Holiday foods cooking class / herb-infused spiced cranberry-orange relish

Almond tuiles with pumpkin mousse

When I was very young, my family had a habit of going out to dinner on Sunday night — and I don't use the word 'habit' lightly. We went to a Chinese restaurant in Philadelphia's Chinatown, and then to my cousin's house in West Philly. When I say we went to a Chinese restaurant every Sunday, I mean we went to the SAME restaurant every single week - the exact same one in a neighborhood of hundreds of choices. Not only did we go to the same restaurant each week, we ordered the same food. We didn't need to see a menu because my father ordered won-ton soup, egg rolls, chicken chow mein, pork fried rice, spare ribs, and either egg fu yung or lo mein. When I started going to Chinese restaurants as an adult, before I became a vegetarian, I was overwhelmed to see page after page of food choices. There were an overwhelming number of dishes that had no resemblance to chow mein. Where had I been? I started trying different things. (Now that I'm a vegan, one of the things that bugs me about going out to dinner is the limited choice vegans have at so many restaurants! At normal (as opposed to vegan) Chinese restaurants there are usually about five things.)

Holidays can be kind of like my family's Chinese restaurant habit, when we get locked into a pattern of serving the same favorite foods over and over. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the holiday menu becomes a family tradition that we look forward to. But sometimes it's nice to shake things up a little and try something different — maybe add one new dish to the menu.

This was what my husband and I had in mind when we recently attended another cooking class at PCC Natural Markets. The class was called Vegetarian Holiday Feast and was taught by Birgitte Atonsen N.T.P., nutritional therapy practitioner, professional whole foods chef and culinary instructor. Birgitte, owner of Nature's Way Food, has been developing and refining her recipes since she became a vegetarian at the age of 12.



This was the menu: roasted vegetable nut loaf with mushroom béchamel sauce, mashed yams with rosemary, herb-infused spiced cranberry-orange relish, and the spectacular dessert combo of almond tuilles with pumpkin mousse. This was seriously delicious food, and I wish I could give you all the recipes, but Birgitte is working on a cookbook at the moment. The cookbook is not vegetarian, but rather it will be a cookbook filled with recipes that can be altered to accommodate any dietary need. Birgitte wants to provide people with a way to cook for friends with special diets without having to go out and buy different sets of cookbooks. Need those cookies to be GF? She will tell you how. Are you an omni with veggie friends coming to dinner? Brigitte will offer alternatives in the recipes to make them vegetarian or vegan.

This Thanksgiving I plan to incorporate two of the dishes from the class into my menu. I'm going to serve the cranberry-orange relish instead of my traditional cranberry-apple sauce, and the almond tuiles with pumpkin mousse instead of pumpkin pie. I admit I just can't break my 'holiday habits' enough to change my favorite dishes, and I'm looking forward to seitan stuffed with wild rice, and potato kugel. This will be the first Thanksgiving in a very long time that our entire immediate family will be together, and the first Thanksgiving my husband and I will spend with our little granddaughter, so it should be exciting, fun and delicious.



Herb-infused, spiced cranberry-orange relish
Makes about three cups.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes

• 1/2 organic orange with skin on, cut up for ease of blending
• 1/2 cup orange juice concentrate
• 1 cinnamon stick (2-1/2 inches)
• 3 whole cloves
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary or 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 cup Rapidura sugar (or other evaporated cane juice-type sugar)
  
• 1/2 cup filtered water
• 1/3 cup port (optional but recommended)
  
• 2 (approx. 10-ounce) bags fresh cranberries - mine had 12 ounces each
  

1. In a food processor or blender blend orange and orange juice concentrate until smooth.
2. Pour the mixture into a medium pot and add cinnamon, cloves, rosemary or thyme, sugar, water and port (if using).
3. Bring mixture to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for five minutes.
4. Add the cranberries and simmer until the cranberries burst and mixture starts to thicken, about 20 to 30 minutes. Stir often to keep from burning.
5. Place relish into a container and refrigerate.
6. When chilled, remove the cinnamon stick and rosemary or thyme.

I also added 1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract after the sauce was removed from the heat, although it wasn't in the recipe. When I make the cranberries for Thanksgiving, I'm going to slice the leftover half orange, cut the slices into half-moons and make a pinwheel garnish in the center of the dish. Sorry to say I ate the orange before thinking of the garnish when I made the dish for this post.
(recipe © Birgitte Antonsen. Please do not reproduce.)

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Try something new
If you'd like to add something new to your holiday celebrations this year, you might consider purchasing the e-cookbook, In a Vegetarian Kitchen: A Bountiful Vegan Thanksgiving by cookbook author and artist, Nava Atlas. It's filled with recipes, cooking information and tips for holiday meals by the author, and also includes recipes from other well-known cookbook authors and bloggers. It's only $8.95, and profits from this project will be donated to humanitarian charities concerned with hunger, micro-financing for women in developing countries and the alleviation of human trafficking.

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Vegetarian alert - What's in that jar of Planter's Dry Roasted Peanuts?
Peanuts, Salt, Sugar, Cornstarch, Monosodium Glutamate (Flavor Enhancer) Gelatin, Corn Syrup Solids, Dried Yeast, Paprika, Onion and Garlic Powders, Spices, Natural Flavor.

Gelatin is an animal-derived product so look elsewhere for your peanuts if you're a vegetarian or inviting vegetarians to your home. You can find other varieties of Planter's peanuts and mixed nuts that are gelatin-free, so READ THE LABEL to know what you're getting!

Middle Eastern mezze cooking class / veganmofo 2009 / cookbook winner

Spiced olives

On Tuesday night my husband and I took another cooking class at PCC Natural Markets, and I can't say enough good things about it. Please excuse me if I blabber on and on about how wonderful the food was. The class was taught by Sureyya Gokeri, originally from Turkey, who taught us the Turkish versions of several well-known dishes. Sureyya teaches classes at PCC as well as at her family's business, Istanbul Imports, and if you live in the Seattle area I highly recommend taking one of her classes. Although the class syllabus (baba ghannouj, taboulleh salad, spiced olives, Turkish artichokes, flatbread from Jordan, stuffed dates from Iraq, and tahini sauce with bean salad) sounded very familiar, Sureyya's versions of these dishes were a revelation.

Mezze refers to food that comes to the table before the main course — Middle Eastern hors d'oeuvre. The main meal usually contains meat, but mezze consists of fresh vegetables, bread and olive oil. We started with zaytun musabbeh — spiced olives from Lebanon. In my mind you can hardly go wrong with olives - I always gravitate to the olive tray at parties — and this salad was an olive-lovers dream. Sureyya used marinated olives bought from the olive bar at PCC. The recipe contains pomegranate juice, and Sureyya also added fresh pomegranate arils. She showed us how to open the pomegranate by removing both ends and peeling carefully like an apple.


Taboulleh

We learned a few cooking tricks to make the food more flavorful. For example, Sureyya always adds each dried herb to a small amount of olive oil to more thoroughly release its flavor. She then adds the oil and herb to the dish. She also told us her mother stored fresh herbs wrapped in tissue paper rather than in plastic. She said this keeps the herbs fresher longer.

When she made the taboulleh, she added paprika to color it, as well as ground cumin and crushed red pepper. It was served Turkish style in crisp leaves of romaine lettuce. (Do you see the pomegranate seeds in there?)


Bean salad with tahini sauce

Our teacher made a simple bean salad with lemon juice, olive oil, cumin and Italian parsley, to go on top of a thick and creamy tahini dressing. It was so good, just thinking about it makes me hungry.


baba ghannouj and khoubiz

I was most impressed with the baba ghannouj. Traditionally, eggplant for this dish is grilled over charcoal, imparting a smoky flavor. Sureyya roasted one eggplant in the oven, and grilled the other eggplant on the gas stove burner over very low heat until it was black and completely soft. She peeled off the blackened skin and chopped the eggplants by hand. The result was a smoky and fabulous dip. To go with the dip she made Khoubiz, flatbread from Jordan. The bread was very simple to make, and tasted amazing.



The enginar, or Turkish artichokes, was something I've never eaten before, but am sure to eat again now that I know how to make it. I've never seen a better use for peas and carrots!

I'm sorry to say the photos of our dessert, holwah tamar or stuffed date sweetmeats from Iraq, were too blurry to use. This was simply dates pureed in a food processor, mixed with chopped blanched almonds, rolled into balls and rolled in either toasted sesame seeds or shredded coconut. Very simple and delicious.

Sureyya has graciously allowed me to share her recipe for olive salad.



Zaytun Musabbeh (Spiced olives from Lebanon) serves 6 to 8

• 1 lb. pitted green olives or marinated olives
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
• 3/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons pomegranate juice (or more to taste)
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 2 firm tomatoes, diced
• 1/2 cup fresh red or green pepper, chopped

1. Place olives in a bowl (rinsing the brine is optional) and chop into small pieces.
   
2. Add the dried spices to olive oil and then rub into the olives by hand.
   
3. Add the rest of the ingredients except for the tomatoes and peppers.
   
4. Add the tomatoes and peppers just before serving.

Variations

1. Instead of olives you can use one of the following: potatoes, cucumbers, roasted eggplant, beans such as chickpeas or kidney beans, or mushrooms.
2. Add chopped walnuts to the salad.
5. Add fresh pomegranate arils.
   
6. If tomatoes are out of season, use 1 tablespoon of tomato paste or red pepper paste.

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The winner of the cookbook giveaway is Courtney. Courtney, please send me your address and I'll send the book to you. Congrats!

Raw portobello mushroom larb salad / veganmofo 2009

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

We took a raw cooking class recently, and I promised to post a recipe for one of the dishes. I prefer to post recipes after I've made them myself to see how they turn out in my kitchen; that's why you had to wait for this recipe. We ended up getting home last night much later than we planned, and no one felt like making dinner. I had marinated mushrooms for the salad earlier in the day, and although it was supposed to be a starter for our dinner, it ended up being the whole meal, except for some peanut butter on crackers. The recipe is supposed to serve two as an entree or four as a starter, and I'd say that's accurate.

Larb is actually a spicy Lao meat salad. In this recipe, it's been transformed by Chefs Heather and Lois of Chaco Canyon Cafe, into a raw, vegan dish.


© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking (portobello mushrooms about 4" in diameter)

I started with two large (about 4" in diameter) portobello mushrooms. Chef Heather said she removes the stems when she prepares the salad at the restaurant, and uses them in other dishes. She doesn't use the stems in the salad so as to preserve the optimal visual appearance necessary at restaurants. At home, she said, she removes the stems, slices and uses them in the dish. I followed her advice, and after trimming the ends, sliced up those stems. The taste and texture of the stems was so close to the caps that I could see no reason not to do this again. The more mushroom the better.


© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

The most exotic ingredient in the marinade was kaffir lime leaves, which I have eaten before but have never personally purchased. You can find these at Asian markets or, maybe, natural foods stores. In Seattle, all the PCC Coop stores carry them in little plastic packs in the fresh herbs case. Kaffir lime leaves grow as double leaves, and you just separate the two leaves to use them. These leaves are pretty tough so cutting them small is important. You just roll 'em up and slice thinly, then continue to a small mince. (The lime perfume as you cut them is incredible.) How small you cut them depends on how powerful your blender is. If you have only VitaMix-envy and a regular blender, you might want to mince pretty small. I used a Kitchenaid blender and it blended everything perfectly even though I got tired of mincing before I should have. Only you can judge what's best for the kitchen equipment you have.


© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

The other ingredient that required mincing effort was the dulse. If you can find dulse flakes, you just have to measure, but if you use actual dulse, as I did, mince away. Half a cup of lime juice sounds like a lot but it only took two limes to get that much.

If you want the dish to be truly raw, you should use Nama Shoyu, which is organic, raw, unpasteurized soy sauce. If you want the dish to be gluten-free, you'll need to use Tamari, which is not raw but is wheat-free. I used Tamari because that's what I usually have in the house. I reduced the tamari to 1/3 cup and replaced the rest with water because I wanted the mushrooms to be a little less salty than I remembered from class. This worked well for me. Although not on the ingredient list, you can add dried ground chili if you want a spicy result.

I didn't think my mushrooms were soft enough after only an hour of marinating, and I think they ended up marinating about about four hours on the counter. You can marinate them in a shallow dish, or, as I did, in a plastic zip-close bag. I put the bag in a large dish (just in case anything should leak) and flipped it every so often. After the mushrooms were removed from the marinade, I jarred the rest of the liquid in the refrigerator to use as a marinade for something else, like tempeh. Or, you could start another batch of mushrooms.

As I was writing out the recipe I saw I made a mistake when making the marinade. The shallot was added to the blender instead of to the mushrooms. Oops. It tasted great to us but next time I'll try to do it right!

Portobello mushroom larb salad

• 2 portobello mushrooms, washed and sliced 1/4 inch think
• 1 small shallot, peeled and shaved paper thin
• 2 kaffir lime leaves, minced
• 1 teaspoon dulse flakes
• 1/2 cup lime juice
• 2 tablespoons raw agave nectar
• 1/2 cup Nama Shoyu (I used 1/3 cup tamari plus water to equal 1/2 cup)
  
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 green onions, sliced thinly on the diagonal
• 1/2 bunch cilantro, washed and minced
• 6 leaves fresh basil
• 1 quart mixed salad greens, washed
• peeled grated carrots

1. Clean and prepare mushrooms and shallots. Place in a sealable container
2. Place kaffir lime leaves, dulse flakes, lime juice, agave nectar, Nama shoyu and water in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour over mushroom and shallot mix.
   
3. Cover and allow to marinate on the counter for one hour or in the refrigerator overnight.
4. Prepare the green onions, cilantro and basil. Place in a large salad bowl with the salad greens and toss. Use some of the marinade (to taste) as a dressing and toss to mix.
5. Place salad on plates or bowls and top with mushrooms and shallots. Garnish with a mound of shredded carrot.

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Don't forget to enter the cookbook giveaway!
© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

Raw food cooking class / VeganMofo

© 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

We took a raw foods cooking class at PCC Natural Markets, our local food coop. It was taught by the head chefs at Chaco Canyon Café, a great organic, half-raw, vegan restaurant in Seattle. I've been there twice and have eaten raw both times, but my husband chose cooked foods on our two visits. I eat a lot of raw food - fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds - but other than salads, don't usually prepare special raw dishes. I eat more cooked foods than raw, especially during the cold months, but was really interested in learning more about preparing raw foods. The subject of the class was Thai food, with an introduction to using young Thai coconuts.



Raw Thai tom kha soup © 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

The first dish our chef-teachers prepared was a raw tom kha soup, using the water and meat of a young coconut as well as traditional Thai ingredients like lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, cilantro and ginger. To simulate the flavor usually obtained from fish sauce they used dulse and Nama Shoyu. The soup was raw and cold, and served with sweet red pepper and mung bean sprouts. This was not my favorite part of the meal. To be perfectly honest, I prefer hot, cooked tom kha, but if I were following a raw foods diet, hey, this would be a good recipe to have.


Marinating mushrooms and other ingredients © 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

The next dish prepared was Portobello mushroom larb salad. I don't have a photo of this so you'll have to take my word for it that it was attractive as well as tasty. After marinating the mushrooms for an hour, they became soft and pliable, as if gently cooked, and they were served atop a beautiful plate of mixed salad greens augmented with green onions, basil and cilantro.


Raw Thai green curry © 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

Raw Thai green curry, a dish recently developed for the restaurant, was the entrée. A wonderful, creamy sauce was served over a plate of mixed raw veggies. This was my favorite dish. I really loved it.


Coconut mango parfait © 2009 Andrea's easy vegan cooking

The dessert was coconut mango parfait, except it was made with pineapple. One thing the teachers stressed was the need to be flexible when preparing food. You need to adjust ingredients to suit the nature of the fruits and veggies you are using. Is the lime especially sour? Are the carrots unusually sweet? Are the mangoes looking unripe and funky? Are there no parfait glasses in the kitchen? You get the picture. The parfait was another example of how to use young Thai coconuts and consisted of cardamom-scented young Thai coconut pudding topped with fruit.

I have permission to share a recipe from this dinner on my blog, and I think it will be the portobello mushroom larb salad. As soon as I get it together to gather the ingredients and make some, you'll be the first to know.

Vegan cooking class with Chef Paul Tseng

The last cooking class we took at the Willy St. Coop with Chef Paul was a Chinese cooking class with vegan options, and it included seafood and chicken. This class was called "Vegan All the Way" and it was pretty amazing. I'm trying to remember the order of events, but when I think back to the class it seems like Chef Paul was doing five things at once, so I'll do my best to describe what he did. On the menu was polenta with toasted almonds and herbs served with roasted red pepper sauce, roasted vegetable moussaka with tempeh, and braised belgian endive with tofu, fresh pineapple and summer vegetables. Also, marinated mushrooms with fresh lentil pasta.


The ingredients ready to go

Paul made the pasta dough early on because it needed time to rest before being rolled out. I've never see pasta like this before - it contained cooked, cooled red lentils.


The chef works the lentils into the flour.

After the dough had rested, covered with a damp towel, it was rolled into a thin circle, sprinkled with flour, rolled up into a tube shape and cut into about 1/4" wide strips. More flour was sprinkled, the noodles were flipped around to unfurl them and they were cooked in a large pot of boiling water for 2-3 minutes. The button mushrooms were quartered and marinated in soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, scallion, sweetener, salt and pepper. These were probably the best noodles I've ever tasted with a texture that was both chewy and tender.


Fresh lentil pasta with marinated mushrooms

Somehow, at the same time he was kneading the pasta dough, Paul also had slices of eggplant and zucchini for the moussaka roasting in a hot oven, and polenta cooling in the fridge — and a red pepper charring on the gas stove. For the polenta, coarse cornmeal was cooked in vegetable stock until thick. After removing it from the heat, lemon zest, toasted almond slivers, olive oil, minced fresh herbs, minced shallot, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper were added, and the mixture was packed into a large, shallow, round pan and placed in the fridge to set up. Roasted red peppers, minced garlic and olive oil were pureed with a stick blender, and then enhanced with fresh herbs, salt and pepper. The polenta, still slightly warm, came out of the fridge, got cut into triangles and was served with the sauce. Delicious and elegant.


Polenta triangles with roasted red pepper sauce

On to the moussaka. Onions and garlic were sautéed then cooked with cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne, seeded and diced tomatoes, chopped tempeh and lemon juice. It was simmered to reduce the tomato liquid. The roasted eggplant and zucchini (mentioned earlier) were layered with the tempeh mixture in a glass baking dish. The dish was topped with a mixture of garbanzo flour, dried herbs, oil and bread crumbs. The moussaka was baked until the topping was golden.

The end of the moussaka. It's hard to remember to
photograph things when they look and smell so good.

The last thing on the menu was braised vegetables. This dish contained fresh ginger, garlic, jalapeno, fresh pineapple, carrot, brussels sprouts, summer squash, asparagus, firm tofu and vegetable stock. (It was supposed to have endive and not brussels sprouts but a substitution was made to accommodate availability.) It's intended to be served over steamed rice but we ate it straight up. This was really delicious.

Braised vegetables

The layers of flavor, gorgeous appearance and heavenly aroma of the food prepared in this class were an inspiration.


Our teacher seeding tomatoes and saving the juice

One of the things we also learned in class was not to waste anything. For example, even the tough stems that are snapped off the bottoms of asparagus stalks can be peeled and cooked! And all of the vegetable trimmings can be made into stock or composted.

Don't forget that tomorrow is the deadline for posting comments about why you would like to own a copy of "Peta's Vegan College Cookbook." I'll announce a winner on May 21.

Scallion pancakes

When I write posts for this blog I usually try to stick to my theme of "easy" to prepare foods that can be created in a relatively short time. Sometimes I include something that is easy to make but might require a bit more time. That may be the case for today's offering. It wasn't really very hard to do, but it wasn't quick, and it wasn't something I'd whip up after a hard day of work. Maybe I'd do it on a leisurely weekend when I had some time to play with my food.

The recipe comes from a Chinese cooking class that my husband and I recently attended. The version I offer here uses half whole grain flour instead of the all-purpose flour used in class, and in my version, the nutty-wheaty taste and texture of the flour has a presence that was missing in the class version. If you prefer a lighter, more authentic taste, I suggest you substitute 2-1/8 cups unbleached white or all purpose flour for the flour mix I list. The pancakes tasted great, so if you're used to whole grains, go with this version.

The scallion pancakes the teacher demonstrated were really delicious, and though a bit oily, they were much less greasy than the ones we had at a Chinese restaurant in Seattle, which were probably deep fried. But, I think the pancakes are meant to be a little oily. My first attempt was so oil-phobic that they lost some of their essential character. The amount of oil is so small, I think it would be better to just use the oil and enjoy the taste.

Scallion pancakes

• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (stir before measuring) (see above story)
• 1 cup unbleached white flour (stir before measuring)
• 4 ounces boiling water
• about 2 ounces cold water
• 4–6 scallions, white and green parts—slice each scallion lengthwise, then mince finely
• toasted sesame oil
• salt to taste
• oil for the pan (peanut is traditional) and oil to brush or spray directly onto the pancakes

1. Mix the two flours together on a board.

2. Make a well in the center and add the boiling water. Flip and scrape the flour around with a dough scraper or spatula to incorporate the flour and water. (Be very careful about not using your hands here, as the water and forming dough will be burning hot. It will quickly become cool enough to handle and you can start using your hands at that point.)



3. When all the water is incorporated, gradually add the cold water until you have a flexible, kneadable dough. Don't make the dough too stiff. Knead the dough until, as our teacher says, you have the three shinings. (1) Your hands are clean of sticking dough, (2) the board is clean and (3) the dough is shiny. (I'd say, "more or less" shiny.) Step 3 takes about 5 minutes.

4. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it rest 20 minutes. Or more. After its rest, cut the dough into 2 sections and wrap 1 of them in the damp towel. Roll the other into a rectangle that is about 1/8" – 3/16" thick, and about 6" x 9". Brush toasted sesame oil (or spread with your fingers) all over the dough. Use 1 teaspoon. Cover with minced scallions and sprinkle with salt (1/4 teaspoon).



5. Roll into a log shape starting with the long end. Then coil the log into a spiral, tucking the last end underneath.

6. Pat the coil into a flattened round, and then roll into a round pancake about 1/8" thick, with your rolling pin. Be gentle, as the dough may have a tendency to rip around the scallions and oil. Try to roll to the edge rather than over it, as much as you can. If you roll over the edge, the pancake may break and some of the oil will ooze out. This is probably unavoidable to some extent, and is OK.

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7. Heat the pan and coat lightly with oil. Spray the pancake with oil. Use a wide spatula to ease the pancake up and into the pan, sprayed side down, then spray the top side of the pancake.



8. Fry over low heat, flipping a couple of times, until both sides turn golden with patches of deep color. Cook the pancake slowly, over low heat so it doesn't burn before the inside cooks. (about 10 minutes) If you prefer, you can use a non-stick pan and cook the pancake in a light coating of oil. Peanut oil is traditional, but I used canola to spray the pan and the pancake. I tried both types of pans and thought the pancake came out better in the cast iron.

9. Drain on a paper towel if desired. Cut into 8 or 12 triangles (like pizza) and eat immediately. Repeat with the other dough section.

Note: I made these pancakes so many times to get the recipe right, that just the thought of eating anymore is making me weak. I learned a few things, though. The first dough I made (not included here) was a little tough. It was a larger recipe and more than we could handle in one day, so I stored the leftover dough in the refrigerator overnight. When I made a pancake the next day, it was much lighter and more tender. Really good, actually. So, you could probably make the dough a day ahead and roll and fry them when needed. I used a mix of white whole wheat and unbleached flour but decided to switch to whole wheat pastry flour for the second batch. I think I made the first batch too stiff, so I added a little more water to the second batch, and it worked much better; not enough to require adding flour for kneading, but enough to produce a softer dough.

Vegan Thai recipes (Tom kha, Thai apple salad)

Tom kha as prepared at the cooking class

You know how when you go to a Thai restaurant and ask about the fish sauce they say, "We don't put fish sauce in that." If you're like me, you're probably always kind of wondering if that's really true. We recently attended a vegan Thai cooking class and one of the instructors said when he was offered that "no fish sauce in here" assurance at a restaurant recently, he added that he was extremely allergic to fish and would become very sick very fast if he ate any. The waitress went off to the kitchen, engaged in a long conversation, and returned to inform him that all the sauces were created from pre-made mixes, and they all contained fish sauce and MSG. She added that all Thai restaurants use these sauces and anyone who tells you differently is lying. I'm not saying that's an absolute fact, but it makes me wonder.

It reminds me of a similar conversation I had a few years ago with my son. He had a friend working at a popular and esteemed Thai restaurant whose staff had assured us many times that we were not eating fish sauce. This friend said that all the sauces were made from mixes that contained not only fish sauce, but many other items that we would certainly not want to eat. I know when I go to a restaurant that all may not be as it appears, and I'm making a choice to trust the restaurant to tell me the truth about the food they serve. But I'm feeling a bit uneasy. We don't have any vegetarian-only restaurant choices where we live (this will change when we move) and if we want a night out without cooking, we have to take our chances.


Pad Thai photographed at the cooking class

Most of the time we cook our own food, and we just took a cooking class at Willy Street Coop to get some pointers on making Thai food, one of our favorite cuisines (except for the fish sauce!) at home. In the cooking class, taught by holistic health counselor Carrell Casey, we learned to make three very easy and delicious Thai dishes. We made Tom Kha, Pad Thai and Thai apple salad. The soup (tom kha) and pad thai were too salty for me, though they really tasted good. I'm making a few changes to get the sodium level down. The original soup recipe had 1/2 cup tamari, and regular vegetable broth. There was also red curry paste which contains salt. I'm using low-sodium vegetable broth, and much less tamari. I also added a green vegetable (bok choy) to the tom kha. I'm going to print my slightly revised recipes, and you can further revise them to suit your personal preference. The salad was tangy, refreshing and so simple to make. I'm not changing that at all!

I'm going to start with the soup and dessert and post the pad thai later, as we still have a few kinks to work out of the recipe. Although the pad thai worked perfectly in class, it hasn't worked so well at home. The first try was horrible looking and not so great tasting. I think we had a little problem with the tamarind. The second version tasted and looked fine, but was not very authentic, as several of the ingredients were missing. When we get it right, I'll post it. In the meantime, try the tom kha and the surprising apple dessert. (You can control the spiciness of the soup by adding more or less chili and curry paste.)



Tom kha (adapted and printed with permission)

• 1 can light coconut milk
• 3 tablespoons red or green curry paste (Thai Kitchen makes a vegan version)
• juice of 1 lime
• 3 tablespoons tamari
• 1 tablespoon agave syrup
• 2 fresh green chilies, minced (less if you don't like spicy food)
• about 10 mushrooms, sliced
  
• 2 carrots, sliced into half moons
• 1 large or 2 small onions, diced
• 2 cups low-sodium veggie broth
• 1 package firm tofu (16 oz.), sliced into thin triangles or cubes
  
• 1 bunch bok choy, shredded roughly

1. Saute onions and carrots in a soup pot or wok. When soft, add mushrooms and saute for a minute or two. Add bok choy and saute about 1 minute.
2. Add veggie broth and coconut milk (Keep heat medium so milk doesn't burn.)
3. Add curry paste, lime juice, tamari, agave, tofu and chilies. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Thai apple salad from the cooking class

Thai apple salad (printed with permission)

• 4 large apples, quartered, cored and thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon agavé syrup
• 1 green chili pepper, chopped fine
• pinch of salt
• 6 cups torn leaf lettuce or whole romaine leaves

1. Mix lime juice, agavé, chili and salt in a bowl.
2. Cut apples, add to bowl and toss to coat.
3. Serve over a bed of lettuce.

Think "dairy-free" means "no dairy?" Think again. Our cooking class included information on food labeling from a vegan perspective. Here's a link to how to interpret food labeling terms.
http://www.exploreveg.org/resources/ingredients.html