Double Feature

Why do I blog about food? I don't know. I thought I made this thing to showcase my bookbinding and photography, but instead you get to see what I eat. And it's mostly weird food and I doubt anyone even tries the recipes I post. And I'm not even taking pictures of my food anymore so you get random pictures of banana squash dressed like a snowman from 2006. Whatever.

Tonight I made black bean hummus and rosemary beets and then I thought I should try them together. Definitely a good choice. Yesterday I had cajun potatoes. Also a good choice. Here you get two easy, delicious, gluten-free, vegan meals in one little post.

Black Bean Hummus

1-2 cups cooked black beans

1-2 Tbs grapeseed oil (or other cooking oil)

1 clove garlic, minced

1-2 Tbs tahini (or whole sesame seeds + sesame oil)

1-2 Tbs cumin

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

dash paprika

Dump your beans in a blender. Heat the rest of the ingredients in a skillet. Dump them in too. Liquify. If it's too stiff, add a little water. Chill.

Rosemary Beets

1 large beet

1 sprig fresh rosemary

garlic powder

salt

italian seasoning

Slice the beet. Lay slices on baking sheet. Sprinkle with seasonings. Bake at 350 for a long time, or until tender, but don't over-bake because they don't get more tender. They get crunchy. Delicious with black bean hummus.

Cajun potatoes

1 potato

1/2 cup tomatoes--canned or fresh, diced

1 cup or so sliced okra

Old Bay (cajun or creole) seasoning

Slice the potato. Lay slices on baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake at 350 for a long time, or until tender. Meanwhile, Heat the okra and tomatoes in a saucepan and add the Old Bay seasoning. Serve with the roasted potatoes.

Stuffed Things

Get ready. The megapost you've all been waiting for. The recipes from my Stuffed Things dinner party on Memorial Day! [I know. I'm only 5 months late]

The day was filled with buzzing in the kitchen while all of my roommates were out of town. I had to the place to myself. I turned up some Carla Bruni, I put on my red and white apron, and I covered myself in cold flour like pixie dust.

The menu consisted of:
Sushi

Stuffed Croissants
Mochi
Stuffed Cider Crepes

Bacon-egg stuffed loaf of bread
Penguin Hor d'oeuvres
Lettuce wraps

Mmm. yeah I think that's it.

Stuffed Croissants

I'm not sure exactly the recipe I used, but you can Google "croissants" just as well as I can and find a decent recipe. I stuffed them with spinach, gorgonzola, and mushrooms.

Mochi (recipe from Vegan Yum Yum)

Daifuku


Makes 10-12 Filled Cakes

1 Cup Mochiko


1/4 Cup Sugar


2/3 Cup Water


2-3 Drops red or green food coloring, optional
Cornstarch or Potato Starch, for dusting

Anko


Makes enough for 3-4 batches of daifuku

1 14 oz Can Adzuki Beans


1/2 Cup Water


1 Cup Sugar


1 Tbs Vegetable Oil


1-2 Pinches Salt

Heat water and sugar separately until boiling and sugar is dissolved, turn off heat. Drain and rinse beans.

Stuffed Cider Crepes (from Carina Forum - in Russian)

350 grams flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

2 eggs

700 ml apple cider

Mix the wet ingredients. Beat in the flour. Chill 40-60 minutes. Cook in a greased skillet. Fill with your favorite rice pilaf and tie with the stem of a green onion.

Bacon-egg stuffed loaf of bread (inspired by Cooking Stuff)

Oh man, I wish I took a picture of this beast. It was really amazing. Inspired by this totally random blog by someone who just throws any random thing in bread dough and bakes it, and then blogs about cats every Sunday (what?). It was essentially this:

Make some pizza dough

Slice the edges so it's all filleted-like on the edges (seriously, look at the blog. There are detailed instructions)

Lay some strips of bacon in the middle

Set a few hard-boiled eggs on top of that

Throw in some onions if you're brave

Fold over the edges of the dough so it looks like a swaddled baby

Brush the top with egg white

Bake it

It was truly astonishing. I didn't eat any because I don't eat bacon, but it got good reviews.

Penguin Hors d'oeuvres (From All Recipes)

18 jumbo black olives, pitted

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

18 small black olives

1 carrot

Cut a slit from top to bottom, lengthwise, into the side of each jumbo olive. Carefully insert about 1 teaspoon of cream cheese into each olive. Slice the carrot into eighteen 1/4 inch thick rounds; cut a small notch out of each carrot slice to form feet. Save the cut out piece and press into center of small olive to form the beak. If necessary cut a small slit into each olive before inserting the beak.

Set a big olive, large hole side down, onto a carrot slice. Then, set a small olive onto the large olive, adjusting so that the beak, cream cheese chest and notch in the carrot slice line up. Secure with a toothpick.

Lettuce wraps

Spanish rice-filled romaine leaves, plus cheddar. Secure with a toothpick.

Wheat Germ Cookies

No pictures of these ones. They were so good they disappeared before I could pull out the camera. So instead you get these sweet pictures I took of my on the Boise River this summer.

For a while I worked at Specialty's Bakery, where you can get an Oatmeal Wheat Germ Bran Chocolate Chip Cookie, which somehow people think is healthier than the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk cookie. Not really true. I mean, you might get more vitamin E and fiber, but you're still getting a 1/4 pound of butter and sugar (or rather margarine and sugar if you get the Wheat Germs, so no cholesterol either). A friend of mine went through several batches trying to get the perfect recipe and finally gave up because it was getting expensive and she was gaining wheat germ weight. She never followed my advice though, and this is the only thing I know about Specialty's cookies: The dough weighs 1/4 pound per cookie. It is refrigerated at least 24 hours before they are baked. They are always baked at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

So sorry to disappoint you, but this is by no means a recreation of the Specialty's Oatmeal Wheat Germ Bran Chocolate Chip Cookie. It is a combination of King Arthur's Wheat Germ Cookies and the Oatmeal Raisin Cookies recipe (which, by the way, is WAY better with fresh cranberries than with raisins, especially if you add walnuts) I got from 1000 Vegetarian Recipes (Thanks Aunt Debbie), but mostly just my own creation. Have at it.

Wheat Germ Cookies

3 Tablespoon butter

1 Tablespoon grapeseed oil (or any other cooking oil)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup oats

1/4 cup + 2 Tbs all purpose flour

3/4 cup wheat germ

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 Tablespoon sesame seeds

1/2 cup walnuts (not chopped. leave them big and chunky)

1/4 cup raisins

Heat butter, oil, and brown sugar in a large saucepan, on low stirring until the butter melts. Let it cool for a minute, and then add the egg (so you don't get scrambled eggs in your cookies) and vanilla.

Stir in oats, flour, wheat germ, soda, salt, and nutmeg. Then add the sesame seeds, walnuts, and raisins.

Roll into golf-ball size balls and bake on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 for 7 minutes. Cool for 2-3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Makes about 15 cookies.

The Samoa Challenge

I don't know who challenged me or why, but if a challenge involves cooking, I usually take it pretty seriously. Or maybe I was just trying to use up the leftover caramel from Ben's caramel apple birthday cake (which, by the way was ridiculously awesome and his parents are still talking about how good it was and how his mom just couldn't recreate it). Either way, I made Samoas. They were quite a bit larger than the Girl Scout version, so I could only stomach one bite. But I had the missionaries over for dinner that night, and one of them ate two cookies in one sitting because they were that good. That was shocking.

Homemade Samoas

1 cup butter, soft

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

up to 2 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Mix in flour, baking powder and salt at a low speed, followed by the vanilla and milk, adding in the milk as needed to make the dough come together without being sticky (it’s possible you might not need to add milk at all). The dough should come together into a soft, not-too-sticky ball. Add in a bit of extra flour if your dough is very sticky.

Roll the dough (working in two or three batches) out between pieces of wax paper to about 1/4-inch thickness (or slightly less) and use a 1 1/2-inch cookie cutter to make rounds. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and use a knife, or the end of a wide straw, to cut a smaller center hole. Repeat with remaining dough. Alternatively, use scant tablespoons of dough and press into an even layer in a mini donut pan to form the rounds.

Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes, until bottoms are lightly browned and cookies are set. If using a mini donut pan, bake for only about 10 minutes, until edges are light gold.

Cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Topping

3 cups shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)

12-oz good-quality chewy caramels

1/4 tsp salt

3 tbsp milk

8 oz. dark or semisweet chocolate (chocolate chips are ok)

Preheat oven to 300. Spread coconut evenly on a parchment-lined baking sheet (preferably one with sides) and toast 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes, until coconut is golden. Cool on baking sheet, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

Unwrap the caramels and place in a large microwave-safe bowl with milk and salt. Cook on high for 3-4 minutes, stopping to stir a few times to help the caramel melt. When smooth, fold in toasted coconut with a spatula.

Using the spatula or a small offset spatula, spread topping on cooled cookies, using about 2-3 tsp per cookie. Reheat caramel for a few seconds in the microwave if it gets too firm to work with.

While topping sets up, melt chocolate in a small bowl. Heat on high in the microwave in 45 second intervals, stirring thoroughly to prevent scorching. Dip the base of each cookie into the chocolate and place on a clean piece of parchment paper. Transfer all remaining chocolate (or melt a bit of additional chocolate, if necessary) into a piping bag or a ziplock bag with the corner snipped off and drizzle finished cookies with chocolate.

Let chocolate set completely before storing in an airtight container.

Makes about 3 1/2-4 dozen cookies.

Simple

It was one of those days when I only had a couple items of fresh produce in the refrigerator and I just decided to throw them together. Quite possibly the best spontaneous combination I ever made. And so simple.

Pink Lady Salad

2 Pink Lady apples

1 Avocado

3 small English cucumbers (pickling size) or 1/2 of a long English cucumber

A few fresh mint leaves

Rice vinegar

Salt

Nutritional Yeast

1. Quarter and core the apples, then thinly slice the quarters short-ways (ie hamburger style, not hot dog style).

2. Halve the avocado, take out the pit, slice short-ways (once again hamburger style), and scoop out of the skin with a spoon.

3. Thinly slice cucumbers.

4. Combine in a bowl and toss with whole mint leaves, rice vinegar, salt, and nutritional yeast to taste.

5. Smile.

Vegetable Roast

For my nutrition class I had to go one day without eating any processed foods. I don't eat a lot of processed foods anyway, but I tried to follow the project as closely as possible, meaning I didn't eat any refined oils, salts, or sugars in addition to cutting any pre-packaged foods. I threw a bunch of vegetables in a pan. Doused them in lime juice, covered with cabbage leaves and roasted until tender.

Beet & Mango Chutney with Chicken Dumpling Pancakes

These pictures certainly aren't my best, but it was delicious, so I'm putting it up anyway. Unfortunately I once again did not write down any of the quantities of the pancake ingredients so these are just estimates. The beet sludge was also tasty with whole wheat pancakes.

Beet - Mango Chutney

2 tsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

2 mangoes, cubed

2 large beets, boiled or baked and diced

2 Tbs white vinegar

1/2 tsp cajun seasoning (Old Bay, for example)

Heat the oil in a pan with the onions and saute over medium heat until golden. Add the beets, vinegar, and seasoning. Let simmer on low while you make some chubby pancakes to serve with the chutney.

Chicken Dumpling Pancakes (in estimates)

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 cube chicken bullion

1 egg

3/4 cup water

1 Tablespoon butter

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Separate the egg. Whip the yolk with the water and melt the butter in a frying pan. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Stir the egg yolk mixture into the dry ingredients until just combined. If it's too dry, add a little water. If it's too dry, add a little flour. It should be thick-ish. Fold in the egg whites. Then stir in the butter that you melted in your frying pan and start cooking your pancakes.