Food Envy

I'm still in Illinois visiting Red's family - and I'm using my trusty little laptop to gear up for my first VeganMoFo. In the meantime, I'll give you a picture of one yummy thing I've eaten during my visit.

I present the Sushi Station's agedashi tofu:


If you're ever in the Elgin or Rolling Meadows area, drop by. They have a nice selection of vegetarian/vegan and omni options - on a conveyor belt! If you'd like to see the kaiten in action, you can see a video that my nerdy self filmed and posted on my Flickr page.

Friday Favorites, Kitchen Edition: Arise, bread!

If you're a vegetarian, chances are these items already reside in your kitchen:


Bean flour (garbanzo in my case), vital wheat gluten, and nutritional yeast.

These also happen to be the main ingredients in a wheat bread improver available from a major baking product supplier.

You probably don't have this particular item, but you can find it at almost any health food store:


Ascorbic acid, or vitamin C. You can find it in loose powdered form in the supplement section.

If you combine the four, you get a formula that helps dense wheaty bread recipes get a little extra lift.

You add 1 tablespoon of bread improver to a recipe that yields a one pound loaf (the recipe will call for 3-4 cups of flour). The proportions I've worked out are thus:

1 teaspoon vital wheat gluten
3/4 teaspoon garbanzo (or soy) flour
3/4 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon ascorbic acid

Or, if you'd like to just order the premixed bread improver, you can do it here.

Enjoy!

Cottage cheese english muffins - and toasting bread

Isn't serendipity a funny thing?

I originally didn't post this recipe because I was visiting my in-laws in Illinois and forgot my kitchen notes. The first recipe was a conglomeration of two very good but annoyingly time-consuming recipes. I liked the results well enough, but boy the process killed me.

So the other day I was faced with the same conundrum that led to my original experiments: a half-used carton of cottage cheese and no home for said curds. I was stomping around the kitchen and whining that I didn't want to make those English muffins again when I remembered something. Wasn't there an English muffin bread recipe in one of my cookbooks? One that called for whey as the liquid? Since cottage cheese is really curds and whey, this seemed appropriate.

Sure enough, I pulled down my copy of Ricki Carroll's Home Cheese Making and found the recipe. Well, first I sorted through the loose pages that once were this book, because I kind of loved it to death and haven't gotten around to rebinding it yet.

I made few minor mods and gave Ricki's bread a go. Like Goldilocks, I found that my modified recipe produced an English muffin loaf that was just right. There was even enough dough left over to shape a few real English muffins. This time I borrowed my muffin making technique from Clothilde at Chocolate and Zucchini, and these two were Three Bears perfection. Much, much better than my original idea.

Sometimes it's good to be absent minded and lazy, don't you think?

No, you don't think?

Maybe I should just go bake some more bread...

* * *

Cottage Cheese English Muffins and Toasting Bread
Makes one mini loaf and 2-4 English muffins
Adapted from Ricki Carroll's Home Cheese Making (Story Publishing, 2002)

1/2 TB sugar
1/4 C + 1 TB water, lukewarm (around 100-110F)
1 TB active dry yeast
1 C cottage cheese
2 C whole wheat flour
1 C all-purpose flour
1/4 TS baking soda
1 TS salt
Cornmeal for dusting

1. Grease one mini loaf pan and set aside. Also lay out one sheet of waxed paper, parchment, or a silicone baking mat.

2. Dissolve sugar into warm water in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer. Sprinkle with yeast and stir to combine. Let proof until very foamy, about 10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, puree the cottage cheese in a blender [Note: The pureeing is optional, but it helps the cheese meld into the bread better]. Pour the cottage cheese into a microwave safe cup and heat until very warm, 30-45 seconds. (purists may use a saucepan over a low burner if they so desire). Stir to redistribute hot spots and set aside.

4. In another large bowl, whisk together whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking soda, and salt.

5. Mix the warm cottage cheese into the proofed yeast mixture. Next stir in half of the flour mixture and combine well. Add in the rest of the flour and stir until a very thick, dry dough forms.

6. Preheat the oven to 350F.

7. Press enough dough into the mini loaf pan to fill it 2/3 full. Sprinkle the top with cornmeal. Let the dough rise, uncovered, in a warm place (the top of the heating oven is ideal) until it crowns about 3/4 of an inch above the lip of the pan. Place the remaining dough on the prepared paper and cover with a clean kitchen towel.

8. To bake the loaf: Bake the mini loaf until the top is a light golden brown and hard to the touch, or the center reads 190F on an instant read thermometer. This will take about 30-35 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then turn out and finish cooling on a wire rack.

9. To bake the muffins: About ten minutes after you put the loaf in the oven, place a large, heavy skillet over medium heat. Take the reserved dough and break it into 3 ounce balls (the number of balls you will have depends on the size of your mini loaf pan - I had two). Smash the balls into 1/2 inch disks and sprinkle both sides with cornmeal. When the pan is hot, add the muffins, being careful not to crowd. Grill them 4-5 minutes per side, or until they are a light golden brown. Then place them on a small cookie sheet and add them to the oven (if the timing is right, they should go in right as the loaf is coming out). Bake them for another 3-4 minutes to finish the centers. Cool on a wire rack.

Both creations need to be toasted to reach their full potential. I eat the bread first and freeze the muffins for later enjoyment.

Friday Favorites, Kitchen Edition: Tongs Up!

Today's kitchen tip is courtesy of an old episode of Everyday Food. I can't remember the exact one, but the results have stuck with me for at least four years now.

I have a citrus reamer somewhere in my kitchen. It's been AWOL now for about three years; the last time I saw it coincided with the day I unpacked the kitchen boxes in our current residence. I also have a hand juicer. This I can locate easily. However, it is a pain in the neck to clean. Therefore, I only pull it from the cupboard when I need to juice multiple lemons or limes.

However, when I must squeeze one lemon into a pan sauce, or half a lime over a sliced apple, my trusty kitchen tongs come to the rescue:


Chef Michael demonstrated this one on TV all those years ago. Everyone else may already know this trick, but it was a revelation to me. You just stick your citrus half into the crook near the hinged end of the tongs, and then squeeze the business end. If you hold the fruit cut side up, you usually don't even drop seeds into your dish.

Seriously - is there anything kitchen tongs can't do?

Bean croquettes with Cajun flair

[First and foremost, let me say that I was working on these long before the October issue of Vegetarian Times hit the newsstands. I got there first, VT! Though I must say that your veggie patties look delicious, too :) ]

Beans are my nemesis.

It's not because I don't like them. I looooove legumes, and I have to say that they love me back, too. I'll cook up a nice pot full (or open a can if the moment is lazy), and I'll faithfully use them in soups, pilafs, and burritos for days on end. But somehow, I always end up with a sad little remainder at the end of my bean adventure. Usually it's anywhere from a couple of spoonfuls to a quarter of a cup: a little too much to add to one recipe, but not enough to merit an entire meal.

Until I started perusing other people's recipes.

This croquette takes inspiration from about nine different places, but I have to say that my biggest ones were Vegan Dad's crispy cajun chickpea cakes, River's self-confident brown rice patties, and Susan V.'s oven-fried green tomatoes. I know that they also resemble probably every bean and rice veggie burger ever known to man, but we'll not get into that at this time of night.

This one can be a good make-ahead meal, since the croquettes require some chilling time before you can batter and bake them. I let mine go for only about fifteen or twenty mintues, but I daresay they'd sit overnight like a dream. I'll try that out next time they're on the menu, and I'll let you know what happens. It's also good for using up any half-onions, lone pepper strips, or celery remains that might be lurking in your crisper.

The only tweak I might make to this recipe is to maybe add half a teaspoon of nutritional yeast to the uncooked mix. The croquettes need a little savory boost, and I think that would do the trick. Other than that, they're golden (both literally and figuratively!).

If you're not in the mood for Cajun spices, check out the Southwestern variation I included at the end of the recipe. They're each delicious in their own region-specific way.

* * *

Cajun Spiced Bean Croquettes
Serves 2 (Easily doubled)

For the croquettes:
1 flax egg (1 tablespoon flax meal + 3 tablespoons water)
1/4 Cup beans (any kind)
1/2 Cup cooked grains (rice, bulgur, and quinoa all work very well)
3 Tablespoons finely chopped onion
3 Tablespoons finely chopped celery
3 Tablespoons finely chopped red bell pepper
3 Tablespoons chopped okra (about 2 pods)
1 1/2 Teaspoons Cajun spice mix (adjust up or down for more zing)
1/2 Teaspoon smoked paprika
1 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon nutritional yeast (optional)
3 crackers, crushed (any kind - I used water crackers)
2-3 Tablespoons of flour (any kind - I used both A/P and whole wheat pastry)

For the coating:
Flour for dredging (again, any kind)
Cornmeal for dredging
Flax egg wash: 2 tablespoons flax meal + 1/2 cup of water

1. Beat flax meal and water together in a small bowl. Set aside to emulsify.

2. OPTIONAL: You can sautee the veggies in a little canola or vegetable oil if you'd like some extra flavor. This isn't necessary, as they'll cook through during the oven-frying, but it's a nice little extra if you have the time. If not, don't worry about it. I didn't.

3. Mix beans, grains, onion, celery, red bell pepper, okra, Cajun spice, smoked paprika, salt, and nutritional yeast (if using). Add crushed crackers. Stir in the flax egg, then add one tablespoon of flour at a time until the mixture starts to come together. It will be sticky, and it will hold together when you press it into a ball.

4. Lay a piece of parchment or wax paper on a small cookie sheet. Scoop out the mix with by the rounded 1/4 cup. Shape into croquettes (it helps to do this with wet hands) and place on the lined cookie sheet. You should come out withe roughly four or five, depending on their size. Chill cookie sheet full of croquettes for about 15 to 20 minutes, allowing them to firm a little.

5. Preheat your oven (toaster oven works fine) to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place another small baking sheet in the oven to warm as well.

6. Get your dredging station ready: lay out a plate with the flour, another with the cornmeal, and combine the remaining flax meal and water in a shallow dish (you want a nice loose but sticky liquid in that one, like an egg wash. You may need to add a little more or less water to get it just right).

7. As soon as your croquettes are firm enough to handle without falling apart, get to dredging. First dip in the flour, then the "egg" wash, and then the cornmeal, shaking excess off after each step.

8. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, and spray it lightly with oil or cooking spray. Spray the croquettes lightly on each side, then place on the hot baking sheet. Return to the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, flipping once halfway through the cooking time. They will be done when they are mosty golden brown with a nice crisp exterior.

Shortcut: If you don't want to bother with the mess of the flaxy coating, you can simply dredge the croquettes in cornmeal and fry them in about 1/2 of nice hot oil. They'll be crisp and delicious, but also a lot fattier. This will work with either variation.

[These are great with a really simple gravy:
Heat 2 tablespoons canola oil in a heavy saucepan or skillet over medium heat. Whisk in 2 tablespoons A/P flour and cook into a nice golden brown roux. Whisk in 1 cup vegetable broth and 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika. Raise heat to medium-high and whisk until the mixture has thickened to your liking. Season with salt and pepper, and add a little browning liquid or soy sauce if you want a darker gravy. Pour over croquettes and enjoy.]

Soutwestern Style Bean Croquettes

Southwestern Variation: Omit celery and okra and instead add 3 tablespoons of frozen corn. Replace the Cajun seasoning and paprika with 1 1/2 teaspoon adobo seasoning, 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Follow the rest of the recipe as written. These are killer covered in salsa and sour cream or drenched in your favorite queso.

Temporary memorial to the passengers and crew of Flight 93 - Bucks County, PA.

Choose Your Own Adventure Apple Bread

Like most good foodies, I try to stick to local and seasonal produce as the mainstays of my diet. There is one fruit, however, that defies that little rule time and time again.

Apples, I'm pointing at you.

Red and Bean both loves apples, and I have a fondness for those crispy little fellas myself. I think I could probably manage to restrain my apple consumption to the fall, when they start trickling down from North Carolina and Virginia, but Red asks for them year round. And then promptly forgets that they exist. So I usually have at least one withering, bruised piece of fruit slumping forlornly in my countertop bowl.

These usually end up as apple sauce, or fried apples, but then came the Penzey's Spices Fall catalog. The Harvest edition featured the usual drool-inducing array of salts, dried herbs, sugars, and spices, as well as some reader submitted recipes. Here was where I found a new use for my little apple orphans: Ruth Weber's Whole Wheat Apple Bread.

Almost vegan except for the inclusion of a few eggs, this recipe quickly became my new experimental obsession. I initially just reduced the yield and phased out the ovum, and the results were great. Then I started puttering. What if I tried to reduce the fat a little? What if I used a different kind of flour? Would brown rice syrup work?

The answer to all of these questions is "yes, yes, a thousand times yes." This apple bread can take anything you dish out. It is truly a recipe that can be dictated by what you have in your pantry. The only real necessity is an apple.

The final result is my favorite incarnation of the finished product, now called Choose Your Own Adventure Apple Bread (anyone else remember those eighties classics? Those were the days...). I've also included variations for using different sweeteners, since those can change the consistancy of the bread. And if you're a purist, you can find the original recipe here. Just be warned that my recipe makes roughly two-thirds less bread than Ruth's. There's only so much apple bread that a couple of adults and a toddler can handle.

* * *

Choose Your Own Adventure Apple Bread
Yeilds two 3 x 5 x 2 inch loaves (easily doubled or tripled)

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons apple sauce + 1 teaspoon of canola oil
1/3 cup + 3 tablespoons dark agave nectar
1 measure of egg replacer, enough to sub for one whole egg (I used Orgran)
1 cup whole wheat flour (regular, doesn't have to be whole wheat pastry)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon apple pie spice (or mix of cloves, nutmeg, and cinamon)
2/3 cup finely chopped apple pieces - about one small to medium apple trimmed of any soft spots or sad places (can use any type of apple, peeled or not)
1/3 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (can use a toaster oven easily). Grease two 3 x 5 x 2 inch mini loaf pans and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, combine the sweetener, apple sauce, and egg replacer.

3. In another bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and spice.

4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in two or three batches, mixing well after each addition. Fold in the apples, nuts (if using) and vanilla.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pans and bake for 45 - 60 minutes, or until they pass the clean toothpick test (mine uniformly took at sixty minutes, but I would start checking them after forty due to big variations in toaster oven temperatures).

6. Cool loaves in the pans for 20 - 30 minutes, then turn out and let cool completely. Slice (they will be very moist and possibly a bit crumbly) and serve. These will keep, well-wrapped at room temperature, for about five days.

Variations:

DIFFERENT SWEETENER? If you want to use brown rice syrup, go right ahead - no tweaking is required. 2/3 cup of sugar can also be used, but that will require that you up the apple sauce content to 3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon of oil, and the batter may turn very thick (as shown here), but rest assured that the end product will be very sweet and delicious. Also, I haven't tried maple syrup, but I bet it would be great.

NO APPLESAUCE? Replace it with 3 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon of canola oil in total (make it 4 tablespoons of oil even if you are using sugar).

DIFFERENT EGG REPLACER? I've used a flax egg (1 tablespoon flax meal + 3 tablespoons water) or half of a mashed banana in place of the Orgran. Both were fine, though you'll get a better rise out of commercial egg replacer.

DIFFERENT FLOUR? You can sub half A/P flour with the whole wheat if you like, or replace it completely. I've also had good results using all spelt flour.

GOSH, THAT'S WAY TOO MUCH FRIGGIN' SUGAR? I had the same thought. You can easily halve the amount of any sweetener I've listed. You just might want to double the amount of spice in order to boost the flavor a little.

Friday Favorites, Kitchen Edition: From collecting dust to scattering flour

About a month ago, I spotted this little gadget in the King Arthur Flour catalog:


It's called a flour wand, it releases a gentle shower of flour on pastry - just enough to prevent sticking, but not enough to dry or toughen the dough. King Arthur Flour wants $15.95 plus shipping for this little device.

Except for the price, this little dealie looked mighty tempting. It also looked familiar. I went and had a little rummage in my utensil drawer and came up with this:


I think probably everyone's mom has one of these in their junk drawer. My mom told me that it's a tea strainer, and that it's very useful. So when I got my own place, I bought one. I've never used it (I have other methods for brewing loose tea). It was very economical at $3.99, though.

Seeing that it bears a passing resemblance to the flour wand, I decided I'd give the tea strainer a whirl as a pastry dusting apparatus.

Behold!


It does the same job as the flour wand, but on a much stricter budget. Just squeeze the handle, dip it in your flour container, let the bulb snap closed, and then shake away. How hard you agitate it determines how much flour it spreads at once. I've also tried it with ground cinnamon, cocoa, and powdered sugar (not on pastry dough, of course). They all work well, though the flour and sugar spread the most evenly.

So if you have one of these little guys rattling around in your kitchen, give it a new lease on life. Happy baking!

SIGG!!! I believed in you! And look what you've done to us...

I'm usually not able to get online this early in the morning, but Bean's being a sport and sleeping in a little. I went to check my email a few minutes ago, and what to my wondering eyes did appear but this link from my excellent mother:

If you don't have time to read that, I'll summarize: the reason that a lot of people (myself included) laid out a lot of money on those Sigg water bottles is because they supposedly contained only pure and clear stainless steel. Now we find out that out that our virtuous containers are actually lined with an epoxy containing good ol' BPA, the same plastic additive that made me toss my daughter's old Avent bottles and my beloved Nalgene widemouth.


Sigg has since switched to a new, non-poisonous liner for their bottles. They are also offering a voluntary replacement program. If you mail them your old bottle (at your expense) they'll let you select a new one from their inventory. I shall be taking them up on this kind but somewhat gruding offer when I get home from Orlando. If you want to do the same, you have until October 31, 2009.

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel used. This isn't as bad as the whole "the U.S. invaded Iraq on a complete lie" fiasco, but I seriously expected better of Sigg. Ah, well. I go into the world a wiser person.

Happy September! Now let's clear out the fridge!

Hey, y'all. Greetings from sunny Orlando, where Bean and I are visiting her Uncle J. (Brother J. to me) and enjoying the themepark mecca of the world. I'd send everyone a pair of mouse ears, but I frankly haven't the funds for that. Instead, I send you mouse-eared shaped positive thoughts.

Since I'm the recent owner of a neat and tidy netbook, I'm guest blogging from J.'s house. So here I am, in the middle of a drained swamp, contemplating the first real month of autumn. September means fall to the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. In Florida, it just means that the kids get sunburns on their way to school. Things don't really cool down until October, which is nice for weekend beach trips, but not so nice for weekend lawn work.

I say that to say this: I would love to feature a bunch of fall recipes this month, all sorts of warm and comfy seasonal treats, but that isn't happening when it's still ninety-five degrees outside. Instead, I bring you something near and dear to my heart. Friends, it's time for Leftover Magic!

I've included pictures of my three most frequent fridge freeloaders. I'll be tackling them in no particular order.




I'm also taking a break from showcasing local delights for my Friday Favorites. Instead, I'm doing my favorite kitchen tricks this month. Disclaimer: most of them are not my innovations, but they're too neat not to share.

So join me on my fridge clean-out. Hope you enjoy the results :)