lunch box: sandwich sushi

contents:

carrot, sprout and hummus rolls
cucumber and tofu cream cheese rolls
rainbow goldfish (yes, they taste the same)
grapefruit slices

My friend Debbie has this adorable habit of giving presents 4-6 months after the actual holiday in question. I love it becuase it's like you get a second holiday out of nowhere, and you can never predict when it's going to happen. She recently gave me this great bento cookbook as a Christmas present. There are a few of these little wrap "sushi" rolls in there, usually with lunch meat and slices of cheese, and so I thought I'd give a vegan version a try. The rolling is tricky, I have to admit. I think it would have been easier if I had one of those little bamboo sushi rollers, but I managed alright by hand. Check out these sushi instructions to get the basic idea.

ingredients:

whole wheat wraps
carrots
sprouts
hummus
cucumber
tofu cream cheese

Cut rounded corners off opposite edges of the wrap so that you have a longer straight edge to roll from.

Spread thin layer of hummus or tofu cream cheese filling across entire wrap

Slice the carrots and cucumbers into long thin pieces

Leaving a small amount of plain wrap to one side lay your ingredients in straight line at one edge of your wrap

Fold wrap over ingredients and begin rolling tightly until you've used up the whole wrap

Cut into sushi sized rolls. You will probably need to discard (snack on) the rolls at the far edges since they will be pretty loose and hard to keep together. If there is a gap in the center of a roll you can always cheat in some extra filling to make it rounder. I had to do this for a couple of them.

herb butter

I had a dinner party last week and surprisingly this turned out to be the star of the meal. Well I guess it's not that surprising since it is butter. Who doesn't love butter? Don't answer that Vegans.

This was one of the first simple recipes that caught my eye when I was given my Alice Waters cookbook, but for some reason I never got around to making it until now. We polished off almost all of it over the course of one night, but the herb butter can keep for up to a week in the fridge and according to Alice up to a month in the freezer (although that kind of thing makes me nervous). You can use any fresh herbs you want for flavor. I'm looking forward to trying out some different versions, sage particularly.

ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup chopped herbs (I used a mix parsley and chives)
pepper, salt and lemon juice to taste
pinch of cayenne pepper


Let the butter soften in a medium sized mixing bowl. You can cut it up into smaller pieces to make this go faster, but no matter what you'll have to wait awhile.

Once butter is soft and mashable, stir in chopped herbs and spices. I think I used about half a lemon's worth of juice.

Serve at room temperature so the butter is spreadable.

lunch box: black bean burgers

contents:

mini black bean burgers
wild rice with corn
kale salad
avocado

Black bean burgers might be my sister's favorite thing I make (is that true Olivia?). At least it seems that way since she always requests them when I cook for her. I thought this would be one of the first recipes I'd post on the blog, but for some reason it took until now to make them. Usually I make regular sized burgers, but for the purposes of a lunch box I think it's more fun to have a few small ones. This recipe will make about 4 or 5 regular sized burgers and 12 or so small ones. Sorry in advance for the not-so-exact measurements on this, but I don't think it's really necessary. Once you have the basic burger mixture, the add-ins can be flexible to your taste without messing anything up. Also I'm trying a one tupperware lunchbox this time around, which is a little trickier, but ends up a looking nicer. What do you think?

ingredients:

1 15oz can black beans
1 egg
bread crumbs
fresh cilantro, salsa, and cumin to taste
vegetable or olive oil for frying

If you don't own a food processor this first step can be pretty annoying. You want to mash the black beans until they are fairly smooth, but still have texture. The easiest way is of course to give them a couple zaps in the food processor. A potato masher also works very well. In the years when my "kitchen tools" consisted of things like one cutting board a few steak knives, I would mash them with a large spoon in a soup bowl. I wouldn't recommend it, but the point is you don't need gadgets, just a little patience.

Stir egg into the black bean mixture. Add about 2 large tbs of salsa (maybe more), a large handful of chopped cilantro, and cumin (maybe 5 or 6 shakes?). Mix well.

Add breadcrumbs until mixture thickens and you can form burgers. If I was a good food blogger I guess I would have measured this for you, but it all depends on how smoothly you've mashed your beans and the wateriness of your salsa.

Heat oil in large frying pan

Now usually I fill a dish with more bread crumbs and add an outside crust to the burgers before frying, but I ran out when I was cooking this time. I debated putting off the posting, but in the end I just photographed it anyway. Maybe you can just imagine the above above picture with a layer of crumbs.

Fry until brown and crispy on both sides. Drain on paper towel covered plate to soak up excess oil.

These are great with more salsa or sour cream as a topping. I almost never eat them on a bun like a regular burger, but my coworker saw my lunchbox and was really excited having them with melted swiss and onion rolls, so now I want to try that. Tell me what you do!

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The kale salad recipe can be found here. I took out the red cabbage and almonds this time and added sesame seeds in addition to the flax. The wild rice, I have to admit, is from a box with frozen corn added in.

passover casserole

Both my parents are artists. My Dad is a sculptor and my Mom painted for a long time and now works in textile design. This means growing up whenever my sister and I had craft projects, dioramas for school, or Halloween costumes to make, we had a team of excited RISD graduates brainstorming with us. I guess it's normal for kids' parents to help them on projects like that, but with mine I ended up with things like a working mini wooden pushcart for a book report on The Pushcart War, a full goldfish suit with foam eyes, and a series of tiny abstract paintings that made my dollhouse look more like the MOMA. So when my Aunt asked us to bring a vegetarian dish to passover this year, and I saw a recipe online that said to create a design with potatoes, I knew it was the one to pick.

I really have to give full credit to my Dad on the landscape. I was the one who suggested we use sweet potato as the background and make white potato pyramids, but after that he took it to a whole other level. "Should I make a moon? Grab some dill for trees! I'm adding cinnamon to make it look more archaic!" and the result is what you see above.

It was a hit at Sedar, and not just for how it looked. The recipe itself is essentially a vegetable tagine with shepard's pie crust. You could easily substitute any of the vegetables in the base for something else. I also noticed while cooking with my dad that my mad scientist approach to food might be genetic. He does not believe in following recipes or measuring anything either. Luckily with stews there's really no way to mess it up.

We are thinking of tackling the parting of the red sea next year. Too ambitious?

ingredients:

for the tagine--

3 tbs olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 garlic minced cloves
2 onions chopped
3 carrots peeled and chopped
2 zucchini chopped
1 head of broccoli chopped
1 head of cauliflower chopped
1 large 28oz can of diced tomatoes
1 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup slivered almonds

for the potatoes--

3 sweet potatoes
1/4 cup orange juice
salt, pepper, and cinnamon to taste

3 white potatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

In separate pots, boil sweet and white potatoes until soft. Drain and mash in separate mixing bowls with their respective ingredients above.

The only thing I don't like about this recipe is that it results in a lot of dishes. We're already using too many for my taste. Luckily when I made this I was at home with my parents dishwasher.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large frying pan with cover, fry onions in olive oil until soft. Add spices, stirring well to keep them from burning.

Add your vegetables, canned tomatoes with sauce, and vegetable stock. This is going to be pretty overflowing, but it will cook down I promise. Cover pan and cook on low to medium heat, stirring occasionally to give all the veggies a chance at the bottom of the pan.

Once the ingredients have cooked down a bit, stir in almonds and raisins. Keep cooking until carrots are soft.

Transfer tagine to a large 10x15 casserole dish. Pat down with a spatula to create a relatively smooth surface for your potato layers.

Now it's really up to your own design plans. We first separated out about a 1/4 of the mashed white potatoes and spread the remaining amount on top of the tagine with a spatula. Then we added a top layer with all the mashed sweet potatoes. My dad used a cutting board and knife to shape out the pyramids and moon before laying them on top of the sweet potato layer. The trees are springs of dill I plucked to look more tree-like. The pyramids have a dash of cinnamon to make them look older. Just use your imagination and try to see the things in your kitchen as more them what you normally use them for.

Bake casserole for 20 minutes or until its heated through.

macaroni and squash

John, who you might remember from bake club, just got back from getting his yoga teacher certification at Kripalu. In addition to all the amazing things he's said about the program, he also made sure to tell me I would have been blown away by the food. It basically sounds like he had a buffet of vegetarian ambrosia every day. When I pressed him for specific meal details all I could get out is that there was an incredible vegan macaroni and cheese that used squash as a replacement. So now that he's back, and willing to teach a class in my living room, I thought it would be fun to try and recreate the Kripalu Macaroni and Squash for our after-practice meal.

It took a bit of recipe hunting online to find something that sounded right. There are a lot of regular macaroni and cheese recipes that just add squash as an extra ingredient, and on the vegan side there seem to be two camps for the cream sauce replacement, either coconut milk or soy. After checking with Dawn, my vegan food adviser, I decided to go with the coconut and I think it was the right choice. I expected the flavor to be overly tropical (pina colada casserole? yuck!), but it actually blended in quite well. Most importantly John said it was a perfect match, and the large tupperware of leftovers I sent home with him was devoured in a couple days. You can't ask for a better review then that. James even wandered into the kitchen and admitted it smelled good before he realized it was squash.

ingredients:

1/2 box whole wheat pasta shells
1 medium sized butternut squash
1 15oz can coconut milk
1 large onion
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
salt, pepper, and dried sage to taste
breadcrumbs for crust

Peel squash and scrape seeds from inside. Chop into very small cubes.

In a large saucepan heat a couple tbs of olive oil to fry chopped onion until soft. Add squash, coconut milk, and spices. Cover and reduce heat to simmer for about 20-30 minutes.

As squash cooks mash up cubes with your spoon. You don't want it to be completely smooth, but the majority of the squash should be blended with the coconut milk sauce.

In a second pot, boil your pasta shells.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Add drained pasta shells to your squash pot (or a large mixing bowl if you don't have room, but I will do pretty much anything to avoid adding more dishes to wash later). Stir in walnuts.

Pour mixture into a medium sized casserole dish (9- x 13-inch). Sprinkle layer of breadcrumbs on top.

Bake for 30 minutes or until breadcrumbs get and crunchy and pasta is bubbling.

The side dish is blanched string beans tossed with a simple balsamic vinaigrette, dried cranberries and a little sprinkle of flax seeds.

lunch box: asparagus, artichoke and feta bow-ties

contents:

asparagus, artichoke and feta bow-ties
cucumber, beet and carrot salad
blueberries

We had a burst of warm weather over the weekend and all the sunshine inspired me to make a spring themed lunch for myself this week. Then of course the temperature dropped back down, the winter coat was back off the hanger and all I wanted for lunch was soup. I probably should have seen that coming. Luckily the pasta heats up well.

In other news, I keep reading about how frozen fruits and vegetables are actually far more nutritious then the produce at your grocery store. Here is one article that was mentioned on a great vegan blog Dawn recommended to me. Depending on what you're making, frozen vegetables can kind of kill a dish (they do have a weird texture and taste thing going on you have to admit), but there are plenty of times where it makes no difference. Usually I feel lazy for buying frozen vegetables, but I guess I've secretly been taking the healthier option. Seems backwards though, doesn't it? I'm definitely going to start buying frozen fruit instead of the blah tasting stuff that needed to immigrate all the way from Bolivia (or whenever it's still summer right now). Actually I liked snacking on the blueberries while they were still frozen, but they gave me a brain freeze,

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1/2 box whole wheat bot-tie pasta
one large bunch asparagus
one small jar of marinated artichoke hearts
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
lemon juice and pepper to taste

Boil pasta, drain and allow to cool

Snap tough bottoms off asparagus and cut the rest into small bite sized pieces. Steam for 5 minutes or until the asparagus turns bright green. Allow to cool.

Chop artichoke hearts. Don't worry about how much oil they bring with them, it will add to the pasta.

(Side tangent... just saying artichoke hearts cracks me up. It makes me feel like a Disney villain or something. Bring me the hearts of twenty artichokes!! Muah ha ha!!)

In a large mixing bowl combine pasta, asparagus, artichoke hearts and feta (to be honest I probably used a little more then 1 cup, but that seems close). Add lemon juice and salt to taste. As I said earlier the artichoke hearts soak up a lot of olive oil which ends up getting into the pasta, but you can always add a splash more if you think the salad tastes too dry. The marinade they come in the jar with is a pretty delicious addition too.

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I forgot to measure my exact veggie proportions for the salad. Sorry about that. I know I used one cucumber, 3 or 4 grated carrots, and as much pickled beets as seemed proportionate. Slice all of them as thin as possible. Add a large handful of chopped dill and a splash of vinegar.

I think I should add that whenever I cook with beets (even though you'd think I would have other associations by now) I always think of this. You can use it for your cooking music.

cardamom olive oil cookies with pistachio

Don't be too impressed, this is another amazing Bittman recipe and surprisingly simple despite how fancy it sounds. Olive oil replaces butter in the usual cookie formula, but the cookies don't taste overly savory. I guess you can thank ample sugar for that one.

I decided to make these last Saturday (yes this is what I was doing on my Saturday night) because I *thought* I had all the ingredients at home. It wasn't until I had cracked open a few and was looking mystified at the size of my measuring spoon, that I discovered cardamom pods contain very little actual spice. Luckily my friend Kevin was there to convince me not to scratch the whole thing-- and so began the neighborhood quest for cardamom. Did you know cardamom is sort of a rare spice? I did not. After 3 bodegas and two groceries stores we were almost ready to give up, but of course the very last bodega we went to had it sitting in the back by the refrigerators. I'm not going to lie, Kevin and I shouted and high fived in the middle of the store like we'd just won some sort of sports game (possibly frightening the dudes behind us picking out beer). It was worth it though, because the cookies taste amazing. Besides did I really think I could get though a baking project without a small disaster? Impossible.

ingredients:

2 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1tb cardamom
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs
2 tbs orange zest
2 tbs orange juice
1/2 cup ground pistachios

I had regular pistachios in their shells, so my first step was to crack a bunch and then wash the nuts under water to remove the salt. Set them aside to dry before you crush them. A plastic bag and heavy object works well if you don't feel like using a food processor.

Preheat the oven to 350

In a large mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt, and cardamom

Add olive oil and sugar, blending well

Add eggs and whisk until smooth. Bittman says the batter should be creamy at this point, but that didn't happen for me. Maybe I need stronger arm muscles or something, but the batter was pretty thick and almost doughy until I added the orange juice in the next step. Truthfully I probably added more then 2tb to get the batter to thin out.

Whisk in orange juice and zest. By now the batter should be regular cookie dough consistency (or maybe it was for you before...show off).

Roll into small balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Use the wet bottom of a cup to flatten the cookies a little and stick on the crushed pistachios.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until slightly brown on the bottom