The Best Pie Ever and a Skinny Hypoallergenic Christmas Tree

Nobody at my house wants me to experiment for Thanksgiving dinner. If they can have a big pile of veggie chicken and duck from the Asian market, mashed potatoes - lots and lots of mashed potatoes - and pumpkin pie, they're in heaven. This year I bought a Tofurkey and threw out the stuffing, which I don't like, and filled the opening with some veggie duck and chicken. It was a Tofurduken, with Casian flavors in the basting sauce. Vegecasian? It was fun as a novelty item at least, but I'm not sure I'd make it again.

I made a new pie this year - the Vegan Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie from VegSpinz. This pie is so amazingly good, I know I'll be making it again. I made it a little differently than DJ Karma, though. I bought a deep dish graham cracker crust at the grocery store and cut the recipe down to size, and I used my favorite pumpkin pie filling in place of the one in the recipe. So first, I made half of the cheesecake filling in the original recipe in my food processor. After transferring that to a bowl, I made this pumpkin pie filling in the processor (no need to rinse between layers). I spread half the cheesecake filling on the crust, topped with all of the pumpkin filling, and then the rest of the cheesecake. All of the filling wouldn't fit in the pie shell, so I put the remainder in a small, oiled casserole. Then, I swirled the two layers together with a butter knife. Finally, I baked according to the instructions for the plain pumpkin pie - 425 F for 15 minutes and 350 for 40 minutes.

 

My favorite thing about Thanksgiving cooking has to be making delicious things from the leftovers. So, the mock duck will become enchiladas - luckily I have enchiladas sauce in the freezer ready to go. I also have half a box of puff pastry tucked away near the enchilada sauce. It will top a mixture of diced tofurkey, rice and wild rice, green beans and gravy to become pot pie. 

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it's time to start pulling out the Christmas decorations. Until last year we always had a live tree. Then I discovered that I'm allergic to them. Tyler might be, too. The tree had to be banished to the patio, lights and all. People who visited us last Christmas season were so confused when they saw the poor, forlorn tree outside until we explained.

We really wanted a tree so that we had somewhere to put presents besides a pile in the corner, but a store-bought artificial tree didn't appeal to any of us. I had to think of something quickly. I bought two sets of nesting wood rings from Wallter, painted them green, and and hung them from a wood star with ribbon. It's just what I was wanting. The skinniness means it doesn't get in the way of other projects, nor is it too close to the fireplace, the way a traditional tree (real or artificial) would be. This year I'm going to glue beads on it. I think it deserves some bling.



Here are some instructions I wrote up last year for making a tree like this.


 

Can I help? Can I help?

I'll keep the tree safe.

 

Putting it Together: Thai Curry

This is the curry I made with my Mussamun curry paste. Once you have curry paste on hand, the dish goes together very quickly. Real Vegetarian Thai offers recipes using bamboo shoots, potatoes, winter squash, peas, and pineapple, among others. There are regional curry specialties with specific vegetables in them, but if you're not concerned with authenticity, all kinds of vegetables work. Red bell pepper is a favorite of mine, in addition to the ones I used here. Stick with the milder, sweeter vegetables, though, and save vegetables like broccoli and asparagus for a different type of curry or a stir-fry.

The amount of broth you make can vary, too and you can use more or less coconut milk. I never, ever buy lite coconut milk, though, as it's just regular coconut milk thinned with water. If you want a lighter broth, you can just use less and freeze the remainder. You can also skip the coconut milk completely and use vegetable broth.

I'm sending this over to this week's Hearth 'n' Soul blog hop. 

Thai Curry

I like to bake my tofu, so that's how I prepared the rest of the vegetables, but steaming or stir-frying works well, too.

1 package firm or extra-firm tofu, 14 to 16 ounces
1 medium sweet potato, 1/2 to 3/4 pound
canola oil
a handful of cremini or button mushrooms, about 1/4 pound
a handful of green beans, about 1/4 pound
1 13.6 ounce can coconut milk
1 cup water
1 to 6 tablespoons* red or Mussamun curry paste
1 to 2 tablespoons soy sauce

*With commercial curry pastes, I typically use 2 tablespoons. I used 6 tablespoons of the homemade paste as it's not as concentrated as the commercial kind.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Drain tofu and cut into 1-inch pieces. Peel and dice sweet potato into 1/2-inch pieces. Toss the sweet potato with just enough canola oil to coat the pieces. Bake tofu and sweet potato in a single layer on an oiled baking pan for 20 minutes, turning over once.

Thickly slice or quarter mushrooms. Toss with a little canola oil and set aside. Stem the green beans and cut in half. Toss with a little canola oil. Add both to the tray of tofu and sweet potatoes after they've cooked for 20 minutes. Turn over the tofu and sweet potatoes one more time and bake all for 10 minutes.

In a large, deep skillet, stir together the coconut milk and water. Whisk in the curry paste and add soy sauce to taste. Heat over a low burner.

Test that sweet potatoes are done with a fork. Add 'fu and vegetables to coconut milk and stir. Serve with jasmine rice.

Makes about 4 servings.

The End of the Summer Garden: Thai Mussamun Curry Paste

It's finally starting to look like fall here. I planted my winter garden last week - lettuce, spinach and cauliflower - and harvested three tiny jalapeños. Oh, and a quart of basil leaves!

 

Instead of making pesto with the basil, I ran it through the food processor with just enough water to process and froze the purée in an ice cube tray. The four cups reduced to eight basil-ice cubes. When I made Thai Tofu Noodle Soup recently, I bought a pound of prepared lemongrass at the Asian supermarket, which I also froze in ice cube trays. With such a bounty on hand, Thai curry paste seemed like a great thing to make. 

I used the Mussaman curry paste recipe from Real Vegetarian Thai by Nancie McDermott as a guide, but made quite a few tweaks according to what I had on hand. Mussamun curry paste is a red curry paste with the additions of spices like cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cardamom. I used these, but cut them in half, and used dried cascabel peppers that I had in my garlic basket, as well as some mystery peppers - dried red serranos, I think. I also threw in the fresh jalapeños and replaced the cilantro in the original recipe with basil. 

I like the curry paste recipes in this book because, while quite authentic, they don't call for kaffir lime leaves. I know they're sale somewhere in this city, but I haven't found them yet. (Does anybody know where I can find kaffir lime leaves in Houston?)

The cascabel peppers I used were mild, but I guess the mystery peppers weren't, because my curry paste came out pretty hot. Tomorrow I'll show you the first curry I made with this.

This goes out to Weekend Herb Blogging hosted by Haalo of Cook Almost Anything.

 Mussamun Curry Paste


15 dried red finger-length chilies (chiles de arbol or chiles japones)
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
10 black peppercorns (or white peppercorns or 1 teaspoon pepper)
3 stalks prepared lemongrass  - 3 cubes worth if you have frozen on hand
1/2 cup basil leaves (or 1/4 cup cilantro)
1/4 cup chopped shallots
2 or 3 fresh jalapeños (optional, not in original recipe)
10-12 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped galanga or ginger
1 teaspoon finely grated lime peel
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 each cinnammon, cloves nutmeg and cardamom (originally 1 teaspoon each)

Remove seeds and stems from peppers. Pour boiling water over them in a small bowl and set aside to soften, 15 minutes or more.

In a small skillet, toast coriander seeds until slightly darkened and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Set aside and toast cumin seeds the same way for 1-2 minutes. Grind coriander and cumin seeds with peppercorns in a blender or spice grinder.

Drain red peppers and save the soaking water. In a food processor or blender, grind peppers with remaining ingredients. Add enough of the reserved pepper water to keep the processor blades spinning. Stop and scrape down sides of jar frequently and continue processing until smooth.

Makes 1 to 1-1/2 cups. Freeze whatever you don't use within a few days. 

Pear Walnut and Almond Feta Pizza

By now, you probably know that Daiya vegan cheese makes an excellent classic pizza. You might have even made one yourself. But what about those specialty pizzas that better restaurants are so fond of? Well, I've got you covered. This almond feta recipe, that I first made for a pasta salad, is wonderful on pizza. It's perfect anytime that you suspect Daiya is just a little too creamy/processed-cheesy and you need a more complex flavor.

This pear and walnut pizza has an amazing sweet-salty vibe. I think it's better than anything you could get in a restaurant, but maybe I'm just biased. 

This goes out to this week's Hearth 'n' Soul blog hop.

Pear Walnut and Almond Feta Pizza

If your almond feta won't crumble, you can spread it on the crust before adding the other toppings. I only made half of this, but wrote it up as 8-10 servings for simplicity's sake.

1 recipe Best Ever Pizza Crust (8 crusts), prepared
olive oil
8 Bartlett pears
1 cup walnut halves, chopped
1 recipe Almond Feta with Herbed Oil

Preheat oven to 450 F. Brush olive oil lightly over the crusts. Peel, core, and thinly slice pears. Top crusts with pear slices in a single layer. Distribute walnuts on top. Crumble almond feta and spoon over the walnuts. Bake until heated through, 4-5 minutes.

Serves 8-10

Pretzels and Pretzel Dogs

We were in the airport a month ago, wandering around because our flight was delayed, and I noticed the pretzel cart had pretzel dogs. They looked really good, but alas, they weren't veggie dogs. When I came home, I put pretzel dogs and pretzels on my list of new recipes to try.

Nearly any recipe for authentic pretzels calls for boiling them in a pot of alkalinized water before baking them. This gives them the chewy texture and dark crust characteristic of a pretzel. Most recipes call for using baking soda, which has a pH of 9. Some recipes, however, call for using lye! Lye is sodium hydroxide, NaOH, and has a pH of 14, requiring the use of gloves and eye protection. From what I read, the lye bath is necessary if you want authentic German-style pretzels, but the baking soda bath will give you great results if you want them Philly-style.

Never having had a German pretzel, and not willing to turn my kitchen into a chem lab, I went with the baking soda. It worked beautifully. Mine got really dark, darker than the ones in most of the recipes I looked at, and the crust was perfectly pretzel-y. I can't describe it, but you'll know it the minute you bite into one.

It takes a practice to shape a pretzel. I got it right with the last one.

Pretzels and Pretzel Dogs

1 cup warm water (about 105 F)
1-1/2 teaspoons yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons Earth Balance margarine
1 cup bread flour or all-purpose flour
1-3/4 cup white wheat flour, or whole wheat flour
3 tablespoons wheat gluten

4 cups water
1/4 cup baking soda

1 package veggie dogs (I used Tofurkey dogs)
coarse salt

In a medium bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine water, yeast, salt, sugar and margarine. Stir in the 1 cup bread or all-purpose flour. Let sit until mixture bubbles, about 15 minutes. Add the whole-wheat flour and wheat gluten. Knead in mixer for 5 minutes or knead by hand for 10.

Put dough into an oiled bowl and allow to rise until doubled in size, about an hour.

In a non-aluminum pan, bring baking soda and water to a boil and then reduce to low while you prepare pretzels. Preheat oven to 450 F.

Divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a rope about 16-18 inches long. Oil a baking sheet.

Flatten one of the ropes to about 1/4 inch thick and cut in in half to make it easier to handle. Wrap the veggie dogs with the flattened dough, pinching off any extra. Set aside on the baking sheet. Add the extra dough to the next piece and continue wrapping the dogs. In all I used two ropes for five dogs. If you need a bit of extra dough, pinch some from another rope. If you have some extra, add it to a rope. This is not science.

Form remaining ropes into pretzels. Pick up a rope and let it stretch a few more inches, holding in a U shape. Resting the middle of the U on your work surface, twist the ends around each other one complete turn. Bring the ends toward you and press into the bottom of the U. Don't worry if your shapes are a bit wobbly - they'll smooth out before the pretzels are done.

Okay, this part is science. SCIENCE! Bring the water and baking soda mixture back up to a boil. Boil each pretzel or pretzel dog for 30 seconds. Remove with a large, slotted spatula and place back on the baking sheet. Sprinkle each pretzel or dog with coarse salt.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until dark.

Makes 5 dogs and 6 pretzels, more or less.

Some Like it Hot: Spicy Rice Noodle Stir Fry

Did I mention that I'm crazy about the sauce from Gobi Manchurian? Well, let me tell you again, then: I am crazy about this sauce. The whole tablespoon of Sriracha probably has a lot to do with this. This time I used it in a noodle dish. The technique is one that I learned from making Pad Thai: soften the rice noodles in hot tap water so that they're not quite cooked through, and then they soak up the sauce for maximum flavor.


This goes out to Presto Pasta Nights, created by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast, and hosted this week by Helen of Fuss Free Flavours.

Spicy Rice Noodle Stir Fry

I used straw mushrooms that I had in the freezer, left over from Thai Tofu Noodle Soup, but any 'shrooms will do. To make this a main dish, add some tofu, such as a recipe of Baked Tofu Triangles.

7 ounces of wide rice noodles (half a package)
2 baby bok choi, about 8 ounces
1 large carrot, peeled
1 celery stick
a handful of mushrooms
1 tablespoon canola or sesame oil

Soak the rice noodles in hot tap water until soft, but not cooked, about 20 minutes. A 2-quart drink pitcher is handy for this.

Cut the leaves from the baby bok choi stems. Slice the leaves and set aside. Thinly slice the bok choi stems, carrot and celery (I used the slicing disk of my food processor.) Slice mushrooms if they're large.

Prepare sauce, below.

When the noodles are soft, drain and proceed with the recipe.

Heat oil in a skillet over high heat. Stir-fry bok choi stems, carrot, celery and mushrooms until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Stir in bok choi leaves. Add noodles and sauce and cook over medium-high heat, tossing frequently, until noodles have absorbed sauce, about 8 minutes.
Sauce:

1 tablespoon canola or sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch piece ginger, minced
2-3 jalapeños or serranos, minced
2 or more green onions, green and white part, sliced
3 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon Sriracha sauce (less if you don't want this to be very hot)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
1/4 cup water
3/4 teaspoon salt
Heat the oil in a small sauce pan. Add the garlic, ginger, jalapeños or serranos and green onions and cook for about 2 minutes. Whisk in remaining ingredients.

Serves 6.

This keeps well for a couple of days in the refrigerator.

Wild Rice and Lentil Soup

Can you believe this soup is adapted from a crab cake recipe? Believe it! I love the way the flavors of the wild rice, cumin and lemon play off one another in this. You don't taste these individual components. Instead, they combine to form a unique, warm flavor. We had this with Whole Wheat Apricot and Pecan Bread. 



This goes out to My Legume Love Affair, hosted this month by Lisa of Lisa's Kitchen.

Wild Rice and Lentil Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 large shallots, finely diced (1 1/2 cups)
2 carrots, peeled and finely diced (1 1/2 cups)
2 stalks celery, finely diced (3/4 cup)
1/2 large red bell pepper, finely diced (3/4 cup)
1 fat clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup wild rice, rinsed and drained
1/3 cup French green lentils, rinsed and drained
4 1/2 cups water
1 vegetable bouillon cube or 2 teaspoons powder (optional)
juice of 1 lemon (about 1 1/2 tablespoons)
3/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
1/2 teaspoon cumin
pinch cayenne pepper
pinch black pepper

Heat oil in a large soup pot. Sauté shallots, carrots, celery and red bell pepper until tender, but still crisp, about 2 minutes. Add garlic and sauté for another minute. Stir in wild rice, lentils and water. Bring to a low boil, cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until wild rice and lentils are tender.

Add remaining ingredients and heat on low for 5 minutes.

Serves 4-5.