Pumpkin Puree for Coconut-Pumpkin Soup

I may not be able to make a convincing case for this, but -- this is not exclusively a blog about winter squashes.

It maybe be about pumpkin today, but not forever. Eventually we will have to break down and start eating other kinds of foods (preferably squashes).

With the previously mentioned haul of garden goodness from my parents came along a "Winter Luxury" pumpkin, a fancy netted pie pumpkin with sweet, tender flesh and the coolest of all the pumpkin varietal names.

Liz found this recipe for coconut pumpkin soup, and I thought: yes. That is a good idea.

The recipe itself is pretty easy, so here's the scoop (LOL because of the seeds I am so clever) on making your own puree:

Start with your whole pumpkin. Give it a rinse and a dry, and cut it in half with a heavy knife.

Clean out the seeds and strings, maybe you will need a spoon, maybe you will need some scissors and a lot of patience. Anyway.

Roast this, face up, on a baking sheet at 450 degrees for like an hour. I just checked every 10-15 minutes, and when you could slide a knife in, I took it out to cool.

When it's all-the-way cool, scoop out the flesh and puree in a food processor. If you have a big "for realsies" food processor, one pie pumpkin is gonna be like one batch, but if you have only a MiniPrep, it will take like 2.3 batches.

That's it! It's creamy, and sweet, and delicate, and super-pumpkin-y. We took out most of this for delicious soup:

But we saved a little bit to swirl into our morning oatmeal with some cinnamon and maple syrup. This, too, was delicious.

Cashew-Tofu "Ricotta"

As promised, here is a stand-alone post with my version of cashew-tofu "ricotta," which is as close to a classic vegan staple as you can get on these here danged modern internets.

• 1 cup of raw cashews, soaked for a couple of hours
• 12-14 oz firm tofu
• Juice of 1-2 lemons (enough to keep the blades in the bowl moving)
• 2-3 cloves garlic
• 1 Tbsp olive oil

This whole mess gets processed up in the food processor, and, if you are making something Italian-y, you can also add

• 1-2 tsp dried basil, or maybe
• a splash of apple cider vinegar

To give it some zing.



Important notes:

You have to use firm (or at least firm-ish) tofu to get the texture right, if you use silken tofu you end up with a delicious sauce, but not a fluffy ricotta replacement.

Mince the garlic before you add it to the workbowl, otherwise there's too much "stuff" for the blades to get through and you can end up with big chunks of garlic.

Polenta with Rustic Tomato Sauce and Roasted Asparagus

According to Wikipedia, the word polenta comes from the Latin puls or pulmentum.  Those roughly translate to grain mush or gruel.   That's why we prefer the Italian polenta - it just so much tastier, even if it is the same thing.

In Roman times, it was made with farro, chestnut flour, millet, spelt, or chickpeas.  Lucky for us, at the same time, they were cultivating corn in North and South America, so if you've had polenta, you've likely had it made with corn meal.  And you likely know that like many other grain-based dishes, it goes with just about anything - including, as we re-discovered last night, rustic tomato sauce and roasted asparagus.

Polenta (inspired by How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman)


You'll want to get the polenta started first, because it takes the longest.

1 cup course cornmeal (we used Bob's Red Mill Corn Grits)
Heavy pinch of salt and pepper
2 1/2 cups water
1 Tablespoon sunflower oil

Combine cornmeal, salt and pepper
Bring water to a boil








Once the water is boiling, add the polenta in a steady stream, whisk as you add it to avoid lumps

Turn the heat down and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently

This is where you have a choice to make.  Polenta can either be served as a porridge or grilled.  If you're serving it as a porridge, you can stop when it gets to the consistency you want it.  We decided to grill it.  If you're going to grill it, make sure it is fairly thick, about the consistency of thick oatmeal.  Coat a loaf pan with cooking spray, and pour the hot polenta into the pan.  As soon as you take it off the heat, it will start to solidify, so you'll have to act fast.  Let it cool for at least another 10-15 minutes (it can sit for longer if you want to make it ahead of time).


 When you're ready to eat it, cut into about 1/2 inch slices, brush with olive oil, and put it in a hot pan or on the grill until it's crispy on the outside.

 Rustic Tomato Sauce


28 oz. Trader Joe's canned whole plum tomatoes with basil
3 cloves of garlic
1/4 onion
1 Tablespoon of olive oil
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 red dried chile (can use 1/2 teaspoon dried red chile flakes)
1 Tablespoon capers
1 capful of Vermouth
salt and pepper

Saute onions and garlic in the olive oil until they're fragrant

Add tomatoes and spices

Bring to boil then simmer for 30 minutes

Blend with an immersion blender until it's the consistency you want it.  We left it pretty thick.  (If you don't have an immersion blender, you can blend it all in the food processor before cooking it.  It would also be good in big pieces).

Add the capers and vermouth.

Roasted Asparagus

1 bunch of asparagus

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 500 degrees

Prep the asparagus - if you have woody stalks, cut those off, and peel the thicker stalks so that all of the asparagus is about the same thickness

Drizzle oil over the asparagus and sprinkle salt and pepper to taste

Roast in the oven for 8-10 minutes

Enjoy!

Mint Pesto

One of my favorite parts of summer is all the fresh produce, especially fresh herbs.

Matt bought a huge bunch of mint this week.  Of course, my first reaction was Mojitos! but in an attempt to find some more, um, productive uses of mint, we were inspired by Mark Bittman to try mint pesto.

It's a pretty straightforward recipe:

2 loosely packed cups of fresh mint

Salt to taste

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons walnuts

Put it all in a food processor, and presto, you have pesto! (Sorry, I couldn't help it).

I served it over whole wheat spaghetti, but it is good over any kind of pasta, or grilled veggies.

Pesto can really be made with any fresh herb or green.  It's traditionally made with basil, but you can use mint or dill.  I've even had it with spinach and arugula.  If you have access to them, pine nuts can be swapped for the walnuts.  Most recipes include a clove of garlic.  I didn't use it here because the mint is pretty sweet, and I thought it would taste funny, but with a more savory herb, I would definitely recommend it!

Sweet Potato "Lasagna"

I was pondering some kind of baked, easy-to-reheat casserole situation for Liz to eat while I was out of town, while I was taking stock of the contents of the kitchen cabinets.

A jar of marinara sauce got me thinking about lasagna. I could make up a little cashew-tofu ricotta, maybe brown some mushrooms, that sounds good. Yeah.

Okay, dude, but you don't have any lasagna noodles. Okay, well, I've made a lasagna-like layered casserole with potatoes before, do I have any potatoes?

Well, you've got some sweet potatoes. And those would be a healthier option than white potatoes. Maybe this might come together into something real, here.

It's good, but I might not even use the L word to describe it. Let's call it a multilayer sweet potato marinara casserole, I guess.



To that effect, I rubbed seven smallish garnets with oil, baked them, let them cool, and then peeled and sliced them.

I also sliced ten fat white mushrooms into quarter-inch slices. I was contemplating some skinnier slices, but I decided I wanted a meatier bite. I cooked these with a splash of oil until I got a real good mahogany sear.



Ingredients:

• seven baked, peeled, sliced sweet potatoes
• about 15-20 oz sliced button mushrooms, seared in oil
• fist-sized ball of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• 26 oz jar of marinara ( I used Trader Joe's)

I also made a batch of cashew-tofu "ricotta" by food processing:

• 12 oz extra-firm tofu
• 1/2 cup soaked raw almonds
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• capful of apple cider vinegar
• splash of water
• salt and pepper to taste

Get a nine by thirteen glass pan and set your oven to 350.

Later any way that makes you happy, but I put a dollop of sauce on the bottom of the pan, then a layer of potato slices,



then half the ricotta, then the mushrooms and parsley.



Repeat these layers until you run out of ingredients, then arrange any remaining sweet potato slices as attractively as possible on the top of the casserole.



I sprinkled mine with a couple heavy pinches of almond parmezan, and then slid it into the oven.

Bake 15 minutes covered with foil, and then 15 minutes uncovered.



If I'd had some spinach, frozen or otherwise, that would have been a welcome addition, but I think it turned out pretty great anyway.

Potato, Olive and Caper Pizza with Silken Tofu Sauce

Halfway through a lazy Saturday and a glass of iced tea on the porch, we started brainstorming some dinner ideas.

It went like this: "hey, what about pizza" - "okay, yes."

Brainstorming complete, we conceived of a pizza pie in our heads and set about to the task.

I had been leafing through How to Cook Everything Vegetarian because I have a recurring dream where Mark Bittman and I are stranded on an island together and we make earnest-yet-wry observations about everything. Like, maybe we'll eat a couple of these coconuts. Maybe a couple of coconuts would be nice.

Anyway, in the pizza section, I read: you can just put silken tofu on a pizza.

Memories of a tasty tofu-based artichoke dip burbled up, and my pizza muse sang true and clear: a singular vision of a pizza sauce, complete and savory appeared, as if in a dream.

We got our dough ready: Pizza dough is super unforgiving if you are not some kind of weird Napolitana fetishist.



I like to proof about a tablespoon of yeast (which I get in big Red Star bricks from Costco for some negligible price) in a cup of water as hot as my faucet can make it with a tablespoon of sugar. I use organic, certified vegan, carbon-neutral unrefined evaporated cane juice because of guilt issues that are best left unexamined.

You whisk this all together with a cup of bread flour (I use Gold Medal All Trumps, again, from Costco), and then go watch the first twenty minutes of an episode of The Closer with your wife.



When it burbles up, then stir in a hefty pinch of salt and a hearty glug of olive oil and stir with a dough whisk. This is a transformative piece of kitchen equipment for me - I am overly skeptical when it comes to kitchen devices, but this is like, the best six dollars you're ever going to spend on a kitchen tool.

Eventually, you're going to have around two and a half cups of flour in that cup of water, but the amount of flour you add depends on the heat, humidity, phases of moon, etc., so add a cup of flour, stir, then add a quarter cup of flour, stir, and then knead in the flour a couple of tablespoons at a time until it's smooth and wonderful.



Set this aside in a warm bowl swirled with the smallest drop of oil you can manage to pour out of your economy-sized Costco bottle of extra virgin olive oil.

In two hours, you've got dough; make a pizza with it.

Meanwhile, I simmered a couple of yukon gold potatoes in water until they were tender, and set them aside to cool.

When it's pizza time in the P.M., turn your oven on as hot as it will go (likely 500 F).

I used to have an unglazed quarry tile like a total bread snob, but I've become addled in my old age and anyway it cracked and I can't find one at the hardware store here so whatever, I use a pizza pan.

Spray on some cooking spray, dust with cornmeal and set aside.

I sliced up some black olives, spooned out some capers, and sliced up the potatoes.

Next: the sawse.

• 1 block soft silken tofu
• 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
• pinch red chile flakes
• hefty pinch oregano
• tsp garlic powder
• tsp onion powder (I use toasted granulated from Penzey's)
• 8-13 grinds black pepper
• hefty pinch salt (to taste)
• handful of flat-leaf parsley
• glug of olive oil

whiz this up in the food processor.



Okay, so, you stretch out a pie, shmear on half of this mixture, top with toppings, sprinkle with thyme, pepper, and salt, and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown and delicious. Pull it out, slice it, and sprinkle with some walnut parmezan.



It was incredible.

Simple Black Bean Salad

I usually try to have a light lunch so I can have a bigger dinner.  But occasionally life will get in the way of my carefully planned menus, and dinner time will come around and I'll only have a few points left for the day.  What's a girl to eat?  Salad, that's what!

In honor of Cinco de Mayo this week, we decided on a Mexican-themed black bean salad.

Dressing

We usually like to make our own dressing - you can experiment with different flavor combinations, depending on what is in the salad itself.  Generally, you want 1:1 ratio of acidic liquid, like citrus juice, to oil.  (Some people prefer 1:2, but I think that makes it too oily).  Then add whatever other flavors you want.  Since this was a Mexican salad, we decided to make it spicy with a chipotle pepper, and to balance the spice out with a little bit of sweet raspberry jam.

Juice of 1 lime & juice of 1 lemon (makes about 1/4 c. of juice)

1/4 c. olive oil

2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo

1 tsp. raspberry jam

pinch of salt and pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor or blender, and blend away.  Makes about 1/2 cup of dressing.

Salad


2 c. baby spinach
1/4 c. Trader Joe's fire roasted corn
1/2 c. black beans
1/2 tomato
1/2 cucumber
2 Tbsp pepitas (roasted pumpkin seeds)
1 Tbsp vegan parmesan (recipe coming later)
2 Tbsp dressing from above

Assemble like you would assemble any salad, and enjoy!

I'm learning that I really need to figure out points values before I eat.  This salad would have been great for a normal dinner, but because I was low on points, I really should have skipped the dressing.  Medium salsa would have worked as a quick substitution, and cut down on the points.

Tempeh Tacos and Fiesta Cole Slaw

Matt had a craving for Mexican food, and we had some cabbage and tempeh that needed to be eaten, so the answer was naturally: tacos and cole slaw!

First, the cole slaw:

1/2 head of cabbage

2 carrots

Shred the cabbage and carrots - we used the shredding blade on the food processor, but you could also just chop them up, it would just take a little longer.

For the sauce

1/2 cup Nayonaise (or the vegan mayonnaise of your choice)

Juice of one lime

1 Tbsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. of ground Annatto seeds

1 tsp. Mexican oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

Hot sauce to taste

Whisk the sauce together, then coat the cabbage/carrot mixture with it.  You're done!  If you have time, let it sit in the fridge for 20 minutes or so to let the flavors blend.

Makes a lot of servings, depending on the size of your cabbage.  We made about 12.

Now, the tacos:

8 oz. tempeh

2 Tbsp. canola oil

salt and pepper to taste

3 cloves of garlic

1 onion

1 tsp. canola oil

2 oz. tomato paste

12 olives

2 green onions

Make up a batch of Crunchy Crumbled Tempeh from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food by Mark Bittman.  Drain the tempeh on a paper towl, and set aside.

Dice the onions and garlic and saute them in 1 tsp. oil (there will be some oil left in the pan after making the tempeh).  Add tomato paste and enough water to mix the paste in.  Stir in the tempeh.  Bring to a boil, then simmer until it's the consistency that you want.

Heat taco shells, and serve with cole slaw, olives, and green onions.

Makes 6 tacos

Curried Lentils and Brussels Sprouts

One of my favorite dishes is curried lentils.  Usually we serve them with kale, but since we were out of kale, and since I LOVE brussels sprouts, Matt decided to serve them with roasted brussels sprouts instead. It turns out, any cruciferous* vegetable will work with this dish.  Which is good, because I LOVE all cruciferous* vegetables.

Each recipe makes 6 servings.

Lentils:

3 T. canola oil
1/2 onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 t. cumin seeds
2 t. mustard seeds
2 T. Garam Masala
2 t. powdered turmeric
1 t. powdered ginger
1 t. red pepper flakes
1 1/2 t. black pepper
3 T. sea salt
16 oz. dried red lentils

1. Heat oil in the pan.  We used a 5 quart dutch oven, but any deep pot will do.
2. When the oil is shimmering, toss in the cumin seeds and the mustard seeds.  Watch out, because they will pop out of the pot, and they are HOT!
3. After the seeds pop, add the rest of the spices, stir and fry the spices for about 20 seconds.
4. Add onion and garlic and turn the heat down.
5. Add the lentils and then add cover them with an inch of water.
6. Bring lentils to a boil, then cover and simmer on the lowest setting for 20 minutes.  Stir occasionally.

7 Points+ per serving



Brussels Sprouts

1. Halve 1 pound of brussels sprouts, toss to coat with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Two teaspoons will do it.
2. Put on a baking sheet and roast at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

0 Points+ (if you have more than one serving, the points from the oil will add up).

Serve with rice.

* Matt insisted that I had to use the word "cruciferous" in this post.  I guess that's what I get for marrying an English major that loves food.

Broccoli and Potato Casserole

The broccoli at Safeway looked great today.  Matt saw it, and thought back to a recipe for broccoli casserole he saw on YouTube.  This changed quite a bit from that original recipe, mostly based on what we had and didn't have in the kitchen.

Makes 6 really big servings - it could probably make 8 servings, especially with a big salad.

4 small potatoes

1/2 onion

4 cloves garlic

2 heads of broccoli

1 shredded carrot

28 oz. can of garbanzo beans

1/2 cup bread crumbs

2 t. red pepper

2 t. oregano

Juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

Preheat oven to 350

1. Cut potatoes into dice-sized cubes, and boil until tender

2. At the same time, saute the onions and garlic in olive oil

3. Cut florets off the broccoli heads and steam until they are crisp-tender

4. Mash the garbanzo beans

5. Combine all ingredients into a bowl and mix

6. Oil 9x13 baking pan, put the ingredients into the pan and smooth it out

7. Bake for 1 hour - cover with foil for first 45 minutes, then remove foil for last 15 minutes.

Points+: 12