Tag Archives: Isa Chandra

Isa’s Goddess Pasta a/k/a Tahini Linguini

Posted in The vegan elephant by

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I think I have a girl crush on Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Or I should say a goddess crush because she is a kitchen goddess extraordinaire. Every recipe of hers that I’ve tried, I’ve loved. Here’s the latest – Goddess Pasta or as I am calling it, tahini linguini because if that not the name of a new Muppet, I don’t know what is.

Anyway… about this recipe. Isa promises it’s so ridiculously easy that she almost left it out of her cookbook, “Isa Does it”.  I’m glad she didn’t. This recipe IS(a) fast and easy. And despite what I thought was a lot of garlic and green onion (or chives), the dish is mild yet flavourful and creamy, crunchy and satisfying. I ate this dish hot, but I think it would even be great cold. So, without further ado, here’s how I made Isa’s Goddess Pasta. If you want to make it the way Isa does it, buy the book!

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Ingredients

12 oz linguini

The juice of 1 lemon

1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas (a 15 ounce can)

1 bunch broccoli cut into bite sized pieces. I also peeled the stem and sliced it up.

3-4 spring onions chopped finely

4 cloves garlic minced

2 heaping tablespoons nutritional yeast

1 tsp salt (I don’t salt my pasta water)

A few grinds of pepper

½ to 2/3 cup tahini (I didn’t measure exactly!)

½ cup hot water (I used the water from the boiling pasta)

1 Tbsp olive oil

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Directions

Boil the pasta according to the package directions. While the pasta is boiling, prep the sauce and other ingredients.

In a large bowl, blend together the green onion, lemon juice, salt, tahini, nutritional yeast, hot water and ground pepper. You will have a thickly creamy dressing. If the dressing is too thick, add more water.

In a large wok or frying pan, heat ½ tablespoon olive oil and sauté the garlic until it’s golden. Add the garlic to the sauce mixture.

Add the rest of the olive oil to the pan and heat. Add the broccoli and stir fry until the broccoli is bright green but still very crunchy.  Add the broccoli to the sauce mixture and add the chickpeas.

Once your pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Toss everything to combine and serve up. Enjoy!

This recipe makes 4 servings.

p.s. I think next time I may even add some shredded carrot and julienned red pepper for extra colour.

 

 

 

Easy vegan, almond-almond cookies

Posted in The vegan elephant by

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I recently bought “Isa does it” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz – it’s a recipe book chockablock full of delicious, doable vegan recipes. One of the first that I tried was her lemon-lemon cookies. They’re pretty much like crack. It’s impossible not to eat them all immediately and then crave another batch.

But I also happen to love almonds so I wanted to see if I could recreate Isa’s lemon-lemon cookies but with an almond flavour. And yup, I did it. These cookies are rich, nutty, chewy, crunchy and just as addictive as the lemon-y originals And, because there’s no lemon rind grating involved, these cookies are kinder on my knuckles too.

Let’s get started.

Ingredients

For the cookies

½ cup coconut oil melted

¾ cup white sugar

3 Tbsp almond flour– toasted*

½ tsp almond extract

½ tsp vanilla extract

3 Tbsp almond milk

1 ½ cups flour

½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp cornstarch

For the icing

1 cup icing sugar

1/2 tsp almond extract

½ Tbsp melted margarine

1 Tbsp almond milk

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Direction

*To toast the almond flour, place it on a small cookie sheet or other heat-proof dish (I used a miniature casserole dish). Place the flour in the oven at 400F for two minutes max. Not kidding – not one minute longer or it will burn! Remove immediately.

I have a toaster oven so I toasted the almond flour in the toaster oven. If you used your regular oven, turn the heat down on the oven to 350F. You may need to leave the oven door open for a minute to get the heat to drop.

In a medium sized bowl, mix the sugar, coconut oil, almond extract, vanilla extract, and almond milk together until they are combined. Add the toasted almond flour and stir to combine. Sift in the cornstarch and baking powder and then add the flour and stir to combine.

Use a teaspoon to drop the cookie dough in mounds onto the cookie sheet. You can use the back of the spoon or your fingers to flatten the cookies down slightly. I can get 15 cookies from this recipe.

Bake at 350F for 10 to 12 minutes until the edges of the cookies are golden.

Let the cookies cool completely on the cookie sheet, then transfer to a plate or cooling rack so you can drizzle on the icing.

To make the icing, combine all the icing ingredients in a small bowl or cup. The icing will be drizzly. Use a spoon to pour over the cookies, and while the icing is still wet, sprinkle on any garnish you might want or leave plain.

Let the icing set and serve up! Enjoy.

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It’s been a stormy, icy weekend here and almond-almond cookies, a good book and some kitty snuggles made it really quite perfect.

Isa Chandra’s dilly stew with dumplings

Posted in The vegan elephant by

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I have never eaten stew with dumplings but when I saw the recipe and enticing photo in Isa Chandra’s cookbook Isa Does it, I had to make them. At first I wasn’t sure what to think of these little fluffy lumps of dough floating in a savoury stew but my tummy figured out pretty quickly that this was a great thing. Isa’s recipe takes about one hour from start to finish and is really very straightforward. I embellished a little by adding extra veggies, but essentially this is how Isa does it.

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Ingredients

For the stew

3 Tbsp vegan margarine

¼ cup flour

1 medium onion diced

3 cloves garlic minced

6 cups vegetable broth

1 tsp salt

A few grinds of black pepper

2 ribs celery

2 carrots cut into coins or half moons

1 ½ cups cooked navy beans (that’s a 15oz can drained and rinsed)

1 ½ pounds Yukon Gold potatoes cut into chunks (2 medium potatoes)

½ cup frozen or fresh peas

½ cup cremini mushrooms chopped

1 tsp dried thyme (or 1 Tbsp fresh)

2 Tbsp fresh dill (or 2 tsp dried – but seriously try to get fresh for this one)

½ tsp paprika

1 Tbsp vegan Worcestershire sauce

For the dumplings

1 ½ cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 tsp dried rosemary (or 1 Tbsp fresh finely chopped) OR 1 tsp poultry seasoning

¾ cup unsweetened plant milk (almond, soy etc)

2 Tbsp olive oil

 

Directions

Melt the margarine on medium heat in a large, wide pot that has a tightly fitting lid. Add the flour and heat through to make a soft roux – stir constantly for a couple minutes to cook out the raw flour taste but without burning the roux. Add the onions and garlic and sauté together for about 5 minutes.

Add the broth and stir constantly using a whisk so that the flour is incorporated evenly and lump free.

Add all the other ingredients and bring the pot to a boil. Once it’s boiling, reduce to a simmer and simmer for 25 minutes. Stir a few times during cooking. The stew is done when it’s nicely thickened and the potatoes and carrots are easily pierced with a fork.

While the stew is simmering, make the dumpling batter.

In a small bowl, sift in the dry ingredients. Okay, not going to sift? At least sift in the baking powder so you don’t end up with salty, crystalline lumps in your batter. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Stir everything to combine – you will have a rather ugly looking batter and that’s okay.

 

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It’s not pretty, and I was very dubious about this whole dumpling thing at this point.

 

When the stew is done simmering, drop the batter by spoonfuls on top of the hot stew. I got 16 dumplings that completely covered the top of the stew.

Put the lid on the stew pot and let the pot simmer for another 14 minutes. No peeking! It’s the steam in the pot that cooks the dumplings. They will puff up and be nice and firm to the touch when they’re cooked, but will be cakelike on the inside.

 

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Here are the dumplings after steaming. At this point I was REALLY wondering what I had done. But ladle up a dumpling and some stew on top, dig in and it’s savoury heaven!

 

Ladle the stew and dumplings out in a bowl. This dish makes 4 very satisfying servings and will last up to 3 days in the fridge. It makes great, microwavable leftovers.

 

Dumpling stew

You end up with this, and this is DELICIOUS!