Winter Vegetable and Pasta Bake

This recipe is from the cookbook One-Dish Vegan by Robin Robertson.

 

Recipe: see pages 191 of One-Dish Vegan.

I think the Brussels sprouts kind of wrecked this for me. I am a huge fan of them, but they seemed a little undercooked here and didn't really fit with the sweetness of the butternut, red onion and tomato.

Ingredients: red onion, butternut squash, Brussels sprouts, penne pasta, white beans, canned fire-roasted diced tomatoes, liquid smoke, fresh sage, smoked paprika, vegetable broth, bread crumbs, salt, black pepper.

Sesame Soba with Tofu and Broccoli

This recipe is from the cookbook One-Dish Vegan by Robin Robertson.

Recipe: see pages 148 of One-Dish Vegan.

This is a tasty vegan recipe that can be prepared quickly. The sauce is creamy from the tahini and spicy from the Sriracha. I deviated a little bit from the instructions and cooked the soba noodles separate from the broccoli, which I steamed. The first time I made this the broccoli completely fell apart by the time it made it to the table. I like it a little crunchy, and boiling makes it soft and waterlogged.

Ingredients: extra firm tofu, buckwheat soba noodles, broccoli florets, dark sesame oil, soy sauce, vegetable oil, garlic, ginger, tahini, mellow white miso paste, Sriracha, vegetable broth, sesame seeds.

Tofu Ricotta

This recipe is from the cookbook Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.

Recipe: see page 206 of Veganomicon.

I've already made this recipe for Tofu Ricotta for this blog before, but couldn't pass up doing it again when I found some vegan manicotti at the Viva la Vegan grocery store in Rancho Cucamonga (southern California). It's a great little store for finding interesting things I never knew existed. They had things like Tofurky pizzas (Tofurky makes pizza?), and the new 'Beyond Meat' which I have been reading about in the news for the last 2 years and is supposed to be a hyper-realistic animal-free faux meat. I keep reading stories about it, but have never seen it, and they had it.

So, they had vegan manicotti, which is something I don't think I've ever seen. It's been difficult for me to find mostly because those big pieces of pasta, like manicotti, lasagna and the big shells, tend to be made with egg. But maybe I wasn't looking hard enough, because this was DaVinci brand pasta, which is fairly common in this area.

I assumed there had to be at least one recipe on my shelf of vegan cookbooks for manicotti, but surprisingly there wasn't. Then I remembered this recipe for vegan ricotta in Veganomicon. It's very fast to put together, especially if you have extra firm tofu with a low water content. Some brands of tofu are firmer than others, even though they may call themselves extra-firm. You have to press it to squeeze out the excess water, and that might take a couple hours, but after that it's a 2-minute recipe.

It's been many years since I've had animal-based ricotta, but it seems to closely imitate that. As I remember it, ricotta never had much of a taste anyway. It got it's flavor from what you put into it, and that is the case here as well. I like this. It's a great general purpose recipe.

For the photo, I topped the manicotti with tomato sauce and a creamy cheese-style sauce made with white beans, lemon juice, nutritional yeast and tahini.

Ingredients: extra firm tofu, lemon juice, garlic, nutritional yeast, olive oil, salt, black pepper, basil.

Cauliflower Comfort Bake and Savory Herb Biscuits

This recipe is from the cookbook One-Dish Vegan by Robin Robertson.

Recipe: see pages 162 and 87 of One-Dish Vegan.

That looks like a lot of cheese in there, doesn't it? It looks like it might be cheddar and provolone and maybe some feta. Throughout the entire time I was eating this I was thinking "This looks like cheese!".... but it doesn't taste like it, and it's not cheese.

It is actually some thinly sliced butternut, potato and cauliflower. I bought a mandoline so I could easily slice these to the thinness specified. Mandolines scare me, so this recipe was a big deal. I'm afraid I'm going to slice a finger. That creeped me out just typing that last sentence. That's how much mandolines freak me out.

Anyway, the recipe is thin slices of those vegetables along with two layers of kale. A 'sauce' made of white beans, unsweetened almond milk, lemon juice and garlic powder is poured on top of the casserole, then topped with ground walnuts, salt and thyme.

The recipe called for spinach or kale, and I went with the latter because have a lot of it in my garden. I love kale, but I didn't care for it here. There was one step where it was steamed, and then it cooked in the casserole for another hour. It seems like it was overcooked, which tends to make it bitter, and not smell so good. I don't think that would have been the issue if I went with the spinach instead.

My other note with the dish is that most of the flavor is in the topping of the bean 'sauce' and walnut/thyme mixture. I found myself looking forward to every bite from the top.... and then not so much the bites from the bottom. It could have used some of that flavor layered down into the dish. Or maybe some salt sprinkled down there.

I'll definitely make this again (I also have a lot of butternut from my garden), but I'll go with the spinach and try doing an additional layer of the bean mix.

Also in the photo is vegan Savory Herb Biscuits from the cookbook. It's a standard recipe for quick biscuits, but was a little salty for my tastes.

Ingredients: (Cauliflower Comfort Bake): cauliflower, kale, russet potato, butternut squash, canned white beans, unsweetened almond milk, lemon juice, garlic powder, walnuts, olive oil, dried thyme, salt, black pepper.  (Savory Herb Biscuits): all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, dried oregano, unsweetened nondairy milk, vegetable oil.

Hoppin John with Kale

This recipe is from the cookbook One-Dish Vegan by Robin Robertson.

 Recipe: see page 60 of One-Dish Vegan.

I know a lot of you readers can't stand kale, but I love it. The traditional version of this recipe is from the southern United States and has pig parts in it. This vegan version replaces that with kale, which lends it chewiness. There is a nice variety of textures here: the chewiness of the kale and brown rice, and the creaminess of the black-eyed peas. There is a smokiness to this dish that comes from liquid smoke. The Tabasco is added at the table rather than during cooking, so you can control the amount of heat if you are sharing with someone who doesn't like spicy food.

There wasn't much prep time involved, but the rice took about a half an hour to cook.

Oh, the recipe calls for vegan sour cream on the side. There is a recipe for that in the book in case you can't find that in a store. I forgot to put that in the photo. Oh well.

Ingredients: black-eyed peas, kale, long-grain brown rice, yellow onion, olive oil, dried thyme, vegetable broth, liquid smoke, Tabasco, black pepper, salt, vegan sour cream.

World's Fair Chili

This recipe is from the cookbook One-Dish Vegan by Robin Robertson.

Recipe: see page 106 of One-Dish Vegan.

One-Dish Vegan is a new cookbook by Robin Robertson that came out last month and contains over 150 recipes advertised as being easy to make. That's very appealing to me right now, because as you can see, I haven't been posting much lately. I've been busy with work lately and have had little energy to put into meals. I mean well. I've bought parsley three times in anticipation of making a particular recipe, then watched as it slowly wilted and died in the fridge while I tried to work up the energy to crack a cookbook. So, easy recipes are good. This cookbook sounds very appealing to me right now.

The intro to the recipe says the recipe gets its name from the 1904 St Louis World's Fair, where chili was introduced to the world. This is a mildly sweet recipe. It has onion, but no garlic. The tempeh gives it a meaty texture. If you aren't a fan of tempeh, the book suggests seitan or TVP (textured vegetable protein) can also be used.

Also pictured are Daiya cheddar style cheese and Ritz crackers, which are both vegan.

Ingredients: tempeh, dark red kidney beans, yellow onion, crushed tomatoes, canned mild green chilis, cider vinegar, chili powder, sugar, dried oregano, salt, water.