Chard and Roasted Fennel Quiche

Quiche has become my latest pie-related obsession. There is something so homey and comforting about a warm slice of quiche, and it offers the endless flavor possibilities of pie. There are also many different ways to make a quiche. I have arrived at a simple formula: fill your crust with a layer of vegetables, add a layer of cheese, pour eggs on top, and bake. I couldn't get enough of this particular quiche, so I took care to remember how I did it. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

dough for a single-crust pie, chilled

1 1/2 fennel bulbs, sliced (1 or 2 would work fine, but this is what I had)

1 medium onion, sliced

4 or 5 cloves of garlic

1 bunch of chard, stems and leaves separated and chopped up

1 cup grated cheese (I used gouda! Use whatever cheese you like, though I recommend something mild for this quiche)

a little goat cheese (optional)

5 eggs

generous splash of milk

a few shakes each of: nutmeg, paprika, turmeric, white pepper

small amount of grated cheddar to top it off (optional)

Procedure:

Drizzle some olive oil on a baking sheet, and toss the fennel and onion around on it. Sprinkle a little fennel seed over the vegetables if you'd like an extra fennel kick. Wrap the garlic cloves in foil and put it on the baking sheet. Roast the vegetables at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until everything is tender and just starting to brown at the edges. Stir the vegetables after the first 20 minutes to make sure they cook evenly.

Meanwhile, heat a little more olive oil in a sautee pan and add the chard stems - red chard is especially nice, because it adds a really great color. After the stems cook for a few minutes, add the chard leaves and continue cooking until the leaves are wilted but still bright green. Don't overcook your greens! After the greens are done, turn off the heat and add your roasted onions and fennel, tossing everything together.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, beat the eggs and milk. Add the spices. Remove the now-roasted garlic from the foil and squeeze the tasty innards of each clove into the eggs. Whisk it all together until the eggs are well beaten and the garlic and spices are really mixed in.

Roll out the pie dough and place it in a buttered pie dish. Spoon the veggie mixture into the bottom of the crust. Dot this with a little goat cheese - just a little, though. You want the flavor of the vegetables to stand out on this one! Layer the grated cheese on top. Pour the egg mixture over the whole thing, using your spoon if necessary to make sure the egg goes all the way to the edges. Trim the edges of the crust and make it pretty if you are so inclined.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the eggs are set. If you want a little extra cheese action, sprinkle a little extra grated cheese on top after the first 15 minutes. I used cheddar for that last step, because I ran out of gouda. The combination was fantastic.

Eat it up! This is the perfect food for brunch. Or breakfast. Or dinner. Or a late night snack... Mmmm, quiche!

Grilled Black Bean, Quinoa, Spicy Sweet Potato Wraps

I was inspired by this post, found on foodgawker, but changed the recipe a lot.

Ingredients:

Two cups black beans, soaked for a day, then boiled to softness (About forty minutes, usually)

One cup quinoa

One sweet potato

Half an onion, sliced to strips

One green pepper, sliced

One red pepper, sliced

Goat cheese - about half a cup, crumbled

Wraps - large tortillas

Put the beans and quinoa to cook.

Dice the sweet potato into small cubes - about 1-1.5 cm square, and put in a pot of water to boil.

While these all are cooking, slice up the onion and peppers.

The sweet potato should take about ten minutes - once finished, drain and sprinkle with light vegetable oil (or butter), and sprinkle with spices - Old Bay, annato, or some sort of spicy crushed pepper works. Toss and set aside in small bowl.

Sautee the onions until almost clear (15 minutes or so) then throw in the peppers and sautee for a few more minutes.

At this point, everything should be done cooking - drain the beans, and simply toss all the cooked ingredients in a bowl, and mix gently.

Compile the wrap - use as much cheese as you´d like, and the mix of the vegetables and grains.

You can toast the wrap in either a panini press (that sounds very nice!), or in the same pan you sauteed the onions and peppers in.

There will be plenty of leftovers - good for a few more meals, very quickly prepared, now that everything is cooked and in your fridge, ready to go!

Enjoy!

NB: I unfortunately got tiny tortillas, so the picture shows more of a toasted tortilla than a wrap, which made it difficult to turn without everything falling!

Vegetarian Gravy

I went to this brunch today and brought biscuits and gravy. The biscuits were good, but I'm going to tweak the recipe before posting it. But the gravy, I am very proud of this gravy! I made something like it about 6 months ago, but I didn't really remember exactly how I made it (and I winged it that time too), so I was worried as I tend to be that it wouldn't be good. But it was! It's very savory thanks to the mushrooms and even if you're used to meat gravy I don't think you'll miss it!

1 + 3 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup mushrooms, diced into pieces about 1/4 inch
2 shallots, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 cup of vermouth, white wine, veggie stock or water
3 Tbsp flour
2 cups veggie stock
1/2 cup cream
salt and pepper

1. Melt 1 Tbsp butter in a large pan over medium low heat. Saute shallots and mushrooms in the butter. As the mushrooms start to release their water, add the garlic, thyme and paprika. Keep stirring until the mushrooms are really soft. Scrape the mushrooms and shallots into a bowl.
2. Deglaze the pan with the vermouth and pour it into the bowl with the mushrooms.
3. Melt 3 Tbsp butter in the skillet. When it's melted, whisk the 3 Tbsp flour in. Cook the roux for about 2 minutes, whisking constantly.
4. Slowly whisk in the stock and then cream. Make sure all of the roux is mixed in!
5. Stir in the vegetables and the deglazed liquid. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Cook the gravy until it thickens to desired consistency.
7. Serve with biscuits, mashed potatoes, eggs, or whatever else you like gravy with!

Veggie Burgers

Last weekend Heidi and I made veggie burgers, something we'd talked about doing for a long time. We used sweet potatoes, lentils, onions, and brown rice to make a somewhat sweet but still savory burger. Now that I know how ridiculously simple it is, I am going to do it all the time! It seems like a great way to use up extra vegetables you have lying around.

We had this recipe as a guideline, but since we substituted most of the ingredients and used different amounts of everything, I'm going to just tell you how we did it.

Note: The burgers took almost no time to make, but our potatoes, lentils and onions were all cooked ahead of time. If you don't have those ingredients pre-cooked, plan for it to take a bit longer.

Ingredients:
One onion, diced small
Five cloves of garlic, minced
Cooking sherry
One large sweet potato, baked until very tender and diced
One can of lentils (or equivalent amount home-cooked), drained and rinsed
About half a cup of cooked rice, ideally a little over-cooked (you want it very soft)
One tsp coriander
One tsp tarragon
Small handful of milled flax seed (if you are a health nut like me)
Two tablespoons of chickpea flour (or any other type of flour)
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Directions:
- Heat some olive oil in a pan and cook the garlic and onions together until the onions are browned and starting to get crispy. Deglaze the pan with cooking sherry and set aside.

- In a bowl, mash the lentils up a bit with a fork. Add the rice, sweet potato, onions, and spices. If you want to amp up the nutritional value, throw in some flax seed. Stir everything together along with a tablespoon of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Then add the flour, making sure to stir it in well.

- Generously coat a stainless steel pan with olive oil and heat it on a medium-high setting. The writers of the original recipe think that a nonstick pan will not give you the ideal texture. Once the oil is very hot, take a handful of burger goodness and shape it into a patty. Place it in the pan - it should sizzle immediately. If it doesn't, your oil isn't hot enough, and you should wait before adding more burgers. Fill up your pan with as many burgers as you want to eat, and cook them for about 2 minutes on each side.

- Eat your delicious veggie burger! It should be a little crunchy on the outside and scrumptious all the way through. We ate ours on my homemade whole wheat bread with fresh spinach, smoked Gouda cheese, and some blueberry chutney I got at Pike Place Market. It was amazing.

Keep your leftover uncooked burger mixture in the fridge and cook it as you eat it. If you do end up with uneaten cooked burgers, they'll reheat pretty well in a toaster oven.

I think you could easily substitute an equivalent amount of other vegetables and grains. I'm thinking whatever vegetable combination you choose should include something starchy and something with protein. The original recipe called for beets and black beans, which sounds very tasty indeed. If you try your own version, let us know how it turns out!


Here's our burger creation, along with Heidi's mustard-vinaigrette potato salad. Heidi made two potato salads last weekend, and she had better post the recipes, because I don't even like potato salad and I could not eat enough of these. Om nom nom!

Vegetarian Sushi

Do you ever talk about doing something, but never end up actually doing it? Making my own sushi was one of those things – until last weekend. Once we had agreed on a day for our homemade sushi dinner, I planned for it obsessively. I dreamed up possible fillings, I perused cookbooks, and I watched more than a few instructional videos on Youtube. And now I bring what I learned to you!

Sushi takes a lot of preparation, but it is ultimately pretty simple to prepare. The rice is probably the trickiest thing to get right, but as long as you follow the directions you probably won't run into any problems. And all the chopping and prepping is worth it for a food that is beautiful, delicious, and impressive.



First, the rice:
Rice for sushi must be short-grain; I used short-grain brown rice. I've read that brown rice is more difficult to work with for sushi because it doesn't get as sticky, but I didn't have any trouble. Whatever kind you choose, cook it according to its instructions.

When the rice is done, carefully scoop it out into a shallow glass bowl or casserole dish (or an unfinished wooden sushi bowl, if you have one). Metal bowls will cool off the rice too quickly, so don't use one of those. Prepare a mixture of rice wine vinegar, sugar, and salt. The Sushi Lover's Cookbook recommends using 5 tablespoons of vinegar, 2 tbs of sugar and 1 ½ tbs of salt for 1 cup of uncooked rice. Sprinkle the vinegar mixture over the rice, then use a gentle folding motion to make sure all the rice is coated. Be careful not to mush the rice. If you want to be very proper, fan the rice with a plate or fan while stirring to help the rice cool off a little faster. Cover with a damp cloth and let it cool to room temperature. Sushi rice should not be refrigerated, as this will dry out the grains and keep it from sticking together.

Second, the fillings:
Most of the fillings for sushi can be prepared ahead of time. You can put anything you want in sushi! Here is what I used:

avocado, cut into slivers
sweet potato, cut into ½ inch sticks and steamed
asparagus, steamed
black trumpet mushrooms, sauteed in butter
tofu, dry-fried and marinated
cucumber, cut into ¼ inch sticks
pickled burdock

Third, assembly:
Organization is key here! Place a sushi mat on a clean board in front of you, smooth side up. Within easy reach you should have: your dish of prepared sushi rice, a tray with all your fillings laid out, a bowl of water with a little vinegar, your sharpest knife, a damp cloth, and sheets of nori.

Place one sheet of nori on the sushi mate, rough side up. Wet your hands and spread a handful of rice onto the nori in a thin layer. The rice should go right to the edges of the nori, but leave a small edge at the top – this will help the roll stick together. Choose a combination of fillings for your roll. Two or three ingredients is usually a good bet, but you can use whatever you want. Lay your fillings out in a horizontal row across the middle of the rice. Dab a little water on that empty edge of nori, then use the rolling mat to roll up the sushi. Be gentle but firm! Give the roll a little squeeze once it's rolled up, then remove the rolling mat. You should have a lovely sushi roll. Use your sharpest knife to slice it into eight pieces, using the damp cloth to wipe off the blade between cuts. Place your sushi on a dish and serve!

Last, serving the sushi:
We had a very casual approach to sushi – the serving dish was a small cutting board, and we all just ate off of that instead of getting a bunch of plates dirty. But nice presentation is one of the great things about sushi, so go all out with the platters and pretty arrangements if you are so inclined. Serve with soy sauce and wasabi, and ideally have a small dish for each person so everyone can have their own level of spiciness. Pickled ginger makes a nice palate cleanser. Eat with chopsticks or fingers. I don't have any pictures because I was too excited about eating the sushi! Om nom nom!

Making sushi was a smooth and easy process, because I became obsessed and did a lot of research. Heidi got The Sushi Lover's Cookbook by Yumi Umemura from the library, and I really liked its clear instructions and colorful photos. It also had recipes for many different kinds of sushi – the rolls most of us think of are only one of many varieties! I also learned a lot from watching lots of videos on Youtube – these were my favorites:

Food Safari - A straightforward instructional from an Australian cooking show
Alton Brown on sushi, with all his usual nerdy food insights
Hippie Gourmet Makes Veggie Sushi – for some reason this was very amusing to me
Cooking with Dog - part of a series of Japanese cooking videos, very informative and hilarious

Refried Beans From Scratch

Refried beans is one of those foods that has grown on me over the years. What used to be a vaguely icky side dish in Tex-Mex restaurants is now an absolutely crucial component of quesadillas. I made them from scratch once a long time ago, and remember it as an easy but long and tedious process. But this morning I discovered that it doesn't have to be that way! Making refried beans is incredibly simple, and you get so much more food for the same amount of money you'd spend on buying them canned. It is one of those foods that can be done in numerous ways – the only absolutely essential ingredient is beans (and water).

I used:
dry pinto beans (about 2 ½ cups)
one large red onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
one tomato, diced
olive oil
cumin and chili powder
salt

This makes a HUGE amount of beans! You might as well make a ton at once, since they freeze well.

Soak your beans in water overnight, then boil them until tender. This can take anywhere from 40 minutes to a couple of hours, depending on the beans and how long they soaked. Drain the beans, but save some of the beany water! You'll need it later. I had about 8 cups of cooked beans, but you can make less! You can also start with canned beans if you want.

In a large pot, cook your onion and garlic in a generous amount of oil until the onion is translucent. Turn the heat to low. Add the tomato and some of the beans, and mash it all together with a potato masher. Keep adding beans in batches and mashing them, keeping the heat on. As you go, incorporate a little more olive oil and some of the bean water – the beans will dry out a little after you're done, so make it a little more liquid-y than you think you'll want it. Add salt and spices to taste! The beans will soak up tons of salt.

The great thing about making your own refried beans is that you can control the amount and type of fat, salt, and seasonings. It tastes better than store-bought, and it is super cheap. And super easy! Seriously, try this!

Golden Beet Gnocchi, Two Ways

I never ate beets growing up; they were a strange vegetable my mom grudgingly bought for my dad for holiday meals. But in the past few years I have cautiously added them to my diet. I've eaten them roasted, sauteed in stir fries, or stewed in curries. At the farmer's market a few weeks ago I saw a truly massive golden beet, and my mind filled with ideas of new ways to enjoy this sugary root. Then I promptly forgot about it, until I noticed it getting disconcertingly squishy in the vegetable basket. Gnocchi seemed like the perfect way to use it all up quickly.

Until now my only gnocchi experience was with this potato gnocchi recipe, which intimidated me – it basically said that gnocchi is extremely difficult to get right, and if you haven't been personally taught how by an Italian grandmother then your attempt will very likely end up a disaster. Needless to say, I approached the task with a fair amount of anxiety. But the end result was delicious and, more importantly, easy to make.

I couldn't find many beet gnocchi recipes online, and the ones I did find either involved potatoes or Parmesan, and I didn't want to use either. So I used the recipes as rough guideline and pretty much did my own thing. The result was scrumptious and simple to make. I split the dough in half and prepared the first half the traditional way, by boiling. The second half was pan-fried the next day. Here's how I did it:

To make the gnocchi dough:
Wrap your beets in foil and roast until tender, about an hour. My ginormous beet was probably the size of 2 or 3 average-sized beets. If your beet is very large, cut into quarters before roasting.

Once the beets are cool enough to handle, remove the skins and finely grate them. Add about a cup of ricotta cheese, one large egg, salt, and pepper. I also added a few shakes of allspice and some garlic powder, but I couldn't taste it in the finished product. Stir everything together until well combined. Begin adding flour. I used around 2 cups, but the amount will vary depending on the size and moisture content of your beets. The dough should gather into a ball and be tacky. I stopped adding flour when it still seemed a little too sticky, and that seemed like a good place to stop. At this point you can put some or all of the dough into the fridge for later.













Pretty colors!

To form the gnochhi:

Divide the dough into manageable portions and roll each into a log, about an inch thick. Slice each log into inch-long segments. Roll each gnocchi under the tines of a fork to get those wonderful indentations that hold sauce so well, and place your finished gnocchi pieces on a lightly floured surface.



To boil and serve with rosemary-garlic olive oil:
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add your gnocchi in batches and boil for a few minutes, removing them with a slotted spoon when they are done. Normally gnocchi are supposed to float to the surface when they are cooked, but mine did not – they were too big or too dense, I suppose. I cooked half of the dough and got two good-sized servings out of it.

You can just drizzle these with olive oil, or do what Heidi did and make garlic-infused olive oil with rosemary. Just heat some olive oil in a small sauce pan, then add a few cloves of sliced (not minced!) garlic and a couple pinches of dried or fresh rosemary. Cook until the garlic turns brown, then drizzle over the pasta. The perfect simple accompaniment!

These gnocchi were dense and chewy and slightly sweet. And completely satisfying. Heidi made a salad to go with it that may appear in another post; it involved pears and goat cheese. It was one of those meals that sounds (and tastes!) fancy, but is incredibly simple to make.

To fry:
Since my gnocchi dough was pretty sticky, I rolled the raw pasta lightly in flour before frying, just to keep them from sticking to the pan. I don't know if this was really necessary, but frying things makes me nervous.

Coat the bottom of a small frying pan with oil – I used half olive oil and half safflower oil, since safflower oil has a higher smoke point. Bring the oil to medium-high heat, and add your gnocchi, working in small batches. Turn after about two minutes; your pasta should be lightly browned on both sides. Lightly salt and serve!

Fried gnocchi has an even sweeter flavor than the boiled variety; I can easily imagine this sprinkled with powdered sugar instead of salt and served as a dessert. Since my gnocchi were bigger than the average variety, they were still doughy on the inside, and slightly crispy on the outside. Personally I thought this was perfect, but if you think you'd like a more thoroughly-cooked dish, either make your gnocchi smaller or cook for longer on a lower heat setting.



All in all I got five servings out of one beet – not bad at all!

Butternut Squash and Fried Sage Penne

almost exactly this recipe

This recipe helped me get rid of a few of things that I was worrying were getting really old (a squash, a red onion). The original recipe only called for 8oz of pasta (boxes are usually 16oz). After cutting up the squash, I thought half a box of pasta would not be enough so I used more, and increased everything else too. Look at the picture! Squash to pasta ratio did not need to increase! I liked this a lot, except for the pasta. I used Barilla Whole Wheat Pasta (not the Barilla Plus, which was a dollar more per box) and didn't really like that much. That's the only thing I'd change. The flavors are good, as is. They are simple, but go together so well!

I had a bottle of Dogfish Head Punk beer with it. That was a good match. I know it's kind of past pumpkin beer time, but I love DFH beer and I found a 4 pack of this at Whole Foods, so I had to buy it!



Ingredients:
16 oz penne (or other similarly sized pasta)
3 Tbsp olive oil
12 whole sage leaves
1 medium to large red onion, sliced thin
4 (or more) cloves of garlic, minced
2 lb. butternut squash, peeled and seeded and cut into 1 inch cubes
3/4 cup water
salt and pepper to taste (I used about 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper)
grated parmesan for garnishing (or not, if you're vegan)

Directions:
1. Bring large pot of water to a boil and cook pasta according to directions. When draining, rinse with cold water so it doesn't get sticky. Return to pot (if the pot is huge!) or a large mixing bowl.
2. In the largest skillet/wok you have, heat oil over medium heat.
3. Fry sage leaves until crispy, about 1 minute on each side. Remove to paper towel. Step out of the kitchen and then back in so you can really appreciate the smell of the fried sage.
4. Add onions and garlic to the skillet and fry until soft, stirring pretty much constantly.
5. Once soft, add squash, water, salt and pepper to skillet and stir to mix.
6. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer until squash is soft, stirring occasionally. The recipe says this will only take 5-7 minutes. It took me more like 20 or 25. Possibly because a) I cut the squash pieces too big and/or b) I didn't adequately cover the skillet for the first 10 minutes. I didn't have a lid for the skillet and so I used the two largest I had, overlapping... until! I realized that I could just use the second largest skillet I had as a lid. Ta-da!
7. Once soft (test by tasting! om nom nom!), pour the squash mixture into the pasta and mix until pasta is fully coated. Add a little more water if necessary (I didn't need more water).
8. Garnish with the fried sage (whole leaves for presentation, or crushed up leaves for a more dispersed flavor) and parmesan cheese (unless you're a vegan).

Creamy Broccoli and Potatoes

I bought a crock pot a while back and so far I have only used it to make soups and chili. I really want to use it more. The vast majority of crock pot recipes use meat, which makes sense I guess. I read something somewhere a while back about making cheesy potatoes in a crockpot. I looked up a bunch of recipes and they are all pretty similar. So, this is based off the whole internet, and some things I wanted to get out of my fridge/pantry.



This is pretty tasty but pretty heavy, because it's full of carbs and dairy! It actually tasted better the second day, maybe the flavors needed some time to blend? I think next time I will use cheddar cheese soup instead of mushroom. I saw some recipes that called for cream of mushroom, others for cream of celery and others for cream of cheddar. I think the cheddar is what my taste buds really wanted! I was really worried about the sauce being too thick. Some recipes called for just cream cheese and undiluted soup. It seems like that would be really, really thick and I was worried about the potatoes drying out/not cooking, so I added a can of evaporated milk. I think any other dairy would be fine as well, depending on how much fat you want to add! The broccoli was a good idea because a) it adds some color/something other than the heaviness of the starch and b) adding the water actually would have made it too liquid-y without the broccoli, I think. As made, I thought the consistency of the sauce was perfect.

This makes a huge quantity! And I'd suggest eating it as a side dish instead of a main course, so it feeds many. You could reduce the amount of potatoes, but then you might have too much sauce.

Ingredients:
4 Tbsp butter (1/2 stick) (you can probably use oil, use less or eliminate all together)
8 oz Neufchâtel cheese (or cream cheese)
12 oz can evaporated milk
10 oz can condensed cream of mushroom soup (or other creamy soup, see above!)
1/4 cup water
1 Tbsp oregano
1-2 tsp Kosher salt (to taste!)
2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
red chili flakes to taste (I used 1 Tbsp, which I think was too much, not because it was too spicy, but it was just too dominant of a flavor)
2 lbs potatoes, diced into 1/2"-1" pieces (I used red, yellow and blue potatoes because they are pretty!)
1/2 large onion, diced into 1/2"-1" pieces
1 large head of broccoli, chopped into 2" pieces, I keep the stems because I like them, but feel free to toss if you don't!

Directions:
1. Lightly grease the inside of a crock pot with cooking spray or butter.
2. Turn the crock pot on high. Melt butter and cream cheese and stir to mix.

3. Add evaporated milk, soup, water and spices and stir thoroughly.

4. Mix in potatoes and onions.

5. Reduce heat to low and cook for 6 hours, adding broccoli only for the last 30 minutes.

Kale and Tofu with Peanut Sauce

Also: How Not to Cook Tofu

I've attempted kale with peanut sauce a few times, with less than stellar results. I initially resolved to use a recipe this time, but after finding about a million different recipes for peanut sauce and zero that sounded like what I wanted, I decided to make it up again. This time, the peanut sauce was excellent! Yay for experimentation!

In my recipe search I found one that recommended frying the tofu into crispy bites first, then lowering the heat and adding the onions to the same pan, then adding the sauce and vegetables. It was a disaster – the tofu completely fell apart, so that at the end there were tofu crumbs throughout the dish, making it look a little like vomit. Despite the unappetizing appearance, it was delicious. I will definitely use this peanut sauce again! Here's what I did:

In a bowl, combine the following:
One can coconut milk
A little over a cup of peanut butter
A little under ¼ cup soy sauce
Juice of half a lime
about a teaspoon grated ginger
one or two teaspoons chopped cilantro
a few shakes of cayenne powder
coriander
Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking.

Slice one block of tofu into bite-sized wedges. Coat the bottom of a pot with high-heat oil and place on medium-high heat. Add the tofu and tend carefully, hoping it will get nice and crispy. Begin to fret when the tofu all sticks to the bottom of the pan. Add more oil, turn frequently, and watch in horror as the bottom of the pot becomes covered in a white tofu coating. Decide it won't get all crispy-fried and add one diced onion, one diced Anaheim pepper, and three cloves of chopped garlic. Lower heat and stir very gingerly in the pan, trying not to break the tofu into ever-smaller pieces. Once the onion is soft, pour in the peanut sauce. Add one bunch of kale, chopped, and a large handful of sliced mushrooms. Stir occasionally while the kale cooks down. Observe that the tofu has completely disintegrated, and give up trying to preserve any of the larger pieces. Serve with brown rice.

This ended up being nicely spicy and flavorful. Next time, I will just stir the tofu in at the end. If you want to use the fried tofu idea, I bet it would work if you had a better-quality non-stick pan. After frying, you should probably remove the tofu to a separate plate, and add it back in at the end so that it doesn't fall apart.

This is when I knew I had made a terrible mistake with the tofu:











And this is the final product (I have got to figure out how to take better food photos in our dim kitchen):

African Peanut Soup

based off of this recipe



Ingredients:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 medium red peppers, chopped
1 red (very hot) or green (hot) jalepeno, keeping the seeds if you like the extra heat, chopped (optional)
8 cloves garlic, minced
28 oz can crushed tomatoes
6 cups vegetable stock
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp chili powder
dash Vermouth
1/2 cup brown rice
1 cup chunky peanut butter
salt to taste

Directions:
1. Heat oil in a large soup pot over medium heat.
2. Add onion and peppers to pot and stir until soft.
3. Add garlic and stir until fragrant.
4. Stir in tomatoes, stock, pepper, and chili powder.
5. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Add brown rice and simmer until rice is soft. This took me almost 45 minutes, which was surprising, maybe I had very dehydrated rice?
7. Add peanut butter and stir until incorporated.
8. Salt to taste.
9. Enjoy!

Verdict: This was pretty good. I wasn't sure what I was expecting it to taste like. It has a mild flavor, there obviously aren't many spices. The jalepeno wasn't in the original recipe, but I am glad I added it. To be honest, at first taste I wasn't thrilled. But I had a bowl and by the end, I wanted more! It is a good comfort food. It's been a rainy week here in Santa Barbara, so I've been craving a lot of soup!

Black Bean Squash soup

So I'm slow to start contributing to this blog. Though I've talked about starting my own blog for ages, I haven't been doing much cooking lately. And sadly this recipe is more like an idea rather than a true recipe; I invented it, not lookng at a single recipe for inspiration nor measuring a single thing. The result was surprisingly tastey, even my roommates agreed.

We had a squash that's been sitting on the mantle above the fireplace since one of the last Columbia City (our neighborhood) farmer's markets in October, and it's slowly turned reddish from it's original green color, rather like leaves in the fall. Taking this as a sign that it was begging to be eaten and on the verge of rotting, I created this soup around it. I'm includying measurements here that I think are good estimations of what I actually used, but honestly I don't know for sure.

Ingredients:

cooked black beans, maybe about 3 cans worth or half a 1lb bag
1 squash, I used kabocha (I think, though acorn squash or a similar type might even be better) cut into bite sized cubes and roasted until soft
1 medium onion, minced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalapeño, minced
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
as much water/leftover bean broth from cooking as you want to make the soup the consistency you desire

The trickiest part is removing the skin from the squash, which can take a while. Once removed, cut the squash into bite sized pieces and coat with neutral oil. Roast the squash at 400 degrees about 30 minutes, maybe less, until it is soft. I'm not even convinced that roasting adds that much flavor, so alternatively you could cook it with the black beans unil soft and let me know how it tastes.

While the squash is roasting, saute the onions until softened, then add the garlic and be careful not to brown it too much. Then add all the ingredients to the black beans in a big pot and cook about 10-15 minutes until the flavors blend. Serve and enjoy!

Despite the Japanese name of the squash I used, all squash is native to central america, and therefore I decided to loosely use mexican seasonings for this recipe. The soup is slightly spicy, contrasting nicely with the sweet squash. If you make it too spicy, you can always add yogurt, sour cream, or even Mexican crema if you have it to take the edge off. Enjoy!

Aromatic Pumpkin and Coconut

Heidi got the book Mangoes & Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent from the library, and I began flipping through it recently. It is full of gorgeous photos, intriguing travel stories, and drool-inducing recipes from all over South Asia. I had to try the Bengali Aromatic Pumpkin and Coconut because:
-I love savory pumpkin dishes
-I happened to have a pumpkin lying around that needed to be used ASAP!

The recipe says any kind of pumpkin can be used, or even other winter squashes. I have no idea what kind of pumpkin I had; it popped up unexpectedly in a friend's garden and she gave it to me. It may have been a carving pumpkin, I don't know!

Ingredients
Scant 2 tbs vegetable oil
¼ tsp nigella seeds (I couldn't find these, I used mustard seeds instead)
½ tsp cumin seeds
About 1 cup chopped onion
About 4 cups coarsely grated pumpkin (I finely grated it, oops)
1 tsp each ground coriander, sugar, and salt
1 cup fresh or frozen grated coconut
¼ cup water
2 dried chilies, stemmed
One 1-inch piece cinnamon stick
1 large or 2 small bay leaves

Heat the oil in a pot or large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the nigella (or mustard) and cumin seeds and cook for a minute, then add the onion and cook until it starts to brown, stirring frequently. Lower the heat to medium and add the pumpkin. Cook for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the coriander, sugar and salt and cook for another 2 minutes – the pumpkin should be soft. Add the coconut and keep stirring for another 2 minutes. Stir in the water (I ended up adding about ½ cup), then add the dried red chilies, cinnamon, and bay leaves. Cook another 2-3 minutes, still stirring. Taste to make sure the spices are to your liking. Serve and eat!

I followed the original recipe pretty much exactly, even going so far as to chop and measure out everything before starting. This made cooking the dish pretty easy, especially since you need to constantly stir it - no worrying that it'll scorch in the pan while you dig around for the coriander.

This turned out delicious! It had a subtle, warm flavor and a nice slightly crunchy texture. It wasn't at all spicy, though I'm sure a little heat would have been a nice variation. I was expecting it to be more of a sauce-like dish, so I made rice to go with it. As you can see, it was not liquidy in the least. I also had a purple baked potato with it, because I thought it would be pretty – in hindsight, this was probably too many carbs, and it ended up being a pretty heavy meal. The book recommends serving it alongside a soupy dal, which sounds like the perfect accompaniment.

The roommate reaction was lukewarm on this one (whatever, more leftovers for me!). Nicola thought it was too bland, and it could certainly withstand an increase of spices. Heidi thought it was good, but only in small amounts, as she doesn't really like coconut. In conclusion, I would probably do this as a side dish to counteract a spicier main attraction.

And, in case you're curious, here is what it looks like to cut up and grate a pumpkin:











Just cut off the top, then cut it in half, scoop out the pulp and seeds, peel with a vegetable peeler, then grate. It took a little while, but was easy.

Curried Acorn Squash Soup

based off of this recipe

Ingredients:
1 small (sweet) onion, chopped into small pieces, about 1/2cm
4 stalks of celery, chopped into very thin slices
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp dill weed
1 tsp yellow curry powder (maybe more)
1/2 tsp chili powder
dash vermouth or white wine
2 cups vegetable stock
12 oz can evaporated milk
3 cups cooked, mashed acorn squash*
cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Melt butter in a large pot.
2. Add onions, celery, and garlic and saute on medium heat until vegetables are soft.
3. Add flour, dill, curry powder, chili powder, and vermouth and stir in.
4. Add stock and milk in ~1/2 cup increments, stirring to incorporate after each addition. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
5. Add squash and stir to mix fully.
6. Add salt, pepper and cayenne to taste. I like things salty and hot, so I added quite a bit. The salt is partly in lieu of bouillon (which is very salty), and the squash and onion are sweet so you may need to add a lot. Add slowly so as not to oversalt! You may also want to add more curry (the original recipe called for 1/4 tsp and I ended up adding more like 2tsp), so feel free!
7. Cook, stirring constantly, until heated through.
8. OPTIONAL: Put soup in blender (small batches at a time) or a food processor and blend until smooth. I didn't do this, mostly because I am lazy, but also because I like things chunky. It tastes great unblended, just make sure the squash is fully mixed in! If you are going to blend, chopping the onions and celery very small is less important since they will be blended anyway.
9. Enjoy! Great with crusty bread!

Verdict: This was delicious! I loved it and want to eat it all the time. It could easily be veganized by using a vegan milk (unsweetened) or cream. I liked that the recipe called for condensed milk instead of cream, so there wasn't much fat in this soup even though it is very rich tasting. This soup is very thick. If you prefer a thinner soup, I'd suggest adding 1c more stock. You can always add more stock at the end, but you'll have to adjust the spices to taste.

This recipe makes about 6 large (or maybe 10 small) bowls of soup.


*I used 3 small acorn squashes. To cook them, I cut each in half, scooped out the seeds (save and toast them later!), put them face down on a plate and microwaved for 25 minutes. They are very hot! Put them in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes then when they are cool enough to touch, scoop into a bowl and mash with a masher or wooden spoon.