Granola!

Is it possible to be a blog hog when none of the other blog contributors are posting? Discuss.

In the meantime, I'm (Emily) home sick for the second day running and bored, so, blog hog or not, here's a recipe for you folks.

Homemade granola is one of those things that might look complicated but is in fact super easy to make at home and, often, much cheaper than buying in the store. Well, not if you're like me and buy apple juice-sweetened dried cranberries, but then, if I bought granola in a store with apple juice-sweetened dried cranberries, that would be more expensive than me making it. The best part about making your own granola is that you can customize it completely. You get to pick what goes in it, how sweet to make it, how much oil it's gonna have, and whether it's gonna be crunchier or chewier. Bozzie and I made a double batch a couple weeks back. We started with the same base, and then he added stuff to his (a little) and I added stuff to mine (a lot).

No pictures of the process here, because it's super simple, but here's a recipe. I'm putting down the proportions I used, but, seriously, make it your own. Oats are important and you need a lot of them, but basically everything else can be altered. You can easily make it wheat-free, you can add different fruits and nuts, you can take out anything you don't like from my recipe and replace it with, well, almost anything. Basically, you just need crunchy stuff, sweetener of some kind, a bit of oil, and you're all set.


Homemade Granola a la Emily and Bozzie

Ingredients
Dry

• about 4 cups oats-- not instant!
• 1 cup wheat bran (or oat bran)
• 1 cup sliced almonds (or whatever nuts you like)
• 2/3 cup flax seeds
  
• 3/4 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds
  
• dash cinnamon
  

Wet

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil (or more--you can add less too, I think, but I think 1/3 cup helps it crisp up nicely)
• 1/3 cup water (or less, if you're going for really crispy)
• 1/2 cup honey (this is the sweetener-- you can sub maple syrup, agave, molasses, brown sugar, etc)
• drizzle molasses
• generous drizzle agave extract
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Bozzie Addition:

• 1/2 cup currants

Emily Additions:

• 2/3 cup pumpkin seeds
• 1/2 cup dried, unsweetened coconut
• 1/3 cup dried apricots, chopped small
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries

Procedure

• Combine the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients over the top, mixing well. I find that it's easiest to do this with your hands. The granola should be sticky but not at all liquidy.
• Spread in as thin a layer as possible onto a lightly greased baking sheet
  
• Bake at 250°F for 20-40 minutes, stirring every 10. Add the dried fruit during the last ten minutes. The granola will crisp up more as it cools.
• Alternatively, you can bake it for 10-15 minutes at a higher temperature of 350-400°F. This should give you even crispier granola.
• Let the granola cool (snagging handfuls to munch as necessary), then transfer to airtight containers. Yogurt containers work very well for this. This makes a lot of granola, so you might need 2 yogurt containers. But don't worry. It keeps quite well.

Curried Eggplant-Lentil Soup

I know I (Emily) just posted, but I have to get this online quickly before I forget how I made it. Anyway, the day before departing for my spring break travels, I realized that I had an eggplant. Now, this is never a bad thing. I love eggplant and rank it among my at least top three favorite vegetables. However, since I was about to leave for over a week, I didn't trust the eggplant's chances of survival. Eggplant pasta and stuffed eggplant are always nice, but I was in a soupy mood so I decided to experiment. The surprisingly delicious results follow.

Curried Eggplant-Lentil Soup

Ingredients

• 1 eggplant, diced, salted, and roasted, with olive oil, salt, and pepper, for 10 minutes at 500°F. (For further instruction on how to do all that, look at this.)
• 2 c. dry lentils
  
• 5-7 cups water, broth, or a mixture
• 2 tsp. hot curry powder-- (if you don't have this, add regular curry powder plus cayenne or another pepper)
  
• dash canola or olive oil
  
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 1/2 green pepper, sliced (we had half a pepper. If you have a whole one, put it in)
  
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced or minced
• 1/2 tsp. salt (or to taste)
  
• 1/2 tsp. cumin seeds, plus powder for later
• 3 TBS sesame seeds
• handful fresh spinach, chopped
• dash lemon juice
• ground pepper and feta cheese (optional) to serve
  

Procedure

• Boil the lentils for about 20 minutes in water and/or broth.
• Meanwhile, heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat and saute the cumin seed, sesame seed, salt, and onion. Add the carrot a few minutes later, then stir in the pepper, garlic and hot curry powder. Saute until the onions are translucent and the veggies are beginning to soften.
  
• Pour the vegetable mixture into the lentil mixture, adding the rest of the stock/broth.
• Allow to simmer for at least half an hour, until the veggies and lentils are soft. Add the spinach, roasted eggplant, and lemon juice about twenty-five minutes in.
  
• Adjust spice as needed, ladle, and serve--preferably with some homemade bread.
  

Passover Panorama!

Well, on behalf of my rather odd housemates, I apologize (I think?) for that little April Fool's post. If you found it entertaining rather than odd/undesired, good for you.

Anyway, running right alongside April Fool's this year was pesach, the Jewish Holiday celebrating the exodus from Egypt and the 40-year journey across the desert to the promised land. The Israelites (in the Biblical sense of the word) had to run from pharaoh in a hurry and, as such, didn't have time for their bread to rise, so during the eight days of Passover Jews avoid all leavened products and basically grain in general. No bread, pasta, cereal, oatmeal, barley, etc. The exception is matzo. Now, matzo is not exactly what one would consider the pinnacle of fine food, but matzo, like tofu, can be combined with other ingredients to produce excellent results.

Iain, Bozzie, and I spent much of last week in Chicago with Iain's family, and while there I got to (re)introduce some fun foods from my childhood Passovers. Although the holiday ended last night (yay pasta!!), for those of you not currently sick of matzo these recipes should still be fun to try. And the macaroons are, of course, good year-round. This'll be a long post, because it involves several recipes (simple though they may be), so pick and choose as you like.

Matzo Brei Two Ways
Matzo Brei is a traditional passover breakfast dish, although it would also make a good lunch/dinner. Depending on how it's made (and the possibilities really are endless) it can be more like a scramble or french toast (in a liberal sense of the term), sweet or savory. My favorite varieties are savory scrambles and sweet french toast. I'm giving both recipes in proportionate rather than set measurements, since I was cooking for a crowd at Iain's house.

Savory Scrambled Matzo Brei
Ingredients

• 1 egg per piece of matzo
• a dash of milk (or glug, depending on how big the recipe)
• salt and pepper to taste
• scallions, chopped (optional)

Procedure

• break the matzot into small pieces and run them under cold water for a few moments before placing into a bowl
• In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, salt and pepper together. Pour over the matzot
  
• Heat a skillet to medium with a little butter and pour the matzo-egg mixture in. Cook like scrambled eggs until the matzo is starting to brown a bit, seasoning with additional salt and pepper (and scallions, if desired). The matzot and eggs will cluster together deliciously.
• Eat!

Sweet French-Toast-Like Matzo Brei
Ingredients

• 1 egg for every 2 matzot
• about 1/8 cup milk per egg
• dash-glug orange juice (optional-- add it if you have it)
• pinch-3 of sugar
  
• 1 tsp.ish vanilla extract (or try almond or whatever)
  
• dash cinnamon
• dash nutmeg
• knob of butter for the pan
• maple syrup or powdered sugar, for serving
  

Procedure

• Run the matzot under cool water for a moment and break each matzo into several large pieces (maybe 4. If they crumble into smaller pieces, don't worry too much)
• Whisk the eggs and add the other ingredients (except the matzot)
• Pour some of the egg mixture into a wide, shallow dish of some sort (this can be a big plate if nothing better presents itself).
  
• Place matzot in a single layer into the egg dish (this will need to be done in shifts). After 30 seconds or so, flip the matzot over so the other side is equally immersed.
  
• Heat a pan to medium heat, melting some of the butter.
  
• Carefully move the eggy matzot to the skillet, frying as in french toast until the bottom side is crispy. Flip so the other side gets equally crispy. Meanwhile, get the next batch of matzo soaking.
• Continue cooking in batches until done, replenishing egg mix as needed, and serve drizzled with maple syrup or sprinkled with powdered sugar.

(Vegetarian) Matzo Ball Soup!
So this is basically one of if not the most amazing passover dish in existence. I'm not sure what it is--the comfort of matzo balls, the simplicity of the broth--but somehow nothing else can quite match it. Most of the time matzo ball soup is chicken based, but obviously I wasn't going to do that. The vegetarian option, in my opinion, works just about as well. The soup itself is super simple, the matzo balls simple enough once one gets the hang of them.

Matzo Balls
Ingredients

• 1 cup matzo meal
• 4 eggs
• 1-2 tsp salt (ish--to taste, as always)
• 1/4 c. vegetable oil
• 1/4 c. water
  
• pepper to taste

Procedure

• Beat the eggs in a bowl, mixing in the matzo meal, salt and pepper, and oil.
• Add the water and mix well
• Cover the bowl and put it in the freezer for 20-30 minutes (Don't skip this step. It's important.)
• Pour water into a large saucepan and get it boiling.
  
• Gently, break off small pieces of batter (1- 1 1/4 inches in diameter) and pat them (again, gently!) into balls. The less you handle these things, the better. Stick 'em on a plate until they're all formed.
• Reduce the heat on the water to medium-low and drop in the matzo balls
• Let the matzo balls simmer, covered, for at least 40 minutes. Check them by cutting one in half and tasting. They should be firm and lightly chewy but not about to fall apart. Mmm.
  

Soup
Ingredients

• slug vegetable or olive oil
  
• 3 medium carrots, chopped
• 2-3 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 large onion (or two small), diced
• dash dill
• dash oregano
• dash thyme
• salt and pepper to taste
  
• 1-2 quarts veggie broth (if using less broth, add water to make up the difference and increase the herbs)

Procedure

• heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium heat.
• add the carrots, celery and onion and saute for a few minutes, mixing in the herbs
• pour the broth and water in and bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, for at least half an hour until the veggies are softened as you like them and the broth is flavorful, adding more herbs as desired.
• add additional salt and pepper before serving.
  
• Serve by placing 1-2 matzo balls in each bowl, then ladling soup over the top.
• 

Chocolate Chip Coconut Macaroons!
This is without a doubt one of my favorite pesach treats. It is also ridiculously easy to make. Don't believe me? Just read.

Ingredients

• 1 14 oz bag sweetened coconut flakes (or half a bag sweetened and half a bag unsweetened)
• 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk (fat free works equally well)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• about 2/3 bag chocolate chips (or mini chocolate chips)

Procedure

• Mix all ingredients together, stirring well.
• Drop bits of dough onto a baking sheet (maybe 1 TBSish?)
• Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 350°F for 10-15 minutes, until lightly browned
• Remove immediately to a plate to cool, or they will get very sticky very fast.

See? That simple. Even my kitchen-fearing grandpa can make them.

Hdaapdpay Adpardial Fdoaodla's Ddaayda

Hello apricots.

Make good awesome weasels today. We wish you multi-colored immortality!

Ingredients
several handfuls of fresh basil, chopped into small pieces
1 large, SHARP knife
1-2 manly turnips or rutabegas
5-10 apples, peeled (or not-- I usually do half and half), cored, and chopped into thin slices or small chunks
1 cup pumpkin puree (I am lazy and use the canned stuff, but I'm sure if you use your own it'd be even better!)
Pincers
The heart, lungs and liver of a sheep (kidding! kidding!)
1 cup crushed heath bars or other toffee bits (if they're coated in chocolate that's fine)
93.7 The Current

Procedure
1. Give them plenty of water to start with, but if they dry up halfway through, submerge them again.


2.Add the sugar and baking powder and salt, then the eggs and vanilla, then the spices.
Part One: The Crust
3. Dump the spinach and mushrooms into the pasta and suace. Stir together with tongs and serve!


4. Oh darnit, we don't have any applesauce!
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.



Serve and enjoy!

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!