Spinach Gnocchi, or, A Monochrome Meal

With a word like gnocchi, the temptation to make some sort of horrible pun is almost irresistible. A large number of such puns ran through my head the other day in a cavalcade of groan-inducing wordplay, yet tonight I feel braindead - none of those hi-laaarious titles will condescend to return to my memory. Maybe that's for the best, however, so I'll skip the silliness and get straight to the food.

It was my turn in the three-week cycle of house dinner making, and I felt like going all-out and going crazy in the kitchen. Obviously that meant making my own pasta. Potato pasta, but pasta nonetheless. For a first gnocchi-making experience, it went quite well. I followed the recipe from VWAV, and added spinach, as per one of Isa's suggestions. I ended up with a large batch of minty-green gnocchi speckled with darker bits of spinach. Kind of pretty, in a strange way, even in their misshapenness - they were certainly not all exactly the same size, and the little riblike lines that scream "GNOCCHI!" were not entirely noticeable. But they were certainly tasty, if perhaps ever-so-slightly gummy. Definitely not a light meal, that's for sure. I served them with a spinach thyme toss from Vegan Visitor and some marinara sauce, along with a side of green beans sauteed with garlic and - of course - garlic bread. Yum yum yum.



Without the marinara sauce and the bread, that meal would've been entirely green! Hmm... I think I know what to make on St. Patty's day! :)

Ethnically Diverse Toast (aka French toast made with Italian bread)

My lack of posts lately may hint in a fairly obvious way that I've been in a bit of a cooking rut for a week or so. I just haven't felt inspired, I guess. But luckily that all ended last night, when I journeyed into the land of pasta making and whipped up (cough, cough) a batch of homemade spinach gnocchi. Yeah, you heard that right. ;) But more on that in my next post, because this morning I made something you'd think really shouldn't be veganizable, since the original relies almost solely on animal products. Obviously I'm talking about French toast!

It was with a certain amount of, well, apprehension that I tried the recipe for "Fronch" Toast from VWAV. Isa says that chickpea flour possesses the magical ability to transform the egg- and milk-free version into one that tastes amazingly close to the real thing. Well, truth be told, I don't really care for the taste of chickpea flour. I learned this the hard way after I made a batch of pudla (Chinese scallion "pancakes" made with chickpea flour) based on this recipe. But since I was halving the VWaV recipe (I'm only cooking for one, here!) and it therefore only needed 1/8ish cup of chickpea flour, I figured I'd give it a try. Oh, and please excuse the questionable quality/composition of this photograph - my camera was having focusing issues, and this was not an exceedingly aesthetically pleasant food. It's rather... beige.



So - the result? Tasty, and surprisingly like "real" French toast (why does she call it "Fronch" Toast, anyway?), but not indistinguishable from the original. I added some cinnamon into the mix, because I don't have any maple syrup for a topping and wanted to sweeten it up. Unfortunately, I could taste the chickpea flour. That was a little disappointing, although I think I might've used too much flour, since I was just eyeballing it. Next time, I'll definitely be stingy with the chickpea flour. I'll also use slightly stale bread (mine was leftover Italian bread from the night before) and let it soak in the mixture for a longer period of time.

Oh, and that topping on my French toast? That, my friends, is a yummy, sweet, apple topping based on something my dad used to make when he'd cook up a big batch of pancakes for my family on the weekends. It's pretty simple - first, you pour about 1/4 or 1/3 cup of applesauce into a small pot and heat it up on the stove. While that's getting nice and bubbly, chop up an apple into small cubes and add it to the pot. Since I use unsweetened applesauce, I like to add a sizable sprinkle of cinnamon and a little sugar, but you can definitely leave the sugar out. If you have maple syrup, that works nicely too; Dad liked to use it. I bet you could give it a nice apple pie type flavor by adding nutmeg, allspice, etc. Anyway, once it's bubbly and the apples are nice and soft, just spoon it right over your French toast or pancakes and enjoy! I sure did. :)

Veggie Chorizo Brekkie Burrito!

Like many Americans, I am a cultural mutt. My mom's side is French-Canadian, English, and Scottish, while my dad's side hails from Portugal, Ireland, and Russia. While I can't say that any one culinary tradition was prevalent in my immediate family's kitchen during my childhood, special occasions were often an excuse for my extended family to make foods following those traditions. French-Canadian meat pie, or tourtiere, is a New Year's Day tradition on my mom's side of the family (and no, we're not talking about the Sweeney Todd type of meat pie!). On the other side, my grandmother always buys traditional Portuguese sweet breads - complete with the hard-boiled egg in the middle - on Easter and makes a variety of Portuguese dishes for family dinners or her annual Christmas party. Some sort of pepper and chorizo dish is usually present at these types of gatherings.

I've got to be honest - even when I did eat meat, I was never a fan of chorizo or any type of sausage. It seemed like the epitome of everything that was wrong with meat to me, all sorts of unidentifiable bits of animals thrown into a grinder and labeled edible. And the few times I tried it, I didn't care for the taste. But I was willing to give chorizo another try... in its vegan form, at least. :P

So I made the Breakfast Veggie Chorizo from VWAV. As usual, I didn't have a couple of the ingredients (bay leaves, fennel seed.) But it ended up being really tasty! It was sweeter than I'd expected, which was probably a good thing - I'm not really a savory-breakfast type of person. Nope, I'm a sweet-breakfast girl - I'll take pancakes/smoothies/cereal/waffles/oatmeal, please! But I tried something different with the veggie chorizo and was pleasantly surprised, especially because it tastes really great in a breakfast burrito mixed up with sauteed green peppers, onions, and potatoes! I even went so far as to top it off with a smidgen of ketchup, which is totally against my sweet-breakfast nature, but it was really the perfect topping for the burrito.



Tasty AND filling! And for a first experience using TVP, it really could not have gone much better. I'm sure this doesn't taste anything like real chorizo, but hey - I'm fine with that. :)

Peanutty Yumminess Part Deux, or, Making Do

I've been feeling a little under the weather today, with various aches, pains, and an overwhelming desire to go to bed that hit me a little while ago. So I was going to skip posting tonight until I remembered that I'd already typed out most of this entry a few nights ago. Well! That changes everything. ;)

Apparently my peanut inspired dinner on Monday didn't fill my daily peanut quota, because later that night (after dutifully finishing my art history reading) I decided to break in my new copy of VCTOTW by making the Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.



Now, one of the downfalls of going to school far away from home is that I am sadly unable to bring my family's well-stocked kitchen along with me. I live in an on-campus townhouse this year with B & E, my two best friends here, and although we're slowly stocking our kitchen with necessary utensils and whatnot, those things ain't cheap, and inevitably we find ourselves lacking certain items. So my Peanut Butter Cupcake making journey was a lesson in making do.

First, I don't have any molasses. I know, I know. So I substituted a little of the brown sugar for some of the white sugar and added a bit of applesauce, since molasses is sort of liquidy, right? And my lack of crunchy natural peanut butter led me to crush some peanuts instead. And because we don't have a sifter (I know, I know!) I sort of used a whisk to make sure my cocoa powder was lumpless. And since we don't have cupcake liners (...), I just (unhealthily) greased the muffin tins with shortening. Oh, and for once I don't have soy milk - just the almond milk about which I rhapsodized in my previous post.

When it came time to make the frosting, I used the same sifting... trick... to make sure my powdered sugar didn't have huge lumps. And then my lack of a hand mixer compelled me to beat the frosting with a fork, a strenuous process which has left me with a rather sore right arm.

Somehow, though, everything magically worked out in the end. The cupcakes themselves, to be honest, sort of straddle that line between cupcake and muffin, but they are still yummy. I wouldn't call them sweet though; they have a mellow, rich taste that doesn't hit you until you actually begin chewing on the bite you've just taken. I bet the molasses would've added just the right depth of sweetness.

And the Chocolate Buttercream Frosting? Well, let's just say that the next time somebody disparagingly calls vegan fare bland, boring, and waaay too healthy, I'll just whip up a batch of this frosting and in one fell swoop topple all those stereotypes! This stuff is super rich! Tasty, but heavy. VCTOTW suggests topping the Peanut Butter Cupcakes with a drizzle of ganache, but my lack of chocolate chips led me to make the buttercream instead. In retrospect, the buttercream is probably too heavy for this cupcake - it almost overpowers the peanut butter's flavor. Ah well. Live and learn and in the meantime eat lots of delicious cupcakes!

...or not, since later that night I had a very unpleasant stomachache which can really only be attributed to the rather large quantity of fat in the frosting. I've never been able to tolerate too much fat, so I think it did me in this time. Alas!

Anyway, now I'm going to curl up in bed with a comps book - Virginia Woolf's Orlando, which is one of those books that gets better and better each time you read it - and read 'til I'm ready to fall asleep. Ciao!

Nutty Milks - Who Knew?!

I have a new favorite thing, and its name is Milk - Almond Milk, that is. I've been trying to cut down on my soy intake, not necessarily because I've been frightened away by all the rumors about its possible health effects, but because I believe in a balanced diet. As veg*ns, it's all too easy for us to rely on soy-based products, so I figure that if I can use a non-soy based milk instead, it'll sort of balance out my consumption of tofu and such. As my momma always says, quoting my incredibly wise grandpa, "Everything in moderation." :)

But I'm not gonna lie - I'm having a hard time using this almond milk in moderation! The Blue Diamond brand was on sale for $1.79 a carton at the co-op, so I bought the unsweetened original and the sweetened vanilla varieties.



One sip and I was sold! The vanilla is so much creamier than vanilla soy or rice milk, but it's not at all overwhelmingly nutty. I will say that I think it's *just* bordering on being too sweet, so next time I'll get the unsweetened vanilla (the sweetener is evaporated cane sugar.) As a testament to how much I like this stuff, let me just say that I actually drank a glass of it with my dessert tonight. This is meaningful because I pretty much drink only water (and tea, I guess). I don't drink soda, I don't buy juice all that often, and I don't really count smoothies as drinks. :) As a kid I was never fond of drinking glasses of milk, and I don't like soy or rice milk enough to drink it plain, but I actually enjoyed this by itself. Pretty sweet. I haven't tried the original variety yet, but I'm optimistic about it and will probably use it mostly for baking/cooking.

You know, I'm lucky that I can drink this at all - nut allergies run in my family; my dad's allergic to almonds and my sister is allergic to all nuts. So when I am home (not at college, where I live at the moment) we can't keep stuff like this in the house. I think I'll try to explore other milk alternatives, like oat and hemp. :)

Tune in next time for part two of my peanutty yumminess series, wherein I will share my first experience with Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World! The dessert I mentioned earlier, which went so well with a glass of almond milk, will be featured prominently. Well... solely, actually. Hehe.

Peanutty Yumminess

Last fall, I made a food discovery that rocked my world and changed my life. Ever since this delightful spicy, salty, nutty goodness first danced across my taste buds, they've craved it at least once a week. What is this culinary creation, you ask? Two words: peanut. sauce.

...okay, so maybe I was the last person on the planet to realize that peanut sauce was even possible, but somehow I spent 21 years of my life in a peanut sauce-less flavor wasteland. The fact that I'd never encountered it before is odd, because I love peanut flavored anything and I love noodle-y dishes with exciting sauces in general. Possibly it has something to do with my younger sister's nut allergy; if she weren't allergic, I bet my culinarily gifted dad would've made something like it at some point. But anyway, I discovered it last fall and after I mixed up my first batch, I was hooked.



That right there is heaven in a dish, folks. I like to serve a large helping of peanut sauce over udon noodles and some veggies. I nearly always use broccoli, and in the past I've used snow peas with great success. This time I used some edamame, and then I topped it all off with some raw peanuts. It's such a simple dish, but it's so flavorful and delicious.

I don't really have a set recipe for my peanut sauce, but the key is to mix equal parts peanut butter (natural, duh!) and water and then spice to taste. I like to add soy sauce, garlic, chili powder, and enough cayenne pepper to give it a real kick. It's pretty simple, but so awesome over the noodles and vegetables.

Ah, peanuts. I can never decide if I like them in sweet dishes (mmm, peanut butter & chocolate flavored anything!) or in a savory, spicy incarnation, like this sauce. But hey - who said I have to choose?! :D

Kale Soup on Sunday

It was my turn in the rotation to cook Sunday dinner for my lovely housemates this week, and since I've been craving my mom's kale soup, I asked her for the recipe and set about recreating one of my favorite dishes from home. She varies her recipe based on what's in the house, so I tailored it to my friends' tastes. I was proud that my first attempt at making Mom's soup came out so well, and even though my friends had never had kale before (shocking, I know!), they enjoyed it and E had a large second helping. :) Anyway, I'm going to share the "recipe" here, although I'm guesstimating on some of the measurements because I pretty much winged it for most of the ingredients. It's pretty simple - but oh so yummy.



Mom's Kale Soup

2 quarts vegetable broth (I used 1 qt Imagine veggie broth and 3 cups water with a bouillon cube, just because that's less expensive)
1 bunch kale, shredded into smallish pieces
1 1/2 cans beans - I used a mixture of kidney and great northern; Mom suggests cannellini
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped carrot (I chopped up baby carrots; I like the small rounds)
1 can fire roasted diced tomatoes
A couple shakes Tabasco sauce
Spices - I used dried basil and a bit of cayenne pepper; Mom suggests basil, rosemary, and red pepper flakes, but I didn't have the latter two in the cupboard
You can also add corn or a finely chopped potato or two, but I left them out because neither E nor B particularly likes corn, and I prefer the soup without potatoes

Pour a little broth into the bottom of a large soup pot; add the onions and garlic and cook until they begin to get soft. Shred up the kale and add it to the pot, adding a little more liquid as necessary. Once the kale has softened and cooked down, add all the other ingredients to the pot and let simmer for about an hour.

That's it! Super simple but really delicious. You can mess with the spices to taste; I think the fire roasted tomatoes and a few dashes of Tabasco sauce give this just enough of a mild kick to keep it from being boring. It wasn't really spicy to me at all, but E, a native Wisconsinite known for her aversion to spicy foods, said she could taste it.

I served the soup with a batch of Baking Powder Biscuits from VwaV. B loved the biscuits and couldn't stop eating them! They definitely rose nicely and were a great compliment to the soup, but they were too salty for my taste - I definitely won't put in a whole teaspoon of salt next time I make them!

That was my Sunday night meal. Simple, healthy, yet filling and yummy. And the night got even better when B and I returned home a little later from our comps meeting (comps are the big senior project type things we have to pass to graduate, eek) to find that E had baked a big ol' chocolate cake - and it just happened to be vegan and delicious! Best night ever. :)