Zesty & Spicy

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Roasted carrots with sumac

May 1, 2020 by Ariel 2 Comments

Some nights where I don’t feel like cooking, roasted vegetable become my best friends.

Often, just on their own, they make an amazing lunch but paired with a soft boiled or poached egg, they become a dinner worthy dish.  Today’s recipe is for the sumac dressing which is super simple to make and taught me that old fashion mustard and sumac goes really well together.  Hope you enjoy this very lazy recipe for lazy quarantine days that never seem to end.

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Filed Under: Popular Diets, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian Tagged With: recipe, roasted carrots, roasted vegetables, salad, salad dressing, sumac

Grilled King oyster mushroom salad

June 27, 2019 by Ariel Leave a Comment

Don’t get me wrong, I love making sweets.  There’s something really happy about making something full of sugar because you know most people will be happy to eat it and you’ll get the satisfaction of watching them stuffing their faces with something you made with love.  Now, thing is, we can’t really eat sweets all the time (that’s a tragedy if you ask me) so this recipe is coming just at the right time to balance all the sweetness I’ve published on the blog lately.

King oyster mushrooms are one of my favourites because they are super meaty and they look beautiful in a plate.  Paring them with roasted tomatoes (aka: umami bomb – thank you Ivan Ramen for coining the term) and miso, you’ll quickly understand why I decided to post this recipe on here.

Sooooooo…. this sentence is getting redundant but, I really hope you get too try this quick and easy grilled king oyster salad with miso dressing on days where it’s too hot to eat anything to complexed or when you’re just too lazy to break your head in the kitchen.

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Filed Under: Popular Diets, Recipes, Salads, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian Tagged With: baby spinach, cilantro, coriander, grilled, King Oyster mushroom, miso, rice vinegar, roasted tomatoes, salad, sesame oil, Sesame seeds

My ultimate vegan sandwich

March 26, 2019 by Ariel 1 Comment

This is another amazing way to use the seitan we’ve created the other day.

Lately, it’s my go to sandwich at either breakfast (I ate one a few minutes ago), lunch or dinner when I don’t feel like breaking my head much and want something that will keep me full for hours.  It’s honestly massive and kind of hard to bite through it but, obviously, nothing worth having comes easy in life right? XD

Joke aside, when I get sandwiches this high in restaurants, it makes giggle because there’s no way to look proper while eating this and it becomes a great exercise of “no giving a shit” because nobody looks cute trying open their mouth way too wide to fit an enormous sandwich in it.  You clearly don’t have to make it that big but, like they say…. go big or go home!? XD

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Filed Under: Popular Diets, Proteins, Recipes, seitan, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian Tagged With: easy, grilled vegetable, quick, recipe, sandwich, seitan, simple, vegan, vegetarian

Basic, baked seitan recipe

March 19, 2019 by Ariel Leave a Comment

If you’re an adept of vegetarian or vegan dishes, you’ve probably came across seitan at least once in your life.  It’s a very versatile animal free protein made with vital wheat gluten (basically straight gluten flour) and it can be flavoured countless of ways to make it taste like chicken, beef, unicorn (lol)…you name it.

This is my personal baked seitan recipe that I use in almost everything but, I don’t think I could classify the taste under “beef” or “chicken” because it really has it’s own flavour profile.  It’s beyond amazing in a vegan gyros, in stir fry and even as a bacon replacement.  You can freeze it easily and it will keep for a decent amount of time in the fridge.  If you’ve already made a batch of my homemade vegetable broth, you’re already half way there for this one.

The classic way to make seitan is to boil it in the broth but I’ve had better results doing it this way because the end result is nice and soft compare to many other recipes out there who give you a very hard like rock seitan.

So let’s start!

Basic seitan recipe
 
Print
Prep time
10 mins
Cook time
1 hour 30 mins
Total time
1 hour 40 mins
 
*As you mix, time is important because the flour will start absorbing the liquid and you want to make sure that all the flavours are well mixed in and there's no more white clumps of flour. It's totally ok to use your hands, at the end, to really mix everything in.
Author: ZestyandSpicy.com
Cuisine: Vegetarian / Vegan
Serves: 1 loaf
Ingredients
  • Spice mix:
  • - the seeds of 1 black cardamom pod
  • - ½ teaspoon of dried, minced onions
  • - 1 teaspoon of dried, minced garlic
  • - ½ teaspoon of dried marjoram
  • - 1 teaspoon of dried basil
  • - 1 teaspoon of regular paprika
  • - 1 teaspoon of smoked Spanish paprika
  • - ½ teaspoon of salt

  • 1½ cup of vita wheat gluten flour
  • 3 tablespoons of tomato paste
  • 2 cups of homemade vegetable broth
Instructions
  1. - Pre-heat your oven at 325F, line a GLASS loaf pan with parchment paper.
  2. - In a mortar, crush the spice mix until powdered.
  3. - In a mixing bowl, add the vital wheat gluten flour and mix in the crushed spiced BEFORE adding the last two wet ingredients.
  4. - Add the tomato paste and the broth, start mixing*
  5. - Transfer the mixture in the loaf pan and press it gently with your hands to form the loaf and remove as many air pockets as possible. This is not an exact science but you just need to shape it a bit. The mixture will keep a very soft like texture and will harden once cooked.
  6. - Bake for 1h covered and then an extra 30minutes uncovered.
3.5.3251

 

Filed Under: Popular Diets, Proteins, Recipes, seitan, Vegan, Vegetarian Tagged With: baked, protein, seitan, vegan, vegetarian

Soy milk

March 25, 2018 by Ariel Leave a Comment

A great bonus from making your own soy milk is the okara (aka: soy bean pulp) left after draining.  It’s a resource most factories will either discard or feed to farm animals but, this protein packed ingredient can be added to baked goods, use to make vegetarian/vegan sausages (yup… that’s going to be for a future recipe) or dried up and reduced in powder to add to almost everything.  It is versatile, delicious and using the okara is leaving you with no kitchen waste.  Something to think about…

As you will see, the process for making soy milk is very simple.  If you wanted to make soy cream, bring back the drained milk on the stove top and let it simmer down to half of it’s original quantity.  As the water will evaporate, the mixture will thicken and become a nice and silky cream.  A thickening agent can be used to make the process faster, I would recommend tapioca starch for it’s light taste.

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Filed Under: Gluten Free, Popular Diets, Recipes, Vegan, Vegetarian Tagged With: dairy alternative, DYI project, homemade, No waste kitchen, okara, soy beans, soy milk

Mango & Persimmon Smoothie

March 20, 2018 by Ariel 1 Comment

I bought a pack of rock hard fuyu persimmons, a few days ago, thinking it would take at least a month before they start to softened.  Surprisingly enough, they only took a few days leaving me with 10 ripen juicy and custardy persimmons to bake with.  One of Max favourite way to start the day is with a fresh smoothie that is both sweet and filling so here we go!

The mango really balance the extreme sweetness of the persimmon while adding a little “zing” to it.  The softened oats are there to add a silky texture and give you enough consistence to make it a perfectly filling way to start your day.

Hope you get to try it *^_^*

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Filed Under: Drinks, Gluten Free, Popular Diets, Recipes, Smoothies, Vegan, Vegetarian Tagged With: coconut milk, drink, fuyu persimmon, gluten free, mango, oats, recipe, smoothie, vegan, vegetarian

Vegetable soup with ginger & lemongrass

February 12, 2018 by Ariel 2 Comments

The inspiration comes from a vegetable soup my grand mother used to make.  She used to cut all the vegetables in super small pieces and I always enjoyed the aesthetic of her presentation.  You could probably chop everything finely by hand but, if you’re in the lazy club (like me), a hand blender or a food processor work wonders.

This recipe isn’t the soup she used to make but, I would like to think it is as good or at least pretty close.

 Delicate, slightly sweet and made with our homemade vegetable broth.  The fennel leaves used as garnish but also as a component in the soup really shine with the star anise in the broth.  The ginger giving it a nice kick and the lemongrass as the last taste hitting your palate.  When it comes time to buy fennel, I always try to get the complete plant with the long rods and a lot of bright green leaves.  Back home, I’ll cut it up in “parts” and keep the leaves in a separate container to use them like any other fresh herbs.  Next time, I’ll probably add a little extra lemongrass because the taste could have been more pungent and, I would encourage you to do the same if you’re a big fan of lemongrass.

Makes three big portions or four smaller ones. Bon appétit!

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Filed Under: Gluten Free, Popular Diets, Recipes, Soup, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian Tagged With: carrots, celery, fennel hair, ginger, green cabbage, healthy, lemongrass, olive oil, recipe, soup, vegan, vegetable, vegetarian

Sourdough maple sticky buns

February 11, 2018 by Ariel 4 Comments

If you’re nursing a sourdough starter, there’s always this one day where you have too much of it and, before feeding it, you have to discard some.  Since I don’t like thinking I’ve been “wasting” all this precious flour and water, this recipe is a delicious way to use your discarded starter.

There’s only one word to describe these… AMAZEBALLS.  They are drenched in maple and brown sugar and the bread texture is soft and elastic.  I really hope you’ll get a chance to try this recipe because it’s absolutely delicious and really easy to do.

Definitely one of those sweet treat worth cheating on your diet.

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Filed Under: Bread, Buns, Popular Diets, Recipes, Sourdough, Sweets, Vegan, Vegetarian Tagged With: active dried yeast, brown sugar, coconut oil, desert, maple, maple syrup, sourdough, sticky buns, sweet, unfed sourdough

Vegetable Broth

February 10, 2018 by Ariel Leave a Comment

I keep a lot of food scraps in my freezer.

Most of them are vegetables, fresh herbs and egg shells because there’s so much you can do with those and it’s almost a blasphemy to throw them out when you spent your hard earned money buying them.  It also goes with my “no waste” and “everything should be make from scratch” mentality because it’s very rewarding to create basic staple foods instead of buying them at the grocery.  This vegetable broth is a great example of “food recycling” and I really hope you’ll get the chance to try it and make it your own.

Plus, who doesn’t like to know that every pennies spent on veggies will go that much further and you’ll end up having a delicious and personalized broth ready to use in your future creations.

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Filed Under: #FoodieLife, Gluten Free, Popular Diets, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian Tagged With: bay leaves, broth, carrots, celery, cloves, corn husk, corn silk, easy, food recycling, garlic, ginger, green beans, green cabbage, morel mushrooms, onions, scraps, sea salt, shallots, star anise, stock, vegetable, veggies scraps, zucchini

Wild Rice, Black Olives & Sun Dried Tomato Salad

September 6, 2016 by Ariel 1 Comment

WildRiceTomatoSalad02

Simple salad made with whole ingredients for lunch today because simple is often best.  For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been a fan of wild rice and guess what??!!  It’s super healthy for you!

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Filed Under: Gluten Free, Legumes, Popular Diets, Proteins, Recipes, Salads, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian, Zesty Tagged With: black olives, Chickpeas, easy, fast, lemon juice, lunch, olive oil, quick, recipe, salad, sun dried tomato, wild black rice, wild rice

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Spring gardening in isolation

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