Cheeseless Mushroom Quiche

Going through the Smitten Kitchen cookbook, I came across a  recipe I knew I had to try: the wild mushroom tart. However, as I needed to take the dairy out of the recipe to serve it as a side with our meat meal, this tart actually became a new recipe entirely! 

Much of the binding in the filling comes from milk and cheese, so I decided to use silken tofu and miso as a replacement. The former replaces the creaminess and the latter replaces the cheesiness. Yes, you read that right - miso can imitate a cheesy flavor. It's a trick I learned from the meatball recipe on the blog Supper for Two. 

Another big change I made to this recipe is the cooking time, as the tofu takes much longer to set than cheese. While cooking, I was getting nervous about leaving in the tart for nearly double the original cooking time, but it turned out perfectly. 

In the end, this tart came out so delicious, meaty from the mushrooms and savory from the miso. We had absolutely no leftovers, which is always the best sign of all. 

Tangy Tempeh in a Red Wine Balsamic Reduction

I'm a much bigger fan of eating more meat substitutes during the week than Ari is, so I've been trying to find ways to make them tastier. Though I'm not a vegetarian, I do believe that it is better for us and for the treatment of animals to eat meat less often. Therefore, I've been looking for ways to incorporate  tofu, tempeh, seitan, and more into our food in ways that taste good and is still healthy for us

One of the healthy and protein-filled options, tempeh, has been particularly challenging to get right, but I believe I finally did it with this recipe. Tempeh is made from fermented soybeans and can be particularly tough in texture. The trick is to steam it first so that other flavors can permeate it, turning it from a tough and flavorless substance into a hearty and delicious dish. Then, the tempeh marinates so that it fully absorbs the flavor, followed by quickly pan-frying to make it crispy on the outside.

As Ari is a meat lover, I also wanted to incorporate some of the flavors typically found in meat rubs and marinades to imitate some of that meaty, savory flavor. I had some red wine leftover from the weekend, which was still ok to drink, but not as great as it had been before, so I decided I had to use it here. Turns out this is a great recipe to use up some red wine you have on hand that is going but is not quite gone yet. Then, using this sauce recipe for inspiration, I composed an easy marinade that would compliment the heartiness of the tempeh well.

It came out really delicious - savory and sweet, soft with a bit of crispiness. After tasting it, Ari declared that using this recipe will actually make him crave tempeh for dinner! Knowing my husband, that is quite an endorsement.

Balsamic Avocado Brunch Toast

This year for Chanukah, Faigy got me a book I've been eyeing for a while: The Flavor Bible. It's great because it's not a cookbook, but rather a guide to creating dishes by pairing flavors that have affinities for each other. Most of the book is just long lists of every single kind of ingredient and a bit about its character and what it goes well with.

So of course I began leafing through the "A" section and hit one of the best parts of it: Avocado. Avocado to me is a little bit of a magical superfruit (as indicated in Faigy's Spaghetti Squash with Avocado Garlic Sauce recipe) because it just makes whatever it's in instantly more appealing (aside from its many health benefits). It's got a creaminess and fruitiness which, when complemented with a bit of salt, is heavenly all on its own.

There was one particular pairing that caught my attention: avocado + basil + tomato + red onion + balsamic vinegar. I've known about the first four for a long time (in panini or guacamole for example) but the last bit, the balsamic vinegar, intrigued me. Normally I am not a huge fan of balsamic vinegar raw, because it's a little too pungent for my tastes. But I wondered if I could take inspiration from this and make a delicious and quick brunch the next morning.

As it turned out, we had left over challah from Shabbat. No fresh tomatoes, red onion or basil though; we did have sun-dried tomatoes and dried basil however, which would suffice. I also thought I would use sea salt rather than my standard of kosher salt to get a little more flavor contrast with the avocado. Taking a little bit of inspiration from a co-worker who prepared an avocado open-faced sandwich for breakfast once for me, I decided to top some toast with eggs. It turned out to be incredibly filling and was less than 15 minutes from start to finish (I'll note the order of preparation in the recipe that I found to be fastest).

Faigy likes eggs-over-easy; I prefer scrambled - you can prepare them any way you like!

Spaghetti Squash with Creamy Avocado Garlic Sauce

As I was roaming around Trader Joe's this week wondering what else I "need" (at TJs I use this term very loosely), I came across a large pile of spaghetti squash selling for under $3 each. In your typical supermarket, squash is usually sold by the pound, usually making it cost more than I want to spend. So, needless to say, I was very excited by this discovery and just had to have one. I figured I'd come up with what I "needed" it for when I got home. And indeed I did.

I love treating spaghetti squash like regular pasta, and often eat it with tomato sauce and cheese. It's delicious, but I was getting tired of it and wanted to try something new. Ari already made a pumpkin sauce for pasta, so that was out of the running. I moved on to one of my favorite naturally creamy fruits - avocado! I have yet to meet someone who doesn't love this stuff. Turns out it goes perfectly with spaghetti squash and it's just as good as its tomato and pumpkin sauce peers.

This recipe is really simple, healthy, and delicious. We had it for dinner tonight, and Ari loved the avocado with the spaghetti squash, calling it the "perfect complement for the squash, much better than tomato sauce." I like my guacamole with some chunks, and so I decided to leave my sauce this way and mash the avocado by hand. Feel free to adapt this recipe and just put all the sauce ingredients in the blender for something much smoother.

I also found the chopped leeks add a nice mild onion-y flavor with a bit of crunch to what is otherwise very mushy, soft recipe. This recipe is very adaptable, so feel free to experiment. One variable I thought of but didn't try this time is roasting tomatoes and leeks or red onions with the squash in the oven for the last 20 minutes, and then chopping them and mixing them in during step 5.

One last thing I love about this recipe is that it is very filling because of the protein and fat in the avocado. Spaghetti squash in general can leave you feeling less than satisfied, but this dish works perfectly well as a main course because of how filling and satisfying it is.

If you try the suggested variation, or any other for that matter, please let us know how it goes in the comments - we'd love to hear about it!

Although it tastes delicious, the green sauce on the squash alone doesn't
look so appetizing, hence why I highly recommend garnishing before serving. 

Apple Cider Pumpkin Doughnuts with Maple Glaze

So, I have a confession: I'm addicted to Pinterest. And since I love to cook, I follow many fellow foodies and constantly see awesome cooking and baking ideas. Recently, many different kinds of homemade doughnuts have filled up my feed and caught my attention (really, are doughnuts the new cake pops?). I couldn't find a recipe that had all the flavors I wanted in a fall doughnut, so I did what I usually end up doing and made up my own recipe inspired by a few of the recipes I found (like this one or this one).

We happen to have delicious apple cider made on a farm from our CSA, and I wanted to make sure to incorporate it into my dough. A lot of the recipes I found for doughnuts seemed to include sweet potatoes, squash, or pumpkin, which sounded amazing so I wanted to include that element in my recipe as well. I also decided to replace most, but not all, of the eggs and oil this recipe would require with applesauce, which usually makes for a nice baking substitute,  is healthier, and would complement the other flavors well. Lastly, I wanted these doughnuts to be baked and not fried, as I try to be pretty health-conscious in my cooking.

I did need to go out and buy doughnut pans, which I was (not so) secretly happy about because I love getting cooking gadgetry at the HomeGoods near our apartment. Any excuse to go there is a good excuse, even though our credit card bill might protest. Normally I try to avoid specialized gadgets that only have one kind of use, but these were cheap and don't take up too much storage space, so I went for it. However, in case you don't have and/or don't want to get doughnut tins, I left the option open to make these as muffins as well, which are also delicious. Actually, this recipe made more batter than you need for a dozen doughnuts, so I ended up making doughnuts and muffins.

These taste as good as they look

Apple Blueberry Muffins

Ari has been encouraging me to add some of my own recipes to this blog, and I've finally gotten around to it now that I'm home-bound due to Hurricane Sandy!

These delicious muffins are healthy and dairy-free. I based this recipe on a another health-conscious mini muffin recipe I found. While it looked great, I didn't want my muffins to have dairy or to be small, and I had no bananas on hand. What resulted was an entirely new recipe that are great to have around the house for breakfast or snack.

I specifically used pastry flour to get an airy texture, and I picked dry over fresh blueberries so as not to over-saturate the muffins with moisture (and a pervasive blue dye!). The original recipe calls for a cup of vanilla yogurt and half a cup of milk. As I was seeking something dairy-free, I thought that the vanilla pudding mix would add the flavor and some of the moisture the yogurt adds, while also adding to the amount of milk to ensure enough liquid in the mixture.

This recipe can be adapted in many ways, especially by swapping out the apples and blueberries for other add-ins, like chocolate chips, nuts, or other fruit.

Enjoy! What are your favorite ways to modify dairy recipes?