Cookies for You (and for the Vegans in Your Life), The Recipe

Savory and sweet, these cookies are a nothing to feel guilty about. Sarah says that "These are good hot, better cool, and even better the next day!" Enjoy!

Sarah Warner's Vegan Pistachio and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine in a food processor and grind into a coarse/fine meal:
1 cup raw, shelled, unsalted pistachios
4 T arrowroot
1/2 t cardamom
1 t cinnamon
pinch of cloves
1 t baking soda
1/2 t sea salt

Add:
4 T coconut oil
2 T agave nectar
1 t vanilla
8 large, pitted dates
and continue to grind until the mixture holds together like a dough

Remove the dough to a small bowl and stir in:
1/4 cup roughly chopped pistachios
as many chocolate chips as the dough will hold (about 1/2 cup)

Form into one inch spheres, then flatten these spheres to discs approximately two inches in diameter. (A little coconut oil on your hands will keep this from being such a sticky proposition.)

Place on a cookie sheet greased with coconut oil and bake for about ten minutes, until lightly browned on the outside.

Allow to cool briefly before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

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Cookies for You (and for the Vegans in Your Life), Part II

This is Part II of this series. For Part I, click here.

...I put the raw batter to my mouth and let it sit on my tongue for just a minute before chewing. There was nothing offensive about the dough - in fact, it tasted really only tasted nutty and spicy, but heavy and grainy. Not shocking.

Sarah transferred the mixture to a bowl, chopped up more pistachios and added them into it along with some vegan chocolate chips (she prefers Tropical Source).


"I could use a spoon," Sarah said looking at the thick and somewhat impenitrable-looking clump, "but hands are just easier." So using what God gave her, she mixed everything together.


"What your left with is a nice, slippery dough. Also, I like to oil the pan with my hands because then you're left with nonstick skin to shape the cookies." Sarah talked to me as she rolled the dough into 2" rounds and placed them on the greased pan.

The dough darkened a little from the chocolate, which was beginning to slightly melt from being handled. It turned from a greenish-brown to a more cookie-looking chocolate brown. I could smell the blend of cinnamon and cloves from my perch about five feet from Sarah was working and found myself salivating. I actually felt excited about eating those vegan cookies.

With the palm of her hand, Sarah pressed the little spheres flat.


"I think I might have put a little too much oil in these. I'll adjust the written recipe for you blog." She frowned showing me her greased hands.


"Wait, you're not going to put this on the blog are you? 'This is my friend, Sarah, she is a hack cook.'" Whoops. There it is.

She placed the pan of cookies in a preheated oven, washed her hands, and sat down to chat as they baked. After a little lull in our conversation (probably something about boys), Sarah looked at me and her eyes brightened. "Erin, you could write about my nice kitchenware on the blog!" She explained and then got up to open her cabinets. "I have some pretty cool stuff." Indeed her shelves were stocked with handmade ceramics and kitchenware that various artist friends had given her over time, but more notable was her heavy-bottomed crystal highball glasses.

"What's that?" I asked. "Oh," Sarah replied removing a glass from the cabinet, "That's my Christofle barware." I looked at her blankly. That was some expensive stuff. I asked her how she came about it. "Well, I was working at a department store in Releigh, and I was helping people make their gift registry and it was right after college, and working with all these brides was making me pretty down, because, ya know, it was right after I graduated and these women seemed to have their shit together..." Ah, yes, I knew the feeling well.


"Anyway," she continued, "I realized I wasn't so much jealous of those ladies, but of the gifts they got. So I made myself my own registry called 'married to me.' I realized that I didn't need the husband - just the line of credit. So I got one, bought myself a bunch of expensive stuff, and took the next year paying it off." I laughed. Sarah, who I met at Penland School of Craft a number of years ago, with her sweet looking smile, light eyes, and bubbly laugh continues to suprise me with her unsuspecting behavior.

Right when Sarah finished her story, the alarm went off, signifying that it was time for some vegan treats. She removed them from the oven and, with a spatula, scooped the sweet discs from pan to cooling rack.


After a few minutes, the cookies had cooled sufficiently to eat. Without asking, I took one from the wire rack and stuffed it in my mouth. It was fucking good. The baked little discs were not too sweet - nutty, chocolatey, and spiced well. I told Sarah that I imagined them as perfect breakfast treats. She agreed as she chewed on her own treat. As I dug into my second and then third cookie, I realized that I completely had forgotten about my headache and nausea and thanked Sarah for curing me of my malaise. With a knowing smirk, she nodded, and then grabbed another cookie.

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Cookies for You (and for the Vegans in Your Life), Part I

A few weeks ago, I awoke to a drizzly and unseasonably warm Sunday and also to an unprecedented hang over. It was the day after my 29th birthday and my friends had plied me with drink the night before, rendering me completely useless the next day. The only thing that could feed my painful alcohol-induced headache, I thought, was a quiet day on the couch, but I was scheduled to learn how to make vegan cookies… about the last thing I wanted to do. Sarah Warner, my teacher, called a few hours before I was to arrive and made the deal stomachable by offering me a pre-cooking lesson lunch. It was just enough to get me out of the house.

Because I was slightly nauseous, I decided to splurge on a car to travel the mile and a half to Sarah’s house. Of course, I arrived late, but, due to a mishap involving water and a hot glass baking dish, Sarah was also a little behind and happy for my tardy behavior. While we ate baked chicken, sautéed leeks, and corn muffins, and drank black coffee, I slowly began to revive.

Sarah Warner, a professional jeweler and artist, embraced cooking a little later than most, but has taken to it like she has craftwork– she is a deliberate and creative home cook. While we ate lunch she told me about her growth in the kitchen and, as she saved the bones of the chicken leg that I had just devoured, pointed out that she was also a thrifty cook. “In fact, I even have had the same bag of chicken feet in my fridge for over a year – I moved them with me hear from Richmond. Want to see ‘em?” Of course I did. Sarah opened her freezer and produced a large plastic bag of the feet and then pulled one out of their housing.


“See? They really add to chicken stock – ya know they give it a thicker, more gelatinous viscosity.” The severed claw looked a little gross, and I was happy that it was not to be featured in the cookies.

Sarah returned the appendages and went to the counter to prepare the lesson. A very self-conscious cook who suffers from several food allergies, Sarah took several months to come up with a recipe for this blog, and as she prepared for the lesson she told me that the dish was still experimental.

I pointed out that Sarah had tested the dish about a million times she responded, “I know, but I might make some final tweaks… I even compared and contrasted recipes last week.” She frowned and looked at the ingredients that sat precariously piled on a stool in her rather nice-sized, but counter-lacking Park Slope kitchen, “I just wish I had used cheaper ingredients.”

The raw pistachios, she indicated, were probably the costliest item, but also what gave the cookies their extra-nutty flavor. Roasted were acceptable, too, she told me, but the less-shelf stable raw were superior. “I’m not a big believer in veganism, but since I’ve got this dairy, gluten-free thing going, I thought I’d leave out the egg and make it more accessible to everyone.” She loaded the nuts, arrowroot powder (for binding), ground cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves into the bowl of a food processor and let her rip.


“So, this is kind of a Middle-Eastern inspired spice cookie, isn’t it?” Sarah nodded, “Yea, those were exactly the flavors that were inspiring me when I thought of this.” She turned the machine off and showed the grit-like mixture to me.


“Everything just goes into the food processor, so it’s really easy,” she continued adding coconut oil, dates, agave nectar, and vanilla to the mix.

She turned the processor on again and, when everything looked completely ground and the batter balled together, and taste-tested some of her creation. She smiled widely and offered me the same opportunity. With some hesitance, I touched the dough, well, I more poked at it. It looked greasy and unlike a normal cookie. I picked off a chunk of uncooked cookie and brought it to my lips, put it in my mouth, chewed, and swallowed...

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Turducken - The Instructional Video

What follows is a short video (less than two minutes) of the assemblage of the turducken from the wrapping of the birds into one another to the sewing of the turkey. Now that you can see how to do it, your turducken will be perfect - and just in time for Christmas, too!

For part I of this series, click here, and for part II, here.

Enjoy!

End of Post

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Turducken - The Story of the Eating

This is second part of the story of the turducken. For Part I, click here. While the turducken roasted (first at 450 degrees for 45 minutes, then at 325 degrees for 4-5 hours, until a meat thermometer reads 165 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the tinfoil for the last hour of baking to brown the turkey's skin.), Jeff, Nora, and I chatted.


"Some people say you should cook it at 225 degrees for 8-9 hours, but I think that's just dangerous!" Nora told me, "Even though I'm not into eating meat, I'm freaked out by bacteria." Jeff concurred, "Yea, this is like a triple threat of bacteria." No one wants to be served a salmonella surprise, so my advice is to listen to Nora.

Later in the evening, the couple was having friends over to partake in the, as Nora called it, "tour de force of turkeys" and other good food and drink; unfortunately, I was off to Sag Harbor after our little lesson, so wouldn't be able to make it.

"Do you think you could save me plate of meat?" I asked Nora as we drank some coffee while the bird began to cook. "Of course!" she told me "I'm around all week." Time and time again, I am struck by the kindness of the people who cook for me. I mean, I go into their homes, they teach me how to cook something, they feed me their food, I pry them with a million questions, and all what do they get in return? A blog post. This quest to cook through New York has, in many ways (along with the recent election of Barack Obama) reminded me of humanity's natural inclination toward community. It's a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Before I left Nora agreed to take pictures of the fully cooked turducken for me so that I could include them, and, man, does the final product look beautiful.

I returned to Nora's two nights later and when I arrived, there was a plate of warmed turducken ready for me. You can imagine that after waiting for over 48 hours, I was ready to chow on some stuffed bird. So, I dug in. The turkey - my least favorite fowl - was the juiciest I had ever tried. And the other roasted meats were flavorful and tender. For being a vegetarian, Nora had succeeded in perfectly cooking the birds and in making some very delectable meat-based stuffings. It was a wonderful treat.

Up next, an instructional video on the assemblage process.

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