Asian Lemon Chicken, Wit.

Hey friends! It has been forever. I'm posting because of an unexpected nicety!

My roommate went to Trader Joe's and brought me back some vegan chicken-less strips. They sat in the fridge for a few days because I couldn't think of anything cool to do with them. Then, like I do, I was laying in bed thinking about the vast expanse of the universe or something and it came to me: I need to make lemon chicken.

You know the Asian lemon or orange chicken you can buy in any food court and in a lot of freestanding places? I could make a vegan version of that. 

One slight bummer, I was out of ginger. Next time I will absolutely use that. And next time I think I would add the chickenless strips absolutely last (because they were sooo crispy and yummy when I got them out of the oil but softened a tad once I put them in the sauce). But overall it was amazing. If you don't like the taste or texture if fake meats, frying the crap out of them and then slathering them in a delicious sauce will change your tune. Everyone loves fried things. And sauce.

I adapted a recipe from Yummily Yours which was for asian orange cauliflower. I used fresh lemon juice instead of orange, added fresh pineapple, and used a vegan-friendly brown sugar instead of white sugar. Also, instead of sriracha I used a traditional chili sauce that is found at most Asian markets. And finally -obviously- I used chickenless strips instead of cauliflower. You can view that original recipe here, and I plan to try it myself sometime soon: 

http://yummilyyours.com/orange-cauliflower/

Here is my version: 

Asian Lemon "Chicken" with Peppers and Pineapple

• 1 package of Trader Joe's Chicken-less Strips (or about a cup and a half of your favorite meat substitute)
• 1/2 cup diced bell peppers (I used red and green)
• 1/2 cup fresh cut pineapple
• 2 tsp diced white onion
• 1/3 cup + 2 tbsp corn starch
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup water (to make a batter)
• Oil for frying + 1 tbsp oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 3/4 cup vegetable broth (or you can just use water)
• 1 lemon's worth of freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp Sriracha (or another kind of red chili paste/sauce)
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed black pepper
• Salt to taste
• (You can garnish with sesame seeds and green onions as well, if you like) 
• 
  
• Heat oil for frying
• 
  
• In another pan, heat half tbsp. oil and add the diced peppers. Sauté them for a min or 2 until they turn golden. Make sure that you are not overcooking the peppers. Set aside once they are done.
• 
  
• Mix the corn starch and all-purpose flour with a pinch of salt and water to make a thick batter. The batter should be thick enough to coat the chickenless strips evenly.
• 
  
• Dip each strip into the batter and add them into hot oil for frying.
• 
  
• Fry them in batches so as to not overcrowd the pan.
• 
  
• Once the batter covering the strips turns crisp, drain them out of the oil and place them on paper towels.

Once you are done frying all the strips, you have to keep them crisp until you are ready to toss them in the sauce. You can do this either by keeping them warm in a pre-heated oven or re-frying them in hot oil for just a min before adding them into the sauce.

For the sauce, heat 1/2 tbsp oil in the pan you roasted the peppers in. Add minced ginger and garlic.

Sauté them for a min until they turn golden. Add the lemon zest in

Add the broth, lemon juice, sriracha, soy sauce, brown sugar and mix well.

Meanwhile, measure out 2 tbsp of corn starch batter than you used for the frying

Once the broth-lemon mixture begins to boil, lower the heat. Add the crushed black pepper and salt

Add the corn starch paste into the boiling mixture in a slow steady stream. Make sure you are constantly stirring the simmering mixture with your other hand while adding the corn flour paste.

Once the mixture thickens, toss in the fried strips, the sautéed bell peppers and the fresh pineapple pieces

Mix well and increase the heat up a notch. Heat for a min or 

Transfer it to a serving dish (and garnish with sesame seeds and sliced green onions if you want to

Black bean spaghetti with squash, spinach, pine nuts and tomato!

Here was dinner last night... So very pretty. It looked like a culinary rainbow.

A friend got me some black bean spaghetti. "It's fun!" she said. I thought it looked weird and would taste like crap. And I didn't have any idea what I would cook with it. But dudes... It's GOOD.

I got the recipe from Honest Kitchen and modified it. It calls for pumpkin but I thought squash would be easier to find, easier to work with and milder in flavor. It worked great! The kids loved it (I was a little worried they wouldn't but they all destroyed it).

I think next time I will try crumbling some Punk Rawk Labs vegan cheese on top, or grilling some cubed marinaded tofu and mixing it in (the original recipe calls for it to be topped with feta cheese).

1 1/2 cups butternut squash, cut into small chunks
1 cup cherry tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
1 tablespoon dried rosemary or 1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 packet black bean spaghetti
pinch of sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 big handfuls baby spinach, washed
a few tablespoons pine nut kernels, toasted


Dressing:
1/2 lemon, zested and juiced
100ml (3 ounze) extra virgin olive oil
black pepper, extra

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Place the pumpkin, tomatoes and garlic on a roasting tray. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt, black pepper and rosemary. Toss to coat. Bake for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is just cooked through (you can take the tomatoes out earlier if they look like they’re getting too soft). Leave to cool slightly.

3. Cook the black bean spaghetti according to the packet instructions (6-8 minutes in a boiling water with pinch of sea salt and olive oil). Drain and place in a large bowl. Add the spinach and toss well. Add the pumpkin and the tomatoes and fold to combine.

4. To make the vinaigrette, combine the olive oil, half of the lemon juice and the lemon zest in a bowl and whisk to combine. Season with black pepper. Drizzle the salad dressing on the dish and fold to combine.

Warming Up with Wild Rice Soup!

It is officially fall! Lars is on the east coast right now, but I didn't want to slip into "meals for one," so I've been cooking a lot and making big batches to share with friends.

My new favorite thing are those microwave rice pouches- especially the wild rice. Wild rice is incredibly easy to mess up but you never know until it's too late. I bought an Archer Farms one from Target, and used it in a recipe for cabbage rolls. I had a whole bunch left over- almost two cups- so I decided to improvise and try making a recipe for a vegan wild rice soup.

I am definitely not opposed to soy cheese, nut milks, or anything else that is meant to directly replace a meat or dairy product, but I like when I can make a recipe without them that is like the original. That means, this recipe happens to also be soy-free!

I always get nervous when I make a new recipe... this one was great! I am so happy with it. I almost can't wait until the weather gets colder so that I can warm up with some more of this.

Vegetable Wild Rice Soup

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves minced garlic
10 baby red potatoes
4 carrots, chopped
1/2 carton of sliced button mushrooms
1 1/2 cup cooked wild rice
2 boullion cubes
1 Tbsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes (I did mine unpeeled) in enough water to cover them, until they are just barely soft, then add the carrots to the water until both veggies are soft and fork-tender.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet and saute the onion, garlic and mushrooms over medium heat until onions are translucent, garlic is fragrant and the mushrooms are soft.

Process all but about 4 of the potatoes in a food processor. Remove the remaining potatoes and cut them into cubes, then return them to the water. Add the bouillon cubes as well as the onion-mushroom mixture until boiling.

Pour in the wild rice. Make sure the bouillon is fully melted, then add the processed potatoes and stir until the broth looks creamy. Season with thyme and salt and pepper.

Vegan Rosh Hashanah!

Rosh Hashanah is Jewish new year. I'm not super religious but Rosh Hashanah is fun because it focuses a lot on the fall harvest. This year I was committed to making a vegan Rosh Hashanah dinner and to my surprise and delight, everything turned out great! We had dinner outside JUST before sundown so we could enjoy our food in the beautiful weather, then have a fire in the back yard. My friend Rachel Klein joined the boys and me, and was named Captain of Pediatric Wrangling during the hours-long food preparation.

I wanted to blend Eastern European recipes, á la my grandma, along with traditional Israeli and middle Eastern staples. I ended up making my old standby Moroccan stew over Israeli couscous (which you can find in earlier posts), potato and onion borek, eggless challah, cabbage rolls, apple strudel, and falafel with hummus. I found the excellent recipes for the challah and apple strudel on this post by vegkitchen.com What was crazy and I did NOT realize while I was planning this menu, was that I made a ton of "wrapped" foods. Two foods wrapped in pastry and one wrapped in cabbage. Both of these recipes below require some tuck-n-roll.

The recipes I adapted were all either dairy or parve, and some of them require a lot of prep, so be prepared to spend some time in the kitchen! I took some shortcuts like buying microwavable wild rice (I always screw up wild rice anyway) and jarred tomato sauce (I found one with green olives which is what the recipe called for... not having to make sauce saves you a good 40 minutes)! I was terrified I was going to screw up the cabbage rolls but they were easy to assemble and were the standout success of the dinner. You will need a food processor!


Cabbage Rolls 

6 large cabbage leaves
4 Tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 large carrots, grated
5 oz mushrooms (I used portabello)
1/2 precooked brown rice
1/2 cup precooked wild rice
1/4 cup black beans (the original recipe called for lentils which you could also use)
2 cups veggie stock
3 1/2 oz vegan cream cheese
salt and pepper to taste
premade tomato or pasta sauce with olives

Boil a large pot of water and blanche the leaves for about 5-10 minutes. While you're waiting, combine the two rices and set aside.

Chop the onions in a food processor, and sauté them in a pan heated with olive oil, until they are translucent. Process the carrots and mushrooms together in the processor, then add them to the pan and cook until soft. Finally add the rice mixture, beans (or lentils) and herbs as well as salt and pepper to taste, until everything is incorporated and heated through. Transfer mixture to a bowl and mix with the vegan cream cheese.


Borek is similar to a spanakopita (Greek spinach pie) because its a savory pie wrapped in a puff pastry. Awesome fact- Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry is VEGAN! Use that information wisely, because its not exactly low-fat, low-calorie or very good for you, even though it makes some amazing treats and is easy to use. Borek is traditionally served with a tzaziki (yogurt-dill) sauce, but they are totally decadent enough on their own!

Potato, Onion and "Cheese" Borek

1 Pepperidge Farm puff pastry
1 Tbsp Earth Balance, melted
1 onion, finely chopped or processed
3 1/2 oz vegan garlic-chive cream cheese
7 oz cooked mashed potato (I actually boiled my potatoes, peeled and mashed them... time-consuming!)
1/2 chopped italian parsley
1 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 450 (original recipe says to heat to "446 degrees," which I found so funny! Old recipe books are so odd, especially when they have been translated from another language or converted into different forms of measurement).

Mix all the ingredients except the puff pastry and Earth Balance into a bowl. Lay the puff pastry on a flat surface and cut into 9 squares. This is pretty easy because it's folded into thirds, so if you cut that, and then cut it the other way, you'll have 9.

Fill each square at its base, tuck in the sides and roll up. Be careful not to overfill the pastry, and seal it by pinching the seam after rolling. Place them all on a baking sheet and brush each one with Earth Balance.

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.