35 posts tagged “vwav”
Lisa of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice happily inaugurated the first Daring Cooks challenge, and they have chosen a ricotta gnocchi recipe from the stunning cookbook by Judy Rodgers, named after her restaurant, The Zuni Café Cookbook. Now I have never made gnocchi before this challenge. Isa has a potato gnocchi recipe in VwaV, but I never tried it, because we don't like the potato-dough ball combo. But the light and delicate ricotta gncchi is completely another story.
To make the vegan ricotta gnocchi, I followed the instructions by Shellyfish of Musings From The Fishbowl. I made one recipe of the classic Tofu Ricotta (recipe on PPK) but used 7 cloves of garlic to have a garlicky flavor and also added a little bit of rubbed sage. The tofu ricotta was made 24 hours in advance and sat in the fridge to allow the flavors to take hold.
To serve the gnocchi, I made the simple butter sauce in the original recipe. I find it very satisfying and goes extremely well with the garlicky ricotta gnocchi.
For the gnocchi sauce:
8 tablespoons (227 grams/1/4 pound/4 ounces) butter, sliced
2 teaspoons water
When the gnocchi float to the top, you can start your sauce while you wait for them to finish cooking.
Place the skillet over medium heat and melt the butter. Swirl it gently a few times as it melts. As soon as it melts and is incorporated with the water, turn off the heat. Your gnocchi should be cooked by now.
A side note: I have still been settling into my new kitchen and all the stuff in it. So more cooking and baking will come shortly, I hope.
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 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!
How was everybody's Thanksgiving? I hope that you all had fun and lots of really nice food. Did you overeat like last year and the year before last year...? Here are a couple of things that you can eat when you're so sick of food or thinking about cooking anything.
Scrambled Tofu with Cauliflower and Green Beans
(makes 3-4 servings)
1 large yellow onion, quartered and thinly sliced
7-8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
9 large button mushrooms, wiped clean and thinly sliced
4 cups cauliflower florets, cut into bite size
4 cups green beans, ends discarded and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 1/2 blocks extra-firm tofu, pressed beforehand and cut into cubes
4 tsp. thyme
3 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. marjoram
1/2 tsp. sage
1/2 tsp. rosemary
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Saute onions, garlic, green onions, mushrooms and cauliflower over medium heat for about 12-13 minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften and mushrooms release some juice.
2. Add green beans and tofu cubes. Mix in well and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Add spices except for the nutritional yeast and salt and pepper. Cook for another 10 minutes until green beans are fully cooked. I like them crispy. If you want them to be soft, cook for 15-20 minutes.
4. Remove from heat. Add in the nutritional yeast and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste.
I bought a few too many sweet potatoes so I decided to finally hit the "Knish Madness" recipe (page 76) in Vegan With A Vengeance. I have no idea what I got myself into. I don't know why the recipe says the baking is altogether 70 minutes while I spent almost 4 hours baking the potatoes at a higher temperature too. I mean I made other pies and baked other things so it seems that my oven is that off. I really don't know what happened. Then the kneading completely wiped me out. By the time I put the knishes into the oven to bake, I was so glad that it was all over I didn't even care if I ever got to eat them. And I didn't make any potato-spinach knishes after all that preparations. But the final products were really good. I think I still said that it was worth the effort - 6-7 hours of working in the kitchen.
I don't know whether it's the weather change or my mood change, but I've been craving for tasty and healthy eats and treats. I've been cutting down my sugar intake recently. People in my family don't show any exemplary resistance when they are faced with a plate of warm bread pudding smothered in thick cream. I'd gladly eat chocolate pudding for breakfast, lunch and dinner for three days straight. But, sugar does make people sick, especially too much sugar. When our food is overly acidic and our body fails to rid itself of the excessive acids as a result of over-working for decades, we will feel it. Stomach ulcers, heartburns, migraines and diabetes are just some common results. So, I am trying to do a little better with sugar. Apparently, with the dietary shift come the different cravings. I'm currently on a spinach and green beans kick. Oh, did I mention before that I'm a huge dill lover? There's just nothing like the smell of fresh dill weeds.
The spanakopita pie was very naturally created because I had some leftover filling from making the pot-stickers a couple of days ago. I just love the spinach, tofu and pine nuts mixed together and drowned in the aroma of dill.
Then I saw Heidi of 101 Cookbooks made this new dish: Vibrant Tasty Green Beans. I love green beans and I love dill even more. How could I ever resist such a lovely combination of the two? So this is the healthy yumminess delivered as promised.
Pictures speak better than words. Today, it's really true. We love wontons/dumplings/pot stickers/ravioli/pierogi, whatever form or name they come in. These savory little pockets of delight wrapped in a thin layer of delicate dough bring you all the joy of eating without seeming too overwhelming. Either served as a side dish or an entree, dumplings usually means a fun eating experience. Once you make a big batch, your cooking is probably done for at least several days in a month.
I call these Spanakopita Pot Stickers. The wonton wrapper dough recipe and the basic cooking method are by Kamutflake Girl. We haven't found any vegan wonton wrappers here, yet. But the filling is simply one of our favorites, spanakopita (from VwaV, page 91), with the only alteration of replacing walnuts with pine nuts. The verdict: we totally loved them! The filling and the wrappers go really well together. This recipe is definitely a keeper!
1. I used the Basic Single Pastry Crust recipe from Veganomicon. Totally awesome recipe. Excellent texture and so easy to make.
2. I used 3/4 cup of pumpkin puree with 1/4 cup Tofutti cream cheese plus 1 tablespoon of cornstarch in the pie filling.
3. For the topping, I simply used Earth Balance instead of butter.
I'm still suffering from a general enthusiasm about blogging. I'd love to take photos and post them, and actually I've had a lot to say before I hit the "compose" button. But once I'm here, in this big box, I seem to become speechless quickly. Sometimes words are just so hard to come by.
Below is Isa's famous tempeh bacon (from VwaV, page 23). Like Isa said, this is not gonna fool any meat-lovers. But to be all fair, a good tasty thing doesn't always have to be meat, right? For us, this is way better than bacon, only because it's full of flavors and it's extremely zingy.
Vegan Explosion's Sunday Biscuits. I can't believe how easy it is to make some fluffy biscuits in less than 15 minutes including baking time.
Dark Lentil and Vegetable Stew (recipe by Johanna of Green Gourmet Giraffe). Johanna turned a vegan recipe into vegetarian and I turned it back into vegan. I was too lazy to look at the original vegan recipe. Shame on me, as usual! Anyhow, I used cauliflower leaves, cauliflower and kale instead of the parsnip, cabbage and zucchini. And I cooked the whole stew on the stovetop without baking it. It's a stew very similar to the mole sauce, equally full of spices. We loved it!
