Olive Biscuits

I've been busy these past couple of weeks, finishing up my summer job, doing teaching assistant work, and getting ready to go back to school. I really really hope I can manage to keep up this blog during the school year!

I've also been experimenting with making savoury baked goods, inspired by recipes like these. I figure they're a good way to satisfy my baking monkey and make good and healthy snacks and additions to bagged lunches. So far all of my attempts at savoury muffins have failed miserably, but I'm still working on it. And then I decided to try savoury biscuits and came up with these, based on this recipe. They were a great success!

Olive Biscuits

2 - 2 ½ cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons flax meal mixed with 6 tablespoons water
1 ¼ cups soy yogurt + extra for brushing on the tops of the biscuits
¾ cup olive oil
1 cup kalamata olives, chopped
5 stalks green onion, thinly sliced
1 handful fresh mint, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray one large baking sheet or two smaller ones, and set aside. In a large bowl, sift together the flours (starting with 2 cups white) and baking powder. Make a well in the middle and add all remaining ingredients. Mix and then knead the dough until it is soft and workable, adding up to ½ cup flour to get the right consistency. Shape into small balls (about ¼ cup’s worth of dough), place on the baking sheet, brush with yogurt, and bake for about 30 minutes, until golden on top.

Quick Summer Salad

I don't know about you, but during the summer months when it's hot I tend to want to eat mostly vegetables and fruits and nuts and seeds, and not want to cook too much. The reason why I haven't been blogging much lately is because I've been preparing a lot of salads with ingredients from the farmer's market, and they seem too basic to blog about (but no less delicious!).


This is a great summer salad, easy and fast. I imagine it would go great with barbeque'd tofu, veggie dogs or the like (like coleslaw). There's not even much prep-work involved - you can do all the shredding in a food processor.

Beet, Carrot and Cabbage Salad

Salad:
2 cups savoye cabbage, shredded
1 cup carrots, shredded
2 beets, shredded
1/3 cup green onions, thinly sliced

Dressing:
1/8 cup apple cider vinegar
1/8 cup olive or flax oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon maple syrup or agave
½ teaspoon salt
a few turns of the pepper mill

Combine the salad ingredients in a large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients and pour over the salad. Toss, and you’re done!

Lentil Veggie Pockets

I won’t lie, I totally got the idea of making bean-grain-vegetable pockets from one of my favourite blogs. I think they’re awesome – you can easily modify the ingredients and come up with something delicious, and, though they’re a little time-consuming to make and assemble, they freeze great and make a very yummy packed lunch – just grab one out of the freezer when you leave the house, combine it with a good salad and maybe a baked yam or something, and you’re good to go! I’ve been enjoying these veggie pockets for dinner at work all week, and I want to try a chickpea-barley-sage version next!


Lentil Vegetable Pockets (adapted from the Quinoa Lentil Curry Pie recipe from Tofu for Two)

Dough

2 ½ cups spelt flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons turmeric
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast
6 tablespoons cold earth balance margarine
¾ cup cold water

Filling

1 cup French lentils
½ cup brown rice
3 cups water
1 cube vegetable boullion
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups crimini mushrooms
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups chopped tomatoes (one can diced tomatoes would probably also work, just add it to the lentils and rice at the beginning and cook them with less water)
handful fresh thyme
1 handful fresh parsley
1 teaspoon sage
1 tablespoon oregano
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 bunch spinach
juice of 1 lemon
¼ cup nutritional yeast

First, make the filling. Combine the lentils, brown rice and boullion in a large-ish cooking pot. Bring to boil and then simmer for 45 minutes. Now, while the lentils and rice are cooking, get to work! Prepare the vegetables – mince the garlic, chop up the onions, mushrooms and tomatoes, mince the parsley and thyme, and chop the spinach. Fry the onions and garlic in the oil until the onions begin to soften, then add the mushrooms and salt. Fry for a couple of minutes, then add the rest of the herbs and spices and the tomatoes and fry for a couple of minutes more. Dump it all into the pot with the lentils and rice, stir, and continue to cook until the 45 minutes are up. If it starts to look dry, add a teeny bit more water. Once the lentil/vegetables mixture is done, stir in the spinach, lemon juice and nutritional yeast and set aside to cool (until almost room temperature).

Now make the dough. Combine the flour, salt , baking powder, turmeric, and nutritional yeast, mixing well. Add the earth balance and mix, starting with a fork and then using your fingers, until there are no big clumps of margarine. Now add the water and knead until it forms a smooth, workable dough, adding more water if necessary. Chill in the fridge until the filling mixture is cooled enough.

Now assemble. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Take out the dough, divide it into 10 portions, make each portion into a ball and then roll it out to circles with diameters of approximately 13-15 centimeters. Spoon some filling into the middle of each circle (about 2 heaping tablespoons), then fold the circle in half, sealing the edges by pressing them down with the tines of a fork. Also poke some air vents in the pockets with the fork. Bake for 25 minutes, until the edges of the pockets start to darken a bit.

If you are freezing them (like I do), one delicious way to have them is thawed and then heated in a frying pan with some olive oil until golden on both sides - I little bit less healthy, I know, but so yummy!

Sunflower Chickpea Spread

With beginning to make bread from scratch, I’ve been going through bread a lot quicker than usual, and bean spreads are a great way to make a nutritious meal of it and also let the flavour of the bread shine (well, as long as the flavour of the spread is mild enough!). More bean spreads can be expected in the future, that is for sure. This one is a variation on hummus, and makes a nice summery spread. In this picture I’ve made it the base of a delicious veggie-full open-faced sandwich, on my homemade bread along with lettuce from my garden, local organic cucumber, home-grown bean sprouts, and some chives, also from my garden. This spread also makes a very addictive tortilla chip dip!


Sunflower Chickpea Spread

½ cup raw sunflower seeds
½ cup water (or more)
1 tablespoon olive oil (or more)
1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas (or 1 can)
5 oil-packed sundried tomatoes, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
juice of 1 lemon
1 handful fresh sage (or other fresh herb – rosemary or thyme would probably work, too)
1 handful fresh parsley
3/4 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

Toast the sunflower seeds until fragrant. Grind them in a food processor until as fine as possible. Then add the water, oil and chickpeas, and blend, adding more water or oil (if needed) to get a good spread-able consistency. Then add all the other ingredients and blend until very smooth. Done!

Camping + Food

I just got back from camping on Vancouver Island and it was beautiful and fun! But I will bypass the beautiful and the fun part and talk about the food. My camping companions were all non-vegans, so they told me in advance what they had planned to make/eat on the trip and I armed myself so that I wouldn’t feel like I was missing out on any of it. It was agonizing having to decide what to take only because there were so many possibilities! I wish I could make a fire in my backyard and pretend I’m camping just so I can try all the camp foods that I wanted to try. Those people who think vegans have a limited diet, they are crazy.

I went a little overboard with the food-making and ended up with enough to feed four Angelas, but that is okay because now I don’t have to cook for the rest of the week. For pre-made things, I brought vegan marshmallows (which I had ordered online from Pangea and miraculously arrived at the very very last minute, making me appreciate them that much more) and tofurky sausages for roasting over the fire (because I prefer them to veggie dogs any day). For homemade things I brought raw vegetables and almond-red-pepper hummus, potato salad, balsamico roasted vegetables for roasting over the fire, kering tempe, pancake mix, hazelnut fig granola, apples and pears, and Nanaimo bars (because I’m a dork and liked the idea of eating Nanaimo bars in Nanaimo).


Here I must admit that this was definitely car-camping and not back-woods camping. We had running water nearby and there was a truck that came around selling firewood fairly regularly. But it was still fun, and a nice break. My companions even brought a can of whipped cream for putting on their homemade crepes for breakfast on the first morning. I, meanwhile, enjoyed my sunny seedy orange pancakes (I prepared the wet and dry ingredients separately and then combined them along with the OJ right before frying) with chopped strawberries and maple syrup.


Everyone loved the potato salad.


Roasting the vegetables was a fun time. I had prepared them in their marinade and wrapped them in tinfoil and put in ziplock baggies before I left. Once the fire got going and a bed of coals built up, we put the tinfoil bundles on the coals and then put wood on top to seal in the heat (and thus I learned how the first oven originated :P). They took slightly less time to cook than in my home oven.


The Nanaimo bars also went over really well, but sorry, no photos ☹.

Other things we made (everyone) were: fire-roasted baby potatoes, asparagus and zucchini (with simply oil, salt and pepper to season), and banana boats (banana stuffed with marshmallows and chocolate bits). And there were of course roasted plain marshmallows, roasted tofurky sausages, and lots of camp coffee (the first time I’ve had coffee in a long while – a rare indulgence). Mmmm, camp food…

Dragon Bowl v.1 - Sesame!

I have a feeling that I’m going to make a lot of dragon-bowls in the coming weeks. What makes a dragon bowl? I'm not exactly sure, but the ones I’ve seen have consisted of a grain (usually rice), a bunch of vegetables (cooked/raw), something protein-rich (usually tofu), and a dressing to bring it all together. And it’s always served in a bowl (but that’s a no-brainer, right?). Can a dragon bowl have beans instead of tofu? That is what I'm wondering right now....

This version is for sesame lovers. It’s got rice as a base, marinated and sautéed garlic-ginger-sesame tofu, raw carrots, daikon and green onion combined with sautéed kale and cabbage, and a sesame dressing with lots of tahini. It is very tasty, salty and satisfying, and the different vegetables give it a nice combination of different flavours and textures. Yum! This photo does not do it justice…


Sesame Dragon Bowl

½ lb extra-firm tofu, pressed

Marinade:
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch ginger root, minced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
4 tablespoons soy sauce
½ teaspoon agave nectar

1 cup brown rice
2 cups water
1 bunch kale, thinly sliced,
1 cup green cabbage, chopped
1 carrot, grated
½ daikon, grated
2 stalks green onion, thinly sliced
2 tsp sesame oil

Dressing:
3 tablespoons sesame oil
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons tahini
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
½ teaspoon agave nectar
2 tablespoons toasted black sesame seeds (for garnish)

Marinate the tofu: The tofu must be pressed – wrap the block in a dishtowel, put something heavy on it (I used a plate with a can of beans on top) and let it sit for a couple of hours – this will make the tofu firmer and it will also absorb flavours better. After pressing, cut the tofu into ½-inch cubes. Combine all the marinade ingredients in a shallow pan, add the tofu, toss to coat, cover and put in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Start cooking the rice (I’m sure you already know how to cook rice – combine rice and water in a saucepan, bring to a boil and then simmer for 35 minutes or so, until the liquid is gone). While the rice is cooking, prepare the kale, cabbage, carrot, daikon and green onion. Combine the dressing ingredients in a small bowl and mix well. 10-15 minutes before the rice is done, remove the tofu marinade from the fridge, scoop out the tofu with a spatula or slotted spoon and sautee it in the sesame oil at medium heat for 5-10 minutes. Add the kale and cabbage and sautee for about 5 more minutes, until the kale has shrunk a bit and turned a more vibrant green.

Divide the rice amongst 4 bowls. Put the tofu mixture on top of the rice, and then the grated daikon and carrot on top of the tofu. Dollop the dressing over-top, and then garnish with the black sesame seeds. Enjoy! Makes 4 large servings.

Spring Salad: Greens + Strawberries + Pecans = Yum!

This is the salad I’ve been enjoying for lunch all week: mixed greens, mixed sprouts, a sliced strawberry or two, a handful of toasted pecans, and a dressing of fresh lemon juice and hempseed oil. Too simple to call a ‘recipe’, but so tasty, I think I could eat it for another week and not be sick of it still. Spring = lots of fresh salads. I love spring!