BEETS!!!! in pasta!

I love beets. As those of you who watched Doug as a child (or adult?) know, beets are nature's candy. Except they are much better for you than any candy I have found! I don't know offhand exactly what in them is good for you, but I know its there and in substantial amounts.

The way I usually cook beets is by boiling them in water. Others may prefer roasting, and I must admit that it is possible that boiling takes some of the nutrients/flavor away but I boil them and they are flavorful and delicious. Anyway, I clean the beets (do not peel yet!) and then put them in a pot of water that I then bring to a boil. Beets take a while to cook, 45 minutes to an hour depending on how big they are. I usually cook two or three at a time and save the ones I don't eat in the refrigerator for quick use in salads and things. They stay good for three or four days when the skin is still on. Maybe longer. I don't really know because I eat them within this time frame. When the beets are done (you can test them with a knife to see how soft they are) put them on a plate to cool for a bit. I then chop the top and bottom off and peel them under cold running water. This makes it easy to peel and keeps your hands and the whole kitchen from turning pink.

Ok! I am now going to share with you a great pasta recipe that I eat once or twice a week lately.

Beet Pasta with Pine Nuts

olive oil
garlic
beets sliced into thick rods (one per person, or maybe half of one per person. I myself eat an entire beet in my pasta.)
a handful of pinenuts, toasted
whole wheat pasta (the picture has spiral, but I am currently into bow tie)
salt and pepper to taste
parmesean cheese

In a frying pan, heat some olive oil with a couple cloves of garlic. I like to crush the garlic with a knife and cut it in pretty big pieces instead of mincing it. When its cooking nicely add the cut up beets and cook a few minutes. Add cooked pasta, and some of the cooking water from the pasta if it is sticking or needs more moisture. Add salt and pepper and some parmesean. The pasta turns pink on the edges and such from the beets and looks pretty. After a few minutes, put it all onto plates, add pine nuts and more parmesean cheese on top. Consume.

Green Salad with Beets

And what do you do with the beets in the fridge? I slice them up and then add them to salad greens with some toasted walnuts, oil, balsamic vinegar and pepper. Feta is also a good addition if you are feeling extravagant or if you have some. A friend of mine living in Russia taught me about this salad, so it is Babushka approved.

Savoy cabbage warm salad

I buy most of my vegetables at a little local organic vegetable stand that is conveniently right by the subway stop I take to and from work. I was worried that once winter came that I would no longer be able to eat so many fresh and local vegetables but was proved incredibly wrong by the plethora of strange looking cabbages and root vegetables the likes of which I have never seen. It has been very exciting trying vegetables I have never eaten before. The other week I tried savoy cabbage for the first time and find it to be incredible. This warm salad has very few ingredients but it super delicious and colorful and will probably make you glow inside and out if it has the same effect on you as me. This recipe is what I make for myself, and thus is for one person.

olive oil
About 8 leaves from a savoy cabbage
salt
water
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
2ish carrots, peeled and grated
vinegar
real parmesan cheese (gasp!) - optional

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan. While it is warming up, stack a couple of cabbage leaves on top of each other and cut the hard stem part away. Then roll up the leaves kind of like a cigar and cut them into strips. You can then cut these in half again. I would. Do this until you have cut up all the leaves.

When the oil is hot throw the cabbage leaves into the pan and a pinch or two of salt. A real cook would probably tell you to do like half in the pan until it wilts and then add the rest but I just throw it all in at once since I'm just making enough for myself. (If you are cooking for more people you probably want to do the wilt and wait step though.) Stir. Add the minced garlic.

After a couple of minutes throw about a quarter cup of water into the pan so that it sizzles and the steam cooks the cabbage. You may want to do this a couple more times during cooking depending on how long you cook the cabbage, as it not only cooks it but keeps it from browing/burning.

When you are happy with the degree to which the cabbage is cooked dish it out onto a plate. Add grated carrot on top, or grate it right onto the cabbage. Add balsamic vinegar and parmesan cheese to taste. I have popped the dairy cherry on this blog and do not feel guilty about it. Just know it isn't always necessary!

You can of course add any other vegetables to this you want. I once added spring onions into the pan and cooked them with the cabbage. You could also add other cold vegetables on top of you like. It makes no difference to me.

Cold Asian Noodle Salad

Hello! I am now not only in my new apartment WITH internet but have also finally bought the correct cord to charge my camera with here across the atlantic. I have made a few meals that I was sadly unable to document with photos in the zwischenzeit (the in between time) and thus will be bringing you today a dish that I made months ago back in Lancaster. It is a rather summery recipe, so I apologize for not being consistent with the time of year, something that I think is actually rather important. But in any case, even if it seems summery it is still a good recipe. Especially good for bringing with you to school or to work for lunch! Here it goes:

Cold Asian Noodle Salad

1 package Soba Noodles (japanese buckwheat noodles)
about half a pound of green beans
2 big handfuls of bean sprouts
3-4 stalks green onion
package of tofu
juice from 2-3 limes
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
1-2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

I am sorry that these measurements are not very exact, but I did not actually write down what I did and thus am guestimating from a recipe I made a couple months ago. SORRY. I will try and be more professional in the future.

Anyway! Cook the soba noodles as instructed on the package, drain, and allow to cool. Meanwhile, bring another pot of water to a boil and blanch the green beans (I cut off the two ends, although you can leave them if you would like) in very lightly salted boiling water for 3-4 minutes. You want them to be cooked but still a bit crunchy. Cut the tofu into squares of desired size, maybe an inch or half an inch cubes. Also chop the green onions. Once the noodles are cooled, combine all ingredients in a bowl, adjusting the amounts of lime juice, soy sauce, and sesame oil to taste. I used the juice of 2 limes in my recipe and thought that it was maybe too much, but my sister tasted it and thought it could use more lime! So really, it is completely up to you. Also, you want to use fresh bean sprouts, not bean sprouts from a jar, if possible. You can usually find them at asian markets packed in bags in the refrigerator. This recipe is great as I said for a work lunch, or for a lunch buffet, or a picnic etc. Very delicious and easy AND good for you.

Papaya Pinapple Delight Cookies/ Dessert Bars

I would like to thank Rachel first for her creative genious in making this amazing blog and second for allowing me to contribute! I feel honored :) I also have to apologize that my photos are not nearly as artistic and beautiful as Rachel's but hopefully they get the point across. So anyway, I thought it was about time for some dessert. I was feeling somewhat inspired after finishing my stats final today (what better way to celebrate than with cookies?!) I made a kanten with the juice for which the cookies are named (papaya pinapple delight) the other day but was feeling that it lacked the pizazz that I was really craving at the time. So I decided to get down to business this afternoon. I am typically not inclined to follow or even use recipes when I bake (or cook for that matter) but for the sake of everyone else I will try to approximate what went into these delightful little treats.

1 cup whole grain pastry flour (or whatever kind of flour you might happen to have at the time)
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup Earth Balance Buttery Spread (You can also easily 1/4 olive or other type of oil. I really don't want to advocate this stuff because it does have palm oil and is probably not the best but if you're really craving some high fat buttery goodness you can't go wrong here and at least it doesn't have hydrogenated oils)
1/2 cup date sugar (or agave nectar, brown rice syrup or some fun combination of all three)
1/2 cup soy, almond, rice or hemp milk (add as you mix- you will have to add more or less depending on the desired consistency- if you remember the concept of titration from chemistry class, they totally stole that concept from bakers)

Optional:
chopped walnuts or other nuts
1 tblsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup kanten (pick a juice of choice, mix 1 tblsp agar-agar for every cup of juice and bring to a boil until agar-agar is dissolved. Mixture will gel as it cools for a delicious jello like treat that can be enjoyed alone or on top of these cookies)

Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Cream Earth Balance, vanilla and sweetener in another bowl. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the buttery mixture alternatively with your milk of choice until desired consistency is reached.

Spoon onto baking sheet and if planning to place Kanten on top, create depression on top of each cookie with your thumb. Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes depending on how big you made your cookies!

Variation: Spread into baking pan for delicious dessert bars!

I had a lot of batter and only one baking sheet so thats why what would normally have been the second batch became dessert bars instead. I discovered that, like Rachel, having relocated from an optimally stocked kitchen to a new, remote location, you don't always have the desired ingredient, utensil, or container but I did the best I could. I could have sworn I at least had a wisk here but I made due and mixed with a spatula :-P Cullen just got us a food processor (super sweet!) it was one of the cheaper models but its working awesome so far I used it to chop the walnuts and Cullen made some delicious hummus (also super simple so I'll just throw the recipe up here)

H-Amazimg Hummus
1 16 oz can of chickpeas or garbanzo beans
1/4 cup liquid from can of chickpeas
3-5 tablespoons lemon juice (depending on taste)
1 1/2 tablespoons tahini
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

Mix it all up in a blender or food processor and voila! You can also get creative and add whatever you want like red pepper, kalamata olives, pine nuts, pesto you name it! Yum!

Ok that's all for now! Enjoy! :)

Baked Tofu and Nishime Vegetables with Millet

A few weeks ago I picked up a cookbook called The Healthy Hedonist. I had roasted, fried and boiled tofu many times before but a recipe in the book for baked tofu sounded really good. It was simple a block of tofu (pressed for 30 minutes between two plates with a can of soup on top to weigh it down) cut into triangles and marinaded for 30 minutes in sesame oil, brown rice vinegar, apple juice, mirin, shoyu and toasted sesame oil. The recipe called for a very small about of toasted sesame oil, but I didn't have any regular sesame oil and thus used about 3 tablespoons of it, replacing the regular. Myra Kornfeld, the author of the cookbook, says not to cook with toasted sesame oil and juts to use it as a condiment. She might be right but I've been using it all Summer and appear unscathed. A little goes a long way, however, so using regular and just adding a small about of toasted sesame oil is more economical. It is then baked at 375 for 40 minutes. Really good.

To accompany this I cooked up some Nishime vegetables. This is a popular cooking style in macrobiotic cooking. In a large heavy bottomed pot, place a piece of Kombu sea vegetable. Then layer different types of vegetables that you would like to eat. Seasonal, local vegetables are of course best and if you are eating macrobioticly you of course want to pay attention to balancing yin and yang qualities. You could layer them from the most yin to most yang or just put the hardiest vegetables at the bottom. I used red onion, yellow squash, carrots, white button mushrooms and spring onions. The last of these might be a bit odd but I had them and wanted to eat them.

Millet was my grain of choice for this meal. I like millet a lot, but mostly because it makes a really delicious porridge the next morning. Just put it in a pot with a little soy milk or water, add any nuts or dried fruits you want just like you would with oatmeal and wait for it to heat up. So good.

Berlin

I am now in Berlin, currently sitting in an apartment that I will be inhabiting for one month before moving into another until the end of June. It is a very nice place, in Prenzlauerberg with lots of cool cafes and shops and things but unfortunately no internet aside from some untrustworthy wireless that can only be reached from my roommates room. And it is there where I sit now nursing my cold. I have some more recipes and things from the Summer I would like to publish but the connection here is too slow for picturse so I will have to wait and go to a cafe this week.

Summer Salad

It's labor day and my sister's wedding as well as my departure to Germany are fast approaching. It is hard to believe that it is September already. My sister and her fiance to Lancaster from Philadelphia yesterday for a week of preparations and are staying with my parents and I for a few days before moving to the bed and breakfast. My dad had bought some delicious and fresh local lima beans from market a week ago. He also asked me on Saturday to pick up three pounds of green beans for the week which, in combination of the lima beans, reminded me of a recipe I had seen in Nigella Lawson's cookbook Forever Summer. Nigella Lawson is basically my idol. I adore her. She is very real, very beautiful, has amazing recipes and great stories to go along with them. She is passionate about food but not annoyingly over enthusiastic and her recipes, aside from sometimes including odd britishy ingredients (less so in her newer books), are simple and wonderful. How to be a Domestic Goddess was pracitcally my bible growing up. But back to the point! I had seen a recipe for Squash and Two Beans Salad and now just had to make it for the first night of wedding week. I used:

2 medium yellow squash
2 zucchini
a medium bowlful of green beans
a pint of lima beans (shelled just as Nigella insists upon)
olive oil
basil
mint
salt and pepper
1 or 2 lemons

I cut the squash and zucchini into thirds, then halved the thirds, and then made thick sticks out of these pieces following Nigella's suggestion. I threw them into a roasting pan, drizzled enough olive oil overtop to make a shallow pool in the bottom of the roasting pan (Nigella says 1/3 of a cup but measuring just creates one more thing to clean in my opinion) and mixed it about so everything was nice and saturated. I pinched somes sea salt overtop and put it in a 350 oven for half an hour. In the meantime I boiled the green beans and lima beans in salted water in separate pots until they were done to my preference. I think the lima beans were about 5 minutes and the green beans about 7 but just taste them and see. When each was done I drained it and then plunged the colander into a bowl of ice water, swishing it around so that the beans would get a nice cold bath but I wouldn't have to go fishing for them in the bowl after. Now it's time to peel the lima beans! After they are cooked the covering comes of very easily, just pinch it and it pops out leaving a nice soft bright green (sometimes white) interior.

After the squash cools, gently mix the squash and beans together in a bowl. Squeeze the juice from a lemon or two over the salad. Nigella calls for one lemon but I ended up using two as they were small and I thought it could use a bit more zip. Next chop up a handful each of mint and basil and toss with the salad. Nigella just used basil, but I had some fresh mint and think that it was a very nice addition. Add salt and pepper to taste. I had this salad sitting out for a good 5 or 6 hours before we ate it, which was not a problem at all. I could say it made it better becuase everything had a good long time to marinade, but that could just be a lie since I only sneaked a bean or two right after making it.

Later I made a great marinaded tofu dish to serve alongside the salad, but I will have to tell you more about that another day. Have a great holiday!