poppy seed noodles

There are actually a lot of peas in these noodles, too. I have never really used egg noodles much in the past, but I had some left over from the noodle kugel I made before. This dish is very simple but good in a nice, simple way. It's a perfect recipe for using up leftovers, and it can be made with non-perishables. The only bad thing about this recipe is that when you put it all together, the noodles go one way, and the peas go the other. So even though my picture looks like it was all just tossed together and served up, I actually had to artfully place the peas on top of the noodles. Oh, well. It was still good, and it tasted great with the soup and salad. I think I even like egg noodles better than regular pasta. Here's the recipe.

endive, pear & walnut salad with raspberry vinaigrette

Well, I made this salad with hazelnuts instead of walnuts, and spring mix instead of watercress and endive. New Seasons was out of endive. I did buy some watercress, but it was so strong and peppery tasting that I could barely finish one leaf. I guess all I ended up making from the recipe was the dressing, which was very good. Check out the recipe here. I have to say, though, homemade salad dressings are the best, for sure, but there's no sense going out and buying ingredients for them. It's the most fun to just make them up on your own, and anything would taste good with pears and hazelnuts.

roasted butternut bisque with spiced pumpkin seeds

This soup was really delicious, even though it's not really a good season to get butternut squash. First off, they're about $1.80/lb for organic, and the flavor is hit and miss. I got one sweet, delicious squash, and one bland squash, which dulled the richness of the soup. To make up for it, I ended up stirring in a teaspoon or so of curry powder into the soup. The pumpkin seeds were worth preparing the way they say to with curry powder and soy sauce. Also, I used apple juice instead of cider since it's June, but later I wondered if it wouldn't be good with a hard cider. Of course, it would be a complete waste of a good cider, and hard cider would probably taste good on the side with this soup. Here's the recipe again. 6 WW points with the seeds, 3 without. Oh, and I decided this was 8 servings instead of four. You'd probably want to cut this in half unless it was the only thing you were making.
Random thought: This soup with a grilled cheddar sandwich on rosemary bread. Mmmmmmmmmm.

'6 at 8' from the march 2005 issue

I was surfing through some back issues today and came across three recipes from a single article that I mostly had the ingredients for. I made the roasted butternut bisque with spiced pumpkin seeds, endive, pear & walnut salad with raspberry vinaigrette, and poppy seed noodles. I'll discuss them each in separate posts when I get around to it. It was a good dinner all together, but to eat a full serving size of each is a pretty huge meal.

provencal lentil salad

This salad was ok, but I probably won't make it again. I think if I am going to spend the time cooking up all those lentils, I might want to make something more delicious. Also note that most of the onion and the garlic gets cooked with the lentils, then thrown out, so it's kind of a waste. I suppose I could have thought of something better to flavor it with, but I wasn't really crazy about the fresh sage. Basil would be better. Mom suggested cilantro. Here's the recipe.

swirled berry cheesecake

I really have no willpower when it comes to cheesecake, so I was very excited to see a healthy-ish one in the June issue. Let me first just say that while there is a hint of tofu taste in this cheesecake, it is extremely delicious. The texture, when refrigerated, is so unbelievably creamy. It is just a good plain cheesecake recipe. Now, it does not taste as decadent as a big eating-disorder-inducing Costco cheesecake, but it is worth the trade-off for all that guilt. But I really want to stress that it is waaayyyy better refrigerated. We had it warm the first night, and it was just good. The next day it was fantastic, but the crust was starting to get a tiny bit soggy. That always seems to happen with cookie crusts. Mark says it is 75% as good as regular cheesecake, and he is highly suspicious of tofu desserts.

First I will mention a few ingredient notes. I used reduced-fat 'Nilla Wafers for the crust, which worked fine. I also realized that silken tofu comes in soft or firm. I always thought the silken firm tofu was like regular firm tofu, but it's not. It gets that same super-creamy texture when blended, but is better for pies. The silken soft tofu is better for smoothies. I used the silken firm, but opted to not get the low-fat. As good as this turned out, though, next time I'll try the low-fat. I also forgot the lemon zest. It would have maybe covered up the minor tofu taste. And the recipe calls for 1/2 cup of jam, but I only used about 2 or 3 tablespoons. Since the recipe says to strain it, I just saved a step and used jelly.

OK, now on to the assembly. The recipe says to press the crust 1/2 inch up the sides of the pan, but their picture clearly show a much higher crust. I made mine taller on the sides, but it took some patience. I think 7 or 8 ounces of cookies (instead of 6) would make a perfect crust. Mine was a little thin on the bottom.
A good resource on water-bath baking, and all other cooking topics, is the Joy of Cooking. If you are learning to cook, it is the single best resource for all stages of experience. Of course, you all who I know are already fantastic cooks. Maybe that's why you're my friends.
Here's a sum-up: Cheesecakes have to (or should, at least) be baked in a water bath. The whole process involving the towel makes it so that the springform pan is not in contact with any other metal, keeping the springform pan from getting too hot. The water bath also helps regulate the temperature of the pan, letting the cheesecake bake evenly, as opposed to baking from the edges inward. This results in a cake that is equally creamy and moist at the center and at the edges. And the foil wrapped around the pan keeps water from leaking in through the bottom of the springform pan. If you choose to bake this in some other sort of dish, you probably wouldn't need the foil. Am I wrong? Does the foil do something else? It may seem like a hassle to get out the big roasting pan, but you'll want plenty of room to pour the boiling water in. However, one teapot of water might not be enough for the big pan, so have lots of hot water ready. I needed two teapots full. Here's a picture of the whole water bath setup:

Also, I was bored with the same old stripey pattern they made with the jam, so I made cosmic swirls. Here it is just out of the oven:

This shows what a serving size looks like- just 5 WW points!! I put a few of the pieces in the freezer so I don't pull the old 'better eat this up so it doesn't go bad' move. I hope they survive.

Here's the recipe!

late summer succotash

Nope, it's not late summer. And judging by this cruddy weather, I'd say it's not even springtime. So this was more of a freezer-section succotash. Trader's doesn't appear to carry lima beans, which is too bad since I haven't had them in forever. I got their soy-cu-tash, which is soybeans, corn, and a tiny bit of bell pepper. I used a whole bag in place of the lima beans and corn. This was really good! So fresh and light tasting, but still filling and carb-tasting, you know what I mean? It doesn't taste like you're eating a pile of vegetables. I used regular balsamic instead of white, because I wouldn't even know where to find white balsamic. If you don't love vinegar, it would still be great without- just add more basil. But don't leave out the tomatoes- they really make the dish. I also didn't cook the tomatoes in with the rest of the stuff like they say to-I just stirred them in after taking the pan off the heat. I also gave it a big dash of kosher salt, because nothing tastes better on corn and tomatoes than salt.

Here's the recipe.

2 WW points per serving with 1 tsp of olive oil in place of the butter and oil.

mango-wrapped bananas

Here's something that I made just because it was healthy, but actually turned out tasting really decadent and sweet. The recipe is from the current issue - June 2008. I even had just a so-so mango. I made it with nonfat yogurt, and only one tablespoon of honey instead of two. I also used 1/2 tablespoon of OJ concentrate instead of orange juice. I do that because we don't drink OJ, and Vegetarian Times often calls for a spoonful here and there.

Now, I understand that they like to make nice pictures for the magazine. I am not opposed to nice pictures. However, when you take a piece of banana and wrap it in a strip of mango, you really just end up with a choking hazard. That said, this was one of those recipes where all the flavors together tasted better that the sum of it's parts. And that's what being a BVTRE is all about. I will make this again for sure, but maybe in a salad form. Maybe it would be good cut into bite-sized pieces served on a toothpick with the yogurt as a dipping sauce. Besides, mangoes just don't slice into thin strips.

One serving is just 3 points. My picture shows one choking hazard less than a serving.

Willkommen!

My friend Hannah just told me she's got her family in Germany onto this blog - how exciting! It's so great when I hear that there are actually people out there reading this thing!

I just wanted also to make a few comments about nutrition info. I found a delicious looking cake I wanted to make, a tangerine-glazed polenta cake. How good does that sound? When I entered the nutritional info provided by Vegetarian Times into Weight Watchers, it came up with 8 points per slice. A splurge, but worth it. Then I entered the actual ingredient list into WW, and it calculated 12 points per serving. That's just too much of a splurge for me nowadays. So I had to consult a third party. I found the website http://www.nutritiondata.com/, which allows you to create recipes and it calculates the nutritional info for you. That website's results for the cake were consistent with Weight Watchers (thankfully, since I'm paying them), with the cake at around 350 calories per slice, while VT claimed it was only 241 calories per slice. The fat content was also off by a similar margin. Vegetarian times may have miscalculated the serving size, but they considered a serving to be 1/12 of the cake. I haven't tested out any more recipes, but for people who are counting calories, this is significant. Also, I am disappointed in my favorite magazine. Since this information is available online and for free, I don't think they should be making these kinds of errors.

That said, this it still my favorite magazine, and I am only being critical because I really use it allot. Just kidding, wanted to make you teachers crazy.
A lot!

noodle kugel with caramelized apples and raisins

This recipe may sound a little odd, but it is absolutely delicious. It would be a perfect brunch potluck recipe, because it is good hot or cold, or anywhere in between. It is a little sweet, tart from the yogurt, cheesy, and very filling. I suppose I didn't totally caramelize the apples, but it was still great.

I made a half recipe and it fit perfectly into a 1.5 qt casserole dish. Making this into four servings (instead of six) and with nonfat cottage cheese and yogurt, and canola oil instead of butter, there are 6 WW points per serving.

Also- I just got a new digital camera, so hopefully these excessively crummy pictures will be a thing of the past.