Chinese Noodles | Indian Carrots | Kale from who knows where

I'm leaving town on Tuesday for nearly a week.  So the deciding factor in cooking today was, "what vegetables do I need to get rid of?"  I'm not sure if this was fusion or cacaphony, but it actually tasted great together.  I usually really try to make things that will harmonize with and balance each other, but tonight was slightly more accidental.  Still, ginger and cumin helped tie things together, while textures complemented each other.

First, I made these noodles, which seemed too simple but ended up fantastic.  Toasted sesame oil and nori both have a sort of conclusive! nutty element to them that ties everything else together.  I used more nori and actually more everything than originally called for (by using less pasta), and it was great!  The only thing is, I'm getting less and less fond of raw garlic in my old age.  I've reduced the amount of garlic by quite a bit; it goes a long way.

Cold Chinese Noodles with Nori Strips

(from Andrea's Easy Vegan Cooking)

Ingredients

6 oz whole-wheat spaghetti (or similar)
1 TB toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon tamari or soy sauce
1 TB seasoned rice vinegar
1/2 teaspoon garlic-chili sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 inch fresh ginger root, cut fine (about 1 tablespoon)
1/2-1 clove garlic, minced very fine
2 sheets seasoned or plain toasted nori, cut with scissors into small strips

Instructions

Cook pasta according to directions.  Rinse and cool.  Toss with remaining ingredients. Serves about 3.

*

In case anyone was confused, "great" and "grate" do not share etymological roots.  That is also to say, there is nothing great about grating vegetables.  It's a pain in the ass that can quickly become a literal pain in the finger if you don't watch what you're doing.  I recently bought a box grater after an adult lifetime without owning one (and doing just fine!), and now from time to time I subject myself to this.

After making several vegetable recipes in Indian Home Cooking, I've come to the conclusion that I don't really like the frying-mustard-seed-in-oil-before-doing-anything-else thing.  I'm an adventurous eater, but it's a really bitter flavor that I just can't get down with.  So I skipped it here.  And, I amped up some of the other flavors.  Oh, and since I'm trying to clean out the fridge before I leave for Boston for five days, I threw in a tomato as well.  This was a pleasant, if not life-changing, side dish.  Carrots are sweet, and cumin and lime are refreshing!

Carrots with Cumin and Lime

(from Indian Home Cooking)

Ingredients

1 TB canola oil

1/2-in piece ginger, finely minced

1/2 hot green chili, finely minced

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

3 large carrots, washed and grated
tomato, diced (optional) 

salt to taste

juice of 1/2 lime

Instructions

Heat oil in a large skillet.  Fry ginger, chili, and cumin several minutes, then add carrots, and cook until slightly browned (about 5 more minutes).  Add tomato and lime juice and salt to taste.  Serves about 3.

*

Yum!  This was a really, really good variation on my go-to kale.  The photo, I know, looks sort of "blah" but the harissa--which, again, contains chilies, caraway (!), coriander, cumin, mint (!), garlic, and tomato--has only gotten better since I made it last week, and it made the kale really great.

Kale with Harissa

Ingredients

1 TB canola oil

1-2 cloves garlic

1 TB harissa

1 large bunch kale, de-stemmed and chopped

water

tamari

Instructions

Heat oil in a large frying pan.  Fry garlic and harissa, then add kale and cook until it turns dark green.  Add water as needed.  Finish with a bit of tamari. Serves about 3.

Caraway vs. Fennel: Round One! | Fried Cabbage with Peas, Lemon, and Caraway | Sausage-Spiked Lentil-Apple Stew

I really only learned to cook when I moved into the McCarthy Co-op House while a student at Lawrence University.  It was here that I learned about Indian and Thai cooking, as well as their late-20th-century hippie dilutions and permutations.  Thus, while I wielded cumin and fresh ginger with confidence and versatility, more "traditional" "Western" ingredients weren't even on my radar.  For example, I never even bought thyme until last year, and sage and tarragon this year.

And, the difference between fennel, caraway, and anise seeds always confused me.  I could always remember that two were more similar to each other than the third, but otherwise, they were all just weird seeds I never used.  Then, when I started getting interested in "sausagey" flavors, I got my hands on some fennel.  More recently, some more unusual Middle Eastern and North African spice mixes prompted me to buy caraway as well (though some also use fennel!).  So, I learn.  Then today I ended up making two (easy! fast!) dishes, one with caraway and one with fennel.

I've been wondering what else to do with caraway.  Googling has turned up a lot of cabbage-based recipes, so I decided to go with that.  I combined two recipes-- a very basic one for cabbage and noodles with caraway, with another one for peas with caraway and lemon.  I got rid of the dairy and the noodles, upped some of the flavors, and ended up with a really delicious and interesting dish.  Fried cabbage sounds really bland and heavy, but cooking it only al dente, and adding lemon and parsley, makes it almost refreshing.  The tastes and textures, therefore, paired really well with the sweeter, heavier stew I also made (about which, more below).  These two would have also been well complemented by a really awesome hunk of bread.

Fried Cabbage with Peas, Lemon, and Caraway

Ingredients

1 big glug olive oil

1/2 large onion, chopped

4 c shredded cabbage (about half a cabbage)

1/2 tsp salt (to taste)

1/2 tsp ground black pepper (to taste)

1 tsp caraway seed

1/2 tsp lemon zest

1 c frozen green peas, thawed

1/3 c fresh parsley, chopped

Instructions

In a large frying pan, heat the oil.  Add onion and cabbage and saute about 5 minutes, until they begin to soften and brown slightly.  Add remaining ingredients and cook a few more minutes.  This would be good served at any temperature.  Serves about 4.

*

I got the idea for this stew when I was browsing recipes containing cabbage and caraway; some also included roasted apples and sausage.  So this is something like that half of those recipes, de- and re-constructed.

You might not recognize it, but this is actually very similar to the recipe for oats and rice sausage.  I tried to match the amount of apple and lentil bulk to that of the oats and rice in the recipe, and then I kept most of the seasonings and flavors the same.  Lentils have a rich savory taste all their own, and the sweetness of the slightly cooked apples worked really well with the seasonings.  You will probably want to put the apples in only at the end, so they don't get totally mushy.

Sausage-Spiked Lentil-Apple Stew

Ingredients

3/4 c brown lentils

1 1/2 c water

1 1/2 tsp molasses

1 1/2 TB tamari

*

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1/8 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp dried ground sage

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp fennel seeds

*

1 large apple, cored and diced

Instructions

1. In a medium saucepan, bring lentils, water, molasses, and tamari to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 15-20 minutes or until lentils are soft, adding water if necessary.
2. Add spices and simmer 5 minutes more.
3. Add diced apples and cook 2-3 minutes more, then remove from heat.  Serves about 3.

Lentil Hummus with Orange and Tarragon

This was an experimental hummus.  Many moons ago when I made food for my senior recital at college (so long ago, I had no hair!), I made one batch of basic hummus and another batch that was identical except I used red lentils instead of chickpeas.  They looked great swirled together in the serving bowl. Maybe I was bored.  Or maybe I was out of chickpeas last weekend.  I can't remember, but I decided to revisit the lentil hummus but take it one step further.  It's still the same hummus recipe, but some of the lemon juice has been replaced by orange juice, and you are encouraged to mess around with fresh tarragon as well, whether as a garnish or a mix-in. I took this hummus to a picnic at LACMA, where my friends told me this was the best hummus I'd ever made.  I don't agree, but it makes a really interesting break from the more normal hummuses out there-- it tastes nuttier and sweeter.

Lentil Hummus with Orange and Tarragon

Ingredients 1 1/2 c cooked lentils (I used brown; red would be prettier)

1-2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped 1/4 c tahini (optional) cayenne pepper, to taste cumin, to taste salt, to taste juice of 1/2 orange

juice of 1/2 to 1 lemon, to taste

fresh tarragon

Instructions

Blend, adding water if necessary and adjusting lemon/salt/cumin/cayenne to taste.

Green Beans with Ginger-Tahini-Tamari Sauce | Ginger-Greens Soup

Sometimes you just want really clean-tasting, simple food.  I'd call it detoxing, but I don't feel as if my lifestyle has been particularly toxic as of late.  Here are two easy macro-ish recipes that taste fresh and delicious.

I usually go to Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian as a last resort.  Unlike other cookbooks, which I browse, soaking up ideas and marking specific recipes to try later, Bittman's book is more of an encyclopedia, as valuable for its basic information about cooking methods, ratios, reliable flavor pairings, etc., as for the recipes themselves.  It's also a great starting point as it gives basic recipes that are endlessly variable.  Under green beans, I found this recipe for walnut-miso sauce.  I substituted tahini for walnuts, and then I substituted tamari for miso.  We still have a nutty thing and a salty thing, but it's the problem of Theseus's ship in Plutarch's Lives!  If the planks in Theseus's ship are replaced, one at a time, when all the planks have been changed, is it still the same ship?  In this case, I think so.

[<---end geek-out

Green Beans in Ginger-Tahini-Tamari Sauce

(inspired by "Green Beans Tossed with Walnut-Miso Sauce" in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian)

Ingredients

1 lb green beans, trimmed and chopped into bite-sized lengths

3 TB tahini

1 TB tamari

water as needed

chopped ginger to taste

cayenne to taste

sesame seeds, toasted

Instructions

1. Lightly boil the beans and then ice ("shock") them to stop them from cooking further.

2. Combine tahini and tamari and whisk with water to make a sauce that is thin but not liquidy.  Add ginger and cayenne to taste.

3. Toss beans with sauce and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.  Serves about 4.

*

This soup is a simplified version of a recipe from The Atlantic, where it was adapted from 101cookbooks, where it was adapted from Love Soup.  It's ridiculously good for you, with the greens, lemon juice, and miso. 

Earlier incarnations of this soup also called for sweet potatoes.  It always tickles me to be reminded of how well certain aspects of southern USA cooking go with macrobiotic/Japanese cuisine.  An unlikely union, right?  But it's the one which most inspires 3 Bowls: Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery, one of my favorite cookbooks of all time, which--though I don't often cook directly from it these days--has really influenced my overall style and tastes.  The way in which the authors mix sweet and savory flavors, and the idea that you can make really good comfort food from fresh vegetables like greens, sweet potatoes, and black-eyed peas, have stuck with me.

Ginger-Greens Soup
(adapted from The Atlantic)

Ingredients
2 TB olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 large bunch collards (or kale, chard, etc.), washed, de-stemmed, and chopped in thin strips
3 TB chopped fresh ginger
5 c water
1 c vegetable broth
1 TB brown miso

1-2 c chickpeas

2 to 4 tsp fresh lemon juice

Instructions

1. Cook the onion slowly over low heat in the two tablespoons of olive oil, stirring now and then, until it is soft and golden, about half an hour.
2. Add greens, ginger, and water to the pot.  Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer the soup, covered, for about 30 more minutes.
3. Add the vegetable broth, miso, and chickpeas.  Add the lemon juice to taste (start with less and add more if desired).  Taste and correct seasoning with additional salt or lemon juice.  Serves 4-6.

Guacamole Beans?!

Edit: I don't think I adequately stressed how good this is, at least at this time of year.  With really fresh vegetables, this was probably the best thing I ate in weeks.  It also kept for four days or so, thanks to the lime juice.

This is another simple salad that showcased the inherent goodness of the vegetables in it.  The mixture of textures is unbeatable!  Also, if you've ever wished you could just eat guacamole with a fork...

Green Bean Guacamole Salad

Ingredients

1 lb green beans, trimmed

20 grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

2 avocadoes, large dice

cilantro, minced, to taste

garlic powder, to taste

juice of 1/2 to 1 lime, to taste

salt, to taste

cayenne, to taste

olive oil (not too much)

Instructions

1. Briefly steam beans and then place in cold water to stop cooking.
2. Combine ingredients.  Serve chilled.  Serves about 4.

Chai

This is something you can make when you're like, I want to keep making interesting things but I have too many leftovers!  Or, when you're like, I would like some chai.

Compared to the average chai you'd find in a coffeeshop in the US, the recipe for chai in Indian Home Cooking leans more heavily upon cardamom and ginger, and less upon cinnamon and vanilla (though I added some vanilla).  As a result, you have more zingy brightness rather than just cloyingly sweet pumpkin-pie juice.  (oh, cardamom, you are so magic and, like fennel, queer). 

Obviously, though, you can do whatever you want with this recipe!  I'd like to try this with significantly more black pepper--yum!  The real difference is that you boil everything together and let it steep 15 minutes before serving.  A little bit of sugar brings out the spices, but I thought 1 TB was more than enough--then again, I don't really like sweet drinks, so do it to taste.

Chai (Iced)

(from Indian Home Cooking)

Ingredients

2 c nondairy milk (I used soy)

1 c water

1 1/2 TB loose black tea

a 1 1/2-in piece cinnamon stick, broken in half

9 green cardamom pods, slightly opened/crushed

7 whole cloves

a 1 1/2-in piece ginger, peeled and dived

6 black peppercorns
small splash vanilla extract

1 TB sugar (or to taste)

Instructions

Boil everything in a pot, then turn it off, cover, and let steep for 15 minutes.  Then, strain and reheat or serve over ice.  Serves 4-5.

Purple Pistachio Pesto, or, The Best-Laid Plans

Along with these unbelievably good tomatoes from a CSA box, we shouldn't have tried to turn this basil into anything; we should have just knelt down and worshiped it as it was.

But basil suggests pesto, and wouldn't purple basil look awesome with pistachios?

It would until you blend it, at which point you remember from third grade that purple and yellow-green are opposite each other on the color wheel.

Sad Purple Pistachio Pesto

Despite its unfortunate appearance, this is actually just my basic pesto recipe, not to be confused with Basil-Kale Pesto, Lemon-Cilantro Pesto, Mouhammesto, or the Cilantro Chutney I've blogged about.  Which means it tastes good...

Ingredients

nuts (pistachio, blanched almond, walnut, pine nut), chopped

basil, washed and chopped

garlic, minced

olive oil

salt

lemon juice

Instructions

Chop nuts first, then add basil and garlic to mini-food-processor and blend.  Add olive oil to get the right consistency, and add salt and lemon juice to taste.

Christmas Every Week! / Chipotle Salsa

Between vacationing, housesitting, and absentmindedness, I have not been doing the CSA thing this summer.  But slack no longer!  Today Devon and I went to the Hollywood Farmers Market to pick up this amazing rectangular prism of a cornucopia.

kale

mustard greens

3 cucumbers

squash-o-rama: 1 yellow, 1 zucchini, 3 "Mexican"

4 large tomatoes

a gazillion cherry tomatoes

about 12 cherry peppers

1 bell pepper

2 small eggplants

1 ear sweet corn

1 large bunch purple basil

1 substantial watermelon

Oh, yes!  Now I have to tell you all the things we made out of it!  First off, the tomatoes were really really super--and I don't even like tomatoes that much.  But holy cow, it's like a completely different vegetable from what you get in the supermarket, even here in SoCal where many things from the supermarket--for example, avocadoes--taste absolutely amazing.

It was probably a waste of stupendous tomatoes to turn them into salsa.  Especially since we blended the salsa and it ended up looking like a pink smoothie.  Next time, we'll just dice. We also threw in some of these cherry peppers, which were way spicier than their cute little exteriors suggested.  Apparently the only thing to do with the remainder is to stuff them and deep fry them?

To be quite honest, the raw peppers actually made the salsa taste a little weird (we should have roasted them!).  It wasn't until we added some ground dried chipotle peppers as well that it really started tasting like salsa. We also threw in the corn from the lonely little ear in our box.

Fresh Chipotle Salsa

Ingredients

4 ripe tomatoes, diced

4 cherry peppers, minced

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

lime juice, to taste

salt, to taste

ground chipotle pepper, to taste

fresh corn * As for the eggplants, pepper, and mexisquashes, we broiled them just like this, with nothing but olive oil, salt, and garlic.  It's amazing how broiling and roasting just concentrate the inherent amazingness of good produce.

Broiled Veggies

All the component parts of this post were then combined with beans and fresh avocado into a slightly unusual, but tasty, burrito-type thing.  We also sauteed the kale and ate it on the side, but you all know what that looks like.  :)

Apricot Salad with Fresh Basil and Cashews

Today was the day of the cashew!  Good thing Trader Joe's sells raw ones for like $5 a pound.

By the way... do you know how cashews grow?  I got to see them when traveling in the Gambia--each fruit, sort of like a pear, bears only one cashew. 

My friend Julia just came back from a brief stay in San Francisco with a friend who fed her a salad of peaches, basil, and cheese.  So I made a similar one, just one that didn't have peaches or cheese.  These apricots were so soft and pretty; it was such a disappointment to cut them open and find the texture to be less than amazing.  Nevertheless, the combo of stone fruit, basil, lemon, and salt is very lovely and refreshing!  I put a lot of salt and lemon juice on it--the salt only accentuates the sweetness.  And it should be served very cold.

Apricot Salad with Fresh Basil and Cashews

Ingredients

5-6 apricots, sliced

10 leaves basil, chopped into thin strips

lemon juice

salt

10 cashews, dry roasted and chopped

Berbere-encrusted Tempeh

Ok, so I know this looks a lot like the last recipe I've posted, but the cooking method, the flavors, and the texture are all completely different.  Because the original Tempeh Bacon recipe called for 2/3 a package of tempeh, I had this leftover chunk in my fridge, making me nervous that it would go moldy at any moment (that's the weird thing about tempeh: in a sealed package, it lasts for months, but once exposed to the air, it goes off really quickly).  And, as I am accumulating all these unusual homemade spice mixes--berbere, garam masala, chili powder, zatar--I should probably try to use them.

A spice mix makes for instant yumminess!  This recipe was beyond easy, and incredibly flavorful.  If you use the berbere recipe I made, watch out--it will be spicy.  The outside gets nice and crispy; the only thing is that the inner part of the tempeh was a bit dry.  You could steam the tempeh first, or just do what I did and mash some avocado on it to moisten the overall effect.

Berbere-Encrusted Tempeh

Ingredients

8 oz tempeh

2-3 TB berbere

2-3 TB olive oil

2 tsp garlic powder

more oil

Instructions

Cut tempeh into three pieces, and then slice each third the other direction to make it half as thick.
Mix berbere, olive oil, and garlic powder into a paste.  Dredge each chunk of tempeh in it to coat on both sides.
Place chunks on an oiled baking sheet and broil on high, flipping once, until sizzling and browned (about 5 min on each side).  Serve hot.  Makes 3 servings.

Breakfast Pron

Yum

Trader Joes sprouted rye bread (sesame seeds! poppy seeds! celery seeds! caraway seeds! dill!), toasted

Peanut butter w/salt

Fresh mango (from Mexico...I know...)

Fresh Jones Coffee, roasted in Pasadena

Beer Bread

I'd been meaning to make my colleague Simchi's beer bread for months.  When life handed me an almost-full, slightly-flat bottle of Fat Tire, I knew the time had finally come.

This recipe uses quite a lot of baking powder, so my guess is that the beer doesn't really serve a functional role so much as a taste role.  The beer (naturally) made the bread taste yeasty, as if it wasn't just a soda bread.  The texture, however, was still closer to that of a soda bread--no net of gluten going on here, despite the fact that the dough was quite doughy (as opposed to the battery consistency of many quick breads). 

I thought this bread was fast and delicious, but be warned that it is rather dry.  Acceptable accompaniments include: soup, or lots of melty butter.  Peanut butter is not recommended unless you want to glue your tongue to the roof of your mouth (or, wash it down with a lot of tea/coffee/soymilk).

Beer Bread

Ingredients

2 c white flour

1 c whole wheat flour

2 TB sugar

1 TB baking powder

pinch salt

splash olive oil

1 bottle room temp beer

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375. Grease loaf pan with olive oil.
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Add olive oil and beer; don’t overmix.
Transfer dough to greased loaf pan.
Bake at 375 for about 40 min, until a wooden chopstick comes out clean when inserted.

Finals week

Miso Soup, Vegetable Sushi, and Condiments

 
This is a bit of a cop-out post.  I actually did do some cooking on Friday; a friend and I made sushi and tempura.  But I haven't been cooking too many recipes.  Between writing forty pages of my own papers, and grading over a hundred pages of students' papers, I knew this would be a busy week (*understatement!*). 

So, it's helpful to just have large amounts of food around that can easily turn into a meal.  I prepared several meals' worth of sushi fixings, and chopped up some tofu and scallions for quick miso soup (essentially instant!).  I also made a huge vat of a chili-ish soup that's not really worth blogging about here--potatoes, black beans, carrots, chipotle and jalapeno peppers, etc.

Avocado "Quesadilla" and Spicy Potato-Bean Chili

I did want to note the delicious avocado quesadilla--just mashed avocado and lemon on a lightly toasted whole wheat/corn tortilla.  You could add lots of other things, too.  What made this really fantastic was the quality of both the avocado and the tortilla.

It's surprisingly difficult to find a decent whole grain tortilla in the supermarket.  Now, there are plenty of tortillas in Jons, but I picked up these Mission multigrain tortillas that just tasted bad.

A comparison with the similarly sized Organic Whole Wheat and Corn Flour Tortillas from Trader Joe's was illuminating:

• Though both tortillas were about 140 calories and 5 g of protein, the Mission one had 4.5 g fat (of which 1.5 g saturated) to Trader Joe's 1 g (of which 0 g saturated) -- even though the TJs one is more tender.  What's still more icky is that while TJ's has 7% of your daily sodium, Mission has 19%.
• Mission has 34 (!) ingredients, including hydrogenated soybean and/or palm oil AND various preservatives, cellulose gum, and "dough conditioners" including something called "fumaric acid."  TJ's ingredient count?  9, and I know what all of them are (note that they do contain honey).

I don't get it.  The TJs tortillas have kept for two weeks in the fridge with no problem, and considering the Mission ones tasted bad to begin with, I'm not sure the preservatives are doing much good.  And of course there's the organic thing as well.  The real shame?  The TJs tortillas are significantly cheaper.

Marinated Tofu

This morning I made some marinated tofu to put in sushi.  This stuff costs $3-4 a pack, even at Trader Joe's, and it's pretty easy to make it yourself from a $1 block of tofu.  I created this recipe after looking at the recipes in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and Veganomicon--one had more flavor and the other had more liquid.  Using pre-seasoned rice vinegar and the garlic chili paste obviates the need for additional sugar and garlic.

Marinated Tofu

Ingredients

1/2 lb firm tofu

1/4 c stock

3/8 c water

1/8 c tamari

2 TB seasoned rice vinegar

1 TB sesame oil

2 tsp chili garlic paste

1-in chunk ginger, grated

Instructions

Press excess water out of tofu.  Slice tofu into 1.5x3-in slabs.  Combine marinade ingredients.  Place tofu in a tupperware and pour marinade over tofu.  Cover and place in fridge several hours (or overnight).
Place tofu and marinade in a small baking dish so that tofu is nearly covered with marinade.  Bake at 350* for about 30-60 minutes (occasionally flipping tofu or spooning marinade over the top), until marinade is boiling and has mostly evaporated.  Either serve hot, spooning excess marinade over the top, or drain and allow to cool before slicing for sandwiches or sushi.

Broiled Veggies

Oh man.  Why haven't I been doing this often and forever?

I am unbelievably busy these days (hence the few and far between, easy posts).  Between the visitors to LA, the school commitments, and my own travel, I've barely been cooking, much less blogging.  Today I decided to prepare for the week / procrastinate by broiling some veggies that I can just throw into salads or sandwiches.  And why haven't I done this before?

I did eggplant, a green bell pepper, and some zucchini.  The flesh of the eggplant and zucchini turned out melt-in-your-mouth, almost buttery, while the eggplant skin was nicely chewy.  The pepper--blistered and succulent--wasn't bad, either.

Broiled Eggplant

Ingredients

eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers, portobellos, etc. (about the equivalent of 2 medium eggplants), cut in 1/2-in slices

salt

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

4-6 TB olive oil

Instructions

1) If using eggplant, salt it and let it sit until water comes out of it.
2) Place garlic and olive oil in a largish bowl.  Dip vegetable slices in garlic-oil so that they are covered on both sides.
3) Place vegetable slices on a metal rack that is in a baking sheet (or, place on a grill).  Broil for 8-10 min, total, turning after about 4 minutes.  Watch carefully so that the vegetables don't burn.  Serve warm or at room temperature, over rice, or in a salad, or on a sandwich.  Serves at least 4.

Granola

Granola

I feel like every granola recipe has a cheesy alliterative modifier preceding it. "Groovy granola" or "great granola" or "gratuitous granola," etc. Yet I think this is just granola. And it still needs some work.

Like the broccoli-lentil salad, this is a recipe I made a lot during my ascetic life outside of academia. It's cheap and relatively nutritious. Remaking this recipe now, I think I skimped on sugar and nuts. Although the molasses and walnuts taste great after being toasted, the granola didn't form enough chunks. Any thoughts about how to improve this granola, besides using more molasses? Perhaps different cooking time or temp?

Update 2/6: Granola epiphany--a better way to make granola.

Granola

Ingredients
3 1/4 c rolled oats
3/4 c flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
½ c crushed walnuts
1/8 c sesame seeds
1/8 c flax seeds
*
1/3 c canola oil
1/3 c molasses
1 tsp vanilla
*
2/3 c raisins

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325*. In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix. Spread out on a baking sheet and bake for about 40 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. When golden brown, remove from oven, allow to cool, and toss with raisins. Store in a dry and sealed container.

Roasted Fennel with Orange

Fennel is a rather controversial vegetable. In fact, besides cilantro, what is more controversial than licorice flavors? I have to admit, I've never been a huge fan, but I'd been curious about fennel for a while now, and this recipe seemed promising. I used stock with lemon juice instead of a whole cup of orange juice; otherwise, this recipe is pretty close to the original. To me, it tastes a bit like Thanksgiving, which surprises me, given that fennel most certainly did not play an important role in Thanksgivings growing up. Yet perhaps the mellow flavors of the roasted onion, with the citrus and the rosemary, do the trick. In any case, this dish ended up being far tastier than I expected--even as cold leftovers. Ideally, the onions and fennel should be tender but not yet totally mushy.

Roasted Fennel with Orange
(adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian)

Ingredients
2-3 TB olive oil
1 bulb fennel, in very thin moon slices (trim, and reserve green fronds)
1 onion, in very thin moon slices
1 orange, in very thin moon slices
1 c vegetable stock
1 TB lemon or orange juice
1 tsp dried rosemary
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 500*.
2. In a cast iron skillet, heat olive oil over medium low heat and add fennel, onion, and orange.
3. Add stock, juice, and rosemary, and bring to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Place skillet in the oven and cook for about 15 minutes, until vegetables are soft and just beginning to get brown and crispy.
5. Garnish with green fennel fronds.

Mouhammesto

I didn't really feel like cooking when I got home tonight; it was a long day, and it was already 6. I thought I'd just make pasta with some pesto, using (as I had all summer) the basil in my herb garden. But as it turned out, there were barely 10 leaves of basil remaining which seemed edible. Moreover, the only viable nut option I had (I usually would use pistachios, skinless almonds, or pinenuts) was walnuts. The combination of walnuts with the sun-dried tomatoes I used to fill out the pesto reminded me more than a little bit of mouhammara, a delectable Middle Eastern spread of walnuts, oil, and red peppers. And, as in the case of the Turkish Eggplant with Walnut Sauce, this combination also made me think of a distant sloppy joe. This pesto is delicious on whole wheat pasta, or on crackers or flatbread.

Mouhammesto

Ingredients
1/4-1/3 c raw walnuts
1 clove garlic, chopped
4 sun-dried tomatoes, rinsed (if packed in oil) and chopped
10 leaves basil, chopped
olive oil
salt

Instructions
In a small food processor, grind walnuts. Add garlic, tomatoes, and basil, and pulse until you have a paste. Add olive oil and continue pulsing until paste reaches desired consistency. Add salt to taste. Makes 2-3 servings.

Avocado + Pear = Yes

This random salad ended up being so good that I made it two days in a row. Avocado and pear with lemon and fresh mint make for a really refreshing mix of mild flavors and textures that isn't very sweet. It seems that whatever type of pear you use, it must be quite crunchy, and the avocado can't be too soft, either (but it should be ripe enough to be edible); otherwise, you will have a bowl of light green mush (like guacamole from outer space).

As you might imagine, this salad doesn't keep very well. The lemon will keep it from browning for at least a few hours, but don't press your luck.

Avocado-Pear Salad

Ingredients
1 large, crunchy pear (I think I used something like a gong pear), 1/2-in diced
2 avocados, not too ripe (refrigerate before cutting), 1/2-in diced
about 12 mint leaves, chiffonade-cut (i.e., rolled up and cut into thin strips)
lemon juice to taste (about 1/2 of a lemon)

Instructions
Toss pear, avocado, and mint together in serving bowl. Squeeze lemon juice over the salad and give one more little mix. Serves 4.

Some Italian thing

I made far too much bulghur the other day. I don't know what I was thinking. This recipe helped me use up at least part of it. Although I've just been calling it "Italian thing," I think henceforth it shall be, due to its basis in bulghur and the method of preparation, Italian tabouleh. This dish is both refreshing (lemon, basil) and meaty (sundried tomatoes, kalamata olives). Between the tomatoes, olives, and bulghur, it has a ton of texture. Chickpeas add protein and fiber (but bulghur also provides these). I should emphasize that it's really delicious. And it only got better each day that it sat in my fridge and marinated.

The basil plant in my windowsill has undergone some extraordinary metamorphoses this year. I think it is imploring me, "Just let me die!" but I have Italian tabouleh to make... It keeps trying to go to seed, producing tons of tiny basil-scented flowers that (AT MY WINDOW--IN THE MIDDLE OF HOLLYWOOD) attract hummingbirds. The stalks have turned brown and are now so thick that little sparrows are able to perch IN the plant. The leaves are a somewhat sickly, pale green, but they still taste like basil. I'm going to assume that it's the fact that this plant, an annual, has been producing basil for over seven months straight, and not the pollution, that's making my basil so weird.

Italian Tabouleh

Ingredients
2-3 c prepared bulghur
1 cup cooked chickpeas, drained and rinsed
8 kalamata olives, pitted and finely chopped
4 sun-dried tomatoes, rinsed (if packed in oil) and finely chopped
1-2 scallions, finely chopped
2 TB fresh basil, chopped
1-2 tsp dried oregano
1 TB olive oil
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt to taste (careful--you've already put in olives)
ground black pepper to taste

Instructions
Combine ingredients. If possible, allow to sit several hours before eating. Serve at room temperature. Serves about 4.