Jennie and the miniwave

Oh, yes. This is where my love of baking cookies began. Happy day indeed.

I'm on a roll today..Thing to dip tortilla chips in...Spinach dip and guacamole

Bag of tortilla chips or make you own chips:


Corn tortillas
Spray oil
Salt

Preheat oven to 400
Spray tortillas with oil (olive oil in a misto, or any non-stick spray oil will do)
Sprinkle with salt.

Put in oven directly on rack. Bake about 5 minutes, but check them often. When the edges start to brown, check. If the middle it still soft, turn oven off and let sit a minute or two longer, but check often. They go from floppy to crispy pretty quickly.


Easiest veganized recipe I've come up with...

Makes one big self serving (or more as app)

1 TBS Olive oil
1-2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup frozen thawed or canned spinach with water squeezed out (or freah sauted)
2 TBS nooch (nutritional yeast)
1 TBS veganaise (or other vegan mayo)
a little broth or water

Saute garlic in olive oil. Add spinach and nooch. Add a little broth or water if it looks too thick. When heated add veganaise and stir. Serve in a bowl with tortilla chips. Or Triscuits. Triscuits are vegan. http://www.vegcooking.com/shoppingGuide.asp

Guacamole

1 avacado
1 plum tomato
1 lime
1 TBS sofrito (or clove garlic, onion, peppers, a little cilantro)

Ah, sofrito magic...

Cut and pit avacado. Scoop out and mash up. Cut tomato in small dice. Add juice of 1 lime, add sofrito. Mix together and let sit for a few minutes (while you're baking your tortillas perhaps....)

You could add some cumin or some chipotle seasoning, but honestly, the softiro is enough saison...try it first with the salted chips then add salt if it really needs it.

Some pizza/pasta recipes

I made my mother-in-law a Mother's Day package of ingredients to make pasta sauce in a reusable Whole Foods tote bag. These are the accompanying recipes. I think she's still waiting for me to come over and cook it for her...

Sauce
2-3 cloves garlic minced
½ to whole shallot minced
2 TBS to ¼ cup olive oil
1 big can whole tomatoes (or chopped or crushed)
¼ - 1/2 cup wine (optional)
1 -2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 -2 tsp Pizza seasoning (optional)
Up to 1 tsp salt to taste (less if using salty addition)
Up to 2 TBS sugar to taste (less if tomatoes are already sweet)

Saute garlic and shallot in olive oil about 5 min.
Cut up tomatoes (or squish with your fingers) and add to saute with all juices.Heat about 5 min Add wine, seasoning and cook another 5-10 min. Taste sauce and add salt and/or sugar to taste.

Pasta puttanesca (for 2)
½ lb pasta (1/2 normal package)
1-2 TBS capers drained
¼ cup kalamata or black olives pitted and chopped
1 TBS olive oil 2-4 cups of sauce or tomatoes.
Salt or brine from capers/olives to taste

Boil water and cook pasta according to package directions. While water is boiling for pasta heat olive oil and sauté capers, and olives. Add Sauce or tomatoes and heat through. Taste sauce and add brine from capers and/or olives or salt if needed. Drain pasta (do not rinse) and add to sauce and toss to coat.Serve immediately.


Pizza dough
1 cup water
1-2 TBS olive oil (optional)
1-2 tsp sugar (optional)
3 Cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp or 1 packet yeast

Mix all ingredients together and knead until smooth elastic ball forms. Coat large bowl with olive oil and place in kneaded dough. Let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Punch down and knead briefly into ball. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. For 4 personal pizzas, divide dough into 4 pieces and roll out to desired thickness. Place on baking sheet, top with sauce and (vegan) cheese and desired toppings. Bake 10 min.

For individual calzones divide dough into 6 pieces. Roll into circle, add toppings and cheese to one half and fold over. Seal edges and bake 10-15 min. Brush with olive oil for a crispy golden crust.

Toppings: Vegan Pepperoni/Sausage/Meatballs/cutlet/tofu
Artichokes
Olives
Roasted eggplant/squash/zucchini Garlic (thin sliced or minced)
Mushrooms
Onions and green peppers
Hot banana peppers /pepperoncini/ jalapenos

Pizza stuffed mushrooms

Want pizza, too lazy to make pizza dough? Yeah I know you just dump ingredients in the bread machine and wait an hour, but I was hungry. This uses some meat and cheese analogs, but I was having a serious pepprioni pizza craving and bought the Smart Deli vegan pepperoni and Follow Your Heart vegan cheese.

1 Serving

12 mushrooms stems removed, so they have a little hole for putting filling

Filling
10 pepperoni chopped into bits (stack them and slice, then turn the stack and slice again-I really should start taking photos, will get on that)
1/4 cup shreaded "cheese" I used cheddar flavor-tastes like Grotto's
1 Tbs sofrito (from prior post-will figure out how to link) or 1 clove garlic/1 Tbs diced onion
2 Tbs pizza/pasta sauce
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning (Pizza seasoning from Penzys rocks)
1 TBS panko bread crumbs

Mix the filling ingredients together. Place 'schrooms on small baking tray and stuff with 1tsp mixture. It's fairly moist, so pile it as high as you can without it falling off. Top with a sprinkling of bread crumbs and bake at 400 about 15 minutes or until bread crumbs look toasty. Remove and let cool for a few minutes before serving if you aren't a fan of burning your mouth.

Experiment deemed a success. Next version will have some kind of homemade sausage pizza stuffing, and I'll make the vegan cheese optional.

What to make when your Puerto Rican mother in law comes for lunch.

Make some sofrito.
Something with beans in a tortilla.
And some rice....

Sofrito
Adapted from Daisy Cooks (not vegan-PBS show chef)

1 big onion
1 big green bell pepper
1 big red bell pepper (or orange or yellow)
1-2 heads garlic (10-20 garlic cloves)
1 bunch cillantro
1 cup chopped tomato (fresh or canned-drained)

Chop everything in a food processor. Store in 1/2 cup portions in ziploc bags in the freezer.

Annatto oil
1/2 cup corn oil (or olive oil or whatever oil you like or have on hand)
1 TBS annatto seeds

Heat oil and seeds on mediun heat until seeds make sizzle-pop sound. Remove from heat, strain and use oil for latin flavor and red/yellow color.

Black bean and greens quesadillas

1 cup black beans
1 bunch greens (swiss chard, beet greens, spinach-yes, you can use canned or frozen)
1/2 cup sofrito
1-2 TBS annatto oil

1 package corn tortillas (or fajita size flour)

Saute ingredents together (except the tortillas, obviously) until greens are wilted/cooked.
Heat fry pan and add a some annatto oil to cover. Add tortilla flat and put black bean mixture on half. Fold in half and flip to crisp both sides.

Chipotle mayo
1 TBS vegan mayo (veganaise)
1tsp chipotle powder

Mix together and serve a dolop with quesadillas.

Spanishish rice

1 cup long grain (brown) rice
1 Tbs annatto oil
1/4 cup pitted alcaparrado (fancy name for olives with pimentos and capers)
1/2 cup sofrito

Cook rice according to package directions. When done add oil, olives and capers (and a little extra brine if you like) and sofrito. Mix together to heat through.

Serve it all together and wait for praise. Expect to send some home for father in law.