Super Sunday (cooking) Slam

This evening, after I put Joey to bed I:

Pasteurized the milk
Made yogurt
Made bread this way
Made granola
Setup the slow cooker for tomorrow dinner
Blanched tomatoes for Tuesdays dinner

And I finished this book.
Then I had this beer.

And now I'm going to bed.

We Made: Tofu and Eggplant in Black Bean Sauce

Why,  hello Mr. Long Bean. What's that you say? We've eaten up quite a bit of you lately. Well, yes. But you keep appearing in our farm share and are ever so tasty and crunchy. Especially when slightly charred. Yummy. 

Tofu and Eggplant in Black Bean Sauce

Make 4 servings 

WW = 4 points

16 ounces extra firm tofu, cubed

2 - 3 Tablespoons soy sauce

1/2 Tablespoon olive oil 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss tofu with soy sauce and olive oil. (You can add crushed red pepper or garlic or ginger. The boy likes them a little plain so I didn't.) Roast in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes or until the tofu has absorbed all the liquid.

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 white onion or 1 bunch of large scallions sliced thinly

3 cups long beans or green beans or snap peas (whatever works) cut into 1 - 2 inch pieces

3 - 4 large chinese eggplant sliced into rounds on the diagonal

1 red pepper diced

While the veggies are cooking, combine the ingredients below and set aside:

4 Tablespoons black bean sauce

3 Teaspoons sugar

1 thumbish size piece of fresh ginger, grated

1/3 c water

While the tofu is baking, heat olive oil in a large skillet on medium high heat. Add in onion and long beans and sear for 3 minutes. Add in eggplant, gently distributing all over the skillet. Cook for 10 minutes, checking occasionally and redistributing eggplant evenly around the skillet as it cooks. When most of the eggplant looks brown on the edges, add in the red pepper. After 5 minutes, add in sauce. Add in tofu and mix gently to combine. Take off the heat and serve over brown rice.

We Made: Garbanzo Bean Curry

While we were on vacation at the super fancy condo we had a full kitchen. So on the Saturday after we arrived in Invermere we took a trip to their little farmer's market. Much of it was gifty sort of items and lots of honey. But we also got some fresh, local veggies (including the mostly wildly delicious cherries) to act as the base for our meals during the week. We ended up with spinach, potatoes, carrots, cherries, tomatoes, beets, and bread.

One of our go to meals at home is a Garbanzo Bean Curry with whatever greens are currently available and fresh or canned tomatoes. Like nearly everything we cook, it's very flexible and can be stretched or cut to fit the number of people we're feeding. If we have extra time we'll roast the garbanzo beans in a 425 degree oven before adding to the curry.

Garbanzo Bean and Spinach Curry with Coconut Rice
(Makes 4 servings)


1 cup white rice
1 cup light coconut milk
1 cup water
1 cinnamon stick
4 crushed cardamon pods

Cook white rice as usual but replace half the cooking liquid with coconut milk. Add spices to cooking liquid with rice. Remove seed pods and cinnamon stick before serving.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large white onion, sliced thinly
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1 thumb sized piece of ginger, grated
4 - 6 tablespoons curry Powder
2 tablespoons cumin
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
4 cups cooked Garbanzo beans
4 cups spinach with the center stem removed
1 can diced tomatoes OR 3 large tomatoes, diced with 1 cup veggies broth

Heat the olive oil and add the onion. After the onion is browned, add in the garlic, ginger and ground spices. Cook briefly until the spices are well distributed and you can smell the garlic. Add in the garbanzo beans and stir to coat. Add in the canned or fresh tomatoes and veggie broth. Turn to low simmer. Add spinach and cover until wilted.

Serve curry over hot coconut rice.

We're Eating: Road Trip Food

We've written about our road trip here already, but what we didn't include was the elaborate planning that went into getting ready to take a toddler on a multi-day car bound adventure. I was a little worried about the food situation. We eat vegetarian and most of the road food available for vegetarians is some form of a deep fried potato or some form of cheese. Not so healthy. 

Instead of hunting around the gas stations for the least worst option, we just decided to make a bunch of stuff to bring. For the road trip, I made:

• Non-garlicy hummus
• Homemade white bread
• Two large loaves of banana nut bread
• Homemade granola bars
• Fresh fruit 
• Nuts

The hummus is from our own standard recipe that I just eye ball. The banana bread was actually from a recipe from a Martha Stewart cookbook that called for buttermilk instead of sour cream like the recipe I linked to above. Also, I accidentally left the granola bars in the oven for an extra 30 minutes with no harm done. 

Believe it or not, this held us all the way through the 5 day road trip with some main meals supplemented at restaurants.  The banana bread and the granola bars were the big stars. And Mr. J managed to get through the whole road trip without a single french fry!

Sunday Cake: Yogurt Cake with Blueberries

I baked lots of stuff this weekend which I'll write up eventually, but I didn't get around to making a cake because I was tired of cooking by Sunday.

So today, I made the yogurt cake from Smitten Kitchen with the following modifications:

-we only had 3/4 C of plain yogurt so I made up the rest with plain ricotta cheese from the farmer's market 

-subbed lemons for lime

-subbed blueberries for blackberries

All in all a success. But Monday was a welcome party for new faculty so I'm bringing it on Tuesday.

This is my own version of How to Win Friends and Influence People.....with baked goods.

We're Eating: Hoppin' John

From the Farmer's Market on 5/28/10

Pretty purple okra

Sweet yellow and red onions, garlic, eggs, tomatoes, crookneck squash, and mushrooms.

From Our Garden:

A tiny green bell pepper

A few tomatoes that are almost ripe

And so with the bounty of the garden and the Farmer's Market, we made Hoppin' John. I originally started making Hoppin' John from a recipe adapted from The Gift of Southern Cooking. The Gift of Southern Cooking was co-authored by Edna Lewis, the grand dame of Southern Cooking, and Scott Peacock. I love the story of the two unlikely friends and the care and compassion they each showed for the other. However, they both cook with LOTS of pork. Since we don't eat pork and I don't eat any meat, most of the recipes in the book are more interesting reading the really something I would make. However, Hoppin' John is in heavy rotation at our house since Chuck loves Black Eyed Peas and I love rice and beans in any form.

1 T olive oil

1-2 small yellow onions

3 cloves garlic

1 green bell pepper

1ish pound okra

4 cups cooked black eyed peas

1-2 large tomatoes

1/2 C veggie broth

Optional: 2 C green beans

1/2 t crushed red pepper

1 T ground thyme

salt to taste

3 C cooked brown rice

Crystal Hot Sauce or Tabasco

Chopped green onion tops for garnish

Cook brown rice before you start the rest of the meal.

Dice onion. Wash and chop okra. Heat olive oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium heat. When the pan is hot, add the onion and okra. The key to cooking okra without it getting gooey is to sear the heck out of it. Cook until the okra starts to brown on one side or the other. Add in the diced bell pepper and chopped garlic. When the bell pepper is soft, add in the diced tomato, spices, and veggie broth. Turn down to a low simmer and add in black eyed peas. Cook until everything looks well combined ~20 minutes.

Serve over hot brown rice and garnish with hot sauce and chopped green onion.

Recipe: Mustard Rainbow Chard

I don't like chard. Or, at least I didn't until we found this recipe.Every time I would try to cook it, the end result tasted muddy. This is super fast and simple and very tasty.

Ingredients:

- 1 large bunch chard (we used rainbow, but we've used other kinds)

-1/2 large white onion

-crushed red pepper

-1/2 c. broth

- 2 garlic cloves

Slice onion thin and sautee in a large pan on medium high heat. While the onion is cooking, cut out the ribs of the chard and set the leaves aside. Chop 1/2 the ribs thinly and add to the onion mixture. Cook until onion and chard ribs are soft.

Add 1 - 2 Tablespoons crushed red pepper. Grate the garlic into the pan. Stir in to combine and let cook for 2 - 3 minutes or until you can smell the red pepper.

Add the chard leaves and briefly sautee until they begin to shrink down. Add the broth and 2 heaping scoops of a whole grain mustard. We used a locally made mustard that is super tasty! Let cook a few more minutes until all the chard is wilted. Serve piping hot or cold over noodles.

And this was our dinner for the night while watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. If there is ever a show to make you think about dinner, that's it. We also had leftover roasted garbanzo beans with tomatoes and spinach from the farm share.

Homemade Cold Care

I have a cold. Actually, I'm not sure if I have a cold or if I just have terrible allergies at this time of year. I've been reminded that I was ALWAYS sick at Spring Break when I lived in Texas before. Anyway, I feel like crap. It's not really possible for me to take a day or two off to rest so my on-the-go healing strategy has been hot tea and hot soup. We've been making (No) Chicken Noodle Soup for a long time, but the farm share veggies have inspired us to make it more often.

No Chicken Noodle Soup

2 boxes (~8 cups) of no-chicken broth or

~8 cups veggie broth with 3 T nutritional yeast added

1 tub extra firm tofu, frozen, defrosted and pressed

Cut the tofu into small cubes and soak it in 2 cups of no-chicken broth or veggie broth with all the nutritional yeast added while you are doing the other steps. Freezing the tofu and defrosting it makes it have a spongier texture that is more absorbent of the broth. Press it between two plates with a heavy can on top. This step can be skipped if you are low on time.

1 lbs mushrooms

1 large onion or bunch of garlic chives

3-4 carrots

several large leaves of the greens of your choice (kale, spinach, etc.)

Chop all the veggies in smallish chunks. Saute in the bottom of a large soup pot with olive oil.

If you are using Chinese cabbage or another really leafy green, separate out the tough rib and chop and add with the rest of the veggies. Add the leaves later.

6 cups broth

1 - 2 t ground thyme

several large squirts of Bragg's Liquid Aminos

2 cloves garlic, grated or mincedfresh ground black pepper

1 inch ginger, grated or minced

2 C rotini pasta

When all the veggies are soft, add remaining broth and all ingredients except pasta. Bring the

broth to a boil and add in pasta. Let simmer for 5 - 7 minutes. Turn down heat and add in tofu and remaining broth and any leafy veggies.

Eat piping hot, preferably with a mug of tea to help clear out your head and chest. This soup is excellent as leftovers and seems to get better the next day. Yummy!

Kitchen Chemistry

Success! I've had mixed results in the past with both bread baking and making yoghurt. But... the kitchen gods appear to be smiling on me lately. I've had successful batches of both in the past week.

We tried out the Bread in 5 Minutes a day thing this weekend and both loaves have been beautiful and yummy.

Essentially, you make a huge batch of really wet

dough, let it rise once and then stick it in the fridge. When you're ready to bake, pull off a chunk of the dough, let it rise and throw it in the oven on an oven stone with a pan of water for steam. The basic dough recipe can be turned into a variety of different types of bread. I tried the basic white bread recipe this time, but next time I'll try one of the whole wheat versions.

The first loaf was a bit misshapen since I didn't put enough cornmeal on the pizza meal and it

stuck, but I googled around found suggestions to start the bread on parchment paper and then slide it off the parchment paper halfway through

baking. It worked perfectly. No stressing about cornmeal and sticking and a great crust. It also has the big, fancy holes in it like real bakery bread.

The second experiment was another try at making yoghurt. The keys: store bought starter,

non-fat milk powder, and cooking the milk over a lower heat. The first few batches were either too thin or too thick a la the Three Bears. The non-fat milk powder helps it thicken up and the

store bought starter made sure it actually cultured. It looks pretty good! Now, I'm working on figuring out how to flavor it for Chuck. We also have a yoghurt incubator that I bought before we got married and I've now moved away and back to Texas. Chuck mocked me about my unused but deeply loved yoghurt maker. So now I'm going to use the darn thing until I can make most of the yoghurt we eat.

Wednesday Dinner: Broccoli Stirfry

We got three huge bags of produce from the CSA this week. Yum!

The farmer market on Saturday was also packed with beautiful produce.

This week in our CSA we received: Cauliflower, Broccoli, Garlic Chives, Spinach, and a HUGE head of bok choy.

In other sadder news, one of our top hat chicks died last night. She was looking pretty pathetic yesterday. We tried reviving her with sugar water and a paste of the chick food. She perked up for while, but didn't make it through the night. One of her sister top hat chicks died last night with another family. They might have just been weak chicks, but we're nervous about keeping them all healthy. The Backyard Chickens forum has been super helpful with people quickly answering questions.

Broccoli and Garlic Chives Soba Noodle Saute
Make 4 servings

8 ounces soba noodles

Boil a large pot of water and through the soba noodles in. Cook for 5 minutes or according to the package directions. Rinse quickly under cool water in a colander.

1ish pound of broccoli cut into small pieces
1 large bunch of garlic chives or 2 bunches of green onions
3 carrots
2 garlic cloves
thumb sized piece of ginger

Chop the broccoli tiny and the chives in large chunks. Grate the carrot or slice it very very thinly. Grate the ginger and garlic on a large hole microplane zester or mince. Heat a skillet with a tiny bit of oil until very hot and dump all the ingredient into the pan. Stir fry very briefly until the broccoli is bright green and the carrot is soft.

1/4 c tamari or soy sauce
1/4 c brown rice vinegar
2 T sugar
3 T toasted sesame oil
1-2 big squirts of Siracha
1/2 c water
2 T cornstarch

Combine all the ingredients except the cornstarch in a small bowl. Combine the cornstarch and 4 T of the liquid mixture in another small bowl to make a smooth paste. Wisk the paste into the rest of the liquid mixture. After the broccoli is cooked, pour the liquid mixture in and cook briefly until the mixture thickens and the cornstarch is no longer opaque. Add in the noodles, take off the heat and toss to combine.

We've made this with bok choy, mushrooms, regular onions...it's really a pretty forgiving recipe. It's also super fast and packs well for a lunch. We also normally baked tofu that's previously been frozen and pressed, but we didn't have time tonight.