That's My Kind of Dinner

Like I said, I have had a rough time lately.  I've been even sicker than usual (I'm always some level of sick these days), and most of all I've been weak and dizzy.  We had to cancel plans with friends the other day so that I could stay in bed and rest.  I obviously couldn't do any cooking (despite all the changes to our bedroom to accomodate my needs, we still haven't dragged the stove in there.  Maybe someday), so we made a feast out of non-cooked items.  In my world, that means cheese, cheese, bread, fruit, and oh yeah, some more cheese.

I had all the ingredients for caprese salad, but wanted something a little more user-friendly for an in-bed picnic, so Dan helped me quickly throw together some toothpicks with halved cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil.  One nice thing was that the tomatoes I had were a rainbow of colors.  The tray of them was drizzled with a mixture of lemon juice and olive oil.

The rest of our picnic was made up of Cambozola cheese (that's Camembert with a Gorgonzola mold), dilled Havarti, strawberries, berry-serrano jam, macadamia nuts, and bread and crackers.  Since we were suddenly having this fabulous picnic, we decided to bust into a bottle of Michigan cherry apple hard cider.  What the heck, right?.

We ate and watched Dancing With The Stars.  It turned out to be not such a bad night after all.  For once I was not as sad to be so weak that it kept me in bed.

Happy eating!

Wine-Poached Pears With Brandied Cream

I have a recipe for a delicious and elegant dessert that is much easier to make than it appears.  It does take a long time to prepare, but almost all of that time is the food being in the oven.  Actual hands-on preparation time is almost nil.

Step one is to peel the pears.  That can be done the same way as tomatoes: score the skin and then let the pears sit in simmering water for perhaps a minute, and then shock them in ice water.  The skins literally fall off.   

Then you prepare the poaching liquid, which is as easy as heating equal parts wine and water on the stove.  You need enough liquid to just cover the pears, about 6 cups for four pears.  A nice semi-dry red wine works great.  You don't want to use a super cheap wine, but it doesn't have to be expensive.  You want to use something that you'd be willing to drink.  Two tablespoons of honey and a tablespoon of sugar go into the cooking liquid also. 

Once the liquid reaches a simmer, the pears and liquid together go into the oven at 300 degrees for 3 to 4 hours.  The liquid then gets separated from the pears and the pears go into the fridge to cool.  The poaching liquid is reduced (about 15-20 minutes of simmer time) with an additional tablespoon of sugar. 

The pears can be served on their own or with whipped cream.  Creme fraiche is another tasty option.  And, of course, drizzle the whole thing with the nummy reduced syrup.

Here I have a pic of the pears sitting on a bed of brandied cream with just a dollop of vanilla ice cream on the side. I made the brandied whipped cream by mixing 1 tablespoon of brandy per half cup of whipping cream, and whipping as usual.  I also used vanilla sugar in place of regular sugar for the whipped cream.

For as little effort these pears take, they are a huge payoff.  So yummy-nummy. 

Happy eating!

Veggie Stock

Sorry for my absence, fellow foodies.  I have had a bit of a rough week, and haven't had a lot to post about.  Today, though, I want to talk about vegetable stock.

Stock simply means a strongly-flavored broth made by boiling whatever in water, sometimes with salt, and then straining.  While I was watching a cooking show a few months ago, the host casually mentioned that she always has veggie stock on hand because she always saves her unusable veggie bits - peels, etc. - and every few days she makes stock.  I had a total 'doh!' moment.  Why hadn't I been doing this?

Since then, I've been saving all my normally thrown-away veggie bits.  Onion peels, carrot peels and tops, trimmed ends of garlic cloves,  the centers from bell peppers, etc.  I just boil them for a while, usually adding just a couple of pinches of salt, and then strain it really well.  It can go into tupperware to save in the fridge if I think I'm going to use it soon, or into zip-top baggies and frozen, to thaw and use later.  It can even be measured out into one or two cup portions so I know exactly what I am thawing.  The stock can also be canned so that it keeps for a long time without taking up space in the freezer.

I seriously have no idea why I wasn't doing this my whole life.  It's the easiest thing ever, and I never have to buy veggie stock again.

Happy eating!

Vaquero Spring Rolls with Chipotle-Citrus Dipping Sauce

The other day as I was trying to decide what to make for dinner, I noticed the spring roll wrappers I had gotten at the Asian market last month in the freezer, and thought I should make something with those.  I also noticed all my lovely Rancho Gordo beans in the pantry, and thought I should make something with those.  It finally hit me that I could make southwest-style spring rolls.  Of course!

My Vaquero-bean spring rolls turned out to be super simple, especially since I even had some leftover Spanish rice that I could use, so I didn't even have to make that.  The beans were soaked and then boiled with some aromatics and a chipotle (canned, in adobo).  I grilled some onions and quickly sauteed julienned carrots, just a little, so they were still crunchy.  Into the spring rolls went a couple scoops of the Vaquero beans, a scoop of rice, a scoop of corn, some grilled onions and a few strips of carrot.  Wrapped and sealed, spring rolls can be fried right away or refrigerated for a little while, so they can easily be done ahead of time.

For a chipotle-citrus dipping sauce, I pureed a couple of the in-adobo chipotles in my food processor with honey, garlic, lime juice, orange puree, and a couple of other things.  Woah, spicy!  But, great with the spring rolls.

Dan and I both love-love-loved my Vaquero-bean spring rolls and the sauce.  I think I'll play around with that concept and make more types of spring rolls. 

Happy eating!

Granita

I mentioned in the previous post that I had made a dessert to go with my simple, but tasty, special crab legs dinner.  I wanted to make a dessert that was equally as simple.  On a hot summer day, that equals granita.

Granita is a simple sorbet-like dessert that takes just water, sugar, flavor, and a freezer.  Unlike sorbet, it is scraped with a fork intermittently as it freezes to maintain a granular texture, and is not run through an ice cream machine.  Whenever I have made granita, it has been with fruit as the flavor, but I understand it can be made in nut flavors, or even chocolate. 

After our crab legs, I served strawberry-yogurt granita with fresh peaches.  I made the strawberry granita with frozen strawberries which made it super simple.  The only difficult part, if you can even call it that, was to make sure to scrape the granita about every 20 minutes or so as it froze. 

Tonite, we had spicy spring rolls (later post), and I again wanted something simple, and also cooling to chill us down after the spice from dinner.  I made a watermelon-ginger granita out of fresh watermelon, and served it with vanilla cream and toasted almonds.  I made the vanilla cream with fresh vanilla beans and vanilla sugar.  (It is super easy to make vanilla sugar, by the way: After scraping the insides of vanilla beans for your recipes, put the pods in a container with sugar; replace the sugar as you use it up.)  You might not think watermelon and ginger would make a good pair, but trust me, they are tasty together.  The watermelon-ginger granita was perfect for this hot summer night after our spicy southwestern meal.  Dan raved about it on and on.  It is so easy to make granita; I highly recommeng giving it a try on one of the few hot days we have left this year.

Happy eating!

Vegetarian Crab Legs

Just kidding, there are no such things as vegetarian crab legs (that I am aware of).  I do occasionally cheat on my vegetarian diet and let myself have fresh-caught Alaskan King Crab legs.  I feel ok with that because I'm not supporting factory farms.  Even then, I only end up eating crab once in a blue moon.  I think this time it's been at least two years since I had crab.

Tonite I wanted to make a nice dinner for Dan and I, but I've been feeling run-down the last few days and I have to watch it so that I don't make myself more sick.  I have had some extra dialysis, but I'm also trying to take it easy.  Luckily crab legs are a low-activity dinner... a few minutes in pot of boiling water, and that's it.

To go with our Alaskan King Crab, I made a nice salad with spring greens and lots of veggies, and blue cheese dressing (homemade, of course - the only way to go).  We also had fresh buttery garlic bread, and green beans almondine.  I wanted to make some sort of special beverage to go with our nice meal, so I made a lemon drink with rum and a few other things in it.  I also made a dessert, but that will be a different post.  The meal was delicious, and each item was relatively easy and quick to make... a simple but satisfying anemic-chef meal!

There is one leg left, so Dan and I plan on having some crab salad later, served with some crackers and what is left of our lovely Maytag blue cheese that we used for the salad dressing.  I'm looking forward to our late-night snack already!

Happy eating.

Coconut and Cheese Dessert

I threw together a quick dessert the other day with things from my pantry because I was in the mood to experiment.  It actually turned out well, so I figured I would share.

I made a syrup by simmering equal parts water and sugar, and added an equal part shredded coconut.  I poured about a centimeter of that into two ramekins and let it set in the freezer for a while for the syrup to harden a little and the ramekins to get very cold.  In the meantime, I mixed a couple of tablespoons of cream cheese with a tiny bit of powdered sugar, about a tablespoon of coconut milk, and the seeds of half a vanilla bean.  Separately, I ground up some leftover sugar cookies and stirred in some melted butter.

After the ramekins had been in the freezer for a little while, I pulled them out and spread the cream cheese mixture carefully over the firmed syrup.  Then I topped that with the cookie-crumb crust, and put the ramekins in the fridge to set for a couple of hours.  When Dan got home, we had dinner, and then I pulled out the little coconut-cheese ramekins, turned them out onto plates, and they didn't come out too bad.  I was hoping the syrup would harden a little more, more like coconut toffee which is made similarly, so that it would make a bit of a crust on top of the cheesecake-like layer, but instead some of it thickened while some of it stayed syrupy.  But, that worked out just fine.  I also toasted some coconut to add at the end.

I think my made-up dessert counts as a success.  It was really creamy and sweet, and the hint of the fresh vanilla bean added a nice subtle taste in the background.  I'm not very into sweets, but once in a while I do like something like this, where I can enjoy cheese for dessert.  Perhaps I'll try something like this with a citrusy spin.

Happy eating!

Carrot-Ginger Soup

I have been feeling run-down and generally icky the last couple of days, and despite the very hot weekend we've had, I just needed some soup.  Luckily, soup is one of those things that can be very simple to make, so even when I am sick, I can whip some up.

Carrot and ginger are natural together in soup, and also can be made with ingredients that are staples, at least at my house.  I keep a big knob of ginger in the freezer at all times, because it is something that I don't use all the time, but when I want it, I want it.  It keeps great in the freezer and can be grated frozen, so I just grate what I want and stick it back in the freezer.  Other than carrots and ginger, I use onions (white, green, combo, whatever) and veggie stock or water and bouillion.  Then it's really just a bunch of seasonings.  For carrot soup, I like cardamom, garlic, fennel, clove, and maybe a little chile pepper or curry powder. 

I cook my carrot soup much like my mushroom soup, except the carrots don't get cooked in butter for a long time; just simmered in the veggie broth until soft.  Then everything gets blended up until creamy smooth.  At the end I sometimes need to adjust the thickness by adding more water, and of course season to taste.  I like to serve it with a little yogurt on top and some chopped green onions or chives for garnish. 

Carrot soup can be served chilled or hot.  Because I was feeling sick, I had a bowl of it hot, but Dan had been working outside in the sun, so he got a chilled bowl.  Tasty and refreshing, with just the faintest kick from the fresh ginger.  Very nomnomnom.

Happy eating!

Food Is Love, Love Is Food

When I met my now-husband it became clear early-on in our friendship, before we were even dating, that we had had two very different upbringings.  One difference is how we think of and interact with food.  In my family, it always seems that whenever we are together, the whole focus is on the food.  We've always been like that.  We plan a gathering or meal and plan the food.  Then we talk about the food that we are going to be having.  We prep and plan and shop for the food, then we cook the food (with as much flourish as possible), we eat the food, talk about it, and then talk about what we will eat next time. We don't just eat food, we really get into it, discuss it, almost worship it. 

Thanksgiving 2006

Besides food being enjoyable to eat, for us it's also always been an occassion.  Since a young age my sisters and I knew how to order at nicer restaurants... and what to order, too.  (Alaskan King Crab Legs and Baked Brie for my 10-year-old self was a fave.  ooolala.)  We simply don't have any sort of family get-together without whipping out some fabulous new dish.  We have gone wine-tasting as a family more than once.  Food-related items have taken up a large percentage of Christmas gifts over the years.

We always hang out in the kitchen
Christmas 2006

Why?  Are we snobby foodies?  Are we trying to outdo Giada DeLaurentis with our faboo creatons?  Hardly.  I know that each and every member of my family can whip up a gourmet meal, but they are also fine eating a cheese sandwich and some chips.  I don't think it's just about liking food, either.  We all like food, right?  Dan's family likes food a lot, but they don't treat it the way the Grunds do... it doesn't become a huge event in itself. 

The spread at Dan's and my casual
wedding reception, August 2007

I think it's more about the way we feel about each other.  The older I get the more I realize how great our family's bond is.  Even now, when we are all spread across the country and don't see each other nearly as often as we'd like, I still feel very close ties to my family.  And the thing I miss most is sitting down to a tableful of food with each other and feasting.  Food is one way we communicate with each other.  I cook for people to show I care about them.  I want to make something they will love and that will make them happy.  I try new things and add special touches because I want it to be special for them.  When I lived on my own and had no one to cook for, I wasn't cooking much of anything interesting at all.  I had a few standbys that I cooked repeatedly.  Now that I am married and we have friends coming over once in a while, I make a point of making dishes I prepare for others a little more special.  Even if it's not the most exciting dish, it still comes from the heart.  Food really can be a language.

Thanksgiving Dinner 2007

This is one aspect of our family, that we enjoy celebrating and spending quality time by cooking and sharing fabulous food.  I still treat food that way even if I'm nowhere near my family.  Dan didn't really get the way I felt about serving food at first, but I think he's starting to understand that food for me is communication.  Cooking something special for the people I love, or sharing quality time over a great meal out, that is love to me.

The Grund Girls feasting at 9th Door,
Spring 2009

 

Food is love, and love is food.

And, seriously, people... HAPPY eating!

Tex-Mex Fiesta

It's hatch chile season here in Colorado, and we ended up with a big pile of them.  With too many for us to use up in the near future, I roasted and froze several, so we can have fresh-roasted chiles anytime we want.  I kept a few out of the freezer to use for dinnner tonite.  I had a few jalapenos in the pantry, too, so I roasted those as well.  The kitchen has smelled like roasted peppers for two days!

Rio Zape Bean-and-Rice Cakes
with Roasted Jalapeno Cream Sauce

The jalapenos got made into a roasted jalapeno cream sauce to go over some Rio Zape bean and rice cakes that I made for dinner yesterday.  I was excited to finally get to use my Rancho Gordo beans, and the Rio Zape didn't disappoint.  I thought they went really well in the bean and rice cakes.  I guess my husband and guests liked the cakes too, because after making 14, I only have 2 left.

This evening for dinner I continued the Tex-Mex theme and made a few of my roasted hatch chiles into rellenos.  I have never used hatch chiles for rellenos before, and it turned out to be quite a chore.  Unlike peppers I have used in the past, the hatch chiles I had really started to fall apart after roasting, and I had to be very careful whenever I handled them to make sure they retained their shape.  I stuffed each one with a large wedge of queso enchilado, and made a very thick batter to coat the stuffed peppers.  I usually don't make a batter quite as thick as this one, but since the chiles were so fragile, I wanted to make sure I had a thick batter to coat the whole thing so that the cheese wouldn't fall out into the hot oil.

It's key to have very hot oil to fry rellenos so that the batter seals up quickly to keep the cheese in, and also for the rellenos cook quickly so that they don't absorb too much oil.  Despite the difference from the batter I would normally use and the delicate chiles, the rellenos came out great, golden brown and of course cheesy. 

To go with the rellenos I made a Vaquero bean and avocado soup.  The Vaquero are yet another fabulous bean from Rancho Gordo, with a beautiful black and white mottled skin.  I made a tomatoey broth with onions, garlic, and freshly-toasted cumin.  The beans retained most of their interesting coloring and tasted great in the broth.  I poured the soup over small cubes of avocado and garnished it with fresh cilantro.  I wish I had a picture for you, but we ate it all up before I could grab the camera! 

The Rio Zape bean and rice cakes, roasted jalapeno cream sauce, Vaquero bean and avocado soup, and chile rellenos all got two thumbs up from the hubbie.  Now, I think I need to rest...

Happy eating!

Paprikash

When I moved to Colorado, I had to rebuild my list of go-to stores for my standard vegetarian items.  I used to buy a chicken substitute called FriChik at my local health food store in Kalamazoo, but I couldn't find it anywhere near my new home.  And by "anywhere near," I mean within a two-hour radius.  Luckily, I was finally able to find an online retailer that could ship some to me.  I just got my delivery last week, and one thing I wanted to do with my FriChik was make paprikash.

Paprikash is a traditional Hungarian chicken dish.  The chicken is stewed in a sauce made with lots of Hungarian paprika.  There are many variations of the dish, but the versions that Americans are most familiar with are usually made with tomatoes and sour cream. 

There are numerous vegetarian chicken substitutes, and I have a few that I use regularly.  Each has its own pros and cons, and is good for some things and not others.  For instance, Morningstar Farms Chik'n Strips are great for stir-frying, but not for very saucy dishes, as they soak up liquids and can become soggy.  I like using FriChik for saucy dishes because it holds up really well to liquids, but also because the taste works quite well with the paprikash sauce.

I make my paprikash with chopped onions and bell peppers sauteed in oil and butter, lots of paprika, a little bit of some type of chile pepper (crushed red pepper, ground ancho, or something else), garlic, salt and pepper, some type of tomatoes, and veggie stock or water.  I use canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, or tomato paste depending on what I have in the house.  After the sauce has simmered a little I add several pieces of FriChik and simmer some more.  Then at the very end I mix together sour cream, milk, flour and a little of the paprikash sauce, stir it into the pot, and let it come back up to a gentle simmer briefly just to thicken the sauce a bit.  One bonus of using vegetarian meat substitutes is that I can make a dish like this, which usually will have to cook on the stove for an hour or more, in only about 20 minutes, since the veggie meat is already cooked.  Paprikash is traditionally served with spaetlze-style dumplings, but I serve mine over egg noodles, which is also very good.

Dan had never had paprikash or FriChik before, and he gave both two thumbs up.  If you like paprika, paprikash is a very simple-to-make and satisfying dish.  And, luckily for me and other veggies out there, we do have some good chicken-substitute options, so that we can enjoy this type of dish, too.

Happy eating!

Spice Goddess Feast: Golden Eggplant with Sweet-Pea Sauce, and Tomato-Mango Salad

This weekend my sister Shannon, a devoted reader of Lairdriin's Food Blog (teehee!), came to visit me.  I put her to work helping me fix some delicious food for lunch on Sunday (as she said, she was my "sous chef").  I have been watching the new Cooking Channel show 'Spice Goddess' regularly, and there were a couple of recipes from that show that I wanted to try out. 

The Golden Eggplant is made similarly to frying eggplant parmesan.  The eggplant batter uses a mix of wheat and chickpea flours, and a little garam masala.  The eggplant came out golden-brown and with a very nice texture from the chickpea flour.  We all thought it was great, but I think it would also be good with even more garam masala.  The sweet-pea puree was very simple, just blanched peas, yogurt, water, and seasonings, blended in the blender.  A squeeze of lemon really went well over the eggplant and pea puree.

On the side, we had tomato-mango salad.  Instead of red onions, as it was made on the show, I made the salad with green onions.  It also includes fresh mint and cilantro, and a dressing of mango juice, lemon juice, olive oil, and spices.  Despite having a not-quite-ripe mango, I thought the salad was very good.  I wish I didn't have to limit my potassium intake (tomatoes have a ton of it), or I would have had more!

I think next time I make the pea puree I will add more yogurt than I used this time, and perhaps add lemon juice directly to the puree in addition to the lemon wedge served with it.  Overall, I'd definitely say these new recipes were a success.  I'll be making all of it again for sure.

Happy eating!

Beautiful Beans!

My Rancho Gordo beans have arrived.  They are beautiful!  They are almost too beautiful to eat... but not quite.  I'm definitely eating these babies! 

The types of beans for sale on the RG website varies based on the season and what is currently fresh and available.  The types of beans I got this time are (in the pic, clockwise from top right): Snowcaps, Ojo de Cabra ("Eye of the Goat"), Vaquero, Rio Zape, Scarlet Runner, and Yellow Eye.  I have a few other things planned for meals for the next couple of days, but I will probably be cooking these lovely beans up by the end of the week.  Yum!

Happy eating!

No More Bland Veggies!

This morning I decided to use the peaches we got when we went grocery shopping the other day to make some spiced peach crepes.  As I sliced my peaches in half, I realized the flesh was a pale, nearly off-white color, not a pretty yellow-orange.  I had to taste-test one, and indeed, they were bland and flavorless, despite being just overripe.  What a shame!  They looked beautiful and the skin was so fragrant at the store, I was sure we picked some good ones.  How awful that it can be so difficult these days to find produce that actually tastes good, or even taste the way it should. 

The dilution of our produce because of trends in food production that focus more on making fruit more hearty to withstand long travels across the country, and ensure that each veggie or fruit is an exact copy of its neighbor,  instead of caring about the taste quality, is becoming too much to take.  Even at the markets that seem to focus on local, organic, and seasonal produce, it is getting harder and harder to find truly quality items.  When was the last time you ate a grocery store tomato that really tasted strongly of tomato; bright, acidic, juicy, fresh?  For me, it's been at least a couple of years. 

I guess all we can do, if we aren't willing to make all our backyards into vegetable gardens, is insist to our grocers that they pay attention to what they are offering us, and sincerely attempt to offer good produce from local companies that reliably produce high-quality fruits and veggies.  We should focus on taste, and not just buy a tomato because it is perfectly round.  We would all also have to be willing to spend at least a little more for our veggies and fruits.  Perhaps if most consumers actually cared about getting the best-tasting food, perhaps not even buying anything less than that, our shopping patterns may begin to inspire grocers to be more picky about the food they carry.  It would take a lot of changes, but maybe, who knows, it might make a difference.

For me, I'm changing my buying behavior partially to help change the system, but also because I am just sick of spending my money on things that aren't even close to good enough.  I still cooked those peaches.  I made a lovely sauce out of coconut and ginger with cardamom, cinnamon, and a few other spices, which I simmered the peaches in.  The crepes were tasty, sweet and full of flavor from the spices.  The one flavor that was missing, however, was peach.  Despite each crepe being piled with slices of fresh, just-sliced, just-cooked peaches, the whole thing barely tasted of peach at all.  There was just no flavor in them whatsoever. 

I'm telling you, it is too much to take.  I don't want to forget what a good peach tastes like!  Watch out, grocery stores, I'm getting real picky about my produce real fast.

Coconut-Lime Smoothie

I haven't made a lot of smoothies in my life, but the other day, when I threw together a pineapple smoothie and it was so darn tasty (not to mention refreshing in the friggin' Colorado summer heat), I wondered why I don't make them more often. 

This evening I made a blenderful of coconut-lime smoothies for Dan and me.  Tasty!

Laurie's Coconut-Lime Smoothies

Put in blender:
6-8 ice cubes
1 can (13.5 oz) coconut cream
1/2 can undiluted frozen limeade concentrate
1 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup water
2 tsp powdered sugar
1 tbsp lime juice

Blend at high speed on blender until fully mixed and a little frothy.


Happy eating!