Baking 2015: Cranberry zucchini muffins

 

Since mid-November I have been baking at least weekly. This wasn't something I was trying to do, but between the long haul of Thanksgiving-kiddo birthday party-holiday cocktail party-Christmas-New Year's a great deal happened in our kitchen. I've decided to try and keep the momentum and make it a goal to bake once a week for 2015. Although brownies were the last of the baking projects for 2014, made on New Year's Eve, this year started out with something a little healthier- Cranberry zucchini muffins.  These are quick to whip up, and the zucchini adds a good deal of moisture, as well as balance for the tart fresh cranberries.

 

 

Wet and dry ingredients.

  

 

Popped up muffins right after coming out of the oven- this allows the steam to release and the muffins to stop baking.

 

 

Saturday breakfast! 

Greek Stew

 

It seems like it's been a while since I've posted about a recipe. This isn't for a lack of food in my life (believe me!), but between traveling and family visits I haven't really had anything new going on in the kitchen. Enter tonight's meal of Greek Stew. This recipe was inspired by one I saw on Budget Bytes, a food blog that I frequently peruse for ideas. I modified the recipe a bit, partially due to available ingredients and partially because I was too lazy to actually reference the internet while shopping or cooking, but if you look at the original, it's not too different. This dinner got a big kiddo seal of approval (as in, let's eat this again tomorrow night), and was super easy to make, so a win-win.

First off, I sauteed a clove of garlic and a small onion in olive oil for a few minutes. Then I added a serving (one tin) of chopped wheat gluten as a chicken substitute, and a very generous amount of dried oregano. Next came a can of diced tomatoes, and a package of salad beans (soy, kidney, lima, and a mystery bean that I didn't look up before tossing the package, this was my Japanese substitute product for chickpeas), a splash of white wine, and about a 1/4 cup of water, plus sprinklings of basil and thyme, salt and pepper. I let it simmer on low heat for about half an hour while the rice and stock cooked away in the rice cooker. I served it with fresh parsley, cubes of feta (so expensive here, but totally worth it!), and a side of Greek olives. For a bigger meal or a dinner party it would be great with sides of pita and grilled veggies like eggplant or red peppers, a cucumber salad, or perhaps a veggie dip appetizer. Yum!

 

Spinach Mushroom Tart

 

Tonight I'm going to a Thanksgiving party at a friend's house, and I offered to bring something with leafy greens in it. One of the challenges of cooking abroad isn't necessarily finding things you like, or adapting your cooking, but rather I find the challenge to be in the moments when I'm trying to cook American-style food, or cook things that are easy to prepare at home. Enter the tart. Enter my oven.

In my apartment I have a combination microwave-toaster-convection oven. It is the size of a small American microwave. I also own one large pyrex measuring cup, and one pyrex pie pan, both of which I inherited from friends moving back to the States. My usual pie/tart crust is a Pate Brisee, and my usual method is made on a large marble board with a rolling pin- two things I don't have. Instead I found a recipe for an easy dough (click here), that consisted of cooking together water, oil, sugar, salt, and butter. The recipe said for about 15 minutes, but mine took more like 25. Add flour, mix, and it worked to create a crust! Magic. Meanwhile, I chopped a mixture of three mushrooms, some garlic, and onion. This is a Japan bonus- there is a great variety of mushrooms here that are very inexpensive.

 

 

The crust was pinched into the pie pan, and then I baked it for about 20 minutes, twice as long as the recipe said, but it looked good.

 

 

I sauteed the mushrooms, onion, and garlic together with some spinach and a liberal amount of basil and some sage. Unfortunately I couldn't find thyme in my neighborhood, and didn't take the time to go to an import grocer.

 

 

I mixed the veggies with an egg and some heavy cream, stirred in grated Parmesan, salt, and pepper, and baked for about 30 minutes. Voila! The apartment smells heavenly, and I now know a shortcut for tart or pie crust. I can't wait to see how it tastes!

 

Greens

We had a bumper crop of kale this year. With unusually cooler temperatures,  and lots of rain, there are more greens than we can keep up with. This week we made Creamed Indian Farmer Greens with some of the 

harvest. Adding paneer (cheese), browned onions, and spices, as well as a finish of cream makes the otherwise tough kale smooth and savory. We served it with curried potatoes and saffron rice for a lovely summer meal. 

Radishes!

 

First harvest of the year! Many more of these crunchy and peppery delights to come.  

Roasted Chipotle Tacos

 

What to do with half a leftover cauliflower and  half a leftover sweet potato? Roasted Chipotle Tacos!

We tossed the cauliflower and potato with chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and a bit of olive oil, and roasted for about 25 minutes. The scent was heavenly, if a bit spicy. Top with chopped cilantro and serve on corn tortillas with fresh arugula, a bit of cheese, and a dollop of sour cream to cool down the heat. A side of cilantro lime rice finished off the meal.

 

Leftover Joy

Long after most of the Thanksgiving leftovers have gone, some of our Spiced Cranberries remain.

Each year this is true- we make one bag of berries worth of cranberries- which is plenty for the big day, plus too many to eat with leftovers. I'm a huge cranberry fan, but it's tough to figure out what to do with two cups of tart berry goodness, despite their long fridge life. Enter Joy the Baker.

Joy the Baker is a food blog that I like to follow. I enjoy her photography and witty humor, and after Monday night I completely worship her recipe for Cranberry Brie Grilled Cheese. I'm not a big fan of plain grilled cheese, as melty cheese is not my favorite texture, but this was fabulous. The brie was smooth and creamy, and the whole grain mustard and cranberries were the most heavenly accompaniment. I was hesitant to serve sandwiches for dinner, as they seem so casual, but with a big salad and a side of slow-cooker Potato Pesto Soup, this was one of the better dinners of our week.

Thanks

 Ah, Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday of all. A day of cooking and drinking, no commercialization, family and friends, and lots of food from scratch. We usually have a big to-do at our place, but this year we wanted to scale it back. We had seven adults, a toddler, and a baby, so a pretty easy meal.

One thing we did this year to mix it up was to skip our traditional Butternut Squash Ravioli. This is an amazing addition to the table, but making pasta, rolling out dough, cooking the filling (usually starting with roasting the squash), and making up tons of tiny ravioli can be very time consuming to say the least. With both of us swamped with work the weekend before the holiday and up to Wednesday evening, it felt overwhelming, so we skipped it this year. I'm thinking ravioli will make an appearance on our Christmas table instead.

What we had in place of ravioli was a tart, but a last minute one at that. I love tarts and went through a serious tart phase a few years ago, but I think my pâte brisée skills have improved since the mid-2000s. The tart and a bonus chocolate pie were actually the result of a baking error I made the night before Thanksgiving. In a rush to bake my pumpkin pie crust I didn't spend the time to seek out my pie weights, and tried to use dried couscous instead. Not a good idea....and I totally should have known better. The crust shrunk down without the proper weight, leaving not enough space for the pumpkin filling, and looked a bit funky around the edges. After a bit of sulking and panic late at night (the best pâte brisée takes a few hours of on and off refrigeration, even pre-chilling the flour) I decided to try the pumpkin pie again in the morning with a basic crust (meaning a lower flour-butter ratio). As a result I had two pâte brisée crusts that weren't beautiful to look at, but still tasted fantastic. Joe had the idea to make a chocolate pudding pie for the kiddo, a great and super easy solution. For the other crust, I decided to wing it with a tart. Tarts are kind of fussy, so this was a bold idea, but it worked out.

Alison's last minute rustic mushroom tart:

One pâte brisée shell (the internet has a million versions, none of which I used, but this one is interesting)

16 oz mushrooms, I used half baby portabellas and half button

1 large shallot
2 cloves garlic
1 egg
Heavy cream- about 1/4 cup- I winged it on this one too
1/8 cup grated Parmesan (or so, again, I used up what I had)
Generous amount of thyme, dash of basil, dash of oregano
Fresh ground salt and pepper
Olive oil
Fresh parsley (about 2 tbsp)

Simple as can be- sautee the garlic and shallot in olive oil in a pan, add the mushrooms, sautee until they start to release their juices, adding a generous amount of thyme (maybe 1/2 a tsp), basil, oregano, salt and pepper. Cool. Add the mushroom mix to the prepared tart shell. Mix together the cream and beaten egg and pour into the shell. Top with cheese. Bake for about 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Top with parsley. Tart perfection!

 Other dishes at our table were our Spiced Cranberries, A standard stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, Joe's veggie gravy, roasted Brussels sprouts, and our favorite centerpiece, Tofu Roulade (from the Chicago Diner cookbook). We realized that we only had recipes for the roulade and the cranberries, everything else was invented (fun!).

 The croissants were brought by friends, and came from the always fantastic Wheatfields Bakery in Lawrence.

 There was a non-natural not-from-scratch addition to our table this year- cubes. As Joe and I were preparing for our meal, we were reminiscing about the holidays of our childhood. My Dad's family meals always included this bizarre better-living-through-chemistry-era concoction called cubes. Frozen cubes (literally from the ice cube tray) that consisted of canned fruit cocktail, Miracle Whip (I kid you not), and cream. They were usually served with dinner as a side, often next to the cranberries. As a child, these things freaked me out, but my Dad and his siblings loved them. I had never eaten one, but thought I'd wing it as a surprise, which was also part of my Thanksgiving morning grocery run (we do not stock fruit cocktail or Miracle Whip in our house). I guessed at the recipe (and didn't know about the cream, turns out the internet does not know about cubes), and they turned out not too bad. We added whipped cream once I learned about the cream part, which took off the bite of the Miracle Whip. My Dad ate about six of them (!), so I'm guessing they weren't too far from the originals, heehee.

I have so much to be thankful for this year, most of all being surrounded by such great friends and family and having such bounty in our lives. I hope you had a great holiday, and the leftovers are treating you well!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Green tomatoes

 Last weekend brought the first frost to KC, and therefore a huge harvest of summer veggies from our garden.

The above photo shows the bounty of produce that we brought in from the yard on Saturday afternoon- green tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons, cantaloupes, Anaheim peppers, jalapeno peppers, green beans, chard, and basil. This led to a good deal of processing. We made juice with the melons, and froze three huge batches of pesto with the basil, as well as one batch of just basil. I can't wait for the bright flavor of summer basil to come out of the freezer in the depths of winter.

The one thing I wasn't sure what to do with were the green tomatoes. I have had Fried Green Tomatoes once, and enjoyed them, but wasn't really ready to jump into this myself. A few ripened in a box with shredded newspaper, but most were still green. So, we found a soup recipe that sounded interesting, and which we made tonight. The soup tasted like a BLT in a bowl- fresh and like the flavor of a warm summer day, an especially nice meal on a rainy fall day. It's worth seeking out green tomatoes at the farmers market just for this fantastic soup!

Green Tomato Soup:

Heat about 2 tbsp of olive oil in a large, heavy stock pot.

Saute one and a half cups of scallions, two cloves of garlic, five ounces of ham (we used veggie "ham" slices) and one bay leaf for about five minutes.

Add two pounds of chopped green tomatoes (keep seeds and skins on), two cups of water, one cup of vegetable broth, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for about 25 minutes.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a side of fresh bread.

Nom!

Hot sauce

 Of all the crops I grew in the garden this year, the jalapenos were the most prolific. We used them in various dishes throughout the late summer and into early fall. I made baked poppers for the first Sunday of NFL games. I gave some away to a friend. We've dried some for later. But, there are still a few pounds of peppers left. So, I decided to try to make my own hot sauce. I took about one pound of peppers (above) and blended them with about a teaspoon of freshly ground salt in the food processor, what you see below. When I processed the peppers they were so spicy that just breathing the air made my nose tingle and my eyes water a bit.

 The pepper blend sat in a mason jar on the counter for 24 hours. The next evening, I added about a cup of vinegar to the jar, and allowed this bright green mixture to sit for two days, letting the flavor deepen.

 The final step was to re-process the blend and put it through a sieve, thus making hot sauce- success! It should have a fridge life of about four months- spicing up our lives well into the cold winter months.

Fall tomato harvest

It's hard to believe that I can harvest tomatoes on October 2, but I'm not going to complain.

The garden is still producing really well- we had chard yesterday, carrots tonight, cantaloupe, Anaheim chilies, jalapenos, basil, and eggplant last week, and lots of tomatoes on salads. If the weather stays warm enough in the next few days, I should have a watermelon and some green beans before this weekends cold front. Then it'll be on to the cold crops that are currently seedlings- radishes, snow peas, India greens, kale, and bok choi.

Mid-September Veggies

Sunday's harvest.

The cantaloupe was pretty tasty, if not terribly sweet. We used the eggplant and Anaheim peppers to make a miso stir-fry for dinner tonight. Tomatoes and cucumber for salads. I really can't think of anything more rewarding than dinner from the yard.

Cucumber Apple Salad

Amaｚu zuke!

I harvested my first cucumber yesterday. While making up bento boxes of leftover rice bowl last night, I thought it would be fun to make fresh pickles (amaｚu zuke). I found an easy recipe on the website Just Bento, and quickly chopped the cucumber and an apple, tossed in some rice vinegar, soy sauce, salt, and sugar, as well as a dash of red pepper, and let the salad marinate overnight. The result was perfectly crisp- the pepper gave it a little bite, and the apple lent it a hint of sweetness. The recipe can be found here. いただきます！

Ginger Carrot and Cabbage Stir-fry

Less than 30 minutes from harvest to table.

I'm not sure which is better, this delicious meal made with fresh-from-the-garden veggies, or the technology that allowed me to create this great collage in about five minutes. The recipe is one of our favorites- a super easy weeknight meal that packs a health punch of veggies. Our carrots, as you can see above, are a bit small this year, but they were still flavorful and had that great fresh texture that store bought can't replicate. I planted the cabbage early in the season, but with our unusual heat and the plague of cabbage moths, it took a bit longer to mature than it probably should have. In any case, I got a few perfect heads of cabbage, and the imperfect ones still have a tasty flavor. The crisp texture and slightly peppery flavor of fresh cabbage is such a treat.

The recipe is one that we adapted from a small cookbook titled Homestyle Japanese Cooking. In that recipe, the protein is pork, but we substitute seitan and added carrots to the mix, using powdered ginger instead of ginger juice. We also use less oil than suggested.

Ginger Carrot and Cabbage Stir-fry

3 tbsp soy sauce (low sodium)

2 tbsp sake, cooking sake can be found at Asian markets or well stocked grocers
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp oil
1 small head cabbage, chopped
2 tsp powdered ginger
2 inch section of fresh ginger, diced
1 bunch carrots (about 3 large, 6 small), matchstick
about 8 oz. seitan, cubed

Combine soy sauce, powdered ginger, sake, and sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add fresh ginger, carrots and cabbage, stir-fry for about 3-5 minutes. Add seitan and stir-fry for about 3 minutes. Add sauce mixture and stir-fry until cooked through, about 2 minutes.

Serve over sushi rice.

Onions

I harvested my onion crop this morning.

Most of the crop, Stuttgarter Reisen, a standard yellow onion, are small, you can see from the photo that they are about two inches in diameter. I've read that drought leads to smaller fruits and vegetables, and I'm also going to guess that our early heat led to them being about half the size than they otherwise would have been. Regardless, I did get a lot, so we'll have them to store for a few weeks. We also had a substantial crop of green onions all spring, which was fantastic. When I planted them I had in mind the beautiful onion braids that I used to see on my commute in Japan, and I pulled out a photo of my time in Miki to reminisce about the gorgeous gardens there.This photo is from October. 2008, almost four years ago!

Make this Meal

Sometimes modernity is fantastic.

Today it was in the light breezy feeling I had zipping down the highway at sunset, out on a library run, windows down, music loud. Or the early morning Skype conversation; it still amazes me that I can video chat like I'm on the Jetsons. Or the Facebook discussion between friends, each of the three of us residing in a different country, able to contribute throughout the day. But perhaps best of all, it was finding these two great recipes online- Miso Kale Salad and Quinoa and Grilled Pepper Salad. Nearly everything was local- the kale and onions were fresh from the yard, the peppers and tomatoes from the Farmers Market. We even have a local tofu factory, so it was just the quinoa, cheese, miso, oil and spices that weren't raised within 50 miles. We also enjoyed a side Purple Cherokee tomatoes from the Farmers Market, just sliced, nothing additional needed.

Here's the Miso Kale Salad with Tofu. Our two year old loved the tofu and went so far as to call it "frosting" and "a special treat." If that's not a ringing endorsement, I'm not sure what is. I got the recipe from Marin Mama Cooks, who got it from Eating Well, Fast & Flavorful Meatless Meals. Sharing. Modernity. Yum.

- 1 lb. extra firm tofu, drained and patted dry
- 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
- 2 tbsp. miso- we used white
- 2 cloves garlic, minced

Combine juice, miso, and garlic. Cut tofu into squares and toss in dressing, bake at 450 for 18-20 minutes.

For the salad:
- 1 large bunch of kale, we used red
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 4 tsp miso, again we used white
- 1 clove of minced garlic
- Parmesan cheese, we used grated, and just sprinkled it on the salad

Combine all ingredients except cheese and kale, whisk. Add the kale and stir until well combined. Plate the salad, sprinkle with cheese, and top with tofu.

And the Quinoa, from Epicurious. It seems fussy to prepare, but it's really not, and the results are worth it.

- 1 1/4 cups quinoa
-2 large green peppers (the original recipe said yellow or orange)
- 2 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp fresh lime juice
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 3 scallions, chopped

Wash quinoa in at least 5 changes of water, rubbing grains and letting them settle before pouring off water, until water runs clear. Drain in a large sieve. Add quinoa to a saucepan of boiling salted water and cook 10 minutes. Drain in sieve and rinse under cold water.

Set sieve over a saucepan with 1 1/2 inches boiling water (sieve should not touch water) and steam quinoa, covered with a kitchen towel and lid, until fluffy and dry, about 10 minutes. (Check water level in pan occasionally, adding water if necessary.) Spread quinoa on a baking sheet to cool.

While quinoa is cooking, grill bell peppers. As it was a weeknight, we did this on a grill pan on the stove top, but it would be great to grill outside as well. Chop peppers.

Whisk together oil, lime juice, soy sauce, and cumin in a large bowl and stir in quinoa, bell peppers, cilantro, scallions, and salt and pepper to taste. 

 Modernity is so good.

Fourth of July Blueberry Pie

Thanks, Martha Stewart, for improving my Saturday with this fantastic Blueberry Pie recipe. The pate brisse crust takes quite a while, as there is a good deal of refrigeration time involved, but that gave me more time to go to the Farmers Market and get this great haul of veggies:

And of course, around here a trip to market means a trip to the adjacent playground, so I got in some exercise to burn off the pie and ice cream. Plus, blueberries are full of antioxidants and supposedly they improve your mood, so I'm healthier and happier all around. I can't imagine a better Saturday morning.

Tomatoes and Education

It's fascinating how education changes our opinions.

This is true of everything from the Affordable Care Act to vegetables. As a supporter of health care equality for all, I'm frustrated when I read that the majority of Americans support the individual provisions of the ACA, but because of the propaganda they hear on t.v. or in other media, do not support the law as a whole. I strongly believe that if educated about the ACA, only the most cruel among us would chose to deny care to 45 million people, to deny care to people with pre-existing conditions, to take away coverage from people when they fall ill, or to systematically discriminate against women by forcing them to pay higher rates for no reason other than gender, which are all things that the ACA protects us from, and are all things that exist in our current system and will remain if ACA is repealed. I have yet to hear an argument for why the Affordable Care Act is not a good thing, unless the argument involves lies such as the always hilarious Sarah Pailn's claim that there are "death panels" involved. And I'm fascinated to hear the conservative rhetoric today about repeal. This was a conservative bill, the ideas of which were originally introduced by the conservative Heritage Fountadion, was the same style as Romney's health care in Massachusetts, and was approved by a conservative Supreme Court which in their written opinion discussed limitations on the Commerce Clause- a huge conservative victory. Why are they complaining?

In the parallel world of food (also related to health), I read a fascinating NPR story on mass produced tomatoes, and why they taste so poor. I read this while eating lunch on the patio and eating leftover pizza that we made with farmers market heirloom tomatoes and arugula. We did cheat and bought the Trader Joe's pre-made refrigerated pizza dough, but topped it with tomatoes of all colors and sizes. The purple ones were particularly delicious, which got me thinking about why people think they want a uniformly red store-bought tomato when heirloom local varieties are so much better. My best guess is education- that people are not aware of what they are missing. That combined with marketing and habit. I'm still waiting for my three varieties of heirloom tomatoes to ripen in my garden, but tomorrow is market day, and I can't wait to pick up more tasty orange, yellow, and purple varieties for the week, and now, thanks to the story linked above, I know to look for green shoulders. Education.

Super Simple Weeknight Pizza:
Roll out refrigerated whole wheat pizza dough (either your own, or store bought) on a pizza stone. Top lightly with pizza sauce, this could be tomato sauce, pureed tomatoes from a can or jar, or store bought pizza sauce. Toss on a liberal amount of chopped tomatoes (about two cups), top with chopped arugula (we bought one bunch from our farmer, so about two cups), add about a cup of shredded mozzarella and sprinkle with dried oregano and basil. Bake for about 12-15 minutes. Yum!

India Mustard and the Added Benefits of Veggies

As the temperatures creep up here in the Midwest, the early season vegetables are disappearing from my garden and the farmers market, and the summer produce is starting to be harvested. This year I did quite well with early crops- the snow peas in particular were bountiful, but bok choi, radishes, daikon, spring onions, and India mustard all gave great yields. As it was warm quite early we struggled with cabbage moths, but I still think I'll get some cabbages in the coming weeks. The broccoli may not head this year due to the heat, and my lettuce, usually one of the easier crops, was decimated by the moth larvae, though I still got a few salads.

Aside from the peas, from which I took the fifth and final harvest two weeks ago, India mustard might be my favorite early crop for this year. It's the first time I've grown it and it grows fast, thrives in the cool spring weather, and is pretty much bug resistant. We used it for Indian greens (similar to these), garlic greens, and with a dijon-dill sauce. I harvested the leaves individually, allowing the plants to continue growing, which as the weather warmed resulted in getting the flowers of the plant, pictured above. It was such a pleasant side benefit to have the willowy stems and little yellow flowers gracing the mantle in the past few weeks. These are starting to lose their flowers, and will probably make their way to the compost pile in the coming days, but even the grassy light stems are a great way to bring a breezy garden feel to the interior.

Veggie garden

My own veggie garden as it recovers from the July heat wave- in the upcoming weeks (barring any weather disasters) we should have eggplants, tons of cherry tomatoes, a fair amount of sweet green and red peppers, and gobs of jalepenos and habaneros. Hard to believe that my tomato plants are almost as tall as me!