ginger-coconut scones

The base for this scone recipe comes from King Arthur Flour, and then I added in coconut and candied ginger. It made a really nice scone.

ingredients:
2 3/4 cups AP flour (326 g)*
1/2 - 1/3 cup sugar (50-67 g)* depending on how sweet you like it
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup cold butter (113 g)*
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract or the flavoring of your choice
1/2 cup to 2/3 cup half and half or milk (113-152g)**
1/2 cup toasted coconut
1/3 cup candied ginger, chopped

*the gram equivalents are from the King Arthur Flour website
** the difference here depends on how humid it is, if it's dry, winter, use more liquid, if it's humid, use less

1. First whisk together dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking powder)

2. Cut the butter into cubes with a knife, then add to flour mixture until the butter is coarsely mixed in. (With a fork or a pastry cutter - it's ok to still have some chunks of butter)

3. Add in coconut and ginger
4. In a separate bowl, mix wet ingredients (eggs, vanilla, half and half or milk)

5. Add liquid to dry ingredients and stir until moist and holds together. Form into a rough circle. With this amount of dough you can either make 8 big scones, or 12 mini-scones. If you want to make big ones, make a rough circle with the dough, and with a sharp knife or dough cutter, cut into 8 pieces. For smaller scones, divide the dough into two, and form two circles (about 5-6 inches wide, about 3/4-inch thick). Cut each into 6 pieces. 

6. Place scones on a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

7. To make your scones pretty, brush with egg yolk or milk (I used coconut milk), and sprinkle with extra sugar if you want. 

8. At this point - put the scones in the freezer for 30 minutes and preheat the oven to 425 F. The freezing step helps keep the scones lighter/flakier.

9. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes, until starting to turn golden brown.

cucumber salad with ginger-garlic dressing (and a fall picnic)

This afternoon we went to a nearby apple orchard just north of Providence. We were hoping to be able to pick apples, but they said their season was over - a bit disappointing, especially since so many of the trees there still had apples! They had a harvest festival going on though, so there were lots of families and kids, which was fun to see. And a burlap maze, and pumpkins, lots of mums and fall flowers. We brought a picnic along, so we camped out in the orchard and enjoyed the sun and some good food. I made the barley salad with cherries and pecans (which really is good), and a cucumber salad (recipe below). Philipp made this beautiful apple cake, almost tart-like with raisins and almonds. And we had fresh fruit and good cheese...and the weather could not have been more perfect. A great way to get out of the city and celebrate fall for a bit.

Recipe: Cucumber salad with ginger-garlic dressing

this is another one from Ottolenghi's Plenty - such a good cookbook!

ingredients:

2 large (or 4 small) cucumbers, peeled, cut lengthwise in half, and then sliced thin

1 small red oinion, shaved thin

1 1/2 inch ginger, grated

2 cloves garlic, pressed

toasted sesame seeds (about 2 T)

cilantro (about 1/3 cup)

dressing: 2 T rice vinegar, 2 T olive oil, 2 tsp sugar, 2 tsp sesame oil

Mix the dressing, and put the onions in it to soak for about 1 hour. Peel and cut the cucumbers (I used a mandolin for the onions and cucumbers - makes this salad super fast and easy). Add the garlic and ginger to the onions/dressing, and mix well. Then add everything else and mix everything. Let it sit at least 10 minutes before serving so all the flavors soak in. 

market shares week 2

I have to say, except for the pea shoots, of which we still have some in the fridge, I managed to make use of all our CSA veggies from last week. I did feel it was a bit of a challenge. Plus, is it cheating when you throw everything into a fritatta? Hm, I say no. we ate it! I guess one of the good things about supplying through multiple farms is that there is less repetition. This week we had mostly new things: arugula, chard, onions, beets, mixed Chinese greens, butternut squash (yay! fall!), apples, and a zucchini. 

We picked up our veggies and brought them home for a late lunch, and made a salad with the arugula right away (with some cranberries and toasted walnuts, classic favorite). We also get a loaf of bread each week, which we had with some cheese. It felt like a German meal. :) This is really good bread, with a hard crust and soft crumb. But no preservatives - so Thursday and Friday are going to have to be our toast + sandwich days. Friday lunch: sandwich with chive cream cheese, prosciutto, and apple slices. Yum!

Not sure about the chard, beets, squash yet... ideas? I can't believe butternut squash season is finally here. I do feel like I missed a lot of the summer produce traveling so much this summer, but I will fully enjoy fall with its roots and hard squashes and apples.

Apologies for the lack of recipes... we're off to Denver next week for the big German Studies conference, so things are busy and since cooking is one of my favorite procrastination devices, I am trying to stay away from the stove. And I tried making a slow-cooker meal that I deemed a failure. So need to work on that and post something worth making. Hopefully soon!

the slow cooker.

With fall on the horizon, I decided I finally wanted to buy a slow cooker. I was really surprised to find you can find ones for around $20 with super good reviews on Amazon. Then this week I have been coming across the slow cooker everywhere - it seems to be that time of year.

Things I am excited about trying with the slow cooker:
 - obviously, meat braises and stews and soups
 - jam and fruit butters
 - cooking dried beans (links here (Kayln's Kitchen) and here (The Kitchn)
 - making curries (I can't wait to try recipes from Quick and Easy Indian Cooking)
 - rice pilafs (also just rice...)

Also, there are entire blogs devoted to cooking with the slow cooker:
 - Slow Cooker From Scratch (compiles from-scratch recipes from multiple blogs)
 - A Year of Slow Cooking (author of 365 Slow Cooker Suppers and Make it Fast, Cook it Slow)
 - Healthy Slow Cooking (lots of vegan recipes)
 - 365 Days of Slow Cooking (author of 365 Days of Slow Cooking)
 - Slow Cooker Adventures  (focus on gluten-free recipes)
 - Slow Cooker Queen (has a lot of vegetarian recipes)
 - The Crockin' Girls (with categories like "fresh-crockin'"

Lots of these are written from the "busy mom" angle, but busy grad students - and everyone, really - need some recipes they can leave to sit for a few hours.

Anyone else have favorite slow cooker recipes?

another raw kale salad + a very green frittata

This is me using up more of our great CSA veggies. Simple but delicious. Raw kale, cut into ribbons, tossed with some pea shoots. Toast some walnuts (or pecans), add some cranberries (or cherries) for a little sweetness.

My other recipe did not photograph quite as nicely, but it was delicious and it did make use of three of our CSA vegetables: leeks, squash, and more of the pea shoots. Frittata is one of those great dishes where you can toss in whatever is in the fridge that you need to use up. I had a small piece of white cheddar cheese that got grated in, but Parmesan or Gruyere would be good, too.

I'm not going to write out a "recipe," but here is what I put in it:

very green frittata with caramelized onion, squash and leeks
5 eggs, 1 leek, 1/2 large onion, 2 baby patty-pan squash (could use 1 small zucchini), pea shoots (handful), parsley (1/2 cup), salt and pepper, 1/2 cup cheese (parmesan, or Gruyere, or cheddar)

eggplant, tempeh and sweet potato roasted with maple glaze

This is a recipe from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day, which I have made a few times and really enjoyed each time. I feel like I'm on a race this week to use vegetables - either before they go bad or before we get the next CSA installment (on Thursday already!) and we start drowning in vegetables. It's good. This is the best part of the CSA. You have to try new things, have to cook and eat more vegetables. This felt like a bit of a fall/winter dish, but it was a crisp 60-something degrees outside today, and I had eggplant to cook. :)

I love the colors when chopping everything for this dish. The eggplant is such a beautiful purple color, it always makes me a little sad how it turns brown when it cooks.

ingredients:
1-2 eggplant (I used 2 of these long skinny Chinese eggplant)
8 oz package of tempeh
1 sweet potato
zest of 1 lemon
glaze: mix together 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup maple syrup, some red pepper flakes, and 2-3 cloves pressed garlic (depending on how garlicky you want it...), salt and pepper
garnish: cilantro, plus feta (non-vegan version)

instructions: Preheat oven to 350. Cut the tempeh and sweet potato into 1/2-inch cubes, and the eggplant slightly larger (it cooks faster), about 1-inch cubes. Toss with lemon zest and about 2/3 of the glaze. Roast in the oven about 45-50 minutes, stirring halfway through. When all vegetables are soft, toss with the rest of the glaze and add some cilantro and feta.

This makes a great packed lunch!

This is me playing around on the internet... :)

Brown Market Shares: Week 1 (+ recipe for penne with kale pesto)

Michael and I signed up for a weekly share of vegetables through a program at Brown called "Market Shares." It's like a CSA, but they work with multiple farms instead of just one. The program is only open to Brown students, faculty and staff and the pick-up is conveniently on campus. I was also super excited that they also had an option to sign up for a dairy and bread share. So we will be getting a loaf of bread each week from Seven Stars Bakery (as close as I will come to Ann Arbor's Zingermann's here), and cheese and yogurt from local Narragansett Creamery. This is this week's installment:  kale, leeks, collard greens, scallions, patty-pan squash, pea greens, apples, garlic. Yum yum. It's a lot of greens. Kale pesto pasta for dinner... (nothing fancy...just a quick and easy weeknight dinner...)


PENNE WITH KALE PESTO

ingredients:
1 bunch of kale, de-stemmed and roughly chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
olive oil
salt, pepper, red pepper flakes
parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup, or more to your taste)

1. Pasta: Make pasta according to package directions for al dente (I used a whole wheat penne and it was about 9 minutes). When you drain, make sure to save about 1 cup of the liquid. 

2. Pesto: Remove the stems from the kale (trick: fold in half, hold on to leaves and rip step out with your other hand. This way you get all the tough fibers out and it's faster than using a knife). Chop roughly. In a blender or food processor, pulse garlic and pine nuts, then pulse in about 2/3 of kale and add some olive oil, maybe about 2-4 T total, depending on what you need to get it smooth. (I was using a blender, and so I also had to add in some of the pasta liquid to get it to puree nicely. A food processor would work better.) You should get a nice green mush.

When the pasta has about 1 more minute, drain the water and keep about 1 cup of it (I used some of this to blend the pesto). Add the noodles back in the pot, add the pesto plus the 1/3 of chopped kale. Add a bit more water if it's dry looking. Stir. Grate the cheese and stir into the pasta. If you let it sit a minute it will absorb some of the extra sauce and the chopped kale will wilt nicely into the penne.

Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with a little extra cheese. I like a little spice on my pasta, so I added in a sprinkle of red pepper flakes as well.

mung bean tomato soup with kale

This is another recipe from Anna Thomas's Love Soup - a great cookbook. I had some mung beans in the pantry left over from making this amazing salad. Also, I found out that this little Indian spice shop in Providence sells the dried beans in bulk, so I was thinking about what else I could use them in when I came across this recipe in the "summer soups" section of Thomas's cookbook. She cooks them down so that they partially disintegrate, thickening the soup.

sweet potato and pulled pork hash

This was me finally using up the last of the pork from our taco night. It was still really delicious. I think I want to make a big chunk of pork once a month. :) This would make a great brunch dish, or weekend breakfast. In our case, it was a thrown-together dinner, but hey, that was good, too. I first roasted the sweet potato (1 large, cubed) with some onion (about 1/2 red onion, diced) and olive oil in a hot oven (about 450, with a sprinkle of paprika and cumin, salt and pepper). Roast about 20 minutes, until soft and starting to brown. Then I added it to an oven-proof skillet with the pork (about 1 1/2 cups), heated it up over a medium flame, and finished it off in the oven with some eggs and some cheese (queso fresco). Cook until the eggs are done (about 10 minutes). Season with salt and pepper and serve with hot sauce.

best soba noodles yet (with red cabbage, zucchini and radish)

I thought about also calling this post "I finally mastered cooking tofu!" But it's about much more than just the tofu. Look at those colors. :) I was pretty proud of this bowl of lunch deliciousness. The tofu is a pretty funny story though. I have made tofu before and I could never seem to get it crispy (my friend Jessica is super good at this). Turns out it's pretty easy to google "fried tofu" and have the internet come to your aid. As I understand it, the biggest thing is just getting out most of the moisture. So I put the block of extra firm tofu on a plate with some paper towels, put a plate on top, and then put the heaviest thing in my kitchen on top of that: my cast iron le Creuset. It seemed pretty balanced, so I went for a quick run. When I came back, the paper towels were soaked and there was water even dripping over onto the counter. So I guess that's a pretty good technique to press the water out. Then I put some coconut oil in the pan and fried the tofu (leaving it a good 6-8 minutes to brown) and it turned out great. I did have to do two batches though, and on the second batch the oil was starting to get pretty hot and smoke a little bit... and I set off our fire alarm. Turns out it doesn't only beep, but a woman's voice yells "FIRE! FIRE!" Seriously! I've never heard of that before. I was a little scared someone from the building was going to burst in and see what was going on, but I managed to circulate some air and the thing stopped. A bit dramatic, when probably 99% of the time when the alarm goes off it's not FIRE, but due to cooking. (Right?!)

Back to the noodles. Soba noodles are a great go-to recipe to use up whatever vegetables you have left in the drawer. You can use carrots, cabbage, cucumber, whatever. In my case it happened to be red cabbage, zucchini, green onion and radish, which made a really beautiful combination. And they pack really well for lunch. The raw vegetables made it nice and crunchy and the tahini dressing was perfect sweet-salty.

ingredients (for 2):
soba noodles
1 package extra-firm tofu
3-4 green onions
1/2 - 1/3 head of red cabbage, finely sliced (mandolin)
2-3 radishes, finely sliced (mandolin)
1/2 zucchini, julienne cut (I love my julienne peeler!)

for dressing:
tahini (about 1/4 cup)
olive oil (1 tsp)
rice vinegar (1 T)
soy sauce (just a dash)
maple syrup (1-2 tsp)
grated ginger (about 1/2 inch)
optional: garlic, sesame oil

1. Make noodles according to package and rinse with cool water.

2. Mix dressing. I just kept tasting it until it had the right sweetness/tanginess. Sorry I didn't get exact measurements. You could also make a peanut dressing, or something with sesame. There are lots of good recipes out there.

3. Make tofu: Press/drain tofu between paper towels for 30 minutes. Cut into 1/2 inch slices. Fry on medium heat with vegetable oil or coconut oil, do not disturb while it fries 6-7 minutes. Season with salt + pepper while in the pan. You can see it start to brown and the brown creep up the sides. Then you know it's time to flip. The other side will only take 4-5 minutes. Just keep an eye on it. Remove to a cutting board and slice.

4. Cut all vegetables and mix everything together. Top with tofu, cilantro and/or nuts if you have them. Enjoy!

turkey and zucchini meatballs with green onion and cumin (and sumac-yogurt sauce)

I think this might be the first thing I tried from Ottolenghi and Tamimi's cookbook Jerusalem. I love Ottolenghi's Plenty, which Synne introduced me to, of course. I have absolutely loved everything I've made from it. He has great, flavorful food which isn't too difficult, but it pushes me to try new things. My friend Rachel gave me some sumac spice a while back, and I see that lots of the Jerusalem recipes call for it. This was my first time using sumac. It has a mild flavor, I guess slightly tart and lemony. We had the zucchini meatballs (or "burgers") with a salad of baby kale with toasted pine nuts and parmesan - a really wonderful dinner.

ingredients:

1 lb ground turkey

1 large zucchini, coarsely grated

3 green onions, thinly sliced

1 large egg

2 T chopped mint

2 T chopped cilantro

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp fresh black pepper

1/2 tsp cayenne

vegetable oil, for browning

sumac-yogurt sauce: mix in a bowl: 2/3 cup yogurt, 1 tsp grated lemon zest, 1 T lemon juice, 1 small clove garlic, crushed; 1 T olive oil, 1 T sumac, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp black pepper 

1. Make the sauce and set aside. 

2. Preheat oven to 425 F. Ina bowl, combine all meatball ingredients. Mix with your hands then shape into about 18 patties. I noticed that the mix seemed really wet. the zucchini isn't drained first (as it often is in such recipes), and when I browned them, they started to fall apart a bit. But when I finished them off in the oven (a step that I almost skipped...I have to admit), they got a really nice consistency.

3. Pour oil into a large pan, heat over med until hot, then sear the meatballs in batches on all sides. Cook each about 4 minutes. You may have to add a bit more oil. 

4. Carefully transfer to a baking sheet (I lined it with alu-foil) and bake 5-7 minutes until cooked through. 

5. Serve warm with the sauce. 

roasted tomato couscous salad

This salad is based on a memory of a tomato salad I remember making from101 cookbooks that involved toasted capers and half raw, half oven-roasted tomatoes. Instead of a green salad, I used an Israeli (pearl) couscous. It's a really tasty combination of flavors. If you had them on-hand, you could use more fresh herbs (parsley, mint, thyme), and/or olives instead of the capers for some saltiness. 

ingredients:

1 lb heirloom tomatoes – mix of colors

balsamic vinegar and olive oil

1 cup couscous (I used Israeli/pearl couscous)

1 T capers

1 garlic clove, crushed or fine minced

salt and pepper

fresh basil

Heat oven to 425-450. Cut the tomatoes into chunks. If using cherry tomatoes, cut in half. Line the baking sheet with parchment if you want to spare some mess. Roast about half of the tomatoes with a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar (and a sprinkle of salt and pepper) until they burst and soften (about 20 minutes), and save the other half to use raw in the salad. Meanwhile, make the couscous according to directions. While that's going, fry the capers in a 1 tsp of oil (careful – they splatter!), until some of the moisture evaporates and you can see them start to brown (they will smell good, too). Mince or crush/press a clove of garlic into the salad, and top with fresh basil.  Mix everything together! It might seem a bit wet at first, but the couscous absorbs the liquid, and the leftovers are good the next day, too! 

spicy sweet potato and black bean taco filling (vegan)

Sorry there's a lot going on in this photo. It's the taco filling, with some salsa, pickled onions, and queso fresco on top. Yum yum. I made this filling for taco night as a vegetarian option (also vegan without the cheese on top). You can vary the spice by adding more or less jalapeno and chipotles in adobo. 

how to host a taco party (with pork carnitas and all the fixings...)

Last night we had a couple of friends over for tacos, our first little party in the new place. It was really good food and good company, plus margaritas. No better way to extend summer. :) Tacos are a really fun group/dinner party food, because you can prep almost everything in advance and it's easy to pass stuff around at the table. I had been craving some more good tacos after having some at the Providence Farmer's Market a few weeks back, and going to Isalita (a new restaurant in Ann Arbor) last week. I knew I wanted to make pork carnitas plus a couple kinds of salsa and toppings. This was a lot of firsts for me: first time making carnitas, making pickled onions, first time using tomatillos... But I had really been wanting to do this. Everything was a hit - especially the pineapple salsa. It was a bit of work to put everything together, but the flavors were really good and we have lots of delicious leftovers for the busy week ahead.



Here's the menu:

for the taco fillings:
pork carnitas (recipe below)

vegetarian/vegan option: spicy sweet potatoes and black beans (recipe here)


salsas:
spicy pineapple salsa
guacamole taquero (with tomatillos)
pico de gallo

toppings: 
sliced radish
pickled onion
queso fresco
cilantro
lime

margaritas: blood-orange margaritas (from Smitten Kitchen)

exploring Providence: another morning at the farmer's market (and another slaw recipe)

Today was another gorgeous Saturday morning, so after a short jog I biked up to the market to get some veggies for the week. Our CSA share starts in two weeks, so after that I probably won't go to the market anymore. And the weather probably won't be as nice, so I wanted to appreciate it while I can. I still was surprised the farm stands didn't have more greens (didn't see any fresh herbs, salad greens), but they did have lots of end-of-summer fruit - and one stand even had winter squash already! Below is a nice assortment of what they had. Lots of tomatoes, peaches, plums, pears, some corn, watermelon, green beans, potatoes, onions. Lots of good produce!

I also stopped at this Indian spice store (Not Just Spices) on Hope St on my way up there. That will be a good resource. I will really miss By The Pound, an amazing bulk spice/food store in Ann Arbor. But now I at least know where I can get some cheap spices and dried beans. Maybe it will inspire me to try cooking more Indian food. that's something I've always wanted to learn. I also need to explore that area (Summit?) on Hope Street more. They have lots of shops and restaurants and it's really cute looking.

cucumber-pepper slaw with feta

I can't believe it's already September. One of the things I am feeling sad about, as we are enjoying the last weeks (days?) of summer, is that I was traveling so much and missed out on so much summer produce. Sigh. I had a great summer, but I wasn't cooking very much and that I am a little bummed about. Anyways, for this fall Michael and I signed up for a CSA share that is run through Brown, so we will get to enjoy the end-of-summer produce as well as fall's bounty. Which will be wonderful.

The last few days I re-made that grain salad with cherries, blue cheese and pecans. And served it on baby kale (which is a very good product - yum yum). It was really good. If you haven't made it yet, do it! Tonight I wanted to make something different and get some more veggies. So I paired some chicken with a jerk marinade with a fresh veggie slaw.

Another variation, if you wanted to make the veggie slaw more substantial and take for lunch would be to dice or more roughly chop the vegetables, and then mix with quinoa or a whole grain (barley, farro, etc). That would be good, too.

ingredients:
1 medium - large cucumber
1 T salt
2 T olive oil
1 scant T rice vinegar
1/4 tsp sugar
fresh black pepper
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 yellow pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 small red onion, fine diced (or paper-thin slices)
3 oz. feta, crumbled (vegan without the cheese)
roughly chopped basil

1. Cucumber: Cut lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Then cut cross-wise on a mandoline (thin slices) or with a knife. Salt and put in a colander over a bowl. Let sit 15 minutes while you do the other ingredients, then rinse and pat try with a paper towel. 

2. prep other veggies: thinly slice the jalapeño, peppers, and onion.

3. mix the dressing: olive oil, rice vinegar, sugar, black pepper. Don't add salt because the cukes will add some more saltiness.

4. combine everything and serve. Let sit about 30 minutes before serving.

Slaw recipe adapted from Saveur. I found their dressing to be 4x what I needed, also I was afraid of using a habanero!

We had this for dinner with chicken. For the jerk chicken, I just mixed some jerk seasoning with about 2 T olive oil. I smeared this on some chicken drumsticks and let it marinade a few hours in the fridge until dinnertime. Then cook the chicken in a pan on the stovetop, or grill if you have one.