Wrapped and ready | Family dinner | Getting testy

Cinnamon rolls wrapped and ready to go to the sale.

This past weekend I participated in another world-wide vegan bakesale — held at Sidecar vegan store in Seattle. The bakesale raised funds for Pig's Peace Sanctuary, a non-profit organization that provides a safe home for unwanted, abused or neglected animals in need. I'm merely a contributor to the sales but the hard work of organizing and running them is done by Bethany, who writes the blog, Spotted Devil Cat and his Vegan Assistant. For this sale I made nearly three dozen vegan cinnamon rolls. Making them wasn't nearly as hard as packaging them, since each item needs to be individually wrapped. I tried to make the packaging attractive by adding a ribbon and ingredient list but it takes so much time, and also I feel guilty about the packaging. I used the last of my roll of cellophane, and then moved on to plastic sandwich bags, ugh.

To make the rolls I used the recipe for Outrageously Easy Big Bread with a few small changes. The ingredients and recipe are all over the Web so I think it's OK to list the ingredients here. The filling was my recipe, but it's so simple it doesn't feel right to claim it.

Baked and smiling sweetly (but not too sweetly.)

Dough

• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 cups hot water
• 1/4 cup evaporated cane juice
• 1 teaspoon sea salt plus 1 teaspoon Indian black salt (or just use sea salt)
• 4 cups white whole wheat flour
• 2 cups unbleached flour
• 1/4 cup canola oil or corn oil
  

Filling

• 1 cup evaporated cane juice
• 1 cup finely ground almonds (or almond flour)
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon

Follow the directions in this recipe link for mixing the dough.

1. Let the dough rise for 2 hours, covered with a damp towel, then punch down. Divide the dough in half.
   
2. Roll one half to an approximately 11 x 17 rectangle. (I rolled mine on a floured piece of parchment paper.)
3. Mix the filling ingredients together and spread half the filling on the dough, leaving 1/2 inch uncovered at each long end.
4. Roll up into a long log, pinching the last edge to seal.
5. Cut into 3/4 inch slices with a serrated knife, and place on parchment paper in a large baking pan to rise, covered with damp towel. (Leave at least 1 inch between rolls.)
6. Repeat with second half of dough.
   
7. When doubled in size, bake for 20-25 minutes in a 350˚F oven.
8. Remove to a wire rack to cool. (Frost or glaze if desired. I like them plain.)

update: The sale raised $1,240 on Sat, $530 on Sun, for a total of $1,170!!!

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Dinner for eight

We had a family dinner Sunday night with one of the families contributing a delicious tomato- pesto pasta, my husband making a green salad, and me making roasted cauliflower and white bean salad, kalonji and sunflower seed bread, and rice pudding. The salad came from Herbivoracious, a Seattle-based vegetarian blog that has many interesting vegan recipes. I enjoyed the salad very much, and found it easy to make. (I doubled the recipe.) I didn't have the orange-scented olive oil in the recipe but used TJ's Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar which was recommended as a substitute, and it worked well. And I used basil and olives.

tip: Instead of mincing the garlic, I grated it on my microplane zester. I don't like chomping down on pieces of garlic, and the zester puréed the garlic so it mixed easily into the dressing. I was careful not to get my fingers too close to the grating surface but was still able to grate all but the very end of the garlic cloves.

The bread was based on the same recipe as the cinnamon rolls (above) but with a slightly different ingredient list. This bread requires no kneading and is incredibly easy to make. Tastes great, too! It makes two loaves.

• 1 tablespoon dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 cups hot water
• 3 tablespoons evaporated cane juice
• 1 teaspoon sea salt plus 1 teaspoon Indian black salt (or just use sea salt)
• 4 cups white whole wheat flour
• 2 cups unbleached flour
• 2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 to 4 tablespoons lightly toasted kalonji
• 1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
  

The kalonji seeds added an exotic flavor to the fragrant, soft bread, and the sunflower seeds contributed to the rich texture and taste. (see above for a link to directions.)

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Testing 1, 2, 3 ...

Our dessert was (a lowered sugar and fat version of) Frangipane Rice Pudding, a tester recipe for Celene Steen and Joni Marie Newman's newest cookbook-in-progress. It's been ages since I've had rice pudding, and this easy version was a treat. Of course there was also an assortment of baked goods from the world-wide vegan bakesale but I forgot to take a picture.

Simple foods

Me in my new apron.

To be honest, I prefer simple foods. I would rather have a peach than a piece of peach pie. I don't like extremes of saltiness or sweetness, or heavy flavoring and spicing. But you know, I'm playing at a food blog, and no one wants to read about steamed cauliflower. So although most of what I eat is much simpler than you might think, my blog posts don't always reflect that. I blog about the more interesting or unusual dishes we eat, or restaurant food we've consumed, or vegan items I'm asked to review. But normally, we don't go out of our way to cook fancy gourmet meals or recreate elaborate meat or dairy dishes in vegan form, nor do we regularly use non-dairy cheese other than occasionally on pizza. So you see, our gustatory lives are quite boring.

Daiya cheese pizza with "pepperoni" (tester recipe)

In my last post I included a recipe for a kale soup typical of what we might consider a fine meal. Along with a salad or a crusty loaf of bread or maybe just some rice, that would be it. My husband will eat an apple for dessert, and I might have a small orange or a few dates. I'm telling you this because I've received a number of inquiries from new or aspiring vegans asking how difficult it will be to be vegan, or how expensive it might be. New vegans are more likely to try to recreate familiar foods as they transition to a new way of life. But I don't want anyone to think we depend on fake foods or complicated preparations for our meals. Nope. We love our veggies.

Salted caramel wheat treats. Yum. (tester recipe)

Lately I've been testing recipes for a cookbook being developed by Celine and Joni. The cookbook is about substitutions — vegan for omnivorous. So, you've been seeing lots of, well, substitutions. Some are things I would make anyway, like chickpea salad, and some not so much, like baby back ribz. It's fun to make stuff like this, or to serve it to company, and we've been enjoying our testing a lot. Besides, it's never a bad idea to have a few good seitan recipes on hand. (Seitan was used by Buddhist monks in the 7th century so it's not a weird "new" vegan food.) I usually cut back on the salt used in the recipes because I'm pretty health conscious and excess salt can cause health issues. But also, because I don't eat a lot of processed foods, I've become very sensitive to the intense natural flavors of fruits, vegetables, grains and beans, and it takes very little additional salt or sugar to make things taste perfectly seasoned. I'm not saying we only eat barely seasoned food — sometimes we make things very spicy — but usually our foods are less seasoned than what might be considered average.

Baby back ribz try #2 (tester recipe) Still not sticky and gooey but closer!

I enjoy some very salty things like olives, as an accent to a meal, but if everything is salty, I find it distasteful. It almost burns my tongue. The same is true of very sweet things; they don't taste good to me. When I bake for others, I usually use more sweetener so my baked goods will be more like what other people enjoy. I'm always surprised, when I think I've made something much too sweet, to hear someone say, "I really like this. It's not too sweet." Oh well.

Just so you can see how truly boring our eating can be, here's a soup I made for lunch on Saturday. But really, it was delicious. And so simple. You can flavor it any way you like to suit your own palate.

Simple cauliflower, carrot, potato soup

• 1/2 large head of cauliflower, cut in large pieces
• 1 large potato, peeled and cut in small dice
• 2 large carrots, peeled and cut in small dice
• 2 cups water
• 1 to 3 teaspoons mellow white miso (to taste)
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• low sodium vegetable broth
• fresh ground pepper

optional

• sliced scallion
• minced parsley
• fresh or dried herbs

1. Place the vegetables and water in a pressure cooker. Bring to pressure and cook 5 minutes. Release pressure.
2. Use a hand-blender in the pot or add cooked veggies and cooking water to a blender bowl along with miso, onion powder and vinegar, and blend until creamy. Add broth to desired consistency, and blend. Adjust seasoning if needed.
3. Return to pot and gently reheat if needed. Place in bowls and add a grind of pepper. Add garnishes as desired.

Along with the soup we had leftover polenta which I sautéed in the wok, and a salad, and our adorable granddaughter who was visiting, had tofu fingers. She used the soup as a dip for the tofu, which had been dredged in potato starch and sautéed.

My new cupcake apron up close.

We went to our son and d-i-l's house for dinner Saturday night, and our dil made a delicious Caribbean stew called Island Gumbo from "The Urban Vegan" cookbook. It was just right for a cold, damp winter evening. I brought some cookies and bars culled from the stash that went to the bake sale on Sunday.

Now here's something my husband made all on his own. He's not really into plating, so it's a little hard to see what it is, but it's a stacked portobella mushroom dish he adapted from "Real Food Daily." It had a layer of baked polenta on the bottom, and portobella, carrots, red pepper, onions and a light tomato sauce on the top. It was amazingly delicious.

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Bake sale for Haiti

Today there was a vegan bake sale for Haiti and I contributed some baked goods. Yes, genuinely sweet ones! I made Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies, and one of the tester recipes from the cookbook. Instead of just packaging the goodies in plastic baggies like I usually do for bake sales, I made cellophane packages tied with ribbon. They looked very cute if I do say so myself.

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Valentine's Day idea
Meredith from Farm Sanctuary asked me to post this, and I'm happy to do so. Sponsoring an animal is a gift of love that fits well with Valentine's Day — or any day.

This Valentine’s Day, open your heart to the rescued animals at Farm Sanctuary. Each of these individuals has a huge capacity for love and a story to share that will fill you with hope and inspiration.
Sponsor an animal for yourself and share your Valentine’s Day spirit with one of the sweet animals at our shelters. Or, give a sponsorship as a gift because there’s no better way to show that someone special in your life how much you care. All of our sanctuary residents depend on sponsors to provide them with nourishing food, safe refuge, veterinary care, and everything else they need for a happy and healthy life.
Sponsors receive an adoption certificate with a color photograph of their adopted friend, an adoption card, an invitation to schedule a VIP tour to meet their sponsored animal, and other benefits depending on the animal selected. Click here to see a list of our sponsorship packages.
In the name of love for all beings, sponsor one of the farm animals below this Valentine’s Day! Or, sponsor them all to receive or share a whole barnyard full of love! You can also make a special one-time gift to the animals.

A Vegan Table / win $25,000 / veganmofo 2009

I got a new cookbook for my birthday — "The Vegan Table" by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau — and we've started giving it a try. My husband found the can of artichoke hearts I bought to make a Turkish dish, and he made red lentil artichoke stew from Colleen's cookbook, instead. It wasn't the Middle Eastern dish I had intended, but it was delicious. I'm sure we'll want to make this again. I have a real weakness for artichoke hearts.

To go with the lentils he made cauliflower with spicy vinaigrette. This was an extremely easy dish of steamed cauliflower with a piquant dressing, proving once again that a dish doesn't have to be complicated or take hours, to be terrific. This dish might end up on our Thanksgiving table.

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Cooking contest
Are you feeling creative and in the mood to enter a cooking contest with a $25,000 grand prize? I received an email from French's Mustard representative Danielle Nuxxo who wrote:

"I came across your Easy Vegan Cooking blog...and wanted to send you some info on a new cooking contest from French’s Food, where you can win a trip to NYC for a cook-off and get a chance at the $25,000 grand prize. Since mustard is naturally low in sugar, fat and calories, I thought your vegan readers would enjoy the challenge of coming up with a naturally delicious recipe that fits well into the gluten-free and vegan lifestyle.

Here are the details on how to enter the contest. Time is running out, since all entries need to be entered by Saturday, Oct. 31. Each recipe must:

• Be original, unpublished, and created by you

• Include at least one French's product

• Include no more than 8 ingredients (with the exception of salt, pepper and water…those are freebies)

• Be prepared and ready to serve in under 60 minutes (Parents are busy, we all know that!)

• For recipe inspiration and giveaways, check out the French’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Frenchs/129122660682?ref=ts

Recipes will be evaluated on appearance, creativity and overall deliciousness and must be submitted by Saturday, October 31, 2009 online at: http://frenchs.com/Login.php?redirect=/Contest/SubmitRecipe.php. Five finalists, determined by online voting and a judging panel, will compete in a LIVE Cook-Off event to be held in New York City for a chance to win the Grand Prize of $25,000!"

I know it's a tight deadline but my fellow bloggers are so creative!

Chipotle vegetable soup / veganmofo 2009

I should call this post "Pantry Soup" because I made use of stuff from the refrigerator and pantry in an effort to move older stuff out and use up leftovers, including a container of leftover pasta sauce and the end of a bag of frozen corn. I started out wanting a simple cauliflower soup but one thing led to another, and before I was done, it was a full-blown vegetable bean soup. I quick-soaked a cup of kidney beans in eight cups of water by bringing the water to a boil then turning off the stove and letting the beans sit for an hour in the covered pot. I then cooked the beans until they were tender, adding more water as necessary. When they were soft, I added the leftover tomato sauce. I made a flavoring mix of peanut butter, miso, chipotle powder and dried crushed red pepper, and added it to the beans. The onions were caramelized by cooking slowly in a wok for about 30 minutes. After making three soups from "Love Soup" that required caramelized onions, I've become very fond of the added flavor caramelizing brings out. The veggies (except corn) were cut, and simmered with water in a separate pot (to preserve color) to tenderize them and make broth. When cooked, they were added to the beans.

The corn was added last so it wouldn't get over-cooked. I intended to add parsley at the end, but our bag of parsley was gross and unusable. So what's in your refrigerator? Maybe it's time to make soup.

I'm providing a list of ingredients but all quantities are approximate, as they should be. Remember, a tasting spoon is your most valuable piece of cooking equipment!

Vegetable and kidney bean soup
kidney beans (cup dry)
water (8+ cups for the beans, more for the veggies)
leftover tomato sauce (cup) or a can of tomatoes
onion, chopped - caramelized
cauliflower, cut up (head)
celeriac, sliced thin (chunk)
potato, large dice (1)
carrot, sliced (2 large)
frozen corn (cup)
salt to taste
peanut butter (Tbsp.)
mellow white miso (Tbsp.)
chipotle powder (tsp.)
dried crushed red pepper

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Vegetarian spiders found
Just in time for Halloween comes a nice but slightly creepy spider story. The spiders in question are (almost) vegetarian so I thought you'd want to know about them. Except for an occasional treat of ant larvae, these tropical spiders eat plant buds. Check it out. This is real - not a joke.

Random meals

From our garden!

I work on a mac, and until I cleverly spilled a mug of peppermint tea onto and thoroughly into my mac keyboard, I had an un-noteworthy typing experience. When the keyboard became toast, so to speak, my husband handed over a keyboard that had come with one of his PCs, and had been lying around the house unused because he preferred his old keyboard. The letters and numbers on this keyboard type out just as you would expect, but the symbols are all wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. When I type an ampersand or quotation marks, I never know what to expect. I've had to learn a whole new system of finding the right keys. I've learned to type the right parenthesis when I want the left, and the equal sign when I want the right. If I want a "@" I have to type "a." This is all OK as long as I'm using symbols that I use a lot, and have memorized the correct keys, but when I have to type something that I don't type often, like a "&," I have to type all the upper keys until I find it! The "&" looks like "/." Now I find when I use a normal keyboard, I get confused and type the wrong symbols.

This is kind of how I feel in our house right now as everything gets packed up. I go to the spot where something I want should be, and of course it's not there anymore. And I can't remember where it is. Like my favorite shorts. Did they get packed or accidentally donated? Or did they go to the attic? They were supposed to be available to wear on the trip but I haven't seen them in quite a while. Tsk.

Anyway, even when I'm not posting recipes, we're still eating around here. It's just that we're not being especially creative, or we're being creatively repetitive or whatever. Plus, we're in the midst of preparing to move nearly 2,000 miles away, and have a lot on our minds. So, here's some stuff we've been eating with links back to where the food appears on this blog, if it does.

Red lentil soup with cauliflower, green beans and cracked pepper

Pad Thai

Fabulous wax beans from Claire's gard

I think planting wax beans instead of green ones was an excellent idea that I wish had occurred to me. The green ones are almost impossible to see on the garden plants but the yellow ones stand right out, making them a lot easier to harvest. These wax beans were served with enchiladas.

Tofu and Swiss chard burritos

We usually make these with kale but the garden is overflowing with Swiss chard. In either case, they are really delicious. I first had the kale version in a café in Santa Fe, and immediately tried to recreate them when we returned home. I left it unrolled for the photo, but of course I rolled it up to eat.

Saturday is our scheduled date of departure when we head to Seattle. Through the miracle of modern technology (scheduled posting), blog posts will continue to appear while we're en route. I'll be taking photos along the way as we head west from Wisconsin and will post about our trip (if there's anything to say!) when we get set up in our new digs. Hopefully I won't be too grumpy! It's not too late to offer last minute tips on places to eat in South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. We'll have a laptop with us.

Seattle diary: delicious home cooked Indian dinner, Carmelita and contra dancing

After college our middle son spent a year doing internships in D.C. At the end of the year he decided to come home for a few months, save some money and figure out what to do next. Since he wasn't paying rent, he decided his contribution to the household would be to cook dinner. This was fantastic. Every night we'd come home to a delectable meal. Aaron is an exceptional cook — the kind who grinds his own spices in a mortar and pestle so they'll be fresh and exactly as he wants them to be. The day he announced he was leaving town, my husband and I looked at each other in panic and whimpered, "but what will we eat?" It wasn't that we didn't want him to move on with his life, or that we weren't capable of cooking, but we'd become accustomed to really good food magically appearing every night, and were panicked at the thought of this luxury coming to an end.

Recently, on our visit to Seattle, we had the pleasure of dining on Aaron's elegant cooking again, as he whipped up a simple but wonderful Indian-inspired meal of cauliflower-rice pilaf and kidney bean stew. These dishes were served with tamarind chutney and coriander chutney, both made by Aaron. Aaron found the pilaf recipe in the Seattle Times and it's a great recipe, easily veganized by using Earth Balance instead of butter. It's from "Vij's: Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine" by Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala. Vij's is a restaurant in Vancouver. It's not a vegetarian restaurant, nor is the book vegetarian. Aaron says the kidney bean stew is very similar to Madhur Jaffrey's Punjabi kidney bean stew in "World Vegetarian."


Cauliflower pilaf


Tamarind chutney and cilantro chutney


Kidney bean stew



The Seattle trip was winding down. Our oldest son left after our dinner on Thursday evening for a teacher conference in Vancouver, and the rest of his family plus our middle son and his gf, Erica, were heading to Vancouver after work on Friday. So, after a Friday morning of childcare for Miss 1-year old, we were left behind in Seattle. We decided to splurge on a special vegan dinner at Carmelita, a charming and well-regarded upscale but light-hearted vegetarian restaurant with vegan options. Our waitress was just about the most cheerful person I've encountered in a long time.

We started with an antipasti plate containing muhumara (roasted red pepper dip), marinated olives, roasted garlic, chickpea salad, grilled flatbread, rosemary-white bean spread and spiced marcona almonds. It was huge, and we ate about half, leaving the rest for the airplane trip home the next day. The dips and spreads were so great — and the roasted garlic was an entire enormous head.

For our entrées I chose the artisanal polenta cake, apple/sweet potato hash, foraged mushroom sauce, fried parsnip, and my husband selected the farro tagine, spicy walnut pesto, braised squash and Swiss chard, pomegranate molasses. We were both more than pleased with our choices, though I thought the fried parsnip threads were a bit too fried.

I wish I could have taken photos of the gorgeous food but it was so dark in the room, I knew they wouldn't turn out with my little point and shoot. Just go there and see for yourself!

After dinner we went contra dancing at the Phinney Ridge Community Center where we had a chance to work off some of the calories we'd just consumed. Or, I should say, I worked off some of the calories. My husband botched his knee a few days before on a steepish walk at Carkeek Park, and he sat out most of the dances.

note: I learned something about carrying food in a cardboard container. Call me naive, but I popped the cardboard container from the restaurant into a plastic bag and took it to the airport. By the time I took it out for lunch, it had become a soggy, weeping mess. It was only quick action that prevented me from also becoming a soggy, weeping mess in the confines of my airplane seat! The food was still fantastic, but next time I'll repack it into something a bit more rigid, like plastic.

Baked samosas and aloo gobhi matar chana

Relatives in Connecticut went to a Mad Men-themed New Year's Eve party where guests were supposed to come in Mad Men appropriate attire and munch on food from the era. It's such a great idea—I was really jealous. The hosts served stuff like pigs in the blanket, deviled eggs, brisket cooked in Coca Cola, celery stuffed with cream cheese, Swedish meatballs, jello mold and whiskey cake. Hmmm. I wonder what the vegans ate in the 60s - probably brewers yeast loaf and rice patties!

Most vegan bloggers today probably weren't even born in the 60s, or were too young to be cooking. I was there, but still at home with my parents, and not cooking or thinking much about food choices. Some of the above foods, like the brisket in Coke and the whiskey cake, I've never heard of, but the others are at least familiar. (I just recently stuffed (tofu) cream cheese into celery!) But I have a clear memory of Swedish meatballs. Those were popular for a long time, and I remember my aunt serving them and telling me, with great excitement, her "secret" recipe. She mixed a bottle of ketchup and a can of 7-up to achieve the unique flavor of the sauce that made the meatballs the special treat that they were. Do people still do this? I wonder. I almost considered creating a vegan version but then had second thoughts.

Instead of 1960s American party food, here is a post about the timeless Indian cuisine that we enjoyed on New Year's Day.

My son wanted to make samosas for dinner and he found a video on the Internet with step by step directions. After consulting with me, he made a couple of changes to the recipe. He used white whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour for the crust (had to add more flour than in the recipe), and he baked them instead of frying them. I didn't see him make the filling but he said he used carrots instead of peppers. He rolled the pastry really thin and the resulting samosas were fantastic—light and delicate. They weren't heavy and greasy like they sometimes are at restaurants. The pastry he used to make 8 samosas used only 1 teaspoon of oil plus a light spray before baking!

To go with the samosas we had a low-fat variation of aloo gobhi with the addition of peas and garbanzos. It was tasty and satisfying. The recipe was adapted from a book we found at our local library.

Potatoes, cauliflower, peas and chickpeas (Aloo gobhi matar chana) adapted from a recipe in "Indian Light Cooking."

• 1 cup cauliflower florets
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 10 ounces frozen green peas
• 1 cup cooked chickpeas, drained and rinsed if from a can
• 1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon red pepper powder (or ground cayenne pepper to taste)
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons canola oil
• 1 can crushed tomatoes (or 1-1/2 cups finely chopped fresh)
• 2 tablespoons fresh coriander, chopped

1. Steam the potatoes, covered, in a small amount of water for about 5 minutes. Add the cauliflower and steam about 5 minutes more until almost tender.
2. Combine the tumeric, cumin, red pepper powder and coriander in a small bowl. Heat the oil in a large non-stick skillet or wok over moderate heat. Add the spices to the pan and stir-fry for about 5 seconds. (don't burn!)
3. Add the drained potatoes and cauliflower (just remove them from the steaming pan with a slotted spoon) and chickpeas, and stir fry until they are lightly browned.
4. Add the tomatoes and cook 1 to 2 minutes.
5. Add about 1/4 cup of water. (use the vegetable cooking water if any is left)
6. Add the peas.
7. Cover and cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
8. Add salt to taste. Garnish with coriander.

Kale, cauliflower and pasta with pomegranate

When I was a child, my mother would always buy a few pomegranates when they came into season, even though she couldn't really afford them, and she and I would share the jewel-like fruit. There was only one problem. My mother believed that the seeds, like grape seeds, were inedible, so we would chew the juicy pulp off and spit out the seeds. When I was on my own, I thought wistfully of those pomegranates, but didn't want to deal with the piles of gnawed seeds, so I never bought any. Now I know better. You eat the seeds, of course!
In addition to being delicious, pomegranates and their juice contain very high levels of antioxidants and vitamin C, and have been the subject of much research over the past few years.
According to HealthCentral.com:

... Researchers report that [pomegranates] are rich in antioxidants that can keep bad LDL cholesterol from oxidizing (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, May 2000). This degradation of LDL seems to be an initial step in the development of atherosclerosis. In addition, pomegranate juice, like aspirin, can help keep blood platelets from clumping together to form unwanted clots."

Does this make any difference clinically? More recent research has found that eight ounces of pomegranate juice daily for three months improved the amount of oxygen getting to the heart muscle of patients with coronary heart disease (American Journal of the College of Cardiology, Sept. 2005). Other researchers report that long-term consumption of pomegranate juice may help combat erectile dysfunction (Journal of Urology, July 2005).

Research has also suggested that pomegranates may have possible health benefits in preventing prostate cancer, breast cancer, skin cancer, and helping osteoarthritis sufferers.
Pomegranate juice tastes so good that when I get my hands on a bottle of it, I end up drinking it before I can even contemplate using it in a recipe. The same was true of the whole fruit until I was recently given a large number of pomegranates. Here is what I did with one of them.

Kale, cauliflower, tempeh and pasta with pomegranate

• one large bunch of kale, washed, thick stems removed, thinly sliced
• one head of cauliflower, cut into small florets
• four ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 cup raisins
• seeds and pulp from one pomegranate
• eight ounces tempeh, cut into one inch by one inch by 1/2 inch pieces
• eight ounces small pasta (like bowties), cooked according to package directions and tossed with two tablespoons olive oil
• olive oil
• sweet mustard sauce (one tablespoon dijon mustard, one tablespoon agavé syrup or maple syrup, one teaspoon tamari or natural soy sauce, one teaspoon balsamic vinegar, three tablespoons water or no-salt vegetable broth)

1. Make the mustard sauce by mixing the ingredients listed, in a small dish. Set aside.
2. Toss the cauliflower with a tablespoon of olive oil in a heavy ceramic baking dish or cast iron pan. Roast in a 450˚ oven for 20 minutes. Stir and continue roasting until softened and starting to brown around the edges.
3. Meanwhile, in a wok, stir fry the tempeh in one tablespoon olive oil. As it cooks, sprinkle evenly with one–two teaspoons tamari and turn frequently. (Be careful when adding the tamari. It can splatter.) When the tempeh is starting to brown, add the mushrooms. When the tempeh is browned and the mushrooms are cooked, stir in the raisins and remove to a bowl.
4. Add the kale to the wok, cover and steam in the water left clinging to the leaves from washing. (If necessary, add one or two tablespoons water to keep from burning.) When the kale is bright green and tender, add the tempeh and two tablwspoons of the mustard sauce.
5. Toss the cooked pasta with one–two tablespoons olive oil and the remaining mustard sauce. Place the cooked and seasoned pasta on a large, oval serving platter. Mound the kale and tempeh along the center. Surround the kale with the cauliflower. Spread the pomegranate seeds over the top of the kale.

How to get the seeds out

Cut off the flower end. Make five evenly spaced shallow incisions in the skin from the top to the base. In a large bowl of water, break apart the fruit along the incisions. Push out the seeds with your fingers. The seeds will sink and the membranes will float. Remove all the skin and membranes and drain the seeds.

Purple cauliflower soup: fast, easy ... purple

Fall weather always makes me crave creamy soups. Maybe it's because they're so comforting and I need reassurance to face the long winter ahead. Whatever the reason, my youngest son and I decided to cook together, and the menu was to be soup and sweet potato fries. Because we are eating from our CSA box, and because our farmer loves to grow purple cauliflower, that's what I used for the soup. I was more than a little skeptical about what it would look like—I'm used to creamy white cauliflower soup—but game. I cooked it in my pressure cooker, and even though I knew I was cooking a purple cauliflower, when I opened the pot I was still surprised to see deep purple liquid and lavender cauliflower pieces. I went at it with the immersion blender, and it blended into a nice shade of purple.

The next surprise came when I added fresh squeezed lime juice (we have a lot of limes from our CSA fruit share) and as the juice hit the purple, it turned a bright magenta. This was getting interesting. I tasted and seasoned and wrote down approximately what I did. We ended up with a great tasting pot of weird looking soup.

Jordan made our usual oven sweet potato fries, with the addition of spicy chipotlé powder, and they were superb. In fact, we ate them before I remembered the camera!

Creamy cauliflower soup (in the pressure cooker)

• large head of cauliflower (white or purple), separated into medium chunks
• medium onion, sliced
• one stalk celery, sliced
• 2 to 3 small white potatoes, peeled and cut up (for body)
• water
• one clove garlic, minced fine
• 1/2 teaspoon of either truffle oil, olive oil, chili oil or no oil
• one lime, juiced
• sweet white miso, to taste
• salt and pepper to taste
• thinly sliced green onion, parsley or other green for garnish

1. Sauté the onion and celery in a small amount of olive oil in the pressure cooker until the onion is translucent.
2. Add the cauliflower and potato and enough water to come about 3/4 up the cauliflower.
3. Bring up to pressure, turn the heat down and cook at pressure for 4 minutes.
4. Run cool water over the lid to bring the pressure down. Open the pot and add the miso, lime juice and oil. Blend in the pot with an immersion blender, or in batches in a conventional blender. Stir in the garlic. Adjust seasonings. Garnish. I used baby arugula because that's what I had on hand.

Roasted cauliflower salad

The photo does not do this justice, but this delicious recipe is from our middle son, Aaron. He's a fabulous cook but it's a little hard to pin him down on quantities as he moves very fast and doesn't measure. As I ran after him with a pen and notebook, the conversation went something like this.

me, "How many walnuts did you just put in there?"
Aaron, "I don't know."
me, "Would you say maybe a half cup?"
Aaron, "I don't know."
me, "a whole cup?"
Aaron, "Maybe. I don't know. They made a single layer in the pan."
me, "Well. Let's say a half cup."

And so on. Aaron is the sort of cook who has a mortar and pestle at home so he can grind his own herbs and spices so they will be FRESH. He requests cooking equipment for his birthday. He cooks by instinct, and everything he makes tastes amazing. This excellent dish is no exception. It was delicious and easy to make. Try it. You won't be sorry. I did my best to translate the recipe but I'm sure there's plenty of wiggle room in there for personal creativity.

We used a purple cauliflower because that's what we had from our CSA, but Aaron normally uses a white one. Aaron also made a chick pea salad, and we had bread that I had made earlier from a no-knead dough that I keep in the fridge. (will post some day...)

Roasted cauliflower salad

• one large head of white or purple cauliflower, cut into chunks
• olive oil for coating cauliflower
• about three ounces arugula
• one medium red onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup walnut halves, toasted (maybe one cup—personal decision)

Dressing (or use your favorite vinaigrette)

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/8 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
• one tablespoon agavé syrup (or other sweetener)
• two cloves garlic, finely minced
• two tablespoons fresh minced herbs of choice
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Place the cauliflower in a large cast iron (or other) pan. Toss with a tablespoon or two of olive oil to coat. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste, if desired.
2. Roast in 450˚ oven for 20 minutes. Stir, then roast for 25 minutes more or until the cauliflower has softened and turned brown around the edges. When cauliflower is almost done, add garlic and roast a few minutes more, to remove the raw taste. Or, use raw in the finished salad if you prefer.
3. While cauliflower is roasting, toast the walnuts in a heavy pan until fragrant and toasty.
4. Whisk the dressing ingredients together. (with a fork or whisk)
5. Put arugula, onion, and walnuts into a serving bowl. Add the cauliflower and mix together to wilt the greens slightly. Add the dressing and toss all together.

This dinner served four generously. It tasted REALLY great. Thumbs up for roasted cauliflower.

Creamy cauliflower-carrot soup

It's been a rough week for various reasons I won't go into, and I've been eating weird combinations of leftovers instead of cooking. Finally, on Friday night, I needed to cook something. I'm the only one in the house right now (counting humans) as my husband is lecturing and attending a conference in Brazil, so cooking a lot of food was not really reasonable. After such a long and tiring week, I also needed something easy to prepare — and easy to clean up. I decided to make a creamy cauliflower and carrot soup in the pressure cooker. I used to make a similar soup for the kids when I was too tired or short on time to prepare a larger meal. I could give them a nourishing vegetable soup and maybe peanut butter or hummus sandwiches and they would be perfectly happy. In fact, on many occasions when I was searching for something to make for dinner, one of the kids would ask for this soup! It was a family favorite. (When I made it for the kids, I didn't load in the pepper.) I also use this method for similar soups such as broccoli, winter squash or carrot, and sometimes I add celeriac or parsnips to one of the vegetables to add depth to the flavor. Carrot and celeriac is a really good combination, and adding grated fresh ginger after the soup is blended makes it special.

This soup, though simple to make, has a lush and velvety texture that belies its humble beginnings. And the color, a gorgeous shade of pale orange, is comfort for the eyes. You can intensify the flavor with grated fresh ginger, or other herbs and spices of your choice, but the plain version, with fresh dill, was just what I was looking for. I accompanied the soup with avocado spread on crackers.

Creamy cauliflower and carrot soup

• 1 large head cauliflower, cut into large pieces
• 2 very large carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 quart water (or enough to come just to the top of the vegetables)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
  
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons Sucanot or sweetener of your choice
• lots of freshly ground black pepper
• fresh dill, parsley or cilantro

1. Place veggies and water in cooker and bring to pressure.
   
2. Turn heat down a little and cook five minutes.
   
3. Turn off heat and wait for pressure to come down.
   
4. With an immersion blender, purée the soup in the pot. If you don't have an immersion blender, blend the soup in two batches in a regular blender. Blend until completely smooth and velvety. If too thick, thin with low-sodium vegetable stock.
   
5. Add lemon, sweetener, salt and pepper. Check seasonings. Garnish generously with dill and serve.

note: Substitute low-sodium vegetable broth for some or all of the water, for extra flavor.

Vegetable soup with chipotle and lime

Time for dinner and I didn't feel like cooking. The dog had awakened me the night before at 2 a.m. acting like she wanted to go out. I held her off until 3:30, when I put her in the bathtub and told her to pee. She seemed entertained but unwilling, so I finally forced myself downstairs and out into the frozen blackness so she could relieve herself. Ugh. She went happily back to sleep, but I didn't. After a full day of work, here it was, time for dinner and I was really tired, but very hungry, since I'd had a skimpy lunch.

I peered into the refrigerator. My husband has a weird habit of not using things up. For example, he'll almost finish a bottle of shampoo and then start another one. In the kitchen, he'll leave five brussels sprouts or a small handful of green beans in a bag. I'll find two or more almost empty bottles of pickles or salsa, sometimes different brands. He never uses these things and eventually I'll find little bags of rotting veggies, or crusted jars, in the back of the fridge. Does this condition have a name?

I used to have great dreams of finding extra rooms that I didn't know about in our house. Now, in front of the refrigerator, I was having daydreams (not of finding extra shelves and bins), of finding a leftover I'd forgotten was there. As in, "Oh! There's a pan of shiitake, green onion and tofu ricotta lasagna left over from yesterday. I could eat that!" What I actually saw was half a large onion, a small piece of green pepper, the remains of a cauliflower, an orphaned baby bok choy, a container of leftover chipotle peppers in adobo - and some pressure-cooked white beans. Could be worse. Sigh. Might as well make soup again, I thought. I could add some wine and bread a la Tuscan stew.

I peeled and chopped two big carrots, the pepper, the onion and the cauliflower. I sauteed them in a little olive oil until they softened a bit, and added a half cup of red wine and let it cook gently for eight minutes. Then I added three chipotle peppers (this makes a very spicy soup) and chopped them into the veggies with a spoon. I measured the bean liquid at one quart so I added it to the pot with two more cups of water, and the beans. I brought the soup to a boil, reduced the heat and added the chopped greens and a half cup of frozen corn. I also threw in a half teaspoon of salt and the rest of a stale sourdough baguette (about two cups cut into chunks - If you don't want to add bread, you could add cooked pasta or rice.). Last in was a splash of lime juice. (This would be about the juice of half a lime for those clever enough to have fresh limes in the refrigerator) Top with chopped scallions, if you have them. If you don't want the soup to be spicy, use some smoked Spanish paprika instead of the chipotle. Considering the small amount of time and effort expended, the result was very successful.

Cauliflower and potato curry

I usually cook fairly low-fat dishes and would probably use only half the fat called for in this recipe. However, I have on occasion used the full amount to fantastic effect. I love low-fat food and think it tastes great, and you can make this dish low fat. I'm going to list the full amount in the recipe and let you decide. The original recipe calls for ghee, but I substitute olive oil and vegan margarine, or just oil. The margarine gives it a richer taste. If this is going to be only one part of a meal, I use only veggies, but if I intend it as the main (or only) dish for a simple supper, I may add chick peas. It's based on a recipe from "Lord Krishna's Cuisine The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking" by Yamuna Devi. This is a seriously amazing book - not vegan but adaptable. This is a fairly simple dish to prepare and one of my favorites.

Cauliflower and potato curry
-2 hot green chilies, stemmed, seeded and cut lengthwise into long slivers
-1 inch of fresh ginger root, peeled and julienned
-1 teaspoon cumin seeds
-1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
-2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons margarine
-3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut in 1/2 inch cubes
-1 medium cauliflower cored and cut into small flowerets
-2 medium sized tomatoes (in season) or 1 can chopped tomatoes, drained (reserve liquid)
-1/2 teaspoon tumeric
-2 teaspoons ground coriander
-1/2 teaspoon garam masala
-1 teaspoon brown sugar
-1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh coriander or parsley
Heat the oil/margarine in a large heavy skillet, non-stick skillet or wok until hot but not smoking. Add the chilies, ginger, cumin seeds and mustard seeds and fry until the mustard sputters and pops. Add the potatoes and cauliflower and stir fry about 5 minutes until the veggies get some brown spots.

Add the tomatoes, turmeric,coriander,garam masala,sugar,salt and half the fresh coriander. Stir well, cover and cook over low heat for about 20 minutes or until the veggies are tender. Stir occasionally during cooking and make sure the veggies aren't sticking or burning. Add some reserved tomato juice or water if necessary. Garnish with reserved cilantro.
serves 5 or 6

Cauliflower purée

Hungry for supper, I looked into the refrigerator to see what was there and was alarmed to find way too much cauliflower. It seemed like a good idea to use some. I started thinking about a recipe I used to make when I was following a macrobiotic diet and avoiding potatoes. I used to make cauliflower-millet mashed potatoes which was actually made only with millet and cauliflower. It doesn't sound good but it was. Anyway, I guess the millet got tossed when I cleaned out the pantry, so I decided to make a cauliflower purée instead. Much to my surprise, it was fabulously delicious. It tasted so rich and wonderful that the only seasoning I used was a grind of fresh pepper. The taste and texture really was similar to mashed potatoes, only better. I suppose you could add margarine and soy milk if you wanted. I had mine on a plate with tempeh that had been stir fried with a small chopped red onion, and when the onion smooched over to the cauliflower, the taste was exciting. So, you might want to dress this up by sautéeing a small finely chopped onion, some minced garlic and maybe a small finely chopped red pepper and mixing it into the purée before serving.

Cauliflower purée
Cut the cauliflower into small florets and place in a pot. Add water to about halfway up the cauliflower. Bring to a boil then turn down the heat and cook, covered, until the cauliflower is VERY soft, about 10 minutes. Uncover the pot and cook until most of the water evaporates. (After cooking a head of cauliflower you should have no more than 1/4 cup of water left.) Place the cauliflower and remaining water into a food processor and process until smooth.
optional
seasonings to taste: sauteed onion or garlic, fresh ground pepper, paprika, chopped parsley, margarine, salt