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And this is take two on cherries for our President’s day theme. Cherries go with chocolate. And there’s a place in Concord, New Hampshire that sells a pastry called Bread & Chocolate that I’ve been trying to replicate since the dairy allergy diagnosis, so I decided to add cherries to the mix this time. This is like a jelly roll, except instead of cake and jelly or cream, you have bread and chocolate and cherries. Although I’ve tagged a warning, just to be clear, this recipe contains wheat and gluten, and I’ve written it to be used with a bread machine.
Bread and Chocolate with Cherries
1/4 cup of warm water (between 70ºF and 85ºF)
3/4 cup of a milk alternative product of your choice (I used homemade oat milk)
1 Tablespoon of Ener-G egg replacer, mixed with 6 Tablespoons of warm water
1 1/4 teaspoons of salt
1/3 cup and 1 teaspoon of dark brown sugar, packed firmly
1/4 cup of shortening or Earth Balance Soyfree Natural Buttery Spreads
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
4 cups of bread flour
2 1/2 teaspoons of bread machine yeast
1 cup of Dole frozen Dark Sweet Cherries, chopped
1 cup of Enjoy Life Mini Chocolate chips
2 Tablespoons of melted Earth Balance Soyfree Natural Buttery Spreads
Sunbeam Bread Machine
Using my nicely inexpensive Sunbeam bread machine, add first three ingredients in order as listed to the bread machine pan. Then add the salt, brown sugar, shortening, cinnamon and flour to the bread machine pan, heaping the flour in a pile.
Using a spoon, make a little indentation that you can put the yeast in, and then add the yeast.
Ingredients in Bread Pan with Yeast in Indentation on Top
Set your bread machine menu to just make dough. When its ready it should look something like this:
Completed Dough in Bread Pan
Preheat oven to 375°F. Spread a little flour on your very clean counter top or on your dough mat, and dump dough on mat or counter. Make sure you remove the paddle if it falls out of the bread pan. Roll out dough using a rolling pin to a rectangular shape approximately 12 by 18 inches.
Dough rolled to a rectangular shape
Once you have rolled the dough to the correct shape, spread your chopped cherries over the surface.
Dough with Cherries Spread over Surface
Then sprinkle the mini chocolate chips over the surface of the dough.
Chocolate Chips and Cherries Spread over Surface of Dough
Taking a small amount of water, dip fingers in water and run them around the edges of the dough to help it seal when you roll it up. Take one edge of the shorter side and begin to roll it up, making sure that you seal up the edges as you go, and that the final seam is sealed by pressing the wet edges to the dough. Carefully place the roll with the seam on the bottom on the pan you will bake it on.
Completed Bread Roll
Taking the melted Earth Balance, brush it over the surface of the dough.
Brushing Melted Earth Balance over Bread Roll
Let dough rise for about an hour and half, until it nearly doubles in size.
Bread Roll After Rising
Place in oven preheated to 375°F, and bake for 30-35 minutes. If you rolled your rectangle out a bit too wide, you’ll get the bent shape I did after baking 🙂
Baked Bread Roll
Let cool for 30 minutes or more and then cut slices. Enjoy!
Can’t Tell a Lie Cherry and Chocolate Chip Quick Bread
You know how hard it is to find a food theme for President’s Day? It’s hard. Which is why I’m using cherries out of desperation, even though I was a history major and I know that story about George Washington and the cherry tree is a crock. Despite that I decided to do it up, and make two versions of a chocolate and cherry bread dish that could be breakfast and dessert. This one is gluten free, and doesn’t have all that pesky rising and all that. I couldn’t find fresh cherries, so I used frozen ones, and was surprised at the blue tones I got in the finished dish. It’s almost like it had blueberries in it. In any case, since I’m not one who has to be gluten free, and since I’m not a gluten free baking genius, I started with a recipe from the gluten-free goddess®, and modified it a bit.
Can’t Tell a Lie Cherry and Chocolate Chip Quick Bread
1 cup of sorghum flour
1 cup of tapioca starch
1/2 cup of millet flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
3/4 teaspoon of xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 cup of dark brown sugar, firmly packed.
1 cup of applesauce
1/3 cup of Canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons of Ener-G egg replacer, mixed with 3 Tablespoons of water
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 cup of Dole frozen Dark Sweet Cherries, chopped
1/2 cup of Enjoy Life Mini Chocolate chips
9 inch loaf pan
parchment paper
Preheat your oven to 350°, and line the loaf pan with parchment paper so that you can lift the loaf out of the pan in order to cool it.
Loaf Pan Lined with Parchment Paper
Place sorghum flour, tapioca starch, millet flour, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl (I used my KitchenAid stand mixer). Whisk together these ingredients until they are completely mixed. Add the brown sugar and whisk it into the other ingredients.
Now add the applesauce, oil, Ener-G mixture, and vanilla, and beat to combine and then continue beating the mixture on medium high until the batter is smooth.
Fold in the cherries and chocolate chips by hand with a spatula.
Folding in Cherries and Chocolate ChipsCompleted Batter
Pour batter into the parchment lined loaf pan, scraping down the sides of the bowl and smoothing out the top of the loaf.
Batter in Parchment Lined Loaf Pan
Bake for approximately 65 to 75 minutes or until you can insert a tooth pick and it comes back clean, except if you hit a chocolate chip and you have chocolate chip goo. If this happens, try again in a different place.
Baked Loaf in Parchment Lined Pan
Once done, let the loaf cool for 15 minutes or so, and then use the parchment paper to lift the loaf out of the pan and onto a wire rack. Peel down the sides of the parchment paper and let the loaf cool.
Baked Loaf on Wire Rack with Parchment Peeled Down
Once cooled to down to slightly warm, slice yourself a piece and enjoy!
Slice of Can’t Tell a Lie Cherry and Chocolate Quick Bread
So this isn’t the post that was originally supposed to be here. I was supposed to have concocted this wonderful braised pork chop recipe, but Winter Storm Nemo happened and shot my plans to go to the grocery store to hell. I tried to make a go of it with what I had in the apartment, and it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t worthy of you all. So then I was left to find something else to do at the last minute. And what else do people do when there’s no food, and you don’t feel like cooking? Microwave popcorn. Except for those of us that are dairy free, there’s no microwave popcorn that we can buy without milk or milk derivatives in it. So, the internet to the rescue! I can’t remember where I found the link on how to cook popcorn in a paper lunch bag in the microwave, but I want to thank them fervently.
Also, for those of you who are Valentine’s Day abstainers, popcorn is a good thing to have while you do a movie marathon to ignore the fact that the rest of the planet is participating in a corporate-manufactured holiday.
Basic Microwave Popcorn
⅓ c of popping corn
½ tsp of canola oil
¼ tsp of Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, or Penzey’s 4/S salt.
1 paper lunch bag
1 piece of tape (optional) or a plastic clip like these from Pampered Chef
Variations:
Cajun – Replace seasoned salt with 1/4 tsp Penzey’s Spicy 4/S Salt, or Slap Ya Mama Cajun Seasoning to taste. If your Cajun Seasoning does not have salt, leave the seasoned salt in the basic recipe in as well.
Cheez – Add 1-2 Tablespoons of nutritional yeast to the basic recipe.
Ranch – Add 1 Tablespoon of nutritional yeast, and a dash of each of the following: garlic powder, onion powder, basil, dill weed, and red pepper flakes to the basic recipe.
Curry – Add 1/4 teaspoon Garam Masala, and 1/4 teaspoon of curry powder to the basic recipe. If you want to add some heat, add a dash of cayenne pepper.
Open paper lunch bag. Add the popcorn kernels and all the seasonings to the bag. Add the oil, and then hold the bag closed and shake quickly to distribute oil and seasoning around popcorn kernels. Either fold the top of the bag over twice, use tape, or the clip to seal the bag tightly. Put the bag in the microwave on its side. Because all microwaves are different and everyone has figured out the optimum time to nuke microwave popcorn without burning it, try it at your normal setting and see if that works, and adjust the time as needed. In my microwave, it takes 1 minute 45 seconds to pop the popcorn without burning it. Shake the bag after taking it out of the microwave and dump the popcorn in a bowl, shaking any seasonings left in the paper bag out over the popcorn.
This would really work with any combination of seasonings you want to try. Let us know how any experiments you do work out. Enjoy!
All the Single People!
And for those who are single or anti-holiday, whatever your reason, here’s Mary Kate’s current V-Day At Home Alone, currently available via streaming Netflix, movie night plan:
It’s winter, so it’s already dark when you get home, late, hungry. and cold. There’s probably some sandwich stuff in the fridge, and there’s cereal, but again, it’s cold. And you’re hungry. NOW.
You need this soup.
In about 15 minutes, with very minimal effort, you have fresh wondrous HOT satisfying soup.
This Is How Easy Dinner Can Be
Black Bean Soup
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can of tomatoes, either chopped or crushed, with seasonings if you like
1 cup of frozen corn
1 small can of tomato juice or V8 (I use low sodium V8) OR about 6 oz of water
1-2 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
pinch of cayenne or dash of hot sauce
Mix in sauce pan, heat. That takes about 10 minutes. Eat.
The basic recipe is so easy that it’s possible to easily dress this up, but the basic recipe is excellent and all the ingredients are shelf-stable, so you can always have them on hand.
Other potential add-ins before cooking: 1/4 teaspoon oregano, a cube or two of frozen cilantro (or fresh, if you have it), leftover cooked rice, leftover cooked sweet potato, leftover shredded or cubed chicken.
Potential toppers for after cooking: crush a handful of tortilla chips on top, add some sliced avocado before serving, add some fresh chopped cilantro, or sprinkle on some shredded cheese, vegan or not.
Oh, oatmeal, you’re not pretty, but you are oh so good.
Breakfast is, as people love to say, the most important meal of the day. It also takes place before I’m fully awake. Basically, I feel way more awesome each day if I eat breakfast. But if breakfast isn’t stupid easy — I’m talking pretty much fireproof — I put it off, start work, and wonder why I’m falling asleep cranky at 10 am.
So oatmeal is a great breakfast. But making it from scratch is more than I’m capable of in the mornings. And instant oatmeal is good in a pinch, but rather lacking overall. The solution is overnight oatmeal.
This is more of a concept than a recipe, but I’ll give you my favorite options and some other ideas.
Basic Overnight Oatmeal
Mix equal parts regular (not instant) oats and non-dairy milk in saucepan or spill-proof, microwave-safe travel container. Then add another 1-2 Tablespoons of non-dairy milk — more if you like thin oatmeal, less if you like it thick. Put in fridge overnight. In morning, heat up. Eat.
It may take you a little testing to figure out how much oatmeal you need for a good breakfast. For me, 1/3 cup oatmeal works pretty well, so long as I add some nuts and fruit. Here are a few of my favorite recipes:
Perfect Oatmeal
1/3 cup steel-cut oats
1/2 cup almond milk
1/4 teaspoon good cinnamon*
1 teaspoon maple sugar or maple syrup
1 Tablespoon almond flour or ground almonds
2 Tablespoons dried cherries (you could chop these, but I leave them whole)
Mix all ingredients in a leak-proof container, throw in bag on the way out the door, and microwave at work. 2-3 minutes on high works for most microwaves. Perfect.
*A note on cinnamon — there are actually a ton of varieties of cinnamon. If you’ve never experimented with them, oatmeal is a PERFECT canvas. My personal favorite for this is China Tung Hing cinnamon.
Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal
1/2 cup oats, not instant
1 1/2 Tablespoons canned pumpkin
2 teaspoons rice protein powder or ground nuts
1 Tablespoon dried cranberries
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 Tablespoon mini allergen-free chocolate chips (optional)
1 teaspoon ground flax (optional)
1 teaspoon unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons non-dairy milk
To this one, I add a palmful of walnuts right before heating.
Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Oatmeal
Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Oatmeal
1/3 cup steel cut oatmeal
1 Tablespoon dark brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 Tablespoons golden raisins
2/3 cup rice milk
This one takes a little longer to cook in the morning, because of the steel-cut oats, but the texture is great.
The possibilities are endless, honestly. Let us know what you come up with.
I’ve been working on this recipe a while and this is another one of my fire breather recipes. This is really, really spicy chili. If you don’t want really, really spicy chili, I’ll make notes about how to turn it down a notch, and how to turn it down 10 notches (*see asterisk below ingredients), just in case you all don’t have stomachs lined with asbestos. Also, in case your stomach is lined with asbestos, I’ll give you notes about how to take it up to super octane, the way I make it when my husband and I are not sharing with others (**see double asterisks below ingredients, I will also note the Scoville units for each pepper so you can decide what to leave in and what to leave out if you wish). I like the cocoa powder in it because it gives the sauce a richer feel and color. Also, be aware that this recipe makes about 3 quarts of chili. It freezes incredibly well, so we freeze it in single serve containers and then just take one out and bring it to work to nuke for lunch. The pictures show me making a double batch, because it’s a bit more work than I like to do to make it, so I do it once and put the rest in our chest freezer until we want to eat it.
It’s Winter, Warm Yourself Up Chili
1 lb bags of small red beans (or kidney beans or any other bean of your choice. Mix it up!)
1 Tablespoon of Epazote (Mexican herb used in bean dishes to reduce gas, you can skip this if you don’t have any on hand. It doesn’t have much flavor, think dried parsley.)
1 whole dried red chipotle pepper – 15,000 Scoville units (omit or use a quarter teaspoon of ground chipotle instead if worried about spice)
1/2 of a dried Guajillo pepper -6,000 Scoville units (omit if worried about spice)
1/2 of a dried Ancho chili pepper – 3,000 Scoville units (omit or use a quarter teaspoon of ground ancho instead if worried about spice)
1 whole dried Cascabel chili pepper – 11,000 Scoville units (omit if worried about spice)
1 lb package of ground beef
2 medium onions, chopped
2-3 stalks of celery, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Tablespoon of canola oil
1 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes
1/2 of a green bell pepper, seeded and chopped – 0 Scoville units (the other half you can just throw in a freezer ziploc bag and put in the freezer to use for next time, I don’t even bother to chop it up first and peppers freeze beautifully whole)
1/2 of a red bell pepper, seeded and chopped – 0 Scoville units
1/4 of a Habanero pepper, seeded and diced into very, very small pieces – 100,000 to 350,000 Scoville units (USE RUBBER GLOVES to chop and seed or you may be very, very sorry. Ask me how I know, and how long it took my hands to stop burning the time I was dumb enough not to wear gloves. Pop the rest in the freezer in a ziploc for next time. Also, omit entirely if you are worried about spice)
3 Tablespoons of chili powder (I used Penzey’s Hot Chili Powder, but you could use regular chili powder and knock it back to 2 Tablespoons)
1 1/2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder
1/2 to 1 teaspoon of salt, or to taste.
*How to turn it down 10 notches – If you can’t eat anything with spice, omit all the peppers except for the red and green bell pepper, and the chili powder, and knock the chili powder back to 2 Tablespoons.
**How to turn it up to super octane – To your dried peppers, add the following: 1 whole dried Dundicut chili pepper -60,000 Scoville units; 1 whole dried Piquin chili pepper – 70,000 Scoville units; and 1 whole dried Sanaam chili pepper – 40,000 Scoville units; use the entire Guajillo and Ancho dried peppers instead of half, and use the whole Habanero. Add Sriracha sauce – 2200 Scoville units, to taste after cooking. Seriously, this is a really, really beyond hot chili, and is not for casual consumption.
Choose one of the two methods below to re-hydrate your beans.
Overnight soaking method: Sort through the beans, looking for rocks (yes, it’s happened), other things that are not beans, and any discolored beans and hulls, and remove them. Wash the beans in a colander, and put them in a stock pot (the one I use is an 8 quart size), with enough water to cover beans by 2 inches. Let soak overnight or at least 6 to 8 hours.
Beans after Overnight Soak Method
Quick soak method: Again, sort and wash the beans as described above. Put the beans in a stock pot (the one I use is an 8 quart size), with enough water to cover beans by 2 inches. Bring to a boil, then boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let stand for an hour.
If you used the overnight soak, drain the beans out in a colander, and rinse them and the stock pot. Put the beans back in the stock pot, with enough water to cover and the epazote, and cook on medium low, mixing occasionally and adding water as needed, until the beans are tender and the skins split. If you used the quick soak method, make sure there’s enough water in the pot, add the epazote and cook on medium low, mixing occasionally and adding water as needed, until the beans are tender and the skins split.
Beans and Epazote at beginning of cooking process
While the beans are cooking you need to re-hydrate your dried peppers. Take the stems off, remove the seeds, and cut them into small pieces, putting them in a microwave safe container. I used kitchen shears to cut them into pieces. Add about a quarter cup of water to the container and nuke it in the microwave for 1-2 minutes to re-hydrate them a bit. Set them aside.
Dried Peppers before chopping and re-hydratingDried Peppers after re-hydrating
In a frypan, brown and drain your ground beef, drain off the fat and discard it, and set the ground beef aside.
Browned Ground Beef
In another frypan, or the same one if you moved your beef to another container, saute onions, celery and garlic in the canola oil until they are translucent.
Onions, Celery and Garlic after sauteing
Your beans will be ready when they look like this:
Properly Cooked Beans
Once the beans are ready, add the ground beef, and the onion, celery and garlic mixture to the pot, scraping down carefully. Then add your re-hydrated dried peppers, the diced tomatoes (do not drain), the Habanero, red and green bell peppers, the chili powder and the cocoa powder. Mix until thoroughly combined.
Simmer for about an hour and a half, stirring occasionally. When chili is cooked, taste and add salt as necessary.
When Denise and I sat down to discuss things we needed to learn to make, things we could not longer eat “normal” versions of, one of the things that popped to the top of the list was what my college roommate called “bar food” — fried foods that tasted great and had little or no nutritional value. I can still have french fries, which are my favorite of the genre, but Denise missed mozzarella sticks (to the point that I had dreams about them – D).
As anyone who is vegan, allergic to milk, lactose-intolerant knows, cheese is one of the harder flavors to replicate without actual dairy products. Many have tried, but the majority of “non-dairy” cheeses on the market actually contain some dairy, and therefore aren’t suitable for anyone vegan or with allergies. There is nothing on the market that really would work for a fried cheese product.
But we do have the wonder of Joanne Stepaniak’s The Uncheese Cookbook, which has an amazing variety of cheesy flavors (including the basis for the nacho cheese used in the Happy Layers Nacho Dip). We figured that if we made the mozzarella recipe, made sure it was structurally sound enough to batter and fry, and then figured out a breading, we’d be set. Easy, right?
Not exactly. We had no problems with the cheez, though we made three or four recipes before determining which worked best, and tried several different “egg wash” and breading options, too, before determining which worked best. But even our less perfect attempts were edible, and we’ve shared these with regular omnivorous eaters, and while they wouldn’t mistake them for mozzarella sticks, they did enjoy them. This recipe was our first resounding success, and it’s kept us going for a while.
This is NOT an every day recipe! And frankly, given that it’s fried “cheez,” it really shouldn’t be anyway. There is preparation involved, and then deep frying, but they taste good at room temperature and could easily be re-warmed or kept warm in a low oven.
Before we get started, you will need the proper equipment. You decide how much you can fudge this stuff, but remember you’ll be playing with oil.
For making cheez:
2 qt. saucepan
whisk
silicone ice cube trays or molds with a capacity of about 1 Tablespoon each (cubes are approximately 1 inch square)
plastic wrap
freezer space so they can set
For the frying:
pot deep enough to accommodate about 3 inches of oil and the frying thermometer, a thick stainless steel or a enameled dutch oven would be best. You also want a pot that’s tall enough that the edge is 2 or more inches above the oil level. It’s safer and there’s less splatter all around. The pot we used was 5 inches tall and about 8 inches across. We do not recommend using anything with Teflon or nonstick coatings. Of course, if you have an actual deep fryer appliance, use that.
For recapturing the oil for re-use (with proper care, you can use this oil at least 6 times)
Mason jars
coffee filters
funnel
Ingredients, all in one list:
2 cups rice milk
½ cup nutritional yeast flakes
7 Tablespoons oat flour (if you can’t get gluten free certified oat flour, grind gluten free certified rolled oats in a blender, food processor or coffee grinder until you have flour)
¼ cup tahini
¼ cup cornstarch
4 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 Tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 Tablespoons Ener-G egg replacer powder
1/2 cup warm rice milk
one loaf of white rice bread, turned into bread crumbs, or about 1 1/2 cups of bread crumbs
a large jug of canola oil, for frying
marinara or tomato sauce for dipping (optional)
Miraculous Cheez Nuggets
There are two things you need to do in advance — make the cheez and make the bread crumbs. You could buy bread crumbs, but it may be easier to make your own and control the bread. For gluten-free bread crumbs, we suggest either Ener-G White Rice Bread or Food for Life White Rice Bread. In my opinion (MK), neither one is a fantastic sandwich bread, but the white rice breads do make excellent bread crumbs for frying.
For either one, lay the slices out on the oven rack and bake for about 2 hours at 200°F. Let cool completely, and then put through the food processor. You won’t use the whole loaf’s worth of crumbs, but why not keep the rest on hand? They keep well in a plastic bag or other sealed container.
Make cheez:
Place the following ingredients in the saucepan:
2 cups rice milk
½ cup nutritional yeast flakes
7 Tablespoons oat flour (if you can’t get gluten free certified oat flour, grind gluten free certified rolled oats in a blender, food processor or coffee grinder until you have flour)
¼ cup tahini
¼ cup cornstarch
4 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 Tablespoon onion powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Whisk all ingredients together until well combined.
Cheez Ingredients mixed before heating
Cook over medium-low heat, whisking occasionally until mixture starts to thicken. Turn heat to low, whisk constantly until mixture starts to pull together and away from sides of pan.
Cheez after cooking
Spoon into silicone molds or ice cube trays, approximately 1 tablespoon per cube. Try your best to smooth out the tops.
Cheez in Silicone Ice Cube Trays
Cool in fridge. Then cover with plastic wrap and freeze the cheez over night. The cheez must be frozen to hold up to frying without becoming a really nasty mess. The last batch we made we had intended to fry the the next day but couldn’t, so the cheez was in the freezer for a week or so with no ill effect. To save time, you could keep some cheez made ahead of time in the freezer and then just bread and fry when you want some.
Frying Fun!
Fill the frying pot (described above) with about 3 inches of canola oil, and put your frying thermometer in place. Start heat over medium-low and aim for 360ºF.
Frying Set Up
While waiting for your oil to heat, you will bread your cheez. Make an “egg” mix by mixing the following:
2 Tablespoons Ener-G egg replacer powder
1/2 cup warm rice milk
Place egg mix in a deep enough container or bowl that you can dip the cheez nuggets in it and coat them easily. Place bread crumbs in a low flat container so that you can easily roll the nuggets to coat them in the bread crumbs.
Remove cheez nuggets from silicone molds. One at a time, dip nuggets in egg mix, then in bread crumbs. Place on a tray to until you are ready to fry them.
Coating Cheez in Bread CrumbsCheez Nugget Coated in Bread CrumbsTray of Breaded Cheez Nuggets
Fry them! Drop nuggets (gently!) in the hot oil and then cover the pot with the splatter screen.
Putting Cheez Nuggets into OilCheez Nuggets FryingUsing Splatter Screen
Our pot was about 8 inches in diameter, with 3 inches of oil, and we could fry 5 nuggets at a time. Each batch took approximately 5 minutes with the starting oil temperature at 360-370ºF. We were able to test the interior temperature (remember, these will still be frozen when you drop them in the oil) with the probe thermometer — anything over 70ºF is good (take a nugget out of the oil and test it on a plate. DO NOT TRY TO PROBE A NUGGET WHILE FRYING). You can also just cut one open and feel it.
Blurry Photo of using Probe Thermometer
If you put too many nuggets in the oil at once, you will drop the temperature too far down (don’t go below 330ºF), and you won’t get a golden brown outside with a warm cheezy center. If your oil drops more than 15 degrees, put fewer nuggets in the next time around. You can also adjust your stove temperature to try to keep the oil temperature consistent.
When the nuggets are done, lay them on the cookie sheet that you’ve prepared — cover the cookie sheet with paper towels and lay your cooling rack upside down on the paper towels. The fried nuggets will be kept up off the paper towels, and the towels will draw the oil down. These nuggets are NOT greasy if you’re doing all this right, and they are wonderful.
Taking out Cheeze Nuggets to Put on RackCheez Nuggets on Rack
Serve while still warm, with marinara if you so wish.
You can freeze any leftovers, but reheat them low and slow — 250ºF for about 30 minutes seems to work. We only tested reheating them once, though, so if you do it, let us know how it goes!
If I’m completely honest, that mayo or sour cream based French onion dip (one package of dip mix plus a carton of sour cream, I think?) wasn’t something I made all that often or bought all that often in my pre-allergen days. But I liked it at parties, and maybe that was enough for me back then? I don’t know.
But last year, I wanted onion dip. With potato chips — salty, greasy, oniony madness. I tried a few things, and when I still ate soy, tofu-based sour cream with a packet of stuff wasn’t too bad. Some of the mixes are free of some allergens, but reading the ingredients so carefully is a real turn off, honestly. So. Onion dip. Now that soy is out and I really don’t want to use a packaged mix, it was time to come up with a good substitute based as much as possible on real foods.
Earth Balance, refugeof the dairy-free for decent, actually dairy-free margarine, has come out with a vegan AND soy-free mayonnaise! You can read our review of this miracle HERE. I am going to assume that this recipe will more-or-less work with regular mayo, or any of the vegan versions that contain soy. It’s been tested only with Earth Balance mindful mayo because neither of us eat those others.
As wonderful as the mayo substitute is, a dip based on mayo alone, to be eaten with thick, ridged greasy and salty potato chips seemed overkill, so the base of this is actually pureed canned cannellini beans, with mayo-sub added for creaminess. The onion flavor comes from scallions and caramelized onions. This is onion dip to revel in. Even if it doesn’t photograph like anything other than a dip.
Kiss Me if You Dare Onion Dip
First, get on caramelizing your onions. You want a softball-sized onion or two smaller ones, and if you can get a sweet onion (Maui, Vidalia, Walla Walla), it will be even better. Cut it in quarters and slice it thinly.
Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. I always use my cast iron, which is 12 inches, and I need to do two rounds of this. You want a good sloppy coat of oil over the bottom of the pan, heated until shimmering, and add only enough onions for a single layer. Add a good sprinkle of salt, 1/2 teaspoon or so for my pan size.
If you’ve never caramelized onions, it takes some time to do it right. I could tell you all about it, but I’m going to kick you over to Slate, as Tom Socca’s already covered it.
Set the onions aside to cool. I do not drain the oil off, as this dip is supposed to be rich.
Into your food processor (or blender, if you have a high powered one), add:
1 can of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 scant cup of Earth Balance Mindful Mayo, original
3-4 cloves of roasted garlic
1-2 Tablespoons of lemon juice, fresh-squeezed if you can
Spin it through the food processor until all smooth and well combined. IF you are using a blender, I’d suggest doing the beans first, and then adding the mayo as a second step.
Add the onions and pulse until they are chopped up and well mixed in to your dip.
Dump dip into a serving bowl, and mix in about 1/4 cup of chopped scallions, green and light green parts only, reserving some for garnish if you wish. Refrigerate for a few hours before serving with lots of salty potato chips. Ruffles are my choice.
a bit of onion dip left after the party
Kiss Me if You Dare Onion Dip
1 softball-sized sweet onion, quartered and sliced thin
2 Tablespoons (+) olive oil (not extra-virgin) or canola oil
about 1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 can of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup Earth Balance Mindful Mayo, original
3-4 cloves of roasted garlic
1-2 Tablespoons of freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1 bunch of scallions, sliced thin, green and light green parts only
Caramelize onions, then mix everything else in a food processor or high-speed blender, adding onions last, and garnishing with some of the green scallions if you remember.
