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.

Mini Peach Tarts

I had a busy day on Sunday baking, churning, and cleaning. Unfortunately, the only thing that really went right was the cleaning. Nonetheless, I present...

Mini Peach Tarts

This is another one that my boyfriend found, and I accepted it whole-heartedly. Peaches are delicious after all, and mini peach pies? Yes, please. I didn't have any graham crackers though, so none of those are in it.



The Pepto-Bismol is actually plum ice cream. It had too much sugar :(

And now for the poor tarts. I want to say they were delicious and the greatest use of my peaches.

But no. Even with a homemade, from-scratch pie crust, no. And I know exactly why.

The recipe calls for WAY too much cinnamon and nutmeg. My two peaches actually made twice the amount of tarts the recipe called for, which means I used half the amount of cinnamon and nutmeg the recipe technically wants, and yet the spices completely overpower the peaches. I can barely even taste them, and when I can, it's not a mind-blowing flavour. It doesn't help that I had to cook them for roughly 30 min to get the pie crust to brown, which may have burned the tips of the peaches.

The homemade crust is okay, crispy, not too flavourful but it IS just a crust. The filling? Meh. So meh. Cinnamon and nutmeg are very strong spices, using 1 tsp each of both is so inappropriate. I should have known better.

It MAY be possible to salvage these by significantly lowering the amount of spice (by half at least). It's also possible my peaches just sucked (They were still hard and not ripe/soft after over two weeks of owning them). But honestly I'm so off-put by how it turned out that I don't really want to try it again.

4/10. Sorry peach tarts. Even a sprinkle of salt did nothing.

I MAY be able to manage to wake up in time to make a good breakfast that I could post to here. Until then...

Tschuess.

Kale with Egg and Toast

So I had a meal before this one that I photographed and everything... But I forget what it was like. It was a pasta dish, I know that much. So instead, we'll focus on what I made for breakfast this morning.

Kale with Egg and Toast

So my boyfriend linked me some recipe, I can't remember what. I was pretty "Whatever" about it, but it led me to find this recipe and another one I will try out later. Now, I'm neutral about most lettuces and greens, but I love kale. So a recipe involving mostly it? Yes, please.

I substituted the diced onions for diced pearl onions. Let me tell you, chopping frozen pearl onions in a blender? Way too amusing to watch. They hop around like popcorn before they finally get ground up. Also, I substituted vegetable broth for chicken stock. And I forgot about the lemon juice.



I was so ravenous that I took one rather bad picture before wolfing it down.

And now for the disappointment... It was kind of a bust. There are various reasons for this. First, the kale is too moist and thus this soaked straight into the toasted bread and turned it moist (ick). The kale, after being simmered in an absurd amount of broth (I used a cup less than stated, and still had almost all of the broth left over. Seriously. I poured it back into containers to save because some of that broth cost me $4/container), simply did not have the nice texture and flavour I associate it with. I'm not even sure I simmered it for the whole 30 min, either.

I couldn't even really taste the garlic or onion, not sure what the point of them being there was. I guess MAYBE the lemon juice would have rescued the kale, but why in the world would you simmer it for 30min only to give it a whole different flavour? A light saute or steam would yield a better texture and colour, and then you could just add the lemon juice after. I don't know.

We won't talk about the sad sunny side up eggs. I should have just fried them.

I don't know how this could be salvaged, or even if it's worthwhile. Suffice to say it's being removed from my recipe list, because I Know better ways to use toast, egg, and kale. (and in the case of the egg and toast, AT ONCE).

Overall rating: 4/10.

I made another disappointing recipe for dessert this evening, but that will wait for another time.

Tschuess.