22 posts tagged “celery”
I have planned to make a rather bland but nourishing soup out of potatoes, but before I knew it, I completely cut potatoes out of the equation, and I was determined to somehow make polenta a star of the show this time, not in the deep-frying pan. So this is how the recipe came about.
Polenta Minestrone
(Makes 4 servings)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
8-9 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
1 cup carrots, cut into matchsticks or finely diced
1 1/2 cups portobello mushrooms, sliced
2 tsp. Italian herb seasoning
1 tsp. dried basil
Half (6-oz.) can tomato paste
1 cup organic vegetable broth
3 cups water
2 cups tomatoes, finely diced and juice reserved
1 tube store-bought polenta, cubed
2 tsp. dried parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Saute onion, garlic, celery, carrots, and mushrooms over medium heat in a large pot for 9-10 minutes until onions and celery soften and turn translucent.
2. Add Italian herb seasoning, basil, and tomato paste and mix well. Cook for 2 minutes.
3. Pour in the vegetable broth and water. Add tomatoes and polenta. Turn to boil and lower heat to simmer. Simmer for 25 minutes.
4. Turn off heat. Add parsley, salt and pepper. Adjust seasoning if necessary.
Notes:
1. I used half a can of tomato paste because I really wanted a very tomato-y soup, but you can easily use from 2 teaspoons of that to any amount you feel like.
2. If you don't like polenta, feel free to use potatoes, like I originally planned. It will be great too. Though the creamy polenta cubes do lend a very pleasant texture to the soup overall.
3. The herb mix can be easily adjusted to suit different tastes and moods. Fresh herbs will be great.
I am submitting this soup to Souper Sundays, an excellent event started and hosted by Deb of Kahakai Kitchen. If you are interested in sharing your soup recipes with other soup lovers, please see here for more details.
Seitan Tofu Gumbo
Adapted from the Seitan Gumbo recipe by Wes of Don't Lose Your Lunch
(Makes 5-6 generous servings)
2 tsp. toasted sesame oil
2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion, finely chopped
1 large roasted red bell pepper, roughly chopped
3 stalks celery, diced
7-8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 1/2 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 Tbsp. sweet paprika
2 tsp. dried thyme
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. chipotle chili pepper
2 Tofurky Italian sausages, cut into 1/4-inch slices
1 block extra-firm tofu, pressed, cubed
2 cups water
2 1/2 cups vegetable broth
2 cups diced tomatoes
2 bay leaves
2/3 cup baked roux (see recipe below)
2 Tbsp. dried parsley
Salt to taste
1. Over medium heat, saute onion, garlic, bell peppers and celery in sesame oil and olive oil mix for 5-7 minutes until celery softens a bit.
2. Add everything from tomato paste to chipotle chili pepper and mix well. Saute for 2 minutes.
3. Add sausages and tofu cubes and mix thoroughly. Cook for one minute.
4. Add water, broth, tomatoes, and bay leaves. Combine well. Bring to boil. Lower heat to a small simmer. Simmer for about 30-35 minutes.
5. Add roux, stirring constantly until completely dissolved. Return to boil so roux can thicken. Lower heat to simmer.
6. Add parsley and mix thoroughly. Stir from time to time and cook for another 5 minutes.
7. Add salt and adjust the taste. Remove bay leaves.
Baked Roux:
2 cups white flour
2 cups canola oil
1. Mix flour and oil, dissolving lumps.
2. Bake in an 8"x8" Pyrex pan for about 3 hours, gently stirring every 30 minutes.
The end result should be darker than peanut butter but lighter than chocolate. Allow to cool before handling. Store in a glass jar in the fridge.
Cook enough linguine for 2 people according to the package instructions (al dante). In the last 5 seconds, add some fresh spinach into the pot.
Drain well. Press lightly to release most water from the cooked spinach. Put the pasta back into the pot.
Add plenty of gumbo to the pasta and thoroughly combine. Plate. Pour a little gumbo on top of the pasta. Serve.
I am sending this pasta dish to Presto Pasta Nights, a great event started by Ruth of Once Upon A Feast. This week's host will be Aquadaze of Served with Love.
I guess this soup came about purely because I thought of a future where I would be visiting Italy one day, within the next 5 years, if Europe would not sink deeper into its depressed state. In any case, I am totally in love with minestrone right now.
Edamame Minestrone
(Makes 7-8 servings)
2 medium yellow onions, quartered and then sliced thinly
7-8 cloves garlic, finely chopped or minced
4 large stalks celery, thinly sliced
2 medium carrots, cut into matchsticks
2 cups portabella mushrooms, finely chopped
8 tomatoes, roughly chopped and juice reserved
1/3 cup fresh basil, finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh thyme, finely chopped
3 Tbsp. fresh rosemary, finely chopped
2 tsp. fresh sage, finely chopped
2 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried marjoram
2 bay leaves
7-8 cups water
1 medium cabbage, leaves torn off and cut into bite-size pieces
1 6 oz. can tomato paste
1 1/2 cups cooked edamame
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Saute onion, garlic, celery, carrots and mushrooms over medium heat
for about 10-12 minutes until the mushrooms have released quite a bit
of the juice.
2. Add tomatoes and herbs and cover. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
3. Uncover. Add water and cabbage. Turn heat to high to reach a slow
boil. Reduce heat
to simmer. Cook for about 15 minutes.
4. Stir in the tomato paste and mix well. Cook for another 15 minutes.
5.
Add edamame to the stock and heat through. Remove from heat and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm.
Enjoy!
I can't believe it's been two weeks since I last blogged. Long story short, I chose reading Proust over blogging, temporarily. Now I have three recipes to share, and more to come later. These three recipes yielded excellent results, especially the mushroom barley soup and the pumpkin coconut cakey bars which was simply divine. I'll definitely make these bars again for Christmas.
Scrambled Tofu with Butternut Squash and Broccoli
(Serves 4)
4 cups sliced portabella mushrooms
2 cups sliced button mushrooms
2 cups sliced green onions
6-7 cloves garlic, minced or sliced
3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 cups chopped butternut squash
1 block extra-firm tofu, pressed and cubed
6 cups broccoli florets, cut into bite size
1 tsp. Chinese five-spice powder
2 tsp. ground cumin
3 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. ground garam masala
2/3 cup nutritional yeast
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Saute mushrooms, green onions and garlic over medium heat for 10 minutes until mushrooms begin to release some juice.
2. Add in butternut squash and cook for 2 minutes. Add the tofu cubes and cook for another minute.
3. Add all the spices except for nutritional yeast and salt and pepper. Mix well and cook for a minute or two.
4.
Add broccoli and combine and cook covered for 5 minutes or longer until
broccoli is cooked. If you like your broccoli softer, cook longer
accordingly.
5. Remove from heat. Add nooch and salt and pepper to taste. Adjust spices according to your preferences.
(Makes 7-8 servings)
10-12 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
4 celery stalks, sliced
2 medium carrots, finely chopped
3 cups chopped portabella mushrooms
2 cups sliced button mushrooms
4 Tbsp. olive oil
3 tsp. thyme
2 tsp. rosemary
1 1/2 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. paprika
10 cups hot water and more if necessary
2 bay leaves
5 cups cauliflower florets, cut into bite size
1 1/2 cups pearl barley
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Saute onions, garlic, celery, carrots and mushrooms over medium heat for 12-15 minutes until mushrooms have released some juice.
2. Add in spices and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
3. Pour in hot water and add bay leaves. Once the broth boils, add cauliflower and pearl barley.
4. Remove from heat. Add salt and pepper according to your taste.
4. Reduce heat to simmer once it boils again. Simmer for 35-40 minutes until barley is completely cooked.
(Makes 12-14 sizable squares)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup organic granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 13.5 oz can coconut milk
1 13.5 oz can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk
2 cups sweetened coconut flakes (or unsweetened if you prefer)
Preheat oven to 350F.
Combine all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix well.
In another bowl, combine all the wet ingredients and mix with a fork very well. Fold in the coconut flakes. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mixture and incorporate well. Pour the batter into a square or rectangle baking dish.
Bake for 40 minutes. Then raise the oven temperature to 375F and bake for another 10 minutes. Insert a knife to the center and if it comes out almost clean, it is done.
After it cools down in room temperature, cut into squares or rectangles, however you like. You can eat these bars warm (microwave-friendly) or cold out of the fridge.
Until then, all my best wishes to everyone! And I hope these recipes will be of some use to someone.
I have been cooking but it has become rather hard to keep up posting more often. We always seem to have many things piling up onto the to-do lists. "It's always something" has been such a cliche in our household now. I didn't have time to come up with any new recipe. Nor did I participate in any cooking contest like I planned. I cooked from cookbooks and my recipe collection. Alas! 'Tis life. We ought to be grateful for what we have though. My husband and I have begun our little "self-compliment" group, inspired by LaidOutInLavendar. It is not easy at all. Gosh, I never knew it could this hard to say a few nice things about ourselves without feeling weird or discouraged. But we are trying. It's much easier to compliment each other, but when it comes down to the self-compliment... I guess we just don't know ourselves well enough.
Anyway, here comes the food porn, as usual. The first thing is from VwaV, page 28, "Fronch" Toast. It was great, but next time I will definitely add some cinnamon and nutmet to make it more traditional.
The second thing is Bryanna's Hunan Tofu. I made this before, a long while ago that I can't even remember. This time I didn't even fry the tofu beforehand because I wanted more of a soft and juicy texture. It turned out even better than I remembered. Surely a keeper!
Moonstruck (1987) is definitely my all-time favorite movie. I guess by now I've seen the movie like 20 to 25 times. I've tried watching this movie every day for 10 days straight and I'm still not tired of it. Nowadays there is almost no chance of seeing such a cute, lovely and family-friendly movie that makes you drool over the Italian food and feel all so romantic like a high-school kid. Therefore, I made my Moonstruck Minestrone to commemorate all the happy feelings this movie has instilled in me.
D's Moonstruck Minestrone
(makes 6-7 servings)
1 large yellow onion, halved and then sliced thinly
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped or minced
3 large stalks celery, thinly sliced
2 medium carrots, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
4 cups cauliflower florets, cut into bite size
2 cups tomatoes, roughly chopped and juice reserved
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 medium cabbage, cut into bite-size pieces
7-8 cups water
4 Tbsp. tomato paste
2 bay leaves
3 tsp. Italian herb seasoning
1/2 cup canned red kidney beans, drained
1/2 cup canned chickpeas, drained
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Saute onion, garlic, celery, carrots and cauliflower over medium heat for about 9-10 minutes until they soften a little.
2. Add tomatoes and cover. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
3. Uncover, add water and cabbage. Turn heat to high to reach a slow
boil and stir in the tomato paste and herbs. Mix well and reduce heat
to simmer. Cook for about 20 minutes.
4.
Add beans to the stock and heat through. Cook another 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm (and now you can watch one of your favorite movies while eating it).
Besides the minestrone which I really love, I'm also extremely fond of coconut pies. This time I made the V'con basic single pastry crust again and made the Lime Sucker Coconut Pie (Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, page 200). This pie has the perfect balance of sweetness of the coconut and fresh tanginess from the limes. It rendered me completely defenseless.
I believe that I've encountered a writer's block, after a whole month of VeganMoFo entries. I've been cooking but I can't seem to find the enthusiasm to post anything. And it happens to be a very gloomy day today, so I'm feeling rather lazy and low. Anyway, the risotto I made for our brunch was great. It's based on Risotto Milanese (recipe by Urban Vegan) and Saffron Risotto with Red Bell Pepper (recipe by Jewish Vegan). I more or less combined the two recipes and added some fresh culantro.
On a side note, we actually bought some falafel mix from the supermarket and broiled some falafels. You can easily imagine they can't be too good but surprisingly, they were better than we had expected. It was just some junk food that we threw in to kill our gloomy day.
Sadly the VeganMoFo is over. I haven't done as well as I had expected, but there's always next year. Anyway, I did a search on my own blog just now, and found out that I had stopped doing my "So what the heck do we eat?" series in early August. So it's been 3 months since I last posted under that category. Time has just slipped out of my hand. I had to remedy the situation, and here is what I did. I dug up a recipe I collected last year and decided that I wouldn't get any of my vegan cookbook back until I finish cooking all of the recipes I've already collected. So today, I made the black-eyed pea stew -- recipe by Carla of "But did they EAT it?" (now discontinued) and "The Year of the Vegan". This is the first time I've tried eating any black-eyed peas (a.k.a. cow peas) which are actually beans. It's a wonderfully flavorful stew that is really tasty and satisfying. I added some cherry tomatoes and baby spinach for the colors and omitted marmite (I don't like that thing).
The first one is the Ten-Minute Couscous Soup (recipe by Heidi of 101 Cookbooks). I just saw this recipe yesterday and I immediately made it. 101 Cookbooks is one of my favorite food blogs and I've already made a few things out of Heidi's recipes. Her recipes usually yield wholesome and easy-to-make food, and the photos are just gorgeous. For this soup, I used half broth and half water, subbed fresh tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, and added some zucchini because I have plenty.
