Gluten-free fluffy pancakes

Hey guys! I decided to do an extra post this week, dedicated to all my gluten-intolerant friends.

So I was making gluten-free bread, something I'd promised to do countless times for my gluten-intolerant friends, and I had a little flour mix left, about a cup. The recipe I'd found online asked for 350 grams of flour mix, and 350 grams of water. I figured I'd use the cup of flour mix that I had left, and add one cup of water to that, since they were equal measurements, right?

Wrong, it turns out. Very wrong. I added more flour, but didn't have enough to make up for my clumsy mistake. So I was left with a batter that I couldn't do anything else except...

Pancakes!!!

And those turned out VERY GOOD indeed.

My vegan pancakes for a celebration brunch :)

So this what I used for ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup gluten-free bread mix (it comes with all types of flour: rice flour, sorghum, etc. You can buy it at a natural food store or at some supermarkets).
• 1 cup warm water, soy milk or another vegan milk
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 8g of Brewer's yeast or 'beer' yeast (A pinch of baking powder will work as well).
• A teaspoon of salt 
• A teaspoon of sugar
• Margarine or oil for frying

Steps

#1. Mix warm water/milk with the brewer's yeast.

#2. Add olive oil.

#3. Add flour mix, salt and sugar. Mix until the batter is homogeneous. 

#4. Place oil or margarine on a skillet, and heat it up.

#5. When oil is sizzling, scoop batter with a ladle and place it in the middle of the skillet.

This is the tricky part now- realizing when one side is done. The bottom side is done cooking when tiny bubbles are piercing the top side, and the top side isn't as shiny anymore.

#6. Flip the pancake and cook the other side.

Enjoy!!

Curry de lentilhas rosas com abobrinha

Olá pessoal!! Estou começando o novo ano letivo, o que significa que eu vou voltar aos compromissos que assumi. Um deles é esse blog. A partir de hoje, vou publicar um novo artigo cada sábado. Enquanto isso, vocês são bem vindos a descobrir meu outro blog que comecei essa semana, Tracking Stories. Esse blog terá novos artigos cada quarta-feira.

Hoje abri meu armário e dei de cara com essas lentilhas corais que eu tinha guardado. Essas lentilhas são diferentes das outras que conheço, são mais delicadas e não precisam ficar de molho a noite inteira, como as lentilhas verdes. Apenas 15 minutos já basta.

As lentilhas corais, ou cor de rosa. Fonte: Wiki Commons

Pesquisei como preparar elas. Tem muitas receitas na net, principalmente indianas, que conselho a provar. Como eu não tinha muitos ingredientes em casa, inventei minha própria receita baseada nas que eu vi, e deu super certo!

Compartilho com vocês minha receita de Curry de Lentilhas rosas com abobrinha.

Ingredientes (para 2 pessoas) :

-metade de uma abobrinha, picadinho
-metade de uma cebola, picadinho
-folha de louro
-uma colher de chá de curry (pode comprar já feito ou fazer você mesmo)
-100 g de lentilhas rosas
-azeite

Passos:

1) Primeiro coloque as lentilhas de molho numa tigela por cerca 15 minutos. Enquanto isso...
2) Coloque um pouco de azeite na frigideira e quando o óleo estiver quente, acrescente o curry. Misture o curry para que dissolva no óleo. Frite então a cebola para que fique dourada e acrescente a abobrinha e a folha de louro.

Antes da água...

3) Quando a cebola estiver cozida, acrescente as lentilhas depois de escorrer elas. Misture bem por um minuto, depois cobre por um copo de água. Coloque sal.
Estará pronto quando quase toda a água evaporar. Leva menos de meia hora para cozinhar as lentilhas e é fácil inventar receitas com elas.

É uma ótima opção para aquele dia que queria comer feijão, mas esqueceu de colocar eles de molho na noite anterior. Quase fiquei com vergonha de ter esquecido essas lentilhas no meu armário, e agora elas vão fazer parte do meu estoque de 'COMIDAS RÁPIDAS', ao qual também adicionei polenta instantânea e aveia. Miojo não tem espaço aqui não! Hehe.

Zucchini curry Masoor Dal

Hey everyone! It's back to school for me, and that means I turned a new leaf and I'm sticking to my commitments. From now on I'll be posting every Saturday- so stay tuned for new tips and veggie recipes!

Today I was looking for something new to write about while emptying my pantry. I noticed that there was a bit of red lentils left over, also known as Masoor Dal. I'd bought them just because they were pretty, but I'd never eaten them before. My first experience cooking them was a disaster : I thought that they needed to be soaked overnight, like other lentils I knew of. The result was mush. It turns out that cooking this pearlies are much easier, you need to soak them for only 15 minutes before cooking.

This is what Masoor Dal looks like (red lentils). Source: Wiki Commons

There are many recipes on the internet for these lentils, most of them are Indian, very tasty. Since I didn't have the required ingredients for many that I saw, I made up my own recipe using tips and matched ingredients I had with ingredients I saw in some recipes. The result turned out to be quite good!

I present to you the Zucchini Curry Masoor Dal.

Ingredients (for two people):

-a teaspoon of curry spice (you can make your own or buy it ready)
-olive oil
-half a zucchini diced
-half an onion, diced
-about 100 g of red lentils
-bay leaf

Steps

#1. Cover the red lentils in water and soak them from 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile. . .
#2. Sprinkle olive oil into a frying pan or wok. When hot, add curry. Mix for 30 seconds. Then fry onions, and add the zucchini and bay leaf.

Here's what it looks like while cooking.

#3. When onions are transparent and zucchini is slightly cooked, add lentils. After everything is mixed together, for about a minute, add a cup of water. Add salt. Wait until the water is almost completely evaporated and then - ta da! It's done. The cooking takes less than half an hour.

Finished product!

It's an ideal recipes for those who really wanted have protein and forgot to soak their beans/lentils overnight. Having Masoor Dal on hand proves to be really useful, and now I'm slightly ashamed it was sitting in my pantry for all these months.

Enjoy the marvels of Indian cuisine! I sure love it.

Vegetarian Tacos

Hey Everybody! Long time no post, but that means that lots of goodies are stored and ready to be shared.

Today we're going to take a trip around the world, with a recipe from Mexico : tacos, of course! This is really easy and simple to make, because you can put virtually anything into your taco and still call it a taco. I'm going to list some ideas for ingredients (the star next to it means that I used it in the photos below)

Ingredients :

Tacos or tortillas
*Chopped zucchini
*Chopped carrots
*Chopped celery
*Chopped bellpeppers
*Chopped onions
Eggplant
*Diced tomatoes
*Lettuce
*Chili pepper seasoning
*Guacamole
Cheese for non-vegans, tofu for vegans

1. First grill all your vegetables, except for the lettuce and the tomatoes if you don't want to (I like mine fresh!) To grill them, toss them into a platter with olive oil and salt, and place in the oven at max temperature.

Another option is to cook/stir fry the vegetables.


2. Second, make your taco by stuffing it with the grilled and fresh veggies! I like eating tacos with lots of pepper and guacamole, but it's all up to you. That's one of the beauty of serving tacos for a meal, people get to choose what they put in.

If you're using a tortilla, here's a tip for closing it. Don't over stuff the tortilla and gently fold one of the tips into the taco, so that when you close it, one of the ends is closed. That way it won't leak as much. But yes, eating tacos is still pretty messy :)

Next tour around the world will take us to the Middle East! Don't miss it!

Vegan New Year traditions around the world

Being a foreign student has its perks, and one of them is meeting other foreign students that share pieces of their culture with you. And sometimes, they stick. I spent New Year's eve with a very special Korean friend, and we celebrated many cultures (and many midnights) in their own special ways. The first one we did was this:

#1. Did you know. . .? That the tradition in Spain is eating twelve grapes as the grand clock in Madrid strikes midnight?
Well, me neither. We watched on TV as the Madrid's Puerta del Sol square was crowded with people in the rain, ready with their little stash of grapes. For each of the clock's chimes at midnight, they ate a grape (believe me, it's actually harder than it looks, our mouths were very stuffed! It took me a minute to swallow and finally shout out HAPPY NEW YEAR!)
Tradition brought to you by my Spanish friend that studies with me.

#2. Ah, the Brazilian tradition of wearing white! Not really a vegan tradition, but for the sake of it I'm posting it. I think it's one of the only countries that has this tradition. Since it's summer in Brazil during this time, wearing white is fairly easy: you can wear a white top, a white dress, a white bermuda, a white bathing suit (hey, it was hot this year down there). Wearing white means a peaceful year to come. Another brazilian tradition is jumping seven waves fos good luck or sending roses out into the sea. Not feasible in the Northern Hemisphere, but pretty all the same.

#3. The New York tradition - need I say more? As a kid I loved to watch the silver ball drop in Time's square - hey, as a grown up too. It just means so much more to me now. I can pratically hear people chiming glasses and fireworks going off when I see the ball dropping. There is a time difference of 6 hours from France to U.S, and we got up in time just to see the ball drop.

#4.The French tradition: Champagne! As I don't drink alcohol we improvised on the spot with a bottle of chilled sparkling water in a pretty green bottle.

#5. Korean tradition: Dressing up and eating special, traditional foods! We also didn't do this one, lack of time and means, but we did make cookies like half an hour before midnight. You can check out the recipe here.

Anyone like to share their New Year tradition?

Painting above is 'Cherries and Peaches by Paul Cezanne, especially famous for living where I'm living now.

Easy vegan sugar cookies

Hey guys! Happy New Year! This is what I made in just before midnight with one of my exchange student friends, to celebrate the French New Year (later we celebrated the East Coast New Year too). It's another one of those recipes that you don't have to think much: just toss everything in a bowl and add some decoration. Plus it tastes really good.

Ingredients:

 

2 cups of white flour

3/4 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of almond, rice, soja or oat milk

1/2 cup of canola oil

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 teaspoon salt

Optional:

Raisins

Chocolate chips

Other dried fruits 

Nuts

Mix the dry ingredients together, add the wet ingredients slowly. Mix and drop on greased cookie sheet. Decorate however you like! I added a drop of apricot jelly to each cookie. Bake for half an hour on medium temperature. It has a cakey-like texture, which I love, and also it packs quite a lot of sugar per cookie, so I'd recommend eating eat only after dinner or a very well balanced meal.

Enjoy!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Oatmeal raisin cookies, a Christmas classic! Yum! This is one of my favorite recipes because:

1.       The ingredients are easy to find and you probably have them at home already

2.       It’s one of those classic ‘toss everything in’ recipes,

3.       It smells like Christmas in a box.

4.        It’s healthy and has a good dose of iron in the oatmeal.

Did I convince you to make them now? J

Oh, and they’re the soft type of cookie, not the crunchy type, which is my personal favorite.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 3 cups of oatmeal
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup soy milk
• ¾ cup margarine
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 teaspoons of all spice, or 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ½ nutmeg and ½ cloves
• 1 cup raisins

Add both sugars with margarine and mix until fluffy.  Slowly add the soy milk, mix well. Add flour, baking soda, and spices. Mix until smooth, and add the remaining ingredients.

I find that the cookies taste better after the batter is refrigerated for at least half an hour, but you can bake them now.  Drop them on a greased cookie sheet, making round balls.  Bake for about 20 minutes to 180°C.
And wait for them to cool down before eating or they'll be all crumbly!!! Sheesh. I've done that 3 times now until I've learned my lesson.