smoky eggplant roll ups

Fancy and easy for when you don't have time to cook. Eggplant marinated in lapsang suchong tea and soy sauce, filled with mashed pinto beans (leftover cooked pinto beans, toasted cumin, white miso, lime juice), baked in some of the marinade + a chopped tomato. Served up next to warm fall salad: steamed sweet potatoes and green beans, topped with pomegranite dressing (lemon vinegar, pomegranite molasses, black pepper, garlic) and white pomegranite seeds. Soooo colourful. Sooooo easy. Sooooo yum.

Excuse me. Must run. Have 8 346 932 things to do now.

Music: Manic Monday, by the Bangles. And it's not even Monday.

sheer beanius! part 2: Persian-inspired biscuits

These are loosely based on a persian sweet called Nan-e Nokhochi, which are usually just chickpea flour, oil, sugar and cardamom. These have a similar taste, but a different texture, and are oil-free. They make stupendously good hiking or biking treats.

2c cooked chickpeas
1/2 c soy or almond milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbs rosewater
3 tsp cardamom
dash salt
1/4 cup powdered sugar (pref brown) + stevia to taste
1 tbs arrowroot
1 and 1/3 cup chickpea flour

Blend chickpeas, milk, vanilla, and rosewater until you have a smooth paste. Empty into a bowl and add everything else. Mix. Using wet hands, take tablespoon-sized chunks and roll into balls. This makes 12. Place ball on a teflon cookie sheet (or a greased cookie sheet). Flatten. Cookies will not expand much. You can use more sugar if you don't have stevia (about 1/4 cup more should do it), but it will affect the structural integrity of the cookies, so you may want to make smaller ones and just bake them a little less long.

Bake at 200C for 15 mins. They should brown slightly. Cool. Eat.

sheer beanius! part 1: yer basic black beans

It is fall. Truth be told, Edinburgh has only two seasons: days getting longer, and days getting shorter. We are now officially in the "days getting shorter" one. Which means beans. Lots and lots of warm, comforty beans. Now, I would be hard pressed to choose a favorite legume. I love chickpeas. Mung beans are the cutest legume ever. And black beans are just so creamy and dramatic. I cook a lot of beans, in a lot of ways, but I have a few favorite things that I come back to over and over: ginger tomato dal, chana masala, white beans and seaweed.... and cuminiferous black beans, which is what I've done here. It's really simple, and much better the next day as leftovers. This is my standard thing to do to black beans, and the key is to use truly outrageous amounts of ginger and cumin, and to pre-toast the cumin and coriander, then grind them.

caramelize 3 chopped purple onions, crank up the heat, deglaze with a bit of red wine or veg broth, drop the heat again, then add:
3-4 tbs chopped ginger
2 tbs (heaping) cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1 tbs coriander seeds, toasted and ground
lots of ancho chili powder
pinch cinnamon
tsp oregano
bit of freshly ground black pepper
1 carrot, chopped (optional, and I left it out this time because I ate these beans with roasted pumpkin)

let that cook together for a bit, then add
3-4 c black beans with some of their cooking liquid (depending how liquidy you want this)
kernels from 1 ear of corn (or use frozen)
salt to taste
1 tbs cocoa powder

cook that down for a bit, then douse it with lime juice and serve it with piles of cilantro. I had it on baked pumpkin (japanese pumpkin. the pointy orange ones). I also had baked kale that I used smoked chili for, otherwise, I might have added a bit of smoked paprika to the beans.

I usually cook my own beans from dried, but canned will work just fine so long as you rinse them. In that case, you'll need to add water instead of the bean cooking liquid.

tomato chromatography

...as in a separation of colours.

First, I made clear tomato consommée, then used the brightly-coloured pulp as a tomato sauce. The consommée is from the Terre a Terre cookbook, and all I did was add a single star anise to the liquid. It takes overnight to make, but is pretty much the easiest recipe ever. Usually tomato consommée is cleared using egg whites, but you can also just drain chopped and blended tomatoes through a double layer of cheesecloth overnight. You get the most exquisitely rich broth. Oh yum. I used 1 kg of tomatoes, so the recipe for the sauce assumes that you have pulp from that. For the main dish:

Tomato Sauce
1 batch tomato pulp (from 1 kg of tomatoes)
1/2 sweet red pepper, chopped supa-fine
1/2 tsp garlic-infused olive oil
2 tbs lemon vinegar OR 2 tbs lemon juice + 1 tsp agave
8 cured black olives, chopped
tiny pinch cinnamon (be stingy. you can always add more, but you can't do anything if you add too much the first time)
black pepper
warm water to thin to the consistency you want

Mix everything together and let sit while you pull the rest of dinner together.

Creamy cauliflower crunch

1 small head cauliflower, in itsy-bitsy pieces
1 tbs white miso
1 tsp smoked salt
1 cup hummous (this was leftover from a weekend biking expedition, approximate recipe below)
2 cups bitter greens, chopped + juice from 1/2-1 lemon

Marinate bitter greens in the lemon juice in a separate bowl and let them sit there for a few minutes (say 10 or 15). Mix everything else together.


Hummous with a kick

3c sprouted (or cooked) chickpeas
2-3 tbs tahini (more if you want)
6-8 sundried tomatoes, soaked in just enough water to cover
3 pitted dates, soaked along with the tomatoes
3 cloves garlic (reduce if you do not loooooove raw garlic)
1 cup parsley
3 tbs nutritional yeast
lots and lots of lemon juice
salt to taste
optional capers

Put the parsley aside. Dump everything else, including soaking water, in a blender or food processor. Blend! Blend! Blend! Add parsley. Now, pack it (minus 1 cup for leftovers) as part of a lunch and go on a nice long bike ride. Stop and have a picnic, preferably by the ocean.

chromatographic and crunch music: mercan dede

Possibly purple pie, or perhaps purple pizza

I'm not sure what to call it. However, it's chickpea-based. Yum. That is all. You will need a well-seasoned cast iron pan for this. You will also need a well-seasoned cast iron pan for many other important events in life. This is but one example of the many, many times you will be glad to own one.

Batter (prepare first)

2c chickpea flour
2c water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder (optional)
1 tbs ground flax seeds
1-2 tbs fresh chopped rosemary or other fresh herb (thyme would also be nice)

Mix everything together and let it sit for at least half an hour. Longer is better.
Meanwhile... preheat your oven to about 200C (this is not a precise kind of thing) and get going on the onions.

3 large purple onions, sliced
2 large cloves of garlic, chopped into a few large bits
splash vermouth
(if you're cheating: splash apple cider vinegar + 1 tbs agave)
pinch nutmeg
black pepper
salt

In your cast iron pan, caramelize onions ie- cook over low heat for as long as you can stand (half an hour, minimum. Longer is better). If you don't know how to caramelize onions, the Google can teach you. If you know how, but don't have long enough to do it, then cheat thusly: cook 'em on high heat, then add the cheater ingredients, keep the heat high until the vinegar evaporates, and then proceed as if you weren't cheating. If anyone asks, say that that's how it's *supposed* be. Add the vermouth, nutmeg, pepper and salt to the caramelized onions. Turn off the heat. Smooth onions into a layer.

Pour the chickpea batter over the layer of onions. Bake for about 30 mins, or until you suspect it is done. This will depend on the size of your pan and how much water is left in your onions. The good news is that it's pretty hard to burn this if you're keeping an eye on it, since it browns slowly. If it's burning, you'll know with a quick look. I used a fairly large pan, either 10 or 12 inches. Allow to cool for a few minutes, and then de-pan your masterpiece onto a cutting board or plate. Consume with gusto and green salad.

If you lack a cast iron pan, you can dump the onions and chickpea batter (in that order) into a well-oiled pie plate or whatever. It will still work, I promise.

chickpea ravioli and tomato soup

It's raining and I'm feeling all quiet and chill and have time to actually spend on food prep tonight, which is a bit of an anomaly lately. So I indulged.

I've been having way too much fun playing with raw food recipes lately. Here is my latest creation, using what I had around from the veg box. I always think of this kind of thing as "kitchen-ninja" cooking. I mean, my kitchen is very well stocked, but I do make a point to use *everything* in the veg box every week, which leads to some interesting concoctions from time to time. I like this sort of food adventure. Now, let me just start by proclaiming my love of kohlrabi. It's crunchy and delicious and looks vaguely alien, all of which appeal to me. I didn't properly appreciate it until living in Germany for two years... now I squeal with glee when it appears in my veg box, or when I see it at the farmer's market. However, I also have some sprouted chickpeas, and for some reason, I couldn't shake the urge to make them into ravioli filling. Below is what happened

Kohrabi ravioli, raw kitchen-ninja style.

1 smallish kohlrabi, peeled and sliced supa-thin (I used a mandoline)

marinate the slices in juice from 1 lemon and about 1/3 tsp salt while you do everything else.

filling:
2.5 cups sprouted chickpeas (or use cooked ones if you'd rather)
2 tbs sweet white miso
1 tsp ume paste
2 tbs nutritional yeast
1 tsp tahini
1 tbs very finely chopped preserved lemon
1-2 tbs chopped fresh rosemary
salt to taste

Put the chickpeas, miso, ume paste and nooch in a food processor or blender and blend! blend! blend! Add a bit of water if you want! Make it as smooth or chunky as you want. This is all about you and your smooth vs. chunky ravioli filling preferences. Just make sure the paste holds it's shape when you scoop it. Fold in lemon, rosemary, and black pepper. Taste, and then add salt or soy sauce. If you can wait a few minutes before salting, that's even better, as the miso, ume paste and lemon are going to make this pretty salty. Undersalt slightly, as the kohlrabi is also salty.

I made lots of the filling, and also just use it as hummous (it's especially good on pears or with mushrooms), or fold in chopped onions, grated carrots and some kind of grain, and then make it into burgers.

Nibble at one of the kohlrabi slices. Is it ridiculously salty? If no, proceed. If yes, rinse. It's nice if you don't have to rinse, because the lemon tastes good.

Make little raviolis by sandwiching a spoonful of chickpea mixture between two kohlrabi discs. Serve by drizzling with diluted pomegranite molasses and a sprinkling of cocoa nibs. You'd be surprised how well chocolate and rosemary go together. (I diluted with apple vinegar, but those who are less into vinegar than me may want to dilute with apple juice or sauce, or even olive oil, if you are into adding olive oil to things).

I had this with a tomato soup, which I suspect is the bastard love child of harissa and bouillabaisse. And no, I didn't measure any of the spices, so you're left to your own devices in terms of amounts. Add a bit, blend, taste and adjust. Or just use a tsp of ras-el-hanout. The soup was ungodly yum. I wish I had measured the spices for y'all, but I have confidence in your ability to wing it.

5 smallish tomatoes
1 orange worth of juice
1 stalk celery
2 sun dried tomatoes
fennel seeds
aniseed
cinnamon
ground coriander
chili pepper
a tiny nub of fresh ginger
water to the consistency you want
salt to taste
handful sprouted (or cooked) wheatberries.

Blend! Blend! Blend! everything except the wheatberries together. You may need a pinch of agave, depending on the sweetness of your tomatoes and orange. Stir in wheatberries. Top with fresh basil and mint (or coriander, or parsley, but I seem to be out of both of those). You can also leave out the wheatberries and just serve this with bread or crackers. That might be classier. But we don't worry about "classy" here in the kitchendancing cave.

Music to chill out to: leonard cohen. the sisters of mercy.

fava tarts

A friend gave me a bunch of stuff from her garden. Fava beans were in there. Oh yes. And we all know that I have a deep, deep looooooooove of fava beans. We all know this. Not only are they extra tasty, but Pythagoreas forbid his followers to eat them, because of something to do with hinges and beanskins and the doors of hell. Undaunted, I eat them at every opportunity.

We spent the day walking in the woods by Roslin, and finally, after living in Edinburgh for (ahem) almost three years, made it to see Roslin chapel. I enjoyed 1) the sculpture of the angel playing bagpipes, which I assume was ironic since I am convinced that the bagpipes are Satan's Instument and b) the gargoyles that looked like they were clinging to the walls for dear life. It was much more interesting than I assumed it would be. Huh. As a bonus, we could actually *see stuff* since the da Vinci Code tourists were mostly not out today because the weather was extra-super unpredictable, even for Edinburgh in July. We had both rain capes and sun hats (and a thermos of tea) and were just fine (though we used all of that equipment every single hour). These tarts, along with a giant green salad, were the perfect "summer" dinner. Note the copious amounts of garlic. As usual, my food is both delicious and vampire-repellent. It never hurts to multitask.

Tart shell:
1/2 cup almond pulp left over from making almond milk (or sub almond meal mixed with some kind of liquid)
1/2 cup ww spelt flour
2 tbs nutritional yeast
1 tbs white miso
pinch salt
1 tsp (or more) finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp coarsly ground black pepper
1 small onion, chopped in half-moons

Mix all ingredients except onions together. Add more flour if the dough is sticky. It should be wet but not sticky. Divide evenly in half and press into two tart tins (if you are having them as a main dish) or 4-6 muffin cases (for starters). Cover tart shells with onions. Bake at 150C for 15 mins (until beginning to brown).

While the tart shells are browning, mix in a bowl:
1 cup shelled fresh fava beans
1.5 cups sliced oyster mushrooms
2 cloves smoked garlic, chopped very finely
1/4 c white wine
1 tbs soy sauce

Let these marinate until the tart shells are ready. Then divide the filling equally among the shells and bake for another 10 mins at 180C. Remove tarts from oven. Sprinkle with (in this order): lemon juice from one lemon (divided among all tarts, not per tart), salt, black pepper. Drizzle with a small amount very fruity olive oil (I used garlic-infused olive oil...). Don't go too nuts with the oil or it will overwhelm everything else.

angels and bagpipes and flaunting the possibility of the doors of hell: Pope and Antipopes: music for the courts of avignon and rome, by the Orlando Consort.

big bowl of hug

Yup. It's a giant bowl of umami. The culinary equivalent of a hug, if you will.

1/2 cup dry aduki beans
1 large piece konbu
4 dried shitake mushrooms
1 onion, chopped
4 tbs soy sauce
1/2 cup white wine
splash of mirin
1 heaping (and I *do* mean heaping. don't skimp) tbs chopped fresh ginger
1 cup butternut squash bits in cubes
1 leftover baked spud, chopped
1 tbs red miso
sesame seeds to sprinkle on top

Put the dry aduki beans in a pot. Add konbu and shitake mushrooms. Add about 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Now, go away and do about half an hour of yoga, or read a book, or whatever. Then, come back, top up the water, fish out the konbu and discard it. Fish out the shitake, chop them up, and throw them back in (discard the stems if they are too tough to eat). Go away for another 15 mins, or until the beans are soft. Add everything up to, but not including the spud. If you don't have leftover baked spuds lying around, add raw chopped one now. It will be almost as good. Almost. But not quite. Simmer until the squash is done. There should be just enough water to cover all the ingredients, but not much more than that. This is a pretty thick stew by the time it's all done. Add spud and miso and warm through. Adjust seasonings. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and eat. Feel better about the world.

Now, you could of course be all fancy and make dashi etc. etc. But I was not feeling fancy. And you know what? It worked out fine. Better than fine. Yummy enough to make again, just like this, all non-fancy like.

Umamusic: naive and simple music, by john adams.

Cleaning out the fridge soup

This soup is a great example of using stuff lying around... I had half a pumpkin left, and had cooked up a big batch of black beans a few days ago for hummous... and I've had a houseguest, so have made more almond and soy milk than usual, and had pulp from that taking up fridge space.. you know how it is. Because this soup just relies on baking everthing, it doesn't take much actual work. I was at home working, and this took about 15 minutes, total, of my time, though it baked for about an hour while I typed and swore. Feel free to apply this method (omitting the typing and swearing, if you wish) to what's in your fridge rather than focusing on what was in mine. The basic flavours (with what I used in parentheses) are:

something dark and smoky (black beans, smoked peppers)
something sweet and dense (pumpkin, baked onions)
something acidic (tomatoes, lemon juice)
something rich (nut butter, almond meal, hummous)
spices

What I did:

I put all this in a roasting pan:

1/2 squash with edible skin, cubed
1 onion, cut in chunks
5 whole cloves of garlic
12 small tomatoes, halved

I poured enough water to the baking dish to come halfway up the tomatoes, and popped it all in the oven, uncovered, at 220C for about an hour. Once it got going, I did the beans.

I had cooked black beans on hand. About 3 cups of them. I put them in a large pot, covered them with water, and added
3 tbs fresh grated ginger
2 tbs roasted cumin
2 tbs roasted coriander
some fresh thyme (because it was there, dammit)
1 tbs chunky peanut butter
some left over almond meal from making almond milk (1/2 cup or so)
some leftover hummous (about 1/4 cup)
salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
a healthy number of chopped chipotle peppers
lemon juice ( I'm out of lime, which would have been my first choice)

I simmered that until the pb dissolved, and then just turned it off and let it sit there until the roasted veg were done, then combined the two things. I almost threw in some cocoa as well, but oddly enough, I didn't feel chocolatey. This is rare, but it does happen from time to time. I'll probably add a few tablespoons of cocoa nibs to the leftovers when I take them for lunch.

We had this with baked corn tortillas, olives, salad, and ginger beer!

Just to get you on your improvisational way, here are some possible subs for the different taste categories. Don't use them all at once (except the spices. They all go together if you want. Use one, two or all of them), and not all combos will work, but play around a little... pick one or two things from each category and go for it! say 1) blackeyed beans, plantain, mangoes, lime and coconut, or 2) lentils, mushrooms, stout, parsnips, tomato paste and chocolate....:

something dark and smoky, including a legume (puy or beluga lentils, blackeyed beans, shiitake mushrooms, smoked paprika, porter, stout or rauchbier, dry-roasted spices in general)
something sweet and dense, when baked (carrots, parsnips, leeks, beets, apples, any winter squash, corn, red peppers, plantain)
something acidic (mangoes, tomato paste, unripe peaches, tamarind, lime juice, cider vinegar)
something rich (tahini, soy/oat cream, coconut or coconut milk, cocoa powder or grated chocolate, leftover hummous or tofu spread)
spices: cumin, coriander, oregano, black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cayenne, jalopenos, chipotle or other smoked chili, sweet chilies, garlic.

You could also add a whack of chopped cilantro or parsley to liven this up... but I didn't have any. Chopped kale or spinach would also be lovely, and add some green. The point of cleaning out the fridge soup is that you *don't* run out to the store for random ingredients. Use what you have on hand.

when life hands you lemons

...make beans. It's what I do. I *am* vegan, after all. These ain't pretty (as you see in the photo), but oh sweet jeebus, are they ever a yummy and satisfying dinner.

Lemon-thyme beans

1 small onion

3 cups cooked black eyed beans (or other white beans such as butter beans)

2 heads roasted garlic

2 large, juicy lemons (you know ... the big sicilian ones that you can practically eat straight up)

a handful (yes a giant handful) fresh thyme. I mean it. Fresh thyme or bust.

salt and pepper.

Saute onion in whatever strikes your fancy. I used a splash of white wine. Add the beans, the garlic mush from the two heads of garlic, and the zest from both lemons, and a bit of water. Simmer for a minute or 5 while you separate the thyme leaves from the stems. You should have at least 1/4 cup of fresh thyme leaves. I had about 1/3 cup. It's a lot. Add the juice from both lemons, the thyme leaves, salt and pepper. Heat up to a simmer, then cover and turn the heat off entirely. Leave it for 5 mins. If you want, stir in two or three tbs of nutritional yeast. Eat the beans! Sing! Boogie! Be happy that lemons exist! Ahem.

I served this beany lemony goodness over baked potatoes. If you don't have roasted garlic lying around (because really, who leaves roasted garlic lying around for more than 30 seconds without eating it?), just throw the garlic in the oven with the potatoes, and add it to the beans whenever it's done.

Sexy in a garlic breath, full-of-beans kinda way: Queen Bitch, by David Bowie.

mole hummous

Best eaten on a picnic... shown here on pumpkin bread, along with various yummy fresh things from the farmer's market. Sweetums and I were out biking all day in the rolling hills around the Trossachs. Oh yeah. It was a beautiful spring day out, and we didn't see anyone. Not a soul. Everyone must have been inside watching tv or something. I was outside in the sun, biking along, having a blast, enjoying being in my body, and then having a wonderful picnic by a river. And I thought: being alive rocks. I wonder why more people don't try it?

mole hummous:

1 can drained black beans

1 clove garlic

fresh ginger (about an inch)

about a tsp ground cumin

about a tsp ground coriander

pinch cinnamon

jalopeno pepper

pinch smoked paprika

salt

lots and lots of lime juice

2 heaping tbs cocoa powder

1/2 cup fresh coriander, chopped

blend! blend! blend! Everything but the coriander, which you should mix in later.  And then pack it up in, put in in your bike bag, and find a lovely picnic spot. 

music: don't fence me in, by cole porter

confusion yum: chili meets salsa meets italy, and it all gets kitchendanced

Sometimes, I don't wanna cook the tomatoes because actual ripe tomatoes are so wonderful after a winter of using canned or dried ones. But I want chili. And then I thinks to myself : what *is* chili, really, but cooked salsa? Maybe I'll just make some salsa and put it on rice. And then I thinks: oooh, look, dried mushrooms, and isn't that fresh basil in the fridge? Maybe I want a nice fresh basil tomato mushroom sauce. But with chocolate. Finally, I think: I want it ALL. I don't care if it goes together.

Confession: I don't just think this. I say it out loud, at the tomatoes, as if they have an opinion on the subject.

The result is wonderful. In fact I will be making it again, much more decisively, and without consulting the tomatoes at all. And again, and again, because it's ridiculously easy and pretty and colourful and enables me to eat chocolate and chickpeas for dinner at the same time, both of which rank very high on my "foods to get excited about" scale. And the tomatoes agree. They told me so.

3 cloves garlic
2 nice fresh (opinionated) tomatoes
1 red or orange pepper
1 bunch basil (I ended up with just over 1 cup)
1 sprig of fresh rosemary leaves
a handful of dried mushrooms
1 heaping tbs of capers, drained
a handful of sundried tomatoes, soaked in just enough hot water to cover

See that list of stuff above? Chop it all into tiny bits and dump it in a bowl along with the soaking water from the tomatoes, if your tomatoes are pre-soaked. If you (like me) aren't the kind of girl to have presoaked sundried tomatoes around, just set them soaking now, and add them later. If you've been good and read to the end of the recipe, you'll realize you have half an hour of fudge time on the tomato-soaking.

add
1 lemon of lemon juice
1 lime of lime juice
2 tbs of toasted cumin seeds
1 tbs of dried chili (I used one that was described as "sultry", ie.. a nice complex sweet hot, but use whatever kind strikes your fancy)
some ground black pepper, to taste
3 tbs of finely grated unsweetened chocolate (I grate it with a lemon zester)
and a sprinkling of cocoa nibs too
sea salt (I used smoked)
2 c of sprouted chickpeas (or cooked chickpeas, or other sprouted legume...) I used sprouted green chickpeas because they're both yummy and pretty.

Stir this around and then let it sit while you cook rice or read a book or whatever. It needs at least half an hour for the mushrooms to soak up liquid

Just before serving, stir in a tbs or so of toasted and ground sesame seeds or almonds. Chopped mango is also nice in this, but I accidentally ate most of it while waiting for the rice to cook, so only about 1/4 of a mango actually made it into this dish. I highly recommend using more than 1/4 mango, but these things happen. You can't really expect me to know that there is a chopped mango sitting right there and not eat it. It's just impossible. There will be a fair amount of liquid in this dish. I like that, because you can then pour it over rice. If you want a thicker liquid, add tahini or peanut butter, or just don't add the tomato-soaking water.

I just stirred this into warm rice and scarfed it down. It was one of those Very Satisfying Meals. Comfort food for summer, I guess. If one can call what we have here in Edinburgh "summer". I mean, I am typing this in a toque. But it's a cotton toque and it's light out at 11 pm. So, summer.

A note on the chocolate. I've been using Willy's Supreme Cacao a lot lately. It's an unsweetened block of cocoa (100% cacao, meaning that it contains only cacao solids, including cacao butter... this is not just pressed cacao powder) that you grate onto foods. I like the Venuzuelan Black variety. At first glance, the price tag seems high, but a block of the stuff goes a long way, and even if it didn't, it's so good that I don't care. Oh yes. Fuck all the vegan parm substitutes. Just grate this on everything. I kid you not. I've put it on pasta and tomato sauce, on chili, on middle eastern soups, even on a pear and arugula pizza. The dude behind this chocolate clearly knows what he's doing. He's made a super duper high quality chocolate without any of the pretense and preciousness I've come to expect/tolerate from high-end single-origin, handmade, slave free (I could keep going on the qualifiyers, but let's just say ethical and damn fine) chocolate. So if you're in the UK, check out his stuff. Then, make confused chili.

the tomatoes dance to their death to the diabolical strains of : this offer is unrepeatable, by elvis costello

from Florence, with love: warm farro salad

Every year I get to go to Florence for work, which rocks. Florence is an excellent place to spend a week working and eating... I rarely eat out here, for a simple reason: I stay next to the central market, and like to spend time cooking with the spectacular fresh ingredients available in spring. This year I did the usual pasta (picci, which is rarely found outside Tuscany, and which I love, but I also love that it's something that is still a local food) and fresh porcini, but that's not really something you need a recipe for. However, spelt is big here. I especially like whole spelt berries, or farro. You can use them like rice, or wheat berries, or small pasta. You can make rissotto with them, which I highly recommend. They're super yummy chewy. Also, spelt seems to be the only concession to "whole grain" made here. Everything else (the bread, the pasta, the rice) is white. This year, I also happened across some fresh canellini beans (which practically melt in your mouth), and there were little zucchini flowers everywhere. Oh my. I made this, and it was perfect. It's very simple, and relies on having good, very fresh ingredients. In other words, no, you can't substitute canned tomatoes, cheap-ass olives, or dry parsley. (You can, however, use dried beans). Make this when you can get excellent tomatoes that were picked ripe, and get damn good olives. If you can't find zucchini flowers, use barely-steamed mangetout or fresh green peas.

-1 c farro, cooked (gives about 1.5 cups)
-1 c fresh cannelini beans

-8 zucchini flowers
-2 ugly but perfectly ripe summer tomatoes, chopped
-2 cloves garlic, chopped
-1 c parsley chopped
-a few spicy olives in olive oil, or if your olives are in brine, some good olive oil to drizzle plus a dash (only a dash) of hot pepper. This isn't a hot dish per se. The pepper just adds a very subtle edge. Very. Subtle. Exercise restraint, gentle reader, and you will be rewarded with a lovely lovely layering of flavours. Too much chili, and you'll overwhelm everything, which would be a shame.
-salt and pepper to taste

Cook the spelt berries/farro in plenty of boiling salted water for about 10 mins. At the 10 minute mark, add the beans. Somewhere between the 15-20 minute mark both should be done. When the farro and beans are done, add the zucchini flowers for about 30 seconds, and then pick them out with a fork and put them aside (you want to just barely cook them). Drain farro and beans. Return them to the hot pot, but don't bother turning the heat back on. Stir in all the other ingredients, and serve, topped with the zucchini flowers. Oh, and when I say "some olive oil", I didn't add any. I was just using olives preserved in oil. So if you're adding, I'd say 1 tsp or so for the whole recipe. Or you could just leave it out.

singing: a love song to ugly tomatoes that i made up on the spot.

omelettes

Omelettes! Who doesn't like these. Really. The possibilities are endless in terms of fillings. Vegan omelettes are typically made only of tofu. I like tofu, but find an entire plate of it a bit... much. Also, adding chickpeas (even in the form of flour) to anything is a good move in my books.

A note on omnisubs. I don't bother trying to imitate what an eggy omelette would taste like. I don't know that I'd remember anyways. I try to create something that is yum in it's own right, and that vaguely fills the same category as the omnifood for which I named it. And if I were naming this accurately, I'd call it "better than eggs". In so many ways.

For 4 people worth of basic omelette:

1 c chickpea flour (gram flour)
water to form a batter (about 1.5 cups)
1/2 tsp salt (black salt works best)
1/2 c arrowroot
splash vegan worcestershire sauce
4 tbs white miso
tarragon to taste (I used about a tsp)
1 tsp baking powder

mix all this together to a thin batter and let stand 30 mins.

puree in 1 block silken tofu. This will be a pretty thick batter, about the consistency of pudding. It should *just* be at the point where you need a spoon to help it spread around the pan.

just before cooking stir in
1 tbs apple cider vinegar

To cook. Spray a pan with olive oil. Let pan get nice and hot, and then pour in your omelette. Drop the heat to medium-low and cover. Cook until cooked through. You can add fillings as the omelette is cooking. Here I've added some brocolli and olives and vegan cheese (I'm not a big fan of commercial fake cheezes, but I do like me some of the stuff from the Uncheese Cookbook. You could also use my bloo pate.

Here's another combo that I made but didn't take a photo of (which makes something akin to a spanish tortilla). Mix these into the batter before cooking: cooked cubed potatoes, onions, tomatoes, olives, steamed chopped and drained greens, dash of smoked paprika, chopped jalopenos.

garlicky spring risotto

A friend gave me a splendid bag of fancy-pants arborio rice. This is what happened when I got home. This is tastes like the filling of stuffed vine leaves, only in the form of risotto! So exciting! The leftovers are great wrapped in vine leaves (how shocking). Failing that, they're also great wrapped in any leafy green. Or eaten straight out of the container cold. I might have done that today at lunch.

Confession: I love fresh fava beans. LOVE. However, they take for frikkin' ever to shell, so I'm secretly glad that fresh fava bean season is mercifully short, because otherwise I'd have a pretty serious time problem on my hands.

1 c arborio rice
1c white wine
hot veg stock or water

2 stalks celery
5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 tbs cumin
1 zucchini, thinly sliced
1/2-1 c fresh fava beans (broad beans)
1/2 c fresh mint, chopped
a few sprigs fresh dill, chopped
juice of 1 large lemon
salt and pepper to taste


Usually I use brown rice, but for this, brown is a bit heavy, though it could work if you wanted to use this as a stuffing for peppers or something. Meh. Serve this with olives and a simple tomato salad.

General instructions for risotto are here. For this one, prep the rice (ie, rice, wine, stock) in a nice heavy bottom pan. While the rice is cooking, shell the fava beans. When that's done, get going on the celery and garlice: In a separate pan from the rice, saute the celery and garlic on medium heat in a splash of wine. Once they're translucent, add cumin and zucchini, drop the heat and cover. Add fava beans at end (a minute or two before the rice is done. Mix the rice into the veg. Stir in the mint, dill and lemon juice. Salt and pepper to taste.

springtime music: dance me to the end of love, by leonard cohen, for my plum.

Ceci n'est pas un dessert.

Sometimes you just have to do this sort of thing. At least I do. This is a really involved dinner, but totally worth it to see people's faces when you serve them chocolate cake and ice cream for dinner (first photo). And dessert (second photo).




For the most confusing and fun effect, make the dessert cake first, then while it's cooling make the dinner cake in the same cake pan, so the two look nearly identical. Use the same colour ice creams and sauces for each. Both go well with sprinklings of cocoa nibs. Both of these are pretty heavy, so go easy on the serving sizes. The dinner below will comfortably serve 6-8 with a salad, and (light) starter.


Savory Chocolate Dinner Cake

Note that because a few of the ingredients need to be soaked, or blended and reduced, you're going to have to use some judgement with the liquid to dry ingredient ratio. I recorded the volumes I used, but you might have waterier tomatoes or meltier chocolate or whatever, so do go with your gut at the end and adjust. If you've never made cornbread before, and have no idea what the consistency of quickbread batter should be, this recipe probably isn't the best place to start. I love you all, but this is an unashamedly "advanced cooking" recipe.


Liquid goo:
1 large mango chopped
3 medium tomatoes, chopped
(blend and simmer until reduced to a paste)

Mole fixins:
(note that this is a fairly modified/simplified mole recipe, that would not be suitable for use on it's own. it works well in this cake though. if you want to make stupendous mole that can be enjoyed as a real sauce, suck it up and do it properly. The cocoa is added in addition to the nibs so that your cake looks like chocolate cake. If you don't care about that, just double the cocoa nibs and leave the cocoa out.)
1/2 c raisins, soaked in enough water to cover (keep and use water)
1 tbs crushed peanuts
1tbs sesame seeds or pepita
1-2 large ancho chiles, soaked and seeded (discard soaking water)
1 chipotle chile in adobo sauce (optional, seeded if you want)
2 heaping tbs cocoa nibs (or some unsweetened chocolate)
1-3 heaping tsp cocoa powder (depends on how much chocolate you used, and personal taste)
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground aniseed
1/2 tsp cinnamon

puree all of this in a blender with half of the liquid goo.

you may need to supplement with 1/2 cup water or veg broth. At this stage, you should have something the consistency of slightly-too-thin chocolate pudding.

mix dry ingredients and then add them to the mole + liquid goo:
2c maize meal
1 tbs baking powder
dash salt

You should now have something the wetness of cornbread batter (or other quickbread, if you've never made cornbread. You might need to add more liquid or more maizemeal. However, this will be considerably heavier than normal cornbread. This extra heavyness is why you need the vinegar.

stir in
1 large onion, baked and chopped finely (bake it while you're baking your dessert cake)
1 large bunch spinach, steamed and chopped finely, water squeezed out
1 tbs balsamic vinegar

Bake in an oiled and cornfloured cake tin at 180C for 30-40 mins.

Ice with black bean hummous (cooked black beans with the rest of the liquid goo, pepita butter or tahini, garlic, some annatto, a squeeze of lime, and some salt)

serve warm with vegan sour cream ice cream, roasted red pepper and cilantro puree.


Sour Cream Ice Cream

1 batch of your favorite vegan sour cream (about 1 block silken tofu worth)
1 cup soy yogurt
1 tbs sweet white miso
lime zest
dash salt
1/4 tsp guar or xanthan gum.
additonal lime juice to taste

Mix everything together in a blender or with a hand mixer and freeze, stirring every hour or so for 4-5 hours, or use an ice cream maker if you have one.


Chocolate Whiskey Dessert Cake

A.
1 and 1/4 cup okara or soy yogurt
1/2 cup chopped chocolate
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2-1 cup of sugar, depending on the sweetness of your chocolate
3/4 cup whiskey
orange zest

B.
1 - 1.5 cups flour (this will depend on if you used soy yogurt or okara, and how watery it was to start with)
1 tbs baking powder
dash salt

1 tbs apple cider vinegar

Mix list A. Mix list B. Add B to A. Mix well. Stir in the vinegar just before pouring into cake pan.

bake in an oiled and floured cake pan at 180C for 30 mins. Let cool . Serve with vegan citrusy ice cream and raspberry, lemon and mint puree. The lemon is key, as it really brings out the whiskey flavour. This cake is ridiculously rich and doesn't actually need icing, but if you must, just use a simple ganache.


This dinner has enough steps that I thought I'd actually give a timeline for it.
fimeline:
-night before: put black beans to soak.
-early in the day: start the ice creams, put raisins and chillies to soak, cook black beans
-about 3 hours before dinner: start liquid goo reducing, then prep the dessert cake
-While the dessert cake (and onion) is baking, roast red peppers, make the sauces (pureed roasted red peppers with chopped cilantro, pureed raspberries with lemon and chopped mint)
-Rescue dessert cake, remove from tin, leave to cool
-Prepare mole, then dinner cake. You may want to begin drinking at this point. If you want to serve some veg with dinner, I recommend a raw jerusalem artichoke salad (grated jerusalem artichokes and carrots, chopped olives and capers, lemon juice, salt). Something crispy and light.
-While dinner cake is in the oven, make black bean hummous.

Note: you want to serve the dinner cake warm, so put it in the oven as your guests arrive.

Double-take music: One. By U2, then by Johnny Cash.

anti-vamp chickpeas

aka: roasted lemony chickpeas with smoked garlic and kale.

I love chickpeas. LOVE. Can't get enough of them. I feel the same way about kale and garlic, so this dish is pretty much my own personal version of tastebud heaven. It's pretty simple to make, and full of crazy big tastes that go well together. However, there is nothing, *absolutely nothing*, subtle about this dish. Though you can turn the leftovers into a stew (stew in red wine, broth, and crushed tomatoes), which will be subtle and complex and kinda sweet and will make you wish that you'd made a quadruple batch of this so you could eat it all week, even if the garlic reek has a bit of an adverse effect on your social life (the way around this is to feed your nearest and dearest this as well, so you all smell like garlic together). Note that you can use liquid smoke or smoked paprika if you don't have any smoked garlic. It's not something I usually have on hand, but there was some at the farmer's market this weekend. I felt compelled to use it in large amounts. If ever there were a city where vampire attacks could actually happen, I'd be Edinburgh, land of gothicness and downtown graveyards. Ahem. Just to be safe, I ate this tonight:

-2-3c cooked chickpeas + enough soy sauce to lightly coat them, without having vast pools of sauce leftover(I like shoyu)
-1 whole lemon, sliced in very thin rounds and seeded. You're going to eat the entire lemon, including the peel, so unwaxed and organic is a good idea. use an orange if you don't like bitter things, but I think you should try it with the lemon first. really. it's much better with the lemon.
-6 cloves (just over half a head) smoked garlic, sliced in little rounds. Sometimes I use a whole head of garlic, but these cloves were huge. HUGE. So I exercised restraint and only used half a head.

-1 tbs cumin
-1 onion, cut into thin half-moons
-4-6 sundried tomatoes, cut into strips (use scissors) and rehydrated in enough hot water to cover
-1 bunch kale (or chard, or dark green cabbage, or beet greens...)
-a few olives or capers (or both), chopped
-1 tbs sumac (start with half a tbs, taste, and adjust)
-sea salt
-lemon juice

Roast chickpeas and lemon slices in the oven with shoyu on fairly low heat (280-300F) for about 10 minutes. In a nice big pan, dry-roast the cumin powder and when it gets fragrant, add the onions and sundried tomatoes and their soaking liquid, followed by a splash of white wine. When the onions begin to get translucent, add the kale, sumac, and olives or capers. Cover and let cook. The cooking time will depend on how tender or tough your kale is. You can use any leafy green, really. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste (but use a light hand because the chickpeas are going to be pretty salty). When the chickpeas have been roasting for about 10 mins, add the garlic slices to them, and pop them back in the oven for a further 5 minutes until the garlic is cooked, but not burnt. Either toss the chickpeas with the kale, or if you're feeling fancier, use the greens as a bottom layer and then carefully make a little pile of chickpeas on top of it. I think this goes well with pretty much anything. I (as usual) at it with spuds that I'd roasted at the same time as the chickpeas were going.

garlic boogie music: in the afterlife, Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Vegetable love: beets gone wild.

This year, for valentine's day, and for Vegetable Love I created these crepes: savory chocolate crepes filled with bloo pate, baked beets and apples, all served on a salad of bitter greens dressed with chocolate-balsamic sauce. My love of savory chocolate dishes continues. I just can't help myself. And what could be more romantic than beets? They're like beautiful rubies, except you can eat them! The bloo pate, beets and apples play on the classic trick of juxtaposing very strong fermented salty flavours (the pate) with sweet (the beets) and fresh (the apples). The bitter green salad keeps the whole thing from being cloying or too heavy. I tried to think of a clever name for them, but all I could come up with was "from russia, with love", which kinda sucks. Also, I just couldn't get a good photo of it. It's winter. It's dark. The kitchendancing cave is not brightly lit. More importantly, we were too hungry to fuss over the camera. And yes, as per the rules for Vegetable Love this is virtually fat free, clocking it at a whopping 1 square of chocolate per 4 servings as the only source of added fat in the whole thing. Saunter on over to the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen to see what this whole Vegetable Love thing is about. Feel free to vote for me if you think this looks as yummy as I can assure you it was.

I know that valentine's dinners are typically for 2, but this easily serves 4, because I like to spread the love, dammit, and hate the couple-obsessedness of the world. If you're good at making crepes, there will be extras that you can just have for breakfast the next day (you can fill them with bananas or any other fruit). For the whole sordid uncouply affair, you need crepes, 1 batch bloo pate (without the optional tahini), 4 medium beets, 1 apple, 4c washed and chopped arugula and 2 cups washed and chopped red chard, 1 batch balsamic dressing and lots of looooooove. Music and whiskey also help. The recipes are all below, followed by the assembly method. This dinner takes a bit of advance planning (the bloo pate really is much much much better if it sits overnight), but the time actually spent cooking is pretty low given how fancy this looks. Once you get the hang of making the crepes, this is an easy (though involved) dinner to make. If you've decided to make this and want it *now*, you can make a faster version of the bloo pate (though it won't be as nice, and will be quite a lot sharper): use well-rinsed canned pinto beans, cut the ume paste down to about half, add about 1/2 tsp of salt, and use a full tsp of agave.

For the crepes:
1.5 cups whole wheat spelt or buckwheat flour
1 tbs arrowroot powder
1/2 tsp xanthan or guar gum
1-2 tbs unsweetened cacao powder (darker is better)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2-1 tsp black pepper, depending on how much you love black pepper
pinch salt
pinch sugar or 1/2 tsp of agave
1.5 c usweetened soy or rice milk
1.5 c water

Mix all dry ingredients well. Add wet ingredients and mix very well (I use a whisk). Let stand for at least 30 min. Your batter should be the consistency of heavy cream. If it's too thick to pour easily, add more water to thin it out. Heat a nonstick pan on medium heat and pour 3 tbs of batter into it. Immediately spread the batter out as best you can into a very thin layer using the back of a spoon. (This takes practice). Turn heat down and wait until crepe is cooked through. You shouldn't need to flip it. The trick is to get the heat just right, and to spread the crepe out very quickly. This makes about 12 crepes, assuming that all of them survive. If you've never made crepes before, expect to lose the first 3 or 4...or 5. Make pancrepe scramble with them later. Stack all your surviving crepes up in a plate.

The recipe for the bloo pate is here. Ironically, the bloo pate is very pale pink. This amuses me.

The beets are simply washed and roasted in their skins for 40 minutes at 400F, then cooled, peeled and sliced.

The apple is just sliced.

For the chocolate-balsamic dressing:

1 c balsamic vinegar, reduced to 1/3 c.
Remove from heat, and melt 1/10th of a (about 10 grammes) very good, very dark chocolate bar into it.
Cool.


To assemble, put 1/4 of the chopped greens (arugula and chard) on each plate, assuming there are 4 people around. Drizzle with balsamic dressing (the arugula, not the people, though if you double the recipe for the dressing, you should have enough for both). Now, heat your nonstick pan up again on low heat, and add one of the cooked crepes to it. Spread the crepe with about 2-4 tbs of bloo pate (the more you add, the heavier and saltier the crepes will be). On half the crepe, add slices of apple and slices of beet. Add a little bit of black pepper and/or a sprinkle of lemon juice if you're so inclined. This is also amazing with a few toasted walnuts added, but they're by no means necessary. Cover the pan and let everything heat through. Fold crepe in half and lay it on top of the salad. Garnish with a fresh fig, or some coriander, mint, or dill. Repeat for the other three plates.

See? Easy. Leaves lots of time for making out and slow dancing.

Slow dancing music: One night with you. The King crooned it first and best. And it still gets the girls.

amuse bouche

Mmmmmm... swellegant. Fig, bloo pate and a sliver of the deepest darkest chocolate. Perfect for serving before a dinner party. Or just before dinner.

Bloo pate is reminiscent of blue cheese. It doesn't taste like cheese, but it does go well where blue cheese would, and is (as a bonus), minus the suffering and grossness of actual cheese. Bloo plate is strong, salty and fermenty. It's not for the weak of palate. The ingredients are: 1.5c of pinto beans, blended til smooth, 3-4 tbs of ume paste, 1 tbs of white miso, 2-4 tbs of nutritional yeast, pepper, a sprinkle of garlic salt, about a tbs of apple cider vinegar and a touch of agave. Optional tablespoon of tahini if you'd like this a wee bit creamier. Let sit overnight in the fridge. The next day, stir in 1/3-1/2c chopped seaweeds (I scored some fresh sea veg, but you could use rehydrated and chopped wakame). Taste. You might want to add a little salt, but I seriously doubt it.

Since we can't eat everything on figs and topped with chocolate all the time, here are some alternate suggestions: Bloo pate is great on sandwiches with apples and walnuts, on pizzas with pears and arugula, and in ravioli with either spinach or butternut squash. You can also stir it into tomato sauce to make a very rich rose sauce for pasta.

Swelligant music: Well did you evah? Written by the inimitable Cole Porter, but sung by Debby Harry and Iggy Pop.

sprouts and mangoes and kale, oh my!

As promised... here's a fast sprout salad, ready to come to work with me. It's hardly a recipe at all, but it is one of my favorite way to eat sprouted chickpeas. Any orange fruit (or even grated carrots, or apples if you want) can stand in for the mango. The idea is to get something that's sweet in there to offset all the other crunchy, slightly bitter ingredients.

Kale and sprouts, blanched and cooled (you can blanch it the night before and put it in the fridge, or just run it under cold water if you're making this in the morning. 1 small mango, chopped and half an endive (uh, I just had half an endive lying around and it had to be used), I scallion, also chopped. Lime juice, roasted and ground cumin, sweet chili sauce, salt.

note: you don't have to blanch the sprouts and kale, but I sometimes prefer them this way. Sometimes not.

Must get to work on time music: Manic Monday, by the Bangles. Yes. I listen to the Bangles. I keep hoping someone will remake/remix walk like an egyptian (keeping the lovely grindy chords).