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This is another recipe that comes from the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites: Flavorful Recipes For Healthful Meals cookbook.

Savory Indian Sweet Potatoes
Serves 2 as a main course, 4 as a side dish

2 large sweet potatoes
1 cup diced onions
1/3 cup water, unsweetened apple juice, or orange juice
3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 1/2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 small fresh green chili, seeded and minced
2/3 cup diced red and/or green bell pepper
3 tablespoons Neufchâtel (low-fat cream cheese)
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup fresh or slightly thawed frozen green peas
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Bake sweet potatoes at 400 degrees F for about 1 hour, or until tender.

While potatoes bake, combine onions and water or juice in a medium saucepan. Cover and simmer until onions soften, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, ginger, cumin, chili, and bell pepper. Cover and simmer until pepper is tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Cut Neufchâtel into small pieces and stir it into hot vegetable mixture to melt. Set aside.

Cut sweet potatoes in half lengthwise. Hold each potato half with a heavy towel or mitt in one hand and scoop out the flesh with a spoon, leaving 1/4-inch shell. Mix potato flesh with vegetable-cheese mixture. Add lemon juice, peas, salt, and pepper. Set oven temperature at 350 degrees F.

Coat a vegetable dish with vegetable-oil cooking spray. Stuff potato shells with filling. Place potatoes in prepared dish, cover with aluminum foil, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until thoroughly heated.
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I didn't choose this recipe because I wanted to make vegan rice pudding. I chose this recipe because I had a half gallon of soy milk in the fridge that I wanted to use up and I love rice pudding. That is to say I love yummy stuff and am not a vegan and I deem this recipe to be excellent and yummy. This recipe comes from the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites: Flavorful Recipes For Healthful Meals.

Excellent Rice Pudding (that happens to be vegan)

Ingredients
4 cups water
3/4 cup white rice (preferably basmati)*
1 quart 1% vanilla soymilk**
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup currants or raisins***
1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon peel

Sliced seasonal fruit (optional)

Bring the water to a boil in a heavy saucepan. Add the rice and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to sit for 5 minutes. Drain the rice and return it to the pan with the soymilk, maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla, currants or raisins, and lemon peel. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring often until the pudding is thick and creamy. Serve warm or chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.
If you like, garnish the pudding with strawberry slices or other fresh fruit.

*I used aborrio
** I used Silk Light Vanilla Soy Milk
*** I left these out

After the mixture came to a boil I cooked it quite low and slow for probably 45 or 50 minutes. For a long time it really looked like it wasn't going to come together to produce a creamy texture but it finally did and it's fantastic. Highly recommended recipe.
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The base for this recipe comes from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking. We loved the basic concept but decided it needed a little something. So we've played around with it a few times and finally a couple nights ago came up with the definitive version.

I pound extra-firm tofu
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 chopped onion
1 teaspoon curry powder
10oz fresh spinach
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 can diced tomatoes with green peppers partially drained

- Drain and press tofu, crumble into small pieces. We typically put the tofu in the fridge to press the night before we plan to make this dish
- Heat oil in skillet over medium heat, add garlic and onion. Cook for a few minutes until onion is soft and the garlic smell starts permeating the kitchen
- Add curry powder, stir well, add tofu
- Cover and cook for 3 minutes until tofu is mostly heated through
- Add spinach, stir to combine it well with the other ingredients
- When spinach has wilted add salt, pepper and tomatoes
- Stir well and cook 2-3 minutes

Notes:
- Add as much or as little liquid from tomatoes depending on how thick or thin you want this dish to be. I don't put very much liquid because I don't want it to be soupy
- You can add more or less curry powder based on your preferences. I find 1 teaspoon to be ample for both flavor and heat because of the peppers added with the tomatoes

Makes 4-6 servings

Serve with a big salad

Nutritional information varies depending on the specific tofu you use but a rough estimate is 4-6 Weight Watchers points per serving. We use a light tofu that is really wonderful but I can't remember the brand name right now. I'll add it to this recipe later. Update: The tofu we use is Nasoya brand.

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