Double! Greens with Mushrooms and Sausage and Kasha with Onions and Carrots

More rain is coming our way, and even though my original plan was to have a big salad for lunch, I decided to get my vegetables cooked and warm today. Enter two simple and easy dishes: greens with mushrooms and sausage, and kasha with onions and carrots.

The former dish is a good way to get a whole package of chard and a whole package of collard greens into you, with a lot of flavor.

The latter dish is something that a deli at Kibbutz Sha'ar Ha'amakim makes and my mom frequently buys. I managed to recreate the original flavor and it made me happy.

Greens with Mushrooms and Sausage

1 package chard
1 package collard greens
1 Field Roast sausage (or any vegan meat)
1 cup maitake mushrooms
3 garlic cloves
1 tsp olive oil
a splash of whiskey
a splash of Bragg's Liquid Aminos

Heat up olive oil in a wok. Chop garlic into small pieces and add to pan, then add mushrooms. After about a minute, slice up the vegan sausage and add to the pan. Keep sautéing until sausage is browned. Then, chop up all vegetables and add to pan. Splash in some whiskey and Bragg's. Cook and stir until greens start wilting (do not overcook.)

Kasha with Onions and Carrots

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 white or yellow onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2-3 carrots, chopped into little cubes or grated
1 tbsp dried vegetables, bouillon, or onion soup powder
1 cup buckwheat
2 cups boiling water
salt to taste

Heat up olive oil in a smallish pot. Add onion, garlic, and carrots, and whirl around until fragrant (no need to caramelize the onions, though I'm sure that would be tasty.) Add buckwheat and whirl around some more to toast. Then, add water, soup base, and some salt if desired, and cook for 10-15 mins or until all the water absorbs. Fluff up with a fork and let sit for a few minutes in pot before serving.

Baked Tofu

In my grad school days, I used to eat sometimes at a little joint on Bancroft Avenue that served what Chad and I affectionately referred to as "Kentucky Fried Tofu": crispy, spicy tofu cubes as a snack. It was very tasty and I've wanted to reproduce it ever since, preferably without the deep frying.

Today I worked quietly at home, and the rain outside (thank you, El Niño, from our vegetable garden!) made me want to have some warm snacks. I had a giant bowl of salad for lunch, followed by kale chips and oven fries, and am cooking a lovely chili on which I shall report later today. But for an extra snack, I'm making baked tofu, and my premature tasting suggests that this perfectly and deliciously replicates the crispness and joy of Kentucky Fried Tofu--without a drop of oil.

1 package extra-firm tofu
1 cup soy sauce, Bragg's Liquid Aminos, or a combination of both
4-5 garlic cloves, minced
1-inch ginger chunk, minced
a spritz of liquid smoke
a spritz of Sriracha
1 tbsp cornstarch

Remove tofu from packaging and place on a plate or in a bowl. Place a cutting board, or plate, on top of the tofu, and place a heavy object on top of that. Leave for about half an hour.

When you return, the tofu will have drained from some of its liquids. Great! Cut it into cubes (I'm doing about 3/4 inch cubes) and place in a tupperware. Throw in all remaining ingredients (save for the cornstarch) place lid on top of tupperware, give it a good shake, and leave it for 30 mins to absorb the taste. Meanwhile, heat oven to 350 degrees and prepare a baking sheet.

Now, remove tofu cubes from marinade, toss with cornstarch, and place in one layer, cubes not touching each other, on baking sheet. Bake for about 15 mins, then toss a bit, and bake for another 15 mins. SNACK TIME!

Vegetable Paella with Seitan

In keeping with my paella craze, the latest experiment includes seitan. The basic instructions for the paella are here, but the ingredients were a tad different:

3 garlic cloves
4 green onion sprigs, both white and green parts
a palm-sized chunk of seitan (mine is homemade--Italian spice flavored--but any type will do)
2 big tomatoes
1 cup red kale bits
1/2 cup green peas

The key with the seitan is to brown it well with the garlic and green onions before adding the rice and the vegetables. I also used a minestrone-flavored broth for this one, and it turned out marvelous--it really brought out the saffron flavor.

Orange-Blueberry Cake

In the last few weeks, our beloved farmers at Albert and Eve have sent us lots of phenomenal citrus fruit. I wanted to bake a whole-wheat treat for us, and after looking at a few recipes online decided to invent my own. It came out wonderful: moist, tangy, not too sweet--a perfect cake. I ate a slice by itself, but if you'd like it richer, you can drizzle the cashew-orange glaze I invented in December.

2 navel oranges
1/3 cup Earth Balance
2 tbsp apricot jam
1 tbsp agave syrup
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp ground flax seeds
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1/2 cup fresh blueberries

Heat oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Peel oranges and place in food processor. Process until you have a smooth pulp. Add the Earth Balance, jam, agave, vinegar, and vanilla. Process until smooth. Then, mix in ground flax seeds and let sit for a few minutes.

Then, transfer to bowl. Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Finally, add blueberries and briefly combine.

Bake for 35 minutes, or until a fork inserted into the cake comes out clean and dry. Let cool for about ten minutes before inverting, and even longer before slicing. Serve with fresh blueberries and/or cashew orange glaze.

Addendum: It occurs to me that zesting some of the orange peel into the mix would have made this even more delicious. Give it a try!

Tofu Ricotta

We spent last weekend being spoiled at the Stanford Inn by the Sea and eating marvelous vegan cuisine at Ravens Restaurant. One of their signature dishes is a ravioli stuffed with tofu ricotta. We ate that dish with delight over the weekend, and were thrilled to see the recipe for this magical ricotta in their newly published cookbook. I just made two cups of it, which I plan to use in a lasagna I'm serving tomorrow to my students, and it came out like a dream:

14oz firm tofu (a whole standard package)
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup orange juice
2 tsp orange zest
big handful of basil leaves
5 garlic cloves
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tbsp nutritional yeast

Place all ingredients in the food processor and process until smooth. Do not overprocess, because it will become watery. Use within three days.

Farinata de Ceci

This easy, savory chickpea flour pie is a great thing to eat and serve hot right out of the pan, and it's festive enough to entertain guests. If you have a rosemary bush at home, this is the time to use it! The recipe comes from Chloe Coscarelli's Italian cook book.

2 cups warm water
1.5 cups chickpea flour
3 tbsp olive oil, plus more for pan
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp fresh rosemary
fresh ground black pepper

Mix water and flour in a bowl and let rest for 2 hours.
When ready, preheat oven to 500F. Place a round iron skillet in the oven to warm for 10 mins.

Meanwhile, skim foam off chickpea mix, add oil, salt and rosemary. Remove hot iron skillet from oven, add a bit of oil and swirl around to grease. Carefully pour batter into pan and pop back into oven for about 25 mins, or until lightly browned and crisp. Run a knife around the edges and unmold. Slice up and serve warm.

The leftovers, toasted in the oven the next day, are particularly wonderful with a bit of tomato sauce and vegan mozzarella!

Food Forests and Other Bright Futures for the Planet

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Starhawk's new book, City of Refuge. I was very much looking forward to it, being a long-time fan of Walking to Mercury and The Fifth Sacred Thing.  And it was an overall enjoyable experience: familiar characters experiencing new adventures. The two later novels in the chronology are set in the 2040s, after an ecological disaster affects California, splitting it into a Northern utopia-in-recovery and a Southern patriarchal theocracy. The novels interrogate the possibilities that these futures offer by incorporating many elements of present-life Bay Area delights and keeping the environmental stuff as real as possible: San Francisco ("Califia") is a city of water, in which people shuttle around in gondolas on the river, a-la The Blue Greenway. 

But there is one aspect of the new book that made me cringe with discomfort. One of my favorite ecofeminist heroes and authors got it wrong--very wrong--with regard to food.

The citizens of Califia eat very well, and their concoctions, as well as Bay Area booze, are extensively described in the book, especially contrasted to the faux-nutrition "chips" and "sweeties" consumed by the Southerners. Indeed, echoing and crystallizing much of the recent scholarship on our consumption of faux foods, the Southerners have a hard time adjusting to the real food in the north. The book made me feel like Starhawk conjured her favorite meals from the present and planted them in a future in which people's agricultural ingenuity strives the overcome the effects of an ecological horror. Much time is spent in the book on the ways in which my beloved heroes, Madrone and Bird, start their "city of refuge" in the South by starting agricultural production, and the (real) magic of compost is explored in depth.

But what is on the menu in Califia? Much to my surprise, quite a lot of meat, cheese, and eggs, sometimes (but not often) hailed as "humanely raised." Our heroes are served beef and chicken and lamb, eat honey by the bushels, and enjoy dairy with quite some frequency. Oh, there are vegans, of course, but that's briefly described as a "personal choice", with an "option" to order a chickpea-quinoa stew at a restaurant, side by side with the default meat choices.

Not only is this a deeply upsetting culinary repertoire for a presumed utopia, but it's also massively unrealistic, because one has got to ask oneself--where the heck do they even raise all these animals?

Surely, Starhawk must be aware of the massive contribution of animal pasture areas and feedlots to the deforestation and corruption of the earth. Surely she knows that every burger we eat is the equivalent of months of showering. Surely she's heard of waste and manure lagoons covering vast areas and endangering our health. As an avid permaculturist, surely she knows that vegan options are possible, realistic, and cost-effective. In a future affected by climate change, veganism will not be a "personal choice"--it will be a fact of life for everyone.

And, where are all these mysterious cows, lambs, and chickens raised? Where do the chickens lay their eggs? Where are the utopian slaughterhouses? Or do we just not like to talk about the fact that meat comes from animals?

And that's before we even discuss the cruelty involved in the gratuitous raising and killing of animals for our own consumption, which doesn't even begin to be portrayed as being at odds with the deeply Pagan, one-with-nature vibe of Califia. People pray over their food and give thanks to the animals--to the Goddess, to spirit, to whatever--which may make them feel great and a part of the cycle of life, but all these spiritual feel-good florid incantations don't actually affect the animal's fate one bit. For more on the "but I express gratitude for my wild salmon" sensibility and its hypocrisy, read Sherry Colb's excellent Mind If I Order the Cheeseburger?, focusing on the chapter on Native Americans.

Actually, without much effort one could envision a Northern Californian utopia just by looking at one marvelous permacultural initiative: the food forest. Here are several examples of food forests around the world, and for the Hebrew readers among you here's a great story about the new one in Israel. The animals in food forests aren't "raised": they LIVE there. Birds nest in the trees, rodents run around collecting nuts, etc. To the extent that we benefit from their presence there, it's as we would from any naturally-occurring phenomenon.

A world in which all the territories formerly devoted to animal farming are repurposed as food forests and homes for wild animals? Now THAT's what I would consider a really inspiring utopia.

Whole Roasted Cauliflower

I loved cauliflower before it was cool.

Seriously: it was one of my favorite vegetable as a child. My grandma would put it, finely minced, in soups; my mom would steam florets for me to snack on. I even liked it sliced raw in salads.

Turns out I was ahead of the curve. Cauliflower is the new craze, and since it's so tasty and healthy, I encourage you to get on the bandwagon quickly. This salad is wonderful, and received rave reviews from our family visitors, but today I made a whole roasted cauliflower. Huge success!

1 cauliflower
water
salt, pepper
1 tsp olive oil

Heat the oven to about 450 Fahrenheit. Find a pot that can fit the entire cauliflower. Then, place it stem-side-up inside the pot and add water almost to cover. Bring to a boil, add about 1 tbsp salt, and then reduce the heat to simmer for about 10-15 mins, or until the cauliflower is soft, but not crumbling.

Remove cauliflower from pot and place on baking sheet. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and olive oil to taste. Roast until the outer florets are a dark golden brown and snack to your heart's delight.

Please do not discard the flavorful, vitamin-rich cooking water--use it instead as a soup base!

Soup Tip: Mashed White Beans

Last night, by chance, I came across a really neat soup-thickening tip. I wanted to make a vegetable soup, and hoped to add some bean power to it, but didn't have any cooked, thawed beans, and cooking some would take a long time. Happily, I had about a half-pint of the white bean spread my grandma used to make, and I just added it to the soup pot. The result: a rich, hearty soup, with just the hint of fragrant beans and lots of vegetables. It pays off to make a huge amount of the bean spread and then use part of it as soup base. Here are instructions for making the bean spread and for using it in soup:

2-3 cups white beans
1 onion
a bit of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Soak beans overnight, or in boiling water for an hour. Then cook until tender. While the beans are cooking, slice and caramelize the entire onion in a bit of olive oil. Transfer beans to blender with half of the caramelized onion and some of the cooking water (enough to reach the desired consistency, which is hummus-like.) Blend till smooth, then transfer to container, salt and pepper to taste, and mix in the remaining half onion. Good in sandwiches, tortillas, as a standalone dish for a multi-dish lunch, etc.

For the soup, I used:

1 package red chard, coarsely chopped
1 package kale, coarsely chopped
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 big carrots, cubed
1/2 onion
3 cloves garlic
pinch of chili
pinch of oregano
pinch of sage
1 cup white bean spread

Place all vegetables in soup pot and cover with water. Mix in 1 cup of white bean spread. Cook until vegetables are tender. yum!

My Inaugural Paella

After being served this wonderful paella a couple of weeks ago, I could not wait to start experimenting with my own. Despite the wonderfulness of having an enormous pan for guests, I figured we'd get more mileage out of a smaller pan, and fortunately La Paella has pans of any size you can think of. And they deliver!

The paella I made is very similar to the one my friend served me, except for a few changes: I halved the recipe because of the differently-sized pan and added a half-cup of chickpeas. I used pre-soaked, short-grain brown rice to improve nutrition (the taste was not compromised in the least). Since I had no artichokes, I topped it with lightly steamed baby courgettes (aren't they pretty?). And, I also sauteed king oyster mushrooms, which have the look and texture of calamari. It was stunningly delicious and I look forward to inventing more variations.

In other news, I happened upon an estate sale in my neighborhood. Beyond the joys of all the neighbors rummaging through furniture and appliances and chatting excitedly, I was chuffed to find ten beautiful porcelain teacups with botanicals with matching saucers--not a set, each different, but incredibly cute. The whole lot, gold leaf and roses and pansies and all, cost me $20. I look forward to hosting a mad hatter party with vegan pastries soon!

Kalenta

It's polenta. With kale. And pesto. And a bit of vegan butter and salt. What's not to like?

1 bundle dino kale
1/2 cup coarse cornmeal
2 cups water
2 tbsp pesto
1-2 tsp vegan butter
salt to taste

Start by placing all the kale in the food processor and process fairly thoroughly.

Then, read this. Apparently, a lot of the polenta punctiliousness out there is completely unnecessary. No need for boiling water, constant stirring, and the like.

Place two cups of water in a wok over medium heat. Gradually whisk in polenta and processed kale. Whisk until the polenta begins to thicken, then reduce the heat to very low. Add pesto and stir every few minutes, until polenta thickens more and separates from the sides of the wok. That means it's nearly done, and it's time to stir in some vegan butter (I'm using this wonderful new thing, but Earth Balance would work just fine) and sprinkle a bit of salt. When the polenta reaches the desired consistency, you're done!

If you want the polenta to harden so it can be beautifully sliced, you can put it in a serving dish (like the one I have above) and set it aside for a bit, or put it in the oven with the light on. After about 10-15 minutes you can slice beautiful polenta triangles or rectangles. We ate this with a nice green salad and some simply cooked pinto beans.

Restaurant Recommendation: Herban Fix in Atlanta, GA

The meal I had today at Herban Fix, a vegan chef restaurant in Atlanta, has to rank as one of the most memorable meals I ate in my entire life. Everything was delicious, prepared with incredible care and creativity, and served with grace and kindness in a large but cozy room decorated in impeccable taste.

We started with two appetizers. The sweet pea ravioli is served in a wonderful, slightly spicy sauce, with some edamame, and stuffed with tender pea shoots and other wonderful flavors. And the mock duck, which appears to be made of yuba (but I'm not sure) is served in little steamed buns with fresh vegetables, alongside a lovely plum sauce. 

For our main courses, we had crispy mushrooms, in an airy-light tempura batter, atop some wilted spinach, and an incredible pom-pom mushroom steak served on baby bok choy in a gorgeous and not-too-heavy mushroom gravy.

And for dessert, we were served a strawberry-coffee cake. It was very tasty, not to mention beautiful, topped with nice cashew cream, and the only reason I wish I hadn't ordered it is that the entrees were so good that I wish I'd stuffed my face with another one!

Vegetable Paella

After a long hosting stint, it was nice to be invited to have dinner with friends. It was a good, avid-meat-eating friend's birthday, and the meal was to be cooked by his wife, whose cuisine leans a lot on her Argentinian heritage. I asked what to bring, and our host said she was planning on tapas and paella. I assumed the paella would be roaming with little creatures that are far more glorious dancing in the water than killed and cooked in rice, and so made stuffed mushrooms and hummus and brought those with me in addition to the wine.

I underestimated my friends' kindness and consideration. Our host walked us through the tapas; there were charcuterie and cheese and shrimp, but also olives, mushrooms, marcona almonds and a nice bread. And then the piece-de-resistance was brought out: a vegan paella, chock full of colorful bell peppers and decorated with artichoke globes! What an enjoyable meal. For dessert, she made tiramisu, but quietly placed a little platter of fresh apple slices and nuts near us.

Fortunately, our friends were gracious enough to let me photograph the gorgeous piece-de-resistance and give me the recipe (from the book Paella Paella). You'll need a large paella pan - characterized by its size and flat base

1/4 cup olive oil

1 large yellow onion, minced

5 cloves of garlic, minced

4 cups vegetable broth

2 cups arborio rice (if I were to make this at home, I'd probably switch to short-grain brown rice, like sukoyaka genmai, and increase the broth amount to 5-6 cups)

1 small red pepper, cut into strips

1 small yellow pepper, cut into strips

1 small green pepper, cut into strips

4 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1 cup frozen peas, defrosted

2 cups artichoke hearts, tough leaves removed, and quartered

1 lemon

Heat oil in paella pan and saute onion and garlic. Meanwhile, bring broth to a simmer in a separate pot. Pour the rice into the paella pan and saute for 3 minutes. Add peppers and tomatoes and saute for an additional 3 minutes. Add the simmering broth to the pan and cook for 20 more minutes, or until almost tender and most liquid has been absorbed (note that you might have to rotate the pan if your burners don't line up under the whole thing). Stir in the peas. Then, sprinkle artichoke hearts with lemon and arrange in an attractive pattern on top of the paella. Continue cooking until tender and all liquid is absorbed.

How to Feed Six People for Seven Days of a Holiday Visit

We're in the home stretch of a long and labor-intensive hosting stint - four guests for seven days! And we're fairly proud of the food we've served. I figured this post might be helpful to you if you're planning on feeding people plant-based holiday food of high quality over the course of several days. You'll notice that this plan relies on some leftover action, but we rework the leftovers so that they're delicious and unrecognizable, and there's always something new.

Things to do in advance, beyond shopping, include making a large quantity of almond yogurt and baking lots of pumpkin breads in mini bundts, freezing them. You can defrost one or two every night in the fridge, then pop it in the oven in the early morning to serve warm before glazing it.

Breakfasts and Brunches

Almond yogurt (save 2-3 tbsp every day to use for the next day's batch)
Pumpkin breads (we baked them in mini-bundt pans, so we could defrost one or two every day)
Cashew-orange glaze
Compote (we made it with lots of prunes)
breads, granola, fresh fruit, dried fruit and nuts
coffee, tea, juice

Dinners and Special Meals

Wednesday night

Vegetable and white bean soup (similar to this one, with white in lieu of pinto beans)

Thursday night

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms (make a lot of brown rice and reuse Sunday night, if you like)
Rosemary Gravy
Cranberry Sauce (simmer fresh cranberries in orange juice with a bit of maple syrup)
Mashed Potatoes
Roasted Brussels Sprouts (halve them and massage with a bit of olive oil and cider vinegar; roast in a 350 oven until golden and crispy)
Green Salad
Chocolate Pots de Creme
Mulled Cider

Friday night

Mini burgers
Potato croquettes
Grilled vegetables
Tahini (mix raw tahini with lemon juice, minced garlic, and parsley, and drizzle on grilled eggplant)

Saturday Night

Mushroom and caramelized onion ravioli (purchased at Rainbow Grocery) in mushroom-alfredo sauce
fresh tomato bruschettas (slice two big tomatoes in half; squeeze out juice; stick flesh of tomato in blender with two onion cloves; toast some good quality bread and spoon tomato mix on them; decorate with ribbons of basil)
Green salad

Sunday Night

Stir-fried bok choy (garlic, ginger, sriracha, soy sauce - you know the drill)
Brown rice
Dark lentil stew
Romanesco broccoli - simply steamed with some lemon squeezed on top
Blondies with nibs and raisins
Coconut ice cream

Monday Night

Cabbage Rolls: I modified the recipe some. We have leftover rice and masoor daal, and I fried up an onion, added the rice and daal, and about 1 cup of minced seitan. I threw in Bragg's liquid aminos and liquid smoke, placed the mix in the food processor for a few seconds to combine better, and used that to stuff the cabbage rolls.
Baked potatoes and sweet potatoes topped with some Miyoko's Cheese
Cauliflower-chickpea-olive salad
Vegetable salad (cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, radishes, lemon juice and a splash of olive oil)

Snacks

Serving people two giant meals a day, cooked from scratch, is a lot of work for you. You can lay out these snacks at lunchtime and invite people to make their own sandwiches.

Good quality bread
hummus, tahini
Miyoko's Kitchen cheeses
Chao Slices
Field Roast deli slices
fresh oranges and tangerines
fresh cucumber sticks and tomato slices

Rosemary Gravy (and ravioli sauce)

This comes straight from Chloe Coscarelli's Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen, where it accompanies the stuffed portobello mushrooms. I made a few minor adaptations.

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion
5 mushrooms, or stems of portobellos from other recipe
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups water
3 tablespoons Bragg's
2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp rosemary
salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in saucepan and saute onion and thinly chopped mushrooms. Add yeast and flour and whisk for 2 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and continue to whisk until very thick. Transfer to blender and puree until smooth.

And there's a bonus: if you make this with mushrooms it works wonderfully as a ravioli sauce. All you need to do is whisk the prepared gravy, or whatever's left of it, with an equal amount of cashew milk.

Cashew-Orange Glaze

I served a lot of mini-bundt pumpkin cakes this week, and I find they go exceedingly well with this simple and delicious glaze. Here's what you do:

1 cup cashews
1/3 cup water
2 tsp maple syrup
2 tbsp orange juice
1 tsp orange zest

Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Keeps beautifully in the fridge for several days. I can see how this would be a perfect glaze for a carrot cake, too.

Mini Burgers

I've already posted a few versions of mini burgers, such as here and here, but this one might be my best yet, and I discovered it entirely by mistake. On Christmas Eve, we made Chloe Coscarelli's stuffed portobellos and were left with four of them (ten shrooms; six guests). You can, of course, make this from scratch, but I'd recommend this as the next-day meal after you make the mushrooms.

The only additional ingredient you need is about a half-cup of seitan. Place the stuffed mushrooms--stuffing, tomato, and all--in the food processor with some seitan and process until smooth. Make two-inch burgers and grill them with some vegetables. I can totally see taking the mix to a picnic, in a tupperware, and forming and grilling the burgers in situ.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

This recipe was our piece-de-resistance for Christmas dinner, and we made it following the instructions in Chloe Coscarelli's Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen with small modifications: the addition of a bit of minced seitan and a change in spices. I'm reproducing it here, but strongly advise all of you to buy the book, which has many more wonderful recipes!

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion
1 cup cashews
4 garlic cloves
1 cup cooked brown rice
2 cups cooked lentils
1/2 cup seitan
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup vegetable broth (we used the broth in which the seitan was stored)
1 tbsp Herbs de Provence
10 portobello mushrooms
1 tomato

Preheat oven to 350 and drizzle baking sheet with olive oil. Remove gills and stems from mushrooms and thinly mince. Heat up olive oil in a pan, slice up the onion and fry them up with the cashews until translucent. Add garlic continue sauteeing a few more minutes.

Transfer onion mixture into bowl and add rice, lentils, chopped up seitan, broth, breadcrumbs, and spices.

Brush both sides of each mushroom with a bit of oil, place in one layer on baking sheet, and generously spoon stuffing on top of each. Place a thin slice of tomato on each mushroom. Place baking sheet in oven and bake for about 30 minutes.

We had four leftover mushrooms, which we used to make mini-burgers for the next day. Stay tuned!

Potato Croquettes

This is a nice way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. If you don't have any, make some; with some spices and breadcrumbs, this makes for a nice addition to grilled vegetables and little burgers.

2 Russet potatoes
1 tbsp Earth Balance
1/2 cup almond or soy milk, unsweetened
1 tbsp Herbs de Provence
1 tsp salt
1 tsp lemony pepper
1/4 cup breadcrumbs

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place a couple of Russet potatoes in the microwave until soft, peel as much as you can or wish to, and mash with a fork, mixing up Earth Balance and unsweetened almond or soy milk to taste. Add spices. Roll into little balls and roll each in breadcrumbs. Place on baking sheet and bake until golden.

Blondies with Nibs and Raisins

It is the fifth day of my guests' visit, and the seemingly interminable amounts of chocolate and candy they brought with them are beginning to abate. But everyone seems to fancy sweets this time of year, so I'm baking much more than usual. And, as the Dos Equis man would say...

So, I made blondies, which I plan to serve with coconut ice cream tonight.  I adapted it from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan with a Vengeance. 

1/3 cup Earth Balance

1/4 package (about 3.5oz) silken tofu

1/2 cup almond milk

3/4 cup jaggery

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/5 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1/2 cup cocoa nibs

1/2 cup raisins

Heat oven to 325 degrees and place parchment on a square pan. Place Earth Balance, tofu, and almond milk in blender, and blend until smooth. Transfer to bowl and whisk with jaggery and vanilla. Add flour, baking powder + soda, and salt, and mix well. Add nibs and raisins and combine. Pour mix into pan, atop parchment, and smooth with spatula. Bake 25-30 mins, until edges just begin to brown a bit. Take out, cool for at least 30 mins, then cut into pieces.

Almond Yogurt

This yogurt is the bomb! I've made it several times now and, once you figure out the two-step process, it's easy and yields wonderful tangy yogurt. You can see it in the picture on the left in the blue bowl. The recipe comes from Miyoko Schinner's wonderful book The Homemade Vegan Pantry. And it's pretty fortunate, because while now there are marvelously tasty vegan yogurts available, they are also fairly expensive, and this recipe gives you a nice quart of yogurt for the price of an almond milk carton.

The key thing to remember is not to add the yogurt in Step Two before the contents of the jar cool enough to allow the cultures to do their thing. Beyond that, easy peasy.

1 container unsweetened almond milk
1/3 cup cashews
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp agar flakes
2 heaping tbsp vegan yogurt (I use the last of a previous batch; to start the process, you can buy a little container of Kite Hill plain almond yogurt, or any soy yogurt, and use that.)

Step One

Place almond milk, cashews, cornstarch and agar flakes in blender and blend until smooth. Pour into saucepan, place on stove, and whisk while bringing to a simmer. Cook for about 3-4 minutes, until the mix thickens somewhat. Then, turn off the heat and pour the contents of the saucepan into glass jars (I like larger ones.) Place the jars outdoors or on the counter until they chill to 110 degrees (warm, but not hot - so that you can put a finger in the mix comfortably.)

Step Two

When the contents have chilled enough, add the vegan yogurt and mix a bit. Then, close the jars and place them somewhere warm, at about 105-110 degrees. We have an old-fashioned oven, so we just place it inside with the pilot light on; you can put it in a modern oven and turn it on and off, or put it in a dehydrator at a very low temperature, or outside if it's warm. Leave it in the warm space for about 8 hours, then retrieve and place in fridge. The yogurt will continue to thicken in the fridge.

Ecocentricity, Biocentricity, and Hunting

The Hunt in the Forest, Paolo Uccello, circa 1470 (original at Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

We've been hosting Chad's family for a week, a visit that is still ongoing, so in a few days I'll put up a big post on vegan hosting with some fab recipes and advice. But for now, I want to talk a bit about hunting.

Earlier this year, we hosted an event at Hastings titled Hunting for Answers about Sustainable Use Conservation. It was an impressive initiative by our students, which brought together NRA gun enthusiasts, hunters, and Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) activists and lawyers to talk about hunting. The event was prompted by the brouhaha about the killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe. Among other guests, our event featured a self-described former vegetarian turned hunter and trapper, who spoke about the "hate campaign" waged against her by animal rights activists.

As with all events funded by the ALDF, lunch had to be vegan. Our animal rights student chapter members (of which I'm a proud faculty advisor) liaised with the other student groups organizing the events, and were puzzled when asked where to find "vegan food vendors." "How about... the Earth?" asked one of my students. "You do know that vegetables and fruit are vegan." They were also saddened to see that, in letters to attendees, there was a tone of apologetics about serving a vegetarian lunch. In response to the courteous but overly apologetic email, one attendee, an NRA member, wrote back a furious email, protesting the fact that lunch would not include dead animals (I cannot even fathom what mind produces an angry email about the contents of a free lunch, which do not exclude anyone, and which one is more than welcome to privately substitute for anything they desire across the street. But I suppose my students got a valuable lesson that not everyone in the world is gracious.)

But more to the point: At the event itself I sat with my beloved friends and colleagues, Dave Owen and David Takacs, both of whom know more about the environment than I'll be able to learn in a lifetime. David, whom I consider one of my closest friends, is vegetarian (almost vegan) and a very conscientious person. During the break, we got into an interesting conversation about hunting--a practice that we all absolutely abhor from a personal standpoint, as we can't see any pleasure in promulgating death and suffering for sport. I was surprised to hear from David that there were some advantages to animals in allowing hunting on a small scale, in a heavily licensed and restricted regime. Where one stands on this issue has a lot to do with how one sees the natural universe: through an anthropocentric, ecocentric, or biocentric perspective.

Setting aside anthropocentrics, who think the natural world is here to serve us and cater to us, there are two pro-animal ways to examine hunting. David's view is ecocentric, which is to say, he focuses on the natural world as an ecosystem and on sustaining and encouraging biodiversity as an overarching goal (here's his terrific book on biodiversity.) From that perspective, selling hunting licenses to rich tourists who hunt for leisure, and singling out prey that is too old to reproduce, can bring much-needed funds into poor communities in developing countries that would better serve wildlife species overall. My perspective, by contrast, is biocentric, which is to say, I perceive all life to be of intrinsic value. I simply do not believe that animals are at all ours to sell, kill, or regulate, or that it is for us to judge who lives and who dies, and I believe than any killing that does not serve an immediate survival goal should be outright banned (and socially reviled as a serious moral crime.)

Part of the reason we differ is that we come to the issue of animal rights from different places. David's view has been shaped by science and environmental ethics, while mine owes a lot to philosophy (such as the work of Peter Singer, J. M. Coetzee, and Sherry Colb.) But even though I am fairly firmly in the biocentric camp, I have to be honest and ask myself whether the sanctity of individual life holds well in our less-than-ideal world, in which regulated hunting may result overall in less gratuitous cruelty than poaching. I also have to wonder whether it makes sense to view eusocial insects, such as ants, bees, and wasps, as individuals or as part of a group enterprise (maybe, if ants could philosophize, they'd be more ecocentric; that's at least how matters seem in our kitchen, when they go for a crumb we forgot on the counter!). In short, I know where I stand, but I have respect and appreciation for the competing worldview.

Dark Lentil Stew

I had wonderful guests today and made them lunch, which included this lentil dish. It's not authentic Indian or Moroccan, but rather a haphazard creation including spices from both cuisines. I made it in a slow cooker and, for various hosting reasons, used the high temperature setting. I imagine you could make this over a longer period of time using the low setting, or even let it simmer slowly on the stove.

1 tsp olive oil
1 yellow onion
2 cups masoor daal
1 tomato, cubed
1 small eggplant, cubed
7-8 mushrooms, sliced
1 garlic clove, thinly chopped
1 tbsp ras el hanout
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
3 cardamom pods

Heat olive oil in pan. Slice onion thinly and caramelize in the oil.
While this is going on, place daal, tomatoes, eggplant, mushrooms and garlic in slow cooker. Add the onion. Cover with boiling water about an inch and a half above the ingredients. Add all spices - be sure to crush the cardamom pods before placing them in the pot. Cook on high setting for three hours or on a low setting for longer.

Adventures in Soy: Soymilk, Okara Cake, and Vegan CrabCakes

Being unwell at home has its advantages: boredom breeds big kitchen projects. Happily, I was well enough to mill about the kitchen, and we had a package of dry soybeans lying about.

I started off by making soymilk, for the first time ever. I had two recipes on hand: one from The Homemade Vegan Pantry and one from The Tofu Book. The former advocates boiling the beans for one minute and the latter instructs to soak them overnight. Since I wanted to go through the whole process from start to finish that day, I went with the former approach.

Making soymilk is a multi-step approach. It starts off with boiling a great quantity of water in a big pot. Then, the beans are added to the boiling water and boiled for one minute. The pot is then removed from the stove and left to cool for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, I drained the beans. I put some of them in my blender with fresh water and blended to the point of creating a thick slurry. I then poured the slurry into a nut milk bag over a big bowl, squeezing with all my might. The milk dripped into the bowl; okara, the by-product of soymilk, was left inside the bag. I repeated the process in batches, until all soybeans were blended and milked. I ended the process by simmering the milk for ten minutes without letting it boil. Contrary to the book's promise, the soymilk retained much of its original, beany flavor, which some absolutely love. I'm not very fond of it, but it can be partially masked with some vanilla extract. I might make tofu out of the milk I have, but I don't think I'll make this process a habit. Next time, I'll try the soaking method, but I suspect it'll yield a similar outcome.

The silver lining of the entire enterprise was the okara; I was left with so much of it that I packaged and froze four cups. I was left with enough fresh okara for two feats: a dried fruit cake and Miyoko Schinner's "fab cakes", which were a resounding success.

The recipe for fab cakes is in The Homemade Vegan Pantry; it requires a lot of ingredients, but fortunately I happened to have odds and ends of everything at home. I encourage you to buy the book and try this recipe. It's fantastic. The cake itself is made mainly of okara and silken tofu, so it's rich in protein and fiber, and it also contains quite a bit of delicious nori. Having missed crab cakes quite a bit, I was delighted to have such a delicious substitute.

The recipe for dried fruit cake is my own, so I'm happy to share it:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup fresh okara
1 cup boiling water + 3 tbsp room temperature water
1 cup mixed dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, apricots, figs)
4 tbsp flax seeds
2 tbsp brown sugar (and I think this would come out fabulous even without sweetener)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp hawaiiej for coffee (but I think you can do without)
1 pinch salt

Heat oven to 350 Farhenheit.
Pour cup of boiling water over dried fruit and leave aside to plump a bit.
Grind one tbsp of the flax and mix with three tbsp water. Leave aside to become gelatinous.
In a big bowl, mix oil, sugar, and vanilla. Add flax and dried fruit (with the liquid) and mix some more. Then, add all dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Pour into pan--I used my trusty silicone bundt cake pan--and bake for about 40 minutes, or until a knife plunged into the middle comes out dry and clean.

I've done some more reading on okara. It seems that you can easily substitute about 1/2 of the flour in almost any baking recipe with okara, though some websites prefer the use of dried to fresh. Since I used fresh okara, I can attest that it doesn't harm the final product; the cake came out marvelous, fluffy and moist, and makes a delightful breakfast treat. What with this and the fake crab cakes, I feel like I got a lot out of my soymilk-making adventure--including newfound appreciation for commercial unsweetened organic soymilk, which I plan to continue buying most of the time!

Banana Cake

Emboldened by the successful poached pear pie, I decided to do something about the four overripe bananas in our fruit basket. This came out delightful--moist, fragrant, wholesome, and not too sweet.

4 ripe bananas
1/2 cup coconut sugar, brown sugar, or maple syrup
3/4 cup vegetable oil (I used safflower oil)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
tiny bit of salt
optional: almond slivers, unsweetened coconut flakes

Heat oven to 375 Fahrenheit. Mash bananas in a bowl and add sugar and vegetable oil. When sort of mixed, add flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and mix until combined (not too much). If you like, add almond slivers and coconut flakes. Transfer to pan (I like my Bundt cake silicone pan) and bake for about 35 minutes, or until a knife or toothpick inserted in the middle comes out dry. Wait until the cake cools to invert and slice.

Poached Pear Pie

We've been invited to a post-Thanksgiving party called You're Welcome! And we're not coming empty-handed. This beautiful (and entirely vegan) pie will be our contribution to the festivities.

6 ripe pears

1 cup unsweetened cranberry juice

1 herbal tea bag (we used rose hip and lavender)

2 cinnamon sticks

5 cloves

4 cardamom pods

1 splash whiskey

1 homemade or bought pie crust

1/2 cup maple syrup

4 tbsp agar flakes

1 tsp powdered cinnamon

1 tsp powdered nutmeg

Halve the pears and core them. Place the pear halves in a bit pot. Add cranberry juice, herbal tea bag, cinnamon sticks, cloves, cardamom, and whiskey. Then, add hot water to cover the pears. Simmer for about 15-20 mins.

Remove pear halves from syrup. Wait until they cool down a bit, then slice thinly and arrange in pie crust. 

Strain syrup from all whole spices, add powdered spices, agar, and maple syrup. Cook until reduced to a syrupy consistency (a bit liquid is okay; the agar will help it gel). Drizzle onto pie to cover pears. Bake for 30 mins at 350 degrees. Let cool completely.

Delicate Zucchini Soup

It's a cold post-Thanksgiving morning, with a gorgeous but deceitful sun outside. To stay warm, I made a simple green soup. It's creamy, yet not too rich, and very easy to make.

6 zucchini
2 potatoes
1 onion
2-3 garlic cloves
optional: powdered dried vegetables or a bouillon cube
1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk or other nutmilk
4 tbsp olive oil
salt, pepper, and parsley to taste

Cover zucchini, potatoes, garlic, and onion with salted water, add dried vegetables or bouillon, and bring to a boil. Then, lower the heat and simmer until vegetables are soft. Transfer vegetables, and some of the water, into a blender and puree. Add soymilk and olive oil and puree again until smooth. Return to pot, mix with broth, and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle fresh parsley on top.

Tom Kha Kai

The intense travel and business obligations have finally won: I'm unwell. Chad very kindly made a beautiful pot of Tom Kha Kai, one of my favorite Thai soups.

1/2 package extra-firm tofu
10 white mushrooms
8 cloves garlic
1/2 butternut squash
3 tbsp curry paste
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 can coconut cream
1-2 cups water
1 cup chopped greens (we used mustard greens, but any greens will do)
2 roma tomatoes, diced
a few stalks lemongrass
1 oz galanga root
2 leaves from lemon tree (kaffir lime would've been authentic, but we have a lemon tree
1/2 package rice noodles

Stir-fry and brown tofu, mushrooms, garlic and squash with curry paste in sesame oil. Once browned, add coconut cream and an equal amount of water. Add diced tomatoes and greens, as well as galanga, lemongrass, and lemon leaves. Lower the heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Separately, soak rice noodles in boiling water and add to soup right before serving.

PickleBook!

My one and only friend Dena has outdone herself again. Her birthday gift to me was Amanda Feifer's beautiful book Ferment Your Vegetables. 

Feifer, the owner of Phickle blog, is a true fermentation enthusiast, and her descriptions of bacteria and biological processes bubble, pun intended, with a vivacious spirit of experiment. She explains the process clearly and helpfully, details the necessary (cheap) equipment (you pretty much already have what you need) and provides dozens of great recipes for different vegetables.

I plan to make pretty much everything in the book! Today I started off with her radishes and onion recipe, modifying it--I can't seem to make any recipe as written--by adding the beets we have left over from a week of soups and juices. I shall report back on the outcome, but this is basically what I did:

8 radishes
4 beets
1 red onion
2 cups water
4 tbsp salt

I sliced the radishes and beets to a 1/2 inch thickness, tetris-ed them into a jar, then poured the water and salt brine on top. I weighed down the veg with a silicone glass cover, and now we wait.

Roasted Root Vegetables

This simple dish is something I often make to accompany other things. I got extremely lucky yesterday: Whole Foods had purple yams, which I had never seen before. The combination of white, orange, and purple made the dish beautiful as well as tasty.

The principle is simple: Take whichever root vegetables you have and dice them into 1.5-inch cubes. Place in one layer in on a baking sheet. Add olive oil, rosemary sprigs, garlic, some salt and pepper, and roast in a 350-degree oven.

An important improvement: Roasted roots are juicier and more moist inside if roasted inside an oven bag. Don't forget to poke a few holes in the bag for steam to escape.

White beans with Kale

Cannellini beans work very well with kale, and in this gentle recipe they combine to form a warm and satisfying dish.

4 cups cannellini beans, dry
2 package dino kale
2 tsp olive oil
juice from 1 lemon
1 tsp salt
handful sage leaves
1 tsp herbs de provence

Soak beans in water (for hours if possible; if not, soak briefly in boiling water).
Tear kale leaves into little pieces, getting stems out of the way. Add 1 tsp olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and massage leaves until tender, dark green, and not bitter anymore. Set aside.

Meanwhile, drain beans, add fresh water to cover them, and cook until tender.

Mix beans with kale, sprinkling sage and herbs de provence on dish.

Green Salad and Red Salad

Two of my favorite vegetable salads: a green one with avocado and grapefruit, and a tomato-mint based red one.

Green Salad

1 large package mixed greens, or 50/50 mixed greens with baby spinach
2 ripe avocados
2 red grapefruits
1 tbsp good quality mustard
1 tsp olive oil
juice from 1/2 lemon
3 tbsp water

Peel and dice avocados and grapefruit. Toss with mixed greens in big bowl. Shortly before serving, mix remaining four ingredients and drizzle over salad.

Red Salad

10 Roma tomatoes
6 radishes
1/2 red onion
juice from 1 lemon
1 tsp olive oil
handful mint leaves

This one works best with very thin slices, so strive for those as you slice tomatoes, radishes, and onion. Place in bowl in layers and drizzle lemon juice and olive oil on top. Sprinkle thinly ribboned mint leaves.

Two-Step Spicy Green Beans

In 2009 I backpacked in China with my friend Rosie. When we arrived in Xi'an to see Emperor Qin Shi Huang's terracotta army, we found the city just as fascinating, complete with a beautiful Muslim quarter with mosques. The food in the Muslim quarter was spicier than anywhere else we went; Rosie could not even eat the green beans because they contained more chiles than beans! But we did like the flavor very much, enough to try and replicate it upon our return with just a tad less heat.

It turns out that the special flavor and texture of the beans requires a two-step process. The excellent resource Serious Eats explains that, in China, this comes from deep-frying the beans as Step 1. They suggest, instead, broiling the beans before tossing them with the aromatics. Alas, I don't have a broiler, so I tossed the beans in a very hot dry pan (no oil at all) until I charred them, and then tossed them with the remaining ingredients.

4 cups green beans
10 shiitake mushrooms
1 chile
2 tbsp chopped scallions
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp grated garlic
1 tbsp Bragg's Liquid Aminos or soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil

Trim edges off green beans. Heat a dry pan, and when it's very hot, toss beans in. Keep moving the beans in the pan until you can see some searing on all the beans. Remove from pan.

Add oil and thinly sliced chili to pan. Heat for a couple of minutes, then reduce heat and add scallions, ginger, garlic, and Bragg's. Cook for another two minutes. Add mushrooms and toss around until soft. Then add beans and toss a bit. Serve hot right away!

Vegan Chocolate Pots-de-Creme

Tonight I'm serving dinner for 20; my seminar students are coming over for our last class. Lots of beautiful salads, grains, legumes, roasted vegetables and other exciting things in the making; the first thing to be prepared and in the fridge is dessert.

My friend Andrea forwarded me a recipe for pots-de-creme, and I've modified it a bit and made enormous quantities. The following will leave you with a blenderful of creme, which you can serve in nice glass cups, pour into little filo dough ramekins (that's what we did here), or freeze for ice cream.

2 packages tofu: I used one silken and one firm. Soft would do just as fine.
2 1/4 cups unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1 package (approx 2 cups) dark chocolate chips
2 tbsp baking cocoa
optional: 2 tbsp brown sugar or maple syrup

Heat almond milk in saucepan until very hot but not yet boiling. At the same time, place tofu, chips, cocoa powder and sugar in blender. Add hot milk and blend until very very smooth. Refrigerate for several hours before serving.

Red Lentil Stew

This stew is so simple and incredibly tasty. I made it after a long day of eating less-then-optimal food at a work event (bagels for breakfast, sandwiches and chips for lunch; would you like more starch with your starch?). After learning lots of interesting things, and collaborating with others in a new initiative that, it is hoped, will make the world just a bit better, I worked out and then decided to make something warm and nice for dinner. It's a pretty red soup, but to my surprise it doesn't become beet-pink. I bet the leftovers will be even better at lunch tomorrow!

2 cups red lentils
4 large carrots
3 large zucchini
3 medium-sized beets
4 large shiitake mushrooms
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp dried vegetable powder
1 tbsp baharat
1 tsp salt

Dice all vegetables. Place in pot and cover with hot water. Cook for at least 30 minutes; the longer this cooks, the better, and you might need to add some water once the lentils drink it up.

What I'd Really Like for my Birthday

As the semester reaches its usual boiling point, I think of home as a place of rest and repose. Which is why, for my birthday, which happened this weekend, I didn't actually want to do anything special. Still, many special things happened. We had a wonderful dinner at Greens. I got a beautiful white orchid from my friend Raul and a vegan chocolate cake and a snazzy handmade dress from reclaimed sweaters and a gorgeous mug for my morning tea from Chad. And my parents funded my new Vitamix, which is a source of endless cooking magic. And this morning, my beloved friend Dena sent me a fermenting book, Amanda Feifer's Ferment Your Vegetables. I can't wait to make my own kimchi!

I have everything I could possibly need, live happily and want for nothing. But if you really, really want to give me a birthday gift, please exclude meat, cheese, and eggs from a meal, or two, or five, or all of them, this week. There is nothing that will make me happier than more animals that will get to live thanks to this simple action. Thank you!

Chamin 3.0: Extreme Departure from Tradition

It's finally raining a bit in San Francisco--just in time to help our new olive tree, whom we named Habibi, to adapt to its new surroundings, and to irrigate our newly-in-the-ground purple cauliflower and brussels sprouts. Of course, this also means putting up a new chamin pot.

My prior forays into the world of chamin produced this wonderful pot and this delectable version. But today, the slow cooker includes:

1 cup azuki beans
1 cup mung beans
1/2 cup brown rice
1 sugarpie pumpkin, lightly roasted in the oven
1 big onion, chopped and lightly browned in olive oil
5 shiitake mushrooms
1 package of kale

Not quite Eastern European, but very delicious. I seasoned it with cloves, cracked cardamom pods, and a couple of spoonfuls of dried vegetable powder, and covered with hot water for a long cooking time (4 hours on high, 10 more hours on low). The nice thing about layering the ingredients neatly in the pot  is that you can serve yourself whatever you like and leave behind things you like less. In my case, this is not a problem, as I like everything!

Homemade Pita

Who doesn't like a fresh pita, straight from the oven? If you don't, it's because you've been eating thin, inadequate North-American ones, not the fluffy Middle-Eastern ones. Chad got this recipe from Aba Gil, who now has a gluten-free, vegan deli in Tel Aviv. Before his gluten-free phase, Aba Gil had a wonderful organic humusserie, which we used to frequent when we lived in Israel. And he taught (and still teaches) great workshops. Chad attended one of those and kept the recipe for posterity; today we made some of these and ate them with fragrant ful, jalapeno"cheese", and vegetables.

Anyway, here goes:

Mix and knead a bit:

500g flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 packet active yeast
350cc water (about 12oz)

These will create a firm dough - for those of you used to baking non-pita bread in a pan, the dough will be firmer than your remember. You should exercise some judgment with the water; you might not need all of it. Place dough in a bowl, cover with a towel, and leave somewhere warm for an hour (we used our old oven, with the pilot light on.)

After an hour, break the dough, which should be pretty gargantuan by now, into six balls of aproximately 4-5 inch diameters, and give them a bit of a mushroom cap shape. The original recipe calls for letting those sit for an additional 40 mins, but our meticulous experiments prove you can wait only 10 mins or so and that's enough.

When ready to make, roll the balls into 8-9 diameter flat discs, approximately 1cm (2/5 inch) thick.

Heat a dry frying pan to a very, very, very hot temperature! Place the pita on the pan and wait for it to balloon up (that's the pocket, you see). Flip so that both sides are heated evenly. When ready, take out of pan and enjoy warm and fresh.

Jalapeño "Cheese"

This one is very, very, very easy, and is an excellent sandwich filling. Highly recommended!

1/2 package firm tofu
2 jalapeño peppers
a bit of lemon juice
a bit of salt

Open the jalapeños and get as many seeds out as you like (the more you leave in, the spicier it will be). Place them in blender or food procesor with tofu, lemon juice, and salt to taste; blend/mix until homogenous and pink. Note that the image shows it on homemade pita; recipe forthcoming.

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin bread!

We used the basic recipe from the Minimalist Baker and made a few substitutions - doubling the recipe and using ingredients we happened to have at home. The method of preparation is the same, but our ingredients were:

1 cup jaggery

6 tbsp olive oil

3tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

pinch sea salt

pinch chana masala seasoning

1 cup soy milk

2.5 cups whole-grain flour blend (we used about 40% oat, 25% buckwheat,  25% brown rice, 10% arrowroot powder)

1/2 cup currants

1/2 cup roasted walnuts

1 tbsp flax

3 tbsp water

We served it with a dollop of cashew cream on top (unsweetened, but with a tad of vanilla extract) and some fresh kiwi on the side.

Winter Is Coming Garden Soup

Growing vegetables in a small plot, or in windowsill boxes, is easy, cheap, and very gratifying. In Tel Aviv, I grew herbs in boxes on my balcony; in El Cerrito, I had a little plot in the back yard. Here in Mission Terrace we grow vegetables all around the garden, surrounded by flowers and, sometimes, by curious cats. But one of our favorite vegetable growing spots is in the L-shaped plot around our house. We don't have, never have, and never will have, a lawn; instead, we have fruit trees and a variety of California natives (the yerba buena is particularly aromatic and gladdens our neighbors; several of them have mentioned how much they like to walk by and smell our plants). The advantage of natives, beyond their beauty, is their adaptive nature; they deal better with the drought than other plants, and certainly better than water-intensive lawns, many of which are now dry in California.

[As an aside, brown lawns have become a bit of a status symbol in the Bay Area, n'est ces pas? It saddens me a bit that we're engaging in these showy water-saving displays when eating plants in lieu of animal products is the single most meaningful and important step everyone can take to save water. Eating a burger--one burger--is the equivalent of showering for two months straight. I wish the powers-that-be were less preoccupied with placating this cruel industry; if all Californians refrained from eating meat, dairy, and eggs on a fairly regular basis, much of these brown-is-the-new-green dramatics would be unnecessary.]

But back to the vegetables. Surrounded by flowers we have a vegetable plot in which we grow seasonal produce. In the picture you can see a colander full of freshly picked chard and kale (several varieties of each.) There is so much that can be done with them, but yesterday's drizzle called for some soup, so here it is:

1 pound chard, kale, and other green vegetables
1 sweet potato
1 potato
4 celery stalks
1/2 onion
1 cup Pomi or other canned tomato product (or fresh tomatoes)
Herbs de Provence to taste
(if you have any) 2 tbsp dried vegetable soup mix

Slice and dice vegetables and place in pot with Pomi, herbs, and dried vegetables. Cover with water and cook for 45 minutes.

Grilled Vegetables

 

Vegetables on the grill are so delicious that the prominence of meat in the many grilling events I've attended over the years is somewhat befuddling. All you need is some produce and a bit of creativity, as we found out yesterday at Tomales Bay. 

The sky was overcast and it was gently drizzling the whole time, but it did not deter us from going for a nice swim in the chilly bay, where we had a couple of pelicans for company. They swam and flew very close to us--how exciting!

The pelicans reminded me of how much I love Judy Irving's terrific documentary Pelican Dreams. In fact, that's the movie that pushed me to become vegan, because I realized, while learning about the environmental threats faced by these beautiful birds, that everything is interconnected, and that the best thing I could do for all animals--farm animals AND wild animals--is to stop consuming them in any form.

But back to the vegetables. After our swim, we sliced up a potato, a yam, and a red onion, removed the less-exciting parts of several green onions, sliced up two Field Roast sausages lengthwise, and removed the stems from an entire bunch of rainbow chard leaves. We set all of this up in one layer on foil, drizzling olive oil and sprinkling cumin on our bounty.

Setting up the grill is easy, but time consuming. It calls for a match, some kindling (we used splinters) and coals. We started by lifting the grid (and cleaning the ashes inside), and then by making a little fire with the splinters and doctoring it to health. This requires some patience when there's wind and a drizzle, but is certainly doable. Then, we gently and carefully placed the coals atop the little fire, taking care not to extinguish it.

The idea behind cooking on charcoal is as follows: when oxygen (in the air) meets carbon (in the charcoal), they produce CO2 (they also sometimes produce CO, carbon monoxide, which is why doing this indoors is a very bad idea.) A by-product of the chemical reaction is heat. You can tell that things are going okay by the coals starting to become white and ashen. When the process starts, it's time to put down the grid and layer the foil atop it. It helps with steaming if you cover your food with a second piece of foil.

Everything on the grill was delicious, but I was particularly fond of the chard and sweet potato. The grilling process imparted a smoky and wonderful taste, which you can sort-of-but-not-accurately recreate at home by adding liquid smoke. The big discovery was how unnecessary meat was. While the vegan sausages were great, the vegetables were terrific, and I can see us trying with eggplant, green beans, and tomato slices next time.

Finally, before heading home, don't forget to extinguish the fire!