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Hello friends of the Hive realm. The new year begins and so does my two weeks off of work. I work in a vegan sushi restaurant that happens to also be one of the busiest restaurants in the city.

The month of December brought large groups getting together for Christmas and such. It felt hectic. I was happy that Christmas was over. I anticipated that the week up until New Year's eve would be very slow. It blew my mind that this week was as busy as in summer.

New year's eve was a marathon for me. I'm in the appetizer/ dessert station alone. I was given three other desserts for New year's eve. These require adding several items, toppings and sauces to each dish.

Now it's time for us to indulge and enjoy.

Warning! This is not health food!

I am sharing my version of Aranchini which is a popular Italian dish. This is usually stuffed with cheese and other things. I have stuffed these with an almond ricotta, served with a homemade, basic, but zesty and delicious tomato sauce. I decided to mix the mushrooms into the rice.

I have never made anything like this before so I kind of made it up as I went along.

An Italian cook would not approve of me calling this Aranchi, not just because I have veganized it, but for the fact that I'm not using arborio rice, and probably many other Aranchini crimes.
Just cut me some slack okay? I'm Canadian. I'm old and cold.

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First I'm starting with the tomato sauce. This is the simplest thing to make. This is a basic sauce that can be used in different ways.

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I don't use fresh tomatoes. They are just not good right now here in the frozen land of Canada. Good homegrown tomatoes are great if you are a gardener. I used canned tomatoes which have a much better taste then any fresh ones that I could use.

Sauce
790g tomatoes
680g pasata
160g onion
30g garlic
60g carrot
60g celery
3 tablespoons tomato paste
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup wine optional

Saute onions, celery and carrots until onions are translucent. Add garlic, tomato paste, salt and pepper and bay leaves. Add wine if using.

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Add tomatoes and pasata.

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Cook until it becomes thicker. I like to simmer for at least an hour. I blended the sauce when it had cooled.

For the vegan ricotta I am using almonds.

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The use of almonds for vegan creams, was brought to my attention by the lovely @marlyncabrera. This was a breakthrough for me. I always have used cashews for such things, but they are much more expensive here then almonds. Cashews are quicker to make smooth and creamy but almonds tend to be thicker. For a vegan ricotta this is perfect.

I know I know, another crime calling almonds "ricotta".

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Although I can buy already blanched almonds, it is less costly and actually easy to do it yourself. To get rid of the skin fast I soak them in boiling water for a while, then cool off and squish the skin off. It's therapeutic.

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I kept this ricotta quite simple with just the addition of a few things and some green onions that had to be used.

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Vegan ricotta
2 cups almonds not already soaked
Juice of one lemon or a few teaspoons of cider vinegar
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 cup chopped green onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Water or milk to get make it creamy I used soy milk around a half cup

I find it impossible to process with only a food processor, so after this I finish it off with a blender adding a little soy milk at a time to get it creamy. It need to be seasoned again at the end.

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As I mentioned, these would normally be made with risotto from arborio rice, however I am making use of some leftover patna rice that I had. Marc went shopping without me and came home with a gigantic bag of this rice for some weird reason. It must be used.

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Aranchini
4 cups cooked rice
16 oz mushrooms
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup vegan ricotta
1 cup chopped parsley
1 teaspoon white pepper
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon garlic powder
160g pretzel crumb
1/2 cup flour
2 tablespoons vegan egg or just omit
2 cups soy milk
Oil for frying

At first I was going to stuff the balls with the mushrooms but felt like it would be too ambitious. I mixed the mushrooms into the rice, after cooking them.

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Before cooking I chopped them and a few other ingredients.

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I cooked the onions, then garlic and added the mushrooms and seasonings.

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I used my butane camping stove instead of the regular electric stove.

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This stove is actually better so I couldn't resist. I was nervous about the smoke alarm going off, but it did not.

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With my non stick pan, I managed to cook it down perfectly eliminating all of the moisture.

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I did not want extra moisture in it, when adding it to the rice.

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After rolling into balls, I put a hole in it with my fingers. I kept a bowl of water to dip my fingers in. This kept the rice from sticking to my hands. I don't know what an Italian Nona would do, but it worked for me.

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Now the part that really challenged me and I almost regretted it. Filling the hole with the vegan ricotta was not easy. I had to be careful when closing them.

I realized that a real Aranchini stuffed with mozzerella would not present this delicate problem. Plus when it would be cut open, the cheese would have been stretchy and hot. Oh well, I don't eat dairy.

This almond ricotta was only for flavour in the end.

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You may wonder if I was trying to be pretentious with pretzel crumb, but the truth is, I didn't have any bread crumbs. I didn't want to buy bread crumbs, or bread to make into bread crumbs. The best solution was to open up a bag of pretzels that I had gotten and didn't touch. It totally solved the bread crumb problem.

I'm sure this is another Aranchini "no no".

I ground them up and added some garlic powder and pepper. I didn't add salt. As most of you know, pretzels are salty.

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For the wet solution I used soy milk, and flour with a few spoons full of Just egg which is a plant based egg substitute made from mung beans. It's processed in a way that is most likely not healthy. I use it sparingly. I happen to have purchased a whole case of it through the company with my bosses' price.

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After dipping each ball into the wet solution, I coated it with the crumbs.

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After they were all coated I started to heat up the oil.

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I don't deep fry very often so I felt a little nervous. Surprisingly I didn't have to put the heat as high on the butane stove as the electric stove.

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When each ball was golden, I finished them in the oven to lessen the time spent in the oil. It was still a very guilty pleasure.

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The tomato sauce was at the bottom and a dollop of the leftover almond ricotta on top. It had disappeared from the middle. I added a little store bought vegan pesto to the top. I couldn't find fresh basil to make my own. After New year's day things were more sparse in my favourite grocer.

I finally sprinkled with my quick go-to vegan parmesean. Ground almond, nutritional yeast, salt and citric acid. I always have some in my fridge.

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To lesson the guilt of eating something deep fried, I had a big salad on the side.

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This was very tasty. I have never had rice done like this before and if I had an air fryer I would make more of a habit of it.

I told Marc not to get used to it after he wildly approved.

Many people make a New year resolution to eat healthier foods. We did the opposite of the usual. We have never kept a resolution.

No resolutions for us!

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I wish my Hive friends, old and new, a great day.

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