Red Chard On Wheatberries, Tofu Stir-Fry Two Ways.

Simple meals: Vegetables solo or combined with others are quick and easy to prepare and full of flavour. A little tofu or tempeh can provide an interesting contrast of texture. We try to eat lots of greens.



RED CHARD ON WHEATBERRIES

This was a lovely twist on steamed greens. For this I used red chard, because it's so pretty (and was available at the market, let's face it!), which I cooked very lightly and treated with Japanese seasonings - rice vinegar, light soy, a little wasabi, a touch of pickled ginger and a few drops of sesame oil - all to taste. The seeds are just a scattering of sesame seeds more for appearance than anything else (although I love sesame).

This was all tossed together while the chard was still hot and placed on a bed of previously cooked (and hot) wheatberries - in lieu of rice.

Most successful, and to be repeated :)


Stir-fried vegetables with tofu are a stand-by when there's not much else hanging around the refrigerator and I lack the energy or time to make something inventive.



BUTTERCUP SQUASH STUFFED WITH TOFU AND STIR-FRIED VEGETABLES

Obviously the squash had been previously prepared and was waiting in the refrigerator to be discovered and made the centre of attention. While reheating the baked squash in the oven, I quickly chopped bell peppers/capsicums, onions, mushrooms, celery and whatever else I had lying around and stir-'fried' (okay, cooked in a little water) them together with cubed tofu, garlic, ginger and a little light soy sauce. These were kept pretty crisp, stuffed into the hollow part of the squash then returned to the oven while we had our salad course. This is tasty and the presentation, which is no trouble at all, makes it seem rather more special than just a plain stir-fry. You could serve this with rice or another grain, but we don't usually bother except to add sometimes some steamed spinach or kale.




GREEN BEAN AND TOFU STIR-FRY

Another simple meal. Left-over Chinese vegetables - bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and if you have them handy some of those baby corn cobs (I didn't have them here), are added to green beans and some onion and quickly stir-'fried' (I try not to use oil, as you know) with the usual suspects - ginger, garlic, crushed chilies and light soy. There are a few walnut pieces on top for crunch and interest. Serve with rice, alone, or with some homemade bread (as below).




HOMEMADE RYE BREAD

In our house, it goes with whatever we're serving, although we have it much less often than we used to do. I usually save it for one of those evenings when soup seems the simplest and most obvious choice.

Getting lazy you say? Too right! LOL.

Sushi Rice Salad, Avocado Carrot Sushi Rolls, Miso Soup

WARM SUSHI RICE SALAD

When I saw a recipe for Sushi Rice Salad I was unimpressed, but just perhaps it could be interesting (I thought) if I tweaked it a bit and, after all, I did have some left-over sushi rice in the refrigerator . . . .

It was sensational!

I hadn't been able to use all the rice I'd cooked for sushi, and, ever frugal about such things, I'd stuck it in the refrigerator for another day. It was therefore already seasoned with rice vinegar, sugar and salt. I carefully separated it out with a fork (it hadn't clumped together as much as I'd have thought) and put it with a tsp or two of water on low at the back of the stove to heat through. (Next time, though, I'll do it 'properly' and cook the rice fresh and keep it warm until the rest of the 'salad' is made.

I used about half a pound of asparagus, cut in thin rounds, which I stirred around in a skillet in the tiniest bit of oil for around three minutes tops. (I rather like young raw asparagus, the the recipe had said to lightly cook it so I did.) It needs to be still quite firm, I think. The avocado was diced and the seaweed chopped into small pieces. The real trick was a wonderful dressing of wasabi, tamari, miso, lemon juice and zest, and chopped pickled ginger.

With the dressing in a bowl large enough to contain all ingredients with room to toss them, I added the asparagus and avocado, mixed well, then added the warmed rice and tossed it all together carefully. The topping was some lightly toasted sesame seeds.

I found the recipe in Bill Jones, Chef's Salad (2003), which I should add is not a vegetarian cookbook but has lots of good recipes suitable for vegetarians and vegans (and others could be adapted).

I'll be making this 'salad' again and again. Wonderful!



AVOCADO AND CARROT SUSHI ROLLS

Just for the record, I am continuing with practicing the fine art of rolling my own sushi - so quick once I got the hang of it. I'm working on getting the shape right, sort of squared off, now. These are still rather rounded, and tasted none the worse for that. It's simply strips of avocado and matchsticks of carrot together. These are of course served with wasabi, tamari and pickled ginger. I'm likely to be showing you more and more of these pretty things, so bear with me!

And finally a simple soup:



MISO SOUP WITH TOFU, MUSHROOMS AND SPINACH

I had found some miso soup cubes that were vegan (not easy to get cubes or powder without the bonito) and wanted to give them a try. One cube for two of us worked fine, and I added some miso paste too - brown miso, as it happened. After heating the broth with a couple of 'coins' of fresh ginger, a shake of chili flakes and the sliced mushrooms ( mushrooms therefore a little less raw but still good and firm), I added the miso (which I dissolved in a couple or so tablespoons of the broth first), careful not to let it boil. Silken tofu went into the bowls with some shredded baby spinach (just a handful) and a little finely sliced green onion. Next time (which just happens to be this evening, I think) I shall probably add more tofu and also some noodles.

The thing about these kinds of soups is that they are most forgiving. Japanese style is, of course, a little at variance with my own method, but I was working for taste and enjoyment here rather than trying to copy a cuisine. Well, that's my line and I'm sticking to it :)

THE FAUX FISH CAPER - FISH-FLAVOURED SEITAN

Some time ago I enjoyed a fake 'fish' dish at Montreal's ChuChai vegetarian restaurant - well, several times, actually, along with fake prawns and fake chicken etc. etc. They did it very well, and all went brilliantly with the Thai flavours. Since then I have had soy and wheat meat substitutes of various kinds at Candle 79 in New York, at Toronto's Fressen, and in London, Ontario, including most notably at Veg-Out on Richmond Row. It was Veg-Out's renowned 'Fish' And Chips and (not to mention a delightful Daily Special of tempe Red 'Halibut' In Cashew Crumbs) that made me want to try to create my own version of faux fish. Just for the fun of it!

FISH SEITAN



I had been hoping to find someone with a tried-and-true recipe for a fish-flavoured wheat meat (seitan) or soy meat on one of my groups, but it's a bad time of year to be asking people to be in their kitchens or even thinking of it. One kind person sent me a link to this page (thanks, John!): http://www.vegan-food.net/recipe/1197/Seitan-Seafood-Scallops-Fish-Clams-Shrimp/

I settled for the simple seitan formula in the above link and made half a recipe in the fillets of fish shape - although I made them a bit smaller than what is usual, I think. The photo above shows the fish, lightly pan-browned, before adding the sauce which I made with peanut, coconut, sambal oelek, mirin, and basil etc. Lovely. I'll put a photo of my plate, with sauce added, below.



As you may be able to see, we had it with small potatoes, steamed kohlrabi and new peas - eschewing traditional rice accompaniment for once.

A couple of days later we finished it off with a slightly different combination of vegetables - cut into smaller pieces and sort of stir-fried with mushrooms, onion, halved cherry tomatoes and cilantro (coriander leaves) and very lightly sauced with low-sodium tamari and mirin. The image is, I'm afraid, blurred - but the flavour was not.



I'm going to work on this recipe. When I've got it right or as close to being right as I can get, I'll post on it again :) I fancy some seitan salmon and seitan scallops and maybe even seitan smoked trout or whatever. Just for fun!

What Have These Vegans Been Cooking?

Original recipes have been in short supply around here lately (the cold weather has frozen my creative side), but that doesn't mean we've been having take-out food. We have been doing the usual salads, fresh fruit and lots of greens, but doing them simply. Soups have been important, because of the weather, and lately more stews and bakes than earlier in the year (or so it seems to me right now). Check below:



PASTA BOLOGNESE

Sometimes the simplest things are the best. This is another case of taking one's favourite recipe for home-cooked pasta sauce, adding a little crumbled tofu or tvp, simmering until blended and putting atop one's favourite kind of pasta. Have a lovely green salad first (in the North American way) or after (in the Italian way) and you've got a lovely meal, right? Yumm!

Below you have two similar ideas:

VEGETABLE STEW WITH LENTILS



LENTIL SOUP WITH VEGETABLES



They were made at quite different times, but I recall flavouring each with Indian spices and herbs. And both were what I call spicy hot! Eggplant was important to each (it blends so nicely with lentils) and apart from that and some carrot, perhaps a little sweet potato, it's more or less a free-for-all as far as the vegetables go.

The soup made a lovely light meal with a salad, and the stew was consumed as a main course with crusty homemade whole wheat bread. What a treat! Shall work on these some more and post the recipes when I'm happy with them.

More soon - I'm still having trouble with the photo thingie on this new computer :(

Dithering :) - Plus Some Food Pics

STUFFED GREEN PEPPERS

Here was lunch today :) I did two of these - but we couldn't finish them at all - too much salad to start, I'm afraid. But oh my they were really good! I didn't write down all the ingredients nor do any real measuring, so I'll have to save the recipe for another time. However, there was long-grain brown rice, wild rice, mushrooms, some marinated tofu, onions and garlic and chilies, green peas, water chestnuts and I forget what else all steam-sauteed together in a pan then stuffed into the peppers with various herbs and spices (which is what made it all so very good) and put in the oven with a seasoned crumb topping.

We must have been in the mood for stuffed dishes lately, because the other day I made

CRANBERRY-STUFFED BUTTERNUT SQUASH



This was a pale imitation of a recipe from Erin Dame's Vegan Done Light e-cookbook found here. Great as a side dish with a whole lot of things, I guarantee.

Somewhere along the line lately I made a couple of versions of stroganoff - one using faux beeef strips, one using portobello mushrooms, but somehow that photo has been lost while moving things from one computer to my new one :( (The photos in this post were still on the camera, however, so that's how these came about.) Never mind - it was good (if a bit bland for me) and I will be making it again and posting photo and recipe.

Meanwhile, I have been dithering, hence the title of this post, about to Raw or Not To Raw. I had decided, with help from the dh, that it was too difficult to do it the way we would like in the winter (this part of Canada is not all that far from Michigan, but a long way from California and Florida!) and, also, we weren't ready to forego our hot meals in icy weather. As a result, when I came to the end of the cookbook recipe testing, rather than going back on raw food (well, highly raw food) as planned we continued with the cooked variety, making all sorts of things again that had not been in the cookbook, especially things with soy in them. Around this season a lot of good food is tempting!

And now? Well, we looked at each other today and decided that as much as we think we'll be making a few cooked dishes during the week - and perhaps even a hot soup in the evening - we are going to slowly revert to our attempt to go raw. So satisfying! Now how's that for an about-turn!

NOT ANOTHER STIR-FRY!



My last photo is of the kind of stir-'fry' dishes I like to make now and then - no recipe really needed, perhaps, although I sometimes do do a twist on the usual ingredients. I may not be making so many of these, although the are wonderfully quick and easy, don't you think! Asian food lends itself so well to a vegan lifestyle, and spicy vegan food makes vegan eating a delight!

Cheers, everyone. And continued good wishes for 2009. Make it a good one!

Spicy Beanburgers with Salad

Spicy Beanburgers with Salad [NOTE: Recipe edited to correct oversight re preparation of beans and a missing ingredient in the sauce!]

The thing about coming back from holidays (more about that later) is that one goes shopping (at least I do) without actually getting everything needed for eating ordinary meals. Using up what's left in the fridge the last few days before leaving means being out of everything on return, and of course shopping lists for recipes rather assume that you'll have basics, blah blah blah. Well, frankly, I blundered and, not feeling like going out again to shop, I hit the freezer and the few things I had in the fridge to make a quick meal.

Beans? Yes - but only just plain boiled in the freezer. Okay, let's work with that, I said (bored with the whole idea of cooking again after being away and having had the delight of eating other people's food!)


Ingredients (all is approximate and to taste - but you get the idea):

2 cups (you could use 1 can, rinsed and drained) beans (I used my own frozen pino beans)
3 cloves garlic
a large stick celery, chopped finely
half a carrot, finely chopped or grated (I used a handful of those 'baby' carrots)
2 slices onion, finely chopped
a few mushrooms, finely chopped (optional)
2 Tbsp ground coriander seeds, or to taste
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
1 Tbsp paprika, or to taste
1/4 tsp cayenne powder, or to taste
1 tsp ground cumin
dash or two of cinnamon (I love cinnamon in things)
a few drops of liquid smoke
salt and pepper
dried wholewheat (or other) crumbs
fresh cilantro - divided in two - a handful chopped and more to garnish

Thaw your beans and drain, or drain and rinse your canned beans - then set aside in a large bowl.
Saute the vegetables until just soft. Add the spices and flavourings and stir until the vegetables are well coated.

Mash or puree about two-thirds of the beans, so that you have a gooey texture plus some more-or-less whole beans to make it interesting.

Add the vegetable mix to the beans in the bowl, stir, and add enough crumbs to keep everything together.Add the chopped cilantro.

Shape into patties and refrigerate until ready to use.

Spray a pan with a tiny bit of oil and brown the patties nicely.

I added roughly chopped mushrooms to the pan - because I like mushrooms with almost everything.

The Sauce? Use your favourite topping sauce or salsa. I used a mix of lemon juice and equal parts plain horseradish and dijon mustard with a little low-sodium soy. (Mix this to taste.)

Serve with any kind of green or leafy salad. These would also go well as open-faced sandwiches.

Zucchini Hash with Mushrooms & Potatoes; Stuffed Shells

This dish comes in the nature of a using-up-the-veggies exercise too - I had some nice zucchini and a couple of very tiny white potatoes (what did I mean to do with those, I wonder). Lunch loomed. So I took a look at what was in the veg bin and came up with:

ZUCCHINI HASH WITH MUSHROOMS & POTATOES

1 stick celery, chopped in small rounds
1 yellow cooking onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 small potatoes, diced
1-1/2 zucchini, chopped in quarter-'moons' (amount depends on size - enough for two hungry people is what I used
5 or 6 or more mushrooms, roughly chopped
optional: a tsp minced ginger or to taste (I tend to put it in a lot of things)
pinch of crushed chilies or to taste
salt (if you use it) and pepper to taste

I softened the onion and celery in a little water and threw the potato in with them to cook (the dice was small, so they didn't take long), added the zucchini, mushrooms, ginger and chilies when the potatoes were almost done, careful not to overcook the zucchini. I served garnished with celery leaves and added in a tomato, fennel and onion side salad.



The next dish was in the nature of an experiment. One day, feeling creative but lazy (the latter means I didn't want to shop before lunch) I found some giant pasta shells I had bought to make a completely different dish and never used. So this is what I dreamed up:

STUFFED SHELLS

Giant Pasta Shells for two persons (I used a little over 4 ounces, 120 grammes)
1/2 lb extra-firm low-fat tofu
a couple of slices of onion, finely chopped
4 or 5 mushrooms, finely chopped
two handfuls of basil, chopped
a pinch of cayenne, if you like it (we do)
salt and pepper to taste
two or so cups home-made tomato pasta sauce (from my freezer - you could use your favourite)
handful of torn basil to be added before going in oven
crumby cheezy topping for dish for baking

I cooked the shells and, meanwhile, heated the oven to 350 F, crumbled the tofu into a bowl and set the onion and mushrooms to soften and cook in a little water while I chopped the basil and defrosted the pasta sauce.

When the onion and mushrooms were cooked, I added them to the tofu along with the chopped basil and zapped the whole thing with the wand blender, to form a kind of creamy ricotta-like mixture. Season.

I spooned the mixture into the shells, added a few pieces of torn basil leaves to each stuffed shell, poking them into the mix with a naughty finger.

In a flat baking dish, I added a little of the pasta sauce - to just cover the bottom - lined up the shells as prettily as I could, added the rest of the sauce and sprinkled my own mix of equal parts cashews, crumbs and nutritional yeast (all ground together with oregano, paprika and pepper) over the top.

I baked in the oven for around 25 minutes covered, then removed the cover for a few minutes at the end.

I had never but NEVER stuffed shells before, and these were dead simple and very nice! They disappeared so fast that it was all I could do to snap a blurry photo before they were consumed! There were no leftovers.