Meshuga

On the few nights a week I end up not cooking, my partner and I spend more time than necessary deliberating on what we can pick up. We go through the large pile of take out menus, spend countless minutes browsing the forums on yelp and try to decipher what we’re craving by calling out different food groups.

About 1/3 times I blurt-out that I’m craving one thing and one thing only. This usually sends him pulling at his hair, as there’s very few places to order it from, resulting in many more wasted minutes of no food on the dinner table. Sorry love. 

What is this mystery food you ask? We’ll I’ve written about it before and I could literally eat it everyday. Bonus: Sirachi is a great flavor companion, but most importantly this dish is incredibly healthy and diversible.

I’m talking about the COLD ROLL. The food that lets you open your fridge, take whatever you have in it, and stuff it in a rice wrapper. Well, with some sense of precision and thought of course. I don’t recommend a casserole leftover or sandwich meats (I’m hoping you don’t have sandwich meats), but rather some fresh veggies, some kind of a protein and an herb to bring an added taste experience.

I was having just that kind of, ‘craving a cold roll’ night not too long ago, but too the amazement of my partner, I was prepared to make it at home. I had a whole bunch of fresh goodies waiting to be used: sweet potato, avocado, cucumber, radicchio, yellow pepper, vermicelli, basil, mint and pumpkin seeds. I’ve never made a cold roll with a cooked root vegetable, so I thought that adding the pumpkin seeds would make for a nice fall dish. Just in time for pumpkin season! The cold roll doesn’t need this many ingredients. They’re even just as delicious with some slivers of cucumber, shreds of carrot, a wedge of tofu, sprouts, coriander and noodles.

RECIPE:

Yields - as many as you want, I made nine.

| Ingredients |

• Nine rice paper wraps (any brand will do)
• ½ a yellow pepper cut into thin pieces
• ½ a radicchio cut into thin pieces
• One avocado
• 1 quarter of a cucumber cut into thin triangle slivers
• 3 cups of cooked vermicelli
• One large sweet potato cut into small cubes and baked until crispy
• Bunch of basil
• Bunch of mint
• ½ cup of pumpkin seeds

Sirachi or Hoisin or both for dipping

| Preparation |

Preheat oven to 450 d and cut large sweet potato into small cubes. Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper. Bake for 45 minutes or until crispy. Wait until they cool to wrap.

Lay out a working table with a hot bowl of water (large enough to fit a rice wrapper in it) and all of your ingredients. It’s easier to maneuver quickly with everything laid out in front of you.

You want to use your ingredients sparingly as it’s difficult to close these if you they are too stuffed. Whatever you do though, do not stinge on the ingredients. My method is as follows.

1. Dip wrapper into hot water until softens but still slightly stiff on edges (if will soften up out of water).
2. Lay out on a clean kitchen cloth.
3. Place the vermicelli on the bottom (small handful), on the right side two slits of yellow pepper and some radicchio, on the right side two pieces of avocado. 
4. Layer the sweet potato on top in addition to the mint and basil leafs
5. Sprinkle pumpkin seeds on top
6. Wrap and seal.

I have included a video that walks you through the step-by-step guide to wrapping cold rolls. 

Eventually you’ll get the hang of wrapping these and then find yourself at odds when choosing the perfect sauce to dip into: peanut, sirachi, sweet sour, hoisin, tahini…the list goes on and on. I love them all.

Your body, pocket book, time and your taste buds will be thanking you for making these a monthly or even weekly staple to your eating routine.

       

When I first started cooking and perusing online for recipes, I used to get serious food blog envy. The innovation on recipes, the incorporation of an array of colors and the pornographic food photography that induces one into a perverse sexual food act. Ahhh.. the prowess of an SLR and a photographer with a high aptitude of sensuality….rear! 

Although, my photography skills have only approved slightly, my experimenting through trial and error in the kitchen has enriched my ingredient knowledge and skill. I now handle my spice cabinet with more finesse, playing around with the flavors and colors of my fridge and pantry. It feels like a huge accomplishment when you can begin to grasp the chemistry of how flavors work together. It’s one thing to be passionate about cooking, but another to taste and deliberate on whether your dish is missing something sweet, savory, hot, salty, nutty etc… 

Speaking of color, I wanted to make a meal that not only spoke to me in flavor but also in color. The pineapple sitting smack middle in my kitchen had been asking to be fondled for a few days now. I was craving something Asian, and decided I’d turn pineapple-fried rice on its head, going leaner and cleaner with a Spicy Cashew Pineapple Quinoa Stir Fry - That’s a mouthful!

     

My pantry was bursting at the seams with quinoa; as a super food it would be a great stand in for rice. I was inspired by Veganomicon similar recipe, but changed the ingredients and functionality of the dish. Their interpretation was on the salty side.  I wanted to entice a savory taste experience to imitate the sensory experience of fried rice, so I used coconut milk as my base. To top it off, I added an extra color dimension by spooning the stir-fry into royal purple radicchio cups.

      

| Ingredients |

Quinoa:

• 2 cup quinoa
• 1/2 cup pineapple juice (if you have)
• 3.5 cup cold water
• 1/4 teaspoon tamari or soy

 Stir Fry:

• 1 cup of raw unsalted cashews
• 2 tbsp of sesame oil
• 1 tbsp of olive oil
• 2 scallions, sliced thinly
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 hot Serrano, chopped into small pieces
• 1 inch piece gingerroot, peeled and minced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 yellow pepper, deiced
• 1 cup edamame, cooked
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, sliced into thin shreds
• 1/2 cup of fresh mint, sliced into thin shreds
• 2 cups fresh pineapple, cut into bite-size chunks
• 6 Radicchio cups for serving

 Sauce:

• 3/4 can of coconut milk (light)
• 1.5 whole lime juice squeezed and half zest
• 1.5 tsp of agave nectar
• 1.5 tsp of soy or tamari
• 1 tbsp of mirin
• 1 tsp of garlic powder
• Salt and Pepper to taste 

| Preparation |

Measure quinoa and rinse with cold water. Place on stove top with water, pineapple and tamari bringing to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cook for 25 minutes until soft and water has evaporated.  Chill in fridge.

Using your largest skillet, toast cashews dry until golden in hue – 8-10 minutes, Remove

Make sure to have all ingredients for stir-fry chopped. Add the sesame oil, scallions, and garlic. When the garlic starts to sizzle, add the sliced Serrano and ginger. Stir-fry for about 3 minutes, and then add the yellow and red pepper and edamame. Stir-fry for about 3 minutes, until the bell pepper is softened and edamame is bright green. Cook until softens, 5 minutes.

Add the basil and mint, and stir for another minute before adding the pineapple and quinoa.

In a measuring cup, combine the coconut milk, tamari (or soy), mirin, lime juice with zest, garlic powder and agave.

Add quinoa and pineapple folding into ingredients. Mix for three minutes. Add sauce and continue to mix for another five minutes.

Lower to medium heat, add cashews and let sit for another 5 minutes to get crispy pieces. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Spoon into radicchio cups or bowl and serve. 

      

Time and time again, I’ve tried to beat the odds - wear a shirt without getting something on it. My clothes typically have a one-to-two wear life span, dodging a variety of sticky, greasy or colorful messes. Whether I’m bibbed up or strapped into a face funnel, something ugly, loud and rude always rears its face on my clothes. I fear that one day, I’ll end up in a predicament like this GUY

Hundreds on dry cleaning bills and irritated friends, who swear they’ll never lend me a shirt again, has given me a complex when it comes to handling the worst kinds of staining foods. I see them in the grocery aisle, glance at them on the menu, but the knee jerking psycho semantic complex keeps me looking the other way. Beets are one of those foods. It’s purpley red flesh, once broken, can paint everything from your hands, clothes, walls, counters and dishes. It’s up there next two red wine and oily fish on the DANGER STAINING SCALE.

A couple days ago I was craving something fresh and colorful. I had received a bundle of beets from a farmers market and they’d been staring me down for a week. I couldn’t take it any longer. I stripped down, put on some blacks and covered the kitchen a la’ Dexter Morgan, preparing myself for the inevitable mess. I knew I could do it. Beets had been a popular fix for the past year and I’ve yet to see anyone with stained hands and clothes where it was prepared. It’s likely that these people aren’t prone to being a n’th degree klutz, but regardless, I was ready to conquer the beet and succeed, sans stain.

Tri-Color Beet Salad

| Ingredients |

Salad:

• Three large beets (I used two red and one golden)
• Package of tri-color heirloom baby tomatoes
• Bunch of Basil (cut into strips)
• Stalk of Green onion (chopped)

Dressing:

• 3 tbsp of olive oil
• 1 tbsp of agave nectar
• 1 clove of roasted garlic
• 1 tbsp of lemon juice
• Salt and Pepper to taste

| Preparation |

Preheat oven to 475ºF. Cut ends off of beets, drizzle with olive oil and wrap tightly in tin foil. Place in oven and cook for 45 minutes to an hour. Wrap clove of garlic and leave in for 20 minutes. Check with a fork to see if beets are soft, as some oven temperatures vary. Once beats are ready, take them out of oven and let cool. Then using gloves, Ziploc bag or paper towel rub the skins off of the beets. [You can also try peeling in cold water, then reserve the liquid to make a drink. YUM.]

Cut beets into cubes or quarters. Cut the heirloom tomatoes in half and combine both in bowel. Add chopped green onion and basil.

Mix dressing ingredients together and whisk. Adding salt and pepper to taste. Drizzle dressing on top of salad, mix then serve alone or with a crunchy warm baguette.

       
My favorite meal of the year is a bitter sweet experience. The bitter, I have to fast for an entire day; the sweet, I’m privy to a glorious buffet of homemade dairy goods by Jewish moms. The bitter, my digestive system screams at the top of its lungs all night, post dairy fix, causing me to live through the consequences of a dairy overload; the sweet, I get to indulge in lasagna, lox, Mediterranean dips, eggplant parmesan and three types of quiche all loaded onto one, relentless paper plate.  It seems like a lot of grief for one meal, but it’s worth it. This year just ended up being particularly hard because of my mostly in the home vegan cooking…my digestive walls had not built up the immunity required for such a feast. Despite the recent war with my digestive track, my love for the breaking of the fast meal has not wavered. It still stands strong.

Cooking my way through my new vegan cookbooks I decided that I’d bring a special vegan treat to the breaking of the fast, that could be a good offload from the dairy feed. I ventured into the world of vegan baking and decided my food offering for the meal would be “Green Tea Matcha Vegan Cupcakes”.  A bunch of conservative Jewish eaters, who find Italian food a foreign culinary experience…Serving green cupcakes next to the usual fruit tray and cheesecake would be risky. I pictured myself like “Sam I am” insisting to try my dish – perhaps in a house, or in a boat or on a train.  Would anyone go for one? Would it take creative poetic manipulating? Would they be left a shore with the always ignored bland honey cake?

They loved it. People were hesitant at first. Gawking and doing the back and forth jaunt until they finally picked one up and shoved the bite size green treat in their mouth. Shock was painted on all of their faces – how could something green, be so tasty? They were grabbing more than one, probing for the recipe and I saw the host sneak some into her fridge before they were gone.

I find vegan cooking so liberating. I love that you can enjoy many of the same flavors and dishes, but without the unhealthy ingredients and the bonus of getting your daily vegetables and vitamins. Watching people gasp as they shake their head in disbelief of no diary, “how could it be so moist…no eggs…no milk…?” It’s possible. You can enjoy some of your favorite sweet treats without sacrificing your digestive system or your animal rights beliefs.

Courtesy of  Color me Vegan,  I was inspired by her Matcha Cupcake recipe. I changed only one thing but for the most part stuck to her advice. Best to do that with any baking recipe, until you’ve become a savant in the science of baking.

       

For the green tea powder, I spent a lot of time deciding on whether I go with something high end or bottom shelf. I decided to stick with the Japanese variety instead of the Korean and Chinese. I bought mine from Davids. It was mid range price. I was mostly concerned with the color, as I wanted a bright green cupcake. Since green tea is strong, the flavor breaks through, so don’t be too concerned if you don’t spend a fortune. It’s for baking so you really shouldn’t be spending more than $15 for 50 grams, and that slightly on the higher end.

Ingredients:

      

Cupcakes

• 2 cups (240 g) all-purpose flour
• ½ to ¾ cup (100 to 150 g) granulated sugar
• 2 Tbsp (18 g) plus 1 tsp matcha green tea power (or similar green tea powder)
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup (235 ml) of coconut milk (top liquid from coconut milk can
• ½ nondairy milk I used brown rice milk (you can use almond, soy, rice, hazelnut, hemp or oat)
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) olive oil (you can use canola if you don’t want the flavor)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

 

Green Tea Frosting

• ½ cup (112 g) nonhydrogenated, nondairy butter (such as Earth Balance)
• 1½ cups (150 g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp powdered green tea (such as matcha)
• 3 to 4 Tbsp (45 to 60 ml) nondairy milk (I used brown rice milk (you can use almond, soy, rice, hazelnut, hemp or oat)
• ¼ tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp almond extract
• ½ cup (63 g) coarsely ground pistachio nuts, for topping

 

| Preparation - Cupcakes | Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly oil a muffin tin or fill with cupcake liners. I used the mini cupcake tins. It made 36 mini cupcakes. In a large bowl, thoroughly combine flour, sugar, green tea powder, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour in milk, oil and vanilla. Stir to combine, making sure to break up any large clumps and being careful not to overstir.

Divide batter among the 36 mini or 12 prepared muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool on a rack.

| Preparation - Frosting | With an electric hand mixer or using a fork, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and mix until well incorporated and smooth. Once thoroughly combined and smooth add green tea powder, 2 Tbsp milk, vanilla extract and almond extract. Beat for a few minutes, until the frosting is light and fluffy, adding 1 or 2 Tbsp more milk, if needed. Cover frosting with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for 1 hour

| To Serve | When ready to use, frost each cupcake and top with ground pistachios.

       

      

Have you ever had the question posed to you, “If you were on death row, what would your last meal be”?

I find it to be a defining question into someone’s personality and its come up in most conversations with friends. This is one of the last tangible choices you have. If you’ve never had anyone ask you what your last meal would be, think about it; what would it be? Some people like to enforce rules like: has to be realistic to your location, you only get one choice of cuisine, one item etc… I play with no rules. Let your imagination run wild, you’re about to have the plug pulled; have whatever you want! You want Chef Ramsey - we can do that. You want an unusual beach slug from Japan - we can do that too. In the world of “imagination death row’”,anything is possible.

I’ve thought long and hard about my last meal. Spent a few years jumping from cuisine to cuisine or focusing on my flavor of the month. As my food child matured, I decided that I better start having conviction in my last meal, and be prepared for the next time I was asked that vital question.

My last meal would be a Mexican Smörgåsbord. A long wooden table, stretching to the very end of the room, carpeted with a variety of my Mexican favorites: swordfish ceviche, tuna ceviche, shrimp ceviche; a taco stand with all of the fixings; four types of empanadas; an oversized bowl of guacamole, that if I so choose, I could swim in; tamales stuffed with the most succulent fish; hand made corn tortilla chips; arepas;  a tray of serano’s, habanero’s, limes, coriander and a tall pitcher of rock sugar mint mojito. To top it off, I’d request the presence of the patriarch of Mexican cuisine, from a small village outside of Mexico City; who would cook in front of me, sharing his secrets to the cuisine and the stories from his childhood of cooking with his grandmother. You may think it’s a bit excessive, especially if I’ve committed some heinous crime, but I like to see my story as being similar to  that of ‘The Life of David Gale”: wrongfully accused with poetic undertones, justifying the need to milk the people’s taxes to pacify my betrayal through my palette.

So, this brings me to the empanada. It’s not often I get to indulge in an empanada chow down, since most available options are meat centric or extremely heavy and gas inducing (so people have told me…) I was flipping through one of my new baking cook books and came upon a recipe for empanada dough. I knew I had a ripe eggplant, red peppers, onion, chickpeas, heirloom tomatoes and fresh herbs.  I could make Roasted Vegetable Empanadas, playing around with the dough, so it wouldn’t be too heavy.

      

RECIPE:

 Empanada Dough

 Ingredients:

• 450 grams (3 cups) of all purpose flour
• 7 g (1.5 teaspoons) of salt
• 210 ml of water (chilled)
• 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp of brown rice miso (replacement for suet)

 Directions:

1. Put flour and salt in bowl. Add miso to measured water and mix throughly. Make a well in the middle of the flour and add the water (with miso), vinegar and egg.  Mix until well incorporated. [You can use a stand mixer for this, but best results come from wooden spoon and hand]
2. Lightly flour your work surface and start working the dough, kneading for 3 minutes. Let dough rest for a couple of minutes and knead again until dough it smooth and elastic. Cover in plastic and refrigerate for 2 hours. [you can leave the dough for longer, just allow it to warm a little before rolling out]
3. Roll out dough to 12x29 inch rectangle. It should be around 2mm (1/16 inch) thick. Using a pastry cutter or a similar sized round plate/lid, cut ten circles from the pastry 5 1/2 inch diameter.  Roll up and roll out remaining dough and use to cut out additional pieces. The dough is now ready for filling.

  Filling:

  Ingredients:

• 1 whole eggplant (roasted)
• 1 whole red pepper (roasted)
• ½ Red Onion (roasted)
• ½  a can of chickpeas
• 10 heirloom baby tomatoes (roasted)
• 2 garlic gloves (chopped very fine)
• Feta
• Coriander
• Salt & Pep to taste
• Cayenne Pepper to taste
• Dash of cinnamon
• 1 egg for wash

 Directions:

1. Pre heat oven to 475F. Cut all vegetables into small cubes and season with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast until soft.
2. Remove dough from fridge and allow it to warm, near room temperature but still cold to touch. It’s easier to roll out this way.
3. Mash chickpeas with olive oil in a bowl. Add fresh herbs, feta, and spices. Once roasted vegetables are cooled, combine with chickpeas and lightly mix to incorporate all of the ingredients.
4. Saute garlic on stove top with olive oil and add to bowl.
5. Turn oven temperature down 450F.
6. See Empanada Recipe for rolling out pastry.
7. Use a tbsp of filling and then fold seam to seam, using a fork to close seams. If seams open, dry drying the area, or put flour/cornmeal on your hands and fork. 
8. Place empanadas on a greased cookie sheet or on parchment paper, cover with egg wash and put in oven. Empanadas will be ready when they are golden in color. Average time: 20 minutes. But use your eyes as oven strength varies.

It’s tempting to want to eat these all to yourself, but thankfully my roommate called three as they came hot out of the oven. We enjoyed it with a tomatoe chutney I had made and some Italian hot peppers in oil. Empanadas are like a blank canvas, you can literately stuff anything in them. I encourage fresh ingredients, creative flavor combos and not last nights left over dinner of pizza and wings. 

       

Life before smoothies? It was empty. Mornings spent longing for something more. Granola didn’t cut it, avacodo on rice crisps was a bloat boat and oatmeal left imagination to be desired. I knew something was missing in my life, but I couldn’t quite get a handle on what it was. I tried different types of granola, tried having more than one rice cake, but by 11.30am my stomach would be beckoning for attention and my energy levels fizzling further and further into oblivion.  But as we do, I kept on pushing through the same routines, hoping that one day my body would find a way to adapt to the monotonous routine. Then Smoothie came along. “Oh smoothie, you came and you gave without taking..” I can’t help it. I just want to jump up on my kitchen counter top, and sing at the top of my lungs. I feel like a high school girl in love.

No exaggeration here my friends. I have found love. Love in the form of blended fruits and vegetables, and it can happen to you too.  Breakfast routines typically involve grabbing the first thing you see as you dash for the door, or sugary cereals that promise thinner waist lines through misleading commercials or complex high protein, high carbs breakfast that we’ve borrowed from one of the dozen health magazines, claiming one meal diets..pffff.  Toss the magazine aside, open up your fridge and I’m sure there’s at least two things you can blend. Put down the chicken. Good.  We’re talking breakfast here and I see a few more goodies in your fridge we can play around with.  Cucumbers, spinach, peach, blueberries, celery, ginger….the list goes on and on. 

Attempting not sound like a C actor on an informercial;  ever since I’ve started ‘blending’ I can’t even begin to explain how its changed my life. My energy levels, my digestive, my appetite and my overall health.  Every morning after slurping down my tall glass of green, I feel like I’m ready to run a triathlon or do 10 front hand springs (I can’t do any of these things, but I feel like I can, so that’s got to count for something.) Oh and to make it even more exciting, not even after half of the drink I’m ready to visit an unmentioned white porcelain friend of mine. It’s also probably one of the easiest meals you’ll make all day. I’ve included below tips on how to make blending fun, creative and even easier then it already is.

NO BLENDING BLUNDERS HERE – TIPS

1. Go into your grocery store and see what fruits or veggies are in season or local, you’re bound to get an even juicier mouth explosion with the produce being grown not far from home
2.  Pick fruits and veggies that are high in fiber, vitamins and antoxiants. Some great ones that I put in almost all of my smoothies: blueberries, kale, spinach, bananas.
3.  If you don’t have a protein powder, throw some greek yogurt in (this is a dairy addition, but a good one), nuts, avacado or even some almond butter.
4. Invest in a good protein powder. I didn’t think it could get better, but ever since I’ve started putting a scoop of the green, my energy levels and overall digestive levels have improved. I don’t eat red meat, so it’s acting as a great replacement. More on this later.
5.  Give it a kick. Don’t be afraid to toss in some cayenne, ginger or cinnamon.
6.  When you make your purchase and get home, try to cut and wash all of your fruits and veggies, putting them in a convenient container so that all you have to do in the morning is grab from here and grab from there.
7. Throw a couple cubes of ice in as it keeps it cool.
8. For my liquid base I use brown rice milk and sometimes coconut milk. Try to stay away from using bought juices as they tend to have a lot of sugar in them. Also if you can limit your dairy intake everyday it will help your overall digestive. There are so many alternatives out there.
9. Most importantly: Have fun, be creative and don’t be afraid to mix.

Go on, and get your dairy free mustache!

SMOOTHIE RECIPES COMING SOON