Peach gaspacho

Before mixing together blended ingredients

I like to force on summer usually but this one has snuck up on me.  May wasn't cutting it, June just didn't feel right and then all of a sudden I was sweaty and irritated but berries started to appear. AAAAH There you are summer.  I was mad at you but I can forgive you for all the fruit you bring.  Until I'm sick of that too and then we will be on the outs again.

Gaspacho doesn't take much effort at all.  Best of all it doesn't take much cooking at all.  Recipes without the stove are a favorite.  This one requires light stove top activity.  When you use mango, peaches or any delicate fruit it is best to let it sit overnight and have the fruitiness infuse the entire soup.

This recipe yields approximately 5 cups.  It fed 4 people with veggie and fruit sides well.  It will feed 2 people like kings.

• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 3 ripe peaches (the sweeter, peachier the better)
• 1 jalapeno
• 1/2 Medium onion
• handful of cilantro
• salt to taste
• sometimes I'll add some pepper seeds to up the heat
• fresh zucchini slices on the side
• avocado slices on the side

You can add garlic if you wish at any point (simmer it with the tomatoes if you want it a little more mellow) I did not this last time, and it was delicious without it too.

 Cut tomato in their middles the top and bottom facing out and the side on the cutting board and the knife slicing the other side which should be facing up.  By slicing it in half this way you can expel the seeds with one light squeeze.  I'm not too nutty about the seeds remaining, survivors will be eaten at no real cost.  But it is best to not have a very seedy gaspacho.  Roughly chop tomato pieces and put into a pot with a little olive oil enough to prevent sticking and cook just until the tomato has softened and turned bright red-orange.

Finely chop onion and jalapeno, rough cut cilantro and peaches.  These all go into the food processor until small bits remain (which is fine).   I pour everything into a container with a sprinkle of salt and put it in the fridge.

When you are getting ready to eat it just take it out of the fridge for an hour or two and serve it up with avocado slices and big fat salad. This soup travels really well for potlucks. Crostini is awesome with it. Toasted tortilla wedges too.

Oven roasted herbed potatoes and carrots with pan fried Zucchini spears

When it comes to dinner, I like things savory, spicy and hearty.  So, when I am imagining a menu, I try and find things that satisfy these cravings but are also simple and relatively quick to make.   This entry is going to detail one of my very favorite easy-to-cook meals.  I sometimes refer to these as "man meals" because they can be made just as easily on a camp stove as a regular oven, and bachelors with virtually no cooking skills can throw together a meal that is sure to impress a dinner guest.

There are four components to this menu:  roasted root veggies, pan fried zucchini, mixed greens and a ketchup-like tomato sauce for dipping.

First, the root veggies:

• Pre-heat oven to 475 degrees
• Cut your veggies (I used garlic, potato and carrot) into evenly-sized sections that will cook at approximately the same pace -- so if it's potatoes, they should be slices less than a half inch thick, same goes for carrot rounds, and any others.  Veggies that go great in this dish are rutabagas (peel them first), parsnip, carrots, potatoes, onion, hot peppers, and garlic cloves.
• Put your mix of cut veggies in a large mixing bowl and add 1-3 Tbsp of sunflower or safflower oil (enough to coat your veggies)
• Add finely chopped fresh herbs (rosemary, marjoram, thyme) in equal amounts to the the mix -- you want enough to see a speckle of each kind of herb on every piece of veggie
• Add a tsp of coarse sea salt
• Mix the herbs, oil, and veggies together until they are evenly coated.  Make sure that no veggies are dry or without herbs (you can grate some fresh black pepper over it here, or sprinkle hot pepper seeds to make it extra spicy)
• Lightly oil your cookie sheet with sunflower or safflower oil.  Pour the mix onto a cookie sheet in a single layer, meaning that there are not veggies stacked on top of one another, and place in oven for 35 minutes, turning once 15 minutes in

Once this is in the oven for 15 minutes, it's time to make the pan-fried zucchini!  Don't do it too early, or it will get soggy.

• Start a pan warming up to medium high heat
• Add 1 Tbsp of sunflower or safflower oil to the pan -- make sure it doesn't smoke as this means the pan is way too hot.
• In a small, flat mixing bowl, pour in whole wheat (not enriched!) flour about an 1/8th of an inch deep
• Add 1/2 tsp of cracked black pepper, and any savory dried herbs like oregano, basil, rosemary and thyme -- you can use an Italian or herbs de provence mix.  The herbs should be about 1 tsp worth.  Mix it until the flour and herbs are a uniform consistency.
• Cut a single zucchini into long, flat sections.  If the skin is at all tough, peel it first.
• Run each piece of zucchini under water for a moment so it is moist, no need for egg-- then dip it in the flour/herb mix so it has a thin coating of the flour/herb mix
• Place the zucchini in the hot oiled frying pan and let them cook until the bottom is browned.  You want the flour to be completely cooked.
• Once done, place the pieces on a paper towel, resting on a plate to absorb excess oil.  If the timing is right, the root veggies in the oven should be ready to come out shortly.

Lastly, time to make some ketchup-like tomato dip.  This is optional because the other stuff is already super tasty.  I like it because it gives the meal more color and flexibility.

• In a small bowl, add 1/2 Cup of crushed canned tomatoes -- make sure it's 100% tomato and nothing else
• Add a pinch of allspice, clove, coriander, plus an even smaller pinch of something spicy like cayenne or dried hot peppers -- if you have a garlic powder you trust, add a pinch of that as well.
• Add 1/2 tsp of coarse sea salt
• Add 1 tsp of sugar, or honey  (you may want more depending on your taste, but mix first and let it sit before adding more -- too much sweet is no good)
• Mix thoroughly and either serve cold, or heat the mixture and serve hot

The last element is putting a nice bed of fresh raw greens on the side.  I recommend arugula, mustard, butter lettuce, cress, and turnip greens.   I'll make a note in a later potlicker on how to make your own "greens bed" in the back yard.

So, once it's all done, plate it up and serve to whomever you want to be impressed with your mad cooking skills.

Bird Nests : cookies for Marni.

I made these to work on my obviously cookie deficient blog.
They are vegan and I recommend them highly to ANYONE who likes chocolate and coconut.

Preheat oven to 425.

The dry bits:

• 1 Cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 Cup unbleached white flour
• 1/4 Cup  Oat flour (rolled oats tossed into a food processor and pulverized)
• 1/4 Cup Baking Cocoa
• 1/2 Cup vegan sugar
• 1/4 Cup sugar in the raw or demerara sugar
• 3/4 Cup coconut
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp or hefty pinch cinnamon

Blend or finger sift everything together well!

The wet bits:

• 2/3 Cup - 3/4 Scant Cup olive oil  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (I add it to the olive oil to carry it throughout the mixture)
• 1/2 Cup warm {tap hot} water (this is added in small amounts after everything is well blended to bind everything together tightly)

After the mixture is blended with spoon or hands and the texture changes from grainy to like a sand castle building texture.  Just so it can hold its form enough.  Line a cookie sheet with foil.  Then make tiny 1 inch balls and press your thumb into their tops just to give them a little well for collecting your filling.  In the nest you can put a chocolate chip.  A filbert or macadamia nut.  I added a little dash more of coconut since that is what I had on hand.  Then pop into the oven.  These bake for no more than 5 minutes!   Once the shine from them is gone and the coconut is lightly toasted.  I made this with a mom in mind, so it's a time saver.  The recipe will make 48 tiny cookies.  Perfect for tiny hands. 

These will keep well for at least a week.  You can measure out all of the dry ingredients and put it into a mason jar with a masking tape labeled - Bird Nests.  Good gift for family and friends.  Jar them and give with a little instruction card  for the wet ingredients needed and oven temp and timing stuck on the lid.

Bunny tails

A friend of mine requested more dessert entries for their Jer-Bear to eat, so here it is!  Bunny Tails made to order.

For those who make candy this is better because you don't need a friggin' thermometer to make it and nearly anyone can have them.  Allergies? simply change ingredients depending.  Diabetic?  Use a sugarless jam or preserves in place of the ultra sweet gooey ingredient and agave for the binder.

These are dates, peanut butter, honey and coconut.

You can make these out of :

A nut butter: Peanut, sunflower (which is exquisite but since it is thinner it needs to be combine with a little bit of another nut butter to help hold it's shape), almond butter, cashew butter but the best is anything ground FRESH.

A paste like dried fruit the larger the better: Dates, prunes, figs, raisins, currants... the gooy-er the better.

A sweet binder to aid in spreading and chopping:  Honey, Agave, Maple syrup a jam, preserves sugarless if you like or need.

A powder coating of: Coconut, ground nuts, cocoa powder/nibs.

The ratio is:

• 1 heaping cup dates (or what you are using) approximately 10 -12 dates.
• 1/2 Cup heaping peanut or other butter
• drizzle of honey

Spread on a cutting surface.  Chip chop chip.  Hip hop hip. Dice slice dice.  And mix the spread bits into one another.  Sprinkle with coconut or whatever OUTER covering to be contained within the little candy balls.  Then blend again.   With very slightly damp hands roll little balls out and set aside.  In a shallow dish have your coconut or whatever your outside layer will be.  Roll the little balls into it and voila.  Again you've done it, you've made something that costs a million dollhairs in the grocery store and all of 3 -5 bucks out of things you gathered in your home.  They keep in the fridge for a long time.  I haven't timed because nothing this tasty ever has time to go bad.  These are AWESOME for after school snacks, when you can't catch a moment to eat they're in the fridge awaiting you or when you want a sweet fix but don't want to house some nasty crap.

For adults these pair AMAZINGLY with a spicy, fruity soft tannin wine.  I'm writing this entry drunk in fact.

For kids this pairs well with milks. Like PB&Js.

Turmeric Cauliflower

This is a FAVORITE.  I'm from the Midwest and the South (14 years in one and 5+ in the other) so I'm used to being loaded up with fat plates of fried crap.  And it is good crap because what isn't good fried?  NOTHING.  My favorite of the fried crap was fried cauliflower.  Every good Southern home has its secret recipe which is a battle of who has more secret MSG making power than the next.  And yes, it's so tasty, but then after the meal you want to die, you blame it on eating too much... you blame it on the food being "too good" or "too rich" and it was.  It was so good you want to die.  Well the issues with fried are that it violently breaks down protein into a hodge-podge of things, including MSG-like compounds or as we call it - the SPICE.  We always say it with contempt after a bad meal, and even our friends have taken to calling MSG containing meals SPICED.  Just don't confuse this with real spices that have nothing to do with MSG.  The second isssue is that most things fried are also battered. Wheat has protein and frying it results in, yep, the SPICE.  Egg is incredibly protein rich and using that in conjunction with flour yields, yep, - super the SPICE.  Then the grandmas and aunts and moms with their secret ingredients are usually upping that spice quotient without even realizing it by using any number of protein breakers like lemon into the batter, Taco Bell fire sauce (in my opinion, Taco Bell is one of the WORST offenders of using flavor enhancers to cover their heavily modified and very low grade food to make everyone feel as though you NEED it) and other additions.

To escape the South and keep the flavor, fresh turmeric does a fine job.

This is a VERY simple recipe.

Beforehand it looks like a non-event.

But just wait until you see it and smell it coming out of the oven...
Preheat oven to 400-425

• 1 head of cauliflower (trim off the 'stump' and leaves, cut large florets into slices)
• 1 inch chunk of fresh turmeric more or less depending on how much cauliflower (I just grate it no peeling or chopping)   Turmeric will give you "cheetos" fingers and can stain things so grate over a plate or work surface made to take this kind of thing.
• 4 cloves garlic grated
• 2 TBSP olive oil or more as needed
• pinch of salt
• ground pepper or some hot pepper seeds

Toss to combine, and bake.  At 20 minutes it will start to become tender.  Take it out, toss to coat everything once more and put back in to get the tenderness you desire.  At most 30 minutes.

Fresh Turmeric Root

The upsides of this dish is that Turmeric is well known for its health benefits and is a very subtle, savory flavor that pairs well with dark flavored things like beans, lentils, grains.  It is what gives Curry is color.  It also is used to ease joint pain and inflammation.  Curcumin, the thing that gives Turmeric is color, has antioxidant; anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, stomach-soothing, and liver-and heart-protecting effects. This will take that would-be fried cauliflower and kick it in the teeth.  I'm swearing off the fried stuff and going for this.

So simple Banana muffins.

No eggs?  No problem.  Eggs are often thought of as a must-have for baking.  This is because they are an excellent rising agent (I almost typed eggcellent, would you have ever forgiven me?).  Along with eggs, baking soda, honey, and yeast help as well.  So one part the egg does that yeast and baking soda don't do is also help bind the ingredients together.  For that bananas are wonderful, however they do not really aid in rising so along with them you'll need baking soda like in most egg baking as well.

You can also use bananas and/or applesauce in a pinch for recipes that require eggs when you are out.  Or a bit more oil than you'd like to use in a recipe?  Swap some or all of it out for applesauce.  If you want it to have LESS banana flavor use slightly greener bananas.  The less ripe the banana the less banana flavor, but they'll still bind like a champ.  I recommend if your plan is to stay away from the bad stuff (MSG, broken proteins or amines), then using just spotty bananas will suffice for banana flavored things.  It has really good flavor without too much of the bad stuff (blackened bananas are bad for you. sigh. I love them - but nature is right, rotten isn't good for me or you).

Banana anything is usually good but often not amazing.  Whenever folks would cook for me as a vegetarian they'd usually serve up a banana something for dessert.  And it was generally decent tasting but nothing to rave on about.  Bananas cooked in rum or over a campfire might send me, but alas no muffin did that.  It was always. "yum" in the tiniest print.  I think there are two fruits that go extraordinarily well with bananas: strawberries and blueberries, but they get to fight over who wins.  You win by eating them.  These muffins can be made with fresh or frozen blueberries OR fresh or frozen strawberries.  These have blueberry.  See the bounty!

So on with it.  Banana muffin time. 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

• 1 and 1/2 Cup whole wheat flour (as usual, you may use the flour you favor or do a combo)
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp allspice (this is my favorite spice in this recipe and I feel makes it less ordinary)
• 1 Cup slightly heaping blueberries (or strawberries)
• 2 lightly spotted bananas
• 3/4 Cup olive oil (you can get away with less and always add up to the 3/4 to make sure the flour combines)
• 3/4 Cup vegan sugar ( or sneak less in there until the family noticeably gets irritated with you)
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Yield is approx. 1 dozen

I had forgotten salt when making these on a whim, it was not missed -so I left it out.  I do find this recipe to be a tad sweet for me, Jason would not have me change it for the world so your family may also like it as is. I plan on probably sneaking less in next time as the bananas and the blueberries are quite sweet and don't rely as heavily on the sugar as other fruits may - like cranberries.

Combine dry ingredients except sugar (sugar always goes with wet ingredients).  Add the 1 Cup auxiliary fruit and toss to coat in flour.  Chop bananas in a separate mixing bowl until small bits, cover in the oil, sugar and vanilla.  Beat senseless until nearly fluffy like eggs or butter would be and once well combined scrape into the dry ingredients and combine well until no dry flour remains. I use a 1/4 Cup scoop to pour into paper lined muffin tin.  Cook for 20-30 minutes. My oven in Portland, Oregon took 28 minutes the longest of all my muffins your oven in Istanbul may take longer.  The tops should have golden brown kisses and start to crack with fault lines and when pressed spring back just so.  Then perfection.

Pear Dutch Baby

A Dutch Baby is essentially a pancake cooked in a cast iron pan where the batter is poured over slices of fruit.  The benefits of the Dutch Baby is that it's always moist and springy and everyone gets to eat 20 minutes after putting it in the oven.  No flipping, no inconsistent misses that get pushed onto the least favored member of the family - you know who you are.  It's said that it started in Seattle where at the very least it acquired it's endearing name; a bastardized pronunciation of "Deutsch"  -- yet another insult to German Americans who have been called Dutch and Pennsylvania Dutch.  Not that Dutch is an insult, but that who wants to be called incorrectly.   It's hard to believe that grandmas everywhere haven't tried this before, especially to feed their small armies or those who kept chickens and had an abundance of eggs. The following recipe will fill a 1-2 quart pan.  Although the pancake slices are light, they are quite filling and a small pan should feed 6 normal folks who don't overeat, or 4 easily like princes or feed 2 like Henry the VIII.  For the more insatiable group of eaters, I recommend serving with sliced fruit.

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1 Cup water or tea of your choice - light herbal or a black is good (When I am out of cinnamon powder, I make a hot cup of water and put in a few cinnamon sticks 3 or 4 to steep then I use it once it is tepid)
• 1/2 scant Cup of Olive Oil (You can use butter, but it is not necessary)
• 2 TBSP Sugar of your choice (It should not be so much that it makes it sickeningly sweet)
• 1 tsp Vanilla

• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 scant Cup of flour (I do 50/50 unbleached white and whole wheat pastry as whole wheat can make it denser)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1 pear peeled, cored, sliced (or fruit of your choice)

For the topping, your choices are unlimited and for myself I don't use anything with cornstarch in it, like powdered sugar.  Here are some ideas:

• Honey
• Maple syrup
• Cocoa syrup 
• A simple syrup (syrup made of sugar of choice and enough hot water to make into a syrup)
• Agave nectar
• Buttercream (eggs, butter, sugar)
• Spiced Honey butter (butter whipped with cinnamon, ginger, and honey then chilled and sliced into servings)
•  Fruit compote
• Berry preserves
• Yogurt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Oil or butter cast iron pan.  Lay pear (or other fruit) in butter (maybe a tablespoon not more) and flip until coated, set aside.  Blend all dry ingredients except sugar (your sugar always goes with the wet ingredients). Beat eggs, sugar, vanilla and olive oil together gently.  Slowly add water and then beat into dry ingredients bowl scraping sides and combing until thin and syrupy.  Pour over the pears and put into hot oven for 20 minutes.  It will be largely puffy and have a gorgeous sheen across a light brown fault lined terrain.  Fruit may float to the top but if it doesn't it is fine.  Enjoy this easy dish.

Lonely slice

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

It rarely gets more simple than crisp.  Crisp is made of either crumbs of bread/crackers or a flour blended with oats, sugar, and butter.  You put this on top of whatever fruit you wish.  I like to make up an amount enough for about 3-5 medium sized crisps (each serving 4 heartily or 6 reasonably) and then keep that in the freezer and when I want a crisp I put a little flour over my sugared fruit, a layer of oats, a layer of crisp and another layer of oats.

I never use crumbs of crackers unless I've made them because I don't know what is going on in there otherwise.  I have used day old bread and think this is a favorite use for it aside from croutons and Italian bread soup.

The Crisp:

• 1 Cup flour (I use whole wheat)
• 1 Cup rolled oats, not instant (you can add a little steel cut pre-cooked oats for texture)
• 3/4 C Light Brown Sugar (you can use any kind of sugar you like, I use light brown because it contains only a little molasses as opposed to dark brown, and still gives a richer sugar flavor with using less of it)
• 1/2 stick or 1/4 Cup very cold butter (make sure the butter is not cultured, it is code word for headache/stomachache - Unsalted butters will often be cultured because it makes you feel like it tastes better when it is the fermentation creating the excitotoxin and salt is better for you than eating too much of the cultured butter) I prefer Kerrygold salted butter, and even their unsalted is cultured.
• The spices in the crisp are up to you. What follows are the standard ones.
• 1 scant TBSP cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg or more
• 1/2 tsp allspice (depending on the fruit I'll use more or less when making bulk I opt for less)

*this recipe is the large amount that I store in the freezer for quick desserts each time I make a whole crisp I use a third or a quarter of this recipe from the freezer - putting the rest back for later. 

The fruit:

• 1 1/2 C rhubarb (washed, diced into 1/8th inch coins)
• 1 1/2 C strawberries (washed, quartered)
• 1/4 C rolled oats
• 1/8 C flour (I use whole wheat)
• you can also add extra of any spice you wish

I wash, then dice 1/8th inch coins out of the rhubarb until I have a heaping cup or 1 and 1/2 cups (3-5 stalks depending).  Put into casserole dish without grease or oil I toss the rhubarb with the 1/4 cup loose light brown sugar. And top with 1 and 1/2 cup strawberries washed and quartered.  I then put a scant 1/4 cup flour sprinkled to top the fruit (this will help the fruit thicken and hold together).  Then a thin layer of rolled oats, as much crisp as you like, and a sprinkle of extra oats on top of that.

Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes checking on darkness of your crisp.  It should be golden with dark spots and a lot of red bubbling sauce around the edges.

  I like to serve a smaller amount of the good stuff along with a pile of fresh cut fruit.

Carrot Juice

Sometimes it is hard getting variety.  Even as an adult it becomes hard to eat your veggies.  When I was a vegetarian (mostly because shamed to say "meat" always made me have terrible poos when in reality it was the additives and processing not the actual thing -- anyhow...) I managed to not eat a lot of fresh or raw vegetables.  Doughnut vegetarians, I was one.  I do and did have a love affair with raw fruit and veggies.  NOTHING makes me happier than pear slices over a bed of arugula sprinkled lightly with sea salt, and still I'll contently eat rice and pasta and bread the week away until I start to look like pasta.

So I got a juicer some time ago.  I did all my research and found some amazing ones.  They all had amazing price tags.  I got the Waring Pro for 49 dollars ... instead. The reviews were very high and the price was not. Now I cannot sing its praises as the reviewers do.  It leaks a little from the spout after the juicing is done, it gets full of the debris quickly and the remains of veggies and fruits are still wet to the touch - that is precious juice I could be drinking!  So what this means is the leftovers are soft and flavorful enough to be fed to voracious little chickens (NOT SOLELY.  But as a supplemental treat). Where the more expensive models, the one in particular I did not get because it is 350 dollars leaves the remains dry and sapped. Which is good for you, and the debris is good for compost but not feeding.  The chickens will stare blankly at what you are trying to do to them.

The downer with this (waring pro) juicer is you see all the stuff that COULD be used. All that stuff that gets tossed, wet and sad into the compost or chicken bucket.

So I do enjoy some tasty juices and then afterwards have guilt at what seems like waste.  For now anyway.  I will do a post on the compost and tell all if that becomes successful.  But in the interim I think it is important for everyone to take some time out for themselves and treat yourself occasionally to some juice.

My favorite juice is Carrot.  For people who feel they don't like carrots this is something that usually wins them over.  Folks think that it will be bland or woody or something of a vegetable nightmare.  I think the light earthy flavor is divine, and that carrot juice goes down like chocolate milk goes down in a kid. Second in line would be Carrot, Apple and Ginger (fresh of course) and you can get a large ginger root and keep it in a container garden even in apartments and use pieces from it.  I love using Apples that you otherwise wouldn't enjoy eating.  You get a big bag of apples and you wash it, love it and then take a bite and dear God, it is THAT texture.  That mealy terrible texture that makes you rethink whether you actually ever liked apples at all.  YOU DO, you still do.  These are great for juicing. They are failures at being good on salads and even sometimes baked... but succeed as being juice.

Carrot juice:
5-8 carrots for one person (approx. you can do more... I do often.)

Carrot, Apple, Ginger:
5-8 carrots
1-2 apples (you can substitute pears, if the price is right or you have a tree etc.)
1/2 inch chunk of ginger
This will make JUST enough to share... or not. 

The sooner you drink it, the better.  Straight from the juicer it will be frothy and wonderful.  You CAN juice more ahead of time and refrigerate the rest for drinking for the next few days.  I would strongly recommend drinking it within the week it is made.  Fresh is fresh and not, well... isn't.