The Smiling Onion

Vegetarian and Gluten-free Cooking

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Archives for July 2018

Tangy “Yogurt” Shake with Cardamom, Banana, and Lime (Yogurtless)

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I’m not sure who the audience is for this recipe but I’m quite curious if you’ll love it or hate it. That’s a new one for me, since I normally post recipes that I’m fairly confident will appeal to most of my readers. But hey – where’s the fun in that? Sometimes taking risks yields more interesting results.

Like it did with this shake. Bored with the standard (albeit delicious) shake combos of banana, raw cacao, and various nut butters or the fruiter varieties like this tropical papaya smoothie, I decided to try something weirder. And after the first couple sips, I honestly couldn’t tell if it was good or not. Yet there was something strangely addictive about it. I took another sip, and another. Then it dawned on me. It almost tasted like yogurt…

This realization, along with a tangy, refreshing quality that told my brain to keep drinking, led me to decide that I was going to post this. Because there’s gotta be some poor, probiotic-free person who misses yogurt shakes, right? Maybe? Or maybe there are others like me who are looking for a shake that’s just a bit different?

(By the way, in case you are curious why it tastes like yogurt, my best guess is the creaminess of the frozen banana and hemp seeds combined with the tanginess from the lime juice. The cardamom also emphasizes this yogurt-like quality and is a nice warming counterpart to the tang.) I hope you enjoy it, but I’m not making any promises!

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Blueberry-Fennel Salsa

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Tis the season to eat salsa! And oh, how numerous are the possibilities. I’ve always been one for experimenting with new flavor combinations so when I looked in the fridge and saw some blueberries fresh from the Union Square Greenmarket, along with some jalapeños and cilantro, I immediately thought blueberry salsa.

Now, I’m quite familiar with fruit salsas  – your standard pineapple one, for example, is pretty ubiquitous. But I couldn’t remember a time when I’d eaten a version made with blueberries. I also wasn’t 100 percent sure it would be a success. But I was fairly certain that one ingredient might be the key to marrying the sweet, fruitiness of blueberries to the savory spicy notes all good salsas should have, and that ingredient (drumroll please) was fennel. Specifically sautéed fennel, which has an onion-like texture and a lovely deep flavor.

So off to the market I went, eager to test out my theory. I thinly sliced my freshly-purchased fennel, sautéed it in some olive oil for 10 minutes or so (stirring frequently to promote caramelization as opposed to frying) and pulsed it up in a food processor with some jalapeño and cilantro. After seasoning with salt and lime, I sampled a bit. Yum! I almost wanted to eat it then and there – blueberries be damned – because it was really tasty! But delayed gratification is supposedly the mark of intelligence, so in went the berries. And voila! Blueberry-fennel salsa complete; snacking commencing in T minus…and that’s as far as my countdown got before my mouth was full of chips and salsa.

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