Lime Poppyseed Cookies

I was over at my friend H's house yesterday, and we were trying out different foods for H&Z's wedding in September. H made a killer raspberry poppyseed dressing, which made me start thinking about poppyseeds...

I had a couple of limes in the fridge, and it turned out that K had a bunch from yesterday's cooking adventure, so we and S and L made lime poppyseed cookies! They're super-limey and super-yummy.

Here's the recipe.

3 limes: fresh lime juice
2 limes: fresh lime zest
1 stick (1/2 c.) vegan margarine
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 flaxegg
1/4 c. poppy seeds

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare flaxegg in a large bowl by grinding 1 tbsp flaxseeds (I used golden ones because they don't show in the cookies, but you can use whatever), and beating with 3 tbsp water until it has an eggy consistency. Mix the rest of the wet with the flaxegg, and mix the dry in another bowl. Add wet to dry. Mix. Dollop onto cookie sheets and bake for about 10 minutes. They don't really get brown on top, so make sure you don't burn the bottoms!

Tofu Scramble with Herbs, Tomatoes, and Spinach

Today I made a tofu scramble with herbs from my garden, and cherry tomatoes and spinach I had lying around. I used a good deal of garlic, which gave it a nice kick, and the herbs deepened the flavor.

It also has black salt (kala namak), which is a spice that smells and tastes eggy, because it's got sulphur in it. I used some of that and some turmeric, to give the scramble an eggy sight, smell, and taste.

I will definitely make this again!

4 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
1 yellow onion, diced.
A few leaves of fresh basil, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp black salt
1 block (14 oz) extra firm tofu, drained
1-2 c. fresh spinach
handful of cherry tomatoes.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Saute onions, herbs, turmeric, and black salt on medium until well-caramalized. About a minute after starting the saute, add the cherry tomatoes. Once the onions are well-caramelized, crumble in the tofu. Increase heat to medium-high, and stir until evenly mixed. Stir frequently. After five minutes or so, add the spinach. Add salt and pepper. Enjoy!

Basil Socca

This is so delicious I'm posting it as I am eating it.



And it is ridiculously simple. It's a cross between a crepe and socca--a traditional french street food. It's made with chickpea flour (socca), but it's cooked on the stovetop (crepe), as I didn't have a proper dish to put in the oven. My twist is that I added fresh basil from my little garden into the batter.

It took me a long time to discover chickpea flour. What was I thinking? It has a wonderful, eggy, nutty, flavor--not to mention that it's really good for you too. The basil complements it perfectly.

Here's the recipe (if you can even call it that):

1/2 c. chickpea flour
1/2 c. water
Handful of basil leaves
some olive oil for the pan
salt and pepper for seasoning.

Beat the chickpea flour and water well. Heat a nonstick or cast-iron pan on high, with some olive oil in it. (Don't skimp, otherwise it will stick). Add basil leaves to the chickpea flour batter. Make sure you coat the leaves thoroughly.
When the pan is hot (but before the oil starts to burn!) add the batter to the pan, turning the pan so that it spreads evenly. After a couple of minutes (when the first side is brown), very carefully flip it over. After the other side is brown), slide it onto your plate and season to taste with salt and pepper. YUM!

p.s. I also had a zucchini flower from my garden which I also fried in this batter. That was excellent too! (In fact, so excellent, that I ate it before remembering to take a picture.)