Tortilla Soup

The pattern is this:  I cook a huge pot of something at home - way more food than I intended or could possibly consume - and then I bring it to work and try and force it upon others.  But this time, I am keeping all of the delicious soup to myself.  If I could only eat one soup for the rest of my life, it would be this.  Which is saying a lot - this is a blog of my favorite food:  soup.

For the Soup:
4 small onions, chopped fine
4 cloves garlic
a couple of dried chili peppers, ground to powder
2 dried shiitake mushrooms, ground to powder
3 serrano peppers, seeded and diced
1 small eggplant, peeled and chopped
2 large zucchini, peeled and chopped
2 T cumin (or to taste)
4 cups cherry tomatoes, halved, sprayed with olive oil, and roasted in a 350 oven for about an hour (until completely wilted and some browning has occured)
1 can diced tomatoes
1 bunch cilantro
1/2 c dried black beans, cooked
soy sauce, to taste


Cook the onions in olive oil over low heat while you chop the vegetables, they should be well-cooked (getting on to carmelized) but not too brown.  add garlic, eggplant, peppers, zucchini.  Add spices - the cumin and chili peppers and mushroom powder.  Oregano might also be good.  Add water and tomatoes, bring to boil, simmer until vegetables are falling apart.  Add beans, add cilantro, add soy sauce (but not too much, especially if you're adding a salty garnish.)

I thought it would need lime juice (but forgot to buy limes), but even without the yogurt (which is a sub for sour cream) it was perfect.

Pictures forthcoming.

TOPPINGS:
tostadas, broken
Cilantro Cream:  Combine 1 cup yogurt with one bunch cilantro and 5 green onions and several cloves garlic in food processor, blend until smooth

Peanut Slaw

I started dreaming about this at work today, because there was a mostly-gone jar of peanut butter on my desk, but I'd neglected to bring anything to slather it on.  I had some pretzels, but I wanted something fresh - an apple, some celery, a banana.  I started dreaming of the bananas I had at home, and then started thinking about other foods I had at home, including a whole large head of green cabbage.

This recipe isn't pretty - if I was serving to anyone, I would have to add something additional - perhaps a carrot, or some red cabbage, maybe some of those pretty pink radishes I had in my farm share recently.  But I don't really care what it looks like, because it tastes perfect - exactly how I thought it would.

1 large head cabbage, shredded
3 T natural peanut butter
2 T rice vinegar
1 T soy sauce
1 T sesame oil
4 T sesame seeds
cayenne to taste

Whisk together the peanut butter, vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame oil.  When smooth, spoon over about a third of the cabbage and toss until well blended.  Add the next third and toss, and finally the last third with the sesame seeds.  Season with cayenne until the spiciness suits you.

I would post a picture, but I'm too busy eating.

Oatmeal Cookies

I've been using this oatmeal cookie recipe from 101cookbooks, and will continue to use it.  The cookies are delicious and light.  It was painless to make them gluten-free for a friend - you didn't even notice the difference, but beyond that, they were supreme.  I made one batch exactly as is, and then I immediately made a second batch with chocolate chips instead of fennel and poppyseed.  Then I spent the next week fantasizing about them, and so made another batch over the weekend.  This time I reduced the sugar to 1/2 cup, and I think I forgot baking soda.  They were still amazing. I've already committed to bringing them to a Superbowl party next weekend.  (I don't know who is playing, because football season has been over since late Saturday, January 12th!  But I hear women like the commercials, so maybe I'll try that.)

When it comes to cooking, I never really follow a recipe - it goes like this:  Substitute here and there, adjust cooking time, adjust cooking style... remove ingredient I don't have, add four other ingredients.

Baking is supposed to be different.  But these cookies are delicate, melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness, almost like a soft, delicate meringue.

Vegetable Stew.

I don't like this picture because the broth looks super oily and it's really not.  I think the shine is in part from using a cornstarch-like thickening agent.

A few weeks ago I tricked myself into thinking I needed a dutch oven, and I am very glad I did.  (I made delicious vegetarian chili, a recipe I will someday share.)  This stew dish, which was inspired by something my parents used to feed me, would not have been as delicious if it wasn't made in my cast iron dutch oven.  I mean, it would probably still be delicious.

Beef Stew recipes all call for red wine, but I only drink red wine on family occasions when everyone else is drinking it, so I had none, as well as no inclination to get some.  Instead, I used balsamic vinegar and vegetable broth, and I can't imagine this being more delicious.

Like I said, my parents used to make beef stew, using a pressure cooker (a piece of equipment I have, so far, lived without.)  They would brown beef, add stewing vegetables (usually carrots potatoes and ALWAYS rutabaga - it is not the same without rutabaga) and then pressure cook until done.  I like to imagine that at the end of the meal I had eaten everything but the beef, but that probably isn't true.  (Although I swear on Thanksgiving all that would be left on my plate was turkey.)  When I bought a 3 lb sack of 'stew vegetables' from the local organic produce delivery service, I remembered back to those days of moist and incredibly flavorful vegetables, and this dish does not disappoint.

As far as I can remember, we didn't really have gravy with this meal - the vegetables were not dry, but I remember seasoning with Lawry's seasoned salt.  Today I used copious amounts of Penzey's special seasoned sea salt.  In any case, my version has a lot of juice, and is thickened to form a bit of gravy that can be sopped up with some bread.

In future renderings, I would cook the seitan first in the dutch oven, then remove it and use less oil to brown the onions.

9 oz onion
5 oz parsnip
1 1/4 lb carrots
1/2 lb rutabaga
3/r lb radishes (some red, some white)
2 T balsamic vinegar
2 t fresh thyme
1 t hot pepper flakes
1 T Annie's worcestershire sauce (its my favorite veg brand)
2 c vegetable broth
1 c chopped tomatoes
6 oz seitan
2 T olive oil

cornstarch, flour, arrowroot, or other thickener, as needed for your desired broth consistency.

I heated 1 T of olive oil and softened the onions, than added the very roughly chopped vegetables in the above order, as I roughly chopped them.  While this cooked, I dug through my freezer to procure vegetable broth and tomatoes.  I deglazed the pan a bit with the vinegar and worcestershire, and then added the broth and tomatoes.  As soon as the ice crystals were melted, I stirred, covered, and baked in a 400 degree oven for about a half hour, until the very large-cut carrots and rutabagas were soft but not falling apart.

While baking, I sliced the seitan bite-sized and fried in olive oil, sprinkled with a bit of seasoned salt (this seitan had no salt added), and set it aside.

I ended up taking a cup of delicious tangy broth from the stew, and heating it in a saucepan.  I mixed 2 T of Wondra (superfine white flour) with 1/4 c cold water, and then stirred it into the boiling broth, cooking and stirring for about a minute, than pouring back into the dutch oven, with the cooked seitan.

Yum.

Lentils and Rice with caraway and cumin

As usual, I forgot to take a picture until the bowl was almost empty.

I ordered a bunch of vegetables from my local organic foods sourced-from-farms delivery service, and they are set to arrive tomorrow, so last night I opened the fridge and kind of freaked out about how many vegetables I had to eat in 48 hours.  So far, I am totally on track to finish them, because this dish is so damn delicious.

This recipe is a complete accident.  I thought I would flavor red lentils and brown rice with cumin and lemon.  But upon reaching into the cabinet, I pulled out and poured about a tablespoon of caraway seed into the dish before I realized I'd grabbed the wrong jar.  This caused me to immediately forgot about lemon, not to remember until after I'd eaten my first serving, at which point I had already concluded that this was the most perfect dish in the entire world.  I continued to look for cumin seed, eventually settling on ground cumin.  But I did add some black onion seed, which is sometimes called 'black caraway seed'.  I figured the combination would be great.  I was right.

1 c brown rice
1 T olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion
10 cloves garlic
1 T caraway seed
1 T black onion seed
1 t cumin
1 t hot pepper flakes
4 stalks celery, chopped small
3 large carrots, chopped small
1 green pepper, chopped small
1/2 c red lentils
1 t vegetable bouillon

Cook brown rice in 3 cups water until near tender, drain.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil, and cook yellow onion, adding garlic when it is almost translucent and cooking another few minutes.  Add spices.  Stir in the rest of the vegetables and cook until starting to brown.  Add the lentils, bouillon, and 2 cups water.  Cook until vegetables until tender, add rice and simmer until flavors are combined.

Tempeh Sausage Pizza

I went to Whole Foods yesterday.  I hate Whole Foods.  I only went because it was literally connected to the yarn store, and I was looking for yarn to finish an afghan.  (I did not find the yarn I was looking for, but I did find some nice organic cotton and made myself a hat today.)  Usually I force myself to go to get one of the three things I can only find at Whole Foods - which is usually tempeh.

Anyway, I made this sausage to put on pizza while visiting my sister, and it is delicious.  Tonight I made it in gravy and poured it on biscuits.  This is the recipe for the tempeh sausage:

8 oz package tempeh
1 T olive oil
1 T fennel seed
1 t dried basil
1 t dried margoram or oregano
1/2 t red pepper flakes
1/2 t dried sage
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 T soy sauce
lime juice to taste

boil the tempeh for about 10 minutes, then crumble with everything else and cook as long as you want.

Golden Borscht

I did not realize the beets were golden.  I am almost disappointed, but it is still delicious, and quite a pretty yellow. As already blogged once before, I followed my sister's recipe.

Operation: Use All This Damn Cabbage continues.