Vegan Mexican Chocolate Shake: Have it your way

I thought that this week's cooking lesson was going to be a throw-away, basically a week off, but it ended up being fantastically instructive, a chance to teach Henry both how to follow a recipe and how to tweak a recipe, and a chance for the two of us to spend a little time at the feet of food writer Mark Bittman - alway time well spent.

It started a couple of weeks ago with Bittman's feature in the New York Times Magazine, Yes, Healthful Fast Food Is Possible. But Edible? A great article that asked if conditions are finally ripe for affordable, healthy, fast-food. He was after my heart with this topic. When I was an actively touring musician, a vegetarian trying in vain to eat well on the road in 1991, I used to sit in the van and dream about walking into a Burger King and ordering a veggie burger with sweet potato fries. But my heart really jumped when I reached Bittman's sidebar, "Welcome to McBitty's," a collection of three recipes right out of my road dreams: Bean Burgers, Sweet Potato Fries, and a Mexican Chocolate Shake.

"Henry," I said, "LOOK at THIS."

"Let's make that," he said. "All of it."

Everybody knows that student-led learning is the best of all, so it was settled; Henry had determined the curriculum for our next lesson, not to mention the menu for our Saturday family lunch. I had modest expectations for the cooking lesson, but high expectations for the burger and fries.

I should have had high expectations all around. I hadn't realized how valuable it would be for Henry to follow a published recipe carefully, to see how spectacular the results can be when you do, particularly when it happens to be a well-tested one from someone who knows his stuff. Henry tends to be minimally interested in recipes, much more interested in technique, so this was eye-opening. We followed the recipe for sweet potato fries to a T and they were perfect. We did the same with the bean burgers, except we substituted parsley for the cilantro since Henry is one of those mutant cilantro-haters, and again, amazing results.

But we took some liberties with the milkshake, opting for a deeper, darker chocolate treat, in keeping with our family's taste, and adding a homemade coconut whipped topping. In the end Henry gained new respect for good recipes as well as the confidence to take a good recipe and have it his way.

Vegan Mexican Chocolate Shake
adapted from Mark Bittman's recipe, see link above
Serves 4-6

2 cups almond milk
1 lb silken tofu
12 ounces dark chocolate, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon chili powder

Blend ingredients well and chill in freezer for 30 minutes or so. Top with whipped coconut cream and chocolate shavings or chunks, optional.

Whipped Coconut Cream
serves 4-6, depending on how much you eat with a spoon out of the food processor

2 cans coconut milk (not light)
1-2 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Put unopened cans of coconut milk in the freezer for 2 or 3 hours. It takes this long for the cream to separate from the water. Scoop the cream out and into a food processor, add sugar and vanilla, and process for a few minutes until it's whipped and light.

Chard with Soba Noodles and Lemon-Tahini Sauce

"Hmm," said Henry. "Yeah." He was chopping a ton of chard, I was making tahini sauce and telling him all about seasonal eating, about how it's healthy to eat heavier food in the winter, more fat and protein, and healthy to eat lighter in the spring and summer, more in-season fruits and vegetables. I was extremely interested in what I had to say. He was dead bored.

Oh well. It was a good reminder to ease up on the pedagogy during our cooking lessons, and take more cues from my son. When I have too much of an agenda, a planned spiel, things tend to fall a little flat.

On the bright side, our meal was a success - we started with three plates on the table, overflowing with noodles, chard, green onions, parsley, and a zingy sauce that sang of spring all on its own, without my yammering, and we ended with three empty plates and three happy livers (your liver loves lemon and bitter greens in the spring. There I go again...).

Chard with Soba Noodles and Lemon-Tahini Sauce
Serves 4

8-ounce package soba (buckwheat) noodles
1 tablespoon coconut oil
3 huge bunches of chard, washed well and sliced thinly, stems and all
generous pinch of salt
1 clove garlic, minced finely
1/2 cup tahini
5 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 cup warm water
2 scallions, sliced
big handful parsley leaves, chopped

Cook soba noodles according to package directions, drain, rinse with cold water and set aside.

To make sauce, combine tahini, lemon juice, salt and cayenne in a small bowl. I like to use a fork to mash/whisk these ingredients together. Add water, a tablespoon at a time and whisk well. Tahini can vary in consistency - if sauce is very thick add another tablespoon or so of water.

Heat large wok (or any pot that can contain your mountain of chard) on high heat, add coconut oil and swirl to coat wok. Add chard, a few handfuls at a time, add a nice big pinch of salt and cook, stirring, 4-5 minutes. Add garlic and stir-fry one additional minute. If chard releases a lot of water, pour it off or dump chard into a strainer to drain and return to wok. Reduce heat to medium, add almost all the tahini sauce (save a little to drizzle on top) and stir well for 1 minute.

Divide noodles between plates or bowls, top with chard, scallions, parsley, and the rest of the sauce.

Happy spring!!

Greens with Peanut Ginger Sauce

Sometimes, when I'm on my own as a parent for an extended period of time, I feed my kids cornflakes for dinner.

There, I said it.

I have many friends and family members who are single parents, who get dinner on the table night after night on their own, and I think they're amazing. I do my best, but usually by my third or fourth evening of working, parenting, and managing the household solo it's all I can do to slap bowls, spoons, milk, and cereal on the table. Someday soon, my kids will be accomplished enough cooks that I can curl up in bed with a novel and a glass of wine while one of them makes dinner, but for now, with one kid away in college, one just fourteen and still learning the cooking ropes, and my partner out of the country for two weeks, it's pretty much up to me.

So when I realized that it had been over two days since Henry and I had eaten a vegetable, I tried to cut myself some slack, but the guilt overwhelmed me. I assume that guilt is a universal product of parenting, whether you're partnered, single, or one in a righteous team of sister wives. We all often feel woefully inadequate to the task.

There wasn't much I could do about the guilt, but I did the best thing I could think of in the moment - I stir-fried greens, vast amounts of greens, putting approximately three days worth of vegetables into one meal. 

It takes a little time to prep this quantity of vegetables (I taught Henry a neat technique for cutting collard greens), and to make the scrumptious sauce, but once the wok is hot the thing only takes a few minutes, not all that much longer than pulling cornflakes out of the cupbord. You could serve the stir-fry with rice and baked tofu for a more rounded-out meal, or you could let it be dinner on its own; a heaped plate of greens with a small side of guilt.

Greens with Peanut Ginger Sauce
Serves 2 as a main dish

2 medium - or 3 small - bunches of greens (I like a mixture of collard greens and kale), stemmed and sliced thinly.  To cut collards: stack stemmed leaves, roll up tightly, and slice (see photo at top)
2 cloves garlic minced as finely as possible
2 tablespoons coconut or peanut oil
1 scallion, sliced, optional
3 tablespoons smooth, unsalted peanut butter
2 teaspoons garlic chili hot sauce
1 tablespoon ginger juice (Grate 3 or so inches of ginger, gather into a ball, and squeeze to extract juice. Worth it, I promise)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/3 cup hot water

Prep vegetables: Wash and chop greens, garlic, optional scallion, and set aside.

Make the sauce: In a small bowl, mash together peanut butter, hot sauce, ginger juice and soy sauce with a fork. Add a little of the hot water and stir or whisk to blend well. Whisk in remaining water. Set aside.

Heat a wok over high heat, add oil and swirl to coat wok. Add greens, in batches if necessary, and stir-fry 3-4 minutes. Add garlic and stir-fry 1 minute. Add sauce, pouring down the side of the wok, stir well, and cook 1 minute more.

Serve immediately, with optional scallion sprinkled on top.

Now be happy: you ate your greens, you fed your kid, and you are probably not really the world's worst mom!

Sweet and Spicy Rice Noodle Stir-Fry

I should have brought the wok out months ago - stir-fry is the perfect technique for a teenage cook; loud, dramatic, fast, and fun, and it's the perfect way for an amateur cooking teacher to sneak in a whole variety of lessons in chopping vegetables, making sauces, and creating balanced flavors and textures.

We are going to be woking for a while; the variations are endless. Here's this week's experiment, a vegan, wheat-free, sweet and spicy delight.

Sweet and Spicy Rice Noodle Stir-Fry
Serves 4-6

1 8-oz package rice vermicelli
1/2 cup water
5 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons mirin or cooking sherry
1 tablespoon brown sugar
big pinch cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons coconut or peanut oil
1 small head cabbage, cored and thinly sliced (approximately 4 chopped cups)
1 lb mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 green onions, chopped
Spicy sesame oil for serving, optional

Soak rice vermicelli in hot water, 15 minutes. Drain and set aside

Make sure all vegetables are chopped and close at hand. In a small bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup water, soy sauce, mirin or sherry, brown sugar, and cayenne. Set aside.

Heat wok over high heat - The wok is ready when a drop of water flung onto its surface evaporates immediately. Add oil and swirl to coat wok completely. Add cabbage, stir-fry 1 minute. Add mushrooms and peppers, stir-fry 3-4 minutes. Add garlic, stir-fry one minute. Add sauce and noodles and stir well to combine, 3 minutes. Add green onions.

Serve piping hot with optional spicy sesame oil.

Prepped everything, hot wok, can't lose.

It Takes a Village (to Teach a Kid How to Make Stir-Fry)

When I was fifteen I started dating a boy whose father loved food and cooked often. Over at his house, I saw things I'd never seen in any kitchen: ginger root, basil plants, black bean sauce, and a large, cast-iron wok. I thought my household was unconventional, with my mother's refusal to stock the fridge with soda and her insistence on brown bread (while everybody else in Indiana ate white bread, I thought), but this was really different. I might have complained about my all-natural peanut butter sandwiches on whole wheat, but my boyfriend complained about his honey and tahini sandwiches on pita, and I had never even heard of tahini.

I was impressed. Especially after I'd had a few meals over there: spicy sesame noodles, eggplant with peppers, and bright stir-fries that brought tears to my eyes.

I was altered for the better by being exposed to a wide variety of kitchens as a kid, from my southern grandmother's grits and gravy, to my suburban friends' jello salads, to my sophisticated boyfriend's ginger root and wok, so this week's cooking lesson, based on the basic stir-fry technique I learned as a teenager, is dedicated to those early outside influences, a reminder about the benefit of foisting your kids on other households as much as possible!

Kale and Shiitake Mushroom Stir-Fry

Serves 4

2 tablespoons coconut or peanut oil (both hold up well to high heat)

2 large bunches kale, washed, stems removed, leaves chopped

1 lb shiitake mushrooms, sliced, stems discarded

2 tablespoons, peeled and minced, ginger root

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup water

5 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon spicy sesame oil

1 tablespoon cornstarch

Before you start making the stir-fry, put up a pot of rice or noodles. I like a blend of white basmati rice and quinoa.

Prep everything: wash and chop vegetables and set aside; mince garlic and ginger and set aside separately; whisk together water, soy sauce, sesame oil and cornstarch in a small bowl and set aside. You want everything ready and close at hand - once you begin it's all very fast and furious!

Heat wok over high heat - The wok is ready when a drop of water flung onto its surface evaporates immediately.

Add oil and heat for a few seconds before adding kale, a few big handfuls at a time while you STIR CONSTANTLY. If the kale begins to burn, reduce the heat a bit. Once all the kale is added, stir fry for 2 or 3 more minutes, until kale is almost tender. Add a few spoonfuls of water if it is sticking.

Add mushrooms and stir, stir, stir for 1 or 2 minutes, until mushrooms shrink and start to brown.

Push kale and mushrooms to the side of the wok (the sides are not as hot as the middle, so the cooking will slow down), and add garlic and ginger to the middle. Stir 1 minute, then stir everything together to combine.

Re-whisk the sauce for a second and then pour it down the side of the wok (don't pour it on the middle, it will cool the wok down, and might make your stir-fry turn out soggy, yuck.) and stir constantly for 1-2 minutes until sauce thickens and coats everything. 

Eat immediately, on top of rice or noodles.

It takes a ton of kale - kale really cooks down!

Have everything ready to go and close at hand.

Stir, stir, stir.

Vegan Split Pea Soup with Smoky Tempeh

It's official: I am sick of winter. Things that seemed charming back in December have lost their glow. Things like boots. And soup. My body still wants soup while my mind is springing forward to rhubarb, strawberries, arugula.

But we're not there yet, so here is one last soup - tasty and smoky consolation for the still-snowy ground and still-chilly air.

Split Pea Soup with Smoky Tempeh

4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 medium onions, diced
3 medium carrots, diced
6 cups water
1 lb split peas (aprox 1 1/4 cups), sorted, rinsed, and drained
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon salt
1 package smoky tempeh strips
Handful parsley, minced
Smoked paprika, optional

Warm 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat in a large soup pot. Add onions (with a small pinch of salt) and cook, stirring, for five minutes.

Add carrots and cook five more minutes.

Add water, split peas, bay leaf, and salt. Bring to a boil, and reduce heat to medium-low. Partially cover, and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally (check to make sure peas are not sticking to the bottom of the pot), until peas are very tender.  Add more water if necessary.

While soup is cooking, prepare smoky tempeh topping:
Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a skillet and cook tempeh strips, flipping occasionally, until they are very brown and crispy - add a little more oil if you need to. Drain on paper towels and cut into 1-inch pieces.

To finish:
Remove bay leaf, taste soup, and add more salt if necessary. You can blend all or part of the soup for creamier texture.

Top with a few pieces of tempeh and some parsley (and optional paprika).

Vegan Maple Granola

First lentil loaf, now granola - I might have to change the name of this thing to "That 70s Blog." In fact I have an abiding love for all kinds of hippie vegetarian food; it reminds me of my hometown, Bloomington Indiana, in the 1970s: The Tao restaurant, Rudi's Bakery, and the Bloomingfoods Co-op, its bulk bins overflowing with carob and wheat germ.

But honestly, the granola they were feeding us back then contained enough fat to quench a Big Mac Attack and more sugar than a Jell-O Pudding Pop. It was not the health food it pretended to be. These days, you can buy tasty and reasonably healthy granola in the grocery store, but the price! And the main ingredient is OATS, still one of the cheaper items from those good old bulk bins. So I put the kibosh on prepackaged granola, and here are the delicious, econo results. This is an incredibly versatile recipe - use your favorite nuts or seeds, and play around with spices. I always use maple syrup, but I wonder if other liquid sweeteners, like agave, might be tasty too? If you try, please let me know.

Making granola is a nice Sunday afternoon project; easy, low-maintenance, good-smelling, and entirely kid-friendly (let your kid pick his/her favorite seeds/nuts/spices and invent a unique blend), and it's fun to enjoy the fruits of your labor all week. Although if you're aiming for all-week supplies (and if you eat as much as we do), you might double the recipe.

Lovesmiths Vegan Maple Granola

2 tablespoons coconut oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon cinnamon (or other spices - or omit spice and use 1 teaspoon vanilla, very yummy)
Big pinch salt
3 cups rolled oats
1.5 cups nuts and/or seeds, any combination (We love sliced almonds+pecans+walnuts)
Optional: 1/2 cup dried fruit (dried cherries are our favorite)

Preheat oven to 300

Melt coconut oil over medium heat in a large, deep skillet. Add maple syrup, cinnamon, and salt. Stir well.

Add oats and nuts and/or seeds and stir constantly for a minute or so to completely coat and lightly toast nuts and seeds.

Transfer mixture to lightly oiled baking dish - either a rimmed cookie sheet, or a 13 x 9 dish - you want to spread the granola out evenly in a reasonably thin layer.

Bake 30-40 minutes, until toasty and brown, stirring every 10 or so minutes. If using dried fruit, stir it in immediately after taking granola out of the oven.

Cool completely (be prepared for grabbing hands), and store whatever's left in a sealed container.