Recipe: comfort minestrone

Here's a delicious and hearty minestrone for the cold days.

This thick soup has veggies, a combo of beans + grains for protein and energy, and herbs for taste. It's vegan, it's comforting, it's simply delicious.
Beware: when I made it, it took a very, *very* long time to cook: the beans wouldn't soften (they had been in my pantry for a while, plus some beans cook very slowly in an acidic substance like tomato). But it did cook in time for dinner, and it was worth the wait. (At some point I transferred it into a crock pot so it would cook without my supervision.)

Make this soup in advance: in the morning for dinner. This kind of soup/stew is better the day after anyway. And don't forget to soak the beans overnight beforehand!
This yields maybe 6 servings (yum, leftovers!)

Ingredients:
beans (cannelloni, mixed beans, whatever you have in your pantry...) 2 cups -*soaked overnight*
vegetable oil for cooking (canola)
onion 1 big, chopped
(wheat-free)tamari -(proportions depend, 1/3 cup max)
garlic garlic 3 big cloves, minced
celery 4 stalks, chopped
carrots 4 chopped
herbs de Provence 1 tbsp
+ your blend of herbs: rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram -to taste
fresh parsley: 1/4 cup + more for garnish
crushed tomatoes 1 28oz can
hot water 1/2 cup
no-salt-added bouillon 3 cubes
water 6 cups
bay leaves 4
small-sized pasta 1 cup  (here: quinoa elbows)
salt and pepper to taste
Prep: Soak beans overnight.

In a large cooking pot, pour cooking oil so that the bottom is covered -heat up at medium heat.
When the oil is hot, add chopped onion. Cook until translucent, stirring regularly. When the onions start sticking at the bottom, add splashes of Tamari. (I like the onions well cooked, almost caramelized, because it gives more savor to the dish. So I stir for a while, adding tamari when needed, while I do other things like peeling garlic, chopping veggies...)
Add garlic and stir for 2 minutes. Add celery and carrots and cook until soft, adding tamari (or, if you feel it's becoming too salty tbs of water) if it sticks. Add all herbs and keep stirring.
When all is soft (and the sugars of the vegetables are well released!) add beans (they should have expanded in the overnight soaking), crushed tomatoes, stir. Dissolve the 3 bouillon cubes in 1/2 cup of hot water and add to the pot, as well as bay leaves and 6 cups of water.
Set the heat to high until, and before it actually boils, set to medium-low heat.
Simmer for 1 to several hours (depending on the beans, cooking can take more or less time -and believe me: you *do not want* to ingest undercooked beans!) At some point, you may transfer the soup to a crockpot.

Before meal: cook the pasta. Drain. If, like me, you made a bigger batch (so you'd have some for later) coat them with olive oil so they won't stick together.

When you are ready to eat: remove bay leaves. Ladle soup into bowls, add pasta (2/3 soup and 1/3 pasta... your choice, really), mix. Add salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with parsley.

Spring Delight: Baked Tofu in a Lemon and Dill Marinade

Spring delight

For Spring, something fresh and light like dill and lemon is a great idea. I love the delicate and strange taste of dill combined with the tangyness of citrus.
I made it a base for a baked tofu marinade, and it turned out simply delicious accompanied by a simple casserole of brown rice, lentils and fresh vegetables.

Time
The tofu needs to drain and then marinate for at least a few hours. I find it easier to make it the day before and let it sit overnight. Since the recipe calls for cooked rice and lentils, I cook a big batch of both beforehand, for this dish and other purposes. Otherwise the prep time is pretty short.

Ingredients for 2
2 blocks of firm tofu
Prep: drain tofu by wrapping it in a clean towel and sitting some weight (plates, books...) on top.

this marinade is also a great salad dressing

Marinade
2 lemons (or one lime and one lemon)
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup fresh dill, cut in small pieces
I clove of garlic, minced
pepper (to taste)
Put everything in your food processor and blend.

You should end up with more marinade than you need, but you will use it to flavor your side dish (It's a great salad dressing too).

Place drained tofu in a container and fill with marinade. Let sit for a few hours or overnight. I usually don't refrigerate it because things don't soak as well when they are cold.

freshly baked

Side Dish: Spring Rice and Lentils Casserole
1/2 cup green peas
1 cup brown rice, cooked
1 onion, minced
1/2 cup green or black lentils, cooked
1 carrot, diced
2 stems of celery, diced
1/4 cup of dill, finely cut
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper (to taste)

Turn the oven on at 400˚.

Cook the green peas in water (it should only take a few minutes)
Chop onions, celery, carrots (you can put other veggies like pearl onions, spinach, etc...)
Mix everything together with olive oil, season to your taste.

Put marinated tofu and rice and veggie mix into a casserole dish. Cook in oven for about 40 minutes.

You can serve the tofu on a bed of fresh spinach leaves. Place the remaining marinade on the table, to be used as dressing for the greens or to be sprinkled on the casserole: it's tasty!

Mardi Gras Fritters

It's Mardi Gras! Mardi Gras, i.e. Fat Tuesday, is celebrated in many countries worldwide. It's the last day of the Carnival extravaganza: people go wild, drink plenty and eat ultra rich. Fried foods are de rigueur. In France, we make beignets, made of fried dough or batter. Beignets actually go by many names, according to the region: bugnes near Lyon, bottereaux in the West (Bretagne, Vendée, Deux-Sèvres, where my family is from -my grand-mère makes delicious bottereaux), etc.

There are lots of savory options too. In Brazil, you can eat acarajé, black-eyed peas fritters. In Martinique, where Carnival is also celebrated in style, I remember making delicious breadfruit fritters, my inspiration for today's fried treat.

I wanted savory fritters just like these breadfruit fritters, i.e. not an item dipped in batter but, like potato latkes, or falafel: everything mixed together and fried.

I had leftover textured soy protein (TSP) from a trashy and delicious Tater Tots Casserole (thanks Shauna!), and it's what I used. TSP is a little disturbing at first, because it really looks and feels like ground meat, a little chewy. It takes exactly the taste that you give it. You DO have to give it a taste, with spices, tamari, onions, etc., orelse you end up with little sponges... I usually use it in vegan Bolognese or in hachis Parmentier. It a fun texture to play with.

Dry TSP

I made my Mardi Gras fritters with TSP, onions, mushrooms and spices. It was both festive and tasty.

But before we proceed, here's a haïku, just for you.

winter is ending
Mardi Gras left us sated,
nice layer of lard

(I can't wait for Lent)

Ingredients

TSP mix:
1 cup dry TSP *
7/8 cup water (or, if you buy packaged TSP, as much as the label says)
1 onion, sliced
2 tbsp wheat-free tamari **
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
1/4 cup chopped spring onions (optional)
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp caraway seeds (otional)
a pinch of Cayenne pepper


fritter mix
1 1/2 cup garbanzo bean flour
1 tsp arrow root or potato starch

+canola oil for frying

In a big bowl, mix 7/8 cups of water with 1 cup of TSP. Cover.

Slice onion and sauté with oil in a pan. If it sticks to the bottom, add 1 tsp tamari, or more. When the onion is translucent, add rehydrated TSP and the rest of the tamari. Mix. Cook for 5 minutes. Add mushrooms, spring onion, ginger, garlic, spices and sauté until cooked (minimum 15 minutes).

Cooked and sautéed TSP + friends

I ended up with about 2 cups of that mix.

Make the fritter mix: garbanzo flour + arrow root.
Mix flours and TSP and form a wet ball.

The raw stuff. I felt like Jeanne Dielman.

Make patties and throw in medium hot oil. When it's brown, it's done.

Cooked fritter and raw patty

* Suggestion: If you can't find TSP, use lentils instead.
** It doesn't have to be wheat-free, of course, but that way, you can make the whole recipe gluten-free.

suggestion: here, on a fresh spinach salad,
with a lemon-olive oil dressing sprinkled with homemade "bakin' bits".

Bon appétit! Bon Mardi-Gras!

Jeanne Dielman, making vegan Mardi-Gras fritters.

Crêpes for la Chandeleur

Today is la Chandeleur, aka Crêpe Day in the French Cooking Almanac.

"A la Chandeleur, l'hiver prend fin ou prend vigueur" (At Chandeleur, winter ends or gets stonger). Chandeleur (from "chandelle", i.e. candle) marks the return of light, the lengthening of days: winter will be over soon. (In English, it is know as Candlemas, although I met no one here who had heard of Candlemas. Here's some Christian Wiki-info for you, and some pagan info. This page has proverbs).

To help you be patient and bear the cold, the best thing to do is to enjoy what winter is good for: greasy and heavy foods.
Traditionally, in France, families and friends gather together to make crêpes.

Crêpes used to be the poor person's fare: a simple mixture of flour and water. Nowadays, many recipes include animal by-products, but that is unnecessary. If you hear people say that real crepes have to contain eggs, milk and butter, it's simply not true: that's just the way they learned. "Real crepes" just have to be round and flat...

There are two types of crêpes: savory or sweet. Savory crêpes are made of buckwheat (a gluten-free flour), and sweet crêpes are made of wheat.

To stay true to the origins of crêpes, I made a very basic and recession-friendly recipe.

batter in a jar

Crêpes
ingredients for one crêpe
¼ cup flour (buckwheat or wheat)
¼ cup liquid (water, almond, rice or soy milk, or half water-half milk)
¼ tsp potato starch
¼ tsp sugar (for the sweet crêpes)
1 pinch salt
+½ tbsp oil for cooking

what you need
1 non-stick or well-seasoned cast iron pan
1 jar with a lid (or food processor)
1 paper towel
1 bowl for the oil
1 wooden spatula

Put all the ingredients (except the oil) in the jar. Close the lid and shake well until you have a smooth batter. (You can also do this the lazy way: in the food processor)
I don't even let it sit (but you might want to do it if you can).

Shake it, shake it!

Pour some oil in a small bowl. Heat up the pan. Dip a paper napkin in the oil and apply at the bottom of the pan. Once it's hot (after 20 s.) pour batter in pan, rotating the pan to make sure that the batter covers the whole surface. Like this:

It goes "Pshhh!"... Beautiful...

If you encounter difficulties, just use the spatula to spread the batter evenly.
Cook for about one minute, until the batter is compact, no longer liquid.

This one needs a few more seconds.

With a wooden spatula, delicately unstick the borders of the crêpes. Shake the pan horizontally: the crêpe should be loose.
Flip the crêpe, either with the spatula or by throwing it in the air, the way we like to do it in France.

Hold the handle in one hand and a coin in the other hand.

Make a wish. Flip.

If the crêpe falls back in the pan,
your wish will be granted. And you will be prosperous.

Great flipping job: prosperity is in the cards for 09!

Voilà!

Put your crêpe on a plate and top with any filling you want on it. Savory filling for the buckwheat crêpes, sweet filling for the wheat crêpes.

Don't overfill them: it's not a burrito!

Fold. Eat.

Yum!

Ideas for fillings
Sweet:
The basic filling is butter and sugar: make it Earth Balance and agave sirup. It's delicious... if your veggie butter is salty: even better! In Bretagne, the land of crêpes, people typically eat salted butter.
"Nutshella" (That's what I call my vegan version of Nutella)
Nutshella and banana (a classic...)
Butter and jam
Any type of sweet spread (I made almond-fig paste)
Butter and apple sauce
Cooked apples and raisins
etc.

Savory:
Veggie Butter
Sauteed or creamy spinach
Sauteed or creamy mushrooms
Butter and caramelized onions (OMG...)
Leek (I made creamy cumin leek, which was delicious)
etc.
Basically: anything you feel like or have in the fridge. Just make sure it doesn't come in big chunks: you need to ne able to fold and close your crêpe. Crêpes are NOT burritos!

Invite friends, have them flip crêpes. Light candles. Enjoy the smell of fried foods on your clothes and in your hair all night.

It's also great for breakfast, and for a dinner on a tight budget.

NB: for all of you gluten-intolerant folks, the good news is that buckwheat crepes ARE gluten-free (read about buckwheat here). I don't know if crêpe restaurants mix flours, though, so I would ask. You can also use buckwheat to make your own pancakes, quickbreads... The taste is different than white flour, but what's wrong about that?

Apple pie on a date-almond crust

More apple dessert? Why not? Apples are still in season, they are versatile enough to not be boring (*if* you vary their usage), and, most importantly, I got a big load for super cheap out of a box labelled "esthetically challenged", at the Hidden Star Orchard's stand of the Noe Valley's Farmers' Market.
I made an apple dessert for a friend who, like many Californians these days, is not eating wheat nor gluten.
Don't curse folks with diet restriction. They're a blessing: they force you to be creative and try out new things. Nothing like a good challenge to open new horizons! This is why I made an apple pie with a flourless crust made of dates and almonds, inspired by a raw food recipe.

prepping...
(If you want to know what the hammer is doing here, keep reading)

I couldn't bring myself to eat uncooked apples though. I prefer uncooked apples in salads, for snacks, but not desserts… When I was contemplating going all raw for the pie, I kept hearing this voice in my head saying "Raw apples for dessert: BOOOring!", and, juxtaposed, was the mental image of cooked apples, which was making my mouth water. My body had spoken...
The original raw date-almond crust idea remained, but I topped it with cooked apple chunks and raisins.

The pie, very simple and quite fast to make, containing no added sugars, ended up being super rich and delicious.

Apple pie with a date-almond crust

(for a 4x8 pan)

crust:
1 cup pitted medjool dates
1 cup raw almonds
1/2 tsp salt

topping
1 tbsp coconut oil
6 apples, in chunks
1 cup raisins
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Grind your almonds (if you fear for your food processor, start by crushing those hard nuts by hand, -I used a hammer!- and then finish them off in your machine)

Hammered almonds

Add dates (don't forget to take the pit out!).


Blend until you have a compact paste.

Remove (it's sticky!) and lay flat in your pan.

Looks like a "real" crust

Store in fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Peel and core the apples, and cut them into little dice-size cubes.
In a pot, cook apple cubes in coconut oil with raisins and cinnamon, stirring regularly, until they are a little soft, but still properly shaped (about 20 minutes, depending on the apples).


Top crust with your cooked apple chunks and raisins, and put back in fridge.

This topping is delicious. My advice: make extra for later.
With all those apples, I made a big batch that I ate little by little during the week:
by golly, it got even better as days went by!

A word on almonds:
-Raw almonds: here in California, a new law says that almonds have to be sold pasteurized, which means they are no longer raw! You can only find raw almonds on a tree or imported (and probably, from small local producers -I wouldn't be surprised if there were an underground raw almonds market in California...).
I really wanted raw almonds because they carry more good nutrients, which weren't going to be destroyed by roasting or cooking since my crust was raw. I did find some at my favorite grocery store, imported from Spain. I chose to go the non-local route. In my book, sometimes, it's okay...
-Grinding the almonds: unless you have a strong machine, grinding the almonds can be hard on your food processor. My FP is small and a little sensitive, so I fed it preground almonds, which I had crushed by hand. I simply placed them in a napkin and banged on them with a hammer!

Harmless fun: crushing almonds with a hammer

I'm glad I did this because I made 2 batches and by the end, my poor little FP was really struggling (and got really hot, which probably did pasteurize my almonds after all!). You can also buy your almonds sliced or crushed, but I could not find them pre-crushed and raw, and the sliced or ground ones were also more expensive. It ended up being fun: it's very satisfying to smash something.

Apples: don’t omit to peel. I don't peel my organic fruits and veggies because the best nutrients are near the skin, or so I hear, but you really don't want the skin here.

Crust: make more, and cut into rectangles... You now have a bunch of power bars to take on your next bike ride!