Final MoFo Iron Chef-Inspired Challenge: Cranberries in Sweet and Savory Ways

As November comes to an end, so too does the Vegan MoFo -- a wonderful celebration of the vegan community and lifestyle through this amazing month of food. Although I missed MoFo Iron Chef 3 due to birthday festivities, there was no way that I was going to miss this final MoFo, hosted once again by Katie at http://donteatoffthesidewalk.com/?p=440. In keeping with the T-Day spirit, the secret ingredient for this challenge was Cranberries! How fortuitous that I still had some fresh cranberries leftover from my recent market trip!

For some reason I got crepes stuck in my mind, as I was mulling over what to make. Clearly, given their basis in eggs, these weren't going to happen. Then...dosa! This is pretty much my favorite thing to order from our local Indian restaurant with their fantastic lentils, so I thought I'd try to reinvent with cranberries. My dosas were inspired and loosely adapted from this recipe http://www.vegetarian-cooking-recipes-tips.com/dosa-recipe.html, but I used yellow lentils, brown rice, and dried minced lemon peel, and my timing was quite different as was the final product. I initially added cranberries to the batter itself -- not good due to different shapes of cranberry pieces, despite uniform width. A better (and more aesthetically pleasing) tactic was to arrange berries in desired pattern first on the skillet, drop batter onto berries, and gently smooth around, taking care not to mess with your design. As my cousin M once told me about pancakes, expect the first few to be relatively disastrous (at least your first time through), as you adjust your process, temperature, etc. By #3, dosas were increasingly easy to read and flip, as well as create.  I think this dosa really was the third, as it was my first attempt with the cranberry first and then mix.  Super festive -- don't you think?

In retrospect, I would have made all the fillings and sauces first, but I didn't, since I was truly playing as I went along.  However, I did make the other cranberry element while I was doing the dosas. I pretty much just dropped in the remaining sliced cranberries (about 1/3 c.), turned up the heat to medium, poured enough pinot to cover the cranberries, and lightly misted some sugar in there -- sugar to your taste (I didn't want a sweet cran. sauce -- I wanted a pinot infused cran reduction/chutney type deal).  When liquid was almost reduced, I added the zest of 1/2 of a clementine.   After a minute or so, I added a bit of liquid to a bowl with about 1 t. of cornstarch (just enough liquid to mix), mixed it, poured it back into the saucepan, and brought it up to a boil again and then removed it.

After making the dosas, I made two fillings.  As we were using up holiday cranberries, I investigated other fridge remains for repurposing into my intended sweet and savory dishes.

Sweet:
3 T. cream cheese
remaining zest from clementine
about 3 T. of powdered sugar

Mix together.  Careful with the sugar, as you do not want to lose the tang of the cream cheese; thus, I'd suggest that the measurements above are simply loose guidelines.

Savory:

1 c. sweet potato shreds (you are shocked to see this, I know)
3 cleaned and thinly sliced baby bella mushrooms
3 T. diced red onion
salt and pepper

Saute shreds first (in about 1 T of olive oil) and dash them with salt and pepper ; I used my same skillet that I had used for the dosas.  Then, add onions; continue to saute until beginning to tan.  Then, add mushrooms until caramelizing a bit.

Mix 1-2 T cream cheese with a 1/4 t. rosemary.

As noted, the fillings really only made enough for the dishes shown (I did have some leftover sweet filling and, of course, some dosas.)  Why?  Because frankly, I thought the deadline was 6 p.m., so I wanted to be sure I was finished before then.  Oops.

My favorite of the evening: Bellini Reinvented and Veganized

 Cranberry Dosa with Herbed Cream Cheese, Sauteed Sweet Potatoes, Mushrooms, and Onions 

with a Pinot-Infused Cranberry on Top

(If you are coming to my house for the holidays, count on seeing these again!)

Savory Crepe: Cranberry Dosa Stuffed with Herbed Cheese, Sweet potatoes, Mushrooms, and Onions and Topped with Pinot-Cranberry Reduction

(Next time: I might try blending all into a cheese filling.  

Definitely needed some more softening, yet tangy cheese in this larger size.)

Dessert Dosa: Clementine Zested Cream- Filled Cranberry Dosa 

and Topped with Cream and Pinot Cranberries 

Two ways of using cranberries -- makes me feel all Iron Chef-y inside!  I am going to miss this challenge.  Perhaps, I'll institute one day a week on the blog where you can post a secret ingredient for weekend creations. Then, the fun can continue!  Hope you'll try to explore some element of this MoFo Iron Chef Madness that I've included here.   Previously, I had not used fresh cranberries for anything except as companions to my popcorn, as I made strings of decorations for the Christmas tree.

Time to go pick up the hub...and make him something for dinner!
K

Notes on T-Day Eats

Well, now that we are all quite full (if you have fantastic holiday portion control, I commend you, but the rest of us...), I am going to talk about various goodies made.  Heehee!

As you know, I stuffed stuffing for my vegan main dish on T Day.  Our lovely hosts had a variety of vegetables as well, but stuffing is my favorite part, and quite frankly, I wanted to have a special main dish in addition to (not just comprised of) steamed sides.

Cool things I learned:

1) Fig Balsamic is FANTASTIC!  After my simple salad posting, I kept thinking about different ways to use this item in savory dishes.  I thought about sauteing items in the balsamic, but then I thought that the beautiful flavor and sweet zing that it adds to a dish would be mellowed.  Given the already subtle flavor of many ingredients in this dish, I wanted that zing to be there.

2) Silicone mini-loaf pans are great for making/holding space in a bigger loaf pan full of stuffing.  Although ultimately I know it all goes to the same place, I wanted to be able to see all of the various components of my dish...and not just have them blend together.  I think that I could have been more successful in that, but I was trying to use what I had (and alas...no ring molds at the homestead).

3) Rosemary foccacia makes a fantastic stuffing base.  Given my fling and splash approach to the stuffing creation, I was so happy that it held up so well with the stock addition and then crisped up so nicely in the loaf pan.

Here was my recipe (very approximately):

Need a  9x5.5 (top)/8x5 (bottom) loaf pan and a mini-loaf pan

4c. cubed rosemary foccacia ( foccacia was homemade from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone -- I made the sandwich loaf recipe and used about 1/3 of it for the stuffing)
2 shallots -- peeled and diced
2 celery stalks -- finely diced
3 homemade seitan sausages -- diced
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Put cubed foccacia in a large bowl.  Preheat oven to 350, and oil the large loaf pan (oil inside) and mini-loaf pan (oil outside)  In a large pan, saute shallots, celery, and sausages for approx.5-7 min. until shallots and celery have softened. (I started with about 1 T. of oil to saute.) Then, toward the end of cooking time, add enough stock to cover veg. and bottom of pan (definitely eye ball this as you want veg. mix to be a thicker soup type consistency).  Post-stock addition, let simmer for a minute or two.  Then, dump veg. mix into bread bowl and mix; add salt and pepper to taste.  All bread should be lightly moistened but not soggy with liquid.  There was no liquid at the bottom of the bowl. Then, cover bottom of the loaf pan with bread mix.  Set mini-loaf pan in the middle on top of breaded bottom layer and surround with remaining bread mix.  Bake for 30 min.

While bread stuffing is baking, prep and make filling. If you do all prep and cleaning when you do this part of the recipe, your timing should be such that filling is done at about the same time that the bread stuffing comes out of the oven.  If you do it a different way, just keep filling warm as it does directly into the stuffing and then (hopefully) to table.

12 brussels sprouts -- peeled, bottom cut off, thinly sliced

1/4 c. thinly sliced fresh cranberries

8 white mushrooms -- cleaned, cored, thinly sliced

scant 1/4 c. pinot noir

2 c. roasted sweet potatoes, cut into smaller dice (which Hub made as side dish to bring to dinner)

1/4 c. finely chopped dried cranberries

Heat 1 T. of oil and saute brussels sprouts and fresh cranberries.  After about 5 min., add mushrooms; saute for 2-3 min. and deglaze with pinot (or sooner if pan is getting dry).  Then, add sweet potatoes.  Stir gently to blend and warm through.

Remove stuffing from oven and mini-loaf pan from center.  Fill rectangular indent with filling and top with chopped dried cranberries -- sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve with drizzle of fig balsamic. (Hub didn't have the drizzle and still loved it!)

We also made the roasted sweet potatoes mentioned above, apple crisp, and homemade vanilla almond ice cream.  Love the ice cream maker!

The next day, I of course wanted to have this stuffing again, but I mostly only had the bread stuffing left and not the filling.  So, I sauteed 2 diced shallots, 8 florets thinly sliced of broccoli, one additional sausage diced, and leftover butternut squash (about 1.5 c.).  I also loved the sweet potato element, so I attempted some sweet potato wraps.  This picture is not great, but I loved the possibilities with this, so I think I just need to play with wrapper thickness in the future.  I used the peeler this time, and it was a bit thin, so some of the other wrappers deflated a bit and the stuffing spilled out.  They were still yummy though! Baked them at 300 degrees for about 15-20 min. with stuffing in them, and then I topped them with sauteed veg. when they came out.  YUM!

I have always had a serious stuffing problem, as in, my T Day plate was always divided evenly between stuffing and broccoli casserole (which I am going to veganize for Christmas -- EEE!) with anything else as an aside  The addition of rosemary foccacia takes my stuffing issue to a whole new level.  Good thing it is all gone now.

The kitchen is finally and thoroughly clean...seems like a good time to cook something else!
K

Stuffed Seitan Sausage Stuffing -- Woot.

Yes, that's right.  I stuffed stuffing.  Save that bird -- stuffing's the word.  We can talk further tomorrow, but I have holiday food...zzzzzzz.

K

P.S. I also added fig balsamic.
P.P.S. There were fresh and dried cranberries.
P.P.P.S. Woot.

"Roots and Crucs" Two Ways and the Continuation of a Friday Family Tradition

Roots 'n Crucs Pizza

Maybe, somewhere deep down, the hub and I knew when we met that we had an eternal bond -- a bond that was founded in shared family tradition, a tradition that was reinforced virtually every Friday night, regardless of the season, participants, or ages.  PIZZA NIGHT!

Both the hub and I grew up with skilled pizza makers.  Even now, we eagerly try (usually successfully) to convince my mother and his father to make pizza when we are all together.  Although the hub and I have no doubt enjoyed many a pizza night outside of these full family gatherings, admittedly (she adds shame-facedly) -- we rarely do our own pizza entirely from scratch. But tonight... perhaps we made a solid start toward reinstating this tradition in our own home, though my toppings may be a bit more unconventional than traditional.

Roots and Crucs. (i.e. Cruciferous Vegetables) Two Ways
Saturday is usually market squared day at the homestead; we hit up the farmers market for a plethora of produce and then whatever larger supermarket best meets our needs for the week.  This week, I was ahead of the game, because ( by way of cleaning up said homestead) I sorted through various coupons and thus decided to just get the shopping done ahead of the pre-Thanksgiving crowd.  Although I was not actually going to the Christmas Tree Shop, I do LOVE a bargain, especially on groceries.

In addition to actually shopping for groceries, I much enjoy organizing my pantry and fridge -- a lovely ritual cleansing and recentering.  I know, I know...I am very involved with my foodstuffs.  That really shouldn't surprise you.  (The hub and I celebrated our "Wood" wedding anniversary this year, and I admit that I probably showed more jubilation over this year's wood shelf that he added to the pantry than previous more luxurious gifts!)  Anyway, when I got home, I noticed several lone root veggies chillin' in the crisper.  I recalled that here and there I had bought a singular veggie or pack of veggies for a recipe and then ended up using the other ingredients required by the intended recipe for something else.  Thus, my gracefully aging celeriac and the stalwart parsnips continued to persevere, even if relegated to the bottom of the drawer.  Enough, I declared!  I have vowed to limit food waste to trimmings and such, so I knew I had several things to prepare today so as to achieve my goal and reap the benefits of these flavorful veggies.

With some lingering lettuce and sunflower sprouts, I whipped up a salad for the weekend and early part of next week.  Then, with the root vegetables which (this time around) included one white turnip, one celeriac, 1 lb. carrots ( about 5 due to subtraction of 2 for fur helpers),  1 small pkg. (1lb.) parsnips, 1 yellow beet, 1/2 sweet potato remant, 1 small red onion, 1 remnant of garlic bulb (approx. 2/3 of med. original), I made Jae Steele's "Maple-Roasted Root Vegetables" which I found in my copy of her cookbook Get It Ripe.  The recipe is pretty much as simple as it sounds.  Mill around doing other kitchen fun for approximately an hour wherein you make pizza dough and occasionally shuffle around the veggies, and then....

Voila!

This picture hardly does justice to the glory of the maple-caramelized goodness that wafted from the oven at almost the moment of the pans' entry.  Nor does it do justice to the crispy outside of the veggies and gorgeous autumn colors of the dish.  Now, you can simply stop here...and you will convert people to all of these veggies, if you can manage to share the bowl.  Trust me, if there had not been a pizza plan, I would have been quite content to carry on with eating from said  for dinner bowl (maybe just with a fork instead of my fingers).

However, there was a pizza plan, and I still had some brussels sprouts, a broccoli crown, and some brown rice to put to use.

Complete Dish #1: Root 'n Crucs PIZZA
Call me a heretic if you want, but this is the best pizza I have ever had -- hands down.  If I had known what roots could do for my pizza experience, I would have branched out from my spinach garlic (with period crucs) haze years ago.

Roots n' Crucs Pizza Prior To Baking -- add a little Mozz. Daiya and GO!

In addition to the "roots,"  I sauteed up those "crucs," as well as a few mushrooms,  and added them to my roasted garlic tomato sauce-topped spelt flour crust.  The sauce was some leftover Muir Glen Pasta Sauce, and I found the crust recipe here http://www.food.com/recipe/easy-no-yeast-pizza-dough-254063.  Although both of our parents' recipes use yeast and their doughs are great, sometimes, you don't want that much fuss.  We LOVED this dough.  It made two perfectly-sized pizzas (about 6"); the crust was thin, but in about 20-22 min., it comes out fully cooked and with a flexible, lightly browned crust.

Dish #2: Warm Roots n' Crucs Salad
I simply added the leftover brown rice to my bowl of veggies and will warm in the oven in upcoming days for some additional wonderful meals.  I thought about adding something to increase wetness of the dish, but I decided that I like the vegetables to lend all the creaminess.  If you are mindful about oil usage, you can make this dish extremely healthy and delicious!

Slightly blurry, but the vibrant color and varying, yet complimentary, texture of this dish are evident!

Just in case you thought I forgot about dessert, check out THE REVISIONIST'S TREATERY! Also, if you recall my mentioning of pretzel fun, I was waylaid by pizza exploration. Check out the pretzel posts tomorrow!

Don't miss out -- add those roots and crucs to your pizza! The brussels were once again a brilliant surprise. And to think...I once only ate them disguised by a block of cheese. Shame on me! As for the missed opportunities with parsnips, celeriac, beets, and turnips, I have many more years of penance...

Enjoy the weekend...and the many ways in which to use a diverse offering of produce!
K

MoFo Week 2 Begins with Savory Sweet Potato Buns

Today, I woke up to a sprinkling of snow.

Yes, the doggies have created a moat around the "gabeez."  Yes, next year, we do plan to put in a drawbridge.

As for the rest of the day, it was rainy and gross, so all I could think about was the homey, warming smell and taste of bread...which of course made me transfer a little Missy into a cooking context for a music-inspired Monday.  "Gimme some, some -- some of this in a bun."

Savory Sweet Potato Buns

The "some" that I'm talking about here is the lone grilled sweet potato that I had left from this weekend.  I wanted to use it up and try revise my favorite breakfast (the "breakfast of champions" noted in the first post, sweet potato homefries and collard greens) into a sandwich.   I used Deborah Madison's recipe for "Potato Rolls" provided in her Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone with the addition of 2 t. ground rosemary, 3 garlic cloves (about 2 T.), and 2-3 T. finely diced sundried tomato.  Next time, I would further reduce the water by 1c. and add an additional cup of sweet potato mash to increase the sweet potato flavor.  Its presence here is mostly in the lingering essence, but the other additions are definitely evident.    Stay tuned for tomorrow's update on a breakfast sandwich!

Aside from the sweet potato buns, my only other notable accomplishment was this picture of my other fur child.  This is what she usually does while I cook -- gets comfy and looks pretty.

Stay warm, and thanks to all who have been reading and commenting thus far.  I appreciate your feedback and your interest!  Be sure to let me know which recipes you try out in the coming week!