Sauteed Seitan with Mushrooms and Spinach

In my quest to find new recipes to try in old cookbooks, I found this simple recipe for sauteed seitan with mushrooms and spinach in Veganomicon. I made the seitan the night before. With the seitan pre-made, this is a true weeknight dish. It took me about half an hour to cook and I made the whole thing in one pot. I made this while I was taking a break from my low fodmap diet. With onions, garlic, and mushrooms galore, it is decidedly not low fodmap. Make sure you make this in a pan with tall sides, it needs a lot of room to cook.

This was okay. Not bad for something so easy to make on a weeknight, but I’m not sure that seitan and spinach make an amazing combination. I tried eating it over rice, which was fine, noodles, which wasn’t great, and risotto, which didn’t work at all. If I happened to have these ingredients and need to whip up something quick, I’d consider making this again. But I don’t think I’d seek it out. If I did, I’d use more spinach (maybe 1.5x the amount called for). The amount of spinach seemed crazy, but it actually wasn’t much when it cooked down. I thought there wasn’t enough for the amount of seitan.

http://epicureanvegan.com/2010/01/21/sauteed-seitan-with-mushrooms-and-spinach/

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Marinated Tofu Cabbage Salad

On a day when my feet were hurting too much to go to the store or spend much time in the kitchen, I found this simple recipe for marinated tofu cabbage salad in my old copy of Diet for a New World. Except for the celery seed, everything in the recipe, which has a very limited list of ingredients, was a already in my kitchen. It came together super fast. The tofu is just marinated and added to the salad uncooked. I was a bit skeptical of this, but it came out really tasty. The soft texture of the tofu actually works really well in the coleslaw like salad. Instead of using all sunflower seeds, I used half sunflower seeds and half pumpkin seeds, which I think added some extra interest to the dish. I halved the oil called for in the recipe and thought there was definitely enough oil in it. Even Ian who adds extra oil to a lot of things I make ate it without any amendment. This is a fantastic weeknight dish. Easy, satisfying, and surprisingly tasty for something so simple.

Fast One-Pot Low Fodmap Kale Farfalle

I’ve been super busy for the past week and haven’t had much time to cook or menu plan. So I found myself super hungry at dinner time with nothing made. I made this pasta dish with things in my house. It took no more than 20 minutes to make and was pretty tasty for something I just threw together. All the kale made it more filling than most pasta dishes.

12 oz farfalle

1 large bunch of kale

1/4 cup Garlic oil (if you’re not eating low fodmap you can saute 3 cloves garlic in oil instead)

Zest one lemon

2 – 3 tbsp capers

2 – 3 tbsp pine nuts

1.5 – 2 tsp salt plus a couple pinches

1/2 cup grated parmesan

pepper to taste

1. Put a large pot of water on to boil
2. While water is coming to a boil, remove stems from the kale and tear into pieces
3. Once water comes to a boil, add a couple pinches of salt
4. Add kale and pasta to the pot. Cook on rolling boil for 9 minutes
5. While the pasta and kale are cooking, Add the rest of the ingredients to your serving bowl.
6. Before draining the pasta and kale, reserve 1/2 cup water from the pot
7. Drain the past and kale. Shake well to dry and press to remove extra water.
8. Add the pasta and kale to the serving bowl, stir to combine.
9. Add pepper and adjust salt to taste
10. Add the Parmesan and conserved water, stir well.

Vegan Miso Marinated “Scallops”

I love mushrooms. But oysters are the only mushrooms that have been tested and deemed low fodmap by Monash University. So I haven’t had mushroom since last spring. I was at my local Asian market and was excited to see they were selling king oyster mushrooms. I had no idea what to do with them, but bought them anyways. When I got home and started searching online, I was surprised to find there weren’t a ton of king oyster recipes available. One thing I did see in several places were recipes that used king oysters as a substitute for scallops. This seemed intriguing. I made this recipe, but only the marinated scallops not the accompanying garlic sauce.

I liked but didn’t love the flavor and texture of these. I don’t imagine they’re anything like actual scallops. I just left them marinating in the fridge and then sauteed them as I wanted to eat them. I ate them over paella, which was a nice combo. Although I think risotto might have been better. I think they probably would have been even tastier with the garlic butter sauce, maybe I’ll try making that at some point.

Vegan Scallops & Garlic Butter Sauce

Chickpea, Cabbage, and Dill Soup

I’ve recently reintroduced canned chickpeas into my diet. I’ve been so excited to be eating beans again, even in this limited form. I needed to use up cabbage and dill from my garden that I picked before the cold front. I found this recipe for Middle Eastern Chickpea, Cabbage, and Dill Soup on page 313 Madhur Jefrey’s World of East Vegetarian Cooking. The recipe is super simple and I further simplified by using canned goods.

I made quite a few adjustments. I used canned chickpeas and canned tomatoes. The original recipe calls for you to cook pre-soaked chickpeas for 1 hour and then cook all the veggies with the chickpeas for another hour and a half. Instead, I just cooked everything together for 45 minutes. I thought the potatoes were a little too soft. Next time I’d cook for 30 minutes. I left out the onion. Since I didn’t have flavor from the onion, I used vegetable broth instead of water. Instead of a whole tomato and 2 tsp of tomato paste, I used about a can of chopped stewed tomatoes. Here’s my version:

2 can chickpeas

4 cups vegetable broth

1-2 medium sized boiling potato, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1 can stewed chopped tomatoes

3/4 cup chopped fresh dill, firmly packed

2 cups cabbage, cut into 1 inch squares

1.5 -2 tsp salt

Black pepper to taste

1. Put all the ingredients in a large pot.
2. Bring to a boil, then turn to low and let simmer, covered, for 30 minutes
3. Adjust salt and add pepper to taste

For something so simple, this was really flavorful and yummy, this was super easy. A really good weeknight recipe on a cold night. Ian liked it a lot too. The dill didn’t really stand out the way I thought it would though. I think next time I’d reserve 1/3 of the dill and add at the end, to see how that affects the flavor.

Soy-Braised Tofu with Bok Choy

I had a bunch of bok choy left over from another recipe and was looking for something fast to make for dinner. I found this recipe for soy-braised tofu with bok choy. The recipe says it takes 20 minutes to make. On a hungry weeknight, that sounded perfect to me! I adapted the recipe to make it low fodmap by cooking the garlic and scallion whites first separately in oil and then tossing them out. Because I added this step, the recipe took my closer to 30 minutes, but was still relatively fast and easy. Also, since spicy foods make me sick, I used only 1/4 tsp of doubanjiang (reluctantly since I love doubanjiang). Since doubanjiang is very spicy, the dish still had a bit of a kick to it. If you don’t like spicy foods, but want a little sizzle, definitely cut the doubanjiang in half.

This was very tasty and as easy as billed. The tofu was so good! My main objection was that there wasn’t enough veggies. I’d double the bok choy next time. I might also add some baby corn, since that makes everything better.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023301-soy-braised-tofu-with-bok-choy?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page&region=all&rank=21

Roasted Veggie Tahini Bowl

I found a recipe for roasted broccoli and mushroom bowls in the New York Times, which gave me the idea for this recipe. I adapted it to be vegan, low fodmap, and gluten free and made it for Ian. We both loved it! Ian had thirds. I’d definitely make this again, but next time I’d add a third (and 4th?) veggie to reduce the fodmap content, since this ended up being too much broccoli and mushroom for me to tolerate.

For the bowls:

2 cups cooked rice

Prepare the tofu:

2 blocks tofu

1 tbsp canola or olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 425

Drain and press the tofu

Cut the tofu into 1/2 inch squares

Use half the oil to oil a cookie sheet

Spread the tofu out on the cookie sheet

Brush the rest of the oil on the tofu and sprinkle the salt

Cook for 30-40 minutes, flipping half way through

Prepare the veggies:

1.5 lbs broccoli, chopped into bite sized pieces

1 lb mushrooms (I used baby bella), cut into thick slices

3-4 tbsp olive oil

3/4 to 1.5 tsp salt

Mix half the olive oil and salt into the broccoli and spread it onto a cookie sheet

Mix the second half of the olive oil and salt into the mushrooms and spread them out onto a second cookie sheet

Put in the oven to cook for 20-25 minutes

While the veggies are cooking, make the dressing (I didn’t measure so this is approximate)

Combine together and blend:

3-4 tbsp tahini

1/2-3/4 tsp salt

3 sprigs fresh rosemary

1 sprig fresh sage

1 tbsp wine vinegar

2 tbsp olive oil

water or broth as needed to reach dressing consistency (I think I used 4 tbsp)

Serve with walnuts on top of the bowls.

Baked Eggs in Cream

Usually when I make baked eggs, I make them in a tomato-based sauce. This recipe for baked eggs in a creme based sauce seemed intriguing, and used a lot of fresh herbs that I had on hand in my garden. For the herbs I used a mixture of parsley, basil, and scallions. The recipe also gives you the option of adding veggies. I added kale, which worked quite well. It also says you can use either half and half or heavy creme. Since I can only find lactose free half and half, that is what I used and it worked fine. This is a very tasty and easy recipe that can easily be adapted to whatever veggies and herbs you have on hand. A good weeknight dinner.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019768-baked-eggs-for-a-crowd?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page&region=recently-viewed&rank=14

Rice Noodles with Eggs, Broccoli, and Dark Soy Sauce

Recently, one of my neighbors was giving away a bunch of vegetarian cookbooks. In the pile was Real Vegetarian Thai by Nancie McDermott, a cookbook I know my mother owns and likes.

The first recipe I tried was this rice noodle dish from page 164. Nancie describes the dish as easy to prepare and indeed it was. I could see myself making this on a weeknight when I want something comforting and indulgent as an alternative to ordering take out.

The recipe calls for a dark sweet soy sauce called si-yu but offers an alternative combo of regular soy sauce and brown sugar. I used this option since I didn’t have si-yu. But next time I go to the asian market I’ll be looking for si-yu so I can try making this again. The other change I made was reducing the oil. Nancie calls for 3 tbsp. I only used 4 tsp. Next time I think I’d try cutting it to 1 tbsp since the dish was still pretty high calorie.

I followed the timing of the dish carefully and the veggies came out crisp, just like I like them. The flavor of the dish was peppery and savory. And the eggs add a creamy aspect. Very yummy. Nancie calls for offering chili vinegar as a condiment, but I didn’t have any. So instead I used about a teaspoon of rice vinegar on each bowl, which added to the flavor. I’d like to pick up chili vinegar for the next time I make this.

Update: So far I’ve made this twice, once for myself and once for my sister’s family while in Germany. It was a hit both times. Easy, tasty, filling, and indulgent. A very good weeknight dish indeed. The only issue we had with the dish was the ratio of pasta to broccoli. Everyone, including my seven-year-old niece, agreed it needed more broccoli. Although I think I messed up the proportions when I made it for my sister’s family, so it probably was more that than the recipe. Still, I’d do 4 cups of broccoli instead of 3 and probably 7 ounces of pasta instead of 8 and see how that went. The other issue I had both times was volume. Flipping this recipe without a big wok is really hard. Next time I’m going to try making it in my cast iron dutch oven and see how that goes instead.

Leek and Potato Frittata

I have never made a frittata. When I studied abroad in Chile my host family only knew how to make three vegetarian dishes. One of the three was a tortilla española, which is pretty similar to a frittata. So I ate a lot of tortilla española. They would make them with a all sorts of vegetables, including lettuce. It was the only time in my life I actually moved my food around my plate to make it look like I had eaten. Needless to say, for years I had zero desire to eat anything resembling a tortilla española. But recently I had one made by a Puerto Rican friend of mine and enjoyed it, leaving me more open to re-approaching the genre.

I noticed this recipe in Peter Barley’s Fresh Food Fast for a Leek and Potato Frittata that I had previously overlooked for aforementioned reasons. I really like leeks so this seemed like the perfect way to dip my toe into the frittata waters. This was really easy to make, a great weeknight recipe.

I made a mistake when reading the recipe and failed to notice that it called for 3 tsp of coarse sea salt and instead used 3 tsp table salt. Once I realized the frittata was way way to salty, there was little I could do about it. I added two extra eggs but the frittata was still very very salty. My sister told me she always halfs the salt in Peter Barley’s recipes, but I think that 1.5 tsp of table salt probably would have been fine. Even though I added the two extra eggs to address the saltiness issue, I think this was the right ratio of veggies to eggs. Without the two extra eggs, there wouldn’t have been enough egg to fully cover the vegetables.

I used 3 tbsp of salt instead the 4 called for. I think I could probably reduce it to 2 tbsp next time. You can see in the photo that the frittata was fairly oily.

Other than the salt issue, I really liked this recipe. It was flavorful, filling, and easy to make. I’m going to try making it again with less salt and less oil.