falafel and yogurt sauce!

last week i thought it might be fun to make some falafel, and i got the recipe from mark bittman, once again.

this recipe is different from any others i've come across in that you don't cook the chickpeas. as in, they are kind of raw until you cook the patties. you start out the day before, by soaking a couple cups of chickpeas in a bunch of water. like this:

24 hours later, they look like this:

sometime in the middle of these two pictures, i made some sort of tzatziki / raita / yogurt sauce hybrid. you grate some cucumber...

and add it to some greek yogurt along with lemon juice, dill, and minced garlic. mmm.

while the yogurt is chilling...you turn back to the chickpeas. drain them and put them in a food processor with things like onion and cayenne and cumin and spices...

and parsley. forgot the parsley...

food processors are genius inventions. i tasted things at this point and had mixed feelings about the texture.

but it did not stop me from making little falafel patties and putting them in the oven to bake.

mmm. cooked falafel.

look! fixin's!

this was good. i think the homemade falafel was a success, but next time i might try a cooked chickpea version. also, i was a bit garlic-happy in my yogurt sauce. must remember that stuff is extra strong when its raw.

roasted veggie broth!

i've been meaning to make my own veggie broth for a while. like, years. i spend way to much money for it in stores, and its theoretically more economical for me to just make the stuff. i've had dreaded celery sitting the veggie bin in the fridge for a week - since the only time i will touch it is to add flavor to a broth and then toss it - and i knew it was time. oh yes, it was time.

also, i'm trying to be healthier and eat more veggies. so...i went with a slightly adapted version of the roasted veggie broth in 'how to cook everything vegetarian.'

to begin with, i roasted veggies. a bunch of them - drizzled with oil, for 45 minutes. here we have about half a bunch of celery, three onions, a couple parsnips, a turnip, a bulb of garlic, about seven carrots, and the world's largest sweet potato. i think that's it.

it was all too much for this pan, so we had a sous pan:

during those 45 minutes, i turned them, which was not a pretty enterprise. i also drank this tasty beverage, which you should buy should you get the chance.

ok. here they are coming out of the oven. mmm. roasted.

careful readers will notice that there are suddenly mushrooms in the amongst the other veggies that weren't there before. this is because i initially forgot them, and they were added halfway in.

the veggies went into the soup pot. and then, what's this? why, yes, i am deglazing the roasting dishes.

here you see the veggies, the 'glaze,' a whole bunch of parsley, some fancy soy sauce (i know!) and some salt and pepper. i would have put some wine up in there, but i forgot. at this point, something very sad happened. i put the two roasting dishes in the sink and began to fill them with water to soak for a bit. and then, about 30 seconds into soaking, the smaller dish randomly and spontaneously cracked and broke in three large pieces. i have no clue why. we will now have a moment of silence for my broken glassware that held many a batch of brownies. sigh.

but life must go on. and so, i added about 20 cups of water to the mix, and let the whole thing boil before i turned down the heat and partially covered the pan as it simmered.

for two hours...

at this point, i decided it was done - a slightly concentrated broth. and i had to get creative with the whole straining thing. i put this lovely pasta strainer on top of another cooking pot and started to pour straight broth.

everything was lovely until the cooking pot began to fill up.

so i moved on to cooking pot #2.

i mashed the veggies left in the big soup pot to release some of the broth, and them dumped them through the strainer. this time the weight in the strainer may have been a bit much and slipped into the pot multiple times, while i said very bad words.

and then i dumped the leftover veggies in the trash, and all of the broth back in one of the pots. again.

there it sat for a few hours, to cool down. then i ladled it out into freezer bags - ended up with around 15 cups. this was actually more work than i thought. but then again, i also went all fancy and roasted everything, which i wouldn't be doing if this was just veggie scraps. which, by the way, i have officially resolved to begin saving.

i started tonight - there is, as we speak, a piece of carrot in a gallon bag in my freezer.

along with these babies - what i will end up making with them is yet to be seen...

happy valentine's day / smlove pie!

happy v-day to everyone out there - whether it means celebrating love, vagina monologue performances, or birthdays (like my cousin isaac and my friend matt!). my valentine and i celebrated yesterday evening, and my gift was chocolate, because everyone should celebrate chocolate.

which we did. with the magnificent 'smlove pie' from veganomicon, and which the lovely authors have kindly decided to post about on their website. check it out: its a doozy. i wanted something really decadent that i knew would be appreciated, and i was also curious to finally try out a fancy vegan dessert. there are about 20 other blogger who have boldly gone where i did before, so i figured it would turn out well. and it did.

thank god.

because it took hours.

**

it starts with some graham crackers, which you see before you hanging out in the magical food processor. they look so innocent.

look - a few seconds later - crumbs!

and all you have to do is add a little oil and its pie crust!

the main filling begins with this:

now, i know what you are thinking. you are thinking, "this is disgusting. there is no way this will work. you are crazy, shayna punim." i understand this, because i was thinking it too. i looked at the following scene and tasted a bit of the tofu stuck to the container and almost gave up.

but then i reconsidered, in part because of one of the ingredients in the above picture:

seriously, nothing with kahlua can be bad. plus you can drink some and pretend you are The Dude. there's a beverage here, MAN.

but i digress.

the following ingredient also made me reconsider giving up. note the fancy improv double boiler.

and, really, this doesn't look so bad.

i may have tasted this. and my impression may have been that it was a delicious chocolate pudding.

here is the delicious chocolate pudding in the pie shell, about to be baked for 40 minutes.

and...here it is coming out of the oven. almost unrecognizable.

we now say goodbye to the pie as it chills for three hours. in the meantime, we make maple candied pecans by toasting the pecans with maple syrup and a touch of oil and salt:

then they chill, because they are too sticky right now. also, they burn your tongue at this stage. not that such a thing occurred to me.

let us now move on to the peanut butter caramel sauce. it involves peanut butter, maple syrup, and a few tablespoons from this almost-eight-dolla jar right here:

its natural. and slightly caramel-y.

assembly time! i do believe this is looking good...

one might even use the word 'professional.'

all it needs now is some ganache.

we don't need no stinkin'-pastry-bag-because-ours-is-in-storage for application, because we have...ms. plastic bag with a tip cut off!

oh yes. come to mama.

money shot!

they say happiness is a warm gun, and it is. but its also the last bite of a slice of this pie. that is all.

vegan rocky road cookies!

i may have revoked my promise to myself to only make healthier desserts. which i will also be breaking tomorrow since i'm doing a valentine's day dessert - but nevermind all that.

so, a few days ago i made rocky road cookies from 'vegan cookies invade your cookie jar,' and i believe they are the least healthy cookies i have made from the book so far (we're not including the pecan bars here, since, you know, they were bars. totally different.)

anyway. these rocky roads totally taste not healthy. delicious. i think its because of this:

yes. chocolate. its all my fault.

see, there was a snowstorm, and my urge to make happy snowbound cookies overcame me. getting to the grocery store wasn't possible, but dark chocolate bars at the corner store were. which i think may be more decadent than chips. plus the fact that the dough contains half a cup of cocoa powder and real sugar - no syrups involved. oooh - although there were some chopped almonds involved...

as usual, they look very...unappetizing...going into the oven. especially under the crappy flash.

but look how pretty they turn out...mmm. melted chocolate.