Vegetarian meat loaf..

I bought a great cookbook in Costco about 2 years ago.

‘It’s called 330 Vegetarian Recipes for Health, published by Hermes House. Its a lovely British production which really reminds me of that other esteemed publisher, DorlingKindersly., simply because it is a great encyclopaedic aid for all the types of ingredients you might want to use in vegeatarian and healthy cooking.

It lovingly photographs each item and explains all information in detail. Then the recipe section , has a ton of tempting ideas

Anyhow, I made a “meat loaf” and we liked it so much that I have gone to that page again and again, so that the recipe itself is almost obscured by spilled ingredients and often, it’s hard to even open the page as it has somehow glued itself to it’s neighbouring pages using the handy spilt ingredients as a very effective glue.

I do have various cookbook protectors and contraptions to hold the book while cooking but somehow they never get used.

Here’s the recipe;

“A great vegetarian alternative to meatloaf. Works great as leftovers as well. If you don’t have a food processor, you can mash up the beans with a potato masher.”

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 onions, finely chopped
• 1 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 celery ribs, finely chopped
• 14 ounces kidney beans, canned (in Canada, our cans of lentils and kidney beans always seem to be processed in 19 oz cans. You COULD remove the extra beans and use them for something else OR adjust the recipe accordingly)
• 14 ounces lentils, canned
• 1 eggs
• 1 carrots, coarsely grated (I put in more of everything, because I use more beans..)
• 1/2 cup cheddar cheese, finely grated
• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon ketchup
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon chili powder

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F Lightly grease a 9″x5″x3″ loaf pan.
2. Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the onion, garlic & celery and cook gently for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the pan from the heat and cool slightly.
3. Rince and drain the beans and lentils. Place in a food processor with the onion mixture and egg and process until smooth.
4. Transfer the mixture to a bowl, add all the remaining ingredients and mix well. Season with salt & pepper to taste.
5. Spoon the mixture into the prepared loaf pan and level the surface. Bake for about 1 hour, then remove from the pan and cut into slices to serve.
6. Can be eaten hot or cold.

It is SO yummy; husband and all and sundry have approved it….

recipe experiments

Don’t you hate when you try a new recipe and it DOESN’T turn out?  You begin with such high hopes, and assemble your ingredients(can you tell that I am a cooking show junkie, lol) carefully,

You(I say you but, of course, I mean myself. Hopefully my dear readers,  you will have had a similar experience) have learned, over the years, that it is MUCH better to so do than to be suddenly faced with a task such as peeling and chopping apples, while your pan with a batter containing (among other things, baking soda) languishes coldly upon the counter, its rising abilities reducing by the second….(did you not read the recipe? Another wise thing to do.  :(

But I digress.

Its not nice to labour over a difficult recipe(or even , it could be an easy one, but you don’t know this, because it is NEW to YOU)  only to have it fail. Yikes.

If you have a sweet significant other, as I do, they are now faced with the onerous task of gamely sampling the disaster, trying to hide the horror as they eat, all the while , bravely telling you that, “no honey, it is DELICIOUS!!! “

But happily, the recipe that I tried this afternoon, did NOT fail.

It was (and is, as it still exists, but won’t for long) a carrot cake but one made with healthy ingrdienets, and NO SUGAR and minimal oil AND spelt flour.

A recipe by Ania Catalano

This moist, luscious cake is a tropical twist on an old favorite–made even better with Agave nectar and wholegrain flours.

Serves 8 – 10

Pineapple Coconut Carrot Cake:
3 cups carrots, finely grated in food processor
½ cup unsweetened, canned pineapple, drained well and chopped
½ cup unsweetened, shredded coconut (plus extra to garnish outside of cake, optional)
2 cups sprouted spelt flour or 1 ½ cups barley flour and ½ cup oat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoons cinnamon
¾ cup light Agave nectar
3 eggs
½ cup canola oil
1 cup non-fat plain yogurt
1 tablespoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Lightly grease two 9” cake pans with canola oil ( can use an 13×9 pan)
Mix together carrots, pineapple and coconut in a large bowl
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon
In a food processor, blend Agave nectar, eggs, oil, yogurt, and vanilla
Add egg mixture to flour mixture and stir to blend
Add carrot mixture and stir until combined
Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 30 – 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cake comes out clean
Let cool in pan, then invert onto platter
Frost with Cream Cheese Frosting

Cream Cheese Frosting:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 8 oz. Package cream cheese at room temperature
½ cup light Agave nectar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Cream together butter and cream cheese
Add agave nectar and vanilla and beat well until creamy
Refrigerate frosting for about ½ hour to thicken (if needed) before frosting cake
Spread frosting in center of the two layers and over entire cake
Sprinkle with coconut, if desired

DELICIOUS!!!!! RECOMMENDED for anyone,…..

Chinese banquet

H belongs to a  Chinese benevolent society club and two or three times a year we get to profit thereby in the form of a lavish banquet.

Last night was one such event.

We had such a good dinner that I thought I would blog it…

The dinner’s always feature at least nine dishes(this is traditional) and even the types of dishes tend to be quite traditional. Over the years though I have noticed there are less red meat dishes and even pork is taking a minor role compared to even 10 years ago. This reflects the members need to eat a bit more healthily…

For those who have never been to such a meal; the dishes are brought out seperately(but this is NOT western chinese food; no “sweet and sour pork” is ever featured nor either of these two ubiquitous western palate favourites; “lemon chicken” or even worse, “chop suey”)

We started with a cold plate that had several appetizers;

my favourite amongst these is a lovely little egg pasta, “package” ,that contains a savory piece of “chinese or shitake mushroom”. They are JUST big enough for a mouthful. Yum..

Also on the plate was Jellyfish, another universal favourite; crunchy and a bit chewy with a lovely mild flavour similar to abalone.

Closely following behind the appetizer platter was the soup. Sometimes it is birdsnest, other times sharks fin,(which due to ethical concerns has actually disappeared from most restuarants offerings)

but tonight it was fish maw. The fish maw is combined with crab and is a very delicious soup.

After the soup(and after every one has put their used bowl into the larger soup bowl so that the servers may remove it, thus making space for dishes to come) arrives

the delicately roasted and tiny quail legs..VERY tender, and very moist and surprisingly very low fat…

Next to arrive is one of the stars of the evening,

the lobster. It is steamed with ginger and when presented is nicely cracked so one doesn’t have to wrestle with the shells…

The servers passed around hand towels at this point;  after eating lobster and the quail ones hands got quite messy..lol.

NEXT arrived the Prawns which are served with sugar snap peas and candied walnuts. The peas are lovely; so crunchy and the prawns also have just the right amount of crunch but are not too chewy..

Next comes a nice dish which  I particurlay like;

fish with tofu (this is EXACTLY what it looked like; interesting that the tofu is japanese… These  are yummy little parcels , about a two bite size; succulent with a lovely sauce.

NEXT(more??) camea dish which ALSO featured tofu but this time a dried version served on a bed of young baby bok choy.

Then, another star of any chinese cuisine the Crispy skinned chicken.

Finally the penultimate dish; a sweet and sour fish(panned fried with a sweet and sour sauce poured over)

Lastly, but not least came the fried rice. This was the only dish that wasn’t very good, perhaps the poor cooks were tired after cooking so many dishes for so many at once(as the restuarant had regular patrons as WELL as our club) so I am only going to say that fried rice is a hard dish to get JUST right. This one was sprinkled with FISH ROE and it was yukky (but probably not cheap)

After such a repast were we rolling on the ground in agony? Not at all! In fact in is very similar to eating good french food; one comes away feeling comfortable but never bloated.

Cooking time

I cooked dinner tonight; I suddenly felt like being creative and cooking is one of my fav creative things!

I have a great vegetarian cookbook(I THINK I mentioned it before but am too lazy to look up my own archives to ascertain) It is called 330 Vegetarian Recipes for Health. The recipe I made is the Broccoli and Ricotta Cannelloni. It was a bit fussy to make only because it was the first time I had tried it but the results were lovely.

I have no picture, but I DID find the recipe! If you like trying new recipes, DO give this one a try…

Broccoli and Ricotta Cannelloni Recipes
Ingredients :
12 450 g 75 g 150 ml 60 ml 225 g 90 ml 30 ml For the tomato sauce : 30 ml 1 1 2 x 400 g 15 ml 4 5 ml	dried cannelloni tubes, 7.5 cm or 3 in long broccoli florets fresh breadcrumbs milk olive oil, plus extra for brushing ricotta cheese Parmesan or Pecorino cheese pine nuts, for sprinkling salt and black pepper pinch of grated nutmeg olive oil onion, finely chopped garlic clove, crushed cans chopped tomatoes tomato pur�e black olives, stoned and chopped dried thyme
Method : Preheat the oven to 190oC/375oF/Gas 5 and lightly grease an oven proof dish with olive oil. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, add a little olive oil and simmer the cannelloni, uncovered, for about 6-7 minutes, or until nearly cooked. Meanwhile, steam or boil the broccoli for 10 minutes, until tender. Drain the pasta, rinse under cold water and reserve. Drain the broccoli and leave to cool, then place in food processor or blender, whizz until smooth and set aside. Place the breadcrumbs in a bowl, add the milk and oil and stir until softened. Add the ricotta, broccoli puree, nutmeg, 60ml or 4 tbsp of the Parmesan cheese and seasoning, then set aside. To make the sauce, heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onions and garlic. Fry for 5-6 minutes, until softened, then stir in the tomatoes, tomato pur�e, black olives, thyme and seasoning. Boil rapidly for 2 – 3 minutes, then pour into the base of the dish. Spoon the cheese mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1 cm or 1/2 in nozzle. Carefully open the cannelloni tubes. Standing each one upright on a board, pipe the filling into each tube. Lay them in rows in the tomato sauce. Brush the tops of the cannelloni with a little olive oil and sprinkle over the remaining Parmesan cheese and pine nuts. Bake in the oven for about 25 – 30 minutes, until golden on top.