Recipes #6 , #7, and #8

Sometimes the time gets away from you! I have only made three new recipes since I wrote last, though I have made more food from scratch than that.

One of the problems with cooking 100 new recipes in roughly 100 days is not that I don't have enough that sound interesting to me, but that even over the summer with a reduced teaching schedule there are constraints. The leftovers I have to finish eating (without the Baker's help the last few days since he's had some kind of stomach virus), as well as the unpredictability of whether or not I will like something after working on it and getting hungrier for 2 hours, and the huge bags of greens I've been getting from my CSA it means that I sometimes either don't have time or it doesn't make sense to make something new when I have so many pounds of salad greens and leftovers from a previous meal clogging my fridge.

One way around this was making cookies! I decided to make snickerdoodles from Kris Holechek's 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes. I considered making the Vegan Cookies Take Over Your Cookie Jar version instead, but I didn't have enough Earth Balance butter. Kris' version substitutes some with applesauce, something I've been doing a lot with my baking lately.

The snickerdoodles, if I may say so myself, were pretty darn good. They did take longer to cook than expected, which happens a lot with my oven, and I did accidentally cook the second tray too long. The first was perfectly textured and chewy, the second, too hard. Also, I threw a lot of the sugar/cinnamon mixture away that I had rolled the cookies in; I think I would halve it when using it again. I also thought the cinnamon was a touch too heavy in the mixture.

The Low Down: Will I make them again? Very probably, though with all the baked goods I do make, I'm not sure they will feature in my rotation again soon. The breads and muffins I make require less fat and sugar, usually, and I don't have to get out the mixer. A-

The next thing I did was to make some seitan while baking up those cookies on Friday night. The jury is still out on the seitan, as I packaged it up and put it into the fridge for use in a later recipe. It was easy to make, and looked and smelled good however. It was Isa Chandra Moskowitz's recipe from Appetite for Reduction and I plan on making many more seitan recipes this summer for comparison.

Last night I made a socca, or a garbanzo bean flour pancake type recipe from Donna Klein's Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen. The idea of these had intrigued me for a while, and I thought my iron skillet sufficiently seasoned to try. However, while it was fairly simple to make, the results were not pleasing to me. It turned out the way it should have, it just didn't suit my personal tastes. Reminded me of an omelet, in taste and texture, and a slightly underdone one at that. I'm not a big fan of eggs, was one of the easiest animal products for me to give up.

It's just another one of those recipes that are just fine, I'm sure, but remind me why I'm the picky gourmet. Some things don't suit the kinds of flavor profiles that I like. That's okay. But sometimes, a new flavor profile is exciting or inventive in a way that expands my palate. I can't always tell when this will happen, and that is part of the fun of this journey. 92 recipes to go!

Recipe #5

Tuesdays and Thursdays, for at least three more weeks, are my busier days. I teach from 9-1, get home at around 2, and have rehearsal for Annie in the evening (I leave at 6). Granted, it's not as busy as the school year, when I teach from 8:30 to 4:20, don't get home until 5, and then have to leave again at 6 for rehearsal, but it is busier than Monday and Wednesday when all I have to do is grade and work out.

So I knew yesterday that I would want to make something a little less challenging yesterday, which is why I opted for a simple side dish and only one recipe.

Let me tell you, I was not disappointed. I chose the Green Beans with Walnut Sauce in Vegan Italiano by Donna Klein. They are quick to make, and incredibly yummy. I ate them fairly fresh, and prepared the walnut sauce (which is more of a walnut/parsley pesto) in my blender, but it would have gone better in a food processor. Since I'm still afraid of the food processor and not sure how to use it, I went for the blender and had to do a lot of pulsing and scraping.

When I ate the beans, they were awesome, but I thought I would like to add another clove of garlic. One of the few things I love more than garlic is more garlic (except in cookies and cakes)! And fresh from the pot and blender, more garlic might have been nice. However, since I could not eat 1 1/2 pounds of beans alone, I put the rest in the fridge. After the Baker got home from work, he ate some and the garlic in them was much stronger. Perhaps after marinating, the flavors grew stronger?

I will make these again. And again. I'm not sure it's my favorite green bean recipe, but it is close. Grade: A

Recipes #3 and #4

Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero is a cookbook I fell in love with last summer when I first bought it. After a particularly bad experience trying dairy-free sour cream on my bean burritos using beans from her book, I've been on a very off phase with bean burritos. Also, when I got so many other cook books, I started using them.
Now that I have challenged myself to make 100 new recipes from my many cookbooks over the course of this summer, and I embraced Memorial Day Weekend as my starting point, I decided that I needed to re-embrace Viva Vegan. She's got a whole lot more in there than refried beans.
On Monday, when many of y'all were chilling at the BBQ, I was making Quick Red Posole (the stew pictured up there) and Orange Mojo Tofu. I also made some pineapple-lime coleslaw which, though awesome, is not a new recipe for me.
I'm a total lightweight, so I only put half the amount of ground chile powder stated in the posole. I'm sad to say, despite the many ingredients in the stew I usually like (tomatoes, onions, lime, cumin, etc.) it really didn't do anything for me and was still too hot for my sensibilities. My husband loved the soup, however. Will I make it again? Probably not. I didn't finish my bowl. But since the Baker loved it, I will grade it on a curve. C-/D+.
Why did I give you a pic for the soup, then? Why not the orange mojo tofu? Because the Baker and I ate the tofu so darn fast I was not able to take the picture. I won't lie, at first bite I didn't like it. I thought it was a little flavorless. However, I realized that our uneven stove allowed the orangey limey marinade to puddle away from the corner where the lower in flavor piece of tofu had cooked. The other pieces were awesome.
Will I make it again? Hells yes! In fact, if there were tofu in the fridge at present, I'd probably be making more right now.... Listen to me, people. This is the first time I've cooked tofu and loved it. This recipe is pretty awesome. A+

Recipe #2

I cooked the fig quick bread from 500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman on Sunday. I love homemade fig bars from my favorite vegan cookie book, so I thought this bread might be able to substitute for the cookies once in a while, while using a bit less fat and sugar. They don't go overboard with the oil, but I temper it a little as well by reducing the oil to 1/4 cup from 1/3, and filling the liquid measuring cup the rest of the way to 1/3 with apple sauce (no sugar added!) I do that a lot.

The bread calls for spelt and whole wheat pastry flour, two flours I'm also pretty down with, as well as some sugar and the usual suspects.


Would I make this again? Maybe. The texture was very nice and soft, and the bread was all right, but tasting it, it just seemed to lack a little something, and extra kick of something. I might try adding a touch more salt. Breads like this and cookies usually take 1/2 teaspoon, but sometimes I find 3/4 teaspoon makes these baked goods sing just a bit more.

I give it a B-/C+.

Recipe #1

From Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World I give you the sexy low fat vanilla cupcake. I chose to put macerated strawberries on it as a topping, to continue to keep the fat low. I'd picked the strawberries just the day before.

This recipe worked fairly well. My husband demolished about half the cupcakes after dinner. Their taste was lovely and moist. The only down side was that they were a touch rubbery, as low fat baking can get some times.

My rating? B+. I will definitely make them again, and possibly as a base for some of their much fattier frosting options in the book.

100 Recipes of Summer

This picture shows just about half of the new cook books I have bought or received as gifts over the course of the last year. I am not kidding when I say that I have an addiction to cookbooks.
It's not as if I don't cook out of them; there are a lot of new recipes I've tried over the course of a year. When I get a new one, I mark them through by placing post-its on the pages where there are recipes I want to try. However, after discovering one or two recipes that I really like, I usually move on to another of my new cook books. Or I keep cooking the recipes that I like instead of trying too many new ones.
So now it is summer, and my work load is much smaller than during the school year. I also tend to waste away a good amount of time over the summer. This is why I have assigned myself a mission. I will be cooking 100 recipes from my cookbooks that I have not cooked before over the course of the summer. I will also be posting about those recipes, and taking pictures. I will review them and post my thoughts on them on the website. I think I will also grade them as well; A will be for a new favorite, F for something of which I couldn't finish eating a single serving. I'll also let you know where they come from so that you can make your own as well.
Happy cooking!

Repetoire of Soups

Soups make up the back bone of my cooking repertoire. And why not? They're cheap, filling, and mostly healthy as well as tasty. Reheated or thawed soups also make quick and easy dinners on nights when you don't want to do much other than stir and reheat and have salad or some bread on the side. A lot of good soups can also be fairly formulaic, as well, which makes it easy when you're up for stocking your pantry, a key component of having a simple and fast repertoire.

Shopping
Let's start with the pantry stocking you're going to do for this lesson; you can't go wrong to always have a few onions, carrots, celery stalks, a garlic bulb or two, potatoes, cans of diced tomatoes, and some kale, too, if you can. You can already go in quite a few directions with those ingredients alone, and other than the kale, most of them will last in your pantry, root cellar, or fridge for a couple of weeks if you buy them when they're still pretty fresh.

Next go to the beans. I won't take too much of a stand on canned or dried; dried is cheaper, but can be more time consuming, canned is quicker, but can be over-salted (make sure to rinse them) and possibly over-cooked. I insist that you get your split peas dried; they're so tiny that they cook quickly enough any way. In addition to that, my favorites include lentils (another tiny bean you must purchase dried), garbanzo beans (I rely on canned here usually), and cannelloni (also known as white kidney) beans. I usually have a pound or two of these dried as well as a can of cooked hanging around.

Get a few herbs and spices, too, but let your tastes be your guide. I tend to a lot of Italian-inspired recipes, so my favorites include rosemary, thyme, and oregano. However, I also rely on a variety of spices and herbs in my cooking, so feel free to pick based on your personal preferences. I always think it is fun to try a new one, so my spice cabinet is incredibly packed; make sure to keep them air-tight and date them for when you've opened them. 6 months to a year can mean your spices have gone stale; you can still use them, but they won't pack the same punch after that, you might need more. Take note of which ones you go through regularly, and keep an eye on them.

As far as soup goes, a variety of other things can be useful. I don't have rice in any of my favorite recipes at present, but I would imagine that as well as some type of pasta/noodles for adding to the soup, or possibly quinoa or barley, would also be useful to have around the house for soups. Other greens, such as chard or turnip or mustard, collards, spinach, and cabbage all work really well too. However, I find that cabbage, collards, and kale seem to hold up the longest, so I wouldn't purchase the others unless you have something specific in mind. That goes for a lot of other add ins for soups. If it isn't canned or hearty, be sure you're going to use it fairly soon, but if you have the basics from the previous paragraphs, there is plenty you can do already with non or almost perishables.

Mirepoix
A lot of good soups start with something known as a mirepoix. It's the trinity of the religion of soups, and most soups start with something like this, with one variation or another. The word is French, but other cultures have names for it as well. It relies on aromatics, or onion, celery, and carrot, to provide a base for the soup. Sometimes you might have a bell pepper instead of a carrot, or a leek instead of an onion. Personally, I almost always add a healthy amount of garlic part of the way through cooking (garlic tends to burn more quickly than the others), but roughly chopped one regular or two organic carrots with one or two celery stalks and an onion all chopped up are a good start.

If I'm planning on a low to no fat added soup, I start with a little bit of veggie broth to saute my mirepoix in. Otherwise, I add a tablespoon of olive oil. Three tablespoons if I'm planning on caramelizing the onions instead of merely sauteing the 'poix. I sautee on medium heat, usually for about ten minutes, and caramelize on low heat, usually about 20-25 minutes. You'll know when you're caramelized when the whole mixture becomes about the same color.

Broth
Another thing you'll want to have around is a good quality vegetable broth. I personally make mine, and have it in the fridge and some frozen in the chest freezer pretty much all the time. When I started, however, I purchased boxed low sodium veggie broths I would be able to leave in the pantry until I opened them. Needless to say, I think my broth is better, and the price is much better as well.

To make your own, put a couple of carrots (chopped once or twice), a potato, an onion, and celery (also chopped once or twice), a handful of smashed garlic cloves into a stock pot mostly filled with water. That works well enough on its own, but I also tend to add a variety of other things. When I use collards or kale, I cut the center ribs out and save them in a freezer bag if my dogs don't steal them off the counter first. What can I say? My dogs love their veg. I usually add a handful of those ribs to my stock.

Also, freeze in that or another bag, any broth-friendly veg that is still good, but looks like it might be headed south. When we get a weekly CSA box from the farm, some weeks there are just way too many radishes or turnips to use, for example. I cut them in half and add them to the pot as well. You can do that with a lot of veggies, though I'd stay away from peppers and broccoli.

Watch the pot, and once it hits a rolling boil, turn a timer on for an hour. Turn off the heat and take off your pot's lid after an hour, and when the broth has cooled somewhat, I use a pasta drainer to strain the broth into a 2 liter pitcher I use for my broth. I usually freeze 2 liters in freezer bags, one liter per bag. I also keep a 2 liter pitcher in fridge. I throw it out of the fridge in a week if I don't use it, but I use it more often than not. That is, unless I also have a pitcher of garlic broth in the fridge as well. Five heads of garlic, separated and smashed with the side of a knife boiled for an hour as well makes a wonderful broth as well, though it won't fit the flavor profile for a number of soups.

Soup it Up!
Now that you have your mirepoix,your stocked pantry, and your broth, you're ready to go for it! Split pea involves a pound of rinsed split peas and 2 liters of broth, bring to a boil and then simmer until the peas are falling apart (about 45 minutes). I like to add a chopped up new potato (peeled) with the peas for a little extra creaminess and a splash of liquid smoke at the end. Ta da! Split pea.

Add a 15 oz can of diced tomatoes and a teaspoon each of thyme and rosemary and 2-3 cups broth to the 'poix instead, bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. Add a layer of chopped kale, minus the ribs (1 regular or 2 small bunches) to the top, and put a lid on the soup, allowing the heat and stem to soften the kale. Add 1/2 cup pasta shapes with the kale, or add a can of rinsed cannelloni beans after softening the kale and bam! Minestrone. I like to caramelize the 'poix sometimes for this soup.

These are just a beginning, and there are so many ways to go from here. Add broth, tomatoes or no tomatoes, switch up a veggie or a bean, add pasta or rice or barley, and before you know it, you'll have a whole variety of basic soups to sustain you. When you've mastered these basics, start deriving inspiration from cookbooks. After you've followed a number of recipes, you'll be able to use the skills, combinations, and ideas you gain from them to put them to the test in a whole new variety of possibilities by creating your own pantry soups. Some of my favorites include Robin Robertson's Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes which taught me my favorite split pea, Poor Girl Gourmet by Amy McCoy, which taught me some great skills as well as showed me how to make a wonderful ribollita, and Color Me Vegan by Colleen Patrick Goudreau, which gave me my favorite version of minestrone. Also, Isa Chandra Moskowitz has been inspiring me lately, as I try out her soup recipes to figure out my perfect lentil soup. I'm not quite there yet as far as my personal tastes go, but she's gotten me close!

In addition to repertoire lessons, I'm planning on trying to cook through as many new recipes as possible this summer so I can start making a dent in the books that I purchased during my year-long cookbook binge which has slowed down, though not yet stopped. Seriously, folks, my cookbook shelf is bowing and I am running out of space.

My goal is to cook 100 recipes from my books that I haven't yet tried over the summer, which is do-able, though it will take some effort, since I already have so many favorites I want to re-make. I made number one yesterday, and made number two today. If I don't lazy it up for the rest of the evening, I'll make number three for dinner. I plan on posting these as well (I've got pictures!)

Until I write you next, happy cooking!