Well-Cookbooked

Happy Chinese New Year!

2012-01-28T08:24:00.000-08:00

Eggs: promise of life in the new year!
(except when they're hardboiled)

In honor of this Year of the [Water] Dragon (I was born in the Year of the [Fire] Dragon myself), I wanted to cook something Chinese this January. The first day of this new lunar year was Monday the 23rd, but I'm still posting because, after all, there are fourteen additional days of festivities that follow the new year's day itself.

Turns out I don't have a Chinese cookbook (madness!) but I was able to find sections in some of my books dedicated to Chinese cookery. I chose a simple appetizer, because lately I've been feeling like a mother of two small children (as, of course, I am).

From Mary Ann Zimmerman's
The Tupperware Book of Picnics, Parties & Snacks Around the World

Eggs Cooked With Tea Leaves

10 eggs
2 Tbls black tea
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
10 aniseeds
1/3 cup soy sauce

Place eggs in pan, cover with water and bring to a boil, simmer 10 minutes. Soak in cold water and crack all over with a spoon, but keep shell on egg. Add remaining ingredients to water and cook eggs again, this time for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and shell. The resulting pattern is lovely. Store in a 4-cup Wonderlier.

Three things:

I'm not convinced this is a genuine Chinese recipe (though it may be? Anyone know?).
This recipe produces attractive hardboiled (though overcooked, if you must know) eggs that taste exactly (eggsactly! egg-sack-tly? eww....) like normal overly-hardboiled eggs. Yes, the light pattern of the whites is lovely. No, it's not really worth all the time it took to create it. In my opinion.
This cookbook's main premise is to show you how to cook fabulous picnic, party, and snack foods that coincidentally then may be stored perfectly in a Tupperware container. Kind of makes me laugh. We'll see about future dishes I may cook from this book, but I suspect they're all honed to be of a certain shape or volume vs. to be extraordinarily tasty. Perhaps this is the year we'll find out.

Brown Rice & Resolutions

2012-01-12T10:05:00.000-08:00

As part of my new year's resolutions I decided to make at least 24 new sauces (or dips or dressings) in 2012. Sometimes it's too much to make an entirely new main dish, but a new salad dressing seems doable. And I'm happy to inform you that January isn't even half over and I've already succeeded in making a new sauce! (Please, hold your applause until the end. Thank you very much, though, thank you.)

from The New Laurel's Kitchen:

Stroganoff Sauce

1 cup buttermilk
1 Tbls cornstarch

1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic (optional)
1 Tbls butter
1/3 - 1 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced

1/4 tsp salt or 1 Tbls shoyu
black pepper

Combine buttermilk and cornstarch and set aside. Saute onion and garlic in butter until soft. Crush the garlic with a fork. Stir in mushrooms and cook just until tender. Remove mushrooms and juices from the pan and pour in the buttermilk mixture. Stir and cook until thickened, then return the mushrooms and their juices to the pan. Season with salt (or shoyu) and pepper.

The recipe claims to taste "like a sour cream sauce," and I suppose it does. And I even cheated a bit when I made it by substituting vinegar in milk rather than using the buttermilk that was called for (tell me I'm not the only one who doesn't ever have buttermilk on hand?) I also used dried mushrooms instead of fresh (soaked in boiling water for 10 mins to reconstitute), and they worked great.

Overall, I'm happy with the sauce, but I admit that when I first tasted it I thought it was just okay. What took it from okay to happy? Putting it on the bestest, most delicous rice ever.

I made this rice almost as an afterthought (had to put my sauce on something) and am still amazed by how wonderful brown rice is when done right. I'm not kidding. I'm a convert. No more brown rice in the rice cooker, not ever again. This is the way it should be:

from Nourishing Traditions:

     Basic Brown Rice I
     (unsoaked rice)

2 cups long-grain brown rice
2 Tbls butter
2 Tbls extra virgin olive oil
3 cardamom pods
4 cups stock or combination of water and stock
1/2 tsp sea salt

In a heavy, flameproof casserole, melt butter and olive oil. Open cardamom pods and add seeds to the casserole. Saute rice in butter and oil, stirring constantly, until rice begins to turn milky. Pour in liquid, add salt and bring to a rolling boil. Boil, uncovered, for about 10 minutes until water has reduced to the level of the rice. Reduce flame to lowest heat, cover tightly and cook for at least 1 1/2 hours or as long as 3 hours. Do not remove lid during cooking. Serves 6-8.

My rice took exactly the 1 1/2 hours on the stovetop. And. It. Was. Wonderful. It sounds ridiculous, to say rice tasted wonderful. But I'm serious, cross my heart and everything. Wonderful.

Sauce + Rice = superb side for dinner and delectible leftovers for lunch (which I'm eating right now). Very, very pleased with this receipe attempt! (This is what I'd hoped for, starting Wellcookbooked!)

You may now applaud.

Pondering Mulled Cider

2012-01-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

My post seemed well-timed for the end to this Christmas season (which ended, as far as I know, on Saturday, with the Orthodox Christmas Day). After all, a hot beverage is perfect in winter, it's easy to prepare in large quantities to share at holiday gatherings, and what with the pondering Mary supposedly did (seriously, does not every other verse about Mary say she "pondered...in her heart"?), a mug of mulled cider seems very apropos. Now, of course, I didn't hit the "Publish Post" button until after the holidays are over, so perhaps you'll call me on that one. But I was writing it during the holidays. ;-)

I used to make mulled apple cider by adding three ingrediant together: apple cider (which, for all intents and purposes, in today's grocery is identical to apple juice. I think a distiction used to be there because cider wasn't pasturized, but that's no longer true, at least in non-speciality stores); cinnamon sticks; cloves. And the only direction I used was this: heat until hot.

I have since learned that mulled cider can (and should) be much more. Mollie Katzen has the best home-mulled cider recipe I've found (and just because it's the only mulled cider recipe I've found is irrelivant).

Mulled Cider from Sunlight Cafe

Note: I couldn't find my copy of Sunlight Cafe, which is why this post is late, but here's the basic gist and I'll update with exact specifications once I lay my hands on my cookbook!

container of apple cider (or, if you're feeling fancy, your own home-pressed cider!)
peppercorns, whole (aprox 10)
cloves, whole (aprox 10)
cinnamon sticks, whole (aprox 2)
cardomom pods (aprox 5)
ginger, fresh

Pour the apple cider into the pot or crockpot. Break up the cinammon sticks into 4 or 6 pieces. Peel and slice up some ginger (I found 1" pieces were good). Add the cinnamon, ginger, and other spices to the cider (either loose or contained within a mulin bag or cheesecloth). Steep and warm on med-low heat for at least an hour or two (though can be drunk [dranken? drinken?] as soon as the temperature appeals to you).

Aromatic. Tasty. Simple. But not boring. This is world-class apple cider. Mmmm....

Five Recipes from a Cookbook!

2011-12-04T07:00:00.000-08:00

I have met my goal of cooking five recipes (and then some) out of a cookbook! One cookbook, anyway. Only took two years. Something like a hundred more cookbooks to go. One at a time, baby, one at a time.

Which cookbook had me in the kitchen rather than mentally snacking from my armchair, you ask? The New Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Brian Ruppenthal.

So far I've made:

Carrot Soup
Cranberry Squash
Gingerbread
Gingered Squash
Whole Beet Borscht
and
Whole Wheat Pie Crusts (two different recipes)

Winners, every one.

If I'd been counting by the number of times I'm re-made a recipe, I'd have met my first five before now, still from this same cookbook. The borscht has become "my" recipe---the one I feel comfortable making in huge batches and freezing because I know my family will eat it happily all fall and winter, the one I feel good enough about to share with friends, the one I know well enough that I've even begun going "off recipe" and tossing in ingredients that aren't called for (my last batch I substituted a can of spaghetti sauce for some of the broth/water--and it was yummy!). I've never really had my own recipe before, and the fact that it's a beet recipe is kind of amusing, I suppose, but honestly it's just so good I don't care.

As I've mentioned before, some of my cookbooks are, frankly, terrible. They may look snazzy, but their recipes are bloated fluff. Or they might be so poorly written or photographed that it's laughable to imagine anyone feeling inspired by them. I will be hard pressed to meet my five recipe goal from some of those. But Laurel's Kitchen? It's a gem. Filled to the brim with delectable, wholesome-sounding dishes from ingredients you can easily find (or grow!), simple ideas on how to add nutrition to your plate, and whimsical art throughout. I love this cookbook and I'm keeping and cooking from it forever, even if they make a new new version.

Cranberry Squash

2011-12-03T07:50:00.000-08:00

From The New Laurel's Kitchen, a delish squash recipe perfect for this holiday season. Try it, you'll like it!

Cranberry Squash from Laurel's Kitchen

1 1/2 lbs raw winter squash, unpeeled, cut in serving size chunks
1/2 cup raw fresh cranberries
1 small apple, chopped in 3/4" pieces
1/4 cup chopped raisins

juice and grated peel of small orange
1 1/2 Tbls honey
1 Tbls melted butter
dash salt

Arrange pieces of squash in one layer in a baking dish with a cover (or use aluminum foil). Scatter cranberries, chopped apple, and raisins over and around the squash. If you use acorn, butternut, or other small squash, you can halve them, mix all the other ingredients together, and pile the mixture into the cavities. Otherwise, mix orange juice, grated peel, honey butter (if desired) and salt together and pour over squash.

Cover baking dish and bake until squash is tender--25 to 45 minutes, depending upon the variety.

Makes 4 servings.

My initial debut of this recipe was part of a much much larger meal so we probably made this work for 8 servings, but it's a seriously lovely dish for any squash lover (the cranberries and apples and raisins are the perfect complement!). This will grace our table again, guaranteed.

Cranberry Pie, Part 2: Berry Filling

2011-11-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

As I'd said in Part 1, I was looking for something other than a pumpkin pie for this Thanksgiving, and when I found The Frugal Gourmet's recipe using cranberries it was just the ticket.

from The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American

Cranberry Pie

4 cups cranberries
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 Tbls cornstarch
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/2 tsp almond extract

Pastry for a 2-crust, 9" pie

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Wash and pick over cranberries; drain thoroughly. Chop cranberries and mix with sugar and cornstarch. Mix egg and almond extract and combine with cranberries. Line a 9" pie plate with half the pastry. Add cranberry mixture. Cover with strips of pastry arranged in a lattice, and seal edges. Bake 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 F and continue baking about 35 minutes, or until cranberries are soft and pastry is browned.

Results of family vote: two in favor (husband and daughter), one slightly meh (me). It wasn't that it was bad tasting, but it was too sour for me. The sourness was totally my fault, of course, because I chose not to chop all the cranberries (they kept rolling away from me and it was irritating so I gave up after halving about a third of them); I hadn't thought about what that would mean to the filling and how the whole berries wouldn't be coated in and out with sugar. Oh well. I still ate a big piece (as did my husband and daughter). I'd make this recipe again, but next time I'll allow myself more time to chop chop chop the berries.

Cranberry Pie, Part 1: Crust(s)

2011-11-29T07:00:00.000-08:00

If Americans agree on anything it's that it's not Thanksgiving without pie. But I wanted to go beyond pumpkin this year, and after finding a recipe for cranberry pie I knew that it was what I was meant to make. I could have picked-up a pre-made pie shell, but I decided to be old fashioned (and thrifty) and make my own piecrust. Looking in The New Laurel's Kitchen I came across two easy-enough-sounding recipes. I couldn't decide between them, but since the cranberry recipe called for a two-crust pie of 9", I just made both and used one for the dish and one for the lattice (two taste-tests in one pie!).

uncooked crust

Recipe one:

Whole Wheat Piecrust from The New Laurel's Kitchen

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat germ (or 1/4 cup flour)
3/4 tsp salt
10 Tbls butter, chilled

4 to 6 Tbls cold water

Stir together flour, wheat germ, and salt. Grate the cold butter on a coarse grater or cut into small pieces, tossing it with the flour as you go. Use a pastry cutter or two knives to combine the flour and butter until it is the consistency of rolled oats. Sprinkle with the water, using just enough to hold the dough together.

Using cupped fingers, form the dough quickly and gently. As soon as it will hold together, make it into a ball.

Press the dough out into a thick disk. Roll to size on a lightly floured surface, or between sheets of waxed paper, or on a pastry cloth. Gently roll the dough over the rolling pin and onto the pie plate, easing it loosely into the plate. (...)

Gently press the dough into the plate so there are no air pockets. Cut off the excess with a sharp knife, but make the rim double thick to keep it from burning. (...)

If you are making a pie with a top crust or lattice, preheat the oven to 400 F. Fill the bottom shell and put the top crust or lattice in place, baking according to the directions in the recipe you are using.

Makes one 10" bottom crust or crust and lattice for one 8" pie.

And recipe two:

Lighter Whole Wheat Piecrust from The New Laurel's Kitchen

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbls oil [I used coconut]
1/4 cup water

Stir dry ingredients together. Mix in oil and enough of the water to make the dough form a ball. Roll flat between sheets of waxed paper and lift into pan. Make decorative edge. Bake at 400 F for 10 minutes, or until slightly browned and crisp. Makes one 9" shell.

Our vote: we enjoyed both! The crust was a little thick and brittle for my preference, but I chalk that up to chef's error (I realize pie crusts are an art). But the taste was good, both bottom and lattice. The "lighter" version was easier to make (spooning oil is so much easier than grating butter!) so if I were to try making it again I'd try that recipe first.

Sweet Potato Sadness

2011-11-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

So, overall Thanksgiving was happy and tasty. But... there was one hiccup. Perhaps the worst thing (culinarily) is when you present a recipe made of quality ingredients in the highest of hopes and it doesn't thrill anyone, not even yourself. And it's not because of a mistake the cook made, it's just... the food. That's what happened with my sweet potatoes this year.

Rather than go the typical SAD route of dousing them with sugar and animal hoof goo (i.e. marshmallows) or after baking them in their own skins and splitting them to be served with butter and salt (my favorite!) I tried out a recipe that, well, just didn't work out as I'd wished.

From Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions:

Sweet Potato Puree

4 large sweet potatoes
grated rind of two lemons
juice of two lemons
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp sea salt

Boil potatoes in water until tender and then peel while still hot. Place them in a bowl, mash and mix with butter, lemon rind, lemon juice, egg yolks and sea salt. Transfer mixture to a buttered ovenproof casserole and bake in a 350-degree oven for about 1/2 hour.

Frankly, this dish tasted really "healthy," which, as healthy as sweet potatoes actually are, wasn't was I was looking for in a Thanksgiving dish. Left alone to bake, sweet potatoes are divine, sweet, earthy (can something be earthy and divine? If so, it's this root!). This dish was too bright (because of the lemon) and too rich (because of the egg yolk). I forced myself to finish the dollop on my plate and will brave through the leftovers, but I'm not gonna enjoy them. Sadness.

Next time I'll just roast 'em up and let 'em shine on their own---sweet potatoes really don't need anyone to fuss over them. I've learned my lesson.

Thanksgiving Review

2011-11-25T19:48:00.000-08:00

Hope your Thanksgiving was as blessed as mine! My husband and I and our girls celebrated at home, just the four of us this year, so we held back on creating too many dishes (okay, my husband reminded me to hold back), and it all turned out very well, over all. I'll be setting up the hyperlinks to my posts on the dishes below as I have time to write them. Stay tuned!

New dishes:
Onion-Cranberry Compote (see below)
Sweet Potato Puree
Cranberry Pie with Whole Wheat Crust

Dishes I've mentioned before:
Sandy's Gingered Squash
Cranberry Sauce

And Justin slow-roasted a turkey and we had Riesling, sparkling pear juice, and coffee.

Really very good!

As an alternate to my usual sweetened cranberry sauce I decided to try out a more savory version this year. And it was good. Very good. (Is it disturbing that so far my ~~only~~ greatest Thanksgiving acheivements can be categorized under "sauce, cranberry")?

From Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions:

Onion-Cranberry Compote

1 1/3 cup raisins [the recipe calls for both yellow & dark raisins, I just used all dark]
1 1/2 cups hot water
2 lbs small white onions, peeled [I used 1 large yellow onion]
3 Tbls butter
3/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 cup dry white wine
3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp sea salt
1 2/3 cups fresh cranberries

Soak raisins in water for 10 mins. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, saute onions in butter until well coated. Add raisins with soaking liquid and remaining ingredients except cranberries. Liquid should just cover the onions--if not, add a little water. Simmer, covered, for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Remove cover, add cranberries and simmer uncovered for 15 to 30 mins until liquid has thickened. Let cool. Maybe made up to 3 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator. Serve at room temperature. Makes 4 cups.

What I most liked about this recipe was it blended so well with the rest of the holiday food! Truly a delicious relish. I personally plan to make this one again next year. Not to replace the sweeter version, but to complement it and give diners a more flavorful plate.

Gingerbread Destiny

2011-11-23T19:28:00.000-08:00

It's a rare afternoon when I find myself flipping casually through a cookbook, randomly stop on a recipe, think it sounds good, and realize I have all its ingredients on hand. (It's that last one that usually trips me up.) So when I ran across Laurel's recipe for gingerbread and realized I could make it without a trip to the store, and my daughters were both napping, well, I took it as a sign.

Imagination time!
Imagine this mildly disappointing picture of gingerbread is actually delicious-looking.

Gingerbread from The New Laurel's Kitchen

1/3 cup soft or melted butter
1 cup dark molasses (or 2/3 cup blackstrap & 1/3 cup honey) [I used the combo]
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk or orange juice [I "made" buttermilk by adding vinegar to whole milk]

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup raisins
(1 Tbls orange zest) (optional) [I left this out]
(1/2 tsp dry mustard) (optional) [I used this. I figured, weird, but why not?]

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Mix butter and molasses. Beat in egg and add buttermilk or orange juice.
Sift together the dry ingredients and combine everything together.
Turn into a greased 9"x 9" square pan. Bake 40 mins.

Results of stars aligning: We LOVED this! Soooo good. It had absolute perfect texture (think: that perfect mid-point between cake and brownie). The flavor was rich and could have been too much but for the brilliant sweet bursts of raisiny fabulousness that caught your tastebuds by surprise with each bite. Honestly, really, really good.

Only one small point of contention: I wouldn't actually call this Gingerbread. I'd call it Molasses Cake. And maybe it's just because I've never had "real" gingerbread prior to baking this? But I didn't taste the ginger, I tasted molasses. And raisins. Totally delicious, but not very gingery. Or bread-like.

So there you have it. Followed my destiny and made an amazing ginger/molasses bread/cake. Awesome. You should make it too. Go check your shelves.

Going Banana(s) Bread

2011-11-18T08:00:00.000-08:00

Whoops! Wrote this post in September but forgot to hit "Publish."
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My imaginary self cooks best alone in a peaceful, sunny kitchen. She measures spices and stirs sauces in a meditative and tranquil state. One chef in the kitchen, humming a happy tune, ~~baking~~ making magic with flour and whisk.

Reality thus far has been that I start several new-to-me dishes all at once, quickly fall behind my timetable, realize I'll never make the scheduled dinner time without assistance, and I have to ask my husband in to help me finish the meal.

So I'm used to help in the kitchen, but it's usually a last minute, For goodness' sake, HELP ME! kind of help.

This past week I had a whole new-to-me kind of kitchen assistant, one of the small child variety. I had the incredible desire to make banana bread (several rapidly softening--dare we say oozing on a food blog?--bananas on the counter can be quite inspiring). My toddler was in need of an indoor amusement (weather went from 80s to 50s overnight). We picked the recipe from Joy of Cooking and started to stir.

Who will help me bake the bread? She will!!

Success! The banana bread itself was fine. Normal. Fine. But the time spent measuring, stirring, pouring, scraping? Fabulous. One of the most enjoyable times I've spent with my daughter in recent months. She loved it. I loved it. Guess we've found a recipe for mother/daughter success.

Banana Bread
from Joy of Cooking

Have all ingredients at room temperature, 68-70 F
Position a rack in the lower third of the oven.
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Grease an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 (6 cup) loaf pan.

Whisk together

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder

In a large bowl, beat on high speed until lightened in color and texture, 2 to 3 minutes:

5 1/3 Tbls unsalted butter
2/3 cup sugar

Beat in the four mixture until blended and the consistency of brown sugar. Gradually beat in:

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

Fold in just until combined:

1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (about 2)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans [I omitted these. Why ruin baked goods with nuts?]

Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 to 60 mins. Let cool in the pan on a rack for 5 to 10 minutes before unmolding to cool completely on the rack.

An Eggcellent Baked Dish

2011-11-15T08:11:00.000-08:00

Are you getting tired of my puns? Too bad! I have fun with them. Never stopping!!

For my daughter's birthday party a few weeks ago I experimented on our guests and tried out several new recipes (including the cake itself) but only one was from a cookbook and can thus be mentioned here. It was super easy (especially since I had someone else prepare the cauliflower and onions for me the night before) and delicious. You should make this for your next brunch. Yes, you.

Cauliflower Cheese Puff
from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe

3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups onions, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 cups cauliflower florets
6 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
5 ounces garlic and herb goat cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Lightly spray a 9"x13" pan with nonstick spray, then add the butter.

Place the pan in the preheated oven for a minute; let the butter coat the bottom.

Set aside.

Heat a skillet on medium. Add the olive oil.

Add the onions, saute` for 5 minutes, then stir in the salt and the cauliflower.

Saute` over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the cauliflower is just tender.

Transfer this mixture to the prepared pan.

While the cauliflower is cooking, combine the eggs, milk, flour, and cheese in a blender.

Whip into a smooth batter and pour it over the cauliflower mixture in the pan.

Bake in the center of the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until puffed and golden.

Serve hot or warm, cut into squares.

New-To-Me Cookbooks

2011-11-12T19:59:00.000-08:00

I splurged recently and bought three cookbooks. Saint Vincent's has thankfully regained their sanity and returned to marking books as $1.00 (remember the outrageous $4 they'd charged for a time? I still fume at the memory) and so three books cost me less than a visit to Starbucks. I came away with:

Classic Scandinavian Cooking by Nika Hazelton
The Frugal Gourmet On Our Immigrant Ancestors by Jeff Smith
A World of Menus and Recipes by Gertrude Crum

I've finished reading the Scandinavian book and have decided that this Christmas Eve Eve (Dec 23) will have a Swedish theme. Super excited about that. Will likely go off cookbook and use some of my grandmother's recipes. But no lutfisk. Oh, you thought it was "lutefisk"? Mmmm, sorry, that would be Norwegian, my friends. We Swedes don't need that "e." Why not? Perhaps just to be irritating. Because I think the Swedish have a feud with the Norwegians. Or vice versa. Or both. I don't really get it... I pretty much consider everyone from Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark to be the same peoples. (Note: I am now likely banned from all of Scandinavia.)

The Frugal Gourmet's book is interesting, but, be forewarned, has a revolting-sounding recipe where the main ingredient is pork blood. I only note this because after reading that recipe before bed I had an actual nightmare about being unjustly accused of shoplifting pork blood from a small market and being chased down and killed by the ethnic grocers mafia. You can't make this stuff up, folks. Nightmarish blood recipe aside (and crossed out with dark marker) I'm thinking we can use a lot of the recipes to do some sort of geography/history lesson with our daughters while we enjoy dishes from different countries.

And Gertrude Crum's book? Well, Gertie (may I call you Gertie?), I find the idea of full menus so very appealing that I will continue to read your cookbook even though I find it annoyingly overly-specific about which wine to serve with the meals. But I'm not sure I'll ever actually make one of your menus. I'm just not feeling the inspiration, I don't know why. I should. I mean, you have your cookbook arranged not only by full meals but also by season. I should be all over that. But instead I'm, like, "meh." Perhaps I'm intimidated by all the wine talk. Perhaps I need a little more wine in my life. Perhaps I like to whine. It's a mystery that is unlikely to be solved.

Ackwards-bay Ai-chay*

2011-10-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

We're in full "What do you serve for a three-year-old's birthday party?" mode. Since the party is scheduled for 10am, I thought to look through Mollie Katzen's breakfast bonanza Sunlight Cafe for brunch-ish ideas friendly to both child and parent. I hope to have some well-fed guests next weekend! And I was inspired to make this beverage for an afternoon snack. It's called "backward" because usually for chai you add milk to spiced tea and this is spiced milk mixed into black tea. Mmmm, very satisfying and so much less expensive than a trip to Starbuck's.

Backward Chai
from Sunlight Cafe by Mollie Katzen

1 cup milk
2 cinnamon sticks
[2 tsp fennel seeds] (I didn't have any. Omitted w/out worry)
16 cardamom pods
8 whole cloves
1/8 tsp ground coriander
1 1/2 cups hot black tea, brewed very strong
Honey
Ground cinnamon

Pour the milk into a saucepan and add all the spices except the honey and ground cinnamon. Place over medium heat.
Just before the milk reaches the boiling point, turn the heat down and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes.
Strain the milk mixture into the black tea.
Stir in honey to taste. Pour into mugs. Sprinkle each with cinnamon and serve hot.

Serves 2-3

*Because ig-pay atin-Lay is fun and I only just remembered that.

Anda and Aloo Curry

2011-10-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

I had a goal to find a new recipe that would (1) feed four adults and a child, (2) use inexpensive ingredients, and (3) not be pasta. I specifically thought to look in my Indian cookbook because I'd remembered most of the recipes served 12 (hello leftovers!) and a lot of the dishes had rice bases (rice being something we can afford in abundance). As it was I decided on a recipe that was potato rather than rice based. Luckily my pocketbook is as much a fan of potatoes as of rice. Plus, it was delicious.

Anda and Aloo Curry (Egg & Potato Curry)

from The Spice Box by Manju Shivraj Singh

4 Tbls oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
4 medium onions, grated
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup hot water
4 fresh tomatoes, chopped (or 1 Tbls tomato puree)
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp coriander powder
salt to taste
1 cup yogurt (or 1 cup hot water)
6 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and chopped
6 boiled potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 tsp garam masala powder
juice of 1 lemon
fresh mint leaves, chopped, for garnish

Heat oil in a wok or saucepan. Add cumin seeds and fry 1 minute. Add the onions and garlic and fry till golden.

Add 1/2 cup hot water, tomatoes, spices and salt. Simmer, covered, for 5 minutes.

Add 1 cup of yogurt or hot water, then the eggs and potatoes. Simmer, covered, for 5 minutes.

Turn off the heat. Add garam masala and lemon juice. Stir. Garnish with mint leaves.

Serves: 12

***************

A few comments~

I grated the onions in the food processor (the ONLY way. My goodness. Cannot imagine grating them by hand!) and then dumped them into the wok. What I wish I'd done was drain the onion juice after grating. As it was, without draining it was extremely soupy and there was no golden action. I had to pour out the boiling hot onion water before the onions could have a chance to brown. Not safe. So don't be like me. Drain the onion juice after grating.

We enjoyed this dish the night I made it, but a great unexpected perk was that it made great leftovers. Served cold it's transformed from Anda & Aloo Curry to Curried Potato Salad. I think it'd be a tasty addition to a picnic (cook and eat 1/2 the recipe as a hot meal the night before, pack the remainder to share with friends the next day).

When You Fancy a Simple Dessert

2011-10-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

It's a lovely idea: fruit as dessert. It's fancy because the fruit is exotic and attractive. It's simple because, hello, cut up some fruit and voila! All in all, this recipe's a winner.

from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home:

Inside-Out Mango
1 ripe mango
1 lime

Slice the mango and turn each side inside out (if you don't know what I mean, see this video at 1:30).

Squeeze the lime over the mango.

Serve with spoons.

This would be especially good after a spicy meal.

Sesame Cucumber Side Salad

2011-09-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

What to serve as accompanyment to the Cold Noodles of my previous post? Ms. Atlas' menu provided a simple yet strikingly unusual (and tasty) cucumber salad.

Sesame Cucumber Salad
from Vegetarian Express by Nava Atlas & Lillian Kayte

1 long English seedless cucumber, unpeeled
2 Tbls oil [I used grapeseed oil]
2 1/2 Tbls rice vinegar
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp honey
1-2 tsp freshly grated ginger
2 Tbls toasted sesame seeds

Slice the cucumber very thinly.
In a small mixing bowl, combine the oil, vinegar, soy sauce & honey. Stir to mix thoroughly, then stir in the ginger. Pour the oil and vinegar mix over the cucumber slices and toss well. Sprinkle the top with sesame seeds.

Cold Noodles. On Purpose.

2011-09-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

Some of my cookbooks may be better bedtime reading than practical kitchen guides, but Nava Atlas' Vegetarian Express seems to contain recipes which I can actually cook. Nice, right? It's been nearly six weeks since my baby was born, and I've made four new recipes; three were from Atlas' book. I've already blogged about the dessert but the main and side dishes were also from her book. The main dish was cold and was reminiscent of pad thai.

Cold Noodles with Hot Chili-Orange Oil

from Vegetarian Express by Nava Atlas & Lillian Kayte

10 to12 ounces angel hair pasta
8-ounce package fresh bean sprouts
2 large carrots, coarsely grated
6 scallions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

Dressing

1 Tbls hot chili oil
or 1 Tbls dark sesame oil plus 1-2 tsp chili powder
2-3 Tbls soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 Tbls sugar
2 Tbls undiluted orange juice concentrate

Garnishes

1/2 cup dry-roasted almonds, chopped [recipe called for peanuts, but my little one is allergic]
1-2 seedless oranges, peeled and sectioned (optional)

Cook the pasta until al dente. Drain & rinse under cold water until cool. Transfer to large bowl.
While the pasta cooks, steam bean sprouts over medium-high heat, covered, until they're just wilted (about 2-3 mins). Drain & rinse under cold water until cool.
Prepare the carrots, scallions, and parsley (reserve half the parsley for garnish); combine them in a large bowl with the cooked and cooled pasta and the steamed sprouts.
In a small bowl, combine the dressing ingredients and pour the dressing over the pasta mixture. Toss well, coating all strands. Garnish with reserve parsley and nuts. Pass around a plate of seedless orange sections to serve alongside, if desired.

It was good, though I found myself wishing it were either slightly spicier or had more of an orange flavor. If I make this again, I'll push it one way or the other.

Pineapple-Yogurt Ambrosia

2011-09-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

Can it be called cooking if you don't heat anything? I vote yes, and thus feel little to no shame in boasting (okay, some shame. I can't believe it's been so long...) that I finally cooked something from my cookbooks once again.

A dessert:

Pineapple-Yogurt Ambrosia
from Vegetarian Express by Nava Atlas & Lillian Kayte

1 lb can unsweetened pineapple chunks, drained
1 lb container vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup dark raisins
2 seedless oranges, peeled & sectioned

Combine ingredients in a serving dish & stir well. Chill until needed.

Mmmmm. Very tasty. And super easy (i.e., perfect for a new mother!).

First Trimester: Completed!

2011-02-27T13:44:00.000-08:00

So, turns out that during my Thanksgiving planning days I was newly pregnant. And in what is a not-all-that-surprising turn of events I now cannot bear to think about the foods I'd cooked/eaten during those early weeks.

Last pregnancy I'd been eating a lot of salads during early pregnancy and then suddenly couldn't stomach them for 36 weeks; this pregnancy the thought of pizza makes me gag (must've been eating them in Oct/Nov!) as does thinking of most of the items I'd made for Thanksgiving. Hence the non-update on this blog.

But I'm now in the 2nd trimester and starting to think about food again. Not all foods (I'm still not ready to review my November dishes) but I'm hoping to start cooking from my books again.

Stay tuned! (I know you're all so excited! ;-) ).

Thanksgiving Planning

2010-11-18T18:00:00.000-08:00

We'll be joining a larger, extended family table for this year's holiday. And it means I'm asking myself: what to bring?

I haven't yet found specific menu items that my husband and daughter and I can call "our" traditional Thanksgiving meal, so I'm not sure what we must have next week. But here are some of my initial considerations (all are in the running for being my contribution to this year's celebration):

Appetizers

From Dreena Burton's Vive le Vegan!
Cannellini Bean Yam Hummus (Click HERE for my previous recipe review)

From Betty Crocker's Dinner in a Dish
Party Sandwich Loaf
(cream cheese frosted loaf of white bread, with three savory fillings)

Sides

From Anna Thomas' The Vegetarian Epicure
Holiday Vegetable Salad (Click HERE for recipe on Google Books)
Per Anna, this is the "greatest of all composed salads."
(mushrooms, potatoes, apples, dill pickles, eggs, peas, carrots, pickled onions, chopped onion, vinegar, homemade mayonnaise, garnishes)

From SusanV's Fat Free Vegan Kitchen blog
The Best Vegan Green Bean Casserole (Click HERE for recipe)

From Dreena Burton's Eat, Drink & Be Vegan
Traditional Cranberry Sauce
Per Dreena, "You'll never buy another store-bought cranberry sauce after you've tasted this one."
(fresh cranberries, maple syrup, sea salt, vinegar)

Desserts

From Betty Crocker's Hostess Cookbook
Baked Alaska Pumpkin Pie
"[P]ostpone this spectacular dessert until evening. Such a pumpkin pie deserves its own show...and a hungry audience!"
(Butter Brickle ice cream in a pie crust, covered with brown sugar meringue)

From Simply Vegetarian!
Orange-Pumpkin Pudding
(cooked & mashed pumpkin, eggs, honey, spices, topped with whipped cream)

&
Upside-Down Plum Cake
(whole wheat cake, sweetened with honey, topped with plums and elderberry jam)

And what are you planning for Thanksgiving?

Baked Turnip Surprise

2010-11-15T18:06:00.000-08:00

I picked-up an amazing cookbook at a garage sale early this fall:

The "Best-of-All" Cook Book

compiled and edited by Florence Brobeck

published 1960

At first it seemed like a boring, cheater cookbook. Ms. Brobeck has simply gathered recipes from never-before-heard-from, totally random cookbooks that had themselves been complied by someone. I mean, recipes from Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book by the Foods Editors of Better Homes and Gardens? Or the cookbook Who Says We Can't Cook! by Members of the Women's National Press Club? Or how about The A.B.C. of Spice Cookery and How To Use Spices, both by the American Spice Trade Association? I mean... really. How good could this cookbook actually be?

The answer: Amazingly, wonderfully good.

I've rarely enjoyed reading a cookbook as much as I enjoyed reading The "Best-of-All" (and I've read a lot of cookbooks. What I lack in the desire to cook I totally make up for in lazy couch sitting and the paging through recipes).

The variety of dishes is vast (which is as you'd expect it, since Brobeck has sampled recipes from over one hundred different cookbooks) and thus incredibly interesting. And even the recipes promoting the original compilers' product (Fun with Coffee from the Pan-American Coffee Bureau, anyone?) first just made me giggle because I was reminded of Anne of Green Gables' romantic short story (about baking power, wasn't it?) and secondly it ended-up striking me as crazy-obvious that of course the group that promotes an ingredient is going to know a lot about said ingredient and it follows that one might want to listen to the experts when they share their ideas.

So, what exciting recipe did I try from the super-exciting cookbook? Baked Turnips! Of course.

But by this time (a long-winded post, I know. Get on with it, woman!) you're wondering what the surprise is, right?

Well, I was slicing up turnips yesterday for the recipe when, as it would turn out, it dawned on me that my "turnips" were actually beets.

Wouldn't you say these are turnips?

Now, I cannot totally confirm this. I've looked through the CSA website and I've Googled turnips and beets and also tried rutabagas and even double-checked daikon radishes, but I have yet to see a picture of the root vegetables that I found myself cooking last night. (BTW, have you ever researched the different types of beets, turnips and rutabagas? Millions of different kinds. Or at least ten. I've lived such a sheltered life.) In the end, I must admit I have no idea what I actually brought home from the CSA.

But then look! Crazy insides!

It's so confusing.

Maybe this meal should be call Baked Turnip Confusion.

Well, no matter what name you slap on it, the dish was delightful. May I introduce:

Baked ~~Turnips?~~ ~~Beets?~~ ~~Rutabagas?~~

Anonymous Root Vegetable

(with White & Purple & Green Outsides
and Red & White Insides)

originally from

The Gentle Art of Cookery

by Mrs. C. F. Leyel and Miss Olga Hartley

6 small white turnips [or whatever]

1/4 cup grated ~~Parmesan~~ cheese [I used Swiss*]

Ground nutmeg

Salt & pepper

Cayenne

1 cup milk or thin white sauce

3 Tbls bread crumbs

1 Tbls butter

Start oven at moderate (350 degrees F). Butter 1 1/2-quart baking dish. Scrub turnips [or whatever], rinse, drain, and pare. Slice thinly into greased dish in alternate layers with cheese; season each layer of turnips [or whatever] lightly with nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Add little cayenne to top layer, pour milk or white sauce over contents of dish, sprinkle top with crumbs, dot with butter. Bake in moderate oven 35 minutes, or until turnips [or whatever] are done. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

*As a rule, I hate Swiss cheese. But yesterday my fridge was full of it (weird story) and figured I'd like it better cooked in a dish, flavors mingling, than by itself on crackers where it's nasty dry bitter taste is overpowering and chokes out your will to live. And I was right! Baked with whatever-they-were, the Swiss cheese tasted great.

Squash Soup (two variations)

2010-11-06T18:15:00.000-07:00

After receiving a windfall of veggies today I knew it was time to get cookin'! I decided to focus on the butternut squash, and I picked up my copy of Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World; paging through, this recipe caught my eye. Though its name calls for pumpkin, the ingredient list allows for butternut squash as well.

Moroccan Pumpkin Soup

from Olive Trees and Honey by Gil Marks

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 leeks (white & light green parts only) or 2 onions, chopped

8 cups vegetable stock or water

2 to 3 lbs pumpkin, butternut squash, or other winter squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes (5-6 cups)

3 cups cooked chickpeas or 1 cup dried yellow split peas

2 carrots, cut into chunks (optional)

1 to 4 Tbls packed brown sugar

2 cinnamon sticks or 1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground tumeric or saffron thread

1/8 tsp ground allspice or freshly grated nutmeg

1 1/2 tsp salt

ground black pepper to taste

parsley or cilantro or toasted pumpkin seeds or sauteed mushrooms

1. In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the leeks and saute until soft, about 5 mins. Add the stock, pumpkin, chickpeas, optional carrots, sugar, spices, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the pumpkin is very soft, about 50 mins. Discard the cinnamon sticks.

2. To serve, garnish with parsley or pumpkin seeds, or top each bowl with a little mount of sauteed mushrooms.

Variation:

Fiery Pumpkin Soup

Make the recipe above but omit the cinnamon, ginger and allspice. Add, with the onion, 1 minced clove garlic and 1 minced small hot green chili or Scotch bonnet chili, or add about 1 tsp cayenne and 1/2 tsp ground cumin with the pumpkin.

I had one Georgia Flame pepper and wanted to make the spicy option, but because my toddler doesn't always enjoy spicy foods I decided to make the basic recipe as well. I divided the onions, squash, carrots, lentils and liquid between two pots and added the sweet spices to one pot, garlic and the diced pepper to the other.

Extremely Delish! Would be a great dinner for company this autumn. Serve with green salad and hearty bread with butter.

Yogurt Nan

2010-10-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

Ever buy one of those giant tubs of plain yogurt and then realize it's weeks later and you must use it up immediately or toss it out? That exact situation was the inspiration for my searching for and deciding upon this recipe.

A success! My toddler, especially, enjoys these breads, and using the freezer and the oven methods I've been able to bake fresh bread for her even on weekday (work) mornings. What a treat, to have hot steamy fresh bread available each morning. Totally worth taking the time for the preparation on a weekday night or weekend morning.

Yogurt Nan

from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe

1/4 cup wrist-temperature water

1 1/4 tsp yeast (1/2 a package)

pinch of sugar

1 cup plain yogurt

1 Tbs olive oil or unsalted butter, melted (plus extra for brushing the breads)

3/4 tsp salt

2 cups plus 2 Tbs unbleached all-purpose flour (plus more for handling dough)

cornmeal (opt)

coarse salt (opt)

Place the water in a med-size bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast and sugar, and let it stand for 5 mins. Add yogurt, olive oil or melted butter, and salt and whisk until smooth.

Add one cup of the flour, whisking until it is incorporated. Switch to a wooden spoon, and mix in the remaining flour. Lightly flour your hands and knead the dough, still in the bowl, for a minute or two, or until the dough is smooth (it will be quite soft).

Gently lift the dough, spray/spread the bowl underneath it with oil and then put the dough back down. Lightly spray its top surface with oil as well. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towl and leave it in a warm place for about 1 1/2 hours, or until doubled in bulk.

When the dough has risen, lightly flour your fist, punch down the dough, and turn it out onto a clean, floured work surface. The dough will be very soft and slightly wet. Use a knife or kitchen scissors to cut the dough into 8 equal pieces, then briefly shape each piece into a ball with your hands. Let the balls rest for 5 mins.

Generously flour a rolling pin and the work surface, and without kneading or handling the "rested" balls, roll each one into a very thin circle 7 to 8 inches in diameter. The breads are now ready to cook [or freeze].

To Freeze: line a plate with plastic wrap and place a rolled-out, unbaked flatbread on top. Lay a piece of plastic wrap on top of the bread. Continue layering plastic wrap and rolled-out flatbreads. Seal the whole thing including plate in a large ziplock and place in freezer for about 45 mins. Remove the plate and plastic wrap and place the separately frozen breads back into the bag. Will keep for a month in the freezer. You can bake them as needed, one or more at a time, straight from the freezer. (They are so thin the fact that they are frozen does not increase their cooking time.)

Cooking with the Oven Method (there's also a griddle method, which I do not record here): Preheat the oven to 450F. Oil a baking tray or sprinkle lightly with cornmeal or flour. Lay the breads flat on the tray and bake for about 5 mins. Turn them over and bake for 5 minutes more or until golden brown in spots but still supple.

Brush the tops with olive oil or melted butter and sprinkle with course salt, if desired. Serve hot or warm.

Beet Casserole

2010-10-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

If you were just thinking: I wonder what other delightful beet dishes Well-Cookbooked has tried lately? than this post is sure to please! (And even if you weren't thinking that, I think this is a recipe you can still enjoy.)

Technically I didn't so much cook this recipe as I did pick it out of a book and tell my husband to make it. But I did the cookbook perusal and the shopping for ingredients, so I'm including it and counting it toward my 5-recipes-from-each-book goal.

Russian Beet Casserole

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Steam until soft:

3 1/2 peeled and chopped beets (about 6 med sized)

1 3/4 chopped onion

Mix with:

2 1/2 cups grated sharp cheddar

Scant 1 cup plain yogurt

1/8 tsp each salt & pepper

Bake 10 mins. The cheese seems to disappear if overcooked.

Serve over rice, noodles or toast.

My favorite beet recipe so far! I was surprised, actually, because while I'd picked the recipe because it'd use up a good portion of beets, I wasn't really expecting to like it. But I did--it was scrumptious! The beets were al dente (though cooked enough to be sweet, since raw beets can be bitter) and the onion was a savoury touch, but then the sharp cheddar was, well, cheesy and the yogurt was slightly sour... All together it was complex and delicious. I would definitely make this recipe again.

Having this dish turn out so well makes me look forward to trying out other recipes from the cookbook. This came from Simply Vegetarian! [yes, complete with exclamation point]. My copy is the revised edition from 1989 with Nancy Mair and Susan Rinzler.

Russian Salad

2010-10-03T18:07:00.000-07:00

I was able to try out a new cookbook today:

Susan R. Friedland's Shabbat Shalom: Recipes and Menus for the Sabbath.

I actually bought this cookbook for my father last spring. And I suppose I still mean to send it to him, though I seem to have forgotten to pack it up and ship it to him prior to either Father's Day or his birthday. (Am I really that cookbook obsessed that I can't let one out of my grasp? Not even one purchased as a gift for someone? Hmmm...) Well, it'll make it out to him eventually. And in the meantime, I can make a recipe or two and let him know how they turn out. It'll be all part of his gift. I'm helping him decide which recipes are good.

Today I was dealing with a serious beet overstock situation. I was making a triple batch of borscht and needed a side dish. Happily, this salad was a snappy side for my soup and used-up even more beets.

Russian Salad

1 lb beets

2 lbs potatoes

1 cup cubed carrot

1 cup shelled peas, fresh or frozen

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 tsp dry mustard

2 tsp white-wine vinegar

2 Tbls olive oil

1 cup minced scallion

2 medium cucumbers, seeded and cubed

2 hard-boiled eggs

2 Tbls capers [I omitted these. Didn't have any.]

1/4 cup minced dill

My short-hand version of her directions:

First cook the beets (steam them in a covered dish in the oven until tender--about 50-90 mins). And you boil the potatoes until tender. Both beets & potatoes should then be cooled and then eventually skinned and cut into same-sized pieces.

Boil the carrot in salted water for 15 mins and add the peas for the last 15 seconds. Drain.

Mix the mayo, mustard, vinegar, olive oil, and scallion together to make the dressing.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. Garnish with the hard-boiled eggs and capers [if you have them] and dill.

Purple food is the best!

Very tasty. I'm not usually one to single the praises of cold potato anything, but adding the cucumber, peas, and beets to the potatoes gave this salad a sophistication far beyond anything its plain potato salad cousin can muster. I do believe I'll make this again.

Pumpkin Saag

2010-10-01T17:16:00.000-07:00

One small pumpkin, tons of garlic, a section of fresh ginger that needs to be used up, and what seems to be acres upon acres of chard... What's a woman to make?

Rainbow chard. It's pretty and grows & grows & grows...

I decided to focus on the pumpkin and searched through a few cookbooks for inspiration, finally alighting on Moskowitz & Romero's Veganomicon. Their recipe for Pumpkin Saag was easily adapted to assist me with my I-have-so-much-chard-I-could-scream situation.

Pumpkin Saag

3 pounds sugar pumpkin

3 Tbls oil [the recipe calls for peanut oil, but due to daughter's allergy I used olive]

1 large onion, diced finely

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 teaspoon garam masala

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon cayenne

1 cup water

1-inch cube fresh ginger, peeled

2 bunches fresh ~~spinach~~ chard greens, washed well and chopped coarsely

juice of 1/2 lime [I used the cheater plastic-lime kind]

First they have you cut the pumpkin in half (clean out the stringy insides and the seeds) and bake the two halves cut-side-down on a cookie sheet at 350 F for about 45 mins. Then you let the pumpkin cool completely and, once cool, you peel off the tough skin and chop the pumpkin up into 1 inch cubes.

Next you saute the onions in oil for a few minutes, then add the garlic and saute for a few more minutes.

Once the onions and garlic are lightly browned, you add the pumpkin and cook until heated (about 3 mins). Add the spices and salt and ginger. Add the water and cook for 5 minutes, mixing often. Finally, add the greens in batches, mixing well after each addition.

Cook for another 10 minutes or so, stirring often. Add the lime. Adjust the salt. Allow to sit for a bit before serving.

The cookbook suggests pairing this with basmati rice, chutney and flat bread, which would have been good, but we kept it simple and served it atop brown rice.

It was delish, and made for tasty, beautifully aromatic leftovers to take to work.

Garam Masala

2010-09-27T17:48:00.000-07:00

I made curry this weekend and the recipe called for garam masala.

Penzey's will sell it to you, but you can make it yourself, if you have the inkling.

From The Spice Box: A Vegetarian Indian Cookbook
by Manju Shivraj Singh:

Garam Masala, Powdered

1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns

16 whole cloves

6 whole cardomom seeds (green)

1 inch piece of cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon whole black, small cumin seeds

2 bay leaves

2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds

The directions say to grind all of the above in a coffee grinder or pepper mill, but I went old school and used my mortar and pestle. (Also: I don't have a coffee grinder.)

Took a few minutes, but I was pleased with the results (though my arm was too tired to take any more photos).

According to the cookbook, households in northern India insist upon grinding garam masala fresh daily. If I had to do that... I would probably invest in a coffee grinder. ;-)

Pumpkin Seeds

2010-09-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

Last year I tried to roast pumpkin seeds. The charred, inedible remains of that attempt were in my mind today when I had the guts of a pumpkin spread out before me.

Could I carry on alone?

No. I needed professional help.

I looked through four or five different cookbooks before I found directions for roasting the seeds. (I believe most cookbook authors have written recipes based on the premise that their readers can figure out basic one or two ingredient recipes--as in, pumpkin seeds and salt--on their own. They apparently didn't know I'd be one of their readers.)

I was grateful to find Didi Emmons didn't overestimate my cooking abilities. Her Vegetarian Planet includes directions for roasting pumpkin seeds. And if you're like me and lack all culinary skill, perhaps you'll appreciate this as much as I:

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

To prepare the seeds, put them with the attached strings into a colander, and separate the strings from the seeds under cold running water. Spread the seeds on a baking sheet, and bake them at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. Stir in 1 tablespoon olive oil, some ground black pepper, and salt. Bake the seeds 40 minutes more, stirring from time to time.

My oven tends to run hot, so my seeds were a bit scorched when I checked on them at the 20 minute mark. I turned the dial down to 300 and only cooked them for 20 more minutes.

Not just edible, totally delicious!

I Cooked Borscht!!!

2010-09-20T12:00:00.000-07:00

That's right, I actually got myself into the kitchen and cooked something from one of my cookbooks! I think it was the scent of woodburning stoves permeating the neighborhood this morning; just seemed like a day when one should be in the kitchen, making something warm and nourishing.

I chose to make borscht, since we have a garden full of beets and onions and received even more beets and onion--not to mention tons of raw garlic--in our CSA this weekend.

What I like about this recipe is that it uses the entire beet--root with peel and leaves and stems--not just a peeled root. Waste not, want not!

From The New Laurel's Kitchen

Whole Beet Borscht

1 small onion [I used two]
1 clove garlic [I used three!]
2 tsp oil [I used extra virgin olive oil]
2 Tbls flour
5 cups stock or water [I used some of the frozen stock we still have saved from this spring]
1 bunch beets and their greens (3 large or 6 small) [I tossed in a few extra]
1 potato
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1/2 small cabbage
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp honey
2 Tbls tomato past or 2 fresh tomatoes, chopped [I used the fresh option, since I had them on hand]

Chop onion and saute with garlic clove in oil. Mash garlic clove when onion is translucent and browning. Stir in flour and cook gently for a minute. Add stock or water and bring to a boil.

Meantime, trim roots of beets, saving the good leaves and stems. Grate beets, potato, and carrot, or slice them thin. Slice celery thin. Add these and simmer 10 minutes while you shred the cabbage and chop the beet leaves and stems small. Add these and bay leaf, salt, pepper, honey and tomato to the vegetable mixture. Simmer until all vegetables are tender. Remove bay leaf.

Makes 10 cups.

Mmmm. Nothing quite like beets. You either love 'em or you hate 'em. You've probably already figured-out which side of that fence my family and I are on...

Post In Which I Discuss Frugalness & Cranberries

2010-09-18T18:48:00.000-07:00

I actually thought my cookbook buying days were ending. No longer can I pop into Saint Vincent de Paul's and find books for $1.00. No, they've increased their prices to a bloated $3.00-$4.00 a cookbook. And I cannot abide it.

I've held in my hand several Frugal Gourmet cookbooks these past months, nearly talking myself into a splurge. But I've always finally held off, not convinced that my fanatical need for cookbooks is at the stage where I pay more than $2.00 a pop. Especially for a cookbook which contains "Frugal" in its title.

Today, my patient tightwadedness feels triumphant. I can still find cookbooks for less than a buck here in Madison: at my local library's book sale. I arrived in time for their "we'll sell you anything you can fit into this bag for $3" clearance. And did I ever manage to pack my paper bag full. I believe even a professional grocery store bagger would have been impressed. Final total: sixty-three books, five of which were cookbooks. My haul included Jeff Smith's The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American, which I well remember from my younger days (having read many of Jeff Smith's books and spending hours watching his show on PBS). So HAH, Saint Vincent's! I just bought a cookbook for less than $0.10 and I more than ever convinced that your new $4.00 prices are rip-offs.

Don't be scared-off by the odd Boy Scouts/granny/turkey photo on the front cover. This is a good book!

So, you ask, upon my initial review of the book, what have I discovered? Let me tell you. The chapter on cranberries. It's nearly cranberry season, and I literally had no idea the amazing options we'll soon have. Oh yes, it's beyond sauce. Far beyond. There's going to be:

Cranberry Fool (sweetened cranberries, almond extract, orange peel & whipping cream)
Cranberry Cheddar Sandwiches (buttered bread spread with cranberry sauce and cheddar, broiled)
Cranberry Pie (berry pie! using cranberries!)
Cranberry Dumplings (Mr. Smith warns that these are addictive)

and

Sweet Potatoes with Cranberries (fresh cranberries added to a sweet potato souffle)

That's right. I'm actually vowing to begin cooking again soon. Within the month. Exclusively with cranberries.

What?

Food Blogger Writing about Food Columnist

2010-08-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

I've just finished reading Wild in the Kitchen, a cookbook by Will Jones, a former columnist at the Minneapolis Tribune. Picked up the cookbook (published in 1961) for a smooth $2 at St. Vinny's (LOVE that place!). Oddly enough, I can't find hide nor hair of the cookbook online. Imagine! In all the world of Amazon, no one is selling a copy? Hmmmm...

I'd never heard of Will Jones, but I gather his column was as a food critic (I get the information that he was a columnist from the book jacket). And I'm guessing specifically critic because while his writing is that of a foodie, his recipes are all scavenged from others. Other cooks, restaurants, other people's mother and aunts, other cooking club members. Very very seldom does he claim a recipe as as his own creation (and when he does, it often includes sliced white Pepperage Farm bread as it's main ingredient. Yes, sugared/fried white bread is one of his concoctions.)

So personal chef extraordinare he's not. Nevertheless he seems to have the tastebuds for this sort of life (food writing) and the descriptions he includes for each and every recipe remind me exactly of how today's funny food bloggers write a post (I'm including myself in that group. I realize my claim hangs by only the most tenuous of threads. Let me live my dream, please.)

These two recipe, for brownies and accompanying peach topping, will be the first on my list to try. Once I reenter the kitchen and will myself to pick up a mixing spoon, that is. (Maybe by Christmas?)

Mr. Jones describes these as brownies of authority, "not to be confused with the chocolate dog biscuits commonly made to assuage packs of hungry children."

Grownup Brownies
[credited to Mrs. Bowen]

Step One:

2 squares bitter chocolate
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1/8 tsp salt
2 eggs, separated
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup nuts, chopped
1 tsp vanilla

Melt chocolate. Add sugar, butter & salt. Add beaten egg yolks, flour, vanilla and nuts. Mix well. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Bake in an eight-inch square plan at 350 for about twenty minutes. Cool.

Step Two: Frosting

2 squares bitter chocolate
1/4 cup cream
1 1/2 Tbls butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten slightly
1/2 tsp vanilla

Melt chocolate. Mix chocolate, cream, butter, sugar, and egg in a heavy pan. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Boil one minute, sturring. Remove from heat, add vanilla, and cool. Beat two or three minutes. Spread onto brownies. Refrigerate overnight. Cut into sixteen squares.

Serve brownies accompanied by

Peaches with Wine
[credited to M. Barrows and Co., previously published in The New Serve It Buffet]

4 large ripe well-flavored peaches
3/4 cup any good red wine
2 Tbls powdered sugar
1 piece cinnamon
1/2 lemon peel, grated

Slice the peeled peaches into a bowl, and cover them until the wine mixture is ready. Heat the wine with the other ingredients in an enamel, glass or agate double boiler until boiling; then pour, while still boiling, over the peaches. Let this stand covered for at least two hours. Then turn it into a serving dish.

My Fannie

2010-07-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

Alas, my heinie is getting bigger monthly even without me cooking (perhaps because I'm not cooking). But that's not the subject of this post. I'm talking about the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. What a fun book.

Its full title is The All New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook.

::talk about a mouthful!::

My tenth edition copy was purchased for $1 at St Vincent's and hails from some tidy kitchen in 1959. I fear that the previous owner cooked nary an item from the book, it's in such pristine condition. I hope to spill upon it some spaghetti sauce or some other gooey nummy substance so it at least appears to have been loved by someone.

One bit I find amusing: this edition contains the preface to the first edition (1896), a quote which reveals Fannie's hope for a near-future America that I don't believe has yet been realized:

"... the time is not far distant when a knowledge of the principles of diet will be an essential part of one's education. Then mankind will eat to live, will be able to do better mental and physical work, and disease will be less frequent."

Can't say that America is here as she'd predicted, but still nice, no?

I am perhaps overly proud that I have actually MADE SOMETHING from this cookbook. I'd forgotten about it when I'd written my last post. I made---wait for it---French Dressing. That's right! A vinaigrette. Fancy.

French Dressing

Mix in a bottle or jar with a cover

1/2 cup olive or salad oil

2 Tbs mild vinegar

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

1/2 clove garlic

Cover. When ready to serve, remove the garlic and shake hard to blend. Makes 1/2 cup.

Here's what I don't understand. If you buy French dressing at the grocery store, it's red. It's sweet and red. But when you make it from a recipe it's your regular every-day vinaigrette like you'd imagine your store-bought Italian to be.

I don't really understand it. I just accept it.

A Post In Which I Reveal My Craziness

2010-06-04T19:36:00.000-07:00

I think I may actually have a problem. I am an obsessive cookbook collector. Cookbook maniac. I know that's, like, the point of this entire blog--too many cookbooks and not enough cooking--but I think I've officially turned into a cookbook freak.

I haven't been posting here, not because I'm lazy (though I am) but because I honestly haven't cooked a single thing (nope, not a single thing) in months. Months! Nevertheless...

I've [somehow] managed to procure 6 (or 10) more cookbooks.

Good ones!!

And some bad ones that are rather funny and embrace their badness.

I plan to share them with you, even if I don't in fact cook anything right off the bat.

Here's a good one: The Night Before Cookbook by Paul Rubinstein & Leslie Rubinstein (1967).

It's big idea: prepare most of your party foods the day/evening before so that the night of the big event you don't have to rush around like a mad person getting ready. They tell you what to prepare in what order, how to store it, and how to put the finishing touches on the next day. Brilliant!

The introduction was what caught my eye and demanded that I buy the book to read it in its entirety. This quote in particular, written by Leslie about her husband, Paul:

Paul was not only born with a silver spoon in his mouth--it was filled with pate de foie gras.

Funny, right? Gross, and no one should be eating foie gras, much less feeding it to a baby (click here to be cool and learn all about it from Kate Winslet), but it gave me the impression that here were some rich food snobs who were trying to impress me with their recipes. I bet they were pretty good recipes if these folks had their fashionable reputations on the lines. And so I've read and I really have been impressed. One dessert recipe in particular, Bombe Rothschild--a fantastical ice cream cake stuffed with chocolate and covered in cookies and chocolate sauce--sounds really impressive.

Will I actually make any recipes from Night Before? I hope so. I hope I whip up all sorts of recipes from each and every one of my ever growing stash of cookbooks. For now, however, I'm content to sit back and read of decadent foods. While sipping water and maybe scarfing a potato chip or two.

Use Your Noodle, My Friends

2010-02-28T09:33:00.000-08:00

Taking a break from my usual blogging purpose & propose you ponder this:

No one claims that a packet of ramen noodles is the best for you. MSG, lots of other seasonings I can't begin to pronounce, and super yummy fatty noodles do not a health food make.

However, at $0.10 a packet your wallet (and your belly) always feel happy when it's for dinner (I believe MSG's affect on your brain may have something to do with that).

But. If you're one to avoid and/or scoff at the idea of a $0.10 meal, in all its MSG-laden goodness, there is now somewhere to turn for relief.

Enter Japanese chef Schiochi Fujimaki. He'll whip you up a bowl (well, it takes three days) of some fabulous noodle soup and he'll only charge you $110.00 for the experience.

Is that a 3,000% difference in price? For a bowl of noodles? (I'm not good at math!)

Yet in his defense: this dish is "25 years of [his cooking] experience distilled into one bowl." If I'd spent 25 years learning how to perfect something, even noodles, I suppose I too would want at least $100 a pop for its creation.

Best news: you soon won't even have to go to Japan to order some. Fujimaki is planning on opening a restaurant in LA.

Perfect. See ya there!

Care for Curried Carrots?

2010-02-06T17:14:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in my last post, I have 5 lbs of carrots to cook. Thank you Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero for this tasty, zippy recipe I found in my copy of Veganomicon.

Curried Carrot Dip

1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1/4 cup roasted sunflower seeds (salted are okay, just add less salt)
2 teaspoons grapeseed or other vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon minced raw garlic
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Boil the carrots for 7 to 10 minutes, until soft. Drain and let cool just until they are no longer steaming.

Place the sunflower seeds in a blender or food processor and process into crumbs. Add all remaining ingredients and blend until smooth, scraping down the sides of the processor as you go.

Taste for salt and adjust the spices and lemon. Transfer to a covered container and refridgerate until ready to use (at least 30 minutes).

It's an attractive dip (I actually took pictures! I just need to load them onto my computer... I'll get to it this weekend)--orange, with a texture similar to hummus. And far more pleasing to look at than those sad, pale ranch or dill dips that everyone usually brings to potlucks.

Thinking about serving this dip with carrot sticks gives me an icky cannibalistic vibe; thankfully it pairs well with crackers, bagel chips and cucumber sticks or rounds. It would also be great tucked into a pita with some lettuce and maybe some raisins.

Mama and Baby Girl give this recipe a thumbs up. Daddy hasn't tried it yet (but I suspect he'll like it).

Carrot Soup

2010-01-31T17:05:00.000-08:00

I found a 5lb bag of organic carrots on sale for $3 last week and snatched that deal right up. My husband tells me I'm crazy, but I swear I will cook wonderful things with those roots before they spoil. I swear it!

My first creation is from Laurel Robertson's The New Laurel's Kitchen

Carrot Soup
Makes 8 cups

5 medium-large carrots
2 small potatoes (or 1 large)
1 bunch leeks (or 1 large onion)
2 tablespoons butter or oil
1 teaspoon dry tarragon leaves or 1 tablespoon fresh tarragon
2 cups milk
2 cups vegetable stock or water
1 teaspoon salt
pinch black pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine

Cut carrots in 1" chunks, quarter the potatoes, and place both in a 2-quart sauce pan. Add just enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, until vegetables are tender. Remove and discard potato peels.

Meanwhile, wash leeks thoroughly and chop them coarsley. If they are very muddy, chop them first and rinse well in a sieve after chopping. Saute in butter along with the tarragon. Use blender or food processor to puree the vegetables in batches, adding the milk, stock, and salt. Return soup to pot; add pepper and wine, and reheat.

My concern/confusion about this recipe:
I covered the carrots and potatoes and cooked them. But then, though it says to discard the potatoes peels, it doesn't actually tell you to drain the water. I was faced with a dilemma. Toss the carrot/potato water and then add new milk and stock and heat or keep the water and add the milk and stock to it OR keep the water, add the milk and don't add any additional stock because that would be too liquidy.

I chose door number three. I kept the water in which I'd boiled the roots, added everything to that pot, and then used an immersion blender to blenderize the carrots and potatoes and onions. And it worked really well! I'm not sure my soup turned out just as it was intended to, but I (and my husband and my daughter) were happy with the results. Mmmm, carrots.

P.S. Is it ridiculous that I don't take pictures of anything I cook for this blog? I just keep forgetting...

A Most Eggcellent Sandwich!

2010-01-17T15:45:00.000-08:00

A quick and easy recipe, and my first from the über famous Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron.

Egg Salad Spread

Mix a crumbled hard-cooked egg with 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise and a tablespoon of any or all of the following: diced celery or onion, fresh parsley, tofu, and mashed beans.

I used an egg, Miracle Whip, and a tablespoon of canned (drained and rinsed) white kidney beans, smushed them together, spread the mixture on wheat bread, and cut the sandwich into small pieces.

Uli turned up her nose at the food initially, no doubt due to the unfamiliarity of the meal (she's had bread, she's had hardboiled eggs, but I'd rarely, if ever, given her an actual sandwich before). But once she got over her suspicion (I put the sandwich pieces on my own plate, which she loves to steal food from) she gobbled it up. A success!

****************************

From what I've gathered, everyone who has had a baby in the last ten years has received Yaron's book at her shower. Perhaps because I asked for mostly recycled, resale-store items for my shower (I recommend it!) I missed-out on that trend, but ended up buying the book myself after hearing so much about it. And I will say it has a LOT (a lot a lot a lot) of information packed into it.

More that just recipes, Yaron includes growth charts, nutrition 101, food prep and sanitation tips, pro-pasteurization rants, storage/freezing ideas, and a conservative food introduction schedule. Filled with recipes appropriate for both the new-to-solids infant as well as the adults who live with her, nevertheless much of the book (about 1/3) consists of household tips ranging from the already well known (how to make cleaners from vinegar and baking soda) to the truly bizarre (make your own "pesticide" by spraying dead bugs on your plants' leaves--you hunt for dead bugs, grind them up in your blender with some water, strain, and put in a spray bottle. This apparently freaks other bugs out and they'll leave your plants alone).

We'll see. Reading Super Baby Food kinda makes my head hurt (seriously, each page is crammed full--the page I just opened to as an example has 12 recipes on it (not including variations), but it does seem to be a wealth of information (if not a tad to obsessive about pasturization). I'll flip through and cook a few more things and we'll see how it goes.

Gingered Squash

2010-01-06T05:50:00.000-08:00

No silly puns for this recipe. Just tasty goodness from [The New] Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson, Caroly Flinders, and Brian Ruppenthal.

Sandy's Gingered Squash

3 cups hot, cooked, mashed winter squash
1 1/2 tsp butter
pinch salt
2 Tbls finely minced fresh ginger
juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbls honey

Mix all ingredients, adjusting the amount of lemon and honey as required for balance. (It will depend on how sweet your squash is).

Makes about 3 cups, or 4 to 6 servings.

Photo care of Spork and Knife

This was an extremely simple recipe to make. However, I regret to say that I made it quickly one afternoon because I had a squash that wasn't going to last much longer and as it turned out that evening my family and I ended up going out to eat at a restaurant with my in-laws. And then we ate things at home on future nights that the sweet squash wouldn't complement. And then it was Christmas. And then it was New Year's. And now the squash really really needs to be tossed from the fridge, even though it was "Food-Saver-ed."

So no family reactions to this recipe because they didn't, in fact, eat any of it. But I did (several spoonfulls) and it was lovely.

I will certainly make this dish again. On a night when we are not going out to a restaurant. ;-)

Use You Nogg'n! (Make Homemade Eggnog)

2009-12-25T08:36:00.000-08:00

I adore eggnog. I like it extra thick, so it's like a milkshake. I like it cut with 7-Up so it's thinned. I like it with nutmeg. I like it with cardamom. I like it with some whiskey. I like Silk-nog. I like eggnog any which way.

But I didn't know for sure until this Christmas if I'd like homemade eggnog. The kind they refer to in Christmas movies as "the good stuff," and with an "Auntie sure makes tasty eggnog! [wink, wink]"

But I so did.

Here it is. The Good Stuff. From Anna Thomas' Vegetarian Epicure

Eggnog

12 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 qt. rich milk
1 cup cognac
1 cup dark rum
1 large orange
1 lemon
1 qt. heavy cream
grated nutmeg

Beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick, then stir in the milk, cognac, and rum. Beat the egg whites until they just hold a peak, and fold them in. Put this mixture away to chill for a few hours.

Peel the orange and cut off the white pulp from the inside of the peel until only the pure orange rind is left. Cut this into matchsticks, as thin as possible, and about 1 1/2 inches long. Grate the fresh lemon rind.

Whip the cream until it only just begins to thicken, not so much that it actually holds peaks. Stir this half-whipped cream into the milk and egg mixture, and beat a few more strokes with the whisk. Stir in the lemon rind and half of the orange rind. Pour the eggnog into a serving bowl. Over the top of it, sprinkle the remaining orange rind and plenty of grated nutmeg.

Serves 25-30.

A few notes:

As you may have noticed, you'll be drinking raw eggs and so, assuming you don't want to die of salmonella poisoning, you need to be certain that the eggs you're using are fresh fresh fresh and from healthy happy chickens (choose a local, cage-free farm).

The recipe as written serves 25-30. Unless you're expecting that many guests or your smaller group loves eggnog as much as I do (I had 3 or 4 mugs) and won't be driving afterward, you might consider making a half-batch. Using the measurements provided makes a LOT of eggnog and, being mainly raw eggs and cream, it won't keep well.

Serve with swizzle-sticks or spoons. The cream will separate from the nog and being fresh from that relationship and looking for fun will cling to the very next nice person it meets (i.e. you and your nose).

Keep some Ibuprofen on-hand for the next morning. No, not because of the cognac & rum, but because after whipping the egg whites and cream you won't be able to turn your wrist the next day, which is something I find inconvenient.

When I make this again (and I will make it again) I will not be cutting the orange peel into matchsticks. Or, if I do ('cause you never know, maybe I'll change my mind and feel matchstick-y) I'll cut fewer. As it was, with the entire orange peel cut and in the nog, the peel ended up in my mouth as I took sips and I had to pull it out and stick it back in my mug and then on the next sip it happened again. Annoying. I liked the orange flavor, but I'll be grating the zest next time, just like I did the lemon rind.

And there you have it! Creamy, delish, sweet, cold from the fridge but very 'warming' homemade eggnog.

Perhaps your New Year celebration could use a batch?

Pump[kin] up the Muffins!

2009-12-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

So you want a healthy[ish] breakfast bread that's sweet enough to satisfy a sweet tooth but not covered in chocolate chips or granulated sugar like ~~my normal breakfast~~ a coffee shop muffin?

Enter another winner from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe:

Pumpkin Muffins

nonstick spray
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt (rounded)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp allspice
3 to 4 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 Tbsp chopped orange zest
1/2 cup (packed) brown sugar
1 cup mashed pumpkin
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 400F. Lightly spray 8 standard muffin cups with nonstick spray.
Combine the flour, salt, baking powder, spices, granulated sugar, and orange zest in a med-size bowl. Crumble in the brown sugar and mix with a fork or your fingers until blended.
Measure the pumpkin into a second med-sized bowl. Add the egg, milk, and vanilla, and beat with a fork or a whisk until smooth.
Slowly pour this mixture, along with the melted butter, into the dry ingredients. Using a spoon or rubber spatula, stir from the bottom of the bowl until the dry ingredients are all moistened. Don't overmix; a few lumps are okay.
Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. For smaller muffins, fill them up about four-fifths full. For larger muffins, fill them up to the top. If you have extra batter, spray one or two additional muffin cups with non-stick spray and fill with the remaining batter.
Bake in the middle of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until lightly browned on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Remove the pan from the oven, then remove the muffins from the pan and place them on a rack to cool. Wait at least 30 minutes before serving.

It's not perfectly wholesome goodness with that 1/3 of a cup (plus 4 Tbls) of refined sugars, but it's not all that bad.

Best of all, the baby girl loved them! So, score!

And, of course, not necessarily just for breakfast. They'd be too sweet (imo) to serve with soup or salad, but they'd be great for dessert. It wouldn't be, like, a wildly sumptuous decadent dessert, but a sweet ending to a meal nevertheless.

Let them eat cake!

2009-12-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

I hesitate to even type this one out. I did make this cake, so I might as well share the info, but unfortunately, we didn't get to eat it.

There was so much food on Thanksgiving that after I'd frosted this cake I covered it and put it in the fridge and forgot about it. Ack! By the time we were hungry and could have been ready to enjoy some cake, days and days had passed and, lacking a proper covering in the refrigerator, the cake was a dried-out and hard as a rock. Sadness.

Here's what I think would have been my declaration about the recipe: While the cake itself was tasty, I didn't enjoy the frosting.

Both my husband and I sampled the frosting before I put it on the cake, but while he said it was okay (though he admitted he could taste the tofu), I thought it was sour and rather yucky. I only frosted the cake with it because I hoped that once on the cake the tofu-y-ness wouldn't be as obvious as it was when snacking on the frosting alone, but I think I might actually have felt led to grab the cake out and slice it up if I hadn't been so apprehensive about the frosting I'd slathered on it.

Apple Cardamom Cake with Lemon-Maple Frosting
from Vive le Vegan! by Dreena Burton

Cake
1 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup ground oats
1/4 cup unrefined sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup vanilla or plain non-dairy milk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup canola oil

Preheat oven to 350F. In a lg bowl, combine all the dry ingredients, sifting in the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir until well combined. In a separate bowl, combine the applesauce, non-dairy milk, vanilla, and oil. Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir through, mixing until just well combined (do no overmix). Pour into two lightly oiled cake pans and bake for 22-24 minutes, until lightly golden and a toothpick inserted in teh center comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

Frosting (since I didn't really like the frosting I'm just listing the ingredients, not the actual measurements nor instructions on how to make it):
silken firm tofu
vanilla extract
canola oil
maple syrup
unrefined sugar
sea salt
freshly squeezed lemon juice
lemon rind
plain non-dairy milk
agar powder

Frost your cake and refrigerate for at least a few hours to set. Serve cake slices with some vanilla or chocolate ice-cream.

It was easy to make and smelled delish. I really do wish I'd had a taste. Oh well. I'll just have to make it again. {smile} And I'm making a promise to myself: the next time I bake a cake and am concerned about the frosting I'll just sprinkle some powdered sugar on top of the crumb or make a quick sugar glaze to drizzle over it. I will NOT risk ruining the entire cake with gross frosting.

Promise.

Bring us some figgy pudding [or, really, any kind of pudding]!

2009-12-06T09:39:00.000-08:00

I have no idea what figgy pudding really is, but I like that song. You can chant it very loudly and really sound kind of crazy (we won't leave until we get some, we won't leave until we get some) but still be Christmas-y and cheerful.

So, lacking figs or a recipe for figgy pudding, I made a different kind of pudding today using two leftover sweet potatoes. From the breakfast recipe bonanza that is Sunlight Cafe by Mollie Katzen, here's a delish breakfast treat, perfect for a Sunday brunch (or perhaps even a nutrient-rich weeknight dessert).

Sweet Potato Pudding
yield: six servings

Nonstick spray
1 1/2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potato
1/2 tsp salt (scant)
1/4 cup light brown sugar (packed)
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp powdered ginger
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

squeezable lime wedges (optional)
blackberries (optional)

Half-fill a 9x13" pan with water and place on a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly spray six 6-oz ramekins with nonstick spray.
Place the mashed sweet potato in a medium bowl, sprinkle in the salt, sugar, and spices, and continue to mash until very smooth. Slowly pour in the beaten eggs and mix until they are completely blended in. Pour in the milk and vanilla extract and mix everything until uniformly combined.
Spoon the pudding into the prepared ramekins, distributing it equally. Gently place the ramekins in the panful of hot water in the oven.
Bake for 35-40 mins, or until a knife inserted halfway between the edge the center of the ramekin comes out clean (the middle might still be soft, but it will continue to cook once pulled out of the oven). Carefully remove the ramekins from the pan of water and place them one by one on a rack to cook. (Tongs are very useful for this awkward process.)
Cool to room temperature or chill before serving. This pudding is best at room temperature or cold, with some fresh lime juice squeezed onto each serving and a few choice blackberries on top.

Seems straightforward, though of course I messed up a bit. I had only two ramekins, so after I filled those I also poured the pudding mixture into a small ceramic dish I have as well as a larger shallow piece of pottery that I made a few years ago in my class. I put the ramekins and the small ceramic dish into the water bath just fine, but when it came time to add the larger, shallow dish I realized I'd made a grave error. The level of water inthe 9x13 pan had rising higher and higher as the dishes were added and the larger dish I placed in there was too shallow: the water overflowed into it and mixed with the pudding. Total ruin. Of that particular dish, anyway, which was about half of the recipe's worth. The other three smaller (taller) dishes were just fine and baked up nicely.

I squeezed some lime juice over the remaining three dishes (which, since there are three of us, really worked out well) and added some powdered sugar to the tops for a touch of sweetness. Really, really good!!!

You probably didn't notice...

2009-12-01T18:33:00.000-08:00

...but there's a new cookbook on my shelf!

I picked-up Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe the other day. I haven't cooked anything from it yet but I'm enjoying devouring the chapters in my spare time (which, I feel, isn't much lately, now that my daughter is walking, running, and climbing!)

So far I'm impressed by Ms. Katzen's detailed descriptions about cooking grains, eggs and breads. I'm looking forward to getting into the kitchen and taking some of her advice.

More Thanksgiving Recaps, More Dreena

2009-11-30T18:10:00.000-08:00

I don't know if you noticed, but I basically made my entire Thanksgiving Day meal from Dreena Burton's cookbooks. Because she's awesome. Or, at least, her blog is awesome and now that I'm finally cooking from her books instead of simply drooling over them, I'm finding that her recipes are awesome too.

I made several desserts, but this one, from Vive le Vegan! was my favorite:

Gingered Pear Crisp ---hit the hyperlink for the wheat-free version

Pear base:
3 Tbsp pure maple syrup
1 tsp arrowroot powder
5 fresh pears, peeled, cored and cut into chunks (roughly 4 1/2 cups)
3 Tbsp dried cranberries
2 - 2 1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger
2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/8 - 1/4 ground cardamom
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp allspice

Topping:
1/2 quick oats
1/4 ground oats (grind oats in the food processor)
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 almond slivers (optional)
1/4 unrefined sugar
1/4 tsp sea salt
3 Tbsp canola oil
1 Tbsp pure maple syrup

Preheat oven to 350 F. For the pear base: in a large bowl, combine the maple syrup with the arrowroot and stir until arrowroot is dissolved. Add the remaining pear base ingredients and toss throughly until well combined. Transfer to a lightly oiled 8x8 baking dish. In another bowl, combine all the topping ingredients, and use your fingers to work the mixture until just crumbly. Sprinkle the topping over the pear mixture, distributing evenly. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until golden and a little bubbly. Serve hot or warm.

I made a few alterations to our crisp: I left out the almond slivers, I used raisins instead of dried cranberries, and I used grapeseed oil instead of canola. Also, I prepared this dish the day before, cutting up the pears, measuring-out the dry ingredients, and then didn't combine the wet/dry and base/topping until the next day. It was really easy to mix everything together and pop the dish right into the oven as we sat down to eat so that after dinner we had a warm, fresh-from-the-oven dessert to eat, topped with scoops of vanilla ice cream. Yum!!

How 'bout some Hummus?

2009-11-29T04:44:00.000-08:00

Here's a new-to-me recipe, made on Thanksgiving (or, actually, the day before, but for Thanksgiving) that was wonderful!

Dreena Burton's Cannellini Bean Yam Hummus from Vive le Vegan!

1 1/2 cups cooked cannellini beans
3/4 cup cooked yam
3 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 small clove garlic, chopped
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 - 1 tsp chipotle hot sauce
1/2 tsp sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
~~1/2 cup toasted pine nuts~~
2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped (garnish)

Combine all ingredients except pine nuts and cilantro into a food processor and puree until very smoothe, scraping down the sides of the bowl a few times throughout. Once smooth, ~~add the pine nuts and puree just a little, leaving some texture (or blend smooth if you like it that way)~~. Season to taste with extra sea salt and pepper and chipotle sauce, if desired.

I didn't use any pine nuts, so I imagine my finished hummus was a bit different than it was supposed to be, but it didn't need the pine nuts for texture and the taste was great: creamy and only mildly beany (cannellini beans aren't as POW as chickpeas are) with a bit of heat from the chipotle sauce.

A great dip for pita chips or crackers!!

I'm More "Moron" Than "Moroccan"

2009-11-28T06:16:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a quiet family gathering with just one extra setting at the table, making prep very calm and relaxing. Perhaps that was the reason I decided to go against the grain.

You know how they say to never never never try a new recipe on a big day? Well, I am so ~~stupid~~ awesomely confident that I was sure only good things (versus complete and total failure) were in store for me. Ahem.

Well, hello there, Complete and Total Failure! Fancy seeing you here. How are your kids: Embarrassment and Egg-on-Face?

I cooked several new recipes for this year's table, and I'll blog about each individually, but I figured I'd get the worst result out into the open first thing. It was our main course. I know, I know.

I need to say right up front that I'm sure it wasn't the recipe. It was me. I know where and when I went wrong, and I'll point it out.

From Dreena Burton's Vive le Vegan!

Moroccan Chickpea Patties served with Ginger Dipping Sauce

Sauce
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
4-5 Tbsp pure maple syrup
2 1/2- 3 Tbsp tamari
1-1 1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)

Combine all ingredients in bowl and stir to mix well.

Patties
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium fennel bulb, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup red bell pepper, chopped
2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 medium clove garlic, chopped
1 1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp olive oil (for puree)
2 tsp freshly grated ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin
3/4 tsp paprika
1/2 cup sliced green onions
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
3 Tbsp sesame seeds
1/8 tsp salt
1 Tbsp olive oil (for frying)

In a skillet over med heat, heat the oil. Add the fennel, salt and pepper and cook for 5-6 minutes. Add the red pepper and cook for another 5 mins. Remove from heat. In a food processor, combine the chickpeas with the garlic, vinegar, olive oil, ginger, salt, cumin, paprika, and cinnamon and puree until the mixture becomes smooth (scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed). If still a little chunky, add a touch more oil or water and puree again until smooth. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and stir in the fennel/red pepper mixture and green onions. Stir through to combine well. If you have the time, refrigerate for at least an hour (the mixture will firm up and be easier to shape). Mix the breadcrumbs, sesame seeds, and sea salt and pour onto a plate. Take a mound of the chickpea mixture (roughly 1/3 cup) and form patties, then dip both sides in the breadcrumb mixture. In a skillet over medium heat, heat the oil and fry the patties for about 7-9 minutes on each side, until lightly browned (flip only once or twice).

And here's where I went wrong: I added just a tad too much of each of the liquid ingredients (rather than a scant amount I let the measuring spoons overflow a bit) and then, even though the mixture in the food processor seemed quite smooth I went ahead and added additional oil anyway. I don't know why, because she mentioned it, I guess. And then, because I'd mismanaged my time (we were less than an hour from dinner time) I was not able to leave the mixture in the fridge for an hour as recommended but only about 10 minutes.

The result? I was trying to form, coat, and fry patties out of a chickpea & fennel mixture the consistency of really soupy mashed potatoes. REALLY soupy mashed potatoes. It didn't work well. Nevertheless, I fried up the mush as best I could and served them at our table: in a heap of random fried pieces versus the golden browned patties I had been imagining. They looked, well, they looked gross. But they tasted good (if you could manage to scoop them up onto your fork). And the dipping sauce (which, of course, became a pour-over-the-food sauce since the "patties" weren't about to be dipped into anything) was very tasty. I will attempt this recipe again on another day, being careful to measure correctly and leaving myself enough time for the mixture to firm up in the refrigerator.

Lesson learned. I will not try and cook a new recipe--at least not for our main course!--on a holiday ever again. (Wait... is my husband's birthday considered a holiday?)

Let's Talk Tradition

2009-11-25T16:25:00.000-08:00

When I read a cookbook that says things like "You'll love my recipe so much you'll never again buy pre-made store bought such-and-such!" I generally don't believe them. Because I'm cheap and lazy and will SO want to buy such-and-such again instead of making it!

But in this case, the cookbook was right. Homemade cranberry sauce is fabulous. It's so tasty and easy that I will never buy that gross jelled (or filled with stems "whole") canned stuff again. Ever. I promise. (It's been three years so far, so that's impressive, no?)

Um, so yeah, I've made this recipe for the past two Thanksgivings and I made it again today. Which means it's not a new untested recipe and doesn't exactly fit into the rules of this blog challenge. But it's my self-challenge and my blog so I'm going to post it anyway.

Directly from Dreena Burton's fabulous cookbook Eat, Drink & Be Vegan, I present to you:

Traditional Cranberry Sauce
Makes 4-5 servings (about 1 cup)

1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries, rinsed
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 tsp balsamic vinegar (optional)

In a pot on medium-high heat, combine the first three ingredients and bring mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally. Once boiling, reduce heat to simmer for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until cranberries have broken down. (Reduce heat if sauce is sticking or simmering too rapidly.) Once sauce has thickened, taste test, and add balsamic vinegar for a touch of sourness if desired. Serve warm or chilled.

Seriously, go make it right now for Thanksgiving--it's not too late! (Madisonians: Willy St. Co-op has organic, locally grown cranberries in stock!)

Biscuits for the Bin

2009-11-22T12:20:00.000-08:00

And for my 10th post: a flop.

To accompany this week's Blonde Lentil Soup I whipped up a batch of biscuits. Or, rather, they whipped me. Any way you view it, I ended up with a bruised ego.

I remember the biscuits of my childhood: puffed to perfection, flaky, soaked in margarine (yes, we northwesterners then proudly cooked with Marigold), and yummy to the tummy.

My pre-teen self believed it was my own cunning hand that consistendly turned out beautiful biscuits. Nothing to do with the recipe or ingredients, just my own my brilliant ability to measure and stir. To cut-in the shortening. To turn the dial on the oven.

Apparently not.

Perhaps my magical biscuit abilities have dissipated over the past twenty years, but those I made this week were bad. Not bad enough to immediately throw out, mind you. We did choke them down, bathed in butter and soaked in the lentil soup. But they were not good enough to keep around, even though there were many left after dinner. They were flat, burned on the bottom, and dry. Unappetizing.

I took their recipe from Anna Thomas' The Vegetarian Epicure: book two (1978):

Biscuits

2 cups white flour
4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 to 2/3 cup cold milk

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Slice the butter while it is very cold, add it to the dry ingredients, and cut it in with a pastry blender or two knives until ti si in bits the size of split peas. The texture of this mixture should be a little more coarse than that of a short-crust mixture before the liquid is added.

Sprinkle 1/2 cup cold milk over the flour and butter, and stir it in quickly with a fork. Add only as much more of hte milk as is necessary to make the dough hold together.

Gather the dough up into a ball, working it together with your hands very briefly, and then roll it out 1/2 inch think on a floured board. Cut out small rounds and place them on ungreased baking sheets. If you aren't going to put them in the oven immediately, chill them in the refridgerator until ready to bake.

Bake the bicuits in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes, or until puffed and lightly browned on top. Serve with butter.

Make about 20 biscuits.

This is one recipe I followed to the letter, with no substitutions. I don't know if it's just a rotton recipe (it's certainly not an overly complicated one) or if it was my sadly lacking baking skills again (see my not-so-great Gingerbread Apple Pie attempt), but I probably won't attempt this exact recipe again.

If any of you have used Anna's recipe and found it to be a great success, let me know. Or don't. Because if you do then I'll know that it was me that was the flop.

When life gives you lemons...

2009-11-19T04:45:00.000-08:00

...make lentil stew!

It's not intuitive, no.

I don't remember why I was stockpiling so many lemons. But there they were Wednesday night, begging to be used for something spectacular. (Note: lemonade is not spectacular--it is disgusting.)

I thought briefly about plopping them into a bowl and dubbing them our new centerpiece; however, after considering that the cats chew on everything and not relishing the idea of soggy moldy lemon pieces spit out across the dining room, I focused on this blog's challenge.

I remembered reading an interesting recipe involving lentils (check) and lemons (triple check). After searching through several books' indexes I found it again, nestled away in what surely is one of the most famous vegetarian cookbooks:

Anna Thomas' The Vegetarian Epicure

You know the one. Cute line drawings, intriguing recipes, and several references to the social smoking of marijuana (she wrote the book while in college. in the 70's. Hello.).

Blonde Lentil Soup <--- click here to see the official recipe via Google Book

My slightly altered version:

Make 5 cups of broth (I had homemade broth in the freezer--go me!)

2 onions
3 cloves of garlic
2 Tbs. butter
1 tsp lemon rind, grated
1 bay leaf
1 cup dried yellow lentils
juice of 1 lemon
sweet basil
salt & pepper

Saute the onion and garlic in the butter. When the onions begin to turn brown, add them to the broth along with the lemon rind, bay leaf, and lentils. Let it cook for about 40 to 60 minutes, adding water to maintain the same consistency. Now add the freshly squeezed lemon juice, a little crushed sweet basil, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Let it simmer another 20 minutes or so and serve.

The dish was described as "exotic," and I suppose it was. You don't normally think "citrus-y zest" when you're slurping up legumes. But maybe you should.

My verdict: awesome dish. And it wasn't just me, the baby girl adored it too (she ate a ramekin full). My husband wasn't as thrilled, but I suspect it had more to do with the fact that dinner was 90 minutes late (the world's best time manager I'm not) than how it tasted; he told me he wasn't a fan of lemony stew but then ate three bowls. I'm chalking his grouchy food comments down to his being out-of-his mind starved.

Because I'm telling you: it was good.

~Thomasin

Fearless Feasting

2009-11-11T10:22:00.000-08:00

I found a recipe over the weekend and knew I had to try it because (1) we usually have all the ingredients on-hand and (2) it looked super easy. I was not afraid! And so I made it today. And of course (1) we didn't have two of the ingredients and (2) it took twice as long to cook as the directions indicated.

That's how it goes, right?

I chose my recipe from Gourmet Vegetarian Feasts by Martha Rose Shulman. I've never used her cookbook before, but paging through it I found a lot of recipes that sound delicious (cold cherry-lemon soup, coucou a l'Iranien [basically a flat omelette with nuts], garlic souffle, curried lentil pate, and many more). Today's dish was one of the most simple in the book.

Cheese, Bread, and Tomato Casserole
Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

4-6 slices whole wheat bread
8 onces Cheddar cheese, grated
3 ripe tomatoes, sliced
4 eggs
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons dry white wine
1/2 teaspoon thyme, dried or fresh
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
pepper, freshly ground
sea salt to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 2-quart baking dish or souffle dish.
Layer bread, cheese, and tomatoes in that order, two layers each in prepared baking dish.
Beat together eggs, milk, wine, thyme, mustard, pepper, and salt. Pour over cheese, bread, and tomatoes.
Bake 35-45 minutes, or until puffed and browned.

I didn't have any thyme so I used tarragon and basil. And we were out of wine, and I probably could have just skipped the 2T, but I substituted some apple cider (I don't know why. Made me feel crafty or something).

How did it taste? Great! In fact those 6-8 servings disappeared into the bellies of just two adults and one-year-old. How long did it actually take to cook? Just shy of 90 minutes. I don't know what was going on, but there was a persistent runniness that took forever to cook out. Combination of cheese and egg and tomato or something.

Would I make it again? Yes. It was quick to put together and tasty in a simple, cheesy, egg-ish way. But next time I'll count on cooking it for an hour (checking on it after 45 mins).

Savor the Flavor

2009-11-08T13:56:00.000-08:00

What happens when you have only a few of the ingredients a recipe calls for but you make it anyway? Sometimes it may be a flop, but this past week I called it dinner!

If you ever watch PBS, Christina Pirello, author of Cooking the Whole Foods Way, has a face you may recognize. Her cooking show and website are called Christina Cooks. Since I don't have cable and thus don't have the Food Network, I rely on public broadcasting for my TV cooking needs. And she's a cook who generally delivers.

I bought her cookbook where I buy nearly all my cookbooks: a second hand shop. It's the very best place to find interesting editions, and it's a super big bonus if the previous owner has made notes in the margins (I love finding those!). In this case, I nearly passed the book over because of her weird picture on its cover. Which is ridiculously unkind of me, and, thankfully, my "I...must...buy!" cookbook obsession overcame my Mean Girls moment.

Christina's story is an amazing one. She was diagnosed with terminal leukemia at 26 and given less than six months to live. Searching for her own cure she came upon macrobiotic food, began cooking-up a wholesome food storm, and 16+ years later she's healthy and well. The doctors called it spontaneous regression and told her she was lucky--Christina called it the power of healing foods and considers herself a new woman, down to her very cells.

However you choose to view her recovery, you must admire her enthusiasm for wholesome cooking. In the introduction she writes, "Develop an understanding of food and how ingredients work together, and cooking becomes an act of pure joy. How can the act of nourishment be anything but?"

I was scanning recipes this weekend, wondering what I'd do with the leeks and root vegetables we had piling up in the fridge (I swear, you put three beets in the crisper and suddenly there are 10 of them!). When I first came across Christina's recipe for roasted veggies I figured I couldn't make it: I didn't have the same mix of vegetables she called for. But after another look, I realized that her directions indicated that "any firm, hearty vegetables will serve nicely," and decided to go for it.

My version of her recipe:

Preheat oven to 375F.

Drizzle olive oil into a large roasting pan.

In pan place large, irregularly-cut pieces of
potato, with skin
beets, with skins

leeks, white part only
onion, peeled
kohlrabi, peeled
rutabaga, peeled

Drizzle Bragg's (you could use soy sauce) over the vegetables.
Bake for an hour, covered.
Serve over rice.

Her recipe had called for mushrooms, brussels sprouts, parsnips, leeks & daikon, but I don't think we missed out by using what we had on hand. What was probably key to her recipe that I didn't have: kombu (I thought there was still some left but it must have been tossed) and reduced balsamic vinegar. Next time we roast veggies I hope to have both on hand.

I know what you're saying. Roasting vegetables isn't really using a recipe. Especially when you totally change the sauce that was called for! Well, remember, I'm still a newbie cook and since we were able to eat and enjoy this meal and I'd referred to a cookbook along the way, I'm calling it a success and need to post it. Plus, according to Christina, we shouldn't "be trapped by recipes," which may be ironic for a cookbook author to write and her blogging reader to quote, but doesn't make it less true.

the call of the cookbook

2009-11-08T05:53:00.000-08:00

Can you hear its siren song?

I'm having trouble resisting...

A Bountiful Vegan Thanksgiving e-book.

I want it so hard!! But, no, I won't be buying it. I have other books (just check out my sidebar!) and I don't have $10 to spend on a book I can't even hold.

Two Spectacular Sides

2009-11-05T17:25:00.000-08:00

One of the couples in the Bradley Class I took whilst pregnant were true foodies. As in, they talked about the importance of finding truly salty sea salt, they only bought a certain kind of cinnamon (Chinese? I don't remember...) and they read books--novel-long, culinary history books--about single ingredients like beans and goat cheese and cod. I admired them so much.

Because food is fun! And choosing the best foods is a joy. I myself just haven't made it a regular success to move all these wonderful exciting joyful ingredients from the grocery or farmer's market to my table. I always fold somewhere shortly after the putting them in the fridge or cupboard and then only see them again during a brief memorial service (just before they're pitched, flushed or composted).

Matthew Amster-Burton, author of "Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater," does not have my problems. He's a Seattle-based food writer, fearless home cook, and father to the epicurious Iris. My Bradley friends recommended his book, and here I am to do the same. Seriously: even if you don't intend to cook from it, please do read it. He's a talented author and his stories about introducing foods and cooking techniques to his daughter (she's four in his last chapter) are hilarious.

I decided to try out a couple of his recipes this week. These particular ones sounded simple, and I needed to use-up the carrots and brussels sprouts from last week's CSA.

I made:
Cumin-Ginger Carrot Coins
&
Browned and Braised Brussels Sprouts

They were excellent! Though, again, I forgot to take pictures.

We served both along-side frozen enchiladas (well, they were hot when we ate them... you know what I mean!) and while the brussels sprouts, with their dark green flavor, would initially seem the more natural complement to a steamy, cheesy, beany enchilada, the cumin and ginger made the carrots an unexpectedly nice pairing as well.

We did have some leftovers (our daughter did try both sides and seemed to be fine with both, but just wasn't into eating that evening) and we combined the two different sides into one bowl. I was worried about that, but after reheating for lunch the next day was impressed by how well they did, mingled up all together.

Definitely a hit, super easy, and dishes that we will make again.

Can You Cassoulet?

2009-11-03T07:43:00.000-08:00

It turns out that I'm not just addicted to cookbooks, I'm a cookbook whore. I actually bought a cookbook (okay, I admit it: TWO cookbooks!) for myself instead of searching for presents for my daughter's birthday. I cannot not buy one if I hold one. But rather than worrying about my problems, I'll work harder on this blog in a pitiful attempt to justify my doings.

Long live America! (Something patriotic to further endear myself to you and confuse us all about what we were actually talking about.)

I cooked something new this weekend. We had a sudden influx of leeks and onions from our last CSA pick-up and I wanted to do something other than potato leek soup. Not that there's anything wrong with soup, but I wanted to be fancier. I wanted cassoulet.

No, I didn't know what cassoulet was either. In fact, I'm still unsure. I looked it up on-line yesterday and supposedly a true cassoulet always always has meat in it, but this recipe had nada.

But whatever the French would call it, it was awesome. I grabbed my copy of Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (hereto only used a couple of times even though it's teeming with amazing recipes and food tips) and looked in the index for leeks. And what a recipe I found!

Leek and Bean Cassoulet with Biscuits <--click here for recipe

I substituted cannelloni beans for the white navy beans, and rather than fresh thyme I used dried oregano. But no matter, it was great. It took some prep time, I admit, and thus may remain a weekend meal in our household until I fulfill my stay-at-home-mom dream. But it was SO GOOD. Very comforting and hearty. And smelled great. Satisfied both me and my omni husband and my sick one-year-old and gave us leftovers.

If you find yourself with leeks coming out your ears (or potatoes growing from them) or are just looking for a stew--I mean cassoulet--that will create a wonderful aroma as well as stick to your ribs, this is the recipe for you. Mmm-mm good.

(Someday I'll start taking pictures of what I cook. I keep forgetting.)

Getting Saucy with Apples

2009-10-07T18:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's correct, apple sauce. Seems simple enough, right? Like, I shouldn't even be using a cookbook, heh? Well, that was the plan: make apple sauce from scratch with just my own clever brain telling me how. But I panicked toward the end and grabbed the Joy of Cooking (the "All New" version) to see if what I was intending to do was, in fact, what I should be doing.

And it was. Cut up apples, put in saucepan, add a bit of water, toss in a cinnamon stick, and simmer until soft. Then add sugar, some nutmeg or ginger, and you've got apple sauce.

Except.

I used the apples that hadn't been needed for the Gingerbread Apple Pie--of which there were just three. Three apples to make apple sauce. That was fine by me, since I was just going to give it to the baby; no need to make gallons of it. But when I'd referenced the Joy of Cooking's instructions, what I'd taken away from it was to add 1/2 cup sugar. 1/2 cup. Not paying attention to the fact that the Joy of Cooking's recipe had used 10 apples.

It was apple syrup, basically.

Luckily, I had some pears on-hand and ended-up adding them to the mix, making a pretty decent apple-pear sauce, though I admit it was still sweeter than I would have liked.

And then I talked to my mom and she said that you don't even need to add sugar, neccesarily. I could have avoided the whole issue! Next time I'll skip the refined white stuff and, if the apples are too tart to go without sweetener, I'll add a teaspoon of agave nectar and see if that does the trick. Live and learn.

Gingerbread Apple Pie

2009-10-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

Someone in the office left a bag full of generic "baking apples" (or so their sign read) in the breakroom last week. I'd eyed them several times, but since I took so much produce from the generous co-workers' gardens this summer (namely tomatoes and cucumbers) I figured I'd let someone else take the apples. But there they sat, day after day, until, being nosy, I opened the bag to take a closer look at 'em and discovered that three were squishy rotten. I tossed those and decided to rescue the others from a similar fate.

Once home, I scoured my cookbooks (well, okay, I grabbed one and flipped to the index and looked up "apples") and found Isa Chandra Moskowitz's receipe for Gingerbread Apple Pie in her first cookbook, Vegan With a Vengeance. Isa's description, boasting that the pie was so good it became her family's holiday tradition, made the decision for me. Who could argue against gingerbread AND apple pie?

I'm not sure of the legalities of re-typing some else's receipes, so until I get that figured out, I'll just list the ingredients:

For the crust:

all-purpose flour
brown sugar
ground ginger
ground cinnamon
ground allspice
salt
baking powder
margarine (I used Smart Balance)
molasses
cold water

And for the filling:

Granny Smith apples (I don't know what kind I used, but they were green.)
brown sugar
ground cinnamon
ground or freshly grated nutmeg (I used ground)
ground allspice
ground ginger
ground cloves (I didn't have any)
maple syrup
canola oil (I used olive)
tapioca starch or arrowroot (I substituted cornstarch)

Note: I've found the full recipe on Spark Recipes: check it out!

Peeling and slicing the apples took the longest prep (and wasn't especially easy, since I had the baby girl intermittently hanging on my leg and wailing. But once the apples were ready, everything else feel quickly and easily into place.

The final result: I'd give this pie a C+

I don't know if it was me or the oven or the recipe (since I'm a novice baker I suspect I may have had something to do with it...) but the gingerbread seemed a little doughy and the filling was a little dry. Nevertheless, it wasn't bad tasting, just an odd texture.

I'd try this recipe again, next time ensuring I cooked everything at the recommended degrees (my oven may have been too cool) and weighing the amount of apples versus just eyeballing it.

So, not a resounding triumph for my first cooking attempt, but a beginning nevertheless. I'm happy to have started!!

The Challenge Begins!

2009-10-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

I purchased yet another cookbook last week and realized that I'd better begin this cookbook exercise of mine or I'll be too busy buying new bookshelves to hold my ginormous collection to ever have time to actually *gasp* cook anything.