this year's quinces

My quince tree did well this year--I picked 2700g of quinces altogether, leaving one stunted, under-ripe one behind. The squirrels seem to have learned that quinces are sour and hard and unlike apples, so they've stopped picking one and throwing it away in disgust after ruining it by taking a single bite.



The first thing I did with them was to include one in a batch of baked fruit, along with apples, pears, prunes and dried apricots. A single quince really enhanced the flavor!



Then I made some jam according to Christine Ferber's version of Nostradamus's recipe. This recipe takes five days--each day you simmer it for a couple of minutes, then let it rest till the next day--and I finally finished it today. It got a little singed on the bottom of the pan, but still tastes really good.

According to the Telegraph, greenish quinces will ripen off the tree, so I'm letting my remaining quinces sit in a bowl and perfume my house till they're ripe enough to make some quince vodka and roast quinces.

health-food chocolate pudding

 I've made this pudding a couple of times lately, and it really does seem pretty healthy for how good it is. I used to make puddings out of tofu sometimes, and they were never satisfactory as there was always a jarring note of soy. In this recipe the avocado fits right in, and the chia seeds add a pleasantly tapioca-y texture. It would even be suitable for a raw-foodist if you used raw cacao instead of the regular cocoa I had on hand.

 

Chocolate Pudding
serves 1-3, depending on your appetites
3/4C + 1/3C milk (I used almond milk)
 3T chia seeds
1 small, ripe avocado, peeled and seeded
4 dates, seeded and torn apart
1/4C cocoa or cacao
1/4t cinnamon and a pinch of salt

Mix the chia seeds with 3/4C milk in a big bowl and let soak about half an hour. Try to remember to give them a whisk every few minutes as you proceed, so they don't clump together too much.

 Whiz the remaining ingredients--including the 1/3C milk--together in your blender till they're really smooth. Stir into the soaked chia seeds. Cover and let rest in the fridge for a while. It will taste unpleasantly of raw cocoa at first, so don't bother to taste for seasoning till it's been there at least half an hour.

apologies, and a recipe

I just realized that I haven't posted in over a month! If any of my followers have been fretting and wondering what I'm up to, I'm truly sorry. I've been taking lots of pictures with blog posts in mind, but until today hadn't even transferred them from my camera to the computer, let alone to flickr and thence to the blog.



I made a pretty good cucumber-eggplant dish--a good use of all the cucumbers and eggplants I got in my vegetable box recently--and took a picture so I could tell you about it.



I made a couple of kinds of jam--Victoria plum with star anise and vanilla, and peach melba with cardamom--and planned to tell all about it.



I've just been too lazy, though, till today. Today I mean to sew together the sweater I've been knitting for the last several months (above is pictured the half-knitted collar). That task seems much more onerous than a mere blog post, so I decided to get my pictures in order and give you a nice recipe for hemp seed tabbouleh. I've made this a couple of times and really like it. It's not quite the same, texturally, as regular tabbouleh with bulgar, but has the advantages of being gluten-free and higher in omega-3 fatty acids.

Hemp Tabbouleh
makes enough for about 4 people

1/2C hemp seed, soaked in water for a couple of hours, then thoroughly drained
a small bunch of parsley, finely chopped
a handful of mint leaves, chopped
a medium cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped
about 12oz tomatoes, chopped
2 or 3 green onions, thinly sliced
a couple of Anaheim peppers, or the equivalent, seeded and chopped
a pinch of allspice
1/2t cinnamon
salt
juice of a lemon
a couple of glugs of olive oil

Mix everything together, then let sit for a while before you taste for seasoning. Does it need more salt? More lemon? Adjust, then serve.

another hippie salad dressing

Here's a recipe for one of my favorite salad dressings, Annie's Goddess. It's really easy, and is better than Annie's in a couple of ways: my version is cheap, and it can be gluten-free if you use wheat-free tamari.

Goddess Dressing

makes about 1 1/3C

120g tahini
1T tamari
2T apple cider vinegar
1/2C water
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
2 or 3 sprigs of parsley--leaves only
pepper

If you have an immersion blender you can make this right in a wide-mouthed jar. Just add the ingredients in the order written, then blend till the parsley's pretty finely chopped. Otherwise blend it in your big blender, being careful not to thoroughly emulsify the parsley into the rest of it, and transfer to a jar. When it's first made it's the right thickness for salad dressing, but as it rests in the fridge it thickens up so that it's more like a dip. I like it like that, and roll my lettuce leaves to dip in a little cup of it, but you could always add more water if you want it to be runnier.

I couldn't decide which photo to use to illustrate this post: the top on was taken with a toy camera, and the watermelon's the only thing in focus, but I sort of like it; the bottom one is a better representation, I guess, but it's kind of dull.

zucchini spelt salad

I got zucchini in my vegetable box last week because I forgot to ask them for a substitute in time. Since I hate zucchini I had to think of a way to prepare it which would disguise its flavor. This recipe from the Los Angeles Times looked good, except that the zucchini would still taste of zucchini if prepared as written, so I changed it around a little and was really pleased with the result:

Spelt Salad with Zucchini and Augula

180g cracked spelt*
450ml water
250g zucchini, halved lengthwise
1 spring onion, halved lengthwise
juice of half a lemon
1T olive oil
salt and pepper
2t fresh marjoram, minced
half a bunch of arugula, torn
40g pine nuts**, toasted

Cook the spelt with the water in your rice cooker on the brown rice cycle, or on the stove for about 25 minutes. Meanwhile prepare the vegetables. Rub the cut surfaces of the zucchini with salt and let rest for at least half an hour. Brush the spring onion with olive oil and cook on a stripy pan till softened. When the zucchini's time is up, squeeze the juice from it as best you can, brush the pieces with oil and cook on your stripy pan till no longer springy but still al dente. After they've cooled sufficiently, slice the onion and zucchini into thickish slices--maybe 1/4".

When the spelt's done cooking, transfer it to a big bowl and toss with the olive oil, lemon juice, marjoram, and salt and pepper. Add the cooked veg, but let it cool a while before mixing in the arugula. Scatter the pine nuts over the top right before serving.

* I cracked it myself with my little mill; if you don't have a mill you could substitute cracked wheat or coarse bulgar. If you use bulgar, cook it on the white rice cycle, or for 10 minutes on the stove.

** Trader Joe's now has pine nuts from Korea, which should not cause 'pine mouth' as that's associated with pine nuts from China.

a whiny day

My Hotpoint stove (you can see it above, hiding behind the fan) has been wearing out for a while; two of the burners have gotten pretty wimpy, and one cracked right in half, making me afraid to use it. I asked my landlady if she could get me a couple of new elements, and after she looked into it she decided that it would be cheaper to get me a whole new stove than to fix my current one up. She found a bargain Frigidaire similar to my Hotpoint at the Sears in Chehalis, and arranged for it to be delivered on Monday between 11:30 and 1:30.

I worked on Monday, so Annie said she would wait at my apartment to let the stove men in and keep Maria from escaping. I got up at the crack of dawn on Monday to empty out my stove (it has a big cupboard on the side, and a big drawer underneath, so most of my pots and pans fit in it) and clear a path from the front door to the stove.



At work, I checked my phone for messages at noon and there was a voicemail from my landlady saying that the stove would not be coming at all that day, and had been rescheduled to Friday. I'm glad I checked my messages! I called Annie right up. She hadn't been there very long but was already bored, so she was happy to go home.

The stove was supposed to come between 11:00 and 1:00 on Friday, so I planned a day of reading and knitting and being alert for the stove men. I was afraid to play music too loud, lest I miss their knock. They had not arrived by 2:00, so I called them up to see when I should expect them. I had to try a couple of times, the second time impersonating my landlady since the woman I got at the call center in India would only speak to the person who had actually ordered the stove. She said she would send the men a message to call me and tell me how they were coming. I hadn't heard from them by 3:00, so I tried the call center again and this time was informed that the stove was not coming at all! When I expostulated she said she would give my landlady a $30 gift certificate to make up for my inconvenience, and then said the stove men would try again on Tuesday.



My kitchen was still taken-apart, with all the counters and tables covered with the contents of my stove. I decided to try to get by without putting things temporarily away, so over the weekend I did most of my cooking on the floor, like an Indian lady. I actually quite liked doing it except that I had to keep getting up and down, as my stove and sink are high and require standing. Maybe I should have asked my landlady for a traditional Indian stove!

Sears called the night before to say that the stove should arrive between 11:30 and 1:30. I was prepared for another long wait and lots of phone calls to India, but The Sears truck pulled up right at noon. I was so pleased!



The stove men were very efficient, so getting the old stove out and the new one in only took about half an hour. Their invoice said they were supposed to drop off the new stove in its carton, leaving me to plug it in myself, but I whined and pled and they agreed to hook it up.



Below is my new stove on the morning after delivery, when all I had made with it was a pot of tea (it boiled the water very quickly). So far it seems pretty nice. The oven only goes up to 500° instead of 550° like my old one, but I think I can fiddle with the thermostat to make it a little hotter. Its main deficiency I've discovered so far is that it doesn't have an electrical outlet where I can plug in my mixer or immersion blender.

At the very bottom of this post you can see the first bread I made with it, just this morning. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like it turned out well.

maque choux

(or is it 'maquechoux'?)

Annie and I had our Fourth of July party nearly a week late this year, since I worked on the actual day. We skipped the baked beans and sauerkraut salad, but otherwise made our usual menu: potato salad, coleslaw, weenie bread (challah dough with vegetarian weenies embedded, baked in a Pullman pan), watermelon (which we forgot to serve), and maque choux. The first time I made maque choux I carefully followed the recipe in Talk about Good, and it wasn't very good. Ever since then I've made it pretty much the same way, except that I leave out the sugar and don't cook it nearly as long, and it has always been very good indeed.

Maque Choux

makes a lot, but it makes good leftovers

6 ears of corn, husked and desilked as much as possible
1T olive oil
a small onion, chopped
3 ribs of celery, thinly sliced
a big green bell pepper, chopped
4 small ripe tomatoes, or a couple of bigger ones, peeled and chopped
salt and pepper and optional cayenne

Cut the kernels from the corn cobs into a big bowl, and then use the dull side of your knife to scrape the milk from them. While you're working on the corn, start cooking the onion on medium high heat in the olive oil in a big frying pan (one with a lid). When the onion's about ready add the celery, then the bell pepper and tomato. Let everything cook till it's done how you like it, then add the corn along with salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste. Stir around a little bit, then cover the pan and let cook on medium heat for about seven minutes. Taste for seasoning, then serve!