Re-creation

I really wanted to share a photo here of this amazing chickpea stew I made two weeks ago. But apparently, drinking a bottle of Rioja while you cook leads to a) forgetting to take a photo or b) not wanting to handle the very nice camera in the midst of glass #3 and messy cooking hands. So enjoy this photo I took on S. 1st while I share the recipe with you.At Lambert's, they make this achiote-chickpea-spinach appetizer with flatbread that is the best thing a vegetarian could possibly wish for at a barbeque joint. After having it on Thursday, I was so smitten with it that I did my darnedest to recreate it for Andy on Friday.

Chickpea and Spinach Stew (This recipe makes a lot. Serve it to your hungry friends, or pack it in lunches all week.)

1 red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
olive oil for sauteeing - how much is up to you; I err on the side of healthy
2 15 oz cans chickpeas
4-5 cups spinach
2 tsp smoked paprika (available at fancy food stores, don't skip it for regular paprika unless you absolutely have to)
3 Roma tomatoes, cut into wedges
3/4 cup crumbled goat cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Basically, you start out by chopping a red onion. Doesn't have to be too fine, but it does help if you wear contacts. Cuts down on the tears. Saute the onion in some olive oil for 5 minutes or so, until it softens. Then add the garlic and saute a couple of minutes more.

Drain one can of chickpeas entirely and add it to the pan. Partially drain another, leaving about 1/2 cup cooking liquid, and add those chickpeas plus their liquid. At this point, add the tomatoes, spinach, paprika, salt, and pepper (really not too much pepper), then cover the pot and let simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the goat cheese and simmer for 5 minutes more.

Check it out, a cat!

Provence in Austin, to the best of my abilities

The south of France is my favorite part of the world that I've never visited. When I lived in Paris, the money and the time off from work never seemed to work out in my favor, but there was this one Provencal restaurant that I loved in the 6th arrondissement. They served kirs made with rose liqueur instead of chambord, and the aromas and flavors of lavender, thyme, goat cheese, and olive oil made me forget the cold and rainy weather. Provencal cooking is much more Mediterranean than Northern French cooking, and relies more on fresh veggies and less on cream sauces and meats. The perfect compromise for a vegetarian Francophile.

photo by Andrew Lee Dolan

A couple of weeks ago I was strolling around Whole Foods (it was a Friday, so no market) with no idea of what I wanted to eat besides "seasonal." I came home with some heirloom tomatoes, a couple of eggplants, a bunch of basil, some goat cheese, and a loaf of French bread. What I came up with was this:

Provencal Gratin

2 heirloom tomatoes, thinly sliced
2 Chinese eggplants, thinly sliced (I prefer using these to the more common Italian eggplants. Their smaller size makes them so much more... buttery.)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup goat cheese
1 1/2 cups French bread, cut into cubes
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup sliced basil, reserve some for garnish

Preheat the oven to 375.
Layer the tomato and eggplant in concentric circles around a 9 inch round baking dish.
Drizzle the olive oil and sprinkle the garlic over the vegetables.
Cover and bake for 25 minutes.
Remove from the oven. Add about half the bread cubes and the basil, then bake for 10 min. longer, uncovered.
Remove it again, then add the rest of the bread crumbs and the goat cheese. Bake for another 1o min., or until the cheese browns.
Remove one last time. Once the gratin is cool, serve it topped with basil.

I found this to be a pretty complete meal in itself... we just enjoyed it with a bottle of dry rose!

A late summer's meal

I am an early riser. Ok, not really these days, but I'd like to be. One sizzling late August morning, we luxuriously slept til 10:30 before going to the farmer's market. By the time we got there, most farmers were out of the heirloom tomatoes I'd thought of buying, due to the hour or the weather, and Taco Deli was (gasp) out of tacos.

What most stalls did have in abundance, however, was okra. Now, it's easy to go a long time without having it any way but fried. And while I occasionally do get a craving for something greasy and breaded, I've pretty much weaned myself off fried foods (with the notable exception of fried avocado tacos... sigh).

That's where this recipe comes in. The okra was delicately crunchy and bright accompanied by stewed cherry tomatoes, and was a perfect side for Andy's cashew and sesame-crusted homemade tofu.Okra with Tomatoes (adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian):

1/4 c peanut oil
1 /2 lb okra
20 cherry tomatoes
2 minced garlic cloves
2 tbsp lime juice
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
optional pinch or two of cayenne (I left this out, since the tofu crust was already spicy)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Cut the tails and tops off the okra and slice it into thin rounds.2. Heat the oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the okra and saute for about 10 minutes, until it begins to brown.
3. Turn the heat down to medium-low, add the cherry tomatoes and saute for another 3 minutes or so. Be careful not to let brown turn into burnt.
4. Add the spices and gently cook for another 4-5 minutes, until the tomatoes release their juices a bit.
5. Reclaim your chair from the contented cat, and enjoy!

New house, new kitchen

Hi! My name is Meadow.
Let me introduce you to my new kitchen.
It's so much bigger than the old one! More than one person can stand in it! And it has a dishwasher!
Ok. I've got too much to do, between napping, destroying blinds, and fighting with the other cat in the house. Gotta go!
***
Now that we're more or less settled in the new house, I can finally cook again (and blog again.)
Aren't these peppers gorgeous?
I like bell peppers just fine, but I never found them all that inspiring until last Saturday. At the downtown market right now, every stall has an abundance, in colors and varieties I've never seen before. I sampled one, and the taste was a revelation. It was a little spicy, very juicy, and not at all like what you typically find at the supermarket.
I also decided to try a new kind of pepper. This is a cubanelle pepper. It's a little sweeter than your typical bell pepper, and its skin is a lovely bright orange.
I'd been wanting to figure out ways to use tempeh for a while. I've been a vegetarian for the last decade or so, but I've tended to focus on fresh vegetables and ok, cheese, rather than the products some of my friends swear by, i.e. tempeh, seitan, Bragg's, TVP, etc. I'd bought a package of tempeh at the small, independent grocery store across the street from our house (love this neighborhood!), so I decided to make a tempeh curry with my fresh farmer's market peppers.

Tempeh curry with bell peppers

1 8 oz package tempeh, cubed
1/4 cup olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
4–5 peppers (I used a blend of cubanelle and bell), cut into thin strips
1 14 oz can coconut milk (I used lite, and it was still pretty creamy)
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp turmeric
pinch cayenne
rice for serving
1. Heat the oil over medium heat. Brown the tempeh in oil, about 3 min. per side. Set the tempeh aside on a plate covered in paper towels. Make sure you get all sides of the tempeh browned.

2. Add the onions and peppers to the oil. Saute until softened, about 4 min.

3. Add the coconut milk and spices. Simmer covered for 5 min. covered and 5 min. uncovered, until the sauce thickens.

4. Add the tempeh back in and simmer for 5 min. more.

Just for fun: a super-70s photo of our dining room!

gourmet veggie hot dog toppings

Today I delivered some stiff competition to the likes of Giada de Laurentiis and Rachael Ray! I was filmed doing a short segment on gourmet vegan hot dog toppings as a promo for ilovemikelitt.com's annual Fourth of July Veggie Hot Dog Eating Contest. I'll be on vacation in Minnesota this year, but it's always a great time!I uttered the line, "Hey, y'all! Sick of that boring old ketchup-mustard-veganaise?" about twenty times, nearly burned my chili every time Argentina scored, and came up with three original toppings for your next vegan cookout: sour cherry relish with soy yogurt amd mint, fried olives with romesco sauce, and black bean-espresso chili. Recipes below!

Sour Cherry Relish (adapted from Madhur Jaffery's World Vegetarian):1 cup pitted dried sour cherries (available at Wheatsville)
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 dried red chile
2 tbsp water
1 tsp salt

This is the easiest one of all, and the collective favorite. It's inspired by Iranian and Afghani cooking. Just puree the hell out of it in a food processor, and serve with soy (or regular) yogurt and fresh chopped mint.

Fried olives:1 cup flour
1 egg (I left this out to veganize it, but were I making it for non-vegans I would include it, to facilitate binding the batter to the olives)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp smoked sea salt
40 pitted olives (I used a blend of kalamata and Spanish green)
olive oil

Blend flour, egg, baking powder, and salt. Coat olives in the mixture.
Fill a saucepan about 1 inch with olive oil, heat.
Fry for about 4 minutes, until olives get puffy and golden.Serve with romesco sauce, below:

Easy romesco sauce (loosely adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's recipe):
1 dried ancho chile
4 roasted red peppers
1/3 cup slivered almonds
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/3 cup olive oilStem chile and boil it in 3/4 cup water for 5 minutes. Reserve 2 tbsp cooking liquid.
Another job for the food processor. Mix all ingredients together (including reserved ancho liquid.) Also great over tofu or grilled veggies!

And this is what I'll be eating for lunch over the next few days-- Black Bean and Espresso Chili!3 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 roasted red peppers, chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp chili powder
2 1/2 tbsp espresso powder
30 oz black beans
30 oz canned diced tomatoes
1 bag Boca crumbles
salt and pepper to taste

Saute onions, peppers, garlic, chili powder, and espresso powder in olive oil over medium heat for 10 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients, simmer for 20 minutes more.

Enjoy, and don't forget to go to the Tiniest Bar in Texas on Sunday for the event!

This is what you make when...

... you have soccer and work on the brain and all you want to do is relax.

It was a Sunday night, and I was wiped out from watching Brazil beat Cote d'Ivoire, complete with live vuvuzela! (They sound much better when there are fewer of them. The vuvuzela is definitely a case of less is more.) Lounging on the couch, I came up with an idea for a meal I've never cooked before. It was fresh, it was inventive, it was...labor intensive.

So what's a lazy cook to do?
This:It's whole wheat pasta tossed with pan-roasted cherry tomatoes from the market, eggplant, fresh mozzarella, and basil. Pan-roasted tomatoes sound fancy, but are super simple. All you do is saute some garlic in olive oil, then add the tomatoes. Stew them over a fairly low heat until they start to release their juices. Maybe one or two will burst, but you want them to remain fairly intact. Add some crushed red pepper and fresh basil towards the end of cooking, and there you have it!

Even Meadow the gourmand cat wanted some!

Squash and fresh thyme pizza: just like Totino's!

No matter how committed you may be to a vegetarian, vegan, seasonal, organic, macro, you-name-it diet, you've got at least one guilty pleasure. And don't tell me it's brown rice. For me, it's mac and cheese. Not homemade. Not whole wheat. Not organic. The radioactive-orange/ made-with-twenty-ingredients-I-can't-pronounce Kraft kind. There's something oddly comforting about squeezing that orange goo all over those noodles, however revolting that might sound. Although I'm pretty successful at not eating anything straight from a box these days, I just love the stuff.

For my boyfriend, Andy, it's Totino's pizza. When he's had a rough day/night of work, he's wont to pick it up at the Snappy Mart up the street from his house. Although I've never tasted it myself, from what I hear, it's pure greasy gas station goodness. Totino's wikipedia page provides further enlightenment: in 2006, Totino's phased out the use of 100% real cheese on its pizzas, replacing it with a "combination of real and imitation cheeses," which led to criticism by the FDA over the new, doubled amount of saturated fat. We sure do love our processed cheese!
One Saturday a few weeks ago, I picked up whatever looked good at the farmer's market with the intention of figuring it out later: some baby yellow squashes, some fresh thyme, and some brussels sprouts. What I figured out was pizza: sauteed squash with a fresh thyme/lemon pesto and oozy, pungent Italian robiola cheese. I'm a bad blogger: I don't remember exactly what went in to the thyme pesto. I will tell you, though, that the lemon was key. It really brightened up the flavor.And, somehow, I made a pizza that Andy swore tasted uncannily like Totino's (except with real cheese.) Becuase Robiola is such a flavorful cheese, a little really went a long way. Apparently, thyme is the secret ingredient in their recipe and satisfied (at least for now) the gas station pizza craving. Success! We served it with some of Andy's seared brussels sprouts and some nice Spanish white wine. The minerality of this Velarde Blanco really complemented the herbal flavor of the thyme and brought out a nuttiness in the Robiola cheese that wasn't immediately apparent.

Strawberry muffins

Strawberry season in the Austin area has just begun, and how gloriously sweet they are! Saturday morning started off cloudy and cool, and I picked up a pint of strawberries before heading to the lake for some canoeing. They had just been picked that morning, and were still coated with a thin layer of field.

Sunday morning, I woke up to a sunny, warm day and wanted to fill my apartment with warm baking smells. Hence the strawberry muffins:1 pint strawberries
1/3 c brown sugar
1 3/4 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 c low fat buttermilk (or soy milk, or regular milk)
1/4 c vegetable oil
1 egg
3/4 c walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.

2. Slice strawberries and mash slightly with the sugar, using either a potato masher or the back of a spatula. Set aside. (Do this first to give the juice and sugar time to blend.)
3. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl.
4. Whisk together buttermilk, vegetable oil, and the egg.
5. Fold the buttermilk mixture and the strawberries into the flour mixture until just combined. Add the walnuts.
6. Bake for 15-17 minutes.Good morning! These were delicious - the mashed strawberry tasted like fresh jam and made them oh so moist. I didn't think the walnuts added all that much to the flavor. I'd leave them out next time.

When cooking makes you cry

First off, my apologies for being a delinquent blogger. I have excuses, but you can either read about those or you can read about food. Food? I thought so.

Last weekend at the market, I noticed lots of new things! Notably, onions of every variety are sprouting at the moment. For example, baby leeks:and colorful spring onions:
and Texas sweet onions.
So, if I was on a risotto kick before, I'm now on a savory tart kick. I absolutely love caramelized onions, so I added a red onion and a white onion from Central Market to make a five-onion tart with goat cheese and parsley.
It's simple, though time-consuming. (Speaking of consuming, Andy and I polished off a bottle and a half of wine while the onions were caramelized. If, like me, you drink while you cook, plan on a night in.) Start by preheating the oven to 375 and slicing all the onions (I used what you see in the pic above plus two medium onions.) If you wear contacts, you won't cry as much. Don't know why that is, but it's been a great help to me. Then, heat some olive oil in a large skillet or wok. Use more than you think you need. Cook the onions over LOW heat until they're caramelized, about 45 minutes. Even if you're impatient to eat.

When the onions are almost done, add some salt and pepper along with 1/3 cup each white wine vinegar and white wine. Cook for 5-10 minutes longer, then spoon them into a pie shell. Top with as much crumbled goat cheese and fresh parsley as your heart desires, then bake 5-10 minutes, until the cheese is browned. Et voila!

I sure do love risotto.

Last Saturday night, I cooked an amazing three-course date night, pre-concert meal for under $15, and found inspiration in farmer's market showings that have seemed, well, monotonous lately. As much as I love leafy greens, I would also love to see some of those strawberries and asparagus I keep hearing will pop up in the market, any day now. On a beautiful Saturday morning, however, it was leafy greens and roots. Which, don't get me wrong, I do love. I'm just craving variety.

I'd enjoyed some curried kale (and wine, and candied almonds) at an Easter potluck the previous weekend, so I picked up a couple of bunches. Then, I noticed the last lovely bunch of fresh basil at a farmer's stall. Andy and I headed off to a tour of Depression-era architecture (sponsored by my work, btw), and I still had no idea what I was going to do with these ingredients.

And I still didn't at 4 p.m., a mere two hours before I was planning to serve dinner. Then, suddenly, it jelled. I was planning to serve kale as the main dish, with the basil as some type of garnish for a salad. Then I found this recipe for Meyer lemon risotto with fresh basil, and decided to switch things around.
A Meyer lemon is a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange, with a slightly more orange-colored peel than a true lemon. Although I'd seen it quite often on fancy restaurant menus, I'd never cooked with it before. So glad I did! It lent the risotto a tart-sweet quality that complemented the fresh basil so well. Of course, I did make a couple of modificatiosn. I subbed veggie stock for the chicken stock, left out the celery ('cause I don't like it), and subbed crushed red pepper for the Thai chili ('cause I thought I had bought one, but it wasn't in my bag when I got home).As a side dish, I made a dish of my own invention. Kale, along with other leafy greens, is so often served in the Mediterranean with currants/raisins and pine nuts. I did my own variation on this theme with sour cherries and pumpkin seeds.For dessert, I served some whipped mascarpone with honey and strawberries. Then we danced the night away at a free Girl Talk show!

I've fallen head over heels for a new leafy green. Yes, chard, it's true. I encountered sorrel for the first time at last week's market. Brilliant green with subtle veins of red and a citrusy, bright taste, I knew I had to take it home. I learned that sorrel is considered more of an herb than a vegetable, and that it was once widely popular in England but is now considered "rustic." I also picked up some green garlic, which is young garlic that has been harvested before the cloves have matured. Its flavor is more delicate than regular garlic, and in appearance it resembles a scallion with a larger, pink-streaked bulb.Although both of these veggies would make a great salad, I had some extra eggs and pie crust to use up, so I combined them to make a sorrel, green garlic, and blue cheese quiche that I enjoyed for lunch the next couple of days!

Sorrel, green garlic, and blue cheese quiche
***
3 cups coarsely chopped sorrel
1 bunch sliced green garlic
1/2 cup blue cheese
a pie crust (pre-made, or make your own)
2-3 eggs (3 would work best, but I had 2 and it turned out just fine)
1 1/2 c milk
salt and pepper to taste
***
Preheat an oven to 375
First, sprinkle the blue cheese crumbles on the bottom of your crust. This will prevent it from getting soggy as it bakes.
Then, put the chopped sorrel and green garlic over the cheese.
Whisk eggs, milk, salt, and pepper, pour over vegetables.
Sprinkle the top of the quiche with parmesan.
Bake for 40ish minutes... voila!

This can be adapted using just about any greens (kale, chard, mustard, etc.) and any cheese. You can also sub scallions, regular garlic, or even shallots for the green garlic. Quiche will take you far.Next time, sorrel salad is definitely on the agenda. Any ideas for what to put in it? I was thinking strawberries and walnuts...

Cauliflowers of the rainbow

In the midst of all the madness and fun that is SXSW, I didn't make it to my usual Saturday morning farmer's market. (I was sleeping off the previous night's Antlers show.) On Sunday, when most music stuff had died down, we went to the HOPE farmer's market in East Austin. This market is a little different than the downtown market. For starters, it's a little later in the day-- 11 to 3 p.m., for all you late risers, but significantly smaller. Also, it has more in the way of crafts, which is neither here nor there for me, as I usually just go to the market for foodstuffs. We did get some beautiful handmade chocolate-- look for it in future desserts!(Photo note: this pic wasn't taken in hell. I'm just getting the hang of Photoshop Elements...)

We also got purple cauliflower! I was first introduced to this antioxidant-rich heirloom variety in a quiche that Jesse made for brunch a few weeks back. I loved the pop of color it gave to the dish! Colored cauliflowers (they also come in green and orange, with different respective nutritional benefits) are created by selective breeding. In my (extensive, I assure you) research on colored cauliflowers, I learned that while this may seem like a marketing ploy to attract kids (anyone remember blue ketchup?) it's not the first time plant breeders have used selective breeding to modify a veggie's appearance: until the 17th century, carrots were mostly purple, white or yellow, but Dutch breeders engineered the orange color to honor the royal family!

I was really craving a savory tart of some sort, and found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen (one of my favorite food blogs around.) Looks yummy, but it's got, what, 2 1/2 cups of cheese? A little much for two fairly health-conscious people on a Sunday night. I used sour cream instead of the mascarpone, and eliminated the Gruyere and Parmesan in favor of some thin Swiss slices and blue cheese crumbles on top and lots of fresh rosemary. Lots of flavor over lots of quantity. Success!

First meal of spring!

It's spring here in Austin! As you can tell, this makes me inordinately happy! We've got about a month to enjoy the cool breezes and sunshine until summer muscles its way in, and I intend to enjoy every minute of it.

I also intend to document lots of it with my snazzy new D-SLR camera, which I am slowly but surely learning to manipulate. This includes awkwardly asking farmers if I can photograph their stalls. One jokingly told me he needed to check with his agent.

In addition to the beautiful greens and radishes below, this stall was selling the season's first pea shoots! According to peashoots.com, pea shoots "have been a well kept secret for many years but they are now set to take the food world by storm and revitalise salads all around the UK!" Sounds like a very can-do, won't-take-no-for-an-answer kind of vegetable. In addition, they're very high in vitamins A and C and folic acid.The pea shoots had such a wonderfully grassy, fresh, flavor. They really tasted like spring. I wasn't in a stir-fry kind of mood, which was the preparation called for by most recipes I found, so I made a barley risotto with fresh mint (also from the market) and parmesan cheese (not from the market.) The technique for making barley risotto is similar to standard risotto, but the barley has a nutty, whole-grain flavor that I thought would balance the assertive herbal taste of the greens. I'm learning a little about macrobiotics and becoming more conscious of balancing meals, both nutrition-wise and taste-wise.

Barley Risotto with Pea Shoots and Fresh Mint
6 c vegetable stock
3 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 white onion, diced
1 1/2 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 tsp lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup dry white wine (I used sauvignon blanc)
2 c pea shoots
3 tbsp chopped fresh mint
2 tbsp butter and parmesan to taste
1. Heat the stock in a saucepan. Keep warm over low heat.
2. Saute the onion in 2 tbsp olive oil for about 4 minutes, until the onion is translucent.
3. Add the garlic and ginger, cook for 1 minute.
4. Add the barley, stirring until the grains are coated in oil.
5. Add the wine. Stir frequently until the liquid is absorbed.
6. Add a ladleful of stock. Stir often until absorbed. Repeat until all the stock has been absorbed, one ladleful at a time, about 40 minutes.
7. When the barley is almost done, cook the pea shoots in 1 tbsp olive oil until just wilted, about 3 minutes.
8. Mix pea shoots, lemon juice, mint, butter, lemon zest, and parmesan into risotto.

And there's our meal! Andy made a delicious salad of sunflower sprouts, red pepper, and walnut to accompany the risotto. We ate Jesse's rhubarb crumble for dessert, which was so good we forgot to take a picture!