Arrowroot and Rosewater

I've had a number of vegan baking adventures since I last posted: lemon bars, chocolate chip cookies, pistachio rosewater cookies, applesauce oat bran muffins, and almond quinoa muffins. The lemon bars were the most difficult recipe (due to all that agar boiling) but yielded the best results. Interestingly, the filling called for arrowroot powder, which is an easily digestible starch extracted from the root of a plant. Like corn starch and tapioca flour, its purpose is to thicken sauces and fillings. I had a small packet of arrowroot in my cupboard due to curiosity, but it turned out that the name is more exciting than the actual product, as arrowroot is a white, odorless, tasteless powder. The crust for the lemon bars used a hefty amount of Earth Balance margarine and resulted in a mess of crumbs, which surprisingly formed a crust right in the pan when I pushed down on them. Again, the agar caused the bars to congeal into wonderfully discreet entities; there was no filling oozing out into the pan. Despite a few agar-related gelatinous blobs in the filling, the confectioner's sugar-dusted lemon bars were delicious and impressed people at the potluck, and I would have had no idea that they were vegan.

The pistachio rosewater cookies were a middle-eastern treat that I baked for dessert following a pistachio apricot couscous dish (for which I used middle-eastern couscous, which is a larger and chewier grain than the kind generally available in a box). Oddly enough, the rosewater was only around three bucks at Whole Foods and came in a nondescript bottle with a few French words and no ingredients listed on the label. An internet search revealed that rosewater is a byproduct of the rose oil extraction process, and really is just as it sounds: roses and water. The result was delicious, very mildly perfumey-smelling cookies, and the nearly unidentifiable taste that wasn't the pistachios or lime zest was the rosewater.

Whole Foods Daze

I suffer from a condition called Whole Foods Daze. The symptoms include things like staring at various bags of chocolate chips for several minutes, contemplating why one is labeled "vegan" is and more expensive despite having the exact same ingredients as a similar bag of chocolate chips. Or pondering whether the sugar I'm about to buy is Fair-Trade and what my conscience versus my budget allows. And then the paranoia sets in. Because I know I look like one of those crazed yuppies in my neighborhood, intensely studying food labels. Plus, so many shiny, interesting products line the shelves: if you're in the market for slippery elm or rosewater, I can direct you where to go. Not to mention the array of fresh, exotic produce like yuca, tomatillos, and burdock root-- vegetables that I've only read about in cookbooks. Mind you, I still haven't cooked with these items, but knowing what they look like and where to find them is a start. All this stimulation shorts my brain circuitry and causes me to stare lovingly at the bins full of Save the Forest trail mix, yogurt-covered pretzels, and golden-hued flax seeds when what I really need is a container of oatmeal several aisles over. My fiance has, at times, had to physically direct me toward the items we actually need and then to the check-out line. He then gently guides me to the exit.

I am spending the evening recovering from Whole Foods Daze. Once again, I managed to fill my basket with items I was convinced I needed at the time for some very important baking projects. The baking question of the week was: Should I make pistachio rosewater cookies or that vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe from the post-punk kitchen website? The answer I came up with: Bake a half-batch of each. Very smart for someone on a budget. Yet, despite the additions to my basket, for the first time in perhaps Whole-Foods customer history, my bill came to under twenty bucks. Perhaps they gave me a discount due to my obvious condition.