Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Homemade Tortellini


Wow - this was a time-consuming dish! Again, I am on my Conscious Cook kick! Always super-detailed recipes but yummola! I made a lot of modifications and they turned out great. I have made this dish before but only sort of! Last time I cheated and used wonton skins to make the raviolis intead of making my own dough. The homemade dough made a huge difference and they turned out far better. A very rich and satisfying dish. Keith (my 4 yr old) even helped make them. We stuffed his with a different filling (corn and lima beans at his request!!). A fun experience overall but I am pooped (especially since I also made a batch of "chicken" seitan this morning as well and it is happily simmering in my crock pot right now! Yep - seitan in the crockpot! Kinda funny. We'll see how it turns out!!)

My Version of "Artichoke Ricotta Tortellini with Saffron Cream Sauce" (Source: Conscious Cook)

For pasta dough:
4 oz silken tofu
2 T olive oil
1/2 t sea salt
2 cups flour plus more for dusting

In a food processor, blend tofu, oil, salt, and 4 T water. Slowly add flour until soft dough forms. Add more flour or water if necessary to create a dough that is pliable but not too sticky. Knead for about 5 min. Wrap in plastic wrap and refridgerate for 30 min. Remove from fridge and roll out as thinly as possible. Use a large biscuit cutter and cut rounds of dough until all dough is gone. Place rounds on floured baking sheet and set aside until filling is ready.

For Filling:
1 T olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 8oz box mushrooms, minced (I used these instead of artichoke hearts as I used my artichoke hearts for the paella yesterday!)
1/4 cup faux chicken broth
1 cup cashew cream
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
fresh cracked black pepper

In a skillet, heat oil. Add garlic and cook 3 min. Add mushrooms and broth. Cook until liquid is reduced by 1/2. Add cashew cream, yeast and pepper and cook until hot and thick. Set aside.

For Saffron Cream Sauce:
1 T olive oil
1 onion, minced
1/2 cup faux chicken broth
1 cup cashew cream
2 pinches saffron threads
freshly cracked black pepper
2 T Earth Balance

Heat oil in skillet. Add onion. Cook 10 min. Add broth and cook 5 min. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Keep warm.

To assemble tortellini, take a dough round and fill with 1 t filling. Fold in half and crimp sides to seal. Place on floured baking sheet. Continue with remaining dough and filling. Heat a large pot with water and bring to boil. Add tortellini and bring back to boil. Boil for 3 min. Remove from pan and let drain in collander. Top with saffron cream sauce.

4 comments:

  1. Wow, that DOES look like a ton of work. Impressive!

    ReplyDelete
  2. that looks delicious! Now i have to decide between this and an egg tahini salad recipe that i found for my lunch today...so hard to chooose!!!

    http://www.draxe.com/video/egg-tahini-salad-transform-your-kitchen-ep-23/

    ReplyDelete

Crispy Herbed Potato Stack

Crispy Herbed Potato Stack
I was going to try a recipe for herbed scalloped potatoes and at last minute decided to do something fast and easy. I made up the recipe and it was yummola! I layered sliced russet potatoes in a baking dish, drizzled with olive oil, and then sprinkled with coarse sea salt, fresh ground pepper, basil, rosemary, paprika, and garlic powder. Then I baked them at 425 fr about 45 minutes. They were crisp and very flavorful!

My thrown-together salad today - after discovering I had no leftovers for lunch!

Tamale Fixings

Tamale Fixings
Plain pintos (for Keith), pintos, corn and onions; corn, jalepenos and Daiya; mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, and chard

Making these was a bit time-consuming but kinda fun! They didn't turn out as good as I had hoped - the outer tamale part (not the filling) just wasn't as flavorful as tamales I have had in restaurants. I have another recipe I will try for the dough next time. Tamales are one of my favorite foods so I won't give up on this one!

"Buttermilk" Blueberry Pancakes

"Buttermilk" Blueberry Pancakes
I modified one of my favorite pancake recipes to make it vegan and then I added blueberries. Turned out quite yummy. Soymilk sours and thickens well - very similar to buttermilk. I have been really impressed with it's ability to substitute for real buttermilk.

"Buttermilk" Blueberry Pancakes

Egg replacement for 1 egg
1 1/4 cups soured soy milk (put 2 T vinegar into a 2 cup glass measuring cup. Add enough soy milk to equal 1 1/4 cups)
2 T canola oil
1 cup flour (I wouldn't recommend whole wheat or whole wheat pastry - it really takes away from the fluffiness of these pancakes)
1 T sugar
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
Blueberries, optional

Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and stir just until combined. Heat griddle pour about 1/4 cup batter for each pancake. Sprinkle blueberries on pancakes after ladling onto griddle. Cook just until golden on both sides.

Veggie and Seitan Lo Mein

Veggie and Seitan Lo Mein
Overall, this was fabulous! However, I don't think the seitan added much so I would just leave it out next time. The lo mein also needed about double the sauce so I would simply do that next time for added flavor. This was especially spicy and yummy with some Sriracha drizzled on top. I made our favorite veg egg rolls to go with this and it was truly a Chinese treat!!

Veggie Seitan Lo Mein

I really did my own thing for this recipe so I am just going to outline the instructions and include the sauce recipe. I heated oil in a large skillet and added 3 minced cloves of garlic and about 1 cup of half-moon cut onions (I was out of green onions but next time I would use green onions as I like them a lot in Chinese food) and about 1 cup matchstick-cut carrots. After about 5-6 minutes, I added about 1/4 lb of whole green beans. I cooked these veggies until tender. Meanwhile, I cooked a 16oz package of chow mein noodles. Once the veggie mixture was cooked, I poured the sauce on the veggies, heated through and tossed with the noodles. Next time I would double the amount of sauce and have adjusted amounts below to reflect double recipe.

Sauce (Source:Adaptable Feast)
3 T soy sauce
3 T rice wine (I used 3 T rice vinegar and 1 t sugar as I didn't have any rice wine)
3 t sugar
4 T black bean garlic sauce
Mix all ingredients and toss with above mixture.





Chinese Broccoli Wontons in Ginger Soy Broth

Chinese Broccoli Wontons in Ginger Soy Broth
Pretty yummy. I found that steaming the wontons worked much better than the recipe suggestion to boil them. The broth was very mild and a bit too mellow for us. Still pretty yummy though. I added extra veggies to the wontons and scallion to the broth. The seasoning in the wonton filling was quite tasty!

Chinese Broccoli Wontons in Ginger Soy Broth (Source: Vegan Yum Yum)

(As usual, I modified several things so it's not exactly the recipe in Vegan Yum Yum!)

1 cup chopped broccoli
3/4 cup shredded carrot
1/2 cup chopped scallions
1 T oil
1 t fresh ginger, minced
1 clove fresh minced garlic
1/2 t hot chili sauce (such as Sriracha)
1 t hot Chinese mustard
2 T plus 1 t soy sauce
4 cups water ( I think this might have been more flavorful had I used vegetable broth or faux chicken broth???)
6 slices fresh ginger
1 T mirin (I used a splash of cooking wine as I didn't have mirin)
1 1/2 t sugar
2 t rice vinegar
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup chopped scallions
16 wonton skins

For filling: Heat oil in skillet and add broccoli, ginger, garlic, carrot, onion and cook until veggies are crisp tender. Add chili sauce, mustard, 1 t soy sauce and stir to combine. Remove from heat and set aside.

To make wontons, take one skin and place in diamond shape. Fill with 1-2 t filling. Fold in half to make a triangle and moisten edges with water and pinch sides to seal. Set triangle in front of you with point up and take the 2 side points and bring them together in front to cross. Set aside and prepare remaining wontons. When finished, place wontons in a steamer basket and steam over pot of boiling water until translucent.

Meanwhile, in a pot, combine remaining ingredients (except wontons) and simmer 10-15 min.

Place 3-4 wontons in bowl and ladle broth over wontons. Serve.