No Suprise

WWHFDLN

Fava bean dip!!! I tell you, the life of a vegan is a life of an adventurer! I was at my local big box grocery store the other day and I saw a can of fava beans! Check that, first I saw a bag of fava beans in the 'ethnic' aisle and grabbed them, THEN I saw the can and was like, ahhh, who'm I kidding, I'm never going to soak and cook these beans, and I put them back and grabbed the can.

ANYWAY, I always am reminded of some sketch my husband quotes about some fava beans and a nice Chianti- would that he were here to clear the mists in my mind and reveal what exactly that sketch is from... the Tick? a Simpsons episode? Spongebob Squarepants? (no, not that last one).

So I was wondering what I'd do with these fava beans, when I saw Jewbacca's post on her lima bean hummus and then I think I plugged fava bean into food blog search which I believe led me to Fava Bean Dip.

So I decide to halve the recipe because I only had one can of fava beans and then I dumped them into the food processor, added the FULL amount of oil, dumped some of that out into the rice cooker, and realized I was out of cumin. AAAAaaaaagh!

Anyway, it turned out fine, so phew. Pretty darn good, in fact. If I ever see another can of fava beans, I'll snap them right up!

Then, since I was at food blog search, I looked up whole wheat flatbread and found this at bitchincamero (which in turn reminded me of a Dead Milkmen song I used to listen to). "Skillet flatbread?!?", I says to myself. Well, it had to happen. I love the cornbread I make in the skillet, and this sounded good, plus it hailed from Mark Bittman!

So I made that, too. It turned out really crispy (I used the lower end of the continuum of water- anywhere from one cup to three and I used 1 1/2). Next time I may use more water, or flip it at 20m instead of 30m. Soooooo easy and so good! Whee! I'll be making this again.


And finally, I made (sortof) Spiced Lentils and Rice from Fat Free Vegan. And I learned something new! A long time ago when I made Mallika's Rajmah, I complained about how when I make rice in my little cheapo rice cooker (no fuzzy logic here, oh wait, there IS lots of fuzzy logic, just not with the rice cooker) it foams and spurts all over, so my solution had been to rinse very thoroughly the rice, and that has worked pretty well. But, in reading Susan's recipe, I discovered that she has had the same problem and just coats the bottom of the rice cooker with oil! So I tried it, not rinsing the rice or even the lentils (notoriously foamy) and it worked!!! Whee!

So I made my rice and lentils a little differently, but it was so simple and easy I'll probably make it again. Nothing beats throwing stuff in a pot and letting it go!

1 1/2 C rice
3/4 C moong dal, or yellow lentils
1/2 t curry powder
1/4 t turmeric
1 t salt
4 C water

This takes about 45m or so. If it's not dry, add 1/4 C more water and restart.

Oh, and we had green beans from our CSA that were frozen in the freezer. With fake bacon bits.

Here is another lovely dinner. Tofu with peanut sauce.

In the background there is some butternut squash I roasted for like, an hour at 350. I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, coated the cut sides with oil, added a sliced clove of garlic to each little cup and added some more oil in there and mixed it all up. Then, when I scooped it all out, I just mashed the garlic in there. Yummm....

For the last half hour the squash was baking, I added the tofu marinating in the peanut sauce and let that bake, flipping the triangles over halfway through.

Oh goodness, I liked this sauce.

1/4 C + 2 T smooth peanut butter
1/4 C soysauce
2 T brown sugar
spash of rice wine vinegar
1 clove garlic
1/2 C water

Whizz in blender. Press your tofu- cut the block into thirds longways and then in half the other way and then into triangles. Place these on a cutting board or countertop and cover with a tea towel. Put your heaviest pot on there and add some cans of stuff in there too. Let sit for up to 30m.

Pour a little of the sauce into a 9 x 13" pan, to cover the bottom. Place the triangles of tofu in the pan, and cover with a little less than half of the sauce. Put in 350 degree oven for 30m, flipping halfway.

Meanwhile, cook the rest of the sauce on the stove on med low heat, to thicken it.

Serve over rice and top with the rest of the sauce.

Still reading "Infinite Jest". No suprise there.

Magical Item Protagonist Doesn't Know What To Do With?

Well, I thought I had a hit here, but alas, D. is not a big fan of either eggplant or tomato, so the combination of both, even if it was a paprikash, was just too much. I really liked it, and it would have been even better had I remembered the liquid smoke (dur). Doesn't it look gorgeous?
This recipe was from Susan at Fat Free Vegan- Eggplant Paprikash.

So, I must embarrassedly confess that I made a huge mistake and the part that kills me is that I kinda knew at the time, but I didn't listen to myself trying to warn myself. Does that ever happen to you? There I was, loading ingredients into the blender for the sauce and when I came to the tahini I thought to myself, "Wow, Susan, you're really going for the gusto, there! Oh well, I guess the other ingredients are pretty low fat/cal." and added the 1/2 C tahini. Then I'm blending away and scraping away and thinking to myself, gee, I should add some water or something to make this blend a little better, but no, I'll stick to the recipe. Maybe it's supposed to be this thick...
I decided to leave the sauce seperately to add as desired and I'm not sure when I realized that the recipe read 1/2 T instead of 1/2 C, but it was somewhere before actually serving it! But really, when I mixed it all up on my plate and ate it, it was WONDERFUL! In fact, it turned the paprikash into a sort of paprikashy-baba ghanoushy deal. And, as you'll see, I did redeem the rest of the sauce later...

Here is a shot of some pitas on the grill- it worked wonderfully! Note; do not try to grill the pita on the rack that's right over the flame. The best part? The house did not get all stinkin' hot! No bending over and into a 500 degree oven! The pitas were so easy to place on the racks! I am inspired to try* more grilled bread recipes.
*scroll down the the video section.
And, I made the tahini/tofu 'sour cream' from Susan's Paprikash into baba ghanoush! I took my 2 pingtung eggplant and sliced them longways into 3rds, then broiled those for 6-8m after oiling my baking sheet and the eggplant slices well with olive oil. Then I dumped the 'sour cream' into the food processor along with a large clove garlic, chopped, the eggplant scraped out of it's skin, some salt and onion granules and 1 t of cumin and some liquid smoke. It was good, but I think I'll skip the liquid smoke next time.

Well, I finished the Bean Trees, can't say I was a huge fan, although I wanted to be. The love story in this was weak and unbelieveable. There, I said it.

Started "Whiteout" which is fun/funny to read. I mean, it's pretty fluffy and the things he adds to the plot as means to the end are pretty patent. Can't think of a good example, but you'd be reading along and come across some item or incident and think, "I'll be seeing THAT again, won't I?". Like, bam, it was just planted there. Why was I not more gripped by a story about !flesh eating viruses! I don't know...

Started "Eragon", had high hopes but I'm getting some "Sword of Shannara" flashbacks... we'll see. Feisty, innocent (read; unknowing), male protagonist, check! Small village flanked by evil forest and encroaching baddies, check! Magical item protagonist doesn't know what to do with, check!

Worked some more on the baby lacey blanket. Tightened up some decreases by making them approprieately left leaning or right leaning decreases. Did not rip back the whole blanket to start over with the new change, aren't you proud?!? Must knit a few repeats of this to see if it gives the effect I want.

More, more, more!

Well, this weekend I made lentil walnut dip and pancakes (amongst other things*).

First the pancakes. I used my standard go to recipe for the pancakes from vegweb- Easy Pancakes. Except, this time I really broke with tradition and *gasp* didn't wait the recommended 5-10 minutes between mixings, hey! I didn't even mix it twice, really, just folded the chips in after blending everything in the blender.

Seriously, it takes 2m or so on one side to cook, then 1m or so on the other, twelve pancakes, do the math, starving kid and husband... not gonna happen.

And guess what? The world did not collapse around me! Ha ha, no, really they turned out fine. The first few pancakes are always kind of strange anyway, right? Right?!?

Easy (Blender or not) Pancakes

2 1/2 C AP flour
2 T sugar
2 T baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
2 1/2 C soymilk
1 T veg oil
1/4 C chocolate chips

Dry, then wet. Or just dump everything (not the chips!!!) in the blender and mix, stopping to scrape sides.
Do not overmix or they will be rubbery.
Fold in chips.
Cook on med high (I start at 6, then 4 then 3 as the skillet get hotter).

One time I reserved 1/4 C of the batter and added 1/4 C applesauce and 2 t cinnamon and then used it to pour swirl patterns into the freshly poured pancake. Fancy.

Lentil Walnut Dip

















The dip was gooood! I had this veggie soup I'd frozen that I thawed out and then added some teeny tiny stars pasta to it that I had gotten at the Mexican grocery. But it was a pretty light soup, so the dip and crackers made for a really nice lunch.

Then I turned the dip into casserole, but I blogged that yesterday.

This weekend we worked on the garage and I had a chance to organize my stash a little. Still needs work, but I'm one step closer.

No reading. You guys are going to think I'm some sort of book dilettante or something. Must. finish. Distraction.

Must get more yarn! Must get fun new spice to try experiments with! More later!

*we tried these smoked apple sage sausages and were they ever good and juicy!!

A Leeeetle Bit Spicy

Well, yesterday was the picnic/potluck for E.'s preschool, and I took 16, !16! pitas, hummus, carrots, bread and peanut butter and jelly. It was so fun to see her running around with all her friends, at her favorite park, she must have been in heaven. She was so sad to go.

Let me share with you the pita recipe; it was excellent. I found it here and it was much like my already tried and true recipe I had gotten from my friend, which was maybe from the Joy of Cooking?, except the sugar, salt and olive oil are doubled. Oh, and instead of throwing the pitas right onto the racks, willy nilly, as I had been, I tried the foil method and it worked SO MUCH BETTER! Did you know that you can grab the little corners of the tinfoil to pick up the squares right out of a 500 degree oven?!? Now my pitas won't be all bent into heck.

2 1/2 C flour (I used 1 C whole wheat flour and the rest All-Purpose)
1/4 C vital wheat gluten (this ups the protein and elasticity and obviously the gluten. If you don't have this, then use bread flour)
1 T sugar
2 t salt
2 t yeast
2 T olive oil
1 C warm water

In mixer, mix the cup of whole wheat flour, vital wheat gluten, salt, sugar and yeast. Add the oil and water and beat until smooth approx. 3m.

Stir in the rest of the flour 1/2 C at a time until the dough is a rough, shaggy mass that cleans the sides of the bowl.

Change to dough hook and 'knead' for approx. 3m.

Take the dough out and on a floured counter, divide into 8 and roll each into a ball. Coat each lightly with flour and cover with a damp towel to rest 20-30m.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Flatten and roll out to 6" diameter (yes I was a geek and actually measured this for the first few). The thickness should be roughly that of a yardstick (not the longways, smarta**).

Place on foil (I just ripped off a sheet at 8" or so and fit 2 on each rectangle) and place directly on rack. Bake 5-8m until puffed and brown. Stack and wrap in foil.

Doubles well, can freeze (thaw 5m, reheat, stacked in foil, in 375 degree oven for 10-15m).

In other news, I read that you don't have to double space after a period because something fonts something something size of letters in relation to others something blah blah... it made sense at the time, I swear! so I am going to try to break myself of that habit. Onward!

Here is my hummus recipe, basically this one from vegweb but doubled. And cumin. And oil.

2 cans chickpeas, drained
1/2 C tahini
2 t lemon juice (2 capfuls of the bottled stuff)
2 + cloves garlic
1 t salt
1 T cumin
2 T olive oil
1/2 C water

In a food processor, add all ingredients except water. Process, adding water gradually until hummus is creamy. Serve with pitas and veggies.

A note on the garlic, one time, I made this, using 3 cloves of garlic, but it was this new purple kind from the coop and I just thought the cloves were bigger, like elephant garlic and so milder, but they weren't. It was, in the immortal words of my daughter, 'spicy'. We're garlic lovers, but it was even almost too much for us. Whoah.

Also, progress on the mitts! I now have a finalized pattern, I just have to find 'the perfect yarn'. And have someone test knit it.

I read a little yesterday. It was a busy day.