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.