You must make this now (fragrant Tuscan herb salt)

We just returned to Seattle after a month away. Most of the time was spent in Madison, Wis., but we drove there from Seattle, which means we spent four days in the car each way. I have lots of stuff to post (or not post) from our trip, but I want to start by sharing an amazing seasoning I learned about in the car on the drive back to Seattle. I have to say we didn't cook much — maybe not at all — in Madison. We ate out all the time with friends or just by ourselves, partly because we were lazy, and partly because it was so hot a lot of the time that cooking seemed too hard. I guess we didn't totally forget about cooking though, because on the car trip home we were listening to a podcast of The Splendid Table. The host, Lynne Rossetto Kaspar was talking to Sally Schneider about making herb salt, and as Ms. Schneider described her technique for crafting the salt, I could hardly sit still  — I wanted to make it right away.

As Ms. Schneider described the process of chopping garlic, kosher salt and herbs together, I could almost smell the aroma wafting through the car. I knew making herb salt was going to be a priority the minute we arrived home. As I type this, the aroma of the herbs and garlic is billowing around me as the mixture dries in a dish near the window in my work room. The fragrance is inspirational.

I'm not a big salt user, preferring to use minimal amounts to bring out flavor rather than impart a salty taste. My taste buds are used to little salt, and too much masks the flavor of food, in my opinion. The herb salt adds a new dimension of flavor without adding extra salt to a dish. It's so full of herbs and garlic, you can use less salt. For my herbs I used sage, rosemary, golden oregano, and tarragon, and I used the food processor method. I made half a recipe using 1/4 cup of kosher salt, two cloves of garlic and 1 cup of herbs.

I used the fragrant herb salt for the first time last night to add depth to a quinoa tabooli I was bringing to a potluck. (Couldn't wait for it to finish drying so I used it partly dry.) I cooked 2 cups of quinoa in 3-1/2 cups of water and broth. I didn't follow a recipe for the tabooli, just added the ingredients you'd expect to find, such as a large cucumber, a handful of chopped grape tomatoes, lemon juice from a large lemon, four chopped scallions, a handful of parsley and of mint, and a little olive oil, plus ingredients I felt like having, like raisins — and a teaspoon of herb salt. It was served on a large platter surrounded by stuffed grape leaves, tomatoes, olives, hummus and carrots, and was well-received.

Today, I had some leftover tabooli and olives for breakfast, and was amazed at how fantastic it tasted. I could really notice the herbal notes and I think it may have been the most delicious quinoa salad I've ever had.



If you would like to make herb salt, (and why wouldn't you?) here's a video of Sally Schneider telling you how. (If you could smell what I'm smelling right now, you'd make it immediately!) If you prefer to just read the recipe for Fragrant Tuscan Herb Salt, you can find it here. I suggest reading the recipe after watching the video to get the correct proportions of ingredients, because she makes a much smaller quantity in the video. Enjoy!

Note about salt: Different salts have different sodium contents by volume, so read the nutrition info on the package and compare. I know that kosher salt has less sodium by volume because of its large grain size, but I didn't realize how much variation there was among coarse salts in general. Kosher salt has the least sodium content by volume, but I found a very coarse sea salt with a comparable amount of sodium, and that's what I used. By volume, I mean when measured out by teaspoon rather than by weight. Kosher salt's large grains contain less sodium than fine salt when measured by volume. However, I found coarse sea salts that seemed to have the same grain size as kosher salt, but more sodium, even though all the measurements were the same (per 1/4 teaspoon).

Some comparisons of sodium per 1/4 teaspoon of salt: 
Diamond kosher salt = 280 mg
Lima Atlantic sea salt (coarse) = 330 mg
Selena Naturally light grey Celtic sea salt (coarse) = 410 mg
Morton fine sea salt = 560 mg

Quinoa stuffed peppers | raw chocolate bites | Cute neighbor

At a recent family dinner, I served something I haven't made in years, and consider a little retro — stuffed peppers. Do people still make these? Maybe I'm just out of touch because I'm not that fond of peppers, and don't cook with them very often, but I have to admit, they were good.

The peppers were served at a holiday meal alongside potato kugel, cranberry-apple sauce and a large salad, and preceded by smoky cream of broccoli soup. I also made the delicious Silky Chickpea Gravy from Appetite for Reduction.

I can't give exact measurements for the quinoa filling but will tell  you  everything that was in it, and how it was made; there's lots of room for improvisation. The leftover filling, baked in a separate casserole dish alongside the peppers, was used as a side dish, and tasted great on its own, minus the pepper.

I started with 1-1/2 cups of raw quinoa which was cooked in three cups of low-sodium broth. Several chopped carrots, a few ribs of chopped celery, many sliced mushrooms, and a large chopped onion were stir-fried until nearly cooked, then pulsed in the food processor until they were finely chopped but NOT puréed. The vegetables were mixed into the quinoa along with 1/2 cup of shelled, roasted but unsalted pistachios, about 1/2 cup of chopped kalamata olives, salt and pepper. This should be enough for six large peppers.

The peppers were halved, seeded and gently steamed until they began to soften. The stuffing was pressed into the peppers, carefully filling all the cavities and mounding over the tops. The stuffed peppers were then loosely covered, and baked at 350˚F. They were garnished with a bit of ketchup because I hadn't gotten around to making the tomato sauce I'd thought about.

The quinoa tasted fabulous, and I will make it again as a side dish, or as a stuffing for collard leaves if I'm feeling more ambitious. I just don't like peppers that much.

For dessert we had fruit salad and raw chocolate morsels from a recipe in Raw for Dessert by Jennifer Cornbleet. (reviewed here) The recipe I used was for Chocolate Cupcakes, and it was wonderful. Ever since I got my candy moulds, I've been obsessed with using them and this was the perfect recipe for making small-sized treats. (The moulds are fantastic, and if you are thinking about purchasing moulds, I recommend these.) After filling the moulds, I placed them in the freezer until the "cupcakes" were firm, then popped them out and stored them in a tightly sealed container in the freezer until serving time. They don't actually freeze, and are just right for eating right from the freezer. (More about these later.)

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Cute neighbor

Here's a cute photo of our cute neighbor, Lucy, curled up on our bed. Did I say "cute" too many times? Lucy comes to visit often, and seems to think she lives here. What she doesn't know is if she lived here, she wouldn't be allowed to roam around outdoors. She's the nicest cat anyone could wish for — so loving and sweet. And very cute.

Cooking from the vegan blogs

Lately I've been enjoying making things from other people's blogs and cookbooks. It's satisfying and creative when I devise my own recipes, but with so many intriguing recipes already perfected by others, and begging to be tried, it makes sense to benefit from my fellow-bloggers' hard work. We had a family dinner (minus two) Sunday night and everything we served came from food blogs and cookbooks.

I made a batch of Cheezy Quackers from Have Cake Will Travel to have on hand when our hungry guests arrived. I especially had in mind the mini-guest, aged 19 months, who really likes to eat, and appreciates a good cracker or two. I was right about this - she had a cracker in each little fist both before and after dinner, and even carried a couple home with her. Because I was thinking about Miss E, I reduced the pepper in the recipe by about half. Although the crackers were delicious, they were a bit salty for me so next time I think I'll reduce the salt a little, too. I used white whole wheat flour with a very small amount of baking powder and they turned out great.

My favorites were the ones I thought I had rolled too thin! I didn't have a tiny duck cutter - just a pig and a flower - but I opted to use a pastry cutter, and cut the dough into rectangles because I'm lazy, and it's the easy way out of a lot of cutting. But I made pigs and flowers out of the scraps left over from straightening the dough. I may be lazy, but I like a certain amount of variety. :)


For the main course my husband prepared Sweet Chili Lime Tofu With Wok Steamed Collards, and Quinoa from Vegan Yum Yum. This has become one of our favorite dishes. We used a combination of collards and kale for the vegetable, and a combination of red and regular quinoa for the grain. I've already blogged about this dish in the past so I didn't photograph it. Here's a photo from the old post, just so you can see how attractive it is:

I also made a simple salad of sliced, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and green onions drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

For dessert I baked two selections from Ricki's cookbook, "Sweet Freedom." I'd been eying the butterscotch blondies forever, and finally got all the ingredients together to make a batch. She warned me in the recipe not to over-bake them, and I tried really hard not to, but without a working timer in the kitchen, and so much going on, I probably did over-bake them just a little. (Sorry, Ricki, I'm not used to the oven in this house, yet.) But, they were still fantastic! Everyone loved them, and now I have a really good excuse to make them again.

The blondies probably would have been enough, but I had two over-ripe bananas on the counter, and there was a recipe in "Sweet Freedom" for Banana Oat Bars that called for two very ripe bananas, so I made those, too. I subbed chopped prunes for the raisins or cranberries, and ground almonds for the coconut. I wanted to use coconut but we didn't have any, but they turned out great anyway. Guess I'll have to make these again, too, so I can try them with coconut and cranberries. (I also topped them with chocolate chips because I have a weakness for bananas and chocolate.)

The next day, I used the leftover quinoa and greens (the tofu was all gone, tsk) as the base for a lunch salad. I added tomato, cucumber and avocado, with olive oil and lemon for the dressing.

Now go make all this stuff! You won't be sorry.

Dinner treat from Vegan Yum Yum

Three of my husband's graduate students hosted us for dinner recently, with Katie doing most of the cooking. She was the one brave enough to tackle a vegan dinner, and she did a fabulous job. The food was so wonderful I asked her where she got the recipe. She answered that she had gotten it on a vegan blog - Vegan Yum Yum - had I heard of that? Well, let's just say I own mini-doughnut pans (used) and a gnocchi board (still unused) as a result of knowing that blog.

The recipe is called Sweet Chili Lime Tofu With Wok Steamed Collards and Quinoa. Katie used half regular and half red quinoa for a particularly attractive look and a great taste. We were unable to get red quinoa, so the dish in the photo doesn't contain any. If you're looking for a delicious way to get some vitamin packed greens, healthful quinoa and tasty tofu on the table, go here.

My husband has become so enamored of this recipe he makes it again and again, improving a little each time. The last time he made it (not pictured here) he got the tofu nice and crispy, and it was really great. For some reason, though, the quinoa comes out wet instead of dry, and I prefer it dry.

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Tweet tweet
It seems like just yesterday my son was declaring twitter to be stupid and a waste of time. Now suddenly, he's tweeting, and telling me I need to be on twitter. He says if I have a blog, I should be tweeting about it. What? I declined, but he was emphatic and set up my account. "But I don't have anything to tweet about," I protested, "all I do is sort and pack." "Then just tweet when you post something," says he. "But who will read it?," I asked? So here I am with a twitter account and I'm tweeting.. For now. I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to say or why, but I'm going to try it out for a while. If you want to follow me, and I understand perfectly if you don't, you can click here.

Quinoa pilaf

It's getting late and I'm tired but I wanted to post something, so I'll make it quick. I planned to post a few recipes inspired by "The Chicago Diner Cookbook," and after posting one last Saturday, I didn't realize it would take me so long to get to the second one. There was always something getting in the way. Even this afternoon, after I went to Trader Joe's for mushrooms, I came home to discover we were out of quinoa! Then there was something slimy in the vegetable drawer that needed to be cleaned out, etc. etc. I finally got some quinoa, made the pilaf and served it with baby bok choy and edamame in a mild peanut-lime sauce — tasty, easy and pretty.

Quinoa pilaf (inspired by The Chicago Diner Cookbook)

• 1 cup quinoa
• 1-3/4 cups low-salt veggie broth or water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup diagonally sliced green onions or cooking onions
• 1 cup sliced cremini (baby bella) or other fresh mushrooms
• 1 carrot, peeled and grated
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1/3 cup chopped parsley

1. Rinse the quinoa in a fine mesh strainer under running water. Place the quinoa and broth (or water) in a pot and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to simmer, cover the pot and cook for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow to sit, covered, for 5 minutes.
2. In the meantime, sauté the mushrooms and onions in the oil for 2 or 3 minutes.
3. Add the carrot and peas, cover and turn off the heat. Let sit until the carrots and peas are warmed through.
4. Stir the veggies into the quinoa. Add the parsley and season to taste with salt and pepper, if needed.

Quinoa soup (revisited)

We were sitting around trying to think of something to cook for dinner the other night. It was almost six o'clock and we were hungry but clueless. I was thinking soup would be good, and I was trying to imagine what it should taste like when quinoa soup popped into my head. Quinoa soup was the subject of one of my first posts (probably read only by my immediate family!), and it's still one of my favorite soups, but for some reason I always forget about it. It's fast, easy and delicious — in other words — perfect. This seems like a good time to mention it again, along with some of the memories it invokes.

Two of our sons each spent a year living in Ecuador (different years but they lived with the same family) while they were in college, and quinoa soup is a traditional Ecuadorian dish. My oldest son learned to make it from his wonderful Ecuadorian mom, and he passed along the recipe to me. We visited Ecuador twice, and enjoyed this soup at the home of our son's host family and also in the Amazon rain forest. The family served it with rounds of corn on the cob, slices of avocado, chunks of plantain and lots of ahi, a hot sauce they made at home. We use potatoes instead of the floury plantains, and frozen corn when fresh isn't in season. Sometimes we use the traditional cabbage, and sometimes cauliflower, and we add whatever hot sauce we have on hand. Sometimes we add pan-fried tempeh, sometimes tofu, and sometimes edamame. The version above also had mushrooms. (In Ecuador we ate the corn, by the way, with our fingers, and placed the cobs on a plate provided for that purpose.)

Now, about that rain forest. When we visited our middle son, we spent some time in Quito, and then took a trip to an eco-tourism lodge in the Amazon. The night before the trip, we ate in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Quito that Aaron swore was okay. We'd so far been very careful about food so as not to get sick... Well, I was up all night unloading, if you know what I mean. By morning I was in a very fragile state, and begged my husband to go on the trip without me. I really couldn't picture myself away from a nice bathroom for more than a few minutes at a time. He refused to leave me and I didn't want to ruin the trip, so I reluctantly packed my bag. My waiting room at the Quito airport was the bathroom, and I didn't come out until it was time to board. When I saw the tiny little plane I was horrified, but when I saw the flight attendants handing out snack bags to the boarding passengers, I was even more distressed. I knew I'd be unable to accept the bag, or even politely refuse it, without barfing, so I asked my husband to please take my bag while I stared rudely at the ground, and imagined myself someplace else.

I survived the flight by keeping my eyes shut and sleeping as much as possible — not hard since I'd been up all night. The kids were begging me to look at the Andes, but really, I couldn't. I felt bad about that, but at least I didn't throw up. We flew into the oil town of Coca. Let's just say this was not a destination town, rather, it was a starting point for many trips into the Amazon. When we were there, a taxi ride was "stand-up and hold on" in the back of a pick-up truck. The bathroom at the airport was so awful, that I could only use it because I was desperate, and I had to clean it first, which was hard without running water. The toilet seat was covered with human excrement. No joke. All I had were a few tissues.

At Coca we boarded a motorized canoe for a three-hour trip down the Rio Napo to the lodge. It was an amazing ride down an Amazonian river, and that thought distracted me just enough to survive the trip, climb up the steep river bank, hike to the lodge, and find a bathroom. When I didn't show up for dinner that night, a medical assistant was sent to our room, and a herbal tea was proffered. By this time, our youngest son was queasy and chucking, so he was given the tea, too. I've never tasted anything so vile in all my life, but after a quick consultation with each other, we both drank it. By morning we were feeling weak, but better, and we entered into a full day of hiking in the rain forest, and other activities. This was an unforgettable trip to an amazing place. The lodge staff was working hard to provide medical care, education and jobs in an area previously without access to those things, while preserving primary rainforest and investing in re-establishing rainforest that had been destroyed. We visited the clinic, the canoe ambulances and the chocolate factory! Our guide was from a remote village in the jungle and he had an intimate knowledge of the rainforest flora and fauna. Hiking with him was a revelation. I'll never forget him cutting a thick stem of cat's claw and letting us drink the liquid inside. He pointed out plants and animals (and big hairy tarantulas) that we never would have seen without his help.

I could ramble on for hours about our experiences in Ecuador. When we eat quinoa soup, it's more than just a meal. It reminds us of another part of the world that we've been fortunate enough to have visited and people we were lucky to have met.

Quinoa soup

You can have delicious quinoa soup in about a half hour, more or less. It's one of my favorite fast dinners. Quinoa is really good for you and so easy to make.

I first had quinoa soup in Quito, Ecuador in someone's home. It was so delicious I had no idea it was so easy to make. I wanted to be able to make an authentic version of the soup back home so I brought back achiote (annato seeds) so I could make the red oil used in Ecuadorian cooking, and bottles of the hot sauce we put on just about everything we ate there. I still have the seeds somewhere and I think we used all the hot sauce. For a quick, easy and delicious soup, read on.

Quinoa soup
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt (to your taste)
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 cup chopped onion (it's good if half of it is green onion)
3 cloves minced garlic
1 cup floury potatoes cut into small cubes (peeled at your discretion)
1 cup shredded cabbage
several "baby" carrots from the ready-to-eat bag, sliced into strips
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup rinsed quinoa
5 cups water


optional but good
sliced ripe avocado
2 inches of a tempeh block sliced crosswise into thin strips and browned
1 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice
green onion for garnish
hot sauce for adding at the table

Rinse the quinoa well in a fine strainer under cold running water and set aside to drain. (The rinsing is important so it won't be bitter and bad-tasting) Sauté the onion, garlic, cumin, paprika, oregano and tempeh (if using) in the oil until the onion is wilted and the tempeh brown. Add the quinoa, salt, potato, cabbage, carrot and water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low, cover the pot and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the frozen corn, stir it up, garnish as desired and eat.

note: In Ecuador we did have the avocado slices and I recommend it. The lemon juice gives it a nice tang and the green onion is a nice touch especially if you're not using the avocado. Also in Ecuador, we had rounds of corn on the cob (yes, ON the cob) in the soup. It had been cut crosswise into one inch rounds. We picked it out and ate the corn kernals off and I think there was a bowl on the table for the cob pieces. In the summer when fresh corn is available, I do this. But the rest of the year I reach for that handy bag of frozen corn that's always in my freezer. Also, you can substitute different veggies for the cabbage - you could use zucchini or kale or as you see in the photo, cauliflower. (Some recipes call for chopped tomatoes or you can add mushrooms if you want.) I like the cabbage best but didn't have any the day I made the soup.