A few small but tasty discoveries

First - waffles taste wonderful and are softer if you add cascadian farms organic frozen blueberries that have been heated and cooled. (or fresh I am sure if you are so lucky) Nice to have the little blueberries embedded right in the whole wheat waffle (theirs are tiny, like the size of capers). Also, a new gravy discovery: I had frozen a box of the organic butternut soup and discovered the pulp had sunk to the bottom when it thawed. I mixed the pulp with raw cashews, a little water, and blended it up, and then added a little tamari sauce and blended a bit longer. Exceptional! going to put it on steamed red potatoes and carrots (if I don't nibble it all first ;-) . Try it! (made while watching a very good documentary on woodstock - what an event - mind blowing in many ways, espec. strong outspoken anti-war theme that has great meaning today.)

Easter Bun

An organic vanilla Easter Bunny cake with meyer lemon zest, coconut pudding filling ( that also made a great tail), and frosting with big shreds of coconut. The purple flowers are off the hong kong orchid tree and its the first time I have ever picked them and was delighted they are such an interesting flower up close. Hoping the sun will come out (its a little rain cloudy) for a walk among butterflies down at the shoreline ... the yellow sulphurs show up down there en masse this time of year for some reason ...

BTW - Since the bunny cake recipe / construction has been kept something of a family secret, I wondered why ... and think I may possibly have figured it out. In order to shape his shoulders and get his head to be the right porportion, it requires some carving down ... which leaves left overs! So maybe the master of the bunny cake has been secretly enjoying these samples all of these years and not telling anyone? Hmmmm ?? Possibly .... ;-)

And since we are not all together for Easter, here is what each daughter was sent to enjoy today ... note the serendipity of the individual color themes! Each of the cotton 'eggs' packed inside is what I used to get for Easter and something you each have mentioned missing not getting anymore. When I told this to my mom, she laughed and said I used to 'complain' about getting them for Easter! and now you all want them ... funny how things change yet somehow stay the same, over the generations. Hope you noted that we are new/renewed members of NRCD and Greenpeace, and enjoy the music ... and chocolate (which I think is vegan, as are the jellies). And take your vitamins!
Happy Spring 2007!

Sometimes a centerpiece makes the meal

This is a clear glass hurricane lamp that usually sits here with a candle and has become a beautiful way to put the angel trumpet flowers in water and - at night - to light the candle inside so it glows up through the flowers ... they are night scented so best in the evening ... very beautiful in person ... makes for heady dreams too ...

A Stab at a Scrambler sans package

Now that Fantastic Foods seems to have abandoned my staple, Tofu Scrambler, I am trying to find an alternative - ie a home made recipe - how daring !! I did use the tumeric AQ suggested, also added in garlic powder, fresh parsley / red onion / sweet peppers and it was tasty .. but still not the same. Want to figure out those mysterious flavors that made the packaged one so delicions. Suggestions?



The pictures to left and above are on the newly tiled back deck, and below is the new front deck that is reached by the kitchen door (and is now how we get in the house for the carved Bali doors too). That is a home grown papaya for the breakfast above, with starfruit, from the trees in the picture below, but the blueberries come from Chile (and are amazingly good somehow). Tomatoes are wild harvested from a bush up in the new upper garden - volunteer tastiness!



Speaking of tastiness, Julies Organics makes a light, low carb fudgecicle that I have discovered becomes even more delicious when fresh bluerries and almonds are pressed into one side of a popcicle and enjoyed with the chocolate base. Try it! They don't seem to freeze up real hard so its easy to press things into them. Or of course, some people have their own ice cream makers ...

Chickpea soup with rice is nice

A cheap, easy, yummy, balanced meal in a soup pot.

1 large onion, chopped
1 c celery, sliced thin
1 c carrots, sliced into thin half moons
1 c mushrooms, you guessed it, sliced thin
1/2 head garlic, peeled and diced
3 c water
3 c broth (or water with bullion)
3 c cooked brown rice
4 c cooked chickpeas
2 T braggs
2 T nutritional yeast
1/4 t poultry seasoning
1/4 c fresh parsley, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Sautee onion until soft. Add carrots, celery, mushrooms, and garlic. Sautee for five minutes. Add water and broth. Simmer until veggies are soft. Add braggs, nutritional yeast, and seasonings. Add chickpeas, bring back to a boil. Add rice, cook until heated through.

Waffles Update

We have continued to play around with the Definitive Waffle Recipe, which may mean that it wasn't so definitive after all.

Here are our discoveries so far:
1) The whole tablespoon of baking powder may be too much, I reduced it to 2 t. Too much baking powder can leave a metallic taste.

2) 100% whole wheat flour can be used. It works fine, but is of course slightly less fluffy than half white flour. Still good though.

3) Oat waffles, whoa! Half whole wheat flour, half oat flour makes a great, vary fluffy waffle with an interesting texture. It's easy to make oat flour just by blending oats in your blender.

Fancy-Pants Almond-Mocha Tofu Cheesecake

In one word: impressive. If this still isn't fancy-pants enough for you, try making an almond-graham crust by substituting almond meal for 1/2 c of the graham cracker crumbs in the original graham cracker crust recipe, then decorate the cheesecake with sliced almonds.

1 block firm tofu (not silken)
2/3 c sugar
1/2 c oil (canola or safflower is good)
1/3 c strongly brewed coffee
1 t vanilla
1/3 t almond extract
pinch salt
1 c dark chocolate chips

Press as much water out of the tofu as you can by squeezing it relentlessly between your hands or pressing under something heavy. Blend everything but the chocolate until creamy and smooth (this may be easier in two smaller batches). Melt chocolate on the stove, being careful not to let it burn. Stir chocolate into tofu mixture, combining thoroughly. Pour into a graham cracker crust. Bake at 300F for 55 minutes.

Lemon Tofu Cheesecake

Super-duper lemony good!

Make Tofu Cheesecake, but add an extra 1/4 c sugar, and increase lemon juice to 1/3 c. This is good with kiwi slices on top.

Tofu Cheesecake!

What can I say? It's cheesecake! It's tofu! Fantastico!

1 block (3 cups) firm tofu (not the silken kind)
1/4 c lemon juice
1/2 c oil (canola or safflower is good)
1 c sugar
1 t vanilla
1/8 t almond extract
pinch salt

Press as much water out of the tofu as you can by squeezing it mercilessly between your hands or pressing under something heavy. Blend everything until creamy, with no lumps left at all. I find that blending it in two batches is much easier in my blender.

Pour into a graham cracker crust (see below) and bake at 325F for 50 minutes. Refrigerate for at least six hours before eating (I know, it's torture, but the cheesecake really needs a chance to set).

Graham Cracker Crust:
1 1/2 c graham cracker crumbs (about 22 graham crackers, chopped in blender or crushed in a plastic bag)
1/4 c margarine, melted

Combine ingredients and press into a 9" glass pie dish. Could it be any more simple? Or delicious? No!

Tomato soup with ginger zest

It is February/March soup time in Hawaii. We are having cool, overcast and rainy weather, something like California in late April, which is great for soups to warm the tummy. This made a fantastic hot delight in a single sauce pan: saute red onion and sliced, peeled, chopped fresh ginger in a little olive oil. Add in the sliced and chopped end stump - not head - of a nice organic head of brocolli. While that simmers, slice up a long narrow japanese egglant, salt it and let it release its tanic acid in a plastic colander. Then wash off salt and add to pot. While that begins cooking, cut the broccoli head into individual small flowerettes and then add that. Let it cook until onions get a little carmely and so do the flowerettes. Then add in tomato soup (I watch for the boxed kind to go on sale to get organic at a better price than chem-laden campbells types) and cook on low heat together until soup forms a little bit of a skin. While that is all simmering, heat up some left over brown rice and slice up and toast some multi grain whole wheat bread. Add the rice to the soup as it is served and mix well. Put a non-trans fat spread on the toast. Serve in bowl on plate with toast tucked beside it. Great! It is the ginger that takes it over the top - especially when it sinks to the bottom of the bowl and is a surprise at the end.

PS - adding in tofu cubes that soak up all the yummy flavors adds a nice dimension to this - tried it in the left overs and should have done it from the start ..

Check out the updated Costa Rica recipe cards below- I got the backside instructions posted.

Cream of Celeriac Soup

4 peeled celeriacs
2 small potatoes.
2c soy milk
.25 c butterlike substance
.5 t soup bullion concentrate
.5 medium onion
.5 head garlic
1T olive oil

Boil a pot of water, then put in 3 celeriacs and the potatoes. When forkable, remove and mix with milk, butter, and bullion in a blender.

Meanwhile, sauté onion and garlic in a little oil in a big pot. Add the above mixture, then thin or season as desired. Add the remaining celeriac, diced. Cook for a minute or an hour.

Glazed celery garnish:
2 stalks chopped celery
1c water
2 T butter substitute
1-2 T honey or raw sugar
Sauté for 10-15 minutes.

Serve with these scones or other soup bread.

Costa Rica recipe cards ...

These cards are adorable - and there are recipes on the reverse that I will add in here soon. (I am framing the three for my kitchen ... but wanted to scan them for the blog before they go under glass.)

Platanos in Gloria

2 big ripe plantains
2 cinnamon sticks
1 cup of sugar
1-1/2 cups of water
vegetable oil as needed

Peel the plantains and cut them into three pieces, then cut again lengthwise into two or three slices. Bring the water, sugar and cinnamon to boil, then lower the heat and simmer until the mixture becomes a syrup. In a separate pan, fry the plantains in a little oil until soft; remove them and daub away the oil on a paper towel. Now place the plantains in the simmering syrup, letting them absorb the candied sauce.
Serve this heavely dessert to friends!

{The best version I had were regular bananas and sliced in rounds, not lengthwise and the cinnamon was great - this is a breakfast treat too)

Tortillas Caliente !! Si Si !!!

Tortillas

2 C of flour
1 cup of water
2 pieces of plastic (from supermarket bags)
cut into 7 in. diameter circles

Please the flour in a large bowl. Add the water gradually and stop adding when the dough doesn't stick to your hands. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. Place a small portion of the dough in the center of the plastic circle and start shaping it by simultaneously pressing the dough (gently!) and rotating the plastic circle.

Heat a skillet on the stove. Remove the tortilla from the plastic and place it (same side up) on the skillet; cook it for 3 minutes. Flip it over and cook it for 3 more mintues. Flip the tortilla a third time; the tortilla will rise and cook on the inside. If it doesn't rise, try pressing on the edges with a napkin, so the center can get unstuck.

You can eat tortillas with fresh cheese, fried beans, or ... anything else that suits your fancy.

{Note - all of the tortillas I remember having in CR were corn tho ...}

Tofu Ceviche - Es Possible ? let's find out

Ceviche

1 pound of fresh white tofu
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
2 shots lime juice
1 shot ginger ale
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Chopped fresh corriander (to taste)

Cut the tofu into small pieces and place in a bowl. Add the onion, bell pepper, lime juice and seasonings. The lime juice 'cooks' the tofu but you need to stop the process adding ginger ale into the preparation. Mix gently and leave it for 1 hour in the refrigerator.

Serve cold with crackers. Some say mermaids can drive sailors to their doom, and so too can the craving for this cool and tangy ceviche.

{Obviously the original recipe says 'fish' everywhere I put tofu so let us know if this works with tofu)

Celeriac Red Beans and Rice with Celeriac Remoulade and Celeriac

I've started this tradition of making something new-to-me each Thursday for dinner. I've been getting tons of celeriac from my work. I'd never heard of the stuff before a couple weeks ago. I did some research and found that it's often used in rémoulade sauces, including Cajun remoulades. Here's my naïve interpretation:

Skin and boil two celeriacs until easily stabbed with a fork (like testing potatoes).

Soak and cook 2 cups (dry) red beans, dump the water and put them back in the pot. Mash about a quarter of them with a potato smasher, add half a celeriac (diced), kale, garlic and seasonings.

In a pan, heat 2 cups uncooked rice and a chopped onion with 1-2 T oil, coating thoroughly. Add broth and seasonings.

In a blender, mix
1 celeriac, boiled and chopped a bit
.5 c walnuts
.5 c Vegenaise
1 green onion
1 fistfull cilantro
.5 lemons' worth of juice
mustard, paprika, salt, pepper, and vinegar to taste
thin with water if desired.

Because two types of celeriac wasn't enough, I grated the remaining half-a-celeriac as a garnish. Serve with a chili-less cornbread for a purple-yellow-brown-green-white meal.

Reading Supplements

Here are the two best nutrition/diet food articles that I've run across in the past 6 months. They're both longish, but enlightening.

Nutrients and nutrition---science, politics and fads: Unhappy Meals by Michael Pollan.

Cow milk: The Milk Letter by Robert M. Kradjian.
(This article made my mom stop drinking cow milk. She's practically vegan now. Who would have thought that milk increases risk of lung cancer?)

Cornbread and Chili

This was eaten faster that a camera could snap a picture, so you'll have to use your imagination. I recently acquired a huge high-walled cast iron pan, big enough to fry up a birthday cake and still fit the lid on. It's from Australia and was made in the 17th century, more or less.

I wanted to make a surprise dinner for my love, one that would fully utilize the great pan's abilities. On a veggie recipe website that I can no longer find, it was revealed to me that one can:
1) Make chili in a cast-iron pan
2) Mix up some cornbread
3) Bake the cornbread on top of the chili, in the oven
My mind expanded, I immediately set forth to forge new chili and cornbread recipes worthy of this.

The chili was made by power-soaking 2 cups of mixed pinto, red, and kidney beans, then pressure-cooking them for 10 minutes. Power-soaking is what you do when you've forgotten to soak the beans for 8 hours. Bring beans to a boil at pressure, remove from heat, then ignore them for an hour or however much time you have left before they need to be food. Change their water, then pressure-cook 'em.

In a little oil, fry up
2 onions, diced large, then add...
2 cups of your favorite broth
a double espresso
about a cup of TVP
a can of tomato paste
a big can of whole tomatoes (fresh tomatoes are rare here, this time of year)
chili powder, pepper, cumin, oregano, and whatever else strikes your fancy
beans, as above
two Portabello mushies roasted in a dry skillet
a head of garlic, or two

My apologies to more authentic chili cooks. See, we live in a horrible deprived place where anything spicier than a bell pepper is dried, ground, and labeled only "chili" (or sometimes "chile").

Cornbread:
1 c soymilk
1 T apple cider vinegar
3 t egg replacer
.25 c water
.33 c butter substitute
.5 c whole wheat flour
1 c fine ground corn flour
.5 c coarse ground corn flour
.25 c brown sugar
1 T baking powder
.5 t salt
.5 t black pepper
1 can corn, or equivalent
1 can green chiles

Whisk milk and vinegar; whisk egg replacer and water; melt butter, mix everything together. Level chili, gently spread batter on top, bake at 350-375F for 15-25 minutes. This works because it's a thin layer of cornbread. If thick cornbread is more your thing, bake in an 8x8 pan.

Spectacular Fruit Salads in Costa Rica

After the butterfly training in the Central Valley and Caribbean side of the country, my trip took me over to the Pacific Coast where there were actually a few vegetarian/vegan restaurant options - even a Thai place with a good yellow curry and tofu! The fruit salads were the highlights though .. this one in the surfer community of Dominical was small diced mango, papaya, pineapple, avocado with rings of onions, sliced tomato, cucumber and a tangy dressing ... Further north, on the Pacific side of the Nicoya Penninsula, in another surfer community, Santa Theresa, my mountainside little BnB suggested a Rasta place on the beach for a vegetarian lunch - theirs was a big bowlful that included watermelon, kiwi, mango, papaya, pineapple and also had shredded coconut and some raisins. All to some godo reggae tunes, many in Espanol... These salads were quite the masterpieces!... Another great meal was a superb cold tomato/cucumber gazpacho in the bohemian young hippie town of Montezuma, served with a side of warm tortillas and avocado. Desert was a chocolate volcano cake - triangular slice with chocolate sauce for lava and vanilla ice cream for the puffs of smoke.

Rural life in a Costa Rica kitchen and restaurant

On the Butterfly Tour we were taken to the home of a family with 5 daughters - all involved in butterfly breeding. They prepared a traditional Costa Rican lunch for us. Rice, beans, and a stew with chayote squash that was excellent. Here they are in their kitchen - notice, it is NOT an electric or even gas stove ... it is wood burning. This family lives on the slopes of the Poas Volcano, just outside of San Jose in the Central Valley, overlooking rolling foothills of endless coffee plants.



We also were taken out to lunch on the Caribbean side of the intercontinental mountains, which is the wetter area with bananas, pineapple, papayas. These gentlemen provided the marimba accompaniment to our lunch and then we went on a nice, sunny, peaceful boat ride along the river and saw monkeys in the trees, giant HUGE iguanas, caiman (small aligators) and different birds. The food reflects a standard meal - staples are rice and beans and plaintains (yes, EVERY meal) and a micture of vegetables. Meat eaters also had chicken, beef or fish optionis at most meals. For someone who loves rice and beans, it was just too much repitition ... but mornings were best as the beans and rice were mixed in a refry with little red sweet peppers.

Mushrooms Mysteries

Who knew they could be so fascinating ?