Vegetarian

Massaman Curry with Tofu

December 13, 2012 by Erica

Do you have a favorite takeout place?

Mine is a Thai restaurant a few minutes away. Their curries and noodles are amazing. And almost as good as the food is the ritual of ordering takeout. I call (usually when leaving yoga) and the same guy answers the phone every time. Seriously, this guy must work 80 hours a week. I have his script down pat. I know exactly how much it’s going to cost ($12.89) and when it will be ready (10-15 minutes). I could order from there in my sleep. One time they were randomly closed on a Tuesday and my call went straight to voicemail. It really threw me for a loop. I called back at least 3 times before I could acknowledge that I wasn’t going to be able to place my routine takeout order.

This Massaman curry is actually NOT my usual Thai order (that would be drunken stirfry with tofu). But I was introduced to it recently and loved it so much that I changed my usual order the other night to this. It cost $13.49, not $12.89, so that was a sad little departure from the norm, but at least it was still ready in 10-15 minutes.

I’ve never had a Massaman curry other than the one from my favorite Thai place, so I tried to replicate the flavor of theirs as closely as possible. It’s not your typical curry in that it’s actually very mild. It’s also peanut-y, creamy, and coconut-y – yet packed with vegetables?? So many good things.

Speaking of the vegetables in this recipe, they’re just a suggestion really. The takeout I get has tofu, potatoes and carrots only, but more veggies and less tofu seemed like a good idea to me. I’ve also tried broccoli in here, but found that it didn’t reheat well. Feel free to use your favorite veggies (or just whatever you have in the fridge!).

Massaman Curry with Tofu

Hands-on time

15 mins

Cook time

35 mins

Total time

50 mins

This vegan version of a Massaman curry is mild yet flavorful and packed with vegetables. You'll never order Thai takeout again.

Author: Erica

Yields: 6-8

Ingredients

brown rice for serving
2 Tbsp coconut oil
2 Tbsp Massaman curry paste
1 yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 knob of ginger (about ¾ inch), peeled and minced or grated
2 cans light coconut milk
3 Tbsp brown sugar
1/2 Tbsp tamarind paste
1/3 cup peanut butter
juice of 1 lime
½ Tbsp low-sodium tamari or soy sauce
1 ½ lbs potatoes, chopped into ½ inch chunks, peels left on (I used Yukon gold)
1 large carrot, peeled and chopped
1-2 small zucchini, sliced into half-coins
5 oz mushrooms, sliced
2 vine-ripened tomatoes, cut into wedges
1 can baby corn, drained and chopped
8 oz firm or extra firm tofu, cubed
roasted peanuts for topping

Instructions

Cook rice according to these instructions.
Heat coconut oil in a large deep pan over medium heat. Add the curry paste and mash into oil until combined and hot.
Stir onion, garlic and ginger into the curry mixture. Saute for a few minutes until very fragrant and slightly softened.
Whisk in the coconut milk. Add the brown sugar, tamarind paste, peanut butter, lime juice, and tamari and whisk to incorporate.
Add potatoes and carrots. Cover and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 20 minutes (depending on the size of your potato chunks), until potatoes are tender.
Add zucchini, mushrooms, and any other veggies you might be using that need to cook for a few minutes. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.
Finally, stir in the tomato wedges, baby corn, and tofu. Remove from heat and let sit for a minute or two until tofu is heated through.
Serve over rice and top with roasted peanuts.

Notes

Adapted from The Gluten Free Vegan.

Christmas Chili Crostini

December 11, 2012 by Erica

Bah humbug.

Just kidding. Red and green appetizers – they’re pretty much the most festive thing EVER.

The truth is, I often feel Scrooge-like at this time of year. It starts the day after Thanksgiving, when stores have put up Christmas decorations and started playing Christmas music inappropriately early (if you ask me). Friends who are really into Christmas start getting excited, everyone makes a big deal of Black Friday, and I’m like LET’S RELISH THANKSGIVING. I love Christmas, but I’m not really into the commercial holiday thing as much as some people are, so it takes me a few weeks after Thanksgiving to warm up to the idea of it.

But I’m happy to say that time has arrived! I made these appetizers this weekend while ordering Christmas gifts and listening to my “All I Want For Christmas Is You” Pandora station with gingerbread in the oven. It was a lot of Christmas multi-tasking (’tis the season) and I’m now officially in the holiday spirit.

(Please excuse the avocado under my fingernails. Note to self: cooking + hand modeling = not a match made in heaven.)

So I ended up making these 4 times this weekend… suffice it to say we liked them! But what’s not to like about some spice, avocado, and a schmear of cream cheese? (Not vegan.)

These are definitely my new go-to holiday appetizer. They would be perfect to bring to a friend’s house for a holiday cocktail party, or to serve at your own party.

So crank up the Mariah Carey and get cookin’!

Christmas Chili Crostini

Adapted from Small Bites by Jennifer Joyce

Makes about 24

Time: about 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 baguette, sliced (about 24 slices) –> I like to buy them pre-sliced from the grocery store to save time!
olive oil
1/4 cup cream cheese
2 large (or 3 small) avocados, halved and carefully sliced crosswise
1/4 cup sweet Thai chili sauce
2 red jalapeños, seeded and thinly sliced (sometimes called red Fresno peppers, or use green jalapeños if you can’t find these)
6 green onions (green parts only), thinly sliced

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Slice baguette (if not using pre-sliced!) and spread on a baking sheet. Brush the top of each slice with olive oil. Bake at 400 for 6 minutes. (You may be tempted to leave them in longer, but don’t! They get crunchy quickly, and you don’t want to serve little bricks to your guests.) Remove baguette slices from oven and set aside until cool enough to handle.

Spread a thin layer of cream cheese on each baguette slice. Lay a slice or 2 of avocado on top, followed by a quarter-sized dollop of Thai chili sauce (exact measurements here!). Garnish with a slice or two of jalapeño and a sprinkle of green onions.

Voila! Ready to serve!

Noodles in Spicy Lemongrass Broth

December 7, 2012 by Erica

Things I want to do before Christmas:

1) Take a week off from work and wander around Whole Foods.

2) Take a week off from work and bake Christmas cookies.

3) Take a week off from work and make Asian soups.

Shoot. I don’t even have enough weeks before Christmas, never mind vacation days. Will someone pay me to do those things? Great.

Well, I may not have started on the Christmas cookies yet (or my Christmas shopping – eek! – which sadly cannot be done at Whole Foods), but I’ve been making my fair share of Asian soups lately because:

1) I just finished Lisa See’s Dreams of Joy, which left me craving Asian food (which is odd because there is a lot of starvation in the book as well as, uhhh, cannibalism).

2) I am fighting off a cold and want to eat ramen noodles all day long. (Why is that? It’s uncontrollable.)

3) OK, three things. Did I mention it looks like this outside?

Fortunately, this soup contains only plants and is healthier (and MUCH spicier) than ramen. You can cut back on the chilies very easily, though, and it will still be plenty flavorful with the lemongrass, ginger, etc.

Basically, you add a bunch of flavorful Asian things to a pot (or Dutch oven if you haven’t done your dishes recently!) with some broth:

And simmer until it looks like this:

Then strain the solids out. Get your bowl ready with noodles, tofu, and veggies!

And then pour in as much broth as you like! I didn’t use much here, as you can see, but you can certainly fill your bowl to the brim.

Then slurp, slurp, slurp!

I love this broth and can’t wait to make it again soon. It’s perfect for that pea soup whether we’ve been having recently, not to mention colds.

Have a great weekend! Next week, Christmas recipes – I promise. Plus an announcement!

Noodles in Spicy Lemongrass Broth

Adapted from Sunset

Serves 3

Time: about 40 minutes

Ingredients:

3 stalks fresh lemongrass (10 to 12 inches long)
1/2 bunch cilantro, rinsed
1/2 cup chopped green onions (including tops)
6 thin slices (quarter size) peeled fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic, peeled
3 fresh red Thai chilies, rinsed, stemmed, seeded, and quartered (if you can’t handle spicy food, I recommend cutting the chilies down to 1 or skipping them altogether and serving sriracha sauce alongside the soup)
1/4 tsp ground pepper
5 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
4 oz thin rice noodles
7 oz firm tofu, cubed
3 baby bok choy, rinsed and chopped

Instructions:

First, prepare the broth. Rinse the lemongrass and cut off and discard tough tops and root ends. Peel off and discard the coarse outer leaves. With the flat side of a knife, crush the inner lemongrass stalk. Chop cilantro leaves and set aside for garnish. Reserve the stems – these are what you will use in the broth.

In a pot, combine the crushed lemongrass, cilantro stems, 1/4 cup green onions, ginger, chilies, garlic, ground pepper, and vegetable broth. Simmer, covered, for 30 minutes. Pour through a strainer over a large bowl and discard the solids.

Meanwhile, cook noodles according to package directions. Drain and rinse with cold water. Divide noodles between two to three soup bowls. Top with tofu and 1 baby bok choy per bowl. Ladle broth over noodles. Garnish with chopped cilantro leaves and remaining 1/4 cup green onions.

Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Sushi Bowl

December 5, 2012 by Erica

Introducing my new favorite dinner, the sweet potato sushi bowl. That boring rice post yesterday was just a way to make sure you were prepared for this.

Make. It. Tonight. (!!!)

This weekend was officially deemed Asian Cooking Weekend in my apartment. I actually didn’t get through all the dishes I wanted to, but luckily I made this sushi bowl a priority. After we ate it, I couldn’t stop smiling. It is just SO GOOD that I couldn’t believe it had come out of my kitchen! It tastes like high-end sushi and really requires minimal effort.

So what’s in this little beauty?

Seasoned rice, roasted sweet potato, avocado, sliced veggies, seaweed, sesame seeds, and green onions, all topped with a gingery sauce. Just tell me that doesn’t look like salmon! And it’s just sweet potato, chopped up like this:

… and then marinated and roasted.

If you like sushi, seriously make this tonight. If don’t have an Asian market nearby, you are excused until tomorrow night. There are a few things in here (sesame oil, nori, and mirin) that you probably can’t find in your grocery store, but I can’t emphasize enough how worth it the extra trip will be. (Don’t skip the nori whatever you do – it’s what makes it taste like sushi!)

If you’re like me, this is also an excellent chance to use those Asian-looking dishes you bought for absolutely no reason and have been occupying shelf space ever since :)

Sweet Potato Sushi Bowl

Serves 4

Time: about 1 hour (less if rice is cooked ahead of time)

Ingredients:

For the sushi bowl:
1 ½ cups dry brown rice
1 large sweet potato
2 Tbsp low-sodium tamari or soy sauce
1 avocado, sliced
8 radishes, sliced
4 cups shredded napa cabbage
6-8 green onions (light and dark green parts), thinly sliced
2 4×8 in sheets nori (seaweed)
2 Tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

For the sauce:
1 Tbsp fresh ginger, minced
juice of 1 orange
¼ cup + 2 Tbsp low-sodium tamari or soy sauce
¼ cup mirin (Japanese rice wine)
2 tsp sesame oil

Instructions:

Cook rice according to these instructions. (This could also be done ahead of time and then reheated.)

Preheat oven to 375 and line a baking sheet with tin foil or parchment paper.

Peel sweet potato and slice into pieces 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick (see photo above). Toss in a ziploc bag with 2 Tbsp soy sauce. Lay flat and let marinate 5-10 minutes, turning once or twice to get the soy sauce all over. Spread out on the baking sheet, pouring any soy sauce left in the ziploc over top, and bake for 15 minutes, until tender.

While the sweet potato is roasting, blend or whisk together all sauce ingredients. (I used an immersion blender.)

Toast sheets of nori at 350 degrees for a few minutes, until fragrant. (I like to do this in my toaster oven, but you could also do it just before or after the sweet potato.) Chop or crumble into small pieces. Still at 350, toast sesame seeds for several minutes until golden brown and fragrant.

When rice is done, mix it with about half the sauce, a quarter of the nori, and a quarter of the green onions.

In bowls, layer the rice and napa cabbage and arrange the avocado, radishes, and sweet potato on top. Top with additional nori, green onions, sesame seeds and sauce.

Enjoy with green tea!

Tastes best on the first day made.

Perfect Brown Rice

December 4, 2012 by Erica

This one of those annoying posts where I give you one part of a recipe, then wait until the next day to give you the exciting part. Kind of like pizza dough without the actual toppings.

But hold on, because this is kinda life-changing! Wait… is your life more exciting than mine? Or just less rice-based? If it’s less rice-based, then this will be life-changing.

Let me start by saying that I was always a basmati rice girl. I had seen a bunch of “never make mushy brown rice again!” Pinterest posts, but I thought, no big deal, I never have trouble with white rice. Then I started trying to eat whole grains, and WOAH – I just could not get my brown rice to cook right. Order it from my favorite Thai place and it’s deliciously chewy and tender, make it at home and it turns to mush and burns the bottom of my pot to boot. And I do NOT have room for a rice cooker in my tiny little kitchen. So I dug up those old pins, and I found: Make it like pasta.

Revolutionary.

That’s the secret, you guys! You use more water than you usually would for rice, then you strain it (and let the rice steam a bit more).

See? Life-changing.

It doesn’t really matter how much water you use here (just like pasta). Just make sure you use a pot that’s big enough to hold a bit more water than you’re used to.

Try this method and see if it doesn’t change your opinion of brown rice!

Coming tomorrow is my new favorite dinner, featuring: (you guessed it) Rice.