Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Turkish Oatmeal Cookies




This recipe was inspired by Isa’s Vegan Brunch Coffeecake.

Turkish Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup of butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tablespoon molasses
4 Tablespoons of Preground Flax plus 6 Tablespoons of Water
or 2 vegan egg equivalents
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 - 4 black cardamom pods (see note), seeds removed from pod and finely ground
1 ½ roughed chopped dried apricots (about the size of raisins)

Directions:
Cream together butter, white sugar, brown sugar, and molasses. Stir in eggs, vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking soda, and salt together. Combine flour mixture in two batches with cream mixture. Stir in oats and cardamom. Blend into the batter the chopped apricots. Chill in fridge one hour.

Roll or Scope into tablespoon sizes balls and flatten with palm. Bake for 12-14 minutes at 350 degrees. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Note:
Black cardamom is not normally used for baking but I like the bit of smoke and the assertive flavor it adds to the cookies. I would recommend in the beginning just using 2 pods and adjust upwards if desired. If you desire a more subtle flavor, use 15-20 finely ground green cardamom seeds that have been removed from their pods.

American Vegan Kitchen


What is contained within these fried bits of deliciousness would make Paula Deen green with envy that she did not come up with this. I am a very fortunate tester for Tami’s new cookbook, American Vegan Kitchen. This is comfort food at its best drawn from America’s melting pot culinary history. Put this book on your order list because you will not want to miss this one in 2010.

A quick note about what this blog will be about. Moving around quite a bit as a kid, I was exposed to a wide range of cuisine from Ethiopia to Thailand. In testing for Tami, the memories of those lovely dishes from childhood came back. So with the help of the web, I will take those non vegan dishes and make them vegan. Thrown into the mix will be tips, restaurant reviews, and new vegan products.