Manigot!

A warm one for cold weather. In the neighborhood I grew up in I was invited to many a manicotti dinner and always found myself at home when it was served. Manicotti. Bubbling brown cheese and tomato sauce, spilling over packed pillows of pasta and ricotta cheese... Manicotti.
And yet when I was cooking this for Christmas, everyone rolled their eyes and furrowed their brows as I spoke the word... Even my own Jewish-American mother. "Oh! You mean Manigot!"
However you choose to say it, I don't really care. I missed it. So go home and start making gravy.

The Gravy:
4 cloves of garlic, smashed thoroughly
2 cloves of garlic, microplaned or thoroughly obliterated to a paste
1 onion, diced fine
2 32oz cans of tomatoes, crushed
1 tbsp salt
crushed pepper to taste (I like 2 tbsp)

In a large sauce pan or stock pot, heat a generous amount of olive oil, maybe 5 tbsp. When the oil shimmers, add the garlic and make sure its golden brown on all sides. If you are adding crushed red pepper, add it now, and as soon as the perfume of the chilis hits your nose, add your finely diced onions (The finer the dice the better, you don't want onion chunks in your gravy). Sweat the onions for 4-6 minutes over medium heat, or until they soften and start to turn golden. Lower the heat to medium low, and add the crushed tomatoes. In 15 minutes the tomato sauce should come up to a simmer. Double check that the heat is medium low, and that nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot, and let the sauce simmer for an hour and a half. Afterward, season with salt and microplane in two cloves of garlic. Turn off the heat.

Cashew/Tofu Ricotta

Ricotta (good ricotta) is milk curds held in cream stasis. When it is used in cooking the fatty emulsion of the cream keeps the ricotta moist and fluffy. All too often when I have a tofu ricotta lasagna, the opposite is true, and the resulting filling is crumbly and sort of desiccating on the tongue. So for good tofu ricotta, the same laws have to be in effect; the tofu curds need to be bathed in a fatty milk or cream.

2 cloves garlic, microplaned
2 packs of firm tofu, drained and crumbled
1 cup of cashews
4 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tsp salt
1 lemon, juiced
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 package of Daiya cheese

As in baking, we start with a wet mix. Put the cashews, salt, and nutritional yeast in a food processor and grind to a fine powder. Now add the almond milk, olive oil, and the microplaned garlic. Puree the mixture until it is well emulsified. Next, add the crumbled tofu, and the lemon juice. Remove the mixture to a bowl, and mix in the Daiya cheese with a spoon. Put the mixture in a piping bag with a wide nozzle if you have them. Otherwise, a spoon will work fine.

Manicotti:
Boil water, and cook your dried manicotti for 6 minutes. Drain the water and space the pasta out to cool on a cookie sheet. Once cool to the touch, stuff the pasta with the ricotta filling. I like to use a piping bag for this job, but it works just fine with a spoon. Line two 13/9 inch baking pans with  parchment paper, or ladle 1/4 cup of water into each and drizzle with olive oil (if you use water, add a pinch or two of salt). Lay the manicotti in the baking pan in neat rows, and cover each piece with gravy. Scatter a half a bag of Daiya over each pan, and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Raise the heat to 425 and cook for another 15.

I like to serve with a chiffonade of fresh basil and some bread crumbs (Use the croutons from the ribollita recipe. Toss them in the blender. They are perfect for this.)

Chickpea & Olive's Manicotti 

Inwood Holiday Market - Just one Saturday Left 12/17

We have had the warmest welcome as the new vegan kids on the Inwood block.  The excitement and interest in our company was so heart warming.  People have expressed interest in our cooking classes, private chef services and supper clubs.  

Dan's Indian inspired tea sandwiches were a big hit!  As well as our truffles, peanut-butter cake pops, and spiced hot cocoa with homemade marshmallow fluff.  

On Saturday, December 17, we will also be introducing new truffle flavors as well as boxes of chocolates. 4 and 9 piece gift boxes which are made out of 100% cocoa leaf.  They are handmade in the Philippines and the workers are paid a living wage to support them and there families.  So by purchasing these boxes we are taking fair trade even further.  

Speaking of Fair Trade - We have teamed up Buunni Coffee.  Mochas are on the horizon as well as espresso truffles.  

Everyone at the market was so lovely and talented.  

With love and gratitude to our community.  

Shop Local.  Buy local.  Keep your money UPTOWN!

INWOOD HOLIDAY MARKET

Saturday December 17th 1pm - 7pm

4951 Broadway 2nd Floor

Inwood, NYC

Dinner at Hangawi

We went to dinner last night at Hangawi. One of the most sacred restaurants in NYC. Hangawi serves Korean Buddhist temple food. The food is always incredible and being in the restaurant itself transports you to another time and place. It's very easy to forget you are in the middle of k-town just a few blocks south of times square.

We had a delicious meal featuring a Kim chi salad, an assortment of pancakes, dumpling soup, pumpkin porridge, & avocado bimbimbap. Finished the meal off with a coconut blueberry cake with vanilla ice cream. It was really a beautiful meal with beautiful food. Prepared with love and no blood shed.

Very inspiring for us at chickpea & olive where we strive to bring you peace on a plate.

Ribolita for Vanessa

Once upon a time ribolita was a dread-worthy dish, like three day old tofu meat loaf, or the 6 bean chili that's been growing fur in the back of the fridge. Ribolita, a re-boil, was classically a peasant soup of leftovers, usually involving beans, cabbage, and a bone or the scraps and skins of ... well this is a vegan website so we don't need to go into those details. Suffice to say, ribolita is the quintessential rebirth of leftovers, but it has taken on new life as a dish of its own. Chefs like Mark Ladner and Michael Chiarello put ribolitas on there menus!

My ribolita is as peasant a soup as anyone has ever supped. It may not be on the menu at Lupa, but it is a soul warming stew that will warm the hearts of any scrooge or grinch. 

ZUPPA

1 onion, diced

5 cloves garlic, smashed

2 leeks, rinsed and chopped (if you use the stock recipe here, you can omit the leeks)

6 leaves savoy cabbage, torn by hand

6 leaves of tuscan kale, torn by hand
1 fennel, sliced (you can sub whatever you like or omit, but i love fennel)

1 celery root, diced (you can sub potatoes or omit)
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

2 cans gigante beans (giant limas, but butter beans work great too)

garlicky croutons, see recipe below

3 qts Veggie stock, See recipe below or sub your favorite boxes

6 sage leaves, chopped

2 sprigs of thyme

2 sprigs of rosemary

1 bay leaf

1 lemon, cut in quarters
2 cups tomato puree or homemade tomato sauce

STOCK

2 leeks, cleaned, rough chopped

5 medium carrots

2 large onions

1 whole celery

1 acorn squash, or small pumpkin, cut in quarters and seeded

For the stock: if you are making it, saute the leeks at the bottom of a large pot for 6 minutes, or until soft and starting to brown.  Add 4qts of water to the pot, and then just toss the rest of your vegetables in. Bring the pot up to a boil, lower the heat to a bare simmer (that's when bubbles come slowly up the sides of the pot, but not up the middle) and walk away for an hour and a half. Kill the heat, strain off the liquid to save. I also like to save the vegetables from the stock. The carrots are perfect for making carrot soup! But that's another recipe.

For the soup: So you have stock, right? Souper! now get an 8 qt roasting pan and set your oven to 500 degrees. It sounds excessive, but it's the best way to make soup. Put your chopped onions and garlic (and leeks if you are using boxed stock) in your roasting pan and coat with extra virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper or chili flakes (I love using one or the other in the same fashion. It can turn one recipe into two, they are totally unique and both taste good with everything.) Put the roasting pan in the oven and let the contents caramelize, checking and stirring every 3 minutes. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes until your onions and garlic are caramelized. At this point, put on your oven mits and take the pan out of the oven. Add the lemon, fennel, savoy cabbage and black kale, season them with salt and pepper/chili and toss them together with the onions and garlic before returning to the oven. You want the kale and the cabbage to begin to char. They will turn brown and crispy in spots, like really good brussel sprouts. This may take another ten minutes.

Now let's say you don't have an 8qt roasting pan because vegans usually don't need to roast anything. You can do almost all of this on the stove in a large pot, but the lemon, the fennel, and the cabbages need to broil. There is no two ways about it. All of the magic happens when the cabbage gets charred. In fact, even if it burns a little, I think it still tastes better than if you were to just boil the cabbage in the soup, kind of like a good pizza crust. 

Pull out the lemon when they are nice and browned, and then you can add the beans (if they are canned, I don't drain them here, because the liquid from the can thickens the soup), tomato puree, herbs, stock, sweet potatoes, and celery root. Adjust the seasoning now, make sure your broth is nice and salty and spicy. Return the roasting pan to the oven and let it simmer for half an hour to 45 minutes. At this point its ready to eat. I like to ladle this over garlic crostini, but if you have some crusty old bread and want to stop here, just tear the bread up and pour the soup on top. Serve the charred lemon on the side.

Garlic Crostini:

I would do this one a day or so in advance. pre-heat your oven to 275. Slice a loaf of bread into one inch slices. Baguette or ciabatta work well for this, or pane pugliese, but my favorite is pane al sesamo. Spread the slices out on a cookie sheet, oil them generously and season with salt and pepper or chili flakes. Now put the bread in the oven. It will take around 45 minutes or so to get golden brown and delicious, and if after 45 minutes its not quite perfect, turn the temperature up to 325 and poke your head in every 3 minutes until its just right.  Now remove your bread and rub each piece with raw garlic. I like to break up a piece into a bowl and ladle the soup on top. Afterwards I break another piece on top of the soup to garnish, and squeeze a piece of charred lemon on top.

Serves 8 to 10