The Smiling Onion

Vegetarian and Gluten-free Cooking

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5-Ingredient Chewy Cinnamon Cookies (Vegan and Grain-Free!)

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I’ve been having some trouble with will power lately. Specifically when it comes to sugar cravings. It all started with my wedding a couple weeks ago (yay!) when the catering company left us an entire fridge shelf filled with gluten-free mini key lime pies. Suddenly, it was key lime pie for breakfast, snack, “lunch dessert” (which normally does not exist in my household), and of course, dinner dessert. Yeah – a mini key lime pie is one of those awesome desserts you can justify eating for breakfast – I mean, you’d eat a lemon bar, right? What’s the diff?

After the pie fiasco, I was at my local grocery store when I spotted a ridiculous sale: THREE Ben and Jerry’s ice creams for ten bucks. WHAT?! That’s basically like getting a whole pint of ice cream free, given that the lowest price I’ve ever seen for Ben and Jerry’s is around five bucks. I’m actually not a huge purchaser of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream because it has a LOT of crap in it compared to other comparable brands like Haagan-Dazs (and when I do buy ice cream I normally try to buy organic, grass fed milk, etc. anyway which rules out both of the above-mentioned big guys) but…I mean three pints for ten bucks?! And Ben and Jerry have been super politically involved lately – I should support them for that, right? I don’t know if I’m convincing you, but I sure convinced myself.

Now, once you have three pints of ice cream in your freezer, it is very, VERY hard not to indulge at every possible occasion. Especially when your freezer is packed full as can be and you can barely close the door because of all the gluten-free flours you have stuck inside. So really, every time I went to the freezer to get some ice cream, I was actually just doing my duty to clean it out. Three pints take up a lot of space, and we needed that space.

Which leads me to these cinnamon cookies. Another way to clear freezer space, of course. I had just 1/2 a cup of white sugar left – so why not make some cookies and get rid of the bag? I would actually be ridding my freezer of sugar in the long run, so it was totally justifiable. In fact, these cookies would be great mixed in to some of my remaining ice cream …

Okay, so you can see how things might have spiraled a bit out of control. But hear me out – the recipe for these cookies is actually super awesome. And if you are going through something similar and want to indulge a sugar craving fast, these guys are really quick and easy. Just five ingredients, completely grain-free, completely vegan, lovely cinnamon flavor, wonderful chewy texture. Make them! You can stop eating sugar tomorrow.

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5-Minute, 5-Ingredient Hazelnut Gelato (Vegan, No Sugar)

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Summer is coming! It is, it is, it is! I know that some of us eat ice-cream year-round, but for those of you who don’t (who are you??), I think I can say with certainty that it’s time to get started again, rain or no rain. If we act like summer is here, it will come. Okay?? And…according to the always-reliable weather forecast, it is going to be in the 70s and 80s all next week. So let’s celebrate with some 5-minute homemade gelato!

This gelato is seriously delicious. It contains no dairy, no eggs, and no sugar. The secret? Frozen bananas and a Vitamix! Yes, you can be skeptical…but I urge you to try this before passing judgment. It really does taste like gelato and…IMO…banana is not the central flavor. I mean, it’s there – don’t get me wrong – but you don’t have to be a banana lover to like this; you just can’t be a banana hater. (Actually, I gave some of this gelato to my mother and asked her to guess the base, and she didn’t even realize there was banana in it!)

Okay, so let’s get to the five ingredients: we need two ripe bananas which have been frozen solid (to the point where you can’t cut into them to peel them unless you let them sit out for a few minutes), hazelnut oil, coconut cream (which you can buy or obtain by just scooping the cream from a can of refrigerated full-fat coconut milk), a pinch of cinnamon, and mesquite powder. Oh – a pinch of sea salt is also nice, but I’m not counting that in the “5-ingredients” because c’mon, it’s salt!

Have you heard of mesquite powder? It’s a superfood made from the seeds of the mesquite plant, which grows in desert areas, and has been used by indigenous people in Mexico and the Southwest for a long, long time. It has a sweet, caramel-like flavor, a bunch of awesome vitamins (calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, zinc…), and some protein to boot! It’s wonderful in smoothies, hot drinks, baked goods, raw cookies…and this gelato, of course. In short, I highly encourage you to get some and try it out!

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Date and Ginger Scones

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There is something about the word “breakfast” that is just downright appealing. It implies something well beyond the “crap, I have to leave right now, I guess I’ll just grab this package of instant oatmeal” meaning of the word. No, in its natural state, I would argue that “breakfast” is the type of affair that’s suggested by the phrase “Let’s do breakfast.” Or better yet, “I made breakfast.” You know … the meaning of the word that triggers images of steaming tea and coffee mugs, wonderful smells wafting out of the kitchen, cozy pajamas, rain patter on the windows, sleeping kittens, etc. (Sleeping kittens?! Okay, maybe I’m alone on that last one, but I do find it to be one of those comforting images the word breakfast evokes.)

Anyway, in case I’ve completely lost you with the whole “breakfast” thing – consider the word “scone.” Are we on the same page now? These date and ginger scones are part 1 of what I consider to be the perfect breakfast – part 2 being a mug of tea. They definitely fit the “wonderful smells wafting out of the kitchen” criteria too. And…if you are having one of those “crap, I have to leave  right now” mornings, they are an excellent grab ‘n go option that will allow you to transport the elegance of “breakfast” to the road.

Oh, I should mention that this is a super easy, 1-bowl recipe!

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16 Passover Recipes

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Passover is around the corner! That means matzoh ball soup, charoset, hard boiled eggs, horseradish, tzimmes, and a whole lot of other Passover staples if you happen to be attending or hosting a seder this year. In fact, planning what to eat at a seder is almost never difficult – there are so many traditional Passover dishes! What can be hard for most of us, however, is figuring out what to eat after the Seder, when you are sick of the staples yet still have almost a week left of restricted eating.

Since I’m gluten-free year round and happen to also follow Sephardic Passover (this means beans and grains are A-okay), the basic change to my diet is restricting oats. Which isn’t super difficult. However, many of my friends follow Ashkenazi Passover, which is much more restrictive – no grains or legumes at all (though quinoa is okay), no poppy seeds, sunflower seeds, or sesame seeds…the list goes on for a while. And it can be difficult if you are vegetarian.

So, instead of giving you yet another version of Matzoh Ball Soup (though I have a pretty great idea for one and will probably post it next year), I’ve decided to list for you all of the delicious and wonderful things you can eat right from this blog even if you follow a strict Ashkenazi style Pesach. (If you follow Sephardic Passover, you can pretty much eat anything on this blog that doesn’t contain oats!)

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Pumped-Up Jam Bites

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Pump up the jam…bites. Anyone? Here’s a link to what I’m talking about – go 90’s!

Anyway, there are actually a variety of reasons why these delicious little bites are “pumped up.” They are made from teff and oats, which are both whole grains that pack a big nutritional punch. Teff flour is very high in protein, iron, and calcium – in fact, its iron and calcium content is much higher than that of whole wheat flour. Oat flour is protein rich as well, and also happens to be the winner of the soluble fiber contest: it has the most of any grain, ever! If you’re not familiar with soluble fiber, it has a wide range of benefits, from helping you digest all the insoluble fiber you may be eating (and if you’re vegetarian like me, you are probably eating a lot!) to lowering your cholesterol levels, to…well,  a whole lot more. Additionally, these guys have no refined sugar (if you use a fruit-sweetened jam like my favorite brand Fiordifrutta) and are also completely dairy-free. So pump it up!

Okay, but enough about all the health benefits. Let’s get to the taste! And in that respect as well, these little jam bites are totally awesome, in my humble opinion. If you eat them still warm from the oven, they are soft, tender, decadent, and seriously sticky! (The jam will not stay inside these little guys when they are still warm, but will instead ooze out in the most delightful – if messy – way, covering the entire bottom layer with a heavenly fruity finish.) Once they’ve cooled down, they are more akin to a Nutrigrain bar– the outer layer will take on the slightly drier texture of a cereal bar and the jam will stay inside. So you’re really getting two delicious bites from only one recipe! How’s that for pumping it up? (How many times can I reference this song, you guys? Is once per paragraph too much? :p )

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Raw Hamantaschen Cookies (Sugar-Free, Grain-Free, and Vegan!)

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Food blogging has definitely made me a lot more aware of the plethora of special occasions that seem to pop up almost every other week! Somehow, I would feel remiss if I didn’t celebrate at least a few of them with a delicious special-occasion-appropriate recipe.

After the Super Bowl, for which I created this delicious superfood bowl, I was thinking the next special occasion recipe would be a gluten-free matzoh ball soup for Passover. Yup, I had completely forgotten about Valentine’s Day (luckily I squeaked by with these amazing grain-free sandwich cookies), St. Patty’s Day (last week’s Irish Flag Skillet), and Purim, which brings me to today. Who knew there were so many holidays in late winter/early spring? And I’m not even counting those of the “national cookie day” variety.

Anyway, the Jewish holiday of Purim begins tonight. Growing up, this holiday was always one of my favorites – it involved the telling of the Purim story (often re-enacted in a play) and the vanquishing of the story’s villain, Haman. It also involved cookie making and cookie eating, probably a big part of why this holiday is such a big hit with kids (that and the obligatory noise making whenever the name of the villain is mentioned during the Purim story!)

Hamantaschen cookies, pictured above, get their name and shape from said villain, who was reputed to wear a three-cornered hat. Growing up, my family would always make these cookies and it took forever! First, we’d have to make the dough. Then, we’d have to roll it up into logs, wrap it, and freeze it. Next, we’d have to let it soften slightly. Then, we’d have to form the cookies, which was not an easy process. It didn’t help that the dough had a severe Goldilocks complex – it was always either too cold or too warm to work with! We were constantly refreezing, resoftening, etc. And, to add insult to injury, the dough itself wasn’t even that great once it was baked into cookie form. Hamantaschen are definitely all about the filling.

Jam, poppy seeds, nuts, apricots…so many delicious fillings! The favorite, though, was always the date filling that my mother made. In fact, never mind the cookies –  we were happy eating the filling by the spoonful!

That’s why I’m so excited about the raw hamantaschen I created this year. The cookies themselves are made out of traditional filling ingredients like dates, coconut, and nuts, which in my opinion is an improvement in taste over commonly made hamantaschen doughs. They are also sooo much quicker and easier to make! There is no dough rolling, freezing, or softening. The dough comes together in the food processor. And the whole process (including measuring, pitting the dates, shaping the cookies, etc.) takes about 15 minutes. The best part? These cookies are gluten-free, fruit-sweetened, grain-free, raw, and vegan! How’s that for some Purim love?

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Cinnamon Sugar Sandwich Cookies with Chocolate-Whiskey Cream

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Do I even need to write this post? Doesn’t the title say it all?

Okay, fine.

Three days before Valentine’s Day, I realized I would be remiss if I didn’t post a delicious treat for you to make for your honey (or your mom, cat, best friend, self … whoever you are planning to spend Valentine’s Day with this year!) Disclaimer: Please don’t actually feed these to your cat; that would be pretty dangerous. Anyway, I could probably have whipped up a nice pudding, or mousse, even a brownie…and it would have been fairly straightforward and probably wouldn’t have taken me two days to create, photograph, and post. But…for some reason, I had my heart set on a sandwich cookie. Not just any sandwich cookie – a grain-free, dairy-free sandwich cookie with a chocolate-whiskey filling. (I’m very sorry, vegans, this cookie does have 1 egg in it and I didn’t have time to try subbing it with a flax egg. In the process of developing these cookies, however, I did come up with a delicious 5-ingredient vegan cinnamon lace cookie that I will be posting soon!)

Why did I have my heart set on a grain-free, dairy-free sandwich cookie with a chocolate-whiskey filling? Who knows. Possibly it was a dream I had (food is a main character in the vast majority of my dreams), or maybe I liked the romantic notion sandwich cookies suggest – two halves making a whole, each one bringing a little bit of delicious (aka chocolate-whiskey cream) to the relationship, all that sentimental dribble.

In any case, I knew what I wanted to make, and even though I started this process with only three days between me and Vday, the sandwich cookie gods were with me!

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Coffee-Scented Gingerbread with Amaretto Cream

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Holiday greetings from San Antonio! I’m here with Bobby (my fiancé) and his family, enjoying the 70 degree weather and filling up on Indian food – one of your best options if you happen to be vegetarian in Texas. (For a complete list of the best San Antonio vegetarian spots, email me – I’ve had a couple years to figure it out :p)

Despite the warm weather, we are gearing up for Christmas, which is quite an affair down here. Bobby’s family is insanely large, and in just two days, we all get to be crammed in one home (luckily the homes are much bigger here than in New York) and fight for survival – er – celebrate. And this year my family of Yankee Jews are going to join in on the festivities for the first time! It should be a Christmas to remember.

I’m getting in the holiday spirit by baking, of course. And there is nothing that screams “holiday” quite like the smell of freshly baked gingerbread.

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Raspberry-Rose Cookies

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I wish I could photograph the smell of these cookies. Seriously.

And don’t take that lightly – the glory of mid-fall brings with it so many sensory pleasures that it takes a lot for anything to wow me these days. You know what I’m talking about – unbelievably crisp air, the awesome sound of leaves crunching under your feet, that unparallelled fall light … not that I’m complaining here, but it kind of makes most other things pale in comparison. Smells that normally do all sorts of good things for me – coffee in the morning, cut flowers, even really awesome Chinese food (which usually has a whole forbidden-thing going for it too since its rarely available gluten-free) – get an “eh.” But these cookies – oh my gosh. When copious amounts of butter meet rose syrup, raspberries, and almonds and then decide to party together in an oven, even fall takes a backseat to the sensory pleasures that unfold.

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Apples and Honey Cake for Rosh Hashanah

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On the eve of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), I’m home with my family in Western Massachusetts, soaking up as much countryside as I can get before heading back to city life. And of course that also includes taking advantage of all the delicious local produce! Yesterday, I was dragged around to various farmstands in search of the perfect Hadley corn, which led to a heated argument over what that meant exactly. (My dad insisted he could tell by scent alone; the rest of us demanded he at least take a peek inside the husk before choosing!) The argument was forgotten, come dinnertime, as we dove into the buttery ears, which proved quite delicious. We also enjoyed a lovely cherry tomato and goat cheese salad and some delicious pesto potatoes, courtesy of my mother’s garden (except for the goat cheese, that is!).

And today, it’s all about the apples.

After a lovely morning at an orchard in Easthampton (pictures here), I am definitely in the Rosh Hashanah spirit. Apples dipped in honey are traditionally eaten on Rosh Hashanah to symbolize a sweet new year, as is honey cake. But this year, I decided to combine those two traditions into one scrumptious grain-free, dairy-free Rosh Hashanah apples and honey cake. I guess it was a good idea, because my family told me it was the best honey cake they’d ever had! (Disclaimer: They don’t really like honey cakes to begin with, so I’m not sure how that fact affects the rave review).

While I personally wouldn’t go so far as to call this the best honey cake ever, it’s definitely a great grain-free, dairy-free, Rosh Hashanah option to help you start your year off right. Because everyone (including those with dietary restrictions) deserves to have a sweet new year!

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