Carrot Cake Breakfast Cookies

Several years ago someone gave me Love Real Food by Kathryne Taylor for my birthday. At first glance, I wasn’t very inspired by the recipes, which seemed pretty basic for a lifelong vegetarian. I made one underwhelming recipe and put it on the shelf, where it sat for the last few years. But lately, I’ve been trying to revisit old forgotten cookbooks instead of turning to the internet every time I want to find a new recipe. So I rescued Love Real Food from the bottom of the pile and started looking through it with a more receptive spirit. I was able to find several recipe I could try making, even if none of them seemed particularly original. This recipe for carrot cake breakfast cookies was my first attempt at a dessert recipe from the cookbook, but my second attempt at a carrot cake cookie. I embarked hoping this try would be more successful than my first disappointing version.

I was a bit skeptical of this recipe, since it contained neither eggs nor an ingredient that I consider an egg substitute (like apple sauce). Despite my misgivings, I followed the recipe to the letter (except for leaving out the raisins). This was a super simple recipe. I wasn’t sure whether to melt the coconut oil or not, but I followed my instincts I used it in its solid form. The recipe says to use a hand mixer to cream it with the maple syrup, which worked well. Using the solid coconut oil ended up working well, but the first batch of cookies didn’t spread out at all. For the second batch I smooshed down the dough balls and they came out perfect.

I was super impressed with these. The mixture of spices, maple syrup, and coconut oil made for a sweet and savory effect that leaves a great taste in your mouth. Without the raisins I wasn’t sure the cookies would be sweet enough; they only have 1/2 cup of sweetener. But the sweetness level was just right for me. Plus they’re pretty low calorie (less than 70 calories each by my calculation!). My only complain with these cookies was that they’re a bit crumbly (they’re basically carrot granola clumps). They came apart a bit when I took them off the baking sheet. With the second batch I let them cool for a minute or two before moving them off the sheet, which helped with the crumbling. I might try adding a single egg to these to help them stick together better, but otherwise I thought they were perfect.

Advertisement

Potatoes and Carrots in Coconut Curry

On my quest to start eating Indian food again, I was very excited to make this recipe for potato carrot curry in a coconut sauce. The recipe was pretty easy. It called for 2 tbsp cumin seeds and 2 tbsp curry powder. That seemed high so I used 1 tbsp of each. I also left out the onion and garlic and used onion/garlic oil instead. Since I’m still trying to avoid spicy foods, I left out the serrano chilies as well.

This was super tasty and very little work to make. Definitely something I’d make again when I don’t feel like making something too complicated.

Low Fodmap Curried Chickpeas with Fresh Ginger and Cilantro

I’ve been very excited to start eating Indian food again. I got some canned chickpeas and decided to make Chana Masala. I’ve made this recipe from The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker a number of times, though it’s been a while. But I’ve never made the recipe with canned chickpeas before and it required a bit of experimentation. The original recipe says to cook dry chickpeas in the slow cooker for 6-8 hours before adding the rest of the ingredients and cooking for another hours. I skipped the pre-cooking and just added all the ingredients together and cooked them for an hour. I also had to guess a bit with the water. The recipe calls for 6 cups of water with the dry beans. I added 2 cups to the canned beans, which turned out to be too much. Next time I’d only add 1 cup. Since I haven’t made the recipe in a while, I can’t remember if I followed the ingredients completely before. The cumin seeds called for seemed high to me. Instead of the tablespoon of cumin seeds called for, I used 2 tsp. I definitely think that was enough. The flavor of the final dish was good.

Marinated Tofu Cabbage Salad

On a day when my feet were hurting too much to go to the store or spend much time in the kitchen, I found this simple recipe for marinated tofu cabbage salad in my old copy of Diet for a New World. Except for the celery seed, everything in the recipe, which has a very limited list of ingredients, was a already in my kitchen. It came together super fast. The tofu is just marinated and added to the salad uncooked. I was a bit skeptical of this, but it came out really tasty. The soft texture of the tofu actually works really well in the coleslaw like salad. Instead of using all sunflower seeds, I used half sunflower seeds and half pumpkin seeds, which I think added some extra interest to the dish. I halved the oil called for in the recipe and thought there was definitely enough oil in it. Even Ian who adds extra oil to a lot of things I make ate it without any amendment. This is a fantastic weeknight dish. Easy, satisfying, and surprisingly tasty for something so simple.

Spinach Raita

Raita is one of my all time favorite foods. As a kid my parents used to take me to an Indian buffet, where I would proceed to only eat raita and naan. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the other dishes, but why eat other things when that would just take up precious raita storage space. As an adult I rarely (but not never) eat raita only meals. But adulthood hasn’t dampened my love of the dish at all. Sadly, eating seasonally means no cucumber raita in the winter. So I was intrigued when I found this recipe for spinach raita in Indian Vegetarian Cooking at Your House.

The recipe is described as a seasoned salad with yogurt and spinach, which is accurate. The veggie to yogurt ratio is much heavier on the veggie side than traditional raita. This recipe has about 3/4 cup of liquid to 1 cup of spinach plus extra veggies. I looked up other Palak Raita recipes and found they usually had a one to one ratio of raita to spinach with no extra veggies.

I really enjoyed the spices and the spinach went well with the yogurt. However, I thought the chopped carrots took away from the blended flavor of the dish. Next time I’d leave them out. I might also add an extra 2-3 tbsp of yogurt. Not as good as cucumber raita, but intriguing, healthy, and easy to make. I might make this again with a few tweaks. I’d like to try a different Palak Raita recipe first though.

Chinese Cabbage Salad with Orange and Tahini Dressing

I had half of a head of Chinese cabbage left over from another recipe and was looking for something interesting to do with it. I found this recipe for Chinese Cabbage Salad with Orange and Tahini Dressing on page 80 of the Tassajara Cookbook. The recipe was easy enough to make. My only problem was that the tahini clumped and didn’t blend well with the rest of the dressing. I think using a submersion blender would have solved this problem.

I didn’t love this recipe. I liked the combination of cabbage and orange, but the tahini dressing just kind of muted the flavors of the salad. The whole thing was kind of bland and unexciting.

Rice Cakes with Peanut Sauce and Hoison

I bought a large bag of Asian rice cakes for another recipe, but I only ended up using a third of the bag. While looking for something to do with the remainder, I found this New York times recipe for pan fried rice cakes and bok choy. The recipe is written for cylindrical rice sticks, but says you can slide rice cakes instead. Slicing these rice cakes was awful and took forever. I ended up resorting to a pizza roller after trying a few different knives.

I’m not sure if the rice cake/rice stick swap was the problem, but my dish did not look like the one in the picture. Instead of nicely browned individual rice sticks, the rice sticks kind of merged together and stuck both to each other and the pan. A cast iron pan or nonstick pan is a must for this dish. Instead of making the peanut sauce in the recipe, I just used leftover peanut sauce from gado gado that I had in the freezer.

The recipe had a great flavor and even though the rice cakes turned into a rice cake clump, I enjoyed their chewy texture. I thought the bok choy needed to be cooked for a minute or two longer. I also found the recipe really benefited from chopped peanuts on top to add a bit of crunch. This was unusual, but oddly good. And it seemed to get better with time. I’d make it again, but would try the rice sticks next time.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1022726-rice-cakes-with-peanut-sauce-and-hoisin

Fast One-Pot Low Fodmap Kale Farfalle

I’ve been super busy for the past week and haven’t had much time to cook or menu plan. So I found myself super hungry at dinner time with nothing made. I made this pasta dish with things in my house. It took no more than 20 minutes to make and was pretty tasty for something I just threw together. All the kale made it more filling than most pasta dishes.

12 oz farfalle

1 large bunch of kale

1/4 cup Garlic oil (if you’re not eating low fodmap you can saute 3 cloves garlic in oil instead)

Zest one lemon

2 – 3 tbsp capers

2 – 3 tbsp pine nuts

1.5 – 2 tsp salt plus a couple pinches

1/2 cup grated parmesan

pepper to taste

1. Put a large pot of water on to boil
2. While water is coming to a boil, remove stems from the kale and tear into pieces
3. Once water comes to a boil, add a couple pinches of salt
4. Add kale and pasta to the pot. Cook on rolling boil for 9 minutes
5. While the pasta and kale are cooking, Add the rest of the ingredients to your serving bowl.
6. Before draining the pasta and kale, reserve 1/2 cup water from the pot
7. Drain the past and kale. Shake well to dry and press to remove extra water.
8. Add the pasta and kale to the serving bowl, stir to combine.
9. Add pepper and adjust salt to taste
10. Add the Parmesan and conserved water, stir well.

Vegan Miso Marinated “Scallops”

I love mushrooms. But oysters are the only mushrooms that have been tested and deemed low fodmap by Monash University. So I haven’t had mushroom since last spring. I was at my local Asian market and was excited to see they were selling king oyster mushrooms. I had no idea what to do with them, but bought them anyways. When I got home and started searching online, I was surprised to find there weren’t a ton of king oyster recipes available. One thing I did see in several places were recipes that used king oysters as a substitute for scallops. This seemed intriguing. I made this recipe, but only the marinated scallops not the accompanying garlic sauce.

I liked but didn’t love the flavor and texture of these. I don’t imagine they’re anything like actual scallops. I just left them marinating in the fridge and then sauteed them as I wanted to eat them. I ate them over paella, which was a nice combo. Although I think risotto might have been better. I think they probably would have been even tastier with the garlic butter sauce, maybe I’ll try making that at some point.

Vegan Scallops & Garlic Butter Sauce

Chickpea, Cabbage, and Dill Soup

I’ve recently reintroduced canned chickpeas into my diet. I’ve been so excited to be eating beans again, even in this limited form. I needed to use up cabbage and dill from my garden that I picked before the cold front. I found this recipe for Middle Eastern Chickpea, Cabbage, and Dill Soup on page 313 Madhur Jefrey’s World of East Vegetarian Cooking. The recipe is super simple and I further simplified by using canned goods.

I made quite a few adjustments. I used canned chickpeas and canned tomatoes. The original recipe calls for you to cook pre-soaked chickpeas for 1 hour and then cook all the veggies with the chickpeas for another hour and a half. Instead, I just cooked everything together for 45 minutes. I thought the potatoes were a little too soft. Next time I’d cook for 30 minutes. I left out the onion. Since I didn’t have flavor from the onion, I used vegetable broth instead of water. Instead of a whole tomato and 2 tsp of tomato paste, I used about a can of chopped stewed tomatoes. Here’s my version:

2 can chickpeas

4 cups vegetable broth

1-2 medium sized boiling potato, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1 can stewed chopped tomatoes

3/4 cup chopped fresh dill, firmly packed

2 cups cabbage, cut into 1 inch squares

1.5 -2 tsp salt

Black pepper to taste

1. Put all the ingredients in a large pot.
2. Bring to a boil, then turn to low and let simmer, covered, for 30 minutes
3. Adjust salt and add pepper to taste

For something so simple, this was really flavorful and yummy, this was super easy. A really good weeknight recipe on a cold night. Ian liked it a lot too. The dill didn’t really stand out the way I thought it would though. I think next time I’d reserve 1/3 of the dill and add at the end, to see how that affects the flavor.