonderful way to make a quick pasta sauce, we love it.

And finally, a craving gone so very wrong that turned out so very right. I'd been wanting cupcakes like nobody's business (that'll teach me to check out the food porn at the ppk forums too often!) and all i could think about was VCTOTW's agave cupcakes (i'd yet to try them but so love agave i knew it would happen sooner than later) with some rich, chocolatey buttercreme icing.
While the cuppers were in the oven, I whipped up the icing, but realized it wasn't coming together all that well. I blamed the dark chocolate cocoa i was using, scrapped it, and tried with some regular cocoa powder....only to find that it required a heckuva lot more soy milk than usual and when i tasted it? blech! it was powdery and almost salty, a strange aftertaste prevailed. in testing my powdered sugar i found that it tasted more like flour. seems i mixed cake flour with the powdered sugar when refilling the canister or some such thing because powdered sugar this was not.

with no other powdered sugar or chocolate in the house i sat back and enjoyed one sans icing and i gotta say, these little gems are light, fluffy, and perfectly sweet all on their own. (but that super dark chocolate bar my mom just sent me with my belated birthday box will surely make a fine ganache for those that remain....mmmmm, mmmm! stay tuned for that!)

Have a safe and happy weekend, everyone!

11 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

between the tofu rancheros, the Lolo-inspired pasta dish, and the naked agave cupcakes, I'd say you've had quite a bit of success in the kitchen (as usual)!!

Lori- the Pleasantly Plump Vegan said...

sorry about yr icing misadventure. naked cupcakes sounded good anyways. I have found vegan icing too much for some reason, which is what is stopping me from making them all the time. maybe thats a good thing.

Anonymous said...

love how looks everything!
have a great weekend.

aTxVegn said...

Wow, you've been cooking up lots of great looking food lately! Of course I love all the spicy goodies and the pasta with broccoli. And I've seen so many sushi dinners lately I think I'll give that a try this week. Your sushi rolls look perfect.

I prefer most of my cupcakes naked (or topless!) I don't enjoy shortening or margarine, even if it has lots of chocolate in it.

bazu said...

Oh the tofu rancheros look so good! Bright, refreshing, colorful, mmmm.

And I found that the agave cupcakes are definitely better naked. And, they are even better a day or two after baking- they develop a really delicate, floral flavor and a cakey texture.

laura k said...

I'm glad you enjoyed your cupcakes even sans frosting. As for the tomato cream sauce, your picture is inducing a craving!

SaraJane said...

Those rancheros look sooo good. There's something so yummy about mexican breakfasts.

Christine said...

Those cupcakes look delectable w/o any icing!! I think we all have our icing mishaps at some point... I made the cookies & cream cupcakes from VCTOTW, and was trying to halve the icing recipe. I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't set up - but then I realized I halved everything but the soymilk. Oops! So it was more of a ganache than icing.

And I didn't realize that tofu in Spanish was queso de soja... that kind of explains why my Chilean bf's family calls it ese queso!

KleoPatra said...

Nekkid cupcakes are sexy. :o)

i'm lovin' the tofu rancheros, fyi, and hope to make something like 'em soon.

jess (of Get Sconed!) said...

Those tofu rancheros rock my mind!

(and I've never even had real racheros before, just tofu..)

TB said...

i love those agave cuppers! i think they're perfect by themselves, but i also made some delightful strawberry shortcakes out of a few. they're the best!