Thanksgiving – Wait…are those…cookies?!

November 23, 2020

All things cranberry

Happy almost Thanksgiving!

May or may not actually post about what I make for the holiday (sweet potato pie & cookies) but here at least is a treat that nearly everyone can share – my apologies if you’re nut free. Otherwise, these bars are refined sugar free (of course) but also are gluten & grain free, dairy free, vegan & paleo. Yay!

They’re also super easy and come together in about five seconds, a plus when oven real estate is at a premium, assuming you’re doing the whole turkey thing.

C and I loved that they’re tart but herby – the thymes gives them a unique flavor that’s juuuuust on this side of savory. We didn’t eat them with ice cream but I’m 100% sure that would be spectacular; they’re also equally good in wedges on their own. Excellent for breakfast, which is what we did.

Cranberry sauce has always been a favorite part of the Thanksgiving spread for me – generally speaking, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the traditional Thanksgiving food (I know I know save your gasping) – my mom would be one of the first to attest. When I was small, I didn’t like pumpkin pie (eeehh not a ton has changed there, tho I’ll eat a small slice) so I always just asked for a bowl of whipped cream instead. I STILL love whipped cream, so that’s not changed! But cranberry sauce – I remember being fascinated by the ridgy blob that came out of a can as a kid, and now the real, non-canned variety is hands down my favorite part of the spread.

These bars are a fun hybrid: they start with a layer of shortbready crust and are filled with a quick cranberry jam/sauce, followed by more crumbly topping. Super fast, super easy, super delicious.

And with that – happy Thanksgiving! I hope your holiday is relaxing and safe.

Cranberry, Pecan & Thyme Crumble Bars

Treats for everyone! Gluten & grain free, refined sugar free, vegan, dairy free & paleo. Hooray! A Wait are those Cookies original. Yield: 1 9″ pan of bars, serves several. Perfectly tart and slightly herby; great for snacks or breakfast.

For the cranberry filling

1 bag (~2 c) fresh cranberries
zest & juice of one lemon
2 tbsp maple syrup
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 tsp tapioca flour
1/4 c chia seeds
1 tbsp vanilla

In a small saucepan, heat cranberries, lemon zest and juice, maple, sea salt, and tapioca until the berries have popped and the liquid is just barely boiling, 10ish minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in chia seeds & vanilla; let cool.

For the crust & crumble

2.5 c almond flour
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tsp fresh thyme
1/4 tsp sea salt, heaping
3 tbsp maple
5 tbsp melted coconut oil
1/3 c chopped pecans
3 tbsp dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 and line some kind of 9” pan with parchment – this is the least fussy recipe ever, so square, round, tart pan, etc – whatever you have is fine! I used an 9” cake pan. In a large bowl, stir almond flour, vanilla, thyme, salt, maple, and coconut oil together. Reserve a heaping half cup and stir in the pecans and dark chocolate (this will be the top bit) – set aside. Press the rest of the dough into the base of the pan, and bake for 12-15 minutes until set.

Remove from the oven and top evenly with cranberry chia jam. Crumble the rest of the reserved topping on the berries, and bake for another 23-25 minutes, until the top is lightly golden brown and the berries are bubbly. Remove and let cool completely before serving. It’s also fabulous cold – I made mine the night before serving, refrigerated overnight and served straight out of the fridge – highly recommended. Leftovers keep well covered in the fridge for a day or two but I dare you to have any ;)

November 30, 2019

Penultimate Purple

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Happy belated Thanksgiving, internet friends!

Mine was great; full of several groups of awesome fam/peeps. It’s not even over – I have a Friendsgiving in a few hours with another group of awesome peeps! I love my peeps.

For Turkalurk Day proper, I did this sweet potato tart and my usual cookies (of course) – there might have been some minor rioting if there hadn’t been cookies, at least from the fave human who loves them! That being said, he loved the tart as well so everyone is happy.

I LOVE the color of the sweet potatoes – no photo enhancement necessary! Mother Nature has such a way with color.

C made some delicious beets and parsnips for Thanksgiving, so bfast the next morning was especially colorful – and filling, thankfully, as we’d just come back from a very hilly hike to Mt Davidson, and I was ravenous.

This tart is really, really easy to throw together – the filling comes together in the food processor, and the crust is a press in, no need to muck around with rolling. It’s also gluten free, refined sugar free and dairy free! Perfect when you’re baking for a crowd and in need a dessert that suits all comers. It can easily be grain free as well – swap out the cornmeal in the crust for more almond flour, and use almond flour in the pie instead of oat flour. It’s lightly spicy from the cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice – fallish without being in your face FALL. The purple color is obviously eye catching too, and the black sesame gives it a fun, nutty twist.

I hope you’re having a great holiday weekend! There’s still weekend left, if the urge to bake is still hanging around ;)

Purple Sweet Potato Tart with a Black Sesame Almond Crust

A Wait are those Cookies original. Gluten free, dairy free & refined sugar free. Yield: 1 9″ tart, serves several.

For the crust:

1/4 c black sesame seeds
1.5 c almond flour
1/3 c unsweetened shredded coconut
1/3 c cornmeal
heaping 1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
6 tbsp coconut oil, melted

In a small sauté pan over medium-low heat, toast black sesame seeds, shaking the pan occasionally, until you hear the first one pop. Remove from heat. Using a mortar & pestle, grind up the seeds until they’re a gritty, flour-like consistency. You’ll probably have a few larger pieces in there, which is totally fine.

In a large bowl, stir together sesame seeds, almond flour, shredded coconut, cornmeal, sea salt, and baking soda. Add in vanilla, maple, and melted coconut oil, and stir until completely combined. The dough will look crumbly, but you’ll be able to press it together with your fingers.
Preheat the oven to 350, and lightly grease a 9″ tart pan (w/ removable bottom) with coconut oil. Press the crust into the plate and up the sides with a spoon or your fingers, creating a smooth edge (or not, your call!). Poke the bottom with a fork a few times, and bake for 15 minutes. Remove and let cool for a few minutes.

For the filling:

2.5 cups (approx. 2 large) mashed purple sweet potatoes
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 eggs
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
2 tbsp oat flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a food processor, add the mashed sweet potatoes, eggs, maple, melted coconut oil, vanilla, oat flour, coconut milk, spices, and sea salt. Pulse until evenly mixed.

Pour the filling into the prepared crust and smooth out with a spoon. Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until the center is set – it should hardly jiggle at all when shaken. Once set, remove the pie from the oven and cool completely on a rack before serving. Store in the fridge If not serving immediately (and even if you are; I feel like it benefits from some chill time); any leftovers should keep well covered in the fridge, but you may not have any!

November 28, 2014

Food fights and turkalurk

Happy Belated TurkaLurk Day! Gobble gobble gobble…

We did the usual Thanksgiving things but also did some really awesome things like 18 holes of frisbee golf and extreme ping pong and pie. Obvs. So weird. Pumpkin pie isn’t even my thing and I still can’t help but get all fancy. Whatever. It must be that extra baking gene I picked up somewhere in my travels to this particular incarnation.

Oh hi, we love whipped cream.

And then in attempting to use my parent’s favorite kitchen gadget (the Austrian whipped cream whipper they’ve had foreverrrr) at altitude, we laughed till our abs ached as the silly thing tried to explode and decant its contents violently all over the kitchen. No such luck, rouge whipper, we have your number and in no way are you going to be allowed to explode, no matter how much copious fizzing and spurting and hilariously juvenile noises end up emerging from your innards. In the end, a second batch of cream got whipped by hand but not before a mini food fight broke out. No big deal.

Also lentils.

I made this dish forever ago but never got around to sharing it, so I’ll do that now… which is rather fitting considering it’s made of lentils and despite the plethora of turkey currently sweeping the nation, I prefer lentils, thank you. So here you go, my non-turkalurk-eating-crowd, this is for you. And for me, come to think of it…

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m grateful for lots of things, up to and obvs including food. Gobble gobble…

Roasted Kabocha Squash Lentil Dal

Gluten free and vegan! Rather quick, if you preroast the squash and all that. I adapted the recipe from happy hearted kitchen, here! Hearty and perfect for winter comfort food without the heavy ick factor… Just a warming bowl of spicy lentils to keep you dancing and happy.

1 small kabocha squash
glug of olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 clove of garlic
2 heaping tbsp freshly grated ginger
1 tsp turmeric powder
1.5 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cardamom
scant 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2-1 tsp sea salt, to taste
a few twists of freshly ground pepper
1 c red lentils, rinsed
1 yellow pepper, diced
1.5 c light coconut milk
4 c veggie stock
chopped cashews, Persian cucumbers and shredded coconut to garnish

For the squash: wrestle the squash and successfully cut it in halvsies. Preheat the oven to 400. Scoop out the squash seeds, and brush the insides of the squash with avocado oil (or another high heat oil would be fine here). Roast, cut side down, on a rimmed cookie sheet until the sides of the squash can be pierced with a fork, about 40 minutes. Remove squash from oven, flip over, and let cool until you can comfortably scoop out the puree.

In a large pot over medium, heat olive oil. Add diced onion and garlic, fresh ginger and turmeric, and sauté until the onions are translucent. Add a splash of water if needed if things get too dry or the spices are sticking. Toss in cumin, ground ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, a twist of pepper, and some sea salt, and stir to combine. Add rinsed and drained lentils and diced bell pepper, followed by the coconut milk and enough broth to cover the top of the lentils, and stir again. Bring to a boil (I covered mine and watched it like a hawk), then reduce heat to low and let it simmer covered for about 35-40 minutes. Remove the lid and stir in the squash puree. I purposefully left some chunks in mine for texture… You can blend it with an immersion blender here if you like, but I chose to leave mine as is—red lentils are so soft anyway that they’re pretty much perfect here. Season to taste with the rest of the salt and more pepper, if you’re spicy like me. Garnish with persian cucumbers, chopped cashews, and shredded coconut for fun!

Store any leftovers in the refrigerator. If it’s thickened up quite a bit when you go for leftovers, add a splash of broth and heat it back up on the stove (or leave it thick—I love it like that the next day).

November 26, 2012

Turkalurk and friendy musings

Turkalurk time. Obviously I have to do a Thanksgiving post, with Thanksgiving being… you know… FOOD related. But guess what?! Something waaay more exciting than Thanksgiving happened on Thanksgiving: I got to see one of my best friends, who I haven’t seen in fifteen years! Yep, you read that right: fifteen.

We’re adorable. I know, you’re just jealous.

We were best friends in second grade (for 9 months) and then she moved back to Korea. But we’re awesome, and we stayed friends. And then she nicely said she’d come visit me over here on the west coast when she was studying abroad. Wheeeeee friendy time! That meant I got to be all touristy and show her around the city. AND we got to hang out with our second grade teacher, who is beyond fabulous and one of the most wonderful people I know.

So we had mega fun and I was busy busy working the Black Friday madness of shopping. WHY people shop that day is beyond me, don’t you want to just stay home and digest your turkey? Whatever.

Anyway. So here are your pumpkin biscuits, courtesy of my Thanksgiving linner (lunch-dinner, get it?). They’re vegan, ish. Because I’m currently off eggs due to some egg/gluten allergy testing, which is LAME: you’ll likely be seeing some allergy-friendly posts coming your way.

Side note. Why is it that both my cats reach up to paw my face when I’m blogging?? Tonight it’s Jessie: is she taking lessons from Nosh?! I’m assuming this means they’re miffed I don’t feature them in every post… or that they’ve been learning from Simon’s cat…

Enough of my tangents! Here is the recipe :)

Pumpkin Biscuits

Recipe ever so slightly adapted from Crepes of Wrath! My yield was 14 biscuits, but they were rather flatish… if you want fluffier ones, I suggest not rolling the dough out as thin as I did. I chilled mine for a bit before baking due to lack of oven space (that freaking turkalurk always takes FOREVER), so that may have affected their rise a bit.

These are fabulous with a bit of goat cheese and cranberry sauce. They’re lightly sweet but pair well with either savory or sweet—I ate some with dinner and then made a dessert napoleon for later with ice cream and whipped cream + cinnamon. Food repurposing for the win!

2 c whole wheat pastry flour, plus a bit for rolling
1.5 tbsp sugar
2.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
scant 1/2 tsp salt
5 tbsp cold unsalted butter, chopped into smallish pieces*
1 c pumpkin puree
1/4 c light coconut milk
2 tbsp molasses
1 tsp honey

*vegan with Earth Balance or other vegan butter

Preheat the oven to 400, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a bowl, combine dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking power, cinnamon, and salt. Cut in the butter using your implement of choice (I like a pastry cutter, but two forks work just as well) until the mixture resembles coarse sand. In a larger bowl, mix together pumpkin, coconut milk. molasses, and honey. Add liquid to butter/flour mixture, and stir until just combined. Sprinkle a bit of flour over your work surface and roll out the dough to about an inch thickness, using a biscuit cutter (or a cookie cutter, if you’re jank like me) to make biscuity-type shapes. Transfer to baking sheet, and continue with the scraps until you have no leftover dough.

Bake for 12-15 minutes (mine were done at 13), until golden. Let cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then serve warm!

November 28, 2011November 27, 2011

Umpteen zillion ripe pears, and what to do about it.

Before I start, I just want to share this:

There is a disturbing lack of food in here… particularly veggies. Except the emptiness kind of makes me giggle… and makes me proud! No wasted food over the vacation to be found here. This, however, has been semi-rectified, and the Nerdaerie fridge looks a tad happier now. By the way, Nerdaerie is Kira’s and my nickname for our apartment… get it? We’re nerdy. We live on the second floor, like an nest or aerie of smarty eagles. Because eagles are smart. And we’re smart. And nerdy. And awesome :)

Whilst I was home, I of course had to do something besides bake pumpkin biscuits. Besides, what else was I going to do with umpteen fifty-zillion over-ripeish pears, and a new convection oven?! How can you resist? Answer: you can’t. I had to break the oven in somehow, right? Right. And the holidays = baking. Well, really anytime = baking, but that’s just a small technicality I’m willing to overlook.

So. I ended up using the remaining bits of flour (just enough, but I was SO NOT going to brave the madness that is Whole Foods at any time during the holidays. No cart roller derby for me, thanks… I really don’t prefer having to throw an elbow just to get to the broccoli) to make a cake! With pears. And chocolate. And things we already had lying around the house. Because THEN, Mutti, Vati and I could sit around and eat cake and watch the Civil War (Are YOU Duck enough?!). Because, as Vati so rightly said, all bets are off on game-day. One slice of cake per quarter? Done. And oops. We ate half the cake in one sitting. Whoopsie! Good thing it has fruit and is therefore good for me.

This cake is delicious. It’s not too sweet, with just the right balance of chocolate, fruit, and lightly sweet batter. Oh yeah. It goes perfectly with that leftover Fra Angelico spiked whipped cream you have sitting in the fridge. Because everyone knows that pear and hazelnut are a match made in heaven. Add in chocolate, and you can forget about eating anything else the rest of the day. Unless of course you’re Vati, in which case apparently beer is a nice accompaniment. But you’ll have to ask him about that one…Maybe I should have made him some beer spiked cream! Ew. No. We’re not even going to try to go there!

ANYwayyy, back to the cake!

Pear Cake with Dark and Semi-Sweet Chocolate

Adapted from The Pastry Affair, here!

1 c whole wheat pastry flour
1 tbsp baking powder
3 eggs
4 tbsp (half a stick) of unsalted butter
4 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
1/2 c turbinado sugar
4 or 5 smallish pears, diced, skin on
3/4 chocolate pieces (I used about 1/2 semisweet choc chippies and 1/2 70% dark chocolate bar, chopped)

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a 9″ or 10″ springform pan (mine was 10″).

Combine flour and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside.

Begin by browning your butter. Over low heat, melt the butter until it begins to foam up. Scrape the little bits off the bottom of the pan as you go. Watch it closely, since it burns quickly. When it’s finished, pour into a separate bowl to keep it from cooking.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs using an electric mixer. Beat until light, foamy and thick, about 8 minutes. Add sugar, and keep beating for a few minutes. Turn the mixer to low, and add about a third of the dry ingredients. Then add half the butter, then another third flour, then the rest of the butter. Add the last third of flour, and then the applesauce. Continue beating until incorporated, but avoid overworking the eggs, and stop when things are just mixed.

Pour batter into the pan, and top with diced pears and chocolate. The batter will creep up as it bakes. Bake for 40-50 minutes (mine was perfectly done at 40, but it was also thinner in a larger pan), or until a tester comes out clean.

Scarf, whilst watching the ducks do a dance on the beavers. buahahhha. Live green, yell o! (and yes, I do go to Willamette, but Oregon will always be my adopted school)