Aparagus & Tomato Pasta, Three Thai Dishes

ASPARAGUS & TOMATO SHELL PASTA

There has been some lovely asparagus in the market lately, both the green kind and the purple. Being a little conservative for colour for this dish, I chose the green and teamed it with some lovely little grape tomatoes, basil, and green onions to mix with baby shell pasta. It was so good.

The recipe is just about what I've said above:

Shell pasta for two persons (I use about 100-120 grams or 3-4 ounces)
1 slice of onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 lb. fresh asparagus, cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces
1/2 lb. grape tomatoes, halved
pinch of crushed chiles - or to taste
salt and pepper to taste
half a bunch of fresh basil, lightly chopped
2 green/spring onions, chopped
basil sprigs for garnish

While the pasta water is coming to the boil and the pasta is cooking (according to package instructions), put the onion and garlic in a little water in a skillet (large enough to contain all the ingredients in the recipe) and cook until soft.

Add the asparagus, tomatoes and chopped basil with the seasonings and stir over medium-high heat until the tomato skins start to look as if they are loosening up a little. Stop there. Don't overcook. If the pasta is not ready, remove the vegetables from the heat until the pasta is done.

Drain the pasta and add to the vegetables in the skillet, toss them together and return to the heat if necessary for a moment or two to make sure everything is heated through. Remove from heat, stir in the green onions and transfer the pasta to a warmed serving dish. Garnish.

It doesn't get much simpler than that :)


THREE THAI DISHES



I've also been playing around at making more Thai food - we both love it! This one in the photo above is EGGPLANT WITH BASIL. I usually like to add a little cubed tofu to this dish as well as the red bell pepper.

And this one . . .



. . . is a SWEET POTATO AND POTATO COCONUT CURRY. Tofu goes nicely in this one too.

And then there was the day I made (dah-dah dah-dah!) . . .



TOM YUM SOUP! This was my first time of making it, and I think I got a little carried away, putting in enough vegetables and tofu to make it into something approaching a stew rather than a soup. That is, however, easily corrected.

These dishes are keepers here. Actually, we love Thai spices and like to flavour all kinds of things with them. My problem, however, is being able to get fresh kaffir lime leaves (although I keep a good supply of dried ones up the cupboard) and fresh lemon grass, not to mention fresh Thai basil, which is so important to the taste. It's a bore to have to substitute other things :(

Now that spring is here I'm looking to more and more lovely vegetables to put into my stir 'fries' and curries. I remind myself that they have snow out west!

Catching Up - and Spiced Tempeh-Stuffed Shells

[POST EDITED TO CORRECT OMISSIONS IN ORIGINAL, WITH APOLOGIES.]

Is it really possible to catch up after such an absence! Whew!!!!!

Well, first, let me say thank you to everyone who wrote in to say lovely words about the loss of our little beagle Made' aka Maddie, our second (though older) dog-daughter on 14 June. She is so sadly missed by us all, but your thoughtfulness and kindness has somehow made it easier to bear. Meanwhile, our younger girl, Casey, is reaping the benefits of having full-time attention of both her parents. Well, you can imagine!!!

Soooooo, you ask, what have you been cooking/eating since your last food post??? Good question. I seem to have taken some photos, wobbly ones mostly (so what's new there? LOL), but nevertheless they remind me that we have eaten a few things other than salads and wraps and fresh fruit. Not that those three things don't make for very nutritious as well as tasty eating, but they don't exactly make for an exciting food diary!

So here goes on one of the things that seem to have come across our table since arriving back from Paris a month ago.

SPICED TEMPEH-STUFFED SHELLS



These are, you guessed it, another version of my Stuffed Shells recipe, which you can see HERE in my first experiment with such a dish and HERE as the then preferred version. I still like both of those, but I decided to branch out just a tiny bit and make this lot from tempeh and add much more creative spice to the mixture. I followed the same basic method as before, but rather than basil or spinach I used handfuls of chopped cilantro (coriander leaves) and used chopped jalapeno, ground cumin seeds, lime zest and juice, miso, nutritional yeast and goodness knows what else (it was a while ago - I must make it again to get it right!) to the stuffing. The result was amazing. The tempeh was mashed to make it like ground, er, ground stuff.

Here it is at the point I'd just put it into the shells.



At this point it still needed a sauce, right? I had none ready in fridge or freezer, so I grabbed a can or tomatoes, added onions and garlic to them with some cayenne, zapped them in a blender and poured it over the dish like this:



The crumby topping, above, is a mix of wholewheat cracker crumbs zapped in a mini-processor with some cashews and nutritional yeast plus varied dried herbs and paprika.

The baked result you have already seen - somehow it never looks quite as nice as the unbaked version when I do things. But it was excellent to eat, and here you have, below, a quick snapshot of my plate before I took it to the table.



The taste was more fusion than Italian, but that's the joy of being able to please oneself in the kitchen. My husband voted for this version over the two others, so that's good enough for me :)

More later :)

Variations On A Theme: Baked Pasta With Spinach, Gluten And Mushrooms

[Edited because I mistakenly added in part of another recipe - would ya believe!!!! Time for a rest!]

A little while ago I posted a pic and recipe (sort of) for something I whipped up on a slow day in the kitchen (or was it a frantic day? Point is, I made it from what I had on hand - AND I was feeling relatively lazy!). It was a Mushroom Pasta Bake and it was GOOD :)

Shortly thereafter I did a variation on that one. Feeling that I needed to use up some things in the freezer (in this case, some seitan/gluten I had made) and the refrigerator (in this case mushrooms - I always have mushrooms and use any excuse to use them up!), I decided to do another 'bake'. Tofu I usually have in because I buy some of those shelf-stable aseptic packs of silken tofu that I use whenever I run out of the regular tofu. Besides, silken is great for sauces and such - so there!

So here's my 'Variation On A Theme':

BAKED PASTA WITH SPINACH, GLUTEN AND MUSHROOMS



Following the previous recipe, more or less (see above) I assembled the following:

3 or 4 ounces quinoa macaroni, boiled just short of al dente and drained (or use whatever small pasta you prefer)
4 or 5 ounces mushrooms, chopped small
1 10-oz pkg frozen spinach, thawed and drained very very well
A few ounces (about 1 cup measure) of my own homemade gluten roast (seasoned as if for roast b**f), minced
Liquid from cooking the gluten roast (half a cup or so you could substitute a good strong veg stock)
1/2 pkg low-fat tofu (you might want to use more so that you have extra sauce to pass at the table)*
soymilk and/or stock - enough to thin out the tofu to a cream consistency*
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Tbsp vegan worcestershire sauce (optional but we like it most of the time)
3 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 - 2 Tbsp lemon juice
black pepper
1 Tbsp white miso
herbs according to taste
salt and pepper throughout to taste
Nutmeg for the spinach
crumbs or vegan parmezan cheez for topping (I used my own mix that I keep on hand)

I cooked the pasta and while it was doing its thing I sauteed the mushrooms in a little stock and low-sodium soy. My spinach wasn't completely thawed, so I put it on a low heat at the back of the stove to finish defrosting. I had previously chopped the wedge of gluten roast (you could use some kind of commercial seitan - depending on flavour) very finely - to make it seem like soy crumbles.

When the mushrooms are shrunk to half their size and looking good :) add the gluten/seitan and its cooking liquid or stock. At this point you might need to add a little wholewheat flour to thicken this mixture (stir quickly so it doesn't glom) and add more stock, a bit at a time, until you have a good consistency for a gravy. Let this cook a little to take away the raw taste of the flour. Everything tasting good? (Need salt and pepper? More stock?) A nice rich 'gravy' is ideal here. Okay, set it aside.

For the tofu topping:
Mix the tofu with the remaining ingredients (except for the nutmeg and crumbs) until it tastes the way you want it to. This is a subjective matter and I even change my mind from day to day what I like to have in this kind of dish. You decide. You will want this to be nice and creamy - sort of like a thickish yoghurt.

* Alternately, you could simply whisk a some silken tofu with whatever you like of the same ingredients for an easier topping.

TO ASSEMBLE AND BAKE:

Pre-heat oven to 375

Spoon the spinach into the bottom of a lightly oil-sprayed casserole, grate on a little nutmeg.



Add the macaroni-mushroom-gluten mix in a nice even layer over the top of the spinach.



Next comes the tofu sauce.



As you see, I kinda dump it in spoonfuls over the top then spread it with the back of a spoon to more or less cover. If there's more than you need, fine - it makes a good sauce to pass at the table. If not, then don't sweat it.

Finally top with crumbs, a mix of nuts and nutritional yeast or vegan parmezan cheez - whatever your heart desires :)

And here it is



- all ready to go in the oven for (how long did I say?) 20 minutes, lightly covered with foil, then remove the foil for a last few minutes to brown a little. The timing will depend a little on the heat of your oven (they all differ a bit) and the size and shape of your baking dish.

This had a rich 'meaty' taste - and the spinach was a pleasant complement to the rest of the dish. I'll do it this way in future.

NOTE: I tend to make things a little on the dry side by some people's standards, because we don't care for 'soupy' dishes - unless we're having soup! LOL You may want to add more liquid to everything, more sauce, depending on your taste. Just note as you go along whether or not it looks right to you, okay?

Mushroom & Tofu Pasta Bake

I'm always searching for new ways to take a lazy way out of cooking - which by the way I profess to love most of the time - without compromising my promise to myself to cook from scratch (well, I don't make my own pasta anymore and never make my own tofu or soymilk, so . . . .LOL ). Somehow - it must be because the oven makes the place so warm and cosy - I've taken to popping pasta dishes and other kinds of things in the oven and then sitting back and waiting for them to be ready!

Here's what I did the day before yesterday - and I'm including a lot of photos cuz someone asked me to do step-by-step and so here it is LOL

But first a word about the pasta itself. I found the most delectable kamut spirelli in one of my favourite shops and thought I'd try it out:



I'm sure it comes in many other brands, but this one is organic and is actually available in Ontario! Anyway, here we go:

MUSHROOM & TOFU PASTA BAKE

(for 2 hungry people or 3-4 lighter eaters)

125 g (4 or 5 ounces in weight?) spirelli (you could use penne or whatever) pasta, set aside until ready to cook.
250 g (1/2 lb.) Mushrooms, sliced (measurements can vary - use what you have)
1 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
150 g (around 5 or 6 ounces in weight?) Zucchini, chopped (ditto)
1/2 pkg low-fat tofu (you might want to use more so that you have extra sauce to pass at the table)
soymilk and/or stock - enough to thin out the tofu to a cream consistency
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Tbsp vegan worcestershire sauce
3 Tbsp nutritional yeast
1 - 2 Tbsp lemon juice
black pepper
1 Tbsp white miso
crumbs or vegan parmezan cheez for topping (I used my own mix that I keep on hand)
herbs according to taste

Method of sorts:

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Saute your mushrooms - I do it in a little water with a Tbsp low-sodium soy, since I avoid using oil if at all possible.

While you are doing the mushrooms (only a short while - you'll want them to shrink to half size and look 'cooked'), boil some water and drop your zucchini into it for a couple of minutes only - or you could lightly steam them. You don't want them to go at all mushy. When these are done, drain and set aside.

Cook that pasta before you forget!



This kamut pasta is so pretty, isn't it, and it only takes a few minutes. Here it's still in its raw, dried state, but I thought the colours were nicer than I'd ever seen! Pop it into boiling water and keep an eye on the time - I only did mine for about half the time it called for, but you be the judge. You'll want your pasta, regardless of which kind you use, to be a little underdone because it will cook more in the oven.



When the mushrooms are ready, add the zucchini (I cut mine into small pieces so that they didn't take long to blanch and so that they'd mix in with the size of everything else. You might want to decide to do it differently)



and season to taste - but remember that you're going to have a seasoned tofu sauce over the lot, so go easy on salt etc.

Here we are again, all ready for the sauce.



For The Sauce:
Crumble the tofu, add enough soy milk or other liquid (do this a bit at a time) to make it possible to blend into a creamy sauce with a blender or a wand blender. Blend in the garlic and all other ingredients. Taste for seasoning and adjust. Sometimes it's the addition of a little vegan worcestershire sauce that helps a whole bunch, sometimes it isn't needed. Your choice.

Er, no pic of the sauce being made. We're going to just have to live with that. Imagine white. Got it? Okay, onwards!

Stir the sauce, pasta and vegetables together and turn into a baking dish which has been sprayed or lightly wiped with a faint film of olive oil. Here it is:



Top it, if you like, with crumbs, vegan parmezan cheez, or other appropriate crumby topping - or leave it plain. Your choice.



Yeah, well, you're right - it's the same image you got at the top of this post. Life's full of surprises, eh?

Bake for around 20 minutes. I cover mine with a layer of foil, very loosely, and take it off in the last few minutes.



And here it is baked. Now a warning for those like me who like to leave it in the oven until they've finished the first course:
If you leave it too long, it will dry out - but hey that's what that extra sauce I mentioned in the ingredients list is for. This recipe is so forgiving of absent-minded cooks!

Serve with whatever you like - we had ours plain the first day. But we did have a salad beforehand! :)

Catching Up. Cauliflower-Tofu Bake, Spinach- & Tofu-Stuffed Shells

I have been a very naughty blogger, and now it's the end of the month and I haven't posted anything here in over three weeks! Shame on me!!!! I have no excuse except for having such a good time that cooking something new took second place to life with a capital L. The middle of the month we were in New York to see friends, attend opera and ballet, visit museums, wander around, and visit restaurants. Restaurants? Yes, we especially liked Candle 79 (not to be confused with Candle Cafe) and Franchia (sister restaurant to HanGawi, which we visited last time, but less formal). And I mustn't forget Dawat (not vegan like the others, but vegan-friendly), which belongs to actress, chef, and cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey (our kitchen saint).

Since then and even just before then, I have been either raiding the freezer for previously cooked yummies or re-running old menus and recipes. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it does mean rather lean pickings for blogging here.

But here are a couple of things you might like.

CAULIFLOWER-TOFU BAKE



Here's a simple thing we did with cauliflower the other day. It was easy to partly cook the cauliflower, cut into flowerets, then make a sauce from some silken tofu, flavouring it with sodium-reduced soy, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, white miso, and various kinds of pepper - probably including cayenne ;) I used, for the two of us, about a package and a half of the tofu and thinned it to the right creamy consistency, and half a head of cauliflower. Some chopped onion gives a nice zip. Mix the sauce and the cauliflower together and bake until the top browns. Around half an hour should do it, depending on how much you use and how hot your oven is. I topped mine with some flavoured crumbs - ya know, the old ground-up nuts, crumbs, nutritional yeast, paprika, blah blah blah mix I keep in an airtight jar in the refrigerator all the time. You probably have your own favourite.


SPINACH- & TOFU-STUFFED SHELLS



I have posted a Stuffed Shells recipe here before, but this one, also in the nature of an experiment, was even more successful. That may have been because I made a few changes to my previous recipe. I did however use the same very nice brand of brown rice shell pasta I used before.



Following the basic idea of my previous attempt, I substituted a couple of big handfuls of fresh baby spinach for the basil. This I chopped and then zapped with the wand blender along with some garlic, the tofu, mushrooms, etc., to which I also added a good squeeze of lemon juice, some herbs (what? Probably thyme or oregano), a little vegan worcestershire sauce, pepper (Cayenne too? Probably - just a dash) and two or three Tbsp nutritional yeast. These additions made for a similar looking but stronger tasting stuffing. If there was something else in there, I forget, but I tasted as I went along and kept going until it tasted right :) Proceding as before, this is what it looked like as plated.




You might want to keep some sauce to pass at the table.

And yes, thanks, we had a lovely time in New York! Here we are in Fort Tryon Park on our way to see The Cloisters for the first time in something like 35 years or so. Lovely day!!!

Sardinian Cauliflower Soup With Tomatoes And Pasta

I've never been to Sardinia, but if the cuisine is anywhere as good as this soup suggests, then I would probably eat myself into bliss. I know I loved the food in another not-so-far-away island, Sicily - but that was in my pre-veggie days (I still ate f*sh back then).

Anyway, this soup, I am told, is typical of Sardinia. I found the original recipe, which I have modified, in Donna Klein's wonderful Vegan Italiano - or I should say my husband did. He loves this soup!

We first made it from a head of cauliflower, lots of garlic, crushed red pepper flakes (or live chilies), Since we don't use oil in cooking (get enough of that from the fruits, grains, beans and veggies we live on), it all goes into the pot along with around four or five cups of water or vegetable broth and cooks until the cauliflower is done - in pre-cut florets, that's around 10 minutes. At that point the soup is pureed, tasted for seasonings (some lovely fresh-ground pepper comes into its own here), and returned to the pot along with that pasta to be heated through. But wait, there's more!

The next time we made it we added 14 ounces stewed canned tomatoes (half of one of those big cans that I'd opened for something else!) and some fresh chopped basil to the puree. At the end we added cooked pasta (some brown rice elbow macaroni) to make it into an even heartier soup. Deeeeeee-lish!!! (The little bits on top are vegan bakon bits.)

ARUGULA SALAD, MINTED SALAD, PASTA WITH RAW MARINATED TOMATOES

What a lazy summer! I am guilty of neglecting this blog - yet again - shamefully. We have had a lovely few months, but little exciting has been happening in our kitchen as far as new recipes are concerned. What we have been doing is buying fresh produce from the Farmer's Market twice a week and having wonderful salads, fruit, and lightly steamed veggies :)

This is a combo that we particularly like - nice and refreshing.

ARUGULA SALAD



No exact measurements here, of course, but for a couple of us we use, well, enough arugula/rocket for two then slice two or three smallish radishes very very finely and a smallish carrot too (only this sliced sort of 'on the bias' to produce lovely wafer-thin ovals). Supposed to be dressed simply with a little extra-virgin olive oil, it is dressed in our kitchen with a little sprinkle of seasoned rice vinegar instead - a far cry from its Italian roots, but equally lovely.

Another, which defies ethnic description is a minted salad made out of whatever I usually have in the fridge.

MINTED SALAD



This one is red onion, red bell pepper, apple, cucumber, celery, tomato and goodness knows what else (I forget!), dressed with a little lemon juice and a handful or whatever of roughly chopped fresh mint leaves.

And here's a pasta dish we have had several times, with minor variations:

PASTA WITH RAW MARINATED TOMATOES



This past is easy, but it does need one to four hours to marinate. Exact measurements depend on number of people and their appetites, but for two of us in the middle of the day I use approximately:

2 large tomatoes, chopped
3 sundried tomatoes, soaked and finely chopped
grated zest of a lemon
1 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
1/2 cup Italian (flat-leaf) parsley leaves, chopped
1/8 tsp of salt or to taste (you may prefer more)
freshly ground pepper to taste, either black or a mix (we prefer a mix of green, red, black, white most of the time)
juice of lemon
pasta to serve (penne or similar shaped/sized past is good rather than long pasta)
a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved, to stir through before serving
a few basil or parsley leaves for garnish

Marinate the tomatoes etc., giving it a stir a few times during the process, for at least an hour - longer is better.
When you're ready to eat, cook your pasta according to your usual practice, drain well, toss with the tomato mix and serve.

ROTINI WITH BROCCOLI & TOMATOES

This recipe is adapted from one by Jennifer Raymond in Neal Barnard’s _Eat Right, Live Longer_ (1995), p. 318. The original served twice the number of people, had less roasted red pepper, proportionately, and contained tahini and olive oil. (I am experimenting with cutting all oils out of all recipes right now.) The cooking instructions are changed to allow for no oil and for my hang-up about keeping fresh tomatoes actually tasting fresh :)

ROTINI WITH BROCCOLI & TOMATOES

Serves 3 or 4.

6 ounces rotini pasta (I used the tricolour kind, because I wanted to make it pretty)
2-3 large garlic cloves, very finely minced
1/4 tsp crushed red chilies (or more to taste)
Abt. 3/4 pound broccoli (half a bunch), cut into florets
Abt. 2 large tomatoes, diced (my single tomato weighed in at ca.12 ounces)
1 cup cooked chickpeas/garbanzo beans (if you use canned, save the liquid)
1/3 cup roasted red peppers (mine from a jar purchased for the recipe)
1-1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp (or to taste) freshly ground black pepper
salt to taste

Prepare your vegetables.

Put the water on for the pasta and then cook it according to package instructions. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, in a skillet set over medium-high heat, add the broccoli, garlic and chile flakes with abt 1/3 cup of water, mix very well to coat the broccoli with the flavours, reduce heat a bit and cover. Steam for around 3 minutes or until the broccoli is _just_ tender, no more.

While the pasta is cooking and the broccoli is steaming, puree the garbanzos, red peppers and lemon juice in a blender until smooth, adding a little water (or reserved bean liquid from the can) if needed to make it possible to blend properly. It will be a delightful pinkish colour! Set aside.

When the broccoli is done, remove it from pan and set aside.

Add the tomatoes to the pan with a couple of Tbsp water, cover and cook around 4 or 5 minutes.

Add the broccoli to the tomatoes and stir very well, carefully reheating the broccoli but not letting it overcook. Broccoli should be still a little resistant rather than soft.

Stir the garbanzo mixture into the cooked pasta. Spread the coated pasta on a serving dish and sprinkle with pepper. Add the broccoli-tomato mixture to the top.

Serve NOW! :) Truly delicious!