i *heart* kimchi

Really. I could eat the stuff every day. I've even made it at home a few times, but have decided that fermenting cabbage is ill-advised in a small flat with no balcony option, so now I buy it (often) from a Chinese supermarket and travel agency. This pleases me. Kimchi and avocado are pretty much a match made in heaven. I could just take an avocado, stuff it with kimchi, and call it lunch. Sometimes I do. But kelp noodles make everything more exciting, so ...

If you set this up in the morning, it takes only a few minutes to put together when you get home in the evening. And it's ridiculously yummy. The kind of yummy where you get a little sad when you approach the bottom of the bowl because you never want the yum to end. But the good news is that you can make it again! I do this with kelp noodles because I am hopelessly in love with them. It would also work with bean thread noodles, in which case you can skip the whole marination brouhaha.

Kimchi kelp festival in a bowl.

Marinade:
1 orange worth of juice
2 tbs tamari or coconut aminos
1 large clove of garlic, chopped
1 tsp of fresh grated ginger (I use a lemon zester for this and the garlic)
1/2 -1 tsp reishi powder (optional, but fun)
2-3 tbs black sesame seeds, bashed around a bit in a mortar and pestle
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp of agave

Noodles and such:
1 package kelp noodles
big bunch enoki mushrooms (optional)


In the morning (or at noon - this is best if it marinates for a few hours), mix all the ingredients for the marinade together, rinse a package of kelp noodles, give them a few quick snips with some scissors, and then dump the kelp noodles in the marinade. Add the enoki. Mix until everything is coated with marinade. Forget about them for the day (leave them on the counter if your flat is cool, put 'em in the fridge if you live somewhere where temperatures occasionally rise high enough to allow you to walk about in short sleeves). You can sub peanuts or peanut butter for the sesame if you want. I won't tell anyone.

When you get hungry that evening, chop up:

1 red pepper in fiiiiiine slices. If you have a mandoline, this would be a good time to whip it out
2 heads of baby bok choy or other leafy green, chopped into lovely ribbons. If you feel fancy, call it "chiffonade".

Also, consider how much kimchi you want to eat. Considerations include: How much kimchi do I have? This usually answers the question for me. But sometimes I go further and ask: Am I going to be sweating and twisting in close proximity to people who are likely to be unimpressed with the metabolic byproducts of kimchi overconsumption wafting under their noses (ie - is tomorrow morning a yoga day?). I have a WHOLE PACKAGE of kimchi, and it's a Friday night. Ashtangis will understand what this means. The rest of you can Google.

Add the veg to your noodly mess. Stir. Get the noodly mess to your desired temperature (I eat this at room temp, but you could refrigerate it for a refreshing summer salad, or warm it in the dead of winter). Add

kimchi and some of the kimchi juice
1 avocado, chopped

Mix. Taste. Adjust seasonings. If your kimchi is extra hot or pungent, adding a little more agave is a good idea, or if you find yourself a little short on kimchi, you can add some chili flakes.

Devour while making little happy yum noises.

This serves two generously, and trust me, if you have a partner, it is best if you both eat this.

Rocking out with: the Muppets!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H3XGfGKJas

Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever. And quinoa.

With the exception of those whose job it is to be as ungenerous as possible (insurance companies), everyone has been so incredibly generous with me following my flat smokyness. Which has reminded me that I'm fine, and that things are just things, and that I'm in a pretty good situation (I have a job, I have a place to move into soon, I have somewhere to stay in the meantime, and I have lots of looooooooove).

However, the one thing that has kept me from turning into a ranting, raving bitch is my yoga practice. I've been getting on the mat most mornings and whispering "Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever", which is some not-random mantra that I read years ago in some hippie-woo-woo book that one of my flatmates had left lying around. And you know what? It works. Of course I'm frustrated over the beaurocrats and the unfairness of some idiots setting fire to a flat. But saying this every day keeps me focused on what I do have, which, let's be honest, is more than most people on the planet, even now. And when you can have so much of your material possesions wrecked and be depending on others to put you up and still have more than most of humanity, you're in a pretty good position. So, just to reiterate: Thank you for everything. I have no complaint whatsoever.

Complaint-free quinoa and roasted cauliflower:

1 cup quinoa. Cook that. You know what to do.

While it's cooking, roast 1/2 large cauliflower, separated into chunks that have been tossed with olive oil and cumin seeds.

When the quinoa is cooked, stir in some chopped kalamata olives and some raisins, and douse it with lemon juice and salt, and crumble in some smoked tofu.

Just before the cauliflower is done, toss it with some chopped kale and pop it back in the oven for a few minutes.

When the kale is bright green and happy, mix the roasted veg with the quinoa. Yum.

dancing along to: random conversation with friends.

up in smoke

...is what happened to my place, when the flat downstairs went up in flames. So now I find myself with far less stuff, staying with friends, and kind of shell-shocked from knowing first hand what it's like to be pulled out of my kitchen window at 2.30 am in my jammies by a fireman. The only things I grabbed between my bed and the window were my glasses, and then, only because I instinctively put them on as I get out of bed.

So, I give you the most comforting soup in the universe, which is what I've been having most nights. It's very loosely based on the "behead the chard" soup in Don't Feed The Bears. My sweetie and I just call this The Soup. I think that The Soup has magical powers to make any situation seem better.

In a pot:
-Crumble some dried shitake mushrooms (say 3 of them) and a few dashes of soy sauce (maybe 1 tbs - go easy, because you can always add more later, but if you oversalt the soup at the beginning, it's harder to save) into enough water to make you a giant bowl of soup
-Set it on the stove to boil, and while it's heating up, add 1 heaping tsp of nut butter or tahini (I've been using walnut butter lately), as much chopped garlic and ginger as you want, a dash of mirin or white wine, and a healthy pinch of dried chili (chipotle is especially fun, but anything hot works, really).
-When the soup is boiling and the nut butter has dissolved, add one serving of rice noodles
-When the rice noodles are nearly done (say, when you've got a minute left), add in whatever veg you want + some smoked or marinated (or fried...whatever you want, really) tofu in cubes. I like to use a green veg (broccoli or kale) + mushrooms + whatever bits and bobs of leftover cooked veg are in the fridge. Sweetcorn is oddly good in this soup
-In your serving bowl, dissolve a tbs of miso in some soup broth that you ladle out of the pot.
-When the soup is done, ladle it into the bowl with the miso. Stir. Add herbs if you've got them (cilantro or basil or both)
-Taste. Adjust seasoning by adding more soy sauce or more mirin, and then add a drizzle of sesame oil. A nice variation is to use walnut butter as the nut butter and then walnut oil at the end, in which case fresh parsley is amazing.
-Try replacing the noodles with cubes of sweet potato. Sweet potatoes and miso are best friends.

Devour.

The whole thing takes about 15 minutes from the time I walk into the kitchen until I have a wonderful bowl of hug in front of me.

Lessons learned this week:
1. Never get all your Xmas chocolates made in an organized, early way. This is the first time I've managed to get everything ready by mid-November and my FRIKIN' FLAT WAS SMOKED TO DEATH. Next year I will resume my sending-presents-late routine.
2. The fire dept is amazing.
3. My friends are amazing.
4. Eat soup. It helps.

Dancing along to: Mink, Schmink by Eartha Kitt. November is an Eartha Kitt kinda month, no?

Pretty please, with a cherry on top.

I like it when fruit attacks my dinner. Also, I bought a cherry pitter on a recent trip to Cambridge. I kid you not. There was a cafe. The coffee was excellent. And for some completely unfathomable and wonderful reason, they had little cherry pitters for sale. While killing time waiting for my train to London, I had one coffee and bought one cherry pitter and was very pleased with life in general (though that could have also had a lot to do with the fun science and bright sunshine and the fact that I was headed to a roller derby game in London).

Cumin-basil socca-like-thing (chickpea flour, flax meal, salt, toasted cumin seeds, dried basil, water). I like to preheat my cast iron pan in the oven, then take it out, melt a tiny bit of coconut oil in it, and then pour the batter in and put it back in the oven. It makes a lovely crust on the bottom. I call this a socca-like-thing because it's not nearly as fried as actual socca. It's more like the love child of socca and chickpea pizza crust.

The socca is simply topped with rainbow chard wilted in white wine, then liberally sprinkled with cracked black pepper and then festooned with pitted cherries. The sauce is reduced balsamic vinegar into which I've melted some unsweetened chocolate.

So easy. So good. And... first cherries of the year!

Dancing along to: Ray Spoon. Fun and yum, just like this dinner.

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.

spaghetti seaweed slurp

Salty, salty goodness. And dead easy. My local health food store had fresh sea spaghetti in the fridge and I couldn't resist. I also had some self-control issues at the tomato stand at the farmer's market this weekend. Which led to this utterly satisfying dinner on a cold, rainy Scottish "summer" evening.

spelt or whole wheat spaghetti for 2
1 cup sea spaghetti, desalted and drained (or if you are using dried, 1 cup rehydrated)
4 ripe tomatoes
1/4 c sake
1 heaping tbs arrowroot powder
1 cup purple basil, chiffonaded
squeeze lemon juice
pepper

Cook up your spaghetti in salted water. Drain, reserving about 1/4 cup of the water. Mix the arrowroot into this. Pour the arrowroot, sake and tomatoes back into the hot pasta pot and stir. Turn the heat on and as soon as the sauce thickens, add the spaghetti and sea spaghetti back in and toss with the sauce. This should be fast enough that the tomatoes don't have time to really cook. Turn off heat. Stir in basil and lemon. Add pepper (and salt, if you're crazy) to taste. Devour.

Dancing along to: I want to be under the sea, in an octopus's garden in the shade... by the Beatles.

rhubarb sorbet

Yes. Rhubarb sorbet. Very grownup. Very yummy. Ridiculously easy, and about 10 minutes of work.

5 slim stalks rhubarb
1/2 cup white wine (I used sauvignon blanc, but I think reisling would work better)
1/3 cup agave (or more to taste... i like the tartness)
1 tbs rosewater
pinch salt
2 drops lime oil or a bit of lime zest
5 mint leaves, chiffonaded
3 large basil leaves, also chiffonaded

Blend everything but the basil and mint. Press through a strainer. Discard pulp. Taste. Adjust sweetness. Stir in the mint and basil. Freeze, stirring every 2 hours or so until done. This won't freeze completely solid, because of the booze and agave. Make it before lunch to have it after dinner. You can also let it chill and drink it as a cocktail. In that case, I recommend mixing it with sparkling water, and doubling the wine.

sweet tart music: stockings, with Suzanne Vega

raw pakorafy me, baby!

Okay, these are sooo not pakoras. They are loosely inspired by pakoras, and even then, "loosely" might be too restrictive a term for what I've done. Basically, I wanted something to serve as a vehicle for some awesome chipotle tamarind-date chutney I have on hand. Also, I had to use up some sprouted buckwheat, and I've been having this methi craving... you can see where this is going. Like many of my "recipes", the end dish was the product not of a plan, but of a series of unconnected thoughts that I just happened to have while making dinner. Serendipitous dinner creation is a wonderful thing. Option 1 (which I have been known to do): mix chutney into sprouted buckwheat or cold rice or any other vaguely starchy thing that the chutney will adhere to and then eat it on salad. Option 2 is slighly more elegant, and much prettier than it looks here. Sometimes you only bother with one photo before devouring the food. It is, after all, a food blog, not a photo blog.

3-4 c. sprouted buckwheat, half of it blended to a paste
1 tbs toasted cumin seeds
a few toasted fenugreek seeds, squished roughly
1 tbs toasted coriander seeds, squished roughly
1 tsp garam masala
1/3 cup methi leaves, crumbled (I used dried ones)
1 large carrot, finely grated
1 handful of dulse, torn into tiny pieces
as much jalapeno as you want, chopped fine
1/2 tsp garlic paste (1 small clove)
1 tsp ginger paste
squeeze lemon juice
large-ish pinch smoked salt

Mix everything together. At this stage, you can just use it as a highly addictive pate and scoop it up with red pepper chunks (and then drizzle them with tamarind chutney). To make something a little more stand-alone, you'll need to add something to make it a bit less wet and then form it into patties. You can use ground dried coconut or chickpea flour or oat flour. I used chickpea flour, since I don't particularly care if something is 100% raw, but I do care that it's not full of fat. I added about 1/3 of a cup. Make your own choices on this one. I imagine if one owned a dehydrator, one could then dehydrate them for a billion hours. I don't, so I didn't. Also, that would have meant waiting, which frankly, I was simply not willing to do. I just decorated them with the chutney that caused all this in the first place and ate them. With a giant salad, because I'm that kind of vegan. Yuuuuuuuuum.

As a note, one of the things that keeps me from eating more raw food is that I like to eat without adding fat (or relying on large amounts of high-fat food like nuts, avocados or coconuts), and I do love my starches. Everyone has their own take on nutrition etc. nowadays, but the thing that works for me is to do a no-added-fat vegan, starch-based diet with lots of fresh fruit and veg. Doing this, I run, bike, do mad science, goof off, read, have a personal life, get up far too early because I hate missing out on life, and am generally happy and healthy and full enough of energy to annoy those around me in the early mornings. That being said, I like the lightness of eating a high proportion of raw foods, especially in the summer when I have to eat so much heavy food when I travel for work and so when I'm home... sprouted buckwheat! Yay! These are nice because they're starchy and filling and heavy without being full of fat. Also, can I just mention again that they're the perfect vehicle for tamarind-date chutney?

A little note: I wrote down the conservative amounts for the spices because my chutney was super-flavourful. If I was having these alone, or with coriander chutney, I'd probably up the coriander seeds, ginger and garlic.

serendipitous music based on... : in C, by whoever you want, dammit.

less is more

Fresh peas! With the first fresh peas of spring, it is best to do as little as possible. Why fuck with something that's already perfect?

Fresh raw pea soup

1 cup peas, shelled
1/3 cup Malborough sauvignon blanc. (yes, I insist. you need those capsicum notes)
1 handfull fresh mint leaves
1/2 tsp marmite
ground pink peppercorns
1 cup water

Put everything in a blender. Blend until frothy. Add more water if you need it. Eat.

I served this with a blood orange, fennel and sprouted buckwheat salad.

1 heaping cup (okay, proably more like 1.5 cups... we were hungry) sprouted buckwheat
1 head fennel, in ridiculously thin slices (use a mandoline)
1 blood orange, sectioned
large handful dandelion greens, picked on your bike ride, washed well and chopped
large handful chopped flat leaf parsley
a few mint leaves, in ribbons (optional)
a few kalamata olives, seeded and chopped
pomegranite seeds from half a pomegranite (because you need to snack on the rest of them, duh)
a few walnuts

dressed with
fennel seeds crushed and mixed with the juice from the blood orange, some lemon juice, some of the brine from the olives, salt and pepper

music: Good morning sunshine.

crunch!

I've been eating more raw food lately, and I loooove it. Granted, I've been a super salad fan for some time now, so I fail miserably at convincing people that vegans don't just eat salad. I mean, I don't eat *only* salad, but I do eat a lot of it. Because salad is yummy, and it makes me feel so good when I eat it, and it's crunchy and colourful! Now, I've said it before: if the only option is a sad iceberg lettuce, then the prospect of a giant salad is indeed rather underwhelming. But there's no reason it has to come to that, is there? Repeat after me: There is no excuse for boring salad. EVER. Also, I love saffron (just for the record). This vaguely middle-eastern and not-vaguely yummy. So satisfying. So tastey and simple. And yeah. Just.. yeah.

Bottom layer:
sprouted quinoa
chopped dates
chopped green olives
chopped rocket (arugula for those of you on the other side of the pond)

Salad layer:
chopped tomatoes
shredded purple cabbage
veeeeery thinly sliced carrots

the salad is marinated in
crushed fennel, saffron, a drop of lime oil, salt and pepper, all dissolved in apple cider vinegar.

music: mirah. yay!

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.

garlicky goodness is the first sign of spring

Spring has sprung! Which means... the wild garlic is out! The boi and I spent Saturday ambling along in the sunshine. We walked up the Water of Leith and then down the Union Canal. For 5 hours. And we picked more wild garlic than is reasonable. So we are now extra-good smelling and completely vampire proof.

Wild garlic polenta for two very hungry walkers

First, get this in the oven, on as high as you can go:
2c itsy-bitsy cherry tomatoes in
1/2 c water and (an optional) 1/2 cup red wine

while the tomatoes are baking to wonderfulness do this:

1.5 cups polenta
sea salt
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 cup chopped wild garlic.

When the polenta is about 5 mins away from being done, add some (about a cup) crumbled smoked tofu on top of the (now kinda blackened) cherry tomatoes. I used smoked tofu that I had fermented according to the directions in The New Now and Zen Epicure, which I highly recommend. I find most vegan cheeses gross, but I looooooove the tofu one in this book. Pop that back in the oven to let the cheese warm through. The fermented tofu is really salty; if you are using regular smoked tofu, add salt.

Stir the nutritional yeast and wild garlic into the polenta at the end. Spoon some tomato/tofu onto each bowl. Consume. Radiate wild garlic out of your every pore for the next 24 hours. I will be radiating wild garlic for at least a week, since the rest of it is going into wild garlic pesto.

Music for ambling: Norah Jones. Come away with me.

parsnip perfection

You know when after the first bite of something, you immediately think "I will have this every day from here on in, thank you very much. I don't need anything else." ? That was my reaction to this soup. So easy. So wonderful. Parsnips and smoked chilies were made for each other, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It looks like soup. You don't need a photo. Incidentally, that's also my reaction to La Confession. Once I heard it, I swore that it was all the music I needed. Yum.

1 yellow onion, chopped
2 large-ish parsnips, washed and chopped
1 small spud, chopped
lots and lots of fresh ginger (like 3 -4 tbs) chopped
4 whole cloves garlic
1 tbs marmite (I don't actually use marmite, I use some hippie health food store brand not made by kraft... any yeast extract spread will do here)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1-2 tbs cumin seeds, depending on how much you love cumin.
1-3 chipotle chilies, in adobo sauce
salt to taste
juice from one lime
1 cup parsley, chopped


Put everything up to and including the vinegar in a pot, add enough water to cover by an inch or three, and simmer until everything is tender. Meanwhile, dry-toast and grind up your cumin seeds. When the soup is done, remove from heat and add the cumin, chilies, salt and lime juice. If you are not of the heat-loving kind, use smoked paprika instead of the chilis. Puree. Add parsley and serve. Oh. Yum.

smoky music with a touch of heat: la confession, by lhasa de sela

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.

smoked shitake slurp

I find the farmer's market pretty exciting, generally. This is because a)I like produce and b) I am easily amused. However, there are some people whose mere presence (and they're not there every week) throws me into a tizzy. They are: the smoked shitake dude, the heritage potato guy, and the fancy tomato people. (Those aren't their official names.) This week, the smoked shitake dude was there! Oh joy! Oh yummyness!

Also, life is especially full as of late, and I haven't been cooking very involved dinners. This is quick but satisfying. I looove the combo of mushrooms, plums and smoke. It's deep and dark and mysterious and earthy. And in this particular incarnation, slurpy as well (bonus).

Saute about 3 cups of sliced smoked shitake in a splash of sake. Add a handful of chopped roasted chestnuts or a cubed cooked sweet potato (ie, you want something sweet and dense)

When the mushrooms are done, mix the sauce together in a cup and then add it to the pan:
1 tbs ume paste
1 tbs mirin
1 little dash soy sauce
1 tbs white wine (or sake)
dash lemon juice
about 1/4 cup of water to thin it out

Toss with two people worth of rice noodles. I used these fancy-pants pumpkin rice noodles, but they totally didn't taste pumpkin-like.

Variation: for extra points, leave out the water and add 1/2 cup of extra strong brewed black tea to the sauce. Jack the heat up so that the sauce reduces a bit, and proceed.

Slurp your noodles along with: Coco Rosie. Everybody wants to go to Japan.

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.

jumping on the bento wagon

...Well.. not really. I always brought a lunch to school, right through to the end of studenty days (which extended into my late 20s), and now I bring a lunch every day to work. Wanna know a secret?: I hate having to eat out at lunch. Hate it. It's almost invariably expensive, boring and never as yummy as what I could bring myself. Here's a standby for what I make when I don't have any leftovers from the night before. Also, when I just need a spud. Because sometimes one just needs a spud, ya know? Since a potato stuffed with something (think baked potatoes and beans) is pretty much the best simple lunch ever, here's a take on it that has veg and is a bit lighter than baked potato and beans, and is also good cold: a nice big spud, cut in half and boiled in water to which I've added soy sauce and a bit of sake. Said spud is stuffed to within an inch of it's life (and my lunchbox) with grated carrot salad: 1 obscenely large (and incidentally, obscenely shaped) grated carrot, 1 chopped scallion, about 1/2 cup of chopped seaweed (I used multicoloured, but anything will do), 2 tbs chopped pickled ginger, a few frozen edamame (they thaw out by lunchtime), salt, pepper, some vinegar from the pickled ginger, a splash of shoyu, and some toasted sesame seeds.

Also, I got onto this whole Health Blogger Network thing. I'm not sure what will come of it. I don't really think I'm a health blogger per se. I cook vegan food. I cook pretty much without fat and I use whole foods, tending towards lots of veg, grains and legumes, rather than processed omni subs such as vegan cheese or ice cream or other junk food. Frankly, I think this tastes *better* and is more satisfying than pretty much anything processed or pre-made that I can buy. I make treats, but they are very much treats, and with me, they almost invariably end up being chocolate. I do the first (the vegan bit) because I think it's the only ethical way to live and the second because I rather like being alive and being able to live in my body and that means taking care of myself. I'm 30-something now, and want to still be doing science, writing, riding my bicycle, cooking, travelling to places that cars just can't go, and generally raising hell when I'm an old lady. And more immediately, I want to keep feeling good now. Since I'm lucky enough to not have any major health problems, I want to be able to fully enjoy all the cool stuff that I can experience, such as getting up in the morning and stretching like a cat, running in the sun (and rain), walking on my hands, climbing big hills and looking down at beautiful landscapes, reading good books, hearing music, getting into interesting conversations, and having lots of sex. I think that my life, and my enjoyment of it, is worth the time and effort of cooking food that 's good for me and that I like eating. So, I don't generally wince at spending money or time on food. Being ill or constantly tired also costs money and time, so I look at what I do in my kitchen as an investment as well as a source of immediate amusement. I cook yummy fun food because, as I just said, I like being alive and happy, and yummy beautiful food is exciting and gives me great pleasure. I love cooking. I love eating. I love feeding the people I love. So, if there are any new readers, welcome to the kitchendancing cave. I hope you find stuff in here that will amuse and delight you.

it's not easy being green.

Green is the colour of spring. It's the colour of so many things.... and if green has a taste, this is it. I love foraging for edibles (though I actually didn't pick these myself). Wild garlic, nettles, berries, mushrooms... yum. And there's something extra yum about food that is a) free and b) seasonal and so precious. This soup is dead easy, so long as you don't touch the nettles. I used a cunning combination of chopsticks and scissors to remove them from their stems. If you lack chopsticking skills, I recommend gardening gloves.

Nettle soup.

1 onion or leek, chopped
1 large spud, cubed
3 cloves garlic, crushed
cover with either lightly salted water or broth, and boil until soft

when the spuds are cooked through, add
1 cup of parsley, chopped
2 cups of nettles, leaves only (don't chop them, just dump them directly from the colander into the soup, then wash off the colander immediately lest any of the diabolical little stinging hairs be left behind)
let this simmer for a few minutes

Blend! Blend! Blend! Reheat if you need to.

Off the heat, add
1/2 cup of okara or soy yogurt
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
juice from 1 lemon
2-3 tbs of white miso

Eat, preferably while listening to Kermit the frog sing "It's not easy being green"