squashed

ahh in the hurried descent of the sun, biting winds, and treacherous sidewalks, young fancies turn to thoughts of squash!


two recipes: spaghetti squash... gratin? and whatever squash you like gratin. the first is a molly kotzen recipe, and the second is the esteemed deborah m.

let's begin the medley with the any winter squash gratin because i know spaghetti squash freaks some people out and we may as well ease into it.

thus preheat the oven to 325 degrees, though perhaps not quite at the beginning since the chopping, dicing really, of the squash can take quite a while. unless of course your kitchen is really cold and you need an excuse to warm it up.

2 winter squash(es?), i have only used butternut, peeled and diced as small as your arm can take
2 cloves of garlic, diced
1/2 cup fresh parsley
some salt and pepper

toss the squash pieces with the above ingredients in a large bowl. then add 3 tbs of flour and toss again. pour/scrape/finegle the mixture into a oiled casserole dish, leaving the leftover flour in the mixing bowl. bake for like 2 hours.
___________________________________________________________________

the spaghetti squash has more ingredients but is faster in terms of from cutting board to mouth time. the temperature suggested is 375 degrees.

halve a spaghetti squash, they are yellow and disguise their inherent freakishness rather well. you can either bake it in the oven for half an hour, or wrap the halves in saran wrap and microwave them, i would say 8 minutes, and then another 5-8. either way when it is done scrape out the seeds and let them cool.

meanwhile combine the following in a pan:
1 cup of chopped onion, you may as well put more
2 cloves of chopped garlic
salt and pepper
some mushrooms, probably one of those blue boxes, or more if you feel inspired
1/2 tsp oregano
some basil and some thyme

when they are sauted, add 2 chopped tomatoes and cook until the t-juices are mostly gone.
scrape out the squash innards and put them in the pan with everything else. yes, i also find them (the innards) a little disturbing.

transfer the squash melange into a greased casserole dish and cover with grated mozarella. if you want less of an upper skin of cheese you can mix it in, but really i don't understand why you wouldn't want a bubbling browning layer of cheese. on top of that add some breadcrumbs and parmesan. bake for about 40 minutes and voila. strange and disturbing but so delicious.

breakfast beans.

okay so probably you could eat these beans anytime. but this morning i had one of those moments of realizing that i had already eaten eggs two days in a row but was craving something hearty with a high protein content - and here is what i came up with. it is quick, dirty, and leftovers are even better.

you need:
1 can black beans (or about a cup and a half cooked, if you want to pre-meditate this and soak overnight).
1 large onion, small dice
a heaping spoonful of cumin and one of dried coriander
hot red pepper flakes to taste
salt and pepper to taste
2 fresh tomatoes, chopped (you could use canned diced or crushed if you don't have tomatoes handy)
1 small sweet potato (i had a VERY small jamaican sweet potato and this worked well), diced extremely small - and i mean this, for rapid fire cooking and eating.

all the extras...... corn tortillas, avocado, sour cream or yogurt if you like, fresh coriander if you've got it, some grated cheese.

Put some olive oil in a skillet with lid or saucepan on medium heat and add the onions until slightly browned. Add spices to your taste, stirring often to make sure to avoid burning and sticking. add the tomatoes which will start to turn the base into a saucy, spicy mess. Then add the sweet potatoes if using, cover and let cook on medium heat for about 10-15 minutes, or until the potatoes start to soften (so i when i say chop small, it's serious!). when the potatoes are soft and the mixture is sizzling, add the black beans and cook until everything in the pan is equally hot.

And that's all. Serve however you like - with corn tortillas and the works, or in a bowl topped with a little bit of cheese or sour cream or the like. This is also good cold the next day, or as filling for an omellette if you're feeling crazy.

BREAKFAST REVOLUTION (!!)

there have been a lot of harsh words about breakfast being tossed around these days. grim, boring, routine........ and it pains me greatly. the fact that breakfast is the most important meal of the day is not just a silly cliche. or perhaps it is, but as a friend of mine likes to say, "cliches are cliches for a reason". hmm. well, ponder that later but the truth is, a better breakfast makes for a better day. so let's get the ball rolling on spicing up our mornings. here's a little something i like to make when my taste buds refuse to give me breakfast directions.

wheatberry morning delight:
serving size cooked wheatberries or spelt berries (these are the best if you can get your hands on them. sometimes also called 'farro').
plain yogurt
really delicious honey
chopped peaches
cinnamon
cardamom
chopped pistachios

so here's what you do. you can cook wheatberries or spelt berries the night before and they keep for about a week in the fridge. depending on how many people you eat breakfast with, cook about 1 1/2 or 2 cups of berries in a large saucepan. the measurements don't matter since it's not absorption method cooking - just make sure that there is enough water to cover the grains. bring the water to a bowl and set the heat on low until the berries are cooked, usually about 45 minutes to an hour.

to assemble your exciting new breakfast, take however many berries you want to eat, cover with yogurt, add chopped peaches or other fruit, drizzle with honey (maple syrup works too, as always, but i prefer honey in this), top with ground cinnamon, cardamom, and pistachios. eat this with green tea while working on a crossword and you will have a lovely day, guarateed.

impromtu peanut sauce

why? why not! everyone gets tired of the old low-quality olive oil and garlic combo. but if you've got some vegetables that, if i may quote the great isaac hayes, are aching for some hot buttered soul, why not try the peanut?

a few spoonfuls of peanut butter
some water (for thinning purposes)
sesame oil
tahini
brown sugar
chopped garlic

put the ingredients all up in each other's business in a frying pan, adjust quantities by taste and pour a little out for george washington carver, the peanut pimp daddy.

pumpkin cranberry "i wish i wasn't moving" bread.

dear fellow comfort food enthusiasts (not to be presumptuous or anything...),

as you may or may not know, i'm preparing to move yet again in a mere 48 hours. the logical thing for me to be doing right now would be, of course, to... pack? unfortunately, my desperate desire to pretend that i'm in fact not moving led me to spend the day baking four loaves of pumpkin cranberry bread - festive yet warm and comforting, certainly "home-y". (this recipe - adapted from Gourmet magazine circa 1996 and the internet). so if you find yourselves in a similar situation (any case of denying the inevitable), you might want to acquire the following things:

1 cup solid-pack pumpkin puree
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup water
1/4 vegetable oil (or half apple sauce, half vegetable oil - universal rule.)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (although i usually use at least double this)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries


now, here goes. preheat your oven to 350 if you have everything at hand - i have consistently "matched the preheat" on this one. in a large bowl with an electric hand-held mixer if you've got one or the raw power of your biceps and a whisk, combine the pumpkin, eggs, oil, water, and sugar. when smooth, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. (the recipe recommends sifting all of these ingredients but i have ignored this every time and it turns out fine). stir until just combined (over-mixing will result in an odd, densely textured bread). add the cranberries and tenderly spoon the batter into a buttered loaf pan (or four, depending on how many times you multiply this recipe).

let bake for about an hour and fifteen minutes (until a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean) for this little loaf to achieve its full potential.

enjoy in denial of future vagabond life.

Poppyseed Explosion Cake

My first notable encounter with poppyseeds happened somewhere around my eleventh birthday. It was mother's day, it was before I was a vegetarian (and before I was a lapsed vegetarian), and my dad and I were cooking my mom my favourite dish: roast chicken with a smattering of poppyseeds. At the time, I had something of a reputation as a picky eater. It would seem that I refused most vegetables, in fact most foods, that weren't white. I didn't like cauliflower either. Chicken though I did like, especially this delicious roasted chicken, a family classic, that came out golden with speckles of black just like the poppyseed bagels from the world-famous-just-a-block-away-Harbord Bakery.

After intrepidly touching the gross pink carcass on the counter, I told my dad he could go ahead with the preparations and that I'd just find the spices. "Where are the poppyseeds?" I asked. A look of terror shot through his eyes. "Well, uh, just let me find them," he answered, not looking me in the eyes. I knew something was up, so I insisted. I had him cornered, the jig was up, so with much trepidation he admitted that the whole "poppyseed chicken" thing was a hoax.

Those beloved dots on my beloved chicken weren't poppyseeds (!!) as I had been led to believe, but browned ground garlic. The truth of the chicken dish had been kept from me because my parents suspected that I could never accept to eat something so foreign as garlic--even in it's beningly ground form. Resentment, bitterness, grossed-outness, and mistrust flashed through me, but then I remembered that I was all of eleven (or was it twelve?) years old. "That's cool," I said, half meaning it.

Years later, just last week in fact, I saw poppyseeds in the cabinet of my current kitchen. Hmm I said, what do you make with this, if not chicken?

Well, friends, this is what you make with poppyseeds: the most delicious cake of all times, one of Deborah Madison's top five cakes, and worthy of a mighty ingredient that almost-flavoured my first foray into the kitchen. It's a cake that will stay moist for days though it will be finished in hours, it's a cake to write home about, certainly to blog about, and it's just about the best thing you can create on a single Sunday afternoon.

Poppyseed Explosion Cake

Note: this recipe requires numerous bowls. Before you begin make sure your roommates have committed to doing dishes after.
1 cup poppyseeds stirred into 1/2 cup hot milk (mix and leave to sit several hours before continuing with the recipe for maximum delight)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/8 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup sourcream or buttermilk
Icing sugar to dust at end

Set poppyseeds to soak in hot milk, in a bowl, watch several episodes of TNG or Gossip Girl, then come back and preheat the oven to 375 degrees farenheit. Lighly butter and flour a 9-inch spring-form pan (one where you can remove the sides after baking).

In a bowl mix dry ingredients together, and set aside.

In a bowl beat eggs whites until they form firm but moist peaks, set aside.

In a BIG bowl cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla, then beat in one egg yolk at a time until smooth. Stir in sour cream and drained poppyseeds. Add the dry ingredients in thirds. (At this point, Deborah recommends: "Scrape up the batter from the bottom of the bowl to make sure it's well mixed." I'm sure you'd have done this anyway but, well, never hurts to make sure). Stir in a quarter of the egg whites before folding in the rest.

Pour batter into pan, smooth it out, then bake about 50 minutes until cake is golden and firm. Take it out of the oven, set the cake on a rack and remove the sides so that cake can cool. Before cake is cool, lightly dust with icing powder (my method: take a sieve, put in some icing powder, and hit it so that it falls evenly over the cake).

Serve if you want the people in your life to be happy.

Tortilla Soup and Existential Blogging: Begrebet Angest

I let my first C is for Kitchen invitation expire. I was very overwhelmed by the prospect. As the great Julia Child once proclaimed, you are what you cook! Am I savory or sweet? Sour or bitter? God, Am I Umami?? Am I an anti-animal rights barbarian or a baby-plant pamperer? Soon, posting had become no longer about trivial recipes but my entire self-definition! How could I possibly be expected to create something so substantive in the 14 months before the next blog invitation expired?!?!

And then, the economy crashed and Obama was elected president and I thought to myself, “Yes, I can!”

So, here’s to more productive moments of procrastination:

“Aztec” Soup or “Mexican Turkey Tor-tila Soup”

2 bunches scallions, trimmed and chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped and kept away from the eyes and nose
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons ground cumin
Many corn tillas
8 cups turkey/chicken/ “vegetable” stock
1 28-ounce can plum tomatoes, undrained
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice (or more)
Salt
2 cups cooked turkey/chicken, a la julienne (optional for an easy plant-pamperer twist)
Numerous ripe avocados
½ cup fresh cilantro
Cheese (cheddar, Monterey jack, anything strong)


Saute scallions, garlic, and jalpeno peppers in heated olive oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add chile powder, oregano, and cumin and cook for one minute. Cut tortillas into small strips and add to the pot. Add stock, tomatoes and lime juice. Season with salt. Simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut more tortillas into thin strips and fry with (lots of) butter or oil until crisp!

Ladle into soup bowls and garnish with turkey/chicken strips (or not), avocado, cilantro, fried tortilla chips and cheese!

Existence precedes essence!