Sauteed Cauliflower with Golden Raisins and Almonds

Good day, faithful ninjas!  I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer.  It's hard to believe that I haven't seen you all since my last post in February!  Despite my slacker-ness with new posts, I have been a very busy and productive little ninja.  I have several new recipes to post, I've moved into a lovely (and HUGE!) new home with the boy-ninja love of my life (and Lucy and Skye of course!) and we are happily going about setting up our new place together.  I finally have a nice, big oven to cook in, and my kitchen is still small, but much larger than the last one!  Ooooh....and a GAS stove.  Joy!  As you can see, the blog has a new look, and I think it's high time to post some back-recipes that I've been procrastinating with and get cracking on some new ones.  Sorry for the long wait!


Sauteed Cauliflower with Golden Raisins and Almonds

 A nice, simple recipe using fresh and easy-to-find ingredients.  Don't substitute frozen cauliflower for fresh or you'll miss out on the toasty crispness of the cauliflower and almonds playing off the sweetness of the raisins and the brightness of the parsley and lemon.  Serve as a side-dish with grilled or baked tofu, or make it a full meal served over brown rice, couscous, or quinoa.  If you're concerned about not having enough protein from the almonds alone, toss a drained and rinsed can of beans in when you add the almonds.

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons non-dairy butter or extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 head cauliflower, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
Lemon wedges, for serving

Heat the butter/oil in a wok or very large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the chopped onion and cook until translucent, about 3 minutes.  Add the cauliflower and cook, stirring frequently, until golden and crisp-tender, about 10 minutes.  Add the almonds, raisins, coriander, salt, and pepper.  Cook until the almonds are slightly toasted, about 5 minutes.  Remove mixture from heat and stir in the lemon juice and parsley.  Serve with lemon wedges.

More recipes to come soon - maybe even today - as I try to work through this backlog of my cooking successes in the last 6 months.  Feedback on the new blog layout as well as recipes welcomed, as always.  See you soon!

Asian Veggie and Rice Soup

So I was paging through a cooking magazine earlier this week and came across a recipe for an Asian-inspired chicken and rice soup that included beaten, cooked egg as part of the base...kind of like an egg drop soup with a bunch of other crap thrown in there with the broth.  So my ninja-instincts started kicking in and I asked myself - "Is there a way I could re-create this recipe with a substitution for the egg?"  I decided to give pureed, spiced tofu a whirl as a substitute for the egg, add some extra flavors, veggies, and other goodies to vastly improve the rest of the recipe, and see what would result.  The outcome wasn't exactly what I intended - I used soft, pureed tofu cooked until semi-set, but apparently it wasn't cooked long enough because most of it broke apart and assimilated itself into the broth instead of remaining in larger, egg-like chunks.  I may attempt this recipe again using extra firm tofu, and mashing it together with the spices instead of pureeing in order to get a more cooked-egg kind of consistency.  However, the pureed tofu formed a lovely golden-hued, creamy backdrop to all of the warm Asian-y spices and the end result was delicious nonetheless.  Sometimes "mistakes" in the kitchen can be just as yummy as recipes that turn our perfectly.

Also, for all of you who "like" Vegan Fur Ninja on Facebook, you know that I posted a few weeks ago that I've started round two of Weight Watchers (was on it last year and had to cancel due to monetary issues but I'm baaaaaaack!) and so will be posting WW points for all of my recipes from now on.  This ninja has lost 10 lbs and a whole clothing size since the beginning of 2012, and is feeling more sexy and ninja-esque by the day.  *strikes sexy ninja pose*  10 lbs down....20 more to go!  This soup is GREAT for anyone trying to drop some pounds, because it's chock full of protein (which keeps ninja bellies fuller, longer!), whole grains, and it is VERY nutrient dense with lots of leafy greens, sea veggies, and miso.  Most importantly, it is delicious and will keep you full for hours for only a handful of WW points.  Okay, okay, that's enough from me - onto the recipe!

Asian Veggie and Rice Soup 

Makes approximately 9, 1-cup servings.  Each serving is 5 WW points.

Ingredients:

14 oz block of soft tofu, drained

1 teaspoon salt

several grinds fresh black pepper

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon turmeric

2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast

2 Tablespoons peanut oil

1" cube peeled fresh ginger, minced finely or pureed in a coffee grinder

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 lb fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly (about 1 cup)

2 large tomatoes, diced 

4 cups vegetable broth

2 1/4 cups water

1 bunch (6-7) sliced scallions, green parts only

1 Tablespoon sesame oil (preferably toasted)

2 teaspoons soy sauce

15 oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

4 cups chopped leafy greens such as kale, collard greens, or chard

1/2 cup uncooked brown rice

1 6-8" piece wakame

2 Tablespoons brown rice miso

Crumble the drained tofu into a food processor along with the salt, pepper, onion powder, turmeric, and nutritional yeast.  Puree until smooth.  Meanwhile, heat the peanut oil in a large wok or stockpot over medium-high heat.  Add the garlic and ginger and cook 1 minute, until fragrant.  Add the mushrooms and cook until softened, about 3 minutes.  Pour the pureed tofu into the pan and allow to spread over the mushrooms, through the oil to the edges of the pan.  Cook 5 minutes or until partially set and browned on the bottom, being careful not to burn.  If the tofu is still soft on top, don't worry about it - it will just make the broth of the soup thicker.  Add the tomatoes to the pan and gently stir to break up the tofu.  Cook for 3 minutes until the tomatoes are slightly softened.  Add the vegetable broth, water, scallions, sesame oil, soy sauce, chickpeas, greens, and rice, and stir everything around.  Turn the heat down, partially cover, and simmer for 40 minutes or until the rice is tender.  

Meanwhile, place the wakame in a bowl and add enough boiling water to cover.  Cover the bowl with a plate and allow to sit 10 minutes until the wakame is very soft and falling apart.  Strain out the wakame and chop coarsely.

Once the rice is cooked, remove from heat and give everything a good stir.  The broth should be a creamy, golden color with small threads of tofu floating about in it.  Take about 1 1/2 cups of the broth and place in a bowl with the miso.  Stir until the miso is totally dissolved.  Add back into the soup with the chopped wakame and stir everything around again.  Taste for salt and pepper and allow to sit for 10 minutes to allow the flavors to meld.  Enjoy!

Tips and Tricks:

1. Wok on!  I highly recommend a wok for this recipe.  I just bought myself a new one so this was a brilliant time to try it out.  If you don't have a wok, you can make it in a large stockpot, but your tofu may not cook properly without burning.  The great thing about a wok is that you can cook things at high heat without as much of a risk of burning/sticking as there is with more "traditional" cookware.  Woks really aren't expensive either - head to a good Asian market and you can find large, high-quality all stainless-steel woks there for around ten dollars.  Mine isn't stainless, but it is a metal-utensil-safe anodized non-stick metal that I absolutely adore for durability and ease of cooking.  This type will run you a bit more money - mine was around 30 bucks.  Beware of common non-stick woks.  I don't recommend Teflon-type non-stick surfaces for ANY cookware because it can flake off into your food and it is toxic when heated (which seems pretty stupidly counter-intuitive for something you COOK WITH but hey, that's just this ninja's opinion).  Those of you with feathered friend companion animals should never use it in your kitchen ever because the fumes are especially toxic to small birds.  Your best bet is to go with stainless steel if you can't afford the non-stick anodized metal stuff.  Stainless steel woks do need to be dried thoroughly after washing and should be stored with a thin coating of oil on the inside.  If you wash with warm water only and refrain from scrubbing the inside, it will eventually form a non-stick-ish coating of its own, similar to a well-seasoned cast-iron pan.  Happy wok-ing!

2. Yummy, yummy leafy greens - I used rainbow chard when I made this recipe, and I chopped the leaves down about half-way through the stems.  The soup simmers for enough time to soften the tough stems, and I wanted the lovely yellow, white, red, and orange colors to add to the prettiness of the whole thing.  If you don't want stems in there, just tear the leaves off and discard the stems.  Be sure to use a rather tough leafy green, because it's going to be swimming around in the broth for quite a while and you don't want it disintegrating.  If you're going to use something softer like spinach, I'd recommend waiting to add the greens until the last 5 minutes or so of cooking.

3. Miso - it's awesome.  Upon opening the package, I found this under the lid:

Plus it's nom-tastic.  Yay for miso!

4. The rice - it's actually purely optional here.  I try to have a good balance of veggies, protein, and complex carbohydrates at every meal, so I added some, but there's really not a lot in the recipe to begin with and it doesn't add that much to the end result.  If you'd like to lower the points value of this recipe slightly, you can omit the rice.  This will also make your soup more broth-y, so you may want to decrease or omit the extra water added with the vegetable broth.  Remember though - ninjas don't sacrifice good nutrition for weight loss, so make sure you get those good carbs somewhere!

5. What the HELL is wakame???  It's a sea vegetable.  It comes dried in pouches in long chunks about the length of your palm.  You can find it in gourmet markets or Asian groceries, usually in the same aisle as the nori and whatnot for sushi.  It adds a delicious flavor to the soup and is chock full of all kinds of vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidants, especially iodine, which is essential for thyroid function.  However, like all good things, sea vegetables should not be consumed excessively, due to their high sodium content and the fact that too much iodine can actually interfere with thyroid function.  All things in moderation!

That's it for new recipes for now, my dear ninjas.  Other exciting news from the home-front - I am finally getting my oven fixed after not having it operational (I've only had the use of the stove-top) for 10 months.  This presents somewhat of a conundrum, as an oven will make me want to bake all kinds of decadent treats like cookies, pies, cakes, muffins, etc. and as I tend to "graze" (ok, let's be serious - if there's a plate of cookies, I'll eat one every time I walk by it) and I can see that de-railing my so-far-successful weight loss.  I see my co-workers being treated to lots of ninja baked goodies in the future!  I'll also try to develop some recipes for sweet treats that don't cash in too many points as well.  So stay tuned - same ninja time; same ninja channel....or something like that.

<3 The Fur Ninja

Slow-cooked Seitan and Vegetables with Moroccan Spices

Happy New Year, ninjas!  For my first post of 2012, here is a delicious and VERY filling recipe I came up with after being inspired to try my hand at cooking Moroccan food.  This recipe requires you to have a slow-cooker, but if you don't have one, you can just simmer the whole thing on the stove for a while until the potatoes are tender.  If you have a slow-cooker though, use it!  It makes the whole thing much easier, as once your ingredients are in the cooker you can pretty much forget about them.  Plus, after about 8-10 hours, the vegetables, broth, and starch from the potatoes magically come together to form a thick, richly-spiced sauce that is absolutely amazing. 

Slow-cooked seitan and vegetables with Moroccan spices

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoon olive oil, divided
3 large yellow onions, quartered
1 cup vegetable broth + 1/2 cup for deglazing your seitan
2 teaspoons agave nectar
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 cinnamon stick
1 lb white sweet potatoes cut into large bite-sized chunks
2 cups whole cherry or grape tomatoes
3/4 cup chopped dates
1" cube peeled ginger, minced
6 cloves garlic
1 lb seitan, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 Tablespoon sea salt (or to taste)
several grinds black pepper
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the onions and cook about 5 minutes, until they are browned and the layers are falling apart.  Add the onions to the slow cooker along with the vegetable broth, agave, cumin, coriander, turmeric, and cinnamon stick.  Stir everything around a bit and then add the potatoes, cherry tomatoes, and dates.  Heat the other two tablespoons olive oil over medium heat in the same skillet you used to cook the onions.  Add the minced ginger and garlic and saute 1 minute until fragrant, being careful not to burn the garlic.  Add the seitan and cook for 5 minutes until lightly browned.  Splash with 1/2 cup vegetable broth (or use water) to deglaze the pan, and scrape up all the browned bits of seitan, onion, and garlic that are stuck to the pan.  Add everything in the pan to the slow cooker.  Add the salt and pepper.  Turn the slow cooker to low and cook for at least 8 hours, or until everything in the pot has melded into a dark, creamy sauce enveloping the seitan.  Turn off the heat, remove the cinnamon stick, and add the chopped cilantro and mint and mix everything together one more time.  Garnish each serving with sliced almonds. 
Serve over couscous or with flatbread with sauteed greens on the side for a delicious meal.

Tips and Tricks:

1. If you don't have a slow-cooker, you can just use a large pot.  After you brown your onions and seitan, add them to the pot in the order of the recipe, cover the pot, and simmer on low for several hours, stirring occasionally until all the ingredients have melded.

2. If you're feeling lazy or pressed for time, this recipe is still delicious even if you don't take the extra steps of browning the onions and seitan separately over the stove.  If you want to make this even faster, just add all the ingredients to the slow cooker/pot in one step and start simmering away.  This will make the texture of the seitan in the dish slightly less "meat-like" and the onions won't have as good a flavor, but I have made the recipe this way as well and it is still very tasty.  This also basically makes this dish a one-pot meal.

3. Keep your potato, onion, and seitan pieces rather large.  They should be small enough to fit in your mouth, but they should be chunky.  The long simmering process will break down the potatoes and onions somewhat, so if they are too small to begin with you won't have any pieces of veggies at all by the time it's done cooking.

4. If you are unable to find white sweet potatoes, use yukon gold potatoes, but avoid regular baking potatoes or orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, as they will change the flavor and texture of the dish too much.

That's all for now, hope you enjoyed this one and see you again soon!

<3 The Fur Ninja