Let me cut to the chase: this missive aims to be shorter & potentially sweeter than my prior year-in-review reports, and I intend to share something resembling a recipe or two!
I'm all about that contrast of flavors, textures, and well, giving props to the recipes & methods & and culinary whims that lead to something delicious.
This is my third, final and only mildly delayed look back at 2022 in my so-called Alaskan cooking adventures. Time to dive on in and wrap this up!
These are the “top five” dishes/recipes that took me by surprise. In a good way.
Some are oldies but goodies, others are newer techniques that happened to catch my culinary attention.
All of them have made it into the repertoire, and all of them are delicious. On with the show! Recipes and notes throughout.
🔪 Frittatas becoming a weekday breakfast mainstay
Uh, boring but true. Make that: a satsifyingly clean-out-the-fridge cholesterol-free classic!
This has been one I’ve been tweaking for many, many years, and it became more of a weekly ritual in 2022. Let me be clear: endless credit goes to all the crumbled tofu & moong dal & chickpea flour ‘eggy’ riffs and pre-just-egg Indian & Italian & Spanish & surely more international traditions that laid the groundwork here. [Copycat just-eggs, I see you]. This is my current spin on a dual chickpea-tofu frittata (often seriously dual - with chickpea flour and aquafaba in the batter). I blend the base, pour it into a cast iron pan, gently fold in some chopped veg & greens & herbs, dust with black pepper, bake, and cool. Voilà, there’s some savory breakfast for the next day or two, or three.
Jules likes to heat up a slice for breakfast on the go, and I dig it right from the pan. I found myself playing around with the ratio of chickpea flour to asceptic or water-packed tofu in this year’s renditions, aiming for a textural balance that results in a not-so-heavy final product. I swear some aquafaba helps. Maybe. Regardless, it’s super flexible and good. Recipe card below.
The following recipe is adapted from these mini-chickpea flour muffins on ExSloth.com:
Further Reading on Vegan Omelet-Making & more:
Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz - tofu omelets, tofu and tempeh scrambles, quiche, frittata & more
Vegetarian India by Madhur Jaffrey - a huge & thorough book of traditional legume & grain-based ‘omelets’, pancakes, vegetable dishes, soups - and regional Indian cuisine, galore
🔪 Cauliflower “Steaks”
I think know what you’re going to say. 2015 called and wants to know where I’ve been. I’m here! I’m queer! I don’t give a hoot that I’m usually behind on food trends! Who cares!?! I’ve been cooking multiple hues of cauliflower for years! I’m done with the exclamations!
[for a mo]
Points, made. Cauliflower cut. Oven hot. Breadcrumbs spiced. Olive oil ready to drizzle.
Vibrant shades of cauli remain a summer-time abundance in my life, even in Alaska. It’s a wonderful thing.
No offense to stir-fries (really, love ya), we simply had so much cauliflower this past summer that I couldn’t pass up Jules’ suggestion one day to bread it. And then, they clarified the vision: not breaded, but cut into those big “steaks” (or quartered works just as groovy), and dusted with breadcrumbs, which I usually have from all the breadmaking anyhow. This dish quickly got the repeat treat.
I go seasoned with the breadcrumbs, because how could I not, start with a vinegar-y hot sauce to assert some flavor, and finish with good ol’ olive oil.
Over-the-top bonus points for not requiring a mixing bowl nor flipping the cauliflower while it roasts.
Tip: Want the breadcrumbs to really stick? Dip the cauliflower piece in aquafaba (you can add hot sauce in this for tang & heat, too) first, let it drip off, and then immerse into a bowl of fine breadcrumbs.
Serve with mashed potatoes (especially if you’re Jules) and a big pile of something fresh or just-wilted & green. Probably some more hot sauce, or better yet: hot sauce + tahini.
🔪 Chocolate…Tofu…Tarts
Ha ha, I’m not going to give you a recipe for this one, not because I’m being silly, but rather, because there are so many out there. Bajillions! And you don’t really really need one. I definitely don’t use one.
So, I’ll talk you through the basics of what I do in these quick steps:
Put the contents of one aseptic or water-packed carton of tofu (such as 14oz or 16oz) into your blender*. Sprinkle in some agar agar powder, a pinch of salt, dash of vanilla extract, and a spoonful of sweetener (or a couple of soaked dates). Maybe a spoonful of peanut butter. Maybe a spoonful of fair trade cocoa powder if you’re low on chocolate chips.
Melt a small bowl of semi sweet or dark chocolate chips and quickly add it in.
Keep moving quickly, and pour in enough chilled coffee or milk-of-choice to half-way cover the tofu mush in the blender. You just want enough so it can easily mix. Blend on high - you want to activate the agar agar while you’re doing this, taste for sweetener (less is more), scrape down the sides, and keep blending until smooth. Add some more liquid if needed.
Use a spatula to move the finished mousse to a baked (or no-bake) tart or pie shell, and/or however many cocktail glasses or let’s be real – mason jars – it’ll fill.
Chill a few hours to set, ideally 6-8 hours or overnight, before slicing or digging in. Dollop on coconut cream, fresh berries, crushed cacao nibs, whatev.
Gosh, this is one I have been making no-recipe iterations of for decades. It’s only sad that our stockpile of silken tofu is so low (and well, the prices have seriously rose)! Alas. The memories are there.
This one just may be my partner’s ultimate (and relatively easy!) dessert choice, and the “surprise” inclusion here today is because I was oh so jazzed on making dark chocolate tarts this summer for two wonderful reasons: 1) I brought back a barely-used tart pan out of our storage unit when I was in Portland this past July (oh, life) -and- 2) After a thrilling day of picking red, black and gold raspberries at Big M Farm in Nenana, it promptly struck me how utterly irresistible they would be on top of a tart.
Therefore, tart summer!
One more surprise element was the glee of saying gelée (which is French for jelly) - and typing that romanticisation of the “é”! I used a jam-and-fresh-citrus-and-agar-agar gelée to set over & under the berries.
I shan’t share any crust recipes, because I’m forever adjusting the ratios in coconut oil-based shortcrusts with or without sourdough, or more recently, swinging gluten-free for a cinnamon-y oatmeal cookie crust when the company calls for it. TBA, TBD, TBC.
*Speaking of blenders, I’ll give a shout-out to my longstanding, high powered Vita-Mix. I would be remiss not to mention that it was a gift from the company another lifetime of talking about food on the internet ago…eh, what product placement, indeed.
Wait, what was that I was saying about this being “short and sweet” ?! Thanks for reading on! Three down, two to go …
🔪 Chickwheat Shreds (Finally)
These “shreds'' went viral in 2017 and you can find a plethora of copycat recipes out there. While the process of making chickwheat itself takes a few steps and equipment (blender, food processor, instantpot, check), the ingredients are seriously simple.
Cooked chickpeas. Vital wheat gluten. Some miso. A very short handful of other fairly run-of-the-mill pantry stuff.
As usual, I was years behind on this trend (no doubt busy with cooking & eating + eating & cooking Thai food), and 2022 was the year I played catch-up with three separate rounds of this recipe, each of which are really double batches. It makes a ton and keeps for at least a week in the fridge….if you make it that long. The end result is reminiscent of soy curls, which I dig, and I assume is even higher in protein.
My favorite way to cook these shreds – that you exuberantly pull apart with your hands in the final stage of making them – is to pan sear with a little oil in a hot cast iron, and either toss with a buffalo sauce and enjoy with slaw & a creamy, cooling dressing in a pita or on a salad, or I head for a saucey (also spicy!) Mexican filling, a la chicken tinga or al pastor tacos.
People also rave about them in pot pies, but that’s not really my bag (see also: textural preferences).
Whatever people like to do with shredded chicken, I bet you can find a way with chickwheat.
Make Your Own Chickwheat ! ! !
I will now insist that you check out the OG recipe on Avocados and Ales.
🔪 Pesto Pizza as a summer lifestyle
We’ve made it to the finale of this surprising quartet!
I can recall scrunching up my nose at the notion of a slice of pesto pizza in past years. Yes, Hot Lips, I’m looking at you. Also, a focaccia slice is NOT pizza, but you’d already lost me back then. (The squash spread, howev, was lovely. And they had actual vegan red sauce + chz slices in my final Portland year. Well, iykyk).
Moving on.
This past summer was one of glorious levels of basil-osity in our life, which led to my pesto epiphany. I was finally, officially, over-the-green-hills in. Team pesto! Give me a jersey!
Nowadays, I have such fonder memories of putting together pesto-topped pizzas in our bit of Alaskan summer.
The therapeutic act of kneading and shaping the dough, smothering the base in intoxicatingly fresh pesto, thin slices of zucchini, halves of fleeting tomatoes, perhaps a handful of salty kalamata olives, and dollops of whipped tofu miso ricotta for good measure. When the eating is good, it’s gooooood.
Swoony.
More on Pizza + Pesto:
Roberta’s Pizza Dough via Food.com - my fave
the pesto prophecy, these scone archives (includes 3 casual summer pesto recipes)
DUM DUM DUM
🔪 Runner Up - Banana Cinnamon Rolls
Yeah, I went long. It’s cool, right?
‘Cause while this bonus one may not be short, it is sweet - and fabulous. You see, it creeps me out to really think about the import/export/internationally monstrous agricultural aspects of it all, but we do buy a bunch or two of bananas every grocery run. And like so many people who buy bananas with the best intentions of eating them all, it usually does not happen. Plus, they had a long, long way to get here, and while they can be OK, the ripening stages are not the prettiest this far up north.
Lengthening story short, I tried out this recipe for banana cinnamon rolls one day looking for a change of pace from loaves, muffins and pancakes. It’s really great. I’ll repeat the fabulous claim, because it’s true.
The bread flour in the dough gives it a lovely extra something. I can also attest that it’s easily halved, and even better with some cocoa powder and an extra sliced banana worked into the filling.
Woo! Two More Links:
(And for the record, I use virgin coconut and/or olive oil in lieu of vegan butter in the dough and filling, and just a quick confectioner’s sugar + vanilla + water + cinnamon glaze vs. cream chz. I mean, come on now).
Hi! Did any recipes take *you* by surprise lately?
‘Til we meet again ~ This ‘scrap will continue when we return from something called a “vacation” in a warmer locale…
Spoilers: I anticipate a SIBLING REUNION and AVOCADOS!!!!!!
Those banana cinnamon scrolls are making me hungry! I am thankful bananas are grown in my state, even though worker exploitation is sadly an international issue. Though I like my scrolls without any glaze or frosting, why mess with perfection?
I am very keen to try your frittata recipe! Is the tofu in that silken or firm?
Also, very curious to hear more about this whipped tofu ricotta. Do you just make a regular tofu ricotta and then whip it up to make it extra something?