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Veganizing “Friends”: Pulling a Monica, Lasagna-Style

September 19, 2013
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     For today’s installment of Veganizing “Friends”, we are making lasagna! Not just any lasagna, mind you, but the lasagna that was supposed to be perfect, when Jack and Judy Gellar were coming over for dinner to harshly judge Monica and find fault with everything she does. Monica had to impress them with the lasagna, and had Rachel help her layer the noodles. But then…(fast forward the video below to 1:20 to see what happens, then read below to see what happens after the idiots who cut that video stopped that scene):

Rachel: Has anybody seen my engagement ring?

Phoebe: Yeah, it’s beautiful.

Rachel: Oh God, oh God, oh God oh God oh God oh God…. (Starts to look under the couch cushions.)

Phoebe: No, look, don’t touch that!

Rachel: Oh, like I wasn’t dreading tomorrow enough, having to give it back to him… ‘Hi Barry! Remember me? I’m the girl in the veil who stomped on your heart in front of your entire family!’ Oh God and now I’m gonna have to return the ring, without the ring, which makes it so much harder…

Monica: Easy Rach, we’ll find it. (To all) Won’t we!

Chandler and Joey: Oh! Yeah!

Joey: Alright, when’d’ya have it on last?

Phoebe: Doy! Probably right before she lost it!

Chandler: You don’t get a lot of ‘doy’ these days…

Rachel: I know I had it this morning, and I know I had it when I was in the kitchen with…

Chandler: …Dinah?

Rachel: (looks at the lasagna and realizes something) Ohhhhh, don’t be mad…

Monica: You didn’t.

Rachel: Oh, I am sorry…

Monica: I gave you one job! (Starts to examine the lasagna through the bottom of the glass pan.)

Rachel: Oh, but look how straight those noodles are!

     Yeahhh, silly Rachel left her ring inside the lasagna! Poor Monica was forced last minute to make spaghetti, resulting in yet another fantastic Judy Gellar moment: “Oh, we’re having spaghetti. That’s…easy.” She is my hero. Anyway! We’re going to make lasagna, and then…you know…see what happens. 
     I enjoyed my cheesy hummus sauce that I made for The Joey Special so much that I wanted to do a similar white bean-based cheese sauce for the lasagna. I saw a few bloggers also using bean-based cheese in lasagna sauce lately, so I knew it could be done. Then, I baked eggplant and zucchini slices, sauteed onions, mushrooms, and garlic, and made/maybe-used-a-store-bought marinara sauce and layered it all together, as you do. 
SPINACH & WHITE BEAN 
CHEESY SAUCE
Ingredients:

  • 2 cans white beans
  • 3t tamari
  • 2t dijon mustard
  • 2T olive oil
  • juice from 1/2 a lemon 
  • 1/2C nutritional yeast(less if you are not a nooch-lover)
  • water as needed for blending
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 12 oz. frozen spinach, thawed and pressed
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Cheesy white bean hummus sauce
Directions: 

  1. Blend all ingredients except the spinach in a blender until smooth
  2. Transfer to a mixing bowl with the spinach, and mix. Taste for salt and pepper. 
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Mushrooms have such shrinkage!
For the baked vegetables:

  • 1/2 eggplant, sliced thin
  • 1/2 zucchini, sliced thin
  • olive oil brushed over

   
     Bake the vegetables at 350 for about 20 minutes, until fully cooked. Then cut them into small pieces for easier ability to cut pieces of finished product.

For the sauteed mushrooms:

  • 1 pint mushrooms
  • 1 medium onion
  • 2 cloves garlic

     Saute the garlic and onion in a bit of olive oil over medium high heat for about 6 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook until browning and all the water evaporates. 
TO ASSEMBLE:

  1. Tomato sauce
  2. Noodles
  3. Cheese 
  4. Zucchini & eggplant
  5. Mushrooms & onions
  6. Sauce
  7. Noodles
  8. Cheese 
  9. Sauce
  10. Repeat until out of ingredients
  11. You know how to layer a lasagna
  12. At least I hope you do my oh my 
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Layering…
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Ooh ooh we’re layering…
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We’re gonna do some layering…
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Ohhhh we’re done with layering
   
    This came out so well! My omnivorous dinnermates attacked it before I could even get a finished picture, and gave it a great review. I think I might make a bean-based cheese instead of a tofu-based one every time I make lasagna! 
    When I finally got to cut my own piece I AHHH WHAT’S THIS OH NO WHAT HAPPENED I RUINED IT! Look what’s in there har har!
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Oops! Do ya see it!
GIVEAWAY TRIVIA!

  1.  In another lasagna-themed “Friends” episode, why did Judy have to serve frozen lasagna at her party instead of what Monica made?
  2. What did Rachel learn when she did return the ring to her ex-fiance?
  3. What is your favorite Judy Gellar moment? Can you guess mine? (Haha that’s not fair but try!)
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Rosewater Baklava Hamantaschen for Purim: Helping Purim Beat Halloween From Here On Out

March 13, 2014
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PictureThe hamantasch uncooked; see below for cooked

I don’t even know guys. This might be the best thing ever. A random and fortuitous amalgam of happenings brought forth this little miracle unto our lives. Such happenings include: Purim being this weekend; my having recently acquired rosewater; my dislike of Halloween; my pint of poppy seeds, intended for my hamantaschen filling, having gone rancid. So lucky! Such fortuitous. 

       So, yeah, almost Purim! Purim is to Halloween what Hannukah is to Christmas. They aren’t reeeeally substitutes, but they get passed off to impressionable, sad children as replacements. (Jews don’t like Halloween ostensibly because it’s super pagan (no worship of idols!) and Catholic in its origins, but I think it’s because they don’t want their children to eat so much candy that they’d get cavities and need to see the dentist who is the son of that yenta from synagogue who brags about her son being a dentist.) It’s about when King Ahasuerus got super drunk and ordered all the young ladies to line up so he could pick his favorite to be his wife, and he picked Esther, a Jew who didn’t let on that she was a Jew, who had been raised by her uncle Mordechai, which is a name that you always have to say with the required Yiddy question mark at the end. So the king’s Jafar, named Haman, decides to kill all the Jews, but then Esther tells her hubsking, ‘Hey I’m Jewish! You can’t kill the Jews!’ and the King is all ‘Oh man you are right! Jafar Haman get thee gone! You are evil! We are going to celebrate this holiday by making delicious cookies in the shape of your three-cornered hat! I don’t know why the celebratory traditional food should be in the villain’s honor, but there we are!’ So that is Purim.
I was planning on making regular traditional poppy seed filling for my hamantaschen, but my poppy seeds were rancid. Boo and hiss! But it turned out to be $3 well wasted, because I was forced to try something new and much more interesting. I recently bought but have never used rosewater, so this was the time. The time was now. I dove into my nut drawer and came to the surface with almonds, cashews, and pistachios. Perfect! I had a sudden vision of a Middle Eastern marketplace, like a live-action version of the “Sugar dates! Sugar dates & figs! Sugar dates & pistachios!” scene from “Aladdin”, with men offering me baklava that I would have to turn down because of the honey. (I know baklava is Greek but it is also found in central and southwest Asia so BACK OFF.) I have really weird visions. So I wanted the nuts chopped roughly and cooked in a syrup. I decided to use my very old very on-the-brink Magic Bullet to chop them because I figured it was too weak and senile to do much damage. However, by some Purim miracle, the little machine suddenly got its groove back and pulverized my nuts before I could stop it. So cray. I was left with ground nuts…which actually turned out to be even better! I can’t wait to make actual baklava using this; it is RIDICULOUS.
I kind of dislike crispy or crunchy cookies; I am all about the chewy (with few exceptions). To have chewy more than crispy dough here, I had to make decisions that led to poofy dough when cooked, spreading wildly like a badass hamantasch. It’s delicious and I suggest you try it!
HAMANTASCHEN DOUGH
Ingredients:

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cups minus 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup canola oil
  • 1 cup + 2 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract

Directions: 

  1. Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
  2. Mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl or in a measuring cup. Try not to drop the full cup onto the floor as I did.
  3. Mix the dry & wet together well, and knead for a few minutes until forms a nice ball.
  4. Split in half and wrap each half in Saran wrap/clingfilm.
  5. Refrigerate for an hour.

BAKLAVA FILLING
Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup raw almonds
  • 1/4 cup raw pistachios
  • 1/4 cup raw cashews
  • 1/4 cup agave plus more if needed
  • 1.5 tablespoons rosewater
  • 4 tablespoons water
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or paste

Directions:

  1. Grind the nuts in a food processor. It can be a little chunky.
  2. In a heavy-bottomed pan, mix all ingredients over medium heat.
  3. Cook, stirring, for about 10 minutes. Let it lightly boil, and turn down if it is boiling too heavily. It should reduce greatly after 10 or so minutes and become a paste.

ASSEMBLY

  1. Take the refrigerated dough out of the fridge and let thaw for at least 30 minutes.
  2. Flour a clean surface and roll out each dough section until as thin as you can get it without it becoming flimsy. I went to about 1/4 inch thick, which is probably on the thicker side and probably why mine got so pouffy. That’s just science. The thinner you roll it, the less pouffy it will get, so decide how you want your cookies.
  3. Take a 4-5 inch circular thing, like a jar lid or a mug (or a circle cookie cutter if you are the freaking queen of England or something) and press into the dough multiple times. Like, you know how to do this.
  4. Take a tablespoon of filling and place in the middle of each circle.
  5. Fold the sides up so they meet at a point at the top, and then fold the bottom up. We are making triangles, p.s.
  6. Preheat the oven to 350F while you are folding the hats.
  7. Bake for about 15 minutes, until golden but not browning.
  8. Enjoyyy! Don’t eat 8 before they cool off like I did because you will not feel nice.

I hope you decide to try these! Happy Purim!

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I love my pretty new colorful equipment! That’s all.

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If you run out of Saran wrap like I did, use a big Ziplock!

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Sometimes you feel like a ground up nuts.

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There’s thread on the PPK about what cool things people have found at TJ Maxx & similar places. I only get cooking supplies there, like these! Vanilla paste and rosewater for a few dollahs? Hollahhh.

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“My hat is has 3 corners, 3 corners has my hat. And if it’d not 3 corners, it would not be my hat!” That’s a song of Haman’s that we learned as small jews.

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Pre cookery. The few jelly-filled ones at the back are actually filled with an Earl Grey Apricot jam, courtesy of my friend Stephanie from Swell Baked Goods in Memphis. It is sooo delicious, as is everything she makes.

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See they got pretty puffy but I like that! This is the cool way to do it. Happy day!
original comments: https://laughfrodisiac.weebly.com/my-own-creations/rosewater-baklava-hamantaschen-for-purim-helping-purim-beat-halloween-from-here-on-out#comments

Mothers Day Feast: A Feast for Mothers

August 27, 2013
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     Holidays invented by the greeting card industry have annoying origin stories, true. But they are, with the exception of Valentines Day, great excuses to spend time with loved ones and eat good food. OK, Valentines Day is fine too. I love chocolate. 

     Mothers Day in particular is special for me, because I have the best mother in the world. Seriously, I know a lot of people say that, but it’s true in my case. (Actually, scratch that…I don’t know a lot of people who say that.)

     To celebrate my mother and the other mothers at our motherloving party, I cooked an epic vegan feast. One of my favorite things about family gatherings is that I can introduce free and delicious vegan food to my very suspicious relatives. There’s nothing more rewarding to a vegan cook than to have a staunchly carnivorous grandfather not only eat your food, but enjoy it.  
READ IT ALL! 

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