Category: Vegan

Vegan pasta

What better than a pasta plate for dinner when in a rush? And to accomodate it: spinach and tofu simply cooked in olive oil. So simply delicious now with the pick of the spinach season, they are so soft and sweet. 

Boil the pasta of your choice and drain them. 

In the meantime, start draining a puece of tofu (hard or soft, both are good), wash the spinach and cut them in 4-5cm long pieces. In a large heated pan, add olive oil and the spinach, then the tofu in crumbles. Stir well. Add the boiled pasta, stir and add a bit more olive oil, salt and pepper. Serve and eat immediately.

Vegan burger

A. is always asking for burgers so I prepared him a special vegan burger with homemade vegan patties, avocado spread and plenty of salad, really plenty, as he lives salad a lot. I guess what he really wants when he says burger is a bloody steack and fries… but I tried to be inventivd and to have a very tasty combination and if worked cery very well. Beware, contrarily to most of the recipes I post this one takes a bit more time, but is very simple. I used what I had in the fridge for that so yoocan adjust easily with yours!

For the patties, inspired by Prunellia’s recipe of pancake seeds:

  • 1 cup of quinoa, mind was black, but red or white works well, can be replaced by bulgur, red beans, rice… 
  • a handfull of pumpkin seeds
  • a handfull of sunflower seeds
  • 1/2 cup of flax seeds, here I used brown, but blond work too, 
  • 2 large sato/taro imo, can be replaced by boiled chickpeas, boiled red beans… 

For the filling:

  • 1 ripe avocado  
  • lemon juice
  • salt and pepper  
  • green beans sprouts or any other sprouts: brocoli, alfalfa… 
  • a lettuce

First grill the sato/taro imo in the oven with the skin until soft and creamy inside. In the mean time boil the quinoa until slightly softer than usual and drain if needed. Peel the sato/taro imo and cut in pieces, add to the quinoa. Add all the seeds, stir well to obtain a thick paste. In a frypan greased with olive oil make 1-1.5cm thick patties of about 8-10cm diameter and cook them until golden on both side. I prepared 2 per person.  They are good cold or warm. You can rheat them in the oven if needed. Manipulate with care because they can break easily. 

Chop the lettuce, smash the avocado and add lemon juice, salt and pepper. Wash the sprouts. Now you are ready to make the burgers. I used half of the avocado spread per person. I spread a thick layer on on patty, added the sprouts and flipped over the other patty. Served on top of the lettuce, finish with a little of olive oil. Et voila!!!  

The sato/taro imo give a very good texture to the patties and help them to keep their shape, the creamy avocado it perfect with the crunchy patties, and the sprouts add freshness.  I’ll do it again!!!!

Canola – 菜の花

The season has come already for canola – 菜の花 – nanohana. They mark that we are now heading towards the coldest times of the year and slightly more gloomy. January is marked by beautiful weather and it moves slowly  into more rainy days. The bright green of the leaves and yellow of the flowers are illuminating these cold days and given a very first taste of spring. They also offer a good green option to spinach and cabbage! They can be cooked in many different ways and are part of Japanese traditional preparation of the season. I’ve already presented a few different, not very classic, recipes with canola: a quiche, an omelet…

Today I tried a new preparation and used the canola as I would use broccoli or cauliflower. I prepared it with chickpeas (boiled before) and with carrots. I first cooked the carrots in a bit of olive oil, then added the chickpeas, a tsp of cumin powder, salt, pepper, then added the washed and cut canola, and cooked under cover for s few minutes until the green leaves become very bright. Then I just added a little of olive oil, stirred and served. That’s all!

Kabocha-mushroom risotto

This is the perfect winter dish for a busy evening! Super simple to prepare in a short time and you can prepare it before and reheat it just before eating.
For two people I use 1/6 of kabocha, 5 mushrooms, risotto rice of your choice, olive oil, salt and pepper and I finished my plate with freshly grated parmigiano, but it is optional. I sliced thinly the kabocha and the mushrooms. In a fry pan I heated a bit of olive oil and through the vegetables and roasted them until golden and crispy. Then I add the rice and grilled it a bit before adding water and salt. Let cook at low heat until the water is almost gone. Remove from heat and keep until you want to eat.
Before eating add a bit of olive oil, re-heat in the pan and stir softly if needed. Serve, add pepper, et voila!

My Japanese style vegan soup

Largely inspired by the quinoa soups (winter and autumn) I made, I wanted something more Japanese. So I cooked in a pan: one sweet potato, one large sato imo, a piece of kabocha and a leek in a bit of olive oil, and in an other pan I cooked a mix of seeds and beans together with brown rice, I cooked them as you would cook regular Japanese rice. I didn’t cook the veggies and the rice together to avoid over cooking the veggies, to keep their beautiful colors (black rice has a tendency to color a lot) and limit the stickiness of the rice and seeds. Just before serving I added a bit of boiling water to the rice mix to make it soupy, and I deglazed the veggies with a large table spoon of soy sauce. I served the rice mix, the vegetables and topped with golden sesame seeds. A rich and tasty soup for a winter evening.

Japanese simple dinner

Cooking Japanese is not necessarily difficult and it can be really quick. In winter I love daikon cooked in konbu (kelp) dashi and served with white miso, but this is not a whole meal so I prepared also in the same dashi some warm thick fried tofu served with little raw spinach and for the energy a bowl of rice mixed with 16 types of beans and seeds.

Prepare a konbu dashi with a piece of konbu in 1l of water, bring to boil and keep under cover. Cut 2-3cm high slices of daikon, one pr person is usually good, and cook them in the dashi. Check with a toothpick and remove them when soft.  Serve in a bowl with one tsp of white miso on top. In the dashi still heated, add the thick fried tofu (atsu-age 厚揚げ) and cook for 5min, it washes away the oil from the deep fry. If you cannot find thick deep fried tofu you can warm momen (hard) tofu. When warm serve with baby spinach and a bit of soya sauce or a bit of ponzu sauce, or just a bit of the warm dashi. For the rice, I use a mix of seeds and beans that can be found in any organic supermarket or similar (if you cannot find some leave a comment I can help providing with some). That’s it. Keep warm and have a good weekend!

A little soup

With some yellow carots, red carrots and normal carrots, some lotus root, some potatoes, and with some Italian beans soup mix that I cooked for lunch, I made for dinner this warm and rich vegan soup. Very very simple and so quick if you have cooked the beans before (optimally leftovers). In a large pan I put the cooked beans, water, quite a lot, and then cut the veggies and add them. I like both when it’s overcooked and veggies melt in the mouth, or when they are still crunchy, in particular the carrots, so I adjust the insertion time in the pan and the cooking time depending on that. I served warm, optionally with some gratted parmegiano, a good preparation foe our stay in Sicily!!!

Experiment

I was in the mood for a little cooking experiment: something in between an okonomiyaki and a galette, with plenty of veggies. Vegan, gluten/free, delicious and colorful. I used plenty of the veggies I had in the fridge: sweet potato, sato imo, lotus root, and carrot. I peeled and cut them then grilled them in a pan. In the mean time, I mixed buckwheat flour, rice flour and water with a bit of baking powder to obtain a quite thick dough. Then in a smaller pan I layed the vegetables covered them with dough and cooked at very low heat under cover then flipped it. And served. Use bulldog sauce like for okonomiyaki if you like.

Last week…

Yes! This is the last week before we take a few holidays for the end of the year. So much to do at work before then that days will be really too short and I already expect getting back home late and having little time to cook properly. So my shopping basket at the farmers market was full of easy to prepare and versatile seasonal products. A lot if simple Japanese food ahead with the lotus roots, the carrots, the sweet potatoes and the sato imo. But before that, I prepared a spinach and tofu quiche with a whole wheat flour and wheat bran dough. I used olive oil for the dough rather than butter, and soya milk, drained moendofu and fresh spinach for the filling. With eggs it gets firmer, but they are not necessary. I didn’t steam the the spinach before using them, but steaming them would make them softer. I personally like when they’re a bit crispy. Have a very good week!

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