Mushroom and lentil soup with horseradish cream

Someone told me once that in the spring, summer and winter are wrestling each other for control, and that pretty much explains the weather around here these days. Take today - pretty much, it's summer. People are walking around in shorts and t-shirts, crocuses are poking up on the lawn and we just hung our laundry outside for the first time in the season. It's beautiful.

But that's today. On Monday, it was a blizzard. And that's when I made this soup. It was a hearty soup kind of a day then. The combination of dried and fresh mushrooms give the soup a deep, rich flavour, and the lentils make it earthy and filling and cheap enough to feed an army with.

But the soup is not really the point here. Vegan horseradish cream  is the point. Drizzled on top of the soup, it contrasts the rich earthy flavours of the soup with a tangy heat and adds a certain wow factor that I don't usually associate with lentil soup (and don't get me wrong, I love lentil soup.) And it's really pretty, which is important when one is trying to woo one's new vegan roommates.

You'll need:

For the soup

2 tbsp olive oil
5 small carrots, diced
1 medium red onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 cups button mushrooms (or something fancier, but I only had button)
1 cup dried mushrooms (the polish kind are best. I have no idea what kind they are, but they have a wonderful forest-y taste)
1/4 tsp dried thyme or a few sprigs fresh
1 3/4 cups dried brown lentils
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
salt and pepper to taste

For the horseradish creme

2 tablespoons horseradish
1 tablespoon coconut cream

1. Put the dried mushrooms in a bowl and cover them with 2 cups of hot water. Leave them to soften.

2. Finely chop the onion, mushrooms and carrots. In a large pot saute the carrots, onion and garlic in olive oil until they begin to get soft. Add the diced fresh mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms are softened and browning, 5-8 minutes.

3. Add the dried mushrooms and almost all the water you soaked them in. Leave the water in the very bottom of the bowl, which tends to be a bit gritty.

4. Add an additional 5 cups of water, the lentils and the thyme. Partially cover and allow it to simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the lentils are soft. Add the sesame oil at the end.

5. While the soup is simmering, combine the horseradish and coconut cream and mix well.

6. Drizzle the horseradish cream on top of the soup and garnish (if you have it, which I didn't) with a sprig of thyme. Your boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend/grandmother will be duly impressed.

Chili-lime tofu with collards and brown rice

We survived the move! Every muscle in my body still hurts, and I never want to see a slice of pizza again - but here we are, more or less settled in the big city. The house is (almost) set up, we've become familiar with the local dog park, and I'm learning to bike in crazy city traffic. I think we're going to make it, folks.

The day after we moved I woke up early (no curtains on the windows yet) and picked my way over the piles of boxes to the kitchen. Even though it was barely 8:30 in the morning, my roommate Meagh was already tackling the huge piles of boxes and putting dishes away. It looks like we have some common unpacking priorities, Meagh and I - kitchens come first. You gotta eat, right?

So here it is, the inaugural recipe post from our new house. Vegan chili-lime tofu with collards and brown rice - because really, fuck pizza. This dish has a really nice balance of flavours - hot, sweet, salty, and sour with just a bit of bitterness from the greens. The sauce is quick to put together, and when you throw it onto the hot tofu, it turns into a beautiful glaze that packs a real punch. It may be chocked full of sugar and salt - but all those dark leafy greens balance it out, right? 

This recipe is adapted from the amazing (and sadly, now inactive) www.veganyumyum.com. I will post the original recipe below, which serves 2 or 3 - I doubled it for four people with great results.

You'll need:

1 Block Tofu, extra firm, 14oz
1 bunch collard greens - deveined
1 1/2 cups brown rice
zest of 1/2 lime

For the glaze:

3 Tbs Sugar
3 Tbs Reduced Sodium Tamari (or soy sauce)
1 3/4 Tbs Fresh Lime Juice
1/2 Zest of the Lime
1/2 tsp Red Chili Flakes (or 1-2 fresh hot chilies, minced)
1 Clove Garlic, pressed, optional
1/4 tsp Salt
4 mint leaves, diced.

1. Put the rice on to cook, and throw in the zest of 1/2 a lime for some extra flavour. While you're at it, preheat your oven to 350.

2. Combine all the glaze ingredients and stir until thoroughly combined.

3. Cut the tofu into thick slices, and then quarter the slices into triangles (just to look fancy).

4. Spread out the tofu on a baking tray, and bake at 350 for 20 minutes, or until the tofu turns golden at the edges. This is one of my favorite ways of getting really chewy tofu - unlike frying, baked tofu tends to stay together and tends to absorb future flavours really well. No need to add oil or anything, just toss it in the oven.

5. Prep the collards. Take out their tough spines and slice the leaves into thin strips.

6. Throw the collards in a wok on medium-high with about 3 tbsp of water, a tbsp of lime and a pinch of salt, and cover. They should steam themselves in a few minutes. After about 5 minutes, remove the cover and let the remaining water boil  off.

7. Take the tofu out of the oven and throw it in a hot frying pan with a little bit of oil (less then 1 tbsp). Once the tofu is hot, throw in the glaze and wait for it to boil - this should take only a few seconds. Toss the tofu in the sauce, making sure everything is well coated, then remove the pan from the heat. The glaze should turn glazey at this point, turning sticky and shiny.

8. Serve the collards and tofu over rice, and garnish it with slices of lime.

So there it is - the first ever (real) dinner in our new pad. Look at those game-faces! Smiling through the exhaustion. What gems.

I have some really, really adorable roommates. And I think this is shaping up to be a pretty awesome house.

I promise to post pictures soon, once we have more then just the kitchen set up. And now that I live with the cutest vegan couple out there, and seeing as I show my love primarily through food, I hope to bring you lots of delicious vegan recipes in the weeks and months to come. Aaand maybe the occasional meat-y something as well.

Things to look forward to in the big city:

Last night, I finally sucked it up and packed my first box. I've been putting it off. With Agata tied to her desk for the foreseeable future, the prospect of packing and moving our house to Toronto feels pretty overwhelming at this point. But even with the work of the next week looming ahead, I keep getting these little reminders of all the exciting things to look forward to.

One of those things is Well Preserved's regular food-related events. If you're not reading Well Preserved, I would highly recommend it - it was one of my favourite blogs for ages before I realized the folks behind it were Torontonians. If it wasn't for Well Preserved, I would have never known about candied bacon jerky - and where would I be then?

Every so often, Well Preserved hosts Home Ec, a regular series of food-related events at The Avro, a great little bar in Toronto's east end.

Last night, they hosted a preserve swap that I can't believe I missed out on (although then, who would have  packed the first box?). I would have happily traded some of our many remaining jars of canned tomatoes, elderberry syrup,  ketchup and shakshuka from last summer's harvest for some of the goodies reported from last night's swap. I mean, nectarine ginger jam? Maple sap? Yes please. 

Preserve swaps make so much sense to me. Canning and preserving tends to lend itself to large batches, and while we usually have no trouble eating our way through what we make, I love the idea of adding a bit of diversity to the ol' pantry. 

I also like the idea of getting together with a bunch of other preserving-types to hang out, drink beer and trade tips. Maybe I can finally figure out what to do with the pickled moose meat a friend recently brought back from a trip to Newfoundland. I've been waiting for a stroke of inspiration, but I'll admit, both pickled meat in general - and pickled moose meat specifically - are new territory for me. 

While I missed out on the preserve swap, they've just announced Home Ec #3: Potluck on Sticks. It seems to be what it sounds - a potluck that exclusively features food on sticks. Best of all? It's on March 26th, by which time I will be living in Toronto, and maybe even partially unpacked. 

Anyone have any good food-on-sticks suggestions? Extra points if they incorporate pickled moose meat. 

Baked Banana Rum Fritters

Ok, so after a long hiatus from cooking much other then vegetarian chili, I decided it was time to buy some fruit. One cannot live on beans and tomatoes alone (or maybe one can, but one should still probably eat some fruit occasionally,) so I bought a bunch of beautiful organic bananas. Aand then promptly forgot about them. You see, Agata and I discovered that if you add chili to nachos and throw on some cheese.. bam! whole new food. No need to eat the fruit. See what winter does to me? It's not pretty.

So now the bananas are starting to look a bit sad. If winter has two rules in my house, they are #1) big batches of chili and #2) spiced rum in everything. Having already explored rule #1 in relation to the aforementioned bananas with limited success (the bananas remain uneaten), I decided to explore rule #2, wherein the bananas are combined with spiced rum. Resounding success!

These fritters are best eaten warm, in great quantities, and along with a hot rum toddy.. They are simultaneously crispy and soft with lots of sweet baked banana. It's great.

Baked Banana Rum Fritters
based on a recipe by Nikki Gardner of DesignSponge

You'll need:

• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup dark rum
• 1 cup flour
• 3 eggs
• 5 bananas, cut into small pieces.
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar for dusting

1. Pre-heat the oven to 425. 

2. Prepare the dough. Combine sugar, butter, salt, milk and rum in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once you've got in boiling, reduce the heat to low and dump in the flour, all at once. Stir the mixture, which will pull away from the edges of the saucepan and stick together in about 30 seconds. Remove the pan from the heat and beat in the eggs one at a time, stirring until the dough is completely smooth after each addition.

3. Fold the banana into the dough. Butter a baking sheet. Make them really banana-y, its better that way. Maybe 70% banana to 30% dough? These fritters are really a celebration of all things banana - the dough is just to stick the whole thing together. Form the dough into small balls, about 1-2 inches in diameter, and put them on the baking sheet.  This is a messy process (although I suppose I could have used a spoon).

4. Bake until crisp and brown, 10 to 15 minutes.

5. Serve hot, sprinkled with icing sugar. 

Enjoy (and hope that spring comes soon). 

Farewell to this house, this town.

So, this blog has been pretty quiet for the last little while. Life has run away with me, somewhat, but it's all good stuff. While Agata has been slogging away to finish her thesis and re-enter the world of the living, I've been packing up our little apartment and scanning the housing listings.

After almost eight years, I'll be leaving my adopted town of Peterborough and heading back to Toronto, where I grew up. Agata and I will be moving in with our good friends Meagh and Claire, who are probably two of my favourite people in the world - and the whole thing feels really, really exciting.

We managed to find a house we can afford, in a neighbourhood we like, with lots of windows and a big yard  for gardening and enough space for peaceful cohabitation. The whole thing is in desperate need of a coat of paint and some love, but I think we're up for it. 

But I will miss our Peterborough apartment. Agata and I have lived here for two years now, and it was our first place together. It's been good to us.

 I will especially miss this kitchen. So much light. So little counter space.