Blueberry Cornmeal Coffee Cake

Yum. This coffee cake is like a slightly unusual blueberry muffin in cake form. Using berry-flavored soy yogurt actually made this cake a little sweeter than it needed to be; in the future, I would reduce the sugar if using sweetened yogurt rather than soymilk. You could also use this recipe to make muffins, if you reduced the cooking time; however, the cake is very soft and fragile (hence the parchment paper) and might not make it out in coherent muffin form.

Blueberry Cornmeal Coffee Cake
(from egglesscooking.com)

Ingredients
1/2 c sliced almonds
1 TB brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
*
1/2 c white flour
1/2 cornmeal
1/2 c turbinado sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
*
1/4 c applesauce (unsweetened of course)
1/2 c of either:
a) 1/3 soy yogurt thinned with water to make 1/2 c or
b) 1/2 c soymilk with a tiny bit of vinegar added to thicken it
2 TB earth balance, melted
1/2 TB apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
*
1 c blueberries, fresh or frozen

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350*. Line an 8x8 baking pan with parchment paper.
2. Combine almonds, brown sugar, and cinnamon and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine dry. In a pyrex or small bowl, combine wet. Add wet to dry and mix well. Stir in 2/3 of the blueberries (do not thaw if frozen).
4. Pour batter into pan and smooth. Top with remaining blueberries and almond topping. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

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.

Marinated Broccoli Lentil Salad

I was somewhat surprised to realize that this, one of the first recipes I ever created, hadn't yet made it onto the blog. Lentils and broccoli are two of the healthiest AND cheapest foods out there (see end of this post). Prepared this way, they taste delicious. This is a fast recipe which gets better as it sits. Make sure not to overcook the lentils or the broccoli. This salad needs a LOT of balsamic vinegar and black pepper to really work. The olive oil also adds flavor as well as making the salad more digestible.

Marinated Broccoli Lentil Salad

Ingredients

1 cup green or brown lentils, rinsed
1 c vegetable stock (or water)
2 c water
*
1-2 c small broccoli florets
1/4 c white onion or scallions, finely chopped
water
*
2 TB balsamic vinegar
olive oil
sea salt to taste
ample ground black pepper to taste
optional: chopped olives, garlic or garlic powder

Instructions

1. Undercook lentils in stock and water, draining if necessary.
2. Lightly cook broccoli and onions by pouring boiling water over them, covering, and draining after 2 minutes.
3. Toss lentils and vegetables together. Add balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste. allow to stand until flavors have soaked in and salad is cool.

for reference:

• 1 c stewed chicken breast has 211 calories, 41g protein, 0g fiber, and 7% daily iron

• 1 c regular cooked lentils has 230 calories, 18g protein, 16g fiber, and 37% daily iron, and probably costs about $0.10

• 1 c steamed broccoli has 54 calories, 4g protein, 6g fiber, and 6% daily iron, as well as ample vitamins A, C, K, and Bs

(data from www.nutritiondata.com)

(Almost) Instant Spicy Hot Chocolate

YUM. Could you get this out of a packet? Or those awful Nestle "Mexican Hot Chocolate" discs (which, despite the fact that the only "flavors" other than chocolate and sugar are artificial, and that they contain more sugar than chocolate, are surprisingly dairy-free)? This drink is richly chocolatey and creamy, and not too sweet (unless you want it that way).

Many people seem to think that "vegan chocolate" must be hard to find because it's made out of beans or vital wheat gluten or something. And, depending on how stringent your definition of "vegan" is, it might be. But chocolate that contains nothing but cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar, and maybe vanilla is actually ubiquitous. It's only milk chocolate (duh), and poor quality chocolate that tastes like (and contains?) wax (like Hershey's and Nestle), that you need worry about.

Spicy Hot Chocolate

Ingredients
3 1-in squares of high-quality dark chocolate (I used Lindt "Intense Dark" [70% cocoa])
4 oz boiling water
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1 tsp ground cinnamon (or to taste)
4 oz soymilk or other plant milk
sugar to taste (it might depend on whether your milk has sugar added--you might not need any)

Instructions

Break the chocolate up into very small pieces with your fingers.
In a small saucepan over very low heat, melt the chocolate in the boiling water. Stir until you have a fully dissolved chocolate paste-water. Add cayenne and cinnamon, and pour into a mug or teacup.
In the same saucepan, heat the milk (still over low heat) until hot. Pour carefully into mug, give it a stir, add sugar if desired (remembering that the chocolate and maybe the milk already contain sugar), and you're done!
Makes one 8-oz serving.

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.

Preserved lemons

More adventures in pickling and preserving... Today I decided to make preserved lemons in a last-ditch attempt to avoid lesson-planning. In a few weeks, these babies should be salty, tangy, and spicy, and should take my dishes (for example, couscous) places they've never been before. Updates to follow. If these turn out well, I will post the recipe, which comes from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (yes, I just bought another cookbook).

Preserved Lemons

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.