Food Delicious Vegetarian Cooking

Vegan Mac and Cheeze

The recipe that follows is my best guesstimation of what I measured out.

Pasta of your choice
2 tbsps. extra virgin olive oil
1/2 onion, fine dice
garlic to taste
approx. 2 tbsp. cornstarch mixed into a slurry with 1/2 c. water
1 cup vegetable broth (approximately)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast

Saute the onion in the olive oil over medium-high heat. Once softened, turn down the heat and add the garlic. With the heat on low, add the cornstarch slurry. Add half a cup of the vegetable broth, then add the nutritional yeast. Use the remaining vegetable broth to thin out the sauce to your desired consistency--you may need more or less.

 

Indigo Kid and itwasme
Eggplant Parmesan - Delicious and simple.

When making anything with eggplant, especially bruised eggplant, it's important to salt it immediately after slicing to leach out the bitterness. As you slice the eggplant, put it in a colander. Then when you have all of the pieces, douse them in salt - a generous helping, such that you can see salt crystals encrusted on nearly every surface of the eggplant. Leave it to sit for 2 minutes, then thoroughly rinse it off with cold water. When you're done with the water rinse, pat it with a paper towel and leave it to dry while you do the rest of the prep. It has to be dry before dipping in egg or the batter won't stick. Preheat the oven to 350*F. Mix up 2 eggs in a bowl. Pour some pre-made breadcrumbs into another bowl, add a blend of Italian seasonings and mix - add as much or as little seasoning as you prefer. I usually like a lot of green flecks in my mix. Dip each eggplant slice in egg batter then in the bread crumb/seasoning mix. Place on a baking sheet (I usually use a cookie sheet with a wire cookie drying rack situated on top, so the breaded eggplant rests on the wire rack and can cook on both sides evenly without flipping). Cook until lightly browned on both sides, cook time will be 5-10 minutes. Pull out of the oven and prepare a glass baking dish. Grease bottom and sides of baking dish with spray-on olive oil or butter, then dust with leftover seasoned bread crumbs. Pour half a jar of pasta sauce on the bottom of the dish, then layer the breaded eggplant with Mozzarella, Provolone, Parmesan, and Feta (or whatever your favorite blend of cheeses might be) and a dash of sauce. Top with the rest of the sauce and a pile of cheese. Bake 35 minutes, or until golden brown on top (a quick broil also helps at the very end, if you like your cheese extra crispy).

 

Another snowy original. As always, measurements are approximate. I didn't use homemade tomato sauce this time, as I wanted to skip using another pan. Bechamel recipes are readily available elsewhere. There's a lot of room to play with this recipe--change the veggies, change the cheeses, use homemade tomato sauce, etc. One tip: make sure the pasta is still al dente, and make sure there is more sauce than pasta.

Veggie pastitsio:

1 cup broccoli, chopped
1 cup cauliflower, chopped
1 cup kale, destemmed and chopped
2 cups tomato sauce
2 cups bechamel sauce (or Mornay sauce, if you want to get cheesy)
4 cups cooked pasta of your choice (traditionally, the dish calls for tube-shaped pasta, bucatini for one layer, macaroni for another; I used what I had, which was orzo)
Parmesan or Asiago cheese

Roast the broccoli and cauliflower in an oven for approx. 20 mins at 425. To assemble pastitsio, combine half of pasta with tomato sauce and the other half with the bechamel sauce. In a greased 9x11 casserole, spread the tomato/pasta mixture on the bottom layer. On top of this, layer the roasted vegetables and the kale. On top of the vegetables, layer the bechamel/pasta mixture. Top off with cheese. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 400.

 

Snowy, that looks amazing.

 

How do I know I hit a home run? E came upstairs and said, "This is really good!" Usually I have to ask him what he thinks of a dish.

 

Vegan/Gluten-Free Lasagna (measurements approximate)

1 cup polenta
3 cups water
Salt to taste

3 cups tomato sauce (canned or homemade)
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
2 tbsps olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic

Cook the polenta (I use my rice cooker; you can find stovetop instructions online). Saute the mushrooms in olive oil over medium-high heat; after they begin to give up their juices, add the garlic and turn down the heat. After a couple more minutes of cooking, season the mushrooms with salt and pepper. Grease an 8x8 square dish. In the bottom of the dish, layer the mushrooms. Top this with half of the cooked polenta, spreading it out carefully with a spatula. Cover the polenta with tomato sauce, then cover the tomato sauce with polenta. Finally, top it off with one last layer of tomato sauce. If not interested in making it vegan, sprinkle parmesan cheese on top, and saute the mushrooms in butter instead of olive oil. If you wish to make this in a 9x11, double the amount of polenta you cook.

 

Soba Noodle Soup

If you have a lot of Asian pantry staples on hand, this is a snap to put together. I used a leek for the onion aspect, but if you did not have that on hand, you could certainly use a regular onion or the white part of green onions. I also used the liquid I used to rehydrate my dried shiitakes as a component in the broth.

1/2 a leek, finely chopped
1.5 cups cremini mushrooms, sliced
1-2 cups bok choy, roughly chopped
1 tsp. fresh ginger, Microplaned
1 tsp. chili garlic paste or sambal oelek
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp. yellow miso
1 cup shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated is fine, sliced
2 cups cooked soba noodles (I had precooked Annie Chun noodles on hand)
soy sauce to taste
black pepper to taste

Garnishes:
gomasio
sesame oil
cabbage
matchstick carrots
matchstick red peppers

If using rehydrated shiitakes, boil 4 cups of water and pour over approx. 1 cup dried shiitakes. Saute the chopped leek in a neutral oil over medium heat in a large Dutch oven. Add the mushrooms; cook until mushrooms begin to give up their liquid. Add the bok choy. Stir. Push vegetables over to the side and add the ginger to the space cleared in the hot pan. Once the ginger becomes fragrant, stir into the vegetables. Repeat this procedure with the chili paste. Add the garlic and the miso. If using rehydrated shiitakes, remove the shiitakes from the liquid and allow them to cool slightly before slicing. Once sliced, add to the pot along with their cooking liquid. Add the cooked soba and bring the soup up to a simmer, allowing the noodles to heat through. Season with soy sauce and black pepper to taste before serving with selected garnishes. I recommend chopping up the garnishes while the vegetables are cooking and the shiitakes are rehydrating. You could also finish this off with a squirt of lime juice for some added zing.

 

Here's a recipe I forgot to post. It's inspired by the Buddha Bowl at Dragonfly in Ashland, OR. This recipe and the one I posted yesterday use these noodles: Freshpak Noodles | Annie Chuns

Curried Udon Noodles

1 block tofu, dried in the oven
1 pack frozen stir-fry vegetables or assorted fresh vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onion, celery all work well)
1 pack Annie Chun freshpak udon noodles or other precooked udon noodles
1-2 tbsp. red curry paste (use more or less to your preference)
1 can coconut milk


Fry the tofu over medium-high heat in a large saute pan until golden brown. Add the stir-fry vegetables and cook until the vegetables are soft. Turn down the head to medium and add the udon noodles. Stir in the curry paste; coat the vegetables, noodles, and tofu well with the paste. Once fragrant, add the coconut milk and turn the heat to low. Once heated through, adjust seasoning and serve.

 

Brazilian Black Bean Soup (adapted from the Moosewood Cookbook with love)

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 large onion, diced
2 large carrots, diced
1 red pepper, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
salt
pepper
garlic-pepper paste, Sriracha, or other hot sauce to taste
1 tsp. curry powder
2 cups black beans
juice of one orange


Saute the onions until soft in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the carrots and pepper. Continue cooking until vegetables are soft, stirring occasionally. Turn down the heat and add the garlic, salt, pepper, pepper paste/hot sauce, and curry powder. Stir. Add the black beans and stir to combine. Add enough water to the pot to cover the vegetable-black bean mixture. Bring up to a boil, then turn down to a simmer. Once flavors come together, approx. 20 mins., turn off the heat, add the orange juice, and adjust the seasoning. Serve over rice.

 

I don't know the answer to this from experience, but some brief poking around suggests that it does. E. hates squash, so we don't eat it much, unless I can get a small Delicata or Sweet Dumpling.

 

This recipe calls for canned Herdez salsa. I find that canned salsa is great to have on hand for certain applications: adding flavor to refried beans, making Mexican rice, and as in this recipe, adding flavor to soup. I used Taquera salsa here, but their other varieties would work just as well, depending on your preference. If you don't have canned Herdez, approximately a cup of whatever salsa you have on hand will work. It's a great way to use up some of those stale tortilla chips laying around.

Tortilla Soup

2 tbsp. oil of your choice
1 medium onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 zucchini, sliced into half-moons
1 can Herdez taquera salsa
1 large can diced tomatoes
1 small package frozen corn
4 cups water
2 cups crumbled tortilla chips
salt and pepper to taste

In a large Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-low heat and add the onion, stirring occasionally; after it has cooked a bit, add the bell pepper. As the onion and pepper mixture becomes fragrant, add the zucchini. Stir, cooking until the onion and pepper are soft. Add the salsa, tomatoes, and corn; stir to combine. Add the water. Bring the soup to a boil then reduce to a simmer; add the tortilla chips. Cook until the tortilla chips are soft and the flavors are well-combined. Season to taste.

 

I think I'm going to have to try making this for dinner tonight. Chewing makes my jaw so tired and I want to save myself for Christmas prime rib. I'll probably change the recipe a bit depending on what I have on hand and see how it goes!