roasted artichokes with aleppo aioli

despite living in san francisco for nearly four years now and despite everyone telling us that it's beautiful and wonderful and a must visit and despite the fact that it's perfect weekend-getaway distance kris and i only just went to big sur for the first time this past weekend. maybe the push was that we only have two more months here before our move (to atlanta...yep) or maybe it's that we are, for the first time ever, car owners (super weird) but i'm so glad we made it down there. everyone, you were right, big sur is pretty great. we hiked, we cooked over a campfire, drank wine from a box and relaxed along the bank of the big sur river. it was lovely.

when you drive between san francisco and big sur you get to drive through artichoke land! no, i don't recall exactly what town it's in but you will know you're there when you start passing all of the artichoke fields and produce stands. make sure you stop!


in the past i've always hated cooking artichokes...getting to the heart just seems like so much work for not a lot food. but at 10 for $1 i was willing to give it another shot. plus i told myself that baby artichokes are less intimidating. and also i've been dying to recreate the roasted artichokes with aleppo aioli that we had at pause awhile back. thus, we picked out 20 adorable artichoke babies.

and ya know what? it really wasn't so bad! those baby artichokes are a lot less work than the big guys! and i'd say that by the time i got to number 8 i was on a roll and cruising through those puppies. though i certainly wouldn't think i have any useful insight on the matter...if you're looking for a quick, "proper" way to get to the heart of a 'choke i'm sure there are countless internet people who can help you out way better than me. i'm here to tell you about the aleppo aioli! it's cashew based, has five ingredients, is delicious and it's pink. could you ask for more?

aleppo aioli
ingredients:
1 cup cashews, soaked in water for about an hour*
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup water (or enough to reach desired consistency)
1 1/2 tablespoons aleppo pepper flakes
pinch of salt to taste

couldn't be easier, place all of your ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend away until nice and creamy and combined. i would recommend adding the pepper gradually to reach your desired spicyness. same with the water, you might need a little more or less.

smear on a plate and plop artichokes on top.

you'll probably have some aioli leftbover to do something else with too. today i spread it on tempeh, coated it with panko and pan fried for some of the crispiest tempeh nuggets i've ever made. highly recommended.

*if you don't have time to soak the cashews no biggie, it just makes them blend up a little easier and a little creamier.

-d

yeasted coffee cake

when i saw this picture of a yeasted coffee cake on friday i pretty much knew immediately what my sunday baking project would be. i've made, and loved, traditional coffee cakes but never thought to go the yeasted route. thank you vegansaurus for posting that picture because i can say for certain that this is a treat i will turn to again and again. imagine a coffee cake filling swirled within a light sweet bread dough...it's like if coffee cake and cinnamon rolls had a baby. the best part is that there are no super long rise times so you can easily make and eat this in a day, the dough is easy to work with and when it's baking it will make your entire home smell delicious (at least if your entire home is a teeny lil apartment). it's best the day of or day after baking but even after that you can heat it up a bit and it's still quite delicious. i loved the nutty date filling that i made but i also look forward to trying out some variations. you could make a glaze to drizzle over the top as well but i think it's pretty much perfect as is.

yeasted coffee cake
(makes one ring cake)
ingredients for the dough:
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 teaspoon yeast
1/3 cup almond milk, with a splash of apple cider vinegar to curdle
1 ounce water (any temperature)
1/4 cup margarine, room temperature
1 container (6 ounces) plain soy yogurt

ingredients for the filling:
1 tablespoon margarine
2 cups pecans, chopped
5 dates, chopped
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

first, make your dough. combine 3/4 cup of the flour with the sugar, salt and yeast.
in a saucepan, combine almond milk, water and margarine and heat until warm and the margarine is just melted.

on low speed, add the milk/margarine mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until well blended. increase speed to medium and add the yogurt and 1/2 cup more of flour and beat for 2 minutes. stir in enough of the remaining 3/4 cup of flour (or more if needed) so dough holds together. knead for 8-10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.

place in a lightly greased bowl, turning to coat. cover with plastic and let rise for about an hour, until doubled in size.

meanwhile, make your filling by mixing all the ingredients (except the margarine) together.

once your dough has risen roll it out into a rectangle that is about 9x17 (that is the very precise measurement i came up with by comparing my rectangle to my baking sheet). cut off small bits of 1 tablespoons of margarine and spread them around on the dough then sprinkle with your filling evenly covering the dough, leaving a small border around the edges.

starting at the long edge carefully roll your dough into a log and pinch the seam closed. then shape it into a ring and pinch that seam closed. using scissors or a nice sharp knife cut slits all around the ring. place on a parchment/silpat lined baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. let rise for another hour.

when your dough is almost done rising heat your oven to 350. brush the top of the loaf with almond milk and bake for about 30 minutes, until golden brown.


-d

wild mushroom ragout

sometimes recipes come from unlikely places. like birthday cards. little did my dad know when he sent this that it was really two gifts in one...the fabulous gift inside as well as a hidden treat in this delicious recipe on the inside cover. this is way more delicious than what you would expect to find inside a card that looks like it was made in the '70s (though the back credits tell me that it is in fact from 1995). no matter! i whipped this up for a week night meal serving it on crusty bread (as the picture shows) and accompanied by a simple salad. i changed the directions a bit as my mushrooms seemed to be unusually slow to release liquid and didn't seem to have that much to release anyway. the point is that with a few less steps i still got a wonderfully buttery, thick glaze covering the mushrooms. oh also, they suggest 1 pound of oyster mushrooms and an additional pound of mixed mushrooms. well oysters are expensive so i say do as i did and mix the two pounds however you want, it's still going to be delicious.

between the two of us this was a lot of food and we had lots of mushrooms left over. we used them the next day as part of a yummy quinoa bowl.

ragout of wild mushrooms
ingredients:
2 pounds mixed mushrooms (oyster, shiitake, chanterells, portobello, crimini...whatever you want!)
4 tablespoons margarine
2 tablespoons shallots
1 1 /2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch black pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

clean the mushrooms and cut into chunks.

in a heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat, melt the margarine. add the shallots and saute until translucent, 3 or 4 minutes. reduce the heat to low and add the mushrooms. cook, stirring often, until they begin to release their juices and create the beginning of a broth (5 to 10 minutes). raise the heat to medium and sprinkle the flour, salt and pepper over the mushrooms, then stir to evenly coat. add the wine and stir 3 to 4 minutes. by now the mushrooms will have reduced in volume by about one half. keep stirring until you have a nice thick brothy glaze covering all the mushrooms. sprinkle with parsley and serve over crusty bread.

-d

olive oil rosemary cake with glace apricots

birthday time for me means lots of edible gifts. mamoo seems to know the best spots for ordering everything so i was really excited when a box arrived full of dried fruit...i knew it would be good stuff. true to her word the dates make your eyes roll back in your head (that's a good thing, guys!), the figs taste like fig newton filling and the glace apricots are maybe a bit sweet to gobble on their own but absolutely perfect to incorporate as part of another dish. in this case, cake!

since the apricots bring a lot of sweetness on their own i wanted to make sure the cake wasn't too sweet which got me thinking about an olive oil cake. then i was thinking about what herbs might be yummy in the mix and rosemary came to mind, i love love love the combination in apple rosemary scones so why not with apricots, right? right!

i found a basic recipe online and tweaked from there. as we all know tweaking baking recipes is much more difficult than tweaking cooking recipes and the resulting cake was a bit denser than i had in mind but i loved the flavor. go into this thinking not of a light and airy desserty cake but rather more of a dessert cakey bread and i think you will be pleased with what you get. rather than cutting up the apricots and hiding them in the batter i wanted them to be the focus so i plopped them right on top of the batter before baking. when the cake came out of the oven they were a bit gooey and ooooooooooh yummy.

olive oil rosemary cake with glace apricots
ingredients:
3 cups flour
3 tablespoons fresh, minced rosemary
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup olive oil
1 1/4 cups almond milk
glace apricots to top

preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease a cake pan - i used and 8-inch (i think) springform.

mix together the dry ingredients. add olive oil and milk and mix until the ingredients are all wet.* the batter will be very thick, don't fret just go with it.

pour batter into your prepared pan and top with glace apricots.

bake 50-55 minutes or until done.

*after i did this i realized it felt backwards for a cake. doing this again i would mix together the wet ingredients then gradually add the dry ones. either way, take your pick.

-d

chocolate covered pretzels

long ago in our boston days, kris and i loved the chocolate covered pretzels from the faneuil hall food court. they were a special treat and any time we found ourselves in the area those pretzels made up for having to deal with the annoying crowds of tourists. we still pick up a chocolate covered pretzel here and there but kris has been asking me to make them forever and i...just never did. until recently. and now i feel like such a meanie for not doing this sooner because, duh!, it's the easiest treat to make ever. and it makes my kris so happy.

all you need is a box of pretzels (i recommend fat ones. i used snyder's brand), a bag of chocolate chips (semi-sweet here) and something to thin the chocolate out a bit (i used a bit of margarine and some splashes of almond milk). melt the chocolate chips over a double boiler and add margarine/milk to thin as needed. when you have a nice dip-able consistency start dunking! place chocolatey pretzels on a baking sheet and put in the fridge for a few hours until the chocolate is nice and hardened. you might have more chocolate than pretzels and that's ok! just peek around your fridge/pantry for items in need of chocolate coating. i found dried apricots.

-d

picture time!

these are two dinners that i made recently. no recipes in this post as they were both random, throw-em-together kind of dishes but both were really tasty and maybe they'll inspire your own dinner creations.

first was a noodle bowl. soba noodles in a miso broth with lots of toppings! shiitakes, tofu, slices of gigantic green onions, nori and black sesame seeds. not only was this warming and filling but we got to use our supercute noodle bowls. double success!

this next one was cooked up on st. patrick's day. i didn't go out but instead stayed home and made a dinner heavy on the green ingredients. i tossed some brown rice with pesto then topped it with roasted parsnips, blanched broccoli and avocado (i'll take any excuse to add avocado to a meal).

-d

coconut balls

for book club our most recent read was super sad true love story by gary shteyngart. now i don't know about other book clubs but ours is as much about the food that everyone brings as much as it is about the books we read. for each book we choose a food relevant theme and since one theme in this book was trying to live forever it only seemed appropriate that we all bring our most healthy creations. i feel that dessert is always important so i set upon making a healthy sweet. i remembered getting an email from the vegnews recipe club awhile back for these dried fruit coconut balls and figured now would be a perfect time* to give them a shot. sometimes when i get home from work i have trouble getting a dish together in time for book club but these are super quick and easy. everyone seemed to enjoy them and two comments i remember are that they 1. taste like christmas and 2. taste like a lara bar...but better (of course). so that gives you a little idea of what you're getting.

i stuck to the recipe except that i used dried cranberries instead of raisins because i don't like raisins much and while i'm sure they're fine all mixed up with the others in here the store didn't have any in the bulk bins and i surely was not about to buy a big bag of those suckers. speaking of the bulk bins, if you buy all of this stuff in bulk it's pretty cheap to get all the ingredients.

coconut balls
ingredients:
3/4 cup dried cranberries
3/4 cup raw walnuts
3/4 cup dates, pitted
3/4 cup dried apricots
3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
2 tablespoons orange juice
zest of 1 orange
shredded coconut, for coating

in a food processor, pulverize cranberries, walnuts, dates and apricots for 1 to 2 minutes until finely chopped (or mere seconds if you have a brand new food processor!!!) add coconut, orange juice and zest. process for an additional 1 to 2 minutes or until mixture comes together to form a ball.

place some coconut on a plate. dampen hands with water, form mixture into one inch balls and roll in shredded coconut.

eat away!

i've been storing the leftovers in the fridge and they're pretty tasty cold as well. and they firm up a bit too if you keep them in there.

-d

*not only because they fit the theme but also because kris got me a big food processor(!) for my birthday and i am in love (with it and also with him).