Stromboli & Minestrone

Tonight was fancy soup and sandwiches so we could spend time putting up our Christmas decorations.

Yesterday I made the dough for the stromboli. Tonight we rolled it out and filled it with onions, roasted red peppers, sundried tomatoes, pepperocini peppers, spinach, and thin sliced tofu. Two things to remember if you ever make this: (1) the filling ingredients must be very dry and (2) since it's not filled with the usual deli meat and cheese, you must season the filling. We sprinkled on some italian seasonings, garlic, and red pepper. I also served a marinara sauce (from a jar because I didn't think about it ahead of time) and an italian dressing as dipping sauces.










The stromboli baked up beautifully and it tasted awesome. Plus it was fun! I also made a minestrone soup that was thick with every vegetable imaginable, and two kinds of white beans and pasta. It was kind of a mixture of all of the italian soups in Nava's new soup book.






For dessert I made an apple cranberry crisp. I used red and green apples and fresh cranberries. The topping was made with oats and nuts. It was the most beautiful red color.




I also made VWAV sparkled ginger cookies, soft variety. These will definitely be in some gift baskets. They are delicious.



I thought I had a picture of my Christmas tree. Oh, well, maybe next post.


Time to clean up.......

Soup, Quiche, Breads, White Chili Recipe, etc.

Earlier in the week I made Leslie's Gypsy Soup. I followed her recipe exactly, except I used all sweet potatoes (didn't have any white potatoes), so mine is a little darker than hers. The soup is really, really, really good. I know there are some variations on different blogs, but Leslie's combination of spices really makes this soup rock. See Leslie's version here http://eatpeaceplease.blogspot.com/, which was adapted from Kris http://squirrelsvegankitchen.blogspot.com/, who adapted from somewhere else......


I made Nava's Oat Walnut muffins to eat with the soup. I didn't put in quite as many walnuts and instead sprinkled some hemp seeds on the tops. These I couldn't get enough of cuz they are awesome!



Last night I made Susan's Mini Crustless Tofu Quiches http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/12/mini-crustless-tofu-quiches.html. They are every bit as delicious as she described. She left out one important piece of information though. Instead of putting the mixture into the muffin cups, you could just pour it into a bowl and have yourself an awesome dip! I'm not kidding - the batter is as good as the quiches!



On Saturday (when it was literally freezing) I went to the farmers market and got some beautiful veggies. I got sweet potatoes, apples, Brussels sprouts, giant broccoli and cauliflower, and greens - Russian red kale, and my favorite salad greens, mizuna and arugula.



Let's have another look at that broccoli!



I sauted the kale and added in the leftover quiche veggies to have with the mini quiches. Isn't this kale beautiful!!!




I also shopped at Whole Foods and the asian market. I got some weird whole grain soy sauce at the asian market and the yuba sheets. I had a finger taste of the soy sauce and nearly gagged. Chase said he used less than a teaspoon for a giant stirfry and he loved it - said it tasted like Bragg's. So it's obviously very strong. I will certainly get my money's worth, if I'm ever brave enough to try it again. I should have taken a shot of the back side of the bottle. It lists all its nutrients, like Bragg's, including B-12.



I also baked a whole wheat loaf and gave it to Chase. I didn't have any, but he assured me it was as tasty as it looked.



Also made fresh cranberry and farmers market apple muffins.



I made a stirfry using the Massaman red curry paste Megan blogged about. I used broth instead of coconut milk in my stirfry, so mine is really red! http://meganthevegan.blogspot.com/



For Ben -- I hope you can find some GF baking mix soon. Here's what to look for.



And as promised, my recipe for White Chili:

1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 large white potatoes, diced
4 - 5 cups water
1-1/2 tablespoons vegetable broth granules
1 teaspoon Tabasco (or to taste)
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
salt & pepper to taste
2 cans cannelini beans, rinsed and drained
1 4-ounce can chopped green chilies
1 pound baked tofu, cubed (I baked cubes covered in cornmeal, nut. yeast, and s&p)

In a soup pot saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil until soft. Add the potatoes, water, broth, and seasonings. Cover, set heat to low, and cook about 20 minutes until potatoes are tender. Add one can of beans, then puree the whole pot. Add in the second can of beans, chilies, and tofu. Check consistency at this point. Depending on how much water you used, you may need to add a cornstarch slurry (I did). Continue to simmer for at least 20 more minutes. Taste for seasoning before serving. We like heat and kept adding more chili powder, so our chili became less and less white! We served the chili with fritos, cilantro, and salsa.

It's awfully tasty!!

White Chili, "Yuburrito," & Brownie Pie

I guess it's finally winter here, so it was perfect weather for chili. Instead of our usual sweet potato and black bean chili, I decided to try a veganized version of a killer white chicken chili I used to make. I started with a basic potato soup recipe, then seasoned it with chili spices, and added white beans and baked tofu. It was every bit as good as the chicken version, but with no chicken, butter, cream, or cheese. It was thick and chunky and spicy, and warmed and comforted us cold weather wimps. The recipe is at the end of the post.

We finally bought some yuba sheets (I've loved all the things Megan did with hers http://meganthevegan.blogspot.com/) and wanted to fill it with a mexican style filling, thus, the "yuburrito." Since it was our first time to play around with it, we decided on one giant burrito, filled with beans, roasted red peppers, and green onions.

Here it is being filled.


Here it is ready to bake.


Here it is ready to eat.


Of course we had to have our broccoli. I got this giant broccoli from the farmers market Saturday morning - it was broccoli heaven. Get a load of the size of this!


I used a little more than half of it for roasted broccoli and onions.



For dessert I wavered between smores pie and brownie pie all week, but when I couldn't find any vegan marshmallows, decided on brownie pie. Well, I broke the pie crust this morning, and thought, oh well, I can make crustless brownie pie. Then tonight the soy whip turned out to be a dud, so we really ended up with PPK brownies baked in a pie plate. Bazu posted about these earlier and they looked so yummy. http://wherestherevolution.blogspot.com/. The batter was super stiff and hard to mix. But they turned out to be pretty cakey with a fudgy center.

Lots to post later this week, including Leslie's yummy Gypsy Soup! http://eatpeaceplease.blogspot.com//

Breakfast for Dinner, etc.

Tonight for dinner I made Ben's Cinnamony Almond Apple Pancakes. They are incredibly delicious. Please look for the recipe here. http://adecadentconspiracy.blogspot.com/. I made nine HUGE pancakes from the recipe. With the pancake I had a breakfast taco made with my new hemp tortillas.





I tried baking the hemp tortilla like the bagboy had suggested to me, but it was too crispy and I wound up with a taco. Here's the first baked tortilla and taco.



My favorite thing I made this week was Brussels sprouts curry. I shredded the sprouts, and added in onion, chickpeas, and a little spinach, along with a light curry sauce. Very yummy.




This meal I recycled my pumpkin hummus lasagna. I removed the icky spelt noodles and put the lasagna guts over rice noodles.



And lastly, a just my size peanut butter and banana smoothie.




Have a great rest of the week!

Pumpkin Hummus Lasagna & Cupcakes

I've been working on a recipe for "no tomato sauce" lasagna for a while. Megan the Vegan's lasagnas were very intriguing. After much thought, I decided to use hummus instead of sauce, a tempeh sausage (from VWAV) and veggie filling, fresh spinach, and spelt lasagna noodles. The noodles get a big thumbs down. Good taste, poor cooking instructions (only 3 minutes!) and too hard to work with. We wanted a wheat free noodle, but we definitely won't use these again.

I made the hummus Saturday and I can't believe I didn't eat it all before tonight. It was the best, creamiest hummus ever. I'll post the recipe further down because you absolutely have to make this hummus!

The filling was made with tempeh sausage, onions, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, and roasted red peppers. Eight ounces of sausage was not enough. It got lost among the other ingredients.



I also made Easy French Bread from La Dolce Vegan, which became garlic bread.


And a salad with mixed greens, broccoli, golden raisins, and toasted pumpkin seeds. I made a dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, dijon mustard, maple sugar, and agave. It was very good. We all wished I had made more.



Chase built the lasagna......


Ready to bake......


Ready to eat.




We did make cupcakes before we had dinner. Yes, I finally got Vegan Cupcakes. I found these neat little disposable muffin tins at the grocery store today. I thought they would make good take home containers too. I detest paper liners and cannot find foil liners anywhere. I baked the cupcakes in these foil tins, and then after they were cool, I did put them in paper liners so we could pick them up and decorate them. That's right, I put them in liners AFTER I baked them. I've never tried to hide the fact that I'm weird, so now you know another of my quirks. Here's a couple more that came up tonight. I used to get mad at Chase for spilling on my place mats and he would always say, "Mom, that's what they're for." Today I got out a new dish sponge and I didn't want to get it dirty with chocolate frosting.

On to the pictures.....



Perfectly done cupcakes.

Ready to decorate.

My cupcake.

Then I got the fun stuff out so Chase and Liz could decorate.

The peanut butter cakes are fabulous! But the chocolate buttercream was not what we wanted with these. My fault, I wanted it to decorate with. But it overwhelmed the wonderful peanut flavor in the cakes. The little drizzle of chocolate as presented in the book is not as pretty, but would be the perfect topping.

I hope you try this hummus recipe. It makes 4 cups and can be halved.

Pumpkin Hummus:

1 can pumpkin puree

1 medium sweet potato, cooked

(if halving the recipe, use either pumpkin or sweet potato)

1 large onion, chopped

1 30-ounce can chickpeas

1/4 cup tahini

1 cup (or as needed) vegetable stock

3 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

1 tablespoon Bragg's

1 teaspoon basil

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth.

I tailored the spices for more of an Italian flavor, but you could flavor it with the normal cumin and lemon juice. It really is so creamy with a beautiful flavor and color.