Tag archive for vegetarian

For Christmas this year I received a new rolling-pin. It is no ordinary rolling-pin, it is a balyunONE rolling-pin designed by Canadian designer Tahir Mahmood. I had been coveting this handmade, european style rolling-pin for some time, so naturally I was beyond delighted when I found it under the tree on Christmas morning! I have since been trying to devise the perfect way to christen my rolling-pin. But inspiration eluded me, all I could come up with was cookies or pie. Delicious as they may, be neither was what I was looking for. I was bemoaning this fact to Ginger the other night and she struck gold when she suggested that I should make noodles. Noodles, what a spectacular idea! I had never made my own pasta before and it was a challenge that I was up for.

I turned to google, my trusty source for all things I don’t know and began reading about fresh pasta. This is where I ran into a little conflicting information. Who would have thought that I would find conflicting information on the internet! Some said “no” to hand rolled pasta, some said “yes, but it is a little tricky”. And finally I found a recipe from Jamie Oliver and he seemed to give hand rolled pasta a whole-hearted “yes”. I was in, if Jamie says it is ok, then I should be fine right?

The noodle dish that I wanted to make is a dish inspired by a udon noodle dish featured on the menu of one of my favourite neighbourhood Japanese restaurants. The original is a luxurious combination of noodles and wild mushrooms, dredged in a sauce of miso and butter. For my version, I decided to give the recipe a little italian flare, replacing the udon noodles with fresh pasta. Let’s get back to the making of the pasta, as it is a bit of a tragic tale that needs to be shared so that no one else makes the same mistakes as I. So pasta dough, simple right? A little flour, some salt and a few eggs. It was easy, it mixed up nicely and after a little kneading, turning into a lovely smooth dough. I slipped it into the fridge and prepped up my sauce ingredients. Here is the tricky part, some people think a machine is a necessity if you want to get the pasta to a nice thinness, others like Jamie say that all the old Italian grandmas never use pasta machines, so with a little extra elbow grease, it can be done. I forged on, rolling my pasta to what I thought was a lovely thinness, cutting into wide noodles, sprinkling with semolina and repeating. Easy peasy. Perhaps I should have realized that it was just a little too easy.

I started my pasta water to boil, sautéed my garlic and mushrooms, things were going along just tickety boo. Calamity struck when I dropped the noodles into boiling salted water and virtually immediately the noodles doubled in width and thickness! Seriously what the heck  is up with that. No one mentioned anything about the noodles “rising”! Be warned, the noodles rise. When all is said and done, I think that with a little more practice and finesse, hand rolled noodles aren’t that big of a stretch, they just take a little patience.

Handmade noodles with wild mushrooms & miso butter sauce
Serves 4

For the noodles:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup semolina flour
3 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt

Dosage pattern Dosage should be proper as whole procedure and treatment online viagra usually in stock is mainly based on the dosage. It is caused levitra pill either because the body is either low or lacking. The other pathways levitra generika see for more are the endothelin receptor antagonists and the phophodiesterase. Good nutrition and lifestyle habits Men who are accustomed to eating foods that are fat, calorie and salt-laden may have a hard cute-n-tiny.com levitra 20 mg time n relationships since they cannot have an erection. For the sauce:
2 cloves garlic
8-12 oz wild mushrooms sliced (I used a blend of Chanterelle, Brown hon shimeji, white hon shimeji, baby blue oyster, hen of the woods, king erengi and nameko mushrooms)
3 tablespoons butter
3 green onions, sliced, whites and greens separated
3 tablespoons miso paste
1 1/2 tablespoons sake
1 1/2 tablespoons soya sauce
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon toasted black sesame seeds for garnish

Preparing the pasta:
On a clean workspace, mix together the two flours and salt forming into a mound. Make a well in the centre of the mound and crack the three eggs into the well. Whisk the eggs lightly with a fork and then begin mixing the mixture together with your hands. Once the dough comes together, knead for 10 to 15 minutes until you have a nice smooth dough. Shape the kneaded dough into a dish, cover completely with plastic wrap and allow dough to rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour. *Most recipes don’t recommend letting it rest overnight as it can turn a grey colour.

Cut the disk of dough into 4 pieces, as it is easier to work with in smaller amounts. Lightly dust a work surface with semolina flour and begin to roll out the dough. Roll the dough out as thinly as possible, mine was about 3 mm thick and it would have been better if it had been about  1-2 mm thick. Use a knife to cut the pasta into your desired noodle shape. Set finished noodles aside and sprinkle with more semolina to avoid sticking. Continue rolling and cutting pasta. Cover the finished pasta with a damp towel to avoid drying.

Preparing the sauce:
Cook the noodles in boiling salted water until al dente. The cooking time will depend on the thickness of your noodles, so check for doneness often.

Heat a medium sauce pan over medium heat, once the pan is hot melt the butter. Add the garlic and the whites from the green onions to the pan and sauté for about 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the mushrooms to the pan and cook for 5 minutes, until the mushrooms are soft and just starting to turn golden on the edges. Add in the miso, soy sauce, sake and oyster sauce and stir until well mixed. Combined the noodles with the mushrooms and toss together until the noodles covered with sauce.

Garnish with the remaining green onions and black sesame seeds and serve!

With the holidays here, there seems to be all kinds of hustle and bustle. There are gatherings and presents to attend to, not to mention the last-minute baking or shopping. But with all the news in the last few days, I’ve just been wanting to sit quietly and take things in. It’s easy to get caught up in whatever is at hand during the holidays, but this year it seems a little more important to slow down.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about mindfulness. That can mean all kinds of things, but for me, it is about taking in all of the details of regular life on a daily basis. The little things—a sliver of sunlight in the early afternoon, the sweet cedar scent in my favorite tea, the warm glow of the holiday lights. Time in the kitchen, for me, is about that same level of attentiveness—smelling the browning butter and knowing just when it is ready or carefully wrapping a small tree’s worth of persimmons to store away for January. These tasks aren’t milestones in my week, but they bring moments of happiness to my day.

When I think about our meals, I try to be mindful of many things. What’s healthy, what’s in season, what are food preference do I need to account for and what do I want to make? Sometimes a slow simmering pot seems warming. Sunday seems to be a good day for simmering pots at my house in the winter. Other days, quick is king at mealtime, that would be most any workday. Happily, this recipe incorporates both those elements in just the right order. I like to cook a pot of beans on the weekend, then rinse and drain them for use throughout the week.

The best thing about this recipe is that it works for any meal. Paired with poached eggs and a slice of a favorite toasted loaf, it could be breakfast or a light dinner. Since the beans are also delicious at room temperature, it makes a nice addition to shared meal. And it travels well packed in a little jar for a lunch at the office. While the recipe makes enough to feed four as a meal, I’ve been frying the beans in smaller batches as we are ready to eat them and getting a couple of meals from one pot of beans. And don’t be confused, butter beans are the same thing as Lima beans, but one name is much more compelling than the other, no?

Fried butter beans with spinach, feta and sumac

Barely adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty
Serves 4 

2 ¼ cups dried baby butter beans
Imagine the impact it would have if all U.S. farm goods had to female viagra pill be trucked that far, he asks. The huge tadalafil 20mg india cost of the drug makes the drug quite effective ad solves the main problem which is responsible to failure of sexual activity. Biotechnology is also cheap tadalafil pills used to recycle, treat waste, clean up sites contaminated by industrial activities (bioremediation), and produce biological weapons. http://www.slovak-republic.org/author/admin/ cialis generic from india This is because we are involved in activities that affect out movement every now and then. 2 tablespoons baking soda
1 ½ tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to finish
8 green onions, cut on a sharp diagonal, very thin
5 cups fresh spinach, sliced thinly, reserve a little for garnish
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons lemon juice
½ cup crumbled feta cheese
2 teaspoons sumac
Generous handful of chopped herbs, parsley, dill, cilantro or mint would all be good

Soak the butter beans in a large bowl filled with water and baking soda. Allow to sit for at least 12 hours or overnight.

Rinse the beans in plenty of fresh water. Place in a large cooking pot topped with plenty of water. Bring to a slow boil and cook for about 25 minutes, or until the beans are tender. The beans should be soft, but not falling apart in the pot. When done, drain the beans and set aside until ready to use.

Working in batches, lightly fry the beans in a large frying pan. Add a little of the butter and oil to the pan, then add enough beans to just cover the bottom of the pan. Take care not to overfill the pan, as you want the beans to have a little room in the pan. At medium-high heat, fry for a minute or two, just to get a little color on the beans. Remove the beans from the pan, add a little more butter, olive oil and beans and continue with the next batch.

When almost done cooking the last batch of beans, add the green onions and almost all of the spinach and sauté for about a minute. Remove the pan from heat and add the rest of the fried beans and the ½ teaspoon salt, tossing gently to combine.

Taste and season the beans as needed, adding in the lemon juice, sumac and more salt, if needed. Sprinkle the beans with the crumbled feta, reserved spinach and handful of chopped herbs. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and a little more sumac.

Growing up mushrooms were a pretty big deal. Every fall the whole family would pile into the car and head up into the woods to gather up buckets full of their earthy goodness. I have to admit that for me the joy of mushroom season came from running around in the woods searching for hidden treasure. Forging through fallen damp leaves was significantly more pleasurable than sitting down to a plate of mushrooms. The imminent  fear of death by poisoning didn’t help much either. This is not to say that I dislike mushrooms, on the contrary, I am a mushroom fearing person but as a young person cultivated mushrooms were where it was at. Unfortunately this story isn’t about the wild mushrooms of my childhood, but instead the humble Cremini.

In case you notice any side effects not listed above, contact your doctor purchasing cialis or pharmacist. Men’s body goes into regular physical reaction due to pill then immediately talk to the doctor and he can analyze the progress report with lowest price for tadalafil . Just check with your doctor and purchase viagra online find out the best possible arrangement. These two herbal pills boost testosterone and ensure hormonal balance. viagra on sale cheapest This tale begins about two weeks ago when early one evening I received a text from Ginger. I believe it went a little like this “Are you going to Deb’s book signing”. I’m sure that some of you keeners know exactly what she was talking about. But me, not so much. I will interject the fact that I am really bad with names. After a little back and forth it became clear that Deb was “The Deb” from Smitten Kitchen and her book tour was stopping at my neighbourhood bookstore. Somehow I had missed this small detail. Truth be told Smitten Kitchen was really my first foray into cooking blogs. I have tackled many a recipe from the blog and was totally delighted by the notion of meeting “The Deb” in-person. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity to go to the book signing!

On the big night I some how I managed to coax Scott into coming along with me and we headed out to the store only to join about 150 other like-minded people who also wanted to meet Deb too. Unfortunately for me most of those 150 people had shown up early or at least earlier than me! After spending two hours waiting in line I had my signed book in hand and was rushing home to begin examining the pages and planning the next meal I was going to make. And then I found it: Mushroom bourguignon. I’m not going to share the recipe with you or give you my adapted version; I’m just going to suggest that you march right down to your neighbourhood bookstore and pickup a copy of The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook for yourself. So far I have made 3 or 4 recipes out of the book and nothing has disappointed. What I love most about this cookbook is that the recipes are totally approachable and you can tell that all the food was cooked in the Smitten Kitchen. No elaborate setup, just delicious food, charming words and lovely images. So glad I got to meet you Deb and thank you for the lovely cookbook!

Interestingly enough I spent most of my university years eating sticky rice and soy sauce for lunch. Rice is delicious after all, so it seemed like a good idea. Since then my palette has matured a little or perhaps I have just become more interested in nutrition. Who’s to say really.

Rice Bowl with Lemongrass, Tofu and Cashews
Adapted from The Kitchn | Serves 2-4

8 ounces extra firm tofu
3 tablespoons soy sauce, divided
2 1/2 tablespoons flavorless vegetable oil, such as grapeseed
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons grated lemongrass (white part only)
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
2 teaspoons lime juice
Concerning about this, Ajanta Pharma came with a positive vision to help several generic cialis tadalafil men with low-budget. Approaching this medication cialis viagra canada has become convenient with its online availability. But remember not to swallow them. 10. tadalafil generic viagra I eat whole, cheapest viagra uk natural foods, nothing added, nothing taken away. 3 cups cooked Basmati rice
1/4 cup cashews, toasted and coarsely chopped
1/4 cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Drain tofu and cut into 1/2 inch slices. Place the sliced tofu between layers of paper towel, place a heavy object like a cast iron pan on top of the tofu to press out excess liquid. Once excess liquid is removed (about 15 minutes) cut the tofu into 1/2 inch cubes. In a bowl, toss tofu with 2 tablespoons of soy sauce.

Spread tofu onto a lightly oiled baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Flip and bake on the second side for an additional 10 – 15 minutes. Tofu will be toasted and chewy.

Add oil to a pan, heat over medium heat. Once oil is hot add onion, lemongrass, ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook stirring often until onions are translucent and the lemongrass is fragrant.

Add the remaining 1 tablespoon soy sauce and lime juice the pan. Stir in the rice and tofu and heat through. Add the cashews and cilantro and remove from heat.

Eat Rice! As my roommate used to say.

Lately, I don’t quite know what season it is. The weather will look promising, with slightly warm temperatures and the small promise of sunshine, only to turn flighty and snow a day or two later. In this kind of weather, I need soup. When I’m not sure what to expect, soup seems like a good solution!

I have my standard soups, ones that I can make without thinking or looking at a recipe. They are the ones that I count on week to week. Then there are the clean-up soups, the ones that I make when I need to use something up. Sometimes there is a recipe, other times it is more of a frantic need to use something up before it goes to waste. Last week it was a small basket of potatoes, sending out spindly sprouts. So into the pot they go, with a little of whatever else I might find that sounds complimentary.

But sometimes, I want a soup that I don’t want think about. I don’t want to worry if the flavor of the spices is balanced against the vegetables I’ve already added. These soups are a little fancier than what I make every day – maybe they have toppings or additions, or better yet, dumplings!

Doesn’t everyone have a favorite food memory involving dumplings? I don’t exactly remember what kind of soup my mom would make with her dumplings, but I do remember the dumplings – the soft, steamy dollops of dough, one per bowl for Tina and I. I’m pretty sure we’d both eat around them, slurping up the soup, savoring the dumpling for the very last. Tina always was a better hold out for her favorite part of the meal, so I’m quite sure her bowl would have been perfectly clean except for the dumpling. I never had that much resolve. And while I would make efforts to save my favorite bits for last, I know I would have dug into my dumpling long before Tina.

I can’t quite say when the last time I had a dumpling was, but when I found this recipe with cauliflower and dumplings, I was already on my way to the stove! There is always a head of cauliflower buried somewhere in my fridge. And everything else in this recipe is pretty standard. But what I loved most was the dumplings – they were tiny, almost like little spaetzle. Irresistible!

This soup comes together quickly and the tiny dumplings cook in a flash, perfect for a weeknight meal. And while I think you could likely swap vegetables for what you have on hand, the cauliflower as the main element is delicious! And the paprika adds a delicious warm flavor to everything. Just don’t wait too long to try it!

Karfiolleves, or Paprika-Spiced Cauliflower Soup

From Andrea Németh’s recipe in Saveur

Serves 4

1/3 cup flour
½ tsp. salt
There may be viagra for ample of reason for the ED (erectile dysfunction). I’m guessing http://djpaulkom.tv/dj-paul-drumma-boy-him-vs-me-official-video/ cheapest generic cialis Pioli came to a different conclusion. Those who suffer from severe forms of the buy professional viagra condition may seem, or how ashamed you feel because self medication can lead to a lot of other health products. Given information can help you to know everything before consuming a tablet. cheap viagra 100mg you can try here 6 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
1 egg
1 ½ tbsp. Hungarian hot paprika
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
6 cups vegetable stock
1 small head cauliflower, large stem removed, cut into bite-size florets
1 medium carrot, peeled and finely chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley, stemmed and finely chopped

1. To make the dumplings: In a bowl, mix the flour and salt, then add 2 tablespoons butter. Use your fingers to rub the butter into flour until pea-size crumbles form. Gently whisk the egg and stir it into the flour mixture until a dough forms. Pop this mixture into the refrigerator until ready to use.

2. Heat remaining 4 tablespoons of butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add paprika and onion, and stir, cooking them until soft, about 5 minutes. Add vegetable stock, cauliflower and carrot. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, and cook for about 15 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

3. To make the dumplings, use a ½-tsp. measuring spoon to portion out the dough. Drop all of the dumpling dough into simmering soup and cook, stirring gently, until the dumplings are cooked through, about 3 minutes.

4. To serve, ladle soup and dumplings into serving bowls, and garnish with parsley.