Here is the recipe for Vegan Biscuits and Gravy that I made for the Synesthete’s Brunch. It’s easy, it’s an indulgence…it’s homemade biscuits straight from the oven for Pete’s sake! Obviously this recipe is perfect for brunch but it would good for dinner too with a side of sautéed spinach to round out the meal. You could also eat any leftover biscuits for dessert - they’d be yum with sliced strawberries and honey.

Time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4

Vegan Baking Powder Biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour + more for flouring your surface
3 tsp baking powder
scant ¾ tsp salt
6 Tbsp soy margarine, kept quite cold but not frozen
¾ cup soymilk
spray oil

Gameplan: Make the biscuits dough and get the biscuits set out on the baking sheet ready to go in the oven.  When veggie gravy is almost done you can pop the biscuits in.  They take about 10 minutes.

Remember – keep a light hand. If in doubt, add/do less.  Also, when you roll out the dough it should be ONE INCH THICK.  We’re not making sugar cookies here.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
In a large bowl: sift or mix together flour, baking powder and salt.

Drop the 6 tablespoons of margarine into the flour mix and start rubbing it together. When the margarine chunks are the size of large peas, stop.

Add the soymilk to the flour, work the mix into a ball and kneed 5 times against a floured surface.

To make your biscuits, roll your dough out (by hand or with a rolling pin) until 1 to 1.5 inches thick. Cut into 2.5″ squares.

Place the squares on an oiled baking sheet and cook for about 11 minutes, checking around 9 minutes for golden corners.

 

Vegan Gravy

1 14.5 oz tube of veggie sausage (I used Gimme Lean brand)
olive oil
1 jalapeno, deseeded and minced
1 yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp rubbed sage
¼ tsp fennel seed, optional
scant ¼ cup of all-purpose flour
1 - 2 cups soymilk
salt and lots of freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Add the veggie sausage, jalapeno, onions, and garlic to a skillet with a little olive oil heating in it. Cook the veggie sausage, breaking it up as you go along. Add the sage and fennel seed.

When the sausage is done and the onions are wilted, sprinkle the flour over the sausage and mix until incorporated so it’s no longer white.

Slowly add the soymilk, starting with about 1 cup. Depending on how you like your gravy you can add more soymilk, keeping in mind that the gravy will thicken while heating for few more minutes on the stove. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To Serve:

Plate 2 biscuits on a plate and pour some gravy over the biscuits or on the side.  Add some hash brown, and perhaps some sliced tomatoes and you’re all set for brunch.

Here’s the recipe for the Spinach and Grapefruit Salad. I described it thusly on my brunch menu:

“A light but wild salad - snappy spinach and grapefruit gets mellowed with avocado. Pistachios and Parm… Ginger Vinaigrette.”

Anyway, it’s a late winter-into-spring salad that can be served as a first course for dinner (yum with some steamed veggies and lemon-pepper tofu) or by itself for a light lunch.

Time: 25 minutes
Serves: 5

Spinach and Grapefruit Salad

2 grapefruits
2 avocados
1 bag baby spinach
1 head Boston lettuce, washed and torn into bite-sized pieces
¾ cup pistachios
approx. 1/3 cup parmesan cheese

Prepare the grapefruit: Segment the grapefruit and remove the skin and white membranes of each segment by slicing down each side of the segment. I first cut the white rind off the center curl of the segment, shimmied the skin off the sides, then sheered off the outside membrane. It’s ok if the segments break into halves or thirds; perfection is overrated.

Prepare the avocados: Cut the avocado into half lengthwise and into halves again. Remove the pit and peel off the skin. Slice each quarter into thirds or quarters lengthwise. Halve these slices widthwise so you’ve something more like a cube.

Ginger Vinaigrette

2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp white wine vinegar or champagne vinegar
1 Tbsp honey
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 small clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper

Shake up all the dressing ingredients in a Tupperware or jar.

To assemble the salad, toss the lettuce, spinach, and grapefruit segments with the dressing. Distribute evenly on 5 plates or large salad bowls. Top each pile of salad with the avocado pieces, pistachios, and curls of parmesan cheese.

Last week heralded the most depressing day of the year (good news - the rest of the year can only get better!) It’s cold and icy in NYC and the sun is acting too bashful to push its way through the clouds.

I noticed that it was about this time last year that Elise at Simply Recipes posted her version of Kale and Seaweed salad. I’ve been craving seaweed salad ever since I ordered it on New Years Day at Zen Palate. I can’t prove this scientifically, but heck, this is the time of year for seaweed salad!

I’ve forged ahead and simplified this into a full meal. It’s a kicky little dish that will fortify you against this toe-numbing cold and take the edge off your winter blahs.

Serves: 4
Time: 40 minutes

Kale and Seaweed Salad Bowl

3/4 oz dried wakame* seaweed
1 bunch kale, cleaned, deribbed and cut into 1/2 inch ribbons
3 Tbsp rice vinegar
3 Tbsp soy sauce, tamari, or Braggs
2 Tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp honey
1 inch ginger, minced
2 Tbsp sesame seeds
1 cup of wasabi peas
brown rice
12 - 16 oz firm or extra-firm tofu

Cook your brown rice - the rest of the meal can be prepared well within the time it takes to cook brown rice.

Wilt the kale in a skillet. You don’t have to add anything extra to the skillet - the water clinging to it from the washing is enough to do the trick. This takes about 10 minutes.

Mix up your dressing: add the vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, and ginger to a tupperware and shake until honey has dissolved.

Cut the tofu into cute, 1″ cubes. I like the soft, raw tofu to contrast with the silky kale crunchy sesame seeds and wasabi peas, so all I do with my tofu is bring it up to room temp and let it be. You may stirfry it, however, if you desire.

Soak the wakame in water for 5 minutes. Drain.

Combine the seaweed with the cooked kale in a salad bowl. Top with the dressing. Mix.

In a small dry skillet fry the sesame seeds gently until golden. Just takes a few minutes.

Then, assemble your bowl the following way:

Enjoy whilst imagining summer.

Tortilla Soup is one of those soups that everyone loves. It’s got a lot going for it - not only does the broth have a deep, toasted corn flavor but it’s often served at restaurants crowned with a nest of tortillas strips, oodles of grated cheese and more than a little daub of sour cream.

Here is a lighter, healthier and vegetarian version in which you use your favorite bean instead of the usual chicken. The corn tortillas and spices flavor the soup, but if you wanted to give it more body you could blend up some of the beans to make the soup creamier.

The toppings are also a smorgasbord of fun - use anything you like: vegan cheese, yogurt, fresh tomatoes, tomatillos, avocados, and minced jalapeno.

Time: 35 minutes
Serves: 5

Tortilla Soup

7 small corn tortillas – 2 for the soup, 5 for toppings
vegetable oil
1 yellow onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large can tomato puree
1 box of veggie broth
1 can of pinto beans (or your favorite - black beans, black eyed peas, hominy or a combo), drained and rinsed
juice of 1/2 lime
3/4 tsp cumin (more for tortillas)
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt (more for tortillas)

To prepare the tortillas, rip 2 of them into jagged pieces about 1.5 inches around. Take the remaining 5 tortillas and cut into 1/4 inch strips with a kitchen scissors.

Lightly oil a baking sheet and arrange the tortilla pieces and strips into a single layer. Sprinkle the top with salt and chili powder. Bake in a 350 degree oven, about 10 minutes on each side. Remove when crispy.

In a large pot, sauté the green pepper and onion in oil for a few minutes. Add the garlic. When the veggies are wilted add the vegetable broth, tomato puree, beans, lime and spices.

Simmer for 20 minutes. Add the torn tortilla pieces and cook for another few minutes, until the broth starts to absorb the flavor of the tortillas.

To Serve

cilantro, minced
avocado, diced
cheese, grated - optional (goat, white cheddar, jack)
(more suggestions in the introduction)

Ladle the soup into bowls and top with above toppings or others at your discretion.

It was an apartment like many other stately Upper East Side apartments except instead of a parquet floor the floor of this living room looked like it been prepared for surgery with linen, plastic wrap, and silver utensils stretching wall-to-wall. It overflowed with guests focusing with utmost concentration on… dumplings.

You see, the lively Nex0s hosted a dumpling party last Sunday. Guests were invited bring their own fillings to stuff into dumpling skins until they got silly. It reminded me of the nursery rhyme about Old Mother Hubbard except it wasn’t a shoe - it was an apartment. And there weren’t so many children - there were so many dumplings I didn’t know what to do. So many, in fact, that at the end of the evening I became concerned about the “orphan” dumplings - dumplings whose masters had left without giving them a home. Luckily, my sisters were happy to help house a few dumpling-children. For a few minutes, at least, before they gobbled them up.

Here was my contribution:

Peanut Butter and Jelly Dumplings

peanut butter
jelly
dumpling skins
toppings and/or sauces (suggestions below)

The directions are pretty simple if you’ve ever made dumplings before: stuff your dumpling skins with your favorite kinds of peanut butter and jelly. I used the most amazing peanut butter made by my fellow foodblogger Jessica of Su Good Sweets. Buy some. You won’t regret it.

Steam your dumplings. Or, pan fry your dumplings in butter or vegan margarine. If, like me, you’ve never made your own dumplings before, this PDF from Cooks Illustrated does a great job explaining the different methods of stuffing and cooking the dumplings.

If you want to be extra fancy you can make one of the two toppings I made for the dumpling party:

1) Spiced Sugar

In a small sauce pan, lightly brown a few cardamoms and cloves either “dry” or with a little butter.
Mix with some turbinado or demerara sugar (or just plain white sugar if that’s what you got) and add a hardy sprinkle of cinnamon.

2) Salt & Vinegar Crumbs for the Adventurous

Crush up some salt and vinegar chips. Dip away with your Pb&J dumplings.

I’m guessing that these dumplings would be good with pretty much any sweet “dip” too - warm nutella, melted chocolate, lavender honey, cinnamon-butter sauce with lemon zest. So many possibilities you won’t know what to do.