Category Archives: Vegetarian

Char Siu-tan

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I tried making my own seitan today.  Man is it time consuming.  Yes, it’s cheaper to make it from your own flour…much cheaper…but I think the time saved might just make it worth buying it premade.  Plus the texture of the stuff I made was somewhat gelatinous…like the fat on meat, but not fatty tasting.  But in case you’re curious and want to give it a shot, the recipe I used is in The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook (the quickest recipe I found), but there are also other recipes online, like this one.

For all the bad rap gluten gets nowadays (yes, there are people who are celiac and extremely sensitive, but I think at least in the bay area fear of gluten has gotten out of hand), seitan a pretty decent meat substitute.  If you fry it with a bit of oil on it, it’ll get crispy on the outside.  If you microwave it, it will puff up and then shrink down into little chicken like chewy bits.  It’s sort of bland on its own, but does well with sauces or seasonings mixed in.

Today I used my homemade seitan to make vegan Char Siu.  The process I used was ridiculous and not efficient.  First I boiled the seitan for a bit in some broth, then I marinated it in a homemade char siu marinade, then I steamed it for a bit, then I put the marinade and the seitan in a pan and cooked it while reducing the sauce, glazing it…then I removed the glazed seitan and washed the pan, added oil, and crisped the seitan up in that.  Way. Too. Complicated.  But here was the result:

I think the process would be easier and quicker if a) you used premade seitan b) just marinated and fried it, then glazed it a la this nice-looking recipe by The Wayward Oven.

Well, it was a fun experiment…and I know what recipe to look at next time I want char siuness.

A Random Vegan/Vegetarian Products Review

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Last weekend I decided to do it…to just try to go 99% vegetarian.  Meaning there are only exceptions for holidays and maybe sushi a few times a year. While I am generally a fabulous cook and can make some darn good vegetarian unprocessed stuff myself (lentil loaf, lentil meatballs, chili from dried beans, etc.), my grad student life style means I don’t have a ton of time to prepare food from scratch all the time.

As such, I’ve been buying more vegetarian fake meat products.  In order to not eat a metric buttload of calories, I need a lot of protein.  Soy products suffice.  I’ve also been curiously trying vegan things, just for the sake of trying them, knowing that a vegan lifestyle is generally most sustainable for the environment.  Here’s a review of what I’ve tried that was memorable from the past few years up to more recently:

Frozen Meals/Quick Food:

  • Kashi frozen meals -  Mayan harvest bake, Three Cheese Penne, Spicy Black Bean Enchiladas.  The first and the last are better than the middle.  Kashi’s frozen meals retain a good texture and taste wholesome and satisfying, with complex flavors you wouldn’t usually find in frozen meals.  Only downside is that the instructions for cooking are a bit more complicated than some other frozen meals (2 to 3 step rather than 1 step).
  • Sukhi’s Naanwiches, Garden Vegetable – Very good flavor, especially with the naan.  Probably best if toaster ovened though.  Not super filling.
  • Fortune Avenue Vegetarian Potstickers – presteamed, so they’re quick to cook.  You can microwave these in a minute and a half.  These are my favorite vegetarian potstickers.  They don’t taste like meat, but they have a nice rich flavor and good texture and chewy veggies in there!
  • Amy’s Tofu Scramble Breakfast Wrap – Avoid!  How can something taste so much like cardboard through the entire bite?  Bleh.
  • Trader Joe’s Black Bean and Cheese Taquitos – These are addictive and surprisingly fairly low calorie.  They make a great snack or meal when paired with some salsa to dip them in.  A bit dry, but good flavor.
  • Trader Joe’s Paneer Tikka Masala – While this has a great flavor and good texture, it’s just not enough to keep me full.  I like the green rice with it though, and the tikka masala sauce is good.
  • Trader Joe’s Eggplant Parmesan – Good flavor, but not enough in the meal to keep me full.  And definitely not enough cheese for an eggplant Parmesan!
  • Trader Joe’s Tarte d’Champignon – A flatbread pizza type thing with cheese and mushrooms.  Amazing and rich and so good.  Bring it to a foodie potluck and people will be amazed.  Wait no, bring me one please.

Meat Substitutes:

  • Gardein Beefless Tips – The *best* beef substitute.  Hands down.  I’ve used them for many things, from stew to sliced and browned in vegetarian pho.
  • Gardein Chick’n Scallopini – a decent chicken substitute.  It has a good texture, but the flavor is a bit celery-like.  Browns nicely.
  • Trader Joe’s Soy Chorizo – uh-maaaay-zing.  Same flavor profile as the meaty version but with less fat.  Great scrambled with eggs.
  • Tofurky Peppered Deli Slices – skip these.  Go for the Hickory Smoked and add your own fresh ground pepper.
  • Tofurky Hickory Smoked Deli Slices – the best fake meat lunch meat.  It has the best texture and a rich flavor and a slight hint of smokiness. Enough protein to be satisfying.  I make my sandwiches that I eat on the train out of these!
  • Trader Joe’s Chickenless Strips – I didn’t let myself eat chicken strips before.  Now I do.  These are healthier but also tasty.  They also make great sandwiches.
  • Gardein Chipotle Lime Chick’n Fingers – yuck.  It tasted someone dipped chicken fingers in lemon cleanser.  No taste of Chipotle at all.  Gardein should retire these or reformulate them.  They have a nice texture of crust on the chick’n though.
  • Morningstar Farms Bacon Strips – eh.  They’ll work in something (like deviled eggs) if you really have a hankering for bacon, but they’re not that great by themselves.  Salty for sure.  Texture is kind of crunchy, vaguely cardboardy, but none of the chew of meat bacon.
  • Morningstar Farms Grillers Veggie Crumbles – these are fine.  Nothing to rave about really.  They add the meaty texture to whatever you’re cooking (chili, shephard’s pie, veggie sloppy joes) but wouldn’t stand by themselves as much.  You could just as soon just get TVP and do the same thing for cheaper.
  • Morningstar Farms veggie sausage products – Skip the links and go for the patties.  The links don’t have a great texture.The spicy patties are hard to find but particularly good.  Better than the fake bacon.
  • Whole Foods 365 Brand Veggie Sausage Patties – good flavor, but not low on calorie.  Nice spices and seasonings, good texture.  A little spicy but not too much for me!

“Dairy”:

  • Trader Joe’s Soy Mozzarella – Trader Joe’s does it again.  This soy cheese has a great texture and melts well, without the soy flavor of some vegan cheese substitutes.  However, it does contain casein (a milk protein) so it’s not truly vegan.  However, it didn’t bother my lactose intolerant tummy.
  • Trader Joe’s Soy Creamery Chocolate Chip and Cherry – Love Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia?  Lactose intolerant or vegan?  This is like crack.  No overwhelming soy flavor.  You will have to stop yourself from eating the whole dang tub.
  • Trader Joe’s Coconut Strawberry frozen dessert – Pretty good.  Tangy strawberry flavor, slight hint of coconut, good mouth feel and moderately rich flavor.  Different from strawberry ice cream, but in a good way.  It’d probably make some good summer cocktails if blended with rum!
  • Daiya Vegan Mozzarella/Cheddar Shreds – tastes like processed cheese product.  If you like Kraft singles, you’ll probably like this.  It melts well, but the Mozzarella and Cheddar kind of taste the same just with different colors.  However, works ironically well in scrambled eggs… (I can see some vegans face-palming right now!)
  • Pacific Organic Plain Unsweetened Almond Milk – almond milk generally works much better in coffee than soy or rice milk.  The latter curdle. Yuck!
  • Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Cream Cheese – Bleh.  Can the Daiya people make some cream cheese substitute?  It’d definitely be better than this.  This faux cream cheese has that cardboardy overwhelming soy flavor and texture that I dislike. This will probably sit in my fridge for a long while…maybe better in desserts though.

Seasonings/other:

  • Better than Bullion Vegetarian Beef Bullion: kind of flat and honestly doesn’t taste much different than their vegetable bullion (which is still a nice bullion substitute).  Salty like a good beef bullion with a fair amount of umami, but adding it to vegetable broth and adding some mushrooms (crimini or porcini) will make the flavor better.
  • Nuoc Mam Chay/Vegetarian Fish Sauce – similar funk to fish sauce, similar saltiness, but not fish sauce.  But it will do in a pinch for Thai and Vietnamese cooking.  Find it at Vietnamese grocery stores.
  • Vegetarian Oyster Sauce – oysterless, but still great on broccoli.  Stir fry with Gardein’s Beefless Tips and some chopped broccoli and satisfy your broccoli beef craving in no time!
  • Amoy-D Curry Paste: Most Thai curry pastes are not vegetarian (most of them contain some shrimp product).  However, Amoy-D is.  It lacks a bit in the umami depth of the shrimpy curry pastes, but it works fine to make a good curry at home.
  • Hummus: Trader Joe’s is the best.  Sabra (sold at Costco and Safeway) is okay.  It’s easy to make your own though if you have a food processor or blender and some canned garbanzos.

I hope you enjoyed those reviews above and avoid the things I’ve advised you to avoid!  Unless you’re desperate, I guess.

As a side note, my mom (one of my greatest inspirations and person who I have to thank for my cooking capabilities) may be making a guest post sometime in the near future, so keep your eyes open for that!

Folded Hands

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The road to 酸辣抄手 (suanla chaoshou) this week was an odd one.  I’m finally starting to feel better after two weeks of being sick, and it was apparently time for some cooking therapy.  After a week of craving anything 麻辣 (mala, numbing spiciness), I finally got around to making my own 麻辣油 (mala you).  Mala you is a flavored oil that is herbal, spicy, and numbing all at the same time.  There were no visions of any kind of dumpling in my mind at the time, but you know how things go.

Characteristically bright red and spicy, it’s made by infusing oil with a variety of spices.  I pretty much went by the Wikipedia list: “The sauce is made primarily of dried chili peppers, chili powder, douban paste, Sichuan peppercorns, clove, garlic, star anise, black cardamom, fennel, ginger, cinnamon, salt and sugar. These ingredients are simmered with beef tallow and vegetable oil and for many hours, and packed into a jar.”   I packed all the herbs and spices into a crockpot with canola oil.  It took a lot of most of the spices to make and at first I definitely added too much garlic, making it kind of funky tasting. It took a while to get the balance right; I had to taste the oil every hour or so and add whatever seemed to be missing.  I think it would be hard if you hadn’t tasted mala you before to know what I mean.  The crockpot definitely worked nicely, though, for infusing the oil without a big mess.

Actually the funny thing is that after I put everything in the crockpot, I realized I didn’t have douban paste or black cardamom, so I had to trek through the rain on a fall morning to the Vietnamese market downtown.  After slowly bumping through throngs of people down the crowded aisles of the market (at 10 am nonetheless!) and awkwardly ramming into the counter with my shopping basket like a good klutzy geek, not only did I return with doubon paste and cardamom, but also dumpling skins.   Gosh, I’m such a sucker for anything that is a dumpling or a pickle.   Well, I thought they were dumpling skins…until I realized they were actually wonton skins (square instead of circular).

After letting my mala you stew for about 6 hours in the crockpot, tasting it frequently until the balance was right, I strained it through cheesecloth.  Later that night, I somehow got inspired to try to make dumplings with the wonton skins.  At 9:30 pm.  Gosh I’m weird.  They definitely didn’t work for dumplings, so I gave up and made wontons until 11 pm or so.  But then it all ended up coalescing nicely, because I could use the mala you on the wontons…thus making them 酸辣抄手 (suanla chaoshou, a type of dumpling with sauce from Sichuan Provence said to resemble folded hands).  Voila!

My wontons, however, were vegetarian and uncharacteristically extremely flavorful.  Here’s the recipe-ish, off the top of my head, with approximations.  You can use them for the hot and sour dumpling recipe from Sichuan or put them in wonton soup.

Vegetarian Chaoshou

素食抄手

  • 1 package of wonton skins, medium thickness
  • 1 1/2 cups of lotus root coins
  • 5 green onions, washed with bottoms removed
  • 4 reconstituted shiitake mushrooms
  • 1/2 cup reconstituted cloud ear/wood ear mushrooms
  • 2 peeled cloves of garlic
  • 2 coins of fresh ginger
  • 1 small carrot
  • 1 tbsp douban paste (hot bean sauce)
  • 1/2 block of tofu
  • 2/3 cup dry textured vegetable protein (helps bind it together and gives it a more appealing texture)
  • 1 tbsp five spice powder
  • soy sauce to taste

Combine the garlic, green onion, lotus root, ginger, carrot, and mushrooms in the food processor and chop until very fine (or chop finely by hand).  Then add the tofu and textured vegetable protein, douban paste, a bit of soy sauce, and five spice powder and chop it all up until the tofu is no longer in big chunks.  Mix with a spoon as necessary to make sure everything is evenly distributed.

Take a wonton skin out of the package and lay it flat on your hand.  Place a teaspoon of filling in the middle. Put water around the edges and fold wonton style (here’s a video that helped me).  Repeat until all filling is used up.  Should make anywhere from 40-60 wontons.  You can freeze them, but they do tend to stick together.

To serve them suanla (hot and sour) style, mix vegetable broth and black Chinese vinegar (50/50 ratio), a few spoonfulls of mala you (spicy oil), a spoonful of douban paste, and a bit of soy sauce and set that aside.  Steam as many wontons as you intend to eat in one sitting. (I just put a bit of water in a frying pan, add the wontons, then cover it with a lid and let it cook for 5 minutes or so until the skins are slightly transparent.)  Place the steamed wontons in a bowl, dump the sauce over it, garnish with whatever you want (cilantro, green onion, more hot peppers or sichuan peppercorn powder if you’re masochistic).

These are so tasty on a cold rainy day.  And now I have copious amounts of mala you to make everything from dandan mian to hot pot.  Hooray!

 

The Spice of Life

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I suspect until December, you’re going to keep hearing about how busy my life is.  Rest assured I have been cooking delicious things and not just subsisting off of only instant  ramen.  The garden is still going, with peppers and carrots and herbs currently and beets and daikon in the works.  However, my slow cooker has become one of my best friends.  I can throw stuff in there and leave it alone while I study and have delicious food for the week.

One of my favorite recipes I made recently in the slow cooker was slow cooker lasagne.  Here’s the original recipe.  I’ll admit, I did use jarred spaghetti sauce because I was short on time.  However, I mixed zucchini, poblano peppers, mushrooms, onions, garlic, and fresh basil into the ricotta mixture and that made it quite tasty and special.  Easy as pie, except that it’s sort of hard to fit lasagne noodles into an oval shaped slow cooker.

Another favorite recipe I tried was lentil meatballs . I substituted laughing cow cheese for ricotta and add a ton more fresh herbs, but they came out fantastic and were freezable in individual ziplocs for whenever I heated up jarred sauce.

I’ll admit that on the part time vegetarian front as of late, I’ve been a little slackery.  Making the kind of vegetarian food I like takes time, which can be lacking.  I’ll keep trying, though, because there are too many reasons and benefits to not at least reduce my meat consumption.

Along that line, I recently discovered a brand of Thai curry paste that doesn’t contain shrimp paste (like most curry pastes do): Amoy-D. My only beef with it is that I always have to add sugar to the curry because the curry paste itself is more savory than the ones I’m used to.  Today I made panang curry with fried tofu, butternut squash, apples and mango.  This time the fruit helped sweeten it up so I didn’t need to add sugar.

Curry is so versatile…you can put just about anything in it really, sort of like fried rice.  Why fried tofu? Because frying gives it a better texture and allows it to soak up more sauce/curry/whatever.

I made a big batch for my lunches for this week, because that’s what I do nowadays…make huge batches of something tasty and force myself to eat it for 3-5 days.

  • 1 cup of extra firm tofu cut into dice-sized cubes
  • 1-2 cups of vegetable or peanut oil for frying
  • 1 can coconut milk
  • 1/4 cup panang curry paste (more or less, depending on your tastes)
  • 1 butternut squash, peeled with seeds removed and cut into large chunks (3″ or so)
  • 2 carrots, cut into half coins
  • 3 lime leaves (preferably kaffir, but if you have regular lime leaves it’s better than nothing)
  • 3 coins ginger or galangal
  • 2 small red peppers, cut into rings
  • 1 bunch green onions
  • 1 apple, cut into cubes
  • 1/2 cup frozen mango chunks (or fresh)
  • 1/2 cup frozen peas
  • 2/3 cup Thai basil leaves (substitute regular basil if you have to I guess)
  • 2/3 cup cilantro leaves

First, dry the tofu and cut it into the dice sized cubes.  Drying it is important!  This way it won’t splatter quite as much when you fry it.  If you want to be extra careful, you can squeeze as much water out of the tofu as possible and then dry it after you cut it into dice cubes too.

Heat the oil in a pot or wok until a drop of water added to the pan splatters.  Add tofu, stir constantly until tofu is golden brown and looks sort of like little sponges.  Remove and drain on paper towels.  Set aside.

Add the coconut milk to a good sized soup pot and add water to thin it to the consistency somewhere between paste and milk.  Heat on medium. Add the curry paste and blend it in with a spoon or spatula.

Add in the harder vegetables: butternut and carrot.  Also add the lime leaves and ginger coins.  If using non-kaffir lime leaves, smoosh them up a bit in your hands before adding to the pot to release more of the essential oils.

Let this simmer until the butternut squash starts to get a bit soft, then add the peppers, apple, green onion, mango, and peas.

Let this cook for a couple of minutes at a low simmer, until the butternut is cooked to where it is soft enough to be cut with a fork.  Then add in the herbs (basil, cilantro) at the last minute.  Turn off the heat and mix well.

It doesn’t look glamorous, but it tastes fantastic.

A thank you to whoever actually reads this blog.  May all your tasty dreams come true!

 

Garden Gazpacho

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Yeah, I’m not sure anyone will read this with the inconsistency and long gaps between posts as of late.  But hey, at least my mom will!  Hi mom, you’re awesome!

Anyway, I woke up this morning and it was already hot.  San Jose gets a little toasty in the summer for a Northern girl like me.  I’m happy up to about 80, then above that I start perspiring considerably.  Our garden, however, loves the heat.   This is evidenced by the giant squash that seem to grow overnight:

We also have lemon cucumbers, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, serrano peppers, and heirloom tomatoes that are going along quite well right now (the only unsuccessful thing we planted was strawberries. :( ).  Our apricot tree recently fruited intensively for 3 weeks then was done.

So when I woke up this morning, Imembered how much I like gazpacho when it’s hot and that we had an awful lot of cucumbers that needed to be used in the garden.  A blender or a food processor makes gazpacho a breeze, really, so I threw some together and had it for breakfast with a cafe au lait (made with a Bialetti Moka Express generously gifted by a certain Mr. & Mrs. J/G from New York, New York, which makes some mighty fine caffeinated beverage!).  Gazpacho and espresso is not a bad combo.

So rest assured, all…I am alive and not yet reduced to subsisting off interesting reconstructions of instant ramen.

Honestly, I’m not much of a recipe follower…if you’re that way as well, I’d recommend you check out the Food and Wine Tips for making excellent gazpacho.  And go ahead, eat it for breakfast.  It’s pretty darn good!

 

Munching Meals

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Lately I’ve had a habit of eating little bits of all sorts of things for dinner rather than just sitting down to a huge portion of something.  Especially when I spread it out over a few hours, I’ve found it to be more satisfying.  I also eat less, I think, which is both surprising and unsurprising.

Tonight, though, I decided to go for a combo-plate type dinner.  My combo plate made most things be about equal rather than having any one thing dominate.

Tonight’s menu:

  • Korean mixed grain rice (Microwaveable in 1.5 mins — this stuff is magic.  Find it at your local Japanese, Korean, or possibly Chinese market.)
  • Ohitashi with bell pepper (Cooked spinach with soy sauce.  Try microwaving washed spinach for 30 seconds, then adding a bit of soy sauce, a little lemon juice, and some sesame seeds for my favorite and super easy version).  Both Japanese spinach and bell peppers from the garden!
  • Tomato slices
  • Tamagoyaki (Mix beaten eggs with mirin and soy– mostly eggs, a little more mirin than soy, cook in a pan attending frequently. Periodically lift up cooked egg and allow runny egg to flow under cooked. Fold the layers as you go occasionally, aiming to get a rectangular block you can slice.  Cook until solid and with slight caramelization on either side.)
  • South East Asian inspired salad, with most of ingredients from the garden: peas, radishes, baby mustard greens, cilantro, opal basil, and (not from the garden) grapefruit and green onions.  Dressing: seasoned rice vinegar microwaved for 30 seconds with two coins of ginger to lightly infuse it and let cool before tossing the salad in it.
  • Garnish: lemon slice and home grown shiso.

Pretty satisfying, and the whole thing took maybe 30 minutes to prepare and was vegetarian.  And you can’t get much fresher than vegetables from the garden!

Nutrition tips I’ve learned lately:  in order to absorb all the nutrients from dark leafy vegetables, make sure to pair them with something with vitamin C.  Also, microwaving spinach is not only quicker and easier, but also retains the most nutrients!

I promise, I’m alive. And eating.

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This last semester of grad school really kicked my butt.  I still made some tasty and interesting things and have a nice garden growing– I just haven’t had time to post anything about it.  I have two days until Summer Session starts (3 classes), so I wanted to post something brief to reassure you that while I’m not posting, I am alive and eating well.

Vegetarian Bean Soup

I went up to visit my parents for a few days.  Given my attempts at eating tasty vegetarian things more often and meat generally less (but not strictly so), I decided to cook them a tasty bean soup.  The key to vegetarian soup, to me, is to have a good, rich stock.  I boil several types of dried mushrooms (this time, shiitake, porcini, and black fungus) with onion and some carrot and celery trimmings and add a non-negligible amount of soy sauce (probably about 1/2 cup or so for 5 cups of broth here).  Don’t overdo the shiitake quantity, though, otherwise it’ll just taste funky.  5 or 6 usually does it. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer and let it simmer away as long as you can stand it.  We let this batch steep overnight, actually.

Then for the bean soup, I threw in dried beans that we’d soaked overnight and rinsed (adzuki and pinto, I think?) in a crock pot with the strained broth.  The secret ingredient I added this time was dried ancho chilis (seeded and chopped). I don’t like what crock pots do to onions if you just put them in there as is, so I usually sautee them and any other veggies and a bit of chopped garlic in some oil until slightly browned in places before adding them to the pot.  I think this helps to avoid the slight sour taste the would otherwise get.  Some salt, some pepper, some oregano and you’re good to go.  Let that all simmer away for a day time period.

When serving, I finely chopped green onions, cilantro, and some spicy red chilis (seeded, of course) together into a nice garnish and gave everyone a bit of lime to squeeze on top.

Chili-inspired, but not chili.  :)

Kuri Squash Soup with Chestnuts

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One of my recent CSA deliveries included a red Kuri Squash.  The name inspired me to create a velvety squash soup with red curry and meaty chestnuts.  I started with my own broth, made from a mirepoix with oyster mushrooms and simmered with kaffir lime leaves and ginger.  (Note that the mirepoix & mushrooms method is a great way to make vegetarian soup broth in general.) The soup itself has the consistency of a vichyssoise or other creamy soup, with chestnuts adding some substance and is sort of Thai-French-American fusion…  I recommend serving each bowl with a bit of fresh cilantro.

Roasted chestnuts that are pre-shelled are often available at Japanese or Chinese grocery stores (like Nijiya or 99 Ranch) in vacuum sealed packages.  They’re pretty convenient and tasty!  One forenote…I’m not a big fan of Trader Joe’s red curry sauce (I didn’t have a chance to try it before this recipe), so if you make this I’d recommend using Thai red curry paste that comes in a tub.

The only reason I used the Trader Joe’s brand is because normally Thai curry paste is not vegetarian because it includes shrimp paste.  I now regret that decision…it would’ve been better with the sacrificed shrimp.  If I made it again, I might also add some sprigs of lemongrass to the both while simmering.

Curry Kuri Squash Soup with Chestnuts

Ingredients

  • 1 Kuri Squash (or other winter squash)
  • 1/2 yellow onion
  • 2 small carrots
  •  2 stalks celery
  • 1 cup oyster mushrooms (or other mushrooms)
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 2 kaffir lime leaves
  • 1 large coin fresh ginger
  • 3 cups water
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 can light coconut milk
  • 1/2 bottle of Trader Joe’s red curry sauce (or a few tbsp red curry paste instead)
  • 1+ tsp cayenne pepper
  • 2 tbsp fresh grated ginger
  • 2 cups chopped roasted, shelled chestnuts
  • fresh cilantro for garnish

Cut the squash in half and roast it in a 350 degree oven for about an hour, or until easily poked with a fork and soft.

Dice celery, carrots, and onions into about 1/4″ cubes.

Chop the mushrooms roughly and add them to a pot with the 2 tbsp of butter.  Mix it all up well.  Sautee them until the mushrooms are nicely browned.

Add the mirepoix and 2 cloves of garlic to the pot and mix it up so it gets coated with the butter.  Continue sauteeing until the onions start becoming browned and caramelized.

Add the water and soy sauce and mix well.  Let it simmer for about 15 minutes.  If you just want a vegetarian stock, once the broth tastes flavorful enough to you, simply strain out the liquid and you have a very good vegetable broth.  For the squash soup, continue on…

Add the coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, and ginger coins.  Mix well and simmer for 15 minutes.  (I put a couple of tomatoes in with the broth just because…I don’t think it added anything special though.  Not sure why I added it.  But that explains that tomato you see floating there that isn’t included in the ingredients list…)

Strain off the liquid and dispose of the mirepoix/etc.

Time to get back to the squash…remove the seeds and scoop out the meat.

Add the squash to a blender along with the curry sauce and a bit of the broth you just strained.  Blend it up until smooth.

Return the broth to the pot and add the squash mixture.  Mix it all up well and let it simmer.  Add some cayenne powder.

Roughly chop up the chestnuts.  Add them to the soup.

Add the 2 tbsp of grated ginger.  Simmer the soup on a low heat for quite a while, stirring intermittently, until reduced as much as you’d like.

Serve with fresh cilantro, perhaps a wedge of lime.

 

Plottin’ au Gratin

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My mom has been hearing me talk about my plans for a gratin for almost a week now.  The idea came up when a coworker who has gone gluten free due to health reasons graciously paid for my dinner one night, and I offered to repay with something delicious and gluten free.  I got to thinking, of course.

…Who doesn’t like anything with cheese on it?

So I decided on a riff on scalloped potatoes, adding in butternut squash into the mix because I had both lying around and needing to be used.  With plenty of cheese.

The other day on my way to grab ramen with my friend Janette, I stopped at The Milk Pail, a family owned business in Mountain View, CA and home of my greatest weakness: an abundance of amazing and reasonably-priced cheese.   I hadn’t quite decided on which type of cheese I was going to use for said gratin. Needless to say I walked away with 5 different types, including: Wisconsin gruyere (almost holds up to the authentic stuff), English sharp cheddar, Wisconsin gouda, laughing cow light swiss, pecorino romano (for a separate dish), and a french soft ripened chevre (for general munching).  I decided eventually on the gouda for the gratin, with a bit of the gruyere on top.

Gouda gruyere gratin.  Oh Gee!

Anyway, so after gaining like 15 lbs in the past week from eating all the other cheese (kidding), I finally got around to making the gratin.  The (pretty successful) recipe is below.  I did try to make it a little lower-fat by using fat free milk and laughing cow wedges for some of the cheese sauce, but you could go Paula Deen style and use cream and all full-fat cheese if you want.

Butternut Squash and Potato Gratin with Caramelized Onions


Ingredients

  • 1 medium butternut squash (peeled, seeds removed, cut into thin 1/4″ thick slices)
  • 4 medium gold potatoes (skins on, cut into 1/4″ slices)
  • 1 tbsp cornstarch
  • 3 cups cold fat-free milk (2 c for sauce, 1 c for finishing)
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 1/2 red onion, minced
  • 2 cups grated gouda cheese
  • 4 laughing cow light swiss wedges  (or substitute another soft cheese like brie if not calorie-conscious)
  • salt to taste
  • pepper to taste
  • cayenne pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup grated gruyere cheese (or more gouda)

(Bake in a 9×9″ pan.)

1.  If you haven’t already, prep your potatoes and squash. Preheat the oven to 350.

2.  Place them on a large plate as shown above.  Dampen two large paper towels and cover the plate.  Place in microwave and microwave on high for 10-15 minutes, or until slightly soft.  (This cuts down on the baking time.)

3.  If you haven’t prepped the cheese yet, do that while the squash/potatoes are microwaving. Also mince the onion and slice a tablespoon of butter.

4.  Whisk the tablespoon of cornstarch into 2 cups of the cold milk.

5.  If your potatoes/squash are done, you should probably take them out of the microwave to let them cool for a bit.  Next, add 1 tbsp butter and the onion to a pot.

6.  Stirring frequently, caramelize the onions in the butter on a medium high heat until nicely golden brown and translucent.  Reduce the heat to medium-low.

6.  Add the cornstarch/milk mixture to the caramelized onions.  Stir well and bring it to slightly bubbling.

7.  Add the cheese (gouda, laughing cow).  Mix well, breaking up the laughing cow wedges.  Keep mixing until gouda is melted.  Make sure it stays just below a simmer, not bubbling in the pot too much.

8.  Add the salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste.  At this point, you may want to use a whisk to break up any chunks of the laughing cow cheese.

9.  Turn off the heat to the pot and let the sauce cool and thicken for a minute or two.  Then ladle a bit of the sauce into the baking pan, spreading it in a thin layer on the bottom.

10.  Layer the thinly sliced potatoes and squash in the pan.  I did a layer of potatoes, a layer of squash, then a layer of cheese sauce, then a layer of potatoes, then another layer of cheese sauce, but you can probably do it however you want.  Just watch the amount of cheese sauce you have left, because there’s not much extra to spare.

11.  The last layer should be cheese sauce, and then sprinkle the gruyere (or more gouda) over the top.

12.  Bake in 350 F oven for 20-30 minutes.  Then raise the heat and broil it for a couple of minutes, until the top is crispy golden brown cheesy goodness.

13.   Let it cool 10 minutes before digging in, otherwise you might burn your face on the molten cheese.  And everyone knows a burnt tongue is a major party pooper.

So after writing all this, I was thinking about how this isn’t only great as a main dish or side, it’d probably also be awesome as a contribution to a potluck brunch!  Mmm..

Veggie Mushu – My best version yet!

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Now that the holidays are over it’s back to eating less meat, which means more vegetarian meals.  I’ve always loved mushu anything, and was very impressed with the addictive veggie mushu made at a great vegan Chinese restaurant in Mountain View.  I hoped that I could vaguely recreate it at home, and I think was fairly successful.

I can’t say this recipe is super quick.  It’s easy to eat, but it takes quite a bit of prep to cook. The main reason is that the way to integrate the tofu in this recipe the best, texture-wise, is to marinate and fry it in oil.  You could, however, save yourself some time by using precut carrots and cabbage.  Also, I find it’s best to put each of the ingredients into a bowl after you’ve prepped them, because wok cooking requires you to add things quickly and keep everything moving.

Luckily Chinese food is great leftover and this recipe makes a lot!

Vegetarian Mushu

Serves at least 3 hungry individuals!

Ingredients

  • 1/2 block Trader Joe’s Extra Firm High Protein Tofu (or probably 1/3 of a larger container of another brand of extra firm tofu)
  • 5-6 dried shiitake mushrooms
  • 1/2-1 cup dried wood ear mushroom/black fungus (optional, but present in most mushu recipes in restaurants)
  • soy sauce
  • five spice powder (optional, not pictured)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2″ chunk of fresh ginger
  • 5 cloves garlic
  • 1 small green cabbage
  • 2 small carrots
  • 3 green onions
  • peanut oil (or another high smoke point oil) for frying (not pictured)
  • rice wine
  • (optional: serve with rice or mushu pancakes and hoisin sauce.)

1.  Prepare the tofu. Cut the tofu into thin strips, about 3″ long and 1/4″ wide (as shown in the picture).  Place in a bowl and marinate in a mixture of soy sauce and five spice powder.  Set aside, but stir occasionally to make sure the tofu marinates evenly.

2. Prepare the mushrooms. Remove the stems from the dried shiitake mushrooms (I forgot to do that, but it’s easier to do when they’re dried). Rehydrate the shiitake mushrooms and the black fungus by placing them in two separate bowls of water and microwaving them for 1-2 minutes then letting them sit for a minute or two.  Drain off the water.  Slice the shiitake mushrooms into strips like the tofu, then stir them into the tofu mixture.

3.  Mince the garlic and ginger.

4.  Prepare the vegetables.  Shred the cabbage into shreds about 1/2″ wide.  Cut the carrots into thin strips, about 3″ in length.  Chop the green onions crosswise (after removing the ends), about 1/2″ thick.

5.  Crack the two eggs into a bowl and beat them well.

6.  Drain the liquid off of the tofu/mushroom mixture.

7.  Set a plate near your stove with some paper towels on it.  You’ll drain the tofu on this.  You want it ready beforehand so you can quickly take things out of the oil!

8.  Add about 1-2″ of peanut oil to the wok and turn up the heat to high.  When a drop of water pops when dropped into the oil, your oil is ready.  Add the tofu/mushroom mixture and stir frequently.  The oil should be sizzling and bubbling around the tofu.

9.  When the tofu/mushroom strips look nicely browned and kind of crispy, carefully remove it from the oil and allow it to drain on the paper towel, spreading the mixture out. You want the tofu to be pretty browned and crispy looking, but not black!

10.  Turn off the heat.  Remove some of the oil from the wok (carefully and safely!)  Leave just a little splash in the bottom.  Turn the heat back on high.  Add the beaten eggs.  Let them sit for a few seconds so they start cooking on the bottom, then keep the moving around.  They should be scrambled, but try to make the scrambles small chunks.  Ideally, they’ll be strip-like, like the tofu and mushrooms.  When cooked, remove to a bowl. (A little underdone is better than overdone.)

11.  Add another splash of oil to the wok.  Add your ginger and green onions.  Keep them moving around, and only sautee them for a few seconds.  Then quickly add in all the vegetables and the wood ear/black fungus mushrooms EXCEPT the green onions.  Stir it all up and make sure the garlic and ginger is mixed in well.

12.  Add a splash of rice wine.  Mix it in. This liquid helps cook the veggies, but evaporates quickly because it’s alcohol leaving no extra liquid.  Stir frequently, making sure everything keeps moving and nothing sticks to the bottom, and keep cooking the veggies until the cabbage just starts to turn translucent, just a few minutes at most if your wok is hot enough.

13.  Add in the tofu/mushroom strips mixture.  Mix in well.  Keep everything moving so nothing gets too burnt!  Let cook until the carrots start to get soft, probably just a minute or so.

14.  Add the eggs and green onions.  Stir in.  Add a dash of soy sauce if you’re a salt lover and a sprinkle of MSG if you’re an MSG lover.  Keep it moving.  Once the carrots are no longer crunchy, it’s done!  Turn off the heat!

15.  Serve with a squeeze of hoisin sauce and brown rice or mushu pancakes, whatever your heart desires.  Or just eat it as is!