New Vegetarian: Omelets & Empanadas

Okay, first off, omelets and empanadas are obviously not new, magical vegetarian recipes.  Instead, New Vegetarian refers to one of the first vegetarian cookbooks I ever bought.  Let me start off by saying that the title is deceptive, unless in fact they were referring to how this is some sort of new-age vegetarian book.  The recipes are not for beginners, or really even your average cook.  Almost every last recipe has some odd, can-only-be-found-online ingredients, and figuring out how to substitute them can be a massive pain.  But I've done it.

Thai Omelet

We'll start off with a recipe that is different to mess up: a Thai-style omelet.  The description in the book says something about how most restaurants serve something more like a "frittata with veggies".  I think Thai restaurants have better authority on a Thai omelet than a random chef, but whatever.  Pretty much you take tofu, jalapeños, cabbage, scallions, and a few other things, stir fry them, then place them inside an omelet.  Pretty straight-forward.

I, of course, made a bunch of substitutions (I hate carrots.  Seriously), and then made too much filling.  And adding that much cheese on top of the omelet made it look disconcerting.  Regardless, though, the meal was a success.  I've made this before and knew it was good, and found once again that the instructions for making the omelet are very helpful.  I'm hopeless when it comes to maneuvering eggs; I can't even boil them correctly.  So for me to be able to made a foldable omelet is nearly miraculous.

Taste-wise, it's an omelet.  No complaints.  8/10; it's a good hearty meal, but it's nothing special.

Sweet Coconut Empanadas

Oh, this recipe.  I have a bone to pick with this recipe.

In addition to bragging about omelets, this book spends the page before the dessert recipes talking about how people always assume vegan dessert recipes are dry and flavourless, and how the average baker is confused or some such by having to make desserts without eggs or lard.  That's a load of crap, but I haven't tried many of the dessert recipes, so I gave this one a try.

Sad trombone.

It is not the sheer ugliness of this recipe that gets me.  Oh no.   I ran out of freakin' filling.  I NEVER run out of filling.  I always have too much.  I followed this recipe exactly, and I was not even HALFWAY THROUGH making the empanadas when I realized I was about to run out.  I don't know how in the world that happened.  The recipe said 2tbsp of filling per empanada, which was a lot, so I wonder if it was a typo or something.  You'd think someone would catch it.  Those pretty strawberries are there because I last-minute substituted strawberries to fill the remaining empanadas.  And made too many, of course.

And their method for making the actual empanadas (make a cone of the dough and put the filling it)?  Totally useless; the dough is too sticky and flimsy, so I pretty much had to put the filling on there, then just wrap the dough around it.  No cone was happening here.  Finally, the "coconut caramel" sauce was NOT caramel.  It was much too liquidy.  Maybe I didn't cook it long enough, but I don't think that was it.  Thug Kitchen has a very good caramel coconut sauce recipe that I've made successfully, so it's not the concept that is off.  I think the recipe just sucked.

As for the taste, meh.  I preferred the strawberry ones, to be honest.  And -- surprise, surprise -- the empanadas were much too dry.  Another recipe I've tried from this book -- Upside-down mango cake -- had the same problem.  Go figure, considering the boasting about moist vegan recipes.

My coworkers really enjoyed the recipe, so I guess it wasn't an utter failure.  I still don't plan to ever make it again.  4/10.

In conclusion: you can probably skip New Vegetarian unless you want the challenge of five billion substitutions.  I may try a few more recipes to put up here, but I really don't use it much compared to my other, easier books.

I hope to make something tonight since it's a long weekend and I've been utterly lazy, so maybe you will see something up here soon!

Tschüß.

Coconut Farro Porridge with Mango

So thanks to the New Wholes Grains cookbook, I discovered farro. It's this chewy grain thing that cooks pretty quickly and has a texture between pasta and rice. While trying to find recipes for it, I discovered this one.

Coconut Farro Porridge with Mango Strawberries

So I don't have mango, or coconut extract, which the original recipe here calls for. And I had to do some very funky math since I only had half a can of coconut milk, but I kept the proportions of everything the same, just that the coconut extract was replaced with vanilla, and the mangos with strawberries.



I love how my food never looks like their food.

So, how is it? It depends on how sweet you like your foods. I have a great love for things that are sugary -- one of my favourite cereals is Fruity Pebbles, so basically the more horrifyingly diabetes-inducing bad it is, the tastier I find it. That being said, the flavour and sweetness of this porridge is quite mild. The strawberries were a nice touch to keep it from just being bland. If you don't like your food to be incredibly sweet, and also like hot porridge, this meal will likely work out for you. But if you prefer loading up on sugar, you may want to stick with instant oatmeal.

My rating is 7/10, since everything went fine and it wasn't awful, just not my preference.

Tonight I'm making another recipe from my list, so stay tuned for that. Until then...

Tschuess.

Indonesian Red Rice Salad. Sort of.

This is a new idea I have: when I'm near my best mentally, or just feeling antsy and wanting to get it out, I cook. Antsy!me cooks less extravagent foods. Well!me pulls out one of my many cookbooks and makes an impressive meal. Dinner Time posts will be of those meals. With a review of them, and where I can, a recipe. The posts will be pretty short and picture and garbage-talk free. Seriously I hate blogs that talk on and on; just show me the food and the recipe dammit!

So to begin:

Indonesian Red Rice Salad with Boiled Eggs and Macadamias The original recipe is from the fantastic cookbook The New Whole Grains Cookbook", which introduced me to a world of weird whole grains that taste good. The original recipe is also here. But I don't have red rice, macadamias, molasses, or fresh basil. And I HATE green beans and carrots. Soooo.... Bam. Follow the same instructions as the recipe above, but I used this instead:

1/4 cup long-grained brown rice, cooked as desired
~1/2-1 tablespoon peanut oil
~1/2-1 cup frozen chopped onions (but 1 fresh onion would be better)
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/8-1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon Chinese Five-Spice powder
1/4 teaspoon coriander
~1/2 of a large, fresh green bell pepper
~1/2 package of fresh white mushrooms (but baby bella or any type will do)
~1/8-1/4 cup coconut milk
~1 tablespoon of this weird soy sauce substitute I made (just use soy sauce, seriously)
~2 tablespoons of dark brown sugar (I used 3 but it was much too sweet)
1 boiled egg
Lime Juice (I don't know how much, maybe about 1/2-1 tablespoon)

Basically you stirfry the vegetables and spices until they are starting to get tender, or if you've cooked for ages like I have, until they just SEEM ready. You then add the coconut milk, soy sauce, and dark brown sugar, swirl it a bit to mix, and then slice the egg lengthwise and put it in the pan in a space reserved for it. Simmer for a few minutes (I recommend until the liquid level has dropped somewhat, otherwise you'll have liquid sitting in your bowl like I do!), then mix it with the rice and bam. Dinner.

Flavour-wise? Pretty complex! Unfortunately I put in too much brown sugar so I mostly taste that, but upon swallowing there's a very good kick from the cayenne pepper. So I imagine if the sweet was toned down a bit, you could get the rich coconut flavour with a nice kick.

The vegetables still have a good bite to them, and the egg is pretty solid despite all it had to go through. However, I'm not sure the egg adds much to the flavour, so if you're a vegan and want to try this out, go ahead; you won't be missing anything by keeping out the animal products.

Since it does have quite a bit of flavour I'd recommend something cleansing after for a drink or dessert, but if you're crazy you can always have a sorbet with it:  

But I won't be because that cherry sorbet? Freakin' STRONG. I don't know why it needed sugar with it. OR water. or ANYTHING other than sauteed and pureed cherries.

So overall rating for this recipe? 7/10 for now, I need to fiddle with it more, but feel free to check it out.

Tschuess