Vegan Eggplant Rollatini with Macadamia "Ricotta"

I'll admit I'd never heard of eggplant rollatini until this weekend (am I alone in this?). I saw it on the menu of a restaurant in Austin's hometown and thought it sounded genius. It's pretty simple really; it's just eggplant wrapped around ricotta with tomato sauce on top or, to put it differently, a lasagna roll made with eggplant instead of pasta. What's there not to love? If you're Austin, the eggplant. He tries to avoid eggplant at all costs (I think he just doesn't like the idea of it) so I knew that the true test of this dish would be whether he would like it. Well, not only did he say it was delicious, he even had seconds.

Austin was initially skeptical about nut "cheese", as I'm sure some of you are. As I've said to him, no, it doesn't taste exactly like dairy cheese but I think it has similar texture and hits the same flavor notes: slightly fatty (but with far less of the saturated stuff), tangy, salty and acidic. Some of you may also think you don't have at least 12 hours to soak nuts. Yes you do, it just takes some planning ahead. Throw them in a big bowl with water the night before you want to make "cheese". The next day all you have to do is drain them, put them in the food processor and voilà, homemade nut "cheese" in minutes!

While your going all homemade, why not try to whip up some tomato sauce? The recipe below is extremely simple and really tasty. Yes, it needs to simmer for one hour but you don't have to tend to it so you can use that time to cook the eggplant, make the "cheese", assemble the rollatini, pay bills, feed your pet or whatever else it is you need to do. Heck, you could even go crazy, make a double batch and freeze it. Yes, your jarred sauces will miss you but I promise they will recover.

Vegan Eggplant Rollatini with Macadamia "Ricotta" 
Loosely Inspired by Giada di Laurentiis' Eggplant Rollatini
Makes 4 to 5 servings

• 3 medium eggplants, washed, peeled if you're skin averse (I'm not) and cut lengthwise into about 1/2 in / 1.5 cm slices
• 1 recipe of Macadamia "Ricotta"
• 4-5 cups of your favorite jarred tomato sauce or Basic Tomato Sauce 
• Olive oil for greasing
• Salt and ground black pepper to taste
• Optional: A couple handfuls of chopped parsley for garnish
• Optional: 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

1.  Preheat your oven to 400 F / 204 C. Generously brush the eggplant slices with olive oil, season them with salt and pepper and arrange them on two baking sheets. Cook them in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until they start to brown and are slightly soft. If you're baking both sheets of eggplant at the same time, swap their placement on your two oven shelves half way through the cooking process.

2.  Reduce the oven heat to 375 F / 190 C. Grease a 9 by 13 inch (or any other size you have handy really, although the tighter the rollatini fit in the pan the better) casserole dish or baking pan with some olive oil. Place a heaping tablespoon of "ricotta" at one end of each eggplant slice and roll it up tightly. Place the rollatini seam side down on the greased baking pan. Repeat the process until you've filled all the eggplant slices.

3. Pour about 4-5 cups of the tomato sauce, depending how much you love sauciness, over the rollatini. If you'd like, mix any extra "ricotta" with a handful of chopped parsley and crumble it over the top. You can also sprinkle the top of the casserole with a tablespoon of nutritional yeast. Bake for 20 minutes or until the "ricotta" starts to brown. Garnish with some extra chopped parsley and serve immediately.

Macadamia "Ricotta"
Makes about 3 cups

• 2 1/2 cups macademia nuts (cashews would be great too), soaked in water for at least 12 hours and drained
  
• 2 teaspoons miso 
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 3/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3/4 cup water

Put all the in ingredients except the water into the food processor and whiz the mixture until it a uniform paste is formed. This may take a few minutes and require scrapping down the sides of the bowl a few times. With the processor running, add the water slowly through the feeding tube until the "cheese" has a ricotta-like texture. If you're not using this for the rollatini, you can spread it on sandwiches, crackers, dip veggies into it, put it on veggie burgers... you get the idea.

Basic Tomato Sauce
Makes about 6 1/2 cups

• 2 28 oz / 795 g cans crushed tomatoes
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 celery rib, minced
• 2 medium carrots, grated
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2-1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Optional: 1/3 cup sun dried tomatoes (I used the kind packed in oil)

1.  In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and the onions and saute until the garlic is fragrant and the onions start to soften, about 5 minutes. Toss in the celery and cook for another 3 minutes. Add the carrots and the sun dried tomatoes and saute for approximately 5 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, bay leaves and other spices and cook for about a minute.
2.  Pour in the tomatoes. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for about 1 hour. Taste and adjust the seasonings. If you're making the rollatini with this sauce you'll have some leftovers which you can refrigerate or freeze.

Asian Pasta Salad with Avocado Dressing

Pasta salad is a picnic and potluck favorite. The thing us, the mayo-coated stuff isn't really that safe to eat after it's been sitting out of the fridge for a while. That, and my aversion to mayonnaise, is why I prefer pasta salads dressed with oil and vinegar. The first type of pasta salad that I ever had was, surprise surprise, my mom's. She makes a killer Mediterranean-style one that is so loved by our family friends that she gets tasked with making at almost every potluck. I guess eating her version for so long made me think of any pasta salad that differed from it as exotic. Not using penne or rotini? Wild! Tossing it with a peanut butter based dressing? Crazy! Using veggies other than tomatoes, celery, peppers and onions? Insane! I've come around though and now I embrace, and then devour, all vegan pasta salads equally.

The salad I made last night reminds me of a vermicelli salad I used to have at Dalat, in Worcester, MA, and of the Thai noodle salad at Chai's, here in Durham. The dressing however, sets it apart from those other salads. It is light on the oil thanks to it's avocado base, and has plenty of acidity from the vinegar. The recipe I've provided for it is, of course, just at template. I chose to include more Asian flavors --ginger, sesame, garlic, rice wine vinegar-- but you can vary the seasonings to suit your taste. For example, if you like to make a Mexican version, you might want to check out Gena's avocado fiesta dressing over at Choosing Raw. I'll bet that giving this a try will convince you to step outside the oil and vinegar box more often.

Do you already make all sorts of crazy pasta salads and dressings? If so, please share your favorites with me.

 

Asian Pasta Salad with Avocado Dressing

For the salad
Makes 5 large serving

• 4 1/2 oz / 130 g vermicelli or angel hair pasta, cooked until al dente per the package directions
• 6 green onions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
• 3 medium carrots, coarsely grated
• 1/2 head red cabbage, cored and cut into thin strips
• 1 green bell pepper, sliced lengthwise into thin strips
• 1 loosely packed cup of chopped cilantro (less if you're not obsessed with the stuff)
• 1 cup of dry roasted peanuts

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Chopping up the pasta roughly into thirds (by putting a bunch of it on a cutting board and making two cuts, no fancy work here) helps it mix better with the rest of the ingredients. Toss the salad with the avocado dressing below (I used all of it), or another dressing of your choice, and enjoy.

I suspect this salad will get even better as it sits in the fridge. Guess I'll have to wait until lunch to find out.

For the dressing
Makes approximately 2 cups 

• 1 medium to large avocado, chopped
• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar, other vinegar or lemon juice
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon miso (I used red miso)
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 3/4 cups water, more if you'd like it thinner or less if you'd like it thicker
• 1 inch piece of ginger, chopped
• Optional: 1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce or Sriracha sauce

Put all the ingredients into the food processor or high speed blender and whiz until smooth. Toss with your favorite salad. You could also use make this recipe as a dip for some raw veggies; just use less water.

Vegan Polenta with Kidney Beans, Peppers and Tomatoes

Being able to hop on a plane and spend the weekend with Austin's family is great. However, there is usually one (rather insignificant) downside: coming home to an empty fridge. It's nights like this one that force me to get creative in the kitchen, making what I can with what we have in the pantry and fridge odds and ends. I call it Sara does Chopped*. Tonight, when I saw the cornmeal staring at me longingly I knew whatever we ate would be served on a bed of polenta... creamy, buttery, savory polenta. If you've never made it don't be intimidated by the myth that you have to whisk it incessantly. As Mark Bittman says, you don't actually have to stir it constantly, just every once in a while. While scavenging for polenta toppings in our fridge, I found some wilting arugula, a lonely green pepper and an almost overripe tomato. Pair that with some of our pantry staples, sun dried tomatoes and olives, and you have yourself a relatively quick, pretty healthy, mighty tasty and comforting meal.

Vegan Polenta with Kidney Beans, Peppers and Tomatoes
Makes 4 servings

• 1 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 cup plain unsweetened almond or other non-dairy milk
• 1/4 cup Earth Balance or other non-hydrogenated non-dairy butter
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1-1 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 green bell pepper, sliced into thin strips
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1 15 oz / 425 g can / 1 1/2 cups cooked pinto beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/3 cup kalamata olives, chopped small
• 1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped small (I used the kind packed in oil)
• 1 tablespoon fresh or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 packed cups arugula
• 1 tablespoon olive oil plus extra for drizzling
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes 

1.  In a medium pot, whisk together the cornmeal and 1 1/2 cup of vegetable broth. Heat the mixture over medium-high heat until it bubbles and then reduce it to a simmer, whisking every few minutes. When most of the liquid is absorbed and the polenta looks ready to eat, add whisk in another cup of broth and stir every few minutes to avoid clumping. Repeat until you use up all of the broth. In the last stage, add the milk, basil, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper and simmer until the cornmeal tastes cooked and the polenta is thick and creamy (I like mine to spread when I plate it). Stir in the butter and the nutritional yeast and cook for another couple minutes. The whole process should take about 30-40 minutes.
2.  While the polenta is cooking, cook the toppings. In a large pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the bell peppers and cook until slightly softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until it's fragrant and starting to brown, about another 5 minutes. Deglaze the pan by adding the fresh tomato, sun dried tomatoes, olives, red pepper, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper and thyme. Cook for about 7 minutes or until the tomato starts to break down. Add the beans and cook for about 5 minutes or until they're heated through. Taste and gradually add as much salt as you think the dish needs (be careful though; the olives will provide quite a bit of salt).
3.  Ladle the polenta onto a plate, top with about 1/2 cup of the arugula (which will wilt beautifully from the heat of the rest of the ingredients) and about 1/4 of the pepper, bean and tomato mixture. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and serve immediately.

*For those of you who don't watch Food Network religiously or don't have access to it, Chopped is a TV show in which contestants have to create dishes using all the crazy ingredients they're given in the mystery basket.

Vegan Oatmeal Scones with Strawberries

When I saw this scone recipe on Smitten Kitchen yesterday I new I would have to make my own version immediately. You see, I really love scones. I like that I can't get them everywhere, unlike, say, a muffin, which makes them seem like a special treat. I also appreciate subtle sweetness, and their typically fruity flavors. I especially enjoy slightly warm, slathered with some non-dairy butter which is exactly how I'm eating them as I type this. I decided that since I usually put butter on my scones I'd better use a bit less butter in them so I substituted part of it for applesauce. After all, bikini season is drawing near, but that doesn't mean you have to go without baked goods; no bathing suit is worth that kind of a sacrifice. Instead of buttermilk, I used almond milk with some vinegar. I also added some lemon zest for brightness, some vanilla because I just can't help myself, and a dusting of sugar for decoration. The result is a moist, fruity and hearty treat that you should definitely try your hand at this weekend. 

Vegan Oatmeal Scones with Strawberries
Veganized and otherwise adapted from Smitten Kitchen's Oatmeal and Maple Syrup Scones 
Makes 8 scones

• 2 cups / 8 6/7 oz / 250 g of all purpose flour plus extra for dusting
• 1/2 cup / 2 1/4 oz / 64 g of rolled quick cooking or instant oats
• 1/2 cup / 2 3/4 oz / 80 grams of whole wheat flour
• 1 heaping tablespoon of baking powder
• 3 tablespoons confectioners sugar plus extra for dusting 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 / 5 1/2 oz / 160 g cup cold unsalted, non-hydrogenated non-dairy butter (I used Earth Balance)
• 1/2 cup / 60 ml unsweetened apple sauce
• 1/4 cup / 60 ml maple syrup
• 3 tablespoons of almond or other non-dairy milk
• 1 tablespoon apple cider or other vinegar
• Zest of one lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• Optional: 3/4 cup fresh strawberries or other fresh or dried fruit

1.  Preheat the oven to 400 F / 204 C. In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond milk and the vinegar. Let stand for 5-10 minutes or until the mixture has thickened slightly.  Add the maple syrup, vanilla, lemon zest and applesauce, whisking to combine.
2.  In a large mixing bowl, mix the flours, oats, baking powder, sugar and salt. Incorporate the butter into the mixture using your hands. By the time you're done doing so, you should have small pea-sized pieces of butter uniformly distributed throughout the dry ingredients.
3.  Form a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients, using a spatula to combine. A few strokes before the dough has come together, fold in the strawberries. Turn the dough onto a floured surface, dusting it with some flour if it's too sticky to handle, and form it into a square about 1 1/4 inch / 3 cm high. Cut the square into 4 smaller ones and then cut each of those diagonally into two triangles.
4.  Place the scones onto a greased or parchment paper lined baking sheet and cook for 17-20 minutes or until they're golden brown on top. Serve smeared with butter and jam with your favorite tea or breakfast beverage.

Caramelized Onion Tofu Frittata with Gazpacho

During the summer, it seems like my mother always has a large jug of gazpacho in the fridge. Having a cold soup on hand at all times seems reasonable, seeing as is usually upwards of 90 F / 32 C most summer days in Madrid. My mother is not the only person I know with a deep, undying love for gazpacho though. My friend Julian started suffering gazpacho withdrawals a few months into his stay in the US. With a crazy look in his eyes, he would say to me "Mi reino por un gazpacho" ("I'd give my kingdom for some gazpacho"). During his time of need, we went to a Latin American festival in Worcester where we met a fellow Spaniard. Not knowing of Julian's craving, the guy said to him "Have you seen the stand over there where they're selling gazpacho?". When the guy confessed he was kidding, Julian looked like a kid who'd just been told Santa doesn't exist. Fortunately for him, my parents visited town a couple weeks later and my mother made Julian some of her delicious gazpacho, and let him keep his kingdom.

As delicious as gazpacho is, it's usually not filling enough to be a meal unto itself.  In order to add some heft and protein to our dinner, I decided to pair it with a veggie-loaded frittata. Traditional frittata is a thick egg omelette, made with cheese, veggies and, in some cases, meat. In this version, the egg is replaced with tofu, the nutritional yeast provides a cheesy undertone, and the caramelized onions, sun dried tomatoes and arugula provide sweetness, tang and peppery flavor. The result is lighter and much healthier than the egg-centric version. So go ahead and make your own frittata, and serve it with some gazpacho to bring a taste of summer to your March.

Gazpacho
Makes about 5 1/2 cups (about 3 servings in our house)

• 2 lb 4 oz / 1 kg / about 8 medium ripe red tomatoes
• 5 1/2 oz / 150 g / about 1/2 medium cucumber peeled 
• 1/2 large green bell pepper
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 generous tablespoons olive oil
• 2 liberal tablespoons vinegar

Chop the tomatoes, cuke, bell pepper and garlic roughly and toss them in the blender along with the rest of the ingredients. Blend until smooth. Taste and adjust the seasonings to your liking. If you'd like to get rid of the tomato seeds and other small bits of veggies you can pass the soup through a food mill. I skipped this step since I like my gazpacho on the rustic side. Lastly, garnish with chopped tomatoes, cukes and pepper if you'd like.

Caramelized Onion Tofu Frittata
Makes about 6 servings

• 1 lb extra firm tofu, broken into pieces
• 3 medium onions, thinly sliced
• 1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup packed arugula, roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes (I used the kind packed in oil, but you could use rehydrated dried ones instead)
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 2-3 tablespoons water

1.  In a medium to large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions, stir them to make sure they're coated in olive oil, and lower the heat to medium-low. Cook the onions until they're a beautiful caramel color, which should take 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you don't leave the onions alone to do their thing for at least 5-10 minutes at a time they won't caramelize. You've been warned. This does seem like a lot of work to go through for just some onions but your frittata won't be the same without their sweetness. Use the down time to make some gazpacho or another side dish.
2.  Preheat your oven to 350 F / 175 C. In a food processor, combine the tofu, cornstarch, salt, spices and nutritional yeast. Whiz it until it forms a uniform paste. With the processor running, add the water a little at a time through the feeding tube until the mixture is smooth and has a consistency similar to store-bought hummus (the version I make at home is a bit thicker). Transfer the mixture into a bowl and fold in the onions, arugula, and the sun dried tomatoes. Pour the contents of the bowl into an oiled 9-inch pie dish, evening out the top, and bake for 30-35 minutes or until the top has browned and the frittata is firm to the touch. Let it set out of the oven for a few minutes before cutting it. Serve it warm or at room temperature.

Vietnamese Summer Rolls

When I lived in Worcester, MA, I frequented a Vietnamese restaurant called Dalat. My absolute favorite thing on their menu were the fried tofu rolls with peanut dipping sauce. Contrary to what it might sound like, it's just the tofu that's fried; the roll itself is made with a rice wrapper. As good as these summer rolls are, it's the sauce that makes them fantastic. Many have tried to replicate Dalat's sauce, with little success. Its composition may be like Atlantis, not meant to be discovered.

The recipe below is my second attempt at recreating this condiment and, while the resulting sauce is delicious in it's own right, it lacks the magical fairy dust (or maybe the MSG or the fish sauce) in Dalat's original version. Hopefully these rolls with almond butter sauce (we rarely have peanut butter on hand) will satisfy your Dalat cravings until you can make your way back to the Woo. To those of you that can still get the real deal, I probably speak for all the Dalat lovers who have left town when I say "please eat enough for the rest of us".

Vietnamese Summer Rolls with Almond Butter Dipping Sauce
Makes about 12 rolls and about 1 1/4 cup of dipping sauce

For the rolls 

• 12 rice paper wrappers, plus some extras in case you break a few
• 2 oz thin rice vermicelli, cooked according to the package's directions.
• 1 16 oz / 455 block of tofu, cut width-wise into 8 slices and crisped up in the oven using this method
• 2 oz / 55 g shiitake mushrooms, wiped clean, stemmed and sliced into strips.
• About 24 mint leaves 
• About 24 basil leaves
• About 36 cilantro leaves

1.  Cut each of the eight slices of tofu into three strips.
2.  Soak a rice paper wrapper in water until it looses its rigidity, about 45 seconds. Place it on a smooth surface and put about 1/4 cup of cooked vermicelli in the middle of the lower third of the wrapper. Top the vermicelli with 2 tofu strips, about 1/8 cup of cabbage, 3-4 mushroom slices, 2 mint leaves, 2 basil leaves and 3 cilantro leaves. Fold the lower portion of the wrapper over the filling, then fold in the sides. Carefully pinch the filling and roll it upward, making sure the filling is tightly wrapped but being careful not to tear the wrapper. Seeing someone actually do this is helpful, so you might want to check out this video (the guy isn't super entertaining but he is instructive). Repeat the process to assemble the rest of the rolls. If you'd like to store the rolls, put them in a tupperware lined with a damp paper towel and then cover them with another damp paper towel.

For the dipping sauce

• 1/2 cup almond butter
• 1/2 cup water
• Juice of 1/2 lime
• 1 teaspoon miso
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger or 1 teaspoon chopped fresh ginger
• 1 large garlic clove
• 1-2 teaspoons Sriracha sauce, depending on your desired level of spiciness

Put all the ingredients in a a blender (my little Magic Bullet is especially useful for this) and run it until the mixture is smooth. Taste and adjust the soy sauce, spiciness and thickness to your liking.

Mediterranean Red Quinoa

Although white quinoa (pronounced keen-nwa) may look like couscous, it's actually a grain (or a pseudocereal if you want to get technical). Quinoa has become popular in the US during the last few years but it's actually been around for a long time, and for good reasons. Pre-Columbian civilizations heavily relied on the nutritional punch this little grain packs. It's composed of 12-18 % complete protein, which means its amino acids don't need to be combined with others to form the type of protein humans need. And it's not just foodies that are consuming it these days. According to this NYTimes article, NASA considers it an ideal food for long space missions. Not only is it a nutritional powerhouse, but it's a great blank canvas for all sorts of dishes.

You can use quinoa most anywhere you would normally use couscous if you have a few extra minutes to spare, because it does take longer to cook. To bring quinoa's nutty flavor, toasting it or roasting before you cook it will do the trick. That's actually what I did to prepare this simple Mediterranean Red Quinoa. The artichokes make it tangy, the thyme supplies some lemony flavor and the smooth chickpeas add extra protein. If you haven't cooked quinoa yet, this just might be a great way to start.

Mediterranean Red Quinoa
Makes about 3 servings

• 1 cup red quinoa
• 1 orange bell pepper, chopped
• 1 celery rib, minced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 14 oz / 395 g can artichokes, drained and quartered
• 1 15 oz / 425 g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

1.  Heat the olive oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Toss in the bell pepper and the garlic and cook until the pepper has softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the celery and cook for another 4 minutes, or until it's tender.
2.  Add the quinoa, toasting it for about 5 minutes. Add the thyme and cook for about one minute or until fragrant. Pour in the broth and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook covered for 15 minutes.
3. Toss in the chickpeas and the artichokes. Cook for another 10 minutes or until all the liquid has been absorbed. Serve hot.