Belated Birthday Celebration!

My dad’s birthday was Valentine’s Day but I didn’t get to celebrate with him that night. Our schedules are so conflicting! So I made a deal. I would cook him a feast in celebration! And it would be one that I could partake in as well!

I created another menu, much like I did for my Annivalentinese New Year celebration. This time the theme was Italian! I desperately wanted to use Ashley’s kale pesto recipe, so I based the whole rest of the meal off of that.

The menu went:
Throw-together salad of yummy veggies from the parents’ fridge (this was a last minute addition)
Pesto Lasagna with shitake mushrooms and artichoke hearts
Meat(less)balls topped with roasted red pepper sauce
Spearmint Chocolate Chip ice cream

Since the salad was a last minute addition and I didn’t measure, so I’ll start with the lasagna!

Influenced by the kale pesto I mentioned earlier, I created this unique lasagna. I whipped up the recipe for tofu ricotta I found over at (never home)maker and was blown away by the result. My mom couldn’t stop raving about how much she loved it (despite being a self proclaimed tofu hater) and how she could taste all the flavors in the pesto!

I altered Ashley’s pesto recipe the slightest bit, using only walnuts and reducing the nutritional yeast to 3 tablespoons. I also found that the consistency I wanted used 10 tablespoons of the cooking liquid. I followed the ricotta recipe to the letter.

Pesto Lasagna
1 batch pesto
1 batch tofu ricotta
1/2 package lasagna noodles
1 can artichoke hearts, rinsed well, diced
1 ounce dried oyster mushrooms, rehydrated, towel dried (reserving liquid) and diced
1/4 cup mushroom soaking water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large pot, boil some water for the lasagna noodles. Now, the idea to do roll ups came to me AFTER I had already broken the noodles in half and cooked them until they were extremely al dente. So if you aren’t going for the miniature lasagna look and want something really fancy, leave them whole and roll them individually instead of making it casserole style!

Anyhow once the noodles are cooked, strain, rinse and lay them out on paper towels to await their next stage. In the same pot you cooked the noodles in, heat a bit of olive oil over medium heat. Once hot, toss in mushrooms and artichoke hearts, seasoning with a pinch of salt and fresh ground pepper. Cook until the mushrooms and artichokes get a nice beginning caramelization on them and become really fragrant. Remove from heat and set aside.

Grease a 8×8 inch casserole dish with olive oil. Start with a layer of noodles and spread about 1/3 of the pesto on top. Using your hands, crumble about 1/3 of the tofu mixture on top of the pesto and cover that with 1/3 of the mushroom mixture. Repeat these layers until you’re out of either space or mixtures! Slowly pour mushroom water into the dish, being careful not to disturb your beautiful layers.

Cover the casserole dish with aluminum foil and bake 40-45 minutes. The edges will start to brown just a bit before it’s completely done!

Onto the meat(less)balls and sauce!

I was SO proud of both meat(less)balls and sauce! I roasted my own red pepper over the stovetop, even! I’ll be making this sauce again and again.. it was that scrumptious! I couldn’t stop eating it with a spoon..

Roasted Red Pepper Marinara
1 roasted red pepper, chopped
10 sun-dried tomatoes, rehydrated and chopped (reserve soaking liquid)
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 141/2 oz can diced tomatoes in sauce (unseasoned)
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon pomegranate balsalmic vinegar
pinch salt
cracked black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a large pot, cover and cook over medium/low heat for about 30 minutes or until the onions start to break down. Cool completely and refrigerate overnight. Pulse sauce in a food processor a few times to break down the sauce a bit more and stick it back in the refrigerator until you’re ready to serve. I ended up pouring mine over the meat(less)balls and baking them, uncovered, about 40-45 minutes alongside the lasagna.

Meat(less)balls
2 cups TVP
1 1/3 cup boiling water (I used the sun-dried tomato soaking water heated to boiling)
1 onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
3 teaspoons italian herb blend
2 flax eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt
freshly cracked pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. I baked these beforehand and re-baked them under the sauce since I made them ahead of time. Alternatively you could just serve these straight out of the oven and heat the sauce on the stove.

Rehydrate the TVP with the boiling water and allow it to sit for 10 minutes. Add in onion, garlic, nutritional yeast, herbs, flax eggs and olive oil. Combine well and stir in oats, wheat gluten, salt and pepper. Lightly grease a cookie sheet and form mixture into balls slightly smaller than the size of ping pong balls. Bake 20 minutes or until the balls feel firm to the touch. At this point they should be a bit brown on the bottom as well. Serve immediately or cool and store until you’re ready to dine!

My dad enjoyed his meal, too, after getting past the (understandably) strange idea of meatballs sans meat. We all had a second helping, even!

Dinner was followed by ice cream!

Sorry for the blurriness, I was too excited!

I was inspired by Koko’s Kitchen. On a whim I decided to use the dried spearmint leaves I had in my cabinet instead of the peppermint leaves, giving it a whole different flavor. It went over very well!

Spearmint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (adapted from Koko’s Kitchen)
Scant 1/4 cup dried spearmint leaves
1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup water
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown rice syrup
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1/4 cup PACKED kale, destemmed
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
pinch salt
1 ounce bittersweet vegan chocolate

Heat 1/2 cup water, spearmint leaves and brown rice syrup until the mixture boils. Lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let it sit for 10 minutes.

In a blender, puree milk, 1/3 cup water, kale, vanilla bean paste and salt. Add in spearmint syrup and puree again. Strain mixture into a large bowl and refrigerate overnight. The next day, strain the mixture again before pouring into the ice cream maker. Freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions. Just before the mixture finishes, melt the chocolate in the microwave. Pour half of the ice cream into storage container and pour half the chocolate on top of that. Mix these together until the chocolate is well mixed and starting to be.. chocolate bitty. Top with remaining ice cream and remaining chocolate, stirring again. Lid that bad boy and freeze until ready to serve.

I was very happy with how this meal came out. If you’ve got some time on your hands and are up for experimentation, give these meatballs a shot! The texture really is great for having no meat in them! Next time I think I’ll go with a hefty dose of crushed red pepper and cayenne!

Enjoy your evening! It’s off to bed with me!

Annivalentinese New Year Celebration

Happy (day after) Valentine’s Day, all! Kyle and I aren’t big Valentine’s Day people so we combined our half year anniversary, Valentine’s day and Chinese New Year into one big celebration!

Kyle hasn’t had much experience with Greek inspired cuisine, so that was his cuisine choice. I planned the menu, sent him a cute little Evite invitation, bought the ingredients and, come Sunday morning, got my booty to work on creating!

The first course was taken from Angela over at Oh She Glows. I saw her post for Garbanzo Bean Soup and knew it would make the perfect first course for this meal! The only change I made to the recipe was to substitute some sesame oil for some olive oil since I had no tahini in the house. This soup was mega-tasty and I will definitely make it again!

The main course. The big kahuna. This beauty was taken from the Moosewood Restaurant cookbook I checked out from the library last week. I’m not sure how the reposting thing works with cookbooks so I’ll just say: you MUST, MUST find the book and try the recipe! It’s a quinoa pilaf flavored with celery, red pepper, zucchini, basil, mint and lemon rolled up in delicious collard leaves. Oh man.. this was delicious. My favorite dish I’ve made in a while. Kyle raved about it all night!

Of course, a celebration wouldn’t be complete without something sweet to top it off. This dish wasn’t Greek inspired, but I’ve been planning it for almost a month! Themed meal or not, it was making it to the table! I based my recipe on one I found over at Baking Bites. I subbed in 1/3 cup brown rice syrup for sugar and used SO Delicious unsweetened coconut milk. To top off the delicious ice cream, I decided to make some dark raw chocolate. 2 tablespoons dark cocoa powder, 1 tablespoon brown rice syrup and 1 tablespoon coconut milk mixed until uniform, rolled between wax paper and frozen makes a yummy bittersweet addition! It was a little soft for my liking, so next time maybe I’ll use something other than brown rice syrup to sweeten. The flavors, though.. spot on!

Served up in my "vintage" Garfield mugs!

All in all I would say the menu:

Quite a hit!

I hope your celebrations were filled with fun, good food and love!

Hot Enough to Melt Cheese

It is mind numbingly hot here. Now I’m not talking about outside; I’m talking about inside this very apartment. I mean, you know its hot when you’re standing there washing dishes with sweat pouring down your face. No more attics converted into apartments for me!

Over the weekend I had a family reunion for my Grandma’s side of the family. Our color was yellow – my favorite! It was a ton of fun to hang out with my family to eat, drink and be merry!

Kyle and I with Grams

Uncle Johnny and I

My 5-year-old cousin recently discovered Kool Aid’s new Fun Fizz drink tablets… he must have had 6 or 7 little bottles of them. He even shared! I have one in my purse right now!

After the reunion, my cousin Steve invited us over to his house to hang with he and his awesome girlfriend, Stephanie!  We drank some UV Blue and Lemonade and made some homemade pizzas!  We chopped up artichoke hearts, scallions, sun-dried tomatoes and added some browned italian sausage along with some garlic powder, pepperoncini and hot giardiniera.

Choppin' up the veggies!

We were really excited to eat it!

Stephanie with the first pizza!

Steve waiting patiently..

Yum, yum!

It was delicious!!  Mmm… pizza. Mmm… cheese. It’s so hot in here I think I could melt cheese on the counter.

Hey speaking of cheese, I threw together this awesome pasta dish tonight on a whim!  It was pretty tasty!

Mmm.. alfredoey!

It’s not going to cure that craving for homemade pizza I know you have now, but it will bring back the delicious taste of fettucini alfredo from your childhood!  And on a more figure friendly scale!  ;)  Enjoy!

Asiago Onion Pasta
2 ounces pasta (I used GF corn pasta I bought ages ago)
1/4 cup plain greek yogurt
2 ounces asiago cheese, grated
1/4 vidalia onion, diced
Fresh basil to taste
Salt, garlic powder and pepper to taste

Cook pasta until al dente in salted water. While the pasta is cooking, sautee the onions in a small, dry pan until they just start to brown. In a separate bowl, mix together yogurt, cheese, basil and spices; set aside. Drain noodles but do not rinse. You want the noodles hot so they’ll melt the cheese! Return the noodles to the hot pot. Pour yogurt mixture over the noodles and the onions on top of that. Mix well with a wooden spoon, garnish with crushed red pepper and serve!

Basilicious

Mmm… summer. One of the best things about summer is the availability of all the fantastic fresh herbs everyone seems to grow! Amanda’s parents have mint in their yard, Annie’s parents have jalapenos (ok not really an herb but delicious all the same) and someone happened to bring in some freshly picked basil to Annie the other day. Thankfully she was willing to share!

Inspired by this awesome surprise and the tofu gnocchi I had already tried from Peas and Thank You, I decided to whip up a batch of what I like to call Black Bean and Basil Dumplings. I was much too lazy to wait for the dough to get cold enough to roll into snakesand cut into tiny pieces. I was just patient enough to let the dough cool its heels in the freezer for about 20 minutes. They were just hard enough to stand up to boiling by then, so I just kinda rolled them into rustic balls and squashed them a bit.

I boiled them in a pot of slightly salted water and covered them with a Cucumber Basil Pesto-type sauce. They came out pretty damn tasty! And they were mega satisfying! I will definitely be making these again and trying out different types of beans.

Kyle just brought me Cranberry Beans. He also restocked my adzuki beans supply. Maybe I can do an adzuki bean gnocci with a Japanese flavored pesto… we’ll see where the summer winds blow me!

Black Bean and Basil Dumplings
1/2 cup black beans
1/3 cup cannellini beans
1 large clove garlic
1/2 large jalapeno, seeded
1/3 cup fresh basil
1 egg
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour (you could use a different flour here)
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon water
Salt and Pepper, to taste

In a food processor, combine beans, garlic, jalapeno, basil and egg until well combined. Add in flours and give it a whirl again. Add vinegar, water, salt and pepper and process until a dough begins to form. Transfer into a container and place in the freezer for at least 20 minutes or until firm enough to handle.

Break apart pieces of dough, rolling them lightly in flour until you form a bunch of tiny dumplings, or large dumplings if you prefer. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add salt, then place about 1/3 of the dumplings in at a time, boiling until they float for 2 minutes. Serve plain, with a sauce or even just melted butter!

I opted to serve these with a delicious “pesto” I made. In it was:
- a whole cucumber
- half a jalapeno, seeded
- 2 ounces asiago cheese
- 1/4 cup toasted walnuts
- a dash of lemon pepper
- a palm full of basil leaves
- 2 tablespoons olive oil

Mmm… YUM!