Cumin Lentil Stir-Up

I wanted to make something with lentils, indianish, but not so spicy. I took some veggies and spices, and mixed them up. It ended up being super delicious (then again, I do love potatoes). Once I upload it, I'll add a photo.

Start a pot of water boiling with about 1 - 1 & 1/2 Cups lentils (brown, but other types would probably work too) and get these cooking.

Peel 2 potatoes, medium sized (one would probably work just as well, but I love potatoes), cut these into cubes
Cut up some cauliflower into chunks
About a cup of cut up cabbage
1/2 cup diced onions

Start these frying in some olive oil in a frying pan. Make sure you put a lid on it so that it can steam and cook. Stir occasionally Once the lentils are done, mix them in with the rest. Then add the following spices:

2 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp crushed red pepper (add more if you like spiciness)
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tbsp salt (then salt to taste)

Mix it well, it should be a slight yellow color from the turmeric. Add a little more olive oil, to help all the flavors mix. Finish frying it up, and serve.

Sorry about lack of posting

Sorry that there's been no cooking posts for a while, I have good excuses! I've been preparing for/traveling to China/Japan for the past 3 weeks and then trying to get back into the swing of things here. Also, I got engaged in Tokyo with my boyfriend of 2 1/2 years. Now I have a wedding to plan, so maybe there will be some posts about trying to find vegan/vegetarian catering. Also, I'll try to post something about eating vegetarian abroad. I'm also trying to change career paths (nursing to translation), which has been stressful/ time consuming in research. But I do have a vegan baking to do on Wednesday, so I'll need to tests some recipes for that. I'm thinking either nut brittle or fudge (with marshmallows!). Until later!

Homemade powder sugar frosting

This goes with the Chocolate cake. I've never really tried to write down the recipe, but this is what I did last time at my Vegan cooking demonstration. It was nice and thick and complimented the cake really well.

3cups Powdered sugar
1 1/2 tbsp vanilla
1 1/2 tbsp Earth Balance butter
4-5 tbsp soymilk

Mix well. You want it to be somewhat thick, with a whipped look. At first it will look like theres too much powdered sugar, but keep stirring and it will work. If its truly too thick for your tastes, add 1/2 tbsp of soymilk at a time and stir well.
The powdered sugar covers the soymilk well, nobody could tell it was soy.
Try to frost the cake while it is still a little warm, because it melts the frosting a little and soaks it into the top layer of the cake.

Crazy Cake

My boyfriend found this recipe on google reader. I guess its an old recipe from the depression. Its a perfect vegan recipe, because it naturally doesn't use milk and eggs. It was too expensive or scarce during the depression. I think it will be great to cook at one of my work classes.

3 cups flour
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tbsp distilled white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups cold water

Oven temp: 350F

Stir together the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cocoa together and put in a 12 X 15 inch (or bigger) ungreased cake pan. The original recipe called for a 9X13 inch cake pan, but when I did this at work yesterday, they only had much bigger cake pans. I thought there wouldn't be enough batter and that the cake would be to thin, but it turned out the perfect height and the cake-frosting ratio was excellent. So try to use a larger pan, if you have one.
Make 3 wells. Put the oil in one, vinegar in the second, and the vanilla into the third.
Pour cold water over all, and stir it all together with a fork.
Cook for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick/knife comes out clean.
Frost with your favorite icing.

Next time I'll share my home made icing that I created myself.

Spicy Chinese Stir Fry

I'm watching a documentary about the "Obesity Epidemic" which is really interesting, but also very sad. Its called "Killer at Large: Why Obesity is America's Greatest Threat" and is on instant streaming on Netflix if anyone is interesting. So in honor of that, and inspired by a great meal in china town (Szechuan Crispy Tofu: Coming soon to Vegan Tasties), I got a new bottle of Thai chili sauce and experimented in making a good stirfry sauce. This would be a good meatless meal for Friday if you practice lent.



Start by putting on a serving or two of rice (or more if you want to save leftovers for later in the week). I think its usually a cup water for every half cup rice. Brown rice is a lot healthier, but if you want a more stereotypical Chinese style meal, you can go with white rice.

While this is cooking, cube up some tofu and dry it a little (my picture doesn't have this because I was lazy, but it adds some good protein). Cut up some veggies you enjoy. I had on hand broccoli and red peppers. You could do peapods, onions, peas, lima beans, corn, carrots, cabbage, ect.

Once the rice is done, put it in a frying pan and add the veggies and tofu.

Add:
2tsp Szechuan Marinade
2tsp soy sauce
1tsp sesame seed oil
1tsp ground ginger
2 cloves crushed garlic
1/2 teaspoon sake or white rice vineager

Mix well and cook for another minute or two. Top with sesame seeds.

Layered Baked Pasta

Sometimes I'm really in the mood for some Italian food. However, traditionally its loaded with cheese, and sometimes meat too. So I decided to combine the stuffed mushroom filling with the layered pasta idea of lasagna to give it a nice filling.

Take the recipe from "Delicious stuffed Mushrooms" for the Mushroom filling, and tweak it a little.
http://vegantasties.blogspot.com/2010/01/delicious-stuffed-mushrooms.html


1 cup Mushrooms, chopped (something like portabello or button mushrooms, but I'm sure other kinds would work too)
1 cup red onion, chopped
2 or 3 cloves garlic, diced or crushed
1/3 cup red peppers, diced
1 cup bread crumbs (or crumbled toast works too in a pinch, as we discovered)
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried basil
2 tsp oregano

Optional:
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp crushed red peppers (If you're not expecting this to be spicy, leave this one out. I thought the chili powder was good, because mine isn't terribly spicy. The crushed red peppers do add some heat though)

Before you start chopping the ingredients, start a pan of water to boil and start cooking 1 lb of pasta. There might be a little extra, but you can just put this in a tupperware with a little red sauce and have lunch for later.

Chop your ingredients, and then cook them much the same way as you would for the stuffed mushrooms.
Put the mushrooms, onions, garlic, and peppers in a skillet with the olive oil, for about 5 minutes.
Add salt, spices, and bread crumbs, then cook for another 5, stirring well.

Once both pasta and stuffing are done, take out a large baking pan (like a rectangular cake pan). Take your favorite pasta sauce (or make your own) and some spinach, and begin layering.
Layer it pasta, stuffing, sauce, spinach, pasta, stuffing, sauce, spinach, ect, until it reaches the top of the pan. The top two layers should be pasta and stuffing. Put in the oven at 375 for 40-45 minutes.

Ecuadoran Quinoa Soup

This is a traditional soup of Ecuador. Quinoa is an awesome seed (although it looks like a grain) from South America, high in protein and iron, and other good nutrients. This soup was warm and tasty, with an interesting flavor of spices, just perfect for a cold night.

Heat one tablespoon olive oil in a large saucepan (medium heat)
Add 1/2 cup chopped green or yellow onion, 3 garlic cloves (chopped or crushed)
Add 1/2 teaspoon cumin, paprika, and oregano.
Let cook for 5 minutes, until onions are soft and fragrant
Add 1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed and soaked.
Add 5 1/2 cups vegetable broth.
Add 1 tsp salt
Peel and add 1/2 pound of baking potatoes (I used about 5 small-medium sized ones)
Chop and add 1 cup cabbage or leafy green such as collards, mustard, ect (I ran out of room in my pot for this, but I was really wishing I had had room for some cabbage)

Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and cook on low for 20 minutes (make sure the potatoes are cooked all the way through).

Optional - if you like cilantro, you can add 1 Tbsp chopped at the end.

I was in Ecuador a few years ago and one of the girls I was with was vegan. We were all surprised by how many of their recipes were naturally vegan. We all cooked together every night, and it was a great experience. To this day, I still add broccoli to my spaghetti sauce (its really good, and adds lots of vitamins). Maybe someday I can find the lentil dish we made there, it was so good.

Here's where I got the original recipe:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200211/kummer