Day 12 - Israeli Couscous with Pistachios and Apricots and A HummusRecipe

Israeli Couscous with Pistachios and Apricots

I was going to make this for my friend Marcy the other day, but we ended up going out to dinner, so I'm making it today to justify the bunch of fresh mint I bought for the occasion.

These are nice flavors, interestingly combined. I used whole wheat couscous, Israeli of course. The finished dish is fragrant and tasty, not a life-changer, but good. The standout flavor is the chopped mint garnish, standing out in a good way. Again, I crave more salt.... What's wrong with me??

SFO: 10

(Nothing weird or scary here. Just a nice side dish.)


A Hummus Recipe

That's what it's called: "A Hummus Recipe."

As I mentioned a few days ago, I've upgraded my blender situation. And I was excited to try the hummus recipe again, this time using the basic, no add-ins version. I also cooked my own chick peas for a really great result. 

As before, starting with half of the chick peas and only half of the olive oil in the blender, there's no way to get things going, even with my new and improved blender. It's just too dry. You need more liquid at the beginning. So I added most of the oil in part one, and then part two went off without a hitch!

Blender hummus IS super creamy! And delicious. I added extra lemon juice this time, and a fair amount of seasoning, in the form of salt, pepper, and cumin, and I think my hummus is pretty irreproachable!

But we'll see what the cousins think tomorrow.... For now:

SFO: 10

P.S. I just finished my master spread sheet for this project, and it revealed more faulty math!! It is now my belief that the total number of recipes for me to complete is... 313. Which gives me a little more scheduling wiggle room. Phew.

Day 11 - Silken Mayo Dressing and Applesauce-Oat Bran Muffins

Silken Mayo Dressing

Yet another example of the magical powers of I&T to transform a bunch of unsuspecting ingredients into a whole new thing. With a little help from oil and vinegar, a block of tofu becomes mayo! Amazing!

Now, if you haven't already figured out by looking at my name (or the name of this blog), I'm Jewish, and therefore I'm mayo-resistant. It must be a cultural thing. The only times I've ever used mayo are to make chicken salad or tuna salad, or maybe to add a teeny tiny amount to cole slaw or to stir into a much larger amount of mustard on a turkey sandwich. So unfortunately, the wonders of this recipe are wasted on me. I now have 2.5 cups* of mayo and nothing I want to put it on. I forced myself to eat a salad dressed with it, so it wouldn't have been for naught. I would NEVER have put mayo on a green salad, but this was actually okay.

If I were comparing this recipe to commercial mayo, I'd say that it's almost identical in texture (a little more pourable) and color, and it skews sweet, something I've never liked in a mayo. Next time I make this, I think I'll ease up on the agave nectar.

But here's the thing: the caloric difference between this and commercial mayo is crazy! My math may be off, but I think 2.5 cups of Hellmann's mayo is about 3600 calories, and 2.5 cups of Silken Mayo Dressing is 700 calories! And a lot of them are protein! I mean... come on! Give it up for I&T!!

(For those of you out there who are not vegan and have never experienced homemade mayo, you need to try it asap. It bears no resemblance to Hellmann's. It's deluxe and delicious and tastes like France, and even this mayo-hater was entranced. I should mention, 2.5 cups of it are 4920 calories, but they're worth it.)

SFO: 7

(Close enough to mayo and far enough from tofu to convince a meat-eater, but not quite a slam dunk.)

*Typo alert: Opposite of yesterday's overstated Marinara Sauce yield, this dressing makes almost twice as much as the 1.5 cups I&T says it yields.

Applesauce-Oat Bran Muffins

My cousin Stacey is in town this weekend, visiting from Washington DC, and I'm having her and her clan over for lunch on Monday. Since there are three chilluns on the guest list, I thought Mac Daddy, i.e. Mac and "Cheese," would be in order, but Stacey suggested that a better idea might be to serve Mac with the "cheese" on the side. Uh oh! Sounds like a challenge! Perfect SFO judges, right??

Always one to tempt fate, I'm going to make the Mac Daddy anyway, but I'll have a safety stash of plain macaroni ready to go, in case the Daddy doesn't go down. And just to be sure they don't go hungry, I made a batch of these muffins!

Here's another easy-to-assemble, lightened-up baked goods recipe, very light on the oil, heavy on the good-for-you (oat bran, applesauce, and whole-wheat pastry flour). Really, this recipe comes together so quickly, there's no reason not to whip up a batch of muffins anytime you think of it!

The result is moist and delicious. The only caveat is that there's a hefty dose of ground cardamom in this recipe: it's an unusual spice, and if you're not familiar with it, I could understand if you were put off by that unfamiliar taste in an otherwise familiarly-flavored muffin. Personally, I prefer cardamom in savory applications, but even so, it doesn't ruin these muffins for me. I'm just going to take off a point or two when it comes to the SFO.

For the record, I baked these with the convection setting on, and they were done a little earlier than I&T's 28-30 minutes. As my friend Barbara taught me, when they start to smell, they're probably done, or almost done.

SFO: 9

(One point off for the big cardamom presence.)

Day 10 - Marinated Italian Tofu and Mushroom Marinara Sauce

Marinated Italian Tofu

I had a package of tofu in my fridge nearing extinction, so I thought I'd whip it out tonight and try one of I&T's cooking methods for this vegetarian standby.

Those people who knew me in the 90's remember that I was a diehard vegetarian for the better part of that decade... so I put in some major time with tofu back then, since it was one of the only games in town for us veggies. But it had been a while since I pressed a block of tofu, and I couldn't remember the best way. I had stuck it in a colander with a can of tomatoes on top, but then I did a little googling, and I found this. Genius! This REALLY gets the job done!

I decided to bake it, since I've never really embraced my cast iron grill pan, and I've been putting off pulling it out. (It's so hard to clean between the ridges!) 

I should mention that the baking version takes longer than the grilled version. Add about 15 minutes. (The parchment was my idea, not I&T's.) And I did opt for the extra credit broil at the end.

The result? Good. Very respectable. Of course, I wasn't dressing it up with any sauciness or folderol. I just ate it as is. They nicely straddled the line between tender and chewy, with enough flavor from the marinade to be tasty and little enough flavor to be able to be a supporting character in another ingredient's vehicle.

SFO: 5

(Eaten alone, these are great for vegetarians but not likely to convert a meat-eater. In the context of a more specific meal, I can see these getting a higher SFO score.)

Mushroom Marinara Sauce

Well, there's nothing unusual about this marinara recipe: it's very straightforward and very good! Tons of garlic, and a sprinkling of dried herbs. I have to confess, after my "internships" with Martha and Cooks Illustrated, I was very haughty about fresh herbs over dried. I&T don't seem to traffic in fresh herbs, and I thought this was going to be a problem for me, but I'm surprised to learn that dried herbs taste good too! Who knew?

Typo alert: I do have one gripe about the recipe as printed. It says that it yields 5 cups. But I'm here to tell you, it doesn't. It's not even 4 cups. When you do the math, it makes sense: the only ingredient with heft is the 28 oz can of tomatoes. 28 ounces is 3.5 cups. In weight, and in this case in volume. I can't imagine a 28 oz can of tomatoes that could yield 5 cups of sauce. I added a whole lot of mushrooms to this sauce, and I still ended up with less than 4 cups total.

SFO: 10

Day 8 - Spicy Peanut and Eggplant Soup

Spicy Peanut and Eggplant Soup

Nice. Not my cup of tea, but nice. I'm not really clear about this flavor profile, but if I had to guess, I'd say African. There's peanut butter, but it's not your classic Asian peanut butter treatment, i.e. sesame or hoisin flavors. Instead, it's heavy on the tomatoes, with ginger and eggplant and cilantro, and as I mentioned when I made the Spinach with Tomatoes, the tomato-ginger combo is not my fave. Still, this is a solid recipe that turns out a solid soup. More like a stew, actually.

I do have a gripe though. It has to do with I&T's alleged cooking time: 1 hour, 20 minutes. Not even close! I mean, if you do the math, the shortest possible time from start to serve is 2 hours. What's more likely is 2:20-2:30. Granted, the last half hour is spent waiting for the soup to cool (flavors to meld?) before you're "allowed" to salt it. (And you know I salted it. Liberally.) So it's not like you're spending 2.5 hours solid over the stove. But still, that's a significant time difference. I think I'm going to classify this as another typo alert.

About that salt, again there's none added in the body of the recipe. There may be some in the tomatoes or the peanut butter you use, but there's no extra addition. And this really needs it. I made the mistake of tasting this dish before the first big simmer. Ugh. It tasted like nothing! Then I tasted it again after the last ingredient went in, and after all that simmering, it had a much broader, more interesting flavor, but still, no salt! Is this just salt-crazed me? Unfortunately, I ate this solo, so I couldn't ask someone else for a reality check, but there are leftovers, and I will be quizzing some lucky person.
 
I ate it, as suggested, with jasmine rice, which was perfect. And I definitely recommend using all the optional garnishes: the chopped cilantro (not really a garnish, it goes in with the lemon juice), the cilantro leaves and the chopped peanuts. They really boosted the flavor!

Incidentally, I&T describe this soup as being "naughty," i.e. not low fat, and "outrageously rich and savory." I didn't find it to be that heavy. The overwhelming flavor here is tomato, and therefore it skews to the acid side of things. The flavors that I associate with rich and savory and heavy (salt, fat, cream) stayed in the background, so this dish didn't feel like it weighed me down. Of course, I didn't check the calorie count....

SFO: 7

(There's nothing that screams scary-vegan about this... no weird grains, beans, or soy products... but I find the flavor profile to be quite unusual, so that's why there are points off. Funny, I give vegans credit for generally embracing unusual flavors, and I assume that meat-eaters will be turned off by them. I acknowledge that there are both adventurous meat-eaters and fussy vegans out there, but I'm sticking with this rating anyway.)

Day 7 - Black Bean Burgers

Black Bean Burgers

Typo alert!

There is a grave typo in this recipe, as well as a second, possible omission. After doing a little internet snooping, it seems as if there are quite a few known typos in Veganomicon. There's been much discussion on various chat boards, so I've tried to notate in my cookbook as many I could find, and as for the rest, I guess I'll have to uncover them on my own. I'm sure I don't have a first edition (it was printed in 2007) as some of the discussed typos have been corrected, however many of them remain, even in the Kindle version, which I also own. A lot of them are grammatical, but some, more crucially, affect the food itself. 

 Like today's.

This burger comes together easily, exactly as described. I found it interesting how I&T treated the garlic (grate on microplane) and onion (grate on box grater). Both techniques render these vegetables basically liquid, which is actually a nice way to add moisture to a burger while getting access to all that flavor. Clever...

The possible omission I alluded to above is, again, the absence of salt. Yes, there's salt in canned beans, but it's my belief that I&T intended us to salt this burger base, at least a little. 1/4 teaspoon maybe?


The big problem comes in the description of forming the burgers. The instruction is to roll the mixture into six firm balls, then press each one down to form a 1 1/2" thick patty. I should have realized there was a problem, as the balls themselves were roughly 1 1/2" in diameter. I pressed on the balls lightly, and I ended up with a roughly 3/4"-thick slider-sized thingamajig. Of course, they were too thick to behave in the skillet as intended. I left them in much longer than the projected 5 minutes on each side, and they were still not quite cooked through when I felt I had to take them off, as they had browned to their limit. I feel quite sure the recipe should have read: form into 1/2" patties. A thinner patty would have flattened into a full-burger-sized burger, and it would have cooked through, given the same treatment.

And yet... and yet... even without salt, even with the weird shape and undercooking, they were still amazing! Awesome flavor, awesome texture, great, great recipe! I can't wait to try these again, with the proper thickness!


SFO: 9

(So close to a 10, and extremely high marks for a homemade veggie burger. The chunky beans offer a nice meaty texture, but the burger is not quite meaty enough to warrant a perfect score for non-vegans. But VERY close...)

Day 6 - Corn and Edamame-Sesame Salad, Roasted Portobellos, and Lower-Fat Deep Chocolate Bundt Cake

Christmas Eve with the Saines! What a treat to spend the afternoon and evening in Westchester with my dear college friend and entertainment industry mogul, Emily! First, we sneaked away to see an afternoon showing of This Is 40 (four thumbs up!). Then she brought me to Fairway Pelham (deluxe!) where we shopped for dinner. Even though the Saines are decidedly un-vegan, they were very gracious about letting me insert my vegan agenda into their dinner (as long as there was one non-vegan dish too). They are the perfect people to weigh in on SFO ratings! In attendance: Emily, husband Andy, and sons Max and Dashiell.

Corn and Edamame-Sesame Salad

I'm starting to realize that I&T are very good at quick and easy dishes that are surprisingly delicious and satisfying. This is a prime example. Six ingredients total, give some frozen vegetables a quick boil, toast some sesame seeds, throw it all together, chill, and serve. Yum! Frankly, I'm a sucker for toasted sesame oil, no matter what it's on, but this combo really does taste great. And everybody ate it! (Except for Dashiell, who had already eaten. That's him pictured with Emily.)

SFO: 10


Roasted Portobellos (Take One)

I think I'm going to have to do this one over again. We think there might have been something amiss with the temperature calibration of their oven, because these didn't cook in the way I suspect they will when I try them again. Edible? Absolutely. But the texture was weird, spongy, they didn't seem quite done. I'm going to hold off on an SFO until Take Two. Incidentally, we all ate them happily. (That's Emily again, with Dashiell on the left and Max on the right.)

Note: there is no cooking time listed for this recipe in the book, which I'm guessing it's an oversight/misprint. For the record, I would call it 65 minutes.


Lower-Fat Deep Chocolate Bundt Cake

My second foray in the vegan baking realm, and a major success! Again, I&T offer flour options, so I did my usual half all-purpose, half whole-wheat-pastry blend. And instead of using my mixer, I decided to do this one by hand, just to see how it would go. The answer is, very smoothly! It's essentially a one-bowl cake. Other than the pot you dirty to heat the coffee and the cocoa, it all happens in one big bowl. And, of course, a Bundt pan.

I looked at this recipe side by side with the Cook's Illustrated Light Chocolate Bundt Cake recipe to see how they compared. CI's recipe has more sugar, more cocoa powder (and chocolate, which I&T eschew), and more fat (more oil, plus two eggs). I&T use more flour (and they add some cornstarch), more water (in the form of coffee), and applesauce to compensate for the missing fat.  
Once again, they nailed it! This cake really works! Everyone was very impressed with the texture and the flavor. There is nothing to distinguish this cake from the naughty, full-animal-fat version. I have to confess, I did think there might have been an off smell to it, and a little bit of an aftertaste, but I was the only one. Still, small complaints for a cake that is so thoroughly satisfying. (That's Andy with the cake.)

SFO: an easy 10

Day 4 - Miso Tahini Dressing

Leftovers dinner! And no one better to serve it to than my dear friend, Adinah Alexander, who loves and appreciates good, homemade food as much as I do. She's my favorite guest because she oohs and aahs and loves to talk about what she's eating and how it was made. Plus she'll eat anything. 

So she got to taste all the goodies I've been cranking out these past few days. Everything got a hearty thumbs up, and interestingly, her favorite dish was the lentils and rice from yesterday, albeit with a healthy salting and prettied up with a side of steamed green beans. It really did taste amazing.

Of course, I had to make at least one thing special for her, so I picked:

Miso Tahini Dressing

This is so easy and so delicious, I can't believe I've never made it before. Two ingredients and tons of flavor. Since I'd be serving it over a simple salad, I took one of I&T's "get experimental" suggestions and added some lemon juice. In fact, I put a whole lemon's worth of juice in there, and the acid balanced out the saltiness really nicely. I can imagine using this dressing for a hundred different purposes - I'm going to go dip some cucumber slices in it right now!

SFO: 10

P.S. Look for Adinah in the cast of this coming season's new Broadway musical, Kinky Boots! I saw a rehearsal of it back in the summer, and it looks like it's going to be amazing!

P.P.S. I just bought a new and improved blender, so I'm going to give that heightened hummus thing another try. I also got a tip from my childhood friend, Marjory, who actually lives in the land of hummus, i.e. Israel. And she said, "Put much smaller amounts at a time in the blender and it works perfectly," which makes total sense. It might mean tinkering with I&T's instructions a bit, but I'm determined to experience this extra-smooth hummus they've been crowing about.

Day 3 - Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions and Spiced Pita Crisps, Sautéed Spinach and Tomatoes, Peanut-Ginger-Sesame Cookies, Peanut Butter Ice Cream, and Open Sesame Ice Cream Sandwiches

Knowing I was going to have a couple of new veggie friends, Uli and Joe, over for dinner tonight, I thought I'd try out one or two recipes on them. But then I realized that I had miscounted the total recipes in the book. I originally thought there were 309, but today I caught my mistake, which revealed the true total as 333. Yikes! That means I'll have to average almost one a day this year! So I decided to go to town and knock out six recipes in one day, buying myself some time off further on down the line....


Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions and Spiced Pita Crisps

The good: 

• This dish can be served at room temperature, so it has good make-ahead potential, something I look for in a dinner party recipe, so I'm not spending the whole party at the stove.

• The rice and lentils component of this dish is very straight-forward and labor-light: boil water, add rice and spices, cover and simmer for 15m, add lentils, cover and simmer for 45m, let sit for 10m, fluff, fold in onions, done. 

• The spices are really fragrant and yummy.

The bad:

• The caramelization of the onions took waaaaaay longer than suggested. I&T say it's a 20-30 minute job at 400°. But hand to heart, it took me one hour and 30 minutes to go from 

this

  
to this.

• How do I say this delicately? This is not a cute dish, not even a little. All those pretty li'l red lentils lose their color, and what you end up with is a clumpy beige-a-palooza.

• There is not a grain of salt in this recipe, which strikes me as strange. I tasted it after adding the onions, and I couldn't bring myself to serve it without at least a little bit of salt, so I gave it a quick sprinkle. But honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a savory recipe with NO salt in it! (I love salt.) 

• At room temperature, the consistency is not terribly inviting. It's neither wet nor dry, neither creamy nor fluffy, nor smooth and mash-like. Let's just say, it's a unique animal....

That said, the spice combo delivers, and the onions taste amazing, which almost compensates for the lack of salt in the dish. Personally, I think a generous adding of salt would really elevate it, but that's just saltaholic me.

Visually, a little bit of color would have gone a long way here. I can't remember if it was Joe or Uli, but someone suggested green peas. Not a bad idea...

SFO: 2
(Most non-vegans will think there's no "there" there. Plus, the appearance doesn't help.)  


Spiced Pita Crisps

This is a fun way to bring some sparkle to the average pita. I tried both the garam masala version and the garlic powder, cumin, cayenne, and salt version. I think my theory about salt holds up, as the latter flavor was universally preferred. My guess is that if I'd salted the garam masala version, the two flavors would have been neck and neck.

SFO: 10
 

Sautéed Spinach and Tomatoes

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like this one, because I'm generally not a fan of tomatoes and ginger together. But I have to confess, this is a super recipe. Lots of bold flavor in a really attractive, easy to make package. 

This is the kind of dish you make just before serving, so I had prepped ahead all the ingredients (diced tomatoes, chopped onion, grated ginger, minced garlic), and at cooking time, it came together in a flash, literally in about five minutes! I used baby spinach from one of those 16 ounce containers, which I'm mentioning because even though it's way more than six cups, you should go ahead and throw the whole thing in there. I used about 3/4 of the container, but you know spinach. It wilts down to nothing, and another 33% wouldn't have upset the proportions of the dish, in fact, it would have been perfect.

For the record, I did not have peanut oil on hand, so I used grapeseed. I know I&T don't pick their oils randomly, so I can only assume it would have been even more delicious with peanut oil, but it tasted wonderful with grapeseed.

I will definitely make this again...

SFO: 10
(Neither Joe nor Uli believe in perfect 10s, but they loved this, so they gave it a 9.8. I'm rounding it up, so there.)  
 

Peanut-Ginger-Sesame Cookies

This was my first vegan baking experience! No butter? No eggs? Can it possibly work?? Yes it can!!!

I&T suggest any one or combination of three kinds of flour, so I opted for half all-purpose and half whole-wheat pastry, and I was very happy the results. In fact, I was completely unaware of a whole wheat presence.

I&T describe this cookie as "shortbreadlike." I don't necessarily agree with that... the candied ginger is such a strong textural presence, so the dominant experience is chewiness, versus a shortbreadlike crumb. Speaking of which, finely dicing five ounces of candied ginger is a more complicated job than it sounds (sticky knife!) so I suggest planning some time for that.

It's interesting, I've become accustomed to following recipes by Martha and Cooks Illustrated, which are very detailed, even fussy and exacting sometimes. I&T are so laid back. In fact, at least once in each recipe, you'll probably find a multiple choice option (i.e. swap in any flour/herb/vegetable you want) and an overall, very relaxed way of putting it together. I thought I would be frustrated by this, but instead I'm finding it very liberating and fun. And creative! I'm getting to help write the recipe!

In addition to the design-your-own-flour option, this recipe also encourages you to choose your own sesame seed color or combo. I opted for segregation. All black cookies and all white cookies. (Don't worry, I integrate later....)

You also get to choose the consistency of the cookies based on how long you leave them in the oven, 10-11m for chewy, 14m for firm and crunchier. I went for right in the middle, because I knew I was going to be using these for ice cream sandwiches, and I wanted them to have equal parts give and structure. Success!

I should mention, I made this recipe using the electric mixer with the paddle attachment. I creamed the shortening on high, then added the first set of ingredients and beat on high again, then switched it to low and added the flour and ginger. What a breeze! Also, instead of greasing the baking sheets, I covered them with parchment, which works just as well.

This is a really interesting cookie, very sweet, with a complicated blend of flavors that TOTALLY work together. I'm a believer!

SFO: 10
(absolutely no whiff of vegan here)   


Peanut Butter Ice Cream

So easy! Dump a bunch of ingredients in the blender, mix, and voilà, ice cream batter. No custard, no tempering, no straining, no ice bath. I'm going to like doing these ice creams!

Meanwhile, I'm wondering if I got the coconut milk thing right. I&T said to put a can of coconut milk in the fridge overnight, then carefully open it and scoop 1/2 cup of coconut "cream" off the top. I definitely scooped 1/2 cup off the top, but I was expecting the "cream" to be the most solid part, like cream is to milk. But when I emptied the rest of the can of coconut milk (to freeze, just like I&T told me to do... I'm such a teacher's pet), what was left in the can was the denser, more solid part of the coconut milk. Did I do this wrong? Anyone?

Flavorwise, the ice cream is spot on. Like the cookie, very sweet, but appropriately so. And the texture is totally convincing, quite dairy-like. I&T, how did you figure all this stuff out?? I'm so impressed...


SFO: 10


Open Sesame Ice Cream Sandwiches

The Open Sesame is one of I&T's custom ice cream sandwich creations, bringing together both of today's sweet treats into one hyper-dessert.

I've never tried to make an ice cream sandwich before, and what I learned is there's basically one minute when the ice cream is firm enough to be pressed in between two cookies and not so melty that it starts disintegrating. This is when I was glad I had gone for a more structured cookie. When I was pressing down on the hard-ish ice cream, it was nice to not have to worry about the cookie crumbling from over- or under-cooking.

I was supposed to roll the edges of these sandwiches in toasted sesame seeds, like a tire across the plate, but since I hadn't been precise about mushing the ice cream beyond the edge of the cookies, I had to figure out another option, i.e. manually sprinkling the seeds on the exposed ice cream. As you can see it worked out OK. Also, here's where I integrated the black and white seeds.

Uli (pictured here) and Joe were very excited about this dessert! When I described it earlier in the evening, Joe was sure he was going to hate it, but in fact, he couldn't have loved it more. For me, the combination of sweet cookie with sweet ice cream was a little overwhelming because I'm not a sweet freak, but I'm sure I'm in the minority here. 

What was notable was how beautifully both the ice cream and the cookies behaved in sandwich form, defrosting together at a perfect rate and staying glued together perfectly. Texturally, this just really, really worked. Well done, I&T!

SFO: 10