Japanese Night

Konnichiwa minnasan! For girls night, my roommate and I made rice balls, dumplings, miso soup, and Vietnamese Summer Rolls (a recipe we posted before). Rice balls, or onigiri, are a staple of Japanese culture, and are really pretty easy to make.

Here's what you'll need:

• Sushi Rice
• Nori (seaweed)
• Filling: tuna, plum paste, tofu salad, beans, etc
  
• Salt

What you'll do:

1. Cook the rice according to the instructions on the package
2. Set out a bowl of cold water
3. Slice seaweed into small squares
   
4. As the rice cools, dip your hands into the cold water and spread about a teaspoon of salt onto them.
   
5. Pick up about a handful of rice, and mold into the shape of a ball (or a triangle when you have the hang of it)
6. Create a small hole in the rice and fill with filling of choice
7. Put a piece of seaweed over the hole.

The water prevents the rice from sticking to your hands. Rice balls are best cold. I'd also highly recommend rolling the balls in sesame seeds-- I don't really like to just eat plain rice myself-- and put a lot of filling.

As for the dumplings? We bought frozen and steamed them. I think we'll try making them from scratch another day. The miso soup didn't turn out, so I won't post the recipe here.

Thanks!

Agave Nectar Cupcakes

So, a few posts ago Caitlin put a picture of me with my agave nectar cupcakes. I used the recipe from "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World," and made coffee buttercream icing (using the recipe that is listed on the powdered sugar box). I couldn't find a way to avoid sugar in the icing, but I'm going to continue trying!

A note on the ingredients: agave nectar is a syrup made from the same plant tequila is made of. It's very sweet, and can be used as a honey substitute (although it does not taste like honey beyond being very sweet). I'm not sure how it compares to honey in nutritional value, but it is easier to digest than refined sugars. I also used whole wheat pastry flour for the flour, so the cupcakes were a bit mealier than traditional white flour cupcakes, but very healthy!

Anyway, here is the cupcake recipe from the cookbook...

Ingredients:

• 2/3 Cup Soy Milk
• 1/2 Tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
• 2/3 Cup Agave Nectar
• 1/3 Cup Canola Oil
• 1 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 1/3 Cup All Purpose Flour
• 3/4 Tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 Tsp Baking Soda
• 1/4 Tsp Salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 Degrees
2. Mix soy milk and vinegar and allow to ferment for five minutes
3. Beat agave nectar, oil, and vanilla extract into the soy milk/vinegar mixture
4. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
5. Beat the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients
6. Line cupcake tin with cupcake liners
7. Fill each liner 2/3 of the way full with cupcake mixture
8. Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cupcake comes out clean

Yield: 12 Cupcakes

For the icing! I don't know the proportions, but it calls for milk, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and butter. Because I'm vegan, of course, I used margarine and soy milk instead of butter and milk. However! because I am a cheap college student who can't afford real vanilla extract (the cheap ones all seemed to have corn syrup) I decided to replace vanilla with coffee! I bought a cup of decaffeinated coffee (although I'd recommend espresso for those of you who aren't faint of heart) and used that instead of the vanilla. I also skipped the milk part and added more coffee, just because the coffee wasn't very strong. I'd recommend cooling the coffee before adding it to the icing mixture.

Well, enjoy! They're delicious.

Brunch Overload: Spring Break '10

So after having brunch at Mi Lah, I became kind of obsessed. With brunch. I wanted pancakes! Tofu scramble! French toast! And, luckily, I have an awesome vegan brunch cookbook, fittingly titled Vegan Brunch. I think I used 4 or 5 different recipes from this cookbook in the past three days.

Let's begin with the waffles. I LOVE my waffle iron. For these, each waffle came out differently because I kept adding ingredients.

Here's the full stack. My favorite is the one on top, to which I added pumpkin and a bunch of spices. I also tweaked the original recipe to make it healthier. Of course, this was an unmeasured experiment, so you will have to play with the ratios yourselves, but here is the basic recipe:

Cornbread Pumpkin Waffles (adapted from Vegan Brunch)
2-3 cups almond milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1.5 cups cornmeal
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 cup canola oil
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/8-1/4 cup maple syrup (I omitted the granulated sugar, so I experimented with a couple different substitutes. I like the warmth the maple syrup adds with the pumpkin)
Pureed pumpkin
cloves
cinnamon (I love cinnamon, so I won't even try to guess how much I added...)

Preheat the waffle iron. Measure out 2 cups of milk and add vinegar. Set aside to curdle.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together dry ingredients. In a smaller bowl mix the milk with the other wet ingredients. You may want to go light on the maple syrup for now until you know how sweet your batter will be. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet, mixing together until relatively smooth. Add more almond milk if your batter is too dry and you like your waffles a little more dense and less puffy.

Spray waffle iron and cook away!


Don't forget the powdered sugar and maple syrup!


And enjoy :)

Oh, PS these waffles freeze and toast up beautifully. I know, because I've eaten them every day since I made them!

I also made an awesome broccoli tofu quiche! I was too lazy to make or buy a pie crust, so this is actually a crust-less tofu quiche, but it was nevertheless delicious. Ground cashews provide creaminess, and I added ginger when I sauteed the broccoli because, well, ginger is awesome.

This is just the kind of dish I love: it's completely healthy, it's fun to make, it's pretty, and it keeps well for leftovers and is even great eaten cold or room-temperature. I missed quiche.

In other news, Puttanesca Scramble with tofu, black olives, capers, tomatoes and garlic. I made it for lunch yesterday. Oh how I missed scrambled tofu! It's so easy!

Last, but not least, I made a simple tempeh stir-fry to take with me on the plane to Boston tonight. I had never cooked tempeh before, but I bought some at Trader Joe's. It's really nice, though I think I need some more practice in cooking it. This stir-fry just had ginger, thyme, red peppers, spinach, garlic, and cabbage. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture, but use your imagination or, even, better, pick up some tempeh and experiment yourself!

~Caitlin

Restaurant Highlight: Mi Lah Vegetarian in Philadelphia

Ahh brunch. The best meal of the day, especially if you're a vegan and you live in Philadelphia. Kristin took me to a little place called Mi Lah Vegetarian, and their entire brunch menu is vegan! aka no eggs! aka I can have french toast for the first time in years! Basically, the food was incredible, the service lovely, and the setting adorable. I highly recommend it. I think Kristin is even going back this weekend for the French toast...

They started with a complementary plate of fruit. This wasn't actually that great, but the grapes were pretty good...

Now, the French toast, on the other hand, was AMAZING. Best French toast of my life, vegan or otherwise. Until your typical egg-based French toast, which can be a little heavy dense, this was perfectly light and airy with just a hint of cinnamon. I asked the waiter, but he said the sauce is a secret even to him. My mouth is watering just thinking about this...

Kristin's pancakes with blueberry sauce and tempeh bacon. The "bacon" was actually pretty good and tasted enough like bacon for me. Soooo many pancakes...

Mike's Tofu Benedict with tomatoes, home fries and sauteed swiss chard. This was really good, he let me try a bite. The tofu was baked or fried, we couldn't decide, placed on thin bread and topped with a vegan hollandaise sauce. Awesome.


Mine! And my favorite (aside from the French toast). This was a "Black Bean Tostada," which basically means a chip-like-thing smeared with black bean sauce and basil sour cream, mango, tomatoes, etc. It also came with a spicy seitan and pineapple salsa that I put in the tortilla and ate like a burrito. Mmmmm.

http://www.milahvegetarian.com/

~Caitlin

Cooking in Philly with Kristin

So for Christmas this year I bought my sister Kristin a wok. Best present I ever gave her. She and Mike use it practically every night, and I used it too when I visited Philly last weekend. We made:


Pineapple Fried Rice (her specialty, and quite delicious)

And here's the Leon Gobi again! I didn't have my book but I found the recipe online. This has to be my favorite right now. It tastes just like a curry you would order in an Indian restaurant. I'm so proud!

~Caitlin

Sunday Night Dinners

Well hello there! I know, I know, it's been a long time. We have a lot of catch up on, so here goes...

First off, we started a casual Sunday night dinner routine (when time permits, of course). It actually started when I got the flu back in February and wanted homemade soup for dinner. Almost all of the recipes came from the Leon Cookbook my mom got me for my birthday. Cookbook highlight still to come...

Here are some of the main events:

White Bean and Swiss Chard soup

The Leon Superfood Salad (my current favorite)

Leon Gobi: basically a fantastic curry with cauliflower, peas, coconut milk, turmeric, etc. Seriously, this was awesome.

Lentil Soup (for Susan)

Chelsea's Agave Cupcakes (SO delicious) with coffee icing I think...

Hopefully our tradition with continue this Sunday...check back with us soon (or in May when we have a chance to update again :) )

~Caitlin