lemon gumdrops

Yesterday was my birthday.

It was one of those strange, mid-week birthdays where I had the day off but everyone around me was going about their daily work like it wasn't one of the most wonderful days of the year. (Seriously, I even had to wait to back my car out of the driveway while the municipal truck was trimming trees out front.)

I believe that climbing small mountains on my birthday sets a good precedent for the year, so I found a willing friend and her two daughters to climb with me. We fortified ourselves with tea and just-made chocolate chip cookies, and set off.

We walked up the road, thinking the path might still be too muddy. But when we reached the rocky, mossy top, we could see that at least one side of the mountain would be dry enough and oh-so-much-prettier than the paved road.

We began clambering down the rocks, telling the girls to go backwards and put one hand on the mountain so you don't fall off it and so on.

Sometimes, we found the path. And sometimes, just as quickly, the path stopped and we were scouting our own way down through the rocks and moss. This was the best part, actually, because we had to look at the ground so carefully.

We spotted dark purple flowers that looked something like camas and we found rosy sedums blooming. There was a cleft of rock that was particularly inviting to a five-year-old girl. They tried to pick up everything: from baby flowers to hairy moss to heavy rocks.

 In short, it was a perfect birthday morning. I thanked them with a little packet of lemon gumdrops.

I have only recently learned how to make these gumdrops and I am thrilled that I can now make candy without a candy thermometer. (Although I do have one. I'm just a bit scared of it.)

These little drops are old-fashioned and subtle. Their flavour comes from lemon juice, orange rind and sugar. They are soft and jiggly in a way that commercially-made candy can't be. They are lovely.

I wonder what I'll learn to make by my next birthday?

Last year: Grand Forks borscht and Up Island
Two years ago: sophisticated marshmallow squares and red lentil coconut curry soup

lemon gumdrops
via The Essential New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser

4 packets powdered gelatin
1/2 c. + 1/2 c. water
2 c. + 1/2 c. sugar
juice of 1 lemon
grated zest of 1 orange
3 drops yellow food colouring

Butter an 8-inch square baking dish. Set aside.

Mix the gelatin into 1/2 cup water in a bowl. Let it stand for 5 minutes. Set aside.

In a medium pot, stir 2 cups of sugar and 1/2 cup of water together carefully. Bring it to a boil, stirring often. Use a pastry brush dipped in cold water to keep crystals from forming on the sides of the pot above the liquid. Once it boils, add the gelatin mixture and whisk in. (Don't worry if the gelatin is very clumpy; patient whisking will incorporate it into the sugar mixture.) Again bring it to a boil and stir often until it thickens, about 15 minutes.

Pour in the lemon juice and orange zest and bring to a boil for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and quickly stir in the food colouring. Pour it into the prepared dish. Chill in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.

Put the remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a shallow bowl. Butter the tip of a large chef's knife and keep the butter handy to re-butter when necessary. Drag the knife tip through the lemon gel to make 1/2-inch squares. (Don't worry if you don't see the gumdrops pulling apart from each other at this point. They will once you're done cutting and you start pulling them up.) Butter a butter knife and work it along the edges of the pan.

Butter your fingers and pull a couple gumdrops up (possibly with the help of the butter knife at first). Pull them apart and coat them in the sugar. Repeat until you're all done.

cheddar corn chowder

This recipe has quite the claim to fame: it won the church bake-off back in 1994. (It was submitted by a parishioner named Michelle Henseleit and I think she is a genius.)

Well: wouldn't you want to try a recipe that comes first in a church bake-off?

Right, I would. And I did, back in the mid '90s when it was hot off the presses.

And you know what?

It has never let me down. It is the best corn chowder I have ever had the pleasure to slurp up . . . even without the crumbled bacon bit garnish. (That was back when I was an ideological teenage vegetarian and didn't know what I was missing.)

This recipe has served me well: for dinner and for leftovers for lunch.

I made it in university in Halifax and Victoria.

I made it when I lived in Vancouver in a house with five adults and a baby, and the men who sat around the dinner table shocked this sheltered girl with their giant appetites.

I made it in our apartment in Ottawa when we had forgotten how cold a real winter could be and needed something warm and creamy to defrost our fingers and toes.

Now, I make it in our little apartment back in Victoria and my husband says with a happy sigh, "I always like chowders." (I take it this is a hint.)

It's an easy-going recipe: fry a bit of this, add some stock and cream, cook a bit, add the corn and wine, stir in copious amounts of aged cheddar. Oh, and a bit of freshly-grated nutmeg. Crumble bacon bits on top.

Did you hear all that?

Cream. Corn. Wine. Nutmeg. Aged Cheddar. Bacon bits.

Right. So now you know why this won the bake-off and why you probably need to make it for dinner tonight.

One year ago: Grand Forks borscht
Two years ago: Canadian boterkoek and sophisticated marshmallow squares

cheddar corn chowder

feeds 4

3 tbsp. butter
1 onion, chopped
1 large potato, diced
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. ground sage
2 c. (500 ml) chicken stock
1 c. (250 ml) 10% cream
1/2 c. (125 ml) milk
1 1/2 c. corn (frozen or canned)
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 c. white wine
2 tbsp. parsley, chopped
2 tbsp. green onion, chopped
 1 1/2 c. aged cheddar cheese, grated
4 – 5 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

Heat heavy-bottomed pot over medium-low heat. Melt the butter, and add the onion, potato, bay leaf, cumin and sage. Cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes or until the onion has softened.

Pour in the stock, cream and milk. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat so it simmers. Cook until the potato is tender, about 10 – 15 minutes.

Add the corn, nutmeg, wine and most of the parsley and green onion. Simmer for 5 more minutes until it's heated through. Take the bay leaf out.

Stir in the cheese, a bit at a time. Heat until the cheese is melted, but don't let it boil (or it might be difficult and separate on you). Serve with crumbled bacon bits and some of that parsley and green onion you kept.


 

caramel chocolate mousse

If there's one thing I long for, it's counter space.

When we were visiting my dad last weekend, I kept looking longingly at the expanse of counter space in his kitchen. Of course, we made good use of it, with this chicken curry and then buttermilk pancakes with frozen huckleberries and brambles.

Oh, and did I mention the caramel chocolate mousse?

Because that's what I really want to tell you about.

On Sunday afternoon, while Scott and dad were out pouring concrete for a gate (seriously!), I got to hang out in my dad's sunny little house and do my two favourite things: cook and read.

I started with the mousse. As you see, the sun was pouring in and everything was going swimmingly.

Well, it was . . . until I got a bit cocky about melting the chocolate and this horror happened.

What is that monster, you may ask?

That monster is overheated chocolate, where the cocoa has divorced itself from the cocoa butter.

(I don't know how they convince them to join up in the chocolate factories, but let me know tell you, they will never reunite in your kitchen. Goodness knows I tried.)

After that horror – in which my main panic was that my mousse would be a goner and I wouldn't get enough time to read before the boys got back – I found some more chocolate and got back on track. Dear readers, follow these instructions for melting chocolate carefully and don't let it get too hot!

It should look more like this:

Now, back to the whole idea of caramel chocolate mousse. It's a good one, don't you think?

Chef Michael Smith thought it up, and I saw it in his new book when I was flipping through it at the bookstore a couple weeks ago.

I have been intrigued with the idea of using caramel as a deep, dark base for chocolate ever since I saw this video about chocolate ice cream last summer. (Also check out Melissa Clark's cool sunglasses.)

This mousse is dish-heavy – pot to make the caramel, double boiler to melt the chocolate, bowl to whip the cream – but it's actually pretty simple. Also, I am relieved to finally have a reliable technique for caramel.

(Before this, I had a 50% chance of my caramel seizing into grains of horrible hard sugar. Which is not pretty. I'm fairly sure I'll have a 100% success rate of smooth, lovely caramel with Michael Smith's technique.)

I decided to mix the caramel and chocolate cream together before folding it into the whipped cream. I was afraid the sticky caramel would take too much mixing and deflate the whipped cream. Pre-mixed with the chocolate, the caramel folds in like a dream.

After a couple hours in the fridge, it takes on that airy, dense texture that I want in a mousse. (Do  you know what I mean: substantial but light?)

As for the taste – well, let's just say the caramel is worth it. It lends a deeper base of flavour, almost the way a homemade stock does for soup.*

In the end, I got my mousse into the fridge within less than an hour, and had lots of time to get back to my other important goal for the afternoon: sitting in the reclining chair next to the window and reading my book with a cup of tea.

*I will note that the original recipe calls for milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate, so as not to overpower the caramel base. I didn't have any milk chocolate, so I used dark and I think I'll keep it that way. I may also be influenced by the fact that I make my caramels pretty dark so they can stand up to the dark chocolate base.


 Last March: grand forks borscht
Two Marches ago: dahl for dinner, dahling

caramel chocolate mousse
slightly adapted from michael smith

1/4 c. (62.5 ml) sugar
1 c. (250 ml) whipping cream (separated to 2 tbsp + 2 tbsp + 3/4 c.)
2 oz. (62.5 g.) dark or milk chocolate, chopped finely
1/2 tsp. (2.5 ml) vanilla extract

Take out a small saucepan with a heavy bottom. Pour in 1/4 c. of water. Sprinkle the sugar over the water, making sure the sugar doesn't touch the inside edges of the pot. Do NOT stir. Turn on the heat to medium. Keep an eye on it, but don't touch it. Eventually, the sugar will melt and the water will boil. As it begins to lightly brown, you may swirl the pot gently to help it brown evenly, although I don't find it necessary. Once it starts browning, keep an eagle eye on it. When it's deep golden brown, take it off the heat. Get out a shallow bowl and a whisk.

Stand back and get ready for some spattering. Carefully pour 2 tbsp. of cream into the caramel. Whisk until smooth. Transfer the caramel into the shallow bowl. (It is important to do this because the caramel will keep cooking and hardening in the hot pot.) Cool to room temperature, about 20 minutes. Set aside while cooling.

Now, it's time to melt the chocolate and cream. The important part here is not to overheat the chocolate. Get a clean whisk ready. Heat water to a simmer in the bottom of a double-boiler, or nestle a bowl over (but not in) a pot of simmering water. Keep the heat down to minimum so the water only simmers and doesn't boil. Put the chopped chocolate in the bowl. Pour in 2 tbsp. of cream. Whisk until the chocolate is just melted, then take the bowl off the heat and keep whisking until it's smooth. Set aside to cool somewhat.

Whip the remaining 3/4 c. of cream with the vanilla until it's whipped cream. Set aside.

Whisk the caramel and chocolate cream together. Gently fold it into the whipped cream until it's all a nice chocolate brown colour. Leave in bowl or put into serving glasses. Chill for at least two hours or even one to two days. Serve as is or with a bit of shaved chocolate on top.

eating out

Months ago, my landlord put these bulbs in little jars of water. As I watched them freezing into solid ice-cube bulbs in December, I had my doubts.

I shouldn't have.

Spring does always come – even if you're a little narcissus bulb straining to bloom in a little jar of ice.

Now it's February and they've had just enough shelter in our foyer to grow way, way up and blossom right out. They were a nice treat to come home to after working and visiting friends in Vancouver last week. (It was ever so rainy, but that's Vancouver in February for you.)

All this travelling means I have new Vancouver restaurants to recommend: one Chinese and one with a cozy ski lodge feel. I'm also making up for lost time, and I've added favourite spots in Edmonton and up Vancouver Island. Hop on over to hop & go fetch it to read about them.

I'll be back with a new recipe soon – although I'm back on the road again this weekend. I did make a nice little eggplant parmesan for Valentine's Day, but it wasn't quite perfect. When it's up to snuff, I promise to share it with you. In the meantime: here's to eating out and not doing dishes!


One February ago: turnip puff to the rescue!
Two Februarys ago: lemon loaf, little lemon cakes and olympic nanaimo bars

gumdrop cake and turning 2

Last night, I dreamed of gumdrop cake.

I saw a slice of cake, close up. It was white and fluffy and the gumdrops were perfectly distributed throughout the cake – you know, almost suspended in the air of the cake. It was a beautiful thing.

In fact, if you make this cake with regular wheat flour, that dream can be your reality.

If you make this cake with gluten-free flours, your pretty gumdrops will drop (ooh, foreshadowing!) to the bottom half of the cake and give you a gumdrop layer cake.

I have given this a great deal of thought today and I believe that, according to the laws of physics, that is just the way things are meant to be. I mean, with no gluten to hold up the gumdrops in the cake, what can they do but drop?

Anyway, all that to say: it doesn't matter! Because whether you have gumdrop studded cake or gumdrop layer cake, you still end up with a rich, buttery cake that is just right for celebrating.

Yes, this little blog is turning two and I thought rainbow gumdrops were appropriate for celebrating this toddler achievement. I am also celebrating with a new plum and star anise header and – coming very soon – a print button so you can quick-as-a-snap print just the recipe you want.

You might say, "Stephanie, my goodness, two years! You have posted 84 recipes in that time! What are your favourites?"

And I would say:

* grand forks borscht
* salmon with sugar-salt rub
* loganberry jelly
* chocolate raspberry horse turds
* sophisticated marshmallow squares
 
Or maybe you wouldn't say that at all and you would like me to get back to the gumdrop cake, please. Certainly.

 Mrs. Doucet strikes again!

I first tried this cake days – days, I tell you! – after New Year's when I was visiting Angela in Halifax many years ago. Her mom had sent this cake home with her after Christmas.

I had never eaten gumdrop cake before and I was entranced. I do believe I ate a small slice every day of the four or five days I visited. The cake was dense and soft, and the chewy gumdrops provided pockets of chewy, gummy love.

This cake has a somewhat indecent amount of butter. Do not be tempted to cut it. I repeat: do not. I do believe the butter – and the milk and the sugar – gives it a lovely buttery flavour and helps it have a long, stable shelf-life. (Which is perfect, since this cake is rich and you will be happy with just having a little slice every day.)

After all, it's birthday cake. It should have lots of butter and milk and sugar – and gumdrops.

One February ago:  whisky marmalade and bacon-wrapped dates with olives and almonds
Two Februarys ago: creamy celeriac soup and muesli
Related: gumdrop cookies

gumdrop cake

If you'd like to scale the recipe down to half – which I highly recommend if there is only one or two of you in the house – use a 6-inch pan and bake for about one hour and 15 minutes. If you use an 8-inch or 9-inch pan with half a recipe, bake for about 35 minutes.

2 c. regular gumdrops or jujubes*
1 c. butter
3 eggs
2 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. + 2 1/2 c. wheat flour
     Or gluten-free flours:
     98 g. uncontaminated oat flour
     98  g. sweet white sorghum flour
     98 g. sweet rice flour
     98 g. tapioca or arrowroot starch
     98 g. potato starch
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 c. warm milk

Cut gumdrops into thirds and sprinkle with 1 cup of the flour. Cover them, and leave them to sit on the counter overnight.

When you're ready to start baking, preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a tube pan. Dust with flour.

Beat the butter, eggs, sugar and vanilla together until somewhat fluffy. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour(s), baking powder and salt together well. Alternately add the milk and the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Fold in gum drops. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake for 1 1/2 hours, or until golden brown and your cake tester comes out clean. Let cool fully before eating. Keeps well in a sealed container on the counter for quite a while.

* Use regular gumdrops or jujubes, not the baking ones. Take out any that are black or clove-flavoured.

lemon syllabub

Syllabub.

Looks like it sounds:

"Sill-uh-bub."

(Even though it looks quite silly. Actually, someone I know takes great delight in calling it "silly-bub.")

Syllabub, syllabub, syllabub . . . It's one of those words I could say over and over. Good thing I predict 2012 will be the year of the syllabub.

My mom whipped up a syllabub New Year's Eve, and now, I'm afraid, we're hooked. We say it and eat it as often as we can.

Oh, but you'd like to know what syllabub actually is?

Well, my dears, it is cold and creamy and lemony and tastes the way I always thought snow should taste. It is smooth and tart and packs an incredible amount of flavour into a small spoonful of cream.

The recipe itself is like child's play (well, aside from all that alcohol).

All you do is beat an improbable amount of lemon juice, sherry, brandy and vanilla into heavy cream. In just a few minutes, you have soft peaks of creamy lemon heaven. Then you drop a bit of lemon rind and shaved dark chocolate on top if you're in the mood.

The magical thing is that what you have created doesn't taste like sherry and brandy; it tastes like eating pure essence of lemon with a dollop of cream. It is that good.

My mother says she has been making this recipe for years. It has handwritten notes on it that say things like:

"Delicious, but rich!"

"Freezes well!" (My mother freezes everything.)

"People loved it. NY Dinner."

The recipe comes from a big hardcover cookbook I remember seeing since I was a child. It's called Drake's International Recipe Cookbook and has a price of 9.88 penciled in the front cover. Mom says she remembers buying it at a big bookstore in San Francisco in the 1970s. (I would guess she's talking about City Lights, but she can't confirm that.)

The thing I love about this cookbook – beside the syllabub recipe, obviously – is that it's broken into sections of different countries. Syllabub falls in the British and Irish section.

I did a bit more research and – if Wikipedia is to be trusted – syllabub dates back to the Tudor dynasty that ruled England from 1485 to 1603. You know I'm all about the heritage desserts, but I think I've really outdone myself here. Thank you, Mom and Drake's.

May I propose a toast?

To the year of the syllabub!

Last January: rosemary gruyère baked eggs

lemon syllabub
all the way from Drake's International Recipe Cookbook

serves 4 – 6

grated rind and juice of one lemon
1/2 c. sugar
3 tbsp. sherry
2 tbsp. brandy or cointreau
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
250 ml. (1 c.) heavy or whipping cream

Pour the lemon juice and most of the grated rind into a good-sized bowl. Stir in the sugar, sherry, brandy and vanilla. Pour the cream in and beat until the cream is thick. (It will be thick but not stiff.) Dollop into 4 – 6 wine glasses or parfait glasses. Chill in the fridge for 4 hours.

When serving, sprinkle with a bit more grated lemon rind and shaved dark chocolate. (Drake's also recommends serving with ladyfinger, macaroons or sugar cookies. I don't think they're necessary.)

tomato sauce with onion and butter

Snow day today!

I live in the warmest part of Canada. In fact, it is so warm that my little house doesn't have insulation. I'm not saying that I would recommend that or that all houses on Vancouver Island were built without insulation or that I wouldn't kill to have some insulation right about now . . . but you get my drift.

My snowdrift, that is!

We don't get snow very often, so when we do, everyone goes a bit wild. The schools and libraries close down, people greet each other with "It's like driving on a skating rink!" instead of "How are you?" Then we all discuss how many snowplows the City of Victoria has. (Current estimates range from zero to one.)

So, this morning, I was looking out on my snowy deck (sleep, little garlic bulbs!), enjoying the white snow light coming through the window and thinking about how cold I was. (Yes, I was already encased in many layers of merino wool, down vest and Scottish wool blanket.)

I decided the only solution was to start something simmering. I found a can of good tomatoes and ventured down the cold stairs looking for an onion. Yes, found a red one. (The original recipe calls for a yellow onion, but I can now confirm that red also works.) Of course, I had butter.

Everything I needed to make Marcella Hazan's classic tomato sauce with onion and butter. (Many thanks to Orangette for first leading me to this recipe a couple of years ago).

I was so delighted when I first tried this sauce because it solved a mystery for me.

Back in university, I had a friend who was Italian. I remember being at Laura's house when her mother served us little plates of pasta with a simple tomato sauce. It was heaven. I asked how she did it and Laura said something about tomatoes and onion and not much else.

Of course, I went home and fried onions and added some diced tomatoes . . . and was disappointed with a choppy, acidic sauce. Maybe, I thought, the problem is that I'm not Italian and this is just not something I'll ever be able to master.

But with this recipe, I uncovered the secret: butter. The sauce needs butter to round it out and make it smooth and rich. And the onion just has a long bath in the sauce, but gets taken out before serving, thus solving the texture issue.

Of course, with so few ingredients, it's essential to use very, very good tomatoes. Sorry, but really: buy the more expensive canned tomatoes once and you'll never go back.

All you do is plop the tomatoes, halved onion and butter in a big, heavy pot. Add a bit of salt if you're in the mood. Bring it to a simmer. Let it simmer for about 45 minutes, making your kitchen smell heavenly and throwing a bit more heat out into your uninsulated house.

When it's ready, it's lovely and velvety and just the thing for a snow day.

One January ago: glorious hummus for bean month
Two Januarys ago: shortbread in january


tomato sauce with onion and butter
from Orangette, who adapted it from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
serves 2 – 3

28 oz. (794 g.) whole peeled canned plum tomatoes with their juices
5 tbsp. butter
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and cut in half
a bit of salt to taste

Plop the tomatoes and their juices into a pot with a heavy bottom.* Add the butter and onion. Use your spoon to kind of tuck the onion into the tomatoes. Add a bit of salt if your tomatoes aren't already salty enough. Bring to a simmer. Lightly simmer for 45 minutes or until you can see little drops of fat floating on the tomatoes. Stir it a few times while it's simmering. If you feel like, it use your spoon to break up any big tomato pieces against the side of the pot. Take the onion out before serving.

Serve on pasta, with a bit of parmesan, if you like.

*Although Molly appeared to use a frying pan and it looked fine. When I'm simmering something for a while, I like a heavy-bottomed pot. But I leave it up to you to decide what kind of pot you'd like.

glory bowl

When we moved across the country three years ago this May, we decided to drive.

It took us about eight days to make our way from Ottawa to Victoria, driving all 4,723 kilometres through Canada. (The shortcut across the top of the United States was tempting, but we wanted to see our country.)

In Ontario – land of never ending lakes and trees and more lakes and more trees – we stayed at bed and breakfasts. After we hit the prairies – land of very smooth, straight highways where you could see potential roadkill miles away – we were able to stay with friends every night.

So we had breakfasts and most dinners taken care of. But we were always looking for lunch in the middle of our driving day. Specifically, we were always on the lookout for hippie cafés. You know the ones I mean: cafés that offer dishes with sprouts and chickpeas and homemade soups.

We had varying degrees of luck, until we crossed the British Columbia border. (If you're not familiar with Canada, now is the time for me to tell you that B.C. proudly boasts the highest ratio of hippies to hunters of any province in Canada.)

We drove through the Rocky Mountains and ended up in Golden, just on the B.C. side of the provincial border around noon.

My more skeptical half was somewhat dubious when I pronounced that we were sure to find a hippie café for lunch today. But he gamely drove slowly through the narrow streets of Golden while I sized up the storefronts.

Sure enough, I spotted it in no time: Bacchus Books and Café. A used bookstore with a café on the top! Hello, hippie café!

We went up to the second floor and checked out the café: vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options. Yep, we were definitely back in B.C. I ordered a creamy tomato soup that was so good I had to ask what was in it.

Scott, the gluten-free man, ordered the glory bowl: quinoa with beets, carrots, spinach, almonds and tofu. I gave him a covert look of alarm (didn't want to upset the cook) – um, wouldn't that be too healthy to be good?

No. Unfortunately, as happens from time to time, the husband was right. With a truly addictive dressing, his glory bowl was divine. It was all I could do not to keep sneaking bites when he went to the bathroom.

So we also ended up asking about the glory bowl. The nice woman serving us said it was from a cookbook called "Whitewater Cooks," which they sold in the bookstore downstairs. We promptly went down the stairs and bought the book.

We've never looked back. We make the glory bowl at least once every couple months and always love it. Besides being very, very tasty with this dressing, I can't seem to find any other way to happily eat grated beets and raw spinach.

This is one appropriate meal for January, month of cleanses and resolutions – except that it actually tastes good.

Last January: naomi's granola


glory bowl
serves 6
 
sesame baked tofu
from Rebar Modern Food

2 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. sesame oil
1/4 tsp. ground pepper
1 block firm tofu (about 300 g.), cubed

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare a baking sheet with Silpat or parchment paper.

Mix soy sauce, sesame oil and pepper in a medium-sized bowl. Toss with tofu. Spread tofu on prepared baking sheet. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes, stirring part-way through.

glory bowl dressing*
slightly adapted from Whitewater Cooks

1/2 c. nutritional yeast flakes
1/3 c. water
1/3 c. tamari or soy sauce
1/3 c. apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp. tahini paste
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 c. canola oil, grapeseed oil or vegetable oil

Mix yeast flakes, water, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, tahini and garlic together. (I like to use an immersion blender, but you could use a whisk or hand blender.) Add the oil in a slow, steady stream while you're mixing.

*This dressing makes a bit more than you'll need for the glory bowl. Trust me: you want that extra dressing hanging around for other raw vegetables you need to dress up.

the bowl itself
slightly adapted from Whitewater Cooks

2 c. uncooked quinoa*
2 c. beets, grated
2 c. carrots, grated
2 c. spinach leaves
1 1/2 c. roasted almonds, roughly chopped
prepared sesame baked tofu
prepared glory bowl dressing

Pour 3 1/2 cups of water in a medium pot. Add the quinoa and a bit of salt, if you like. Cover and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to keep it at a simmer and cook covered for 10 – 12 minutes, depending on how done you like your quinoa. Remove from the heat. Let it sit for a few minutes, then fluff with a fork or spoon.

Next, we're assembling the bowl! Spoon quinoa into your bowl. Top with beets, carrots, spinach leaves, almonds and tofu. Pour dressing over.

*The original recipe calls for brown rice. You could also try that, or even barley, kamut or farro.