Sicky Yuck Yuck

The past few days have included a lovely assortment of cold and sinus symptoms, cramps/PMS, and pink eye. Lovely.

And I had to get pink eye the week I had 3 separate talks planned for parents/children. The group on Monday night agreed to risk it, but the ECFE groups wisely rescheduled. Smart move since by the time I woke up this morning my eye was swollen shut and I looked REALLY scary.

Luckily, I don't have a ton of other work planned this week and have plenty of sick time. But really, I have a tough time staying home. I either need to be
A: Busy with a "to do" list in hand, cooking dinner, and doing laundry while fielding questions from work OR
B: Sprawled out on the couch with a rootbeer and popcorn and hours of Netfix

There is no in between.

So when I'm sick I vacillate between sleeping/relaxing and attempting to accomplish any number of tasks- and really, I suck at both of these when I'm sick.

Except maybe tonight's dinner.

These are Mary Frances' Light and Fluffy Gluten Free Biscuits with some tempeh sausage, kale, and white bean gravy. I didn't write down measurements or ingredients for any of this, but it was darn good. I did, much to Mike's delight, accidentally add too much salt to the gravy. It was way too much for me and I love salt. But I think I can just thin out the leftover gravy to remedy the situation.

Now I'm off to do another turmeric and fennel eye compress. Hopefully, I'll wake up tomorrow miraculously cured.

I love Spring!

Today I worked on 3 recipes for a Spring cooking class that's coming up.


Lemon-Butter Pasta with Fiddlehead Ferns

1/4 lb. Fiddlehead ferns, cleaned and trimmed
6 ramps, chopped (green leaves and all)
12 oz. package pasta
2 Tbsp. Earth Balance
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp agave nectar
1/4 cup pinenuts

Start a pot of water boiling- this will be your water for blanching the fiddleheads and also cooking the pasta. When boiling, drop in your prepped fiddleheads and cook for 2 minutes. Then fish out your ferns and run cold water over them to stop the cooking. Return water to a boil and cook your pasta according to package directions. When pasta is done and drained, heat Earth Balance in a large skillet. Add the ramps and cook for about 2 minutes. Then add lemon juice, salt, agave nectar, and ferns. Taste sauce and adjust to your liking- it should taste stronger than you'd want. Add the pasta and toss to coat, removing pan from heat. In a separate dry skillet, toast the pinenuts until lightly brown. Sprinkle over the pasta and serve! This one is also good cold.

Creamy Sun-dried Tomato and Ramp Spread

4 sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil)
1/2 cup very hot or boiling water
5 ramps
1/2 cup vegan cream cheese
1/4 cup veganaise

Put the tomatoes in a bowl and cover with the hot water. Soak for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, chop the white portion of the ramps and reserve the leaves. Combine white parts of ramps, tomatoes (reserve the soaking liquid), cream cheese, and veganaise in a small food processor and whiz around until mostly smooth. If texture is too thick, just add a bit of the tomato soaking water and process again. Transfer spread to a serving bowl. Slice about 6 of the ramp leaves very thinly and stir these into the spread. This is great on a baguette, but would also be good thinned out and used as a veggie dip. Want a stronger ramp flavor? Let this spread sit in the fridge for a few hours and you'll be impressed.




Last I made a Spring Sushi. I'm not going to type up a recipe for this one because I'm feeling tired and any old sushi rice recipe will work. These are filled with asparagus, ramps, and red pepper. Some are smeared with wasabi mayo inside, too. Next time I'll add thinly sliced radishes, too. We're all getting these packed in our lunches tomorrow!

After this cooking extravaganza, I worked in the garden for about 3 hours. I did a lot of seed planting, transplanting, and clearing out of old plants. Then I ran soaker hoses throughout the whole garden so that I'll never have to stand there with a hose to water the garden. It works beautifully! I used 3-50 ft. hoses connected together and was able to reach each garden bed and the berry patch out back. I'll post pictures later.

And what does a girl do after cooking all afternoon and gardening all evening? She spends $45 ordering Pizza Luce for the family. How is it that 2 eight-year-olds can eat an entire 16" pizza themselves? And what am I going to do when they are teenagers?

For Nonnie

The Origins of my Snobbery

I think my mother contributed greatly to my food snobbery, though she will undoubtedly deny it. She never dined on fingerling potatoes with truffle oil or arugula with balsamic vinegar when I was growing up, but she taught me to appreciate the subtleties of flavor and quality. According to my mother, for example, a Dr. Pepper is not always a Dr. Pepper. Go into any restaurant, order a Dr. Pepper, and you will receive a different bubbly beverage (assuming of course, that they offer this variety of soda. If they don’t, well, my mother would simply leave the restaurant as quickly as she came in. The worst possible situation would be to offer Mr. Pibb as a substitute. That is simply unacceptable.).

The ratio of carbonated water to syrup can determine the merit of an entire restaurant. Too much water and your soda is bland and over-carbonated. Too much syrup and the soda is flat and sickly sweet. The perfect ratio was something we continually sought- that perfect burn at the back of the throat and unmistakable Dr. Pepper flavor.

While a truly delicious Dr. Pepper from a fountain is as elusive as a morel hidden amongst the leaves, a bottled Dr. Pepper is a different story. I learned from my mother at a very young age that sodas in glass bottles are always superior to those in cans, plastic, or from a fountain. Period. This early lesson taught me that while flavor and texture are important qualities for food and drink, one must also consider the vehicle and quality of the product. Glass bottled sodas connote past times, classics, purity, and finite quantities. When one has a 8 ounce bottle of soda, each drop is savored. There are no free refills on glass bottles. Any restaurant in its right mind will be charging you full price for each bottle you down- so sipping and appreciating tends to take precedence over guzzling one down.

A glass bottle of soda points to a time when carbonated drinks were a real treat- not the primary source of fluids in one’s day. The way Americans pound down fizzy drinks like they are water makes me wonder how we manage to function at all with that much high fructose corn syrup pulsing through our collective veins. Sometimes I wish I was around when you had to go to a soda fountain shop to get a fizzy drink and there was no such thing as a Super Big Gulp.

Of course, my mother and I both favor water now instead of soda. And I wouldn’t drink more than a sip of a Dr. Pepper, and that only for nostalgic reasons. But the lesson still holds- follow your tastebuds and accept nothing but the best. And it always tastes better out of glass. And it's partially my mom's fault that I'm a food snob.

Scattergories Snacks

Last night we hosted a game night in honor of one of our most favorite work friends- She's moving away to Fargo and will be dearly missed around the co-op and at our game nights. I mean, sometimes the only people who show up at our game nights are her and Mike's best friend!

Unfortunately, she was very ill yesterday and couldn't come to the party...so we mourned the loss of our Sophia over a Mediterranean inspired spread:
Garlicky hummus with carrrot sticks, spicy Tunisian olive mix, green olives with herbes de Provence, and Deglet dates.
Stuffed grape leaves (Dolmades) with lots of extra dill ad lemon, just the way I like them.

And peanut butter chocolate cookies...I know...not fitting with the Mediterranean theme. I tried, though.

I made Pistachio Rosewater Cookies from VCon, but adapted them to be gluten free, oily, sugary, masses. I must have measured something wrong, because my (so far) fool proof method of GF cookie making has failed me. They are hard as solid burnt sugar on the bottom and leave behind oil stains on anything they touch. The flavor is great, though. And the dog knocked them off the counter this morning and ate through the plastic bag to get to about 3 of them. So they can't be that bad, right?

Sprung

Spring has officially sprung when we get ramps, fresh peas, and sorrel in at the co-op. I really wanted to make a side dish that combined all three of these lovely spring vegetables- so here's my creation:

Spring Sorrel and Peas

1 Tbsp Earth Balance
6 ramps, chopped (green portion discarded)
1/2 cup fresh English peas, shelled
1 bunch sorrel (about 2-3 cups)
1 tsp. fresh thyme leaves
black pepper
sea salt
1 tsp. Veganaise (optional)

Heat the Earth Balance over medium heat in a small saute pan. Add the ramps and the English peas and cook for about 3 minutes. Then add the sorrel and thyme and cook another 3 minutes, or until sorrel has wilted. Finish with several grinds of black pepper and salt to taste. If the sorrel is too lemony-tart for your taste, try stirring in a tsp. of Veganaise. The creamy texture works well with the peas and cuts some of the tartness of the sorrel.



The surprise standout of the meal, however, was not the sorrel and peas (Duh, Liz, these kids are 8 years old).

But it wasn't the pasta and "meat" balls (made from leftover blackeyed peas and rice) either. It was the roasted green beans and carrots! We all loved these and were so sad when we couldn't have seconds...So I suggest making a lot.

Roasted Green Beans and Carrots

About a pound of green beans, trimmed and cut in half
2 carrots
2 Tbsp. olive oil
coarse sea salt
black pepper
a touch of fennel seed, crushed (optional)
1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar

Heat the oven to 400F (perhaps for "meat" balls, too?). Cut carrots crosswise into 3 sections, then thinly slice them lengthwise. Toss the carrots and green beans with the olive oil in a cast iron skillet or other oven-safe dish. Sprinkle with sea salt, black pepper, and just a pinch of crushed fennel seed. Roast for about 5 minutes- or until carrots and green pepper are just tender. Finish with balsamic vinegar and toss to coat. Serve immediately.

Lemon Rosemary Cornmeal Cookies

I know that this flavor combination has been done before for cookies...but I've never tried any myself and I don't recall seeing a gluten-free recipe. So, here's my version of a savory cornmeal cookie. They're soft and a little sweet/a little salty/ a little sour. The crunch of the marcona almonds is a nice surprise, I think.
Lemon Rosemary Cornmeal Cookies
makes 10 cookies

(If you're scared of savory cookies, just call them soft crackers or biscuits)

Dry Ingredients:
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. potato or tapioca starch
1 tsp. xanthan gum
1/4 cup finely chopped roasted marcona almonds
1 tsp finely minced fresh rosemary

Wet Ingredients:
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp. lemon juice

Topping:
Additional fresh rosemary
Coarsely ground sea salt

Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk together dry ingredients in a mixing bowl until no lumps remain. In a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients. Stir wet ingredients into the dry until thoroughly combined. Take a heaping tablespoon of cookie dough in your palm and roll it into a ball. Place it on the baking sheet and lightly press it to flatten a bit (it should remain fairly fat). Sprinkle cookies with sea salt and press in small rosemary leaves if desired. Bake for 10 minutes and cool before enjoying.

Black Eyed Peas

This weekend was another busy weekend, so I wasn't cooking much at home. We subsisted on giant salads eaten out of mixing bowls and way too much ice cream.

I did have tons of fun cooking tortillas, salsa, and tamales at my Tex-Mex class, though! Everyone was really surprised how easy it can be to make tamales. Hopefully they'll give them a try on their own now...

Tonight I pressure cooked some black eyed peas and brown rice and made ED& BV's Blackened Tofu. Our salad was like coleslaw, but with broccoli added. It was a gorgeous day today, so we ate outside on the deck.

Here's the recipe for the Black-Eyed Peas and Brown Rice:
(This makes enough for about 8 servings)

3 cups brown rice
2 cups dry black eyed peas
3 smashed garlic cloves
1 onion, thickly sliced
2 vegetable bouillon cubes
3 Tbsp. tamari
about 16 drops of liquid smoke
1 tsp. paprika
1.5 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cumin
8 cups water

Combine everything in a pressure cooker over high heat. Bring up to pressure and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool slowly. Serve with tons of hot sauce for the adults.