Vegan Pistachio Macaroons

 

Vegan Pistachio Chia Macaroons

1 ounce pistachio pulp (leftover from two batches of pistachio ice cream)

1 ounce sugar

2 tablespoons chia porridge (recipe below)

granulated sugar 

Dry out pistachio pulp in a cool oven (you can probably use ground pistachios and scale up the recipe if you 

A did not just make two batches of vegan pistachio ice cream, and 

B would like more than six cookies).

Heat the oven to 325

Pulverize the dried pistachio pulp with sugar  and mix in enough chia porridge to form a stiff dough. Form the dough into walnut-sized spheres and roll the spheres in additional granulated sugar if desired. This will yield 6 macaroons.

Bake the macaroons for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.

Chia Seed Porridge

1/2 cup chia seeds

3 cups water

cook the chia seeds in water for about 15 minutes.

Papaya Salad for Passover

 

Papayas want to be vegetables!

Sometimes, folks are disappointed by papayas.  Their flowery scent and deep orange-pink color seem to promise mango-like tropical lushness and sweetness, but in fact, papayas are low in sugar and acid and not especially fruity at all.  Their flavor is more peppery and vegetal.  When you start working with papaya as a salad vegetable, it gets a chance to shine.  For this salad, I pair papaya with avocados, another fruit with vegetable aspirations.

Papaya salad

Papaya
Avocados (so that there is about an equal volume of avocados and papaya)
A few very thin shavings of sweet onion, or regular onion (optional)
Watercress (optional)
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
lime
Salt

Cut the papaya and avocado into slices or chunks.  Add the onion if you are using it and toss or layer the vegetables together. Drizzle with olive oil and add a few drops of vinegar and juice from the lime and salt to taste.  Serve as is or on a bed of watercress.

For a Caribische Seder, serve with Cassavakoek and vegan Sancocho.

װעגאַנישע יויך Vegan Gold

 

 

װעגאַנישע יויך

פֿאַרשטײט זיך אַז װען מע מאַכט אַ יויך מעג מען מקיל־זײַן. דער־אָ רעצעפּט מעגט איר בײַטן לויט אײַער געשמאַק.  אַלע מאָסן אָדער מעסטונגען מעגט איר בײַטן.

 

װאַרעמט אָן 3 קװאַרט װאַסער אין אַ טאָפּ. גיט צו:

3 מערן

1 סעלעריע

1 ציבעלע

5 צײנדלעך קנאָבל

1 גרויסע (אָדער 3 קלײנע) פּעטרישקעס אָדער שטענגלעך פֿון גרינע פּעטרישקע

10 פֿעפֿערלעך

1 אָדער 2 קלײנע קאַבאַק אָדער קירבעס (אַנ ערך 2 פֿונט)

1 בינטל (1 פֿונט) ציגן־בערדל (סאַלסיפֿײַ אָדער אויסטער־פּלענט)

סטענגלעך פֿון אַ בינטל קאָפּער (קריפּ)

1 טעפּל קאַשו־ניס

1 פּאַסטערנאַק, אויב מע װיל

װאַלד־הון שװעמעלעך, אָדער סתּם שװעמעלעך, אויב מע װיל

 

אין אַ צװײטן טאָפּ, קאָכט אָפּ די קערעלעך פֿונעם קאַבאַק און אַ צװײ־דרײַ קאַטשענעס אין גוט געזאָלצנעם װאַסער

 

קאָכט אָפּ די גרינסן אַ 40 מינוט זײ זאָלן װערן װײך און די יויך זאָל גוט שמעקן

                                                                                                          

דערװײַל

 

װאַרעמט אָן מאַסלינע בוימל אין אַ דריטן טאָפּ.  גיט צו:

 

3 צעשניטענע ציבעלעס

אַ ביסל צעשניטענע גרינע סעלעריע

5 צײנדלעך צעשניטנעם קנאָבל

 

פּרעגלט אָפּ די גרנסן אַ 3־4 מינוט

 

גיסט די יויך דורך אַ דורכשלאַק אַרײַן אין די ציבעלעס.

גיסט אַרײַן אויך די יויך פֿון די באַניע קערן און קאַטשענעס.  בראָט אָפּ די געזאָלצענע באַניע קערנ אין אויװן אויף 350 אַ 20 מינוט.

 

אין אַ בלענד־מאַשין שלאָגט איבער 2 געל פֿעפֿערס מיט 2 צײנדלעך קנאָבל און די אָפּגעפּרעגלטע קאַשו־ניס, און גענוג יויך צו מאַכן אַ געמיש.  גיסט די פֿעפֿער־יויך צוריק אין דער יויך.

צעשנײַדט בלעטער פֿון אַ קלײן בינטעל קאָפּער און אַ ביסל פּעטרישקע און גיט צו די בלעטלעך צו דער יויך.

פֿאַרזוכט די יויך און גיט צו זאַלץ, פֿעפֿער, און פּאַפּריקע לויט אײַער געשמאַק.

 

מיטן אָפּגעקאָכטן ציגן־בערדל און גרינסן, מאַכט װעגעטאַרישע געפֿילטע פֿיש װעגעטאַרישע געפֿילטע פֿיש אָדער װעגאַנישע געפֿילטע פֿיש

 

 

 

מקיל־זײַן meykl zayn to interpret the rules leniently 

בײַטן to change

לויט אײַער געשמאַק according to your taste , לויט ענקער געשמאַק

קאַשו־ניס cashews

 מערן carrots

 סעלעריעceleriac

 ציבעלע onion

 צײנדלעך קנאָבל cloves of garlic

פּעטרישקע parsley root 

פֿעפֿערלעך peppercorns

קאַבאַק squash or pumpkin

באַניע קערןpumpkin seeds

ציגן־בערדל (סאַלסיפֿײַ אָדער אויסטער־פּלענט)salsify

סטענגלstem

קאָפּער (קריפּ)dill

פּאַסטערנאַקparsnip

װאַלד־הינדל שװעמעלעך chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms

סתּם שװעמעלעך any old mushrooms

 

איבערשלאָגן blend

אויסמישן mix

Pumpkin Pappardelle

 

 

I have been thinking of these noodles since at least 2012, when I made this delicious pumpkin seed sauce, and thought, what this sauce wants is some pumpkin pasta.  I made pappardelle because they are pretty easy to make by hand, and also because I just like saying "pumpkin pappardelle." I was also wondering if I could reproduce the success I had with these vegan buns and this vegan challah in making egg-free egg noodles with pumpkin pulp.  These noodles are very toothy and satisfying. Well, they are noodles.

Pumpkin Pappardelle

2 cups (8 ounces) flour

1/2 cup mashed or pureed cooked pumpkin or squash

1/4 cup (possibly more) olive oil

1/4 cup water, possibly more depending on the liquid content of your pumpkin

Pile the flour onto a countertop or into a shallow bowl.  Make a well in the center and put in the pumpkin, oil, and water.

Use a fork or your fingers to draw the flour into the pumpkin to form a dough.  It is really perfectly acceptable to use a food processor to make pasta dough.  Allow your dough to rest a while and roll it out to a thin leaf between 1/8 and 1/16 inch thick.

Roll up the sheet of pasta dough and cut 3/4 in wide for pappardelle or 3/8 inch wide for tagliatelle or fettucine.  Dry the pasta on a rack or make a rack by balancing your rolling pin on two jars of honey.  It can also just rest on the counter top.

Cook the Pappardelle in liberally salted water until done to your taste, and serve with sauce.  Brown butter and sage is good, and of course, I recommend enthusiastically this pumpkin seed sauce 

Sunny Honey Bunny Cake and Honey Cake Round-up

These sweet juicy carrots came this week, just in time for honey cake baking.  I had been planning to make a sunny honey cake with whole and ground sunflower seeds, so it seemed providential that it should become a sunny bunny honey cake with the addition of carrots.

I already made this vegan honey cake, so I was planning to make this cake with eggs, but the sunflower seeds and soymilk provided all the richness and structure the cake needed, and I just didn't add the eggs after all and there it is.

I recall once hearing a radio interview with the great Mel Blanc, who provided the voices for Bugs Bunny and almost all the other Looney Tunes characters.  Blanc was an amazingly gifted voice actor who could make almost any sound. The one sound he could not make was the sound of a crunching carrot, so in every single performance over the course of his decades-long career as Bugs, he had to eat actual carrots while doing the dialogue.  Oh, did he get tired of carrots. He tried crunching apples, crackers, every crunchy food they could provide, but nothing made a sound sufficiently carrot-like to suit the master's standards.  Thus did he suffer for his art.


Sunny  Bunny Honey Cake

7 ounces (1 1/2 cups) sunflower seeds
24 ounces all purpose flour (You may use part whole wheat flour)

2 cups sugar  (half or all brown)

2 tablespoos baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

2 oranges

1 lemon
15 ounces (1 1/2 cups) bamboo honey

1 1/2 cup soy milk or other milk
12 ounces sunflower oil (or 1 12.7 ounce bottle) Any sunflower oil is fine, but if you can get this wonderful buttery, nutty unrefined sunflower oil you will be glad you did.

7 medium carrots 18 ounces after peeling  (4 cups) 

Additional raw sunflower seeds for topping


Heat oven to 400 F. 

Prepare 3 medium ring-shaped cake pans (the vegan batter produces a lower volume)

Toast the sunflower seeds, and grind them up in a processor or mortar.

Wash, peel and grind or grate the carrots,

Sift together the dry ingredients.  Whisk in the toasted sunflower meal. 

Cut the oranges and lemon into pieces

Blend the citrus bits in a blender with 1/2 cup of the soymilk,  add the honey and vanilla. With the blender running, drizzle in the oil. If you want eggs, replace the last cup of soymilk with 4 eggs.  otherwise, pour the honey-oil sauce onto the dry ingredients, and blend the remaining cup of soymilk in the blender to free up all the delicious bits clinging to the sides. Mix the batter gently and fold in the carrots.  Pour into baking pans and sprinkle raw sunflower seeds on top.

Bake 10 minutes at 400, 20 minutes at 375, 25 minutes at 350, and leave in the turned-off hot oven for another 15 minutes.  (Egg-free baking takes longer.  Smaller pans might have been good)

Classic Honey Cake

Universal Honey Cake

Michigan Star Thistle Honey Cake

Chocolate Honey Cake

Pomegranate Mahlab Honey Cake

Date Honey Cake

Honey pudding

Honey Pie!   

Chayale Palevski's Honey Teygelekh and Ingberlekh 

Chard or Spinach Cutlets and Rosheshone Silka Round-up (Rosh Ha-Shanah)

Five foods are recommended in the Gemore (Talmud Bavli Horayos 12A and Kerises 6A) for the Eve of Rosheshone.  They are silka סילקא ( בוריק־בלעטער beet greens or chard), kra קרא ( קירבעס zucchini or squash),  rubia רוביא (   לוביע, שװאַרץ־אײגעלע black-eyed peas), karsi כּרתי ( פּאָרעס leeks) and tamri תּמרי ( טײַטלען dates).  This recipe is for chard or beet greens, and can be adapted for any leafy greens.  These are lovely on their own, but I imagine they would have no objections to a yellow tomato sauce, or any tomato sauce, a cream sauce, or a horseradish sauce.

Vegan Chard or Spinach Cutlets

For the cutlets:

2 bunches (about 1 pound) spinach, beet greens,  or chard

1 tablespoon olive oil (or other oil)

1 tablespoon Chickpea flour of fava garbanzo flour 

salt, pepper, paprika

oil for frying 

For the batter:

1/2 cup  tablespoons (56 grams) sifted chickpea flour or fava garbanzo flour

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

optional: 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, paprika, and/or cumin

Remove the stems, wash the greens well and cook them in the water clinging to the leaves.  Allow them to cool and squeeze out as much water as you can. Chop the greens fine or pulse in a processor.  You should have 1 cup (6 ounces, 170 grams) chopped greens.

In a bowl, mix the chopped greens with 1 tablespoon chickpea flour and seasonings.  Form the mixture into pancakes with your hands.

Heat oil in a wide skillet.

Combine the chickpea flour with the salt, baking powder and optional seasonings, if using.  Whisk in enough cold water (about 1/2 cup) to make a thin batter.

Dip the cutlets in the batter and fry on both sides until golden.

 

This recipe is a vegan, gluten-free adaptation of Fania Lewando's Spinach Cutlets.

Other Silka recipes for the New Year:

Dill and Chard Frittata

Fedelini with Walnuts, Chard, and Garlic Scapes

Braised Chard Stems with Oregano and Chile

White Bean Soup with Chard Stems

Pokey Leek Soup (this recipe has 3 simonim)

Spinach with Pumpkin Seeds

Green Rice

Beet Greens Soup and Beet Soup

 

Rosheshone Vocabulary from the League for Yiddish part I

Rosheshone Vocabulary from The League for Yiddish part II

Honey Cake for Everybody אַלגעמײנער לקח

 

I am anticipating your question.  If this is a honey cake, where's the honey? The honey is in the dates.  Many of the scriptural references to the honey flowing through the Land of Israel are not to bee honey at all but to the lush syrup exuded by the dates.  I did not set out to make a vegan, wheat-free honey cake, but it was inspired when I bought several young coconuts for the juice and needed to do something with the pulp and my beautiful neighbor gave me a box of succulent dates from the Holy Land (These fabulous vegan brownies were inspired by the same windfall).  You can probably make this with any kind of dates, just re-hydrate them a little if they are very dry.

If you have not yet tried green coconuts, or young coconuts, you might just love them. The flavor is very mild, so if you do not care for the flavor of mature coconuts, they will be your cup of tea.  The pulp is soft and jelly-like, making them a natural for vegan baking. 

Universal Honey Cake

12 Medjool Dates (about one cup, 8 ounces)
2 ounces raw almonds
4 ounces raw walnuts (about one cup)
4 ounces cocoa butter (about one cup depending on how coarsely it is chopped.
Pulp from 2 young coconuts (about one cup, 8 ounces)
2 ounces almond flour

(optional: 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/8 teaspoon ginger, 1/8 teaspoon allspice, 1/8 teaspoon cloves) 

1/2 cup toasted pecans for garnish, or leave them raw to make this an all-raw dessert. 

Remove the pits from the dates.  Place almonds and walnuts in a processor and pulse to a powder.  Add  the remaining ingredients except the pecans and grind to combine.  Pat the batter into a nine-inch pie plate and arrange the pecan halves on top.  Chill to set.

 

 

 

Vegan Hamburger Buns for Adam Schiff

This year I made no pies, no cornbread, no beans, no pumpkins.  I spent the entire holiday making batch after batch of buns for a project to be announced shortly.

The impulse to develop this recipe began with  a podcast I heard on which Adam Schiff noted that while vegan burgers have become much more widely available, the vegan bun remains an elusive desideratum.

I can think about a few possible reasons for this.  Two conflicting qualities make a sandwich bun optimal.  The ideal sandwich delivery system is sufficiently soft and fluffy that it does not interfere with or distract from the sandwich contents, but strong enough to contain any juices without disintegrating.  A dough with eggs and milk or milk powder can provide a fine dense crumb to fill these requirements, but adding mashed potatoes to the dough can do the same thing.  This recipe is inspired by the potato bread in The Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison.  I added some sweet potato just for some golden eggy color, but serendipitously, the sweet potato dough turned out softer and fluffier than any other batch.  This is also a recipe which works best with all-purpose flour.


Vegan Buns

1 medium-large russet potato, about 6-7 ounces
2 ounces sweet potato

2 pounds all-purpose flour (about 7-8 cups)

1 cup water (use water from cooking the potatoes, plus enough added to make one cup)
1 cup unsweetened soy milk
1 1/2 packets yeast (1 tablespoon, 3/8 ounce)

3 tablespoons sunflower oil
2 tablespoons date syrup, malt, or sugar
1 tablespoon salt

1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon cornstarch
sesame seeds
Coarse grain sea salt (optional)

Peel the potatoes and cut into 1-inch dice.  Put them in a small saucepan and add water to cover and 3/4 teaspoons salt.  Bring to the boil and simmer until quite tender. Strain and reserve the water.

Measure reserved potato water and if necessary, add enough water to make one cup.  If the water has become cool, reheat it.  Combine the water and soy milk in a mixing bowl.  The mixture should be warm.  Sprinkle yeast over the surface and add half the flour.  Mix with the paddle.  Leave the spongy dough in the mixing bowl to rise for 45 minutes.

Mix the dough once more with the paddle.  Remove the paddle and add the potatoes, syrup, oil,  salt, and remaining flour.  Knead with the dough hook for four or five minutes.  This dough can also be kneaded by hand.  The dough will be somewhat softer and stickier than typical bread dough, but worry not.

Turn the dough into an oiled bowl and allow to rise for another 45 minutes.  Punch it down, separate challah, and divide the remaining dough into twenty pieces for large buns or 40 for slider buns. Roll the dough bits into round balls and arrange them on parchment-lined sheet pans.  Press each roll to flatten into bun shapes.  Cover and and allow to rise another 45 minutes.

Heat the oven to 350F (Mark 4)

Bring 1/2 cup water to the boil.  In a small cup or bowl, dissolve 1 teaspoon cornstarch in 1 teaspoon cold water.  Add the cornstarch slurry to the boiling water and cook until clear.  Brush the tops of the risen buns with cornstarch, and sprinkle with sesame seeds and coarse salt. Bake the buns for 25 minutes, rotating the pans after 15 minutes.

ETA: Use this dough to make vegan Challah!

Weave your vegan challah dough to make a crown, a challahsaurus, challah turtles, or just these beauties.

 

 

 

Peysekh Brownies (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Tree Nut-Free Passover Brownies)

You see, this is why we left Egypt.

Were it not for Passover, and the the needs of friends who are vegan, gluten-free, or tree nut-free, or all of the above, I would never have made these brownies, and the world would be a poorer sadder place.
OK, Here's what I made: I ground up one pound of chocolate (one 10-ounce bag Equal exchange semisweet ships and two 3-ounce bittersweet bars) to a fine powder. Then I took pulp from two green coconuts, two handfuls of medjool dates and ground those up, mixed with the chocolate powder.  Pat the mixture into a nine-inch pan and sprinkle pine nuts on top. 

Breakfast Flakes for Peysekh (Passover Cereal)

If I give you twenty guesses, I bet you can't guess what I am cooking right now, or maybe you can, because you read the headline.  This recipe is for The Glaistig, who is cereal-dependent throughout the year and cereal-deprived during Peysekh. 
This recipe is also for anyone else who needs a convenient wheat-free, gluten-free, gebrokhts-free cereal.  By convenient, I mean convenient to eat once someone has made them. 
And of course, this recipe is for anyone else, who, like me, enthusiastically bought bags of almond flour and plantain flour last week and has no idea what to do with them.
 
I found this page of recipes for homemade cereals intriguing and made a variation on the corn flakes.  Allow me to note that this page also links to a recipe for homemade Cheerios, which involves shaping each individual Cheerio (does anyone use Cheerio in the singular?) by hand and making a little hole with a toothpick.  I want to make fun of this recipe, but I am all too afraid I will then wake up with an irresistible compulsion to make my own cheerios.  You know what happened with the rejuvelac and cashew cheese, don't you?

Plantain Almond Flakes
 
2 scant tablespoons plantain flour
2 generous tablespoons almond flour
1 or 2 pinches salt
1 to 4 pinches sugar

Mix together the flours and seasonings with your fingers.  Sprinkle about one tablespoon the mixture onto the bottom of a non-stick or cast iron skillet.  There should be barely enough to cover the bottom. Wet your fingers and shake water over the surface of the flour so that it is evenly soaked but not disturbed.  A spray bottle might make this easier.  Heat the mixture so that it dries out and begins to toast.  Flip over to break up and toast on the other side.  Allow the skillet skillet to cool before starting the next batch.

Spinach with Pumpkin seeds Vegan Passover

Yes, yes, I hear you.  You need a vegan peysekh entrée; you need something without matzo, gebrokhts, or wheat in any form, and you also need to make something for your daughter-in-law who can’t eat potatoes, and your other daughter-in-law who can’t have tree nuts.  I know last year you had to make four entrees, and indeed, the four vegan entrees of Passover may well be ready take their place in the Hagaddah, alongside the cups, sons, questions, varieties of redemption, and other paschal tetrads, because what could there possibly be that everyone could eat that is also as amazingly delicious as the feast of freedom deserves to be? 

Aha, you know you have come to the right place.

I tried this first only two years ago, but now I can not imagine peysekh without it  The recipe is adapted from the Ghanian Spinach Stew with Sweet Plantains that appeared in the Times in March of 2015.  It immediately caught my eye for a few reasons.  First, it satisfies all the conditions above (as adapted herewith), and that by itself is worth remarking.  Second, I really like how the pumpkin seed cream makes the dish into a rich sort of vegan creamed spinach or shag panir.  Of course, I love the idea plantains as a side dish for peysekh (that’s three), and fourth (another paschal tetrad!),  I was also excited about the chance to use smoked paprika, which I had never tried.  As it happened, my kosher paprika emporium does not have smoked paprika for Passover, even though they have every other kind of paprika in the universe, so I ended up using sweet and hot paprika.  The recipe in the Times also called for fish sauce.  I am thinking some toasted norimaki might add the desired scent of the sea.

Peysekh Spinach with Pumpkin Seeds

½ cup coconut oil, or mix of coconut and vegetable oil

1 medium onion,

5 - 9 cloves garlic

1 pinky-sized piece of ginger, (based on a medium-sized woman’s pinky, about 2 tablespoons after chopping)

1 habanero chile, or other type of chile (If you are on a totally nightshade-free diet, omit the chile and add ground black pepper).

Kosher salt

2 ½ pounds plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped

¾ cup pumpkin seeds

 2 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika or a mix of sweet and hot paprika

1 pound spinach*

Dice the onion, mince or crush the garlic, and chop the ginger and the chile.  Clean and chop the spinach.

Cook the onions, garlic, ginger, and chile in the oil. and salt. Stir and fry , until the onions begin to color. Add the tomatoes and some salt. Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer and partly cover the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened, about 25 minutes, add paprika and simmer another two minutes. 

Pulse the pumpkin seeds to a fine powder in a food processor

Stir water into the pumpkin seed powder, a tablespoon at a time, until it is a thin paste. Spoon the pumpkin seed paste onto the tomato sauce, and spread it out. Cover the pan, cook for a few minutes, and stir.

Add water as needed, and increase heat to a boil. Stir in the spinach, and cook until soft. Add salt to taste, and serve with home-fried sweet plantains.

*over-wintered spinach is available briefly right around peysekh.  It is the most sublime spinach in the world.  Look for it at your farmers’ market.

The original recipe suggests serving the spinach with boiled plantains.  I love this idea, both because plantains seem to be an ideal foil for the spicy saucy spinach and because they provide a comforting alternative for folks who can’t eat too many potatoes or nightshades, for whom peysekh presents a formidable challenge.  To my taste, the boiled plantains were delicious when they were piping hot out of the pot, but aggressively bland very shortly thereafter.  When I make this next time, I am going to try home-frying the boiled plantains.

UPDATE:
I cooked the spinach in advance because I had five pounds of raw spinacsh taking over my kitchen, and that works just fine, possibly even better than the original method.