Rhubarb Crumble

Before this crumble, I had never cooked with rhubarb, although I have ordered many a slice of strawberry-rhubarb pie. Rhubarb is in season on the island right now, so I ordered a couple of pounds and experimented.

Filling:
5 c rhubarb, diced
1 c cane sugar
1 c water
2 T cornstarch
2 T orange juice
1 t vanilla

Crust:
3/4 c flour
3/4 c oats
1/2 c brown sugar
1/4 c margarine, melted
1/4 t salt
1 t cinnamon
pinch of cloves

Preheat oven to 350F.
Arrange rhubarb in a 9" pie plate.
Combine cane sugar and cornstarch in a sauce pan, whisk in water and orange juice. Heat, stirring frequently, until mixture reaches a boil.
Remove from heat and add vanilla.
Pour sauce over rhubarb.

For the crust:
Mix margarine and brown sugar together, combine with remaining crust ingredients. The crust mixture should end up with an even, coarse texture (don't let any of those sneaky little sugar lumps stick around).
Spread crust evenly over rhubarb.

Bake for 50 minutes, or until rhubarb is soft.

Homemade Enchiladas

Intense and delicious!
You will need:

1 dozen corn tortillas
5-6 dried Pasilla Chilies also called Anchos
(often in packaged Mexican food section)
6+cloves of good garlic
A yellow onion
Small can of tomato paste
Spinach leaves, no stems, produce bag full
Mushrooms, at least half a pound
Cream Cheese (Tofutti)
Almonds or pecans
Small bunch of cilantro
Olive oil
Canola oil
Salt
(optional, grated Jack soy-cheese)
Wear an apron!

Begin by slicing open the ancho chilies and removing the seeds and stems (seeds seem to scrape off best with a thumbnail despite trying various tools). Don’t touch your eyes or lips with hands with chilies on them. Put the anchos in a sauce pan with water to cover them, add salt, and simmer on low heat for 20-30 minutes. While they simmer, chop 3 big cloves of garlic and ¼ of an onion and put them in a blender.

Wash and de-stem spinach, dice 3 more garlic cloves and rest of onion. In olive oil in a sauté or sauce pan, sauté the onion and garlic until nearly golden and add spinach and mushrooms and cook until wilted and tender. Set aside spinach. (Grate cheese if using Jack). Set up a saute pan with shallow canola oil to get ready to lightly dip the tortillas in hot oil to soften them.

When anchos are done, add the chilies and water to the blender and blend with garlic and onion. Hold lid on tight when you blend, not too high a setting. To taste, add tablespoons of tomato paste and re-blend to reach desired hot/cool spiciness. I found I ended up using the whole can, but kept adding/blending it 3 tablespoons at a time. Another time I will try roasted tomatoes per original recipe, not the paste. I also added a tablespoon of olive oil to cut the spiciness, but that wasn’t in the original recipe.

Set up a counter adjacent to stove top with the pan of spinach, a bowl larger than the tortillas filled with the sauce from the blender (don’t wash blender out, leave some sauce in down around the blades), any grated cheese, the corn tortillas, and an empty dinner plate. All this needs to be beside the sauté pan with the canola oil. And you need the pan you are going to assemble and serve them in – glass or ceramic pie/casserole type.

Heat up the canola oil and with the type of tongs you may use in making pasta, begin lowering one tortilla at a time into the oil and quickly flipping it over and then lift out, let oil drip off, and drop into the bowl with the sauce. As you do that with one hand, with the other, drop the next tortilla into the hot oil. You will get a production going where you then remove the tortillas from absorbing the sauce on both sides to the empty dinner plate in time to drop another tortilla from the oil into the sauce and another tortilla into the oil.

Once all tortillas have been in the hot oil and dipped in the sauce, and are on the dinner plate, turn off sauté pan with oil and clear space to assemble the enchiladas. Set one sauce covered tortilla in the serving pan and with the same tongs or finger, add the spinach/mushroom filling, cheese if desired, and there will be sauce remaining that can go on top of the spinach before you roll if you desire. Roll them up, and keep on filling them.

I ran out of spinach as didn’t do a full bag’s worth, so I improvised something equally delicious. In the blender that still has the sauce in the bottom, add 4 oz of cream cheese and nuts (almonds or pecans), a small bunch of cilantro, and a little soymilk for moisture and blend. Then use this delicious cream filling instead of the spinach, on another group of tortillas.

They do not need to bake, but you can add any remaining sauce over them and warm them in the oven before serving so they are all the same temperature. I served it with a green salad and watermelon and it was a quintessential Mexican meal!

PS – doesn’t hurt to play some Spanish language music and dance a bit while making these – viva Mexico!

German Chocolate Cake, a saga

Branden requested German Chocolate Cake for his birthday. All I knew about German Chocolate Cake was that it was a) chocolate, and b) covered in some sort of coconut-pecan frosting. So I had to do some research. In searching for a recipe, I uncovered a conspiracy as profound as the sweet potato scandal... German Chocolate Cake is not the least bit German. It is in fact Texan, and is named German after "German's Chocolate", which is made by Baker's (which is all awful pseudo-chocolate, by the way). Furthermore, German's Chocolate is not German; it was called German after this guy named German, but even he wasn't German, he was British.

German Chocolate Cake should have "German's" chocolate and should be made with buttermilk, being Texan. The frosting should indeed involve pecans and coconut, but may also involve caramel, and may share the cake with chocolate frosting.

I couldn't bring myself to use Baker's chocolate, but I did figure out how to make soy buttermilk. I made two frostings, one a lightly caramelized pecan-coconut and one a simple chocolate buttercream-type frosting. Also, I served some of my banana bliss ice cream with the cake.

The birthday-party-goers, all in Viking attire (even if that consisted only of an authentic viking name tag), exclaimed loudly about the cake and then immediately started to fall asleep on our living room floor. So be careful, don't eat german chocolate cake and drive.

Now onto the recipe...

For the cake, I used Morgana's Chocolate Cake recipe. However, I used soy "buttermilk" instead of water. To make the buttermilk, I mixed 2 c of soy milk with the vinegar (I used white vinegar) called for in the original recipe, and let it sit for about ten minutes before adding it to the other ingredients.

Coconut-Pecan Frosting
1/2 c margarine
3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c soy milk
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 c shredded coconut
1 c pecans, chopped

Melt margarine, add sugar. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick, sticky, and lightly caramelized. Add remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, and cook, stirring frequently, for twelve minutes. Cool for a minute or two, until it is a spreadable consistency, before frosting the cake.

Chocolate Frosting
1/2 c margarine, softened
2 c sugar
1/3 c cocoa powder
2-4 T soy milk
1 T vanilla
pinch salt

Cream all the ingredients together, using only as much soy milk as is needed to make it spreadable. You may want to chill the cake in a refrigerator after frosting to make sure the frosting is totally set before serving.

Pepper Seitan

This is my version of Chinese Pepper Steak. I usually end up browning seitan when I use it, so it's a nice change to eat this recipe, in which the seitan ends up soft and succulent. Serve with brown rice and a side of steamed or stir-fried vegetables.

1 lb seitan, cut into long thin strips
1 large green bell pepper, cut into long thin strips
1 large yellow onion, cut into thin half-moons
1/2 c sliced water chestnuts

Marinade:
1 T reduced sodium soy sauce
1 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1/4 t black pepper
1 T cornstarch
2 T rice vinegar
1 t fresh ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic, minced or grated
1 T sesame oil

Sauce:
Original marinade from seitan, plus enough water to make a total of 3/4 c of liquid
1 T cornstarch
1 T reduced sodium soy sauce

Marinate seitan (in the marinade) for about fifteen minutes; this is the perfect time to chop the veggies. Whisk sauce ingredients to combine.

Stir-fry onions for about five minutes, or until they are just starting to become translucent. Add peppers and water chestnuts, stir-fry for another five minutes, or until they are as cooked as you want them.

Put veggies aside; in the same (now empty) pan, stir-fry seitan for five minutes. Add sauce and reserved veggies, cook until the sauce is thick and everything is warm, probably another (you guessed it) five minutes.

Wild animals at a birthday party

I finally found 6 hole muffin tins to fit in my mini oven
and whipped these up for a little man's birthday celebration 5/4/07...

Chocolate cupcakes with vegan or vegetarian options

1-1/2 C organic whole wheat flour
1 C organic brown sugar
2 teasp baking powder -
1/3 C organic rapunzel cocoa powder
1/2 C organic canola oil
Cap full of pure vanilla
1 C water (or soy/milk)

I tried 6 of each - vegan style would be best with a little more oil for added moisture but both were great. Topping is cream cheese or tofutti cheese with a little sugar, vanilla, and fresh orange peel zest, topped with an organic strawberry. lefts overs were great (sans frosting) with yogurt and fruit for breakfasts. Yum!

Celebrating fresh fruit!

And the tree it came from ...

Dense and Easy Chocolate Torte

1 c butter substitute (try Earth Balance)
1.5 c good chocolate chips (try Guittard)
3 T powdered egg replacer
1 c soy milk
.5 c sugar
1 t vanilla
1 c almond flour (or walnut flour)
.5 c whole wheat flour

Melt butter-substitute and chocolate chips in a mixing bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk egg replacer with milk. Add sugar and vanilla, then combine with melted stuff. Fold in flours. Bake in an ungreased 9" round pan or springform for 55 minutes at 325F. Let sit for a half hour, then refrigerate. When cooled, frost with vegan ganache:

1 c good chocolate chips
2 T butter substitute
.75 c soy milk

Melt butter and chocolate, add milk, stir until smooth, cool until it slows down a little, then drizzle over torte. Refrigerate frosted torte for at least an hour before serving. It's great with milk or coffee.

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 ...}