The Food In Me

Whole-Meal Ficelles

2010-08-22T20:58:00.000-05:00

Backstory

Cook with what you have, the complementary concept to "write what you know." I'm in love with alternative grains. I've got nothing against good old wheat, but it's just... boring, you know?

This recipe yields enough for a person to have eight complementary-protein meals (each ficelle is about 190 calories). Serving suggestions (gawd, I feel like Susie Homemaker) include:

Nonfat yogurt infused with Vietnamese red sauce
A nice lamb stew
An unusual counterpoint to a very spicy eggplant cabbage curry

Ingredients

4C unbleached flour
1C millet
1C quinoa
1/4C flaxseed
1/4C dried onion flakes
1/4C granulated garlic
1T light salt
1T yeast
1.5T sesame oil
1t sugar
Optional: chili pepper flakes, cracked peppercorns, sesame seeds, or poppy seeds

Preparation

Combine all ingredients but optional ones and oil in a mixer
Add warm water until you've got a firm, slightly sticky ball
Take 1/2 the oil and coat bowl. Roll dough into bowl, cover, and let rise 45-60 minutes
Knead thoroughly, then divide into 16 equal balls
If you're using optional ingredients, spread them evenly on a cutting board
Pull 2 oven baking racks and loosely lay tinfoil on them, letting them (so the ficelles can rest on them). Use the reserved sesame oil to LIGHTLY coat the tinfoil. If you're a foodie with ficelle racks, please accept my total hatred of you ;)
Roll each ball into a snake about 12" (30cm) long
If you're using optional roll-ons, by all means roll them on. The ficelles.
Lay the ficelles down on the racks and cover (if you've not got enough towels, support your local energy oligopoly and use plastic wrap)
Let rise for 20 minutes, then set the oven to 350 degrees and let the ficelles rise an additional 15 minutes.
Bake for 40 minutes.

Yield: 16 ficelles

Review: Torchy's, Rudy's and TacoDeli

2010-07-20T15:35:00.000-05:00

Tweetreview: Pretentious meets bad customer service meets... who cares. You can do better in Austin!

I've eaten here. A few times, in time for the morning rush and between breakfast and lunch. I'm a bit... geezer... as my kids put it, so I've got arms way too short for some menus. Torchy's included, it turns out. Who ever heard of 8pt italic serif fonts on a menu? On a black background? Yeesh.

I don't mind surly people: we need them, so we special folks can feel superior to them. But if they're surly to me and fun and prancy with their co-workers, that's just stupid. I mean, by definition we're having a better life than they are: we're not up at 5:30 making tacos for folks, and swabbing bathrooms in our copious spare time? No need to rub your relative serfdom in; we understand your passive aggression just fine.

Right, food review. I've had five tacos. Like at McCoffee-type places, I don't use their corporate lingo. A taco is a taco is a taco. I ordered a barbacoa taco (those and napolitos, in my opinion, quickly define the mettle of a taco place).

"Barbacoa taco," I said.

"What do you want on it?"

I considered that for a a moment; some people do want to contaminate their barbacoa with ingredients. "Nothing else," I said after a moment.

"Like, um, a Democrat?" life-reject said. She pointed to aforementioned black page with italic, small-fonted text.

I looked down on it, trying to make sense of the haze that befalls people pushing 50, much to denial of their younger ilk. "No," I said, trying for a little respect. "Just barbacoa."

"On corn or wheat?"

Do they even serve barbacoa on corn? Sounds even more messy than it otherwise might be. "Flour," I said shortly.

The meat was good. The taco was industrial. The service was marginal and the salsa was entirely forgettable.

And given the cost, not worth the time to purchase, let alone ingest.

It's sometimes hard to grump about a taco place. After all, there are taquerias that are described with a number rather than a name (#17 is pretty good, if you can find it). There are showy ones like Maria's Taco Xpress, pedestrian yet utilitarian places like Taco Shack, and wildly smiley ones like Rudy's BBQ, which has GREAT breakfast crews; folks that really smile and really enjoy their jobs (especially with taskmasters -- I mean, managers -- close by). (Kidding: the folks and management there are efficient and VERY customer focused).

So Torchy's has got to have more than snooty waitstaff and incomprehensible-to-folks-with-theoretical-disposable-income-customers menus.

Couldn't find it. Pretty sad.

On the other end of the scale, however, aside from praising Rudy's yet again -- but they're mainly a BBQ place, so they need to amscray from the limelight of this post -- we have Tacodeli. I've known these folks for... uh.... too long? Ten years? Wow. They've got some fanatic employee loyalty, with managers who started as servers nine years ago. They make kick-ass tacos, and there's not a thing they won't do to make the customer happy. I've seen a customer return two tacos before being satisfied with the third, even if it was their... obtuseness... that was the source of the miscommunication.

Three dishes worth particular mention:

Blanco pappas breakfast taco. Eggwhite and Mexican mashed potatoes. Great vehicle for the dona sauce (see below). Addictive. Best on flour.
Fish tacos. Well, it's more than one dish: there are a few they tout. Light, crisp ingredients, tasty. Corn is a nice wrapper for them.
Vegetable burrito. This is my personal favorite, one per person per meal. Brown rice, beans, freshly grilled veggies. Simple and delightful.

Their dona sauce is heavenly; potent, creamy and, most importantly, a shade of green not usually found in nature. I may have to drive WAY out of my way for it, compared to a five-minute walk to Torchy's but it's well worth the effort: Tacodeli has the food, the service, the staff and the attitude that makes them, not Torchy's, a great local chain. They've got locations across from Central Market in Central Austin, up by the IBM buildings on Braker, and down by Barton Skyway and Bull Creek.

Shitake Navy Split Pea Crock Pot Stew

2010-07-20T15:26:00.000-05:00

Backstory

Can't beat the simplicity of crock pots and simple, healthy foods. Just about fat-free, great, complementary protein dish.

Ingredients

1lb navy beans (7C full beans)
1C split Peas, 1 cup
3.5C (1-28oz can) Diced Tomatoes in Tomato Juice OR equivalent of 4 beef tomatoes
1.5oz. Dried Shitake Mushrooms
12 (30g) Chinese Dried Red Chili Pepper
2T dried oregano
2T parsley flakes
1t cumin

Preparation

Pre-soak the beans.
If you're not using canned tomatoes, dice the tomatoes
Take all ingredients except mushrooms and put into a 4Q+ crock pot.
Fill with water to 1" from brim.
Add dried mushrooms (no need to soak).
Cover and put on "low for 8 hours.

Yield: 12-1C servings

Timing

Prep time: 5 Elapsed time: 8 hours (plus bean soak time

Cocoa Venison (or Tofu) Lentil Rice Chili

2010-07-20T15:13:00.000-05:00

Backstory

Cocoa adds an interesting flavor to the mix. Add habanero, serrano, or other peppers as you see fit. All you need with this amazing complete protein is a little salad!

Ingredients

Protein

2lb Venison (substitute 1.5lb seitan or 2lb. extra firm tofu)
1 medium onion, chopped
12 cloves (~1 bulb) Garlic
2T ground cumin
2T Paprika
.5T ground black pepper

Remainder

1lb Lentils
1lb Brown Rice, medium grain
1/8C unsweetened cocoa powder
For added spice, toss in 4 sliced Habanero and a half-dozen Serrano peppers
1.5T Tabasco Sauce
1T ground black pepper

Preparation

In Crock Pot

Toss in rice and lentils & 7C water.
Add Tabasco, 1T black pepper and cooca
If you're heating things up, carefully slice the hot peppers and add, with seeds, to the pot

In Skillet

Fry up the onions in the oil.
Add the remaining spices until well blended.
Add the protein and sliced garlic.
Stir until browned.

When Rice/Lentils are done, toss in the skillet contents into the crock pot and stir in well. Let cook on low for an hour or two.

D. Serve and curl toes as appropriate.

Yield: 16-1C servings

Timing

Prep time: 5 Elapsed time: ~4 hours

Baba Ganoush

2010-05-17T15:00:00.001-05:00

Backstory

I simultaneously love and worry about making this food. Love because it's a great food: healthy, delicious when warm and fresh, but a wonderful cool counterpart to fresh-baked bread. I worry about it because the main ingredient, eggplant, is a member of the nightshade family (as are tomatoes), and hence a possible low-grade toxin. I sometimes react to it (itchy mouth), so I'm never sure if I'll react to this yummy dish or not.

Ingredients

One large eggplant
1/4C te'chi'na (see recipe here)
1 large or 2 medium lemons
1T ground cumin

Preparation

Wash the eggplant and remove the green head leaves, then, with a fork pierce it repeatedly all over. Use a fork, if you want to be effective, or an awl if you like yelling ha-HAAAH repeatedly.
Put eggplant on tin foil, then onto a baking sheet and place into an oven on the upper shelf on broil. You can put it directly on a gas flame on top of the burner, or in a BBQ grill.
Burn, Eggplant, Burn! Let it go for about 20 minutes. The skin will blacken, it will smell burnt. Persevere. At 20 minutes flip it over (carefully: it's HOT). Give it another 5 minutes. Then start checking the ends at 5-minute intervals for squishy softness.
Remove from oven and let cool.
Split eggplant open with a knife. With a spoon, scoop out all the meat, picking out any charred skin. Or any skin at all, for that matter.
Toss into food processor, along with 1/8-1/4C tehina (depends on the size of the eggplant). Start with less and add more during the blending process.
Add the lemon, first the juice, then the (seedless) meat.
Fire up the food processor and add the cumin powder.
Add more tehina until the baba ganoush is creamy, not stringy.

Serves: 3 people for appetizers

Timing

Prep time: 10 minutes. Elapsed time: 45 minutes

Cheap Great Steak

2010-05-09T12:57:00.001-05:00

Backstory

Every year a couple of great friends throw a MudBug Party: a crawfish boil, with plenty of sausage, beer, and other fine drinkables and comestibles. I'm on a fairly tight budget this year, but I wanted to make something my non-mudbug-eating daughter and others might enjoy. Costco trip ensued, and here's a great dish that has a few serving suggestions at the end of the recipe.

Ingredients

3-4 lbs. Eye-Round Roast (yes, the cheap stuff)
1/2C Worcestershire sauce
3/4C low sodium soy sauce
1/4C tabasco (or chili flakes if you want more zing and less sodium)
1.5T fresh ground mustard powder
1/4C brown sugar or unsulphured molasses
Water sufficient to dilute marinade

Preparation

Take all ingredients aside from meat and water and pour into saucepan.
Heat until ingredients are well mixed (no need to bring to boil). Add water and continue stirring until you've got about 1.5Q of liquid. Set aside from heat and let fully cool. Then refrigerate for one hour.
Take eye-round roast and trim excess fat.
Cutting against the grain, slice into approximately 1/2"-3/4" medallions.
Pour cooled marinade into a gallon-sized freezer thickness sealable bag.
Place medallions, one at a time, into the marinade. With a wooden spoon, make sure each medallion is fully coated before adding the next.
When they're all in the bag, remove all air from the bag and gently massage, ensuring that marinade coats all the meat.
Place in fridge for 24 hours, massaging the bag and turning it ever 6-8 hours.
BBQ grill as you would any steak

Serves: 18-24 medallions

Serving Suggestions:

Steaks

As shown above. I'd taste it before slathering it with any more condiments. The meat, especially if it's not too well done, is surprisingly juicy and flavorful.

Middle Eastern Style Strips with Pita and Hummus

Cook to medium done. Slice cooked medallions into 1/4" strips. Taking a pita, add 3-5 strips to a small bed of lettuce and tomatoes. Top with a generous dollop of hummus.

Texas Style Strips with Tortillas and Hummus

Cook to medium done. Slice cooked medallions into 1/4" strips. Place 2-4 strips on a tortilla already layered with a generous slathering of hummus. Add spanish rice and guacamole to the mix, roll and enjoy.

Timing:

Prep time: 20 minutes + grilling Elapsed time:25 hours

Review: Triumph Cafe

2010-04-22T21:15:00.000-05:00

Tweeview: Triumph has no-MSG, authentic phở with all the fixings in a family atmosphere. Way fast service, great prices. Discount program rocks!

You can catch vibe in a lot of places. I get a creative vibe while driving south under the 45th street bridge on MoPac (two patents, a novel, three short stories, a bunch of business ideas; no kidding!).

I think there are vibes in places as well. I'm not a spiritualist or anything like that; analysis might focus on lighting, angles and proportions and the number of good things seen inside it. Whatever.

Triumph Cafe is an amazing little place. It's a family business; you're probably going to be served by the same blood that preps the food, that cooks the food, that handles the books, etc. Like all Austin joints, the Hispanic presence is there, in the back room: busing, dishwashing. But the kids bus tables too. And grandparents keep a steely eye on things and kids when they're around.

[Full disclosure: I'm on the board of a non-profit that has used Triumph's tables and chairs for monthly and sometimes weekly meetings, generously and freely hosted. More later...]

Phở is the currency of the place; it's served with traditional elements like sprouts and Vietnamese (not Thai!) basil. Also what I suspect to be stand-in ingredients like and jalapeno peppers instead of whatever's local back "East."

It's a bit too salty for me. But the flavors of fresh ingredients and nicely cooked bánh phở (noodles) work well, and adding brown sauce certainly balances the equation (be still my straining heart).

The price is very competitive, and then it gets better. Their idea of frequent diner looks to me more like a real 'friends and family' sweetheart deal. Put money on one of their cards, and you get 10% added to your deposit (e.g., $50 becomes $55 when you charge up the card), and an additional 10% off the tab when you buy something. And, of course, they have the ubiquitous 'get this card stamped ten times and then have an entree on us' deal.

The service is equally amazing. I enjoy taking newcomers to Triumph, just to see the look in their eyes when the dish arrives almost as soon as they fill their soda glasses and find a seat. Someone do a time and motion study on these folks; they're ridiculous!

It's worth talking about the environment as well. The restaurant has a great patio, where smoking is discouraged (but unfortunately not enforced as city code requires). Despite that, Austinites tend to be polite folks, and I haven't had more than a couple of cigarette issues at lunch. (I resolved it my way, but it didn't make the news, so all's good.)

The shot at the right (cadged from their web site) is fairly accurate, except for the lack of grackles which, like the white-tailed deer, ort some deity's idea of humor in the guise of wildlife. You know the Monty Python routine with the liver donation and "I'm not done with it yet?" They're like that, only with food. Yours, if you're not keeping track of what's going on around you.

The inside of the store reminds me of the Cuban-style bodegas in New York City. You want Phở? Covered. A nice silk tie? Office water fixture? Vietnamese coffee, freshly ground or in custom-made cans? Sure! Jewish Klezmer music occasionally displaces country, bluegrass, Asian fusion, or silence.

I've come in when I was the one and only, and come in to pandemonium, where two board meetings and a bible study group are meeting inside, and a book club is holding court in one end of the outside patio.

Throughout all this, the family at Triumph serves great food at GREAT prices with aplomb, a smile, and the odd tattoo and spiky 'doo.

It's an amazing place. The 'vibe' here is a comfortable, community, family establishment.Go. Eat. Enjoy! And remember to bring your stopwatch when you come: it'll be the standard against which all other lunch and dinner restaurants will be judged.

Triumph Cafe ■ 3808 Spicewood Springs 254 ■ Austin, TX 78759 ■ (512)-343-1875

Dine In | Take Out | Catering | Coffee | Silk Ties | Chotchkes

Mongolian Steak Shards

2010-04-22T19:43:00.002-05:00

Backstory

Reverse engineered from the Mongolian restaurants, I've got this on tap for tomorrow as each kid has their own form of food insanity. Okay, here's a joke: a carnivore, a vegetarian and a picky eater go into a restaurant. "We'd like to share an entree," they say.

So this is for the meat-eater. I'll integrate it into the vegetarian stir-fry (not given here) on my own. And the picky one? She can eat the mac and cheese... :)

Ingredients

Marinade:

1/2C Ginger marinade
1/4C Low-sodium soy sauce
1 habanero pepper
2C water

Food:

2.5 lb. beef shoulder
8 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/2 a medium onion, finely chopped
2T canola oil

Preparation

Mince the habanero pepper and toss in with liquid marinade ingredients.
Carefully trim fat from shoulder (2.5 lb. shoulder should render at least 1/3C of fat trimmed from meat).
Slice meat across the grain into 1/8" thick slices. When you come to fat deposits, carve 'em out.
Put meat into marinade, shake well, then squeeze air out of bag and set in refrigerator to soak.
Marinate for 12+ hours
In wok or pan heat up oil. Toss in garlic and onion; stir until softened.
Add strips of meat, making sure each gets browned a bit on both sides when it goes in.
If you like it spicy, strain the marinade and add the habanero peppers.

Don't overcook! a couple of minutes per slice of meat is more than enough (1 minute/side). Keep the onions and garlic in there until it's all done, then pour off the remaining liquid and reserve to pour on the meat.

Serve as an entree or add to a larger stir fry. Serving sized based on a 3oz serving of meat. You'll get a discount on the sodium since you're not actually using all of it, but I'm not accounting for that. (So feel good about yourself but the numbers will have a separate statement for the press.) :)

Serves: 12

Timing

Prep time: 25 minutes Elapsed time: 12.5 hours

5.5:1 Quinoa Onion Bread

2010-04-22T19:31:00.002-05:00

Backstory

I've been do a LOT of cooking lately. By a lot I mean that I've tried to only make food from ingredients, and not buy ingredients. That's been hard, but until I got my new steadily-paying gig, it's been tough not to do that.

Bread and various riffs on it attract me: they're easy and quick to get going, I can beat the crap out of the dough and vent on it, and it's fun to watch powders and water get turned into this really cool food.

This bread was born of my interest in creating a biyali-type bread, redolent with onion, without the grief I believe is inherent in the dish. Bread I can do. Playing in odd ways... not ready for that (yet). I also love to add protein grains, usually quinoa, to make the bread a more satisfying dish. That has a downside for those looking to lose weight, this isn't the bread for you.

Using the dried onion and sesame, instead of other oil, serve to intensify the flavor of the quinoa, and make this a great bread for cold cuts or, cubed and then baked, incredible croutons.

Ingredients

5.5C unbleached organic flour
3/4C dehydrated chopped onion
1C quinoa (dry)
1.5t salt
1T yeast
1T sesame oil

Preparation

Proof yeast
Mix dry ingredients
Add proofed yeast
Mix and add water until it's a slightly sticky ball
Grease with the almost all the oil and let rise 40 minutes
Use remaining oil to loaf pan
Turn dough into loaf pan
Let rise another 40 minutes.
Bake @ 350 degrees for 40 minutes
Decant and let cool 20 minutes!

Serves: 10

Timing

Prep time: 7 Elapsed time: 57

2010-03-31T00:01:00.000-05:00

I'll be doing reviews as well as recipes, starting this date. I've got such a backlog of recipes I figure it'll be better to give a few reviews sprinkled in. I'm pushing the dates around so they're salted throughout the blog. These aren't expert critiques: I'm an eater, a bit of a foodie, but heavily influenced by the vibe of the place and the people.

So... enjoy!

An Angry Vegan Dish: Spicy Garlic Lentil Stew

2010-01-27T18:59:00.002-06:00

Backstory

I've been rejoicing in making soups, stews, breads and all manner of comfort cooking. I hadn't done lentils in eons, and, as usual for my recipes, I start with what I have too much of, or what's going bad. I'm also trying to push my safe zone for spices. So this is something different. As usual, I don't add salt unless necessary. Feel free to poison yourself when serving it up.

Ingredients

1 lb. dried lentils (yellow or green), washed and picked over for stones
30-40 cloves of garlic, peeled but whole
15 thin-skinned potatoes (not cranky ones, though). Red, gold and butter are all good, washed well and trimmed of ooky stuff
1 large yellow onion, roughly chopped
1/2C olive oil
15-20 dried red chilis, with seeds
2T cumin
1t tumeric (it's a healthy spice and I like food that stains things permanently)
1T black pepper
1T paprika
4 quarts water
Tart yogurt and basmati rice (optional)

Preparation

Clearly, you'll need an 8-quart pot to make this, one with a thick bottom. Otherwise the odds of burning are high.
Prepare the food as listed in ingredients. Have the spices ready to go.
Heat the olive oil on the bottom of the pot. When it's at the smoke point, toss in the onions and whole garlic cloves. Still quickly to make sure the oil covers the veggies. Add the spices (not the chili peppers) and vigorously mix. Close lid and wait a minute, then add 2C water and stir, then close the lid again.
Wait until most of the water's been boiled off, then add the dried lentils. Still them until everything is well mixed. Keep stirring until you hear the crackling sound of lentils getting very hot (no, you won't invent lentil popcorn, sorry!).
Add the rest of the water and bring to a boil.
Add the dried chli peppers (no need to presoak) and cover.
After five minutes at a rolling boil, reduce flame to a simmer.
Stir every 5-10 minutes while it simmers for 40 minutes.

Remove the peppers from the pot and reserve. Serving suggestion: Add 1/2C basmati rice and 1/4C tart yogurt. Place one of the cooked chili peppers across the yogurt.

Serves: 24 cups

Timing

Prep time: 10 minutes Elapsed time: 60 minutes

Hummus, My Comfort Food

2010-01-01T23:39:00.000-06:00

Backstory

Hummus has been around for ages. Every Middle Eastern country has their own version. I distinctly remember sharing a dish of it with an NPR reporter, washed down with Orangeboom beer at the pub in Hotel Beirut in Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt while on my way to join my unit during the Iraq War in 1991. It had the tangy taste of lemon juice, as opposed to the cumin fragrance of the Lebanese versions I'd become used to in Northern Israel.

Where the zahtar goes, whether to use paprika or chili pepper, pine nuts or plain, a pool of prepared t'chi'na in the center... these are all good questions. And, of course, the deep philosophical schism of whether to prepare the t'chi'na separately, or add the raw or toasted sesame seed paste directly to the chickpea mixture. Garlic? Usually. Cumin? Always. Olive oil advocates are split on "virgin" and "dirty" versions.

In all its variations, this is a dish with immense popularity for tens of millions of people worldwide. It's a healthy, vegan food that's easy to make (particularly if one uses canned chickpeas), and very fast if one is armed with a food processor. It's got great staying power: it'll stay in the fridge for over ten days. Chickpeas are high in fiber, low in simple carbs.

I'm giving you my version. It's based on using the t'chi'na recipe I've already got on the blog.

A note on the olive oil: while in America everyone seems impressed with clear, "virgin" olive oil (I think it's a symptom of sexual repression), what's needed for this recipe is the dregs and taste of the olives themselves. In Israel it's possible to buy olive oil that's not clear, that's filled with the crumbs and dregs of the pressing. When I say "olive oil" I'm referring to that kind of oil, not the flavorless, insipid oil for which we seem to want to pay top dollar. I guess you could use olive juice, but that'd be a weak thing compared to the real thing. So find some local olive oil purveyor to give you what's best for this recipe.

Hummus goes well with pita, tortilla chips, vegetable platters, as a french fry dip, mixed with rice, as a topping for hamburgers, or just on its own. Fiddle with the recipe to make it your own; dried chili pepper flakes, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, heck, even dried raisins or cranberries can work.

Ingredients

1 lb. chickpeas or 3 cans chickpeas
1/2 serving of t'chi'na — see recipe
2T cumin
1/3C olive oil plus more for plating (dirty oil!)
2T lemon juice
Zaht'r
Paprika
6 oz. pine nuts
Salt to taste

Preparation

Take the chickpeas and prepare them: either soak overnight, changing the water twice, or wash well, bring to a boil in 2x the water for the chickpeas, then turn off and keep the lid on for an hour. If you're using cans, pour them into a strainer and wash well and drain. This should wash most of the salt in the liquid away.
Boil up the chickpeas in a 5qt. pot with fresh water: 2x water to chickpeas. Bring to a boil, then cook for 45 minutes at a slow boil, covered.
Drain the peas and let them cool to room temperature. Don't refrigerate; take your time.
Make the t'chi'na using my recipe.
Reserve half the t'chi'na in a cup, keeping the other half in the food processor.
Toss in 90% of the chickpeas, reserve the rest and hit hight "hi" on the food processor.
Add the cumin, lemon juice, and oil while things are whirring.
Watch the consistency. Adding lemon juice will give it froth, adding oil will add creaminess. Too much lemon juice will make it tart (a weird thing for hummus, I'm told).
Decant the hummus into a large, shallow bowl. Failing that, into a glass casserole or serving dish. Spread evenly with a spatula, leaving a depression in the center.
Pour the reserved t'chi'na into the depression.
Spread the reserved chickpeas around the edges of the dish. If there are extra, make it pretty in the middle. Try not to stuff any up your nose; it's as hard as marbles to get 'em out.
Refrigerate until it's entirely cool. (I'll eat it warm or hot, but apparently proper etiquette is to chill it.
To serve, drizzle olive oil, letting it puddle around the t'chi'na. Then sprinkle liberally with paprika and zaht'r. Sprinkle the pine nuts over everything.

Serves: 10-12

Timing

Prep time: 10 minutes. Elapsed time: 50 minutes including cooking chickpeas.

T'chi'na (NOT "Tahini")

2009-12-30T02:00:00.001-06:00

Backstory

Americans like things simple. Cheese Whiz, American Cheese, Pop Tarts. Today I saw a sealable bag with marinade in it, sold as an "incredible way to marinate meat." It's easier I guess to pull something off a shelf than think long enough to add marinade, water and food and seal 'em together.

T'chi'na — a sauce or dip with sesame paste as a base — is a key component of several dishes, including hummus and baba ghanoush from the Middle East and sesame noodles from Asia. It's fattening, but it's good fat. It makes a great protein base for a vegan meal and goes well with a lot of things. Like rice: it's a great 'fill me upper.'

Yes, it can be used as a drizzled dressing on salads or in a good felafel at a central bus station in Israel. But I like it sharp, with a Texas flair, and thick and creamy. Fills all the hungry spaces in your belly, as good as a burger, without (most of) the guilt.

I make it in large batches. The longer it sits in the fridge (2 weeks is fine) the stronger the flavors get.

While purists might whine, in this particular case powdered garlic is a better flavor dispersant than dicing, mincing, or crushing garlic. Roll with it. Trust me. I also haven't found a taste difference between bottled lemon juice and fresh for the purposes of this recipe.

Ingredients

1 lb. sesame paste (I prefer toasted, but raw is just fine)
2/3C - 1C lemon juice or juice from three fresh lemons
1T sesame seeds (again, toasted or raw work equally well)
1T garlic powder
1T Tabasco sauce
1T low-sodium salt
Water

Preparation

Find a food processor. If you don't have one, buy one
Take all the ingredients & put them in the frapper with a blade attachment in place
Spin it up. Add water until it's got a creamy consistency: at least a minute after you've got the color from murky brown to a light tan
If the color's too dark, at more lemon juice

Serves:

Depends. It's an ingredient for other dishes. It can be eaten as a dip with tortilla chips (hey, this is Texas!) or pita, fresh or baked. Otherwise, use in some of my recipes.

Timing

Prep time: 2 minutes. Elapsed time: 7 minutes.

Kickass Pea Soup

2009-12-29T23:26:00.000-06:00

Backstory

There's a place in town that makes a great pea soup. Okay, I know, it's just pea soup... but there's an incredible warmth, body and texture to that soup. (It's also fun that it coagulates when it cools, and forms fleleh too.) My mom made a great one with oxtails for flavoring. Not having oxtails and being on a tight budget, I felt like improvising.

I don't know what drives folks to make arcane recipes when simple works. I've found recipes for split peas with the following ingredients:

Evaporated milk
Spaghetti
Instant minced onion
Croutons
Celery sticks
Green food coloring
Chicken bouillon cubes
Instant bouillon granules

Oy...

Ingredients

2 lbs. dried split peas
1-1/2 lbs. carrots
Dealer's choice: 1 lb. bacon or 1/4C olive oil
1 yellow onion
1 bulb garlic
Take your pick: 8C of water or 4C water and 1qt. low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth
1T black pepper
2T paprika
4 bay leaves

Preparation

Check the peas carefully for stones and then wash the peas thoroughly (dirt is nice, but it doesn't belong in soup)
Chop the onion
Crush the garlic cloves & mince
If you're using bacon, toss it into a 5qt. pot with the onions. If you're going veggie, heat the olive oil to the smoke point, then toss in the onions
Stir until onions are coated in grease/oil, then lid for 5 minutes, stirring to keep things from burning
Add 6 cups water, the peas, the carrots and the bay leaves
Bring to a roiling boil for five minutes
Add the pepper & paprika
Keep at boil, stirring every 3-5 minutes so nothing burns on the bottom for 30 minutes
Bring it down to a simmer. Stir every 10 minutes, for another 40-50 minutes

Because of the specific gravity of the peas, it'll look like soup on top and goop on the bottom. Be one with the pot; it's fine. As the soup cools, the liquids will be absorbed by the peas.

First aid: If it's starting to look too thick, don't be shy about adding a few more cups of water. Worst case: it'll boil off.

Serves:12-14 servings

Timing

Prep time: 10 minutes. Elapsed time: 90 minutes.

2009-12-27T17:29:00.001-06:00

Backstory

I generally hate sugary breads. Sugar in general in breads. But I had only a little time to get something together for two parties, so I gave it a shot. The second bread didn't work, in the sense that I was looking for a multi-colored swirl or turducken effect. When I get it down, I'll post it here. But the first bread was delicious, and it goes wonderfully with red wine, butter, or PBJ, depending on circumstances. I'm presuming y'all have a Kitchen Aid mixer with a dough hook, otherwise the mixing step will be 10 minutes instead of the 3 with the machine. (All hail American ingenuity!)

Ingredients

5C Flour [unbleached whole]
1T Salt
2T yeast with 1T sugar in 1C warm water
1/2C oatmeal
1/2C maple syrup
1/3C Almond oil

Preparation

Mix all the dry ingredients, reserving 2C flour, while the yeast proofs in a bowl. When it has, add it and the wet ingredients to the mix.
Add the remaining 2C flour slowly, until the dough is tacky but stays in a ball.
Grease a bowl, put dough ball in it, then grease the entire dough.
Cover and let rise 35 minutes.
Punch down thoroughly, shape into a loaf and put into greased dish or pan in which it will bake (9"x9" casserole dish works well). Set oven to 350° and put covered dough on top of stove. Let rise 25 minutes.
Put dough in oven.
For crispier crust, put a cast-iron pan into the oven when you heat it up. Then, after the bread's in the oven, pour 2C boiling water into the cast-iron pan and close the door quickly.
Bake for 40 minutes.

Serves: 8-10

Timing

Prep time: 5 minutes Elapsed time: 90 minutes.

When Latkes Go Horribly Wrong —> Casserole

2009-12-18T11:14:00.000-06:00

Backstory

When you want to make Latkes, go with a Jewish grandma's recipe. Not something off a foodie site. I did what it said, doubling the ingredients. Except for the olive oil, which has a very low smoke point and I'm using an electric stovetop, so I went to canola.

Very unforgiving these recipes. A higher smoke point means a hotter oil. Crispy latkes at olive oil temps mean charred shavings at canola oil level. After two attempts at lowering temps while hungry folks waited, I gave up. Now I had a double batch of latkes goo with nowhere to go.

Into the fridge it went, covered tightly to keep it from blackening.

For the next two days it glared at me every time I opened the fridge door. I blithely ignored it and made anything but it.

Eventually I decided that three pounds of organic potatoes and a bunch of eggs was better used as an experiment than as compost. It worked out pretty darn well.

Ingredients

3 lb. [organic] potatoes, washed, unpeeled
1-1/2C [organic] onions
4 [organic] eggs
1-1/2 cups low-fat [organic] mozzarella cheese
2t ground black pepper
A bit of olive oil
Optional: 1T powdered garlic, 2t [low-sodium] salt

Preparation

Finely chop the onions.
Preheat oven to 350º.
Grease a 9" dish with the olive oil.
Shred the mozzarella cheese.
Shred the potatoes into a pot with water. When you're done, drain the water, then put the potatoes into a large kitchen towel and squeeze all the liquid from it.
Throw all the ingredients into a bowl and mix thoroughly, then put into the pan. Make it all flat and pretty.
Put the dish into the oven and give it 30 minutes.
Open, add another layer of cheese, and give it another 10-15 minutes, or until the top is nice and brown.

Serves: 9-12 generous portions

Timing

Prep time: 20 minutes Elapsed time: 60 minutes

(Almost) All Things Orange Sweet Stew

2009-12-17T22:21:00.001-06:00

Backstory

Some things just don't seem natural. In the spirit of not just making savory my staple, and in line with my idea that things can be put together oddly (like my cinnamon stew). So this one's a weirdie I put together for fun. It's oddly good, vegan and very healthy (especially if you keep the sweetener down to 1T/bowl).

This refrigerates and freezes pretty well, so feel free to make in advance and use on cold nights where a lighter fare sounds right for dinner.

Ingredients

6 medium carrots. cut into 2-3" sections
2 sweet potatoes in large chunks
1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and in chunks as well
2 cans pumpkin (more leftovers from Thanksgiving!) I tried using a real medium pumpkin and boiling it down and then mashing it and came to the exact same taste and texture — without tedium and cheaper)
1-1/2 C raw oatmeal
1T allspice
1-1/2T ground cloves
2T cinnamon
Sweetener of your choice (sugar, Splenda, honey, maple syrup)
Cinnamon sticks (optional)

Preparation

Fill a 5-quart pot 1/2-way with water and set to boil. Toss in the squash, sweet potatoes and carrots and then add spices. Bring it to a boil, then set it down to a simmer for 20 minutes.
Bring back to a boil and add the canned pumpkin. From here on out you'll need to stir the pot so the bottom doesn't burn. Once it boils bring it back down to a simmer. Wait 20 minutes.
Add the oatmeal, stirring occasionally so nothing sticks on the bottom. Simmer another 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and serve in a bowl. Have sweeteners on the table, with cinnamon sticks as stirrers.

Serves: 8-12 as a soup, 4-6 as an entree

Timing

Prep time: 15 minutes Elapsed time: 70 minutes

Power Mayocoba Bean Chili: Vegan and Carnivorous Versions

2009-12-02T23:41:00.001-06:00

Backstory

This is a continuation of my saga with the mayocoba bean. Brilliant little food. No gas, no muss, no fuss. Meaty, lightly flavored. The salt pork version on the original bean bags was nice, but I live in Texas, after all, and we here... we here need to show how tough we are (ever since it became illegal to literally punch cattle). I've got lots of vegetarian, vegan and kosher-keeping friends, so I needed something I could do for them that wouldn't be tough. Born is this dish. I've made it in a kitchen next to stables and in urban kitchens around town. Oh, and at home.

The ingredients lists are split both for vegan and for spicy components. Remember, one from each column, not all at once!

Ingredients

The base

1 lb. dried mayacoba beans
2 large yellow onions
Canola oil for frying

Mild Spicing

2T cumin
1t tumeric
1-1/2t fresh ground pepper
1/2 bulb garlic or jarred dized garlic
3 Chipotle peppers, diced and seeded
1 Serrano pepper, seeded and slivered

Hot Spicing

3T cumin
2t tumeric
2t fresh ground pepper
1 bulb fresh garlic, peeled
7 Serrano peppers, sliced into rounds, with seeds
3 Chipotle peppers, diced, with seeds
If you really insist: 5 Habanero peppers, chopped, with seeds. Oh, what the heck, just add Bhut Jolokia peppers to the pot and be done with it!

Vegan or Carnivore?

1 large purple onion and two large eggplant
2 lb. venison, bison, boar, yak, or ground meat of your choice

Preparation

Soak the mayacoba beans for at least a day, changing the water at least twice. You can quick soak the beans by thoroughly rinsing them, then putting them in a pot with 2x height of water. Bring to a boil, then turn off heat. Keep tightly covered (why cast iron pots were invented?) for an hour. Drain and rinse again — they're ready for cooking.
Wash the beans a final time, then toss 'em in a VERY large pot (5+ quarts) and add enough water so they're fully covered. Start it boiling with the lid on.
If you're making the carnivorous version, cut the frozen meat into discs, or the thawed meat into small fist-sized chunks.
If you're making the vegan version, take the onion, roughly chop it, then saute it to the point of carmelization. Then take the eggplant, wash the skins well, and slice into ~1/2" thick slices. Cover 'em on both sides with salt and lay them down on paper or cloth towels for at least 20 minutes. After that time, rinse all the salt off, cut each slice into 4-6 pieces, and saute until entirely brown and tender. Set aside.

The base
1 lb. dried mayacoba beans
2 large yellow onions
Canola oil for frying
Chop peppers and onions into 1/2" to 1" squares.
Smash the garlic cloves then chop finely. Put them into a skillet with 2T canola oil and saute 2 minutes
Add all the spices (remember to use a gas mask if you're going full Bhut Jolokia on it!)
Fry it up until the oil is entirely permeated with the spices (then notify hazmat that the dead birds in the area are just collateral chili damage)
Toss all the spices in with the beans. If you're a going to eat meat, now's the time to toss it all in.
Vegans, prep your rabbit food now (see above "ingredients").
Still every three or four minutes.
After 20 minutes at full boil, reduce to a simmer.
Simmer for another 30-40 minutes, stirring every 5-7 minutes to make sure nothing's sticking to (or burning on) the bottom.

For vegetarians, add onions and eggplant to the beans in the bowl from which you'll be eating (not the serving dish).

This is a salt-free recipe (unless you didn't wash the eggplant well enough). Add your own.

Serves: 6-10 folks

Timing

Prep time: 15 minutes net Elapsed time: 90-100 minutes

Why Pasta Fails

2009-12-01T23:22:00.000-06:00

I've been having a lot of fun with cooking and baking lately. It's the first time in almost a year that I've had a real kitchen to work with, and the first time I've felt like I was building, instead of caretaking the destruction of a community of friends (long story, not relevant here). I've made soup bowl breads, spelt and oat breads, bean dishes, chilis and enough dishes for my first independent Thanksgiving to make me wonder at how much food one can create from less than $100 in ingredients. (That it's still feeding me is yet more wonder.)

This afternoon and evening I've been cooking for a friend who is new to the whole "heat stuff and turn it into food" concept. It's fun for both of us: a stretch for me to be informative and consistent in my cooking, and fun for her to learn new things. Tonight's menu: pasta and sauce. Homemade sauce from scratch and homemade pasta. There's little "scratch" in pasta; it's only got three ingredients: flour, eggs and salt. Homemade sauce means blanching tomatoes, reducing them, simmering in the flavors while frying up the onions, garlic and shallots. Then jockeying it all together and finally the fine (apparently lost) art of simmering a vat 'o stuff without burning any of it.

Complex tomato sauce from scratch, with amazing flavor and ingredients: check. Pasta from three ingredients: FAIL!

Okay, maybe I was too optimistic. I mean, with three ingredients, what can go wrong? A lot, apparently.

5 - 1/3C flour — I used organic, unbleached whole flour
4 eggs — I used organic, from a farm eggs instead of the thin watery kind in use
"a generous pinch" of salt — I used a tsp. of low-sodium salt analog

Taken one at a time, these are innocent substitutions. But did you note that I substituted 100% of the ingredients? (Well, except for the egg, but it's the spirit I know I messed with.)

The problem with out microwave, cell phone, ADHD culture (which I am, apparently, a late member thereof) is this insane idea that doing something approximately right is like doing it right.

Note to self: almost right is like almost on target: And that only works, as I've been told, with horseshoes, hand grenades, and H-Bombs. None of which were ingredients.

Rubber bands. Entirely flaccid, entirely non-tasty rubber bands. A little dusty something in the middle. Elastic like gummy bears© in the sun.

They said roll it as thin as a dime. Dime thin dough turned into about two Sacajawea's thickness worth of... well, gummy bears.

The sauce? To die for. It's a freaking fantastic, from the hip, absolutely head on dish. Which my friend took, after I bagged, home. Sigh.

And I guess I'll need to work on the whole pasta thing some more.

I'll post the tomato sauce recipe, as ill-qualified as I am to speak Italian sauce recipes, when I get a chance.

Cinnamon Chili Stew

2009-12-01T15:18:00.001-06:00

Backstory

I've loved mayacoba beans (also called yellow or Peruvian beans). At my local store there was a recipe on the back of the bag, calling for a crock pot, cumin, onions and salt pork. Tried it, liked it, but wanted something more interesting and healthier. Given that this vunderbeans don't have any sugars (all complex carbs), it's replaced almost every other bean (except chickpeas). It's great for Sunday cooking for food for the week. It's also great for winter parties: it cooks while the party gathers, and it's hot and ready 90 minutes after the party starts.

It's just about fat free, except for oil used for frying or what's in meat (if meat's used). There's little salt added -- it can be entirely omitted so it's even healthier. Spicing is to normal human standards; if you're looking for something with more punch, check out my Power Mayacoba Bean Chili.

Ingredients

1 lb. dried mayacoba beans
2 large yellow onions
1/2 lb. any solid green veggie you want: asparagus, broccoli, bell pepper (leafy veggies will not last in the pot).
2 lb. frozen venison or absurdly lean ground meat or poultry / 2 lb. 2" cubed extra firm tofu
Oil for frying
1.5T ground cinnamon
2T cumin
4T chili powder (I use 90k cayenne) or 3T hot dry BBQ rub powder (it has salt in it)
3T Tabasco® sauce / any vinegar-based hot sauce
2t tumeric
1T salt / 1T reduced sodium salt / no salt

Optional:

Make the beans vegan but without the tofu. When you want to eat some, toss cheese / soy cheese into the beans and stir. Yum!

Preparation

Soak the mayacoba beans for at least a day, changing the water at least twice
Wash the beans a final time, then toss 'em in a VERY large pot (5+ quarts) and add enough water so they're fully covered. Start it boiling with the lid on.
Chop the onions into ~2" lengths
Chop the veggies (we all need our greens) and sautè them as well, just until they're all warmed up and glistening
For meat: Take the frozen venison roll and slice it into thick patties (1-2" thick). No need to defrost or brown. If it's already thawed, skip this step.
For tofu: chop the tofu, then fry in oil at high heat (to give it a bit of a skin)
Once the beans are boiling, add all the spices. Put lid back on.
Wait 10 minutes.
Add the meat/tofu and veggies.
Let it come back up to a full, roiling boil, then reduce it to a simmer and take off the lid.
If you used frozen meat, start breaking up the frozen discs starting 10 minutes after it comes back to a simmer.
Stir every 10 minutes or so.
If it's too watery, up the heat a bit.
If, at the end of 90 minutes from first bean boil (#7) it's still too watery, either pour through colander, or add arrowroot or cornflour to thicken into stew.

Serves:

This feeds a large number of people (makes 10-16 bowls of chili/stew), depending on what you put into it.

Timing

Prep time: 10 minutes. Elapsed time: 90 minutes (not including soaking beans)

Bass-o-matic Pate

2006-01-28T13:12:00.002-06:00

Backstory

I did not set out to recreate one of Saturday Night Live's fast-food recipes when my assistant handed me a styrofoam box.

"My husband is still looking around the freezer for that soup you made," she said. "And then he asks whether you've made any more lately."

If any readers want to try to make a more lactose-friendly version of that stew, I'd love to try that recipe. In the meantime, I've got this beheaded frozen fish in my freezer.

When in doubt: marinate! I make a salmon or steelhead trout teriyaki broiled fish dish, adorned with generous grated ginger. I figured I could probably do something similar with this. But the fish was still half-frozen when I made the marinade, and it still had its spine in, so I couldn't really play with it much. Sigh.

After the marinating, I took it out. It smelled about right, but still wouldn't unfold. And it was still kinda hard in the body -- our refrigerator is a bit of an overachiever. (No, I don't know how to spine a fish. Yes, I'd appreciate knowing how to do that to a 1/2 frozen fish.)

Aaaaanyway -- long story short is that broiled Lake Travis bass is about as bony as a carp, or I got things really wrong. By the time I was finished pulling the !@#*!@(* bones out, all I had were tiny little gobbets of delicious fish. Looked in Joy of Cooking -- no bass recipes that stood out. Glanced over at the sink, and my handheld blender was calling out to me... So here goes a wierd dish with a delicious ending!

Ingredients

Marinade

1C low-salt soy sauce
2t ground allspice
2t ground cloves
1/2t ground (not fresh) ginger

To Cook Fish

1 bass, preferably from Lake Travis (lake near Austin). About 1.5 lb.
1t ground (not fresh) ginger

Pate

3T unsalted butter
1/3C 'olive oil (or locally made Israeli, Greek, or Italian with sediment on the bottom)
Fish, totally deboned
1C white wine
3 shots Drambuie (I prefer all things Scottish)
1t fresh ground pepper + more to taste
1/2t salt

Preparation

Prepare bass: remove head, tail, fins, gut if really that fresh. Wash inside and outside thoroughly.
Add marinade ingredients to thck quart freezer bag. Shake. Add fish, and squeeze out all possible air. Shake carefully (bones can puncture plastic). Put inside another freezer bag. Put in fridge for at least 12, preferably 24 hours.
After you take it out of the fridge, prepare oven for broiling, and transfer fish to a pan. Broil at 500 degrees farenheit for 12 minutes.
Remove, let cool, then carefully debone, placing meat and about 1/4 of the fish skin (unburned only!) into the fish bowl. (This can be real tedious -- if you can start with bass fillets that will save you at least 20 minutes right there.)
Put a sautee pot on the burner (either thick copper bottom or with heat distributor) and add the butter and olive oil. Grind pepper in and heat until the mixture is sizzling.
Add fish and stir, breaking up any large pieces, until the entire mass is sizzling.
Add wine, then still constantly over medium heat until the alcohol has boiled off (smell to check).
Set to simmer, then add the Drambuie. Simmer another five minutes, or until the mixture is thick.
Take your handheld mixer and thoroughly blend the mixture. If you don't have one, pour into blender or food processor with blades and perform same action.
Add salt, then add fresh ground pepper to taste.
Decant into large soup bowl (should fit)
Refrigerate for at least eight hours (preferably overnight)
Serve with tortilla chips if you're in Austin, otherwise some frufru cracker.
Play SNL on television in background.

All that for about a pound of food. What we do in the name of our art...

Serves:

Appetizer for ten.

Timing

This thing stretches over days. The nice thing is that you can get it done during the course of a weekend day for an evening party.

Prep time: 35 minutes Elapsed time: Marinating time + 30 minutes

Hannukah Applesauce

2005-12-30T19:39:00.001-06:00

Backstory

Went to the supermarket to get applesauce for my strange yet lovely levivot (latkes), but they didn't have any cans or jars that didn't have sugar or corn syrup or some other gluch built into them.

Hannukah time is apple harvest time, so finding good apples is easy both in Israel and America. Finding a recipe was also fairly easy, but none were quite up to what my taste buds were fantasizing. So, I made this up.

Ingredients

8 Macintosh apples (big, juicy apples of any type can work)
10 Red Delicious apples (substitute with green apples for a tarter flavor)
3T ground cinnamon
1T ground cardamom

Preparation

Take a large (8Q tall soup or stew pot). Pour in about 5C water and toss in the ground spices.
Wash, peel and core all the apples, then cut each slice in half. Toss them into the pot. If the apples are organic, you can reserve the peels and toss them in as well.
Place the pot on the stove and bring everything to a boil under a tight lid.
After 10 minutes at boil, stir, recover and reduce to a simmer.
Give it a good 20-30 minutes. The apple slices on top should be very, very soft when you're done.
Remove from heat. With a slotted spoon, feed the apples into a food processor with the fixed blade attached. Frappe until it's just lumpy. Repeat until you've gotten all the apple pieces.
If you put in the peels, they should be at the bottom with all the juice. Put the peels and some (not more than 1/2C) of the juice, then frappe until it's ground to sludge. Mix that with the applesauce.
Drink the remaining liquids: a very spicy mulled apple juice!
Refrigerate and serve cold.

Yield: 2Q applesauce

Timing

Prep time: 10 minutes: Elapsed time: 40 minutes.

Hannukah Latkes a la Cajun

2005-12-30T18:55:00.001-06:00

Backstory

I have a problem. It's part of the dark underbelly of my personality. It's about distrust, about creativity in the face of tradition. It's about, as my kids say, "daddy food."

Hannukah has fried food: sufganiot, levivot(latkes), and just about anything else that's oily and can contribute to heartburn.

When I was a kid, I remember the grating box and the endless pile of peeled potatoes, and wielding our family's double-bladed chopper and matching wooden bowl (whose concavity matched the arc of the blades... I miss that one!) to chop the onions. We kept a kosher household, so using the wooden bowl meant the entire kit and kaboodle should have been fleishik, but for some reason my mom gave this little transgression a pass in favor of well-chopped onions.

When we were done we'd sit down to devour crispy patties of finely shredded potatoes, crunchy and oily, with gobs of sour cream or a soothing coating of applesauce from a glass jar.

This is not my mother's latkes. I wanted to lighten the batter, and make it a little more interesting. So... I've come up with a puff-"Daddy" version of the dish. Think beniet. Think wierd. Think tasty!

See my applesauce recipe for another important piece of this holiday meal.

Ingredients

6C (12-14 small-to-medium) frapped, peeled baking potatoes
1 finlely chopped medium yellow onion
9 eggs, well beaten
1C white flour
1-1/4C whole wheat flour
1-1/2t salt
2T baking powder
Canola oil sufficient to deep-fry (1-1/4Q for a deep, 12" cast-iron skillet)

Preparation

Using a sifter, add the flours, salt and baking powder into a dry mixing bowl (5Q)
Peel the potatoes; I very strongly recommend organic ones! Pop the peeled potatoes into a 5Q mixing bowl filled with water to keep them from going brown, red, or whatever color they would otherwise morph into.
Toss the potatoes into a food processor with both the grating blade and the frappe blade engaged. Engage.
Put a large, heavy skillet (cast iron is best for heat dissipation) up on the stove and pour in about 2/3Q canola oil. Yes, heat it!
I hand-chop the onion, but I guess one could frap the onion. Add it to the potatoes.
Beat the eggs well in a separate dish.
Dump the potatoes and onions into the dry ingredients and mix until everything is nice and coated.
Add the beaten eggs and still everything around some more.At this point, it should look like an especially lumpy pancake batter. Don't worry about small chunks of potatoes or onions. Just make sure everthing is well mixed. Don't overmix.
Test the oil. When it's hot enough for things to froth quickly, take a spoon and ladle in about 1/4C batter at a time into the skillet. Make sure the spoon is really close to the oil to prevent excessive spatter. Once you've got the levivot in, wait about a minute, then roll them over. If you wait too long you'll see a 'hernia' of raw dough boiling up at the surface of the uncooked side. Looks funny, but not a problem.
Give it about three minutes once rolled over, then another two after you roll it back.
Dump them into a bowl lined with cloth or paper towels.
Important: After each batch, use a strainer spoon to pick up all the little puff balls (droplets of batter and got fried separately). This will keep them from burning and making later batter batches bitter. Broadly.

Serves 8-10 people (2 families).

Timing:

Prep time: 15 minutes Elapsed time: About 1 hour

Cream of Broccoli Soup

2005-12-21T14:15:00.003-06:00

Backstory

I had all these ingredients and a soup sounded just peachy. I don't usually splash around in the "cream of..." puddle, but I _did_ have this quart of half-and-half, so I mixed it in.

Sadness. Tragedy. Lactose intolerance.

So I froze most of it and brought it to work. A co-worker liked it so I gave her the whole 5-quart batch. It was gone in three days and no, they don't have kids. (I hope they didn't feed it to the dogs!)

So here it is. A solid, great for leftovers kind of soup. That I can't eat. :(

Ingredients

4 heads and stems broccoli
3 large onions
6 cloves garlic
1/6C olive oil
6 carrots
4 baking or 8 yukon gold potatoes
4 cups cooked elbow noodles
3/4 to a whole leftover chicken, cooked however you liked it
Water
Paprika, pepper, salt, chili powder

Preparation

Roughly chop onions, potatoes, brocholli and carrots and peel the brocholli stems and chop them too, and then toss everything into about 3Q water
Mince garlic and add oil and spices. (I use only a drop of salt to help cook the veggies -- about 1t.)
Debone and skin the chicken and add it all in. Scrape off as much of the fat as possible, or, if you want it, skimp on the olive oil.
When things soften up (about 45 minutes), bring down to a simmer and add 1/2Q of heavy cream or half-and-half. Let that rumble for about an hour. (No, I don't think Silk(tm) will work the same way.)
Pull out as much of the brocolli as you can, along with liquids to make about 1Q. Frappe it in your favorite bladed appliance, then pour it all back in. If you want it thicker, hunt for potatoes. Thinner, go for just liquids and some bigger chunks.)
Add the cooked noodles and return it all to simmer for 30-45 minutes.

Yield: ~5 quarts

Timing

Prep time: 20 minutes Elapsed time: ~2 hours

Victoria's Salsa Verde (TacoDeli's Dona Sauce)

2005-11-14T15:26:00.003-06:00

Backstory

I'd found this wonderful creamy sauce in Austin's TacoDeli, at the East end of Barton Skyway. Very powerful day one, it ages quickly and takes on brain-melting properties after just a few days. Yummmm... They (obviously) wouldn't give out the recipe, but I serendipitously found it when visiting friends in El Paso who had a live-in cook. The recipe that follows is hers, with comments in brackets "[]" on my part.

In the name of full disclosure, I need to say I haven't taken my batch down to the good folks out there: they might not let me leave without telling them how I cracked their code!

1/2/10 update: Modified recipe to address comments using a bold font. There are no additional ingredients, needed to make it, however the optional avocado would make for a creamy, instead of liquid, sauce.

Ingredients

10 Serrano peppers [Try 7 Serrano and 6 Jalapeno]
6 cloves garlic, sliced [2 bulbs instead, and crush the garlic to release more flavor (can you see where sweating might come in???)]
1T oil (canola works, but I'd use olive oil -- watch the temperature so it doesn't get past the smoke point!)
1/2C water
Optional: 1/4 Ettinger or 1/2 Haas or Fuerte avocado
1t salt [You might want to add more later]

Preparation

Remove the stems from the chilis and perforate them all over with the tip of a knife
Place chilis and garlic in a sauce pan with the oil
Saute over a low flame until the Serrano skins begin to peel off the chilis (about 6 minutes)
Put the chilis (with their skins) and the garlic (and the optional avocado) in a blender with water and salt and blend thoroughly.
Pour salsa back into the sauce pan with the oil and cook for 3 minutes or so, to blend the flavors

Yield:

About 3/4C sauce. Remember, the older the sauce, the more you sweat!

Timing

Prep time: 10 minutes Elapsed time: 20 minutes

Non-Fat, Spicy yet Edible Dip

2005-10-30T16:08:00.001-06:00

Backstory

I've been making this for decades. I like a spicy dip, but I hate the burning tongue after-effects from a lot of the commercial products. Just like with curries, yogurt and sour cream are great tonics for heat, and they are the base of this recipe. That it's non-fat is just a bonus.

I usually hate veggies for dips, but this just makes sense, somehow. Tortilla chips get snapped with the sour cream version of this, and the crunch of the veggies makes a complementary mouth feel for the dish. I've put celery in this recipe, but you can use carrots, small broccholi or cauliflower florets, radishes, or anything else crunchy.

Ingredients

2 lbs. non-fat yogurt or fat-free sour cream
1 Tbsp garlic powder (not fresh or minced)
2 Tbsp paprika powder
1 Tbsp chili powder (as hot as you'd like)
1 small jar (~15 count) pickled jalapeno peppers
2 heads of celery

Preparation

Mix the powders together, then mix them into the decanted sour cream or yogurt. Use a fork to fold in the spices with the sour cream; a whisk works better for the looser yogurt.
Pour in about 3 tbsp of the vinegar juice from the jalepenos, then mix that in as well.
Put dip into a deep bowl and arrange the jalepenos around the edges.
Clip the root and heads from the celery, wash well, then chop the stalks in two. Set the thinner, top halves in a platter for serving, then slice the base of each stalk in two and add to the platter.

Serves:

Party of 10 for about an hour of mindless noshing.