Moosewood's Quinoa & Black Bean Salad (vegan & gluten-free)

Rocket & Roses Kitchen Play List:

Foo Fighters ~ Come Alive
Little Mix ~ Move
Stevie Ray Vaughan ~ Love Struck Baby
Julie London ~ Cry Me A River
Joan Jett ~ Long Time
Blackberry Smoke ~ Too High
Selena ~ I'm Getting Used To You
Sade ~ The Sweetest Taboo
Buckcherry ~ Crazy Bitch
Sara Sant'Ambrogio ~ Prayer "From A Jewish Life" No1
Madeleine Peyroux ~ This Is Heaven To Me
Halestorm ~ Hunger Strike
Sam Cooke ~ Baby Won't Please Come Home
Maroon 5 ~ Can't Stop

I really have been absent of late dear readers. I am sorry for that and thank you for your expressions of concern but I am still here. I am waiting for the hospital to call and give me a date for an operation so its been a little tense around R & R HQ of late. Therefore no kitchen time is being had by me and its still in the hands of the lovely ML.

Today's recipe was one made about a month ago when we were trying out recipes from Moosewood's Low Fat Favourites cookbook. A marvel of a cookbook I have to say. This salad was one of the first recipes made and it was so delicious. ML only made a couple of adaptions by using rapeseed oil instead of olive oil and adding grated carrot (1 small). It was easy to make and looked bright and vibrant in the bowl. The taste was fresh and the flavours of the ingredients worked well and I almost always love a salad with lime juice in it. I love the citrus hit with the warmth of the spices added. The quinoa was succulent and the veggies crisp. All in all a splendid salad...go on..give it a try...you know you want to..  

 

Moosewood's Quinoa & Black Bean Salad (vegan & gluten-free)

Quinoa & Black Bean Salad      Serves 4
(Recipe from Moosewoods Low Fat Favourites)

1/3 cup quinoa
1 cup water
1 tsp olive oil (We used rapeseed/canola)
4 tsp fresh lime juice, or more to taste
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh coriander
2 tbsp minced spring onions
1 1/2 cups cooked black beans (15oz can)
2 cups diced tomatoes
1 cup diced bell peppers (we used 1/2 green, yellow & orange)
2 tsp minced fresh green chillies
salt and ground black pepper to taste
1 small carrot, grated (optional)

Rinse the quinoa well in a sieve under cool running water. In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil, add the quinoa, cover, and simmer on low heat, until all of the water is absorbed and the quinoa is tender, about 10 minutes. Allow to cool for 15 minutes. 

In a large bowl, combine the oil, lime juice, cumin, dried coriander, fresh coriander, and spring onions. Stir in the beans, tomatoes, bell peppers, grated carrots and chillies. Add the cooled quinoa, and salt and pepper to taste, and combine thoroughly. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Garnish with lemon or lime wedges.

Enjoy! 

Thanks for loyally stopping by and I hope to be back very soon. I hope your week is filled with happy moments that give you great reasons to smile...

~Red~ 

NB: This is not my recipe and therefore I take no credit for it whatsoever. It is the slightly adapted creation of the good folks at the Moosewood Collective. I thank them for sharing such great recipes...~R~   

Moosewood's Sweet and Sour Lentils (vegan and gluten-free)

Rocket & Roses Kitchen Play List:

Cole Porter ~ You Are So Nice To Come Home To
Keith Urban ~ You'll Think Of Me
Soul Asylum ~ Just Like Anyone
Black Stone Cherry ~ Fade Away
Uh Huh Her ~ Run
Shakira ~ Donde Estas Corazon
Evanescence ~ The Only One
Garbage ~ Queer
Count Basie ~ There Will Never Be Another You
Black Stone Cherry ~ Hell Or High Water
Eric Clapton ~ Wonderful Tonight
The Zutons ~ Remember Me
Don Williams ~ Love Me Over Again
Kevin Kline ~ La Mer

Finally...a recipe post...I hear you say. No I don't because you folks are endlessly patient with me and I cannot thank you all enough. I haven't been in the kitchen at all over the last few weeks...a break away and medical blah blah being the reasons. So this recipe is brought to you by the combined efforts of ML and myself. I sat at the dining table chopping and 'supervising' whilst ML run the kitchen side of things. Thankfully we work extremely well as a team...

Now when blogging the recipes tested from Other Peoples Kitchens I try to not consecutively post recipes from the same book unless I'm actually writing a review. However there are occasions where I make a dish and it is so good that I make an exception to that rule. Today's posting being one of those very recipes. It comes from the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favourites cookbook. My recently bought extremely abused used copy of this book has been a marvel. Packed with really good, healthy recipes. A £1 well spent I'd say...

At the weekend I was craving lentils. I have these days where nothing else but a steaming bowl of lentils or cold/warm lentil salad will do. I feel intense guilt when I'm unable to cook meals for myself and therefore hate having to ask ML to make something labour intensive just for me. (ML suffers from an Auto-immune condition so we eat polar opposite foods. ML's being mainly white rice, potatoes, some fish, chicken and beef) A lot of the foods I crave can make ML very ill. So when I find a recipe that is simple in making and won't maim ML its a very happy find. 

For years my only experience of sweet and sour was of the MSG filled take out varieties. Gloopy, sticky, unbearably sweet and filled with artificial colourings. Not great. Until I made my own I considered this dish repugnant. Now I really like it as I can control what goes into the ingredients. So when I flipped the pages of the cookbook and found Moosewoods Sweet and Sour Lentils I knew it was the recipe for that particular craving. 

It couldn't be more simple to make. The brown lentils are cooked in a mixture of apple juice, water and fresh ginger. The additional veggies have a brief time in a skillet and then are mixed in with the lentils. The only changes we made was to sub soy sauce for Braggs but you could also use Tamari to keep it gluten-free. I cooked it for a little longer at the end after adding the Braggs and rice vinegar. There was a lot of liquid at the end but as we made ours in the morning and I didn't eat mine until the evening it had soaked up the juice and made the lentils plump and juicy whilst the veggies still had a crispness to them which delighted me. The flavour is subtle but very enjoyable. I served mine with sides of brown rice and fresh garden peas. This dish may not be a looker but what it lacks in appearance it sure does make up for in taste and textures. I know this will be a regular dish in my kitchen...

Moosewood's Sweet and Sour Lentils (vegan and gluten-free)

Moosewood's Sweet and Sour Lentils       Serves 4-6
(Recipe from Moosewood's Restaurant Low-Fat Favourites Cookbook)

1 1/2 cups brown lentils
2 cups unsweetened apple juice
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
2 cups water
1 cup chopped onions
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup peeled and diced carrots
2 tsps canola/rapeseed oil
1 medium bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 courgette, diced
1 tomato, chopped
2 tbsp soy sauce (I used Braggs)
2 tbsp rice vinegar 

chopped spring onions to garnish

Rinse the lentils. Combine them in a saucepan with the apple juice, water and fresh ginger. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes, until the lentils are tender. Add a little more water towards the end of cooking if necessary to prevent sticking.

While the lentils cook, saute the onions, garlic, and carrots in the oil for about 5 minutes, until the onion begins to soften.  Add the pepper, courgette and tomato, cover, and cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes, until just tender. Stir in the soy sauce and rice vinegar.

When the lentils are ready, combine them with the vegetables. (Reds note: This is where I allowed mine to cook for another 5 minutes then removed them from the heat to mulch. ~R~)

Serve with rice and garnished with the chopped spring onion.

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope your day is sunny as mine..

~Red~

NB: This recipe is not my own and therefore take no credit for it whatsoever. It is the hardwork and creation of the folks at Moosewood Collective and theirs alone. I thank them for a great cookbook. ~R~

    

Moosewood Tofu Vegan Dumplings in Garlic/Miso Broth (vegan with gluten-free options)

Rocket & Roses Kitchen Play List:

Audioslave ~ Bring Em Back Alive
Tina Dico ~ Private Party
Airbourne ~ Rattle Your Bones
Dead Sara ~ Some Have It Bad
Paulo Nutini ~ Scream (Funk My Life Up)
Nerina Pallot ~ Alien
The Virginmarys ~ Bang Bang Bang
Debussy@ Reverie L 68
Julia Macinally ~ Sallianne
INXS ~ Listen Like Thieves
Bizet: Bel Officier (Carmen, le remendado la dancer)
Beth Hart ~ Better Man
Crowded House ~ When You Come
Halestorm ~ Don't Know How To Stop

I love a bargain and I have to say the recipe book that I found these recipes in was certainly that...1p! Yep! The book is quite ravaged and well used but a quick tidy up of the cover and pages and it was good to go. The cookbook in question is Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favourites. As a vegan/veggie cookbook junkie I have been aware of their abundance of  mostly veggie recipe based cookbooks. But I've always selected veggie/vegan cookbooks over theirs when buying a fresh and new book for my collection. I have to say that I may have been unwise in this because the recipes I found between the covers of this book have been plentiful. This is the first I've actually made from the long list I have written down for testing. 

I chose this one because it fitted the food style I am testing right now. Japanese or Chinese dumplings are intriguing to me. Now don't be daunted by the list of ingredients...every one is worth it and it's not really a rocket scientist recipe. Once you get started its quickly put together and when sat back at my dining table with the filling and wrappers I found myself reaching a Zen moment as I stuffed and rolled the dumplings together. My first experiences were not so calming! Believe me but perseverance is the key to these little beauties and one day you will find yourself sitting at your counter or table happily spooning in filling and playing with new shapes. Honestly...I promise. 

The Garlic/Miso Broth was suggested as a complementary dish to go with the dumplings and I was very interested with the cooking method. Quickly roasting garlic cloves and then blending with miso (I used white miso this time) and water and then heated up with low-sodium veggie stock...beautifully simple. I knew I had to try it and I wasn't feeling the dumpling dip love the day I made them. So a good, healing and nourishing broth seemed the way to go...

I made one adaption and that was the amount of shitakes used. I used 2 caps which is far less than the recipe asks for. But that is simply my issue with mushroom but you folks who love those darn fungi will just devour the correct amount I'm sure. I wanted a hint of the taste but not the texture. I used the dumpling cooking method of steaming for 10 minutes this time so I can warn you they will stick together and to the steamer tray which was an interesting moment. But next time I will try cooking them directly in the Garlic/Miso Broth. Also the amount of garlic I used was much less but this was because I read the recipe as 1 head of garlic and quickly grabbed a bulb and got peeling. However when I re-read the recipe later I see that Moosewood suggested 20 cloves. I only used 8...that was plenty for today but I will try it with the correct amount next time. Yep I am a garlic lover...

The results...well hell...they were so good. The dumplings were packed with flavours and textures and they were tender and still a little chewy which is just how I like them. The Broth was everything a good miso broth should be. So good that I would just sit and sip it as a hot beverage. The dumplings and broth combined with a scattering of a few fresh veggies made for a great lunch. Not wanting to repeat myself but the words nourishing and healing come back to my mind. 

And finally...the dumpling wrappers were made with wheat flour this time. Believe me when I say I wasn't overly happy with this and I found them dense and filling because of this fact. But I am still experimenting with vegan and gluten-free wonton/dumpling wrapper recipes and when I finally find one or create one that actually works...I will be shouting it out from the blog tops! I look forward to that day...so if you have a recipe you would like me to test...hit my email baby...rocketandroses@aol.com

Tomorrow I am taking a break for a week as I am heading out for a holiday with My Love and our good pal Ann. We are hoping to relax, breathe and heal the soul for a while. Something all three of us need badly. We are road-tripping down to the coast and I don't care if it rains the entire time...its a holiday for which I am extremely grateful. 

Moosewood Tofu Vegan Dumplings in Garlic/Miso Broth (vegan with gluten-free options)

Moosewood Garlic/Miso Broth              Makes 6 cups
(Recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favourite Cookbook)

1 large whole head of garlic (approx 20 cloves) see note above
1/4 cup miso (use miso of your choice)
3 cups of filtered water
3 cups of low-sodium veggie stock 

Pre-heat your oven to 200'C/400'F/GM6. Peel the garlic cloves and place onto a baking sheet. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Your garlic cloves need to be golden brown not dark brown.

Place the baked garlic cloves in a blender with the miso and water and blend until smooth. Add this to a med sized saucepan with the veggie stock and gently heat through when ready to serve. Never allow it to boil. 

Moosewood Tofu Vegan Dumplings     Makes 48
(Recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favourites)

1oz dried shitake mushrooms (I used 2 caps)
2 cups boiling water
6 garlic cloves, micro-grated
1 tbsp fresh ginger root, micro-grated
1 tsp ground anise
1 cup peeled and grated carrots
2 cups fresh mushrooms, minced (I used Enoki)
1 cup Chinese cabbage, minced
1 tsp rapeseed/canola oil
4oz pressed tofu, crumbled
3 tbsp soy sauce/tamari or Braggs
2 spring onions, minced
1 tbsp Hoisin sauce (optional)
1 tsp chilli paste

1 packet of wonton or dumpling wrappers (GF if able)

Place the shitake mushrooms in a bowl and cover with the boiling water for at least 20 minutes. When the mushrooms have softened, drain them and finely mince the caps. You can save the strained water and use as a stock if you wish. 

Put the shitakes, garlic, ginger, anise, carrots, fresh mushrooms, cabbage and oil. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Stirring frequently. Place the tofu, Hoisin sauce, chilli paste, spring onions and soy/tamari or Braggs and stir very well to evenly distribute the sauces in the tofu crumbs. Add this to the saucepan and stir in. Cook for a further 3 minutes and then remove from the heat. Set to one side. 

Set up your dumpling rolling station as follows. Small chopping board in front of you. Large baking sheet to one side and the saucepan with the stuffing on a trivet to the right. Small bowl of water and a smaller bowl of brown rice flour. And here goes....take one wrapper and using your finger, brush water around the outside edge of the wrapper. Place a heaped tsp of stuffing in the centre of the wrapper and then quickly bring the edges together. I played around and ended up with fours shapes. But the basic and most quickly done is simply bringing the two edges together and press them to seal, leaving you with half moon shaped dumplings. If this is your first time...I would go with that shape. Place the shaped dumplings onto the baking sheet but do not allow them to touch and when all are done cover with cling film and place into your fridge until ready to cook. You can freeze some very easily at this stage. Line a box with baking parchment and place a layer of dumplings (not touching) into the bottom. Repeat this until your box is full and then freeze and they will stay good for at least 4 months. 

Cook the dumplings in one of the following ways: 

Gently simmer the dumplings in water or broth for 5 minutes. 

Saute them in a skillet prepared with 1/2 tsp of oil for 2 minutes on each side. Pour in 1/4 cup of water, cover, and steam for 4 minutes. 

Steam the dumplings in a steamer basket or sieve over boiling water for 7 to 10 minutes. 

Gently heat the Garlic/Miso Broth and place 5 of the dumplings in a bowl and then pour over a ladle of the broth. Scatter over a few fresh veggies of your choice and serve while its still hot. 

Although the dumplings are also good served at room temperature with the following sauce:

2 tbsp soy sauce/tamari/Braggs 
2 tsps rice wine vinegar
1 minced spring onion      Simply whisk together folks

Enjoy! 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a splendid week and I will be back with your all soon....right time to pack and hit the road. 

~Red~ 

NB: These recipes are not my own and therefore I take no credit for them whatsoever. They are the hard work and creation of the folks of The Moosewood Collective and theirs alone. I thank them for sharing such great recipes...~R~