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.

Early Summer Pasta

This was quite possibly the best thing I ate in the last month!  

The kale salad was made with fresh corn, thin sliced red onion and avocado; it was dressed in a lemon vinaigrette made with coconut oil.   The balancing of flavor s was exquisite and the acidity was a bit high whit I really loved when it mixed with the creamy mellow of the avocado or the sweet crisp of the corn.  

The broccoli was a simple light steam dressed with olive oil,salt and pepper.  It was left simple and a bit firm.  The natural flavor was the key component but if a bit of that lemon vinaigrette splashed on it it added a bit of a lip smacking zing to it that I really enjoyed

The main was an angle hair pasta dressed in a garlic butter dressing.  The 'butter' in this case was the earth balance coconut spread (making the whole meal soy free) blended with minced fresh garlic a pinch of salt and a dash of olive oil.  For flavor and color there is also diced parsley, chopped green onions and chunks of heirloom tomatoes.  

What surprised me about this meal, what I wish I planned, is how the flavors all blended so well.  Each item could be mixed with one of the others to make a new flavor combination (though mixing all three was just too much flavor). the kale added some awesome body to the pasta.  The pasta with the broccoli gave a tootyness and a freshness that was like spring time!  Some day I hope I am better at planning flavor combinations like this.. . for now I am happy with the coincidental discoveries! 

Not quite Summer Pasta

It is late enough in the year that we are out of preserved tomatoes and not yet time for tomatoes from the garden!  Of course I could pop over to the store and get a can of sauce but sometimes food is enough work that going to the store makes it too much work!  It is also fun to be creative with food. . . to explore within the restrictions of the kitchen.  So I present to you a lovely pasta dish sans tomato.  This is essentially an garlic butter sauce on fusilli pasta (spirals).  Ironically we were also out of olive oil (my first choice in making a garlic sauce) and earth balance (my second choice though i usually like to cut it with other oils).  I 'resorted' to coconut oil.  since cocnut oil has a distinct flavor I dont like to use it when making sauces unless I am looking for a coconut flavor but it is still a perfect choice for this pasta.  Just having a bowl of pasta with garlic and oil is great but I like to toss in some color and flavor.  If you did want to go for the basic start with pressing or finely dicing garlic into a dish and mixing it with the oil so the flavor can diffuse. Cook and drain your pasta, lightly salt and pepper then toss with your garlic oil.  Different people have different enjoyments of oil so the amount can really vary but if this is your principle sauce you want a little less than a table spoon of garlic oil for every cup of pasta. I encourage you to start with less and slowly add.  Remember adding oil to pasta is easy taking it back out. . . .well.

To add some oomph I tossed in some diced broccoli, sliced kalmata olives, some kale stems I had been saving and then a handful of beans left over from making chili.   Adding these accoutrements doesnt just give you a bit of green and protein for your diet, it also adds color and texture and flavor.  I know it is important to keep things like calories, fat and protein in mind when you eat but damn it eating should be fun your food should be pretty and taste great!  The fact that this dish has a good mix of nutrients is just a bonus.

(and again I wish I had an avocado handy)

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!

Davey's Macaroni

About a month ago I tried a relatively new restaurant in Oakland called Home Room.  This hip place features a menu of many macaroni and cheeses with ad ins that make the combinations nearly endless!  To my enjoyment they even have a vegan option!  The service is wonderful the ambiance is just to die for and the food is decent.  The brussel sprout appetizer was by far my favorite, but the fresh green salad had a simplicity that was refreshing without being boring.  The mac and cheese was unfortunately not that great.  It was good, with a  soft cheesy flavor but the sauce was watery and the extra cost for mushrooms was way too much for the quality. Unfortunately the sauce was too thin and I am used to a more bold flavor for my not-cheese sauces.  Still I would recommend it for an quick bit in Oakland.

Homeroom mac 'n cheese with peas and muchrooms

At this point I have to admit that I am biased against most mac 'n cheeses because I have had what is arguably the best mac 'n cheese.  It was introduced to me by my friend Davey.  Brussel sprouts still being too expensive I made a side of collard greens and a kale salad.  

Lets get down to it and turn this:

into this!

Mac ' Yeast

What I love about this recipe is how surprisingly simple it is to make with amazing flavor! This is one of those dishes that really proves anything can be transformed by a good sauce.  As the name may suggest the basis of this 'cheese' sauce is nutritional yeast.  In a blender place:




1 C soy milk
1 C water
1/3 C Soy sauce
1/2 C firm tofu
1 1/2 C nutritional yeast
1 Tbs paprika
1 Tbs powdered garlic
1 Tbs salt (or powdered vegetable bouillon)
1/2 C safflower oil (or your oil of preference)

This all get blended together until it is smooth and creamy.  As with most sauces the importance is the balance between fat and flavor (where flavor is usually water based).  The tofu in this acts as a great source of protein and more importantly as an emulsifier to keep the water and oil mixed.  The proportions above are good for about 1 lb of pasta and you can adjust the thickness of the sauce by adding more or less water (though I tend to go for a thicker sauce).  This sauce is going to be baked so don't make it to thick or you will burn! 

I used 2 lbs of pasta and doubled the above proportions with one bag of frozen peas (aprox. 12 oz).  It is ok to under cook the pasta a little, even preferred, because we are going to bake this whole mess at 350 F for 15-25 minutes.  if you made your sauce to thin you can bake it longer to thicken it up but really this step is for mixing the flavors and giving a nice crust to the top layer of macaroni. 

before oven                                  .  

after oven                                         .

The extra sprinkle of paprika and nutritional yeast is just for effect and hardly effects the flavor.  

Kale Salad

I did some pretty simple side dishes with steamed broccoli and a kale salad. This kale salad was a mix of karinata kale and red Russian kale with shreds of carrots and golden beats.  The dressing was an orange ginger vinaigrette and the sesame seeds were added in excess (just the way I like it).  I have done kale salad a few times so feel free to look at old recipes.  Again the secret is in the sauce, balancing acid with fat and flavor.  Sometimes Kale makes this extra tricky because you want the acid to sit on the kale for 20- 30 minutes before you add the fat and flavor.

Steamed Broccoli

The broccoli was simply cut up and steamed but the secret to delicious broccoli is getting ti fresh as possible.  the less time ti sits off the plant the sweeter it will be.  If you can get a young broccoli and get ti picked fresh that day you probably dont need to steam it and could serve it raw with a  spicy or savory dipping sauce where the natural sweetness of the broccoli balances out the flavors.  I know you probably dont think of broccoli as being sweet but man it can be surprising! 

Collard Greens

If you are trying to eat local and winter comes rolling round you best make friends with collard greens.  The nice thing is that they are such a common treat for some sub cultures in the USA that figuring out how to cook them is not that hard.  As you might suspect it is high heat with a  good oil and some onions and garlic for the yum factor.  Collards come in big broad leaves (we are talking a foot wide) that are easy to wash and prepare.  Just cut out the stem (save them) and then slice the leaves into manageable strips.  make sure you use 'too many' leaves as this is much like spinach and other dark greens you cook, they loose a lot of volume when you apply heat.  It is common to blanch the leaves before cooking (dip them into boiling water fr a minute) as this cuts down on the bitterness and makes a more manageable volume.  I prefer to use an acidic cooking stock to cut down the bitterness, typically lemon juice.  By avoiding the water you get to hit the leaves with full heat of the skillet and it gives them a nice sauteed flavor that I always have trouble getting if I blanch first.  

Eat it up!

Two Weeks in the Appalachia Hills of NC

So I really do mean to do this on a more regular basis but life does not always slow down enough for me to show off my meals the way I want to.  So after two weeks of INCREDIBLE meals all you get is a quick report on the foods and only the scantest of clues on how to make it.  If I were not leaving tomorrow for another trip I would honestly try to be more detailed in my meal preparation and thought process.  

Two Weeks of Tasty Food

Kale Salad

Kale salad with an avocado lemon vinaigrette with fresh corn, grated beets and carrots.  The body is hefted up with a bit of shredded cabbage and topped with crushed walnuts and a few more slices of avocado

Buffalo Fries

It seemed abnormal to go to the south without having buffalo wings but the next best thing is buffalo fires with home made 'wing' sauce.  I used a lot of extra pepper and pinch of salt and so much garlic that I ahrdly tasted the spicy delicious wing sauce

 Buckwheat Pancakes
I was visiting a wheat free friend but that did not deter us from pancakes with maple syrup.  The amazing thing about the east coast is blueberries grow wild!  the bananas are still imported but a morning walk to harvest blueberries made these things so much more worth it!

Shredded salad and mushroom risotto 

One of the many amazing dinners consisted of carrot/beet/cabbage salad with almonds, raisins and, sesame seeds.  The salad was dressed in balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  The risotto was rich and delicious and could have used more mushrooms but was a nice compliment to the salad.

Indian Dinner
One lovely night we threw a dinner party with Red Dhal soup, turmeric rice (didnt have any saffron so did our best), pumpkin curry and a green salad.

more salad

massaged kale with romaine lettuce.  The tomatoes and peppers came from the small garden on site and the diced almonds came with me from Cali!

 Simple Dinner
Steamed carrots and purple cabbage topped with sauteed potatoes and bell peppers.

Hash brown Breakfast
shred potatoes, shred yams, garlic and onions!  I am always a fan of hash browns but for some reason these were extra good.  Top potatoes with avocado and Chihuly hot sauce and you are always on the right track.

potato stew

I was not thrilled with my first go at buckwheat biscuits but they added a nice body to the stew as they melted in.  The stew was a slow roast with potato carrot cabbage in a tomato base with a lot of garlic and some onion.  

Mexican Dinner
Turns out North Carolina does not offer a lot of Mexican food.  This was the last night as a going away treat to remind my friend what is waiting for her in California.  Salsa fresca Mexican spiced black beans with a side of Spanish rice. Fresh corn and guacamole to make tacos with corn tortillas was like heaven!

Salad once more

On the night I met Debra Frasier, Liz and I shared kale salads.  Shredded carrots, shredded beats, tomatoes from the garden, fresh corn, bell peppers and a lemon vinaigrette.  I ate it and wanted more and more and more!  I dont thing there is anything I like as much as a well made salad!  

I have no idea what I am going to eat for the next two weeks but once I am back we will all know! 

Lunch Salad

With summer here my kale salads are now featuring tomatoes and corn!  I still use diced almonds and sesame seeds (duh) with grated garlic.  I also toss in minced basil and some fresh oregano, salt and pepper to taste.  It is probably the most filing salad I could think of! 

Lunch time, yeah!

The last two weeks have been BUSY!  it may be hard to believe but I dont think I have cooked a full dinner in 2 weeks!  Egads!  yet still I crank out some tasty and quick lunches.  Above you see the toasted sesame asparagus in a balsamic reduction with a side of chipotle zucchini and roasted fennel bulb.  The salad is a Dino/Red Russian kale mix with sunflower seeds and grated carrots.  The strawberries on top are just because but made an excellent cap to the meal.

Triple Carrot! 

Side Dish! Kale Salad

    Kale. . . how do you eat that?  Kale just goes to prove that things that are good for you do not taste good!  guess what things that are bad for you do not taste good without the right preparation, seriously try a tablespoon of sugar delicious? not even close!  Somehow we all know that Kale is this amazing food and we are supposed to eat it to be healthy but I cannot afford a vitamix (yet) and I don't know how else to make it unrecognizable.  Maybe you have only tried kale when it is cooked to death in a soup or smothered in some sauce after it has been boiled. . .there is a better way!  it is sweeping the nation so much so that it randomly came up in conversation at the DMV last week and someone challenged me to a Kale Salad 'Cook'-Off!  What am i talking about. . . learn these words: massaged kale salad.

Massaged Kale Salad

     Sure we all giggle about it being 'massaged' but I am guessing another year from now and this style of salad will be so accepted as the norm that it will just be kale salad.  Here is what you need:

1 bunch Kale (i prefer Lacinato aka Dion Kale)
1 Tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp red wine vinegar
2 tsp olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1 Tbs sesame seed

The mechanism employed to turn this roughage into a palpable salad is a form of non-cooking which uses the acidity of vinegar and some rough handling to break apart the cells and fibrous nature of the kale.  Unfortunately the stems are too much fiber and so first we take the stems out 

you can cut them out or just use your hands to rip out the stem, doing it for the whole bunch.  The stems may be used in a lot of different ways.  Not that long ago I diced them and tossed them in a curry, they work well as a hearty and healthful filler in any stir fry or soup or vegetable casserole etc.  If you are keen on making veggie broth these stems are great (i know I should do that more often) or just put them in the compost and grow more kale! 

The way that the stems rip out leaves the leaves in this nice V shape which makes it really easy to slice the Kale into ribbons by cutting across the V.  Obviously don't be obsessive about getting ALL OF THE STEM, you just need to get the hefty part because the stems will break down some in the vinegar bath.   

For my vinegar bath I like to use a combination of Rice vinegar and red wine vinegar.  The high acidity and soft flavors add a nice aroma without overpowering the nature of the kale.  Toss the kale with the vinegar and the salt and let it sit for a minute while the garlic gets diced.

I use raw garlic. . . yes raw garlic, the same trick that mellows out the kale works on the garlic but I still dice the garlic extra fine, not only so I avoid a big garlic bit surprise but also to spread that tasty garlic flavor all over.

Now the massaging . . .which I am realizing right now is more like brutalizing.  Toss in the garlic, olive oil and the sesame seeds and then start really working the kale.  If you are having an angry day feel free to punch the kale but usually I go with the crushing and mixing motion.  Take up small hand fulls and crush as hard as you can, repeat this taking from the bottom of the bowl so the vinegar/garlic/salt dressing gets mixed through the salad

At this point give it a taste and determine if you want more salt or garlic or vinegar but don't expect it to taste perfect yet.  The vinegar needs time to work and i would suggest a minimum of 30 minutes before serving this salad.  

     The good news is that is it!  that is the basic recipe of course the fun is in taking a basic recipe and adding some flourish.  Often I will go for a spicy savory and toss in some oregano, thyme, basil, black pepper etc and of course more sesame seeds (what can I say).  This salad was being made while I had a bit of a sweet tooth and so I added some extras accordingly:

3 pieces candied ginger
1/2 avocado
1/2 orange
1 tbs sesame seeds
1/4 C walnuts

Dice it all up and toss the salad once more and enjoy!  MY salad came out a bit overly moist this time because  I went over board with the olive oil and I am always surprised by how much this raw salad shrinks down.  The whole bunch which previously filled my mixing bowl un-cooks down to nearly 1/3 its original size . . .and that is after adding the extras.  If you are planning on feeding more than 2-3 people get a second or third bunch of kale, or use purple cabbage as a nice filler, the point is plan on the volume reducing a lot. . .and plan on people wanting to eat a lot of this!