Pea-Guacamole

It's true, it's not guacamole. But, if you have a hankering for guacamole and no ripe avocados on hand (or if you're trying to be healthy or something), this'll do the trick. As with regular guacamole, you can add pretty much anything you want: tomatoes, fresh cilantro, cumin, red pepper flakes. This recipe just represents what I had on hand at the time.

Mock-amole (Pea-based Guacamole)
adapted from Daily Loafing

Ingredients:
1 cup peas
1 clove garlic
1/4 red onion
1 T. lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Combine all ingredients, and pulse a few times in the food processor until desired consistency.

Spring Rolls

Super tasty. I've made this recipe 3 times now. My family gives it two thumbs up, though they like it better when I saute the bean sprouts in with the rest of the ingredients.


Spring Rolls
adapted from about.com

Ingredients:
3 cloves garlic
1 thumb-size piece of ginger
2 green onions
1 t. cayenne pepper
1/2 cup shredded cabbage
6 shiitake mushrooms (or other mushrooms), sliced into matchstick sized pieces
1/2 cup firm tofu, sliced into matchstick pieces
2 cups bean sprouts
1/2 cup fresh basil
2 T. oil, plus more for frying
1 package egg roll wrappers
2 T. soy sauce
2 T. vegetarian stir-fry sauce
2 T. lemon juice (or lime)
1/2 t. sugar

Instructions:
1. Put the 2 T. oil into a pan, and heat to medium-high heat.
2. In a bowl, combine soy sauce, stir-fry sauce, lime juice, and sugar. Mix until sugar is dissolved.
3. Mince garlic, peel and grate ginger, and chop shallots into match stick sized pieces. Combine all plus the the cayenne pepper into the pan. Sauté until fragrant
4. Add mushrooms, cabbage, and tofu to pan. Then add soy sauce mixture and basil. Cook until vegetables are softened.
5. Pour mixture into mixing bowl, and toss with bean sprouts.
6. Pour oil into a fry-safe pan (not tefalon), until about 1 1/2 in. deep. Heat on medium high heat, until you can drop a bit of egg roll wrapper in and it starts to bubble and cook immediately, but not so hot that it starts to blacken quickly, or so that the oil smokes.
7. Place an egg roll wrapper so a corner is facing you. Put filling in the top half, leaving 1/2 inches unfilled around the edge of that half. Then, start to roll top corner down over the filling. Once the half way mark has been reached, fold each side corner over so that no filling is showing, and finish rolling downwards. Once you get to the end, seal the final corner (the one closest to you) to the roll by dabbing a little bit of water between it and the rest of the roll.
8. Place rolls in oil, and cook until golden brown in color with bubbly crust.
9. Use tongs to take out of oil, and drain on plate lined with paper towels.

Thai Peanut Sauce

Probably one of the most delicious (and easy) sauces I've ever made/eaten. I highly recommend.



Thai Peanut Sauce
from friend Julia
Use: combine with 12 oz. dry pasta, cooked and still moist

Ingredients:
1" knob of ginger, peeled and grated
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 tsp chili paste
1/2 cup peanut butter (I prefer smooth for this recipe)
1/4 cup soy sauce (or substitute soy sauce and sugar for 1/2 cup mr. yoshida's sauce)
2 tsp sugar
3 Tbs rice vinegar
3 Tbs toasted sesame oil

Instructions:
1. Add all ingredients to blender, and blend until smooth (2 minutes on high speed), adding water if needed to give it a more saucy consistency.3. Combine with cooked pasta and mix throughly, or use as a dip for egg rolls or vegetables.

Pizza Cups

Cute dinner item, and quick to make (especially if you're lazy like me and used the boxed pizza dough mix X.X) I also made little sugar cookie-based desert pizzas to go along with this, but they did not have structural integrity. I'll work on that recipe and post it one day : )

Pizza Cups
adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients:
Dough for 1 pizza crust
sauce
cheese
toppings

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 450 F
2. Spray a 6-cupcake tin with oil
3. Divide dough into 6 equal pieces, flatten out into circles that fit perfectly into the cupcake tin, and place in tin.
4. Fill dough with all the fillings that will fit. Don't worry if they pile over, they'll cook down in the oven.
5. Bake for 15 mins or until dough is golden brown and cheese is melted

Pita Bread

With the tzatziki, falafel, this pita bread, and my hummus recipe, this created an epic dinner of deliciousness.



Pita Bread
from The New Moosewood

Ingredients:
1 cup luke-warm water
1 1/2 t. yeast
1 T. sugar
1 t. salt
3 1/2 c. flour

Instructions:
1. Place the water in a bowl, and sprinkle in yeast. Let stand for 5 mins.
2. Add sugar and salt, and stir until dissolved.
3. Add 3 cups of flour, 1 cup at a time. First cup, whisk in. Second cup, use a wooden spoon to mix. Last cup, use your hands to knead it in. Knead in the bowl, adding flour until it's not sticky.
4. Cover bowl with saran wrap and let rise for an hour.
5. Punch down dough and knead on a floured surface for 5 mins.
6. Preheat oven to 500 F.
7. Divide dough into 6 pieces. Knead each piece for a few minutes, then flatten with a rolling pin into 1/8 inch diameters. Let rest for 30 mins.
8. Place baking tray in oven for a couple minutes. Then take out, spray with oil, and put pitas on. Cook for 6-8 mins.
9. Remove pitas from pan, wrap in a clean, moist towel, and place in a paper bag for 15 minutes to soften.

Tzatziki

DELICIOUS, thick Tzatziki sauce. Truly rivals all that I've had in restaurants. Easy and fun to make, just takes time to drain. This picture really doesn't capture how nice and thick it got.


Tzatziki
adapted from Ina Garten

Ingredients:
1 cup sour cream
1 cucumber, seeded and diced
1 T. salt
2 T. lemon juice
1 T. vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 t. fresh dill
1/4 t. fresh ground black pepper

Instructions:
1. Combine all ingredients.
2. Line a bowl with a large paper towel, and pour all ingredients into it.
3. Wrap towel up, tie together with a twist tie, and hang to drip over a bowl in the fridge for 2-3 hours to thicken. (What I did is placed 5 or so chopsticks over a bowl and set the package on the chopsticks. Worked well)
4. Untie towel and scrap into a bowl for use.

Instructions:

Falafel

This was a delicious recipe for falafel that I found in my new Moosewood cookbook. They didn't stick together well, but that's okay. It was tasty regardless.




Falafel (she spells it Felafel in Moosewood)
from The New Moosewood

Ingredients:
2 15-oz. chick peas
1/3 cup flour
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 t. cumin
1 t. turmeric
1 t. salt
1/2 cup minced onion
1/4 c. minced parsely (packed)
1/4 c. water
1 T. lemon juice
few dashes of cayenne
oil for frying (peanut, olive, or another high smokepoint oil)

Instructions:
1. Pour enough oil into a fry-safe pan (not Teflon) to reach an inch. Heat until when you drop a bit of batter into the oil, it starts to bubble, and slowly turn golden-brown, but so it doesn't turn black instantly or the oil isn't smoking.
2. Drain chickpeas, and combine all ingredients except flour and oil into the food processor. Process until uniform consistency.
3. Scrape batter into a bowl, add flour, and stir in until combined.
4. Drop a few tablespoons of batter into the pan, and flattening each slightly. Fry until each side is golden brown. If you don't flatten the patties out throughly, the centers will cause them to fall apart. You want the thickness to be consistent throughout.
5. Place cooked falafel on a plate lined with paper towels.