MN Spring Jog Tofu Quesadillas

This past Thursday was a gorgeous day - sun beaming, in the 60's, little wind - a great day to write some music and go for a jog. On my return I had a craving for some yummy pinto bean quesadillas, but when I got back I realized I only had dry pinto beans. Shame. But I did have half a pack of tofu already open. So I made tofu quesadillas instead!

Tofu Quesadillas for a spring day

Music
Symphony of Psalms by Stravinsky

Ingredients
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
1 habanero pepper
2 large tortillas
1/2 a package of tofu
1 tsp chili powder
dash of cumin
couple dashes of salt
1/4 cup cheese
splash of lemon juice
1-2 Tbsp olive oil

1. Slice the onion and dice the pepper and garlic. Throw them on a skillet with the olive oil over medium heat. Cook this, stirring often, for about 10 minutes, until all the nice flavors are exchanged and the onions are really soft.


2. Add cumin, chili powder, and salt. Turn up the heat slightly and add the tofu, cheese, and lemon juice. Stir this gently for 5-7 minutes until the cheese is melted and everything is bubbling together nicely.


3. Spoon the filling into the tortillas and fold the tortillas. Fry the tortillas in the now-empty skillet on medium-high heat until they are a satisfying golden color.


Enjoy!

Delightful (and easy) Couscous

I (Emily) have liked cous cous for a long time. It's a nice break from pasta and rice, and it lends itself super well to the Middle Eastern palette as well as to quickly-fashioned dinners. Couscous is also pretty cheap if bought in bulk. I get mine at the Seward Co-op, and I know Trader Joe's has boxes of it. Much of this recipe was a result of improvisation, so feel free to adjust proportions/veggies based on what you've got. And don't let the long ingredients list fool you, because the actual process is quite simple. Enjoy!

Ingredients

For the Couscous

• 1- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat couscous
• 1- 1 1/2 cups water and/or veggie broth
• dash salt
  
• 1 TBS butter

For the Veggies:

• A drizzle of olive oil
• 1/2 red onion, sliced or diced
• 1/2 pepper, sliced or diced
• 2-4 cloves garlic, chopped small
• 1 cup chickpeas, canned or rehydrated and boiled
• a handful of parsley, roughly chopped
  
• a sprinkling of sesame seeds
• a dash of hyssop, if you've got it
• 1-3 TBS tahini paste
• 2-3 generous squirts of lemon juice
• 1/3- 2/3 cup veggie broth, for simmering purposes
• a handful or two of fresh spinach
• salt and pepper to taste

For the top:

• a handful of kalamata olives, sliced
• crumbled feta cheese to taste
  

Procedure

• Boil the water or broth, along with the butter and salt, in a medium saucepan. Once it's boiled, add the couscous, stir remove from the heat, and let it sit, covered, for five minutes.
• Drizzle the olive oil into a skillet and cook the red onion over medium heat until it softens.
  
• Add the pepper, garlic, chick peas, sesame seeds, hyssop, and lemon juice and cook for a little while, until the ingredients are warm and the pepper is starting to be a little less firm.
• Pour in the broth and mix in the spinach. Now just let it simmer for awhile, adding the lemon juice and parsley as you like.
• Once everything is softened to your satisfaction, and most of the broth has been absorbed or evaporated, season to taste. Then mix the veggies into the cooked couscous, along with the tahini.
• Serve topped with sliced olives and feta.

My Housemates are Lovely People / A Return to Cooking

The little note with the smily on it says "Enjoy!" and this is from the morning when Iain and Emily made heart-shaped biscuits and our schedules were such that they both left before I woke up. So I made myself some breakfast in bed with those biscuits, turmeric eggs, a kiwi and a cup of coffee. This was a day that I wrote and meditated for many hours, as I have been over these past weeks, and after a ton of soul-searching I am ready to come back to the world - and, specifically, the world of creative kitcheneering.

Here is some documentation that I haven't totally let my cheffiness slide. I got a Southwest Indian Cookbook from Amazon for super cheap and have been exploring it for some more culinary authenticity in my book, and because it's real yummy. The recipes are all very simple and satisfying, and right down my alley of bringing out the soul of the ingredients. For Zuni Succotash, a dish of corn, green beans, and pinto beans, I ground up sunflower seeds in our mortar and pestle:

The seasonings for much of the food in this recipe book are pretty straightforward: butter, salt, pepper, meat drippings. In other words, the richness of the ingredients provide the flavor, rather than a complex spice palate like in some Asian cooking. I wonder if there are some really specific regional spices that the cookbook doesn't include, or whether there are also more complex Southwest Indian recipes out there in addition to these yummy home-cooky recipes in my cookbook. Though, for the purposes of my book, my characters will be exposed more to home cooking than restaurants or way stations or whatever. Street food. Hmm. So many ideas! I'd love to hear from any of you readers with thoughts on Native American cooking, invented cuisines, or alternate-reality cultures.

Here is the succotash - yummmmmmm!!!!!:


I hate to leave you without a recipe, but I feel bad posting verbatim from a book. Rest assured that as I explore more of this food I will be posting Moon-People cuisine, which is going to draw from the ways that people have traditionally cooked the plants and animals of North America, but also from my own imagination, and possibly some techniques from North African cooking (Moroccan, specifically, perhaps).

Go forth to your kitchens and cook with love!

School Lunch

I (Emily) have a commentary on Minneapolis public school lunches for your reading pleasure. No recipes here. Well, maybe I'll stick one in later; we'll see.

Every day at work, I spend half an hour as a lunch lady. No, I don't have to wear a hair net. I do, however, pass out condiments, keep the kids quiet(ish), and wipe off the table after the teachers come for their students.

Now, my school does some things right. Rather than handing each child a tray with an entree, vegetable, roll, and milk, the students get to choose their own food. They are encouraged (but not forced) to take one of 3-4 entree choices, a roll, a milk (plain, chocolate, or strawberry), and two fruits or vegetables. Every day, one entree is vegetarian, and students can opt for a hot meal or a sandwich, salad, or wrap. Rolls are whole wheat, and the milk is low-fat (1%, I think). Vegetables and fruits are usually available in both whole and processed form. On the same day, one might find apples and applesauce, carrot sticks and fruit cups. The options are plentiful-- sometimes too much so for my little second graders, who sit down with way more than they'll ever eat. Luckily, the cafeteria has a table where students can put food they have not eaten and other students can take it. This system minimizes wasted food and provides children ownership over their meals.

Unfortunately, this ownership is something most of the children aren't necessarily ready for. In second grade, students study nutrition, and I noticed during this unit that my kids would say (with seven-year-old enthusiasm, so you're going to have to imagine how cute it sounds) "Hey, Ms. Emily, I have two fruits and a grain and a meat!" However, as nutrition gave way to other studies, the kids' attention to balanced meals waned. Most days, they gobble their entrees and drink their milk, leaving salads, oranges, and pears behind. This makes sense; while school lunches don't include desserts, most of the food is so loaded with sugary substances that the kids don't crave the natural sweetness of fruit (except high fructose corn syrup-loaded "strawberry" applesauce).

In fact, what sparked this whole post for me was picking up a container of so-called marinara sauce this afternoon and looking at the label. I don't remember all of the ingredients, but the first few were "water, tomato paste, high fructose corn syrup, salt." I think there was some dehydrated garlic in there too. I know that a lot of tomato sauce contains HFCS, but for it to be the third ingredient, and particularly when the first is water, was truly disturbing to see. It's supposed to be tomato sauce, and tomatoes don't come first? Just to get the whole picture, this marinara comes with "Max Stix"-- white bread sticks stuffed with cheese. They come in packages of two, right out of the microwave-like warmer the lunch entrees spend their mornings enjoying. I know, I know-- HFCS is the foodie "enemy" and is an overrated bad guy. But it still bothers me, just like the corn syrup and corn starch (for thickening) in the chocolate milk bother me.

Another point: condiments. I know a lot of kids enjoy putting ketchup and bbq sauce on their food. I do too! But at our school my kids will eat more condiments than lunch, if allowed. They come up with the most innovative dipping strategies. My students put taco sauce on pizza, ketchup on lasagna, and miracle whip on rolls. My personal favorite came last week. I handed a boy a cup of ranch (for his carrots, or so I believed). Five minutes later, I saw him chomping on a ranch-doused banana. Go figure.

I want real food in the schools. I want marinara sauce made from tomatoes, milk without added sweetener, meat that isn't gray, and...well, I could go on, but I won't. I would so much rather see kids eating good food and good dessert than these substitutes for both. School lunches are free for most of my students, because their parents don't make enough money to provide the good food they deserve, so surely the government has a responsibility to give the kids access to quality nutrition. Across the country, people are working to get real kitchens and real ingredients back into schools. I just hope that these grassroots groups become mainstream sooner rather than later.

Whole Wheat (and friends) Bread

As those of you who know me are doubtless already aware, I (Emily) consider myself a baker above all other culinary titles. I love light and fluffy muffins, chewy chocolate chip cookies, and the occasional richer-than-J.K. Rowling chocolate cake. However, there is no way to deem oneself a true baker, in my humble opinion, without being able to bake bread.

I grew up with parents who baked bread-- not every day or every loaf, mind you, but they baked. I'm sure they would have baked more often if not for my sisters and me taking up so much time. I have time. It's nice. So I do bake basically every loaf of bread I eat. And now you can too.

Also, before we begin, a recommendation: The Tassajara Bread Book. In my opinion, Edward Espe Brown is to bread as Mollie Katzen is to vegetarian cuisine--entirely irreplaceable. His book was first published in 1970, but my parents got me a new 2009 edition for Christmas. It's worth the buy; the cookbook practically reads like prose. My recipe is based closely on Brown's, but it's got its own zest.

This will be a long entry. Bread making is not so very complicated if one knows what he or she is doing, but it does take a good bit of explanation, so if you crave that fresh-out-of-the-oven aroma, just bear with me. (It's worth it--I promise.)

Ingredients (all proportions for 2 loaves-- can be easily halved or doubled)

• 3 cups wrist-temperature water
• 1 1/2 TBS yeast
• 1/4 sweetener (honey, molasses, brown sugar, or a mix. I like molasses for this bread)
• 3/4- 1 cup dry milk (not essential, but it makes a sturdier loaf)
• 2 cups white flour
• 3-5 cups whole wheat flour, plus more for kneading
  
• at least 1 TBS salt-- depends on your taste. I usually have closer to 1 1/2 TBS
• 1/4 cup oil
• 2 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds

Procedure

• Put the water into a large bowl. I don't have the bread bowl I will someday have. A plastic or glass mixing bowl will do, but if you have a big ceramic bowl so much the better. Sprinkle the yeast in, and mix in the sweetener and dry milk.
• Add the white flour a cup at a time, followed with 2 cups of the whole wheat flour (you'll add the rest later). Stir after each cup is added, and after 4 cups are in beat it 100 times or until smooth. Brown says that at this point the mix should look like "a thick mud," and I couldn't agree more.
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a towel and leave it for 45 minutes or so. Try to put it somewhere warm, but if you're in Minnesota in March, well...I at least try to stick it in a sunny spot.
  
• Add the salt and the oil, folding them both in. At this point the sponge (what you've put together so far) will be a nice big glob. You don't want to mess that up, so as you're folding don't cut through the dough.
• Add the oats in the same way, and some of the sunflower and sesame seeds, then begin mixing in the rest of the whole wheat flour. The less you cut through the dough the stronger it'll be, so add the flour in 1/2 c.-1 c. amounts, gradually incorporating. Add at least 2 cups of flour--more, if the dough seems too sticky. Then dump it onto a clean, floured counter top for kneading.
• There are many ways to knead, but most people (myself included) push the dough down and out with their palm-heels. I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but basically you want to work the dough for 10 minutes, kneading and folding and turning and so on. You'll probably need to add more flour to the dough, the counter, and your hands. The dough will get stretchy and steady, gradually growing smooth. I like to add some of the sunflower and sesame seeds while kneading, but I don't know if real bakers would advise that.
• Scrape any last bits of bread dough from the bread bowl (if they seem stuck, using a bit of the detached dough works well) and spread a little oil around it. Put the kneaded dough back into the bowl, turning it so that the surface is coated lightly in oil. Cover the bowl back with the plastic wrap and towel and let it rise again for 50-60 minutes.
  
• Now the yeast is really at work. When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down, cover it back up, and let it rise for another 40-50 minutes. Oil two bread pans.
• Time to shape the loaves. Dump the dough onto the counter and cut it in half. Take each half and knead it briefly, then roll it into a log. Try to pinch the seam together. Put each loaf into a pan and use the backs of your hands to press it in, flattening it. Cover the loaves and let them rise for 20 minutes while you pre-heat the oven to 350°F (sometimes 325°F, depending on your loaf pans).
• Before you put the loaves into the oven, score them a couple of times with a very sharp knife.
• Bake for about an hour, until they're golden brown and sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.
• Remove from the pans and let cool as long as you can resist. An hour is good. I usually last about 10 minutes.
  
• If you don't think you'll need your second loaf for awhile, wait until it's completely cool and wrap it first in plastic wrap, then aluminum foil. It'll keep well in the freezer.

So now it's on you! Make the bread your own! Take out the oats and add millet (or another cup of flour). Sub pumpkin seeds or wheat bran or...well, the possibilities are endless, and they'll probably all taste amazing. Say goodbye to the bread aisle.