Random Teaspoon

Where do you put your morning coffee?

2010-09-18T15:44:00.002-06:00

My blog stood at the foot of the bed this morning, nudging my sneakers toward me and carrying its leash in its mouth, begging for a walk. Well, at least it feels that way. The blog needs some attention and grooming. Get ‘er done or shut ‘er down – and folks, I’m gonna get ‘er done for a while longer. After another cup of coffee of course.

The gluten-free baking season will rear its ugly head soon enough from ghostly cupcakes to gluten-free truffles. But do I have enough cookware, bakeware, and gadgets to get me through the season?
Fortunately for me (and possibly quite boring for you), I’m excited about an opportunity to review a gadgety kitchen product for CSN Stores, which is actually a collection of over 200 specialty carrying absolutely everything, from a coffee table to kick your feet up on while you sip your morning mug of coffee as well as the cappuccino machine to brew it, the demitasse to pour it in and the coasters that nobody in your house will use anyway.

While I sadly won’t be able to review this amazing chair
that I fell in love with when I saw CSN Stores home furnishings featured in Better Homes & Garden, but at least I can get some oven mitts for the holidays. Sigh.

So that’s what’s cookin’ in my life and my kitchen. What’s going on in yours?

If you give a mouse a gluten free cookie…

2010-08-24T09:40:00.001-06:00

She’ll probably want it baked in a cast iron skillet, like Martha Stewart did. When I won a bag of Carol’s gluten free flour (from Simply Gluten Free), I wanted to make something special. This giant cookie baked in a cast iron skillet certainly fit the bill.

NOT sugar-free
NOT low carb
NOT guilt-free
IS delicious
IS gluten-free

Martha says this serves 8, but I got 16 slices out of the giant cookie.

Cast Iron Skillet Baked Chocolate Chip Cookie

2 cups gluten-free flour blend
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (about 9 ounces) mixed milk- and semisweet chocolate chips

So good. Like a big slice of chocolate chip cookie pie.

The only problem was that it was too crumbly. Next time I would add 1/2 teaspoon or so of xanthan gum to help bind it. Otherwise, I simply followed the Martha recipe, swapping out the flour for the gluten-free flour blend. Couldn’t be easier! Unfortunately, it also couldn’t be easier to eat about four slices…but that’s another story.

Low-fat Cranberry Strawberry Panna Cotta

2010-06-04T05:14:00.001-06:00

I clipped this 5-ingredient Low-Fat Cranberry Panna Cotta recipe from Food and Wine last year and finally, its time came.

Low-fat Strawberry Cranberry Panna Cotta

1 tsp gelatin
1/2 c. water
1/2 low-fat buttermilk
4 strawberries (I used frozen, thawed), chopped
10 drops NuNaturals stevia
1 c. fresh or frozen cranberries
1/4 c. erythritol (or other granular sweetener)

Makes two servings

In a small saucepan, combine the cranberries with the erythritol and water and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries soften, about 5 minutes. Mash the cranberries with the back of a spoon to make a thick sauce. Transfer the sauce to a large bowl and refrigerate, stirring often, until cool, about 15 minutes. Stir 1/4 cup buttermilk and strawberries into the cooled cranberry sauce.
In a small saucepan, sprinkle the gelatin over the remaining 1/4 cup of buttermilk. Let stand until the gelatin has dissolved, about 5 minutes. Heat the mixture over low heat, stirring a few times with a rubber spatula, until the buttermilk is just warm and the gelatin is melted, about 1 1/2 minutes; fold into the cranberry mixture.
Pour the panna cotta into 2 parfait glasses. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, until they are set.

Menu Planning: Week of May 16th-22nd

2010-05-17T06:03:00.001-06:00

My menu planning has been sucking lately. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. The planning has been intact, the execution has not been with guillotine precision. As I’m in the process of selling one house and possibly moving to a fixer upper, I forgive myself for lame meals and half-hearted attempts. In fact, if I chose to live off of Snickers and martinis, I would also forgive myself.

Sunday: catered dinner at a party! Yay!

Monday: Meatless Monday has been moved to Tuesday as the pork needs to be used. Overcooked pork tenderloin given to be by my mom, salvaged by some sort of sauce. Pork Tacos perhaps? Or sliced pork with an orange sauce or mustard marsala. We’ll see what inspires me tonight.

Meatless Monday-Tuesday: Like a Boca Burger pretending to be ground sirloin, boring Tuesday’s dinner is masquerading as Meatless Monday. Almond flour gnocchi with quick tomato sauce. Last week’s almond flour “matzoh” ball soup (from the Almond Flour Cookbook by Elana Amsterdam) was awesome and figured this would make excellent gnocchi. Speaking of gnocchi, last week’s attempt at chickpea tofu gnocchi failed utterly.

Wednesday: Burgers in lettuce wraps (or rolls if I feel inspired to bake) with chickpea/peanut flour fries.

Thursday: Parenting Class night – make a protein shake and call it dinner.

Friday: Egg foo young. Will have lots of eggs Friday night, plus it’s the local Asian Market’s produce day.

Saturday: Mama needs a night out…

Last Week’s Menu Roundup:

My Julia Child burrito omelets never happened; neither did the burgers with chickpea fries, so those will be attempted this week. The planned squid with red wine evolved into Squid Salad with Red Peppers and Herbs instead. Very good.

My uncooked leftover squid (good old tubes ‘n tentacles) was transformed into squid a la plancha from Mark Bittman’s Quick and Easy Recipes from the New York Times.

Tentacles on the side? Squid Salad with Chopped Herbs, Roasted Red Peppers and Red Onion

2010-05-16T06:28:00.001-06:00

Someone call the local news: My child ate squid.

It was a family teaching moment about our 8-legged friends under the sea. It’s like a cousin to shrimp.

Actually, my husband chimed in, it’s a cousin to the octopus.

Dinner hilarity ensued when we imitated the sounds of squid shrieking, Don’t eat me! No! No!!! as we chopped their little tentacles. We’re all about dinner table manners at our house.

Our evening meal was abruptly put on hold while our daughter ran outside to show all her friends the teensy squid clutched in her fingers and then chomped it in front of seven little girls to their collective horror and delight.

Overall verdict? The best fast food ever. I made the dressing and defrosted the bag of “tubes and tentacles” early in the afternoon. The actual cooking time was less than 10 minutes from start to finish. It would have taken longer to wait in a drive-thru line for takeout. Yup, tubes and tentacles – it’s what’s for dinner.

It was inspired by the Squid Salad with Red Peppers and Cilantro recipe from Mark Bittman’s Kitchen Express which has an Asian flair and implemented with what I had on hand for a slightly more Mediterranean bent. This can be whipped up from pantry and freezer ingredients in no time at all.

You’ll need:

Olive oil
Salt/Pepper/Red pepper
Jarred roasted red peppers
Herbs: parsley, lemon balm, cilantro or basil (or a combination – I used a handful of parsley and lemon balm)
Fresh lime and lemon
about 1 lb squid – tubes and tentacles
red onion

In a bowl, I mixed the juice of one fresh lime and a half a lemon. Drizzled in a few tablespoons of olive oil and red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Add minced herbs and toss.

I sautéed a diced red onion in olive oil and added in three sliced roasted red peppers (with marinating juices) and then the squid (defrosted, rinsed and patted dry). Sauté for 2-3 minutes and voila! Dinner is ready to terrify preschoolers across the subdivision.

Served with a side of buttered wild rice (parboiled earlier in the afternoon), broiled local tomatoes topped with gorgonzola, spinach salad with buttermilk, Greek yogurt, blue cheese and nutmeg (not shown – this is the reincarnation as the following day’s lunch) and a crisp glass of Willamette Valley Riesling.

Menu Planning: Week of May 10th

2010-05-10T05:39:00.001-06:00

I gave myself a needed respite from menu planning during the weeks of realtor chaos and showing my house at a moment’s notice. Last week I had a delightful moment of a realtor swinging by with ten minutes’ warning.

“Sure, but you’ll need to take my coconuts out of the oven when the timer goes off.”

Coconuts in the oven? Is that a euphemism for being pregnant with twins? Not in this case. I made this gluten-free, sugar-free coconut birthday cake, inspired by the gorgeous coconut cake in last month’s Cooking Light issue. I then consulted Epicurious and Dashing Dish to make it gluten-free. Mine only made two layers instead of three and it broke like a teen shoplifter under police questioning. But, it fit the bill of feeding a crowd including a diabetic, a dieter and a gluten-intolerant guy – as well as several ravenous children who declared it yummy.

Now the house is sold and it’s time to make dinner again.

Meatless Monday: Attempt at tofu chickpea gnocchi. First attempt at chickpea gnocchi was utter failure. Hoping the gluten-free gods will smile upon me and my humble kitchen.

Dessert: None. Recovering from the Cooks’ Illustrated Best Recipe Cheesecake I ate on Mother’s Day, plus the gluten-free (sugar-full) fruit tart with pecan crust.

Tuesday: Almond flour “matzoh” ball soup with shirataki noodles (matzo from the Almond Flour Cookbook by Elana Amsterdam). Side dishes? Who knows.

Wednesday: Burrito Omelets from Julia Child. No really, it sounds like a tex-mex recipe from some midwestern church flyer, but it’s really in her book.

Thursday: Parenting Class Night.

Friday: Squid with red wine sauce and broiled tomatoes with blue cheese.

Saturday: Burgers in lettuce wraps with chickpea/peanut flour fries.

Desserts to try this week: chocolate panini with La Tortilla Factory low carb wraps and Flour-free Fudgy Black Soybean Brownies.

Open-face Sandwich with Spinach, Ricotta and Fried Egg

2010-04-28T05:42:00.001-06:00

Cooking Light keeps tempting me with their photos. I finally succumbed to this Open-Faced Sandwich with Ricotta, Arugula, and Fried Egg for a light Sunday lunch.

Hmmm…but what to do for bread? Sunday is my baking day, the day I roll up my sleeves, roll out my dough and sport streaks of (gluten-free) flour on my shirt while I wonder if I’ll ever make it to the shower. Although I don’t indulge in the past time nearly as much as I used to (and my skinny jeans are grateful), the act of baking is still a soothing respite from the chaos of the week.

Sunday morning I made low carb coconut flour pancakes to start off the day, oat flour bannocks with added vanilla and stevia and the Scrumptious Sandwich Bread from The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook by Elana (of Elana’s Pantry). The bread is calorically dense since it uses mostly almond butter and almond flour, but it’s busting with nutrition. I just have to avoid eating the whole loaf.

(Note to self: don’t eat the whole loaf. Okay, that should do the trick.)

My potted arugula isn’t quite big enough to cut yet, (it would feel like a crime to cut down that baby in its infancy) so I swapped out spinach.

I also used fresh lemon balm from the garden instead of fresh thyme since that’s what I have in my garden. The great thing about the open-face sandwich is it uses half the bread of a full one, so you still get to enjoy some bread, but don’t get a super-sized carb and calorie wallop straight to the love handles.

Here’s my version of Cooking Light’s lovely open-faced sandwich:

4 slices low-carb, gluten-free bread
Cooking spray
2 cups spinach or arugula
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
4 large eggs, cage-free and local if you can get ‘em
3/4 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
1/4 cup (1 ounce) grated fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Pinch of dried thyme
Fresh herbs

1. Preheat broiler.

2. Coat both sides of bread with cooking spray or brush with olive oil. Broil 2 minutes on each side or until lightly toasted.

3. Combine spinach, 2 teaspoons oil, juice, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper; toss gently.

4. Heat remaining 1 teaspoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Crack eggs into pan; cook 2 minutes. Cover and cook an additional 2 minutes or until whites are set. Remove from heat.

5. Combine 1/4 teaspoon salt, ricotta, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and thyme; spread over bread slices. Divide salad and eggs evenly over bread. Sprinkle with remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt and remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Pick up with your fingers and enjoy or eat it more civilized with an actual knife and fork.

Does that bread look a little burned to you? Surely, it’s just the camera setting.

Sliced bread and an egg. It’s what’s for lunch!

Gluten-Free Low Glycemic Crackers

2010-04-21T18:31:00.001-06:00

Okay, so I’m totally not original since I didn’t create this recipe. But, this was in fact a watershed moment for me because… <insert dramatic drum roll here> I followed a recipe to the letter!

I have recently fallen in love with Meghan Telpner, at least with her witty and ever-so-slightly irreverent posts with nourishing recipes. When I saw her post Cracker Jacking with the accompanying gluten-free cracker recipe, I promptly bookmarked it. And then subsequently lost it in the vortex of recipe bookmarks swirling through my virtual recipe clutter until I finally found both the recipe itself AND the time to make it this afternoon.

I’m excited about this recipe. It was easy and the results were satisfying. Plus as a bonus, I can put them in my husband’s lunch cooler so the spread doesn’t look quite so meager. The recipe is a blank slate to add seasonings and herbs – or even take it the sweet cookie route with erythritol or stevia and coconut oil, a neutral oil or blessed, heaven-sent, delicious butter.

Walnut Crackers, by Meghan Telpner

1 cup almond meal (I used Honeyville Farms Blanched Almond Flour which I’ve found to have the best texture for baking.)
1 cup gluten-free flour of choice (I used chickpea flour/besan which I’m still obsessed with.)
1 tsp celtic sea salt
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1 egg whisked
2 TB olive oil

Preheat oven to 350
Stir together almond flour, salt, walnuts, eggs and oil until well blended. At this point, I added 2 TB water because my chickpea flour was so absorbent.
Line baking sheets with parchment paper
Place one half of the dough in the center of each lined sheet
Cut another piece of parchment paper and place it over the dough
Roll dough out between the two pieces of parchment paper, until it is the desired thickness (thin is better for crispy crackers, keep it thicker for flat bread style)
Cut the dough with a knife or pizza cutter into 2 inch squares. I went the cookie cutter route.
Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden. I needed to bake for closer to 20 minutes. My oven has issues and my insurance doesn’t cover therapy.

Using my cookie cutter, I got 32 crackers out of this batch. Next time around, I’ll chop in fresh rosemary, brush the tops with olive oil and sprinkle coarse salt with abandon.

Greek yogurt, smoked salmon, fresh parsley and red onion are about to get kissed by some capers and a few crackers.

Not bad for some mid-afternoon noshing with ~~several cups~~ a cup of tea. Thanks for the inspiration Meghan!

Mazzah Me

2010-04-14T06:12:00.001-06:00

Boise Weekly finally did it. Their 2010 Dining Guide gave me the nudge I needed to get to Mazzah. We went to Mazzah and ate our way through the Mediterranean. I had a few questions for the owner, who was delightfully cheery and helpful. She could bring peace to the entire Middle East.

Which items are gluten free? I’m hungry, what will fill me up more? The shish kabob platter or the gyro salad? The shish kabob platter it was.

The dessert case beckoned to me with siren songs of baklava. But I resisted.

Gotta love the little camel near the cash register.

The baba ghanoush was heavenly. The shish kabob was tasty (if slightly oily) and the pita was warm. I would have loved it if the pita tasted homemade and was piping hot or crispy. Wait, am I thinking of pita chips? The Lebanese salad tasted fresh and light.

Classy styrofoam plates. That’s our kind of place.

It’s fried AND gluten-free. What more could a girl ask for?

Naturally, I tried to make my own falafel at home the next night. Operative word “tried.” Clearly, I need some practice. Or at least another tasting at Mazzah.

Almond Flour Deal: Honeyville Blanched Almond Flour Sale

2010-04-06T05:53:00.001-06:00

Thought I’d pass this deal along. They have the best blanched almond flour for baked goods recipes (such as Elana’s Pantry). I bought a bag to keep in the freezer. This deal ends today, so if you’re interested, check it out.

DON'T MISS OUT ON YOUR CHANCE TO SAVE 15% ON YOUR ENTIRE ORDER*! USE COUPON CODE "NOFOOL" DURING CHECKOUT. HURRY, SALE ENDS TOMORROW, TUESDAY, 4/06/2010 AT 6:00 PM PST. DON'T FORGET TO STOCK UP AND SAVE ON OUR NEW FREEZE DRIED MEATS, ALMOND FLOUR, FREEZE DRIED GRAPES, AND SELECT SMALL CANS OF FREEZE DRIED FRUITS.

TO ORDER, VISIT:
http://store.honeyvillegrain.com
Just a friendly reminder that the Honeyville Food Products Sale ends tomorrow evening, 4/06/2010, at 6:00PM, PST (Pacific Standard Time). Don't miss out on your chance to save 15% on your entire order.

Just browse to http://store.honeyvillegrain.com and add items to your cart as usual. During checkout enter the coupon code NOFOOL on the second page of checkout and click Apply to activate your discount. Your savings will automatically be deducted from the total.

Don't forget to take advantage of even deeper discounts in our Clearance Section. Visit us online at http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/clearance.aspx. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us directly at the phone number or email address below.

EatingWell’s Lamb, Fig & Olive Stew

2010-03-23T06:16:00.001-06:00

I tore out the recipe for Lamb, Fig & Olive Stew from EatingWell Magazine months ago. And there it sat like a geeky awkward teen at a junior high dance, until last week when its time had finally arrived.

Here is the EatingWell recipe with my notations in italics.

1 pound lean ground lamb
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons minced garlic, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons herbes de Provence
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 14-ounce cans reduced-sodium beef broth (I used Better Than Bouillon)
2 tablespoons cornstarch (I used about 2 tsp cornstarch and 1 tsp guar gum)
4 plum tomatoes, diced (I used the last of the Alton Brown Roasted Tomatoes from the freezer)
1/2 cup chopped dried figs (I used figs that I got at Costco and froze)
1/4 cup finely chopped pitted green olives
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest (or preserved lemons)

Ignore the ice crystals on the tomatoes. Those Ziplocs are supposed to be for the freezer darn it!

Heat a pan over medium heat. Add lamb and cook, breaking up with a wooden spoon, until browned, 4 to 6 minutes. Transfer to a sieve set over a bowl to drain; discard the fat.

I browned the lamb. Using meat from The Porterhouse, I didn’t need to drain off any excess fat. This package of lamb was much leaner than the brand I normally buy from Fred Meyer. As Martha would say, that’s a good thing.

Wipe out the pan; add oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add 1/4 cup garlic and herbes de Provence and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add wine and cook, scraping up any browned bits, until slightly reduced, 1 to 2 minutes.

Combine broth and cornstarch (and guar) in a small bowl. Add to the pan, increase the heat to high and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly. Add tomatoes, figs, olives and pepper; return to a simmer, stirring often. Reduce heat to maintain a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add the reserved lamb and cook, stirring occasionally, until heated through, about 2 minutes.

I topped the stew with my preserved lemons, rinsed, patted dry and chopped, mixed with olive oil and parsley.

It turned out fabulous! Hooray! This goes on the Will Make Again list.

Oh the Places You’ll Go! And Eat.

2010-03-18T07:34:00.001-06:00

I keep thinking of more goals for 2010, even though we’re a quarter of the way through already. Unfortunately for my skinny jeans, most of them involve eating. I’ve been living in Boise for almost 7 years now and might as well have had my head buried in sand ( more accurate to say buried in rock-hard Boise clay). I’m a mother of a preschooler and live in the ‘burbs, but it’s time to branch out.

I’ve had my eye on a few places I’d like to try as a food tourist in my own town.

Local Eats:

Brick 29 – Chef Dustan Bristol of Brick 29 has made it to the semifinals for the James Beard Award for Best Northwest Chef for the second year in a row. And why haven’t I been there yet? (Nampa, ID)
Manila Bay – new Filipino restaurant in town I love Asian food and need to add Filipino to my repertoire.
Mazzah - Bring on the Mediterranean fest!
Yen Ching Bakery – This will be a calorie splurge. Apparently it opened, then closed, then suddenly reopened. I’ve purchased their sesame balls (deep fried balls of love with a red bean paste center) at the Asia Market, but really want to see the full monty at their bakery location.
Baguette Deli – Vietnamese Sandwich shop. How did I not know that this existed?! I was a Vietnamese woman in another life; I’m sure of it.
Donnie Mac’s Trailer Park Cuisine – Hey, they have sweet potato fries and frozen custard. That’s gotta be good.
Basque Market – Boise has a large Basque population that is apparently holding out fabulous food on me. I’m going to get in there and taste my way through Basque country.
Bittercreek Ale House – Boise. Okay I’ve been there once and it was great. Need to bring the Man this time to experience tasty local food in the pub atmosphere.
Shangri-La Tea – Exploring fine teas and a vegetarian cafe menu just sounds nourishing, doesn’t it? Perhaps I’ll bring my yoga mat.

Out of Town:

Sensei Sushi – just went there during my vacation and it rocked. Leave your401(k) rollover at the door. (Maui, Hawaii)
Glow Live Food Cafe - I’ve always wanted to try a full meal of thoughtfully prepared raw & dehydrated foods. Next time I’m up there, this is on the menu. (Ketchum, ID/Sun Valley)
Any suggestions for Denver….?

You Want Fries with That? Gluten-Free Hamburger Buns

2010-03-14T06:34:00.001-06:00

BYOB. Bring Your Own Bun.

A Friday night with all American burger & fries. Mmmmmmm. Does it count if the buns are homemade and gluten-free and the fries are baked sweet potatoes? I vote yes. Thanks to Kelly, the creative cook behind The Spunky Coconut who posted her recipe for GF Sandwich Rolls.

Sandwich Rolls/Hamburger Buns - grain-free, egg-free, gluten-free

BYOB. Bring Your Own Bun. Since our household is not casein-free, I made a few changes. Next time around, I’m going to see how low carb I can make these.

Add to mixing bowl:
3 tbsp golden flaxmeal
3 tbsp applesauce
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 cup milk (or non-dairy milk)

Beat with electric mixer. Add, preferably in this order:

1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup olive oil (original recipe called for ghee or coconut oil), soft or liquefied
1 tsp fresh chopped rosemary
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt (my addition)

Beat again until a mass begins to form. Note: Due to climate you may need to add a little more flour or milk, depending on humidity.

Form the dough into a ball with your hands. Divide the ball in half. Break each half in two, so that there are four balls.

Roll each ball in your hands, and shape it into the form of a roll. (It will not change shape very much in the oven, so make it the size you want with your hands.)

Bake on unbleached parchment paper or a silicone baking mat at 350 degrees for about 24 minutes.

Makes 4

PROBLEM: I ran some calcs and these puppies clocked in at almost 300 calories with 24g net carbs each! I think yeast leavening might help get two more rolls out of the dough, plus I’ll try to reduce the tapioca flour (pure starch = pure carbs).

Baked sweet potato fries with a spicy garlic-chili fry sauce – lite mayo, ketchup, garlic-chili paste, smoked paprika and lite sour cream.

Slathered with mayo, mustard, ketchup, organic lettuce, red onion and flavor. (1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes is the giant book in the background). Totally Man and Carnivore approved.

I’m tempted to carry these in my purse to Five Guys Burger and Fries so that the GF Hubby can order a burger protein style! I would have a very, very happy husband…

When Life Hands You Lemons – preserve them!

2010-03-10T06:39:00.001-07:00

On one my family trips, I lucked out into snagging a bag full of Meyer lemons. In fact, I had more than I could use (that also applies to cookbooks).

I thumbed through Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and came across Preserved Lemons. I also had a cut-out from Food & Wine for Lemon Confit so rather than following one recipe to the letter like a sensible cook would do, I combined the two.

The F&W version is kosher salt (wow, 5 cups), sugar and lemons; the Bittman version sounded a bit more intriguing with his addition of spices, besides I didn’t have 5 cups of salt to spare.

About 3 pounds of lemons, preferably organic and unwaxed quartered lengthwise

About 3/4 c. kosher salt
Half 3-inch cinnamon stick
2 or 3 cloves
1 star anise (I omitted)
2 or 3 black peppercorns
2 cardamom pods (I used green pods from the Boise Coop’s bulk bin)
1 bay leaf

Sterilize the canning jar and lid. Sprinkle a 1/4 inch layer of salt across the bottom of the jar. Layer quartered lemons in the bottom, sprinkle with salt and spices and continue to layer – like the world’s most sour lemon parfait. When the jar is about 3/4 full squeeze the remaining lemons onto the lemons in the jar, seeds and all.

Set on the counter and vigorously shake once a day for 7-10 days (this was a blast for my daughter). It will start to bubble and the dried spices will swell.

Put the jar back in the fridge and cure for another week before using.

I rinsed and patted them dry before using.

Ah, notice the sippy cup and aerolatte frother in the background? A mother’s life – fueled by frothy coffee.

Juice forming.

Okay, but now what to do with them?

Combined zaatar and chopped lemons and roasted broccoli – a shocking hit with the 5-years and under crowd.
Used them in a salad dressing with shallot, Dijon mustard and a mix of olive and flax oil.
Chopped them and mixed with olive oil and parsley to use in salads and as a topping for lamb stew.

And just when I was about to post this – The Kitchn swooped in and stole my scoop yesterday! Too bad I love The Kitchn so much, otherwise, I wouldn’t recommend their How to Preserve Meyer Lemons article. Kidding. I couldn’t live without them.

Also see Three Clever Sisters’ attempt at preserving lemons.

Menu Planning Printables, Did I mention FREE?

2010-03-04T05:55:00.001-07:00

Ah, Money Saving Mom, you are so cool. Thanks for the free printable menu planners.

Check out this printable PDF with multiple styles of menu plans!

Menu Planning: Week of March 1

2010-03-01T17:17:00.001-07:00

Is it March already? How did that happen?

I’ve been on the road on and off for months, and at long last, I have a peaceful stretch at home to get reacquainted with my cookbooks and enforce some dust bunny birth control. As the sun is peeking out again, I’m also heading to the nursery to start my season of gardening. Garden dirt is more effective than Prozac (but less effective than Baskin Robbins Hot Fudge Sundaes) for fighting off seasonal depression.

Monday: Smoky Black Bean Soup with shredded turkey (half Eden Organic black soybeans and half black beans) with red pepper. Baked broccoli with preserved lemons and kalamata olives on the side. Would have made this Meatless Monday but I forgot. I blame jetlag.

Dessert: coconut peach porridge from The Spunky Coconut that will double as breakfast for the GF hubs. Topped with an erythritol/stevia version of this homemade whipped topping.

Tuesday: Thai Chicken Lettuce Cups with sweet & spicy chili sauce. Faux fried rice on the side.

Wednesday: Taking the easy way out! Crockpot chicken with a bottled marinade. Egads, one step away from Mac ‘n Cheese from a blue box.

Dessert: Orange Pie from The Spunky Coconut. I’m seeing a spunky trend here.

Thursday: Goat cheese, shrimp and roasted red pepper casserole over steamed red quinoa.

Friday: Hamburgers (meat from The Porterhouse Market) with homemade buns, recipe from The Spunky Coconut. Baked sweet potato fries.

Saturday: Lamb, Fig & Olive Stew from EatingWell.

Was my last blogged menu plan actually in December? Yikes. Mama’s been busy.

Salted Mocha for One

2010-02-14T18:31:00.001-07:00

This makes just one serving, because I’m not sharing.

When my friend gave me this amazing salt, she mentioned that she might use the espresso brava salt to make salted chocolate cookies. It gave me an idea: salted mocha.

Salted Mocha

Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze, about 1 cup
Coffee or espresso, about 1/2 cup
Stevia drops (about 20, I’m monogamous to NuNaturals)
1/2 tsp almond or vanilla extract
Espresso brava salt
Sugar-free whipped cream

The salt was a bit too coarse to salt the rim, margarita-style. I tried to crush it down but it didn’t stick as well as I had hoped. But that didn’t stop it from being over the top delicious, if a bit messy in the cup.

And, Happy Valentine’s Day whether you’re cooking for one or for two.

Low Carb Marshmallows

2010-02-10T05:10:00.001-07:00

I’m giddy. Perhaps it’s from the sugar alcohol, but I prefer to think that it’s smug self-satisfaction. I made homemade marshmallows for the first time.

I used Lauren’s recipe for sugar-free marshmallows over at Healthy Indulgences, using erythritol instead of xylitol and adding a touch of pink food coloring. Xylitol is toxic to dogs, so I stick with erythritol these days.

Thanks Healthy Indulgences for your fabulous creations! She gets 100% credit for these bits of pink fluffy love.

Sugar-Free Marshmallows
Makes about 7 cups of mini marshmallows

1 cup erythritol or xylitol
2 teaspoons honey
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons water, divided
2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin (two packets of Knox gelatin)
1 large egg white
Cream of tartar or a drop of white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (if not using red food coloring, clear imitation is recommended so as not to darken the marshmallows. You could also use clear almond extract)
Big pinch sea salt
1/8 teaspoon good tasting pure stevia extract (I’ve found NuNaturals to be the best)
Cornstarch or coconut flour, for dusting (optional)
Red or pink food color (optional)

NOTE: The heated syrup should cook the egg white but if you have Salmonella concerns use powdered egg whites.

Grease an 8x8 inch pan with butter, coconut oil or nonhydrogenated shortening (such as Spectrum). In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, stir together erythritol, honey and 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon water. Heat erythritol mixture, without stirring, until it bubbles vigorously.

Place remaining water (1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon water) in a large bowl or saucepan. Sprinkle gelatin evenly over the surface of this water. Heat bowl containing gelatin and water over a saucepan of simmering water to melt and liquefy the gelatin. Remove gelatin from heat. Turn down erythritol mixture to medium heat and boil solution until it turns a deep amber color (creating a ‘sugar’ syrup). Remove immediately from heat and pour into bowl of dissolved gelatin. It will foam up.

Whisk together once the foam dies down, and transfer the amber colored liquid to a glass measuring cup. In a clean bowl (preferably metal), start whipping egg white with a pinch of cream of tartar or one drop of vinegar. Whip to soft peaks.

Slowly stream in erythritol solution over the course of a minute or so, beating all the time. Try not to hit the sides of the bowl as you stream in the hot erythritol mixture. Turn up mixer speed to high and beat egg white erythritol mixture for 5-10 minutes, until fluffy and thick. Beat in vanilla, stevia, salt and a few drops of food coloring, if desired. When marshmallow is beginning to set, it will pull on the beaters and leave tracks. Pour immediately into greased dish and spread around with a spatula, smoothing it as much as possible. Set on the counter for at least 8 eight hours or overnight.

Go to the movies. Stare at marshmallows. Go to sleep, dream of marshmallows. Wake up and run to marshmallows.

Invert the pan onto a clean cutting board and gently shake the pan or pry them out with a buttered silicone spatula if necessary. Use a cookie cutter to cut heart shapes into the marshmallow or cut into cubes. You may want to butter your knife and/or dip it into coconut flour or cornstarch to reduce sticking. Chop marshmallow block into 1 inch cubes, or 1/2 inch for mini marshmallows.

Place sifted cornstarch or coconut flour into a large bowl. Toss handfuls of marshmallows into cornstarch and shake around the bowl. Store at room temperature.

Approx. 12g net carbs for the whole recipe, depending on how you count erythritol and not including cornstarch or coconut flour (add 7g net carbs for each tablespoon of cornstarch you toss the marshmallows in). According to most research, erythritol has zero net carbs and is extremely low calorie, about 49 calories for 1 cup. (Mendosa, About.com Low Carb Diets, Harvard School of Public Health). 2 tsp honey has 42 calories and 11.4g carbs, per CalorieKing.

Good old Knox gelatin.

Softening gelatin over double-boiler.

Just about ready to add syrup.

Streaming in hot erythritol/gelatin solution and beating.

Just a smidge of food coloring.

Oops. Too much food coloring. Pepto Bismol Pink! “That sanctuary looks like it's been hosed down with Pepto-Bismol.” – Steel Magnolias

Yes, I did indeed lick the bowl.

Set (hmmm…minus a corner nibble) and ready for cutting.

I don’t have knife skills…

Great step by step photos here (Alicia Kachmar.com) or here (The Hungry Mouse).

Salt of the Earth

2010-02-09T05:35:00.001-07:00

In which I discover salt that doesn’t come from a blue container with a girl holding an umbrella.

It started here, when a blogger that I read mentioned salted caramels made with Maldon Sea Salt from England. It piqued my curiosity.

And then salt happened to me. A friend of mine changed my life when she showed up at my door with an innocuous little package. A belated Christmas gift of handcrafted artisanal salts: lime fresco, spicy curry, espresso brava, spanish rosemary and vintage merlot.

All I can say is wow. Using this finishing salt to dress vegetables and salads takes flavor to a new level. I’m dreaming of a thick, dark coffee or chocolate drink, topped with foamy Unsweetened Almond Breeze with an espresso brava salted rim, margarita style. Now that’s an adult beverage up my alley.

I had a field trip to Trader Joe’s and stocked up on my salt cellar.

Who needs sugar when we have salt?

What other salts am I missing out on?

Oeufs à la Neige au Chocolat

2010-01-31T06:18:00.001-07:00

Oh! Oh! Oh!

I’m channeling that infamous diner scene from “When Harry Met Sally” because this dessert makes me that happy. It scratches that itch for a luscious dessert but is very low calorie. Some days I want more fat in my diet and some days I want a light, low calorie dessert (usually in penance for the extra glass of wine that I had with dinner. Or for the entire cruise ship I recently ate while on vacation in Mexico.). This was one of those penance days.

Oeufs

2 egg whites
1/4 tsp white vinegar
1/8 tsp cream of tartar (makes for a more stable and fluffier meringue)
1/16 tsp pure stevia extract (I use NuNaturals), or other sweetener (about 1 TB sweetening power)
1 TB erythritol (preferably powdered first in a powerful blender), divided
Pinch of salt

In a mixer, add egg whites, cream of tartar and vinegar. Beat at medium speed. When they have soft peaks, add stevia and erythritol one teaspoon at at time. When they’ve reached stiff peaks, add the salt.

Hot Chocolate Sauce

1/2 c. Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze (or unsweetened Chocolate Almond Breeze) *
1/16 tsp pure stevia extract (I use NuNaturals)
1 TB erythritol
Pinch of salt
Optional: scant 1/2 tsp guar gum to thicken (or use egg yolks for a richer texture)
Optional: 1 TB liqueur, such as Amaretto

Mix together over low heat and bring to a simmer. Meanwhile, whip egg whites using the directions above. Drop dollops of meringue into the simmering chocolate and cook for a few minutes. Carefully tilt the pan and transfer the pudding to a bowl. (Alternately, you can poach the meringues in boiling water and then transfer to the pudding with a slotted spoon.)

*Other options are using light or full fat coconut milk for the hot chocolate base as well as milk.

The addition of guar gum (or xanthan gum) will thicken the pudding without using cornstarch. If omitted, you will have the thinner, hot chocolate version.

Dollop meringue clouds onto simmering chocolate sauce. The guar gum thickens the sauce as well as gives it a sheen.

Sprinkle the top with cacao nibs or cocoa powder and powdered erythritol. I fully intend on playing with this recipe through the end of winter.

This grown up hot chocolate with marshmallows serves 1 very happy lady.

Nutritional Information (not including cacao nibs):
About 75 calories, 3g fat, 4.5g carbs, 8.6g protein

For more fun with meringues:

Christmas Baking: Golden Cranberry Pavlova (Marshmallow cake), from Healthy Indulgences (sugar free)
Chocolate snow eggs — Oeufs à la neige au chocolat, from La Tartine Gourmande (real sugar, stunning)

Mediterranean Flatbread: Socca with sausage & egg

2010-01-26T05:51:00.001-07:00

There you go again chickpea flour, making my life a happier, yummier place. When I saw this in Cooking Light, I knew I had to get me some…

(Cooking Light: October 2009)

But of course, I would need a gluten-free and lower carb version. Enter superhero chickpea flour. Being the big spender that I am, I decided to buy dried chickpeas at $0.69/lb, also known as Garbanzo Beans, a name which never ceases to remind me of this performing genius:

(from Muppet Wikia)

Although I have a Vita-Mix, I was leery of damaging the blades with these rock hard beans, so I opted for the K-Tec which has been languishing on the shelf since our household went gluten-free. (FYI – I cleaned it but it most certainly still has traces of wheat on it. My husband does not have celiac disease so I figured this would be okay. If he did, I wouldn’t use a wheat contaminated grinder.) The beans were a tad large to fit in the grinder’s chute, but I made do and eventually had a large container of fresh chickpea flour, or besan. I used my trusty Mark Bittman flatbread recipe and doubled it.

Chickpea Flour Flatbread (adapted from Mark Bittman)
Time: About 45 minutes, largely unattended

1 cup chickpea flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 large onion, thinly sliced (optional) or two shallots
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves (optional)

Put the flour into a bowl; add salt; then slowly add 1 1/2 cups water, whisking to eliminate lumps. Cover with a towel, and let sit while oven heats, or as long as 12 hours. (I let mine rest for several hours.) The batter should be about the consistency of thin pancake batter.
When ready to bake, heat the oven to 450°F. Put the oil in a 12-inch rimmed pizza pan or skillet (along with the onion and rosemary if you’re using them) and put in the heated oven. Wait a couple of minutes for the oil to get hot, but not smoking; the oil is ready when you just start to smell it. Carefully remove the pan (give the onions a stir); then pour in the batter, and return the skillet to the oven. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, or until the flatbread is well browned, firm, and crisp around the edges. (It will release easily from the pan when it’s done.) Let it rest for a couple minutes before cutting it into wedges or squares.
At this point, lower the heat to 400 degrees and add the toppings, except for the eggs. I used the following toppings:

Shredded Mozzarella with a sprinkling of aged Gouda
Sautéed shredded Brussels Sprouts and sliced carrots
Shallots, sliced vertically and softened in butter
Aidell’s sausage, sliced into medallions

Put it back in the oven for about 10 minutes and then pull it out to crack on a few farm fresh eggs and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Put it back into the oven for 5 minutes, turn off the oven and let it stay in the oven for another 4-5 minutes.

Oooooooooh. Yum.

If you like flatbreads, you might also like:

Red Onion, Sweet Potato & Fontina Flatbread

Middle Eastern Pizza

Tofu Parmigiana

2010-01-23T06:20:00.001-07:00

For last Meatless Monday, I made a quick weeknight meal with roasted vegetables, Mark Bittman’s quick microwave honey eggplant and my adaptation of EatingWell’s Tofu Parmigiana.

Instead of using breadcrumbs this time for both the eggplant and the tofu coating, I experimented with using TVP:

a) because it’s taking up space in my pantry

b) because it’s low carb

It worked decently, but I had trouble getting it to stick because it wasn’t crumbled finely enough. I panfried the tofu in olive oil and then topped it with leftover roasted tomato almond pesto (popped out of the freezer and into the microwave). Next time, I will marinate the tofu in a marsala or sherry wine with Italian seasonings before sautéing, since it was a bit blah on its own.

I’m not sold on tofu with Italian flavors; it just seems unnatural…

Travel Eats: Mexican Coast Edition

2010-01-18T06:46:00.001-07:00

To say I ate well on my vacation on a cruise down the Mexican Riviera would be an understatement. I’ve been on an 8 day Thanksgiving-type feast of international food.

A feast of seafood stew and ceviche at The Alaska in the Pan Asian Village near Pier 93 in Long Beach, CA to kick things off before boarding the ship.

Lobster, shrimp and scallops over avocado with citrus. Yum.

Fresh fruits with mint and a drizzle of liqueur.

Not one but TWO desserts. An awful sugar free mousse which looked lovely but tasted blah, followed by the best dessert EVER – bananas foster.

Um, are those four desserts for two people? The waiter insisted on bringing the bananas foster after I ordered the sugar free cake. The bananas foster was so amazing that I needed a private moment to collect myself. Behold its devastation…This was the one dessert on the trip that was worth saddlebags on my thighs.

Chocolate hazelnut souffle with decaf. Oh my… The intriguing thing about this is that I can recreate it sugar free! Should I EVER want dessert again, which may not happen after recovering from this calorie fest of a week.

Delicious poblano cream cheese dip at Vitea in Puerto Vallarta.

Escargot? Delicious. But you could happily eat cardboard chunks and kitty litter if it was drenched in that much butter.

The Princess & The Frog. Why yes, those are frog legs. 1 teaspoon of amphibian meat per frog. Sixth grade science class anyone?

The best soup of my entire life. Tortilla soup at La Copa de Leche in Mazatlan. We ate it blissfully while watching the waves lap the beach while uttering, “This is sooooo good! Oh my gosh; this is sooooooo good!” Yes, there actually is soup underneath those chips, chiles, avocado, and cream.

More shrimp and seafood love, paired with a papaya emulsion and two kinds of caviar. And no doubt, cream. Lots and lots of cream.

Grilled vegetables – bring ‘em on! I’m dying for vegetables after a week of rich food. The pairing of crisp raw lettuce with smoky grilled vegetables was welcome to my cream slicked palate.

So back home this week will be light food, lots of moderate exercise and an utter, complete, absolute lack of sugar. Guaranteed. Most of the indulgences were great. Some weren’t worth the calories. But I’ve got some great memories, about 15,000 calories worth of memories…

So Many Cookbooks…

2010-01-07T06:57:00.001-07:00

So little room left in my jeans.

My family gave me eleven new cookbooks for Christmas. Yes, 11! It’s going to be a marvelous 2010 of recipes, even if I have to buy new jeans.

Deal Alert: $5 EatingWell & Vegetarian Times Magazine Subscriptions

2010-01-05T13:27:00.001-07:00

Right now, Amazon.com has a few great $5.00 Magazine Subscriptions.

I think I’m going to snag EatingWell, since I already get VT and YJ!

Culinary Intentions for 2010

2010-01-03T07:34:00.001-07:00

I read The Bitten Word’s Culinary Resolutions and loved ‘em so much I’m going to piggyback on the trend.

Here’s my 10 intentions for 2010.

I intend to:

Follow one recipe to the letter each week from one of my ever increasing cookbooks. (these things are multiplying like rabbits when left alone in my cupboards…)
Learn something about wine.
Learn more about the subtleties of coffee.
Take a few cooking classes.
Continue with Meatless Monday.
Buy and use saffron threads for the first time.
Master the art of making and piping sugar free meringues.
Bottle my own salsa and ketchup next summer.
Buy and use anchovies for the first time.
Try vegetables that I’ve never prepared or eaten.

These seem manageable and certainly not overly ambitious. Perhaps I should add an eleventh, not to require stitches from my culinary endeavors?

Cheers and Happy 2010,

Allie

Home Cooking: Vegas Style

2009-12-29T07:49:00.001-07:00

I spent Christmas in Las Vegas in someone else’s kitchen. Relieved of menu planning, my tasks were limited to helping prep, wash and dry. And of course, photographing the food when I wasn’t shoveling it into my mouth!

Here’s a few food highlights of the week.

Mache with Asiago, and later on Mache with Robusto.

A carb-full gluten-free breakfast casserole. 1 can of apple pie filling (OMG! High fructose corn syrup was the second ingredient), Pamela’s gluten-free bake mix, bacon and a gazillion eggs. I had a few bites of deliciousness and then decided that it wasn’t worth the cellulite.

Christmas Eve dinner: vegetables, lobster tails with butter, gluten-free cornbread stuffing, Meyer lemon & herbed red quinoa, butter mashed cauliflower and red wine.

An amazing cheese and lobster omelette on Christmas morning. Who needs presents when there’s lobster!?

The first pie my husband ever made! Southern Pecan Pie in a store-bought Glutino crust. I think it had three ingredients: pecans, corn syrup and butter. Not necessarily in that order. My belly was grateful. My thighs are not.

I popped in a few sugared cranberries from 101 Cookbooks Sparkling Cranberries recipe into my Christmas Eve celebratory champagne.

Now that Christmas has come and gone, it’s nice to be back home, surrounded by my own cookware, a fridge full of vegetables and unlimited coffee.

Happy Holidays!

Red Onion, Sweet Potato & Fontina Flatbread

2009-12-17T05:56:00.001-07:00

When did vegetarianism sneak up on me? Okay, so I’m not really a vegetarian but I seem to be definitely doing Meat Lite these days. At least my big feet are leaving a smaller carbon footprint.

I saw this recipe in EatingWell magazine and drooled. A walnut crust, cheese, sweet potatoes, cheese. Did I mention cheese? And what is Fontina anyway? I have so much to learn in the cheese department. And the meat department. And well, I guess in the everything department.

First off, knew I was going to skip that whole handmade crust thing – in order to be gluten-free as well as in deference to my laziness. It is much easier to whip up chickpea flatbread and pour into a pie tin for a weeknight dinner.

I actually went out and purchased Fontina cheese, which although I’m sure I’ve had in various 4-cheese style Italian dishes, I’ve never purchased. It tasted like a cross between cheddar and Swiss but I was certainly not blown away.

My version:

1 recipe of chickpea flour flatbread

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1 thinly sliced red onion

1 cup shredded Fontina or Cheddar cheese

1 thinly sliced sweet potato

pinch of thyme and rosemary

1/4 c. chopped walnuts

A few dollars’ worth of grated cheese later.

Coarsely chopped walnuts as a nod to the original walnut crust. I put these over the cheese but under the sweet potatoes so that they wouldn’t burn.

Red onions and mandoline sliced sweet potatoes roasted at 450 for 10 minutes and then layered over the mostly cooked flatbread. Drizzle the layer with olive oil and kosher salt.

Cooked at 375 for approximately 30 minutes.

Voila! A fairly low carb, totally gluten-free chickpea crust that even has enough heft to hold. It was very tasty and even kid approved (minus the onions). But next time, I’ll try gooey, drippy, lovely brie instead of Fontina. And sausage. Oh how I love sausage.

In other household food news, we’ll be on vacation all next week which means…I DON’T HAVE TO COOK! NO MENU, NO PLAN. Merry Christmas to me!

Dinner Voyeur: Week of December 6th

2009-12-12T08:27:00.001-07:00

Sunday - Calamari poached in Trader Joe’s peanut curry sauce over “zucchini noodles.” And the standard, salad on the side with lemon-tahini dressing. (NOTE: I was disappointed after the fact to notice MSG in the sauce under “Autolyzed Yeast Extract.” Darn it!)

How do you like your tentacles?

Meatless Monday – French Lentil Dal topped with chopped hardboiled eggs and toasted cashews. Dal using green French Lentil. Two thumbs up.

Tuesday – Totally inauthentic Bimbimbap (inspired by this recipe from Cookie Magazine).

Wednesday – Lima bean soup with smoked chicken

Whipped this puppy up in no time at all, courtesy of the freezer. Home cooked (and then frozen/defrosted) lima beans, pureed with chicken stock using an immersion blender with salt/pepper/thyme. Topped with chopped smoked chicken, parsley and julienned carrot. Shockingly child approved.

Thursday – Sausage Stuffed Acorn Squash

Oat groats with Organic Prairie Brown & Serve Sausage, mixed with chopped sautéed onion and goat cheese = GOATS (goat cheese groats). Delicious!

Soak and simmer oat groats.
Sautee onion and sausage, mix in oats, 1 oz. goat cheese (or more), salt, pepper and sage.
Stuff microwaved (yes, microwaved. It was a busy week people!) acorn squash and then run under the broiler.

Friday – Scrapped Sweet Potato, Red Onion and Fontina Tart (inspired by this EatingWell recipe, using a chickpea flatbread instead) due to a last minute invite to a Christmas Party! I’ll make this Sunday instead.

I decided to eat before I went to the diet landmine party. I had a gargantuan salad since I knew it was a cheese/potato/condensed soup church potluck type event.

Saturday – Date Night! Gonna get me some cheat meal action.

Plus I need to make 5 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange. I’m making Matzo Crack with saltines – fingers crossed that it will work out!

Seoul Food: Totally Inauthentic Bimbimbap

2009-12-10T14:59:00.001-07:00

I was inspired, not so much by the recipe in Cookie Magazine, but by this photo.

Such beauty! Sheesh, why don’t my pictures ever look like that? Oh yeah, I’m neither a photographer or a food stylist. Or a good cook…

I cobbled together some ingredients for my weeknight Bimbimbap.

1/2 cup soy sauce
6 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
1 pound tofu, broken into small chunks with a wooden spoon
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 large eggs
Cooked brown rice and shredded steamed turnip
Assorted vegetables (shredded carrot, canned baby corn, spinach, bean sprouts, red onion...), steamed, stirfried or raw
Sliced green onions
Toasted sesame seeds or Nori Shake

Stirfry the tofu in half the soy/sesame oil mixture.

Fry four eggs in a non-stick pan.

Assemble bowls of rice or steamed turnip (okay, I admit it. I MICROWAVED it). Top with vegetables and tofu. Drizzle with remaining soy/sesame oil and top with a fried egg, green onion and sesame seeds or Nori Shake (mixture of toasted sesame, salt, dulse and toasted nori pieces).

Assembling the motley crew. Julienned carrot with my new super duper julienne slicer!

Brown rice for the Man and Child. Shredded steamed turnip for me. I was going for a daikon radish type taste that looked like white rice, but it ended up being too pungent and tasting like, well, like a turnip. Stir fried ‘riced’ cauliflower would have been more neutral and probably a better choice (since white rice was out of the question).

My preschooler ate it after some cajoling, minus the egg. She is personally offended by egg yolks for some reason. My auxiliary backup child (niece) ate two servings happily!

If only I was more organized, we could have had kimchi vegetables on the side!

Simple Dal

2009-12-09T04:51:00.001-07:00

It was another first!

My first dal, my first time using green cardamom pods and my first time using French lentils. Am giving myself props because a) it tasted great and b) nothing caught on fire.

I combined two recipes from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (it has to go back to the library today. Come on Santa, bring me my very own copy to cover with drips and food stains!). This dinner was a combo of Simplest Dal and Lentils & Potatoes with Curry, plus a little something Random (courtesy of me).

Super Simple Dal (or Dal for Dummies)

1 c. dried green French lentils, rinsed and picked over
4 green cardamom pods
2 whole cloves
1/2 tsp black pepper
A few cloves of roasted garlic
1/2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
A can of lite coconut milk
About half of a medium yellow onion, diced
About 1/2 cup strained plain yogurt mixed with Trader Joe’s curry sauce or curry powder
Kosher salt to taste

I sautéed the onion in a tablespoon of neutral oil and then added the garlic, ginger, and cardamom pods once the onion was softened. I added the lentils, salt/pepper, coconut milk and water (enough to cover the lentils by about 1/2 inch). Simmered for 30 minutes uncovered, stirring periodically.

Topped with parsley (I am out of cilantro), sliced hardboiled eggs, toasted cashews and toasted coconut. Raisins would have been a nice touch too, but I am cutting down on sugar since I’ll be eating a plate of cookies left for Santa.

Served with boiled fenugreek seeds, mixed greens with tahini-lemon dressing and topped with cumin scented almonds from my pal Bekah at Beek Eats. Plus, finally a glass of wine that didn’t suck! Ah, nothing but the finest served in my household…um, okay, not exactly true.

The green cardamom was subtle in the dish, but I did get a bite of a whole clove which was a spiced slap in the face! My preschool aged daughter actually cried out in horror at the sight of a green, beany pile on her plate. But after a bit of ~~threatening~~ coaxing, she took a bite and ate the whole thing. Make again? Yes.

Menu Plan: Week of December 6th

2009-12-08T06:42:00.001-07:00

It’s Legume Week!

Christmas is approaching and my meals need to be easy since I still have shopping, traveling, party planning, sanity recovering activities to do every moment of the week.

Meatless Monday – French Lentil Dal topped with chopped hardboiled eggs and toasted cashews. Dal using green French Lentils (my first time. I broke up with brown lentils years ago so I’m giving this other variety a try.)

Tuesday – Totally inauthentic Bimbimbap (inspired by this recipe from Cookie Magazine).

Wednesday – Sausage Stuffed Acorn Squash

Thursday – Lima bean soup with smoked chicken, Brussels Sprouts with horseradish cream and bacon

Friday – Sweet Potato, Red Onion and Fontina Tart (inspired by this EatingWell recipe, using a chickpea flatbread)

Saturday – Date Night! Gonna get me some cheat meal action.

Prior Menu Plans:

Menu Plan: Week of November 29th

Menu Plan: Week of November 15th

Menu Plan: Week of November 8th

Menu Plan: Week of November 1

Menu Plan: Week of October 25th

Dinner Voyeur: Week of November 29th

2009-12-06T05:53:00.001-07:00

More losers this week than my dating years. In keeping with my dating metaphor, there was one major winner from one of my favorite nerds, Alton Brown. I married my other favorite nerd.

Best meals of the week were:

Sweet Onion Custard
Steak Fajitas & Tortilla Soup (it was a tie!)
Bean Pancakes

There was definitely a Mexican theme this week.

Sunday – Ma Pao Tofu based on Cooking Light’s recipe from this month’s magazine, with gluten-free rice noodles (shirataki noodles for me). This was disappointing. After the fact, I found a few other Ma Pao Tofu recipes (including one online also from Cooking Light) that looked better. Too bad, since I love spicy tofu dishes.

Meatless Monday – Alton Brown’s Sweet Onion Custard with parmesan spaghetti squash and butternut squash fries. The week’s winner! It got its very own post.

Tuesday – Ellie Krieger’s recipe from this month’s EatingWell magazine for Roasted Tomato & Almond Pesto with roasted chicken over spiralized zucchini ‘noodles.’ Using my Alton Brown Slow Roasted Tomatoes from the freezer.

As I posted here, this wasn’t as good as I anticipated. I totally envisioned a smoky, roasted tomato almond butter sauce but it was in fact, roasted tomato pesto.

Wednesday – Steak Fajitas with Cilantro & Buttermilk Cabbage Slaw. I am in love with lean sirloin steak. I marinated the meat in black pepper, lime juice, salt and a few other mystery pantry items. Broiled for a few minutes on each side, sliced and served mine in a La Tortilla Factory low carb tortilla, an Ezekiel Brown Rice tortilla for the GFN (gluten-free nerd).

Thursday – Bean Pancakes (Chile Relleno-style from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) topped with sliced sirloin steak (how’s that for using leftovers! High five!). This was also delicious and exceptionally easy. I’ve started to keep cooked beans in the freezer and now rarely use canned beans.

I coarsely pureed mixed beans (pinto, black soybeans and maya coba) in the food processor with one small onion, 1 egg, 1/4 c. cornmeal, 1/4 c. flaxmeal and salt.

Mixed with chopped cilantro and parsley, chopped bell peppers and sweet peppers (frozen at the end of the CSA season) and some cumin.

Mixed and used a 1/4 c. measuring cup to dollop patties on a non-stick pan.

Served with a side of boiled and mashed turnips with green beans and sliced sirloin. Easy, fast, tasty. A dinner trifecta!

Friday – Brined & Roasted Chicken. Turned out to be a hectic day so went for a simple roast chicken with a green salad – was boring. The brine was decent (kosher salt, black peppercorns and a cinnamon stick) and I decided to skip making stock – instead going to make soup.

Saturday – Date Night rescheduled– invited good friends over to dinner for Tortilla Soup (using the Friday’s brined chicken, R.W. Garcia Flax and Soy spicy chips), olive oil and vinegar dressed salad, homemade maya coba beans (move over pinto, these babies rock the refried world).

The soup was DELICIOUS. I pulled my tomatillo salsa from the freezer, chopped an onion, butternut squash and zucchini, mixed in some precooked beans (again from the good old garage freezer) and a can of Muir Glen roasted tomatoes. I pan roasted the vegetables separately while cooking down the broth; it made a huge difference in the flavor.

The secret to a successful dinner party is not good food and even better friends, it is vodka. Just FYI. No photo of dinner as there was much merriment (i.e. Pour me another!).

Roasted Tomato and Almond Pesto with Zucchini “Noodles”

2009-12-02T06:57:00.001-07:00

The plan was to follow Ellie Krieger’s recipe from this month’s EatingWell magazine for Roasted Tomato & Almond Pesto, topped with roasted chicken and served over spiralized zucchini noodles (with my new toy) with a side of Brussels Sprouts. I also planned on using my Alton Brown Slow Roasted Tomatoes from the freezer.

But when I rummaged through the freezer, I came across a container of homemade pesto that I had made from summer’s porch basil. Ah, not going to waste that! So I deviated from the recipe and just used it as a framework (surprise, surprise).

Random Roasted Tomato & Almond Pesto

3/4 cup blanched slivered almonds
One 14-ounce can Muir Glen organic fire-roasted tomatoes, drained, plus about 8 slow roasted tomato halves
3/4 cup basil pesto (more or less)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon red-wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
Grated Parmesan cheese to taste, plus more for garnish
1/2 teaspoon salt

Toast almonds in skillet and then add to food processor with other ingredients.

Sauté spiralized zucchini to make a bed of noodles. My favorite part of the meal. Is there anything more fun than spiralized vegetables? I don’t get out much.

Side dish of halved Brussels Sprouts, sautéed in olive oil, 1 TB balsamic vinegar, salt and chopped dried figs. My second favorite part of the meal.

And, super fast food processor pesto.

With a glass of Epicuro imported to Boise from a California Trader Joe’s run (a bit of a harsh throat burner. I better have another glass just to be sure…).

I admit I was disappointed. Not that it wasn’t tasty, but in my mind I was expecting a roasted tomato almond butter sauce and in the end it turned out to be, well, a pesto with almonds instead of pinenuts. Just a case of mismatched expectations. I think I really want vegetables topped with spicy almond butter.

Alton Brown’s Sweet Onion Custard

2009-12-01T07:14:00.002-07:00

I followed a recipe and it worked! *does happy kitchen dance*
As part of my ongoing Meatless Monday, I made a pseudo vegetarian dinner. Since my egg delivery is Tuesday, I usually make an egg dish on Monday to finish up the older eggs. At last, this recipe delivers something that’s not frittata!

Last night was Sweet Onion Custard, Parmesan Spaghetti Squash and Butternut Squash Fries with my homemade ketchup. This recipe was a first for me, my first savory custard and my first steamed custard. I’ve only made custard in a water bath in the oven, so it took some rigging up to fit a pan into a steamer basket.

Sweet Onion Custard

3 eggs
1 1/4 c. chicken stock (use vegetable stock to make vegetarian)
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 c. caramelized onions (starting with 1 c. onions plus a bit of butter to cook down)

Mix ingredients and pour into ramekins (I used one large baking dish, since I couldn’t fit individual ramekins into my steamer). Cover with plastic wrap and then cover with foil. Steam for 12-15 minutes.

The recipe only calls for 3 eggs, which is a low protein amount for 4 servings of a main course. I had to slap my own hand away from cracking in 5 or 6 egg whites. “Allie,” I told myself. “Just follow the recipe. If you feel you need more protein later, have something ELSE, don’t change the recipe.” It was hard, but I did it.

I borrowed a French Fry Cutter for the butternut squash (which I quickly peeled with a veggie peeler. So much easier than using a knife.). This made lovely little uniform pieces without a trip to the ER. Spritzed the fries with olive oil spray and put on a pizza rack (rather than a baking sheet) to try to get them crispier. (Santa, bring me a convection oven!) The kid and borrowed playdate kid loved novelty of the sweet Orange Fries.

I microwaved the spaghetti squash to cut down on cooking time, scooped it out, tossed with salt and parmesan and finished it up in the oven. In my ongoing oven troubles, the heat was supposed to be at 425 degrees, but it didn’t get over 350. Limp fries…
Meanwhile, I had run three small yellow onions through the slicing disc on the food processor and started to caramelize them in a small amount of butter over medium heat.

Since I’ve run out of my homemade chicken broth, I used Pacific Natural Foods. I mixed the balsamic, a pinch of kosher salt, the stock and the eggs. I added the onions to the dish and then poured the egg mixture over the top.

Steamed for about 17 minutes; it took a bit longer since I used one large dish rather small ramekins. The result was creamy, smooth and delicate without any cream in that custard! I will definitely be making this again. Maybe by next time, my oven will be fixed and we can have crispy fries too.
In the voice of Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast, “Uh, da, da…Dinner. Is. Served.” Yes, we watch a lot of cartoons around here.

Want to try a different version? Here’s a Caramelized Onion Custard from Branny Boils Over

Menu Plan: Week of November 29th

2009-11-30T06:49:00.001-07:00

I’m so sad. Since we spent Thanksgiving with family in San Diego, I am utterly without turkey leftovers! After massive food fun exploring stores, my passion for fresh, local and organic food has been renewed.

Highlights of the SD trip:

People’s Market Co-op in Ocean Beach: Jay Robb protein powder in bulk! Loads of raw, vegan meals. Although I’m not a vegetarian, I’m fascinated by the creativity of raw vegan recipes.

Trader Joe’s in Point Loma: *weeps* Oh I miss Trader Joe’s! wine deals, nut butters, organic produce, greek yogurt, oh my! wine deals, nut butters, organic produce, greek yogurt, oh my! Alas, no TJ’s in Idaho and no online ordering…

Ocean Beach Farmer’s Market: more hummus and pita than the Mediterranean coast. Fresh flowers. Lovely produce. (plus the sounds of the ocean in the background)

I spent an hour slowly perusing each aisle at the Boise Co-op yesterday, appreciating what my little town has to offer. And then I ended up paying $1.67 for a single golden beet <insert expletive of choice here>…

So back to menu planning for this week:

Sunday – Ma Pao Tofu based on Cooking Light’s recipe from this month’s magazine, with gluten-free rice noodles (shirataki noodles for me).

Meatless Monday – Alton Brown’s Caramelized Egg Custard with parmesan spaghetti squash and butternut squash fries

Tuesday – Ellie Krieger’s recipe from this month’s EatingWell magazine for Roasted Tomato & Almond Pesto with roasted chicken over spiralized zucchini ‘noodles.’ Using my Alton Brown Slow Roasted Tomatoes from the freezer.

Wednesday – Steak Fajitas (chipotle lime marinade) with Mexican Cabbage Slaw – making it up as I go…

Thursday – Bean Pancakes (Chile Relleno-style from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) topped with sliced steak

Friday – Brined & Roasted Chicken with Roasted Acorn Squash (brine night before, make chicken stock the morning after)

Saturday – Date Night! Going to Bella Aquila for some cheat meal action.

Prior Menu Plans:

Menu Plan: Week of November 15th

Menu Plan: Week of November 8th

Menu Plan: Week of November 1

Menu Plan: Week of October 25th

San Diego Eats: Seafoodskiving

2009-11-26T06:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been spending this holiday week in San Diego, my husband's hometown. That means surfing (and trying to fit into a wet suit that hasn't been worn in 6 years and 30 pounds ago), vintage shops and foraging for food in a bachelor fridge! We got a babysitter and had our real Thanksgiving Feast last night at Harney Sushi in Old Town - complete with a live DJ, bottle of junmai sake and even a custom rice-less hamachi roll that you-bet-your-tamago I'm going to try to recreate back in Boise.

And also there was a lunch worth blogging: two scrumptious lobster tacos out on the Ocean Beach Pier at the WOW Cafe. The waitress was stressing, the kitchen was slammed, the patrons were hungry, but it was worth the wait. The tacos come double wrapped in corn tortillas. I ate the first taco like a salad, then the other with a single tortilla. Then proceeded to nibble on the other...

Faux Yakisoba: Low Calorie Rutabaga Noodle Stirfry

2009-11-19T07:22:00.001-07:00

Mama got herself a new toy: a World Cuisine Spiral Vegetable Slicer, to be exact.

What I really, really want to make it zucchini noodles, but I’m restraining myself since zucchini is out of season. So, I made rutabaga noodles instead!

Wash the rutabaga, trim the ends and shave off the particularly hairy parts (pretty much the same policy for shaving my legs).
Run it through the spiralizer.

Assemble the cast: cabbage (and/or carrots), sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic chili paste, seasonings (I used Penzey’s Bangkok Blend), eggs and peanut flour or peanut butter.

Mix about 2 TB peanut flour (or 1 TB peanut butter), 2 TB soy, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp (more or less) chili paste and seasonings.

Panfry the ‘noodles’ in a nonstick pan (or a wok) with either non-stick cooking spray or a grapeseed/sesame oil combo.

When softened, add other sliced or julienned vegetables (softened shitake, carrots, cabbage, onions all work well).
Mix two eggs (or egg whites) in a bowl. Either cook eggs in a separate pan and then add to noodles, or just add the eggs into the noodle pan. Stir.
After a few minutes, add the peanut sauce.

Enjoy a totally non-gourmet but yummy lunch of yakisoba topped with nori shake (sesame, nori, dulse) with a glass of chilled green tea.

Menu Plan: Week of November 15

2009-11-16T06:12:00.001-07:00

It’s not much of a plan this week; it’s more like Operation Clean Out the Fridge. We’re leaving for a week down to glorious sunny Southern California, plus I’ve got a gazillion commitments this week (not to mention packing for three people).

I’d like to make portable protein bars or balls to take on the trip.

Sunday – a spontaneous homemade Sushi Night with the family! Ever so fun. I brought miso soup, various veggies simmered in dashi and nori. Left all the hard work for my sister & brother-in-law! We live only 8 houses away from each other; am I lucky or what?!

Monday – White beans, mushrooms and chard frittata, (using this recipe as a guideline) side salad and parboiled/panfried Brussels. Coffee with my girlfriend who attended Le Cordon Bleu this afternoon plus a major Costco run today. Going to gab about food and then buy waaaaaay too much.

Tuesday – Cabbage Rolls with caraway and gingersnaps, spinach with buttermilk dressing.

Wednesday – I’m hosting a Pampered Chef party at my house for a friend so dinner needs to be easy. Vegetable soup topped with a cabbage roll and a dollop of lite sour cream – Eastern Europe Comfort Food!

Thursday – My monthly volunteer night; I’m bringing salad for 40. Dinner will be easy chili before heading out to the event!

Friday - “What can I microwave?” night since I’ll be at dance class and the Man will be in charge.

Saturday – here we come San Diego… Legoland better watch out! Plus there’s some fierce fish tacos calling my name.

Chili, Brussels Sprouts and cabbage? This week’s menu plan is sponsored by Beano!

Previous week menu plans:

Menu Plan: Week of November 8th

Menu Plan: Week of November 1

Menu Plan: Week of October 25th

Gluten-Free, Grain-Free Low Glycemic Pumpkin Waffles

2009-11-15T11:12:00.001-07:00

Here goes (it’s a mouthful): Gluten-Free, Low-Glycemic, Grain-Free, Sugar-Free Holiday Pumpkin Waffles with Coconut Flour and Beans! Catchy, isn’t it? For pithy’s sake, we’ll call it the Golden Pumpkin Pie Waffle.

I scoured the web for a recipe and landed on The Spunky Coconut’s version. I am an unabashed sugar-phobe, so I subbed out the honey and opted for stevia extract. I do use honey and agave from time to time, but I like to see how low I can go.

I made two versions to toy with the recipe, which turned out to be pretty flexible. Both were yummy, hearty and filling.

Version 1: Chickpea Golden Pumpkin Pie Waffles

Makes 3 waffles.

Puree:

2 eggs/2 egg whites
1/4 cup coconut flour
1 and 1/4 cup chickpeas/garbanzo beans (about a 15 oz. can)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 c. pumpkin puree
About 1/2 tsp stevia extract (I used NuNaturals No Carbs blend – so adjust sweetness to taste if you’re using a different sweetener)
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder

The first version uses chickpeas (garbanzo beans), either canned or homemade. Trust me, start making them homemade since they’re only $.77 lb at my local bulk bin.

I usually make my chickpeas from scratch, but for some reason I didn’t this time. Silly me, since I have containers of them in the freezer! I must have needed another cup of morning mental clarity (i.e. caffeine) in order to remember that.

Puree everything together in a food processor or blender. The food processor is easier to scrape out, in my opinion.

Coat the waffle iron with non-stick spray, coconut oil or butter between each waffle, and dollop on 1/3 of the very thick batter. They’re a bit fragile; take care when pulling them off the waffle iron. I used low heat on these and found they worked better with medium heat.

Dolloped with stevia sweetened lite sour cream, sugar free syrup and fresh nutmeg. Mmmmm….yummers. Is Yummers in the dictionary yet?

Version 2: Pumpkin Gingerbread White Bean Pumpkin Waffles

Again, that just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? The second version of the great bean waffle experiment uses freshly cooked Great Northern Beans (but any generic white bean will do) . These were less fragile than the chickpea version when removing from the waffle iron but I’m not sure if that was due to the beans themselves, or that I used cooking spray on the iron between each waffle. I decided to cut out one more egg for a white to see if I could tell a difference – I couldn’t. Next time I might even beat the egg whites separately and fold them in, providing of course that I’m sufficiently caffeinated to perform such a feat.

I used candied ginger and molasses for a warm gingerbread flavor; holiday mix-ins would be fun here. Add chocolate chips, walnut or pecan extract, more spices, toasted chopped nuts, etc…

Makes 3 waffles.

Puree:

1 egg/3 egg whites
1/4 cup coconut flour
1 and 1/4 cup Great Northern beans (about a 15 oz. can)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice for a little more kick)
1/4 tsp butter extract (I use Frontier Organics)
1 tsp. molasses
1 TB finely chopped candied ginger
1/2 c. pumpkin puree
About 1/2 tsp stevia extract (I used NuNaturals No Carbs blend – so adjust sweetness to taste if you’re using a different sweetener)
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
Optional: add 1/4-1/2 tsp maple extract

Cook the same as above over medium heat. Even more yummers with the additional flavors.

Topped with strained, unsweetened Nancy’s nonfat organic yogurt, sugar-free syrup (hold your judgment! Sometimes a girl just wants some syrup…) and freshly grated nutmeg. Ate it with a sigh while drinking a vegan, sugar-free peppermint mocha.

Wahoo! These were even KID APPROVED. My vacillating peaky eater ate 1/2 a waffle with agave syrup. Missy Lapine, AKA The Sneaky Chef, would approve.

Dinner Roundup: Week of November 8th

2009-11-15T09:11:00.001-07:00

Survey says: Mixed results for this week’s menu

I had to shift up The Plan a bit due to a crazy schedule and inherent laziness.

Sunday: Pot Roast (jerky style!). Like I’ve mentioned before, I really don’t know how to cook meat at all. This was a lean Pike’s Peak roast and took a LOT less time in the oven than I anticipated…Grass-fed, lean beef doesn’t take nearly as much time than ‘regular’ beef. A dollop of horseradish was a great touch to overcooked pot roast! It had GREAT flavor but was more overexposed than Britney Spears.

Meatless Monday: Middle Eastern Chickpea Burgers with tahini and Moroccan spiced spaghetti squash (using the recipe from Smitten Kitchen). This side dish rocked. Totally adding it to my limited repertoire.

Tuesday: Beef stew & kasha. I completely forgot about making the parmesan sage apples that I intended to and instead made kasha for the first time. Mixed buckwheat groats with 1 egg, toasted and then added water. Very tasty!

I borrowed a dutch oven and cooked the entire meal on the stovetop (potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and turnips). The turnips were a baaaaaaaad idea. They gave a radish flavor to the stew, especially to the leftovers that was quite unpleasant (even though I normally enjoy turnips). I am lovin’ the enameled cast iron. It made tough lean beef fork tender in one hour. Santa, please bring me an oval Le Creuset. I’ve been very good this year.

Wednesday: Cabbage with tomatoes and sour cream (Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) & sliced blackberry smoked chicken breast over salad. This was the star of the week. Total comfort food.

Thursday: Curry tempeh & tofu with shirataki noodles & Thai style green beans. Wok-fried garlic/ginger with tempeh and tofu, yellow curry powder and light coconut milk. I loved the beans – sautéed garlic, soy sauce, oyster sauce, peanut butter and minced ginger. The Michelob Ultra Amber is rated as a good light/low-carb beer by EatingWell. I got both my Asian food buzz and a beer buzz…

Friday: Mommy had Girls’ Night Out! Who knows what the husband and child ate?! Probably Cheetos pilfered from a neighbor’s cupboard.

Saturday: Scratched the menu plan for an impromptu family Thanksgiving Potluck with extended family. Brought Green Beans with Hazelnuts and Almonds and my new favorite, buttery spiced Moroccan Spaghetti Squash.

I’m working on a new plan for this week. Gotta use up what’s in the fridge because we’re leaving for a family trip for Thanksgiving! I won’t have to (or get to) cook for a week!

At last we have a winner: Bittman’s Cabbage with Tomatoes & Onions

2009-11-12T06:21:00.001-07:00

Yay! A dinner that not only didn’t suck, but was really, really good, plus it was fast and easy to boot. In fact, it was almost perfect for last night’s cold and rainy weather. A bit of Borscht would have put the meal over the top as homey, comfort food on a dark Autumn evening.

I did pretty well considering my innate inability to follow a recipe.

Here’s what I did to release my inner babushka:

1/2 head of thinly sliced green cabbage (Bittman recommends Savoy, but stores here only carry 3 kinds: green, red, and Nappa)
2 TB butter
a few cloves of Vampireless Roasted Garlic
1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 can of Muir Glen organic fire roasted tomatoes (or 2 c. chopped tomatoes)
about 1 TB caraway seeds, plus more for garnish (or cumin seeds)
1/2 c. (or more – I didn’t measure) light sour cream
Kosher salt and freshly cracked pepper

Sauté onion in butter until softened over medium heat, about 8-10 minutes.
Add chopped garlic and shredded cabbage and cook while stirring so it doesn’t brown. (My garlic was precooked so it didn’t need to soften like the onions.)
After about 10 minutes or so, add tomatoes, caraway, salt and pepper.
When nearly done, stir in sour cream and salt/pepper.
Garnish with more caraway seeds to try to give cabbage a pretty face…

The salad was a key part of dinner too. Arugula and fresh lettuce from my patio pots, shaved carrots, toasted pumpkin seeds, roasted chopped beet, with a buttermilk and vinegar dressing and topped with delicious cold sliced blackberry smoked chicken breast.

When the snow hits this season, I’m going to make this again (maybe with a side of coarse gluten-free hemp rye bread) and pretend I’m in Siberia. In sad news, my copy of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is due back at the library tomorrow. Oh, how I love this book. I hope Santa brings me a copy. Or at least Mark Bittman himself to start making us dinner...

The Kitchenist cracked me up with the title of their version of Cabbage with Onions and Tomatoes, Ugly Food Needs Love Too.

Freebie: Martha Stewart Thanksgiving

2009-11-11T06:57:00.001-07:00

Need some inspiration?

Go here to download a free copy of the Martha Stewart Thanksgiving Hotline Recipes cookbook.

“Smitten” with Moroccan Spaghetti Squash

2009-11-11T06:31:00.001-07:00

Monday’s dinner was Middle Eastern Chickpea Burgers (inspired by this Cooking Light recipe and this EatingWell recipe). I used presoaked chickpeas and cooked them earlier in the afternoon rather than using canned. ($.69 per pound versus $1 per can.)

Using Old Bessie (my way-too-small food processor), I pureed the chickpeas, fresh parsley, zata'ar, spices, lemon rind, garlic, 1 egg, salt/pepper, smoked paprika, cumin and about 1 TB flaxmeal.

I formed them into patties and cooked over medium high heat in about 1 TB olive oil. Frankly, they turned out too dry although they held together well. I loved the lemon zest; it made the flavor of the spices zing. I served it without a bun or fixings and it would have been better with a bun (naturally!), a fresh tomato, and a lot more tahini dressing to add moisture.

This recipe from Smitten Kitchen was the highlight of my dinner and certainly opens the doorway to using up my spaghetti squash invasion.

I used less butter than the recipe called for even though it was still a ton! I also omitted coriander because I don’t have it yet – it’ll go on my Christmas Wish List, so I added more of the other spices to make up for it. As for the garlic, I used my Vampireless Roasted Garlic cloves. Because I was short on time (as always), I microwaved the squash rather than roasted it.

Holy Butter Batman!

My improvised and somewhat random version:

1 (3 1/2- to 4-pound) spaghetti squash
2-3 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 roasted garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground chile powder (medium heat)
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Heat butter and add garlic. Add spices (except for cilantro) and then scoop in cooked and seeded squash. Toss with spiced butter and cilantro.

Ta Da! A Middle Eastern Chickpea Burger, topped with tahini and a dollop of red pepper tapenade.

Menu Plan: Week of November 8th

2009-11-09T07:48:00.001-07:00

Sunday: Beef Jerky, oh I mean Pot Roast with. This took a LOT less time in the oven than I anticipated…I forgot that grass-fed, lean beef doesn’t take nearly as much time than ‘regular’ beef. I blame Google Reader.

Meatless Monday: Middle Eastern Chickpea Burgers (combining this Cooking Light recipe and this EatingWell recipe which are very similar) with a tahini dressing, with Moroccan spiced spaghetti squash (Smitten Kitchen)

Tuesday: Beef stew & parmesan sage apples over greens

Wednesday: Cabbage with tomatoes and sour cream (Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) & sliced smoked chicken breast over salad

Thursday: Curry tempeh over kasha (shirataki for me) & Thai style green beans

Friday: 3 Cheers for Leftover Night! Give mom a cooking break…

Saturday: Caramelized egg custard (Alton Brown) with parmesan spaghetti squash

What are you having this week?

Dinner Voyeur: Round up week of November 1

2009-11-08T17:05:00.001-07:00

I’m lovin’ the menu plan. It helps keep my brain from exploding while try to juggle the 50 million projects, la kid, le husband, les pets and this crazy rock n’ roll lifestyle that I maintain.

Sunday: Mexican Pumpkin Soup with Tamale Meatballs (tamale meatballs made from Halloween’s California Crockpot Tamale Pie leftovers – soup loosely adapted from this Mexican Butternut Squash Soup recipe from Cooking Light). The soup really needed more flavor but was tastier the next day. The pumpkin lacked sweetness or the interesting flavor of butternut squash. Too bad…

Meatless Monday: Asian Tofu Pancakes (Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian), sauteed mushrooms/pumpkin and roasted garlic with a bit of soy sauce and salad with kimchi style vegetables. These were an easy and fun to make dinner that I’m going to try several different ways now that I got the hang of it.

Tuesday: Taco Carbalicious Casserole. Making a comfort food casserole is easy peasy, so I made three and brought dinner to two friends. I’m going to start this tradition of at least once a month bringing dinner to someone, since it was totally fun to cook for someone else without having to clean for company! Layers of brown rice, homemade maya coba/pinto beans & cheese, mild salsa, light sour cream, chopped olives, seasoned lean & local ground beef. Served with low glycemic R.W. Garcia Spicy Flax and Soy chips. No vegetables were harmed in the making of this dinner.

Wednesday: Balsamic pork steak with roasted Brussels Sprouts with apple and dried figs. I was blown away by the flavor of this pork steak. It was fairly lean and bursting with flavor. I panfried the steak, took it out, added a bit of allspice, 1 TB honey, 2 TB or so of balsamic vinegar and a splash of whole milk. Placed it over a bed of raw spinach with the sauce. The flavor was awesome but since my milk was raw and unhomogenized, it kind of curdled into a fresh cheese when it hit the vinegar! Unappetizing strings of dairy glop in the sauce, but yummy nonetheless.

Thursday: Fennel Apple braised pork steak with Horseradish Cheddar Turnips, a dish inspired by a Bittman potato recipe. Again, the pork steak was fab! (The cat absconded with part of it…) The potato recipe was potatoes, cheddar, beer and horseradish and those flavors just yelped “FALL!” to me. I chopped turnips and panfried them, added a mixture of milk/cheddar/horseradish and a few tablespoons of sherry. Extremely tasty!

Friday: Vacation in Sun Valley! Sadly, this lovely burger and onion rings made me ill… my G.I. tract is not used to being so liberally greased with oil and mystery ‘fry sauce’. I know better so it serves me right!

Saturday: Sun Valley Chili for a crowd with gluten-free cornbread. Chili was a bit of fresh pumpkin, pre-soaked & cooked beans and lean ground round, I tweaked two recipes to make the cornbread, swapping out some coconut flour and fava/garbanzo flour to try to lower the carb count. It was coconut flour, full carb gluten-free bake mix (Bob’s Red Mill), fava/garbanzo and corn meal (plus stevia extract and erythritol). Frankly, I thought it was a bit odd with the fava flavor but the kids absolutely loved it and devoured the whole pan!

Another week of meals bites the dust!

Hurry! Cooking Light subscription only $5 – expires 11/14

2009-11-08T15:30:00.001-07:00

Cooking Light is Amazon.com’s steal of the week. Hurry and subscribe before the offer expires.

If you’re using Swagbucks (and you should be! See the widget on the right hand side or link below), you could get this for free like I did!

Homemade Tofu – should tofu be gray?

2009-11-05T13:28:00.001-07:00

Well, when you use black soybeans you have to be able stomach gray tofu. Lesson learned. Since my ambition exceeds my skill, I’ve been known to tackle projects beyond my scope. However, in this case – we have a happy ending. I make fresh mozzarella from time to time and it turns out that making tofu is a very similar process. Heat milk, add coagulant, spoon into cheesecloth and press.

First off, you need soymilk. Lots and lots of soymilk… I followed the directions from Delicious Asian Food’s Black Bean Milk. Once upon a time, I bought a 25 lb. bag of dried organic black soybeans from Eden Organic. Still have many, many pounds left.

The process is basically to soak the beans, blend the beans, strain the bean/milk mixture through cheesecloth (separating the milk from the okara) and then cook the soymilk in a large pot. (Then visit Okara Mountain to figure out what to do with okara. I tried it as a breakfast porridge, not yummy. Added it to protein cranberry brownies, very yummy and moist. FYI - all raw soy products need to be cooked in order for the protein to be properly digested.) I soaked mine for 24 hours first before blending in my super hero Vita-Mix, straining and then cooking in a stockpot for 45 minutes.

Then I used two different recipes. The online guide from Ellen’s Kitchen – How to Make Soymilk and Tofu at Home, and an easy to follow Mark Bittman recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. You can use various coagulants, but I happen to have a bag of Epsom Salt, so I used 2 tsp. epsom salt diluted in 1/4 c. warm water. Stirred it gently into the soymilk (at 140 degrees) and watch it clump into tofu curds. Carefully ladled the curds into a mold lined with a clean thin cloth (a store bought tofu container with small holes drilled into the bottom) over a baking rack and drip pan. Topped with a heavy can.

It only took about 20 minutes to reach fantastic firmness! I put it into a container topped with purified water to store it in the fridge.

Honestly, it was among the most delicious tofu I have ever eaten. No preservatives, fresh and fabulous. But let me tell ya, I have a new appreciation for why tofu is $2 or more per container. You too can have delicious homemade tofu for only about 30 hours worth of work! Okay, 30 hours start to finish with minimal hands on time.

Sliced, panfried and topped with Nori Shake (dulse, toasted sesame seeds, toasted nori and kosher salt).

Tofu Pancakes

2009-11-04T13:42:00.002-07:00

No maple syrup here, just plum sauce with my pancakes thank-you-very-much.
This may come as a shock, but I used a Mark Bittman recipe (sheesh, do I use anything else these days?). Tofu Pancakes from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian sounded particularly tasty for our Meatless Monday. Since there is just the three of us, I cut the recipe in half and swapped out wheat flour for chickpea flour in keeping with my low carb & gluten free culinary attempts.

Started with 1 brick of tofu (about 12 oz) with 1 1/2 TB tahini.

Added a few TB of soy sauce and water. A problem was that I used extra firm tofu which made the batter extremely thick. I had to add back about 1/2 cup water to make it blendable.

I sprinkled 2 TB chickpea flour over the batter instead of whole wheat or wheat flour. Mixed in 2 thinly sliced green onions. Thoroughly mixed it with a rubber spatula.

The batter was still too thick and it was difficult to spread onto the pan, but I made do with a fair amount of glopping and forming patties with the spatula. Cooked over medium heat on a non stick griddle pan with about 1 TB sesame oil.

Drizzled the pancakes with about 1 tsp of store bought plum sauce and served them with sauteed mushrooms/pumpkin and roasted garlic with a bit of soy sauce and salad with kimchi style vegetables. A thumbs up dinner! Even the 4-year old ate the whole thing…quite shocking. But then again, she frequently requests “tofu cheese.”

Foodista has a Bittman pancake version that looks different than mine (read: better than mine…). They look more like fritters. Hmmm…is that what they’re supposed to look like?

Next time, I might use more chickpea flour and keep the batter more like dough, roll in a gluten-free breading (maybe crushed Chex and toasted almonds) and then flatten with a splatula for a fritter. Ooooooh, fritters…

Jack-o-Lantern Autopsy

2009-11-03T05:47:00.002-07:00

Jack and his brothers donated their bodies to culinary science this weekend.

Sung in a high-pitched Snow White voice: “I’m wishing…I’m wishing…to be reincarnated as pumpkin pie…”

My new Mundial Chef’s Knife was absolutely PERFECT for the job of chopping gargantuan pumpkins. I received zero - count ‘em zero - injuries during the whole pumpkin dismemberment process!

Bagged and tagged for the freezer.

Some of the pumpkin went to the freezer. Some into the fridge. Some into a pumpkin variation of Cooking Light’s Mexican Butternut Squash soup and some into a sauteed mushroom/pumpkin/garlic side dish. Since it’s not the sweeter sugar pie variety, it worked well as a squash substitute but probably wouldn’t make a very good pie. (But I’ll probably try that too!)

The seeds were toasted in olive oil and kosher salt and all the scraps went into the compost bin. I think this will be our new ritual: the sacrificial carving of the pumpkins on Halloween and the next day conducting the autopsy.

Menu Plan: Week of November 1

2009-11-02T06:32:00.001-07:00

Need a plan? Here’s the one shown above or the one that I use.

Since last week’s menu plan went well, I’m going to stick with my attempt at dinner organization. (Are you a food gawker like me? See the dinner round up here.)

Sunday: Mexican Pumpkin Soup with Tamale Meatballs (tamale meatballs made from California Crockpot Tamale Pie leftovers – soup loosely adapted from this Mexican Butternut Squash Soup recipe from Cooking Light).

Meatless Monday: Asian Tofu Pancakes (Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian), sauteed garlic/pumpkin. I do a LOT of Asian food in this house!

Tuesday: Bringing dinner to friend – kid friendly nacho layered casserole. R.W. Garcia Spicy Flaxseed & Soy chips, beans & cheese, mild salsa, brown rice, shredded chicken along with Mexican Pumpkin Soup.

Wednesday: Balsamic pork steak with roasted Brussels Sprouts

Thursday: Fennel Apple braised pork steak with some sort of mystery spaghetti squash. (Adapted from Kitchen Express) I still have a 19 gazillion spaghetti squash that are begging to be eaten, or at least cooked and frozen.

Friday: Leave for vacation in Sun Valley! Dinner TBD – but something to feed 9 hungry and very picky people. We will head to the always fun, always gourmet Atkinsons Market in Hailey. Does anyone else consider grocery stores and food events a major part of their vacations? My Thanksgiving trip is basically built around an excursion to Trader Joe’s.

Saturday: Sun Valley Chili for a crowd with cornbread. Packing up ingredients in a cooler.

Dinner Voyeurism

2009-11-01T05:48:00.000-07:00

Or, a week of dinners in way-too-candid photos!

In an uncharacteristic fit of organization, I made my menu plan earlier in the week. The menu plan kept me from musing at 5 pm, “how the heck am I going to turn 4 onions and a spaghetti squash into a decent dinner?”

I ended up not following the breakfast or lunch plans, with the exception of Asian Edamame Egg Salad – total yummilicious. I picked up a box of custom Lean & Mean mixed pork and beef cuts from a local farm this week. The freezer is stocked at least until Spring. Now I just need to learn to cook meat. Tofu is so much more forgiving…

In the most important news of the week, I am restocked in Lindt 85% chocolate bars! A square a day keeps the Prozac away.

Dinners:
Sunday – Beef Stroganoff over Spaghetti Squash and Potatoes, with Cream of Mushroom Soup and Arugula Salad. The beef was lean, local and grass-fed (which I also rinse with very hot water before adding the remaining ingredients). I grew the spaghetti squash and arugula myself – thank you very much! (high five!) . The soup recipe was Cooking Light's Cream of Mushroom Soup with Sherry (swapping out the half and half in the recipe for 1 TB cream and homemade cashew milk).

Arugula, where have you been all my life? I came across arugula through my CSA this summer and promptly planted it in a porch pot, since you can’t even get it in grocery stores here. It’s peppery and lemony and magnificent.

The soup wasn’t very interesting until the next day. The flavors had mingled overnight and it just got better and better. My stroganoff was decent. I think it really needed a pint of cream or at least the unrinsed beef for more flavor…but alas, I just couldn’t make myself do it.

Meatless Monday - Southwestern spaghetti squash frittata topped with a smoky chipotle lite sour cream. Tasty! I used about 4 eggs and 4 egg whites, spaghetti squash, multiple kinds of sweet peppers. Cooked it in my cast iron skillet, finishing it in the oven. Kid approved!

Tuesday - Crockpot BBQ Chicken with panfried Brussels Sprouts, apples and hazelnuts. And? Well of course a salad! The chicken was from a friend’s farm. It was lean and bursting with flavor. Handling whole chickens can be kind of a pain, but getting into the rhythm of pulling off the meat and then making stock is a meditative ritual, perfect for Autumn nights. The brussels sprouts with apples, nuts and a drizzling of maple syrup has got to be the most divine way to eat cruciferous vegetables.

Wednesday - Moosewood Tempeh Marsala topped with Costco parmesan, but not the good stuff.

I’ve made this tempeh marsala recipe twice now and decided that I’m not loving it… but am totally loving the hemp bread I made (adapted to be lower carb from Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen). I’ll post the recipe once I tweak it some more. Plus, I need to restock on hemp protein. (At least, a tasty way to use hemp protein!)

Thursday - Chicken with Ginger Broccoli over Spaghetti Squash and the old standby… salad. (I still have about 40 billion spaghetti squash left – help!) The chicken was leftover from the crockpot chicken I made earlier in the week. The sweetness of the spaghetti squash didn’t work under the stirfry, but I was too lazy to make cauliflower ‘rice.’ Topped with Mark Bittman’s Nori Shake (toasted sesame seeds, dulse, kosher salt and toasted nori).

Friday - Vietnamese Chicken Pho with Shirataki Noodles. Using shirataki from asian markets or tofu shirataki (Hungry Girl infamous) instead of rice noodles saves about 400,000 grams of carbs and calories per serving. I use one of the Cooking Light recipes as a guideline, but the soup is so simple it’s become my go-to fast food. Used up the last of the crockpot chicken and topped it with a healthy dose of Sriracha. Holy Mouth Fire, Batman! Side of edamame and (drumroll please…) salad with avocado. We eat a lot of salad in this house.

Saturday (Halloween) – I scrapped the cabbage roll idea since I had 10 minutes to get a kid dressed, fed and out the door to a party. Instead, I whipped up Crockpot California Tamale Pie, with roasted pumpkin seeds and R.W. Garcia Spicy Flaxseed & Soy Chips. It’s about a pound of ground beef, mixed with 1/2 c. corn meal, 1/2 c. coconut flour, olives, peppers, corn, carrots, spices and salsa bound together with an egg. Carby home cookin’!

For dessert this week? Sugar free pavlova with warmed pumpkin ricotta, topped with TruWhip and dried cranberries. This meringue base has so many possibilities it’s mind boggling. At least to my simple non-pastry chef mind! The 4-year old calls it marshmallow cake. Rock on sugar free marshmallow meringue! Thank you for not giving me cottage cheese thighs!

I stuck to the meal plan fairly well, although I still had to deal with “Mommy, why do you keep taking pictures of our dinner?” Hmmm… that’s a good question. Fortunately, I am not alone in the strange affliction of snapping photos of food.

Whew, that was a lot of work for a week of dinners! Who’s up for some takeout?

A Cool Way to Make Hot Broth

2009-10-28T05:36:00.001-06:00

I've got two eco-friendly methods of using up vegetable scraps: a countertop composting bowl (that I take out to our backyard compost bin) and a freezer broth bag. The only even mildly difficult part of making homemade stock is washing the pot afterwards!

Aromatics (stems of parsley, fresh sage and rosemary), scraps of onions, carrot tops, celery ends - you name it - all go into the bag. You may or may not want strongly flavored or colored (such as chard, earthy mushrooms, garlic or beets, etc) that may drastically change the flavor or color of the broth. If I use garlic, I'll label the resulting broth as Broth - Garlic.

I toss the contents into a stockpot with water (chicken carcass optional!) and a few tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar for acidity and set it to the lowest setting.

Put on the lid. And then go to bed...

Strain the contents with a fine mesh strainer, pressing down on the veggies to extract the last bit of flavor and then return to the pot to reduce. Cool and ladle off any fat at the surface (if I used a chicken carcass) and then pour into labeled freezer jars or into an ice cube tray.

I use about a jar a week for making soups or just adding flavor to stir fried/sauteed vegetables. It's easy. It's actually kind of fun and most importantly, it makes me feel like Martha Stewart.

Go forth and broth!

Want more broth?

Roasted Chicken Stock from Elana's Pantry.
Homemade Vegetable Broth from Noob Cook.
Homemade Turkey Broth from Good Housekeeping.

Quick Pickled Veggies - Kimchi style!

2009-10-27T15:57:00.001-06:00

Not only am I obsessed by chickpeas, I apparently am obsessed with Mark Bittman. Or at least his How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. While not obsessed by pickles, I am passionate about those salty things - capers, olives, pickles, tapenades - they're all great. I throw them on my salads or morning eggs for a bit of low calorie zest. So naturally it was just a matter of time before I made Mark Bittman's quick pickled vegetables.

When he says quick, boy he means it! I sliced up carrots, onions, nappa cabbage and cucumbers (no fingers this time!) and covered them in kosher salt. Let it rest a colander for about 30 minutes. Rinsed it twice to remove all the salt.

Blotted it dry with paper towels.

Added fish sauce, sriracha hot sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, stevia, garlic, ginger and sliced shiso leaves (green perilla).

Tossed it and ate it with relish! (oh, the pun, the pun!)

A light lunch of kimchi pickled veggies with asian egg salad (edamame, wasabi, mayo, tamari) - yummy!

Vampireless Roasted Garlic

2009-10-26T06:19:00.000-06:00

Or what to do with 50 billion teeny heads of garlic from my CSA. I've got more garlic than Gilroy...

I love garlic.But I don't love peeling, mincing and dealing with garlic and having my hands reek for hours. So when I saw this recipe for roasted garlic from Elise at the gorgeous Simply Recipes, I was stoked. I could handle all of this garlic in one fell swoop.

Since it was from a local farm, I had to scrub off layers of farm dirt first with a vegetable brush.

Drizzed with extra virgin olive oil.

Thank heavens Elise had the brilliant idea of using a muffin tin; I never would have thought of that. (NOTE TO SELF: WASH THOROUGHLY BEFORE BAKING CUPCAKES.)

Cover with little tinfoil blankets to keep them cozy. Notice how perfectly uniform my pieces of tinfoil are. It's my attention to detail that makes me such a good cook! (um....okay, maybe not.)

I also had a few loose cloves leftover from a giant Christopher Ranch peeled garlic container from Costco.

After about 45 minutes in a 400 degree oven, the soft, mellowed garlic slipped right out of its skin.The recipe worked! I should have spent a bit more time peeling off more layers of skin before roasting as well as been more liberal with the olive oil, but fabulous nonetheless.

Roasting two muffin tins of fresh garlic is a great way to keep all those Halloween ghouls away. There is not a vampire to be found within a 50 mile radius of my house. (Thank heavens, cause I'd hate to have this guy showing up in my bedroom!)

The garlic is packed up - one container for the fridge, two for the freezer or to give away.

Chef's Knife or Bayonet?

2009-10-26T05:46:00.000-06:00

I recently read in a friend's Bon Appetit that Mundial made a $20 Chef's Knife. Since most of the Wustof knives that we got for our wedding a gazillion years ago decided to collectively break this month (it was an abused workers' revolt after seven years of being carelessly tossed in the dishwasher), I ordered one on Amazon.

I had completely forgotten about ordering it (I blame Twitter attention deficit) and received a giant box from Amazon. Oh, is this my new yoga strap? I thought. Kind of a big box. I opened it eagerly, ready to bust out a down dog in excitement.

HOLY GIANT KNIFE, BATMAN!

Crocodile Dundee ain't got nothing on this bad boy!

I have received not one, but TWO kitchen injuries this week (not to mention hurt feelings at failed kitchen experiments).
1. Didn't use the mandoline guard when making Fennel Apple Slaw
2. Carelessly left a knife in dish pan water in the sink. Reached in and...well, you know. I need a coupon to buy more bandaids!

I resolve to be careful with this culinary machete. I might need your prayers, or at least stitches.

Menu Plan: Week of October 25th

2009-10-25T11:32:00.000-06:00

Not menu planning leads to a frantic dinner of scrambled eggs and a Kashi toaster waffle. I know this from recent experience... This week and every week through the holidays, I will have some sort of battle plan! I love this printable menu from Clever Parents which I use along with my trust grocery list.

I had a chicken delivery from Webster Ranch and am picking up a Lean & Mean package from Vogel Farms this week. The freezer will be stocked up until Spring!

Breakfasts:

Scrambled eggs/egg whites with veggies & grated parmesan
Old fashioned oats
Pumpkin & strained yogurt mixed with protein powder, topped with yummies
Cranberry pumpkin shake

Lunches:

Egg salad with mixed greens
Asian egg salad with edamame & kimchi style pickled veggies (I like it spicy, baby!)
Mashed tofu salad with tahini dressing with steamed or sauteed broccoli
Chopped salad with chicken & cranberries
Smoothie Girl's Pad Thai Shake (sriracha in a shake? Really?)

Dinners:
All dinners subject to change in case my husband surprises me with dinner reservations! (Magic 8 Ball says: Unlikely...)

Sunday - Beef (lean, local and grass-fed) stroganoff over spaghetti squash (fresh potatoes for the non low-carbers) with Cooking Light's Cream of Mushroom Soup with Sherry (probably swapping out the milk for homemade cashew milk) and spinach salad
Meatless Monday - Southwestern veggie/egg/egg white frittata topped with a smoky chipotle lite mayo
Tuesday - Crockpot BBQ Chicken with roasted Brussels Sprouts and hazelnuts and salad
Wednesday - Tempeh coconut milk curry or Moosewood tempeh marsala
Thursday - Chicken with ginger broccoli, salad and crudite with miso dip
Friday - Crockpot cabbage rolls with dilled carrots
Sunday - Vietnamese Chicken Pho with shirataki noodles

Sweets & Treats (if needed - oh who am I kidding? OF COURSE they'll be needed!)

Sugar free pavlova with pumpkin yogurt filling
Maybe a vegan pumpkin parfait reprise
Chunks of dark chocolate - oh wait - AM OUT OF LINDT 85% SPECIAL DARK! STATE OF EMERGENCY!
Avocado/dark chocolate pudding
Another attempt at a healthified apple/walnut cookie...

Still need to figure out what to do with:

A few leftover peppers
Boatload of organic apples from Costco
Lots of carrots
Smoked chicken breast

What are YOU making this week?

Here's the last Menu Plan.

Product Review: Smart Balance Peanut Butter

2009-10-25T05:54:00.000-06:00

Or more accurately, Smart Balance Fish Butter with Peanuts. Do I need to say more?

"Mom, what's wrong with this peanut butter? It tastes yucky!" Stick with all natural PB, or even better, almond butter...

Quick Peek at Dinner: Pepian, Black Soybean Burgers & Chickpea Fries

2009-10-25T05:10:00.000-06:00

Yup, I'm still obsessed with all things chickpea... Last night I tried to make Chickpea Fries from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by baking them rather than frying them. While my technique definitely needs refinement, the crispy crunchy chickpea love was adored by all - including the 4-year old food critic!
"Can I have more of that french fry bread?!"
She loved it and even dipped it in ketchup (but alas, not my homemade ketchup). How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is currently on loan from my local library, but I will be buying it for myself for Christmas and probably wrapping it and signing my husband's name. "Honey, how did you know I wanted that?"

I made an inauthentic pepian soup with the last of the CSA tomatillos and homemade chicken/vegetable broth.

Whipped up veggie burgers with Eden Organics black soybeans (purchased dry in a 25 lb bag, cooked and frozen in individual serving tupperware) with pumpkin puree, 1 egg, smoked paprika, raw cashews, cumin, random spices from the cupboard to taste, oat bran, chia seed, peanut flour and a bit of buckwheat flour. Okay, I admit it - I added a few tablespoons of Costco bagged crumbled bacon! So mostly veggie burgers.

I need a new food processor. I swear this old KitchenAid only holds 1/2 cup.

Chickpea crisps, black soybean/pumpkin veggie burger, salad topped with tahini-lemon dressing and a bowl of tomatillo soup.

I like 'em short

2009-10-20T05:58:00.000-06:00

...Ribs that is. I'm not a meat person, never have been a big fan. But I always figured that was probably due to my mom's nuclear chicken we had growing up (simple recipe, overbake chicken breasts in a hot oven until it becomes close to jerky. Eat. Become increasingly fond of tofu). When I buy meat, I'm clueless. When I cook meat, it's even worse, but I'm an eager student, ready to learn.

I consulted How to Cook Everything on how to cook shortribs, which seemed simple - brown the ribs in a dutch oven, take 'em out, add onions, put the ribs back in, add stock and cook for about two hours. I borrowed my mother's brand spankin' new enameled cast iron pot that she picked up a few weeks ago at a Macy's sale, still in the box. Both the pot and the cook were shortrib virgins. I was hoping the magic dutch oven would compensate for a lack of skill.

Wiggie the Kitchen Cat sat in the Macy's bag for a good twenty minutes, observing the kitchen chaos like a cold hearted chef watching floundering sous-chefs...

I browned the ribs over medium heat for about 15 minutes or so. Something didn't look quite right...there was A LOT of fat on those babies. Yeah, I'm not afraid of fat, but sheesh. Cardiologists all across the

Treasure Valley must be getting chest pain at the sight. I thought the fat would simply melt off so I could pour it in the trashcan before adding the onions. Not so.

Chopped about two cups of onions to brown in the pot. I wept over them. Perhaps I should invest in some of those crazy onion goggles? At this point I couldn't handle all that fat. I took out the ribs and began to hack away at the membrane and thick fat layer. Doh! I should have trimmed them before browning them. I hacked away most of the lovely browning that I had just spent 20 minutes accomplishing before tossing them back in the pot with the onions.

Moving on to the salad:

Okay, so meat I don't know. But lettuce and I are old pals. I know my way around a salad. Since I was spending so much time on the dinner, I thought I'd try something a bit fancier with my greens. I whipped out a Best of Cooking Light Soups & Stews cookbook and made this Field Salad with Roasted Leeks, Mushrooms and Feta. This is my new favorite salad. A quick ten minute roasting of leeks (the last bounty from my CSA for this season).

I dressed it with the adapted Honey-Tahini dressing that I adore. It's been going on everything this week, so good I have to restrain myself from putting it in my morning coffee. (Allie, would you like some salad with your dressing?)

Time to toss the potatoes and carrots into the pot. It was dinner time. I eagerly lifted the lid. Um, the meat was definitely NOT falling off the bones yet like Mark Bittman had promised me. We waited. And we waited.

"I'm hungry."

We were going to have to eat soon if we were going to get our four year old to bed at a decent hour. Which we had to do, because we had a Netflix to watch with a shirtless Hugh Jackman. Come on ribs, hurry up!

I tossed in the dijon mustard and stirred it around to coat the ribs. We were going to eat whether or not those blasted ribs were ready.

Yes the meat had good flavor, but it was still tough. It could have used another hour or maybe even two. I would have been much happier with the entire bowl of salad topped with grilled chicken. But the little girl and the strapping man at the table disagreed as they heartily sucked the meat off the bones like caveman devouring mastadon. "Can we have this chicken for dinner tomorrow?" she asked. Enjoy the leftovers folks, cause I'm not making this again for a loooooong time. I need to master grilled chicken first.

Both got seconds, the dog got a bone and I got more salad...

Fun with Fennel: Fennel Apple Slaw

2009-10-18T13:18:00.000-06:00

Fennel and I haven't had a very interesting relationship until now. I've had candied fennel seed in Indian restaurants, I've had crushed fennel seed in pizza seasoning and I've even attempted a sauteed fennel that was aptly described as blah. I've even unsuccessfully attempted to grow it in my garden, but other than those dabbles, there wasn't much to write home about. When I spied the recipe for apple/fennel slaw in Mark Bittman's Kitchen Express, for some reason it sounded appealing. Its rawness perhaps? I hadn't yet fennel raw. Or maybe I was looking for new and interesting ways to use up these fall apples!

One trip to the grocery store and one fennel later.

After breakfast, I stood at my kitchen counter with my Pampered Chef mandoline (decent tool, but wish it was adjustable, among other things...but I am neither pampered, nor a chef). I shaved the fennel bulb rather than grating it coleslaw style, reserving some of the stalks for a vietnamese beef soup that night and some for my freezer broth bag.

In addition to shaving the fennel, I also shaved a little thumb. NOTE TO SELF: USE A MANDOLINE GUARD! Squeezing a lemon with a sliced thumb is an act I shall not soon repeat. God willing. The recipe calls for a tart apple, a bit of olive oil, squeezed lemon and salt. I used a Granny Smith, two teaspoons of olive oil, most of the lemon and kosher salt. (I knew going in that using more olive oil would have tasted better, but I planned on eating the whole salad by myself with lunch and dinner. I'm trying to keep those calories in check!)

I let it marinate in the refrigerator until lunchtime.

It had a light and refreshing taste, like a cucumber, but it was missing something - more acidity and sweetness. After eating several bites, I opted to add some of my tahini-dressing (inspired by EatingWell's Honey Tahini Dressing).

Lemon juice
Rice Wine Vinegar and/or Apple Cider Vinegar
Salt
Minced garlic
NuNaturals stevia drops
a bit of honey, about 1 TB (more or less)
2 TB Olive Oil
2 TB Tahini
Water + Guar gum to help emulsify

I loved how the dressing complemented the light salad. The rest of the slaw went back into the fridge until dinner for Round Two. After the lemon and oil had marinated with the fennel and apple for six more hours, the flavor had considerably brightened and YUM. A bit more tahini dressing and I was hooked. It was an absolutely winning duo. Next time - which will be soon- I'll slice the bulb into smaller shavings and use a combination of tart green and sweet red apple. And of course, the honey tahini dressing. On second thought, skip the mandoline and use the food processor.

Heck, maybe I'll even try again to grow fennel in my hard Idaho clay.

Check out these gorgeous salad photos and ideas from the NYT.

Sugar Free Barbeque Sauce

2009-10-14T06:30:00.000-06:00

My homemade ketchup absconded in the night with an Alabama BBQ and became a sweet, spicy barbeque sauce. I'd like to think it's because it knew what it wanted to be, and not because I didn't follow the original recipe...

The original Homemade Ketchup recipe from The Paupered Chef

6 pounds tomatoes, roughly chopped
4 onions, sliced (mixture of red and white)
1 jalapeno pepper, stemmed, seeded, and chopped
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1 cinnamon stick
1 1/2 teaspoons whole allspice
1 1/2 teaspoons whole cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons ground mace
1 1/2 teaspoons celery seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1 garlic clove, peeled and bruised
cayenne
salt

The Random version for Sugar Free Barbeque Sauce (made about 5 cups - some for the fridge, some for the freezer):

6 pounds tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 onions, sliced (1 red and 1 white)
2 mystery peppers from my CSA (medium heat)
1 jalapeno pepper, stemmed, seeded, and chopped
3-4 TB molasses
1/2 tsp pure stevia extract (I'm a huge fan of NuNaturals stevia)
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1 cinnamon stick
About 1/2 tsp ground allspice
pinch of ground cloves
celery salt to taste
1 tsp crushed peppercorns
1 garlic clove, peeled and bruised

I mixed all the ingredients in a non-reactive saucepan over medium heat and covered it. When it began to bubble, I lowered the heat and then ignored it for about two hours.

I blended it using an immersion blender and then strained it through a fine mesh metal colander to remove the tomato and pepper skins.

"Come try my ketchup!" I told my husband who dutifully came to give me his required compliment.

"Hmmm... it tastes like a spicy barbeque sauce."

He was right, it had morphed. "Come try my spicy sweet barbeque sauce!" I amended.

At any rate, it was still a delicious sauce that I'm going to use on my morning eggs instead of Heinz sugar free ketchup. The Paupered Chef version uses a teaball to steep the whole spices in the tomato mixture and then removes it. My version blends it all in, changing the flavor from a milder ketchup to a stronger barbeque flavor. The small amount of molasses of course contains sugar, but it's spread over 5 cups of sauce.

Food Show Field Trip

2009-10-12T05:26:00.000-06:00

Last week I scored an invite to a local food distribution show. (What can I say? I know a guy...) It was an eye opening experience into how much fried food fills America's eateries. Most of the mass produced food just screamed "Low Quality! Cheap Ingredients!" and wasn't even worth sampling. I bypassed the all-things-fried displays, enjoyed a fresh coffee with a splash of half and half, sampled the cheese and avoided the sweets, which undoubtedly looked better than they tasted.

What could be more fitting? An altar of Idaho potatoes here in the heart of Boise.

Look, but don't touch. I adore how cute cupcakes are. I coo and cuddle them more than babies. Thank heavens low-carb, gluten-free options exist!

I did sample a few cheeses, but nothing blew me away.

Could the name "Muffin Tops" be more appropriate for the typical processed food breakfast?

I confess a little excitement when I saw the Pacific Foods booth. I need to sneak into a Natural Foods Show someday! (Anyone have an extra ticket they want to slip me?)

With the exception of a few vendors which provided high quality and/or organic produce, the message I left with was Cook at Home.

Purple Haze - Broiled Eggplant with Miso Walnut Dressing

2009-10-09T05:29:00.001-06:00

Now that cold nights have officially arrived here in Boise, the eggplant season is coming to a close. However, I was able to score a few local lovelies before the end. The usual way that I've eaten eggplant is in asian stirfrys, eggplant parmesan or the occasional store-purchased tapenade with eggplant as an ingredient.

Mark Bittman has a recipe for Eggplant with Miso Dressing in both Kitchen Express and my new copy of How to Cook Everything. I figured if it was good enough for double inclusion, I had to try it! The Kitchen Express version includes walnuts, and I never pass up on opportunity to eat toasted nuts! (another reason why I'm anxious to try "Tempeh Testicles!")

The recipe says that the eggplant can be sliced either crosswise or lengthwise and since my black beauties were long and lean like ballerinas, I chose lengthwise. I actually took the time to salt them with kosher salt and place them on a rack to drain for about 15 minutes before cooking them (yay me!). After wiping them down with a paper towel, I placed them in a broiler pan under the broiler but apparently a little TOO close, they began to get slight burn marks before they were completely softened. Next time, I'll use a different pan or slide the pan down one rack. I'm learning that eggplant can be a bit temperamental, being too tough or too mushy or too bitter (again, there's that ballerina metaphor again).

The sauce is just miso (4 TB), soy sauce and rice wine vinegar and turned out too salty, even for me who would be happy to carry around my own personal salt lick. (Seriously, why do gerbils get all the fun? Why doesn't Williams-Sonoma distribute a line of salt licks?) It needed to be thinned with water and/or lemon or lime juice. A bit of honey or a few drops of NuNaturals stevia for sweetness would have smoothed it out too (but alas, I poured it over the eggplant before I thought of it). As far as a quick and lovely side dish for a weeknight, it's a winner.

Served with a stirfry and steamed (okay, microwaved, I admit it!) edamame.

Here's another Miso Eggplant recipe over at Serious Eats, originally from Daily Unadventures in Cooking. The Unadventures version (a Moosewood adaptation) uses fresh ginger, which would be a lovely inclusion. And here's more Bittman Eggplant.

I discover Parmesan

2009-10-06T11:57:00.000-06:00

Last night's menu was, well...kind of a bust. Makes me sad to have spent all that time in the kitchen with only a decent meal to show for it and a sinkful of dishes. Dinner was a far cry from fabulous. Wait, scratch that. I'm delighted to have learned yet another cooking lesson the hard way! What I don't know about cooking technique could fill a book. Or an entire Congressional Library.

Lesson: read the recipe ALL the way through before starting...

But before I learned this valuable life lesson, I took a field trip to the grocery store's specialty cheese case and shelled out for a small wedge of real Parmegiano-Reggiano. I haven't used those mega corporation green shaker bottles of "parmesan cheese" in years, but I have been using the pre-shredded giant Costco bag out of convenience (although hauling out a giant 5 lb bag from the freezer is not entirely convenient either). I was curious how much better a chunk of real parmesan with the rind could be. (I plan on saving the rind for my homemade chicken stock freezer bag per advice from the marvelous Mark Bittman!) I have on occasion bought national brand hunks of parmesan although I can't remember the last time I did. I've been sticking with cheese by Costco.

Although I already knew the answer since she would be happy to survive on Atkins induction, I asked my daughter, "Do you like cheese Avery?"

"Yes. Do you like cheese Mom?"

"Yup."

"Hmmm... but I thought you only liked Free Samples?"

She's very astute for a 4-year old. Yes, mama likes free samples. Did I mention the cheese case has free samples?!

So I knew dinner would feature some sort of parmesan smackdown and zucchini the size of a lightsaber. I've got a bit of summer squash left although the season ended quite abruptly when our nighttime temperatures dropped to the 30's this week. I flipped to my dogeared EatingWell magazine to Parmesan-Squash Cakes (the magazine is well read, but ill followed in my household). I settled on a casual weeknight menu of broiled catfish (again, from Costco) with a mayo/herb/parmesan topping, parmesan-squash cakes and broiled veggies. I'm on a broiler kick this week - all broiled, all the time!

EatingWell's Parmesan-Squash Cakes

1 large egg
2/3 cup finely chopped shallots (I used mild fresh onions from my CSA)
1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley (used curly parsley from my garden)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 cups shredded seeded summer squash
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (I used the Costco pre-shredded)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 400°F.
Beat egg in a large bowl. Stir in shallots, parsley, salt and pepper. Place shredded squash in the center of a clean kitchen towel; gather up the ends and twist to squeeze out any liquid. Add the squash and cheese to the bowl; stir to combine. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Pack a 1/3-cup measuring cup with the squash mixture and unmold it into the pan; gently pat it down to form a 3-inch cake. Repeat, making 4 squash cakes. Cook until browned and crispy on the bottom, 3 to 4 minutes. Gently turn the cakes over and transfer the pan to the oven. Bake for 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

Problem: Despite wringing out the zucchini, it was still too moist. As it rested in the mixing bowl, it continued to leach water which made it harder for the cakes to keep their shape in the pan. I decided to use up the Costco cheese in the squash cakes and use the new real stuff on the catfish topping.

Problem: The EatingWell recipe said to heat oil in a large nonstick skillet. Done. Then as it heated I realized it needed to be a large OVENSAFE nonstick skillet, which I don't own. I scrapped the heated nonstick pan and grabbed my oven safe skillet which is definitely not non-stick. In fact, it's super duper ultra stick.

Problem: Apparently my oven runs cool and my stove runs hot because the bottom of my cakes burned... That's my story and I'm sticking to it. (Speaking of sticking...I need a recommendation for an oven-safe nonstick pan!)

I broiled my catfish for 3 minutes, flipped, broiled the other side for 2 minutes and then added my topping: 3 TB lemonaise light, 1 TB lemon juice, fresh basil, salt & pepper, 1 minced garlic clove and 1/2 c. freshly grated parmesan. (adjusting this recipe for Broiled Tilapia Parmesan from AllRecipes.com)

While everything was cooking, I tasted the Costco parmesan next to a small slice of the new parmesan. Pretty good but didn't knock my socks off. However, after grating the new parmesan, the new fluffy fresh grated stuff was... OH MY! The Costco cheese is tasty enough, but real fresh fluffy parmesan is like cheese snow falling from the Tuscan sky! Maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, but a few turns of a Zyliss grater (a neglected hand-me down which will now be in hot demand in my kitchen) and voila - next stop Flavor Town.

Problem: I used frozen, partially thawed Brussels Sprouts in my broiled veggies imagining that they would of course caramelize just as the fresh ones do. As they thawed and cooked, their moisture made all the veggies soggy instead of crisply roasted. Crap.

My broiled veggies were soggy. My parmesan-squash cakes didn't hold their shape and weren't crispy, but their flavor was pretty good despite the Costco cheese which is now sadly second rate. I'd love to try it again with actual shallots instead of onion and the good stuff that I scored from the cheesecase. At least the catfish turned out well. The fresh parmesan added a melt-in-your-mouth goodness to the fish.

Looking back, I should have used the good cheese in both dishes, but now I know better. Yes my menu was frought with more problems than a counseling session between Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake, but I learned a valuable lesson. Read the recipe all the way through, or just eat freshly grated parmesan for dinner.

Tempeh Reubens

2009-10-03T05:25:00.000-06:00

October 1st, kicked off World Vegetarian Day so we went meatless for dinner.

I started off the evening by breaking my favorite Wustof knife. Apparently it couldn't take seven years of abuse (being washed in the dishwasher, improperly sharpened, cussed out and generally unappreciated...).

My first reaction was "crap, I have to buy a new knife." Shortly followed by "Hey, I get to buy a new knife!" Carbon steel is no match for the cruciferous power of raw Brussels Sprouts...

I spied an intriguing recipe on The Kitchn that was submitted to their recent Weeknight Recipe Contest for Megan's Tempeh Reubens. Now I don't normally buy tempeh (I'm not a vegetarian, although I dabbled in it on and off for years) and have never actually eaten a reuben sandwich (I'll need to add that to the Omnivore's 100) so I don't know why it appealed to me. But nonetheless, I assembled the ingredients.

Megan's Tempeh Reubens
Makes 2 sandwiches or wraps.

For the tempeh:
1 8oz. package of your favorite tempeh
1/4 c olive oil
1 T toasted sesame oil
1 T tamari
1/4 t paprika
1 dash chili flake
1/4 t thyme (fresh or dried)
1 medium garlic clove, crushed or minced

Sauerkraut (1/3-1/2 c sauerkraut)

1-2 slices swiss cheese for each sandwich

For the dressing:
1/3 c mayo or vegan mayo

1 T ketchup
1/2 T Annie's Goddess Dressing (optional)

Heat 1 T olive oil in your favorite skillet. Whisk together the olive oil, sesame oil, tamari, spices, herbs, and garlic. Cut tempeh into pieces about the size of a pack of playing cards, and then split them so they are about 1/4 inch thick. Dip the slices into the marinade (just turning to coat them--don't let them sit or they turn crumbly), then place into hot oiled pan and cook on medium high heat for 3-4 minutes on each side.

When tempeh slices are golden, whisk 1 T water to your leftover marinade, and pour the mixture into your skillet. Lower the heat. Cover and cook for 1-2 minutes more, then remove the lid and allow the tempeh to crisp up for just another minute. Set it aside and make the dressing.

To make dressing, stir together the mayo, ketchup and Goddess Dressing, if using. These sandwiches also taste fine with good mustard and mayo, but the dressing really makes it feel like an event.

Now assemble the sandwich: Heat skillet (a clean one) on medium heat. Take 2 pieces of your favorite sandwich bread, and butter one slice. Slather about 1 T dressing on the inside of each piece of bread. Top the unbuttered bread with 2 pieces of tempeh. On top of that, spread out your desired amount of sauerkraut and top with your preferred amount and type of cheese. Place the buttered bread on top of your sandwich filling and drop about a small pat of butter into your warm skillet. Place the sandwich on the melting butter, unbuttered bread side down, of course, and cook, uncovered, for about 2 minutes. Using a spatula and some courage, flip the sandwich and allow the other side to brown.

The recipe was simple (and it should be, it's just a sandwich for Pete's sake!). I made a few minor adjustments (surprise, surprise) to less olive oil, more fresh thyme, smoked paprika instead of regular, skipping the Annie's dressing and using gluten-free bread for one and a Tortilla Factory low carb wrap for the other. I reduced the olive oil in the marinade because I used 1-2 TB butter for cooking and used lite swiss cheese.

I generously coated the bread/wrap with the mayo/ketchup dressing, which is basically what we call Fry Sauce here in spud country Idaho.

Served with a side of broiled veggies. I stacked the sandwich with three slices of Trader Joe's Brown Rice Bread for my gluten-free man. My husband ate his triple decker sandwich in the wee hours of the morning after a particularly grueling late night at work. The next morning over coffee I asked him how he liked it.

"It was great. Uh, what was it?"

"Tempeh!"

"Oh...what's tempeh?"

The smokiness of the paprika and the umami of the tamari really soaked into the tempeh. It had the same satifying mouthfeel and heartiness of meat. Even for a meat and potatoes man. Despite being a vegetarian soy product, he liked the meal. The flavors were tasty and it's safe to say that Megan's Tempeh Reubens is making the recipe binder! I can't wait to play with the marinade and try it again.

Mark Bittman Puts My Cat To Sleep...

2009-10-01T06:04:00.001-06:00

Artichokes are my daughter's favorite vegetable. What's the best part? The fun of peeling each leaf, the dip and lick or the meaty heart? At any rate, since it's one of the few veggies that she'll gladly eat, I make them often. I tried a new technique for me, trimming and slicing them in half first. In How to Cook Everything Bittman warns that a pan can run dry quickly, especially when steaming a long-cooking vegetable. Well... sometimes a girl starts reading blogs and gets a bit distracted. Nothing is more comforting than a household smelling of burned pan and soggy acrid artichokes. Ick.

Is my Circulon stockpot ruined?

After the artichoke steaming disaster, I tried the next day on a more forgiving vegetable. Not all the household gets excited by cookbooks as I do.

My husband has been on a business trip and I got the call that he was coming home early. Doh! I had been planning on making a PB&J for my daughter and maybe just a protein shake/salad for me. Instead, I did something almost as easy. Grabbed Kitchen Express and my new How to Cook Everything (an anniversary gift from my man) and landed on Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Hazelnuts and Pasta Carbonara.

I chopped up a garden's worth of veggies - brussels sprouts, green beans, yellow squash, carrots and celery - and boiled up some quinoa elbow pasta for the kids (er, husband and child), low carb tofu shirataki noodles for me. Obviously not gourmet, but they work when I don't want a heaping bowl of carbohydrate goodness. As for the veggies, Thank you Mark Bittman. I've never quick roasted veggies under the broiler before (besides broiling tomatoes with cheese) - what a quick way to get that roasted taste, but with instant gratification! However, I glued myself to the kitchen, not daring to glance at Google Reader or my email with something under the broiler. I didn't want an artichoke repeat.

Meanwhile, I whisked eggs and parmesan (a bit of fresh grated that I used my hand-me-down Zyliss grater, but mostly the pre-shredded kind from Costco. Still working my way up to buying the real stuff in blocks rather than the convenience version) and again another guilty pleasure convenience food - the bag pre-cooked Costco bacon. Salt, pepper and that's that. Even faster than take-out and 4-year old approved, at least the pasta, not the sprouts...

The entire meal was probably 15 minutes max. Would have been even faster if I chopped up the veggies in the food processor rather than by hand!

Middle Eastern Pizza

2009-09-29T08:23:00.000-06:00

Oh chickpea flour. You rock my world. Free of gluten, high in taste, low in carbs and you even make a flatbread. You just give, give, give. Thank you.

I had some ground lamb on hand, chickpea flour and a garden full of weeds, um, I mean mint. Sounds like Middle Eastern Pizza to me!

I started with Mark Bittman's Flatbread recipe (which I adore. He shows some other versions here.) using chickpea flour or besan. I've also made it using Bob's Red Mill Chickpea/Fava blend which has more carbs, but also more protein.

The instructions for the flatbread are pretty simple, mix flour and salt, stream in water. I think I can handle that. Since I was going to use this for a pizza crust, I opted not to add additional flavorings like rosemary or onion.

The Kitchen Express recipe for Middle Eastern Pizza is also pretty simple. You take a half pound of ground lamb, a chopped onion, a chopped tomato, garlic, a couple tablespoons of tomato paste, fresh mint and salt/pepper. Spread it on a pita and bake at 450 until the lamb is cooked. Sounds delish.

However, since ground lamb is notoriously fatty, I decided to pan cook a pound of lamb and rinse to remove as much fat as I could. I was pretty darn sure that there would be plenty of fat left in the meat for flavor (and there was). I cooked it in my new Cuisinart Chef's Classic Stainless Steel Sauté pan (lovin' it) and then reserved about a tablespoon of fat for coating my pizza pan. I rinsed/drained the ground meat in very hot water three times. While the batter was resting, I added a large yellow tomato, a fresh onion from my CSA, tomato paste and salt/pepper.

I coated my pizza pan (which unfortunately was 13 inches, rather than 12 making the crust too thin) and then carefully poured in my batter. It is very easy to spill the batter out the sides when putting in the oven. I've done it twice...

I've suspected for a while that my oven hasn't been getting up to temperature, and BOY WAS I RIGHT! I bought an oven thermometer yesterday at Cost Plus World Market. I need to keep testing the oven at different temperatures, but when I preheated the oven to 450 degrees, the thermometer only read 360! I blame all cooking mishaps on my oven's faulty heating. I cooked my flatbread at "450" for about 25 minutes. It was spread too thin and would be much improved by using an 11" pie plate.

I covered it with the lamb tomato mixture and sprinkled on about a tablespoon of zaatar as well as some chopped mint that has taken over my yard. Zaatar would make an excellent Scrabble word, by the way. Did I mention I have a lifetime supply of zaatar? (Why buy one container when you get get a three pack at Amazon.com? Now what am I supposed to do with all of this spice?! My odd impulse purchases also apply to online shopping.) I put the pizza back in the oven and broiled for a few minutes.

And.... voila! The crust was too thin to hold well in the hand, but with a fork it was delicious. The pizza was did not receive a four-year old's stamp of approval unfortunately.

Go Cook Search Engine

2009-09-28T18:47:00.000-06:00

I am in the midst of reinstalling my life, at least my virtual life, after my motherboard crashed four hundred years ago. I've been limping along for weeks on my husband's laptop and finally have a working system again. While trying to remember what programs I used to have, I came across this new one.

Go Cook! It's a search bar for recipes. Sounds like something I need to have...

It might be love...

2009-09-28T18:40:00.000-06:00

It might be love. No, not for bacon or even brownies, but a man.

I've actually been married to the guy in question for seven years and when that looming year seven came along this September, I re-evaluated the relationship. There's a reason they call it the Seven Year Itch. Relationships are more difficult than following a recipe to the letter and Food Blog Search has so very few recipes for a successful marriage. In the kitchen and in the home, sometimes things just get frustrating.

My husband slipped into the bedroom as I got ready to sack out for the night. "I got you something. I meant to wrap it but...well, just close your eyes."

A present? For me? I closed my eyes, expecting something along the lines of an ethernet card.

He put something into my hands. It was big, heavy and paperback. "It's either a Bible, a textbook or... a cookbook?" I opened my eyes. Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. I giggled. Thoughtful. Sweet. I'm going to cook something to celebrate a sweet love for a thoughtful man. Now, if only Mark Bittman has a recipe for bacon brownies...

EatingWell's Salmon Eggplant Curry and a filleting disaster

2009-09-28T06:39:00.000-06:00

Salmon. Check.

Eggplant. Check.

Filleting knife? What the heck is that? I'll just use my regular knives and hack the thing to death.

I have a stack of EatingWell magazines that I clip a few recipes from, usually don't make them and then pass along to friends and family. But this time, I had all (okay, most) of the ingredients and was going to give it a shot. Here goes Salmon Eggplant Curry.

1 tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Thai yellow curry paste or 1 teaspoon curry powder, or to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium eggplant, (about 1 pound), cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 14-ounce can “lite” coconut milk
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1 pound skinned salmon fillet, preferably wild Pacific, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 cups sugar snap peas, trimmed
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
3 tablespoons lime juice

I know I should probably make a recipe exactly AS IS before I start to tweak it, but minor differences shouldn't matter, right? (fingers crossed) I swapped out grapeseed oil for canola, fresh garden green beans for sugar snap peas, and 1 TB erythritol plus 1 tsp molasses for the brown sugar (to recreate the brown sugar taste). I had purchased a beautiful skin-on fillet of fresh Coho Salmon at Costco and had a luscious deep purple eggplant. I could hardly contain my excitement. It was gonna be gooooood.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add curry paste (or powder) and garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add eggplant and cook, stirring, until the eggplant is coated with the curry mixture, about 2 minutes.
Add coconut milk, fish sauce and brown sugar to the pan. Bring to a boil; stir in salmon and snow peas. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the salmon is cooked through and the peas are tender-crisp, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in basil and lime juice.

While the eggplant/curry mixture was cooking I decided to filet my salmon, although I've never done that before. Up to now, I've always broiled skin-on salmon or bought it without skin. No big deal, I figured. Um...Getting the skin off of a stubborn Alaskan fish is not as easy as it looks. It wasn't budging and then the flesh started to tear. I grabbed a different knife, and then another. I couldn't get that skin off (I was starting to feel sorry for that serial killer in Silence of the Lambs who made the skin coat). I had to hurry because my eggplant was getting to point of adding the salmon. What to do? I flipped on the broiler and slapped that fishy down on some foil for a minute or two under the flame. Using tongs, the skin peeled right off. Ahhh....thank heavens. I'll be adding that to my list of techniques to learn: how to skin a fish fillet.

But once again, I got distracted and I didn't set a timer... while there were no smoke detectors this time, the eggplant turned a bit mushy and everything took on an unpleasant grayish cast. I dished it up (the basil's bright green livened it up a bit) and took a bite. It needed salt, more sweetness and sad to say, a lot more flavor.

My husband gave it a thumbs up and went back for seconds, but I was unimpressed. For $10 worth of salmon, we could have made a fantastic broiled salmon with a wasabi or red pepper sauce.

Was it the cook or the recipe? At any rate, I learned a valuable lesson. Have someone else skin your salmon for you.

The Omnivore's 100 vs. The Vegan's 100

2009-09-27T07:13:00.000-06:00

I came across Very Good Taste's Omnivore's Hundred - 100 things that everyone should try in their lifetime. I am woefully behind...

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea (done - not bad)
3. Huevos rancheros (done - always good)
4. Steak tartare (done)
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue (Done - always good. Why isn't this number one?)
8. Carp
9. Borscht (never had authentic borscht. Going to run to the Russian Bear Cafe to try it out.)
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari (Done - Maybe this should be number one instead...)
12. Pho (Done)
13. PB&J sandwich (Done)
14. Aloo gobi (Done)
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (Done)
19. Steamed pork buns (Done - oh how I miss these from the Bay Area)
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (Done)
22. Fresh wild berries (Done)
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans (Done)
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (Done, eaten in Mexico)
28. Oysters (Done, raw and spicy)
29. Baklava (Done)
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas (Done)
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (Done, S.F. baby!)
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut (Done)
35. Root beer float (Done)
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo (Done)
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (Hmmm... intentionally? Does bugs in the teeth while cycling count?)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk (Done)
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala (Done)
48. Eel (Done)
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (Done)
50. Sea urchin (Done - will not be repeating...)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi (Done)
53. Abalone
54. Paneer (Done)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (Done - so many years ago I can't recall. Won't be repeating.)
56. Spaetzle (Done)
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV (Done)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips (Done)
61. S’mores (Done)
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (Done - how about all of 'em together?)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain (Done)
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho (Done)
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (Again, do insects in the teeth count?)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie (Done - a staple growing up...)
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum (Done)
82. Eggs Benedict (Done)
83. Pocky (Done)
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef (Done)
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers (Done. Peppery nasturtiums.)
89. Horse (Oh my...This might have to wait until my next life. How about Golden Retriever instead?)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam (Done. Again, another childhood staple.)
92. Soft shell crab (Done)
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish (Done)
95. Mole poblano (Done)
96. Bagel and lox (Done)
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta (Done)
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Okay, so I've got my work cut out for me on the Omnivore's 100. Let's see how I did on the Vegan's 100.

The Vegan's Hundred

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or social networking site profile, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out or italicize any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment on this post linking to your results.

I hope you will join this vegan foodie tasting adventure.
Post the link to your list in the comments-if you have any questions, leave them in the comments as well!

...lets show the omnivores that the question "what do vegans eat?" definitely has over 100 amazing answers...!

The HHL Vegan Hundred:

1. Molasses
2. Cactus/Nopales
3. Scrambled Tofu
4. Grilled Portobella Caps
5. Fresh Ground Horseradish
6. Sweet Potato Biscuits
7. Arepa
8. Vegan Cole Slaw
9. Ginger Carrot Soup
10. Fiddlehead Ferns (on my list to try ever since I saw Martha Stewart saute them in butter)
11. Roasted Elephant Garlic
12. Umeboshi
13. Almond Butter Toast (ah, a daily love)
14. Aloe Vera
15. H and H Bagel NYC
16. Slow Roasted Butternut Squash
17. White truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Freshly ground wasabi
20. Coconut Milk Ice Cream (not store bought)
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Orchard-fresh pressed apple cider
23. Organic California Mango (in season Sept-Oct only)
24. Quinoa
25. Papaya Smoothie
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet (habanero) pepper
27. Goji Berry Tea
28. Fennel
29. Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie
30. Radishes and Vegan Buttery Spread
31. Starfruit
32. Oven fresh Sourdough bread
33. Sangria made with premium fruit and juices
34. Sauerkraut
35. Acai Smoothie
36. Blue Foot Mushrooms
37. Vegan Cupcake from Babycakes nyc
38. Sweet Potatoes and Tempeh combo (ooooh, sounds good)
39. Falafel
40. Spelt Crust Pizza
41. Salt and Pepper Oyster Mushrooms
42. Jicama Slaw
43. Pumpkin Edamame Ginger Dumplings
44. Hemp Milk
45. Rose Champagne
46. Fuyu
47. Raw Avocado-Coconut Soup
48. Tofu Pesto Sandwich
49. Apple-Lemon-Ginger-Cayenne fresh-pressed juice...with Extra Ginger
50. Grilled Seitan
51. Prickly pear
52. Fresh Pressed Almond Milk
53. Concord Grapes off the vine
54. Ramps
55. Coconut Water fresh from a young coconut
56. Organic Arugula
57. Vidalia Onion
58. Sampler of organic produce from Diamond Organics
59. Honeycrisp Apple
60. Poi
61. Vegan Campfire-toasted Smores
62. Grape seed Oil
63. Farm fresh-picked Peach
64. Freshly-made pita bread with freshly-made hummus
65. Chestnut Snack Packs
66. Fresh Guava
67. Mint Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (is it possible I've never had a mint version? Say it ain't so!)
68. Raw Mallomar from One Lucky Duck, NYC
69. Fried plantains
70. Mache
71. Golden Beets
72. Barrel-Fresh Pickles
73. Liquid Smoke
74. Meyer Lemon (in my top 10 favorite ingredients)
75. Veggie Paella
76. Vegan Lasagna (raw optional)
77. Kombucha
78. Homemade Soy Milk
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Lychee Bellini
81. Tempeh Bacon
82. Sprouted Grain Bread
83. Lemon Pepper Tempeh
84. Vanilla Bean (in something? Of course. By itself, no.)
85. Watercress
86. Carrot you pulled out of the ground yourself
87. Vegan In-Season Fruit Pie
88. Flowers
89. Corn Chowder (not a vegan version...)
90. High Quality Vegan Raw Chocolate
91. Yellow fuzz-free Kiwi
92. White Flesh Grapefruit
93. harissa
94. Coconut Oil
95. Jackfruit
96. Homemade Risotto
97. Spirulina
98. Seedless 'Pixie' Tangerine
99. Gourmet Sorbet, not store bought
100. Fresh Plucked English Peas

Think I did a little better with the vegan version. Of course, the Omnivore version was from the UK. Anyone have a U.S. version?

Obsessed by all things Chickpea

2009-09-26T06:40:00.000-06:00

After discovering Mark Bittman's flatbread made with chickpea flour, I confess I've become obsessed with all things chickpea. Everywhere I turn, it seems that the whole world has been in on this except me! Vegetarian Times this month has socca wild mushroom stacks that look sinfully tempting. The humble garbanzo is transformed when turned into flour! I ran out and bought a package of Bob's Red Mill Fava/Chickpea flour blend to make the flatbread (also using it as a pizza crust for gluten free pizza). The Fava/Chickpea blend has more carbohydrate than just chickpea flour, which adds up if using several servings for a recipe.

According to my dear friend CalorieKing, 1/3 c. of chickpea flour has 117 calories, 2g fat, 17.5g carbs (3.3g of which are fiber) and 6.8g protein. The Chickpea/Fava blend has 147 calories, 2g fat, 24g carbs (8g of which are fiber) and 8g protein. Not too shabby considering the same amount of whole wheat flour has about 28g carbohydrate.

I was not aware that there was chickpea life beyond hummus. Besides the amazing superpowers of chickpea flour, canned (or homemade) chickpeas can be pureed into desserts! What?! I'm toying with Have Cake, Will Travel's Chickpea Blondie recipe to successfully convert it to sugar free. Made them yesterday with erythritol, stevia and baked peaches and they just didn't turn out...but I forgot the vanilla (note to self: must cross items off recipe after I've added them). I'm determined to make them work!

Chickpeas roasted in the oven to a crunchy snack have been 4-year old approved! Yeah!

By the way, at $.50-$1.00 per can, I usually keep 3 cans on hand in the pantry and then make several glasslock containers full for the freezer from dried beans ($.69/lb.).

This week's Dessert Agenda includes refining chickpea blondies, trying Subversive Peanut Butter Cinnamon Chickpea Fudge from Dude, Where's the Stove and apparently losing the three pounds that I'll have gained from all this baking.