Vegetarian Baked Ziti

As most of you who have read this blog with any regularity know, I don't really "do" Italian food. I'm not the biggest pasta fan (I know, I am a freak, I also don't like ice cream either, believe it or not), and I went vegetarian before I really learned too awful much beyond homemade pasta sauce and pesto.

But Brett is a fan of the Italian food, vegetarian, meat laden, or otherwise, so I decided to be nice and make something he would really enjoy. When I asked him if I should get some meat to put it in, he requested a vegetarian version of Baked Ziti, so that is what I made!

































The local booty legend (aka revealing my sources):
no asterisk = grocery store
+ = local produce from The Root Cellar
++ = The Peace Nook (will denote whether product is local or just from the Nook)
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden
**** = the non-profit buying club, Blue Planet or Purcell Mountain Farms

Vegetarian Baked Ziti
For an 8x8 pan

1/2 box penne pasta (we used "mini penne"), cooked according to package directions
1 jar pasta sauce or 3-4 cups homemade (we used the St. Louis made Zia's pasta sauce, local and delicious!) +
1 package white button mushrooms, sliced
1 large yellow onion, chopped *
1 ball of fresh mozzarella, shredded
1/2 cup Gruyere, shredded
1 container whole milk fresh ricotta
2 tbsp safflower oil
salt
pepper

Preheat oven to 350.

While noodles are cooking, heat oil in a large skillet. Add the mushrooms and onions, and saute for about 10 minutes or until soft.

Meanwhile combine ricotta with half the mozzarella and half the Gruyere. Combine the other half the of mozzarella and Gruyere.

Add the pasta sauce to the veggies and season with salt and pepper. Heat through.

Combine pasta and sauce/veggie mixture.

In an 8x8 baking pan, layer half the noodles and the ricotta mozzarella mixture, then the last layer of noodles and top with the mozzarella/Gruyere mixture.

Bake uncovered for about an hour until top is golden brown and contents are bubbling.

Enjoy!

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes and Sautéed Zucchini and Summer Squash

Well, I took a half day from work. We got all of our gardening supplies, transplanted peppers, an avocado tree, some wheatgrass for the kitties, and sowed a wheat/barley/oat grass mix in a small pot for them. We wanted to transplant the One Ball squash today too, but the pot is huge and we are trying to figure out some sort of "back-up drip pan". Sometimes they get overwatered, even the ones with the little catchment trays, but when you've overdone it, you've overdone it, and since the plants are going to be set on or near carpet, we wanted back up. We'll either think of something or get a different container. That one may have to be strictly "outdoors".

Anywho, after these and some other tasks were attended to, I figured I could try to catch up a little bit and do one of the three recipes I have in "backlog" to post about. In case you've all been wondering where all the basil and pasta were going (and I know how much you have), one word, pesto! This is just one of the variations we've been playing with, nothing special. Simple, fresh, and yummy - you can't beat that.

Just a reminder of the produce legend:
no asterisk = grocery store
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden















This is another one of those things that nobody would eat if they only ate pretty things. :-)

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto
Makes about 1 cup

2-3 cups fresh sweet basil *
1/3 cup of walnuts
1 jar of sun-dried tomatoes, drained
1/2 cup good olive oil
6 cloves of garlic, peeled *
a couple of pinches of fresh black pepper

Combine everything in a food processor until smooth and well blended.















Sun-dried Tomato Pesto Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes and Sautéed Zucchini and Summer Squash

penne pasta *
1/2 large zucchini, chopped ***
1/2 large yellow summer squash, chopped **
1 tsp safflower or coconut oil
3-4 large tomatoes, chopped * and ***

Cook pasta according to package directions.

Heat 1 tsp safflower or coconut oil in a small skillet. Add the zucchini and squash and cook for about 10 minutes or until well cooked.

Toss pasta with a few tablespoons of the pesto (or to taste), then toss in the fresh tomatoes, zucchini, and squash.

Yum! I'm glad it is almost dinner time here!

'Til next time.

Weekly Local Booty 8/31-9/5/08

First off, I am very happy to say our oven is fixed! I was really starting to resign myself to the idea of not having one for at least the weekend. It got to be around 3:00 in the afternoon and nobody had shown up to fix it, so we phoned the office who said that they were "pretty sure" that someone was planning on stopping by. The minutes ticked by, and it got to be around 4:30, and I began looking at raw food websites and going through my thumbdrive for easy stove top recipes I have created (I have created far too many recipes, I still need to try most of them!), there was a knock on the door, and about 20 minutes later, our oven was back in action.

I am going to take something from this experience - I rely on the oven quite a bit. Having a grill, especially during the summer, would alleviate a lot of its use, but it made me think I needed to branch out, use the stove top more, and try more (mostly) raw foods - though my oven will still likely be my favorite gadget, we are such suckers for the roasted vegetable.

Anyways, on to the local grub! It's been unseasonably cool here (it feels like late October!), and, as usual it seems, rainy, I think the plants are confused. This is what we got from our container and community gardens this week.















A yellow straightneck squash (and a glass of sun tea). We were very happy that the squash was able to reach maturity considering the squash bug problem.















A jalapeno and bell pepper.















Starting from the right: roma tomatoes, a jalapeno, 3 banana peppers, butternut squash, and a couple of zucchini. I knew there was one zucchini on the plant, but was pleasantly surprised when I went back to "check-in" on the one zucchini that there were two. And the "bonus" one is actually the big one.

Here is this week's CSA quarter share:















Starting from the right: a yellow summer squash, a jalapeno, 2 mystery red peppers, another one of those mystery green peppers (I forgot to ask him what these were so I'm going to email Dan to help me identify them), a cucumber, an onion, lots of little heirloom tomatoes, more tomatoes, a green bell pepper, some apples, and cilantro.

This week's farmer's market booty ran us a whopping $31.















Starting from the right we've got: 4 red bell peppers, 2 red onions, lots of tomatoes (we really love, love tomatoes), 4 small new potatoes, 2 habaneros (Brett agreed to let me save the seeds out of these so long as I promised to mostly use them for my own food, and to use sparingly when I feed them to him - I agreed. I'm dreaming of some dried, crushed habaneros next summer!), 4 sweet potatoes (!!!), 3 cucumbers (we like cucumbers a lot too), sweet basil, locally made penne pasta, and one gigantic cantaloupe - it's HUGE!

I made a pesto pizza last weekend and somehow forgot to post about it, so I'm going to end with it. This was nothing special really, it was mostly a way of trying to use up the remaining organic all-purpose white flour that has been lurking in our cabinet for quite some time. It was really good, and the white flour is almost gone now, I could probably make one more crust with the last of it, and then we're going to figure out how to make a whole wheat (or partially whole wheat) or some other whole grain pizza crust that actually tastes good - you know, not like a slice of wheat bread, and one that has good texture. Any suggestions on recipes or types of whole grain flour to try?

Anyways, I've included my recipe in case any of you out there like white flour or have some that needs to be used up.

Just a reminder of the produce legend:
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden

















Using Up the White Flour Pizza Dough
3 cups of organic, all-purpose white flour
1 small package of active dry yeast
2 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tbsp organic sugar
1 tsp salt
(you could add herbs to the dough too, I bet that would be good)
1 cup of very hot water

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Slowly add the oil and the water. It's easiest to use your hands to work the dough.

Spread out the crust on a pizza stone dusted with flour, using your fingers to pinch the dough at the edges to create a crust.

Pesto Pizza
1 Using Up the White Flour Pizza Crust
1 batch of walnut pesto (the basil and garlic were * from the farmer's market)
3 Roma tomatoes sliced ***
6 baby portobello mushrooms, sliced
1/2 a zucchini, sliced into rounds ***

Preheat oven to 375.

Spread pesto on the crust and top with tomatoes, mushrooms, and zucchini.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.

This was really yummy!

It's making me hungry! I'm off to make some sort of Mexican-ish (surprised?) hash using all the goodies we got from the farmer's market.

Oh, and we got most of our seeds in for the greens, herbs, and "kitty fodder" for our attempt at an indoor winter container garden. I'll be starting some of those goodies today, but more on that in the garden update.

'Til next time.

Pancakes, Baked Goods, and Polenta Lasagna

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable weekend. I know I have been.

Yesterday, I ended up spending a bit of time in the kitchen. But probably not nearly as much as it looks from these pictures. I also listened to music, watched a film with Brett, and listened to a couple of the Compassionate Cooks podcasts.

For brunch yesterday, I made Lizzy's Raspberry Apple Pear Pancakes. I figured these would be a winner, as they are fruit stuffed pancakes and I'm a fruitaholic. These are delicious! So far the best pancakes I have had actually. I haven't made pancakes too awful much, but these are simple and delicious. It was also my first experience using agave. The flavor of the stuff is wonderful, and I can definitely see how it could be used in place of honey. So thank you so much for providing the recipe Lizzy, these are excellent!

I made a light Raspberry Sauce to go with these, as I mentioned before I'm a fruitaholic and neither Brett or I are huge fans of topping things with maple syrup.

Simple Raspberry Sauce
1-1 1/2 cups frozen raspberries

1/3 cup water

1/4 cup organic sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1-2 tsp arrowroot starch/flour

Combine all ingredients in a small sauce pan on the stove. Once fruit has began to cook down, add arrowroot and let boil, stirring frequently, until to desired thickness.

I had all sorts of peppers around so I went ahead and roasted them for meals later this week. You will probably notice one thing on top of my being a fruitaholic and that is, I really like peppers, spicy, sweet, whatever, I like 'em. During the summer, I always grow peppers on my porch, and this year, I am going to try my hand at a Community Garden plot, and dedicate all sorts of containers on my porch to different types of peppers: anaheim, serrano, thai chili, habanera, jalapeno, banana, poblano, bell, wax, caribbean, etc. I can't wait!

Anyways, this time I roasted Anaheim's, jalapenos, poblanos, bell peppers and a shallot.

I decided to bake Brett a couple of chocolaty goodies, 'cause it gives him yummy treats, which he loves, and gives me a good excuse to bake. This week I tried out Nava Atlas' Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cake and the Mocha Chip Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance.

You can find the recipe for the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cake here.

Brett adores chocolate and thought these were very good, I expect they won't last too long around here. Both Brett and I agreed that you probably didn't need to put in as many chocolate chips as the recipe called for though, it was very chocolaty.

Next were the Mocha Chip Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance. I understand that Lizzy was also planning on making these this week sometime. Ha! I beat you to it! Just kidding, but do tell me what you thought of them, and anybody who reads this blog should stop by hers for what is likely to be a much better picture of the muffins, as she has a really nice camera and is good at taking pictures.

The only modifications to this recipe I made was using whole wheat pastry flour in place of the all-purpose and using applesauce instead of oil. I think these were already pretty 'cakey' muffins to begin with, and replacing the applesauce with oil resulted in their being even 'cakier'. I prefer to do the whole 'lower fat baking thing' whenever I can.

While I was in the kitchen I was thinking about my co-workers a bit. I'm an Institutional Research Analyst, which essentially means when people want data about the University of Missouri, they often come to us. Our office also does reports for the government, etc. Well we have been having some issues with our data, and as a result many of the my co-workers have been working essentially around the clock to meet a deadline. I am lucky in that I am more of an 'underling' of the office as I haven't had to take part in any of this; I'm just waiting for the data they are working on. Needless to say, they have all been working so hard, they deserve some treats, so I made some Sunny Blueberry Corn Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance for them, and I might make up a batch of cookies today as well.

These muffins are pretty good and easy to make too. I used frozen blueberries, so my muffins ended up being a bit blue, but this doesn't really bother me too much. One thing I noticed about this recipe, and I'm not sure if this is a result of an error on my part, but the batter was much thicker than any other muffin batter I have worked with. The muffins turned out alright, but I worried due to the consistency of the batter.

And finally, for dinner I made SusanV's Polenta Lasagna with Portabellas and Kale. This was my first time working with polenta, and I purchased the premade stuff in a tube, so I had a hard time making nice uniform slices out of it. But I understand that making your own polenta isn't very hard, so I might do that next time. Brett also had an idea about how to get the premade polenta into more even slices, so we might try that as well. Suffice to say, my first experience with polenta was a good one. It was very delicious. I will definitely make it again. The 'cheese' sauce was very easy to make, and both Brett and I thought it was wonderful - though I'm not sure if it really tasted like cheese or not. Brett said it reminded him of potato soup - it was really good though, not too heavy or salty. This is a slightly more involved recipe than many of the others I blog about, so I would save it for a weekend or when you can dedicate some time to being in the kitchen.

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I got of it. Once we got it plated up, both of us just dug in, and forgot to take a picture. Another testament to the tastiness of the dish.

Well, it is 'Superbowl Sunday' here in the US, and oddly enough, I am a bit of a football fan. So I'm off to prepare brunch, a football snack and get ready to watch the game. Go Giants!

'Til next time.

Pancakes, Scones, and Risotto

I have been seeing pancakes all over the vegan blogosphere, and I found myself constantly drooling over the delicious variety that is the pancake, so I finally made my contribution to the International Vegan Pancake Lovers Movement. I made Veganomicon's Blueberry Corn Pancakes and since neither Brett nor I are huge fans of plain maple syrup (we can definitely do it in things), I made a simple Blueberry Sauce to go on it. The sauce turned out much better than I had anticipated, Brett and I both thought it would be good on vanilla non-dairy ice cream, on a pound cake (there is a V-Con recipe for pound cake I have been eyeing), and probably lots of other things.

Simple Blueberry Sauce

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

1/2 cup water

1/4 organic sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

cornstarch or arrowroot mixed with water

In a saucepan, heat all ingredients until warm and beginning to bubble. When nearing time to serve, add the cornstarch or arrowroot mixture and bring to a boil, stirring frequently, until to desired consistency. Serve warm over everything!

I have been interested in making scones for a little while, so I decided to look around see how difficult it would be to make and veganize a scone recipe. There were some recipes for scones in V-Con, but no flavor combinations that really sent me, and I didn't have any of the needed ingredients on hand. I found a very non-vegan blueberry scone recipe, which I modified the hell out of.

The scones didn't end up with the nice sheen that non-vegan scones do as I couldn't figure out how to veganize the egg wash. I read online that Ener-G doesn't really work for this, so I just tossed a bit of confectioner's sugar on top. But even without the sheen they turned out pretty good. I might add a bit more sugar next time, but they go great with a cup of coffee or tea. I also stuffed a couple with some extra blueberry sauce I had, 'cause as I said earlier, the stuff is good, use it on whatever you can think of!

I adapted the blueberry scone recipe from here.

Vegan Blueberry (and Blueberry Sauce filled) Scones

2 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 cup organic sugar

1 tbs baking powder

6 tbs vegan margarine

1/4 cup soy buttermilk (1/4 cup soy milk with either 1 tsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice) 1/4 cup soy milk

egg replacer for one egg

1/2 cup blueberries

Blueberry Sauce (optional)

confectioner's sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together flour, sugar and baking powder. Cut vegan margarine into dry ingredients until the mixture is very course. Add blueberries and mix.

In another bowl, combine soy buttermilk, soy milk and egg replacer mixed with water. Stir into dry ingredients until moistened. Knead briefly on a floured surface. Do not overwork the dough. Shape dough into a round, 1/2 inch thick. Cut round into 6 wedges.

If filling scones with Blueberry sauce, take a wedge and stretch it out a bit more. Using a spoon, create a nice indentation in the center of the dough and spoon in a bit of the Blueberry Sauce. Pull up the surrounding edges (as best as possible) and try to seal the scone, if you can't get it completely sealed, no worries.

Bake on a lightly greased baking sheet for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Since the recipe for the Blueberry Scones only made 6 scones, I decided to make a small batch of Oatmeal Cinnamon Scones, which I found here. I halved the recipe so it would only make 4, and topped it with a simple Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Topping, which I topped the scones with when there was only about 5 minutes of baking time left.

Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Topping

3-4 tbs brown sugar

3-4 tbs whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 tap ground cinnamon

1-2 tbs vegan margarine

In a small bowl, mix together all ingredients except vegan margarine. Using a fork, slowly add margarine until the mixture resembles a course crumble.

This must look like a lot of work, having made two different types of scones. But truth be told, I was only in the kitchen for a total of an hour making these. I spent the good portion of my day relaxing, playing basketball on the Playstation with Brett, reading, and listening to interesting social commentary podcasts. I like simple recipes that are not too involved (I will do the involved things sometimes, but mostly I like it simple), and really don't ever spend more than a few hours in the kitchen over the weekend and no more than an hour on weekday nights. I am living proof that you can eat homemade foods made from high quality whole foods and not slave for hours a day in the kitchen, except those rare times when you want to.

On another side note, am I the only one who enjoys cooking and serving of good food to others more than actually eating it myself?

Anyways, for dinner, I made a Butternut Squash and Sage Risotto from an old issue of the Vegetarian Times (I cut the recipe in half as there are only two of us). You can find this recipe online here. This is the first time I have worked with squash at home and its fairly easy. I was happy to find an organic butternut squash at the grocery store, but wasn't too happy to see that it came all the way from Mexico, I like my food to come from as close as possible to reduce the environmental impact and increase the freshness and therefore taste of my food, but if you want to eat sometimes you don't have much choice.

What I can say though, in regards to preparing larger squash, is that I really need to get a good chefs knife as squash can be hard to cut, due to their size, with a sub par knife. But once you get it into manageable sized pieces, it's a breeze.

This recipe was very good, and I will definitely make it again. It was savory and filling. I liked the chard cooked in the broth with the rice (Brett really dug Arborio rice). I couldn't find plum tomatoes at the store, so I got organic fire roasted diced tomatoes instead and it added a nice smoky element to the dish. The only thing I will do differently next time is use a bit less sage. Both Brett and I agreed that, as is, it was a bit "sagey" for our tastes.

I will leave the blogosphere with a picture of my lovely organic (though well traveled) squash, as well as the risotto and I'm off to enjoy a beautiful sunny 60 degree day here in Mid-Missouri.

'Til next time!

The Plates That Sparked A Movement

Lasagna is a beautiful thing you know? To me, it’s a bit like chili in that you can kind of go your own way with it, and I never really do it the same twice. So not only is lasagna delicious, it is a way to get creative with your food. Oh yeah, and it is also a good way to use up veggies.

So, I bet you can guess what we had for dinner last night, and thus what is the subject of this post.














This was a bit of a lazy recipe as I just used a store bought organic, vegan mushroom and onion marinara sauce. I made Veganomicon’s Tofu Ricotta. It is pretty good and really easy to make too.

The sauce, of course, didn’t have enough veggies in it, so I sautéed some zucchini, bell pepper, artichoke hearts, carrot, onion, garlic, mushrooms, and a bit of spinach and threw that in the sauce to make it nice and chunky with veggies. I also cooked up some plain spinach and used a layer of that in my lasagna, ‘cause, well, I love spinach!

I made up some lasagna noodles according to the package directions and then layered the noodles with spinach, the Tofu Ricotta, and the chunky veggie sauce. I popped it in the oven at 350 degrees for about a half hour, until things began to get bubbly. Once it was done, I let it sit and cool for a few minutes (which is always grueling when you’re hungry!), and served it with a nice green salad and Annie’s Tuscany Italian dressing.

All around it was a fairly simple meal, and Brett was pleased that there were leftovers for him to have for lunch.

You know, these plates are so cool I bet a massive movement is going to spring up around them.

Bet you want to know where you can get yourself a set of these bad boys, eh?