Totoro Taiko Manju
Grilled King Trumpet Mushrooms
Teppanyaki Cabbage and Mushrooms
Shilin Night Market
No. 101號, Jihe Road
Shilin District, Taipei City, Taiwan
Author: Hannah (BitterSweet)
Author of My Sweet Vegan, Vegan Desserts, Vegan a la Mode, and Easy as Vegan Pie.
Look Out for Lemons
Heads up!
If you’re not paying attention, there’s a real danger of being pummeled by falling fruit while walking the city streets of Berkeley. Woven in among the cozy cafes and compact apartment buildings, fruit trees flourish, exploding with fragrant citrus fruits that rain down like hail on the unsuspecting passersby below. Streets are littered with lemons, oranges, and other unidentified flaxen orbs, as if a fruit cart had overturned on its way to market. Some shatter upon impact, hemorrhaging precious sweet nectar in a macabre spray, but many others remain perfectly intact, perfectly viable for salvage.
Like any other compassionate cook, I’ve taken it upon myself to rescue any forlorn fruit. Given the conditions, you could understand why my fridge is overflowing with citrus, particularly Meyer lemons, which land in my direct path on the way to the bus.
Best practices for managing the surplus is expeditious disassembly, before they have time to spoil. Zest and juice all fruits, freezing liquids in ice cube trays and solids in little baggies. I’m not much for canning, but I like to think of my freezer as an icy pantry, extending the life of these abundant sweet and sour gems for later days.
Thrifty and measured as I am, don’t think for a minute that some of this gracious surfeit hasn’t been used for more immediate gratification.
Crisp, lightly sweetened shortbread cookies come to life with the bright acidity of fresh lemons, which also plays off the natural bitter edge of raw cacao nibs. Though undeniably buttery, their richness comes entirely from olive oil, adding a complementary grassy, peppery undertone. Irresistibly adorable spoon molds make them the ideal shape for dunking, but a regular old round cake pan will do the trick for simple, standard wedges.
Even if the urban landscape isn’t quite so generous in your locale, now is the time to enjoy citrus of all shapes and sizes, so stock up!
Yield: 16 - 18 Cookies
Lemon-Cacao Crunch Shortbread Cookies
Crisp, lightly sweetened shortbread cookies come to life with the bright acidity of fresh lemons, which also plays of the natural bitter edge of raw cacao nibs. Though undeniably buttery, their richness comes entirely from olive oil, adding a complementary grassy, peppery undertone.
Prep Time
20 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Total Time
40 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
- 1/4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
- 1/2 Cup Confectioner's Sugar
- 1/4 Teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 Cup Cacao Nibs
- 1/2 Cup Olive Oil
- 2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
- 1 Tablespoon Lemon Zest
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 325 and set out (but do not grease) a spoon-shaped baking tray or a 9-inch round springform pan.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, and the salt. Add in the cacao nibs and toss to coat with the dry ingredients.
- Separately, mix the oil, lemon juice, and zest together before pouring the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry. Stir well to combine; you may need to use your hands, as it's a very thick, stiff dough.
- If using spoon molds, fill each indentation about 3/4 of the way to the top, pressing firmly to make sure there are no gaps. For a springform pan, gather the dough into one large ball and press it flat and even across the bottom. Score into thin wedges with a sharp knife.
- Bake for 15 - 20 minutes, until lightly browned.
- For cookies baked in a springform pan, they may need to be re-scored at this point and baked for another 5 minutes, depending on spread and color.
- Let cool completely in the pans.
Notes
Both unbaked dough and finished cookies keep well in the freezer. Baked cookies keep for 2 weeks in an airtight container at room temperature.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
18Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 135Total Fat: 8gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 6gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 31mgCarbohydrates: 13gFiber: 1gSugar: 3gProtein: 2g
Ready… Set… Dough!
Can you imagine a time when a flavor as ordinary as cookie dough ice cream would have been deemed controversial? The year was 1984 when Ben & Jerry’s shocked the world by dishing out scoops of vanilla ice cream riddled with unbaked batter. We’ve certainly come a long way, but the drive for sweet innovation remains the same.
Unafraid to venture off the eaten trail from day one, Ben & Jerry’s has been pushing frozen boundaries as open-minded eaters grow more adventurous, and diverse diets pose unique challenges. The game-changing release of four non-dairy pints almost three years ago was just another chapter in this never ending story. Now the full lineup stands eleven tall, as two new doughboys join the ranks. Classic Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, described as having “gobs of chocolate chip cookie dough and fudge flakes,” answers the demand for this familiar childhood staple, while Chocolate Caramel Cluster treads a new path along a cocoa terrain, littered with peanuts, fudge chunks, and salted caramel swirls.
Ben & Jerry’s has been seriously rolling in dough recently, starting with the limited release of Snackable Dough Chunks back in fall, followed by the line of Cookie Dough Core ice creams in their original dairy base. Amidst all of that dough-licious decadence, it only stands to reason that vegans should get to enjoy “the number one global flavor” at long last.
Made with a blend of almond milk and pea protein just like its predecessors, the cookie dough ice cream scoops easily right out of the freezer, soft and smooth, with a premium texture that translates into a rich creamy sensation on the tongue. The buttery, warm vanilla base is rounded out by a marshmallowy sweetness that strikes me as a marked improvement over the first submissions to the dairy-free field. Each spoonful is pockmarked with shatteringly crisp stracciatella chocolate shards, rather than rock-hard chunks. As promised, Ben & Jerry’s delivers the goods in great abundance. Dense nuggets of dough with a fine grain, dominated by brown sugar flavor, turn up in every bite.
Even for an old-school omnivore, it would be hard to find fault in this pint. If you’re already a cookie monster, you know exactly what to expect here: it’s a simple concept, simply done right.
This post was made possible thanks to Ben & Jerry’s, but all content and opinions are entirely my own.
Silent Saturday: Water Under the Bridge
The Devil Eats Chocolate
“That’s very fattening.”
Dropping like a stone out of the clear blue sky, the unsolicited comment stopped me cold. I hadn’t even been aware of the man standing in front of my cart, blocking my slow procession down the aisle. An instinctual flicker of rage flashed before my eyes, as if I had been slapped and called out back for a fight. This? This innocent little chocolate bar I held in my hand, fattening? What had it ever done to deserve such a harsh insult, completely unprovoked?
I looked up quickly, startled by the intrusion. There was only one way to respond, as far as I could see.
Looking this odd stranger straight in the eye, I spoke clearly and calmly.
“Yep.”
Immediately, the decision was made under that advice. Into the cart went the candy, tossed nonchalantly. That was all such a careless exclamation warranted.
Pulling the cart away from the shelf, away from this intruder, an incredulous grin began to spread across my face. What a laughable claim! What a strange thing to interject! Perhaps I should be grateful he’s so deeply concerned with my nutritional well-being. As if “fattening” was a terrible condition that could be contracted and spread like a disease, it was so kind of him to take a stand against the evils of all confectionery the world over, starting with my misinformed purchase.
Taking my plunder outside the store, there was only one way to dispose of such dangerous contraband. Quickly removing the wrapper to dissect the scored rectangles, it broke like the flimsy villain facade it hid behind, shattering into dark brown splinters that glittered inside the foil sheath. Vanquishing the beast, piece after piece succumbed to a sharp bite of the teeth, and a slow melt over the tongue.
May this beast inflict its fattening ways over society no more.
Think Outside the Chocolate Box
Romance comes in many flavors, but chocolate is the dominant taste on lovers’ lips come February 14th. Truffles, molded and dipped, lavished with nuts, caramel, spices, and salt, line up in neat lines across interminable rows of red boxes, nestled into fluted paper cups serving more as garnishes than practical storage solutions. Chocolate, the ubiquitous sweet aphrodisiac, is easily the top treat for this loving affair, beating both flowers and jewelry offerings by a mile. Predictable yet indisputably in demand, it’s hard to argue with another chocolate-covered Valentine’s Day.
That doesn’t mean you need to stick with conventional confections to win over a fickle mistress. Consider a deeper dive into the cacao pool with a Homemade Tunnel of Fudge Bundt Cake. Originally devised as an amalgamation of questionable packaged baking mixes, a true tunnel of fudge cake is easier to assemble than your average Bundt. With a river of gooey, rich chocolate running through the core, it’s essentially a supersized lava cake if eaten warm. Dense, rich, and intense, at the core resides the famed heart of fudge, thick as cookie dough without the harsh sugar rush synonymous with unbaked batter. Nuts traditionally make up the bulk of this blend, but to make it allergen-free, they’re replaced with decadent chocolate morsels instead, much to the delight of devoted chocoholics and picky eaters, as well.
Just in time for this sweet heart’s holiday, you can find my recipe over on Go Dairy Free.