Vegan Lemon Lentils

Lentils are supposed to be really good for you. I wouldn’t know, since I almost never eat them. They seemed like one of those things that would take all day to cook (flashback to my mom’s SEB pressure cooker hissing on the stove - lentil soup from scratch). It turns out they don’t take long at all and I have no idea why my mom used a pressure cooker: they cook in 25 minutes in a pot.

Then I didn’t eat lentils because I thought they’d be really starchy and make your tongue feel sticky in your mouth. But daal is so delicious. With my brain reeling under the weight of such cognitive dissonance, I decided to learn how to cook lentils for myself. The result was delicious and healthy and filling. Grad school food if there ever was such a dish.

Lemon Lentils

• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 c. yellow lentils
• 2 heaping Tbs. vegan butter or olive oil
• 4 c. veggie broth
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• several handful of braising greens, e.g., kale and chard (use more greens than you think, they cook down dramatically)
• zest of one lemon, plus its juice

Melt butter in a tall pot. Add garlic and sauté one minute. Add lentils and stir them into the butter. Add veggie broth. Bring to simmer. Add ginger. Cover and cook 20 minutes. Stir in greens until they begin to wilt. Cover and cook until lentils are soft. Serve with a lemon wedge.

Summer Granita

Granita is like ice cream for people who can’t afford an ice cream maker; sorbet for people who are still wondering whatever happened to sherbet. It’s like Italian ice without the fake tan and high fructose corn syrup.

Granita is simple: make a tasty, fruit-based liquid; pour into a shallow baking dish; place in the freezer; stir every once in a while. The composition of the fruit base is up to you and is only limited by your whimsy. As long as the mixture isn’t too thick, it’d be hard to fuck it up. Use fruits that are available locally and thin the fruit with some acid (lemon, lime, liquor). Add fresh herbs, like mint. You could go more savory and try cucumber or basil. Make something based on a summer cocktail you particularly enjoy. The options are limitless, though the one I just is killer and I highly recommend it. It tastes like summer just exploded in my mouth. 

Blueberry Watermelon Granita

• 3 c. Fresh blueberries
• 1/4 Small watermelon, chopped 
• Zest 1 lime; plus the juice of the lime
• 1/2 Tbs. Grated ginger
• 1 Tbs. Agave syrup
• 1/4 c. Red wine or Martini Rosso 
• 1/4 c. Seltzer

Use a microplane grater to zest the lime and grate the ginger (the smallest grate on a cheese grater can work, too). Pro tip: use a spoon to scrape the skin off the ginger. It really works well. Pro tip 2: zest the lime before you juice it. It’s much harder to zest an open lime. Combine the ginger and lime zest and juice in a blender. Add fruit and a squirt of agave. Blend until liquidy. It’s ok if there are still flecks of blueberry skin, that just adds extra pretty. (No pictures, sorry, can’t find my camera charger). Give a taste. Add some liquor and/or seltzer. Pour the mixture into an 8x8 baking pan and set the pan in the freezer. Every hour or so, give the mixture a stir, breaking up big chunks. Do this about 5 hours or until ready to serve. Before serving use a fork to scrape the granita and give it a fluffier texture. 

Vindicated:

Spicy Asian Pear Apple Sauce is delicious on vanilla gelato. I love being right.

Spicy Asian Pear Applesauce (and science)

• 4 Asian Pears
• 4 Apples (I used Gravensteins, because they’re in season in California now and are good for cooking)
• 1/8 c. Apple cider vinegar
• 1/8 c. Water
• Big squirt of agave nectar (plus more to taste)
• Spices: cayenne pepper, chile powder (to taste)

Peel and core the asian pears and apples. Chop them into small chunks, say 1/4 inch pieces. Put the chunks into a medium sized pot and set on low heat. In a measuring cup, mix vinegar and water and agave. Swirl together and pour over apple bits. Give everything a stir and bring to a low simmer. Sprinkle some cayenne and chile powder over the apples and pears. I recommend starting on the mild side - spices can get more intense the longer they cook, and you can always add more later. Cover the pot and trust that you are not fucking this up. The mixture will need to cook about 45 minutes, to get really squishy, longer if you didn’t chop the pieces as fine. Give a stir every once in a while. Take a taste. Adjust seasonings and sweetness. If you like finer applesauce you can use a fork to smush chunks against a wooden spoon. Cool the applesauce, refrigerate and eat it within a week.

What do you do with this mixture? I have no idea yet. So far, I know it’s good plain. I bet it’d be yummy on top of vanilla gelato or mixed into Greek yogurt. If you make it spicy enough, it’d be good heated up on top of crispy-fried tofu.  

Now the science.

As the apples are cooking you’ll notice them turning into a squishy mess. I don’t really understand the details of what’s going on there, but I’m going to take some educated guesses and share those with you here, starting with the basics. Remember in 6th grade when Ms. Cassola taught you about plant cells? No. Of course you don’t. You were drawing the members of Metallica with huge boners surrounded by pentagrams on the inside of your Trapper Keeper. That’s ok, I don’t remember about multiplying matrices, so maybe you could tell me about that next time. I’m down to trade.  

Living things have cells: plants have plant cells, animals have animal cells. Viewed under a microscope, plant cells look like neatly arranged rectangles; actually, they look like the cells in a jail, or a monastery, which is how they got their name. Plant cells have walls, which hold them together (much like the walls of your parents’ basement are holding in the pathetic scraps of your unemployed existence from spilling out onto the street). When they’re alive, cell walls keep the apple cell guts inside. But once the apple is picked and cooked the cells die, things start falling apart, and everything goes to tasty tasty applesauce hell.

Plant cell walls are made of carbohydrates, which is a fancy word for sugars. The main sugars in cell walls are cellulose and pectin. These sugars are made of polysaccharides, a Greek term “many saccharides”, which is science for saying that lots of small sugars link up with chemical bonds and make a longer sugar chain. For example, cellulose is a chain made up of many glucose molecules. Humans have enzymes that allow us to digest glucose; however we can’t digest straight cellulose.

Polysaccharide chains give the cell wall its rigid structure (animal cell membranes, in contrast, are made of fats and cholesterol and are squishy). Cell walls also have some proteins thrown in to the mix. Proteins are also long chains of molecules called polypeptides. Proteins are complicated folded-up origami chains of these polypeptide molecules connected by chemical bonds. 

Heat does funny things to bonds. In the case of polysaccharides, heat causes the long chains to break up into smaller, constituent “simpler” sugars. These can be sugars that are easier for humans to digest (you can read all about this hype on websites extolling low glycemic index diets). Proteins are also destroyed by heat; bonds get broken and the protein unfolds. This is called denaturation. Acidity (e.g, from the apple cider vinegar) can contribute to denaturing proteins as well. All of this turns the cell walls into a gooey mess. 

That gooey mess is why plants are tasty. But plants, like everything else alive, are largely water by volume. In cells, water is held in vacuoles, which are basically water balloons. The heat from cooking causes water molecules to move around and expand inside the vacuole. When the vacuole membrane bursts from the heat and expansion, the water inside is released. This water boils off as steam, resulting in a dramatic loss of volume as the apples cook. The more water boils off, the more concentrated the sugariness of the remaining apple-goo. So, if you want sweeter applesauce, cook the mixture down more. If you’re lazy, you could also add more agave nectar.

Maxicat’s Trial and Error Vegan Thai Yellow Curry

So, most curry recipes call for fish sauce or fish oil.  Through trial and error I discovered a way to round out the flavor and texture of a vegan thai curry sans fish by using hoisin sauce.  This is the curry recipe you tried at mi casa:

for this recipe you should either invest in a good curry powder or assemble the following spices: cumin, coriander, mustard, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, ginger, paprika, cardamom, fenugreek, and turmeric.

~Maxicat’s Trial and Error Thai Curry~

• 4-5 tbs curry powder (or mix of spices listed above)
• at least 4 hearty cloves of garlic
• 1-2 teaspoon(s) freshly grated or minced ginger
• 1 medium or large onion
• assorted veggies and nuts (i use 2 small golden potatoes, a pasilla pepper, a small crown of broccoli, a handful of slivered almonds, 2-3 carrots, and an italian eggplant).  But TRY ANYTHING.  
• 1 can coconut milk
• heaping spoonful or sriracha or smoked chili paste
• heaping spoonful of hoisin sauce
• dash (about 1 to 2 teaspoons) of brown sugar
• salt, lemon pepper, and cayenne to taste
• 1-2 tbs olive oil

- Prep for your meal by peeling and parboiling the potatoes, as well as chopping up all the vegetables and mincing the ginger.  It’s also a good idea to get some rice going as you will want to eat this over rice.

-Heat a skillet or non-stick pot on medium-medium high heat depending on stove. 

- Once hot, BEFORE you add the oil, add the curry powder or spice to skillet and toast, stirring frequently.  About a minute.  This should release a powerful aroma but be careful not to burn.

-Add olive oil and onions.  Saute about 3-5 minutes until onions are a little carmelised.

-Add other assorted veggies and nuts except garlic and ginger (including potatoes which should be diced after being parboiled and cooled.)  Saute for another 3-5 minutes until everything is looking a bit tender.  You can add more dashes of curry powder or spice mix at this point if you like a bolder taste.  

-Add garlic, minced ginger, a generous spoonful of chili paste, a generous spoonful of hoisin sauce, and a goodly dash of brown sugar.  Also add salt and pepper to taste preference, and cayenne to spiciness preference.  Stir around for about a minute until these are evenly distributed.

-Add coconut milk and turn dial to medium low.  Allow to simmer 5-10 minutes until all veggies are tender and flavors are distributed evenly throughout dish.  Taste often and add salt, cayenne, or sugar as needed to reach your preferred taste.

-Serve over rice and enjoy!

This is how I feel when I read this blog

Butter