Uwajimaya / tamarind-tofu-cabbage-bowl

My cousin is an only child, and I am one of three siblings - not that any of us are children anymore — but we were. He had a LOT of toys, and he didn't like to share. My cousin lived in a large four bedroom row-house with his parents and our grandparents. That house was a source of seemingly endless entertainment for my brothers and me. For one thing, it had one of those magical double staircases — you could go to the second floor from the living room, travel through the upstairs hallway to the rear of the house, and descend a second staircase into the back pantry. The second-floor area with the second staircase was dark, cluttered and spooky, making it very alluring for games of hide-and-seek or "disappearing cousin." Technically, we weren't allowed to use the rear staircase because it was "too dark," "too dangerous," "too cluttered." All the more reason why we were unstoppable in its use. But, as enticing as this physical aspect of the house was, nothing was as alluring as the toy room.

There was one bedroom in the house dedicated solely to toy storage. The room was stacked, floor to ceiling along all four walls, with every game, puzzle, science kit and general toy that could be imagined. My memory has the stuff stacked three-deep so that there wasn't a lot of walking space left, but that could be time embellishing memory. Or not. My cousin was the ruler of this cache, and it was up to him to decide which toys we could play with. Now, I'm not saying he was selfish, or a tyrant, but he was a little arbitrary about which things we could use. I knew he'd never let us use the chemistry set, but there were certain other things I gravitated towards, and was often frustrated by his iron grip. His parents encouraged him (sort of) to share, but didn't make him.

He'd usually let us play Clue, but not always. Sometimes he'd allow the Lincoln Logs, which was good since I was the only one who liked them. The boys would tire of them quickly and go off to run up and down the staircases while I built farms and housing developments. But the real object of my desire, the Legos, were usually off limits. I'd plead and beg for those Legos, and only rarely would he concede. The cuz had a most remarkable collection of tiny little Legos, including little white window frames and shutters. He had zillions of intricate pieces, and playing with them was heaven. My brothers would soon get bored, and I'd have them all to myself until my cousin required them back in their storage location.

I'd love to go back in time and have a glimpse at that room again to see if it really contained every toy made, or just seemed like it. It was a little daunting to be in the presence of so much stuff I wanted. Kind of like last weekend, actually, when I found myself in the grown-up food equivalent of the toy room.

Part of our stash from Umajiwaya

When we walked into Uwajimaya Inc in Seattle's International District, I literally burst out laughing. Uwajimaya is an Asian supermarket that has everything you could possibly want, from fresh vegetables to the most obscure seasoning AND an entire gift and kitchen tool department. I didn't know which way to turn. You can get one hour of free parking if you spend six dollars, and the minute we walked into the store, it was pretty clear that wouldn't be a problem. We didn't buy any veggies, though they were sorely tempting, having just been to the farmers market the day before, but headed toward the aisles of Asian foods. I had a shopping list that magically expanded as I spied more and more ingredients I suddenly remembered "I just had to have." We found all the expected things like dried mushrooms, brown rice vinegar, rice noodles and yuba, but also unexpected things like an organic mix of brown jasmine-red-black rice from Thailand. We were able to find locally made tofu and tempeh, as well as Shark brand sriracha (without preservatives) in a giant bottle for just $2.99, less than we'd previously paid for a small bottle.

The first things we used from our shopping expedition were the tofu and rice in a recipe from our "Vegan Yum Yum" cookbook. Though not an Asian dish per se, the tamarind tofu cabbage bowl was satisfyingly delicious. It was a simple and tasty last minute dinner solution.

Everything we've made from the cookbook so far has been easy and delectable, and this was no exception.

The rice reminded me of a delicious Thai rice we'd been given as a gift some time ago. When this rice is gone, I think I might make my own three-rice blend from the rice available at the coop. I'll use a jasmine brown rice for the bulk of the mix, a red rice and a black rice.

Bread, pizza - fast and delicious / kale salad

Last night I attended a book talk by Zoë François who is on tour promoting her book, "Healthy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which she co-wrote with Jeff Hertzberg. I'm not such a big bread eater but I do love to bake bread. I like to experiment with different flours and methods to create beautiful breads with great texture and flavor. I've made naturally fermented breads (no yeast or starter) as well as made my own sourdough starter to create deli-style rye breads. I've made bagels, pita, tortillas, soft pretzels and naan. I usually make my own pizza dough, and sometimes I make crackers. I've made bread that took days to make from start to finish, and I once even hand-built a large ceramic bowl to mix large batches of dough in because I couldn't find one I liked.

Now I'm having fun making bread that takes almost no effort or time, á la Zoë and Jeff's technique. As I 've mentioned in a previous post, a fairly wet dough is mixed up right in a storage container, and left two hours to rest. A hunk of it is quickly shaped, rested and baked on a stone, and the remaining dough is stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks so it's ready to use anytime. As the dough ages, it develops more character and sourdough flavor. When the dough is used up, a new batch can be made in the container without washing it first, to jump start the sourdough qualities that give the bread its character.

I've got a bread (pictured above) on the counter, and dough for one remaining loaf stored in the refrigerator. A few days before the loaf above was baked, dough from the same batch was used for pizza. I made these things using the master recipe from the book mentioned above. I've been making whole grain breads using this method for quite a while but I had been treating dough meant for pizza a little differently - using more flour in the mix for a firmer dough. It's a lot easier to get the pizza from the peel to the stone when it's got some body. I used the wetter dough for the pizza (shown below), and had some difficulties which I meant to ask Zoë about last night but completely forgot. I sprinkled extra flour when I formed the crust, and lots of cornmeal on the peel so the pizza would slide onto the stone, but when I tried to transfer the pizza to the hot stone in my oven, it wouldn't go without leaving the toppings behind! I finally gave up and cajoled it into a pan.

It seemed to me the extra moisture in the dough steamed the crust in the pan, making the texture a bit more spongy than the crispy, chewy effect I look for in my crust. It was still good, but not perfect. I thought about next time putting the sauce and cheese on the crust, sliding it onto the stone, then quickly adding the bulkier toppings while the pizza is in the oven. I don't like this idea because for one thing, it sounds dangerous, and for another, the oven heat will escape, and the oven should be hot when the pizza first goes in. I've got some more experimenting to do or questions to ask. Or maybe I should just wait for Zoë and Jeff's next book to come out. They're working on one about pizza and flatbread!

The pizza, by the way, had a very thin layer of Follow Your Heart mozzarella topped by a sprinkle of Daiya mozzarella. This combination produced the best tasting pizza I've had in quite a while. The real stars of the topping, though, were broccoli slices and mushrooms. To go with the pizza we had a salad of massaged lacinato kale, shredded carrot, baby salad greens and edamame. The kale was very thinly sliced (roll into a thick wad and slice crosswise) and rubbed with olive oil and a little salt. The edamame was sprinkled with umeboshi vinegar and left at room temperature for a half hour to marinate. The salad was dressed with olive oil and lemon.

You can visit artisanbreadinfive.com to get more information about making artisan no-knead breads. It really does take about five minutes to mix it up — but there's still the resting and rising that any bread must go through. The big difference is the dough waiting in the refrigerator to be baked into the next great loaf.

note: The seeds on this loaf are black mustard, caraway, dill, and crushed red pepper. The mustard seed was surprisingly delicious in this combination!

It's November / veganmofo wrap

I meant to do my Vegan Mofo wrap-up before October ended but here it is only one day late. This was my first mofo, and the most I've ever blogged in one month. The part that was most exciting for me was finding and reading so many blogs I'd never seen before. It was thrilling to discover so many vegan blogs with wonderful recipes and gorgeous photos. I had no idea there were so many. My reading list is now stuffed with even more great blogs than before. As others have mentioned, it was hard keeping up with reading and commenting on so many posts; sometimes the comment would be in my head but I was just too tired to type it. I want to thank those responsible for organizing the event and posting the recaps. I followed many of those recap links to find new blogs. I especially want to thank all the vegan bloggers for sharing so much creative energy. Now all those intriguing recipes await!