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Happy Purim! Eat This Rhubarb Caramel Hamantaschen !

March 5, 2015
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     Hey it’s Purim! Last year it was better than Halloween; this year it’s better than Mardi Gras. (I learned that the latter is a more apt comparison because of the costumes or the food orrrr the time of year.) It feels like just yesterday when I shared the story of Purim on the blog. Since it would be silly to write a different version of the story, and also I’m tired, I’m going to share last year’s before we get to the new recipe. 

[Purim is] 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.
It still stands. So, I wanted my hamantaschen this year to have a fruit filling, but fruit in London is too expensive for me to waste by cooking and then putting in cookies so I used jam. In hindsight, my decision to open the fancy jar of rhubarb preserves that we bought in Paris and have been saving seems a little more extravagant than buying fruit that’s 20c more than I want to pay, but eh it’s a holiday and I’m permitted to have some errors in judgment. You can make your own jam if you want to be a baller about it but ain’t nobody got time for that. 
        This year’s batch capitalized on the coconut caramel I made for a test run of vegan Samoa (Girl Scout) cookies that didn’t get thick enough. So, not good enough for my Samoas, but perfect for this! Last year’s dough was puffier and a little sweeter. I changed up the dough a bit to make it a little denser and a little less sweet. Pick whichever you want, but I highly recommend making both fillings, last year’s rosewater baklava and this year’s rhubarb caramel. Yummm!
RHUBARB CARAMEL HAMANTASCHEN
For the dough
Ingredients:

  • 4 cups white flour
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 3 tablespoons coconut sugar
  • 3 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup canola oil
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk + 2 tablespoons
  • lemon zest from just under 1/2 lemon 

Directions:

  1. In a large mixing bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together.
  2. In a different bowl or large measuring cup (I like the cup because it’s easier to clean) mix all the wet ingredients. 
  3. Add the wet to the dry and mix really well. You can use a stand mixer for all this mixing if you are some crazy fancy person who just has everything. Or you can be awesome like me and make do without equipment like a friggin badass.
  4. Divide into 2-3 balls, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least one hour. 
  5. Thaw for 30 minutes before use.  

For the caramel
Ingredients:

  • 14 oz. coconut milk (I used 3 tablespoons coconut milk powder from the cool Indian shops on Brick Lane mixed into water. This could be why mine is runny. If you use regular coconut milk and it gets thicker let me know.)
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 tablespoons vegan margarine
  • 1/2 tablespoon arrowroot powder

Directions:

  1. Mix all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.
  2. Lower heat and let simmer uncovered for like 30-40 minutes.
  3. Remove from heat and let cool for however long you got. 

ASSEMBLY
– 1 batch above dough
– 1 batch above caramel
– 1 1/2 cups jam of choice (pick rhubarb)

  1. Preheat oven to 375F.
  2. Roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness. People like to say ‘on a floured surface’ but I like to roll on parchment paper because it’s sooo much easier to clean up. And it’s just easier. Less sticky. Do it my way. 
  3. Using a circular thing of about 3-inch diameter (glass, mug, cookie cutter, part from a small blender like I did) to cut out um circles.
  4. Place a heaping teaspoon of jam in the center of each circle. 
  5. Place 1/2 teaspoon of caramel over the jam. Fold the dough into the triangle shape immediately after placing the caramel so it doesn’t run as far. Fold by pinching the top of the circle into a point, and then pinching the bottom sides into two points. Like a triangle. Or like Haman’s hat, more accurately. 
  6. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until dough is golden brown. 
  7. Enjoy as you wonder why the celebratory food for this holiday is in memory of the villain. 

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Yes this is last year’s pic but I didn’t have a good starter and also the bowls are so much prettier.

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Balls o’ dough! And my little pink recipe book.

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Roll out your dough on parchment paper for an easier time! Also have more surface area than I do.

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My circles

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My beautiful? caramel sauce

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I put the extra sauce in a squeeze bottle because so fun!
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Guest Post!! Cauliflower Soup with Cara W. in All Her Amazingness

April 28, 2017
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Hello friends!! Today we have a guest post! How exciting is that! Did you even know we could HAVE guest blogs on Laughfrodisiac? Because I didn’t! But I like this idea – I do very little work – so if you are interested in writing a guest piece, please email me at the link at the top right corner. I do still get to write the headlines as you can see. The W stands for WIN. Anyway, today’s amazing piece comes from Cara W., a dear friend of mine who is also the best short story writer you’ll probably ever read in your entire life, so I’m a little hesitant to post this because you’ll prob be like ‘damn she is much better she should take over the site.’ And no her real name is not Alice Munro but I can see why you’d think that! 
Cara brings us her own take on a cauliflower soup recipe. Her take means she removes the garlic and tries to make up for it in other ways. I KNOW! We are very different in that regard because as you know I have eaten 5 types of garlic in one dish. But this is nice for all of my vampire readers out there. I can’t believe that I haven’t posted a recipe of my own in over a year (!!) (too busy eating at amazing restaurants?) so thanks to Cara for easing us back into this section of the site! Obviously I do not have the self-restraint to let someone else talk without me interrupting (have you MET me) (could I BE any more interrupty?) so when you see bracketed comments in italics in the body below, that’sa me! Mario! It’ll look like this [it’s me! Mario!​]. ​So thank you Cara and, readers, enjoy! 
CAULIFLOWER SOUP WITH CARA W. 
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THIS IS THE FUTURE LIBERALS WANT
​So, I am not as amazing as our fearless vegan leader and blogger, Ms. Laughfrodisiac herself, [correct she is more amazing and is also the first person to spell the site name correctly wow​] and I’ve actually never been adamantly vegan or even casually vegetarian in my life. Instead, I do the far too common thing of over-analyzing calories and obsessing over sugars versus carbs versus proteins. I fall into diet fads and once even tried to straight green juice it for a month–CLEANSE ME YOU MAGICAL GREENERY!! (This is actually a really great story that ended pretty dramatically with emergency gallbladder removal, but I digress.) [holy crap, you need to tell us this story. Next guest post?! THE DANGERS OF DETOX BULLSHIT.] The point is, I admire our blogger’s fearless dedication to do no harm and to love all around her and am often quite jealous of her food voyages and the seriously wide variety of foods she gets to experiment with. Now that she lives across the proverbial pond, I guess I sort of felt like I should try to fill Southeastern Pennsylvania’s Veganess Void by attempting to prepare the following amazing recipe for Cauliflower Soup.
I know it sounds gross. Cauliflower seems to be a divisive vegetable; my sisters despise it while my mother and I devour it. So when this recipe popped up on my Pinterest home page (or whatever you kids call it, is it a dashboard?), I just had to try it.
​I am not historically well-known for my cooking skills. In fact, until a few years ago, I despised cooking. Everything about it grossed me out and made me nervous. You mean *I* have to literally saute the onions and decide how much salt and pepper to add for spice?!?!? What happens when the onions turn black? I remember those mini-panic-attacks with fondness now. Starting in late April of 2014, after battling a nearly month long craving for buttercream frosting, I decided I’d research recipes for frosting and made some kick-tushy double chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting for a friend’s work gathering. They were the hit of the party and I basically started an obsession with cooking and baking from that moment on. 
​Cauliflower Soup really does a good service for the saying “Less is More” and also for the idea that you don’t actually need cream for a soup to taste bisque-y [lolol this is a treat for my PPKers out there. the filter will never die​]. It is FULL of flavor and also very comforting warmth for these 7 degree winter days. [WHY IS IT STILL SO COLD I AM SHIVERING CARA MAKE ME SOUP.]
Some Cara Thoughts on Carrots:
I despise carrots. I have no idea why, but starting maybe 5 years ago, I started to think that carrots taste like people. [ . . . ] I realize this makes little to no sense, and I’ve been laughed out of a number of cocktail party conversations by bringing this bizarre personal, uh, quirk to light, but hey, I swear to you: If people were a thing that people ate, I like, am 99.8907% certain the dish would be a little carrot-y tasting. I know it’s weird, but I tend to avoid carrots in all forms, and am particularly frightened of them in their cooked form, so uh, it’s weird that I decided to make this recipe, as there are cooked carrots. BONUS: you really can’t taste them.
​
​Some Cara Thoughts on Garlic:
Call me Edward Cullen, but I actually hate garlic, too. I know, I know, you’re probably thinking, “Cara, how could you study abroad in Italy and hate garlic?” or the more common, “Cara, how can you possibly enjoy good food if you hate garlic?” but here’s my stock response: whatever you love about garlic, I guarantee I can create with a nice mix of sweet onions, shallots, and fresh spring onions. (Seriously guys, garlic is icky. It tastes like burnt. And it makes me breathe fire. Can’t we just move on from this? Call it a fad (of the past million centuries)? Bring on some more varieties of onions? Eh?) [BUT I LOVE FIREBREATHING​.]
​
​When I wanted to make this recipe, I asked my mom to grab some of the ingredients from the store. She didn’t. I found out why: my mom had read the recipe all the way through, and it requires a food processor. We do not have one of those new fangled machines, so Sheila, in all her wisdom, just didn’t buy any of the ingredients for the soup and also didn’t explain to me why. [LOL Sheila this is amazing.​] [Also I don’t have a food processor either! I make do with the good blender and with the little crappy 1/2 cup processor bowl that comes with the immersion blender.​]
​
While at the store, I learned that coconut oil is very expensive [Indian grocery stores for the win!], and also that my locally owned grocery store (with a checkered past, one of its founders was murdered several years ago and the crime remains UNSOLVED, it’s like all we have for intrigue around these parts) sees it as reasonable to put coconut milk in like 102398098 different locations throughout the establishment. Which I guess is good for disorganized shoppers (like me) but also confusing for others, especially those who want to price compare because MAN is there a disparity between Goya’s coconut milk and the Thai label coconut milk. Sheesh. Marketing.
CAULIFLOWER SOUP 
Inspired by ​http://shrinkingkitchen.com/creamy-cauliflower-soup/ 
Ingredients:

  • ​1 large head of cauliflower
  • 1 tablespoon coconut oil
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 2 large carrots, diced
  • 1 tbsp of jarred SHALLOTS
  • 1 bunch of diced spring onions
  • 3 cups water
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1/2 cup coconut milk (unsweetened)
Instructions: 

  1. Wash and core the cauliflower. Although Cara did not core her cauliflower, because she had no idea what that meant. It did not affect the turnout.
  2. Heat a large pot over medium-high heat and add the oil, then add the onions, carrots, and onion-y deliciousness that is standing in for garlic. Cook and stir with a wooden spoon about five minutes, until they’re soft and golden. I did not use a wooden spoon, and, still, the soup came out delicious. 
  3. Add the cauliflower and cook until it starts to brown. Please note, seriously the cauliflower isn’t going to BROWN really, it’s cauliflower. Just don’t burn it. I trust you will know when it’s time to add the water. You’re not dumb. 
  4. Add the water and bring to a boil. Then reduce to a simmer, and cover, and cook until the vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.
  5. Add in coconut milk, sea salt, and pepper.
  6. Puree soup in a high speed blender or with an immersion blender. 
Despite the hilarious thirty minute attempt my sister and I had at reassembling an old food processor, neither she nor I could actually make it happen. We did try though. So instead I just poured the mixture into the blender, hit puree, and the rest is history. Everyone in my family adored this soup and right now I am craving more. No, seriously. I’m going to hit “send” and then heat up my leftover bowl. OMG THIS SOUP.
 
Yay Vegans. Yay soup. YAY! [yay!​]
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