Hot & Sour Soup – yum!

Hi everyone,

I – like many – got suckered a few weeks ago when the weather was so warm. Sitting after work almost every day in the sun, I drank iced tea and slushies and beer (not all at the same time). It was heaven! Now, there are gorgeous fruit trees in bloom along my walk to work and the trees are also coming into leaf. Hurray! Unfortunately, though, the last few days have been cold and its feeling more like late winter than spring.

Today was cold and damp and I craved hot, warming soup for dinner. As a result, I whipped up a bunch of Hot & Soup Soup. I like this recipe because it’s super quick and easy and a little spicy and very satisfying. I hope you’ll like it too!

A souper bowl!

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Hot & Sour Soup

• 4 cups veggie stock
• 4-6 shiitake mushrooms (soaked & sliced) or a bunch of white mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 cup + bamboo shoots, cut in matchsticks
• 1/4 cup carrots, cut in matchsticks
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1″ of ginger, minced
• 1 block of silken tofu, cubed small
• 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
• shakes of cayenne, to taste
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. sugar or agave syrup
• 3 tbsp. white vinegar
• 2 tbsp. cornstarch, mixed into 4 tbsp of water
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 green onion, cut in 1/4″, then slicvered
• coriander, chopped
• sesame oil

1. If using white mushrooms, saute for a few minutes in some neutral-tasting veggie oil. Add the stock, mushrooms, bamboo, carrots, soy sauce and ginger in a covered pot. If you’re using shiitakes, just put them with other ingredients in the covered pot. Heat to boiling; simmer three minutes.

2. Add tofu, peppers, salt, sugar & vinegar. Simmer for 1 1/2 minutes.

3. Stir cornstarch and water well. Pour in a slow stream into the soup while stirring. Continue stirring while soup thickens.

4. Turn heat off. Pour beaten egg into soup in a thin stream while stirring.

5. Ladle into bowls; sprinkle with green onions, coriander & sesame oil.

Yield: about 4 servings

Adapted from a recipe from a coworker, Alex, way back in about 1999.

Black Bean & Sweet Potato Burritos, at last, at last!

These are some tasty burritos. No, I haven’t made them recently and no, I have no pretty photos of them to share. However, I am posting this by request of a friend. (Happy, Mr. RR?). I cross my heart and hope to die – this is my favourite burrito recipe, bar none. Before I made them for the first time, I thought that this combination was a little odd. I soon found myself delightfully impressed. This recipe features a complex and yummy assortment of flavours: spicy and sweet and tangy! Try them!

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Black Bean & Sweet Potato Burritos (La Dolce Vegan! – Sarah Kramer)

• 2 medium sweet potatoes (approx. 4 cups), diced
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 19-oz (540 ml) can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup veggie stock (my note: or water or weak stock)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 1/2 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp ground mustard (powder)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp salt (to taste)
• 4 large flour tortillas
• 1/4 cup salsa
• 1 cup (vegan) “cheese, grated (optional)

In a large pot of salted water, boil the sweet potatoes.

While sweet potatoes are cooking, in a medium saucepan on medium heat, saute the onions in oil until translucent. Add the black beans, stock, garlic, chili powder, mustard, cumin, and salt; simmer, uncovered, over medium-high heat for 15 minutes.

Drain water from sweet potatoes; return sweet potatoes to pot and mash with a potato masher. Set aside.

Once bean mixture is done, mash with potato masher and set aside.

Take 4 tortilla shells and lay on counter. Spread out onto each tortilla: 1 tbsp salsa, 1/4 of the sweet potatoes, 1/4 of the beans, and 1/4 of the “cheese”. Roll up each burrito and serve as is, or bake in oven until crisp. Makes 4 (large!) burritos).

Main dish salads – time to eat some veggies!

I like sugar. Yes, I do. I won’t deny it. Sweet foods are my go-to when I’m stressed and lately, I’ve had more than my fair share of stress, I figure! So, after a day of eating way too much junk (jujubes anyone?!?), I settled on making an enormous green salad for dinner. I actually think my sweetie is better at throwing together a main dish salad, but I made an attempt and it turned out well. I combined some nice veggies (torn leaf lettuce, chopped green pepper, sliced cucumber, shredded carrot, sliced mushrooms, and the piece de resistance: lightly steamed asparagus), with sliced boiled eggs, and a handful of sunflower seeds for protein. After a quick search through one of my favourite cookbooks, I found a lovely easy salad dressing to top it off. It’s a little sweet and a little creamy and was a tasty accompaniment to the salad I made.

Here’s the recipe! (Feel free to halve it like I did – it makes a lot).

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Duma Dressing from Get It Ripe (Jae Steele).

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup flax seed oil (or additional olive oil)
• 1/4 cup filtered water
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup tamari soy sauce
• 1 small onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
• 1/3 cup nutritional yeast
• 1/3 cup raw sunflower seeds
• 2 tsp fresh dill weed (or 1 tsp dried)

Toss all ingredients into a food process or blender and give them a whirl for about 30 seconds, until smooth. Serve.

Pour any leftovers into a clean glass bottle or jar and store in the fridge for up to a week.

Makes about 2 1/2 cups

Saucy Tahini Noodle Bowl

Hi all!

Do you ever have one of those days when you’re having a craving for a food and won’t settle until you get it? I had one of those days today. I was biking home and all I could think about was broccoli and tahini sauce. It made me wonder if I was calcium deficient (!) as both foods are good vegetarian sources of the mineral. In any event, I decided to throw this noodle bowl tonight off the top of my head. It turned out deliciously! I hope you’ll agree.

A delicious mouthful

Here’s the recipe!

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Saucy Tahini Noodle Bowl (serves 3-4)

• 1 lb. firm tofu
• olive or other veggie oil

• 1 small head of broccoli
• 4 bunches of small bok choy

• 3 bundles of soba noodles (or other rice noodles for 3-4 people)

• approx. 1/4 cup tahini (sesame butter)
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• few splashes of soy sauce/tamari
• salt & pepper
• cold water
• hot sauce (optional), such as Sriracha or chili paste

1. Slice the tofu into 10 – 12 slices. Heat a cast iron or other frying pan, add the oil, and fry the tofu, turning once, until both sides are lightly browned. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper.

2. While the tofu is frying, bowl two pots of water (for steaming the veggies & cooking the noodles). Wash and cut the broccoli into florets and wash and separate the bok choy leaves. Steam the veggies for as long as you like — give the broccoli a few minutes’ head start before adding the bok choy. Cook the noodles as directed and drain when done.

3. While everything is cooking, combine the sauce ingredients (tahini, lemon juice, garlic, soy sauce, salt & pepper). Add water to make a creamy sauce that isn’t too thick and not too runny. Add hot sauce to the tahini sauce if you like, or serve it at the table.

4. Portion the noodles out into four bowls, followed by a few tofu steaks, the broccoli & bok choy. Top with a few tablespoons of sauce on each bowl. Enjoy!

Mexican-Inspired Butter Bean Salad a la HeartfulMouthful

Mmm…looks and tastes like summer!

The gorgeous weather of the last week or so here in the Big Smoke has inspired me to cook and eat lighter foods — cold food gains appeal for me as the temperatures rises. On a day last week when it pushed 20C, I found this recipe on the HeartfulMouthful blog of my friend Kaitlin. I made that salad tonight.

What Kaitlin doesn’t tell you in her post is that this salad is extremely easy to make and is a lovely combination of fruity (because of the lime juice and olive oil) and warming (because of the chili flakes). Delicious! I’m serving it tonight on a bed of freekah and raw spinach.

Click here for the recipe.

Back to basics AKA noodle-y goodness

Hello foodie friends,

Wow! It has been way too long since I posted on here. I’ve been caught up in wedding and moving and holiday planning lately. I am only just now getting back to my usual self after two annoying months of being sick with this and that and now my energy is so much better! Also, when I lost my Blackberry, I lost an easy way to take photos and upload them here. Truth be told, I could have taken photos on the digital camera my sweetie kindly loaned to me, but I was lazy. I now have a beautiful new iToy which takes pretty pictures so it’s back to food blogging for me!

As I mentioned in my last post, I love getting back to food basics. My favourite meals are the ones that I can throw together quickly and easily without a forearm’s length list of ingredients and complicated instructions. A few delicious veggies, a protein source, and some key flavouring agents (such as lemon juice, olive oil, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, herbs and spices) make my favourite meals. Yes, there’s a time and a place for the molded tofu loaf filled with home-made stuffing topped with miso mushroom gravy that I make for Christmas but there’s a reason I only make it once a year!

Tonight’s dinner featured rice noodles, a few veg, and some almonds. It’s one of my favourite simple noodle dishes. It’s super quick and easy to make. I added a few extra bonus items to spice it up, but it stands alone very well with its original list of ingredients. The recipe is: Zucchini & Broccoli Toss.

Broccoli & Zucchini Noodle Toss

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Broccoli & Zucchini Noodle Toss (adapted from The Garden of Vegan)

• dry rice noodles (enough for two people)
• vegetable oil
• 1 medium zucchini, cubed
• 1 cup broccoli, chopped into small pieces
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3-4 tsp. fresh ginger, grated
• 2 tbsp. Braggs or soy sauce
• 2 tsp. sesame oil
• 1/4 cup almonds, dry roasted or raw
• chili flakes (optional)
• fresh basil, chopped (optional)

In a large pot of water, boil the rice noodles.

While the noodles are cooking, in a large saucepan on medium-high heat, saute the zucchini, broccoli, garlic, ginger, and Braggs in vegetable oil until zucchini is tender. Add sesame oil and chili flakes and fresh basil, if using. Drain noodles and toss with vegetables. Top with almonds. Serve hot.

Yield: 2 servings

Freaky freekah?

Hello foodie friends!

There is nothing more satisfying to me than a rice or noodle bowl. You know the kind of meal? It’s very straightforward and pretty quick to put together. You cook a grain or pasta, you steam a veg or two with some protein, you make a sauce and you’re set! They make them at Fresh, a local vegetarian restaurant, which I used to go to a lot before (in my opinion) they got too big for their britches. I have memories of their cozy original restaurant and still feel the inspiration of some of those first rice and noodle bowls!

Given that I’m currently trying to eat up what’s in my kitchen in anticipation of an upcoming move, rather than making a rice bowl, I cooked up a freekah bowl. Freak-what? Yeah, that’s what I wondered, too! Freekah, it turns out, is a roasted green grain, traditionally wheat.

Hey! Get that Danish horse outta my freekah!

In this case, I had a lovely bag of organic spelt freekah from a farm in Ithaca, New York: Brookton Hollow Farm Bed and Breakfast. In addition to being a vegetarian bed & breakfast, this place is also a farm that grows organic grains and beans.

Work horses at Brookton Hollow B&B

So, after putting the freekah on to cook, I steamed up some broccoli and tempeh and made a yummy peanut sauce to top it off. The freekah had a lovely chewy texture and had a very “more-ish” quality to it! I can’t think what to compare the taste to (it was quite mild) but the texture reminded me a little of a combination of brown rice and barley. I couldn’t stop myself from having seconds of just the freekah with extra peanut sauce. Yum!

Anyway, here are the details of what I made tonight, in case you want to make your very own freaky freekah! You can, of course, substitute with another grain like brown rice or quinoa, but it just won’t be the same.

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Kat’s Freekah Bowl (makes 4 medium-sized servings)

For the freekah:

• 1 cup freekah
• 2 1/2 cups water

For the veg/protein:

• broccoli (or another green veg that you like: kale, chard, or bok choy would also be delicious!)
• tempeh (or tofu)

For the peanut sauce (adapted from How It All Vegan):

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups hot water
• 1 cup peanut butter (natural & unsweetened, for heaven’s sake!)
• 1/2 tsp. curry powder
• 1 tbsp. fresh grated ginger
• 3 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. sesame oil
• cayenne, to taste
• chili/garlic sauce (optional)

1. Put the freekah and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, give it a stir, and set to a low simmer for 50 minutes. When done, take off the heat and let sit for about 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, wash and chop the broccoli into large florets. Chop the tempeh into 2 cm cubes. Put these in a pot with a steamer and steam until done to your liking.

3. While the veg/protein are steaming, prepare the peanut sauce. Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil until translucent. Add the rest of the ingredients. Simmer for 5 – 7 minutes, adding additional water if you find it too thick.

Omelette-y goodness

Hello all!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You’ll have to excuse my absence. Between my return to work and ongoing illness, my cooking and posting has slowed down. In addition, I left my Blackberry in a cab last weekend and am without means to take photos of the food I make. This post will picture-less. Will you forgive me, dear reader?

Yesterday was a lovely day. It started out with my sweetie running out to pick up ingredients for us to make brunch for some dear friends. On the menu? Pepper and cream cheese omelettes with fresh walnut bread. Delish!

Without further ado… the recipe!

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Kat’s Sautéed Pepper & Cream Cheese Omelette (serves 2)

• 1 small shallot or onion
• 1/2 green pepper
• 1/2 yellow, orange, or red pepper
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• butter
• 4-6 eggs
• water
• whipped cream cheese

1. Chop the shallot. Dice the peppers. Saute the veggies in the olive oil over medium-high heat until soft and cooked through. Season with salt & pepper (and any herbs you like), remove from the pan (being careful to remove any little bits of veg), and keep warm in the oven.

2. Meanwhile, beat the eggs until frothy. Add a couple of splashes of water and beat again until incorporated.

3. Heat some butter in the pan used to cook the veggies over medium heat. Pour in the egg mixture. Cook slowly until mostly set, tipping the pan to spread out the uncooked egg mixture every so often. When egg is just cooked, sprinkle the veggies on one half of the egg mixture. Top the veggies with dollops of cream cheese. Reduce the heat to low, fold the omelette in half, cover, and let sit for a few minutes to melt the cheese. Cut in half with a spatula.

4. Serve with buttered bread or toast – walnut bread for the full experience!

Okonomi yaki, or the “grand cabbage dilemma” revisited!

Hello all,

In commenting on my cabbage dilemma, Souvenir Kattunge from Milk Plasma on Toast reminded of a delicious dish that I have not had in ages: okonomi yaki or Japanese savoury pancakes. One of the main ingredients in this delicious and unusual (to my germano-anglo taste buds) dish is cabbage – a perfect way to use up that bit of cabbage you might have kicking around in your fridge. Happily, I was able to assemble, make and eat some delicious specimens today.

I based my pancakes on a recipe from a Japanese vegetarian cookbook that I bought ages ago. Sadly, I have the UK version of the book, so all ingredients are measured by weight. Not so sadly, I invested in a very sleek digital kitchen scale last year, so I could make the recipe with a minimum of eyeballing of the ingredients. (It’s for the best, really. Eyeballing them makes the ingredients nervous!). If any of you want me to convert this to teaspoons and fractions of cups, let me know, and I’ll do it.

Ironically, the subtitle of the aforementioned cookbook reads “how to cook the healthiest cuisine in the world”. Healthy, this recipe, is not (fry in lots of oil! top with MAYO!) but delicious it most certainly is.

Good enough to eat!

Without further ado, I present you…

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Okonomi Yaki (my adaptation from Japanese Vegetarian Cookbook by Patricia Richfield)

• 150 g/5 oz cabbage
• 1-2 carrots
• 2-4 spring onions
• 120 g/4 1/2 oz flour (all-purpose, whole wheat or spelt)
• few shakes of salt
• 150 ml/5 fl oz cold water
• 2 eggs
• Toppings: mayo, tonkatsu or HP sauce, nori or aonori-ko (powdered nori)

1. If using a regular nori sheet instead of the powdered nori, toast the sheet of nori by holding it over a warm stove-top element for a couple of minutes, turning often. (For heaven’s sake, don’t put it directly on the element!). Let cool a few moments. Chop into threads using kitchen scissors.

2. Shred the cabbage finely. Peel and grate the carrot. Wash and slice the spring onions.

3. Mix the flour and salt together. Add the water and mix well into a batter.

4. Add the egg to the veggies and mix well. Add this mixture to the flour mixture and mix well.

5. Heat about 2 tsp. oil in a frying pan. Spoon the pancake mixture into the plan, spreading it out into a circle with the back of a spoon. Reduce heat to low to moderate and cover the pan. Fry for about 8 – 10 minutes, until the base is golden brown. Turn over the pancake, and fry with the lid off for a further 3 – 5 minutes. (The idea is to cook the pancake slowly enough so that the vegetables will cook through; cook it too fast and you’ll have a cooked-enough pancake on the outside with underdone veggies on the inside). Remove from pan on to a warmed plate. Serve with the toppings.

5. To eat, spread with tonkatsu or HP sauce, spread on some mayo, shake on some powdered ginger and sprinkle with the nori. (I didn’t have any tonkatsu or HP sauce today, but it sure still was tasty!)

The grand cabbage dilemma

Hello friendly foodies,

Have you ever had a cabbage dilemma? Go on, you know what I mean. You buy the smallest cabbage you can possibly find and yet it’s still the size of a standard basketball. The recipe you’re using only calls for a cup or two and you’re left with almost the whole leafy green globe. It’s a damn good thing that cabbages keep well!

A couple of weeks ago, my sweetie picked up a cabbage for me to make some yummy veggie soup. That soup came and went and yet the cabbage lived on in the crisper. I found a recipe that took six more cups. I’m not saying that this used up the rest of the lowly leafy thing, but now I’m down to  about 1/3 of it. I’d say that’s progress, wouldn’t you?

The recipe I used is aptly and accurately called Hot and Sour Tofu and Cabbage Stew. The title says it all! This is a very easy, yummy, tangy recipe with lots of healthy ingredients – the texture is especially interesting if you make it with the more ruffly kind of cabbage and serve it with short grain brown rice. Delish! It makes a ton also should freeze really well.

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Hot and Sour Tofu and Cabbage Stew (from Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health – The Moosewood Collective)

• 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 2 cups chopped onions
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 6 cups chopped cabbage
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
• 3 tbsp. soy sauce
• 2 tsp. chinese chili paste (or to taste, I suggest using less if using ginger)
• 2 tbsp. cider vinegar or white vinegar
• 1 tbsp. grated peeled ginger root
• 1 cake of firm tofu (about 16 oz.)
• ground black pepper

Step 1, ready to go!

1. In a soup pot on medium-high heat, warm the oil and cook the onions, bell peppers and cabbage, stirring frrequently, for 8-10 minutes, until the onions are translucent and the cabbage is beginning to wilt.

2. Stir in the broth, tomatoes, soy sauce, chili paste, vinegar, and ginger (if using). Cut the tofu into small cubes (about 1/2-inch) and add to the stew. Cover and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Add black pepper to taste.

Serve with whole grain bread or on brown rice.

The finished product!