Taking Advantage of Summer Vegetables: White Beans, with Sweet Corn, Zucchini and Yellow Tomatoes

Hi, everyone!  Yes, it's been an embarrassingly long time since I've blogged.   Rather than posting every day, I'll be easing back in slowly, with perhaps a post a week, most likely on weekend days where I have more time to cook and write.

Summer in the mid-Atlantic is a great time to experiment with vegetarian cooking.  Growing up in New Jersey, we ate a ton of fresh sweet corn, and I love to incorporate this into my summer meals.  Our local market also has tons of varieties of summer squashes - zucchini, eight ball, crookneck, bonita, pattypan and more!

My concoction today took advantage of our local market's bounty, as well as some pantry staples.  I'm a big fan of red onion - I feel that it adds color and great flavor to dishes. I diced that finely, and then diced a zucchini and quartered some yellow tomatoes and set them aside.  Then, I used my handy corn zipper to take the kernels off of two ears of corn. 

I got a small amount of olive oil going in a large pan.  We were running low on olive oil, and I was worried I wouldn't have enough.  In actuality, it worked out fine, which likely means I've been using too much.  I'll measure from now on and see how things go.

I sauteed the onions first, and then added the corn and zucchini.  While the veg was going, I rinsed a can of Goya white beans (rinsing helps take off the "canned" taste and reduces your sodium content) by pouring them in a colander and running them under cool water.  I then stirred the beans into the veg mix.

To season the dish, I used black pepper, cumin, sea salt and smoked paprika.  A little bit of smoked paprika goes a long way to add color, a smoky flavor and a spicy kick.  Once I could smell the aroma of the spices, I took the mix off the heat and added in some fresh chopped cilantro, and then topped my serving with a bit of crumbled feta.  You can easily omit the feta to make this dish vegan, but I wanted to use up our leftover feta from the boreks I made last weekend.

A dish like this is great if you're feeding non-vegetarians.  I had a larger serving as my main dish.  My non-vegetarian husband had it as a side with some leftover barbeque from lunch.  He commented that the colors were bright and summery and he liked the kick from the smoked paprika.

Not only did this dish taste good, but it cost next to nothing to make!  We already had the onion and yellow tomatoes in the house.  We got two ears of corn for 79 cents, the zucchini for 79 cents, the small bunch of cilantro for 69 cents and the beans for $1.09.  I have a few portions leftover for lunch this week. 

What vegetables are you experimenting with this summer?

Quinoa Pasta with Quorn, Brussels Sprouts and Carrots

Since I know so many folks with gluten intolerance, I like to play around with various gluten free pastas.  Also, since I don't like to eat a lot of things made with refined white flour, I find that some of these pastas are good options in lieu of traditional boxed pasta.

Tonight, I decided to play with Ancient Harvest's Quinoa Shells.  The shells are actually a blend of quinoa and corn.  They're a little brighter yellow than your average pasta, but otherwise, the texture doesn't differ greatly, especially in a sauce.  I bet they'd be good in a soup, so I may try and make minestrone with the rest of the box.

For tonight's meal, I started with a sauce.  It was a shallot, soy-free Earth Balance and garlic base, which I deglazed with vegetable broth.  I then added the Quorn grounds.  Quorn does contain a trace amount of egg, so it's not suitable for those following a strict vegan diet.  So, if you prefer to make this dish purely vegan, but don't have a soy allergy like yours truly, any textured vegetable protein (TVP), such as Smart Ground, would be a good substitute.

I then added in some brussels sprouts I roasted yesterday, along with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.  When I mixed the pasta in, I decided it needed a pop of color, so I added some shredded carrot to the pan.

I think I undercooked the pasta shells a bit, but I liked the contrast of the meatiness of the quorn with the carrots & brussels sprouts.  It also had a nice kick due to the healthy shakes of red pepper flakes I put in.
 

Pesto Pasta, Garlic Bread and Colorful Salad

My sister-in-law and her sister joined my husband and I for dinner tonight, and I wanted to put together a healthy vegetarian meal that would be quick and easy to prepare on a weeknight.

For the main dish, I decided to do a pesto pasta with grape tomatoes and bocconcini (tiny little fresh mozzarella balls).  In case you are unfamiliar with pesto, it's a green sauce made with olive oil, garlic, fresh basil, pine nuts and parmesan cheese.  If you have specific nut sensitivities, be aware that sometimes pesto is prepared with walnuts instead of pine nuts.  (I learned this the hard way, since walnuts are my most intense allergy.) 

Pesto was originally made with a mortar and pestle (which explains the name, which refers to, as Wikipedia says, "anything made by pounding").  However, I find that a food processor makes pesto incredibly easy.  This recipe gets the proportions pretty right, but taste as you go to add and subtract ingredients as you see fit.  It's also helpful to scrape down the bowl as you go so that the ingredients combine effectively.
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I haven't tried to make vegan pesto, mostly because all of the vegan parmesan substitutes I've come across have either soy or walnuts.  However, I did use Whole Foods' vegetarian parmesan, which is not made with rennet or derived from cows treated with rGBh.  But, if someone would like to give it a shot, let me know how it turns out.

For the pasta, I used Barilla Plus Angel Hair.  Plus pasta is made with golden semolina and flaxseed, spelt, oats, barley, and legumes.  It is also made with egg whites, so it's not suitable for vegans.  However, if you're a lacto-ovo vegetarian, this pasta has some positives.  One serving has 17 grams of protein and 4 grams of fiber, as well as 15% of the DV for iron, 28% of the DV for ALA Omega-3 and 40% of the DC for folate.

The one thing that drove me slightly batty about tonight's pasta is that when I stirred in the tomatoes and mozzarella, they immediately sank to the bottom of the bowl, which killed my presentation.  The pesto combined just fine, however.

The garlic bread I made was suitable for vegans.  During my lunch hour, I went to the Foggy Bottom Whole Foods and grabbed a whole wheat french bread.  When I got home, I made a garlic "butter" using soy-free earth balance, freshly minced garlic, parsley and red pepper flakes.  I spread the "butter" on the bread and let it toast in the oven at 350 for ten minutes.  It came out crusty and gooey, just like traditional garlic bread.

Whenever I do a big pasta dinner, I like to serve a green salad on the side.  I got a pre-washed bag of spring mix, which I topped with pre-shreeded carrots, julienned Asian pear and slivered almonds.  If you're not familiar with Asian pears, it's a round fruit native to China, Japan and Korea.  Since they have a high water content, they are typically eaten raw, rather than in baked goods.

I normally don't eat salad dressing, since it's often laden with soybean oil, but I decided to try my hand at making a vinaigrette tonight.  I used this Epicurious recipe, omitting the sugar and using Grey Poupon horseradish mustard (aka, what we have in the house).  It paired better than I expected with the salad, and we put the leftover dressing in a cruet so I can use it throughout the week.  I've learned to appreciate dry salad, but it's sure nice to have a dressing option when I want it.

Marbled Pumpkin Cheesecake

Before I decided to swear off large amounts of dairy for awhile, I signed up to make a pumpkin cheesecake for the office potluck.  In the future, I may experiment with making some soy-free, dairy-free "cheesecake," but in the sake of making sure I had something I knew was tried and true to feed my co-workers, I went with this AllRecipes marbled pumpkin cheesecake, which I've made a few times to positive reviews.

The crust is made of gingersnaps, pecans and melted butter, and is pre-baked for 10 minutes and cooled prior to filling.  The recipe calls for canned pumpkin - not pumpkin pie mix - so read labels carefully.  The marbling effect is achieved by removing 1 cup of the plain batter before adding the pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Vegetarian Deli at Home - Mushroom Lunch Meat and Almond Cheese

As I've noted before, as a good Northeastern Jewish girl, I've spent a lot of time eating deli food.  Clearly, as a vegetarian, I'm not eating corned beef, BLTs or tuna melts any more.  But, I did have a curiosity about vegetarian lunch meats and if they would be a passable substitute in a deli style sandwich.  To that end, I decided to make myself a vegetarian melt.

Some of the more popular vegan and vegetarian items, like Tofurky Deli Slices or Light Life's Smart Deli brand are off limits to me because of the soy.  But, Field Roast Grain Meat Company makes vegan deli slices that are soy free.  Varieties include lentil sage, wild mushroom and smoked tomato.  The only version I saw available at Whole Foods was the wild mushroom variety, so I grabbed that.

I had been eating regular cheese on occasion, but it's been upsetting my stomach more and more, so I'm cutting back.  Daiya has been a terrific option for me (in fact, I'll be using it in tonight's vegan cooking experiment - stay tuned), but I was curious to try a "nut cheese."  The raw food and vegan communities have embraced this type of "cheese," which has a similar texture to dairy, but healthier fats and no animal products.

At Whole Foods, I was able to pick up a shredded almond cheddar style cheese by Lisanatti Foods.  Upon closer inspection, I saw that the cheese contains casein, which is milk protein.  So, this cheese is not appropriate for those who are strictly vegan, those with milk allergies or those avoiding casein for dietary reasons.  So, you may, ask - why bother?  Well, like I mentioned earlier, I've been having stomach trouble with dairy-based cheese, but I was curious as to whether I can even tolerate casein.  Also, if you do a side by side comparison of one serving (1oz or 28 grams) of almond style cheese versus regular full-fat cheddar cheese, it looks something like this:

	Almond Cheddar Cheese	Traditional Cheddar Cheese
Calories	63	110
Fat	3g	5g
Saturated Fat	0g	5g
Cholesterol	0g	25mg
Sodium	190mg	180mg
Protein	7g	7g
Calcium	25% DV	20mg

So, there are some nutritional advantages here, especially if you're looking to avoid saturated fat and cholesterol.

With all that background, back to my deli melt experiment.  Our local market has excellent fresh pumpernickel bread, so we picked up a loaf of that.  I fired up our toaster oven and put in two slices of the  pumpernickel, topping them each with a wild mushroom deli slice and a generous sprinkle of almond cheese.  I let it go in the toaster oven at 400 until the almond cheese melted to my satisfaction.  Like daiya and other soy cheeses, it didn't get as gooey as traditional cheese, but it did achieve a decent meltiness.

I topped my open faced sandwich with spinach leaves and sliced grape tomatoes.  The taste evaluation?  Fell solidly in the "decent" level.  I wasn't swooning over it, but it wasn't awful either.  The texture was good, and the cheese especially had a good mouthfeel to it.  The biggest bonus?  No allergic reaction whatsoever, which, after a week where I've been particularly soy sensitive, was a welcome relief.

I think the deli slices will be a good addition to my convenience product staples - sometimes, I may not have time to make a proper lunch, so it will be nice to have these handy if I want to make a quick sandwich. 

What the Freek is Freekeh?

Yes, I finally cooked something!  I had a yen for farro this week, but when I was in the grains section at whole foods this week, I stumbled upon freekeh and decided to give it a try.

"What is Freekeh?" you may ask.  It's roasted green wheat that can be served like rice or pasta.  According to Greenwheat Freekeh, the nutritional advantages of Freekeh include its high percentage of fiber, protein, calcium, potassium, iron and zinc, but low place on the glycemic index scale.  Thus, it's an excellent option for vegetarians and vegans.

Like farro, non-instant rice and other whole grains, there's some cooking time involved.  I brought the freekeh to a boil and let it simmer for 45 minutes.  While the freekeh was cooking, I reconstituted some sun-dried tomatoes in hot water.  Normally, I use fresh tomatoes, but I wanted the bite and texture of sun-dried for this dish.

I then minced shallots and sliced up some fresh brussels sprouts and, when the freekeh had about 15 minutes to go, sauteed them in soy-free earth balance.  I then added some garlic, freshly ground black pepper, the sliced sun-dried tomatoes, salt, some of the poaching liquid from the tomatoes, and a splash of white wine.  I finished the sauce off with red pepper flakes and italian seasoning, and then stirred in some vegetarian friendly parmesan cheese (no rennet was used, and the cows were not given rGBH - check your labels if you want to learn more!).  Vegans can easily omit the parmesan to make this a dairy-free meal.

I am happy with the result - the freekeh was chewy and nutty, and the sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and red pepper flakes added a nice tang.  The sliced brussels sprouts were a cool contrast, and I liked the aged creaminess the parmesan added to the dish as well.  I have leftovers, so we'll see how it re-heats for lunch tomorrow.

Vegetarian Rosh Hashanah Part IV: Sephardic Cauliflower Patties and a Round-Up of the Meal

Today, I made the final element of our Rosh Hashanah festival meal, Sephardic Cauliflower Patties.  This was yet another recipe from Olive Trees and Honey.  Rabbi Marks notes in the introduction to the cauliflower section that cauliflower was plentiful in Moorish Spain, which is why it is so prevalent in Sephardic Jewish cooking.  (As a quick history lesson - Sephardic Jews have roots in Spain & the Mediterranean, while Ashkenazi Jews, like my family, have roots in Eastern Europe).  Also, if Rabbi Marks is to be believed, the Sephardim apparently like to fry things.  Hence, Sephardic Cauliflower Patties.

I followed the instructions for the patties fairly closely.  I boiled the cauliflower for 12 minutes, drained it and mashed it.  I mixed the mashed cauliflower with minced onion, fresh parsley, panko bread crumbs, egg, white pepper and salt.  I had trouble getting the mixture to bind, so I added more bread crumbs and egg.  I then dipped the patties in more egg and dredged them in whole wheat flour before frying them in a thin layer of olive oil.

Some of the patties didn't survive the fry, but we enjoyed eating the crumbs.  The combination of cauliflower and onion with a fried coating made for a very tasty meal.  My husband's verdict was "Better than latkes!" and his uncle said "I had no idea cauliflower could taste good!"  So, this was the winner of the dinner.

Apple Cake in Cross Section

The Bukharan Braised Carrots were also tasty - I really liked the smoky tomato sauce they were prepared in.  The Romanian Vegetable Stew was ok - a tetch watery for my taste.  I prefer my veg roasted or sauteed to give it more depth of flavor.  But, I did like the combination of veggies, so I may tinker.   And the apple cake, which I have now made for my husband's family four times, continues to be a favorite.  And of course, we served apples and honey, along with a round challah!

Well, that wraps up my inaugural vegetarian Rosh Hashanah.  L'Shanah Tovah to all - have a happy and sweet year!

Vegetarian Rosh Hashanah Part I: Jewish Apple Cake

Wow - it's been awhile since my last blog . . . lots of travel and work stuff, so I haven't been doing a lot of cooking or had time in front of a computer.  However, Rosh Hashanah gives me a welcome return to my kitchen and blogging.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Jewish High Holidays, Rosh Hashanah is the start of the Jewish New Year.  In my family, we attended synagogue and then prepared a festive holiday meal.  This year, we'll be hosting my husband's family and I'll be preparing a fully vegetarian dinner. 

Since I'm making multiple dishes, I started cooking right after I got home from shul.  My family always incorporates apples and honey into Rosh Hashanah dinners, a tradition that dates back to medieval times.  Apples and honey symbolize the hope a sweet new year. 

In addition to serving apples and honey before the festival meal, I also like to serve an apple based dessert.  For the past several years, I've made a scratch apple cake.  I use this AllRecipes.com recipe, which calls for apples, orange juice and vanilla.  The recipe calls for using a tube pan, but I use a bundt pan and it always turns out fine.  The recipe has a cooking window of 75 - 90 minutes, but I find I need the full time, if not more.

Enjoying apple picking at Butler's Orchard

It's made with oil, rather than butter, so if you aren't veg, but keep kosher, you can include it in a meat meal.  However, it does contain eggs.  Vegans, I may eventually attempt it with an egg replacement to make it vegan versus lacto-ovo. 

For the apples, I used three apples from the 20 (yes, 20!) pounds of apples we picked at Butler's Orchard last weekend.  The variety I used is called a Jonathan, which is described as "spicy and fragrant, juicy, sweet-tart."   Look for a more apple experiments in future blogs!

Lunch Heaven at Maoz Vegetarian

Like most of the Northeast, we here in DC have been enduring torrential rain for the past several days.  No one wants to venture outside in this kind of weather unless they have to.  Today, unfortunately, I had to, as my Blackberry, after wheezing through the last several months, finally bit the dust.  With a business trip next week, I can't be without a mobile phone, so off I went in the rain to procure a new one.

The silver lining to the many, many rainclouds was the fact that Maoz Vegetarian was around the corner from the Sprint store.  After slogging through the rain and waiting around for an hour, I decided I deserved a lunch treat.

And, oh, what a treat it was!  For those of you not familiar with Maoz, it's a quick service restaurant that originated in Amsterdam in the mid-nineties that now has seven restaurants in the US.  The menu is quite simple.  You have the choice of a falafel sandwich, a salad bowl with falafel, pita with salad or egg and eggplant pita.  You can pay extra for toppings like hummus, feta and avocado.  There are also sweet potato fries and other sides.

But, the real fun begins once you get your meal . . . you get to top your sandwich or salad with a variety of amazing toppings.  I chose the salad bowl with falafel, and I topped it with beets, carrots, a tomato & cucumber salad and a cauliflower-broccoli blend.  The toppings were incredibly, incredibly fresh - better than some of the veg I've had in sit down restaurant.  The falafel were also cooked perfectly.  And, I think it took about one minute from the time I ordered to the time a salad bowl was in my hand, ready to be topped!

Everything at Maoz is very clearly labeled, which benefits both vegans and those with gluten intolerance.  Items that are vegan are marked with a bright green "V," and gluten free items with a bright blue "GF."  The falafel is gluten-free, which I imagine is a welcome treat for those folks with gluten intolerance.  It was very easy for me to put together a completely vegan lunch without having to ask any questions or pore over labels.

If you visit the Maoz website, you can also view an allergens table that notes which ingredients have soy, eggs, milk, wheat and nuts.  And, there is a nice nutrition section on their where you can learn more about the health benefits of the fruits, vegetables and grains on the menu, as well as a detailed breakdown of calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein and sodium in their selections.

It's definitely worth walking six blocks from my office to go back to Maoz!

Roasted Vegetable Pasta Salad

If you haven't guessed by now, I am a huge fan of anything with roasted veggies, so I jumped at the chance to make the Roasted Vegetable Pasta salad from the newest edition of Clean Eating Magazine.  (It's on Page 48 if you're a subscriber).

For those of you who aren't familiar with the magazine, it's chock full of recipes that eschew refined carbohydrates, added sugars, high amounts of saturated fats and processed foods containing lots of additives and preservatives.  Each issue comes with a food budget planner and a monthly meal plan.  While not all the recipes are veg, they're full of fresh fruits and vegetables, and it's often easy to sub or modify to make the dishes veg friendly.

This recipe calls for roasted peppers, onions, tomatoes and zucchini, and a vinaigrette chock full of garlic and fresh herbs.  It also calls for goat cheese, but it can be made vegan by omitting the cheese. I thought it would be perfect to take to tomorrow's Fourth of July BBQ. 

I did make some subs to this recipe for a variety of reasons.  First, as much as I love eggplant, we're taking this to a party at my brother & sister-in-law's house, and as she is allergic to eggplant, I omitted it from the recipe.  To make up for it, I added some navy beans and an orange pepper in addition to the red, yellow and green.  Second, although I was dying to try kamut pasta, it wasn't available at Balducci's (and their whole grain pasta offerings were scant, in my opinion).  Since we had enough errands to run yesterday without another stop, I ended up going with some nicer traditional macaroni. 

Another sub I made was the verjus, which is made from the juice of unripe grapes. They did have that at Balducci's, but only in a large-ish bottle.  A quick google search revealed that red wine vinegar was an okay sub, so I used that and fresh lemon juice.   And, finally, I doubled the whole recipe, which serves eight as it's written in the magazine.

My mother always told me that pasta salad tastes better the second day, so the whole thing is marinating as we speak.  I'll bring the goat cheese along and plan to toss it in right before we serve it.  We'll see how it tastes tomorrow!

Happy Father's Day! Black Bean Burgers & Peach and Berry Pie

This Father's Day, my parents, my fiance & I headed to my soon to be in-laws for a BBQ.  My favorite vegetarian barbeque recipe is my version of the black bean burgers from Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Diet Cookbook.  My tweaks include using one whole egg instead of two egg whites, kale instead of celery leaves and extra sunflower seeds instead of flax seeds.  I also leave out the curry powder, since I don't usually have that in the house.  The recipe is super easy - dump everything in a food processor, mix well and bake. They reheat exceptionally well in an oven or toaster.  Microwaving them might make them a bit soggy.

For dessert, I made a peach, blueberry and raspberry pie based on a peach & blueberry pie recipe in a cookbook we just refer to as "The Book."  "The Book" never fails to produce hit desserts.  It's actual title is Baking, by Martha Day.  The one catch is that all of the amounts are written in ounces, so you either need a kitchen scale or a desire to do a lot of math.  There are also websites that do conversions for you - just remember that there are different conversions for dry and liquid measures.

One different thing I did with this pie versus the previous pies was to make the crust in our brand spanking new 14-cup Cuisinart food processor.  Previously, I've made pie crust by hand using a pastry blender, as well as in our Kitchen-Aid mixer.  Having sampled multiple versions of my pie experiments, my family said the processor made the best crust, and I'd have to agree.  The blades help the butter incorporate much more evenly into the flour, and the ice water mixes in quite nicely as well.

Fresh fruit pies can be super juicy, so if you do make one from scratch, put a cookie sheet under it to help catch drips and spatters.  You also might consider wrapping the edges in foil or using a pie shield to prevent the edges from burning, especially if your pie takes more than a half an hour to bake.

Quinoa Cakes with Tomato "Meat" Sauce

One of the ways I like to use leftover quinoa is to make quinoa cakes.    To make the cakes, I mixed about two cups of cooked quinoa with two beaten eggs.  Normally, I'd like there to be less egg and more quinoa, but one egg wasn't quite enough.  I formed the quinoa into four cakes and put the cakes back into the fridge to chill.

While the cakes were chilling, I made a sauce with a can of Muir Glen tomatoes, Quorn beef-style grounds, garlic, green onion, fresh thyme, salt, pepper and oregano.

Once the sauce was ready, I heated up a flat grill pan and put on the quinoa cakes.  Once they were browned on the bottom, I flipped them over so they could cook on the reverse side.  We served them topped with the sauce, with daiya on mine and parmesan on the fiance's, and both of us had a side of leftover roasted Brussel sprouts.

Saturday Night Supper: Vegetable Cannelloni

My parents were in town this weekend for assorted wedding chozerai, so we decided to have my fiance's parents and grandmother over for a Saturday supper. 

My original plan was to make stuffed shells from a cookbook my mother had gotten for me, Women's Day Wednesday Night is Vegetarian.  But, when we made our shopping trip to Whole Foods, there were no stuffed shells available, so I decided to make veggie Cannelloni instead.

Cannelloni is a tube shaped pasta that is often stuffed and then baked with a sauce.  I used the Rustichella d'Abruzzo brand, which didn't need to be pre-boiled.  The filling was pretty much the same as what would have been in the stuffed shells - broccoli, carrots, onion, basil, ricotta and parmesan.  I made the sauce from scratch using two containers of mini red and yellow tomatoes, onions, garlic, dried oregano and thyme and fresh basil.  After stuffing the cannelloni (which I had to do with my fingers due to how narrow they were), we mixed the leftover filling with the sauce to thicken it, covered the pasta with sauce, topped it with mozzarella and put it in the oven to bake.

While the pasta was baking, I made the "cleaned-up" version of spinach & artichoke dip from this month's Clean Eating magazine.  This version of the dip had 84 calories per serving, compared to 350+ calories for traditional spinach & artichoke dip.  The secret is using pureed cauliflower and low-fat cream cheese (I did sub neufchatel) to sub for sour cream.  The resulting version was lighter and "greener."  We served it with toasted whole wheat pita seasoned with olive oil, garlic powder and salt and pepper.

For a side salad, I chopped up romaine lettuce and stirred in pomegranate arils, mandarin oranges and slivered almonds.  We added a great dressing, TessaMae's All Natural, which was a mix of lemon, garlic and olive oil.

We barely have any leftovers, so I am considering this one a success!

Quorn with quinoa, arugula, and tomatoes

I've mentioned Quorn before as a meat substitute.  It comes in a variety of forms - patties, grounds, tenders, etc.

Quorn is primarily mycoprotein.  According to the Quorn website:

Mycoprotein is the main ingredient in all Quorn products. It's made from a member of the fungi family, which includes mushrooms and truffles, and is a high-quality meat-free protein that's naturally low in fat with very few calories. Mycoprotein also is high in dietary fibre, which is important for your digestive system, and has the essential amino acids your body needs, with no cholesterol or trans fats. 

There are egg whites in quorn, so it's not vegan.  But it is meat-free, so if you are a lacto-ovo vegetarian like me, I encourage you to check it out. It's also soy free, which means I can eat it without having an allergic reaction.  And, with 10 grams of protein per serving, you're getting 20% of your DV on a 2,000 calorie diet.  

Tonight, I threw together a super quick meal using the Chick'n Tenders.  I sauteed the tenders in olive oil, and gradually added chopped onion, tomato chunks, pre-cooked quinoa and arugula.  I seasoned it with cumin, garlic powder and freshly ground pepper, and stirred in some mozzarella style Daiya.  The tenders are spongier than chicken, but it's a texture I prefer to actual chicken.

Seder Cooking Part 2: Matzo Ball Soup and Apple Kugel

After Friday's epic day of cooking, we only had to make a few things on Saturday: matzo ball soup, apple kugel and the second edition of the layer cake.

My family has always  made our Matzo Balls from scratch.  My grandmother and great grandmother both had recipes.  My grandmother's recipe called for Nyafat, which, to my mother's and my great consternation, was discontinued a few years ago. When we tried to sub oil, we got more matzo chunks than matzo balls.  So, we switched to my great grandmother's recipe, which calls for oil.

Making matzo balls can be a time consuming process, but I love it.  I have fond memories of my grandmother walking up to our front door in a little black hat, while my grandfather followed behind with jars of home made chicken soup.   My grandmother, mother and I would always make the matzo balls together, so I've had about 20+ years of practice at this point.

The "rules" ok making the matzo balls are as follows:

•   When doubling the batch, make each batch in a separate bowl.  No one knows why this is.
•   The mixture must chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour
•   When forming the mazto balls, you must barely touch them lest they become the dreaded "hockey pucks."
•   Any recipe of my great-grandmother's that says parsley is "optional" really means that parsley is mandatory.  We added in some chopped fresh stuff, since we had it handy for the seder anyway.

  So, here is the step by step process of the making of the family Matzo Balls:

You can see here the two bowls for the two batches.  I can get about 13 matzo balls from each batch, which was perfect for our 11 seder guests, plus leftovers.  While some people do put seltzer in their Matzo balls, it's a McGuffin here.  It just happened to be on our counter.  You don't want to make your Matzo balls too big, as they will swell mightily when cooking.  Mine are a heaping dinner spoon full.

Fill a LARGE (I'm serious here - it should be huge) stockpot with water.  We use my grandmother's stockpot for this purpose.  Once your water is at a rolling boil, lower in your Matzo balls.   The best tool to have on hand for this is a flat skimmer with a sturdy handle.  It doesn't have to be expensive.  My skimmer was $2 at Ikea.

When you first lower your Matzo balls into the water, they'll sink to the bottom.  When they rise to the top, lower the heat and cover.  Cook for thirty minutes.  The water should be barely bubbling - if the boil is too heavy, your Matzo balls will break.  After 30 minutes, remove the Matzo balls with the skimmer.  When your soup is ready, reheat them in the soup.  I used a combination of low salt Pacific Organic vegetable broth and the leftover broth from when we made the veg mixture for the vegetable kugel.

One note - have lots of salt on hand.  I like my Matzo balls to be very salty, and even with the salt in the recipe, there wasn't enough salt for my taste, especially since we used low sodium veg broth.

The other thing we knocked out was the apple kugel.  You can see the recipe on the Maneschewitz website.  We did not include walnuts, and we soaked the raisins prior to cooking, per my mother's suggestion, so that they would not sink to the bottom of the kugel.  I'd make this even for non-passover meals - it's a pretty tasty side dish.

Adventures in Passover Baking Edition, aka - I screw up, I throw a tantrum, I fix it, I reclaim my title as baking wunderkind!

Yes, it all turned out JUST fine.

My cousins invited me to join them tonight for Seder.  Since I have been on a baking roll lately, I offered to make the dessert, specifically the paerve Lemon Layer Cake from last week's Washington Post food section.  Paerve was key, as my cousins keep kosher and are serving meat for dinner.

The recipe started off easy enough.  I make pastry cream all the time, so the lemon "cream" (eggs, sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest) was a no brainer.  And whipped cream icing, which is normally the source of my culinary temper tantrums, was blissful with the kitchen aid mixer.

Now, it was on to the cake.  I make cakes ALL THE TIME.  I have never effed one up.  Seriously.  Perfect track record.

I do believe we see where this is going.

The recipe called for separating the eggs.  No problem.  Then it called for combining the yolks, sugar, lemon, etc. and then beating in the matzo cake meal and potato starch.  No problem - into the mixer.  Ah, but I have to beat the egg whites in a separate bowl.  And I only have one bowl for the Kitchen-aid . . . Hmm.  I don't feel like dragging out the hand mixer.  Surely I can get these nice and frothy by hand.  So, I sat there whipping the egg whites with a whisk and feeling very proud of myself.  Look how strong my arms are - I barely feel this!  It must be all the chatarungas I do in yoga!  I don't need modern machinery!  I can whip egg whites!

Do we see where this is going yet?

If not, behold what I had 45 minutes later:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, behold the Guiness Book of World records winner for the largest passover cookie.

Now, as a yogini, you think I would handle all of this with grace and strength.  I would acknowledge it as a teaching experience.

Not so much.

To recap - I tried to convince the fiance that I needed to start over that night.  He said that it was 10:30 and we were out of sugar and my relatives would be fine with the cookie.   Cue minor temper tantrum. 

So, I decided to instead bump up my work departure time an hour to attempt a cake remake so as not to show up at a Seder for 27 people with no dessert, or worse, a soggy cardboard cookie.  This morning, I bought eggs at CVS so they'd be at room temp by the time I got home, and, once I got back to my neighborhood, I ran to the local market for more lemons and sugar.  This time, I used the hand mixer for the batter and beat the egg whites into a veritable nimbus cloud in the mixer.

See the difference?

Not well beaten egg white cake

Well beaten egg white cake.

 

Cookie on the left, cake on the right.

After some time in the freezer, I was able to get the cake into two layers.  I didn't dare attempt three.

Still fairly scrawny looking, but fluffier in person.

So, after adding the lemon "cream" filling and mixing the leftover "cream" with the whipped topping and then frosting and decorating, let's look at the final result again:

Polenta Crusted Eggplant Parmesan

Tonight, I made my version of the Polenta Crusted Eggplant Parmesan from the Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Cookbook.  All of the recipes in this book are vegan and many of them are produce heavy.

This is the second time I've made this, and the recipe is a big hit.  Here are my tweaks:

--I use one regular eggplant instead of the two smaller Japanese eggplants

--I use actual parmesan and mozzarella, rather than the vegan kind.  Specifically, I got smoked mozzarella from Maplebrook Farms.

--I use olive oil instead of grapespeed oil.

--Rather than using canned diced tomatoes and vegan gravy, I make my own sauce with five fresh tomatoes (I used both red and yellow), half a white onion, a cup of mushrooms, six cloves of garlic, a tablespoon (give or take) of dried oregano, and a scant handful of chopped basil.  I saute the onion and mushrooms until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms are soft.  Then I add the garlic and saute it until it's golden.  Then I toss in the tomatoes and the oregano and let it bubble, and then let it go on low for about 15-20 minutes, until it thickens to a saucey consistency.  When it's done, I toss in the fresh basil and then remove it from heat.

This time, I did use the vegan mayo.  The last time, I dipped it in egg to get the topping to stick.  Either way works fine.  I noticed that mine don't look as "crusty" as the one in the picture, likely because I don't get as much of the polenta mixture on there.  What I should likely do is double the "breading" if I'm going to continue using a large eggplant.

We served tonight's with leftover pearled couscous and leftover steamed broccoli and cauliflower mix.

Sunday Blog 2 of 2: Celery Root & Mushroom Lasagna

I've been somewhat obsessed with celery root since the fiance and I took a trip to Montreal a few summers ago.  We had a celery root salad that I can still taste if I think hard enough about it.  I've been dying to play with it in the kitchen ever since, but I just now got around to it.

Celery root - it looks ugly, but is mighty tasty!

 I mused around for several recipes that sounded intriguing, and landed on this Celery Root & Mushroom Lasagna from Food & Wine magazine.  I've had it printed out for a month, and was determined to make it this weekend.

For those of you not familiar with Celery Root, our friends at Wikpedia share that:

Celeriac (Apium graveolens rapaceum) is also known as celery root, turnip-rooted celery^[1] or knob celery. It is a kind of celery, grown as a root vegetable for its large and bulbous hypocotyl rather than for its stem and leaves. The swollen hypocotyl is typically used when it is about 10–12 cm in diameter; about the size of a large potato. Unlike other root vegetables, which store a large amount of starch, celery root is only about 5-6% starch by weight.  Celeriac may be used raw or cooked. It has a tough, furrowed, outer surface which is usually sliced off before use because it is too rough to peel. Celeriac has a celery flavour, and is often used as a flavouring in soups and stews; it can also be used on its own, usually mashed, or used in casseroles, gratins and baked dishes. It can be roasted like a potato, giving it a crispy edge.

After procuring the necessary ingredients, I fully intended to make this three hour (yes, you read that correctly - three hour) recipe right when I got home from the grocery store.  But, after a much needed long nap and getting Blog #1's pie in the oven, I got a bit of a late start - around 8:00 p.m.

I love the fact that this recipe is so veggie heavy.  Pounds of mushrooms, leeks, celery root and shallots!  And, it was easy to make veg - I eliminated the prosciutto and used a vegetable broth (Pacific Natural Foods) in lieu of the chicken broth.   Also, a tip: rather than buying individual packages of herbs, you can just get a Poultry Blend, which will have just enough of the sage, rosemary and thyme (yes, I now have "Scarborough Fair" in my head).

Clockwise from bottom right: cremini mushrooms, leeks, celery root and soaked porcini mushrooms.

Now granted, despite all the produce.  healthy is not exactly how I'd describe it . . . we're talking pounds of cheese, lots of heavy cream.  But, have you ever tried to peel and chop a celery root?  It's like hacking through lumber.  I was literally sweating.   The chopping alone took about 20 minutes, so, if you find chopping tedious, this is not the recipe for you.

The aforementioned ragu.

However, if you're willing to put up with all the hacking, this recipe is tremendously rewarding.  The smell of the vegetable ragu was intoxicating - shallots and mushrooms and leeks and celery root in olive oil and butter, along with a bundle of fresh herbs . . . it was all I could do not to just eat it all while it was cooking.  It would make a terrific pasta sauce. 

After the ragu and cream sauce were done, and the lasgana noodles were boiled, the assembly began.  

The recipe called for fresh basil and fresh mozzarella, in addition to the ragu and cream sauce.

And here it is, after an hour in the oven.  It's 11:07 p.m. and I'm eating my first piece and wow, was it worth the wait!