Playing around with TVP
Oct. 7th, 2012 01:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flybystardancerSo, in past posts I've alluded to the fact that I'm part of a gaming group that meets every Sunday night. We currently have a rotation of three houses and four games, and 6-7 people (depending on the game). Well, two of the group (Best Friend and her husband) are vegetarian. And this group is really good about being guinea pigs for my culinary experiments.
Well, for this week I decided I wanted to make enchiladas. Well, a lasagna-like version of enchiladas since my crock's in a circle and that doesn't hold logs of tortillas wrapped around filling very well. I'm also playing around with TVP for the first time as a part of the filling. And given that I'm cooking in a crock pot due to lack of oven, I also run the risk of everything turning to a pot of mush. I've done some things to hopefully prevent that from happening...
So here's what I did. In one large pot I put a bunch of chopped peppers (one each green, yellow, and red bell pepper, plus one poblano) and a bit of oil and started cooking those until soft, starting with a lid on, and then with the lid off, to drive off moisture. Once a lot of liquid was gone, I added some frozen corn to drive off liquid from that as well. At the same time, I worked on the TVP. Chopped up half of a yellow onion, and started sauteeing that in vegetable oil. After it became translucent, I added spices (1 tsp chile california, 1/2 tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp hot chile new mexico), and let them cook until fragrant. Then I added a couple large dollops of tomato paste, cooked that until the raw tomato smell was one. Then added 1 Tbsp garlic, cooked it a bit more. Added 1 1/2 cups water, brought to a roiling boil, took off the heat. I added in 1 1/2 cups of TVP to the liquid, got it all submerged, and then let it soak it up for about five minutes.
Once those were done, I started getting ready to layer. Sprayed the crock with non-stick, spread a smidge of enchilada sauce on the bottom of the crock as well. Then I layered oil-coated corn tortillas, the TVP, the veggie mix, a drizzle of enchilada sauce, and a thin layer of shredded cheese. I had four layers like that, topped it off with another layer of tortillas, and then just enough enchilada sauce to spread as a thin layer over the top tortillas. Put the lid on the crock and stuck it in the fridge.
Tomorrow I'm going to put it in the base as soon as I get home from work and crank it up to high for an hour or two, then put cheese on top and let that melt.
I deliberately went with a lower ratio of liquid to TVP than what most recipes say to use... I'm hoping that with it under-hydrated, and the fact that it's the bottom of the filling layers, will let it soak up any and all liquid, instead of the tortillas.
So wish me luck with that... The crock isn't as full as I'd like for feeding six people, most of whom are big eaters, but I also have the fail!brownies and some homemade chocolate ice cream to hopefully make up for that.
Well, for this week I decided I wanted to make enchiladas. Well, a lasagna-like version of enchiladas since my crock's in a circle and that doesn't hold logs of tortillas wrapped around filling very well. I'm also playing around with TVP for the first time as a part of the filling. And given that I'm cooking in a crock pot due to lack of oven, I also run the risk of everything turning to a pot of mush. I've done some things to hopefully prevent that from happening...
So here's what I did. In one large pot I put a bunch of chopped peppers (one each green, yellow, and red bell pepper, plus one poblano) and a bit of oil and started cooking those until soft, starting with a lid on, and then with the lid off, to drive off moisture. Once a lot of liquid was gone, I added some frozen corn to drive off liquid from that as well. At the same time, I worked on the TVP. Chopped up half of a yellow onion, and started sauteeing that in vegetable oil. After it became translucent, I added spices (1 tsp chile california, 1/2 tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp hot chile new mexico), and let them cook until fragrant. Then I added a couple large dollops of tomato paste, cooked that until the raw tomato smell was one. Then added 1 Tbsp garlic, cooked it a bit more. Added 1 1/2 cups water, brought to a roiling boil, took off the heat. I added in 1 1/2 cups of TVP to the liquid, got it all submerged, and then let it soak it up for about five minutes.
Once those were done, I started getting ready to layer. Sprayed the crock with non-stick, spread a smidge of enchilada sauce on the bottom of the crock as well. Then I layered oil-coated corn tortillas, the TVP, the veggie mix, a drizzle of enchilada sauce, and a thin layer of shredded cheese. I had four layers like that, topped it off with another layer of tortillas, and then just enough enchilada sauce to spread as a thin layer over the top tortillas. Put the lid on the crock and stuck it in the fridge.
Tomorrow I'm going to put it in the base as soon as I get home from work and crank it up to high for an hour or two, then put cheese on top and let that melt.
I deliberately went with a lower ratio of liquid to TVP than what most recipes say to use... I'm hoping that with it under-hydrated, and the fact that it's the bottom of the filling layers, will let it soak up any and all liquid, instead of the tortillas.
So wish me luck with that... The crock isn't as full as I'd like for feeding six people, most of whom are big eaters, but I also have the fail!brownies and some homemade chocolate ice cream to hopefully make up for that.
