32 posts tagged “pastas”
I loved the potato-pea-quinoa soup so much that I had it with some noodles together with some bok choy. It was still really good. Soups with potatoes are just incredible.
I finally tried the famous penne vodka from the excellent Veganomicon (page 193). I used whole-wheat elbows instead of penne and used a little more red pepper flakes. Towards the end of making the sauce, I added some fresh cilantro since we really love cilantro. The penne vodka came out really good. I loved the sauce since it packed a lot of zing. Of course, we can't live without some broccoli in the pasta.
On a final note, I do plan to master my new camera (though I've had it for a few months already) in the next few weeks so that I can take better photos. I bought a whole bunch of vegan frozen food so the following days will be culinarily interesting.
I've been making soups non-stop so I think it might be time for me to change "so what the heck do we eat?" series into "today's soup" series. It sounds tempting but I love pies and rice too much to completely give up solid vegan food. Anyhow, Bryanna's Golden Vegetable Noodle Soup (from The (Almost) No Fat Cookbook: Everyday Vegetarian Recipes, page 89) almost converted me to a soup Nazi. Just like what Bryanna said about the soup in the book, this soup had the same comforting effect as chicken noodle soup, and only better! The best soup I've made so far. I replaced frozen peas with green split peas and used loads of fresh cilantro together with one teaspoon of dried parsley instead of just fresh parsley. I also used both wholewheat spaghetti and wholewheat elbows. A small pinch of paprika and red pepper flakes added some subtle zing.
I had enough time to make some vegan hot cross buns. I took this recipe and had some amazing result. These not so traditional hot cross buns had a great texture and a subtle spicy and fragrant taste. I simply omitted the egg and used both golden raisins and dried cranberries, which created a beautiful tang in the buns. We loved them!
I found this very interesting Middle Eastern pasta recipe on Bryanna's blog. The original recipe is from "Arab Cooking on a Saskatchewan Homestead: Recipes and Recollections" by Habeeb Salloum, and Bryanna adapted it. The unusual aspect of this pasta dish is that you don't precook the pasta before putting the casserole into the oven. You simply sauté some onions, garlic, herbs and spices and throw everything else, including the uncooked pasta and some extra water, into a casserole dish and let the oven finish the cooking. Amazingly, it really worked. I used uncooked wholewheat elbows and the timing was still perfect. Just make sure all the uncooked pasta is immersed in the gravy and buried deep. Then out of the oven you will have an incredibly delectable pasta dish ready to please all of your senses.
As a vegan, I don't miss cheese stuff much, probably because I've never been really into cheese or had cheese too often. But if you can't live without cheese, this baked mac and cashew cheese is for you. This tasted so very close to the "real" mac and cheese that you won't want to buy extra cheese afterwards. I used three different types of pasta: kamut elbows, whole wheat elbows and whole wheat fusili.
This recipe is brought to you by Selina of Vegan Recipes. I didn't think of taking a photo before I sprinkled the bread crumbs and paprika. Otherwise you could have seen a very creamy sauce.
I finally got a bread machine! I can't believe it. I'm still so excited but now I can use the raisin bread recipe RachJ kindly shared with me. I've been wanting to make the raisin bread but due to my lack of experience with homemade breads I haven't felt brave enough. I know there's nothing to lose by trying but raisin bread is that kind of thing for me. Any piece of raisin bread has to be near-perfect. Anyway, it was really fun watching the bread machine work on my first loaf of 100% wholewheat bread.
I didn't cook much because I was really busy shopping online. I guess the holiday buying hasn't quite died in me yet. I did make a Golden Macaroni Casserole (The Almost No Fat Cookbook: Everyday Vegetarian Recipes, page 115). This is another Bryanna's recipe. Very creamy and "cheesy" but completely cruelty-free.
Nothing much to speak of today, but it's not entirely true. The Spinach-Noodle Kugel (Veganomicon, page 151) was so good; in fact, my husband said that it was the first real casserole I've made, and it brought back old memories. I used wholewheat elbows and spelt bread crumbs. This casserole totally rocked and absolutely helped our diet. We ate much less and felt equally satisfied.
I also roasted some shiitake mushrooms that were on their way out, according to the Roasted Portobellos recipe (Veganomicon, pages 112-113). Very good filling for sandwiches or just as a side dish.
I saved Isa's Tofu Paprikas in my collection for months but somehow I never made it. I think I really need to reorganize my recipe collection since I often forget what recipes I collected whenever I desperately need a recipe. This dish is really tofu parikash, which is a vegan twist on the famous Hungarian chicken parikash. It's all about paprika anyway. I do agree tofu paprikas sounds a lot more adorable. The paprika sauce actually smells and tastes meaty. This is definitely a dish that omnivores won't even complain about. You can find the original recipe here. Oh, don't forget: there are many great vegan recipes on the PPK Web site, both in the blog and forum sections.
It's pretty obvious that I drowned the tofu triangles in the paprika sauce. Very yummy! I can't believe I waited so long.
I actually made the whole dish, with the noodles. I used wholewheat spaghetti. We mixed everything up including those delicious tofu triangles. All mushed up, to be precise. So the photo only shows a tiny bit of the tofu intact. It was such a nice treat!
It was a very difficult cooking night. One of those days when you just feel you should be very very careful as things are flying around. I first made the mushroom marinara sauce but as soon as I had a beautiful sauce in the tupperware, I knocked the tupperware off the table. I was quite upset as I was running low on fresh tomatoes and mushrooms. But I was lucky enough to have enough for making a second sauce.
So Spaghetti and Beanballs turned into Pasta Marinara with Bok Choy. Quite a drastic change of plan.
The good part of having no beanballs is that we had some roasted pumpkin on the side. Maple syrup helped too.
And I have to live without desserts until a week later because right after I lost my first marinara sauce, I ate a lot of raspberry blackout cake to comfort myself. I had all too much sweet stuff lately.
Tofu- and Herb-Stuffed Mushrooms (from VwaV)
I really had fun making these stuffed mushrooms from VwaV yesterday. I had button mushrooms and cremini mushrooms of all different sizes since it was getting really close to our shopping day. I had to stuff some really small mushrooms but it was still fun. Since I didn't find vegan bread crumbs on the last shopping day, I had to crush a bag of spelt rusk. I was amazed by the result. The spelt bread crumbs smelled mighty fine. I also replaced seitan with extra-firm tofu because tofu just goes very well with mushrooms in my book. I had no more walnuts left so toasted almonds were used, which is a very good solution after all. The whole cooking process was an easy sail in spite of the seemingly complicated instructions.
The funny thing is that I accidentally made too much stuffing and I didn't quite know what else to stuff. So I used the same stuffing in the baked ziti 2 hours later.
By the way, the picture on the right is the largest mushroom I was able to find in my refrigerator.
Blueberry Coffee Cake (from VwaV)
This is the densest cake I have made so far, the reason of which is still beyond me. Maybe just because it's a coffee cake. :) I changed the topping nuts from walnuts to almonds again. I love almonds. I also heavily reduced the amount of sugar in the recipe, which made the cake more savory (if it's indeed possible with a cake). This cake happened to be the largest cake ever in my house too. However, the sad news is that it didn't last any longer than other cakes. Although my husband is really not a cake person, he liked it very much because of the blueberries and nutty topping.
As I'm posting, I just realized that the pictures of stuffed mushrooms look quite like cousins to the blueberry coffee cake's picture. I guess it's because I'm nuts, and I love nuts.
Baked Ziti with Almond Cream
I first found this recipe from Laura Faye's blog "Jewish Vegan". But I used rigatoni instead of ziti. The original recipe calls for vegan mayonnaise and grated mozzarella soy cheese, both of which are not in my fridge. So I took Carla's Tofu Mayo recipe and adapted the Pine Nut Cream recipe by "Eat Air" (Chris), and also incorporated my leftover mushroom stuffing into the whole recipe (more or less because I didn't want to waste all that nice-smelling bread crumbs).
Below is the final recipe I used (serves 3-4).
Ingredients
8 ounces rigatoni pasta, cooked according to package instructions
2/3 jar of basil-tomato pasta sauce (try to find a good Italian one)
7.5 ounces extra-firm tofu, drained
1/4 cup tofu mayo (Carla's recipe)
1 1/2 cups stuffing from VwaV's stuffed mushrooms
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/8 cup unsweetened soymilk
1 cup Almond Cream (adapted from Chris' Pine Nut Cream, just use almonds instead)
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. In a large bowl mash the extra-firm tofu with a fork. Mix in the tofu mayo. Stir in basil, oregano, and mix well. Add soymilk and stir again. Finally, stir in mushroom stuffing and stir thoroughly.
3. Place a few tablespoons of pasta sauce on the bottom of the baking dish.
4. Add the remaining pasta sauce into the bowl. Stir well.
5. Stir in cooked pasta, then pour the mixture into the baking dish. Top with Almond Cream. Cover with foil. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil. Broil for 3-5 minutes.
The Almond Cream had an incredible pleasant smell. I definitely loved every bit of it. Enjoy!
We gradually grew tired of restaurant food. The food is not as gratifying or healthy as the homemade food. We know exactly what goes into the food we make at home.
This new pasta sauce we conjured up can be a perfect filling for vegan lasagne, baked ziti, etc..
Wholewheat Pasta with Tofu, Peas, Dried Mushrooms and Mixed Veggies
1. Sauté fresh garlic and dried mushrooms that have been soaked overnight in extra-virgin olive oil, until golden brown.
2. Cook wholewheat elbows. Throw in broccoli and carrots at the last minute.
3. Drain.
4. Mash equal amounts of silken tofu and peas together.
5. Combine all the above ingredients in a pot. Add hot chili sauce, mushroom paste, two cubes of fermented tofu (a.k.a. tofu cheese), fermented black bean paste, preserved black olive mustard-leaf sauce (or chopped black olives and browned mustard leaves), coriander, black pepper, paprika, and sea salt.
2. Cook wholewheat elbows. Throw in broccoli and carrots at the last minute.
3. Drain.
4. Mash equal amounts of silken tofu and peas together.
5. Combine all the above ingredients in a pot. Add hot chili sauce, mushroom paste, two cubes of fermented tofu (a.k.a. tofu cheese), fermented black bean paste, preserved black olive mustard-leaf sauce (or chopped black olives and browned mustard leaves), coriander, black pepper, paprika, and sea salt.
6. Stir well and serve immediately. Enjoy!
My Groups
-
Geeks Updated: 28 minutes ago
-
The Thinking Woman Updated: 32 minutes ago
-
Food Photography Updated: 44 minutes ago
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
