Cooking, Cont'd

I was going to post another recipe on Friday, but it was after 5 and I needed to go home and cook dinner for some friends. And today I don't have this recipe with me, so I'm going to wing it a little bit. I'll come back later and doublecheck the accuracy of what I write.


Southwest Corn Hash
Source: The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without by Mollie Katzen

Notes
This cookbook is great because everything is super easy and fast to throw together, yet extremely flavorful. The dishes are mostly sides and so far I've been very happy with almost everything I've made from it. This particular dish is great for cooking in-season in the spring and summer and it was really, really yummy.

Ingredients
2 ears fresh corn, scraped off ears (you could probably use about 2 cups frozen)
1 zucchini, diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
1/4 cup red onion, diced
1 jalapeno, de-seeded and minced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
A couple of scallions, minced
Olive oil

Procedure
Heat up olive oil in a large pan at medium heat. Add red pepper and onion. When they begin to soften, add jalapeno, garlic, and corn. Saute for five minutes. Add salt and pepper and scallions, and turn heat down to low till you serve.

When this was ready I added cilantro and grated monterey jack cheese, and I would definitely do that again. I served the hash on a bed of romaine lettuce, topped with nutritional yeast tofu (recipe below).


Nutritional Yeast Tofu
Source: Self

Notes
When I make up my own recipes I never really measure anything. Sorry.

Ingredients
1 slab firm tofu (preferably one that you've frozen but which has defrosted in the fridge; this is to keep the tofu holding together nicely), cut across the short side into slices 1/4" thick
About 1/2 cup almond or soy milk
A couple tablespoons nutritional yeast
A couple of teaspoons cornstarch
A couple of tablespoons flour
Salt (1/8 teaspoon? 1/4? I don't know)
Oil for pan

In one bowl, combine almond or soy milk and cornstarch, whisking to combine. In another bowl, combine flour, nutritional yeast, and salt. Heat oil in large nonstick pan. When the oil is hot but not before -- this is very important -- you'll start adding the tofu. First take each piece of tofu and dip it in the milk (first whisking to re-suspend the cornstarch), then dip it in the nutritional yeast. Make sure each piece is coated thoroughly on all sides, then drop it in the oil. Repeat for rest of tofu. Fry it up on both sides. Pat excess oil off and eat it on top of the hash above or with your breakfast or whatever you feel like.

Cooking

Okay, I'm sorry again I haven't written anything. In the gap, I've done some more vegetable gardening, resurrected some seemingly dead plants, went to the Kanapaha Spring Festival with Sally, went to the Spring Arts Festival with Robin, and took photos of none of it. Sometimes I just want to experience my life instead of blogging about it.

To be honest, I have very mixed feelings about blogging. Unlike many people in my approximate age group, there are actually many things about my life that I like to be private. Plus, I just don't know how many things I do are that interesting to other people. Don't get me wrong -- I'm an avid blog reader and consider myself to be an extremely curious (you might call me nosy) person. But I'm not always sure I want to be on the other end of that spotlight.

But every week or two I feel ok about blogging. Sometimes I enjoy the exercise of examining my daily life. Or whatever.

Anyway:

In the summer I do not like to cook, and consequently end up eating a lot of salad. This is probably mostly because I live without A/C and the heat diminishes my appetite. So in the past few weeks I've been milking the tolerable temperatures for all they're worth. Here are recipes for two tasty meals I recently made.

Red Coconut Curry
Source: Self

Notes
I doubt coconut milk is real low-fat (sarcasm), but it sure is delicious and coconut is supposed to be some kind of miracle food, so who cares? Live it up. This dish takes about 20 min. tops and is delectable. You can also add potatoes or corn or anything else you feel like.

Ingredients
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 lb-ish collard greens, rinsed and chopped
2 carrots, diced
1/2 lb-ish tempeh*, cubed
Red curry paste, to taste
1 can coconut milk
Salt to taste
Some rice (basmati or jasmine)

Procedure
Heat up some coconut/olive/whatever oil in a pan over medium heat. Throw in the tempeh and saute it until it's brown. Then add the collards, red pepper, and carrots. Cook for five or so minutes. The greens will start turning bright green. Add salt.


Turn heat down a little bit and add coconut milk and curry. I used more than a tablespoon of curry, because I like some heat.



Stir till blended, then let it warm up slowly. Serve over rice.

*We Gainesvillans are lucky enough to have a local tempeh maker, Jose, who sells his tempeh in frozen cubes that have been marinated in soy sauce and stuff but you can use regular tempeh plain and cubed, or marinate it yourself.

I have to run but will write more about cooking and maybe other stuff later this weekend.

My Favorite Recipe

I love quinoa. This ancient Latin American grain (pronounced keen-wah) is an utterly delicious complete protein. If you add a few other things, it's like the perfect meal eaten warm or cool, by itself or as a side dish. I usually make this on the weekend and eat it all week as a snack or for lunch.

Ingredients
2 cups quinoa
3 radishes, diced
1/3 can chickpeas (or if you use dried chickpeas, around 1/3 cup reconstituted chickpeas)
1/3-1/2 green pepper, diced
1/2 cup toasted walnut pieces
1/4 cup feta, diced/crumbled
1/3 lb cubed tofu, sauted
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
2-3 green onions, minced
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
1/4 cup currants
2-4 Tbs. olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Toast the quinoa at medium heat in a pan with about 1/4 cup water, making sure all the quinoa is moistened -- there should be no excess water. Stir frequently until quinoa browns (do not burn) and pops like popcorn. I think this has something to do with a natural pesticide coating the quinoa has, but all I really know is that toasting it before cooking it makes it nuttier tasting.

Then add 3 1/2 to 4 cups of water and after it boils, turn the pot down to simmer with a lid on for 10-20 minutes. (My stove is wonky, so I can't be precise about this.) Keep an eye on it to make sure all the water evaporates and the quinoa gets softish but not all mushy. It's a fine line sometimes. The quinoa should be fluffy.

Then add some olive oil and salt and pepper while it cools, stirring a bit to release some of the heat. When it's cooled off some, add all the veggies and other stuff. Between the quinoa, feta, walnuts, and chickpeas, it's a mega-proteiny dish. I usually eat it on a bed of chopped romaine lettuce, sometimes topped with a black bean-jalapeno dip. But any way you eat it, it will simultaneously fill you up and gives you tons of energy (no after-meal nap required).

You can vary the ingredients and their amounts however you want -- I just happen to like a lot of different flavors in my meals. For example, you can try subbing parsley for the cilantro or chopped figs for the currants. (I try to have one sweet thing in my quinoa to offset all the savory flavors.)

This dish will keep for up to a week, although the chickpeas and feta shorten its lifespan by a few days.

Virtual Chef

My friend Julie lives in Istanbul, where she's created an interactive art space. They do all kinds of cool collaborative projects there, one of which is called Virtual Chef. Someone in another country gives Julie a recipe, and she wanders all over town trying to find the ingredients.

Then at an appointed time Julie talks on Skype (a free Internet phone service) with the person, who gives directions for making the dish to Julie and the thirty or forty guests she has over for dinner. The person whose recipe it is usually makes the dish at the same time (wherever they are).

In Julie's art space there are surveillance cameras set up so the cooking process can be streamed live and on TVs set up throughout the space -- so the guests can participate in the cooking, watch in person, or watch on a monitor.

Afterwards, Julie edits the footage from the art space together into a film that she posts online.

I told Julie I wanted to be a part of Virtual Chef, so she asked me to cook something for a "Happy Birthday!"-themed event on Friday. I took the day off work, and at the appointed time we contacted each other on Skype.

Because I couldn't cook and talk on the computer/phone and take photos all at once, I asked Rayne to come over. Here's a few photos from the event. (We made my broccoli and leek pie and a chocolate torte.)

Making dough for the crust.


Cutting vegetables to saute.




Mixing everything together (I added sauted cubes of tofu this time).


Oops, we made too much filling.


But the pie is still delicious.


And we're composting a lot of scraps.


The torte was delicious also.

Broccoli and Leek Pie

I invented a new recipe! This is a very exciting turn of events for me. I'm a pretty good cook, but can't just produce dishes out of thin air like some of my friends, e.g., Kim and Tia.

It all started with the mystery novels I've been obsessed with for the past month. I've been reading all of Elizabeth George's oeuvre for the second or third time. The stories take place in England, and a passing mention was made in one of the books to broccoli and leek pie. I thought, "Now, how would I go about making a broccoli and leek pie?" When I came up with something that seemed like it might work, I got started.

First I made a pie crust (the recipe for this one can be found in The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, by Mollie Katzen). Then I began to assemble the filling:

2 sticks celery, minced
2 leeks, sliced
1 medium-sized baking potato, diced
1 head broccoli, chopped (should be 2-3 cups)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup white wine/cooking wine/sherry
3-ish tablespoons minced red onion
1 cup cottage cheese
1 egg
1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil, or similar combination
1/2 - 1 cup grated Gruyere
1 - 2 tablespoons lemon juice
A few tablespoons minced parsley
Thyme, rosemary, tarragon, basil (about 1/2 teaspoon of each)
Salt and pepper to taste

1) Make pie crust and refrigerate; preheat oven to 375.
2) Lightly steam broccoli and immediately drain; cook potato in boiling water in covered pot for 10 - 15 minutes, until pretty soft.
3) Melt butter and oil in large pan over medium heat and add leeks. Saute alone for a few minutes, then add red onion, lemon juice, celery, garlic, spices, parsley.
4) When everything's softening up, add wine. Cook uncovered over medium heat till the wine starts to evaporate, then turn up the heat to medium-high and cover until the leeks are soft.
5) Mix together cottage cheese, egg, and cheese in large bowl.
6) Add potatoes, broccoli, and leek mixture, stirring thoroughly. Then add to pie shell and bake for 30-45 minutes, until cheese is bubbly, crust is golden, and top of pie is beginning to brown.



Delicious!

Fresh Veggies

Today Emily (a.k.a. "Wacahoota") brought some of her homegrown vegetables in to share with the office. Yum!

I got some mustard greens:

I am going to make some tempeh, marinated in tamari, garlic, and maple syrup, and steam the mustards. Then I can eat them with what I made last night: basmati rice and black beans with corn, TVP, green onions, olive oil, green pepper, garlic, a couple of dried chili peppers, and carrots. I'm already excited!

I also got some lettuce:


I haven't decided what I am going to make with this. Probably some kind of hummus-muenster sandwich with vegannaise and dijon mustard on toasted bread. Mmmm.

Happy, Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was great. My parents had around sixteen friends and family members over, and made a really, really long table in the living room.


I folded the napkins. It's the only useful thing I learned from working in a restaurant a long time ago. And I may have done it wrong. So interpret that as you will.


There was tons of good food. I made kasha with mushrooms, which is supposed to be burger patties, but I just sauteed it as a crumble. I also made a succotash chowder from The New Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen. I substituted soy milk for regular milk, and it was really good (I thought).

I took a picture of my plate to make my brothers jealous, since they couldn't be there and I missed them:


Then I remembered that while my oldest brother is mostly vegan, my other brother wouldn't be too impressed with my plate, so I got two carnivores to take photos of their plates before digging in. This one is Rita's:


This one is G-Bill's:


Doesn't it look like we're all eating completely different meals? We basically were--that's how much food there was. But of course the 'rents and I have been eating leftovers for days.

There was...

candied pecans
homemade hummus-olive tapenade with fresh vegetables
brie with cloudberry jam on little toasts
mozzerella and tomatoes with basil and olives
turkey
mashed potatoes
gravy
stuffing
sweet potatoes
broccoli casserole
cranberry sauce
green beans
caesar salad
kasha
succotash

There was also a bunch of dessert, but I didn't really pay any attention to it.

My grandmother's day was made when the vegetarian sitting next to her unknowingly ate three helpings of her sausage-filled stuffing, while she silently watched with barely disguised glee. Luckily that vegetarian was not me.