My last puffed Pastry Recipe for a While

I promise, this is the last one!

Man, it's been a bit of a stressful few weeks! You might not know this, but I'm a teaching assistant at the university in the Theology department, and all the papers for the class I deal with were due, so it was epic paper marking time! I did read a lot of really great papers, and some... less successful efforts shall we say!

But I finished marking on Sunday, inputted all the marks on Monday, which means I'm done for the semester! Matthew and I leave on Friday to go visit family, however I shall try to keep with a semi regular updating schedule over the holidays :)

Onto the food!

I had a bit of puffed pastry left from the first use of it, so I decided to make a pie. Unfortunately, my pie pan was dirty, and being lazy I didn't feel like cleaning it... So I used a casserole dish. This was in error, I should have DEFINITELY gone pie pan, as it was a bit too deep to pull out pieces of it neatly, so the pictures aren't as pretty as I like. However, It did taste AMAZING, So I'm just going to let it go for now.

Vegetable Puffed Pastry Tart
Ingredients: (all of these are what I used for my dish, however they will alter slightly for different sized baking dishes!)
1 medium onion, sliced
2 medium potatoes, sliced
Enough puffed pastry to cover your dish
2 cups diced tomatoes
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 1/2 Cups Daiya Cheese

Directions
Preheat your oven to 350.
Roll out the dough, and cover your baking dish with it. Bake for about 10 minutes while you slice up all your veggies.
Remove the partially cooked dough from the oven, and begin layering all of the innards onto it. I did Potato, Tomato, onion, mushroom daiya in 2 layers, but do whatever feels right.
Bake for 45 minutes.
Remove, eat, enjoy!

Nom!

A simple pasta for guests

You may have noticed that I always say to make pasta for guests. This may seem redundant. It's not. People love pasta, and it's really hard to screw it up. Really hard. Especially when it has few ingredients, and an easy method to make. It also looks really pretty!

Easy Fancy Sundried Tomato Mushroom Pasta
Ingredients:
Enough pasta for each person you're serving.
Per person:
1/2  cup sliced mushrooms
1/3 cup diced sundried tomatoes
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp minced garlic
1/3 cup white wine (not anything fancy, do the cheap stuff, no one will notice!)
A few shakes basil, salt, pepper.

Directions:
Cook your pasta up the way you normally do it. Drain and etc.
In a frying pan, sautee the garlic and mushrooms in the olive oil. After the mushrooms have released their moisture and are getting nice and cooked up, add in the sundried tomatoes and white wine. Continue to sautee until most of the wine has been absorbed into the mushrooms and tomatoes.
Toss the pasta and the sauteed mixture in a bowl together. Season with the basil, salt and pepper.
Eat and enjoy the fanciness :)

Nom nom nom!

Homemade Pizza Pockets

So recently I've become obsessed with making my own puffed pastry. I've been thinking about it, dreaming about it... I want to make Tempeh sausage rolls. I've been dreaming of them.

So I located this. The only change I made was to use Earth Balance sticks instead of butter, and it worked pretty well.

I unfortunately screwed up the combination of the butter and the dough, AND I think my dough needed a bit more water, it was sort of crumbly, so my next attempt will fix these things, and hopefully I can roll it into a sausage roll. Since I couldn't quite roll it the way i wanted, I made pizza pockets instead!

Oooh, this looks good!

What Could be Inside of this?

Oh My Damn!

Pizza Pockets

Ingredients:

Tartlette's GF puffed pastry made with Earth Balance, rolled into rectangles of the same size (Poptart sized)

Diced tomatoes

Daiya Vegan Cheddar

Toppings of your choice (I used sundried tomatoes and mushrooms! Cut them into small pieces)

Basil, Minced Garlic, salt and pepper. 

A little bit of soy milk

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Mix together the tomatoes with the basil, garlic, salt and pepper. Place it on the bottom of 1/2 of your rectangles. Leave about 1 cm of space on either side. 

Top with the toppings. Top the toppings with the cheese. 

brush a little soy milk around the edges. 

Place the untopped rectangles on top of the topped rectangles. They usually rip a bit, but if they don't, prick them with a fork in a few places to let steam escape!

Brush the top with some more soy milk. 

Bake for about 15 minutes until the tops are browned. 

Then Eat those things!

To DIE for!

Product Review: Noel Nog

When I was little, my favorite thing about Christmas was drinking the egg nog.

It just filled my little heart and tummy with joy and happiness. However, when I realized it also filled my stomach with pain and horror, and caused the cow population so much anguish, I figured that I would never feel that Christmasey joy and happiness ever again...

UNTIL NOW!

I had tried other soy nogs, but they didn't quite have that same... zing I was looking for. Le sigh.

But I was at the grocery store (one I don't go to often) because we had a gift certificate, and there, in a little fridge with all the soy milk, was a little bottle of So Nice Noel Nog.

It's amazing, it tastes EXACTLY like I remember! In a moment of shame, I've almost drank the entire bottle, but frankly it was so delicious that I couldn't stop myself. I kept a cups worth to drink before bed tonight.

GET SOME. If it's in your neighborhood, get some, you'll feel Christmasey in no time, and I'm not a particularly jolly person around the holidays, so that's saying something. I may have even hummed "Jingle Bells" a little... just sayin!

Bean Pancake Paninis

I've been trying to come up with easy and quick lunches, and I usually end up right back at paninis. But Paninis can get a bit boring, so I need to sort of jazz it up.

And I thought to myself "What else can we panini?"

It came to me- pancakes!

Bean Pancake Paninis with A side of Potatoes
Ingredients
1/2 cup GF Bisquick
1/3 cup mixed beans of your choice, mashed
Salt and Pepper, to taste
1 tbsp olive oil
water

The Toppings I used:
sundried tomatoes
vegannaise (vegan mayonnaise)
spinach
Basil
Oregano
Salt and pepper
Tempeh

Potatoes, sliced and cooked.

Directions
In a bowl mix the bisquick, mashed beans, salt and pepper, and olive oil.
Add water a bit at a time, until it's the texture of pancake batter.
Fry up the pancakes, and set aside.
Heat up your panini press.
Take 1 pancake, and spread the vegannaise onto it.
top with the sundried tomatoes, spinach, tempeh, and spices. (or whatever toppings you choose!)
Top with another pancake.
Carefully transfer onto panini press, and grill until the top of the top pancake is crisped.
Cut in half, serve with potatoes, and enjoy the noms.