A Long, Overdue Vegetarian Delight

With school, life has been way too busy to have free-time, let alone enjoy cooking. However, I did find time once in the past 3 months to try out some new vegetarian recipes. Since I have a tendency to use a recipe more as "guidelines" rather than strictly following the directions I altered the recipe a little.

Veggie Pasta & Veggie-Stuffed Tomato

This dinner was a combination of two recipes:
First was an altered version of the Pasta w/ Butternut Squash, Spinach, and Prosciutto recipe from the Winter 2010 version of America's Test Kitchen. Being vegetarian I completely changed this recipe to only have vegetables such as: zucchini, squash, bell peppers, tomatoes, and spinach.
First I cooked the vegetables in a frying pan with butter, oregano, basil & a splash of white wine to add flavor. And then added this little medley to the pasta.

The second recipe was the Gruyere-filled Beefsteak Tomatoes from the Accidental Vegetarian cookbook. While I changed the other recipe to be extremely simple, the stuffed tomatoes was much more complex. The recipe is as follows:

4 Beefsteak Tomatoes
1 3/4 cups heavy cream
2 zucchini (finely diced)
2 red bell peppers (seeded & finely diced)
1 garlic clove (crushed)
1 3/4 cups freshly grated Gruyere cheese

(1) Skin tomatoes by putting a cross on the bottom, plunging them into boiling water for 30 secs, then into iced water - this will allows the skin to peel off easily. Slice off the tops and put them aside, scoop out the pulp into a bowl, being careful not to break the skin & put to the side.
(2)Put the cream in a heavy-bottom pan, bring slowly to a boil, then cook to reduce the volume in half.
(3)Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a large pan & gently fry the vegetables and garlic for about 5 mins.
(4)Add 2/3 cup of the cheese to the reduced cream & stir it until it melts. Remove from the heat and fold in the fried vegetables.
(5)Divide the filling between the tomatoes and top it off with the remaining cheese, sit the lids of the tomatoes on top and put it on a baking sheet.
(6)Bake the tomatoes for 6-8 minutes - until the cheese melts.

The stuffed tomatoes took a decent amount of prep time before they were fully complete, but they made the perfect side dish - as long as you don't have too many that you're cooking for, since it requires a fully tomato per person.

Hopefully, I'll have a little more free time in the next few months to try some new recipes since I recently got 3 new vegetarian cookbooks... :P

Look ma... I can cook!

Back in April I couldn't even properly make mac 'n cheese without melting the spatula. But now, all that has changed; I can COOK (and bake). This summer I've taken the time to actually make full meals and put some effort into cooking rather than make a grilled cheese. I'll let you in on a little secret, most of this is vegan food - but I don't usually tell people because it freaks them out. Many people assume vegans can only eat grass and dirt, but you'd be surprised how normal a vegan diet is... pile on the fries, burgers, nuggets, shakes, cookies, cupcakes - just substitute a few ingredients.

Here are some of my creations:

Vegan burger w/ avocado and potato fries...

This was a perfect meal to celebrate the 4th of July, especially after a long day participating in a horseshoes tourney on the beach... A burger and potatoes are always a safe bet for a meal because they're so dang delicious - and it barely takes any effort or time. :)

Quinoa & Veggies
(squash & potatoes)

Quinoa is a gluten-free grain, extremely similar to couscous... It barely takes any time at all to make. And rather than using water to make the quinoa, I used vegetable broth which gave it a little more flavor. As for the vegetables, I did not have a steamer, so I put them in a frying pan with a mix of oil and water and let them cook...

Wheat Pasta and Summer Squash

It's exactly what it sounds like, make some pasta, steam some squash, add some sauce... and Ta-da! You have a wonderful hearty vegetarian/vegan meal. (I made this meal in memory of the greatest vegetable pasta dish I've ever tasted while traveling last summer in Peru... random place to have such delicious pasta, but the world is full of surprises).

Caitlyn's ALMOST Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

This was my first attempt at vegan baking... and I ALMOST succeeded. Surprisingly enough, there are a variety of substitutes that you can use instead of eggs. The one I decided to use for these cookies was soy yogurt, however I accidentally used regular yogurt, so they weren't quite vegan. Then instead of regular butter or margarine you can use the dairy-free kind. And on accident I added a little extra flavor by using Sea Salt instead of regular salt. It was a good addition, but if you do use sea salt instead or regular salt, be sure to put half the amount that is required because Sea Salt has a stronger taste. One critic described these cookies as a "food orgasm." (I'm not making this up)

Banana-Banana Bread Muffins

This is just the boxed banana bread mix from Trader Joe's, except I modified it some, even tho you only need to add 3 ingredients. Instead of eggs I used a banana as the binding force for the bread. Which makes sense because you want a banana taste anyways. And I couldn't find a bread pan, so I just used a mUffin tin and made a dozen personal size banana breads. :)

For a full list of egg substitutes you can check it out at the Post Punk Kitchen:
Egg Substitutes... Check it out!

**For the record, I am only a vegetarian, NOT a vegan. But vegan cooking is a lot easier than you'd guess**