Two Tomato Soup

Ah, the first day of summer, that can only mean one thing....

Soup?

Ok, maybe not. This might not be the most seasonally appropriate recipe, but I wanted to make grilled cheese sandwiches with Hickory Cheddar We Can't Say It's Cheese * and I wanted something to dip it in, so I made tomato soup. The other benefit was that it just hung out in the crockpot all day and when I got home from work I just had to puree and enjoy. This is my favorite tomato soup recipe because it gets a bunch of other veggies in there, and sundried tomatoes, which are a nice touch.

And, unrelated vanity, CHECK OUT MY NEW PLATES!! I had a bridal shower, and everyone was very generous, and we got some of the plates we asked for. This is one design, you'll have to stay in suspense for the other one.


Two-Tomato Soup
Adapted from 1001 Low-Fat Vegetarian Recipes by Sue Spitler
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 shallots, diced
2 stalks celery, sliced
2 carrots, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 cups vegetable broth
28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 potato, diced
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes (dry, not oil packed)
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 cup plain milk of choice
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large sautee pan/soup pot (depending on whether you're making it on the stove or in the slow cooker), heat the oil and sautee the shallots, garlic, celery and carrots until tender, about 5 minutes.

2a. If you're using a crock pot, put the veggies and everything else except for the milk into it and cook on low for 8 hrs... or until veggies are tender (8 hrs covers the work day for me so in it goes)

2b. Add the tomatoes, potato, stock and basil and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover; simmer for 15 minutes or until veggies are soft.

3. Puree soup until smooth in batches in a blender or with an immersion blender. Stir in the milk. Adjust seasoning to taste.

* Have you tried this stuff?? Ohhh man it's good. Hickory Smoked is the favorite in this house. We hope it soon is available in industrial sized tubs.

Cookbook Review & A Bastardized Recipe

When I was making up my amazon wishlist for Christmas, I came across this book:



Sweet Utopia: Simply Stunning Vegan Desserts by Sharon Valencik. Somehow in all my veg forum reading, I had never come across it. My vegan dessert book collection is pretty hit or miss. Joy of Vegan Baking? Hit. My Sweet Vegan? Miss. (And by miss I mean I got it as a gift probably 2 years ago and haven't made a single thing out of it, though I've read through it on multiple occasions) But it looked interesting, and I thought I'd give it a go. This book does NOT disappoint! There are pictures of every recipe and there isn't a single one in the book that I'm not interested in making! I'd like to work my way through cover to cover, gaining pound upon vegan pound in the process. What sets this apart from the Joy of Vegan Baking (which is a fantastic book as well, but I think everyone knows about it already) is that it is ALL DESSERTS!! Here's what I've made thus far...

Peanut Butter Mini Cheesecakes

These were the boy's pick for his Birthday, Round 1. It was like eating a gigantic Reese's cup. Totally rich and decadent, it's a good thing they're mini because it would be easy to eat way too much of this and make yourself sick if it wasn't already portion controlled. These were very popular with our dinner party guests, and we didn't suffer at all having to finish the leftover ones!

Ultimate Peanut Butter Cup Cake

I don't actually need to tell you who this was for, do I? Birthday, Round 2. This time with his parents. I only made a half recipe of this cake because there were only 4 of us eating it, and I didn't think we'd need a layer cake. It was fantastic. The frosting was so rich and creamy and the cake itself was incredibly moist with a really good crumb. I think we all ended up having two pieces, even though we were all already stuffed full of Chinese food.

Orange Burst Cookies N Cream

They're the ones on the right. That is the cookie tray I brought to Easter this year. On the left are Raspberry Oat bars from JOVB. I was skeptical about these cookies, but gave them a go and I'm really glad I did. The cookies are orangey but not too sweet, which is compensated by the filling which is super sweet, being cream filling and all. I cut them into egg shapes to make them festive for Easter. The cookies look like they'd be crunchy, but they actually stayed tender, which was great because the filling wasn't super hard, but it didn't squish out the sides. The only complaint (ish?) I had about this recipe was the cream filling recipe made at least twice as much cream filling as I actually needed for the cookies. Turned out Ok though. I made a chocolate cake later in the week and frosted it with the leftover cream. (Haven't uploaded the pic of that yet...)

Banana-Cranberry-Cashew Cookies

Ok, that picture is not actually of the banana cranberry cashew cookies. I somehow failed to take a picture of those. That is a picture of my Banana Split Cookies, which is today's featured bastardized recipe, which I altered the original Banana cranberry cookie recipe to become. I was really excited to see another use for black bananas, because I usually have tons of them since as soon as bananas get spotty I don't like them anymore. The original cookie was really good, very cakelike and moist. I decided to play with the ingredients a bit though, and that's where the Banana Split Cookies were born.... they go something like this...

Banana Split Cookies
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup pureed ripe banana
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 tbsp almond milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
heaping 1/2 cup shelled peanuts
heaping 1/2 cup dried cherries
heaping 1/2 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream together the oil, peanut butter, and sugars.

3. Add the almond milk, bananas, and vanilla extract and stir until well combined. (Doing all this with an electric mixer really speeds things along)

4. Sift in the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Fold in the chips, nuts, and cherries.

5. Drop 1 tbsp of dough per cookie onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 13-15 minutes or until the edges begin to brown. These cookies do not spread, so if you don't want them in ball form (which is a legitimately delicious option), flatten them out a bit with your palm before baking.

Crispy Nori Tofu

I made up this meal weeks ago and have desperately wanted to try it, but things like "time" and "head colds that won't die" got in the way of me realizing my dream. Last week I got so far as buying, and marinating the tofu, then ended up on the couch in a sea of tissues after work, leaving the boy to just bake it in the oven. The marinade was apparently good -- he ate the entire pound himself. This week, a pinched nerve caused near failure again. I marinated the tofu, but then couldn't deal with cooking. I left it in the fridge an extra day, however, and last night, it happened.. CRISPY NORI TOFU!!

Ok so what is crispy nori tofu? It's marinated tofu dredged in rice flour, ground nori, and ground sesame seeds. It is then pan fried to a crispy shell and enjoyed (with or without wasabi). I served it with sauteed snap peas and left over grilled red pepper strips, and some sesame ginger rice. This time, I probably could have eaten the entire pound myself... but I shared.


Crispy Nori Tofu
You need..
1 lbs tofu, cut into slices, thickness as desired
Canola oil (or whatever you like to fry in)

Marinade:
1/4 cup tamari
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tsp mirin
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp sesame oil

Crust:
1/3 cup rice flour
2 sheets nori
3 tbsp sesame seeds

1. Combine all the ingredients for the marinade and marinate the sliced tofu for at least 8 hours.

2. In a food processor or blender, combine the crust ingredients and pulverize so it all resembles a fine flour with some sesame seeds here and there.

3. Take the tofu out of the marinade and press it, wet, into the flour mixture to coat.

4. In a cast iron skillet over high heat, heat 1/4 inch of oil. Add the tofu slices and fry 3-4 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels or brown paper bag for a few minutes to remove extra oil before serving.

3 Accidentally and 1 Intentionally Vegan Finds

I have been sick since I posted last. I wish I were kidding. Working with people, and especially people of the children variety, is actually really gross. But this should be about food, not about gross, so I thought I'd share some of my RANDOM VEGAN FINDS from today!

Today is my first day off since, well I took a sick day Monday, but before that, President's Day. I had a cat rescue mission this morning, then lunch with the boy (veggie wrap at Mr. Subb. Actually not so bad. Lots of mustard and pickles and olives), then to the Subaru dealer to have them change the oil and listen to the ticking noise, but actually their computers were down, I waited 30 minutes and they hadn't even taken my keys, and I said screw it, I'm not sitting here all day and told them I'd reschedule... so while I was out that way anyway, I stopped at the Price Chopper that has the Kosher grocery department. The Kosher Grocery is great for all sorts of random accidentally vegan things. It being Passover right now means even MORE random stuff. Awesome. Here were my finds today:

Clockwise from top left...
This one is intentionally vegan. In fact, it says right on it "Vegan Moroccan Chicken." I have never seen these before! They also had vegan sesame chicken, and vegan beefless stir fry. I have yet to try it, but it will make me a happy megatarian on some lazy night where I'm hungry but don't feel like cooking.

Chocolate covered marzipan.
My favorite chocolate bar is Ritter Sport Marzipan. I thought I'd see how these compare. In a head to head taste test, Ritter Sport would win hands down. These lack the balance of the not so sweet chocolate with the super sweet Marzipan. In fact, the chocolate is so sweet you can't detect the almond flavor... or at least I can't right now but admittedly my sense of smell and taste is still severely diminished due to this cold. It's definitely a nice, sweet, creamy bite, but for true marzipan flavor, I'd stick with Ritter.

Dame Blanche
The white lady. Holy crow this are good. It is two tea biscuit type cookies with a vanilla cream filling covered in sweet chocolate. It really encompasses a lot of my favorite things into one treat. I love a nice plain faintly sweet vanilla cookie, I love cream filling, I love chocolate, what could be bad? Fortunately these are all individually wrapped or I'd probably find myself sneaking back into the box for another one. I'm still debating whether or not I should share with the boy.

Alprose Deluxe Dark Chocolate with Hazelnut Praline.
Nothing in that description is bad. Another really super sweet chocolate. Maybe I'm just so used to a slightly bitter dark chocolate that these seem extraordinarily sweet. The hazelnut flavor definitely comes through though, and the chocolate is nice and silky smooth. I am not disappointed.

Believe it or not, I came home, tried my treats, then ate a bowl of fruit... which I guess is sort of just more sweets when you get right down to it. The moral of this story is always explore the Kosher and International sections of your supermarket. You never know what random things you might encounter.

A Birthday Dinner

Yesterday was the boy's birthday. In lieu of a big party this year, he decided a small dinner party would be preferred. We invited two couples we're friends with, and I planned a lovely vegetarian* menu which I neglected to fully photograph. I like to try to make something fancy for dinner parties. Casseroles and stir fries are great for week nights, but if we're having people over and I actually put down a table cloth, I want something a little dressier. Last night's menu was as follows:
First Course: French Onion soup with Gruyere Croistini*
Dinner: Balsamic and herb marinated grilled portabella mushrooms and baked tofu, coconut and nutmeg mashed sweet potatoes, homemade chunky cinnamon apple sauce, rapini with red pepper flakes, garlic, lemon and pine nuts.
Dessert: Peanut butter mini cheesecakes



I didn't photograph the soup or the cheesecakes, though I have cheesecakes left over so I'm going to try to get a photo before they all end up in our bellies. Dinner was very well received and enjoyed by all :)

* ZOMG WHY NOT VEGAN!? It wasn't my birthday. I don't eat French Onion soup to begin with because of my onion sensitivity, it's the boy's favorite soup and he asked me to make it for him. Considering the rest of the guests, as well as the boy, were omnis, and the rest of the meal, including the dessert, were vegan, I had no problem making him french onion soup with cheese as a rare treat.

And unrelated to all this -- I had to turn comment moderation on due to the high influx of spam I was getting in my comments. I LOVE the comments and support so keep 'em coming, and I'll try to approve them as fast as possible! As long as you're not trying to sell me porn.

Lemon Dill Tofu

Has it really been 3 months!?

Actually, the last blog post coincided with when I started my new job. Now on top of the whole "PhD thing" I have a full time job, a part time job, and 3 hrs/wk at the co-op. Cooking has gotten interesting since I don't get home until 8pm 3 nights a week, and at that point, I don't really feel like cooking much. I've been experimenting a bunch with the crock pot and making casseroles ahead of time that the boy can put in the oven when he gets home. I need to find where I jotted down the recipes to a bunch of stuff I made up... but I did find the scrap of paper for this one, which is Lemon Dill Tofu. It is SERIOUSLY lemony, but in a good way. I served this with vegetable fritters from 500 Vegan Recipes. It's a good recipe, but instead of making 6 that all fit in one pan, like the recipe said -- it yielded more like 15 and took over an hour to cook them all. I wonder how big of a pan the author was using... Anyway, this is the recipe for my lemon dill tofu marinade. I marinated my tofu overnight, then baked it, and it was good.



Lemon Dill Tofu Marinade
1 tsp lemon zest
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp tamari
1 clove garlic, grated or pressed
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill
1 tbsp olive oil.

Mix all the ingredients together and use to marinate 1 lbs of tofu.

Carrot Ginger Soup

The first time I made carrot ginger soup was a few years back and I had a dreadful head cold, and for whatever reason, C-G soup sounded fantastic. I'd never had it before, but something about a creamy soup with a lot of ginger just seemed the right thing, and it totally was, and was absolutely delicious. Then I moved in with The Boy who was decidedly anti-ginger and I didn't make it again, but the thought was creeping more and more into my head as the weather got cooler here. Last month I was invited to a potluck and I thought that would be the perfect chance to make it again, without subjecting The Boy to the soup. Well turns out he loved it. He tasted it when I was done making it and wanted more. I had some leftover after the potluck and he ate it all. The carrot ginger floodgates are now open and I can make it as often as I please!!

Most recently, I made it for my mom and sister when they came up to visit. This is a soup I didn't have a recipe for that I liked, so I just sort of winged it, and wrote it down as best I could as I went along. Everyone who's eaten it so far has loved it. It's great plain or with a little bit of chopped fresh dill sprinkled on the top. I recommend using organic carrots for this recipe because carrots are really excellent at soaking up toxins in soil. It's one of the few veggies I spend the extra money on and buy organic, though they really still aren't a horrible financial burden. Another new thing for me -- freshly grated nutmeg. For years I went "yea yea sure fine" and used the preground. Recently I bought a few whole nutmegs to try, figuring I had the microplane now, might as well since I like seeing what that'll grate up and WOW what a difference! It's almost like a different spice. Definitely give it a go if you can.

Carrot Ginger Soup
2 ribs of celery, roughly chopped
2 small shallots, roughly chopped
2 tbsp vegan margarine
2 lbs carrots, peeled and cut into coins (or! Shortcut! 2 lbs of baby cut carrots)
5 cups vegetable broth (or, 4 cups + 1 cup of water if you buy it by the quart)
3 inch piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 cup mimicreme (vegan nut-based heavy cream - though an unsweetened plain soy, rice, almond, whatevermilk would also work fine)

1. Melt the margarine in a large soup pot and sautee the shallots and celery until it begins to get tender.

2. Add the carrots, broth, ginger, and spices and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for about 30 minutes or until the carrots are super soft (this will depend on how small you cut them).

3. Take the soup off the heat and either puree it in the pot with an immersion blender (easier choice) or puree it in batches in a blender (making sure to allow for steam to escape or your blender top with blow off) until it's perfectly smooth.

4. Return the soup to the pot if you took it out, and add the maple syrup and milk. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with fresh dill, if desired.

Shown with a sprinkling of Dill