Chow Vegan

Did you know you can eat beet greens? Yeah, those greens on top of beets. I had no idea. Apparently, you can also eat carrot tops. I haven’t tried that yet but the beet greens are delicious. The taste is similar to spinach; I actually like the beet greens better, as it’s a little bit sweeter.

These baby beet greens look like miniature swiss chard, which is a close relative, belonging to the same family. The stems are so tender, you can eat the whole thing. They’re also highly nutritious, rich in calcium, iron, magnesium and vitamins A, B6, C, E and K.

Sautéed Baby Beet Greens
Serves 2 as part of a meal

6 ounces baby beet greens
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
Salt to taste

Wash the beet greens in several changes of water. Drain and set aside.

Heat a wok or sauté pan to hot, add the oil and swirl to coat the wok. Add the garlic and sauté for several seconds. Add the beet greens and season with salt. Sauté the greens until wilted and tender. Plate and serve.

Related Posts
Stir-fried Yu Choy Sum
Stir-fried Amaranth with Garlic
Sauteed Spinach

Hang onto your seats for a full blast of vegan culinary delights for the month of October. I took the plunge and sign up for VeganMoFo (Vegan Month of Food). This year it’s being hosted by kittee over at Cake Maker to the Stars.

For my inaugural post, I’m going with my new favorite way to eat kale. Crispy, crunchy kale chips! I’m sure you’ve seen it all over the internet by now. And for good reason – it taste good and it’s good for you. A great snack that’s perfect for those salty crunchie munchies.

Super easy to make. There’s quite a few kale chip recipes floating around but I like going with the long strips instead of the small chip size pieces. They’re just more fun to eat. The recipe I used is from Bon Appétit.

So with snack in hand, I’m now all set to peruse the many mouth-watering posts that’s sure to come on this first day of VeganMoFo.

I can’t get over how many vegan cookbooks are out nowadays. I remember back in the day, there was hardly any at all. My latest read, fresh from the publisher is The 30-Minute Vegan by Mark Reinfeld and Jennifer Murray. Their thing is quick, healthy, delicious, vegan recipes cooked in 30 minutes or so. Let’s see if that holds up with me in the kitchen.

As I’m flipping through the cookbook, Batter-Baked Tempura jumps out. I love tempura! But not so much the fried part. So this is perfect, something I always wanted to try making at home and I don’t have to deal with the mess of frying. I’m now properly motivated. On to the cooking.

For my veggies, I went with trumpet mushrooms, green beans, yellow squash, onion, zucchini and carrot. And I used panko bread crumbs instead of regular crumbs. It took me exactly 30 minutes to get the veggies cut, battered, breaded and into the oven and then another 20 minutes to cook.

They didn’t come out looking exactly like tempura from a restaurant, still they were quite tasty. There’s not a super thick all-over coating but enough stuck on for a surprisingly good crunch and a bit of a nutty taste. There’s also a stronger veggie taste as you’re not eating a mouthful of batter.

I’m positive I can get the time down with a little practice. Next time I’m going to bread the veggies one at a time instead of all together in the bowl, for better crumb coverage. It really is a great, healthy and delicious alternative to the fried version.

Batter-Baked Tempura
Serves 4 to 6

2 portobello mushrooms, cut into 1/2-inch slices or 1 cup cremini mushrooms, halved
2 cups bread crumbs
1 cup broccoli florets
1/2 yellow onion, cut into 1/2-inch thick rings
1 cup zucchini, cut into rounds or 4-inch spears
1-2 tablespoons olive oil, for brushing (optional)
Soy sauce for dipping

Batter
3 tablespoons ground flax meal
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon baking powder, sifted

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Lightly oil a baking tray or cookie sheet. Prepare the vegetables and set aside.
2. Prepare the batter: Blend the flax meal, water, and baking powder for about 10 seconds. Pour the batter into a deep bowl. Place the bread crumbs in a separate deep bowl.
3. Toss the mushrooms around in the batter with a spoon or your hands. Remove them one by one, quickly shaking off the excess batter, and place them in the bread crumbs. When they are all in, swirl the bowl around a bit and use your hands to get them coated in crumbs. Transfer to the prepared baking tray and repeat the process with the broccoli, onion, and zucchini.
4. If you desire crunchier veggies, use a pastry brush to lightly coat oil on the tops of the vegetables. Use a dabbing motion rather than a stroke so as not to brush away the batter (you may even wish to drizzle the oil instead). Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

Excerpted from the book The 30-Minute Vegan by Mark Reinfeld and Jennifer Murray, published by Da Capo Lifelong, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2009. www.dacapopresscookbooks.com

Related Links
To learn more about the authors, click here. For your own copy of The 30 Minute Vegan, visit your local bookstore or Amazon.

Happy New Year!

I got one more package to open, and it’s a tasty one – vegetables baked with herbs in a parchment packet.

The fancy culinary term for cooking in parchment is en papillote in French or al cartoccio in Italian. It’s a cooking technique where food is sealed in a packet (foil can be also used instead of parchment) and baked.

It’s a nice, healthy, flavorful way to cook. It’s also my feeble attempt to eat a little healthier in the new year. Plus it’s super easy to clean-up, a bonus for those who are lazy inclined, like me.

Vegetables Baked In Parchment
Serves 2 as part of a meal

2 large shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 baby sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1/2″ pieces
1 medium red potato, peeled and cut into 1/2″ pieces
1 small zucchini, sliced into 1/4″ rounds
1 small leek, white part only, cut into quarters, lengthwise
4 whole garlic cloves, skins left on
2 fresh rosemary branches
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme or 1 fresh thyme sprig
1 teaspoon olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 sheets of about 12″ x 15″ parchment paper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl. Evenly divide the vegetables between the pieces of parchment paper, placing onto one side of the parchment. Fold the other side over and then roll the edges tightly together to seal the packet.

Bake on a baking sheet for about 20-25 minutes. Serve immediately, opening the packets at the table.

Lately I’ve been roasting a lot of vegetables, basically whatever I find at the farmer’s market. It’s simple, delicious and super easy. With this method, there’s only one bowl and one baking pan that needs to be cleaned up. As usual, the lazy part of me is extremely pleased about that.

Roasted Vegetables with Crispy Rice Cake

1. Pick up whatever veggies of choice. I like to go with baby red potatoes, carrots, trumpet mushrooms, zucchini and even a couple of garlic cloves. Slice or cut them up to be around the same size.

2. Season with salt, freshly ground black pepper and dried rosemary. You can also go with just basic salt and pepper or add whatever herbs you like. Add enough olive oil to coat and not stick to the pan.

3. Spread out the veggies on the baking pan. Since I’m using veggies that are done cooking at different times, I like to separate out the mushrooms to one end so I can easily take them off and let the rest continue cooking.

4. Stick the pan in a 425 degrees oven, after 15 minutes or so, turn everything over. At this point, the veggies will have shrunk a bit so there’s more room on the pan.

5. Instead of heating up leftover rice in the microwave, I thought it would be tasty and crispy to just stick it in the oven too. After all, it’s already on. I just shaped the rice into a patty, plopped it down on the pan and seasoned it (I had leftover short-grain rice which sticks together and holds its shape by itself).

6. Ten minutes later, the mushrooms should be done and maybe the carrots if they’re thinly sliced, take those off and anything else that looks done. Flip the rest over including the rice cake.

7. And in another ten minutes, everything else should be done. Stick a fork in a potato to make sure. That’s it, a tasty autumn dinner is now ready to eat.

Since there’s still beautiful looking long beans at the farmer’s market, I can’t stop buying them. This time I went with a simpler recipe than the Long Beans With Tempeh.

Simpler, but it uses an ingredient you may not be familiar with, fermented bean curd or preserved bean curd. Or in Chinese, fu yu. Some people call it “chinese cheese”, because of its pungent aroma, saltiness, and smooth creamy texture.

Basically, it’s cubes of tofu that have been fermented in rice wine. It’s used as an flavoring agent or condiment. There’s different varieties of fermented bean curd, I like the white, chili one for its subtle spiciness. There’s also a red version that’s usually used with meat, although I’ve never tried it. A little bit goes a long ways, so a jar usually lasts for a good while stored in the refrigerator.

This is the brand I get from the Asian grocery store, it’s the one I grew up with. I’ve tried other brands but I like this one the best. Recently, they’ve updated their packaging (the old one is on the left). They’re also now ISO 9001 certified.

At first whiff, you may be put off by the aroma. But I assure you when cooked or added to other foods, it doesn’t taste like how it smells. It mellows out, leaving a delicious, savory, kinda salty flavor.

Besides long beans, any number of vegetables can be cooked with fermented bean curd, I’ve tried spinach and zucchini with great success. Sometimes I like to smash and mix a cube into just plain ol’ white rice.

Long Beans With Fermented Bean Curd
Serves 2 as part of a meal

1/2 bunch long beans, about 6 ounces
3 tablespoons water
1 – 2 fermented bean curd cubes
1 teaspoon oil

Snap off the ends of the long beans, break into 3″ pieces and wash in several changes of water.

Put the bean curd cube and water in a small mixing bowl, mash the bean curd in the water and set aside.

Heat a wok until hot, add the oil and swirl to coat the wok. Add the long beans, stir-fry and cover for about 30 seconds. Add the bean curd water mixture and cover. Cook until the long beans are tender and the water absorbed and sauce-like about 2 1/2 minutes. Plate and serve.

I apologize if anyone encountered any weirdness while visiting my blog lately. Last week, there was a “denial of services” attack on the server hosting my blog. I just don’t get why anyone would want to do such a thing.

It’s been quite the experience, first one thing gets fixed, then something else goes wrong, that gets fixed, then another thing is broken and now it’s working again. Have I mention I don’t like roller coasters?

Anyways, on to the food. Once again, I’m just cooking whatever looks good at the weekly farmer’s market. This week it’s long beans, also called yard-long beans, Chinese long beans or asparagus beans. They look like really long, super skinny green beans.

I always see them at the chain grocery stores and they usually look like they’ve been there forever, all shrivel up and way past their prime. I don’t know why those stores even bother to put it out there or even who buys it. If it’s in season, then the farmer’s market is the place to go.

Two types are available around here, a thicker light green one and a skinner dark green one. Sometimes there’s also a purple variety, while it was a beautiful color amongst the green at the farmer’s market, they sadly do not stay purple when cooked but turned a dark green.

For a vegan version of the popular Sichuan dried-fried long beans dish, I use the tempeh filling from Tempeh Stuffed Yellow Chile Peppers to replace the traditional pork and Sichuan preserved vegetable.

Dried-Fried Long Beans With Tempeh
Serves 2 – 4 as part of a meal

1 bunch of long beans, about 12 ounces
1/4 cup tempeh filling
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Sauce
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard

Snap off the ends of the long beans, break into 3″ pieces and wash in several changes of water. In a small bowl, combine the sauce ingredients, mix well and set aside.

Heat a wok until hot, add the oil and then the long beans. Cook until crisp-tender and the skins a little charred, about 6 – 8 minutes, stirring frequently. (The wok will become very, very hot, so be careful around it.) Transfer the long beans to a bowl.

Lower the heat to medium and add more oil if necessary. Add the garlic and the tempeh, stirring for about 15 seconds. Add the long beans back in and the sauce ingredients. Stir to combine until everything is well-coated. Serve immediately.

At this week’s farmer’s market, I couldn’t resist these beautiful yu choy sum. Also known as:

• choi sum
• pak choy
• yau choy
• yu choi sum
• yow choy sum

I’m sure I missed a few of the other names that they go by as well. Since there’s a lot of different varieties of Asian greens and they all kinda look similar, it can get confusing. I get confused if it’s called by one of its many other names, but I can recognize it by sight.

Yu choy sum looks like gai lan (chinese broccoli) but skinnier. Of course, if you don’t know what gai lan looks like, then that doesn’t really help you. In which case, never mind, just look at the picture below.

Another member of the bok choy family, but so much more tender and sweeter than the larger bok choy, yu choy sum taste like a cross between broccoli and spinach. They can be used in stir-fries and soups. As usual, I prefer just a quick and simple stir-fry as part of a meal.

Stir-fried Yu Choy Sum
Serves 2 as part of a meal

1 bunch yu choy sum
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Salt

Wash the yu choy sum in several changes of water, trimming off any old leaves, tough stems and the bottom 1/2″ from each stalk. Cut the stems into 3″ pieces, halving the bigger stalks lengthwise.

Heat a wok over high heat until hot. Add the oil and swirl to coat the wok. Add the garlic and stir-fry for a few seconds. Add the yu choy sum and stir. After about 30 seconds, it’ll start to wilt down. Stir bringing up the greens at the bottom to the top. Add salt to taste. Cook for 1 1/2 minutes or until the stems are tender. Serve immediately.