On the town with Freddie

I know. The last one. You're thinking, "A ceiling fan?"

I took Freddie out for an inaugural spin this weekend. Nothing fancy. I was too scared to take him anywhere until I got a camera bag, and once I walked out of the store with him nestled in the carrier I figured now was as good a time as any to get some shots. Mostly just testing the waters. I learn how to use things best by doing vs. reading so I just wandered around for an hour or so snapping shots of whatever caught my eye. Stretching my camera's legs if you will.

But I know, the ceiling fan. I don't know what it is about that shot. It was so off the cuff I don't even remember framing the shot. It was more: point, focus, shoot. But I'm obsessed! I think I just like how the whole shot has a golden hue and the camera caught the motion of the blades without it being completely blurry. Maybe this is my next calling in life? Fan photography? Somewhere out there an interior designer is crying...in agony.

Any who-dinger...for those parties interested (is anyone out there interested?) cooking is also back on my itinerary. A fall chill is finally in the air and this calls for a welcome shift in my recipe selection. So as long as work doesn't consume my life - as it threatens to this week - I should have some food posts on the horizon. Two dishes in particular. One is and old favorite of mine, which I consider to be the genesis of my passion for cooking. The second is a recipe I've had tucked away in one of my cookbooks since APRIL! I've been dying to bake this one up and, God willing, I'll have the chance to this week.

Until then..

Freeze Frame

My oh my oh my I love this camera.

This sweetie, who henceforth will be named Freddie, won my heart over faster than you can say "shutter speed". Any sense of buyers remorse I felt in the wee hours of Sunday night have washed away. Me and this camera will be makin' a lot of sweet shots together.
A week ago I would have blogged about the who, what, where, when and why of how I came to get a camera such as this, but not tonight. No, tonight is like falling in love. You could recap everything that got you to that point of falling in love with your significant other, but frankly, who the hell cares. You're only thinking about the future. Better macro shots with food photography; deeply saturated and crisp fall foliage shoots; sweeping Italian vistas...oh the list can go on! Must go now, though. I feel the urge to do pirouettes around my room.

Edamame and Mango Salad

I got the morning off today. First on the itinerary was sleeping in as much as possible considering my bedroom window overlooks a major street (I just can't NOT have the windows open in the fall) and morning traffic is one thing I can't sleep through. I realized that this doesn't mean you actually have to get out of bed, and since I still can't run on my bum ankle I enjoyed the rainy, fall weather with a book until my stomach lured me down to the kitchen. Now, post-breakfast, I figured this would be a good opportunity to catch up on some blogging. Last time I referred to a bunch of cooking I had done over the labor day weekend, which included this asian-infused salad.

I love making salads like this because of their adaptability to whatever you have in your vegetable bin or whatever flavors you're craving at the moment. This salad, in all honesty, came to fruition because of bit of leftover jalapeño pepper I had in the fridge, which made me crave a spicy-sweet combo, which caused a special 1-ingredient stop at the grocery store for mangos which went well with the edamame I've had lying in wait in my freezer for just such an opportunity as this. About 40 minutes later I had dinner. And lunch for almost a week.

If this combo sounds good to you, I've typed up the recipe below. Take into consideration how you're going to use it, though. I'm a big fan of getting in some green and leafy veggies whenever I can, so I liked this over some spinach or dark romaine leaves and because of this I went heavy on both the flavor and volume of dressing I made. If you're planning on eating it on it's own, or as a topper to toasted slices of chewy french bread then I would dial it back. All in the quantities I listed below are a starting point. Taste, add and mix as you go. The grain you use is also equally variable. I came across a mix of grains that Kashi puts out in the grocery store the week prior so I gave that a spin. Quinoa, barley or simply some brown rice is equally interchangeable.

Also, this salad tastes great warm, but the leftovers are just as tasty served cold. If you want to prepare it ahead of time to eat later I would add a bit of lime juice into the mix, otherwise the mango juices begin to brown the whole salad - and who wants to eat a brown salad?
Edamame and Mango Salad
Ingredients
2 Tbsp white wine vinegar

1 Tbsp canola oil

1 Tbsp sesame oil

2 tsp soy sauce

1 large clove garlic, minced

2 cups cooked grains

10 oz shelled edamame

1 mango, diced

2 small bell peppers, diced

1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced very small

1 cup shredded carrots

1 cup shredded cabbage

1 bunch green onion, chopped

salt to taste

cilantro

Directions

Cook grains in a large pot per their individual cooking times. Usually though, this gives you 30-50 minutes to chop everything else.

While grains are cooking away, thaw frozen edamame in some hot (but not boiling water). I do this by putting the edamame in a small colander, then putting the colander in a large bowl of hot water and letting them soak. You'll want to change out the water once in the beginning because it will cool down quickly with the frozen beans.

Next, add dressing ingredients into a small, airtight container and shake until well mixed.

Finally, combine grains, edamame, mango and veggies (except cilantro) into a large bowl. Pour dressing over salad and toss until everything is thoroughly coated. Taste and add a little of this or a lot of that until it's just right.

Serve over a bed of greens, toasted bread or solo, garnished with some fresh cilantro.

As you can see, I also added some orange zest as an after thought. If I had any on hand, I think freshly grated ginger would have been a good addition, too.

Orange Curacau Macaroons

I did a LOT of cooking over the 3 day weekend and now I have SO many recipes I want to write about! So many that I've put it off for days because I simply did not know where to start. Finally I thought, start with the most delicious! And so I give you Orange Curacau Macaroons.
But before the recipe, a bit of backstory. This was actually the third baked good I produced over the Labor Day weekend. The first was a blueberry cake that piqued my interest due to its use of molasses instead of conventional sweeteners like sugar or honey. Now, in the notes of the blog post she (Heidi) mentions that if you don't like molasses you likely won't enjoy this cake. But I had never really cooked with molasses before and my love of trying new ingredients plus a gallon sized bag of frozen blueberries in my freezer overruled any downside to this recipe. So the recipe shot up to the top of my to-make list. It turned out beautiful! But alas, I do not love molasses. (sad face) At least...I do not love molasses that much. I tried really hard to. All weekend I kept cutting little sliver-slices of the cake, taking a bit and then (over the trash can) exclaiming, "I do not like this cake!"

*Sigh* Silver lining: it gave me an idea for another cake using this same concept but with peaches and honey. Hmmmm, I have both right now...we'll see...

Next up was actually a research cake for work. As a diabetes educator and dietitian, it's part of my job to know the inter-workings of Splenda. So when a colleague of mine came to me with a one-step pineapple upside down cake recipe with some nutritional highlights (nuts, fruit and low in saturated fat) and she wanted to know if it would taste just as good to replace the sugar with splenda. Enter Kristy. This was actually great experience for me as I've never baked with splenda before. I'm all for upping the nutritional ante in recipes, but I've never really tried to fake-out sugar. I think it's the lingering Julia Child in me. Anyway, the cake tasted great - diabetics rejoice! But I screwed up this tiny little insignificant ingredient called baking powder.

This is why baking and I haven't gotten along in the past. It's too much of a science vs. an art. You miss an ingredient and your cake will taunt you for it. I imagine the Pillsbury doughboy turning his nose up in disgust, cock his chef's hat back and march out of my kitchen on his nubby, doughy legs only to stop, turn his head back to look at me with the slightest tinge of pity/disdain and then walk out of my life forever. Whatever. Go knead yourself dough boy. Did you SEE my recent lattice work? Not that I completely missed the baking powder. I just didn't have the recipe on me and figured I could do it from memory. If I were cooking, this thought process would have worked I tell you! It would have worked!!!!

Sooooo anyway. I needed a baking boost. A reminder that I knew what the heck I was doing. And these macaroons saved me from the brink, because they are gooooooooooooooooooood. And by good I mean GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD! They are a bright, sweet orange flavor, which I keep getting a wiff of every time I open up the container I'm keeping them in. Four out of four taste testers agreed, these cookies are frickin' delectable. They melt in your mouth like pillows of wonderfulness. Mmm! The sweet taste of success!

OK, so the recipe. I got the idea from Heidi's Limoncello Macaroons which she riffed off of Patrick Lemble's Pinched Orange Macaroons. Since I already had a bottle of curacao from a trip to Curacao two years ago sitting in my pantry my batch turned out to be an orange version somewhere between the two of theirs. I had been waiting for a good reason to use the curacao, but since I'm not a huge fan of fruity, umbrella drinks that occasion never seemed to arrive. This, however, seemed like the perfect reason. Side note: did you know that true curacao only can be purchased in Curacao? They don't export the stuff. Everything we buy here in the US is a knock off. Kind of like buying "champagne" made in California. And one final note, if you've never used almond paste before, you can make it from scratch, or find it in the baking aisle of your grocery store.

Orange Curacao Macaroons

Ingredients:

14 oz (or two 8 oz cans if that's what you can find) almond paste

1 large egg white

1 tsp almond extract

1/2 + ~1/4 cup powdered sugar + LOTS more for counter and coating

1 Tbsp curacao

Zest of 1 orange (~ 1 heaping Tbsp)

1/2 tsp fine grain salt (i.e. not kosher)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In large bowl use mixer to beat together almond paste, egg, almond extract and 1/2 cup sugar until creamy. Next add in liquor, zest and salt and beat until well combined. Now gauge your dough. You want it to be sticky, but not the completely unworkable sort of sticky. If it's too much of the latter, add a couple of tablespoons of the reserve powdered sugar at a time until the dough is still quite sticky, but not oozing.

Heavily "flour" your counter with some of the reserve powdered sugar and get out a flat, clean knife. You'll use this to cut the rolled dough into 3/4-1" pieces. I used a metal icing spatula, but a bread spatula or even a non-serrated butter knife would work well.

Break your dough into fourths and, one at a time, roll it out on your sugared countertop until the rolls are approximately 1" in diameter. You can do half the dough at once, but considering the tackiness of the dough I feel it's MUCH more manageable in smaller chunks. Keep dusting the countertop with extra powdered sugar as needed. I found I needed much more powdered sugar than I would have expected due to keep the dough from sticking to counter.

Once you have a section of dough rolled out, use your knife to cut it into 3/4-1" pieces with a quick sweeping motion. If your knife starts to stick into your dough, coat it with a bit of sugar as you go, which will help. Transfer all your macaroons to your baking sheets and let rest for 30 minutes.

You'll likely use this time to reclaim your countertop.

After 30 minutes, you can either bake the macaroons as is, or use a light 3-finger pinch to shape the cookies into a rounded pyramid. Let bake for 15 minutes or until a light golden-brown color. Remove from oven and let cool completely before storing in an air-tight container.

Makes approximately 4 dozen macaroons.

I don't bake Blackberry PIE!

Once upon a time baking scared the bejesus out of me. This particular once upon a time was about 9 months ago. Boxed cupcake mix gave me anxiety. An-xi-e-ty. Then on Monday I was out to dinner for my friend Alex's birthday and my Chocolate Cherry Coma Cookies came up. I had made a batch to give as part of a wedding gift that weekend and a few friends got the leftovers. Since there were a few people out with us that I didn't know super well one of them asked, "So you're a baker?" I almost laughed out loud that someone would even suggest that. Me?! Heck no I don't bake! I cook!

During the same dinner conversation another friend, Nick, gave me grief that I never made the blackberry pie that I had allegedly promised via a facebook conversation. He was mistaken. I do not bake pies.

Then guilt set in.

And somehow I made this.

So as I was waiting for my pie (my first pie) to finish baking, I got to thinking. Over the past few months I have pulled out of my oven: pound cake, soft pretzels, a couple of types of scones, endless batches of cookies and, in a few minutes, a pie. All from scratch. All using bags of flour and sugar that I've been buying as regularly as cereal.

So...shucks...I guess I am a baker.

No recipe post today. I have yet to taste the finished product since I'm still full from dinner so that will have to wait for another day. Each individual item tasted lovely, so I have high hopes. If you'd like to use the recipe I tried, check this chica's site out.

And sorry to not only be MIA for over a month, but to leave you on such a DOWNER post! Eek! More to come...

Insomnia bites

I can't sleep.

I'm pretty sure it's the combination of a too long nap this afternoon + too much food in the evening + too much on my mind tonight. Being unable to sleep is like being trapped. Being trapped in my head, in my bed, in my room, in the night. The perfect cure for everything right now would be a walk, but that just doesn't seem like the best thing to do by myself at 1am. This makes me wish I had a dog. A big, calm, easy natured dog that could go on a walk with me any time of the day.

Alas, no dog. Just a blog.

Instead I peruse some of my favorite foodie internet sites for meal inspiration. I've been craving poached eggs lately - and there just ain't an animal free substitute for that one. Bummer. I'm sure I'll have an egg again someday. Albeit a egg from a chicken that actually lives like a chicken ought to live. I have nothing against eating animals or things that come from animals - I just have an aversion to eating things that are raised in conditions that keep them on the brink of death (or, let's be honest, push them over the brink) in the kind of conditions that remind me more of that human battery scene from The Matrix than Old McDonald's Farm. Without a second thought we spend the extra money to buy toilet paper that's two-ply and quilted to pamper our backsides but pay so little attention to the quality of food we fuel our bodies with. I gives me indigestion.

I have patients that go days - DAYS! - without eating a single piece of unprocessed produce. Breakfast: two sausage burritos and a diet coke. Lunch: fettucini with chicken and texas toast. Snack: crystal light and cheetos. Dinner: fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, ice cream for dessert. Repeat.

They use better gas in their cars, better fertilizer on their lawn, better shampoo for their hair. Absolute crap in their body. The sad thing is you only get one body. New car every 5 years, new lawn every spring, new inch of hair every 2 months. One body.

Somewhere in the last few generations we forgot how to cook. How to make things like broccoli or carrots taste good instead of boiling it into mushy submission and then assuming they always taste that aweful. Instead we all hung up our aprons and started paying minimum wage to short order cooks like Marie Callenders, Dave Wendy, Chef Boyardee, and Stouffers (because nothing comes closer to home). Why are we surprised when we "suddenly" have heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, knee replacements, slipped disks, sleep apnea, stroke, hypertension, trouble conceiving, lethargy...

Everyone blames the environment we live in. I agree, it's a huge factor. But WE create the environment we live in. Think about it. You do, every last bit of it. We created the demand for a McDonald's in every town in America, not the CEO of McDonald's. It's the simple economics of supply and demand. Demand less, supply goes down, environment changes.

But it's true, once you get to a certain point it's hard to turn the tides to a healthier lifestyle, but you have to start somewhere don't you? Or would you just rather continue to get sicker and sicker? The way I see it, it's try or die folks, try or die. But maybe I'm just tired....

Whole Wheat Strawberry Rhubarb Scones

I delved a little further into the world of baking this weekend.

I already mentioned that I had picked up this book from the library and Saturday I marked the 3rd recipe I've gotten to try from it. I have to alter 90% of the recipes to make them vegan, and most of the flours I don't already have on hand, but I'm still contemplating outright purchasing this book. I love how it stretches the limits of what you can do with both typical and atypical flours and grains. Since I can modify most any of the recipes to fit what my pantry actually contains it allows you todecide how ordinary or extraordinary I want to make each recipe.

I had gotten some fresh rhubarb from a coworker this week and have been trying to decide how I wanted to use it. I haven't been brave enough to try a pie just yet, and didn't feel like the dainty, showiness of making tarts so when I came across a recipe for Strawberry Barley Scones it hit a foodie taste bud. Since I recently splurged on a bag of quinoa flour, and I have plans to buy some bread flour for another recipe in this book I opted out of using the barley flour it calls for, instead swapping in some whole wheat flour.

The real highlight of yesterday's cooking was actually the strawberry rhubarb compote. After I did a midpoint taste test I actually said (to no one in particular, mind you) "Oh Wow!" I've never made any sort of jam or compote before and it's so infinitely better (even from a novice's standpoint) that I can't ever imagine justifying using the store bought stuff in the future. In all these created a great and filling breakfast scone. Don't expect a copy of the uber-sweet versions Panera sells. This is better.

So, for the recipes! First, as you can expect, the batter for the scones is adjusted to be vegan, but I noted her [Kim Boyce's] original ingredients in case you want to go that direction. Second, I used the last of my non-frozen strawberries in the compote and added a touch of balsamic vinegar thanks to a suggestion made in Good to the Grain. Third, if you'd like to try the barley flour, just replace it 1:1 for the whole wheat flour I used.

Since is should be sufficiently cooled off now, I'm off to have a slice of homemade lasagna! And when I say homemade I mean homemade. 3 1/2 hours homemade. Recipe to follow...

RECIPES

Strawberry Rhubarb Compote

Ingredients:

7-8 rhubarb stalks, rinsed

1 1/2 cups strawberries, rinsed and stemmed (sliced if strawberries are larger than 1")

1 + 1/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar (optional)

Directions:

Slice the rhubarb in half lengthwise and cut on the diagonal into 3/4" chunks. Put 3/4 of the rhubarb in a large pot along with the 1 cup of brown sugar. Hold the rest of the rhubarb to the side for later.

Turn heat onto medium-low and stir to mix the sugar and rhubarb. Cover and cook for 15 minutes until the rhubarb starts to release most of it's juices.

Remove the cover, add in the strawberries and increase the heat to medium. Stir the sauce regularly for the next 15-17 minutes until it thickens up enough that your spoon can leave a trail at the bottom of the pan. Add the last of the rhubarb and balsamic vinegar and let cook just 1-2 minutes more. About now is when you should taste test to see if you'd like it sweeter; if so add the last 1/4 cup of brown sugar.

Pour the compote into a bowl to cool. This will be much more than you need for the scones recipe. The rest (roughly 2 cups) will keep in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Whole Wheat Strawberry Rhubarb Scones

Ingredients:

DRY MIX

1 cup + 2 Tablespoons whole wheat flour

1 cup AP flour

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

WET MIX

4 ounces cold Earth Balance Buttery Sticks (or 4 ounces unsalted butter)

1/2 cup soy milk mixed with 1/2 Tablespoon vinegar (or 1/2 cup buttermilk)

1 Tablespoon ground flax seed mixed with 3 Tablespoons hot water (or 1 egg)

FINISH

~1 cup Strawberry Rhubarb Compote (or store bought jam)

1-2 Tablespoons granulated sugar

Directions:

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350F. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper, spray lightly with non-stick spray and set to the side.

Sift together all the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Cut the "butter" into 1/2" pieces and add them to the dry mixture. Use your fingers to break the butter into the flour until it's the size of grains of rice to flattened peas. As Kim notes, the more quickly you do this, the more the "butter" will stay solid, which is important for the success of the recipe. I actually stuck my "butter" in the freezer for a bit so it was less likely to melt in the bowl.

In one small bowl mix the soy milk and vinegar, stir and let sit for ~10 minutes, in another combine the ground flax and HOT water and let sit for ~3 minutes so it can thicken up (see picture above...it really does have the same thick/emulsifying affects of an egg). Once they've set up, combine the two mixtures into one bowl, stir well, and then add to the dry mix. Mix the batter until all the ingredients are just barely combined.

Transfer the batter onto a well-floured surface. If it's too sticky to handle, add a little more flour until it's more workable. Divide the dough into two pieces. Flour your hands and pat each of the two pieces until they're 3/4" thick and approximately 7" in diameter. Make sure they aren't sticking to your work surface once you're done, otherwise you'll have some troubles moving the finished scones to the baking sheet!

Cover one disk with the compote and top with the second disk, gently pressing them together so that the dough settles into the jam. Sprinkle the top with sugar then use a sharp knife to cut the dough into 8 slices - just like a pie.

Move the scones to your baking sheet and bake for 22-26 minutes, making sure to rotate halfway through. You'll know when the scones are done because they're tops will be golden brown and some of the compote will bubble over onto the pan. Eat while they're still warm or later the same day for best taste.