About Me
Name: be'ershevaboheme6
Location: New Haven, CT, United States
This is my wonderfully foodie haven. Everything you'll see here is Vegetarian and Kosher, and the vast majority is Vegan. I'm obsessed with breakfast, bok choy (go figure) and gloriously humane comfort foods. I may also touch on yoga, judaism, and nature...because these are some of my favorite things.....tra la la. Welcome to my little corner of the world wide web!
|
This “stoup” make actually be my favorite Rachael Ray recipe that I’ve made…but I shouldn’t say that, because I seem to remember really enjoying some at some point. Instead we’ll just say that it’s my favorite for this week. I did make a few changes as well, so who knows, perhaps the original isn’t even as good. (Of course it wouldn’t be, since she uses CHICKEN) Anyhow, I served this up with some spiced pita to soak up the broth, and it was well enjoyed by all.
You can find the original recipe on the Rachael Ray Show website, and I’ve pasted it with my changes below.
Ingredients
* 1 block tofu, cubed
* 1 fresh bay leaf
* 1 onion quartered and thinly sliced
* 1/4 cup EVOO – Extra Virgin Olive Oil
* 4 portabella mushrooms, gills scraped, halved then thinly sliced
* 2 carrots, peeled and sliced into 2-inch matchsticks
* 2 to 3 ribs celery, thinly sliced on an angle
* 1 2-inch piece ginger, peeled then grated or minced
* 3 to 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
* Salt and pepper
* 3 tablespoons mild or medium curry powder
* 1 quart Vegetable stock
* 1 cup mango chutney, or in my case a combination of Ginger Jam, Mango Salsa, Plum Sauce, Hot Chili Sauce and Vinegar adding up to 1 cup.
* 3 tablespoons Earth Balance
* 2 tablespoons flour
* 4 scallions, whites and greens thinly sliced
* Pita or bread of choice for dipping.
Preparation
Place EVOO in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and tofu; brown 10-12 minutes. Add carrots, celery, sliced onion, ginger and garlic to mushrooms and cook 5 minutes more, to soften. Season with salt, pepper and curry powder. Add stock and stir in the chutney. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.
Melt Earth Balance in a small skillet. Whisk in flour and cook 1 minute. Whisk roux into soup pot, let simmer and thicken, 5 minutes.
Serve stoup topped with scallions and pita for dipping alongside. Since I’m on an Indian theme, I’d like to share something I picked up at a very exciting huge Indian Supermarket nearby here. It’s called a TOORI, and it looks kind of like an english cucumber with okra-ridges. It’s huge, and I wish I’d taken a picture, because I can’t find one of it in its uncooked state on Google image. I used the recipe here, obviously using a ridged toori not a smooth one.
This basically came out tasting like a rather fulling salsa with faintly Indian flavors. It IS pretty good…but I see nothing that makes the Toori more exciting than zucchini for instance, unless you’re talking about its looks. Oh well…
Selah.
I’ve been watching a lot of Food Network lately, and apparently this is where it gets me….Veggie-versions of Rachael Ray and Chef Anne Burrell recipes. The BLT pasta recipe was actually veggie to begin with, which I find pretty ridiculous, because frankly I would’ve put bacon in it if it was something I ate, and as it stands, I did add a liberal sprinkling of Bac-uns to the mix. Even with the Bac-uns the recipe was rather unexciting, but I know from experience that Rachael Ray recipes can be very hit or miss, so I wasn’t shocked. The original recipe came from the food network website. I did make a couple changes, namely replacing the mint leaves with a couple tablespoons of a fresh mint chutney from the Indian Grocery, using almonds where you had the choice of pine nuts, and replaced the Parm with Nooch, so it’s all Vegan friendly.
More exciting however was Anne Burrell’s pot pie, although I veganized her chicken version for my personal enjoyment. Since I made more changes to her recipe I’ll post it here, but you can also see the original on the food network site. If you’ve never watched Anne Burrell’s show, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef I highly recommend it. While she’s not generally veggie friendly she’s got this awesome quirky personality that I can’t get enough of, and she gives out a lot of good tips while she’s cooking. I made one full sized pie and a couple individuals, one of which is pictured:
Ingredients
For the crust:
* 1 cup earth balance, in pea-size pieces
* 1 (8-ounce) container vegan cream cheese, cut into pieces
* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
* Pinch kosher salt
* 1 egg yolk or EnerG
* 1 to 2 tablespoons cold water
For the filling:
* Extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 large onion, cut into 1/2-inch dice
* 2 ribs celery, cut into 1/2-inch dice
* 1 large or 2 small carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
* Kosher salt
* 2 cloves garlic, smashed and finely chopped
* 2 cups chopped broccoli
* 4 cups vegetable stock
* 1 cup frozen peas
*1 veggie sausage, chopped
* 2 cups sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
* 1 1/2 cups 1/2-inch pieces green beans
* 1 tbs dried sage
* 4 tablespoons EB
* 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* Soymilk for brushing on top
Directions
To make the crust: In the bowl of a food processor, combine the earth balance, cream cheese, flour and salt. Pulse to combine. Pulse, pulse, pulse until the ingredients start to come together and resembles Parmesan. Add the EnerG and 1 tablespoon of water. Pulse a couple of more times until the ingredients start to form a ball. If the mixture is exceedingly wet, add some more flour. Or conversely, if the mix is dry, dry, dry, add in a few more drops of water.
When the mixture has come together into a ball, turn it out onto a floured work surface and knead it a couple of times to help it come together. Dust it with flour, form it into a disk and wrap it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until ready to use. This can be done a day ahead.
To make the filling:
Coat the bottom of a stock pot lightly with olive oil put over medium heat. Add the onions, celery and the carrots and sprinkle with salt, to taste. Saute the vegetables for 7 to 8 minutes. Add the garlic and “sausage* and sweat for another 2 to 3 minutes. Season with salt, then add the vegetable stock. Simmer 30 minutes.
While the stock is simmering, add the sweet potatoes to a large bowl, drizzle with some olive oil and add salt, to taste. Toss to coat the potatoes with the oil and transfer to a baking sheet. Roast until cooked but still have some texture, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and reserve.
Remove the vegetables from the stock and put into a large bowl. Reserve the stock. When cool enough to handle, add the roasted squash to the cooked vegetables. Stir to combine and season with salt, if needed. Stir in the green beans , broccoli, peas, and dried sage.
Melt the EB in a large saucepan over low heat. Add the flour and stir to combine with melted butter. Cook stirring frequently until the mixture is the consistency of wet sand and is starting to turn a little beige, about 6 to 7 minutes. Gradually whisk in the reserved stock. Taste and adjust seasoning, if needed. When the stock is combined into the roux, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until it has a gravy-like consistency, about 20 to 25 minutes. If the gravy reduces too much and becomes too thick, whisk in a little more stock or water.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Add the vegetable mixture into a 2-quart casserole dish or 4 individual (2 cup) crocks. Ladle the “gravy” over the mix until the dish(s) are 3/4 filled.
Dust a clean work surface with flour and roll the dough into the shape of the casserole dish or large enough to cut circles to cover the individual casserole dishes. Whichever dishes are being used the dough needs to have generous overhang of dough on the edges of the dish. Brush the outside edges of the dish with a little of the soymilk to help “glue” the dough to sides of the dish. Fold the edges of the dough under and press it onto the edges of the dish. Brush the top of the dough with the remaining soymilk. Cut a couple of vents in the top of the dough to allow the steam to escape.
Bake in the preheated oven until the dough is golden brown and the inside is hot and bubbly, about 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve hot.
I know these instructions look pretty labor-intensive, but it’s actually not so bad, and the meal you get out of it is totally worthwhile. You could swap out these veggies for anything you have on hand and I’m sure it would taste awesome…the original called for butternut, but frankly peeling and cubing sweet potatoes is a lot less labor-intensive, which is why I went with them. The sausage is totally optional as well, I just thought I’d add a bit of sausage since I obviously opted out of the chicken in the original recipe.
Selah.
I was in the mood for some good ole sausage and peppers the other day, and went back to a classic Vegan Dad Recipe for sausages. I replaced the Pinto Beans with Cannolini, and basically threw in half my spice rack, but other then that I stuck with the original. While the sausages were steaming I sauteed some onions, mushrooms and peppers in a bit of olive oil with S+P.
That’s actually the sausage that the onions peppers appear to be IN, I cut it in half without going all the way through and then fried it up a bit on each side for crispyness. I then set the sausage on top of a homemade pita (STILL can’t figure out how to make a pocket) and rolled it up to enjoy. Always a classic.
In a more creative vein, there was the crispy tofu millet. I actually started out with the sole intention of finding a way to use some of the POM I was lucky enough to receive from the folks at POM Wonderful recently, and for some reason the thought of purple pomegranate flavored millet appealed. Well apparently I didn’t use quite enough POM to turn the Millet purple, but the recipe actually turned out delicious, with all the flavors tying together nicely.
I actually tried to go with some classic flavor ideas here, making sure that I covered my sweet (POM) Salty (Veg Stock) Sour (Lemon-Pepper Tofu) and Umami (Braggs, Sherry). I was worried it would be way too much and the flavors would just battle each other into oblivion, but I actually REALLY liked this, and would totally make it again.
Ingredients
1 head broccoli cut into small crowns
1 cup Millet
1 onion in a large dice
1 block tofu, pressed for at least 30 minutes and diced into blocks
1/2 cup POM Juice
1.5 cups Veg Stock
3 tbs Braggs Liquid Aminos
Splash Sherry
1 tbs Lemon Pepper
2 tbs Canola Oil
S+P to taste
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400F. Toss cubed tofu with canola oil, lemon pepper and salt until coated. Bake for twenty minutes, open to flip, and cook another 20 minutes.
2. In the meantime, heat some oil in a medium saucepan and add the chopped onion along with S+P. Cook until translucent, then deglaze with the Sherry and add the millett. Toss to coat in oil and combine, then add the broccoli, stock, POM, and Braggs. Once contents come to a boil, lower heat to low and cover. Allow all liquid to cook off.
3. If you’ve timed things right, the tofu and millet should be done around the same time. If you’re me, the tofu has been sitting out for ten minutes…but that’s ok.
4. Taste Millet for doneness. If it is cooked to your satisfaction, then you can add the tofu, toss to combine, and enjoy!
Now no savory use will ever beat my favorite use for POM (Pom-Vodka Martini anyone?) but I really did enjoy this…It’s just got a real flavorful warm-belly feeling going on…
If you’ve been with me for a long time, you may have recalled my mentioning something called Green Dressing, which is a secret recipe I wasn’t given permission to share. Well I made it again this week, and I’m feeling awful generous, so here’s your chance to make the best stuff on earth! (May be open to interpretation, but I don’t think so.)
GREEN DRESSING OF AWESOMENESS
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice,
1/4 cup soy sauce/braggs,
1 cup oil (your choice, olive oil is the original, sesame is good too),
2 cups fresh, chopped parsley (squeeze out all water),
2-3 cloves of garlic (add more to taste).
Blend all of this together for approximately 5-6 minutes, taste testing is key.
RECIPE COURTESY AMBER KELLY The hash here is really just a base for the dressing, it’s potatoes, onions, mushrooms and leeks baked in a 400F oven with some S+P to taste.
Now back to the Green Dressing. I’m pretty sure the only thing this wouldn’t be good on is ice cream. I’m a huge fan on potatoes, salad, steamed or baked veggies, rice, pasta, and tofu of any tilt. It’s a little different every time, due to the type or freshness of the parsley and other ingredients. While it’s definitely at its best with fresh garlic, I’ve used granulated in a pinch, and even *gasp* bottle lemon juice. You can also adjust all the measurements to your liking. I often do some extra lemon juice, and usually go with a combination of Olive Oil and Sesame. (1/3 Sesame, 2/3 Olive). Some batches are better then others, but I’ve never had an outright failure. Give it a try!
So there’s a Trader Joes about 20 minutes away from me, which I used to find pretty exciting…but then I discovered Edge of the Woods (the Vegetarian Grocery in New Haven) which became my regular shopping destination, followed by the Whole Foods that recently opened right near the Trader Joes for anything I couldn’t normally find. With all that, plus the generic chain megamarts I kind of forgot that good ole Joe existed…and it’d been months if not years since my last visit. That changed on Sunday.
I brought a friend back from the city with me for a concert (Woohoo Hadag Nahash!!!!) and since she is OBSESSED with Trader Joes, I decided I’d do my weekly shopping there, and we headed over. Selection is still a bit light, but I’d forgotten how absolutely amazing the prices are, since everything there is generic brand. One thing I picked up that I’d never had before was the Trader Joes brand soy mozzarella. I don’t generally do Soy Cheeses…they tend to have weird consistancies, don’t melt, and taste nothing like the real thing. NONE of that is true here. This stuff is great!!! Frankly I can’t even tell the difference between it and the real thing, and it made a great pizza:
The pizza dough is also from Trader Joes, as are the sliced peppers and onion. I had the black olives, and the burnt basil is off my personal plant. The whole thing is sprinkled with zataar, because I’m obsessed with zataar on my pizza….you should try it.
Another thing I picked up at Trader Joes, was artichokes. Now I’ve never cooked/prepared an artichoke in my life. I’ve bought jarred and marinated artichoke hearts, but I’ve never before purchased the whole monster, or even wanted to in all honesty. They just looked so darn good there that I couldn’t help myself, and that’s how I ended up eating Lemony Stuffed Artichokes for dinner:
Ingredients
4 whole artichoke
1 cup Italian Breadcrumbs
1 clove minced garlic
1/3 cup minced parsley
1/4 cup Nooch (Nutritional Yeast)
1 tbs dried oregano
3 tbs Vegetable Oil
1 tbs lemon juice
S+P to taste
Directions
1. Snip the pointed tips of artichoke leaves, and cut off the stems. Wash and drain. Holding artichoke firmly by base, firmly rap the top of it on a hard surface; this will open it so it can be stuffed. It’s also a great way to get out your aggression!
2. In a medium bowl combine bread crumbs, garlic, parsley, Nooch, oregano, vegetable oil, salt and pepper; mix well.
3. Press about 1/2 cup of stuffing into each artichoke. Tightly pack stuffed artichokes together in a large heavy saucepan or Dutch oven. Add enough water to reach half way up artichokes and add lemon juice.
4. Bring to a boil over high heat; reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 1 hour, or until leaves pull out easily.
When push comes to shove, I think prepping artichokes from scratch is a bit more trouble then it’s worth, and eating them is even harder. That and considering how big the confounded vegetables are, there really isn’t that much to eat…And now I leave you with one question….who on earth saw these spiny contraptions and thought they were edible???
Selah.
So you know when you start out intending to do one thing, and you run into one issue, followed by another…and end up with something completely different from what you had intended, but probably better anyway? That’s basically what happened here, with what was supposed to be beer battered Seitan (think the same consistency as onion rings) and ended up looking exactly like fried chicken.
The first issue was when I realized that I didn’t have any all-purpose flour on hand…and didn’t particularly want to batter things in whole wheat. I decided to use rice flour instead…in combination with the bud light I’d planned on pouring into the batter. So for starters, my combination was rice flour, bud light, paprika, S+P. (I have no clue what the measurements look like, I add liquid until I end with something that looks a lot like a pancake batter.) Since I was going with rice flour and had a light and airy looking batter, I figured I might as well coat the battered seitan in panko…it seemed right. Enter the appearance of fried chicken. (Although I don’t think they use panko in that….anyone? It’s not a dish I’ve ever made)
I fry these up in my deep-fryer at 375F until golden brown, and then they get moved to a plate covered with paper towel. And then there’s the sweet and sour sauce. This is actually my roommate’s recipe, but she was at work when I decided I wanted to deep fry things, so I had to give it a go on my own. Here’s what I did…it differs a bit from hers…
Sweet N Sour Sauce
1 15 ounce can crushed pineapple
1/3 cup turbinado sugar
1/3 cup rice vinegar
2 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs corn starch
Directions
1. Combine crushed pineapple, vinegar, sugar and soy sauce in a saucepan, and bring to a boil.
2. While contents are heating, combine cornstarch with about 1/4 cup water to create a slurry. Once the pineapple mixture has boiled, turn heat down to medium/low, and stir in the slurry, stirring continuously, at least until the sauce reaches a slow bubble.
3. Allow to remain on heat until desired consistency is reached, and then remove to use as desired!
Just a note, when I was down to the last spoonful or so of the sauce and still had a couple peices of seitan left, I mixed some jarred plum sauce into the sweet n sour. Delicious.
Then there were carrots….this is a combination I do often, but have never oven-baked before, and now having tried it, I think I like the baked version a lot better than the boiled. The trick here is to bring them just to the point of burning and then pull them out…because as I know from experience, carrots that taste like tar are…nasty.
Maple Baked Carrots
1 lb carrots, halved and cut into thin strips
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup OJ
S+P
Directions
1. Pre-heat oven to 400F. Grease a glass casserole dish and toss in the carrots. Combine the maple syrup, OJ, S+P in a small bowl and drizzle over the carrots, tossing to coat.
2. Cook carrots for 30 minutes, removing at 15 to toss. Make sure you keep an eye on them, especially in the last ten minutes, since you don’t want these blackening and becoming inedible.
I made what I thought would be enough carrots for two people plus leftovers…and basically ended up eating the entire dish myself as though they were chips. These are ADDICTIVE, beware of that when you make them. If I had a larger casserole dish, I probably could have made two or three pounds of carrots and finished them off.
So a fried food and what essentially amounts to candied carrots…not my healthiest meal, but definitely a comfort food winner. Yum.
Selah.
The Black Bean burger from V’con is an old favorite of mine that I hadn’t done in awhile, and when I was poking around in the pantry the other day and saw a few cans of black beans, I knew what I had to do. My favorite part of these is actually how well they freeze for a quick lunch on a busy day. An added bonus was that we had fresh guacamole in the fridge, so I knew exactly what I’d be topping my burger with. I’m really big on burger “bagles” instead of using buns, and this one went on a poppy.
Some homemade spicy mayo (chili sauce and Nayo went on the bagel along with baby spinach and the guac. All the contents tried to fly in every direction when I went to slice the burger in half, but I think I made a decent save. I ate my burger with one of my favorite snacks of all time….peanut butter filled celery sticks. These are even better with raisins (who else remembers ants on a log?!?!) but I was unfortunately out this week and had to forego.
Now if you’ve been reading for awhile, you’ll know that I’ve attempted the Pomegranate tofu from VwaV before, even though I couldn’t find the pomegranate molasses and had something of a liquid smoke incident. I was at the new Whole Foods the other day, and out of the corner of my eye, spied something REALLY EXCITING!! They had pomegranate molasses! Well I knew what had to happen, and so I gave the pomegranate tofu another try.
I simply could not get a good picture of this, so you’ll have to believe me when I say that it was AWESOME. I had it over some leftover plain brown rice that was rolling around in the fridge, and although they aren’t pictures, I steamed some simple veggies on the side and tossed them in the little sauce that was leftover. I’m actually thinking that I’ll make a massive batch of this and bottle it to use as BBQ sauce on umm….EVERYTHING because it’s just that good. I must confess to using chunky peanut butter in here, simply because I don’t keep smooth around, why go boring when you can have great? (ok, maybe because it makes chunky BBQ sauce….but details!) Just thinking about this my mouth is watering though….seriously.
Last but not least, I had to give the cretan stew from what the hell does a vegan eat anyway and I was not disappointed. I think I went with a bit too full-bodied a red wine, but it’s what we had in the fridge and the price was right (free!) so I really can’t complain. I used the simple seitan recipe from Veganomicon since it’s my old standby, and was absolutely shocked by how flavorful and savory it became soaking with the wine and juice in the oven.
This recipe is not for the faint of tastebuds since it packs some serious punch flavorwise, but I loved it. I toasted up some bread alongside this to soak up the juices and was quite happy with the meal as a whole. I think part of the reason I love it so much may have something to do with two of the ingredients; namely the pearl onions and wine, which is a traditional Thanksgiving favorite in my family. Seitan certainly isn’t on the menu since everyone else goes with Turkey, but I could see making this for myself next year and getting everyone else to try a bite. The orange doesn’t hurt either.
Selah.
So this is a post that I promised a friend a while back, and have had trouble getting around to, even though I think it’s a great idea It just seemed to me like it would take so much darn EFFORT. But it’s important, so I’m going to give it my best shot.
Whenever someone is trying to go Veggie for the first time their biggest fear is that they won’t get the things they need anymore (namely protein and calcium) or that to get them they’ll need to eat lots of “weird” foods like tofu…(I don’t consider tofu remotely weird since I was raised on the stuff, but I get that isn’t necessarily the national consensus.) So let’s get started with protein.
Suprise!!! You don’t need to eat meat or fish to get protein!! In fact there are tons of things you’re already eating outside of the animal kingdom that are chock full of protein. Want a list? Good, I was hoping you’d say that. Here we go:
The Beans
Garbanzo beans, Kidney beans, Lentils, Lima beans, Navy beans, Soybeans (Edamame), Split peas
The Grains
Barley, Brown rice, Buckwheat, Millet, Oatmeal, Quinoa, Rye, Wheat germ, Wheat, Wild rice
The Veggies
Artichokes, Beets, Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Green peas, Green pepper, Kale, Lettuce, Mushrooms, Mustard greens, Onions, Potatoes, Spinach, Tomatoes, Turnip greens, Watercress, Yams, Zucchini
The Fruits
Apple, Banana, Cantaloupe, Grape, Grapefruit, Honeydew melon, Orange, Papaya, Peach, Pear, Pineapple, Strawberry, Tangerine, Watermelon
Nuts and Seeds
Almonds, Cashews, Filberts, Hemp Seeds, Peanuts, Pumpkin seeds, Sesame seeds, Sunflower seeds, Walnuts
Now you may notice that some of these are links, that’s because where possible, I attached them to a recipe I made with said ingredient. 9 out of 10 are original recipes, every so often I had to go with a reference to a cookbook because I just haven’t made something up on my own with that ingredient yet. I’ll get cracking on it though. That said however, if you’re just starting out with the jump to being a Vegetarian/Vegan the best way to get ideas, is to get some awesome cookbooks. Even if you’re just going Veggie and not making the Vegan jump, I prefer Vegan cookbooks, I find they’re much more creative in getting in proteins and calcium then the Vegetarian books which often rely heavily on dairy, egg and pasta dishes.
One that you MUST pick up? Veganomicon. This is my bible in the kitchen, and to date I’ve tried nearly every recipe in it. It has a lot of creative dishes using tons of easy to get ingredients, and if nothing else, it will PROVE to you that you can feel totally fulfilled on a Veg. diet. Some other personal favorites of mine if you’re looking to expand the collection, are Vegan with a Vengeance, World Vegetarian, and Vegan Brunch. Any of the Moosewood cookbooks are great as well.
As far as calcium goes, the best sources of well-absorbed calcium are the soy route. You should try calcium-fortified soy milk (it’s full of sugar, but chocolate soy milk is one of the richest most delicious things on earth, I think) and juice (think OJ), tofu, soybeans (edamame) and soynuts, bok choy, broccoli, collards, Chinese cabbage, kale, mustard greens, and okra. With a large serving of collards, you can actually get just as much calcium as in a glass of milk. Betcha didn’t know that!
In addition to protein and calcium, you just need to keep up your basic fruits, veggies, and carbs. Go complex with the carbs whenever you can…whole wheat bread, pasta, etc, and keep lots of variety, because that’s what will get you excited about eating veggie day in and day out! There’s no lack of options here, in fact I think you’ll find that once you don’t have meat at the center of your plate, you’ll have a hard time picking what to put there with all the options!
So one of my favorite Vegan Blog reads is over at Diet, Dessert n Dogs where pretty much EVERYTHING pictured looks absolutely mouth-watering, and makes me want to eat it NOW. This week I decided to give a few of the recipes I’d been lusting after a try, and wasn’t disappointed, although one was a bit WEIRD.
The first was the Indian Inspired- tomato okra from awhile ago. You can find the recipe on the blog here and make it for yourself. I think I let my okra get a bit more cooked then necessary, I would’ve liked to have had them more on the al dente side because of that slime factor. Okra is one of those foods I don’t have any real issue with, but I don’t normally seek out either, I eat it when it’s offered to me and forget about it the rest of the time. So why did I NEED to have it when I saw this recipe? I don’t know…but I did. It took three separate grocery stores to find, since apparently it isn’t okra “season” but I finally got it, and got cooking.
I really did love the flavor on this, I just wish the okra had been “stewed” so to speak a bit less. I will try it again once the weather warms up and okra appears at the farmer’s market (at least I hope it will) and try to leave my veggies a little more on the al dente side. The mixture of green beans and okra was nice too, since theyre similiar but it does mix up the textures a bit. Thumbs up.
Next I tried out the Creamy Creole Eggplant Pasta Bake, which originally came from Susan V over at Fat Free Vegan but I have to admit my rendition much more closely resembled Ricki’s. I did switch out the crumbled nuts for plain ole’ breadcrumbs on top, because sometimes I like to stick with easy like that…and yes, mine did come out of a container. Even so, this recipe is AWESOME, possibly one of the best things I’ve ever done with pasta.
Here’s the whole casserole:
And another one of my serving in the bowl after I’ve dug in:
I couldn’t even taste the eggplant here, frankly if I didn’t make it, I would never believe that there’s an entire (moderately sized) eggplant in the dish I was a huge fan of the zucchini in there, although I did feel the chickpeas are a bit out of place. Perhaps if they were softer they’d blend in more, I always feel like goya chickpeas have a bit of a bite to them.
Last but not least, was the Crimson Mousse, which I was just plain intrigued by. I’d never even heard of Chia seeds before I tried this recipe, but once I saw it, I had to have them (kinda like the okra) and set out on a search. The search brought me to a Co-op that I didn’t even know existed about an hour away, but I FOUND the chia seeds, and it was time to try out the recipe. I replaced the Stevia with Agave which may or may not have made a huge difference, but Stevia is not something I stock in my kitchen. I don’t have any particular issue with it, I’ve just got enough sweetening products between Raw Sugar, Brown Sugar, Honey and Agave and don’t need to add another. So anyway…back to the recipe. Mine wasn’t going to look nearly as pretty as the original, but I did what I could.
I just don’t know what to make of this. Maybe I used too large a beet, but I could taste it in there, and that to me seems wrong in a dessert. I also think I went a bit heavy with the almond extract, so this tasted kinda like a marzipan beet, and while I used to really like the fruit shaped ones, I think veggies are a bit wrong. I’m eating this….but I’m just not so sure about it…and I don’t think I’d do it again. They can’t all be to my taste…
Selah.
Vegetarian Planet is a great looking cookbook with a lot of great looking recipes…that’s why I bought it way back when. However, the more recipes I’ve made from it, the more I’ve discovered that on the whole they are bland and unimaginative, and a lot just plain don’t work the way they’re supposed to….case in point, the calzone sized perrogies that I didn’t photograph earlier this week. The book said to use pizza dough, and it should’ve occurred to me that they’d explode when they hit the boiling water. But that aside…. There was stuff I did photograph from the book this week.
First off was the Dirty Rice.
I used brown rice, but otherwise kept to the original recipe and wasn’t impressed. It was fairly bland and unexciting, and I wasn’t real happy with myself for buying the frozen corn, when as a general rule I try to (more or less) stick with produce that SHOULD be available where I am this time of year….it isn’t corn season. That said I mostly ended up picking the sweet kernels out of the rice and leaving everything else behind…not a great sign. I wouldn’t bother doing this again….unless it was seriously jazzed up, but in general, I think I prefer a paella or something along those lines.
Also from Vegetarian Planet this week was the “buttered broccoli” which was just that. Or Earth Balanced Broccoli really, but it’s all the same.
A single head of broccoli cooked in brown butter wasn’t dinner in my eyes, so I tossed it in with some pasta…not fascinating, but it tasted good, so we’ll call that one a success. I’m not sure why I needed a recipe to cook broccoli in butter and lemon juice, but considering I haven’t done it before, I guess I can see the prudence in including one in a book. I probably won’t be doing it again though, it certainly wasn’t good enough to warrant eating a 1/4 cup of fat with my carbs. Oh Vegetarian Planet, I had such high hopes for thee, and again and again they are dashed…
Selah.
|
|
