Tag Archives: vegetarian

1129 Indian Spiced Peas and Tofu

I have mixed feelings about this dinner. It was good – and smelled even better – but it wasn’t a knock out, and I’m not sure how to fix it.

For one, the original recipe called for the tofu to be tossed in cornstarch, fried, then set aside for most of the recipe. I don’t love the texture of fried tofu – or the extra fat from the oil – so we sliced it, gave it a good dose of olive oil cooking spray, then broiled it – so it had better texture but not much flavor. Perhaps a ginger-y marinade would fix this?

For another, there was too much liquid. The original recipe called for 28 oz diced tomatoes in liquid plus 1/4-1/2 cup water or broth. I used fresh tomatoes but only had about a cup on hand, so I supplemented with a couple of diced peppers. This meant that I added significantly less liquid to the pan than called for, and it still was a bit wet. I’m not sure where the liquid is supposed to go, as everything in the recipe is full of its own moisture and certainly doesn’t need any extra. I’m also wondering if coconut milk might be a nice substitute?

Finally, the seasoning. Adding more of everything that originally called for – plus a teaspoon of red pepper flakes – gave the recipe a nice heat, but we both found ourselves salting generously. Perhaps more salt and the coconut milk previously suggested would help?

Regardless, this was a fast and healthy dish, and made enough for dinner for the two of us and three lunch portions when served with steamed Jasmine rice.

Indian Spiced Peas and Tofu
Adapted from Whole Foods, presented as I made it. See above for suggested modifications.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 (14-ounce) package extra firm tofu, drained, and pressed for at least a few hours to extract extra moisture
2 yellow onions, very thinly sliced
1 generous tablespoon finely chopped fresh ginger
1 generous tablespoon garam masala
1 generous teaspoon red pepper flakes
1-2 cups diced tomatoes
1 cup diced bell peppers – I used green and red
1/4 cup water or vegetable broth
1 (1-pound) bag frozen green peas, thawed
Salt and pepper to taste

Slice the tofu into 1″ pieces, then slice again into bite sized triangles. Spread on a broiler-safe pan lined with tinfoil, then spray evenly with non-stick spray or brush with olive oil. Place under preheated broiler for about 8 minutes on each side, or until golden and a little crispy.

Heat oil in a large skillet, add onions and ginger and cook, stirring often, until golden brown. Add spices, tomatoes, and peppers and simmer for 5 minutes. Add water or broth, peas and tofu, reduce heat, cover and gently simmer for 10 minutes more. Season with salt and pepper, then spoon over rice and serve.

1113 Tomato Bisque

Shane’s gone for the weekend – more moped stuff in Cleveland – and I’ve got a whole lot of nothing planned. This morning I drank coffee, made a trip to the garden, and made a lovely soup for a late lunch while watching the Iowa game which, by the way, I don’t want to talk about. I would, however, like to talk about this soup.

Lo these many years ago, in an apartment on 12th Street in Rockford, I started to get interested in food. I knew enough to be dangerous to myself and others – I could scramble eggs, make an awesome batch of mashed potatoes, and follow the instructions on packaged food. I had been vegetarian for a few years, so anything I might’ve known about preparing meat had long escaped my mind. I was living with my boyfriend and two coworker friends, and while we all liked to eat, none of us liked to do the dishes.

When my roommates moved out and I didn’t have automatic Must See TV pineapple pizza ordering companions, I started to give the whole cooking thing a go. This tomato bisque was one of the first things I mastered, one of the first recipes I could make without frantic trips to the store (where the hell are the pine nuts?) or phone calls to my mom (what’s something easy I can do with chicken?). Paired with Jeff Perri’s grilled cheese sandwiches, it was my go to meal for the longest time.

So that’s what I did for lunch this afternoon: tomato bisque made from a whole bunch of the green tomatoes that finally ripened, with a bit of purloined dill for a more complex flavor. I didn’t have cream on hand, so I whisked in a bit of yogurt – not the same, but good enough. Add some crusty bread and a Spotted Cow, and you’ve got yourself a great afternoon.

Recipe:
Tomato Bisque from Fine Cooking

1109 TVP Tacos

I’m not sure what possessed me to pick up TVP the other day, other than that it seemed like it might be an inexpensive and healthy way to get a bit more protein into our diets. Once I dumped the TVP out into a canister at home, however, I realized I had no idea what to do with it. It’s pretty strange stuff – a soy protein extruded, in the words of Wikipedia, into “a fibrous spongy matrix that is similar in texture to meat”. Weird.

Anyway, tonight I decided to give it a go. TVP is notoriously short on flavor, but I suspected that rehydrating it while also rehydrating a dried chipotle pepper might give it a subtle kick – which mostly worked, though the TVP still had a ways to go before being palatable. Using the same basic recipe as our tempeh tacos, I sauteed the TVP in some vegetable oil with a finely diced onion, a chili or two, cumin, coriander, and a fair amount of salt and pepper. When the TVP was cooked through and starting to brown, I pulled it out of the skillet, then quickly stir-fried up a couple of cups of mushrooms in the skillet’s residual spices. We rolled the TVP, mushrooms, and a cubed roasted butternut squash up into vegan burritos. All in all, not outstanding, but a reasonably good first effort at using TVP.

Recipe:
Tempeh tacos

1108 Peanut Tofu and Veg

This dinner was delicious, you guys. Even better, it required minimal prep and minimal hand-on cooking time – and the former could be reduced by using store-bought peanut sauce. Simple, plenty of protein, and full of veggie goodness. I could use a few more adjectives to tell you how much we liked it, but instead I will tell you that even though this recipe was supposed to serve four, we ate the whole damned thing, compulsively plucking mushrooms and cubed tofu out of the serving bowl long after we intended to stop.

Tofu and Mushrooms with Peanut Sauce
Adapted from The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook

1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
3/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 garlic cloves, grated
Thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
Generous pinch of red pepper flakes
1 large onion, coarsely chopped

1 pound block extra-firm tofu
2 cups quartered mushrooms (or more if you’ve got ‘em)
1 bell pepper, cut into 1″ chunks

Combine the first set of ingredients, then refrigerate for at least an hour or up to five days. Add the tofu and marinate at least half an hour or up to overnight. When you’re ready for dinner, preheat your grill or broiler. Thread the tofu, mushrooms, and peppers on skewers, brushing everything with the peanut sauce. If you’re using the broiler, you can alternately just put everything on a foil-lined baking sheet. Grill or broil, turning once until the mushrooms are cooked through and the tofu is lightly charred, about 10-15 minutes total.

1105 Stroganoff in Theory Only

I COOKED tonight, can you believe it? I don’t know if it was necessarily successful, but I did make dinner and then I ate it, and I have leftovers that I might eat for breakfast tomorrow. It just wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. I was aiming for the flavors of a stroganoff – except with mushrooms and tofu instead of beef. And I didn’t have sour cream. Or heavy cream. Or yogurt of any variety. As you might imagine, what I ended up preparing bore absolutely no resemblance to stroganoff.

I drained and pressed a block of tofu in the fridge all day, so when I got home, I sliced half of it and topped it with a marinade of balsamic vinegar, sherry, garlic, and a little bit of olive oil. Half an hour later, those slices of tofu went under the broiler for about 8 minutes on each side – just enough to get crispy – while I sauteed a cup or so of sliced mushrooms in butter and the remaining marinade. In an attempt to make the sauce thicker and creamier, I added cottage cheese (I know, what was I thinking?!), which got all melty but didn’t make anything that resembled a sauce. The end result was, well, interesting, but I ate it right up.

What I should have made:
Mushroom stroganoff from Food Network

1011 Braise and Broil

Tonight’s dinner was all improv, all the time. I bought an ambercup squash at the market the other weekend with the intention of Trying a New Vegetable – and then it sat neglected on the windowsill until tonight, when I needed something to go with the tofu that I’d also bought the other weekend with the intention of Trying Something New with Tofu. Are you sensing a theme here?

Using a modification of my previous recipe, I marinated a block of extra-firm tofu, then peeled and cubed the squash, which went into the new enameled pot on the stove along with an onion, butter, and apple cider. I had in mind cubes of soft sweetened squash, but ended up with a bright orange mash – which was just fine. The tofu took about 20 minutes under the broiler in the toaster oven, and then we had an excellent dinner full of fall colors.

For the tofu:
16 oz package extra-firm tofu, drained and pressed
1/8 cup tamari + more to taste
1/8 cup oyster sauce
1/8 cup fish sauce
1/16 cup vegetable oil

Whisk together liquids and taste – it should be salty and sweet, with a bit of funk from the fish sauce. I bet the marinade would be killer with a bit of grated ginger and garlic, but I had neither handy. Adjust to taste – these are rough measures. Slice the tofu into triangles and place in a large flat container, then top with the liquid. Set aside to marinate for at least 30 minutes. Preheat the broiler and spread the marinated tofu on a broiler safe pan in a single layer. Broil about 10 minutes on each side, or until cooked through.

For the squash:
a knob of butter
1 medium yellow onion
1 small winter squash (butternut or ambercup are beautiful, others would likely work as well), cut into cubes
1 cup apple cider
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Melt the butter in a medium-sized pot or saucepan with a tightly-fitting lid. Sweat the onion in the butter for a bit, then add the cubes of squash and toss around to coat. Add the cider, cover, and simmer until the squash is soft. At this point you could puree it, add stock, and make a simple soup – or just mash it up with a heavy spoon for a sweet and textured side dish.

A Week of Bachelor Eating

I could tell you all of the pathetic meals I dreamed up while Shane was gone. We hadn’t totally restocked the fridge, and I wasn’t totally in cooking mode yet. I went to Ferndale for a half day, and then had houseguests for three nights. My meal planning went something like this:

Open the fridge. Stare at the contents.
Open the crisper drawers. Move a few things around.
Open the cabinet. Stare at the contents.
Return to the fridge. Complain to the cats that I didn’t want to eat anything in the fridge.

And so it went for nearly a week while Shane ate his fill of schnitzel and weird vegetable terrines, with the occasional good meal sandwiched between a lot of odd conference food. One night I had yogurt, a pear, and peanut butter toast for dinner. Another night my Couchsurfers treated me to dinner at the Roadhouse, where I had excellent, if overly mustardy, pulled pork and we split two desserts three ways:

After the Roadhouse dinner, I was determined to get my ass back in the kitchen, so I pressed a block of tofu overnight and made this:

For the tofu:
16 oz package extra-firm tofu
1 tbsp tamari
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, one crushed, the other thinly sliced

Press the tofu in the fridge overnight to get rid of excess moisture. Slice into 8-10 slices of roughly equal sizes, then marinate in the remaining ingredients for 30 minutes to one hour, then broil until cooked through and golden, about 10 minutes on each side.

For the sprouts:
1-2 cups fresh brussels sprouts, halved, stem end removed
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp butter

In a medium saute pan, melt the butter, then add the garlic and saute until golden. Add your sprouts and cook over medium heat until a little golden and a little wilted. I find it’s helpful to cover the sprouts to help them sweat a bit. Yum yum.

I also had a great squash idea, involving one acorn squash and some leftover pancetta:

Photo by burtonwood + holmes

Preheat your oven to 375. Take a small acorn squash. Cut it in half with a sharp knife. It’s probably safest to cut off the top so that you have a flat surface and the squash doesn’t rock around. Place your squash halves on a baking sheet and add a spoonful of brown sugar to each half. Top each half with a thin slice of pancetta, then place in the oven. Forget about it for an hour or so until your house smells amazing. The pancetta will be crispy, and the interior of the squash flavorful from the rendered fat and the brown sugar. You might want a pinch of salt, but that’s about all you’ll need.

Long story short: I’m glad Shane’s home and that we can go back to eating like civilized people.

0913 Vegan Chili

I had a damned good cup of chili at Monk’s Kettle, and that, along with Tina’s enthusiasm for her new slow cooker, inspired me to make chili tonight. Well, last night and today, really, as I did all of the prepwork in advance and just dumped a bunch of stuff in the crockpot this morning, leaving a VERY BIG NOTE for Shane to please please pretty please turn the crockpot on when he left for work.

We came home to the hearty aromas of chili. You’ve gotta love walking in the door after a long day and having dinner already done, right? Much less a dinner that smelled and tasted as good as this one. I don’t have a precise recipe, but what I did went something like this:

1 cup dried kidney beans
2-3 medium carrots, sliced into coins
1 bell pepper, diced
2 medium onions, diced
2 cups crimini (or white button) mushrooms, washed and halved
2 cups diced tomato (1 14 oz can or 2 medium tomatoes)
A hearty spoonful each of: tomato paste, cumin, and coriander.
2 dried chilies, chopped, or 2 tsp red pepper flakes
A generous amount of salt and freshly ground pepper
Water

Prep your vegetables the night before. Put your beans in the crockpot and cover them with water. Do NOT turn the crockpot on. Go to bed and get a decent night’s sleep. In the morning, drain and rinse your beans, then put them back in the crockpot and add the rest of the ingredients. Add enough water to barely cover everything. Turn your crockpot on LOW and go to work or otherwise pass 7-8 hours.

We didn’t have any cheese or sour cream or yogurt on hand, but all of these things would be good over your chili. I would recommend cornbread or white rice under your chili, or spaghetti if you’re from Cincinnati. Again, none of these on hand, but we made it work.

Photo by flyzipper, whose chili recipe looks damned good as well!

0815 Pisto Manchego

Photo by zordor

Without actually realizing it, I think I’ve been making pisto manchego all summer. A Spanish take on ratatouille, it is peasant food at its finest – putting together a bit of whatever’s available to make a filling and nutritious meal. This recipe did an effective job of clearing out the crisper, using up the a handful of tomatoes, two peppers, and yellow summer squash all from our garden.

What the recipe lacks, however, is much spice. As I was sauteing the vegetables, I was concerned that the dish was going to be boring, that I’d just wasted the last squash from our garden – curse you, cucumber beetles! The recipe recommended serving the dish with tinned tuna or hard boiled eggs – we went with the former, and it made all the difference. We were both quite pleasantly surprised by the complexity of flavors, especially the sweetness of the pepper in contrast with the savory fish. I’d like to try this again with fried eggs – perhaps a Spanish improvement on the shakshuka from earlier in the year.

Pisto Manchego
Adapted from Spanish

1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 Spanish onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 medium green peppers, seeded and chopped
2 medium zucchinis, thinly sliced
3 medium tomatoes, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
salt and freshly ground black pepper
hard boiled eggs (optional)
tuna in olive oil (optional)

Heat the oil in a large heavy pan – larger than you think you’ll need, trust me – and cook the garlic and onion until soft. Add the peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes. Season well and cook gently for about 20 minutes. If you’ve used a pan that’s too small to allow everything to make contact with the cooking surface, it may help to cover your pan with a lid for part of the cooking time. Stir in parsley just before serving. Can be served hot, topped with chopped egg or tuna, or cold with a drizzle of olive oil.

0803 Farfalle with Caramelized Onions, Sugar Snap Peas, and Ricotta

The June 2009 issue of Bon Appetit lingered on my dresser, unread, for nearly a year until Maria pointed out the profile of Niagara-on-the-Lake, which led us to a couple of delicious destinations on our recent trip. Since then, we’ve made at least three dishes from this issue, including last week’s wonderful polenta with a bunch of veg. I’m not sure what the moral of this story is – maybe that I should neglect my cookbooks more often?

Tonight’s dinner was yet another success from the June ’09 issue – a pasta that was light but rich, fresh while also creamy. I substituted farfalle for the orecchiette, and halved the amount of pasta, which resulted in a very good pasta to stuff ratio. The onions totally melted away into a golden sweetness, and the ricotta was just enough to coat without overwhelming the flavors. Shane took one bite and remarked that it was very fresh! We both thought this would be good with asparagus or peas, or with chicken added. We’ll definitely be making this again, which is more than I can say for the last riff on mac and cheese that we tried.

Recipe:
Orecchiette with Caramelized Onions, Sugar Snap Peas, and Ricotta Cheese from Bon Appetit