100th Post this Year! And leek onion rings

As Mom pointed out in the comments of Suzanne's last post, this is the 100th post this year! Woohoo for us! I"m glad we have kept this blog going. I think Suzanne wins the MVP award this year. Thanks for blogging on even when I have been lame. I hope we keep this going next year. I will probably go through my usual cooking ups and downs. I will try to share the more delicious things I make on this blog. I know I will definitely need the continued inspiration you two provide!

For our momentous 100th post, I am doing something rather fabulous. I am blogging from an exotic location, hundreds of miles from my couch. Yes, I am blogging from the Long Beach Airport!

Seriously, this airport sucks. Its like a shanty in the middle of big field of concrete. On top of this, its filled with people from Southern California. Sigh. I don't know why I decided it was a good idea to save $100 bucks by flying through here. Definitely NOT worth it. A redeye is bad enough without a connecting flight.

Needless to say, dinner in the long beach airport left something to be desired. Namely, everything. I'm trying to forget about it. The best part was a little container of collard greens I brought from home. I love the tanginess of collards. They taste infinitely better with bacon, but still good on their own. We have been getting collards regularly in our box lately, along with leeks, oranges, cabbage, and lemons. We've been getting a lot of nuts, too. The lemons are meyer lemons, I think. They are seriously the best lemons I've ever had. They make the entire kitchen smell amazing. And they are so sweet I can eat slices plain, though this is probably a testament to my love of lemons as much as to the lemons themselves.

The leeks, too, have been a real joy. I think that leeks are princes of the vegetable world. I made potato and leek soup on Sunday. I like vegan potato and leek soup even better than the regular version with cream. You can really taste the sweetness of the leeks. Another of my favorite things to do with leeks is cut them cross wise into rings and toss them with almond oil and sea salt and spread them out well on a baking sheet. Then I roast them at high heat (around 425) for just 10 mins, until they are just starting to brown and crisp. These are my kind of onion rings.

Well, I can't wait to be home! And not in the Long Beach "Airport"!

Eggnog waffles!

Make your favorite waffle recipe, but instead of using milk or buttermilk, add eggnog and season with nutmeg, cinnamon, and a dash of cloves. Awesome!!

Almond Roca

From Mom. Just asked her to send it to me and I thought I'd post it here so we can all access it!
Almond Roca

1. Toast 1 ½ cup slivered almonds until light brown (about 10 – 15 minutes at 300 degrees), stirring occasionally. Let them cool and then grind them in food processor, stopping while you still see some chunks. Disengage and shake the processor bowl so that the large chunks rise to the top. Rake the chunkier half into one container and sprinkle them onto a cookie sheet, so that you cover about 2/3 of the sheet in its center. You will be pouring hot butter/sugar into this cookies sheet, so put a towel underneath if you need to protect the surface under the sheet. Put the fine-ground remainder in another container.

2. Place in a large (2 qt. size or so) microwave-proof container 2 sticks of salted butter, 1 1/3 cup of sugar, 1 T. Karo and 3 T. water. Microwave this for 3 minutes uncovered. Stir it with a spoon until the ingredients are uniformly distributed. Then cover the container with saran wrap and microwave for another 9 minutes, 30 seconds, or until the contents are a toasty brown. DO NOT STIR!

3. Pour the contents, without stirring, onto the cookie sheet, covering the almonds. Some liquid will separate. (None does if you use unsalted butter, but the taste suffers, and none does if you simmer the ingredients on a cooktop, but that takes 2 hours. One possibility is to add about 1 t. salt to the 2 sticks of butter as you melt them.) After the candy has cooled somewhat, you can tip the sheet so that the separated liquid flows off.

4. After the candy has cooled completely (you can hasten this by putting the cookie sheet on top of crushed ice), melt about 6 oz. of semi-sweet chocolate in the microwave and spread it on the candy, sprinkling on the finely ground almonds as you coat each side. Cool the candy and break it into pieces.

Mysterious Purple Goo

Formerly known as coconut milk. Just thought I'd share, as this is the coolest looking mold that has graced my fridge in quite some time.

Christmas Eve Breakfast!!

Please fill in the blanks!

Wheat-free waffles: rice and other flour, Jo? Eggbeaters? Roasted almond oil?
Black raspberries from the garden? Grapefruit? Cantaloupe?
Hot chocolate with whipped cream?
Other ideas? Is there such a thing as tofu sausage? We all have long drives ahead . . . .

Time: This is big. Jo will arrive at the house at around 6 a.m., probably. Do you want to sleep some before breakfast? When do you need to get to the Zills? Suz, when do you want to leave for Charleston? Can we pick a time that lets Suzanne and Michael sleep some and lets Jody get to C'ville and back in time for the Zill-a-thon?

Vegan Stuffed Squash

I had some folks over for dinner last night. More specifically, it was my book club. My book club is composed of late 20/early 30 something women, and I am the only grad student, which is nice for a change (though two of them are scientists). Its not a "serious" book club. We read generally enjoyable, easy going novels. We've ventured into a few classics with mixed success. The Tropic of Cancer was a failure, for example. Now we are reading and Isabelle Allende book. I've never read anything by her before, so I'm pretty excited about it.
We don't actually spend most of the time discussing the book, though. Its mainly an excuse to get together and chat and eat good food. And good wine. Last night we had book club at my apartment. I made a salad of persimmons, oranges, shaved fennel and greens with a lemon mustard vinagrette. For the main course I made this stuffed squash recipe and it turned out really well. I read a few recipes on the internet but forgot to print anything out so I improvised a lot. I should also note that there was a lot of extra filling and even more extra rice. I like having extra rice leftover, but if you don't you should make less than I say to here. The overall result is a very hearty, filling vegan dish that even Oliver admits was satisfying.

Vegan Stuffed Squash

4 acorn squash
2 cups red rice
1 large shallot
2 carrots
1 can (or equivalent) garbanzo beans
small head of cauliflower cut into small florets
1/3 C dried currants
1 C apple juice (or diluted if you'd prefer the dish to be less sweet, though I thought it was perfect this way)
1 T grated ginger
2 t cinnamon
2 t cumin
1 t coriander
dash of nutmeg
dash of white pepper
1 t sea salt

Halve the squashes and seed them well. Brush cut side and skins with olive oil. Roast at 425 for 30 - 40 mins or until tender.

Cook the red rice (I always add a touch of butter to keep it from sticking to the pot).

Meanwhile, saute the shallots (corsely) minced in olive oil. Chop the carrot into thin slices and cook until soft. Add the spices and cook for minute to toast the spices. Then add the apple juice. Add the Garbanzos, currants and cauliflower. Cover and steam until the cauliflower is cooked (about 10 mins for me).

Add the rice to the vegetables. Just add as much as you like to end up with a good veggie to rice ration. Fill each squash half with as much filling as possible. Garnish with chopped parsley.

I also think that toasted almond slices or pine nuts would be good in the filling but one of the book club members is allergic to nuts. The same book club member is currently debating whether or not to go to her boyfriend's family Christmas celebration. It's at her boyfriend's Aunt's house, who happens to be Meryl Streep, and she is concerned she won't be able to play it cool around Meryl. Interesting predicament.

Petulant Persimmon Pucker

I tried to make persimmon chutney from Hachiya persimmons. The kindest thing I can say is that maybe Fuyu (the squatter ones) wouldn't turn so mealy. My results had that unpleasant quality of seeming to separate and perform odd chemical reactions on my tongue. Reeves said it was the most astringent thing he'd ever eaten. I liked the tartness of it, but the texture was forbidding. Another departure I took from the recipe may have been negative: in lieu of 1/2 c. sugar, I used about the same amount of date/almond/sherry/orange zest paste leftover from T'giving. That paste is very sweet, so I thought it would work, but maybe the almond grit exacerbated the mealiness. Anyway, the ingredients were interesting. Here's the recipe, which was contributed to some webpage from a retirement home:

• Slice 2 lemons and leave them in 2/3 c apple cider vinegar overnight. I was dubious about including the rind of the lemon, but Joy of Cooking does that with its chutneys.
• Peel (by blanching for 5 min) 4 persimmons and dice them.
• Boil the foregoing for 40 min, or until it thickens, along with 1/2 t. hot pepper powder, 2 cloves garlic, minced, 1 T. ginger, minced, 1/2 c. oil (I stuck with Canola) and 1/2 t. salt.
• 1/2 c. of currants are optional. I substituted the date mixture for 1/2 c. sugar.

Am I the only person who might think the foregoing worthwhile? I'm tempted to try it with the Fuyu and with maybe a little sugar and the currants.

Butternut squash and chickpeas

This from Laura, our admin wizard in tax clinic, with some modifications.

• 1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch dice. I microwaved mine for several minutes to make it easier to peel. It's important to get all of the threads out - - otherwise they shrivel and burn in the oven - - mildly tasty, but ugly.
• maybe 8 oz, or half a bag, of chickpeas, soaked to swell then cooked completely (maybe 1 hour) in veg stock,
  
• combined with 1/4 c. olive oil, 1 T. curry (I used some leftover homemada masala mix, and it wasn't strong enough), 1/4 t. cayenne, salt and pepper. I later used 1 kernel allspice, 1 tsp roasted cumin, 1 tsp coriander, some nutmeg and 1/2 t. red pepper.
  

Spread that mix on a baking sheet, pour on some of the chicken stock used in cooking the chickpeas, and roast in 375 oven for 1 hour, or until tender.
Mix 2 c yogurt, 1/2 c chopt cilantro and juice of 1/2 lemon. Drizzle it over the cooked vegetables.

This dish could take all sorts of spicing.

The creation pictured is Suzanne's. Instructions on how to post the photo were, also, courtesy of Suzanne.

Butternut Squash Risotto

Made this in an attempt to emulate a dish I got a few weeks ago in Cambridge--turned out fabulously!
Preheat oven to 400 degr.
Peel 1/2 butternut squash and cut into ~3/4" cubes.
Toss squash with ~2T evoo, 1/2t black pepper, salt in an edged pan.
Roast for ~30 minutes or until soft.
Meanwhile, saute 1 chopt onion in 1T evoo.
When onions have started to become clear, add 2 cloves minced garlic.
Add 2T red wine vinegar once the onions are pretty well cooked.
Add 1c brown rice and ~2c stock (as the rice cooks, ~35 min, continue adding stock until you've added ~4c total.)
Cook rice in stock uncovered for ~25 min. Add chopped greens (I used chard) and season with a pinch of saffron, ~1/2t white pepper, ~1t chopt rosemary.
When the rice has finished cooking, stir in the butternut squash and 1c shredded parmesean cheese.

**update--just made this without parmesean cheese and it turned out beautifully! I topped it with a fried egg instead which made it into more of a meal.

Cranberry Salsa

3/8 c. sugar mixed with 1/4 c. orange juice and stirred in a saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves. REmove from heat and mix in 2 c. cranberries, coarsely chopt. Cool to room temp.

Meanwhile prepare 1 red bell & 1 jalapeno pepper, charred and skinned and minced.

Put cooled cranberries in a large bowl. Mix in minced peppers, 1/4 c. chopped, toasted hazelnuts or chopped slivered, roasted almonds and 2 T. grated orange peel. Can refrigerate for a day. Before serving, add 1/3 c. chopped fresh cilantro.

Parmesan Almond Patties

Preheat oven to 400. Mix 2 1/2 c shredded parmesan (means shredding about 8 oz of cheese) with 1 1/4 c. sliced almonds. Sprinkle maybe 1/3 cup of the mixture into a flat circle onto a cookie sheet that has parchment paper or a liner on it. The patty should be flat; a few little holes are fine; the circles should be 5" or so in diameter. Repeat (each cookie sheet will hold about 4 circles.) Bake for 5-6 min until golden and a bit bubbly. Meanwhile, if you want the patties to cup, get bowls on your work surfaced, turned upside down. Remove and start lifting the edges of the circles with a metal spatula. Either move to a cool surface if you want them flat, or turn them onto the bowl bottoms and gently press the sides down if you want them cupped. This last step is the only complicated part: they are firm enough to handle but pliable enough to cup only for a few brief moments.

Simple Tomato Salsa

Served on top of lettuce, which rested on Parmesan Almond Patties.

For 1 qt, generously serving 13 salads:

5 tomatoes, chopt in FP. Recipe also calls for 12 tomatillo, which I didn't have this time. Put in separate bowl. (Recipe says you can do all ingredients in the bowl, but it would take a really big bowl, and this way you have more control over the texture of the tomatoes.)
Then chop successively in FP:
1 jalapeno (recipe calls for 3 more hotter (Anaheim) or milder (Cubanel) peppers. That would be hot.)
3 scallions
juice of a lime
1 t. cumin (I used roasted whole seeds which got chopt in FP; recipe calls for ground)
pepper, 1/2 t. salt, 1/2 t. sugar

Thanksgiving

Oliver and I are making the bulk of the thanksgiving meal this year! Here is what we have planned:

Cornish Game hens (easier than Turkey)
Wild rice with roasted sqaush, pearl onions, and sunflower seed dressing
Orange ginger cranberry sauce
Pan fried brussel sprouts
Roasted carrots, brocolli and cauliflower
Cornbread
Green Salad with Persimmons and hazlenuts


Oliver's sister Katherine is making sweet potatoes and bread stuffing and his other sister is making pumpkin pie for dessert. Katherine is also buying a pecan pie. I know, I am a bad, bad southerner, letting someone BUY the pecan pie. But I have enough to do!

Say hi to everyone tomorrow for me. Hopefully everything will go okay on this coast.

Raw Kale Salad

...is not as gross at it sounds.
In fact, we had a really delicious one at The Yabba Pot this Sunday and it inspired me to give it a whirl at home. Kale is so freakin good for you, plus it's readily available in the winter, when other fresh/raw/not expensive vegetables are scarce.

Wash 1 bunch of kale & cut out the stems.
Cut leaves into little strips
Sprinkle on 1/2t salt, several shakes of red pepper flakes, 1 clove garlic (diced) and a handful of diced parsley
Dress with 1T olive oil and ~3T white vinegar.
"Knead" the kale with your hands to break them down a little bit.
Let it sit in the fridge a while (some recipes suggest 10 min, others overnight. I did overnight and it worked well). Enjoy!

I bet this would be great with shredded carrots, red onion, red cabbage, and/or sesame seeds if you had any of those things on hand. Basically anything that goes with coleslaw would probably go with this. Let me know what you try!

Hodgson Mill Whole Wheat Flax'n Apple Muffins

Muffins representing Baltimore
Just tried this recipe from the box of the Hodgson Mill milled flax box. I was skeptical, since the Golden Flax Bread sharing the back of the box with this recipe was pretty awful. These muffins taste great, though, and they're healthy--only 1 egg in the whole batch and no butter. The flax seed gives it a surprisingly rich, buttery taste and is good source of omega-3 fatty acids. If it weren't for that one pesky egg, they'd even be Dad-appropriate.
Blend: 1/4c milled flax seed
3/4c white all-purpose flour
3/4c whole wheat flour (the recipe calls for graham flour, which would probably be good)
1/2c sugar
2.5t baking powder (recipe calls for 2t powder, .5t soda)
1/2t salt
Whisk: 1 egg
3T veg. oil
1/2c. milk
Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just combined
Fold in 1.5c chopped apples (~1 midsized apple) and 1/2c chopped nuts (I used pecans)
Bake at 400 degrees for 20min or until top springs back when touched
Yield: 12 med. or 9 lg. muffins

Fruit and Cabbage Salad

Tonight I whipped up this lovely salad on the basis of what happened to be in the fridge. Oliver and I liked it so much we almost ate half a head of cabbage between us! Wow, that's a lot of cancer fighting indoles :)

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

Half a head of cabbage
1 fuyu persimmon
1 apple
4 green onions

For the dressing
1 meyer lemon
Roasted walnut oil (hazlenut oil would be great too)
Sea salt

Cut the cabbage into very fine strips. Dice the apple, persimmon and green onions. Combine all the ingredients.
For the dressing, juice the lemon. Then add twice as much oil as you have lemon juice. Add a generous dash of sea salt and whisk the dressing. Toss the salad with the dressing and let it marinate at room temp for an hour. This makes the cabbage taste sweeter, to me at least.

I also want to give a shout out to all of Suzanne's pictures. I really like actually seeing the food! However, I keep my camera in the lab since there are many photo worthy things that happen at the lab ... occasionally involving science. Yesterday there was a huge protest and I saw police in riot gear! It was nuts. I didn't stick around long enough to get a good picture, though.

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Just tried this fabulous recipe for Broccoli Cheddar Soup from 101 Cookbooks. I normally don't like Broccoli Cheddar Soup, but I made this recipe anyhow (I know, the decision didn't make sense to me either.) Perhaps it speaks to my faith in that blog. Anyhow, it was delicious! In the past I've only tried canned broccoli cheddar soup, in which the broccoli is usually very unfresh, or Highland Lodge b.c. soup, which is about 50% cheese, giving it the flavor and consistency of fondue. I did everything almost the same as the recipe, but I just had it with bread instead of making croutons. Also, the directions about the cheese are a little confusing--it's hard to tell whether the recipe calls for 2/3 c cheese total or 2/3 + cheese for garnish. I went in betweensies and used 1/2 c cheese. With so little cheese, it's advisable to use a very sharp cheddar. I used some Cabot that has aged in my fridge. Most of the body comes from potato, while the cheese provides the flavor. Also, I chopped up the broccoli stems (after peeling off the toughest part of their skins) and added them with the garlic. I garnished it with olive oil, mustard (which I forgot to mix in earlier), and parsley.

Potatoes Au Gratin (aka delicious cheesy taters!)

I got a lot of potatoes at the farmer's market this weekend b/c I wanted to use the skins to make stock. Then I remembered I need to eat the potatoes, too... so, I decided to try the Joy of Cooking's Potatoes Au Gratin. I tweaked it a little to suit my tastes and my fridge. Interestingly, according to Joy, the si ne qua non of Gratin is not the cheese--it is the breaded topping. This version is delicious for a chilly night. I used a mix of buttermilk and skim milk, which worked really nicely (especially with the feta!), but any sort of milk or cream would work. I think using all skim would be a mistake, though--mine ended up fairly watery with only half.
Slice ~2 lbs potatoes and 1 onion very thin
Place in large saucepan with 1.5c milk and 1.5c buttermilk
Season with white pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg
Gently boil for 5-10 minutes over med heat
Meanwhile, slice a garlic clove in half and rub it on the inside of a 1.5-2qt casserole dish (I have no idea what this does, but Joy said to do it). Mince and add to potatoes
Rub ~1/2T softened butter over this same dish
When the potatoes have softened somewhat and some of the liquid has evaporated, add the potato mixture to the casserole dish. Smooth with a spoon or spatula.
Cover the top with crumbled feta cheese, bread crumbs, and a little paprika (I used mom's Spanish pimenton--delicious!!)
Cook at 350 for ~45 minutes, or until the top browns a little and the smell gets too good to bear. Poke with a knife to make sure the potatoes are nice and soft.
Enjoy!

Warm Red Cabbage Salad

Just tried this recipe from 101 cookbooks. I hardly changed a thing, and it was fabulous! I used a regular onion instead of a red one and omitted the parmesan due to the current limitations of my fridge, but it would be probably be even better if you had both of these things. Quite possibly the most interesting salad I've ever made. I paired it with Mom's squash pudding for a vegetarian supper.

Breakfast potatoes

Word on the street is that a certain Californian has more taters than you can shake a stick at. I had a similar problem last week. Well, more like I had used most my taters in interesting and delicious ways, and then when I was looking for things to put in my Sunday omlette, I found two very small and questionable looking potatoes at the bottom of my vegetable drawer. Here's a quick and tasty version of breakfast potatoes that doesn't have a ton of oil:
Microwave potatoes in their skins until they're hot but not cooked all the way through (about 1 minute per serving).
Heat oil (~1 capful per serving) in a skillet on medium heat.
Add sliced onions and, if you have them, bell peppers.
Cut potatoes into large dice and add them to the onions (right away--you don't wait until the onions are cooked).
Cook for ~10 minutes, or until the potatoes get crispy. Add more oil if they start to stick to the pan. Toss them every now and then (while you make your omlette).
Season with salt, pepper, cilantro, hot sauce, and whatever else suits your fancy.

Not even in the oven yet!

I'm having a bowl of Chickpea Burger Batter. With luck, a few patties will actually make it to the oven. From WaPo, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/all-we-can-eat/i-spice/i-spice-turmeric.html. The article also urges tumeric's healing power (Alzheimer's, cancer, arthritis, job losses, broken hearts, etc.)

Middle Eastern Chickpea Burgers
Makes 17 small patties

These chickpea burgers are similar to a Middle Eastern falafel. But the Americanized version of falafel usually resembles carnival food: they’re often deep-fried.

Here the secret ingredient is basmati rice b.s. I used a Lundgren wild rice & whole grain mix. I'm sure any of the fat rices would be fine. Can't imagine what is so great about basmati in this usage, which holds the chickpea mixture together and helps create a complete protein. Gently pan-seared or baked, these burgers are bountiful, healthful bites, especially good when topped with a dollop of tomato-mint chutney.

MAKE AHEAD: The baked burgers can be refrigerated for 3 to 5 days. To freeze these burgers, either cooked or uncooked, stack them with parchment paper between each one, then wrap in plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Once defrosted, cooked burgers can be reheated at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, and uncooked burgers can be baked at 375 degrees for 22 to 25 minutes.

Adapted from “The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen: Nourishing, Big-Flavor Recipes for Cancer Treatment and Recovery,” by Rebecca Katz with Mat Edelson (Celestial Arts, 2009).

2 cups cooked chickpeas (may substitute a 15-ounce can of chickpeas, drained, rinsed and mixed with a spritz of freshly squeezed lemon juice and a pinch of sea salt)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 or 2 small cloves garlic, minced (2 teaspoons)
1/2-inch piece piece peeled ginger root, minced (1 teaspoon)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 1/2 cups cooked brown basmati rice
3 tablespoons finely diced red bell pepper
Leaves from 1/3 bunch flat-leaf parsley, minced (1/4 cup loosely packed)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the chickpeas, salt, turmeric, paprika, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, garlic, ginger, oil and lemon juice in a food processor; process until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and fold in the rice, bell pepper and parsley.

Moisten your hands to keep the mixture from sticking to them, nonsense!! treat them like cookies; plop them onto the sheet then flatten somewhat with a spatula (indeed some of the batter made it to this point) then shape the mixture into seventeen 1/4-inch-thick patties about 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Place them on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 22 to 25 minutes, until the patties start to look crisp on the outside. They will firm up as they cool.

VARIATION: For a crispy burger, heat 2 teaspoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and cook the patties for about 3 minutes on each side, until golden brown.

Per patty: 102 calories, 3 g protein, 16 g carbohydrates, 3 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 65 mg sodium, 2 g dietary fiber, 1 g sugar

Farm Day!

Oliver, Amy and I went to the annual farm day at the farm (Terra Firma) who runs our CSA. It is located about an hour away in Winters California, which is the next valley in from Napa. It was a really fun day! We brought a picnic which we ate in their walnut orchard, while listening to blue grass. The picnic featured farmbox food, which had made the journey from Winters to Oakland and then back to Winters again (and then technically back to Oakland one more time, in my belly). They farm was lovely. Its all organic, and it smelled like freshness and clean dirt. There was such an abundance of food! Row after row of chard, turnips, beets ... an onion patch ... multiple orchards. We got a pumpkin and even bought more produce. I thus freaked out a little tonight when I realized how much produce was in the fridge and I cooked enough food for a small army. Seriously, I spent like three hours cooking tonight and I am happily stuffed!

Dear dog,

Thank you for being such a wonderful part of our family. You brought us together, you made us laugh together, you helped us stay connected.
You cheered me up when I was sad and made me even happier when I was already happy. I will always have a special place in my heart for you and you will always be with me in my memories. I know your spirit will never leave our home, and this will always be Chez Toby.
Love,
Jody

Potatoes

Sorry its been a while since I've posted! I am getting back on the food blogging wagon. I recently made a resolution to eat more delicious things.
Anyways, here's a good way to start! And a good way to use up all the potatoes appearing in my CSA.

Oven Roasted Potato Wedges.
Ingredients:
small head of garlic
1 Ib Small, high quality organic potatos, cut into small wedges
a few rosemary sprigs
1/4 cup live oil
sea salt and pepper
dijon mustard

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Take 3 T of olive oil and whisk in the mustard. Pour into your biggest glass casserole dish (might need to use two if you don't have a very big one.) Place in oven and heat until it shimmers, a few minutes. Meanwhile, toss the potatoes with the remaining T of oil and season with salt and pepper. Smash up the garlic cloves a little and throw them in along with the rosemary sprigs. Remove the casserole pan from the oven. Add the potatoes and toss well in the hot oil (be careful!). Replace in oven and cook for about 20 mins. Toss the potatoes a few times while they are cooking so they don't burn on one side. The potatoes should be golden and browning on the edges - I like mine crisp! I like eating this with bean soup or sausages. Suzanne would probably want to go with the bean soup :)

Arugula Pesto

Finally, something that makes arugula taste good! As a main ingredient, that is: arugula pesto.
I used sunflower seeds instead of walnuts and it tasted loverly.
I made this tonight with a salmon recipe modified from the back of my "Whole Catch" Salmon package:
Preheat oven to 275. Sprinkle 6oz salmon fillet with salt & pepper. Cook on broiling pan or lightly oiled baking sheet for 12 min. Brush with a mixture of 1T melted butter, 1t lemon juice, 1t chopt cilantro (or other fresh herb). Broil for 3 min or until cooked through.
I do believe cooking is my new favorite study break/procrastination technique.

Baba Ghanoush: A Work In Progress

Found this recipe for "The Best in the World" Baba Ghanoush:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Baba-Ghanoush-the-Best-in-the-World-67570
It's pretty good, but I'd like to try it with less lemon juice. This version is really punchy. Will post updates as I experiment.

Fat free rice pudding!

I was about to call this "healthy rice pudding," but then I remembered the huge amounts of sugar. At least this uses brown rice and skim milk (and is, therefore, Dad-appropriate!). I'd like to play around with the proportions a little more and, let's not kid ourselves here, I think it'd be much better with whole milk. Maybe less sugar, too. This is a good start, though. I combined the techniques/proportions from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker version with the spices from the Taste Divine version.
Mix 2.5c cooked brown rice (1c dry + 2.5c water) with 1.5c(?) milk and .5c brown sugar.
Add 1t vanilla, 1/2t coriander, and 1 bay leaf.
Mix and set cook for 3h on low.
After 1.5h, stir in 1/3c raisins and 1/2c slivered almonds.
Serve hot or cold.
I made this in the anticipation of a visit by a friend, but turns out she can't be here--looks like I'm gonna have to eat it all my self!

Divine Yogurt Potatoes

Just tried another recipe from The Taste Divine: "Vibhuti/Potato Yogurt." I'm getting pretty sick of potatoes but I've been getting them every week from the CSA for quite a while now. This dish was a nice change! If you added onions and cauliflower to the mix, it would be like Aloo Gobi. Here's my adaptation:

Cook 10 small potatoes (I cooked them for 12 minutes in the microwave in half an inch of water). Cool, prick, peel, cut into large chunks.
Mix 4T yogurt, 1/2t turmeric, 2t coriander, 2t cumin (I only have the powder but I bet the seeds would be better), and .5t salt. Spread sauce over potatoes.
Heat 3T oil in a frying pan over medium heat and stir-fry until all the liquid is absorbed and potatoes are a golden brown.
Serve with a cilantro garnish.
Tastes good cold, too!

Steaks... eggplant steaks

Just made a delicious eggplant dish (are we noticing a theme with my recent entries?) Slice eggplant longwise into 1/2" "steaks." Place them on paper towels and salt. After 30 minutes, dab away the water that has seeped out. Broil them for 2-3 minutes on each side. Eat with the Smucker's peanut butter jar peanut sauce (posted here) and cilantro. I ate it with some leftover garlic mashed potatoes and bread with hummus. Yum!

The Taste Divine: Mashed Eggplant

Did a lot of cooking today! Made mashed potatoes, bread, and my first crack at a cookbook from Jo, "The Taste Divine." I've long contemplated making things from this book, but the author insists on calling for bizarre ingredients that I'm sure cannot be found in the US, specialty food stores or no. Anyhow, the neighborhood Superfresh certainly does not have asafoetida or coriander leaves (update: this is cilantro. #genius). It doesn't even have turmeric powder or cardamom. So, without further ado, here is my version of "Vairagya/Mashed Eggplant":
Coat 1 large eggplant lightly with oil & cook 45 min at 400 deg. or until skin is loose (as per mom's earlier post). Skin and chop eggplant into small pieces.
Heat 1T olive oil in a saute pan.
Saute one chopt onion.
Add 1 chopt jalapeno and 2 chopt tomato (I used an heirloom CSA tomato--made a big difference!) Saute until well-cooked.
Add eggplant and cook until everything is soft and well-blended. Periodically mash with a spoon.
Add .5t salt, .5t coriander powder, .5t cumin about 3 min before you remove from stove.
Serve with bread or rice.

The eggplant is pictured above with veggies vindaloo, rice, and raita.  Sorry the image of the dish in question is so small... I usually get so excited about sampling a new dish that I forget to photograph it and then have to scramble for blog pics later on!


Word to the wise: if you only have 1 eggplant and 1 tomato, it is not a good idea to use a whole jalapeno. In fact, it is a worse idea to use a monster jalapeno that's the size of about 2 jalapenos put together. I had to eat mine with an absurd amount of bread to tone down the heat. Still, it was delicious.

Pumpernickel Bread

Adapted from the back of the Arrowhead Mills Rye flour bag:

Add to the bread mchine:
1c warm water
1/3c molasses
2T veg oil
2c bread flour
1.5c rye flour
1t salt
2T cocoa powder
1T caraway seeds
1 pkg active dry yeast
Set machine to med. loaf for delicious results!

Like most things, this tastes especially good with butter.

Toby's Tastes

Following on his earlier post, "Holistic my A-hole," Toby discloses that Newman's is nowhere. Toby is a Purina man. He ate some of the recently-purchased Newman's out of Robin's hand, but he spurned it otherwise. She decided he deserved a bit of indulgence and bought him his old fave, Purina Sensitive System Salmon. She left the 20-lb bag briefly on the sidewalk, whereupon he grabbed it in his jaws and started tugging on it. She poured a portion on top of the spurned Newman's. He ate all the Purina and left all the Newmans. Robin did like the mock-up newspaper article on the Newman's bag: "Newman's Dog Tells All."

Tofu Temptation

The mousse which Jo and I made for Reeves's b'day is really adaptable. Simply take 1 package tofu (~13 oz), dice it, put it in a collander and pour boiling water over it, then press it a bit, then try to blend it (difficult in a blender, so start adding some milk); melt 4 - 5 oz 100% cacao, add 1 heaping T. cocoa, meanwhile trying to get the damn thing to blend; add 1 t. vanilla and a pinch of salt, and after that it's all optional: can add 1/2 t orange zest, remove the serving(s) for people who don't want it to be sweet, then add maybe 2T. maple syrup.
Question: Speaking of mousse, what about Jody's moose triumph at the cooking contest at the conference last spring??? Can we see a recipe??

Delicious but suspicious

Moorish stew (chickpea) made with red-stemmed chard. Don't do it. The red in the stems colors the chickpeas a rather grim, gloomy light brown.

New food find: Mahi Mahi burgers

I like fish and make sure I eat it at least once a week for my health. I've been eating a lot of canned tuna, which, though friendly to the wallet, is sort of sad. I tried out a whole foods mahi mahi burger today and it was delicious! It's about $7 for 4 patties. I had it with dijon mustard, fresh basil, tomatoes, pepper, and hot sauce on seed bread. The package suggested eating it with pineapple or a fruit salsa, which I imagine would be delicious. I highly recommend it!

White Peach salsa

Peel, slice and dice 2 juicy white spicy peaches. Mix in 1/4 of a jalapeno (maybe 1/2"), whizzed or in tiny dice. You can blacken it first to remove the skin, but I think it's ok either way. Add 2 T. chopt cilantro, 1 chopt spring onion, juice from maybe 1/4 of a lime, and a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar. You can add chopt mango. And red onion. And red pepper. It's good on a white fish (haddock or scrod) and on whatever you are having for the next several days - - rice, chicken, or even just lettuce.

Watermelon and mozzarella salad

I made this dish last night with CSA watermelon. It was inspired by a salad I had earlier in the summer at Fig in Charleston and is absolutely delicious! At Fig, they also included thinly sliced heirloom tomatoes and used fresh basil instead of dried.

Arrange thinly sliced watermelon and thinly sliced mozzarella cheese on a plate. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and sprinkle with dried basil.

Update: in my CSA this week, I got tomatoes and basil, so I made the fancy version (pictured here, along with zucchini sauteed in basil and butter and baked potatoes with butter and parsley.) If I made this again, I'd slice the basil--it was a little ungainly in leaf form.

Somebody else post, please :(

Tomatillo Sauce

Today I made potato and bean enchiladas baked with green sauce for an old friend who came to dinner. The enchiladas were OK, but I really liked the sauce (adapted from this recipe):
Boil 6 whole tomatillos and 1 chopt onion for 10 minutes. Drain thoroughly and cool. Puree the boiled veggies with 1/3 c. fresh cilantro and 1 jalapeno pepper until smooth.
I imagine this would be good on top of all kinds of other Mexican food, polenta, and nachos. The inspiration for this dish was, as per usual, the CSA. I have never cooked with tomatillos before, but they showed up in the box, along with onions and potatoes. We also ate CSA lettuce in our salad and CSA watermelon for dessert (my Southern husband claimed to have picked out the perfect one--I think he was right). I plan to put the last couple tomatillos in a leek pie in a few days.

Yummy Garlic Soba Noodles!

Today I saw Julie & Julia. It pumped me up so much about cooking (it was also about 6 so I was getting hungry) that on the way home I dropped by Whole Foods to get some special ingredients. Michael's been talking about making soba noodles for a long time, but they don't sell them at our Superfresh, so I figured today was a good day to try them out. I made garlic soba noodles from 101 cookbooks. It was quite a hit. I used chard for the greens and chose to pan fry the tofu. It was delicious--tasted just like chicken nuggets! Next time I would blot the tofu slices before dredging them. Also, I would make about half as much batter (only 1 egg and less bread crumbs/parmesean). My other addition was to add some black pepper to the cooking veggies. Hot pepper would be good, too.

Jerk Halibut

Mom and Dad came to visit Michael and me to see our new apartment now that we're all settled in. We started with hummus and chips, then moved on to beet salad on a bed of greens. For our main course, we had polenta ratatouille casserole and Jamaican jerk halibut. Michael made the halibut using jerk spices we brought back from Belize. We used a stove-top grill/griddle pan that we got as a wedding present. Indoor grilling is smoky, but it got great results!

Adapted from: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Jays-Jerk-Chicken/Detail.aspx
INGREDIENTS:
* 4 green onions, chopped
* 1/2 onion, chopped
* 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
* 1/2 cup soy sauce
* 3/8 cup distilled white vinegar
* 3/16 cup vegetable oil
* 1T, 1t brown sugar
* 2t jerk spices
* 1 lb halibut
DIRECTIONS
1. Combine ingredients in a food processor or blender. Mix for 15 second.
2. Marinate the fish for 1-2 hours.
3. Preheat grill for high heat.
4. Lightly oil grill grate. Cook fish for 4-5 minutes on each side.
Enjoy!

CSA Round-up: Greek Potatoes, squash, beet salad, cucumber salad

I've been too busy cooking in order to blog about food. Ironic, can I?


Michael and I have been enjoying summer's bounty through our CSA and various gifts from rural/suburban friends. We cook new things almost every night. Michael attributes this to the fact that we don't have cable.

Today we made Greek potatoes, which Michael remembered eating as a child. We looked up the recipe online and based our efforts after this one:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Greek-Potatoes-Oven-Roasted-and-Delicious-87782
Preheat oven to 425. Toss 4 medium sized potatoes (each slivered into 6), 1/4c evoo, 1/2c water, 4 cloves garlic, 1T lemon juice 1/2T mixed herbs (I used thyme and rosemary, oregano is more traditional), salt, and pepper in a casserole dish or pan with sides. Bake for ~1h or until very soft, turning once.

We had these with thinly sliced squash (1 zucchini + 2 pattypan) sauteed with 1T butter and seasoned with basil.

Last weekend we made a hit with beet salad: 3 sliced, cooked beets tossed with dill, feta cheese, thinly sliced cucumbers, thinly sliced celery, oil (1T), 2T sunflower seeds, and vinegar (4T? red wine).

Michael concocted a cucumber salad, apparently a jazzed up version of Russia food: thinly sliced cucumbers, halved grape tomatoes, blue cheese, oil, 1 thinly sliced shallot, red wine vinegar.

Country Kale

Jason, who owns a large farm outside of Charleston, near the Shenandoah, with 4 tractors and, by one count, 106 deer, who has a 4-year-old (who has his own tractor), who by Jason's account shares his passion for monster trucks (they are going to see some tonight in Harper's Ferry), who diagnosed his minister's lyme disease, and who for some reason works for ARS as an air conditioner repair specialist, shared his recipe for kale when he saw the pot I had ready on the cooktop. I altered it with the following result, which was delicious:
Salt and pepper the kale before cooking
After it "cooks off" (I took that to mean 1/2 hour of steaming), drain and add olive oil, vinegar (I used Balsamic) and red wine. Maybe 1/2 c total for a good potful of raw kale, "cooked off" to 1/2 pot. Also add raw chopt onion to the cooked kale - maybe 1/3 cup. Let it sit, covered, in the frig for a few hours (while you talk to Roop, Jason's colleague, about the $6000 ac system they both say you need). Then reheat a bit.

Gourd of mystery

I received a mysterious object in my CSA box yesterday - long, cylindrical and slightly helical when held from its stem. With its vertical light green stripes, it could be a mobile or post-modern christmas tree ornament. But nay, googling has revealed it is any armenian cucumber. Not to be confused with azerbaijani cucumbers. I will put it pasta salad and see if it leads me back to the steppes of the motherland. Or perhaps a cossack inspired dance.

Joy of Cooking Cornmeal Waffles!

Michael and I broke in two wedding presents this morning--our waffle maker and our Joy of Cooking--with delicious results:
Preheat waffle iron
Whisk together 1c all-purpose flour, 1c cornmeal, 2.5t baking powder, 3/4t salt.
In another bowl, combine with "a few swift strokes" of a whisk 2c buttermilk, 5t melted butter, 1/4c maple syrup, 2 egg yolks.
Beat 2 egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold into the batter.
Cook on waffle maker.
We topped it with vanilla yogurt, nectarines, and syrup. Delicious!!

A few novelties from dinner with Doug and Peggy

Some random ideas that turned out pretty well: For the swiss chard, I removed the stems, chopped them into little chunks, sauteed them, added a little balsamic vinegar, and sprinkled them on top of the steamed chard (which had some nutmeg). (Jo, you can stop reading there; the next two have wheat.) For the salad, I topped it with tomato slices and cooked wheatberry (which I had leftover after making bread). For the black raspberry crisp topping, I used the pretty coarse Hodgson's mill whole wheat flour and offset it with sliced almonds. It had about 3/4 cup oats, 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 t. salt, 1/3 c. brown sugar, 1/3 c almond oil, and maybe 1/2 c almonds. And some cinnamon and anise.

Hearty Bread

I'm fooling around with my new bread maker. I combined mom's favorite bread recipe with some from the book that came with my bread maker. It's healthy, hearty, and stays together in soups:

1.25 c hot water
1T yeast
1/2 onion, chopt
2 eggs
1/3 c oil
1t salt
1/4t baking powder
4c flour
2.5T oats
2.5T sunflower seeds
1/4c flax

Enjoy!

A peach crisp for the Fourth of July

So there was a lot of good-humored talk at Suzanne's wedding about the south. And there were quite a few delicious southern accents to be heard at the reception. Ever since Dad joked about how he was glad Suzanne was marrying a nice southern boy, I've been worried that Oliver might develop a complex. Okay, that's not a realistic fear. Oliver is way too sensible for that. I guess I've been worried that Oliver might think that our family is in fact southern. And we're not! Northern Virginia is not the south, and going to Georgia for thanksgiving once a year does not make one southern. Nor does saying "y'all" make one southern. "Y'all" fills a gaping void in the English language which yankees fill with the unfortunate "yous guys".
Anyways .. you may be wondering were this rant is going. Well, for the fourth of July, I had been planning on making a proper southern peach cobbler. But as the time approached, this began to seem like a pain in my rebel ass. So I decided to make a crisp instead. To take my laziness to a new level, I actually used crisp topping I had saved in the freezer (making a ton of crisp toping and saving it in the freezer is a great trick, by the way). I didn't even bother skinning the peaches. I just chopped them, tossed them with a little sugar, and threw them in a pan with the topping. I baked it at 350 for about 40 minutes, with the whole thing covered with aluminum foil for the first half of the baking time. Oliver loved it! I don't think it even occurred to him that I might have opted for the more labor intensive cobbler option.
I wonder if a southern boy would have been so easily pleased. Cooking southern food for Oliver is always a lot of fun, because he is very easy to impress. He thought my buttermilk biscuits were the best biscuits he had ever had. Same with my cornbread. Also, I think I impress his family by showing up at Thanksgiving with a pecan pie. In my blatant disregard for southern culture, this is the only time all year I use Karo syrup. Oliver has never been to the south, unless you count a national high school Latin tournament in Nashville, which I do not since they just got right out the bus and socialized only with other Latin champions. So I am really looking forward to our trip to Alabama, and showing him the validity of my hypothesis that you figure out what latitude you are on by the density of waffle houses.

An herbgasm ...

is what I have every time I open my CSA and find basil. It has been happening a lot recently. Oh, is that basil GOOD! One of my stand-by recipes has become pasta with the following simple sauce:
Saute one half of a sweet onion in olive oil until soft. Add 2 cloves of garlic and saute until the garlic just begins to take on some color. Add about eight heirloom tomatoes (yes, I get those in my box too) and cook until they begin to break down, about 7 minutes. Add zest from half a lemon and LOTS (four big stalks) of fresh basil (cut into rough strips). Serve over pasta with shavings of pecorino romano, or your favorite cheese.

Update: I realized I basically posted this same recipe as "a taste of summer" a few weeks ago. It really has become a stand-by, what can I say. You two should be getting tomatoes soon!

The Garlic Gratuity Grows on us

The gratuitous garlic scapes which Suzanne brought (having intended to give us kale) are once again in use: I added them to the Eggplant Slop with good results. Thus combined, they make more of a garlic statement, while giving a nice crunch. I added 4 scapes to 2 medium sized roasted eggplants, one roasted red pepper, 1/3 of a vidalia onion, some roasted cumin, jalapeno. They were still pretty prominent, so I added about 1/2 cup roasted tahini and 2 T. yogurt to sedate them.

Kale confusion coincidentally conjures a creative culinary consequence

Suzanne had kale from her box all packed up to bring to me. In an identical bag she had garlic tails. And accidentally brought those instead! After lament, she conjured this pesto recipe:

4 - 6 garlic tails. We tasted various parts of the tails and concluded that the part above the bloom wasn't desirable.
All the available basil: about 1 1/2 loosely packed cups.
1/4 cups pine nuts
1 T. olive oil
2 oz. parmesan

Chop the tails into 1" slices. Put in processor with basil, oil, and pine nuts. Process, then switch to cheese grating blade and add cheese. Stir and serve.

See photo including curly garlic scapes below. Suzanne says that if they're not curly, they're too tough.

Greens^2: CSA box 2

Just picked up my second CSA box! In Maryland, we have seasons, so I expect I'll be having a little less variety than my sister in sunny Northern California. This week, we got:
Kale
Spinach
Red Leaf Lettuce
Romaine Lettuce
Cabbage
Green Leaf Lettuce
Red Chard
Garlic Tail
Yes, it's almost all greens! And three different types of lettuce do count as three different veggies. Still, leafy greens are very good for me and are versatile ingredients, so I feel good about the haul.
When I got home today, I washed and tore/chopped (where appropriate) all the veggies. They need some pretty heavy duty washing/soaking unless you want a protein boost from some insect friends. The red and green leaf lettuces will be salads. As for the rest, we'll have to see where the week takes us! Last week I made the chickpea stew I keep raving about with kale and a lasagna with the red chard (sautee the chopt stems with onions, let simmer until the stems are soft, add garlic and tomatoes, simmer a few more min, then wilt in the green part of the chard for your veggie layer). I feel a little bad about having cabbage in the fridge, as Michael is returning from Russia, where cabbage has been one of the only fresh veggies reliably available all winter. The garlic tail is the big x-factor of this week's box: "What in the Sam Hill is garlic tail?" you may be thinking to yourself. Indeed, that is exactly (well, almost) what I asked the guy handing out the veggies today. He works at the school of public health and coordinates the pickup there. He has no clue, but will be letting us know when he figures something out.
This article explains it pretty well.
I will also note here that my CSA pickup occurs in a parking lot in East Baltimore. It's just about the least pastoral scene you can think up. It's so sweet, though, to see everyone scurrying over there with their matching, reusable bags to get their food. They donate some shares to local shelters,
as described in this Baltimore Sun article.

Healthier Muffins

Here's a recipe for muffins off of a Stonyfield Farms Yogurt container. It has significantly less butter than the highland lodge recipe that I favor. I prefer the HL version b/c I just love that buttery taste, but this one's alright. It's less likely to make your stomach hurt if you eat it first thing in the morning.

I made these muffins this morning in anticipation of Michael's return as they are one of his favorite foods. Then I went over to a friend's house and we made banana muffins for her boyfriend. 'Twas a very housewifey sort of day for two very non-housewifey sort of people.



1c. flour
1c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. sugar
1.5 t. baking powder
2 eggs
1c. yogurt (I used vanilla, but you could also use plain and add 1t vanilla later)
1/4c. butter, melted
1c. blueberries
spices as desired (cinnamon, cloves, & nutmeg are all nice)

Preheat oven to 375.
Mix dry ingredients + damp berries in one bowl
Mix wet ingredients in a different bowl
Pour wet ingredients into dry and stir until there are only smallish lumps in the batter (don't make it completely smooth, this will mess up the texture and rising)
Spoon batter into greased muffin tins
Bake 20-25 min or until tops are golden brown
Yield: 12 muffins

A taste of summer

I got tomatoes and basil in my box this week! They were the first tomatoes of the season - little yellow cherry ones. I made a simple pasta dish. I Just sauted onions and garlic and crimini mushrooms. Then I added oregano and the halfed cherry tomatoes and cooked until the tomatoes broke down. Then I added some fresh basil and cook for just a minute more. Meanwhile, I cooked some really nice kamut pasta spirals, which I added back to the sauce along with a little pasta water to give the dish the right moisture. I topped it with some nice pecorino romano. It was definitely a nice preview for the summer produce to come.

Beet Salad

Once again I got beets in my box. Emboldened by last times success, I decided to try them raw. It was good! Beets are winning me over.

Beet and Carrot salad

Grate some beets
Wash and peel some carrots with the intention of grating them, but then decide you are sick of grating things and cut them into thick slices instead.
Make a vinnegrette of equal parts lemon juice and hazlenut oil. Whisk in salt, pepper and a bit of dijon. Marinate the beets and carrots in the dressing. Then mix in some toasted walnut pieces. Serve over arugula with feta cheese.

The Kale Quest: A Concession

Reeves admits that Suzanne's sugggestion of Moorish Chickpea Stew with kale is less bad than the previous contestants. I used 1/4 tsp cayenne and 2 slices of homemade bread - - that is, with onion, olive, wheatberry, etc. I loved it!!

The Kale Quest Encounters a Contradiction

Reeves doesn't like kale.

Tonight I am trying kale with caramelized onions and balsamic vinegar.
I also bought purple-ish kale at Whole Foods today, on the clerk's recommendation that it was less bitter. He said stay away from dinosaur kale, which he finds very bitter. Jody, didn't you once use dinosaur kale?
Of course it's possible that purple kale has no lutein or zeazanthin.

The clipping for caramelized onions has been sitting in the drawer under the microwave for a long time. You sweat them - - 2 lbs worth- - with 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp sugar in a bowl, tossed, for 10 minutes. Then, leaving the drippings in the bowl, you saute them on medium high until the first hint of browning. Then you add back the liquid, turn the heat to low, and cook them, covered, for an hour. Very sweet!

The Kale Quest Continues

So I tried Suzanne's recipe with some pretty bland whole wheat noodles. I think I need to shop more diligently and bring home the soba for this recipe. I didn't have miso, nor asparagus, so it was basically noodles and kale and tahini sauce, which I made with lemon juice, water and tahini. I served it with tofu that I'd cooked in the teriyaki marinade I use for salmon, along with some eggplant slop (red pepper, onion, roast cumin, yogurt, tahini, eggplant) and - -big novelty - the stems of the kale, chopt into small pieces and sauteed over medium high heat. They added a neat crunch to the tofu! But Reeves was not pleased by the kale. He like the noodles, though. I have great envy over these CSA boxes you both are getting!!

Fresh Apricots

I would just like to take a moment to appreciate fresh apricots. They are heavenly. A good fresh apricot is like a solid nugget of perfume. I don't remember having them before coming to CA. They put their dried cousins to shame.
Tonight I made a quick fruit salad of sliced apricots, strawberries, peaches and a squeeze of lemon. It was perfect. I love June!

The Kale Quest

As Suzanne has been hearing for the last two nights, I'm committed to culinary concentration on kale. It has by far and away the highest amounts of lutein and zeaxanthin, which when ingested embed themselves in the retina and protect photoreceptors. So - - go blog!! I used the search function for the first time and came up with Suzanne's April post about noodles with kale, asparaus and tahini sauce. Will do!

Roasting eggplant for easy squeeze

Cut top off eggplant. Put it in a 400 oven until the skin turns brown, which will happen if you accidentally leave it there for an hour or so. Let it cool under tap water and massage the tough outer skin while you feel the inner, soft eggplant slipping away from it. Then cut off the scar from the cut top and express all the eggplant into your FP or bowl or whatever.

Vegi-thon

And no, I did not spend the weekend "vegging out" in front of a TV though that would have been AWESOME.
I had a vegetable cooking marathon instead. To keep up with my produce box we have to eat a lot of vegetables. So, among other things, I made a huge spring vegetable stir fry, featuring mushrooms, snap peas, squash, spinach and carrots. I made a sauce to go with it, but I ended up just eating it on its own because I wanted to enjoy the taste of vegetables.
Also, a big heatwave last weekend forced a lot of fruits into season on the farm, so we also had cherries, peaches, and strawberries in the box. It was bountiful.
I pleased to report that I have gotten through everything ... except a head of cabbage. Every time I open the produce door it gives me puppy dog eyes. I'm trying to pretend its not there. The guilt, the guilt!

Kneadless Bread: our hundreth post!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102124561

Just tried out this bread recipe from NPR. It's really easy--no kneading at all! You don't even need to have a bread pan. The recipe calls for a dutch oven, but I just used a big pot b/c I don't have one. The long rising time gives it a sour dough-like flavor. The crust is nice and brown but not too thick and, as a result of the no-kneading, you end up with a very puffy and light body.

PIcnic food

Had a potluck dinner last night with my quintet. Two of us brought food that I believe would be PERFECT for picnics. Really simple, but again, coming up with something that's tasty, portable, and doesn't need to be warm or cold can be kinda difficult.

Mozzarella Sandwich (from our dear violist):
Slice loaf of ciabatta bread in half
Spread both sides with pesto
Layer spinach, roasted red peppers, and mozzarella (portabellos would probably be good, too)

Black bean salad (by me):
saute 1 chopt onion in evoo
add 1c frozen corn & brown
add 1 can chopt tomato
season with cumin, chili powder, and a dash of cloves (I know, who woulda thought? I added it on accident b/c it was in the same type of bottle as the chili powder and it tasted good)
1c dried black beans, reanimated
cool, add chopt cilantro
serve over lettuce

AND FINALLY:
butterless peanut butter cookies:
http://www.recipezaar.com/No-Butter-Peanut-Lovers-Peanut-Butter-Cookies-186718
nice and moist! I added 2T or so of butter b/c I had some in the fridge (to make up for using skim milk). Also note that mine took >15 min to cook rather than the 9.5 min suggested in the recipe

Enjoy!

Success with ... green garlic!

I wasn't even sure what it was when it came in my box, but some internet research revealed that the crimson streaked bulbous stalks were indeed green garlic, or young garlic, a delicacy only available in the late spring. I wanted to make a recipe that highlighted the taste of green garlic and nothing else, so I found a simple pasta recipe. The result was pretty good. The green garlic was delicious, it has a mild garlicy flavor that is quite different from regular garlic. The one thing I'd do differently is add a some white wine or stock to the sauce, since I thought the dish was a bit dry. If you are luck enough to find green garlic, give this a shot:

Cook 8 oz spaghetti (I used quinoa pasta). Melt 3 tbs butter in a large saucepan. Thinly slice three stalks of green garlic, and saute until soft. Turn up the heat until the butter bubbles. Add 1/2 cups of water you cooked the pasta in and whisk until you form an immersion. Cook down for a minute. Whisk in some lemon zest and chopped fresh basil. Turn off the heat, add the pasta to the pan and toss. Enjoy with a generous helping of parmesean. Thank you green garlic!

Success with beets!

Cool Beet and Spinach Salad with Tahini sauce

This is a recipe of my own invention. I'm quite proud of it:
For the salad:
6-8 small beets
1 package frozen or fresh spinach
!/2 a red onion

Simmer the beets in water in a big sauce pan with a lid. After about 30 minutes test if the beets are done. If done, you should be able to easily slide a knife through a beet and slip off the skin. Plunge the beets into cool water. Skin them and cut them into wedges. Cook the spinach (either wilt it if using fresh or microwave the frozen stuff). Dice the onion. Combine all the ingredients.

For the dressing:
~ 1/4 cup tahini
1 lemon, juiced
a few grinds of pepper
salt
agave nectar or honey

Whisk all the ingredients except the honey and salt together. Add warm water until the dressing is fairly thin. You want something that will dress the salad easily. Add the honey and salt to taste. Dress the salad. This salad should be served cool.

And I thought I hated beets ...

Baked Tofu and Veggies

I tried this out as an adaptation of one of mom's recipes. It's simple and easy to make as a single serving.

Cubed extrafirm tofu, water squeezed out, marinated with teriyaki sauce
Chop veggies (I used carrots, onion slices, and cauliflower) & toss in evoo
Bake in cake pan for 40 min at 400 degrees
Serve over rice

Strange happenings under the countertop

What to do with beets?

They came in my CSA box. I generally dislike them. Any ideas?

Chef Andres' Moorish Chickpea Stew

I finally made chef Jose Andres of Cafe Atlantico and Jaleo's moorish chick pea stew, which he submitted to an NPR contest asking for recipes to feed a family of 4 for <$10. It turned out wonderfully!

Here's the original recipe:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102854605
I followed it most of the way, except I poured out the cooking water from the chick peas and replaced it with veggie stock, omitted the saffron, changed the pimenton for ~2t cayenne pepper, and changed the Spanish sherry vinegar for red wine vinegar. Below is my revised ingredients list:
1c cooked garbanzos (chickpeas)
6 garlic cloves, peeled and whole
<1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
veggie stock
1.5 slices whole grain sliced bread
2t cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 pound (1 bag) spinach, washed and cleaned
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Salt and white pepper to taste
+ one fried egg per serving

I made most of these changes in order to better accommodate my pantry rather than to make it taste better. It turned out really nicely, though--very hearty and delicious!

Produce - beautiful, beautiful produce!

I got my first CSA (community supported agriculture) box today!

It was very exciting. You can see the english peas, snap pees, oranges, asparagus, greens, onions, carrots, and beets. Nothing like fresh peas! And inside those brown paper bags were the most beautiful strawberries I've ever seen. Needless to say, I'm quite pleased.

Cashew & Cauliflower Curry

The search for the perfect curry continues! I tried out another recipe from 101 Cookbooks. I found myself fortuitously well equipped to try it out after a windfall of cashews (a generous re-gift!) came my ways.

Here's the original recipe:
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/cashew-curry-recipe.html
I made a few changes in the proportions and added a dash of cayenne pepper. Here's my somewhat modified ingredient list:
1 cup whole coconut milk
2T curry powder
salt and cayenne pepper to taste
1 onion, chopt
2 cloves garlic, chopt
1/3 cup water
7 ounces xtra firm tofu, cut into small cubes
1 c frozen peas
2 c cauliflower, cut into tiny florets
1/2 cup cashews
a handful of cilantro, loosely chopped

Most of the ingredients are pretty standard, but no ginger, making it easier to accomplish with my pantry. The combination of butter cauliflower, sweet coconut milk, and fresh cilantro really does it for me! This one is most definitely a keeper.

Whizzed Coffee slush

Brew about 8 oz. coffee at double strength. Place it in a mug and freeze it. Then put it into the blender until it turns to slush. You might need to try various blender functions, such as Ice Breaker and Liquify. Or you might like to put it into a plastic bag and pound it. Technique perhaps a function of how frozen it is. Then add about 6 oz cold milk (and perhaps some melted chocolate) and blend it. Adding milk earlier will help the blender make the slush. Then use the Whizzy to get a really fine foam.

Tres Leches Cake!

Tres Leches Cake was one of my favorite dishes made at Terrace. For those unlucky few who have not tasted this delectable concoction, Tres Leches Cake is a moist, sweet, milky Mexican dessert. Terrace's mostly Hispanic kitchen staff made it on a regular basis and, whenever I saw it set out in the dining room, I would get almost as excited as I did on lasagna night (almost.) I made my first attempt at it tonight for dinner with my roommates, which was quite the feast. Tash made peanut noodles, Alisa a spicy catfish stew, and Jenny vegetarian lasagna. I googled the recipe and got this one off of about.com:

http://mexicanfood.about.com/od/sweetsanddesserts/r/treslechescake.htm

It turned out really well! I topped it with whipped cream and cinnamon. I bet strawberries would be amazing.

Basic Curry?

So, I really like eating curry but often find myself frustrated in trying to cook it. Most of the recipes I have/can find call for ingredients that I don't keep on hand or that look expensive. I'm trying to get at the essence of a basic veggie curry that I can make with only a few extra purchased items. This time, I didn't need to buy anything new since I had ginger & coconut milk left over from the curried sweet potato soup and tofu from the tahini noodles. This is a first attempt--I think it turned out alright, but I'd like to keep trying. Unfortunately, I didn't really measure things out, so all these values are approximate:
heat 1T oil
sautee 1 sm onion & 2 carrots, chopt, until soft
add 2t curry, 2t cumin, .5t cayenne, 2 clove minced garlic, 2T minced ginger, .5c coconut milk
heat
add handfuls of frozen peas & spinach & ½ block chopt tofu
add 1c veggie stock
heat
reduce a little
Serve over rice

Anybody have any curry tips or good curry recipes?

Easier (but probably less amazing) tahini noodles

Sorry for the lack of posts! I've been rather lazy lately - not doing tons of exciting cooking. Indeed, I have not cooked since Monday night! Wow. Oliver and I spent last week dogsitting in Emoryville, which made things a bit hectic. I was going to cook last night, but decided to get sushi and a movie instead.
Well, I am really jealous of Suzanne's noodle recipe. I saw that same recipe but was too lazy to procure miso. I also haven't had any asparagus yet this spring because I have been too lazy to go the Farmer's market. I've been going on long runs on Saturday mornings, and then I'm too tired to go the Farmer's market, but I'm also really hungry, quite the conundrum which usually ends in me eating peanut M&Ms out of the vending machine. Ah well.
Without further ado, my humble offering:

Tahini Sauce:
1/2 C tahini
juice of two lemons
1/3 (plus more as needed) C warm water
1 garlic glove
salt

Noodles:
tofu
~8 oz brown rice noodles
several cups (about a bag) of baby spinach
green onions
cumin

For the tahini sauce: Mash the garlic with a good pinch of salt and set aside. Whisk the tahini, water, and lemon juice together. The tahini undergo some kind of reaction and turn white. I think its pretty cool. Add more warm water if you would like the dressing for the noodles thinner. Stir in the garlic. If your boyfriend doesn't have cilantrophobia, adding some chopped cilantro at this point would probably be a nice touch.
For the noodles: Cook the noodles according to the package. If you use brown rice noodles I find it helpful to stir frequently as they are prone to clumping. Meanwhile, press the water out of the tofu. Cube it and toss it with some cumin. Sautee it and the chopped green onions in some olive oil for about 7 minutes. The tofu should be golden on the edges. Add the spinach and cook until just wilted. Dress the noodles with as much of the tahini mixture as you'd like, and then toss in the tofu mixture.
The leftover tahini mix is not a problem, as it can be eaten on carrots, chicken, a spoon, just about anything.

Sesame Miso Noodles

Hello Friends!

I just made delicious noodles inspired by this recipe at 101 cookbooks:
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/walnut-miso-noodles-recipe.html
A very satisfying, filling, one-bowl vegetarian dish with a somewhat Asian flavor and a very Bay Area aesthetic. It's good for you, too--apparently kale is one of the healthiest veggies you can eat. Mom, can you believe I've almost finished that whole thing of tahini you gave me just 1.5 wks ago? I thought I didn't like tahini, but then I made the hummus, and these noodles, and now I'm bemoaning the fact that I only have about 1/4 cup left.

RECIPE:
Cook 2-3 servings of whole wheat spaghetti
About 1 min before it is done, throw in thinly sliced (~.5") asparagus
Stir in diced tofu and kale sauteed in a little bit of olive oil
Top with the following sauce, whisked together:
1/4 c tahini
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
2T miso paste (I used a dark brown kind... not that I know the difference between the different types. This was a reject from mom's fridge!)
2T vinegar (I used 1T white wine vin and 1T balsamic, but this was more by mistake than by design)
1t honey
salt to taste
1/4c warm water

Ginger Sweet Potato Soup

Heat 1T oil
Cook 1 small chopt onion, 2T grated ginger, 2T minced garlic, and 1T curry powder until soft
add 1.5 lb sweet potato, diced (cook~3min)
add 2 quarts veg stock, 3/4c coconut milk
cook 20 min or so (until sweet taters soft)
add 1/4c honey and juice of 1 lime
puree
Serve!
The recipe I got this from (from some grocery store promotional leaflet I"ve been carrying around forever) suggests serving it with curried whipped cream. Didn't have any whipped cream, but I think that'd be marvelous.

Warming and full of exotic flavors. I'm enjoying it with my new hummus recipe on the side at the moment.

Hummus

I've been consuming hummus at an alarmingly fast rate and decided that I should save myself some money and just figure out how to make it. It's pretty easy and very tasty! This version has a very interesting flavor--very sesame heavy. I actually thought it tasted fresher than the store version. It probably would taste nice with some Cumin, too.

2c. cooked chickpeas (3/4c. dried)
1/3c. tahini
1.5t salt
1/4t cayenne pepper
2T olive oil
juice from 1 lemon

Mash with a whisk. For a finer texture, whiz in a food processor or blender.
Adapted from the Barefoot Contessa cookbook.

Fruit Salad

WARNING: this recipe contains a hefty helping of demon sugar! (she says while taking a break from doing a problem set about diabetes). This one is really simple, but I was proud of myself for thinking it up on the fly: a friend asked if I wanted to come to dinner at her house in 1hr and I couldn't think of anything to bring. So, I made up this easy fruit salad with all the fruit I had on hand. I think it was a hit. You could make it with whatever fruit you have around, I'm sure:

1/2 container strawberries, chopt
1 banana, sliced
handful raisins
handful dried apricots, sliced
juice of 1/2 lemon
~1/8 c. sugar

Toss and enjoy!

Meeting the Mahoneys:
We celebrated Andrew's and Sally's engagement on March 21. In the larger photo, on the left is Fran, then Suzanne, Andrew, Sally and Reeves, then Fran, Tim, Sally and Molly. In between Fran and Tim was Aunt Jane, pictured with the red jacket above. Behind Suzanne are the desserts. You can see the pear clafouti, and you can't see the torte knockoff I did from Jody's recipe, forgetting to separate and whip the eggs. Andrew painted it with raspberry jam and lemon juice. We cut it into squares and it was really good. For appetizers we had guacamole (Suzanne's suggestion of added cayenne was very helpful), pecan tapenade from the Santa Fe cookbook that Jody gave me for Christmas, date/almond spread, and stuffed heirloom tomatoes, all on bruscetta or the pepper crackers I've been eating of late. Pictured here is the first course, halibut with last summer's black raspberries made into a salsa with mango, pepper, onion, etc, and my usual eggplant/tahini/yogurt slop served on a parmesan and almond crisp. Suzanne made up the salad, consisting of maché layered with cantaloupe and watermelon and topped with parmesan curls and lemon vinaigrette.

I whine/wine

First the wine: As you all know I have developed quite a taste for syrahs and zinfindels living out here in CA. Last fall I tasted some truly exceptional zinfindel from a dry creek are winery. I'm thinking about having Andrew sent some for his birthday, but I wanted your feedback on whether or not its a good idea, since he randomly hates getting stuff in the mail. Its expensive and its amazing wine, so if there's any chance it just might tick him off and he might not pick up the package then I'll skip it. Or maybe have it sent to Mom and Dad and we can have it with him around the time of Suzanne's wedding. I dunno.
Now the whine: Mom, you said you would post something about the dinner on Saturday! A picture maybe? I know you are busy, but you said you would and I was only person who wasn't there so I want a picture darn it :(.

Random Food News

Last night I had a friend over for dinner and Oliver and I made a feast. We made sweet potato casserole, greens, and pork loin with a mustard sage sauce. It all turned out fabulously. We also had blue cornbread. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I bought a bag of blue cornmeal (made from blue corn) on a whim at the berkeley bowl and I've been working my way through it. It tastes pretty much like regular cornmeal, perhaps a bit nuttier, but its blue, which keeps me entertained. The highlight of the meal was a berry peach crisp that Oliver made. He used frozen berries and peaches, since nothing is quite in season, and it turned out really well. And the frozen fruit was easy to use. This technique definitely bears repeating. Unfortunately our dinner guest had to pass out on the couch before he could finish (booze + fatigue). This has happened to me with dinner guests before, but usually they make it further into the meal and then go into food coma. This guy is an awesome cook, though. He makes the best mashed sweet potatoes I've ever had.

Sweet Potato Gnocci

I made this delicious dish from a wa-po article that I've been carrying around for a very long time. The dough itself is really easy and quick. It's sort of a pain to form the dumplings, but if you're lazy like me, you can just make half of them one night and freeze or refrigerate the dough to make more another night:

Cook and cool 1.5 lbs sweet potatoes (~2c) (I chopped them up and then microwaved them)
In a large bowl, combine sweet 'taters and 2t salt. Mash until no lumps remain.
Slowly add 3c flour, kneading to form the mixture into a ball of dough (the article says to do this all by hand, but I used a mixer. Shhhh.)
On a lightly floured work surface, roll hunks of the dough into ropes about 3/4" in diameter. Cut or pinch into 3/4" segments to form gnocci.
Cook gnocci in boiling water in batches (they don't need to be too small--just make sure that the gnocci have some wiggle room and the more aggressive ones won't hold the meeker ones under the water). They take ~3min to cook. They will float to the surface when done. Remove with slotted spoon.

They're a little bland on their own. I made a snazzy, simple sauce to go along with them. Regular tomato sauce or cream sauce would taste good, too:

Saute 1.5 onion, chopt, in 1T olive oil
Add 2 cloves garlic, minced and a generous handful of sunflower seeds
Once these ingredients are all cooked, add a couple handfuls of frozen spinach.
Once the spinach has melted, add a can of chopt tomatoes.
Season with oregano, rosemary, basil, salt, and pepper (and, of course, hot sauce.)
Add gnocci and allow to simmer.
Serves 5-6

Chocolate Torte

This is delicious. Words fail.

Ingredients:
1 stick butter softened
3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 oz baking chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 c flour (I used a gluten free mix)
1 c nut meal or very finely chopped nuts (I banged out walnut pieces with a rolling pin. It might be nice to toast the nuts before hand, but I didn't.)
1/8 teaspoon salt
~ 1/2 cup jam and half a lemon, for glaze

Preheat the oven to 325.

Melt the chocolate and let it cool.
Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks and beat well. Add the chocolate and vanilla. Mix well. Add the flour and mix to just enough to incorporate. Repeat with the nuts.
Beat the egg whites and salt until stiff but not dry peaks form. Gently fold into the batter.
Pour into a cake pan or a springform pan and bake 30 - 35 minutes. It should still be a bit moist on the inside. Let cool.
For the glaze, heat the jam and lemon in a skillet. Run through a sieve to remove the skins. Generously brush glaze onto the top of the torte. I used homemade oaktown plum jam. Yum!

Peanut Sauce

A delicious recipe (adapted) from the top of a Smucker's peanut butter jar:

Whisk:
1/3 c pb (I used crunchy)
2T soy sauce
2T lime juice
1/3 c water
1t sugar
1/4t cayenne pepper
1 clove minced garlic
salt to taste
Microwave 30 s
add:
sauteed/chopt: 1 small onion, handful green peppers, 2 carrot (or other veggies)
enjoy over pasta and/or chicken
serves 3 (with pasta)

Spinach Pie

Well, folks, I've decided to fast (sort of... aka to have a rather abstemious diet) for Lent. So, in celebration, to use up my butter, and to eat my feelings about the impending neuro exam, I made brownies and spinach pie today. The spinach pie comes from my Barefoot Contessa cookbook (a gift from Kate's family). Fortunately, I didn't have to type it up because the internets are wonderful. Here it is:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Spinach-Pie-141830
I used sunflower seeds b/c I couldn't find pine nuts. I also accidentally tripled the nutmeg, which tastes OK. It looked so beautiful coming out of the oven that I grabbed the handle and burnt my left hand. Sad. Oh well, it tastes delicious.
I'm planning to explore vegan cuisine more in the coming weeks--look forward to some delicious recipes! I'm planning to try sweet potato gnocci, tofu pot pie... mmm...

A buttock of bread

Suzanne is not fond of bread with wheatberry, which led to an opportune discovery: you can divide a loaf in half, put wheatberry in one part and not in the other, and place them side by side in the breadpan to rise. The finished product looks like it's mooning you. Each of us gets a buttock to share. Let's remember to take a picture, ok?

Sloppy Janes

Just tried to make sloppy Janes (or vegetarian sloppy Joes) today and they were delicious--unfortunately, I made way too much! The below recipe supplies about 5 sandwiches:
Cook 1c brown lentils
Saute 1 chopt onion
Add 2 cloves minced garlic
Add one generous handful sliced peppers
Add one generous handful frozen peas
Add lentils (I also added 1 handful of leftover chickpeas)
Moisten with 1/2 jar tomato sauce
Season with oregano, cumin, chili pepper, cinnamon, salt to taste
Enjoy on cheddar cheese toast!

Vary the veggies and accessorize with other beans if you have some on hand.

Citrus glazed tempeh

This recipe is a riff on an orange glazed tempeh recipe I saw on 101 cookbooks, modified to fit the ingredients I had around.

For the glaze:

1 C grapefruit juice

2 T agave nectar or honey

1.5 T sake or mirin

2 t soy sauce

1 T grated ginger

2 minced cloves of garlic

1/2 teaspoon cumin or ground coriander (it called for ground coriander, which I didn't have, but I had the vague notion that cumin was the same thing... was I right? I any case, it worked out okay).

Mix all the ingredients for the glaze together in a bowl. Heat some olive oil at medium high in a large skillet. Cut 8 - 10 oz of tempeh up - I like to cut three squares, then cut those into 6 triangles, then cut each triangle in half down the middle (making them thinner). Cook the tempeh for 5 min on each side, till its golden. Pour on the glaze and cook for 10 mins more until its very reduced. I threw in some tangelo slices towards the end. Right before you remove it from the heat, squeeze on half a lime. 

I served this with wild rice and broccoli. Oliver, once a notorious tempeh hater, even went back for seconds!

It was a very nice Friday night dinner at home. We had a bottle of Reisling to go with it. Unfortunately, I think I must cut back on cooking nice dinners for at least a week or so. I have a lot of lab work going on and I expect I will need to work late. Some nights, I just want to cook so badly I wait to have dinner until I get home at like 11, but eating after midnight is kind of hard on my system and I'm trying not to do it so much.

It was great talking to you guys last night! Sorry I missed the Italian oven and the Jolleys. I'd love to see some pictures of Marcella.

At last!! The 2008 Buche de Noel.

Every yard needs a tree like this.

M&M update

We finally had plain M&Ms in the lab! And I ate them all, mwuhaha!

Yellow Lentil Deliciousness

Stir fry onion, shitake mushrooms, carrots, tumeric, ginger, and some chili pepper. Add a can of diced tomatoes, cooked yellow lentils, and lastly some parsley. Hard to go wrong!

On the docket for this week - hella tofu. Oliver went to the store on Sunday and bought "hella tofu" (translation for you east coasters: we have more tofu than ever before in the fridge right now.)

Barley risotto - style

So I'm too lazy to post the whole recipe, but I made a recipe from the cookbook Suzanne gave me for christmas - Super Natural Cooking. Its a great cookbook. The one complaint I have is that it claims not to be preachy and then proceeds to be totally preachy throughout the entire thing - but whatever, I like it when a book expresses strong opinions.

Anyways, I've made two recipes - veggie burgers and barley risottos. The barley risotto was a big hit and I would definitely recommend it to Robin as a break from regular risotto and a tasty new whole grain to try. You basically cook barley like you would rice in a risotto recipe, gradually adding the wine then stock. It takes about the same amount of time as rice. Then you stir in parmesean, sour cream, orange juice, orange and lemon zest, arugula, and toasted walnuts. Yum!

My other recent culinary success was macaroons. They are *very* easy and delicious. My revelation was to substitute unsweetened coconut for sweetened, so they don't melt the enamel off your teeth. I made them for a lab-mate's birthday and people gobbled them up. 

In a less sophisticated culinary vein, there have been some deadlines around the lab lately, and associated with them has been an abundance of my advisor's power food of choice - peanut M&Ms. A 38 serving bag was consumed in the period of 24 hrs. There are not really that many of us. And then our advisor put out another bag. Seriously, we need an intervention around here. Or we're going to have to switch to diabetes research. Luckily, I am personally pretty immune to the peanut M&M addiction. I'm an M&M purist and much prefer the plain variety.  

 

Suzanne's Christmas baking spree

As described in her earlier post - - here, shown waiting for triumph at the shower Jody gave her.

Decadance, almonst instantaneously

In a teacup in the microwave, melt 1 oz. Sharffenberger 99% cacao chocolate. (Takes about 1 min.) Add maybe 1 T. coffee and whiz. Meanwhile whiz 1/4 c. milk in a coffee cup and micro for 30 sec. Blend in the choco/coffee mix. Mmmmm.

Soft Ginger Molasses Cookies

I really wanted cookies today but had limited ingredients. Sad! I searched the ones below, though, and they turned out nicely. I'd try more molasses next time to give them a little more punch. The ginger flavor is pretty intense.

This recipe is based on the one found here:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1610,150173-248201,00.html

3/4 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/4 c. molasses
2 1/4 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. salt
Granulated sugar

Cream butter and sugar; add egg; mix. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Make into balls the size of walnuts and roll in granulated sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes.

Faith in humanity restored!

So I came over to Chez Toby thinking about what a failure I was for not posting on it, letting it fall by the wayside, etc.  But my faith in all that is good and kind in the world was restored when I saw that my dear sister and mother had posted three yummy remembrances! Yay! I love you guys.

Anyways, Mom and Dad both informed me that Suzanne was going to make the black bean sweet potato chili recipe I had posted. This was slightly twilight zone, because I have never posted a black bean sweet potato chili recipe. I have posted a black bean sweet potato hash recipe, but with nary a tomato involved, it could not be called chili.

What really pushed this incident into the twilight zone is that fact that I did indeed cook black bean sweet potato chili FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER on friday night (cue twilight zone theme song). I had Liz and Sapna and David over, and served it with blue cornbread. I thought it was very delicious, and I would like to recommend it to Suzanne, if she has not already received the recipe from me telepathically. 

Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili

Ingredients:

Olive oil for the pan

1 large yellow onion, diced

6 cloves of garlic, diced

1 red or green bell pepper, chopped

1 zuchinni, chopped (could use another bell pepper instead)

2 tbsp cumin

2 tbsp chili powder

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp salt 

1 28 oz can diced tomatoes

28 oz water (just fill back up the empty tomato can)

6 - 7 cups black beans (or 2 cans)

2 large or four small sweet potatoes, 1 inch diced (this is a pain, don't cut off your finger)

Juice and zest of one lime

generous dash of chili pepper flakes 

1) In a big soup pot, saute the onion and garlic. Add the pepper and zuchinni and cook until the zuchinni looks soft. Add the spices and cook for 2 minutes to toast the spices.

2) Add everything else. Bring to a boil. Let it softly boil for about 15 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are tender. Then let it simmer, for as long as you can stand to wait for dinner.   

This made 6 good servings, so Suz, you might want to cut it in half. I had it with sour cream, which was a really nice addition.

I got this recipe of my friend Liz Fairclough's blog, and its originally from a cookbook she likes called Simple Vegetarian Pleasures. I made some changes, though, like omitting the tomato paste and adding lime and chili pepper flakes, for less sweetness and more tang. Also, I made the beans up from dried beans for the first time for this recipe. It was definitely an added pain, but 1) bulk beans are better than cans for the earth, 2) bulk beans are better than canned for my wallet, and 3) they really do taste fresher.