Passover seder cooking

Yes, again, it's been a while since I last posted but I've got good excuses: I actually really started working in that vegan restaurant (the one in Tel Aviv) in the kitchen, finally, and am on my way to becoming a true vegan chef.

In he meantime, my favorite hobby - experiments on human beings, weee!!

And this time, I've made three courses for this year' passover sedder which is held at my folks' place. One main course and two desserts:



Italic green beans and seitan:

Working at the restaurant really brought my faith back in tofu and saiten as I have pretty much given up on making them taste like anything other than tasteless soy cheese and a rubber lump of protein. I learned some very nifty ways of greatly improving the taste and texture of both.

ingredients:

500 gr frozen green beans chopped
500 gr seitan
Soy sauce
Liquid Smoke
7 tomatoes diced
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tbs oregano
1 1/2 tbs thyme
1 1/2 tbs dry basil
1 tbs black pepper
1 tbs salt
1/2 cup water
1 cup cooking wine
3 medium onions, diced
20 gralics, crushed
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup dry shiitake mushrooms

How to prepare:
In advance dice seitan to roughly 1cm by 1cm pieces. Soak them in a bowl or box filled with 1/4 soy sauce and 3/4 water with quite a few squirts of Liquid Smoke. Leave seitan to soak for at least an hour.

Fry onions and garlic until onion becomes golden. Add wine and continue to fry until all the liquid evaporates. Add tomatoes, green beans and water then cook to boil. Add spices and taste to adjust taste. Add shiitake and set aside.

When it's time, prepare a pan (or wok, it takes much less time) with a very thin coating of oil and fry seitan until it browns and changes texture. Add to the saucepan wih the tomatoes and beans with half a cup of the soaking water.

I know seitan is wheat and thus not very passover-friendly but my family doesn't really observe that bit...



Gluten-free banana icecream cake:

It was supposed to be completely raw but I added too much water to the dough mix so I had to bake it...Oh well...

Ingredients:

6 bananas, frozen
1 cup soaked brazil nuts
1 1/2 cup dry dates
1 cup oats
1/2 cup fresh mint leafs
1/2 tahini
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
cinnamon

How to prepare:

In a blender or food processor, grind dates, nuts and oats with water until mix is liquid but not watery. Add vanilla extract and baking soda. Thinly oil a cake pan or baking dish and pour dough mixture into it. Place in oven preheated to 180c for 10-15 minutes until a toothpick stuck into the dough comes out dry.

Put bananas, tahini and mint into blender and turn into a thick paste. Pour paste over the dough you just made, even top and lightly sprinkle cinnamon. Cover with cling film and stick into freezer until cake is served.



Raw strawberry-Almond dessert:

The dish I'm least happy with because the irish moss didn't give me the result I quite wanted, you can drop it all together if you want. It's tasty, don't get me wrong, it just the second time irish moss dissappoints me *goes off to corner to cry*

Ingredients:

300 gr strawberries
3 cups almonds soaked overnight
1/2 cup fresh mind leafs
3 tbs irish moss soaked overnight, two water replacements
2 tbs vanilla sugar
2 tbs lemon juice
3 tbs brown sugar

How to prepare:

Prepare almond milk from soaked almonds. In a blender, mash strawberries, lemon juice and brown sugar. Taste and adjust sugar and juice levels. Add the strawberries to the milk and in a blender, mix with irish moss. Add vanilla sugar and mint and blend. Keep in freezer if dessert is served a couple of hours from making or keep in refrigerator until served.

Here's a little buddy I met while making this dessert. I love being vegan.


Pessach sameakh!!

Iraq-ish spicy quinoa, tofu and green beans dish

Careful, it's a spicy one! The original version of this dish had about twice the spices, okra and beef in it and no quinoa. If you make it my way, you'll have to pre-prepare some of the ingredients as you'll see soon but that's just my preferences.

Iraq-ish spicy quinoa, tofu and green beans dish

Ingredients:
800 gr green beans, frozen or fresh and chopped
1 kg tofu diced as much as possible
450 gr quinoa (I used white and black but that's because I had some black leftovers lying around)
700 gr tomato, fresh or canned or whathaveyou
1 teaspoon cumin
4 tablespoons za'atar
3 teaspoons salt
2 glasses of water
2 medium onions, diced
8 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 lemon from which you take both juice and zest
1 jalapeno or chili pepper, medium sized, cleaned thoroughly of seeds and diced into the smallest pieces you can WARNING: after handling this pepper wash your hands thoroughly with something oily or balmy like hand cream or avoid eye contact. The oil factor is important as capsaicin, which makes the pepper spicy is a hydrophobic substance and will not respond to water.

Pre-preparations: To sprout the quinoa simply soak it in water for 4-6 hours and then sprout in your sprouter for up to three days before preparing the dish. Here's a nice link with instructions on how to make a sprouter, mine I got as the amazing and wonderful Budha Burger and it's made of recycled plastic boxes, which also works great.



For me, when I make anything with tofu, I'm really picky about the tastelessness of the stuff. I found that marinating the tofu in the sauce of what I'm making for about a day before I actually cook the dish helps a bit. A bit. So, I'm including the making of the sauce as part of the pre-preparation.

Take the onions and lightly fry them with a tad oil (any oil would do that isn't olive oil) until golden. While you're doing that, take the tomatoe sauce and add the spices, pepper, garlic, lemon and zest and mix well in a pot. Add the onions and bring the mix to a boil. Add the tofu and place in a container and leave it in the fridge for a day.



The next day (or right away, if you don't want to marinate)prepare the quinoa until ready, and rinse. Add the green beans and water to the sauce with the tofu and pour it all into a big pot



bring to a boil, then lower the flame and leave on the fire until the beans are ready. Add the quinoa and mix and you've got it, well done! Remember, if the dish is too hot for you, adding oil always helps calm the tang down.