Vegetarian Strata

Original recipe here (adapted from)

Strata

Ingredients

The amount of vegetables is not important. That's the great thing about it. You can use spinach, meat, whatever veggies or cheese you have on hand.

Here's what went into ours:

(approximate amounts)

1 loaf homemade white bread, cubed
1 1/2 cups Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup Swiss cheese
5 or 6 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 red pepper
1 large onion
12 shoots of asparagus
4 oz mushrooms

Directions

(As adapted from this recipe)

Fill a bowl with the cubed bread

Chop all the vegetables.

Sauté the vegetables for a few minutes until the onions started to get translucent, then toss them in with the bread crumbs.

In another bowl, beat the eggs with the milk and spices, and pour over bread.

Put half the the mixture in an 8x8" baking dish and press it down. Add 1/2 the grated cheese. Pour the rest of the bread mixture in and press it down a bit and top with the rest of the cheese. Place into 350 degrees F oven for about an hour.

Strata on plate

Meatless Meatballs

Original recipe here

Meatless Meatballs

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1 pound fresh white mushrooms, finely chopped
1 pinch salt
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats (we used rolled instead)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, very finely shredded
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley, packed
3 eggs, to add separately
1 tsp salt
black pepper to taste
1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
1 pinch dried oregano

Directions

(As adapted from Chef John's original recipe)

Chop and mince mushrooms, onions, garlic, etc.

Chopped mushrooms

Meatlessball ingredients

In a skillet on med-high, heat olive oil then add mushrooms and sprinkle with salt. Cook until liquid completely evaporates then add the butter and reduce the heat to medium. Cook about 5 more minutes until brown.

Mushrooms cooking

Adding butter to brown the mushrooms

Stir the onion into the mushrooms and cook until translucent, about another 5 minutes. Take it off the heat and stir the garlic in and continue stirring about 1 minute. Transfer to a large bowl and let cool.

Mix oats into mushroom mixture until thoroughly combined. Gently stir 1/2 cup of parmesan into mixture. Add bread crumbs, 1/4 cup parsley, and 1 egg; season with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and oregano. Mix with a fork.

Mushroom mixture, bread crumbs, parsley, parmesan, 

salt, pepper & 1 of the eggs, uncombined

Stir in another egg. Mix together with a fork until crumbly and the finally stir in remaining egg. We had to add an extra egg because we substituted quick oats with rolled oats, which seem to absorb a lot more moisture. Mixture should hold together when pressed.

Meatless meatball mixture

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Chef John says at least 4 hours and for best flavor and texture, refrigerate overnight, but we only refrigerated ours for 2 1/2 hours and they were still fantastic.

Go find something else to eat at this point. We had hummus and pitas.

Remove from fridge. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Form mixture into small meatballs. Roll meatballs lightly between your hands until smooth and arrange meatballs on prepared baking sheet.

Uncooked meatless balls

Bake in the preheated oven until meatballs are lightly golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes.

Cooked meatless balls

Laura's Hummus & Pitas

We eat hummus a lot. Laura makes super good hummus. She is pretty handy at making pitas too. I love hummus as a spread in a veggie wrap.

Laura's Hummus & Pitas

Hummus Recipe

1 can of chick peas, rinsed
1/4 cup tahini
2 large cloves garlic
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt

Pour into food processor or blender and whiz it up. Add water as needed - just a splash at a time until it starts to blend well.

Optional:

Add 1/4 cup plain yoghurt. Makes it a bit creamy and adds probiotics.

You can make a more basic hummus with lemon, garlic and chick peas. Nearly as good!

Pita Bread

Laura uses this recipe. She says they're easy to make.

Dough rolled out

Pita frying in olive oil

Pita nearly finished

Peanut Thai Noodles & Broccoli

This is the fancy name for it. We usually just call it Peanut Butter Spaghetti. We skip the chicken part of this meal now, but we still feel like the rest of this dish stands on its own just fine. The noodles are tangy and delicious and the broccoli has a nice kick.

Garlic Oil

This oil mixture is used for the Thai Peanut Sauce recipe below and the rest is tossed with the broccoli.

Recipe:
6 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 to 1 teaspoon red-pepper flakes
Kosher salt
4 tbsp sunflower oil

Mince the garlic and mix with the pepper flakes and a pinch of the salt. On a cutting board, with the side of a large knife, mash them together. This is a bit tougher to explain, so I shot a quick video of Laura showing the technique:

Garlic/pepper mashing technique demo

Once it's well mashed, mix it into the oil. Voila!

Thai Peanut Sauce

This sauce is sweet, salty, spicy and sticky and is mixed with spaghetti noodles. Soooo good.

Recipe:
5 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp of garlic oil

Mix the above ingredients in a small bowl.Cook a package of spaghetti and mix the sauce in.

Thai peanut sauce

Thai peanut sauce and the rest of the oil mixture

Broccoli

Cut 2 heads of broccoli into florets, wash and steam for about 6 minutes. Toss the steamed broccoli with the remaining spicy oil mixture.

Broccoli with spicy garlic oil

Huevos Rancheros

This is a fantastic meal to have for breakfast or brunch. It's super hearty and packed full of protein, and a great way to use up leftover re-fried beans.

Recipe (Serves 2):

2 corn tortillas
2 eggs
1 cup refried beans
1 cup salsa
1 avocado
4 tbsp sour cream (optional)
few springs of cilantro

Quick and Easy Peasy

Usually, Huevos Rancheros are made using corn tortillas, but we used flour tortillas because we had extra. The eggs can be poached or fried, but we always poach ours for this. If you already have refried beans on hand, this is a super quick meal, coming together in the time it takes to poach 2 eggs (12 minutes). From there, assembly is probably not even a minute.

Assembly

Place 1/2 cup beans on each tortilla, place the egg on top of the beans, and top with salsa. Serve with 1/2 sliced avocado and sour cream, if preferred. We don't consider the avocados to be optional. Should eat one a day anyway.

Here is the stove top action:

Refried beans re-refrying, 2 eggs poaching, 2 tortillas warming

And here is the finished product, garnished with cilantro from the garden, not just to make it look pretty, but for authentic Mexican flavor.

Huevos Rancheros