The Smiling Onion

Vegetarian and Gluten-free Cooking

Subscribe

Mesquite Caramel

By Leave a Comment

Have you heard of mesquite powder? It’s made from the ground pods of mesquite trees and has a wonderfully sweet – yet complex – flavor that is somewhere between vanilla, caramel, and malted milk balls. Delicious in smoothies, hot drinks, ice-creams, and baked goods, mesquite powder is great to have on hand!

A few years back, I decided to try making a caramel using just mesquite and water. The results were exciting. While it wasn’t as sticky as a typical caramel, it was thick and syrupy enough to hit the “caramel neurons” in my brain. (By the way, this is yet to be confirmed by an MRI, but I may have more “caramel neurons” than average.) Plus, this mesquite caramel had two advantages: it was both simpler to make and healthier to eat than a butter and sugar-laden variety.

Before we get too excited, let me just clarify that – while there is no added sugar in mesquite powder since it’s literally just ground up mesquite pods – chemical analysis of the powder does show it to be about 40 percent sucrose. As such, I probably can’t say that this caramel is entirely “sugar-free.” I can say that it is definitely significantly lower in sucrose than your typical table-sugar caramels, however, and has a more unique flavor, to boot. Its high fiber content may also be helpful in preventing blood sugar spikes, though – according to the website linked earlier – more research is needed.

This is the easiest caramel you’ll ever make. You just need mesquite powder, water, a small saucepan, and a spoon. Once the mixture starts to bubble, it’ll be ready in about five minutes. Drizzle it over ice-cream (I know, kind of negates the low sugar aspect), over your morning porridge (one of my favorite ways to eat oatmeal) or enjoy with stewed or baked apples. It’s also a wonderful way to dress up a bowl of cold cereal! Plus, it’ll keep for several days in the fridge and doesn’t harden or solidify, meaning it’s always drizzle-ready.

[Read more…]

Miso-Orange Charred Parsnips

By Leave a Comment

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.

[Read more…]

Pumpkin Spice Hemp Milk

By Leave a Comment

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?

[Read more…]

Market Cucumbers with Ras El Hanout, Lime, and Mint

By Leave a Comment

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…

[Read more…]

Vegan Summer Bowl with Spicy Serrano Cream

By Leave a Comment

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.)

[Read more…]

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

By Leave a Comment

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!

[Read more…]

Blueberry-Fennel Salsa

By Leave a Comment

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.

[Read more…]

White Gazpacho

By Leave a Comment

Have you ever tried ajo blanco? Popular in Spain, it’s a white gazpacho made with blanched almonds and lots of garlic, thickened with bread. Even though I visited Spain before going gluten-free, I sadly never came across it.

If I had, I would probably be better able to describe to you whether my pecan gazpacho is indeed similar to ajo blanco. I can venture a guess that it is – it’s creamy, nutty, tart, and refreshing – and certainly resembles that classic Spanish white gazpacho visually. But there are several differences between this recipe and a traditional ajo blanco, which I’ll enumerate for my fellow cooking nerds below. For the rest of you, all you need to know is that this pecan-based version of white gazpacho is one of the best cold soups I’ve ever had.

So, how does this recipe differ from a traditional Spanish white gazpacho? Well, as I alluded to above, I’ve used pecans instead of almonds, soaked overnight for a smooth texture. Additionally, while ajo blanco does often feature green grapes, they aren’t typically blended into the soup, like I do here. Finally, there’s no bread at all in my recipe (don’t worry, the soup is still the proper texture without it!), I’ve used garlic-infused oil instead of raw garlic, and I’ve added a secret ingredient to top it all off: fennel. Blending in some fennel bulb with the pecans and grapes really creates a luscious, complex flavor that you probably won’t even be able to place right away. You’ll just know that you want to keep eating it.

[Read more…]

Spiced Cacao Breakfast Pudding

By 1 Comment

There’s definitely no shortage of breakfast puddings and porridges on this site. While these types of warming breakfasts always make me feel the best, I have a compulsion for variety and I simply can’t just eat plain old oatmeal every morning. In fact, I often use the thrill of an exciting breakfast the next morning as a bargaining tool to prevent myself from late-night eating.

If I go to sleep now, I’ll feel refreshed in the morning and have time to make my golden porridge…or 5-spice+turmeric breakfast pudding…or 3-ingredient creamy coconut porridge…or (my newest addition to the breakfast porridge rotations) –  this spiced cacao breakfast pudding. 

When morning comes, the promise of an already-decided-upon breakfast also helps get me out of bed! (There is nothing worse than getting up and realizing you don’t have anything appetizing to eat for breakfast.) In addition to being a great incentive for starting the day, here’s what I like about this spiced cacao breakfast pudding, which is made by simmering teff flour on the stove:

-Easy to prepare

-Nutrient-rich (Teff is high in protein, iron, and calcium!)

-Contains raw cacao powder, for a chocolaty boost of energy

-Is delicately spiced, light, and warming – the perfect food to eat early in the morning!

Oh, and you can top it with salted-maple pecans if you like!

[Read more…]

Vegan Salty Oat Cookies

By Leave a Comment

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, there’s a chance that the title of this post sounds familiar to you. I do, in fact, already have a salty oat cookie recipe – created way back in May of last year – that has since become a staple of mine. It’s so quick and easy to whip up a batch, and said batch is so satisfying to munch on, that I find myself making these sweet and salty confections to bring to all manner of occasions, from game nights to family events. But it’s always been my intention to eventually post a vegan version, since I had a hunch these could taste just as good without the butter and egg. And in fact, I’ve known that hunch to be correct ever since November, when I buckled down and perfected these vegan salty oat cookies as part of our Thanksgiving menu. So it’s high time to share the love!

The secret to veganizing the recipe? Freshly ground chia seed (pre-ground didn’t gel as well and yielded crumbly cookies while flax meal made them take on a too-healthy taste that wasn’t cookie appropriate), coconut oil, and toasted hazelnuts. Other than those minor changes, this recipe is pretty similar to the original. Every time I make either version, I’m convinced I like it better than the other, so I really can’t say for sure which one I prefer. But toasted hazelnuts do have a special place in my heart – and tummy – and definitely lend these cookies a buttery quality that makes it very hard to tell that they are, in fact, vegan.

So if you’re looking for a scrumptious, coffeeshop-like cookie that’s both vegan and gluten-free, look no further! (Especially if you are also a fan of oats, peanut butter, and chocolate chips.)

[Read more…]