recipe

Chana, Chana, Chana Masala! (+ a recipe, yo)

/ Kelly / 2 Comments

When I had a small army of visitors last week, we ate out fairly often, and although I didn’t appreciate the strain on my wallet, I did enjoy discovering a few new restaurants. The vegan paella I found hidden at the bottom of the menu at a restaurant that focused on seafood was a surprising treat. When I placed my order, I had no idea that I was about to receive what was probably somewhere around a pound of a deliciously seasoned paella, spiced with saffron and brimming with meaty mushrooms. I barely finished a quarter of it; the bowl looked like I’d barely nibbled on a few grains of rice! I got at least three more meals out of those leftovers. We also ate at a few Asian-inspired restaurants, and I enjoyed one of my favorite dishes ever, pad thai. On girls’ night, my best friend and I had some delicious mooshu and spring rolls. But one thing we didn’t have was Indian food.

So I decided to remedy that a few nights ago. I’ve recently taken over dinner duty for my parents and myself three nights a week, since they’re both educators and are therefore back to work. Since I am mostly unemployed, I figured it was the least I could do to stop feeling like a financial drain. :) I now get to do most of the grocery shopping and can exercise my culinary prowess on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I decided that Indian food had to be on the menu for my first Monday in the kitchen.

Deciding what to make was simple. I’ve been craving chana masala lately, so I whipped up a batch based loosely on this recipe from VegWeb. Since I was cooking for three, I augmented the recipe by adding extra chickpeas, and I added lots of garam masala, curry powder, and crushed red pepper flakes because my family likes it hot. ;) The result was a fragrant, spicy dish that tasted delicious over brown rice.

Yum.
(My mama was so impressed with my meal that she photographed it! Silly mommy. Doesn’t it look like a funny little open-mouthed face, though?)

For a side dish, I consulted my growing list of “Crap I Want to Make,” a Pages document of recipes I will try at some point in the vague future. I immediately zeroed in on the Potato Vada from The Voracious Vegan. But then I realized that these tasty-looking morsels are deep fried, and I’m not really a fan of frying (read: large amounts of hot oil frighten me) and I’m trying to keep things healthy. So I decided to create my own vada-like dish. Thus, Potato-Corn Vada were born! These are a healthier, baked variation on the potato vada recipe that looked so good. I took a few ideas from a few sources, combined them with the local corn my dad had picked up, and came up with a yummy side dish for any Indian meal.

These are a delicious counterpart to a spicy main dish. The corn provides a burst of fresh sweetness that helped temper the spice of the chana masala. Because they’re baked, you can eat two or three without feeling uncomfortably full.

I will note that this recipe is a work in progress. I’d recommend making the vada thinner than the 3/4 inch patties I created, which is why I say 1/2 inch in the recipe. Also, even after baking for 20 minutes and broiling for ~2, they didn’t quite stay together. I might try using a slightly higher oven temperature. With that said, here’s my recipe!

Baked Potato-Corn Vada
Ingredients
2 large potatoes
1 1/2 ears corn, raw (yields just over a cup)
1/4 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
1/4 cup onion, chopped
2 T chickpea powder
1/4 t turmeric
1/4 t salt
1/2 t garam masala

First, you’re going to boil your potatoes. Start the potatoes ahead of time, because the rest of the recipe doesn’t require very much prep time at all. Heat up some water in a medium saucepan, chop your potatoes into medium pieces, and throw ‘em in the boiling water.

While your potatoes are cooking, de-kernelize your corn. Stand it up lengthwise and use a sharp knife to remove all kernels. This can get messy, so keep a towel underneath your cob to catch errant kernels. Once you’ve got your corn removed from the ear, place the kernels in a small food processor and pulse it a few times. It’s okay to have some kernels that are still whole; you just want to get some variety and have some that are in smaller pieces.

Next, chop up your onion and cilantro. You can adjust these measurements to taste or even omit the cilantro if you’re not a fan. Now’s probably a good time to start preheating your oven to 350˚F and to spray a nonstick pan with oil.

By now, hopefully your potatoes are cooked through. Dump ‘em into a strainer, and once they’ve cooled a bit, transfer them to a large bowl and mash those babies! Next, add the corn, onion, and cilantro to your taters. Now comes the fun part – it’s time to get your hands dirty! Mix up the big ol’ mess until it’s well combined. Then add the chickpea flour and spices (again, adjust as necessary) and stir these in with a large spoon.

Now start forming your patties. Take a decent sized ball of the mixture (about 1/3 cup, I’d guess) and form it into a ball. Flatten it a bit (about 1/2 inch thick) and then place it on your pan. Continue until you finish up the mixture. You can lightly brush the tops with a bit of oil if you’d like, but that’s probably not necessary. Now pop the pain in the oven for about 20 minutes until they’re slightly browned on the top.

You could also make thinner patties, bake ‘em for ~15 minutes, and then put them under the broiler for a few minutes to crisp them up. Or you could certainly shallow-fry thinner patties. The possibilities are endless!

Zucchini for You, Zucchini for Me…

/ Kelly / 4 Comments

Given the fact that spiralizers are also known as “saladaccos,” I’ve christened my brand new spiralizer “Sallie.” A few days ago, I tested Sallie’s capabilities by making perhaps the most obvious spiralizer dish possible – zucchini “pasta” noodles.

My spiralizer test started off with a minor hitch. I thought we had a zucchini in the vegetable crisper, but apparently cucumbers are easily confused with zucchinis when viewed through plastic refrigerator drawers, and I got a nasty surprise when I attempted to remove my “zucchini” from the fridge. This minor setback was remedied by an impromptu trip to the grocery store, where I was pleased to discover locally grown zucchinis on sale. Score! I picked up a few lovely specimens and headed home.

The poor little zucchini didn’t know what hit him – Sallie’s blades made fast work of the little devil and reduced the sucker into a surprisingly large pile of gorgeous green noodles. Needless to say, I was quite pleased with the results. Although I’d wanted to make a raw marinara sauce to top my pasta, necessity (and a lack of certain ingredients) proved once again to be the mother of invention and I instead came up with a fairly tame broccoli pesto-type topping for my pasta. Mixed with some fresh cherry tomatoes straight outta the garden, this was one of the tastiest and simplest lunches I’ve had in a while.

Zucchini loveliness.

Holy delicious vegetables, Batman! Doesn’t this look so pretty? And the broccoli-basil pesto was super simple to make. I love having basil plants sitting on the backyard deck; I can go harvest basil whenever the need strikes! :) I’m going to include the “recipe” for this pesto, but it’s super simple and could definitely benefit from any sort of spice you’d like to add.

Super Simple Broccoli-Basil Pesto (makes a large batch, more than enough for one bowl of zucchini noodles!)
Ingredients:
2 heads broccoli
1 large handful basil (adjust to taste)
~1 T olive oil (again, adjust to taste)
Salt and pepper to taste

First, steam your broccoli for about a minute or two, just to soften it up a bit and to give it that lovely bright green color. To keep this recipe 100% raw, I’m sure you could skip this step and still have it turn out just fine. Then put your broccoli in a food processor and give it a few whirls until it’s in noticeably smaller pieces. Add your olive oil and basil and process it ’til everything’s pretty finely chopped. Add spices to taste and pulse the whole shebang a few more times to mix it up. And that’s it. Super simple!

Now, you’d think I would’ve gotten my fill of zucchini at lunch time. But oh no, I couldn’t leave well enough alone, especially with those gorgeous local zucchinis sitting pretty in my fridge. So that night I whipped up a batch of the St. Patrick’s Day Zucchini Muffins from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.

Muffin love.

Susan never steers me wrong. These were moist, flavorful, and delicious. They’re completely fat free since I didn’t include the crumb topping; I just sprinkled them with a little bit of cinnamon sugar. I also used a flax “egg” in place of the Ener-G, since I don’t have any egg replacer.

These muffins went fast. My decidedly non-veg*n brother was home for the weekend, and when I caught him munching on a muffin after lunch, he told me that he actually prefers my vegan muffins to “regular” muffins! I’m not gonna lie; that made me feel a little melty inside. Three cheers for delicious vegan baking!

Breakfast, CCK Style

/ Kelly / 5 Comments

I love breakfast.

I know, who doesn’t, right? But all through high school and most of college, breakfast definitely didn’t get much love from me, except on the weekends when my dad might make a big batch of pancakes. I wasn’t much of a morning person, and in high school I was guilty of breaking my fast on whatever I could shove down my gob in the least amount of time, much to my disapproving mom’s chagrin. Actually, I usually brought my food to school and downed a bagel during my Academic Decathlon homeroom (nerd alert!) before classes started in earnest. In college, I rarely ate breakfast at all until last year, when I lived in a townhouse and had my own kitchen. Not having to get up, get dressed, and trek to the dining hall changed the way I approached breakfast, especially during the frigid Minnesota winter! I have grown to love and appreciate breakfast, and now I never skip it. From pancakes to potato-laden brekkie burritos, I love me my mornin’ eats.

I especially love all things oatmeal, and that’s one reason I’ve always had a soft spot for [Chocolate Covered] Katie and her blog, even back in the days when I was blogging over at Blogspot. Her oatmeal creations are inspired and inspirational! When you can have Brownie Batter for breakfast, who wouldn’t?! Especially when your breakfast creations look like this:

Brownie Batter Oat Bran for brekkie!

My unfortunate lack of an immersion blender means I can’t quite pull off her blended grains technique, but whatever, man – my Bob’s Red Mill oat bran tasted scrumptious enough without being blended! Plus, my Brownie Batter Oat Bran was super brain food for my daily GRE study session.

But I didn’t stop there. Oh no, my love for dessert-for-breakfast fueled me to greater heights of sweet breakfast euphoria when I made Snickerdoodle Oat Bran, a variation of Katie’sSnickerdoodle Hot Cereal!

Snickerdoodle yumminess!

Cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla gave this bowl a flavor totally reminiscent of the snickerdoodles I made a few days ago.

This morning, I ended my trifecta of CCK-inspired breakfasts by coming up with one of my own. I call it… Apple Pie Oat Bran! This “recipe” is super easy and involves one of my favorite ways of eating apples, even those banged-up, bruised, sad-looking ones that sit dolefully in your fruit bowl for days waiting to be used. I’m kind of guesstimating on the measurements here, because I really don’t measure much except my oat bran and milk.

Apple Pie for breakfast...

Apple Pie Oat Bran
Ingredients:
1 apple + cinnamon and sugar to taste
1 cup water or your favorite nondairy milk (I mix half water with half soy or almond milk)
1/3 cup oat bran (I use Bob’s Red Mill)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg

First, chop up your apple into small cubes and put ’em in a small bowl. Liberally douse the suckers with sugar and cinnamon and let the apples sit and macerate for a while until they become nice and juicy. Then start making your oat bran. Start heating your liquid of choice along with the vanilla, and once it’s boiling add the oat bran. Keep a bonny eye on your oa tbran, stirring fairly often, for one minute. Add about 3/4 of your macerated apple mixture and keep on cookin’ for another minute. Then turn off the heat, add the cinnamon and nutmeg, and remove your pot from the heat. Unless you’re impatient like me, you probably want to let your oat bran cool a for a couple of minutes before pouring it into a bowl, but once you’ve done that, top the oat bran with the rest of your apple mixture, give it all another sprinkle of cinnamon, and you’re good to go! (Also, feel free to sub oat bran with your breakfast cereal of choice.)

Oh, helpful tip – I like to keep a premade cinnamon sugar mixture in a repurposed spice jar so I have it ready at all times; it’s quite convenient. ;)

Now, while these breakfasts are completely worthy of a devotional post such as this one, I also have an ulterior motive in baring my love for dessert-like breakfasts to the world. Katie is
giving away a spiralizer, and she’s generously offering up six extra entries to anyone who blogs about one of her recipes. But even if you don’t have a blog, you can still enter by checking out her contest. Thanks, Katie!