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! 

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.

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)

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.

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!  

Spring time Sweets

I dont know if it is warming weather or just my sweet tooth kicking up but I got two sugar filled treats to share with you.  

The first was made with help from my dear friend Suzanna.  I got the craving for minty cupcakes back in December but it took 3 months to actually find the time to make them.  Te fun part about that was finding candy canes out of season!  We used a basic vanilla cupcake recipe:

1C soymilk w/ 1tsp vinegar whisked in

1/2 C butter creamed w/ 3/4C sugar

2 tsp vanilla (added to creamed sugar/butter)

1/3C crushed candy cane (this is about 3 candy canes that you can chop with a knife to 'crush' )

combine the soymilk to vanilla/sugar/butter

separately sift together:

1/14C flour

2T corn starch

3/4 tsp b powder

1/2 tsp b soda

1/4 t salt

 add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three batches then bake at 350 for 20 min. 

The frosting is a simple: powdered sugar->butter w/ vanilla .  you can add a bit of water or extra powdered sugar to get the consistency you like but I warn you the ratio of sugar to butter is around 3:1 so if you want 1 cup of frosting it would be 1/4C butter and 3/4 C sugar.  I like my frosting a bit thicker so I encourage you to use an extra Tbs or two of powdered sugar.  To finish it off we crushed one more candy cane as a topping!  

If you are wondering . . .not they are not seasonal because these sugar rush bombs are good all year round!  

It may seem strange to make cookie dough with the intention of eating ti raw but it is a habit I picked up living with Ben.  For the better part of 3 years we were vegan and wheat free.  The lack of gluten and eggs made it clear that cookie dough has some superior traits!  These are not wheat free but they make a great spring/summer time treat after you freeze them.  The recipe benefits from leaving out baking powder and baking soda since you are not baking them.  

1/3 C butter

1/3 C white sugar

3 Tbs Brown sugar

cream these together. . . and when I say that I mean mix it for 3-5 minutes.  Dont skimp you are actually changing the chemical composition bu doing this and it is an important step in making a good treat.  

mix in extras:

3 Tbs coconut flakes

3 Tbs crushed walnuts

2 Tbs carob chips (I dont like chocolate but I bet most of you will do chocolate chips)

2 tsp flax seed

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbs coconut oil and 1/2 tsp water  (this makes up for the loss of egg)

add the flour in 3 portions:

1/3 C

At this point I just balled it and stuck it in the freezer for 30 minutes. If you want to get more fancy you can roll the dough in flax or sesame or toasted coconut or any other treat before you freeze them.  If you want to get extra fancy you can dip them in chocolate post freezing place the coated dough on wax paper and put them back in the freezer.  

If you really want to go crazy you can hollow out a ball and fill the dough with frosting left over from the cupcakes.  Not only is it insane in its sugar deliciousness but all of your friends will look at you with a combination of surprise, disgust and hunger!  Like you have never eaten frosting filled cookie dough for lunch!  Eat well!  

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.