It should be FALL, right? Even in Miami, it should be fall. It should be more like 80º, not 90º, but it isn’t. So to give Mother Nature a hint, I decided to bake Tamarin Cinnamon Apple Sticky Rolls. Tonight is also the beginning of another 7-day Jewish holiday, Sukkot. Since my mother is making a meat-based dinner, I decided to make these sticky rolls non-dairy.

Tamarin Spread (no, not tamarind-the-fruit) is named for a small monkey in the Brazilian rainforests, and is a creamy, slightly cinnamon-y concoction that’s making it’s way here from Belgium, where it’s known as speculoos (or spekuloos). Kind of. And it evolved from a Christmas wafer cookie. I’m still not sure how that happened. But now, it’s a smooth spread that’s lighter than peanut butter, and ever so flavorful. I won a jar of Tamarin Spread at Elle’s New England Kitchen about a month or so ago, under the condition that I develop a recipe using it. I’ve owed Elle this post for, oh, about 3 weeks now, and there’s no time like the present!

The Jewish holiday Sukkot (or Succos), translates as “Feast of Tabernacles”, and commemorates the Jewish people’s 40 years of wandering in the desert between being released from bondage in Egypt to finally being permitted to enter Israel, their new permanent home. We are supposed to build a kind of impermanent dwelling outdoors, with a roof made of branches or palm leaves (depending on what’s available in your area), so you can still see the sky through it, and eat all of our meals during the next week there.

Sukkot is also a harvest holiday, akin to Thanksgiving, and fruit and/or nuts in some form is usually on the table. Tying all three events together is a piece of cake (no pun intended – sort of ) with this version of sticky rolls, spread first with a layer of Tamarin Spread, and then with a buttery chunky layer of apples cooked with brown sugar and cinnamon.

Tamarin Cinnamon Apple Sticky Rolls

For the Dough:

1 envelope (or 2-1/4 tsp.) yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm soy milk
1/4 cup natural cane sugar
4 Tbs. Smart Balance Light spread
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract

I mix this with my stand mixer, fitted with the dough hook, but you can certainly mix it by hand if you care to.

Preheat the oven to 350º F.

Put the yeast in a large bowl and pour the warm (between 110º-120ºF) soy milk over the yeast. With the mixer running on low speed, add the sugar, Smart Balance, and eggs. Start adding the flour, one cup at a time, followed by the salt and vanilla, and mix until a soft, cohesive dough is formed. The dough should not be sticky, but feel smooth and silky. This should take about 5-7 minutes.

With either a bit of oil or non-stick cooking spray, grease the bowl and form the dough into a smooth ball. Put the dough ball into the bowl, turning it over a bit, so the surface is completely oiled. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel, and put it in a warm, draft-free spot to rise. Allow to rise till nearly doubled, about an hour.

For the Filling:

6 Tbs. Smart Balance Light spread
6 Tbs. organic brown sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1-1/2 cups apples (peeled, cored, and chopped in roughly 1/4″ dice)

1/2 cup Tamarin Spread

Melt the Smart Balance in a small frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the brown sugar and cinnamon, stir to combine, and heat till bubbly. Add the chopped apples, toss to coat, and reduce the heat to medium. Allow to cook for about 15 minutes, or until the sauce thickens and makes “strings” when you lift your spoon out of it. Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool.

To Assemble:

Grease a 9″ x 15″ baking pan and set aside.

Roll the dough out to a 15″ x 10″ rectangle. Spread the Tamarin Spread evenly over the surface of the dough, to within about 1/2″ from the edges.

Spread the apple-brown sugar mixture evenly over the Tamarin layer. With the long side facing you, carefully roll the dough over the filling mixture, jelly-roll style. Slice the roll into 12 (relatively) even slices and place in the prepared pan, touching each other. Cover the pan with plastic wrap, and put it in your warm, draft-free spot. Allow to rise for another 30 minutes.

Remove the plastic wrap and bake for 25 – 30 minutes, until golden brown. Allow to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before serving.

*Notes:

Can you make these babies with dairy milk and butter? Hell, yeah! As I may have mentioned before, I keep a kosher kitchen and so does my mom. If she were making a dairy or neutral meal, I would have used milk and butter in a heartbeat. Using the soy milk and Smart Balance Light has the dual benefit of making this non-dairy and vegetarian. Can you make this recipe without the Tamarin Spread? Of course. The filling just won’t have that subtle creaminess.

*Disclosures: I won a jar of Tamarin Spread in a giveaway on the Elle’s New England Kitchen blog. Everyone entering the giveaway did so with the proviso that if they won, they would commit to creating a recipe using the product. I have received no other consideration, nor have I received any consideration in any form for the use of Smart Balance Light. I buy it and use it because it is non-hydrogenated, non-dairy, vegan, and for its specific stated healthy properties. I recommend it on those grounds for anyone needing a butter or margarine substitute. That’s my opinion.

Project Vegan Yum Yum continues!

This week’s recipe assigned to us by Elle from Lauren Ulm’s blog-turned-book of the same name, is “Aloo Matar” (Which I’m pretty sure means “dead potato”. Oh no, wait. That’s Spanish. Never mind.)

Aloo means Potato and Matar means Peas. This is a vegan turn on an already vegetarian Indian dish of potatoes and peas in a spicy tomato-based sauce, properly called “Aloo Muttar”. But that’s how she spelled it, so…

What’s really vegan about this recipe, is that there is no ghee (Indian clarified butter), and no yogurt. In order to create that creamy consistency, Lauren has you run cashews through a food processor and blend in water. A stick blender with a mini-chopper attachment will make short work of the operation (a couple of good ones are in the “In My Kitchen” section of my Amazon store, there in my sidebar. Plug.). While the consistency is by no means as thick as yogurt, the effect in the finished dish is pretty authentic. I noticed that she uses this little trick in several different recipes, but this is the first opportunity I’ve had to try it. I was initially skeptical, but I have to admit that it works!

Unless you cook Indian food on a regular basis and already have an extensive pantry of Indian spices, you’ll need to go shopping. Don’t expect to find asafoetida or fenugreek leaves on the shelves at your local megamart. But that shouldn’t discourage you! After all, the internet is a marvelous thing, no?

Other things I did differently:

I didn’t feel like going shopping and didn’t have any fresh hot peppers in the house, so I used one whole dried Indian pepper. I didn’t process the diced tomatoes – seemed like a waste of energy. The tomatoes break down and the sauce cooks just as beautifully without it.

My husband had recently boiled a bunch of new red potatoes that he was afraid might go bad soon, so I used those, with the skin on, and just quartered them. I probably used twice as many as the recipe calls for, and that’s a good thing. As much as I like spice, there’s a lot going on here, and the additional potatoes helps smooth that out a bit.

I served this over rice and it was delicious! And don’t jump all over me for not using basmati. This was already cooked and in the fridge, just waiting to be refreshed and used. I’m all about the easy, people. The leftovers also keep really well. A few minutes in the microwave and it was just as good as the night I made it. The second time, I served it with purchased whole wheat naan and it was equally tasty.

The fussiest thing about this recipe? All the spice batches. But frankly, a lot of Indian cooking is like that – six gazillion spices separated into batches that go into the dish at different times. But if you organize them ahead in small prep dishes, it makes the process go much smoother. So don’t use that as an excuse!

Verdict: I will absolutely make this again. It’s a keeper.

Want to cook along with us? Get yourself a copy of Vegan Yum Yum (in the “In My Library” section of my Amazon store, too. Yeah, I know. Another shameless plug.) and then click on the Project Vegan Yum Yum banner, below.

The PhotoHunt theme this week is “Average”

I know – doesn’t sound like a promising start to our Project Yum Yum cook-along, does it?

Let me ‘splain. This is Week One of Project Yum Yum – hosted by my friend, Elle of Elle’s New England Kitchen – a (hopefully) weekly challenge to cook and eat healthier by incorporating at least one vegan meal a week into our normally carnivorous diets, by cooking out of Lauren Ulm’s book, Vegan Yum Yum. Vegan Yum Yum is based on Lauren’s blog of the same name, and if you’re interested in trying some of these recipes yourselves, you can either purchase the book (very reasonable on Amazon) or visit her blog.

This is not the first recipe I’ve made out of this book, but it’s the only one I thought to photograph, so in the interest of time, this will be my “Free Week” post: Pepita Fettucine With Spinach & Cranberries:

Honestly? I would have to rate this dish as Average (hence the PhotoHunt theme reference, and yes, I am stretching it a little. Again.).

It tasted good, but we found the cranberries in this a little overwhelming. And while we appreciate the juxtaposition of sweet and savory flavors in food, here, the sweet part kind of overtook the savory. Otherwise, we really enjoyed the pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and spinach, and this was very quick and easy to put together.

And yes, I know that’s not fettucine. It’s actually whole-grain thin spaghetti. It’s what I had in the house, okay?

Let me repeat – I’ve cooked about 6 or 7 things out of Vegan Yum Yum so far, and we’ve loved everything so far. This is the first recipe in this book that didn’t knock us over and that we found merely Average.

Can’t wait to find out what our first assigned dish is!

Speaking of mangoes…

I was inspired last week by Elle’s Brown Butter Maple Blueberry Muffins, to try and make a version with less sugar and more good stuff that MJ (the hubs) can snack on that won’t completely sabotage his diabetes type II diet (he’s down 35 pounds and 2 pants sizes!). Please don’t make me use the word healthy. Makes it sounds like it’s made out of bark, or something. Anyway, thus was born the MultiGrain Blueberry Maple Muffin. And if you remember, I threatened you with a mango version.

I’ve been waiting all week for the mangoes to come in, and finally! I got several that were perfect! So, without further ado, I give you

MultiGrain Mango Ginger Muffins

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup ground oatmeal
4 Tbs flax seed meal
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup Splenda for Baking (or 1/4 cup sugar &
1/4 cup Splenda)
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 cup ripe mango, cut in small dice
1/2 cup Canola oil
1 cup soy milk (I use plain, unflavored, but you can use what you like)
3 eggs (or 3/4 cup liquid egg substitute OR 2 eggs and 1/4
cup egg substitute)
1/2 tsp salt
4 Tbs candied ginger, finely chopped (optional)

Heat oven to 375, and lightly grease a muffin pan.

In a large bowl, sift together the flours, flax seed meal, baking powder, ginger, and Splenda.

In a smaller bowl, toss the diced mango with 1/4 cup of the flour mixture.

In another bowl, whisk the oil, soy milk, eggs, and salt.

Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture, mix until just barely combined, and fold in mango and candied ginger (if using).

Fill the muffin cups about 3/4 full and bake for 20-25 minutes.

A toothpick poked in the center should come out clean.

Makes 12

Damn you, Elle, for getting me on this muffin kick! Okay, not really…

I’m not sure what’s gotten into me, lately. All I seem to think about and talk about is Food. With a capital F.

As soon as the mangoes come in, I’m going to make this with a cup of diced ripe mango and a tsp of allspice. Or maybe ground ginger. Hmmm.