Long story short: my family has agreed to two totally vegan Seders this Passover* and I'm all but crapping my pants as we get closer to the holiday. I think my mother and I have finally settled on a menu, but all the handwritten notes are driving me totally batshit, so here are our menus:
Night the First:
Roasted Butternut Squash Soup from Vegan With a Vengeance
Quinoa Tabouli from Yellow Rose Recipes
Stuffed Twice-Baked Potatoes from Yellow Rose Recipes**
Tomato and Roasted Eggplant Stew with Chickpeas from Veganomicon (sans chickpeas)
Roasted asparagus with a metric assload of garlic
Matzo Almond Brittle
Night the Second:
Creamy Tomato Soup from Veganomicon
Cinnamon Lime Quinoa with Apricots & Almonds from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan
Herb-Roasted Potatoes from Vegan With a Vengeance
Sweet Potato-Pear Tzimmes with Pecans and Raisins from Veganomicon**
Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes from Veganomicon
Strawberry Rhubarb Compote with Matzo Streusel Topping
I also wanted to do some straight up vegetable salads, but my mother thinks it's unnecessary. Everyone's getting old and they just can't eat so much so late.***
For the rest of Passover, I'll probably just eat leftovers and matzo with some random spreads. I'm considering:
Tapenade (YRR)
Guacamole (VCON)
Sweet Basil Pesto Tapenade (VCON)
Asparagus Spinach Dip (VCON)
Also, ED&BV has an interesting-looking focaccia recipe and I'm considering subbing matzo for the pizza dough, just for shits and giggles. We shall see what shall be. I'll probably make truffles again too, since they were much loved last year.
Happy holidays, everyone!****
* Passover generally means no bread or grains or things involved in leavenedness. As an added bonus, my family also doesn't eat any legumes or seeds, making the whole vegan thing a nice challenge.
** We had these on Thanksgiving and the family liked them so much a return engagement was requested.
*** Speaking of everyone getting old, my grandmother is moving in with us for a while, so things are going to be pretty damn hectic. Therefore, I'm not promising any pictures when all this is over. However, I'll be sure to return in a relatively timely fashion to at least review the dishes (which will probably just involve me saying "Holy crap! Isa, Terry and Joanna are geniuses!" as usual).
**** Sorry, this wasn't really all that short.
Showing posts with label EDandBV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EDandBV. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Friday, April 25, 2008
Passover, Post the Fourth
What the hell does a vegan put on matzo? If you're me, everything.
Cream cheese was always my go-to matzo spread, but that's no longer an option. Peanut butter is out, so I tried almond butter this year but didn't really care for it (I don't like peanut butter either). Jelly made it a little better (less sticky), but I still didn't like it much, so I thought it'd be best to make my own spread and decided on the Roasted Garlic Artichoke Spread with Fresh Oregano from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. Here's a picture of it on it's way into my belly:
As written, the dish should take about an hour to make and should yield great, garlicky, artichokey goodness. But I couldn't find canned artichoke hearts that were kosher for Passover (and didn't even know they can be bought frozen), so I bought ten fresh artichokes and had to prep them before making the spread.
I used this page as a guideline to prepping my artichokes, putting about half a lemon, two crushed garlic cloves and a few shakes of dried parsley in the steamer water. I was using a relatively shallow pot, so the lid was slightly ajar, filling the whole house with the fragrance of the steam. I think I should keep a pot of that on the stove at all times. Seriously. It's such a great aroma.
After they steamed for 35 minutes, I pulled off all the leaves (it didn't occur to me until I was writing this to stick them in cold water before doing that, so it was slow going since I kept dropping the hot artichokes back into the bowl), set them aside to eat tomorrow, chopped up the hearts and made the spread.
Delicious? Indubitably. Spread? Not so much. It'd make a great pizza topping (there's something very pizza-esque about the taste; I think it's the dried oregano), but doesn't really stick to things like matzo, and I wanted a spread, dammit, so I broke out the potato masher and smashed the crap out of the artichoke pieces. Viola! Instead spread.
The next day, I broke out my copy of Vegan With a Vengeance and made the Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Toasted Garlic, which was super easy and fast to make, even when I left the sprouts in the oven a longer than suggested because I like everything super well done. I thought they'd get brown, but they didn't. Weird.
They taste good, but slightly bitter and horseradishy. Maybe that's because they'd been sitting in my fridge for a while, or I just didn't cook them long enough. I'll be reheating them in the oven before I eat them next, so they'll get a bit more cook time (and brownness) that way. As they are, I don't think I'd eat a bowl full of them alone (unlike the Cornmeal-Masala Roasted Brussels Sprouts from Veganomicon), but they'll be great with dinner tonight. They're also great on matzo, over the Roasted Garlic Artichoke Spread.
It's quite possible that this may be my last Passover post (four posts for eight days - not bad), but I'm not sure yet, so I'll leave you with the suspense of not knowing. Ha!
Cream cheese was always my go-to matzo spread, but that's no longer an option. Peanut butter is out, so I tried almond butter this year but didn't really care for it (I don't like peanut butter either). Jelly made it a little better (less sticky), but I still didn't like it much, so I thought it'd be best to make my own spread and decided on the Roasted Garlic Artichoke Spread with Fresh Oregano from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. Here's a picture of it on it's way into my belly:
As written, the dish should take about an hour to make and should yield great, garlicky, artichokey goodness. But I couldn't find canned artichoke hearts that were kosher for Passover (and didn't even know they can be bought frozen), so I bought ten fresh artichokes and had to prep them before making the spread.
I used this page as a guideline to prepping my artichokes, putting about half a lemon, two crushed garlic cloves and a few shakes of dried parsley in the steamer water. I was using a relatively shallow pot, so the lid was slightly ajar, filling the whole house with the fragrance of the steam. I think I should keep a pot of that on the stove at all times. Seriously. It's such a great aroma.
After they steamed for 35 minutes, I pulled off all the leaves (it didn't occur to me until I was writing this to stick them in cold water before doing that, so it was slow going since I kept dropping the hot artichokes back into the bowl), set them aside to eat tomorrow, chopped up the hearts and made the spread.
Delicious? Indubitably. Spread? Not so much. It'd make a great pizza topping (there's something very pizza-esque about the taste; I think it's the dried oregano), but doesn't really stick to things like matzo, and I wanted a spread, dammit, so I broke out the potato masher and smashed the crap out of the artichoke pieces. Viola! Instead spread.
The next day, I broke out my copy of Vegan With a Vengeance and made the Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Toasted Garlic, which was super easy and fast to make, even when I left the sprouts in the oven a longer than suggested because I like everything super well done. I thought they'd get brown, but they didn't. Weird.
They taste good, but slightly bitter and horseradishy. Maybe that's because they'd been sitting in my fridge for a while, or I just didn't cook them long enough. I'll be reheating them in the oven before I eat them next, so they'll get a bit more cook time (and brownness) that way. As they are, I don't think I'd eat a bowl full of them alone (unlike the Cornmeal-Masala Roasted Brussels Sprouts from Veganomicon), but they'll be great with dinner tonight. They're also great on matzo, over the Roasted Garlic Artichoke Spread.
It's quite possible that this may be my last Passover post (four posts for eight days - not bad), but I'm not sure yet, so I'll leave you with the suspense of not knowing. Ha!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
C is for Cookie
And that's good enough for me!
Back in January, Wheeler's Black Label announced an upcoming ice cream party in Brooklyn and put out a call for volunteer bakers. I was overcome with the delusion I could bake and volunteered to make cookies. Approximately five minutes later, I remembered I'd never made cookies before and panicked.
Then I realized I had a month to learn, got myself under control, and decided to make my problem everyone's problem. I searched all my cookbooks and the Internet for likely cookie recipes, then sent the seven I thought would be best to everyone I know, asking which two they would most like to eat with ice cream. I baked the top two, then made everyone in New York taste them and vote for the one they liked best. Over and over and over.
The winner? 5-Spice Almond Cookies from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan.
For the curious, the options were:
VeganYumYum's Pumpkin Whoopie Pies (no filling, I thought they'd make good ice cream sandwiches instead)
VeganYumYum's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
VeganYumYum's Avocado Lime Tea Cookies
Have Cake Will Travel's Gingersnaps
Papa Tofu's Chocolate Whoopie Pies (no filling, I thought they'd make good ice cream sandwiches instead)
Papa Tofu's Chocolate Roll Out Cookies
Eat, Drink & Be Vegan's 5-Spice Almond Cookies
The gingersnaps and 5-spice almond cookies received the most votes (by a landslide) and I hit the kitchen.
For my first try, I followed both recipes exactly as written.
The gingersnaps tasted great, held together well, were super cute, but didn't "snap". They were very soft and almost grainy inside. If left in the oven longer, they probably would have been great, but, like I said, I wasn't improvising at all. I learned from my attempts at gingerbread men that cookies may harden after coming out of the oven, so I didn't want to over bake them and end up with gingerrocks. They were gingery, but not too gingery. A common comment was "I don't usually like ginger cookies, but these are nice". I wonder if the turbinado sugar sprinkled on top helped cut the spice.
The 5-spice almond cookies tasted great, but fell right apart. By the time I brought them to my friends, I had a 5-spice almond blob. A really nice, spicy (but not too spicy) blob of goodness, but a blob nonetheless.
The general consensus was that I should go with the gingersnaps because they could actually be picked up and eaten, but if I could get the texture of the 5-spice right, go with those.
All the gingersnaps:
Gingersnaps, up close and personal:
5-spice almond cookies, try the first:
Macroooo!:
Back to the kitchen. The 5-spice almond recipe says to make tablespoon-sized cookies and bake for eleven minutes. I made mine half-tablespoon sized and baked them for closer to fifteen minutes. Brought a metric assload of both cookies to a Super Bowl party where I played with Legos instead of watching the game and polled the constituents. The verdict: 5-spice almond. Even some of the people who had originally gone with the gingersnaps changed their minds.
Take two:
I was convinced. Having attended Wheeler's previous event, I knew to expect loads of people, so I locked myself in the kitchen the night before and baked my butt off:
They went over very well and are now my go-to cookie. A friend of mine recently got a job out of state and I mailed him a batch of these to make him feel more at home (what's homier than home cooking?). As I mentioned yesterday, I'm going to bake for everyone who joins or sponsors me in this year's AIDS Walk. These are probably what you all will be getting (unless you have an allergy or something). Lucky for me, doubling the recipe makes just a few too many cookies to fit in the tin I think I'll be using to ship, so I get to indulge a bit too (and walk it off!).
Thanks to everyone who participated in the cookie selection process! Without you, I would probably still be huddled in the corner of my kitchen, rocking back and forth and muttering "Cookies...ice cream...cookies...ice cream".
Back in January, Wheeler's Black Label announced an upcoming ice cream party in Brooklyn and put out a call for volunteer bakers. I was overcome with the delusion I could bake and volunteered to make cookies. Approximately five minutes later, I remembered I'd never made cookies before and panicked.
Then I realized I had a month to learn, got myself under control, and decided to make my problem everyone's problem. I searched all my cookbooks and the Internet for likely cookie recipes, then sent the seven I thought would be best to everyone I know, asking which two they would most like to eat with ice cream. I baked the top two, then made everyone in New York taste them and vote for the one they liked best. Over and over and over.
The winner? 5-Spice Almond Cookies from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan.
For the curious, the options were:
VeganYumYum's Pumpkin Whoopie Pies (no filling, I thought they'd make good ice cream sandwiches instead)
VeganYumYum's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
VeganYumYum's Avocado Lime Tea Cookies
Have Cake Will Travel's Gingersnaps
Papa Tofu's Chocolate Whoopie Pies (no filling, I thought they'd make good ice cream sandwiches instead)
Papa Tofu's Chocolate Roll Out Cookies
Eat, Drink & Be Vegan's 5-Spice Almond Cookies
The gingersnaps and 5-spice almond cookies received the most votes (by a landslide) and I hit the kitchen.
For my first try, I followed both recipes exactly as written.
The gingersnaps tasted great, held together well, were super cute, but didn't "snap". They were very soft and almost grainy inside. If left in the oven longer, they probably would have been great, but, like I said, I wasn't improvising at all. I learned from my attempts at gingerbread men that cookies may harden after coming out of the oven, so I didn't want to over bake them and end up with gingerrocks. They were gingery, but not too gingery. A common comment was "I don't usually like ginger cookies, but these are nice". I wonder if the turbinado sugar sprinkled on top helped cut the spice.
The 5-spice almond cookies tasted great, but fell right apart. By the time I brought them to my friends, I had a 5-spice almond blob. A really nice, spicy (but not too spicy) blob of goodness, but a blob nonetheless.
The general consensus was that I should go with the gingersnaps because they could actually be picked up and eaten, but if I could get the texture of the 5-spice right, go with those.
All the gingersnaps:
Gingersnaps, up close and personal:
5-spice almond cookies, try the first:
Macroooo!:
Back to the kitchen. The 5-spice almond recipe says to make tablespoon-sized cookies and bake for eleven minutes. I made mine half-tablespoon sized and baked them for closer to fifteen minutes. Brought a metric assload of both cookies to a Super Bowl party where I played with Legos instead of watching the game and polled the constituents. The verdict: 5-spice almond. Even some of the people who had originally gone with the gingersnaps changed their minds.
Take two:
I was convinced. Having attended Wheeler's previous event, I knew to expect loads of people, so I locked myself in the kitchen the night before and baked my butt off:
They went over very well and are now my go-to cookie. A friend of mine recently got a job out of state and I mailed him a batch of these to make him feel more at home (what's homier than home cooking?). As I mentioned yesterday, I'm going to bake for everyone who joins or sponsors me in this year's AIDS Walk. These are probably what you all will be getting (unless you have an allergy or something). Lucky for me, doubling the recipe makes just a few too many cookies to fit in the tin I think I'll be using to ship, so I get to indulge a bit too (and walk it off!).
Thanks to everyone who participated in the cookie selection process! Without you, I would probably still be huddled in the corner of my kitchen, rocking back and forth and muttering "Cookies...ice cream...cookies...ice cream".
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Eat, Drink & Be Awesome
After hearing some good things about it, I recently picked up Dreena Burton's Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. I like it enough to be interested in getting her other two books, but not any time soon because I have TOO MANY DAMN COOKBOOKS already.
Anyway, I was in an Indian sort of mood, so I made the Zucchini Chickpea Tomato Curry and Cucumber Mint Raita. NOM!
For the curry, the cook time is short enough to keep the green beans crunchy, which is super awesome. And the seasoning is perfect. I think it may be a bit spicier than the Red Lentil Cauliflower Curry from Veganomicon, but it's still very good (if I had to choose between the two, I'd pick the VCON one, though. Sorry! Thankfully, I don't have to!). I ate this for lunch every day for a week, then made myself switch over to something else and freeze the leftovers (the portions are very generous as listed). I finally came back to my frozen curry yesterday and it was such a treat. I ate the last portion today and my belly is still doing a happy dance (metaphorically speaking).
The raita was really interesting. My brother came downstairs while I was grating the cucumber and asked what I was doing. When I told him, he said "That's the stupidest ingredient ever. Cucumber doesn't have any taste. You're doing all that work for nothing."
O RLY?
I had him smell the grated cucumber when it was done, and he couldn't believe what a strong fragrance it had (I don't know how he could miss it). Mixed in with the mint, it added a very fresh, cool flavor to the yogurt. I know raita is supposed to be served with roti, but I ate the curry over rice and didn't want another carb, so I just threw it on a basic salad (usually using much less than pictured below; I just wanted to make sure it photographed all right). It was splendid.
Anyway, I was in an Indian sort of mood, so I made the Zucchini Chickpea Tomato Curry and Cucumber Mint Raita. NOM!
For the curry, the cook time is short enough to keep the green beans crunchy, which is super awesome. And the seasoning is perfect. I think it may be a bit spicier than the Red Lentil Cauliflower Curry from Veganomicon, but it's still very good (if I had to choose between the two, I'd pick the VCON one, though. Sorry! Thankfully, I don't have to!). I ate this for lunch every day for a week, then made myself switch over to something else and freeze the leftovers (the portions are very generous as listed). I finally came back to my frozen curry yesterday and it was such a treat. I ate the last portion today and my belly is still doing a happy dance (metaphorically speaking).
The raita was really interesting. My brother came downstairs while I was grating the cucumber and asked what I was doing. When I told him, he said "That's the stupidest ingredient ever. Cucumber doesn't have any taste. You're doing all that work for nothing."
O RLY?
I had him smell the grated cucumber when it was done, and he couldn't believe what a strong fragrance it had (I don't know how he could miss it). Mixed in with the mint, it added a very fresh, cool flavor to the yogurt. I know raita is supposed to be served with roti, but I ate the curry over rice and didn't want another carb, so I just threw it on a basic salad (usually using much less than pictured below; I just wanted to make sure it photographed all right). It was splendid.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
