Fun With Leftovers!: Tamale Filling Breakfast Tacos

This was such an easy repurposing of our leftover filling, and the flavors were even more delicious the second time through. Three of these babies made for a perfect breakfast.

Tamale Filling Breakfast Tacos:

Approx. 1/2 cup each tamale filling, rice, and beans, stirred together

3 half-inch thick slices of tofu

1/2 tsp. each cumin, turmeric, and Sriracha

1 leaf romaine lettuce for each taco

2 plum tomatoes, sliced

1/3 avocado, sliced

1 tsp. neutral oil

Corn tortillas

Vegan sour cream and green salsa to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat your oil in small frying pan over medium-heat. Once the pan is ready, add the tofu, cumin, turmeric, and Sriracha, and cook until the tofu breaks up, mimicking a scrambled egg, and is well-browned.

Heat your tamale filling, rice, and beans mixture, as well as the corn tortillas, in the microwave, and begin your assembly. Place the leaf of romaine on the bottom, followed by the tomatoes and avocado. I used about three slices of tomato and one slice of avocado per taco. Add as much tamale filling as the tortilla can accommodate and top with sour cream and salsa. Finish with a squeeze of lime juice, and enjoy your breakfast!

Fun with Leftovers!: Ratatouille Pizza

I will never be able to shut up about this pizza. This was amazingly delicious. The crust, previously untested, had a pleasant pie-dough quality, but with a wheaty richness. The sauce was of a perfect consistency, and the fresh herbs only enhanced the flavor of the vegetables. This is a go-to for sure. I think I'm going to start making ratatouille and freezing it in portions specifically intended for this. Or maybe even begin some elaborate canning procedures. 

Ratatouille Pizza:

1 cup ratatouille

1/3 portion whole wheat pizza dough

1/4 - 1/3 package Upton's Naturals Italian Sausage-Style Seitan

1/3 red onion, sliced 

Dash sugar

4 good-sized crimini mushrooms, sliced

4 artichoke heart pieces, cut in half

1 tsp. garlic powder 

7 cherry tomatoes, sliced

2 sprigs each fresh thyme and oregano, or equivalent 

2 large leaves fresh basil

1 tbsp. nutritional yeast flakes

Red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

Begin by preparing all your toppings while the pizza dough rests. Place a smallish frying pan over medium heat, and caramelize the onion in the olive oil, with a dash of sugar, salt, and pepper. Once the onion is cooked combine it with the ratatouille and the seitan and warm briefly in the microwave. Set aside. 

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees, and place a pizza stone or cookie sheet inside so that it can heat up as well.

In the same frying pan used for the onions, add the mushrooms and cook until golden brown. Add the artichoke hearts and toss together with the garlic powder, some salt and pepper. Set aside. Slice the tomatoes and gather your herbs, making sure you have all your toppings ready.

Shape the pizza dough on a piece of aluminum foil, making sure the dough is well-oiled on both sides.

Once the oven is preheated, layer your toppings, beginning with the ratatouille mixture, then the mushrooms and artichoke mixture and then the tomatoes, followed by the nutritional yeast, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.

Carry the pizza by the aluminum foil and place it on the pizza stone or cookie sheet, and cook until the crust is well-colored and emits that certain echo-y "I'm done!" noise when tapped with a fingernail. 

Let the pizza rest for 5 minutes, top with fresh herbs, slice and enjoy!

Fun with Leftovers!: Ratatouille

Having made a recipe without boyfriend support, it was up to me to do the eating of leftovers (which was the entire thing, because I was ailing the night I made it and didn't have any fresh). For lunch, yesterday I went pretty basic, serving the ratatouille over rice, but for dinner I wanted to pump it up a bit. On the train ride home I had a vision of using the ratatouille as a pasta sauce and adding some fresh peas for color. It turned out delicious. 

Tagliatelle with Spicy Ratatouille Sauce:

1 cup ratatouille

1 1/5 servings tagliatelle

1 tsp. Sriracha

1/4 package tempeh

1/3 cup frozen peas

Fresh thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

Cook the pasta in a large pot filled with salted boiling water. When fully-cooked this pasta will still have a good deal of toothiness, as it is a thicker cut of pasta. I chose tagliatelle over some other pasta options, because I knew it would be robust enough to stand up to the thickness of the ratatouille.

Heat the ratatouille in a pan over medium-low heat. Slice the tempeh, and crumble it into the ratatouille pan, allowing the tempeh to absorb the sauce. Add the Sriracha, and salt and pepper to taste. 

 

Once the pasta is nearly done, add the frozen peas to the ratatouille, allowing them to defrost and replump. When the pasta is done, use kitchen tongs to transfer it into the sauce. Tongs are ideal because the extra water that is transferred with the noodles will help the sauce be absorbed. 

This was a nice change of pace from the usual pasta night, and could easily be scaled up for wider consumption. 

Fun with Leftovers!: Falafel and Charmoula

Our fridge has been inundated with bits of leftovers lately, and kind of silly amounts, where you don't really have enough for a meal from any one item. Undaunted, I decided to combine some things and see what sounded good. I had a small amount of leftover Charmoula sauce and Falafel mix, and decided to mix the two together and use the mixture as a breading for tofu steaks, knowing how well the falafel would brown. 

First, I had to prepare the tofu, which really needs to be pressed if you intend to make a nice compact steak out of it. Left alone, the tofu will be watery and more inclined to break apart. I let my tofu sit with weight on top of it for about an hour, pouring out the accumulated water every once and a bit, so the tofu wouldn't be sitting in the water and reabsorbing it.

You can see how much liquid comes out of the tofu:

Rather than just pressing the falafel mix onto the tofu and hoping for the best, I decided to go with a classic dredging procedure, albeit with very non-traditional ingredients.

Falafel-crusted tofu steaks:

Tofu steaks, cut to slightly over 1/2" thickness

1/3 cup flour

Cumin

Cayenne

Smoked paprika 

Sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Ketchup

Sriracha

Water

Falafel mix

Charmoula Sauce

Mix together the flour and the spices with your fingers on the plate you intend to use in the dredging line-up. Make sure you break up any clumps of spices. I didn't give amounts on purpose, because all amounts were in the vein of "3 shakes of spice container". Just trust your own tastes and know that not very much of this mix will actually make it onto the steaks.

Mix the ketchup and sriracha, using only as much of the second as you are comfortable with. Thin out with water until the mixture is of a similar consistency to beaten eggs. 

Mix the falafel mix with a bit of the charmoula sauce. For two steaks, I used approximately 1/3 cup falafel and 2 tbsp. charmoula.

Begin to heat your pan on medium to medium-high high with a good amount of mild oil coating the bottom of the pan, and get your dredging line-up in order.

Begin by placing the steaks in the flour mix and coat the steaks on all sides, slapping off the excess flour before moving to the next step. Quickly dip the tofu steaks in the ketchup mixture, before placing in the falafel and charmoula mix. Coat the steaks well, using your hands to press the mixture all over the tofu and compacting the coating as much as possible to keep it in place on the steaks.

Brown the falafel-crusted tofu in the pan, taking care when placing them into the pan, as the oil will react to the moisture of the falafel mixture. Flip the steaks when you see that the first side is well-browned, about 3-4 minutes, and brown on the second side. You may attempt to brown the edges, but it is not necessary.

I served this with some basmati rice with peas, dill, and mint, and colored with turmeric. Salt and pepper this rice to taste, and enjoy!

I really enjoyed this meal, especially the contrast of the crunchy falafel coating with the creaminess of the tofu. The rice, which was almost an afterthought, was delicious, and I will certainly be using this preparation again.

Fun with Leftovers!: Dharma Garden

I love leftovers. The food gets more delicious in the fridge, it takes no time or work to have a delicious meal in front of you, and you can dress it up to improve anything you didn't love the first time around. 

We went to Dharma Garden, a Vegetarian Thai place, last night. I got "Veggie Garlic and Pepper" with imitation duck, which I thought would be garlicky and peppery. It was neither, though the veggies were all very fresh, so this time around, I augmented the meal with Sriracha and some spoonfuls of leftover green curry sauce. So good...

Note the "forbidden" rice: