Walnut Carrot Salad

Toast about 2 cups walnuts in the oven at 400 until they are brown and toasty. Probably 15-20 minutes.

Rinse off about 5 carrots, and blend them up fine in the food processor. (we have to chop them up pretty small because our food processor is old , but you not have to go to such lengths.)

When the walnuts are toasted, chop them up coarsely, and mix them together with the carrots, 1 1/2 cups golden raisins, and mix them up really nicely with A Lot of lemon juice (maybe 1-2 tbsp?), your choice 1/4 cup veganaise/yogurt/nothing, 4 tbsp brown sugar (or sweetener of choice), and just a tiny bit of salt. It is so yummy.

And, black eyed pea soup:

Boil black eyed peas at a ratio of about 2:1 water: beans, though add water as necessary to achieve desired consistency. Simmer for 1-2 hours.

Saute 1/2 onion and 5 cloves minced garlic until brown, eventually adding 2 chopped bell peppers, and cooking down 1 can crushed tomatoes and about 1/2 cup pesto. Throw in the black eyed peas, and allow to stew together until it cooks down. Salt liberally and enjoy.

It has been months, I have been grad schooling, and running around with my pants on fire, and I have been cooking, but I have not been telling the internet about it.

So, here’s a little somethin for ya:

Saute an onion and maybe 6 cloves of garlic until brown, throw in about a pint of cherry tomatoes (or, yknow, as many tomatoes as you can find), mix in a bunch greens (we used chard, but collards or kale would be good too), serve on top of friend polenta. Apparently this is called veggie ragout.

I am learning to like polenta. It lives in the world of Stereotypically Lesbian Food that I have avoided eating until now, when I am deeply In Relationship with a nice vegetarian girl who believes in things like hummus.

I eat hummus now. I never used to. I tried to make it once, and swiftly came to the conclusion that as long as I live spitting distance from Trader Joe’s I shouldn’t bother with buying things like tahini.

Actually, hummus with bell peppers or baby carrots is pretty good.

And I also threw lots of money at one of my favorite produce stands recently, and came home with things like yucca root and nopales and dried hibiscus flowers. What this means remains to be seen, but I think I am going to make yucca fries. Be warned though, although yucca is a lovely starchy gluten-free alternative, there are two kinds: bitter and sweet. If you get the bitter kind, you need to boil it until it’s soft, if you eat it raw it has some chemical component that will turn to arsenic in your stomach. Whoops. I don’t know how anyone figured that out, but it probably didn’t end well.

Likewise girlfriend lives right at the edge of the woods and there are stinging nettles around her house. I will use them to make stirfry, though whether I should include golden raisins and pine nuts or the usual garlic and red pepper flakes remains to be seen.

I used to go to tea when I lived up in Bellingham, WA; this adorable tea shop would serve trifle in teacups. It was great.

while right now I am making kale pizza with my sweetie, let me tell you about this deliciousness bad for you stuff.

(i had a valentine-making party. which requires dessert. obviously.)

I recently bought a very cute Mollie Katzen cookbook- called something like the magical land of vegetables (not enchanted broccoli forest) and have so far made the pineapple rice (which has lots of turmeric and mustard seeds and other yummeh in it), and this trifle recipe was another reason for purchasing it. So yes. Onward.

Find or make a poundcake (or like I did, make a vanilla box cake from the co-op and add extra butter, because my mom maintained the difference between pound cake and white cake was butter).

Then cut it up into little pieces, and put it in your favorite medium-sized glass bowls.

Pour over it 1/2 cup “fruit nectar” (mortals call this juice, I think) and 1/2 cup cream sherry (harvey’s bristol cream is what I bought at the liquor store, I was unreasonably cranky about having to go to the liquor store because it is far away, but it is crucial and worth it.)

Over this sprinkle lots of raspberries. I purchased a huge bag of frozen raspberries from the co-op, and they were outrageously expensive, but delicious. These could be substituted for other kinds of fresh or frozen fruit, but traditionally they use raspberries. I wonder if using salmonberries would be neat in the summertime.

So right. Sprinkle raspberries. 3-4 cups. omg.

The recipe instructs you to them “cover tightly and chill for up to 4 hours.” You may do this if you wish.

Dump on some vanilla yogurt (I used all of a 32oz tub), whip some cream and layer that on, sprinkle on some more fruit and slivered almonds and (if you like!) cinammon.

Done!

It has been so long! I have not food blogged in months. Obviously for business sake, and also because I look at other food blogs and wish I took sexy food pictures of rainbow chard and close-ups of the plum butter I made, but, alas, I am too lazy.

Also, I am in school learning to be a therapist, and in therapy school people are basically terrified to have any kind of public presence on the internet or otherwise, for fear of offending potential employers (reasonable) or that they will have clients that will follow them to their house and watch them chopping kale through the window (less likely), and in successive sessions, their clients will only be able to think about their therapists chopping kale, and it will ruin their ability to have a successful therapeutic relationship, and things will just get increasingly awkward, and until one day the client has an outburst and says,”I saw you chopping kale!” and the therapist will feel awkward and embarrassed, and the client will be reminded of their parents and feel betrayed, and everybody will go home feeling sad.

Actually, that happened to me last week.

(no. not really.)

But I have been cooking, and moved to the Central District, and got big tattoos, and fell in love with a really neat girl, and my mom got hip surgery, and I am interning at a counseling center for queer people, and I am six months away from having an MSW. Fancy, fancy.

Also, I started making beans from scratch. Amazing!

But here’s a recipe for you that I have had repeated requests for-my friend found it in it’s original form in Sunset Magazine, and I will deliver to you my own improvised version.

Ingredients:

1-2 cans chickpeas (or you can soak overnight and cook for a couple of hours, if you’re feeling really ambitious)

2-ish cups of roasted squash (acorn/butternut)- this last time I threw in some yams, and sweet potatoes would probably also go over well.

1-1 1/2 cups flour

1- 1/2 cups breadcrumbs

1-2 eggs

spices: garlic, thyme, sage, rosemary, salt, red pepper flakes.

This is how we do:

Grind the chickpeas and squash in the food processer into a creamy pulp. I only recently acquired a food processer in a free box, and it is dinky and sort of surly, but does amazing things also that our blender does not do.

Mix the pulp in with flour, bread crumbs, eggs, and spices. People have really different opinions, and I’m too much of an improvisational cook to give you a decisive answer, about exactly how much flour and bread crumbs there should be. Use however much it takes to make them stick together without getting dry.

Next, put a frying pan on medium with some oil, and get ready to fry these suckers. It’s just like make latkes or falafel. So, plop down a few dollops, pat them down if you can, and flip over when they’re crispy and golden on the one side. That’s a good time to squish them down so they are flatter, and cook through and don’t stay squishy and gross in the middle.

Let them hang out on some paper towels to soak up the excess oil, and eat ‘em.

It’s good too with yougurt sauce. (yogurt, with garlic, salt, and thyme, and maybe some dill but we didn’t have any dill)

Enjoy!

4 & 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar, plus additional for sprinkling
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
3/4 pound cold unsalted butter, diced
4 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup cold heavy cream
1 cup chopped dried hibiscus
1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons water or milk, for egg wash
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
4 teaspoons freshly squeezed orange juice

Preheat the oven to 400°.

Mix 4 cups of flour, 1/4 cup sugar, the baking powder, salt and orange zest. Add the cold butter and mix at the lowest speed until the butter is the size of peas. Combine the eggs and heavy cream and, with the mixer on low speed, slowly pour into the flour and butter mixture. Mix until just blended. The dough will look lumpy! Combine the dried hibiscus and 1/4 cup of flour, add to the dough, and mix on low speed until blended.

Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it into a ball. Flour your hands and a rolling pin and roll the dough 3/4-inch thick. You should see small bits of butter in the dough. Keep moving the dough on the floured board so it doesn’t stick. Cut circles of dough. Place the scones on a baking pan lined with parchment paper.

Brush the tops of the scones with egg wash, sprinkle with sugar, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are browned and the insides are fully baked. The scones will be firm to the touch. Allow the scones to cool for 15 minutes and then whisk together the confectioners’ sugar and orange juice, and drizzle over the scones.

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk

4 eggs

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

1 cup whipping cream

1 cinnamon stick

Heat sugar ina 7-inch skillet over medium-high heat. When sugar begins to melt, reduce heat to medium. Continue to cook sugar, stirring occasionally. When sugar is melted and brown, immediately spoon over bottom and side of a shallow 1-1/2 quart baking dish. Set aside for caramel to cool.

Preheat oven to 325 deg F. Combine condensed milk, cream, milk and eggs in blender. Process until thoroughly mixed. Pour into baking dish lined with caramelized sugar. Drop cinnamon stick into middle of mixture. Place baking dish in a baking pan. Pour hot water into pan halfway up sides of baking dish. Bake about 1 hour 50 minutes or until a knife inserted ff-center comes out clean. COver flan loosely with foil if necessary to prevent excessive browning. Remove baking dish from pan of hot water. Cool, then refrigerate at least 3 hours. To serve, run a knife around top edge and invert flan onto a serving plate. Makes 8 servings.

I worked at an elementary school a couple of years ago and they made a cookbook for their volunteers in which all the teachers and PTA parents had submitted recipes-and being an Americorps volunteer, I got invited to the school potlucks and they gave me little tokens of their affection. They were so sweet. And this flan is tasty, and fairly hard to screw up. Carmelizing the sugar is really fun, also.

from the new joy

Heat in a large skillet over medium heat:
3 tablespoons olive oil

Add:
1 cup sliced blanched almonds

Cook, stirring, just until lightly golden, 2 to 3 minutes.
Add:
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Cook stirring for about 1 minute. Stir in:
1 teaspoon sweet or hot paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 to 1 teaspoon hot red pepper sauce

Cook until heated through, about 1 minute more. Stir in:
2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 cup chopped raisins or whole dried currants

Bring to a boil and stir in:
1 1/4 cup couscous

Cover, remove from the heat, and let stand for 5 minutes, fluff the courscous with a fork. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with cilantro.

• 4 medium apples – peeled, cored and sliced
• 1/2 pomegranate, skin and light-colored membrane removed
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

DIRECTIONS

Chocolate-Honey Tart

5 ounces chocolate graham crackers or other chocolate biscuit
4 Tb unsalted butter, room temperature
1 Tb honey
1 cup whipping cream
2 tsp dried lavender blossoms
12 ounces bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 Tb unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9″ tart or pie pan. Grind the crackers with 3 Tb of the butter in a food processor until a fine crumb forms. Press this into the bottom (but not the sides) of the pan. Bake 10 minutes, or until set. Cool.

In a small saucepan, bring the cream and lavender to boil. In a medium saucepan, put the chocolate. Strain the hot cream mixture into the chocolate to remove the lavender. Add cocoa powder and the remaining butter and stir over medium heat until smooth. Pour mixture into pie pan and refrigerate at least 2 hours.