VeganMoFo Day 18 ~ C-C-C-CSA week 43, 2012

Lots of C’s in this week’s CSA haul. Elstars, leek and salad greens rich with vitamin C, and carrots, corn salad and cilantro starting with it… No-one’s laughing, I know. ;)

• Carrots
• Cilantro
• Corn salad
• Leek
• Elstar apples
• Fennel

My fridge is pretty full with open tins, leftovers and even more vegetables, so here’s my plan to use up as much as possible.

Menuplan Friday October 26th  – Tuesday 30th

• Noodles with leftover takeaway garlic tofu from Soy with additional vegetables (carrot, leek, yellow pepper, borlotti beans) and mushrooms. [Friday]
• Pea soup (freezer stash), pasta salad with leftover avocado pesto and sun-dried tomatoes, Caesar salad (dressing from La Dolce Vegan! p.93), bread and dip. [Saturday – DEXTER DATE]
• Leek & potato soup with cilantro (La Dolce Vegan! p.109), tasty tempeh chili for NVV-forum La Dolce Vegan! cookbook challenge (p.163) and bread.
• Potato salad with avocado pesto, balsamic vinegar, onion and sun-dried tomatoes, coconut-carrot soup with cilantro (La Dolce Vegan! p.112 half recipe).
• Fennel salad with tomato, basil and olives, roasted sweet dumpling pumpkins stuffed with Gyro seitan from my new Terry Hope Romero cookbook Vegan Eats World (p.54 & 253), leftover dill sauce.

Last night I went to the Terry Hope Romero cooking demo, Q&A and book presentation of Vegan Eats World (more about that soon). We got to taste the gyro seitan with creamy cashew sauce and a banana-chocolate ‘cheesecake’. Both were awesome so I bought the book and put the seitan on the menu right away! It’s my first time making seitan, so fingers crossed…

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VeganMoFo Day 8 ~ Comforting Thai Carrot Soup

I can hardly believe it: here’s Monday again and a whole week of VeganMofo has passed. Not only that, I managed to post every day! Yay me. ;) I’m really enjoying blogging again. :))

Today we’re having comforting Thai carrot soup here at Graasland. There are three ways to make this recipe:
a) quick and dirty easy,
b) less quick but still dirty easy,
c) elaborate — involving making your own curry paste from scratch.

I’m a medium-sized grrl. ;) So here’s version B!

Thai Carrot Soup Recipe

Ingredients
Serves 2-3.

• 300 g clean carrots (if you’d like to peel instead of wash them you’ll need about 450 g to start with)
• 1.5-2 tbs olive, peanut or rapeseed oil
• 1 onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 heaped tbs of red curry paste (check the ingredients to make sure it’s vegan)
• 500 ml vegetable stock
• 200 ml coconut milk
• salt & pepper
• optional: 1 tbs lime juice
• optional: chopped cilantro

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 225 °C (gas 5).
2. Cut the carrot into 1 cm pieces. Put them in a casserole with 1 tbs of oil and mix until all the carrot is coated with oil.
3. Put it in the oven for about 25-35 minutes or until tender.
4. In the meantime chop the onion.
5. When the carrots are done, heat the left over oil in a pan. Bake onion, crushed garlic and curry paste for a few minutes until soft.
6. Add carrots, stock and coconut milk, bring to a boil and quietly simmer for 10 minutes.
7. Remove from heat and blend to a smooth consistency.
8. Add salt and pepper to taste, plus lime juice if using.
9. Garnish soup in bowls with chopped cilantro.

The easy way out -you may have guessed- is to just cook the carrots in the stock. The soup is still good that way, but I really recommend roasting the veg in the oven because it enhances the taste. And it’s not much effort; just waiting time in which you can type up a blog post. ;)

This is one of the favourite dishes on our rotation scheme. It’s great for bento too, as it can be eaten on room temperature or chilled. If you plan to eat it cold I advise you to add some more broth as the colder the soup, the thicker it is.

I hope you’ll like this Thai carrot soup too!

VeganMoFo Day 4 ~ “Don’t Eat Animals Day”

It’s World Animal Day today, coinciding with VeganMofo! Not only that, in the Netherlands it’s also unofficially “Don’t-Eat-Animals-Day”: EetGeenDierenDag. All Dutch are called to refrain from eating meat or fish today, even if it’s only for a single day in the year. If every inhabitant rose to this challenge, that would save 400.000 animals in JUST ONE DAY.*

So I hope all my fellow countrymen are joining! Several canteens from major companies will also only serve vegetarian food – yay! I wish they would do that every week for Meatless Monday though… There’s always a next step. ;)

I was too late in realising I should have invited a bunch of people for dinner and now I’m going out tonight. But I’m putting it in my calendar for next year, which will be a Friday!!! Nothing wrong with early planning. ;)

Back to the present. Here are the organic vegetables we scored in our CSA this week and the meals I plan to cook with it.

• Lollo rosso lettuce
• Carrots
• Runner beans
• Red mustard
• Corn cobs
• Celery
• Tomatoes

Menuplan Thursday October 4th (World Animal Day!) – Tuesday 9 th

I still had some carrots so they’re priority no.1! This is what I came up with. World cooking!

• Thai carrot soup, cumin bread (freezer stash) and salad.
• Indian saag (spinach), leftover dal tarka (lentils), basmati rice and papadums with chutney or soygurt-mint sauce.
• Turkish beans (taze fasulye), carrot-walnut salad with soygurt dressing (cevizli havuç salatasi) adapted from Lokanta cookbook and pide bread or a grain dish.
• Pasta avocado, peas and seaweed (instead of pickleweed) from Puur Plantaardig (p.82).
• I plan to make a dessert with some local pears that are ripe now — any suggestions?
• And with this week’s celery I finally hope to try my hand at some eggless salad.. Recipe recommendations much appreciated!

So, what will YOU be eating tonight?

Tonight I won’t be eating at home. I’m going to watch ‘Japalicious’ foodie films on the Camera Japan festival in Rotterdam: Eatrip (documentary) and Our Homeland (fiction). Alas, neither will be vegan but there is a Buddhist monk in the first one… And of course I won’t be eating animals today anyway! ;) On Saturday I’ll be going to the festival again, with Mr Gnoe and friends. Then we’ll be eating at a world restaurant, Bazar!

Any eggless salad recipe you can recommend? Or a pear dessert?

I’d love to hear it!

Last week’s menu is pimped with pictures, if you care to have a look.

* According to the host of EetGeenDierenDag, Wakker Dier.

Changing Seasons (CSA week 38, 2012)

These are the veggies we got for the last week of summertime.

• Savoy cabbage
• Lettuce
• Escarole (2 bunches)
• Carrots
• Red paprika
• Corn cob

As we’re changing seasons today, these vegetables will be used in summer and fall menus.

Menu plan 21 – 27 September

While planning our meals I got distracted by all the yummy recipes and forgot to include the escarole, even though I had marked it urgent on my list. :\ So I’m somehow trying to squeeze it in at the last minute.

• Freezer stash Friday: courgette soup, Fry’s chicken style burger on bread with vegetable toppings.
  `
• Saturday ~ from summer to fall: fresh tomato soup, seitan piccata with longbeans (p.174 V’con = Veganomicon) and oven-roasted sweetly spiced carrots with maple syrup (p.34 V’con).
  
  
  Postscript: I used all ingredients but pretty much messed about with the proportions of beans and seitan – still it turned out awesome!
• Sunday: red lentil – cauliflower curry with leftover roasted carrots for lack of parsnip (p.186 V’con), cumin spiced quick bread (p.267 La Dolce Vegan) for the Dutch vegan society forums cookalong and some extra simple veggies on the side, like braised escarole/cabbage, corn on the cob and/or escarole salad.
  
• Mediterranean Monday: Briami (p.56 A Vegan Taste of Greece), Turkish bulgar with chickpeas (freezer stash) and lemony cucumber salad.
  
• Asian Tuesday: cabbage ramen/noodles (double recipe) and teriyaki tofu with leek or (vegan) egg roll. Maybe sautéed escarole with leftover smoky tempeh marinade.
  
• Wednesday: vegetable roti with tofu and chickpea salad (p.82 Vegan Taste of Greece) with raw escarole.
  
  
• Thursday: pesto pasta with Savoy cabbage (with pesto from a jar), Puy lentil salad with beet (and pine nuts, leftover smoky tempeh or bread garlic croutons instead of goat’s cheese).
  
  

I also hope to bake some lemon cupcakes, based on the recipe for  coconut-lemon Bundt cake in Veganomicon (p.256). I really don’t have a reason, except that it’ll be Nina’s first anniversary of being out of the shelter and living with us. She’s starting to believe she actually has a home! :)

Lemon cupcakes were a favourite when I still ate dairy & eggs and I haven’t dared trying a vegan recipe yet… But this cake by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero comes highly recommended! So will I find the time and courage this week?!

BTW did I tell you I’m going to be present at Terry Hope Romero’s World Vegan Eats cookbook presentation and cooking demo in Amsterdam at the end of October? Looking forward to it!

I updated last week’s menu with pictures from my meals, so have a look if you’re curious!

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Join Beth Fish’s Weekend Cooking with a food-related post!

Cabbage and Carrot Salad Recipe (CSA vegetables week 26 and 27, 2011)

The first two weeks of summer brought some really nice greens to our dinner table. Introducing a new feature on Graasland as well! But you gotta read on a little for that. ;)

Organic CSA vegetables week 26, 2011

Here’s what we found in our CSA box the previous week.

• Leek
• Spinach
• Radicchio
• Gooseberries
• Celery
• Chinese cabbage (napa, michihli)

It may seem a bit meagre but there’s something missing from the picture! Half a head of Chinese cabbage and a whole head of red Batavian lettuce. We picked up the veggies on our way to my aunt’s and since our fridge was still rather full we decided to leave some of the loot with her.

Organic CSA vegetables week 27, 2011

Now more importantly: this weeks veggies…

• Broad beans!!! Love ‘em!
• Tomatoes
• Field peas
• Basil
• Iceberg lettuce
• Pak choi (bok choy)
• Savory (bonenkruid)

I hope I won’t bore you by sharing another menu plan?

Menu plan July 7-12 2011

Due to our schedule there’s a lot of ‘easy food’ on the menu this week.

• Vegan Spaghetti Bolognese [Wednesday]
• White bean & tomato soup (freezer stash), baguette, green salad with scapes, radicchio and pinenuts [Thursday]
• In between hike and going to the vets: Indian lentil soup (dahl, freezer stash), homemade pizza, cabbage & carrot salad (recipe below) [Friday]
• Broad bean soup, rosemary focaccia from Broodnodig, leftover mashed carrot salad, radicchio salad [Saturday]
• After a day of hiking: vegan ‘shoarma’ (Vivera roerbakreepjes) with pita bread, garlic sauce and leftover carrot-cabbage salad [Sunday]
• Field peas with veggies Provençale (adapting recipe for fresh peas), baguette, salad
• Stir-fry of pak choi, leek, mushrooms and tofu with rice

New feature!

Cabbage contours by Jacqueline Tinney

Many people don’t know what to do with cabbage. That’s a pity because it’s such a healthy vegetable; loaded with vitamins A & C, potassium, calcium, phosphor. It is also thought to be anti-carcinogenic! And if you’re a CSA participant like us you’ll often find it in your box. :)

So. I decided to share some cabbage recipes I like as a special feature on Graasland! Starting of with this week’s side dish of cabbage & carrot salad. Other recipes you can expect in the future are ‘Cabbage with Coconut’ and Indonesian ‘Sambal Goreng Cabbage’.

Easy cabbage-carrot salad

This is a veganised version of Eethuis Iris’ recipe from Zonnig zomers tafelen (p.20).

Cabbage-carrot salad & orange juice

Ingredients
Serves 4.

• 350 g pointed cabbage (I used a mix of pointed and Chinese cabbage; you could also take ordinary white)
• 100 g carrot, cleaned
• 3 tbs veganaise
• 0.5 dl fresh orange juice
• pinch of curry powder
• salt & pepper
• 2 tbs of roasted sunflower seeds
• chopped parsley (optional: it’s not in the original recipe but I added it for colour)

Preparation

1. Clean cabbage and cut out the hard core.
2. Shred the cabbage very finely.
3. Grate the carrot — or pulse a few times in your kitchen machine.
4. Make a sauce of veganaise, orange juice, curry, salt and pepper.
5. Mix vegetables and dressing, top with sunflower seeds and parsley.

On the contrary of what you may expect, the cabbage in this recipe is not overwhelming. I will make this salad again, maybe tweaking it here and there looking for an even better version: like adding a dash of lemon juice and possible some sweetener like agave syrup or golden raisins.

Do you have any favourite cabbage recipes to share? I’d love to hear them!

Join Beth Fish’s Weekend Cooking with a food related post!

Recipe submitted to the July Whip Up Something New! Challenge hosted on Joyfully Retired

The End is Nigh

We’re halfway December and the end of our CSA season is nearing. Next week’s bag will be The Last!

But you haven’t even had a chance to enjoy any of this month’s organic vegetables… So, here are my veggies of weeks 48, 49 and (freshly picked up today) 50.

Amelishof organic vegetables week 48, 2010

• leek
• kale
• capsicum
• corn salad
• red beet (waiting for me to make Nigel Slater’s red beet cake…)
• pumpkin

Amelishof organic vegetables week 49, 2010

• brussels sprouts (on the stalk, just for fun!)
• parsnip
• corn lettuce
• kohlrabi
• onions (red & white)
• Elstar apples

Amelishof organic vegetables week 50, 2010

WOW, what a mega bag of vegetables we got today! Remember the Invasion of the Broad-Leaved Endive Heads? This time there were even more! It makes a nice green background for the rest of the veggies ;) And Ringo totally went for it… Crazy cat :)

• kale
• endive
• carrots (not washed, so they’ll keep longer)
• root parsley (on the left of my pile of carrots, hiding behind the…)
• kabocha pumpkin!
• celeriac
• cooking pears
• Jerusalem artichoke

I’m not planning our menus and we’ve been eating out, visiting relatives et cetera so next to this HUGE new batch we still have some veggies of the previous weeks to use up: beetroot — but like I said; I’ve got great plans for that ;) — parsnip, kohlrabi, leek and 1 small pie pumpkin. Maybe I would be wise start planning again ;)

Say, Elsje: if you see anything you’d like to use for our 24 mini-marathon dinner next Friday, just give a shout!

Bento #66 en route

I should have taken my 66th bento on my 13,5 km NS-hike with the Wandelgrrls: Bieslandse Bos, from Delft to Zoetermeer. Why? Because it makes me think of the famous song Route 66! And… MaaikeB brought her first bento ever for lunch! She’s got the most beautiful bento box, a gift all the way from Tokyo. Lucky grrl! :)

Anyway, we took off early (for a Sunday morning) so I didn’t have much time to plan a real lunchbox. That’s why bento #66 only traveled by train from Utrecht to Apeldoorn on Monday ;) And it contained the following…

Upper tier

• Salad of grilled zucchini and bell pepper, lettuce, tomato, spring onion, capers and basil leaves

Lower tier

• Dried cranberries and strawberries
• 1/4 mini quiche made of leftovers: chard, goats cheese (feta) with basil, pine nuts and egg
• Carrots
• Walnut
• Basil and parsley

Asian fusion bento (#63)

Today’s bento is a mix of several Asian dishes. Yes, Gnoe likes her Asian foodies :)

Upper tier

• Indian egg-tomato curry (one of our all-time favourites!)
• Japanese edamame
• Indonesian nasi goreng
• gherkin fox
• cucumber
• two types of parsley
• on a bed of lettuce

Lower tier

• Indonesian emping
• raspberries and red currants
• yoghurt coated apricot
• carrots
• basil
• and another fox

Selamat makan!

Bento #61 for good luck on Monday the 13th

I’m not superstitious and I don’t believe Friday the 13th means bad luck. Hey, on Fridays it’s almost W.E.E.K.E.N.D.! But Monday the 13th… Yaiks, that’s something else indeed! I don’t like Mondays… And now both July and August bring us that black day :(

Today I hoped to balance things out a bit by bringing bento #61 to work: 6 + 1 = lucky number 7! :)

First tier:

• bed of romaine lettuce
• pesto egg with sundried tomato
• carrot
• hot pepper (from the balcony) with houmous
• slice of cucumber
• cauliflower florets
• black olives
• pine nuts

I also added some walnut after making the picture.

Second tier:

• mexican nut mix (‘pepita mix‘)
• carrot sticks
• seedless grapes
• pasta salad (corn, hot pepper, (fresh & sundried) tomato, pine nuts, pesto, basil, red tofu)

This bento really helped me get through my busy day! :)

Of course macaroni rigate is a bit too large for a real pasta salad but I am not small-minded when it comes to using leftovers!

BTW: did you spot the 3 song titles in this post???

Good beginnings bento (#51)

Bento #51 was not only a good beginning of the next fifty (on the way to 100!), but also a great start of the week :)

I’ve been getting questions about preparation time. Well, this bento to me a relaxed 12 minutes in the morning! Could have been quicker if I had been in a hurry! :) Of course I’m only counting throwing in the quiche, not baking it LOL. I also had the steamed green beans ready to go and I cleaned my yellow tomatoes, radishes and a carrot the night before. Nothing I couldn’t have done in a sec this morning :)

Gnoe’s tip: did you know that steaming vegetables is so much quicker and healthier when you do it in the microwave? Do follow instructions though (LOL). It sounds obvious but I know a lot of people who don’t use the microwave for cooking veggies.

Well, I’ve already mentioned some of my bento’s content but here’s the complete list:

• yellow grape tomatoes
• strawberries
• red salad leaves
• spinach pie with blue cheese, leeks, pinenuts and black sesame seeds
• some cranberries
• walnut and hazelnuts
• carrot hiding under green beans
• garden cress
• radishes
• basil
• and… mini rhubarb-raspberry crumble!

As you can see I tried to do something creative with the radishes :-o I had hoped the carefully peeled skin would ‘flower’ after I had put the veggies in some ice water but… it failed ;) And yes, that experiment took place within the before mentioned 12 minutes! ;)