Blog Recipe Cooking Challenge - day 4, week 3

Tonight I made French Lentil and Portabella Stew from FatFree Vegan. The only changes I made were the omission the celery as I was out and put in 1/2 a bell pepper since it needed to be used up and substituting Beluga Lentils for the French. This was fan freaking tastic! Tasty, hearty, rich and thick. The lentils held up nicely and the veggies cooked down perfectly. Overall I quite enjoyed this dish. It was not super photogenic but that is typically a perk, not a requirement of my food! hah



Even my lentil hating husband liked this stew! This was such a great find. I hope to make this pretty regularly this winter.

Potato Leek Soup with Caramelized Shallots

Another Quintess Test Recipe. Lovely, elegant and I need another bowl. YUMMY!

Let me just say that helping test upcoming cookbook recipes is a lot of work especially because I am such a slapdash cook but it does yield some yummy dinners! Imagine, me measuring even salt and diced potatoes! My tiny flower bowls are getting quite a lot of use as measured spice cups. Fun and exciting but I dont know that I am cut out to be a secret tester, I have a hard time not divulging the recipe!

Dressed Up Eggplant

Tonight I made a lovely eggplant recipe from VegWeb. Dressed Up Eggplant is a time and somewhat labor intensive recipe but it rewards you with a delicious dinner and hopefully lunch the next day.

Below is the VCTOTW chocolate cake with ganache and cream cheese frosting. It was rich and delish.


The Roasted Garlic Cauliflower soup. I did warn you that it was not overly photogenic. But it was yummy.


And finally. I could not resist Peach Muffins!
I used the recipe posted by VeganYumYum's very own Lolo on the first. The challenge was to see if spelt or wheat was better. Honestly, I have never used spelt flour before. But tonight I picked up a bag and used 1cup Spelt and 1cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour. I think I did use too many peaches as I had enough batter for 12 regular muffins and 12 mini muffins.

They are slightly crumbly but taste divine. Even my hubby who dislikes peaches ate the one on the right. I found these light, delicately flavored and just slightly tangy from the peaches. Thank you so much Lolo!

Soup!

Last night I made Roasted Garlic and Cauliflower soup based on the version by Vegan Dad. Let me just preface this by saying I have never, ever in all my years cooking, made a creamy pureed soup. It just seemed odd to me for whatever reason. Thus any errors and the very unphotogenic soup is my fault!

I modified the recipe slightly to go with what I had on hand.

1head cauliflower
2bulbs garlic
1 sm onion, diced
1 celery heart, diced
2c Canellini beans, cooked
3c Unsweetened Soy milk
1/2c Nutritional Yeast
1c veggie broth
Salt
Pepper
Oil

Now, I roasted the garlic in the oven with the tops lopped off and oil drizzled on them. The cauliflower also got a bit of oil and into the 450 oven it went for 15 min with the garlic. Next time, I will plan this ahead of time and roast it all for 30 minutes at 400.

I sauted the onion and celery until the cauliflower was ready. Then added the beans and cauliflower. The garlic was a bit of a pain to pull from the bulb but I got it all into the pot finally. Then I started the transfer process. One third went into my VitaMix blender and got mixed up on level 6 for about 30 seconds before being poured (and scooped) into a bowl. The next third did the same thing and finally the last portion. I cleaned out the blender with the remainder of the soy milk (1/2c) and nutritional yeast.

After tasting I added the 1c veggie broth and seasonings.


Now, I have in the past over blended things in the VitaMix. I was trying so very hard not to do that to this lovely soup that I fear I left it too chunky. It was akin to smashed cauliflower or as my hubby put it, gruel. Not very appetizing to look at. All the pics turned out to be a bowl of white glop. Thus you must use your imagination today. Or simply look into a bowl of cream of wheat.

The most amazing thing about this recipe though? It was very easy, very forgiving and so very filling. I did not expect to be satisfied with the texture as a main course. And despite my not blending it to a smooth liquid I was highly pleased. This soup is quite a tummy filler despite its looks in the bowl. I will be enjoying the leftovers quite a bit and have plans to make this again!

Thanks again Vegan Dad, you are quite an inspiration!

Dumplings

What is it about winter that makes you crave some warm, rich and flavorful soup? My ultimate comfort soup is Seitan 'n Dumplings. With not those puffy biscuits but warm slippery lumps of broth soaked goodness. My mother used to make dumplings on a 50/50 egg to flour ratio. I spent years as a vegan wondering how to replicate this. Luckily a friend from a now defunct message board came up with my salvation.

So without further drooling, here is the recipe for Krista's Soggy Dumplings!

2c Flour
1t Baking Powder
1t Salt
4t Earth Balance Margarine
1 1/2c Unsweetened Plain Soy Milk

Mix the dry ingredients together and cut in the Earth Balance. Gradually add soy milk until the flour is all absorbed. The dough is sticky, thick and not at all liquidy. Drop thin flat dumplings into boiling broth. Once they come to the surface you can dish up a bowl or let it simmer for 10-20 minutes.

I added these to a lovely onion, celery, carrot and leek soup. Unfortunately I had no seitan so I added a can of Navy beans. Made things creamy and focused all the attention on the sweet carrots and lovely dumplings. Man, I love those things.


Hopefully this picture isn't too washed out, unfortunately my monitor is!

Tortilla Soup

Some times, you crave something warm, savory and just a bit tangy. That describes Tortilla soup perfectly. It is lush with flavors of tomatoes, peppers, beans and lime.



Then you top it with fried corn tortilla strips, avocado, green onions and lime. What more could you want? A second bowl full!

Tortilla Soup
Ingred:
2T Olive Oil
1/2 medium Onion, Diced or Minced
1/2c Celery, Diced (heart w/ leaves preferred)
1 Bell Pepper, Diced
1-3 Hot Peppers, seeded and diced
1 Lime, zest and juice
Garlic (5 cloves)
8c Water
2 Bullion Cubes (Knor Veg)
2c Beans; soaked dried cooked beans or rinsed canned
28oz Petite Diced tomatoes, canned with juice
1c Corn, frozen kernels

Optional toppings:
Cilantro
Corn Tortilla, julienned and fried
Avocado
Green Onion

Directions:
Saute the onion, celery, bell pepper and hot pepper in the oil till the onion is translucent. Add in garlic, lime zest and juice, saute making sure not allow the garlic to burn. Add in water, bullion, beans, corn and tomatoes. Add spices to taste; cilantro, garlic, salt, cumin, chili powder and pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes or more.

Serve topped with a lime slice, fried corn tortilla strips, green onion and avocado.


For whatever reason this soup slipped off my menus. That made me sad when I realized it. Its so tasty, so full bodied and so darn easy. The fried tortilla strips actually take longer to make than the actual soup chopping and sauteing. Well, mine do because I use very little oil and do them in batches. Plus I like to salt mine after I pull each batch from the oil. They are like a little special treat just to crumble into the soup and get a crunchy zippy bite.

Make this soup. Make it tonight!

Recipe Reviews: Gumbo & Pie

Since the awesome trip to Boston's Veg Food Fest netted me three cookbooks, I decided to plan this weeks menu around some of the new recipes I have in my hands.

First on Monday I opened my Little Vegan Monsters cookbook and decided the Mexican Pie sounded awesome. I followed the recipe as close as possible for me, which is never exactly. The recipe asked me to sauté about 12 ingredients including tofu. Rather than put it all together I added the oil, onions and tofu and let it sauté until the tofu was reasonably dry. Once it seemed slightly firm, about 15 minutes, I added everything else and sautéed more. The dough was lovely though I did diverge and use a wheat flour. Once everything was ready I assembled the 'pie'.

Needless to say that once I poured the entire filling into my largest casserole dish I did not have much room for the topping. Rather than simply use less topping I scooped half of the filling and put it in a separate casserole dish. I divided the topping equally and plopped it all in the oven as directed. This turned out satisfying, savory and tasting like tamales but without the work of stuffing corn husks! This hearty 'pie' had all the traditional (to me) Mexican flavors. Creamy Pinto beans, crisp corn kernels, sharply biting cilantro all married to a lush savory cornbread fit for a king. Next time my goal is to use the large casserole but make mini muffins from the excess topping.

Unfortunately my pictures were a horrible blurry mess and I did not want to disgrace this awesome recipe with poor pics, so you only have my word. I am not sure what I will try next but this cookbook is simple, easy to use and the first test pulled out a hearty B+ with a definite need to repeat this one.


On Thursday night I tried out Veganomicon's Smoky Pepper & Bean Gumbo shown above. This was amazing. Seriously smoky, savory and oh so filling. I followed the recipe exactly as directed and only had to leave two items out, as somehow my fridge was mysteriously out of beer! That was a tragedy.

The steps were simple, completely explained and even times given on how long to let the roux simmer and the onions & peppers sauté. I followed that exactly and it turned out beautiful. The flavors have that fire roasted flavor but the kidney beans impart a lush creamy mouth feel. Even the okra was perfect with its subtle green flavor and softness to the tooth. I did serve this with Jasmine rice dollop. It added a smooth base for the tomatoes and peppers to shine from.

I will be making this again and it rates an excited A for making me stuffed beyond belief with just that bowl. Winter is coming! Get your soup bowls ready!