I’m back if only temporarily. I’m working out one of life’s “little” challenges and have been eating restaurant food more than food from my own kitchen.  So… not a lot to blog about.  I really miss doing this and hope that anyone still hanging on out there, having patience with me, will keep being patient and wait for my life to become something vaguely resembling it’s former self. 

I have to admit something to you.  I have been holding back a pancake recipe.  It’s actually something I put together years ago and it is the recipe I go to often.  These are two-grain pancakes but the second grain is surprising. I created a whole-wheat pancake but switched out some of the flour for brown rice flour.  Brown rice flour has no gluten so using it in these pancakes gives the finished product a lighter texture and a nuttier flavor.  These pancakes can be made with buttermilk, which makes them thin, and almost crepe like.  The best way to make them however is to mix one part plain nonfat yogurt with one part milk for the liquid in the recipe and let the batter stand a few minutes before cooking the pancakes.  You will be rewarded with a thick, tall pancake with amazing flavor and texture.  Perfect for stacking.  Perfect for loading up with goodies. 

Today’s breakfast featured bananas cooked inside the pancakes until they caramelized.  We had the sweetest fresh strawberries so we generously loaded them on top of the pancakes with yogurt, maple syrup and wheat germ.  As the summer progresses, use any fruit that tickles your fancy either on or in the pancakes.  All berries except strawberries can be cooked into the cakes.  Stone fruit such as peaches and nectarines are also excellent cooked in the pancakes.  Toast pecans, walnuts or almonds to sprinkle on top.  You deserve it.

Mimi’s wheat and rice cakes

½ cup brown rice flour

1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour

½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 cup nonfat yogurt mixed with 1 cup low fat milk until smooth, or 2 cups buttermilk

2 tbsp olive oil or canola oil

Butter for frying

Thinly sliced fruit or whole berries (optional)

In a large bowl mix together the brown rice flour, whole-wheat flour, baking powder and baking soda.  In another bowl, beat the egg.  Add the egg, milk/yogurt mixture or buttermilk and oil to the dry ingredients.  Mix well to make sure the wet and dry ingredients are incorporated but don’t over mix.  Let the batter stand at least ten minutes before you fry the pancakes.

Preheat an electric griddle to 325 degrees.  Melt butter on the griddle (for crispy edged pancakes).  Ladle the pancakes onto the griddle. If you want to add fruit, do it as soon as you ladle the pancakes onto the griddle.  Just sprinkle the fruit onto the surface of the cakes and lightly press it in.  Cook the pancakes until they look bubbly and dry on the edges.  This should take three or four minutes.  Turn the pancakes and cook them another two or three minutes.

The pancakes may have to be cooked in two batches.  If you are not serving the first batch right away, store them on a cookie sheet in a warm oven (200 degrees f.) or store them in a covered glass dish.

Enjoy!

I’m very blue.  I can’t discuss why but my blue demeanor is why there has been no activity on this blog for a while.  I’ll just leave it at that. No sense making everyone sad and worried.

Let’s talk about red.  Red is happy.  I made a sanguine risotto tonight.  I also sort of messed up on the recipe.  I bought the ingredients last Tuesday(!) and I was too upset to cook all week.  I didn’t grocery shop this weekend and when I went to figure out what there was to eat, I was amazed that the beets and basil I bought almost a week ago were in really good condition.  I was so excited that I didn’t let the food go bad that I didn’t follow directions.  I was using the recipe for Beet Risotto with Greens from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison.  When I went shopping I made my first mistake.  I read the recipe as needing chard or the greens from the beets (I read an “or” not an “and”).  I was going to get both anyway but the chard looked bad.  I decided that the bunch of beets I got had more than enough greens for the recipe.  Then tonight, I misread that I was supposed to add chard (or ½ of those beet greens) with the rice and the rest of the beet greens towards the end.  The beet greens cooked down to a silky soft consistency that was really a pleasure to eat, but I can see where she was going with the recipe.  It might have been nice to have some greens with a chewy texture too.  Either way, this dish was super healthy and really satisfying to eat.

Beet Risotto

Accidentally adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

5 ½ to 6 cups vegetable stock

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp olive oil

½ of a large yellow onion, diced

1 ½ cups Arborio rice

½ cup dry white wine

2 tbsp chopped parsley

2 tbsp chopped fresh basil

3 – 4 medium beets peeled and grated in a food processor (about 2 cups)

4-6 cups beet greens (washed well to remove sand), chopped finely

Salt and pepper to taste

Grated zest and juice of 1 Meyer lemon

½ cup parmagiano reggiano

Chive blossoms (optional)

Bring the stock to a boil and then leave simmering on the stove.  Heat the oil and melt the butter in a deep, wide pot.  Add the onion and cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes until softened.  Add the rice.  Cook for one minute stirring to coat.  Add the wine.  Simmer until the wine is absorbed.  Stir in half the parsley, the basil, the grated beets and the beet greens.  Add 2 cups of stock.  Simmer, stirring until most of the stock is absorbed.  Add more stock ½ cup at a time stirring until the stock is absorbed.  Repeat the adding of stock, stirring and absorbing until you use up most of the stock.  When ½ cup of stock is left, taste the risotto to see if the rice is al dente.  If so you may not need more than 5 ½ cups of stock total.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Add the juice and zest of the lemon.  Serve dusted with cheese and garnished with the remaining parsley and chive blossoms if you have them.

Am I nuts?  Well maybe.  But until I got to the cleanup part, it really wasn’t that bad.  Really.

How on earth did I manage to get the idea in my head that I could make a soufflé on a weekday during a time when I am working harder during the day then I ever have?  It all started last night.  No scratch that.  It all happened on Sunday if you really think about it.  But then again, it was probably Michael Pollan’s fault.  Who is that?  You mean that guy who wrote the Omnivore’s Dilemma?  That guy?  Well yeah.  I bought his new book:  In Defense of food: an eaters manifesto.  While not as engaging a read as OD, his new book was full of factoids.  Facts I know already because I read everything.  Facts that should make me a healthier person, that is if I paid any attention to the facts.  But I don’t.  This book opened my eyes to the fact that although I buy a lot of veggies, I am not so successful at getting them into my body before they melt down to a little smear in the bottom of my refrigerator’s crisper.  The fact that I am perfectly happy to cook healthy meals at home and then supplement these meals with god knows what at a restaurant.

Well.  I am trying to be better.  So I bought beets on Sunday.  I bought beets because beets are a bargain.  You get two veggies for the price of one (as long as you don’t let them melt in the fridge)!  You’ve got your sweet orbs of red, orange or yellow root for cooking or crunching up raw.  You’ve got your vitamin-enriched greens to eat like chard or kale.  This is a spectacular veggie that nobody is eating. 

Last night, I suddenly remember that I need to cook the greens before they melt.  I know how to make cooked greens taste pretty good but I wanted some inspiration.   I started leafing through the stacks of cookbooks.  I picked up Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  Yes!!  This has got to be the right book.  I found the recipe that would do it:  You boil beet greens for a couple of minutes and then sauté them in olive oil, sliced garlic and tomatoes.  Add a touch of dried oregano and top with Asiago (which I didn’t have so I used Parmesan).  I Plopped this ethereal mixture onto the top of a warm piece of leftover cornbread and I was in heaven.  It was the best thing I put in my mouth in a long time.

While I was looking for the beet recipe, I stumbled onto her soufflé section.  Ms Madison has this recipe for Goat Cheese Soufflé with thyme that she follows with a half dozen veggie infused variations.  I couldn’t stop obsessing over the possibilities.  As you know, I am a sucker for the bonus meal, the meal you make that comes about from the serendipity of having just the right things in your kitchen that aren’t on a shopping list that becomes something really amazing.  I thought about this recipe all day while I was at work.  You see, I never thought I could make a soufflé because I don’t own the right dish to cook it in.  Deborah Madison cooks soufflés in a gratin dish.  I have a gratin dish; I could do this!!  I could finish up that little bit of cream from last week.  I have plenty of eggs.  I can substitute Rosemary for the thyme and green onions for the white onion slices, etc, etc.  My mind kept rewriting the recipe to suit my needs.  This would work!

Well. Let me tell you! You need to make a soufflé.  Even if it is a weeknight and you are tired.  It was that good.  It was flavorful and it had a texture that was both fluffy and lightly bready.

Being the crazy gal that I am, I made a salad of two lettuces, thinly sliced yellow beets, radishes, grated carrots, green onions, avocado, and blood oranges.  I also made homemade buttermilk dressing.  Aren’t you jealous I didn’t invite you over?  Well, I’m kinda peaved I didn’t invite you over because the kitchen was grotesque and I could have used your help cleaning!

The moral of this story is, read in Defense of food.  It will make you a better eater.  Make sure you have a copy of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  It is one of the best cookbooks I own.

Broccoli Cheddar Soufflé

Adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

Butter for greasing the pan plus 2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan for coating the dish

1 ¼ cups milk or cream or milk and cream (which is what I did)

Aromatics:  Rosemary (or thyme), fresh bay leaf (or dried), 3 2” pieces of green onion

3 tbsp butter

3 tbsp whole-wheat pastry flour

1/2 tsp salt

Freshly ground pepper

Dash of cayenne

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 cup steamed and then finely chopped broccoli

½ cup sharp cheddar, grated

4 egg yolks

6 egg whites

Minced parsley and cilantro for garnish

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Butter an eight-cup gratin dish and coat the butter with the Parmesan.  Heat the milk/cream with the aromatics until it just boils then remove it from the heat and let it stand 15 minutes.  Remove the aromatics.

Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat until foamy.  Stir in the flour and cook over low heat for a few minutes (it should get thick and aromatic but don’t let it burn!).  Whisk in the milk all at once, stirring vigorously for a couple of minutes until it thickens.  Add salt, pepper, cayenne and mustard.  Mix well and remove from heat.  Beat in the egg yolks one at a time until well blended.  Stir in the cheese.

Beat the egg whites with a dash of salt until they form stiff peaks.  Mix a quarter of the egg whites into the soufflé mixture to lighten it up.  Fold the rest of the egg whites into the soufflé mixture being careful not to over mix and deflate your egg whites.  Transfer the soufflé from the mixing pan to the gratin dish.  Put the dish into the center of the oven and lower the heat to 375 degrees F.  Bake for 25 minutes until puffed and brown.  Serve immediately garnished with parsley and cilantro.

Work is stressing me out bad!  I felt like I was falling behind after being gone for weeks.  Then my coworker left to have her baby and I have had to pick up her duties as well as mine.  I have been working long hours and I haven’t been eating as well as I should.  I’m still cooking but in amounts that haven’t gotten us through the week and I have been relying on a lot of restaurant food for the past few weeks.  Such bad habits I have and they are too, too easy to fall back on! 

It is such a vicious circle.  I am stressed so I eat bad things which makes me tired so I don’t get any exercise so I get more stressed and more tired and eat bad things and so on and so and so on.

Yesterday, I decided to slow the merri-go-round I have been on and do some simple baking to go with something that feels so restorative to eat.  I made a very whole-wheat version of my sourdough pitas to go with some sun dried tomato hummus.  The pitas contained the usual white flour starter I have cultivated but the dough was entirely whole-wheat flour aside from a half cup of white flour.  The bread came out very hearty but scrumptious.  The hummus was my take on a hummus I sometimes buy at Trader Joes.  The hummus from TJs is quite sweet.  Mine has a fuller flavor due to using the oil from the sun dried tomatoes and a healthy dose of Aleppo pepper.  Aleppo pepper is a Middle Eastern pepper that has a nice heat and a complex flavor.  It truly complements the sweet tomato flavor in this hummus.  If you can acquire some, make sure to use it in this recipe.  As an alternative, cayenne in a smaller amount will do just fine.

Eating these two homemade goodies together made me feel happy and very restored.  I’m not sure if it was the fiber and minerals in the garbanzo beans or calcium in the tahini or vitamin C from the garlic and lemon juice or the antioxidants in the olive oil or the lycopine from the sun dried tomatoes but this snack was definitely a cure for what was ailing me!

Sun Dried Tomato Hummus

2-3 cloves of garlic

½ cup sun dried tomatoes in oil, drained

3 tbsp olive oil from the jar of sun dried tomatoes

1 15 oz can of garbanzo beans

Salt to taste

6 tbsp tahini

Juice of one lemon

½ tsp Aleppo pepper or a dash or two of cayenne to taste

Liquid from garbanzo beans as needed

In a food processor, chop the garlic.  Add the sun-dried tomatoes and pulse until the tomatoes are finely chopped.  Measure out 3 tbsp of oil from the sun-dried tomatoes and add the oil to the tomatoes and garlic.  (Add more olive oil to your jar of tomatoes to replace the oil you took and cover the tomatoes so that they don’t spoil).  Drain the can of garbanzos in a sieve over a bowl.  Reserve the liquid from the beans.  Add the beans, lemon juice, tahini and Aleppo pepper to the bowl of the food processor.  Process until mostly smooth.  Add liquid from the beans a tablespoon at a time with the processor running until the hummus is a smooth consistency.  I used about 5 tbsp of liquid.  You may use more or less depending on the texture you like for your dip.  Taste the hummus and add salt to taste, pulsing a couple of times to mix.  Enjoy with fresh pitas.

I have no idea what is wrong with me this week.  I have been allowing myself a maximum of five to six hours of sleep per night the entire week. All week I have had trouble waking up.  I have been tired, and grumpy.  My normal brainpower has been very impaired and I’ve felt horrible all week.  This morning, with no responsibilities and no expectations, I slept and slept a luxurious sleep that allowed me to wake naturally at a quarter to ten this morning.  Mmmmm.  It felt so good.  My boyfriend was very patient and did not try to wake me up.  But after I dilly dallied browsing a Gourmet magazine and the internet, the pleasant sound of my boyfriend’s guitar gave way to a low rumbling chanting of “pancakes, pancakes, pancakes, pancakes…”   It must be time for the poor guy to be fed.  Time to set to work.

I was reading the February issue of Gourmet this morning when I noticed that I put a crimp on a certain page weeks ago when I got it.  The page had four different kinds of breakfast yummies on it.  By some chance of fate, I had sour cream in the house (my boyfriend dislikes sour cream so we don’t use it as a topping for anything, it is usually a rare ingredient in my actual cooking).  The recipe that caught my eye was for Cardamom sour-cream waffles with lingonberry preserves.  I had all of the ingredients except lingonberry preserves.  I do however; have a really exceptional jar of raspberry and cranberry preserves, which I thought should be tart sweet enough to stand in for the berries in the recipe.  I consulted with my boyfriend and he felt adventurous enough to give them a try.

The recipe was a hit.  The only problem I had was my normal problem that I can’t seem to make a crispy waffle to save my life.  I’m not sure if it is me, the phase of the moon or my waffle maker but my waffles always come out soft.  I suspect it is the olive oil that I fill my mister with.  I should probably oil the waffle maker with polyunsaturated oil.  But the waffles were sooooo good anyway!

Boyfriend:  These are so good.  You won’t forget to write this recipe down, will you?

As I shake my head and chew, I’m thinking: I hope I’ll remember to make these again.

Boyfriend:  Aren’t you going to blog these?  Will you remember to make these?

Chewing, I get up and find the camera.  As I keep thinking, I don’t want to get up, I don’t want to let these get cold, I already blogged a couple of days ago, grrrrr….

Click

Click

Click….

Cardamom Sour-Cream Waffles

Adapted from the February issue of Gourmet Magazine

1 ½ cups whole-wheat pastry flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cardamom

¼ tsp salt

1 cup lowfat milk

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 tbsp dark honey

2 large eggs

3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Serve the waffles with yogurt, maple syrup and preserves (lingonberry if you can find them, if not any tart berry preserves such as raspberry cranberry preserves will do nicely.  You want a good berry flavor to compliment the floral flavor of the cardamom)

Preheat your waffle iron.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom, and salt.  In another bowl, whisk together milk, sour cream, vanilla, honey, eggs and melted butter.  Mix wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just well combined.  Spray or brush the waffle iron with oil.  Cook waffles according to your waffle iron’s instructions.  Store waffles in a slightly warm oven until all of the waffles are cooked and you are ready to serve them.

Over the past few weeks, this has been anything but a food blog and my diet has been anything but healthy.  During the weeks I was away, my Mom and I ate a lot of restaurant/fast food and hospital food.  The stress made us too tired to take care of ourselves properly and there was really no time to take care of the day-to-day chores like grocery shopping and cooking.  My Dad is back at home now and getting stronger every day.  I called him a couple of days ago and asked him how he was.  He boisterously replied “TERRIFIC!!!”  Which is his standard answer to that standard question.  I instantly knew things were now normal.  Things will be o.k.

I have been cooking a few things since I have gotten back but we have gotten into a bad restaurant habit again.  Work has been stressful since I have been back so I have been easing my personal life slowly back to that place called normal. 

Today was the first day I really felt home.  It was the first day that I really got excited about getting back into the kitchen.  I woke up and wanted to make pancakes.  If you have been browsing around this blog, you know that Saturday mornings mean breakfast at my home.  Saturdays are all about sleeping in late and then settling into a yummy plate of something sweet or savory and very filling, a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and a mug of something hot, bitter and steamy.

I wanted pancakes and after brushing off the remnants of a strange dream where I was traveling somewhere on a Greyhound bus and my Mother was loading an unending supply of plastic bags of groceries onto the bus for me, my mind was ready to use the energy from that dream state and come up with something beautiful in the real world.  For some reason, I began to think of carrot cake and how wonderful pancakes would be if they were carrot cake instead.  I found a small bunch of thin, sweet carrots in the vegetable drawer of our fridge.  They were too small to peel, so I scrubbed them well and shredded them.  Using a favorite recipe for sweet potato pancakes as a general roadmap, I came up with some fragrant dried fruit and vegetable pancakes that take getting your first serving of vegetables for the day to another plain of experience altogether.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

2 cups of shredded carrots

2 tsp. finely grated orange peel

2 large eggs, scrambled

2 cups milk

1 cup currants

4 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp dark honey

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp ginger powder

½ tsp allspice

Butter for frying

Maple-cinnamon yogurt (recipe follows)

Toasted Walnuts

In a large bowl, combine shredded carrots, orange peel, eggs, milk, currants, olive oil and honey.  In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice.  Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients.  Let the batter stand for at least ten minutes.  (This will result in a fluffier pancake with softer currants).  If using an electric griddle, preheat the griddle to 350 degrees F.  Melt butter onto griddle surface.  Ladle batter onto griddle.  Cook pancakes until bubbles form and the edges begin to dry out about 3-4 minutes.  Turn pancakes.  Cook second side until lightly browned, about 1-2 minutes more. 

This recipe makes a lot of pancakes, even with a large electric griddle you will need to make two batches.  Keep the first batch warm in a covered dish or a preheated 200 degree F. oven  Serve these with Maple Cinnamon Yogurt, Maple Syrup and toasted walnuts to get the full effect of carrot cake for breakfast.

Maple-cinnamon yogurt

1 cup of plain nonfat yogurt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp maple syrup

 Combine yogurt, cinnamon and maple syrup with a whisk until smooth.

I’m usually really good at gauging how much food to make in two nights of cooking to last us most of the week.  Somehow two pizzas and a Rachel Ray recipe for Chicken Goulash did not last us past lunchtime on Wednesday.  Although I am struggling with a weight problem and I have been trying to cut my portions, my boyfriend is one of those lucky people who can eat vast quantities of food and still maintain his weight.  The problem with keeping active and thereby maintaining a high metabolism is that he sometimes loses weight, which he can’t afford to lose.  He seems to be in one of those lose weight without trying modes so I think he tried to remedy the problem by eating bigger portions, thus, we ran out of food.

What to do, what to do?  Well, after lurking around the Arctic Carbivores site for the past couple of weeks, I saw them post a link to a recipe for Sourdough biscuits.  These are similar to buttermilk biscuits but contain sourdough.  I had to have them!  So, I moseyed into the kitchen and found a huge supply of broccoli (not unusual if you know my boyfriend and his love for this cruciferous veggie).  I had some leftover cream, some onions, and more odds and ends.  I would make cream of broccoli soup.  Soup was a great excuse for having biscuits I thought. 

The biscuits.  When I saw the biscuits on the other blog, I asked the Blogger what she (or he?) thought the sourdough was doing in there.  I was told that they (one part of the couple bakes the other one blogs) thought it contributed to the “fluffy nature” of the muffins and also helped them rise.  I have to agree.  The recipe calls for the starter, baking powder, baking soda and buttermilk, which together would all help the dough, rise.  After baking up the dough, I have to also say that the starter gave the biscuits flavor and texture too.  Look at the picture.  Do you see the layers?  These biscuits expanded and made fluffy layers!  The insides were soft and the outsides were crisp.  My starter is never very sour, but I could taste a pleasant malted grain flavor that I have often experienced in some of my better sourdough breads.  This recipe is a keeper and if you enjoy sourdough I recommend you try this recipe.  I’m not sure how mine compared to theirs since I used whole-wheat pastry flour, which makes for a slightly heavier end product, but either the whole-wheat pastry flour or white flour should work just fine.  So how was dinner?  The broccoli soup was insipid.  The biscuits were superb!

If you have a chance, run over to the Arctic Carbivores blog.  They are new bloggers but they bake and blog several times a week so there is plenty to see there.  I have to say; I’m impressed by how much they bake.  They are fearless sourdough experimenters and there is a lot of good baking going on over there!

Sourdough biscuits

Adapted from the Golden sourdough biscuits recipe on Recipe finder

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp kosher salt

½ tsp baking soda

½ cup cold unsalted butter

1 cup well fed sourdough starter

½ cup buttermilk

1 – 2 tbsp melted butter for brushing the muffins

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees f.

In a largish bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.  Using a pastry-cutter cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Don’t let the butter get too warm, you want the cold butter chunks to stay pretty solid to help with the flakiness of the finished biscuits.  Mix together sourdough starter and buttermilk.  Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture.  Using a silicone spatula, mix the dough until well combined. 

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface.  Knead the dough a dozen times.  The original recipe says to roll the dough to a ½” thickness.  I think we can get away with slightly thicker biscuits.  Mine seemed a little wimpy this time around.  Cut the dough with a 2 12” biscuit cutter.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or butter the cookie sheet.  The original recipe instructed us to place the rounds 2” apart but they did not become larger in girth just in height.  I didn’t want to use a second cookie sheet so I placed my biscuits close, almost touching in order to fit them all on the same sheet and they were fine. 

Bake the biscuits for 12 – 15 minutes until golden browned.  Remove from the oven and brush the biscuits with melted butter.  Allow them to cool before serving.  I tried them both hot out of the oven and cooled down.  The cooled biscuits had a much more complex flavor. 

I think I have mentioned this before, but my boyfriend’s mom is a wonderful cook.  I’ve known this great lady for a more than a couple of decades now and besides being smart, witty and a gorgeous woman, she is a genius in the kitchen.  She is one of those cooks who can try something once, analyze the flavors in her head and file the information away for later.  I have never seen her reach for a cookbook and she seems to be able to make anything. 

Why did I call this post “the goddess of protein”?  My boyfriend’s mom was a dental hygienist in a former life.  When she went to school, she had to learn about nutrition.  Nutrition has always been something she continues to study and through the years, she has been a champion of protein.   As the food fads have come and gone over the years, she has ignored any new fangled reasoning that says things like substituting processed vegetable proteins for meat or margarine for butter is better for you.  Time and time again, she seems to be proved right.  She believes the body needs plenty of protein and that red meat is good for you because of the high quality protein and B vitamins the meat provides.  That being said, if you eat at her house, you will most likely eat something meaty and probably red meaty, but I have always noticed that she always serves a balanced meal.  There will be a healthy starch and plenty of vegetables too.  The secret to her healthy habits is to shun refined sugar and processed foods.  She cooks her food from scratch and anything she makes will taste better than what you will eat in a restaurant.   This woman in her sixties now and you wouldn’t know it.  Over the years , she has always looked a decade (or two) younger than she is.  When I first met her son, people would consistently mistake her for his sister.  Her diet advice does work!

Some of the best meals I have ever had have been at her house.  When I was younger and learning to cook, her son taught me how to make many of their family staples but I would sometimes ask him to call her and ask her how to make certain things.  One day when he was talking to his mom, she described a pork roast she made, it sounded so delish that I asked him to ask her how she made it.  Since she never uses recipes, I was expecting her to give him general directions about the process and not give him approximations of how much of this or that to use.  She was able to tell him exactly how much of each ingredient to use off of the top of her head and the “recipe” he wrote down was perfect.  Anything in the recipe that is an approximation is what it is because you don’t need measurements.  What a goddess!!  I have made this roast over and over again and I am always stunned at how perfect it is.  The only thing I changed was to double the basting sauce.  The sauce that results from this recipe is like manna from heaven.  I always require pools of it to ladle over the meat and onto a hot steamy pile of long grain brown rice, which is the perfect partner for this dish.  Round out the meal with your favorite pile of simply steamed veggies and a good red wine and you will be an extremely happy diner.

Pork loin roast with curried apple sauce

For the roast:

2 ½ lb (or slightly larger) Pork Loin Roast

Garlic powder

Oregano

Curry Powder

6-10 cloves of garlic (or more), halved or quartered if large

For the sauce:

½ cup teriyaki sauce

2 tbsp mustard powder (Go for a mild not hot mustard like Coleman’s)

2 cups fresh apple juice

1 cup white wine

½ tsp powdered ginger

2 tsp curry powder

3 to 4 tbsp honey (less if using a sweet light honey, more if using a complex dark honey)

garlic powder, to taste

onion powder, to taste

pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees f.  Poke holes in the top, bottoms and sides of the roast and insert the garlic cloves or garlic clove pieces into the holes.  Pork loin roasts are usually two pieces of pork tied together, jam some garlic in between the two pieces of pork.  The garlic will cook in the meat and give it a nice garlicky flavor but the garlic never really softens all of the way.  I like the garlic pieces even though they are still pretty intense.  If you love garlic be generous with it.  If you aren’t a big fan (I will lose my respect for you but…), use a lot of garlic anyway and eat around the whole cloves that fall out of your meal.  Liberally sprinkle the garlic power, oregano and curry powder over the top of the roast.  When you are ready to bake the roast, lower the heat to 325 degrees f, put the roast in the oven where you will roast the meat for at least a good half hour before you begin to baste the meat.  Cook the roast for about 45 minutes per pound (I cooked the 2 ½ pound roast for about two hours which was a little long but we like our pork a little well done around here).

Meanwhile, place all of the sauce ingredients in a saucepan.  Bring the sauce to a boil and lower to a simmer.  Simmer for 20 minutes.  Taste the sauce.  If you like a sweeter sauce, add a little more honey.  If the sauce seems a bit sweet, add more garlic powder or onion powder.  Before you tweak the sauce, remember that the sauce will concentrate and the flavors will deepen in the oven.  Begin basting the meat after it has roasted for between a half hour to forty-five minutes.  Baste the meat every 15 to 20 minutes or so.  Serve the meat with plenty of sauce.

Cravings.  I don’t have those serious I have to have (fill in the nasty fast food blank) cravings I used to have.  Those: I don’t want to cook and I have to have this specific cheesy, salty, greasy, smelly, sweet, sour whatever it is from (fill in the nasty fast food place blank) sort of cravings.  I don’t want hamburgers any more at all.  I still want pizza quite often.  I still love Mexican food.  I don’t necessarily crave this stuff but every once in a while, something fast food like sounds really good.  The thing that is good about cooking something that would fit right into a fast food venue at home is that it is quick to have at home but it will taste a hundred times better because you made it at home and you are in control of the quality of the ingredients. 

Sausages are often a bargain at my local market and they are really good quality.  I can pick from many different varieties from not so healthy pork or lamb to very lean, healthy poultry versions of the same thing.  Pair these delicious meaty morsels with fresh veggies and really good sourdough bread and you have something that transcends the pedestrian sum of its parts.

I made a couple of changes to the sausage sandwich recipe from a back issue of Gourmet and I like the results a lot.  One reason to try this recipe is for the onion and pepper mixture.  I made my own version a few times prior to finding this recipe and the sandwiches turned out ok.  Good but nothing special.  I stumbled onto this recipe, which calls for a garlic paste and fennel seeds, and it is nirvana.  The fennel seeds impart a sweetness to the caramelized veggies that is divine.  I hope you try it.  I think you’ll agree that this is one mighty fine sausage sandwich.

Sausage, Bell Pepper and Onion Sandwiches

Adapted from the December 1991 issue of Gourmet Magazine

3 Bell Peppers, preferably red, sliced thin

2 large onions, sliced thin

2 large garlic cloves, minced and mashed to a paste with a pinch of salt in a mortar and pestle

¼  tsp whole fennel seeds

¼ cup olive oil

6 hot Italian sausage links (or mild Italian sausage or mixture of both)

2 good quality, crusty, sourdough baguettes

In a large skillet, sauté the bell peppers, onions, garlic paste and fennel seeds in the oil over medium to medium high heat.   Sauté, stirring until the veggies are softened, and slightly browned.  Season with salt and pepper.  This should take five to ten minutes.

While the veggies are cooking, Heat a lightly greased cast iron pan over medium high heat.  Cook the sausages on all sides until cooked through about six to ten minutes.

Cut the bread into 5”-6” lengths to match the size of your sausages and split the bread down the middle.  If you prefer warm toasted bread, pop the bread into the oven for a few minutes to lightly toast.  Cut the each sausage lengthwise down the middle.  Insert a sausage into the bread so that it lays flat over the bread (that way you get a bit of sausage in every bite, yum!).  Generously spoon the onion/pepper mixture over the top of the sandwich.  Enjoy!

I have an admission to make.  This won’t be news to anyone who really knows me well.  But for those of you who don’t know me, I really dislike the holidays.  I’m not a shopper and I am big on procrastination so I end up being so stressed out that a crumple into a tiny little stress ball that keeps imploding and imploding until I feel like a lump of coal.  Early in the month of December, I saw a couple of blog events that dealt with holiday baking that I would have loved to participate in, I even bought the ingredients for some amazing looking but horribly complex cookies.  I was so close to participating and as a new Blogger, I know I should have, but I didn’t.  I normally try to do some baking but I couldn’t.  After an office potluck (I brought salad in a vain attempt to eat something healthy), a department Christmas party, family staying with us for a week followed by all of us joining more family further south for another week, I was drained.

Before all of this mayhem started, I bought myself a present of a couple of cookbooks.  I wasn’t able to think of touching them before the New Year, but now that things are calm, I was able to get a look.  One of the books I got was the King Arthur Flour whole-grain baking book.  This book has some really fantastic looking recipes and I can’t wait to delve into the recipes further.  For now, I was after sourdough.

Poor Herbert has been languishing in the fridge for weeks and weeks.  I did give Herbert a mercy feeding sometime before Christmas, but I really felt like I needed to use my sourdough starter for real.  Using the starter usually entails a couple of days thawing from the cold and a couple of good feedings.  The mercy feeding consisted of some food and a quick couple of hours to absorb it before going back into lockup. 

I chose to make sourdough waffles from another book I got in the same shipment:  Wild Fermentation by Sandor Elix Katz.  I also chose to modify the Walnut-Currant Sourdough Bread recipe from the King Arthur Flour book.  I fed Herbert the day before I wanted to start and then set up two preferments the night before I wanted to bake.  Both of these sourdough goodies came out really well.  Here is my take on the bread:

 Raison-Walnut Sourdough Bread:

Adapted from the King Arthur Flour whole grain baking book

Levain: 

½ cup stone ground whole-wheat flour

¼ cup room temperature water

1 tbsp, active well fed sourdough starter

Dough: 

The entire Levain from above

1 ½ cups stone ground whole-wheat flour

1 cup unbleached white flour

1 cup room temperature water

2 tbsp honey, use an assertive honey like an avocado or buckwheat honey

1 tsp salt

¼ cup raisons

¼ cup walnuts, broken up if in large pieces

Corn meal

The night before you want to bake, make the levain.  You want to give the mixture at least a full twelve hours to ferment.  The book said it would look bubbly and expanded when it was ready, mine just looked like mini bread dough but it definitely doubled:  Mix whole-wheat flour, water and starter well.  Cover the bowl with a layer of plastic wrap.  Once again, leave to ferment overnight, at least twelve hours.

In the bowl of a standing mixer combine the levain, whole-wheat flour, white flour and water.  Use your paddle attachment to mix the ingredients at the lowest speed until just mixed together.  Let this mixture stand 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes, add honey and salt.  Mix on low speed until the new ingredients are mixed in thoroughly.  Increase the speed to kneading speed and knead the dough for two more minutes.  Cover the bowl and let the dough rest thirty minutes.

After thirty minutes, turn the dough out onto a floured board.  Pat the dough into a 6”x9” rectangle.  Sprinkle the raisons over the dough and then fold the edges horizontally in over the raisons.  Pat the dough into the 6”x9” rectangle again.  Sprinkle the walnuts over the dough and then fold the dough into thirds again.  Move the dough to your bowl and let it rise for thirty minutes.  You will now repeat the patting, folding, thirty-minute rest sequence three more times.  After you have folded and rested the dough a total of four times for 2 – 2 ½ hours total, shape the bread into a round being careful not to let the raisons or nuts tear the surface of the bread.  Turn the loaf into a floured banneton (I didn’t get one for Christmas, but this book taught me that you can line a colander with a floured linen dish towel to mimic a banneton, how cool and money saving is that?!).  Cover the dough and let it rise 2 – 3 hours. 

45 minutes before baking time, preheat the oven with a pizza stone and a metal pan in it to 450 degrees.  When you are ready to bake, sprinkle a peel or a baking sheet with corn meal.  Invert the dough out of the banneton and onto the peel.  Use the peel to move the bread to your baking stone.  Toss a cup of water into the metal pan for steam and close the oven door fast.  Bake the loaf for 15 minutes and then lower the temperature to 400 degrees.  Bake for 30- 35 minutes longer. Use the peel to remove the bread from the oven to a cooling rack.  Cool the bread thoroughly before letting yourself get tempted to cut off a big slice.  The bread will keep cooking until it cools.

This bread had a dense crumb and a shatteringly crisp crust the night I baked it.  The next day after being stored in a plastic bag on the counter, the crust was chewy but the bread had a wonderful flavor.  This loaf was incredible used as the bread for a fried egg sandwich in the morning.