Veganomicon: Cholent and Pistachio & Rosewater cookies

Matzoh ball soup, latkes, borscht, challah, bagels… I love Jewish food. I have a kind of unexplained affinity with the Jewish culture given that I have no blood connection to it, but I did go to shul for a little while when I was trying to find my faith, and a lot of the principles followed made sense to me. The food was a pretty big draw-card, bagels with Better Than Cream Cheese (might be what I’m eating right now, maybe) are definitely in my favourite breakfasts list. I wanted to make something hearty, that would yield leftovers and allow for more time chatting and less time preparing but still be impressive enough to serve a guest. Cue Veganomicon! Plus, checking off a couple more recipes in my quest to make everything in this book. Cholent is the Shabbat stew, slow cooked for 12 hours and eaten for lunch.

Cholent (from Veganomicon)
serves 6

Veganomicon Cholent on cous cous

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp tarragon
1 tsp caraway seeds (or 1/4 tsp fennel seeds/rye seeds)
1 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper, to taste
1/2 cup red cooking wine, water or vegetable broth
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup French lentils, rinsed
1 cup peeled, sliced carrots (about 1/2″ thick)
4 medium sized potatoes, peeled and diced.
1 15 ounce can tomato sauce (I used crushed/pureed tomatoes)
3 cups water
1 cup TVP chunks (I used Sanitarium casserole pieces)
1 cup frozen or canned and drained lima beans (I used peas)
1 15 ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed

In a large soup pot heat the oil over medium heat
Saute the onion until translucent.
Add the garlic, tarragon, caraway seeds, salt and pepper
Saute until the garlic is fragrant
Deglaze the pot with the red wine (or water/veg broth…)
Add the bay leaves, lentil, carrots, potatoes, tomato sauce, water and TVP chunks
Bring to a boil then cover and simmer 30 minutes until the carrots and potatoes are tender
Add the beans and simmer until the stew has thickened and the beans are heated through.

I served the Cholent with cous cous and added extra vegetables to leftovers for another meal. Super tasty! Then for dessert I got a little bit fancy…

Pistachio & Rosewater Apricot cookies/ice-cream sandwiches

Not the most attractive picture ever, sorry.

Suggested ingredients:
1¼ cups sugar
½ cup canola oil
3 Tbsp. rice or soy milk
1 Tbsp. rosewater (didn’t have this)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
1 tsp. finely grated lime zest
¼ cup cornstarch (cornflour)
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder (didn’t have this as far as I can recall)
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. ground cardamom
½ cup shelled pistachios, coarsely chopped

I added:
1/2 cup dried apricots, diced

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease two cookie sheets with vegan shortening or margarine.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, rice or soy milk, rosewater, vanilla, lime juice, and zest. Add the cornstarch and whisk until dissolved. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, and cardamom. Mix well.
3. Roll the dough into balls about 2 teaspoons in size (a bit smaller than a walnut) and dip the tops into the chopped pistachios. Press down with two fingers; the dough will flatten a bit and the pistachios will collect on the bottom (actually, I mixed the pistachios and the chopped apricots in with everything… lazy)
4. Place the cookies, nut side up, about 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. You should be able to fit 16 on a standard baking sheet. Bake for 13 minutes; they will be soft but will firm up as they cool.
5. Remove from the oven and let cool on the cookie sheets for about 5 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and cool completely before serving

Or, sandwich two cookies together with a layer of So Good Chocolate Bliss and then put in the freezer on a lined tray until ready to serve. Beware as the cookies tend to get a bit harder in the freezer. But the dough itself was so tasty that a lot of it didn’t even make it into the oven. They were really, really good though. I want to try them again with the proper ingredients but the pistachio, apricot and lime flavour combination was absolutely divine.

This is what they should have looked like - from nothanksimavegan.com