Thursday 28 February 2013

Stuffed Crêpes with White Wine and "Cream" Sauce

Whoops, there's a hair on the camera.

Unfortunately, I currently don't have an oven, so I couldn't bake it with "cheese" on top, but I bet it would taste even better if you did that. Still, very delicious.


Serves 2-3 hungry people

You need to have:

For the crêpes:
250g plain flour (though you can mix normal and whole meal flour, too) 
2 tsp soy flour or any other egg replacement
pinch of salt
500 ml soy milk
maybe some water
THERE WILL MOST LIKELY BE LEFTOVER BATTER, from which, however, you can make lovely dessert crêpes.

For the stuffing:
1 block of (preferrably firm) tofu
1 big carrot
handful of fresh basil, chopped
handful of fresh parsley, chopped 
1-2 tsp lemon juice   
1 tbsp tomato paste
1-2 tbsp soy sauce   

For the sauce:
1 onion, diced
1-2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 cup white wine
1 tsp vegetable stock
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
200-250 ml soy cream
herbs like thyme, basil, majoram...
salt and pepper to taste 


You need to do:

First, prepare the batter for the crêpes, because it needs to sit for at least half an hour. Just mix everything apart from the water. The batter should be very liquid, somewhere in between cream and milk. Add water until you have that consistency. Now put in the fridge. 

In the mean time, you can prepare stuffing and sauce. 

For the stuffing, break your tofu into little pieces with your hands. Peel and grate the carrot. Mix with tofu, herbs, lemon juice and tomato paste. Add soy sauce to taste.This will leave you with something that tastes a lot better, than it looks. Set aside.
For the sauce, heat oil in a pan and fry onions and garlic for a good 5 minutes until cooked. Turn heat to very high and add the white wine. It should make sort of a hiss when you pour it in. Add the stock cube and nutritional yeast and stir well. Turn down the heat a little and add cream and a good teaspoonfull of each herb. In my opinion, thyme goes especially well with this, so I added some more of it. Add salt and pepper to taste and set aside with a lid on.

Now the crêpes. Heat oil at low medium heat in a non-stick pan and wipe with a kitchen towel, so it is only very thinly greased. Pour in a good 2 tbsp of the batter and spread evenly in the pan by shaking it or by spreading the batter with the spoon. Wait until the surface has become dark and firm. Flip over. 

Now, since I don't have an oven, I put some stuffing in the middle of the crêpe and then kind of closed it like a burrito. I fried it on low heat from both sides until I was sure the stuffing was warm (which was about 5 minutes), flipping over repeatedly so nothing would burn.
In the end it looked like this:
Now all you have to do is serve with the sauce. You might have to reheat it a little, though.

If you have an oven, however, I think it would be evern better if you made all the crêpe burritos you can get out of your stuffing, placed them in an oven dish and covered them with sauce and some fake parmesan cheese. Or breadcrumbs. Or anything else, you see fit. Then bake 10-15 minutes until au gratin. 

Well, for me it was just the crêpe and sauce pas au gratin. Still tasted great.

Yellow Curry with Veggies and Coconut Milk

 
I needed a first post because it looked so empty. Luckily I am the kind of person that randomly takes pictures of their food. I like words, too, but this blog is supposed to be recipes and not talking, so I'll try to keep the blahblah to a minimum. 

This dish is incredibly easy to make (though the list of ingredients might look intimidating because of all the spices) and perfect for cold winter days. It even has sprouts in it, which, according to my friend, seems to be essential for a vegan meal nowadays. But really, you might as well leave them out, I just bought them because they were on special in the supermarket that week. The veggies can be substituted by pretty much anything you like, you should just pay attention to how long they have to cook and thus the order in which you put them in the pot, so you don't end up having some of them over- and some undercooked.


Serves 2-3 hungry people

You need to have:

1 onion
1-2 garlic cloves (or 1/4 tsp garlic paste)
2 cm ginger (or 1 tsp ginger paste)

1-2 carrots
1/2 a broccoli
1-2 zucchini

1-2 tsp yellow curry paste
1-2 tsp tomato paste
1 big tsp coriander
1/2 tsp curcuma
1/2 tsp allspice
1 tsp paprika mild 
1 tsp curry powder
1/2-1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2-1 tsp paprika hot
a pinch of chili powder (obviously, the last three depend on how hot you like your food)

THE QUANTITIES FOR THE SPICES INCLUDING GINGER AND GARLIC ARE THOUGHT TO BE AN ORIENTATION! Of course you can add more or leave things out completely. Personally, I love coriander, but my sister won't have any of it.   

1 can of coconut milk
soy sauce and salt to taste

oil for frying

rice (I like Thai or Basmati) and sprouts (optional) for serving


You need to do:

Peel onions, garlic and ginger (unless you're using paste, of course) and dice/crush as fine as you like. I really like onions, so I like to have slighly bigger cubes. 

Wash your veggies (including the sprouts!) and peel the carrots, if you want to. Break the broccoli into small pieces, then half the zucchini and carrot so that you can cut it into sort of "half slices". Don't be intimidated of how much it looks, it all "shrinks" when the water evaporates from the veggies when you're cooking them.

Start cooking the rice according to the instructions on the packet.

Heat a good 3-4 tbsp of cooking oil in a big saucepan (need to fit in all the veggies later). Fry onions, garlic and ginger (unless you're using paste) for a few minutes on somewhere between medium and high heat. Add the curry paste and stir around until it has mixed with the oil. Now add tomato, ginger and garlic paste. Stir again until everything is well mixed. Lower heat to medium.

Add carrots and fry for a good 3-5 minutes. Add broccoli, fry for 3-5 minutes again, add zucchini. Now add all the spices and mix well. Put on the lid and cook everything until it's beginning to get soft. Pour away the water from the lid every now and then and don't forget to stir from time to time, so things don't burn. If necessary, turn down the heat. You can test how soft your veggies are by poking them with a fork. I like to have my veggies a little crunchy still, but if you prefer them well cooked, just let them sit a little longer.

Don't forget your rice, by the way, I like doing that. 

When your vegetables are ready, add the coconut milk. Now just add a little salt and soy sauce, if you like, until it tastes good. 

Enjoy with rice and sprouts.