French Onion Brie Pan Pizza

This recipe makes two 10″ deep dish pies, or one giant beautiful pizza that will impress your friends!!  If you have a favorite pizza dough, feel free to use it instead.

French Onion Brie Pan Pizza

Serves 4-8

Pan Pizza Dough:

1-2/3 cups warm water
2-1/2 tsp active dry yeast
2 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup olive oil
4 cups all-purpose flour

1. In large bowl whisk water and yeast until foamy.
2. Whisk in olive oil and sea salt.
3. With a wooden spoon, mix in flour until the soft dough begins to hold together.
4. Turn dough out on floured board and knead for about 5 minutes, adding flour if necessary until the dough is no longer sticky or tacky.
5. Shape dough into a ball, and place dough in well-oiled bowl, turning to coat completely on all sides with oil.
6. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place until double in size, about 45-60 minutes.  Meanwhile make the topping:

Caramelized Onions:

 ¼ cup olive oil
6 cups thinly sliced onions (approx 3 pounds)
6 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons fresh herbs
1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoon brown sugar
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Over medium heat, sauté onions, garlic, herbs and bay leaf in olive oil, stirring occasionally until the onions are very soft, about 35 minutes.
2. Add vinegar and brown sugar, and continue to cook until most of the moisture is evaporated and the onions are caramelized, about 10 minutes.
3. Remove and discard bay leaf.  Season to taste with sea salt and pepper.  Remove from heat.

French Onion Brie Pan Pizza:

1 recipe pan pizza dough (above)
2 cups Vegan Cow brand Brie, sliced
freshly ground black pepper, lots and lots!!
1 recipe carmelized onions (above)
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts, optional

1. Preheat the oven to 475.
2. Punch down dough and turn out onto lightly floured board. Knead out bubbles.
3. Cut the dough half.  Note: Unused dough can be wrapped tightly and frozen for up to a month, or refrigerated for use the next day.
4. Grease the inside of two large deep dish pans or skillets with olive oil, and press the dough into the pans, pulling the edge of the dough up the sides of the pan to form a 2” lip.
5. Let dough rise in pan for 20 minutes before filling and baking.
6. Prick dough all over with the tines of a fork and place pans on the bottom rack of preheated oven for 4 minutes.
7. Remove the crust from the oven and brush surface of pizza dough all over with olive oil.
8. Spread 1 cup of vegan Brie over the top of each pizza, and sprinkle generously with black pepper.  Top with caramelized onions and sprinkle with pine nuts, if using.
9. Return pizzas to bottom rack and bake 5 minutes.  Move pizzas to middle rack and continue to bake until crust is golden, about 20-25 minutes.

Woah!

Aubergine Parcels

These sophisticated looking appetizers are both impressive and bursting with exotic flavors, but they are also surprising easy to put together.  Show them off as a side dish at your next barbecue, or serve them over wild rice as an entree.  Grilled or broiled, they are sure to please!  And because the eggplant slices are boiled first, they actually use a lot less oil during the cooking, so the result is a pretty low fat dish with a lot of flavor!

Aubergine Parcels

Makes 6 parcels

• 2 large japanese eggplants
• 6 oz Vegan Cow brand Mockstarella cheese (approx 6 heaping tbsp)
• 2 medium/small tomatoes
• small bunch mint or basil
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar

Directions:

1. Wash and trim the ends off off the eggplants.  Using a mandolin or a long-bladed sharp knife, cut the eggplants lengthwise into long thin slices.  Excluding the outer slices which are mostly peel, you will need 12 slices of eggplant.
2. Bring a large pan of water to a boil.  Add a pinch of salt along with the eggplant slices and cook until the slices are just softened, about 1-2 minutes.  Don’t overcook or they will fall apart.  You just want them to be pliable, not mushy.  Drain them and dry them on paper towels.
3. Cut the tomatoes into 12 slices, excluding the ouside slices, which are mostly peel.  Have the mint leaves ready.
4. Take two eggplant slices and place them on a work surface in a cross position, laying one over the other. 
5. Place a slice of tomato in the center of the eggplant cross.  Season with sea salt and pepper, then add a few mint leaves (or a large basil leaf), followed by a heaping tablespoon of Mockstarella, a few more mint leaves, another slice of tomato, and more sea salt and pepper.  Top with 5 or 6 pine nuts (optional).
6. To close the parcel, fold the ends of the eggplant slices up and over the filling to make a neat parcel, beginning with the top slice and ending with the bottom slice. Repeat until all 6 parcels are made.  Chill for at least 20 minutes.
7. Ready the grill or the preheat oven to broil, depending on your preference.
8. Brush the parcels with a high quality olive oil and sprinkle with balsamic vinegar and freshly ground black pepper.  Grill the parcels for about 5 minutes on each side, or broil the parcels 7-8 minutes on each side.  Serve hot!  Garnish with more pine nuts and mint if desired.

Marinated Cheese

I made this recipe with the Swizz cheese and was so excited about the results that immediately emailed it to my employee, Sarah.  It’s just bursting with flavor. Serve it either as a plated appetizer, or as a light meal: it’s extremely filling, especially if you serve it with slices of a high quality crusty bread and some Greek olives.  Sarah now claims she makes it every Monday to eat while watching her favorite show on television.  It also happens to be the reason her cat is completely covered in a $20 bottle of Italian Olive Oil, but that’s another story…

Marinated Swizz Cheese

Serves 2-4

• 12 bite-sized pieces of Vegan Cow brand Swizz cheese
• 5 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1-2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp whole black peppercorns
• 1 clove garlic, sliced very thin
• sea salt, to taste
• fresh tarragon sprigs, to garnish

Directions:

1. In a small bowl or glass measuring cup, whisk the olive oil, vinegar, peppercorns and garlic together.
2. Place the Swizz cheese bites in another small bowl and pour the marinade over them.  Cover and chill at least one hour or up to several days.
3. Garnish with tarragon sprigs, and sprinkle with a pinch of sea salt to taste.
4. Serve with slices of a good quality crusty artisan bread and Greek olives.
5. If plating, divide the cheese equally among 2-4 plates and drizzle with the marinade for dipping!

Lasagna Alfredo

Dave and I have a friend over every Monday while her husband teaches a night class on Astronomy.  We made this from scratch last night – it was beautiful and held up well, though I suspect, like most vegan pasta, it will be even better after sitting a day.  I’ll ask Dave about his lunch when he gets home from work!

 

This four-layer, deep dish white “cheese” lasagna is enough for a party of four with lunch leftovers.  The neutral color warrants serving it on a richly colored plate and is complimented by a leafy green salad and a good crusty bread.  Feel free to add or substitute your favorite red or green vegetables, but remember the key to a white cheese pasta dish is the liberal use of freshly ground black pepper!

 

Lasagna Alfredo

Makes 4-6 servings

 

9 lasagna noodles

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

2 cups chopped mushrooms

1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce

1 pound firm tofu, crumbled

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

1 tablespoon seasoned rice vinegar or lemon juice

½ teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

3 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

2 tablespoons soy butter

1 cup unflavored soy milk

2 containers Vegan Cow brand Mockstarella

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

½ teaspoon granulated garlic

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3 cups baby spinach leaves, shredded

¾ cups sun-dried tomatoes, chopped

 

1. Preheat oven to 350°.  Have ready a deep dish 8” x 8” casserole dish with a fitted lid.  Spray lightly with canola oil or wipe with olive oil.
2. Cook the lasagna noodles according to package directions, or in salted boiling water for approximately 10 minutes until al dente.  Drain and rinse with cold water or separate the noodles immediately.
3. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet (large!), and sauté the onions and garlic over medium heat until the onions begin to turn translucent.  Add the mushrooms and tamari or soy sauce and continue to cook until the mushrooms start to release their juice.  Add the tofu, nutritional yeast, rice vinegar, sea salt and black pepper and stir until heated through.  Remove skillet from heat and stir in fresh basil.
4. In a saucepan, over medium-low heat, melt the soy butter.  Add the unflavored soy milk and Mockstarella cheese and stir together until smooth and creamy.  The sauce should be thick, but pourable. Add more soy milk if necessary to reach desired consistency. Stir in black pepper, garlic and nutmeg.  Remove from heat.
5. Place enough cheese sauce in the bottom of the oiled casserole dish to just cover the bottom.  Take six of the lasagna noodles and cut approximately 4 inches off each of the noodles. 
6. To layer the lasagna: Line the bottom of the pan, on top of the cheese, with the six short pieces, overlapping the rippled sides.  Add enough cheese sauce to cover these noodles.  Place one-third of the tofu-mushroom filling over the cheese.  Top this with 1 cup of the shredded spinach and ¼ cup of the chopped tomatoes.  Top this with 3 of the longer pieces of the six cut noodles, tucking the ends of the noodles down on the sides.  (Don’t worry if you cut your noodles too short – just cut a few small pieces off the three remaining large noodles and “fix” it!).  Repeat this layering until you get to the top layer.  The three large noodles should fit nicely across the top.  Tuck the noodles down on the sides, top with the remaining cheese and sprinkle liberally with freshly ground black pepper.
7. Cover, and bake 45 minutes.

Brie Walnut Muffins

I have been making a variation of Vegan Cow brand Brie muffins daily now for a week, and they have been selling like nobody’s business…well, except mine! I haven’t yet experimented with herbs and savory flavors, but the fruit and nut combinations are winners.

Brie Walnut Muffins

Makes 12 regular or 6 Texas-sized muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour

¼ cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon sea salt

1½ cups Vegan Cow brand Brie cheese, chunked

1¼ cups unflavored soy milk

½ cup blended silken tofu

6 tablespoons soy butter, melted

1 cup toasted walnuts

Preheat the oven to 400°F and spray muffin pans with nonstick spray or line with paper muffin cups.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and sea salt. Add the chunks of Brie and stir to coat well with the flour.

In a large bowl, whisk together the soy milk, tofu and soy butter until blended.

Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just blended. Gently fold in the walnuts.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pans. Bake for 22-24 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Note: Because these muffins contain very little sugar, they don’t brown, so take care not to over-bake them! Cool muffins in pans for 5 minutes. Run a knife or cake spatula around the edges of the muffins to loosen before carefully lifting them out. Serve warm, if possible!

Variations:

Apple Brie Walnut Muffins: Add up to one cup of peeled and diced green apple. Increase sugar to ½ cup. Reduce walnuts to ¾ cup.

Blueberry Brie Muffins: Omit the walnuts. Fold in 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries. Increase cooking time to 24-26 minutes. Note: You can leave in the walnuts if you want to, but reduce both the blueberries and walnuts to ½ heaping cup, or your muffins might overflow.

Raspberry Brie Pecan Muffins: Substitute toasted pecans for the walnuts. Spoon about 1/3 cup of batter into each prepared muffin cup. With a wet spoon, make an indentation in the batter. Place 1 tablespoon of raspberry preserves in the center of each portion of batter, taking care not to let the preserves touch the sides of the cups. Spoon remaining batter over the preserves.

Burning Brain, Flaming Heart

I don’t know why this is my first non-recipe post.  But it is.

Tonight I’m poking around, using my vegan tracker to find out what’s going on around the “internets” – and what do I find?  A Spanish blog!  And supposedly it mentions vegans or vegan things.  I want to meet a Spanish Vegan!  And I want him to have thick black hair and talk like Inigo Montoya (“Prepare to DIE!”), and make me juevo-less rancheros for breakfast, in bed.

The blog is called Burning Brain, Flaming Heart.  I see it translated on other blogs as “Burning Brain, Flamming Heart.”

Here is where I digress:

According to the Urban Dictionary, ”Flamming” means (sorry, my site is PG).  As former editor of the Urban Dictionary, I can tell you that they ignored my suggestion to give editors the ability to correct grammar and spelling because it might detract from the writer’s original meaning.  What a load of “flamming” excrement.  So I sit sadly by the wayside, watching the kids get dumber and dumber.  Get off the slang!  The real definition of “flam” is “a deception or a trick.”

Digression over.

Back to the blog.  One look at it and my three years of high school Spanish really paid off.  Does that first sentence really mention something about “cold llama hearts?”  That’s not vegan!  Gross.

And, of course, my brain automatically craves comedy.  And I think “Oh, yeah! Yahoo’s Babelfish website translator!” If you take a web address and paste it here, you are basically asking for a Chinese menu.

“The Burning Brain is a mind in search of the freedom.”

I’m not sure there is a lot of vegan info on this site, but I did find the post “veganismo” where there is a recipe, not for llama hearts, but for “Quinoa with oregano and the Coco.”

The directions are so funny, so I’m including them below, verbatim:

“Preparation (20 min.):

It is put approximately to boil half liter of water in a dipper with a little margarine and something of salt, when it boils lies down quinoa and the fire lowers to average intensity.

When half of liquid has already evaporated a little more, we will throw oregano, the rallado Coco and the nuts. I advise, according to tastes, to put either the more oregano or the more the Coco, but that one of both flavors predominates slightly. To remove it a little and to leave quinoa finish it being done absorbing the aromas.

While this becomes, we can prepare the second part of the plate with a salad, seitán fried, tempura of vegetables, fried lightly vegetables, or what it desires to us more.

This time I tried to improvise a small salad with a tomato, a picadito barrita of tempeh, artichokes (of tin) cut and Mayola (mayonnaise vegana, also can be made caretaker). There are many more possibilities, it is only question to watch what already it is had by house and to combine a pair of vegetables.

This prescription is ideal to prepare a trimming or combined plate of very fast, economic and nutritious form.

Good benefit!”

Now, if you would all kindly excuse me, I have some oregano to throw.

Hot Brie Dip in Rye

I loved that spinach dip my mom used to make with cream cheese, sour cream, frozen spinach and water chestnuts.  I especially liked the presentation in the sourdough bowl.  Here is another party dip, baked and served in a rye bowl.  Or course, if you don’t like rye, you can substitute any good quality, round artisan bread.

 

Hot Brie Dip in Rye

Makes 2 cups of dip

 

2 tablespoons soy butter

1 medium onion, chopped fine

2 teaspoons garlic, minced

1 container Vegan Cow brand Brie cheese

1 container plain Tofutti cream cheese

¾ cup vegan sour cream

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon vegetarian Worcestershire or steak sauce, optional

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 round rye bread loaf, or other artisan bread

Paprika, optional

 

Preheat oven to 400°F.

 

In a small skillet, sauté onion and garlic in soy butter over medium heat until golden. Remove from heat.

 

In a medium bowl, cream Brie and cream cheese together until smooth.  Mix in the onion and garlic mixture, sour cream, lemon juice, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce, if using.  Season to taste with sea salt and pepper.

 

Using a bread knife, cut the top off the bread round and set aside.  Make a bowl out of the bread by tearing small pieces out of the bread until a bowl shape is formed, taking care not to remove too much of the bread.  Fill the bowl with the cheese mixture. Wrap the entire loaf in foil and bake in the oven until bubbly, about 25 minutes. Sprinkle with paprika. 

 

Serve hot with the bread pieces and crackers, along with a side of fig or raspberry jam and an assortment of dried fruits.

Apple Cheese Melt

This is certainly not an original idea.  Swiss and ham go together like peanut butter and jelly.  But maybe you haven’t tried it, so here it is, vegan style.  These can also be made open-faced under a broiler if don’t like to grill your sandwiches in butter.  I said “if.”  Mustard and mayonnaise are also great additions!

 

Apple Cheese Melt

Serves 1

 

1 tbsp soy butter, at room temperature

2 slices whole wheat bread

1 slice veggie ham

6 thin slices of gala or empire apple

¼ container of Vegan Cow brand Swizz cheese, sliced thinly

 

Heat a skillet over medium heat, to 350°F.

 

Spread soy butter on one side of each slice of bread.  Assemble sandwich, buttered sides out, by layering with veggie ham, apple slices and Swizz cheese slices.

 

Grill sandwich in a covered skillet until browned and crisp, about 4-6 minutes on each side.

 

Apple, Brie & Walnut Salad

Apple, Brie, and Walnut Salad 

Serves 4

 

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon brown sugar

1 teaspoon minced garlic

¼ teaspoon sea salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 gala or empire apples, thinly sliced

3 cups spring mix salad greens or baby spinach

½ container Vegan Cow brand Brie cheese, diced

1/3 cup walnuts, toasted

 

In a large bowl, whisk together the balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, garlic, sea salt and black pepper until sugar and salt dissolve.  Whisk in the olive oil.

 

Toss the apple slices with the vinaigrette until evenly coated.  Add the greens and toss gently.  Divide dressed salad between four plates.  Top with the Brie and walnuts just before serving.

“Chicken” Florentine Alfredo

This dish is beautiful by itself, but steamed or sautéed vegetables, crusty breads, or fresh tomato antipasto make fabulous sides.  For a more filling meal, serve over cooked rice.  

 

“CHICKEN” FLORENTINE ALFREDO  

Serves 2

 

1 tbsp soy butter

1 package chicken-style seitan, drained and cut into 1” strips (approx.)

1 tbsp soy butter

2 tbsp shallots, sliced

1 tsp minced garlic

½ cup dry white wine

1 cup Vegan Cow brand Alfredo Sauce

1 tbsp chopped fresh Italian parsley

Sea salt and pepper, to taste

1 tbsp soy butter

½ pound fresh spinach

2 tbsp vegan parmesan cheese (optional)

Sea salt and pepper, to taste

Freshly grated nutmeg

 

Place one tablespoon soy butter in a large non-stick skillet and heat over medium to melt.  Add chicken-style seitan to pan and sauté 6-8 minutes until browned. Transfer the seitan to a plate and cover it with foil to keep it warm.

 

Melt one more tablespoon of soy butter in the same skillet over medium heat.  Add the shallots and garlic and sauté until the shallots are translucent, stirring to scrape up any browned bits on the bottom of the skillet, about 1 minute. Add the wine. Increase the heat to medium-high and boil until the liquid is reduced by half, about 3 minutes.

 

Lower heat and add the Vegan Cow brand Alfredo sauce.  Continue to cook until bubbly, stirring often, until the sauce is heated through, about 3 minutes. Stir in the parsley. Season the sauce, to taste, with salt and pepper.

 

Meanwhile, melt the remaining tablespoon of butter in another large skillet over medium heat. Add the spinach and sauté until wilted.  Season the spinach, to taste, with salt and pepper and parmesan, if using.

 

To serve, arrange the spinach over two plates. Place the “chicken” strips atop the spinach. Drizzle the sauce over the dish and garnish with a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg.