Corn pudding

We have been getting ear after ear of corn in our CSA box lately. It's okay, I guess, but not my favorite vegetable. In fact, it's not a vegetable, right? It's a GRAIN. But as far as corn goes, it's good and sweet, and Mike was kind enough to shuck and de-kernel all the accumulated ears. To use it up, I've made a variety of raw corn salads, none of which really hit the mark, and thrown it into soups and so forth. The one corn dish that we loved, though, was corn pudding, from the New York Times's "Temporary Vegetarian" column. This corn pudding is light, delicate, simple, and delicious. I made it with soy milk instead of regular milk.

Mike used to have a signature Thanksgiving dish that was similar, but then again utterly dissimilar. It consisted of, if I remember correctly, one box Jiffy cornbread mix, one can creamed corn, one can regular corn, one stick butter, one container sour cream (or cream cheese?), one bag grated cheddar cheese. If this sounds like a Paula Deen recipe, that's because it is!

So, this is like the anti-Paula Deen corn casserole. It would be a terrific Thanksgiving dish, although part of its charm is the completely fresh corn.

I've made a few things lately that were fine, but didn't wow me, so I won't bother to write very much about them. From Super Natural Cooking, a dip called Silik Pak that contains toasted pumpkin seeds and an habanero chili. It was pretty good, and I'd never cooked with habanero before, but my gringo stomach wasn't up to it. Mike liked it more than I did. Also, a roasted tomato and smoked paprika soup, that ended up way too oniony. Super Natural Cooking is among my favorite cookbooks, but you can't win them all.

I also made a crisp with little Italian plums, bananas, peaches, and apples, topped with a standard crisp topping (oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, some ground flax seed for Health, pinch salt, and olive oil--usually I use butter or coconut oil or nut oil). I liked it a lot; Mike wasn't wild about the texture of the banana. I'm going to try again at a later date. Both Orangette and the Chocolate and Zucchini author put bananas in their crumbles, so it must be good.

Date Cake

My version of a sticky date pudding isn't sticky at all because I skipped the toffee sauce. It's just sort of a regular cake. I based my recipe on Sticky Date Pudding with Toffee Sauce from epicurious.

• 1 3/4 cups packed pitted dates (about 10 ounces)
• 2 cups water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter and flour an 8-inch square baking pan (2 inches deep), knocking out excess flour.

Coarsely chop dates and in a 1 1/2- to 2-quart saucepan simmer dates in water, uncovered, 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat and stir in baking soda. (Mixture will foam.) Let mixture stand 20 minutes.

While mixture is standing, combine flour, baking powder, ginger, and salt in a bowl and whisk until well mixed. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture and mix until until just combined. Add date mixture and with a wooden spoon stir batter until just combined.

Pour batter into baking pan and set pan in a larger baking pan. Add enough hot water to larger pan to reach halfway up sides of smaller pan and bake in middle of oven until a tester comes out clean, 35 minutes. Remove smaller pan from water bath and cool pudding to warm on a rack.

*****

A delicious cake, not too sweet. We ate it with vanilla ice cream, but no toffee sauce (which I'm sure would be delicious, but is just outrageously decadent.) In fact, I think a healthier version of this cake, with applesauce subbing for some of the butter and less sugar, would still be really good.

If I make this again, I'll probably ditch the water bath. It's unwieldy, and I'm not convinced it made a great deal of difference in my cake.

*****

Along with the date cake, we had chipotle black bean stew from Vegan with a Vengeance for dinner. I've made this many times, and it's always delicious and easy to put together. We used a bunch of corn on the cob from our CSA box.

Easiest Whole Wheat Bread

I like to make my own bread, but sometimes I want to put in very little time and effort. Thus, I've experimented with various "no-knead" methods. I have Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, and I've tried the "no knead" method popularized by Mark Bittman. To my mind, these methods work wonderfully well with white flour, but not so well with whole wheat or other whole grains. Artisan Bread contains a couple whole-grain bread recipes, but I don't recommend them. It's a useful book if you want to use white flour; otherwise I'd give it a pass.

Bittman's no-knead method involves mixing up your dough without kneading, letting it sit anywhere from four to eighteen hours, then shaping, rising, and baking. The original recipe uses white all-purpose or bread flour. Bittman reports that you can use the same method with whole wheat flour with equally good results, but this isn't my experience. When I make whole wheat bread and don't bake it within a few hours, I find that it develops an odd, sweet, chemical aroma, a bit like nail polish remover mixed with almond extract. Maybe 1) I am crazy and hallucinating this aroma or 2) I have a genetic variation allowing me to smell something many others can't smell. Mike says he can see what I'm talking about, but that the smell doesn't bother him.

Assuming I'm smelling something that others (just not Mark Bittman) can smell, I think it's "overfermentation." Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads uses a technique that, if I'm understanding it correctly, he developed expressly to avoid overfermentation while developing a complex flavor in whole-grain yeasted baked goods. (It's a rather complicated book, and he goes into extensive detail about the science of whole-grain baking.) His recipes are the gold standard, but they involve making two different doughs and a two-day baking process. If you want to make the best possible bread, follow his instructions to the letter. But sometimes I can't be bothered. Thus, I came up with my own lazy recipe.

6 2/3 c. whole-wheat flour (800 g.)
1/4 c. honey
3 c. water
2 T. instant dry yeast
2 T. canola oil
1-2 t. salt

In large container, mix ingredients together without kneading until homogeneous and smooth. Cover container, and let rise for about an hour and a half. Dough should at least double in size. Now, shape dough into smooth ovals, then put into two well-greased loaf pans. (I line the pans with parchment paper too.) Let loaves rise, covered, until about doubled in size. When loaves are almost fully risen, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake about 40 minutes, until you can thump bottom of loaf and get a hollow sound. Cool for 5 minutes, then remove loaves from pan and set on rack to cool.

You can also shape these into baguettes or boules or rolls and bake on a baking stone (for best results, some recipes call for a steam tray and slightly higher temperature, but I don't bother if I'm feeling lazy.)

Before baking, you can brush the tops of the loaves with oil or melted butter, and feel free to sprinkle with poppy seeds, sesame seeds, wheat bran, etc.

As for the science, as I understand it, one needs to develop the gluten in bread by either kneading or letting it sit and organize itself. My method doesn't really let it sit long enough, but it does avoid the offputting (to me) overfermented aroma. If you can muster the energy to knead, I highly recommend Orangette's whole wheat bread recipe. Is she being sarcastic when she calls her mother a genius? I honestly can't tell.

Useful Links

Mark Bittman's no-knead white bread
Mark Bittman's faster no-knead white bread
Mark Bittman's fast no-knead whole wheat bread
Mark Bittman's no-knead whole wheat sandwich bread (lighter and less bricklike)

Raspberry-Blueberry Pound Cake

I made Orangette's pound cake for a birthday last weekend. I didn't have any kirsch, but otherwise I followed her recipe, more or less. I was a tiny bit short of both sugar and butter, so made up the difference with confectioner's sugar and coconut oil, respectively. Used vanilla extract instead of kirsch. This turned out good, but didn't blow me away. I always want cake to blow me away. It's probably an unfair expectation.

I do recommend trying this with kirsch, or perhaps with lemon zest/extract, as the flavoring instead of vanilla. Orangette says in her comments that the kirsch really makes it, and I'm sure she's right.

Socca

I came across this recipe for socca on Mark Bittman's Minimalist blog this morning. I happened to have exactly a cup of chickpea flour needing to be used up, so it suited my purposes perfectly. It's as easy to make and good as he claims. I tried it without the onion and rosemary. I also made it with a full teaspoon of salt as the recipe specified. I wish I'd cut this in half. It tastes good, but that's just a damn lot of sodium.

Couscous Salad

A few years ago, I was really into this couscous salad with fruit and nuts. Now I'm a little weary of it, and think I'll put it out of rotation for a while. I've taken it to a couple potlucks in the past year or so, and it seems a little too bland and un-festive. But for posterity, here's the recipe.

Couscous Salad with Dried Fruit and Nuts

2 c. water
1/4 t. salt
1 1/2 c. instant whole-wheat couscous
2 T. olive oil
3 T. lemon juice
1 or more T. lemon zest
1 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. cardamom
2 c. chickpeas
3/4 cup chopped dried fruit, a mixture of dates, apricots, and golden raisins
1/2 c. toasted slivered almonds
1/2 c. chopped cilantro
1/4 c. chopped green onions

Boil water, add salt, then stir in dry couscous and cover. Let sit for at least 5 minutes, then fluff with fork.

Add remaining ingredients and mix well. You will almost surely want to add more salt at this point, and you may want more olive oil or lemon juice as well.

This is based on a recipe from epicurious.com.

Chocolates

On Friday I made a whole bunch of chocolates for a party on Saturday. I was inspired by orangette's Chocolate "Blocks" with Fruit and Nuts, but also wanted to try out some outlandish flavors.

row 1: dark chocolate pretzel, milk chocolate pretzel, dark chocolate salted almond, dark chocolate with candied ginger, cashew, and banana chip.
row 2: milk chocolate cherry, dark chocolate cherry, milk chocolate cashew with sea salt, spicy milk chocolate with dried fruit and nut.
row 3: milk chocolate chunk with fruit and nuts, dark chocolate curry cashew, dark chocolate banana chip, dark chocolate curry with banana chip, dried fruit, and cashew.

You can see the condensation that formed on the chocolates after I took them out of the refrigerator. It was really humid yesterday.

Following orangette's easy recipe, I didn't fuss with tempering or anything like that, but just melted the chocolate over a double boiler. For the cluster-type candies, I mixed in the nuts and stuff, and spooned it into mini muffin liners. For the others, I put the special ingredient (for instance, a few slivered almonds) in the liners first, then spooned in a little melted chocolate, smoothed it down, then topped it with a decorative almond or two, and sprinkled the chocolate with freshly ground sea salt or spice mixture, or both. Unless you're making very small chocolates, it's best to keep the liners in a mini muffin tin so that your candies don't spread out too much.

I recommend making very small chocolates, by the way. I started out making huge ones, but small ones are easier to eat and people like them more. This is my theory for occasions when there's a huge array of tempting food. People will be thrilled to take a bite-sized treat, but they might shy away from a big honking slab of treat.

For the spicy dark chocolates, I mixed curry powder into a batch of melted chocolate, and sprinkled the just-finished chocolates with curry powder. For the spicy milk chocolates, I used a mixture of cinnamon, cardamom, and curry powder. Both turned out really well, but I like the second mixture better. I can't tell you exactly how much spice to add to your mixture, but I suggest starting with a small amount, tasting, and going from there.

For the fruit mixture, I used chopped dried apricots and golden raisins, and also these cool banana chips I found at Trader Joe's. They contain only bananas and palm oil, and they are kind of like Cheetos in texture. I also got my chocolate at Trader Joe's. You can buy enormous pound-and-a-half bars of decent chocolate for $3.49.

I will leave you with a couple tips: Use salted nuts, and sprinkle the tops of the chocolates with sea salt. The salt makes the flavors pop. I got a sea salt grinder at Trader Joe's that makes pretty glittery crystals. Also, try to avoid eating too much chocolate as you work. It's easy to do, and will make you detest your lovely creation.

Terrific Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

I found a easy recipe for gluten-free peanut butter cookies on the much-loved Gluten-Free Girl blog. I've been hoping to make a gluten-free dessert for a party this weekend, and these are terrific. I'm so excited to have a gluten-free baked goods recipe that doesn't call for exotic ingredients--the rice flour, sorghum flour, xanthan gum, etcetera. Anyone can make these with ordinary pantry ingredients.

My recipe is similar to Gluten-Free Girl's, but I did a few things differently. Here's the recipe with my alterations.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

1 c. creamy unsalted natural peanut butter
1 c. white sugar
1 t. baking powder
1 egg
3/4 t. salt

for rolling: white sugar, brown sugar, course salt

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Cream the peanut butter and sugar in a bowl with a hand mixer, then beat in the baking powder, egg, and salt. Mix until it is all well combined. (If you are using salted peanut butter, you won't need to add as much additional salt.)

Make your rolling mixture: Combine equal amounts of brown sugar and white sugar, about 1/4 cup each. Add salt a pinch at a time, until it tastes pleasantly sweet-salty.

Roll some dough into a small ball, with a circumference about the size of a quarter. Roll the ball in the sugar-salt mixture. Line a baking sheet, covered in parchment paper, with sugary balls of dough. Gently flatten each ball twice with a fork, to create a crosshatch pattern.

Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes. The cookies will be slightly brown around the edges. Take the tray out of the oven and let the cookies rest for ten minutes. Resist handling them sooner--they need to firm up to prevent breakage. Then carefully transfer them to a cooling rack until fully cooled.

Squash Blossoms

Cooking with squash blossoms seems very fussy and restaurant-y, but we have oodles of squash blossoms in the garden this year. A lot of them, I've noticed, don't go on to become squashes, but just wither and fall off. I learned from Alice Walker's Chez Panisse Vegetables that "The male flowers, those without tiny squashes attached, are generally preferred for stuffing." Aha, only female squash blossoms turn into squashes. It's probably ignorant that I didn't know this already. I learned a bit more about squash pollination from wikipedia. We are growing four kinds of squash this year, yellow crookneck, butterstick (yellow zucchini), so-called Sweet Gourmet Hybrid (to me, they look just like the calabacita squashes that are common in Mexican grocery stores), and zucchini. We got our seeds from Burpee. The zucchini are crammed against the fence and rather crowded; maybe the bees can't get to them as well and they aren't getting effectively pollinated? We aren't getting nearly as many zucchini as the other sorts of squash.

So, I gathered my squash blossoms and made Summer Squash Blossoms Stuffed with Ricotta from the aforementioned Chez Panisse Vegetables, p. 311. Basically, you stuff the blossoms with a mixture of ricotta, egg, parmesan, butter, flour, and salt, and then poach them for 6 minutes. Drain, then serve with sage butter. The recipe urges you to use blossoms with tiny squashes attached as well as the male blossoms.



So here they are. It was a lot of work, and they were good, but a bit watery. There's another recipe where the squash blossoms are stuffed with mozzarella, dredged in corn flour and fried. Maybe I'll try that some time, but it sounds heavy, like squash blossom poppers.

I had a lot of filling left after stuffing my 8 blossoms. Maybe Alice Walker has bigger blossoms than I do. So, I stuffed some "sweet gourmet" squash halves with the filling, then baked them @ 425 for about 45 minutes, until cook through and nicely browned. That was pretty good also.

The best Alice Walker recipe I tried, and the one that I will surely make again, is a simple squash saute. You saute sliced squash in olive oil until tender and just starting to brown, then add garlic, fresh basil or marjoram, salt, and pepper. After a minute, turn off the heat, add a squeeze of lemon juice, and serve. (Actually, I would add the basil along with the lemon juice, because basil gets drab and flavorless if it cooks very much.)

Zucchini Frittata

I made the frittata from this Frittata and Tomato Sandwich recipe courtesy of Michael Chiarello. I was flipping past the Food Network channel, and he happened to be making it before my eyes. I almost never turn on the Food Channel and catch a chef making something that I would like to eat, but this time I got lucky.

I like the technique of broiling the zucchini. I'll be doing that again. It does cause the zucchini to get very soft, not "just tender" as the recipe says. I only had parmesan cheese, so that's what I used.

Another egg and zucchini recipe: I had some grated zucchini left over from making zucchini bread. Mix the grated zucchini with egg, salt, and pepper (herbs or garlic would be good too) and then fry in a pan as you would a pancake. The result is light and tender. You can mix just one egg with a pretty large amount of zucchini.

Green-packed Stir Fry

This dish is based on the "Green-packed Stir Fry" in Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson, but with completely different vegetables.

2 T. olive oil
1 block extra-firm tofu, sliced into 8 pieces
1 small bunch broccoli, separated into small florets
1 carrot, chopped into circles or semicircles
2 to 3 summer squashes, chopped into 1-inch chunks
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 jalapeno peppers, minced
a 1x2-inch cube of fresh ginger, minced
several cups of mild greens such as spinach or chard, roughly chopped*
3-4 T. hoisin sauce
juice and zest of 2 limes
large handful of fresh basil, chopped
large handful of fresh mint, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Heat 1 T. olive oil in a well-seasoned skillet over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, lay tofu in pan. Let brown for about 5 minutes, then turn and brown for a few more minutes, until golden and slightly crispy on both sides. Set tofu aside.

In wok, heat 1 T. olive oil over high heat. Add broccoli and stir frequently. After a couple minutes, add carrots. A few minutes later, add squash. When vegetables are turning golden brown at edges but still crisp, add garlic, jalapenos, and ginger. Stir for another minute. Add greens and stir until wilted. Then add 3 T. hoisin sauce, lime juice, zest, and tofu. (Cut the tofu into smaller pieces or strips, if you like.) Turn off heat, and add basil and mint. Stir until wilted and well combined. Add salt, pepper, or another T. of hoisin sauce to taste.

This would be good over rice or another cooked grain. I often eat it plain.

If you don't have hoisin sauce, use soy sauce instead, and feel free to use lemon juice instead of lime. (Start with 2 T. soy sauce, then add more as needed.) My favorite way to make this dish is with soy sauce and lemon juice; it is lighter and less dominated by sauce.

*I used mustard greens, which were a little too sharp tasting.

Rice with Tofu, Greens, Squash, Gravy

When Mike and I were in Santa Monica last year, we went to Real Food Daily, Ann Gentry's restaurant. I had a basic bowl of brown rice with tofu, greens, and house dressing. It's the best and most comforting meal in the world. Plus, Real Food Daily has amazing chocolate chip cookies. They are made with barley flour, which is unusual, but somehow adds to their sweet nuttiness.

I've gotten away from it lately, but I think it's good to have a Real Food Daily-type dinner often. Last night we had brown rice, yellow squash sauteed in olive oil with salt and pepper, garlicky kale, sauteed tofu, and Golden Gravy from The Real Food Daily cookbook. It's an onion and nutritional yeast gravy, very delicious. The squash and kale were from our CSA box--we got gorgeous vegetables this week.




Apologies for the blurry picture. This is probably unusual, but I find photographs to be the most tedious part of blogging. I don't like finding the right light, fussing with the memory card, or taking the picture itself. My photos are usually mediocre at best, which I could blame on our camera, but I'm sure the fault is mine. Our previous digital camera was cheaper and simpler and inferior in every way, but I got better results with it. The current camera takes blurry pictures for me. I could use a tripod, but that sounds like even more work.