I made this soup last night, and I thought it was tasty and satisfying. I can imagine people who aren’t used to kale, quinoa, and tahini might need some easing into this one, but here you are nevertheless. Here’s the version I made:
Creamy Kale Soup Serves 2-3 dinner sized portions
1/2 Cup Green Lentils
1/2 Cup Quinoa (I like to use half-and-half)
1/2 Medium Onion, finely chopped
4 Tbs Olive Oil
1 Small Bunch Kale
5 cups water
Wash and de-stem kale (I use kitchen scissors to cut along the sides of the stems), tear the leaves into smallish pieces. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat, and add quinoa and lentils. Sautee for a few minutes, add spices and kale. Mix well. Add water and bullion cube and bring to a boil. Cover and turn down heat to low. Simmer for 35-40 minutes.
Carefully blend the hot soup in a food processor or blender and return to pot. You can skip this step or blend only half of the soup if you want some texture, but I think it’s nicest smooth. Add tahini and tamari to taste.
To garnish, mix 1-2 Tbs of tahini with a small amount of water until it becomes smooth and bright. Drizzle on top of the soup and serve.
These are easy. The hardest part about them is making the dough, so they’re a breeze for people who are used to pastries and a good practice item for people who aren’t. I kept the seasoning here very simple - sugar, cinnamon, and a wee bit of lemon juice. That’s it. If you have two apples and some flour, you can make these right now. The only limiting factor might be the mini pans, but this will easily become a full size pie if you use all of the dough and cut up a few more apples.
They are a little on the tart side, so if you prefer very sweet pies add some extra sugar. The crust is unbelievably flaky and buttery-tasting, thanks to earth balance and Martha Stewart, since I adapted her pate brise recipe. See below for the recipe and pictures!
Miniature Apple Pies Makes four
2 Granny Smith Apples, peeled and chopped (see below)
1 tsp Fresh Lemon Juice
1 Tbs Sugar + more for sanding
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 Recipe Pate Brise
3 Tbs Soymilk
Pate Brisee
2 1/2 Cups Flour
1 Cup Earth Balance
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Salt
1/4 Cup + Cold Water
Prepare the dough, divide in half and flatten into discs. Cover each disc in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour. (Directions and pictures here)
Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Peel the apples. Quarter each apple and remove the core from each slice. Cut each quarter in half, and in half again (making four slices from each quarter. Cut these slices in half again, crosswise this time, to shorten them. Place cut apples in a bowl.
Coat apples in lemon juice, then add sugar and cinnamon and mix well. Set aside.
Roll out your disc of pate brisee onto lightly floured parchment paper. You want to hit about 1/4 inch, but it’s not a big deal. Find something roughly 5″ in diameter to with which to cut circles of dough - it can be a small bowl, the top of a vase or a large beer mug, the pastic containers you get a grocery store in the bulk section, a cookie cutter - anything. Cut out 4 circles, and roll each circle out, one at a time, until about 1/8″ thick and large enough to fill the bottom of your pie pans.
Gently place the dough into the mini pans and flatten it out as much as you can. You want the dough to hang over the edges just a bit. Fill each pie with apples, as compact as you can, since they’ll cook down in the oven. Use all the apples, even if you have to make them into a mound in order to fit them.
Cut out 4 more dough circles, rolling each out individually to reach the final thickness. Use a small cookie cutter (or anything, really) to make cute vents, or even just make small slashes witha knife. Place on top of the apples, pressing down with your thumbs to seal. Use a fork to crimp the edges.
Add a few dribbles of lemon juice to the soy milk to curdle it (it shouldn’t taste overly sour, though). With your fingers or a pastry brush, coat the top of each pie. Sand the tops of the pie with a coarse sugar. Regular sugar works fine, though!
Place pies on a cookie sheet and place in the oven, turning temperature down to 350ºF. Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool before serving.
Mangos are fun to slice, because they end up looking like little mango hedgehogs. How can you not like a little mango hedgehog?
Start with a ripe mango. How to you tell if they’re ripe? As tempting as it may be to go after red and yellow ones, color isn’t always your best indicator. The mango should be slightly soft, fragrant, and heavy for its size. You don’t want a mushy mango, but you should be able to dent it with your thumb if you want to. Slightly firmer mangos are good, too, and hold up better in cooking. A mango will ripen on your counter, so don’t be a afraid to get one that’s a little underripe if that’s all that’s available. They’re sort of like avocados in that way.
Inside a mango is a flat, oblong pit. If you go to slice it down the middle you won’t be very happy. Instead, slice off the sides first. If you hit the pit, try to cut a curving arc around it. No biggie.
Now you should have two side slices and a thick center slice containing the pit. Slice off the other two sides, getting as close to the pit as you can withut hitting it. You can use a paring knife to slice off any remaining mango meat on the pit. This is nice to snack on while you’re cutting the rest of the mango.
Now, my favorite part!
With a small paring knife, slice the mango into cubes without cutting through the skin! The size doesn’t matter. I make mine pretty small, but you could do large chunks if you want. The key is not breaking the skin. If you’re careful, you should be able to feel the tip of the knife hit the skin while you’re making your slices.
Using your thumbs, press the mango inside out. Mango hedgehog! You can now break off little pieces with your fingers (or mouth) if you want. You can also use a knife and let the pieces fall into a bowl.
You should be able to slice off the pieces fairly easily. You don’t want to eat the skin, and you definitely don’t want to snack on so much of it there’s nothing left for your dinner/dessert/fruit salad.
You can do the same thing with the other smaller side pieces, they just don’t get quite so hedgehog-like. They’re still good though!
Assorted Appetizers
Vermicelli Rolls, Fried Wonton, Fried Dumplin, Fried Bean Cakes, and Fried Spring Rolls (bean cakes shown)
While it’s no San Francisco or New York, Boston does have a few vegan restaurants. One of the most popular is Grasshopper in Brighton. Today Stewart and I went there for lunch with Nikki of ILoveHeeze.blogspot.com and her fiance, and Sarah from blogisthenewblog.com. Sarah had been on the red eye all night from Las Vegas with vegan donuts for Nikki and me, so we figured we’d make a get-together out of it. But more about the donuts later!
Kale and Mushroom Delight (I think!):
A stir-fried combination of kale, white mushrooms, tofu, and veggie-beef gluten in a tangy ginger sauce.
Stir-Fried Chow Foon Noodles with Tofu
Sauteed Kale with Black Mushrooms
The No Name
Battered gluten in a sweet and sour sauce served with assorted steamed vegetables and topped with sesame seeds.
Strawberry Cheesecake for dessert!
Everything was great, but I can specifically speak for the No Name since that’s what I ordered. It’s sweet, sour and salty all at the same time, with a delightful crunch. The portions at Grasshopper are enormous, but no one in their right mind splits a dish to ensure leftovers. I can’t wait to heat mine up for a snack later tonight!
Oh, speaking of snacks, I also have a box full of vegan donuts direct from Ronald’s in Las Vegas, courtesy of Sarah. Thanks Sarah!!
Remember when I made mini-donuts and promised you a recipe? And then never gave you one? Well, today I decided to keep my word. I got up, made some tea, and set to work. My house is covered in donuts!
My first attempt wasn’t a complete failure, but I wasn’t happy with the result. They didn’t rise very well, leaving one side of each donut flat and craggy. It’s not that I expected a recipe I made up to work on the first try, but I was still hoping to get lucky.
I did get lucky on my second try. I reduced the fat content and upped the soy milk and the baking powder. Success! They rose much better, had a nicer texture, and were prettier. Here are the two tries side-by-side:
Much better, huh? Below is the recipe for the donuts and the glaze, directions for glaze, pictures of the whole process, and even a video.
Oh, and did I mention? There’s chocoalte coated ones, too!
Mini Baked Donuts Make 20 Donuts
Dry Ingredients:
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp (scant) Nutmeg
1 tiny pinch or shake Cinnamon
Wet Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Soymilk
1/2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
Egg Replacer for 1 Egg
4 Tbs Earth Balance
Preheat oven to 350º F
In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients with a whisk to mix thoroughly. Combine wet ingredients in a small sauce pan over medium low heat and mix until earth balance is melted. This mixture should NOT get too hot, you should be able to stick your finger in the mixture. It should feel slightly warm. If you burn yourself, 1) it’s not my fault! and 2) it’s too hot for the dough!
Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. It should form a very soft dough. Like this:
Using a tablespoon measure, scoop out dough into your ungreased nonstick mini-donut pan. Smooth out the top of the dough with your fingers, this will make for more even, prettier donuts, but isn’t crucial.
As you can see, the dough sits just below the rim. If you over fill, your donuts will come out looking like it has a little muffin top. Not the end of the world, but not very donut-like either.
Bake for 12 minutes. They should not be browned on top, but a tester will come out clean. Invert hot pan over a cutting board or cooling rack to release donuts. Allow to cool completely before decorating.
Time for toppings!
Glaze with Sprinkles
1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar (lump free!)
1 Tbs Soymilk
Bowl full of sprinkles (1/4 to 1/2 cup, ish?)
Whisk soymilk and powdered sugar together. Dip the “bottom” half of the donut (the side with the nicer shape) into the glaze, let some drip off, then dip glaze-side down into sprinkles. Transfer to a wire rack that has been set on top of some parchment paper. The excess glaze will drip through the rack onto the paper for easy cleaning later.
Chocolate Dip
This is the easy part. Melt 6 oz of high quality fairly sweet chocolate over low heat in a double boiler. Remove from heat and stir until chocolate is smooth and barely warm to the touch. I should mention that you should be very careful not to get any water in the chocolate or it could seize, and no one likes that!
Dip your donuts one-by-one into the chocolate until completely covered. Place donut on your wire rack to drip off excess chocolate - it’ll make for a much smoother appearance than if you try to scrape off excess chocoalte with your fingers. Allow to set until chocolate isn’t so shiny and can be picked up without making a sticky mess!
*Edit!! So, I waited until the chocolate was set and realized that my donuts had glued themselves to the rack, making the bottoms rip off when your try to pick one up. I think it’d be better to let these set on parchment paper! Also, use a decently sweet chocolate, mine was too bitter.
