Hot and Sour Soup

I've been super swamped with school and the blog has been incredibly neglected. I hope to remedy this over spring break, but for the time being, here is a recipe for hot and sour soup that I modified and made for dinner tonight. I had tried making the original recipe a while back, which was considerably more complicated and called for some really hard to find ingredients. It also called for dried mushrooms, which it turns out I am not a very big fan of. I decided hot and sour could be done better and easier with fresh mushrooms and ingredients you can find at any supermarket. So here is my recipe, which I think is easy, delicious and it's vegetarian!

Ingredients:

• 6 cups water
• 1 small can of bamboo shoots, sliced thinly
• 1 and 1/2 cup sliced small mushrooms (white button or crimini)
  
• tofu (amount is up to you, 1/2 of a block should be enough), cubed
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 Tbsp corn starch dissolved in about 1/3 cup water
• 1 egg, beaten
  
• White pepper and chili oil to taste

Bring the water to a boil in a medium sized sauce pan. Add bamboo shoots and mushrooms. Stir, and add tofu. Return to a boil. Add salt, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar and oil. Let simmer for a minute, and adjust seasonings to taste.

Stir the cornstarch and water, then add to pan, stirring constantly. Return to a boil, then remove from heat. Slowly pour beaten egg while stirring in one direction. Add white pepper and chili oil to taste.

Tofu Jambalaya with Mississippi Red Beans

Tonight Eric was craving creole food, so I looked up the ingredients for a tofu jambalaya and found a fabulous recipe at Fat Free Vegan. In order to make it a whole meal, I also improvised a recipe for Mississippi Red Beans. The whole meal was really easy to make, filling, and super tasty and good-smelling.

Caroline's Mississippi Red Beans

1 c. dried kidney beans (or probably 2 cans of kidney beans)
4 c. H2O (or 2 cups h2o, 2 cups veg broth)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped and sauteed
1 bell pepper, chopped and sauteed
1 tsp. liquid smoke (or to taste)
2 tsp olive oil
cayenne to taste
cajun spice to taste
salt to taste

To start, I used dried kidney beans so I had to sort through them to remove any split or damaged beans. Here are my pretty red beans on a plate:

Next, I rinsed them and put them in the pressure cooker with a dash of olive oil and seasoned the water with liquid smoke, salt, bay leaves, and set it to pressure cook for 25 minutes. In the mean time, I chopped up one medium onion, one green bell pepper and 4 cloves of garlic:

Which I then sauteed until soft. As soon as it was ready, I set it aside with a lid to keep it warm and waited until the beans were done to set them aside to de-pressurize.


Next, I worked on the jambalaya. Here's the pretty lineup of the ingredients:


It was a very simple recipe which involved chopping up a giant onion, orange bell pepper, and 2 ribs of celery and then sauteeing them in a stock pot. Here's the veggies:



I added one cup of white rice (the recipe even specifies that brown rice is not very good with the jambalaya... I ALWAYS use brown rice but the white rice was the perfect texture when all was said and done) and four cloves of chopped garlic and fried the rice a little bit with the veggies. Finally, I added 2 cans of diced tomatoes, 1/2 a cup of vegetable broth, and some liquid smoke. Then I added this delicious mountain of chopped tofu:


Let this whole mixture simmer on low heat for over 30 minutes until the rice is soft. Then you get this delicious combination in my bowl, all ready to eat:


...tofu jambalaya and Mississippi red beans! It was a definite hit!

Chilaquiles with Soyrizo

This is a modified version of the chilaquiles recipe found on page 253 of my trusty Laurel's Kitchen cookbook. Nate made it for the first time a few weeks ago, adding some soyrizo for added flavor and protein. I liked it so much, I asked him to make the same thing today for a late breakfast!

Ingredients:

• 12 Corn Tortillas, cut into 2 inch pieces
• 2 T Vegetable Oil
• 10 oz. can Enchilada Sauce
• 1 and 1/2 cups Cottage Cheese (lowfat is a-ok)
• Grated Cheddar Cheese
• Chili Powder
• 1/2 pack of Soyrizo
• 4 Radishes, sliced
• 1/4 Onion, chopped
• Cilantro, coarsely chopped

Heat oil in cast iron skillet. Add tortillas, stirring frequently. Meanwhile, place enchilada sauce and cottage cheese in food processor. Blend until smooth.

Once the tortillas appear soft and lightly coated with oil, pour the enchilada/cottage cheese mixture over them. Sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese and chili powder as desired. Cover and cook over medium heat until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbling.


Meanwhile, heat some oil in a small skillet. Add Soyrizo and cook until preferred crispiness is reached. Or, cook according to directions on package.

Serve chilaquiles topped with soyrizo, cilantro, onion and radish, with a side of rice and beans.


Enjoy!

Adventures in Pastamaking

It's the end of the month and we are down to next-to-nothing in our cupboards, but I was still craving something special for dinner tonight (more special than "random vegetables with rice" or "fend-for-yourself"). I craved a certain something... carb-y, delicious... pasta! I wanted to make my own since I have never done it, and I was worried I would be a little inhibited without a pasta making press. Fortunately, I tried out this recipe and it worked great! The noodles turned out kind of funky-shaped, but I'll explain that more along the way.

Homemade Noodles (Yield: 4-6 servings)
4 eggs
1/2 c. durum or semolina flour
2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt

First, I put the eggs in my trusty Cuisinart food processor and whipped them up until they were completely blended.


Then, in a bowl, I combined the dry ingredients and mixed them well and added them, 1 cup at a time, to the egg mixture and pulsed with the food processor until I had a thick, non-sticky dough.



I tranferred it to my well-floured counter to knead it for about 5 minutes. Look at the cute dough blob:


After I kneaded it, the ball sat for about 10 minutes under a rag before I started to roll it out. And let me tell you... if you don't have a pasta machine, this is where your arms get involved. Like, really involved. It took me a long time to roll these suckers out. Below you can see yours truly huffing and puffing away while desperately trying to get the dough as flat and thin as possible:


Finally, I decided to cut the dough into two pieces and work on each one separately to try and get them thin. Here's a cross- section to show you the dough-y goodness:


Cutting it in half made it much easier to get the dough fairly thin. I first rolled it out into a long sheet like this:


Then I rolled it up like a big jelly roll and used a sharp knife to cut thin ribbons out of the jelly roll (you just need to cut slices and they unroll into noodles!)


Then I wound up with a bowl full of mutant-shaped noodles like this. Actually I prefer the term unique and beautiful, or atleast rustic.


The cut noodles need to be kept under a cloth since they dry out quickly, and should either be prepared immediately or dried and stored. Before I could cook the noodles I had to make some kind of a sauce to put with them, so I threw this little baby together:

Caroline's Lentil-y Tomato Sauce (Yield: 4-6 servings)
2 tsp. olive oil
4 cloves garlic
6 mushrooms
1/2 c. red lentils
3/4 c. water
1/2 tsp. each: basil, oregano and rosemary
dash cayenne (or more if you want it hot!)
dash curry powder
salt to taste
Can of tomatoes
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

Basically, I heated the oil over medium heat in a medium-sized sauce pan, sauteed the garlic and mushrooms, tossed the lentils around in the oil, then added the water and spices. Bring it all to a boil and then cover and simmer for 10-12 minutes, or until the lentils are soft. Once they are soft, add the can of tomatoes, tomato paste, and vinegar and stir it all up. Toss it with the noodles!

Cooking the noodles was super easy, just bring a large pot of water to a rapid boil and drop the noodles in for 3 minutes, until they are al dente. Here are the noodles in their hot bath:

And finally, here is Eric's plate: steamed asparagus, a big spinach salad, and the noodle/sauce combination topped with parmesan and some pine nuts. YUM!


Now I can happily digest for a while and make room for another one of Meggie's kickass truffles...
(Mad props to Stephen for being the main pornographer here as I cooked... your camera kicks ass)