Hello good friends,

We are very excite to announce our new website is up and running! Check it out at www.veglib.com.

More webisodes and recipes to come in the near future. Thank you for your support!

-Kelly & Jason

-The Vegetarian Librarian's Summer Cucumber Salad-

Check out the VL interview for Reader of the Week here:

English Muffins - The Vegetarian Librarian

Spring Soup at the Hideout - The Vegetarian Librarian

Serves 6-8 (In the video I made a huge batch - 3 gallons!)

1 lb. leeks

3 carrots

3 stalks of celery

6 small red potatoes

1 cup baby lima beans

1 bunch of watercress (spinach works too, if watercress isn’t available)

8 cups of veggie stock

olive oil

salt & pepper

Trim and chop leeks into small pieces. Over a medium heat, saute leeks in a tablespoon or two of olive oil in the bottom of a decent sized soup pot. Stir frequently. After five minutes add chopped carrots and celery. Cook another five minutes or so until the carrots and celery start to soften up, then add the veggie stock. Chop potatoes with the skins on and add to the pot. Toss your baby lima beans (fresh or frozen) into the mix. Keep flame at a medium heat and cook for 20-30 minutes or until potatoes and beans are tender. Remove big stems from watercress, chop remaining leaves and stems loosely. Add watercress to the soup and turn off the flame. Cover pot and let sit five minutes before serving. Salt and pepper to taste.

How did you make your veggie stock?

Chop up an onion with skins on, 3 stalks of celery, the white artichoke leaves surrounding the heart and the stems from a bunch of parsley. Add bayleaf, quite a few peppercorns and a good dose of sea salt. Add 8-10 cups of water, bring to a boil and then reduce heat. Cook for an hour or two on medium-low. Strain. 

OR you can use the recipe in my Veggie Broth video: 

What is Soup and Bread?

Every Wednesday in winter of 2009 Martha Bayne and the Hideout presented a free weekly dinner featuring soup created by Hideout staff, regulars, local chefs, and maybe even a few "celebrities.” ALL SOUP WAS FREE to guests -- but the hat was passed and donations went to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

To see repices from the 2009 HIdeout Soup and Bread season and other things Martha is cooking up see her blog: Soup and Bread

Check out this article (VL+L+F+S):

punkmusic.about.com - tonight on a very special episode of The Vegetarian Librarian

4 cups of leftover mashed potatoes (holiday leftovers work really well)
4 egg replacer equivalent (Ener-G or flaxmeal)
4 cups of AP flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. salt
Pepper to taste
extra flour for rolling

4 large onions
8 oz. of soy butter

Mix egg replacer into leftover mashed potatoes. Sift flour, salt, pepper, and baking soda and add to the mix. You may use a food processor or your hands to mix. Dough will be sticky!

On a floured work surface, take a handful of dough and form into a snake with your hands. Cut snake into one inch pieces. Dust with flour and then shake off excess flour in between your hands as if you are rolling dice. Set pieces aside and repeat until all dough is used.

Meanwhile, boil a large pot of water. Once water is at a rolling boil, add dumplings in batches taking care not to overwhelm the pot. Boil dumplings for 3 minutes. Remove from water, drain and place to the side until all dumplings are boiled.

Chop 4 onions. Add 1/4 of the onion to a large frying pan. Cook in 1/4 of the soy butter until just beginning to brown on medium heat. Add 1/4 of the dumplings, so that the dumplings are lying flat on the bottom (not stacked). Let set to brown on each side. When finished, the dumplings will begin to have a browned crust and the onions will be nicely carmelized. This process takes about 15 minutes. Repeat until all dumplings, soy butter and onions have been used up.

FAQs

What else is on the table?
We made stuffed cabbage, stuffed with ground up tofurkey brand kielbasa, rice, onion, covered in tomato sauce flavored with paprika and baked for about an hour. Arugula salad with beet topping. Beets were dressed with olive oil, garlic and spices. I think that was about it!

Who are the Silent Scones?
An awesome Chicago based rock band made of an awesome group of guys--Rich Salamander, Johnny Misfit and Ketchup John! Their music is featured in the webisode. They are performing on March 29, 2009 at the Beat Kitchen in Chicago only $5 and you also get to see local bands Sig Transit Gloria and Lasers + Fast + S***! To listen to a few of their songs go to silent scones

Who was Casimir Pulaski?
Revolutionary war hero and hero to Chicago School children in the month of March.

1 1/2 cup soy butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup OJ

3 cup old fashioned oats
2 cup AP flour
pinch of salt

1 12 oz. bag vegan chocolate chips
2 tbs. soy butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream soy butter and sugars, add OJ. Then add flour, salt and finally oats. Shape into 1" balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press with a flat bottomed glass, dip in flour in between pressings. Bake 8-10 minutes and cool on a wire rack. Edges should be browned.

Melt vegan chocolate chips (I like Ghirardelli semi-sweet) with 2 tbs. of soy butter.

Line up half of the cookies bottoms up on a plate or piece of wax paper. Place spoonful of chocolate mixture in center of upturned cookies. Top melted chocolate with another oatmeal cookie. Drizzle with remaining melted chocolate as a garnish.

Enjoy!

End of SEASON ONE! It's been so fun!

(Chocolate) Strawberry Horsecake - VEGAN

2 -2 1/2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
6 Tbs cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups water
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract
Sliced strawberries!

1. Mix dry ingredients
2. Add wet ingredients
3. Oil + flour cake pan(s)
4. Bake aprox. 40 minutes @ 350 degrees (until fork comes clean - size of pan(s) will affect cooking time)
5. Carefully remove from pan(s) + cool on wire rack

In the webisode we put the batter into two cake pans making two shorter cakes. When cooled, we layered them with strawberries in between and a hearty coating of frosting on the outside.

Chocolate Frosting (makes a lot!)

3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup vegan margarine
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 -2 Tbs soy milk
1/3 - 1/4 cup cocoa powder
Shredded coconut (optional, but awesome)
Chopped nuts (optional, but rad)

1. Combine ingredients until smooth
2. Frost cake and enjoy!

FAQs

Strawberry Horsecake is so cool! ???

They are the coolest. They wrote the song they performed in the middle of the webisode with their intern Billy that very afternoon we filmed it. Check out their myspace page here: Purveyors of the butt beat
They have a NEW! 8 Song cdr, INCONTROVERTIBLE THEORY, available at SH shows for only $1. ALSO! Sometime around the new year they will be releasing yet another new 8 song cdr entitled Entropy and the id triumvirate.

A HUGE THANKS to SH & family for such a memorable night in the kitchen! And PK for another great cameo!