Cornmeal-Crusted Tempeh from The Conscious Cook

L'Shanah Tovah!  Today marks the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  It is a time to reflect on the past year, as well as to reflect on life's blessings - friends, family and community.

Traditionally, Rosh Hashanah is celebrated with a meal with family.  Growing up, I remember eating brisket, roasted potatoes and apple cake with my parents and grandparents.  Now that I follow a vegan diet, I wanted to capture the same sort of celebratory meal for my husband and me.  The exact elements of the meal don't matter as much as the intangible ingredients - care and love.  And, as our rabbi's remarks spoke about the importance of compassion, I find a vegan meal to be very appropriate for this holiday!  Philosophy aside, I also knew that getting home from services mid-day would give me plenty of time to whip up something special for us for dinner.

With all that in mind, I decided to crack open Tal Ronnen's The Conscious Cook.  In his introductory chapter, Chef Ronnen notes that his goal has been "creating vegan food that was just as mouthwatering and delicious as anything I'd ever had as a meat eater" and that "if you like hollandaise sauce, rich wine reductions and meat-like textures, you'll love these recipes."

I let my husband flip through the book to select what I was going to make.  I thought he would go for the Peppercorn-Encrusted Portobello Fillets with Yellow Tomato Bearnaise and Mashed Potatoes, but, to my surprise, he suggested the Cornmeal-Crusted Tempeh with Smoked Tomato Sauce, Green Chile Relish, Black Bean Puree and Braised Kale.

This recipe has multiple steps and involves a lot of pots and timing, so I'll walk through some ways I multi-tasked throughout the two-hour (yes, you read that correctly) prep and cooking time.  If you're a beginner cook, you may want to pair up with a friend and use multiple kitchen timers.

Simmering the tempeh

The recipe has seven parts: pre-cooking the tempeh, making the smoky tomato sauce, making the black bean puree, making the green chile relish and breading, braising the kale and pan frying the tempeh.  The recipe is very clearly written out, so if you follow the steps as they're written, it won't be stressful.  Note that you'll have a lot of idle time while the tempeh and sauce are simmering, so I suggest doing a good amount of prep then, as the final minutes of the recipe will go by quickly.  For me, this included chopping the kale, chopping the onions and the garlic for the bean puree and green chile relish, and roasting the chile pepper for the relish. 

Since I was only cooking for the two of us, I halved the entire recipe, except the black bean puree (which I thought I'd use in a burrito or another dish).  I prepared the tempeh according to the recipe directions.  The broth, which included soy sauce, ginger, garlic, peppercorns, dried ancho and chipotle peppers and bay leaf, smelled fantastic.  While the broth was coming to a boil, I made sure to start chopping the veggies for the sauce.

The recipe said to reserve the cooking liquid from the tempeh, but I read through the recipe multiple times and couldn't figure out why it needed to be reserved, so I rinsed out that pot and used it for the black bean puree.

Another time saver was using an immersion blender.  Rather than putting the tomato sauce in the blender and putting the black beans in a food processor, I used the immersion blender to puree them.  I had better luck with the beans than the sauce (my guess, not enough liquid), but both came out fine, and this saved some dishwashing for us later.

Since we don't have a gas range, I roasted my pepper in the toaster oven, rotating it with tongs so it would blacken on all sides.

The recipe for the braised kale is in another part of the book.  I found it made sense to make the kale in one pan and fry the tempeh in the other concurrently, as the timing on both of them is similar.

Unlike some of the other recipes in the book, there's no accompanying photo, so I'm not sure what Chef Ronnen intended for plating.  I decided to do three "zones" - the tomato sauce, the bean puree and the kale, then layered the tempeh over the "zones" and sprinkled the top with the chile relish.

The tomato sauce definitely has a smoky flavor, and the black beans were surprisingly and pleasingly sweet.  Simmering the tempeh in broth very much improves the flavor and texture, and for once, I managed to pan fry something without the breading falling off.  If you want to simplify this recipe further, I think you can omit the chile relish.  I don't think it will make or break the dish. 

Happy Rosh Hashanah: Pecan Rugelach

I have a love-hate relationship with rugelach.  I love to eat them, but I hate that they're traditionally made with walnuts.  So, that means if I want them, I'd need to bake them.  Fortunately, I'd like to bake!

Before we get there, you may ask, what is rugelach?   It's a rolled cookie of deliciousness.  Flavors you often see are chocolate, raspberry or apricot.

I've never attempted rugelach, but this Made Just Right Vegan Rugelach recipe inspired me.  It uses Earth Balance, vegan cream cheese and whole-wheat pastry flour for the dough.  The recipe gives the option to make apricot or chocolate rugelach.  When I asked my husband which one he wanted me to make for dinner at his grandmother's, he said both, so that's what I did.  He also said "You're not going to tell my family that they're vegan, right?"   I said "I don't have to . . ." which in me speak may end up being "I will wait until they tell me how delicious they are and then tell them!  Bwahahahaha!" 

The recipe suggests chilling the dough for two hours overnight, so I made the dough in my food processor last night and set my alarm to get up early this morning to bake them.  "You're getting up early, like a professional baker!" said husband.  Somewhere, my mother is reading this and asking "Who are you and what have you done with my hibernating daughter?"  A morning person I am not.  But, rugelach calls!  I even got up happily before the alarm went off. 

This morning, I made the filling, again using my food processor, halving the recipe amounts for each option.  For the apricot versions, I used Clearbrook Farms Apricot Preserves and pecans.  For the chocolate, I used Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Mini Chocolate Chips, pecans, cinnamon and Truvia, using the handy dandy Truvia conversion chart (Truvia being much sweeter than sugar, you don't need as much).

Rugelach, pre-baking

The dough is very sticky, so I used lots and lots of flour when rolling it out.  I realized that one of the reasons pie crust has been my nemesis is that I've been skimping on the flour.  So, let me paraphrase my mother, who, when I wrap gifts, often says "Don't skimp on the scotch tape!"  Don't skimp on the flour! (Hi, Mom - you're getting lots of shout outs today!  Want me to overnight you some rugelach?)

The apricot rugelach rolled easily enough, as the preserves acted like a glue.  The chocolate ones were a little more delicate, as the ingredients were entirely dry.  Have your baking sheet right next to your work area to minimize spills.

The recipe called for baking the rugelach for 20 minutes at 350, but our oven, for lack of a better word, sucks, so we went a little longer (three minutes or so).  I put them on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes or so, and then sliced them and let them cool for longer.  The chocolate sliced more easily than the apricot.

We did a quick taste test - both came out yummy, but I think I prefer the chocolate cinnamon.  We'll see what the family thinks tonight!

My Very Vegan Hanukkah: Sweet Potato Latkes and Cauliflower Latkes

Last week was a bit of a challenge on the eating front - husband and I got hit with a particularly nasty bout of stomach flu, so we subsisted on ginger ale, pretzels, dry toast and gatorade for the beginning of the week.  Vegan?  Technically, yes.  Nourishing. Not at all. So, of course, with our early observed  celebration of Hanukkah taking place this Saturday, I was going to have a chance to get back to some actual fruits and vegetables appearing on my plate.

For those of you not familiar with the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, it is the celebration of a miracle that occurred after the destruction of the temple and it's rescue by the Maccabees.  There was only enough oil to light the Ner Tamid, the eternal light, for one day.  But, the light lasted for eight days.  To celebrate Hanukkah, Jewish families light a menorah, a candleholder with nine branches - eight branches to hold candlesto recognize each day the Ner Tamid remained lit, and the ninth, the shamash, holds the candle that lights the other eight.  On the first night, you light one candle, the second two, and on and on through the eighth night, when the entire menorah is lit.   In my family, on the first night, we also say the shehechyanu, which is a prayer said on holidays or other occasions you with to note the significance of.

What, you may ask, does all this have to do with vegan food?  Well, Jews like to eat fried things on Hanukkah.  It's said to be eating anything fried in oil is a tie back to the miracle of the Ner Tamid.  Some people (aka not me, who can't tolerate the soy) celebrate by eating, I kid you not, jelly donuts.  But, I think the fried food most folks think of most when it comes to Hanukkah is latkes.

Latkes are potato pancakes that are fried in oil until they're crispy.  Traditionally, latkes are made with grated white potato, flour and egg, perhaps with a little onion for seasoning.  My versions were veganized, and also quickly pan-seared and baked to cut the grease factor.

The first recipe, the sweet potato latkes, was made was a riff on a recipe that came from what I call my mother's Jewish recipe envelope collection.  When my mother saw a Jewish holiday recipe (or any recipe) she liked, she would cut it out and stick it in an envelope.  Somehow, I ended up with the envelope full of Jewish recipes, so I can't credit the source of this recipe other than to tell you it was cut out of a pamphlet, judging by the condition of the paper, sometime between 1982-1995.

Look at all this parsley.  Nanny Sadie would be proud!

The sweet potato latke recipe called for one sweet potato, two yukon gold potatoes, one onion, four eggs a quarter cup of matzo meal and salt and pepper to taste.  I actually added a third potato and, in honor of my great-grandmother, who wouldn't dream of making a dish without parsley, a healthy handful of chopped fresh parsley.  To replace the eggs, I used Ener-G egg replacer, which, as I mentioned before, binds these types of patties more firmly than eggs in my opinion.  I also used a cup of whole wheat panko in place of the matzo meal.

To shred the potatoes, I used the shredding disc on my food processor.  I took out the sweet potato, the three yukon gold potatoes and the onion in approximately thirty seconds.  If that's not a Hanukkah miracle, I don't know what else might qualify.  After browning the latkes on both sides in some cooking spray, we decided they weren't quite crispy enough, so we threw them in a 375 oven for 20 minutes. 

I have made the cauliflower latkes before as part of my vegetarian Rosh Hashanah, but my husband's grandmother enjoyed them so much that I decided to make them again.  The last time I made them, I made them with eggs, but I used the Ener-G this time, and I also finished them in the oven.

We used our largest platter (two feet long!) to serve the latkes, and it was completely filled.  After all seven of us ate, there were three latkes left.  Three!  Lack of leftovers = recipe success. 

My personal Hanukkah miracle!

While our guests also enjoyed bagels and lox and other spreads, I was quite content with my light dinner of latkes, whole grain bread with earth balance (my husband's grandmother also opted for the bread) and a big pile of fresh fruit.

What yummy vegan treats will you be cooking up for the holidays?