pay no attention to the lettuce in the bag

Box number four from Full Circle Farm's CSA program. Broccoli, green onion, carrots, rainbow chard, celery, French breakfast radishes, garnet yams, Ataulfo mangos, Minneola tangelos, Red Bartlett pears, and turnips.

Not pictured is a stinking plastic bag of Earthbound Farm romaine hearts. I'm pretending that that didn't happen. That my CSA box of "local", organic produce didn't just come with some prepackaged lettuce that I could've bought overpriced at Safeway. But the weather is turning warmer and brighter, so the vegetables should be picking up. At the least, I can start gardening, plastic lettuce be damned.

thicker than a bannock

Currant Scones

I'm told my scones taste like the sort that my great grandfather made. Although, presumably, his weren't vegan. These are especially good with some margarine and jam.

Scones

3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unrefined sugar
5 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cold soy margarine (i.e. Earth Balance) cut into 8-10 pieces
1 egg replacer egg
1 cup soy creamer or soy milk
1/2 cup zante currants

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Cut the margarine pieces into the flour with a pastry cutter (a couple of butter knives or just your fingers can work too) until the mixture consists of coarse crumbs.

Whisk the creamer and "egg" together. Mix the currants into the creamer mix. Make a well in the center of the bowl and pour in the creamer/"egg"/currants. Fold the liquid into the crumbs until just combined. You may find yourself with seemingly too much dryness, but you'll be kneading it as well.

Lightly flour a work surface and turn the dough out onto the flour. Knead for about 2-4 minutes. Cut into two portions. One at a time, knead each piece just a few more times and then shape into a circle, patted down to about 1 inch thickness. Cut into six wedges. Brush with soy creamer or soy milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 400 degrees on an ungreased cookie sheet for 15-20 minutes, until edges just begin to brown. Serve warm!

In place of the currants, you could make these with blueberries, dried cranberries, nuts, lemon zest/poppyseeds, or anything else you like to add to baked goods.

3.141592653589793...

Pizza with Artichoke Hearts, Tempeh Sausage,
Red Onion, and Kalamata Olives

I used to love pizza. Back in the olden days as a college freshman, I would order the cheapest, greasiest sort at midnight with my friends and then eat it while watching Female Trouble. Sometimes I miss that kind of pizza--the kind that leaves little strings of cheese on your chin and turns all the napkins an oily orange, the kind that you eat from a box in the dark with the television glowing on your face. But thankfully, I've found salvation in homemade pies and a new love for Pizza (a capital P kind of love.)

"Cheese" is perhaps the holy grail of vegan products. For Pizza endeavors, we seem to oscillate between Follow Your Heart and Veganrella (specifically mozzarella styles, we don't fool with that cheddar nonsense.) It's true that the FYH melts better, but I find it a little bland where Veganrella is pungent--in a good way. But the cheese isn't what makes the Pizza. It's the crust, the sauce, the toppings. This particular batch was a late dinner for my parents, one of those "Let's stuff our faces on Pizza and then eat pie" nights. It happens to the best of us.

The toppings aplenty were as follows: artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, homemade tempeh sausage, red onion, roasted red and yellow pepper, cashews, fresh tomatoes, and grilled portobello mushroom.

I could go on with an in-depth Pizza tutorial, but that can wait for another time. There are more important things in life. Such as dessert.

Black-bottom Peanut Butter Silk Pie

Perhaps the best cream pie I've had as a vegan from the only cookbook that matters. Do yourself a favor and eat some pie. You'll thank me later.

a dime a dozen

Potato Leek Soup with Gomasio

This is me jumping on the band wagon. It seems that this creamy comfort food has vaulted to the top of the soup charts. Everywhere I go it's "potato leek this" and "potato leek that." It's inescapable. So what's a person to do, but make some soup? There are many incarnations of this particular soup. I perused perhaps a dozen recipes and decided that the key to this is simplicity. Although you really don't need it because it's just one in a million, here's my little recipe.

Saute leeks (2, washed and sliced) with red potatoes (about 5-6, washed & cubed) in olive oil (2 Tblspns) for about five minutes. Add four cups water and 1 vegetable bouillon cube (I swear by Rapunzel) and simmer 20-30 minutes until potatoes are cooked through. Salt and pepper to taste. Puree in batches in something sturdy, such as a glass blender or large food processor (not the mini five year old food processor that will spurt hot soup in your face.) Reheat if necessary. Serve with drizzles of olive oil and a liberal sprinkle of gomasio.

the grass is always greener

Sunflower Seed & Cornmeal Crusted Tofu with
Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
Sun-dried Tomato & Mushroom Risotto
Spicy Snow Peas
Garden Salad

After a week-long hiatus in small-town Washington with slow-like-molasses internet, I have lots of pictures and no posts. Yet. So I'm going to run you through some notable edibles from the last 10 days.

This meal consisted of a few of our favorites tweaked in a new fashion. Normally, I marinate and bake tempeh and then crust it with seeds and cornmeal and other bits (it's a holiday meal staple for us.) I used tofu in this dish and can say that the tempeh is better, more exciting although the red pepper sauce was a bright spot (roasted red pepper pureed with garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper.) The risotto is Chris's forte, a recipe that he adapted from the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook. It's a good basic recipe; he added sun-dried tomatoes and crimini mushrooms to this one. The snap peas were also one of his treatments. Usually reserved for fresh green beans, it is, unsurprisingly, better left to the beans.

will you miss me when i'm gone?

Celebrations are so often centered around food. We remember birthdays and weddings for the cakes, wakes for the casseroles, holiday meals for the mashed potatoes and gravy. But there are foods that evoke a different kind of memory. A quieter, personal event. Food that reminds you of a person or a mood.

There are a handful of foods that remind me of my grandmother. Apple pie, orange rolls, Texas sheet cake, spaghetti and meatballs, peanut butter cookies with apple juice. She was always an amazing cook and with six children of her own and twelve stepchildren, she knew how to feed people well, whether it was a crowd on Easter Sunday or her six-year-old granddaughter on a summer afternoon. She's since moved to an elder living facility with her husband and eats many of her meals in the community dining room. I feel honored when I can offer her my own creations and repay some of those memories.


The first and last time I ate artichokes, I was much younger and sitting at the kitchen counter of my grandma's old house. We ate the tender leaves dipped in melted butter, scraping the soft flesh with our teeth. I had never encountered this meticulous vegetable before that moment and, thinking of it now, I can picture my grandma's yellow kitchen with sunlight in the windows and the scraped artichoke petals laying in a pile on one of her thin white plates.

Last Thursday, we received three small artichokes in our CSA box and I was given the opportunity to revisit this moment. Artichoke hearts that are bought marinated and jarred are always delicious, but a far different experience than the slow, methodic nibbling of a whole artichoke. We ate them last night with creamy vegenaise for dipping. This vegetable, simply boiled tender, tastes more sophisticated than it might let on. Try one as a simple appetizer after a long day or on a sunny afternoon with your grandma.

lazy-agna

If lasagna and a cinnamon roll had a baby, this is what would come out. Minus the creamy icing. And the stomach ache you get from eating half the pan of buns.

Spinach & Mushroom Lasagna Rolls
Romaine Salad with red onion, carrot matchsticks,
cherry tomatoes, tamari pumpkin seeds and oil & vinegar.

Spinach & Mushroom Lasagna Rolls

Preheat oven to 400°.

Cook according to package directions:

9 lasagna noodles

Do not overcook or they’ll fall apart on you. In fact, just undercooked is fine since they’re going in the oven too. Rinse under cold water and toss with olive oil to keep them from sticking to each other. Set aside.

Filling ingredients:

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup coarsely chopped cremini mushrooms (about 8-10)
½ cup white cooking wine
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 Tablespoons capers, minced
1 cup packed spinach, washed, dried, and coarsely chopped
8 oz. tofu, crumbled
½ cup chopped walnuts
3 Tablespoons Vegannaise (or blended silken tofu + a squeeze of lemon juice)
¼ cup nutritional yeast
dash of red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

4-5 cups marinara sauce
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 Tablespoons pine nuts (optional)

chopped parsley to garnish (optional)

Heat a medium/large skillet (preferably cast iron) on medium. Add olive oil to skillet and sauté onion until just translucent, stirring often. Add the garlic, sauté for another 30 seconds or so. Add mushrooms, white wine and red wine vinegar. Stir and heat until most of the liquid is cooked out. Stir in capers and remove from heat.

In a medium bowl, add the onion mushroom mixture to the remaining ingredients. Combine well.

Spread about 1 cup of the marinara sauce on the bottom of a 9x9 inch baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil.

On a clean work space or cutting board, lay out your lasagna noodles one at a time vertically. Using about 1/3 cup of the filling for each noodle, spread a line of it starting two inches from the top of the noodle and continuing to the very bottom. There should be about ½ inch of space along the sides. Roll the noodle away from you, starting from the bottom and rolling up. Place the roll seam-side down in the pan. Continue for the remaining noodles until you fill the pan with 9 rolls. Spread the rest of the marinara over the rolls and cover with foil. Bake for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a dry skillet on medium. Add the pine nuts to the pan and heat for a few minutes, stirring constantly, until they begin brown very slightly. Remove from skillet to a cool plate or bowl.

Take lasagna rolls out of oven. Remove foil and sprinkle with pine nuts. Replace in oven and bake for another 5-10 minutes. Garnish servings with chopped parsley.

a ray of ruby grapefruit in the grey of march

The contents of our third box of Full Circle Farm CSA produce.

Artichokes, red onion, acorn squash, green leaf lettuce, red potatoes, snow peas, cherry tomatoes, leeks, ruby grapefruit, Fuji apples, mango, and garnet yams.

Most of this food is sourced from farms outside of Washington. A traditional CSA farm sends a box of fruits and vegetables that are seasonal and local. So typically my vegetables this month would be roots, roots, and more roots. Full Circle Farm sources organics from other states where growing seasons are longer (California, for instance) so they can offer a greater variety during the slower growing seasons in this state. I know it’s not a “true” CSA, but I’m still investing in a farm and eating an array of organic foods.

Which is perhaps the best reason I can see in signing up for a CSA: it’s too easy to rotate the same dozen fruits and vegetables in cooking, to rely on foods that you are comfortable with. Why take a chance on brussels sprouts when you know you love broccoli? The boxes come with at least one or two foods that I’ve never cooked with or that I rarely think of using when I’m wandering through the produce aisle. And so far, armed with a good recipe, I haven't been let down.

You can find farms that offer Community Supported Agriculture in your area by using the Local Harvest CSA Finder.

There’s no such thing as too many vegetables in your kitchen.

little debbie, eat yr heart out

Molasses Cookie Sandwiches

Adapted from a cookie recipe out of King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, soft gingery cookies with a dollop of fluffy white frosting smashed between them. Not quite these, but the very fact that they aren't wrapped in a pouch of cellophane makes them better.

baking up a storm and swimming in the sea

Cranberry Pear Tart with Almonds

This is another dessert from Vegan With a Vengeance. You would think I don't have anything better to do. Well. It just so happens that I don't. You tell me what's better than banging out a tart on a Wednesday evening and then we'll talk. This was made with Bosc and Red D'anjou pears that had piled up from our CSA box. The recipe calls for a 9 in. tart pan. Mine's 11. I had to do some fancy footwork with the math and most of it I just ended up eyeballing anyway. I think it turned out purty nice lookin'.

Coconut Mango Banana Bread

Last night I was in a frenzy, using up fruits and vegetables on the verge of inedibleness. Blackening bananas and half a mango left over from sushi provoked this dense sweet loaf. You can fool with this recipe a lot: in lieu of the mango (and coconut) you could substitute diced apple, berries, raisins, dried cranberries, currants, pineapple, and so on.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x5x3 in. pan and set aside.
In a large bowl, sift the following together:

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

In a medium bowl combine the following:

1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (about 5 medium)
1/2 cup applesauce
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark molasses
1/4 cup canola oil

(Alternatively, for a little added protein, you could substitute 1/2 cup blended silken tofu or plain/vanilla soy yogurt in place of 1/2 cup of bananas or the applesauce.)

Add banana mixture all at once to the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. It will be lumpy. Fold in the following:

1/2 cup diced mango
1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Spoon batter into pan and, if desired, sprinkle with a little coarse raw sugar. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If necessary, cover the bread with a loose tent of foil in the last 15 minutes to prevent overbrowning. Cool in pan on a wire rack for about 10 minutes; remove from pan and let cool completely. Tastes best if you wrap it (I use a clean kitchen towel) overnight and slice it the following day.

Kitchen Sink Sushi

Tuesday night we made sushi with friends. It was only the second time I've rolled the little logs and the first was only memorable for the rice that fell apart (and being at least two years ago.) Since then we've schooled ourselves on the how-tos of sushi. The first episode of the Post Punk Kitchen is all about sushi. If you don't feel empowered to cook by watching the PPK, then you may as well burn down your kitchen. While it's no match for two Brooklynites who have amassed a small army of vegans, the Food Network, at times, has some valuable information. Namely, Alton Brown's Good Eats. His "Wake Up Little Sushi" episode has some excellent pointers, first and foremost being his recipe for sushi rice. So this is what we threw together with lots of little piles of fillings: avocado, green onion, grilled tofu, carrot, mango, cucumber, yam, and sesame seeds. The picture above is what I made for dinner the next day: the stray leftovers from the night before (mango, carrot, green onion and cucumber) and some leftover tempeh bacon with sweet pickled ginger. Hence, kitchen sink sushi.