Silly Easy Salty Peanut Bark

This is so silly easy, it's hardly worth posting, but it's become our go-to snack dessert, so I thought I would put it up anyway. If you like the whole salt/ sweet thing- this is for you. It's kind of like a salty, upscale Mr Goodbar.

1 c roasted, salted peanuts
1.5 c vegan chocolate chips (dark or semisweet)
sea salt

Line a 9x12 pan with wax paper. Melt chips in a double broiler and whisk until smooth. Spread peanuts out over bottom of pan on wax paper. Spoon melted chocolate over the peanuts, smoothing out with a spatula and ensuring that all nuts are covered. Grind or sprinkle sea salt liberally over the smoothed out bark (depending on your taste- but it takes a nice smattering to have it come through). Freeze or refrigerate (depending on how anxious you are to eat) until the bark is completely hardened. Break up bark into bite or bar sized bits and eat that stuff up!

Red Curry- HUZZAH!

I re-did it, and... It. Is. Perfect. (if I do say so myself). I should start by saying that I'm actually not a huge Thai curry fan. For one, I know that every spoonful has about 400 calories. Also, they're generally too coconut-milk-soupy-creamy for my taste. So, this recipe has 2 cans of coconut milk, but it ends up being the amount of a nice sauce versus a soupy curry, which is what it usually looks like when Davey orders it at restaurants.

In L.A., there is a massive proliferation of Vegan Thai restaurants. Literally it seems that every strip mall has one. Our favorites are Bulan in Silverlake (they have a second location in Hollywood), and now the brand new EA Station on Ventura in the stinking valley where we live now (and have a fantastic apartment- I'm not complaining). All of these places have the same faux meat. Though I've become accustomed to making my own marinated tempeh, tofu, seitan, etc- it is nice to buy an easy pre-made faux meat once in awhile. This Taiwanese brand, though, is not at any normal grocery or health food store. It always made me a bit nervous at restaurants to not know where the fake chicken drumsticks on wood dowels came from, but you do have to relinquish control a bit to act like a normal person and eat out. Enter a weirdo vitamin/ health food store by my house called, "Healthy Vitamin" (?!)- this place actually sells the crazy Thai fake meat that is served at restaurants here. Ergo, I can buy the veggie peppersteak that they probably use at Bulan in the Panang Curry (yay!). I do have to warn strict vegans, that this stuff lists "whey" in the ingredients, so it is not vegan. I am a bit of a crap vegan, though, and for the right product will look the other way at whey or a bit of honey buried in an ingredient list of a food that I love (I know, hypocrisy). I just look at it like this- I do my best to live in line with my beliefs 99% of the time, I think that's doing alright. Anyway, the curry would be great with tofu as well, so if you're a better vegan than me, feel free to go that route.

I do think that I utterly nailed the Panang Curry from Bulan- this is creamy, a hint spicy, the veg comes through... it was fantastic, and I'm totally making it again (and again, and again!)

Red Curry:

½ onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 green bell, chopped
1 red bell, chopped
5-7 good sized basil leaves, chiffonier sliced
1 c peas
3 carrots, coined
2 bags thai pepper steak (or one extra firm tofu to be vegan)
1-2” ginger, grated
2 cans coconut milk
½ jar red curry paste
½ t harrissa
½ c water
1 lime (juiced)
1t lemongrass (tube- fresh would be a bit more minced)
1 c rice for serving

Sautee onion and carrots until onions are near translucent. Add the bell peppers, garlic, ginger and lemongrass, and cook until they’re getting tender. Mix the paste into some of the coconut milk to dissolve and add all coconut milk and the paste/ milk mixture.

Sautee peppersteak or tofu until it’s seared a bit on the outside.

Add peppersteak or tofu, lime juice and peas to curry and veg. Taste and adjust (more paste, more lime, etc). Cook until just about done and then add the basil. Cook until basil is wilted, serve over rice.

Red Curry- BLURG!

This is why I do this blog- as a record of the hits and misses of all of these cooking trials. And yet, I f'ed up. This pic is a delicious, amazing red curry that I made from scratch months ago. It was a bit of an ordeal because I had used a chili powder that I bought at India Sweets and Spice that turned out not to be a mild chili powder blend (like the recipe needed), but full on Cayenne style powdered hot chili. So, it was almost too spicy to consume since there was like 2T of this fire pepper powder in it. We even drained it of the sauce to make it edible. So, I guess in that sense it was a bit of a fail, but it had great flavor and I was sold on the recipe (only with using the correct chili powder). Yet I did not blog about it, so I have no idea where I got the recipe! I've dug around the computer and can't find it, google searched to no avail, etc.

I wanted to make it this week, but I guess I'm starting over from square one.

Rats.

Italian Vegan Sausage Ravioli with Fresh Pasta and Mama Sauce

I have to apologize for the pic- the lighting makes the food look like hell. Which is tragic, because this is one of the best eyes-rolling-back-into-my-head meals that I've made in awhile. It was for my Valentine, so it was a bit more all-out than ... who am I kidding, I'm always cooking all out :)

So- for starts, I made the Italian Sausage from Vegan Brunch. You'll recall that her Chorizo is amazing from the same book, and this is equally so. I had actually made these before and we ate them on buns and they were kind of meh (nothing fantastically exceptional). But pairing these with the pasta sauce turns out to be the trick. Literally, Davey and I were taking sausage slices and just dunking them into the sauce ala chips and dip and it was amazing! For the ravioli filling, I minced the sausage and we just went with it alone. It would be great with cheese too, but I'm not wild about vegan cheeses, so for us, the sausage plain was great.

I then made the pasta dough. I got the recipe online HERE. It was good. I am a bit of a pasta making amateur. We did it a few times in Chicago years ago when we first got our handy Kitchenaid pasta attachments for the stand mixer, but we used egg in those days. This was a really stiff dough that was a bit hard to work with at first, but it turned out alright. It was also pretty heavy, I think that had to do with thickness, but, it was fine. I did find the most fantastic trick for ravioli making, though! I looked up how to seal them up without egg online and found a fella who did the following; you lay the dough down over a mini muffin tin loosely, push the dough down gently into the muffin cups, fill the divots with your filling, top with another dough sheet, roll over the whole thing with a rolling pin (which seals and gets bubbles out), flip the whole thing over, cut your squares out, and voila! It was so flipping easy, and such a great trick. I highly recommend that (versus laying the stuffing on top, then sealing- which I remember to be a bit of a pain).

The ravioli just gets boiled like normal and that bit is done. Meanwhile, I was simmering mama sauce all day. I'm posting my recipe below, which, like chili, gets altered depending on what's in the house. On Valentines, I used about 1/4 c of fresh herbs (oregano, sage and rosemary), then added dried thyme, oregano, marjoram and such. That was absolutely delicious, but this is too. The key, I think, is to simmer for 4+ hours and also to go with what the sauce is doing. It never seems identical to me, throughout the day, I taste and add sugar if it's too acidic, oregano and pepper if it's too bright, etc. Go with what tastes good for you. But, by all means, make that sausage with it because, holy amazing!

Mama’s Sauce

1 roma or small tomato
2 28 oz can tomato sauce
1 lil (8oz?) can tomato paste
1 small palm full (2T or so) dried basil
1 small palm full dried parsley
¾ onion
6 cloves garlic
1 ½- 2 cups veg stock
3 T dried oregano
1 T ground sage
½ t thyme
shake-a shake-a cayenne pepper
2 bay leaves
1 t sea salt
1 t ground black pepper
2-3T sugar

Sauteé onions until translucent, add garlic, sauteé a bit more, add basil (or save for the last hour- if it's fresh, I wait, but I've added dry at the start) and parsley, add 1 28 oz can of tomato sauce, paste, broth and all spices- no sugar.

Mix well, bring to a rapid simmer, turn heat down to low, simmer- stirring somewhat often for about 4-5 hours, tasting and adjusting every hour or so. Add sugar if it’s too acidic. Blend with an immersion blender, add 28 oz can of sauce, mix well, heat until warmed again, stir and serve.

Quinoa Chickpea Burger and Oven Fries

This is the Quinoa Burger from the book Vegan Diner. It was really quick and easy to make, held together really well for a veggie burger (they tend to have coagulation issues), and tasted great. I was looking for something similar to the Quinoa burger at Flore (always trying to replicate Flore's recipes, especially now that we live a good 15 miles from them). They were primarily made of the quinoa, chickpeas, oats and some seasonings. Nutritionally, I'm sure that they're good, but there was something so great about the RFD ones that have loads of veg in them. But it's really apples and oranges (quinoa and beets). The Rfd ones evoke a more traditional burger (the color, texture, flavor, etc)- these are a lighter (in flavor and color), squishier alt burger. Both are good, though. I would still like to find a morningstar farms-esque burger recipe that would hold up to grilling and such with more of a faux burger flavor- but those were probably made in a lab, so I may never get there.

Also, though there's not a lot of recipe to oven fries, I had to include these. I had made them a few times before both with russett and sweet potatoes, and this time I hit on the way to a good fry. My previous attempts never got crispy enough to satisfy a fry craving, but these were perfect. I minced parsley ala Cafe Stella in Silverlake (great addition), cut them very thin, tossed them in 1-2T of olive oil, then baked them on a spray greased foil lined pan for 25 minutes at 425 (stirring a few times). This delivered a true, crispy, awesome, way healthier than deep fried fry. I am pleased and will probably consume them far more often now (not necessarily a good thing :)

Also, I should out myself on this book- since we're working out a lot these days, I didn't want to commit to a diner/ comfort food book in the house as I was afraid I'd make too much bad for us food. This was one of the times that I went, "oh yeah, library!" Which was great, I had it for a few weeks, tried out a couple recipes and will probably go ahead and buy it anyway. It did make me realize that this is a smart route for cookbooks since there are duds out there that are filled with recipes that clearly aren't thoroughly tested (not naming names, they know who they are). Thought I'd pass that on in case you're like me and keep forgetting that the library exists and is full of awesome!

Soffrito Seared Seitan

Oh my, this is good! This is from the Candle 79 book and is to die for. The sauce is prepared with a load of great, fresh, raw ingredients (except for the roasted tomatoes). You marinade the seitan in the sauce for 4 hours and then take it out, pan sear it, add the sauce back in to heat it up. It is fantastic. It would be a great summer meal because except for the tomato roasting at the beginning, the cooking is minimal- and it has a really light, fresh flavor to it which would be excellent on a hot day.

They recommend serving on rice with avocado on the side which adds to the aforementioned light, fresh aspect. The sauce almost tastes like pico de gallo. There's tomatoes, garlic, onion and cilantro- which I think is where that fresh salsa idea comes from, but there's also red bell peppers, parsley and some other stuff that hints more at a meal sauce. Anyway, we loved it and I do think that this will become a staple meal. Minus the marinade time, I think it's an hour of cooking tops (oh, also minus the seitan making time too, but still!) It's an excellent dish!

Apple Rosemary Scones and the L.A. Food Swap

I made these Apple Rosemary Scones for my first foray into the Food Swapping world. Last night's swap was hosted by Reform School, who I sell my work through (see HERE) , which is how I found out about it. Turns out that I'm a bit late to the party, as this was their one year anniversary. It's a fantastic idea and was truly a lot of fun.

For those who don't know, the swap is a gathering of peoples who bring food that they've made, grown or foraged. You bring as little or as much as you like. There were; jams, pickled goods, chocolates, cupcakes, granola, nut milks, simple syrups, limoncello, herbs, citrus fruits, etc. I made 3 dozen Rosemary Apple Scones (I'll review the recipe in a sec) and had 4 bags of cherry granola as well. I made two batches of my Hybrid Granola, which made a disappointing amount. But, it turns out that granola wasn't too big of a hit with that crowd, so it was for the best.

The first 1/2 hour of the event was set up time. Everyone set out their offerings and samples (samples are the key!). The second 1/2 hour was mingle and tasting time where you walked around and ate peoples food and bid on it if you wanted to trade your stuff for theirs. Then the swapping commenced. I was shocked at what a smooth operation it was, it all went down in an hour and a half. My scones were a hit (yay), and I scored some serious awesomeness (see photo); Fresh herbs, grapefruits, oranges, a kick ask hot paste, more jam than I'll eat in a year, some chocolates and more. I'm not a haggler, but luckily there wasn't a lot of that. I did feel like a heel turning down swaps of dairy food- but they're very kind and assure everyone at the start not to feel bad about that stuff. I also was refused some simple syrup (which was amazing!) b/c the maker didn't eat grains (which I can't fathom, but a lot of people can't fathom being vegan either, so...)

As for the scones- the recipe is fantastic! I used a bit less rosemary than it called for because I simply didn't have enough. I loved the flavor, though, so I would go forward using less in the future (a bit over 1/8 cup where the recipe calls for 1/4). I also used Earth Balance in lieu of shortening, because I realized that my shortening is hydrogenated and I didn't want to inflict that on my swapmates. These are by far my fave scones ever, though- despite how much I loved the others in the book!

If you're in L.A. and so inclined, the swap organizer's Facebook page is HERE. I know that the idea isn't unique to here, though- so if you're elsewhere, you may want to google around to see if there's one near you. I loved the experience and will totally do it again!