Veg SF

The adventures of a lacto ovo vegetarian in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

The 12 Days of Christmas Sugar Cookies January 6, 2010

Filed under: Cupcakes, Dessert, Sweets — vegsf @ 2:45 pm
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Over the holidays, my sis had this brilliant (and slightly insane) idea of making the 12 days of Christmas into sugar cookies to give as family gifts to our cousins, aunts and uncles. She labored over each and every design and came up with a creative representation of each day.

She made patterns for each shape out of parchment paper and hand cut with a paring knife each and every cookie. She, my mom and I made 12 batches of 12 days. If I remember my basic multiplication tables correct, that is a total of 144 cookies, folks! We dipped, sprinkled, piped, dabbed, until we though our arms and backs would fall off. I think we enjoyed making them more than the people enjoyed receiving and eating them.

We had quite an assembly line going. It looked somewhere between Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and an explosion at C&H Sugar company.  And I was afraid my puppy was going to go into a sugar coma from all the ‘licks’ at the floor. ha!

I can’t even tell you how many times we sang the song through as we were hand cutting. You just kind of can’t help it. When you see the pics you’ll want to sing it too – just to make sure we got them all and in the right order. :)

Here is the fruit – um… sugar of our labor!

We used the Martha Stewart’s Ideal Sugar Cookie Recipe (the best sugar cookie recipe EVER! It’s the only one I’ll use) and her royal icing recipe for the dipping/piping.

And as a random photo for your enjoyment. Here are some mini vanilla/vanilla cupcakes I made for the holidays. My sis gave me some nonpareils for Christmas and I wanted to see how they’d look if I dipped the cupcakes into them and made little rounded tops. They were cute. And tasted good. A little different texture than the standard buttercream swirls my cupcakes usually get. Fun stuff.

 

Cajun Black Eyed Pea Soup January 6, 2010

Filed under: Faux Meat, Mains, Meat-Lover's Seal of Approval, Vegetarian, Veggies — vegsf @ 2:28 pm
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I hosted a soup party on New Years Day for some close family and friends. It’s an annual tradition that we missed last year due to some circumstances beyond my control. I was happy to reinstate the tradition. Unfortunately, everyone signed up to bring things other than soup, so the last minute, I figured out that we really didn’t have enough soup to go around. I scrounged up the best tasting soup from things in my closet with some inspiration from a few online recipe searches. Here is what we ended up with. It was warm, spicy and hearty. Perfect for a cool winter day or evening. Even my husband, the carnivore, loved this soup and asked for seconds. He even happily ate it the next day as leftovers. Success!

(Sorry the pic isn’t much better than this; I was in a hurry trying to hostess and barely had time to snap a few shots)

Cajun Black Eyed Pea Soup

Serves approx 16 (you can cut it in half or freeze half if you don’t want so much)

  • 1 Tbsp butter
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 8 cups vegetable broth
  • 2 cups water
  • 2/3 cups brown rice
  • 1 tsp cayanne pepper
  • 1 tsp cajun seasoning (such as TexJoy – I had some on hand thanks to my friends from Texas… Just… shhhh… don’t tell anyone it has MSG in it. eep!)
  • 1/4 tsp thyme
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 5 faux sausage patties or links (I used Morningstar Breakfast Patties)
  • 4 cups cooked black eye peas (cook them yourself, fresh in the produce department – that’s what I did – , or use a low sodium canned version, rinsed and drained)
  1. In a large soup pot, melt the butter. Add onion and saute until tender (approx 5 mins)
  2. Add the broth and water to the pot and bring to boil. Once boiling, add rice and all seasonings. Bring back to a boil. Cover and let cook 10 mins.
  3. While the rice is cooking, prepare your faux sausage by defrosting in the microwave for approx 1 min. Cut into small cubes. If it’s not frozen, simply cut into small cubes and set aside.
  4. Add sausage and black eyed peas to the soup. Bring back to a boil on medium-high heat. Cover and turn down the heat to medium low. Let simmer for about 20 additional minutes.
  5. Taste and season more as desired.
 

Whole Wheat Pita Bread January 6, 2010

Filed under: Bread, Sides — vegsf @ 1:59 pm
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My mom gave my sister and I each our own copy of King Arthur Flour Whole Wheat Baking. She’s had this book since last year and has great luck with each and every recipe. So much that my sis and I kept calling her for recipes. She must have got sick of us always asking and decided we needed our own. Anyway… I very highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in whole grains and baking. You’d be surprised at how light and fluffy a lot of these recipes taste. You’d never guess they were whole wheat/grain!

Back to the recipe on hand…. Last night, I decided to try out the Whole Wheat Pita Bread recipe. I’ve heard pitas are pretty easy to make and I had some falafel and greek yogurt (that I turned into tzatziki) that I needed to use. It only took about 5 mins to mix all the ingredients together, let them rise for 1 1/2 hours while I went to the gym, then came home and whipped them out in no time!

I ate them with my falafel last night and this morning I had them again for breakfast with some scrambled egg and feta cheese. Yum!

Important Notes if you’re going to try this recipe that I found made it easier and made those little rounds get nice and puffy:

#1: Move your oven rack all the way to the bottom, closest to the heating coils.

#2: They cook quickly and require a turn mid-baking. This means you’re going to lose a lot of heat in a conventional oven from so much open/closing. I recommend upping the temp to 465 (from the recommended 450).

#3: Pre-heat your baking sheet or whatever you’re baking them on (I didn’t have the bread stone it called for, so I used a cookie sheet).

#4: Use a spatula to flip them over halfway through. Tongs don’t work (as I quickly found out after my first attempt. Silly me!

Whole Wheat Pita Bread

Makes 8 pitas
Cook Time: 5 mins each batch (cook 2 pitas per batch)

  • 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 1/2 cups bread flour (I didn’t have this on hand so I used whole wheat pastry flour instead. Bread flour has more gluten and makes the texture better. Pastry flour also has a fairly high gluten content, and I felt they came out just fine)
  • 1 1/2 t salt
  • 1 1/2 t instant yeast (or active dry yeast dissolved into 1/4 cup of the recipe’s water)
  • 1 1/4 cups warm water
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  1. Combine all ingredients together and mix or kneed by hand or mixer until you have a soft supple dough. About 8 minutes by hand, 5 minutes by mixer (the kitchen aid dough hook works perfectly for this!). It should feel tacky to the touch. You may need a bit more flour, but not too much.
  2. Cover the bowl and let rise until approx doubled in bulk, 1 1/2 hours.
  3. Place a baking stone on the bottom rack of your oven and preheat overn to 450 (I did it at 465 to make up for all the in and out I was going to do)
  4. After it’s risen, place the dough on a lightly floured surface and cut in half. Cut each half into 4 equal parts until you have 8 lumps of dough. Form each into a ball, cover and let the dough rest 10 mins. Make sure to keep the dough covered unless you’re working with it at the moment.
  5. After the dough has rested 10 minutes, use a rolling pin to roll out each ball into a circle approx 6 inches diameter and less than 1/4 inch thick. Use only enough flour to prevent sticking but do not over-flour. Keep the waiting dough covered as you work.
  6. Load 2 pitas at a time directly onto the baking stone (or in my case, an ungreased baking sheet). Bake approx 3 mins on one side, flip and bake on the other 2 additional minutes. It should take 3-4 minutes to go into full “balloon”. Turn them once when they are baking.
  7. Stack the warm pitas together in a kitchen towel to keep them from crisping as they cool.
  8. EAT THE PITAS!

Nutrition: 196 cal, 4g fat, 6g protein, 35g carb, 4g fiber.

 

Mediterranean Vegetable-Cheese Pie January 6, 2010

Filed under: Breakfast, Cheese, Mains, Meat-Lover's Seal of Approval, Potato, Vegetarian, Veggies — vegsf @ 1:35 pm
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I’ll just go on record and say that this is absolutely AMAZING and DELICIOUS and you might as well double the recipe right off the top because you’ll eat it all and then come back wanting more. I made this for our Christmas morning brunch and it was a hit. I tripled the recipe and came home empty handed. Every single crumb was devoured. I made it a week later for dinner. It worked just as well for either meal!

To top it all off, it’s HEALTHY. (what a nice way to start 2010, no?). The nutritional content on this both surprised and thrilled me and it’s for an entire quarter of the pie! It’s just 192 cals, 4.8g fat (2g sat fat), 10.5g carb, 17.5g protein, 7.8g fiber. Don’t lie. You’re in awe too.

Mediterranean Vegetable-Cheese Pie

Serves 4.
Recipe from SELF, April 2005 courtesy of Epicurious.
Rancho La Puerta Spa, Tecate, Baja California

  • Olive-oil cooking spray
  • 2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced in 1/8-inch rounds
  • 1/2 cup diced onion
  • 8 oz (about 8 cups) baby spinach
  • 3 kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
  • 2 whole eggs
  • 3 egg whites
  • 1 cup nonfat ricotta or fat-free cottage cheese (I couldn’t find nonfat ricotta, so I went with the cottage cheese and couldn’t tell the difference)
  • 1 tbsp feta, crumbled
  • 3 tbsp finely chopped fresh basil or dill, or 3 tsp dried basil or dill, divided into 2 equal portions (I used fresh basil)
  • 3 Roma tomatoes, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
  • 1 1/2 tbsp grated Asiago or Parmesan
  • 1 1/2 tbsp grated lowfat mozzarella
  1. Heat oven to 350°. Coat a 9″ pie plate with cooking spray.
  2. Line bottom of plate with potato slices. Cut remaining slices in half and arrange around side of plate. Bake 12 to 15 minutes.
  3. Remove from oven and set aside. Coat a sauté pan with cooking spray and sauté onion over low heat until tender, about 5 minutes. Add spinach to pan and let wilt, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Drain excess fluid from onion and spinach mixture. Stir in olives.
  4. In a bowl, beat eggs and egg whites. Stir in ricotta and feta. Add half the basil or dill and set aside. Spoon onion and spinach mixture into pie plate over potatoes. Layer on egg mixture, then slices of tomato. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until egg is set and a knife inserted into pie comes out clean.
  5. Sprinkle grated cheeses evenly over top of pie and top with remaining basil or dill. Return to oven for 5 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes. Cut pie into 4 wedges. Serve immediately.

192 cals, 4.8g fat (2g sat fat), 10.5g carb, 17.5g protein, 7.8g fiber.

 

Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies January 6, 2010

Filed under: Chocolate, Sweets — vegsf @ 1:25 pm
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These are amazing and addictive! I made them for my family’s Christmas Party as a last minute idea since I didn’t have enough time to make the casserole I was originally planning to make. I didn’t have any white chocolate chips on hand, so I just made them with a mix of milk, semi-sweet, and bittersweet chocolate and no one could tell the difference. They turned out just as well! I also didn’t do the drizzle over the top (lazy!). They were such a hit that I decided to make a second batch for Christmas Eve.

Triple-Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Makes approx 30 cookies.
Recipe from Bon Appetit, December 2004 courtesy of Epicurious.

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup old-fashioned oats
  • 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh or frozen cranberries
  • 2 ounces milk chocolate or white chocolate, chopped (for drizzling)

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Line 2 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat butter and both sugars in large bowl until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add flour mixture and oats and stir until blended. Stir in all chocolate chips and cranberries.

Drop batter by rounded tablespoonfuls onto prepared sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until edges are light brown, about 16 minutes. Cool on sheets 5 minutes. Transfer to rack; cool completely.

Stir chopped milk chocolate in top of double boiler until melted and smooth. Using small spoon, drizzle melted chocolate over cookies in zigzag pattern. Let stand until milk chocolate sets, about 1 hour. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature.)