My Favorite Wrap

My favorite wrap, these days – one that does not require any sophisticated cooking and relies on store-bought stuff – consists of the following delicious combination:

Sprouted Corn Tortillas!

Vegenaise!

Any kind of stone-ground mustard!

Tons and tons of fresh salad greens from the market!

And –

Baked Tofu, thinly sliced!

A good substitute for a sandwich, this is something you could not only eat at home, but wrap and take with you. And, given how busy I am (and the lack of time to cook to my heart’s content), it’ll have to do for a while.

Back! And bearing a quinoa salad offering!

Hi, everyone!

After a long LONG absence, I’m back! A few folks emailed inquiring when I’d be posting again… I was extremely busy – what with moving to a new country, starting a new job, getting a new home together – and didn’t do much cooking. Things are beginning to settle down, so I’ll do my best to start cooking delicious, healthy food again.

These days, I’m hailing from the beautiful city of San Francisco, where I shop for my vegetables in several wonderful places: the Valencia Farmers Market, a little grocery shop full of healthy wonders and devoid of pretension; the Noe Valley Farmers Market, close to my house, where every Saturday is like a block party of meeting neighbors, listening to local musicians, and seeing new and exciting vegetables; and the Civic Center Farmers Market, which happens every Wednesday close to work.

The beauty of shopping in farmers market need hardly be explained to those who have incorporated the experience into their daily routine. Somehow, the vegetables feel so much more alive when they are out in the open, sold by the people who lovingly grow them, and generate fun conversation and recipe exchanges among neighbors. There are always people selling ready-made healthy foods; in Civic Center, I can always get interesting salads and fun vegan, wheatless “lasagnas” from the young and enthusiastic crew of Alive!, and on Saturdays I enjoy fresh juices and fantastic tempeh burritos from Lisa, Paul and their crew of helpers from Juicey Lucy. Lisa is a fabulous person, and I recently got to know her and some of her family and friends while going on a ten-day juice fast.

The juice fast was a fabulous experience; I feel wonderful, and am as committed as I ever was to eating healthy and organic. It was almost difficult to go back to eating again; but, fortunately, this city really lures one into eating wonderful foods, so the difficulty was short-lived.

My schedule these days makes it difficult to cook much at home, but I do make fun stuff sometimes. Watch this space for reports about delicious wraps and date-nut rolls with raisins and coconut, and today, here’s a quick recipe for a quinoa salad, which reminds me a little of tabouleh.

1/2 cup quinoa (white or brown, or mixed)
6 fresh celery stalks
1/2 cup fresh parsley
juice from 1/2 lemon

Cook quinoa in 1.5 cups water until ready; leave in pot to cool a bit. Chop celery and parsley into tiny bits. Mix with quinoa and lemon.

Independence Day Grill: The Alternative Burger

The Israel-dwellers among my gentle readers are probably still contemplating their bellies in pain and reflecting on the gorging fest they may have taken part in lately, otherwise known as “the Yom Ha’atzmaut Mangal“. We discussed this interesting anthropological phenomenon last year. And, without fail, the woods were thick with meaty smoke this year, too.

We were invited to a barbecue (=mangal) at the home of dear friends, and in lieu of vegetable skewers I decided to bring something else. A short search on google for vegan patties yielded all sorts of things, but none of the versions really captured the spirit of the holiday. Since this is Israel, I wanted the patties to have a bit of falafel aroma, which you can obtain using cumin and turmeric and paprika; also, the patties have a mix of lentils and chickpeas. I use oat bran to bond them together. They held nicely on the grill and were all eaten immediately (by us and by the meat eaters!). Not a morsel was left. Fortunately, my friend Ilan was around with his new camera and managed to take a picture before they disappeared.

Vegan Patties with a Hint of Falafel

3 cups green lentils
1/2 cup chickpeas
1/2-3/4 cup oat bran
5 garlic cloves
3 tbsps cumin
3 tbsps turmeric
1 tbsp paprika
big handful of parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Soak lentils and chickpeas in water; chickpeas take longer – a few hours – but lentils are happy after they’re soaked for twenty minutes or so. Then, strain and cook in a big pot of water until tender. Strain again, saving about 1/2 cup of the liquid.
Place lentils and chickpeas in food processor bowl. Add 1/4 cup oat bran and process. Add water if the thing refuses to puree, and oat bran gradually until the lentil paste can be shaped into small burgers that hold their shape. Add spices and parsley and garlic and keep processing. Taste to correct – since ingredients are cooked, it’ll give you a pretty good idea of what it’ll taste like eventually.

Place gently on grill (preferably on a tray, though these things don’t fall apart so easy), and eat with pita, tchina and vegetables.

Fast Red Tofu Uncheese

Another variation on the tofu “uncheese” theme, this time a soft reddish variety, that tastes somewhat like ricotta but with a bit of a punch. This is really good stuff. I made it to take over to our friends Shachar and Amit’s house tonight, with some crackers; I had a small container of matbucha, which is basically a Moroccan salad/salsa/dip made of tomatoes, garlic and spices cooked together for a long time, sort of like jam. If you like, you can make your own matbucha, but if you don’t have any and don’t want to bother, you can try doing this with roasted peppers or with canned roasted tomatoes.

1 block of tofu
2 tbsps matbucha; or 2 roasted peppers, cut into pieces; or 2 tbsps canned roasted tomatoes (the Glen Muir variety I remember from the Bay Area is pretty good)
1 handful fresh parsley
2 small chili peppers
Optional: paprika; basil; black pepper.

Place in food processor; blend until smooth. Taste and season as desired.

A Short Break to Honor Liviu Librescu

We take a short break from food blogging to honor the life, and sacrifice, of a wonderful man – Professor Liviu Librescu, who saved the lives of his Virginia Tech students by blocking, with his body, the entrance to the classroom, so they could escape the mass-murdering shooter by jumping out of the windows.

It was Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki (Rashi), I think, who said “make yourself a teacher, make yourself a friend”. So close to National Holocaust Rememberance Day, my eyes well at stories like Librescu’s, who, like Janusz Korczak, epitomizes this saying to its fullest possible meaning.

Our best teachers live with us, even after they die, because their memories and values live in our hearts. What is remembered, lives. May his memory be blessed.

Easiest way to Sprout Grains and Beans

Sprouts. They are good for you!

There’s a variety of reasons why sprouts come so highly recommended by holistic nutritionists. Raw foodists refer to them as “living foods”; others refer to their high content of vitamins and phytogens. Surfing the web, you find a variety of devices and contraptions made for sprouting. Or, you have to get jars and gauzes.

Really, all you need is a collander and a bowl.

1. Rinse the beans or grains, place them in a bowl and soak them in water for a night.
2. The next day, place the beans in the collander and strain all the water out. Rinse them with fresh water; then place the collander on the bowl. Repeat this twice a day for about two or three days.
3. Hurrah! Sprouts!
Works like a charm.

Kidney Support Meal

How do you deal with exhaustion, nutrition-wise? We discussed this at home a few days ago, because we were both feeling tired from the holiday cooking/hosting/working/playing frenzy. We decided to resort to traditional Chinese nutrition principles, and eat a dish of azuki and mung beans with season greens.

As I explained somewhere else, Chinese medicine analyzes food according to its different properties (cold/warm, dry/moist, yin/yang, expansion/contraction). As with other conditions, exhaustion is a manifestation of an imbalance between the five elements – often, as a weakness in kidney energy. The kidneys, associated with the Chinese element of water, are not only responsible for reproductive functions and related to the bladder, but also govern our storage of life energy. When the kidneys are depleted, we have to build them.

Some types of beans are closely associated with the kidneys: remarkably, azuki or aduki beans and mung or mash beans. The fun thing about these small beans is their remarkable resemblance to each other in everything except color: mung beans are green, and azuki beans are deep rich burgundy, but both are small, egg-shaped, and have a little white spot.

There are many great ways to eat azuki and mung beans. This dish takes them down the spicy Middle Eastern route and mixes them with leafy greens. We ate this for dinner, and felt quite heavy later, so you may want to consider eating this for lunch.

Beans and Greens

1 cup azuki beans
1 cup mung beans
2 cups water or vegetable broth, or mix
1 tbsp olive oil
3 heaping tablespoons cumin
1 tbsp nutmeg
3 tablespoons good quality tomato paste
3 garlic cloves
1 large onion
2 dried small chilis
10 large leaves of red or white beet (in Israel, the easiest is manguld).

Place azukis and mungs in a bowl of water for a few hours. If you have no time, place them in boiling water for twenty minutes. Discard the water.

In a large wok, heat up some olive oil. Chop thinly garlic and onion and add to wok. As you fry up, add the cumin and nutmeg and mix. Make an incision in each of the chilis and add them, too. When everything is mixed and the room becomes fragrant, add the strained beans and fry for a few minutes. Then, add the water or broth and the tomato sauce, lower the heat and let cook for about 30 minutes.

Try eating the beans. Have they gone softer? If they are soft, chop up the greens and layer them on top of the beans; cover again. Cook until the beans are soft. You may have to add water as you go.

You’ll have to take my word that this comes out very pretty because of the contrast in color between the azuki and the mung. We have just a little leftover, but the camera has disappeared. I hope to find it by the next time we cook, which will probably be in the not-so-distant-future!

Ful?

I got a few email inquiries from US readers asking what ful was. After much botanical immersion (basically, googling “ful” and “fava bean”) I struck gold. Ful is fava bean! And there are several varieties. Read all about it.

And, folks, if you have questions about terms, or measurements, or temperatures, please, please do not hesitate to ask in the comments to the blog. That’s what it’s there for. This way, others can benefit from the answer to your query, and I get to know that my writing is being read somewhere on the blog, too. 🙂

Seder Accomplished!

Gentle readers, I can now report from the field. The seder was a huge success! All the meat eaters enthusiastically embraced our vegetarian offerings, and, in fact, after the holiday eve and the next day’s lunch, we are officially OUT OF FOOD. Which is funny, because we thought we’d live on the leftovers for the rest of the holiday!

A couple of hours before the Seder, Chad had an inspiring (though somewhat gross) idea, and we embarked on an artistic project: we made images of the Ten Plagues out of Fimo, baked them, and placed one on each plate. We had eleven guests, so one person got a little matzo.

The salads were a big hit.

And so were the main courses.

Altogether, a good experience. The green quiche was particularly successful, and people also liked our celery-mushroom-sprouts stir-fry with an unexpected ingredient. And indeed, here’s a recipe for

Celery-Mushroom-Sprouts Stir-Fry with an Unexpected Ingredient

5 celery stalks
5 shiitake mushrooms
1 tbsp soy sauce
3 portobello mushrooms
5 forest mushrooms
2cm piece of ginger
1 tsp schug (Yemenite chile with cilantro and other wonderful ingredients – very hot!)
1/2 tsp honey
juice from 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp sake
2 cups sprouts

Place shiitake mushrooms in water glass. Fill with water and add soy sauce. Let sit for a night.
The next day, chop up celery stalks to 1 cm slices. Also, slice portobello mushrooms, and cut up forest mushrooms by hand into bite-size pieces. Take shiitake out of cup and keep the liquid. Slice ginger thinly.

In a wok, heat up a bit of canola or olive oil with the ginger and schug. When air becomes fragrant and aromatic, add celery. After five minutes, add mushrooms and some of the mushroom liquid. Gradually, as you stir the contents of the wok, add more liquid, lemon juice, rice vinegar and sake. When things are cooked but still chewy and full of character, add sprouts. Stir-fry for another minute, then serve.

Seder Preparation: Episode 5

More recipes? Gaaaah! These ones are just mini-recipes. I mean, we all know how to roast root vegetables. Right?

(do I hear protest from the back row? okay, I’ll explain my method, and you can do it differently if you wish)

Basic idea: Heat up your oven to 200 degrees celsius. Chop up your choice of root vegetables into 1/2- or 1-inch cubes. Vegetables go into an oven bag. Then, add some olive oil, herbs and spices, and shake the bag well to mix the vegetables with the other stuff and coat them well in oil. Tie up bag. Place the bag in an oven-safe dish, preferrably with the tie facing down (there’s a reason for this: smaller ovens tend to burn the top part of the bag, and you don’t want a charred knot looming over your veg). Cut out a few tiny holes in the part of the bag facing the oven (otherwise, the whole thing will inflate and explode). Place in oven for 45 mins to an hour, until the vegetables are soft and juicy.

Now, usually I like to roast several things in the same bag, so they benefit from each other’s flavor. However, this Passover we have a combination of low-carb folks with folks who love potatoes and hate the rest, etc, etc, so I have to roast each vegetable separately. The benefit of that is that it allows me to roast each vegetable with different herbs and spices.

Three mini-recipes (follow basic instructions above with the following spices):

Potatoes
4 large potatoes
5 garlic cloves
2 large onions, quartered
5 long rosemary sprigs
sea salt
black pepper

Carrots
5 large carrots
1 tsp each: cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg
3 garlic cloves

Beets
6 small beets
1 heaping tbsp kimmel
3 garlic cloves