Veggie-Enhanced Popovers

Ok, so I'm probably the least interested in food of any of the frequent readers and contributors here.  My criteria, which work pretty well for me, are that a meal has to contain at least one vegetable, have almost no sugar, and be edible to a four year old.  Also it has to be quick and easy enough to conceive, execute, consume, and clean up from in one hour max while also hanging out said four year old. Lately I've been capitalizing on the popularity of both muffins and Yorkshire pudding to bang out some veggie popovers that meet all these criteria and then some.  Here's how: Take half a large yellow onion (one small also OK), two large carrots, and a quarter of a 6 inch cabbage.  Chop in the food processor until evenly small.  Mushrooms are also good here.  I'd also do Kale but haven't tried that yet, would not do spinach because it's too wet.  Take three sausages, we usually have either mild Italian or brats, either is fine.   Slice the sausage into rounds and sautee until  thoroughly cooked.  Toss in veggies and sautee to doneness.  You herbs-and-spices folks can probably come up with something clever here; I usually just end up shaking on a little salt to make sure the veggies cook.  While veggies are in the pan, mix a standard Yorkshire pudding recipe (6 eggs, beaten, then add 2 C flour, 2T salt, 2C milk and beat until bubbly.  Seriously, it's that easy).  I actually thought it might be interesting to try this with self-rising flour the other day, but chickened out at the last minute.  But I digress.  Back to the recipe.  Mix the veggies and sausage into the batter.  Watch out for temp, you don't want to hit eggs with a quick shock of hot oil.  I usually find that by the time I have the batter together the veggies have cooled enough.  Spray two muffin tins with cooking spray, then nearly fill with the batter.  Pop in 400F oven, monitor for doneness, plan for 15-20 min cooking time.  When they come out the are kind of like mini toad-in-the-hole, but with LOTS of nearly hidden and non-extractable veggies (fellow parents will understand the importance of non-extractability !).  We often eat these as a meal unto themselves, but they would of course present better with a salad on the plate.  Samara and Pat love them, and we usually have them left over for a little while.  It's great to have a bunch in the fridge for a quick snack.  Samara found out that they're also pretty good with a little butter when hot, but hey, let's face it, what isn't?  Cheers, and enjoy!

Frittata

What, no post on Frittatas yet?  I'm amazed.  Jo turned us on to this dish by taking us out for brunch at Morning Glory in south Philly and I have been working on making them at home.  The recipe is simple and variable:  saute up whatever veggie goodness suites you, add scrambled eggs and cheese, and cook, browning the top under the broiler at the end.  Kind of like a quiche with no crust.  Except, not so many onions.  And cooked (see further, below) on the stove top.

Obviously this recipe is open to creativity.  My favorite so far is broccoli and mushroom with feta cheese.  Includes chopped onion and some garlic, of course.  I like to add a small glug of milk to the scrambled egg to help it fluff up (not as much as for a quiche).

The trick is in getting it to cook properly.  The egg fluffs up and if you get the egg to pan diameter wrong, gets too deep to cook through before the bottom burns (bummer).  I found an 8 inch cast iron skillet is right for a 2 egg frittata, which is about the right size for the two of us (but may be the right size for one active younger person).  I start by sauteing the onion and garlic in a little butter but add some water before things dry out and basically steam the vegetables.  Once they are cooked, I add the scrambled eggs (with a glug of milk and a dash of Worcestershire sauce) and scramble the veggies into the egg, then add the cheese on top (press it into the egg) and let it be.  Once it has started to cook on the stove top, I transfer it to the oven for more even heat.  When the egg is nearly all cooked I put it under the broiler to brown slightly.   Because we have a gas oven, I just turn on the broiler, which heats the oven above it to whatever temp you get when the broiler is running.

It may take a little practice to get this right, but it's worth it!

Homemade nut butters

As most of you know, I started making nut butters a couple months ago.  We were eating a TON of peanut butter, but then I read a book about nutrition that touched on the different beneficial fatty acids that are found in different kinds of nuts.  I decided I wanted to diversify our nut consumption, but found that alternatives to peanut butter are either hard to find or very expensive.  So, I decided to try to make my own.  Turns out it's really simple, can give great results, and can be cheaper than buying nut butters. Notice the "can"s in the previous sentence.  I've been getting pecans, almonds, and cashews at CostCo for a pretty decent price, so it ends up being cheaper than buying nut butters.  It's pretty obvious, though, that most of the cost of nut butters is the nuts, and the nut butter makers buy them in bulk.  I still think it's worth it, though, because you can make butters that you can't easily buy and you can make them the way you like.  I've learned that I like more of a roasted flavor and more salt than is present in most nut butters.  It's been fun to play around, and I've only ruined a few pounds of nuts by over roasting them.

The entire process is ridiculously simple.  Spread a pound or two of nuts in a single-ish layer in a roasting pan.  Roast between 375-400 degrees until desired level of brown, turning occasionally.  I check and turn pecans after 5 minutes initially, and then every 2-3 min.  Almonds I check and turn after 7 min, then at 3-5 min intervals.  Then, just throw the nuts in a food processor and process.  Initially, you'll make nut flour.  Keep processing, stopping to scrape down the sides as necessary.  This is the only part that can be annoying, especially with the almonds.  Eventually the nuts will release their oils and your flour will turn into butter.  The longer you process, the more liquidy it becomes.  Pecans go pretty quickly, almonds take longer.  You can add salt or other additives towards the end.  Some recommendations from on-line include cinnamon, vanilla, coconut, and ground hot pepper.

I store our butters at room temp, but I've read that if you add things besides nuts and salt, you should store them in the fridge.  I prefer to add those things to individual servings.

We eat almond butter on apples and bananas, pecan butter on apples and crackers, and pecan butter with smoked gouda is amazing.  I also like to mix different butters together to put on french toast, especially with some mix berries on top.  Cashew butter is the richest, and pairs amazingly with dark chocolate, especially as a topping on ice cream.  I haven't made my own peanut butter, yet.  It's so cheap to buy, I'm not sure it will be worth it.

-Maggie

Tower of Power - revisted

I finally made Andy's Power of Tower breakfast!  I don't know why it took me this long, but it won't be that long before I make it again.  It's great!  We made a few modifications based on personal preferences and what we had around.  First, we didn't have any cherry tomatoes, so we left those out.  I will definitely try to have them on hand next time.  I think they would add a lot to this dish.  I would probably sprinkle some balsamic vinegar over the tomatoes at the end of their cooking, and maybe leave the vinegar off the spinach.  I think the vinegar flavor is good, but it didn't come through as much as I would have liked on the spinach.  Second, we went with the "if the knife touches onions, it may as well touch garlic" theory.  To do this, we put some butter and minced garlic in a dish, then microwaved them until the butter was melted.  When the sweet potatoes were done, we brushed the garlic and butter over them and put them back in the oven briefly.  Finally, I sprinkled some grated swiss cheese over the whole thing at the end.  I liked this (I mean, it's cheese, so....), but it didn't add a ton.  Maybe if I had higher quality cheese this would have added more.  In the end, I feel full and satisfied in that "we had a good special breakfast" way, but not gross or bloated, and ready to get moving.

Thanks for the great idea, Andy!

-Maggie

Grilled Tofu and Kale Tacos

Good Evening fellow cookers and blog followers.  After a relatively normal day at work, selling and fixing bikes, I got home and was faced with that age-old question, "what's for dinner."  With nothing planned or thawed, and more energy going into dinner tomorrow night (brined, roasted turkey for no particular reason), a quick trip through the inter webs brought forth this idea of kale, tofu, bean tacos.  A few bites in and my comment was "this is why I don't go out to eat much."  Pretty awesome vegetarian taco recipe for you.  I personally love tacos in most all forms, and this recipe creates no exception to that rule, while creating exceptional tacos.

For the tofu:

olive oil - some
vinegar - some
soy sauce - a splash
Worchestershire sauce- a splash
Liquid Smoke - a drop or two
hot sauce - your call
salt
pepper
steak rub a.k.a. the usual suspects

Mix all ingredients into bowl to create a marinade for the tofu.  Slice tofu into 3/8" slices and place on plate.  Pour marinade over tofu and allow to soak as long as time allows.  When ready grill about 6-7 minutes per side (I made that number up, but it sounds good)

For the kale:

avocado - half worked well for two people
tahini - appox. 2 tablespoons
garlic - yup
vinegar or lime juice - approx two tablespoons
anything else you want (cayenne?)

Please ingredients into food processor.  Turn on until blended.  Add water to form a good thick dressing, but not a paste consistency.  Cut the stalks out of the kate and chop.  Pour dressing over kale and message for a bit.

For the rest of the innards:

Anything goes here.  We started with onion and garlic sauté, added jalapeño then added beans and half a can of tomatoes.  Seasoned as you might expect.  Cumin, garlic, salt pepper, smoked paprika, cayenne, etc.  Kyrstan always nails this part, I'm not sure exactly how, but its always awesome.

For the noise:
I would personally recommend the Pizza Tapes, featuring Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Tony Rice for musical accompaniment for this recipe.  Jerry and the Dawg are old standbys, but it is fun to hear Tony's very jazzy, frenzied licks joining in for some more "impromptu" pickin'. Very nice.

For the Quaff:
I'm usually happy with anything, so long as it says IPA on the bottle, tonight, no exception, though I'm sure some winter margaritas would have brought a summer-in-december vibe to the meal.  

Serve on warm tortillas.  Start with a bed of kale, then some beans, then some tofu on top.  Fresh guacamole and salsa are encouraged.  Delish.

I think the main things that stick out here are the kale/dressing (awesome) and grilled tofu.  The grilled tofu is a first for me, but something I've been wanting to try for a while.  Spray your grill with some PAM-esque product first and grill away.  If no grill is available, I've had lots of success baking tofu in its marinade, and then throwing it on the burner and frying it for the last ten minutes.

This gives my other favorite veggie lentil tacos a serious run for their money, not sure which is better.

Give 'em a shot, let me know how they turn out.

Andy

Breakfast Quesadilla - A Work in Progress

This morning, I tried bring together four ideas from recent visits with the kids:
- Jo took us to Morning Glory for brunch in Philadelphia and introduced us to frittatas
- Kate made individual quesadillas using 6 inch tortillas in Portland during our visit last week
- Andy made primo breakfast burritos in Moscow, ID during our visit last week using black beans which he had cooked and then frozen in small plastic bags
- Visiting Molly in Tucson last week provided the opportunity to pick up some real south western tortillas

Yesterday, following Andy's lead, I cooked up a pound of dried black beans and froze them in small plastic bags for future use.  This morning, I cooked up half a small onion, 2 cloves of garlic, one bag of beans (I got 9 small bags from a pound of dried beans), some dried red pepper from the garden, some Recaito cilantro cooking base (I used Goya's), salt and pepper, all to taste.  I beat two large eggs with salt, pepper, and a little dried mustard and a small glug of milk.   Spray two 6 inch skillets with Pam, add 6 inch corn tortillas, layer in cooked bean/onion mix on half, pour in scrambled egg, add shredded cheese and cook, eventually folding over and flipping.  Serve with salsa.

Given the ingredient list, it's hard for this to not taste good.  However, as executed, it definitely suffered from 10-lb-of-shit-in-a-5-lb-sack syndrome.  It was hard to cook through without charring the tortillas, was difficult to fold and flip, and did not quite have the characteristics of a quesadilla because it was too puffed up.  Next time, I will use less onion and beans (1/4 onion and half a bag of beans to make filling for two 6 inch tortillas should be enough), maybe a little more Recaito for flavor and only one egg for two 6 inch quesadillas.  Mom thought it could use less cheese, but I think the cheese is one of the defining characteristics of the quesadilla so I would leave it the same or maybe a little more.  With the lighter filling load and a little practice, it should be possible to get the egg cooked and the cheese melted without overcooking or charring the tortilla.  If half an egg is not enough breakfast, you can always make two or use a larger tortilla with more filling. Also, you can obviously substitute flour tortillas, more typical for quesadillas, for corn if it suits.

So, an interesting alternative to the breakfast burrito and worth developing, I think.  If you try it, post a comment with your experience.

Lemon Chicken Noodle Soup

The other day, we had roast chicken for dinner, mostly because I had a hankerin' to make chicken soup and needed the raw materials. As usual, the leaving all went into a pot with an onion, a carrot, a stalk of celery, some black pepper corns, and two bay leaves to cook down.  After cooking and cooling, I skimmed most of the fat and strained out the broth.   I picked the meat from the carcass, chopped it fairly fine, and added it back to the broth.

To make the soup, I rounded up all of the usually suspects:  chopped onion, celery, carrot, and garlic.  I also found we still had some very flavorful celery leaves and fresh parsley in the garden.  Last winter, we went the shore for a day and ate lunch at Yianni's Cafe in Ocean City, NJ.  The soup of the day was Lemon Chicken Noodle which I found intriguing and wanted to try, so in addition to everything else, I cut a lemon into thin slices, removed the seeds, and added them with the other vegetables.  For seasoning, salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste, of course, plus dried thyme, a little bit of dill seed, and a shake of dried mustard for good measure.  Cooked it all down, added potatoes and, just before serving, egg noodles.

By the time this was all cooked, the lemon slices had just the rinds remaining cooked through and soft, about like the carrot slices, with a little lemon flavor but no astringency.  I really like this soup.  It puts a whole new twist on chicken soup and I recommend that you try it next time you make it.

By the time we got to second leftovers, the egg noodles had about given up, having been cooked to death in rewarming, and much of the lemon flavor had faded, so enjoy this one fresh.