Cajun Jambalaya, Done Vegan

 

My mother was born and raised in Elton, Louisiana, a small town in the Cajun Triangle (the area with points in Alexandria, pronounced Ahl-eck for short; Lafayette and Lake Charles). The poverty was real, but even during the Depression, they still managed to grow plenty of rice and sugar cane, and fish for sac-au-lait and crawfish, and hunt for ducks. My grandfather had a herd of cattle that foraged in the dense woods, and would ride his horse to round them up by nightfall. My mother had to milk their stingy teats to get what little milk they provided before heading off to school. She was the youngest of five girls and a boy, and the first to learn English before starting school. 

But the food was good, spicy but not mouth-burningly hot, and heavily rice-based. They loved their rice, and looked aghast at anyone who would cook it with tomatoes and ruin the texture. (They liked tomatoes, but in a sauce or as a side dish.)

I’m sure there were times when the ducks had migrated, the pork from the pigs that were slaughtered in the fall ran out, the chickens refused to lay. But if there were any recipes for jambalaya that didn’t have tasso (a spicy ham) or andouille sausage or chicken or all three, they weren’t in my mother’s recipe box.

I made this vegan version for my book club ladies earlier this month, and they liked it a lot. Since I now live in Sacramento, I toned down the amount of cayenne pepper, but had my hot sauce available for any brave souls who needed it.

Lori K’s Vegan Jambalaya

Serves 6-8

Seasoning mix:

4 small whole bay leaves, dried

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon white pepper

1 teaspoon dry mustard

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

Pinch of cayenne

1 teaspoon of filé powder (ground sassafras leaves, also called filé gumbo)

½ teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon dried thyme leaves

2 cups uncooked rice (I like basmati, but any long-grain rice will do)

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 large chopped onion

1 cup finely chopped celery

1 cup chopped green bell pepper

1 cup chopped red, yellow or orange bell pepper

2 cloves minced garlic

1 can of beans, rinsed and drained (any unseasoned type will do; I prefer cannellini beans)

3 cups vegetable stock (be sure it doesn’t contain tomatoes or tomato juice; if you can’t find it, and haven’t made your own from vegetable peelings and scraps, Seitenbacher makes a good instant vegan broth)

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

1 teaspoon soy sauce

Instructions

Thoroughly combine the seasoning mix in a small bowl and set aside.

Rinse the rice until clear, drain and put in an oiled 9x13 glass pan. Set aside.

Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

Heat oil in a heavy skillet over medium high heat; add the onion, celery, peppers and garlic and cook until the onions are translucent. Add the seasoning mix and cook 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Scrape it into the pan over the rice. Sprinkle the beans over the vegetables.

Bring the vegetable stock to a boil. Add the yeast and soy sauce. Pour slowly over the rice and vegetables and cover tightly with foil. Put in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Check to see if the rice is browning around the edges; if so, turn down the head to 350 and bake 15 minutes more. Otherwise, continue baking for 10 minutes at 375, and if the rice is tender but still a little crunchy, take it out of the oven and cover tightly. Let it rest, covered, for about 10 minutes. Serve.

Sumptuous vegan chocolate mousse

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

You love chocolate, right? And health studies show that a little dark chocolate is good for you, as part of an otherwise healthy diet.

Unfortunately, most recipes for chocolate mousse involve eggs (or gelatin) and cream, which lessens the health benefits of the chocolate.

Well, Melissa Clark of the New York Times this week shared a chocolate mousse developed by the French molecular gastronomist Hervé This.  It's intense, has only three ingredients and while it is creamy, it contains no cream. Vegan! The one key is to use a good, complex chocolate, because that is all you will taste.

Even if your valentine is taking you out for dinner, skip dessert there; hurry home and dive into this.

Go ahead and make it for four, even if it's just the two of you that night. As Clark writes: "Leftovers will be equally seductive the next day — you know, just like your Valentine."

If you want to see the video of this, the New York Times is offering free access to day. Here's the link: http://nyti.ms/11VztGS

She's also developed a fine Valentine's Day menu here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/dining/cooking-a-valentines-day-meal-at-home.html

Bittersweet Chocolate Mousse with Fleur de Sel

TOTAL TIME

10 minutes

SERVES 4

INGREDIENTS

• 285 grams bittersweet chocolate (about 10 ounces), roughly chopped, more as needed
• 1 cup of water
• Fleur de sel, to taste

PREPARATION

1.

Create an ice bath in a large bowl using ice and a little cold water. Nestle a smaller bowl in ice bath.

2.

Place chocolate and water in a small pot and heat over medium. Whisk until mixture is melted and smooth, about 3 to 5 minutes.

3.

Immediately pour melted chocolate into the bowl in the ice bath. Vigorously whisk chocolate mixture by hand until thick, 3 to 5 minutes. The chocolate should be fluffy and form a mound when dolloped with the whisk (it should generally have the texture and appearance of mousse). If the mixture does not thicken, add a bit more chopped chocolate and remelt over the heat. Spoon into serving bowls and garnish with fleur de sel.

Vegetarian avocado soup

Daniel Hoyer's "Mayan Cuisine: Recipes from the Yucatán Region" is a fabulous cookbook, in presentation, depth and photographs by Marty Snortum (the photo to the right is copyrighted by Gibbs Smith). I'm working on a review of this excellent book, but for a taste of it, here's Crema de Aguacate. It can be served hot or cold and I made it last night as a vegetarian dish, just substituting vegetable broth (my favorite is Seitenbacher instant) for the chicken. Make it vegan as well by substituting coconut cream (a can of Thai Kitchen full fat coconut milk, refrigerated then drained of the thin part, will get you about the amount you'll need for this recipe) for the light cream and use all the juice from half a lime.

Crema de Aguacate
Avocado Soup

"Both hot and versions of this soup are found around the Yucatán. This recipe may be used either way. I use the cold version as an appetizer or palate cleanser in a multi-course meal and serve it warm with some crispy bacon crumbles along with some white rice as a light supper or lunch entree."

Tester's note: Serve it quickly, because the small amount of lime juice isn't strong enough to keep the avocados from turning an unappetizing shade of brown for very long. Adapted from "Mayan Cuisine" (Gibbs Smith, $35, 224 pages).

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients
1/2 cup chopped white onion
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 cup tomato, charred then chopped
1 or 2 serrano, yellow hot, New Mexican green or jalapeño chilies or 1/2 chile habanero, well charred and seeded (tested with two jalapeños)
4 cloves garlic, toasted and peeled
2 to 3 Mexican avocado leaves, toasted and ground, or 1/4 teaspoon toasted and ground anise seed (used latter)
3-1/2 cups chicken broth (tested with vegetarian broth)
3 large ripe avocados (Hass preferred)
1/3 cup light cream or half-and-half
1 tablespoon lime juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Garnish suggestions
Vegan/vegetarian: Chopped cilantro, thinly sliced radishes, tortilla chips, pickled red onion, lime slices, sour cream or Mexian crema
Omnivore: Chicharrones or crumbled bacon

Instructions
Sauté the onion in the oil until soft and just beginning to brown. Add the chopped tomato and fry 2 minutes more.
Add the chilies, garlic, ground avocado leaves or anise seed and broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.
Peel, pit and coarsely chop the avocados and add to the broth with the cream and lime juice.
Pureée in a blender, adjust for salt and pepper and serve warm with your choice of garnishes, or chill to serve cold later.

Chewy on this!

Inspired by a conversation with a vegan last night, I'm making some oatmeal chewies. They aren't quite vegan, however, since I wasn't sure what to sub for the honey. Since there's no egg involved, feel free to lick the spoon - guaranteed to keep you happy for the full 15 minutes until the real thing comes out of the oven. These are the best cookies I've ever made that didn't have butter in them.

Also, I didn't want to waste the energy to cook a half-dozen cookies, so I put the remainder in a tart shell and baked it for the same amount of time next to one of the cookie sheets. Let it cool, push it out, put it on a dessert plate. Put a scoop of ice cream on it and enjoy.

Lori K's oatmeal chewies
Makes 2 1/2 dozen

Ingredients

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup honey
1 small very ripe banana
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups uncooked rolled oats
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
Finely grated peel from 1 orange
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (not powder)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup currents or raisins
1/2 cup cocoa coated almonds, chopped
Instructions
Blend sugar, oil, honey, banana and vanilla until fluffy (I used a food processor, but a blender or mixer would probably work as well). Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and mix it all well. Make pingpong-size balls and slightly flatten them on an ungreased cookie sheet. (They will not spread much while baking.) Bake for 15 minutes; do not overcook. Remove sheet from oven and flatten cookies with a flat-bottom glass. Cool for a minute or two on the sheet, then remove them to a cooling rack. They will be very chewy warm, and will get more crunchy with a chewy middle when they cool.

Does loving vegetables lead to "Veggie Love"?

You'd think an ad that features women in lingerie caressing nutritious vegetables might appeal to the same demographic that watches football, right? But that wasn't the thinking of the suits at NBC, who PETA says rejected the pro-vegetarian ad - along with the $3 million payment that would have come with it - for airing during the Super Bowl XLIII broadcast, claiming that the ad "depicts a level of sexuality exceeding our standards."

But thanks to Fox affiliate KCBA-TV, which serves the Monterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz market, viewers in the salad bowl of the nation are seeing what the rest of the nation missed. The 30-second spot has been on KCBA-TV each night this week during TMZ.

According to PETA, the ad features models fondling vegetables to a pounding beat and concludes with the message "Studies Show: Vegetarians Have Better Sex." The scenes are amusing and sensual: A blindfolded woman erupts with delight after spending a little quality time with asparagus; a woman performs a seductive dance with a gourd; and another woman is so smitten that she joins a steaming "orgy" of mixed vegetable soup.

Why would vegetarians make better lovers? For one thing, many vegetarians are slimmer than meat-eaters. Also, heart disease and obesity can make their victims sluggish and fearful that sex can cause a coronary. Cholesterol and saturated fat restrict the flow of blood to all the body's vital organs - not just to the heart.

"Our 'Veggie Love' ad is the perfect way to counter the onslaught of commercials for artery-clogging fried chicken and bacon-laden double cheeseburgers," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "After all, the best thing that you can do for your health, animals, and the planet - not to mention your love life - is to go vegetarian."

And obviously, not think too mightily about objectifying women to suit your message.

For more information, visit PETA.org. To see the ad, click here.