Salad for a Start

I knew there were going to be some challenges in moving from a well stocked cooperative kitchen to my own place 200 miles away.  The fun part is how it is not the challenges you see coming that throw you for a loop . . . it is the collection of tiny important details that catch you off guard.  Much is the same with cooking; you can have a plan and walk into the kitchen ready to execute said plan but it is often only when we are dicing that we realize some important factors have been forgotten.  

For the next few posts I am going to focus on Salads.  A decent salad will not really fill you up but it will provide an abundance of nutrients and flavor that is very satisfying.  They can also have a great range in terms of difficulty and simplicity.  The salad I am eating right now :

                          

was made in less than 20 minutes and is delicious.  Salads are also surprisingly difficult to mess up. . . I mean obviously if you are working from sub standard ingredients the flavor will be sub standard but if you start from quality you will get something pleasantly edible 9 times out of 10.  Making salads also introduce us to a lot of basic kitchen technique in terms of preparation and attention to detail. Finally, Salads act as a wonderful medium to explore flavor and flavor combinations, Really I could spend the majority of my time talking about salads and ideas for salad, often pushing the definition of what a salad is, without getting bored or the feeling of repeating myself.  Looking back, making salads was also the first thing I learned to do when I began cooking so it seems like a good place to start from now.  

Basic End of Summer Salad:

When you step into a nearly empty kitchen and wonder what you are going to eat, salad is a great answer.  No cooking needed, a lot of the prep can be done with just a knife and if it comes out on the bland side you can always hit it with a super packed flavor dressing!  

Just making a salad for myself (weird huh) I take half the head and rinse it in cool water and put it in a bowl with a  quick dash of vinegar. An early dash of vinegar will help cut off any bitterness in the greens, and if your greens were not bitter to begin with then you are still fine.  Reaching for the carrot I have my first ho no moment. . . I don't have a knife! I mean I have a serrated table knife like you would see next to your plate at a steak joint but nothing decent for chopping or slicing.

I manage to cut the carrot into rounds and dice the tomato into cubes with this knife but I am reminded of an important fact.  Having the right tools can make a job easier. . . not only that but having the wrong tools can make a task unpleasant.  I wonder how many people in the world don't like cooking because they have always used poor quality cutlery.   If someone put a decent chefs knife in their hand maybe they would be dicing up a storm and cooking for friends as often as possible!  I will address quality knives in the future. . . for now we still have a hungry belly.  

I was lucky that I came to this new kitchen with some tomatoes and corn gifted from my dear farm girl Katie.   I imagine if I didn't have them I would have bought some but there is nothing cooler  than living with the person responsible for growing your food . . . ok growing ti with them is but you get my drift.  Cutting the corn off the cob is easy if you break the cob in half first so there is a flat surface to put on the cutting board.  And cutting the corn off the cob would actually be done with the knife I am using!  I did a little bit of red onion and a sprinkle of sunflower seeds. . .but these are also the last remnants of my food from the old kitchen dream land.  There will need to be some serious shopping later this week but first we are making a salad dressing.

Again this is a simple dressing because I just don't have that much.  Since I already have some vinegar on the greens I go for a 50/50 mix of fat and acid (normally I like my dressing with a bit more acid but this is personal preference and you should play with your ratios).


I added a half of a lemon, juiced, just to add complexity to the flavor of the acid.  For fat I use olive oil with some coconut oil mashed in.  I would have gone straight coconut oil but the temperature has my coconut oil solid.  By cutting in some olive oil i make a nice creamy dressing that has good body.  I let a diced clove of garlic soak in that oil mix while I grind pepper in and . . . then  . . . bloody hell I don't have salt!!! I, Me, I don't have salt!  I have never been on the low sodium band wagon and occasionally have the problem of over-salting my food because I really enjoy salty foods.  I honestly almost ran right out the door and across town to get salt but I was already so hungry and really salt is just a flavor amplifier (really important don't get me wrong but yeah we can skip it this once).   I would estimate 2 Tbs of oil and 2 Tbs of vinegar in this dressing and it made too much for my half head of lettuce salad.  Normally I would grab a piece of bread and soak up the dressing on some toast but. . .no bread in the house right now.  

The salad is really satisfying.  The combination of textures keeps my pallet curious while the mixing of flavors and the pucker of the vinegar leaves me craving bite after bite.  Just some soft greens (not kale or chard or collards or any other of those hearty greens) a bit of bite sized vegetables and a simple oil/vinegar dressing.  It honestly took me more time to write this up than it did to make the salad!  

Mushroom Gravy and Fries

Once I get on a gravy kick it is hard to stop!  This is a simple meal made from things that I have made dozens of times.  French fries with barbecue sauce, Kale salad with think slice zucchini, snap peas and shredded carrots, brown rice with mushroom gravy.

Late Night Tacos

You have a long day, and accidentally fall asleep right when you get home.  When you wake up at 1am and still need dinner what do you do?  well if you have a quart of chili left over in the fridge like I luckily did tacos make a quick and delicious choice.  The corn tortillas are gently warmed on a cast iron before they are topped with heated chili (learn more about how to make chili here: http://cooperativevegan.blogspot.com/2012/07/chilli-con-yum.html ).  The green is a mix of shredded cabbage and carrots with some snap peas.  I really like to use cabbage in a soft taco because it adds a nice texture without overshadowing the chili.  I'll admit, four tacos at 2am might be a lot to sleep on but it is also so delicious!  It would have been killer to have a dash of lime juice, a slice of avocado and a glass of horchata but it is 2 am and I am going to try and sleep.

Food for 200

so . . .I did something kinda crazy last week.  I made A LOT of food.  About a month ago Boz asked me to handle food for an upcoming event.  I had a budget of 300 dolalrs and needed to feed 200 people a combination of vegan and non vegan food.  OF course I wanted to go all vegan but I got help to deal with the non-vegan side of things.  While I turned 50 pounds of potatoes into 65 lbs of potato salad and 45 pounds of cabbage into 50 pounds of cole slaw Hani and Marie handled BBQ chicken (eww right, huge thanks for them dealing with it).  Of course I wanted there to be a comparable vegan choice so I went with the classic BBQ jack Fruit. 

Considering how delicious and simple it is to make this dish I am always amazed that people do not know about it.  First question is always "jack fruit?  what is that?"  Well Ill tell you: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackfruit 

or rather  I will let Wiki tell you (please donate).  The cool part is this fruit has been eaten in India for over 6000 years, and it is just like I always say . . .you want a new idea look at the oldest vegetarian group on the planet!  Fortunately we can take this fruit and give it an american twist.  The hard part is often finding a good source of jack Fruit.  For last weeks meal I completely bought out the Asian market here in Davis, which is where you can often find canned jack fruit.  If you go with fresh jack fruit you need to soak it in water over night (or longer) to reduce the sweet/fruity flavor.  Getting from the can is way easier.   

Preparation is pretty much boiling the fruit in flavor water.  I use a combination of vegetable stock, garlic and onions.  The secret for getting the BBQ into it is a touch of liquid smoke . . . and oh man how have I never cooked with liquid smoke before?  You knwo that smell that people associate with barbecued whatever?  well it isnt the meat, it isnt the marinade, it isnt the grill it is the smoke!  liquid smoke adds that woodsy taste that you get in your nostrils and keep craving.  It is also what turns ketchup into barbecue sauce (more or less). 

The cole slaw and potato salad were pretty challenging and in the amount of time I had I didnt manage to take many photos.  Some day soon I might have enough time to actually document what I am doing again. 

Also a big thank you to Brad and Diana who helped plate food for 100 hungry climbers and the dozens of spectators at the Competition.

salad sandwich

Simple filling and delicious.  What we have here is massaged kale with shredded carrots and beets, a home made almond 'mayo' (which is my experimenting with vegan/paleo/raw foods) and a smattering of Dijon mustard.  The bread is a store bough sourdough which is lightly toasted. I think what made this sandwich a winner was the fact that I used carrots from the garden; they were sweeter and more flavorful than any other carrots I have had!  you cannot tell from this picture but it was also a combination of standard orange carrots and some purple carrots.  they taste different but I cannot tell you exactly how  :)  

Full meal posts are gonna be off for a bit . . . my cook nights are double booked and getting food to my house is more important than the blog.  Maybe tomorrow I will make a 'full meal' lunch for my day off!

This is not the burger you are looking for

In the dead of winter you cannot blame me for wanting a taste of summer.  I just wanted to fire up the grill and toss on some portobello's, some marinated zuchinni, a few potatoes and of course corn. . . but it is January, it is cold outside, I am not gonna take the time to set up a grill and most my favorites are out of season.  After rummaging around the kitchen I made a mash of black beans (left over from dinner) and boiled yams, the mix was mostly yams.  That was not all, I grated some carrots in and tossed in some sauteed onions with seasonings (garlic[duh], salt, pepper, paprika and cumin).  I was surprised by how firm the mash was right off the bat!  I didn't have to add ant flour to stiffen it up.  I did use some corn meal on the outside before tossing my patties into a grill and it made it so they held together instead of sticking to the pan.  I put the patty on a baguette with barbecue sauce, dijon mustard, karinata kale, and a fresh sprout mix.  I rounded out my summer daydreams with thick cut fires baked at 400 F with lots of pepper and a dash of salt.  The good news is the days are already getting longer! 

NYE Pasta!

Happy New Year!  So glad to make your acquainted 2013, I think we will be good friends.  Of course even new exciting times can have their hick-ups. 

My last minute dinner tonight is this beautiful lemon garlic pasta.  I am quite the fan of the non-tomato based pastas but you have to get comfortable with fat (i.e. oil or butter).    This pasta dish features seared carrots, blanched kale and boiled beets and only used two pans.  A really fun thing to do is boil the beets with the pasta; I know this will result in some nutritional loss but I love the way it colors the pasta.  I sauteed the carrots in coconut oil with cumin seeds, mustard seeds onion and some garlic.  The kale was added to the pasta after the water was drained, allowing the remnant heat and steam  to cook it just a bit.  The trick to a 'butter' sauce  is to basically toss your pasta in a really nice salad dressing, something that has a combination of fat and acid but in this case is heavier in fat. My plan was to just use some olive oil and lemon juice  The tragic mistake . . . I went to add a dash of basil and the top popped off.  If anyone spends enough time in the kitchen you will hit these 'salt shaker top' type catastrophes the trick is learning how to recover.  I had a taste and the problem was the dryness of the leaves and the 'grassy-ness' or the sense that I was trying to make a pesto pasta but messed up.  To cut the grassy aspect I added extra fat and made some of it coconut oil to give a better richness.  I also found the flavor of the basil to be a bit on the over stated side so I cut it with extra vinegar and sued a combination of white for the sharpness and a bit of balsamic to get a sweetness that I thought was needed.  The end result was not what I wanted it to be but I still am going to bed with a happy belly!

Comfort in Quinoa

I didnt intend this blog to keep track of my mood but it turns out it does without my intention.   When life gets crazy I tend not to post.  Only when my mind settles again do I think 'ok food yeah i should talk about food'.  The moral is if I dont post for 2-3 weeks I am either out of town or my life is going nuts!

only thing to do when life gets nuts?  eat quinoa!  This is one of those modern day 'super foods ( a term I really dont like) because it is a plant based complete protein, yeah they exist.  NASA started using it on flights because of the way it balances fiber and protein without fat or cholesterol (though I like fat).  It is also my go to grain when I need something to eat and my mind is blank.  The great thign about quinoa is it cooks just like rice in a quarter of the time!  1 cup Quinoa 1 1/2 C broth (though just water is fine too) bring ti to a boil then let it simmer for 15-20 min.  The quinoa in this lunch was slightly toasted before I cooked it and had sauteed onions and garlic added.  I balanced the meal with a broccoli carrot teriyaki and boy did the sweet/savory hit the spot!