Crispy salad and easy cupcake topping

Sometimes I get to the end of the week and it just seems impossible that a whole week has passed. I know we've been eating but I can't think what we ate. The weekend was just as hectic with more company than we usually have in 3 months, and everyone knows you shouldn't try out new recipes (especially if you're making them up) on company. Noooo. So all the food has been familiar old stuff.

I did throw together a new combo of ingredients (for me at least) for a salad dressing and it was quite delicious. I had to be creative at the last minute because the dressing I was planning to make depended on ingredients that I didn't realize I didn't have. Instead, I used fresh squeezed orange juice and one of the wonderful vinegars I purchased a while back at Vom Fass. It was a Waldburg balsam cherry vinegar. I'm not expecting anyone to actually have this vinegar on hand — just use a mild fruity vinegar of your choice, or a plain rice vinegar, which I would have used if we'd had any. To go with the dressing, I made a salad of mostly finely shredded cabbage with a handful of baby greens and assorted other stuff, and it was so fresh and spring-like. It went perfectly with a mildly spicy peanut stew. I also came up with a new ULTRA EASY cupcake topping that worked amazingly well. And if it appears anywhere else on the Internet, I don't even want to know. I want to feel clever at least for a little while longer.

Mixed salad with orange-Waldberg cherry balsam dressing

• baby greens
• finely shredded red and green cabbage from a bag (about 1 part baby greens to 3 parts cabbage- use enough for 4 people)
• shredded carrot (1 large)
• 1-2 thinly sliced green onions
• crystallized ginger bits (about 1/4 cup)
• kalamata olives
• 1/2 cup toasted walnuts (raw ones toasted in a pan)

Dressing (4 servings)

• Juice of 1 small orange (about 3 ounces)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons Waldburg cherry balsam vinegar
• 1 tablespoon agave syrup
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• pinch salt

Mix the salad ingredients, including half the walnuts, together. Add the dressing and toss thoroughly. Toss the remaining walnuts on top.

Easy cupcake topping
Take the cupcakes out of the oven and remove from the tins. With one hand make a ring shape with your thumb and third finger and place atop a cupcake. With the other hand drop a bunch of vegan chocolate chips into the ring. It takes about 3 seconds for the chips to adhere to the warm cake. You can give them a gentle press if you think they're not sticking. Do all the cupcakes, and then go back and stick individual chips in spots you think need a few more. The chocolate chips will soften but they won't lose their shape. As the cupcakes cool, the chocolate chips will harden again. That's it. They looked so cute I wanted to kiss them!

Banana-coconut-yogurt cake

I live in a university town, and there's an old joke here that when you take a cab, your driver probably has a PhD. There's actually a lot of truth to that, and as I've discovered over the years, it applies to more than cab drivers. The story goes that people come here for their degrees, fall in love with the city, and never leave, causing a glut of overqualified job seekers. But there's more to the story than just too many qualified workers. Some of these highly educated folks decide to take a different path. Take the handyman who cleared our walks this winter, caulked the tub and made me a new cutting board. He's a (too young to retire) retired engineer who builds decks and pergolas, trims trees, does woodworking, etc. And in a conversation with the painter who is working on our house trim, I discovered that he used to be a social worker/ psychotherapist. He also sold plants at the farmers market for 10 years. He prefers painting, which he started doing to put himself through school, to therapy. These are two people who have found what they really want to do, love their work, and love where they live. This is one of the little tidbits that comes to mind as I get closer to leaving the city that I love so much. There will probably be more . . .

So how do I connect that little blurb about my favorite city to a banana cake? Well, the house trim will be brown - about the same color as the bananas that were sitting on the counter looking ready to explode. They were past the point where anyone would want to eat them, and were crying out to be baked into a cake and not wasted. Each morning as I passed them on my trip through the kitchen before going to work, they cried a little louder, until I finally took action. There was also a jar of leftover coconut milk waiting to be used, and a carton of the most tangy (damn sour) unsweetened soy yogurt in the fridge, that needed a purpose. The words "banana sour cream cake" were assaulting my brain, even though I've never had such a cake, let alone made one, but now I've done both. Not real sour cream, of course, but sour yogurt must be kind of the same once it gets into a cake, don't you think? The cake far exceeded my expectations (and apparently my son's since he ate about half of it after I went to bed!) It was substantial without being heavy, not too sweet and with an almost velvety texture. Delicious!



Banana coconut yogurt cake

• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, sifted or stirred well before measuring
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup evaporated cane juice (like Sucanot)
• 2 very ripe bananas (3/4 cup)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened soy yogurt (I used Wildwood)
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1/4 cup non-dairy milk (I used soy milk)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

1. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and sugar.
2. Mash the bananas well and mix with the yogurt. Add the oil, coconut milk, soy milk and lemon juice and mix together.
3. Add the liquid to the dry and fold in until all the flour is incorporated. Don't over-mix.
4. Bake in a lightly oiled 9" square pan for about 40 minutes in a preheated 350 degree F oven. The baked cake should pull away from the sides of the pan and spring back to the touch. Don't over-bake.

This cake was especially charming while still slightly warm.

note: When I put the batter into the pan I was sure the pan was filled too high and would overflow, but it baked up perfectly. (I was so worried I even put foil around the edge just in case, but it was unnecessary.)

Spicy peanut stew

Duck, everyone. Here comes another recipe for peanut stew to make its way through the blogosphere. Like we need another, but what can I say? I just had to do it.

After a lovely recent dinner at the home of friends, I decided to exploit Elena's cooking skills and bring home her fabulous recipe for peanut stew. Of course she'd made it up, based on an African version of this dish, since she had lived in Africa. She couldn't remember exact quantities, but she was game to try. She painstakingly recalled all the ingredients, quantities and cooking times, and I carefully transcribed them, hoping to recreate her luscious stew at home and then post the recipe. So where did I put the recipe? It was nowhere to be found. My son convinced me to just make it anyway, since he was in the mood for peanut stew, so I made a list of what I could remember and we headed off to Trader Joe's to fill in the missing ingredients.

Elena used cauliflower, cabbage and swiss chard (I think) but I wanted broccoli and Jordan wanted sweet potatoes. I remembered that she'd used a large amount of garlic and ginger. There was peanut butter and crushed tomatoes, and I added kidney beans and hot peppers. I used the frozen "mystery peppers" from last summer's garden, and although I tasted them, I misjudged their heat and the stew was hellishly spicy (in a good way!). Although I was planning to add plain crushed tomatoes, I was attracted to a can of fire roasted chopped tomatoes and green chilies that was on special at TJ's, so that went into the stew. Jordan really wanted coconut milk, and although I wasn't in favor of it, I gave in and added some. I thought the stew tasted better before the coconut milk, and he thought it was better after. Actually, it was fantastic before and after, but I'm leaving it out. It's my recipe!

I cut my sweet potatoes a little too big and I had to simmer the stew nearly an hour before they were soft, which made the total cooking time, including prep, about two hours. I would serve this stew to company on a day when I had time to cook rather than as a busy weekday meal. It's easy to make and tastes wonderful.

Peanut stew (6-8 servings)

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1–2 jalapeños (or 1 red or green sweet pepper if you don't want it spicy)
• 2 stalks broccoli (about 4 cups chopped into bite-sized pieces)
• 2 medium sweet potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 large carrot, cut into 1/4 inch rounds, or your favorite way (I like 1/4 "-thick rectangles)
• 5 large cloves garlic, minced fine (about 2 tablespoons minced)
• 1 tablespoon finely cut fresh ginger root
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
• 2 cups water
• 2 tablespoons tamari
• 1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can crushed (or diced) fire roasted tomatoes or tomatoes with green chilies
• crushed peanuts, cilantro or parsley for garnish (optional)

1. Sweat the onions. This means to place them in a thin layer of olive oil (about 1 tablespoon) in a pan (I used a heavy 4-1/2 quart cast iron dutch oven) and cook over very low heat with a tight fitting lid. Stir often and cook until they are somewhat translucent. I cooked mine about 15 minutes. (Probably because that's how long it took me to prepare the garlic and ginger!)
2. While the onions sweat, mince the garlic and ginger. Add them to the pan when the onions are ready, and continue to cook, covered, while you cut the pepper.
3. Add the pepper to the pot and cut the broccoli.
4. Add the broccoli and cook, covered, while you cut the sweet potato. (Don't make the sweet potato pieces too big!)
5. Add the sweet potato and 1 cup of water. Cover and cook while you cut the carrots. Then add the carrots and replace the cover.
6. Open and rinse the beans. Add the beans, tomatoes, cinnamon, cumin and sugar. Stir in the peanut butter. (It's a lot easier to stir in the peanut butter if it's at room temperature.) Add the second cup of water and bring to a boil.
7. Turn the heat to simmer, and add the tamari.
8. Simmer over low heat until the vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally. If the stew seems too thick, add a little veggie broth or water. I like mine thick.
9. Serve over white or brown basmati rice and garnish with crushed peanuts, cilantro or parsley, if desired.

It wasn't this blurry in person!

The second night I served it over rice noodles, and we added some frozen okra. I'm not a big okra fan but Jordan says it's his favorite vegetable.

There are 8 million recipes for peanut stew in the Naked Blogo-City, and this has been one of them . . .