More simple dinners... Tofu and rice.

This dinner was a quick and simple one.
I marinated some tofu for a about an hour in half and half white wine vinegar and tamari, with the addition of lots of dill, a bit of tarragon, and a teaspoon of agave nectar.

I cooked up some rice, and then added to it some peas and corn, and a few teaspoons of cumin seeds. (i love cumin seeds like crazy, they are good on just about anything.)

Grilled the tofu.

Grated some carrot on top.

DONE!

SOUP!

There's nothing quite like a hot bowl of soup. Nourishing. Comforting. What more could you ask for?!
The best part is that you can make a big pot of soup and then keep it in the fridge to eat as a quick lunch or dinner throughout the week.
Here's a simple recipe (kind of), for the soup pictured below.



SOUP!
ingredients (roughly)
-about 2 cups of potatoes*
-1 large carrot*
-lots of garlic
-1/2 package of tofu*
-half a zucchini*
-small can of tomatoes
-1/2 cup of corn
-mushrooms*
-1/3 of a head of sui choi
-6 cups of veggie stock
-a few splashes of tamari
-1 teaspoon of chilli paste
-1/2 teaspoon of oregano
-1/2 teaspoon of tarragon
-chilli powder
-salt and pepper
-1 teaspoon of hoisin sauce
-1-z tablespoons of olive oil

*chopped into bite-sized pieces

Alright...
To start soup of I like to heat up the olive oil in the bottom of my soup pot, and then add in a bunch of chopped garlic to cook for a few minutes.
I then add any spices that I want to flavour the soup with, and stir those around with the garlic and oil for about a minute.
Add the tofu, and let it absorb all of the spicy garlicy goodness.
Add root veggies and stir for a few minutes.
Then add the veggie stock.
Bring to a boil, and then let simmer. Check the root vegetables regularly: when they are almost done cooking, add all of the other vegetables (except the sui choi!!)

This is when I add all of the non-spice ingredients (hoisin sauce etc.)

Finally, when the soup is almost done, I add the sui choi (it doesn't really need to cook a whole lot).

You don't need to add the veggies that I have listed here. You can pretty much ad anything you want. It's just important to keep in mind that different vegetables have different cooking times. If it's a root vegetable, it takes longer. Soft things take less time.

Umm... that's all for now.

Tomato and black bean hummus

A few posts back I talked very briefly about the versatility of bean dips, and how you can add basically anything to them.
So here is a prime example: Tomato and black bean hummus!!



Alright... so I will be the first to admit that it looks a little like cat food... but it was so yummy!!

The recipe:
-1 large can of chickpeas
-1 large can of black beans
-half a small can of tomato paste
-juice from one lemon
-about half a teaspoon of maple syrup
-2 tablespoons of tahini
-between 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
-half a teaspoon of chilli paste
-GARLIC

Blend everything until it reaches the consistency that you desire. For a runnier hummus, add a bit of water.

I get the feeling that I might be forgetting something from this recipe... but you get the idea (hopefully).

I think that I am going to try testing out different bean and seasoning combinations more this month, so get ready for lots of bean dips!!! om nom nom.

Tomatoes and pasta.

TOMATOES! They are so very lovely. I honestly can't wait for tomato season every year (though I did not take full advantage of it this year). The shear variety never ceases to astound me.



I picked up these guys at the farmers' market, and decided to make another really simple tomato sauce similar to the one made a few posts back.

The tomatoes were chopped up and thrown in a pan with lots of garlic and a bit of olive oil. Once they had broken down into a sufficiently saucy texture, I added a pinch of sugar and a whole bunch of fresh basil.

Meanwhile, I cooked up some penne, and grilled some yellow beans on my newly seasoned cast iron grill (I LOVE IT!)

Here is the result.

Tofu, roasted veggies, mashed potatoes and cheesy sauce!!

Vegan MoFo Post #3!!

I was having a group of mostly omnivorous boys over for dinner, and wasn't really sure what to make, so decided to go with comfort food. It turned out to be a good decision!

I marinated some chunks of tofu in equal parts white wine vinegar and tamari, flavoured with a huge bunch of chopped up basil. I set the tofu aside to soak up flavour while the rest of dinner was prepared.

Next, I boiled some potatoes in preparation for mashing, and put some water on in which to blanch some swiss chard. The chard was blanched for three minutes and set aside until the potatoes were fully cooked.
Mashed potatoes are a great vessel for other things... beans, greens, tomato paste, mashed up squash... if you are cooking for someone who is a fussy eater and you want to sneak more veggies into their diet... seriously... mashed potatoes... it's the way to go.
To these potatoes, I added:
-Earth Balance
-unsweetened almond milk (I don't measure these first two ingredients; instead, I add them a bit at a time until the potatoes have reached the consistency that I desire.)
-lots of garlic
-1 tablespoon of miso paste
-an entire bunch of blached swiss chard
-salt and pepper

Meanwhile, I tossed some mushrooms (lightly coated in olive oil) in the oven at 375 F to start roasting, followed by some zucchini about ten minutes later. These were left in the oven together for an additional ten minutes.

Cheesy sauce was made according to the recipe from the Veganomicon, to which I added a few tablespoons of tomato paste, and half a can of coconut milk (plus roughly one extra tablespoon of flour to compensate for the additional liquid.)

The tofu chunks were then grilled.

All of this was garnished with pea shoots and served with some lovely flat bread that I picked up at the store.

PHOTOS!!





The most satisfying part was that even the boy who had never eaten tofu before totally loved it. SUCCESS!

Soba noodles with arugula, zucchini and pea shoots.

Post number 2 for Vegan MoFo!!



This was a very quick and simple dinner that was super tasty, and full of greens.

I took an entire bunch of arugula and wilted it in a pan with a little bit of Earth Balance. I chopped up some zucchini, and tossed it into the pan when the arugula was almost done.

Meanwhile, I cooked some soba noodles.

Once the noodles and veggies were done, I tossed them in a bowl together, and topped them off with some fresh pea shoots. Everything was sprinkled with a bit of freshly squeezed lemon juice, and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Easiest dinner ever!

(one more photo.)

Peanut noodle salad, mushrooms, fingerling potatoes and white bean dip.

Ok, so it turns out that SO FAR, I have been a total Vegan MoFo slacker! Not in so far as cooking, but in so far as posting. (I had a calculus midterm this week, give me a break.)
Seven posts to follow, from the past week.



OM NOM NOM!
This was a simple dinner, of the variety that I usually seem to end up making.
I love, love, love peanut sauce, and really liked this salad the last time that I made it, so decided to whip it up again.



Peanut noodle salad:
-Peanut Sauce (as I stated in an earlier post, you can find recipes for this stuff anywhere, you basically just have to fiddle with the proportions of the ingredients until you find one that suits you.)
-Noodles (again, depends on what you are going for. I like soba noodles a lot.)
-Veggies! These can be whatever you want, but it works best if they are fresh, and if you chop them up into fairly small pieces.
I have never been a huge fan of cucumber... but OMG, I bought one from the local farmers' market, and it was the best thing EV-AR! So sweet and flavourful. It was shocking. It was kind of expensive compared to what I am used to, but well worth it.

The rest of dinner!!



I tossed some fingerling potatoes, and cremini mushrooms in olive oil, and roasted them in the oven. YUM!

Then covered the potatoes in a huge glob of white bean dip (recipe taken from "Eat, Drink and Be Vegan".)
I've been extra into bean dips lately... they go on anything, and you can basically put anything in them, depending on what you are feeling like that day.
As long as you have the key ingredients:
-beans.
-tahini
-olive oil
-garlic
-lemon juice
Everything else can be adjusted. Try different types of beans, and different herbs and spices to suit your mood. I will elaborate on this in a future post.

Food! I love it!

VEGAN MOFO!

Apparently, next month is the Vegan Month of Food. The idea is for food bloggers to try to post something every weekday. EXCITING! MOTIVATION! Participants are going to be put into the PPK RSS feed, so that is pretty rad.

Bring it on, October!

Also, just for fun, here is a picture of my friend Shmoo's cat, Isabelle.



She is such a beautiful little princess!!

Ok, bye.

more potatoes, tofu, roasted veggies, heirloom tomatoes!

I picked up these beauties at the farmers' market this weekend...



I decided that they would have enough flavour to hold their own in a very basic sauce, and I was right! They were so very lovely.

I used about the amount of tomatoes that you see in the photo above, or maybe a handful more.

I cleaned the tomatoes and cut them in half, heated some olive oil and garlic in a pan, and then tossed the tomatoes in.

I simmered them until they were a bit liquid-y, added 1 teaspoon of sugar (they were pretty tart), and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. I then continued to let them simmer on low heat until they reached a more sauce-like consistency.

SO SIMPLE!



The rest of dinner was composed of some roasted mushrooms and zucchini; some leftover "burger" mix (see earlier post), simply pan fried instead of floured into burger form; and some stips of marinated tofu.



Roasting veggies!
Mushrooms were cleaned and rubbed with olive oil before tossing them into the oven preheated to 350F. They stayed in there for about 10 minutes before I added the oiled zucchini chunks to the mix (it takes less time to cook). They probably stayed in for another ten minutes. I don't usually time roasted vegetables, but rather test them periodically to see what's what.

The tofu was the "Marinated Asian Tofu" from the Veganomicon.

The whole thing was sprinkled with fresh cilantro.

All-in-all, pretty delicious dinner.

Curried tofu stuffed peppers; potato, pumpkin and black bean "burgers"; greens.

The other day i made a lot of potatoes... a lot! I had a huge pot full of boiled yellow potatoes, so I decided to mash them up with some other delicious things that I had kicking around the kitchen.

"Burgers"



- Large saucepan half full of potatoes. (ok, so that's a pretty ghetto description, but i don't really know how to quantify the potatoes)
- Half a can of pumpkin puree (make sure that it is NOT pumpkin pie mix!)
- One bunch of chard, chopped and blanched for three minutes.
- One can of black beans, rinsed.
- LOTS of garlic.
- Several tablespoons of olive oil.
- Salt and pepper.

This delicious mess was formed into patties, and then patted with flour. They were then fried in a hot pan with a bit of oil for about 3-5 minutes on either side.

I also sprinkled them with some Sheese, "cheddar style" fake cheese.

Stuffed Peppers
The peppers were stuffed with a crumbled curried tofu, and some really lovely green tomatoes that I picked up at the farmers' market. The peppers were rubbed with a bit of olive oil, before being stuffed, and tossed in the oven at 350F for roughly 12 minutes.



Tofu, roughly:
- 1 package of extra firm tofu, crumbled.
- 2 teaspoons of peanut oil (but any oil will do, really)
- 1/4 teaspoon each of cardamom and ground ginger.
- 1 teaspoon of curry powder.
- 1/2 teaspoon of cumin seeds.
- several splashes of tamari.
- 1/2 teaspoon of chilli paste.
- garlic!!

The greens were just a mix of random things picked up from the farmers' market, and were tossed in lemon juice and flax oil.

nori strips and hummus.

Ok, so this is one of my less fancy photos of food, but making a post without a photo seems silly.
I am not normally one for food with a lot of packaging, but a friend recently introduced me to these little snack packs of seasoned nori, and they are the greatest!
This weekend, I ate them like crazy. I also had made a bunch of hummus, so I ate them together, and it was even better. Woot!



Since nori is a sea vegetable, it's packed with all sorts of vitamins and minerals, as well as omega-3s (and 6s, but 3s can be harder to get).

My hummous isn't incredibly special, and recipes are abundant enough on the internets, so I won't bother posting one here. To your standard hummus mix, I added a HUGE bunch of basil, and probably about twice as much garlic as your average bear.

chocolate cake, with kick.

I don't normally agree with posting other people's recipes directly from their cookbooks, but since this was also posted on the PPK blog the other day, I don't have a problem with it.

CHOCOLATE CAKE!

1 cup almond milk (or your favorite non-dairy milk)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder, Dutch-processed or regular (or a mix of both)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla and almond extract and mix well.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat until no large lumps remain (a few tiny lumps are OK).

Lightly grease an 8 inch springform pan. Pour in the batter and bake for 32 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted through the center comes out clean.

I didn't have a springform pan on hand, which turned out to be mildly problematic... but it turned out alright in the end.
Also, modifications!!!!
To the above recipe, I added one teaspoon each of cinnamon and cayenne, along with a handful of chopped up dried sour cherries.
Cayenne adds a bit of spicy kick, and the cherries add little sweet and sour pockets of goodness. Cinnamon is lovely in just about anything baked, as far as I am concerned.
Sadly, almond milk cost a whopping $3.50 at my local Safeway (not my usual grocery store), so I stuck with soy. Thankfully, SO NICE now makes an unsweetened version that is still fortified. Who knew?!

GANACHE:
Also modified from the PPK recipe, my chocolate ganache contained:
2/3 cup unsweetened soy milk
100g of dark chocolate (An entire large, lindt bar. The one that I used was 55% cacao)
4 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Heat the soy milk in a saucepan, then break the chocolate into bits and mix it in, until melted. Add all other ingredients and whisk everything around until it's nice and smooth. Let cool at least 15 minutes before using.

Before pouring the ganache all over the cake, allow the cake to cool. I tossed mine in the freezer for a bit, because I was impatient.

That's all great, but where are the photos!?!?!

Right here.



YUM!

simple dinner.

I like to enjoy new potatoes while their around, so this dinner had some more of those (boiled) with some more lovely, broiled yellow zucchini, fried mushrooms with red pepper and a tofurkey smokie. yum!

The mushrooms and red pepper were shopped up and then tossed in a cast iron frying pan with some garlic (how much really depends on your taste), a splash of tamari, and a generous pinch of paprika.

The potatoes were topped with tofutti sour supreme, mixed with a squeeze of lime juice, and some chilli paste (once again, the amount really depends on your taste for spice)

That's pretty much it.

salad!!

For some reason or another, salad is something that I often overlook when it comes to meal preparation. Then, I remember it, and am overjoyed by the deliciousness of fresh vegetables.

SALAD!!



I usually don't toss my salads, because I like to be able to eat bits and pieces of whatever I want. I also prefer salads if they have a few cold, fresh vegetables, and a few warm cooked ones.
This salad incorporated:
-fresh spinach and green leaf lettuce
-grated beets and carrots
-sliced cucumber
-lightly steamed yellow beans (just a few minutes, so they remain a little crispy. yellow beans are a little sweeter than the green ones, and they are DIVINE.)
-boiled new potatoes
-lightly broiled , sliced, yellow zucchini (once again, a little sweeter than green zuc. i coated the slices in olive oil, and then tossed them in the toaster oven at 350 F, for about 10-15 minutes)

WONDERFUL!

For the salad dressing, I combined:
-several tablespoons of sweet chilli sauce
-a few teaspoons of sesame oil
-a splash of apple cider vinegar
-a splash of maple syrup

The salad dressing was ok, but it was the topping for the new potatoes that was really amazing.

Potato topping:
-half a cup of tofutti fake sour cream
-6 to 10 drops of hickory liquid smoke (if you see this stuff, buy it! it's delicious.)
-between 1 and 2 teaspoons of lime juice
-between 1 and 2 teaspoons of maple syrup

The only thing that would have improved this salad, would have been the addition of some pumpkin and/or sunflower seeds, and some pea shoots or sunflower sprouts. Otherwise, it was the perfect summer dinner!!

Salad! Salad! Salad!

more tofu burgers! peanut sauce! baby bok choy!

Once again, marinated a whole whack of tofu in my go to marinade of tamari, sesame oil, sriracha, garlic and ginger.
Shredded up some carrots and beets, and sliced up some zucchini and spinach for toppings.
On the bun (errr.... multi-grain bread): dijon mustard, ketchup, and the most delicious mayo spread ever!
I bought some super amazing liquid hickory smoke the other week, and decided that it would probably taste great mixed into some vegan mayo with a bit of maple syrup. HEAVEN! I am going to start putting this on pretty much everything.





Along side the tofu burger is some lightly steamed baby bok choy slathered with a tasty peanut sauce.
In the peanut sauce:
peanut butter (obvs) about 1/2 a cup
teaspoon of chilli paste
garlic - lots of it
small can of coconut milk
a few splashes of tamari
ginger
lots of like juice
teaspoon of rice vinegar
tablespoon of maple syrup

Mix mix mix, and add water until desired thickness is reached.
It's good to play around with the proportions a bit until you find the peanut sauce that is perfect for you.

Ps. Did you know that you can buy coconut milk in tetra packs??? It's a bit cheaper, and nice to just have hanging out in the fridge, say... to add to coffee (delicious!), or to hot chocolate, or cherry flavoured soda (vegan italian sodas, whaaaaat?). I should probably just devote a whole post to coconut milk sometime soon...

3 course meal! thai-style coconut soup, asian noodle salad with spicy peanut sauce, mushroom risotto with smokey tofu and green beans.

Recently, the Grace Gallery in Vancouver held a "40 hours of food and flicks" event, where a local chef cooked for continuous two hour sittings for 40 hours. A movie was shown for each sitting. Sadly, for me and a few of my vegan friends, there was no vegan option... so we decided to make our own fancy dinner. HURRAY!

Course 1: Asian Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Sauce.



This recipe was taken from Vegan Planet, with a few modifications. The recipe recommends using Udon noodles, which we agreed were too thick for our liking, so we used some Soba noodles instead. To the peanut sauce in Vegan Planet, we also added a few tablespoons of maple syrup, for sweetness, and the juice from half a lemon. The recipe was also modified with the addition of peas.
This salad was SO delicious! It was also super easy to make. Peanut sauce recipes are easily found in just about any vegan cookbook, or all over the internets. Try playing around with different ones until you get the right flavour for you. You can also experiment with different types of noodles (spelt, kamut, buckwheat) or varying degrees of thickness, and you can basically add any vegetables that please you.

Course 2: Thai Style Coconut Soup.



Also from Vegan Planet, but slightly modified with the addition of fresh lemongrass and thai basil. I'm not sure what i would do differently in making this soup the next time... maybe add more coconut milk? Maybe add some sweet chilli sauce? I just don't know. It was light, and refreshing, but didn't quite have the oomph that I was looking for.

Course 3: Mushroom Risotto with Smokey Tofu and Green Beans.



SO MANY MUSHROOMS! We picked up a variety pack of organic mushrooms from the farmers' market, which included shitake, portabello, pink oyster and some other kind whose name I'm not sure of. We sauteed these for a bit before adding them into the risotto. The risotto was made with a mushroom broth and then finished off with truffle infused olive oil. YUM! We also added some swiss chard.

To marinate the tofu, we took the recipe for Smokey Grilled Tempeh, from the Veganomicon (obvs, without the tempeh). We let the tofu marinate for a few hours and then pan-fried it. Smokey deliciousness!

The green beans were blanched for three minutes, put into a cold water bath and then tossed in flax oil.

garlic scapes and a sammich.

soo... life has been a little hectic and crazy lately, thus, the lack of posts. I might not begin actually posting on a regular basis until August... we'll see.

In any case, I went to the farmers' market the other week (i have been EXTREMELY lazy about farmers' market visits this year... it's pretty shameful...)

In an attempt to try something new and exciting, i picked up these



GARLIC SCAPES!

So what are they? They're kind of like a mix between a chives and green beans (only a little tougher) and they taste (SURPRISE!) like garlic. YUM!
The first time that I tried cooking them, i fried them up in a pan with some portabello, shitake and oyster mushrooms, and a little bit of Earth Balance. It was pretty tasty.




I served these with a delicious sammich.



I forget EXACTLY what I put in the main topping, but it went something like this:
1 can of chickpeas and half a package of firm tofu mashed together, several tablespoons of grainy mustard, juice from one or two lemons, 1/4 cup of tamari, a few tablespoons of tahini, pinch of paprika, pinch of cayenne, 1 tablespoon or so of vegan mayo, and 1 tablespoon of miso paste. I then chopped up some avocado, lettuce and tomatoes, and grated some carrots, and put the whole mess on some multi-grain bread. Delicious!YUM! This topping kind of fills the tuna salad sammich craving. (i miss tuna melts... *sigh*)

A note on garlic scapes:
The second time that i cooked them, I attempted to grill them on the bbq with a little oil.... not so successful. If you see these puppies at the farmers' market and decide to pick them up, I would recommend blanching them for a few minutes before grilling. They are pretty tough, so a few minutes in boiling water (followed by a cold water bath) would really loosen them up.
Also, these are only in season for about TWO WEEKS every year!! So snap them up while you can!!

just because...

this is my cat. his name is hunter, and i love him very much.

tofu! hummus! garlic!

tofu!
lately, i really love to bake tofu... in just about any kind of marinade.
this time, i took one out of VCon (which is where i seem to be getting everything that i cook these days...). I made the "marinated asian tofu", with the only modification being that i loaded it up with a ton of roasted garlic and some toasted sesame seeds.
yum!



I also pan fried some new potatoes with a bunch of roasted mushrooms and garlic, then served these both with a huge dollop of hummus (insert basic hummus recipe plus roasted garlic, chipotle and a bit of balsamic vinegar), and some shredded carrots.
Unfortunately for the hummus, I didn't have any raw garlic on hand, and the roasted garlic just didn't have enough oumf/umf/oumph (?). The lemons that I bought seemed to be a little lack lustre in flavour, hence the addition of balsamic vinegar. Sadly, it added more sweetness than kick into the mix. womp. Still delicious, but I would do things differently next time. (what can i say? it was my first time making hummus)



In case you didn't guess from this post, I love garlic... especially of the roasted variety.
One of the produce stores near my house sells huge bags of pre-peeled garlic on the cheap, so every now and then i grab a bag, toss it in olive oil and roast it. Then I put roasted garlic on/in everything... or you know, just eat it as a snack (yikes!). Occasionally, I will also add a mass of mushrooms to the mix, and then they soak up all of the olive oil/garlic goodness and taste absolutely divine. hurrah!

tempeh "shepardess pie"

I had tried tempeh years ago, and had not been too keen on the flavour... but decided to give it another shot.
tempeh is much higher in fiber and slightly higher in protein and other nutrients than tofu. it has what is often described as an "earthy" or "nutty" flavour.
I have basically no experience with tempeh, so i took this recipe directly from the Veganomicon with no additions (except for some grated carrot...)

directly out of the oven...


plated with a bit of italian parsley.


the verdict:
ok, so the shepardess pie was pretty good, but i have to say that i am still not particularly crazy for tempeh. i think that it has more to do with the texture than the flavour (??) maybe. i can't quite put my finger on it.
my husband jake, however, thought that it was great.
i don't know...
perhaps i will try it again in the future in a different incarnation, but for now, tempeh will not be making a permanent home in my kitchen.

tofu burgers!

summer is here!!
with summer, comes tofu burgers!



here's a quick simple recipe for some delicious tofu burgers that i stole from my friend shmoo...

buy a package of pressed tofu and slice into appropriate burger sized portions (they should be about 1/2 inch thick)
chop up a bunch of garlic and ginger (the amount really depends on taste... i like a lot of garlic, so i go with about 4 or 5 cloves, with a similar amount of ginger)
toss the ginger into a dish appropriate for marinating with about a 1/3 cup of soy sauce or tamari, 2 tablespoons of sesame oil, and a hit of sriracha sauce.
toss in the tofu and leave to marinate for as long as you want (i would give it at least an hour... it only gets more delicious with time)

these can be grilled on the bbq, or fried in a pan... whatever is easiest.
cook about 5 minutes on each side.

i served these burgers on a multi-grain bun with vegan mayo, ketchup, jalapeño hummous and a pile of wilted spinach.

spinach phyllo pockets

first entry!
so... i have been meaning to start a vegan food blog for a while now...
yes.
i'm kicking it off with my first phyllo experiment ever, from last week.



phyllo fresh from the oven!

there were a few slightly different fillings that i used for these...

filling number one:
plenty of wilted spinach, lots of garlic, lemon juice, pinenuts, soft tofu, olive oil, salt and pepper, a pinch of cayenne, a pinch of nutmeg

filling number two:
a variation on filling number one, this one nixed the pine nuts, cayenne and nutmeg, and went easy on the lemon juice.
in their place was half a can of cannellini beans, and some truffle infused olive oil. yum!

these were alternately paired with diced tomatoes or roasted red peppers.

Fillings were made by combining all ingredients in a blender and pulsing gently until they reached a creamy texture.
I'm not going to go into the details of prepping phyllo here, but you can find step-by-step instructions by doing a quick google search. It's surprisingly easy to work with, and makes even the most low maintenance dish seam fancy. Hurray for phyllo!

The phyllo pockets were served with boiled baby potatoes smothered in Earth Balance, then sprinkled with salt, pepper and dill.
yum!