The Smiling Onion

Vegetarian and Gluten-free Cooking

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Easiest, Fluffiest Gluten-Free Pancakes

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Out of all the gluten-free pancakes I’ve eaten (and I’ve eaten my fair share), these probably have a texture closest to your standard white-flour variety. They are neither bready nor gummy, which is a hard balance to get right in the gluten-free pancake world. At the risk of sounding like I’m describing coffee, I would call them “medium-bodied,” by which I mean that they are in the just-right category between very thin and very thick. Best of all, they come together in your blender, contain no sugar or sweetener, and brown up beautifully.

So what’s the secret? A very ripe plantain. This lends the batter a delicious, sweet flavor that makes these beauties enjoyable even without any syrup on top. (For those of you who eat pancakes for the syrup, don’t worry: slathering these with butter and syrup is also a win.) You’ll be blending up your ripe plantain with some whole-grain gluten-free flours (oat and sorghum), baking powder, a bit of oil, a non-dairy milk of your choice (I like almond), and a couple eggs. And that’s all it takes!

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Swiss Chard & Feta Hearts with Spicy Marinara

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While I typically go the sweet route for Valentine’s Day (check out my matcha custard, red velvet pancakes, and chocolate-whiskey sandwich cookies from years past), I decided a savory treat was in order this year. Something elegant – yet hearty – with plenty of Valentine’s Day symbolism. That meant breaking out the heart molds, whipping up a spicy marinara, and choosing red chard over green.

In addition to possessing beautiful, Valentine’s Day-appropriate stems, red chard happens to pair beautifully with feta, lemon, dill, and the other Mediterranean flavors at play here. In fact, these hearts are kind of like a Greek twist on risotto cakes, but made with millet instead of rice, and much easier to put together. (No need to actually make risotto!)  They are quite nice on their own and even more romantic with the marinara.

No heart mold? No problem. Just use your hands to make round cakes (patties) instead. If you find yourself missing the heart element, you can always dip your finger into the marinara and finger paint a heart or two on your serving plate. Perhaps your special someone will want to help decorate too!

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Miso-Orange Charred Parsnips

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I surrender to you

Warm golden nuggets of joy

Your salty-sweet persona defies satiation

 

Mouthful after mouthful

Consumer and consumed blend together

As your hold on me tightens.

 

I am not fooled by your crispy exterior

Your blackened edges

The parts of you that seem imperfect

 

I’ve tasted your insides and there’s no going back. 

-Rumi (After I gave him one of these parsnips)

Okay, sorry everyone. I’m getting over a cold and it’s making me just a bit loopy. What do we think – better or worse than my carrot pasta inspired ode to Elizabeth Barrett Browning? Should I quite blogging and start a poetry satire company? Granted, the language is a bit modern for Rumi, I guess. Maybe it was actually Neruda who wrote this – I could have gotten confused.

So anyway, these miso crusted parsnips are really good. Miso has been missing from my diet for several years, since I had to remove rice temporarily a little ways back. Thankfully, in the past year or so, I’ve been able to eat it again and haven’t turned back. I’ve been putting it on everything! As soon as the parsnips made it into my shopping cart, I immediately knew I wanted to coat them in miso and roast them. I also knew I would use coconut oil for a rich, buttery flavor and just a bit of freshly-squeezed orange juice for slight acidity and sweetness.

The result? Well, I have to say I agree with Rumi. Or Neruda. These parsnips are awesome.

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Pumpkin Spice Hemp Milk

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Hemp milk is one of my absolute favorite milks. While some might say it’s an acquired taste – and there is definitely something very unique about the flavor that “nutty” doesn’t quite capture – once you get used to it, hemp milk can’t be beat. It’s super nutritious (all those omegas!) AND you can make it without any straining, soaking, or waste. All you have to do is blend up some hemp seeds with some filtered water, add in whatever sweeteners or spices you’d like, and drink up. You do have to blend it for a couple minutes to really get a nice consistency, but this makes it even better: when it comes out of that blender, it’ll be warm, frothy, and altogether beautiful.

You can totally make hemp milk completely plain, and that is actually what I do most often. Since it does get so warm and frothy, I find that I like it without any sweeteners at all. But, since fall is here, why not try it with a bit of pumpkin spice flava?

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Market Cucumbers with Ras El Hanout, Lime, and Mint

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One of the best things about eating in the summer months – especially August – is the sheer bounty of summer produce available. Often, picking the freshest produce you can find and treating it gently yields some of the most delicious eating; as an added benefit, these produce-highlighting dishes are generally simple to prepare. Small plates restaurants in New York LOVE this strategy – they know their customers are suckers for fresh produce that tastes amazing and that diners are willing to shell out the big bucks for what is really just a plate of vegetables with some strategic seasoning and a fancy name.

Now I fall for this just as much as the next person – who doesn’t love veggie-centric, small plates dining? And really, who cares how much effort it took as long as it tastes amazing? But I’m also beginning to be a bit sticker-shocked by some of the small plates (sometimes tiny plates!) and big prices attached to the simplest of dishes. Especially when it’s so easy to create our own delicious, seasonal small plates with a simple trip to the Greenmarket, a bit of creativity, and a subtle hand. The trick here is not to overdo.

It’s imperative, of course, to start with super fresh, sun-kissed, juicy cucumbers straight from the garden, farmstand, or greenmarket. Younger, tender cukes are preferable to older, bigger ones – you don’t want the peels to be super tough. A sprinkle of good quality sea salt helps the cucumbers sing; the ras el hanout (a Morrocan seasoning blend, described in more detail below) gives them that extra special something. Add in a splash of acidity (fresh lime juice) and a bit of very thinly shaved fresh mint and scallion, and you’ve got yourself a complete dish.

So what exactly is ras el hanout, you ask? Well, every blend is slightly different, but it normally consists of warming spices mixed with coriander and turmeric. If you are familiar with garam masala, the flavor is similar, but I would describe ras el hanout as having a more savory quality (less clove and cinnamon heavy). I buy the Frontier brand, which consists of coriander,  turmeric, cardamom, sea salt,  black pepper, clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg. I love it in deviled eggs (for a North African twist), in my morning porridge, or mixed into yogurt and drizzled over a middle-eastern style lettuce wrap. In the cooler months, it’s also great for stews and soups!

Now on to these cucumbers…

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Vegan Summer Bowl with Spicy Serrano Cream

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I have a confession to make: I haven’t spent a lot of time on recipe development this summer. Maybe it’s the rising humidity, two grad school classes squeezed into a one-month summer session, or just pure laziness, but the time I’ve been spending in the kitchen has mostly been focused on throwing together meals for our household. That means no measuring cups, measuring spoons, kitchen scales, or any of the other gadgets that go into actually publishing a recipe for public consumption.

Not deliberately setting out to create recipes, however, often yields fabulous meals that I can then come back to later and make “precise” with said gadgets.  In fact, I have a whole folder of summer “recipes” just waiting to be measured and published! This supremely satisfying summer bowl is at the top of the list, because it was just so darn enjoyable!

How to describe it? All of the components work so nicely together – tender broccoli florets, quinoa, a raw carrot salad with raisins and coconut that jives perfectly with the spicy serrano-cilantro sauce you’ll be drizzling (or drowning) your bowl with, and some simple sautéed tofu for extra protein.  Crunchy, sweet, spicy, tender – this bowl has it all. And just like my vegan winter bowl, you can make any or all of the components ahead of time and assemble your bowl when you are ready to enjoy it, or you can even assemble the bowls within tupperware containers for ready-made, transportable lunches. (Bobby and I devoured our first bowls warm, then assembled the leftovers in two containers and took them for lunch the next day, where we ate them cold. Both ways were delicious.)

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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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Potato & Manchego Tart

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How do I describe this crustless tart? Words don’t quite do it justice. Once it’s baking, you might be able to get an inkling of its glory from the smell wafting out of the oven. Or perhaps when it comes out of the oven – lightly browned and bubbling on the counter – you’ll realize that this meal is going to be special. But it’s when you take your first bite – your taste buds meeting luscious potatoes enrobed in rich, creamy custard, encountering tangy manchego and a bright sparkle of green onion here and there – that the swooning will truly begin.

The secret? Egg yolks. Quiches and tarts made with mostly egg yolks have a superior, custardy texture that you just don’t get in a standard whole-egg quiche. Also, despite their richness, I find that they feel lighter and more appealing than those made with whole eggs. Why? The coagulation of the egg whites yields a denser final product. Fewer egg whites? Lighter (and tastier) tart. As an added bonus, this recipe provides a wonderful way to use up those yolks you have left over after making meringues or other recipes that call for just the whites.

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Plantain “Nachos” with Jalapeño Crema

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Do nachos have to contain chips? I’m of the opinion that they don’t. Because when oven-fried sweet plantains are covered with beans, feta, and cilantro and then drizzled with jalapeño crema, it sure feels like I’m eating a hefty plate of delectable nachos. Except that my teeth actually have something to sink into – that meaty, sweet plantain – instead of just crunching through dry chips. And also I need a fork.

But if you fall in the “Hardline Traditionalist” category of this sandwich chart, I’m guessing you are also a hardline traditionalist when it comes to nachos. In that case, just think of these as loaded plantains.

Whatever you choose to call it, this dish is really quite delicious and would make the perfect Cinco de Mayo grub. The aforementioned toppings are just suggested – you can top your oven-fried plantains with whatever fixings your heart desires – but I do advise that you drizzle the final product with some jalapeño crema (recipe included). It’s tangy and spicy, making it the perfect compliment to those sweet plantains.

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