Shanah Tovah!

It’s the Jewish New Year, and tribe member by blood I thought it would be best if I threw a little New Year’s bash! Another weekly contributor Julie is also of the fam, and she was excited to make some vegan versions of some of her staples. She made a honey cake (with agave) and a challah. Both were absolutely as tasty in the mouth as they were beautiful to the eyes. Unfortunately we had a few sick ladies this week, so we lost our black eyed pea and pomegranate and braised leek dishes, but I was able to bust out a fancy sun-dried tomato roast with vegetables and some gefilte bites.

What a table eh?

..Sundried Tomato Seitan Roast with Braised Vegetables..

This roast was legit!! I got The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook for Christmas last year and have been able to put it to use a few times. It’s perfect for holidays we celebrate her in the US.
The book is huge and has the most beautiful color photos. If you are a collector of cookbooks this is a MUST HAVE. I also own it on my kindle! 

This roast was great.  Very simple to make, as most seitan recipes are. They look so daunting, but I’m always pleased at how easy they are to prepare. Once you have all the weirdo ingredients in your pantry it’s as easy as mixing them together. I made the roast and the stew seperatly, then soaked the roast in the stew for about 30 minutes before I sliced it to display it properly on my table with the veg. Beautiful. 

So it’s been a few days, and it’s time for leftovers. I diced the meat, made some brown rice, and made a hearty beef stew from what we had left. Oh my goodness, this stuff was even better a few days later. Made me wish I had made this guy a few days ahead. 

Just look at this sexy stew. I mean, come on! 

..Gefilte Bites..

I’ve made chickpea based gefilte bites before, but not this recipe. Another one from Isa’s book. Major differences, mayo and horseradish mixed right in. I love a good chickpea salad, and these were essentially little chickpea salad bites mixed in with nori for that sea flavor. I have a few leftover and I plan to wrap them in nori sheets and make little gefilte sushi rolls. If I can roll them up to be photo worthy I’ll update with photos. I’m sure they’ll be fantastic.

..Challah..

I never tire of saying “Challah” to the tune of “Holla.” I’m sure others may tire of hearing me say it, but it’s so fun! CHALLLLAH!!!!

Julie makes her family a challah every week. She isn’t vegan, so she makes it with eggs, but for our dinner party she did a little alterations on her regular recipe and had some great success! She used energ egg replacement for the mix, and olive oil for the wash. She was very pleased with the flavor, and so were the rest of us! Excelent on its own, and great sopping up the stew juice. 

We had a bit of the loaf leftover, so what to do with day old challah? French toast!!!

Beautiful ain’t she? Isa had a little recipe for this in her book, so I used her base, except I used sweetened vanilla hemp milk instead of unsweetened almond. Just the kind of sugar rush you need to start your day. 

..Honey Cake..

It isn’t a sweet new year without a honey cake. Drizzled with agave and shown here with traditional Jewish apples. Julie was a bit concerned about how hard the bottom of her bundt was, and boy was it hard to cut. Turns out though, the bottom was hard because of the sugar caramelizing. Oh those hard bits were divine. 

So that’s it for our Rosh Hashana celebration. Hope you enjoyed all the photos. Here is a bonus of Julie and I, me rocking some serious JewBling! 

SHALOM!