Cookies for Ava Jane

My friends had a baby. This is becoming a thing in my life. My friends have babies. I knit cute things for the babies. I make food for the babies' parents. I get to hold the babies. Good deal.

It so happens that tonight's dinner for the new parents will be, per their request, pad thai.  And, in the strange and lovely circularity of life, it so happens that the other couple at dinner will be the folks I made this pad thai for a little over a year ago when they became new parents. And their kid is now old enough to actually eat some of the pad thai!

Anyway, I figured that, as it was Friday and I had a little time on my hands, I'd bake something fun and improvisational for dessert. Here's what I came up with. "Brown-Butter-Coconut-Oil-Pecan-Chocolate-Oat Cookies" seemed like a bit of a mouthful, so we'll just call them "Cookies for Ava Jane"

Ingredients

• 1/2 stick butter
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup pecan pieces
• 1/2 cup dried coconut
• 1 tsp maple syrup

Procedure

• Pre-heat your oven to 350°F and prep a baking sheet
• Toast the pecans and coconut over low heat in a medium pan until coconut is golden brown. Place on a plate or in a bowl. If you want, you can toss them with a teensy bit of maple syrup. 
• Brown your butter! If you've never done this, get excited. It's fun. :) Place the butter in a small saucepan over low and let it melt. 
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• You don't need to stir it, but tilt the pan around once in a while.
•  In about 5 minutes, there will be a bunch of foam that starts to fade away, your kitchen will smell like toffee, and there will be little brown flecks all over your pan. Yum.
• Place the sugars in a bowl and pour the brown butter on top. Stir to mix.
• Use the same saucepan to melt the coconut oil-- no need to wash it out in between. Once it's melted (which should take less than a minute), add to the butter and sugar.

• If the mixture is still warm, wait a few moments for it to cool down, and then add the egg and vanilla. 

• Stir in the flour, baking power, and salt. Mix well.

• Add your mix-ins! Pecans, coconut, oats, and chocolate!

• Form cookies and place on the baking sheet. I made about 20 little cookies, but if you want to form bigger cookies you can. 

• Bake for 15 minutes and let cool.
• Bring to new parents. Hold their baby. 

 

Paneer Tikka Masala (with some korma flare)

I said I was gonna stick with this blog. I meant it. Then winter came. Days got short. Natural light for taking pictures of food became scarce. Finals took hold. I went away for break. I came back. I got super busy covering for a rabbi on sabbatical in Maryland. Second semester began. And suddenly it was nearly March and my most recent post was just after Thanksgiving. Oops.

Today I had some time, so I decided to experiment with paneer, which my wonderful co-op happens to carry. Whenever I order Indian food, paneer is my go-to.  My favorite dish at Tiffin, the Indian restaurant around the corner from my house, is paneer tikka masala-- cubes of paneer simmered with some onions and peas in a creamy tomato sauce. It being me, I decided to go off-book and not just try to replicate the dish.



Spices in this are approximate. As with anything spicy, it's all up to personal taste. Experiment and see what you like. Also, the veggies were what I had on hand. I imagine any combo of relatively quick-cooking vegetables would do well with this.


Ingredients

Paneer Skewers

• 1/2 pound of paneer, cubed (you could probably sub meat here)
• 1/2 red pepper, cut into 1-inch chunks
• a few large slices of onion
• 3 TBS half-and-half or yogurt
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1.5 inch ginger, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 tsp tumeric
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp cayenne (please use your own tastebuds/spice tolerance as a guide here!!)

Sauce

• 2 TBS oil or ghee
• 1/2 large onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 inch ginger
• 3 TBS cashews
• 1 14 oz can tomatoes
• water as needed
• a small handful of mushrooms, washed and sliced
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp tumeric
• 1/4 tsp cayenne 
• 1/2 cup milk, half-and-half, or cream
• cashews to garnish

Procedure

Paneer Skewers

• Stir half-and-half, ginger, garlic, and all spices together in a large bowl
• Add paneer, peppers, and onions and stir until everything is well-coated-- if there's not enough liquid for this, add a touch more half-and-half.

• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and stick in the fridge for 90 minutes.

• After the paneer has marinated, preheat the oven to 400°F, thread the paneer and veggies onto skewers, and bake for about 15 minutes, until the edges are beginning to brown. Save the leftover marinade for the sauce. 

Sauce

• Roughly chop the onion, place in a food processor, and turn into an onion mush. 

• Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion, and cook for about 5 minutes over medium-low heat, until the onion begins to turn golden.

• While the onion is cooking, roughly chop the garlic and ginger, add to the food processor with the cashews, and blend. 
• Stir the cashew mix into the onion mix, adding a little water if everything gets sticky, and cook for a few minutes more. Meanwhile, place the tomatoes in the food processor and puree. 

• Add the tomatoes and 1/4 cup water. Stir over medium heat for a minute or two until blended. 
• Stir in the mushrooms and peas, bring to a simmer, and let cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often and letting the sauce reduce. 

• Add the spices and taste for flavor. Since you'll be adding dairy, it should be slightly stronger than you want the final dish to be. 
• Remember the leftover marinade? Stir it slowly into the sauce.

• Remove the sauce from the heat, give a moment to cool slightly, and then slowly stir in the milk or cream. 

• Slide the paneer and veggies off the skewers and into the sauce, stirring well to incorporate. 
• Serve with rice, naan, or both, with some cashews on top.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Parve Pumpkin Pie! (and bonus coconut whipped cream!)

So Em Bakes. Em bakes cookies, cakes, pies, bread, muffins, scones, biscuits, and you get the idea. I consider myself to be a pretty good improvisor when it comes to using alternative ingredients and such. But, I'll admit, I sometimes have trouble with making things vegan. It's a growing edge.

I don't usually go home for Thanksgiving these days. It's too expensive and too logistically complicated to fly cross-country for a few days. But I'm really fortunate to have friends and classmates hosting here in Philly, so I always end up with somewhere to go. This year, I offered to bring pies to my host. What I wasn't considering, when I made the offer, was Thanksgiving would be a meat meal (as opposed to a dairy meal), and while I could use eggs, I could not use milk or butter or any other dairy products. Oops.

I decided to make two pies-- one apple and one pumpkin (it is Thanksgiving, after all). For the apple, I more or less just subbed earth balance for butter in my normal recipe.  I think it'll be yummy. I think apple pie made with butter is probably yummier.  ;)  For the pumpkin pie, I suppose I could have just tried subbing earth balance for butter and soy milk for cow's, but instead I thought it'd be fun to have a baking adventure, so I bought coconut oil.


Coconut oil is a thing. It's a thing I've never bought, because I've never quite known what to do with it. To be totally honest, I'm still not positive I know what to do with it, but I figured I'd grab a jar and play. I also decided to use almond milk, figuring that almond and coconut and pumpkin were likely to be a good combo.

For the crust, I found this recipe on Whole Foods and more-or-less followed it. For the filling, I looked at probably a dozen different vegan and non-vegan pumpkin pie recipes and improvised.


Ingredients- crust

• 3 oz solid (not liquid!) coconut oil
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp sugar
• 8 TBS ice water

Procedure- crust

• Stir the flour, salt, cinnamon, and sugar together
• Use two knives to cut the coconut oil into the flour and salt mix. This is tricky. The coconut oil did not want to be cut into the dry mix. Butter is usually cooperative, but the oil wasn't. I got it eventually, but it was still lumpier than a usual crust.
• Stir the ice water into the mix a couple tablespoons at a time until the dough just barely comes together. (My grandma always said to add it until you thought you needed a little more and then stop.)
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• Pour the dough out of the counter, gather it up, and press into a flattish disc. Wrap in plastic and stick in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight. 

Ingredients- filling

• 1 can pumpkin puree
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1/4 c. brown sugar
• 1/4 c. white sugar
• 1 TBS maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 TBS flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

Procedure- filling/baking

• Pre-heat the oven to 375°F.
• Whisk all of the filling ingredients together in a large bowl. Taste for spice and sweetness and add more if you like. 
• Remove the crust from the fridge, roll out, and place into a pie tin. If the crust doesn't fully cooperate, just do your best! Use scraps to fill in any bits of the edge that aren't covered. Make a nice border if you like (and have enough extra crust).
• Pour the filling into the crust.
• Bake for 10 minutes, then turn down to 350°F and bake for about 50 minutes, or until the center of the pie is firm when lightly giggled. If you're lucky, your pie won't crack. Or maybe you'll be like me and it will. Either way, it should be yummy.

Ingredients- whipped cream

• 1 can coconut cream
• 1 TBS maple syrup
• 1-3 TBS sugar (used as a stabilizer and to sweeten to taste) 
• 1 TBS ginger syrup (optional)

Procedure- whipped cream

• chill the coconut milk overnight in the fridge
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• pour the solid part of the can into a large chilled bowl, reserving any liquid for something else yummy
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• use a hand mixer or a bunch of elbow grease to whip til fluffy. Add maple syrup and ginger syrup and whip some more. 
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• put whipped cream on pumpkin pie.  Induce food coma. 

Happy Thanksgiving! (Stuffing recipe to follow!) 

Leek and Kale Coconut Curry with Rice Noodles

I spent last weekend at a conference for rabbinical students from all over the country. It was a fantastic experience and I learned so much from the students and "full-grown" rabbis there. I also increased my understanding of strict kosher eating practices, like not being allowed to bring my water bottle into the cafeteria (the staff took it away but I got it back!) and using tea essence rather than tea bags on shabbat. I don't really keep kosher at home. I'm a vegetarian, so I don't mix meat and milk because I'm not ever consuming meat, but I buy products that aren't marked kosher, and since my roommates aren't vegetarian, my pots and pans and dishes aren't kosher. I feel like my practices make sense for me, and when I have my own kitchen I might just keep it vegetarian. In any case, some of the practices at the conference were new to me, and it was awesome to learn from my more traditionally-observant colleagues.

When I got back yesterday afternoon, all I really wanted to do was curl up and chill, but instead I ran out to the co-op for groceries and then hopped in the car to get to choir practice on time. (I'm a good little chorister.) So I didn't really have a lot of time to cook yesterday, but when I got home from work today I decided it was time to use yesterday's hastily-purchased groceries to make something awesome. And then I did. These proportions worked out well for me, but the veggie amounts are really up to you. Also, feel free to sub other greens for the kale if you like. This recipe is quite forgiving and can hang out without constant attention for most of the cooking process.

Ingredients

• 4 garlic cloves, sliced or diced large
• about 2 inches ginger, peeled and sliced
• 1 large leek, greens and whites washed well and sliced thinly
• a handful of mushrooms, washed and sliced
• half a package of tofu (you could use more-- that's what I had), pressed and cubed
• about half a head of kale, stemmed (if you like) washed and torn into bite-sized chunks
• 2 TBS canola oil or other cooking oil
• 1 14 oz can light coconut milk
• 1 TBS red curry paste (I use thai kitchen)
• about half a package rice noodles
• 1 tsp soy sauce, plus more to taste
• sesame chili oil to taste

Procedure

• Cook the rice noodles according to package directions. If they're done before your veggies are, rinse in cool water and set aside. 
• Heat the canola oil in a large pan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and ginger and cook, stirring occasionally, for a couple of minutes. 
• Add the leeks and let cook slowly for about 5 minutes, until they start to soften up.
• Add the tofu and mushrooms. Continue to cook over medium-low for perhaps another 5 minutes, stirring about from time to time. Add more oil if the veggies start to stick or get super dry. 
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• When the veggies are softish and starting to look cohesive, add in the kale. It may well take over your pan. Be patient. Stir it gently. Eventually the kale will start to break down and fit properly in the pan. 



Before



• After the kale has been cooking for about 5 minutes, stir in the coconut milk and curry paste. Cook for about 5 minutes more or until veggies are as tender as you like. 
• Stir in rice noodles, soy sauce, and chili oil (if using).
• Eat up.  
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