Recipe: Corn Tortillas!

I used to be intimidated by the thought of making tortillas.  I mean, how do people make these incredibly thin corn “cakes” at home?  I hated store bought ones because I think they smelled well, too corny .  However, I loved the fresh tortillas at Mexican restaurants.

A few weeks ago, I decided to venture out and make my own corn tortillas.  It was through trial and error that I finally found a method that works for me.  Instead of adding another gadget to the kitchen, I forgoed purchasing a tortilla press and used a pan instead.

Easy Corn Tortillas (tortilla press free!)

Ingredients (Serves 1-2):

1/2 Cup masa (you can use any brand of masa, but I think Maseca is the most prevalent)

1/3 Cup water

1/2 Teaspoon salt (optional, I like my tortillas slightly seasoned but some people like it plain)

1/2 Teaspoon pepper (optional)

Equipment:

Large flat surface

Nonstick skillet or griddle for cooking  (If you are NOT using a nonstick skillet or griddle, I suggest lightly oiling the pan)

Pan for tortilla pressing

Saran wrap

Mixing bowls

Fork

Directions:

Add all of the dry ingredients together, and then mix using a fork.

Slowly add in the water.

Mix everything together.

Don’t worry if the mixture looks too soppy!

The masa absorbs the water like a sponge.

What the mixture looks like after about a minute of stirring

Let the mixture sit for about 10 minutes (at that time, the masa should be slightly moist and should hold together easily).  While the masa is sitting, lay out 2 pieces of saran wrap.

After 10 minutes, roll the mixture into a log.  If it’s too sticky, dust it with more masa; if it’s too dry, wet your hands and sprinkle the mixture with water.  Section out 6 pieces and roll them into balls.  You can make less sections if you want bigger tortillas, but if you are just starting out, the smaller the tortillas, the easier it is to make.  At this point, you should have your skillet or griddle on the stove, heating up.

Place a ball onto one sheet of saran wrap.

Lay the second sheet of saran wrap over it (double check for wrinkles).

Then take the pan and press it over the ball.

Slowly peel the flattened dough away from the saran wrap, and put the dough onto the heated skillet or griddle.

Not ready yet…

Ok, flip me!

After about a minute and a half, the tortilla should be ready to flip.

After you flip the tortilla, let the other side cook for another minute and then take it off the stove.  Repeat this process until you have a satisfactory amount of tortillas or until you run out of dough .

Here is the finished product!

I would advise that you make only enough tortillas as you intend to serve because these do not sit well in the fridge.  After awhile, they start smelling like the corn tortillas from the grocery stores, which is a big ick for me .

Recipe: 5 Minute Pancakes

I absolutely love having pancakes for breakfast but didn’t start making them for myself until recently.  I’ve always thought that they’d take too long to make but boy was I wrong.  Here is my version of super easy pancakes based off of this recipe.  My recipe serves about 2 people but you can easily double it to make enough pancakes for the whole family.

Ingredients:

1 Cup of Whole Wheat Flour

1 Teaspoon of Baking Powder

1/4 Teaspoon of Salt (just a tiny bit)

2 Tablespoons of vegan or raw Sugar (I used turbinado sugar)

1 Cup of Ricemilk (or any milk alternative)

Oil/ non-stick spray to coat the griddle or pan

Directions:

Coat the griddle or pan with non-stick spray or oil and heat it up.  Mix all of the dry ingredients together and then add the liquid (ricemilk in my case).

Carefully ladle the mixture into the pan.

I used a little less than 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake.  I found that the smaller the pancakes, the easier it is to make; they’re also cuter!

When the pancakes look like this, flip them!

It takes about a minute and a half before the pancakes need to be flipped.

After you flip them, wait about another minute and enjoy!

The recipe makes about 5-6 tiny 4 inch pancakes.

I ate half of them before plating… OOPS!

Recipe: Lin’s Yummy Seasoned Nuts

I was inspired to make this recipe after watching “The Best Thing I Ever Ate: Snacks Edition.”  In the episode, Alton Brown was talking about how good the bar nuts at The Union Square Cafe was.  The recipe is featured on Foodnetwork.com and is in one of Ina Garten’s cookbooks.  I edited the recipe because I didn’t have fresh rosemary and because I don’t use butter.  I think the end results are just as good if not better .

Ingredients:

2 cups of nuts (I used walnuts and Oh-So-Healthy almonds from HLS )

1 tablespoon of thyme

1 tablespoon of sweet basil

1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

2 1/2 teaspoons of brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons of sea salt

1 1/2 tablespoons of Earth Balance (or any vegan butter subsitute)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Pour the nuts onto a baking sheet and spread evenly.  I used wax paper to line the baking sheet for easy clean up, but it’s totally optional.  Also, since the nuts have oil in them, there is no need to grease the pan.

Bake the nuts for about 8 minutes or until you can smell the toasted nuts in the air.

While the nuts are in the oven, combine all the spices minus the sugar in a small bowl and make sure the spices are well mixed.

Right before the nuts come out of the oven, microwave the Earth Balance for about 15 seconds or just enough time to melt it.  Mix the brown sugar into the melted Earth Balance.

Take the nuts out of the oven and carefully pour them into a large mixing bowl.

Freshly toasted nuts are the best!

Carefully pour the sugar and Earth Balance mixture on top of the nuts and then sprinkle the spice mixture on top of everything.

Mix throughly.

Then enjoy !

Recipe: Perfect Vegan Pie Crust

Here’s my take on a perfect vegan pie crust.  It has taken me a few tries to make it super yummy.  It’s really not so much the ingredients that make it tasty, it’s more so how the ingredients are prepared.

Nothing better than a perfect crust on a delicious pie!

Before we get into the recipe, here are a few key things about making pie crust.  If you want a flakier crust, simply use vegetable shortening instead of vegan butter substitute.  You can also use a combination of both, using half vegetable shortening and half butter substitute.  For sweet pies, I prefer an all “butter” crust; for savory pies, I prefer a flakier crust.  The recipe below is best suited for sweet pies.

Lin’s Vegan Pie Crust

makes 1 double crust or 2 single pie crusts for a 9 inch pie

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon of salt

1 cup of Smart Balance Light or any vegan butter substitute (frozen)

Either…

1/2 cup of ice cold water (you won’t be using it all)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

Or…

1/2 cup of ice cold vanilla almond milk or soymilk

1 tablespoon of brown sugar if unsweetened

1/2 tablespoon of brown sugar if sweetened

Equipment:

pastry blender (a large fork can be used instead if you don’t have a pastry blender)

large fork

large bowl

rolling pin

9 inch pie pan

large smooth rolling surface preferably marble or granite as those surfaces tend to keep cool longer

Rolling pin, pastry blender, large bowl and fork

Directions:

First of all, measure out the flour, brown sugar, and salt and mix them together in a large bowl.

Quick tip:

When measuring out the flour, do it over a small bowl and use the excess flour to dust the rolling pin and the rolling surface.

Stick the pastry blender on top of the mixture and stick the bowl into the freezer.

Next, measure out 1 cup of Smart Balance and cut it up into pieces.

Stick it into the freezer and wait about 2o-30 minutes until everything gets very cold.

Right before you take the flour and the Smart Balance out, make your ice water!  Take a couple of ice cubes and put it into a bowl of water.  You can then measure out the amount of ice water you’ll need for the pie crust, don’t forget to add the vanilla extract if you plan on using ice water.  For this pie, I used vanilla almond milk so there was no need to add in vanilla extract.

Put the liquid aside and take the flour mixture and the Smart Balance out of the freezer.

Look how frosty the bowl became!

Dump the Smart Balance into the flour and blend the mixture with the pastry blender, work fast!

Blend until the mixture looks like this:

Then, slowly pour the liquid of choice into the flour and Smart Balance mixture.  Pour about an 8th of the liquid at a time while mixing everything together with a fork.  Keep pouring and mixing until the mixture looks like this and pulls slightly away from the bowl.

You basically want to use the least amount of liquid to be able to form a dough ball.  You probably won’t need to use the entire 1/2 cup of liquid.

Once you get your mixture to that point, dump the mixture onto your rolling surface and form it into a ball.

Your mixture will seem crumbly at first, but your body heat will warm up the Smart Balance and make the dough more cohesive.  Knead the dough a couple of times to form a ball but don’t over do it!

At this point, your dough is done.  Wrap it up in plastic wrap and save it for later.  The dough should be refrigerated for at least 20-30 minutes before you take it out for rolling.  For a double crust, separate the dough into 2 sections in a 3:4 ratio.  For a single crust, simply divide the dough into 2 equal halves and save one for later.

Now, if you are wondering why everything needs to be so cold, it’s because it’s a lot easier to roll out the crust when it’s cold.  Since my Smart Balance to flour ratio is pretty high, I needed everything to be super cold or else the crust will stick to everything it touches no matter how much flour I put on the rolling pin or the rolling surface.  Other people have different reasons for keeping everything cold, but that’s mine.

I had a mini crises when rolling out the crust.  As I had mentioned in my last post, the kitchen was so hot yesterday that I had a lot of trouble rolling out the crust even though I refrigerated the dough for a good 2-3 hours beforehand.  I managed to fix the problem by sticking the dough into the freezer for about an hour before rolling it out.

Now for the rolling part.

I had watched several rolling videos on youtube to perfect my rolling technique.  What I do is roll the dough into a ball, place it onto my floured rolling surface and then smack it down with my floured rolling pin.  Make sure everything is well floured!

I then roll the dough and turn it about 40 degrees, roll the dough and turn it 40 degrees until the crust is about 5-6 inches in diameter.  At that point, I find it hard to turn the crust without it sticking to the surface.

** Note: always roll from the middle to the edge so that the crust is rolled out evenly.

I then just shift my rolling pin around instead of moving the crust.  Do this until the crust is about 12-13 inches in diameter.

When your crust is rolled out, take the rolling pin, put it on top of the crust and roll the crust down over the pin.

Quickly take the pin and roll it up over the pie pan (no need to grease it as the crust has plenty of Smart Balance.

You can still adjust the crust as necessary and trim the sides to about 1 inch hanging over the pie pan.

You can put the filling in the pie at this point.

For the pie shown, Sara used about 4 cups combined of rhubarb and strawberries mixed with about 1 1/2 cups of sugar, a pinch of allspice and cloves, and 2 tablespoons of cornstarch.  I will be posting pie filling recipes separately.

Nothing better than fresh fruit!

After the pie is filled, you can pop it into the oven for a single crust pie or put it back into the fridge while you roll out the top for a double crust.

I like to create a lattice top for my pies and it’s really quite easy.  I roll out dough as I did for the bottom crust,  it’ll only need to be about 10-11 inches in diameter, and then, I cut it into about 1 inch strips.

I then take every other strip and put it across the pie.

I then use the left over strips to weave through the first set of strips.

Over, under, over, under…

If you think it’s too labor intensive, you can just simply lay the left over strips across without weaving them.  It’s really not a big deal because it ends up looking basically the same and obviously, tastes the same.

Here’s the finished lattice; the pie is almost ready to be baked!

To finish the edges, trim the strips to about 1 inch past the pie pan and press the top and the bottom crusts together, rolling up.  You can then either flute the edges or press them together with a fork.  I did the latter.

All done!

Before you pop your pie into the oven, make sure to cover the edges with tin foil because that’s the part that generally gets burned first!

Place the pie in a baking tray just in case the pie bubbles over.

Bake the pie at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes and then 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes.  If the top gets too brown, cover it with foil.

Here’s my finished pie!

As you can see, my pie doesn’t look perfect, but that’s what I love about it!  You can tell that it’s homemade and you can be damn sure that it’s delicious.  If your crust doesn’t come out the way you had intended it to be, don’t fret!  It took me a few tries to make a good crust but my persistence was worth it.  If you decide to try this recipe, let me know how it turns out!

Recipe: Semi-Homemade Chana Masala

I don’t usually like Indian food but I love chana masala.  Since Trader Joe’s pre-made Chana (Channa) Masala isn’t vegan, I decided to make my own.

Lin’s Semi-Homemade Chana Masala

serves 2-3 people or 1 really hungry person

Ingredients:

1/2 jar of Trader Joe’s Curry Simmer Sauce

1 can of garbanzo beans

1 medium red onion

1/3 bag of green beans (optional)

1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup of water

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Equipment:

1 stainless steel skillet

1 nonstick skillet

1 strainer or colander of some sort

Directions:

Dump the can of garbanzo beans into the strainer and rinse the garbanzo beans under cold water to get rid of the metallic taste that canned vegetables often have.

As the excess water drains out from the beans, chop up the onion.

I chop onions in a very particular way.  I first take off both ends and then make a small slit in the side of the onion so that I can easily peel off the skin.

Chop!

Chop!

Peel!

I then halve the onion and chop each section separately.

When the onion is finely chopped, heat the 1 tablespoon of EVOO in the stainless steel skillet.  It should take about a minute for the pan and oil to get hot.

Once the pan becomes hot, carefully put the chopped onions into the pan.  Do it slowly so that you don’t get splashed by hot oil!

Season the onions with a dash of salt and pepper (I used about 1 teaspoon of each) and cook until the onions begin to caramelize.  It should take about 2 minutes on a medium flame.  Make sure the flame isn’t too high or else the onions will burn.

I recommend using a stainless steel skillet to caramelize the onions because non-stick pans just don’t do it as well or as quickly.

Set the onions aside when they’re done.

To prepare the curry, pour half the jar of the curry into the nonstick pan and stir the 1/2 cup of water into it.  Mix well.

Add the garbanzo beans and let the mixture simmer uncovered on a medium flame for about 10 minutes.

Then add the frozen green beans and caramelized onions to the mixture and let it simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

Don’t forget to stir occasionally!

The chana masala should be done at the end of the 10 minutes with a total cooking time of about 20 minutes.

The end product:

I served the dish over brown basmalti rice, which I made in my rice cooker.

I try to use brown rice whenever I can

Having a rice cooker makes life so much easier for me.  As the rice is being cooked, I can make the rest of the meal without worrying about it.  Anyone who cooks rice should get one.  The rice doesn’t burn and comes out perfectly every time.  My cooker cost about $15 from Walmart.  If you want a fancy one, my friend Alex recommends his $100+ Zojirushi cooker.  Alex claims it sings to him when he makes rice.

Step 1: Rinse the rice and put the correct rice to water ratio into the cooker

Step 2: Cover the cooker and hit “Cook”

20-30 minutes later… voila!