Book of Yum

Preheat oven to 425F. Lay carrots in a single layer on a dark baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, using fingers or basting brush to distribute the oil evenly over the surface of the cauliflower. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Put in the oven for 10-15 minutes and prepare the cauliflower, putting the cauliflower slices on a small baking sheet (that will fit in the oven with your other baking sheet), baste with olive oil and season lightly with salt and pepper. Place in the oven. Roast both veggies until crisp tender. You may wish to the veggies over halfway through the roasting time, or when they start to brown or turn color. Check on the veggies every 10-15 minutes and remove from oven when done to your taste. I believe the carrots took around 30 minutes and the cauliflower was more like 15-20 in my oven.

While the veggies are roasting, heat a sauce pan on medium and melt your margarine or heat your olive oil. Throw in your diced onion and saute until translucent. Add you sorghum flour,nutritional yeast and onion or garlic powder and stir it into the butter. Whisk in non-dairy milk, one half cup at a time, letting the mixture thicken slightly before adding more non-dairy milk. When you have two cups of non-dairy milk thickened, evaluate. Do you think this will be enough sauce for your gratin pans? If not, add up to one more cup of non-dairy milk and thicken as before. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

To prepare, turn oven down to 375F and get out your gratin pans or ramekins. You have two options. You can either create a carrot “crust” by placing a layer of roasted carrots on the bottom and around the sides, or you can simply create a carrot layer on the bottom. I tried both. The crust was a more attractive presentation, but the layer gave me the proportion of carrot flavor to cauliflower that I preferred. You will use more carrots with a crust and less with a layer. If you have any leftover roasted carrot slices (or cauliflower!), they make a delicious snack and pack well in lunches.

Cover your carrot layer (or crust*) with a layer of your prepared dairy-free white sauce and pop in the oven to cook for 10 minutes or so. You want the flavors to blend and your carrots to cook a bit more.

Remove gratin pans from the oven and add a layer of your roasted cauliflower. Spoon over your final layer of dairy-free white sauce, top with crumbled slivered raw almonds and almond meal if desired and season with paprika and pepper.

Place in oven and bake until top is lightly golden brown, to your preference. Enjoy!

Preheat oven to 425F. Lay carrots in a single layer on a dark baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, using fingers or basting brush to distribute the oil evenly over the surface of the cauliflower. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Put in the oven for 10-15 minutes and prepare the cauliflower, putting the cauliflower slices on a small baking sheet (that will fit in the oven with your other baking sheet), baste with olive oil and season lightly with salt and pepper. Place in the oven. Roast both veggies until crisp tender. You may wish to the veggies over halfway through the roasting time, or when they start to brown or turn color. Check on the veggies every 10-15 minutes and remove from oven when done to your taste. I believe the carrots took around 30 minutes and the cauliflower was more like 15-20 in my oven.

While the veggies are roasting, heat a sauce pan on medium and melt your butter. Throw in your diced onion and saute until translucent. Add you sorghum flour and stir it into the butter. Whisk in milk, one half cup at a time, letting the mixture thicken slightly before adding more milk. When you have two cups of milk thickened, evaluate. Do you think this will be enough sauce for your gratin pans? If not, add up to one more cup of milk and thicken as before. Add your shredded asiago cheese and turn off the heat, stirring in the cheese and letting it melt into the sauce.

To prepare, turn oven down to 375F and get out your gratin pans or ramekins. You have two options. You can either create a carrot “crust” by placing a layer of roasted carrots on the bottom and around the sides, or you can simply create a carrot layer on the bottom. I tried both. The crust was a more attractive presentation, but the layer gave me the proportion of carrot flavor to cauliflower that I preferred. You will use more carrots with a crust and less with a layer. If you have any leftover roasted carrot slices (or cauliflower!), they make a delicious snack and pack well in lunches.

Cover your carrot layer (or crust*) with a layer of your prepared white sauce and pop in the oven to cook for 10 minutes or so. You want the flavors to blend and your carrots to cook a bit more.

Remove gratin pans from the oven and add a layer of your roasted cauliflower. Spoon over your final layer of white sauce, top with additional cheese if desired and season with paprika and pepper.

Place in oven and bake until top is lightly golden brown, to your preference. Enjoy!

Pre-measure flours and other ingredients so they are ready and waiting.
Put your liquid, butter, salt and sugar in a pot on the stove on medium to medium high and bring to a full boil. Take the pot off the stove and dump in all your flour, stirring with a heavy-duty spoon. I like to use my wooden spoons for this. Mix completely and turn down the heat to low. Return the pan to the stove, stirring the heavy dough constantly until it forms a ball and leaves the sides of the pan. I put my dough in a standing mixer but if you are buff or want an arm workout, you can do the next step in the pan. Mix the dough on a low speed (or with your buff arm muscles) until the dough has cooled down to at least 140f (60c). Then you can add your eggs, one at a time, beating each one in on medium speed until it is completely mixed in, and then adding the next one. You can use your paste right away or cool it in the refrigerator overnight. I cooled it overnight.

To bake, preheat oven to 425f. Then line a baking sheet with parchment paper. You can use a dab of dough as glue to keep the sheet stuck to the pan, or not.

Put the paste in a sturdy freezer safe ziploc bag and cut a hole out of the corner. You can use pastry tips if you have them. I don’t, so I just use the 1/2 inch hole in the bag as my “tip.”

To make eclairs, pipe 4 inch logs onto the pan. To make cream puffs, pipe or spoon out golf-ball sized spheres onto the baking sheet.

Bake at 425 for 10 minutes and then, without opening the oven door, lower heat to 375 and bake for 10-20 minutes or until golden brown. Better to overbake than underbake! When the eclairs or cream puffs look really browned and sturdy, you can open the oven door and turn each one over, piercing the bottom with a toothpick. For my best results, I turned off my (gas) oven and let them sit in the oven and presumably come down in temperature before taking them out.

Prepare filling by combining milk and vanilla and heat on medium-low until just before it starts to boil. Take off burner and let sit for 15 minutes. Whisk together eggs, cornstarch, and sugar in a large bowl until you have a light yellow, creamy sauce. Add 1/4 cup of your warm milk, pouring in gradually and whisking as you pour. Then add the rest in a slow, continuous stream, whisking. Pour back in sauce pan and bring to a low simmer , whisking all the while. When it starts to thicken, take your pan off the burner, whisking like mad. As it cools, add your tablespoon of butter and let it melt into the sauce. When it is no longer too hot, cover with saran wrap or wax paper so it can’t form a skin. Put in refrigerator as soon as it is not burning hot, or put the pan in an ice bath to cool it enough to place it on your refrigerator rack.

For the chocolate sauce, combine chocolate with butter in a microwavable dish and nuke at 30 second intervals, stirring after each time until it is a smooth, melted sauce. Don’t overcook! If your chocolate is bitter, you can add sifted powdered sugar and whisk in to sweeten.

For assembling eclairs, pipe custard inside the eclair OR if your eclairs have deflated, slice them neatly in half horizontally and either pipe or use knife to fill. Dip in chocolate sauce and then let harden on a cooling rack. If it is a hot day you could do this in a tupperware in the refrigerator- I hate to have custard out at room temperature for long! Enjoy!

Put whipping cream and powdered sugar in a bowl and whip to stiff peaks. Gently fold in rose water. Start with a small amount and add more to taste.

To assemble your cream puffs, slice in half horizontally. Put a thin layer of your jam inside the cream puff and then fill with the rose water whipped cream. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. If desired, you can dip the underside of your rose petals in the whipped cream and gently attach them to the top of the cream puff for decoration.

I served mine with rose custard on the side, in case there wasn’t enough rose-flavored goodness involved.

Whisk the egg yolks, cornstarch, sugar and rose water together in a bowl until smooth. Put your milk and cream, split vanilla pod and rose petals or rosebuds in a saucepan on medium-low heat and take off heat before it reaches a boil. Let milk steep for fifteen minutes or so and then pour over your egg yolk mixture through a strainer, whisking together as you do so. Return the combined egg and milk mixture to your sauce pan and heat on low until it thickens. Remove from heat and let cool. Once no longer hot, put a layer of plastic on top of the custard so it does not form a skin and refrigerate. To serve, garnish with edible rose petals. Can be used as a cream puff filling, but I preferred rose water whipped cream for this.