Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Cinnamon-Spice Roasted Vegetables


That lovely picture you see was my dinner tonight. And it was so much better than last nights semi disappointment. At the top under my fork are more of the fried stuffing patties. This time they were done a bit differently. I just moistened the stuffing with some stock from the refrigerator and sprinkled about 2 tsp of chickpea flour on them. As you can see they held together really well. However, part of the reason they got so crisp this time is that I somewhat ignored them while trying to figure out why my internet was out, so they sat in the pan a little longer then they should have, but it didn’t seem to hurt them. On the opposite side of the plate is some more of the chick-fu (or Burmese Tofu made with chickpea flour). It is coated with the same batter I made last week, since it has been sitting in the frig just waiting to be used. This time, the chick-fu was baked instead of fried. It worked out really well. The coating has thickened since being refrigerated and stuck better this time. It also set very well in the toaster oven. Now I could have also fried this, but since I have been doing a low fat diet since 1991, my body can’t handle a lot of fried food anymore. So I baked them instead.

Now the best part of the meal was the Cinnamon-Spice Roasted Vegetables from La Dolce Vegan pg. 193. You would not believe how good these are. With all the cumin, coriander and cinnamon that goes in them, one would think that they would be spicy. But I didn’t find them to be that way. All the vegetables got soft and kind of melted together a bit, especially the butternut squash. And it has so many possibilities for leftovers. According to the book, it can be a meal in it self; but they would work great in a wrap as well. They might even make a great pita sandwich when cold. I also wonder how they would be with some of the chick-fu on top, maybe seasoned with five-spice powder or even some jerk seasoning (possibilities). According to Sarah Kramer this makes 2 large servings or 4 small, but I must not eat a lot since it looks like I will get at least 5 servings out of this. Look for these to show up again. However, there is one bad thing about this dish. It has so much Vitamin A that if one eats it to often, you might turn orange.

And just an endorsement here. If you are looking for a cookbook that is not wall to wall with recipes that contain either tofu or tempeh, La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer is a good one to get. It also has a lot of recipes that minus the soy sauce as well. All the “mock meats” are seitan, but let me warn you that she does seitan a bit differently than you may have seen before (see here for a sample recipe http://www.vegfamily.com/vegan-cooking-tips/seitan.htm). The best thing about this book is that all the recipes make small quantities. So if you don’t want to deal with a lot of leftovers or are feeding a few people this would be the book to get. Also quite a few of the recipes seem to be omni friendly as well. All in all, not a bad book to have in your library.

*sorry I am so late posting but local ISP had a county wide outage and they just got back up

3 comments:

  1. Interesting! I'm glad the 'fu was better this time >:o) That meal looks delicious. I'm intrigued now about the Sarah Kramer seitan~ what makes it different?

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  3. Becks, the way Sarah Kramer makes seitan is that she only uses unseasoned gluten that is then seasoned in a broth that is cooked down on a simmer to coat and and season the unflavored gluten. Here is a link to her "chicken" seitan that she put online www.vegfamily.com/vegan-cooking-tips/seitan.htm It will make my explanation clearer.

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