'Tis the season...for fake cream cheese?

I'm lactose intolerant, a fact that my mind chooses to ignore most of the time. My body, on the other hand, will only take so much before it reminds me. So sometimes I try alternatives to milk, like yogurt in my cereal because the cultures take care of the lactose, or non-dairy alternatives.

I love cream cheese, perhaps beyond reason. To me, a bagel is an excuse for cream cheese. I have sometimes eaten it by spoonfuls. Of course, this isn't such a good idea for me.

Recently, I was at The Living Earth, my local natural foods store, and saw two varieties of vegan cream cheese alternative. Despite being $4 per 8 ounce tub, I decided to pick up one tub of each and do an informal taste test.

First, I tried Tofutti's "Better Than Cream Cheese", which contains no hydrogenated oils, and is certified as Kosher Pareve. (Tofutti was founded by a Kosher restaurateur who invented a soy-based ice cream alternative, and it's expanded from there.) None of the listed ingredients were organic.
It tasted like real cream cheese, but not quite. It was bland, but would have been better with a little seasoning. If I were to get it again, I'd probably add some parsley.

The label on Vegan Gourmet's "Cream Cheese Alternative" proclaims many things. "Gluten Free", "No Trans Fat", "No Hydrogenated Fat", "No Preservatives or GMOs", "Made with solar power", "76% Organic", and it's Kosher Pareve. So, apparently, it's good for the environment, your body, and (if you're Jewish) your soul.
Despite its expiration date being nearly two months away, it tasted like it had "turned". If real cream cheese tasted like that, it would be time to throw it out. Although I won't be buying it again, I'll probably finish up the tub, because I hate wasting food. Additional toppings can cover the less pleasant aspects of the faux cream cheese's flavor. (Which is why I put clover sprouts on my Christmas Eve morning banana bread. It was strange, but awesome.)

Merry Christmas!

Pasta with Arugula and Tuna and Cannelini Beans

One of the easiest dishes to make in my little blue four-ingredient cookbook is linguine with arugula. Not much to do: just boil pasta, toss it up with some olive oil, arugula, and freshly grated parmesan.
A few nights ago, I decided to turn this simple dish into a well-rounded satisfying meal, with the addition of cannelini beans and canned tuna.

Ingredients:
12 ounces pasta (I used whole wheat penne because I had it in my pantry.)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
5 ounces baby arugula
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese (not the powdery stuff in a canister)
1 15-ounce can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed thoroughly
1 or 2 5-ounce cans of tuna
(You could make this with just tuna or just the beans.)

Directions:
1. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package, drain thoroughly.
2. Heat about 4TBSP of the olive oil in the pan, add the pasta and the arugula. Toss over medium heat for one or two minutes, until arugula is just wilted then remove from heat.
3. Stir in the olive oil, parmesan, and tuna and beans, along with salt and pepper to taste.

Frozen Kosher, Part II

After having been disappointed with how the cherry blintzes came out when cooked in the oven, I decided to cook the apple blintzes (same brand, Golden) in the skillet to see how that would come out. I fried them in a few tablespoons of soft margarine, and they came out much, much better, golden brown on the outside. The only trouble I had was getting the filling uniformly hot, and some of the blintzes had cold spots. The skillet directions do not indicate how long to cook the blintzes; even an approximate figure would probably have helped.

We were pleased with the latkes from Kineret (U-in-a-circle Kosher parve), "Heimishe style" (roughly, "homestyle"), which were pretty much hash brown patties by another name. These are definitely not health food: more than half the calories come from fat. However, when I cooked them in the oven, these latkes crisped up nicely, and didn't seem soggy or greasy, because so much of the fat dripped out onto the pan.

We also tried a soup from the frozen Kosher section, Tabatchnick Chicken Broth with Noodles and Dumplings ( K} Meat Glatt kosher). What struck me, compared to other chicken noodle soups, was the lack of meat chunks. It was, exactly as it says, chicken broth with noodles and dumplings. Although the word "matzo" never appears on the box, the dumplings were matzo balls.
I cooked it in the microwave. The box didn't say what wattage microwave they used when determining the cook time of 4 1/2 minutes. My 950 watt microwave took 6 1/2 minutes to cook the soup, which is longer than it takes to cook most TV dinners.
Compared to other chicken noodle soups I have had, like Campbell's and Progresso, it had about the same amount of sodium, but there was less soup in the package than a can of Progresso. Since I don't keep kosher--I am, after all, a gentile--I probably wouldn't buy it again. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't impressive enough for me to get that instead of the canned brands. Also, on sale it was 2/$5, and I usually wouldn't spend that much on that size package of soup, which I usually spend no more than $1.50 on.

Frozen Kosher, Part I

Since it's Hannukah, and the supermarkets all had traditional Kosher foods on sale, I decided to try some of them.

Latkes are a potato pancake popular at Hannukah.
Last night, Chris and I tried Golden brand Sweet Potato Pancakes and Vegetable Pancakes, made by Old Fashioned Kitchen in Lakewood, NJ. These latkes are U-in-a-circle Kosher Pareve (which means they contain neither dairy nor meat). What struck me when I read the ingredients was the complete lack of chemical additives. The ingredients list reads like a normal recipe you would make at home. That is a VERY good thing.

We cooked them in the oven (there were also skillet cooking directions). The aroma filled us with anticipation.

The sweet potato pancakes had pineapple in them, which introduced a nice tangy note to complement the sweetness. These latkes were my favorite.

Besides potatoes, the vegetable pancakes also contained string beans, onions, corn, carrots, red peppers, and green peppers. Chris said he liked these better than the others, though both of us enjoyed both kinds of latke.

Latkes are usually served with either applesauce or sour cream to dip them in. I tried both flavors of latke with plain yogurt, and that definitely enhanced the experience.

Blintzes are stuffed crepes. They can be filled with fruit or cheese or vegetables.
For dessert tonight, I tried Cherry Blintzes, also Golden brand. These are also pareve. I cooked them in the oven, but next time I will cook them in a skillet.
The frozen blintzes looked like they could be burritos or spring rolls; they were wrapped the same way. Some of the blintzes cracked open while cooking and oozed filling. The filling was just like canned cherry pie filling. Maybe this was a problem with the cooking method I chose, but the crepe tasted like it wasn't done, even though I did cook it as directed. It tasted like raw pie crust dough. (Which, of course, I was picking in last week.) I wanted to like them more. I do have other flavors of Golden blintzes in the freezer to try, and maybe frying them will make them better.

Scallop Scampi

My church has a lot of programming on Monday nights, so volunteers prepare a nice dinner, and people enjoy each other's company. The last Monday of the month is a potluck.

Last week, Shaw's had frozen fish portions, including bay scallops, on sale, so I stocked up. I was definitely in the mood for seafood when I looked for recipes to make for the potluck.

I found this awesome user-submitted recipe for Scallop Scampi on Allrecipes.com. The rave reviews on the web page gave me the confidence to present this dish to the people at church, where it received even more praise.
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/scallop-scampi/Detail.aspx

I changed the recipe just a little from this.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can chicken broth
• 1 pound bay scallops
• 1 pound linguine pasta--For the potluck, I used gemelli instead so it would be easy to serve.
  
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Directions

1. In a large skillet, melt margarine over medium heat and saute garlic and onion until translucent. Add wine, salt, ground black pepper and 1/4 cup cheese.
2. Add chicken broth and scallops; increase heat and boil rapidly for 7 to 8 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain. (I would say that you could even slightly undercook it. When you pour the scallop mixture on it, and let it sit a few minutes, the pasta will retain some of the liquid from the sauce.)
   
4. Reduce heat for scallop mixture and add parsley; place sauce on top of linguine. Sprinkle with remaining cheese; serve.

Flavored Oil

One of my favorite cookbooks is The Cook’s Encylopedia of Four Ingredient Cooking by Joanna Farrow, which is a British cookbook that was reprinted in 2002 by Barnes and Noble for their bargain books section.

Sometimes the recipes sort of “cheat” on the four-ingredient count. For example, water, salt, and pepper don’t count toward the four ingredients, and sometimes it will call for “garlic-flavored olive oil” instead of garlic and olive oil. In the front of the book are directions for making these compound ingredients, such as stocks and basic sauces, including the flavored oils.

Here’s the recipe for Garlic and Rosemary Oil:

Put a handful of rosemary sprigs in a a pan with 3 sliced garlic cloves and ½ cup olive oil. Heat gently until bubbling, then pour into a heatproof bowl, cover, and leave in a cool place overnight. Strain the garlic and rosemary oil into a clean 1 1/4 –1 2/3 bottle and top up with more oil.

Oil should be left in a cool place for up to a week to let the flavors steep. The oils should be strained before storing. The flavoring ingredients should not be stored in the oil, because they can grow mold.