Category: Recipe

We begin our tale of two applesauces by introducing our 3kg bag of apples, courtesy of our local Box Scheme (everything seems to be a scheme here in Scotland – it baffles us, as a scheme has quite a negative connotation in the US, but apparently is perfectly reasonable over here), which arrived at our door by accident. Yes, we’d ordered windfall organic apples — once. The second week they arrived, we were a little nonplussed. So, what does one do with 6.5 pounds of apples? Sauce presented itself, naturally!

We fortunately brought out our beloved manual peeler to the UK & turned the handle for quite some time, ending up with a bowl of cores, a pile of peelings, and a heaping pot full of apples. Adding some spices (ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg), a squeeze of lemon, and a bit of time and heat produced sauce! We prefer lovely, chunky sauce (we added about 4 granny smith apples, as well, to increase the chunk/tangy factor). But that’s not the end of the story, quite … as we also made sauce from the peels! If you look carefully at the little glass, you’ll be able to pick out the two different colors of sauce. The peels got whizzed up with the stick blender (yes, it does everything in this kitchen). Funnily enough, it kind of tasted like pear. Strange, but good.

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You might wonder what to do with so much applesauce (other than eat it out of the pot, warm, with a bit of freshly grated cinnamon and nutmeg, or as a snack with unsweetened soy yogurt and a drizzle of honey – yum).

Applesauce keeps pretty well, so don’t panic if you can’t think of two hundred things to do with it right off. We use ours in a variety of ways. Some vegans use applesauce as an egg substitute – 1/3 c. per egg called for. While we’ve never personally tried that, we do know that applesauce is a great substitute for added fat in baking. You can substitute up to 3/4 of the amount of butter with applesauce when making muffins — and voilá, your muffins or quick breads are a little less pound-friendly. And then, there’s applesauce cake… which is deadly dangerous and addictive…

Applesauce Spice Cake
This recipe is a fiddled-with-it adaptation of one from Vegetarian Times.

* 1/2 cup molasses (or treacle if you’re in the UK!**)
* 1 cup applesauce
* 1 tsp. freshly ground cinnamon
* 1/2 tsp. cloves
* 1 tsp. baking powder
* 1/4 tsp. baking soda
* 1 3/4 cup flour (I use whole wheat pastry flour)
* 2 Tbsp. ginger (I use grated fresh and candied as well – it’s a SPICE cake!)

Combine the molasses and applesauce in a large bowl. Combine remaining ingredients and stir into the liquid. (If the batter seems very dry, add a little more applesauce or a little milk.) Bake in a nonstick or pan-sprayed 8*8-inch baking pan, in a 350 degree oven, for 30-45 minutes or until it tests done.

The optional ginger makes an amazingly good ginger bread. Another option is leaving out the ginger and adding 3 or 4 tablespoons of a good quality cocoa powder and a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips to make a tasty but not very rich chocolate cake. If you use cocoa alone you might need to add extra sweetening, or really go all out on the frosting, but that depends on your taste.

We used the peels of the apples because… well, our parents weren’t old enough to go through the Depression (the most depressing thing that happened to them was probably JFK being shot and The Supremes splitting up), but both of us were brought up with parents who wanted us to clean our plates and not waste… so perfectly good apple peels being tossed, especially when we don’t have a compost pile here, made us a little sick. So, we knew we had to use them. One idea for using peels is to dip them in a little lemon juice to stop them from browning and then chop them and toss them with balsamic vinegar, stone ground mustard, and a little maple syrup as an accompaniment for salad of spinach, red onions, and mandarin orange slices. It’s very haute cuisine, yet simple.

Our first thought, because of the abundant pectin beneath the skin, was to make Apple Peel Jelly. Though we’ve heard it’s gorgeous and delicious, that really doesn’t taking advantage of the fiber in the peels, which is also so good and cholesterol-lowering, so we couldn’t use all of them that way. We came up with making a sauce from the peels – ’cause our immersion blender can do anything. And it turns out we were right not to toss them anyway — Cornell University published a study this last spring about the cancer-preventative properties found in apple peels. Score one for us!

**Treacle is a real pain — because we can’t find any unsulphured molasses, we’re using something called ‘molasses sugar’ which is dark, dark, DARK brown, dense and moist sugar. We just add a little extra applesauce to compensate for the moisture and go on. We’re learning to do that a lot here!

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Despite the push to read & write, we do manage to eat around here, and occasionally to create new recipes. Thus, with no ado whatsoever, I present to you a new one which we’ve particularly enjoyed with the rising darkness of Scotland’s winter.

Golden Chick-pea Soup

5 whole cloves garlic
3 Tbsp olive oil
500g frozen chick-peas (cooked, unsalted)
1 bullion / stock cube
4 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup dried chantarelle mushrooms
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/8 tsp chipotle powder
1/16 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp saffron threads
1/4 tsp dried sage (whole leaves – you can subst. 1/8 tsp or less powdered)
Water

Pour oil into your cold stock-pot & add whole cloves of garlic. Turn heat on to medium & let oil heat, covered, until your garlic starts to “pop” – not so it cooks, really, so much as just browns a tiny bit. Remove from heat until it stops popping – or you’ll be splattered with hot oil. Add in everything but the dried mushrooms, return to heat, and bring to a boil. Ladle out about 1 cup of your broth & use it to rehydrate your mushrooms. Let soup boil gently for 30 minutes, with your mushrooms sitting to the side. When you’ve grown tired of waiting, remove it from the heat, drain off the liquid from your mushrooms into the main soup, and puree the soup (I used a stick-blender) until thoroughly creamy. Add in your mushrooms. Serve alongside a portion of steamed rice.

Back to my cave of writing horror.

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As I’d said in my post on making Garam Masala, we like to do up our own. As to what to do with it, well, we usually end up using it in shakes or in various sweet dishes, but as I was making my morning pots of tea (I have two French Presses … so I make two), I realized that I’d left out an important bit: you don’t necessarily end up with one batch when you grind whole spices into masala.

You see, when you grind up all of your spices using a blade grinder, you usually get sick of the whole fine-mesh strainer process after about half an hour of grinding, sifting, grinding, sifting… so you just give up & bodge the larger bits into a jar & leave well enough alone. What to do with the leftovers, though? Well, if you’re like me, you put them into cheap black tea, and have your own version of Chai Tea. You get a subtly different flavor from the coarse bits than from the fine bits, primarily because the pieces which get left behind tend to be largely comprised of coriander hulls. But there’s enough of the other spices to give you that distinctive Masala flavor, and it’s a good use of something which would sit until chutney-making season. Of course, for the decaffeinated version, you can still use the fine-powdered Masala with your hot soy-milk & a bit of sweetener, but for the tea version, the coarse grind make for a clearer brew.

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I don’t know what it is that led somebody to poke a hole in a perfectly good roll, boil it, then bake it … but they’re tasty, I’m told, despite the labor involved. I’m sure that our kitchen will recover from the spatters and splashes, and I’m sure that I’m sucker enough to try it again.

I started with the basic olive bread recipe (see “What Goes Into Bread”), but instead of putting diced onions I went with onion powder, and I backed off on the seeds a bit, so that the dough would be a bit more bread & a bit less … “stuff.” From there, it was a matter of forming things into little doughnut-esque things and letting them rise … and then beginning the insanity.

After you’ve got enough of a rise out of them, you boil each bagel (I worked in batches of 4) for 5 minutes, with at least one “turn-over” in that period. I used the handle of a wooden spoon along with a large “spider” (one of those things you use to fish stuff out of the deep-fry). After their requisite 5 minutes of boiling, you place them onto an oiled pan in the oven at 500°F. The oil is important, ladies and gentlemen. I used canola spray … starting with the second batch of 4, of course, ’cause … well, just ’cause I wasn’t really thinking about it.

After they go into the oven, they’ve got to bake for about 15 minutes. You could go 20 – and I did, on a few – but 15 seemed to do the trick for me, as I wanted them to be a bit soft. I figured that you can always toast them, but you can’t un-cook them, so it was better to go a little underdone. I’m sure that nobody’s out there complaining.

But wait. Did you see it, friends? Did you see the fatal flaw in this whole mess? Let me hint at a bit more: you boil for 5 minutes; you bake for 15 minutes. What happens to the third batch of bagels that you threw into the boiling water? Oh, you mean, you’re going to reach into the (very steamy) oven, pull out a tray of partially baked bagels, skooch them over so that you can fit four more on there, and then keep on doing the same thing for the next, oh, hour or so? And what, pray tell, happens when you end up with four batches going, all underdone, and another batch coming off of the boil? Because unless you’ve got an awesome oven, one rack is going to cook differently then the other, and with all the opening and closing, there’s no chance you’re going to get things to cook according to some mathematically-possible scheme. (I did the math … and then did the thinking to determine why the math sucked).

Suffice it to say that I need a larger oven & to do a bit of pre-planning on this next time. I believe that this is why some recipes say to dunk your bagels in cold water after you’ve boiled them. You could probably float them all in the cool water bath & then load them into the oven all at one time, if you were smart. Or if you thought about it. Or if you planned to try this more than once.

Next time. Next time, it will be different.

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Shown here is our first (photographed) effort at making Garam Masala. We generally use this mix in something we’ll call chai … but which is actually just hot soy-milk, this spice blend, & a little sweetener. The quantities shown are what we used in this latest mix; each spice is labeled on the Flickr site, if you follow the link. You can also use this Garam Masala as a spice for black tea, to give you that authentic chai flavor, but with ingredients that you trust.

Laying out the spices like this is actually kind of important, if you want to know what you did, so that you can either duplicate the mix or change it later. In this mix I’ve incorporated slightly more anise-flavored elements, to provide more natural sweetness, and also tried to balance out all of the different flavors, so that you’re not overwhelmed by the cassia / cinnamon.

If you’re using this in a savory dish, you could add onion powder & garlic powder, and perhaps some hot pepper / capsicum. I tend to like the option, though, so leave this powder “plain.” With this mix, I’ll run it through the coffee grinder & then through a fine sieve / strainer, repeating several times until I’m sick of trying to grind dust. I’ll then take the coarse (leftover) bits & put them in one container, and the fine goes into another. We’ll use the coarsely ground pieces in spiced apples or something, as it generally has more of the ginger / cinnamon / allspice bits, which don’t really like to break down.

Note: I tend to avoid using too much of the actual licorice root, because it closely resembles – and behaves like – the hormone aldosterone; aldosterone regulates the body’s salt levels, and playing with that system tends to raise your blood pressure.

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So last weekend we had some friends over, and we ended up with some leftovers. Now, I’m not talking about the little bits of prepared food which would soon be eaten (and were), but about leftover, perishable, raw ingredients such as a half-gallon of whole milk, and a couple of avocados. So, what to do? Gelato!

There really wasn’t much of a recipe, but … well, I’m going to try to document it, as it’s marvelously green, tasty, and a good use of ingredients. So here goes:

• 1/2 Gallon Whole Milk
• 16 oz Large (bubble-tea size) Tapioca pearls
• 2 Vanilla Bean Pods
• 2 Avocados, just ripe
• Zest and Juice of 10 “key” limes
• Assorted sweeteners (xylitol, honey, sugar, maple syrup) to taste
• 3 Tbsp Ginger powder
• 1 Cup Candied Ginger, chopped
• 4 Tbsp Soy Protein Powder

Soak tapioca pearls in the milk overnight.
Add Vanilla Bean Pod guts, sweeteners, and soy protein powder, then bring to a rolling simmer (doesn’t make sense unless you’ve done tapioca – in which case, it makes sense) in a pan which looks too large for the purpose (you’ll need the room, for the rolling simmer).
Simmer, stirring constantly, until you get sick to death of standing there or until the tapioca doesn’t taste raw any longer.
Remove from heat, strain out the bubble tea bits and … dispose of as you see fit, as they’re no longer needed.
When liquid has cooled to a reasonable temperature, apply your stick blender to it & incorporate the rest of the ingredients except for the Lime Zest and Candied Ginger.
Fold in Lime Zest.
Cool overnight.
Fold in Candied Ginger.
Pour mixture into your (running) ice cream machine and let it run until the dasher sticks.
Remove mixture to a suitable vessel & thence into the freezer for at least four hours.

Yes, there are some ambiguities in there. And, yes, we probably could have achieved the same thing by using the tapioca flour sitting in the pantry, rather than using the bubble-tea tapioca pearls … but we didn’t know that when we started. You see, the decision to strain out the tapioca was made after we’d been all the way through the cooking process, at which point we determined that they were … well, just too strange to want to have frozen. So, we pulled them out. It works.

The one difference in the above recipe from what we did is that I incorporated the avocado earlier in the process … and I wouldn’t recommend it, as it makes it really difficult to taste for sweetness & flavor, as hot avocado really is an acquired taste. As it was, we played it safe by holding off on adding more sweetener & more lime until we had a chance to taste it chilled, and we’re glad that we did. Hot avocado throws everything off, so I recommend adding it when your mixture has cooled somewhat. Or not, you know, ’cause it’s your freezer that’ll be full of gnarly green goo, not mine.

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My friend Susan mentioned her love just the other day for all foods Southern, and the addition of the phrase ‘pimento cheese’ brought my childhood back to mind.

My Mom raised us as vegans a lot of the time… then there were those days when she did not. Born just outside of New Orleans, Mom wasn’t even raised vegetarian herself, so it was a hard transition for her when she moved to San Francisco in the sixties and got into what everyone else was doing – sprouting wheatgrass and whatever other kinds of grass they could get their hands on. Growing up, we had basically schizophrenic dietary habits that veered from full-on vegan to lacto-ovo vegetarianism. I can’t say that I ever suffered from this – I managed to be a tubby little thing regardless – but it did mean that we sampled hundreds of the most …unique recipes imaginable. Sometimes they were awesome. Other times… well, we love ya, Mom, but just about every kid goes through the lamentable phase of straight up tossing their school lunch into the trash… Me, on the argument that not even kids in Africa didn’t wanted soggy mashed tofu on sprouted wheat bread. (That was one of her misses. To her credit, she only made it without lettuce once or twice. The bread holds up a lot better if there’s lettuce protecting it.)

Just finishing a novel set in 1940’s Alabama-Iowa-Georgia and then a present-day cross-country trip to the South, I’ve been steeped in the particular food things that go along with the South… Grits. Black-eyed peas. Pimento Cheese. Susan got me thinking — about what pimento cheese actually IS, to those people who didn’t grow up at my house. I looked up pimento cheese, and understand now what the real stuff is: cheese. And cream cheese. And mustard. And hot sauce and pimentos and roasted pimentos and some people put in nuts. Mom’s pimento cheese was really, really, really good, but it didn’t contain any cheese at all. Mom’s recipe went something like this:

2 C. raw cashews

3-4 T. brewer’s yeast

1 C. water

1 C. oil

1/2 t. salt

1/4 C. lemon juice

2 t. onion and garlic powder

1/2 c. pimentos

2 T. soy “milk” powder (optional)

Basically, all that’s left to do is blend everything up, adding the oil last, and make a kind of cashew mayonnaise. Sometimes Mom added about 5 tbsp. of agar flakes to her pimento cheese. Agar gels, so it created the illusion of a more ‘solid’ spread.

When she used agar, Mom stirred it into boiling water, simmered it for five minutes, stirring frequently, and then when it was cooked, she added it to the other ingredients in the food processor. All ingredients were then blended for about three minutes, then poured it into whatever mold and put it in the fridge overnight.

There are a lot of variations one can do with pimento cheese, too – adding chopped green olives, or toasted sesame seeds or caraway or dill… the list goes on. Sun-dried tomatoes and basil is quite good, or you could add onion flakes…

On the face of things, Mom’s recipe seems pretty good, but since I never do know when to leave well-enough alone, I have a few thoughts I’d like to try. For one thing, doesn’t this sound like something that would taste great with the addition of Vegemite? Why use a powdered yeast when you can use the brown glop in the yellow can? And it seems to me that silken tofu should somehow play into this. ‘Cause doesn’t tofu go with everything?

If nothing else, I’ve enjoyed plumbing the depths of my back-brain, and remembering one of Mom’s more random recipes that worked. If only I could figure out a way to make cashews less than 157 calories an ounce, I’d eat this every week…

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