vegan

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Sesame, Soy, Spice review

“Sesame, Soy, Spice: 90 Asian-ish Vegan and Glute-free Recipes to Reconnect, Root, and Restore” is the first cookbook by Remy Morimoto Park, a health and wellness blogger based in NYC. She also comes with a Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese background. According to the author/book, the recipes “are love letters to her family members, to the countries she’s lived in, and to her teenage self – the one who thought she had to reject the food of her culture to live authentically for herself.”

The chapters are listed as:

  • First things first,
  • Salads that don’t suck (and other delicious vegetables),
  • Snacks that smile back,
  • Crying over spilt soymilk,
  • Long life noodles, rice, and other mains,
  • More things my family members, who never measure anything, like to make,
  • You deserve it

At first glance, I was confused by the title “crying over spilled milk” but that chapter talks about the heavy topic of substance abuse at a young age, and turning to sobriety. It then offers recipes for alcohol-free drinks.

Some recipes that I think sound good are:

  • Just-add-mylk pancake mix,
  • Miso-glazed mushroom toast,
  • Vegan cream cheese,
  • Smoky maple tempeh bacon,
  • Matcha and pistachio granola,
  • Crunchy togarashi asparagus,
  • Scallion pesto,
  • Korean bbq-loaded nachos,
  • Perfect pistachio milk,
  • Pistachio milk matcha with cheesecake cream,
  • Black sesame cacao smoothie,
  • Cucumber sesame noodles,
  • Shredded Korean bbq bulgogi tofu,
  • Spicy peanut ramen,
  • Thai basil tempeh,
  • Popcorn tofu,
  • Chinese peanut cookies,
  • Thai tea panna cotta,
  • Miso caramel creme brulee,
  • Black sesame chocolate chip bliss balls,
  • Miso butter chocolate chip cookies

My only real criticism of the book is that not all of the recipes are “Asian-ish” which is what I was expecting based on the title.  The recipes I highlighted above are but there’s also recipes like “snap pea slaw” and “quinoa salad with raspberry poppyseed dressing” which really are not.  (You can make the raspberry poppyseed dressing more Asian inspired by adding gochujang but that’s listed as an optional ingredient.) It’s only when you read the inside jacket that it says “elegant, easy-to-make plant-based takes on Asian-ish and international dishes.”

The first recipe I made is not Asian in any way, but sounds delicious: chocolate quinoa breakfast bowl.  It’s made with quinoa, water, plant milk, maple syrup, cacao powder, almond butter, vanilla, and topped with fruits/nuts of choosing.  It’s pretty easy to make but take more time than you might think.  You first cook the quinoa in water for 10-12 minutes, and then finish cooking it in the plant milk for another 7-8 minutes.    My recommendation is to use less plant milk to start than what is listed.  I used an oatmilk brand that I had never used before, and it was very thin.  I used the full amount, and my final results were more watery than what the book photo presents.  It does thicken up if you store leftovers in the fridge, but my oatmilk was so thin that it still felt too watery to me the next day.  Admittedly, I made this recipe because One Degree Organic Foods’ Organic Sprouted Oat Granola Quinoa Cacao is one of my favorite snacks.  They are very different chocolate quinoa recipes.  The porridge here is more bittersweet, and the quinoa flavor is more pronounced.  That doesn’t mean that I think it’s bad or anything.  It’s just different.  The porridge is also very filling.  The recipe says it’s for 2 servings, but with nuts and fruits (and a serving of yogurt which I have every morning), I was able to stretch this into 5 servings.  This a great option for meal prepping.

The second recipe I made also came from the same chapter but I ate them for lunch: super scallion quiche cups.  It’s inspired by egg bites and scallion pancakes.  It’s made with oil, leeks, scallions, extra firm tofu, nutritional yeast, cornstarch, plant milk, miso, onion powder, and garlic powder.  Essentially, these all get blended together to make the quiche batter.  The recipe was written for a 24 mini muffin tin, but I used a standard 12 cup muffin tin.  The recipe says to blend until spoonable but not too runny.  I took that mean a hummus like consistency which was a pain in the butt to scoop out of my blender as I got closer to the blades.  I think I will try this in a food processor next time.  This is also a great meal prep item, especially if you’re on the go.  Overall I enjoyed this, but I think I can add more scallions, nutritional yeast, miso, and onion/garlic powders.  The tofu can take it.  Otherwise, it might be fun to garnish with a flavored schmear of choice.

The book has a fun array of vegan recipes.  I think this book will appeal to anyone new to veganism, long-time vegans looking for new ideas, or anyone looking for recipes to increase their vegetable consumption.  Just don’t get this book for you’re expecting Asian inspired recipes only.  

Disclaimer – I kindly received a copy of this book from William Morrow/Harper Collins for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  This cookbook is available for purchase from your favorite bookshops.

Reference Links:

https://www.instagram.com/veggiekins/?hl=en

https://veggiekinsblog.com/

https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/remy-morimoto-park-84771

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Plantbased by Alexander Gershberg

‘Plantbased: 80 Nourishing Umami-Rich Recipes from the Kitchen of a Passionate Chef’ is the third cookbook by vegan chef Alexander Gershberg.  Many of the recipes here take inspiration from Japanese flavors, and inspiration from his Russian and Israeli roots.  Even those recipes that don’t seem to be influenced by any particular culture have a fresh approach to them. 

Contents of this book are:

  • Whole grains,
  • Beans and proteins,
  • Root vegetables,
  • Sweet round vegetables,
  • Green vegetables,
  • Sea vegetables,
  • Pickles and fermentation,
  • Fruits and desserts

Some of the recipes you will find here are:

  • Brown rice pilaf with cherry tomatoes and chanterelles,
  • Brown rice with roasted sweet potatoes and dried apricots,
  • Soba noodles with carrot and ginger tempura in clear Japanese broth,
  • A stew of white beans with koya dofu and sweet potatoes,
  • Black bean stew with pumpkin and fried seitan,
  • Jerusalem salad,
  • Creamy pasta with pumpkin sauce and white beans topped with almond pesto,
  • Malaysian vegetable-stuffed tofu with spicy peanut sauce,
  • Roasted celeriac with cucumber tzatziki and miso-roasted cherry tomatoes,
  • Roasted fennel with pumpkin seed tahini,
  • Zucchini baba ghanoush,
  • Israeli-style pickles in Indian spices,
  • Pear amazake tart,
  • Tahini almond mousse with grilled prunes and caramelized pistachio

The first recipe I tried was the sweet rice pilaf with almonds, raisins, and cinnamon.  The ingredients here are mostly familiar kitchen items: sesame oil, almonds, raisins, ground flaxseeds, cinnamon, cooked brown rice, rice syrup, and fresh lemon juice.  Rice syrup isn’t something I have ever felt the need to purchase so I replaced it with maple syrup, which pairs well anyway.  The only thing that tripped me up was that I didn’t realize the book specifically said untoasted sesame oil, until I had already finished cooking.  I used my pantry staple sesame oil which is toasted.*  I admit that it felt weird using toasted sesame oil for this (as I usually use it as a finishing oil for savory dishes), but the flavor was quickly subdued by the almonds, cinnamon, and raisins.  It’s the chewier, healthier, faster version of rice pudding.  Personally, I found the lemon juice to be a bit distracting, and made the dish less desirable.  If I remake this, I’ll leave it out completely.

The next dish I made was the stir-fried pointed cabbage and apple.  This was another approachable ingredient list: neutral sesame oil, pointed cabbage (aka sweetheart cabbage), apple, salt, mirin, fresh lemon juice, and shichimi togarashi.  I used green cabbage instead, as the only times I’ve ever been able to pick up pointed cabbage was from my CSA.  I wanted to adore this recipe as I love cabbage and apples, but this time it was either the lemon juice or the shichimi togarashi that just didn’t appeal to me in the finished dish.  (Don’t worry!  I didn’t use my toasted sesame oil here.  I saw the word “neutral” this time, and subbed with my neutral avocado oil.)

I ate everything so my complaints are relatively minor.  I could have easily adjusted both recipes to my personal preference but I wanted to see how the recipes were meant to be.  If I continue cooking from this book, I will be less strict on myself about following the ingredients.

One observation that might matter to a U.S. audience is that when Gershberg uses a pressure cooker, he’s using a manual one.  The instructions for cooking brown rice and for cooking beans are not for an appliance like the Instant Pot.  I have the impression that North America is heavier on the electric usage than stovetop, so I would recommend looking up cooking instructions for these pantry basics from tried and true websites like Amy + Jacky.

One last note for the U.S. audience, Gershberg is based out of Amsterdam.  Some of the ingredients he uses are hard to get in U.S. grocery stores, like salsify.  And then, some items are available but not very common like the previously mentioned untoasted sesame oil.  Another example is the Jerusalem artichoke.

Visually, the book is lovely.  It also offers a sample menu section if that is something that appeals to you.  I think it offers a lot to the vegan home cook.  If anything, my biggest gripe is the index.  The index is essentially a list of the major ingredients used in the book.  You can’t look up “salad” and see a list of salads from the book.  (This is probably less of an issue if your cookbook library is small.  But since my cookbook library is *not* small, I dearly love a good index. It makes looking for particular recipes much easier.) 

Take what you will from this post.  If any of the recipes sound interesting to you, or if you are tired of the more common vegan recipes that come across your social media feeds, then this book is probably for you.  If you’re anyone else, then maybe take it out of the library first before making a decision.

* How to tell if your sesame oil is toasted or untoasted?  If it’s brown, it’s toasted.  If it’s clear, it’s untoasted.

Disclaimer – I kindly received a copy of this book from Smith Street Books/Rizzoli New York for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  This cookbook is currently available for purchase from your favorite bookshops.

Reference links:

https://alexandergershberg.com https://www.pressurecookrecipes.com (Amy + Jacky) https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9781922754134
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Liv B’s Easy Everyday, cookbook review

While I know of her, I’ve never really followed Olivia Biermann (aka Liv B) on her blog or on her Youtube channel.  If you don’t know her, she’s a vegan recipe developer/content maker.  I don’t know why I don’t, as I 1) like experimenting with vegan recipes and 2) like unfussy recipes.  But that changes now because she’s released her second cookbook, “Liv B’s Easy Everyday” and I got the chance to preview a digital copy.

The book is broken down into these chapters:

  • Sauces, spreads, and cheese
  • Beverages
  • Breakfasts
  • Snacks and apps
  • Soups and salads
  • Mains
  • Sides
  • Desserts

 Some of the recipes that appeal to me are:

  • “Honey” garlic sauce
  • White lasagna soup
  • Silky sweet potato soup
  • Sheet pan pot pie
  • Mixed veg and white beans with spiced tahini sauce
  • Pumpkin pie stuffed sticky rolls
  • London fog sheet pan cake

The recipe I decided to make was the creamy tofu tomato curry, mostly because it looked very easy to put together.   And instead of just giving you a summary of how it’s put together, here’s the recipe!  

Courtesy of Liv B’s Easy Everyday by Olivia Biermann © 2021 http://www.robertrose.ca Reprinted with permission. Available where books are sold.

creamy tofu tomato curry

Serves 4  •    •  Time: 35 minutes

Are you craving Indian food? This recipe was inspired by the Indian dish butter chicken, which is a chicken curry cooked in a tomato cream sauce. I replace the chicken with firm tofu and use blended cooked cashews to mimic the richness of butter and cream. I love serving it over fluffy basmati rice. 

1 tbsp (15 mL) vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 tsp (5 mL) ground turmeric
1 tsp (5 mL) ground cumin
1 tsp (5 mL) garam masala 
1 tsp (5 mL) ground coriander
1 tsp (5 mL) salt
1 tsp (5 mL) organic cane sugar
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (14 oz/398 mL) diced tomatoes (with juice)
1/2 cup (125 mL) raw cashews
1/2 cup (125 mL) water
12 oz (375 g) firm tofu, cubed
2 tbsp (30 mL) chopped fresh 
cilantro (optional)

High-powered blender or food processor

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion; cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until translucent. 
2. Add the turmeric, cumin, garam masala, coriander, salt, sugar and garlic;stir to combine. Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly, until fragrant. 
3. Add the tomatoes (with juice), cashews and water. Simmer for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has thickened slightly.
4. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly. Transfer to a high-powered blender, reserving the pot. Remove the plug in the blender lid and cover the hole lightly with a clean dish towel to allow the steam to escape. Blend on low speed for about 2 minutes, until smooth.
5. Spoon the curry sauce back into the pot and add the tofu; stir to combine. Bring to a simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until heated through. Top with cilantro (if using); serve. 

my tip If you have some extra time or don’t mind dirtying another dish, you can make the tofu crispy. Place it on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in an oven preheated to 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes, flipping halfway through, until golden.

I did not try the crispy tofu variation.  Because of my schedule, I made the sauce, stored it in the fridge overnight, and then finished the next day with the blending and the simmering with tofu.  It worked great!  While curries are normally served with rice or a flatbread, I made a small batch of slightly savory steel cut oats just to change things up a bit.

For the amount of effort required, I liked the recipe. There’s a second curry recipe in the book, a peach and lentil curry, that I’m curious about.  The spice mix is  different from the tofu recipe so I wonder how it compares.  But I also am having trouble imagining how peach and lentils pair, so I may have to try that recipe next.

Overall impressions, it’s a good collection of recipes that can be done with vegan pantry staples.  Nothing looked too crazy or involved so, it works for everyday cooking, new vegans, and for new homecooks.  If that appeals to you, go check out this book.

Disclaimer – I kindly received a digital copy of this book from Robert Rose for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.  

Since there’s still a pandemic at the time of writing this, I’m trying to stay home as much as possible.  So pardon me if I choose to skip an ingredient or substitute it.  In this case, I skipped the cilantro garnish just because I really don’t like cilantro.

Reference Links:

https://www.robertrose.ca/

https://itslivb.com/

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What I’ve been eating this year so far

I still dream about this curry breakfast sandwich.  It came from 3 Little Figs.

Sadly, it was a special.  So if I want it again, I need to learn to make it.  Which in turn means that I need to work on my biscuit making skills.  It is going slowly because I am a household of one.  There’s only so much carbs and fats a person should be allowed to eat in a day.

Other works in progress?  Recreating the candy bar of my childhood.

Right now, my favorite ramen place is Tsurumen in Davis Square.

Oh, and I finally made it to Tasting Counter! The food was really excellent. It’s not the kind of place you can go to all the time… or at least, I can’t because I’m not made of money, but I highly recommend hitting it up at least once. It’s the kind of place where the people who opted out of alcohol pairings still got mocktails and other beverages that matched every course.

And like everyone else in Greater Boston with a hankering for good Thai food, I highly recommend Dakzen. I can’t wait to go there again.

I finally made it to a meal at Commonwealth and was not disappointed. The night I was there, deep fried snapper head was the special. Luckily I was with friends who are adventurous and we were all the better for it. The restaurant also makes all its own ice creams and sorbets, which I also recommend.

I finally made it the famed Oleana, and every dish I ate there was amazing. My favorite, though, might have been the duck dish.

And most recently, I got to eat at Littleburg again. Littleburg is a vegan pop-up restaurant that I’m very fond of, but they are often at times/places that doesn’t fit into my schedule. At least, I was able to make it to their noddle bar night.

In all honesty, I don’t eat out that much.  Everything above was over the course of three to four months.  So, it’ll probably be another three to four months before you get another update like this.  lol!

 

Reference Links:

https://www.littleburgveg.com/

https://www.oleanarestaurant.com/

http://commonwealthcambridge.com/

https://www.dakzen.com/restaurant

https://www.facebook.com/TsurumenDavis420/

https://www.3littlefigs.com/

https://tastingcounter.com/

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Vegan Meal Prep, a cookbook review

Meal prep is a topic near and dear to my heart.  I’m often prepping 4 days of breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Sundays.  I try to go for meatless for breakfast and lunch, mostly because I know that I should amp up my vegetable intake in general.  You would think about after three years of meal prep (more or less) that I’d have it down to a science, but I really don’t.

Breakfasts tend to be the same recipe, week after week, until I can’t stand it anymore.  Lunches can go either way. They are variations of the same basic recipe or simple-but-new-to-me recipes.  Dinner is the one meal that I give myself more time and freedom for experimenting. I’m often flipping through recipes all week long, trying to decide what I am willing and wanting to make that weekend.  And sometimes, I end up in a mild panic and just use a tried-and-true recipe when I’m too indecisive and running out of time.

I’ve always wanted a cookbook that did all the thinking for me, which led me to pick up a review copy of Vegan Meal Prep by Robin Asbell.  Asbell’s latest cookbook is basically detailed step-by-step meal prep instructions, from start to finish.

The book is split into three major sections.  “Setting Yourself Up for Success: Five Weeks of Vegan Meals” is the first section.  The highlight in this section, in my opinion, is Vegan Nutrition Basics. Asbell is pretty detailed: listing sources of protein, omega-3, calcium, iron, and zinc.  It’s a pretty good one stop reference if you’re fully vegan.

The second section is “Meal Prep 101: Planning, Shopping, and Prepping.”  This is where you’ll find the overview of the five week meal plan, shopping lists, and the prepping instructions for each week.

The third section is “Let’s Get Cooking! 125 Vegan Recipes”, which is broken down into these chapters.

  • Vegan Staples
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner
  • Salads, Dressing, and Sides
  • Desserts and Snacks

Here are the recipes that I’m most interested in trying:

  • Whole Grain Baking Mix
  • Lemon Pecan Muffins with Apricot Cashew Spread
  • Smoky Tempeh Taco Meat
  • Sweet Potato Chickpea Cakes
  • Barley with Vanilla Apples and Spiced Sweet Potato
  • Blueberry Breakfast Squares
  • Farro and Kimchi Bowls with Kale and Sesame Dressing
  • Farro Salad with Apricots, Carrots, and Spinach
  • Tempeh, Brown Rice, and Roasted Veggie Wraps
  • Tempeh Pasta Salad with Tomato and Avocado
  • Black Bean and Sweet Potato Curry
  • Black Bean and Squash Chili with Dumplings
  • Matcha-Glazed Pistachio Blondies
  • Peanut Butter Raisin Cookies

The things I liked most upon first impressions were the tips, variations, and “to pack for lunch” blurbs that frequently show up on corners of the recipe pages.  I also like how the ingredient lists are generally not intimidating nor filled with hard to find items.

The only critiques I have are two.  I wish nutritional information were listed.  I’ve seen other meal prep books that do. But for the purpose of mixing and matching for people who might be trying to watch their sugar intake, etc., it would be handy to have.  The other issue I have is the order of the recipe section. The whole book is planned around the five week meal plan/schedule but the recipes are in order by course. At least within each course type chapter, recipes are back in order by schedule and marked with which week/day the recipe belongs to.  If you’re planning to mix and match, then recipes ordered by course type makes sense. But I think if you’re planning to use the book as written, then having the recipes ordered by course type makes less sense.

In neither a “pro” nor a “con” comment, all of the recipes are meant to make about 4 servings.  So while I had originally planned on following a full week of recipes for this review, it quickly became apparent that this wasn’t feasible for me.  I am not trying to feed a family of four (But you might be!),

I ended up testing two recipes: Baked Marinated Tempeh, and Breakfast Protein Cookies with Dates and Pistachios.

Both were easy to make.  I’ve made breakfast cookies before but it never occurred to me to use dates and pistachios.  I tend to use a lot of raisins. (In fact, I didn’t have time to get dates for this recipe so I used golden raisins which I think are milder in raisin flavor than the more familiar thompson seedless raisins.  Please don’t hate me for substituting.)  The cookies have good protein content, due to the sneaky addition of tofu, and don’t taste too sweet.  Having said that, the cookies actually use more sweetener than my typical baked oatmeal, and I don’t think you can reduce it as the maple syrup acts as part of the wet ingredients.  (Well, maybe you could increase the tofu?  Maple syrup and tofu are the only wet ingredients in this recipe.  Vanilla doesn’t count.  And like I said, it doesn’t taste too sweet so would reducing the sweetener be a futile exercise?)  The portion size is 3 cookies, and it seems to mostly sate my morning hunger.  (But I have a really high appetite in the mornings.  Sometimes I want more food.  Your mileage may vary.)

I liked the baked marinated tempeh too.  It never occurred to me to use apple juice as part of the marinade before.  I decided to mix up the baked tempeh with leftover marinade (which I cooked with cornstarch thinking i could use it as a sauce) and some cauliflower rice.  The natural tempeh flavor was not too strong in this recipe, so I think I’ll use it again in the near future. (However, the cooked marinade plus cauliflower tasted like… fish?  It’s a subtle enough flavor that I will push through it, but yeah, I’m never doing that combination again. lol!)

Overall, I recommend this book for anyone who wants to do more meal prepping, want a reasonable food budget, and have more than one mouth to feed.  Oh, and if you’re just trying to up your veggie intake (like me). I do have the minor reservations as listed above, but that might not bother you as much as it does me.

 

Reference Link:

https://www.robertrose.ca/book/vegan-meal-prep-5-week-plan-125-ready-go-recipes

Disclaimer – I kindly received this book from Robert Rose for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.

 

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One Hour Dairy Free Cheese, a cookbook review

I have a weird fascination with faux cheeses.  In case you’re not sure what I’m referring to, I mean products made with nuts and nutritional yeast, and label themselves as cheese for people who are vegan or dairy free.  It might be because, while I like cheese, I am not obsessed with it. I have friends who can eat nothing but cheese for days and they’d be happy.  Me? Not so much. I like mozzarella and queso fresco, but I’m not interested in feta and really dislike goat cheese.

To be fair though, it’s less of an obsession and more of a “how close does this taste like the real thing?” curiosity.  Or maybe even, “could I like this better than the real thing?”  (I would love a goat cheese replacement that I liked.)

I’ve made faux cream cheese and faux grated parmesan, both of which were really tasty and I plan to make again.  But this time around, I thought I’d try a Claudia Lucero recipe.

First of all, Lucero is a cheese maker of the traditional kind.  I didn’t realize until I had a copy of her new book in my hands, One Hour Dairy Free Cheese, that she’s also the author of One Hour Cheese, a book that I’ve been meaning to pick up a copy of (and has been sitting on my Amazon wish list for over a year now).    I won’t lie, her background makes me want to experiment with her faux cheese recipes even more! In my head, I think if a cheese maker can make a faux cheese that she’s proud enough to put into print, then surely the recipe has some merit.

Here’s a quick rundown of the book.  The chapters are divided between:

  • Chapter 1 – The Basics: Equipment, Ingredients, and More
  • Chapter 2 – Wheels, Blocks, and Rounds
  • Chapter 3 – Melts and Dips
  • Chapter 4 – Schmears and Spreads
  • Chapter 5 – Shakes and Grates
  • Chapter 6 – Inst-Cheeses
  • Chapter 7 – Just for Fun
  • Chapter 8 – Make It Yours
  • Chapter 9 – Basic Fermentation
  • Chapter 10 – Bonus Cultured and Aged Cheeses
  • Chapter 11 – Cheese Platter Pairings

One of my favorite features of the book is that every recipe seems to include substitutions, variations, and follow-up recipes.  For example, the ingredients for the Lemon Garlic Feta are listed as blanched almond flour, water or dairy free yogurt, sauerkraut, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, tapioca starch, red wine vinegar, sea salt, garlic, oregano, white pepper, lemon zest, and agar agar.  Don’t have almond flour? Lucero offers ideas for using almond slivers, cashews, macadamia, or sunflowers instead. No sauerkraut? Fake it with onion and lactic acid. No nutritional yeast? Still not a problem, because you can use garlic, tahini, or miso. Then, the recipe variations included are rosemary feta, and kalamata peppercorn feta.  Once the feta is made, you can use it in her recipe for Spicy Beet Salad.

For recipe testing though, I went with the simplest recipe in the book which was the One Bowl Ricotta.  It only has four ingredients and a fifth optional ingredient. I used blanched almond flour, sea salt, lemon juice, water, and miso for my batch.

In some respects, while the easiest, this recipe could be the worst to start with.  I think for someone who has experimented with faux cheese before, this one might seem almost boring.  I tasted it straight, and I tasted it on a cracker. The flavor was quite mild. It probably would have tasted better with lactic acid and dairy free yogurt, but I didn’t have those on hand.  (And again, I was purposefully going as easy as possible.)  But for someone who hasn’t experimented with faux cheese before, it’s a fantastic beginner’s recipe.

While I don’t think it’s the best faux cheese I’ve made, it’ll probably be the one I’ll end up making the most.  It’s just so easy that I’m not sure I’ll be able to give it up, especially if I’m making something for my vegan or lactose sensitive friends.  It’s also given me momentum to experiment more with faux cheeses, and given me the inspiration to work with less familiar ingredients to make a more convincing product.  I am not saying this lightly.  I even ordered some lactic acid online this week just to make more faux cheese.

So, yeah, I highly recommend this book.  I’m not sure which recipe to test out next though as they all sound good.  (Oooh, maybe I’ll make the Margherita Pizza Melt once my lactic acid arrives at my house.)  If there’s a recipe in particular that you’d like to see me make, just drop me a line with your suggestion!

 

Reference Links:

https://www.urbancheesecraft.com/collections/cheesemaking-books/products/one-hour-dairy-free-cheese

https://www.workman.com/products/one-hour-dairy-free-cheese

Disclaimer – I received this book from Workman Publishing for this review.  I’m not getting paid for this post. The views and opinions expressed are purely my own.

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Kenji’s Vegan Ramen, a Kitchen Conclusion (and a spice blend for you)

I’m a huge fan of Serious Eats.  Besides referring to it for general cooking questions I might have, I really adore their series “The Vegan Experience” (and I’m not vegan… heck, I’m not even vegetarian).

One of the vegan recipes that I bookmarked but was intimidated by the number of ingredients and steps was Kenji Lopez-Alt’s Ultimate Rich and Creamy Vegan Ramen With Roasted Vegetables and Miso Broth.  What does one do when they are not sure they can pull off a recipe on their own?  In my case, it was finding a friend who said “So when you want to cook together? I want to do something new and crazy.  Just something fun, y’know?”

New?  Check.  Crazy?  Check.

Let’s do this thing!

Our observations:

The ingredient list isn’t all that bad.  It would have been nice if there had been a condensed shopping list.  It’s essentially this:

eggplant
onion
garlic
ginger
oil*
fresh shiitake
fresh maitake
kombu*
dried porcini
dried shiitake*
napa cabbage
leek
scallions
sweet potato
shichimi togarashi*
mirin*
soy sauce*
miso*
tahini*
noodles

Everything with an asterisk were things already in my pantry.  Well, except for the shichimi togarashi but we’ll get to that later.  And for the ramen noodles, Jared and I decided to be extra experimental and try the pasta with baking soda trick.  Several times, we asked each other if we had forgotten something because our shopping cart seemed like it didn’t have nearly enough ingredients waiting to be paid for.

One hurdle done.

But the doing?… ah, this was the real challenge.

And half the challenge was matching the ingredient list with the ramen component we were working on.  We both really wanted to reformat the whole recipe for easier reading in the kitchen.

On my own, I had read the recipe through a couple of times but I wish I had studied the photos in the blog post more.  We didn’t notice that the sweet potatoes and the maitake were not mixed on the baking sheet.  It made for a slight inconvenience to pick out sweet potato chunks for the blender.

For the soy-tare, I would leave the ginger and scallions in large identifiable pieces because you have to separate it from the quartered shiitake caps when done.

We also recommend upping the eggplant from 1 small to 2 small.  We had very little eggplant compared to the number of servings when all was said and done.  Also, you don’t get a lot of cooked liquid from 1 small eggplant.  Spinning out said liquid felt fiddly.

But more importantly, how did it taste?

The components of the ramen are their own were good but nothing I felt impressed by.  The baking soda noodles were really interesting!  The baking soda made the noodles a bit chewier, and taste very eggy.  The sweet potatoes baked in the spice blend gave a nice heat that quick dissipated.  But, altogether, the dish was very lovely and satisfying.  Jared’s wife got a gluten free version for health reasons.  We replaced the soy sauce with GF tamari in the recipe, and made a separate pot of rice noodles just for her.  Her reaction was “This is amazing!”  We also fed a friend of theirs who is vegetarian and planning to go mostly vegan.  The friend thought it was one of the best things she had had in a very long time.  In short, those with dietary restrictions are probably going to enjoy it best.

I can definitely see myself making parts of the recipe for other noodle and soup recipes.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever make the whole recipe on my own (but if I do, I think I would spread it over two days).  Jared and I may make it again, but not for at least 6 months and we’ve had time to recover from the amount of steps this ramen involved.

I will definitely make the sweet potatoes again.  I never thought to bake them with shichimi togarashi before, and I like the idea blending some of it to give the broth more body.  True story, I’ve never cared for shichimi togarashi before.  So I didn’t have it in my pantry, nor did I see the point in buying it for just this recipe.  So I made it with ingredients I did have in my pantry.  The spice blend is supposed to be a blend of seven spices.  (Shichi means seven.)  I used five, so I’m going to start calling my blend “five-mi togarashi.”  It is not traditional but I was quite happy with it.  (I suppose I could also call it go-mi togarashi since go is five in Japanese).

FIVE-MI TOGARASHI (GO-MI TOGARASHI)

1 tablespoon mandarin orange dust
4 teaspoons gochugaru
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seed
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper

Mix altogether, and store in a tightly fitted lidded jar.

Reference Links

https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/02/how-to-make-the-ultimate-vegan-ramen-rich-and-creamy-vegan-experience.html

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/02/vegan-ramen-miso-creamy-vegan-vegetarian-food-lab-recipe.html

http://penandfork.com/recipes/cooking-tips/mandarin-orange-dust/

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Pantry friendly pasta sauce, version 1.0

I wanted to make a pasta sauce that wasn’t a traditional pasta sauce.  Partly because I like being difficult, and partly because my right thumb has been swollen all day for reasons unknown.  So I was not inclined to do a lot of cutting or anything remotely similar.

So I came up with the recipe below.  I may fuss with it in the near future, but I was happy with it today.  It also happens to be vegan and nut free.

Pantry friendly pasta sauce, version 1.0

  • 3/4 cup sunflower seeds, roasted and unsalted
  • 1 garlic clove (I cheated and used 1/4 tsp Penzey’s minced garlic)
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice (Honestly, I used 1/2 of a lemon but that was too lemony)
  • 1/4 tsp table salt
  • 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes
  • 1 1/4 cups water
  • 1/2 tsp dried oregano

 

Blitz everything in a high powered blender.  If you don’t have one, you could probably let everything soak for an hour in a standard blender before turning it on.

Makes about 2 cups.

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Whole Wheat Soda Bread

Whole Wheat Soda Bread
So, here’s a picture of my first attempt at a vegan soda bread with millet and currants that I tried from my new cookbook, Veganomicon. It was a little overdone (dry) but otherwise pretty decent. I’m now in pursuit of finding the perfect adaptation of the cookbook’s recipe for raspberry chocolate cookies. Mmmmm, chocolate cookies….