Recipes index

Although tags are useful, and can help you to find the recipe you are looking for, I thought that a classic index never hurt. So, I will add the recipes here as I post them, classified by categories.

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Breakfast& desserts
Appetizers
Stews, chilies and casseroles
Main courses: grains and pasta
Salads
Fake meat and tofu
Vegetables and side dishes
Sauces, dips & spreads
Baked goods

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Breakfast& desserts


Basic green smoothie
Chocolate-Green Smoothie
Vietnamese Dessert Pudding with White Beans and Sticky Rice in Coconut Milk
Bloody "Green" Smoothie with pears


Appetizers

Bread with tomato and baked red bell pepper (Spanish tapas)
Savory Onion Crackers (Nippattu)


Soups


Krupnik (polish barley soup)
Two beans beetroot buckweat soup
Creamy Pumpkin soup with cashews Roasted chickpeas and zucchini soup


Stews, chilies and casseroles


Gypsy Pot recipe
Borlotti Bean Mole with Roast Winter Squash
Chana dal Masala [spiced split pea lentils]
Pumpkin & sweet potatoes stew with white beans


Main courses: grains and pasta


Cannellini bean sauce and herbed tomato sauce over carrot rice
Mushroom, Lentil, and Wild Rice Timbales
Oven Baked Rice with Zucchini
Crème of buckwheat
Vegan pelmenis with seitan and adzuki beans
Curried rice and red lentils with Brussels sprouts


Salads


Russian Sauerkraut salad with raw hummus



Fake meat and tofu



Split peas and rice hamburgers
Ultimate Veggie Burger
Seitan Ham
Beefy (and nutty) seitan

Vegetables and side dishes
Spicy Indian Cabbage and Green Peas
Stewed hijiki seaweed with carrots recipe
Asparagus with vegan Hollandaise sauce
Cauliflower and green peas dry curry (T&T)

Sauces, dips & spreads
Raw Hummus
Vegan Hollandaise sauce
White beans and avocado hummus

Baked goods
Orange upside down cake
Fusion apricot cherry birthday cake
Orange glazed plum cake
Orange Garam Masala Bundt cake

Gypsy Pot recipe

At last, here is the recipe I promised to post a couple of weeks ago: Gypsy Pot. As I already told in that post, since I tried it for the first time more than one year ago, it became one of my favorites dishes. Honestly, I hardly ever repeat a recipe. I have too many recipes (well, maybe now not as many as I had before because my laptop said good bay a month ago and I had to reinstall the operative system...and I forget to copy on a CD the One Note folder where I had all my recipes), which I still have to try. The list is endless. Why should I repeat a recipe twice? Well, that dish is an exception. I not only cooked it twice, but much more times. So you can imagine how much I love it! I wanted to try Paulina's Chickpeas with Spinach, but I didn't go to the supermarket this weekend, so I had no spinach.

I found the recipe in a Spanish vegan blog called El delantal verde (the green apron), so if anyone can speak Spanish, you can find the recipe here. Nevertheless, I did some changes in the recipe, so it became my own version.

I suppose you are tired of reading about weather, but it change so quickly here!First, we had a week of rain and more rain, the next week was boiling hot (I went with the school to the beach, and burnt all my face. Now my nose is peeling. Ouch!) and this morning it really poured down. Now, it's shiny and hot again...luckily, because I could go running. Does anybody more enjoy running? I have been running for seven years, and sometimes I think that it's like a drug for me. I feel incredibly well after running.
Lately, I have been taking advantage of my time of running to memorize English vocabulary. I write them down on a little paper, and I take the paper with me. Today, for example, I have been memorizing phrasal verbs because tomorrow I have an exam. Yesterday I went to Barcelona to "Casa Asia" (Asia's house) because it has got a specialized library, and I needed a book about the Japan post war economic recuperation (my next history project). As I supposed, the book is in English (there is a lack of good books and information in Spanish), but it's not a problem, isn't it?

Gypsy Pot recipe (Olla gitana)
You will find as many versions of gypsy pot as food blogs on the net, so it's a matter of trying and finding the version you like the most. The recipe of the food blog where I saw it for the first time, is slightly different from that. The first times, I used green beans as it was told, but one they I was run out of them, so I didn't add beans. And I loved the result. I changed the white potatoes for sweet potatoes, as well. Elena's recipe didn't use carrot, but I saw that all the other recipes use carrots. I tried to add them once too (the Traveler's Lunchbox Gypsy Pot recipe), but I didn't like the result either.
Sofrito is translated by the Oxford dictionary as "tomato, onion, etc. fried lightly in oil" (what in fact, is) but it doesn't have a name in English. Is used as a base for most of the Spanish and Catalan dishes (for example, paella, fideuà....)

Serves: 4-6 depending if a main course or a side dish.

-3 cups of cooked chickpeas (although you can add a little more or a little less)
-2 medium sweet potatoes
-2 cups of roughly chopped pumpkin
-2 medium pears
-a handful of green beans *optional* I didn't use them. If using, add them along with the pumpkin and the pears.
-raisins *optional
-stock or water to cover

Sofrito

-1 onion
-1 red bell pepper
-2 medium tomatoes
-3 tablespoons of tomato paste
-3 cloves garlic
-1 tablespoon of oil
-1/2- 1 teaspoon ground cumin (depending on your taste)
-1 teaspoon Spanish paprika
-a few saffron threats

Preparation

1. If using non canned chickpeas, soak them the night before and cook until tender (about 1 1/2 hour)


2. Put the chickpeas in a pot with the stock or water. It must just cover it. Chop the sweet potatos in cubes and add them. Bring it to boil and cook for 10 minutes.


3. Meanwhile, make the sofrito. Put the olive oil in a sauce pan, and when it's hot add the chopped onion, cook for a few minutes, and add all the other vegetables (the red bell pepper and the tomatoes) finely chopped. The tomatos must be peeled. Add the tomato past too. Cook on a low heat for 10 - 15 minutes, stirring from time to time to don't burn it. A few minutes before finishing, add the cumin, the Spanish paprika and the saffron threats.


4. After 10 minutes, add to the pot with chickpeas the other ingredients: the pumpkin in cubes, the pear in quarters (although if you don't like the chuncks too big, you can cut in smaller pieces) and the raisins. Cook on low heat another 10 or 15 minutes.


5. After that 15 minutes, add the sofrito to the pot with chickpeas and cook 5 minutes to leave the flavors develop. If it's too watery, you can puree one cup of the strew with a blender and return it to the pot. In that case, simmer for another 2-3 minutes.


6. Serve very hot, with a couple of slices of lemon and ground almond on top.

Cooking the sofrito

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Update 5th September 2009
This recipe has been submitted to "Steady Pulse", a blog event with "bean & legume recipes you can count on"

CRON-O-Meter: a free, open source, dieting software

Weather is getting warmer there. In fact, we had a very sunny week, with high temperatures. Summer is almost here! Although I love all the seasons, because each season has got something magical, summer in Spain is great because of the sun, the hot and the beach (the sea is ten minutes walking from my home, and I even can see it from our balcony)

Today's post is quite short. It's not a recipe, but a very useful software I would like to share with us: it's called CRON-O-Meter, and it's a dieting software. I found it because Paulina, from Veggie Delight, talked about it (thanks, Paulina!). She used it track what she eats to be sure that she gets the calories and the nutrients she need with a raw vegan diet. Although it was created basically for people who is dieting, I think that it can be useful too for people who is not on a low calorie diet. CRON-O-Meter has got a huge database that even include products from many brands, and calculate your vitamin, mineral and nutrient intake in percentatge. As a vegan, for example, maybe you want to be sure you get enough protein, or Omega-3 fatty acids. The best of all is that it's an open source software, so it's absolutelly free. You can download it here

Thanks to that software, for example, now I know that I get by far enough vitamin A, but not enough Niacin and Selenium. This is my vitamin track until lunch time.

This is the view from our balcony. The town is as boring as it seems on the photo.

Split peas and rice hamburgers recipe

I have been only one week in school, and I already want to be on holidays again! In less than two month I will have lots of exams again (the fearsome end-of-year exams!)


But I don’t have exams yet, and that means that I still have some time to cook something interesting. Well, I must confess…sometimes I ignore my conscience, who tells me that I should be studying  the battles of the Second World War and all the possible manners that exist to calculate the GDP, and I cook something for myself to relax (better if the dish is elaborate and takes me several hours). After, I tell myself off for didn’t study enough…especially when I have to get up at 5 AM to study because I couldn’t do it before; then, sitting on my desk, with my Economics book in front of me and a cup of strong coffee to don’t fall asleep, I curse my hobby for cooking… But while I am cooking I am happy, and I am even happier when I am eating what I cooked, so I do it again and again (I can’t help it). Do you like cooking to escape from the work or the studies?


Yesterday I went to the “Exposalud 09” in Barcelona: is a fair related to health, where you could find all kind of stands: acupuncture, massage, alternative medicine books, dietary supplements, new inventions…and the best of all: organic food! There were many stands who offered the visitors taste their products, and I was lucky because they were almost all vegan. I tried more than 10 different spread (the black olives was the best!), six different flavors of vegetable milk (rice with hazelnut was delicious, as well as choco-flavored soy drink), vegan sausages, vegan ham and three types of barbecued tofu. I was so stupid that I didn’t bring the camera, but there is another fair the 7th of May, this time specifically about organic food, so I promise that this time I will make lots of photos!

After tasting all that delicious tofu and seitan dishes, I felt like doing something “meaty” too. I was run out of tofu, and I didn’t want to waste my last wheat gluten (I still have many recipes with wheat gluten I would like to try, but I was not inspired to cook them), so I decided to bake vegetable hamburgers. I haven’t baked hamburgers for ages, I thought. This time, instead of using the classic bean-based hamburger, I tried to use split peas with rice. And the result was not bad at all!

Split peas and rice hamburgers

This time I used chickpea flour, but feel free to substitute it for any other flour. I also used bread crumbs, but you can try to omit them by just adding more oats (better if they instant-oats) if you want a gluten-free hamburger, or try with a non-wheat bread crumbs.  I didn’t have any commercial brand egg replacer, so I used what I use always to bind the dough: ground flaxseed with water. Last week I bought a vegetable hamburger mix, ready to use (you just have to soak it in hot water for 20’, and make the hamburgers) but I didn’t want to use just the commercial mix because is too expensive. So, I added it too give it more flavor. I bought five different kinds: the one I used there was ‘Indian-style’. You can omit it by adding more spices and salt, if you don’t find it tasty enough, or dry any veggie burger dry mix available in your store (I don’t know what brands you can buy in USA or England)

I served one of the patties with mustard and ketchup, and the other one with peanut butter and tahini, and they were both delicious. You can try with any of your favorite sauces (I think vegan-mayo would work great), in a bun with some lettuce leafs and tomato, or alone with a side salad or steamed veggies.

Ingredients

• 1 + ½ cup cooked rice (I used short grain brown rice)


• 1+ ½ cup cooked split peas


• 1 cup oats


• 1 small beet, cooked and grated


• 3 Tbps cooked hijiki (optional: you can add any other seaweed or omit it)


• ½ cup bread crumbs + for coating


• 2 Tbsp of chopped green onions (tops only)


• 1 Tbsp chickpea flour


• 2 tsp ground flaxseed + 2 Tbsp water (optional: you can substitute it for any egg replacer)


• 2 Tbsp vegetable hamburger mix (optional)


• 2 tsp oregano


• ¼ tsp ground black pepper


• 1 tsp dry garlic


• 1 tsp dry dill


• Salt
  
  

Preparation:

• Cook the rice and the split peas until they are tender (about 30-40 minutes, depending on the kind of rice and split peas) and drain well. Cook as well the beets and the hijiki (30-40 min)


• In a bowl, mix the rice, the split peas, the oats, the grated beet, the cooked hijiki and the bread crumbs. Meanwhile, mix the grounded flaxseed with the water with a fork, and leave 10 minutes to thicken. Add all the remaining ingredients: the spices, the chickpea flour (or any other flour), the vegetable hamburger mix if you have and the salt.


• Preheat the oven at 170º.


• Add the grounded flaxseeds to the mix (it should have a consistency similar to an egg), mix well and put it in the fridge to cool and thicken: it will be easier to do the patties.


• After at least 30 minutes (better if it’s more), take out of the fridge the mix. Now, make the patties: I did 10 cm of diameter patties, because I love them thin (they are easier to put in a bun) and they bake easier. Do make the patties, do it on a clean surface lightly covered with breadcrumbs, so they won’t stick.


• Line the oven tray with parchment paper, and put the patties on them. Bake MAXIMUM 10-15 minutes on each side, or until they are firm enough but not too dry.


• Enjoy!

Before baking





After baking

Hamburgers with peanut butter....




...and the peanut butter