Kushari / Colin / Khalid

I recently saw Janet's yummy-looking post on taste space about a kitchari that riffs off the original ayurvedic dish, but adds both an eastern European spin (with dill, cabbage, and carrots) and a neo-western-foodie/macro element (ginger, soy sauce, miso, quinoa--and yes, I know quinoa is actually really ancient, South American, etc...). 

It got me thinking again (as I posted about once before), about how kitchari/khichri became kedgeree (Anglo-Indian) and kushari/koshary (Egyptian)... did the British bring the dish (and its name) to Egypt, or does the cross-pollination here precede the British completely, as Clifford Wright suggests?

And then I wondered some more... where does it end?  Maybe a dish that combines a legume and a grain is one of the most basic dishes ever, anywhere.  Even wikipedia is like, "...consider also Mujaddara, Hoppin' John, and Gallo Pinto... and... and..."  I'm both cautious of and excited by the politics of a universal food culture.  In any case, it often seems that by swapping out one component for an equivalent (vinegar for citrus, pomegranate molasses for tamarind paste, mung beans or lentils for pinto beans, bulgur or quinoa for rice), you might be able to play a kind of culinary word golf across the entire world.  Which in turn means, you can have congruent dishes all over the place that actually share no ingredients! a la Theseus's ship.

In other news, my brother Colin is back in Cairo and loving it.  And eating a lot of kushari.  Interestingly, "Colin" appears to mean "young creature" in Gaelic while the Arabic name he goes by in Egypt--"Khalid"--means "immortal."

Two One-Offs

I recently made a faster version of the green curry broth soup.  I didn't simmer the broth for all that long before straining it, and then I added stir-fried tofu, mushrooms, carrots, shredded collards, and udon noodles.  I garnished it with lime juice, scallions, cilantro, and sesame seeds... really, though, the possibilities for this soup are endless.

*

Secondly.  Sometimes I want to make something savory for breakfast in the morning, but the sausagey recipes require sooo much measuring that I'm just not down.  But I've gotten around this problem by quadrupling the spices from the oats and rice sausage recipe so that you have a mixture of:

2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2-1 tsp ground black pepper
4 tsp ground sage
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp dried thyme
4 tsp fennel seeds

You'd then use about a heaping tablespoon for the original recipe, or less for smaller batches of stuff.

In this case, I then referred to this tempeh sausage squares recipe.  I mixed 1 TB tamari, 1/4 tsp liquid smoke, and about 1/4-1/2 c water with a heaping teaspoon of the above mixture.  Then I fried triangles of tempeh on both sides before pouring this mixture over the top, letting it cook off, etc., etc.

Then, because I happened to have some lying around, we topped off the tempeh with some mushroom gravy. Not the best photo, but this is one of the best (and fastest) homemade sausage things I've made yet.

Coconut Cilantro Bean Curry

Savory recipes that use (unsweetened) coconut are awesome!  See, for example, shredded brussels sprouts with coconut, hyderabad cauliflower, hyderabadi eggplant, and baingan bharta... and now this recipe from vegventures.

In making this recipe, I used way more cilantro and a bit more heat than were called for (I also used fresh chilies instead of chili powder).  The flavors were good, but the texture was so dry, especially with all the coconut.

So, a bit like when I transported the filling from stuffed collards into a kind of sushi roll, I seriously tweaked my leftovers into a soupier curry by simmering them in a mixture of coconut milk and stock.  Perfect!  Most of the liquid cooked off, but I was left with a curry that was moister and richer.

Coconut Cilantro Bean Curry (without and with sauce ingredients)

(from vegventures)

Ingredients

3 TB vegetable oil
4-5 crushed garlic cloves

1/2 to 1 whole green chili, w/seeds

1.5 TB cumin (yes, TB)
1.5 TB coriander (-”-)
1 TB turmeric (-”-)
1/4 c fresh cilantro (coriander leaves)
1.5 c desiccated coconut
1.5 c cooked (or canned) black-eyed beans (I used black beans)
1.5 c cooked and cubed potatoes

salt to taste
lime or lemon juice to taste

optional: 1 c coconut milk, 1 c vegetable stock

Instructions

1. Heat the oil on a pan and fry the garlic and chili for 30 seconds. Add all the other spices and sauté, stirring, for 1-2 minutes more. Add all the other ingredients except lime juice (and optional sauce ingredients) and mix.
2. Cook for 10 more minutes, stirring frequently (the curry is so dry that especially if you don’t have a non-stick pan it might burn, since the the ingredients quickly soak up the oil). Optional: add coconut milk and stock, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 5-10 more minutes.  Serve hot.  Serves about three.

Pear Fennel Coffee Cake

Months ago the idea of a pear fennel cake came to me in a dream.  Perhaps it was spurred by the Pear Chutney I made awhile back; I'm not sure.  Anyway, I finally got around to making it last night, and it's great!

I worked off a recipe for Apple-Almond Coffee Cake that I made last winter.  I halved it to fill a smaller pan, so I'm sorry some of the measurements are a bit awkward.  I replaced dry ginger with fresh, omitted cloves and added fennel, and used pears instead of apples.  I also "curdled" the soymilk by adding a splash of vinegar; this often makes for a moister or better-bound-together cake.

It's everything I dreamed it would be!  At first you don't really taste the fennel.  The normal coffee cake flavors--sugar, cinnamon, almonds--come through first.  Then maybe you get a little chunk of ginger.  But fennel is the taste that lingers, giving it a dynamic licoricey flavor.  I reduced the sugar from the original recipe quite a lot, and it's just right for me now, but some might want to add more.  The consistency is just dense enough, and the top and sides are slightly crispy.  However, the cake was a lot moister the day it came out of the oven, but the large quantity of pears in the cake mean that it still seems pretty moist.  And if you're drinking it with coffee, maybe it doesn't matter.  I think a bit more oil, though, would help the cake stay moist longer.

 Pear-Fennel Coffee Cake

Ingredients

3/4 c whole wheat flour

1/4 c white flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp fennel seed

*

1 TB minced fresh ginger

1 c chopped pears

*

2.5 TB unsweetened applesauce

1.5 TB corn or canola oil

3/8 c brown sugar

scant 1/2 c nondairy milk

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

*

TOPPING:

2.5 TB brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 c sliced almonds

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Oil an 8x8" cake pan.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir in the pears and ginger . In a separate bowl, mix wet ingredients.  Then, add wet to dry, stirring as briefly as possible. Spread into prepared pan.
3. Mix the topping ingredients together in a small bowl. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the cake. Bake about 30 minutes. Test for doneness. Cool on a rack and serve right out of the pan, cut into squares.

Roasted Red Pepper Cashew Sauce

So "June gloom" ends after tomorrow, right?  Cloudy weather never got to me until I moved here.  But when it's dry and sunny all the time, the different weather makes me alternatively gloomy, nostalgic, and cozy.  Staples like tabouleh and cold bean salads lose their appeal.  I wanted rich comfort food.

I've been wanting to make creamy things out of cashews for a while now.  I finally picked up some raw cashews at Trader Joe's; the only thing missing was nutritional yeast.

Nutritional yeast and I broke up about a year ago.  I had some really old stuff that I'd moved from Chicago, to Minnesota, to LA (and then moved within LA).  It was kind of funky, and after throwing it out, I didn't have the heart--or the stomach--to buy more.

Until today.  My new eye doctor is right across the street from Nature Mart and its bulk bin store, and sure enough, they had nootch in bulk.  I didn't take too much.

And, I think you could make this recipe without nutritional yeast at all.

I started with this recipe on Seaweed Snacks, but I substantially changed around the method as well as some ingredients.  My mini-food-processor needed all the help it could get, and I wanted to add some sauteed garlic.  So, while the original recipe required no cooking, I ultimately combined everything together on the stove.  I added water to help the blending go, er, more smoothly, some of which maybe cooked off over the stove anyway.  In any case, it wasn't too watery.  I also used roasted peppers from a jar rather than raw fresh peppers--more convenient, more roasty, and easier to digest (raw peppers make me burp a lot).  I added paprika for color, and red pepper flakes for spiciness.  At first, the sauce was too sweet with the bell pepper, so I added quite a bit of lemon juice, which really improved it.

Roasted Red Pepper Cashew Sauce (over Whole Wheat Spaghetti)

(adapted from Seaweed Snacks)

Ingredients

1 1/2 c raw cashews
1/4-1/2 c water
1/2 c roasted red peppers from a jar (or fresh)
*
1/8 c extra virgin olive oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
red pepper flakes and paprika to taste
*
1/8 c nutritional yeast
1 TB tamari
1/2 tsp sea salt
juice of 1/2 lemon

Instructions

1) In a food processor or blender, blend cashews, water, and peppers until as creamy as possible.
2) In a saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Saute garlic with red pepper flakes and paprika several minutes, until browned and fragrant. 
3) Reduce heat to very low.  Add cashew-pepper puree to saucepan, as well as remaining ingredients.  Stir until completely mixed, then transfer back to food processor if more blending is desired.  Serve warm over pasta. Makes about 2 cups or 4-6 servings.

Chocolate-Almond Brownies

I decided to make brownies to take to a gathering this evening. But wow... once I started looking at recipes and blog posts, I realized that the brownie is like the [insert perfect French phrase here--I'm sure there is one] of vegan baking. That is, the perfect vegan brownie is sort of a mark of competence. Everyone wants to make them. Everyone has a recipe. How to decide?

I knew I didn't want to make brownies with tofu or beans or anything weird in them. I ended up starting with the recipe in The Joy of Vegan Baking because it seemed pretty basic. Having made many of the recipes in this book, however, I knew that the author tends to put a great deal more sugar in her recipes than I would, so I reduced the sugar by 33% (but then increased it a bit). I also used Zulka sugar, this less-refined-looking sugar that's made in Mexico, because it looked like it would be better in baking than turbinado sugar, and it wasn't any more expensive than the normal refined white sugar ($1.59 for 2 lbs at Jons). There also wasn't any fat in the recipe besides in the chocolate chips and the negligible amount in some flaxseed, so I un-substituted some of the recipe's applesauce for buttery-tasting corn oil (people typically go the other direction to reduce the fat).

Having worked in more than one bakery-café, I’m also aware that nuts in brownies are a contentious issue. But as I like nuts, and as I wanted to avoid winding up with a textureless glop of chocolate in a pan, I went for nuts (also for the sake of texture, I subbed whole wheat flour for 25% of the white flour). Slivered almonds were what I had, so I toasted and chopped them. I’m not sure if toasting improved the flavor and texture of some rather sad nuts, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Since I was adding almonds, I also added a bit of almond extract.

In the end, this brownie needed a little more sugar to taste as chocolatey as it should (cf. Chocolate-Coconut Muffins). The texture, after only 35 minutes of baking, was very moist but not gooey (i.e., it was "cakey"). Despite the lack of eggs, the brownies held together and came easily out of the pan, and the edges were slightly chewy. 1 c of nuts ended up being a lot, and I would use less next time. The recipe has been adjusted to address these changes. Also, this recipe was a bit more complicated than it needed to be. Although it asks for you to mix water and flaxseed separately before adding it to the other wet ingredients, there is so much more water than flaxseed that this is something of a moot point. Overall, I'm quite happy with how this brownie turned out.

Chocolate-Almond Brownies

(adapted from The Joy of Vegan Baking)

Ingredients
1 1/4 c sugar
½ c unsweetened applesauce
¼ c corn oil
generous ½ c water
2 tsp ground flaxseed
2 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp almond extract
*
1 c white flour
1/3 c whole wheat flour
¾ c unsweetened cocoa powder
¾ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 c semisweet chocolate chips or coarsely chopped dark eating chocolate
1/2-1 c almonds, toasted (optional) and coarsely chopped

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350*. Oil an 8x8 baking dish.
2. In a large bowl, combine ingredients sugar through almond extract. In another bowl, combine remaining ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet and stir just enough to mix.
3. Pour into baking dish. Bake 35-40 minutes (depending on your oven, and on your preference for gooey or cakey brownies).

Slightly tropical cornbread

The recipe which follows is an unrecognizable variation on a variation on a variation on a cornbread recipe from the original Vegetarian Epicure (1972). This was the only vegetarian cookbook in the house when I was growing up, and it's interesting mostly as evidence of how much vegetarian cooking has changed. I've always thought that this page from The Moosewood Cookbook (1977) summed it up:

Seriously?

In other news, I bought an oven thermometer today and am learning that my (wonderful, new) oven is typically not as hot as I think it is. This alone may explain why some cookies that I'd made here turned out quite differently (better, in fact) in my mom's electric oven.

This cornbread is higher in fiber and in flavor than the original. I decreased the white flour, increased the cornmeal, and added whole wheat flour and coconut. I increased the brown sugar by a little bit, added lime and vanilla, and adopted nondairy versions for milk and melted butter. It is really, really delicious--a little salt, a little sugar, lots of flavor and texture, moist without being greasy. It's sweet enough to be a dessert or a snack with a glass of soymilk or a cup of tea, but not so sweet that it wouldn't also go well with a dish like Hearty Rainy-Day Chili.

Slightly Tropical Cornbread

Ingredients

1/2 c white flour

1/2 c whole wheat flour

1/2 c coarse corn meal

1/2 c unsweetened coconut

3/8 c brown sugar

1 1/2 TB baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 TB ground flaxseed mixed with 3 TB water

zest and juice of 1/2 lime

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 c soymilk

2 TB corn oil

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375*. Lightly oil a 9-in pie pan. In a large bowl, mix dry. Add wet. Pour into pan and bake 30-35 min or until edges begin to brown.

Apple Cranberry Pie with Tahini Crust

Apple Cranberry Pie with Tahini Crust and Almond Butter Cream

Thanksgiving was a blast. We broke out one of the extra leaves of my dining table and had seven people total! Guests brought wine and beer, a delectable sweet potato and onion galette, a pear-cranberry chutney, and a yummy sweet potato pie. I made a few other things. I'm going to start with the most important: pie. This recipe is adapted from a berry pie recipe from Arhia's family. The filling is fruit, plus a little bit of other stuff (she used arrowroot and flour) to firm it up, and sugar as needed. I turned this into a very tart apple pie which incorporated lemon, ginger, and cranberries (and the accordingly necessary sugar), as well as some apple pie type spices. The crust is all Arhia's: using tahini instead of butter, lard, or oil gives the crust an amazing nutty taste.


I decided at the last minute to make Robin Robertson's Almond Butter Cream. This would have paired nicely with the pie, but I put it in a container that had recently housed onions, and the results were slightly tragic. If anyone has any ideas about what to do with a cup of oniony almond date goop, let me know. I'm also wondering how I could have made the top of the pie look more attractive. I know I should have used a bit more fruit (I've already adjusted the recipe); I'm wondering if this is the main reason that the top looked a little anemic and wilted, or if I should have glazed the apples on top or something.

Apple Cranberry Pie with Tahini Crust
(adapted from a recipe by Arhia)

Tahini Crust
Ingredients (9-in pie)
3/4 c white flour
3/4 c wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 c tahini
water

Instructions

Mix together dry ingredients. Cut in tahini (I used a knife and then switched to a fork as it got more evenly mixed in--see image to the right). Mix in warm water, a small amount at a time, until a dry dough forms.

Place 1 large sheet of waxed paper on a flat surface, using a few drops of water underneath to hold it in place. Transfer dough to top of this waxed paper and cover with another sheet. Roll out the dough to desired thickness. Remove top sheet of waxed paper and transfer crust to oiled pie pan.

Remaining crust can be baked off in a frying pan and topped with jam for a delicious snack (see image to the left)!

Apple Cranberry Pie
Ingredients
about 6 apples, cored and sliced (I used Fuji)
1 1/2 c fresh or frozen (unsweetened) cranberries
1-2 TB fresh ginger, grated
2 TB fresh lemon juice
1/2 c turbinado sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
3 TB cornstarch
3 TB flour

Instructions

Fruit should more than fill the pie pan (see image to the right). If desired, retain some of the fruit for a decorative topping. In a saucepan, cook fruit and ginger with some water until it begins to soften. Add remaining ingredients and cook for a few minutes, until well mixed. Transfer to pie crust. Top with reserved fruit and brown sugar, if desired (see image to the left).

Bake pie at 425* for ten minutes, then at 350* for an additional 40-50 minutes, until filling is bubbling and crust begins to brown. Allow to stand and cool before serving.

Update, January 2010: I made this pie back home over the holidays and it turned out prettier. We used more fruit, and my mom made a prettier crust than I had:

Almond Butter Cream
(from Vegan Planet)

Ingredients
1 c boiling water
1 c raw almonds
1/2 c boiling water
4 dates, pitted

Instructions

Place almonds in a larger bowl and dates in a smaller bowl. Pour boiling water over each. After 1 minute, drain almonds and pat dry. Remove skins. When dates are soft and have cooled, blend blanched (skinless) almonds, dates, and date water in a blender, adding water as necessary. Cover and chill before serving.

Extraordinary Rice Pudding

I decided to make this rice pudding to complement my friend Devon's Mediterranean-themed dinner. Although the recipe originally comes from Vegan Planet, I added vanilla, reduced sugar and fat, etc. Most importantly, however, I wanted to make it bright pink, which was easily done by adding two slices of raw beet. I also wanted to highlight the greenness of the pistachios, so I didn't mix most of them into the pudding (this way they stayed crunchier, too). The results were quite delicious!

Coconut-Cardamom Rice Pudding

(adapted from Vegan Planet)

Ingredients
2 1/2 c cooked white basmati rice
1 can (14 oz.) coconut milk
1/2 c water
1/3 c turbinado sugar
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
2 slices of raw beet, 1/4-in thick
1 1/2 tsp rose water
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c shelled and chopped pistachios

Instructions

1. Combine rice, milk, water, and sugar in a saucepan and simmer over low heat for 20 min, stirring occasionally. Stir in cardamom and beet slices and cook for 5 more minutes, stirring to distribute red color.
2. Remove saucepan from heat. Remove beet slices. Stir in rose water, vanilla, and some of the pistachios. Allow to cool, and then refrigerate.
3. When cooled, shape the pudding into individual servings. Top with remaining pistachios and refrigerate until ready to eat. Serves 4-6.

More gingerbread!

More birthday baking.... but, you might ask, another gingerbread cookie?? Ah, but this one is totally different--It's fluffier and sweeter, and it has a history:

This recipe marks a pivotal moment in my personal culinarybildung: I believe it was senior year of college that I found this recipe (sortof) in the America's Test Kitchen Cookbook and grudgingly decided to veganize it... to my surprise, the vegan version was fantastic! Thus, I began to realize that maybe vegan baking wasn't a second-rate sort of activity... over the years (and at one point when I was living far away, it involved a dear former cooking partner looking up the recipe and typing it up for me!), this recipe has changed a bit more: in addition to the egg-replacer and Earth Balance substitutions, it now also contains half whole-wheat flour, more spices, and no sugar on the outside. For this run, I also added 1/2 tsp ground mustard, with good results, I think.

Ginger Cookies
(adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook)

Ingredients
1 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 c whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ground mustard
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 c (i.e., 12 TB or 1 1/2 sticks) vegan butter, softened
1/3 c packed dark brown sugar
1/3 c turbinado sugar
1 "egg"
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 c molasses

Instructions

1) Preheat oven to 375*.
2) You need two large bowls. In one bowl, combine dry ingredients (flour to salt). In the other bowl, cream butter and sugars. When mixed, add in "egg" and vanilla, and mix. Add molasses, then add dry to wet. Don't overmix.
3) Grease cookie sheets if necessary (i.e., if not teflon-coated). You may wish to put the dough in the freezer while you are doing this to firm it up a bit.
4) Roll dough into 1-in-diameter balls. Place on cookie sheet at least 1 in apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until bottoms have started to brown. Makes 40-50 small cookies.

Vaguely macro, overtly colorful

When I was home last month I went through a pile of recipes that my mom had clipped from the newspaper and magazines. I took two home with me, and I got to try them out last night. Spiced Coconut Red Lentil Soup? What a great idea, Cooking Light--it will be similar to those sweet potato coconut soups but with more fiber and protein. Yet some changes were necessary: in the original recipe, the cooking times and the order in which you add ingredients were all wrong. The ginger was burning before the garlic and spices were supposed to be added, and the garlic never got cooked. I also swapped out chicken broth in favor of miso broth. In the final analysis, though, this soup was actually too "healthy": just too watery for what it purported to be.

I was also drawn to a recipe for "Moravian Wafers." Distracted by the fact that this cookie calls for ground mustard (A MUSTARD COOKIE!?), I failed to notice that it's mostly just a gingerbread cookie. Still, it's a pretty badass gingerbread cookie: it's not too sweet, the mustard gives it lots of tang, and the copious amounts of black pepper I added give it a lot of bite. I increased most of the spices, used Earth Balance instead of butter, and after struggling to use plastic wrap instead of waxed paper, with a bottle instead of a rolling pin and a wobbly table, I abandoned the "wafer" part of the recipe (which necessitated upping the cooking time).

Finally, as cabbage is the $1 gift to yourself from Jons that keeps on giving, I decided to try out the pressed salad recipe that Myer posted on my blog last week.

Oh, and everyone should make their own gomasio! I ate the soup and the salad with some steamed broccoli with olive oil and gomasio. Just grind toasted sesame seeds and sea salt in a (very clean) coffee grinder, and you have a delectable condiment to use as you would use salt: on vegetables, rice, porridge, and more!

Coconut Red Lentil Soup
(salvaged from a Cooking Light recipe)

Ingredients
2 tsp olive oil
2 c chopped onion
1 terabyte minced fresh ginger
5 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/8 tsp cinnamon
3 1/2 c water
1 c red lentils, washed and drained
1 c coconut milk
3-4 TB miso paste (not white)
3 TB chopped fresh basil
2 TB fresh lime juice

Instructions: Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook until browned. Add ginger, garlic, and spices, and cook until fragrant. Add water and lentils, bring to a boil, cover, lower heat, simmer 30-60 min. Remove from heat. When cool, puree in a blender. Add coconut milk and miso paste (in blender if possible). Return to saucepan and bring back to hot temperature (do not boil). Stir in basil and lime juice, and serve.

Pressed Purple Cabbage Salad

(adapted from a recipe from Cirrus Kohlmoos, via Myer Nore)

Ingredients
1/2 purple cabbage
1/2 yellow onion
2 small persian cucumbers, peeled
1 large carrot
1/2 lemon
1/2 green apple, diced

Instructions: Slice the cabbage into thin ribbons, the onion into very thin moons, the cucumber into slightly thicker slices. Julienne the carrot in 1-in-long pieces. Combine in a large bowl. Add about 1 tsp sea salt to the bowl, then mix and massage until the vegetables are bright, wilty, and wet. Cover with a plate held down by heavy weights (cans, jars, etc.). Let sit for 1 hour. Drain excess liquid. Add a little lemon juice and garnish with diced apple.

Gingerbread Cookies and Rice Milk

Gingerbread Cookies
(adapted from a Cooking Light recipe for Moravian Wafers)

Ingredients
1 1/4 c flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground pepper
1/2 tsp ground cloves
3/4 tsp ground dry mustard
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 c molasses
3 TB vegan butter, softened
2 TB brown sugar

Instructions: Combine and mix thoroughly--dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in another. Add dry to wet, mix until just blended. NOW preheat oven to 350*. Freeze or refrigerate dough for 10 minutes. Lightly oil or grease cookie sheets. Take dough out. Form into small balls (1-in diameter). Place on cookie sheets and squash them with a glass or your hand. Bake for 10-15 minutes. Makes 1 or 2 dozen.

Pumpkin Bread Through the Ages

My mom and I have often commented on how the recipes she (and to a lesser extent, I) grew up with can sometimes seem too rich and too bland. Yet these recipes are still very good, and they have emotional value as well. Therefore, a double challenge: 1) to veganize a favorite recipe, and 2) to adapt it to our tastes.

For my grandmother's pumpkin bread recipe, this entailed: replacing eggs with egg replacer, reducing the sugar by 1/2 c, adjusting the ratio of brown to white sugar (not that brown is any healthier, but it is more delicious), reducing the oil by 50% (!), adding orange jest, changing some of the flour to whole wheat to make it less gummy, and increasing the spices. The OJ, the pumpkin, and the 4 "eggs" make the bread so moist and cohesive that that much oil and white flour were simply not necessary. The added zest and increased spices emphasize what was already special about the original recipe.

It's really, really good. I may never need another pumpkin bread recipe in my life.

(Tri-generational Sattre) Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:
2 c pumpkin
1 c white sugar
1 1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c cooking oil
2/3 c orange juice
zest of oranges used for juice (optional), to taste
4 "eggs" (prepared ener-g egg replacer)
1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
2 c white flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
2 tsp cloves
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
nuts (optional)

Instructions:

1. Lightly oil and flour 2 loaf pans (or 4 small ones). Preheat oven to 350.
2. Blend sugars and cooking oil. Add pumpkin, juice, zest, and "eggs."
3. Combine flours and baking powder, soda, salt, spices and then add to first mixture. Stir in nuts if desired.
4. For 2 large loaves, bake at 350 for 60-70 minutes. For 4 small, cut time to 45-50 minutes. Loaves are done when a wood chopstick stuck in the center comes out clean.