This morning I made Scones from Vegan with a Vengeance (surprise, surprise). They were quite tasty.
Last night my friend Jeanna came over for supper and I decided to make Ethiopian food from the Cooking with Kittee website.
Dazee's Misr Allecha (gingery red lentils) and Yetakelt W'et (spicy vegetable stew), served with quinoa
It was delicious. I would have preferred injera (Ethiopian flat bread stuff), but Halifax only has one Ethiopian restaurant (there used to be two but they were across the street from each other and one of them had to win out), let alone an Ethiopian grocery that sells injera (if there is and I've somehow missed it, let me know!). So quinoa sufficed alright. These two recipes seemed to use up all the things I was worried would go bad if I didn't use them soon - leftover tomato paste, vegetable stock, frozen vegetables...it was great! All of the ingredients were things I had already, and even if I didn't, none of them are expensive (although I did substitute dried cayenne for the jalapenos). The Niter Kibbeh (spiced oil) and Berbere (roasted spice mix) take extra time to make, but once you make them they last for quite a while, and I made mine a couple of months ago. I think that next time I want to save money I should just make lots of Ethiopian food. Yum.
I have no photo documentation of this, but last week I tried to make my own soy milk. Tried. It was quite a disappointment. I used the recipe from How it all Vegan, and whether it was my fault or the recipe's, I don't know. I won't go into too much detail, but making soy milk takes hours. First you soak the beans, then you blend them in batches with boiling water, then you pot it in a pot and boil it, then you let it cool, then you strain it out (the pulp is called okara and can be used in other recipes - I've saved mine with the intention of making a curry with it later this week, we'll, see how that goes), then you put it in a double-boiler and cook for half an hour. The fact that it took a whole evening to make made it all the more disappointing that the soy milk didn't turn out. It was watery and beany-tasting. I'm forcing myself to use it up by mixing it half-and-half with store-bought soy milk. Maybe I didn't blend it long enough, or maybe I got the proportions wrong. Last time I made soymilk (I've only tried once before) I used the same recipe and also screwed up, but it was because I tried to make it coconut-soy milk by adding coconut to the soybean puree and adding coconut extract later. It was a failure in that the coconut flavour was way too overpowering, but it was nice and thick and the coconut must have masked the beaniness. I read somewhere after that peeling the skins off the soybeans after soaking them gets rid of the beany flavour, maybe next time I'll try that and use more soybeans than the recipe calls for, if I get the guts to try this again.
Now for a food tangent: I went to Montreal for the first time three years ago, and I remember going to a vegan restaurant called Aux Vivres for lunch and coffee. I've been back there since then and it was in a bigger, different space that felt totally different and not as charming as the first time I was there. Anyway, The atmosphere, the music, the brass railings and the plants by the big front window stuck in my head for a long time (in fact, they're there right now). And I was given coconut-soy milk for my coffee. I know it was just in coffee, but the coconut-soymilk was delicious. I asked the waitress where it came from and she said it was home-made. So I've been dreaming about it ever since. I wonder if they just mixed soymilk with coconut milk, or if they added coconut extract to soymilk, or if they made soymilk and added the coconut at some point in the process. I guess I'll never know.
Now, back to food I've been making and not dreaming about. Well, I made a tasty curry. And I know I took a picture, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Oh well. It was based on the Coconut Curried Tofu with Green Jasmine Rice recipe from http://www.randomgirl.com/, but it was a cheapo version. I can't remember all the changes I made, but I used shallots instead of green onion, I used a regular tomato instead of baby tomatoes, I used dried cilantro instead of fresh, and I ommited the shredded coconut. Oh and I also didn't bother with fancy rice and just served it on plain brown rice. And I added a bunch of green beans and eyeballed most of the ingredients. I don't know if I made enough changes to warrant calling it my own recipe adaptation, so I won't post exactly what I did. But it was so tasty that Josh ate all the leftovers before there were any. Ha. But I've tried this recipe following the directions & ingredients exactly, and it's really really good, so if you can afford to go out and buy all the ingredients, you should really make it. It will not dissapoint. And adding a few green beans won't hurt it, either.
It was delicious. I would have preferred injera (Ethiopian flat bread stuff), but Halifax only has one Ethiopian restaurant (there used to be two but they were across the street from each other and one of them had to win out), let alone an Ethiopian grocery that sells injera (if there is and I've somehow missed it, let me know!). So quinoa sufficed alright. These two recipes seemed to use up all the things I was worried would go bad if I didn't use them soon - leftover tomato paste, vegetable stock, frozen vegetables...it was great! All of the ingredients were things I had already, and even if I didn't, none of them are expensive (although I did substitute dried cayenne for the jalapenos). The Niter Kibbeh (spiced oil) and Berbere (roasted spice mix) take extra time to make, but once you make them they last for quite a while, and I made mine a couple of months ago. I think that next time I want to save money I should just make lots of Ethiopian food. Yum.
I have no photo documentation of this, but last week I tried to make my own soy milk. Tried. It was quite a disappointment. I used the recipe from How it all Vegan, and whether it was my fault or the recipe's, I don't know. I won't go into too much detail, but making soy milk takes hours. First you soak the beans, then you blend them in batches with boiling water, then you pot it in a pot and boil it, then you let it cool, then you strain it out (the pulp is called okara and can be used in other recipes - I've saved mine with the intention of making a curry with it later this week, we'll, see how that goes), then you put it in a double-boiler and cook for half an hour. The fact that it took a whole evening to make made it all the more disappointing that the soy milk didn't turn out. It was watery and beany-tasting. I'm forcing myself to use it up by mixing it half-and-half with store-bought soy milk. Maybe I didn't blend it long enough, or maybe I got the proportions wrong. Last time I made soymilk (I've only tried once before) I used the same recipe and also screwed up, but it was because I tried to make it coconut-soy milk by adding coconut to the soybean puree and adding coconut extract later. It was a failure in that the coconut flavour was way too overpowering, but it was nice and thick and the coconut must have masked the beaniness. I read somewhere after that peeling the skins off the soybeans after soaking them gets rid of the beany flavour, maybe next time I'll try that and use more soybeans than the recipe calls for, if I get the guts to try this again.
Now for a food tangent: I went to Montreal for the first time three years ago, and I remember going to a vegan restaurant called Aux Vivres for lunch and coffee. I've been back there since then and it was in a bigger, different space that felt totally different and not as charming as the first time I was there. Anyway, The atmosphere, the music, the brass railings and the plants by the big front window stuck in my head for a long time (in fact, they're there right now). And I was given coconut-soy milk for my coffee. I know it was just in coffee, but the coconut-soymilk was delicious. I asked the waitress where it came from and she said it was home-made. So I've been dreaming about it ever since. I wonder if they just mixed soymilk with coconut milk, or if they added coconut extract to soymilk, or if they made soymilk and added the coconut at some point in the process. I guess I'll never know.
Now, back to food I've been making and not dreaming about. Well, I made a tasty curry. And I know I took a picture, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Oh well. It was based on the Coconut Curried Tofu with Green Jasmine Rice recipe from http://www.randomgirl.com/, but it was a cheapo version. I can't remember all the changes I made, but I used shallots instead of green onion, I used a regular tomato instead of baby tomatoes, I used dried cilantro instead of fresh, and I ommited the shredded coconut. Oh and I also didn't bother with fancy rice and just served it on plain brown rice. And I added a bunch of green beans and eyeballed most of the ingredients. I don't know if I made enough changes to warrant calling it my own recipe adaptation, so I won't post exactly what I did. But it was so tasty that Josh ate all the leftovers before there were any. Ha. But I've tried this recipe following the directions & ingredients exactly, and it's really really good, so if you can afford to go out and buy all the ingredients, you should really make it. It will not dissapoint. And adding a few green beans won't hurt it, either.
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