Ahead of the Curve

First, I have been a blogging slacker of late. What can I say? Stomach bugs. Two rounds of colds. A lice epidemic in the kids' schools. It's been a crazy winter. But I am recommitting.

I have bunch of recipe ideas to get up, but while I am working on that, here is a little fun Friday web distraction. Do you know  Pinterest? I discovered this totally addicting site when reading the Post Punk Kitchen Blog's year end round-up. I requested a Pinterest invite right away and within a view days, I was spending far too much time on the site.

So what is Pinterest? It is an online "pinboard" for saving images from the web. Essentially, you create "boards" (like bulletin boards) with a images and the corresponding location on the web. I have one for garden ideas, books to read, favorite recipes, cool crafts. You get the idea. It is basically a visual way to create a cache of bookmarks. When you sign up, you check off some things you are interested in and Pinterest "folks" (ie complex algorithm) picks a bunch of people (real people this time) for you to follow. And, if you have a Facebook account, it will find "friends" who have Pinterest accounts and try to connect you. Even without an account, you can search other people's boards. Want to build a new patio? Redecorate a room? Bake gluten free bread? Try Pinterest as search engine.

Here is an article from the NY Times about the incredible rise of this site.

I think I am also obsessed with Pinterest because this is one of the few times in my life I have been ahead of the curve. I actually had a Pinterest account before Josh and Dave, who are way more knowledgeable about the tech universe, even knew what it was. The last time I was ahead of the curve? I had the first Sheryl Crow album way before she became super famous. So there you have it.

Seriously, Pinterest is really cool. Give it a try.

Vegan Apple Bread

Love quick breads. Love them.

Yesterday, in an effort to warm up our kitchen and use up some of the nearly inedible apples in our crisper, I made a vegan version of apple bread. It was fabulous.We have been enjoying it all week for breakfast.

Here's the recipe:

-In a small bowl combine 2 cups cooked apple chunks or chunky apple sauce or just apple sauce, 1/4 cup oil, 1/4 cup honey. (I also had some grated zucchini on hand so I threw that in. It was about a scant 1/4 cup.)
-In a larger bowl combine 1 cup white flour, 1 cup wheat flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 cup brown sugar, a few dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg.
-Add wet to dry plus 1 cup soy/coconut/almond/rice milk. Don't over mix.
-Pour into greased loaf pan and cook at 350 for about 1 hour.

Quite a Scene

Here are some images of the tableau that Kara left in her room this morning.

Pictured are "Cheetee" the cheetah. A Christmas present from my mom. She is getting married, thus the pink veil. And, of course, she is sitting with her cubs.

As I was taking these pictures, I noticed these little cuties all tucked in for a hard day of waiting for Kara to get home.

Miso Tofu

 

The other day I saw a recipe for Grilled Tofu Salad with Miso Dressing on Steamy Kitchen. It looked delicious, so I gave it a try. But of course, I didn't really follow the recipe. Not exactly anyway.

Here's what I did:
-Slice a block of extra firm tofu into about 7-8 slices. Press them between dish towels to get out some of the moisture.
-In a small bowl, I mixed:

• 4 tsp miso paste
• dash of soy sauce
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1tbsp rice vinegar
• juice of 1/2 lime
• juice of 1/2 orange
• 2 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp warm water
• dash of sriracha 

-Then I put the dish in the microwave for 20 seconds to warm it all up - it needs to be warm to dissolve the miso and honey.
-Season to taste and then pour half over the tofu.
-I broiled the tofu for about 7 min/side, but you could fry or grill it too.
-For the salad, I just made a basic salad. But I added the juice from the second half of the orange and little sesame oil to the remaining marinade to convert it to salad dressing.

"Five" Minute Pita - For Real

 In my last post I glossed over the fact that I made pita to go with our amazing falafel dinner. Lest you think that I am some kind of baking guru, let me assure you that pita bread is so so so easy to make. The only "technical" piece of equipment you need is a pizza stone. But I think you could probably use a baking sheet and make it work.

Last spring I posted about the wonders of the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes book. You can make a really good loaf of bread following their method. But you can make really incredible pita bread. What I mean to say is: You can make the best pita ever. And it really takes no time at all.

Here is their basic bread recipe with step by step instructions and photos. Once you have made a bucket, or pot, or big bowl of dough you can do all kinds of things with it. Obviously, you can shape a whole loaf of bread, or make bread sticks, or a pizza etc. But if you want to have fresh bread ASAP, make pita.

Here's what you do:
-Heat your oven with a pizza stone to 400. If you don't have a stone, put a heavy duty baking sheet in the oven and let it get hot.
-Scoop out a small handful of dough and roll it out to about 1/4 to 1/8 inch. You will need lots of flour.
-Use a pizza peel to slide the flattened dough on to the stone. Or, place the dough on parchment and use a pan or cookie sheet to slide it onto the hot baking surface.
-Turn on your oven light, call the kids and watch your flat dough bubble up and become pita. Takes about 7 minutes. Highly entertaining.
-BTW: If you prick the dough all over with a fork before putting in the oven, it wont puff and you will have lavash instead of pita. Equally delicious.

Falafel Night!

Sunday night is often Dave's night to cook. Not only is it nice to have a break from being the family cook, but I can always count on Dave to try something new. Dave, unlike me, is good at following an actual recipe, and I can count on him to research his dinner idea with his typically meticulous attention. So when he decided to give Falafel a try a few weeks ago, I was psyched. Unfortunately, it didn't really come out the way he had hoped. The falafel tasted good, but in the frying up process, many of them fell apart. And despite his best efforts, he couldn't quite get the temperature of the oil right. Bottom line, it wasn't the best falafel ever. Welcome to the world of home-cooking, hon!

So when Dave offered to cook again this Sunday, I encouraged him to climb back up on that falafel horse. (Sorry for that horribly strained metaphor.) This time he used a recipe from Fresh, a new cookbook I bought recently - which is a great source for vegan and vegetarian recipes. This time he was completely successful. These little patties were amazing. Flavorful, tender and just the right consistency. They fried up perfectly.

Here is the recipe. We played a little fast and loose with the amounts for the herbs. And we didn't have any mint, so we just left it out. You don't need to be especially precise to make good falafel.

-In a food processor combine: 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 cup cilantro, 1/2 cup mint, 1/2 cup parsley. Transfer to a large bowl.
-Put 3 1/2- 4 cups of cooked chickpeas in the food processor. Blend until chopped but don't puree. You want the mixture to be coarse.
-Add chickpeas to bowl with herbs and add: 1/2 cup bread crumbs, 1/2 cup flour (the recipe called for spelt flour but we just used whole wheat), 1/3 cup finely diced onion, 4 tbsp tahini (you could substitute peanut butter, I suspect), 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp coriander
-Mix it all together and then use hands to form small patties.
-You can fry them or bake them right away of refrigerate until you are ready to cook.
-If you are frying, use a heavy skillet and about 1/4 cup oil. If baking, set oven to 350 and cook for about 20 min. We tried both methods and thought they were equally yummy.

We served them with fresh made pita, lettuce, cucumbers and tahini dressing. The kids weren't that into the falafel, so we substituted hummus for them. A super-healthy Sunday dinner. They made fabulous leftovers on Monday, too.

Thanks, Dave, for conquering your falafel fears and making us a wonderful meal. You rock!

New Years Review

I was planning to post holiday pictures today, but we are having computer issues. Big time praise and thanks to Dave for tackling our technology issues. To say it has been "challenging" would be a huge understatement. In lieu of cute pics of the kids, I thought I would share some of the fun and cool things that we have encountered this holiday season.

1. Xbox Kinect. This was our big ticket gift from Dave's parents. Ostensibly, the purpose was to allow Kara to play fun, age appropriate games. (Dave has already fully explored Xbox's capabilities to play Skyim. Full disclosure, I have played quite a bit of Call of Duty, as well.) We were not sure how Kara would take to the whole gaming thing, but we can say without reservation that it has been a huge success. Kinectimals is absurdly cute; the adventure game is also lots of fun. But the big hit has been Just Dance. We all, even Jamie, took part in the fun. Even Dave took a turn playing to the Pointer Sisters' classic "Jump." Best daddy ever.

2.  Buffalo chicken dip. Josh brought this for New Year's eve and it rocked. Again. So disgustingly delicious.

3.  Homemade Candied Ginger. I used this recipe by David Lebovitz. It was almost an epic fail - I couldn't get the sugar syrup to thicken and made it all boil over on my stove which set off all of the smoke alarms at 9 o'clock at night. Good times. But...the end result was gorgeous and delicious.

4. How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I bought this as a Christmas present to myself. Unbelievably comprehensive resource. Totally worth it if you are even vaguely interested in eating less meat.

I hope to be back with pictures next week.
Happy New Year!

Latkes - Old & New

In honor of Chanukah, I made latkes last night. Let me start by saying that I love latkes. Simple, savory comfort food. Makes me feel like I am channeling my Jewish ancestors.

The traditional way to make these potato delights is to grate up some peeled potatoes and some onion. Add salt, pepper, flour and egg to bind up the mixture. Then you fry up the mixture like pancakes, preferably in a cast iron skillet. That's it. Easy peasy, as Kara would say.

A few notes on the basic recipe: Many people let their potatoes drain before mixing them up with the rest of the ingredients. I never have the time/patience for this, and I think my latkes are still pretty darn good. Also, many people - like my grandmother - would insist that latkes be made by grating your potatoes, and knuckles, on a box grater. I have done this many times. But I find that you can get an equally authentic product using a food processor with the shredding attachment. 

Because my mom and I have been participating in a fall CSA this year, I have an abundance of butternut squash. And if I am honest, I don't really like butternut squash that much. It's good as soup - for about a day. And I usually roast, puree and freeze up cubes of it to add to the instant mac and cheese my kids love and therefore assuage my guilt about feeding them instant mac and cheese. I was struggling to come up with uses for the all of the squash that are languishing in a box in our garage when I came across this recipe from Cooking Light that I had torn out and shoved in my recipe folder last year. Last night I gave it a try and found it to be excellent. I didn't follow the recipe to the letter, big surprise, but even as a blueprint, it was great. The curry makes these latkes a little spicy and very aromatic. I served them up with the traditional sour cream and added a side of mango chutney. They are hearty, too. I ate them as a main course last night and tonight.

Give latkes, of any variety, a try. They are incredibly flexible. Nearly impossible to screw up. Easily made vegan (no egg, use soy/rice milk instead) or gluten free (no flour, use corn starch or any gf flour). Happy Chanukah!

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars.

Make them right now.

Do not pass go.

I found this on Dinner With Julie, a very cool blog with lots of delicious recipes. These bars will make you a the most popular party guest, the MVP of the cookie exchange, the most-loved employee at the office potluck. Amazing.

BBQ Beef - Holiday Party Perfection

The season of frolicking is upon us. As I have written about before, we really get into the Christmas spirit here. Decorating, eating, drinking, hanging out with family and friends - all of which we lump into the general term "frolicking." Last weekend the frolicking began in earnest when we hosted both of our families over for tree trimming and dinner. I have been known to go a little overboard when guests are eating with us (see Vegan Dumplings post of late), but in the holidays I do my best not to make things overly complicated.

To that end, I am all about the slow cooker for parties. For this event, I made bbq beef. In a couple of weeks I will pull out the slow cooker again so Dave can make his famous pulled pork. Pulled meats are the best for parties: they are almost entirely hands off in terms of preparation; they taste delicious; they look impressive (ie people will have a totally unrealistic view of your work ethic).

Here is what I did for the beef:
-I used a chuck roast, a rump roast and a round roast. Yes, I was also cleaning out my freezer. I am not sure about the weight of all this beef but I am going to say it was quite a bit.
-Chop up one large onion, a few cloves of garlic and toss into the slow cooker.
-Salt and pepper the meat and throw it in.
-Pour in one bottle of dark beer. We used Magic Hat Howl which was yummy by itself as well.
-In a small mixing bowl I combined a can of tomato sauce, 1 cup brown sugar, scant 1/4 cup mustard, a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce, chili powder, garlic powder and some cumin. Basically, I made a raw bbq sauce.
-Dump the sauce over the meat. Turn the cooker to high and go do something productive/unproductive. I stuffed so much meat in the cooker, it took almost 7 hrs on high. Just check on it every hour or so. You want it all to fall off the bone.
-When the meat is done, take it out and shred it up. Pour out the liquid in the cooker, but reserve some in case your meat gets dry later. Return the meat to the cooker and stir in about a cup of bbq sauce. Add enough sauce to get the taste and moistness that suits you.

We served this up with coleslaw on little dinner rolls that I got from Costco. I have been known to make my own rolls, too, but I was feeling sane this time so I went with store-bought. A good decision because they were delicious. An ideal holiday party meal.

Get Your Craft On

You know you have issues when your husband sees your latest project and comments, "The girl is crafty like ice is cold." That's right -- my recent foray into the craftosphere has made Dave go all Beastie Boys on me.

Now that Kara is old enough to actually participate, I thought it would be fun to make some gifts this year. My mom gave me an a copy of Family Fun Magazine that came to her office, and I saw these two projects. One is a woven fleece scarf and the other is stenciled dish towels. (By the way, it's moment like this - ie typing the words "stenciled dish towels" - that I think that I have gone way way over the edge.)

The towels are still a work in progress, but we are on our way with the scarves. Here is one I did on Saturday. It's true, I am so cool that I craft on weekends.

Holiday Jobs

 

While it is nice to have the kids home all day on Thanksgiving, there comes a point when I am in need of some serious distraction. How many times can I answer the question, "When are they going to get here?" with the appropriate amount of parental civility? When my little girl starts to really ramp up the irritating, I find that nothing works better than giving her a job. She is a master potato masher. She can set the table. She is excellent at anything that involves bossing around her brother, or father for that matter.

This year I found a new job: place card creator. Very effective in getting her out of the kitchen. Very cute result for our Thanksgiving table.

Vegan Dumplings

A couple of weeks ago my friend Katie brought her new boyfriend over for dinner. Once again, I was struck by an irrational need to really impress her new guy. (This neurosis was exacerbated by the fact that said boyfriend in French. Not fair, but true.) It turns out that David, the new guy, is a vegetarian which fits right in with our current eating habits. In any case, I decided to use this occasion to try something entirely new: Vegan dumplings.

After much combing of vegan and vegetarian websites, I finally settled on this recipe for Vegetarian Potstickers on Herbavoracious (an awesome site, btw). My issue with veggie dumplings is always that they are too mushy without any meat to give them some firmness. This recipe seemed like it could counteract the mush factor by using tempeh in the filling.

This recipe is "easy" in the sense that it is straightforward; it doesn't require strange ingredients or any advanced cooking supplied. However, it is time consuming. Folding all of those little dumplings took at least 45 min. While the filling tasted delicious, I added more cabbage than he calls for plus some shredded carrot an finely chopped mushroom. I was pleased that the tempeh did, in fact, make the filling nice and firm. Not a trace of mush.

As I was frying up dumplings, chopping ingredients for our main course of bi bim bop, and whipping up the sauce for both dishes, Dave commented that this might be the most high-maintenance dinner ever. He may have been right, but it was worth it. How often do you get to cook for your friend's French boyfriend? If ever there was a time to go all out...

Peanut Butter Noodles

I was perusing Dinner a Love Story, one on my favorite blogs, and Jenny mentioned that the recipe for peanut butter noodles was one of the most often viewed on her site. Considering that I check out her blog pretty much every day, I wasn't sure how I missed that recipe. Not only did I read it, I made it last night. Fabulous.

A few notes on the recipe:
-I found that 2/3 cup water was a little too much, so I just added a little more peanut butter.
-I also added a splash of mirin. If you like cooking food with Asian flavors, Mirin is a great thing to have in your pantry.  Mirin is Japanese sweet rice wine, though Kikkoman labels it as "Sweet Rice Seasoning" which is pretty accurate. I first learned about mirin when I was working in New York and one of my coworkers told me that, "Mirin is the thing that makes Asian dressings taste, well, Asian." She was right. Like the carrot-ginger salad dressing that comes with your pre-sushi salad? It probably has mirin in it as a sweetener. Enough about mirin. Get some. It's great stuff.
-This recipe makes a pretty good sized batch of sauce. Plenty for two meals.
-Sadly, this recipe did not have the magical effect described in the post -- my kids didn't really like it. Dave and I thought it was phenomenal, however, which makes it a success in my book.

Tahini Dressing

Another lesson from the vegan adventure: It's all about the condiments. If you are going to put grains, beans, tofu and veggies in the center of your diet, you better have some good dressings and marinades to go with it all.

In my vegan research I read Alicia Silverstone's The Kind Life. Don't laugh. While it is enthusiastic in the extreme, she has some good tips and more than a few good recipes. One of the best was her tahini dressing. Tahini is sesame seed paste. It is delicious.

Of course, I am not a big follower of dressing recipes, so I will just give you the gist of it.

This one is most easily made in a food processor. I used my Mini-Cuisinart.
-Put in the food processor 2 cloves of garlic and a chunk of ginger. Chop up.
-Add 2 tbsp tahini, a squeeze of lemon juice, a dash of soy sauce, a couple of tablespoons of rice vinegar and mirin. Blend until smooth.
-Finally add olive oil until you get the consistency you like. Blend. I also added a little agave to sweeten it up. Honey would work well, too.

This will keep in the refrigerator for several days. It is great on salad, cooked vegetables, rice, beans, falafel, tofu. You name it.

Eleven Madison Park Granola

I saw this recipe for granola in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday. Ok, I am pretty skeptical about most granola recipes. I am really wary of recipes that come from super fancy New York restaurants. This formula is not so different from the Mark Bittman template I usually follow. But something about including olive oil and coconut chips just inspired me to give this a try.

It turned out that I didn't actually have any coconut chips, and neither did Trader Joe's. But I did have pepitas, oats, grated coconut and a variety of dried fruits. The key to this granola is the brown sugar, maple syrup and olive oil that make up the coating for the oat mixture. When you bake the granola, this sugary mix becomes heavenly.

Hands down, this is the best granola I have ever produced. It is definitely sweeter and richer than my typical recipe, but I am still willing to bet that it is far healthier than the average store-bought granola. Give it a try.

The 99%

Whatever your feelings are regarding the Occupy Wall Street movement, you should check out the site We Are the 99%. Moving stories and images like the one below.

Oatmeal Revelation - Part II

A while ago I posted about my realization that you can make oatmeal over night by just soaking the oats. Duh!

In my new (mostly) vegan diet, I have been eating lots of oatmeal in the morning. It's warm, nutritious, filling and endlessly adaptable. Nonetheless, I love getting new ideas for ways to jazz up this very traditional breakfast. Here are a couple:

-Add a bit of another grain to the oatmeal mix. On Sunday I made oatmeal on the stove and added, because I am wacky like that, a 1/4 cup of barley. Delicious. Dave noted that it gave the cereal a little more of a nutty flavor. Millet would work. So would brown rice or bulgar (cooked first). I suppose you could use quinoa, but I fear that would taste a little too nutty for me.

-Add a fruit butter. This is a derivation of a suggestion by Marissa on her wonderful blog Food in Jars. She tried adding applesauce to her oats and loved it. I took it one step further and added apple butter. Since I had just made apple butter, this was easy inspiration. Wow. It tasted so good. My kids liked it, too. If you like the store bought "apple and cinnamon" flavored oatmeal, give this a try. This morning I added pumpkin butter. Yum. Just yum.

Fall

You can tell it's finally fall when there is a big pile of leaves in your yard.

Game Day Pretzels

Even though...

...the Phillies lost all of their mojo and then lost in a pathetic fashion on Friday

...it would appear that the Eagles have gone from "struggling" to "sucking"

...this was a really bad weekend to be a Philadelphia sports fan

Even though it all seemed to go bad in the Philly sports world, there's always the next game, the next week, or next year.

In that spirit, here is a super easy snack to bring to a tailgate or just in to your living room to watch the game. I can't remember where I got this recipe many moons ago. Someone brought a batch to the beach, and we gobbled them up like a swarm of locusts. After that summer, these were my go-to snack to bring to a party or when we were visiting friends. I sort of forgot about them, but then this August I brought some to Ellie's on the Cape, and I can say without reservation that they go quite nicely with a beer or a dark and stormy. When Ellie emailed last week for the "secret" formula so that she could make some for a football game, I remembered that I had been meaning to post about these delicious pretzels.

Here's what you do:
-Purchase a bag of hard sourdough pretzels - any brand will do. Drop the bag on the floor a few times to break them up into smallish pieces.
-In a large bowl combine 1 packet of dry ranch dressing mix and 1/3 to 1/2 cup oil. Dump in the pretzels and stir to coat.
-Spread in a layer on a baking sheet and brown in a 350 oven for 7-10 minutes. You want to dry up the oil and dressing coating.
-When they come out of the oven, sprinkle with dry dill.
-Present at next game day occasion and hope that your team doesn't gag it up the way my teams did this weekend.