Koko's Kitchen: Nuts

Showing posts with label Nuts. Show all posts

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Polenta with Mushroom Sauce and Sauteed Spinach

Hello everyone. Today is the first chance I've had since beginning my job earlier this year running a food truck to sit down and open my blog back up. I admittedly haven't been doing as much cooking or baking outside of my two jobs in the past several months, simply because I haven't had a lot of time. Hubbs is also working two jobs, so it's been ok - we've both been crazy busy. I think it's safe to say that the summer season has come to an end in Traverse City - I am seeing a lot less tourists, and business has slowed down considerably. But that's ok. Everyone has been running nonstop since the season began, and it is a nice break. I have a lot of things coming up to work on relating to the vegan cafe hubbs and I are going to open, so we will definitely be staying busy! Hopefully I will have time here and there to do a few blog posts and put a couple recipes up. Until then, enjoy this tasty recipe I made a few weeks ago with the over-abundance of organic spinach I had in our garden.

Grilled Polenta with a Mushroom Sauce and Sauteed Spinach with Pinenuts

Seriously so delicious!

Polenta:
4 cups filtered water
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup cornmeal
3 tablespoons earth balance

Place all ingredients in a medium sized pot and whisk together well. Cook over medium heat till thickened, stirring frequently. Pour into an oiled pan and refrigerate until set up (several hours).

Once the polenta has set up, slice it into pieces and either pan fry or grill (I used our panini grill).

Mushroom Sauce:
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 oz. crimini mushrooms, sliced
1 large onion, sliced
4 tablespoons white wine
3 tablespoons tamari
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
2 cups filtered water mixed with 3 tablespoons arrowroot

Place the olive oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and mushrooms and saute till softened. Deglaze the pan with the white wine - be sure to scrape up all the tasty little bits that have stuck to the pan. Add the remaining ingredients and cook till well seasoned and thickened.

Sauteed Spinach:
1/2 cup pinenuts, toasted
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
8-10 cups baby spinach
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons white wine

In a separate large saute pan, add the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook till fragrant, but not browned. Add the baby spinach and white wine, allowing it to wilt. Once the spinach begins to wilt, add the sea salt, black pepper and red pepper flakes to taste. Right before serving add the pinenuts.

Enjoy!

Koko

Monday, May 12, 2014

Gluten Free Double Chocolate Brownies

I have recently been blessed with a second job. I am so happy about it! Time to start saving my money and continue working on the business hardcore! I went from working about 16 hours per week to about 60-70. Believe me I am definitely not going to complain. Very thankful to have this going on. The people that I am working for have great hearts and really want to help me out - really just great people that you genuinely want to be around. Thank goodness for that!!

I have also been doing a lot of baking. Including these crazy delicious gf brownies. I found the recipe on Oh She Glows of course and after a bit of tweaking, they came out perfect (they were pretty close to perfect in the first place). I brought them to a vegan meeting and I think they were well received. I also had hubby take them to his job for his coworkers to sample - there are several gluten free people that work with him. They loved them!

Giant pan of Gluten Free Brownies!

Oh She Glow's Recipe

Changes I made:

- used 2 tablespoons of ground flax
- used sorghum flour instead of brown rice flour
- used ground walnuts instead of ground almonds - it was all I had on hand
- added 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
- didn't add the additional 1/4 cup chocolate chips
- baked the brownies in a 9x13" baking pan so they weren't so thick

That's it! Very good base recipe. I love Angela Liddon's recipes and creativity.

Cut into small pieces for samples!

Koko

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Pesto Pizza Pinwheels

Hubbs and I both love pizza. I mean, who doesn't? We definitely love the convenience of buying out, and when we lived in Brooklyn, we bought pizza out a lot. Most of the pizza places we frequented were just small local stores using homemade, good ingredients, so we didn't have to worry about it. I know there are places here in Michigan, but they are not as convenient to get to as we would like. We have to get in our car and drive to get the pizza (we just walked there on the way to our house from getting off the subway in Brooklyn), and we might as well just make it ourselves - control the ingredients and use exactly what we want.

We end up making pizza about once every week to week and a half. This time when I made it, I decided to try something different and fun - pinwheels. I've seen them for years, but have never made them before. I had some extra pesto in the freezer from last summer when we had our bountiful basil crop, so decided to use that. These turned out really good! We dipped them in hot marinara sauce. Yum! My little brother came over when I was making them and hinted that they looked great. I gave him several of them, which he promptly dipped in ranch! He literally puts ranch on everything - even in the sauce when he makes his lasagna. Funny kid! These could work with any combination. They would also be great for a party or a get together.

Freshly baked pesto pizza rolls

Ingredients:

Pizza Dough (I use this recipe. Use half for these rolls and freeze the remaining half for later.)

Pesto Sauce
Vegan Cheese

Toppings:
- Green Peppers
- Onions
- Baby Spinach
- Kalamata Olives
- Pickled or fresh Jalapeno Peppers
- Pignolis

Filtered water to seal the dough.

1. Prepare the dough according to the attached instructions.
2. After the dough has risen, punch it down. Place the half you are not using in a freezer bag, label and freeze for later use.
3. Roll the pizza dough out into a large rectangle-ish shape on a floured surface.

4. Liberally spread pesto over the surface of the dough - leaving about an inch of space at the top bare.

5. Sprinkle the vegan cheese over the surface of the pesto, followed by the veggies and other toppings, as desired.

6. Top with baby spinach.

7. Slowly roll the pizza into a cigar shape. Sprinkle a little water onto the top of the pizza to help the dough seal together.

8. Use a sharp non-serrated knife to slice the pizza into rounds.

9. Place the pizza rounds onto an oiled sheet tray. At this point, you can decide to place a towel over the prepared rolls, place in a warm place and allow them to rise some more, then bake them. Or you can put them in the oven right away at 375 degrees for about 15-22 minutes - which is what I did.

10. Let them cool just until you are able to handle them safely. Dip into warm marinara sauce or whatever else you like to eat with your pizza. Depending on my mood, I may drizzle some sriracha over the top. Yum!

Enjoy!

Koko

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Some Things I've Been Baking Lately

Here are lots of vegan baked goods I have been baking over the past several months. When I was compiling this collage of photos and took a step back to look at them, I was very proud of myself. I know I have been working hard on all of these goodies, it's just great to really see it all come together. And this is really why I am so obsessed with taking pictures of everything I cook or bake. It is such a great feeling to come back and look at it and say, wow I did a great job! Most of these baked goods were made at my job - a few were made at home. All of them were made with lots of love and excitement! They really make me feel happy and confident that many of them would look great in a display case of my own! Take a few minutes to look at the pictures. Let me know what you think.