Vegan “Feta Cheese”

I was very skeptical about vegan cheeses that try to mimic real cheese. I’ve tried a few of them and wasn’t at all impressed, to the point where I decided it wasn’t worth the effort looking for substitutes. I just needed to learn to live without cheese. It was all good until I came across this “feta cheese” recipe in an Israeli vegan blog. Feta cheese was one the things I most regretted not eating anymore since becoming vegan. I LOVE feta cheese. So when I came across this recipe I had to give it a try. And I was pleasantly surprised. It is delicious!! Is it feta cheese? No. But it tastes and feels like cheese and it is salty and tangy enough to satisfy my craving for feta cheese.

So without further ado, here is the recipe. If you are a vegan who happens to love feta cheese, this may hit the spot.

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups (145g) almond flour
45g raw cashew nuts soaked in water for 5 hours
¼ cup lemon juice
½ cup water
3 tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 ¼ tsp salt

Preparation:
Place all the ingredients in a food processor and process to a smooth puree.

Place a colander in a slightly bigger bowl and drape a cheese cloth over the colander. Pour the puree into the cheese cloth. Tie the corners of the cheese cloth together to make a sack, and suspend over a bowl for 12 hours or overnight in the fridge.

Preheat an oven to 350F.

Grease a baking dish with a tiny bit of oil, then untie the cheese cloth and gently place the ball of cheese in the baking dish, face down.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until the cheese becomes golden. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.

Keep refrigerated up to 3 weeks, if it lasts that long…

We like to use it as a spread or crumble it over a salad or any other dish.

It is really surprisingly delicious!

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Eggplant and Black Lentil Salad

Two of my favorite ingredients, eggplants and lentils, are combined together in this interesting Turkish salad I found in an Israeli magazine. You may add this salad to a bed of lettuce to create a salad meal, or you can use it as a side dish. I ate it as my main dish as it already has the protein in it (lentils). I added some cooked veggies and a nice piece of homemade bread and I was a very happy camper. I discovered that this salad tastes best the following day. And oh, yeah, the cherry on the icing is crumbling some feta cheese (vegan in my case) on top when serving the salad.

Ingredients:
2 medium eggplants, cut into 1 inch cubes
4 tbs oil
1 cup black lentils
2 ½ cups water
10 cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
½ cup mint leaves, chopped
½ cup raisins or dried cranberries
Juice from ½  lemon
1 tsp apple vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Preparation:
Heat an oven to 400F.

In a bowl mix the eggplant cubes with oil, salt and pepper. Spread them on a baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven until eggplants are nicely browned. Remove from the oven and cool.

Place the lentils and the water in a pot, bring to a boil and cook for about 25 minutes, until lentils are soft but not mushy. Drain of excess water and let cool.

In a large bowl, combine the lentils, eggplants, tomatoes, mint, raisins, onion, lemon juice and vinegar. Mix well and add salt and pepper to taste.

Keep refrigerated.

The salad tastes better the next day, as the flavors get absorbed.

Mediterranean Medley

Eggplants, zucchini, bell peppers, basil, olive oil and garlic….couldn’t get more Mediterranean then that.

This wonderful dish can be served as a salad or as a side dish, warm or at room temperature. It is at its best a day after preparing it as the flavors combine into a cohesive dish.

Ingredients:
2 eggplants, cut into 1 inch cubes
3 zucchinis, cut into 1 inch cubes
3 bell peppers
Olive oil for drizzling
4 cloves garlic, minced
5 sprigs basil (1 cup)
3 tbs white vinegar
2 tbs olive oil
Salt

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400F.

Place the cubed eggplants and zucchini on a baking sheet, drizzle with some olive oil and bake for about 20 minutes, until eggplants are golden. Remove from the oven and chill.

Place the whole bell peppers on a baking sheet. Set the oven to hi broil and roast the peppers until skin is charred. Turn the peppers and char them all around. Remove from the oven and place in a pot with a lid to let the peppers sweat. When cold enough to handle, peel the skin off the peppers and remove the stem and the seeds. Cut the peppers into strips.

In a large bowl, place the roasted eggplants, zucchini and peppers.

Cut the basil leaves into thin strips and add to the bowl.

Add the garlic, vinegar, olive oil, and salt, and toss the salad well.

Keep refrigerated overnight or at least 4 hours before serving, to let all flavors come together.

Eggplant Rollatini with Mushrooms

My husband and two boys used to be the carnivores in our house, and if a main dish didn’t include meat, they were very dissatisfied. But not anymore. Not after having this dish for dinner. In fact, they enjoyed it so much that now I can introduce more meatless dishes and they are totally fine with that and a new era started in our home – we are all vegan now.

Of course, this dish is not what made us change our eating habits but it was a nice trigger.

The flavor of the mushrooms is very rich and full of umami. Do not skip on the baby bella or the dried mushrooms. They are responsible for the umami flavor.

Ingredients:
4 large eggplants
Oil spray
¼ cup oil
1 large onion, diced
20 oz mixed mushrooms (baby Bella, white button)
1 oz mixed dried mushrooms or dried porcini mushrooms
1 cup chopped parsley
1 tsp Aleppo pepper
½ tsp garlic powder
Salt

Sauce:
2 tbs oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 medium tomatoes
2 tbs tomato paste
1 cup water
½ tsp garlic powder
Salt and black pepper

Preparation:
Preheat an oven to 400F.

Slice the eggplants lengthwise, into ½ thick slices. Generously pray a baking sheet with oil and arrange the eggplant slices in one layer. Spray the eggplants with the oil. You will probably need 2-3 baking sheets to accommodate all the eggplant.

Place in the preheated oven and bake until eggplants turn golden. Remove from the oven and chill. Turn oven off.

In the meantime, heat ¼ cup oil in a large pot and sauté the onion.

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Chop the fresh mushrooms in a food processor until they resemble ground meat in texture.

Place the dried mushrooms in a coffee grinder and grind to a powder.

Once the onion is golden, add the ground mushrooms to the pot and sauté on high heat for 5 minutes stirring it occasionally.

Add the garlic powder, Aleppo pepper and salt and sauté for 1 more minute.

Turn off the heat, add the chopped parsley and mix well. Chill.

Heat 2 tbs oil in a small pot and saute the onions for 3 minutes.

Place the tomatoes in a food processor and puree. Add the tomatoes to the sautéed onion and saute for 2 more minutes.

Add the tomato paste, water, and spices and stir it all in. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Putting it all together:

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Place 1 tbs of the mushroom filling on one end of the eggplant and roll up tightly.

Place the eggplant rolls in a baking dish, seam side down, one next to the other.

When baking dish is full, top the eggplant with half the amount of the tomato sauce, and bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes.

Serve hot or at room temperature with some good bread.

 

Savory Parmesan Cookies

Warning – these cookies are addictive!!!

They are excellent as hors d’oeuvres and go great with drinks. I like to make them for large gatherings, because they are very easy to make so you can make a nice amount of them, and everyone is super impressed. Usually, though I need to make a double batch because the wonderful cheesy aroma gets my hubby and kids out of their rooms and brings them to the kitchen. Everyone wants to have just a bite as soon as the cookies come out of the oven, and before we know it a whole baking tray is gone… People will stalk you for the recipe, so be prepared to hand out copies, or better yet, refer people to my blog 🙂 .

The recipe below is a base upon which you can build. And it’s really fun because every time you can make it slightly different and you get a different flavor. You may change the parmesan cheese with kashkaval, cheddar, or any other sharp flavored cheese. Or mix a bunch of cheeses together. You can also incorporate any seeds or spices that you like in or around the dough, such as poppy, mustard, nigella, sesame, paprika, smoked paprika, black pepper, cumin…you name it.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
½ tsp salt
8oz soft butter
6oz shredded parmesan cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 egg beaten with a little water (egg wash)
Toppings of choice: poppy seed, sesame, zaatar, nigella seeds

Preparation:
Place the flour, salt, butter, cheese, and one beaten egg in a mixer bowl equipped with the guitar attachment. Mix the ingredients to form a cohesive dough.

Divide the dough into three pieces and roll each piece into a 2inch thick log. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 30 minutes, or until dough in frozen.

In a small tray, place your topping of choice.

Remove the dough logs from the freezer. Brush each log with the egg wash, then roll it in the topping, making sure it is fully covered.

Slice into ½ inch slices and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

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Bake in a 360F preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes, until the cookies are slightly golden.

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Turkish Salad

In Israel, this salad is known as Turkish salad and is sold in every supermarket under this name. I’m not sure that this salad actually originated in Turkey, since I haven’t found any supporting evidence for it when looking for recipes. However, I don’t know what else to call it, so I’ll just go with the name I know.

We make many different salads at home on a regular basis but Turkish salad wasn’t one of them. For no good reason, really. But we did eat it every time we dined in Middle Eastern grill restaurants in Israel. And my kids loved it. So I decided to look for the recipe and make it at home. As I’m sure you know, as with any recipe, there are so many different versions and I wasn’t sure which one to try. And then I met this Israeli woman who owns a bakery/grocery store in Boca Raton, where I buy really good pita bread. She also makes her own salads, one of them was this Turkish salad. When I asked her how she makes it, she gave me the recipe without hesitation, which I thought was very nice of her. And this is the recipe I use. It tasted pretty good to us, so we stuck with it. It is a salsa-like salad, and is a great accompaniment to main dishes or on sandwiches. We especially enjoy it with good pita bread or a fresh homemade challah. Hope you like it, too.

Ingredients:
4 tbs oil
3 red bell peppers, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can tomato paste
½ cup water
1 tsp cumin
½ tsp sweet paprika
½ tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup thinly chopped cilantro
½ cup thinly chopped parsley

Preparation:
In a medium saucepan, heat the oil and sauté the peppers for 3 minutes on medium high heat.

Add the garlic and keep sautéing for 2 more minutes.

Add the tomato paste, mix it in well and cook for 1 minute contently stirring it so that it doesn’t burn.

Add the water and the spices, lower the heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes.

Add the onion, cook for 2 more minute, then remove the pot from the heat.

Add the cilantro and parsley and mix well.