Good riddance, 2010

Not that it was all that bad, but we can do better.

My free will astrology horoscope told me to think *big* in 2011. Sounds good, right? So I went for the good luck with some new year's black-eyed peas and collard greens. I veganized this fritter recipe by substituting chickpea flour and a little water for the egg and half of the regular flour. Then I spiced it up a bit. I also pan-fried these instead of deep frying, but even that was a bit much, so I ended up baking the leftover batter* a couple days later.

Black-eyed Pea Fritters

1. Cook about 3/4 or 1 C dried black-eyed peas until soft (going for about 2 C cooked, or just one can)
2. Chop about half an onion
3. 2 T flour
4. 2 T chickpea flour
5. 1/2 t salt
6. 1/4 t or so smoked paprika
7. 1/2 t or more dried thyme
8. 1/t or so liquid smoke



Blend it all together with maybe 2-3 T of water, then shape into little patties and fry or bake. I pan-fried, but most fritters are deep fried. As a result I think my onions could have been a little more cooked. Next time I'd saute them first to avoid that. But the flavors ended up great with the peas, tomato sauce (just cooked down onion, garlic, stewed chopped tomatoes, and a couple bay leaves), collard greens (cooked with a little of the tomato sauce, salt, liquid smoke), and some quinoa.





Here's a picture of the baked version, with more collards cooked with onions and tomatoes. I didn't have any more tomato sauce, so I ate these with some barbecue sauce. The baked ones didn't have that crispy fried magic thing going for them, but they did get nice and browned and the onion got a little more cooked. Really it could go either way.



I've got a few holiday-related baking and candy-making recipes to share soon. New year's resolution - post more often and make more interesting food.

Happy new year!

*Dough? Goop?

Sweet potato greens!

A new kind of greens! New to me, at least. But that doesn't exactly happen every day. I came across these at the farmer's market, and had to get them. Aren't they pretty?



I sauteed some of them simply, with salt, pepper, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil - the usual greens treatment. They're really good - kind of like a mix of spinach and beet greens - more substantial than spinach, but less bitter than a lot of greens and a tiny bit sweet.

Then the rest I wilted with sauteed actual sweet potatoes, and seasoned it with salt, pepper, and a little maple syrup. Have you ever heard that Paul Simon's song Mother and Child Reunion was inspired by a chicken omelet? I don't know if it's true, but this was sort of like the vegan version of that.



If you come across these I recommend picking some up, if only because new vegetables are exciting.

Mushroom-Onion Tart

I wanted to make something special with the chanterelles and hedgehogs I brought back from Mt. Hood (I figure tofu scramble is not exactly their best and highest use), so I made this tart.



I used a cornmeal crust, and got the recipe from here, with earth balance in place of the butter, and it turned out well even though my cornmeal:flour ratio was a bit off (I was running low on cornmeal). It was just the tiniest bit crumbly.

For the filling, first I caramelized one medium-large yellow onion and about half a red onion, sliced thin with a mix of olive oil and EB and a teaspoon or so raw sugar.

Then I sauteed about a cup and a half of mushrooms (chopped pretty small) with probably 6 cloves of chopped garlic for 15 minutes or so, added thyme, salt, pepper, and a couple splashes of white wine and a couple of handfuls of spinach once it was all cooked.

Once the spinach was wilted and the wine cooked off, I mixed about half the onions in, spread this over the par-baked crust (baked acc to the crust recipe linked above), then added the rest of the onions on top. Baked for about 30 minutes at 350.



So good! Would also have been good with tomatoes, other greens, etc. Next time I plan to try a creamy layer - seasoned silken tofu or something with beans - under the vegetables.

I miss Oregon!

You can take the girl out of Oregon, but you can't take the Oregon out of my carry-ons.





I'm amazed at how much beer I crammed into my backpack at the airport without totally destroying the chanterelles and hedgehogs I brought back from Mt. Hood. We had a really successful mushroom hunt, and Jane made amazing duxelles with a lot of the haul.



I made something pretty darn good with some of the ones I brought home, too - next post!

Lazy Saturdays

The last couple weekends I've done some fun cooking and baking with local fruits and veggies. I made some cute tiny blueberry-peach pies in muffin tins, but didn't take a picture. I also made this tart with the same filling and crust. The peaches were from the farmers market, and the blueberries were frozen from picking a couple months ago.





The other weekend I made a really good tempeh scramble for breakfast. I steamed the tempeh to make it less dry and take away the bitterness, and steamed some chopped potatoes along with. Then I browned the potatoes in a little oil, added the tempeh, garlic, and onion, seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, and sesame oil. Then I added zucchini, tomatoes, and scallions, and when they were cooked and the potatoes and tempeh were brown, I added some soy sauce and nutritional yeast. I ate it with some salsa and spinach salad. And probably coffee.

Okra and Risotto

I've never really known what to do with okra, and always worry it'll turn out slimy. But I had a few pieces of it in a CSA share my roommates couldn't use, so I thought when in doubt, fry. I dipped it in soymilk, then a mix of flour, cornmeal, chickpea flour, salt, and pepper. I pan-fried it and seasoned with more salt and pepper. It didn't turn out slimy at all! But it definitely could have used a little more oil in the pan.





So that was last week.

Today I bought some oyster mushrooms at Eastern Market, as well as a couple of shallots and a bunch of fresh thyme, because I've been wanting to make some risotto. I rehydrated some dried morels and chanterelles in veggies broth, then strained them and added them to sauteing oysters. In a separate pan I sauteed shallots and garlic in a mix of EB and olive oil, then added arborio rice, stirred a couple minutes, added about a cup of white wine, stirred til it was absorbed, repeated with veggie broth, and so on, until risotto was born.

I added the mushrooms fairly early on, once they were cooked, and periodically added some thyme. Then at the end a little nutritional yeast. Chef roommate said it was good, especially because it didn't have any [insert long list of dairy products here].

Sushi!

Usually when I bother to make sushi it's a big production - I'm having people over, or going to a potluck or something, and I make 4 cups of rice and end up doing something like 20 rolls. It almost always involves a shopping trip, because if I'm going to all that trouble, gosh darn it, it will have exactly everything I want in it. I'm usually not motivated to just make a couple rolls for myself, but I'd been craving it for a long time so it finally happened.

Unfortunately it happened on a Saturday, when I was almost out of vegetables (my favorite farmers market here is on Sunday - weird, right?). But I had an avocado, and that's really the only thing I insist on having before I'll make sushi. Usually I'll want some tofu and carrots, but didn't have either and it was just fine. Actually it was super.



I also didn't have sushi rice, but I did have arborio. I've used sushi rice to make risotto before and it worked great, so I figured the reverse was probably true, and it definitely is. I recommend it to everyone who has limited cupboard space and can't just go keeping all kinds of different short grain rice varieties laying around all the time.

I won't go into a whole tutorial on sushi rolling, I'll just say (1) wet your fingers before you spread out the rice, because it's sticky, (2) spread it all the way to the sides of the nori but not all the way to the top or bottom, (3) put the filling in a line, don't cover all of the rice, and (4) look up a real tutorial if you haven't rolled sushi before, so you don't squeeze all your vegetables out or otherwise end up with a big mess.



I didn't have many vegetables but I did have kale, and I sauteed it with a lot of garlic and ginger, then seasoned it with sesame oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. One roll was just avocado and vegenaise (trust me, it's good); the other two were avocado and kale and yes, more vegenaise. I have it on good authority that in Japan apparently they put mayonnaise in almost all the sushi, so I didn't make it up. I just made it better.

The rice: I love the recipe I use; 4 C water, 3.5 C rice, cook 15 min, then leave on the stove with the heat off 15 more. Mix then add 5 T rice vinegar, 5 T sugar, 4 t salt.

Oh, and I add a little rice vinegar, garlic, sesame oil, and ginger to my soy sauce. It's worth the trouble.



Sushi is worth the trouble in general. Next time maybe I'll bother to make some with rice on the outside. We'll see.