What’s in the oven?

By Monica on November 8th, 2007

Yes, the time of year is here when lighting the oven and having it heat up the entire house is a good thing!  My oven has been getting a workout lately and I suspect the end will not be in sight until early spring.

Up first is my modified old-time Czech stuffed pepper recipe, perfect for fall:

6 bell peppers
3 large onions, diced and divided
2 cloves garlic
2T vegetable oil, divided
1 1/2 cups TVP
1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
1T Braggs (or soy sauce)
1 cup cooked rice
1t dried parsley
1/2t salt
1/2t pepper
2- 28 ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes
1t whole peppercorns
1t allspice
1t oregano
1t marjoram
1c vegan sour cream

In a large skillet, heat 1T oil and saute 1 onion with the garlic until onion is translucent.  Add the TVP, vegetable stock, parsley, Braggs, salt, pepper, and rice.  Simmer until liquid is absorbed.  Stuff this mixture into your bell peppers, and place peppers into a deep baking dish or crock.

In a large saucepan, heat the remaining 1T oil.  Saute the remaining 2 onions until translucent.  Stir in tomatoes, peppercorns, allspice, oregano, and marjoram.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Cook on medium for 20 minutes.  Pour over peppers in the baking dish.

Cover peppers and bake at 350° for 1 1/2 hours.  Remove peppers from dish and transfer sauce to a blender or food processor (or use an immersion blender) and puree until smooth.  Whisk in sour cream, pour the sauce back into a pan to reheat if necessary.  Serve the sauce over the peppers.

This next recipe for Squash Rolls was modified from one of those mini-cookbooks manufacturers send out.  It was in a Gold Medal flour themed book I found at a rummage sale and the only changes were using non-dairy milk and Earth Balance.  Easy enough, and these were great!  They’d be perfect for Thanksgiving dinner.  I used a carnival squash, but I think next time I’d use a butternut for a little more color.

5 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1t salt
1 package dry active yeast
1 1/4 cups non-dairy milk, very warm
1 cup cooked and mashed winter squash
2T Earth Balance

If you have it, use a stand mixer with the dough hook.  Mix 2 cups of the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast.  Add non-dairy milk, squash, and Earth Balance.  Mix very well, then blend in remaining flour 1 cup at a time until dough is easy to handle.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes or until dough is elastic.  Place in oiled bowl and let rise until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.

Grease 24 muffin cups.  Punch down dough and divide dough into 48 equal pieces.  (The recipe suggests 24 pieces, but these are the size of huge muffins at 48 pieces.  If you do 24 pieces, they’re going to be like football muffins!)  Shape each piece into a little ball and place 3 balls into each muffin cup.  Bake at 400° for 15 to 20 minutes until rolls are nicely browned.

And finally, a Cranberry Peach Upside Down Cake.  I have a bit of a love affair with upside down cakes.  They look like you put a ton of effort into it, when in reality you just throw ingredients into a pan on top of one another.

No recipe is really needed for this.  I used a cast iron skillet for variety and added some melted Earth Balance and brown sugar to the bottom.  Arrange some peaches however you like, throw a handful of frozen cranberries on top and then fill with your favorite yellow cake batter.  Viola!   It stuck a little when I flipped it, so excuse the poor picture here, but everything was so ooey-gooey and sweet that I didn’t mind!

Ghouls & Goulash

By Monica on October 13th, 2007

Last week it was 90°F here, now it is 36°F and frosting at night. Quite a change to acclimate to! Chilled to the bone this week, I thought I’d make a big pot of goulash to stick to the ribs and warm us up. Now, I realize that this looks like something the dog yakked up and I tried very hard to make it look more presentable, but it is what it is!

I used Czechvar (aka Budvar) beer in this recipe. While not my favorite Czech beer, I’m fortunate that my backwater grocery store carries even this. Feel free to use whatever pilsner or lager you prefer. You can also serve this as a stew, but at this time of year I am seeking out food items to place on top of dumplings like a bear preparing for hibernation.

1 bag Morningstar Farms Steak Strips, cubed
2T vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
2t caraway seeds
2T sweet Hungarian paprika (not hot!)
1/4t pepper
1 six oz. can tomato paste
1 bottle of beer
1/4t salt
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4t marjoram
2 carrots, chopped (optional)
2 red potatoes, diced (optional)
1 1/2 cups V8 or vegetable juice (use less if omitting carrots & potatoes)
2T flour

In a stew sized pot, heat oil and cook onions and caraway seeds until onions are soft. Add cubed faux steak and brown slightly. Stir in all of the remaining ingredients except flour. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes, until potatoes and carrots are soft. If necessary, add flour to thicken.

Because this meal is clearly calorie deficient (ha!), I thought I would use up some rhubarb that’s taking up space in my freezer. In a momentary lapse of reason, I planted no fewer than 12 rhubarb plants when we bought our current house. Suffice it to say, I have rhubarb coming out the wazoo and have found millions of ways to use rhubarb. (If the big bomb ever comes, we could hole up in the basement and live off rhubarb jam for at least a year.) Still, I have bags and bags of it in the freezer.

Here is one of my basset hounds, Moose, posing in front of a few of the rhubarb plants.

Anyway, for this ice cream topping, I cooked 2 cups of rhubarb with 3T of agave nectar over medium heat until it was soft, maybe 7 minutes. Then I added 2 cups of strawberries and cooked for another 2 minutes. Delicious!

Bramboráky - Potato Pancakes

By Monica on October 10th, 2007

So many cultures have potato pancake recipes, this is mine. Fortunately these are easy enough to veganize by using non-dairy milk if your recipe calls for it, or a replacement binder instead of eggs. Since I’ve always eaten applesauce with the pancakes anyway, I thought applesauce would make a tasty egg replacer and it actually worked pretty well too. They held together beautifully!

If you want the Czech version, make sure to top with both applesauce and faux sour cream, because well, everything Czech is coated in sour cream.

2 large potatoes
1 medium onion
2/3 cup applesauce
1/4 cup lemon juice
2T parsley
2T flour
2T bread crumbs
1/2t thyme
1/2t salt
1/2t pepper

Grate the potatoes and onion, preferably in a food processor so you don’t skin your knuckles. Drain very well and squeeze out all the liquid. Combine with all the remaining ingredients and mix well.

In a large skillet, heat enough vegetable oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Add 1/2 cup of the potato mixture and flatten a little to make a pancake. Cook for about 5 minutes on each side until nicely browned, adding more oil as necessary.

Houskovy Knedliky - Czech Bread Dumplings

By Monica on September 28th, 2007

As an absolute mainstay of Czech cuisine, I knew I had to modify and perfect dumplings in order to be a happy vegan. Dumplings, be they bread, potato, yeast, or egg, are usually served with meat and gravy dishes. Very different than an English or American dumpling, Czech dumplings are thick, heavy, and could easily be a meal themselves.

Fortunately, I have been successful in veganizing my Babi’s dumpling recipe; these taste exactly like the original. (Babi being short for babička, the Czech word for grandmother.) This is a raised yeast bread dumpling, perfect for sopping up the gravy of your choice. In my house, it was traditional to cover them with applesauce, saurkraut, and then smother them in whatever gravy accompanied the meal. Usually there was a slab of roast pork there too, but I’m still working on veganizing that!

Be forewarned that this recipe makes a lot of dumplings, like two gallon freezer bags full. They freeze wonderfully though, and you can use them in so many dishes that they never go to waste. Also, if you have a large mixer with a dough hook, I highly recommend using it to spare yourself from a lot of heavy mixing.

Houskovy Knedliky - Raised Yeast Bread Dumplings
2 cups rice milk, warmed
1 package dry yeast
1T sugar
Ener-G egg replacer equivalent to 2 eggs
1/2t salt
5 cups flour
2 slices bread, cubed

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm milk. Add prepared Ener-G egg replacer, and salt. Gradually stir in flour and mix well. When dough is mixed, form into one large ball, cover, and set aside in a warm place until doubled (about one hour).

When doubled in size, remove from the bowl and work bread cubes into the raised dough. Divide evenly into 6 loaves.

Cook, covered, in a large kettle of boiling water, making sure dumplings have room to expand. Boil dumplings 7 minutes on each side. Do not uncover pot except to turn dumplings.

Remove from water and place on a board to drain. Poke each with a knife to allow steam to escape. Using thread, slice loaves into individual 1″ dumplings.

Make sure you try one warm with a little bit of earth Balance!