When I'm out of mushrooms and I want to make gravy, this recipe is quick and easy
https://shaneandsimple.com/easy-vegan-brown-gravy/
I used the veggie Better than bullion. It gets pretty thick pretty fast so I had to add more water on the back end. Otherwise, it's got a good flavor. I'll use this again when I don't have any mushrooms.
E very much likes Mongolian tofu from the Chinese restaurant in town. I'm not a huge fan of them because everything is so sweet. I found this recipe for Mongolian tofu and wanted to see how it compared.
https://chejorge.com/2020/07/06/crispy-mongolian-tofu/
Other than adding an entire sliced onion when I add the water, I make it as described. I did try a couple different ways to make the tofu and prefer to use the oven baked method. Also for finishing, I like to add about 1/2-1 tsp of starch to thicken the sauce, as it sticks to the tofu better.
Overall,we both like it a lot and it's very easy to throw together, so four thumbs up from the adults. So far the kids haven't tried it because of the chili peppers.
One of our milks went sour a little early, so I made pancakes on Saturday and Sunday morning I decided to use up a bit more with a buttermilk-based quick bread. I found this recipe as a starting point, but I made quite a few modifications.
https://www.seasonsandsuppers.ca/blueberry-buttermilk-loaf/#wprm-recipe-container-41344
I doubled the recipe to use up more milk. Instead of the eggs, I used 4 of the numerous bananas that became too ripe and went into the freezer (thawed out of course). Because of the bananas, I reduced both the butter and sugar to 3/4 cup and 1.5 cups, respectively. Because of the subs and probably because I forgot to remove the pizza stone, it took about one hour and 10 minutes.
It turned out pretty good. Definitely not too sweet. The texture is a little gummy, but maybe that will help it stay moist. I will freeze one loaf for later. We'll see how it comes out then.
I was looking for something to do with the kids over winter break and decided to make decorated sugar cookies. I used this recipe from the New York times. It tastes great, but I'm not sure how often I will do it again because making them with the kids is a bit of a pain! I now know why my mom didn't make these with us when we were growing up. Haha!
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017888-frosted-holiday-sugar-cookies
I'm trying to keep up with using my Rancho Gordo beans and decided to use the black eyed peas I received in the last bean club shipment for the New Year.
I used this recipe and I was happy how it came out. Hopefully it will bring good luck for this coming year.
https://www.africanbites.com/black-eyed-peas-recipe/#wprm-recipe-container-576856
I have been wanting to make tamales and pupusas since the beginning of the pandemic, so I found these recipes.
Pupusas https://www.google.com/amp/s/tasty.co/amp/recipe/salvadoran-pupusas-as-made-by-curly-and-his-abuelita
I think I did pretty good for my first try. I filled them with refried beans and cheese. I also liked the slaw.
Tamales (not made on the same day...)
I made three types. Sweet corn -https://www.mexicoinmykitchen.com/easy-sweet-corn-tamales-recipe/
bean and cheese, and (soy) chorizo-https://www.veganblueberry.com/vegan-tamales/
The sweet corn ones, I only made 1/3 of the recipe, and it was just enough for the kids, but there were no leftovers. Then I made the other recipe fully. There were lots of leftovers which I put in the freezer! I steamed them in two batches in the instant pot. It took a little longer than I expected but seemed to work pretty well.
I didn't use any stock, and I think that would have made the dough more flavorful. Otherwise it was a success.
After making a different recipe for at least 15 times, the family informed me that they didn't like it. So I searched for a new one.
I found this one and used cheddar, asaiago, parmesan, and mozzarella cheese with a small chunk of cream cheese. I thought it came out great and the rest of the family liked it too.
https://thesaltymarshmallow.com/instant-pot-mac-and-cheese/#wprm-recipe-container-4012
We finally found the right pizza crust recipe. We put the ingredients into the bread machine on dough mode and it's ready a couple hours later, so we do need to plan ahead. One recipe makes two pizzas that fit on our 15" round pizza stone.
https://www.food.com/recipe/easy-peezy-pizza-dough-bread-machine-pizza-dough-35805
With this dough recipe, at one point I was missing Somerville and Flatbread pizza, so I made this as one of our favorites from there.
http://planetofcrepes.blogspot.com/2014/06/punctuated-equilibrium-rip-of-pizza.html?m=1
One day we had some extra dough, so we tried making dessert pizza. It tastes like Godfathers cinnamon streusel pizza!
https://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/14610060/godfathers-streusel-dessert-pizza/
