Kitchen Tools: Palm Peeler

I’ve been meaning to start this kind of entry for a while, where I highlight the kinds of tools I love to use in my kitchen. There’s no recipe today, just some thoughts, a recommendation, and maybe a bit of advice.

Now, I’m not the biggest advocate for peeling vegetables. My carrots often end up in a pot of soup unpeeled. I figure that people survived eating carrots that were unpeeled for a very long time before the invention of the peeler. I just wash them thoroughly. Besides, in many vegetables, some of the great nutrients are found in the skin, so why would you want to throw those away?

Sometimes, however, you need a good peeler. When I’m making fluffy mashed potatoes like my mom taught me, I peel my potatoes. When I’m having guests who turn their noses up at unpeeled carrots, I might take the trouble to peel the crudites. And when I do, I want my palm peeler.

We found this nifty little tool when we were in one of those chef stores with all sorts of overpriced gadgets. I think we paid $5 for it, and it was well worth the trouble.

Not only does this peeler sit in your palm and swivel, making it way easier to peel things like potatoes, it is so much less stress on my arthritic hands. I can probably peel two or three or four times as many things than if I were peeling with a regular vegetable peeler or a knife.

My one complaint is that the blade is starting to dull, but to be fair, I haven’t looked into if it’s replaceable or not yet. I hope it is because I don’t want to have to throw out a little chunk of plastic every few months.

You can get one on Amazon or a million different places on the internet.

40% Chance of Rain Coleslaw

Charlie’s been wanting to BBQ for several days, but it just keeps raining! The other night he wanted to BBQ, and I talked him out of it because I was tired, and as soon as we sat down to leftover Vegetarian Lasagna of Doom, there was a huge thunderclap and a downpour.

Tonight, the weather looked iffy all day, and Charlie was determined to grill. He went outside with some chicken for him and some fickin (fake chicken, of the vegetarian variety) for me, and I stayed inside to make some cole slaw. I’ve been trying to use ingredients from our farm share whenever possible, but I’ve included substitutes for the ones that you might not have lying around the house.

One more word of advice: go to the trouble of actually chopping the cabbage instead of using the stuff that’s pre-shredded in a bag. It’s just not as fresh, and it will be way more limp. Crunchiness is essential to coleslaw. Plus, I dunno about your grocery store, but we got a whole head of cabbage for about thirty-nine cents, and those pre-chopped bags will run between $2-$4.

Ingredients

3/4 head green cabbage, cored and coarsely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
(if you’re feeling creative, chop up some broccoli, stem included, very finely, and toss this in, too)
1/2 sweet onion, finely chopped
2 green onions, finely chopped
1 pickle, minced (dill might be best, but I prefer half sours, so that’s what we had in the house and that’s what I used)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup milk (some recipes call for buttermilk, but I never have this in the house and just used regular milk, figuring the vinegar in the recipe would do the trick)
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
1-2 tablespoons white sugar, depending on how sweet you like your coleslaw
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 garlic scape, finely chopped (you can use one clove of garlic, minced, if you don’t have scapes, but scapes came in our farm share this week)

Directions

In a large bowl, mix the cabbage, carrot, sweet onion, green onions, and pickle.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, milk, dill pickle juice, vinegar, mustard, sugar, cayenne pepper, and salt. Drizzle dressing over the slaw, and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate 8 hours, or overnight, if possible before serving, but it’s pretty darn good on the spot, too.

Vegetarian Lasagna of Doom

This has got to be one of the best vegetarian lasagnas I’ve ever made (or even tasted). It’s got to be one that’s recorded in blog history.

One of the key things about making lasagna is having enough sauce. Don’t be shy with it! It helps keep everything moist, and if you’ve ever had a dried out lasagna, you know how important that is. I like to use two kinds, a red sauce and a white sauce. The white sauce is easy to whip up from scratch, but if you’re in a pinch or extremely lazy, you can use alfredo sauce in a jar, though they’re not exactly the same thing.

The other thing I prefer about making lasagna… I hate those no-cook noodles, the ones that you put in still hard. It’s weird to me. I grew up watching the biggest pot we had boiling with lasagna noodles, and getting to eat the curly edges that were leftover. What fun is making a lasagna if you don’t get to eat the curly edges first? So, I recommend the noodles that you have to cook before you layer them in… I think they taste better, too.

Ingredients

1 medium zucchini, sliced
1 cup mushrooms, sliced (we prefer baby bella mushrooms, but tend to go with whatever looks the freshest)
perhaps 2 cups? of spinach trimmed
1 onion, thinly sliced
2-3 sprigs of fresh oregano, chopped
1 jar of vegetarian tomato sauce of your choice, preferably something with lots of vegetable chunks in it
lasagna noodles (you probably only need a half box because of all the veggies, unless you have a super deep lasagna pan)
16 oz ricotta cheese
16 oz brick of mozzarella cheese (whole milk or part-skim, not fat-free)
parmesan cheese (optional)

Eggplant:
1 small to medium eggplant, sliced lengthwise
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
salt, pepper, dried parsley, dried oregano to taste
1-2 eggs
Oil for frying

White Sauce:

1/2 cup butter
4 tbsp flour
1 cup milk or light cream
1 cup vegetable stock
1/8 tsp salt
about 5 sprigs parsley (optional)
one huge piece of green garlic (optional)
parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions

White Sauce:

Melt butter, add flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly with a whisk. Slowly add milk or cream and vegetable stock; stir until smooth. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Add salt.

If you’ve got some fresh parsley handy, you should grab maybe five sprigs of that and the tops of some green garlic. Don’t chop it in any way. Leave it whole and just toss it into the sauce. Let it cook for a few more minutes on low heat, stirring constantly, then strain off the parsley and garlic. Add a bit of parmesan cheese to the sauce if desired.

Eggplant Preparation:

Before you can start layering, you’ve got to fry the eggplant because in this recipe, it’s almost like a eggplant parm/lasagna combo.

Mix breadcrumb ingredients of breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, flour, oregano, salt, pepper, and parsley in a flat tray or plate. In a separate tray, scramble the eggs. Take your eggplant slices and coat them one at a time in egg, then dredge them in the breadcrumb mixture.

Pan fry them in a generous amount of oil at medium-high heat until golden brown, about 4 minutes each side. Remove from pan and let them drain on a mesh spatter shield or a paper towel.

Lasagna:

Prepare pasta according to package directions. If you’re not using a disposable pan, I recommend that you put down a layer of aluminum foil before you begin for easier cleanup later.

Coat the bottom of the pan with a layer of red sauce, then alternate between vegetables, cheeses, fried eggplant, sauces, and noodles until you run out of ingredients or reach the top of the pan. Toss in the fresh oregano and some parmesan cheese along the way, if you feel so inclined. Be sure to reserve enough sauce and mozzarella cheese to cover the entire top of the pan, otherwise your noodles will be hard and your veggies will dry out.

Cover pan with aluminum foil and bake for about 25 minutes at 400 degrees. After 25 minutes, remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes or until cheese begins to brown. (The foil on top prevents the cheese from browning too much too quickly.)

Let the lasagna cool for at least 15-20 minutes once it’s out of the oven, or it will be a soupy mess!

If you’re not serving a crowd, I recommend putting a few slices in the fridge for consumption soon, and the rest in the freezer. When freezing the lasagna, make sure that you freeze it in the portion size you’d want to eat it in, since sawing through a frozen casserole is never any fun. Cut slices and put them into little gladware containers, let them cool (until they’re no longer steaming) and then pop them in the freezer for a great meal in a week or a month.

Spiral Herb Rolls

The other night Charlie and I made an amazing lasagna, which I’ll hopefully have time to post the recipe for later (it was sort of quasi-homemade… we didn’t make the past from scratch, and I made one of the two sauces from scratch). But first, here’s the recipe for rolls stuffed with fresh herbs.

The first herb we got from our farm share was oregano, and I knew I wanted to bake with it, and these seemed like a perfect complement to our meal. I made a handful of changes from that original recipe, though, so my version is listed below.

Ingredients

Dough:

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast (about 2 teaspoons if you’ve got a larger package)
1 cup warm water, 110 degrees to 115 degrees (I don’t measure, I just use hot water from the tap)
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons butter or soy butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour (you can substitute bread flour if you want)

Filling:

*Feel free to substitute herbs of your choice, but the fresh herbs are key!

2 tablespoons butter or soy butter, melted
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
4 tablespoons fresh parsley, minced
2 tablespoons fresh basil, minced
2 tablespoons fresh oregano, minced
6 garlic cloves, minced
I also threw in some green garlic, minced

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the sugar, butter, salt and 1 cup all-purpose flour; beat until smooth. Stir in enough remaining whole wheat flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes. Place in a bowl coated with nonstick cooking spray, turning once to coat top. Cover with a slightly damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface. Roll into a 12-in. x 10-in. rectangle. Brush with melted butter. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese, herbs, and garlic to within 1/2 in. of edges.

Roll up jelly-roll style, making sure to roll it tightly enough (I didn’t the first time!), starting with a long side; pinch seam to seal. Cut with a very sharp knife into 12 rolls. (To do make evenly sized rolls, cut the log in half first, then into smaller pieces.)

Place rolls cut side up on a piece of parchment sheet on a cookie sheet. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to a wire rack to cool.

Sunday-on-a-Monday Banana Oat Flax Nut Pancakes

Charlie and I work odd hours, and we sometimes have the pleasure of having an extended weekend, like we did today. This was especially nice since we were away at a conference all weekend, so we didn’t get any lazy days with epic breakfasts. Today, we made up for it, and Monday morning sure felt like Sunday with these pancakes I whipped up with some overripe bananas and Charlie’s tofu scramble.

If you’d like to make this recipe vegan, simply convert the milk to soymilk, remove the egg, and double the flax seed and water.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana, about 3 bananas
1/2 cup 1% milk, plus a little extra to thin batter if necessary
1 egg
1 tbsp flax seed
3 tbsp water
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 1/3 cups whole-wheat flour
1/3 cup quick cooking oats
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Combine all the dry ingredients EXCEPT FLAX in one bowl, that is, your flour, oats, baking powder, cinnamon, and baking soda. Flax gets counted as a wet ingredient because it gets mixed with water before you do anything with it. Mix your dry ingredients well, then put the bowl aside.

In a tiny bowl, activate your flax seed, that is, mix the one tablespoon of dry flax seed with three tablespoons of WARM water. Combine the mashed bananas, 1/2 cup milk, egg, flax mixture, vanilla, and 3 tablespoons oil. Mix well.

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix just to moisten. Fold in walnuts.

Lightly grease a non-stick skillet with spray oil and heat griddle on medium heat. Working in batches, spoon 1/4 cup batter onto the grill. If the batter is too thick, add a bit more milk or water to the remaining batter. Cook until golden and bubbling (2 to 3 minutes), then turn and continue to cook 1 minute.

Serve pancakes with warm maple syrup and fruit.

Fudgy (You’d Never Know They’re) Vegan Brownies

The final batch of food for the masses had to be decadent, and it had to be vegan. We were planning to hang out with a bunch of hippies, so I knew there were bound to be vegans among the group, and indeed there were. The vegans, however, had to compete with everyone for these brownies, as they’re so rich and fudgy that even people who eat eggs and dairy were trying to snatch them away. I’ve also included modifications so that you can make them un-vegan, in case you don’t have vegan ingredients lying around.

Ingredients

1 cup white vegan sugar
1/4 cup all-vegetable shortening or vegan butter
1/4 cup water
3 cups dark or semisweet vegan chocolate chips, plus an extra handful
4 tablespoons milled flax seed (or 3 or 4 eggs if you’re not going for the vegan thing – 3 for fudge-ier, 4 for cake-ier)
3/4 cup warm water (eliminate this if you’re using real eggs)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Line a 9×13 pan with parchment paper, or grease thoroughly. (As always, I strongly prefer parchment paper.)

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, shortening, and water. Cook over medium heat until boiling. Remove from heat and stir in the three cups of chocolate chips until melted and smooth (reserve a handful of chocolate chips).

In a separate bowl, mix the milled flax seed and WARM water, and stir until a goopy consistency is reached.

Stir the flax and vanilla into the chocolate mixture. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt, then stir into the chocolate mixture. Let cool briefly, mix in the remaining chocolate chips, and spread evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake for about 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until brownies don’t sloosh around, but they may not pass the toothpick test. Be carefull not to overbake them. Cool in pan and cut into squares.

Fluffy Lemon Cookies (with Blueberries or Coconut)

Not the best photo, taken on my slightly working iPhone in our hotel room. We went away for the weekend (to Philadelphia, as I previously mentioned) and I personally took it upon myself to feed everyone I encountered along the way. Once the zucchini bread was in the oven, I started on making a huge batch of lemon cookies. Of course, you can reduce it if you’re feeding a smaller crowd.

Ingredients

1 cup butter
1/4 cups and 1 tablespoon shortening
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 egg
5 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons honey
3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 cup plain yogurt
2-3 tablespoons zest
Juice of 2-3 lemons (3 stubborn lemons, 2 juicy lemons)

1/2 cup coconut (optional)
1/2 cup blueberries (optional)
sugar crystals (optional)

Directions

In a small mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Combine honey, yogurt, lemon zest and lemon juice. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with honey mixture.

Portion onto wax paper to press into rolls of cookie dough for slicing later. Place some of the dough onto the center of a sheet of wax paper. Pull half the sheet over so the ends meet. Use the edge of a baking tray to force the dough into the desired roll shape. Tuck the ends in to close.

Refrigerate (or freeze if you’re in a hurry) until firm (about 4 hours).

Remove from fridge and unroll wax paper. Cut into 1/4 inch thick slices. Press blueberries into dough, dunk in sugar crystals, or sprinkle coconut on top, if desired.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire racks.

Philadelphia Zucchini Bread

This zucchini bread is called Philadelphia Zucchini Bread not because it’s native to the area, but because we’re bringing it to Philly when we go there next weekend. A guy we know is letting us share his hotel room for the low price of one homebaked zucchini bread. Since I’d never made zucchini bread before, I thought it would only be polite to make a test run before the real thing. (Besides, Charlie looooves zucchini bread, so it would be torture for him to give away all the zucchini bread!)

As usual, I want to make a lovely presentation out of things, so I’ve adapted a two loaf recipe to fit my ten cup Heritage Bundt Pan. I started with this recipe as a guideline, but I made some changes already and will be making more on the next round.

(I can’t wait to make a version for us that really adapts it to be a healthy version using whole wheat flour, milled flax, and reduces the fat.)

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon (I’d say they weren’t quite heaping, but they were generous teaspoons)
3 eggs
5/6 cup vegetable oil (I’d reduce this a bit more, maybe sub in some applesauce… it was a tiny bit too greasy, leaving grease marks on napkins)
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar (I used a mixture of light and dark)
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini (I probably used a bit more than this… I had a huge zucchini and used the whole thing!)
1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Grease and flour one ten cup bundt pan or two 8 x 4 inch loaf pans.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

Mix flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl. You could sift them if you were feeling ambitious, but I never do.

Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake for 40 to 60 minutes (longer for bundt pan), or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 15-20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

It’s awesome! If you’ve never had zucchini bread before, like me and my assistant baker of the day, Mary, it’s sort of like a carrot cake. If you wanted to make it more of a dessert than a breakfast, I bet you could top it with a nice cream cheese frosting or glaze.

London Ladies Lemon Bars

My friend Mary and I went to college together, then studied abroad together in London one semester. We graduated a year ago, and haven’t seen much of each other since, what with her being out on Staten Island and me being out in Rockland County. It’s a multi-step public transportation adventure.

She came to visit me today for an impromptu baking party. You see, a week or so ago, the car that my partner and I share broke down a mere one block from my job, and two of the guys that work in the building next door helped me push it to the side of the road. Naturally, I feel that a reward of some sweets is in order, and Mary helped me bake all day. We made a zucchini bread test run that’s a thank you for someone else, dozens of chocolate chippers, and, our proudest accomplishment, these lemon bars.

If you’ve ever read even one of my recipes, you’ll know that I don’t like super sweet things. If you’ve ever tasted a lemon bar, you’ll know that it’s easy for them to get sickening quite quickly. We aimed for a much more tart lemon filling, and we think they came out wonderfully.

The recipe that we started with is here, but we made drastic changes, including some that other reviewers suggested, and plenty that we came up with on our own.

(The following is directions for a doubled yield of two 9×13 pans. You can cut it in half if you want to for one pan only.)

Ingredients

Dough:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups confectioners sugar
1 cups butter
1/2 cup shortening

Filling:
6 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, maybe another tablespoon or two
1 1/2 cup lemon juice, with pulp
Zest of 5 or so lemons, (about 3-4 tablespoons of zest)
confectioners sugar for dusting

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two 9×13 baking pans with parchment paper or grease well (parchment is strongly preferred).

Cream 3 cups flour, 1 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar, butter, and shortening. Pat dough into prepared pan.

Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until slightly golden. While the crust is baking, whisk together eggs, white sugar, remaining flour, and lemon juice until frothy. Pour this lemon mixture over the hot crust.

Return to the preheated oven for an additional 20 to 25 minutes, or until light golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. Dust the top with confectioners’ sugar. Cut into squares.

I packaged them nicely in reused materials… Plastic strawberry and tomato bins, decorated with an ad cut out of a magazine. I put strips of wax paper in between so that they didn’t get stuck together. Pretty cute!