Maybe I'll Make It

Minnesota has gone tundra. I'm reminded by my fellow Minneapolitans that it's all relative and that my family and I actually missed the REAL cold, which descended and camped out for nearly two weeks in late December and the first days of 2018, and which we escaped in order to spend the 2017 holidays a mile in from the Pacific Coast Highway, no jackets in sight. (We couldn't have planned it better!) We were welcomed back mildly a week ago, and were spoiled with an unseasonable dose of spring until yesterday, when the outside-temperature gauge on my car informed me that we were officially in the single digits, and later the negative digits. It's customary to complain or at least commiserate with the locals about the cold here. I mean, what we deal with most winters is unfathomable to most of the world. But as a California native, I don't take the cold for granted. I kind of love it. It affords a lot of structure to your days and forces you to think before you act. It also makes you want to turn on that oven. And stove and slow-cooker and brand new instant pot. And maybe it will make me blog again.

Last night we made this chicken faux pho for the second time - it's spectacular, and even more so on day two, you should make it!

In the upcoming freezing days, here are some things that have motivated me to get cooking:

Lasagna Style Spaghetti Squash
Baked Lemon Spinach Risotto
Lentil Bites
Tempeh and Sweet Potato Hash
Salted Butter Chocolate Cookies

Wish me luck!

And a very Happy 2018 to you!

xxE-N

Dressing Up: Spiced Apple Cider Vinaigrette to Enhance Your End-of-Summer Salad Days

It's summer and the weather's been too hot for proper cooking and life's been too fragmented for me to prep for grilling or slow-cookering or [whatever else people do]. We have been eating an awful lot of salads these days and nobody's complaining.

Here's why: I don't mess around with my salad dressings. I take them v. seriously and my goal is to have on hand a couple at a time, both good enough to drink. Dressings are meant to help the veggies go down. The lovelier they are, the more veggies we'll consume, right?

This one has been a go-to this summer, based on an all-star recipe from My New Roots, but doubled (you'll want the extra!) and simplified a bit for those of you who get daunted by long ingredient lists and/or don't want to buy twelve spices just for a dressing. Even if it is in the top three dressings ever.

This is what I put it on last night: a lentil salad, as suggested on the My New Roots blog, but with way more vegetables.*



It would be great with some sort of quinoa or other grain salad with roasted sweet potatoes or squash and/or grilled meats of some sort. Mixing in something salty-umami (olives, capers, grilled mushrooms) with something sweet-tart (dried fruit, apricots) is nice. Go big or go home - veggies are good for you!

Spiced Apple Cider Vinaigrette
2/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey
1-2 tablespoons strong mustard (I use a spicy stone-ground kind but dijon would be good too)
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander (or two teaspoons if this is your favorite spice and/or it's not in your curry powder - this adds a nice citrusy tone to the dressing to brighten up all the other strong spices)
1 teaspoon baking spice (e.g. apple pie/pumpkin pie spice)
1 teaspoon mild or medium curry powder (a more yellow one will be milder (my preference), something like garam masala would make this a v. intense dressing - not a bad thing, but if that's what you're using maybe start with 1/2 teaspoon and adjust accordingly)
1/4 teaspoon or more cayenne pepper

Put ingredients in a jar, shake it all up, and put on everything! Store in the refrigerator for at least a week.

* In pictured salad: "zen greens" blend, tomatoes, carrots, celery, apricot, cucumber, al dente black lentils, sheep's milk feta, capers, and raw sunflower seeds. It was really good. I'm about to eat it again for lunch.

Rest-of-March Meal Plan

Meal plan for ten days. More for me than you, but maybe it will inspire you. Hope springs eternal. Oh to be inspiring, she thought, self-indulgently, before eating more than her share of cookie cookies.

Day 1: Date night

We went to Grand Cafe and discovered Sunday is Sicilian pizza night. We went big (like, even dessert) and then I got to enjoy the leftovers for lunch today. I heart leftovers.

Day 2: Roasted yams and chickpeas + sautéed greens + poached pears for dessert

Day 3: Leftover lentil stew (most of us) + leftover yams and chickpeas served over rice (others of us) + green salad + avocado slices

Day 4: Brinner - starring Beeler's sausage + poached pear baked oatmeal + yogurt + carrot salad

Day 5: Spicy miso soup - swapping in my new favorite condiment, gochujang, for the Sriracha - with loads of veggies, tofu, and these unexpectedly delicious noodles (Full disclosure: my children won't eat soup, or anything spicy. They will, however, eat a plate of steamed vegetables, tofu (if it's salty and crispy enough) and al dente noodles, all drenched in butter. Deconstructed soup, if you will.)

Day 6: Rachel Khoo's salmon buns (Alicia, come on over!) + citrusy slaw

Day 7: Chorizo huevos rancheros (recipe to come) + leftover citrusy slaw + homemade baked tortilla chips

Day 8: Lentil Sloppy Joes (recipe to come) on cheesy arepas + kale chips + crudité OR weeknight coconut curry + quinoa, if timing gets tricky

Day 9: Miso chicken piccata (note: use coconut or almond flour in place of wheat flour to make this gluten free; also check your miso) + green beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes with basil vinaigrette + quinoa

Day 10: Snow Pea, Cabbage, and [Mixed Greens] Salad with Smoky Tempeh (with a side of quesadillas for the littles...)

On Day 11, somebody is going to cook for me.

Happy beautiful March.

xoxo

You Had Me at Vegan: Date Nut Raisin Bread

I am back, my friends, because this is a recipe worth sharing. It's slightly adapted from a Date Nut Bread recipe in Food52's new Vegan cookbook - a delightful cookbook indeed, whether you're an experienced vegan, an aspiring vegan, or an omnivore who likes to cook and eat all kinds of different things (and maybe minimize your food consumption's harmful impact on the environment and animals). There's something kind of fresh and beautiful and clean about the cookbook, even though a lot of the recipes are the same ol' thing - tofu scrambles, mac-n-[tahini and nutritional yeast instead of]cheese. I'm a sucker for all the things the book does well: simple, straightforward recipes; stunning photography; lots of grains and greens and beans. I'm also a sucker for dates, as are my children, as we all are for all things "bread", so this recipe was rather inevitably the first one I tackled from the book, within about 24 hours of picking it up from the library. I am v. glad I tackled it. It is nothing short of absolutely delicious.

The day we baked this bread may v. well have been our last snow day of the year, given current forecasts, and nothing says baking day like a little flurry, right?

B was my helper, as usual. He's a pretty great little baker. He has gotten v. good at measuring by weight and whisking without making a giant mess. He's not so good at cracking eggs, so thank heavens for flaxseeds.

My changes were minimal, motivated by resourcefulness, economics, and safety: used 200 g of dates + 175 g raisins, as that's what I had on hand and anyway dates are like six times the cost of raisins; omitted the walnuts because, well, anaphylaxis; doubled the salt and ditched a a third of the sugar (I almost always do both of these in baked goods, unless it's the kind of crazy decadent cookies that are fully intended to cause a toothache, then I use the called-for amount of sugar); used bread flour because I didn't have all-purpose.

It's still supergood and moist (ew!) and perfect on day 4, particularly (but by no means necessarily) if you suddenly recall that you're not vegan and top it with a big smear of butter and a sprinkle of salt. Dang.

Two mega tips:

1. Sift your baking soda into the dry ingredients (or wet, if you prefer; just make sure there are zero clumps). Here's B showing you how.

2. Cool completely before slicing. It's hard (like, really hard) but you'll have a much more structurally sound bread if you do.

Vegan Date Raisin Bread

Adapted from Food52

Yields: 1 standard loaf; about 10-12 servings

2 cups boiling water

1 cup pitted dates (I used deglet), chopped as finely as you can be bothered

1/2 cup raisins

2 cups (250 g) all-purpose or bread flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking soda (sift this!)

1/2 teaspoon salt (finely ground - if using kosher salt, use 3/4 to 1 teaspoon)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds

3/4 cup soy milk or other nondairy milk

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup melted coconut oil (another more neutral oil will work here too, e.g. grapeseed, sunflower)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9X5" loaf pan. 

Pour boiling water over chopped dates and raisins and let them soak while you prepare everything else.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, sifted baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together 1 tablespoon of flaxseeds and 3 tablespoons of the water that your dates are soaking in (or if there's not enough, just use some warm tap water). Let the flax-water mixture sit until thickened. In a larger bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the nondairy milk and vinegar until frothy. (Wondering why the vinegar? Two reasons: (1) it will "sour" the nondairy milk and act like buttermilk, making for a more tender (ew!) bread; (2) the vinegar will react with all that baking soda in the oven, helping the bread rise a bit despite the absence of eggs, which are a big player in the leavening of traditional baked goods.) Add the melted coconut oil and the flaxseed mixture. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined.

Drain the dates and raisins well. Fold them into the batter, then stir in a splash more of nondairy milk if it seems too dry. (I didn't need a splash more of milk, but I didn't really drain my dates and raisins that well.) Pour batter into greased pan.

Bake for 35-45 minutes, rotating pan after about 20 minutes. Insert a toothpick or knife into center to see if it's dry. Let cool in pan for 30 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack and cool for a least 15 minutes longer before slicing and serving. Store in an airtight container for at least four days.