Phebe's Keep-You-Full-Till Lunch Slow Cooker Granola

 This granola recipe is adapted from Fresh From the Vegetarian Slowcooker by Robin Robertson. If you don't have a slow cooker, you can do this in an oven, too. If you're a fan of raw food, this tastes good even before it's toasted, so I think it'd be fine to have a raw version. This granola is protein packed and very filling. We usually eat it with soy yogurt and fresh or (defrosted) frozen fruit.

This makes two batches worth. I generally put half in the slow cooker right away and half in the freezer to be cooked later.

Mix in a gigantic bowl in the following order:

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick oats)
2 cups kamut flakes
1 cup whole raw almonds with skins
1 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup hemp hearts (hulled hemp seeds)
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 cup canola or coconut oil (or a mix)

1/3 cup honey, brown rice syrup or agave
1/3 cup maple syrup

Grease your slow cooker with margarine or oil. Put about half of the granola in the slow cooker. Cook on low (do not put it on high, as Robin Robertson suggests. It will burn) for about 4 hours, stirring about every 1/2 hour to hour. It will need to be stirred more frequently as it gets drier. You will know when it is done because it will be dry and slightly golden brown. If you don't stir it, it will burn, but usually only in localized spots, so it can be saved.

When the granola is done, spread it out on a baking sheet placed on top of a cooling rack to dry. Once it is dry, put into an air tight jar. I use my blender jug, with the blade removed from the bottom, as a "funnel" to get the granola from the sheet into the jar. Eat within 2 weeks, or, to prolong shelf life, refrigerate granola.

You can also put dried fruit in this (the picture here has dried blueberries, cause it was a gift for my dad) but I found that if you put the fruit in the slowcooker it gets too dry and hard. I almost broke my teeth on a piece of date in one early batch. I'd recommend adding dried fruit at the end after everything is cooked, or putting it in individual servings to taste (especially since I find many people don't like certain dried fruits). You can also add in or take out various nuts, seeds or grains, and play with the proportions to your tastes and nutritional needs.

Pasta with Parsley Walnut Pesto

I made this up the other day when I wanted a quick lunch and it was so good. The walnuts make it so creamy that it almost reminds me of an alfredo or something like that. I had previously tried the walnut pasta sauce recipe in Nonna's Italian Kitchen but was disappointed (especially since I like the other recipes I've tried from the book). This pesto is what I expected or dreamed that that walnut pasta would taste like. I am probably overly impressed with myself for thinking this up and for it being so easy (I keep gloating to my partner about it). We had this pasta again a few days later, as a side to store-bought "chick'n" fingers. We probably should have also had another veggie with this meal. But we didn't.

All of these measurements are approximate, since I just throw it together and taste as I go!

• 1/3 cup finely chopped parsley (whichever kind you have on hand)

• 1/4 cup raw walnuts, ground finely - until they are almost nut butter - in a clean coffee grinder (not one used for coffee)

• 1-2 Tbsp olive oil

• 1 Tbsp dried basil

• 1 tsp lemon juice

• 2 tsp garlic powder

You could use fresh garlic and basil in this as well if you have it on hand. I was too lazy to chop the garlic and don’t generally have any fresh basil.

Mix all ingredients together. Toss with freshly cooked pasta. It is a thick pesto, and will sort of melt as it mixes with warm pasta, coating it with rich goodness.

It's also yummy when topped with home made vegan "parmesan".

Best Yet Baked Vegan Mac n' "Cheeze"

I've been experimenting for some time with different vegan mac n' "cheeze" recipes. Mac n' cheese is one of my favourite comfort foods, and lots of the recipes I've tried have been close to the kind of thing I was looking for but were not quite up to satisfying my cheese cravings. What I was looking for was a mac n' cheeze that was gooey, but not making the pasta mushy. Also one that was not thickened with flour or cornstarch, resulting in glue for leftovers. And of course, it needed to taste as close to cheese as possible without being cheese. This version is pretty darn good, and very satisfying. No mac n' "cheeze" is quite mac n' cheese, but I think I like this just as well (and I don't have a stomach ache after). With broccoli and tomatoes, it's a complete meal. My partner also likes to add veg sausage to his.

• 1 cup brocoli pieces (small florets and pieces of stem)

• 1 tomato, skinned and chopped into small pieces (place whole tomato in boiling hot water for a minute or two and skin will come off easily)

Recipe:

• About 3 cups large macaroni

• About 1/2 cup Daiya vegan cheese (this is optional, but it makes it cheesier tasting, and more cheesy textured, too).

• 1 Tbsp vegan margarine (I use Becel vegan)

Sauce ingredients:

• 1 C raw cashews

• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast

• 2 cloves garlic

• 2 tsp lemon juice

• 1 Tbsp tahini

• 2 Tbsp mild yellow miso

• 3 Tbsp pimentos (from jar), roasted red pepper or salsa

• 1/4 tsp mustard powder

• 1/2 tsp paprika

• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

• Few dashes of Mrs. Dash Southwest Chipotle seasoning

• 3/4 cup water or soy milk (can add more if the sauce is too thick)

Topping:

• 2 Tbsp home-made vegan “parmesan”

• 3 Tbsp panko breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 375 F. Put on a pot of water to boil. Cut up broccoli and skin and chop tomato. Put on macaroni to boil. For the last three or so minutes of the pasta’s cooking time, you’ll want to add in the broccoli to cook too. You want the broccoli barely cooked - still firm. So make sure your pot is big enough for mac & broccoli!

While the macaroni is boiling, make the “cheese” sauce by putting all of the sauce ingredients in a blender. Start blending on low, and move to high setting, until all ingredients are completely blended into a smooth, orange sauce. It should be thick, but not too thick. It should be a little thinner than you’d want cheese sauce to be if you were pouring it directly onto pasta for eating. It will thicken a little when the casserole is baking. If the sauce is too thick (ie. if you have to use a spatula to get it out of the blender) add a little more water or soy milk and blend. If it is really runny (seems more like a beverage than a sauce) add some more cashews and blend again until smooth. I like to do this sauce by taste, adding things as I go. If it tastes good raw, it'll taste better cooked.

Drain the macaroni and broccoli. Put macaroni and broccoli into a large bowl and coat it in margarine to stop sticking. Grease a large casserole dish. Mix sauce, tomatoes and Daiya into macaroni bowl. Pour the macaroni mix into the casserole dish. Top with panko and parmesan. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly and the top of the casserole is slightly golden and firm. Let cool at least 5 minutes before serving and eating. I love putting freshly ground black pepper on mine!

Phebe's Spicy Pumpkin Pie

Filling:
1 small sugar pumpkin, roasted and peeled, or about 2 cups canned pumpkin
1 12 oz package firm silken tofu
2 tbsp molasses
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup loosely packed brown sugar
1 tbsp corn or tapioca starch
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
3/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp mace
1/2 tsp garum masala

1/2 vodka crust recipe or store bought pie shell

The day before (if you're using fresh pumpkin and home-made crust):
Roast the pumpkin by cutting it in half, scooping the seeds and strings out, inverting each half on a cookie sheet, and baking at 400 degrees for about 1 hour, or until you can pierce the pumpkin through its skin easily with a fork. Let the cooked pumpkin cool, and then peel the outer skin off (should be able to do this with your fingers). Store cooked peeled pumpkin in fridge overnight.

Make the crust recipe. Store wrapped in plastic or in an air tight container in the fridge overnight.

Morning of your dinner:

Put your pumpkin and the tofu, drained, in a large bowl. Mash with a potato masher. When it's broken down into small lumps, add the other ingredients. You can modify your spices to taste. Use a hand blender to mix the filling together. Keep scraping down the sides of the bowl and keep blending until there are NO lumps of tofu. It should be completely consistent and creamy in texture when you're done. Tofu lumps in pie are fairly nasty.

Preheat your oven to 375 F.

Take your pastry out of the fridge. Roll out your crust, and lay it in pan. Trim to fit. Pour filling into raw crust (can be frozen, if that's what you're using). Bake for about an hour, until the top of the pumpkin filling is set (looks dry on top). The filling will probably also have some cracks through it, and the crust should be golden.

The filling will not be completely set until the pie is cool. That's why it's best to do it in the morning, and let it cool for the rest of the day. You can refrigerate it, but if you put it in the fridge while it's still too warm, condensation will make the crust soggy.

I serve this pie with the tofu whipped cream from Dairy Free and Delicious.

Chinese-style Tofu Vegetable Dumplings

These are a quick and wonderful meal! I know there are many kinds of Chinese dumplings, but I couldn't really tell you what these would be classified as, since they're our own bastardized version.

We bought dumpling/wonton wrappers from our local Asian market, which made it super easy, but you could also make your own if you can't find any, or can't find any that are vegan.

Filling:
1/2 lb tofu cut into large cubes
6-8 large brown mushrooms, quartered
1 inch piece of ginger, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
2 green onions, chopped into pieces
1 or 2 carrots, peeled and chopped (optional)

Mix all ingredients in a big bowl. Then, pulverize in a food processor in batches, emptying the food processor out into another large bowl. When all the batches are done, mix all off the mashed up vegetables and tofu together to get an even consistency to your filling. If you have a big food processor you might just be able to skip that step and put all of the ingredients in at once and blend them.

To make the dumplings, wet around the edges of your wrapper with a finger dipped in water. Put 1 tsp of filling in the centre of each wrapper. Fold the wrapper in half and then pinch the sides of the wrapper together all the way around to make a semi-circle shape, or pinch each side together in the middle, and then the other opposite sides together in the middle to make little four-pointed dumpling "purses" (pictured above). When they're done, you can freeze them on parchment paper on a flat surface in your freezer, putting them in a ziplock once they're solid (pictured below). Fresh dumplings should be steamed about 15 minutes. Frozen dumplings can be steamed for an extra 3-5 minutes. I use a metal steamer lined with parchment paper. Be sure to space dumplings out because they will stick to each other. You can eat them steamed, or you can fry them until golden in vegetable oil, turning once so each side gets cooked.

I love having these on hand in the freezer when I don't know what to cook! I like to just put soy sauce on them, but you can also use chili sauce, plum sauce or a mixture of sauces for dipping.

This filling recipe made about 20 dumplings.

Vodka Apple Pie

 

I haven't liked many of the pie crust recipes I've tried. For years I made an oil-based crust because I couldn't get any non-hydrogenated shortening where I lived. It tasted good, but it wasn't as flaky as pastry made with solid fat, and it tended to fall apart when it was being rolled out. When I made this apple pie for Easter (yes, this post, like most, is terribly belated) I decided to try to find a flaky pie crust recipe. I ended up using this one because the science behind putting alcohol in the crust seemed sound to me.

And I have to say, I was the richest, flakiest crust I've had. The recipe made way too much dough for my pie pan, though, so I ended up using the rest to make turnovers filled with leftover apple chickpea curry (yum!) and some filled with strawberry rhubarb jam. So good.

Filling is mixed apples, cinnamon, ginger cloves, garum masala (my mum's secret ingredient in pie) a a tablespoons or two of flour and raw cane sugar.

Pho Soup & Pho Salad

Pho Broth cooking in slowcooker.

This is modified from the Slow Pho recipe, p. 57 in Fresh From the Vegetarian Slowcooker by Robin Robertson, which is one of my favourite cookbooks.

The main change I've made to the recipe is to serve the Pho with tofu crutons instead of fried seitan strips, as I'm not a fan of seitan strips in soup. I've also tweaked the seasonings.



Add the following to a slow cooker or large pot:

1 small onion, peeled and quartered
1 small fresh chili pepper or 1/2 jalapeno pepper
3 slices ginger, about 1/2 cm thick, cut in half

2-3 whole star anise (can use broken ones too!)
1 large or 2 small cinnamon sticks
3 tbsp Braggs or soy sauce
1/2 Tbsp whole peppercorns
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut in half
1 vegetable bullion cube (omit if using stock)
Enough water and/or stock to nearly fill the pot (about 4-5 cups)

Bring the broth to a simmer. Depending on your slowcooker this might require turning it up to high, and then down to low once it's simmering. It will take an hour or two for it to start simmering on medium. This broth can be cooked up to 6 hours, but should be done in 4. Once you've put the broth on to simmer, you can marinate the tofu by mixing:

3 Tbsp Braggs or soy sauce
3 or 4 drops liquid smoke
1 cm thick slice of ginger, finely chopped or one rounded tsp powdered ginger
1-2 cloves finely chopped garlic or 1 rounded tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
2 Tbsp olive oil (or a combination of olive & sesame oil)

Cut 1/4 block of tofu per person into 2 cm cubes. The marinade recipe above makes enough for 2 servings worth of tofu. Put tofu in an air-tight container and pour marinade over it. Put it in the fridge to marinate while the broth cooks, periodically shaking the container to redistribute the marinade over the tofu blocks.

When the broth has simmered for about three hours (your house should smell really good), use a slotted spoon or small sieve to fish all the bits/herbs out of the broth. Then add to the broth:

2 Tbsp hoisin sauce
1 Tbsp fresh lime juice
2 Tbsp dark miso paste
2 rounded tsp marmite

Cook the broth for another hour.

While the broth finishes cooking, prepare the pho toppings.

To make the tofu crutons, heat up a generous amount of oil, but not enough to deep fry (about 1/2 cm deep) in a cast iron pan on medium heat. Remove the tofu from the marinade with a slotted spoon or fork and into the hot oil, trying to avoid putting the garlic and ginger in the pan, as they will burn before the tofu has cooked. Cook the tofu cubes, turning them occasionally until they are evenly golden brown and crispy all over. Remove the tofu with slotted spoon or fork and put onto a plate lined with paper towel.

In addition to the tofu crutons, prepare any of the following toppings:

- wash fresh bean sprouts
- chop green onions
- cut limes into eights
- wash cilantro and remove leaves from stems

About 10-15 minutes before the pho broth should be finished cooking, prepare noodles according to package directions. I recommend brown rice spaghetti, but have used ramen and other kinds of noodles as well. DO NOT cook the noodles in the broth. Tempting though this is, the starch from the noodles will turn your pho into glue. It's pretty gross. I recommend cooking the noodles, putting individual servings of them into bowls, and then pouring broth on top of them. This avoids mushy noodles and starchy broth, both of which make for yucky pho.

When the noodles are done cooking, drain them and rinse them with cold water in a colander. Assemble soup by putting a small serving of noodles in a bowl, a ladleful or two of broth into the bowl, squeezing a piece of lime into the bowl and then chucking it in there for extra flavour, and throwing some cilantro, green onions, sprouts and tofu crutons on top. Eat soup alternating between chopsticks and spoon. Excellent food if you're sick!

If you have leftover pho ingredients, you can make them into a tasty salad.

Pho Salad

Assemble in a large single-serving bowl or plate:
Fresh washed spinach leaves
Fresh washed mint leaves
Fresh washed parsley and/or cilantro leaves
chopped green onions
fresh washed bean sprouts
Tofu crutons

Dressing:
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar
a squirt of Braggs
lots of freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp olive oil

Shake in a container with a tight-fitting lid and pour over salad. Garnish salad with toasted sesame seeds if desired.

Tastes really fresh and delish!