Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Light Zucchini Cream for Pasta

I haven't tried making this yet, but it looks delicious!
Recipe is from VegWeb, I'll edit/update once I've actually tried it. I think this might be really good with some ricotta cheese (because I'm not a vegan).
Ingredients:
  • 1 medium zucchini
  • 1 medium carrot
  • 1 medium onion
  • 2 garlic cloves
    salt, pepper, any seasonings you prefer
    olive oil or cooking spray
  • pasta, any type
Procedure:
Bring water to boil and start cooking pasta. (This amount of sauce is enough for about 10oz of pasta.)

Roughly grate zucchini and carrot. I like to leave the skin on zucs because those tiny green pieces of it look very pretty.

Chop onion and mince garlic.

In a skillet fry onion and carrot in some olive oil (or use cooking spray) until onion is clear. Add grated zucchini and garlic and saute for 5 minutes until it's done.

Transfer into blender and run it until the sauce gets all creamy. Salt and pepper to taste.

Your pasta should be done by now. Drain it. Return sauce to a skillet, add pasta and heat a minute or so.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Yellow Tofu Curry

I made a delicious dish last night. It's a yellow curry, which is the least spicy of the thai curries, and was made using a yellow curry sauce from my local gourmet food store (read - Trader Joe's).
Ingredients:
1 yellow pepper
2 red peppers
1 onion
1/2 block tofu
flour
Frozen or canned pineapple (or fresh)
Vegetable oil
1/2 bottle Trader Joe's Yellow Thai Curry Sauce

Equipment:
Vidalia Chop Wizard (or vegetable knife)
knife and cutting board
paper towels or dishtowel
frying pan
wok
shallow plastic dish to hold flour to coat tofu

Procedure:
  1. Chop vegetables.
  2. Cut tofu into 1 inch cubes.
  3. Coat tofu lightly with flour.
  4. Heat approx. 2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil in frying pan.
  5. Fry tofu until cripsy and brown on all sides.
  6. Drain on paper towels/dish towel. Set aside.
  7. Heat small amount of oil (1tbsp) in wok.
  8. Add onions. Cook until transparent.
  9. Add peppers. Cook until light red instead of bright red.
  10. Add sauce.
  11. Add tofu.
  12. Stir until coated and heated.
Can be served over rice or noodles.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Cupcake fat replacement

Last night I made applesauce cupcakes - that is cupcakes with applesauce instead of oil. I made a half batch, so just twelve, which is too many as it is. But they came out delicious and fluffy, which has been a problem in the past.
This time, I replaced the full amount of oil with an equal amount of applesauce. I had read somewhere to only use half as much applesauce, but that's not going to work as well. So I was making a half batch, so I used a half of a third of a cup (I love my OXO measuring cups that have half markings on them!) of applesauce. I also used egg whites, two egg whites instead of one and a half eggs. I whipped them up with the mixer for about a minute until they were at that almost ready to fluff stage, but not peaking or anything. I think this contributed to the fact that the cupcakes were not as dense as they were the last time.
I used the full half-cup of water. They say sometimes to reduce the water when using applesauce, but I didn't and it was fine.
Using unsweetened applesauce and egg whites takes out most of the fat from the recipe, and they taste just like normal cupcakes that you might make from mix. I was using white cake mix, and you really can't taste the difference.