Over the last year, Hazon has thought and blogged a LOT about the food we serve at our events, meetings and in the office.  We’ve agonized over the ethics of bagels, lox, kashrut, and how to align our food values with our budget.  And while we’ve come a long way, we could still do much better.  Like, for example, we could not eat lunch in front of our desks, as I am doing right now.

But recently, we’ve been asking ourselves a much BIGGER question: How do you serve delicious, healthy meals for four days to more than 550 people?  Such is the dilemma of Hazon’s Food Conference, coming up THIS week from Dec 25-28.

It turns out, you serve them a lot.  Like the 6 gallons of Soy Vay Garlic Hoisin Marinade (see picture above) that will be used for Thursday night’s stir fry dinner.  Overall, we think we’ve done an amazing job for the Food Conference, thanks to the hard work of the volunteer Exec committee that has been thinking for several months about the meals and snacks we’ll eat together at the conference.  We’re partnering with over 20 local farms to source produce for the conference, and we are schecting ethically-raised heritage turkeys for Friday night dinner.  Hey, if you can’t find a source of ethical, kosher meat – sometimes you have to create your own.

Below the jump, find another picture of Food Conference food in the works, plus several recipes we’ll be eating at the conference: cranberry bread, brown rice Singapore noodles, scrambled tofu with leeks and greens, curried sweet potato latkes, and whole grain chocolate chip cookies.  YUM!

And keep your eyes peeled between Dec 25-28 for live coverage of the Food Conference – blogging, podcasts, speaker interviews and more…

Cranberry Bread
To be served: Thursday snack

2 cups of flour
1/2 to 3/4 cup of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
½ stick of softened butter
½ cup applesauce
1 beaten egg
The zest of one orange
3/4 cup of orange juice
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg
1 bag of carefully rinsed and picked over cranberries
1 cup of chopped, toasted pecans

Preheat over to 350 degrees while you assemble the ingredients. Cream the butter and sugar together. Mix in the egg, orange juice and orange zest. Mix dry ingredients together separately and then add in the wet ingredients. Stir until just mixed and fold in the cranberries and nuts. Spoon into a greased bread pan. If you want to go for an extra touch, sprinkle a little turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw) over the top of the bread.

Bake for an hour at 350 degrees and then check with a skewer or toothpick. It may need another ten or fifteen minutes.

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Brown Rice Singapore Noodles
To be served: Thursday dinner

4 oz rice vermicelli noodles or buckwheat noodles
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1½ teaspoons Madras curry powder
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons peanut or canola oil
1 lb seitan
1 onion—finely chopped
1 teaspoon finely grated ginger
4 mushrooms—thickly sliced
2 cloves garlic—minced (crushed)
2 cups finely shredded cabbage
2 cups bean sprouts
1 scallion —thinly sliced on the diagonal

Cook the rice noodles, then rinse under cold water and set aside. Mix together the soy sauce, brown sugar, salt, curry powder and pepper in a small bowl.

Heat a wok or large skillet over a high heat, add 1 tablespoon of the oil and stir-fry the seitan for 2 minutes. Remove the seitan from the wok and set aside on a plate.  Heat the remaining oil in the wok and stir-fry the onion for 3 minutes.  Add the cabbage and stir-fry for 2 minutes more.

Add the garlic, ginger, bean sprouts and mushrooms and stir-fry for 2 minutes.  Add the noodles, seitan, sauce mixture and scallion and cook for a minute to thoroughly combine and heat through. Garnish with the reserved scallion.

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Scrambled Tofu w/ Leeks and Sauteed Greens
To be served: Friday Breakfast

1 lb extra firm tofu
1 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 tsp curry powder
3 big handfuls spinach leaves, stemmed
½ tsp fine grain sea salt, plus more if needed

Drain any water from the tofu and press it between a couple of paper towels to release excess moisture, then crumble into smaller pieces.

Heat the oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat, add the garlic and onion and sauté for just a few minutes until they soften up. Stir in the curry powder and then the tofu. Cover and cook for 4 or 5 minutes, until the tofu is thoroughly heated. Add the spinach and stir for a minute or so, until it wilts and collapses, then stir in the salt. Taste and adjust the seasoning with either more curry powder or salt.

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Curried Sweet Potato Latkes
To be served: Saturday dinner
(from Joan Nathan’s Jewish Cooking in America)

1 lb sweet potatoes, peeled
½ cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 large eggs, beaten
½ cup milk (approximately)
Peanut oil for frying

Grate the sweet potatoes coarsely. In a separate bowl mix the flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, cayenne pepper, curry powder, cumin and salt and pepper.

Add the eggs and just enough milk to the dry ingredients to make a stiff batter. Add the potatoes and mix. The batter should be moist but not runny; if too stiff, add more milk.

Heat ¼ inch of oil in a frying pan until it is barely smoking. Drop in the batter by tablespoons and flatten. Fry over medium high heat several minutes on each side until golden. Drain on paper towels and serve.

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Whole Grain Chocolate Chip Cookies
To be served: Sunday, lunch
(From Myra Kornfeld’s The Healthy Hedonist)

½ cup softened unsalted butter or 7 tablespoons coconut oil
¾ cup maple sugar, sucanat or evaporated cane sugar
1 egg (or egg substitute for vegans)
1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour or whole grain spelt flour for wheat-free
½ teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, or a hand-held mixer, cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla until smooth, and mix for another minute or so.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking soda and salt together. Mix the flour mixture into the batter, one third at a time, until completely moistened. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Tear off walnut sized chunks of the dough and place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Flatten the cookies with a quick whack, using the bottom of a jar or the palm of your hand. Bake, rotating the cookie sheet once, until the bottoms of the cookies are golden brown, 14 to 16 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and allow them to cool. Store at room temperature, covered for up to a week.

These potatoes are from Blue House Farm.  Blue house donated 70 lbs of potatoes for latkes.  The latkes we serve on Saturday night will be composed of Kennebec potatoes from Blue House, Yellow Finn potatoes from UC Santa Cruz Farm &Garden, and an unknown variety from Route 1 Farms.

Photo credit: Emily Freed