Soy-Sesame Roasted Broccoli and a sneak peak at a new blog event

I'm going to be starting a blog event next month.   In a nutshell, this will be a vegan event for recipes that are favorites at your house. The only rule, in addition to the recipe needing to be vegan, is that you have made the recipe three times or more. I'll make a formal announcement with more details  on April 1.

Jacqueline of The Food Blog Diary already has the details, of course. Are you following The Food Blog Diary? If you're not, you should be. Jacqueline has put together a great resource for food bloggers and anyone who loves to read food blogs. If you've ever struggled to find and keep up with all the food blog events out there, you won't need to anymore, as she's done the work for you.

This recipe won't be eligible for my first event as I've only made it once, but I have no doubt that I'll be entering it later on this year.  I can't believe it's taken me this long to try roasted broccoli, but now that I have, I know I'll be making it again and again. It's that good. This is a great recipe for really busy nights, too, as it's quick and almost impossible to mess up.

Soy-Sesame Roasted Broccoli

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

1/4-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 crowns of broccoli (about a pound), cut into florets

Preheat oven to 450 F. In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, oils, and red pepper flakes. In a medium bowl, toss broccoli with soy sauce mixture. Spread in a single layer in a roasting pan and roast for 10-20 minutes, tossing once about half way through cooking. (I roasted mine for 15 minutes, but it looked pretty tasty at 10.)

Serves 2-4.

Presto Pasta Nights #206 Roundup.

Welcome to the roundup for Presto Pasta Nights 206. Spring weather is starting to show up for most of us and it's a time for renewal. We have some entries from some of you who we haven't seen in a while and some new faces. Welcome and welcome back! We have quite a few spring green pasta dishes, but as always, there's room for comfort food and some decadent creations, too.

Our first entry is Pastitso, from Cindy at Hun...What's for Dinner? This is a Greek two-layer dish, with meat sauce on the bottom and pasta with beschamel on top. Cindy says the guys "both inhaled this, as if they hadn't eaten in weeks."

Dharm from Dad ~ Baker and Chef is back this week with his Mushroom Trifecta Pasta. Dharm says, "The mushrooms actually lend and air of 'meatness' to the dish and meat lovers wouldn't really notice that there is no meat in this."

Kate from Thyme for Cooking made Spicy Sausage Ravioli and Chicken Spinach Ravioli. She says it's easy, with her "very well-used, well-traveled Pasta Queen." You can also use either of her recipes to make fettucini or linguini.

 

Flat-leaf parsley is one of Kirsten's favorite vegetables and she shows it off beautifully in her Tagliatelle with Green Herb Pistou at From Kirsten's Kitchen to Yours.

Psychgrad of Equal Opportunity Kitchen was running out the door for a photography course, but she still found the time to make delicious Tortellini Soup.

Beth Anne at The Seventh Level of Boredom made Rigatoni with Lettuce and Eggplant. With a whole can of anchovies and lots of garlic, "this pasta packs a powerful punch."

"Incredibly rich and decadent" is how Abby describes her prawns with fennel and brandy at eat the right stuff. She thinks it's the butter and brandy that does it.

Tandy of Lavender and Lime keeps a freezer full of crawfish and likes to make Crawfish Pasta when she has an excess.

Kim of Feed Me Seymore is participating in Presto Pasta Nights for the first time. Welcome, Kim! She honored her Polish heritage by making Homemade Pierogies. And, she'd like you to know it's pronounced "pyu-doug-ee." I'll try to remember that!

Shrimp and Pasta is "a perfect marriage" for Tina at Life in the slow lane at Squirrel Head Manor. She cooked up a version of Tyler Florence's Shrimp Scampi.

Juli's friend was making stroganoff, and she thought it sounded good, so she cooked up Skillet Stroganoff, with black beans in place of the usual hamburger at Pictures of all my Princesses.

The weather is starting to cool down for Daphne at More Than Words, and cool weather makes her crave soup noodles. This week she turned to Peanut Beef Rice Noodles in Soup.

Heather at girlichef has been eating a lot of pasta lately, so she sends along two recipes this week. First up is her Gnocchi bathed in Brown Butter & Thyme. It's special not just because of the sage and thyme, but because it's made by hand.

Heather has also been craving Manhattan Clam Chowder lately, and she satisfied the craving with Chunky, Spicy Tomato and Clam Broth tossed with Whole Wheat Spaghetti.

Andrea of Nummy Kitchen, along with I Heart Cooking Clubs, is wrapping up cooking the recipes of Giada de Laurentiis, and always meant to try her marinara sauce. Here she offers it as Spaghetti Marinara with Vegetarian Meatballs.

So, when you cook, do you pretend you're filming your very own cooking show? When Michelle at Ms. Enplace made Penne with Red Pepper Sauce, she was imagining what the judge from Chopped would say. Admit it, you do this, too! (I do.)

Joanne at Eats Well With Others was inspired by some fresh wasabi and her favorite sushi flavor to make Homemade Ginger Pasta with Sweet Potato-Wasabi Sauce.

Jess at Chipped Bowl made Gerrard's Pasta. They love this pasta so much, they named it after their beloved dog, Gerrard.

Have you ever made deep-fried Brussels sprouts? Claudia at Honey from Rock did, and then used the leftovers for her Zucca and Fried Brussels Sprouts with Walnuts and Capers on Angel Hair.

Substituting red wine for sour cream (sounds like a dandy substitution to me), Krista at The Beet Reporter made Red Wine Mushroom Stroganoff.

Ruth, the founder of Presto Pasta Nights, who also blogs at Once Upon a Feast, whipped up a simple and delicious Cajun Pasta for us.
 

My contribution this week was Eggplant and Farfalle Gratin. 

It's been great fun hanging out with you all this week! Next week, Presto Pasta Nights #207 will be hosted by PPN's founder, Ruth of Once Upon a Feast. Send your entries to ruth (at) 4everykitchen (dot) com by Thursday, March 31. The roundup will be on April 1. Have a great weekend, y'all!

Eggplant and Farfalle Gratin

Even here in South Texas it seems like winter hangs on longer than it should. Sometimes nothing else will warm you up but a creamy casserole from the oven. This combination of eggplant and farfalle (bow tie pasta) fills the bill. The best part is that it makes lots and freezes well, so that you can have another casserole for a cold and busy night.

This is my entry for this week's Presto Pasta Nights. There is still plenty of time to get your entries in! See the post below for details.

Eggplant and Farfalle Gratin

12 ounces farfalle
5 tablespoons olive oil, divided use
1/2 yellow onion, minced (about 1 cup)
1 small eggplant, diced in 3/4" cubes (about 1/2 a pound)
1/2 red bell pepper, minced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fennel seeds, crushed
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup dry white wine (I used Sauvignon Blanc)
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1 cup soy milk
1 14.5-ounce can diced fire-roasted tomatoes
3/4 cup kalamata olives, sliced
1 tablespoon capers
1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
1 cup bread crumbs

Cook farfalle according to package directions. Drain, rinse, and set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet. Sauté onion and eggplant until both are tender, about 8 minutes. Add minced red bell pepper and garlic and cook for about 2 minutes. Stir in fennel seeds, oregano and red pepper flakes and cook for a minute.

Stir in 3 tablespoons olive oil and flour. Combine well, and then add the wine, broth and soy milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently until sauce thickens. Add diced tomatoes, olives, capers, salt and the farfalle.

Heat oven to 375 F. Oil a 9 x 13-inch pan or 2 8 x 8-inch ones. Fill pan(s) with pasta mixture and top with bread crumbs. Bake for 25-30 minutes, uncovered, until pasta is bubbly at the edges.

Serves 8. Freezes well.

Announcing Presto Pasta Nights #206

Ruth of Once Upon a Feast, the creator of Presto Pasta Nights, has graciously allowed me to host this week once again. This is an awesome weekly event that's been going on for nearly four years, showcasing every delicious thing possible that you can create with pasta.

It's easy to participate:

1. Your dish should contain some type of noodle. It can be any course, from any cuisine in the world, as long as pasta is one of the ingredients.

2. Mention Presto Pasta Nights and link to it here. Also, mention this blog, Chez Cayenne, and link to my main page here.

3. Please email your entries to me at cdmcculloch7 [at] gmail [dot] com and cc ruth [at] 4EveryKitchen [dot] com. The deadline for entries is Thursday night. You can include a photo of any width between 320 and 800 px, or I will grab  one from your blog post if you like.

I've already received a lot of tasty entries. Keep them coming!

Curry Leaf Bread

When I saw Monica Bhide's Curry Leaf Bread on Veggie Belly's facebook page (Sala of Veggie Belly took the photos), I knew I had to make it. I am crazy about curry leaves.

I veganized this by replacing the evaporated milk with coconut milk and the butter with coconut oil. I also modeled this after my other bread recipes by making a sponge first and by using over half white whole wheat flour for the original all-purpose.


I am sending this over to Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Chris of Mele Cotte.

Curry Leaf Bread

1 cup all purpose or bread flour
3/4 cup warm water (about 105 F.)
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons finely minced fresh curry leaves
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 tablespoons coconut oil
3/4 cup coconut milk
3 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
2-1/2 cups white whole wheat flour or more as needed

In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, stir together the all-purpose flour, water and yeast. Cover and let stand for an hour or two, or longer in the refrigerator.

Add sugar, curry leaves, salt, cumin, turmeric, coconut oil. coconut milk and vital wheat gluten and stir with a fork. If you're using a stand mixer, start it now. Add the white wheat flour. Knead in the mixer for 5 minutes or by hand for 10. If the mixture doesn't pull away from the sides of the mixer bowl after 5 minutes, or if it sticks to your hands when kneading, add more flour a tablespoon at a time.

Transfer dough to an oiled bowl, cover and let sit in a warm place to rise until doubled, about an hour.

Oil a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. Pat dough into a rectangle the same length as our loaf pan and about 2-1/2 to 3 times as wide. Spread basil over the top and roll up, starting with the long edge. Place dough into the loaf pan and cover.

Turn oven on to 350 F. When dough as risen again to twice its size, slide pan into the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes. To test for doneness, turn bread loaf out of the pan and rap on the bottom with your knuckles. If it makes a sound, the bread is done.

Roasted Cauliflower Tofu Frittata for Pi Day

Happy Pi Day everybody! I meant to make a pie for dessert this weekend, but only had time for dinner. A frittata is a pie, right? If a pizza can be a pie, I declare that a frittata can be too.

This is based on my previous frittata, which is based on the Spanish Omelet in Vegan with a Vengeance.

I am linking this up with the Hearth 'n' Soul blog hop. 

Roasted Cauliflower Tofu Frittata

I meant to put 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast in the tofu mixture but forgot it, and now I don't think it's necessary here. If you don't have one of the dried herbs I used, substitute your own favorite - sage, basil, oregano or marjoram would all be good.

1 small head cauliflower (just under 2 pounds untrimmed or 1-1/4 pounds of florets)
1 small onion (about 1 cup)
about 1/4 cup olive oil, divided use

12 or 14-ounce package of medium-firm tofu

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 teaspoon each dried thyme, tarragon and rosemary
1/4 teaspoon white pepper

pinch cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 425 F (or 400 F on convection roast if available). Cut cauliflower into florets about 1 inch across, or smaller. (If the cauliflower pieces are too large, they will cause your frittata to fall apart.) Peel and slice onion from top to bottom and then slice the halves as thinly as possible. Separate the onion, add to the cauliflower and toss with 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil - just enough to lightly coat. Roast the cauliflower and onion in a ten-inch oven-proof skillet for 30 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Turn oven down to 375 F (on convection bake if available). In a food processor, purée the tofu, 1 tablespoon olive oil, garlic, salt and remaining spices. Spread the tofu mixture on top of the cauliflower and onion and then gently work it into the vegetables. Bake the frittata for 40 minutes or until the top is starting to brown. Let stand 10-15 minutes before serving. Cut into 6 slices.

Serves 3.

Palak Aloo

It's hard to learn to cook a cuisine that you didn't grow up eating. The techniques you know and the equipment you own are sometimes not quite right. Even if you can get all of the ingredients called for, they're often different where you live than in the cuisine's country of origin. And you worry that you won't even like them if you've never had them before.

Then when you read the recipe, you don't always know why certain things are done a certain way. Is the method necessary for the best flavor, or is it something handed down from an older time when people didn't have the same resources we have now? Why does this recipe tell you to add the ingredients in this order, and a similar one adds the ingredients in a completely different way? Sometimes you just have to read and cook lots of similar recipes until it all comes together for you.

If you've mastered a dish from a cuisine new to you, and made it your own, you should be proud of yourself. I've only been cooking Indian food for a couple of years, but I'm proud of this one. Once I had this figured out, I've been a lot more confident tackling other Indian dishes. I'm not sure if I'm ready to debut the others on this blog, but someday soon, I will.

Palak Aloo

I like to start with precooked potatoes, but you can start with raw ones and cook them longer in the skillet.

2 medium yellow or red potatoes, about 3/4 pound
2 tablespoons canola oil or more as needed
1 small onion (or 1/2 a regular onion), diced finely, about a cup
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, minced
2 or 3 jalapenos, diced finely
1 teaspoon garam masala
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon salt
1 large tomato diced
1 lb. spinach or spinach plus other greens (if previously frozen, don’t squeeze dry)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/3 cup cashews, ground to a fine powder in a dry blender or food processor

Cook potatoes in the microwave until tender, about 7-8 minutes, or bake in the oven at 400 F for about 50 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly.

Dice potatoes in 3/4-inch cubes, leaving the skin on. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large pot. Fry potatoes until crispy on one or two sides. Remove from pot with a slotted spatula and set aside.

If the pan is dry add a bit more oil until you have about a tablespoon. Sauté onion until tender and beginning to caramelize, 7-10 minutes. Add garlic, ginger and jalapenos and cook for about 2 minutes. Add spices and cook for a minute or until fragrant.

Add tomato and spinach and cook until spinach wilts. (Don't drain the spinach.) Stir in tomato paste and cashews. Cook on low for 10 minutes or so.

Puree mixture in a food processor or using an immersion blender. Taste and adjust spices. Stir in potato cubes and heat through.

Serves 4-5.

Freezes well, but expect the potato to disintegrate into the spinach when you reheat.

Baked Broccoli Pakoras

On VegPeople a few weeks ago my friend Valerie was asking about baking pakoras. Her kids will eat broccoli without complaint if it's battered and fried. She's like me: not crazy about the mess and the fat of fried food. I thought, based on my success baking Gobi Manchurian, that baked broccoli pakoras would work well, and I pointed her to that recipe for reference. Then, of course, I started craving them myself and had to give them a try.

I was really happy with these. They're not quite as crisp as the fried ones, but they're so much easier and healthier. I served them with sweet and sour sauce and coriander chutney, both from jars.

I'm sending these over to My Legume Love Affair (for the chickpea flour). MLLA was created by Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook and is being hosted by Dee of Ammalu's Kitchen this month.  Check out the roundup on Dee's blog at the end of the month. I'll be hosting MLLA in January 2012. I hope you stick around til then!

Baked Broccoli Pakoras

2 broccoli crowns, cut into florets (mine were on the small side)
1 cup chickpea flour
3/4 teaspoon garam masala
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon mild chili powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (because I was too lazy to mince fresh garlic)
1 tablespoon canola or sesame oil
3/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 450 F (or 425 on convection roast setting, if available). Combine all ingredients except broccoli in a small bowl until you have a smooth batter. In a large bowl, drizzle about 1/3 of the batter over the broccoli and stir to coat the vegetables. Drizzle another 1/3 of the batter and toss. Repeat with remaining batter.

Spread the broccoli on an oiled baking pan in a single later. Bake for 20 minutes, turning over once halfway through cooking.

Corn Fritters

I usually make corn muffins to go with chili, but I felt like trying something new, so I made some corn fritters and cooked them up like little pancakes. The first time I made them they were good, but I felt like they tasted too much like our usual muffins, despite their little pancakey shape. It was Superbowl Sunday, the one day a year when we eat in front of the television. After watching three or four beer commercials, it came to me what my fritters needed - beer!

Next time I made them, I used some Shiner Bock for the liquid and they were perfect. These are quite sweet and the leftovers are good for breakfast drizzled with a little maple syrup or agave nectar - just toast them lightly first.

Corn Fritters

Use a beer that's mild and not hoppy (i.e. bitter). Bock, pilsner or lager will work, but not an IPA; save that one for drinking.

1 cup corn kernels, thawed if frozen
1/3 cup corn meal
2/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons canola oil
3/4 cup mild-tasting beer

With a soup spoon, stir together corn, corn meal, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add canola oil and beer. Set the batter aside while you heat up the pan. It will get thicker as it stands.

Cook these up just like pancakes: heat a skillet to medium-hot and spray with a little cooking-oil spray. Drop heaping spoonfuls of batter in the pan. Cook until until the fritters bubble and the edges are dry, about 3 or 4 minutes. Flip over and cook the other side briefly. Serve immediately or set aside and toast lightly before serving.

Makes about 25.