Kabocha Squash Soup

I had the other half of the kabocha squash leftover from making the jambalaya, and I absolutely love this squash in soup, so on Wednesday I decided to make soup.  (Yes, soup in the summer... why not?!)

So, classic me, I went into my refrigerator and pantry and started pulling things out (I come up with some of the best dishes this way.  Seriously, if you don't already do this, give it a try).  Now, normally I would just start throwing things in the pot, but since I'm blogging now I did write things down as I did them. :)

Here's the recipe for what I'm calling Asian Touch Kabocha Squash Soup:

½ kabocha squash, rind on, cut into small chunks

4 medium carrots, cut into small chunks

2 cups organic low sodium vegetable broth

2 cups water

¾ cup frozen peas

½ cup cooked orange lentils

2 cups shredded chicory

2 TBSP reduced sodium Tamari

¼ tsp ginger

peppercorn

8 tsp sweet white miso

2 sheets Nori, broken into small pieces

1.  In a medium size pot, place kabocha squash, carrots, broth, water and peas.  Heat on medium heat for 30 minutes.

2.  Add lentils, chicory, Tamari, ginger and few twists peppercorn, to taste, into soup.  Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 15 minutes.

3.  In small bowl, dissolve the miso in a few tablespoons of the cooking broth.  Add miso/broth mix into soup.  Reduce heat to low and cook for 5 minutes.

4.  Remove soup from heat.  Stir in Nori and serve.

I've eaten it a couple times now and so far I haven't come up with anything that I would change.

The Cornbread That Wasn't

Ever since I started cooking and baking, I’ve been searching for the PERFECT cornbread recipe.  I haven’t found it yet.  Perfect to me is just the right amount of sweetness to compliment a nice corn flavor.  Oh, and it’s gotta have whole corn kernels in there.

Finding said recipe has taken a new twist since becoming vegan and since I have cut refined sugars and white flours out of my diet.

Tuesday night I thought to myself, “what does the jambalaya need?”  Duh, cornbread!  So, I went looking for a recipe and came across one that my aunt had sent me not too long ago and decided to try that.  It was already a vegan recipe, but I still tweaked some things.  Here’s my twist on the recipe:

Roasted Red Pepper Cornbread

1¾ cups organic yellow corn meal

½ cup whole wheat pastry flour

½ cup buckwheat flour

1½ TBSP baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 TBSP white vinegar

1½ cups organic whole grain drink (I used Trader Joe’s)

½ cup safflower oil

3 TBSP agave nectar

1 cup frozen corn (can use fresh)

about ½ - ¾ cup roasted red pepper, diced

½ cup Daiya pepperjack cheese substitute

1.  Preheat oven to 400°F.  Oil a 9-inch round cake pan.

2.  In a large bowl, combine corn meal, flours, baking powder and salt.  Make a well in the center and add white vinegar, whole grain drink, oil and agave.  Whisk until combined.  Fold in corn, roasted red pepper and Daiya.

3.  Pour batter into prepared pan.  Bake about 30 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

This tasted amazing… if I didn’t want cornbread, LOL!  The buckwheat flour took over in the flavor department, but it’s very moist, almost cake-like.  So, I would make this again, maybe put some raisins or other dried fruit and maybe some nuts instead of the corn, cheese and roasted red pepper.  I’d also replace the agave with maple syrup and make a sweet bread out of it.

As for a cornbread recipe: It’s back to the drawing board… as they say…

Jambalaya

I had some soy chorizo in my refrigerator, so Sunday afternoon I thought I'd try making some jambalaya (cause I love it).  This is how it went down...

Tunes:  Glee Season 1 Vol 1  (yes, yes, say what you like.  I don’t watch the show but I do enjoy the music… I can’t help it)

The Recipe:

2 TBSP olive oil

1½ red onions, chunked

5 cloves garlic, minced

2 green peppers, chunked

2 cups broth from seitan (or new low sodium vegetable broth)

1 zucchini, chunked

3 stalks celery, chunked

½ kabocha squash, un-peeled, chunked

½ tsp hot sauce

1 tsp cilantro base

1 cup canned whole tomatoes in basil, chopped, with juices

4 bay leaves

sea salt, to taste

½ tsp dried thyme

14 oz seitan (I made my own with half of a 10 oz box of Arrowhead Mills vital wheat gluten, cooked in 2 cups organic low sodium vegetable broth and 1½ cups of water), cut into small chunks, reserve cooking broth

12 oz pkg Soy Chorizo, casing removed, cut up (I used Trader Joe’s)

2 cups brown rice

5 large button mushrooms, small chunks

1 cup fresh basil leaves, whole or chopped

1.  Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Add onion, garlic and peppers; sauté to brown, about 5 mins, stirring occasionally.

2.  In a Crock-pot, place broth, onion mixture, zucchini, celery, squash, hot sauce, cilantro base, tomatoes, bay leaves, sea salt, and thyme.  Cook on low for 1 hour.

3.  Add seitan, sausage, rice, mushrooms, and basil; cook for 1 hour.  Turn heat up and cook on High for 2½ hours.

4.  Remove bay leaves.  Enjoy!

 

The Issue:

I feel that the dish cooked too long.  The rice took longer then I anticipated, so by the time it was no longer crunchy, the vegetables were a little softer then I wanted.  On the plus side, it still tastes amazing!

Notes:

1 – I would layer into the Crock-pot differently:  Place broth, tomatoes and rice in the bottom, then add the rest of step 2’s ingredients on top of that.  Maybe try it on high right off the bat to try to cook the rice faster.  (Or layer it this way and let it be on low for a few hours so the vegetables cook slower but the rice is in the liquid so maybe things would cook more evenly.)

2 – Up until about a year ago I had never heard of kabocha squash.  Then a recipe I wanted to try called for it so I started looking for it.  I did find it, at Shop Rite, and picked one up.  I’ve been hooked ever since.  The beauty of this squash is that you can leave the rind on it and it tastes fantastic.

My jambalaya is a work in progress.

Coconut Mango "Mock-Cream" and Granola

I decided it was time to make some ice cream… or what I am now going to call “mock-cream” since people get a confused look on their faces when I say ice cream, “wait, I thought you were vegan.”  I am, I’m just so used to calling anything of that consistency coming out of my freezer “ice cream”.  Sorry, habit.  So, until I come up with something more clever to call my frozen treat creations, mock-cream it will be.

 

I got some inspiration for this recipe from a couple of recipes from vegweb.com, and then changed it up to meet my specific preferences and tastes.  (For example, their recipes called for regular sugar but that's not how I roll, as I’m avoiding refined sugar, so I used maple syrup and date sugar instead.)

Yield: about 80 oz/ 2½ quarts 

2 cups SO Delicious unsweetened coconut milk

4 cups unsweetened original Almond Breeze

13.66 oz can Lite coconut milk

½ cup SO Delicious original coconut creamer

1/3 cup date sugar

1/3 cup maple syrup

1 TBSP vanilla extract

splash rum extract

1/3 cup pureed mango

1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1.  Whisk together all ingredients in mixing bowl.  Refrigerate for about 10-15 minutes.

2.  Place in ice cream maker for 40-45 minutes.  

It came out quite delicious!  It has a very light taste, nothing overwhelming, which I do enjoy.  I did make a few notes for next time (although I will be eating this batch for a while):

1 – I would definitely add more mango.  The coconut is very dominant in the taste and I’d like a bit more of the mango flavor.  I would have put more in to start with but I used all that I had, so, what can you do?

2 – Yes, but why is the rum gone?  Rum extract that is.  The recipes I looked at called for vanilla extract but I thought with coconut and mango, maybe something more tropical, so I went digging for my rum extract.  I found the bottle, but there was only a couple drops left.  I tossed it in anyway.

3 – Speaking of running out of things… 2 cups of unsweetened coconut milk was all that was left in the bottle, so that’s all I could use.  Next time I would want to use more coconut milk, at least 3 cups to even it out with the other non-dairy milk.  I think I would also try something other then the almond milk… maybe rice or oat milk, for a slight taste change.

As the ice cream maker was whirring, I thought to myself, "hmmm, some granola would be really great on top of this."  I do sometimes like a little crunchy on my mock-cream.  Since I didn't have any, I also made some granola, which I had been meaning to make anyway.  I have used different recipes and changed ingredients around.  My favourites I’ve found in “The Kind Diet” by Alicia Silverstone and in “Skinny Bitch In the Kitch” by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin.  So, out of those, came my spin, which changes every time I make it:

My Twist-On Granola

3 cups Old Fashioned oats

about ½ cup wheat germ

1/8 cup pumpkin seeds

1/8 cup sunflower seeds

2 TBSP maple syrup

1 TBSP brown rice syrup

½ cup raisins and chopped dates and figs

1.  Preheat oven to 350°F.

2.  Spread the oats out on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes.

3.  Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine wheat germ, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.  In a separate bowl, combine maple syrup and brown rice syrup.  And in a third bowl, combine dried fruit.

4.  When oats are done, add to bowl with wheat germ mixture, toss.  Stir in syrup mix until everything is moistened.  Spread the mix back onto the rimmed sheet, and bake for 5 minutes.  Stir in the dried fruit and respread the mixture; bake for 5 minutes more.

5.  Let the granola cool on the pans.  Store in an airtight container.

Voila!