Veggie Wontons

These were perfect on a day when I was really craving something crunchy and Chinese but didn't want to eat out. They were a meal for the two of us filled with tofu and some sauteed veggies.

Ingredients:

3 cloves of garlic sliced
4 scallions diced (white part and some green)
2-3 tablespoons of tamari soy sauce
1 block of firm tofu- rinsed, and patted dry
1 tablespoon canola oil plus canola oil for deep frying
2 cups of sliced mushrooms (I used crimini)
1 cup of shredded napa or savoy cabbage
2 tablespoons sliced ginger or powdered ginger
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
sriracha or chili sauce to your liking
1/2 package of wonton wraps





Instructions:
Heat 1 tablespoon of canola oil in a wok or large pot
Add tofu in crumbled pieces - cook for 3-5 minutes
Add mushrooms - cook for 3 minutes more
Add garlic and ginger and 1/2 the soy - saute
Add cabbage and cook until wilted

Remove from heat and toss with sesame oil, remaining soy, sriracha, vinegar,and scallions.
Allow to cool down a bit and flavors to meld.
Place 1/2 a tablespoon of mixture in the center of wonton wraps
Wet the perimeter of each wrap with a bit of water
Fold wraps over and press to seal

Deep fry dumplings in canola oil for 1-2 minutes
Drain on paper towels

Serve with dipping sauce of your choice and a side of bok choi or broccoli.

Yum!




The deer came back again but this time they checked us out from the back yard.

Sorry guys, no wontons for you!

Sweet and Sour Soba Noodles With Tofu

Tofu loves to be paired with spicy flavors. I love adding tofu to curries or in a stir-fry.

This dish is more of a Chinese/Japanese mix-up prepared by a Italian/Scandinavian mix-up for her Ukrainian/Polish crack-up!

I made it up on the fly and it worked.


My favorite kind of miracle.




Ingredients:

Sweet and Sour Sauce:
3 tablespoons tamari soy sauce
1-2 tablespoons brown sugar
3 garlic cloves minced
1+ tablespoon catsup
1+ tablespoon hot chili sauce (like sriracha)
1 teaspoon ginger (fresh diced or in powder)
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons canola or sesame oil
2 green onions diced (all of the white part and a bit of the green)
juice of half an orange

whisk all ingredients in a bowl and set aside

Veggies:

I used what was left in the fridge(not much):
cabbage (half a head)
onions (1 yellow and 1/2 red) sliced
garlic - 3 cloves sliced
ginger - 1 teaspoon
carrots - 2 shredded
green peas - half a bag of frozen
2-3 tablespoons of canola oil
1-3-4 oz. of soba noodles cooked as per package instructions
4 green onions diced

Instructions:
Heat the wok or pan with a little canola oil and crumble the tofu in. Cook the bite sized crumbles for 3-4 minutes then remove from wok.
Add another tablespoon of canola oil to the wok and saute the onion for 2-3 minutes then add garlic and ginger. Cook for another minute or so then add whatever sliced veggies you have in the fridge chopped or sliced into bite sizes. Add one veggie at a time - cooking each for a minute or two on it's own. Add a little tamari/soy sauce with each new veggie to layer the flavors. Cook veggies through 7-10 minutes.

Add the tofu back to the wok and toss with veggies. Add noodles and sweet and sour sauce and toss to coat.

Top with green onions.

Enjoy.

serves 2-4

Creamy Mushroom-Barley Bisque

Another rainy Saturday afternoon here in Western Oregon. What better than a hot bowl of creamy mushroom bisque to warm us up?

It was delicious and fairly simple to make.

Looks like we're not the only ones craving something warm. This sweet doe looks very interested in our soup du jour:




Mushroom Bisque: (totally vegan - but it can obviously be made with dairy if one is so inclined)

Ingredients:
1 onion diced
4 cloves of garlic - chopped finely
3 cups of chopped mushrooms (I used cremini)
3 tablespoons of canola butter (Earth Balance is great)
1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
3 tablespoons of whole wheat flour
2 cups of plain soy milk
1 teaspoon of dried thyme
7-8 cups of vegetable broth or water
1 cup of barley (rinsed)
1/4 cup chopped parsley (optional)
1/4 cup of sherry or Marsala (optional)
salt and pepper to taste



Instructions

Saute the onion in olive oil until translucent
Add chopped mushrooms and saute for another 2-3 minutes
Add half of the garlic - saute until mushrooms begin to sweat
Season with a pinch of salt, thyme and pepper to taste
Add barley and saute for one minute
De glaze pan with sherry at this point or simply add broth(water) and bring to a boil
Lower to a simmer, cover and simmer for 40-50 minutes to cook barley.

Meanwhile make the roux:
Melt canola butter in a small saucepan
Add remaining garlic and saute for a minute
Add flour and whisk
Cook the flour for a minute then whisk in milk
Continue to whisk as the sauce thickens (4-5 minutes)
Add salt and pepper to taste
Set thickened rue aside until needed

After 40-50 minutes the barley will have cooked and the soup will have reduced and filled the kitchen with a glorious smell
At this point lower heat and stir/whisk in the creamy rue
Adjust seasoning to taste
Top with parsley


Serve hot!

Mock Egg-Salad Sandwiches

I needed an excuse to bake some bread.

These babies hit the spot.




I followed Lee's "Tofu egg salad" recipe from the PPK website but added a tablespoon more of country Dijon mustard, 2 tablespoons of chopped red onions, a tablespoon of nutritional yeast, and a handful of chopped Italian parsley for more flavor. They were delicious. Creamy and tangy with a good "egg-y" texture from the firm tofu. I was really impressed.

For the bread I followed the recipe for whole wheat bread straight off the Bob's Red Mill website. I used Bob's Organic Whole Wheat Flour and I was really pleased with the taste and crumb of these loaves. Not as sweet as my beloved honey whole wheat bread (King Arthur Recipe) but I think for savory sandwiches like this one, the honey sweetness wouldn't be right.

This bread tastes great. It tastes just the way whole-wheat sandwich bread should taste and even better slightly toasted.


Now what sandwich should I make next?

Spinach Power Salad!

Okay, after a beer and chocolate post I thought it would be appropriate to post a healthy vitamin packed recipe. It isn't quite salad season, but who cares? It's the Chinese New Year and temple food (as Ms. Lawson likes to call it) is called for. Here goes:

Super Spinach Power Salad
serves one

Baby Spinach - 1-2 cups
Napa Cabbage - 1/2 cup cupped
Romaine - 1/2 cup chopped
Roma Tomato -1 chopped
Onion- 1/4 small red diced
Olive oil/brown rice vinegar (just a teaspoon or so of each) with salt and pepper to taste

Chickpea Fritters (Mark Bittman's falafel recipe again!- chickpeas, onion, garlic, parsley, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, lemon juice, baking powder)


Take that Dr. Oz!

I had this with a yummy soy-blueberry-banana smoothie. I'm on vitamin overload right now. Ready to do anything :)

Check out my buns!

How obnoxious can I get?









These buns came out a lot better than I had expected. I'm finding many ways to use my original naan bread recipe and I have yet to find something this miracle dough can't do!

I follow the basic dough recipe. Then I shape the buns into 2 inch balls and then flatten them on a cookie sheet. I let them rise for another 30 minutes, then bake them at 350 for 30 minutes. Brush them with a milk or egg wash for the last 10 minutes of baking and sprinkle with sea salt or sesame seeds.

Delish and nutrish!

(That's an Amy's Bistro Burger making its appearance yet again.)

Beverage: An Oregon Pinot Noir or an Oregon Pale Ale.

Music: What goes better with burgers than good old 50's rock and roll? Heck, it's the 50th anniversary of "Great Balls of Fire" - so why not a little Jerry Lee Lewis?

Soups for the Sick!

J gave me that nasty cold he had. Time for soup.

The first soup is a Chickpea Noodle Soup from Veganomicon

I ordered this book just before our trip down south and I am so glad I did. This recipe was a winner. The soup is mellow and filling and I added spinach at the very end to bump up the vitamin count. I must say that I am feeling quite a bit better this morning.

The split pea soup is a pretty basic recipe. I added brown rice and left-over potatoes (both Yukon gold and sweet). It is a carb-and-protein-heavy bowl of pure comfort.

Drink: Hot herbal tea with lemon and honey.

Listening to: Cowboy Junkies, Black Eyed Man

A Tale of Three Veggie Burgers

Ahh, holiday travel:
900 miles down and 900 miles back along the beautiful Oregon and California Coast; a beautiful, wet, windy and cold coast indeed.

And despite the awesome Redwood Forest, the rolling vineyards of Sonoma and the majestic, rocky coastline of Southern Oregon, I alas, could only think of the vast desert of fast-food neon that we encountered both up and down one of the purtiest places on Earth.

Every couple of months we make this trek and we're rewarded on both ends (My Mom and J's Mom are both amazing cooks). But the 16+ hours in between are brutal on both our booties and our stomachs.

What are we going to eat?

Sure, we packed the car with healthy snacks like fruit and nuts and some of my mom's homemade energy bars. But we still needed some proper FOOD at some point.

Well, lucky for us we decided to make our first stop at the Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka, Ca. They have quite a few options for the non-meat eaters out there. J and I both chose their "Humboldt Green Party" burger. Which is basically a Garden Burger on a whole wheat bun with lettuce, tomatoes, red onions and a sliced dill pickle. Fries or a salad come as a side and they don't put mayo (or any condiment for that matter) on the burger. Instead the kind waitress brought out a selection of condiments to our table so we could dress our patty exactly as we liked.

It was quite good.

We both got the fries and I had a "Downtown Brown Ale." Delish!

J had a nice cup of joe (as he was driving that leg).

And we're off!


Three hundred or so miles later and a nice overnight stop north of San Francisco, we pull into a Burger King.

?!!!!?Burger King!!?

Yep.

I had heard that they are the only major chain in the U.S. that offers a veggie burger as an option at every location. So we had to check it out. It took a bit of convincing to get Jason to even pull into the parking lot (neither one of us has eaten at a Burger King in over a decade). But he indulged me and we checked out the options.

The Burger King veggie burger is a Morning Star patty sandwiched between two basic Burger King buns with tomato, lettuce and pickles. We ordered both of ours with onions and no mayo (the mayo alone adds nearly 16 grams of saturated fat to your meal!)

It was a ho-hum experience. Not bad. But not great.

The buns are a bit soft and the patty had an overwhelming carrot taste.

But, it was good to know that a veggie (although not vegan) option exists out there in fast-food land.


6 days later,(after many a delicious meal at my in-laws) we began our return trip home to Oregon. Our first food stop was at an old hangout of ours in Valencia, CA: The Habit

We ordered two Veggie Burgers with a side of fries and waited in anticipation.

Ten minutes later our burgers arrived.

WOW! Toasted whole-wheat buns, a perfectly grilled Garden Burger patty, an inch thick layer of super green, fresh, romaine lettuce, ripe tomato slices, cucumbers, red onions, and alfalfa sprouts!

It was a salad in a sandwich and it was a knockout.

Now, if only they had more locations en route to Oregon.

We returned to Lost Coast on the last leg of our trip for another Humboldt Green Party burger and were pleased that it tasted just as good as on the way down.

We made it to my folks later that night and enjoyed a warm bowl of vegetable soup.

So as a recap here's how I rank the three burgers:

1. The Habit's Veggie Burger
2. Lost Coast Brewery's "Green Party" Burger
3. Burger King's Veggie Burger.


I look forward to finding more veggie travel options on our next trip down. But in the meantime I'm back to cooking my own food!

Naan Veggie Burgers

What to do with left over naan?

Veggie Burgers!

J loves Amy's Bistro Burgers and I'm a traditionalist - I love my Gardenburgers.

Stir-Fry tofu with vegetables and fried brown rice

tofu
green peppers
brown basmati rice
onions
carrots
garlic
ginger
tamari
grean peas

Friday Night Falafel Night!

I made some whole wheat naan and some falafels tonight. It was a hit!

Add some yogurt, peppers, tomaotoes, red onions and parsley and we're golden.

Soup for lunch (again)

Red lentil curry with cauliflower, potatoes and brown rice.

So satisfying and so ugly.

Eat Your Veggies! (and Happy Birthday Mom!)

So we ate, (gasp), just veggies tonight!

But they were incredibly filling. I didn't miss a thing.

Delicata squash, mushrooms and spinach, brussel sprouts, and roasted potatoes.

mmmmmmm...




Walrus loves brussel sprouts!

Tofu Marsala with Zucchini

Okay, so eating tofu and veggies is becoming a bit of a habit here. But, the thing is we're saving a ton of money AND it happens to taste pretty good too.

I've turned to legumes and beans and tofu lately because we're in the middle of recording a new record which happens to take up a lot of time - without (yet) yielding the big dough (figuratively) and literally.


But, I really can't complain because the food has been delicious.


This meal is from last night. I got the Tofu Marsala recipe from http://www.veganmenu.blogspot.com - These folks know how to use their veggies.

I did alter the flour a bit- I used brown rice flour(instead of wheat flour) to coat the tofu and it was SO delicious with a perfect light crust. I need to pick up some more of that fine flour.

The zucchini were simply cooked with a bit of oil and garlic.

yum, yum!

4 bucks tops for the entire meal.

Rawk on.