9 Days of Valentine's: Part 5...

For Day 5 of our celebration we went French once again with another recipe from Annie and Dan Shannon’s book “Betty Goes Vegan” This time I picked the Coquilles St. Jacques which sounded both fancy and interesting to me. I’ve never had Coquilles St. Jacques before - vegan or otherwise - in fact I’d never even heard of it until I picked up this book. Most likely this is due to the fact that most of my life I had a strong aversion to seafood and even after I grew to like some sea-dwelling creatures I never liked Scallops.

Coquilles St. Jacques in the pan before transfer
into the tart pans

The recipe that The Shannon’s use in their book is one made famous by Julia Child, but what The Shannon’s don’t tell you is that Coquilles St. Jacques is really just French for Scallops. In fact, it’s a very particular kind of scallop not the actual name of a specific dish, and so if you went to France and ordered Coquilles St. Jacques what you’d eventually end up getting would probably not be this exact dish - unless you could specify in French how you wished your scallops to be prepared - but I digress. Coquilles St. Jacques Scallops are popular in France as well as Spain and there are many ways to prepare them, though this recipe - thanks to Betty Crocker and Julia Child - seems to be the most common preparation in North America.

Fresh from the Broiler 

The Shannon’s version of the dish includes hearts of palm, artichoke, mushroom, red onion, and vegan shrimp - I used Sophie’s Kitchen Vegan Prawns - sauteed in butter. White Wine, Herbs de Province, lemon juice, parsley and a few other seasonings are thrown in to simmer, and then the whole thing is scooped into individual tart pans, topped with breadcrumbs and vegan mozzarella and broiled just long enough to melt the cheese and toast the bread. It looks fancy, and sounds like a lot of work but really this was a super quick and easy dish. Now, I’m not exactly sure why the Shannon’s used vegan shrimp rather then vegan scallops in the recipe considering Coquilles St. Jacques literally means Scallop of Saint James, but my guess is it’s possible that their book was written - and published - before Sophie’s Kitchen Vegan Scallops were on the market, or before they were widely available. Had I known prior to writing this post that scallops were supposed to be used in the non-vegan dish, I might have replaced the vegan shrimp with vegan scallops. In fact, I might just make it again with that switch in mind, anyhow, Sophie’s Kitchen Prawns were nevertheless a good fit here. They had the texture of shrimp, a subtle flavor that reminded me of actual shrimp and the whole dish tasted great together.

Because one can’t survive on Seafood Tarts alone, I also made a side of Potato Gratin Dauphinois from Robin Robertson’s book “Vegan Without Boarders” This is basically your standard gratin - or scalloped potatoes for you North Americans, - made with a home-made cashew cream, vegan sour cream, and vegan cream cheese. There is absolutely nothing healthy about it, it is rich beyond belief but it is oh so good! Possibly one of the best gratin’s I’ve made. Sprinkled with a little sliced green onion this made the perfect accompaniment to our Coquilles.

Then, for the Coup de Grace I made the decadently delicious and super easy Molton Chocolate Cake from Joy, Angel and Jorge’s book “Vegan Holiday Cooking from Candle Café” This recipe was also suppose to include a raspberry coulis but as I said to my husband ‘ain’t nobody got time for that’ and so I sliced some fresh berries instead. The cake is a pretty standard chocolate cake, the batter you pour into some greased muffin cups then you stuff about a tablespoon of chocolate chips into the middle and bake for 20 minutes until the cake is mostly cooked through but the middle is still soft. Flip the cakes out, and serve with berries or coulis. The minute you cut into your little cake all that ooey-gooey chocolate from inside comes drizzling out, making every bite heavenly. Though this particular cake doesn’t have a European element, it was featured in the books Valentine’s Day Chapter and so that was good enough for me.

Check back tomorrow, we’re going Italian yet again!

The Ultimate Spring Onion Phyllo Tart

When I first thought about what I wanted to make and then eat for Earth Day, onions were the first thing to come to mind. I had just discovered - and fallen in love with - ramps, I had leeks and green onions handy, and I’ve always been an onion fanatic. A tart using spring onions would be the perfect main course. The only problem was that I’d never cooked a tart before. I made a French Onion Pie once but that’s not exactly the same. So I searched the internet looking for a good onion tart recipe, and you know what I found? A whole lot of nothing, or at least nothing good. None of the onion tart recipes I found were vegan for one thing, the only vegan recipes I could find that came even close were for vegan French onion pie which I absolutely did not want to make. The vegetarian recipes were all very heavy on egg and cheese, and the non-vegetarian recipes were heavy on eggs, cream, cheese and meat. All of those things I might have been able to remedy however, but the problem was that almost none of the recipes used more then 1 kind of onion! Only one kind of onion? What kind of tart was that? Where was the creativity? Where was the onion love?

No, no, no... they wouldn’t do at all. I wanted to showcase a variety of onions in my tart, particularly fresh spring type onions. I wanted a ton of onion flavor, pure and simple. I didn’t want my tart stuffed with mushrooms and veggie meats, and heaping cupfuls of non-dairy cheeses. I didn’t want it full of breadcrumbs and other such nonsense. I just wanted onions. I didn’t think that was asking too much, but by the looks of the recipes I found it was. Sometimes despite all the cook books I own, and the wealth or recipes available I just feel like there’s a lack of creativity out there. Like everyone gets stuck in the same culinary vacuum. Not that there aren’t creative people out there, because there are, I read lots of awesome vegan blogs written by the most inspirational and talented people, but it’s like that old saying. Sometimes if you want something to get done and get done right you just have to do it yourself.

So I had to put on my thinking cap and figure out how to work out this tart. It didn’t take a lot of time to come up with a recipe and I’m so, so happy I was able to put this together because this Onion tart is simply incredible! I’m telling you, it’s a plate of absolutely mouth-watering, mind-blowing awesomeness. Really, I am going to be making this again and again! Really, It's got five kinds of onions, plus garlic!  If that isn't Ultimate I don't know what is. It was also rich, creamy, buttery and full of good old onion flavor. However, despite the massive amount of onions in this dish the onion flavor wasn’t overpowering at all. It was perfect, and just a tad sweet thanks to caramelized onions.  However if you prefer a little more sweetness you can add in the optional sugar I’ve listed, I don’t think it’s necessary but decide for yourself.

This turned out to be the perfect main course for my Earth Day dinner. Everything about it was amazing. For me the dish really embodied spring, so I hope you make it and enjoy it too. Oh, and FYI - It tastes even better reheated the next day!

The Ultimate Spring Onion Phyllo Tart 

2 Large Shallots
10 Garlic Cloves minced
3 Knob Onions sliced (White and Green parts)
1 Large Leek sliced (White and Green parts)
12 Ramps (Bulbs and Leaves)
1/3 C Sliced Green Onions
2 Tbsp Earth Balance or other non-dairy butter
3/4 tsp ground Thyme
3/4 tsp dried Sage
3/3 tsp dried Summer Savory
½ tsp Smoked Paprika
1/4-1/2 tsp White Pepper
Sea Salt to taste
½-1 Tbsp Sugar (Optional)

1/4 C Non-dairy Sour Cream
8oz non-dairy Cream Cheese
3 tsp White Miso

1/4-1/2 C Melted Earth Balance or other non-dairy butter
Sliced Green Onions to Garnish
Black Sesame Seeds to Garnish
10oz Phyllo Dough

- Preheat oven to 375'F

- Heat 1 Tbsp of non-dairy butter in a pan over medium heat. Saute garlic, shallots, and white parts of knob onions until caramelized. About10-15 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside in a bowl.

- Heat remaining 1 Tbsp of non-dairy butter in pan, and add the leeks, ramps and green parts of knob onions. Saute over medium heat until fragrant and soft. 8-12 minutes. Remove from heat and add to the bowl with the other onions.

- Add Thyme, Summer Savory, Sage, Smoked Paprika, White pepper, salt, Green Onions, Sour Cream, Cream Cheese and Miso, and sugar if using to the bowl with the onions. Stir until well combined. Taste and adjust flavor as needed, then set aside.

- Lightly spray a 11 inch quiche or tart pan with non-stick spray. Melt a quarter cup of Earth Balance or other non-dairy butter and keep handy. Carefully layer sheets of the phyllo dough into your quiche pan, covering the bottom and sides. It’s okay if some over hangs. Lightly brush every sheet of phyllo with melted non-dairy butter before adding another sheet.

*** Note - Ultimately how many sheets you decide to use is up to you. You want enough to form a nice crust on the bottom, but not so much that there isn’t room for the filling. Also a sheet of phyllo dough isn’t going to fit your quiche pan perfectly, so it’s okay to cut the sheets into workable pieces that you can layer in 8-10 sheets (depending on the size of your sheets) should be more then sufficient. Also don’t worry about it looking perfect, a little looseness around the edges will give it a nice rustic look. ***

- Once you’ve layered your phyllo sheets into the bottom and over the sides of the pan, add in your filling. Spread the filling evenly inside the pan.

- Carefully layer more sheets of phyllo over top of the filling. Use roughly the same amount that you used to form your crust and make sure to brush each sheet with melted non-dairy butter before applying it.

- When you’ve finished layering your top crust, carefully break or cut away any excess dough hanging over the edges. A little hang is okay, but you don’t want excessive dough hanging over or it’ll just burn. Brush the top crust with a little melted non-dairy butter then sprinkle with black sesame seeds and sliced green onions.

- Place in the preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until your tart is a nice golden color.

- Let cool 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

PS: Don't let all the steps worry you, this is actually really simple and pretty easy to make. Phyllo is a pain in the ass to work with, but once you get over that, this tart's a snap! and it's SO worth it!

Raw Chocolate Chia Pudding Tarts With Fresh Fruit...

As promised it is Monday, and I have returned. I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend.

Now, one thing that’ll become very obvious about me the more you read my blog is that I Love to bake, and I Love deserts. I usually make two deserts a week, or I at least bake cookies or muffins or what not. I get a lot of pleasure out of any kind of cooking, but particularly out of making deserts. There’s just something about measuring and mixing that I just find so de-stressing. I love how a house smells when there’s fresh baking in the oven, or on the wire cooling rack. I used to love waking up to the scent of my mother’s whole grain breads baking, filling not only the kitchen but the whole house with their earthy goodness. My mother is an excellent cook, but she’s always in my opinion been a master baker. Growing up our house was always full of fresh home made cookies, cakes, brownies, bars, pies, and breads. You name it and she would bake it, and I can’t recall ever not liking something she’d baked. She always starts her baking in the morning, six or seven am, and when I lived at home I would always wake up to those sweet, heavenly scents. Maybe that’s why I love to make deserts more then anything else, and maybe that’s why I without a doubt prefer to always do my baking at the start of my day rather then in the middle or the end. Baking in the morning, no matter where I am always reminds me of home.

Now despite my long standing love affair with baking it might astonish you to learn that I’ve never actually made a tart before. Before a week ago I wouldn’t have been able to make a tart to save my life, vegan, non-vegan, raw or baked, never had I embarked on such an endeavor. Yet somehow several weeks ago I suddenly got it in mind to do just that. Make tarts. Where this idea came from I have no idea. Maybe because Spring has finally come to the Mid-West, maybe because fresh fruit, particularly fresh berries are available in such abundance, maybe I was just craving chocolate. Regardless of the reason it’s a good thing to remember that once an idea firmly grabs hold of me I’m stuck with it until I carry it out. So three weeks ago or so when I was in Bed Bath and Beyond to buy a cake pan, I picked up a six pack of tart pans too, without a recipe or a clue, I stuffed them into my basket and went about my day.

Spring forward to last Wednesday when the desire to make tarts really over took me. By now I had read many tart recipes in preparation for my sudden onset of tart lust. I had flipped through every cook book I own, I pillaged my local library, and surfed the net for every kind of tart recipe imaginable and yet I could not find a single one that appealed to me. What then may I ask is a tart loving girl to do? The simple answer? Throw caution to the wind, and just ‘go with it’ by which I mean throw some stuff together and hope it works out alright. Personally I think this recipe worked out better then alright, way better. Both my husband M and I were wildly amazed by how creamy, rich and down-right delicious these tarts were. Not a one survived, always a good sign in my house.

Now, before you even get finished reading this recipe I know it looks like a lot of work, but it’s not, not really. Yes it is a lot of steps, but the actual labor is pretty minimal. I think it’s just a matter of being prepared, and though there are many steps that must be followed they are all super easy, I promise!

Raw Chocolate Chia Pudding Tarts With Fresh Fruit...

Start by making the crust....

Almond Cashew Crust - Yields enough for roughly 4 4x1 inch tart pans.

1C Cashews
3/4C Almonds (soaked in warm water for 10 minutes)
2 Medjool Dates (pitted and soaked in warm water for 10 minutes)
Roughly ½-3/4 of a medium sized banana.
½-1 tsp Vanilla extract
dash sea salt and cinnamon
1/4 cup water as needed

Now if you are like me and only own the tiniest, lamest food processor the world has to offer you’ll have to make this crust in stages. However if you’re fortunate enough to have one of those large fancy food processors I don’t see why you couldn’t just grind all the nuts together, and then add everything else into the processor once the nuts have formed a meal.

- Pulse Cashews until they from a meal. Then remove Cashews to mixing bowl.

- Pulse Almonds until they form a meal. Then remove to the same mixing bowl as cashews.

- Add a dash of sea salt, and a hefty dash of cinnamon to the nut meal combination then stir to combine.

- Using a half cup measure fill your food processor with the nut meal until roughly half full, add in ½ tsp vanilla extract, 1 date, and 1/4 of your banana. Pulse until well combined. If mixture is to dry and not pulsing gently pour in 1/4 cup of water until the blades begin moving. (Don’t worry if it becomes to pasty as it’ll dry out a bit more with the addition of the rest of the nut meal.) At this point, if your food processor is as lame as mine you still may need to use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl to get things moving again.

- Once everything is combined and running smoothly, add another cup of the nut meal and process. If mixture isn’t moving, add in another ½ tsp vanilla extract, 1 date, and another 1/4 of banana. Continue to process until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed, and gradually adding in the remaining nut meal. (You can add another 1/4 of banana if necessary, if mixture is too dry and crumbly)

- By now you should have a somewhat sticky, paste like mixture. Using a regular spoon scoop out 2 spoonfuls worth of batter and place into a plastic wrap lined tart pan. This part can be a bit tricky as the mixture can be quite sticky. What I found very helpful is folding the excess plastic wrap under the tart pan, which held the plastic in place better and made spreading the batter easier. You can use the back of the spoon to spread the batter as evenly as possible around the pan, then use your fingers to gently press the batter up the sides of the pan. Once batter has been evenly shaped into the pan cover with another piece of plastic wrap, then place in the freezer for 2-3 hours to firm up.

- Repeat with all four pans, or until no batter remains.

Chocolate Chia Pudding - Yields enough for about 5 or 6 tarts.

1-2 C Fresh Coconut Meat from 1-2 Thai Coconuts
3/4 C (Or more if desired) Coconut water from 1 Thai Coconut
½ C (or less) pure Maple Syrup
1/3 C (or less) Agave Nectar
½ C (or to taste) Cacao Powder
2 Tbsp (or to taste) Vanilla Extract
1/4 tsp Sea Salt
1/4-1/2 C Chia Seeds

- A couple of notes about this recipe, It’s one I originally got from Sarma Melngailis’s cookbook Raw Food Real World, and have altered a bit to suit my own taste preferences. I’ve made the recipe both with one cup of coconut meat and with 2 cups of coconut meat, and honestly I think I prefer the 1 cup of coconut meat variation. If you use less coconut meat you’ll want to use more chia seeds, if you use more coconut meat you’ll want to use less chia seeds. I don’t particularly like all the excess sweetener in this recipe, so I cut back on it, though I don’t really measure it. Generally speaking for the Agave I fill my third cup up about half or a little over half full, and sometimes I cut down a bit on the maple syrup as well, but that’s just me, I also like to add additional cocoa powder, as much as 3/4 cups, or as little as just an extra tbsp or two. Depending on how chocolatey I want it. Also if you’re not on a strict raw diet, by all means use regular dark coco powder, it works out just fine as well. Lastly, you really do need a high-speed blender for this one, I’m sorry, but otherwise it just won’t blend the coconut or the chia seeds properly. I tried to make this once last year with just my regular blender and it turned out simply awful! Also you do need Thai coconuts, those are the tan square ones with the triangular tip. Not the round brown hairy ones, those are mature coconuts and their flesh is very firm and not good for this kind of recipe. I made that mistake last year too.

Step 1 - Extracting the water and the flesh from a coconut.

- The easiest way to do this is to chop off the triangular tip of the coconut with a cleaver, and then quickly scoop the coconut up so that as little water spills out as possible. Then you can easily scrape out the flesh with a spoon.

- Now if you’re like me, you might not own a cleaver. That’s not a problem, but opening a coconut without a clever is going to take a little elbow grease. Generally what I do is take a (clean) screw driver and mallet and hammer the screw driver into the coconut. Make two or three puncture marks in the side then tip it upside down over a large measuring cup, and let the water leak out. However depending on the size of your punctures this might take some time. I’m usually to impatient to wait very long and so I begin shaking the coconut vigorously to get all the water out. Once all or most of the water is out you can use the point of a chef knife (I recommend a cheap one, don’t use a good expensive chef knife for this in case it gets ruined) To dig into the puncture that you’ve made, then you can start sawing off the top of the coconut. This is where the elbow grease is going to come in. Depending on how firm the coconut is it might take a bit of work, though ideally it should be less then 10-15 minutes. Once I get a good crack into it, I generally cover the sharp end of the knife with a towel then press down on both the covered sharp end and the handle with each hand, and use the force of all my weight to slice through the coconut shell. Of course, if you have a partner who’s a bit stronger then you, you could always bribe him or her to do it for you. I have resorted to this in the past when I found my ‘elbow grease’ to be a bit lacking in the face of one very, strong and determined Thai coconut. Once the coconut is opened scrape out the flesh with a spoon and Ta-Da! Finished.

Step 2 - Blending your pudding

- Once you have your coconut flesh, measure out all of your ingredients into your high speed blender and then blend on high for 1-2 minutes until everything is smooth. As stated above you might want to go a bit conservative on some of the ingredients and then taste for sweetness and flavor and then adjust according to your personal preferences. This is what I tend to do most of the time. If you find you need to re-adjust just blend for another 30 seconds to 1 minute until everything is well combined. If you find your pudding is too thin then add more chia seeds, if you find that it’s too thick for your liking then add a bit more coconut water or liquid sweetener.

Step 3 - Constructing Your Tart

- Once you have your pudding at your desired consistency and taste, remove your tart pans from the freezer.

- Grab a rubber spatula or wooden spoon and evenly distribute the pudding between your tart pans. I found that after adjusting the pudding ingredients that I had more pudding then tart shells. You could either make enough extra crust for two more shells or do what I did and scoop the excess pudding into a air tight container and place it in the fridge to eat by itself some other time.

- After you’ve filled your tart pans with your pudding place them into the fridge to cool and firm up a bit more. About 1-2 hours.

Step 4 - Decorating Your Tart

You can use any berries or any fruit really that you want to decorate your tarts, but I chose to decorate mine with fresh blueberries and raspberries, because that’s what I was in the mood for. You can also decorate your tart with any pattern or design you want, but I chose to do something simple.

I used about 16oz of blueberries to place a ring of berries around each of the four tart pans. I used about 15 raspberries to decorate the middle of each tart.

Once you decorate your tart you can serve them right away, or place them back in the fridge for later. They should keep a couple of days in the fridge. Though they’re so good you’ll probably devour them in one sitting!

I know it must seem like a lot of trouble to go to for some tarts, but I assure you it was worth every minute and really the steps look a lot more complicated then they actually are. The toughest part is cracking open the coconuts, everything else is gravy. Of course as I mentioned before if you’re not on a raw diet, you can really use any pudding recipe you like, that’s what I love about this recipe, it’s so flexible. You could essentially use any nuts for the crust, any pudding as a filling and any berries for a topping, though I sincerely recommend you make it my way at least once, before you decide to play around with it. If you make it I hope you enjoy it, and stay tuned, as tomorrow will being even more goodies!