Simple Summer Veggie Boules

Yes. They require the stove.
But most of the work is chopping and hollowing out little rolls (if you can find them), so it's quite meditative. And the work on the stove is painless.

Last weekend I was at the library looking for a cheesecake book immediately following my yard-sale find: a mini cheesecake pan. I did find the book, but didn't check it out.
Instead, I checked out the Tassajara Cookbook because the picture on the cover of some sort of marinated tofu looked so fresh and bright. Or maybe it was just the overall look of the picture. I know, I know. Don't judge a book by the cover. But what else am I supposed to judge it by when I'm skimming the racks of new books at the library?

I picked out a few recipes from the book to try. The book mostly consists of spreads and dips and the likes (or at least the first two chapters, which is as far I read before having found things I wanted to try.) This also happened to be two days after cilantro, jalepenos and serranos were all suspect and before jalepenos were confirmed as the culprit, so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find jalepenos or cilantro at the store. Which ruled out two of the things I'd wanted to try: Garlic, Cilantro and Chipotle Hummus and Anka's Roasted Red Bell Pepper Spread with Chiles and Lime (the latter being a double whammy.)

So I wrote a grocery list with three possibilities, depending on what looked good. I was really hoping to try the fig and kalamata olive tapenade since I'd had some tasty figs the week before, but that day the figs looked gross.

But I digress. I finally settles on two options: making the vegetable tapenade and stuffing it into hollowed out tiny rolls that I found in the deepest clutches of our freezer and caper-garlic hummus.

The vegetable tapenade is a keeper. Somehow, I didn't imagine it making so much, even though the recipe did say "Makes 4 cups." I think I may have ended up with more. I may have used more leek than it called for. Regardless of the quantity, it was tasty! And great wrapped in a lettuce leaf with fresh ricotta the next day. And wrapped in a lettuce leaf with leftover lamb the day after that.

What to do with it is up to you.

Sweet Veggie Tapenade
from Tassajara Cookbook: Lunches, Picnics, and Appetizers


Note: I returned the book to the library before copying down the recipe... Not my brightest move. But the book is on amazon, and it is one you can "look inside" of.

Little Bites of Cheesecake

Sometimes things just happen right.

Yesterday Mom asked me if I would help her make some appetizers for a meeting she had today, and I was thrilled to help. (I ended up making assorted dips and some vegetable boules) but of course it is dessert I love making. Any excuse to make lemon curd is good with me. But I didn't make lemon curd.




I digress. The kismet thing. There was a yard sale we came across on our way to the farmer's market. I stopped to look and found a mini cheesecake pan. My plans for lemon curd tarts went out the window. How awesome would it be to make mini cheesecakes!

So that's what happened. And I still could have made lemon curd, but I had a jar (it's too eggy for me) in the cabinet, so I just used it and focused on cleaning up the kitchen instead.


Mini Lemon Ricotta Cheesecakes
makes 12 mini cheesecakes

Note: I adapted this from a Amy of Eggs on Sunday who adapted it from a recipe from Bon Appetit that doesn't require this special pan. It required ramekins, which I don't have.

Crust:
16 graham cracker squares (about 4 1/2 ounces)
3 Tablespoons butter, melted
1 Tablespoon honey or agave nectar
2 Tablespoons cold water

Cheesecake:
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 Tablespoon finely grated lemon peel
8 ounces cream cheese or neufchatel , room temperature
1/2 cup (3 3/4 ounces/110 g) whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 large egg

1/3 cup lemon curd
1/2 pint fresh berries

Preheat the oven to 425. To make the crust, pulse the graham crackers in a food processor until finely ground. While running the processor, add the butter, honey, and water. Process until thoroughly moistened.

Divide the crumb mixture among the wells of the mini cheesecake pan (about 2 teaspoon to 1 Tablespoon per well) and press down firmly with fingers to flatten.

Bake the crusts for about 5 minutes until the crusts are turning golden brown and slightly puffed. Remove the pan and let cool slightly.

For the filling, beat together the sugar, lemon juice, and lemon peel until the sugar dissolves. Add the cream cheese and ricotta and beat until well blended, about a minute. Add the egg and beat until incorporated.

Divide the batter among the wells of the pan (about 2 Tablespoons each).

Place the cheesecakes in a 400ºF oven and bake for about 20 minutes, until puffed and set around the edges. Cool on a rack and then chill about two hours, until cold. The centers will cave a bit, but that's fine.

Unmold the cheesecakes, top with a dollop of lemon curd and garnish with berries.

Broccoflower

I was so excited to see this spiky broccoflower at the farmer's market on Saturday. I'd been wanting to try it after coming across it working on a project about fractals.

It tastes like cauliflower. But it looks so much cooler!

Right now my age is obvious.

The Toughest Question

The hardest question to answer, I think, is that "what is your favorite food?" question. I don't know the answer. It depends on the day. I used to say, definitively, that is was khorosht-e karafs, but now I'm not so sure. So then the interrogator moves on to their next question, unhappy with that answer.

What's your favorite type of food?

Uh, edible?

But no, of course that's what they mean.

They want an easy to digest answer, like Italian, Greek, Thai, Mexican, Middle Eastern, etc.

None of those answers satisfy me though. None of them really mean anything. Well, they do, but to different people they mean different things. Take Italian for example; for some people it conjures up images of red checkered tablecloths, pizza, and spaghetti and meatballs. To another person, it may conjure up fresh seafood dressed simply in olive oil and some vegetables following a course of fresh pasta tossed simply with rapini. The answers really aren't that simple.

And then what about American? What does that mean? I don't even want to try to wrap my head around that.

Like this dish. It has Asian flavors, but is it Asian? Highly doubtful. It was conjured up in test kitchens, and is tasty. But it fuses together flavors and different cultures and fresh ingredients and fits them nicely onto my plate.

Now that's my favorite kind of food.

As for the actual dish composed of the elements above, it jumped out at me when I was looking at the index of the August issue of Bon Appetit and had avocado in the basement on Monday and saw Asian Avocado Salsa. Dad however decided to make something that wouldn't go with the salsa, and the watercress at the store was droopy. Wednesday night, with the remaining avocado, I made a small batch of salsa based on the recipe, and as per one of the suggestions in the magazine, tossed it with some summer squash Dad grilled, soba noodles, and topped with (accidentally untoasted) sesame seeds.


Asian Avocado Salsa
based on recipe in August 2008 Bon Appetit
makes about 1 1/2 cups

1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 teaspoons mirin
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon wasabi paste*
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
3 green onions, thinly sliced on diagonal (about 3/4 cup)
1/3 cup 1/3-inch cubes jicama (about 1/2 4" jicama)
1 large avocado, halved, pitted, peeled, but into 1/3 inch cubes

In a medium bowl, whisk together vinegar, mirin, soy sauce, sesame oil, salt and wasabi paste. Stir in cilantro, green onions, and jicama. Gently stir in avocado.

*I used wasabi powder mixed with water to create a paste so I'm not sure in intensity how it compares to a purchased wasabi paste. However, if the salsa is mixed with pasta and vegetables, an extra 1/2 teaspoon or so does not hurt because the squash mellows it out.

Gingered Rhubarb Trifle

So I had good intentions last week when I bought two bundles of thin luminous stalks of rhubarb at the farmer's market, sensing that it may be my last chance this year. Then I got home, didn't have time to clean and prepare it to freeze, and just threw it into the fridge Siberia, and forgot about it. Except for the few stalks I used in a strawberry-rhubarb cobbler on Sunday.

A week later, I figured it would probably be dead. The stalks had gone limp, but most retained their vibrance and were free of wrinkles. And like I had thought, there was no more rhubarb at the market.

I was already making a marble cake for my cousin because he wanted one (nothing different, just a classic chocolate and vanilla marble cake in a tube pan,) so making a rhubarb cake would have been a bit of an overload, though after weighing my rhubarb I found I only had half a pound. I had leftover cupcakes from making a TV dinner, and whipped cream from making caramel sauce, so I figured, why not try to make a trifle?

And it worked. Though it wasn't until after I used ground ginger that I realized I had fresh ginger in the fridge. It was a hit at our party, though I think that it could have used a bit more rhubarb and the recipe reflects that chance.

Unfortunately, no pictures.

Gingered Rhubarb Trifle
serves 8?

1 lb rhubarb, cut into 1/4 inch slices
1/4 inch piece of ginger, or a pinch ground ginger
1/2 cup of water
3/4 cup sugar
4 cups 1-inch cake cubes (such as leftover cupcakes, pound cake, etc.)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 Tablespoons powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon finely chopped crystallized ginger, optional

In a heavy saucepan, combine rhubarb, ginger, water, and sugar and bring to a broil. Reduce heat and keep at a simmer until rhubarb is tender and most of the water has evaporated. Remove piece of ginger. Let cool.

Meanwhile, whip cream with powdered sugar until soft peaks form. Set aside in fridge.

In a glass bowl or trifle dish, place 1/2 of cake cubes. Top with 1/2 of rhubarb compote and 1/2 of whipped cream. Repeat layers with remaining cake, rhubarb, and cream. Sprinkle the top with crystallized ginger if using.

Cover tightly and refrigerate two hours or overnight.

A Crumb Treat For Father's Day

Even though it's crumbly, it's not a crumby treat. (I just read Catcher in the Rye. That word was way overused in it.)

Yesterday, I bought a couple pounds of rhubarb at the farmer's market, and now I'm finding ways to use them (and the strawberries, which overnight turned to mush. Uh-oh!). The big crumb coffee cake and strawberry rhubarb pecan loaf on Smitten Kitchen both seemed like good ways to use them, as did the rhubarb and strawberry compote from Bon Appetit that I was going to make last night but didn't. The crumb cake seemed like a decadent father's day breakfast, since we normally have eggs prepared in one of a multitude of ways with lots of fresh veggies. Our usual breakfast "treat" is significantly healthier.

However, I couldn't resist, and I had a feeling that eggs and rhubarb wouldn't be the tastiest idea (maybe waffles with a rhubarb compote, but been there done that, well not with strawberries... never mind).

Unfortunately, as per usual, there was a little glitch. Cool completely before serving. Oops. So after eating half of the crumb topping waiting for my parents to get up so it would be super fresh and in the oven while we went for a walk, I noticed that sentence.
And then it started to pour. No, really. The kitchen got all dark and I had to turn on the light for the first time today at 7:30 in the morning even though they'd been off since I'd gotten up.

So off I went to assemble my crumble, and put it in the oven, though it was missing half of its topping.

Big Crumb Rhubarb Coffee Cake
adapted from Deb's adaptation at Smitten Kitchen
Serves 6-8
I ever-so-slightly improved the nutritional profile of the recipe. It now features whole grains! But it would still be better for dessert than breakfast.

For the rhubarb filling:
1/2 pound rhubarb, trimmed
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

For the crumbs:
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 1/2 Tablespoons melted butter
1 3/4 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
2 to 3 tablespoons water

For the cake:
1/3 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 tablespoons oil
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon cornstarch (optional)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons softened butter, cut into 4 pieces

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease an 8-inch-square baking pan. For easier removal, you can also line with overhanging parchment. For filling, slice rhubarb 1/2 inch thick and toss with sugar, cornstarch and ginger. Set aside.

To make crumbs, in a large bowl, whisk together sugars, spices, salt and butter until smooth. Stir in flour with a spatula. Add water so that flour is not dry, just enough for it to come together. It will look like a solid dough.

To prepare cake, in a small bowl, stir together the sour cream, egg, egg yolk, vanilla, and oil. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add butter and a spoonful of sour cream mixture and mix on medium speed until flour is moistened. Increase speed and beat for 30 seconds. Add remaining sour cream mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition, and scraping down the sides of bowl with a spatula. Scoop out about 1/2 cup batter and set aside.

Scrape remaining batter into prepared pan. Spoon rhubarb over batter. Dollop set-aside batter over rhubarb; it does not have to be even.

Using your fingers, break topping mixture into big crumbs, about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch in size. They do not have to be uniform, but make sure most are around that size. Sprinkle over cake. Bake cake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean of batter (it might be moist from rhubarb), 45 to 55 minutes. Cool completely before serving.

Ten-Minute Tofu

I needed to use up some tofu in the fridge, and paging through Vegan Express at the bookstore, I saw what wasn't even called a recipe: it was simply a little paragraph on a page about simple tofu preparations.

Needless to say, I tried it with the tofu in the fridge, and it was super tasty. And super simple. I didn't even spend time pressing the tofu - all I did was blot it dry.

What was it?
Easy. Cut the block of firm tofu into 1" slices, blot dry, and cube. In a pan, heat about a tablespoon each of maple syrup (or agave nectar), soy sauce, and olive oil. Toss in the tofu, stir to coat, and continue to cook until browned.

See? Super easy. Serve with something (atop a salad, noodles, etc).

Kohlrabi: Purple is my favorite color

After taking two SAT subject tests Saturday morning (and I'm starting to regret not voiding them,) I wandered over to the nearby farmer's market in hopes of finding some rhubarb to make a rhubarb cobbler that I cut out of the paper a few weeks ago. I saw a few lonely stalks, but it seemed like what rhubarb there had been was gone.

However, on my second lap around the market, I saw an amazingly bright purple vegetable. I had to get it. I asked what it was. Kohlrabi. I'd heard of it, but I guess I'd just never seen it. It was gorgeous. (Apparently it can also be green, maybe that's why I'd never noticed it.)

But I didn't know what to do with it. The girl at the stand said she liked it raw with some salt, and that it as sort of like jicama. I thought it tasted more like a mild radish, but I guess that's kind of what jicama tastes like. It had greens attached to the top too, and she said I could use those like turnip greens or kale or any other big leafy vegetable. I was excited!

So tonight Dad and I took to the kitchen for Kohlrabi: 3 ways. It ended up being two ways, and with a side of what dad dubbed "Indian-Iranian shrimp."

We have the cobbler for dessert because I found some rhubarb at the grocery store, but I haven't tried it yet. It doesn't seem too promising.


Kohrabi Salad
Mom dubbed this "white salad" because other than the strips of basil dad put on top, it was all white. Dad said it needs some red, so I suggested red quinoa. Mom likes it the way it is. It was a really tasty accompaniment to shrimp.
Serves 3-4 as a side.

2 medium kohlrabi, peeled and diced
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup quinoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
basil, optional

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.
Rinse quinoa five times (is this necessary? My computer was off and I'd never made quinoa before and the first recipe in my recipe binder said that. I'd love to learn more about quinoa.)
Add quinoa to boiling water and cook for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, toss kohlrabi with lemon and salt. Once quinoa is ready, drain, and toss with kohlrabi mixture. Top with basil, if using.

Grilled Portabello Sandwiches

I don't remember seeing this recipe in June's cooking light, but when I was organizing the magazines, I saw a bookmark in it on the page. I'm glad I noticed it, because I made these for dinner on Friday, and they were tasty.

They took a bit too long, because our grill kept going out (maybe because of the wind? I don't know), but I can see making these again sometime soon. Probably because they took one of my favorite things to have on the grill (portabello mushrooms with balsalmic) and paired it with goat cheese, pepper, and basil, and then, grilled the sandwich so it's all toasty.

And the skinny super tasty grilled asparagus that we ate while the sandwiches were on the grill only helped to make things better.

Grilled Portobello Sandwiches
serves 4

I didn't change anything, other than using one bun fewer and saving the leftover mushroom for lunch the next day, so I'm just going to post a link to the recipe on My Recipes.com because I'm tired and having trouble keeping my eyes open.
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1734337

AP European History

I love my history teacher. This year was the second year I've had her (I had her for World History freshman year); she is pretty much the reason that I took Euro. And it was a terrific year in that class!

I'm sure you're wondering what this has to do with food. Was I inspired by history to be driven to the kitchen? And haven't I been out of school for a week?

After the AP test, my history teacher invites her classes over for dinner. She makes chili and rotini pesto, and six (or maybe it was seven?) different types of cookies.

The most popular, among my friends and I at least, were the ginger crackles, so before I left to head home, I asked her for her daughter's recipe. The next week at school, she presented me with a packet of the cookie recipes. I was thrilled!

So when finals rolled around and my English teacher told us we could bring in treats along with our game projects, as unseasonal as it seemed, I decided it was time to make Ginger Crackles (along with ever festive M&M cookies, of course.) While they didn't bide too well at school (hey, what can I say? They were in a plastic bag and competing with a cookie cake, popcorn, candy bars) they were a major hit at my parent's office. Spiced without being too spicy. Apparently the Germans really liked them.


Ginger Crackle Cookies
Makes a few dozen. Don't remember exactly how many.
Note: I'm not calling these Shana's Ginger Crackles because I made some modifications, which didn't necessarily improve them, nor did it hurt them, based on what I had in the house. My dad really liked them and wanted me to record those changes. He'd never had them before. I'd run out of butter, so that necessitated that change... as well as the availability of the spice cabinet, allspice in place of cloves; and blackstrap molasses worksfine as well. Normally I make cookies with at least half whole-wheat pastry flour, but I used all-purpose this time. I think they would hold up to the WWPF though.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1/4 cup oil(well, I did 2 oz. by weight, it was slightly less I think. Or maybe it was more. I failed to take precise notes)
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

about 1/2 cup sugar, for rolling

Preheat oven to 375F and line two cookie sheets with parchment or silicone liners.

In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and salt.

In a large bowl beat together sugar, butter, molasses, egg and vanilla until smooth. Add flour mixture and beat on low speed or stir until flour is incorporated.

Pour sugar in a small bowl. Shape 1 tablespoon dough into balls (if dough is too sticky, chill for 30 minutes before proceeding, but not too long or sugar won't adhere as well.) Dip each ball in sugar to coat the top.

Place balls 1 inch apart of cookie sheets, sugar side up. Bake 9-12 minutes, rotating halfway through, or until tops are cracked and dry to the touch and edges lightly browned. Let cool on pans one minute; transfer to wire racks to cool completely.