How to Make VEGAN Apple Cake | Interview and Cooking with Chef Carole Levy
208Chef Carole can be reached at carole@theveggievanguard.com or you can follow her on Instagram @theveggievanguard. Carole has loved art and food since she was a young girl cooking with her grandmother. Her first professional culinary experience was in a vegetarian restaurant where she built a foundation for eating healthfully. After many years of working with top chefs in restaurants and bakeries, she opened a café in San Francisco and incorporated a culinary job training program as part of its mission. . In early 2019 she participated in PPMNY’s 21 Day Jumpstart Program and shifted her 23 years of vegetarian eating to a whole food, plant based, SOS-free lifestyle eliminating dairy, salt, oil, and sugar. Since then she’s become Culinary Educator for Plant Powered Metro NY pod, earned a certificate from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and eCornell, and is a certified Food for Life instructor.
Moroccan Vegetable Tagine
Ingredients:
1 large onion, diced
3-4 garlic cloves, minced (1 heaping tbl)
1 tbl fresh ginger, peeled and chopped (about 1” piece)
2 tsp coriander
2 tsp turmeric
¼ tsp cinnamon
Pinch of saffron (optional)
1 medium squash (Butternut or Kabocha), peeled cut into 1” cubes (2 cups)
1 small eggplant, cut into 1” cubes (2 cups)
3-4 med sized carrots, cut into bite-sized pieces (1 ½ cups)
1 (28-ounce) can organic whole tomatoes no-salt
2 cups vegetable stock
1 lemon –strips made with peeler
1 (15-ounce) can organic chickpeas no-salt, drained
½ cup raisins
Parsley, mint, or cilantro (one of each or combine)
Directions:
• In a large heavy pot or Dutch Oven, over medium heat water/broth sauté onions until transparent, stirring regularly so that onions do not stick, you may need to add more water/broth.. Add garlic, ginger, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon (and saffron if using). Cook for a 2-3 minutes.
. Add all the chopped veggies, tomatoes and their juices. Stir to release any spices that may have
stuck to the bottom of the pan.. Add 2 cups of stock, chickpeas, lemon peel and raisins. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, cover and cook the vegetables until they are tender. 25-30 minutes..Transfer to serving bowls, top with fresh herbs. Serve hot with couscous, quinoa or rice.
Chef notes: consider these extra ingredients and tips.
½ cup chopped apricots
2 tsp harissa (North African hot chili pepper paste)
Preserved lemon
Pitted green olives (Castelvetranos)
Substitute sweet potatoes instead of squash
. Substitute cauliflower instead of eggplant
.In a sauté pan, dry roast 2 tsp of cumin seeds. Place seeds in a mortar and pestle to grind finely or use a spice grind and dust each serving.
Top with pomegranate seeds.
Top with sliced almonds.
Couscous
1 cup couscous
1 ½ cups water/broth
.
Bring water /broth to a boil. Pour 1 cup couscous into boiling water, stir once with a spoon, cover with a lid, and remove from heat. Let the couscous steam for five minutes. Couscous grains tend to bind together in the cooking process, so fluff the grains with a fork.
Polenta Apple Cake
Ingredients:
¾ cup fine polenta
½ cup plus 2 tbl almond flour
¾ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp baking soda
½ cup date paste
6 tbl plant-based yogurt (I use 5.3 oz Forager Cashew milk Yogurt, Unsweetened Plain)
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 lemons, juice plus 1 tsp zest
6 tbl aquafaba, chilled
3-4 apples, peeled, cored and sliced thinly
Apricot spread thinned with lemon juice
Chef note:
Best baking apples: Granny Smith, Jonagold, Cortland, Braeburn, Winesap, Macintosh
These two brands of apricot spread are good St. Dalfour and Bionaturae
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F
Line the bottom of 8” springform pan with parchment paper. Prepare apples by peeling coring and slicing as thin as possible (⅛” thickness), squeeze lemon juice over apples so they don’t brown. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients polenta, almond flour, baking powder
and baking soda, set aside.In a small bowl, combine wet ingredients date paste, yogurt, vanilla, spices, zest.. Pour aquafaba into a bowl with a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or use a bowl with hand mixer) and whisk until stiff peaks form. Fold the wet ingredients into dry mixture and mix until fully combined. Take the whipped aquafaba and fold gently into the batter, try not to over mix, as you don’t want to deflate the aquafaba. Pour batter into prepared pan.. Starting on the outside edge, begin to arrange the sliced apples on top of the batter. Overlapping slices to make decorative pattern, continue layering of apples working towards the center until cake is completely covered. Gently glaze the top of cake with apricot glaze. Be careful not to move the fruit. Bake 40-45 minutes top will be brown and the fruit will be cooked. You can use a skewer to test the center of the cake. During the last 10 minutes of baking re glaze the cake to give a glistening shine.