Thursday, April 25, 2013
Well That's Different!
This morning I made hot barley cereal. I can't imagine this is common
but I love the chewy texture of barley and figured it would made a good breakfast so I cooked it in water until it
was almost cooked then added almond milk. I let it cool then added
brown sugar and craisins. I will definitely be doing this again but
next time I might just add maple syrup instead of sugar and I'll probably just cook the barley in the rice cooker. I also like to
do oatmeal with almond milk, brown sugar, craisins and chia seeds. I
love eating hot cereals that I've just made but making them ahead of
time and putting them in Tupperware so they are ready to go when I run
out the door in the morning is also hugely convenient.
For lunch I made a pesto and onion tart. I made pizza dough by combining 2 cups white flour, 1 cup wheat flour, 2 tsp salt, 2 Tbsp yeast, 3 Tbsp olive oil, and 1cup+1 Tbsp warm water. I kneed the dough until it becomes sticky and stretchy then coat the bowl with olive oil and put in a mildly warm place covered with a kitchen towel for an hour or 2 until it doubles in size. While I was waiting on the dough I made vegan pesto by pulsing 1/3 cup walnuts and 2 cups fresh basil in my mini food processor until it was chopped up. I then added a tsp each of salt, garlic powder, and onion powder and pulsed again until smooth. Then I slowly poured in 1/2 cup of olive oil while the food processor was on. At the end I added a bit more salt but just do it to your own tastes. I let the pesto sit while I attended to the dough. I always break it in half because that's quite a bit of dough to handle and then slowly I let gravity help me to stretch it. The technique was a bit hard for me to get at first but basically you just want it to stretch out while trying not to compress out all the wonderful air that makes the dough fluffy. Its kind of like how if you hold silly putty up it will stretch out, same thing here. Just hold it up until it stretches a bit and then rotate your hands to keep letting it stretch out. It doesn't need to be too thin but keep in mind that it will fluff up. I get holes sometimes and I just push them back together. Once it is stretched place it in an oiled 9x13 inch glass dish. Do the same with the other half and let them rise for another 30 minutes. Glass rather than a cookie sheet gives it an amazing, delicate crunch to the crust and it cooks more evenly. While its it rising I browned some thinly sliced onions. One the dough had risen I brushed it liberally with the pesto and spread the browned onions on top and put it in the oven at 500 degrees for 12 minutes. I let it cool before I cut it so it doesn't fall apart. It always blows my mind how much flavor such pure food can have. And the best part is there's plenty to take to my excruciatingly long ass day at clinicals tomorrow.
Highlight Reel
Wow! I can't believe it has been over a month since my last post. School is a powerful drug. It's like it eats time. Anyway, here are some of my favorite foods I've made over the last month.
Hummus sandwich, an easy go to when I know I'm going to have a busy day. It packs up nicely and doesn't need to be refrigerated so its good to-go. I use any type of whole grain bread, smother one side with hummus and layer veggies on the other side. In this instance I used cucumber, red bell pepper, and lettuce. Other veggies I like to use are other colored bell peppers(yellow are great) tomatoes, mushrooms, and spinach. I have also substituted avocado for hummus. Depending on the firmness I either mash or slice it.
Hard tacos. I sauteed sliced onion and red bell pepper in olive oil and crushed red pepper, no need to add salt, there is plenty of flavor. Pan fried chipotle field roast sausages, mashed avocado, trader joes refried black beans with jalapeno. Load all the toppings into store bought hard shells and you're done.
Vegan street tacos. I fried corn tortillas in a little bit of olive oil and then placed it in a folded position while it cooled. Then I pan fried a chipotle field roast sausage and roughly chopped it up with the spatula so it looked like taco meat and topped the tacos with pickled red onions.
I often use recipes for guides and combine elements to make my own version. This was my first time pickling my own red onions and I chose the easy refrigerated version mostly because I'm lazy. They ended up turning out so good that they were gone in less than a week. Next time I am making 3 jars full. Oh and the best part is once the onions are gone I used the brine to make salad dressing.
Pickled Red Onions
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
3Tbsp sugar
6 allspice balls
6 cloves
1 Dried bay leaf
2 Tbsp yellow mustard seeds
1tsp each salt and pepper
-Fill a jar with thinly sliced red onions
-Combine all the ingredients in a nonreactive pan and boil for 5 minutes and let cool
-Pour mixture over the red onions in the jar and refrigerate for 4 days before eating.
They tasted the best at about a week.
I also used the red onions to do vegan hot dogs using pan fried smoked apple sage field roast sausages and hoagie buns. The little mustard seeds are so full of flavor and they pop when you eat them. YUM!
My famous soba salad can be made a variety of ways but the core ingredients are Soba(Duh!), avocado, green onions, cucumber, and lettuce. Above and beyond that you can put in whatever you like really. I like matchstick carrots, blanched asparagus, red bell pepper, etc. So basically you boil the soba according to the directions, cut up your veggies and combine them. Then I top the salad with sliced almond, sesame seeds, and furikake ( a seaweed seasoning you can find in the asian section). I always put the dressing in a separate bowl so that each person can decide how much they want to put on.
Soba salad Dressing
2Tbsp sesame oil
1Tbsp light olive oil
1Tbsp soy sauce
1Tbsp sriracha(more if you like it spicy)
a cap of rice vinegar and a pinch of sugar
-Whisk ingredients and adjust to taste, I rarely measure I just add stuff until it tastes right.
Ah yes and I did a beet, blueberry, kale and almond milk smoothie. Now I must emphasize that you use boiled beets, NOT pickled beets from a can. I used half a beet and it gave it a beautiful color and added natural sweetness.
Lastly, although I didn't take any pictures, I hosted an incredible vegan sushi night. Everyone brought toppings and we ended up with a wonderful variety of sushi. The topping included lightly roasted asparagus, zucchini, carrots,mashed sweet potato, cucumber, fried tofu, sauteed portabellas, and avocado. Al we did was make sushi rice according to any online recipe and spread it on nori then add 2-3 toppings and roll. My two favorites were avocado/cucumber/fried tofu/carrot and sweet potato/asparagus/zucchini. We also did desert sushi. For this we used rice paper wrappers that you can buy at any asian store, sticky rice made in the rice cooker, azuki beans(red beans boiled in water for an hour then mashed with sugar, found the recipe online, got the beans from asian store), fried banana, sliced cantaloupe, and kiwi. My favorite was with azuki beans and fried banana. Oh and the best part was that I made sweet coconut milk by simmering coconut milk for 15 min stirring frequently then added 2 Tbsp sugar and dipped the desert sushi in it. Delightful.
Hummus sandwich, an easy go to when I know I'm going to have a busy day. It packs up nicely and doesn't need to be refrigerated so its good to-go. I use any type of whole grain bread, smother one side with hummus and layer veggies on the other side. In this instance I used cucumber, red bell pepper, and lettuce. Other veggies I like to use are other colored bell peppers(yellow are great) tomatoes, mushrooms, and spinach. I have also substituted avocado for hummus. Depending on the firmness I either mash or slice it.
Hard tacos. I sauteed sliced onion and red bell pepper in olive oil and crushed red pepper, no need to add salt, there is plenty of flavor. Pan fried chipotle field roast sausages, mashed avocado, trader joes refried black beans with jalapeno. Load all the toppings into store bought hard shells and you're done.
Vegan street tacos. I fried corn tortillas in a little bit of olive oil and then placed it in a folded position while it cooled. Then I pan fried a chipotle field roast sausage and roughly chopped it up with the spatula so it looked like taco meat and topped the tacos with pickled red onions.
I often use recipes for guides and combine elements to make my own version. This was my first time pickling my own red onions and I chose the easy refrigerated version mostly because I'm lazy. They ended up turning out so good that they were gone in less than a week. Next time I am making 3 jars full. Oh and the best part is once the onions are gone I used the brine to make salad dressing.
Pickled Red Onions
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
3Tbsp sugar
6 allspice balls
6 cloves
1 Dried bay leaf
2 Tbsp yellow mustard seeds
1tsp each salt and pepper
-Fill a jar with thinly sliced red onions
-Combine all the ingredients in a nonreactive pan and boil for 5 minutes and let cool
-Pour mixture over the red onions in the jar and refrigerate for 4 days before eating.
I also used the red onions to do vegan hot dogs using pan fried smoked apple sage field roast sausages and hoagie buns. The little mustard seeds are so full of flavor and they pop when you eat them. YUM!
My famous soba salad can be made a variety of ways but the core ingredients are Soba(Duh!), avocado, green onions, cucumber, and lettuce. Above and beyond that you can put in whatever you like really. I like matchstick carrots, blanched asparagus, red bell pepper, etc. So basically you boil the soba according to the directions, cut up your veggies and combine them. Then I top the salad with sliced almond, sesame seeds, and furikake ( a seaweed seasoning you can find in the asian section). I always put the dressing in a separate bowl so that each person can decide how much they want to put on.
Soba salad Dressing
2Tbsp sesame oil
1Tbsp light olive oil
1Tbsp soy sauce
1Tbsp sriracha(more if you like it spicy)
a cap of rice vinegar and a pinch of sugar
-Whisk ingredients and adjust to taste, I rarely measure I just add stuff until it tastes right.
Ah yes and I did a beet, blueberry, kale and almond milk smoothie. Now I must emphasize that you use boiled beets, NOT pickled beets from a can. I used half a beet and it gave it a beautiful color and added natural sweetness.
Lastly, although I didn't take any pictures, I hosted an incredible vegan sushi night. Everyone brought toppings and we ended up with a wonderful variety of sushi. The topping included lightly roasted asparagus, zucchini, carrots,mashed sweet potato, cucumber, fried tofu, sauteed portabellas, and avocado. Al we did was make sushi rice according to any online recipe and spread it on nori then add 2-3 toppings and roll. My two favorites were avocado/cucumber/fried tofu/carrot and sweet potato/asparagus/zucchini. We also did desert sushi. For this we used rice paper wrappers that you can buy at any asian store, sticky rice made in the rice cooker, azuki beans(red beans boiled in water for an hour then mashed with sugar, found the recipe online, got the beans from asian store), fried banana, sliced cantaloupe, and kiwi. My favorite was with azuki beans and fried banana. Oh and the best part was that I made sweet coconut milk by simmering coconut milk for 15 min stirring frequently then added 2 Tbsp sugar and dipped the desert sushi in it. Delightful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)