Rock Out With Your Wok Out

Hello from California! I'm currently enjoying a mid-summer break from the DC heat here at my parents' house, where I can actually go outside without immediately turning into a sweaty mess. As I've already shared, I have an undying obsession with both chickpeas and eggplants, so this week I've combined this with my family's love of spicy food to make this magical Eggplant Curry with Chickpeas.

People. This is some seriously good curry, and I've eaten my fair share of curries so I feel like I can speak with some authority on this matter. The veggies are tender, the sauce is thick and smooth, and the blend of spices makes your kitchen smell unbelievable as this dish is simmering away. This recipe also contains 0% bullshit - it's packed with delicious, healthy whole foods that you'll feel good about eating.

I'm planning on making this for a dinner party in the very near future - the beautiful golden color and well-balanced flavors just beg to be shared! This recipe does involve a fair bit of chopping - enlist a friend or be sure to start cooking early so that you don't end up hangry before it's ready to devour!

Eggplant Curry with Chickpeas
Adapted from Heather's ridiculously beautiful blog, The Flourishing Foodie

Serves 4

½ teaspoon mustard seeds
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
1 medium eggplant, diced and salted (click here if you need a refresher!)
1 cup chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, pressed or finely minced
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons chili powder
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground coriander
1 can of chickpeas, drained and thoroughly rinsed
1 cup diced tomatoes
½ cup chopped bell pepper
1 can of coconut milk
olive oil, to coat your wok

Prep all your veggies first! My MO is normally to chop while I cook, but with this dish that'll be a recipe for burnt curry and/or a visit to the ER. Plus the ingredients all look so pretty sitting in their little bowls.

In a wok or a deep saucepan, heat the olive oil over a medium flame, then toss in the mustard and cumin seeds. Stir them around in the hot oil until they start to crackle and pop - that's the sound of them releasing their delicious spicy flavors! Add the eggplant, onion, garlic, and ginger, and cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes, or until the onion is translucent and the eggplant is a bit soft on the outside but still pretty firm in the center.

Mix your chili powder, turmeric, cumin, and coriander with a just enough water to make a watery paste. Don't stress out, just eyeball this - if you add too much water, it'll cook off anyway! Pour the spice mixture into your wok, along with the chickpeas, and stir to evenly distribute throughout your veggies.

Once everything is a lovely shade of reddish-gold, throw your tomatoes and bell pepper into the curry and top it off with the coconut milk. Lower the heat and cook, stirring every couple of minutes, until the liquid starts to bubble and thicken. That's it, you're done! Sprinkle some cilantro and green onions on top if you're feeling fancy, then serve with rice or hot naan bread.

The Frosting on the Cake

My ladyfriend HATES carrots. Hates 'em. When I asked how she felt about taste-tasting some carrot cake this weekend, she begrudgingly agreed, on the condition that the carrots were smothered in a thick layer of frosting. Challenge accepted, courtesy of this week's Vegan Carrot Cake and Macadamia Frosting!

I have to admit, I was skeptical than a vegan substitute was going to live up to the delicious cream cheese frosting you normally find on carrot cake, and had resigned myself to the horrible fate of eating an entire cake all by myself if K didn't like it.

Luckily, we were both happily surprised by how this little experiment turned out. The cake was perfect - dense, moist, and not too sweet - and the frosting was impressively creamy. The macadamia nuts and cashews give it a subtle nutty taste, and the frosting is so rich that it's hard to believe that there's no butter or cream cheese hiding in there. I plan on using this liberally on other sweet treats in the future as well - red velvet cupcakes are next on my list.

Jeanine over at Love & Lemons knocks it out of the park with this one, so I'm going to send you her way for the recipe! Plus she has two adorable Shiba Inu pups so her Instagram account is basically dogs and delicious food...I don't know what more you could really ask for.

My only note - when the recipe calls for a "high-speed blender" for the frosting, apparently this is some NASA-level shit because the speedy little Ninja I normally use took forever and a day to get the texture super creamy. Don't fret! It'll take a little longer but you will get there eventually. Enjoy the photos, then try this recipe out for yourself!

The Mother Sauce

Several months ago, in the early days of spring, I shared my favorite pesto recipe with you. Today, with temperatures and humidity both soaring above 80, we're getting even more fancy with a Vegan White Sauce!

What's that? Why yes, I did get new plates! My dad hauled them all the way from Poland and I'm obsessed with them, thank you very much. And yes, those are fake chicken nuggets. What of it?

The fancy name for white sauce is bechamel - the vast fount of knowledge (aka Wikipedia) tells me that this is one of the five "mother sauces" of French cooking, a term which will never not be funny to me. Given that white sauce is basically butter and full-fat milk, you'd think it would be hard to recreate this sophisticated-sounding gem in a vegan kitchen. But you'd be wrong!

This dairy-free white sauce is smooth and thick, with all of the delicious creaminess of it's non-vegan cousin. Bechamel is perfect on pasta, and is also pretty damn good as a substitution for tomato sauce on pizza. You could probably go wild and use this on lasagne or in some sort of quiche situation - I have yet to experiment with this, but plan on trying it out!

Bechamel Sauce 
slightly adapted from the adorable Veggieful

Makes 2 cups

2 tablespoons Earth Balance
¼ cup tightly packed minced yellow onion
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup non-dairy milk (make sure you use unsweetened and unflavored)
2 tablespoons vegetable stock
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
salt, pepper, and paprika, to taste

Throw your Earth Balance, onions, and garlic into a medium saucepan and sauté over medium-low heat until the butter has melted and the onions are starting to get a tiny bit golden. Dump your flour in and stir vigorously - this is going to be the first of many times that you'll worry you did something horribly wrong, as the mixture will get all kinds of clumpy and weird-looking. Have no fear!

Buttah. 

Add your milk, vegetable stock, and lemon juice to this mess and whisk until everything is smooth. Now you're going to panic because your "sauce" essentially looks like curdled milk - trust me, just keep whisking. Pretty soon the mixture will start to thicken up and smell delicious. At this point, add your nutritional yeast, as well as your salt, pepper, and paprika. Make sure you're cooking at low heat, or your sauce will start to burn!

Have no fear, it'll be okay!

Once your sauce has thickened up, it's ready to serve - you can thin it out a bit by stirring in a couple of extra drops of veggie stock if it's looking a little too much like pudding. I poured my bechamel over pasta with zucchini and tomatoes (homegrown, courtesy of Mama LBV). Bon appétit!

I Dip, You Dip, We Dip

Hello, friends! How are your hangovers this morning? 4th of July has come and gone, along with the near-constant soundtrack of fireworks and truly astounding number of American-themed clothing items that appear the exist in DC. Have no fear, though - America's birthday might be over but BBQ season is not, so you still have plenty of opportunities to bust out this delicious Spinach Artichoke Dip for all your outdoor snacking needs.

I think we can all agree that artichokes are weird yet delicious, yes? After all, Pablo Neruda did write an ode to one. I don't know what determined soul stumbled upon this prickly little sprout and decided it would be a good idea to try to eat it, but I'm glad she did! The artichoke hearts in this recipe blend perfectly with the creamy cashews and leafy spinach - you'll end up with a dip that's crispy on top, gooey inside, and perfect when paired with tortilla chips.

A few tips! Go easy with the liquify setting once you add your spinach and artichoke hearts - a chunkier texture will help the flavors in this dip really shine through. Also, cook just until the mixture has set to maximize creaminess and that pretty green spinach color. Finally, double the recipe. Just do it - your guests will thank you!

Spinach Artichoke Dip
adapted from Livvy's 86lemons

¾ cup almond milk (soy is fine, too - just make sure it's unsweetened!)
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, sliced
½ teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon paprika
¼ cup nutritional yeast
¾ cup cashews
2 cups spinach
2 cups artichoke hearts (avoid the ones that are marinated in oil -  they'll make your dip super greasy)
salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 425 F and grab a glass 8x11 baking pan. Pour everything except the spinach and artichokes hearts in a blender and go to town - you want a thick, smooth liquid that has a similar consistency to gravy.

Tiny bowl! Or giant hands?

Look at these shiny little nuggets.

Toss the spinach and artichoke hearts into the blender and pulse just until they're roughly chopped and evenly incorporated throughout the mix. Pour all this deliciousness in your baking pan and pop it in the oven.

Smooth it out. 

Cook for 16-18 minutes - the dip shouldn't jiggle when you shake the pan, and the edges should be oh so slightly browned. Serve warm with tortilla chips or your favorite raw veggies.