24 posts tagged “chickpeas”
September's Daring Cooks' Challenge was hosted by Debyi of Healthy Vegan Kitchen. She has chosen Indian Dosas, a vegan and gluten-free delicacy to suit everyone's dietary needs.
Indian Dosas
This recipe comes in 3 parts, the dosas, the filling and the sauce. It does take awhile to make, but the filling and sauce can be made ahead and frozen if need be. You can serve them as a main course with rice and veggies, or as an appetizer. This does take a little planning ahead, so make sure you read the recipe through before starting (I forgot & didn't start making the rice until everything was ready, oops).
Serves 4
Equipment needed:
large bowl
whisk
griddle or skillet
ladle (or large spoon)
spatula
vegetable peeler &/or knife
large saucepan
food processor or bean masher
Dosa Pancakes
1 cup (120gm/8oz) spelt flour (or all-purpose, gluten free flour) [I used chickpea flour instead]
½ tsp (2½ gm) salt
½ tsp (2½ gm) baking powder
½ tsp (2½ gm) curry powder
½ cup (125ml/4oz) almond milk (or soy, or rice, etc.)
¾ cup (175ml/6oz) water
cooking spray, if needed
Dosa Filling
1 batch Curried Garbanzo Filling (see below), heated
Dosa Toppings
1 batch Coconut Curry Sauce (see below), heated
¼ cup (125gm) grated coconut
¼ cucumber, sliced
Dosa Pancakes
1.Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, slowly adding the almond milk and water, whisking until smooth.
2.Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Spray your pan with a thin layer of cooking spray, if needed.
3.Ladle 2 tablespoons of batter into the center of your pan in a circular motion until it is a thin, round pancake. When bubbles appear on the surface and it no longer looks wet, flip it over and cook for a few seconds. Remove from heat and repeat with remaining batter. Makes 8 pancakes.
This filling works great as a rice bowl topping or as a wrap too, so don't be afraid to make a full batch.
5 cloves garlic
1 onion, peeled and finely diced
1 carrot, peeled and finely diced
1 green pepper, finely diced (red, yellow or orange are fine too)
2 medium hot banana chilies, minced
2 TBSP (16gm) cumin, ground
1 TBSP (8gm) oregano
1 TBSP (8gm) sea salt (coarse)
1 TBSP (8gm) turmeric
4 cups (850gm/30oz) cooked or canned chick peas (about 2 cans)
½ cup (125gm/4oz) tomato paste
1.Heat a large saucepan over medium to low heat. Add the garlic, veggies, and spices, cooking until soft, stirring occasionally.
2.Mash the chickpeas by hand, or in a food processor. Add the chickpeas and tomato paste to the saucepan, stirring until heated through.
Coconut Curry Sauce
This makes a great sauce to just pour over rice as well. This does freeze well, but the texture will be a little different. The flavor is still the same though. My picture of this sauce is one that I had made, had to freeze, then thaw to use. It tastes great, but the texture is a little runnier, not quite as thick as it was before freezing.
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic
½ (2½ gm) tsp cumin, ground
¾ (3¾ gm) tsp sea salt (coarse)
3 TBSP (30gm) curry powder
3 TBSP (30gm) spelt flour (or all-purpose GF flour)
3 cups (750ml/24oz) vegetable broth
2 cups (500ml/24oz) coconut milk
3 large tomatoes, diced
1.Heat a saucepan over medium heat, add the onion and garlic, cooking for 5 minutes, or until soft.
2.Add the spices, cooking for 1 minutes more. Add the flour and cook for 1 additional minute.
3.Gradually stir in the vegetable broth to prevent lumps. Once the flour has been incorporated, add the coconut milk and tomatoes, stirring occasionally.
4.Let it simmer for half an hour.
Verdict: This dish is very easy to put together. You can make the sauce and filling in advance. Totally a keeper!
I was really impressed with Bryanna's recipe for homemade rolled pasta when I was completing last month's Daring Bakers' Challenge. I told myself that I would make it again as stuffed pasta. So I made ravioli with this fresh pasta dough. The pliable dough was really easy to roll out. I used the classic Tofu Ricotta recipe (Veganomicon, page 206) as the filling. These ricotta ravioli turned out really tasty and satisfying.
I cut the remaining dough into fettuccine. Boy, fresh fettuccine is so much better than the dried version! Next time I will make the same dough just for fettuccine.
I don't know where to begin. This is my first Daring Bakers challenge, and this month saw the launch of the new Web site of the Daring Kitchen. That's right! It's not just for Daring Bakers any more. In April the first Daring Cooks challenge will be revealed. In case you are wondering, I did sign up for the Daring Cooks challenge as well. So I'll be a very busy bee in the kitchen from now on. A huge Thank-You to Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice and Lisa of La Mia Cucina for starting these challenges.
Lasagne is a dish that few people can resist. It has certainly transcended the borders. As my first Daring Bakers challenge, I was really excited to try my hands on a savory dish instead of a giant cake that will tempt me for two weeks and increase my waistline further more. As vegans, we have always loved lasagne as a all-time favorite in our family. It's creamy, yummy, doughy, and filling. What more can we really ask for?
Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna (Lasagne Verdi al Forno)
(Serves 8 to 10 as a first course, 6 to 8 as a main dish)
Preparation Time: 15 minutes to assemble and 40 minutes cooking time
10 quarts (9 litres) water
1 recipe Spinach Pasta cut for lasagna
1 recipe Bechamel Sauce
1 recipe Lentil-Mushroom Ragu
6 pieces vegan Mozzarella cheese
The biggest challenge for me this time is to make fresh homemade pasta from scratch. Thank God, Bryanna already solved this problem for us vegans long time ago. I simply used her recipe with 10 oz. fresh spinach (dried as much as possible and really finely chopped). The dough was surprisingly easy to make and extremely pliable. Below is my fresh pasta dough ball after kneading and before resting. I'll definitely try to make some vegan ravioli with the same recipe. Even rolling out the pasta noodles was much easier than I thought. I didn't break any piece, amazingly.
Maybe you will be interested in checking out the new Daring Kitchen Web site. You can also be a member if you dare to dream a little. You will certainly have many nice eats and treats, I promise you. :)
I have seen many people make these banana sour cream pancakes by Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa Family Style). One of them is Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake. Her pancake photo looks really gorgeous, so I tried her version of these pancakes today. A great recipe with great results. I simply skipped eggs and used agave nectar instead of the sugar. I had to add more milk to the batter but everything turned out fabulously delicious. Nothing beats a stack of pancakes with melting butter and pure maple syrup, at least when you really crave for some warm pancakes.
I also tried baking my chickpea cutlets in Veganomicon this time. I would have to admit that I liked the fried version a little more. But it was still worth one try.
I have been cooking more food lately, probably because of the warm weather we are still enjoying, for which we are really grateful. Now I am actually contemplating what to cook again for tomorrow.
Polenta Casserole, recipe on page 138 of Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. I used nutritional yeast instead of soy cheese and It is the cheesiest thing we have tasted in five years.
Szechuan-Style Tofu with Eggplant, page 56 of Vegan Express. This is a great recipe. The dish is so flavorful. You can easily whip it up in 20 minutes and serve it over a bed of warm brown rice. I am discovering more good recipes in Vegan Express every week.
Chickpea Cutlets, from Veganomicon. I do not have this cookbook any more. This recipe was saved from more than 6 months ago. I guess by now I am the last person on this planet to have tried this recipe. These cutlets are literally everywhere in the blogsphere. I certainly do not need to praise them more.
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.
This is what I made using the leftover scrambled tofu. The recipe is based on Bryanna's brilliant vegan strata recipe. I simply blended my scrambled tofu and added two tablespoons of tarragon French wine vinegar. I didn't use lemon juice or wine. The bread goes to the bottom of the casserole dish, then baby spinach, tomato slices and fresh basil, and the blend mix follows. By then I actually ran out of bread (shamefully), so I simply topped the whole casserole with another layer of tomatoes. The outcome: great taste! You'll never think that it can be prepared within 10 minutes. Of course, that's just the preparation time, because the baking takes 35 to 40 minutes. But I watched a movie while the baking took place.
