NUTS

Same old, same old. That has been my menu lately. It occurred to me that since nuts were healthy, there must be a vegan recipe out there that used nuts as a main ingredient that I could add to my repertoire. So today I bring you a very simple Walnut sauce.

My two go to places to check out nutrition, World's Healthiest Foods and Dr. Michael Greger's website say that walnuts are high in omega 3 fatty acids. They rave about many benefits of eating walnuts. The one that really caught my eye was the idea that a handful of walnuts everyday will reduce weight gain around the mid section.  

This very simple sauce reminds me of pesto. The prominent flavor is garlic. If you don't like garlic, other spices will work very nicely. Substitute the garlic with peppers or celery seeds. I imagine cilantro and chopped cherry tomatoes would be lovely. 

Walnut - Garlic Sauce

3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 small garlic clove
2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup boiling water
pepper

Put walnuts, garlic, olive oil and salt into a blender and blend until smooth. Add 1/4 cup boiling water. Check the consistency. Add water if needed.

Serve over noodles.
Nest time I will garnish with chopped walnuts and chopped parsley.

I chopped up some beet greens and fried them quickly in olive oil and a little chopped garlic to serve with the pasta. It was wonderful. A surprisingly satisfying break from rice and beans.

Seitan, Onion, and Mushroom Pasta

You can use any type of pasta in your cupboard. The first night I used  penne; the second night, I used spaghetti. They were what I had in my pantry. The sauce is what makes this dish. Now if only I could figure out how to take food photos as well as I do scenics, you wouldn't have to take my word for how good this recipe tastes.

Seldom does any dish, vegan or otherwise, taste so good I make it two nights in a row. That all changed when I created the following recipe. You can call it good luck or blessed endeavor. I call it serendipity. I had no idea what I was making when I began throwing things together and nobody was more surprised at how it turned out than me.

While there have been many times in my life that I've eaten the same thing twice in a row because of leftovers, never have I purposely cooked the same thing twice. From someone who hates to be in the kitchen as much as I do, my belief is that every meal should be something quite different than the one before it or else why bother cooking at all?

I suppose that belief came out of living with my husband of 53 years who never ate a leftover in his life until he married me. He came from such a poor family that there was barely enough food to go around, let alone have any left. So when I placed leftovers on the dinner table just a few weeks into wedded bliss, he kindly informed me not to do it again. That began my quest to turn leftovers into something entirely different by dragging things out of the frig and cupboards to disguise the original meal. I got really good at it. And even though Jim figured out what I was up to, he didn't mind because the whole result tasted far different than what I'd started with.

Now all of that to say that when I looked in my frig this week and saw a bunch of mushrooms that needed to be used and a package of seitan, which I'd yet to try, I decided to put them together. The dish was a process of tasting and adding and then declaring it good. Truthfully, the result tasted like I had put meat in it. Perhaps pork or chicken. But it was just a seitan trick to fool my palette. A vegan friend had informed me that seitan tasted nasty and that's why I had let mine sit in my frig for so long. However, the store bought seitan I used was to the point of being delicious. Figure that one out.

The recipe is so simple, you may laugh at me for bragging about how it turned out. Considering I've been a vegan for only 5 months, I ended up patting myself on the back for creating something that was not only edible but enjoyable. Give the recipe a try and see what you think. Then let me know. The people I served it to the second night I made it devoured it with relish and declared it one of my best vegan meals yet. Who knew?

SEITAN, ONION, AND MUSHROOM PASTA

This recipe involved cooking the pasta, making the bechamel sauce, and sauteing the vegetables. You can choose the order in which you build the meal.

In a saute pan put:

2 Tbs. olive oil

1/2 of a medium onion, minced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

Cook till the onions are translucent. Turn them onto a place to cool.

In the same pan put:

2 Tbs. olive oil

1/2 of an 8 oz package of purchased seitan, cut into thin strips

Brown the seitan till it resembles meat. Set aside with the cooling onions.

Wipe out the saute pan so it's dry.

Add to the pan:

1/2 lb. of brown mushrooms, chopped. I used criminis.

Cook on low till all the water is evaporated and the mushrooms are completely dry. Do NOT salt the mushrooms and do not use oil for browning. It will make the mushrooms slippery.

Into the saute pan place:

All the onion and garlic mixture, the seitan, and the mushrooms. Add salt and pepper to taste. Put the pan on a back burner to stay warm.

COOK THE PASTA

While the above ingredients are cooking, set a pan of salted water on the stove to come to a boil. Cook the pasta according to package directions. I used 8 oz. for this recipe and it was plenty.

BECHAMEL SAUCE

4 Tbs. olive oil

4 Tbs. flour

Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the flour and cook about 3 minutes or until the flour comes together. The mixture will be lumpy. That's normal. Do not shorten this step or the raw flour taste will ruin your sauce.

Using a whisk, slowly stir in:

2 cups of creamy soy milk, either warm or at room temperature. Do not use it cold as it won't whisk in well.

Cook the sauce, whisking continuously until it begins to thicken. Lower the heat and cook a minute or so longer. If the sauce is too loose, let it cook another minute or so; too thick, whisk in more soy milk.

When the sauce is the consistency you wish, grate fresh nutmeg into it and add salt and pepper to taste. I also added a tiny pinch of cayenne because I like spicy.

Add the sauce to the saute pan with the seitan/vegetables/mushrooms in it. Mix well. Now add the pasta, along with a bit of the pasta water if need be. Stir everything together and let it cook a minute or so to blend flavors. Serves 3-4

Raosted Tomato & Orzo Pasta Salad

My inspiration this week came from the Food channel's Glada at Home. She prepared a side pasta with roasted tomatoes blended into a vinaigrette, then added to the warm orzo. I didn't have fresh basil, so I substituted flat leaf parsley and also tweaked the seasoning to suit my taste buds. I will definitely make this again! Perhaps next week I will prepare a version of the
eggplant napoleon she made in the same episode, where I will need to eliminate the dairy.












Ingredients:

1 lb. orzo pasta (uncooked)
1 lb. tomato
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup parsley
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon summer savory
2 teaspoons salt

1. Prepare the orzo pasta according to package directions, be sure to salt the water. Drain and set aside.



2. Slice tomatoes and lay onto baking sheet. Broil until skin blisters and browns. Glada used cherry tomatoes and roasted them in a bare hot skillet (no oil), if you would rather.



3. Put roasted tomatoes in a blender or food processor. I used a hand blender. Heck, if you're feeling energetic, go at it with a fork! Blend the rest of the ingredients together.



4. Mix this sauce into the pasta and serve immediately.

This side dish is sweet, tangy, savory and spicy. It's filling and delicious!

Hoppy Easter!!!

How do you say Vegan in Italian?

Ah, there are many answers to that question. But the one for this week is Pasta al Cavolfiore ed Estratto! Miki and I were talking about the absence of butter, eggs, cream and cheese in the vegan palette for cooking. I know there are substitutes but we decided to try to find a recipe that stood on its own.

The Italian cooks do wonderful things with their vedura/vegetables combining them with fresh herbs and and some unusual companions. A few weeks spent in Sicily many, many summers ago introduced me to the antipasti tradition unlike we are use to here. Each small restaurant we went to had a table on one side of the room with large platters of every kind of vegetable that was in season prepared in different ways and served at room temperature. These dishes far outnumbered the meat and cheese platters. If you chose to have the antipasti you would help yourself from that table. Fantastic.

As there was a lovely head of cauliflower in the fridge just waiting to be nurtured into something wonderful we found this recipe for Pasta with Cauliflower and Sun-Dried Tomato Paste. It stands beautifully on its own, no cheese recommenced as it would conflict with the sweetness of the sauce.

It is delizioso and was even better the next day for lunch. Buono Appitito!

1 head cauliflower, cut into quarters

4 TBS extra-virgin olive oil

1 large onion diced

4 TBS sun-dried tomato paste

3 TBS raisins

2 TBS pine nuts

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 LB imported pasta (we used whole wheat)

Cook the cauliflower in salted water until crisp. Lift out of water, drain and cut into small flowerets. Reserve cooking water for the cooking of the pasta.

Combine olive oil, diced onion and cook over low heat for 5 minutes. Add a few tablespoons of the cooking water and continue cooking onion until gold and tender. Add tomato past, 1 cup of reserved water and stir well. Bring to simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Add cauliflower, raisins, pine nuts, salt and pepper. Cook covered over low heat for 30 minutes. You may add water up to 1 cup until sauce becomes a course puree. Season again with pepper.

Cook the pasta in the remaining cauliflower cooking water adding more if needed.

Place pasta in a bowl, drizzle with sun-dried tomato olive oil and toss. Add sauce to pasta and toss. Let rest a minute or so and toss again before serving. Cheese is not needed for this dish.

Red Beans, Penne, Roasted Peppers and Garlic

The west coast has been basking in delightful weather for over a week. It's hard to stay inside. After the big rains, everything is greener, blooming, fresh and settled. I look out over my weedy backyard and am not discouraged. Another good reason to leave the computer and head outside.

Dinner tonight was inspired in part by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's book The Vegan Table. It's a book designed for entertaining, with delightful menus. I used her spicy black bean burgers as a guide for the red bean balls. I think these are quite tasty. I left out her onion and added the roasted garlic.

Brown rice penne noodles have been on my menu everyday this week. It must be the fresh air and physical activity that has me craving carbs. Just look at them. What a backdrop for flavors and color.


The Recipe
2 red bell peppers
2 heads garlic
1 jalapeno pepper

2 cups cooked red beans
1/4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
2 tsp chili power
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBLS fresh parsley chopped
2 slices bread, cubed (1 cup)

1/4 cup corn meal
4 Tbls safflower oil

1 small bunch kale
12 oz brown rice Penne noodles
1-2 tsp salt

Heat oven to 350 degrees and roast for one hour: 2 red bell peppers and 2 heads of garlic; add 1 jalapeno pepper for last 20 minutes. cool

In blender: combine one roasted pepper, the cloves from one head roasted garlic and 1/2 roasted jalapeno pepper, 1/4 tsp cumin, 2 tsp chili pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp oregano

In a bowl mash 2 cups cooked red beans with potato masher and add the above vegetables and spices; with your hands mix in 2 slices of fresh bread cut into cubes. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Skin the second roasted red pepper, and dice. Put in a big bowl.

Remove the garlic meat from the second head of garlic and add to bowl.

Remove the stems and tough spine from kale leaves and discard. Chop the kale leaves and add to bowl.

Cover and set aside. Keep at room temperature.

Fill a large kettle with water and 1-2 tsp salt for the penne noodles. When water comes to a boil add the noodles and cook according to package directions.

Now it's time to make the red bean balls. The bean mixture may be a little moist, but don't worry. Shape roughly into a balls using about 1-2 tbls of bean mixture and roll in the corn meal. In small batches, fry in safflower oil until crisp. Keep warm.

When noodles are cooked, drain and dump steaming hot into the bowl of chopped red pepper, garlic and kale. Toss. The hot noodles will steam the kale.

Serve hot with red bean balls. Delicious.

Endings and Beginnings.

Well, it's official. I am unemployed. Saturday was my last day at work and I managed to avoid working on Valentine's Day for the first time in over 20 years. Time to load up and move to Arkansas but not before tying up lots of loose ends and saying some adieus.

Today I met my dear friend Mendi for lunch at the Spiral Diner in Ft. Worth. She is a fellow florist but it's not her first love and she is pursuing her degree in the fall. A new beginning for her as well. We have been horrible about keeping in touch although we only live an hour away from each other. I have been trying to rook her into blogging with us one day a week but she has a husband and two kids and the logistics of it would not work for her. And I don't think her intro to vegan food today impressed her much. Although, she is too much of a lady to say so. She had a burrito that did not look very appealing but my curried noodle dish was excellent. The Ft. Worth location seems to be much more grounded and consistent than the Dallas one. But I think that of the the city as well, less flash but more substance. She will be one of the things I will miss. We have some shared memories and she has had a few nice things to say about me lately. Flattery doesn't even have to be true to feel good.


I feel spring in the air after our heavy snowfall of last week and made my favorite "take to the picnic/potluck" dish. I veganized it by making a vegan "feta" from a recipe I found on recipezaar. The original recipe is from epicurious. It is one of those dishes that tastes even better the day after. Use full fat feta if you are not vegan.

"Feta"

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 lb firm tofu, herb flavored, cubed or crumbled

Whisk together all ingredients except the tofu to make a marinade. Crumble the tofu into the marinade and marinate a few hours or overnight. Drain before adding to the orzo.

Orzo

1 pound orzo
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
1 1/4 cups "feta "(6 ounces), crumbled
1 cup thinly sliced scallion greens

Cook orzo in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water until tender, then drain well in a colander.
Whisk together lemon juice, oil, and salt and pepper to taste in a large bowl, then add hot orzo and toss. Cool orzo, then toss with pine nuts, feta, and scallion greens. Season with salt and pepper.


This recipe is one of those that you can modify according to your tastes. I added dried cranberries. If you have access to nice tomatoes, toss em in. Chopped basil would work nicely if you added them just before serving.The "feta" has the taste if a somewhat wetter constency. Mr. Carnivore was even impressed!

Garlic Time

I swear it is my favorite vegetable. There is very little I will not eat it in or on. I have been carrying around a recipe in my head for years, from an Italian restaurant I used to frequent in Ft. Lauderdale. It is for a simple Marinara Sauce that is made delectable by the addition of sliced garlic that has been sauteed in olive oil until it is browned and crispy. I use a whole head more or less. Saute it until brown not burned, add a shake of red pepper flakes and then take off the burner. SLOWLY add a can of whole tomatoes with their juice(San Marzano if you can get em). Breakup the tomatoes with the back of a wooden spoon or spatula, add a handful of chopped basil, a few grinds of black pepper and a couple of pinches of sugar. Slowly simmer for 20 or 30 minutes, no more. The combination of the hot/sweet with the acid of the tomatoes and the musky taste of the toasted garlic is cosmic. No carrots or onions or peppers here. I am a purist. Some al dente spaghetti, a side salad and a bottle of red, perfect meal.

Tonight we make vegan stuffed shells with spinach and marinara sauce. I adapted this recipe from "Vegan With a Vengance" , the back of the pasta box and memory. I grew up around a lot of Italian Americans and stuffed shells were a staple.

1lb firm tofu pressed

2 tsp lemon juice

1 clove garlic minced or much more according to taste

a pinch of black pepper and salt

a handful of finely chopped basil leaves

4 tsp olive oil

1/3 cup nutritional yeast

12oz package frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

12oz package jumbo shells, parboiled for 10 minutes and rinsed

1 recipe John's Fond Memory Marinara Sauce

Preheat the oven to 350. Drain and press tofu for 30 minutes or so. Mash the tofu in a large bowl until it is crumbly. Add the lemon juice, garlic , salt, pepper, basil and nutmeg. Mash with your hands until it is the consistency of ricotta cheese. Add the spinach, mixup and then add the olive oil. Mix with a fork now and add nutritional yeast and mix till incorporated.

Stuff shells with the spinach mixture. Place half of the sauce in a casserole, add the shells and pour the rest of the sauce over the shells. Bake for 30 minutes. Serve with garlic bread.

Buon Gusto!

On a more serious note...For those of you not wanting to expose yourself to Roundup Ready genetically modified seed, you might consider buying tofu made from organic soybeans. My local Kroger carries Vitasoy. Roundup Ready seed has been genetically altered so that the farmer can spray his fields with Round Up and it will not kill the plant. Just all the plants around it. I make no judgements but admit that I already have way too many bad habits to take chances. If they listed Roundup as an ingredient, would anyone buy it?

Today I'm a Vegan

It's here, in the house, sniffles and cough and aches. Out with the juicer and the 8# bag of oranges from the Farmers Market. Nothing like it. Fresh squeezed orange juice all around. For $5.00 you can get 8# of Valencia oranges, easily enough for 3 qts of juice. Now, there's a bargain. Sweet, refreshing vitamin C.

Today I super glued a finger of my left hand and a finger of my right hand to a toy I was repairing. Awkward. I had to soak my fingers and the toy in fingernail polish remover for about 20 minutes before I could get free. You don't want to know what I was thinking. Stuck was an understatement.

Today One-Three told me that she learned on a TV program that geckos were veterinarians. What's a veterinarian? I asked her, fully expecting her to tell me that they eat vegetables. But no, she said that they take care of sick animals. I wonder if she has the image of the Geico Gecko in her head, taking care of animals. I did tell her about vegetarians and now she's clear.

Today I watched a bird carry off a snake's tail, and watched the snake slither away. Then the bird dropped the tail and the tail swung to the left and formed an O, then swung to the right and formed an O, over and over. Nature.

Today I made some Vegetable Broth. It's in vegan recipes all the time, right where I would normally use chicken stock. I'm sure vegetable broth is rich in vitamins and minerals. But I wonder. If you make vegetable stock, and throw out all the veggies, does that mean that when we boil potatoes, the nutrition is mostly in the water? What good vitamins and minerals did I throw out today? What would Alton Brown say about that?

Vegetable Broth
2 qts water
1 tsp or more salt
2 large onions, peeled and quartered
6 garlic cloves, peeled
2 large carrots, scrubbed and thickly sliced
2 large potatoes, scrubbed and quartered
2 leeks, white part only, cleaned and thickly sliced
2 celery stalks, thickly sliced
12 whole peppercorns
1 bay leaf
couple of sprigs of parsley
couple of sprigs of thyme

Throw it all in a big pot, bring to a boil, turn it down to a simmer and let it go for 2 hours. Strain and throw the vegetables away. I know. What a waste. There you have it. Vegetable stock.

I had sick-one and sick-two try it. It got two thumbs down. "What did it taste like?" I asked sick-two, thinking maybe she didn't really try it. "Onions" she said. It does taste like onions. And why wouldn't it? Onions, garlic, and leeks. I don't think Vegetable Stock is ever supposed to be the main event, it's the base. Is it also a waste?

I packaged most of it in plastic bags in 2 cup portions and froze it. Two cups I left in the refrigerator to use as a base for a sauce later this week.

By now you know that I'm a big fan of the online NY Times. In the fitness and nutrition section I found a recipe for Pasta with Shell Beans and Tomatoes. It looked straight forward and allergy free if I used Brown Rice pasta. What I didn't expect is that it would be such a pleasure to prepare. It was the sauce that was all the fun.

Here it is - from Martha Rose Shulman's column, with my notes.

1 to 1 1/4 pound shell beans (about 1 3/4 cups) I used 2 cans of cannelini beans.
1 small onion halved
7 cups water
2 garlic cloves crushed
a bouquet garni made with a few sprigs each of parsley, thyme, sage and a bay leaf.
That bouquet garni got me all giddy because I have all of those in my garden. Yes, even the bay leaf.

Because I used canned beans I modified this part - I wanted to infuse the beans with the other flavors, so I chopped up the onion and sauted it with the garlic, then I added the beans, a cup of water and the bouquet garni and let it slowly simmer - I turned off the heat and let them get acquainted until it was time to add them to the noodles - only then did I take out the bouquet and throw it out.

2 pounds tomatoes
2 tbls EVOO
a pinch of sugar
1 large basil sprig, plus a hadfull of fresh basil leaves, slivered

OK - this sauce is the bomb - the Italian spirit was standing at my side - this is her sauce, a simple tomato sauce.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and drop in the tomatoes. Blanch for 30 seconds and transfer to a bowl of cold water. Drain, core and peel. Cut the tomatoes in half. Place a strainer over a bowl and squeeze the seeds out of the tomatoes into the strainer. Press the seed pods against the strainer to extract as much juice as you can and then discard the seeds. Chop the tomatoes.

Heat olive oil in a large heavy skillet over medium heat, add the minced garlic. Cook, stirring until fragrant, about 30 seconds, add the tomatoes, sugar and the basil sprig. Salt to taste. Cook, stiring often until the tomatoes have cooked down to a thick sauce and smell fragrant, about 15-20 minutes. Taste and adjust the salt. Stir in 1/2 cup of the bean broth and mix together. Stir in the beans. Keep warm while you cook the pasta.



Bring water back to a boil, salt generously and add the pasta. Cook al dente, following the instructions on the package. Drain and toss with the beans, tomatoes and slivered basil. I can smell the basil. I like this dish, but mostly I loved making the sauce, adding the slivered basil at the end. This tomato sauce will go with me to other pasta dishes.