Isa’s Pasta

This is a recipe for 4 persons, tested on Friday night. It was a huge success.

It can be made with or without tempeh (fermented soy beans) as a ground meat-ersatz. It’s a nice recipe for the winter months, where fresh tomatoes are too watery to serve as a base for a veggie pasta.

You’ll need:

• olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves
• 2 small onions
• 2 zucchini
• a handful frozen peas
• high quality black olives
• canned tomatoes, cut in little pieces
• a little black olive tapenade
• a little tomato purée
• 1 kg spaghetti or linguini (2 packs)  

Here’s how it works:

• Heat the olive oil (low heat), add the garlic and the onions.
• Let them simmer at low heat for 10 minutes
• Add a teaspoon of tapenade and a teaspoon of tomato paste
• Cut the zucchini into small bits, and add it to the onion/garlic/tapenade mix
• Let simmer (low to medium heat) for 15 minutes
• Defroze the peas (steam them for a few minutes or cook them in boiling water for a minute), add them
• Add the canned tomatoes and let simmer for another 20 minutes, allowing the aromas to blend    

Tempeh (optional):

• steam the tempeh for 10 minutes, then shred it as you would do with Swiss cheese
• marinate in olive oil, with black olive tapenade, garlic and onions for at least 2 hours
• sauté the tempeh in a separate pan for 10 minutes, then add to the sauce
• let simmer for another 5 minutes  

Enjoy with a nice Bandol red wine.  

 

Spinach with creamy peanut sauce

A very easy and fast recipe, really. I use deepfrozen spinach for this, which I prepare in my steamer.

This is what you’ll need to make the peanut sauce:

• 125ml or half a cup of peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons of toasted peanuts (non salted)
• 125ml or half a cup of water
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• some fresh ginger, grated

Put everything in the blender to mix. Briefly heat the sauce and serve it with the spinach. If you don’t like spinach, this recipe also works well with green beans (haricots verts).   

The recipe for the sauce is from CompassionateCooks.com, but they used it as a cold dipping sauce for non-fried Vietnamese rice paper rolls with carrots, cucumbers, basil and mint. There you go: another idea for a great recipe!

 

Delicious Japanese Soup with Ginger Infused Tempeh

When I started this blog a month ago, I thought that tempeh was a Japanese avantgarde designer.

Today I know better.

Tempeh is a traditional Indonesian fermented soybean cake. It is absolutely delicious and can be used as vegetarian “meat” (and it tastes so much better than meat!) in any kind of form – grilled, baked, cooked…whatever.

You’ll find tempeh at any natural food store. Beside its delicious nutty, mushroom-y taste, tempeh is a protein powerhouse and rich in fiber.

This recipe serves 4 people: (or 2 very hungry ones, as tonight’s dinner proved…)  

Steam the tempeh for 10 minutes and marinate it with the following ingredients for min. 1 hour

• freshly grated ginger
• 1 tablespoon mirin (mirin is a Japanese rice wine)
• 2 tablespoons tamari soy sauce
• a garlic clove

To prepare the broth use

• half a cup of tamari soy sauce (125 ml)
• 1/3 cup mirin (75 ml)
• some freshly grated ginger
• 3 cups of water (700 ml)
• 3 tablespoons of rice vinegar

For the soup you’ll need

• any kind of shredded green cabbage 
• 6 shiitake mushrooms
• soba noodles (Japanese buckwheat noodles)  
• frozen peas
• spring onions

Bring the soy sauce, mirin, water, rice vinegar and ginger to a boil.

Add the shitake mushrooms, the frozen peas and let simmer until the ingredients are soft (at least 10 minutes). 

Sauté the ginger infused tempeh in a frying pan for a few seconds and add to the soup, together with the cabbage.

Cook the soba noodles on the side and add to the soup.

Add the spring onions.

Ready!  

This recipe is originally from Peter Berley’s “The Flexitarian Table”, but as usual, I’ve changed it a bit, adding and dropping ingredients.

To learn more about tempeh and for some truly great recipes, check out http://www.compassionatecooks.com

Picture by Wikipedia

 

Try out my recipes and save the planet!

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic.

Here’s what beyondlettuce has to say:  

According to the recent UN report Livestock’s Long Shadow, the meat industry generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, SUVs, ships, and planes in the world combined.

The report also concluded that the meat industry is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.”

And here’s beyondlettuce’s plan of action:

1. adopt a vegetarian diet

2. try out my recipes

3. save the planet!

To learn more about the issue, check out this recent article in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/business/media/29adco.html

 

Would you eat him?

 An excellent podcast episode from CompassionateCooks.com

The practice of eating animals is a culturally ingrained habit. If you’re in the U.S., you might dine on pigs, cattle, and chickens; if you’re in Mexico, you might feast on goats; if you’re in parts of Asia, you might devour dogs and cats.

We humans have a funny way of judging other cultures for what we think is cruel, despite our own commitment to cruelty.

To the animals, it’s all the same.    

Play now: http://cdn.libsyn.com/compassionatecooks/eating_animals.mp3

 

Fennel and black olives pasta with roasted garlic-parsley oil

 Don’t be afraid, this is a really simple recipe, despite its very long title. 

It is originally by Denis Cotter but I’ve adapted it to my own taste. Denis Cotter is an Irish chef whose restaurant “Cafe Paradiso” gets raving reviews from vegetarians and meat-eaters alike. Take this review for instance, from The Guardian:

“Here is a restaurant which treats food with wit, knowledge, spirit and enjoyment…it just happens to be vegetarian”

 How’s that for a compliment?

(see more of Denis Cotter at http://www.cafeparadiso.ie)

For this recipe you’ll need (and this makes a serving for 2 hungry people)

• 10 cloves of garlic
• 2oo ml olive oil
• fresh parsley
• salt and pepper
• penne pasta
• 1 fennel bulb
• a dozen black olives
• some white wine
• a shallot

Here we go:

1. To make the roasted garlic -parsley oil toss the unpeeled garlic cloves in a little olive oil and roast them in the oven (low heat) until they are soft. The garlic cloves will tell you by their smell when the time has come;-)

2. Squeeze the garlic from the skins and blend with the olive oil (200 ml) and parsley in a food processor.

3. Chop the fennel and the shallot, cook them in a little olive oil for 15 minutes (moderate heat). Add some white wine, and let simmer for another 10 minutes.  

4. Add the olives and the garlic-parsley oil.

5. Cook the pasta and add to the sauce. Salt and pepper.  

6. Enjoy with a crisp white wine.

 

Happy World Animal Day!

Today is October 4th, World Animal Day.

World Animal Day? Do you we really need that?

We do. 

Whatever your opinion on vegetarianism is, take a moment to watch this video on the website of  Eurogroup for Animals: http://www.eurogroupforanimals.org/pressconference.htm

If you think you can’t stand it (I barely couldn’t), here is what it shows:  

Outrageous animal suffering during transport that happens every day in the EU. Injured animals lifted by cranes and pushed by caterpillars.

Beating of exhausted animals and a total indifference to pain and suffering by those who “handle” the animals…

The images speak for themselves.  

The next time you take a bite of your ham sandwich or cheeseburger, just think for a moment about those images and decide for yourself.  

We must be the change we wish to see in the world.

I wish I’d come up with this quote. I didn’t.

It was Gandhi, another famous vegetarian.

Happy World Animal Day…

 

The ultimate blueberry smoothie

A very short entry for a very quick recipe.

I’m not a morning person and I don’t feel like breakfast before 10 am, but this recipe takes no longer than one tiny minute to prepare, it’s full of vitamins and antioxidants…and it tastes like heaven.

• a handful of frozen organic blueberries
• a fresh banana
• a bit of vanilla soymilk
• some cinnamon sugar (optional)
• a dash of lime juice (optional)

Put everything in a blender…mix… ready.

This is a slightly modified version of a recipe I heard on Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s podcast Food for Thought on iTunes. Check it out or visit her website at http://www.compassionatecooks.com

 

Supersilky ginger soup

I vividly remember my first encounter with ginger, many years ago, in a Chinese restaurant. I felt like I had just eaten a soap bar.

Ginger is indeed an acquired taste. But once you like it, you wonder how you could ever live without it.

Today’s supersilky ginger soup is one of these recipes which comes close to perfection. The taste is delicate, with the carrot’s sweetness balancing the ginger’s slight acidity. And then there’s the texture, smooth as silk. 

This is as close to veggie nirvana as you can get… 

You’ll need:

•  300 gr (1,3 cups) carrots
• 2 onions
• 100 gr (0,4 cups) fresh ginger
• 50 gr (0,2 cups) pickled ginger
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 100 ml white port wine (0,4 cups)
• 500 ml vegetable broth  (2,1 cups)
• 350 gr cream (1,5 cups)

1. Chop the carrots, onions and ginger. Heat the butter in a pot.

2. Add carrots, onions and ginger. Cook on very low heat for a few minutes, then add sugar and salt.

3. Add the portwine as well as the vegetable broth. Cook everything for 20 minutes. If you don’t have the time to make your own veggie broth, just use a ready made organic one.

4. Add 250 gr (1 cup) of cream and cook for a few more minutes. Pass the soup through a blender, together with the pickled ginger, then pass it through a very fine chinois sieve. Add salt and pepper.

5. Whip the rest of the cream and add to the soup.

Many thanks to my dear friend Jesper, cook extraordinaire, for providing me with this recipe. The original recipe also included salmon, but for me the ginger’s the star here.

Picture by Wikipedia.

    

 

Aubergine tartar

This is a recipe by Eckart Witzigmann – which, considering the main ingredient, should come as no surprise.

In the late 70s, Witzigmann’s Munich restaurant L’ Aubergine was the first German restaurant ever to receive the coveted three Michelin stars. And he’s been dubbed chef of the century by French gastronomic guide Gault et Millau, alongside Bocuse and Robuchon.

My point is: this guy knows how to cook.

Ok, he lost the permit for L’Aubergine in 1993 due to a cocaine scandal, but still…this recipe is stellar! And super easy.

You’ll need:

• 1 big aubergine (eggplant)
• 1 tablespoon of capers
• 10 green olives
• a little garlic
• a few basil leaves
• 5-6 tablespoons balsamico vinegar
• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon honey
• salt, pepper

1. Preheat the oven at 220 Celsius (392 Fahrenheit)

2. Wash the aubergine, and cut it in pieces (don’t peel it!).

3. Chop the capers, olives and garlic.

4. Mix the aubergines, capers, garlic, olives, basil, oil, vinegar and honey. Salt and pepper. Put them in a pot and cover with aluminium foil.

5. Let braise in the oven for 1 hour.

6. Take it out, let cool down, and chop. If too much acidity, add some more honey.

7. Serve on toasted bread.  

This appetizer is perfect with a Clos des Fées Grenache Blanc Vieilles Vignes. Check it out on http://www.closdesfees.com/