Pasta Bolognese #WFPB style

Pasta Bolognese has some nostalgic value for me. When I was in highschool, if I wanted to take my girlfriend out to dinner, it was spaghetti bolognese at a Rotterdam institution, a student café/restaurant, De Pijp (the Pipe). A small restaurant on a side street, that was for students, and you always needed to be introduced by one of the members, the general public was not welcome. It still exists today, and it claims to be the oldest restaurant in Rotterdam.

So when Dr. Anna Borek (@ScepticalDoctor on Twitter), posted this recipe, I had to make it... and of course you can vary this endlessly, but the core concepts are simple and powerful.

The recipe has been tested by a neighbor and myself, as well as by Fr. David at St. Helena's and Rosemarie Ortiz, the church secretary. Everybody liked it!

Tofu Bolognese Sauce

from Anna Borek, The Sceptical Doctor

Tofu Bolognese Sauce

Ingredients

2 blocks of firm tofu
1 cup of cut-up celery stalks
1 cup of cut-up red onions
1/2 cup of water
3 cloves of garlic (or more, depending on your religion)
1 cup of cut-up carrots
2 cups of sliced mushrooms
a pinch of salt (or, alternatively use water with 1 tsp yondu)
2x 15 Oz or 1 25 Oz can of tomatoes
2 heaped tbsp of tomato paste.
1 cup of wine
2.5 cups of cooked red lentils (1 cup dry)
1 bunch chopped spinach
3 tbsp of Italian seasoning
1 cup of water
vegan parmesan to taste

Preparation

• cut up the tofu into small cubes, and bake until evenly browned.
• Precook the lentils - 3 mins of high pressure in the Instant Pot will do.
• stir fry the celery and red onions in water in the sauce pan
• add the garlic, diced carrots and cut-up mushrooms and lest it simmer for 10 minutes
• add tomatoes, tomato paste and wine, as well as lentils, spinach and italian seasoning, as well as the baked tofu
• simmer for 1-2 hours

for good measure, I am adding a recipe for vegan parmesan. 

Vegan Parmesan

View on minimalistbaker.com

Ingredients

1 cup raw cashews
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder

Preparation

In the blender until it is a fine powder.

Note: 

I happily made the sauce with 1 bloc  of Tofu and 4 cups of mushrooms  (I used Baby Bella), because that is what I had around. I also threw in towards the end a box of grape tomatoes, careful not to cook them to the point of bursting. They enhance the fresh tomato taste. Or, you can use an extra package of diced or crushed tomatoes to enhance the tomato flavor and make the sauce a little thinner. Lastly you should always add a few scoops of the cooking water from your pasta to the sauce.

Note that in many pasta sauces, sugar is used to dampen the acidity, but in this sauce it is really the sweetness from the carrots which blends away the acidity, with an assist from the neutralizing flavor of the lentils.

Ecuadorian #WFPB Bean Soup Improv 002 Locro de Lentejas - Lentil Soup

Locro de Lentejas (Ecuador)

Lentil soup with Cabbage

Note: Ecuadorian cuisine tends to be mild, so I left out the chilis and used only three (seeded) jalapeños, and then I split the soup in two and finished a mild version with some miso at the end, and a spicy version with some gochujang.

View on blogspot.com

 

Ingredients

1 lb whole lentils
1 lb young potatoes (the kind with the thin skin, either yukon gold or redskin), quartered or smaller, depending on the size and personal preference
one small green or savoy cabbage, quartered and sliced in 1/4" strips
1 white onion cut up in small pieces,
2-3 large red onions, sliced thin
4 green chilis, sliced thin, with seeds (optional)
2 jalapeño peppers, sliced thin (without seeds)
6 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped fine.
1-2 king mushroom cut in strips, or baked seitain cut in cubes.
1 tsp panchpuran
1 teaspoon of savory
1 teaspoon of tarragon
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp thyme
5 bay leaves
2 pints of low sodium vegetable stock
3 pints of water
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
 

Seasoning to taste with Braggs Liquid Aminos. Alternatively, dissolve one heaping tablespoon of miso paste (or, if you like spicy, gochujang) in water and add at the end and use less liquid aminos.

Anyway you finish it up, you'll have a great winter soup you can stick a fork in!

Preparation

Dry fry the onions with the peppers, panchpuran over a low flame for about 3/4 minutes until they get soft and start to brown. Add a splash of veggie broth as needed, so it does not stick to the pan.

Add garlic, the vegetable stock and the herbs & spices, the lentils and the seitan (or mushrooms) and (after about 15 mins) the potatoes. 

Let cook for another 10-15 minutes, and add the cabbage.

Let it simmer for 30 mins.

 

At the end, add some miso, or gochujang dissolved in water and the chopped cilantro.

(Notes:

1. Some people would peel the potatoes, but if you buy thin-skinned potatoes, you can easily cook them in the skin, even cut-up: you lose less nutrition that way.
2. Evidently, you can vary the herbs and spices to taste.
3. Never boil the miso, just dissolve in hot water and add it in at the end.)

2021: The 5 Year Anniversary of the UN FAO International Year of Pulses

It was May 2015 when I switched to a Whole Foods, Plant-Based diet and lo and behold, 2016 was the Year of Pulses (legumes). I can only say that my repertoire of using various legumes has gradually expanded since then, so I figured it was in order to celebrate the 5-year anniversary. It will be a small, private celebration in my kitchen, but you are invited to expand it to yours. I made up my mind this winter to get really good at various heavy soups - cold weather always inspires that and in Holland we had a good tradition of heavy bean soups in winter. The bottom line is, pulses, legumes if you will provide excellent nutrition, and in any region of the world you can learn to cook with the local varieties.

I posted the first one the other day... Dutch Bruine Bonen Soep. I always assumed that this was about red kidney beans, and Wikipedia seems to reinforce that notion, but people in the Dutch community have convinced me that pinto beans are actually closer in taste. Getting comments back from around the world made me that much more aware that whatever beans you can get vary quite a bit locally. Given that I live in Little Bangladesh in the Bronx, which is overall 60% hispanic, I have a treasure trove of pulses available to me and my cooking in general reflects it. In Spanish cultures, I find mostly beans and corn, of course, as well as some chickpeas (garbanzo). In the SE Asian community, I find lots of lentils (dal), chickpeas (gram) and other goodies.

Then, when you think you have seen it all, and choice is already overwhelming, along comes 60 minutes with a piece on heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo. Here is at least a vegetarian approach. I will obviously be focusing on pure @WFPB.

 

To begin with, I am collaborating with Fatima Cabrera, who is the cook at the St. Helena's school. Her background is Ecuadorian. We will also get some input from Leobarda, who is the cook at the rectory at St. Helena's.

The first few soups we are plannig, starting with the Pinto Bean Soup listed above:

1. Dutch-inspired Pinto Bean Soup
2. Ecuadorian-inspired Locro de Lentejas
3. Dutch-inspired Split-pea soup
4. Mexican-inspired Three Sisters Posole
5. Mixed Bean Soup with Summer Savory
   

After the first five, some of which we have made before in our cooking class at St. Helena's, we are going to expand the repertoire. The theme may be expanded to include other traditions, but we will stick to soups based on various pulses, with a preference of a winter-theme - soups you can stick a fork in, so to speak.

Principles of cooking with beans

Beans can be hard to digest if you are coming from a very industrial diet (read: SAD, Standard American Diet). There are a few things to know which can make beans easier to digest. Generally speaking soaking for 6-8 hours makes life easier. In terms of the kitchen, you can shorten prep time by using an Instant Pot to pre-cook the beans, that tends to cut an hour off cooking times. For lentils and split peas, soaking and pre-cooking is generally not an issue, for they dissolve quickly. 

Soaking

If you are going to cook at night, soak in the morning, putting your beans under an inch of fresh water. You can put a sheet of kombu in your beans, that will enrich the taste and the amino acids in kombu help soften beans and make them more digestible. Add a 4-6″ strip of kombu to a pot of cooking beans. After an hour or two, the kombu will disintegrate when stirred. (Any stray pieces should be tender enough to eat, or you can remove them.) See also here, on Kitchen: Ingredient Spotligh: Dried Kombu. You can drain the soaking water, but you can cook the beans with the kombu, that adds deep flavor.

If you are cooking in the AM, soak the beans at night. So they are good and ready in the AM.

Herbs and spices, basic veggies.

Bayleaf is always good, Summer Savory adds flavor and according to kitchen lore, like Kombu, it helps with digestion. 

For the rest, it all depends on what style you are cooking in and you use the herbs and spices from that tradition. I personally cannot cook anything without onions and garlic, so my soup recipes will start with that. I like to use some fresh turmeric as well. Sometimes ginger. Carrots and celery are good companions in many soups. Then there is panchpuran (five spices), which is the quick and easy way to start any dal. You should add it in right from the start and roast it with your onions. I like chilis, jalapeños or any variety of hot peppers. Given that beans by themselves are kind of dull, it is hard to make it too spicy, but for me a soup with some subtle zing to it is the best.

Some kitchen technique

One of the challenges with beans is the need for soaking and the pre-cooking. If you have a pressure cooking solution, you can cut it short, and you can pre-cook your beans while you are preparing the veggies for the soup. I use an Instant Pot and I love it - instead of pre-cooking for an hour, I can do it in 10 minutes.

 

I look forward to seeing you around the campus! We are hoping to relaunch the cooking classes at St. Helena's in the spring.

 

 

 

More Bengali Inspiration #1

I will be recreating the recipes we prepared at the last class, and give some more detailed instructions.

Meanwhile, if you want to get your information from the source, you can of course ask the Bangladeshi greengrocers on Starling Ave (aka Bangla Bazaar), or, there is a series on youtube, Village Food Life, which allows you to study some of the Bangladeshi cuisine in a fairly authentic village setting. I will use one of the videos below.

Recipes

While you can vary these recipes endlessly, some of the basic patterns and spices are very helpful to understand and I will break them out here, for they are the building blocks.

With lentils, you can make a quick sauce or a soup. We will make one here, but there are many kinds of lentils, so you can vary this endlessly and fine tune it to your own taste.

Poi Leaf

Here is a recipe about Malabar Spinach, or Poi Leaf, which is available year-round. It is a bit like spinach, but it has a richer taste, and soon enough you will figure out when Poi is more suitable than spinach. As it says on the site I linked here, it's like there are hints of citrus and pepper in the flavor.

At our recent cooking class, we just made boiled poi leaf, but on this occasion, I am going to make more of a stew with it, using the stems as well.

Caramelized Onions are the start

I started my cooking with a frying pan to caramelize 4 to 5 medium-size onions finely cut-up, with some finely cut chilis, and a jalapeno, plus garlic, while adding slowly about 8 oz of veggie broth and about a tablespoon of Braggs Liquid Aminos. The key is to not stir the onions at first, until the bottom begins to brown, and then, before they would char, you start stirring them, and you will gradually see a glaze form in the pan. You can then use water, or veggie broth, or vinegar to deglaze the pan, so that instead of sticking to the pan, the onions are nice and moist.

Note, the article I linked here, suggests caramelizing in a hot frying pan, which is the best. It will take 5 minutes or less. Here is an article that describes a slow method, which also works, but is inefficient because it costs too much time. If you do it over high heat, you just need to watch it closely. If you go the medium temperature method, it will take 25-30 minutes.

For about 1.5 lbs of poi leaf, I used about half the onions and added a piece of turmeric, cut-up in thin slices. I cut up the stems in 1/4" pieces, and cooked them with the onions, adding a little more water. Once the stems were soft I threw the leaves on top and let them wilt over a low flame, about 15 minutes. Then I mixed the whole thing together. It was delicious.

Lentil Sauce

I used a 3 lb Deshi squash (water squash) and 1 lb of split red lentils.

Water Squash

Starting with the caramelized onions, I added some turmeric, and a few bay leaves and a bunch of cilantro cut up fine and the squash cut-up to about 1/4" thick 1/8th wedges. Then I added about 1 lb of lentils and water to cover and about a table spoon of liquid aminos (in lieu of salt) and that cooked for about 30 mins. With a wooden spoon I could practically pulverized the squash, and make a smooth sauce out of the whole thing, while removing the bay leaf.

With that, I had enough sauce left over to freeze two quart bags for another day, and that still left me enough for about two more days, which I could keep in the fridge. You learn to cook in batches.

A Bengali Suppers/#WFPB event

The only way to prepare corn

Because corn is in season, we started out with a corn appetizer:

Corn in the husk, soaked in water for a few minutes and then roasted in the oven on a baking sheet for 45 minutes at 450F. If you do this with good, fresh corn in the husk, you will taste corn so sweet, you will never have corn any other way again. No need for the traditional butter and salt, it is yummy  as is.

A Bengali Style #WFPB Dinner

We had cooked the Brown Basmati rice ahead of time (SWAD brand, in 10lb bags at Neerob Bazaar), opposite Neerob Restaurant on Starling Avenue.

We prepared four dishes under the guidance of Khokon, and with a fair amount of improvization, because he had to run back to the restaurant once or twice.

Cucumber salad

We cut the cucumber in small strips with a mandolin. We cut up a red onion and some peppers, and just used some lime juice and spices for a dressing. Obviously, you can vary the spices, dill goes particularly well with cucumber. The Bengali style is to add those mean little green chilis in the salad, whole, but that is not my thing, so if I use them, I will slice them up. For the occasion we made two salads, one with chilis and one without.

Green Chilis - handle with care!

Lentil Stew

Made with split red lentils, onions, garlic, herbs and spices and some water squash.
Herbs and spices included cilantro, some bay leaves, chilis, turmeric, panch puran (mixture of mustard, cumin, fennel, kalonji (black fennel), cardamom and you can use some liquid aminos to taste. You can vary the taste endlessly, with other spices, such as curry.
We used a water squash, and made a broth with the lentils and cooked them till they are soft - they practically dissolve.

Water Squash

The proper way of setting it up is to stir-fry the onions first, on high heat, stirring frequently until they begin to caramelize and then add some tablespoons of water to liquify it and prevent burning, then turn down the heat and add the garlic, chilis, and stir-fry it a few minutes longer and then add the cut-up squash, and enough water to make a broth that will cook the lentils, and you can add the rest of the herbs and spices to taste.

Caramelizing onions without oil

Caramelized onions are the universal foundation for cooking vegetable dishes and soups. Here are some instructions on how to caramelize onions without oil. Here it is from famous vegan chef AJ... notice you don't need a lot of liquid, but you can use either water, or veggie broth, or water with a bit of Bragg's liquid aminos. I personally make my own veggie broth once a month or so, and freeze it into ice cubes, and then I use one or  two cubes of veggie broth in your onions. You can also finish them off with balsamic.

By the way, if you're afraid of knives, you can use the Vidalia Chop Wizard, like Chef AJ demonstrates, but I don't have space in my kitchen for all these gadgets, and I like working with knives. So here is some advice on chopping onions.

OK, back to the cooking, the best way is to put the herbs and spices in by adding a little water or broth at the end of preparing the onions/garlic and chilis, so they are soft. Then, you add the cubes of water squash, and more water to cover it, with the lentils. The lentils will completely fall apart as they cook, so you will have a saucy substance that could also be a soup, or you can serve it over your rice.

Sautéed Squash

We also made some sautéed squash again, starting out with sautéed onions and adding garlic, some peppers, turmeric, and other spices to build up a broth, and we used a pumpkin and some yellow squash.

Sautéed eggplant

Same idea, with eggplant.

Boiled Poi Leaf (Malabar Spinach)

We used just the leaves, not the stems, and you can either boil them or steam them. On this occasion, boiling is all we did. Poi leaf is an interesting variation on spinace, it is a very different taste, but it is evidently a green leafy vegetable, and very healthy for that reason. Chewing leafy greens allows the formation of nitric oxide which keeps your endothelium healthy, hence you want to eat some form of leafy greens at every meal, ideally 4-6 "fist-sized" portions per day.

Bengali herbs and spices

• Turmeric, you can use either fresh or powder, we used powder, but here it is both fresh and in powder form:

Fresh Turmeric at Al Aqsa

Powdered Turmeric at Neerob Bazaar

• Panchpuran, you can buy the spices whole in a bag, or you can get it in powder form.

Our neighborhood is an absolute Mecca for herbs and spices, both at the Bengali vendors on Bangla Bazaar (Starling Avenue), and at Chang-Li Supermarket. The invitation is to go ahead and experiment away.

Conclusion

This meal was one powerful demonstration of the options you have in using a variety of vegetables with herbs and spices, to make a meal fit for a king. Where in spanish cooking you would use mostly rice and beans, in the South East Asian cuisine you use more likely lentils or chick peas, and you can easily put together

Inspiration from Ecuador

Courtesy of Fatima, the cook for the school at St. Helena's, we experienced some Ecuadorian foods, while Audelle created an interesting green salad to go along with it, so we all get our regular requirement for leafy greens.

In this post I will report on the recipes, and I will elaborate on the preparation only after re-creating them and making some changes based on some things we tried.

Meanwhile, some notes on the ingredients:
In general, we use herbs & spices rather than salt, or if need be we add some Braggs Liquid Aminos which has 1/3rd the sodium of even low sodium soy sauce.
We included the green salad because a healthy #WFPB diet should see us eating 4-6 "fistsized" portions of leafy greens per day, because the leafy greens help the body produce nitric oxide that is good for endothelial health. And keeps your blood vessels flexible.
Added oils are always avoided, because they practically paralyze the endothelium for 3-6 hours after a meal. Small amounts of oily fruits (avocado, coconut, nuts) are allowable, but you definitely don't want to overdo it either.

Evidently, the cassava, lentils, potatoes, and veggies provide plenty of carbohydrates, so that this meal is probably close to the ideal balance of 80% (complex) carbohydrates, 10% fats, and 10% protein.

 

Locro de Lentejas (Lentils locro) - a thick soup 

lentils

potatoes

cabbage

red onions

garlic

cilantro

Bragg's Liquid Amino's (instead of Salt)

We initially made it as above, with just water. Some people were adding a green habanero sauce at the table, or more Liquid Aminos. So next time I prepared this soup, here's what I did, to make about 1.5 gallon of it:

• 1 lb whole lentils
• 1 lb young potatoes (the kind with the thin skin, either yukon gold or redskin), quartered or smaller, depending on the size and personal preference
• one small green cabbage, quartered and sliced in 1/4"stips
• a large red onion and two white onions (just because I was out of red onions),sliced thin
• 4 green chilis, sliced thin, with seeds
• 2 jalapeño peppers, sliced thin (without seeds)
• 6 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped fine.
• a teaspoon of savory
• a teaspoon of tarragon
• 5 bay leaves
• two pints of low sodium vegetable stock
• three pints of water
• a tablespoon of "Better than bouillon" vegetable bouillon
• a half a cup of cilantro, chopped (leaves only)
• Some Braggs Liquid Aminos to taste

Initially, I fried the onions (dry) with the chilis and jalapenos, over a low flame for about 5 minutes until they got soft, then I added the vegetable stock and the herbs, the lentils and the potatoes (with about a 15-20 minute delay).  Finally I added the shredded cabbage and let it cook for another 15-20 minutes.

(Note: some people would peel the potatoes, but if you buy thin-skinned potatoes, you can easily cook them in the skin, even cut-up: you lose less nutrition that way.)

My personal practice is always to cook a large pan of soup, and to have enough to freeze about 3, 4, or 5 quart-size freezer bags, which is about one large bowl of soup each. This way, you can have some the day you make it, and maybe keep some for the next few days, and have the rest in reserve for days when you don't have time to cook.

Mixed Beans and Vegetable Salad 

2 lb beets, boiled, cut in small chunks

2 lb carrots, boiled, quartered and cut in 1.5" chunks

2 bunches of scallions, sliced thin

4 lb fresh beans from Ecuador (Mama Tere, Frihol Mixto, Frozen)
1 bunch cilantro leaves only, chopped fine

Braggs Liquid Aminos to taste

This is the kind of recipe that is delicious as is, and people can individually choose to spice it up more with Tabasco, or Sriracha Sauce, sambal, or as I tried this morning a splash of Habañero infused balsamic vinegar.

Cassava Side Dish

Cassava (yuca) with a onion sauce (parboiled red onions, lemon, cilantro, liquid aminos)

• Cut off the top of the cassava and peel it
• Cut into 1.5" slices
• Boil for about 30 mins until soft
• peel some red onions, and slice thin
• parboil the onion slices in boiling water for a few moments, so they are limp.
• pluck the cilantro leaves and cut them up.
• use the juice of one or more lemons to make the dressing
• add in liquid aminos to taste.

Creamy Avocado Dressing

2 avocados, peeled and pitted

Juice of 1 lemon

Juice of 1 lime

1 tsp. lime zest

1 cucumber

~1/2 c. water

1/4 c. chopped cilantro

1/2 to 1 tsp. chili powder

Dash of sea salt or Braggs Liquid Aminos

Blend all ingredients together until smooth, adjusting water to get desired consistency. Refrigerate unused portions.

Makes 3+ cups

This dressing is brilliant. When I made it a second time, at home after our event, I made a complete kitchen sink salad, with red leaf lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, thinly sliced red onion, capers, olives, milled flax seed, chia seed and quinoa, and it was out of this world. Obviously, you can adjust the heat to your liking, but the cucumber makes it milder.

In any case, since I prepared all these things at home in the week before Christmas, I had some chance to share them with a neighbor, and I got very positive response to all of them. Notably, this was from someone who has no idea about the plant-based diet. And that to me is the real test, if you simply make good food, except that it just happens to be very healthy.

The Year of the Pulses 2016 - United Nations

The United Nations declared 2016 the International Year of the Pulses. As luck would have it, I live in little Bangladesh, on Starling Avenue in the Bronx, and there are some ten stores on my street alone that sell any number of pulses: endless varieties of lentils (red lentils, whole lentils, Urad Dal, Masoor Matki-crimson lentils), green peas, yellow split peas, chick peas, and on and on and on.

In supermarkets around there are many more varieties from Spanish Cuisine, the entire Goya Foods line, either dried, or in cans, and there are even some interesting organic entries here and there, some you can find at Chang-Li supermarket (they stock Braggs Apple Cider and Liquid Amino's) on Benedict avenue, and Pioneer Supermarket on Castle Hill has a small, but growing section of organic produce and some organic dry goods, including excellent organic black beans from a brand called Wild Harvest.

In short, I am in Pulse heaven, and gradually I am learning more and more recipes, and ever since I decided to go 100% vegan a year and half ago, I am having more fun with food than I ever did in my life before.

One recent favorite recipe came from the Whole Foods website,
for Yellow Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup:

Yellow Split Pea and Sweet Potato Soup

• 1 large onion, chopped (about 2 cups)
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
• 2 cups dried yellow split peas
• 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds
• vegetable bouillon, tamari, or liquid aminos to taste 

Method: 

Heat a large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, about 5 minutes or until translucent, adding little water if necessary to prevent sticking. Stir in ginger and cook 1 minute, stirring. Add 8 1/2 cups water, peas and sweet potato and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover and simmer for 1 hour.

Uncover and continue to simmer 15 minutes. Carefully purée soup with a hand held immersion blender or in batches in a blender until smooth and creamy. Garnish with pumpkin seeds.

My personal variation is that I spray the pumpkin seeds (available at Chang Li), with Bragg's Liquid Aminos after toasting them on an oven tray. That just gives them a little extra flavor. You can just snack on them, or use them as suggested here, to spice up certain dishes.

The recipe is simplicity itself, and my routine has become to cook large pans of soup, and freeze two or three portions, so that I always have soup in stock in case I have limited time for cooking. A quick soup and a salad will tide you over.

Veganism is spreading

Lately it seems that veganism is spreading with amazing speed, both the no-oil vegan cuisine promoted by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, also known as the Plant Perfect Diet, and the low fat Engine2 Diet promote by his son, Rip Esselstyn, aka the Plant Strong Diet, and then there is always the hybrid program,  Forks Over Knives, based on the movie.

The number of stories is growing, and in many cases people are successfully eliminating a whole list of medications from their lives, and instead of spending the rest of their lives worrying about the side effects of their medications, not to mention drug interactions, eating healthy is becoming more wide spread.