Delicious Teriyaki Noodles

Delicious Teriyaki Noodles, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr.

This was an easy and amazingly delicious hot weather meal... it was still 95F at 7pm when I was making dinner, this was a nice refreshing dish. I had prepackaged Wildwood Teriyaki Baked Tofu, but I guess I like more Teriyaki flavor than then, because in my head, that sounded kind of bland. So, I harnessed the power of Google and found a delicious and very easy Teriyaki sauce recipe on Veggiebelly.com (which I doubled from the original, except the amount of ginger):

8 tablespoons soy sauce
8 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons mirin
4 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon powdered ginger

For the rest of this recipe, you also need-
about 6 oz rice noodles I had half a package of Thai Kitchen rice noodles) 
2 stalks broccoli
baked tofu
half an onion
half a cucumber

Place the sauce ingredients in a pot and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 2 minutes or till the sugar dissolves and sauce thickens slightly. Take care not to boil the sauce too much and burn the sugar. Taste the sauce, and adjust sugar or rice vinegar if needed.

In the meantime, I boiled water and soaked the rice noodles- rice noodles are so easy, all you do is boil water, dump them in (off the heat) and let them soak and soften while you're preparing the other things. Once they're soft, you rinse them in cold water to stop them softening. You end up with delicious, cold noodles.

While the rice noodles were "cooking," I cut up the tofu, and sauteed with onion (browning slightly, since I hate soft, soggy tofu) and then added teriyaki sauce to the pan, cooking the tofu and onion mixture a little in the sauce. I then added the broccoli and put the lid on the pan for a few minutes to steam the broccoli a little, before stirring it in with the tofu and adding more teriyaki sauce.

Cut the cumber into strips and set aside.

Once the tofu and broccoli are ready, put the rice noodles in your individual serving bowls, and spoon the tofu/broccoli mixture on top of the noodles. Add the cut up cucumber to the dish and serve! It's a delicious sweet teriyaki taste, and the pairing of the cold noodles and the warm tofu was fantastic.

I also used the remaining teriyaki sauce as a dipping sauce for the frozen vegan pot stickers I made to go with this. YUM!

Raw Vegan Summer Cake

aka "Cheesecake" which, of course, has absolutely no cheese. But is delicious! My husband was recently diagnosed with a corn allergy, and we are adapting to that. It's been difficult, and has required much adjusting of cooking, especially since (as we had been noticing) he really can't tolerate goat cheese the way I can. Sigh.
So, we had lunch and dessert at the Chicago Diner recently, and he got a piece of their raw vegan cheesecake and really liked it. Now, for obvious reasons (my raw fruit allergies) I'm not really into raw cooking. But this delicious cake was managed just fine. The recipe comes from the Post Punk Kitchen blog, and I modified it only by using pasteurized lemon juice, not raw lemon or lime juice.
This is officially one of my new favorite recipes.

Ingredients:
Crust
1 cup pecans
1 cup almonds
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 medjool dates, pitted and chopped

Filling
3 cups raw cashew pieces, soaked overnight (or at least 3 hours)
1/2 cup agave syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
32 oz strawberries (reserve 9 for decorating), hulled and halved – about 4 cups
3/4 cup coconut oil, melted

Lightly grease a 9 inch spring form pan with coconut oil and set aside.

To prepare the crust, pulse nuts and salt in a food processor fit with a metal blade. When nuts are fine crumbs, add the dates and pulse until the dough holds together when squeezed between your fingers. Firmly press crust into the bottom of prepared cake pan. Set aside.

To prepare the filling, pulse cashews in food processor until crumbly. Add agave, water, lemon juice and vanilla and puree until very smooth, scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula to make sure you get everything. Feed the strawberries through the top of the food processor and puree until incorporated. The filling should turn a pretty pink. With the processor running, add the melted coconut oil in a steady stream.

Pour the filling into the cake pan. It will look like a smoothie and you’ll think no way it will set, but it will! Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge to set. Make sure it’s level so that your cake doesn’t come out wonky. Let set for at least 4 hours.



OK, so she has you also make "Raw Fluffy White Frosting Recipe"


1/2 cup raw cashew pieces, soaked overnight
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons agave syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (alcohol free is preferred for raw desserts)
1/4 cup raw coconut oil, melted

Prepare the frosting in basically the same way as the cake. Pulse the cashews in the food processor until crumbly. Add the water, agave and vanilla and blend until smooth. With the food processor running, stream the coconut oil in through the top until combined. Pour into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Chill until set, about 2 hours.

but mine did not set. You can see it there on top of the cake, as the white layer. It made a fine layer, but it did not turn out like hers. I simply sliced and layered the strawberries on top of the cake instead. Still amazingly delicious.

Vegan Shamrock Shake Test Kitchen

minty minty goodness... my non-allergic husband was kind enough to taste test for this experiment, which produced an *almost* perfect vegan Shamrock Shake (tastes right to me, but it's been 8-9 years since I've had one.) I'm not ashamed to admit that I LOVE Shamrock Shakes.

1 container Coconut Bliss Vanilla Island ice cream
1 cup Silk Original Light
3/4 tsp peppermint extract
6-8 drops green food coloring
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
3 T powdered sugar

Blend in the blender, you may have to re-freeze for several hours and re-blend. I put mine in the empty ice cream container and froze for a while. The texture after 1 hour of freezing & reblending was almost right.

Enjoy!!

Vegan Meat Sauce! (+ goat cheese lasagna)

So very delicious!! Adapted from the World's Best Lasagna recipe I found via my phone while at the grocery store. This is the third time I've made it, and the lasagna, too.

• 1 package Upton's Naturals Italian Sausage style seitan
• 1/2 cup minced onion
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
• 1 (15 ounce) can canned tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

I saute the seitan with the onions & garlic, browning the seitan a bit. The rest of the ingredients- the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, water, sugar, seasonings, salt, pepper, and parsley (if you have it) go in the crock pot. When the seitan/onions/garlic is done, add that to the crock pot and turn on low for 6-8 hours (while you're at work.)

We actually used about 2 cups of the sauce the first night (didn't have time to bake lasagna) with sauteed crimini mushrooms in olive oil and gnocchi. Very tasty. You certainly don't have to use all the sauce in the lasagna- this makes a HUGE amount of sauce. You can also cook the sauce on the stove top, for 2.5 hours in a dutch oven- see original recipe for that. 

To make the lasagna, you need:

• 12 lasagna noodles
• 16 ounces Tofutti ricotta cheese
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8-10 ozpound goat mozzarella cheese, grated
• 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (I skipped this, since I don't really care for the texture/taste of Rice Parm- if you can handle sheep Romano, you could use that- if you skip it, just add a little extra mozzarella) 
  

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain noodles, and rinse with cold water. In a mixing bowl, combine Tofutti ricotta cheese with egg, remaining parsley, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). To assemble, spread 1 1/2 cups of meat sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange 6 noodles lengthwise over sauce. Spread with one half of the ricotta cheese mixture. Top with a third of mozzarella cheese. Spoon 1 1/2 cups meat sauce over mozzarella, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers, and top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheese.


Cover with foil: to prevent sticking, either spray foil with cooking spray, or make sure the foil does not touch the cheese. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil, and bake an additional 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Rhubarb + Sugar = Marmalade

This is from a very old cookbook (The American Woman's Cookbook, edited by Ruth Berolzheimer, 1941) which came from my grandmother's house, though, let's be clear, I don't think she ever canned anything... so was not an adventurous cook.

This is a delicious recipe!

1 lb rhubarb (4 cups)
1 lemon
2 cups sugar

Wash rhubarb and cut into thin slices. Wash lemon and shave off the thin yellow rind, cut rind into small, thin pieces. Juice lemon and set aside.
Mix rind with rhubarb with the sugar, let stand overnight.

The next day, add lemon juice and cook until it boils over a high heat, stirring constantly. Cook rapidly *almost* to gelling point (this is important- if you cook to gelling point, you will get marmalade that's too stiff to spread unless you warm it first.)
Do your normal jam prep work, this recipe makes about 4 1/4 pint jars.
Remove from heat, fill hot jars, process in boiling water for 10 minutes.
Enjoy!

What to do with Green Tomatoes?

Green Tomatoes, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr.

This was my question. The answer was, make hot green tomato jam!

I didn't have many green tomatoes, so this is a tiny batch, but maybe this is what you also have in your yard on your tomato plants.

2 cups tomato pulp (I used the food processor to pulp them)
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 T lemon juice
2.5 t calcium water
2.5 t pectin (Pomona's Pectin, hence the calcium water)
1 T Sambal Oelek (Fresh ground chili paste)

Mix pectin with sugar and set aside. Prepare your jamming stuff (this made 2 1/2 pint jars and 2 1/4 pint jars)

Cook tomato pulp and lemon juice until boiling (you want it to break down a little first) then reduce heat and add chili paste and calcium water. Bring mixture back to a boil and add pectin/sugar, stir vigorously while cooking until the pectin/sugar dissolves. Return to boil one last time, then remove from heat.

Fill jars to 1/4" from top, process in hot water for 10 minutes.

Grilled Calzones!

I've made these twice now, and they're a tiny bit tricky (I'm not much of a grill expert) but delicious, and great left over.
The original recipe was from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from July 27, 2011, but I can't find it in their recipe archive, so I'll just write it out. They had three versions, Spinach-Ricotta, BBQ Chicken, and Rosemary Mushroom. Mine is mushrooms, basil, spinach, and goat cheese.
I used the Pillsbury Classic Pizza Dough (the recipe told me to used "store bought pizza dough" and this worked pretty well. Mine then ended up being rectangle, rather than half round.
to make 4 calzones:
1 tube Pillsbury Classic pizza dough (thin crust is too thin)
1 cup of grated goat cheese
1 cup (ish) pizza sauce
10-12 mushrooms, sliced
1 cup spinach, chopped
half an onion, chopped
fresh basil
garlic, pressed
olive oil
salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper
Saute the onions, garlic, and basil together until the onions are clear. Add the mushrooms and saute until cooked. Add the spinach, saute until wilted and mix into mushrooms & onions.
Remove from heat and let cool.
Unpop your pizza dough and stretch a little, like you would putting in in a pan. Cut into 4 rectangles.
In each rectangle, spread tomato sauce, sprinkle some cheese, then add some of the mushroom spinach mixture, top with more cheese, and make sure to spread tomato sauce on what will be the top inside of your calzone. Fold in half, and pinch sides closed. Sprinkle each side of each calzone with flour to prevent sticking. Repeat.
OK, so your grill needs to be heated with two zones- a medium hot zone and a medium cool zone. Brush your grill with the olive oil, and put as many calzones as will fit in the hot zone. Put the lid down and grill for about 2 minutes, until the bottom side has formed a hard crust and shows grill marks. Filp and grill another 2-3 minutes. Move calzones to the cooler area on the grill and bake an additional 3-5 minutes until sides of calzones have formed a hard crust and turned golden brown. Enjoy!!