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.

Southern Comfort

     Nothing quite says comfort food like Biscuits and Gravy. . . unless it is biscuits and gravy with a side of grits and french fries.  While I was hitting the blue ridge mountains I was lucky enough to get in in my friends tiny kitchen and cook a vegan meal southern style.  

     The gravy is my pretty standard mushroom gravy (which I still want to try and make wheat free).  Caramelize some onions in oil (i like coconut oil for this because it does add some flavor so feel free to go with olive or safflower) , toss in diced garlic and sliced mushrooms.  while those are browning you can prepare a rue by whisking hot vegetable stock with white flour. I make my broth with the vegetable paste 'better than bullion' and for gravy I will add some soy sauce, vegan Worcestershire sauce and a dash of braggs.  The amount totally depends on how much gravy you are making but be careful it is pretty easy to make the rue too salty.  You can always fix it by adding more water and flour but too far will start to dilute the taste.  

     The fries are also my regular midnight snack of potatoes cut and tossed in olive oil (no peanut oil in this house but olive oil does wonderful!) and baked at 425 for 30-40 minutes.

     Grits. . . basically polenta which are both corn meal based.  The finer details don't trouble me much because we can get the 'feel' or 'taste' in the cooking process.  starting with the intended product may make it easier but a bit of kitchen trickery and I doubt you could tell which witch is which.  The recipe I followed for this grits (starting with grits) surprised me as it called for a tablespoon of sugar!  The slightly sweet grits were really quite good but I made them again alter in the week and went for a savory gris and like dhtat a bit more.  here is how both go:

3 C water

3 C almond milk (for creamy sweet) or 3 C Vegetable broth (for savory)

6 Tbs Butter ( used earth balance coconut whip so they were soy free)

2 tsp salt

3 Tbs sugar (leave out for savory)

2 Tsp pepper (leave out for creamy sweet)

1/4 C nutritional yeast (leave out for creamy sweet)

1 1/2 C Grits

mix everything together, let the butter melt in then stir in the grits simmer for 5 minutes and you are golden!  

[This recipe comes from a quick google search (http://southernfood.about.com/od/gritsrecipes/r/breakfast-grits.htm) ]

     For the biscuits. . .well you know how I am with baked goods.  There is so much detail to include and precision needed for great baking that I will have to do a biscuit post some other time.  For now Enjoy grits, enjoy gravy and always eat well.

Pizza for Days!

I dont know if it is the stress of traveling, the unfamiliar food of eating out too much or the lack of organic produce but when I am not in my own kitchen I never feel as good.  So when I got home from a conference in Monterey CA I was keen to do something exciting!  Fortunately my cook partner justin was on the same page and we made pizza!  

People always debate whether a good pizza depends on the crust or the sauce or the cheese/toppings.  Ill tell you now IT IS ALL THREE.  Sure you can still pull off a good pizza if the crust is perfect while the sauce is just ok but why bother with ok when you can have a really top notch pizza by getting all three right?  

First the dough:  

If there is a good bakery or pizzeria around the easy way is to buy your dough from them (which is what we did).   They have the industrial mixers and  A LOT of practice in making dough.  If you have the time of course make your own dough.  Not only does this give you the satisfaction of doing it all but it also gives you the chance to add extras (garlic, rosemary, dried basil or other spices, be creative).  A simple home recipe is 

7 cups white bread flour 

1 level tablespoon fine sea salt

1/4 ounce active dried yeast (about 1 tsp)

1 tablespoon raw sugar

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 1/2 cups lukewarm water

First mix the warm water, raw sugar, olive oil and yeast in a bowl and let it sit.  While the yeast wakes up sift the salt into the flour.  Slowly add the flour to the water with a gentle fluid stirring motion.  The idea is to work up the gluten from the flour into long elastic strands.  Mixing too fast or vigorously will break this process. Once it become stiff flour your hands and begin to knead the dough ball in a fold->rotate->fold process (check out The Tassajara Bread Book for a great pictorial representation). 

Let the dough sit for an hour while you make sauce and toppings!  

Sauce:

This is one of those things that I need to measure better.  I start with a can of fire roasted tomatoes.  Getting fire roasted tomatoes makes  a big difference so really go looking for them.  Again you can make your own but this adds another hour to the prep time.  The roasted tomatoes have their natural sugars better accentuated while also obtaining the rich full body of roasting.  Simmer the tomatoes for about 45 min on a low heat.  Add a touch of salt and pepper and really that will already be a wonderful sauce.  Of course I go further adding some crushed garlic, fresh oregano, minced parsley and some olive oil. The amounts of each depend on the flavors you want to have.  More garlic will give a bolder taste , more oil will give a smoother texture, fresh herbs will add complexity.  Just remember   after you add something wait 5-10 minutes for the flavor to mix before tasting and deciding to add more.

Toppings

I like to make cheese sauces with blended almonds and nutritional yeast but on this pizza I went for a hearty summer feel.  There are caramelized onions, mushrooms sauteed in olive oil, thin sliced green bell peppers and eggplant pan fried with coconut oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar.  

Creation:

get that oven heating to 450 or 500 with a pizza stone in the over.  IF you dont have a pizza stone you can fake it with a heavy baking sheet turned upside down but really that ceramic stone is important to baking the pizza evenly.

Since we have good crust, good sauce and good toppings we want to construct our pizza with a balance of all three.  We push our dough down and  knead it into a ball, cut off a portion and roll it out to a 1/4 inch thick.  Dont try to make a big pizza by rolling out the dough thinner just use more dough for a bigger pizza.  spoon the pizza sauce on and spread it so it is nearly even but not so tick that you dough is totally hidden.  If you like a saucy-er pizza I suggest keeping some sauce in a bowl for dipping, too much pizza sauce on the dough will interfere with the baking.  Same is true for toppings, they should be evenly distributed but not completely obscuring the sauce.  I always have a tendency to overload my pizza with toppings but each component has a flavor it is adding, more toppings does not necessarily enhance the flavor. . .Balance between the flavors is the goal.  

The pizza bakes for 15-20 minutes depending on the heat of your oven and how much stuff you put on top.  You want the crust to go golden while the pizza stone cooks the dough from underneath to create a solid crust the whole way across.  

we served our pizza with a tomato lentil soup full of the vegetables we had on the pizza and a simple green salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  

In the above picture you can also see the baked potato pizza which featured an almost 'cheese' sauce.  As is always the case with pizza I am ready for more!  

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! 

Biscuits n' Gravy

After doing a bit of traveling I got a hankering for some good ole fashion american food. . . Classic Biscuits and Gravy with a vegan twist.  We will be turning this mass of vegetables

into this meal.  Looking around the plate we see: BBQ Tempeh Sweet potato mash, green salad, spicy home fires and the focus of the meal Biscuits and Mushroom Gravy.

Mushroom  Gravy:

I like to use slice mushrooms rather than diced, I think it adds a nice texture.  The garlic and onions are going to provide a flavorful body to back up the mushroom highlights.

The onions are sauteed in oil, a lot of oil (nearly a cup of oil) for 5 to 10 min before the mushrooms join them.  I used as much coconut oil as I had around and used some canola to round it out.  I like to use coconut oil because the saturated fattiness and hint of flavor puts a lot of creaminess and delicious!  

I usually cheat when I am making gravy and just whisk some flour into the mess being sauteed but making enough gravy for ten people I went ahead and made a rue.  Rue is a fancy word for thick vegetable stock and I used about 5 cups of stock with 1-2 cups white flour with a  splash of soy sauce and vegan Worcestershire sauce to re-enforce that earthy savory taste and darken the rue to a nice golden brown color.  I also added a Tbs of butter (but not too much because the mushrooms and garlic already have enough oil)

Add the rude and let the whole thing simmer.  Check the flavor and add salt and pepper until it gets just the way you like.  If you are feeling extra fancy you can add in some truffle oil while it simmers to a thick and tasty gravy. . . personally I like drizzling the truffle oil over the top so it stands out as a distinct but complimentary flavor.  I did toss in some cursed red pepper flakes for a hint of color, not enough to make it spicy just enough to make it mesmerizing to look at. 

Buttermilk Biscuits:

Yeah I am sure you are going to scoff at the idea of 'buttermilk' and you have every right to but there is a vegan approximation.  I use soy milk (the protein and fat content are high and usually has a good amount of emulsifier which helps); one cup of soy milk whisked with a teaspoon of white vinegar.  The acid interacts with the protein and fat to thicken the soy milk until it is creamy and frothy. 

 For this recipe make sure the soy milk is chilled and goes back into the fridge after whisking. The key to making delicious flaky biscuits is keeping the fat chilled so the flour takes on a crumbly consistency.  That means between every step the ingredients should be in the fridge.  

Ingredients:

Dry

2 Cups White Flour

4 tsp Baking powder

1/4 tsp Baking soda

1 tsp salt

Fats

2 Tbs butter

2 Tbs shortening

Milk

1 C soy milk

1 tsp white wine vinegar 

The fun part of this recipe is that after sifting together the dry ingredients you get to mash in the fats by hand.  From fridge to mash should only take five minutes and the crumbly flour goes back into the fridge.  It is ok if there are some clumps but the goal is to have it all be flat and flaky but a few lumps are fine.  

Mix in the chilled buttermilk with a minimum of stirring until the ingredients are well combined, the dough should remain sticky.  Flour your hands and roll the dough into a ball, I tripled the recipe so I ended up with three balls (and could have been happy with quintuple these were so good).  Back into the fridge!  

You can roll the dough out but it is more fun to press it by hand to about 1" thick.  I made it too thin and the biscuits did not puff up as much as I wanted but man still delicious!  I used a cup to cut out rounds, recombining the trimming to make more rounds

bake at 450 for 15 min and yummmmmmmmmm!

Sides:

Five pounds of potatoes wedged and tossed with olive oil paprika salt pepper and garlic.  Bake at 450 for 45 to 60 minutes until golden brown and tasty, stir them around somewhere near the 30 min mark.  I like to let them sit for 15 min before serving, not only because they are too hot but also because the starches settle down and they go from being flaky to firm, and I like that more! 

Cut tempeh into strips and toss with your favorite BBQ sauce.  I was going to make my own but I ran out of liquid smoke.  I tried this new sauce based out of sonoma and was amazed to find that I liked it without alteration!  Most the time I add half a dozen spices to sauces before I actually enjoy them. . .this one was bang on and may hinder my doing BBQ sauce from scratch in the future. Bake at 450 for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 min or so 

unfortunately The store ran out of tempeh so I tried to make Seitan from vita wheat gluten and spices. Not goig into detail here because I didnt like the way it turned out but I will play with it more and get back to you once I figure out how to make seitan do what I want.  

Still I rolled it out after kneading and tossed it with the Barbecue sauce.  The flavor was right on but the texture was too rubbery, I am guessing I over mixed it, over kneaded or added too much water . . .more experimentation to be done. 

Sweet Potato mash was simple. . . cube 5 pounds of sweet potatoes and steam until soft.  Mash them with 1/2 Cup oil 1/4 Cup water, 1 tsp cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg.  Garlic, salt and pepper to taste.  Keep in mind here the oil and water may be off in measurement but the point is to add oil and water until you get the creaminess you want but dont go overboard.  You can always cut the fat by increasing the water in place of oil but really the oil is what makes these things turn to velvet. 

 And YUMMMMMMMMMMMMM