Winter Soup (With Kale and Barley)

Hello everyone. It's been a long, loooong time since I've posted anything on here, so I figured it was time to fix that. Do enjoy!

So, you're getting kind of hungry. You check out your stash of food, and what do you find? Some chard that Molly grew that's threatening to go bad, some Guinness you're not sure you're ever going to get around to drinking, some veggie broth, a bunch of frozen beans, some dried barley, a couple taters and a couple onions. What do you do? If you're like me, make some soup!

Winter Soup (With Chard and Barley!)


Before I embark, the whole idea behind my soup-making philosophy is that you don't go out and buy ingredients for soup. You make soup with whatever you have. So if what you have is different from the ingredients I listed here, don't make it like I made it – do you're own thing. It's all simple and sustainable and stuff.

Second thing is I recommend making your own broth. All you really have to do is collect the not-so-edible parts of your vegetables in a bag and stow them in the freezer. Once you have a bunch, just boil them for a couple hours and throw the veggie bits in the compost. The only tricky part is determining what veggie bits will keep long enough (leek greens, onion peels, broccoli stems...) and what will slime up on you (bell pepper caps, leafy matter, etc.)


Ingredients
2 onions, diced
3 cups cooked kidney beans (you can use whatever kind. They can also just be soaked if you add them earlier in the recipe so that they have an hour or more to cook)
1 ½ cups dried barley
1 tbs butter
2 bunches of chard or other greens 2-4 taters
~2 quarts veggie stock
2 bottles of beer (I used Guinness)
2 or 3 bay leaves
4-6 cloves garlic, sliced on a bias
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
½ tsp tarragon

Procedure

1. Melt the butter in the bottom a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the onions and saute until translucent. Add about half the garlic and saute for another 2 minutes.
2. Add the broth, the beer, the potatoes and the barley (basically whatever starch you're adding to the soup). You want to make sure you have enough broth to cover the other ingredients (you can add water if you run out). If your beans have merely been soaked instead of cooked, add them now too.
3. Bring the pot to a simmer (I usually crank it up to high to do this, then turn it back down once it starts to bubble). Add the seasonings, the rest of the garlic and the kale and resume simmering.
4. Let the soup simmer for at least half an hour and stir thoroughly. Serve nice and hot in a bowl.

There you have it. I personally found it to get better over night once the flavors had a chance to really come together. It's excellent with some home-baked bread... but that's another recipe :)

What the Hell Do I Do With All This Kohlrabi??

A perplexing question indeed! Those readers who have taken part in a CSA (C0mmunity Supported Agriculture - where a farm sends you a portion of its produce every week) will either be familiar with this question, or a variation thereon (What the hell do with all this/these kale/turnips/dandelion greens/radishes???). Well, as in my new house we have one person working for a farm that gives us a CSA share every week, for my first week and a half we found ourselves with probably six huge kohlrabi on our hands, and it was largely up to me to figure out what the hell to do with them.

This is not so much of a straight up recipe post, because this question yielded multiple answers!

The first approach we took was to cut it up with some squash and bake it in the oven with butter, salt and pepper. This worked pretty well - the kohlrabi was still decidedly crunchier than the squash, but it all worked out and had a lovely dinner of it alongside some Lentil Shepherd's Pie.

Some time after that, I got my cookbooks in the mail and was able to look up kohlrabi in the Joy of Cooking, and discovered that, among other things, it had "an affinity for" tomatoes and cream. Thus, I tried making a creamy tomato sauce to go over pasta, in which kohlrabi was the main vegetable. This ended up working decently well, although the kohlrabi was still a bit too crunchy in this instance (it also featured alongside squash again). The basic process, however, was to start the kohlrabi sauteing over medium heat for several minutes, then add the onion, then the squash, and then the other ingredients, so that the kohlrabi got enough time to cook.

After this I got a bit more daring. We decided that we wanted to make chili for dinner, and what went in to give it some extra umph? Indeed! It was perhaps one of the world's first batches of kohlrabi chili! I followed a similar process here to the one outlined above: you have to begin by leaving the kohlrabi to saute over medium heat with a good dollop of oil or butter before adding anything else. The chili actually turned out really well! I would recommend this to anyone with a random kohlrabi or two on their hands, because it gets incorporated really well and just adds more foodiness to the chili. One thing to note, however: in this recipe we experimented with leaving the purple skins on, which didn't turn out badly per se, but we were spitting out skins the whole evening, so I recommend trimming them off.



The last use we came up with (after making another batch of pasta with kohlrabi in it) was actually to saute it in a skillet with other produce from the next CSA share, which might have (aside from the chili) been my favorite. Naming this creation "harvest jamboree", we began much like we did before, sauteing the kohlrabi alone. I then added potatoes, and let them sizzle together until both veggies got nice and golden brown on the outside. Then came the squash (zucchini, summer squash and patty pan), and once that was cooked I added several handfuls of frozen corn, some chickpeas, some garlic and four minced chilis (two jalapenos and two unidentified sweet peppers). We served up the final dish with sauteed greens (rainbow chard) and some grain left in our cabinets, labeled erroneously as "qinoa" but was actually irish oatmeal, but that still turned out to be yummy.



Well, that just about did it for the kohlrabi - the roots at least! There was still one use to list: broth! Since these kohlrabi all came with leaves still attached, I collected them in a bag and refrigerated them with all sorts of other vegetable matter and made a big batch of veggie broth with them. I can safely say that we used up that kohlrabi well and truly!

Well, while I would hope that in your cooking adventures you didn't find yourself with six kohlrabi to use, I certainly enjoyed this culinary challenge, and I look forward to the next one that cooking from a CSA presents me with!

Summer Salivations - Part II

Hello all!

So, it's been quite a while since Part I, but that is mostly because I've been very busy! This will, sadly, be my last post of something I cooked in Minneapolis, at least for quite a while, as I have officially made my move to Tacoma! I have spent much of my time lately in orientations and traveling and moving, so not so much with the posting.

However, I do hope to be creating/discovering and twisting some new recipes while I'm here (sadly without my access to the Seward Coop or the Midtown Farmers' Market, which will take some getting used to), and so I shall continue posting!

Pasta with Slow Cooked Peppers and Onions


This is a dish originally inspired by a Jamie Oliver recipe we found in a cook book from the library. That dish had a cool name, but I completely forget what it was, and this recipe is significantly different from it anyway, aside from the core method of preparation. If you prepare no other pasta recipe I have offered you, try this one! It is exquisitely delicious (if I do say so myself!).

Ingredients
2 bell peppers (I used one green and one purple; yellow and red are quite excellent)
10 crimini mushrooms
1 onion
four cloves garlic
salt and pepper
1 lb pasta (penne or rigatoni)
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
Parmesan cheese

Procedure

You may have noticed that the ingredients list here is not terribly different from a typical pasta recipe - the difference here is all in the preparation!

Step 1: The Mushrooms. Wash and slice your mushrooms and dice your garlic. Heat some olive oil in a skillet (cast iron if possible!) and saute the mushrooms with about half the garlic, plus a little salt and pepper. Set aside. This keeps them from getting soggy later on.

Step 2: The Peppers. Cut your peppers into longish strips. Get a few tablespoons of oil heating in the skillet over low heat. Add the peppers, some salt and pepper and cover. Cook the peppers over low heat for about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add more oil if it seems to be in danger of getting dry, Do not rush this process! This is where all the flavor comes from!


Step 3: The Rest. Slice up your onions (also in strips) and add them to the peppers. Cook these together for 10-15 minutes. This is a good time to put up some water to boil and begin cooking the pasta. After those 10-15 minutes, add a good couple slugs of balsamic vinegar, the rest of the garlic, and a hearty pinch of salt and pepper. Keep it cooking for another couple minutes, then turn off the heat and stir in the mushrooms, as well as a couple tablespoons of the pasta water. Combine with the pasta and serve with Parmesan. If the flavor feels off, add a little more vinegar or salt and pepper.


Tada! That's really all there is to it - I figure I must have riffed off this a little bit, but not terribly much. It's not terribly complicated, it just takes a little more patience than your average pasta dish. Again, I hope you enjoy this - it truly is worth the wait!

Portabella Burgers

So what is super fun to grill, easier to cook than a hamburger, twice as juicy, and doesn't involve the death of several cows to prepare? This dish! You know, this recipe is so simple that it doesn't even really bear my usual recipe format, but it is delicious, so try to squeeze it in before grilling season is over!

Basically, before you go outside to start your fire, get a big Ziploc bag. Take your portabellas, trim the stems and wash them (if you want to preserve the flavor as much as possible, you can wash them by wiping them with a damp paper towel) and place them in the bag. Pour a few glugs of olive oil and a glug or two of balsamic vinegar, plus a good bit of salt and pepper, and coat the mushrooms with these things (shake to distribute). Push out as much extra air as possible and seal the bag, leaving the mushrooms to marinate for an hour or so as you ready your fire and wait for the perfect coals.


Once the coals are ready, grill face down for a few minutes, then flip them right side up, adding cheese if desired.


After another few minutes, serve on a lightly toasted bun.


And that's it! I hope you enjoyed all the recipes from Minneapolis this past year, and I hope you enjoy the recipes from Tacoma this new year! Let's also hope Emily sends some recipes from Heqing, eh?

Cheers!

Iain

Summer Salivations - Part I

I could not possibly have made that sound less appetizing. Okay, I could have titled the post "disgusting pukations from the planet Hurl," but I also don't go around philosophizing with an anthropomorphic tiger, and I think only six year old boys who do that are allowed to utter that sort of phrase.

I digress (as if any of my posts weren't digressions already). I'm here today to share with you, crammed into a two mondo posts, four dishes I've played around with this summer! Three are pastas. Are you surprised? I'm not - for some reason, summer is the time when I can't get enough pasta. It becomes all about the fresh ingredients, so why not?

Anyway, here we go!

Homemade Peppery Papardelle with Sauteed Zucchini and Mushrooms and Sundried Tomatoes


This dish here was fun to make, pretty much impromptu, when my brother Alexander came up to visit. I basically took inventory of the kitchen and made a sauce to accompany this papardelle out of whatever was around.

Ingredients
4 cups durum semolina
5 eggs
at least 2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
pinch of salt

2-3 zucchinis (and/or other summer squash), chopped into chunks
olive oil
5-10 crimini mushrooms
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes
salt and pepper
a hefty handful of fresh basil
a few cloves of garlic (duh)
shallot, diced

Procedure

1. Prepare the pasta. If you want a more detailed description of how to make pasta, see several of our earlier posts. Make the semolina into a mound, mixing in the salt and pepper. Make a well in the middle and crack the eggs into it. Carefully break the yolks with a fork and mix, slowly incorporating more and more of the flour as you go, reinforcing the walls as necessary. Once the liquid is gone, continue mixing by hand until the dough holds together. Form into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap (or if you're as much of a hippie as I am, in a used plastic bag), and store in the freezer for an hour. Go watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.



2. Roll out the pasta. If possible, conscript younger brother to do a lot of the rolling. Aim for about 1 mm thick. Once it's rolled out, cut into strips about 1/2 and inch (maybe even a little wider) wide. Set aside, and put up some water to boil.


3. Get the sauce ready. While younger brother is nearing the end of his pasta rolling, cut up your vegetables and, if necessary, rehydrate your sundried tomatoes. Heat some olive oil in a skillet and saute the zucchini and set aside. Then saute the mushrooms, and also set aside. Prevent younger brother from munching everything you just sauteed. Set about heating a good few tablespoons of oil, and saute your shallot. After it turns translucent, add most of the garlic and the sundried tomatoes. Now is a good time to put the pasta in to boil. Put the remaining parts of the sauce together once it's simmered for a few minutes, saving the remaining garlic and the basic for last. Turn off the head after giving it a few stirs. The pasta should only take a few minutes, so test it to see if it tastes done. Once it's al dente, drain it and combine pasta with sauce in a big bowl. Top servings with plenty of Parmesan.


Tada! This one is a good recipe for an evening where you have a good few hours to devote to the food, but believe me, it's worth it. The result is one of the most savory pasta dishes I've ever sampled!

Classic Tomato and Basil Pasta... with Three Colors of Tomato


Nothing says delectable summer meal like some pasta with olive oil, basil, garlic and tomatoes, right? Right. Except when you live by a co-op, and so you have access to locally grown heirloom tomatoes that come in a staggering variety of colors!

Ingredients
1 lb pasta of your choice
3 heirloom tomatoes (I went with green zebra, purple and classic red)
1 hearty handful of fresh basil
3 cloves garlic, minced
olive oil
salt and pepper
Parmesan

Procedure

1. Boil the pasta and chop the veggies.


2. Heat up some olive oil on low heat. Add about half the garlic and the salt and pepper. Let it simmer for a few minutes, then add the rest of the ingredients, stir and turn off the heat. Combine with the pasta and top with Parmesan.

Easy, right? :)

Okay, I'm blogged out. See you soon for Part II.

Red Wine Ravioli

Well, summer is here, the sun is shining, holy crap it's hot out even in Minnesota, and it's time to pluck fresh herbs from our garden, buy produce from the Midtown Farmer's Market (how we missed it) and make pasta from scratch. A lot.

After making quite a lot of linguine and farfalle, we decided to try an elusive shape we'd never tried before: the mysterious ravioli...

Red Wine Ravioli

Ingredients
about 2 cups durum semolina flour
about 1 cup bread flour
3 medium eggs
red wine as needed
15 mushrooms
1 red shallot
olive oil
1/8 cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste
hefty pinch oregano
small handful chopped basil

Music Listened To
chances are we put an iPod on shuffle and enjoyed whatever ridiculous thing came out

Procedure

Step 1: The Pasta. Pile a mixture of semolina and bread flour on a clean counter top and make a well in the middle. Crack your eggs into the well, taking care not to let it spill over the edge. Use a fork to break the yolks and mix them.


Very, very carefully, start to incorporate the flour from the edges of the well into the mixture, bolstering your walls as necessary. If it breaches (which it usually has when we do it) it's OK - just stop the egg from spilling all over the place and bring it back in its place (we did say this should be a clean counter top). Now, this will probably start to get pretty dry once everything gets mixed together, so this is where the wine comes in. Just give it a little glug every time it isn't holding together. I wouldn't go more than a quarter cup (if that), but do not fear the wine. If you're especially avid, you could even replace one or two of the eggs with an equivalent amount of wine.


Once it's mixed and the dough holds together in one big lump, wrap it up in plastic and throw it in the fridge for about an hour.

Step 2: The Rolling. This step really doesn't warrant much description, but it does take a heck of a lot of time. Divide the dough into two equal balls and roll it out (we went by hand with a rolling pin, but feel free to use a machine. If you're a wuss) until you have two 1 mm thick sheets of pasta. Don't just go by the thickness on one side - try to get it as even as possible.


Step 3: The Filling. Chop you shallot and mince your garlic. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat and add the shallot. Saute for about 3-5 minutes, then add the garlic and finely chopped mushrooms. Add several glugs of wine - the mushrooms will just drink it up. After the wine is almost soaked up, add the herbs, salt, pepper and Parmesan and mix. You can leave it on low for a while if you like, but it's effectively ready to go once the cheese melts and is thoroughly mixed in.


Step 5: The Assembly. Lay out one of your pasta sheets on a cutting board and trim into the shape of a rectangle. Place about a teaspoon of filling in one corner, leaving about half an inch border from the edges. Place the next dollop also half an inch from the edges, a whole inch away from the first dollop. Continue adding dollops until you fill the rectangle with dollops, each separated by an inch, each no closer than about half an inch to the edge. Use a brush or your fingers to brush water onto the pasta that isn't covered by filling. This will help glue the ravioli together. Lay the other sheet on top. Gently use your fingers to form it into mounds over the dollops of filling.


Once you have all your pillows of filling set up, trim away the edges and cut the pasta into squares. Press the edges of the squares together to form a good seal (or else you may let water into your scrumptious filling).


Step 6: The Yummies. Put some water up to boil and prepare a sauce (I might suggest using the red wine sauce from my earlier post, although we just did a basic tomato marinara sauce).


Once the water is gently boiling, turn down the heat to medium or medium-high and drop in as much of the ravioli as will comfortably fit. We did ours in about two batches. You will be able to tell they're done once they're puffy and float to the surface. Scoop them out and put in the next batch.


At last, at long last, place ravioli in a bowl, slather with delicious sauce, and top with some freshly grated Parmesan.


Sorry to follow up all that typing with such a lousy photo of such a delicious dish. This is probably the first homemade pasta we ever made completely forsaking a recipe. While this sounds like a lot of work (indeed, it is more work than most of our recipes), it's honestly not as difficult as it sounds. The trickiest part is honestly just managing your time. This dish is more fun with a partner to help, but an adventurous sort could handle it on their own.

Have an excellent evening, and enjoy!

Mujaddara

Hello,

A long time ago (uh, probably about 2 years ago) my (Iain's) mother sent me a recipe for a dish that involved lentils, rice and onions that had turned up on the internet. A very simple affair, but it sounded good. Despite its relatively simple concept, the first several times I and my housemates tried to make it, it seldom neared the superbly scrumptious, no matter how I tarted it up with various spices and seasonings. After finally realizing that something just plain wasn't quite right, that I was missing something in the execution, I put this dish on the back burner for well over a year.

[No, I did not literally place it on the back burner for over year, although now that I typed that sentence, the concept does sound rather amusing. One can hardly have one's deposit reimbursed on a burned down house.]

A couple months ago, Bozzie, who had previously written down my doctored-to-the-point-of-butchery recipe as "Lempke's Lentils and Rice Thingy" in his recipe notepad, stumbled across a different version of the recipe. By a different version of the recipe I mean it was almost the same in almost every way. The main difference was that at this point, we were much better cooks than we had been those almost two years ago. This version got written down as "Esau's Favorite" in the notepad, that being an alternate name for the dish. He prepared it as instructed (although substituting Bulgar for rice), and the results were sublime. I've prepared it a few times since (without the help of a recipe, as I quickly became unable to find the one he used) with Bozzie, with Emily and by myself, and with the basic addition of liberality and patience, the ugly duckling of a recipe had turned into a... oh good grief, I'm not really using that cliche am I?

Lentils and Rice/Mujaddara/Esau's Favorite


Ingredients:
A little more than a cup of dry lentils
About 3/4 of a cup of rice (preferably white) or Bulgar wheat
About a quart of water or broth
2 medium to large onions
3/4 cup olive oil

Music Listened To:
The sound of onions sizzling in olive oil

Procedure:

1. Put the lentils in a pot and cover them with water or broth so that the broth goes at least an inch over the top of the lentils. Cover and set them to boil on medium high heat.

2. As the lentils do their thing, cut the onions in half, and then into thin slices (ideally actually a little thinner than shown in the picture below). Meanwhile, heat up the olive oil in a skillet (yes, you really will want the whole 3/4 cup listed above - the onions and oil are where the majority of the flavor comes from, so don't skimp!) and toss the onions in to sizzle. Turn down the heat and stir them occasionally for the next 20-40 minutes until they are crispy and a nice caramely color. This is one of the ways I went wrong earlier - skimping on the onions (only putting in one, with only a little oil) and rushing them (I think the original recipe said to let them do their thing for about 10 minutes. For the size of the strips I had cut, this was too short a time).


3. Once the lentils have gotten nice and soft, put in the rice and add at least a cup and a half more broth. If this doesn't cause the rice to be well-covered by liquid, add more until it is sufficient. Add salt and pepper, cover and boil on medium heat for 15-25 minutes, or until the rice is soft. With this dish, the softer the better, so gauge your proportions semi-liberally and carefully (I know, it sounds contradictory, right?) and try not to check on it until it is likely to already be done, as uncovering or stirring may interrupt the cooking process. This is the other way in which I went wrong before. I did not always give the rice enough water or broth, and I only let it boil as long as I would boil ordinary rice. The idea is to get it quite soft.

4. Put it together. Add about half the onions and oil to the lentils and rice and stir them in. Use the remaining onions and oil to top each serving. Season with a little salt and pepper.

As you've probably gathered, the procedure is quite simple, but requires a delicate hand. I encourage you to give it a try, and if it doesn't work the first time, try, try ag... more cliches? Seriously?

The Best Brownies

Alright, so I (Emily) know that I've been doing the bulk of the posting lately, and that the vast majority of said posts have involved baked goods of some sort or another. Allow me to take this moment to explain.

On July 1st, I am leaving the Twin Cities to spend two weeks with my family in Georgia.

On July 14th, I am leaving Georgia to spend two years with a bunch of strangers in China. (I'm one of 30 international teaching fellows who will join up with 30 Chinese teaching fellows to form the China Education Initiative's 2010-12 cohort. Eek!)

China doesn't really do the whole baking thing, and when I studied abroad in Beijing my junior year I remember my friend's Chinese roommate was unable to handle the sweetness of dark chocolate. In other words, in a little over a month I'm going to have to begin finding some way to compensate for my lack of baking delicious things on a regular basis. For the time being, I'm baking up a storm.

These particular brownies came about because I found a ghirardelli 100% cacao bar for $2.50 and couldn't resist, so I decided to make something extra special and went on a quest for "The Best Brownies." Of course, after half an hour's pouring over both cookbook and internet recipes, I didn't find anything that struck me as the ultimate chocolate treat. So instead of being reasonable and picking out one of what were probably several close seconds, I decided to have a baking adventure and make it up as I went along. It's quite simple and amazing. Also, I was so excited I forgot to take pictures, but it looks like a brownie when it's done. Trust me.

Chewy Chocolate Fudgy INCREDIBLE Brownies
Ingredients

• 4 oz unsweetened chocolate (1 ghirardelli baking bar)
• 4 tsp. cocoa powder
• 2 sticks butter (1 cup), softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 4 eggs, at room temperature
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 3/4 cup flour
• 2 TBS cocoa powder
• 2/3-3/4 cup chocolate chips
• a pinch or so of salt
  

Procedure

• Melt the chocolate and 4 tsp. cocoa powder together. I used the double boiler method. Let it cool for at least 8-10 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 350°F
  
• Cream the butter and sugars together until well blended. You shouldn't see any "spots" of butter. Depending on how soft the butter is, this'll take anywhere from 1-5 minutes
• Stir in the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla extract.
• Gently whisk or stir in the melted chocolate.
• Stir in the baking powder and flour, then add the 2 TBS cocoa powder. Everything should be smooth and a rich brown.
  
• Fold in the chocolate chips.
• Pour the batter into a well-greased 9"x13" pan. It should be thick. You will need a spatula to get out the last of it. Spread the batter evenly, and sprinkle a little bit of salt over the top.
• Bake for 25 minutes, checking after about 20. When a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs sticking to it, they're done.
  
• Let the brownies cool in the pan, placed atop a baking rack.
  

In terms of cooling times, you can eat them as soon as 10 minutes after they come out of the oven, but I'd say wait at least half an hour. These brownies honestly didn't hit their peak until day 3--when they tasted almost as though they were spiked with some kind of liqueur, they were so flavorful and chocolaty. Truly amazing.

Oh, and you'll need some milk. Or water. Or ice cream. Or something!

School Lunch-- A Follow-Up

Happy Friday, everybody!

We've been cooking up a storm lately, and soon enough I will certainly post a recipe or two. Unfortunately, I think Iain's camera has most of the pictures on it, and he's at work, so I don't have any pretty pictures for you guys.

There are two days of school left before summer vacation, which means two more public school lunches for my kids, plus whatever they get at summer school for those who are attending. Then change is gonna come!!

http://www.wcco.com/video/?id=79373@wcco.dayport.com

Whole wheat pasta and rice, from-scratch soups and hummus and dip, plain or reduced-sugar chocolate milk, grilled instead of fried chicken!! Yay! I don't know what exactly provided the impetus for this. Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, Michelle Obama's anti-obesity work, general awakening regarding the importance of good food? Probably all of the above are contributing factors. All I know is that next year will see some very grumpy kids angry about their chicken nuggets being removed from the menu, but hopefully after an initial shock period they'll come to enjoy the new options.

Also, waste management is set to improve dramatically next year! I'm not sure if this applies to the whole district, but my particular school has switched from styrafoam to cardboard lunch trays. Next year, they'll begin to recycle the trays and compost the leftover food, or donate it to a pig farm.

At any rate, I just wanted to update my rant with this excellent news.

Also, in celebration of wholesome school lunches, have a wholesome cookie recipe. I made these up a couple weeks ago because I wanted to see if I could make a cookie without white sugar or chocolate or other weird things. They were really good!

Wholesome (but perhaps not healthy) Cookies
Ingredients

• 6 TBS butter, softened
• 1/4 c. natural peanut butter
• 2/3 c. brown sugar
• 1 TBS honey
  
• 1 egg
• drizzle vanilla extract (probably 1/2 tsp.)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• dash salt
• dash cinnamon
  
• about 2/3 cup oats
• about 1/3 cup raisins

Procedure

• Preheat the oven to 350°F
• Cream the butter, brown sugar, and peanut butter together until nice and fluffy
• Stir in the egg, honey, and vanilla extract
• Stir in the baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and flours until well blended
• Add the oats and raisins (optional--feel free to sub in other dried fruit)
• Drop cookies onto a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, watching to make sure they don't burn. The cookies should feel relatively firm on the top, and if pressed shouldn't indent very far.
  
• Let cool on a wire rack and eat warm or at room temperature.
  

Iain & Emily's Tacos Verdes

Well, it's official. If we hadn't gone foodie before, we certainly have this time. Several weeks ago we decided to make some experimental tacos. We each focused on making about half of the components, while conferring with each other for the overall palette, and the end result was mindblowingly awesometacular. With that last sentence, I probably just gave away that it was Iain writing this paragraph.

This recipe is a little on the intensive side, but it didn't seem hard to make at the time, especially with two people working on them. It was mostly a really fun experience to make, and the combination of flavors hitting your tongue is exquisite. Think hearty yet crisp and fresh at the same time. Did your mouth start watering there? Yeah. I thought so.

Tofu Tacos Verdes

Ingredients
Salsa Verde
2 tomatillos, diced finely
1/8 cup onion, diced finely
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tbs lime juice
shake of garlic powder
1 Serrano pepper, minced and seeded

Onions/chili mixture
The rest of the onion, cut into rings
1 ancho pepper, diced
2 cloved garlic, minced
1 Serrano pepper, minced and seeded
1 green bell pepper

Tofu de Excellence
1 half of a container firm tofu, pressed
a few glugs vegetable oil
3/4 tsp cumin powder
small handful corn meal
chili powder
more cumin
salt

Other Components
5 flour tortillas
Habanero Jack Cheese (a little), grated
Tillamuk Cheddar Cheese (a lot), grated
1/2 can frijoles negros refritos (refried black beans)
cut up cilantro

Music Listened To
Putamayo's A Jewish Odyssey, courtesy of Emily's iPod.

Procedure

Well, I (Iain) shall begin be reporting on the parts I produced, and then I shall hand the keyboard over to Emily.

1. The salsa! After you've prepped all the above ingredients, turn to your friend, the food processor. Place 3/4 of tomatillos, the onion and the garlic in the blender and pulse it on low a few times. Mix with the remaining diced tomatillos and the other ingredients in a small mixing bowl and mix. Using the food processor is totally optional, but doing it this way gets most of the salsa nice and smooth, but still with chunky bits. Note that this will have a very potent taste, so don't overload your tacos with it.


2. The Tofu

• Press the tofu. Ideally, you should do this by placing it between two plates and putting something heavy on top (like a can), leaving it for 15-20 minutes. If you're short on time, just hold the tofu in your hands and squeeze it gently over the sink to release some of the water. Then cut the tofu into inch-sized cubes
  
• Generously oil a pan and put in 1/2- 3/4 tsp. cumin seed. Let blacken over high heat, then turn down to medium.
• Mix the corn meal, chili powder, ground cumin, and salt on a plate or shallow bowl. Roll or dip the tofu cubes into the dry mix and fry over medium heat 'til crispy, turning to fry each side and adding additional oil as necessary.
• When done, leave the skillet coated in the spice for the onion mix, and if you have leftover cornmeal mix, dump that in as well.
  

3. The Onion/Chili Mix

• Cut the onion into thin rings and saute over medium heat in the leftover spice mix from the tofu, adding more oil if needed.
• Add the diced ancho, followed by the serano and 2 cloves of garlic. We also threw in some minced cilantro stems, reserving the leaves for the top.
• Stir in the green pepper, then cook for a couple minutes more, removing while the pepper still has a bit of crunch.
• 

4. The Assembly

• Soften tortillas by placing in a dry skillet over high heat for 10-30 seconds a side.
  
• Put on a layer of beans, followed by some of the onion mix, then 4-5 pieces of tofu.
  
• Add cheese (if you get your hands on habernaro jack, a little goes a long way!), cilantro, and lettuce if desired, and drizzle a line or two of salsa, but take that easy because the flavor's quite intense! And enjoy, whether you're a foodie or not.
  

Very Very Special Occasion Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Well, what can I say? Iain's 23rd birthday was a little over a week ago, and I (Emily) know that chocolate with berries is his favorite kind of cake. Each year for the last three I've sorta tried to out-do my previous chocolate-and-berry cake, and this year I think I took it as far as I ever will. I won't say that this is the best cake I've ever had. Cakes, like brownies, come in many forms, and thus cannot be stacked up against each other as though all of the same make. However, I will say that when it comes to rich, chocolaty cakes, this one was quite excellent, and I had a really fun time making (and decorating, and serving, and eating) it.

This recipe comes in 5 parts: cake, filling, raspberry-cream, ganache, and assembly. I didn't photograph each section as well as I might have, but hopefully there will be enough guidance for all. Not including chill time, the whole thing took about 3 hours to put together (I think). Do it on a day where you've got time, and do let the whole thing chill in the fridge for an hour+ (as long as you want, really), so the chocolate firms up nicely.



Chocolate Raspberry Cake
Ingredients (for a 2-layer cake)

• 2 cups flour (pastry would be ideal, but I used all-purpose)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder
• 2/3 cup hot water
• 2/3 cup lukewarm milk
• 1 1/4 sticks (10 TBS) unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces
• 1 1/2-3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs, left out on the counter for a bit
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• about 1/3 cup frozen strawberries, left out for 10 minutes and smashed with a fork
• about 30 raspberries (fresh or frozen), reserved for decoration
  

Procedure

• Pre-heat the oven to 350°F and grease two 9" round cake pans (or 8 or 10 if you don't have 9s. Your layers will be taller or shorter accordingly). Line with wax paper, then grease the paper.
  
• Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl.
• Whisk the cocoa and hot water in a small bowl, then whisk in the milk.
  
• In a large bowl, beat the butter until very creamy (this will take a few minutes if you're doing it by hand). Gradually stir in the sugar and beat 'till light and fluffy, then add the vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
• Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter mix, stirring well. Follow with 1/2 of the cocoa mixture, another 1/3 of the flour, the rest of the cocoa, and the rest of the flour. Stir slowly after each addition until it's incorporated.
• Stir in the chocolate chips and raspberries
  
• Pour half of the batter into each pan and smooth with a spatula. Bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs.
  
• Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to a rack. Let them cool for a good long while before trying to frost. (That was a mistake I made. Oops!)

Chocolate-Cream Cheese Filling
Ingredients

• one 3-4 oz. bar milk chocolate, broken into pieces
  
• 4-5 oz. dark chocolate (I used Green and Black bars for both. Great success, highly recommended), broken into pieces
  
• 1/2 stick butter (four TBS), softened
• 4 oz. cream cheese (or light cream cheese)
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Procedure

• Using the double boiler method (for a how-to, check out the bonus brownie recipe here), melt the chocolates together. Cool for a bit.
• Stir the butter and cream cheese together until it's all one big mass, then add the vanilla. Mix in the chocolate once it's cooled for 10+ minutes. If the filling seems too liquidy, you can add a bit of milk or more melted chocolate. If it's too chocolaty, you can add more butter.

Raspberry Cream
Ingredients

• 1-2 TBS heavy cream
• about 3/4 cup- 1 cup frozen raspberries (if you're using a bag, whatever's left after the cake and the 30 for the top), left to thaw for 10 minutes

Procedure

• On a large plate, mash the raspberries with a fork. Stir in the cream. The raspberries will still be very lumpy and not very creamy, but this is a good thing.

Chocolate Ganache
Ingredients

• 1 TBS butter
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 5 oz. dark chocolate, chopped. This can be a bar or a
  

Procedure

• Combine the bream and butter in a small pot and heat gently to just below scalding point (which is where there are little bubbles popping up around the edge and it steams).
  
• Place the chocolate in a heat-safe pan (a pie pan works well) and cover with the heated cream. Leave the chocolate to melt for a few minutes, then stir until smooth. If it seems to be not melty enough after several minutes, you can place that pan onto the double boiler and heat briefly.
  

Assembly!!

Here comes the fun part. I mean this in both the sarcastic and genuine senses-- sarcastic because the assembly is complicated, genuine because it really is quite enjoyable to see it all come together. Again, sorry I don't have more pictures. I'll explain the best I can.

• First off, you need to cut one of the cake layers in half to form two thin layers. If I had good advice for how best to do this, I'd share it. As it is, I basically did just saw through a layer with my good knife. It crumbled a little but there's enough stuff on each layer to stick it all together again.
• Place the bottom half off the split layer on a large plate suitable for decorating. Carefully spread a thick layer of the cream cheese filling on top. I found it best to warm the filling briefly so it was a bit more spreadable.
  
• Place the top half of the split layer, rounded side down, on top of the filling. Spoon the raspberry cream on top.
• Place the unsplit layer on top of the raspberry cream.
  
• Now, using a knife or a spatula (whichever is easy for you) very carefully spread a thick layer of filling over the top layer, smoothing it as much as possible. Fill in the sides where the layers meet. Again, feel free to warm the filling slightly if it's too difficult to spread on its own. You might not use all of the filling, and the same is true of the ganache.
  
• Spoon ganache gently over the filling and use a spatula to smooth the top and sides. Use a spoon or paper towel to mop up the ganache that gathers at the bottom of the plate, especially if it seems in danger of escaping the edges.
  
• Dip the reserved raspberries in the remaining ganache and place around the cake. It's important to do this relatively quickly before the ganache hardens.
• Place the cake in the fridge for at least one hour to set and serve. No ice cream required.
  

Babka

Shabbat Shalom! Having just read the title of this post, you are probably either salivating or scratching your head in confusion. If you're among the former, read on! I'm amazed by this recipe. It's AWESOME. If, however, "babka" looks to you like a made-up word, I (Emily) will tell you that it is a yeasted Lithuanian coffee cake. Its basic idea is sorta like a giant cinnamon roll, with a sweet filling in the middle of a sweet roll. But it is so much better than your basic sweet roll. As testament, I will point to the fact that I took the babka out of the oven around 10:30 PM on Thursday. At 8:30 PM on Friday, it was history.

I found this recipe in a great book called A Blessing of Bread: Recipes and Rituals, Memories and Mitzvahs--The Many Rich Traditions of Jewish Bread Baking Around the World. I slightly adapted the recipe for my own use, so I feel no guilt posting this, but I highly recommend the book. It's great for Jews and goyim alike (and if you have no idea what goyim are, that means you're one of them.)

I didn't actually take any pictures of the baking process (sorry!), so the finished product will have to suffice. Also, make this on a day when you have a lot of time around the house, because although there's not a ton of hands-on time, the total process takes 5-7 hours. And don't be intimidated by the length of the recipe; it's really quite simple. It just takes lots of explanation.

Babka
Ingredients (for 1 loaf/roll)

• 4 TBS butter, softened (half a stick)
• 3/4 milk (I used 1%, but anything should work. The higher the fat content, the richer the bread)
• 1 TBS yeast
• about 2 1/2- 3 cups all-purpose flour (white)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon, or 1/2 cinnamon stick, pulverized in a mortar and pestle (I tried this. it took forever, but it was fun, and the flavor was great. The picture's from about halfway through the process).
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1-2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2 egg yolks (I know this sounds impossible, but since you need an egg glaze for the top it actually works out well. Crack an egg into a bowl and use a utensil, or your fingers, to break the yolk in half. Leave the other half of the yolk, along with the white, in the bowl, and refrigerate 'til needed for the glaze)
• For the filling, use 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tsp. cinnamon sugar, 3 TBS cocoa powder, 3 TBS butter, and 1/2 cup each raisins and chocolate chips (optional but highly recommended)

Procedure

• Scald the milk by pouring it into a microwave-safe container and heating on high until it's steaming and little bubbles form around the edges. Let it cool until it's about the temperature of a warm bath.
• In a large bowl, whisk the yeast and 3/4 cup of the flour together. Once the milk is cool enough, whisk it in 'til it's smooth. Now let it sit for 10-20 minutes. It'll get bubbly and very puffy. (If you're grinding your own cinnamon, this is a good time to do it.)
• Mix the cinnamon and the sugar together and set aside 2 tsp. for the filling. Whisk the rest, along with the egg yolks and vanilla, into the yeast mix.
  
• Add the rest of the flour, along with the butter (I found it easiest to chop the butter up a bit first). Mix 'till incorporated, then turn onto a lightly floured counter to knead (you won't need a lot of flour, most likely). It will be very soft and easy to knead, but keep going until it's smooth and even more elasticky, about 8-10 minutes. For instructions on how to knead, see this post.
• Place in a clean bowl (which shouldn't need oil, since the bread is so oily), cover with plastic wrap and a towel, and let rise until doubled in volume. This will take 2- 2 1/2 hours, probably.
• Just before shaping the loaves, make the filling by whisking the sugar, cinnamon sugar, and cocoa together in a medium bowl. Add the melted (and cooled) butter and whisk some more until smooth.
  
• There are multiple ways to shape a babka loaf, but all of them involve spreading the filling around the middle of the dough and rolling it up like a carpet. For a loaf that resembles a thick, stout baguette roll the dough out into a rectangle-like shape about 1/4 inch thick. For the pinwheel-like shape I made, roll it into a circle-like shape about 1/8 inch thick.
• If you're making the rectangle loaf, spread the filling over the whole surface of the dough, leaving a 1/2 inch border around the sides. If you're making the pinwheel, cut the circle in half and spread half of the filling on each piece, leaving the 1/2 inch border. (Whew. That's a lot of halves.) I found it easiest to use my hands for this, but you could try with a spatula. If the filling is too stiff, microwave it very briefly to soften it.
  
• Sprinkle the raisins and chocolate chips on top of the filling. You could also add some nuts here, but I'm not a big fan.
  
• This is the carpet rolling part. For the rectangle, take one of the long ends and loosely (gently) roll up the dough. For the pinwheel, roll each piece, loosely and gently, like a carpet, starting from the rounded edge and working towards the cut edge. You should have two thick snake-like rolls.
  
• Once it's rolled, the dough should be soft enough that you can pinch the edge of the roll into itself, thus sealing it. Use a little water if you need to. Once it's sealed, press your hands lightly along the length of the roll, starting from the center and working towards the end, to eliminate air bubbles. Then pinch the ends together to seal them. Make sure they're tight!
  
• For the rectangle, place seam-side down on a greased baking sheet.
• For the pinwheel, your work is not done. Roll each snake-like piece around so that the middle gets thicker than the ends. The longer you can make these pieces, the prettier the pinwheel, but I didn't try that hard. Bending one piece in half, loop the middle over a chopstick (or something similar). Get a boyfriend (or whoever you happen to have about) to hold the chopstick and starting passing the two ends of the snake over and over each other so twists form. Don't tug the dough too hard! If you only get a few twists (like me) that's ok. Pull the chopstick out of the center and repeat with the other half. Then shape both pieces into "C" shapes. Set one of the pieces into a greased round baking pan and use the other to fill the middle of the first "C" and curve around the outside. If that's confusing, let me know in the comments and I'll try to clarify.
  
• Now comes the waiting again. Cover the loaf with plastic wrap and the towel and let it sit for 2 1/2 hours, letting it rise.
• Before baking, preheat the oven to 300°F and beat the egg you put in the fridge with a pinch of salt. (See, I told you it'd be useful!) Using a pastry brush, or a spatula if you don't have one, glaze the bread with the egg wash. If you don't use it all that's fine.
• Bake for 50-60 minutes, turning the pan after 40 or so so it browns evenly. When the dough springs back when touched and the crust is a rich golden brown, it's done.
• Let the loaf cool in the pan/on the tray for 10 minutes, then let finish cooling on a rack as long as you can stand to wait.

Lentil-Rice Pilaf and Vegetable Stew

Good morning (and good rainy morning, if you're in the Twin Cities).

If you're feeling chilly and want some cozy comfort food, this will do the trick. Both recipes are easy to prepare and delicious (and can be made simultaneously). I (Emily) am not feeling very wordy at the moment (rain makes me sleepy), so I think I'll just start typing up the recipes now. As usual, feel free to change up the veggies and proportions. Enjoy, all!


Lentil-Rice Pilaf
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup lentils, rinsed
  
• 2 TBS oil (olive or canola) or butter
  
• 1-2 minced cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp. cumin seeds (or you can sub some ground cumin, but the seeds are great)
• 1 cup brown rice
• 2 cups veggie broth (or water, if you don't have any)
• salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

• Heat the butter or oil in a medium pot over low heat
• Add the cumin seeds, turning the heat up briefly, and sizzle until they blacken (about a minute).
  
• Turn back down to low and add the garlic, cooking for a minute more
• Add the lentils and rice and stir until coated
• Still in the broth and the salt and pepper, bring to a boil, cover, and cook as you would rice until all the water is absorbed. (I forgot to take a picture. Sorry!)
  

Vegetable Stew
Ingredients

• oil for the pan
  
• one medium onion, diced (I used half a red and half a white because that's what we had, but use whatever you like)
  
• one large carrot, chopped
• one 15 oz. can chickpeas (or the equivalent amount of dried chickpeas, soaked overnight)
• half of a large eggplant, or a whole small eggplant, sliced into rounds and then chopped
• a handful or two of frozen peas
• one handful parsley, chopped
  
• 1 cup veggie broth
• 1 TBS tomato paste
• 1 clove garlic, sliced thinly or minced
  
• a pinch of hyssop (can be omitted if you don't have any)
• dash cinnamon
• dash lemon juice
• 1 TBS butter, to thicken
  
• salt and pepper to taste
• chopped almonds, to garnish

Procedure

• Prep the eggplant: Stewing the eggplant along with everything else would likely work, but I find baked eggplant to be less chancy. So chop as directed (or however you like, really) and place on an oiled baking tray. Turn the eggplant pieces to coat in the oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Broil for a minute or two a side, until nicely browned. Watch them very carefully or you will have a load of pitch-black charred eggplant on your hands.
• Oil a medium-large skillet and heat.
  
• Add the onion and cook over medium-low heat for a few minutes until softened before adding the carrot and turning up to medium.
  
• When the carrots are getting soft, add the parsley and chickpeas, along with the garlic. Stir for a moment, then add the broth. Allow to simmer for a few minutes, adding the tomato paste and other spices.
  
• After a few minutes, stir in the peas. As the stew bubbles and the broth is absorbed, gradually stir in little pieces of butter to thicken. When the stew is bubbly and gooey but not exactly soupy, it's done!
  

Scoop some pilaf into a plate or bowl and top with stew. Garnish with almonds and serve warm. Mmm-mmm.

Yummies for Breakfast - Taters and Curried Eggs

Howdy there. Despite my relatively busy schedule, I (Iain) am determined to make up for my dearth of posting during March and most of April by posting a lot right now. So now I think I bring you one of my specialties, perfected by repetition: eggs and potatoes for breakfast. And yes, I know I've been posting a lot of potatoey posts lately - that'll change, but for now enjoy them!

Breakfast Taters

Ingredients
5 potatoes
1 large white onion
4 cloves garlic
About a tablespoon of canola oil
Seasonings (see variations below)
Salt
Black Pepper

Music Listened To:
Matt Molloy's most excellent album, The Stony Steps

Procedure:

1. Prep the potatoes: cut into a shape of your choice. My favorite one is almost certainly the 1/2 in by 1/2 in square-ish shape (about 1/8 thick). Other favorites are the 1/8 in by 1/2 in strip and the disc (possibly the easiest to cut, and works well if your dealing with small potatoes). Also dice the onion and mince the garlic.


2. Heat the oil in a skillet and add the onion. Saute for a minute, then go ahead and add the potatoes with about a clove of the garlic. Add salt and pepper. Set the heat to medium. Stir occasionally and cook for about 15-20 minutes until the potatoes start getting soft.

3. Add your seasonings from the set of options below:

The Classic: Rosemary! Simple, yet delicious, and it goes well with the garlic.
The Red Classic: Like above, except add a good couple teaspoons of paprika before taking the potatoes off the heat.
Scarborough Faire: Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Hehehe.
Illegal in Arizona: Bad joke. Cumin, chili powder and either a diced red chili or cayenne powder.
Curried: Instead of oil in step one, use butter and add a teaspoon of turmeric before you add anything else. When you get to this stage, add curry powder and either a diced red chili or cayenne.


4. Time to make them crispy! Some recipes will tell you to make the potatoes crispy at the beginning and then cook them through. What I find is that this makes the potatoes generally soggy and un-crispified. That's why now, once the potatoes are already edible, we crank up the heat to maximum, add a little extra oil and get ready to scream "shut up!" at your smoke detector if it's as over-sensitive as ours. Start stirring nearly constantly. All the moist residue on the outside of the potatoes should start to evaporate and the outsides should start to brown. When most of the potatoes have been browned, you're good! Serve em up!


Curried Eggs

The process for this is rather simple, but I still wanted to share it with you. Heat some butter in your skillet and add to it a few shakes of turmeric and a couple shakes of curry powder. Spread the turmeric butter around so that the butter turns a bright orange or yellow. Crack your eggs into the skillet and immediately shake some salt, pepper and a couple more shakes of curry powder. Once the whites start to solidify on the top, flip the eggs and cook either just a second (over easy), for about 20-40 seconds (over medium, oh yes, that elusive over medium) or a good minute or two (over well). Serve em up!