Someone blogged a while back about the fact that you can pick up Butter Chicken seasoning and the spice packet itself is vegan. So last time I was at the Indian market I picked one up with the intention of trying out a “Butter” Tofu. I finally got around to that this week.
Here’s the mix I used, the tomatoes I added and the tofu. I’m not sure why the pappadums jumped in the picture…I loosely used the recipe on the back of the box. Here’s what I did: “Butter” TofuIngredients1 pound firm or extra firm tofu, drained and pressed2 tablespoons lemon juice1/2 packet Shan Butter Chicken Mix2 tablespoons oil 1 14oz. can whole cherry tomatoes or diced (smash them if you use whole ones)1/2 cup soy milk2 tablespoons Earth Balance Mix lemon juice, 1/4 cup of water and the 1/2 packet of seasoning mix. Pour over drained, pressed tofu and marinate 30 minutes. Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan. Add marinated tofu reserving the marinade. Fry up until browned. Add tomatoes, soy milk, and reserved marinade. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 15 minutes. Add Earth Balance, stir in until melted.Eat.
We ate it over basmati rice with Dino’s Collards. Nummy.
Category: recipe
Fake Samosas
The March issue of Real Simple had a cool quickie recipe for samosas in it that involved using pre-made pie crust dough and convenience mashed potatoes you can buy in the refrigerator section. Side note: is it really that freakin’ hard to make mashed potatoes? I mean, come on, boil, mash, eat. Anyway, I thought I’d give that a try using sweet potatoes instead of white ones. Of course all the pre-made pie crust dough at the regular grocery store was all larded up. So I just used puff pastry. I knew the texture wouldn’t be the same or anything close to authentic, but what the hell, I also knew it would be good. When is puff pastry NOT good? Plus I had a jar of mango chutney sitting around that I picked up from Taj Mahal when I was there with Leigh.
Anyway, here’s the recipe with my changes.
Quickie Sweet Potato Samosas
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 1 med. onion, chopped
* ¾ teaspoon salt
* ½ teaspoon pepper
* ½ teaspoon ground red pepper
* 1 ½ teaspoons curry powder
* 2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes
* 10 ounces frozen peas, thawed
* 1 package puff pastry, thawed
* 1 jar mango chutney
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden brown, about 8 minutes.
Add salt, pepper, ground red pepper and curry powder and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in the sweet potatoes and peas.
Unfold the puff pastry dough and cut each piece into 6 triangles. Place a heaping tablespoon of the potato mixture in the center of each piece. Gather the corners of the dough and pinch to form a point. Pinch the seams to seal. Transfer to a baking sheet.
Bake the samosas until golden, about 25 minutes. Serve with mango chutney. And now for the pics. The innards:
Ready to be baked:
All puffy and golden:
Some collected random thoughts
- Ina Garten made something vegan today. No really!
- To the companion animal that keeps puking on my bed: please do that on the hardwood floors in the future. kthx
- According to Paula Deen, fish “has no fat.” Um, okay.
- So far, this election has been far more entertaining than I’d imagined. I’m not looking forward to Tuesday when it’ll probably narrow down to two.
- They’ve made this whole blog customization crap way too easy. Why I remember when templates were so simple and bare that you had to fiddle with ’em forever to get them to look reasonable. Now it’s just grab, upload, activate. Select widgets. Done. I haven’t touched the code at all this evening. I’m getting soft.
Soup and other stuff
As usual, I’ve been cooking, just totally forgetting to take pics. Above is the Moroccan-style Lentil and Chickpea Soup from Fresh From a Vegetarian Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson. (I love how that link doesn’t credit the author…) This is a great pick-me-up for cold grey days. It’s a hearty soup that’s also really brothy. And the Moroccan seasonings make the flavors really bright. Oh, and if you don’t have any harissa around and don’t feel like making it, rooster sauce (sriracha) is a fine substitute. And now on to the non-illustrated part of this post… I’ve had my eye on this recipe for Candied Lime Sweet Potatoes since November and finally gave it a try this week. I loved the flavor but I think mine came out too candied and chewy. Could be my oven spiking in temperature like it likes to do, or that I got too happy with my mandoline and sliced the sweet potatoes too thin. Or I’m being too picky. Anyway, I might try one more time following the recipe, but I’d also like to try it with the sweet potatoes cubed. These ate up nicely with Oven Roasted Tom Tofu from Vegan Vittles and steamed broccoli.Let’s see, what else have I cooked…ah, I tried the Tempeh and White Bean Sausage Patties from Vegan With a Vengeance for a potluck Saturday. They were tasty but were in no way interested in being patties. So they ended up being crumbles instead. I think if I make them again and WANT them to be patties, I might toss everything in the food processor and process with a bit of moisture until they look more like they’ll stick together. Although I will say that the mix did form into a patty fine, just busted all apart upon flipping. I also took Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, but I’ve posted about those before.
Israeli Couscous and Lemony Chickpeas
I totally forgot to take a picture of this on a plate, so you’ll just have to live with it in a plastic bucket ready to go off to work. On the left is the Israeli Couscous with Pistachios and Apricots from Veganomicon. I’d never made the giant Israeli couscous before. It’s definitely more toothsome. And the flavor of this was wonderful. The Lemony Chickpeas came from this recipe but I probably used about half the olive oil. Also, the chickpeas I used were from a batch I had slowcooked and were extra soft. They ended up basically breaking down in this dish. Not very attractive visually, but they ate up just fine. Also I tossed in about a cup of frozen spinach to green it up a little. I think the flavors were even more intense after it sat overnight. Yummy!
Oh, and completely unrelated but while watching the news I saw why John McCain is done. Or heard I should say. His theme music in Iowa is Europe’s The Final Countdown. ‘Nuff said.