Tag Archives: frugal cooking

Nov17

Costa Rican Gallo Pinto

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Costa Rican Gallo Pinto

A pretty little mound of Gallo Pinto, splashed with just a wee bit of chili sauce.

While traveling in Costa Rica, I made an effort to sample local flavors. The fruits and fruit juices were amazingly fresh. The tree-ripened bananas, for example, had a depth of flavor that I had never experienced before. I tried many fresh juices, including one made from cocona fruit which I can only hope I will someday get to have again. Roadside vendors sold us agua en pipa (coconut water from an unripe coconut), often drunk straight from the shell, which was the most refreshing thing after a long hike in the jungle.

Many restaurants we went to served both American meals and Typical (local) fare. Of course I had to try to Typical breakfast, which was centered around Gallo Pinto, a hearty mixture of rice and black beans. The Typical breakfast was usually Gallo Pinto with some fried eggs, farmer’s cheese, tortilla, and fruit. I confess to having tried the full deal, since I am sometimes less strict with my vegan rules when traveling abroad and will permit the occasional egg and local cheese. The meal was usually served with a bottle of Salsa Lizano, a green vinegary sauce of which I have become quite fond, and a piping hot cup of amazing Costa Rican coffee.

Last night I whipped up a batch of Gallo Pinto for dinner, splashed with hot sauce and served with salad rather than eggs, though it would also be great with a side of sautéed greens and maybe a little scrambled tofu. The trick with this recipe is to cook it down just enough that you can put it in a mold and have it hold its shape on the plate. I used a 1-cup measuring cup, and you can see in the photo how the mixture held the form. If you don’t have Salsa Lizano on hand, you can splash it with anything vinegary, like a hot sauce.

Gallo Pinto
makes 6-8 servings

  • 1 cup long grain brown rice cooked in 2 1/2 cups water (about 3 cups when cooked)
  • 3 cups canned or cooked black beans
  • 1 tsp coconut oil
  • 1 medium yellow onion, cut in a small dice
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 green pepper, cut in a small dice
  • 1/2 red pepper, cut in a small dice
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1/4 tsp ground ginger
  • pinch sea salt
  • 2 cups liquid (water, broth, or a combination of the two)
  1. Cook the rice and beans, dice the veggies, and measure out the spices before beginning to cook.
  2. Heat the coconut oil in a wok or pot. When melted and hot, add onion. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until clear.
  3. Add garlic, and cook for about 30 seconds (until fragrant). Add peppers, and cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes or so.
  4. Stir in spices and pinch of salt, and cook for 30 seconds, then add rice and beans. Stir to mix evenly, then add liquid.
  5. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Cook, stirring vigorously once in a while, until the liquid has reduced or evaporated and mixture is thick enough to mold.
  6. Measure out and serve hot. Top with some fresh chopped cilantro if you have it, but don’t worry about it if you don’t!
Apr5

30 Days of Vegan–Day 5, Cheesy Brown Rice Pasta with Broccoli and Seitan

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30 Days of Vegan–Day 5, Cheesy Brown Rice Pasta with Broccoli and Seitan

I made a pact with myself a while back that I would only let myself eat cheesy pasta if I cut it liberally with low-calorie veggies. Fortunately my kids like it this way, so no one complains.

A nice plate of mac and cheese is the poster child for comfort food, and going vegan pretty much meant giving it up. Sure, I can make  close approximations using the soy or tapioca imitation cheeses that are easy to find these days, but they taste a little off and feel a little weird. They come close to dairy cheese, but there is just difference enough to make this classic cheese-centered dish feel horribly wrong to me. It’s like an Uncanny Valley for food.

The solution I’ve found is to aim for something reminiscent of mac and cheese but not a duplicate, much as the best veggie burgers fill the role of a hamburger without attempting to masquerade as meat. Cheese flavored sauces, like the cheesy gravy I made Saturday for the scrambled omelets, can come close enough to mac and cheese mood to please without falling into the Uncanny Valley trap.

I had lots of the sauce leftover from Saturday’s meal and a continued craving for comfort food (the growing stress ain’t going anywhere anytime soon, it seems), so I picked up some brown rice pasta during this week’s shopping run so that I could pair fake pasta with my fake cheese. Brown rice pasta lacks gluten and is therefore a little softer than the real thing, but it held up to the heavy sauce fine.

Since my phony cheese sauce is basically a cheese flavored gravy, it does not provide the protein that a real cheese, soy cheese, or even cashew cheese would have. To compensate for this, I added some diced seitan–the exploded seitan from Sunday did in fact turn out just fine despite the drama. I also tossed in a bunch of lightly steamed broccoli to bulk out the dish with something very low in calories but high in nutrition and then drizzled the lot with sriracha, because it is my personal belief that sriracha on mac and cheese (or the vegan alternative) is one of life’s great pleasures.

And then of course there was salad. Dinner almost always includes a leafy green, be it a salad, kale, or a cabbage slaw. Last night I went with mixed greens and grape tomatoes dressed lightly in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Apr4

30 Days of Vegan–Day 4, Baked Falafel with Tahini-Miso Sauce

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30 Days of Vegan–Day 4, Baked Falafel with Tahini-Miso Sauce

Much as I love me the beer, a glass of red wine is a better companion for a plate of falafel and salad than the stout I have on hand.

There’s a fairly new all-vegan falafel joint in my town, and we checked it out a few months ago because, really, how could we not. The food was tasty but extremely heavy. I had a falafel bowl, which involved about a cup and a half of creamy hummus, topped with a small amount of pickled vegetables (called “salad” by the chef), topped with several fried falafel balls, topped with tons of tahini sauce, topped with french fries (?). The falafel were very good, but I felt that food in my stomach for hours afterwards, which is not what I want from my lunch, ever.

The hankering for another serving of fried chickpea has been hitting me hard recently, and seeing the pre-made frozen falafel balls at Trader Joe’s the past two weeks have only added fuel to the fire. However, I figured I could do better than frozen falafel or even the boxed mixes I have tried in the past. Making the mysterious and magical falafel from scratch has intimidated me…but I was also intimidated by using a pressure cooker, and I slayed that beast without blowing my house up. So far. Compared to that, making falafel should be relatively safe.

I decided to bake them, rather than go the traditional frying route, mainly because this morning’s coffee cake breakfast had already provided me with my weekly dose of canola oil calories. Besides, I have a convection oven which helps give baked goods a like-fried crunch. I also added fresh mint to the mix, most of which only asked for parsley and cilantro, because why the hell not.

For the sauce, I wanted something a bit different form the standard tahini sauce, so I added a little miso to sweeten it up a bit. Miso is a wonder ingredient that, in addition to being a tasty probiotic and a source of vitamin B12, it is rumored to counter the effects of radiation. Yes, I know there is little fallout risk in New Jersey at the moment, but it’s a cool little bit of trivia about one of my favorite ingredients.

Since I had already had plenty of wheat with my breakfast coffee cake, I skipped the traditional pita and served the falafel and tahini sauce over a salad prepared by Thing 1 of mixed greens, cucumbers, carrots, and grape tomatoes. I learned last night that I am not mature enough to watch my daughter use a real knife, by the way. A glass of 3 Blind Moose cabernet rounded out the meal and calmed my rattled nerves.

Baked Falafel
serves 4

  • 1/2 large onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 2 tbs or so fresh parsely
  • 2 tbs or so fresh cilantro
  • a few fresh mint leaves
  • 2 cups cooked garbanzo beans (I prepare my by cooking dried beans in the pressure cooker, but you can also use about 1 15 ounce can drained and rinsed beans)
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp corriander
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp olive oil
  • 1 tbs whole wheat flour
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Heat oven to 375 degree–I find a convection oven gets things nice and crispy, if you have access to one. Spray a baking sheet lightly with oil.
  2. Put the onion and garlic in a food processor and pulse until well chopped, but not pureed. Add fresh herbs and pulse again to chop.
  3. Add remaining ingredients and pulse to combine. Taste to adjust salt and pepper.
  4. Roll mixture into balls that are 1-1/2″ in diameter, place on baking sheet, and flatten slightly. You should wind up with about 20 patties.
  5. Spray top sides lightly with oil.
  6. Place in oven and bake, turning gently once when they get brown on the bottom, about half way through cooking. As far as how long to cook them–you’re on your own there. My cooking style is to stay close and keep an eye on things. I think they took about 20 minutes total, but don’t quite me on that. Besides, your time will vary greatly depending on your oven.

Tahini-Miso Sauce
makes a whole lot, so you’ll have extra.

  • 1-1/2 tbs or so olive oil
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 tbs miso
  • 1/2 cup tahini
  • 1/2 tbs or so red wine vinegar
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1/2 cup water
  • sea salt to taste
  1. Put the olive oil and garlic in a high speed blender and run the soup cycle (alternatively, heat oil and garlic in a pan just until warmed and the aroma of garlic is detectable. You want to heat it, but not fry it)
  2. Add other ingredients except water and pulse until smooth. Add water and pulse to combine, then check seasoning to adjust salt levels.
  3. Serve at room temperature.
Apr3

Sunday Cooking–Seitan Explosion

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Sunday Cooking–Seitan Explosion

 

I'm clearly still gorging on the comfort foods, as can be seen in this morning's strawberry whole wheat coffee cake.

I have plans to go away this coming weekend, so I did not need to make as much food today as I usually do on Sundays. (Or maybe I should have been making twice as much, but I’ll deal with the empty fridge when it happens.) I did make a huge batch of Seitan of Greatness, which went a bit off plan. I tweaked the seasonings to make it more of an Italian sausage flavor, though I can’t imagine that caused what happened…

 

The seitan sausages exploded–all eight logs burst right through their tin foil wrappers. I think they all went off simultaneously, given that the burst of steam released had enough pressure to pop the oven door open, as if their was something living in the stove trying to force its way out. I was standing in front of it at the time, stirring the tempeh bacon, and it gave me quite a start when the oven door popped out and bumped my legs. I actually peeked inside to make sure an animal hadn’t managed to climb in there when I wasn’t looking–that’s how forcefully the door smacked me. Inside there was only exploded seitan sausages.

Maybe I had too much Jiffy Pop as a kid, but I took all the billowed out foil as a sign that the seitan was done. It’s cooling on the counter now, and it seems all right, if a little misshapen. Before calling it quits for the day, I also managed to prepare:

  • Strawberry coffee cake. Yes, I know I said last week that this would have to be a once in a while treat, but I made it anyway. Desperate times call for coffee cake.
  • Tempeh bacon crumbles.
  • Seitan of Greatness
  • Hummus
  • Chickpeas for tonight’s falafel dinner (more on that tomorrow)
  • Brown rice

In the fridge I also have a bunch of sausage and peppers leftover from last night’s dinner, some carrot bisque soup, and a serving or two of BBQ tofu left from last week. The kids are begging me to make brown rice crispy squares, but I think I’ll save that for a mid-week treat.

Apr2

30 Days of Vegan–Day 2, Roasted Root Veggies with Tofu

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30 Days of Vegan–Day 2, Roasted Root Veggies with Tofu

The beets certainly overwhelmed the other colors in this dish, making everything a deep pink.

The weather here in the past week has been colder than normal, and we even had a little early spring snow flurry. The cold, damp air gave me a craving for an autumn-style root vegetable bake with tofu, which I served with mahogany rice and very lightly steamed broccoli.

I made this bake up as I went along, and it came out tasty, if a little earthy and very, very pink. If you are, like my children, not a big fan of beets, you could substitute any other root vegetable. Sweet potatoes, turnips, or rutabaga would all play nicely with the others in this mix.

Roasted Root Veggies with Tofu
serves 4

  • 1 pound tofu, pressed and cut into 1″ cubes
  • 1 cup yukon gold potato, cut in 1/2″ dice
  • 1 fennel bulb, sliced 1/2″ thick and then quartered
  • 4 small beats, cut in 1/2″ slices and then quartered
  • 1 cup carrots cut in 1/2″ slices
  • 2 cups cremini mushrooms, quartered
  • 1 red onion, cut in 1/2″ dice
  • 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 tbs. dijon mustard
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • sea salt and pepper
  1. Pre heat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a baking dish by lightly coating with canola oil (I used a 12″ diameter cazuala, but you can also use a 13″x19″ casserole dish or even a rimmed cooking sheet).
  2. Toss all the veggies and tofu in the dish.
  3. Combine the vinegar, oil, mustard, thyme, and garlic in a blender, and pulse until garlic is well chopped. Add sea salt and pepper to taste.
  4. Drizzle dressing over veggies and toss to coat. Cook, stirring occasionally until beets are tender–I found it took almost an hour in my case, but start checking after 30 minutes. Serve hot over rice, quinoa, or couscous, with a side of something green.