Red Kuri squash salad bowl

September 10, 2016September 10, 2016 ~ Hanta ~ Leave a comment

Since getting a CSA this year, I had the opportunity to try new things I have never had before. In a previous post, I made a pea shoot salad for the first time.
Two weeks ago we got a red Kuri squash in our CSA box from the Angelic Organics farm. I got inspired by this recipe and modified it based on which ingredients I had on hand and also made it dairy free since it called for goat cheese. But first, here is a red Kuri squashI did not peel the squash. The skin is tender enough to eat when cooked and I am all for maximizing usage. The seeds can also be roasted and enjoyed as a snack much like pumpkin seeds.

I made the salad with the arugula that was in this week’s CSA box and used a sweet vinaigrette to balance its spiciness. I like how the slightly sweet flavor of the squash marries with the sweet and spicy arugula.

I also added tomatoes since we have a lot of those right now.

Red Kuri squash salad bowl
– 1 red kuri squash
– olive oil
– salt (optional)

Salad:
– 3 cups of arugula (can substitute with baby arugula or spinach)
– 1 can of cannellini beans
– 1 onion
– 2 garlic cloves or 1 big clove
– 1 big tomato or two medium tomatoes, sliced

Salad dressing
– 3 tablespoon olive oil
– 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
– juice of 1 lime
– 1 teaspoon mustard
– 1/2 tablespoon maple syrup
– salt
– pepper

Heat the oven at 385°F. Scrub the skin of the squash clean and pat dry. Cut it in half and scoop the seeds out. Cut each half of the squash in two. Brush the top of the slices with some olive oil. Salt and pepper as needed. Bake for 35-40 minutes until tender.

Remove the beans from the can and rinse. Slice the onion thinly and chop the garlic. Heat some olive oil in a pan and first add the garlic to flavor the oil then add the onion and saute for a few minutes until tender. Add the beans and saute for another 5-10 minutes. Salt and pepper as needed. Set aside to cool.

Mix the ingredients for the salad dressing in a small bowl

Rinse and dry the arugula. I chopped the leaves with scissors since they were quite big but if using baby arugula, just leave as is. Place the arugula in a big salad bowl, add the beans and salad dressing. Toss.

Scoop the salad onto the roasted squash. Enjoy!

Gluten free, vegan chocolate cake

September 1, 2016 ~ Hanta ~ Leave a comment

Even though I am generally not a big cake fan, chocolate cake is one of my weakness. Really, anything chocolate will get you on my good side.
Baking in itself is already more challenging for me, after switching to an egg-free diet, our baking was pretty restricted for a while. On top of that to find a gluten-free version that would be satisfying enough was rather difficult.

But, oh my, this recipe yields a cake that is moist and tender. The cake is not too sweet, topped with a fluffy and light frosting… a gluten-free chocolate deliciouceness.

Gluten free, vegan chocolate cake

Dry ingredients
1 1/4 cup gluten flour mix (I use Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 gluten free baking flour)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup of warm water

Frosting
2 cups of confection sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup vegan butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoon coconut milk

Heat the oven to 350°F. Mix the dry ingredients in large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients gradually while constantly mixing. Transfer to a cake pan and bake for 20-22 min at 350°F. Make sure the cake is done by checking with a toothpick, the toopick should come out dry. If not bake some additional time.
After baking, cool the cake before adding the frosting

Frosting:
Sift the confection sugar and cocoa powder in a big bowl together.
Whisk the vegan butter until soft, gradually add the sugar-cocoa powder mix. Add the vanilla extract. Whisk. Add the coconut milk. Whisk.

Decorate the cake with frosting. Enjoy.

Pea shoots salad

June 15, 2016June 15, 2016 ~ Hanta ~ 1 Comment

This year, we signed up for a CSA with a local farm. For those who don’t know, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. You pre-pay for the crops before the season starts, and you receive a share of produce every so often, in our case, every week once the harvest begins. This is our first time signing up for a CSA, and we signed up with Angelic Organic farms. It is an excellent way to get fresh organic produce and helps to support the local farmers as well.
We received our first box last week, and it contained something I have never used, pea shoots. I did not even know they were edible. A lot of veggies greens, like radish and beets, are edible, but I had yet to have these.

I was intrigued and tasted a shoot. It was crunchy and tasted, not surprisingly, like snap peas.

From a quick search, it seemed they could be used as salad and married well with soy sauce and ginger. I added radishes, also from the farm share, as well as some store-bought cucumber and carrots.

So, this is my first shot at a pea shoots salad. I purposely did not give accurate quantities here, as you can add in as much of each ingredient as you have or as you like. Simple, yet delicious.

Pea shoots salad

Pea shoots (I removed the big stems and kept the end shoots and all the leaves, enough to fill a large bowl
Radishes, finely sliced as needed
Cucumber, finely sliced
Finely sliced carrots

Salad Dressing:

4 Tbsp of olive oil
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar
1/2 Tbsp soy sauce (I use a low sodium one)
Salt
Pepper

Pick the end stems out, including the first leaves after the curly ends as well as all the leaves from the large stems. Wash the shoots and leaves and spin to dry or towel dry. Mix with the radish and the cucumber in a big bowl.

Mix all the ingredients for the salad dressing. Salt and pepper as needed. Add the dressing to the salad and toss. Enjoy!

Variations:

Add 1 Garlic clove, finely sliced
Sprinkle Toasted sesame seeds

Strawberry Mango sorbet

April 10, 2016April 10, 2016 ~ Hanta ~ Leave a comment

Spring has finally come!
Well, technically, spring is here. We still had snow last night.

Anyway, spring is here, time for fruity desserts!
Lately, I have been really focusing on making vegan ice cream and trying to make some new flavors. And it has not been going very well. So, today when I saw that my local grocery store had some strawberries on sale, I decided I was going to make sorbet and leave the creamy desserts aside for a little while.
Growing up, strawberry sorbet was one my favorite dessert. I still have that taste of strawberry sorbet in my mind and somehow, I was sure I was not going to meet it. Yes, I admit, I was rather pessimistic, blame it on the awful weather we’ve been having, it even made me doubt myself.
I mixed the strawberries with some mangoes for some extra fruity taste, some coconut cream for some extra creaminess and a bit of sugar. Taa-Daa! The results really blew my taste buds away. This is going to be a new favorite in my house.

Strawberry mango sorbet

1 lb of fresh strawberry (can substitute for frozen)
2 cups cubed mango (can also substitute for frozen)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup of coconut cream (from a full fat can of coconut milk)

The day before, place the freezing pan of the ice-cream maker in the freezer. Also, put the can of coconut milk in the fridge for at least 24h to settle the cream.
If using frozen fruits, allow to fruits to thaw, or thaw quickly in the microwave. Blend the strawberry until it is really smooth. Add the mango in the blender and blend again until smooth. Add the coconut cream and blend again. Finally, add the sugar in gradually and taste. Sweeten to your desired flavor.
Churn the fruity mix until you get a soft serve texture. Transfer to a freezer-safe container and freeze for at least 3-4 hours to a scoopable texture.

Vegan butter rolls

March 19, 2016 ~ Hanta ~ Leave a comment

I used to make this bread often, with cow milk and butter before having a kid and realizing that he is allergic to dairy and eggs. Needless to say, I missed it terribly since I had to forego the milk and eggs myself. But finally, I figured out how to make it dairy free and egg-free version and oh my! It is just as good as it was before. It is soft and fluffy and just melts in your mouth. It has been a big success with dinner guests as well as with my toddler.

For this recipe, I replaced the cow milk with coconut milk. It also calls for one egg, which I replaced with a mix of flaxseed meal and water. Everything else is the same as in the original recipe, and it is made in the bread machine. I have to note though that with bread machines, most of the time I have to adjust the amount of flour or liquid. I usually leave out about 1/3 cup out of the original recipe, then once the bread machine starts mixing and kneading, I gradually add the remaining of the flour until I get the right consistency. To make these rolls, you want the dough to be a soft but not sticky ball.

Vegan butter rolls

1/4 cup water (warm)
7/8 cup of coconut milk (or another type of milk to sustitute)
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg substitute: 1 tablespoon flaxseed meal+ 3 tablespoons of water
1/4 cup of vegan butter
2 tablespoon of sugar
1 and 3/4 cups bread flour
2 teaspoon active dry yeast

Prepare the egg substitute by adding the water to the flaxseed meal and letting it sit for 3-5 minutes until it takes a gelatinous consistency.

Place the ingredients in the bread machine pan in this order: water, milk, salt, sugar, egg substitute, flour. Make a little crater on the top of the flour and put the yeast in there. Turn the bread machine on the dough setting.

Once the machine signal that the dough is ready, remove the dough and place on a flour-covered surface.

Heat the oven at 350°F
Make little balls of the dough and place them next to each other in a square pan. Bake for 25-30min.

Beef and vegetables stew

January 21, 2016 ~ Hanta ~ Leave a comment

So, the holidays have passed and gone, leaving us in frigid and cold weather. And cold weather calls for soups and stews.

We are lucky that the grocery store by us sells a mix of vegetables to make this soup, all ready and packed up. All you have to do is wash, cut and cook them (and add more carrots, the pack does not have as many carrots as I like it). But, it really makes it very easy. If unlike us, you do not have access to ready to use veggie soup pack in your grocery store, have no fear! I listed the ingredients below.
As for the spices: paprika, tarragon and cloves were the ones I had on hand but I am sure this recipe is open to some improvisation by adding other dried or fresh herbs into it as well.

For the meat, I usually use a bone-in chuck roast, the meat is not super lean, so it lets out some fat during browning. It has some bone to add some flavors, and it when it cooks it is very tender. If you are not a big fan of bony meat, you can use boneless stew cuts, as lean as you like them.
But the real key to this recipe is to first brown the meat and then make a roux (fancy term for adding flour to some fat and browning it), cooking the meat separately with the spices and the broth to develop the meat flavor before adding the vegetables. Finally, cooking the whole soup at lower heat and slowly, so the flavors really have time to bloom. You can make the recipe gluten-free by using a gluten free flour for the roux, I have had good success using a gluten free baking mix or just coconut flour.

Beef and vegetable stew

about 1lb of bone-in chuck roast (or more if you want a meatier soup)
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp of flour
3 cups of vegetable broth
about 6 cups of water

Vegetables:
1 cup of carrots, about 1/2 inch thick slices
3 stalks of celery, about 1/2 inch thick slices
1 zucchini, cut in 1/2 inch cubes
1 corn on the cob, cut in three pieces
1/4 of a cabbage, roughly cut about 1/2 inch thick
2 medium size red potatoes
2 medium sized onions
1 chayotte (optional), cut in 1/2 inch cubes
1 bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped

Spices:
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp tarragon
1/4 tsp ground cloves (or 3-4 whole cloves)
Salt, as needed

Heat up a large pan, brown in the beef on medium heat. If it gets very sticky with lean meats, you can add a little bit of oil. Once the meat is brown, add in the crushed garlic, mix to coat and flavor the meat. As soon as the garlic starts to brown, make the roux by adding in the flour and mixing again to coat all the meat and mix with a wooden spoon until all the meat is coated. Mix while cooking until the flour has browned and add the vegetable broth and the spices. Salt as needed. Cover and bring to a boil, then cook on medium-low heat until half the broth is gone (about 20-25 min).
Once the broth had reduced, add in all the vegetables at once and as much water as necessary. The water should just cover the vegetables. Check the salt and adjust as needed. Bring to boil again, reduce the heat to medium-low and then cook for about 1.5h.
Serve as is, with a side or rice or with a slice of bread.

Vegan chocolate-dipped coconut macarons

December 8, 2015December 8, 2015 ~ Hanta ~ Leave a comment

My son is now 3 years old. The other night, he told me he wanted to make some treats with me. Everyday he comes up with a new word and that was the first time I heard him say “treats”. So I asked him to elaborate what kind of treats. He said: “We should make some delicious treats for Christmas”. That was clear. It is not Christmas yet, but this mama will not refuse an invitation to make some goodies to eat.

I recently just bought a boat load of shredded coconut, so I thought we could make coconut macarons. And since chocolate always make things better, we decided that chocolate dipped macarons would make the ideal treat.

I was pleasantly surprised at how this recipe turned out. It is sweet from the maple surup but not excessively and the dark chocolate brings just the right amount of sweetness with a tinge of bitterness.
The hardest part of this recipe is to wait for it to cool down and the chocolate to set before eating it. My son and I may or may have not eaten a few as soon as we dipped them in chocolate, I shall not tell. I’ll just say that this was indeed a treat.

Vegan Chocolate-dipped Coconut Macarons
3 cups of shredded unsweetened coconut
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
1/3 cup chocolate chips

Heat the oven at 350°F.
Put the shredded coconut in a food processor or a high speed blender. Blend until you get a soft and doughy consistency. Add in the vanilla and maple syrup and blend some more. Transfer it to a bowl for ease of scooping.
Spoon out the coconut into balls onto an oiled baking sheet. I used a half tablespoon measuring spoon to make little bitesizes macarons with the coconut, but if you have a small icecream scoop, it would work as well. gently brush the coconut with melted coconut oil.
Bake for 8-10min until the bottom and edges are light brown. Cool on the baking sheet.
While the macarons are cooling, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave for 1-1.5min until melted.
Carefully dip the bottom of the cooled macarons in the melted chocolate, they are somewhat fragile and can easily crumble under your fingers. Drizzle some of the melted chocolate on the macarons. Cool on a sheet of parchment paper until the chocolate solidifies again (if you can wait that long). Store in an airtight container.

Koban-dravina: a taste of nostalgy

December 6, 2015December 6, 2015 ~ Hanta ~ Leave a comment

We are starting a new tradition in my house: to have a Thanksgiving dinner with typical dishes from Madagascar. One of the reasons is because I am not a big fan of roasting a big turkey. Don’t get me wrong, I love to eat it…when somebody else cooks it. I just don’t like to do it myself, and I have never done it so I would have no idea where to start. But on the other hand, I love Thanksgiving. Well, I am thankful for a lot of things in my life and I love to celebrate that, gathering with your loved ones. But mostly, I love the eating part of Thanksgiving. So, since we are from Madagascar, last year we decided to have a new tradition and cook malagasy food on Thanksgiving.

I am not going to post the whole dinner here, the dishes were not yet perfected and were just okay. I am sorry our only guest had missed her beloved sweet potatoes pie for that. Let’s say that my Malagasy Thanksgiving dinner is still a work in progress…except for the dessert. When I asked my sister what dessert I should make to be typically malagasy, she suggested to make koba. Koba is typical snack or dessert of the region where I grew up as a kid. Koban-dravina (from koba= dough, ravina = leaves) is a dough made with rice flower (and sometimes corn flour) with banana, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. It is normally made with peanuts but since we are peanut-free, I substituted with crushed sunflower seeds. Simple and yet delicious.

Koban-dravina

5 bananas- mashed
1 1/2 cup of rice flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sunflower seeds- coarsely ground
Banana leaves
Rafia (optional)

In a bowl, mash the bananas, and add in the vanilla extract. Separately, mix the flour and sugar, and add to the mashed banana. Mix everything well.

Roughly cut the banana leaves in rectangles about 10cm x 20cm or 4″ x 8″. Spoon 2-3 table spoons of the dough in the middle of the banana leaf, sprinkle with some of the crushed sunflower seeds. Fold along the length of the banana and tie with some rafia, or you can just place it with the fold down so it does not get undone during cooking. Steam for 20-25 min. Enjoy!

Vegan zucchini brownies

October 29, 2015 ~ Hanta ~ Leave a comment

I have not baked in a while (mmm… like a whole week) and was missing it. I was craving brownies but was debating whether to find a vegan recipe or just make something a bit less guilty that everyone could enjoy, or both.

I love to bake with zucchini. It blends in smoothly with the sweet flavors and adds a soft texture to the recipe. And as the parent of a toddler, I always appreciate any way to hide a vegetable in a recipe. Here, I blended the zucchini and it was pretty runny, so I added some whole grain oat flour to thicken the consistency. We do like the dark chocolate flavor in the house, and I used dark chocolate chips with unsweetened cocoa powder. The dark chocolate married beautifully with the honey flavor.
These brownies are rather soft right out from the oven and could make a great hot and cold dessert with some ice cream. But once it cools the crust hardens a bit while the inside is soft and is great with some tea or a glass of sweet dessert wine.

Vegan zucchini brownies

Wet ingredients
1 1/2 cup of zucchini puree in a blender (from 3 medium zucchini)
1/2 cup sunflower seed butter
1/3 cup raw honey
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 tablespoon flaxmeal (ground flax seeds) + 3 tablespoon water

Dry ingredients
2/3 cup oatmeal flour
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder

Heat up the oven to 350°F.
Mix the flaxmeal with the water and let sit for 5 minutes until it has a gelatinous consistency. In a bowl thoughtfully mix the wet ingredients until it is smooth. In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix carefully.

Line a baking pan with parchment paper and pour in the brownie mix and spread it out evenly. Bake for 35-45 min at 350°F.

Ham and yellow pepper pizza

October 14, 2015October 14, 2015 ~ Hanta ~ Leave a comment

I have been meaning to make pizza with my son for weeks. He has been asking for it but being dairy-free, we have to make our own as store bought pizza is not an option. So today, we finally got down and did it. From scratch. And he helped with each step of the process. After all, like he says, he is the Big Helper.

All that, to say that this recipe was pretty easy to do. And this was the result:

It was gone in a heartbeat.

We made the crust ourselves in the bread machine on the dough settings. You can also use a store-bought pizza dough, it will make the process even easier, and cut the preparation time significantly. The key to get a thin crispy crust is to saute the veggie toppings first, so they do not get soggy while cooking. That will also ensure that they are well cooked with the pizza crust. Another trick I used here is to place the pizza on a parchment paper, then slide it on the pre-heated pizza stone in the oven. It makes the transfer much easier and placing the pizza on the heated stone cooks the crust more evenly. If you do not have a pizza stone, you can directly slide the pizza on the oven rack with the parchment paper under it.

Ham is not usually found on pizza here in the US, but when we were in Madagascar, I recall that it was a common pizza topping. My son loves “jambon” so he was very enthousiastic when I suggested we put it on the pizza…and let’s be honest, it was the only kind of meat that I had that I could put on the pizza.

Ham and yellow pepper pizza

Pizza Crust (using a bread machine)
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon olive oil (or vegetable oil)

Pizza sauce
1 cup of tomato sauce
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried basil (or fresh)
1 clove of garlic crushed
salt as desired

Pizza toppings
– 1 yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
– 1 red onion, thinly sliced
– 5 baby bella mushrooms (or white button mushrooms), thinly sliced
– 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
– 1/2 cup of ham, sliced thinly
– 1 teaspoon of oil
– dried basil and oregano

Heat the oven at 400°F. Place a rack in the middle of the oven. If you have a pizza stone, place the stone in the oven middle rack while it is heating up.

Make the pizza dough. Add the ingredients as suggested by the bread maker instructions. Adjust the amount of flour or water as needed once the kneading starts. You should have a soft and flexible dough that is not sticky to the touch.

In a large frying pan, heat the oil on medium heat for the toppings. When the oil is hot, add in the crushed garlic and mix with the oil to flavor it. Add in the onion, the bell pepper and saute them until soft and slightly brown. Sprinkle with some of the dried herbs to flavor. Add the mushrooms in the last few minutes. Set aside.
Mix the ingredients for the tomato sauce in a bowl.

Once the dough is ready. Sprinkle a large cutting board or the counter top with flour. Spread the dough on the floured surface by pressing with your hands or using a rolling pin to thin it out and make the shape as round as possible. Carefully transfer the dough on a pizza sheet lined with a large enough piece of parchment paper. Add the sauce and the toppings.
Slide the pizza with the parchment paper under it, onto the heated pizza stone in the oven (or onto the oven rack directly if you do not have a stone).

Bake for 15-20 min until the crust is slightly brown. Cut it. Eat it. Enjoy!

littlesillychef

Food, life and everything in between

Author: Hanta