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!!

Cold Brew Coffee

Ah, summer. Hot days don't mean hot coffee, hot days mean cold, iced coffee. YUM. Now, some people will tell you that you need a fancy iced coffee brewer or something to make cold coffee, but you don't. (I'm talking about cold-brewing coffee, which is less acidic than brewing it with heat, then cooling it.)

All you need is coffee, ground for a french press, a container to steep it in, and a container to filter it in.

The ratio is 1 part coffee to 2 parts water, so I usually use 3 cups coffee to 6 cups water. Make sense?
Find yourself a good-sized glass pitcher (I use the yellow one in the picture) and mix up your coffee and water and let sit for a good 12 hours. I usually put saran wrap on the top to keep bugs out since my pitcher has no cover. After at least 12 hours, you are ready to strain. Really, you can probably use a drip coffee maker and filter for this, but I don't have one, so I use my Chemex. I put a paper filter in the Chemex and stir up the grounds/coffee in the pitcher and pour it through. Now, it's thick stuff, and generally I fill up the filter, then let it filter itself while I walk away and do something else for a while- it takes a bit. I often go through 2 paper filters per batch, and this does involved scooping some of the coffee grounds out of the filter to pour more in.




it's not as complicated as I just made it sound. But this is why you could use a regular old drip coffee maker with pot & and a strong paper filter- pour your coffee & grounds into the filter and let it drip through into the pot.


Anyway, once you've filtered all your coffee, you have coffee concentrate. Chill, and serve by mixing 1/3 cup coffee concentrate with 2/3 cup water, serve with yummy soy creamer over ice and enjoy!

French Toast

mmm... delicious french toast... made with eggs & almond milk!!
it's a staple of our Sunday morning breakfast rotation, and it's very simple. you need:

stale bread
eggs (4-5)
almond milk
cinnamon
vanilla
oil

decide if you want 4 or 5 eggs worth of toast and then crack those in a bowl with a flat bottom (I use a pyrex bowl.) Pour quarter sized dollops of almond milk into the eggs (one for each egg) and then beat until everything is smooth. Pour in a little vanilla (maybe 2 tsp?) to taste, and liberally shake cinnamon over the top and beat again.

Oil your pan, dip your toast, and enjoy!