Salads for Dinner

Some days are just not what you want them to be. . . .your mind gets stuck on some idea and you spend a beautiful day inside writing letters you are never going to send. There is only one thing that helps . . . 

COMFORT FOOD

Potato salad, pasta salad a nice green salad to get those vitamins minerals and fiber and then a bean salad for that protein kick that makes tomorrow easier.  Ill tell you right now that this is going to be level less 'recipe' than usual.  I did some experimenting with the potato salad and it was PHENOMENAL.  

So lets turn this mass of veggies---->

<----------- into this mass of tasty!

The pasta salad get nixed in this post, because well it is a day like that but it is pretty simple.  Cooked pasta tossed with peas corn garlic and olive oil.  Salt and pepper to taste. For ratios you want to aim for something that is mostly pasta accentuated with some vegetables. 

 The green salad is also straight forward.  I used a spring mix with raisins, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, diced almonds, some shredded radish and a sprinkling of calendula petals for color!  Calendula (aka marigolds) have edible petals  that dont have much in the way of flavor but add amazing color to salads with a texture that is consistent with the rest of the dish. 

Bean Salad:

   Using a pressure cooker (or enough forethought that you soak the beans beforehand and have enough time to cook them)  prepare enough beans for your meal; I did about 3 cups dry white beans and 1 cup dry kidney beans (it comes out to about 6 cups of cooked beans) 

 I diced in some raw beets to add some color and sweetness and a bunch of long beans cut into one inch segments.  I also shredded carrot and zucchini into the mix.  Not only does this give an additional texture and some bonus vegetation but ti also provides more color which makes your typical bland bean salad seem fun and exciting! 

Seasonings can be as simple as salt and pepper but I strongly urge the use of some summer time herbs like oregano basil and thyme.  We had a bounty of rosemary in the kitchen so I used that as my primary flavor, using paprika to add a bit of spice and color (yes paprika can have spice you just need to get the fresh stuff)

 of course I used fresh grated garlic, yum! 

I tossed the salad with a combination of olive oil and white wine vinegar (though you can use any vinegar you like).  I wan to make up some measurement for how much I used but I honestly have no clue, though you do want about equal parts oil and vinegar!  The goal here is to make the salad moist without drowning it, add in slow amounts alternating olive oil then vinegar (too much olive oil is easier to deal with than too much vinegar) until the beans are evenly coated without there being a pool of 'dressing' in the bottom of the bowl

Potato Salad:

    I have a problem with potato salad. . . I dont like mayonnaise.  I didnt like it when I was an omnivore and i found the vegan versions just as unappealing.  I still used it when I was making some dishes but damn it!  I didnt want to this time.  I used an adaptation of a cream sauce I made for a pasta primavera alfredo.  Again with a bit of forethought I would have soaked the almonds for 30-60 minuted before I made this but i didnt know I was going to do this until i was in the store holding a jar of vegan mayo and cringed.  

I blended 1 cup of almonds with 1 large block of silken tofu (seemed about 2 cups worth) and 1/2 cup olive oil.  knowing that this was going to a potato salad I was not shy about using some vinegar to thin it out (just a couple table spoons) 

I used mustard, a pinch or two of salt and a bit more vinegar for flavoring while a few more splashes of olive oil were there to push the sauce to a more creamy texture.  I was surprised at how quickly  it all came together but in the time it took the potatoes to boil I ended up with my own vegan sauce for potato salad (That I refuse to call mayo because it is nothing like that stuff).

You cook the potatoes . . .just boil them.  I like to used red potatoes boiled in an open pot so I can make sure they dont get over done.  For my house i sued five pounds of potatoes (you might as well too because left over potato salad is GREAT).   

Mix the potatoes with the almond-tofu sauce (lets call it almofu sauce, or someone make up a word for this stuff we need a vocabulary to describe these things that does not relate it to some dairy counterpart) a hearty helping of black pepper and grated garlic ( i must have grated 20 cloves for this meal) and some diced parsley.  I also diced it the celery greens because I like the color and flavor.  I dont grate carrots for this dish, I coarsely chop them with the celery because then everything has a comparable texture.  I also use a few spoon fulls of sweet pickle relish to round out the pallet of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy.  

I feel like I am forgetting something but like I said it was an experiment and I will have to repeat it again and see what changes. . .though i hope nothing because I could have eaten this potato salad for days! (though my brother would not even try it, he has something against pickles in relish form or otherwise).

(the change in coloring of the potato salad is due to lighting only)

Enjoy!

Taquitos and Tacos!

I went shopping!  the goal was to make four different types of taquitos to explore different tastes and textures.  Knowing I would not make enough taquitos to feed the house I also made extra filling of each to serve as the base for tacos that would be topped with salsa fresca, shredded lettuce, carrot and radish. 

The potato taquitos were made with this turkish spice that I really like which is predominantly paprika but I have yet to ask Justin what it is. I supplemented with salt pepper tumeric curry spice and cumin to round out the flavor.  Season to taste! always season ti to the way you want ti to taste so you can enjoy it, this includes compensating for how the flavor changes as it cooks, in particular spicyness will decrease a bit  and herbyness will increase.  If you are cooking for other people (say someone who hates spice) you can either laugh at them as they bite into your taquito or you can take the time to set aside some potatoes and spice it with hem in mind.  Toss them in olive oil and bake at 400 for about an hour. 

Chiplotle tofu seemed like a must.  . .well chipotle something at least.  I crumbled the tofu and tossed it with chipotle, paprika garlic powder, spike(my favorite powdered vegetable bullion) , pepper and olive oil.  Before baking I let it sit for about 30 minutes so the flavor could soak in.  I just threw it in the oven with the potatoes and took it out 25 minutes later. it was brown and crispy and spicy!  I could have done a bit more to make it saucy but it worked.  I think next time I will make a chipotle sauce to mix it with after baking.  This would also help in the taquito rolling phase since the sauce (I am imagining a pretty thick sauce) would hold things in place better.  

Sweet potatoes get cubed and steamed.  Just 15 minutes in steam is enough to make these sweet tubers mashable.  I mixed in a bit of salt and olive oil but wanted to let the sweetness really shine so I stayed away from my typical arsenal of savory spices. 

not pictures here is the garlic black beans which I made. . . not sure where those pictures ended up but I did have some problem with my camera earlier in the week.  We will just have to do black beans another time and shift our focus to the tortillas which are made form scratch. 

Buy a masa mix.  It is a medium ground corn meal with lime.  the acidity helps bring out the starchyness of corn so it makes for good tortillas (at least that is what I was told once and it sound good enough to propagate whether it is totally factual or not).  Knead together 2 cups of masa with 1 cup water and a pinch of salt and you are already half way to making tortillas.

I am lucky enough to have a tortilla press in my house so I dont need to roll out the dough and then get something round to cut out the shape I want.  I take a small lime sized piece of dough (golf ball sized for sporty people) and press it, using an old plastic bag as my make-shift wax paper to assist removal from the tortilla press.   

 Cook those lovely tortillas for about 2 minutes on each side on a hot griddle/ in a cast iron pan and you are ready to start into taquito land proper!

We have our 4 fillings to work with (with a close up of the beans since there are not enough gratuitous black bean pictures yet) and each tortilla gets about 1.5 Tbs of filling and rolled into the approximate shape of a taquito. (yes the tortillas below are store bought, the home made were saved for the tacos) 

The biggest problem I had was that the beans and tofu were not held together enough.  Both potatoes did quite well and I think if I mashed the black beans a bit more it would have made the rolling a bit easier, still came out delicious! I brushed the tortillas with canola oil and then put them in the oven at 400 for around 45 minutes (the last 10 minutes were actually at 450 because I wanted my taquitos extra crispy)

To go with the taquitos, Guacamole of course. Avocado cut in half, pit removed and SMASHED into bowl.

mix in salt pepper some lime juice 5-60 cloves of garlic ( i used 5 cloves finely grated for 4 avocados worth) and you are done!  I put in a spoon full of salsa fresca for color and flavor but you are getting dangerous with the purity of what is guacamole if you push that too far! 

salsa fresca?  diced tomatoes green onions and garlic. Toss ti with a healthy squeeze of lime juice an a hearty pinch of salt and pepper . . .done and done! 

out of the oven I was so excited that I burned my mouth as I tried to eat one of the sweet potato taquitos right away ( did I mention this was the first time I made taquitos?).  So let them cool but dont let them get cold, these baddies are best eaten hot and often!  I am happy to say that none of the 30 taquitos I made were left at the end of dinner.  

Taco Bar!

Taquito Bliss! served with a cabbage salad that Ashley made that has an amazing creamy tahini grapefruit vinaigrette to go with it.  

Dinner fit for a Dragon

It is fantastic that there is so much to celebrate!  By having so many cultures mix together there is basically always a good reason to make a big meal and cheer!   Tonight I cooked a meal to celebrate the Chinese new year complete with miso soup, chow mein, steamed buns and cabbage stir fry(I forgot to make the almond cookies).   I am learning that doing all four dishes in one post is a bit much so this will focus on the chow mein with a bit about the buns leaving miso soup as a lesson for its own post later and vegetable stir fry as a theme I am sure will come up again.

Chow Mein

Long noodles bring long life and for chow mein it is easy to find hearty long rice noodles to serve as the base.  I do this recipe as a combination of vegetable stir fry with a lot of noodles and a little sauce.  

1/2 onion

2 tsp diced fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic diced

1/4 purple cabbage

2 carrots

1/2 C diced shiitake (aprox 5-10 shiitake mushrooms) 

1/2 C broccoli

1/2 C snow peas

2 Tbs okonomi sauce

? soy sauce (just a splash for color and some salty goodness)

? canola oil (just a splash to cook the veggies and another splash to fry noodles) 

Rice noodles cook pretty quick but you want to make sure you give them some time to drain so they dont hit the hot oil too wet. I boil them in water for 5 -7 minutes, dont over do it because they will get cooked more during the frying. 

I ran across the street to barrow a wok, you dont need to use a wok but it helps because the thin metal makes it so you can get a lot of high heat over a large surface area. . .perfect for pan frying a big meal.  

Before we start frying the noodles we want to get the vegetable cooked, I use a large cast iron leaving the wok for the noodles and final mixing.  I start with sauteing the onion and ginger in 1 or 2 Tbs of oil, tossing in the garlic a few minutes later.  The carrots purple cabbage and broccoli make a really good color medley for that visual appetite stimulant.  Paying attention to texture I shred the cabbage (comes naturally to it), 

slice the carrots into long disks with a diagonal cut and nearly minced the broccoli to give a  subtle texture.  In retrospect I could have done more cabbage.  Starting with these three is because they have similar cook times.  I keep the heat on medium high to get everything browning nicely, around 5 minutes, before I toss in the snow peas and the shiitakes which both just need 3-4 minutes of heat.

Now with a Tbs or two of oil get the wok nice and hot, you should notice that just after a minute or two the pan is hot enough to hit the smoke point of canola oil. Throw the cooked noodles right into that high heat and keep them stirring so they dont stick to the wok. ( i let my noodles sit too long after draining and they stuck together so in addition to making ti hard to stir i used a bit of extra oil to try and break them up without mashing them just continually tossing the big chunk of noodles with a bit of oil and heat until it falls apart naturally).  I like ti when the noodles burn a bit so I didnt stir as much as I should have but after a few minutes I toss in the mass of vegetables and keep stirring.  

I was about to make a teriyaki sauce from scratch when my cook partner handed me okonomi sauce to try.  I loved the stuff and threw in a few Tbs with a splash of soy sauce (not too much, we want to keep the water level down).  After another minute I took the dish off the heat and plated it .  

If you are paying attention I mention a few times about keeping moisture and water out of the frying process.  This is because the delicious part of frying is when the heat goes beyond steaming (getting rid of extra water) and starts browning.  By keeping the moisture level of the noodles down the browning happens sooner.  The okonomi and the soy sauce  add a bit to color and flavor but only add them at the end after you are satisfied with the combination of vegetables and noodles.  

Steamed Buns

we made both bbq tofu buns (savory) and red bean paste buns (sweet) and I was not entirely thrilled with the way the red bean buns came out but everyone else raved, I wanted a creamier texture.  

bun dough (a regular bread mix with 9 C flour)

3 C dry azuki beans (also called red beans)

1 C sugar

3 blocks firm tofu (about 3 C diced)

1 Tbs sesame seeds

? Barbecue sauce ( i am guessing 1 C but I lost track)

My cook partner made the dough last night and started the beans soaking so when ti came time to cook it was pretty straight forward, but I am always amazed at how baffled people are by making stuffed buns.  

boil the hell out of the red beans, just like making re-fried beans last week, except I didnt know the correct cook time so I boiled the beans in a pot where I could check on them every 10 minutes or so (too much steam to get a decent picture, my apologies).  While that is going on I shifted to the tofu.

I went looking for a recipe for BBQ suace from scratch but they all started with a ketsup base so I jsut bought a BBQ sauce and used that as my base.  I added extra garlic, vegan worcestershire sauce, black pepper, cayenne, and salt until i got a taste that i really liked.  

Press the tofu no seriously, press the tofu.  it can be as easy as stacking a few cutting boards on it and letting the blocks sit for 30 minuted but driving off the water makes it so the tofu is more likely to absorb flavor.

I simmered the diced tofu in the barbecue sauce with the sesame seeds for 5 or 10 min on low heat, just until the sauce thickened up a bit and the tofu picked up the flavor.  

To finish off the azuki paste pour off all the water and use a hand masker and smash in a cup of sugar.  For no good reason I mixed in a pinch of ginger (I didnt even notice a change in the taste but I wanted to try it, better practice is to take a portion aside and play with flavors in a small helping not just going crazy on the bulk of food, but hey i am still in a weird mood) .  The flavor was awesome but the texture was not how it is when I get dim sum in SF so I will have to try again, maybe some oil, maybe heating the mixture with the sugar so it becomes more like a sauce  . . .not sure but half the fun of cooking is playing!  ok 3/4 of the fun ;) 

Filling the buns is as simple as taking a piece of dough (about 2 Tbs sized) and hand pressing it like a little piece of flat bread.  Put a small spoon full of either filling in the middle and then pull the edges up into a single point using a pinch and a twist to force the dough together.  Tonight we used a straight bread recipe for the dough but often the buns are made with a sweet bread recipe, some people like sugar more than I do.

Ok truth time. . . we didnt steam the buns.  Turns out our house is without steaming baskets (something I plan on fixing next time I go to the restaurant supply store) and our make-shift steamer set up let too much water condense on the buns.  Again water gets in the way!  wet buns are not happy fluffy buns, they get a bit soggy. We shifted to baking the buns which has a noticeable impact on the texture, compared to steaming, but was still amazing and delicious.  The buns baked at 375 for about 12 minutes in a muffin pan and were served hot.

I'll do another exploration of steamed buns soon but for now eat well!