Peach Crisp with Honey & Coconut

The weather has been unusually warm here lately, and the Jersey peaches have been available sweet and absolutely ridiculously delicious for weeks. I went to a farmers market one Tuesday almost a month ago and bought a small bucket of peaches that held perhaps five beautiful peaches. I only got to eat one of those incredible peaches, as my littlest brother, age 12, apparently ate the rest of them in immediate succession. The next week, I went back and bought two or three times as many, and I got to eat one in my morning oatmeal.

Charlie has a bit of an allergy to some hand fruits like apples and peaches, and I felt so bad that he couldn’t enjoy these awesome peaches with me. Since they don’t seem to bother him when they’re cooked, on my last trip to the farmers market, I bought enough to make a crisp or a cobbler with. (I never remember if there’s a difference between the two…)

I have a pretty big amount of honey left over from a wedding cake I did several months ago, and I’ve been thinking for a while about making a crisp/cobbler with honey as the sugar. I assumed it would be fine, but I did a bit of googling, and it seemed like people had been successful with it.

I also decided to go out on a limb and change out the fat that I used. I’ve been trying to be mindful of the food I’m putting in my body lately. (I recently got back from a roadtrip, and nearly every time I go on a roadtrip, I clean up my eating habits when I return because I feel crappy from eating so much crappy food on the road.) I decided to give coconut oil a try in this recipe since I’ve been wanting to experiment with cooking with it, and also because peach and coconut are great together.

The flavors in this were amazing. The peaches were perfect (no sweetener needed in the fruit portion). On the first day, the taste of honey shone through, but the next day, the coconut flavor showed itself a bit more. I would definitely make this again with these variations.

With a crisp, I usually just wing it, so unfortunately, these measurements are sort of approximations, but, in my experience, crisps are pretty darn forgiving, so it all works out. :)

*Note: My peaches were very juicy, and after the first day, things got a bit sloshy, so if yours are very juicy, too, I’d suggest mixing a tiny bit of cornstarch in with the fruit.

Ingredients

5-7 large peaches, pitted and cut into slices or large chunks (I left the skins on)
2 plums (optional, these were just very ripe and needed to be used)
1/3-1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 2/3 cup old-fashioned oats
3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons pepitas (optional)
1/3 cup coconut flakes (optional)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread the fruit in the bottom of a pan (I used a corningware one about 12x12x2).

In a mixer or large bowl, combine the honey and coconut oil. Mix until blended. Add the dry ingredients (oats, flour, salt, ginger, cinnamon) and mix until large crumbs are form. Add a bit more flour or oats if necessary. Stir in the walnuts. Spread evenly over the top of the fruit. Sprinkle the pepitas and coconut on top.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until the crisp is brown and the fruit is bubbling. Enjoy warm!

Fresh Fava Bean Dip (with Garlic Scapes)

Today we found ourselves with both some beautiful fava beans and some garlic scapes in our CSA share. Last year when we got fava beans, we grilled them, which was awesome! Ever since we started getting them, though, I’ve been wanting to turn them into a scrumptious dip. I wanted something easy, simple, and delicious, so I did a quick google search. I found Fresh Fava Bean Dip with Rosemary on the blog What Julia Ate. It was a super simple, guesstimating quantities type of recipe, which was just what I wanted. I scooped up a bit on a cracker to try, and it’s yummy. The fava flavor is very accommodating, so feel free to sub in another herb.

I’m saving it for tomorrow since we’d already begun cooking rice & beans for our meal, but I’m really looking forward to this divine dip.

An update and some favorite recipes from the past…

Hey Measuring Spoons Readers!

First off, if you celebrate a winter holiday, I hope it’s happy!

Secondly, I wanted to give a sort of general life update post, which I don’t do that often, but you know, sometimes I do particularly when I’ve been slacking off on the blog quite a bit… and I know that I haven’t been posting delicious holiday cookie or cake recipes. Believe me, I want nothing more than to be hanging out, baking cookies lately, but there’s been some stuff going on in my life that’s been keeping me out of the kitchen.

As you might have guessed (if you’ve been following the blog for a while, or you’ve read the About page), part of the reason I haven’t been around much is my health. I have a fancy new diagnosis (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Hypermobility Type), which is just another explanation for why my joints are all wonky and sore all the time. Plus, I’ve had some flare ups of an old injury, my RA, and my fibromyalgia, so I’ve been kind of achey and tired.

Charlie and I are also in the process of moving, which, as I’m sure you know, can be exhausting! We’re at a stopover for now with some family since we’re still making some decisions about where we’re going to live, what we can afford, and what our long-term plans before we commit to a lease. The great thing about this is that I’ve gotten to spend some time cooking meals for my 12 year old brother, who is way more adventurous with food than I was at his age, and he’s tried things like brussels sprouts and tofu and butternut squash lasagna and lentil soup and for the most part, really enjoyed the food I’ve made.

And here’s another cool thing. I’ve been focusing on my writing a bit. I’ve recently finished my first novel and will soon begin the editing process to see if I can turn it into something that anyone else will want to read! I’ve also been writing short pieces, fiction and nonfiction, and I’m happy to report that I just had a short piece published in an actual book, you know, the kind that you can buy on Amazon and everything. How neat is that?

So those are just a few of the things that have kept me a bit busy. I’m hoping to make some delicious things for the family this weekend, and if that happens, I’ll try to get them posted before the New Year so that you can them out.

In the meantime, here are some favorites that are great for the holidays:

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake
Darling Clementines
Cranberry Sauce Almondies
Irksome Iced Sugar Cookies
Carrot Cake with Bourbon Cream Cheese Frosting
Dressmaker’s Double Stout Cookies
Holiday Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Spiral Herb Rolls

Again, happy holidays, and I hope to be baking and posting more soon!

Slow-Cooker Seitan Pot Roast

I don’t have the best picture of this because of low lighting, but it did come out pretty nice looking! Photo is of a vegetarian roast with a few slices taken out, surrounded by veggies.

I’ve been wanting to make Vegan Planet’s Slow-Cooker Seitan Pot Roast since the moment I heard about it, and that was ages ago. Over a year ago, for certain. It just sounds so delightful – pretty much, the part of Thanksgiving that’s been missing for me the past 15 or 17 odd years, namely, the turkey, but more importantly, the ridiculous sandwiches of turkey and cranberry sauce and whatever else you could cram between two pieces of lovely bread the next day.

Finally, finally, Bo and I took on this project. It really wasn’t hard to put together at all. In fact, the wheat gluten worked in quite magical ways, as one minute it was this powdery dry stuff, and the next, when you poured the liquid in and stirred maybe two or three times, it had become a solid-ish, bouncy sort of object. SCIENCE!

Anyway, I’ll be totally honest here. This seitan roast was not the seitan roast of my dreams. It came out pretty darn rubbery, and I can’t say whether we overmixed it in trying to get it to look sort of like a roast (or at least one contiguous blob) or if we left it in for too long or not long enough. Slow cookers are a little wonky as you’re never quite sure if yours is the same as the person’s who wrote the recipe, and times can vary quite a bit. There’s even a note to that effect in the recipe.

But hey. This blog is subtitled “recipes and experimentations,” right? I’ll give this another chance, and if that still doesn’t work out, I might try it in the alternate/oven method, especially since our veggies that roasted in the oven came out far superior to the ones in the slow cooker. But you know, we had a veg*n Thanksgiving roast, and we had leftover sandwiches (albeit rubbery ones) and that was pretty cool.

Note: Since we were roasting a whole tray of veggies separately, we did not put the full amount of veggies in.

Ingredients

1 yellow onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 pound carrots
1 pound small red-skinned potatoes, halved or quartered
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup vegetable stock
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
2 cups wheat gluten flour
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 1/2 cup water or vegetable stock, or more as needed
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup or tomato sauce

Directions

Note: You may need to adjust your cooking time according to the quirks of your own crockpot. The one I used for this recipe cooks fast — if I had used one of my other slow cookers, it would have taken nearly twice as long.

Arrange the onion, carrots, and potatoes in the bottom of a lightly oiled slow cooker. Season the vegetables to taste with salt and pepper and add the stock, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon each of the thyme and marjoram.

In a large bowl, combine the wheat gluten flour, onion powder, garlic powder, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon each of thyme and marjoram, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper. Add the water or stock, soy sauce, and ketchup. Mix well, adding a little more water if the mixture is too dry, then knead for 2 minutes until smooth. Shape the gluten to fit inside your cooker and place on top of the vegetables. (You can place it on top of a piece of aluminum foil or wrap it in cheesecloth, if desired, to keep its shape). Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on LOW for 4 to 6 hours (or longer, depending on your slow cooker – we did about six), or until the seitan and vegetables are cooked.

To serve, remove the vegetables and seitan from the slow cooker. Cut the seitan into slices and arrange them on a serving platter. Surround with the vegetables and spoon the cooking liquid over all or transfer the cooking liquid to a saucepan and thicken into a gravy.

Serves 4, more when you’re making Thanksgiving dinner with lots of sides!

Happy Thanksgiving

My friend Bo and I had what we called a rogue Thanksgiving this year. We didn’t want to celebrate colonialism or massively slaughter turkeys or sit down at a table to be “grateful for our food” when societally, we don’t show a lot of thanks to farmers. We didn’t want family drama. We wanted to celebrate slow food and friendship, so we broke off from all the other obligatory celebrations that were happening, and we stayed home, listened to music, and cooked delicious things all day. It was leisurely and unpressured. We used almost exclusively local ingredients: stuffing made from local bread from Balthazar; Hudson River Valley apples (some were in the stuffing and some will be made into a magical dessert tomorrow); roasting veggies like swedes, beets, potatoes, and parsnips from a New Jersey farmer’s market, grown in NY and NJ, and red sweet potatoes that were actually an incredible purple color from the same market; and Jersey fresh cranberries.

Our menu included…

a wheat-meat roast
stuffing
butternut squash lasagna
roasting veggies mentioned above plus carrots and a TON of brussels sprouts
red sweet potato pie
steamed green beans
steamed asparagus
mashed potatoes
cranberry sauce
pumpkin pie

We adapted some of these recipes, which I’ll mention in another post with a bunch of pictures! But some of the pictures are on Bo’s camera and he’s tucked into bed, so I won’t disturb him for now. We also have a super awesome surprise dessert coming from the apples that we’ll make tomorrow. We didn’t get to it today, and since there wasn’t pressure from anyone, there wasn’t guilt, there wasn’t disappointment… we’ll just make it tomorrow instead.

We are grateful for the farmers who work so hard to grow us food, especially the ones struggling to maintain small family farms under ethical conditions. We’re grateful that we have access to farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture and co-ops, and that our access includes geographical location, transportation to the sites, and funds that we may choose to spend there. We’re grateful to have been been privileged enough to have met some of the farmers who have grown our vegetables, raised the chickens that laid our eggs, and started seedlings that we could grow in gardens of our own.

We’re grateful for friends, chosen family, and the people we love. We’re grateful for the ones we shared with today and will share with in upcoming days, and we’re grateful to those who understood why we wanted to do something different today, even if it meant breaking with tradition.

Why are you celebrating? How can you make your celebration even more positive? Is there something you can do to make your thanks more genuine with a small change? Remember, you don’t have to wait til next year!

Sage & Butternut Squash Lasagna

This recipe was born for two reasons, the first one being that I love butternut squash (any squash, really!). The other is that one person in my family isn’t supposed to eat a lot of tomatoes, so I was trying to make a delicious lasagna dish that was tomato-less. This dish is great for the holidays, and although it’s got some rich ingredients, it’s also got a healthy balance with whole wheat pasta and some veggies (which you can always add more of).

Make sure you use fresh sage in this one – it’s such an important ingredient that it really needs to shine.

Ingredients

1 box of whole wheat lasagna noodles, prepared according to package directions
1/2 large butternut squash, peeled and sliced into circles (use the top part only and save the bottom part where the seeds are for another recipe)
2-3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2-3 cups of fresh spinach
1 .75oz package of sage, divided (if you’ve grown your own, grab a big handful)
1 32oz tub of ricotta (I used part skim)
up to 3/4 teaspoon of nutmeg, depending on your taste

For the white sauce:
1 1/2 cups of milk
2 tablespoons flour (I used whole wheat)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons of your sage, chopped
a few cloves of garlic, minced (optional)
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Begin by making the white sauce. In a small saucepan on medium heat, melt the butter. If you are using garlic, cook it briefly in the butter (2-3 minutes). Next, add the flour to the butter and whisk it together until smooth. Cook for about 3 minutes, stirring regularly. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly, making sure that the flour/butter mixture incorporates with the milk. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to low and simmer for 5 minutes or until the sauce is thick and creamy. Don’t forget to stir frequently. Add the sage and the parmesan cheese about 1-2 minutes before removing the sauce from the heat. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Mix the nutmeg into the ricotta cheese.

Assembly!

Now you should be ready to assemble. Spread a layer of white sauce or ricotta in the bottom of your lasagna pan. Drop the circles of butternut squash down in the pan side by side – you should be able to get at least nine in there depending on the size of your squash and the size of your pan. Layer the noodles, spinach, mozzarella cheese, remaining sage, butternut squash, white sauce, and ricotta until you run out or fill the pan. Be sure to save some mozzarella cheese for the very top to lock in some of the moisture.

Bake in a 400˚ oven for 40-60 minutes or until the slices of squash are soft. You may want to cover the pan with aluminum foil until the last 10-15 minutes to prevent it from over browning.

Annnd lasagna is not the prettiest thing to photograph, especially during dinner rush with the family, but here’s a picture of the finished product.

Epic Midnight Snack (Grilled Cheese with Red Onion and Avocado)

Sorry for the crappy picture, folks, it was, indeed, midnight, and I got a new device that I’m not used to yet!

Today was our annual pie eating contest, and we had a long, busy day, especially since a huge storm knocked out our power last night and cut out quite a bit of our prep time. By the end of the night, we just wanted to relax. Our September issue of Real Simple magazine magazine came in the mail today, and I paged through it. It had a delicious looking page of recipes about how to jazz up grilled cheese sandwiches in three different ways.

One suggestion was to add currant or fig jam, bacon (I’d use tempeh bacon!), and a thinly sliced pear to the basic cheddar on white bread sandwich. Those flavors sound amazing together – I’ve eaten baked brie with pears on Christmas with my family, and cheddar and chutney sandwiches when I lived in the UK. Another suggestion was hugely appealing to Charlie, who loves pesto on just about anything – add pesto and thinly sliced tomatoes to the sandwich.

But the sandwich that I had for a midnight snack tonight was to take thin slivers of a red onion from our farm share, pair it with slices of avocado, and get that sucker grillin’. It was super delicious, and I definitely want to eat this again. You’d think that I’d have eaten enough during the pie eating contest, but since I don’t compete, and I was hosting, I spent about half the day making pies, then half the day making sure people had enough food, and by that time, I barely ate anything myself! I definitely tasted a bunch of the pies, but I need to pay more attention to feeding myself on days like this… or making really delicious midnight snacks like this. Yum!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies (Veg*n)

[I started this the other day, but didn't get a chance to post it! Cookies are baked and shipped!] One of my younger brothers is a music education major, and this summer, he’s teaching music at a summer camp on the left coast. I got an email from my mom last week saying that he’d requested a care package “including cookies,” and my mom asked if I felt like baking some.

Chocolate chippers are usually my go-to cookie when it comes to giving them to people, since almost everyone loves a good chocolate chip cookie, but seeing as I’m in the NYC area, and my brother is currently in California, and the heat has been reaching triple digits, I figured that mailing anything with chocolate chips would end up looking pretty sad.

My mom suggested that my brother liked sugar cookies, and although I hate hate hate rolling out sugar cookies, I’ve been feeling a bit more adventurous lately and decided to give it a go. So far this morning, they’ve been a complete failure, but I will try to win again later.

The other cookie that I thought would be a hit with my brother are these chocolate peanut butter surprise cookies. I rarely make them because they (similar to rolling out sugar cookies and then decorating them) are labor intensive. The end result, however, is very cool.

To make these cookies, you first make a chocolate cookie dough (this one happens to be vegan), and then, separately, you make a simple peanut butter filling. The labor intensive part comes next, where you sit at your kitchen table for a looooong time, smushing little discs of chocolate dough, putting a little ball of peanut butter filling in the center, then carefully wrapping the chocolate cookie dough around it. If you work carefully, there will be no trace of the peanut butter on the outside, and only when the person bites into the cookie will they discover the peanut butter filling (just make sure you don’t serve these to someone with nut allergies!).

This recipe is floating around the internet from a million different sources. I don’t have it memorized, so I had a look at the one here before modifying it a bit.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup black cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup Earth Balance
1/4 cup vegetable shortening (you can use all Earth Balance, but I was mailing these and wanted something a little less prone to melting)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup soy milk
1 egg replacer
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup chocolate chips (optional – I left them out this time because I was mailing them in during summer)

Directions

In a medium bowl, mix flour, cocoa powder, black cocoa, and baking soda.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the Earth Balance, shortening, sugar, and brown sugar. When combined, mix in the egg replacer.

Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix.

In a separate small bowl, mix the powdered sugar and peanut butter with a spoon or your hands. (I find that your hands work best here, otherwise it will just turn into small crumbs of peanut buttery powdered sugar, and you really want them thoroughly mixed into a paste.) When ingredients are incorporated, add the chocolate chips (if desired) and knead further with your hands to incorporate the chocolate chips.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Take about a 2 tablespoons of the chocolate dough in your hand, and roll into a ball. Flatten the ball on the parchment paper to form a disk. Take a pinch (or about 1 teaspoon) of the peanut butter mixture and place in the center of the disk. Fold the edges of the disk up and over the peanut butter, pressing the seams together. Place the cookie seam-side down on the parchment paper to bake.

Bake for 8-12 minutes in a preheated 350°F oven. Cool on wire baking racks.

Filipino Garlic Fried Rice

Fried rice is a great dish when you’re running low on food, you want to clean out the vegetable drawer, you’re broke, or you don’t want to do a lot of dishes. It’s not complicated and has pretty basic ingredients, but it’s really delicious. Tonight we had a little bit of the first and the last happening. We didn’t want to make anything super laborious, but we wanted a homecooked meal since we’ve been getting a lot of takeout due to Charlie’s hectic work schedule. I even got those green onions that I showed you that are growing in the garden.

Charlie tells me that his mom always used to make this when there was leftover rice in the fridge. It was often a meal made for breakfast, but sometimes for dinner. Tita* often made it after making something like pork chops, where there were lots of drippings left in the pan. This version is vegan, but if you feel like it, you can fry an overeasy egg and throw it on top, letting the yolk get all gooey in the dish. It can stand alone as a meal, as we had it tonight, or be served as a side dish.

This dish is a little healthier than your standard fried rice because we used brown rice and a TON of vegetables. When we make fried rice or stir fry, the vegetables to protein & starch ratio is pretty ridiculous. We probably had about 6-7 cups of veggies, a scant 3 cups of rice, and I don’t know what you’d call a package of tofu, 2 cups? Anyway, the important thing to note about this is that fried rice is like stir fry and stone soup. Almost any vegetable you have will do. I’ve written down what we used in what quantities so that you have an idea, but certainly, if you have 4 cups of broccoli and 2 cups of snow peas and no carrot and you have no idea what a kohlrabi is, just go with it. My advice on this matter is to try to cut everything to roughly the same size, unless you know that it cooks drastically differently, and to separate your vegetables into two bowls: Stuff That Cooks Slowly, and Stuff that Cooks Really Fast. It will be awesome, I promise.

*That’s what I call Charlie’s mom – it’s the Tagalog word for “aunt,” but it’s used as an affectionate term for female family friends or other ladies who are around your parents’ age.

Ingredients

5 (or more) garlic cloves, minced
1 small onion, chopped

Veggie Prep Bowl 1:
2-2 1/2 cups of broccoli, finely chopped (about 1 large floret)
1 1/2 cups of carrots finely chopped
1 medium kohlrabi, peeled and finely chopped

Veggie Prep Bowl 2:
1 cup of snow peas, cut in half
1/2 cup yellow squash or zucchini, chopped a little bigger than the other stuff since it’s softer (you could do more, but Charlie likes it less than I do)

Total Vegetables: about 6-7 cups, chopped into small pieces

2-4 cups cooled white or brown rice (day old rice is perfect for this)
1 block of extra firm tofu, drained, pressed, and cubed
a generous handful of green onions, snippped into pieces with scissors
soy sauce
salt & pepper to taste
garlic powder (optional)

Directions

Heat a large pan (nonstick is best) for a few minutes until it is hot, then add a few tablespoons of vegetable oil. Place the tofu cubes into the pan. Flip and stir frequently. Cook until the outside texture is crispy and brown. Remove the tofu from the pan and drain on a paper towel.

Drain some of the oil from the pan, leaving just a coating. Saute the garlic and the onion for 2-3 minutes or until the onion is soft. Add the broccoli, carrots, and kohlrabi. Do not add the squash and snow peas yet or they will get soggy. Cook for about 5 minutes or until tender, depending on the size of your pieces, stirring occasionally. Add the squash and snow peas, cooking for 2 minutes or until the snow peas are bright green and the squash is soft. Add the rice and cook for 2 minutes or until it is heated through. Add pepper and soy sauce to taste. If necessary, add salt and garlic powder to taste.

Garnish with the green onions.

Tea Tasting: Mock Tuna Sandwiches

Thanks to Traczie for the great photos from the tea tasting!

We had a whole bunch of vegetarians coming to our tea tasting, so I decided to try out a mock tuna salad that I’ve been reading about all over the internet. (Seriously, there’s a version on The Happy Herbivore, on AllRecipes, on vegweb, and they’re all essentially the same.) Basically, canned chickpeas stand in for tuna, and I must say, it’s a pretty remarkable substitution. My friend Kira helped me prep this, and we saw it taking shape, and marveled at how much it looked like tuna salad. Then, we tasted it.

“That’s kind of weird how much it tastes like tuna salad,” I said.

Kira tasted it. “That’s just creepy,” she said.

“Yum,” is what our guests said the next day.

Ingredients

15 ounces chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 whole celery stalks, finely chopped
1 pickle, finely chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
2 tsp nutritional yeast
2 tbsp mayo or veganaise
1/4 teaspoon brown mustard
splash of lemon juice (optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

In a small bowl, mash the chickpeas (a pastry blender is really good for this!). Add the nutritional yeast, mayo, and mustard. Mix well. Add the celery, pickle, and onion. Stir. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes or overnight for best flavor.

For tea sandwiches, spread a very thin layer of Earth Balance on both pieces of bread (to keep it from getting soggy). Add mock tuna salad and cut into triangles.

Winter BBQ for the win!

So, if I haven’t made it obvious by now, my partner Charlie loves grilling. And when he got a fancy grill for his birthday last May, there was joking talk of shoveling the snow off the deck in the dead of winter and grilling even then.

Well, I didn’t underestimate that sentiment, but I don’t think anyone expected that it would be this much snow, since we’ve had a metric ton. But, he had a hankering for grilled food, and he had the day off for the Lunar New Year, so today, I was treated to a winter BBQ!

Here’s Charlie out on the deck.

(“Smile for the camera, Charlie!” gets us a thumbs up with an oven mitt in lieu of gloves.)

And just to give you an idea of how much snow is on the deck, this is the vantage point of the photographer (me!) from the sliding glass door, trying to keep the cat inside (who for some reason thinks he wants to go out – he doesn’t).

(Charlie ultimately decided to just wade through the snow in his boots instead of shoveling off the deck. It was that kind of day. If we have company for the next winter BBQ, we’ll probably clear it off.)

Anyway, while Charlie was outside in thirty degree weather, I was inside marinating tempeh. Because of some fun (and thankfully temporary) medication switches, I’m really trying to watch my sodium this week, so I decided to step in and make my own marinade. Charlie does an amazing job at this and is usually in charge, but is occasionally a bit more heavy handed with the soy sauce than I’d choose to be.

I pulled out my balsamic vinegar for most of the flavor, then brought in just a bit of soy sauce for balance. And, I was sure to measure so that I knew what I was getting in to (whereas our normal marinade making experiments are usually… “a little of this and a little of that”).

Ingredients

1 brick o’ tempeh (ok, an 8oz package), sliced into 4 “cutlets”
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
a squeeze of fresh lemon – perhaps a teaspoon
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 sprigs fresh rosemary

Directions

Mix the vinegar, soy sauce, oil, lemon, and garlic powder thoroughly in a shallow dish wide enough for all of the tempeh to lie flat in. Let the rosemary, however sad and leggy it may be from lack of adequate sunshine at this point, sit in the bowl for a few minutes to release some flavor. Get the tempeh good and soggy in the marinade, let sit in the fridge for five or ten minutes (or longer, but that’s all I had since the grill was already going) and then flip over, ensuring an even coating. Refrigerate for a few more minutes, then grill until warm through and the edges begin to blacken.

Black Bean Bonanza

In this recipe, you’ll get a night of black bean tacos, plus a night of delicious black bean burgers, all out of the same pot of beans!

Charlie and I have been trying to live more frugally and more healthily, and one of the things that means for us is trying to use less processed fake meats.

Why less processed fake meats?

• They’re more expensive than some proteins. Even at the most expensive store I can think of in the area, organic black beans are $1.99 for a pound, and there are places that you can get them for half of that, at least. The Gardein Crispy Tender Strips that I love so much are $3.99 for 9oz (and are much less filling).

• Fake meats are less sustainable than legumes since they’re more processed, so more fuel, electricity, etc, has to be used to produce them.

• Dried beans & legumes can often be purchased in bulk, which eliminates the need for wasteful packaging. If you’re cool like me & Charlie, you might even bring your own bulk and produce bags made out of old teeshirts.

• Fake meats may be healthier than real meats, but they’re definitely not whole foods, and we want to eat as healthy foods as we can.

Now, one of the problems that I face in terms of using dried beans is that a lot of them have to be soaked overnight, especially my favorite, black beans. (Soak overnight if you’re planning to slow cook in the morning. Soak all day if you’re planning to cook on the stove at night.) Between typical human forgetfulness and fibro fog+lyme brain, I almost never remember to do this. On Sunday, I even woke up early and said to Charlie, “Hey, I’m going to go soak the beans! I’ll cook them on the stovetop instead of the slow cooker, and we can eat them for dinner tonight!” I then promptly forgot for at least three hours.

After that fail and some googling, I learned that if you find yourself in this situation, you can boil the black beans for two minutes, then let them soak in the hot water for two hours instead of all day. I’d say that the cook time was a bit longer than usual, but it definitely worked out well.

Anyway, my plan for our Sunday night dinner was black bean tacos. We eat tacos fairly often, but usually with refried beans from a can. We made a big pot of black beans and used about a third of it for tacos. The next night, I made black bean burgers, which were pretty incredible. We still have four patties left to freeze. Charlie, though he is a tofu-loving meat eater, is not a big veggie burger fan, but he ate the whole thing. He said that it wasn’t quite a burger, but it was definitely a good sandwich.

I served the burgers with cheese and avocado on top, and with carrot sticks, orange slices, and kale chips. It was an easy meal that was really healthy. If you want to make things really easy on yourself, keep a few burger buns in the freezer along with your burgers so you’ll be ready to go.

Ingredients – Black Bean Mixture Base

2 cups dried black beans
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 large roma tomato, chopped
4 oz mushrooms, finely chopped
1/2 packet natural taco seasoning
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon cumin

Directions

In a medium to large pot of water, bring the black beans to a boil for two minutes, then let them soak for a minimum of two hours. (If you have the time, soak in cold water overnight as this retains more nutrients.)

At the end of the soaking time, drain off the water and replace with about 4 cups of water. Simmer on medium-low heat for about an hour, then add the onion, tomato, and mushrooms. Simmer for another 30 minutes or until the beans are soft enough to eat and the water has reduced. If you prefer your burgers to have a plainer taste or a different spice, you can remove a portion of black beans (probably 1/3) for tacos and leave the rest for burgers, but keep in mind that the seasoning amounts here are for the entire batch.

Use what you will for tacos. Store the extra black beans in a container in the fridge until the next night, when you’ll make the black bean burgers (unless you’re feeling super ambitious and want to do it immediately). When transferring the bean mixture to a container, use a slotted spoon so that any excess liquid does not transfer to the container.

Yield: Enough for tacos for two hungry people who really like tacos, and six large black bean burgers.

Ingredients – Homemade Black Bean Burgers

3 cups seasoned black bean mixture
1 large egg
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon dried cilantro (use 1 tablespoon fresh if possible)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
3/4 cup fresh or frozen corn

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375*F. Using a potato masher or a pastry blender, smash the black bean mixture in a medium bowl until it is the desired consistency (I prefer to leave some beans whole). Add the egg and mix well. Add breadcrumbs, cilantro, and parsley and stir, ensuring the they are evenly distributed. Finally, add the corn. Shape the mixture into patties (we got six large patties out of it) with your hands.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Fry briefly in a pan with olive oil until browned on both sides if desired.

To store in the freezer, place a sheet of wax paper in between the burgers so that they don’t stick together. To reheat from frozen, let sit on the counter for about 5 minutes (ok, this just happened because I was prepping other things last night). Bake at 375*F for 10 minutes on each side, then fry in a pan with a bit of olive oil until browned on both sides.

It didn’t occur to me at the time, but I bet adding some nutritional yeast (perhaps 2 tablespoons) would be a great addition when the breadcrumbs go in. Next batch, I’ll experiment!

Darling Clementines

Darling Clementines are a holiday cookie that I’ve been making for a few years now. They’re also one of the recipes I made for the cookie contest that we participated in over on Scrawl Zoom Stir. They combine seasonal clementines, sliced almonds, and dark chocolate for a beautiful treat. For a gorgeous, green holiday gift, package these in an upcycled clementines crate.

When I brought these to dinner at my aunt and uncle’s house a week or two before Christmas, my aunt actually cried out, “Oh my god,” when she tasted them. Definitely a lovely mix of flavors.

This is a vegan version of this cookie, but I’ve made it with butter and eggs before and it comes out perfectly either way.

While you’re here, don’t forget to check out the giveaway that I’m doing of a neat baking related art print!

Ingredients

1/2 cup of Earth Balance (or butter)
1/4 cup of vegetable shortening
1/2 cup of packed brown sugar
1/2 cup of white sugar
1 1/2 tsp of commercial egg replacer (or one large egg)
2 tbsp of water
1 whole (seedless) clementine, pulverized in food processor
1 zest of whole clementine
1/2 tsp of vanilla
3 cup of sifted all-purpose flour
1 tbsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of salt
1 tsp of ground cardamom seed
4 ounce of bittersweet chocolate
1/3 cup of sliced almonds

Directions

Cream Earth Balance, shortening, and sugar together in a stand mixer. In a separate small bowl, mix the egg replacer with the water until frothy. Add the egg replacer and vanilla to the mixing bowl and stir. Add the pulverized clementine and clementine zest, mixing well.

In a separate medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cardamom, and salt. Mix well. Add to the clementine mixture and mix well.

Chill dough until firm. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Form 1″ balls of dough. Press sliced almonds onto the tops of each ball. Bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for 12-14 minutes.

Cool on racks. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate. Set the cookies on wax paper, then drizzle the chocolate over the top. Let the chocolate completely set before serving.

Cranberry Sauce Almondies

After NaNoWriMo was over, my friend Anna and I decided we wanted to keep challenging ourselves to do more creative, wild, ridiculous challenges. Between the two of us, we wrote over 100,000 words in a month! We started making lists of what we thought would be good challenges, and some of them were food related, some of them were art related, and some of them were completely random. But the first one we decided to do was to participate in at least three out of four weeks of a bake-off (weeks of pies, dessert bars, cookies, and cakes) that was happening in December, so the next few recipes you’ll be seeing here will be from that. If you want to see more about our process, or join us for the next challenge (that we’re still deciding on!), go to our new blog, Scrawl Zoom Stir.

Ingredients

3/4 cup Earth Balance
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 egg replacers
1/3 cup almond paste
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup toasted almond flour* (Available here or toast almonds at 400*F for 10 minutes then grind up!)
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup cranberry sauce
1 egg replacer

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350*F.

In a stand mixer, mix Earth Balance and brown sugar on low speed until creamy.

In a separate small bowl, mix the water and the 1 tbsp. commercial egg replacer until frothy.

Add the egg replacer/water mixture to the stand mixer bowl and stir. Add the vanilla extract and almond paste and mix until fully incorporated.

In a separate medium bowl, combine the whole wheat flour, the all-purpose flour, the salt, the baking powder, and the baking soda. Stir.

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in the mixing bowl.

Spread the mixture into an 8×8 cake pan. Bake at 350*F for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the cranberry sauce (I like to use my homemade Clementine Cranberry Sauce, a little easy on the clementine for this one) with the remaining 1 1/2 tsp. of commercial egg replacer. Mix thoroughly.

When the initial 25 minute cook time is complete, remove the pan from the oven and carefully spread the cranberry sauce mixture in a thin layer evenly over the top. Return the blondies to the oven for about 15 more minutes, or until the surface of the cranberry sauce is tacky and the edges of the blondies are brown and crispy.

Cool completely before cutting. Garnish with almonds and pear slices.

Dahl with Spinach Rice

When I was growing up, we never ate Indian food. We actually hardly ever ate any regional foods except for Italian (part of my heritage) and Chinese takeout (when we were sick of pizza). I didn’t try sushi until high school, hadn’t had Korean food until college, and even many European specialties never crossed my plate until I traveled there.

One type of food I was really hesitant about was Indian food. I’d figured out at some point during my life that I don’t like what we traditionally think of when we say “curry,” and for a while, I was one of the folks that thought Indian food=curry, which is totally incorrect. The great thing about Indian food is that there’s often a ton of vegetarian options, so really, once I figured out what I liked, I was golden. (I just have to watch out for the super spicy stuff! I absolutely can’t do really spicy things – I think it has to do with sensory overload in relation to my fibromyalgia.)

My favorite Indian dish is dahl, which is a spiced (but not too spicy) lentil dish, usually served over rice. Sometimes it’s got some veggies like cauliflower or spinach in it, though it comes plain, too. Where we live, there aren’t many Indian restaurants, and the ones here are kind of pricey, so it’s a rare treat to be able to go out for Indian food. Funny enough, we’re actually kind of broke this month since we just bought a used car from a friend, so we turned to our bulk foods like lentils and rice instead of expensive fake meats. And then… our attempt at dahl was born.

Since I was busy baking cookies for a cookie contest, Charlie took the helm on this recipe. And, as usual when Charlie cooks, he estimates a bit more than I do (since he’s not used to writing down exact quantities for a blog, haha), so you might need to adjust these all a tiny bit to taste.

Ingredients: (Dahl)

sesame oil to coat pan
1/2 onion, chopped finely
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ginger, minced
4 cups vegetable stock
1 cup lentils, soaked in water for 45 minutes
1 1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon corriander
1 teaspoon tumeric
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cayanne
2 small tomatoes, chopped
2 tablespoons lime juice
dash cilantro
salt and black pepper to taste

Directions: (Dahl)

In a medium stock pot, saute the onion, ginger, and garlic in sesame oil until the onions are translucent. Add tomatoes and cook for one minute. While stirring, add the stock and lentils. Add the spices, including the salt and pepper. Cook covered for 20 minutes. Cook uncovered until it reaches desired consistency (we like it less runny). Stir in lime juice. Serve over over spinach rice and/or with naan.

Ingredients: Spinach Rice

4 cups of cooked white or basmati rice
1/2 onion, chopped finely
4 cloves of garlic, microplaned to create a paste
1 tablespoon ginger, microplaned to create a paste
2 tablespoons lemon
2 cups of spinach, finely chiffonaded
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground corriander seed
salt to taste

Directions: (Spinach Rice)

Saute the onion in a bit of oil in a large pan. When the onion is translucent, add the garlic and ginger pastes and cook very briefly. Add the spinach, lemon, cumin, and corriander seed, and cook for about a minute. Add the rice and stir. Salt to taste.