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On a recent trip that took us through Scranton, PA, I had an awesome dish that the menu called “Lebanese Fried Rice.” It was brown rice, chickpeas, walnuts, and some vegetables, and it was a perfect lunch. I loved it, and thought that it would make a simple, hearty side dish for the blog, though I thought I’d alter it a bit for my own tastes.
So here’s my take on that dish. It would be a great side dish with any protein or with a salad. The original salad had red bell peppers in it, but I’m not a big fan of them, so I left them out here. This dish does contain walnuts. You could leave them out, but it is a major flavor component and the dish would be a bit bland without.
Mediterranean Fried Rice
Mediterranean Fried Rice
1 cup walnut pieces
1 bunch of scallions, sliced finely, green and whites separated
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 can or 16 oz. cooked chickpeas
3 cups cooked and cooled brown rice (I use brown jasmine rice for almost everything)
1/4-1/2 teaspoon salt, to taste
2 cups chopped spinach
In a skillet over medium heat, toast the walnuts. Don’t leave them — I burn so many nuts this way. Wait until they become fragrant, and then remove them from the heat. Reserve to the side.
Add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and the white parts of the scallions to the skillet. Cook over medium heat about 2 minutes. Then add the chickpeas, stirring well.
Finally, add the rice. Stir well and add another 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil — you want a light coat of olive oil over the whole dish.
Cook for 3-5 minutes, until the rice is heated through. Add the rest of the scallions* and the spinach, along with the salt. Stir well, and cook until the spinach is wilted.
Serve topped with the walnuts.
*If you like a stronger onion flavor, reserve half the green bits to add raw, when serving.
This is one of those areas where Denise and I diverge — neither of us is allergic to fish, but I love tuna, and she hates it. Conversely, she loves haddock, and I, eh, can’t get excited about it. If you’re pro-tuna, this might be your recipe.
The first time I had tuna — and liked it — was when I was in Greece in college. The whole experience was amazing, and so was the food. I had a simple salad one day, when I wasn’t feeling great and wanted something light. It was just lettuce, with canned tuna in oil and a few tomatoes. So simple, but so amazing. It was such a difference from the mayo-covered tuna salads I’d seen growing up, and it opened me up to tuna.
I first tried fresh tuna in sushi, and it’s still one of my favorites. But ordering tuna at a restaurant made me consider making it at home. Once you get more used to not cooking it all the way through (that dries it out!), it is SUPER EASY and seems pretty fancy.
This dish actually came out of leftover seared tuna. Normally, I make tuna for just me, as an occasional indulgence. But my grocery store was having a sale on some great-looking frozen tuna steaks, so I thought I’d give it a whirl as a mid-week dinner for me and my boyfriend. I cooked the fish and served it with steamed asparagus and bamboo rice — it was quick and easy, even though I got home late that night.
I overshot the amount of fish I needed, though. I’ve never had a leftover tuna steak before! Turns out, fresh tuna also makes an amazing salad. THAT is the recipe you’re getting today. But feel free to just buy too much fish for one dinner and make this salad the next day. Just scale the marinade up.
This recipe serves ONE. Scale up appropriately.
Seared Tuna Salad with unmixed dressing
Tuna Steak Salad
1/3 lb. tuna steak, about 1 1/4 inch thick (the exact amount of tuna is up to you! But if your steak is substantially thicker or thinner, adjust your cooking time accordingly)
Marinade
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar (look for unsweetened, unseasoned, for the most flexible version)
If your fish is vacuum-packed, slit the packaging before you defrost it (put it on a plate first, of course) in the fridge. I usually take it out the night before and give it the night and day in the fridge.
Marinate the fish for about 20 minutes, 10 minutes per side. If I’m serving the fish with rice, this is about the perfect cooking time for rice. The fish takes about 5 minutes to cook, so get everything else ready before you start the cooking.
The salad is easy — steam the asparagus, heap it and the greens on a plate. Make the dressing by mixing all the ingredients together with a whisk or fork — taste and adjust the seasonings as needed. If you are using salted pumpkin seeds, you won’t need more salt. If you aren’t, you might want a dash of salt at the end.
Heat a well-seasoned cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until it is good and hot. You are going to sear the fish quickly, so make sure the pan is hot. If it’s a well-seasoned pan, you won’t need to add more oil.
Sear the first side of the fish. For cooking steaks an inch and a quarter thick, 3 minutes the first side and 2 minutes the second should be about perfect. Baste it with the marinade right before you flip it. Because tuna changes color as it cooks, you can watch the fish to get the timing correct — watch the cooking up the side and flip it when it’s cooked about 1/4 of the way through. Then take it off when it’s 1/4 of the way through the other side. The center of your fish should be warm, but pink. That is perfect tuna.
Add the tuna to the salad, sprinkle the salad with pumpkin seeds, and drizzle on the dressing.
I don’t know if we’ve ever mentioned it, but Denise and I do have a plan for the blog. We have a calendar and recipes we’re working on, and sometimes what is on the calendar finds its way on to the blog on the day we scheduled it. Often, though, we’re working on things and they just aren’t ready to go when the calendar says. We have some exciting things in the works right now, but this week, you’re getting a quick, simple, but amazing weeknight dinner.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had found, tried, and lovedthis stovetop-to-oven method of cooking pork chops. I have messed with it a few times, and want to share my version of the recipe as I think it’s turned out great. These pork chops are juicy and flavorful, with an unusual (to me, at least) but subtle spice flavor to them. They are, even with the brining, a meal quick enough to make on a weeknight for dinner. And the meat is so juicy that they reheat well OR make a great sandwich the next day.
The spice blend in here is inspired by what I remember of a homemade chai recipe I made a few times years ago. It’s the reason I bought star anise in the first place. I never made chai with actual peppercorns, but this is a savory dish, so it suits — I’ve done this with regular and Sichuan peppercorns, and both work well.
Chai-spice brined pork chops
For brine:
1 cup boiling water
2 Tablespoons salt (I used kosher salt here)
2 whole star anise (or pieces to make up about 2 whole)
3 whole cardamom pods, smashed to open the pod (but not crush the seeds)
1 2-inch cinnamon stick
2 pinches whole cloves (about 6-8)
1 pinch whole peppercorns (about 4-6)
2 cups cold water
2 bone-in pork chops, about 3/4″ thick (I used center cut, as that’s what looked good)
Take the pork chops out of the fridge and let them rest at room temp while you make the brine. You will need a baking dish or something comparable to brine the chops. Lay them out in a single layer in the pan.
Put all the spices (salt through peppercorns) into a heat-safe container. I use a Pyrex measuring cup. Bring your water to a boil and pour 1 cup over all the spices and salt. Stir to dissolve the salt, and let it steep for 5 minutes. Add the two cups of cold water.
Pour the spice “tea” over the chops. You are aiming for room temperature brine, and your chops should be covered completely. Add more water to make this happen, if needed. Leave all the spices floating.
Let the chops brine for 30 minutes to an hour. According to the original recipe, you can brine them for up to four hours (in the fridge), but I’ve not tried this.
When your chops are brined, turn the oven up to 400ºF, with a cast iron skillet on the middle rack. When the oven is up to temperature, carefully remove the skillet and put it over medium-high heat on the stovetop.
Remove the chops from the brine and pat them dry. Season with salt and pepper — but remember the brine was salty, so don’t go overboard with the salt.
Carefully add the chops. Brown 3-5 minutes on one side, getting good browning, but not burning the chops. This may cause smoke, so be ready, but it’s worth the hassle.
Flip the chops and immediately put them in the pre-heated oven. Bake for 6-8 minutes, aiming for an internal temperature of about 142ºF. Remove them to rest for 5 minutes. You want your final temperature to be 145ºF, but remember that they keep cooking while resting, so don’t overshoot.
I served mine with simple boiled broccoli and sweet potatoes I’d thrown in the oven earlier to roast. If you want to do a side dish in the oven, consider turning it on and starting the side(s) while the pork chops brown. This is an excellent use of the brining time.
Enjoy the subtle spice flavors in your perfectly cooked pork chops.
The problem with chocolate chip cookies? Everyone likes them differently. Some people like them soft, others chewy, some crunchy. This is why there are a billion recipes out there. And when your recipe no longer works for you, you might try 5 recipes and still be disappointed. Because “just like Mom made” may not be YOUR mom’s recipe. Or YOUR perfect recipe.
So I’ll tell you what I was aiming for in this recipe and you can decide if that’s what you’re looking for before you start measuring.
The Ryan perfect chocolate chip cookie should be crunchy on the edges, softer and puffier in the middle, but not underdone or actually soft. SoftER, but still with a good crumb. I believe my mother’s cookie recipe was an altered version of the classic Tollhouse recipe, tweaked until it was perfect for our family — or, rather, perfect for my dad. The man used to eat about a dozen cookies as they came out of the oven, usually burning his mouth at least a few times. These cookies are great for dunking, and another thing I learned from my dad (after “don’t eat hot cookies if you don’t want to burn yourself”) is that cookies dunked in coffee are an excellent morning treat. These don’t spread out as much as my mother’s did, but they do get the texture right.
Key to getting this texture is a trick I learned from my friend Corianne who runs a vegan bakery in Phoenix, Arizona: Treehouse. If you’re in Phoenix, check it out. Anyway, the trick is to freeze the cookie balls before baking. It adds another 30-45 minutes to the process but it is so worth it in terms of payoff.
Dough, Prep for Freezing, Prep for Baking.
NOTES ON INGREDIENTS:
Since I’ve fussed with this recipe more than almost any other recipe on this blog, I have some very specific notes on what has worked and what hasn’t.
The two major ingredients are measured by weight — I hope you have a kitchen scale if you’re trying to do gluten-free baking. It really is necessary, and you can get a decent one for under $20.
For ALL of your ingredients, I hope it goes without saying that you need to source what’s safe for you.
For “shortening,” I’ve used Spectrum shortening. Feel free to use a vegan shortening, vegan butter, or, if you aren’t vegan, another fat or shortening of your choice. I’ve done these with soy-free Earth Balance, but because if it’s really low melting point (it’s really soft at room temperature), the cookies are flatter and crispier, so reduce the baking time by a few minutes. Actually, if you mess with anything, watch your baking time. If you really like a buttery flavor, I’d suggest half margarine and half shortening as a compromise.
For the flour mix, I’m using Cara’s Gluten-Free Flour Mix. Still. Nothing else I’ve tried has worked as well. Sorghum flour is great — I am particular about sourcing, and I buy Authentic Foods sorghum flour and super-fine brown rice flour.
Sugar. I know my mom’s recipe used both white and brown sugars. I ran out of brown sugar while trying this recipe and subbed in the molasses and white sugar and I liked the flavor better, so I kept it.
Last, but not least, chocolate chips. I’ve used Enjoy Life chocolate chips for a while now, but I can never find regular-sized chips and don’t always want mini chips. I did use the mini-chips here, and I use a scant measurement of the mini chips so that they spread out better. I also recently discovered Equal Exchange chocolate chips and I’m a fan. I used this in a lot of the test versions of this recipe, but I’m out at the moment. As far as I know, neither of these brands is corn-safe, as corn is used the processing of the chips and generally isn’t on the label. If you have corn allergies and have a safe chocolate brand, tell us in the comments?
1 cup (or just under, if mini chips) chocolate chips
With a mixer, cream the shortening, sugar, and molasses. When it’s nice and creamy, add the aquafaba and the vanilla and mix well.
Separately, mix the flour, salt, soda, powder.
Add the flour mix to the shortening mix slowly, and mix well. The dough will be pretty stiff, pulling together and way from the sides of the bowl.
Mix in the chocolate chips by hand. I find a rubber or silicone spatula works best for this.
Now portion out the cookies on a tray lined with parchment or a silicone baking sheet and pop it in the freezer. Since I don’t have room in my freezer for two trays, I just put the cookie balls close together to freeze, and then space them out onto two trays for baking.
Pre-heat the oven to 375ºF.
When the cookies are frozen (30-45 minutes in my freezer), space them out to give about 2 inches of space around each cookie ball, on the lined baking sheet, and bake 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. Cool completely — I tend to just drag the liner from the tray to the rack and leave it. This is me being lazy, but it’s also a good way to deal with the fragility of gluten-free, vegan baked goods.
My friend Laurie sent me the sample packet of Anti-Grain flours for my birthday, and the first thing that came to mind for apple flour (which is literally just dehydrated apples — an easy ingredient list to tackle) was pancakes. I love pancakes. Denise did pancakes a while back, but I thought pancakes with an apple flour base would be a nice change of pace.
I also wondered if aquafaba (chickpea brine) as an egg replacer might make a lighter, fluffier pancake, than chia or flax eggs. I tried it, but wasn’t thrilled with the results — I mean, it tasted great, but the texture wasn’t what I wanted. So I whipped the brine, which made all the difference. Admittedly, this adds an extra step and an extra bowl to your pancake adventure. As much as I hate dishes (and I don’t own a dishwasher), this extra bowl is worth it.
I’ve used a mix of oat flour and sorghum flour. If you cannot tolerate gluten-free oats, use all sorghum.
Apple Cinnamon Gluten-Free Vegan Pancakes
serves 4
1/2 cup gluten-free oat flour (can sub sorghum, if you can’t tolerate oats)
1/4 cup apple flour
1/4 cup sorghum flour
1 Tablespoon tapioca starch
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons oil (I prefer the flavor of coconut, but use what works for you)
1 cup non-dairy milk (I generally use almond)
1/2 cup of whipped aquafaba foam (chickpea brine whipped into an airy foam)
Oil for the skillet or pan
Whisk the dry ingredients together.
Add the oil and non-dairy milk and whisk.
Fold in the aquafaba foam.
Heat the skillet or pan over medium heat and lightly oil it. Pour batter in , about 2 Tablespoons at a time. About like this:
(That’s a 12-inch cast iron skillet, for reference).
When the pancake is slightly dry at the edges, that is usually when you can flip it. I’d give you cooking times, but it seems to vary so much from batch to bath that it’s better to look for doneness. If you want to make all the pancakes and keep them warm, put them in a pan in a low (200ºF) oven to keep them warm.
This makes about 4 servings, depending on how hungry you are. I’m really not sure what a “proper” serving of pancakes is — enough that you’re not hungry when you’re done, I suppose. Top with whatever butter or margarine is safe for you, and maple syrup, if you can have it. Jam is also quite nice on pancakes.
IF you have leftover pancakes, these reheat well, and also taste pretty great cold.
I occasionally want to use rice milk in cooking, but I really dislike all the commercial rice milks that I’ve tried. I find them thin and flavorless. But in trying to use up some leftover rice, I discovered that by adjusting the amount of water (and using really good rice, I could make a thick, almost cream-like rice milk that worked pretty well in baking. I still don’t really like rice milk for drinking — there’s something sort of “dry” about the flavor. That’s odd, I know, but that’s the best description I can come up with.
Anyway, any time I’m making rice and think I’ll have time for rice milk later in the week, I make a cup or two extra. It doesn’t take that much longer in the rice cooker. I’ll take the leftover rice and let it soak in mason jars overnight, and then blend it up the next day. If you strain it, it’s nice and smooth (depending on what you want to use it for, consider not straining it. It seems to add some bulk to bread and cake unstrained, but none of those recipes are blog-ready, I’m still playing.) But I hate throwing out the pulp and wondered if I could season it and make crackers out of it.
It worked! But they really have more of a chip texture than a cracker, so I’m calling these chips. I did these in the dehydrator, but if you don’t have one, I’m guessing that doing this on low in the oven would work. The times I’ve given will be wrong, though. I didn’t try this because I’ve not made them yet this summer when it was cool enough to want to use the oven. You can also use whatever seasoning you like, but I don’t really recommend a salt-free one. Those turned out really bland. I tried a bunch of the seasonings in my kitchen, and I’ve listed what I liked best.
On rice: I use a brown jasmine rice I buy in large bags at the Asian market in Nashua. Brown jasmine is my “all-purpose” rice at this point in time. It’s likely that the brown rice adds to the leftover pulp, so I would suggest using brown rice for this. But if you try it with a white rice — or something else, please let us know in the comments. You do get rice cream (which is easily thinned down to rice milk) and crackers out of this, so it’s a 2-for-1 recipe.
I did not give an exact number of chips, as it’s come out a little different each time for me, despite all attempts to create stringent measurements. Since this is basically a way to use up something you’d throw out otherwise, maybe a little uncertainty is okay?
Fill a quart mason jar with the rice, lightly packing it in. Fill the jar with water. Put it in the fridge overnight. I’m not 100% sure it needs to be refrigerated, but better safe than sorry. The rice will soak up a lot of this water, and I think it makes a smoother milk.
Empty the water and about half the rice from the jar into your blender. Add a cup of water and blend. If you need more water, add it, but your goal is to blend the smoothest rice milk with the least amount of water here. You will need more, but add it gradually
Repeat with the other half of the rice, but add about 1 1/2 cups of water to begin, as you don’t have leftover soaking water.
Now strain the rice milk through a fine sieve. Keep stirring the mush to drain as much milk as possible out of the rice pulp.
I usually get about a quart of rice cream out of this.
With the leftover pulp, drop in about 1 Tablespoon blobs onto the fruit roll trays of your dehydrator (or onto a cookie sheet if you’re trying the oven). Sprinkle generously with seasoning.
Run the dehydrator at 155ºF for 9 hours, and check to see if your chips are crispy. They may need a little more time when it’s humid out. Lock these up in an airtight container to keep.
Being allergic to foods that are staples of the Standard American Diet can mean that road trips are, well, a little sad. But not going on a road trip would be more sad. So thinking about road trips like setting out for the western frontier (or, in this case, Vermont, which is to the west) means that with a plan and a cooler (and a hotel chosen partly for the microwaves and mini-fridges in each room), means “yay! Road trip!” I admit that I really miss finding awesome, off-beat restaurants in new cities. Now, if I plan to eat out, I check ahead and carefully read menus. That’s hard to do when you don’t know where you’ll be for lunch. So, again, the cooler and the meal plan.
Hummus is a great road trip food. I’m a little bored of chickpea hummus, the standard, and I had time (and a plan) to make my own. I was going to make a black bean hummus I’d forgotten about — but in planning the grand meal plan, I forgot to see if I had black beans in the house. Oops.
I did have cannellini beans. And I have not yet killed my fresh herbs on the deck — I have chocolate mint, thyme, and oregano, and my neighbor is growing basil. Oregano and basil made me think of pizza, so I went that direction. Instead of tahini, I’ve used cashews, as I thought their more neutral flavor would be good with this combination. I think tahini would likely be okay (and make it nut-free), so if you make it that way, let us know in the comments how it turned out.
White Bean Pizza Hummus
White Bean Pizza Hummus
1/4 cup raw cashew pieces (yes, you can use whole. The pieces are usually cheaper, though.)
1/2 teaspoon chopped garlic (more, up to 1 teaspoon, if you want a prominent garlic flavor. Roasted garlic would also be excellent here, but I’m currently out.)
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
1 can (15 oz.) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (Save the liquid!)
5 large fresh basil leaves, rinsed
about 1 Tablespoon of fresh oregano leaves, rinsed
pinch of fennel seeds, crushed
2 Tablespoons good quality olive oil, plus more to drizzle on top
In a food processor fitted with the S-blade, add the cashews and puree. They will not quite turn into nut butter (you’d need a little oil), but let them go until they are almost there.
Add the garlic and tomato paste and pulse it in.
Add the beans and puree the mix.
Add the basil, oregano, fennel seed, and olive oil and run until everything is smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Transfer to a serving bowl or storage container and drizzle olive oil over the top — just a bit will help keep the hummus from drying out. Unlike in the photos, swirl it around so that it coats the top — I just wanted better photos, so I didn’t do that until I was done.
Serve with crackers, chips, or veggies of your choice.
Okay, full disclosure: This isn’t really ice cream. There’s no cream. There’s no eggs. That’s what makes it vegan. And it’s a little lighter and less creamy and heavy than ice cream. So I should really call it “strawberry frozen dessert.” But frankly, that’s awkward, and if you’re playing in the cooking realms of “vegan” and “allergy-friendly,” you’re used to substitutes, so you know what I mean.
YOU DON’T NEED AN ICE CREAM MAKER! I have one. It’s great. But this is a quicker and easier and doesn’t require as much planning ahead. This is much easier with a stand mixer, but if you’re patient (or have someone who will spell you with the hand mixer), you can do this without one. I would not try it without any mixer at all, though. Electricity is your friend, here.
The key “secret” ingredient in this dish is aquafaba or “bean juice.” It’s the stuff you drain out of the can of beans before using them, and I’ve raved about it before on the blog. If you cannot eat canned beans, or would just prefer to make your own, try this recipe posted by noted cookbook author Bryanna Clark Grogan on the Vegan Meringues FB page. You need half a cup here, but I’m sure you can find 100 other uses for it (I have). Aquafaba acts as an egg replacer, specifically egg whites, and can be whipped into an incredible meringue, which is what you start with here. You’ll make the whipped base and the flavor base, and then fold them together and freeze. That’s it!
In order to get the fat content up and add a little tang and creaminess, I have used vegan cream cheese. I know this can be a problematic ingredient for those with multiple food allergies — I use Daiya brand, as I have no issues with it. I was perfectly happy with Tofutti when I could still eat soy, and I assume that would work here, too. The Daiya contains coconut oil, so it’s not entirely nut-free. I believe Tofutti is. Choose what works for you. If you make a homemade version of cream cheese that works for you, share it with us in the comments.
Stiff whipped aquafaba foam, foam and strawberry blend, ice cream in the making
Vegan, Soy-free Strawberry Ice Cream
1/2 cup aquafaba (liquid drained from a can of beans. Any beans! I used cannellini beans here)
4 Tablespoons sugar, divided in half
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup strawberry puree
2 1/2 Tablespoons vegan cream cheese (check the ingredients!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Into a very clean bowl (any traces of fat will interfere with the whipping, I understand, just like with egg whites), add the aquafaba. Beat until you achieve stiff peaks. This can take up to 10 minutes, so be patient.
Slowly add 2 Tablespoons of sugar, while you continue beating, and then the cream of tartar.
If you’re using a stand mixer and have only one bowl, empty the foam into another bowl and reuse the mixer bowl. If you’re using a hand mixer, just get another bowl. Beat the cream cheese, strawberries, and vanilla until smooth.
Fold the strawberry mixture into the aquafaba foam using a large spoon or spatula. Don’t stir. Fold. You will lose some of the air you’ve just whipped into the foam, but that’s okay. You just don’t want to lose all of it. When the mixture is fully incorporated, pour into a freezer-safe container and freeze at least 2 hours, maybe more depending on the size and shape of your container(s). This will never be as dense as “normal” ice cream, but it will take on a nice texture, distinct from the original unfrozen mousse.
