Tofu Patty with Black Kale

After a long week of assignments, presentations and an incredibly stressful interview, I decided to kick back and cook up something interesting.

I was planning on just making some boring grilled tofu, but decided I was craving something much more… burgery. So I decided to make some tofu patties with whatever I had in the fridge.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the exact proportions for this recipe, but it can be measured to taste.

• 2 pieces of medium firm tofu
• 3-4 cremini mushrooms
• 1 stalk green onion
• bit of flour (or breadcrumbs, I didn’t have any at the moment) to bind
• bit of kale
• 1 chopped walnut (optional, for texture)
• some cooked rice (that I had leftover,  made with vegetable broth instead of water)
• 1 lightly beaten egg
• salt
• pepper

Doesn't look very appealing uncooked...

Mix all the ingredients together and and form 1/2 inch patties. I found that the patties were fairly fragile so making them smaller than I have here should make them much more manageable when cooking. Pan fry the patties on medium heat until both sides are nice and golden and enjoy =)

Hot off the pan!

]]> http://blog.mlee.ca/2010/03/tofu-patties/feed/ 2 http://blog.mlee.ca/2009/12/leek-and-ham-quiche/ http://blog.mlee.ca/2009/12/leek-and-ham-quiche/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:02:10 +0000 Mike http://blog.mlee.ca/?p=442 Leek & Ham Quiche Quiche is one of my favourite dishes, EVER. The creamy eggy, the strong flavours of cheese and whatever filling is inside, as …]]>

Leek & Ham Quiche

Quiche is one of my favourite dishes, EVER. The creamy eggy, the strong flavours of cheese and whatever filling is inside, as well as the flaky crust. Irresistable! Since my mom had returned from her vacation, I haven’t had the opportunity to cook. Fueled by the strong desire to cook something up, I dropped by the grocery store and grabbed some leeks and Yves Meatless Ham.

Here’s the recipe I used, based on a recipe from Canadian Living. (The crust recipe is identical, so I’m not going to duplicate it here.)

Ingredients:
1/2 tbsp olive oil
6 slices of Yves Meatless Ham, 1/2 inch pieces
1 large leek, 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 tsp (2 mL) pepper
1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
4 large eggs
5/8 cup (150 mL) 2% milk
2 tbsp (25 mL) dijon mustard
3/4 cup (175 mL) shredded Gruyère cheese
1 tbsp crumbled Blue Haze cheese

Directions:
In a large skillet on medium heat, add olive oil and fry ham, leek, pepper and salt until softened.

In a large bowl, whisk eggs and milk together. Add ham, leek and bluze haze, mixing all the ingredients together.

Spread mustard over the pastry shell. Sprinkle the Gruyère over the crust and pour in egg mixture.

Bake in oven at 375°F for about 40 minutes, until a knife through the centre comes out clean. Remove from heat, and let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Enjoy =)

After a visit to the grocery store, I bought some Belgian Endives, with no idea how to prepare them at all. After looking up a few recipes with them, I noticed quite a few involved steaming the endives and cooking it with chickpeas. I decided to throw some kidney beans into the dish as well, just for the sake of variety.

In a small pot, take about 1/2 a cup of rehydrated chickpeas and boil them with just enough stock to submerge them. After boiling for about 15 minutes, the chickpeas should be slightly soft. After separating the leaves of the endives, place them on top of the chickpeas, adding tablespoons of stock as required. Once they have cooked throughly, crack an egg on top and steam until the egg white turns opaque. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper, and that’s it!

Chickpea, Kidney Bean and Steamed Endives

After being served Pan-Seared Polenta for the first time two weeks ago at Le Select Bistro, I was really interested in making some of my own. Polenta is made with cornmeal and mixed with water, a little butter and some salt. When it is freshly made, it is basically a mush of cornmeal, but once it sets it becomes a solid form that you can cut and cook in many other ways.

I used this basic recipe to get the proportions correct, and added a little tumeric for more flavour. Apparently if you replace some of the water with milk, it makes the polenta fluffier and lighter too (I wanted to do that but didn’t have any milk left).

I seared the polenta and placed it ontop of some tomato paste (should be sauce, but was too lazy to make some) and then added some grilled portobello, fresh yellow tomatoes and some dill on top.

With the exception of the tomato paste, the rest of the meal tasted great, although I made a small portion, it was quite filling. The yellow tomatoes taste really good, they’re flavourful and much less acidic than regular tomatoes so it tastes much mush refreshing.

Eggs in the Basket

Unsure of what to have for breakfast this morning, I asked Jamie and she suggested that I make eggs in the basket, but the way that she usually makes it. Normally, eggs in a basket is a slice of bread with a hole punched out of it. The slice is then placed on a frying pan with some butter, lightly toasted, flipped and then an egg is cracked in the middle of it and is cooked sunny side up.

Jamie’s method is to simply press an indent in the centre of the bread (so that no bread is wasted), spread butter around the indent, crack the egg in the indent and bake. This method gives you baked eggs, which are much softer and fluffier than a fried egg. Just remember to keep track of the yolk so that it doesn’t get overcooked and solidify!

For breakfast today, I made omurice which is a portmanteau of the words omelette and rice. It’s a Japanese dish that is basically fried rice wrapped in a thin sheet of egg.

Omurice

Here’s (roughly) how I made mine:

• 1/2 cup steamed rice, cooled off
• 2 button mushrooms, chopped
• tablespoon green onions, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• tablespoon ketchup
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup milk
• salt
• pepper
• vegetable oil

At medium heat, add the oil and garlic, sautee until slightly brown. Add rice and stir until the rice is heated up again (cooling it off first prevents it from getting all mushy in the stir-frying process). Finally, add mushrooms, green onions, salt, pepper, ketchup and whatever other spices you want to add to the rice. Once all the ingredients are cooked, set the rice aside. Whisk the egg and milk together and pour it into the pan so that it makes a nice thin layer of egg. Once the egg is solidified throughout (flipping is optional), add the rice on one side and fold the other half of the egg over.

Serves one.

More Omurice

After settling back into the university residence, I felt that I should take up the challenge of making some of my own risotto.  Apparently it’s quite hard to get right so I just wanted to see just how hard.

Here’s the modified recipe that I used, based on a Lemon Asparagus recipe I found.  I find that this fills 2 people.

Asparagus and Mushroom

• 7 stalks of asparagus
• 1 portobello mushroom
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 garlic cloves

Risotto

• vegetable stock (or chicken stock if you’re not a vegetarian)
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 cup arborio rice
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Bring stock to a simmer and set aside
2. heat oil and butter in a pan
3. sauté garlic until almost golden and add asparagus
4. once the asparagus is almost ready, add the mushrooms
5. once the mushrooms have cooked, set aside
6. for the risotto, heat 2 tbsps butter in another pan on medium
7. add the arborio rice and stir until translucent
8. add the wine and reduce until almost dry, continuously stirring
9. add half a cup of stock and reduce until almost dry, continuously stirring
10. repeat step 9 until rice is tender and creamy, this takes about 20 minutes
11. stir in the asparagus, mushroom, remaining butter and half the cheese
12. scoop in bowls and sprinkle remaining cheese on top
    

Asparagus & Portobello Mushroom Risotto

Since I was the one cooking it, it was pretty easy to match the consistency of how I liked the rice.  Using vegetable stock instead of the usual chicken stock may have reduced some of the flavour, so perhaps a little salt or more butter could have been added to enhance the taste.  I sautéed the asparagus and mushrooms before I even started cooking the risotto, which was an obvious mistake that left the asparagus slightly dry.  Overall though, I think this was a pretty successful first attempt at making risotto.  There are creamier recipes that require table cream and more cheese that I’ll probably try next.  Also, I understand the effort that is spent looking over the pot and constantly stirring for almost half an hour, really gives a lot to think about the value of the dish the next time I order it somewhere.

And I have  few restaurant reviews I still have yet to write about which I’ll get to soon =).