Fair Weather Vegan

FWV Is Moving!

I will be migrating the blog over to fairweathervegan.wordpress.com within the next few days.  I've had a great seven-ish years on Typepad, which is a very good platform, but I need to reserve the paltry amount of money they charge me. 

Recipes: Green Beans, Jam Tart

These were part of a lovely lunch served by a friend in her sunny backyard, complete with wandering cat and amazing company. I'm fairly sure the meal was parve, but I didn't even think about it until afterward.  It's always a good sign when it doesn't feel like anything is 'missing' just because there's no dairy.   

This lightly spiced green bean recipe is Mizrachi (via Middle Eastern Jews), and comes from here. 

6 garlic cloves, chopped (about 1 tablespoon)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 pounds sting beans, ends trimmed
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
1/2 teaspoon white pepper (optional)
One 6-ounce can tomato paste

1. In a medium saucepan, sauté the garlic in the vegetable oil over medium heat for 2 minutes, or until soft. Add the string beans, allspice, salt, 2 cups water, and, if desired, cinnamon and white pepper. Dollop the tomato paste by the heaping tablespoon over the surface of the cooking liquid. Do not stir. By letting the tomato paste remain undistributed, its thick consistency allows for maximum adherence to the string beans as the cooking liquid reduces.

2. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes.

Note: some people braise the beans in a 350 degree F oven for 2 hours after simmering so that the beans are exquisitely tender.

Yield: 10 servings

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The pastry 'coins' on top of the jam tart looked so beautiful that it was intimidating, but my friend swore it was in fact easy as...tart.   She used peach jam, which was perfect, but I'm sure it will work with any other fruit.  The source is here.  If cornmeal strikes you as being too heavy for pastry dough, be assured it does not taste at all like it has cornmeal in it. 

1 1/2 cups (210 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (70 grams) stone-ground cornmeal or polenta
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons (4 1/2 ounces or 130 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1 large egg, whole
1 large egg, separated
1/8 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/3 to 1 3/4 cups (450 grams) jam (see Note above; I used the smaller amount) or marmalade
2 tablespoons (30 grams) coarse-crystal or granulated sugar

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or in a food processor, mix the butter and 1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar together until smooth. Add the egg, egg yolk (keep the egg white from the second egg on hand for later) and almond extract and beat until combined. Gradually add the flour mixture and mix until the dough just comes together.

Transfer about one-third of the dough to a lightly floured counter and shape it into a log about 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it until needed. (As always, I was in a rush and put this in the freezer.)

Transfer the remaining dough to a buttered 9-inch (23-cm) tart pan with a removable bottom of a 9-inch (23-cm) springform pan. Using your hands, press the dough evenly into the bottom. If using a tart pan, press the dough up the sides to the rim of the pan and set the tart pan on a baking sheet. If using a springform pan, press the dough about 3/4-inch (2-cm) up the sides of the pan. Refrigerate the dough-lined pan until firm, at least one hour. (Again, I used the freezer and it was firm in 30 minutes. I am impatient.)

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Spread the jam or marmalade evenly over the dough in the pan. Cut the chilled dough into very thin discs with a sharp paring knife. Arrange them slightly overlapped in concentric circles over the jam to form a top crust. Whisk the remaining egg white with a teaspoon of water until frothy; brush evenly over the tart lid and then sprinkle with 2 tablespoons (30 grams) coarse sugar. Bake until the top crust is golden brown, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely.

Bad Pun, Good Candy

"It's just too sweet for me," my mother profers as the explanation for why she's passing her bag of Mazel Toffee to her only child.  Fortunately that sentence is perfectly incoherent to me, even if the toffee had tasted like a Heath Bar in white chocolate, which in fact it didn't.  Terry's Toffee is a Chicago confectioner that is just good enough that it can be forgiven for referring to its business as "an outpouring of creative Self."  Its Mazel Toffee is a combination of toffee, matzah, and milk chocolate.  Oddly, they tout the kashrut of their matzah but the product as a whole isn't hekshered, so no real point there, right?  Also they don't say whether it's regular or KLP matzah.  The toffee is indeed quite sweet rather than the salty buttery kind, but it isn't rot your teeth out sweet and it has a lovely burnt sugar aftertaste.  They use Guittard chocolate and make fourteen other flavors, all of which are gluten-free and some which sound delicious, like Lavenilla and Peppermint Pistachio Crunch.  Others  sound weird for toffee, like Asian Accent with ginger and wasabi peas.  At the very least they know how to talk like a socially responsible company, with a special page on their website dedicated to causes they support.  At the moment they're also supporting my sweet tooth. 

Recipe: A Curry-Type Situation

A friend of mine served this at a recent lunch, accompanied by a homemade cucumber-rice situation, and it was absolutely delicious.  The rice didn't finish cooking at the same time but it turned out to be unnecessary as the chick peas provided a good starchy texture. Most of the Indian-inspired foods I eat tend to have paneer in them, so it's nice to have a fully vegan main dish on occasion.  My friend, like me, is an estimation cook, so fiddle around with these measurements as you see fit.  I was grateful for the raita, which means it's going to be too hot for certain people reading this, but spice amounts are to taste. 

• garbanzo beans - maybe 20 oz?
• carrots - a cup?
• a can of diced tomatoes
• one small butternut squash (cut in about 1 inch pieces)
• green beans - 1/2 cup?
• fresh ginger - peeled and sliced
• one potato
• 1.5 cups coconut milk
• cinnamon, curry powder, cumin, tiny bit of cayenne [where kick came from -FL], garlic, tiny bit of vegetarian 'chicken' broth powder

sautee 1/2 red onion and some carrots in olive oil, with cinnamon, curry powder, cumin then gradually add everything else

Simple as can be! 

Brief Blogging Hiatus

Things have gotten a wee bit loony around here, so I'm going to take a couple weeks off.  Thanks for your patience and see you on the flip side. 

Does Glen Park Need Another Coffee Emporium?

A new coffee shop called Cup has opened at the very start of Monterey.  Given that we already have three dedicated coffee shops (I actually typed two at first because I forgot about Higher Grounds, which means we have enough coffee shops to have them slip our minds), a grocery store that sell specialty coffees, a diner, and a bakery that sells coffee, all the in space of the three blocks of greater downtown Glen Park,  it seems a bit of an unnecessary addition.  However the upside to the location is when people head down the hill during rush hour it will also be the first thing that they hit, and the more established coffee shops are actually past the BART station and the bus stops, which means commuters coming from that direction have to pass their destinations to get coffee and then double back.  So in that time window it has a certain advantage.  Otherwise, though, there is much less foot traffic on that block than in Glen Park proper, and it's even out of the sightline of the rest of downtown, which is not a good portent.  If it set itself apart by selling coffee that's known in SF for unusual quality, like Blue Bottle, that would be something to hang a hat on.  I will report back.  But I'm only 50-50 about its survival given the challenges at this point. 

Embarcadero!

I knew I'd forgotten a neighborhood in that Food Tour 2011 post. Of course we stopped at the Ferry Building, where the San Francisco Fish Company made an unusual misstep with its fish tacos.  Or at least I found them difficult to eat because of the overlapping taco presentation and somewhat dry in the fish department. Those who have puzzle-solving skills involving spacial manipulation would probably find these tacos a fun challenge to eat.  Then there was another dilemma at Ciao Bella, where my usual habit of getting two flavors so I can try as many as possible was thrown into disarray by the most appetizing flavor of the day being cookie dough.  Nothing goes with cookie dough!  In the end I had it by itself.  It was delicious, but I still had the feeling I was missing out. 

The main piece of advice I can give you from that day, other than you can't go wrong with the SFFC's fried offerings, is not to be in SOMA during rush hour.  Especially when there's been an accident on one of the approaches to 280. I spent a long time convincing my folks that we don't have a traditional rush hour in the city, but this happens to be one of the two neighborhoods where that spectre does exist.  It's no joke. 

Teen Nick To Launch Nineties Block

Damn you, lack of cable.  Nickelodeon has finally keyed into the revenue possibilities of giving us 25-35 year-olds a return to the quality shows of our childhoods and adolescence.  The movement was apparently spurred by the number of fans these shows have on Facebook; another win for the social media revolution.  Several of the current or proposed line-up choices will appear in my series on the best children's television, including All That (which I will write about in combination with The Amanda Show since each had clever aspects but neither hit it completely out of the park) and Hey Arnold.  For those who like their kids TV hokey, as many of us actually did when we were kids, I also heard on Facebook that Hey Dude is being released on DVD.  It's pretty unaccountable what will capture imaginations at that age.  Now, if you'll excuse me, back to the onerous task of rewatching the whole of Avatar: The Last Airbender so I can remember the details for my capstone post.  The things this project puts me through ;)

BiRite Chocolate Section: A Correction

The gourmet ghetto happens to be on my way to shul.  There's nothing quite like passing Tartine when you're not carrying money.  So this week I ducked into BiRite just to have a second look at the chocolate bar selection, and I was wrong: the average is four to six varieties of the brands they carry.  it's just they tend to choose the varities I don't want, which isn't their fault. Lots of bars involving a very high cacoa content and nibs.  I bet these sell well to hipsters and professional chocolate-tasters, and they've got to move the merchandise after all. 

Self-Referential Links

I can't figure out why this is happening. I've even tried to alter the code itself, but links want to automatically attach my URL to everything, which means they don't go where they're supposed to.  I'm working on it.