Tofu and sprouted mung meatballs

This week I was invited by a friend to a Hannukah party. Now this 'omnivourous' friend (physically, we're herbivores, but some people are in denial...) came to my birthday party at the glorious Buddha Burgers and relished the quishe I ordered and her veggie burger but for some reason she thought the only thing I could bring to a party was adamame. Then she said there would be a lot of non-vegan quishes and cheeses and stuff but I'll "surely find some salads to eat" (which I did, as it really was the only thing I could eat, besides bread but there's heaven in salad and bread). So I decided I'd give her a bit of a lesson in what vegans can make. And so, I made Beer Sheva cookies again and churned up a brand new recipe for meatballs. They were supposed to be fritters but I'm horrid at frying things and baking is so much better so why not?

Tofu and Sprouted Mung Meatballs

Pre-preperation: Sprout the mung beans. I did it two days in advance - one evening for soaking then the rest of the time for sprouting.

Ingredients:
600gr regular tofu
900gr (after sprouting) mung beans
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 medium tomatoes,finely chopped
4 teaspoons gram masala
4 teaspoons sweet paprika
4 teaspoons cumin
4 teaspoons turmeric
1 glass steamed pease
1 glass steamed dwarf carrots, chopped
1 bunch finely chopped parsley
2 teaspoons black pepper
9 crushed preserved garlic (by preserved, I ean the way I told you about in the indian eggplants recipe)
2 teaspoons table salt



Place mung beans and tofu in a bowl or blender and churn them into an even mush. Then vegetables and spicing and mix well until all the spicing and all the ingredients are evenly mixed. You need to be very thorough with this because the spices are very strong and if you bite into an unmixed lump you'll be a very sorry cooky.



After a desasterous attempt at frying them, I placed the mixture in my cupcakes pans and shoved them in the oven at 200c for about 20 minutes. Make sure not to overcook them as they might turn out a bit dry. They're spicy and yummy and very, very filling.



Not that they got too much appreciation...some party-goers even dipped them in mayo and sour cream sauce. This made me spend the rest of the evening wishing the animal product fats and cholesterole would hurry up and clog their arteries :) I've got it from my mother that if people don't do with my food what I want them to I can get very violent. The hostess, mind you, was very nice and praising and kept trying to excite everyone about the amazing wonder of actual food made with no animal ingredients (!!) bless her soul.

Graduation lunch for the parents

Well, I didn't go through the graduation ceremony yet because it's in may, but I finished all my chores, tests and papers for my Bs.c (in Biology) and I owe a lot of it to my parents who not only paid my tuition for two of the four years, but also helped me financially between jobs and in difficult semesters and generally were very supportive and helpful. So I threw them a festive lunch!
The lunch had three courses of my creation and included the following dishes

First course: Simple Med Salad


Ingredients: for three people
2 medium tomatoes
1 cucumber
1 bell pepper (preferably yellow or red)
1 carrot
10 green olives
1 1/2 handful of cranberries or pomegranate seeds (that's what I used)
1/2 glass of a mixture of sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds.
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 flat teaspoon of salt
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 round tablespoon crushed garlic

How to:
chop, drop and roll ha ha! The seed mix should be added last and mixed into the rest of the salad just before people start eating or they'd soak the liquid and lose their crunch




Second course: 'meatloaf’ quiche



This one took me a little longer to make because I have the tiniest blender but with a sanely-sized one you'll be fine. The meatloaf mixture turned out to be A LOT so either use this recipe for a big meal or freeze the leftover mix for any other uses. I'm planning on using mine for a taco night with some friends :)

Ingredients:
6-5 medium potatoes
300gr black beans, sprouted (they were 300gr before sprouting...)
100gr shiitake mushrooms
1 large onion
2 bags of Mozzarella Chreese Sauce Mix (or any odd hard 'cheese' you can find as long as it's thinly sliced)
100gr walnuts
3 tablespoons wheat gluten
400ml water
10 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 bottle of Liquid Smoke
5 cloves of garlic sliced
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons white cooking wine
1 teaspoon cumin

How to:
If shiitake are dry, soak them in hot water while pealing potatoes. cut potatoes in half and cook them until they're no longer starchy but not mushy yet. Slice them into 1cm thick slices.
Cook beans while chopping shiitake and onion. Lightly sauté shiitake and onion in 3 of the canola oil tablespoons and 3 of the Liquid Smoke and mix until onions are soft and slightly golden. Pre-heat over to 180c
smash walnuts into pieces and when the beans are ready, add the onions, shiitake, nuts and remaining spices to the beans, mix and start blending. Taste the blended mix and make sure it acquired a rich, meaty flavor, if not, correct spicing.
Take your quiche dish (it rhymes!!)of choice (I've got English cake ones but a wider glass dish would do great) and, unless it's a non-stick surface, lightly oil it with canola oil. Tile the bottom with the potato slices and above them, spread the meatloaf mix, then another layer of potatoes and another of mix etc. preferably ending with a layer of potatoes.
Prepare the Chreese sauce and pour it over the top layer. If using other hard "cheeses" then sprinkle or cover top layer of quiche with slices of the "cheese". You can also make the quiche a potato-meatloaf-cheese arrangement, as you please.
Stick in over for 30-45 minutes, sticking a toothpick after 30 minutes to see if deeper layers are dry enough already.



Dessert: Heavenly pudding



This is a very filling dessert and extremely tasty!

Ingredients: for each person dining!
4 teaspoons of chia seeds
1 nice and ripe banana
handful of pecans
5 dates of majhul or halawi kind, pitted
1/2 glass vanilla flavored soy milk or coconut milk
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

How to:
An hour before making the pudding, soak chia seeds in the milk. place ingredients in mixer and mix one by one, starting with the nuts and dates. The ingredients should be mixed alone, be persistent with the dates. Pour all the ingredients, including chia mix and cinnamon into bowl and mix thoroughly. If you want it to be really jell-like, you can stick it in the refrigerator for until served.



The parents were very pleased and very, very full from their meal. Thanks mom and dad!

Dishes so far

"Dishes" I say, like I've got a whole folder full of them...actually, there are only two dishes but they're of my own invention and therefore they belong here. Hope you'll enjoy these:

Crunchy vegetable appetizer

This is something very nice you can make as an appetizer or turn into a whole dish or whathaveyou. It's simple and very flexible and you can change the spice amounts to fit your preferences.

Ingredients:
3-5 zucchinis depending on their size
5 tomatoes,
1 large onion
3-5 carrots depending on their size
3-5 kohlrabi (optional)
6 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon za'atar
1 tablespoon black pepper
1/2 tablespoon salt
Juice from half a lemon
1 tablespoon minced garlic

Preheat over to 200c
Cut vegetables to four quarters from tip to tip, the kohlrabi would need to be sliced into slices of around a centimeter or it'll take too long to prepare. Slice onion to rings or strips according to whatever you like.

Mix oil with spices and smear the paste onto the vegetables as thinly as possible. Conserve the tomato juice and add to whatever you have left of the oil mix.

Place vegetables on baking pan under aluminum foil or cooking paper and scatter the onion between the vegetable pieces. Place in oven for 10-15 minutes. Keep an eye on the veggies and when they get golden, take them out.

Now you've got a few things you can do with them:
1. Make tahini and pour it over the vegetables before serving. You can also keep the tahini in a small dish on the side and offer it as a dip for the vegetables.
2. Initially chop vegetables into much smaller cubes and add them to pasta with the juices extracted during the baking and the leftovers of the spice and oil mix as a sauce.

* You can also add tempeh to the baking, it turned out great when I did it.

Dalek!



He he he he. Dalek - dahl with leeks and a nifty sauce. Yes, I looked very hard on how to get leeks into a dahl just so I can call it Dalek, so what? It's actually a mix between the dahl, a trick I learned from a mostly-omnivorous cooking book and a sauce which is a part of a more complex omnivorous recipe my mom found on a newspaper once (I got my cooking aspirations somewhere...)

Dahl: It's very important that you start cooking the dahl before the other half of the recipe to cut the cooking time.
1 cup of lentils, I used black lentils because I love their flavor but any old lentils can work
2 cups of whole rice
5 cups of water
Canola oil
Cooking wine

How to make: cover your pot's bottom with a thin layer of oil and heat it. Add lentils. fry and mix. Pour enough of the wine to cover the lentils and cook until the wine is completely vaporized. This gives the dahl an interesting twist. Add the rice and the water and let cook.

Leeks and nifty sauce:
2 large leeks
3 small, fresh fennels
1/4 cup of canola oil
6 chopped garlic cloves
2 tablespoons of chopped rosemary leaves
salt & pepper
1/4 of lemon juice
1 tablespoons lemon zest
1/2 cup of water
parsley

How to make: chop the leeks to small half-circles. Chop fennels into small cubes. Pour oil into a large, flat pot and heat the oil, then add the leeks. Fry the leeks until they're nice and golden, then add the fennel, garlic and rosemary. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the mix and fry for about 5 minutes until the fennels are equally golden. Add the lemon juice, zest and the water and bring to a boil.

Once boiled, add the dahl and continue the cooking (while keeping an eye on how much water the lentils and rice take in, add if it's getting too dry) until the rice is prepared. Before serving, add fresh parsley over the dish.

And now you have a Dalek ^_^ have fun and don't let it outside.