Fresh Veggies

Fresh Veggies
great produce=Great eating

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Prep for the Kuwait-France inspired menu for tomorrow..Photos & info

Being a fully trained,professional  chef de cuisine  I have spent most of my time cooking diverse meat and fish dishes, I have had  to train myself in the art of cooking vegetarian and vegan and it  is very interesting trying to create the same flavors without the length of cooking or additions of animal/fish protein.
One of the main differences is the amount of liquid required to cook any vegetable stew/casserole etc.it is far less than a meat one. Animal protein beaks down well in lots of liquid, vegetables already contain water so they don't need as much liquid, also a lot of flavor is lost when having to cook vegetarian dishes longer to drive off the excess liquid.
This may not apply when cooking dried beans from scratch but otherwise do apply it to all your dishes, that way you lower your own carbon footprint by using less energy to produce the dish ( plus it is easier to add more liquid as you go along).

The main reason I decided to  operate a Vegan-vegetarian Only food delivery company, besides health, is that I did "not trust" my  clients with storing dishes with animal protein especially in hot weather, ( here today in Los Angeles it is 89f in the shade) as I use no preservatives, very low salt and oils, which would only give them a good "fridge life" of 48 hours maximum, and I know my clients...another reason I deliver twice a week.

The prep for tomorrow's delivery so far:


Curly kale for the rainbow rice wraps and white squash for the soups and sauces

Button mushrooms to sun dry and Portobello for the stuffed mushrooms

oranges for the Rainbow wrap dip, field asparagus for the Barley "risotto", corn for the soup, lemon for the artichoke stuffing & couscous wrap, celery and leeks for the soups and sauces

Swiss chard for the lentils in tomato sauce, carrots and parsnip for the vegetable soup and sauces

Kale, parsley for the soups and risotto and cilantro for the coucous wrap

The cumin and cinnamon base for the Chard & lentils

2nd cooking the lentils in boiling salted water with bay leaves

Leek & Potatoes for the soup

Fresh corn cob adding flavor to the vegetable soup, it will be removed later, after skimming and before packaging.

The chard, lentil and tomato dish completed, tomorrow will add chopped cilantro and grape tomatoes.

The completed vegetable (carrots, parsnip, leeks, celery, mushrooms, sweetcorn, white squash, onions, garlic, parsley, thyme) soup

The blended leek & potato soup topped with chopped parsley


These 2 the lentil chard dish cooling before packaging tomorrow..stored overnight in fridge, to "bloom" the flavors and spices.

I changed my plan and added cashews to the artichoke and potato stuffing for the mushrooms to add more texture..here they are cooking with the artichokes, onions, sherry, garlic and nutritional yeast..drying off everything

boiling the potatoes in salted water for mashing with butter

I added grated lemon rind and herbes d'Provence to the potato-artichoke stuffing for the mushrooms

the stuffing complete and cooling for tomorrows delivery when it will be added to the mushroom cap

finely chopped asparagus stems, onions, celery, white of leek, garlic and mushrooms ( I used 1 tbsp sunflower oil & 3 tbsp Madiera wine and produced 4 pounds  completed of risotto)...allow the vegetables to sweat and release all their liquid before adding washed and rinsed barley and then hot stock ( a little at a time allowing it to be absorbed by the barley as in regular risotto's with rice) add herbs & nutritional yeast during last 10 mins of cooking.

the completed barley "risotto"..at client's home to be placed in a skillet with 2 tbsp water and stirred for 5-10 mins slowly to heat through

these 2..toasted  pecan & dried cranberry, oatmeal, all butter, crispy cookies


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