Vegan Alfredo

Can it be done? Sure. I was craving all things pasta, as I mentioned before, and ran across this vegan alfredo recipe. I remembered that I used to really enjoy those alfredo dinners "out of a box" and that last year I had tried an alfredo sauce out of a jar and it was terrible. So I decided to make my own, and actually make it stomach-friendly! The recipe I found seemed simple enough, it just required a little shopping trip (where I nearly broke my shoulder carrying it all home).

I assembled the ingredients and started simmering, and soon enough it was all mixed together, I had pureed, and it was ready to go!

Vastly more simple than I could have imagined. It smelled like alfredo, and it tasted very close. It needed a bit more salt, or some more zing to it. Next time I might take one commentator's suggestion and add some lemon juice.

For now, I simply enjoyed the creamy texture I always long for.

An Expansion and an Evening of Cooking

We have decided to abandon the theme of Arabesque and to embark on "following to-the-letter all good and sound recipes" that we might chance upon. In that mode, this weekend's cookery alighted upon a theme of pasta sauces. It started with my craving for Alfredo, vegan style, and ended in a super simple tomato pasta sauce that was delicious!! Along the way, some breadsticks and baklava worked their way in as well.

First stop, the red pasta sauce, which Talea found here, and which I forgot to photograph as it was cooking, and being consumed, because I was so wrapped up in enjoying the flavors. After settling it onto the stove to start its plopping and splattering, we turned to breadsticks.

Now, I am trying again a stint of gluten-free, to last in every nook and cranny I can find. So I bought some gluten-free flour (made up of garbanzo beans, fava beans, and other odd items) and we tried a recipe from here for breadsticks. Talea made hers partly whole and white wheat. Which I think turned out more successfully. Mine refused to rise, or even knead like dough, and promptly burned before being done baking, and essentially made my whole kitchen smell like falafel. C+ at best. They are not breadsticks, they are some alien kind of savory cookie. Matt would like them. I, am unimpressed.

While the breadsticks were "rising", I launched an attempt at baklava, which I'd been meaning to try for several weekends, and just never had the energy or the health to do. I combined the ideas from a couple of different recipes from here and here, and set to work on my own finished product. I was working with less than half a package of phillo dough, which was still semi-frozen, and several random ends of butter, melted. I ground together some walnuts and almonds, about a cup and a quarter total, and stirred them together with some freshly ground cardamom (which cardamom is now going on at least four years old because I bought it in Egypt last time I was there) and cinnamon. I poured some water and sugar into a pan and added some very sugared honey, which immediately thinned out delightfully. I layered the phillo and nuts and butter in the pan, popped it in the oven where it browned up nicely, and then poured the syrup over it. I couldn't resist a bite before it was finished cooking, and it was GOOD.

I might like this baklava making business.

This morning I got up and cleaned up the mess, and then enjoyed a bowlful of papaya and yellow honeydew to top it all off.

Breadsticks and tomato sauce

Proof of cookery

Pizza with roasted peppers

The crust for this pizza deserves an ode of its own. It is soft, elastic, glorious to roll out. I made this pizza all last summer using fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden. This time around, I topped it with roasted orange and red bell peppers, Kalamata olives, last summer's tomatoes, and feta cheese. Next time I might try baking the crust off a touch before adding the toppings, but the results were truly satisfactory. Thanks, Barbara Kingsolver!

Bagels

I was afraid these bagels might not turn out because I ran out of white flour and so made these using more than 50% whole wheat flour (I almost always make doughs using 50-50 white/whole wheat flours, but I didn't want to get too carried away). The dough came out a little dense, but really the bagels weren't bad. After boiling them in sugar water, I baked them for half an hour in the oven. A bit involved, but they're so lovely and chewy with that glossy outer crust. Well worth the trouble.

Pizza Capri-Monique Style

Combining the amazing crust of Talea's mom with the toppings of my favorite "Zorba the Greek" pizza from Pizza Capri, I attempted deliciocity in the home. Successful? Tastebud results flip over the 10's! Homemade pesto (with basil leaves from our prolific basil plant), home roasted peppers, fresh tomatoes, feta cheese, sundried tomatoes, and kalamata olives on a white and whole wheat crust baked on a pizza stone. I ate my half in one sitting, if that tells you anything.

Sabbath Delight (related, only distantly, to Turkish Delight...)

Sabbath lunch with friends...nothing better. For me, a time to experiment and take time to do what I love in the kitchen. Sometimes the experiments work, sometimes they don't. Today, we had a bit of both. In my estimation, Parts One and Three of lunch worked well (that would be, appetizers and desserts). Part Two, well, mixed reviews. The negative reviews being mine. However, over all, it was a splendid feast with friends, and I will share the delight with you.

The overall theme of this lunch was Lebanon, however, a bit of Turkey and Morocco still managed to slip in. I will make the origins clear below.

To start off with, glasses of cold, clear, green hued tea. I had steeped some fresh ginger root and cane sugar with some green tea (at yes, my picky "just right" temperature) and refrigerated it over night. The result was much better than expected, and I have a second pitcher steeping as I write.

Last night Talea and I started on our second cooking adventure together. We decided to start with the eye-catching Batinjan Raheb (Lebanon: Eggplant and Tomato Salad). It has an eggplant base with greenery and pomegranate seeds (in theory, juice in practice) sprinkled on top. The mint and parsley, tomatoes and scallions added a nice fresh touch to the cooked eggplant puree. Which yes, I pureed on accident instead of the simple mashing called for. When given a choice, I always puree. So "accidents" of this sort are not too mournful. The eggplant puree was delightful, with a touch of lemon, garlic and olive oil. It was perfectly smooth in texture, though I can't say I tasted any of the "smoked flavor" promised upon broiler-charring. Perhaps the barbecue or wood stove would have provided that luxury better. Another time and place! I did comment to Talea upon the rather octopus-like appearance of the peeled eggplant, still held together by stem. It was rather a disgusting little mess, but the resulting taste was well worth it, and I believe this dish won first place in my book of the dishes I tried.

Served along with the salad was the standard Hummus Bi Tehine (Lebanon: Hummus--Chickpea and Tahini Dip). I have made this particular dip countless times, sending many blenders to an early grave, and finally purchasing an unbeatable Bosch. I started out with canned chickpeas in the early days, and upon marriage decided to take it to the next level, trying dry beans from scratch. I wasn't ready that first year of marriage to cook garbanzo beans. They require patience and a time-commitment, something those frantic school days just didn't allow. I would burn the beans (they'd run out of water), or they'd obtain a sickening overcooked hue and flavor. Last night, for the first time in two years, I decided to try again. I soaked the beans overnight, and then I started cooking them. Just barely simmering, adding water when needed, and gently stirring. They worked out perfectly. I even took the time to peel them all as I used to do in the canned-days, to obtain that rumored texture. I dropped in the lemon juice and garlic as of old, in this book's required amount, and for the first time added a bit of the remembered-cooking juice. The result: satin. Not as satiny as the eggplant, but delicious. Warmed garlic naan borrowed from India for the occasion paired well with the two dips. Delight, pure delight.

For the second course of the meal, I tried a minor imposition on my guests. I had wanted to make this book's version of Besara (Cream of Dried Fava Bean Soup-Morocco) and attempt a Spinach Pie (Ispanakli Tepsi Boregi-Turkey), but I didn't get to them Friday night and I couldn't do them Saturday morning. So I walked in the door with my guests and straight to the stove. As we talked, chopped greens, and warmed bread, Jenny and I delved into the secrets of Spinach Pie. For this particular recipe I raided HPP's freezer section for fillo dough, ecstatic to find they carried it. Jenny whisked together the egg, milk and butter brushing-dip and I pulled apart layers of paper thin fillo (the spinach was steaming above the simmering Besara). If I'd had any idea what went into one of these, I would have waved the flag of retreat and bowed to the Greek Grandmas out there.

It seemed "simple" enough, and we got it all together (after throwing a stick of butter on the floor and sending the boys out into the living room). But it was nothing like the Spinach Pies I drooled over in Greece. I took one hesitant bite, and turned the rest over to the others. Maybe it will be better the next day?

The Besara was nothing at all like my Egyptian version compliment's of Wael's mother. There were no onions, and no leeks. Just a dash of garlic, some cumin, paprika and Aleppo pepper. It tasted more like my Turkish lentil soup than fava bean soup, but if I stopped comparing, it was tasty. And because I like things smooth, I ended up pureeing it too, intentionally this time, and not accidentally.

The grande finale to the feast was an amazing apple pie, thanks to Bryan. I don't think they have those in Morocco, Lebanon, or Turkey. But they should.

ps. Update on the Pickled Lemon. I briefly opened it up to investigate and it fizzed most impressively. I see none of the forecasted mold, so I'm not sure when that will appear. It's been two weeks in, another two and it is basically ready!

Paratha

Pictured here are paratha and baba ganoush. The baba ganoush was nice, though, from how it sounds, not as nice as Monique's. I broiled the eggplant rather too long and, instead of a lovely roasted flavor, the baba ganoush had more of a burnt flavor. Also, I would suggest pureeing the eggplant rather than mashing it--just a textural preference on my part.

I've wanted to make paratha ever since Christmas when I tried a bread of my brother's which he dubbed "paratha." As an aside, my brother's version wasn't a flat bread paratha but a raised bread with an eggwash gloss to the crust. Delicious. My paratha, however, was disastrous. The dough itself is quite simple--I made it using a generous portion of whole wheat flour and rolled each paratha thinly before frying them off in a cast-iron skillet. The fatal flaw was, I think, too little oil and perhaps a frying pan which was too hot. By day 2, the paratha nearly broke my teeth--they were that hard. They were spotted with char (i.e., burnt in flavor), yet somehow still tasted of unbaked dough. Perhaps with more oil, they could have been crispy like chips. Or perhaps with less whole wheat flour, they could have been softer. Or maybe they needed to be more carefully stored overnight. I couldn't say, but the summary is as follows: this round of cooking did not pay off.