Hemp Shtshav (Schav) שטשאַװ מיט קאָנאָפּליעס

There is nothing in the world like shtshav (I didn’t say there is nothing better; I just said there is nothing like it). The word shtshav in Yiddish refers both to the delicate lemony herb sorrel (rumex acetosa) and to the cooling and restorative soup in which it is most famously employed. Shtshav is high in oxalic acid, and is best enjoyed along with something high in protein and fat. In its most familiar version, shtshav is cooked with eggs. In this deconstructed version, hardboiled eggs are served alongside. I thought it was about time to try a vegan and non-allergenic alternative, and hemp seeds seemed to be the ideal medium to enrich a pareve shtshav. This worked even better than I thought—I will make it again even when I do not need to be keeping vegan. Other cooling herbal creations are to be found at Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging, this week at Briciole.

Hemp Shtshav (Schav)

2 or 3 bunches of sorrel (about 1 pound)

1 cup ( 6 ounces) hemp Seeds

about 1 tablespoon salt, more to taste

1 diced summer onion

diced Kirby cucumbers (about 5)

lemon wedges

Wash the sorrel well, and trim the stems. Even if you share my enthusiasm for stems in general, you need to remove stems from sorrel.

Put the sorrel, hemp seeds and salt in a pot with about two quarts of boiling water and cook for about forty minutes. Puree very thoroughly in a blender. Serve cold with, diced cucumbers, summer onion, and lemon wedges.

שטשאַװ מיט קאָנאָפּליעס

2 אָדער 3 בינטלעך שטשאַװ (אַן ארך 1 פֿונט)

1 טעפּל קאָנאָפּליעס

1 לעפֿל זאַלץ

5 אוגערקעס, צעשניטן

1 זומער־ציבעלע, צעשניטן

רעפֿטלעך לימענע

װאַשט'ץ גוט די שטשאַװ, און נעמט'ץ אַראָפּ די שטענגלעך. טוט'ץ שטשאַװ אַרײַן אין אַ טאָפּ מיט קאָנאָפּליעס, זאַלץ, און 2 קװאַרט װאַסער. קאָכט'ץ אַ 40 מינוט און מאָלט'ץ זײ גוט אָפּ אין אַ בלענד־מאַשין. דערלאַנגט'ץ מיט אוגערקעס, ציבעלע, רעפֿטלעך לימענע און אַ ביסל יאָגורט, אױב סע גלוסט זיך.

קיכעלעך אָדער פּײַעלעך מיט פּאָװידלע

װעגאַן טײג

2 טעפּלעך מאַנדלען (12 אָנצן)

4 אָנצן קאָנאָפּליעס

2 לעפֿל פֿלאַקס־קערן

¼ טעפּל בעסאַן (אַרבעס־מעל)

1 טעפּל צוקער

½ טעפּל קאָקאָנוס־שמאַלץ

מאָלט'ץ אָפּ די מאַנדלען אױף מעל. עץ װעט האָבן 2 ½ טעפּלעך מאַנדל־מעל. בראָט'ץ אָפּ די קאָנאָפּליעס אין אַ פֿענדל זײ זאָלן האָבן אַ גאָלדענעם־קאָליר אָן מאָלט'ץ זײ אָפּ אױף מעל. מאָלט'ץ אָפּ די פֿלאַקס־קערן אױף מעל (עץ קאָן להתחלה קױפֿן פֿלאַקס־מעל אױך). מישט'ץ אױס דאָס מאַנדל־מעל, קאָנאָלפּליע־מעל, פֿלאַקס־מעל און אַרבעס־מעל מיט צוקער און קאָקאָנוס־שמאַלץ עס זאָל װערן אַ טײג, און לאָזט'ץ עס צו רו אין לאָדאָװע אַ שעה־צײַט.

צו מאַכן די פּאָװידלע האָב איך ספּעציעל געקױפֿט פֿלױמען מיט די קערעלעך, װײַל איך האָב אַ מאָל אין ערגעץ געהערט אָדער געלײענט אַז די קערעלעך געבן צו אַ בעסערן טעם.

פּאָװידלע

12 אָנצן פֿלױםען מיט די קערעלעך אָדער 10 מיט ½ אָנצן אָן קערעלך

1 לאַובער־בלעטל (אױב מע װיל)

אַ ביסל מאַרטאַנצן אָדער לימענע שאָלעכץ (אױב מע װיל)

אַ װאַניל־שײטל (אױב מע װיל)

אַ לעפֿל שליװאָװיץ (מע װיל)

½ ביז 1 טעפּל האָניק אָדער אַגאַװע

קאָכט'ץ אָפּ די פֿלױמען מיט 3 טעפּלעך װאַסער און די אַנדערע אינגרעדיענטן, אױב מע װיל זײ. נאָך צען מינוט קאָכן, דעקט'ץ צו דעם טאָפּ אָן לאָז זײ זיך באָדן אַ פּאָר שעה אָדער אַ נאַכט. גיט'ץ צו נאָך אַ ביסט װאַסער אַלעש זאָלן זײַן גוט צוגעדעקט. װען זײ זענענ זײער װײך, װעט עס זײַן גרינג אַראָפּצונעמען די קערעלעך. פֿאַרגעסט'ץ נישט אַרױסצונעמען די בלעטלעך, אָדער װאַניל־שײטלעך, אָדער מאַראַנצן־שאָלעכץ, אױב מע האָט זײ אַרײַנגעטאָן. מאָלט'ץ אָפּ די פּאָװידלע אין אַ פּראָצעסירער און גיט'ץ צו האָניק אָדער אַגאַװע. מאַכט'ץ קיכעלעך אָדער קלײנע טערטלעך פֿונעם טײג און פֿילט'ץ זײ אײַן מיט פּאָװידלע. באַקט זײ אױף 350 גראַד אַ צװאַנציק מינוט.

The recipe for gluten-free vegan dough appeared in English here.

The recipe for prune filling (povidle) appeared in English here.

Hemp Seed Cookies (Gluten-Free)

This dough is vegan and wheat free, but most decidedly not sugar-free.

Wheat-Free Vegan Dough for Cookies or Tart Shells

2 cups (12 ounces) raw almonds

4 ounces hemp seeds

2 tablesppons golden flax seeds (or regular flax seeds)

¼ cup chickpea flour

1 cup sugar (These were quite sweet. Less sugar would probably be just fine)

½ cup coconut oil

Grind the almonds to a fine meal in a processor or grinder. You will have about 2 ½ cups of almond flour. Toast the hemp seeds to a light golden color and grind them to a fine meal. Grind the flax seeds (or you can buy ground flax meal to start with). Combine the ground nuts and seeds with the chickpea flour in a processor with the sugar and coconut oil, or mix by hand to form a cohesive dough. Chill the dough for an hour or so. This makes a delicious sable-type pastry. It will not hold together quite well enough for homentashn, but you can make wonderful thumbprint cookies (prune filling will be a nice match) or tart shells.

Kalyn provided the original inspiration for this recipe with these adorable almond cookies. See all the Weekend Herb Blogging entries by Ramona at The Houndstooth Gourmet this week.

Herbed Hemp Seed Balls

These turned out a bit more like falafel balls than that other kind of ball (this makes me think it might be worthwhile to try hemp seed falafel next time), but they are still delicious on their own as finger food, and really just perfect along with pasta and sauce.

Other herbals and herb balls for the weekend are to be rounded up by Kel at Green Olive Tree.

Herbed Hemp Seed Balls

¼ cup (2 ounces) golden flax seeds, or regular flax seeds

1 ½ cups (8 ounces) hemp seeds

olive oil (be liberal)

3 or 4 onions, diced

5-7 cloves garlic, minced

½ bunch parsley (1/2 cup minced leaves)

½ teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled between your fingers

salt, pepper, and paprika

Cover the flax seeds with ½ cup water and allow them to soak several hours or overnight. Grind the soaked flax to a paste. Toast the hemp seeds in an iron skillet until light golden brown. Lightly crush or process the seeds to a rough meal. Heat the oil in a skillet and cook the diced onions until soft and translucent. Add the minced garlic and continue cooking until soft and fragrant. Mix together the hemp and flax seeds, cooked onions and garlic, minced and crushed herbs, and seasonings, adding more water as necessary to make the mixture hold together. Form into walnut-sized balls.

Put the hemp balls in an iron skillet or other ovenproof vessel, and drizzle them with olive oil. Bake at 350 for forty minutes or until they are nicely brown. You can also try cooking them on the stovetop, but this did not work quite as well.

Hemp Seed Filling for Tarts, pastries, and Homentashn (Hamentashen)

Well, of course I am beginning to think of poppy seed fillings, even if we have (blessedly) an extra month to think about them this year, and it seemed to me that the qualities of richness, mild bitterness, and just general seedlikeness (seediness?) that makes mon, or poppy, such an ideal pastry filling all work in favor of hemp seeds too, maybe even more so. My very first hemp seed filling is so delicious that I will be making many more, possibly a hemp and poppy mosaic sometime. Erin from The Skinny Gourmet will be hosting Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging, where you will find all manner of plant-based sweetness.

Hemp Seed Filling for Tarts, pastries, and Homentashn (Hamentashen)

2 cups hulled hemp seeds

1 cup milk (in this recipe, you can easily substitute soymilk or coconut milk)

½ cup agave (or honey)

4 cardamom pods

2 pinches salt

Zest from one largish lemon, grated or microplaned

Toast the hempseeds in an iron skillet to a light golden brown, stirring constantly. Do not toast them quite this dark, because they are headed for a little further cooking. When the toasted seeds have cooled a bit grind them to a coarse meal in a processor or grinder. You could probably leave them whole too, if you feel like skipping this step. Put the ground seeds in a small saucepan with the milk, agave, cardamom pods, and lemon zest. Cook over a gentle heat, stirring until the mixture has thickened. Allow the filling to cool and for heaven’s sake don’t forget to remove those cardamom pods! You can now use the filling for homentashn, strudl, or little tartlettes like these, made with Maida Heatter’s chocolate shortbread dough.

Food and Drink, Recipes, Cooking, Food, Vegetarian, vegan, vegetables, antioxidant-rich foods, Weekend Herb Blogging, whb, chocolate, Baking, Dessert, pastry, hamentashen

Hemp Seed Tabouli (and a Belated Introduction to the Hemp Seed Project)

So, what’s with all the hemp seeds, already? My enthusiasm for these rich little seeds has bewildered some of you, and I admit I did not know anything like this was going to happen when I began developing hemp seed recipes a little over a year ago. These guys are close to miraculous in their protein content, omega 3-6-9 profile, fiber and, of course, antioxidants. None of this would be of any interest to me at all if I could not also make them delicious.

You can look up information on hemp seed nutrition at Manitoba Harvest, Nutiva, and Living Harvest. I wish I could refer you to site that did not also sell hemp seeds, but so far the otherwise comprehensive USDA nutrition reference site has taken no notice of hemp seeds. One very reasonable explanation for this is that hardly anyone eats them, and the reason for that is they just don’t have enough good recipes. This is what motivates the hemp seed project In Mol Araan. A few traditional hemp seed recipes come from Lithuanian Cuisine. I have made up some recipes ex tempore based on what was most fresh and plentiful at the time, like these awesome, crisp, meltingly tender zucchini pancakes. I made other recipes, like this tabouli-inspired salad, by jumping off from preparations traditional in other cuisines. This hemp seed tabouli has the advantage of being even more delicious than traditional tabouli, as well as being wheat-free, gluten-free, low-glycemic, and high in protein and antioxidants. See Sweetnicks for similarly virtuous creations.

Hemp Seed Tabouli

2 cups hemp seeds

¼ cup olive oil

4 sprigs fresh mint (¼ cup mint leaves, minced)

½ bunch parsley (½ cup parsley leaves, minced)

3 cloves garlic (I used roja garlic this time)

juice from two lemons

salt

Tabasco sauce

Tomatoes, peeled and seeded (you may use no tomatoes or up to four or five)

Lettuce, if you wish

Put the hemp seed s in a bowl and pour in enough hot or warm water to cover them. Allow to soak half an hour or so. Drain the seeds, reserving the hemp-milk for baking, soup, or smoothies. Mince the herbs together with the garlic cloves and one teaspoon salt. Dress the hemp seeds with oil, minced herbs, and lemon juice. Cut the peeled and seeded tomatoes, if you are using them, into medium dice, and mix them into the hemp salad and scatter a few on top. Serve the salad on some pretty lettuce leaves or just a pretty little bowl.

This recipe appeared in Yiddish here.

דער רעצעפּט געפֿינט זיך אױף ייִדיש דאָ

Peasant Farming in Muscovy, by R. E. F. Smith (London and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977) lists hemp among the taxable grains in 17^th century Russia (193). I just have to add that from a footnote on the same page we learn that the pairing of one unit of rye and two of oats was known as yuft’. It just bakes my potatoes to learn that there is a word for one unit of rye and two of oats. I am just going to be using that word at every apropos moment.

Chile Con Oplye (Hemp Seed Chile)

Pasilla chile, left, and chipotle chile, right. The pasilla is really three times longer than it looks; it just got dried in a folded position.

I somehow got by for years and years without making chile. I use chiles in all kinds of things, of course, and I make beans in some form almost every week in the winter, but somehow chile itself was something I’d always get around to later. Maybe I thought it was too much of a vegetarian cliché. I am more easily intimidated about these things than you might guess.

It turns out that chile is wonderful stuff, especially if you follow the advice of the eternal Deborah Madison and roast and grind your own chile powder. No, really; it is easy, and wow, you get bright orange and purple whirlpools of flavor.

This was my first experience with epazote, an herb about which many folks I know are endlessly enthusiastic. It is lovely alongside the chiles and oregano if you are able to find it. What makes this chile so amazing? Is it the pasilla? The epazote? Could it possibly be the hemp seeds? Perhaps I should explain that this recipe takes its whimsical name from the Yiddish word for hemp: קאָנאָפּליע konoplye.

Chile Con Oplye (Hemp Seed Chile)

For the beans:

1 ½ cups dried pinto beans

2 dried red chiles, such as chicostles

2 bay leaves

3 whole garlic cloves

1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds

½ bunch epazote, if you have some

2 teaspoons salt

For the chile:

1 pasilla chile

1 chipotle chile

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

4 teaspoons oregano

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

½ teaspoon cayenne, or more, to taste

1 ½ cups hemp seeds

olive oil, or other oil (be liberal)

2 cups diced onions

7 whole garlic cloves

1 ½ cups diced carrots

1 ½ cups diced celery

1 ½ cups diced bell peppers

4 poblano chiles (optional)

minced leaves from 1 sprig epazote, if you have some

5 medium tomatoes (a generous 2 pounds)

salt

Cover the beans with water and soak for four hours or overnight. Drain the beans and put them in a pot or a slow-cooker with the chiles, bay leaves, garlic, cumin seeds, epazote, salt, and water to cover. Cook until the beans are tender. This may take one or two hours. Remove the chile pods, bay leaves, and epazote stems.

[ETA]  I no longer soak beans.   Just put the dried beans in the cooker. The flavor gained is worth it.

Roast the pasilla and chipotle chile in the oven at 375 for about five minutes. When they are cool enough to handle, tear them up and grind to a powder in a spice grinder or coffee grinder. Remember to wash your hands thoroughly after handling chiles! Toast the cumin seeds in a cast iron skillet for a few minutes until fragrant. Add the oregano and stir for a few seconds more, and then add the paprika and cayenne and remove from heat. Grind the cumin mixture in the grinder and set aside with the chile powder. Put the hemp seeds in the skillet, and toast them, stirring constantly, to a light golden color. Char the poblanos under the broiler, and steam them in a bag until cool enough to handle. Remove the skins, stems, and seeds, and chop the peppers. Scald the tomatoes and remove the skins and seeds. Chop the tomatoes roughly.

Heat oil in a wide pot and add the onions. When the onions become translucent, add the garlic, carrots, celery, and diced peppers. Cook another twenty minutes or so, and when the vegetables are tender, add the ground herbs and spices and the hemp seeds. Stir and cook a few minutes and add the tomatoes and poblanos, and then the cooked beans with their broth. Cook and stir until the beans are quite done. Add salt as needed. Ah, I have no words! You just have to try this.

Other things you should try are to be found at Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Scott at Real Epicurean.

Food and Drink, Recipes, Cooking, Food, Vegetarian, vegetables, vegan, Weekend Herb Blogging, antioxidant-rich foods,

Hemp Seed and Cashew Cheese

Egg noodles with butter, paprika, and hemp seed ricotta

Last week I made rejuvelac by soaking sprouted rye berries in water for one day. I made some very delicious crackers with the leftover rye berries and this week I finally made the cheese-like spread for which all these preparations were intended. Sprouting the rye berries and making the rejuvelac takes several days, but you can also buy it in some health food stores, and once you have some, making the cheese is fairly straightforward. The cheese I prepared is based on the recipe for cashew cheese in Raw, by Charlie Trotter and Roxanne Klein, a book which is endlessly interesting, even if you think, as I did, that you will never be tempted to try any of these crazy things. I say this was worth the effort, especially since I now have plenty of rejuvelac to use for some other vegan cheese recipes. Rejuvelac itself is gluten-free, even though it is made with rye, but you can make it with sprouted rice or quinoa to be on the safe side.

Hemp Seed and Cashew Cheese

1 ½ cups hemp seeds

1 ½ cups cashew pieces

¼ cup rejuvelac

½ teaspoon salt

Place the cashews and hemp seeds in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Boil for twenty minutes and allow them to cool to room temperature in the water (If you wish to make this an all-raw recipe, simply soak the nuts and seeds overnight). Grind the nuts and seeds with the rejuvelac and salt in a blender or processor (I used my champion juicer). Place the cheese in a strainer with two layers of cheesecloth and allow it to drain several hours or overnight. Refrigerate overnight.

I am in general very skeptical about trying to imitate foods, but this is great stuff. So far, everyone who has tried this has loved it, and not all of us are vegans by any means.

See Melissa’s roundup of Weekend Herb Blogging at Cooking Diva.

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antioxidant-rich foods

Zucchini and Green Chile Soup (with Beet and Red Chile Soup)

I have been haunted of late by a puree of zucchini, green chiles, and hemp seeds that would make a wonderful soup, but I wondered if I could justify making yet more soup when I still had a pot of the beet, tomato, and red chile soup I had made a few days earlier. Then I remembered that photo in The Natural Cuisine of Georges Blanc—you know the one I mean, the one where he serves four pureed vegetable soups together. Wow, I do like that picture.

Quartet of Vegetable Purees reproduced from The Natural Cuisine of Georges Blanc

The four vegetables seen in their pureed forms above are string beans, tomatoes, red pepper, and celeriac. I would really like to make all four someday. I would like even more to make a fifth, because I especially like the look of a plate with five elements on it. Purple potato, yellow carrot, something like that. Anyway, so far I am only up to two soups at one time. This presentation is a bit easier if your soups are on the thicker side but not too thick (I know, it’s hard to get the thickness just right), and if both soups are close to the same consistency. Both of these dairy-free soups get their satiny creaminess from pureed hemp seeds.

Zucchini and Green Chile Soup

Olive oil

1 large onion, sliced

7 cloves garlic, peeled

2 small (or 1 large) bell peppers

1 fresh green chile, or more, to taste

greens from one bunch of beets (about ½ pound) roughly chopped

4 medium zucchini or other summer squash (about 1 pound) sliced or chopped

1 cup hemp seeds (4 ounces)

½ cup raw cashews (2 ounces)

several sprigs dill (1/4 cup snipped leaves)

several sprigs cilantro (1/4 cup minced leaves)

1 sprig sage

salt

Heat the oil in a large soup kettle. Add the onion, garlic and peppers and cook unitl thoroughly relaxed. Add the zucchini, beet greens, hemp seeds and cashews and continue to stir and cook several minutes more. Add 2 quarts of water and two teaspoons slat and bring to the boil. Cook until the vegetables and nuts are quite tender. Remove from heat and add the herbs. Puree the soup in batches in a blender or using the pureeing-modality of your choice. This soup is just perfect as is, but if you happen to have some beet, tomato and red chile puree (recipe pending) on hand, pour a little of each soup into a shallow soup plate and swoop a little spiral on the surface with a spoon. Ah, that’s nice.

This recipe is my submission for Jihva for Chillies. The final fiery roundup by Nandita is to be found at Saffron Trail.

Zucchini Hemp Seed Latkes: Cooking for Karina

This is the first in what I hope will be a veritable avalanche of recipes suitable for Karina, the Gluten-Free Goddess, who has recently found that she is allergic to milk, eggs (including whites and yolks), chicken, turkey, gluten (that includes wheat, barley, rye, spelt, kamut - and oats, to play on the safe side), peanuts, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, soybeans, lemon, avocado, pineapple, papaya, green beans and kidney beans. In Karina’s honor, and for the benefit of the growing number of folks with multiple food allergies, and to give us all a chance to flex our food-blogging muscles, Isaiah of Gluten Free by the Bay has created “Cooking for Karina: A Blogging Festival and Cooking Challenge” for which she asks us to post wonderful recipes that don’t have any of the above ingredients.

If you have a recipe that would be useful to Karina and do not have a blog, send it along to me or to Gluten-Free by the Bay so it can be included in the round-up.

This week I made these light, flavorful zucchini latkes. The squash flavor really shines in this egg-free batter. I used some very pretty starship squash, and I was almost sorry to shred them up, but glad I did.

Zucchini Hemp Seed Latkes: Cooking for Karina

1 pound summer squash (about 4 smallish zucchini)

½ cup (about 6 ounces) hempseeds

½ cup coconut milk

½ cup chickpea flour (besan), or a bit more if needed

7-8 sprigs (4 tablespoons) snipped dill

salt

black pepper and paprika, if desired

oil for frying (be liberal)

Shred the squash place it in a colander. Salt lightly and allow to drain for an hour or so. At the same time, soak the hemp seeds for an hour or so in water. Drain the hemp seeds and grind them in a processor with the coconut milk. Drain the zucchini and mix it with the ground hemp seeds, snipped dill, about another half teaspoon of salt and some pepper if desired. Mix in the chickpea flour. Now heat the non-allergenic oil of your choice in one or two large skillets. With your hands, form the zucchini and hemp seed batter into pancakes and fry them on both sides until golden. The smaller you make the latkes, the more meltingly crisp surface area you will have. We had these with black rice and the last bit of these white beans with thyme with some sautéed chard and garlic mixed in. That was really the cat’s pajamas.

Vegetables with Herbed Hemp Seed Filling

Lush bouquets of herbs, some quite new to me, are in my current CSA delivery. Summer savory is an herb I have not had the pleasure of using until this week. It is nicely sharp and peppery and seems to go well with white beans, cheese, and the filling below. If you don’t happen to have any, you can make the recipe without, and if you have no fresh oregano, use half a teaspoon dried. I happened to see these perfectly spherical tomatoes and zucchini at the Tompkins Square farmers’ market and thought they would make snazzy containers for this dish.

Zucchini and Tomatoes with Herbed Hemp Seed Filling

4 billiard ball-size globe zucchini or 4 smallish regular zucchini

4 billiard ball-size tomatoes

¾ cup hemp seeds, lightly toasted

½ cup grated parmesan (about an ounce)

3 cloves garlic

½ cup minced parsley (leaves from half of one small bunch parsley)

leaves from two sprigs fresh oregano (or ½ teaspoon dried oregano)

leaves from 2 sprigs summer savory

salt

black pepper (7 turns, about 1/3 teaspoon)

olive oil

Cut lids out of the tops of the tomatoes and zucchini.You will have best results if you cut into the tops of the of the vegetables at a sharp angle to remove cone-shaped sections. These mini-berets will be the lids for the stuffed vegetables. Remove and discard the tomato seeds. Use a melon baler or small spoon to scoop the insides out of the tomatoes, and set the pulp aside. Scoop out the zucchini pulp and set it aside in a separate bowl. Salt the zucchini pulp lightly. Salt the insides of the tomato and zucchini cups as well.

Smash the garlic cloves and add about ¾ teaspoon salt. Mince the garlic and salt together with the leaves of the parsley, oregano, and savory. Drain the zucchini pulp and mince the zucchini and tomato together. Combine the chopped pulp in a bowl with the hemp seeds, parmesan, minced garlic and herbs, and pepper. Add about one tablespoon of olive oil so that everything holds together nicely. Mix mix, toss toss.

Blanch the zucchini cups and lids for about two minutes in boiling water. This is so they will bake up to the same tenderness as the tomatoes.

Drizzle a bit of olive oil onto the bottom of a baking dish into which all the vegetables should fit comfortably. Spoon the filling into the tomato and squash cups, top with their little yarmulkes, place them in the dish and drizzle on just a bit more oil. Into the oven at 350f for about 40 minutes.

Weekend Herb Blogging is back at home this week at Kalyn's Kitchen. Read her Sunday roundup to plan an herb-filled holiday.

Food and Drink, Recipes, Cooking, Food, Vegetarian, vegetables, whb, Weekend Herb Blogging, antioxidant-rich foods

סאַלאַט מיט קאָנאָפּליעס און פּעטרישקע--כּמו־טאַבאָלע

סאַלאַט מיט קאָנאָפּליעס און פּעטרישקע (כּמו־טאַבאָלע)

1 טעפּל קאָנאָפּליעס

1 קלײן בינטל פּעטרישקע, גוט צעשניטן

¼ טעפּל מאַסלינע בױמל

זאַפֿט פֿון 1 לימענע

1 רױטע פֿעפֿערל, אָפּגעשײלט און צעשניטן

זאַלץ און פּאַפּריקע

סאַלאַט בלעטער

גיסט'ץ אָן די קאָנאָפּליעס מיט ¼ טעפּל הײסע װאַסער און לאָז זײ אײַנצוװײקן אַ פּאָר מיניט. גיט'ץ צו בױמל, צעשניטענע פּעטרישקע, און זאַפֿט. גיט'ץ צו דאָס פֿעפֿערל און מישט'ץ גוט אױס. לײגט'ץ די "טאַבאָלע" אױף סאַלאַט בלעטער.

This recipe appears in English here.

דער רעצעפּט געפֿינט זיך אױף ענגליש דאָ

Hemp Seed and Tahini Salad (A Gesture Toward Hummus)

This recipe is not substitute for khumes (hummus); it is its own little thing—a gesture toward hummus.

Hemp Seed and Tahini Salad (Hemp Seed Hummus)

1 ½ cups hulled hemp seeds

salt, about two teaspoons

3 cloves garlic (more or less)

½ - ¾ cup tahini (I used roasted tahini this time)

½ cup lemon juice (it is also nice to substitute brine from pickled hot peppers, if you happen to have some)

several sprigs cilantro (about ¼ cup minced) optional

1 dried chicostle chile or other medium dried red chile
Several tablespoons of your loveliest olive oil
A dusting of sumac, and a dusting of paprika or Middle Eastern red pepper

Put the hemp seeds and salt in a saucepan with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for ten minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool somewhat.

Drop the peeled garlic cloves and dried chile into a processor or other device and grind or mince fine. Add the hemp seeds with their liquid, tahini and lemon juice. Blend everything well, and chill.

Turn the salad out onto a shallow plate or platter. Use the back of a spoon to swirl eddies and ridges in the center and drizzle olive oil over all. Dust with sumac or paprika or both.

Have a look at a roundup of Weekend Herb Blogging, to be found this week at Kitchen Wench.

Food and Drink, Recipes, Cooking, Food, Vegetarian, vegetables, , whb, vegan, hummus, beans, Weekend Herb Blogging, antioxidant-rich foods

Hemp and Walnut Kneydlekh (Wheat-Free Matzo Balls)

The biggest difference in preparation between these guys and regular matzo balls is that you will make the batter just a tiny bit stiffer—matzo will continue to absorb moisture as the batter sits, but nuts do not. You could probably make this with all walnuts or all hemp seeds. I will be trying some other nut-combinations once the holiday begins. These kneydlekh are different from matzo balls, but they are satisfyingly toothy nonetheless. I will certainly be making them again, and I eat wheat all the time.

Hemp and Walnut Kneydlekh (Wheat-Free Matzo Balls)
(This recipe appeared in Yiddish here, along with a recipe for miso-ginger broth, which will be showing up in English sometime after Passover)

2 eggs

½ cup (2 ounces) lightly toasted walnuts

½ cup (2 ounces) lightly toasted hemp seeds

2 tablespoons (1 ounce) butter or coconut oil

salt, pepper, and paprika

Grind the walnuts to a fine meal. Grind the hemp seeds just to break them up very slightly, or leave them whole. Mix the nuts and seeds together. The resule should have the approximate consistency of Streit’s Matzo meal.

Beat the eggs, and season lavishly. Add oil or butter and the nut and seed mixture. Refrigerate the batter a few hours or overnight.

Bring a pot of enthusiastically salted water to a boil. Lower the heat so that it is simmering gently. Form the batter into balls and carefully lower the balls into the water. Cook for about forty minutes. Serve with soup.

Are hemp seeds kitniot?

Some folks say yes. Others say no. And then some say both yes and no. If you find in favor of hemp seed use for Passover, you still have to examine them thoroughly three times. I am pretty excited to be undertaking this task for the first time.

This year, Hungry Hungry Hippo Girl knocked my socks off when she told me about the process by which she examines rice for Passover. You put the rice on a platter, and then, with a fingertip, push the rice, one grain at a time, across to the other side. Then you do it again. And again. Now, this sounds difficult, physically exhausting, and really time-consuming. In other words, I couldn’t wait to try it. The idea of this process (so utterly about food, so completely Jewish) intrigued me so much that I almost wished I used kitniot. Now, with hemp seeds, I have a chance to indulge in two khumres that would normally cancel each other out. You think I am kidding, but I am not.

What on earth am I talking about? The best explanation is Attila’s landmark post on the 4 stages of kitniot.

פּסח

קיטניות
Passover , Pesach,

wheat-free matzo balls,
gluten-free matzo balls,
low glycemic index matzo balls

קאָנאָפּליע־קנײדלעך

קאָנאָפּליע־קנײדלעך

פֿאַר שאָשקע־רײזלען, מיט ליבע ♥

2 אײער

½ טעפּל געבראָטענע קאָנאָפּליעס (2 אָנצן)

½ טעפּל אָפּגעמאָלענע, געבראָטענע װעלשענע ניס (2 אָנצן)

2 לעפֿל קאָקאָנוס שמאַלץ (1 אָנץ)

זאַלץ און פֿעפֿער צום טעם

צעשלאָגט'ץ די אײער און גיט'ץ צו קאָנאָפּליעס, ניס, שמאַלץ, זאַלץ, און פֿעפֿער. עס װעט אױסזען זײער לױז. שטעלט'ץ דאָס טײג אין לאָדאָװע איבערנאַכט. מאַכט'ץ באַלעכלעך װי אַ נוס גרױס. קאָכט'ץ זײ אָפּ אין הײסע, געזאָלצענע װאַסער אַן ערעך 40 מינוט. דאָס מאָל האָב איך פֿאַר זײ געמאַכט אַ מיסאָ־אינגבער יױך

מיסאָ־אינגבער יױך

צו אײן טעפּל װאַסער גיט'ץ צו׃

1 לעפֿל מילד װײַס מיסאָ

1 לעפֿעלע קונזשוט (סעזאַם) בױמל

1 לעפֿעלע שױו (אָדער אַנדערע סױאַ סאָס)

פֿריש־געריבענע אינגבער

פֿעפֿער סאָס לױטן טעם

פֿעלד־גליאַנדער בלעטלעך

מישט'ץ אױס דאָס מיסאָ מיט די אַנדערע אינגרעדיענטן און גיסט'ץ אַרײַן הײסע װאַסער.

פֿעלד־גליאַנדער בלעטלעך
Cilantro leaves

די קאָנאָפּליע
Hemp

די קאָנאָפּליעס
Hemp seeds

Longevity Radishes

We don’t have too many choices at the farmers’ market these days, but we still have some of these gorgeous pink inside-out radishes (also known as bleeding-heart radishes and watermelon radishes). I couldn’t wait to shred one up with endlessly entrancing Cook-Help (joyful beautiful sharp-edged!). Are these the living end? So, I put some in a salad, of course, but these guys were just demanding a recipe of their very own. I thought if I could cook them just a tiny bit, and matched them up with a sauce, they could be delicious and amusing. Not a substitute for pasta, you understand, but something that is somehow about pasta. Sesame sauce is my first try for these. I happened to have some ground cashews with roasted hemp seeds on hand, and all the elements of this dish were very happy together, but it should be just fine with only sesame.

Radish Linguine with Spicy Sesame Sauce

1 pound of radishes, shredded (I used bleeding-hearts, but daikon should be wonderful)

3 cloves garlic, or so

1 grape-sized piece of ginger, peeled

oil for cooking garlic and ginger (I used peanut oil)

1 cup tahini (sesame paste)

1 tablespoon shoyu

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

1 tablespoon hot pepper sesame oil

1 generous tablespoon unfiltered apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar

tea, water, or radish pot-liquor to thin the sauce

gomasio or cashew and hemp-sio

Cook the radish shreds in boiling salted water for two minutes; drain and set aside.

Peel the ginger and garlic. Slice the ginger 1/8 inch thick against the grain. Leave the garlic cloves whole. Cook the ginger and garlic a few minutes in oil until pale gold and fragrant. Scrape them into the bowl of a food-processor and grind to a paste. Add the sesame paste and the seasonings and mix well. With the machine running, add tea, water, or some of the cooking liquid from your radishes. The amount will vary depending on the consistency and freshness of your tahini, but it will be in the neighborhood of one cup. You will have extra sauce, but it is useful to have around to use on other vegetables or even real noodles.

Dress the radish shreds with the sauce. If desired sprinkle with gomasio or cashew and hemp-sio, and garnish with shreds of raw radish.

Cashew and Hemp-sio

1/2 cup roasted hemp seeds

½ cup raw cashew pieces

Grind the seeds and cashews together in a processor or grinder to desired consistency.

This is delicious and enjoyably slurpable. I can’t believe I would never have made this recipe if I hadn’t wanted that picture for my blog.

Really long food, such as noodles, are associated with longevity in many traditions. Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen, was in robust good health for all of his 96 years. Radish-shreds should be counted as well, especially since they are just squiggling with antioxidants.

Food and Drink, Recipes, Cooking, Food, Vegetarian, vegan, vegetables, antioxidant-rich foods, bleeding-heart radishes, watermelon radish, tahini, sesame sauce, pasta mimesis

Every Single Thing I Ate This Week (Part I)

Actually, this photo-mosaic shows every single thing I ate halfway through last Wednesday. I couldn't get everything into the picture because of insufficient geekiness on my part. If all goes well, I hope to post the complete photographic record shortly.

This has been an enormously instructive exercise, and I am grateful to Sam for getting me started. I learned a great deal this week, including the extent to which what I eat differs from the ideal I imagine. The most striking example of this is the soy shake with which I began almost every day. My official position is that one should eat real food that looks like what it really is. My most cherished cookbook is The Unplugged Kitchen by Viana La Place, which advocates a culinary repertoire prepared entirely by hand. Nevertheless, I find it very difficult to face the great bounding, prancing, snorting bull that is the morning without turning on the blender to grind up my hemp seed and soy milk drink. I'm also a little embarrassed to let on about using ingredients like soymilk and hemp seeds. Next you'll be expecting to hear me talk about textured vegetable protein and nutritional yeast. Not that anything is wrong with either of those.

I also eat some things that are decidedly non-photogenic. The deconstructed French toast in cell 6, 2 is an example. On the other hand, my efforts to make my food more photogenic turned out to be the most edifying part of this project. Have a look for example at Tuesday's lunch, the black beans and rice in cell 6, 1. It is not too likely that I would have taken the trouble to mince parsley for a regular weekday lunch at home by myself, but I do sometimes do things like that. It is even more unlikely that I would have sliced those zingy little slivers of Santa Fe chile peppers for that sparkle of redness, but it turns out that the parsley and the peppers were just the very things. I have resolved that henceforth, even if I don't photograph every single thing I eat, I will try to cook and eat as if I do.

I would also like to point out that I did not eat nearly all the food you see here; I had only one spoonful of the ice cream in cell 1, 4 (well, perhaps two or three spoonfuls), and only one bite of each of the pasta dishes in cells 5, 2 and 5, 3, and the injera in 2, 3 and 2, 4. That’s parsnip soup with fried sage leaves in cell 2, 1, and home-squeezed apple juice in 6, 3.

I do not normally drink this much wine or coffee.

Food | Blogging | Photographs | Meals

The First Thing I Ate This Week

This week I will be joining the remarkable Sam of Becks&Posh and an international cohort in a project that combines blogging and conceptual art. I will undertake to photograph everything I eat from now until Sunday night. After only one day I am already a little puzzled at the extent to which my blog diverges from what I really eat. You would have thought I already knew what I really eat, wouldn't you? I am beginning to believe that if you eat something and then don't blog about it, there is a sense in which you haven't really eaten it.

Today the first thing I ate was a shake made with soymilk and hempseeds. Yes, I know; I'm a nut. Tune in Monday and see the whole awful truth.

Soy Shake

2 cups soymilk (I use Westsoy unsweetened soymilk)

2 tablespoons toasted hulled hempseeds

pinch salt

Combine the soymilk, seeds, and salt in a blender and blend at high speed for a few minutes, or grind the seeds in a mill or processor, add them to the soymilk along with the salt and shake well

To Toast Seeds

Heat a cast iron skillet over a medium flame. Add the seeds, and cook, stirring constantly. Remove them from the heat just a moment before they reach the desired golden color, and continue stirring off heat for another minute.

These recipes appeared in Yiddish here. In the excerpt quoted from Shira Gorshman's "Destiny," a Moscow family is startled when their rural in-laws shower the bride with hemp seeds.

Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging is to be found this week at Cook (Almost) Everything at Least Once

Weekend Herb Blogging, whb,
Food and Drink, Recipes, Cooking, Food, Vegetarian, vegan, antioxidant-rich foods, hemp seeds, hempseeds, soy shake