Zesty & Spicy

If you like food, we'll get along *^_^*

Oranges & tahini breakfast bowl

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My new obsession is those fancy breakfast bowls we can all admire on instagram.  It’s not something new, I’m just late to the party.

Hours and hours “wasted” or “invested” looking at those edible art pieces until finally finding the motivation to make one.  This is a savoury version with a creamy and garlic infused polenta dressed with green onions, Italian parsley, a sunny side up egg, grilled shiitake mushrooms & plantains.  To complete the look, you top it with an oranges & tahini dressing that has a hint of harissa, soy sauce and honey.

The black sesame seeds are optional but they look pretty sooo… the choice is yours.  Enjoy!

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Grilled King oyster mushroom salad

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Don’t get me wrong, I love making sweets.  There’s something really happy about making something full of sugar because you know most people will be happy to eat it and you’ll get the satisfaction of watching them stuffing their faces with something you made with love.  Now, thing is, we can’t really eat sweets all the time (that’s a tragedy if you ask me) so this recipe is coming just at the right time to balance all the sweetness I’ve published on the blog lately.

King oyster mushrooms are one of my favourites because they are super meaty and they look beautiful in a plate.  Paring them with roasted tomatoes (aka: umami bomb – thank you Ivan Ramen for coining the term) and miso, you’ll quickly understand why I decided to post this recipe on here.

Sooooooo…. this sentence is getting redundant but, I really hope you get too try this quick and easy grilled king oyster salad with miso dressing on days where it’s too hot to eat anything to complexed or when you’re just too lazy to break your head in the kitchen.

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Apple & ginger crumble

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This is actually a pretty easy recipe.  Although, when I first made it on Twitch, it wasn’t optimal.  There was not enough fruit to crumble ratio but the result became some delicious “cereal” that kept me well fed and happy for the few days after the stream.  Yesterday, I made it again to tweak the recipe and take photos. The result is a wonderful dessert that I’m eating with a spoon as we speak!

Hope you get to try it and if even if you’re not a fan of apples or ginger, you can make it with pretty much any fruits you like.  This is the kind of easy going recipe that you’ll learn to love because the possibilities are endless.

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My ultimate vegan sandwich

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This is another amazing way to use the seitan we’ve created the other day.

Lately, it’s my go to sandwich at either breakfast (I ate one a few minutes ago), lunch or dinner when I don’t feel like breaking my head much and want something that will keep me full for hours.  It’s honestly massive and kind of hard to bite through it but, obviously, nothing worth having comes easy in life right? XD

Joke aside, when I get sandwiches this high in restaurants, it makes giggle because there’s no way to look proper while eating this and it becomes a great exercise of “no giving a shit” because nobody looks cute trying open their mouth way too wide to fit an enormous sandwich in it.  You clearly don’t have to make it that big but, like they say…. go big or go home!? XD

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Under 20 minutes seitan pasta for one

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After throwing you in to the seitan world, it would be a good idea to give you a little inspiration on what you can make it it.  If you’ve made a batch of my homemade seitan recipe already, this super quick pasta dish might be right up your alley.  It literally took me under 20 minutes to get everything ready and it was also eaten in a record time.

Some things in life shouldn’t be complicated and this is the perfect example.  Hope you enjoy this dish.

20 minutes seitan pasta for one
 
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Author:
Recipe type: Quick & Easy
Cuisine: Vegetarian
Serves: 1-2 portions
Ingredients
  • ½ tablespoon of oil (I used avocado)
  • 1 green onion, sliced
  • 1 tablespoon of tomato paste
  • 3 tablespoons of fresh cream
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • ⅛ cup of chopped sun dried tomatoes
  • ½ heaping cup of small cubes of homemade seitan
  • 1 tightly packed cup of cooked buckwheat penne (or any cooked pasta you like)
Instructions
  1. - Start with heating the oil in the pan and drop the seitan cubes. Grill for 3 minutes.
  2. - Add the onions and garlic, keep grilling for another 3 minutes
  3. - drop the rest of the ingredients, cook for an extra 3-4 minutes
  4. - serve and enjoy!
  5. makes 1 big portion or 2 small ones

 

Basic, baked seitan recipe

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If you’re an adept of vegetarian or vegan dishes, you’ve probably came across seitan at least once in your life.  It’s a very versatile animal free protein made with vital wheat gluten (basically straight gluten flour) and it can be flavoured countless of ways to make it taste like chicken, beef, unicorn (lol)…you name it.

This is my personal baked seitan recipe that I use in almost everything but, I don’t think I could classify the taste under “beef” or “chicken” because it really has it’s own flavour profile.  It’s beyond amazing in a vegan gyros, in stir fry and even as a bacon replacement.  You can freeze it easily and it will keep for a decent amount of time in the fridge.  If you’ve already made a batch of my homemade vegetable broth, you’re already half way there for this one.

The classic way to make seitan is to boil it in the broth but I’ve had better results doing it this way because the end result is nice and soft compare to many other recipes out there who give you a very hard like rock seitan.

So let’s start!

Basic seitan recipe
 
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*As you mix, time is important because the flour will start absorbing the liquid and you want to make sure that all the flavours are well mixed in and there's no more white clumps of flour. It's totally ok to use your hands, at the end, to really mix everything in.
Author:
Cuisine: Vegetarian / Vegan
Serves: 1 loaf
Ingredients
  • Spice mix:
  • - the seeds of 1 black cardamom pod
  • - ½ teaspoon of dried, minced onions
  • - 1 teaspoon of dried, minced garlic
  • - ½ teaspoon of dried marjoram
  • - 1 teaspoon of dried basil
  • - 1 teaspoon of regular paprika
  • - 1 teaspoon of smoked Spanish paprika
  • - ½ teaspoon of salt

  • 1½ cup of vita wheat gluten flour
  • 3 tablespoons of tomato paste
  • 2 cups of homemade vegetable broth
Instructions
  1. - Pre-heat your oven at 325F, line a GLASS loaf pan with parchment paper.
  2. - In a mortar, crush the spice mix until powdered.
  3. - In a mixing bowl, add the vital wheat gluten flour and mix in the crushed spiced BEFORE adding the last two wet ingredients.
  4. - Add the tomato paste and the broth, start mixing*
  5. - Transfer the mixture in the loaf pan and press it gently with your hands to form the loaf and remove as many air pockets as possible. This is not an exact science but you just need to shape it a bit. The mixture will keep a very soft like texture and will harden once cooked.
  6. - Bake for 1h covered and then an extra 30minutes uncovered.

 

Soy milk

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A great bonus from making your own soy milk is the okara (aka: soy bean pulp) left after draining.  It’s a resource most factories will either discard or feed to farm animals but, this protein packed ingredient can be added to baked goods, use to make vegetarian/vegan sausages (yup… that’s going to be for a future recipe) or dried up and reduced in powder to add to almost everything.  It is versatile, delicious and using the okara is leaving you with no kitchen waste.  Something to think about…

As you will see, the process for making soy milk is very simple.  If you wanted to make soy cream, bring back the drained milk on the stove top and let it simmer down to half of it’s original quantity.  As the water will evaporate, the mixture will thicken and become a nice and silky cream.  A thickening agent can be used to make the process faster, I would recommend tapioca starch for it’s light taste.

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Mango & Persimmon Smoothie

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I bought a pack of rock hard fuyu persimmons, a few days ago, thinking it would take at least a month before they start to softened.  Surprisingly enough, they only took a few days leaving me with 10 ripen juicy and custardy persimmons to bake with.  One of Max favourite way to start the day is with a fresh smoothie that is both sweet and filling so here we go!

The mango really balance the extreme sweetness of the persimmon while adding a little “zing” to it.  The softened oats are there to add a silky texture and give you enough consistence to make it a perfectly filling way to start your day.

Hope you get to try it *^_^*

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Vegetable soup with ginger & lemongrass

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The inspiration comes from a vegetable soup my grand mother used to make.  She used to cut all the vegetables in super small pieces and I always enjoyed the aesthetic of her presentation.  You could probably chop everything finely by hand but, if you’re in the lazy club (like me), a hand blender or a food processor work wonders.

This recipe isn’t the soup she used to make but, I would like to think it is as good or at least pretty close.

 Delicate, slightly sweet and made with our homemade vegetable broth.  The fennel leaves used as garnish but also as a component in the soup really shine with the star anise in the broth.  The ginger giving it a nice kick and the lemongrass as the last taste hitting your palate.  When it comes time to buy fennel, I always try to get the complete plant with the long rods and a lot of bright green leaves.  Back home, I’ll cut it up in “parts” and keep the leaves in a separate container to use them like any other fresh herbs.  Next time, I’ll probably add a little extra lemongrass because the taste could have been more pungent and, I would encourage you to do the same if you’re a big fan of lemongrass.

Makes three big portions or four smaller ones. Bon appétit!

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Sourdough maple sticky buns

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If you’re nursing a sourdough starter, there’s always this one day where you have too much of it and, before feeding it, you have to discard some.  Since I don’t like thinking I’ve been “wasting” all this precious flour and water, this recipe is a delicious way to use your discarded starter.

There’s only one word to describe these… AMAZEBALLS.  They are drenched in maple and brown sugar and the bread texture is soft and elastic.  I really hope you’ll get a chance to try this recipe because it’s absolutely delicious and really easy to do.

Definitely one of those sweet treat worth cheating on your diet.

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