Squash Patties

My mom used to make these when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure they're directly responsible for me liking squash. They're sweet and earthy. The texture is different depending on whether you bake or fry them -- I actually liked the baked ones a little better after they'd been in the fridge overnight.

1-1/2 cups cooked squash
1 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp plain soy yogurt
4 Tbsp honey, maple syrup or sugar

Mix all ingredients together to form a slightly stiff dough. Either bake at 450 degrees (in liberally oiled cast-iron muffin cups) or drop by teasponfuls into hot canola oil and fry.

Ingredient Notes: You can use canned, frozen or freshly cooked squash here. I used a mixture of delicata, acorn & sweet dumpling that I had previously roasted and frozen. I also used spelt flour, because that's what I have in the house.

Chickpea Fingers

These are based on the famous Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon, but they take a few shortcuts to make the whole process quicker. They satisfy my occasional cravings for chicken fingers. I frequently double this recipe and freeze the rest for easy weekday meals.

2/3 cup hummus
2-3 shakes liquid smoke
1 Tbsp peanut butter (optional)
1 tsp soy sauce (optional)
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/3-1/2 cup vital wheat gluten (aka wheat gluten flour)
olive oil for pan-frying / spraying

Mix the hummus, liquid smoke, peanut butter and soy sauce together until it forms a smooth paste. Stir in the bread crumbs.

Using a strong spoon (or just clean hands), add a quarter cup of wheat gluten and stir/knead until incorporated. Keep adding wheat gluten and kneading until the dough starts to feel springy. Knead for a few more minutes. When it's ready, the dough should spring back when you squeeze it.

Take a small fistful of dough and smoosh it with your hand for a minute or so. Then roll/stretch it into a tube and flatten it into a chicken-finger-esque shape. The patties should be very thin.

You can either pan-fry the fingers in a thin layer of olive oil for 5 minutes per side (until golden brown with darker spots) or spray them with oil and bake them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes on each side. The texture will be slightly chewier if you bake them, more tender if you pan-fry them.

Serve with a green vegetable of some sort and barbecue or honey mustard sauce for dipping.

Vegan Kringla

This dairy-and-egg free take on a traditional Scandinavian recipe is considerably lighter than the original, which called for eggs, butter, buttermilk and sour cream. Lars (who may very well be buttering me up) gives them his thumbs up.

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup Earth Balance OR other non-hydrogenated margarine
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup soy creamer OR plain soy/rice milk
1/2 Tbsp white vinegar
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp plain soy yogurt
3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Add the vinegar to the soy milk and let sit for a few minutes. Cream the sugar and the margarine in a large bowl. Add the vanilla extract, soured soy milk and soy yogurt. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet, one cup at a time, until everything is well combined. You should have a sticky dough. Cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

Once the dough is thoroughly chilled, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Flour a surface well. With clean hands, grab a handful of dough and roll it out to form a rope. Split the rope into three pieces and roll each piece until it forms a rope 1/2-inch thick and about 18 inches long.

Twist the two ends over each other, then bring the loop up on top of the twined ends to form a pretzel-like shape. (The cookies will puff up as they bake, so leave some space inside the loops.)

Transfer the pretzel shapes to an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the undersides are golden brown. Keep the remaining dough and any unbaked shaped cookies cold in the fridge so they don't spread.

The traditional way to eat these is spread with margarine (or butter) along with a strong cup of coffee. They'll keep for a few days at room temperature or in the fridge, or you may freeze them for up to 3 months.

Rich Potato-Kale Coconut Curry

1 tsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 onion, diced
8 oz. frozen kale OR spinach
2-3 cups tiny potatoes (or larger potatoes cut into chunks)
1 can braised wheat gluten, rinsed and drained
1 5 oz. can Singapore curry gravy
1/3 package Shan Korma Chicken seasoning (note: contains no actual chicken)
1 14 oz. coconut milk
1/2 cup water
1 can butternut squash puree
1 tsp tamarind paste
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup plain soy yogurt

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and saute onions until they are starting to get translucent. Add the garlic and cook for a minute more. Dump that into a crock pot. Add everything else. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Ingredient notes: I picked up my curry seasoning at Double Dragon and Namaste, respectively. This was a little too spicy for me (and I have a higher tolerance than your average Iowan). I ended up dumping roughly 6 oz. of pureed silken tofu into the mix to make it palatable. So you can certainly feel free to use any (milder or hotter) curry seasoning that you desire.