Moo Shu Vegetables with Chinese Pancakes

Another amazing recipe from Chloe’s Kitchen cook book. I did make a few changes, which is in this version of the recipe. In her explanation of the recipe she said you could use regular tortillas as the Chinese pancakes but I think it would be a huge shame! They are so easy to make. All you need to do is take the time to make them and they are worth it. I added sriracha to the veggies to give them a little more kick so if you don’t want heat don’t add any. All in all great recipe (with my changes) and even the meat-eating boyfriend loved them! 

Moo Shu Vegetables with Homemade Chinese Pancakes

Serves 4-6

Vegetables

·      1 Super-firm tofu cubed, drained and pressed

·      4 Tablespoons canola oil, divided

·      3 Tablespoons soy sauce, divided

·      1 onion, thinly sliced

·      8 ounces bell peppers (I used a mix of yellow and red)

·      Kosher salt

·      2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger or 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

·      2 cloves garlic, minced

·      7 ounces shredded cabbage

·      1 cup shredded carrots

·      ½ cup vegetable broth

·      2 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced

·      1 teaspoon-1 tablespoon sriracha chili sauce 

Sauce

·      ¼ cup hoisin sauce

·      2 Tablespoons soy sauce

Chinese Pancakes

·      2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling

·      ½ teaspoon sea salt

·      1 cup boiling water

·      Sesame oil, for brushing

To make Chinese Pancakes:

1.    In a bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Add boiling water and mix with a wooden spoon until cool enough to handle. Knead for a few minutes on a lightly floured surface then let sit covered for 20 minutes.

2.    Roll dough into a 16-inch long log and cut it into 1-inch pieces. Flatten each piece of dough with the palm of your hand and roll out into a thin circle on a lightly floured surface. Each dough circle should be as thin as a tortilla and about 6 inches in diameter.

3.    Heat a medium non-stick skillet to medium high heat. Brush each dough circle with sesame oil on both sides. Cook the pancakes, one at a time, in the skillet. Once the pancake begins to bubble and brown on the bottom, flip the pancake with a flat spatula and cook on the other side, about 30 seconds more. Remove from heat and stack cooked pancakes.

To Make the Vegetables:

1.    Heat 2 Tablespoons oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat and add tofu. Drizzle 2 Tablespoons soy sauce over tofu. Flip tofu with a spatula, and let them cook until sides are nicely browned. Transfer to a bowl.

2.    Ass remaining 2 Tablespoons oil to the skillet and heat over medium high heat. Add onions and bell peppers, and sauté until soft. Season with salt, ginger, sriracha, and garlic, and let cook a few more minutes until fragrant.

3.    Add cole slaw mix, carrots, broth, and remaining 1 Tablespoon soy sauce. Let cook, stirring frequently, until most of the liquid evaporates. Add tofu and scallions and adjust seasoning to taste. The flavor should be mild and light. Remove from heat. 

To Make Sauce:

1.    In a small bowl, whisk together hoisin sauce and soy sauce until combined.

To serve:

Places vegetables, pancakes, and sauce in separate dishes. Assemble by topping pancakes with vegetables and sauce.

ENJOY

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Sage Butter

I recently purchased Chloe’s Kitchen, a cookbook by vegan chef Chloe Coscarelli mostly known for winning cupcake wars. It truly is a great cookbook to have, no matter what type of food you eat because everything I’ve made from it has been amazing. I had a few sweet potatoes in my pantry that were on their last legs unless I cooked them today. So I started searching through my things for a recipe to use for them. Low and behold this is the one I found. In Chloe’s original recipe she had it sweet with nutmeg in them, but I love my sweet potatoes savory so I added chipotle and garlic instead. I definitely recommend starting up your own herb garden because there is something great about going to your back yard for ingredients in your food. Don’t be intimidated by the sage either when its cooked in the butter sauce it becomes crunchy and even more flavorful. This is probably one of my favorite recipes I’ve made in a while and will be going in my regular arsenal of recipes. This makes almost 60 pillows of gnocchi I only cooked 20 and froze the rest. They should last about a month in the freezer and 3-4 days in the fridge.  

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Sage Butter

Serves 4

Ingredients:

·      2 large red- skinned sweet potatoes (2 pounds worth)

·      1 teaspoon kosher salt

·      1 teaspoon garlic powder

·      ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (plus extra for serving)

·      ¼ teaspoon Chipotle ground red (or cayenne)

·      2 ½ to 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling (I ended up using 3 cups)

·      ½ cup or 1 stick vegan butter (I used earth balance)

·      ½ cup Fresh Sage leaves 

Procedure:

1.    Preheat oven to 425°

2.    Pierce sweet potatoes with a fork, place on a baking pan with a wire rack, and bake for 50-60 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit until cool enough to handle.

3.    Using a sharp knife cut the potatoes in half lengthwise. Using a large spoon, scoop the flesh out of each sweet potato into a medium bowl. Thoroughly mash the sweet potatoes while they are still warm, then set aside or refrigerate to cool completely.

4.    Add salt, pepper, garlic, and chipotle to the sweet potatoes. Add flour ½ cup at a time mixing well with a spoon to combine. (I place my dough in a kitchen aid mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, but by hand is just fine too) Once a soft, slightly sticky, dough has formed, divide it into six equal portions (I used a scale just to get them as uniform as possible). Generously flour the work surface and your hands. Roll each portion of dough into ropes about ½ inch in diameter. Each rope will be 7 to 9 inches long. Dip a knife in four and cut each rope into 1-inch long pillows. If desired, roll each pillow with a fork to make decorative ridges. 

5.    Fill a medium saucepan with heavily salted water and bring it to a boil. In the meantime, heat the butter and sage in a large non-stick skillet until the butter begins to bubble. 

6.    When the water is boiling, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and gently drop in the gnocchi about 20 at a time. The gnocchi will float to the surface in about 4 minutes. Continue to cool about 30 seconds more. Using a slotted spoon, immediately transfer the gnocchi to the skillet or butter sauce. Let look turning frequently, for 1 to 2 minutes. You have to do this in several batched, until the gnocchi is all cooked. Serve immediately, topped with the addition ground black pepper. 

Enjoy

Ginger-Molasses Cookies Dipped in Dark Chocolate

These wonderful cookies are crisp on the outside and moist and chewy in the center. They are sweet and spicy with a bold molasses flavor and to add to all that I dipped it in chocolate. Yum! For the flour you can use all all-purpose flour or all whole-wheat flour depending on what you prefer. Vietnamese Cinnamon is the highest quality and strongest available in America today. If you can’t find it locally go online to http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/shophome.html and buy a small bottle to try out, but any cinnamon will work just fine. If your not vegan you can just use regular butter and it will come out just the same. As for the Chocolate, dark, milk, or white would all go amazingly with this cookie. My last tip is if your impatient to eat your cookies like I am, you can place the cookies on a tray and put them in the freezer for a few minutes and the chocolate will harden up real quick. 

Ginger-Molasses Cookies Dipped in Dark Chocolate

Makes about 20

Ingredients

·      1-½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

·      ½ cup whole-wheat pastry flour

·      1/2 cup organic sugar (plus some for rolling)

·      1 ½ Tablespoons ground ginger

·      3/4 teaspoon salt

·      1/2 teaspoon Vietnamese cinnamon (or any cinnamon you have on hand)

·      1/8 teaspoon ground clove

·      1/2 teaspoon baking soda

·      2 teaspoon baking powder

·      1/3 cup vegan butter (I used earth balance)

·      ¼ cup water

·      1/3 cup molasses

·      2 teaspoon vanilla extract

·      1 to 1 ½ cups dark chocolate 

Procedure

1.    Preheat oven to 375°

2.    Melt butter in a medium saucepan. Set aside to cool.

3.    In the meantime, in a large bowl mix together the flours, sugar, ginger, salt, cinnamon, clove, baking soda, baking powder.

4.    Add the vanilla extract, molasses, and water to the melted butter. Mix well.

5.    Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold till a soft dough forms.

6.    Form dough into one-inch balls and then roll in sugar, place on baking sheet and press down slightly with the bottom of a glass.

7.    Bake in the oven for 8 minutes turning sheet around halfway through to get even cooking. Let cool on pan for 2 minutes then place on a cooling rack, cooling 30 minutes before serving.

8.    Chop dark chocolate into small pieces and place in a microwavable safe bowl. In 10-second intervals melt chocolate until smooth.

9.    Dip half of the ginger-molasses cookie in the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to dip a moment and place on parchment paper to harden. 

ENJOY 

Marinated Pan Fried Tofu and Vegetable Bake

My boyfriend and I started renting a house in mid-town in November and fell in love with the house. It’s a house from the forties that was updated recently and is the cutest house on the block by far. However, Easter morning while we were still in bed we heard a huge crash. Once I went down stairs I saw that the entire ceiling had collapsed in our dinning room. Fast forward a couple of meltdowns and freak-outs from me, we find out we have a leak from our upstairs bathroom. Being Easter, the Plummer couldn’t fix anything until yesterday and today the contractors from the rental company came and is yet another day I have to sit at home listening to banging and clashing. Yesterday was my vegan brownie experiment and today I decided to make dinner for lunch. I mean what else can I do! So I made a marinated pan fried tofu and a vegetable bake. Both were amazing and I thought I’d share my recipe for everyone else to try. 

Marinated Pan Fried Tofu and Vegetable Bake

Marinated fried Tofu

·      Organic Extra-Firm Tofu pressed and drained.  Don’t know how look at http://www.veggiebelly.com/2011/04/how-to-press-tofu.html

·      Marinade of choice (I used Soy Vay’s Veri veri teriyaki sauce and marinade)

·      1 tablespoon oil of choice per tofu slice (I used olive oil)

Vegetable Bake

·      1 large zucchini, cut into large pieces

·      2 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes

·      1 medium sized onion, chopped

·      1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and chopped

·      1 medium yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped

·      1 table spoon chopped garlic

·      ½ cup Italian bread crumbs

·      1/3 cup olive oil

·      Salt, pepper, paprika, and cayenne to taste

Procedure:

1.     Slice drained tofu into 3 large slices and place in a large dish. Cover with marinade and set aside.

2.     Preheat oven to 400° F

3.     In a 9 X 13 baking dish, mix together zucchini, potatoes, onions, bell peppers, garlic, breadcrumbs, olive oil, and seasonings.

4.     Bake for 1 hour, stirring dish every 20 minutes until vegetables are browned and tender.

5.     Place cooked veggies aside to cool slightly in the mean time heat oil in a skillet on medium high heat

6.     Place the sliced marinated tofu in the skillet and cook for two minutes on each side or until golden brown on each side.

ENJOY

Pecan and Chocolate Chip Brownies

 

Sorry for the hiatus but Easter or “Zombie Day” :D and my mother’s birthday kept me pretty busy this past week. But I’m back and making some delicious vegan brownies. I started today really wanting to make a healthy brownie (if their can ever be such a thing), but ran into some problems. My first try I used apple sauce instead of oil and agave nectar for half the sugar and was hoping for the best. The result was edible but a little chewy and just not what I want in a brownie! So the second try and this recipe I used oil only cutting a little out and a full thing of regular sugar. You can add any nut you’d like but I would recommend either pecans or walnuts. The coffee adds a great flavor to the brownies and really intensifies the chocolaty taste. These taste great all on their own but if you want to make them look really great cut into equal size squares, sprinkle with organic powdered sugar and place in paper cupcake tins.  If you have any questions, tips, or suggestions just make a comment and I’ll answer it for you. Enjoy the recipe!

Pecan and Chocolate Chip Brownies

Ingredients

·      1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

·      1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

·      2 cups sugar (I used an organic sugar)

·      ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

·      1 teaspoon baking powder

·      1 teaspoon salt

·      1 cup strong extra bold coffee

·      ¼ cup applesauce (I used unsweetened)

·      ¾ cup vegetable oil 

·      1 teaspoon vanilla extract

·      ½ cup dark chocolate chips (I used a extra dark chocolate 70% cocoa)

·      ½ pecan pieces

Procedure

1.     Preheat the oven to 350° F.

2.     In a large bowl, stir together all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, white organic sugar, cocoa powder, and salt.

3.     Pour in vegetable oil, applesauce, vanilla extract, and bold strong coffee. Fold in pecans and chocolate.

4.     Spread evenly into 9X13 pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.

 

 

If you don’t have whole-wheat pastry flour just use another cup of all-purpose flour. If you don’t have organic sugar that’s fine to, you can just use regular sugar but it might not be vegetarian then. For the 1-cup coffee you can use just 1 cup of water but it just wont be as flavorful. I used 1/4 cup of applesauce to lower the fat content just a little so If you don’t have applesauce just add ¼ cup of oil.