Wasabimon!

Continuing with my toaster oven love from last week, I’ve been baking, roasting, and toasting things for almost every meal. Being autumn (yes, we do experience a vernal season here in California), the farmer’s markets have been rife with all sorts of wonderful squash and potato varieties. On my last trip I picked up a few zucchinis and half a pound of yukon golds, planning a mega-roast fest for dinner.

I returned from the market and set to work chopping like a madwoman. I love cutting summer squash with my Shun - something about the texture of the zucchini coupled with the feel of the knife’s hilt makes for a really gratifying experience.

Anyways, I digress. After chopping my bounty, I grabbed the jar of Herbes de Provence I’d dried a few weeks ago and threw the whole mess of produce and seasoning into my trusty Cuisinart oven. A preview:

I was really excited with how easy this dish was, as in the past I’d only fried potatoes in a skillet and never actually roasted them flat in a pan. After making this, I’m really curious to try roasting beets and rutabagas in a similar fashion. Prep time was literally ten minutes, cooking takes less than an hour. I prefer my potatoes less crispy and more tender, so I cooked them at lower than the normal roasting temperature to avoid over browning. Feel free to increase the temperature and cooking time slightly to suit your own tastes.

Herbes de Provence Roasted Potatoes and Zucchini
Serves six as a side.

Six good sized yukon gold or other waxy variety potato
Three medium sized yellow zucchinis
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fleur de sel or kosher sea salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons dried Herbes de Provence

Preheat oven (toaster or otherwise) to 400 degrees. Chop potatoes and zucchini into large cubes, setting zucchini aside until later. Spread potatoes into a sheet pan/jelly roll pan, and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle generously with salt, pepper, and herbs. Slide pan into oven and let cook for 40 minutes.

Check potatoes for tenderness with a fork - they should be soft through the middle. Distribute zucchini cubes among cooked potatoes, and give the whole thing a good shake with two hands to coat squash with oil. You may want to sprinkle a little more seasoning here and there if you like a really intense dish. Place pan back in oven and cook for another 10 minutes. Once that time has passed, turn the oven off and let the pan sit in the hot oven for another five minutes.

Serve up hot as a side for any meal of the day. The morning after I made this recipe my husband took the remainder of the potatoes and zucchini, scrambled them with eggs and turkey mango sausage, and made himself one hell of an epic breakfast:

I bought a toaster oven last week, but it’s oooooh so much more than that. I’ve been drooling over the new Cuisinart brick oven even since Eric Ripert launched his Avec Eric site with a series of short videos on how to make quick gourmet meals, using this very model of oven. Am I a sucker for brand propaganda? Nah - I’ve just got a weak spot for sexy kitchenware.

There are several brick ovens in the BRK series, the 100, 200, and 300. The BRK-100, which is a basic toaster oven with brick wall inserts; the BRK-200 that includes the convection feature; and then the BRK-300, which has all of that and a rotisserie. Of course I ended up going with the rotisserie model, with visions of all sorts of yummy goodness dancing in my little gastronautical head:

The first thing I made in my new baby? Ripert’s Parmesan Zucchini with Balsamico. I used a particularly good aged balsamic, and this was the perfect place for it to shine. I’ve included the recipe below, along with the tutorial video from Eric’s site. Watch the video first, as his cooking manner is all about smooth.

I hope he doesn’t mind my advertising his most excellent recipe.

Parmesan Zucchini with Balsamico
From Eric Ripert: AvecEric.com
Serves 2

1 large zucchini
1/4 cup olive oil
fine sea salt and freshly ground white pepper
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1/4 cup fresh grated Parmesan
aged balsamic vinegar

1. Heat the toaster oven to Broil.
2. Line the toaster oven tray with foil and brush with olive oil.
3. Peel a few slices of the zucchini skin off, trim the ends and slice crosswise into very thin slices.
4. Arrange the zucchini slices on the tray, season with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil.
5. Bake for 3-4 minutes until just tender.
6. Sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese.
7. Arrange roasted zucchini on a platter. Sprinkle parsley and more parmesan on top and drizzle with a little aged balsamic vinegar. Serve warm.

An Italian study recently discovered that 6.7 grams of dark chocolate a day may reduce your risk of heart attack by as much as 17%. Researchers found that people who consume a small amount of dark chocolate a day were proven to have lower levels of C-reactive protein, a chemical that indicates inflammation in the system.

While this is good news for chocolate lovers, don’t go overboard - a standard chocolate bar is roughly 100 grams, and that much sugar and fat (among other things) will most certainly outweigh the health benefits of the chocolate. Instead of diving into a Milky Way Midnight, consider having a few pieces of something more pure like Dagoba or Endangered Species chocolate. Both company take steps to make sure that their manufacturing practices are ecologically responsible, and both donate a portion of their profits to environmental and humanitarian charities.

More here from Science Daily.

I have a love affair with falafel, but I’m trying to cut back on the fried foods. To make them healthier I decided to bake them, which, if done right, will still give you a nice crunchy ball that’s tender inside.

I pilfered this recipe from Sooo Good, and made a few modifications. Enjoy these spicy bad boys in pita bread with chopped tomatoes, cucumber slices, and a yogurt sauce of your choice.

This recipe takes several hours to complete, or as long as overnight if you are using dried chickpeas. Plan ahead!

(photo credit)

Baked Falafel
Makes about 20 balls

1 cup dry chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans)
1 small onion, sliced
5 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 tablespoons flour (I used brown rice flour)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds
Hot pepper flakes to taste
Oil for brushing

First, soak the chickpeas in plenty of water overnight. If you haven’t got the time, use canned chickpeas (for this recipe one 15-oz can, drained, should do).

Toast cumin and coriander by heating them in a dry pan about two minutes, until they become fragrant, being sure to shake them around a bit as they warm. Once toasted, grind in a coffee mill and set aside.

In a food processor, finely chop the onions, garlic, parsley and cilantro. If your food processor is large, you can then add the chickpeas as well. Otherwise, mash the chickpeas up in a large bowl and then throw in the onion/herb mixture. Add salt, cumin, and coriander, then 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper flakes, or more if you like it really spicy. Finally, mix in the flour and baking powder, which will make the mix into more of a dough. Cover and place in the refrigerator for 3 hours (this is important).

After waiting three hours, preheat oven to 450 degrees and line a large cookie sheet with parchment. Remove dough from refrigerator and form patties by using two tablespoons to make a ball, then use your hands to pack them together a bit. Place balls on parchment about an inch apart, gently patting them down to flatten them slightly so they cook faster (and don’t roll around!). Brush balls lightly with oil to help the crisp up on the outside.

Bake at 450 for about 30 minutes, longer if you like them darker. They should be crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

Having only ever had meatless collard greens, I remember being so shocked when I learned that collards, cooked in their traditional form, aren’t even remotely vegetarian. Why take something so simply green and turn into something unhealthy? I was totally baffled.

So I dug around and found a few vegan collard greens recipes, and working with them, came up with this. I <3 it lots and lots.

Slow-Cooked Collard Greens

4 bunches collard greens
4 Tbsp. olive oil
4 medium onions
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 carrots, minced
1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
2 chipotle peppers
Salt, to taste

Heat the oil in a big stock pot. Add the onions and the garlic cloves, sautéing until the onions are nice and soft. Add the remaining veggies and vegetable stock. Cook until tender. Season with the salt.

Note: DO NOT OVERCOOK. No one likes mushy greens, and no one wants a kitchen full of wanna-be mustard gas (which is essentially what you get if you overcook your greens until they stink). Blegh.

Serves about 8.

As much as I love rice and baked goods, my body seems to give me the big old middle finger whenever I eat them. Consequently, I’ve been trying to cut down on the grains in my diet and have been fastidiously compiling recipes that will make me feel full without that leftover hungry feeling that comes for the first few weeks when you cut back on the carbs. It’s definitely been a trial.

This simple recipe is nothing new - people have been roasting cauliflower for ages. One night I found that I was up to my eyeballs in zucchini, so I added a few slices to the roasting dish to see how they would turn out. I feared rampant mushiness, but they retained their shape and took on a nice crispy texture. Both my husband and I gave them the thumbs up, and I think you will too.

Roasted Cauliflower and Zucchini
Serves two as a side, one as a main dish

1 head of cauliflower
2 medium sized zucchinis
4 cloves of garlic
Extra virgin olive oil
Herbes de Provence
Sea salt (use the good stuff - it will shine here)
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375.

Wash vegetables, cutting cauliflower into smallish florettes and zucchini into 3/4″ rounds. Dice garlic finely. Spread veggies in a 9×9″ glass baking dish (or any other size dish that will allow them to lay in a single layer). Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic. Give the dish a good shake to make sure that the olive oil coats the bottom of the pan so that the vegetables won’t stick. Sprinkle liberally with Herbes de Provence, then with sea salt and pepper to taste.

Cook at 375 for roughly 45 minutes, or until everything reaches a tenderness that you prefer. At least once during the cooking time, reach into the oven with an oven mitt and give the baking dish another good shake to recoat the veggies with oil.

Serve hot!

For Christmas and New Years 2006, my husband and I flew to Thailand for a belated honeymoon. The timing had several key benefits - besides avoiding the barrage of family drama that inevitably happens over the holidays regarding where we will be spending our time, December and January in South East Asia is the “mild season,” meaning that it is beautifully green without being ridiculously hot and humid. Sure, Thailand’s beautiful year-round, but you don’t really know uncomfortable until you travel from a moderate climate to suffer 105°F at 95% humidity.

While we were there, we visited Chiang Mai, in the northern part of the country. Far less crowded than Bangkok, Chiang Mai also boasts an inordinately high number of cooking classes for tourists. For roughly $20 you spend the day with a group of other confused white people, trying to decode the secrets of authentic Thai cooking. Our teacher took pity on us and shared her family secret early in the class: sugar and fish sauce. While there are a multitude of traditional ingredients in Thai cooking, those two flavors will give you an authentic taste with very little effort.

I have to say that during the entire three weeks we spent in Thailand, the cooking classes I took were the highlight of the trip. I even dragged my husband to one, and now all he makes at home when it’s his turn to cook is fried rice (though I’m not complaining). Perhaps the best part of the classes was the chance to cook outside, and I swear to Zod, when I build my dream house, there will be an outdoor kitchen. Oh yes, there will.

If you’re curious, I’ve included a few photos of the cooking class if you scroll down past the recipe.

One thing that is generally included in the price of the class is a little hand-bound cookbook with the recipes for all of the dishes that you made that day. Perhaps the easiest thing we made was black rice pudding, a ridiculously simple and dramatic looking dessert. In class we made it with bananas, but here at home I use strawberries since they contrast so well with the color of the rice.

This dish calls for black glutinous rice, but if you can’t find it, you can use chinese black forbidden rice. The texture will be a little different, but it will be just as tasty. Another reason to substitute rices is that you have to soak glutinous rice overnight, while forbidden rice takes about as long to prepare as brown rice.

Thai Black Rice Pudding with Strawberries
Serves 4

1 cup black glutinous rice
1 cup organic coconut milk (NOT the lite stuff)
4 tablespoons agave nectar (the recipe calls for white sugar, but I avoid it)
1/4 teaspoon salt
Fresh, ripe strawberries

Soak and prepare the rice to specifications on package (directions can differ depending on the exact variety you’ve picked up). In a saucepan, heat coconut milk to a simmer, adding agave nectar or sugar. Mixture should be very sweet, so feel free to add more sweetener to taste. Add salt and simmer for a few minutes, until the mixture starts to thicken. Fold into black rice, making sure not to smash the grains.

Serve in individual bowls, with cut up strawberries to garnish.

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Photos:

Yours truly, suffering a series of fashion faux pas’ - they made us wear bandannas and aprons:

Whitney, proud of his fried rice:

During our class, they presented us each with a plate of Thai fruit to try. Behold the dragon fruit, mangosteen, and rambutan:

I also took a vegetable carving class while I was in Chiang Mai. Long story short, it was probably the most stressful two days of my entire trip:

I had a crap day yesterday, and by the time I got home, I didn’t want to cook. For hours I started wistfully at the bag of vegetables I’d brought home from the farmer’s market - I’d had such plans for them, but I just didn’t give a damn anymore. How did I deal with it? I did what any self respecting chef would do in my situation. I said screw it and tossed a bunch of random crap in a pan and let it cook.

The end result is what we’ve dubbed “I Don’t Give a F*** Vegetable Medley.”

Essentially, I chopped up a bunch of vegetables (garlic, cauliflower, carrots, zucchini, and chard) and stewed them in completely indiscriminate amounts of extra virgin olive oil, soy sauce, red wine, piri piri sauce, pebrella, sea salt, and black pepper. Tasted it, needed sweetness, so I added a tablespoon of local honey and a sprig of fresh rosemary. Tasted it again, needed zing, so I threw in some lemon juice.

Sloppy? Definitely. Tasty? Very.

This would have been really good over rice, but it was already 9pm and I just wanted something that would digest before we went to bed around midnight. Overall a successful experiment, especially considering that I didn’t give a rat’s ass how it turned out, as long as it was edible.

The moral of the story: don’t be afraid to experiment, even if you’re not feeling it. You never know what you’ll end up with when you just say “whatever” and throw together some completely disparate ingredients.

When I made potato chard enchiladas the other day, I was really fiending for something akin to sour cream, but without the dairy gut-bomb aftereffects. After surfing around the PPK forums and flipping through Isa and Terry’s Veganomicon, I found their recipe for vegan cilantro sour cream. I whipped it up in a flash (ew, cliche) and holy crackers, was it good. Perfect for topping those enchiladas, perfect for dipping fresh cut veggies, and oddly perfect with the organic peaches I picked up from the farmer’s market. Apparently peach slices, garlic, and cilantro are a match made in heaven. Who knew?

So without further ado (oh man… I’m just full of cliches today):

Vegan Sour Cilantro Cream
Makes about three cups.

1 pound silken tofu (Isa says - not the vacuum packed kind!)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (from one lime)
1 tablespoon of agave nectar or 1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cups loosely packed FRESH cilantro, with leaves and stems (you can half the amount if you’re not a cilantro fiend like I am)

Remove tofu from packaging and squeeze gently to remove any excess water. Place in a blender or food processor along with the lime juice, agave, and salt. Blend until smooth.

Heat a small pan over medium-low heat, and add garlic and olive oil. Cook gently for three minutes, stirring occasionally. For the love of Zod, do not burn the garlic… you want a nice, blonde-brown color. Add to tofu mixture and blend again. Add cilantro and blend until “smooth and light green with some flecks of dark green.” Don’t forget to scrape down the sides.

Add more salt and lime to taste, then transfer to a bowl, cover, and chill for at least thirty minutes.

Eat with everything.

While wasting time on the internet, I ran across some desserts that made me want to get out my baking equipment and fill my digestive system with pound after pound of refined sugar. I probably won’t do it for real, but I will share what I found.

Follow the links for instructions on how to create these little gems.

R2-D2 cake:

It’s even a red velvet cake! My pre-gluten-free favorite! (BTW, if anyone has a GF red velvet cake recipe that doesn’t taste like dirt, I’ll be your best friend)

Super Mario Brothers mushroom cakes:

Just about the cutest rendition I’ve ever seen of a HUGE part of my childhood pop-culture.

Tuxedo and bridal dress strawberries:

I have a thing for chocolate-covered strawberries. Like, to an unreal degree.