Dosa

I felt really inspired tonight; I had some leftover squash and I wanted to make a dosa to have with it. I used a recipe from Madhur Jaffrey's book as a guide and it turned out pretty well, although not flawlessly, as I attemped to flip it too soon and it sortof fell apart... But it wasn't yet cooked enough that I couldn't stick it back together!

I combined equal parts all purpose flour, brown rice flour, yogurt, grated coconut, and water with a bit of salt in the food processor, toasted some mustard seeds and then blended it all again. I spread it around in my cast iron skillet and (should have) let it cook about 5-7 minutes over a medium flame, flip it and cook probably 3 or 4 more minutes.

When it was done, I folded it in half over the squash and ate it with some yogurt on the side. That's it! This one was a knockout success in the flavor department, and I'm anxious to make it again.

Pancakes, Pupusas, Soup

Quick post:

Saturday morning, I made pancakes for breakfast. Whole wheat flour, brown rice flour, baking powder, soymilk, vanilla extract. Awesome! Angeline chopped up mango and banana for the topping.

Made pupusas using masa harina and loosely following this recipe. For the filling, I made refried black beans and mixed them with leftover cooked acorn squash. Again, I felt it was lacking something, although the bean/squash mixture is extremely tasty on its own. I think cheese was the missing ingredient, so maybe I will try again in a few weeks and make an interesting sounding uncheese.

Finally, I made some soup. I boiled asparagus, broccoli, and chives until soft in broth with thyme and marjoram. Pureed that and set it aside, and made a roux with brown rice flour and olive oil, added almond milk and then mixed the puree back in. I thought it was too sweet at this point, because of the almond milk, so I added a bit of salt, more spices, and some basil. It was nice, a sweetish soup with an herbal finish to it.

Pseudopusas

Inspired by a recent post in Vegan Lunch Box, I modified the banana flop idea into pseudo pupusas. I made a batter of corn meal, chickpea and brown rice flours, baking powder, and soymilk and made a thick pancake-like object. Before flipping them, I put (previously cooked) sweet potato and mango on top and layered on more batter.

I'll be honest, it needs something. Salsa? Cheese? Spices? I'm really not sure, probably any of them would have done the trick. In spite of the sweet potato and mango, it came out a bit on the bland side. Actually, bland's not the right word. The flavor was good, it just needed to feature something.

Still, it was a worthy experiment. I'll be attempting it again at some point, but probably not before I try to make a more authentic version.

Risotto Rules!

Tonight I plan to use some of the great asparagus we received to make risotto. As a reminder to myself, I used this article from Arbor Food as my guide last time I made risotto and I was thrilled with the outcome.

I'm back! With broccoli!

I just made cream of broccoli soup, following the gist of a recipe from Savvy Vegetarian. I boiled the broccoli and some herbs in 4 cups of stock until it softened, and then pureed it. Then I made a roux with olive oil, brown rice flour, a bit of nutritional yeast, and almond milk. There wasn't enough of that, so I had to resort to regular milk to finish off the sauce. Then I stirred the puree back in, added salt & pepper to taste, and called it done. Verdict: delicious. And another mysterious food has become ... less mysterious.