Broccoli, carrot, tofu stir-fry in ginger sauce
I cannot make Chinese food to save my life. In particular, I’ve mastered the art of ruining stir-fries. Yet I keep trying. Today I started with a recipe for stir-fried tofu and bok choy in ginger sauce from Cooks Illustrated’s The Best Light Recipe and modified it to fit what was in the fridge. I ended up with a tofu, broccoli, carrot, scallion, ginger, garlic stir-fry. Read the rest of this entry »
Sticky toffee pudding
Derek has been raving about sticky toffee pudding for a little over a year now. I finally got to try it when we went to Scotland last September. I tried a number of different restaurant versions, and although I don’t know exactly what it’s supposed to taste like most of them seemed to miss the mark a little. Derek wanted to try to make it at home, and I said fine–next time we have company. Well, a few weeks ago, right before leaving for Spain, we ended up with 5 guests over for dinner. The menu was mostly Italian (salad with roasted winter veggies and walnuts, white bean soup with fennel and rosemary, and cacio e pepe pasta). But our dessert was Scottish.
Derek looked around online to try to find a recipe for the kind of moist sticky toffee pudding that he prefers, and ended up selecting a sticky date toffee pudding recipe that had excellent reviews on epicurious.com. I printed out the recipe, but unfortunately didn’t read the reviews myself. If I had, I would have been more prepared for what followed. Read the rest of this entry »
Cabbage noodles
In college I roomed with my best friend from high school. She was also a vegetarian, and trying to keep kosher to boot. Unlike me, she was lucky to have a grandmother that was a) still around, b) in town, and c) a good cook. Her grandmother was Hungarian and would regularly stock our mini-fridge with various vegetarian Hungarian dishes. My roommate was kind enough to share her grandma’s food with me. One of the dishes that I remember fondly is “cabbage noodles.” Despite the name, the noodles aren’t actually made from cabbage. As far as I recall, the dish was simply lots of rich, oily cabbage mixed with curly egg noodles and plenty of salt and some black pepper. I don’t know what kind of fat Sarah’s grandmother used to cook the noodles, but I recently found a recipe on Salon for noodles and fried cabbage, or “Hungarian ice cream” that seemed similar, and it calls for butter. Read the rest of this entry »
Cacio e Pepe
Derek had had a really excellent version of cacio e pepe in one of Mario Batali’s restaurants, and was very excited about trying it. Mario Batali’s version has quite a bit of olive oil and some butter, but the Cook’s Illustrated recipe looked unusually light for a cream pasta. They cook the pasta in very little water so that the water ends up very starchy, and can be used to help make the sauce more cohesive. We decided to give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »
Mushroom, fennel, noodle soup
I went to a Bauch, Beine, Po class tonight, and it just about killed me. (That’s Belly, Legs, Bum for all you anglophiles.) I had absolutely no energy afterward to cook dinner. Also, I hadn’t been shopping for a few days and had very little in the fridge–just a large pack of crimini mushrooms and a small head of fennel, plus a number of leftovers. My mom suggested I made soup, and so I did.
I quartered the mushrooms, and sauteed them in a little bit of butter briefly. (Maybe 1.5 tsp?) Then I added a little white wine and let the mushrooms soften slightly. I added about 4 cups of water, a few big pinches of truffle salt, a couple pieces of dried porcini mushroom (crumbled), some freshly ground black pepper and one no-salt bouillon cube, and let it all come to a simmer. Meanwhile, I used my mandoline to slice the fennel very thinly. When the soup started to boil I added the fennel and offed the heat. I also added a cup or so of leftover “cabbage noodles” (a variant of this recipe, which I will hopefully blog about shortly). I let the soup stand while I toasted two slices of rye, multi-seeded bread. I then broke a clove of garlic in half and scraped the garlic all over the now-crusty bread. (I learned this trick from my friend Amira, who learned it in Italy.) I topped the soup with cubed pieces of the garlic bread, and a little freshly grated parmigiana-reggiano.
It hit the spot. Derek liked it too. There wasn’t a whole lot of broth, but it had an intense, mushroom flavor. The mushrooms were still pretty fat and juicy, and the fennel was lovely (as always in soup). The raw garlic on the “croutons” (and to a lesser extent the black pepper) added quite a bit of heat. Rating: B+
Derek said it was satisfying and earthy, but not overcooked and stewy–more like some stuff with a little light broth in the bottom. It reminded him of fancy restaurants where they bring you a bowl of something then the waiter pours a little broth over it at the table. Rating: B+
One week in Vegetarian Madrid
I just got back from a week in Madrid. I didn’t read anything about it before leaving (didn’t even buy a guidebook) and thus wasn’t sure what to expect. I certainly didn’t expect the huge metropolis that I found. Madrid reminded me a lot of New York City–tall buildings, lots of people and traffic, great metro system, millions of shops and restaurants…. The main differences seemed to be that Madrilenos eat dinner at 10:30 at night, and speak Spanish. I think Madrid would be a fun city to live in, but it was a bit overwhelming as a tourist destination, at least for a tourist as unprepared as I was.
Before leaving for Spain, I had read a bit about the cuisine. I mostly found webpages complaining about how veggie unfriendly the country is. I even found one page that claimed that Spain was voted the second worst country for vegetarians to travel in, after Mexico. Supposedly meat and/or fish are in everything. I don’t know if Madrid is different than the rest of the country, but I found the veggie-options to be better than I expected. I was lucky enough to travel mostly with Spanish speakers, which definitely helped. I never ended up being served anything that had any meat or fish in it (at least to my knowledge). Read the rest of this entry »
Tri-color winter salad with kumquats
Before I met Derek, he used to eat frequently at Cafe Sam, in Pittsburgh. One of his favorite dishes was a radicchio, arugula, and endive salad served with feta cheese and hard boiled eggs. I was planning to try to replicate this salad, and bought all the ingredients to do so, but as I was checking out at the Turkish grocery store near my house, one of the “seasonal fruits” on display at the checkout stand caught my eye.
A few years ago I went to the Vegetarian Summerfest with my friend Annette, and we had a blast. One of my most distinctive memories from the summerfest is of Dr. Michael Greger asking us “What’s by far the healthiest citrus fruit?”. But no one in a room full of nutrition buffs could answer the question. His answer, it turns out, was the kumquat. He argued that it’s the healthiest because you eat the whole thing, rather than discarding the pith and peel like with other citrus fruits. According to Greger, the bitter flavors in the pith and peel come from a multitude of uber-healthy substances. Greger exhorted us to never eat another lemon, lime, or orange without first zesting the fruit, and adding the zest to our food. I can’t recall what he said to do with the zest, but I imagine it could be good in yogurt, smoothies, rice dishes, breakfast cereal–even in tea or ice water! I was pretty good about zesting all my citrus for a while, but eventually I forgot all about his citrus chastisements. Until, that is, this week, when I saw those kumquats at City Basaar. I bought a handful to bring home, and decided to ditch the feta and egg in this salad in favor of thinly sliced kumquats.
Four years ago: the best lemon bars ever
Saffron Risotto
My friend Alex and I took a walk along the river Saar this evening. Despite the cold, the damp, the dark, and the mist, I had a lovely walk. In the course of our conversation, we started talking about saffron, and I realized I’d never posted one of our favorite risotto’s to my blog: saffron risotto. This dish is plain, but very satisfying. The daisy-yellow color and creamy consistency make me feel like I’m eating macaroni and cheese. There’s just something about saffron that tastes like comfort food to me, even though I never had it growing up. I can’t actually remember the first time I ever ate saffron, but it very well might have been the first time we made this saffron risotto!
The recipe we typically use is based on a recipe from Jack Bishop’s Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook. The saffron flavor is maximized by dissolving it in a little hot stock then adding it to the rice toward the end of the cooking time. Bishop’s recipe is good, but quite rich. We usually cut down on the butter quite a bit.
Below I’ve compared Jack Bishop’s recipe to the saffron risotto recipe in Cook’s Illustrated’s The Best Light Recipe. I believe Jack Bishop works for Cook’s Illustrated, so it’s a bit odd that the recipe aren’t more similar. Read the rest of this entry »
Tofu and spinach enchiladas
Most tofu enchiladas are awful. Normal tofu just doesn’t have the right texture for enchiladas. My mom’s enchiladas are different, however. They’re based on a recipe they used to make on the Farm, which uses frozen, marinated, and baked tofu that has a chewy texture and deep, umame flavor. When I was a kid and my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday dinner, I invariably requested tofu enchiladas. The enchiladas were simple, American-style enchiladas, made from flour tortillas filled with savory tofu chunks and then covered in a tomato, chili gravy and baked in the oven. They were simple, but amazingly delicious. More recently my mom has started adding vegetables to her enchiladas, and I’ve followed suit. I usually add some combination of spinach, corn, peppers, and onions. Other veggies would probably be good too.
I decided to make enchiladas for New Year’s dinner because of my freezer fiasco–I need to use up 3 blocks of no-longer-frozen tofu, a big tupperware of enchilada sauce, small containers of chipotle chilis and minced jalepeno, and boxes of no-longer-frozen corn and spinach.
This recipe is still pretty approximate. I’m not sure of a number of the measurements, oven temperatures, pan sizes, etc. I’m guessing at the moment, but I’ll nail these numbers down next time I make enchiladas.
And now… the book.
Read the rest of this entry »
Nikki’s no-sugar, no-flour cookies
I accidentally left my freezer open last night and everything in it defrosted. I’m taking it as a higher power’s way of telling me it’s time to do some New Year’s cleaning. I decided to start with a ziploc bag full of now uber-soggy bananas. I was going to make banana bread when I came across the recipe for Nikki’s healthy cookies on the 101 cookbooks blog. I’ve made vegan cookies with banana before (from the Rancho la Puerta cookbook I think) and they were terrible–fluffy and too-banana-y and not really anything like a cookie. But the comments on Nikki’s recipe were almost universally positive, so I decided to give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »
Vegetarian Pad Thai at Home
I love pad thai, but I rarely order it in restaurants anymore because I’m always disappointed by the oily, bland mockery they serve. Restaurant pad thai is invariably insufficiently sour, and often too sweet. Proper pad thai requires a careful balance of sweet, salty, and sour, as well as warm heat and a strong peanut flavor–two other features that are often lacking in restaurant versions of this popular dish. Traditionally, pad thai is made with salty dried shrimp and fermented fish sauce. Nancie McDermott, in her book Real Vegetarian Thai, suggests that vegetarians substitute Asian bean sauce (dao jiow), a pungent condiment made from salted, fermented soybeans. She says that either the “brown bean sauce” or “yellow bean sauce” will work fine. McDermott’s excellent cookbook includes a recipe for vegetarian phat thai that is superb, if decadent. If you’re going to eat pad thai, and don’t have any excellent Thai restaurants around, I strongly suggest making it yourself rather than settling for another mediocre mockery. Here’s Nancie’s recipe, with a few adjustments to reduce the oil content and speed up the process just a little. Read the rest of this entry »
Bill’s ricotta hotcakes
Derek has very fond memories of eating Bill Granger’s ricotta hotcakes when he ate at Bill’s in Sydney. We finally got around to trying to make them ourselves last week. The recipe is all over the web, along with a huge number of really beautiful pictures of stacks and stacks of hotcakes. Derek even tried to make the “sugar honeycomb” that’s used to make the crunchy “honeycomb butter”. However, the recipe he used wasn’t very precise about heat or timing, and the honeycomb never crystallized. It just ended up a big, hard slab of sticky sugary goo. So we ended up eating our hotcakes with regular old maple syrup.
I thought the hotcakes were fine, but nothing special. They tasted like good but not particularly unusual white-flour pancakes. We used store-bought ricotta from the German grocery store. Maybe the pancakes would have been significantly different if we would have had really fine, freshly-made ricotta. As they were, however, they were simply okay. I don’t think they were worth the calories. I actually prefer a slightly heartier pancake, with a little more heft. These were quite light and fluffy and “white” tasting. Rating: B-.
Derek thought that the texture was good, but the pancakes themselves were kind of bland, and undersalted. He suspects that the honeycomb butter (and the crystallized crunch it adds) is the truly stellar part of the recipe. Derek’s rating: B-.
Tofu and millet patties
I wanted to use up some leftover millet, and decided to try a variation on the tofu patties in The Vegan Gourmet. I figured I’d try out one more recipe before passing it on. The recipe calls for bulgur rather than millet, but I figured the two grains are similar enough, and the substitution should work okay.
Cornmeal cookies
Derek wanted to make almond crescent cookies, but we didn’t have enough almonds, or his mom’s recipe. We decided to try these delicate cornmeal cookies instead. The recipe is from Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts by Alice Medrich.
Two vegetarian cookbooks bite the dust
I am a collector of cookbooks, but a principled one. I believe that a cookbook that is not cooked from is a cookbook whose purpose is unfulfilled. If I don’t cook from a cookbook, then I shouldn’t own it. I also believe in finishing cookbooks. My ultimate goal is to finish every cookbook I own, where “finishing” means making every recipe that appeals to me. (In other words, I can skip the recipes for eggplant parmigiana and blue cheese and artichoke ravioli.) I try not to buy too many cookbooks, as I always feel guilty about all the cookbooks I already own that go untouched. Still, sometimes my principles lapse a little and I buy myself a new present. Other times, friends or family give me new cookbooks. It’s two of these gifted cookbooks that I’ve been holding onto for years that finally bit the dust.
French-style baked white beans
I’m not a fan of traditional tomato-y, ultra-sweet baked beans. Instead, I put together a number of different “vegan cassoulet” recipes, and baked my beans with traditional French seasonings: a base of carrot, celery, and onion, plus garlic, rosemary, thyme, and oregano. I started out by “quick brining” my beans, as Cook’s Illustrated recommends.
Spicy cauliflower simmered in red wine
I love cauliflower, but other than cauliflower curry, I actually don’t have any standby recipes for it. I was looking for something new to try, and I found this recipe in which the cauliflower is simmered in red wine instead of water. It sounded interesting, and, as an added bonus, it would give me a chance to use up the red wine that we often have lying around from unfinished bottles. The recipe is from Jack Bishop’s The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook.
Essential cookware for the vegetarian kitchen
Now that Christmas is over, it seems the perfect time to talk about purchasing pots and pans! What cookware should you buy if you’re just starting out as a cook, or you have some extra cash (or someone itching to spend money on you) and you want to rebuild your cookware set from scratch?
Potato, beet, and belgian endive salad with toasted hazelnuts
I bought some beets and potatoes at the farmer’s market and started looking around for something to do with them. I found this recipe for a winter salad in Peter Berley’s modern vegetarian kitchen. The potatoes and beets are each dressed separately–the potatoes in a lemon juice and olive oil vinaigrette and the beets with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, and caraway seeds. Then the two are mixed together and garnished with chopped, toasted hazelnuts and fresh dill. The salad is meant to be served with endive petals.
Eating vegetarian in New York City, October 2009
In October I spent ten days in New York City, and ate out at a number of new restaurants, and a few old ones. We leaned pretty heavily towards Italian this trip, pretty much spurning all cuisines originating east of Italy. Next time we go to NYC we’ll have to focus on Ethiopian, Chinese, and Indian!
This post took me a long time to finish, but hopefully I’ll soon finish up my post about all the cooking we did while we were in NYC, including the cooking class Derek and I took at the Natural Gourmet cooking school. Read the rest of this entry »
Vegan macaroni and “cheese”
There’s a large corner of the internet devoted to recipes for vegan macaroni and “cheese.” When I was a kid I remember my mom making a recipe from the farm cookbook that calls for nutritional yeast and lots of oil. Even though I love vegan mac n’ cheese, I can’t remember the last time I made it. I often eat pasta with yeast and soy sauce, but not mac n’ cheese per se. Last night Derek was craving something creamy and I had the brilliant idea of making him vegan macaroni and cheese, which he’s never had before. I wanted something a little less rich than the farm recipe, and I finally settled on the creamiest vegan mac n’ cheese ever, which had received rave reviews from the Pink Haired Girl and others. Read the rest of this entry »
Mom’s lentil or split pea soup
I think I have about five different lentil soup recipes on this blog, yet I’ve somehow never gotten around to posting my mom’s recipe. It’s a pretty simple, basic lentil soup recipe, but I think the particular combination of spices is quite nice. Sometimes I add a little tomato paste or chipotle powder, or some frozen spinach before serving. Read the rest of this entry »
Simple winter salsa
Last night I made the recipe for pico de gallo from my mom’s blog, to accompany some black bean and sweet potato burritos.
Ingredients
- 4 cups of canned small-diced tomatoes
- 1/2 onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1/4 cup of lime juice, from one lime
- 1/4 tsp salt, or to taste
- 1 cup finely chopped cilantro, from 1 bunch
- 1-2 jalapenos, with seeds
Instructions:
- Chop cilantro including stems to make about 1 cup.
- Chop onion, jalapeno and garlic, finely.
- Combine garlic, onion, cilantro, jalapeno and tomatoes.
- Add salt and lime juice.
- Let sit for at least 30 minutes to combine flavors.
My notes:
I used a large can of tomatoes with the juice, but only got about 3.5 cups total. After letting the salsa sit for 30 minutes it tasted a bit bland. I had added 1/4 tsp. salt but I added a little bit more, some chipotle powder, and some fresh ground cumin. Those additions helped. It wasn’t the greatest salsa ever, but it was perfectly fine. I served it with the burritos and although I thought the sweet potato burritos actually go better with a green salsa verde, my guests seemed to like this red one–almost the entire bowl of salsa was eaten. I only had about 1/2 cup left after the six of us were done with dinner.
Hot candied walnuts
Many years ago Katrina and Dan shared some of these nuts with us. Derek immediately fell in love. The recipe is originally from the book party nuts! by Sally Sampson. We’ll probably be trying out some more of her recipes shortly.
- 3/4 cup plus 2 Tbs. sugar
- 2 Tbs. unsalted butter
- 2 cups raw walnut halves
- 1 tsp. kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
- 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Place 3/4 cup of the sugar in a medium, heavy-bottomed skillet and cook over high heat, stirring, until it turns a light caramel color, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the butter and stir until melted. Add the nuts and stir to coat evenly with the mixture.
- Transfer the nuts to the prepared sheet and arrange in a single layer. Place in the oven and bake, tossing every 5 minutes, until the nuts are toasted, about 15 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and pour the hot nuts in a medium-sized bowl. Add the salt, cumin, black pepper, cayenne, and the remaining 2 Tbs. sugar and very quickly toss the nuts to coat them evenly.
- Immediately transfer the nuts to another baking sheet lined with parchment paper and separate the individual nuts with a fork. Allow to cool completely before serving.
Makes 2 cups.
These nuts are sweet, spicy, salty, and very crunchy. They’re delicious, but dangerously addictive.
The “toss every 5 minutes” instruction seems a bit excessive, but then again, when left to my own devices I do tend to burn my nuts.
Rating: B+
Derek: A
Roasted cauliflower with tomato and green olives
This roasted cauliflower dish was the second dish we made last week from the Second Helpings from Union Square Cafe cookbook. It’s similar in spirit to pasta puttanesca, but the base is cauliflower rather than pasta.
- 1 head cauliflower, cut into 2 inch florets
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 1/4 tsp. salt
- 3/8 tsp. black pepper
- 2 cups quartered and thinly sliced onion
- 1 tsp. chopped garlic
- 1 tsp. coarsely chopped fresh oregano
- 1/2 cup pitted and sliced green olives
- 1/4 tsp. Aleppo pepper
- 1 cup seeded and diced tomatoes
- 1 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
- Toss the cauliflower with the olive oil, 1/2 salt, and 1/8 pepper. Spread the cauliflower in a single layer on a cookie sheet and roast until the cauliflower is just tender and lightly browned, about 20 minutes.
- Heat the remaining 2 Tbs. of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until it is lightly browned but still has crunch, about 4 minutes. Stir in the garlic, oregano, olives, 3/4 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. black pepper, and the aleppo pepper. Cook a few seconds until the garlic is fragrant but not brown. Stir in the tomato and parsley, cook for 30 seconds, and remove from the heat.
- When the cauliflower is done, return the tomato mixture to high heat, toss in the cauliflower, and saute quickly to combine and heat through. Serve hot or at room temperature.
My note:
This recipe was quite oily but very flavorful. I’ve made a lot of different roasted cauliflower dishes, and I think this one is my favorite. We couldn’t find any fresh oregano and so used thyme instead. It worked nicely with the other flavors. We also ran out of Aleppo, and can’t find it in Germany, so subbed in a coarse paprika from the Turkish store. We used canned small-dice tomatoes, with the juice, which worked well. Next time I’ll cut the oil and maybe reduce the onions a little (they ended up slightly wormy in texture). The recipe says it serves 4 to 6, but I thought it made only about 3-4 large side servings. But then again, I love cauliflower. Rating: B+.
Derek said he thought the plain roasted cauliflower (before adding the tomatoes and olives etc.) was tastier than the final dish. The combination didn’t do much for him. He let me have all the leftovers. Rating: B-.
Polenta with white beans, chard, and celery
I asked Derek what to make for dinner and he suggested making something out of Second Helpings from Union Square Cafe, which we haven’t used in a long time. There’s not much vegetarian in the main course section, but we found two yummy looking recipes in the chapter on sides. The first recipe was a relatively light recipe for soft polenta with white beans and veggies. It didn’t call for any butter or cream or cheese, just olive oil.
- The recipe says to make the polenta using the cooking liquid from the beans and water. The instructions for making creamy polenta turned out well. The ratio of polenta to liquid was 1 to 6, and the cooking time was 50 minutes.
- While the polenta cooks, you saute carrot, leek, and celery in a skillet with the olive oil. Then you add garlic, beans, chard leaves, and a little water, and cook until the hard wilts and the water has evaporated.
- When the polenta is done you stir in the vegetable mixture and season with salt and pepper.
Derek thought it was okay the first night, but he didn’t want to eat the leftovers. He said it tasted good, and the flavor of all the ingredients came through, but somehow it just wasn’t very exciting. He thought it would be a better side dish than a main course. Rating: B-. (He prefers his polenta cheesy.)
I thought the combination of celery and polenta was quite intriguing, but I agree with Derek that it didn’t quite work as a main dish. It was reasonably tasty, but I also had a hard time finishing off the leftovers. Rating: B-
Tofu in garlic-thyme vinaigrette
I really like Berley’s recipe for tofu baked in white wine, mustard, and dill. The recipe directly opposite that one in Berley’s cookbook is a similar recipe for tofu baked in a garlic, thyme vinaigrette. I vaguely remember trying it once before, and not finding it all that exciting, although Derek liked it quite a bit. Since I have no record on my blog or notes in my cookbooks, I decided to try it again.
The vinaigrette calls for olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, thyme, salt, red pepper flakes, and “2 bay leaves, crumbled”. I’m not sure exactly how you crumble bay leaves, but both times I tried this recipe I ended up with jagged pieces that were not pleasant to eat. I thought maybe I should have tried to remove the pieces of bay leaf, but there were enough pieces that it would have been a pain, plus the recipe doesn’t mention removing them.
Other than the prickly bay leaves, the recipe was fine. I wouldn’t make it again though. The tofu seemed a bit greasy to me, and it doesn’t end up very flavorful. Even after baking it for a long time, the center of each piece was still white and bland and kind of raw tasting. The marinade didn’t infuse the tofu with flavor like the Greek marinade does.
Derek liked this recipe more than me, both times I made it. He scarfed it down happily. I didn’t ask him for a rating, but he would have probably said B or B+.
Rating: B-
Carrot barley soup with mushrooms, thyme, lentils, and miso
When I was a kid my mom would often make carrot barley soup. There was something uber-comforting about the warm, orange broth and fluffy, exploded barley kernels. I had some barley in the pantry and decided to make carrot barley soup for dinner, but Derek objected. He would accede only if I made it into a miso soup. I wasn’t in the mood to cook, so I decided to also throw in some mushrooms and red lentils to make it a one pot meal. And thus, this soup was born.
Ingredients:
- 2 Tbs. olive oil
- 8 ounces grated carrot (about 1.5 cups tightly packed, or 2 medium carrots)
- 9 ounces chopped onion (about 2 cups)
- 8 ounces mushrooms, sliced (about 3 cups)
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 9 cups stock or water + no-salt bouillon
- 1/2 cup pearled barley
- 1/2 cup red lentils
- 1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
- 1 large garlic clove, peeled
- 1 tsp. minced fresh thyme leaves
- 2 bay leaves
- 3 Tbs. red miso
- 2 Tbs. chopped parsley (optional)
Instructions:
- In a 4-6 quart pot heat the olive oil over high heat. When it’s hot add the carrots, onion, mushrooms, and salt. Reduce the heat to medium-ghigh. Saute for 10 minutes, or until the vegetables stop releasing water.
- Add in the water, barley, black pepper, garlic clove, thyme leaves, and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then cook over low heat for 1 1/2 hours.
- When the soup is done, mix in the miso. Either mix it in a separate bowl with some of the broth from the soup, or put it in a sieve and slowly push it through into the soup. Garnish with fresh chopped parlsey and serve immediately.
Notes:
I didn’t have any parsley so I left it out.
The red lentils totally dissolved, but added a bit of grittiness to the soup. The sliced mushrooms ended up slightly rubbery but I liked the textural contrast compared to the gritty lentils and the fluffy barley. I couldn’t decided if the red lentils added depth to the flavor profile, or if they muddied up the pure flavors of the soup. Similarly with the miso. I just couldn’t figure out whether the miso added a nice umame flavor, or muddied it up. The thyme, on the other hand, was clearly a great addition. I think the soup would have even benefited from another 1/2 tsp. or 1 tsp. of thyme added at the end. Of course, if I had had parsley maybe the extra thyme would have clashed with the parsley.
Derek ended up liking the soup. He said he’d eat it again, but he wouldn’t yearn for it. He gave it a B. He liked the barley, and said that with enough salt it had good flavor. He thought the flavor was a bit muddy, but the soup was pretty satisfying.
I enjoyed the soup. I think perhaps it could be improved a little, but it was very comforting and satisfying, just like my mom’s carrot barley soup. Rating: B.
Mini crustless tofu quiches
I had some expiring silken tofu in the fridge and felt like eating something savory. I love how Isa Moskowitz uses silken tofu to simulate eggs in Vegan with a Vengeance, so I thought I would give these mini quiches from the fat free vegan blog a try.
I didn’t have any mushrooms so I used small broccoli florets instead. I didn’t have the chives so I left them out. I used tahini for the nut butter and lowfat milk instead of soymilk. I used arrowroot instead of cornstarch. I didn’t have any oil spray so I brushed my muffin tins with olive oil instead.
The batter tasted good. The nutritional yeast flavor dominated, giving it a savory, umame flavor. I couldn’t taste any of the other ingredients individually (not even the rosemary) but I think they contributed to the depth of flavor. The texture of the batter, however, was very powdery from the arrowroot.
I didn’t have enough batter to fill my muffin tins halfway. I’m not sure if I didn’t do a good job of scraping all the batter out of the food processor and skillet, or if my muffin tins are just a little bit bigger than Susan’s.
I took the quiches out of the oven after 20 minutes, since I was using metal muffin tins, and a knife came out clean. However, after letting the quiches cool down, I couldn’t get them out. I’m not sure if I greased insufficiently or didn’t cook them long enough. The top of the quiches had a nice firm eggy texture but the rest kind of resembled mashed up raw tofu. They tasted pretty good, and they were definitely low calorie. I’ll probably try this recipe again sometime, and see if I can get them to firm up more and come out of the tins.
Stuffed Hashbrowns
I’m bumping this old recipe because I finally, after many years of failed attempts, flipped a hashbrown without breaking it into pieces. I did not use my mother’s technique, which involves a metal spatula. Instead, I did it by tossing the “pancake” into the air with a flip of the wrist. In addition to spurning the spatula, I used German potatoes (which seem similar to yukon gold) rather than Russets, and I squeezed the grated potatoes in a dish towel to release some of the extra liquid. I cooked the hashbrowns in my 12-inch nonstick skillet. I used 1.5 tsp. oil and about 6-6.5 ounces of potato per hashbrown. There was still empty space showing between the grated potato pieces after I scattered them in the pan. I think that’s key.
We stuffed the hashbrowns with steamed broccoli and gruyere cheese. They were delicious, and very filling.
Originally posted October 4, 2006.
When I was a kid I always asked my mom to make me “hashbrowns.” She’d tell me to grate a potato, and then she’d make either a simple paper-thin pancake of grated, lightly fried potatoes, or more often a “omelet” filled with steamed vegetables and folded in half. I could never get enough, and neither could any of my siblings. Stuffed hashbrowns make a delicious (and healthy) breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Read the rest of this entry »
Another tempeh “bacon” recipe
After my disappointment in Heidi Swanson’s orange tempeh, one of my blog readers suggested I try her tempeh bacon recipe. My friend Alex contributed the canned chipotles, and I bought the last two packs of tempeh at the local Asian store. The recipe says to marinate at least a couple of hours, but we only let the tempeh marinage for about 20 minutes while we prepared the rest of dinner. We decided to cut the oil slightly (4 Tbs. in a double batch). I included one whole chipotle chile in my 3 Tbs. of adobo spice, because we like things spicy.
- 1 pound tempeh
- 6 tablespoons olive oil (I used 1/4 cup)
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 6 tablespoons adobo sauce from a can of chipotle peppers (I included 1 whole chile in my 6 Tbs.)
The tempeh turned out very well. I was worried about all that oil and soy sauce, but it wasn’t too salty or oily or spicy. I would venture to say that the flavoring was just right.
It actually didn’t taste that different than Peter Berley’s barbecued tempeh recipe, which Derek and I have made (a variant of) countless times. I compared the recipes, and Berley calls for more oil (1/2 cup), more maple syrup (1/3 cup), more vinegar (1/2 cup), uses chipotle powder instead of adobo, and adds cumin, thyme, and paprika as well. My typical modified version of Berley’s recipe is actually even more similar to Heidi’s, as I cut the oil and maple syrup down (and also the soy sauce). Also Berley’s recipe is baked not pan-fried. I think I prefer Heidi’s less acidic version, but chipotle powder is certainly more convenient here in Germany where canned chipotles don’t exist. I’d like to do a head to head comparison of the recipes to really see how the flavor profiles differ. If I can get my hands on some liquid smoke, maybe I’ll do a three-way taste test, and throw in Isa’s tempeh bacon recipe, which gets the smoke flavor from liquid smoke rather than chipotles. It calls for even more vinegar than Berley’s (2/3 cup), but less oil (1/4 cup), and less soy sauce (6 Tbs.). It also adds a bit of tomato paste and crushed garlic.
Whole wheat linguine with chard, tomatoes, and chickpeas
This recipe is based on the cook’s illustrated beans and greens recipe. I used to make it with collards or kale, but since I can’t get those greens here I made it with swiss chard and added tomatoes, which blend nicely with the acidity of the chard. Normally I add kalamata olives but I didn’t have any so I added a few spoonsfuls of capers instead. I didn’t have any white beans so subbed in chickpeas.
Serves 4 to 6.
Ingredients
| 3 | tablespoons olive oil |
| 8 | cloves garlic, 5 cloves sliced thin lengthwise, 3 cloves minced (1 Tbs.) |
| 3/4 | tsp. kosher salt |
| 1 | medium red onion, diced small (about 1 cup) |
| 1/2-2/3 | teaspoon hot red pepper flakes |
| 20 | ounces chard, stems halved lengthwise and sliced thinly and leaves sliced into ribbons |
| 3/4 | cups vegetable broth |
| 1 | can (14 1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes with juice |
| 1 | can (15 ounces) chickpeas, drained and rinsed |
| 3/4 | cup pitted kalamata olives, roughly chopped (or 3 Tbs. capers) |
| 10-12 | ounces whole wheat spaghetti or linguine |
| 2 | ounces Parmesan cheese, finely grated (about 1 cup) |
| ground black pepper |
Instructions
- Heat oil and sliced garlic in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring and turning frequently, until light golden brown, about 3 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer garlic to plate lined with paper towels. Sprinkle lightly with salt.
- Add onion and chard stems to pan; cook until starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Add minced garlic and red pepper flakes; cook, stirring constantly, until garlic is fragrant, about 30 seconds.
- Add half of chard to pan; using tongs, toss occasionally, until starting to wilt, about 2 minutes. Add remaining chard, broth, tomatoes, and salt; cover (pan will be very full); increase heat to high and bring to strong simmer. Reduce heat to medium and cook, covered, tossing once, until chard is completely wilted. Stir in beans and olives or capers.
- Meanwhile, bring 4 quarts water to boil in dutch oven or 5-6 quart pan over high heat. Add pasta and 1 tablespoon salt; cook until pasta is just shy of al dente. Drain pasta and return to pot. Add the greens mixture to pasta, set over medium-high heat, and toss to combine. Cook until pasta absorbs most of liquid, about 2 minutes. Season with black pepper to taste. Serve immediately, passing garlic chips and parmesan separately.
Note: By draining the pasta before its al dente, and finishing cooking in the brothy sauce, the pasta absorbs the flavors of the sauce and release its residual starch, which helps to thicken the sauce slightly.
Derek really loved this dish, even without the olives. I thought it was reasonably flavorful, but I’m never as excited about beans and greens as he is.
Tofu, bok choy, and caramelized shallots
This is a quick Chinese-inspired dish I whipped up for lunch today.
- 2 Tbs. soy sauce
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 3 cloves garlic, minced (about 1 Tbs.) [optional]
- 1/2 tsp. chili flakes
- 1 Tbs. olive oil
- 1 pound medium firm tofu
- 1 pound bok choy
- 2 shallots
- 1 inch piece fresh ginger , minced (about 1 tablespoon) [optional]
- In a small bowl, mix together the soy sauce, sugar, minced garlic cloves, and chili flakes. Slice the tofu into long rectangles (about .75” x .75” x 2”).
- In a 12-inch non-stick skillet over high heat, heat the olive oil until a drop of water sizzles. Add the tofu in a single layer. Do not move the tofu once you’ve placed it down.
- While the tofu cooks, wash and cut up your bok choy. Break the bok choy into individual leaves, and remove the green part from the white stems. Chop the stems into bite-sized pieces, halving vertically any particular fat stems. When the stems are all chopped, throw them into the pan, filling up any spaces not taken by the tofu, and letting the rest of the pieces rest on top of the tofu.
- When the tofu has browned on the first side, toss everything making sure that each tofu piece ends up on an unbrowned side. While the second side browns, slice the bok choy leaves into fat ribbons, and slice the shallots into 1/4 inch pieces. Add the shallots to the pan. Toss again, getting a third side of each tofu rectangle down this time.
- When the third side of tofu is browned, throw in the bok choy leaves and the soy sauce mixture. Stir fry for about 1 minute, until the leaves are wilted. Eat immediately.
You could serve this over rice or another grain, but we just ate it plain. It’s salty, but not over the top salty. The bok choy stems and shallots get nicely caramelized, and the tofu ends up crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. It’s a satisfying dish.
If you use the ginger, add it about 30 seconds before the soy sauce mixture.
Whole wheat penne with brussels sprouts, falafel crumbs, apples, and rosemary
We recently returned from 10 days in NYC, and were scrambling to figure out what to do for dinner given our uncharacteristically empty fridge and unusually busy schedule. (When you disappear for 10 days there’s a lot to do once you get back!) I left work too late to make it to the Asian and bio stores, so tofu was out, and the Turkish store was already closed. My only option was the local, standard grocery store, where I almost never buy produce. The Brussels sprouts looked reasonably fresh, and both Derek and I love brussels sprouts, so I decided on a simple dinner of pasta with brussels sprouts. I also bought a few tart apples for snacking on.
When I got home I tried to figure out what I could add to bump up the protein content of the meal, and make the pasta dish a little more interesting. I remembered that I had a box of falafel mix in the pantry. Falafel and brussels sprouts didn’t seem like too odd of a combination, so I mixed the falafel mix with water and fried it up as falafel patties in a little oil on the stovetop. I removed them from the pan and then used the same pan for the sprouts. I quartered the brussels sprouts and cooked them over medium heat in my large 12-inch skillet, until browned. When they were almost done I decided to jazz the dish up a bit more, and added one diced granny smith apple, and a heaping spoonful of minced rosemary (from the plant on my windowsill). When the sprouts were cooked through I tossed in some whole wheat penne, and crumbled in a few of the falafel patties. The texture of the falafel crumbles reminded me a little of bread crumbs, but they were more flavorful. The sweet/tart apple contrasted nicely with the heavier flavors of the falafel and brussels sprouts, and the rosemary added a nice “fall” flavor. The dish ended up being tasty, if a little odd. It was also a bit dry, so we ended up drizzling it with a little olive oil at the table. I wish the dish had had more of a sauce, but I never know how to make a non-red sauce like you get at an Italian restaurant, without using 1/4 cup of olive oil per person.
