Vegetarian Gravy November 23, 2009

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, my gravy recipe:

Ingredients:

Olive oil

1/3 -1/2 cup chopped onion

5 cloves garlic

1/4 cup (or less) flour

4 TBSP soy sauce

2 cups vegetable broth

1/2 tsp (or more to taste) dried sage

1/4 tsp (or more to taste) black pepper

Directions:

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil in over medium heat until soft. Stir in flour and soy sauce. A roux will form (like a thick paste). Gradually whisk in the vegetable broth and add the sage and pepper to taste (Kelly and I usually add more). Bring to a boil briefly then reduce heat to low and simmer for about 10 minutes or until thickened.

Caramel Apple Slices and General Autumn Goodness October 8, 2009

At a recent gathering dubbed “Patrick Swayze Memorial Weekend” I was charged with the “Ghost” food, perhaps because I was unwavering in my support for Ghost’s inclusion in the movie marathon. The thing is, there’s really not much food in Ghost… pottery, yes- food, not so much. We decided that Ghost-themed food therefore equalled Halloween food. I, of course, took this opportunity to make a variation of one of my favorite treats- caramel apples.

Also, I found honeycrisp apples! My heart was all aflutter and I had to use them.

Caramel apples are finicky (see my last caramel apple post from November 2008), as caramel tends not to stick all that well to apples. The result is often a caramel coated apple sitting in a huge pool of run-off caramel. I decided to try and make caramel apples slices (really wedges).

First I used an apple corer/slicer to, well, core and slice the apples. I didn’t want them to get brown while I was working on the other stuff so I threw them in a bowl with water and lemon juice.

Once I was ready to assemble the ingredients, I lined a baking sheet with a silpat, although wax paper would work just as well. I tried to dry off the skin-side of the cut apples, but I didn’t spend too long on this, because that would be tedious and annoying. From here, I applied caramel (very sophisticated, I melted a couple of bags of werther’s) and chopped peanuts. Not much to it, but delicious! The caramel sticks better to the skin-sides of the apple than the cut sides, but it’s easy enough to use the excess caramel on the silpat as a dip if you want more caramel than is stuck to your apple slice. I left peanuts off some of the apples, in case some people didn’t like peanuts, but in hindsight, no one cared and I could have added them to all the slices.

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On a related note, keep your eyes open for a post involving this super-cool pumpkin patch pan (link below). I had been coveting this pan for a while, and then it showed up on my doorstep, courtesy of Erin and Becca! Thank you lovely ladies!

Pumpkin-patch pan!

-H

Unemployed Cooking- Week 7 September 28, 2009

So week six we were out of town at a wedding, riding rollercoasters, and visiting my family, so I didn’t make dinner. But here’s a cute picture of me and my nephew Andrew.

But last night I was back to cooking. I had a really great sandwich at this place a few weeks ago and decided to try to recreate it.  It was an Apple, Brie and Tempeh sandwich.

it’s very yummy, but kind of explains itself (slice up the thing and put them in a sandwich), so I won’t put up a recipe.

With it I made this salad I’ve made for many an occasion.

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 tbsp dijon mustard
• 11/2 tsp chopped thyme
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 5-oz bag mixed baby greens
• 2 ripe pears, thinly sliced
• 1 cup crumbled blue cheese or goat cheese
• 1 cup walnuts, chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped

Directions

Whisk the first 3 ingredients in a small bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in oil. Toss everything together in a bowl.

Unemployed Cooking- Week 5 September 14, 2009

I did  a 55+ mile bike tour yesterday, and can’t believe that I was still awake to make Mark dinner. I had made these enchiladas two years ago for a dinner party and remember them being tasty and not that hard to make. The recipe is from my giant Vegetarian Cookbook (found on the street). I had given it 4 out of 5 stars the first time I made it, this time I had to downgrade it to 3 1/2 or maybe even 3 stars. Maybe it was the fatigue, but it seemed like a lot more work and the results weren’t as tasty. Below is a scan of the recipe (hopfully at a high enough resolution to read) It claims to take 30 mins of prep time, but I think with all the chopping it was more like 45+ in additon to 35 mins of cooktime. This week we are going to a wedding in OH and to visit my family in MI, so there might not be a week 6 unemployed cooking installment, but  don’t fear, I’ll be back with a yummier recipe for week 7  (unless of course I manage to get a job)…

Blueberry-Banana Bread September 11, 2009

This is a recipe I spotted on another food blog and have been waiting to try. The recipe itself can be found here: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2009/06/blueberry-banana-bread.html

I won’t rehash the whole recipe, since I followed this one precisely. It calls for agave nectar, which you will see in a lot of strict vegan recipes used as a sweetener in place of sugar (often not considered vegan as it’s commonly filtered with bone char) and honey (strict vegans don’t eat honey ’cause of the whole bee thing). I tend to use sugar sold as evaporated cane juice to solve this problem, but I keep agave on hand as well, and used it for this recipe.

Though I probably never would have thought of it myself, blueberries make an excellent addition to banana bread. A lot of mine tended to congregate at the bottom of the bread, but the taste was not compromised!

Unemployed Cooking Week 4: Birthday Week! September 9, 2009

Last week was Mark’s birthday week, there were events and excitement everyday including a trip to Six Flags and a BBQ in my backyard. The food highlight however was my cooking a key lime pie. I got the recipe from a mutual friend, and made a few mistakes along the way. The first of which being there is a difference between limes and KEY limes, and it turns out not a lot of stores carry key limes. After buying 10 regular limes and learning my mistake I ended up traveling to the Whole Foods in Manhattan at 10pm on a Sunday night to get key limes and a juicer.

But it was worth it. The pie turned out perfectly. And according to Mark it was “the best food I’ve ever tasted”

Best Key Lime Pie Ever

Crust

• 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Filling

• 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1/2 cup fresh Key lime juice (squeezed from the limes, no cheating with the bottled stuff)

• Whipped cream
  • For crust:
    Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine cracker crumbs, sugar, and salt in medium bowl. Add butter and stir until crumbs are moist. Press mixture onto bottom and up sides of 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish. Bake crust until set and lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Cool crust completely. Maintain oven temperature.
  • For filling:
    Whisk sweetened condensed milk and egg yolks in medium bowl to blend. Squeeze the limes, then add lime juice and whisk until blended. Pour filling into cooled crust. Bake pie until filling is set, about 18 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate pie overnight.
  

Word of the Moment: Treacle August 31, 2009

I admit it, I kind of thought treacle only existed at Hogwarts. Apparently it appears in muggle recipes too, which is copacetic, as I not so secretly wish graduate school was more like Hogwarts. Here begins my culinary edification via vocabulary words.

Courtesy of OChef.com:

“Technically treacle is a generic word in Britain for any syrup made in the process of refining sugar cane, and it can range from very light to very dark. In practice, the lighter syrup which is produced when the sugar cane juice is first boiled, is called light treacle or golden syrup.

The second boiling produces a much darker syrup, which British cooks call treacle (or dark treacle) and we callmolasses (or dark molasses). The third boiling produces what we both apparently call blackstrap molasses, which is very dark and somewhat bitter, and which health-food advocates think is heaven on earth, although it is more often used to feed cattle.

If you don’t want to track down the real British thing, supermarket-available dark molasses is what you want for your recipes.”

Photo by planet-science.com

-H

Week 3…Cooking by the Jobless August 30, 2009

As promised, I made Mark eggplant parmesan (with my homegrown eggplant!!) this weekend. Here’s me and how proud I was of my eggplant.

Granted, it was kinda little…so I had to combine it with a store bought one. But you can’t tell the difference right?

So here’s the recipe…(it was yummy btw)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 eggplant, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2/3 eggs, beaten
• 1-1/3 cups Italian seasoned bread crumbs
• 2 cups spaghetti sauce, divided
• 1/3 (16 ounce) package mozzarella cheese, shredded and divided
• 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons grated Parmesan cheese, divided
• 1/8 teaspoon dried basil

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2.  Dip eggplant slices in egg, then in bread crumbs. Place in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 5 minutes on each side.

3. In a 9×13 inch baking dish spread spaghetti sauce to cover the bottom. Place a layer of eggplant slices in the sauce. Sprinkle with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Repeat with remaining ingredients, ending with the cheeses. Sprinkle basil on top.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until golden brown.

The Unemployed Chef August 28, 2009

I’m a (now former) magazine editor in NYC, and in case you haven’t heard it’s not a great time to be a print journalist. So I was recently laid off. I don’t recommend it, it sucks.
I am however lucky enough to have many lovely people in my life, one of which is my boyfriend whom since I lost my job has had to pay for all my meals when we go out. In return I’ve promised to cook him dinner once a week for as long as I’m unemployed.

Week 1:
The first week I made black bean burgers garnished with Swiss cheese, avocado, and peppercorn ranch with potato wedges and corn on the cob.
Here’s the recipe:
Black Bean Rice Burgers (sorry no pic)
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INGREDIENTS
• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 3 tablespoons BBQ sauce,
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 4 lettuce leaves
• 4 slices Swiss cheese
• 4 hamburger buns, split
• 1 Avocado, sliced

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large bowl, mash beans with a fork. Add the rice, onion, egg, bread crumbs, and 3 tablespoons BBQ sauce; mix well. Drop by 1/2 cupfuls into a large nonstick skillet coated with nonstick cooking spray. Flatten to 1/2-in. thickness. Cook over medium heat for 4-5 minutes on each side or until firm and browned.
2. Garnish into yummy burgers

(I don’t have to tell you how to make potato wedges and corn on the cob do I? Didn’t think so…)
**bonus, this really makes about 6 burgers that are super filling and good for leftovers for the rest of the week.

Week 2:
The black bean burgers were so good that Mark requested them again for week 2, so I made ‘em again along with corn on the cob (totally cheap and in season right now) but I made my favorite twice baked potatoes with them instead of wedges.
Here’s the recipe for those:

Garden Stuffed Baked Potatoes

INGREDIENTS
• 4 large potatoes
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 bunch of chopped broccoli
• 1/2 cup ranch dressing
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• ½ cup grated cheese (any kind really)
• salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Pierce the skin of the potatoes with a fork.
2. Microwave pierced potatoes on HIGH for 12 minutes. Place partially baked potatoes in the preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes. Slice off potato tops, scoop out the bulk of the interior of the potato being careful to leave the potato skins intact. In a medium bowl, mash the removed potato interior.
3. Heat a small skillet over medium heat, stir in butter. Saute onions in the skillet until tender, about 5 minutes.
4. Combine onions, cheese, broccoli, and ranch dressing with the mashed potato. Brush the outside of the potato skins with oil. Spoon potato mixture into the skins. Arrange stuffed potatoes on a cookie sheet.
5. Bake potatoes for 15 minutes in the preheated 425 degrees F (220 degrees C) oven, or until heated through. Season with salt, pepper.

This Week: Eggplant Parmesan made with an eggplant from my garden! Stay tuned.

Oh, want to hire me (I can’t keep this up forever people) here’s my site with all the important deets: www.kathleenerindavis.com

-KK

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies August 18, 2009

If you know me, you know I love all things pumpkin (and well, all things autumn). In the spirit of autumn (which is hopefully on its way, but I tend to start early), I give you pumpkin cookies, with chocolate chips! Of course they could also be made without chocolate chips. Here goes:

Wet ingredients:
2 cups brown sugar (not all that wet, but it goes here anyways)
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups pumpkin
3/4 cup oil (original recipe calls for 1 cup, I can get it down to 1/2 cup- if you do this you might want to add applesauce to compensate)

Dry ingredients:

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp cloves

4 cups flour

Directions:

Mix up wet ingredients. Mix up dry ingredients. Add wet mixture to dry mixture and beat. Add chocolate chips (if desired)- I’m a glutton so I add a whole bag. If you want to keep things vegan Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips contain no-milk (but do contain sugar, of course). Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes- mine do best at 13 minutes, but I’m in a weird climate with a cheap stove, so your results may vary.

These cookies have been described as bread or cake-like. If that’s not cool with you but you still want to try them out, I would experiment with using less leavening (e.g., baking powder, baking soda).

Cheers!

-H