Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

By Rena, March 12, 2013

This is a great breakfast for cold winter mornings.

• Total Time: 20 minutes
• Prep Time: 5 minutes
• Cook time: 15 minutes
• Yield: 2
• Allergens: gluten, soy

Ingredients:

• oats - 1 cup
• margarine - 1/2 tablespoon
• boiling water - 3 cups
• soy milk - 1 cup
• brown sugar - 1/4 cup
• apple - 1 pealed and chopped
• raisins - 1/2 cup
• cinnamon - 1 1/2 teaspoons
• vanilla - 1 teaspoon
• salt - 1 teaspoon

Instructions:

• Melt margarine in a pan and coat oatmeal with it.
• Add the rest of the ingredients and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Serve warm.

I don’t only make this right before Pesach. It’s been a winter breakfast that I’ve made a bunch a times. We only had one snow day this year, so that was definitely an oatmeal morning.

I buy oats at the health food store – it’s not the quick cooking type, so you may need to adjust the amount of water you use. You might want to cut the apples a bit finer if you are using the quick type – they need time  to cook to get soft. The smaller the pieces, the faster they cook.

I love oatmeal so much that every time I would go to the store, if I wasn’t sure that I had enough oatmeal, I’d buy more. I now have 3 bags to get through in 2 weeks. I don’t think that I’ll make it, but I’ll have fun trying!

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I know that I should have posted this recipe when the parshat hashavua was Toldot, but it just wasn’t cold enough yet to warrant hot soup on Shabbat morning, so I decided to wait. Toldot is the Torah portion where Yaacov buys Asuv’s birthright with a bowl of red lentil soup. I’m not sure that this soup is birthright worthy – I guess that I just take these things a bit more seriously than Asuv – but it is pretty close. Everyone in my family loves it.

Red Lentil Soup

By Rena, January 31, 2013

This is a nice soup that is perfect for rainy Shabbatot when you get home from shul. It's made in the crock pot with little effort and lots of flavor.

• Total Time: 10 minutes
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Yield: 10

Ingredients:

• red lentils - 1/2 kilo, about 3 cups
• onion - 1 large
• carrots - 3, sliced in rounds
• celery stalks - 2, chopped
• garlic - 5 cloves, chopped
• salt - 1 1/2 teaspoons
• cumin - 1 tablespoon
• water - to fill crock pot

Instructions:

• Throw everything into the crock pot.
• Set on low a few hours before Shabbat.
• Serve the next day for lunch.

1/2 kilo (about 3 cups) red lentils
1 large onion
3 carrots, sliced in rounds
2 celery stalks, chopped
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp cumin
water to fill the crock pot

Throw everything into the crock pot.

Set on low a few hours before Shabbat.

Serve the next day for lunch.

It may seem like a lot of water, but if I don’t put that much into my crock pot, the bottom gets all dried out. Even with all that water, it still becomes a really thick soup.

Besides being ridiculously easy to make, this soup is completely fat-free and full of protein. I still get asked all the time if I get enough protein without eating meat. People seem to forget that there are all these amazing foods that make it really not a problem. Either that, or they think all I eat is tofu. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not dissing tofu, but by no means is it a staple of my diet.

It’s going to be a cold one this week, so I’ll be making it again for this Shabbat. Just thinking about it warms me up inside.

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When it’s cold outside, I like to bake. The warmth of the oven heats the whole house and gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling. It’s still really cold outside so I decided to make muffins this morning. I usually make blueberry muffins, but this time I decided to be more adventurous. Banana Walnut muffins are a bit more hearty than the blueberry ones, but what really made me make the decision was the fact that I had a couple of bananas that needed to be used immediately. Usually I’d make banana bread, but I figured that muffins are a fun thing to make and take on the go.

Banana Nut Muffins

By Rena, January 15, 2013

These are great to have as a mid-day snack.

• Total Time: 30 minutes
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 20 minutes
• Yield: 12
• Allergens: gluten, nuts, soy

Ingredients:

• flour - 2 cups
• bananas - 2 ripe, mashed
• soy milk - 1/3 cup
• vinegar - 1 teaspoon
• oil - 1/2 cup
• sugar - 3/4 cup
• baking soda - 1 teaspoon
• baking powder - 1 1/2 teaspoons
• salt - 1/4 teaspoon
• cinnamon - 1 teaspoon
• walnuts - 1/2 cup, chopped
• cinnamon and sugar - as topping

Instructions:

• Add vinegar to soy milk and let sit until it curdles.
• Mix together all the ingredients except the sugar and cinnamon for topping.
• Pour into greased muffin tins. (I use cupcake papers.)
• Lightly sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Not only do these taste really good – they make the house smell fabulous. With the kinds running in and out all the time, it’s nice to be able to give them something to take with them. I like to heat them up a bit and have them with a hot cup of tea. For me, that’s perfect on a cold and frosty day.

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I looked through all my vegan cookbooks, but wasn’t able to find a recipe that I could make in Israel. Practically all of them called for silken tofu. I don’t know why, but silken tofu has not come to Israel yet. If it did, I would be one of the happiest campers I know. There seem to be so many amazing dessert recipes that call for silken tofu. Until then, I’ll just need to find my own ways to do things. I’m cool with that.

This time I cheated – I happened to have a chocolate cookie pie crust that I bought in Super Deal, in Jerusalem. If I didn’t have one, I would have used chocolate tea cookies instead of the regular ones that I use in my cheese cake recipe.

Peanut Butter Mousse Pie

By Rena, November 19, 2012

It has a lot of ingredients, but it's not difficult to make. It's very rich, so you don't have to eat a lot of it to feel the chocolate-peanut butter love.

• Total Time: 25 minutes
• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook time: 5 minutes
• Yield: 10
• Allergens: gluten, peanuts, soy

Ingredients:

• Chocolate Crust
• chocolate petit beurre biscuits - 1 cup, ground
• margarine - 1/4 cup, melted
• Peanut Butter Layer
• peanut butter - 1 cup
• ground petit beurre biscuits - 1/2 cup, the regular kind
• powdered sugar - 1/2 cup
• margarine - 2 tablespoons, melted
• Mouse Layer
• chocolate chips - 1 cup
• soy milk - 1/4 cup
• vegan cream cheese - 1 tub
• Rich's whip - 1 carton
• vanilla - 1 teaspoon
• pudding mix - 1/2 pack (about 1/4 cup)

Instructions:

Crust:

• Mix together margarine and biscuits and press them into the bottom of a pie tin.
  

Peanut butter layer:

• Mix together ingredients and fill pie crust half way with mixture.
• If mixture is too thick, add a bit of soy milk until it can be poured into crust.

Mouse layer:

• Melt chocolate chips with soy milk.
• Place all ingredients except melted chips, into a mixer and turn on high for 2 minutes.
• Add in the melted chips and mix together for another minute.
• Place on top of chocolate mixture and refrigerate for at least an hour, so that peanut butter and mouse layers have time to set.
• Enjoy.

There are not many deserts that I find so rich that I need to stop after one slice, but this was one of them. I have a very high tolerance level for rich food. Lucky me.

I know that the ingredient list may seem very long, but even though it has a lot of stuff in it, it’s still really easy to make. I was actually surprised how fast it was to whip together. Not to say that I wouldn’t be happy to spend more time on my mom’s birthday dessert (I think that my Triple Chocolate Cake proves that I can be serious about birthdays), it’s just that there was no reason to.

Mom, I can’t thank you enough for everything that you do and all the support you give me. You are an inspiration to me. I hope that you enjoyed sharing your birthday with us. We love you and wish to spend many more happy birthdays together!

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Yerushalmi Kugel and I have a long past. My husband and I met over a Yerushalmi Kugel. I know it sounds strange, but more than twenty years ago we were two lost souls in Israel. We met up at a mutual friend for Shabbat and our friend was making Yerushalmi Kugel. That might be what scared me off of making it all these years. No, it’s not that meeting my husband turned me off making this yummy dish, it’s the way that Yosef made it that scared me. There are blank spots in my memory from the trauma, but I do remember the screams to hurry up and stir before the sugar congeals and the pots that were clean enough to use. I was brave enough to eat it, so I guess it wasn’t as traumatic as I remember.

Yerushalmi Kugel

By Rena, November 5, 2012

This is an Israeli classic. The mixture of sweet and spicy is a real treat.

• Total Time: 01h 30min
• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cook time: 60 minutes
• Yield: 16
• Allergens: soy

Ingredients:

• flax seeds - 3 tablespoons
• soy milk - 3/4 cups
• thin noodles (vermicelli) - 1 500 gram package
• oil - 1/2 cup
• sugar - 1 1/2 cups
• pepper - 1 tablespoon
• salt - 1 1/2 teaspoons

Instructions:

• Grind flax seeds in a coffee grinder.
• Add ground seeds to soy milk and mix with a fork or whisk for a couple of minutes and set on the side to give it time to thicken.
• Prepare noodles as instructed on the package and drain.
• Melt oil and sugar together in a pot until all the sugar dissolves and it turns a light shade of brown.
• Pour melted sugar over noodles and stir thoroughly.
• Stir in the remaining ingredients.
• Pour into baking dish and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.
• Serve with pickles.

When making phony eggs, freshly ground flax seeds work best. The pre-ground stuff just doesn’t do it. I have a trusty coffee grind that I got to do the trick. Grinding takes about 5-10 seconds in the coffee grinder.

Don’t freak out when you pour the sugar on to the noodles. When I did it, it started bubbling up, so make sure that the pot/bowl that you are mixing it in is big enough to handle it.

I’m not sure who came up with the brilliant idea to serve Yerushalmi Kugel with pickles, but it really works. Even though the kugel has a lot of pepper, it’s also really sweet. The sourness of the pickle is a great contrast.

My husband I have have been very happily married for over 21 years. Perhaps Yerushalmi Kugel is the perfect metaphor for our relationship. It is both sweet and spicy. I couldn’t have picked a better food to meet with.

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Since moving to Israel, I had not had a BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) in any shape or form. That all changed last year when I went to LA. In LA, I went to a restaurant call Real Food Daily. The food there was amazing. I finally had an opportunity to try BLTs again – this time kosher and vegan. All I can say is yum!

I haven’t been back to LA since then, so I’ve haven’t had the opportunity to have one again until I decided to make my own bacon. The secret ingredient in making bacon is the liquid smoke (hickory flavoring). I’ve been bringing it back with me on trips to that I’ve made from the US, but I won’t need to do that anymore! I found it at a store called Super Deal on Derech Hevron, in Jerusalem. My shlepping days are over!

Recently, my girlfriends and I had a vegan brunch. I brought a very basic tofu scramble and this bacon. It was a hit. The incredible part is how easy it is to make bacon. If I would have known that sooner, I wouldn’t have waited this long to make it.

Tempeh Bacon

By Rena, September 10, 2012

I love to make BLT sandwiches out of these. It feels so wrong. I guess that's one of the things that makes it so fun.

• Total Time: 45 minutes
• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cook time: 15 minutes
• Yield: 24 pieces
• Allergens: gluten, soy

Ingredients:

• tempeh - 1 package
• maple syrup - 3 tablespoons
• soy sauce - 1/8 cup
• olive oil - 2 tablespoons
• cumin - 1 teaspoon
• liquid smoke - 1 teaspoon
• oil - for frying

Instructions:

• Slice tempeh as thin as you can without having it fall apart.
• Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl.
• Soak tempeh in the mixture for at least 5 minutes.
• Fry in hot oil until lightly tanned on both sides.

Now that liquid smoke has made it to Israel, there are only two other vegan food items that I would love to have here. When Silken Tofu and Vegannaise make it, I will be made in the shade. Out of the two of them, I think that I would prefer the silken tofu. There are so many creamy desert recipes that call for it. There is vegan mayonnaise in Israel, but they don’t keep it stocked and I can only find it every third or so trip to the health food store. It’s very annoying that way. It’s also not as good as Vegannaise. They know what they are doing and it is the perfect consistency.

There is one more thing that I would love stores here to carry – Earth Balance Margarine. I try to stay away from margarine like the plague. There are some recipes where there is no choice, and I need to use the regular margarine, but I don’t make those often because that stuff is so unhealthy.

Just to make it clear, I love living in Israel, and wouldn’t give it up for all the silken tofu or Vegannaise in the world. I’ll wait patiently until those things make Aliya.

The post Tempeh Bacon appeared first on Vegan Start.

Her version had eggs and mayo in it. I took out the eggs a while back, before I became vegan, because it just seemed redundant to me to have both mayo and eggs. No one noticed. Now I’ve taken out the mayo and added corn starch. I don’t know if it’s still just as good, it’s hard to compare something to a memory, but I never have leftovers. I call that success.

Broccoli-Cauliflower Souffle

By Rena, July 2, 2012

This is one of my kids favorite side dishes.

• Total Time: 01h 05min
• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

• frozen brocolli - 3 cups
• frozen cauliflower - 3 cups
• frozen corn - 1 cup
• potato starch - 2 tablespoon
• onion soup mix - 1 heaping tablespoon
• oil - 1/4 cup
• cornflakes - 1 cup + handful
• salt - to taste
• pepper - to taste

Instructions:

• Boil up broccoli, cauliflower and corn.
• Drain, leaving a bit of water, and place in a baking dish.
• Add everything, except the handful of cornflakes, and mix well.
• Crumble the handful of cornflakes and sprinkle evenly on the top of the souffle.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

I used to have a pot that I could use both on the stove top and in the over. When I used it there was practically no clean up at all. I’m really pro easy recipes that that don’t make a lot of mess.

I like my veggies a bit on the crisp side. If you like them that way too, keep boiling time down to a minimum. You may have to mush them a bit with a fork before baking them, but I think it gives them more taste.

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I keep a lot of oatmeal in the house just so that I can make these bad boys. My family is very happy about that.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

By Rena, May 21, 2012

Everyone, and I mean everyone, who eats these cookies falls in love with them.

• Total Time: 24 minutes
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 14 minutes
• Yield: 36
• Allergens: chocolate, gluten

Ingredients:

• flour - 2 cups
• oats - 2 cups
• sugar - 1 cup
• baking soda - 1 teaspoon
• cinnamon - 1 teaspoon
• oil - 1/2 cup
• apple sauce - 1/2 cup
• date honey - 1/3 cup
• chocolate chips - 3/4 cup

Instructions:

• Mix everything together except the chocolate chips.
• Mix in the chocolate chips.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes.
• Cool and rack and eat.

My kids don’t like raisins. I’m not sure, but I think it’s the texture that freaks them out. Although this recipe doesn’t have any raisins in it, the date honey gives it a raisin like taste. If you do like raisins, like most normal people I know, then you can simply switch out the chocolate chips for raisins. That’s the more normal way to eat oatmeal cookies.

One of my favorite things about this recipe is that it makes a lot of cookies. It’s really important that it does make a lot because they go really fast. I usually make them on Friday, just before Shabbat, and about a quarter of them just disappear – they are particularly good when warm. If you make them, be careful of your own cookie monsters!

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Fortune Cookies

By Rena, March 5, 2012

Have your kids write the fortunes for you.

• Total Time: 20 minutes
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 10 minutes
• Yield: 20
• Allergens: gluten

Ingredients:

• flour - 1/2 cup
• sugar - 1/3 cup, plus 2 tablespoons
• water - 1/3 cup
• oil - 3 tablespoons
• almond extract - 1 teaspoon (can use vanilla if allergic to almonds)
• salt - 1/2 teaspoon

Instructions:

• Mix ingredients together.
• Heat oven to 350 degrees.
• Pour tablespoon fulls of batter and spread to round circles, about 2 inches in diameter. (Only make 2-3 at a time)
• Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until edges start to brown.
• Lift cookies with spatula, place fortune in center and gently fold in half.
• Lean bottom center on edge of bowl to bring points down.
• Cool in muffin tin until hardened.

You need to make only a couple at a time because they harden pretty quickly once they are out of the oven. If you make too many, you’ll be left with a bunch of hard cookies that will still taste good, but there will be no way to stick in a fortune.

These little suckers are going to accompany fried rice and vegetable stir fry made with seitan. My daughter wants to decorate more cupcakes, so we’ll be sticking some of those in too. I know, it breaks the theme, but I don’t think anyone will really mind.

I like to make whole meals for Mishloach Manot. Most people give cake and cookies, and other types of junk food, but I like to make a meal. BV (before vegan) my favorite Mishloach Manot that we would get was a pizza pie from our neighbors. It was just what we needed to energize us while putting together our own Mishloach Manot. Giving hot food that people can eat immediately makes me happy. If I can show people interesting vegan food, even better.

Happy Purim!

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I don’t know why, but Mexican food just hasn’t taken off in Israel. A long time ago, during my pre-vegan days, I used to love going to a restaurant called Amigos, in Jerusalem. It was the only place that I knew of to get real Mexican food. It closed down more than 10 years ago, and I haven’t had a fajita since. That is, until I made them myself out of seitan.

Fajitas

By Rena, February 22, 2012

You can use store bought seitan, but if you want to save some money, you can make it yourself!

• Total Time: 30 minutes
• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook time: 15 minutes
• Yield: 6
• Allergens: gluten

Ingredients:

• seitan - 1/2 recipe homemade, or 1 package store bought
• olive oil - 2 tablespoons
• garlic - 2 cloves, crushed
• cilantro - 1 cup, chopped
• lemon juice - 3 tablespoons
• salt - to taste
• pepper - to taste
• onion - 2 sliced thinly

Instructions:

• Cut the seitan into thin strips.
• Mix all the ingredients together, minus the onions.
• Let marinate for at least an hour (overnight is better)
• Heat oil in a skillet and fry onions until translucent.
• Add seitan and cook until heated through

 

One of the cool things about using seitan is that you don’t have to worry about how long you cook it. By the time it hits that pan, it’s already been cooked through.

For the night with the girls, we had grilled veggies, guacamole, red rice, corn bread, soup and salad to round out the meal. To top it all off, I made Mexican Wedding Cookies from The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur. I have to say that that cookbook is one of my favorites.

The food was great, but more than enjoying what was on our plates, we just had a great time talking and spending time together. With everyone’s busy schedules, it seems to be something that has become increasingly more difficult to do. Food is a great excuse to come together. We really should do it more often!

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