Food Fare: Berries, cookies, muffins are sweet treats, vegan style

When Frank and I were finishing graduate school and planning to move to the Midwest, we soon winnowed our list of future homes down to Chicago and Bloomington. And it can feel hard, after making any choice, to wonder: What would life be like if we’d chosen otherwise?

But my household was lucky enough to spend several weeks visiting Chicago this summer, which has led to us feeling absolutely delighted that we picked Bloomington for our forever home.

It was great to see the dinosaurs and other such ancient fossils at the Chicago Field Museum. But have you had the chance to stop by the newly opened exhibition at the McCalla School in Bloomington, which welcomes visitors every Thursday? You’ll get to see Megajeff, the life-sized replica of a giant sloth skeleton, and a bevy of undersea treasures. And at WonderLab there’s a chance to do real, hands-on scientific experimentation and observation.

Bloomington’s exhibits are smaller, but what we have is great.

And, yes, the Chicago Symphony is lovely. They can afford to hire talented musicians from around the world. Many of the undergraduate and graduate musicians at the Jacobs School are every bit as talented, though, and we’re privileged to hear them during their journey toward doing great things. And everyone who attended the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” this summer understands the joy of experiencing live music in community with others. Our local orchestra put on a fun, fabulous, thought-provoking show.

Even at the Art Institute of Chicago, my kids were excited to point out how many of the painters they recognized from works displayed at IU’s Eskenazi Museum of Art. We don’t have six Picasso’s on display, but isn’t it incredible to be able to see even one in your home town? Moreover, upon reading the placards at the Art Institute, we realized that our beloved local art museum is doing a much better job than its big-city counterpart at acknowledging the complexity and difficult history of museum acquisitions of ancient art and artifacts.

On an afternoon jogging along the lakefront trail (as much as my family loves visiting Griffy Lake Nature Preserve and Lake Monroe, I can’t pretend that these compare favorably to Lake Michigan!), I was delighted to find a small cultivated meadow with signs designating it an “IBA,” or “Important Bird Area.” Which was lovely to see, but reminded me how few trees and flowers we’d seen during our week, and how lucky we are to have the diverse ecosystems of the swamps at Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve, the caves at McCormick’s Creek State Park, and the old-growth forests at Spring Mill State Park, all within easy driving distance.

More: About Beanblossom BottomsFind out what species are in Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve?

Another of my children’s favorite activities in Chicago – second only to the opportunity to eat at the family vegan deep-dish pizza restaurant – is to drag their Uncle Marshall to the public library so they can borrow reading material for the week on his account. Their uncle seems quite happy with the arrangement, even though his niblings will be derailing his algorithmically generated “selected titles” list for years after borrowing a bevy of books like “Noodleheads: Lucky Day” and “Baby-Sitters Little Sister: Karen’s School Picture.” But our perfectly pleasant experiences with the Chicago Public Library still pale in comparison with the rich, vibrant support that Bloomington’s library system provides for children and adults in our community.

More: Get away close to homeTake a fun escape to nearby cabins, castles and yurts in the Bloomington area

From sailing to mini-golf to circus arts, from sports to musicals to festivals, Bloomington is a fantastic place to call home. Our food scene is yet another important reason, especially now that so many restaurants and grocery stores offer easy, delicious plant-based choices. When we moved here over a decade ago, we didn’t anticipate being able to order vegan cheese pizzas at Pizza X or buying dinosaur-shaped tofu nuggets in the freezer section of Kroger, but now you can! I used to miss all the food choices we’d left behind when we moved away from California, but by now, Bloomington is a great place to try to eat more plants.

To celebrate our place in the world, I worked up two recipes this week with a little Bloomington flare – in this case, berries from our backyard (which can be easily replaced with frozen alternatives). Both these recipes also pay homage to Rainbow Bakery, whose all-vegan offerings have delighted me from our first visits.

It’s hard not to wonder sometimes about all those roads not traveled, but my family loves the path we’re on. Bloomington is a very special place.

Life-Changing Vegan Thumbprint Cookies

Adapted only slightly from a recipe by Dana Velden shared on the Kitchn website.

This is a whole-foods-inspired cookie, with a unique nutty texture that, if you choose to use the coconut oil specified, will start like a toasted shortbread before mellowing to a chewier cookie the next day. They're sweet with oats and maple syrup, letting your jam of choice shine without taking over the stage completely. The dough will keep in the fridge for a day or two, and we had good results freezing the dough and thawing it a week later. Try for dessert, afternoon tea, or even as a fabulous breakfast cookie.

2 cups whole almonds or other nuts such as walnuts, pecans or pistachios

4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided

1 cup melted coconut oil (or canola oil, although the texture will be a little less like shortbread)

1 cup maple syrup

Serviceberry jam, or other jam(s) of your choice (see note)

NOTE: If serviceberries aren't on the menu, you could consider using a variety of jams (think blackberry, strawberry, red raspberry and/or apricot). If you're striving for a cookie with lower added sugars, apple butter might be a nice filling as well.

Arrange 2 racks to divide the oven into thirds and heat to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners.

Place the nuts in a food processor fitted with the blade attachment, or use your high-speed blender. Pulse until the nuts are chopped into small pieces -- it's OK if you have a variety of sizes, just don't grind them to a flour. Leave them chunkier if you like the crunch of decently-sized pieces in the bite of a cookie, but you can grind them pretty fine, too. Transfer the chopped nuts to a large bowl.

Place the oats and salt in the food processor or blender (no need to wash first), then process into a coarse meal. Again, we enjoyed leaving a little texture in the oats. Transfer the oats to the bowl with the nuts.

Add 1 1/4 cups of the flour, oil, and maple syrup. (Doing it in this order, and using the same measuring cup, means that all the maple syrup will glide out effortlessly.) Mix with a wooden spoon until combined. If the dough seems runny, add the additional flour but don't worry if it is too soft, as it will stiffen up a bit as it sits. Set aside for 15 minutes.

Form the dough into rough balls about the size of a whole walnut. The dough will be slightly wet but surprisingly not too sticky. Place on the baking sheets, spacing them evenly apart. They can be fairly close together since they don't spread much (you may need to bake in batches).

Using the bottom of a round 1/2 teaspoon measure, make an indentation in the top of each cookie. If the cookies crack, hold them together by pressing around the edges, into the center of the cookie, as well as down with the teaspoon measure. Wipe the spoon clean and use it to fill the indentation with serviceberry jam or another jam.

Bake until the cookies begin to brown slightly, about 15 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheets 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Let the baking sheets cool completely before baking the remaining batches.

Serviceberry Refrigerator Jam

Recipe from Marisa Moore on her eponymous website.

This jam wasn't too sweet, which in turn made our thumbprint cookies delightful.

1 1/2 cups juneberries or serviceberries

2 tablespoons cane sugar

1 tablespoon waterWhen everyone is done congratulating one another on the stupendous quantity of berries you have picked quite early in the morning, combine the berries and sugar in a small saucepan with about a tablespoon of water. Cook uncovered over medium-high heat for 15 minutes until the berries pop (break open).

Mash a few berries with the back of a spoon, but for best results keep most of the berries whole. Continue to cook until the syrup in the jam thickens.

Let cool. Pour the jam into two well-cleaned 1/4 cup mason jars. Close the lids and refrigerate for up to a week.

Chocalate Black Raspberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose or white-whole wheat flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder (including, if you'd like, a heaping tablespoon of Dutch cocoa)

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup soy milk or other non-dairy milk

1/2 cup canola oil

3 tablespoons soy yogurt or other non-dairy yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cups black raspberries, or 1/2 cup of another berry of your choice like red raspberries or chopped strawberries

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a 12-muffin tin, or line a 12-muffin tin with parchment liners.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. I know I often advise readers of this column to just go ahead and whisk your dry ingredients vigorously as a shortcut, but in this case, you really do want to sift the clumps out of the cocoa.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the soy milk, canola oil, non-dairy yogurt and vanilla extract.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until the dry ingredients are moistened. Fold in the berries and chocolate chips. Fill the muffin cups equally, which should fill each about three-quarters full. Bake for 18-20 minutes, rotating the muffin tin 180 degrees around at the halfway point, or until a toothpick or knife inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Cool slightly before serving so that the melting chocolate chips do not burn the roofs of any exclaiming-in-happy-impatience mouths.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Celebrate Bloomington as special place with vegan sweet treats