Category: Meatless/Veg*n

Meatless/Veg*n – Savory recipes which do not contain any meat or which may fall into either the vegetarian (no meat or fish) or vegan (no animal products of any kind) categories. Dishes generally feature beans or vegetables as the central ingredients. We will not be putting baked goods and desserts in this category, although most of our baking will be vegan (and will be tagged as such). These recipes will not contain dairy, eggs, gluten, wheat or hazelnuts. If we use a top 8 allergen, we will use a tag warning of its use.

Quick-ish Marinara Sauce
Quick-ish Marinara with Meatballs and Gluten Free Penne

One of the things I really miss is a great meatball sub with gobs of cheese. Since I’m allergic to dairy, wheat, and eggs (in addition to what feels like 50 million other things) that’s a little hard. I haven’t totally figured it out yet, because there isn’t a vegan cheese that works for me because of my coconut, almond, and corn allergies. I’m also missing a sub roll, as I’m still trying to figure out gluten-free, corn-free, dairy-free, and egg-free bread, but I’ve gotten two steps on the way. This week I’ll be posting a marinara sauce you can use for meatball subs, pasta, or for anything else that you need tomato sauce. In two weeks, I’ll be posting a recipe for meatballs. For those of you that have a safe bread and a safe cheese you can use, you’ll have everything you need for a meatball sub. I’m totally jealous of all of you, and while I’m working on it, I’m just going to eat the meatballs and sauce over pasta, which isn’t bad either.

The reason that this is a quick-ish marinara sauce is that I’m using crushed canned tomatoes and canned tomato paste (Cento brand – no citric acid in crushed, tomato puree or paste, but watch out as other Cento canned tomato varieties do have citric acid, which can be corn derived), rather than starting from tomatoes. It still takes some time to simmer, making it a weekend dish, but you can freeze the leftovers and use it for a meal or two during the week with little to no prep.

Quick-ish Marinara Sauce
- 1 large onion, diced very finely
- 3 stalks of celery, diced finely
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 carrot (use a vegetable peeler or a micro planer to peel or zest until the carrot’s just a pile of peels or zest)
- 1 Tablespoon of olive oil
- 1 – 8 ounce can of tomato paste
- 2 – 28 cans of crushed tomatoes or tomato puree
- 1 cup of vegetable stock or water
- 1/2 cup of white or red wine (your preference, I used white becuse my tomatoes needed brightening) or use additional vegetable stock or water
- 1/4 teaspoon of oregano
- 1/4 teaspoon of marjoram
- 1/4 teaspoon of thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon of dried basil (if not using fresh basil below, double the amount)
- 1/4 teaspoon of rosemary
- 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper
- 10 fresh leaves of basil, chopped
- salt to taste (I used about a teaspoon this time to get it where I like it)
Dice your onions and celery, mince your garlic, and zest or peel your carrot.

Diced Onions

Diced Celery

In a large stock pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat and add your onions, celery, garlic and carrots. Saute them until the onions and celery are somewhat translucent.

Onions, celery, garlic, and carrots being sauted

Add the contents of the can of tomato paste and stir it into the vegetables so it is equally distributed throughout. Then add your cans of crushed tomatoes, the vegetable stock, and the white wine. Stir thoroughly. Reduce the heat to medium low (about 3-4 on my burner dial).

Add your oregano, marjoram, thyme, dried basil, rosemary and black pepper to the sauce and stir to incorporate the spices into the sauce. Chop your basil if you have not already, and add it to the sauce, again stirring thoroughly.

Marinara simmering

Continue to simmer your sauce on medium low until the carrot has dissolved completely into the sauce and the sauce is the consistency you prefer (for me, this is about an hour or so). Once you have reached that point, taste your sauce to see if it needs any salt and add it at that time. I found that I needed about 1/2 of a teaspoon. If you find that your sauce is too acidic, sometimes I will add about a teaspoon of brown sugar and that helps.

Stay tuned for the meatball recipe to be posted in two weeks!

Yummy Quick-ish Marinara
September 16, 2013
Brown Rice “Couscous” Veggie Bowl
Generally those of us with multiple food allergies can rely on very little in the way of packaged or convenience foods. Given that both Denise and I also work full-time, sometimes feeding oneself on a serious time budget becomes, well, problematic. When I still ate wheat, couscous was something I always had on hand because it cooked quickly and was a good neutral base for an easy saute of whatever was in the fridge at the time. I operated on the easy model of “beans, greens, and grain.”

This is a version of that — using a Lundberg brown rice couscous with roasted garlic flavor as the “grain” base for a nice stir fry of Swiss chard from my friend Mary’s garden. Add in a leftover sweet potato and a caramelized Vidalia onion and I had a good dinner with three lunch portions leftover. Add a can of white beans or some leftover meat for a protein boost, serve this as a side dish, or think up your own variation — this is more of a formula than a recipe, really, and one I honestly repeat over and over throughout the year for easy weeknight meals.

Gluten-free Veggie Couscous Bowl

Makes 4 servings
- 1 large Vidalia onion, halved and sliced thin
- 1 Tablespoon some form of fat
- I box Lundberg brown rice couscous
- 1 bunch of Swiss chard, washed, rolled, sliced, and then chopped
- 1-2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1-3 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 sweet potato, cooked
- salt and pepper to taste
Melt shortening/butter/margarine/bacon fat/olive oil in large skillet over medium low heat. When sizzling hot, add onions. Stir thoroughly to coat with oils, and cook low and slow until well-browned, about 45 minutes or so. Stir occasionally.

If you need to cook the sweet potato, throw it in the oven at 375F after washing it and poking vent holes in the skin. I’d personally suggest making more than one and use the leftovers in another dish later in the week.

In a separate stockpot, bring water to a boil as directed on the box of the couscous. When the water is boiling, add the seasonings (if you can have them) and the couscous. Cover, reduce heat, and set the timer — again, basically follow the directions on the box, omitting the seasoning if you cannot have them.

While these things cook, wash and drain the chard leaves. Chop off the stems. Slice these thinly like celery and set aside. Stack the leaves, and then roll them up tightly to slice thinly to create small ribbons of chard. Cut lengthwise along the leaves next, to make the ribbons shorter.

When the onions are finished cooking, remove them from the skillet. Add a tiny amount of olive oil to the fat left in the pan, if needed, and then add the garlic and chard in quick succession. Stir thoroughly, and cook until the chard is fully wilted (4-8 minutes).

In a large serving bowl, mix all ingredients — couscous, chard, sweet potato, and onion. Taste, and then season appropriately with salt and pepper.
August 12, 2013
15 Minute Salsa
15 Minute Salsa on a Beanito Chip

Since I also cannot buy salsa during this whole elimination torture thing (most have celery and onion, which are two no-no’s at the moment), I whipped this up so I’d have something to eat at my book group, since I’d gotten “regular” allergen-filled food for everyone else. I wasn’t going for culinary genius, but just something incredibly quick that wouldn’t be awful, based on what I had in the fridge and cupboards. And when it was done, I was surprised that it came out so well, and Mary Kate suggested I write it up on the blog. If you are not avoiding onion, you can add an small onion to this and I’m sure it would be lovely. You need a food processor to do this one. I tried it in a blender, but I just didn’t get the result I wanted. This is also a fast one, the fifteen minutes includes washing the food processor (if you have the jar of taco seasoning made up ahead of time).

15 Minute Salsa
- 1 red bell pepper, de-stemmed and de-seeded, and cut into large chunks.
- 1 jalapeno pepper, de-stemmed and de-seeded, and cut into large chunks.
- 4-5 cloves of garlic, peeled with the stem end trimmed
- 5 tomatoes, stem end trimmed, and cut into eighths (I don’t seed my tomatoes because I don’t mind seeds, but if you do, feel free to take them out, but you might want to add another tomato)
- 2 Tablespoons of Taco Seasoning (see recipe from our Taco Beef for Tacos, Salads and Nachos post)
- 1/3 cup of red wine vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon of olive oil
De-stem, de-seed and cut red bell pepper and the jalapeno pepper into chunks. Trim stem ends of garlic.

Red bell pepper, jalapeno pepper and garlic

Core tomatoes and cut them into eighths.

Tomatoes, showing cored and cut into eighths

Put peppers, garlic and tomatoes into your food processor. You may need to do this in batches, I have to because my food processor is on the small size. Have a large bowl read to dump your batches in. Pulse until you get the consistency you like. I prefer it a little more processed.

Salsa in food processor

Once you have all your processing batches in the large bowl, stir it well so that all the peppers, garlic and tomatoes are well mixed through out the salsa. Your veggies may look a little frothy, but that’ll sort out once you add the remaining ingredients. Add the taco seasoning, red wine vinegar, and olive oil.

Salsa before seasoning, vinegar and oil are mixed in.

Mix all the ingredients together with a spatula making sure that all the spice mixture gets evenly distributed. This makes about 5-6 cups of salsa so it’s a great recipe for a party. Enjoy!

Salsa, ready to eat!!
July 22, 2013
Cashew-Chocolate Pudding Popsicles
Cashew-Chocolate Pudding Popsicle!

When we were trying to think up something festive for this holiday week, we considered that ice cream seemed the best way to go. July 4th is a barbeque holiday, yes, (though why independence and charred tubes of mystery meat are so closely inter-related I will never understand), but we’ve covered barbeque pretty well up to now, and thought dessert was more appropriate. And it’s summer. So, ICE CREAM!

This was intended, originally, to be an ice cream recipe, but it ended up being more of a frozen pudding somehow. Which, what do you do with frozen pudding? Make popsicles, of course.

This is a plan ahead recipe! There are two pieces that need to sit OVERNIGHT, two separate nights, and then things need to freeze. We just want you to know, because, sometimes, maybe, people don’t read all the directions first. Not that we would ever start a recipe without reading all the directions…

This uses homemade cashew milk (I’m not actually sure there is a commercial version, but if there is, it’s probably expensive), so you will need to soak the cashews overnight. The water will look sort of scummy afterwards. Don’t worry! This is normal, and you’re getting rid of it anyway.

The next overnight is cooling your ice cream/frozen pudding mixture. The last is freezing your pops. So here you go.

What do you do with frozen pudding? Make a fudgesicle. Duh.

Cashew-Chocolate Pudding Popsicles
- 1 1/4 cup cashew pieces, soaked overnight
- 1 1/4 cup water
Blend to death in a blender — seriously, just turn it on and let it go for 5 minutes or so. You will not be straining this, so you want it smooth. This should yield 2 cups or more of cashew milk — you need 2 cups for the recipe. Use the rest for coffee.
- 2 cups cashew milk, 1/4 cup of this set aside
- 1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon arrowroot starch/powder
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 3 oz dark chocolate (check this for allergens)
- 1 oz food-grade cocoa butter
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla
Mix the arrowroot and the 1/4 cup cashew milk and set aside.

In a sauce pan over medium-low heat, mix the rest of the cashew milk, sugar, cocoa, dark chocolate, and cocoa butter. Melt the solids, whisk them in, and cook, whisking often, until the mixture reaches a low boil. Do not turn up the heat to achieve the boil. This takes time!

When the mixture is boiling, remove from the heat. Whisk in the arrowroot mixture and the vanilla.

Cool overnight in the fridge.

Now from here you can go one of two ways. We put this through the ice cream maker, following the maker’s instructions, and then decided it was better as pops. It’s likely that you can skip this step, but let’s be honest — some of us are a little superstitious, and since it worked right the first way (going through the ice cream maker), that’s how we did it.

Now for the pops, we used Dixie bathroom paper cups, 3 oz. each, leftover from a party we had last year, and they seemed to be the perfect size for this rich treat — no one really wanted a larger pop, and they do melt reasonably fast. If you have popsicle molds, give them a try, but we recommend the little cups. Perfect portions, and easy removal — just tear the cup off. Fill it to the top and add a popsicle stick (it’s thick enough to stay standing straight).

Makes about 12 pops, give or take a few, depending on how much of the pudding/frozen pudding you taste first.
July 1, 2013
Red Lentil Dal Burger
Red Lentil Dal Burger

I LOVE dal. It’s almost a perfect food — cheap, easy to make, adaptable, tasty… But it can be difficult, like so many other things, to order out at a restaurant with allergies. Dal is one of those dishes that seems to have a thousand and one “family recipes” so you never know what you might encounter when you order it out, though ghee is the most common questionable ingredient, cream is sometimes used.

The real question is why it took so long for me to learn to make my own.

When we were talking veggie burgers that would be grillable, this was the one of the first things that came to mind. It would be different from your standard Boca (which is soy-based), but wouldn’t even attempt to be like a meat burger. Flavor would be the key. In this case, rather than even attempt to interpret multiple recipes and see what might sound good, I went on instinct, with flavors I knew I liked that I thought would stand up to grilling in a patty shape. The mustard seeds and the chia seeds add a nice bit of texture and crunch, but the key is the counter-intuitive practice of blooming the spices in hot oil and adding them to the beans at the end of cooking.

You will need to cool down the dal and then briefly (an hour or so) refrigerate the burgers, so plan ahead or make these the day before.

Lentil Burgers with Authentic Grill Marks

Red Lentil Dal Burgers

In medium saucepan, mix:
- 1 cup red lentils, washed and sorted
- 3 cups water
Bring to boil and simmer 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the lentils no longer retain structural integrity. Remove from heat.

Spice mix to add to dal:
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
- 1/2 cup finely minced onion
- 3/4 t salt
- 2 Tablespoons microplaned ginger
- 1 Tablespoon chopped garlic
- 2 teaspoons minced cilantro
Heat a small skillet over medium low heat until hot. Add the oil. Let it heat up a minute, until it shimmers. Add the mustard AND COVER THE PAN (ask me how I know this). When the mustard seeds have popped some, quickly add the onion and cover for another 30 seconds or so. Otherwise, you will be finding popped mustard seeds when you move out. When the onion is nicely browned, add the rest of the spices and cook until the garlic is fragrant and cooked, stirring very frequently so as not to burn anything.

Add the spice mix to the lentils along with
- 2 Tablespoons chia seeds, whole (use maybe 1-1/4 T if ground, but you’ll miss the crunch in here)
Mix well and then taste — adjust the seasonings (particularly salt) if necessary.

Chill this mixture until completely cool, and then use an ice cream scoop or large spoon to make patties — keep these no larger than, say, an average coffee mug’s opening, and they will stay together even on a regular grill — go bigger at your own risk.

These are fully cooked, so just singe and warm them on the grill, and serve with lime wedges. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend a bun, but if you need one, maybe check out the not pitas I originally made to go with them.

Summer perfection — the veggie burger
June 24, 2013
Tiffany's Artichoke Dip
When I was in graduate school, we had a lot of parties. I’m a nerdy sort, so these weren’t “trash can punch” kind of parties, but beer and wine and mostly lots of food kind of parties. And they were always potluck, because no one had any money. Certain things became favorites, so people never had to much thing about what to bring — they were requested. This was definitely one of the group favorites, and I’ve held on to the recipe. Goes well with bread, tortilla chips, crackers, even veggies, and the leftovers make a great, if chunky, sandwich spread. Plus, it looks impressive and gourmet but is incredibly easy.

This version replaces the mayo and cheese to give you a really tasty, vegan and allergen-free version that will also please the people you know who can eat everything.

Tiffany’s Artichoke Dip

Tiffany’s Artichoke Dip

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease casserole dish.
- 16 oz. of canned or jarred artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
- 1 small can of chopped green chiles or jalapenos
- 1 cup of Earth Balance Mindful Mayo, original
- 3 Tablespoons of nutritional yeast
- 3 Tablespoons of garbanzo bean flour
Mix all ingredients together in the casserole dish, smooth out evenly. Bake 20-25 minutes, serve warm.

I really wish dip photographed better
June 10, 2013
Margarita Tropical Fruit Salad
Margarita Tropical Fruit Salad

So, last weekend it snowed in New Hampshire, and this weekend it’s been 95°F all weekend. Hilarious. I don’t handle the heat well, if at all, nor do I handle the crazy freaking changes well. The humidity and corresponding air quality in New Hampshire has been known to send me right into an asthma attack. We’ve got the air conditioners cranked, but I don’t want to heat the apartment up any more than necessary, so we’ve been eating salads and fruit. And since it’s the time of year that you might be heading to potluck type gatherings, here’s a spruced up fruit salad you can take with you. Also, this can be made much much easier by doing what I did and buying a fruit tray and some berries and using it, so you don’t have to peel melons and pineapple. You can do it the night before and let the dressing soak in, but it’s yummy either way.

Margarita Tropical Fruit Salad
- 1/2 cup of freshly squeezed lime juice (about 4-5 limes)
- 1/2 cup of agave syrup
- 1/2 cup of tequila
- 2 1/2 teaspoons of arrowroot
- 2 Tablespoons of water
- About 6-8 cups of fruit cut in bite size pieces, filling a large salad bowl. The mixture is up to you, but I used cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries, pineapple, kiwi, strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries.
First, wash your limes carefully under hot water to get rid of the wax they put on them. To get the most juice out of them, I’ve found two tips that really help. Put your limes in a microwave safe container and nuke them on high for one minute.

Limes in microwave safe bowl

Then put them on a cutting board, and using the palm of your hand roll the limes back and forth, putting enough pressure on them so that you can feel the lime squeeze against the board, but not enough so you break the lime against the cutting board. Now juice your limes.

Denise awkwardly rolling limes with her left while she takes pictures with her right

Make sure you don’t have any seeds in with the lime juice and pour it into a sauce pan. Add the agave syrup and the tequila to the sauce pan, mix until thoroughly combined, and then bring it to a boil for about two minutes. Turn the heat to low, and in a small container (I used a glass measuring cup) mix the arrowroot and water together. Pour the water and arrowroot mixture into the sauce pan, stirring quickly so that it doesn’t clump. Turn to medium low heat and let it simmer for 15 minutes or so, and then remove from the heat.

Agave Lime Tequila dressing in sauce pan

When the agave lime tequila dressing has cooled (you can cheat by sticking it the freezer for a few minutes if you need to), pour it over the cut fruit and toss to combine. Enjoy!!

Margarita Tropical Fruit Salad
June 3, 2013
Gluten-free Bread Rounds
Round bread things — gluten-free!

I was trying to make pita bread. Which, this really isn’t. Mainly in that it’s not as dry as pita bread (which is kind of weird, because you can usually count on gluten-free bread being drier than wheat bread), nor as puffy, and without the cavity in the middle. And they’re smaller — given the structural integrity issues that gluten-freeness can cause, I’d suggest staying on the smaller side.

So basically these are nothing like pita bread. Sorry for the misdirection there. They are small sandwich round bread things which are tasty, allergen-free, and seem to please the few non-allergenic people I’ve fed them to (i.e. my neighbors). So you should try them!

Gluten-free Bread Round Things

You’re going to make three mixes and then mix them all together. With me?

First, mix:
- 2 Tablespoons active dry yeast
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons warm — not hot — rice milk
Second, in a separate bowl, mix:
- 1/4 cup rice milk
- 2 Tablespoons ground chia seeds
- 4 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
Third, in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, mix:
- 1 cup sorghum flour
- 1 cup tapioca starch
- 2 Tablespoons rice milk powder
- 4 teaspoons xanthan gum
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- yeast mixture (should be foamy!)
- chia mixture (should be gelled somewhat)
Mix until you have a pretty solid dough, reasonably thick and pulling away from the sides of the bowl. The nice thing (“nice”) about gluten-free baking is that you really can’t overmix things. There’s no gluten to get tough. I let my mixer go and make up the dishwater while it’s working, so maybe 5 minutes or so.

With well-oiled hands, scoop out 1/4 cup of dough and shape into a smooth ball. Press out to form the round — aiming for 1/8 — 1/4 inch or so in thickness, but all about the same (thickness is more important than exact size for cooking time). Place the round on a parchment covered baking sheet. Repeat until you’ve used all the dough.

Place into a COLD OVEN and turn the oven on to 400F. The timing from here on out will depend on how fast your oven heats up — mine takes almost 20 minutes to reach 400F. Check these out at about 20 minutes, but it will likely take 35-45 minutes for them to fully bake, depending on the thickness of your rounds.

Now the one thing that you’re missing are the toasted bubbled bits that a real pita bread has — if you want these, throw the pita on a grill or into a hot skillet, a few minutes on each side. This is not necessary, but does add flavor and visual texture.

When the bread rounds are completely cooled, you will be able to slice them, but carefully! Don’t expect to make pita pockets, but honestly these hold up better than most gluten-free bread for sandwiches (or at least the ones that are also egg and dairy free), so give it a try.

Sliced Bread Things
May 27, 2013