Category: vegan

Lemon-Cilantro Hummus

Well it’s been about eight months since I’ve posted a recipe; working full time and working on a master’s degree doesn’t leave a lot of time for hobbies. I’m still cooking of course, and finally took a photo of something, so thought I’d share this yummy and delicious hummus recipe.

If I had more time I would have cooked my own chickpeas, but happy to have a time-saving can of them in my cupboard!

For the smoothest hummus you can take a few minutes to remove the peels from the chickpeas. It really does make a difference! But of course you can just throw them in there with the skins on.

This is best made in a food processor, but if you have a blender or immersion blender, those could do the trick. I suppose if you had a lot of time you could do it with a potato masher . . . ? Let me know if you try that!

I purposefully didn’t add amounts here. In the procedure below I suggest how much I added, but this is a really good recipe for “adding to taste;” add a little, then a little more if needed. I like mine lemony, and I like to serve it right away . The leftovers are excellent, but the batch fresh out of the food processor is the best.

I have been eating this hummus with crackers and as a dip for veggies.

What you need:

  • can of chickpeas, drained, and preferably with skins removed
  • tahini
  • garlic, crushed
  • cilantro, clean and chopped once or twice, stems and all (unless there are some really thick, woody stems)
  • salt
  • lemon
  • cumin

What you do:

  1. Pour the chickpeas into the bowl of the food processor.
  2. Add a dollop of tahini. I used about 1/4 cup.
  3. Put the lid on the food processor and blend it up for about a minute.
  4. Add a clove of crushed garlic (or more if you love your garlic), a whole bunch of cilantro (mine wasn’t a huge bunch), a little salt, half a lemon to start, and a pinch of cumin to start. Let that process until the cilantro is well chopped, and the hummus is creamy.
  5. Taste your hummus and see what you’d like to add more of. I almost always add a bit more lemon.
  6. Add a bit of water to make it the consistency you like and process again until it is really smooth, and you have the right balance of flavours. If you are going to refrigerate your hummus, keep in mind that it gets firmer when it’s been in the fridge for a while, so adding a bit more water can be a good idea.

Fava Avocado Spread

I’ve been growing fava beans on my balcony all winter. Planted in November, and beginning to harvest at the end of May. I didn’t think I would be harvesting so late, but it is so worth it! The beans are creamy and have lovely flavour. And check out the photo at the bottom of the page to see the gorgeous green of the bean after shelling!

This recipe is more of a guide. What I thought was going to be a massive crop, ended up being only 8 pods (for now), which yielded 18 beans. So I ended up making a really small portion of this spread, using less than half of an avocado.

In the photo I’ve got some delicious corn crackers, but we actually preferred the fava-cado spread on a piece of bread. The crackers had a lot of flavour on their own, so the milder bread allowed the flavours of the fava and avocado to shine through.

A word on growing fava beans: Yes, you can grow them in summer, but when I did that they got infested with aphids. Growing them over winter, in Vancouver, was pretty easy. I just had to wrap them up a bit when we had a cold snap. So after half a year of growing, I finally get to eat them! This is the first harvest, but there are a lot more pods still growing . . . hmm, what should I make with the next harvest?

What you need:

  • avocado
  • fresh fava beans
  • lime
  • salt
  • bread or crackers

What you do:

  1. To prepare the fava beans, get a pot of salted water boiling. String the pods and remove the fava beans. Boil the beans for 3 minutes. Drain the beans and then put them in a bath of ice water right away. This will help them to stop cooking, and retain their gorgeous bright green colour.
  2. Now you can slide the beans out of their skins, revealing the gorgeous green colour!
  3. Mash the fava beans together with some avocado (I used more fava than avo). Use an immersion blender if you like. Season with a little bit of salt and a squeeze of lime.
  4. Serve with bread or crackers right away. Not as good after refrigeration.

Oven-Baked Falafel

These oven-baked falafel are super tasty, and my official taster is looking forward to eating them again! Deep-fried falafel are delicious, I don’t enjoy cooking with boiling oil, and I think baking is healthier.

This photo was taken before the tahini sauce, hot sauce and pickled turnips went on – oops! Somebody was eager for the photos to be done so the eating could begin. I’ve also served these with some hummus and a cucumber, tomato and herb salad.

I found an aleb falafel, a falafel shaping device, for under $10 at a local Middle Eastern store. You can use a spoon or your hands to form them if you don’t have an aleb falafel.

falafel shaping device

This recipe is especially easy to make if you have a food processor, but you could also give it a try with a potato masher. It’s quite simple: all the ingredients go into the food processor bowl, you whiz it up, form the balls, and bake them. While they are baking you can prepare sauce and veggies.

These falafel freeze quite nicely!

What you need for the falafel:

  • 2 cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained, or equivalent home-cooked
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1/ 2 cup bread crumbs
  • 1 large white onion, chopped
  • 1 cup flat leaf parsley
  • 1 cup cilantro (I like to use the stems too)
  • 1 tablespoon crushed garlic
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 & 1/2 teaspoons cumin
  • 1 teaspoon paprika or Aleppo pepper
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • olive oil for brushing on top of falafel before baking

What you need for the tarator sauce:

  • 1/2 cup tahini
  • 1 teaspoon crushed garlic
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup lemon juice
  • 1/4 to 1/3 cup water
  • salt to taste

What you do for the falafel:

  1. Heat the oven to 375F. Line a baking pan with parchment paper.
  2. Add the chickpeas, eggs, bread crumbs, onions, parsley, cilantro and garlic to the bowl of the food processor and process until the mixture becomes doughy.
  3. Add the baking powder, seasonings and olive oil and process again until all the ingredients are combined.
  4. Form falafels with an aleb falafel (I lightly oiled mine before use), or scoop with a tablespoon and form into flattened balls with your hands.
  5. Use a pastry brush to brush a little bit of olive oil on the tops of the falafel, to help them brown nicely. Browning = flavour!
  6. Bake for about 25 minutes, then check to see if it is done; mine needed more time. You will know when it is done if a knife inserted in the centre comes out pretty much clean.
  7. While the falafel are baking you can make the sauce.

What you do for the taratour sauce:

  1. Mix the garlic in with the tahini.
  2. Add a little bit of lemon juice and mix well. Add lemon juice and water a little at at time until the sauce is creamy but not too runny.
  3. Add salt to taste.
  4. Enjoy!!

Sour Cherry – Chocolate Bread

sour cherry and chocolate bread sliced on a cutting board

My mom says, “This is the best bread I have ever had.” And my mom has had a lot of good bread, much of it made by her, so I consider that the strongest endorsement for this delicious chocolate sour cherry bread.

This isn’t a sweet bread, just a loaf of my usual no-knead (Jim Lahey recipe) bread, with the addition of sour cherries I picked in summer and froze, and some good quality dark chocolate. If you’re unfamiliar with no-knead bread, it’s a bread that is left to rise overnight. It is baked in a dutch oven, which helps to create a crunchy crust. So delicious! Just takes a bit of planning ahead – there’s very little hands-on time, but you need to move the dough a few hours before baking.

It was the most delicious the day it was baked, and while still a little warm. But it was also very nice the next day, toasted, with a little butter.

Feel free to add a bit more chocolate or cherries if you want!

What you need:

  • 2 & 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup rye flour (or use all ap flour)
  • 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
  • 1 & 1/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1 & 1/3 cups water, room temperature
  • 6 oz good quality dark chocolate, chopped (I used Ghirardelli 60%, Bittersweet)
  • 1 cup pitted sour cherries (if using frozen cherries, do not thaw before adding)

What you do:

  1. In a large bowl combine the flour, yeast and salt. Add the water and stir just until it comes together. It will look a bit shaggy, but it’s fine.
  2. Cover the bowl with a lid, plate or plastic wrap and leave to sit at room temperature for 12 to 18 hours. Eighteen-ish hours is preferable, especially if it’s a little cooler in your place. This time around I left mine even longer, and it was probably my best ever. After about 4 hours you can work in the chocolate and cherries. I experimented with adding then in the beginning, but somehow it doesn’t rise as well.
  3. About two hours before baking time, spread out a large piece of parchment paper and put a coating of olive oil over it. Use a spatula to coax the dough out of the bowl, and then use floured hands to gently form it into a loaf, and place it seam-side down onto the parchment paper. Invert the bowl over the dough and allow this to sit for about 2 hours.
  4. About 1/2 an hour before baking, turn the oven to 450°F/ 232°C. (If using a Romertopf/clay baker, make sure you have pre-soaked it, and then place it in the oven BEFORE turning the oven on.) If using a cast iron dutch oven, place it in the cold oven to heat along with the oven.
  5. When the oven is ready, gently place the dough, seam side down, into the lidded baker. This should be pretty easy to do, since you can just pick up the corners of the parchment paper and transfer the whole thing into the pot. If you want to, you can use a sharp knife to make a few slashes a few centimetres deep into the top of the bread.
  6. Place the lid on the baking dish and bake for 30 minutes. After that time, remove the lid and bake for 15-25 minutes. The crust should be dark, and the bread should sound hollow when you tap it.
  7. Allow the bread to cool on a wire rack for about an hour. When it is hot it will be too sticky inside to cut, but after an hour the bread will still be warm enough for the perfect tasting experience.
  8. Enjoy!

Burgoo’s Tasty Tomato Soup

Burgoo is a popular Vancouver restaurant that serves the best comfort food. I tend to order this tomato soup because there aren’t a lot of meals on their comfort food menu that a lactose-intolerant person can eat.

Not only is this soup lactose-free, but it is soooo delicious! Also, it’s quite easy to make – once you’ve chopped everything up you just simmer for an hour, purée, and you’re ready to go.

I made a few changes to the recipe: since I am making it in Winter, I didn’t have fresh tomatoes that I thought would enhance the flavour. The recipe called for some canned and some fresh, and I have used all canned tomatoes. I added a few carrots, and I made the recipe a little bit smaller so it would fit in my pot.

This soup is even better after reheating, and freezes really well. I love making a massive batch and freezing most so I can have a healthy soup anytime I need it.

Just a word about the wine: please use a wine you would actually want to drink. If you like a sweeter red wine (ick), then you should probably use less brown sugar. The alcohol burns off, so there is none left in the soup, should you be serving it to people who don’t drink alcohol.

This serves 6-8 people.

What you need:

  • 2 – 796 mL cans of whole or chopped tomatoes (San Marzano are the best!)
  • 3 cups water
  • 250-375 mL your favourite red wine
  • 1 very large sweet onion (or two small ones), chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 2 carrots, chopped
  • 1/4 cup tomato paste
  • 2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • optional: olive oil for drizzling before serving

What you do:

  1. Put everything in a large pot.
  2. Gently bring it up to a simmer.
  3. Simmer for one hour with the lid off, stirring from time to time.
  4. Purée, and if you want a super smooth soup, run it through a sieve or food mill.
  5. Taste to see if you want to add more salt, pepper, or anything else.
  6. Serve drizzled with a little olive oil, or not.
  7. Enjoy!

Lemony Hummus

You can make your own hummus! It’s so easy, delicious, and saves you money! Whether you use canned chickpeas or cook them from dried, it’s easy to make a great hummus. When I make hummus at home, I appreciate knowing exactly what goes into it, and adding more or less of whichever flavours I choose – and for me it’s all about the lemon right now!

This recipe is a variation of the hummus recipe I make often, but in this one I’ve added lemon zest along with freshly squeezed lemon juice. Plus a bit of cumin and hot sauce to perfect it.

You can use canned chickpeas, or prepare your own from dried chickpeas. I highly recommend removing the skins from the chickpeas to make a really creamy hummus. If you use split dried chickpeas, they are already skinless, so you will not need to remove the skins, but the flavour is a little different than the regular chickpea. Of course, you can always keep the skins on, but your hummus will not be as smooth. If you’ve got the time it’s worth a try, and removing the skins can be somewhat meditative.

One of my favourite meals that includes hummus is hummus kawarma, a Lebanese dish with lamb. Of course hummus also great with fresh pita, or as a veggie dip. I also love to toast day-old pita brushed with a little olive oil and sprinkled with salt to make crackers, and then dip them in hummus.

What you need:

  • 1 & ¼ cups dried chickpeas (or one 540mL can)
  • 1/3 cup tahini 
  • 4  or more tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • cumin, to taste (start with 1/4 teaspoon)
  • hot sauce (optional) to taste
  • 1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
  •  Salt to taste
  • 5 or more tablespoons ice-cold water 

What you do:

  1. Cook the chickpeas ahead of time, so they are cold when you use them to make the hummus. If you are using canned chickpeas I highly recommend removing the skins. This is a bit of work, but here’s what I do: I drain them, then put them in a large bowl with water. Then I rub some of them between my hands, and a lot of the skins come off that way. Then I go through them and pull off most of the remaining skins.
  2. Place your drained chickpeas in a food processor or blender. Process them until you have a thick paste. Add the tahini, lemon juice, lemon zest, cumin, a little hot sauce, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt; blend this. With the machine still running, drizzle in some of the ice water and let it mix for several minutes. You will get a very creamy paste. Taste to see if you want to add any more lemon juice or any of the seasonings. Add more water if you think it needs it to be smoother; I like to add a bit more water than I think I will need, as hummus tends to thicken up a bit when refrigerated.
  3. Cover and refrigerate if you are not using it right away, but remove from the fridge at least half an hour before you want to eat it. A little drizzle of good quality olive oil is a nice way to top it off when serving.

Enjoy!

Mushroom and Barley Soup

Perfect for a Fall day, this soup is warming and hearty, but not heavy. Served with a beautiful baguette from Beyond Bread, this made a delicious dinner for two with plenty of leftovers.

You can make this as a vegan soup, or use chicken or beef broth. The soup consists of some veggies, both dried and fresh mushrooms, a splash of sherry, tomato paste, and broth. A good quality broth is important here, so homemade or a better quality like Pacific would make a tasty soup.

The recipe comes from the Yvette van Boven’s ‘Home Made Winter’ cookbook. Her recipe calls for spelt, but gives the option of barley, which I used because that was what I had in my cupboard. I added a few extra carrots, less oil, and a dab of butter at the end. I used chicken broth because I had it on hand, but look forward to trying it with mushroom broth. I changed the order of when to add the salt and pepper, adding it at the end so it doesn’t get over-salted, and so the salt doesn’t make the veggies mushy. As well, adding pepper too soon can make it the soup taste bitter. My scale is broken right now, so I guessed that 25 grams of dried mushrooms is about 1/2 cup, and that tasted great. For the fresh mushrooms I used a combination of Button and Cremini, the white and brown ones you find easily in the grocery store. If you substitute for more interesting mushrooms, please let me know in the comments below what you used and how you enjoyed it!

What you need:

  • 25 grams dried mushrooms
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 2 stalks celery, sliced
  • 3 carrots, diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 500 grams (about 1 lb) fresh mushrooms, cleaned and chopped
  • 100 grams (about 1/2 cup) barley or spelt
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • a splash or two of dry sherry
  • 1 litre (4 cups) mushroom, vegetable or chicken stock
  • salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
  • 1 teaspoon butter (optional)

What you do:

  1. Place the dried mushrooms in a bowl and pour hot or boiling water over them, just enough to cover. Let that sit for about 20 minutes while you get started with chopping.
  2. Once the onions, carrots and celery have been chopped, heat the olive oil on medium heat, in a large pot. Sauté the vegetables until the onions begin to soften.
  3. Stir in the garlic, then add the fresh mushrooms. Sauté the mushrooms until they begin to release their juices, about 10 minutes.
  4. Raise the heat and stir in the barley or spelt, allowing it to absorb the mushroom juices.
  5. Add the mushroom soaking water and the tomato paste, cooking until you smell a sweet aroma, and then add the splash of sherry.
  6. Add the broth and the soaked mushrooms (I chopped mine first), then bring it to a simmer. Leave it simmering on low heat until the barley/spelt is cooked to an al dente texture. I checked mine after 30 minutes and it was almost done.
  7. Season with salt and pepper, and add a dab of butter if you wish.
  8. Serve with some gorgeous bread and enjoy!

Blackberry Jam

Last night I finished making a batch of blackberry jam, with berries picked from a secret spot. It’s actually one of those places where you wonder if you’re going to trip over a body . . . but . . . free blackberries!

This recipe is made without added pectin, just the berries, sugar and lemon juice.

I don’t really eat a lot of jam, but I had a request to make this and ended up really enjoying it on an English Muffin this morning. I put a bit of Greek yogurt on as well, but cream cheese or crème fraîche would be wonderful with it too.

It takes a bit of work to get the seeds out of the jam, but I think it is a worthwhile job so you don’t bite down on the hard seeds. I found it easier to get the seeds out when the berries had cooked down a bit.

After removing the seeds, the rest of the process is quite simple. You will need some jars, and if you plan to store the jam in a cupboard you will need the proper lids etc. For freezer jam you can use any kind of jar. I used a thermometer to check the temperature, but you can use this guide to help figure out when it is done if you don’t have thermometer.

What you need:

  • 6 cups blackberries, fresh or frozen
  • 3 cups sugar (some recipes call for more, but I like it this way)
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice

What you do:

  1. In a large pot, heat the clean blackberries on medium heat until they start falling apart.
  2. Push the berries through a strainer, food mill or chinois. If you use a strainer, as I did, it takes a bit of time and energy to push all the pulp through with the back of a spoon.
  3. Boil water in a large pot, then put your jars in there to sterilize. Turn off the heat and remove the jars with tongs. Place the lids in the pot of hot water. I always use new lids when canning to make sure that they seal properly.
  4. Place the strained berry pulp, sugar and lemon juice in a large pot and bring to a rolling boil, stirring continually. Bring the mixture to 105C/220F, then remove them from the heat.
  5. Fill the jars to 1cm below the top. I used a canning funnel to fill the jars so I had no spills – yay! Use a clean cloth to clean any drips from the rims of the jars.
  6. Use tongs to remove the lids from the hot water and place them on top of the jars. Screw the lids on, and then leave the jars sitting where they are until they have sealed. Over the next hour or so you should hear the tell-tale pinging sound that indicates that the jars have sealed. If the jars have sealed properly the lid should be slightly concave, and will not bend when you push down on it; any jars that haven’t sealed properly can be stored in the fridge or freezer. The other jars can be kept in a cool cupboard for a few years.

Rhubarb Liqueur

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My community garden plot is bursting with rhubarb, so I’ve harvested it and am looking for new ways to use it. I came across this recipe for a rhubarb liqueur, so I thought I’d give it a try. Last year’s blackberry liqueur was a big hit at my 50th birthday party (what? in my soul I’m 34), so I thought maybe this could be the next big hit.

I halved the recipe to make just one jar of liqueur. The only other thing I changed was to make a slit down each rhubarb stalk, because I thought that would help the rhubarby-ness meld with the vodka-ness.

This is the first time I’ve posted a recipe before tasting the end result and getting a thumbs up from at least one other person. But . . .  it takes six weeks to taste the results of this one, so I thought I’d just go ahead and post it now during rhubarb season in case anyone wants to try it out alongside me. And in six weeks or so I’ll post the results, hopefully with a new cocktail recipe. Please let me know if you try it – I’d love to hear how it works out for you!

You might notice that the rhubarb in my picture isn’t particularly red – if you have rhubarb that is redder, is is preferable for this recipe. The liqueur will take on a pretty red colour that way. So mine might not look as pretty, but I’m sure it will be super tasty!

What you need:

  • 1 lb rhubarb
  • 5cm long chunk of fresh ginger
  • the peels of two oranges
  • 750mL vodka (I used Stolichnaya)
  • (to be added in in 6 weeks) – simple syrup: 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water

What you do:

  1. Cut the rhubarb stalks into lengths that will fit in a 1 litre canning jar. Place the rhubarb in the jar.
  2. Cut the ginger into smaller pieces and add them to the jar.
  3. Use a vegetable peeler to cut the peels off the oranges, using only the outer orange part. Add these to the jar.
  4. Add as much vodka as you can fit in the jar, completely covering the rhubarb. My recipe used pretty much the whole bottle.
  5. Screw the lid onto the jar, then store it in a cool dark place for about six weeks. Every few days give the jar a shake, turning it upside down.
  6. After the six weeks are up, make a simple syrup. Just heat the water and sugar to boiling, and let it cool before using.
  7. Strain the contents of the jar through cheesecloth, returning the liquid to the jar. 
  8. Add simple syrup to taste. Remember, you can always add more simple syrup later on if you find it is not sweet enough.
  9. Bottle the liqueur into smaller decorative bottles, or just use some canning jars for this.
  10. Use in cocktails, or just add it to some sparkling water.

Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa

This flame-roasted tomato salsa is excellent any time of year, even in the cooler seasons when it is challenging to access super tasty tomatoes. It’s really easy to whip up, but you do need to plan ahead so that you will have some roasted garlic on hand. I’ve started roasting a bunch of garlic bulbs and freezing them so I can make this awesome salsa anytime I want. I have served it with tortilla chips, but my favourite way to eat it is on beans and rice.

Recently I’ve been buying a lot of the Las Margaritas fresh salsa – it is just so good! But I can only find it in one store, and it is often sold out. So the difficulty finding it, combined with the nearly $8.00 price tag, made me start looking for a way to make it at home.

And . . . I found it! In the Thug Kitchen Cookbook! Yay!

I only made one change to the recipe, and it was a tiny one. I used sweet onions, and typically use them in all my recipes that call for onion because they don’t make me cry as much, plus I think they taste better. The most recent time I made this salsa I didn’t have any green onions, and it was still really good without them.

If you are looking for a fresh tomato salsa you can find one here, and this is a link to a creamy avocado salsa called gaucamolata. This roasted tomatillo salsa is also really flavourful.

What you need:

  • 1 can (398mL / 14.5 oz.) fire-roasted diced tomatoes
  • 1/2 white onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
  • 1/3 cup chopped green onions
  • 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
  • 1-3 Serrano peppers, minced (depending on how much heat you like)
  • a whole head of roasted garlic
  • 1/4 teaspoons ground cumin
  • juice of 1/2 lime
  • salt to taste

What you do:

  1. Chop the onion, green onions, cilantro and Serrano pepper.
  2. Put all the ingredients (except for the salt) in a blender, or use an immersion blender to whiz everything up. Leave it a little bit chunky.
  3. Add salt to taste.
  4. Enjoy!