veganmofo.1.3: Squash Risotto with lemony tofu

Last night I made a risotto with brown rice, (more) buttercup squash, and some lemon-marinated tofu. It made for a yummy weeknight dinner.

The recipe was based on this one, and it was very easy. I first soaked 1 cup of short-grain brown rice. Then I combined 1 package of firm tofu with 1 minced clove of garlic, 1/2 tsp salt, and the juice of one lemon, crumbled it all together and put it in the fridge for awhile. I chopped up 2 cups of buttercup squash (leaving the skin on) and 1 leek. I sauteed the leek in 1 tbsp of olive oil for a couple of minutes, then added the squash. Then I added the rice (drained and rinsed), fried it for a couple of minutes, then  added 2 cups of vegetable broth, 1/2 cup sake, and 2 tsp soy sauce. I brought it all to a boil, then down to a simmer, and then cooked it for an hour, stirring every once in a while and adding water as needed to get the right consistency. Then I took the tofu out of the fridge, folded it into the risotto, and I was done.

veganmofo.1.1: Oden (part one)

Oden is a Japanese hotpot or stew. I'd never eaten or made one before, but with some simple instructions from another ppker who used to live in Japan, I decided to try it out.

I first boiled some water in a pot, then added a handful of of sliced shittake mushrooms and a piece of kombu. I simmered them for maybe 10 minutes, then added half a tsp of veggie stock powder and some soy sauce. Then I added some chopped buttercup squash and potatoes (both unpeeled because I like to keep the nutrients) and cooked for about 15 minutes more. Then in went some chopped cabbage and fried tofu (you can buy fried tofu at the markets here, it isn't flavoured or anything but I like the texture of it, and I'm sure chopped firm tofu would be fine too). I cooked for 10 minutes more, then added some chopped bok choy, scallions, a splash of sake, and a bit of sesame oil, and cooked just until the bok choy had wilted. Tested the broth to see if it was salty enough, and it was ready!

Verdict: seriously delicious. I think I could eat this for every meal of the day. And it's so easy to just be able to throw things in one pot and not measure and have it turn out so well. I see many versions in the future: I'll definitely try kabocha squash (Japanese pumpkin) next time, and also try adding udon instead of potato and also some napa cabbage.

New Year's Eve Dinner

Goodness, this is not a good start to the new year! I meant to post this much earlier, alas.

I made a small dinner for a dear friend and myself.

 

Buckwheat crepes with almond tofu ricotta, mushrooms and spinach, and some potato leek & dill soup as well. And a simple greens salad. Yum yum yum.

 

My friend followed me around with his camera while I cooked, I guess it made me feel less dorky to be taking pictures of our food. Here I am (in part), serving it up.

And for dessert, baklava! I used the recipe from Extraveganza, except I subbed half the walnuts for pistachios and omitted the lemon zest, adding some rosewater instead (did you know that pistachios and rosewater are my favourite?!)

Check out the nutty flaky deliciousness! Mmmm...

And there was also mulled pomegranate juice. No alcohol for us.

Curried Adzuki-Edamame Stuffed Kabocha Squash

I love fall. I absolutely love it. When the air feels crisp and you can hear the wind through the trees and colored leaves falling. Cheesy as that sounds, I just love it.

A few weeks ago I got a little over-excited at a farm market and bought six squashes, with no idea as to what to do with them. I knew I would come up with something. Then this weekend, I woke up in the morning and it felt like a particularly autumn-y day, and I thought to myself: “I’m going to make a curried stuffed squash today, and maybe also a squash pie (see other post for the pie recipe). And I felt so healthy and balanced in making and eating it. Sometimes there are more important things than school…


Curried Adzuki-Edamame Stuffed Kabocha Squash

1 large kabocha squash, seeded and quartered

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 small onion, diced small
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon cardamom
1 pinch ground cloves
1 pinch asafetida/hing (optional)
¾ teaspoon salt
2 large tomatoes, diced small
1 sweet red pepper, seeded and diced small
1 cup shelled edamame
1 cup adzuki beans, soaked overnight
1 cup brown rice, soaked overnight
3 cups water (or more, as needed)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a medium-sized pot, fry the oil and mustard seeds together over medium heat until the seeds start to pop. Add the onions and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, spices and salt. Fry for a minute or so, then add the tomatoes and pepper and fry for a couple of minutes more. Add the edamame, adzuki beans, rice and water, stir a little, then increase the heat to high and allow to boil. Cover and reduce heat to simmer, and cook for about 35 minutes, adding more water if the mixture gets too dry. Meanwhile, prepare the squash. Place pieces face-down on a greased baking sheet, and bake until the filling mixture is ready. Take the squash out, flip it so the skins are on the bottom, and scoop as much of the filling as you can into the middle of each squash portion, place bake into the oven, and bake for about 30 minutes more. Enjoy!

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!

Roasted Potatoes with Pumpkin Seed-Arugula Pesto and Peas

Ok, I'll admit that I'm not actually that original - I tried yummy roasted pesto-potatoes at this restaurant in Victoria, and I thought to myself, "I could do this at home pretty easily," and then I did. And I got the idea for making arugula pesto from this recipe - I love basil pesto as much as the next person, but I can't grow basil in my garden and it's kind of expensive to buy. But the rest is all me.

This is great pretty much any time of day - as a breakfast side dish, a dinner side dish, or a snack. And the pesto on its own makes a yummy sandwich spread.


Roasted Potatoes with Pumpkin Seed-Arugula Pesto and Peas

The Pesto part:

½ cup raw pumpkin seeds
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon salt (or more, to taste)
¼ cup nutritional yeast
3 cloves garlic, sliced
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 large bunch of arugula

Toast the pumpkin seeds in a dry skillet for a couple of minutes (until they start to color), then grind them in a food processor. Add all the other ingredients except arugula and blend until very smooth, then add the arugula and blend again.

The Potato and Pea part:

1 1/2 - 2 lbs potatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks (I used halved baby potatoes)
1/2 cup pumpkin seed-arugula pesto
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste (depends on the saltiness of the pesto)
freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 cup fresh or frozen peas

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss the potatoes, the 3 tablespoons pumpkin seed-arugula pesto, olive oil, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Spread on a lightly oiled baking dish and bake for 30 minutes, tossing every 10-15 minutes. Add the peas, toss, and bake for another 15-20 minutes, until golden and tender.

Pestotatoes, anyone?

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…

Comfort Food

Ever had those days when you feel like crap and all you want to do is stay in and not talk to anyone and say ‘screw the world’? Well I did, last week. The weather was dreary and I was feeling tired and bummed out for no good reason, so I decided to make some ‘feel-good’ food and watch Leningrad Cowboys Go America. As an ending to my bad day, the film-watching didn’t happen (I haven’t been able to find it on dvd anywhere around here and the version I had downloaded on my roommate’s computer wouldn’t open on mine) but the food part was good. And I’ve since located and watched the film (very funny, check it out – Aki Kaurismaki is great) so all is well, but I digress. Back to the food.


I made baked tofu with yogurt sauce, fried mushrooms and onions, and potato-yam-sage pancakes, with a little green salad on the side. I was quite pleased with the pancakes – all I did was boil a potato and a yam, mash them together (with the skins on to retain nutrients), mix in some almond milk, bread crumbs, minced onion, sage, paprika, salt and ground pepper, shape them into pancakes and fry until browned. A good, satisfying, comforting meal.


Then for dessert (even though I said I was going to lay off the sweets for a while) I made chocolate-avocado mousse. I didn’t use measurements so I can’t post a recipe yet, but next time I make it I will certainly use measurements and post it! Maple syrup is the sweetener, and it is very rich and chocolaty so this keeps me from consuming too much at once. It’s not terribly unhealthy either, even though it tastes like it is. A good ending to a good meal!

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.

Khichdi Dinner

A veggie-full dinner plate: mung beans with rice from tofu for two, Carrot Daikon salad, and some lightly steamed lacinato kale. I like my vegetables☺

The Other Night’s Dinner

I’ve recently discovered tofu for two and made their three-pepper tofu for dinner the other night. I breaded and baked the tofu at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, flipping the slices half-way through. Maybe less crispy than if I’d fried the slices, but still yummy. I had it alongside some cucumber, Grated Carrot and Daikon Salad from Vegan Express and brown rice. A very satisfying meal. Just to prove that I eat healthy savoury things too (not just sweets, I swear!).

The next night I made baked paprika yam sticks from Extraveganza to serve with some of the leftover baked tofu, and, inspired by some of the yogurt dipping sauces described in tofu for two, I devised one of my own:

Impromptu Yogurt Chili Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

½ cup soy yogurt
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 pinch cayenne
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pinch cane sugar

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Makes about ½ a cup.

Sorry, no photos, but you can imagine it, right?