Tag Archives: vegan

Make-it-a- Meal Hearty Miso Soup with Ginger, Corn, and Tofu

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This recipe was featured in an Eating Well Magazine piece about how to layer on the umami flavors in vegetarian cooking.  Which is never a bad idea.  Did you know that corn is considered a source of umami flavor?  I didn’t, but I can attest that the sweet kernels were welcome in this dish.  Miso, soy sauce, tofu, and eggs also play into the deep flavor, and you might even consider adding some thinly-sliced shiitake mushrooms if you come across them.

I’ll be adding this meal to our dinner rotation as we lighten up our cooking for spring.  It’s full of flavor, quick to make, and can easily be adapted to accommodate the contents of your fridge.  It’s also kid-friendly, which is no small consideration around here.  In fact, this “Tofu and Vegetable Stew,” as it was stodgily named in my magazine, is really just a beefed-up (well, tofu’d-up) miso soup with a nice kick of ginger.  We made a meal of it by serving it over rice. Continue Reading Hearty Miso Soup with Ginger, Corn, and Tofu (click for recipe)

Rye Soda Bread

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I like breads that are quick to make and bake.  A homemade bread can be assembled and baked in the time that it takes to toss together a pot of soup or a nice salad, and that small amount of additional effort brings so much to the meal.

Some yeast-leavened breads can be made quickly; I mean, check out this oaty little number.  And the speed of a beer bread is hard to beat–just stir, dump, bake–but then, of course, it tastes like a beer bread.  Enter soda bread, the dowdy but delicious ready-in-an-hour bread of choice in our house.  Or ready-even-sooner if you follow the method I used to make these whole wheat soda bread rolls.

This rye version comes from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day, and it has many redeeming qualities.  It’s made with lots of whole grain rye flour, which gives the bread a dark, attractive color, in addition to providing flavor and health benefits.  More importantly, though, it truly is a stellar vehicle for the herby mash of dilled butter and goat cheese with which Swanson pairs the recipe in her book.  Or, you know, just butter.  Or soup.  Like split pea soup.  Or (what?  It’s not raining anymore where you are?) a brothy springtime soup with fresh peas and asparagus. Continue reading Rye Soda Bread (click for recipe)

My Favorite Recipes: April 2012

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I don’t know if this whole idea of picking our five favorite recipes from each month is such a good one.  I mean, this list might leave you with the impression that there aren’t others that we cooked again and again and will be keeping in the rotation.  Like that (vegan) Farro Bowl with Toasted Kale and Coconut and Curry-Roasted Tofu.  Like the amazing (also vegan) Thai Greens and Tofu, which I left off simply because for most people it would require a trip to a well-stocked Asian grocery store.  The Smoked Salmon Salade Nicoise?  My standby Simple Lentil Soup?  All my favorites.  You see the problem.  It’s a good problem to have.

How to Make Homemade Organic Vegetable Broth for Free
Broccoli Salad with Ravioli, Feta, and Lemony Harissa Dressing
Queso Fundido with Mushrooms, Greens, and Chiles
Kale Salad with Apples, Currants, and Gorgonzola
Rhubarb Cake with Crystallized Ginger Crumb
And last but not least, the readers’ favorite: Homemade Matzo with Olive Oil (but I’ll just be calling them “Spiced Flatbreads” until Passover rolls around again)

Thank you for reading and cooking along with me!  As always, you can sign up to receive daily recipe updates by subscribing to this blog via RSS or email, or following @emmycooks on Twitter (links on the sidebar).

Homemade Vegan Pasta

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It turns out that it’s no big deal to make homemade vegan pasta.  No eggs?  No problem.  You can apparently even make pasta with just flour and water alone, but I fancied things up with a splash of olive oil to replace the richness of the eggs and a spoonful of turmeric for color.

I made these noodles to serve in my zippy noodle curry, but they would certainly stand up well to other sauces.  They are a bit less sturdy than the egg noodles, so I would advise letting them dry out for a little while before you cook them so they don’t end up mushy.  We draped towels over all the kitchen cabinets and hung noodles everywhere while I was cooking dinner, and that seemed like plenty of drying time.

You can vary this recipe, of course, to change the flavor or color of the pasta.  I’m thinking of making pink pasta by adding some of my beet powder, and of course we love spinach pasta (you can blend the 2 c. spinach as I did in that recipe with your liquid ingredients, reducing the water in the recipe below by about 3 Tbsp.). Continue reading Homemade Vegan Pasta (click for recipe)

Triple-Green Pasta: Spinach Ravioli with Swiss Chard and Arugula Pesto

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You can’t go wrong sauteing a mess of greens with an onion as the starting point for a meal.  Greens, pasta, pesto, done.

This dish would also be delicious with our easy homemade spinach pasta (here’s a vegan version).  And I know I said you need a pasta roller to make homemade pasta, but look at this!  Cooks Illustrated had yet another good idea and a published a pasta recipe that is apparently a dream to roll out by hand.  Let me know if you try that, will you?

Rainbow chard is so pretty.  My five year old picked this bunch out, enraptured by the colors, but declined to eat more than a bite.  Her loss. Continue reading Triple-Green Pasta (click for recipe)

Simple Lentil Soup

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I haven’t posted a lentil soup here in weeks.  Weeks!  Hopefully you’ve been managing to get by alright with that red lentil soup from last month.  And did I ever mention that you can and should make The Best Soup of 2011 with green lentils?

But what do you think I EAT around here, people?  Oh, right, that kale salad.  Every day.  But also: lentil soup.  And this week it’s this lentil soup.  It’s a recipe that’s been in my life for a long time, but I never get tired of it.  I try out a lot of recipes, as you might have noticed.  Some are duds (you’ll never hear about those, shhh).  Some are momentary infatuations.  Some I make season after season, year after year.  This soup falls into that last category.

And since it’s late April and I’m talking lentil soup, I guess it’s time to come clean about something: seasonality be damned, I make soup year-round.  Avert your eyes if you must, or haul your laptop over to right in front of your air conditioner to read about it.  I live in Seattle, after all, and feel that I am entitled to take advantage of the few meteorological perks available in this region.  So I will be making soup as the weather permits (i.e., all summer long).

This is one of those recipes that I got from a friend a long time ago and I don’t know where it came from before that.  So if you are the inventor of this precise combination of ingredients, thank you.  It’s perfect.  I haven’t changed a thing.  My friend says the Parmesan rind is what makes it so good, which may be true, but if you don’t have one handy I imagine that you could add the flavor by stirring in some finely-grated Parmesan cheese at the end.  And if you’re vegan I am pretty sure that you could get away with leaving the Parmesan rind out and adding one pinch more salt–but I haven’t tried that.  I don’t want to mess with perfection.

Finally, don’t forget that in the time it takes this soup to cook you can easily bake a homemade bread.  This week I’ve been baking this easy little oat bread, but a whole wheat soda bread or even a beer bread would be perfectly nice as well. Continue reading Simple Lentil Soup (click for recipe)

Jeweled Rice with Golden Raisins, and Hey, What Cooking Magazines Do You Love?

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What cooking magazines do you recommend? I loved Gourmet and miss it every time I get the Bon Appetit that comes now instead.  I also get Everyday Food, the source of today’s recipe.  And I received the Canal House series as a gift this year and can’t wait for the next one.  But my all-time favorite cooking magazine comes from New Zealand: Cuisine.  It’s beautiful and glossy and equal parts fussy and laid-back, with delicious recipes and cute names for vegetables (Swiss chard is called silverbeet, and zucchini are courgettes).

But more, I want more!  Or, more precisely, I just want to know if there’s something great out there that I’m missing.  I like good food, reliable recipes, smart writing.  Any tips for me?  I’ve gotten so much good advice from you people lately that I just thought I should ask.

I made this rice to accompany Indian food that our neighbors lovingly brought home from Vij’s in Vancouver (eat there if you ever get a chance).  I think a sweet-and-savory combo is just the thing with spicy food, and it was quick and easy to make–although now that I’ve read this I may pop it in the oven to finish cooking next time.  It would also be great made with brown rice. Continue reading Jeweled Rice with Golden Raisins (click for recipe)

Granola with Orange Zest, Currants, and Walnuts

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I mean to bring something nice over when you invite me to your house. Hopefully I will at least show up with a bottle of wine or a six pack of drinkable beer. But sometimes getting out the door with shoes and coats and all three children is all I can handle and on those occasions, sorry, I owe you. I’m lucky to have understanding friends (and reciprocity agreements in place).

Last weekend, I got about halfway to my goal of bringing some kind of nice baked good to our weekend hosts. Which brings us back to the topic of traveling with oats. I didn’t manage to actually bake the batch of granola I meant to take to our friends in Portland, but I did get as far as packing two jars with the ingredients for this olive oil granola: one big jar of dry ingredients and another smaller jar of wet ingredients. It wasn’t quite like showing up with a perfect cellophane-wrapped treat with a ribbon on it (just kidding, I’ve never done that), but at least the house smelled good while it baked.

We have eaten a lot of that olive oil granola in recent months.  (Here’s a variation with pistachios, dried apricots, and cardamom.)  J claims he could eat it for every meal, but it’s so sweet that his teeth might fall out. Here’s another option, a bit less decadent and perhaps therefore better suited to eat as an everyday breakfast.  Or for three meals a day, your call.

I am an orange zest junkie (have you made this bread yet?), so this recipe appealed to me immediately. Orange zest, currants, walnuts. I was intrigued by the fact that the recipe (mine is adapted from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day) calls for butter in place of oil, but I really didn’t taste any difference and will probably just make it with oil next time. Maybe even olive oil.

Continue reading Granola with Orange Zest, Currants, and Walnuts (click for recipe)

Overnight Oats with Apple, Currants, and Walnuts

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When we travel, we like to have a fridge in our hotel room.  You know?  Scoping out the local restaurant scene is all well and good, but a family of five (with three members under the age of six) emphatically does not want to spend too much time in restaurants.

So we stock up on arrival: milk and cereal for the morning, PB&J fixings for lunch, a pile of fruit and some choice snacks to keep everyone’s energy up for adventuring.  But this time I had a little idea when I stopped into the natural foods store and I swung by the bulk bins for the fixings to make overnight oats.

A handful of oats, milk and/or yogurt (both could easily be vegan–or water or juice, for that matter), toppings.  The oats get creamy with an overnight soak in the fridge, and although I sweetened mine with fruit, it wouldn’t be wrong to drizzle a little maple syrup or honey on your bowl.  If you travel with that sort of thing.

This is definitely going to be my new breakfast of choice on the road.  What’s yours?  What are your travel tips for eating well?  I am really enjoying all the good ideas and advice I am getting in the food blogging world.

p.s. I should really let you know about the great latte and ace baked goods I found at Sleepy Monk Coffee Roasters in Cannon Beach, OR.  Check it out if you’re passing through!

Continue reading Overnight Oats with Apple, Currants, and Walnuts (click for recipe)

Thai Greens and Tofu

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I write an occasional home cooking column for my friendly neighborhood blog, and last weekend I told all my neighbors about a recipe that came from the nice folks at my favorite not-quite-a-restaurant (it’s really just a streetside stand), Little Uncle.

So I thought it was only fair to tell you, too.  Because we are going to be making this a lot at our house.  Partly because I bought a huge bottle of yellow bean paste, and this recipe requires 2 Tbs., so I have a lifetime supply (it’s like that beet powder!).  But mostly because it took 17 minutes (that was for the jasmine rice to cook), made the house smell divine, and yielded a savory-spicy-garlicky vegan bowl of goodness.

You can read my Capitol Hill Seattle post here, but just in case you don’t, here’s the important thing you’re missing: track down some mangosteens.  Yum, mangosteens.

You can also substitute chicken for the tofu, or make a greens-only version of this dish (pictured below) as one component of a bigger Thai meal.  More Thai recipes to follow, I think!  In the meanwhile, if you are in the mood for Thai flavors, you could also check out this Noodle Curry or this Green Fish Curry to hold you over.

Continue reading Thai Greens and Tofu (click for recipe)