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- 12 sheets of phyllo
- olive oil for brushing
- 1 can vegetarian refried beans
- 3/4 cup red and yellow peppers, diced
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup Tofutti cream cheese (or Regular Cream Cheese)
- 1/2 cup Pace Picante Mild sauce
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp parsley flakes
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 chicken breast, cooked, seasoned, and diced (Enough for 7 cups)(optional)
- Shredded Cheese (Optional)
- Guacamole
- Pace Picante sauce
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit.
- Mix refried beans with peppers and salt for first layer.
- Prepare second layer by mixing Pace Picante sauce with cream cheese and garlic powder, parsley flakes and salt. Mix well together in a bowl. Set aside.
- Using a wood cutting board, take one sheet of phyllo and spread on board. Brush with olive oil across sheet. Add second phyllo sheet on top of first layer and brush with olive oil again. Repeat 4 more times for a total of 6 phyllo sheets. Using a sharp knife, cut the sheet in half, lengthwise, and then cut across width wise twice, making 6 squares. Repeat with the next 6 sheets of phyllo for total of 12 squares.
- Layer each muffin cup (size 1/2 cup) with a square of phyllo.
- Add 1 Tbsp refried bean mixture to each cup. Next add 1 1/2 Tbsp of the Pace Picante-cream cheese mixture.
- For vegans: Bake phyllo cups for 15 minutes.
- For Non-vegans: Add 3-4 pieces of chicken to each cup and sprinkle with Shredded Cheddar cheese. Bake for 15 minutes.
- Once the phyllo cups come out of the oven, top with guacamole and Pace Picante sauce. Enjoy!
Stuffed Chicken with Bacon and Brie, Vegan Mashed Potatoes and Apple Galettes
January 13th, 2010I recently took a poll on Twitter asking whether it was ok to make a meal that was part vegan and part non-vegan. I have only been vegan over 2 months and even though I know why a lot of people are vegan, mine has a different take. As I learn more about meal preparation as a vegan I will feel comfortable preparing meals for non-vegans that includes meals. When I do, I would like to prepare a full meal that is vegan fare.
In my meal preparation, I decided to make a favorite of my husband’s. It is a recipe that I created and proved to be very tasty and stuffed with yummy goodness. I accompanied it with a new recipe of vegan mashed potatoes, boiled in rosemary water and mixed with Tofutti sour cream to make for a creamy substitute for real mashed potatoes. I then stir-fried some broccoli with carrots and red onions that proved to be a new favorite of mine, but do you know what ended up being my favorite part fo the meal? It was my second vegan dessert that turned out to be a huge success! Apple Tartletts are my new friend. SO as you take a look at these recipes, there is something for everyone here. Please enjoy!
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
Panko-crusted Dijon Chicken Stuffed with Bacon and Brie
serves 6
6 boneless chicken breasts
Crust
2 1/2 cups Panko bread crumbs
4 tsp dried parsley
2 tsp salt
2 tsp paprika
Coating
3/4 cup Dijon mustard
4 garlic cloves
4 Tbsp melted salted butter
Stuffing
18 slices Brie cheese (3 slices per chicken breast)
6 slices bacon
Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit.
Place coating and and crust ingredients in two separate dishes. Butterfly each chicken breast and place each chicken breast between parchment paper. Using a mallet, flatten chicken until 1/2 inch thick. Make sure the chicken is dry before starting the coating process.
Take each chicken breast and place 3 slices of Brie cheese and one slice of bacon and fold in half. Next, rub the mustard coating on the chicken and finish off my coating the chicken with the Panko bread crumbs. Repeat with the rest.
Place each stuffed chicken on a greased 9×13 glass pan and bake for 30 minutes.
Vegan Rosemary-Garlic Mashed Potatoes
serves 4
8 red potatoes, diced
1 Tbsp dried rosemary
8 roasted garlic cloves
2 Tbsp Earth Balance butter
1/2 cup Tofutti sour cream
2 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
Place diced potatoes in medium pot and cover with water. In an empty tea bag used for loose tea leaves, place the 1 Tbsp of rosemary and add to the boiling water. Boil for 15-20 minutes, until the potatoes are soft.
Drain the water and add the rest of the ingredients and mash potatoes. Delicious goodness!
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
Broccoli Medley
serves 4
1 head of broccoli or 6 broccoli stalks, separate in florets.
2 carrots, 1-inch bites
1/2 red onions, diced
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil
Heat olive oil in sauce pan over medium heat.
Stir-fry broccoli, carrots, and onion for 10-15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
Individual Apple Galettes
adapted from Isa Chandra’s Veganomicon cookbook
makes 6 mini galettes
Crust
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup nonhydrogenated vegan shortening
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2-3/4 cup very cold water
Apple Filling
2 large Gala Apples, peeled, cored and sliced very thinly
2 Tbsp light brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
9 tsp Strawberry and Grand Marnier preserves
Prepare the dough:
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt. Add the shortening in 3 batches by the teaspoon, but you do not need to be precide about this; just add it in small chunks. Cut the shortening in the flout until the dough is crumbly and pebbly.
In a measuring cup, combine the vinegar with 1/2 cup of cold water. Add the diluted vinegar to the flour mixture in 3 batches, gently mixing it into the dough with a fork, until the dough holds together when pinched. It will require a little more cold water to have the dough come together.
Gather the dough in a ball and knead gently a few times until the dough holds together. Form again into a ball and flatten just a bit into a disk. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
Fifteen minutes before you are ready to prepare the galette, preheat the oven to 425 degrees Farenheit and slice the apples. In a separate bowl, mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together.
Remove the dough from refrigerator, dust the surface and rolling pin with flour and roll the dough into a rectangle, 1/2 inch thick. Use an individual galette pan and cut into the dough like a biscuit cutter. Take that piece of dough and form dough in each galette pan.
Add 1.5 teaspoons of preserves as a bottom layer for each galette. Layer the apples on top of the preserves to fan out until completely covering the bottom. Sprinkle with the brown sugar mixture and repeat with the remaining 5 pans.
Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 25 minutes long. Remove from oven and cool for 15 minutes.
Served with vanilla ice cream for the non-vegans and coffee for the vegan. Delicious!
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Mock Tuna Salad Sandwich and Hearty Slaw Salad
January 11th, 2010
I have really REALLY missed blogging. My husband and I have been out of town only an hour and a half from where we live but we get so busy that we do not really get a lot of computer time! I did, though, enjoy some nice time in the cold weather. I am getting used to understanding how the snow difference is beside a lake as opposed to a city further away from the lake.
We stayed at a friend’s house that is by the lake and I could not help but just stare at the cold icy and somewhat frozen lake that empties into Lake Michigan. I took a mile long walk in the 13 degree weather, all bundled up. Did I mention I LOVE walking in the cold? It is a complete different workout. Not only does it work my legs but my waist, hips and arms! Even though I have been stretching every morning, I still manage to wake up sore. I love it though because I know I have worked hard. What do I do on my walks? I feel tempted using the IPod but I don’t. My walks have been SO peaceful and calm. I thank God for his beautiful creation and for the beauty of winter. I know I have been told I have been crazy for enjoying this cold weather, but I guess since I have not seen snow while living in Texas, I am eating it all up.
Question for you northerners: Can I get pneumonia from walking out in chilly weather despite being bundled up?
Enjoy some of the pictures I took.
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
I made a delicious healthy sandwich and a very big salad that was so filling. I have been craving legumes, so the mock tuna salad was something I created on my own because I used to eat a tuna salad before becoming vegan. My new creation was a very delicious substitute that I would make again!
The salad was something that came out of a whim that proved to be fantastic. Enjoy the colors.
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
Mock Tuna Salad Sandwich
serves 1
1 cup chickpeas
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup chopped red onion
2 Tbsp Veganaise
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 tsp Gomashio (prepared black sesame seeds with sea salt)
2 romaine leaf lettuce
Mash chickpeas in a small bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
Add to your favorite sliced bread and add lettuce.
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
Hearty Slaw Salad
serves 1
1 1/2 cup slaw (pre-packaged broccoli, cauliflower, carrots mix)
6 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1/2 cup garlicky hummus
1/2 avocado, diced
a handful raw almonds
salt and pepper
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
Mix all ingredients together and enjoy.
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Pasta e Fagioli
January 7th, 2010
Tonight turned out to be one of those days where a quick meal had to be prepared. In fact, we had tickets to see an opera in HD at the movie cinema, set up by the MET opera. Has anyone gone out to see an opera? It is sure cheaper than going to the opera house and you definitely do not have to pay for parking. Oh I forgot! You also get to buy popcorn and a drink while watching the opera singers belt out their notes! What a deal. Here is a snippet of a song we heard performed tonight. I sang this piece back in college being a coloratura, but I am more of a lyric soprano now.
I know many people have heard me mention all day that I wanted minestrone, minestrone, minestrone, but at the end, I ended up preparing pasta e fagioli, or otherwise known as pasta and beans. As I looked at different recipes and ideas, I knew I was heading more towards a heavy beans and pasta dish than a broth-based soup. I remember ordering Pasta e Fagioli at Olive Garden often, but then I was confused. Their recipe was more broth-based. As I looked up definitions of both minestrone and pasta e fagioli, I knew there was a difference, and my recipe surely needed to be different. From what I read, minestrone is a hodgepodge of items thrown in a tomato-based broth, whereas pasta e fagioli was heavy on the pasta and beans.
Have you ever craved something and you prepared and it did not turn out exactly how you imagined? Thank God this is not what happened to me. I tried different ingredients and spices and PRESTO, my pasta e fagioli recipe turned out scrumptious!
I think I have mentioned before that I tend to be intimidated when it comes to preparing soups or stews. I grew up eating all kinds of delicious and flavorful soups created by my mother. I have also eaten many flavorless soups outside of my home. My mother does not document her recipes, but manages to make each soup the same way each time. My husband is not a fan of soups, as I have mentioned before but if I can pass it by him more like a hearty stew then I win, you know. This was the case with this dish. We both ate 2 bowls of it and sighed at the end. There is nothing like a quick and delicious meal before heading out to the cold weather. Enjoy!
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
Pasta e Fagioli
serves 4
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup red pepper, diced
1 cup eggplant, seeded and diced
1 1/2 mustard greens, chopped
1 cup dentali pasta (Tube-like)
1 can Northern Beans
1/2 cup Boca meatless ground crumbles
14 ounces ground, peeled tomatoes
1/2 cup Pace Picante mild sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground pepper
1 Vegan bouillon cube
3 cups water
1 tsp basil
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp celery seeds
2 tsp Herb de Provence (rosemary, thyme,marjoram,basil, oregano, and lavender)
In a medium pot, heat olive oil on medium heat. Sauté diced onions, carrots, eggplant and red pepper for 5-10 minutes or until onions are transparent. Add garlic, ground tomatoes, picante sauce, beans and crumbles to vegetables and continue cooking for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, dissolve bouillon cube with 1 cup of hot water. Add to the pot and add remaining 2 cups of water.
Add spices from salt down to Herb de Provence. Bring stew to a slight boil so that flavors can combine. Cook for 10 more minutes.
Add 1 cup of pasta and cook for the remaining 10 minutes until pasta is cooked through. Serve and enjoy.
This will be a thick stew, but it you want more broth, add another cup of water and adjust salt for taste.
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Foodbuzz Tastemaker: Pace Picante Phyllo Party Cups
January 6th, 2010This recipe won GRAND PRIZE with Foodbuzz Program and Pace® Picante sauce to create for Super Bowl 2010.
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
Wondering what kind of recipes you are going to make for Super Bowl? Are you sick of making the same ones every year? How about a fancy appetizer that will have your friends asking for the recipe? So many questions, I know, but if you do not know it yet, people come to Superbowl parties particularly for the wonderful spread.
As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received 2 bottles of Pace Picante Sauce in the mail in order to create my own delicious recipe for a Superbowl party. I was so excited to get them today I changed my mind about what I was making for dinner and focused on making something using the sauce.
Have you had bean dips where you dig your chip into a small portion of bean dip and the chip breaks off and you need to dig in again? So frustrating and then you have to lick your fingers and all that jazz. Well, licking the fingers is not at all the problem. I have been to restaurants where they offer nachos and your plate arrives with 12 chips layers perfectly with the beans, cheese, meat and jalapeno and you totally feel ripped off. My recipe gives the cook the convenience of making mini phyllo cups to 1/2 cup muffin pans to assemble this recipe. Between preparing and baking, the total amount of time to make these babies is only under an hour.
Now I know I have vegan and non-vegan readers as well as a non-vegan at home, so I decided to give two options for this recipe which are equally as delicious, as so my husband pointed out. The phyllo cup is layered with refried beans mixed with diced red and yellow peppers.
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
The next layer is a combination of cream cheese and Pace picante sauce with spices. I used Tofutti cream cheese which is non-dairy and really does not taste so much different than real cream cheese. My husband can’t tell the difference. The third layer is only for the NON-vegan.
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Ingredients
Instructions
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Italian Eggplant Sauce with Tempeh and Spinach Spaghetti
January 4th, 2010
Today was a glorious day! I thank God for the sunny days these last couple of days. From what I hear, it is very unusual but I do not care. I will take sunshine anytime over gray weather, you know? The only think I need to take advantage of is wearing good thermal underwear. I guess I have not been looking at weather forecast to be warned of the -1 or -5 wind chill. As a result, I experienced my first cold rash that was somewhat painful. ERG! I learned from yesterdays mistake and wore them today. Good thing because the fire alarm was pulled by one of the kiddies at church today and we had to stand in cold weather for 5-10 minutes.
After church, I prepared lunch with an Italian flair. It had been a while since I cooked Italian so I decided to use the tempeh purchased from Trader Joes. For a while I did not know what to do with tempeh so I ignored it in my fridge. I decided today that I would be adventurous. I pan fried the tempeh with olive oil and garlic and sliced onions. I then proceeded to add the rest of the ingredients to make a sauce similar to the sauce prepared for Penne alla Norma except I made it my own recipe. The result was suprisingly good. As usual my husband asked me if was my recipe or one I found. I then proceeded to ask whether he liked it. He did! Score! One more vegan dish down as a success for the carnivore in the family.
I know I needed to prepare a hearty dish since we had been invited to go cross-country skiing with friends from church. It was my first time to ski at all so I was a bit nervous. I always thought I had a gimp right leg since it has been in 3-4 accidents in the last 10-12 years, but I knew I could no longer live in fear. After all, I was told cross-country was on flat land right? No. Not at the park we went to. It had small hills that scared the crap out of me! Here is what I felt like! Well, I have never experienced winter sports so this was fun!
After an hour of mastering cross-country skiing (NOT), I decided to give me ankles a break. The plight of a flat-footed cook. Sigh.. Either way, I had tons of fun and the laughs were great.
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| From An Opera Singer in the Kitchen |
serves 3
4 ounces whole Grain Tempeh, sliced in 1/2 inch strips
4 garlic cloves
1 onion, sliced
2 Tbsp olive oil
16 ounces whole, peeled tomatoes
1 cup eggplant, peeled and diced
1 cup spinach, chopped
6 ounces Organic Spinach Spaghetti
2 tsp Italian seasonings
2 tsp Tony’s seasonings
1 tsp crushed red pepper
Heat olive oil in saucepan over medium heat. Add sliced tempeh, garlic, and onions and pan fry for 5-7 minutes or until tempeh looks lightly browned.
Boil water for pasta and prepare according to packaging. Cook 2 minutes less and drain so pasta can finish cooking in the sauce.
Add tomatoes, eggplant, and spices and boil for another 5-7 minutes. The spinach is the last thing to be added in order not to over cook.
Add pasta and mix sauce thoroughly through pasta. Add soy parmesan for taste.
Serve with a green salad and enjoy!
