VeggieTalk

A few posts ago, I practically said good bye to baking season. But the other night was so cool and there were no good sweets in the house so I decided to break out the baking sheets one more time. Besides, I want to review More Great Good Dairy-Free Desserts by Fran Costigan in the May issue of the Vegetarian Kitchen newsletter (which goes out, hopefully tomorrow, so if you are not subscribed yet, you still have a chance! You can do so from any page on In a Vegetarian Kitchen; sign up box is on the left under the navigation items).

I made “I Fixed My Favorite Peanut Butter Cookies” with both of the variations the author recommends—some with jam in the center, and others with a few chocolate chips in the center. Both variations are quite nice—I especially like the jam cookies with coffee. I’ll have the review, and this recipe, in the newsletter. It’s actually too long to print here.

Last night we had a most enjoyable dinner guest at our home, Reed Mangels, who among many other things is the nutrition advisor to the Vegetarian Resource Group. She has written many helpful articles for their Journal and on their site, including two of my favorites, Feeding Vegan Kids and Vegetarian Nutrition for Teenagers. Reed’s family, like mine, is all vegan, and her two daughters were raised that way from the start (my two sons were raised vegetarian, and they were the first vegans in our family). Reed also wrote a great foreword for my most recent cookbook, The Vegetarian Family Cookbook.

So, what to make for dinner? I changed my mind ten times throughout the day. Luckily I had gone shopping the day before and had a fridge full of choices. Finally I settled on a sweet-and-sour stir fry, but the conversation tasted even better than the food!

Now back from my brief vacation in Paris for 4 weeks (but who’s counting?), the I-miss-Paris mood crept back on Friday. To assuage my longing, I served my family “assiettes” (referring to a generous platter of a number of components) typical of what’s served in the city’s veg restaurants. There is always a good seitan dish on the menu, and the centerpiece of the meal you see here is an amalgam of two that I sampled at different eateries (Le Potager du Marais and Les Cinq Saveurs d’Ananda)—Seitan in Paprika “Cream,” and Seitan aux Champignons (mushrooms).

Nearly every one of these Parisian platters features at least two grated vegetables, often carrot and turnip or beets. And so here I feature carrot and my beloved daikon radish (dressed simply in flaxseed oil and lemon juice). Next, there is always a cooked vegetable or two (or three). There was fresh zucchini in the crisper, so that was my choice.

Finally, a timbale-shaped serving of grain, either couscous or rice or a combination of grains (like couscous with kasha) sits in the middle of the platter. We love quinoa, as I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, so I cooked a mixture of 3 parts quinoa and 2 parts bulgur. They work very nicely together, providing a contrast of textures, and they both take 15 minutes to cook, so they can be cooked together.

And voila! A gorgeous assiette with an assortment of colors, flavors and textures, and only one recipe to follow. Here’s my new recipe for the seitan dish:

Seitan and Mushrooms in Paprika “Cream”

4 servings

• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 medium onions, halved and thinly sliced
• 1 pound seitan, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 8 ounces cremini or baby bella mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• 2 tablespoons unbleached white flour
• 1/2 cup rice milk
• 1/2 cup Silk creamer
• 2 teaspoons sweet paprika
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a wide skillet. Add the onions and sauté over medium heat until translucent.

Add the seitan and mushrooms, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions and seitan are golden brown. Pour in the wine and stir.

Use some of the rice milk to dissolve the flour into a smooth paste. Add the remaining rice milk, dissolved flour, and Silk creamer and stir together. Stir in the paprika and cook over low heat for 5 minutes longer.

If the sauce becomes too thick, loosen with a little additional rice milk. Season with salt and pepper and serve at once.

Last year, I tried to follow a plan for detoxing in a book called The Fast-Track One Day Detox Diet by Ann Louise Gittleman. I was not looking for the weight loss aspect; but I believe in using certain foods to cleanse our overtaxed systems, no matter how well we think we eat. The book has many good ideas, but the title is misleading. The whole plan really takes at least ten days, and the day you do the fast, you are supposed to drink a half gallon of spiced cranberry water, filtered water, and nothing else. It proved too hard for me. I had no trouble giving up gluten and sugar, but on day 6, I just went crazy for coffee.

Still, I learned a lot about cleansing foods from this book. Some of the best are the cruciferous veggies, like broccoli and cauliflower, which my family eats fairly constantly anyway; Green leafy veggies like parsely, kale, watercress, cilantro, chard, etc., are, according to the author, powerful blood purifiers, so it’s good to have the reminder to eat these more often; Citrus foods are cleansing and stimulating to the liver (the most overtaxed and underappreciated digestive organ); onions, garlic, and daikon radish are sulfur-rich, which help the liver eliminate toxins from the body. I learned that daikon radish aids in the metabolism of fats and helps digestion. Since I read this book, daikon radishes are a staple in our salads. Other good detox foods, according to Gittleman, are artichokes, asparagus, beets, and celery.

I often make this salad when I want a refreshing companion to a warm, hearty dish, especially at this time of year, when greens are young and crisp. Since I had the golden beets on hand I just diced them and tossed them in. It’s a terrific, crunchy salad, and takes 5 minutes or so to make:

Cleansing Green Spring Salad

4 to 6 servings

Use only organic veggies for maximum effect. You can vary it as you like by using some of the other cleansing food mentioned above.

• 4 to 6 ounces tender greens (baby greens, arugula, baby spinach, watercress, or a mixture)
• 1 cup green sprouts (I like sweet pea shoots)
• 1 Granny Smith (green) apple
• 1/2 medium daikon radish, peeled and sliced
• 2 large stalks celery or bok choy, sliced
• 1/2 medium cucumber, unpeeled, cut in half lengthwise and sliced
• Flaxseed or olive oil and lemon juice to taste, or your favorite dressing
• 1/4 cup toasted pumpkin seeds, optional
• 2 to 3 medium cooked and peeled beets, preferably golden, optional

Combine in a salad bowl, toss, and serve.

Children need their health education courses to have good information on nutrition to be successful.

In last month’s issue of Vegetarian Times, readers answered the question “what is your least favorite vegetable, and why?” A few responders named beets—one said they “taste like dirt.” I can understand loving them or hating them, but dirt? Perhaps they simply were not washed well enough.

I love beets. I especially like them fresh from a farm market or from my CSA. If just picked and smallish, they’re just about the sweetest veggie I know of. The easiest way to cook them is to rinse well (yes, they are roots and grow in dirt!), leave about an inch of stem on, and put them in a deep heatproof container with a half an inch of water. Then, microwave, starting at 2 minutes per beet if small and working on up. Best to use less time, check frequently, and cook until each beet can just pierced with a knife. Once cool enough to handle, you can peel them right into the garbage and make less of a mess.

If the beets are very fresh, I like to serve them just as is, diced or sliced, or tossed into salad. If they’ve aged a bit, they may need a bit of help, and a combination of lemon juice and a sweetener (agave nectar is my choice; or honey for non-vegans) perks up the flavor. In winter, I like to add beets to roasted root vegetable combos, even though the red variety color everything, and peeling and cutting them is a pain. Other flavors that marry well with beets are orange, tarragon, ginger, and mint.

A reader commented (see comments, below) and left a delicious recipe for a grated beet salad. That reminded me, indeed, I do like to use beets raw in grated salads. I did a post on Great Grated Salads which is in the recipe archives toward the bottom of the page.

Pictured above are golden beets. I just can’t resist these when I see them, even though the ones I got yesterday are kind of gnarly and sprouting. They definitely wouldn’t win a beauty contest. I’d say it has been quite a while since they’ve seen the soil from which they came. Still, they tasted fine—really smooth and sweet (more so than even the freshest red beet). Chiogga beets, which are striped red and white, are also supposed to be awesome, though I’ve yet to try them. Both golden and chiogga bleed far less than red beets.

In our home, we have lots of food rituals. This one we just call “Saturday Morning Burritos,” and they are a relaxing reward for my younger son, Evan, to unwind from his busy week. I’m giving you the full recipe for 6 burritos here, though he is the only one who has them. My husband and I have the scrambled tofu filling that’s left, with toast; Evan has two burritos and some extra scrambled tofu as you see here (OK, not on such fancy dishes, but I have to make the photos as interesting as I can given my limited photography skills), and they are always served at 9:00—that’s part of the ritual. My older son Adam is away at college probably eating scrambled tofu in the dining hall.

The products I like to use for these are Nasoya soft tofu, Rudi’s Organic White Spelt tortillas, Vegan Gourmet Nacho Cheese, and Muir Glen Organic Salsa (medium, usually cilantro-garlic). The entire procedure takes 12-15 minutes and my son considers this a great gift each week, even though we have been doing this for at least two years!

Vegan Breakfast Burritos

Makes 6

• One 16-ounce tub soft tofu
• 1 tablespoon nonhydrogenated margarine
• 1 cup salsa (your favorite variety —try black bean-corn, cilantro-garlic, chipotle, etc.)
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon curry powder, to taste
• Six 8-inch soft flour tortillas
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups vegan cheddar or nacho cheese

Drain the tofu and cut into 1/2 inch slices. Blot well between layers of paper towel.

Heat the margarine in a medium skillet. Add the tofu and mash with a mashing tool or large fork.

Stir in the salsa and curry powder, then cook over medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes, until well heated through. Turn the heat up and cook a little longer if there is excess liquid in the skillet that needs to evaporate.

Divide the scambled tofu mixture among the tortillas, placing it the center of each in a kind of oblong shape, leaving room at each end. Grate some cheese over the tofu (about 3 to 4 tablespoons for each tortilla, but I just grate a modest layer of cheese without measuring).

Microwave each 30-40 seconds, or until the cheese is melted. Fold two ends over the tofu mixture, then roll up the rest. Repeat with each burrito, then serve at once.

The other evening, after cooking and styling soups all day, I suddenly had an urge to bake. It had been a warm spring day, followed by a pleasantly cool evening; this is when I sense baking season coming to a close. Once May rolls around, the oven generally stays off until September. I made half a batch of blueberry muffins (based on the recipe for Basic Muffins, 7 Ways from The Vegetarian Family Cookbook) and the following, Soft and Chewy Granola Bars from the same book.

I find baking relaxing, as I am strictly from the “mix and dump” school of baking. I will miss it, but local organic veggies, fruit desserts, cold soups, and corn on the cob are just around the corner …

Soft and Chewy Granola Bars

Makes 8 bars

My attempts to make crisp and chewy granola bars were only marginally successful; they tasted good, but getting them out of the baking pan required a sledgehammer, even when I used baking parchment. Here, the best of both worlds are combined, using chewy granola in a soft dough.

• 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour or spelt flour
• 2 tablespoons ground flaxseeds or wheat germ
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons natural granulated sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup applesauce, or as needed
• 1 tablespoon safflower oil
• 1 cup granola of your choice (homemade or store bought)
• 1/2 cup raisins or currants
• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter chips or cane-juice sweetened chocolate chips, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the first 5 (dry) ingredient in a mixing bowl and stir together.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the applesauce and oil, using enough applesauce to moisten the flour mixture and make a stiff batter. Stir together until the wet and dry ingredients are completely combined, then stir in the raisins and optional chips.

Pour the batter into a lightly oiled 9- by 9-inch pan and pat in evenly with a baking spatula. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center tests clean. Let cool until just warm, then cut into 8 bars.

Today I spent most of the day preparing for, then participating in, a photo shoot for the cover of the revised edition of my Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons, due out in September.

First, a little back story. I first wrote this book for a British publisher back in the late 1980s. As soon as I completed the manuscript, they went out of business. So, my agent shopped it around in the U.S.; no bites: “Too narrow a niche,” and comments like that. So I got brave and, in 1992 published it myself. A small publisher that specializes in veg cookbooks distributed it for me, and just like that, I sold about 20,000 copies in two or three years. To this day, I still have no clue how that was accomplished. I mean, it’s hard to sell 20,000 copies of any kind of book, let alone a tiny vegetarian soups cookbook.

In 1995 my editor from Little, Brown, decided to buy the rights for the book; I expanded it and they published it in 1996. It went on to sell tens of thousands of copies more; so much for “too narrow a niche.” A couple of years ago, I asked Little, Brown to let me do another revised edition; a book’s design and content do get tired after so many years in print. But LB declined. My editor had long been elsewhere—I followed her to Random House; but they already had another vegetarian soups book in the works. So I decided to come full circle and pubish it myself once again.

I’ve spent quite some time retesting the soups, re-editing the text, re-designing the pages and adding new recipes and illustrations. The book will now be completely vegan—the first ever vegan soups and stews book on the market (if anyone knows otherwise, I’ll throw myself out the window!).

So today represented one of the last major tasks and milestones—shooting the cover. On Sunday I bought all kinds of funky and colorful bowls and linens to play with at Pier One. Above you will see the talented Michael Polito preparing one of the soups for shooting; the second shot is another one of the contenders for the cover. My younger son, Evan, is on vacation from school this week so he helped me with all the preparation and schlepping, and documented the photo shoot with his own camera. Whichever soup does not make the front cover will go on the back.

This is a lot of work! I really don’t like being the publisher. It involves wearing way too many hats. I feel lucky to be a Random House author at the same time. With them, I just hand in the manuscript and the illustrations and a few months later a lovely package emerges. Well, at least dinner is ready for tonight. Two different soups—Spanish Vegetable Stew (above) and Puree of Carrots with Broccoli. With them I will make some sort of Reuben sandwich.

So now you’ve gotten a taste of the trials and tribulations of self-publishing, and a preview of the cover of the forthcoming Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons: Bountiful Vegan Soups and Stews for Every Time of Year.

When spring rolls around (or tries to, as is the case in the Hudson Valley), I start craving really cleansing, refreshing foods. I’ll talk more about this in a future post. But for now, I’ll tell you about one of my favorite beverages, cucumber lemonade. I originally got the idea for this from a nifty little book called Juice Power by Teeorah Shaleahk. I’m not big on juicers (I don’t like all the mess and waste), so I like this book because most of the drinks are meant to be made in a food processor or blender, using the whole fruits or vegetables. I also like the fact that the author explains the benefits of each beverage. For example, the cucumber lemonade is, not surprisingly cooling, and two compounds in cucumbers help prevent water retention despite the fact that cukes are so watery. And the skin contains lots of fiber and is rich in minerals.

The original recipe calls for 4 cukes, unpeeled and chopped, 4 lemons, juiced, 1/2 cup ice, and 1/4 cup maple syrup. Here is how I make it: I use one large cuke, mostly peeled (I leave about 1/3 of the peel on, but all that peel was a bit much for me), the juice of 1 1/2 to 2 lemons, or about 1/3 cup lemon juice if using organic bottled lemon juice. I blend these very thoroughly in a food processor and transfer to a quart jar. I fill it almost to the top with water, then sweeten to taste with agave nectar, a liquid sweetener that does not zap the glycemic index like simpler sugars. Maple syrup, even though it is a natural sweetener, is still a simple sugar.

Now that the weather is warmer, I like to make this at least twice a week and to finish the quart in the same day I make it, which is not a big deal—4 cups. Stir it up a bit each time you pour a glass. I don’t know what it is about this drink, but it goes down really easy and makes me feel really hydrated and refreshed. Try it! Let me know what you think.

Lately, I feel like I’ve been eating out too much. It’s always a pleasure to eat out, and finding great all-veg eateries is even better. But enough is enough. First, there was the week in Paris and Belgium, where eating out every meal was a lovely part of the vacation. See March archives.

A few days after I returned, my family and I had to go into New York City to take care of some passport business for this coming summer. Our sons love eating at vegan restaurants in the city, so we went to Red Bamboo in the West Village. It’s a fun place near NYU, the food is robust and nicely presented. The only thing I don’t recommend are the sandwiches, which oddly, are served on big white rolls. Their specialty is vegan takes on soul food and other “meaty” foods; and while fake meat type dishes are not my favorite thing, they do it very well. My younger son had a unique meal of “pork chops” with chunky applesauce, a mess o’ spicy greens, and a mound of herbed mashed potatoes. I plan to write more extensively about this in a future newsletter (don’t forget, you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter, Vegetarian Kitchen Recipes and News on most any page of Vegetarian Kitchen).

The weekend rolled around and we had plans to meet some friends at an exquisite new Indian vegetarian restaurant in New Paltz called Suruchi (5 Church Street). Even though Indian restaurants almost always have plenty of vegetarian choices, the all-vegetarian menu was particularly nice; in fact, anything with ghee (clarified butter) or paneer (a soft cheese) can be modified to vegan on request. Dosas (big, stuffed pancakes) are one of the specialties here. I will also write more about this in the future. Hudson Valley readers, this is highly recommended!

The next day I needed to be up in the Berkshires in Massachussetts, so I met a friend, Leslie Cerier (another veg cookbook author), for an early dinner at Bizen, a wonderful Japanese place on Railroad Street in Great Barrington. They don’t have a lot of veg or vegan selections, but what they do have is superb. The photo above is the main dish Leslie and I shared, a roasted vegetable platter with grilled tofu, tempeh, and seitan! I can’t wait to make this at home. It’s so simple, really, but the presentation makes it appealing. This was served with a bowl of brown rice and a tasty teriyaki-style sauce. We also had three kinds of veg sushi that were highly original. One was called “Silence of the Yams” and it contained sweet potato tempura and coconut.

So all of this is delicious and inspiring. I certainly learn new things when I eat out and I often like to make my own simplified versions of things I’ve tasted here and there. But it was too much eating out in such a short period of time; here are the main issues:

• It seems like when I eat out, I tend to eat more than I do at home, and I see that this is true for others that I’m eating with.
• The food is rarely organic, though it is getting to be more prevalent in vegetarian and vegan places.
• It’s just soooooo expensive! In a way, I’m glad I don’t live in a neighborhood where eating out is a constant temptation. People who live in places where there are lots of great places to eat must spend a fortune on dining out.

For the rest of this month I’ll be happy to stay home and cook. Ironically, yesterday I made a luscious pasta dish (whole wheat pasta, roasted veggies, olives, sun-dried tomatoes) inspired by a local restaurant, and it yielded plenty of leftovers for tonight’s meal, too!