Thai Green Curry

We make this recipe often enough that I thought I would finally post it! My husband and I both love Thai curry. There is a great vegan restaurant here that makes four different types of Thai curry and they are all fantastic. We rarely eat out, though, so I learned how to make it myself.

1 package pressed tofu
2 14 oz cans coconut milk
4 T. green curry paste
2 T. brown sugar
2 T. soy sauce
1 T. lime juice
2-4 Thai chilies, chopped
2 heads broccoli
1 small can chopped pineapple
fresh basil, chopped, to taste
Rice

1. Cook rice.
2. Cut tofu into bite sized cubes. Fry in a pan using just a touch of spray oil.
3. In a large saucepan, combine coconut milk, curry paste, brown sugar, soy sauce, lime juice, and chilies. Bring sauce to a simmer. Add chopped broccoli. Cook for six minutes. Take the saucepan off the burner. Add chopped pineapple. Stir.
4. In a bowl, combine rice, tofu, and sauce. Sprinkle with fresh basil.
5. Eat!

This makes enough for four people. We eat half for dinner and half the following day. We store the rice and tofu in one container and the sauce in a separate container. This way, when I reheat the curry, it retains some of its sauce-ness instead of the curry being a thick glob.

Now that we've perfected the green curry recipe, I need to learn how to make red curry!

Thai Green Curry

Now that I've cooked this recipe several times, I thought it'd be a good idea to type it out and share it. My husband and I absolutely love green curry. I make this dish once every two weeks or so and it lasts for several meals. It even reheats well if you store the sauce separately from the rice and tofu!

Rice
1 package extra firm tofu, drained and pressed
2 14 oz cans coconut milk
4 T. green curry paste
2 T. brown sugar
2 T. soy sauce
1/4 t. salt, if needed
fresh lime juice, to taste
1 serrano pepper, seeded and diced
Favorite vegetables
fresh basil, to taste

Cook rice.
Sauté diced tofu in a frying pan.
While the tofu is cooking, combine coconut milk, green curry paste, brown sugar, soy sauce, and salt in a saucepan. Taste and add salt or a touch more of any of the sauce ingredients, if desired. Add lime juice.
Stir in chopped vegetables and serrano pepper. Simmer until vegetables are cooked (6-8 minutes).
Dish up rice in a bowl. Add tofu and sauce. Sprinkle with fresh basil.

Notes:
I use Japanese white rice, the same type of rice that's used in sushi.
We like 1 tablespoon of lime juice, sometimes more if the lime isn't very strong.
My favorite vegetables for green curry are broccoli, onion, bell pepper, and canned pineapple.
私たちは食べましょう！ Let's eat!

Pizza night!

Saturday night is traditionally pizza and a movie night. We've been trying various pizza sauce recipes that people were kind enough to leave on my fabric giveaway post. We found the perfect sauce!

Pizza before baking
1 T. olive oil
3/4 cup onion
4-5 garlic cloves
1 1/2 cups tomatoes (from a jar, NOT a can)
3/4 t. oregano
1/8 t. salt

1. Heat up the olive oil in a skillet.
2. Add onion. Cook until almost translucent.
3. Add garlic. Cook until lightly browned.
4. Add tomatoes, oregano, and salt.
5. Simmer until the sauce has thickened.

Baked pizza
Tonight's pizza has mushrooms, fresh basil, and Daiya "cheese" on top. It was really, really good.

The movie? Not as good. We watched The Day After Tomorrow as my husband hadn't seen it. In his opinion, and mine, 2012 was much better.

Menu Plan Monday - back in the saddle!

It has been ages since I've written up a menu plan and even longer since I've posted one. This week we're trying three new recipes, all linked below.

Sunday
Brunch – Oat Waffles
Dinner – Green Bean Casserole, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Roasted Mushrooms, Riblets

Monday
Breakfast – Green Smoothies
Lunch – Leftovers
Dinner – Pizza, Broccoli

Tuesday
Breakfast – Green Smoothies
Lunch – Tomato and Avocado Sandwiches, Spanish Yellow Rice
Dinner – Breakfast Burritos

Wednesday
Breakfast – Green Smoothies
Lunch – Salad, Hearty Vegetarian Chili
Dinner – Pasta, Broccoli, and Garlic Bread

Thursday
Breakfast – Green Smoothies
Lunch – Brussels Sprouts and Shiitake Mushroom Soup, Cornbread
Dinner – Sushi, Gyoza, Curry Udon

Friday
Breakfast – Green Smoothies
Lunch – Tomato and Avocado Sandwiches
Dinner – Tamale Pie (Newstart cookbook)

Sabbath
Breakfast – Green Smoothies
Lunch – Leftovers
Dinner – Pizza!

Last night I made roasted mushrooms for the first time. Yum! I wish I had thought to take a picture. I found the recipe on a package of Bella mushrooms. The recipe sounded good so we decided to try it. I couldn't find the fresh herbs needed, so I used dried. Because I changed the recipe (therefore not violating copyright), I'm going to post it here for anyone else who wants to try them.

Roasted Mushrooms

8 oz package of bella mushrooms, mushrooms cut in half
2 Tbls olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp dried rosemary

Preheat oven to 475 degrees.
Mix all ingredients.
Spread on a baking sheet.
Bake for 15 minutes, stirring once after 7.5 minutes.
Enjoy!

Green Smoothie - Banana/Raspberry/Spinach

I just had an awesome green smoothie. They are really simple to make.

2 bananas
6 ounces raspberries, frozen
Generous handful of spinach
Splash of water

Blend. Eat.

I wish I could have taken a picture because it was really pretty. Alas, my rechargeable camera batteries are all old and won't recharge.

Falafel

This afternoon I made falafel with sesame sauce. I picked this dish because my hubby treated me to the Persian Garden Cafe several weeks ago and I ate an amazing falafel. I tried to replicate their dish but it wasn't the same. I think I've discovered I don't like parsley... I'll look for another falafel recipe.

I also found a great bread recipe in the Newstart cookbook. When I make bread tomorrow morning, I'm going to try sprinkling sesame seeds on top. Store bought bread has all these different seeds and grains baked into the loaf but I only know how to make plain whole wheat bread. I figured sesame seeds was a good place to start for experimentation.

That is the extent of my recent recipe adventures. I desperately need to test some new vegan recipes. We get very bored with our current eating options and this leads to dairy cravings. Mmmmmm... Pasta salad with ranch dressing and sharp Tillamook cheese.

Tortilla Soup

I love tortilla soup. I browsed several recipe sites and found a recipe I could adapt to our dietary needs (vegan, low sodium, low fat). 

Ingredients
1 large onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
16 oz fresh salsa
64 oz vegetable broth
2 cans black beans
2 cups corn
1 avocado, diced
Fresh cilantro
Blue corn chips, broken up

Directions
1. Sauté the onion, garlic, and bell pepper in a bit of juice from the salsa.
2. In a large pot, add cooked onion, garlic, and bell pepper mixture. Add salsa, vegetable broth, black beans, and corn.
3. Bring soup to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. Turn heat down to low and simmer for one hour.
4. Ladle soup into individual bowls and top with avocado, cilantro, and blue corn chips.

This soup stored well overnight.

Recipes - Almond Butter Stir Fry and Ramen

I perfected my ramen recipe! It's quite simple.

Ingredients
Noodles (we use something similar to soba noodles, as they aren't deep fried like ramen noodles and thus way lower in fat)
1/2 tomato, diced
1 green onion, sliced
1 T. soy sauce
1 T. lemon juice
1/2 T. Sriracha chili sauce (or something similar)

Directions
1. Boil water. Add noodles, tomato, and green onion. Cook for three minutes.
2. While the noodles are cooking, mix soy sauce, lemon juice, and hot sauce in your bowl.
3. Add noodles and boiling water to bowl. Mix. Eat.




We also wanted to try a new stir-fry recipe. We visited Sprouts and picked out all of our fresh veggies. Then I looked around the internet and put together a list of ingredients for a sauce.

Ingredients
1 pint mushrooms
Big handful of fresh green beans
3 bell peppers (we used red and yellow)
Soba noodles

Sauce-
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 T. almond butter
Dash crushed red pepper
1 garlic clove, minced

Directions
1. Add 1/2 cup of water to the bottom of the wok. When boiling, add vegetables and cover.
2. Cook soba noodles on the stove according to package directions.
3. In a small pot, mix water, soy sauce, almond butter, crushed red pepper, and garlic. Heat on low until almond butter is melted.
4. When vegetables are cooked, add noodles and sauce to the wok. Stir until heated.
5. Serve and eat. Yum!

Small healthy changes

Every day, I try to find some small way to improve our diet or to get some exercise. Several weeks ago, I found a way to cook onions without frying them. Today, I wanted to see if I could cook mushrooms the same way. I tossed a slice of mushroom into the pan with my onions and cooked like normal. After the onions were cooked, I bit into my mushroom. Success! I think the mushroom tasted as good, if not better, than when I fry them.

Earlier this week, I made pumpkin oatmeal to finish off my first fresh pumpkin. It turned out well, though I need to use less allspice and nutmeg next time. I'm guessing the recipe only needs 1/4 tsp of each.

Vegan Pumpkin Oatmeal

3 servings of oatmeal
1/2 c. + 2 T. fresh pumpkin, cooked and blended (because that's what I had left)
2 T. brown sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. allspice
1/2 t. nutmeg

1. Cook oatmeal according to directions.

2. Add pumpkin and spices. Stir.

3. Eat.

Vegan Pumpkin Pie

There is no phrase to describe how I've felt about my latest kitchen adventures other than "tickled pink." Over the last two days, every time I step into the kitchen, I have been absolutely tickled pink. I tried something new and it was successful!

We found painted pie pumpkins on clearance the day after Halloween. I bought two. On Wednesday, I decided it was time to see if I could cook a pumpkin correctly.

First I cut my pumpkin in half and scooped out all the seeds. I felt like I was a kid again, playing in the slimy seeds and innards of a pumpkin. Picking out all the seeds by hand was easy. Then I started the more difficult process of scraping out all of the membrane.

I put the pumpkin halves face down in a baking pan and added 1/2 inch of water. Then I baked the pumpkin at 450 degrees for 45 minutes.

Here's what it looked like after being baked:


After it cooled off a bit, I scraped it out of the shell, which was a very simple matter of peeling off the shell:


I threw the cooked pumpkin in the food processor:


I ran out of time to make pumpkin pie so I refrigerated the pumpkin overnight. Yesterday morning, I started making pie (this is my own recipe).

Vegan Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients
2 c. pumpkin, cooked and blended
3/4 c. sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
1/4 t. cloves
1/2 t. nutmeg
12 oz. tofu, drained and blended

Directions
1. Cream the pumpkin and sugar together.

2. Add spices and tofu.

3. Cook at 425 degrees for 15 minutes and then 350 degrees for 40 minutes.


Next time I'm going to increase the cinnamon and possibly the nutmeg. The pie turned out really well but tasted like it needed a bit more spice. I just need to learn to make pie crusts and then the whole pie will be homemade!

Branching out, trying something new

One of my goals is to try new things, whether it be experiences, food, or styles. I am a very conservative person and have not experienced much because I've always been afraid to try something different. This is true in my diet, my music, my hobbies, and even my interactions with other people.

An easy way for me to branch out without too much risk is our food. Our menus are very limited and we get bored eating the same things day after day. My culinary repertoire is mostly Mexican and Italian dishes. I thought it would be fun to attempt apple butter today.

First I peeled the apples and quartered them. All the apples went into the Crock Pot with some vanilla. Then it cooked for eight hours.



After three hours, my apples were already starting to liquefy.



After eight hours of cooking, I added cinnamon, cloves, brown sugar, and white sugar. I stirred it all up and then let it cook for another two hours. The final product in my lovely recycled Classico jars:


I haven't tried it yet. I was waiting for it to cool off and now I'm ready to eat a piece of homemade Amish bread with my homemade apple butter. I hope it turned out well!

I used this recipe for inspiration. I halved the recipe and didn't cook it as long as the recipe called for because the apple butter was starting to turn dark brown and stick to the sides of the Crock Pot. Hopefully I made the right decision to end the cooking early. If not, I'll just have to try again with a full recipe.

Kitchen doings

What a great success. For the first time since we were given it a year ago, I opened the box and used my new Crock Pot. I filled a pot with water and soaked black beans overnight. This morning, I rinsed the beans, pulled out a couple bad ones, and covered them with water in the Crock Pot. I cooked them for eight hours and they tasted really good! 

I wasn't sure how to long to cook the beans or how much water to use, so I searched the internet and found A Year of Slowcooking's recipe for cooking dried beans. What a great website! I'm drooling over a few of the recipes and have already determined to make apple butter this weekend if I can find a deal on apples.

I also made homemade tortillas and rice. We really wanted to make enchiladas but the tortillas are too small for me to roll and then bake. Instead, we filled them with black beans and rice (plus sour cream for me) and then poured hot enchilada sauce over the top. We ended up eating them with a fork. If I can wean myself off the sour cream (or switch to vegan sour cream) and find a homemade enchilada sauce recipe, we'll have ourselves a very healthy meal! 

Between the black beans, tortilla shells, and amish bread baked this morning, I had a very productive day in the kitchen! 

Work, work, and ... cookies

Today has been all about work. I had intentions of getting my ironing caught up but ended up with five hours of contract work instead. Praise the Lord! I'm hoping for another great paycheck this month.

I baked peanut butter cookies this afternoon, though I'm not sure I want to recommend the recipe. I didn't realize until I started mixing the ingredients just how fattening this particular recipe is! All that margarine, sugar, and peanut butter. I don't even want to know the fat and calorie content of a single cookie. I haven't tried the cookies yet; I'm waiting until hubby returns home from work before tasting them.

Speaking of cookies, this is the first recipe that I've managed to bake as many cookies as the recipe claims it yields. Usually, a recipe says it will bake 24 cookies but I'm lucky if I end up with 18. I guess I make each cookie too big, though it seems like they are normal sized. Oh well!

Vegan Pumpkin Pancakes

I found and adapted a great recipe for pumpkin pancakes. It's almost the season for pumpkin but I was impatient and couldn't wait until October.

Ingredients

2 cups flour
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups soy milk (will probably work with rice milk)
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/2 cup applesauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix the soy milk, pumpkin, applesauce, oil, and vanilla until smooth.

2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and salt.

3. Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin and stir well. Batter will be very thick; do not thin with additional milk.

4. Let the bowl sit for 5 minutes. Do not stir.

5. Spray a frying pan with olive oil and heat to medium low. Use almost 1/2 cup batter for each pancake. Spread batter on pan with a spoon, but don't spread too thin.

6. Cook both sides until brown and serve.

Keeper recipe

I made the Vegan Soba and Mushroom Soup last night. It was really good! I was a little bit worried because there are only four ingredients but it was really tasty.

I'm going to need to play with the recipe a bit. The recipe didn't specify how much noodles to include and I put in way too many. The dish ended up being pasta instead of soup. Next time, I'm going to decrease the noodles slightly, add an entire package of mushrooms instead of half, and use two cans of vegetable broth. The amount of tofu was fine. I also think it needed some green veggies, either spinach or broccoli.

We'll be making this again!

Links

I want to share some great links I've been saving. My open tabs (67 of them!) are spiraling out of control and my browser is crawling. I tried to upload a picture of my crazy tabs but everything runs together in a giant blob.

The Ugly-Beautiful Story - I love this story. "Because, somewhere, underneath the grime of this broken world, everything has the radiant fingerprints of God on it. With Jesus eyes, we have the astonishing opportunity to daily love the unlovely into loveliness." I want to love like Jesus does. I want to see the fingerprints of God on every human being. If I could learn to love like God does, if everyone could learn to truly love, this world would be beautiful.

Dark Waters - An encouraging post about persevering life's trials.

Free mini-workouts - These mini workouts with Jillian Michaels are sure to be good. I probably shouldn't be posting links to workouts I haven't yet tried, but Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred DVD is fantastic.

66 All-Natural Cleaning Solutions - One of my goals this year is to switch over to natural cleaning. I despise the chemicals in commercial cleaning solutions. As we finish each of our current cleaning products, I'm going to switch over to more natural solutions.

Refried Beans recipe - I tested and discarded four recipes before finding this one. The beans were actually the consistency of refried beans, though they tasted a bit different that store bought (I actually like canned refried beans). Now that I have the consistency down, I need to find the right balance of spices to make them taste good!

Homemade tortillas

Back to the homemaking topics... ;)

Hubby and I have been on again, off again vegans for our entire marriage. One of these days, we'll make a permanent change in either direction. Maybe. When we eat out, we tend to eat dairy. However, I prefer to cook vegan foods at home.

I found an awesome vegan blog. I've browsed through some of the recipes and found a few I'd like to try. The tortillas were a huge hit. It took me awhile to figure out how to make them round, but they are tasty!

Next on the list are the Vegan Patties. I have yet to try my own patties but these sound delicious.

When hubby or I get a job (whichever comes first), we're going to be eating like kings. We've had such simple, cheap food for the past three months, we're ready for some more complex (IE more expensive) dishes! I think our orange chicken style tofu recipe will be first on the list.

New pancake recipe

Seeing how we're out of applesauce, I had to find a new pancake recipe for breakfast this morning. These are a far cry from healthy, but they turned out really fluffy and tasty. I wonder if part of the white flour could be substituted for wheat.

2 1/2 c. all purpose flour
2 T. sugar
2 T. baking powder
1 T. olive oil
1 t. salt
2 1/2 c. rice milk

Carefully mix all ingredients in a large bowl (batter should be lumpy); let rise for 10 minutes. Gently fold down and then let rise for another 10 minutes. Gently stir the batter one last time and then cook 1/2 cup batter on an oiled skillet at medium heat. Immediately after pouring the batter in the skillet, gently break apart any flour clumps.

I thought for sure that my pancakes would come out with flour chunks, but they didn't. Yum!

Baking day

Today was all about baking. Well, mostly. I baked two loaves of Amish White Bread and one loaf of banana bread. I was going to make two loaves of banana bread, but then I realized that the recipe called for three bananas per loaf instead of two and I only had four total.

I really like my banana bread recipe. It's very simple and pretty healthy in that it's dairy free and low fat.

3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup white flour
1 cup wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup shredded coconut (optional)

Mix bananas and applesauce together. Fold in dry ingredients. Add walnuts and coconut. Bake in greased pan for 50 minutes at 350 degrees.

The only disappointment today was that I realized two of my bread pans are rusted. I had to throw them out. I'm not sure how safe rust is, but I really didn't feel like eating it. During the week, I usually hand wash all of my dishes. But over the weekend, I let dirty dishes pile up and then ran the dishwasher. Now my bread pans are ruined.

Pizza!

I finally combined a great vegan pizza crust and sauce. I found a great pizza sauce recipe several months ago, but didn't like any of the crust recipes I tried. Everything turned out flat, flat, flat. I wanted a thick crust.

This Thick Sicilian Crust Pizza Dough was perfect! It tastes good, rises great, and makes a big pizza. I could only eat two slices.

Combine that crust with the perfect sauce and we have a new favorite meal! The sauce is great because all the veggies are diced, sauteed, and then added into the tomato sauce. For some reason, I actually like this method better than creating a regular tomato sauce and adding sliced veggies as toppings.

Next, I'm going to test a few whole wheat pizza crust recipes and see if we can find something a bit healthier. I'm also looking for a vegan variation of this Spinach Pizza Crust.