A peanut soup (made mostly of pantry items)

Andy and I were out of town for a week earlier this month. We got back, exhausted, late on a Sunday night. I started off Monday with an early meeting and was busy all day catching up. Luckily, a well stocked pantry yields soup that doesn’t require an immediate trip to the grocery store upon returning from a trip. The ingredients include pantry items, and a few veggies that keep for weeks in the fridge. Well, the tomatoes were very sad looking, but that means soup is the perfect destination for them. And while I would not have called cilantro something that keeps for a long time a few months ago, I now store it in an Herb Saver (thanks Mom!) and it keeps for at least 2 weeks!

A few notes on the ingredients
Squash - really, any winter squash would work. Since this is the end of winter squash season, stock up now! Cause they really do keep a long time in the fridge.
Better Than Boullion (BTB) – I’ve spoken highly of this product before, if you still don’t have some in your fridge go get it. It makes soup so easy and tastes really good.
Peanut butter – most recipes call for creamy PB, but I kinda like crunchy. First, cause that’s what I usually have at home and second, why not have little peanut fragments in your soup? They’re good.
Bulgar – I was going to use some wild rice but was hungry and bulgar cooks very quickly. Lots of grains would be good (rice, quinoa) as well.
Chile peppers – I used a whole jar of MMLocal’s mild high desert peppers. They were great. This is not something I usually have in my pantry, but I might start cause the soup really came together when I added them. However, I think if you had some fresh chiles or dried or canned or pretty much anything would taste good.

1 t. of peanut or veggie oil
1 acorn squash, cubed
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, chopped or pressed
1 t. red pepper flakes
1 t. smoked paprika
1/4 t. cinnamon
4 pints water (preferably measured from your empty beer glass)
1/2 c. bulgar wheat
2 T. Better than bouillion
4 tomatoes, roughly chopped (I used small plum tomatoes here)
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1/2 c. peanut butter
1/3 c. yogurt
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 7.5 oz. jar of mild preserved chile peppers, chopped
Sriracha (for serving)

1. Heat the oil over medium. Add in the squash, onion, and half the chopped garlic and sautee, stirring occasionally, for 6-8 minutes while you get the other ingredients together and chopped.
2. Add in the rest of the garlic, red pepper, paprika, and the cinnamon and stir another 30 seconds.
3. Pour in the water and the bulgar.
4. When the water is getting close to boiling, add in the BTB, tomatoes, and peanut butter.. Stir for a while to get the PB dissolved and dispersed. If it’s taking a while, let it heat some more and come back to it. Then stir in the garbanzo beans. Cook for about 15-20 minutes.
5. Just before serving, stir in yogurt, cilantro, and peppers.
6. Serve with Sriracha or spicy chile sauce of your choice!

And lastly, a note on a previous recipe. If you read about avocado ice cream in my last post, you saw that I lost my notes and didn't have an exact recipe. Well, I found them and updated the post. Yay :)

Avocado ice cream (aka green dinner part 2) ... and discussion on avocado smoothies

This is more of a concept post than a recipe, since unfortunately, I lost my notes that had the measurements I used written out! Argh! I guess it's okay, cause the concept is great, but the recipe itself had room for improvement.

**** UPDATE - 4/20/10 - I have found my notes! Here's the actual quantities I used on this ice cream:
3 avocados
2/3 c. cream
1/3 plus 1/2 c. sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c. milk
juice of 1/2 lime
*** end of update

The concept is based on another dessert I was recently introduced to: the avocado smoothie. Lisa and Tin made some at their Tet celebration, and reminisced about having a lot of them while they were in Vietnam, where they're quite popular. They had a recipe from the internet that was something like this:

1 ripe avocado
1 cup ice
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. sweetened condensed milk
directions: combine and blend. Serves 2.

At home, I've been making them and attempting to make them delicious but a bit less calorific... something more applicable to breakfast or snack time. So roughly, I've been making them like this:

1/2 an avocado
juice of 1/2 a lime
20 ozs of soy milk
2-4 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
handful ice
directions: combine and blend. Serves 2.

Something about the combo of sweetened condensed milk and avocado is just amazing. So I decided to try it as an ice cream. The goal was to make it even a little richer than the original smoothie since it's for dessert. I also had some leftover sweetened condensed milk from the smoothies, so even if I had the exact portions I used, they would be not very round numbers. In the end it was something like this:

3 avocados
1 and 1/3 cans sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c. heavy cream
1/2 c. milk
juice of 1 lime

1. Blend until completely smooth in a blender or food processor.
2. Chill in refrigerator at least 3 hours or until the mixture is near your fridge temperature (~40 degrees)
3. Freeze according to your ice cream maker's directions.

The analysis - the ice cream was incredibly smooth, rich, and delicious, but could be improved upon in two ways. One, it was richer than necessary, so I would probably omit the cream next time and add a little more milk (again, I'm not sure the above ingredient list is exactly what I did). Second, while it was great right out of the ice cream maker, it froze as solid as a rock overnight. Homemade ice creams tend to do this more than store bought ones because they don't contain artificial stabilizers, but you can minimize rock-hard-ness by adding hygroscopic sugars. Hygroscopic substances attract water molecules, making the whole mixture more fluid. Corn syrup is actually a very hygroscopic form of sugar, so I think I would try adding just a small amount next time... I don't think it would make it too sweet. The alternative, which is perfectly acceptable in my book, is just to take the ice cream out 20 min. before you're ready to eat it. And lastly, while it looked very pretty with the slices of pineapple, I think it's actually best just on its own!

Very green curry (aka green dinner, part 1)

I made the greenest meal ever the other night: Green curry with lots of green veggies and avocado ice cream for dessert (coming in the next post). This Thai-style curry is really not very inventive, but I think it was a great combo for spring, and definitely a quick, tasty, healthy dinner. If you haven't ever cooked with Thai-style curry paste, you should give it a try. The ingredients in this particular brand are simple and delicious: chiles, lemongrass, garlic, keffir lime, and ginger - that's pretty much it. I think this was the first time I put edamame (baby soybeans, look for them in the freezer section) in a curry; they really play a nice role! I think I may like them in curry as much or more than tofu. You can buy them frozen, shelled or unshelled - shelled makes them super easy to use in applications like this. Unfortunately the only picture I took is the curry leftover, as my lunch today.



Serves 4

2 c. rice (I like brown) cooked in a rice cooker or however
2 t. neutral oil
1 onion, chopped or sliced
3-4 carrots, sliced (looks especially nice if you cut on a diagonal)
pinch of salt
1 bunch asparagus, cut into bite-sized pieces (ditto on the cutting remark above, make sure to discard the bottom of the stalk if they are lighter in color or feel tougher - that part is unappealing fibrous when cooked)
1 can coconut milk
1/2 can of water
1 to 1.5 T green curry paste (it's spicy, so start small if you're sensitive)
2 c. frozen, shelled edamame
2 large handfuls washed baby spinach
fish sauce to taste (2 t., maybe)
sugar to taste (2 t., maybe)

1. Heat the oil in a large wok (if you use a typical 10 or 12" skillet, you may want to reduce quantities of the veggies to prevent overflow)
2. Stir-fry the onions and carrots with a pinch of salt, till the the carrots are still firm but the crunch has just been taken off (about 5 minutes)
3. Add the asparagus, and stir-fry till the asparagus is still firm but the crunch has just been taken off (about 3 minutes)
4. Add the coconut milk, water (use the water to rinse the last bit of coconut milk), and curry paste.
5. Add the frozen edamame, bring to simmer, and cook for 4 minutes.
6. Add the spinach and cook for another minute or to wilt the spinach.
7. Season with fish sauce and sugar to taste (I used about 2 tsp. of each).
8. Serve over rice



[I hope I don't spill this on my laptop!]

When you're busy, what do you cook?

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I think I am done recovering from my dissertation proposal induced stress. I have a couple of backlogged recipes coming when I can write them up in the next day or too. But first a question or two.

Do you have go-to meals you make when you are busy/stressed? As much as I love experimental cooking and see it as a stress reliever, when I am really busy or stressed I find my mind doesn't seem to wander enough to want to try new things or make up new recipes. So I make old standbys. Which is really just fine, I don't think of this is a bad thing. And of course, they are quicker meals - pastas, egg-based dishes, salads.

I think my very favorite of this category is pasta with a few veggies (quick cooking, like spinach) and/or herbs, a good amount of olive oil (sometimes butter too), freshly grated parmesan or other hard cheese, maybe some lemon juice/zest if it's around, and a poached or fried egg on top. This also works with rice or potatoes.

What is your favorite 15-20 minute dinner that you make repeatedly? Please comment.

Roasted garlic-chipotle refried beans with poached eggs and beet-carrot slaw

I never made refried beans before tonight - so I'm not going to claim to be an expert on this one, and I haven't done any experimentation so I can't even claim to be a curious cook. But, these are so good I'm sharing anyway! Refried beans definitely fall into the comfort food category. Pairing them with some poached eggs and some nice flavors makes them even better.


Also, I realized that I don't think I've written about any egg dishes. Which is funny, since we eat eggs for dinner or breakfast quite often (thanks to Barack I, Barack II, and Barack III, pictured).

This dinner has everything going for it - it's super easy, healthy and has interesting flavors. It's not quick, but I used the 90 minute no-soak method (seriously!) to speed it up a bit. Still about 2.5 hours start to finish, but most of that time is not active. The beans came from our winter share CSA from Grant Family Farms. I've never been a bean connoisseur before, they usually just taste like beans, but I have to say these are awesome! I think they are just plain old pintos, but that the difference must be freshness. It's the texture that's a little nicer - they cook up really smooth, and seem to take less time to cook as well (by normal or the 90 minute method). Refried beans pair great with chiles, of course, and the smokiness of chipotles makes the combo even better. And roasted garlic ALWAYS makes EVERYTHING better. I served these beans with poached eggs, corn tortillas, sliced avocado, and some beet and carrot slaw (recipe follows) to round out the meal. The avocados were leftover from a few days ago, so unfortunately they are rather ugly.



Roasted garlic-chipotle refried beans
Ingredients
2 c. dried pinto beans
3 bay leaves
1 head of garlic
a little olive oil
3 T. vegetable oil (or some lard if you're into that)
1/2 onion, minced
3/4 t. salt (I used Maldon smoked sea salt)
4 dried chipotle peppers (canned would also be fine, skip the rehydrating step if using)
1 t. vegetable bouillon paste (I really like Better Than Bouillon)
1/2 tomato, chopped

1. Preheat the over to 250 degrees.
2. Rinse the beans. Transfer to a oven-safe pot with a tight fitting lid - like a Dutch oven. Add the bay leaves, and water to cover the beans by 2.5-3 inches or so.
3. Bring to a boil on the stovetop, then put in the preheated oven. Make sure the lid is on tightly at this point. Leave in the oven for 75 minutes. Check on them at this point to see if they're done. If necessary leave in a little longer.
4. Roast the garlic at the same time. Normally I use a hotter oven, but 250 worked just fine! Take the whole head of garlic, and remove any really dry outer layers of skin. Cut the tips of the individual cloves off - you can get the middle ones with one cut; then get any of the outer cloves the first cut missed. Place the garlic on some aluminum foil (cut side up) and drizzle a little olive oil on the cloves. Wrap up the garlic tightly in the foil, and stick in the oven. Leave in for as long as the beans take.
5. While the beans are cooking, you can make the slaw (recipe below), or another side dish if you wish.
6. When they're done, drain the beans and fish out the bay leaves.
7. Heat the oil in the pot you used for the beans, and cook the onion and some salt over medium low heat, till slightly caramelized and thoroughly cooked. Stir occasionally.
8. While the onions are cooking, puree the beans with a little water in a food processor till they are the consistency you like for refried beans. I like them pretty smooth.
9. Transfer the pureed beans back to the pot with the onions, stir. Reduce heat to low. Stir occasionally.
10. Boil some water (1/2 cup, at least) and pour over the chipotles to rehydrate. Let sit for 5 minutes or so.
11. Fish out the chipotles and put them on a cutting board. Add the teaspoon of veggie bouillon base to the water, stir to dissolve, and pour into the pot with the beans. Stir everything really well.
12. Take half the head of roasted garlic, and squeeze the cloves out of their skins one by one (of half the head, reserve the other half for another use). Mince the chipotles and roasted garlic cloves. Add these and the chopped tomatoes to the pot.
13. After you've added everything and the mixture is slowly bubbling (maybe more like burping!), cook for at least half an hour, stirring occasionally. The beans will stick to the bottom of the pot a little, but that's okay. Just keep the heat low enough so they don't really burn, and scrape the bottom when you're stirring. You will probably need to add a little more water at some point, depending on the thickness you prefer.
14. Poach 2 eggs per person. Here's how I poach eggs: Boil water in a large, deep skillet (about 2/3 full of water). Add a splash of vinegar (white, white wine, or apple cider). When the water is at a simmer (not a full rolling boil or the eggs will get shredded), crack the eggs one at a time into a saucer, and gently lower the edge of the saucer into the boiling water so the eggs slides in gently. Cook for about 4 minutes, and remove gently with a slotted spoon or spatula.


Carrot and beet slaw
Ingredients
2-3 medium beets
4-6 medium carrots
1/4 c. parsley (or cilantro)
Juice of one lime
Splash of olive oil
Splash of apple cider vinegar (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Shred the veggies in the food processor, chop the parsley.
2. Toss with lime juice and olive oil. Taste, and add vinegar or some extra lime juice if you like. Season with salt and pepper. Let sit for an hour or so.

Hints
I used my food processor for nearly everything! And I even managed to avoid washing it in between ingredient processing by processing in this order. 2 through 4 are for the salad.
1- onion (blade)
2- carrots (grating disk), and beets (same)
3- parsley (blade)
4- beans (blade)
5- rehydrated chipotles and garlic (blade)
6- tomato (blade)

Variations
The traditional way to mash the beans is with a potato masher. I don't have one, so I used the food processor! You can certainly vary the the seasonings - chile powder, roasted fresh peppers, cumin, lime juice would all be good! But maybe not all at the same time. Also, I think this would be pretty good with canned beans, but I haven't tried it. I think next time I will make this doubled or tripled and freeze some. (And I will be making it again, cause I have lots of these beans!)

And lastly, just to brag about my pets a little, check out how tall the yolk is on the egg on top in this other shot of dinner! That's what you get with fresh eggs from backyard poultry.

Elk meatballs - with video!

Thanks to Adam, Andy got to go hunting in December. It was his first time, and he loved it! Andy doesn't know how to shoot, but he loved helping Adam stalk the herd of elk, track down the one that was shot, and cut it up and carry it out.



I mostly eat vegetarian and when people ask me why I don't really have a simple answer. It's a combination of things - I just don't love meat and I stopped eating some kinds in high school. Maybe more importantly I don't like the way the industry works. So many resources go into the crops that are used to fatten animals, and then the waste products from the animals pollute water systems. In principle, free-range meats make more sense in regards to those two specific problems, but still, if all the world's population was eating meat, free-range or not, we'd pretty quickly convert our grasslands to desert and/or destroy our water systems. Hunting for your own meat takes the industry out of the equation, and I'm a lot more comfortable with that. In fact in many areas elk are overpopulated due to a lack of predators, so hunting elk is a good thing for the environment. I realize that I do lots of things that are unsustainable, so this is just one battle I choose to fight, at least partly because it's easy for me to do so since I love vegetarian food.

In summary, I'm totally in favor of eating what you hunt, and the elk has been pretty delicious. It's very lean and has a nice sweet taste to it that I previously haven't associated with meats. It has hints of butter, honey, and sweet herbs like thyme or basil. I guess that's what people mean when they say free range, grass-fed meat tastes better. Although, I can't really eat very much or it makes my stomach feel a little weird :)

A few notes on the recipe: I think my favorite part of cooking elk is the smells... maybe you can imagine it by watching the video below! This recipe accentuates some of those flavors I mentioned above by mixing in herbs and sauteeing the meatballs in olive oil - which works well since the elk is so lean - and the aromas are just amazing. The ratio of meatballs to pasta to sauce are a little screwy. This probably makes enough meatballs for at least 8 servings but the pasta is only enough for 4. So if you make this, you'll have some meatballs leftover for sandwiches. Or you can cook a second pound of pasta.




Ingredients
1.5 to 2 pounds ground elk
3 cloves garlic
1/4 c. packed parsley leaves
2 T. fresh thyme
1/3 c. freshly grated parmesan
1/2 c. bread crumbs
2 handfuls Rice Krispies, slightly mashed up in your hand
2 t. salt
freshly ground pepper
1/2 t. red pepper flakes
4 eggs
olive oil
2 jars tomato sauce (I prefer a simple tomato sauce like tomato-basil or marinara, over mushroom or pepper flavored or a spicy, etc.)
1 pound long pasta, such as linguini or sphaghetti
More freshly grated parmesan for serving.

1. Put garlic and herbs in food processor and chop till very fine (or do by hand).
2. Mix together elk, garlic and herbs, parmesan, bread crumbs, Rice Krispies, salt, pepper, and red pepper.
3. Lightly beat the eggs and then incorporate them into the mixture.
4. Form meatballs.
5. Cover the bottom of a heavy skillet with olive oil. Heat over medium.
6. When the oil is hot, add the meatballs, but don't crowd the skillet or they will be hard to flip. It'll require cooking in 3 or 4 rounds.
7. Flip when the meatballs are nicely browned. Nicely brown the other side of the meatballs. The goal here isn't to cook the meatballs through, just to brown (because browning reactions are delicious), so it'll only take 2-3 minutes per side.
8. Remove the browned-on-both-sides meatballs to a plate or bowl, and add a bit more olive oil in between each batch.
9. When all the meatballs are done being browned, return them to skillet, and pour in one jar of tomato sauce. Cover, lower heat to very low, and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 10 minutes. This will complete the cooking of the meat, and the meat and tomato flavors will meld together.
10. Cook pasta according to directions, and heat some extra sauce from jar #2 (if it fits in your skillet feel free to just add more there. With all the meatballs, I couldn't fit enough sauce to dress my pasta to my liking.)
11. Serve with more parmesan!

Sesame-ginger granola

I've been on a granola making kick lately. Fairly often I find I'm not in the mood for breakfast cereal. Besides the fact that they're super expensive for the ingredients that are actually in them, I just find them very boring. The main advantage I see to making your own granola are that you can control what goes into it, thus you can make a breakfast food that you are totally psyched about eating in the morning. A basic granola recipe is 6 cups rolled oats ("old-fashioned," not quick or instant) plus 2 c. seeds, nuts, and/or other grains, spices, and half a cup to a whole cup of honey or other sweetener, and up to a half a cup of oil or nut butter. I don't really like dried fruit in my granola so much, but you can add as much of that as you want to - just add it after baking so the raisins don't turn into tooth-destroying little rocks.

I love anything with sesame in it, so I was looking to make a sesame heavy granola. I think this one worked out really well. The texture is interesting and perhaps not very typical - somehow it ended up containing lots of chewy bites of oats, sesame seeds tahini and honey. The tahini I used was kind of old and thus very seperated into the solids and the oils; even heating didn't not homogenize it well. The chewy bites contrasted nicely with an overall crunch. It's almost like having sesame candy for breakfast. If you prefer a thoroughly crunchy granola I think you could just bake it longer and/or hotter.



The granola below is less than 2/3 the price (per ounce) of Bear Naked granola, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or even Cheerios, and it is way more interesting. The main cost is actually the tahini, so you can see how making a more basic granola (with just nuts and raisins, for example) would be even cheaper. I've listed the costs of the ingredients for illustration - I just grabbed prices off of online listings pretty quickly - the honey seems too expensive, I think if you buy the 1/2 gallon containers like I do it's a lot cheaper. It's also super easy - the active working time is just a few minutes. The only tricky part is making sure it doesn't burn. At only 300, burning is much less likely, but you should still check on it and stir. Most recipes I've seen call for 325 or 350 but using tahini (or peanut butter) makes it easier to burn, so I think 300 is best.

Ingredients
6 c. oats ($1.52)
1/2 c. sesame seeds ($1.04)
1/2 c. wheat germ ($0.30)
3 T. ground ginger ($0.67)
1/2 t. salt (negligible)
1/2 c. honey ($1.49)
1/2 c. tahini ($1.61)
1 T. canola (or other neutral) oil (negligible)
2 T. orange juice (negligible)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 300.
2. In your largest mixing bowl, stir together oats, sesame seeds, wheat germ, and salt.
3. Over medium-low heat, stir together honey, tahini, oil, and orange juice until smooth (if possible).
4. Pour the hot liquids over the oat mixture and toss till well coated.
5. Spread the mixture onto two jelly roll pans (cookie sheets with sides).
6. Put in the oven for 25-30 minutes, stirring about every 5-8 minutes, and switch oven positions halfway through. Keep an eye out for any burning.

Total price: $6.63
Total weight: 32.1 ounces
Price per ounce: $0.21
Price per serving (8 servings): $0.81

Variations
They are infinite. But one of my other favorites has pumpkin seeds, pecans, a few tablespoons of cocoa powder, and 1/2 c. peanut butter instead of the tahini.