Zella's Kitchen #5
Welcome to the fifth edition of Zella’s Kitchen!
As always, if you missed a previous edition of Zella’s Kitchen, you can find them here.
Recipe #1: Vegetarian Potato Paprikash
As much as we don’t want summer to end, we can’t pretend that the days aren’t getting shorter and colder; it’s officially sweater weather. What food better says fall than the potato (okay, maybe the squash does, but that’s beside the point).
This dish is a delicious spin on the traditional Hungarian dish, Paprikash Krumpli. Don’t sweat not having Hungarian paprika, regular paprika still adds a nice boldness to the recipe. We also felt that 1/2 of a 14oz can of diced tomatoes was not enough tomato to make the recipe nice and saucy, so we added an entire 28oz to the dish. We put the paprikash on top of a bed of rice, and it created a delicious fall recipe.
Okay, okay, we know. Another damn zucchini recipe.
We had an extra zucchini in the fridge, and we had no idea what to do with it. We didn’t want it going bad. So after some digging, we found that we can make a “meatball” with zucchini. Not sure if the name is entirely appropriate, so let’s call them neatballs.
Anyway, we didn’t have a can of chickpeas on hand and did not want to run to the store just for one thing, so we substituted it with black beans. Was it a little weird? For sure. It was still delicious though.
We also had a giant zucchini, so we had wayyyy more than the recommended one cup of shredded zucchini. It still turned out fine, so go wild with the zucchini. We would recommend that you take some of the water out of the zucchini beforehand though, as it will help keep the “neatballs” hold. You can do this by putting some salt on the zucchini after you’ve shredded it (sidenote: if you are interested in finding out why salt is able to extract water, we highly recommend you read this article, you know, for that extra information you can impress other people with at dinner parties. You’re welcome). After a couple of minutes, pat that zucchini down with some paper towels, and you are good to go.
To accompany the zucchini “neatballs”, you can add this sauce. It has to be one of the easiest sauces you can make. The effort level required to make this sauce is about the same as buying a pre-made sauce, opening the can, and heating it up. It’s dead simple and packs a whole lotta flavours.
We’ve added this sauce to a variety of dishes, including pasta and homemade pizza. While we are sure your nonna would scoff at this recipe, it’s hard to beat its simplicity and taste.
Bowls are always fun recipes as you can really do whatever you feel like doing. Have extra veggies on hand? Throw that shit in. You want rice instead of rice noodles? Do it!
We prefer our tofu cooked in the oven, so we cut it up into nice bite-sized pieces and cooked it in the oven for 20 ish minutes at 375, turning halfway. After the tofu was cooked, we tossed it into the sauce. We felt like there was a little something missing to the sauce, so we did add some sweet chili sauce into the mix.
We recommend doubling the sauce (as we always do) so that you can add some to your veggies and rice noodles. It’ll add an extra “umph” to the recipe.
Recipe #5: Mushroom Stroganoff
The longest part about this recipe is chopping your veggies.
In this recipe, you can really use any type of mushroom that you want. So use whatever you have on hand or what is on sale this week.
We also wanted more pasta for leftovers, so to ensure that the additional pasta would cook, we just added more oat milk to the recipe. We ensured that the pasta was fully covered up. In the end, we got a creamy and tasty pasta. This recipe is one of Vanessa’s favourites. (In the end, there were no leftovers because Vanessa couldn’t resist).
Zella’s Pick of the Litter
This week’s pick of the litter is something we had been meaning to try for a little while and finally, we went out to buy it. This spicy peanut butter is now a kitchen must-have!
You might be wondering what the hell you put this on; we did too at first. To be honest we have been putting it in our PB+J sandwiches with banana and it is so good. You could also use it in peanut butter sauces, or any other recipe you think of. The spice level is not extreme, it just adds a nice zip to your meal. This is based on our own spice level, so we’d say it’s the equivalent to a jalapeno pepper without seeds.
We found it at our local bakery, La Bete a Pain, and it is also available at our grocer. I’m sure you can find it in multiple places. In case you can’t find it, you can click here for the website! They have a variety of spicy spreads that are definitely going to make you obsessed.
If you want to see Zella’s face after licking the spicy peanut butter, go to our Instagram page here! (@kitchendezella)
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See you next week!
Cheers,
Malcolm & Vanessa