Vegetarian Jiaozi

We just got back from a trip to China, where we found a great Jiaozi restaurant in Beijing. Their vegetarian dumplings inspired me to try some at home. Here are a couple that tasted yummy!

Fillings for Jiaozi (Chinese dumplings).

Green Veggie Filling:
1 bunch spinach: rinsed, large stems removed
1/2 bunch cilantro: rinsed, large stems removed
1/2 bunch water cress: rinsed, large stems removed
1 handful of chives finely chopped.
1 tablespoon roasted sesame oil
salt to taste

Chop spinach, cilantro, water cress briefly in a food processor, in small batches. Add chopped chives and salt. Let sit for a few minutes. Using a strainer, squeeze water out of greens. Add sesame oil and mix in.

Mushroom Filling:
1 lb crimini mushrooms, cleaned
12 lb fresh shitake mushrooms, cleaned and thinly sliced.
3 cloves garlic, minced.
1 tablespoon cooking oil
Cooking sherry
Salt to taste

Chop crimini mushrooms in food processor. Saute in oil with sherry, garlic, and salt. When mostly cooked and water evaporated, add shitake and more cooking sherry as required. Cook until shitake is just tender. Cool filling before making dumplings.

Iron Aki's Birthday Bash

For my birthday I asked all the guests to bring an ingredient that I would make into a dish. I made 11 dishes that night. They are:
1. Edamame, cucumber, wakame salad
2. Hummous
3. Lichen, eggplant, seitan, stir-fry
4. Squash, tamarind, cocunut curry served on top of quinoa
5. Roast veggies with beets, carrots, rosemary, onions
6. Cauliflower tofu stir fry
7. Miayaki, shitake, sugar peas stir-fry
8. Fruit salad with mint, papaya, pomegranate syrup, flowers
9. Tomatillo mango salsa
10. Braised beans with roasted peppers, onions, tomato paste
11. Pressed salad with colabri, apple, red peppers, onions

Contributions:
Bev: Edamame
Dad and Mom: Lichen, Seitan, Eggplant
Sven: Rosemary (he cut from our garden)
Erik: Fresh Tamarind
John and Coral: Cooked Kidney Beans
Bob: Broccoli, Arugula, Cherry Toms, Basil, Colabri
Steve: Beets, Sweet Peppers, Carrots, Onions, Hot Peppers, Cucumber
Michi: Cauliflower
Jackie: Tomatillos, Hot Smoked Paprika (yum!)
Peter: Mango, Papaya
Carl: Eggplant, Miayaki
Kathleen and Robin: Pomegranate Syrup
Laura: Flowers, Anaheim peppers
John and Molly: Peppers, Cabbage
Trisha: Cooked Quinoa

It was a blast!

Lemon Cake with Fresh Stawberry Sauce

This cake was light, and had a nice lemony flavor. Add to that a fresh strawberry sauce, and it was delicious!

For Cake

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2 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup oil

teaspoon vanilla

grated zest from one large lemon

juice from the same lemon

1 1/3 cup vanilla soy or rice milk

Preheat oven to 375. Prepare two 9 in cake pans (with oil and dusted with flour).

Whisk together all dry ingredients in large bowl. Whisk together oil, vanilla, juice, and zest in a smaller bowl. Add oil mixture to dry and stir until the flour is damp. Add "milk" slowly and mix until cake batter consistency. Pour evenly into two cake pans.

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Reduce oven to 365 and bake for another 10 minutes or until golden brown on top. Cool on racks. Vegan cakes can break apart easily, so handle with car.

For Strawberry Sauce

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2 pints of fresh strawberries

1/4 cup sugar (to taste)

pinch salt

Rinse strawberries and remove stems. Take 1/2 the strawberries and 1/2 the sugar and puree in blender or food processor. Pour into bowl. Put the rest of the strawberries and sugar, and chop for a second or two in food processor. Add chopped strawberries to puree. Mix together and add a pinch of salt. Add more sugar if desired. Keep cool until serving.

When ready to serve, put one cake on serving dish. Cover with thick layer of sauce. Put next cake layer on top. Cover with more sauce. Serve with favorite whipped type topping (optional).

Almost Vegan Lasagna

My mother can't eat onions, my father is on a low-cholesterol diet, and Erik doesn't eat ricotta cheese (too much lactose). This yummy lasagna met all dietary restrictions.

1/2 package Lasagna noodles, cooked per instructions on box.

Tofu filling

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2 packages of fresh extra firm tofu

1 bag of spinach leaves, washed, steamed, squeezed dry, chopped

teaspoon salt

Sauce

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2 6oz cans tomato paste

5 cloves of garlic minced

1 tablespoon each of dried thyme and oregano

1/3 cup red cooking wine

4 cans of water (about 1 1/2 cups)

salt to taste

1 1/2 packages of soy mozzarella, grated.

1-2 oz of regular low moisture mozzarella (optional), grated.

To prepare sauce:

Combine all ingredients in sauce pan. Add more water if too thick, but thick is good. Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

To prepare filling:

Combine tofu, spinach, salt together in bowl. Crumble tofu and combine with spinach until the tofu is all a uniform size (small).

To prepare casserole:

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large lasagna pan, layer the ingredients as follows: sauce, noodles, stuffing, soy cheese. Repeat. Put a little real mozzarella on the top layer, so it melts/browns better. Bake for 40 minutes or until top is brown and cheese nicely melted.

Update 12/09/2010

Home made pasta makes this lasagna even better. Here is a recipe from Jackie DeCiccio

2 cups white flour

1 cup semolina flour

3 eggs

Water

In a large mixing bowl, fix the flour together. Break in the eggs in the center. Using a fork, mix the egg with the flour, starting in the center and working out. Add enough water to make a stiff, but not sticky dough. Knead the dough into a ball. Cut ball of dough in half - wrap 1/2 in plastic so it doesn't dry. Process the other 1/2 through favorite pasta making machine to make lasagna noodles.

Frozen Peach Pie

Sven wanted Peach Pie in the middle of the winter. So, we bought frozen peaches but added fresh ginger and a meyers lemon to make it tasty. We were pleased the results.

Preheat oven to 375

Double pie crust for a 9 inch pie

2 packages of frozen Cascadian Farns Organic Peach Slices (or equivalent)

1 meyers lemon (zest and juice)

3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons corn starch (or more if watery)

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Put in bottom pie crust. Cover with top crust and pierce with a fork several times. Brush crust with milk or water.

Bake at 375 for 45 minutes or until brown.

Suman's Dal

Dr. Suman sent me this recipe, but the amount of lentils was incorrect. After cooking watery (but tasty) dal a couple of times, I doubled the amount of lentils and the results were wonderful. Easy to make and delicious. I eliminate the peppers when I serve to my family.

Oil
Pinch tumeric
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 onion - diced
5 cloves garlic - finely chopped
1-2 green chilis (optional) - sliced long.
1 cup red dal
3 cups water
salt to taste

Add teaspoon of oil to a deep pan.
Add a pinch of turmeric.
Once it is warm add cumin and mustard seeds.
Let the mustard seeds break as they fry.
Add onion and cook until golden brown.
Add garlic and green chilis
Add dal and mix with the ingredients.
Add salt to taste and mix for 2-3 min.
Add 3 cups of water and close the lid, let it cook for 15min.

Scallion Cakes

A friend asked me for the recipe for Scallion Cakes recently. Since I typed it in for him, I thought I would cut and paste here also.

From "How to Cook and Eat in Chinese" by Buwei Yang Chao (my Grandmother).

20.8 Fried Scallion Cake
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4 cups flour
2 cups water
1 bunch scallions chopped fine
vegetable oil
salt to taste

Knead the flour and water into a soft dough and divide into 6 portions. Roll each portion into a disc about 1 foot in diameter. Spread on each disc, 2 tablespoons scallions, 1 tablespoon oil, sprinkle salt.

Roll up each cake as you would a carpet. Then twist into a spiral (think nautilus). Flatten with rolling pin until about 6 inch disc.

Heat oil in frying pan. Put in a cake, cover, and fry for about 2 minutes. on each side over medium fire. Turn to low and fry for about 3 more minutes on each side. Remove when light brown on outside and soft on the inside. Pat off excess oil with paper towel. Cut into 6 pieces. Serve hot. Goes well with congee according to Gramma.