Pad Thai in a Hurry, with Cauliflower

 The other day, coming home from a tiresome journey, I needed a meal to pick me up, but I had no energy for any big production, and here the conveniences of a smart pantry came to the rescue.

On the way home I had picked up a beautiful head of Fioretto cauliflower, and I remembered that I still

had some Annie Chun's Brown Rice Pad Thai noodles, and some Maesri Thai Red Curry Paste, as well as a package of frozen Goya Fajita Mix, as well as a king mushroom. With the help of some onions and garlic, a deliciously refreshing and spicy meal was quickly ready.
Usually, I regard meal prep as a necessary part of therapy, it is a wonderful way of communing with nature on the 4th floor in the Bronx, and looking out on a side street.

But there are times when convenience counts, and 

you can still have a healthy meal, so here we go:

Ingredients:

• 1 onion
• 3-6 cloves of garlic
• 1 king mushroom
• 1 cup water
• 1 can of Thai Curry
• 1 bag of Fajita Mix
• 1 TBSP of arrowroot (or other starch)
• Brown Rice Pad Thai noodles.

Preparation:

• Soak the Pad Thai noodles in hot water for 10 mins, rinse cold and set aside.
  
• Cut up the onion fine.
• Mince the garlic
• Cut up the king mushroom in strips (I use a mandoline)
• Stir-fry in the water for a while
• Add the curry paste
• Cut up the Cauliflower in florets
• Add to the mix and let it cook on medium flame for 2 minutes
• Add the Fajita Mix, and cook until soft, turn down the heat to just a simmer
• mix the starch with a 1/4 cup of cold water, and add to the mix.
• At the end add in the noodles and let them warm up.

Serve. Enjoy.

Evidently you could use different mushrooms, or you can add in a handful of fresh peanuts if you have them, and depending if you permit yourself some nuts, which tends to be a hot topic in plant-based circles. Evidently, if you are a serious heart patient, follow Dr. Esselstyn and avoid nuts and seeds, avocado and coconut, because of the oil content. You get all the fat you need from beans, etc.

Mexican #WFPB Fusion Cauliflower Burrito

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower split in florets

1 large or 2 smaller onions cut up fine
3-6 garlic cut up fine
1 cup water with Yondu, or Braggs Liquid aminos
1 tbsp turmeric
2 tbsp curry powder
1 serrano pepper cut up fine
2 jalapeño peppers cut up fine
1 bell pepper cut up in small chunks

======besan sauce

1/4 cup chickpea flour (besan)
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1/4 tbsp black salt (kala namak)

======faux parmesan

1 cup cashews
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 tbp garlic powder
1/4 tsp black salt

========

rice
optional spinach leaves
whole wheat, low fat burrito wrappers.

Note: I am using Olé Extreme Wellness Whole Wheat Tortilla Wraps with Flax, with just 2 or 3% fat.

Preparation

Steam the culiflower florets for 7 mins - al dente

Roast the onions dry for 5 mins
Stir-fry the onions for aonther while adding water, and adding in the cut-up peppers and garlic
mix-in the turmeric and the curry powder.

Mix the besan, nutritional yeast and black salt, and let it simmer on low flame for a while
gradually add 2 -3 more cups of water to get a sauce if desired consistency.

meanwhile run the ingredients for the faux parmesan through the blender, until it's a find powder.
add the parmesan to taste.

lay out a burrito wrapper, cut up a few spinach leaves, to lay down a center stripe
lay a bed of rice on top of the spinach, cut up some cauliflower and lay it in the rice.
poor some of the curry sauce over it to taste.
If desired you could add a few pickled jalapeños.

Roll-up and serve.

Starting #WFPB in April. Episode 8

Breakfast:

2 mandarins
the usual steel cut oats, with Strawberries, and some almond milk for a change.
Kale and sweet potato salad.

Lunch:

Huge salad with red leaf lettuce, beets, peppers, red onion, capers, olives, quinoa and 1/2/3 dressing

A bowl of umpteen bean soup.

Dinner:

Cucumber Salad: Left over from the other day. Added in some Moringa powder jst for fun, because I happened to have it and want to use it up.

Roast Cauliflower

In this case, I am using essentially the original recipe as I found it online:

View on karissasvegankitchen.com

The oven dish, cauliflower quartered

Ingredients

The Gravy 

3 cups vegetable stock
1 tbsp maple syrup optional, for sweetness
3 tsp vegan Worcestershire sauce*, or apple cider vinegar
2-4 minced garlic cloves or 2 tsp garlic powder
2-3 cut-up onions or 2 tsp onion powder
3-5 sprigs of parsley, cut up the leaves fine, or 1 tsp dried parsley
3/4 tsp thyme or fresh
3/4 tsp sage
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp pepper
5 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup water

The Roast 

1 whole cauliflower leaves and outer stalk trimmed off
4 large carrots chopped
4 medium potatoes peeled and cubed
1/2 cup vegetable stock

Add ingredients to Cozi shopping list

Preparation Instructions

My plate, over black/brown rice pilaf

The Gravy

In a medium-sized pot, whisk together all of the gravy ingredients EXCEPT for the cornstarch & water.
Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer on medium-low heat for 5 minutes. (This will allow all the flavors to marry.) Remove from the heat.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and water to make a cornstarch slurry.

Once the pot is no longer simmering, slowly whisk the cornstarch slurry into the gravy a little at a time. Going slow will ensure that no clumps form.
The gravy will begin to thicken as soon as the cornstarch is whisked in. Put the pot back on the stove and return to a simmer for an additional 3 minutes.

The Roast

Pre-heat oven to 450F degrees.
Arrange the potatoes and carrots in a roasting dish with the cauliflower in the center. Be careful not to overcrowd the dish.

Place the cauliflower upside-down and pour 1/3 cup of the gravy into it. Give it a good shake to distribute the gravy.
Place cauliflower right-side up and brush more gravy on the top to cover it (about 1/3 to 1/2 cup)

Add 1/2 cup of vegetable stock to the bottom of the dish (this will help steam the veggies.)

Pour about a 1/3 cup of gravy over top of the potatoes and carrots.
Cover the dish tightly with a lid or aluminum foil and bake for 40 minutes, brushing the cauliflower with more gravy halfway through.

Uncover the cauliflower roast and brush more gravy on. Bake for another 30 minutes (uncovered), brushing with more gravy halfway again (that's the final 1/3rd of the gravy.
Remove from the oven and serve while hot.

I served it over a bed of my pilar of black and short grain brown rice. 

*Many brands of Worcestershire sauce contain anchovies. Vegan Worcestershire sauce does exist (Annie's brand and Kroger brand are vegan for sure), but if you can't find it, you can omit it and substitute apple cider vinegar for a little zing.
If you dig onions, you can slice up an onion and add it right in with the carrots and potatoes. Mushrooms would be great, too! Making sure your pan is not too crowded will help everything cook through properly. If you find the potatoes are drying out, add a little more veggie stock to the pan.

Apart from taking a longish time, this dish is actually not a lot of work.

Of Cauliflower and Curry Sauce, Black Rice and Roasted Mushrooms

Cauliflower is plentiful just now, and with the many Bangladeshi markets in my area, good curry is not hard to find... not to mention one nearby building is nicknamed (among Bangladeshis) the curry palace, because it has such an overwhelmingly Bangladeshi community. Steamed cauliflower with curry sauce is an old favorite, that I had not made for many years, but with the new vegan regime, I suddenly got interested again.

Black Rice is great stuff, it tastes terrific, and it has high nutritional value. It also makes for an interesting contrast with the white of the cauliflower, and I like this particular combination better than cauliflower with brown rice (white rice of course is a no, no). I cook it in my trusty old Zojirushi rice cooker like brown rice, on the GABA Brown Rice cycle. Black Rice is easy to find in my area. The Chang-Li supermarket usually stocks at least two varieties, a Chinese one, and my favorite from a company named Heartland:

Heartland Products at Chang-Li in the Indian section

From the same company comes also a lovely black quinoa, which I love also. 

According to the Wikipedia article cited above, black rice contains iron, vitamin E, and more antioxidants than Blueberries. What more do you want? But the Wikipedia article continues: Black rice contains essential amino acid like lysine, Tryptophan; vitamins such as vitamin B1, vitamin B2, folic acid; and is a good source of minerals including iron, zinc, calcium and phosphorus. And, like I mentioned above it creates an interesting picture on your plate with the cauliflower.

The Recipe

If you don't have a steamer, Chang-Li has classic bamboo steamers. So, steaming the cauliflower is easy. Rice I usually make ahead for a few days, then comes the critical piece, the curry sauce, based on a recipe from Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-based Cure (page 163). Esselstyn's book is the Bible of the "plant perfect," a.k.a. "no-oil vegan,"  diet. My principal difference with the Esselstyn recipe is that I don't want to be too stingy on the curry, so for his 1-2 teaspoons, I substituted 1-2 tablespoons, and I use heaping tablespoons to boot, but the amount will vary with the type of curry you are using.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup brown rice
• 2 cups water
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1-2 tablespoons white miso
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1-2 heaping tablespoons curry powder
• 1 teaspoon of arrowroot, dissolved in water. (Added last)

Preparation:

1. Blend the rice and water together in a blender, food processor, Nutribullet, Vitamix, etc. to liquify the rice.
2. Add the nutritional yeast, white miso, garlic powder and curry powder, blend together.
3. Bring to a boil over low flame, stirring continuously.
4. Turn off the heat and add the dissolved arrowroot to thicken.

This is the best curry sauce recipe I have ever found, and it makes a nice, thick sauce if you get the arrowroot right.
It could not be easier: pour a liberal helping of this curry sauce on your cauliflower on the plates. Serve with roasted mushrooms (with rosemary), or a Seitan or Kao-Fu stew, or some bean dish to complement the proteins in the rice.

For the record, Arrowroot can always be found at Chang-Li too in the West Indian section, and they also have some excellent organic miso, both white and red.
Around here the nutritional yeast can be found at Good n Natural, at 2173 White Plains Road.

The more I get into this, the more fun I have with all the new recipes.