Chickpea Salad

One more post before I head to Oregon tomorrow (!) This chickpea salad is really good. I sort of based it on the recipe in Vegan With a Vengeance, but...flavored it up. It's great on sandwiches, or just by itself.

First, soak some hijiki seaweed in hot water for 15 minutes or so - you don't need too much.

Add this to some partly smashed chickpeas, and mix in:
- a clove or two of minced garlic
- salt and pepper
- finely chopped dill pickle (cucumber or not - see previous pickle post)
- a little mustard
- as much vegenaise as you want; you can just add enough to moisten and make it all stick together, or you can add more and make it kind of creamy
- finely chopped scallions are good
- a little chopped fresh dill and/or thyme and/or chives if you've got 'em
- other finely chopped vegetables are good, like red bell pepper or even carrots



Aside: I know the mustard greens in the picture above look like I cooked them within an inch of their life, but they were super bitter and really needed it.

I've been buying dried chickpeas from local and amazing Whole Grain Milling, and recently cooked a huge pot. One other thing I made was a quick Indian-ish curry with more mustard greens, onion, garlic, tomato sauce, a little coconut milk, cumin, corainder, turmeric, etc. I ate it with quinoa, which I'm pretty sure makes every good thing better.



When I get back from Oregon, stay tuned for the Minneapolis-Portland BRUNCH-OFF!

Easy Baked Apples

This fall I went apple picking near the Cities, and got a bunch of Haralson and McIntosh - the Haralson for baking, because they're pretty tart and the farm didn't have Granny Smith - and the McIntosh for eating, because they're smaller and sweeter. But it didn't really turn out that way. First I was too busy (or was it lazy?) to bake a pie, so I ate the Haralsons, then it froze early, and unexpectedly, when the rest of the apples were out on the porch. Thawed apples aren't good for a whole lot, but they did work out well baked and in sauce.

To bake apples for a really easy dessert, first cut out the cores with a paring knife, being careful not to cut all the way through the bottom.



Then put some margarine (earth balance or other non-hydrogenated), brown sugar, and cinnamon in the hole.




Then bake at 350 until they're soft, melty, and look like you want to eat them. You can also make them and reheat them later. It's not quite the same I'm sure, but hey, I was working with frozen apples and even that didn't ruin them.



I had a few more leftover after I baked those five, so I made some applesauce. I only peeled about half of them, and cooked them with a little water, a little sugar, and a little cinnamon, until all of the apples had completely broken down. Yay for not letting my negligence become the ruin of innocent apples.




Next week I'm off to Oregon for two weeks, so be ready for many pictures of brunches, cart food, and happy hours!

Lots of pickles

The last couple of Summers I've done a little pickling, and both times it's been easy and turned out really well. I don't have any canning equipment, so I haven't done any non-pickled canning. That's fine with me though, both because I love vinegar and because I have an irrational fear of botulism.


We did zucchini, carrots, asparagus, and beets, and used this dilly bean recipe for all of them. They all worked well, but the zucchini we used was huge and overgrown, so it wasn't very crisp. Kind of like a not-that-great cucumber pickle. I probably wouldn't bother with that again.



Here they are cooling and looking pretty.



The jars all had the same vinegar/water mix and same amount of salt, but we added some fresh thyme and mustard seed to the carrots, and caraway to some of the beets. I ate the unadulterated ones.



I use pickles in things like pasta salad and potato salad, because dill and vinegar go really well with mustard and the strong flavors do most of the seasoning for you. They're also nice to bring to potlucks and barbecues, if you don't have time to make much of anything.



I still have a bunch from last June, but I'll probably make more when asparagus season comes around again. I might do some onions or scallions, too. I do recommend getting some canning tongs before doing this - I don't have any, and it always leads to some near breakings and actual scaldings getting the jars in and out of the boiling water bath. Of course, it may just be that I'm uncoordinated.

Dinner party!

Saturday night I had a most excellent dinner party with my roommate and a few of our friends. When I was out of the room for a minute they took about 30 pictures of themselves with my camera, but I'll keep this post to pictures of the food.

I made focaccia with oven-dried tomato tapenade and roasted garlic; arugula salad with tahini-lemon dressing and roasted root vegetables; stuffed cabbage with wild rice, brown rice, tofu and vegetables; and chocolate cake with blood orange compote. Everything turned out well and looked pretty, if I do say so myself.


The focaccia (recipe below) turned out great - light and flavorful. I used dried herbs because I didn't have any fresh, but I don't think it hurt the results too much. We ate this with an oven-dried tomato tapenade that I made and froze at the end of summer, when there were still tomatoes at the farmers market (and there was still a farmer's market). I just seeded and sliced tomatoes with some onions, garlic, olive oil, and salt, and baked in a low oven - 250 degrees or so - for several hours. The result is thick, spreadable, and super flavorful. I also roasted a head of garlic and threw that on the table with some olive oil.



The salad was green leaf lettuce and arugula, tossed with a simple dressing of tahini, lemon juice, minced garlic, salt, pepper, and a dash of cider vinegar, thinned with a little water and olive oil. Roasted beets, parsnips, and carrots went on top with some scallions. The flavors went really well together. Aren't tahini dressings the best?

Apparently this looked good enough to eat with your hands.



The cabbage rolls were stuffed with a mix of wild rice - the real wild harvested Minnesota stuff - brown basmati rice, tofu, red onion, garlic, and bell pepper. They were baked with a tomato/veggie broth mix and served on more wild/brown rice.

I used tomato sauce that I'd made and frozen back when I made the tapenade. It's great having something that close to fresh tomatoes in February, but the 20 pound box of tomatoes didn't make a whole lot, so I'm going to have to ration what's left.



Here are the cabbage rolls ready to go in the oven -



And here they are when they came out, after baking for about 45 minutes. I turned them twice so they wouldn't get dry on top, then added a bit more tomato broth before serving them. For the filling, I first browned a whole block of pressed firm tofu, then added a whole chopped red onion and 4 large cloves of garlic, finally adding the bell pepper. The seasonings were thyme, paprika, salt, pepper, a little sesame oil, a splash of white wine, and a good-sized scoop of nutritional yeast.



I cooked the brown rice and wild rice together in vegetable broth. I also threw in a few chopped up dried chanterelles, which are the result of a hugely successful fall foraging trip in Oregon. Those added a ton of flavor and rehydrated nicely. I'd never been so glad to have a food dehydrator.



Dessert was a chocolate cake with blood orange compote. I used the chocolate cake recipe from the Voluptuous Vegan, but with a few changes. I added the zest of a couple blood oranges, and put some of the orangey simple syrup left over from candied orange peel making in the icing. I decorated the top with candied peel too, so the orange flavor really came across, but not overwhelmingly so.



The compote was a nice addition to the cake, especially because the icing was simple - mostly just chocolate chips - and so it wasn't too over-the-top. The recipe is posted at www.thebittenword.typepad.com. I followed the recommendations on that blog and chopped the oranges in to small slices, rather than leaving them in big chunks, and I think that was a good move. Here's my version, with a couple changes from the original:

- 3 medium blood oranges, chopped into small slices, peel and all
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 1/2 cups water

Boil the sugar and water until the sugar is dissolved.
Add the oranges and cook on medium-low for at least an hour, stirring frequently - the time in the original recipe is not long enough to reduce the compote to a nice syrupy consistency. You also want to make sure the peels have gotten nice and soft, since you'll be eating them.
Let cool, add a splash or raspberry or some other liqueur (I didn't have orange)

I found it a little bit one-note, and really sweet, but in small amounts it does add something. A bit of cointreau would have been good I'm sure.





Really Good Focaccia (makes 2 8" pans)

- 2 1/2 t yeast
- 2 T olive oil
- 1 t salt
- 1 T chopped fresh thyme or 1 t dried
- 1 1/2 t chopped fresh rosemary or 1/2 t dried
- 1 C lukewarm water + a pinch of sugar
- 2 C white flour plus more to knead in
- olive oil to brush on top, and coarse salt

1. Proof the yeast in the warm water + sugar. I added the herbs here as well, so they would have a chance to rehydrate. No one wants a chunk of hard, dried rosemary in their bread. If using fresh, add the herbs with the flour.
2. Add the olive oil, salt, and 1 C flour, whisk until smooth.
3. Add the second C flour 1/4 C at a time, whisking or mixing it in until you have a dough (it will be super wet - feel free to add some more here)
4. Turn the dough out on a well-floured surface, and knead 8-10 minutes, adding more flour as needed to keep it from being too sticky. This will seem like a lot of flour, but just keep adding it til you have a smooth dough that won't stick to your hands, but is still pretty loose.
5. Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise til doubled, about 1 1/2 hours.
6. Punch the dough down, knead briefly, and divide in half.
7. Lightly oil 2 8" cake pans, put a portion of dough in each, and gently stretch to the edges, pulling from the center outward. If the dough is too springy, which, based on my experience, it will be, cover and let rest for 10 minutes, then try again.
8. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise about 45 minutes, until soft and puffy, and almost doubled.
9. Preheat oven to 475. Dimple the dough (poke it with your finger) about 1/2" deep every couple inches or so.
10. Re-cover with towels and rise another 20 minutes.
11. Bake until golden brown and cooked through, about 15 minutes.
12. Immediately brush generously with olive oil, and sprinkle with coarse salt. I used black salt for dramatic effect. I also briefly warmed it back up in the oven before serving.

Even though this recipes has a lot of little steps and silly short rises, meaning there's a lot of "active time" involved, it's a good one to try if you're intimidated by yeasted breads, because it's a pretty small amount of dough to work with. Rewriting this recipe is making me wish I had some left over.