favorite fennel salad

I got a nice fennel in my vegetable box and decided to make my old favorite, fennel-grapefruit salad. Here’s the recipe:

1 medium fennel
2 grapefruits
A pinch apiece (to taste) of cumin, Aleppo pepper, and salt
Olive oil, a couple of tablespoons

Slice the fennel nice and thin. I used a mandoline, but that’s a little tricky and scary so be careful if you do it that way. Let the slices rest in a bowl of cold water with a couple of ice cubes added—this transforms them from leathery to crisp.

Meanwhile, supreme the grapefruit and add it to your salad bowl. Squeeze the juice from the membranes into the bowl before eating or discarding them.

Toast the cumin. I used Wild Mountain Cumin, which is both very aromatic and very small, so it doesn’t really need to be ground after toasting. If you use regular cumin, crush it lightly before adding it to the grapefruit along with the chile and salt.

Drain the fennel and give a spin in your salad spinner, then add it to the grapefruit and stir it up.

That’s it!

more kimchi

Inspired by my success with the cabbage kimchi, I made a couple of other kinds. The middle one is pineapple, a quick, unfermented kimchi from Koreatown. It's already ready to eat, so I've tried it--it's zippy and funky, and pretty spicy but not as hot as you'd guess from its color. The other two jars are both stuffed cucumbers from my old standby, The Kimchi Cookbook. I made a half recipe, following it exactly except that I added a little chiffonaded basil that needed using up. It has to sit out for a couple of days before it'll be ready, but I expect it to be good. It was pretty quick to make considering its fancy appearance. It's resting in my new pickle kit I got at my favorite grocery store.

yummy kimchi

I haven’t made kimchi in quite a while,  but my grocery store no longer carries the two good kinds I used to get (Kimchee Girl and Britt’s Pickles) so I had to either make my own or trek off of Capitol Hill to find some to my liking. Kimchi’s quick, fun and easy to make—much more so than sauerkraut— so I opted to make my own. I wound up going on an outing to H Mart anyway, for my napa cabbage and Korean chives, but ended up with almost a gallon of kimchi!

For a long time I made kimchi and it was sour and spicy and tasty, but never ‘stinky’ like you hear it can be. I always kind of longed for the stink, and then six years ago I got The Kimchi Cookbook and discovered the secret: you just make a little porridge by cooking a small amount of sweet rice flour  in a larger amount of water, then add that to the mix! It’s a really nice cookbook, with lots of recipes for unusual kimchis like butternut squash, and Asian pear, as well as recipes to use your results. I’m going to make kimchi tofu stew tonight for my upcoming work lunches.

best-yet maque choux

Every year I make maque choux for our Fourth of July picnic, and every year Annie tells me that it’s my best ever. This year I think she may be right! I did a couple of things differently from what I’ve done in the past, and thought I should record it for posterity so that it’s just as good next year. (The maque choux is on the very bottom of the above photo of Rachael’s plate)

The things I did different were minor—I parbaked the corn for ease of shucking and cutting the kernels off, used fancy fake butter instead of oil, and added a pinch of  pimentón to simulate bacon. 

Yummy, Yummy Maque Choux

5 ears of corn

Oleo or Miyoko’s cultured vegan butter

Small onion, diced

Green bell pepper, diced

Garlic to taste, minced

14 1/2 oz can diced tomatoes in pulp 

Salt

Black pepper

Pinch pimentón dulce

Bake the unshucked corn for about 10 minutes at 425°F. 

While it cools, sauté the onion, bell pepper, and garlic in the oleo in a big pot with a lid.  

Shuck the corn, getting as much of the silks off as you can. Cut off the kernels into a big bowl, then scrape off the cobs with the back of the knife to get any remaining pulp. Add it to the pan, stir it around for a little bit, then add the remaining ingredients. Give it a last stir, let it come to a simmer, then cook covered, on medium-low, for 5-10 minutes. Taste for salt (canned tomatoes vary a lot in their saltiness), and it’s ready to serve. Good hot or at room temp. 

2015's Xmas cookies

This year's cookies are pretty much the same as last year's--windmills, pandan-flavored spritz from Betty Crocker, cinnamon roll cookies, and the best-ever pfeffernüsse from The Spice Cookbook. I intended to make some halvah cookies too, but couldn't find any halvah on such short notice (I had to do all my baking on the 23rd). I was resigned to only making four kinds of cookies when I noticed, on the page right next to the pfeffernüsse recipe, spiced pecanettes! They're just like Mexican wedding cookies with pecans for the nuts and a very subtle addition of spice. They were a hit with Annie and Rachael, and pretty quick and easy to make.

long-delayed lemon bar recipe

I first made these low-starch, vegan lemon bars for Rachael's birthday (she had a Harry Potter themed dessert party, which they didn't quite fit into). I wanted to write down the recipe for you all right away, but had trouble with the formatting of my blog post and eventually abandoned the idea. Yesterday's mango sorbet post--done entirely in my phone--turned out so well that I decided to try again. Here goes: 

The crust is an adaptation from this recipe, while the filling is from Veganomicon, one of my favorite cookbooks. 

Crust:

     3/4C (60g) dessicated coconut (the unsweetened kind in little shreds)

     2 1/4C (185g) almond meal

     pinch of salt

     3T maple syrup

     3T coconut oil

Whiz everyting together in a food processor till it begins to look like dough. Scrape out into a greased 10"x10" pan, press in with your fingers till it's nice and flat with no holes and goes up a little at the sides, then bake for 14-16 minutes at 350F°. Let cool while you make the filling.

Filling:

     1 1/3C water

     1T agar powder (You can get it from Amazon or in Chinatown. I usually get Telephone Brand or Gold Cup Brand, 99¢/25g) 

     1 1/4C (245g) sugar

     1/8t turmeric

     2/3C lemon juice (from 2-3 lemons, depending on their size and juiciness)

     finely grated zest from two of  the lemons

     3T arrowroot

     1/4 milk of your choice. (In the photo below I used almond milk, while in the one above I used hemp milk. Maybe that's why it's a funny greenish color? 

Boil the water, agar, sugar, and turmeric together till everything's dissolved. Add the remaining ingredients, turn the heat down, and simmer, stirring constantly, till it's nicely thickened--about five minutes. 

Pour the filling over the crust and let cool off for a while till it stops steaming, then put it in the fridge for at least an hour. These keep their texture best when chilled.

yummy, yummy mango sorbet

There are bargain boxes of mangoes at the Viet Wah lately, so Annie and I keep winding up with 14 mangoes to get through in a hurry. An easy way to use up five or six is to make a batch of mango sorbet. Here's my recipe:

To make a little more than a quart, peel, deseed, and roughly chop 1500g ripe mangoes. Thoroughly whiz in your blender along with 150g sugar (white sugar will look prettiest; palm sugar will taste nice but detract from the bright, clear mango orange), the juice of two lines, and a tablespoon of tequila or rum (I've tried it with both and think I like the rum a little better). Transfer to a bowl, cover, and chill. Once it's really cold, run it through your ice cream making machine. Transfer to tupperwares to harden up a little in the freezer. So yum!

Xmas cookies

I hadn't planned to make any Xmas cookies this year, other than the obligatory windmills for Rachael, but then Annie texted me this picture of her spritz failure:

I rushed to make some nice tree-shaped spritz from Betty Crocker--only modified by using flax egg and adding green food coloring and pandan extract--so I could show her how it's done.

Buoyed by my success, I decided to make some rose-flavored Strasbourgs from the booklet that came with my cookie press. They were a little trickier, as the dough would not break off from the press unless squirted onto a bare, un-Silpatted cookie sheet. It took me a while to figure this out.

The recipe's very simple: 7 oz oleo, 1.5 oz powdered sugar, 10.5 oz flour, vanilla to taste. I added rose essence and pink coloring, plus water sufficient to get the pink mixed in. Once spritzed onto cold, bare cookie sheets, bake at 400F for about five minutes.

I ended up making a fourth kind of cookie as well, as when I was searching for the windmill link I  saw that in 2010 'cinnamon rolls' had been Rachael's favorite.

a soup not to Annie's liking

I used to make this soup for Annie and Rachael a lot--it was quick and easy and, I thought, pretty tasty--till Annie confessed that she didn't really like it. I stopped making it for about twenty years, but remembered it when I got lots of rutabagas  and parsnips in my vegetable box. I needed to use up some veg to make room in the fridge so I made a big pot of greens and another big pot of this soup. It was just as I remembered it, and I couldn't imagine why Annie didn't like it as well as I did! I think it, along with a nice, vinegary salad and some wholemeal bread, would be an ideal easy meal for this time of year. 

Root Soup

These ingredients are all mere suggestions except for the crucial potato. Use what you have on hand that sounds good to you. 

Two each: potatoes, carrots, peeled rutabagas, parsnips; all cleaned, trimmed, and roughly chopped

Onions, leeks, garlic to taste; prepared as above

Salt (plenty), pepper, nutritional yeast 

Butter or margarine for serving

Put everything except the butter in a big soup pan, add water to not quite cover, bring to the boil, then put on the lid and let simmer for about twenty minutes, till everything's very tender. If you have an imersion blender, use that to purée the soup; otherwise you can do it in batches in your regular blender or just mash it with a potato masher.

Serve with a knob of butter or margarine. 

a Quick 'n' EZ lunch

Long ago , I read in an English salad cookbook at Value Village that your children will like your coleslaw better if you add curry powder and grapes to it.  I didn't buy the book, but tried the tip out when I got home and it was a success--Rachael gobbled up my improved coleslaw!

I've been getting some nice cabbages lately, and had the above in mind when I made the following, very tasty, coleslaw. It's not grape season now, of course, so I used raisins instead. Celery would be nice in it, too, if you want to make it more Waldorfy. This recipe serves one as a solitary lunch, more if you're having it with company and serving other things in addition.

1/4 medium cabbage, finely sliced (or grated if you prefer soft salad to crunchy)

big handful raisins (or about 1C halved grapes)

big handful walnuts, very roughly chopped

1 apple, cored, cut into 1/8ths, and sliced

1 1/2T Veganaise

1T apple cider vinegar

2t agave nectar

big pinch salt

rounded teaspoon curry powder

Mix everything together.

three green things

Here are three green things I've made lately, all of which I liked well enough to note down here so that I won't forget about them in the future. Maybe one of them will even interest some of my readers!

First, roasted cabbage. An easy and tasty way to fix cabbage if you've already got your oven going for something else. That stuff that looks like cat food is walnut-miso sauce.

Cut your cabbage into eight to twelve wedges, depending on its size--cut out some of the core if it seems too thick--and arrange them on a silpat-or-tin-foil-lined cookie sheet. Brush the cut surfaces with your choice of oil, then turn them over and grease the other side. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake in a hottish oven (400-475°F, depending on the requirements of whatever else you're cooking) for 10-15 minutes per side (it will vary according to the heat of the oven and the size of the cabbage wedges). Meanwhile, make your sauce: in either a suribachi or a small food processor, crush a large handful of walnuts, then mix in about a tablespoon of miso (I used brown rice miso) and a little less of rice vinegar.

This was a Paula Wolfert recipe from the Chronicle. I had all the ingredients on hand except the parsley and I thought it would be a good use for my young kale, red dandelion leaves, and baby bok choy. I didn't make it exactly as directed--I cut my leaves up more coarsely, didn't add enough olive oil to make the dish the consistency of creamed spinach, and substituted extra cilantro for the missing parsley--but it still turned out very well. Even with the preponderance of dandelion, the lemoniness ensured that it was not too bitter.

Finally, I made fir and cedar vodkas. They're only a day old, so it'll be a week or so before I can try them out in a drink. Firtinis or cedarlets? The fir vodka--on the left--is certainly less pretty than the cedar vodka, isn't it?

If you should want to try this out for yourself, know that yews are the only toxic gymnosperms. Some taste nicer than others, of course, so that would be your main criterion. Spruce or juniper might be nice, and you could throw in a little rosemary even though it's actually a mint.

Super Bowl XLVIII

The Warner-Rosses celebrating the Seahawks' triumph.

a birthday cake

I make the following cake for Little Debbie every year for her birthday, and though it's a little sweet for my taste it's always a great success. Nurse Patty asked me for the recipe and I'm finally setting it down for her--I hope it's not too late! It's adapted from a recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance. Note for non-vegans: if you don't want to get special milks and creams just for this cake, I'm sure it would work just as well with regular milk, and half and half and butter for the frosting. I always make it with spelt flour, because Deb doesn't eat wheat, but all-purpose would work fine. If you want to make a smaller version, multiply the recipe by 2/3 and bake it for a little less time in a 9"9" pan.

Li'l Deb's Chocolate Cherry Cake
makes one fat, fudgey 9"x13" cake
300g (2 1/2C) white spelt flour
70g (1C) Dutch-processed cocoa
1 1/2t baking powder
1 1/2t baking soda
2/3t salt
600ml (2 1/2C) soy or almond milk
200ml (1 scant cup) canola oil
12oz jar cherry jam, divided
canned unsweetened or barely sweetened cherries (I use Trader Joe's morellos), about 1C, drained
1T vanilla extract
350g (2C) sugar

for the frosting:
1C soy creamer or thick, homemade almond milk
1/3C Earth Balance or other tasty margarine
16oz chocolate chips

Heat your oven to 350°F and grease a 9"x13" baking pan.

Sift the dry ingredients together into a big bowl. Mix the milk, oil, 1/2C of the jam, and the sugar together in another bowl till the jam's mostly broken up, then mix it all into the dry ingredients. Stir in the drained canned cherries and pour into your prepared pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes. Let cool in the pan.

Meanwhile, make the frosting. Bring the creamer and margarine to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Take off the heat and stir in the chocolate chips till they're melted and it's all nice and smooth. Let cool while the cake bakes.

When the cake's cooled to barely warm, spread the rest of the jam over it (this might be easier if you put the jam in a little bowl and break it up with a fork first). Pour the frosting over it all, then let it cool really thoroughly--it should set into a nice, fudgey ganache.

a spring tonic

Yesterday I went nettle-picking in Interlaken Park (aka 'the ravine') for the second time this season. The first time I didn't get very many as the plants were still very small and most of the places they normally grow were freshly covered with bark, but this time I got a Chico Bag full--enough for a big pot of revivifying soup.

If you should decide to pick some nettles yourself, don't believe the thing about grasping the nettle--I know from sad experience that it's a big lie and one should always bring along some sturdy gloves when planning to have dealings with nettles. My nice deerskin gardening gloves work well.



My friend Little Debbie gave me a couple of eggs from her hens Daphne and Lilac (I think Lilac's egg is the smaller, really pretty one that looks kind of like it was cooked with onion skin). Since I don't normally eat eggs and these were a special treat I wanted to do something festive with them and decided to make a nettle frittata with the fruits of my initial harvest.



When I get home with a bag of nettles I want to get them cleaned and cooked as quickly as possible so nobody gets stung by mistake. Wearing heavy dish-washing gloves, pull the leaves from the thick stems and rinse them thoroughly in a big bowl of cool water. Rinse a couple of times, till there's no grit at the bottom of the bowl. The rinse water will look kind of rusty. When they're clean, put them in a heavy pan with the water clinging to them plus another 1/4 cup or so, and cook over medium-low to medium heat till they're limp and sting-free. Check them and stir them around after about five minutes. With my stove and pan it takes 9 minutes. You can immediately proceed to make your intended dish or let the nettles cool, then squeeze out the (very dark) water and put the nettles in the fridge till you're ready to deal with them. Save the water if you're making soup, otherwise you can drink it--it may be practically black, but it tastes like very minerally leaves.



My frittata was simple to make once I had my cooked nettles. I cooked a thinly sliced shallot over medium heat with a little olive oil in a 8" nonstick frying pan, then added my roughly chopped cooked nettles and the two eggs which I'd whisked with a little salt and pepper. If I were a cheese-eater, I might have added a little feta. When it seems nearly cooked but the top's still slimy, slide it onto a plate then invert it back into the pan so the top can cook.



My soup was a little more complex, and I didn't measure the ingredients in advance, but I'll set it down here anyway in case you want to give it a try.

Nettle Soup
a couple of shallots, minced
half a small celery-root, trimmed, peeled, and diced
1T oleo
a big bag of nettles, prepared as above and nettle-water saved
1C raw cashews, soaked in the nettle water for at least half an hour
salt and pepper
half a lemon's worth of juice
chives, for garnish

Cook the shallot and celery-root with the oleo in a large heavy pot over medium-low heat till it's tender. Add the netles, cashews and nettle water, salt and pepper, and about a quart of water (use your judgement about the amount of water, as you may have ended up with more or less nettles than I did), Bring to a simmer and cook for about five more minutes. Transfer to a blender (unless you have a big blender you'll have to do this in batches), add the lemon juice, and whiz till smooth. Serve immediately, with some snipped chives scattered over.

quick and easy braised carrots and parsnips

I fixed the above carrots and parsnips for my work lunches this week, because I had a lot of parsnips from my vegetable box to use up, and was pleasantly surprised at how tasty they were for a truly quick and easy dish. Parsnip-haters could make it with just carrots, or try substituting some nice rutabagas. This much will serve 2-4 people, depending on your appetites and what you're eating along with it.

a small onion, julienned
1T oleo
parsnips, about a pound, trimmed, peeled and cut into pieces about 2"x1/2"x1/2"
carrots, about a pound, trimmed and cut into pieces about 2"x1/2"x1/2"
1T tamari
1/3C water
a few grinds of pepper

Cook the onion with the oleo over medium heat in a frying pan which has a lid and is big enough for the remaining ingredients to easily fit in. When it's translucent and beginning to turn golden, add the parsnips and carrots and let them cook for a few minutes, stirring frequently, till their color begins to change. Add the water, tamari and pepper, put the lid on the pan, and turn the heat down to medium-low. Check after five minutes to make sure there's still a little water in the bottom of the pan, and let cook for a total of about seven minutes--till the thickest parts of the carrots are just tender.

February birthdays

Rachael's birthday was last Wednesday (she's 24!), and her sweetie Tommy's birthday was the week before, so we had a joint party on Friday. Poor Annie had a prior engagement and couldn't come, so it ended up being just the three of us. I forgot to take any pictures of the birthday children during the party--I documented the food in advance so as not to irk Rachael with photographic delays--so the above illustration is from a couple of weeks previous.



We had cauliflower salad from Ottolenghi and Tamimi's new cookbook, Jerusalem. It turned out really well, and Tommy said he'd never had such tasty cauliflower.



We also had the above roasted carrot salad, a Jamie Oliver recipe. My oven was going all day--almost everything I fixed was roasted or baked, and they all required different temperatures! This salad was good too, though a little more work than the cauliflower.



We had some nice challah,



and the main dish was vegan lasagna from Veganomicon with extra spinach and red sauce.



For the birthday cake we had Clementine cake, and some of David Lebovitz's chocolate sorbet to go with it. Rachael's not a sorbet or chocolate lover, so I tried to interest her in this dish by pointing out that it was a molecular gastronomy thing, a variant of Hervé This' famous chocolate mousse, and she just said 'Ew, chocolate mouse? Rosemary's Baby? Ew!' But she thought the cake was super, so that was good.



>

nut cheese

I have newish raw food book, Practically Raw, which I highly recommend. It's not just a bunch of salads and smoothies and dehydrator lasagnas--there are lots of really inventive recipes which an average person like me would never think up herself. There's a whole chapter on kale chips (chocolate! sour cream and onion!), and another on hummus. The recipes aren't entirely raw--for instance, she has three base recipes for hummus, one of them the traditional variety with cooked garbanzo beans--and she gives tips for how to use your oven if you don't have a dehydrator.

I'm currently excited about nut cheese. Vegan 'cheese' recipes are usually bland chèvre or ricotta imitations, or else nutritional yeasty sauces. The nut cheese in this book are fermented and actually get kind of a cheesy taste even before you add additional flavorings. Here's my slightly modified version:

Brazil Nut Cheese
makes about one cup, or 4 generous servings
1C brazil nuts (or use cashews if you want to have less fat and selenium)
1/2C filtered or bottled water (you don't want the chlorine to kill your germs!)
1t probiotic powder
2t nutritional yeast
1t kosher salt
1t lemon juice

Soak the nuts 6-8 hours (2-4 if you're using cashews), then drain. Whiz them in the blender with your filtered water and probiotic powder till very smooth, then transfer to a cheesecloth or nut milk bag-lined bowl. Let it rest for about an hour, giving everything time to settle and mingle, then set the cheesecloth or bag in a strainer over the bowl. Wrap the bag or cloth over the top of the nut paste, then add a little weight (I used a 5.5oz cat food can). Put in a warm place and leave it for 24-48 hours, till it's fermented to your liking. Scrape it out of the cheesecloth and into a fresh bowl, and stir in the remaining ingredients. Refrigerate.

Pictured above is the Mexican Cheddar variation, which has chili powder, onion powder and things added to give it a kind of nacho cheesy flavor. It was an excellent work treat along with some juice pulp crackers.

a couple of recipe suggestions

My computer has been broken since mid-November, so I'm going to try posting this from my tablet. It's more work, so the formatting might not turn out just right.... I just wanted to tell you real quickly about a couple of really tasty recipes I fixed from the New York Times yesterday when Ana came over to cast on for our hat knitalong and have lunch.

I made this cauliflower dish exactly as written except that I used some fake, vegan parmesan in place of the cheese. The parmesan tastes just like the kind you shake from the green can, but it worked out well with my cauliflower. The cauliflower got a pleasant, surprisingly fluffy texture from being boiled, then baked.

I also made this roasted carrot salad, and it too was a real success. I left out the olives as we were already having a lot in the cauliflower, and I had some radicchio on hand so used it in place of the arugula. It was so pretty and red and orange, I decided to make it even redder by adding some pomegranate arils. So yummy!

an exciting week on my block

Friday before last I went to the store in the morning and saw a bunch of police cars arriving at the end of my block. Throughout the day there were more and more of them, and a big police bus. I was worried that there had been a terrible murder or something, so I looked at the Capitol Hill blog and found that my neighbor--the one with all the signs, who Rachael and I had long ago pegged as a suspicious character--had an eBay business selling stolen computers and bicycles. Rachael and I were pleased to be proven right, of course, and I was relieved that it was not a more distressing crime.



Yesterday I had Rachael, Tommy, and Dakki over for tea. I was standing at the stove pouring water into the teapot when I noticed smoke wafting past my window. I wondered if my next-door neighbors were cooking out on their deck, and Tommy asked if my neighbors had a fireplace. We decided we'd better investigate, and went downstairs to discover smoke billowing from the front steps! Rachael called 911 while I gathered Marigold (who now goes by her new middle name, Sheena) and Tommy rousted Dakki. My downstairs neighbor had been playing video games with his headphones on and hadn't noticed the smell, but I banged on his door hard enough to get his attention and he came out and managed to rip the insulating tape off of the outdoor faucet so we could squirt water under the porch till the firemen got there.



I forgot to put shoes on in my excitement, and Rachael wouldn't let me go back to get them, but a kindly neighbor gave me some flip flops (it was really cold out). My neighbor on the other side was worried about Sheena's welfare and offered to take her in if the house ended up burning down. They were so nice! Fortunately, the firemen got it out quickly and the smoke smell is fading, so all is well. I'm so glad I was home when it happened, though--it got smokey (smoky?) so quickly, I bet poor Sheena would have died of smoke inhalation before the firemen got there if we hadn't been alert.

sauerrüben

I made this sauerkraut about a month ago, and I think it ties with my seaweed sauerkraut for the best yet. I didn't write down the exact weights of all the ingredients, but I do have an approximation so I can maybe replicate it later. If you like beets, this is the sauerkraut for you!

I scrubbed and shredded 8 medium beets, a small red cabbage, and 1/2 a small green cabbage. I added 3 cored and roughly chopped Gala apples, and ended up with about 2 kg total. I mixed in 17g salt, and some bay leaves, tarragon, marjoram, and sliced green onions. No matter how I squashed it I couldn't get quite enough juice to thoroughly cover it, so I added a little bit of water, maybe 1/2C.

After 2 weeks it didn't seem quite ready, and after 3 weeks the juice was so sour I thought maybe I'd let it go too long, but it turned out to be just right. This amount exactly filled up a half-gallon jar.