Posts tagged ‘recipe’
Friday Feast: Quinoa Puttanesca
I found this recipe on the Post Punk Kitchen Blog, and I knew I just had to try it! I’m all for figuring out new ways to eat ‘alternative’ grains, and quinoa is such a good one, since it’s a complete protein and gluten free. (I like to keep my gluten down.)
This recipe includes wine. Remember, when cooking with wine, the flavour intensifies, so choose a wine you like to drink.
I tweaked the recipe slightly – slightly increased the tomato, added sun-dried tomatoes and roasted capsicum, and reduced the capers – but otherwise it is the same thing. The taste of the olives and capers comes through strongly, so if you don’t like them (yes Mum, this would be you), then this dish would not be something I’d recommend. However, if you love the taste, as I do, then it’s fabulous.
I was surprised by how spicy (hot) it was. It seemed more like a matriciana than a puttanesca to me, but then it’s been a while, so maybe I’m remembering incorrectly. If you don’t like spicy food (yes Mum, that’s you again), I would suggest reducing or eliminating the crushed red pepper flakes. If, like me, you love spicy food – and I’m a spice wimp, but I still love it – then this is the perfect dish for you!
Quinoa Puttanesca
Quinoa Puttanesca, still hot and steamy.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- generous pinch tarragon
- generous pinch marjoram
- 1/4 cup wine (I used white because that’s what was open, but red would work too)
- 1/2 cup kalamata olives, roughly chopped (sliced in half is great)
- 1/4 cup capers
- 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped small
- 1/4 cup roasted capsicum, cut into strips
- 600g (21oz) can crushed tomatoes
- black pepper, to taste
- 2 to 3 cups of cooked quinoa*
Method
- Heat the oil in a good-sized pot over medium heat.
- Add the garlic and stir for about a minute, being careful not to burn it.
- Add herbs, spices and wine; cook for about a minute.
- Add olives, capers, crushed tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and roasted capsicum. Simmer, uncovered, for about 15 minutes.
- Reserve a few ladelfuls of sauce to put on top of each serving.
- Mix the quinoa into the remaining sauce in the pot.
- Serve in individual bowls with a spoonful of the reserved sauce on top. Yum!
I used red quinoa because I thought it matched the sauce better, but you could use white or black quinoa and it would work just the same.
*Note: To cook the quinoa, rinse about a cup of uncooked quinoa to remove any residual bitterness. Put the quinoa in a pot with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and cook uncovered for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the grain is tender and the water has been absorbed.
Friday Feast: Home Fries
This side dish (or main dish, take your pick) something that Yankee Elv makes, which she learned to make from her dad. It’s called Home Fries, because basically it’s something people make in their own home. You can put anything (but always potatoes) in a pan and fry it up and that’s all it is. Everyone has their own recipe for Home Fries and no-one is right and no-one is wrong. That’s the cool thing. You can’t really mess it up, unless you cook the potato too long and they get mushy or soggy, but otherwise… you’re set!
Home Fries
Freshly cooked home fries.
Ingredients:
- oil
- Potatoes, chopped roughly into 1 inch chunks (canned are easy if you can find them, or boiled/steamed until they’re soft enough to cut through easily)
- Onion(s), sliced into quarter rings
- Whatever other veges you want (the batch in the picture has capsicum, spinach and shallots)
Method:
1. Over medium heat, heat oil in a wide, deep fry pan.
2. Add onions and other firm veges, and cook until just soft.
3. Add softer veges and cook for several minutes.
4. Add potatoes and fry until everything is cooked well (should be soft but not too soft – you don’t want mush).
5. Serve up on a plate, either on their own or more commonly, as a side to another dish. (Works well as a side to scambled tofu).
Notes:
The veges you choose are up to you (aside from potato) I would recommend onion because it adds a great flavour, otherwise, you can put whatever you like in there. Yankee Elv has also made this dish with zucchini, mushroom, carrots, green beans, garlic, spices, chilli, whatever! Just go with what you feel like and what you think will go well with whatever else you’re eating. Increase or decrease amounts, cooking order and cooking time to suit the ingredients and amount you need.
Friday Feast: Carrot, Pineapple and Soybean Stir-fry
Ok, I know this combination of ingredients sounds weird, but it’s good, trust me. This is one of Yankee Elv’s recipes, and she first made it while she was in the USA. I think it’s some kind of weird US North Pacific Rim fusion sort of meal. Anyway, it’s really easy and tastes great, so give it a go!
Carrot, Soybean, and Pineapple Stirfry
Carrot, Pineapple and Soybean Stir-fry, with rice.
Ingredients:
• 2 tablespoon oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (or as much as you want)
• 2 medium carrots, sliced
• 1 240g (8oz) can pineapple chunks WITH juice – don’t drain
• 1 – 1 1/2 cups frozen green soybeans (edamame)
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (less or more to adjust spiciness)
• 2 teaspoon sesame seeds (optional)
• cooked rice (preferably cooked at least a day before, so it is less sticky)
Method:
1. Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat.
2. Add garlic and carrots and stir-fry for about 4 to 5 minutes
3. Add the pineapple with the juice. Saute on medium-high until juice is almost gone; about 5 to 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, defrost the frozen soybeans so they are no longer frozen (but they can still be cold) by heating them in the microwave, in water to cover, for 1 minute (if you don’t have a microwave, you can do it on the stove).
5. When the pineapple juice is almost gone, add the soybeans, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and red pepper. Heat for 3 to 5 minutes, until the spices are mixed and the beans are warmed through.
6. You can either mix in the rice and cook it some more with the stirfry (gives the rice some extra flavor), or just ladle the stir-fry over the rice.
Optional: sprinkle sesame seeds over the meal for a bit of a crunch.
Friday Feast: Vegan Quiche
I was reading my local Vegsoc forum and came across a thread about vegan chickpea omlettes. The thread included a recipe for a batter based on chickpea flour (rather than eggs), plus a tonne of rave reviews. Apparently, this batter can be used to make lots of things: omlettes, fritters, faux scrambled eggs, pizza bases, frittatas and quiches. Considering I hadn’t had any of this eggy stuff for at least 6 years, I thought I might give it a go. I made a quiche, and it was pretty good! I thought it tasted quite quiche-like. Yankee Elv, who still eats eggs, didn’t think it tasted exactly like quiche, but she liked it a lot anyway.
I made mine in a pie dish, so it was quite shallow. If you wanted a thicker quiche, you could put it in a smaller dish or double the mixture. You might have to increase the cooking time too. I didn’t make mine with pastry, but other people have made it with vegan puff pastry and it worked well. I might try that next time.
Vegan Quiche
My very first vegan quiche (no longer an oxymoron) - made primarily with chickpea flour and topped with pine nuts.
Ingredients
**batter**
- 1 cup besan (chickpea) flour
- 1.5 cups water
- 2 tabs olive oil
- salt/pepper to taste (be generous)
- vegan margarine (to grease the dish)
**my filling** (this is all optional, change as you like – you want to add flavourful stuff though or it will be bland)
- sun-dried tomatoes, finely diced
- roasted capsicum, finely diced
- black olives, finely diced (consider the strong flavour of these when deciding how many to add)
- shallots (green onions), finely diced
- nutritional yeast (I used about 1/8 cup)
- garlic powder
- onion powder
- Italian herbs
- pine nuts (to sprinkle on top)
Method:
- Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F).
- Sift besan flour into a bowl. Add other batter ingredients (aside from vegan margarine) and combine very well.
- Add filling ingredients (except pine nuts) and combine.
- Pour mixture into a greased dish. (Use vegan margarine to grease.)
- Bake for 25 to 30 mins, then sprinkle pine nuts on top and return to the oven.
- Continue to bake for about another 10-15 mins, or until set and golden brown around the edges (and on top, if you want).
Friday Feast: Vegan Apple Crumble
Lately, I’ve been on a bit of a muffin kick. This isn’t a muffin recipe though – I’m still working on those. Don’t get all impatient-like, the recipes will come. But right now, this is an apple crumble recipe. It’s good stuff. I tweaked an apple crumble recipe I’ve been making since I was 13, took some inspiration from a berry cobbler that Yankee Elv makes, and ta-da! Vegan dessert-y goodness. I first made this about a month ago.
I made up some soy custard to go with it. I just followed the instructions on my Poppy custard powder box, but added extra custard powder as soy custard seems to thicken up a bit less than dairy custard. It turned out beautifully. For those of you who can’t find custard powder, you could probably just use cornstarch (cornflour) with some vanilla flavouring and yellow colouring. The only other ingredients are non-dairy milk and a spoonful of sugar.
Yankee Elv asked me to make this again the next week. She’s a bit obsessed with it now. But it really does taste so good…
Apple Crumble
Apple crumble with home-made soy custard. It's a dreadful photo, sorry - it was night time so I had to use flash and it's very glary.
Ingredients
**filling**
- 800g tin pie apples (or equivalent fresh apples – I work full time, so I’ve no time to stew apples. I have to make do with recycling the tin)
- 2 tabs white sugar (I use low GI cane sugar)
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
**topping**
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- Heaped 1/4 cup vegan margarine, softened and in small pieces
- 1 1/4 cup rolled oats
- 1/2 cup plain flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened desiccated coconut
Method
- Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
- Combine filling ingredients in a pie dish.
- Combine topping ingredients, except margarine, in a bowl.
- Rub in margarine until combined.
- Cover filling with topping.
- Bake for approx. 30 mins, or until topping is starting to brown and get crunchy.
Friday Feast: Bean Tortilla Stack
Bean Tortilla Stack is the first food my mother made me after I became vegetarian, about six years ago. It was originally a beef meal, but there were instructions in her recipe book on how to alter it for vegetarians, so she did and it was fantastic! I got the recipe and have made it myself a number of times over the years.It’s kind of like a Mexican lasagne, with tortillas instead of pasta sheets.
Recently, I decided to try veganising this dish using Bryanna Clark Grogan‘s Melty Pizza Cheese recipe (which I found on pakupaku) to replace the cheese component of the original dish. It doesn’t have the same taste or texture, so don’t expect that or you will be disappointed, but it looks good and it does add a little something-something in my opinion. I’ve only included the link here, since this is a direct copy of someone else’s recipe and I haven’t modified it in any way to make it ‘my own’.
The original recipe calls for a packet of taco seasoning. I don’t find this spicy enough, so I add paprika, chili powder and cumin to taste. In contrast, Mum will make it with only half a packet of taco seasoning if she is cooking for my sister – she’s a spice wimp. It’s really up to you.
The best kind of dish to use for this is a pyrex or ceramic type of dish, the kind that comes with a lid (although you don’t need the lid unless you want to use it when you store leftovers in the fridge). The dish should be round, to fit the tortillas, and high to help the stack keep it’s shape. Pie dishes are too short. The dish I use is a little small; I have to trim the edges of my tortillas. Mum’s is the best. It’s about 25cm in diameter (just under 10 inches), as opposed to mine, which is about 20cm in diameter (just under 8 inches). Still, both worked, so just get as close as you can.
Points to remember:
- The tortillas soak up some of the sauce, so if you have to trim them to fit in your dish, you might want to reduce the amount of sauce you put in, or it will be runnier than it’s supposed to be. Use your judgement! If it’s a bit goopy, don’t worry – it will still taste good.
- The smaller in diameter your stack is, the higher it will be as the sauce layers will spread out less and therefore be thicker.
Now read on, then cook!
Bean Tortilla Stack
Bean Tortilla Stack after a night in the fridge. The layers hold up best after refrigeration.
Ingredients:
**general**
- 450g (16 oz) can refried beans
- 425g (15 oz) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 5 tortillas (I use wholewheat, but it doesn’t matter what kind you use)
- Melty Pizza Cheese
- oil (cooking spray, margarine, olive oil…)
**for the sauce**
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup capsicum, diced
- 1/2 to 1 cup vegetables/mushrooms (like grated carrot, diced zucchini or chopped mushrooms) (optional)
- 425g (15 oz) can crushed tomatoes
- 3-4 tabs tomato paste
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp vegetable stock powder (Vegeta!)
- 35g (1.25 oz) packet taco seasoning
- paprika, chili powder and cumin, to taste (optional)
Bean Tortilla Stack with smooth guacamole. This slice is fresh from the oven - you can see that it doesn't retain it's shape straight out of the oven.
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Add some oil to the bottom of a large pot or frying pan and combine sauce ingredients. Bring to the boil and simmer for ten minutes.
3. Take one cup of sauce out and leave to the side.
4. Add beans (both kidney and refried) and bring to the boil again.
5. Grease a round, tall, oven-proof dish (I use cooking spray oil cos I’m using up my current can). Place one tortilla on the bottom and spread 1 1/2 cups of the mixture over it.
6. Repeat tortilla/sauce step three times.
7. Top with the last tortilla. Pour the extra cup of sauce (sans beans, that you had set aside earlier) over the top and spread evenly.
8. Gently spread faux cheese on top.
9. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until faux cheese has a skin. You can put it under the grill (broiler) if you want to get it a bit brown.
10. Leave for five to ten minutes before serving. (It will be goopy if it’s fresh out of the oven; it holds its shape better after refrigeration.)
Friday Feast: Quinoa Biscuits (Cookies)
I would like to declare that I am absolutely dreadful at baking biscuits (cookies). I’m not sure why; I can bake pretty much everything else, but biscuits just stump me. Even when I follow the recipe exactly, they still come out stuck to the pan or something. However, this recipe (which I got from the back of a packet of Nature’s First Organic Quinoa Flakes) worked fine the first time! If you’re having trouble with the biscuits sticking to the pan, increase the size of your cookies or decrease the cooking time. This worked for me.
I liked that these biscuits were somewhat lower GI than regular biscuits (the quinoa increasing the protein), and I made them even more so by changing the flour to rice and spelt. The original recipe called for wheat flour. The liquid sweetener you use will also impact the GI of the biscuits, as will the type of sugar you use, and how much optional stuff you include (for example, including the cashews will increase the protein/fat quotient per biscuit, which in turn will make them lower GI). It’s a whole complicated thing. I don’t mean to sound obsessive, but for health reasons, it seems it’s better for me to eat lower GI, so I’m doing my best to consider that at all times!
Anyway, I now present to you…
Quinoa Biscuits (Cookies)
Quinoa biscuits.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup liquid sweetener (the original recipe called for honey, which I used because I wanted to use the last of our honey up)
- 1/3 cup sugar (I used low GI sugar)
- 1/2 cup vegan margarine (I always use Nuttelex)
- 1/2 cup peanut butter (I used smooth, but I bet crunchy adds a little something something)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla essence (I used imitation, and it was fine)
- 1/2 cup rice flour
- 1/2 cup wholemeal spelt flour
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda (baking soda)
- 3/4 cup quinoa flakes
- 1/8 tsp salt (optional)
- 1/2 cup crumbled cashews (or other nuts – optional)
- 1/3 cup vegan chocolate chips (optional)
Method:
- Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F).
- Beat honey, sugar, margarine, peanut butter and vanilla essence until creamy.
- In a separate bowl, combine flours, quinoa flakes, bicarbonate soda and salt (if using). Add to wet ingredients, beating well until blended.
- Place heaped teaspoonfuls approximately 5cm (2″) apart on an ungreased baking tray.
- Bake for approximately 12 minutes or until golden brown.
- Cool for 5 minutes before removing from tray; continue to cool on a cake rack before storing.
Mmm... tasty quinoa biscuits!
Friday Feast: Oatmeal Cookie Bars
Here comes the latest recipe… it’s a cross between a slice, a cookie and a granola bar – it’s Oatmeal Cookie Bars! I’ve just veganised these tasty treats, which wasn’t too hard. They’ve come out a little more crumbly than their non-vegan versions, but that could also be because I used gluten-free flour and baked them about ten minutes longer than usual (I momentarily forgot they were in the oven).
Regardless of any mishap, they’re still super tasty. Eat them fresh from the oven (be careful you don’t burn your mouth on the cranberries, which seem to get to a scalding temperature), cold the next day, or re-heated in the microwave. I used to eat these with ice-cream in my non-vegan days (as if they were so long ago!), so if you’re into vegan ice-cream, that could be a winner too. I’m going to try them with this new vegan cream I bought last week… I hope it’s good!
Oatmeal Cookie Bars
A slice of Oatmeal Cookie Bar, half crumbled on the plate. Look at the cranberries and that chunk of vegan white chocolate - yum!
Ingredients:
- 230g (0.5lb or 2 sticks) vegan margarine (I use Nuttelex)
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar (I used LoGIcane – a low GI version of cane sugar)
- Egg substitute, equivalent to 2 eggs (I used Orgran Egg Replacer)
- 1 tsp vanilla essence (imitation is ok)
- 1/2 cups plain (aka all purpose) flour (I used 1/2 cup each of wholemeal spelt, barley and Orgran’s gluten-free flours)
- 1 tsp bi-carb soda (aka baking soda)
- 1/2 tsp salt – optional
- 1 tsp cinnamon – optional
- 3 cups rolled oats
- 1 cup sultanas or dried cranberries (I used the latter this time, but sometimes I do half and half)
- 1 cup vegan chocolate chips (I used 1/2 cup each of Sweet Williams chocolate chips and chopped Sweet Williams white chocolate)
- 1/2 cup to 1 cup of desiccated coconut
Method
- Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
- Beat margarine and sugars until creamy (it’s ok to do this by hand).
- Add eggs and vanilla and beat well (still ok by hand..).
- In a separate bowl, combine flour(s), bi-carb soda, cinnamon and salt.
- Mix the aforementioned dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
- Add oats, sultanas/dried cranberries, chocolate chips and desiccated coconut, and mix well.
- Press into a greased baking tray or dish (I use a square pyrex dish) and bake for 30-35mins*.
*You can also use this recipe for cookies, rather than cookie bars – if so, shape into cookies, place on a tray and bake for 10 to 12 mins.
Friday Feast: Rosemary Butternut Pumpkin with Couscous
Another belated Friday Feast… this is a recipe Yankee Elv has made before, with butter. Yesterday she cooked it up for me vegan-style. Basically the only thing that changed from her previous version was using Nuttelex (vegan margarine) instead of butter. It tasted the same to me… gorgeously soft, savoury-sweet goodness. Perfect rainy-day eating, which is good, because we’re about to hit our third straight week of rain (by which I mean, days during which it has rained, not a constant monsoonal bucketing down – this is Australia, after all).
I love any recipe that allows me to use goodies from my garden (few that they are), and for this one we snip sprigs of fresh rosemary off the bush near the letterbox!
The rosemary bush at our front fence smells so good, I'm always happy to check the mail! I think I will take a cutting when we eventually move out.
Yankee Elv created this recipe based on The Pioneer Woman‘s recipe for Sweet-Roasted Rosemary Acorn Squash Wedges.
Rosemary Butternut Pumpkin with Couscous
Rosemary butternut pumpkin and onions, with couscous and infused oil (margarine).
Ingredients:
- 1 butternut pumpkin (aka butternut squash), roughly chopped
- 2 red onions, roughly chopped
- Olive oil (not a huge amount)
- Salt to taste
- 8 tabs vegan margarine (that is, 115g, 0.25lb or 1 stick)
- ½ cup brown sugar (lightly packed)
- 2 tabs fresh rosemary (minced)
Rosemary butternut pumpkin and onion over couscous.
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
- Place the pumpkin pieces in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt. Roast for 15 to 20 minutes.
- While the pumpkin is roasting, mix the margarine, brown sugar, salt and rosemary into a paste.
- Remove the pumpkin from the oven and add the onion. Gently toss to combine.
- Add dollops of the paste to the vegetables.
- Return the dish to the oven for approximately 30 minutes, roasting until the vegetables are tender and caramelised.
Note: Halfway through roasting, your paste will have become a sauce. It is recommended that you brush or spoon the sauce over the top of the vegetables at this point, then continue roasting until they are ready. - Serve over couscous*, drizzling more sauce over the top.
*Cook the couscous with a bit of salt for an even more obvious contrast between savoury and sweet. Super yum!
Look at the texture of the onion - yum!
This recipe will leave you with lots of sweet rosemary, onion and pumpkin infused oil (melted margarine). Don’t throw it out! Keep it and use it on other vegetables, spread it on crusty bread or use it as a base for another dish.
Rosemary roasted butternut pumpkin in the baking dish, with lots of leftover melted margarine.
This post was entered into the Grow Your Own roundup, created by Andrea’s Recipes and hosted for March 2010 by House of Annie.
Friday Feast: Vegan French Toast
Yankee Elv has made me vegan French toast before, but this is the best one so far. She got it from the vegancooking community on Livejournal, which is a fantastic resource for recipes as well as general advice. It’s from this Fronch Toast and Eggplant Parmasean post. It was super tasty, and not soggy like the last recipe we tried, although that may have been partially because the toast sat in a low oven for 15 minutes, staying warm while the non-vegan French toast was cooked for Mr Teeny-bop. We ate our French toast for dinner, with maple-flavoured syrup and agave nectar. Nom!
The original version of this recipe came from the Post Punk Kitchen, and called for chickpea flour instead of gluten-free plain flour, to give it an ‘eggier’ taste. We didn’t have any on hand though. We can’t get soy creamer in Australia, so instead of doing half a cup each of soy creamer and soy (or rice) milk as the recipe called for, Yankee Elv just used a whole cup of soy milk. I was sure we had cornflour in the cupboard (called cornstarch in the USA), but when we looked in the pantry there was none. We used custard powder instead.. it’s just yellow-tinted, vanilla-flavoured cornflour anyway, and it worked just as well. Besides, we have heaps of it and it needs to be used!
The French toast was also cooked it in Nuttelex (vegan margarine) in the pan, instead of oil – which, in my opinion, was a better idea; the oil would have given it a funny taste, I think.
Vegan French Toast
Tasty vegan French toast!
Ingredients:
- 6 slices of bread (we used slices from a small, reasonably dense loaf of sourdough)
- 2 tab cornflour (aka cornstarch; we used custard powder)
- 1 cup soy milk (or other non-dairy milk)
- 1/4 cup gluten-free plain flour (or chickpea flour, or regular plain [all-purpose] flour)
- cinnamon to taste (Yankee Elv just shakes some on top of the mixture, dips the bread in, then adds some more – that way each slice gets a decent amount of cinnamon)
- Nuttelex (vegan margarine) – enough to lightly grease the pan
Method:
- Mix the soy milk and cornflour in a wide, shallow bowl or container until cornflour is dissolved.
- Mix in the gluten-free plain flour until it is mostly absorbed (some lumps are ok), then sprinkle in some cinnamon.
- Melt the nuttelex in a pan over medium heat.
- In batches, or one at a time depending on the size of your pan, soak the bread slices in the mixture and transfer to the pan. Sprinkle some cinnamon on top of the mixture before soaking each slice.
- Cook each side for about 2 minutes; if they are not brown enough when you flip them over, heat for 1 to 2 more minutes on each side. They should be golden brown with flecks of dark brown.
- Serve immediately, or keep them in a low oven for a brief time before serving, if required.
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