SnackFest 2012

6 Feb

To “celebrate” the Super Bowl, Jeff and I once again had SnackFest. We didn’t really have to watch the game, the quiet evening in Boston gave away the winner. At least there were no riots!

We had refried beans, made from dried pintos we soaked on Saturday and slow cooked over night. (Which is by far the best way to cook beans, it takes almost no effort.) Also included was salsa with tomatoes, red onion and lime juice. It made for delicious nachos.


Also on the menu was popcorn, which I can happily eat now that my braces are off. Served with nutritional yeast Jeff and I ate this so quickly if you blinked you wouldn’t have even seen it.


For SnackFest dessert were green tea cupcakes courtesy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I enjoyed the slightly bitter flavor imparted by the matcha powder. I had purchased a vacuum sealed thing of matcha powder probably two years ago now and finally got to use it.


Sweet Potato “Risotto”

3 Feb

Sweet Potato "Risotto" with Mushrooms

Sometimes you want a delicious, creamy rice dish like risotto without spending 20 minutes stirring broth. Jeff and I have invented some cheater’s risottos, by cooking rice normally and then stirring in something creamy afterward, we get the best of both worlds, simple and relatively effortless. This recipe uses mashed sweet potatoes mixed into steamed white rice. I particularly like the garnet “yam” as its deep orange color and delicious flavor really add a lot to this dish (yams are not genetically related to sweet potatoes yet for some reason in the US people insist on calling sweet potatoes by the name yam).

Sweet Potato “Risotto” with Mushrooms

Serves 2 as a main course, 4 as a side dish

Ingredients:

  • 1 sweet potato (garnet “yam” is great)
  • 2 Tbsp soymilk (or non-dairy milk of your choosing)
  • 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 Tbsp olive oil
  • 1 Cup white rice
  • 2 Cups water
  • 5-6 white mushrooms (optional) and 1 Tbsp olive oil for sauteeing
  • 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar (optional)

Instructions:

  1. Heat oven to 400 oF, and cook the sweet potato for 45-50 minutes, until tender.
  2. 20 min before the sweet potato is finished, cook the rice (1 Cup rice + 2 Cups water) until tender.
  3. When the sweet potato has finished cooking, slice a line through the skin lengthwise to expose the inside. Peel back the skin (be careful not to burn your fingers!) and scoop out the flesh into a medium-sized bowl.
  4. To the potato, add the soymilk, nutritional yeast and olive oil. Mash together until smooth and creamy. Then stir in the cooked rice.
  5. As an optional addition, sautee some mushrooms in olive oil for about 5 minutes until tender and juicy. Stir in balsamic vinegar until the mushrooms are completely coated.
  6. Serve the mushrooms on top of the “risotto.”
  7. Enjoy!

Roasted Tomato and Garlic Bread

27 Nov

This delicious recipe is an extremely modified version of the Roasted Red Pepper Bread recipe from the cookbook 1,001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes. I made it in its original incarnation when I was just a vegetarian many years ago, and recently decided to resurrect it to make it vegan, with a few other improvements.

This recipe features oven roasted tomatoes, which are absolutely incredible. If you find yourself with an excess of Roma tomatoes next summer, I highly recommend making them. Otherwise, feel free to use store bought sun dried tomatoes. If they are packed in oil, keep in mind you will probably have to add less water to the mix in order for the dough to have the same consistency.

Roasted Tomato and Garlic Bread

Roasted Tomato and Garlic Bread

makes 1 loaf

Ingredients:

  • 2 1/4 to 2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup whole wheat flour (you can use all-purpose flour instead if you want)
  • 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
  • 1 tsp Italian seasoning (or a pinch each of any of the following: marjoram, thyme, rosemary, savory, sage, oregano, basil)
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 package yeast (or equivalent amount of instant yeast)
  • 1 1/4 cups lukewarm or hot water (if you are using instant yeast, lukewarm is fine, otherwise use hot water)
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp roasted garlic
  • 1/2 cup coarsely chopped oven roasted tomatoes

Instructions:

  1. Combine the flour, nutritional yeast, Italian seasoning, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Stir together, and add the water and oil, mixing until smooth. Mix in the chopped tomatoes and roasted garlic. Knead by hand or with a stand mixer using the dough hook until elastic.
  2. Let the dough rise in a greased bowl, covered, in a warm place, for about 30 minutes. Punch down. Shape into a greased loaf pan and let rise again for 30 minutes.
  3. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes, until the loaf sounds hollow when you tap on the top of it.

Apple Sage Stuffed Squash

22 Nov
Apple Sage Stuffed Acorn Squash

Jeff and I recently submitted this recipe for a contest. Unfortunately, we didn’t win. Fortunately, this recipe is still delicious, and this is the perfect time to try it out as winter squash are in season. Feel free to use any kind of winter squash you like: kabocha, butternut, acorn… Acorn just happens to be one of my favorites!

Apple Sage Stuffed Squash

Serves 2.

Ingredients:
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 tbsp olive oil
1 apple (golden delicious or other tart apple), diced
1/4 cup raisins (optional)
generous pinch of dried sage
1/2 loaf of stale bread, cubed
2 cups vegetable broth
1 acorn squash, halved and seeded

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 oF.
  2. Saute onion and garlic in 2 tbsp olive oil until translucent.
  3. Add apple, raisins and sage to the skillet. Simmer for 5 minutes.
  4. Add the bread to soak up the savory oils and stir in pan to coat.
  5. Add the vegetable broth to the skillet. Simmer for 5 minutes until most of the broth is absorbed or cooked off.
  6. Rub the halved and seeded acorn squash with 2 tbsp olive oil, and pack the cavity with the stuffing.
  7. Place the squash on a baking sheet and loosely cover with foil.
  8. Bake the squash 30-40 minutes or until squash is tender (can easily be pierced with a fork.)
  9. Serve with your favorite vegan gravy.
  10. Enjoy!

11 Sep

We’re starting to see signs of autumn here in Boston, and Jeff and I went to do a first round of harvesting in our garden. For a last minute crop addition, our carrots were very successful. My mother got us these carrots from the Hudson Valley Seed Library, and we were pleased to see the carrots are all different colors. Unfortunately, I really dislike carrots unless they are cooked to make them no longer taste like carrots. I think we will pickle these with some daikon radish and ginger.After Hurricane Irene, Jeff and I were pleased to discover that our garden came out unscathed. Sadly, the copious amounts of rain the following week have. Over saturated our garden, and made a lot of our tomatoes and peppers rot on the vine. Even so, this years crop is much bigger than last years haul of a few dozen green tomatoes. This year so far we’ve had eggplant, carrots, bell and cherry peppers, pole beans, and tons of tomatoes. Each year we learn something new. This autumn we are excited to plant some seed garlic we got from the Vermont Garlic Festival. We’ll see how things go!

Instant Vegan Gnocchi Recipe

15 Aug

Gnocchi

Jeff and I are all about making things from scratch. But with our research work ramping up, the heatwave, and general laziness kicking in, we’re trying to figure out a few shortcuts. One great idea we had was making gnocchi from instant potato flakes. We found some organic flakes sold in bulk at the amazing Honest Weight Food Co-op and bought a quart to try out.

This recipe is so easy that we don’t even have to make a bunch and freeze it because it takes almost no time to make it in the first place! And all it takes is a bowl, spoon, hands and a fork to prepare.

Instant Vegan Gnocchi
Yields 2 servings

1 cup instant potato flakes (if you can, buy organic)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tbsp tapioca flour, Ener-G egg replacer, or dry egg replacer of your choice
1 cup water

  1. Prepare a medium-sized sauce pan with water over high heat to boil.
  2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the potato flakes, all-purpose flour and tapioca flour (or dry egg replacer of your choice).
  3. Add the water, and stir to combine. At some point you will want to start kneading with your hands. Continue to knead until everything is mixed.
  4. Remove teaspoon sized pieces of dough and roll into little balls. Optionally roll the balls over the tines of a fork (or if you’re fancy, a gnocchi board) to obtain the trademark gnocchi ridges.
  5. Boil for 3-5 minutes until gnocchi is tender. They will float when they’re done. Drain the pasta in a colander and serve.

Super Easy, No Cook Vegan Ice Cream Recipe

25 Jul

Ice Cream

I know I haven’t posted in ages, I was just waiting for the perfect recipe to come my way. And when it rains, it pours. For now here is a recipe I invented during the beginning of the recent heat wave. I wanted ice cream, and didn’t want to wait for it to cook and cool before putting it into my ice cream maker. Although it does require the turning on of a burner, it’s very brief and doesn’t add much to the prep time.

Super Easy, No Cook Vegan Ice Cream (Any Flavor)
Yields approx 3/4 – 1 quart

1 tbsp cornstarch + 1/2 cup soymilk
1 tsp flavor extract of your choice (vanilla or maple make great picks)
3/4 cup sugar
1 can coconut milk
1 1/2 cup additional soymilk

  1. In small saucepan, thoroughly whisk the cornstarch and 1/2 cup soymilk until completely mixed. Add the extract. Heat on medium/low until just simmering and the soymilk begins to thicken.
  2. Transfer the cornstarch/soymilk mixture to a mixing bowl and whisk in the sugar until dissolved.
  3. Add the coconut milk and additional soymilk to the mixing bowl, and stir everything together until fully mixed. (You do not have to worry about only skimming the cream from the coconut milk, just dump in the whole can!)
  4. Put into your ice cream maker and make as per your model’s instructions. It may take a few extra minutes to fully form into ice cream due to the slightly warmer temperature of the mixture, plus the whole hot summer weather making indoors without A/C very hot. Don’t worry, it’ll be worth the extra few minutes!
  5. Enjoy!

By the way, the ice cream in the photo was flavored with maple extract, and as a topping I poured on some peaches in rum sauce, recipe from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.

Recipe Roundup

18 Mar

Cast Iron Skillet This is week fourteen of the weekly Recipe Roundup, where I post the online recipes I’ve used over the past week.

  • Acorn squash quesadillas – Note: this is not a vegan recipe but is easily veganizable. Jeff and I made this with some homemade flour tortillas, and used Buffalo Mostarella from The Uncheese Cookbook instead of cow cheese. I liked the squash filling but I didn’t think it was “taco” enough, it just didn’t wow my tastebuds as much as most Latin inspired cuisine does. I think that would have been solved with salsa (as the recipe suggests and we didn’t make) or guacamole. Also, this recipe made me realize how much more I like corn tortillas than flour. Finally, I wouldn’t recommend using the Buffalo Mostarella cheeze with these quesadillas, as the flavor doesn’t really meld with that of the squash filling. I think your favorite vegan cheezy sauce will probably do just fine if it’s not too strong.

Check out previous Recipe Roundups: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen

Switch to FeedBurner

12 Mar

I just switched Vegtopia to FeedBurner, I’m not sure if this will affect current RSS subscriptions. If you stop getting our updates, please change your subscription URL to: http://feeds.feedburner.com/vegtopia

Thanks!

And just so this post isn’t so boring, here is a picture of delicious guacamole:

Guacamole

Vegan Energy Bars

24 Feb

Jeff and I have just started training for a 5-mile race that I’ve been running in since 2008. This actually entails quite a lot of running, and as we eat breakfast before running and lunch at the typical noon hour, we are left pretty hungry in the intervening hours. Instead of buying individually plastic wrapped processed bars, I decided to try my hand at making my own energy bars.

Energy Bars I was surprised at how hard it was to make these, because most of the recipes online call for nuts (which I can’t eat because of my braces) or peanut butter (which I don’t eat because I don’t like it). A lot of recipes called for corn syrup, which I find to be icky, or lots of coconut oil. So I decided I had better invent my own recipe, hoping that the end product would be soft enough to be braces-friendly, delicious enough to eat and filling enough to hold us over until lunch.

Fortunately, the resulting product did live up to all of my exacting requirements! Here’s the recipe for you to try out at home:

Vegan Energy Bars
Yields 12 bars

1 cup dates, pitted
1 cup oatmeal (uncooked)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dried cherries (or dried fruit of your choice)
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp water

  1. Preheat oven to 350oF.
  2. Chop the dates as fine as you can, or process them in your food processor. (Mine pretty much just laughed at me and refused to chop the dates at all.)
  3. Process or mix together the dates with the oatmeal, vanilla, cinnamon and maple syrup.
  4. In a medium sized mixing bowl, mix together the above with coarsely chopped dried cherries and water.
  5. Spread this mixture evenly into a foil-lined 8×8 baking dish.
  6. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.
  7. Allow to cool completely until cutting into bars. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.

DSC_5402

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