beer
black beans
mexican
seitan
vegan mofo
Ropa Vieja
September 07, 2014
I've been noticing a trend this year in mofo themes... A lot of bloggers are cooking from their cookbooks that they bought and barely ever use! I, too, am guilty of this as well. Yesterday, I pulled out all of my cookbooks, of which I have 27 (more like 30 after I retrieve a few that are out on lease!) and bookmarked one recipe from each book. That will keep me busy next time I get uninspired. I go through periods where there isn't enough time or days to cook everything I want, and then periods where I think all day about what I should make for dinner, but still come home empty-brained about what to make. Now I have about 30 recipes at my finger tips for the next time I am uninspired.
This recipe came from Viva Vegan, by Terry Hope Romero. It's a cuban dish called "Ropa Vieja" which traditionally is made using shredded meat in a tomato sauce. This recipe uses seitan. I made her steamed red seitan recipe first, but I recommend making the seitan a day in advance, because it's a lot harder to shred when it's warm. It needs that night in the fridge to help it firm up, so that you can shred it, or even slice it into really thin strips.
Alongside, I made her Venezuelan Black Beans, which required "sofrito" which is mostly just an aromatic base of cooked veggies. I chopped for a while...
And then I had vegetable confetti! You can celebrate something with any leftover vegetables. Just kidding. Don't throw vegetables.
I used my bamboo steamer to steam the foil packets of seitan for this, but they wouldn't all fit nicely inside. After this, I bought a huge steamer pot suitable for tamales and steaming anything else the size of or smaller than a regulation-size basketball. So now I'm set up in steam-town.
The beans just had to be soaked overnight, but other than requiring a labor-intensive sofrito, they were the easy part.
I served it over her Yellow Garlic Rice, with a huge scoop of guac, and a Mexican beer, you know, for authenticity...
Ta-da. Dinner for 20. People-- not dollars.
2 comments
Vegetable confetti! :D I feel like that would be so much fun to toss joyfully into the air... but not so much fun to clean up, especially after all that time spent chopping... The Ropa Vieja looks great!
ReplyDeleteHaha It is always more fun to throw confetti than to clean it up! I had confetti in my purse for about a year once, when I threw it on my BF after passing his doctoral exams haha.. It was a big, big mess.
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