The Wooden Spoon

Treat it firmly, not timidly.
-The Fannie Farmer Cookbook on pastry dough

I am into pastry lately. That's what I told Chris last night after coercing him into spreading olive oil onto phyllo dough, when he told me spanakopita was sort of an ambitious project for a Sunday night.

The spanakopita, the recipe of which I got out of Vegan with a Vengeance, is delicious. It has ground walnuts in it, and the filling is surprisingly cheese-like. And thanks to Wikipedia, I now know that vegan spanakopita is traditionally eaten during Lent. Lent starts on the seventeenth of this month, the perfect excuse for you guys to try vegan spanakopita.

Earlier this week I made quiche, and before that samosas with puff pastry, and before that another quiche. I've been playing with this vegan quiche recipe; it uses tahini and soy sauce, which I think is pretty brilliant. I've been using balsamic vinegar instead of miso.

Is anyone else's house still full of gourds from autumn?

Here's one more squash recipe I was too busy with finals to post. It's a pasta sauce I made up when I was trying to find creative ways to use all our squashes. It turned out quite amazing. (For a full tour of our squashes, see this video Katie and I made for our friend Jamie.)

What you do:

1. Bake a squash. Or get some from the freezer section of your friendly local grocery.
2. Puree the squash with chipotle in adobo sauce and soy creamer.
3. Heat and pour over pasta. Pine nuts and goat cheddar are good accoutrement. Paprika and sage are good garnishes.

In October Katie and I went to a u-pick pumpkin farm in Mt. Vernon. We had planned to get a couple pumpkins to carve for Halloween, but once there we realized this was not going to work. They had so many pumpkins and squashes in all sorts of colors and sizes and shapes. Pale green squashes, pinky-orange squashes, pumpkins that weighed 400 pounds, bottle gourds you could dry and paint and turn into bird houses. Needless to say, Katie and I came away with the boot of my car full of gourds.



Now we have to figure out what to do with all these gourds. A couple of pumpkins we carved and roasted the seeds (swish the seeds in soy sauce and garlic, pop in the oven). One little squash I baked and stuffed and baked again. Here's one stuffing recipe, and here's another.

I baked a green squash shaped like a pumpkin. I just stuck the whole thing in the oven, and after a while it was soft enough to chop in half without difficulty, and the skin peeled off pretty easily.


This one I mushed and tried in random things. I put it in tacos (corn tortillas, pico de gallo, guacamole, refried beans). I put it in enchiladas (wheat tortillas, zucchini, mushrooms, vegan mozzarella, enchilada sauce). But my favorite was on pizza. I took a corn and spelt crust from the Food Co-op, smeared it with the mushed squash, then pizza sauce, then Vegan Gourmet mozzarella. I added my usual favorite toppings (zucchini, pineapple, mushrooms, etc.). It was surprisingly delicious.

When looking through my Wooden Spoon drafts, I found this entry from September unpublished. Unlikely you can find fresh peaches now, but that's what frozen produce is for. You can substitute any fruit for the peaches, as well.

Last week my friend Alyssa loaded me up with peaches, nectarines, and other fresh produce. As I was cutting up the peaches and nibbling on them, I thought that it's a travesty to turn luscious peaches in season into a baked good, but I didn't think I'd be able to eat all that fruit before it went bad, and thus I made peach crisp. Eating the peach crisp, I took back what I said about travesty. At risk of sounding cliche, this crisp brings to mind words like "heaven."



Ingredients

1 Tbs. ground flax seed
3 Tbs. water
4 c. peaches, sliced (or other fruit or berry)
1 c. flour
1 c. Sucanat
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 c. margarine, melted

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Combine the flax and water in a small bowl.
3. Put the peaches in the bottom of a dish.
4. In a bowl, mix together flour, Sucanat, and baking powder. Add the flax mixture and mix with a fork or your fingers until everything is dampened and in small clumps.
5. Scatter the flour mixture over the peaches. Drizzle the margarine over everything, and use a spoon to spread it about if necessary.
6. Bake for 25 minutes.

There is nothing better in Autumn than a big bowl of warm soup, and Katie got a cookbook devoted entirely to it. We've cooked at least seven kinds of soup in the last three weeks. The first day we had the cookbook we made two kinds of soup as well as apple butter. It was wonderful to just go from pot to pot on the stove top and smell the various delicious scents.

That first night I cooked tomato bisque. It is a perfect comfort food. I made it once and now I crave it all the time.

Katie and I made biscuits to go with our second batch of soups. I had only made baking powder biscuits before; I was surprised how easy it was. And using cookie cutters made them adorable. We got the recipe here. Note: We used more flour than the recipe called for.

I was driving home to visit my family in Snohomish last week. My brother Andrew called me and said, "Are you hungry? I'm making you something vegan! Come home soon!" Ten minutes later I walked into the house to discover my mom and brother leaning over stuffed squash in the open oven. They had used round zucchinis, young carrots, tomatoes and basil all from my dad's garden.
It was delicious. I am thoroughly impressed with Andrew's budding culinary skills. You may remember me discussing his eating habits in a previous post.
So this recipe is my mom and brother's. Enjoy.

How to make: Cut squash in half length wise, and scoop out the innards [and reserve]. Put the halves face down in about an inch of water, and boil for 20 minutes, until tender.

Stuffing:

Cut cubes of favorite bread, add to the innards with assorted veggies, onions, carrots, mushrooms. Mix with spices (basil, cardamon, sage, garlic, white pepper, salt) and about a tablespoon of olive oil.

When done boiling the squash, brush inside with olive oil or butter. Fill with the stuffing. Bake with the stuffing side up (no water in pan) for another 40 minutes (or until stuffing has sufficiently browned).

Garnish with tomato and basil.

Chimichurri is a sauce or marinade originating from Argentina and featuring flat-leaf parsley. This recipe for tofu marinated in chimichurri on grilled bread is way delicious. Red pepper flakes in the chimichurri don't make it spicy but give it a pleasant heat.

Flat-leaf parsley has a more robust flavor than curly parsley, which is also called Italian parsley. Fresh herbs tend to come in large bunches that I can't use before they go bad, but I have found a way to deal. Putting them in jars of water helps them last and doubles as a bouquet. Purple-flowered savory, white-flowered basil, flat-leaf parsley: even if I can't use them before they wilt, they have added a lovely fresh green to the dining table and are cheaper than bouquets of flowers.

Ingredients

15 oz firm tofu
4 slices whole grain bread

Chimichurri Ingredients

1/2 c. minced red onion
1/2 c. chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/3 c. extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 c. sherry vinegar
2 Tbsp. chopped oregano
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. coarse salt
1/2 tsp. crushed red-pepper flakes
Black pepper

1. Press tofu dry with a paper towel. Cut into four pieces and press again.
2. Combine all the chimichurri ingredients in a bowl; reserve half cup. Marinate the tofu in the remaining chimichurri for an hour. Baste occasionally.
3. Brush sides of bread with chimichurri. Grill on medium heat until crisp. Grill tofu until lightly charred. Serve the tofu on the bread with a dollop of the reserved chimichurri.

Katie, our friends, and I first made this recipe when we lived in the Fairhaven dorms. We used the communal kitchenette and didn't even have a blender so we ate it with grated chunks. We paired it with whatever we'd happened to pick up at the grocery store, garlic bread and chips and salsa, apple cider too.

The peanut butter makes this soup creamy and the cayenne gives it a kick. This recipe comes from my trusty Holden Village cookbook Cook Boldly, and remains a favorite for potlucks and get-togethers. I like best when I have a friend around to do the grating for me, like last night when I just stood by and directed while my friends cooked. Serve with a good crusty bread.

Ingredients

1 1/3 c. onions, minced
1/2 tsp. oil
1/4 tsp. cayenne
1 1/2 tsp. ginger
1 1/3 c. carrots, grated
2 2/3 c. sweet potatoes, grated
2 2/3 c. water
10 oz. tomato juice
2/3 c. natural peanut butter
Salt and pepper
Chopped peanuts for garnish

1. Sauté the onions in oil until soft. Add cayenne, ginger, and carrots; continue sautéing.
2. Add sweet potatoes, salt, and water; bring to a boil. Simmer until the vegetables are tender.
3. Purée with tomato juice and peanut butter.
4. Heat and serve, garnished with chopped peanuts.

Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.
-Anonymous

I love to bake bread, but my loaves have a tendency to come out crumbly and hard-crusted, albeit delicious. The desire to remedy this, as well as to learn to make baguettes, lead me on a pilgrimage to the cooking section of Henderson's Books. It was among the towering shelves of hallowed tomes that I discovered The Bread Book by Linda Collister & Anthony Blake. This book promised not only to teach how to bake a basic loaf and the more difficult baguette, but also naan, pitas, doughnuts (things I've been wanting to make), and myriad other scrumptious edibles.

I tried The Grant Loaf out of my new cookbook. It's a great loaf for beginners: no kneading and only a half an hour of rising. This first attempt came out about like all my other loaves of bread: crumbly and hard-crusted. The "Common Problems in Bread-Making" chapter suggested I use too much flour. So I tried the Grant Loaf again, this time not adding a teaspoon more flour than the recipe said. I ended up with a sticky wet mess, which I plopped into two small bread pans. When they came out of the oven I had two delicious, somewhat crumbly, loaves. The adorable little slices demand to be eaten with honey and margarine. They scream to be used as sandwiches at Afternoon Tea. Preferably with cucumbers. And all homemade bread deserves a great herb butter.

Thus I now share with you the recipes for The Grant Loaf and for one of my favorite herb butters.


Honey and margarine for breakfast, PB and J for lunch. Side note: the jar of honey shown here is from Busy Bees, which is neighbors with Egress Studio where I intern.

The Grant Loaf (of Doris Grant, 1944)

Ingredients

2 1/2 c. lukewarm water (95 F to 105 F)
.6 oz compressed fresh yeast or 2 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tsp. packed brown sugar or honey
4 to 4 3/4 cups whole-wheat bread flour (the cookbook advises me that stone-ground flour is the way to go)
2 tsp. kosher salt or flaked sea salt

1. Put three tablespoons of the lukewarm water into a small bowl. Add the yeast and mix until smooth. Stir in the sugar or honey. Let stand for 10 to 15 minutes, until the mixture thoroughly foamy.
2. Mix four cups of the flour with the salt in a large bowl. The bowl should not be cold. Make a well in the center of the flour.
3. Pour the yeast and remaining water into the well. Mix with your hands for a couple minutes, adding flour from the sides. Add as much of the remaining flour in as necessary, a 1/4 cupful at a time. The dough should be elasticy and slippery, or in my case, sticky and wet.
4. Put the dough into a warm greased loaf pan and cover with a damp dish towel. Let it stand in a warm place for 20 to 35 minutes. The dough should rise to within a half inch of the top of the pan.
5. Heat oven to 400 F.
6. Bake the bread for 35 to 40 minutes. Transfer the bread to a wire rack to cool.


Herb Butters: Olive, Walnut, and Rosemary

Choose your favorite herb (chives are an excellent choice) and combine one part herbs to four parts butter or margarine. Or, step it up with this recipe:

Ingredients
1 c. pitted kalamata olives, drained
1/2 c. chopped toasted walnuts
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 Tbs. rosemary, chopped
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1 c. salted butter or margarine, softened

1. Add all but the butter to a food processor and finely chop. Add butter. Pulse until combined.
2. Place mixture on a sheet of plastic wrap and shape into a log. Roll in the plastic wrap and twist the ends. Chill until firm.







 

I'm something like a creative writing major, and lately I feel like I've been neglecting my writing in favor of cooking. So earlier this week I sat down to write a story about a baker. Mostly it's just descriptions of foods. The first thing my baker makes is almond oat scones and apple butter. It will not surprise you to discover writing about this made me hungry, so I had to bake it myself. We're all out of the apple butter we made last summer so I bought some from the store, but Kozlowski Farms makes a damn good fruit butter, and their apple is sweetened only with fruit. I sat down to a brunch of scones and coffee and finished writing my story while eating it. The scones are a little crumbly, but very delicious.

Cranberry Almond Oat Scones

Ingredients

2 c. flour, such as white whole wheat
3/4 c. oat flour
1/4 c. oats
2 Tbs. baking powder
1/4 c. Sucanat
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1/2 c. soy cream (or soy milk.)
3/4 c. oat milk plus 2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 c. sliced almonds
3/4 c. dried cranberries

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease cookie sheet.
2. Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl. Add wet ingredients. Mix until just combined. Fold in almonds and cranberries.
3. Drop by 1/4 cupfuls onto the cookie sheet. Pat them a bit to round them out.
4. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until firm on top.