Fabulous, easy (GF) dinner | Animal rights stop sign

On Sunday night our middle son cooked us dinner. It was a simple but amazingly delicious meal that can be served to company with little stress, and much appreciation from the diners. The bowl you see above contained hot, freshly cooked quinoa topped with roasted vegetables, raw arugula, chickpeas and creamy tahini sauce. The vegetables were cauliflower, sliced carrots and onions, which were tossed with olive oil and roasted approximately 30 minutes at 450˚ F. The idea is to let the veggies get brown and tender but not let them burn. The sauce contained several tablespoons of tahini, thinned with fresh-squeezed lemon juice and water to make a thick but spoon-able sauce. My son used a food processor to get a creamy texture.  The tahini sauce was seasoned with garlic, parsley, salt and pepper to taste. You might want to add a tiny bit of sweetener to the sauce, depending on your taste and the sweetness of the veggies. The carrots Aaron used were so sweet that I first mistook them for sweet potatoes, and I think the ultra sweet carrots played that role in Aaron's dish. The combination of quinoa, chickpeas, vegetables and tahini sauce made a very pretty and satisfying meal. I might just make it tonight with broccoli.

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Animal rights on the corner — it's a sign 

This is the stop sign on my corner. It really is. It was spotted by my friend Bethany the other day when we were coming back from a walk. For those who might not know what shark finning is, it's the despicable practice of cutting off living sharks' fins, usually at sea, and throwing the sharks back into the ocean.  The mutilated sharks, who can no longer swim correctly, either slowly starve to death or are eaten by other fish. You can read more about shark finning here or here. Shark finning is a cruel but lucrative practice, and fins sell for shocking amounts of money.

The fins are a delicacy used for making shark fin soup, which is very popular in Asian countries, where it's believed to be health-enhancing. Its great cost also makes it a status symbol. However, shark fins contain high levels of toxic mercury, and soup made from them is not a healthy food. A new study has also found that shark fins contain a neurotoxin that has been linked with Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease.




If you can stand to watch the video, you'll see Chef Gordon Ramsey learning about the shark fin industry. He starts out eating a bowl of soup, but quickly becomes shocked and disgusted by what he uncovers about the process of obtaining the fins. Ramsey isn't the most compassionate person when it comes to eating animals, but he is appalled and sickened by his experience. He starts out saying he might be willing to accept shark finning if the fins tasted good, but I doubt he still held that opinion by the end of his experience. Watch if you want to learn more about shark finning, and why it should be banned.

Gluten-free chocolate chip cake

Remember when black bean brownies were sweeping the blogs, and every other type of bean was making it into one baked good or another? Well, you never saw beans in baked goods on this blog. Ever since a particularly unpleasant involvement with sweetened adzuki beans in a gelatinous Japanese sweet, just the thought of beans in a dessert was enough to cause me to experience a slight wave of nausea. I must have been especially desperate for a baked good of any kind when I came across a recipe for gluten-free deep dish cookie pie, made with a lot of white beans, and became obsessed with making my own version of it. (recipe below.)

You know, I haven't really been mentioning this, but I've been eating pretty much gluten-free since last August. It's been an experiment of sorts to see if eliminating gluten would affect the stomach pains I sometimes get after eating. And yes, it did — no gluten, no pains. Mostly, my cooking hasn't really changed much, since it turns out much of what we eat at home is already gluten-free. Even most (but not all) of the pasta we've eaten for years has been quinoa, corn, buckwheat or rice-based. We've always used wheat-free tamari, and even the miso in the fridge was wheat-free. But the seitan had to go. And the bread, as well as other things. And the rules for eating out had to change. I managed all that.

What I couldn't quite deal with was baking. I was scared off by the huge ingredient lists for gluten-free baked goods, and the multitude of odd flours and additives. Although I always have an assortment of interesting flours in my pantry, they don't all go into one dish! And I didn't want to eat things that seemed to have so little nutritive value (because they contained so much starch), even if they were desserts. Anyway, I tried to make gf brownies to take to a dinner party, and they were so awful my husband had to run out to Whole Foods to buy a bag of "normal" cookies to bring. The brownies were weirdly sandy, and they fell apart if I touched them. The taste, apart from the texture, wasn't horrible, but who, at a dinner party, wants to eat sandy brownies with a spoon? This failure was disconcerting, but I started reading everything I could find about gf baking, assembled a cupboard full of even more odd ingredients, and vowed to try again. I made a yeasted bread that wasn't awful. And then the cookie pie entered my sugar-starved brain, and I decided to give it a go, beans and all,  with a few changes based on knowledge I had gleaned from Carrie Forbes, who writes the blog, Ginger Lemon Girl. (This is not blog that espouses a vegan lifestyle, but there's lots of gf baking info, and some vegan recipes.)

Chocolate "swirl" cookies (hahaha)

A few weeks ago I cooked some cannelini beans overnight in the slow cooker (because I really am trying to use more home-cooked beans), and let them cool. Then I carefully measured my ingredients and got to work. And guess what? The pie, which I think is more like a cake, was delicious in every way. My husband enthusiastically ate it, and claimed there was no way he would guess it was gluten-free. Miss E., who is used to eating "normal" baked goods, gave her complete approval, and devoured her share. I couldn't stop eating it, and when it was gone, I made it again. (I even made it into cookies with the addition of gf oat flour, but because I sadly neglected to cool the beans, and the chocolate chips melted, I'll have to try again before I share the recipe.)

I'm going to post my recipe for chocolate chip cake because although some of the ingredients are the same as the original, it's really quite different. The original called for oats, and some people who follow a gluten-free diet can't handle oats, even gluten-free oats. (Not to mention the fact that I didn't happen to have any on hand.) I think I used less starch than is found in most gf recipes, but it seemed to work.

I baked my cake in a 10-inch spring-form pan (thrifted from Goodwill on a lucky day) that I first coated with Earth Balance. I want to mention that the cake was hard to remove from the pan bottom (the side just pops off), so next time I'll try baking it on a round of parchment paper. I left the cooled cake on a plate on the counter, loosely covered with plastic wrap, and much to my surprise, it held up very well for several days.

Gluten-free chocolate chip cake

(check labels to make sure you are using gf ingredients)

• 1-1/2 cups of cooked, cooled and well-drained cannelini beans (or one can, rinsed and well-drained )
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup evaporated cane juice or organic sugar
• 1/2 cup almond flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)
• 1/3 cup sorghum flour
• 1/3 cup brown rice flour
• 1/3 cup tapioca flour
• 1 cup vegan chocolate chips

1. Blend the beans, applesauce, oil and vanilla in a food processor until smooth.
2. Place the baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, almond flour, sorghum flour, brown rice flour, and tapioca flour in a large bowl. Whisk the dry ingredients together until all  lumps are removed and the flours are combined.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the food processor and buzz until the two mixes are well-integrated.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips or, add to the processor and buzz carefully a few times until the chips are mixed in but not broken.
5. Spread the batter (it will be fairly stiff) into the greased pan and smooth the top.
6. Bake in a pre-heated 350˚ oven for 40 to 50 minutes until a toothpick in the center comes out sort of dry. The edges of the cake will be drier than the center, which will stay a bit moist.
7. Cool on a rack for about 20 minutes before removing from the pan. If you haven't used a spring-form pan, good luck. 

UPDATE: I placed a round of parchment paper on the pan bottom and greased it, before adding the batter and baking. After the cake had cooled about 20 minutes, I placed a plate over the top, flipped it over, peeled off the paper, placed a serving plate over the cake and flipped the cake right side up. It worked much better than trying to remove the cake from the pan bottom.

I now have a copy of The Allergy-Free Cook Bakes Bread waiting to be reviewed, so maybe there will be another baking post coming up soon, if I can stop myself from making more chocolate chip cake!  Or these cookies!

Hosting a dinner party calmly

leftover polenta casserole with extra spinach

Does hosting dinner parties make you happy or a nervous wreck? For me, it's a little of both. I want to cook for a crowd, but the actual process often seems overwhelming, even when the recipes I'm considering aren't overly complex. First there's deciding what to serve, then the list-making and shopping for ingredients, and of course, more-careful-than-usual housecleaning. I'm always looking for ways to streamline the preparations and make the experience less stressful, but less-stressful  doesn't necessarily translate into less time-consuming. I prefer to stretch out and slow down the preparations, if time permits.

Last weekend I hosted a dinner for nine that was relatively relaxing to prepare, and very satisfying to eat. I spread the cooking over two days — preparing some foods on Saturday to be reheated Sunday so I wouldn't feel rushed. My husband was out of town until Sunday, so I had the kitchen to myself, and no set meals to worry about. I accepted offers from guests to bring food, and I used some store-bought prepared foods to make the cooking a little easier. Chickpeas were soaked on Friday then cooked overnight in the slow cooker. Late Saturday afternoon I prepared chola tikki and soup. For the soup, I cooked and puréed the veggies but didn't add any seasonings, because seasonings can loose their spark in the fridge overnight. I spent about four hours, on and off, cutting and cooking.

Late Sunday morning, I made the cabbage slaw so it could marinate. Also, English cucumber quick pickles, and green onion salsa. After assorted chores and setting the table, my husband and I went for a one hour walk. When we got back about 4 p.m., I made guacamole, pine nut crema, and got the polenta baking. I cut carrot sticks, filled dishes with olives and tomatoes, and warmed up and seasoned the soup. One of the guests was bringing cookies, so my husband made a fruit salad  to accompany them, and washed the mushrooms before I sliced them  for the polenta casserole. 

Just before the company arrived we set out h'ors d'oeuvres, and were able to relax with our guests until my last minute cooking of the mushroom and spinach topping for the casserole. I was so involved with the event that I completely forgot to take photos until one of the guests mentioned it, and I just managed to snap a few bad photos of the food as an afterthought. Too bad, because it was pretty. I made way too much as usual. Here's the menu and information about the recipes:

Appetizers
calamata olives (from my giant Costco jar), grape tomatoes in a bowl, carrot sticks, guacamole, crackers (Trader Joe's savory rice crackers), edamame hummus (Trader Joe's)

Soup
potato soup inspired by this one from oh ladycakes. My soup had  yukon gold potatoes, sweet potatoes, celery, onion, carrots and cauliflower. I puréed it smooth and creamy and added lots of lemon juice. It was seasoned with hickory smoked salt and fresh-ground black pepper, and drizzled with sriracha. (I use Shark brand sriracha from Thailand. It's a little sweeter than Rooster brand, and doesn't contain preservatives.) The soup in the picture is actually from microwaved leftovers I ate the next day, and contained leftover crema as well as sriracha. (I added the crema before heating, the sriracha, after.) It was beyond amazing with the crema.

Main course 
chola tikki from this recipe, made the day before the dinner. (I previously wrote about chola tikki, here.) I added coriander and turmeric to my chola tikki, and sautéed them on a cast iron griddle before refrigerating them. I made them about 2-inches in diameter and about 1/2-inch thick. The next day I heated them on a sheet pan in the oven for 15 minutes at 350˚F and they came out perfectly crisp and delicious. The tikki were served with the amazing green onion salsa from "Viva Vegan" by Terry Hope Romero. The salsa is very versatile and goes with many styles of food.

cabbage salad. A simple salad of shredded red and green cabbage, carrots, a bit of kale, and red onion mixed together with a unique dressing from the Gentrified Coleslaw recipe in "Celebrate Vegan" by Dynise Balcavage. There are a couple of unique, unexpected ingredients in the dressing that indeed elevate the salad to new heights. So good.

baked polenta casserole. The basic polenta is based on a recipe from "Passionate Vegetarian" by Crescent Dragonwagon. In this case I used 1 cup of coarse cornmeal, 4-1/2 cups water and 1 teaspoon salt. I baked this in a 10x13 ceramic casserole (measured on the bottom=9x11) that holds 2-3/4 quarts. I baked it 40 minutes at 350˚F, then removed it from the oven and gave it a stir, put it back and baked about 20 more minutes until it was thick and set. I removed it from the oven, spread a layer of Trader Joe's salt-free organic marinara sauce over the top, added a layer of pine nut crema*, and returned it to the oven for 30 to 40 minutes. Meantime, I used the recipe for Spinach With Pine Nuts and Raisins from "The Urban Vegan," except dried cranberries instead of raisins and a LOT of thickly sliced baby bella mushrooms. I cooked the mushrooms first, then added the spinach at the last minute to wilt it before topping the polenta with the spinach and mushrooms and serving the casserole. Even as leftovers, which you see at the top of the page, this casserole was great. I made two of these but one would have been enough. Now we have lots of frozen casserole in the freezer.

quick pickles from cukes and roots. Brought by a guest, and delicious.

quick cucumber and red onion pickles. Made by me and very plain.

Dessert
cookies from "Vegan Cookies Take Over the World," brought by a guest.
fruit salad.

*Pine Nut Crema is from Viva Vegan, and is amazing. I used a modified version that contained only pine nuts, almond milk, garlic, lime juice, oil, starch and salt, and is much thinner than the original, but I imagine the original version is fabulous. One of these days I'm going to make enchiladas with the real crema recipe.

Overall, I'd say the dinner turned out very well, and I wasn't stressed-out and exhausted. The cleanup was pretty easy since everything had been made in stages and dishes and pans cleaned as I went along. Managing the kitchen clutter goes a long way towards keeping things calm, and is especially helpful when kitchen space is limited. (It also helps a lot to have a kitchen slave who does your bidding.)

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Budding ballerina

photo by Kate

On Saturday afternoon, before I started cooking, I took my granddaughter to her first ballet class. She's a very outgoing child, but new situations can throw her, and it took all her courage to let go of me and join the class. But she did it, and had a great time. This weekend when her mom takes her to class, she'll have a leotard, tights and shoes just like everyone else. :)

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February flowers

It may be February, cold, rainy and gloomy, but flowers are blooming in my backyard!

Sprouted beans

About two years ago I wrote a humorous post about going to Costco for the first time and spending $100 on crazily big sizes of foods we may or may not have needed — or been able to consume. Well, it seems especially appropriate for a food blogger to eat her words when she has a big change of heart about something, and I solemnly do eat my words about Costco. We joined. And now we routinely run out of things we buy there and go back. On purpose.

This won't be a post about all the stuff we get there (even things like organic hemp seeds!) but specifically about a three-pound bag of something called truRoots sprouted beans that I bought on a whim, and really like. Note the words in the top right hand corner. Yes, my friends, these dried, sprouted beans are supposed to cook in 15 minutes. And they taste good, too. Notice I didn't say they were cheap. On their Web page it says:

"TruRoots Organic Sprouted Bean Trio is a unique colorful and delicious blend of nutritious sprouted lentils, mung, and adzuki beans. Sprouting is a technique of traditional cultures that boosts the nutritional profile–increasing vitamins and micronutrients. The process results in pre-digestion of complex proteins, starches and lipids, converting them into simple and essential components that make these beans much easier to digest. We sprout and dehydrate the highest-quality beans and lentils, awakening their flavor and preserving healthful benefits. truRoots low-temperature drying keeps them packed with power. Lower in sodium and higher in nutrition than canned beans, truRoots Organic Sprouted Bean Trio is a healthy choice. Versatile, convenient, and quick, truRoots Organic Sprouted Bean Trio is ready in 15 minutes. Or slowly simmer in a soup or stew. Try it in salads, grain dishes, burritos, casseroles, stuffings or your favorite bean dish."

Are the beans really more nutritious and easier to digest? I don't know, but I do know I can cook these beans quickly, they taste great, and they don't come in a can. Here's what I did with them.


First, of course, I followed the directions on the bag and cooked them in a pot, adding a cube of Rapunzel no-salt-added bouillon to the cooking water. Then, when they were done, inspired by this post by Zoa, I put them into a casserole dish, and layered some red salsa on top. Next came lots of fresh spinach. Then I added a layer a homemade corn chips (Mine were seasoned with the leftover crumbs from a bag of kale chips.) and a coating of pine nut crema (without the tofu) loosely based on the one in Viva Vegan. The whole thing was then baked in the oven for about 40 minutes.

Out of the oven, all hot and gooey (kind of gooey, anyway), it was deliciously satisfying. (And gluten-free.) If this sort of layered casserole interests you, I highly recommend checking out Zoa's much more exciting version. And I can't recommend the pine nut crema highly enough — it was great! (And now I have something to make with the giant bag of pine nuts I got at Costco. Hohoho.)

All joking and word-eating aside, we do find a lot of good deals on staples (kalamata olives are staples, right?) and veggies at Costco. Here's a tasty something made from baby bok choy, grape tomatoes, baby bella mushrooms, olives and soy curls. The soy curls are the only food in the dish not from Costco. Mostly we shop at the co-op or Whole Foods, but about once every month or two, Costco beckons.

Lest you wonder if either Costco or truRoots had any monetary influence on my commentary, they did not. No samples or free memberships were exchanged in the writing of this post. Darn.

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Top 31
Just in case you voted for me in the Circle of Mom's top 25, and are wondering how it all turned out, I didn't make it into the top 25, but I did manage the top 31! Thanks for your votes, and congratulations to the top 25 winners! They all deserved to have a top spot.

Hearts

Happy Valentine's Day!

Over the weekend I visited a magical place in Seattle called Bedrock. They manufacture artful objects from 100% recycled glass. In addition to garden art, window treatments and various items like coasters, jewelry, etc., they sell materials for glass artists, landscapers, and also teach classes. I was looking for a few touchable objects to display in a large black bowl that sits on our coffee table, and the small, polished glass hearts and round things, plus a string of beads I found in the outlet room for 25 cents, did the trick. The small, wrapped heart in the middle is a chocolate heart that will be given to my granddaughter this evening. Valentine's Day is also her birthday, and she'll get a birthday gift and a chocolate heart. I wonder which one will grab her attention the most.

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Today is the last day to vote. I don't exactly fit the profile of a young mom raising kids, but hey, I AM a mom and I raised three vegan boys.

My rank is steadily slipping from a "high" of #23 to my current rank at #31. I'm OK with that, but it would be more fun to be in the top 25. I'd be honored to have your vote(s). You can vote once every 24 hours. :D