Posts filed under 'fake cheese'
This recipe has a few surprises. My requirements for dinner included using an eggplant, a red pepper, a stalk of broccoli, and some leftover tofu. This turned out to be really fun and easy, despite the copious amounts of dishes it seemed to leave me with. I’m sure I could have made it in a more organized fashion had I not been making it up as I went along.
The sauce you see is not tomato, it’s simply a single red bell pepper, pureed raw, with a pinch of salt. I need to remind myself every once in a while that it’s not necessary to cook every single vegetable I want to eat. It added a nice sweetness to balance out the salty roasted eggplant and sun-dried tomatoes in the couscous. Yup! That’s couscous in there, too!
Can you guess what the green bit on the top is? Pureed, steamed broccoli! This was such a fun way to eat broccoli, I want to buy more immediately so I can blend it up again and use it in odd places. Forgive my enthusiasm, but there’s something about this light, bright green broccoli fluff that makes be a bit giddy.
Eggplant Napoleon
Serves four
Roasted Eggplant
1 Eggplant, sliced into 3/8″ thick rounds
1/2 Cup Olive oil (I know! It’s a lot! Use less if you want!)
1 tsp Salt
Sun-dried Tomato Couscous
1/2 cup Couscous (french – the very tiny kind thats roughly shaped)
1/4 Cup Sun-Dried Tomatoes, sliced in strips
1 Cup Water, boiling
Sauce
1 Red Bell Pepper, seeded and veined
1 pinch to 1/4 tsp salt
Broccoli Fluff
2 Cups Broccoli, rough chopped, steamed
Pepper to taste
1/2 Recipe Tofu Ricotta
1/2 Cup Toasted Pine Nuts
Preheat oven to 425º F.
Rub eggplant slices in salt and oil, place in one layer on a cookie sheet, and bake for 20 minutes. Flip, bake for 10 more minutes, remove from oven.
Meanwhile, place couscous and tomatoes in a small pot with a dribble of vegetable oil. Toast over medium heat until fragrant, add boiling water, cover, reduce heat to low. After 10 minutes, turn off heat. Puree your pepper in a food processor until very smooth. Add salt to taste, set aside. Steam broccoli, puree, add pepper to taste, set aside. Toast pine nuts in a dry skillet. Mix together tofu ricotta, heat in mircowave until hot, set aside.
To assemble
Place a bit of the pepper sauce in the middle of the plate. Add a slice of eggplant on top of that. Add a layer of tofu ricotta and a layer of broccoli fluff. Add another slice of eggplant. Add couscous and broccoli. Add the last slice of eggplant and top with tofu and broccoli. Garnish with toasted pine nuts.
April 12th, 2007
I’m kind of embarrassed, because I’m excited. I’m excited about rice and beans. Who gets excited about rice and beans?
Me, apparently.
I’ve been playing with the dish recently. Perhaps you’ve seen or tried the Rainbow Rice and Beans, our standard, or the Tahini Rice and Beans. Well, two rice and beans recipes are simply not enough! I must have more ways to eat rice and beans, so people can laugh at me for being a vegan and eating rice and beans all day long.
I loved the way this dish turned out. I especially love the lemon zest on top. It really does something magical. But I must warn you, I think a microplane grater is absolutely necessary. A friend of mine bought me on as a present recently, and my word. It makes the finest, lightest, fluffiest zest I’ve ever had. It practically melts in your mouth. I almost want to tell you to skip the zest altogether if you don’t have a grater like this. Is that ridiculous?
Italian Rice and Beans
Serves One Hearty Meal
1/2 Cup Brown Rice, uncooked
1/2 Can Great Northern Beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 Cup Oil Packed Sun-Dried Tomatoes, sliced into strips
1/4 Cup Pine Nuts
1 Large Handful Baby Spinach
1 tsp Balsamic Vinegar
1/4 tsp Kosher Salt
1-2 tsp Italian Herbs of your choice, (basil, oregano, marjoram, rosemary, etc)
Zest from 1/2 Organic Lemon
Almond Cheesy Sprinkles, optional
Start your rice, I use a rice cooker. When nearly finished (or actually finished), heat 3 Tbs of olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add herbs, tomatoes, and pine nuts. When pine nuts start to turn golden brown, add the beans. Toss gently, trying your best to keep the beans whole. Add salt and vinegar, stir gently. Turn down heat to low.
Place spinach in one layer on top of the beans. Place hot, steaming rice over spinach and leave for 30 seconds or so, until you see the spinach start to wilt. Mix gently and plate.
Grate lemon zest on top of rice and beans, and finish with a sprinkle of almond cheesy sprinkles if desired. I ate lunch alone today, so I only made enough for me. I’ll test the recipe in bigger portions sometime soon, but if you want to double it before then, keep an eye on the vinegar and salt levels – they may not double exactly.
April 3rd, 2007
This is another test recipe for the Post Punk Kitchen’s forthcoming cookbook, Veganomicon. Her first book, Vegan with a Vengeance, is my all-time favorite cookbook. I can tell you honestly that this one will be every bit as useful, dependable, and amazing as the first. I swear they’re not paying me to promote the books. They’re just all so great!
This recipe, man, I can’t even tell you how much I liked it. It’s basically breaded, fried eggplant, stuffed with tastiness and tofu ricotta, then smothered with a delicious marinara sauce. I’d buy the cookbook for this recipe alone.
I know there are a lot of people who dislike eggplant, but I wonder how many of them have tried it fried or baked with olive oil. Eggplant really takse on a different character when cooked this way – it’s really quite divine. It’s buttery, soft, almost creamy, but it does take a lot of oil to get it that way. I think it’s worth it.
I’ve been making some other test recipes that I haven’t told you about yet. Here is a dessert and a quick bread:
Tea Poached Pears
Whole Wheat Soda Bread with Millet and Currants
February 18th, 2007
I promise you, this is the last time I’ll subject you to risotto for a while. Baked risotto is just such a revelation. I had to try it again with a tomato base. I also had an eggplant and some mushrooms to use, and didn’t feel like being all that creative. Stewart and I were hungry and it wasn’t time for me to start playing around in the kitchen without a plan. Risotto? In a half hour? Done.
January 29th, 2007
Quick post, which you’ll probably appreciate since I’ve been rather long winded as of late!
Last night Stewart and I had stuffed shells, which is only slightly more complicated to make than pasta, but is a lot more interesting (and looks more impressive!). If you want to get even fancier, you could pick up some manicotti and fill them using a piping bag.
All this meal takes is a basic pasta sauce, some jumbo shells, and some easy tofu ricotta. I changed the tofu ricotta recipe slightly, and possibly for the better. After I crumbled the tofu, I squeezed at much water out of it as I could and replaced it with some soy creamer. It really helped the tofu ricotta taste much richer, and I’d do it every time if soy creamer was something I kept stocked in the fridge. If you happen to have some on hand, add it and see how you like it. If not, don’t worry about it!
The tofu ricotta can easily be made in advance, but I threw it together while the shells were boiling. (In fact, the whole meal could be made in advance and refrigerated until you’re ready to toss it in the oven.) Whenever the shells, sauce, and ricotta are ready, place a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of a shallow casserole dish. Drain the shells gently, or they’ll rip! I used a slotted spoon to remove them from the water since I was nervous about it.
Using a spoon, fill each shell with ricotta and place in your casserole dish. When all the shells are all in, cover with the rest of the sauce and bake at 350º for about 20 minutes, or until bubbly and hot. I found that five or six shells was a good serving size for one person when also serving a salad and some fresh bread.
January 26th, 2007
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