Vegan Grilled Cheese???

Hello Blogosphere! And greetings to new readers in Germany, Hong Kong, and New Zealand! I hope you'll continue to check out Orbiting Vegan for all that's best in vegan food, nutrition, and the occasional literary departure from reality, or foray into wild abandon. And of course a dubious relationship with the onion.

Speaking of onions, they figure semi-prominently in today's entry, but I'll get to that shortly. They say never keep an onion waiting, I say, if they don't like it, throw them to the Clomes.

Ok, getting vaguely serious, one of the people who keeps popping up mysteriously in this blog is my father. Mysterious because, quite frankly, he generally won't touch anything I cook with a thirty-nine and a half foot pole. And if I characterize my diet these days as "orbiting" vegan, he has his own gravitational pull, and is generally encircled by the "four food groups": ground beef, chocolate ice cream, diet soda, and rippled potato chips.

One of my clients (Hi Anna!) turned me on to a great new cookbook, Vegan Cooking for Carmivores, by Roberto Martin. Martin is notably the personal chef of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi, both vegan, however Martin himself was not vegan when he took the job.

He enters with a unique perspective, and one of the primary aims of the book is to create recipes that resemble the comfort foods you love, and substitute vegan alternatives. Having really only leafed through it at this point, my major criticism is that he frequently makes use of faux meats, soy products such as tofu, so there are some ingredients that are a step or two further from the source than the purists among us would prefer. That said, we all know I believe in moderation, so some gardein beef less beef tips here and there don't really bother me. To be honest, I have yet to try a vegan "meat" product that was truly exceptional, and so I prefer my vegetables do not burden themselves with aspiring to be animals.

I bought this book, However, with an agenda, namely, preparing something that looks, smells and tastes so good that my dad won't be able to resist it. I frequently offer, but never push, and frankly, as his child, I have enough insight into how he thinks to know that if he's going to try something new, he needs to choose it himself. Frankly, I think he walks into our kitchen these days and wonders what on earth he's going to live on with all this actual food taking up so much space. Ah, the generation gap.

I the spirit of this agenda, dinners for the next entire week will be taken directly from Martin's book, and my hope is that something will at the very least raise an eyebrow or perhaps flare a nostril or two.

I began with Martin's variation on grilled cheese. I'll have to make this one again later in the week, because by the time I got home from the store, it was well past dinner hour, but I was starving so I had dinner at 9:30 anyway. This "grilled cheese for grown ups" involves making a simple, and much to my chagrin, succulent red onion jam, and a healthy serving of baby arugula.

Here's the Jam Biz:

1 tbsp high heat oil (I used sunflower oil, safflower or grapeseed are also good. Olive oil bad, it has a low smoke point, so in this instance it's not really your friend.)
2 red onions sliced thin (the thinner the better, if you have a good mandolin, break that sucker out!)
1/2 tsp kosher salt (I used sea salt)
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tbsp fresh rosemary (right from my garden!) minced
2 tbsp balsamic
2 tbsp agave

Making the jam takes a bit longer than I would prefer to wait, at what was for me about three hours past dinner time, but was well worth it. As prep goes, the hardest part was chopping the onion. Ps, if you are like me, aside from being devilishly handsome, you are also probably extra prone to tearing up in the presence of raw onions. Slicing open a citrus fruit and keeping it on your cutting board will help to neutralize the onion's "mace factor.".

Heat a large, deepish pan on high heat, then add the oil, then add the onions when the oil is hot. Throw in your salt, pepper, and rosemary, and continue to cook on high heat for a few minutes. Keep stirring and do not walk away, kitchens burn down this way. That's a funny story for another day. Turn down the heat to lowish-medium and let the onions continue to cook until they are all well carmelized and soft (15-20 minutes.). Then, add balsamic and agave, remove from heat and let those puppies cool down. Reserve about a tablespoon for each sandwich, then you can store the rest in the fridge.

Here's the sandwich biz:

4 slices of whole wheat bread
2 tsp vegan butter
Dijon mustard
Red onion jam
1 plum tomato (sliced and paper-towel dried)
Sliced vegan cheddar cheese (Martin prefers "follow your heart" brand, but I found a vegan cheddar not made from soy or rice, but from almonds. This was far and away the best cheddar substitute I've purchased or made myself. I will update with the brand name in the near future.)
8 oz baby arugula

One the onion jam is made, the rest is a cake walk. Perhaps a flourless, eggless, gluten-free cake walk?

Butter two slices of bread, and spread Dijon mustard on the other two, add the jam, tomato slices, cheese and arugula, in that order, on top of the Dijon. Then, top the sandwich with the buttered bread, butter side facing up.

Preheat a large frying pan with a lid, lowish-medium, in fact, if the pan you used for the jam still seems clean enough, just go ahead and use that, any residual flavor will just get soaked up by the bread. Melt the rest of the butter, and put the sandwiches in the pan. Cover. After 4 or 5 minutes, check the bottom for loveliness. In this case, loveliness equals a copper tone golden brown. Then carefully flip the sandwiches over, and cook until the other side achieves an equal state of loveliness.

Then eat them. You could let them cool for a minute or two, but I was so hungry at that point I was willing to risk burning the roof of my mouth in the name of facilitating the movement of these sandwiches from the plate to my belly.







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Location:Madison, CT

Key Lime Goodness

Many of you may have seen the pic I posted last week on twitter @orbitingvegan, of these delicious mini-key lime pies. If you don't follow me on twitter, what are you waiting for? I try to retweet articles and information that I think my readers will enjoy, as well as post the occasional pic when I don't have time to sit down and compose an entire blog entry.

Anywho, I've made this dish before, several times, but it occurs to me that I never shared an actual recipe on this blog. You can find a plethora of easy to make recipes for this dish online if you google "raw key lime pie" or "avocado key lime pie." at this point, I tend to fudge the details a little bit if I don't have quite enough this or a little too much that. Make sure your this and that are both raw, vegan and organic please!

Here's how I did it this time:
For the crust:
1 cup of walnuts
1 cup of Brazil nuts
1 cup of dried, unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup of pitted dates (remember the nice thing about this recipe is how forgiving it is, and how unrelentingly fabulous the end result is anyway! Most "crust" recipes call for macadamias, but I didn't have any so I used brazil nuts. Easy peasy, George n' Ouisy.)

Blend in the vitamix until you have a well mixed, doughy mixture. Then "flour" a pie tin, or in this case some individual sized dessert saucers, with a little more coconut, and smooth the crust evenly inside each one. I will admit, the brazil nuts seemed to produce a bit of excess oil, but it didn't affect the taste. The crust has a sweet taste and a cookie dough texture, and of course eating it brings memories childhood, stealing a bit of cookie dough from the mixing bowl, or licking the leftover frosting off the beater. It healthy, delicious, and makes you feel like you're getting away with something, what could be better!?!?


For the filling:
6 ripe avocados, peeled and pitted (if you have a vitamix, you can throw the halves right in, if you're using a less powerful apparatus, you'll probably want to give the avocados a healthy dicing.)
1 cup Agave (more or less depending on how sweet, or how tart you like your key lime pie)
1 cup key lime juice (see above, key lime is nice but not crucial if you can't get it, regular lime juice will work too.)
Zest of one lime
1 mango, diced (we all have a method for peeling and slicing mangoes, don't we? I'll share mine as an afterthought.)
1 tbsp coconut oil (this helps bind the mixture.)

Into the mighty, mighty Vitamix it goes, and in about a minute you should have a lovely smooth key lime mixture with a warm pudding consistency. Spoon the filling evenly into the saucers, and refrigerate to solidify the crust and thicken the filling. This should happen quite nicely with about 40 minutes of refrigeration.

If you're traveling with these, I'd pop them in the freezer to make easier, and far less messy work of the transport, and then defrost and garnish at your destination. I chose mint, lemon balm, and lemon verbena from my herb garden as accents, and little cocktail umbrellas from the craft store for a hint of whimsy.

Here's a couple shots! Don't they look great?!








As for mango peeling, I like to turn the mango on its side lengthwise, then make a cut just to the left and right of the longest part of the center, this will yield a nice thick hemispherical slab, and you'll avoid crashing into the pit with your knife. Take one slab, and carefully slice a checkerboard into the flesh, going just deep enough to touch the skin, but not enough to cut through it. From there it's a simple matter of inverting the skin, and sliding your fingers in between the cubes of mango you've just cut, to gently peel them off the skin.

Then you can cut any residual flesh off the stone piecemeal, but you've made short work of the bulk of the mango!

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Location:Madison, CT

The Onion---Nature's occasionally tasty red-headed stepchild

Greetings from New England! As you may know, especially if you are local, late spring is a strange time for the natives. One day it's chilly, the sky is gray, and the words "traffic jam" might sound at first, to many of us, like something we would spread on toast. Then, on the last full weekend of May, as of out of nowhere, interstate 95 becomes a parking lot from DC to Boston, the temperature jumps ten degrees overnight, and you can't order a coffee at your local Starbucks without someone being rude to you, and I might add, it is never the person behind the counter.

My point is, after memorial day weekend, we transition instantly from being the kind of place where you can hear a seagull sneeze half a mile away, to the The kind of place where all you can hear is the constant verbal diarrhea of Rich New Yorkers with an overblown sense of entitlement flapping their tongues, complaining about the noise. Anyway, we can overcharge them for everything, so I guess it works out in the end. Life has been busy.

The Premier CSA pickup of the season included some fantastic fresh veggies, namely strawberries, spinach, lettuce, sugar snap peas, and an entire basil plant. This weeks pickup is tonight, and I still have the lettuce to get through from last week. So, all in all, it's proving thus far to be a good investment, although it can be a challenge to fit copious amounts of leafy greens into the fridge.

So, aside from the obvious conclusion that strawberry and spinach salads have figured quite prominently on my dinner menu for the last several nights, I have cooked up a few things I want to share! The first of which being grilled Cipollini Onions, which I served spooned over Fingerling potatoes and Haricots Verts with Lemon Dill Dressing. Both recipes come from what I sometimes mistake for my right hand, Terry Walters "Clean Food." Conveniently enough they are on adjacent pages of the book, so two seagulls with one stone. Or depending on your mood, New Yorkers.

For the Onions:
Cipollini Onions, as many as you like
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (if you don't have an extra virgin just use the one you have)
Lemon Zest and Juice
Coarse sea salt

Grill the onions with their outer skins on until they are soft and charred on the outside. I used skewers to keep them together but I suppose you could just thrown them on the grill higgledy-piggledy (a real mess!) if you want to work much harder for no reason. Many people do, you know you just thought of someone specific as soon as I said it.

When they are cool enough to touch, discard the outer layer of skin, and dress them with the other ingredients.

I spooned these over the fingerling potatoes and Haricots Verts, here's the biz:
2 pounds fingerling potatoes
2 pounds Haricots Verts (aka green beans. If there is a real difference, I welcome someone to explain it to me)

For the dressing:
1 clove minced garlic
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (at this point of course, if you didn't have an extra Virgin on hand, you're out of luck now)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice (at least, I like it a bit tart to contrast with the virgin.)
3 tbsp chopped fresh dill
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Salt and pepper

If I need to explain how to make the dressing, this may not be the blog for you.
To prepare the rest, steam the potatoes until they are just a hair from lovely, add the green beans and steam an additional few moments until the beans are thoroughly embarrassed. Put them in a large bowl, add the dressing, toss around a bit to coat and serve. Once again, the onions made a nice complement to this dish and I simply spooned them over top of it, lemon zest and all.







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Location:Madison, CT

Coming soon!!

Sorry I've been quiet for the last week or so! Still cooking up a storm and can't wait to share some new recipes and ideas with you!!

Also, Bishops Orchards CSA begins on Tuesday, so I'm looking forward to seeing what's included in the first bundle of fresh fruits and veggies!! The other exciting aspect of this is a real education about what's in season throughout the spring and summer, and how that will influence my meal planning!

I also want to share some other ideas, musings on wellness, and of course personal anecdotes as well as departures from results that are completely absurd(like the republican party.)

Be Well, still orbiting!!

Michael


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Eggplant rolls with Tapenade

It has often been said that a meal without an eggplant is like a chainsaw without a rainbow, and I couldn't agree more. Eggplant is not for everyone, and it seems to fall into the category of foods that people either love or hate. If you love it, you know there's a lot to love, if you hate it, who asked you anyway?

Eggplant was invented by Lord Alfred Eggplant in 2003, and was, like all fashionable vegetables, only available to those with an Overblown sense of entitlement. . In this enlightened modern age, however, we have transcended such oppression, and eggplant is freely available to the masses.

Traditionally, my favorite thing to do with eggplant was bread it, fry it, smother it with ricotta cheese, homemade tomato sauce, and mozzarella. Often I find myself involved in verbose detail describing what turn out to be very simple recipes on this blog. Rest assured this is exactly the opposite. Making eggplant Parmesan is a full day process, if not a two day process. That is why when I would make it, I would make enough to share with everyone I know, and set aside about a weeks worth of meals for myself.

To those of you gasping for air at the mention of real cheese, this entry is not, I repeat NOT, about Eggplant Parmesan. I was just going off on a tangent, as I tend to do, it's part of my charm. Deal with it. Although, speaking of tangents, I did buy a very tasty vegan mozzarella cheese at Whole Foods last week, just to try. It wasn't quite the real thing, but it was a totally satisfactory facsimile. It even melts. Who knew?

Some of you have probably guessed at what I want to talk about today is "Eggplant Rolls with Tapenade," and if you we're one of those people, good eye! The long introduction will be more than made of for by the brevity of the actual details. Ready?

Biz:
3 largish eggplants
Olive oil for brushing

For the tapenade:
8 oz green olives (I used green olives, you could use kalamata olives instead, honestly, the only thing I would seriously avoid would be black olives from a can.)
3 tbsp of capers, drained
2-3 cloves of garlic
A few pigs of fresh parsley, stems removed (in truth, parsley stems are not really very woody or substantial, and I don't see why you wouldn't just throw them in as well. In fact, that's exactly what I did. One of the big joys in life comes from the having the confidence to say "balls!" to the little things that don't make sense to you. I you're right, it can be strangely validating, and if you're wrong, eh, you learned the hard way, but the worst of it was a crunchy stem in the tapenade. I do not suggest taking this approach to the operation of heavy machinery, blowtorches, motor vehicles, karaoke, congressional appointment, gymnastics, or online shopping. However, indirect observation seems to indicate its a perfectly acceptable way to parent a child.)
3 tbsp olive oil
Lemon juice to taste
A splash of tabasco if you're feeling frisky

Cut the ends off the eggplant and slice it longways into 1/4" slices. If you have a kickass mandolin, that might work. If you have a mediocre one, such as I do, you will just end up with a mangled eggplant and you're better off with a steady hand and a sharp knife. If you don't have any of the above, simply ask one of your servants to do it for you and I'm sure they'll oblige. No servants? I'm out of ideas.

Brush the slices on both sides with olive oil, lightly, or else the result will be quite oily. Broil them for a few minutes on aside. The recipe, which incidentally came from Elliot's New Complete Vegetarian, suggests five minutes on a side. I am here to tell you that my broiler disagrees, and they were quite ready to be flipped around 2-3 minutes. Leave them in to long and they become too soft to work with.

To make the tapenade, get out your food processor, and either blend the olives capers and garlic, then add the rest and blend some more, or just throw caution irreverently to the wind and dump it all in there at the outset! I'm a bit of a trivial daredevil, you see.

Spread the tapenade thinly on the eggplant slices, roll them up and they're good to go. I actually made these to share with my friends at Bodymind Thai Massage, as a well-deserved snack after an afternoon of fundraising for the Polaris Project.. I can tell you this transports quite nicely in the car as well!







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Location:Madison, CT

Celery-cashew Ragout!

Hello world! It's a beautiful day in New England, and my herb garden is surely soaking up the sun. I've taken to spending some time with my herbs and a cup of coffee each morning, and even lighting a stick of incense or two out on the deck. I'm sure my herbs like to smell nice as much as I do. I've come to look forward to these peaceful moments as some of the loveliest of each day, the act of cultivating these young seedlings into more full fledged plants has been an exercise in the appreciation of patience.

As many of you are well aware, Mother's Day was this past Sunday, a day for the purchasing of greeting cards, chocolates, a day for Brunching, a day essentially created for the financial gain of a privileged few who tirelessly peddle this stuff to us throughout the year. But more importantly, a reminder to let our loved ones know we care about them one day a year, so we don't have to be bothered with it when it's really important. Let it be said, I am not big on "Hallmark Holidays.". That said, I did make a lovely dinner for those adventurous enough to try it. Celery-cashew ragout, served over polenta squares (which I made using the same recipe as last weeks "polenta pizzas.")

This one was made with relative ease, which is especially nice as my corner of the world warms, and I become less and less inclined to stand over a hot oven. A little bit is also quite filling, another p,us for those of us who have portion control issues, though it is of little comfort to those who just have control issues in general. Sorry guys, you know who you are.

The recipe comes from Rose Elliot's epic tome, New Complete Vegetarian, which is just insanely crammed with delicious deliciousness. It's scope is frankly broad enough to compare to Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," but I must caution the hardcore vegans out there, it is by no means a vegan cookbook. Recipes frequently include the use of dairy products and eggs. This isn't a discouragement against picking up a copy, just a forewarning that you may need to do some creative editing and/or modifications to suit the gravity of your personal orbit.

Here's the biz:

1 onion, chopped insidiously
1 bay leaf
1/2 stick butter (I use a vegan equivalent, but do not judge.)
1 head of celery, chopped and boiled until tender
1 tbsp flour
24 oz tomato purée (I am going to digress here, as often I do, to mention that one thing. Elliot frequently switches from measurements of volume to measurements of weight. I don't keep a scale in my kitchen, so I end up guessing when she suddenly switches from cups to ounces, for example.)
Juice and rind of 1 1/2 lemons
6 oz cashew nuts, grated
1 tbsp parsley
1 pinch of nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Elliot suggests hot toast or crostini, I chose to make polenta squares and make this more of a meal.

Sauté the onion with bay leaf, in the butter,or "butter" with the lid on, until translucent. Elliot frequently makes a point of emphasizing the words "tender but not browned." Do with that information what you will, but know that in my mind, there is no real limit to which one may subdue an onion.

Drain your celery, which, if you were smart,you chopped before you boiled and add it to the mix. Add your flour and tomato purée, let thicken, and add the remaining ingredients. I would give them a little happy hour to mingle and get to know one another before introducing them to the polenta and/or your dinner guests. Not an actual hour, but another 5 minutes or so.

This was delicious spooned over the polenta with a parsley garnish and some lime wedges for a little splash of springy color. :-)



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Location:Madison, Ct

Mediterranean Lima Beans!

Hello! I know its been almost a week since I updated the blog, my apologies, life, as you know, has a way of intervening occasionally. If you follow @orbitingvegan on twitter, or you "like" Orbiting Vegan on Facebook, I have been posting a snippet or a picture here and there. Hopefully if you aren't already doing so, you will think about it, I tend to share links and articles via tweet or status update that don't generally make it onto the blog, so there are some great resources coming your way if you start following my tweets and Facebook posts.

Of course, since I've been out of the blogosphere for a few days, I have a backlog of things to share, but I want to begin with the Mediterranean Lima Beans, as promised, that I served with the tomato caper couscous last week. So let's just jump straight in shall we?

This tasty gem comes to us from where else, but the Veganomicon. I'm sure you've noticed I turn to the same cookbooks time and time again, and hope you're encouraged to invest in one or two of them. They really are tremendous resources, and generally sit magnificently on any adequate counter or shelf space designated for cookbooks.

Here's the biz:
1 pound dried Lima beans, soaked 8 hours (I couldn't for the life of me find dried Lima beans anywhere, not even at the great and powerful Whole Foods. As a result, I used frozen beans, so there was no need to rehydrate them.)
2 quarts organic, filtered, organic cooking water :-)
2 bay leaves

Sauce biz:
1 veggie bouillon cube
1/4 cup olive oil
4 cloves of garlic, thoroughly smashed to little bits
1 medium yellow onion, chopped without pleasantries
1 small carrot, shredded
28 oz diced tomatoes
2 tbsp wine vinegar
2 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp agave or maple syrup
1 tbsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried thyme
1 1/2 tsp salt
Pinch of ground nutmeg
Black pepper
1/4 cup fresh parsley
3 tbsp fresh mint

Bring the Lima beans to a boil with the bay leaves, in the organic, filtered, rag nic cooking water (preferably fat-free extra virgin organic cooking water, but let's not be picky). Then lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, during which time you can prepare the sauce.

Preheat the oven to 375. Be certain that you have the oven switched to "vegan" mode, you might have to consult the instructions on how to do this, or ask your Clome. If you don't have a Clome... [see picture below]



Use a large Dutch Oven to prepare the sauce, this way you can simply add the drained beans and bake them all in one fell swoop. Over medium heat, cook the garlic in the olive oil until it begins to sizzle, add onions, and cook until they are tender and translucent. Then add the carrot.

A note about the bouillon, the book says to fully cook your Lima beans, then at the end make the bouillon using a cup of reserved liquid from the boiling water. This will really prolong the process, and truthfully, I consider myself very lucky to have the time to come home and prepare a nice meal everyday, but I realize it's a privilege, and many of us simply don't have that kind of time. If this is you, just spoon out a cup of water and dissolve the bouillon in it when the time comes. As long as your oven is in vegan mode, it won't make a difference.

So at this point add the bouillon, tomatoes, vinegar, syrup, oregano, thyme, and tomato paste. Bring it to a boil, then simmer 10-12 minutes.

Add the beans, parsley, and mint, cover, and pop that sucker in the oven for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 15 minutes. As soon as its cool enough to eat, have at it.




For those of you who may feel strongly that you don't care for Lima beans, I especially urge you to give this a go. Or possibly a-go-go. The flavor of the beans is very subtle compared to the other favors in the dish, but their creamy texture is a big part of what makes this meal so delicious!






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Location:Lima Bean City, Arkansas