Winter Slaw: Beets, Carrots, Apples & Raisins

In the Summer I am addicted to beet + carrot slaws dressed simply with tahini, lemon, garlic and a sprinkling of chopped mint. It makes a great stuffing for a pita, base for a chickpea salad, or topper for a mixed green salad. Tonight, after grazing through some maple cookies from Trader Joe's, a pile of arugula, and some lackluster store-bought hummus, I was craving something fresh and crunchy as an antidote. So, I threw together my usual beet and carrot slaw, adding a granny smith apple, a handful of golden raisins, and a dash of cinnamon. It was a great end to a snacking supper, and I anticipate it will make a super sandwich tomorrow.

Winter Slaw
2 medium sized beets, chopped (about 1 cup)
4 large carrots, chopped (about 1 cup)
1 granny smith apple, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1 handful golden raisins
3 cloves of roasted garlic
2 T roasted sesame tahini
1/2 T agave
Juice from a large lemon
1/4 t + cinnamon
salt and pepper to taste

I usually chop my root veggies in my 4 cup food processor to save time. When you're working with beets this leads to everything turning pink...But, they're going to turn everything pink anyway, so why not save yourself the time?

Toss the chopped veggies, apple, and raisins in a large bowl. In a small food processor, combine the roasted garlic, tahini, agave, cinnamon and lemon juice. Puree until emulsified and taste. Add more cinnamon depending on your preference. Toss the slaw in all of the dressing and garnish with salt and pepper to taste. If you have fresh mint, it makes a great garnish for this salad, but it doesn't rely on it for flavor.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Cookies/ My first go at recipe testing

So, this Saturday I'll be spending about 7 hours in a windowless room with a group of 10 other students pouring over applications to our student run galleries and deciding on six shows for the Spring semester. As our faculty adviser usually provides lunch from somewhere terrifying (think Jimmy John's, barf) I've planned to put together some vegan treats for the group. Usually I'd make a batch of chocolate chip cookies and a batch of double chocolate cookies and call it a day, but I've been really, really into peanut butter cookies lately. I've been making these pretty much weekly. 

The thing about peanut butter cookies is that they're salty and sweet and in my mind they're on par with an energy bar healthy as far as cookies go. Conveniently, a couple weeks ago, Lindsay from Kiss Me I'm Vegan sent out a request for recipe testers for Ellen Abraham's new book Simple Treats...And, of course, I jumped on that opportunity as quickly as possible. When the recipe for these PB&J thumbprints landed in my mailbox last week, I was super excited to get to baking. Combining oats, freshly roasted peanuts, and maple syrup the base for these babies might be my new go to peanut butter cookie...even if they technically don't contain any peanut butter! 

These thumbprints are light, a little crumbly, and just the right ratio of salty to sweet. Topped with a baby bit of Concord grape jelly they're the cookie version of my childhood lunchbox. (Or rather, other kids' childhood lunch boxes, my mom was never happy with a PB&J. I always had lovingly made veggie sushi rolls or something equally colorful. <3 you mom!) I have a feeling that this will be a great cookbook. The cookies took all of 20 minutes from start to finish, which is pretty ideal when you've just realized that there are only like 6 weeks left in the semester, you can't get your thesis readers to agree on a date for your proposal review and all you want to do is win the lottery, buy a house that actually stays warm and start living on your own time by which I mean, sleeping more, yoga-ing more, and e-mailing less. 

Exhaustion and Stew

As the semester wears on, I find myself feeling the same exhaustion and apathy that completely derailed me this Spring: I'm tired, I'm feeling a little unmoored, I'm unmotivated, and I pretty much only want to sleep and party. None of this bodes well and I'm trying to get out of the funk by drinking lots of mood elevating tea blends and trying really, really hard to hit the gym on a regular basis. Part of me suspects that graduate school develops this hazy brain-cloud and makes people avoid things of interest because they don't want to do their work, but feel guilty doing anything else. I can't tell you how good I've become at staring off into space... I also am starting to feel the wear and tear of a small social circle, where most members are involved in relationships and projects and other circles that keep this circle from developing into the sort of bonded, warm, lovey-ness that all of us only children crave. We're community builders: Cantankerous, often selfish, and totally need to have artificial or real families around all the time. We like to live alone, but we want you to come for dinner. We need to be in a position to please a group, delight guests, and snuggle up to warm friendly bodies. The isolation of scholarship feels too much like those afternoons from our childhood when we just knew that all of our other friends were having backyard adventures, tumbling around with their siblings and neighbors in glorious laughter while we were sitting alone under a tree reading a book. And really, really would have preferred to be tumbling and laughing... 


That is, in fact, pretty much how I feel every time I sit down to read. I love reading, but also have sort of grown to hate it. Reading is a lonely activity. And, just as when I was 8, 9, 10...I am alone so much of time. I'd rather be around people, laughing and talking and dancing or whatever. I can remember, with perfect clarity, the last time that I really, really enjoyed reading. I was in bed with a boyfriend. It was summer. We were both wearing enormous band t-shirts, tanned, tired, and relishing the fan's cooling breezes as we sipped iced tea, read our big novels (Umberto Eco writes more than theory) and soaked in the warm, sweet smell coming in through the open windows. Some people aren't very good at reading in tandem, but this particular ex was excellent at it. He never interrupted, except to press feet or offer a tea refill or occasionally get up leaving with nary a word, just one of those back of the head kisses that some people are so good at giving. It was like reading was quality time that we spent together, we'd often wake up after a good night in bed with books and talk about the stories spinning in our heads over decadent home-made brunches. While most of our relationship was rather lackluster, I miss the reading and hope to someday meet someone with whom I can read again.


I've been making a concerted effort to do things I like to do more often, namely going to shows. In the last two weeks I've seen Deerhunter and Four Tet, both of which are musical acts that get deep into my bones and rattle my muscles and clear my head only to fill it with big imaginings. Tuesday, my lovely friend Rachel and I are going to see Gary Numan. I anticipate that we will have an excellent time. 


Anyway, in preparation for attempting to blog 5 days a week this November as part of VeganMoFo, I'm trying to warm back up to the blog. I've been busy and abnormally sleepy and eating a lot of salads, so I haven't had much to share on the food front. Though, as the weather gets cooler, my Irv and Shelly's box becomes more heavy with squash and I recently re-visited one of my absolute favorite recipes: Madhur Jaffrey's Chickpea, Pumpkin and Raisin Stew. It might be in my top five favorite things to eat. I mean...just look at it, even in a terrible iPhone photo it's a sight to behold and it is JAM-packed with nutritious and delicious and the recipe makes a lot, like enough to serve 8. So, no arguing, make this instead of a pie the next time you find yourself puzzling over a sugar pumpkin. I serve it with a rose-scented cous cous which I think really takes the whole thing to the next level. In fact, its so good that I challenge you to eat just one bowl. I'm pretty sure that its impossible.

Chickpea, Pumpkin and Raisin Stew (Very slightly adapted from World Vegetarian)

1t ground ginger

1t ground cumin

1t ground paprika

1/4t ground tumeric

1/4 t cayenne

3 T olive oil

1 cinnamon stick

1 medium onion, peeled and cut into fine half-rings

3 medium tomatoes chopped and peeled (or one can of chopped tomatoes with the juice drained)

2 cups cooked chickpeas

2 cups roasted pumpkin (about one small-medium pie pumpkin, roast it cut side down for about 45 minutes and then just scoop it out into bite size pieces)

3 T raisins

3.5 cups vegetable stock

salt to taste

1 cup zucchini cut into 1/2" dice

2 T finely chopped cilantro (+ more for garnish)

2 T finely chopped parsely (+ more for garnish)

Heat the oil in a good sized soup pot, when hot add the cinnamon stick and fry it for 2- 3 minutes. When the stick is fragrant, add the onion and cook for 3- 4 minutes until medium brown.

Add the ground spices, stir, and quickly add the tomatoes and cook for 3- 4 minutes. When the tomatoes are soft, add the chickpeas, pumpkin, raisins, stock and salt. Bring to a simmer and cook covered at low heat for 15 minutes. 

Uncover and add the zucchini and chopped herbs and let them cook until just tender. You want the zuchini to still be a little al dente. 

Rose-scented cous cous with pistachios and raisins

1 box instant cous cous

2 cups filtered water

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup shelled roasted and salted pistachios

1 t rosewater

1 T olive oil

1 handfull chopped parsley (or mint)

Bring the water and oil to a boil in a small pan. Remove from the heat and add the cous cous and raisins. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes until cous cous is cooked. Add the rose water and then fluff with a fork and garnish with nuts and parsely. 

Roasted + Stuffed Delicata Squash

Something about setting a place for myself at the end of the day always makes me feel much better taken care of than I am. 

Roasted + Stuffed Delicata Squash
1 Delicata squash, halved and seeds removed
olive oil

1/4 cup sweet onion, finely diced
1 large shallot, finely diced
1 t Aleppo Pepper (Could sub 1/2 t red pepper flakes)
1/2 red bell pepper, finely diced
2 cups red kale, de-stemmed, rinsed and torn into small pieces
1/4 cup chunky almond meal (pulse a handful of raw almonds in your food processor until they are half the texture of flour and half very small chunks)
1 T nutritional yeast
2 T tomato paste
1 cup cooked adzuki beans with about 2 T of their cooking water (can sub veggie stock for the cooking water)
1 t orange zest

1/2 t fennel seeds
1/2 t mustard seeds

5- 6 cherry tomatoes, halved

Preheat the oven to 400. Lightly brush the squash with olive oil and roast for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool. When you can handle the squash, scoop a little of the flesh out of each half to make larger boats for the filling. Reserve the scooped out squash.

While the squash is roasting, heat some olive oil in a large skillet. Add the onion and shallots and cook slowly so that they caramelize a bit. I don't mean brown the onions, I mean cook them low and slow so that they get nice and sweet (about 10 minutes). Add the Aleppo pepper and red pepper and cook for another couple of minutes until soft. Add the kale and allow it to gently wilt. Stir in the almond meal, nutritional yeast, and tomato paste. Remove from the heat and stir in the cooked adzuki beans, the cooking water and the orange zest.

In a small, covered frying pan heat 1 T olive oil and add the fennel seeds and mustard seeds. Remove from the heat when you hear the seeds start to pop. Stir the oil and the whole spices into the filling with the scooped out squash. Taste for salt (I didn't need any).

Mound the filling evenly into the squash halves. Decorate the tops with the halved tomatoes, face down. Place the squash back into the oven for 15 minutes. When the squash is done cooking, allow it to settle for a couple of minutes before serving as it will be very hot. 

Stress--> Baking

Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 t baking soda
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt

1/2 c Earth Balance
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c vegan sugar
1 t vanilla
1 t cinnamon
1.5 T flax meal blended with 3 T non-dairy milk

1 c quick cook oats
3/4 c vegan chocolate chips
1/2 c chopped dried tart cherries

Line a cookie sheet with unbleached parchment paper and place in the freezer.

Sift the dry ingredients in a small bowl.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the earth balance and sugar for 3 minutes. Add the vanilla, cinammon and flax/milk "egg" and beat for one more minute.

Fold in the dry ingredients until you have a sticky dough. Mix in the oats, chocolate chips and cherries. If the dough is still really wet, add another 1- 2 T flour.

Place the cookie dough in the fridge for 15 minutes while the oven preheats to 350.

Scoop the dough (about 1.5 T/ cookie) onto the cold cookie sheet and bake in the top of the oven for 15 minutes, turning the sheet halfway through. Let the cookies cool on a rack...And try not to eat them all yourself.

Depending on how much cookie dough you eat, this recipe makes about 20 large-ish cookies.

Quinoa salad inspired by Kelly + an interlude about a boy

On a bed of delicious greens.

Quinoa salad with herbs, tahini and fresh veggies
1 cup quinoa cooked
4 Thai eggplants, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
1 tomato, diced
3 carrots, shredded
1 beet, shredded
1/3 cup tart dried cherries

3 T roasted sesame tahini
juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic

1/2 cup mint, chopped
1/2 cup parsely, chopped

unbleached salt + pepper + olive oil

Rinse the quinoa and then toast lightly in 1 T olive oil. Add 1.5 cups of water and cook until done, but not mushy. Set aside.

Generously salt the eggplant after dicing and set aside while you chop the other veggies. Try to get a consistent size on everything. Drain, rinse and dry the eggplant after about 10 minutes.

Heat about 2 T olive oil in a large skillet. Add the eggplant and let cook for 2 minutes before adding the bell pepper, tomato and cherries. Cook together for about 5 minutes. Everything should stay pretty al dente, but you want the flavors to marry.

In a small food processor make an emulsion with the tahini and lemon (it will turn into a mayonnaise-y consistency) and then add the minced garlic.

When the veggies are done dump them in a big bowl with the cooked quinoa, shredded beets and carrots, and tahini dressing. Stir to combine and add salt and pepper to taste. When the salad has cooled stir in the green herbs and serve.

What's that cool crisp feeling?

Earlier this week Chicago was hot and sticky. The last drags of Summer hanging around like little temptations as what might be my last school year began. Tuesday night I was drunkenly skinny dipping in Lake Michigan, riding my bike home in damp shorts, and reveling in the heavy air. By Friday the air was cold, and I felt the need to put on gloves to bike home. (I didn't have gloves so I pussied out and popped my bike on the blue line so that I could ride home with a friend.) This morning, I woke up early to a bluebird day with muscles that feel sore in the best possible way. I jumped out of bed to seriously chilly air, made some tea, moved through some sun salutations to get my body moving and my blood warmed up, and hit the grocery store. (Last night's dinner consisted of a So Delicious yogurt, a slab of baked tofu and some chips...So, things were getting a little desperate.) Walking down Division at 8am on the first autumnal day of the year was like a little revelation. I may be a big fan of Summer, but my heart belongs to the Fall. The slight change in the angle of the sun, the feeling of being neatly contained in a sweater and jacket, the rustle of leaves...the smell. I just love it. I will be really sad to be boxed into a regular job (FINGERS CROSSED!) this time next year. 

Anyway, last night, after eating a totally unsatisfactory dinner and passing out watching the really, really terrible Benjamin Button with a friend, I woke up around midnight and set some beans to soak in order to avoid another day of irresponsible eating. (It's been a long, long week of picking at crudité platters at orientation events my friends...A long week of vats of not so tasty hummus and sad looking carrot sticks.) I've been craving Sweet Potatoes with alarming regularity and I was thinking all week about a brothy, miso-based sweet potato/adzuki/kale soup. But, this turn in the weather made me want something a little bit heartier. I cooked up batches of black beans, adzukis, and chick peas this morning and put together a little mixed bean salad and a really nice sweet potato and adzuki soup.

Quick Gingered Sweet Potato Soup with Adzuki Beans and Miso

1 T olive oil

1 large sweet potato, scrubbed and cubed (skin on)

1 sweet onion minced

1 bay leaf

2" of ginger minced

1/2 t fennel seeds, lightly crushed

2 t red miso

1/2 vegan bouillon cube

1/2 cup adzuki beans, cooked (I cook mine with just a 1" piece of kombu for flavor and add a little salt at the end)

1/2 t smoked paprika

cilantro for garnish

Sweat the onions in a large sauce pan with the olive oil. When the onions start to become fragrant (about 5 minutes) add the cubed sweet potato and continue to stir until the sweet potato becomes fragrant. Toss in the fennel seeds, ginger and bay leaf. Stir for a minute or two before adding the water, miso and bouillon. Simmer until the sweet potato starts to fall apart, then remove the bay leaf and buzz lightly with an immersion blender. The soup should be chunky rather than silky. Add the adzukis and the smoked paprika and remove from the heat. Serve garnished with cilantro. 

Just for fun, here's a shot of my bean salad. It's delicious, but doesn't really merit a recipe as its just beans, a little herbed vinaigrette, chopped bell pepper, dill and tarragon. 

As ready as I am for Fall, I'm really hoping for one last look at Summer this weekend, and maybe a Labor Day BBQ at the beach?! But, I'm glad for the cool weather today...I'm hoping it will be a good incentive to get some reading done (homework!) and I think dates always go better when the weather is cool...Oh, right...I'm going on a date, like a real date with a pre-appointed time and a meal involved. I'm not really sure about how this works. I thought dates were where two people who kind of know each other put some wine in a brown bag and sit in a park and talk until they accidentally-on purpose make out.