Feminism, Baking, and a New Muffin Recipe

All in one easy-to-read blog post, over at IHE!

A discovery

This year, as I've already mentioned, we joined a CSA. And the vegetables were great. We discovered that we love beets, we ate kale and chard as often as we could get it, and salad turnips were a revelation. During the heat of midsummer we had as many tomatoes, and as much basil, as we could handle, and there were always melons. It was wonderful.

In the fall it became clear that the drought over the summer had done a number on some of the crops. The earliest sign was that there were no zucchini--this was astonishing, as anyone who's ever had to sneak zucchini onto a neighbor's back porch knows. There were no fall beets, and the potato and carrot crops weren't what they might have been. Still there was kale, lovely kale, and there were some winter squash, and those delicious turnips.

And rutabaga. Even the name puts me off a bit. Looking at them, you wonder how anyone ever decided to eat one: they are purple and white, knobbly and hairy, and altogether unbeautiful. My first attempts at cooking them didn't go over too well, either: I peeled and chopped and roasted one along with our potatoes and sweet potatoes, and Nick carefully pushed each offending chunk to the side. I could hardly blame him. It had a bitterness that was somehow sharper, less welcoming, than the bitterness of my beloved fall greens.

So the rutabagas sat in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator, passed over for turnips and squash, potatoes and sweet potatoes.

The CSA ended just before Thanksgiving, almost a month ago. We have finished the kale, the salad greens are long gone, and last week I used up the last two carrots. There are still a few salad turnips left. And the rutabagas. What to do with them?

Then Lisa, from our CSA, linked to a post about rutabagas. I was unconvinced about the first two recipes (though I will no doubt try them before the winter is over), but the third looked promising. I have a history, after all, of putting vegetables into baked goods. So I tried the cake.

Of course, I was well into the recipe before I noticed that the finely chopped apple that's called for is actually dried apple, and I didn't have any. I had, however, recently bought some chopped dates for baking, so I substituted those. And I was loath to waste good maple syrup on something we might not like, so I used some leftover apple cider syrup that I'd made to go with pumpkin waffles a while back. It was good, sort of like a ginger cake, but Nick was still skeptical.

So this morning I tried again. And I now present to you my reworked recipe for rutabaga-ginger muffins, just as I made them this morning. (Note: I'm not sure I expect you to go out and buy a rutabaga if you don't already like them, just to try this recipe. I bet you could also use grated winter squash, or maybe sweet potato, instead. But if you've got a rutabaga lying around, you might give this a try.)

Rutabaga Ginger Muffins & Bread

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups milk

2 tbl. ground flax seeds

1/2 cup melted butter

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup molasses

3 cups flour (I used one of whole wheat and two of unbleached all purpose)

4 tsp. ground ginger

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. sea salt

2 cups grated rutabaga

1 cup chopped dates for baking

2 tbl. maple syrup or apple cider syrup (scroll down)

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Whisk together the flax seeds and the milk and put aside to thicken for about ten minutes. Melt the butter if you haven't already. With a hand mixer, beat the milk and flax seeds for a bit, then add in the melted butter, molasses, and honey.

Stir in the dry ingredients, sifting them beforehand if you're concerned about lumps (I'm not). Stir the grated rutabaga and the dates into the batter. It will be thick.

I used this amount to make 9 muffins, baking them for about 20 minutes in greased muffin cups, and one loaf of quick bread, which took about 35-40 minutes. (Half this recipe would make one 9" by 9" cake.) Bake until the sides pull away from the edges and the tops are browned. If you have it, drizzle some syrup (maple or other) over the hot muffins or cake or bread; it will soak in and add a bit of sticky sweetness.

*Note: this recipe is easily made dairy-free by substituting vegetable oil for the butter and non-dairy milk for the milk. It is also gluten-free in its original incarnation. I have never tried it either gluten- or dairy-free so can't vouch for those options.

Muffins

Once upon a time, this was something of a recipe blog. It's been a while, but I still use it as a repository of my own favorite recipes, and I'm still trying new ones, too. Here's one I tried this weekend and posted about over at IHE. I tried to make healthy muffins; you can be the judge of whether I succeeded.

Preheat your oven to 350F.

In a large bowl, melt ½ stick (1/4 cup) butter in the microwave. Stir into the melted butter: ½ cup flax-seed meal, 2 eggs, 1 cup leftover cooked oatmeal, 1 tsp. vanilla, ½ cup brown sugar. (If you don’t have any flax-seed meal, you could use a whole stick — 1/2 cup — of butter.)

Once the wet ingredients are pretty well mixed together, add the dry ingredients: 1 cup flour (I used unbleached white, but you could probably use half and half white and whole wheat if you want them even healthier), 1 tsp. baking powder, and 1 tsp. baking soda. Add spices if you like—I used about 1 tsp. cinnamon and ½ tsp. ginger.

Stir in ½ cup chocolate chips and ½ cup dried cranberries. Or use a full cup of raisins, omitting the chocolate chips. Or mix and match to your own taste. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony of adding chocolate chips when I just said I wanted healthier muffins. I'm willing to give up some butter and sugar if I can have some chocolate, is all I have to say about that.)

This is a very stiff batter — it takes more stirring than most muffin batters and it can be scooped, not spooned or poured, into muffin cups. This should make 12 muffins, or 6 extra-large ones, if you have an extra-large muffin tin. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes. When done, the tops of the muffins should be golden brown and should spring back when pressed. Mine may have taken a minute or two longer than 20 minutes .(I made the extra-large ones.)

Turn out of the muffin tin onto a cooling rack for a few minutes, until you can eat them without burning your mouth.

Beet Cake: Redemption

Last week I made about the worst cake I've ever baked. Except for the first one, baked when I was about 11, which was a crazy cake using Nestle's Quik instead of unsweetened cocoa, and not enough sugar. Seriously, that one was inedibly bad, but this one was almost as bad.

It was a recipe I'd made before, which made it all the more galling. I hate to share the recipe having said it was bad, but really, it's a perfectly good cake--if you do it right. It's this chocolate zucchini cake that I learned about from our wonderful CSA farmers. It's a pretty tasty cake if you do it the way Lisa does, or the way I'd done it before. But I think I made at least two strategic errors with last week's cake. First, I used all beets for the veggies; previously I'd used zucchini, and that was terrific. Second, I threw in a half cup or so of buckwheat flour, which made it heavier than it should have been.

I hate to waste food, so I've been working away at that cake all week. Mark helped some, but Nick flat refused, and I could hardly blame him. Actually, both Mark and I kept eating it in part out of curiosity--was it really as bad as we thought? Maybe it just tasted, you know, like beets--we both like beets, so why didn't we like it? But the fact is, we didn't. Still, I felt that beet cake should work--after all, beets are sweet, right? Otherwise they couldn't make sugar from them!

So I googled around a while, searched out epicurious, looked for vegan recipes, and otherwise explored the possibilities. Most recipes for chocolate beet cake seem to be efforts to create a red velvet cake without red food coloring, but most commenters seemed to agree that it didn't actually work. Jessica Seinfeld had a recipe--and, again, it was hard to find people who were positive about it. And my point wasn't to be deceptive about this at all; I just thought it might be an interesting use for beets (which, again, I quite like), and perhaps a healthier chocolate cake as well.

In the end I took from a number of different recipes and came up with this. It worked, but I'm not sure I can even quite repeat it. One thing about this one is that I had some leftover squash puree in the house so that became part of the veggies in the cake; I think that may have helped reduce the excessive "beetiness" of the first cake while still helping keep the whole thing moist. Another thing is that I cooked the beets and then pureed them with their cooking water, so the beets were a lot moister in this version than the original--and, I think, mellowed by cooking. With those caveats, though, I now give you:

Beet Cake, Redeemed

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked pureed beets* and/or squash, cooled. (I imagine sweet potatoes would work, too; your puree can be quite a bit waterier than if you actually meant to eat it)

1/4 cup plain yogurt, buttermilk, or sour cream (I had some Greek yogurt and used that)

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup chocolate chips, optional

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F

Butter or spray a 9-inch square cake pan

Whisk together the first 7 ingredients (puree through vanilla). Sift the flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda into the liquid ingredients, stirring only until you can't see any more flour. (Don't overmix.) Fold in the chocolate chips, if using, and pour into the prepared cake pan.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the top springs back when pressed lightly. Serve warm with ice cream (or plain) and see if anyone guesses what's in it.

*I had shredded beets left over from last week's disaster, so I put those in a microwave-safe bowl with water and steamed them until they were soft, then dumped all into the blender to puree. The squash was cut in half and the seeds, etc., scraped out, then turned cut-side down into a baking pan and baked at 350 for about an hour, or until soft, then scraped out of the skin and pureed in the food processor.

a food post

When I was a little girl my mother cooked dinner every night. Usually it was a meat, two sides, and dessert--at least in my memory--but there were exceptions to that rule. Spaghetti with meat sauce was one--usually served with a salad on the side. And there were other things that we had every now and then that were usually called "caloosapotti," which was someone's (my brother's? Mine?) mispronunciation of "ratatouille." I have no idea how the word "kallusapoti" should be spelled, but maybe you can get an idea of the pronunciation from my two attempts here.

One of the central features of calloosapotty was that it couldn't be repeated. If we liked it--or if we didn't--Mom would say, "you'll probably never eat it again." These were improvisational dishes, dishes that just incorporated whatever was fresh in the garden, or leftover in the fridge, or both.

I came up with one of those improvisational meals tonight and it was so satisfying, I just have to write it down. I may never really repeat it, but I can probably approximate it again. It involved turnip greens (we got little salad turnips in the CSA share on Saturday), and eggplant, and some leftover tomato sauce.

I started with the turnip greens, sauteing them in olive oil with sliced garlic. As the greens wilted, I added a sprinkle of pistachios and some raisins. My favorite way to eat spinach is sauteed with garlic, raisins or currants, and pine nuts--but I didn't have pine nuts so pistachios were my substitute.

While the greens were sauteing I sliced the eggplant into half inch rounds, brushed both sides of each slice with olive oil, and placed them on a cookie sheet in the oven at about 400F. When I remembered, I turned them over and brushed them with a little more olive oil.

When the eggplant rounds were brown on both sides, I piled the greens onto them (removing the garlic slices as I did), then topped each with about a tablespoonful of tomato sauce and about the same amount of shredded Italian cheese (Trader Joe's "quattro fromaggio" blend). Then back in the oven to heat the sauce and brown the cheese.

Oh, my goodness, those were delicious! No, I couldn't get Nick even to try one, but I don't even care--I wanted them all! The turnip greens were surprisingly mild, the eggplant was creamy, and the sauce and cheese were just right. I may never repeat it exactly, but it was delicious. I'm sure it would be great with spinach or chard or kale, with or without pine nuts and without the raisins, if those seem odd in this context, but I've got to tell you, they were really good. I'm sure this dish isn't authentically anything--it's calloosapoti, pure and simple, and it hit the spot.

[edited to add:] The moral of this story may simply be that I will eat anything, given enough olive oil and garlic. I can live with that.

Mmm, granola...

It's been a while since I posted a recipe here. I decided to remedy that, sort of, by including one in my blog post for Inside Higher Ed...

February Blues

I'm not a big fan of February, despite Mardi Gras, President's Day...even my birthday. It's just not my favorite month, and this year it seems particularly bleak. Nonetheless I have a fabulous cookie recipe and decided February would be a good time to share it...go look!

Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: February Blues - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed

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Strawberry Panzanella

I first read about strawberry panzanella on the blog 101 Cookbooks. It was one of her spring recipes, and it turned up just in time for us to test it out as an Easter dessert. It was a particularly good choice, as it's easily veganized, and easy to make ahead. Actually, it's just easy all around.

Of course I couldn't just make the recipe as given. First of all, the amounts seemed slightly off--surely you'd want more berries for that much bread? And, really, do you need to cut them into matchsticks? I've made it twice since that Easter dinner (actually, I've made it twice in one week) and I think I've got the definitive recipe now. Though actually one of the nice things about panzanella is that you don't need a definitive recipe--it's more like a method, a way of using things up and making them taste good, that is successful precisely because it's not precise.

Still, I know some people like precision. I like it myself. So here is, almost precisely, how I've been making strawberry panzanella. (I was going to wait to post this until I had a picture, but really, the one over on the original site is quite lovely. So go look at that, then make this. Or something like it.)

For dessert for 3-4, you will need:

about half a baguette, preferably a day or two past its prime (my baguette was 13 oz originally, if that matters to you), cut or torn into bite-sized chunks
1/4 cup brown sugar (I scanted this a bit, and the butter as well)
1/4 cup butter or olive oil
maybe a pinch of salt if your butter's not salted (optional)
1 quart strawberries
some Greek yogurt, sour cream, or nothing at all

Preheat oven to 400F

Melt the butter (if using) and stir together with brown sugar, or stir together brown sugar and olive oil. Add a pinch of salt if you like. (I did twice, and not the third time, and couldn't tell the difference.)

Toss bread chunks in butter/sugar mixture--use a large bowl for this, or just do it by hand on a jelly roll pan (you'll need it anyway in a minute)

Spread the buttery, sugary bread out on the jelly roll pan and toast for 10-15 minutes, turning/stirring after every five minutes, until the bread is crispy and slightly caramelized in places. Don't worry that some of the bread didn't get buttered/sugared; it will all be good, I promise.

Meanwhile, wash and slice up the berries however you like: halves, quarters, chunks, whatever works for you. Using a potato masher, mash about half of them in a large bowl. Maybe a little more than half. If the berries are slightly underripe, you could throw a tablespoon or two of extra brown sugar in here--I won't tell.

Toss the bread in with the mashed berries, trying to get the bread thoroughly soaked in berry juice. Toss in the not-mashed berries. Let the whole thing stand while you get the rest of dinner together, stirring occasionally to mix things up again. Steal a bread chunk or two while you're at it and marvel at its simple deliciousness.

Serve with Greek yogurt or sour cream dolloped on top, or don't, as you choose.

This is obviously best the day it's made, as the bread does tend to get a bit soggy the next day. Still, we happened to have some leftovers the last time and I was amazed at how tasty it still was, soggy bread and all.

Thank Full

Well, that was one successful Thanksgiving feast. Nick and I are sitting on the couch while Mark cleans up the kitchen and his dad slices up the leftover turkey. Mariah has disappeared to her room muttering something about being "too full." Remember, now, she's the wheat-free vegan; if I managed to overstuff her, I think I did something right.

I forgot to take pictures of either dessert before we ate them, but I can report that the wheat-free vegan amazing pumpkin pie is indeed amazing. I would make and eat it even if no one I knew had dietary restrictions; it was that good. (This picture is pretty accurate, though mine, made from fresh-roasted pumpkin which I then drained in cheesecloth for an hour or so, was a bit darker.) And Nick's apple crisp was perfect: crispy on top, meltingly sweet and tart inside.

Here's the rest:












Turkey and gravy, sweet potato casserole, roasted vegetables, Mariah's timbale, and the brussels sprouts that did indeed make a convert of me. I didn't get a shot of the stuffing, but it was not all that photogenic anyway...

I hope you and yours also had a happy Thanksgiving. We sure did; and we will have more of it again tomorrow.

(See yesterday's post for links to recipes; I'm too lazy to put them in again.)

Thanksgiving menu, with vegan/wheat-free options

I think I have the Thanksgiving menu set now. I'd better, since both cars are out of the house without me and there's not much more grocery-shopping time left anyway. Here's what I'm planning; I'll report back tomorrow or Friday, with pictures if I think of it.

Maple-Glazed Turkey with Gravy: My most successful turkeys have been cooked quickly at high heat, like this one; I like the glaze idea and it looks pretty simple. I have a smallish (10 pound) turkey, so this may go even faster than two hours. Score!

I'm thinking of making a cornbread stuffing but I haven't actually dug up a recipe on the internet. Usually I make a version of an apple-chestnut stuffing recipe that a friend gave me years ago; she replaces the chestnuts with walnuts and I do, too. I think I can do that one with cornbread, so that will probably be it.

Mushroom, Lentil, and Wild Rice Timbales: Mariah is vegan and is currently avoiding wheat; this looks like a terrific entree for her (and I may steal some, too). I don't have ramekins so I'm baking it in a casserole dish.

Golden-Crusted Brussels Sprouts: I don't actually like brussels sprouts, but I keep hoping I will. This looks easy enough that I don't mind experimenting, and it looks good. If there's room in the oven, though, I might roast them instead.

Roasted potatoes, parsnips, leeks, and red pepper: (The link is a soup recipe but I will stop before they are soup...) Everyone loves roasted vegetables. This is the only form besides french fries in which Nick will eat potates. Go figure.

Sweet potato casserole: Because I might not make enough dessert... I'll have to vegan-ize this recipe with egg replacer, margarine, and almond milk. I'm thinking the sweet potatoes will mask any slight differences in flavor. We'll see.

Cranberry sauce: I will probably just make regular whole-berry sauce this year, no bells and whistles. I love the garlicky gingery chutney one, but I'm really the only one in my house who likes it, so it's easier just to stop at step one.

If the brussels sprouts don't look good, or I go a little mad, I may also add some green beans or a salad. Though, really, there are enough vegetables here already, right? Then for dessert:

Wheat free vegan pumpkin "pie": Pie without crust? I am skeptical, but I love my daughter, and she loves pumpkin desserts, so we will try.

I may also make an apple crisp, which is a safe and sound vegan, wheat-free dessert as long as you sub oat bran for wheat germ, gluten free flour for regular, and margarine for butter.

Yes, this is a ridiculous amount of food for five people (Mark's dad is with us). But I love Thanksgiving, and we all love Thanksgiving leftovers, so nothing will go to waste.

What's going on

It's fall break so I'm working at home, and taking a few breaks to run some errands and read things I wouldn't otherwise be reading right now. I realize that the whole concept of "fall break" is foreign to folks not on academic calendars--or on the quarter system--but believe me, it's a necessity around here. I talk about it a little in today's Mama, PhD blog post at Inside Higher Ed.

One thing I haven't done over the break, but I managed to do a few days before it began, is make power bars. Yes, I'm so crafty, I made my own nut-and-seed snack foods, the kind that usually come in their own packaging! They are so easy I feel almost guilty posting about them--in fact, I realized as I was snarfing one up yesterday that they are a sort of grown-up rice krispie treat. Really! I mostly followed this recipe--which was linked in one of the other blogs I read but I can no longer track it down. Just FYI, I made the following changes: I added two tablespoons each (roughly) of hemp protein powder and flax seed meal, because I had them, and used a combination of pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds where the recipe calls for pecans, because I didn't have them. I think I may try these next--maybe with almond butter? Mmm...and chocolate chips?

It's back to the regular schedule tomorrow, but I'm hoping this break leaves me well-rested enough to make it to Thanksgiving without getting sick. (Fingers crossed...)

Vegan (or not) Zucchini Muffins

When I was in graduate school I shared an office for a while with a woman who had a son a year older than Mariah. She was smart and funny and I always liked chatting with her when we were in the office together. I remember once moaning to her that I wanted something (can't even recall what, now), but didn't need it, and she looked at me and said, "Need. What an interesting concept." I've repeated her words often over the years--mostly ironically, I hope.

Anyway. This does get to muffins, believe me. Once she told me that she'd taken her son to the pediatrician and, in the course of the appointment, had asked for advice on how to get more vegetables into him. The doctor had suggested that maybe she bake zucchini bread, carrot muffins, things like that. Deanna was outraged. "What a sexist!" she exclaimed. "How dare he tell me to bake!"

I didn't see it quite the same way. I liked to bake (you'll be surprised to hear) and it didn't strike me as sexist at all, but as practical. He was 15 years ahead of Jessica Seinfeld, after all. But in the moment I sympathized with her; she was a good office mate, after all, and if she didn't want to bake zucchini bread I wasn't going to insist.

I don't know if Deanna ever got her son to eat vegetables, but whenever I make these muffins I think of her. My kids know they have zucchini in them, and they love them. They are loosely adapted from a recipe at marthastewart.com, and if the flax seed meal and the buckwheat flour freak you out you can certainly try her version and let me know how it is. But this is how I make them:

Ingredients

• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. allspice
• 1 tsp. salt (I use less)
• 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 tbl. flax seed meal
• 3 eggs (or egg replacer, which is what I use: 4-1/2 tsp. beaten into 6 tbl. warm water)
• 1 tbl. vanilla
• 2 cu shredded zucchini (I think this works best in the food processor rather than the box grater, because you get a drier, firmer shred, but you can decide.

Technique

• Preheat the oven to 375 F.
• Mix the dry ingredients (flour through baking powder) in a bowl and set aside.
• Mix the sugars, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl. Stir in the flour mixture. Stir in the zucchini.
• Spray or grease your muffin tins, and fill them mostly full (the muffins don't rise a lot). When I do this, I get 15 muffins, which means using a second muffin tin. If yours come out the same, don't forget to put a little water into the empty muffin cups so they don't scorch in the oven.
  
• Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when you poke it into a muffin. Allow the muffins to cool in the pan briefly before turning out onto a wire rack.

Vegan ice cream

(One small edit below...)

I have to say, one thing I didn't miss while we were on the barge was cooking. I love to cook, and I love to feed people, but a week of luxury was really nice, too. The first couple days we were back I was too jet-lagged to cook, and too brain-dead to plan (it was over 100 and brutally humid). But it's cooled off now and I'm back on schedule and now I'm making meals again--not as good as Charlie's (our chef on the barge), but they're just fine. And the one thing Charlie never quite worked out for Mariah was vegan desserts--she mostly got fruit salads, which were fine, but she did sneak a few ice creams here and there on shore when he wasn't looking. So she was delighted to come back and get vegan ice cream again.

I promised this recipe a while ago, but it's taken me this long to test it more than once and make sure I like it. Everyone in the family likes it, in fact--with "real" (store-bought) ice cream in the house, this is what everyone wanted for dessert tonight.

Make sure you have your ice cream maker's bowl well chilled. I just keep mine in the freezer all summer so it's ready.

Ingredients:
1 can coconut milk [ETA: best if this is well chilled. I just store it in the fridge.]
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
4 oz. silken tofu
1 tbl. instant espresso powder (optional)
1 tsp. vanilla

Put all ingredients in the blender and blend until well mixed. Pour into your ice cream maker and freeze according to the machine's directions--mine takes about 20-30 minutes. Then remove it from the machine into a freezer container; freeze for as long as it takes to eat dinner. The next day it will be a bit hard to serve (maybe--once mine never really thickened up and it was like very cold mousse--also delicious, but not what we expected), but leave it out while you eat dinner, or nuke it briefly in the microwave, and it will be fine.

This is very rich--small servings are plenty.

Vegan Food for Meat-Eaters

We threw a graduation party for Mariah on Saturday, and I put her (mostly) in charge of the menu. Since she's been vegan since about September, she wanted to provide food that was 1) food she could eat and 2) food that would prove to meat-eaters that vegans can eat well. I think she satisfied both conditions.

Here's what we made (sorry, no pictures--I was running late and it was all I could do to get the food on the table within the first hour of the party!)

• raw veggie platter (grape tomatoes, cucumbers, baby carrots, sun-dried tomatoes)
• grilled veggie platter (zucchini, asparagus, red peppers, mushrooms--Mark was a hero, standing over the grill in the hot sun so we could eat)
• home-made sushi (carrot and cucumber rolls)
• samosa-stuffed baked potatoes (from Mariah's favorite cookbook, Veganomicon. These were a huge hit.)
• chips and salsa
• home-made hummus (also from Veganomicon) and black bean dip
• pita crisps
  
• sesame tempeh (also a big hit)
• fresh fruit: grapes, cherries, strawberries
  
• chocolate-chocolate chip-walnut cookies (yes, vegan ones, also from Veganomicon, though we used pecans instead of walnuts)
• chocolate-raspberry cookies (ditto)
• chocolate cupcakes (one recipe of crazy cake makes two dozen cupcakes; I used balsamic vinegar instead of plain to fancy them up a bit, and I bought canned frosting which has no dairy products. Next time I'll look into vegan icing...)

I also forgot to put out the broccoli florets on the raw veggie platter, and the watermelon and canteloupe with the fruits. Oh, well.

The sesame tempeh is so delicious, and so easy, and so "meaty," that I thought I'd post it here. The sauce is from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone; I got the technique from my sister and brother-in-law, but I don't think they've ever posted it. So here it is:

Tempeh with Sesame Sauce

2-3 packages multi-grain tempeh (2 packages serves four generously as an entrée)

¼ cup toasted sesame seeds
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons dark sesame oil
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
6 tablespoons soy sauce
4-6 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed (or already chopped)
1 teaspoon ground ginger (either fresh or dried works)
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper


Cut tempeh into slabs or chunks

Combine the next 9 ingredients in the blender and puree until smooth. Pour the sauce over the tempeh slabs/chunks in a shallow saute pan that holds all the tempeh without too much overlap, and heat until almost boiling. (I think you could also stand the tempeh on end in a saucepan if that's what you've got, but I like to have the most surface area possible getting caramelized at the end.) Reduce heat and simmer for about 15-20 minutes, turning the tempeh so it caramelizes a bit on both sides. You can do this ahead of time and then barbecue the tempeh briefly, or simply serve it as is. The longer you let it sit in the hot pan the more sauce the tempeh will absorb. You can serve this hot or at room temperature; it's tasty and filling either way.

Friday Food: Butternut Squash and Black Bean Chili

Some time ago someone served me a delicious chili with butternut squash in it, and when I wanted to recreate it, I went (of course!) to epicurious. And I found something like it, but I knew it wouldn't quite fly with my family. I can get Nick to eat squash or greens, but I didn't think he'd do both at once. So I modified it, and it was the best chili I've made in some time: flavorful, healthy, and very warming. This is a soupy chili rather than a thick pasty chili, but you could cut back the veggie stock if you wanted it thicker. I thought it was perfect. (Nick, alas, did not, but he can scramble his own eggs, so he didn't go hungry.)

Here's what I used:

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups chopped onions
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 1/2 cups 1/2-inch pieces peeled butternut squash (I used one whole, small, squash)
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed, drained
2 cups vegetable broth (it was probably a little less; I just measured it into the tomato can)
1 14 1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
1 small can chopped ortega (mild green) chilis

Here's what I did:

Saute the onions and garlic in the oil until soft--5 to 10 minutes, depending on your patience. Add the spices and the squash and continue to saute until the vegetables are all colored by the spices and the squash begins to soften a bit--you don't need to cook it through at this point. Now add the beans, broth, tomatoes, and chilis. Bring it all to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes (epicurious said 15, but my squash was not tender at that point). Serve with garnishes such as shredded cheese, sour cream, and/or chopped cilantro--or just ladle it into a bowl with some cornbread on the side.

(Epicurious thinks this serves 4, but I'd say more like 6. It's a nice, generous pot of chili, and just as good the second day.)

Cornbread!

We have chili and cornbread almost once a week in the winter. The chili can easily be vegan, to satisfy Mariah, it's quick and easy, which satisfies me, and if it's not too spicy Nick will (usually) eat it. Everyone loves the cornbread. (No, it's not vegan, but until she moves out Mariah makes an exception for baked goods, to my immense relief.) I'll post a chili recipe soon, though most often it's just "dump a can of this and a can of that into a pot," but I thought I'd post the cornbread recipe we like the best now, so that I can remember it and you can share it, too. This is a slightly sweet, very moist cornbread: it keeps well (though we usually eat it up in a day or two) and is as good split and toasted with jam in the morning as it was under or next to the chili in the evening. It comes from a fabulous bread book, The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking.

Preheat the oven to 425 F. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan or an 8x8 square cake pan. I have a pottery bread pan that's perfect for this.

Mix together in a large bowl:
1-1/4 cups yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar (I use brown sugar)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Blend together in a large pitcher or bowl:
1-1/4 cups milk
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Pour the milk mixture into the cornmeal mixture, stirring just enough to incorporate and moisten all the ingredients. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

Mmmm...

Nick has been home all week with the flu. He went to school yesterday, but ended up in the nurse's office after lunch and I went and picked him up. He started on tamiflu Monday, but either it was too late (he'd probably been sick since before the weekend) or his case is just particularly stubborn. (Mariah and I, with fewer symptoms, started on the meds the same day and are much better.) He has a little surge of energy every afternoon that makes us think the next morning will be better--but so far, it hasn't been. Sigh.

Anyway by today we're pretty bored with each other. So I decided it was time to try something new for lunch. We have a new panini press--a Christmas gift, only just unboxed earlier this week--and I figured we could try it out. I suggested tuna melts (cupboard pretty bare) and discovered Nick had never had one.

So we remedied that gap in his education, and it was pretty delicious. Then we were still hungry.

"How about dessert?" I asked. We'd been looking at the cookbook that came with the press, and there were several sweet ones, though none (of course) using ingredients we had in the house. Instead we came up with a potentally Elvis-esque concoction that, while I wouldn't eat it every day, definitely hit the spot: grilled peanut butter-banana-chocolate chip sandwiches. (Well, sandwich: we split one). Two minutes on the grill and it was gooey perfection.

I think the press can stay.

Amaretti

I mentioned these cookies last year and made them again on Wednesday; they are quick, easy, and tasty, and they have the added advantage of using up the three egg whites left over from making the basic butter cookie dough that is the basis of both mocha butter balls and jelly bowl cookies. (I've also tried the raspberry hazelnut triangles, which are a lot of work but very tasty.) I've altered this recipe somewhat from Donna Hay's original (in Modern Classics 2), mostly because of the size of the bag of almonds I had--it seems pretty flexible, really.

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Combine in the food processor:
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 10 oz. bag of blanched almonds (about two cups)

Process these two until the almonds are roughly chopped, then add:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3 egg whites
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Process until the mixture starts to clump up on the blade. Roll the mixture into small balls (about walnut-sized) and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Flatten the balls slightly. Bake for 13 minutes or until the cookies are starting to firm up and brown on the bottom.

The recipe should make about 3 dozen cookies, maybe a few more. They are chewy and quite sweet, and I'm thinking about cutting the sugar by about 1/4 cup next time, though they are great as is dipped in coffee.

more baking

A couple of days ago someone sent me an e-mail holiday recipe exchange. I love getting recipes, and I almost always play along when someone tags me for these. This one was easy--I sent along the spice cookies recipe that I always bake this time of year. In searching for it, I came across my holiday baking list from last year, which reminded me of several other things I wanted to bake. I haven't yet reached last year's heights, but so far I've baked (and given away) both brownies and espresso cookies, and then gone on to bake spice cookies (of course!), jelly bowls, amaretti, bourbon balls (my recipe came from the Joy of Cooking, but this is exactly the same), and parmesan shortbread (ooh, a ringer! and a savory one at that!). I also have the beginnings of speculatius and mocha butter balls ready--one needs to chill, the other to come back up to room temperature, before I can do anything else. I'm also planning a few more--probably pumpkin rocks again, and biscotti, and maybe some good old chocolate chip cookie bars. And then I think I'll be done; I'll let you know the count when it's all over.

Roasted Vegetable Soup

I haven't posted a recipe in a while. It's been busy, and it's also hard cooking these days with one almost-vegan in the house when everyone else is an unrepentant carnivore and certainly unwilling to give up dairy products. Sigh. Still, my most recent vegan recipe is easy, delicious, and very very healthy. (No, Nick won't eat it, but he pretty much doesn't eat soup so I don't even stress about it.)

This is so easy it's hardly a recipe. Indeed, it's hardly soup. When Mariah and I were eating it the other night we decided that it's really glorified baby food. Though no baby food I ever tasted was so delicious.

OK, here's what you do:

Preheat your oven. Somewhere around 450 is probably pretty good. You could do it lower, but then it would take longer and I am an impatient cook.

Now peel and cut into roughly 3/4 inch cubes:

2 sweet potatoes
2 white potatoes
2 large carrots
1/2 large butternut squash

(Note: I usually don't peel potatoes or sweet potatoes when I roast them, and you could certainly leave the peels on in your soup, but your puree will be considerably lumpier. You decide.)

If you don't have one of these just sub in more of another.

Spread the cubes out on two rimmed baking sheets (like a jelly-roll pan) and pour a glug of olive oil over it. (That would be 1-2 tablespoons.) Peel some garlic cloves and throw them in, too. I used about six.

Now roast your veggies until they are soft inside and brown outside. I generally set a timer for ten minutes and try to turn everything over every ten minutes; they will take 20-30 minutes in all. You don't really need to cook them all the way through, but you do want everything soft enough to puree.

If you're not sure how your eaters will respond to garlic, remove one or two of the cloves before proceeding.

In batches, puree the roasted vegetables with veggie stock. There are several very tasty organic ones on the market; I used Swanson most recently, but I also really like Kitchen Basics. If you are more ambitious than I, you will have your own home-made veggie stock for this part.

Put the pureed vegetables and stock in a large stockpot and heat gently, adding enough stock (I used five cups in all, but six or even seven would be good, too) to make it all soupy. Ladle into bowls and enjoy! You can serve six easily from this recipe, or serve three one night and then refrigerate. Add more stock when reheating and you'll get six more lunches out of it, seriously.

You can also add other vegetables at the roasting stage--onions, other kinds of squash, and mushrooms would all be tasty. I'm sure cream or butter at the final stage would be nice if you weren't serving vegans, but you really won't miss it. This is a thick, hearty soup full of all kinds of delicious nutrients.