Pumpkin.

I was planning on making a pumpkin streusel cake for Thanksgiving, but then I ran out of time. Now I have lots and lots of roasted pumpkin to use up. (You can't buy pumpkin puree here.)

I've already make pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread, and tonight I'm making a pumpkin-black bean-chipotle soup for dinner. I can't wait. But I still have half the pumpkin left!! Please please please leave me a comment with your favorite recipes using up lots of pumpkin!

The pumpkin bread, though. So good. I used Celine's recipe. I followed it almost exactly-- the only changes I made were decreasing the sugar to 2 tbsp and I using oil instead of margarine. This bread is great. It's a gorgeous shade of yellow, subtly pumpkin-flavored, and good with both sweet and savory spreads.

(I hate my oven, though. Actually, I don't have a proper oven, just an oversized toaster oven that heats only from the top. See how the top of the loaf is nice and risen, and the bottom is dense and un-risen? I suspect this is due to said oven, because this never happened when I made bread in a proper oven. It still tastes good, but it's annoying.)

Is this already old news?

Hi. Have you all recovered from Thanksgiving craziness?

My Thanksgiving wasn't really a "real" Thanksgiving, but the food was pretty good nonetheless. I ended up making (you can assume I made appropriate substitutions if needed):

(Tasty. But brown.)

Radicchio salad with grilled pears (inspired by Sunday Suppers at Lucques)

Dried tomato stuffed mushrooms

Touch-of-Grace biscuits

Tart, spicy cherry chutney

Herbed cranberry-sourdough stuffing

Mashed potatoes with caramelized onion gravy

Glazed, roasted Brussles sprouts with apples and onions

Apple pie

It was pretty good.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you that celebrate it! I hope you're all having wonderful, food-and-fun filled days. Don't stress out about the food-- it will be delicious even if it isn't exactly like you might have planed. I can't wait to read your blogs and see what you've made.

Today isn't a holiday here, of course, so I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving on Saturday. (That means that I'll get to peek at your menus beforehand, and make last minute changes to mine if the inspiration strikes! Right now my big dillema is, David Lebovitz's amazing, most requested ginger cake, or Lucque's pumpkin streusel cake. Hmmm.)

There are so many things I am thankful for...not the least of which is the very dilema I just mentioned. I know I sometimes forget what a priviledge it is to have the luxury of ample food and, indeed, so many choices I don't know what to make!

waffling around

Posting every day for the entire month of November?? What was I thinking? For the last few days I've been eating but not really cooking, and no one wants to hear about endless pieces of bread with hummus or strange salads composed of things I found lurking in the back of the vegetable drawer.

Today, though, I was walking home from class and thinking about breakfast (I have class every day at 8:15 am, and I don't like eating beforehand) and I realized I hadn't told you about my favorite waffles. Since, of course, I need a picture of the waffles, this was a perfect excuse to make and eat said waffles.

Will you believe it when I tell you that, until a month ago, I'd never made waffles and eaten them probably three times in my life? I don't have a waffle maker at home, or funds or space to obtain one, but one of my roomate here does. A few weeks ago my other roomate asked me to make waffles, which, of course, I gladly agreed to. Lolo to the rescue! I made these, minus the blueberries, and my roomates kept gushing on and on about them and wouldn't believe me when I said they didn't have eggs or milk.

Since then I've been making waffles about once a week, and I'm using a variation of lolo's recipe-- it's basically the same, just healthified a bit. I think I'll experiment with pumpkin waffles next!

My favorite way to eat these is with a sprinkle of sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Waffles (makes approx. 6-- serves 2)

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 Tbsp sugar

7 Tbsp soy yoghurt, any flavour (I use plain)

2/3 cup soy milk

2 tbsp water

1 tbsp oil

Begin preheating your waffle iron. Combine the dry ingredients in a small mixing bowl. Whisk the wet ingredients together, then fold them into the dry ingredients, using as few strokes as possible. Grease your waffle iron, and then waffle away!

If you want to make these ahead of time, cook them until they're slightly less brown then you'd like, then freeze them. Reheat them in a toaster for a quick and delicious breakfast.

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. I think it's probably one of my favorite holidays. It's not as stressful as Christmas, and I love Thanksgiving food. Stuffing...pumpkins...apple pie. Yum! I know that a turkey is usually the star of the Thanksgiving table, and obviously I wish people wouldn't be eating turkey, but I know most people don't share my opinion and I don't expect people to ditch the turkey just because I of me. I just take more of the yummy side dishes.

Anyway, I've been planning my Thanksgiving menu for far to long. Thanksgiving isn't a holiday in Germany, of course, so it will just be me and one or two friends. And we'll be eating on Sunday, not Thursday, but oh well.

This is what I think I'll make:

Green salad with balsamic vinaigrette and dried cranberries OR beets with roasted chickpeas and a dijon vinaigrette

Roasted garlic mashed potatoes
Stuffing
Stuffed mushrooms
Roasted, balsamic-glazed Brussles sprouts with apples and onions
Cherry relish (can't get cranberries here)
Caramelized onion gravy

Pumpkin Streusel Cake from Sunday Suppers at Lucques
Apple pie, if I can be bothered

Ok, so I need your opinions: which salad do you think I should make? And, I know this is enough food, but do you think it will be "satisfying" since there really isn't a main dish? Let me know! And tell me what you're making for Thanksgiving!

Mrs. Badmouth's Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls...

...are really, really, really good. Do yourself a favour and go make them now! I follwed the recipe exactly, except for the glaze: I mixed tofu cream cheese with pumpkin butter and used that instead of a powdered sugar glaze.

(Excuse the bad pictures...it was dark by the time I finished these.)

Groan.

Sometimes I really think that professors assign homework for their own amusement. (Bazu, is this true?) For example, in one of my classes today the teacher was giving out the homework assignments. Then he paused, smirked, and said, "And your last assignment is to write a fax to the Wailing Wall, i.e. to G-d" (in Hebrew). Then, when the whole class said, "oh no" all at once he just sort of laughed. How do teachers even think of these things? I guess it's more fun to correct than grammar exercises.

Anyway.

I'm always discovering wonderful new (at least new to me) blogs, and I thought I'd share some of my newest favorites tonight. Check them out if you haven't already. I hope you'll find some new favourites of your own, too! What are your favorite blogs?

Arabic Bites -- a wonderful blog about Arabic/Middle Eastern food, by sisters who live in the Arabic Gulf

My Mom's Recipes and More -- tasty home cooking, all the way from Israel!

Smitten Kitchen -- where to even start? All beautiful, all delicious, all the time. Really. Incredible.

Vegan Visitor -- this is the most beautiful vegan blog I've ever seen. I'm surprised it isn't more well-known, because it totally deserves to be!

Shutterbean -- just too cute. And delicious and crafty, too. Plus, she loves Trader Joe's as much as I do!

simple apple yogurt cake

I've never been the kind of person who had to polish off a bag of chips all at once, or who couldn't stop until they'd eaten the whole batch of cookies, but this cake was really, really hard for me to stop eating. It's so simple and so good, and you probably already have everything in your pantry, so it's perfect for cake-necessitating emergencies. Because I know you have these kinds of emergencies all the time, right?

This is a lightly spiced apple cake-- really, the apples are the star-- that was inspired by this post at La Tartine Gourmande.


Simplest Apple Yogurt Cake

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
3/4 cups sugar
2/3 cups plain soy yogurt
1/3 cup oil
2 tbsp apple sauce
1/4 cup apple juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
2 tbsp raisins
1 tbsp boiling water
1 tbsp rum

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease an 8" or 9" springform pan. Put the raisins in a small bowl, and add the boiling water and rum

Mix the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. In another bowl mix the wet ingredients. Add the we ingredients to the dry and fold with a rubber spatula, until they are almost mixed, about 3 strokes. Add the apples and fold a few times to distribute the apples evenly.

Spread the thick, apple-filled batter in the prepared pan. Sprinkle the soaked raisins on the top of the cake, and bake for 40 minutes, or until a tooth pick comes out without clumps of raw batter on it.

Enjoy!

snack time

Snack time! Aren't these apple slices beautiful? To be honest, apples and peanut butter isn't one of my favorite snacks-- I far prefer salty to sweet-- but it's fast and, at the moment, mostly-seasonal.

What are your favorite snacks? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Chocolate Bread

Finally, a real recipe! This is one I highly recommend. It tastes a lot better than the photos look, really, I promise.

I've been having the biggest craving for chocolate bread for quite a while. And not just any chocolate bread. Specifically, a yeasted, not-too-sweet chocolate bread with a tender, fine crumb and a very dark-chocolate taste. I'm not really sure why, because I don't think I'd ever had a bread like this before. But, you know, cravings are your body's way of telling you what it needs (ha!), and they are not to be ignored. Especially not when they are for delicious things like chocolate. So chocolate bread it would be.

Of course I couldn't find a recipe for the bread I wanted. I did find one that looked somewhat close, a recipe for Balthazar's chocolate bread. So my recipe is a very loose interpretation of their recipe.

And it was really, really good.

This is a slow rise bread, which gives it a really great, almost brioche-like texture. But please don't let that scare you! It really isn't any more difficult than an ordinary bread. I promise.


Oh, and if the mention of "chocolate" wasn't enough to convince you...this tasted really, really chocolatey, and as far as chocolate goes, it was actually pretty innocent calorie-wise. And you can let it rise in the fridge over night, and just pop in in the oven when you wake up in the morning. Thirty minutes later you'll be enjoying a piece of warm, tender chocolate bread, studded with little pockets of melted chocolate. Yum.

Ok, enough with this restaurant-menu description stuff. Get cooking!

(Oh, and it really is important to use good quality chocolate, and for the chocolate to be chopped, not in chip form! )

Chocolate Bread

Starter:
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp flour
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1/8th tsp yeast

Mix all ingredients and let them sit at room temperature for 6 hours. The mixture should be bubbly and have expanded somewhat.

Dough:
the starter
approx. 2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
6 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
scant 1 cup lukewarm water
2 tbsp margerine, cut into small pieces
4 oz. 70% chocolate, chopped
optional: 1/2 cup dried cranberries or diced dried apricots
turbinado sugar for sprinkling on top of the bread

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Put the starter and all dry ingredients through salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the yeast water and begin to knead, either in the bowl if it's large enough or on a board lightly dusted with flour. Sprinkle on the margarine pieces, and knead them in. Knead for 10 minutes. Just before the dough is done, sprinkle on the chocolate chunks (and dried fruit, if using) and knead them into the dough.

Cover the dough with a cloth or plastic wrap and let rise for until doubled in size, about 3 hours.

Now shape the bread. Line a baking sheet with parchement. Gently punch down the dough and cut it into 8 pieces. Shape each piece into a smooth, round roll. Place the rolls into the pan. It's fine if they are touching a bit.

You could also bake this as a boule, or you could bake it in two small, greased loaf pans.

At this point you can either let the dough rise for 2 hours at room temperature, or you can cover it and let it rise in the fridge over night. Just let it sit out at room temperature while the oven preheats the next morning if you do that.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Brush the dough with soy milk and and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Reduce oven to 350 degrees. Bake until the bread has a slightly hollow sound when you tap tops with your finger, 40-45 minutes. Turn the bread out of the pan, and put it on a wire rack; let cool completely. Wrap tightly in plastic and store up to 3 days or freeze up to 1 month

six weeks ago

Brunch

Isn't brunch a wonderful invention? Sure, I know, it was probably invented for commerical reasons, but still. It's so nice that for two days of the week other people finally understand that it's ok to eat "not-breakfast" foods for breakfast! Or that it's ok to have your eggs (in this case, scrambled tofu) at 3pm if that's the way you roll. Every coupe of weeks New York Magazine does 21 question interviews with interesting/semi-famous New Yorkers, and one of the questions is "Brunch: pro or con?". I just don't get the con-sayers.



Anyway, this is what I had for brunch today: home fries, guacamole, mushrooms, tomotoes, and rolls. Not pictured are the waffles and the chocolate cranberry bread (though I think that last one might be making an appearance here tomorrow...just sayin'.)

Yum.

I hadn't had home fries in forever, and they really hit the spot this morning. And isn't home fries a great word? Home fries. It has such a nice sound. (But what's the difference between home fries and oven fries? Two minutes of googling seemed to reveal that home fries are often not fry shaped and sometimes cooking in a skillet, while oven fries are usually baked. But home fries sounds so much better, so these are definately home fries.)

I'm sure you wanted to read all of that.

Spicy Herbed Home Fries

3 large potatoes

2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp hungarian paprika

1/4 tsp cayenne

1/2 tsp dried thyme

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1/4'' slabs. Cut each slab vertically into 1/4'' slices, so that the potatoes end up looking like, you know, fries. Mix the potato with the remaining ingredients, and spread them in a single layer on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, or until cooked and crispy.

Simple Couscous Salad

I made this salad for lunch a couple of days ago. It was simple, fresh, and healthy. It's not fancy, but it really hit the spot. I could also see this making a really good appetizer in those endive leaf "boats".

Mediterranean Couscous Salad (serves 2)

1 cup couscous

1 1/2 cups vegetable broth

1 cucumber, sliced

2 tomatoes, diced

1/3 cup kalamata olives, pitted and halved

4 green onions, trimmed and thinly sliced

2 roasted red peppers, sliced

1 spicy chili, sliced (optional)

1/2 cup "protein" (e.g. leftover marinated tofu), if desired

sea salt and pepper

lemon juice

olive oil

Bring the vegetable broth to a boil. Add the couscous, cover, and turn the heat down to low. Simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let the pot sit, covered, for 5 minutes. Uncover, fluff the couscous with a fork, turn into a bowl and let cool.

Meanwhile, prepare the vegetables-- trim them and slice them into bite sized pieces. When the couscous has cooled, add the vegetables and salt and pepper to taste (start with 1/2 tsp salt). Juice lemons into the salad and add some olive oil to form a dressing. I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but it really depends on how juicy and sour your lemons are. I would say you could start with the juice of 1 1/2 lemons and 1 tbsp of olive oil, and adjust to your personal taste from there.

Enjoy!

boring. ignore.

I think I was a little bit crazy to sign up for this NabloPoMo veganmofo thing.

I am sick and tomorrow I have a test.

I hope I'll be back with something more interesting soon!

The End.

Petits pains à l’ail et au persil

When I was younger and people would invite my family over for dinner, it felt like we always had the same thing to eat: spaghetti with marinara sauce (from a jar), green salad with Italian dressing (from a bottle), and garlic bread (with garlic powder and Kraft parmesan cheese). Now, of course it was lovely to be invited over to dinner, and of course we're very lucky to have food at all, so I'm really not complaining about that, but....well, you catch my drift. We've all experienced foods we're not so fond of, right?

Anyway, maybe because of this, I don't make garlic bread very often. I love bread and I like garlic, so this is the only explanation I can thing of.

Now, forget about this horrible excuse for garlic bread. Imagine a tender, homemade white bread, spread with a butter flavored with fresh herbs and garlic. Imagine that the bread is folded around this butter to create flaky, flavorful layers. Now we're talking.


I've been eyeing this recipe for a while, and today I ran out of bread and had all the ingredients to make this garlic bread. And boy am I glad that I did! You should make this right now, it's that good. Thanks, Fanny! (By the way, check out her website...Fanny aspires to be a pastry chef, and you can tell that she's well on her way by the wonderful creations she produces!)

I hardly changed the recipe, but I'll post it here with grams converted into cups since most American kitchens don't have a scale.

Small Garlic and Parsley Breads (makes 4 petite, individually-sized breads)

1 1/4 tsp dry yeast or 7 g fresh yeast
1 cup warm water
pinch sugar
2 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
herbed "butter" (below)

Mix the yeast with the water and the sugar, and let it sit for a few minutes. The top should be foamy. Whisk the flour and salt together in a mixing bowl. Add the yeast mixture and knead for 10 minutes, until you have a smooth, firm dough. Cover with a cloth and let rise for 1.5 hours. When the dough has risen, gently deflate it and divide it into 4 portions. Proceed with rolling and folding as outlined here.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Let the breads rise for 45 minutes, then bake for about 25 minutes, until golden brown.

Herbed Butter

1 bunch parsley, minced (or a mix of herbs)
6 cloves garlic, minced
4 tbsp margerine, softened

Mix all ingredients together.

Turkish Dolmas

Well, I was going to post about something really yummy that I made today...but that will have to wait until tomorrow because it deserves a photo in natural light. Sorry! But I was looking through some old pictures, and I can't believe I never showed you these really tasty Turkish dolmas I made in July. They were filled with a spiced rice-currant-pine nut filling, just like at the Turkish restaurant where I used to work.


Ok, boring post, I know. I'll be back tomorrow, though!

radish stirfry

All appearances to the contrary, I didn't have brown and magenta sludge for dinner, really, I didn't!

What do you make for dinner when basically all you have in your fridge is a huge bunch of radishes and scallions? Radish and scallion stirfry! I never would have thought of stirfrying radishes-- or cooking them at all, actually-- but then last spring I was at the Union Square Greenmarket, and someone was passing out samples of radish stirfry. It was pretty good-- but I like my version, which I topped topped with a tangy, citrus-y peanut sauce. The soy sauce that I have here is very, very brown and syrup-y, and sadly it makes everything I put it in quite brown. But this is really a good recipe, I promise!!

Peanut sauce isn't exactly the best thing for you, but it's really quick and flavourful, and it can't hurt that much if you only have it once in a while, can it? And it keeps in the fridge for a couple days, and it's great with rice noodles or tofu for a quick supper. Yum!

Peanut Sauce

1/4 cup natural peanut butter

1/4 cup water, vegetable broth, or coconut milk

1 tbsp soy sauce

juice of half a lime

1 clove of garlic, smashed

1 thai chili, minced, or less, if you don't like spicy foods

grated ginger, to taste

1 1/2 tsp brown sugar

Blend all ingredients together until smooth.

Banana-Coconut Bread

I've been wanting banana bread for a long time. I don't really know why-- normally I don't even like bananas, but banana bread has been sounding really good. So I bought bananas last week, and they were finally ripe enough for bread today. Then, of course, I had to decide on a recipe. There are thousands of recipes for banana bread out there! I ended up settling for one from a cookbook by my absolute favourite cookbook authors, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. I know I've written about them before, but really, all of their cookbooks are amazing! They don't focus on a specific country, but rather flavours: home baking, flatbreads, rice... Most of the recipes are from Asia, though, and the books are part cookbook, part travel guide, and part beautiful photography. I've liked every recipe I've ever made from one of ther books.



Anyway, banana-coconut bread it was. With a hint of rum and a crackly demerara sugar crust. Yum.

Banana-Coconut Bread (makes 1 loaf)
adapted from HomeBaking: the Artful Mix of Flour and Traditions from Around the World

3 large, over-ripe bananas
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
4 ounces margerine, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp vinegar (I used apple cider)
2 tbsp dark rum
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
demerara or other coarse, raw sugar for sprinkling on top

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F. and butter a loaf pan. Whisk the flour, spices, baking soda, and salt together in a small bowl. In a medium bowl, cream the "butter" and sugar for several minutes. Add the rum and vinegar and mix for another minute. Starting with the banana mixture, add the banana and flour mixtures alternately, about a cup at a time. Do not over mix. When the last cup of flour is barely incorporated, use a spatula to fold the coconut in using several swift strokes. Scrape the thick batter into the prepared pan, smooth the top, and sprinkle the top generously and evenly with the demerara sugar.

Bake for 50-65 minutes, until the top is golden and a tooth pick comes out cleanly. A 9x5 loaf pan will take less time to bake than an 8x4 pan.

Enjoy!

veganmofo: CHEWY Double-Chocolate Cookies

Every day for a the month of November I'm going to write a post a day about something related to food as part of the Vegan Month of Food project. Ok, I'm starting 3 days late, but do we really have to talk about that?

Anyway, for my first post I give you chewy double-chocolate cookies. These were really chewey, really chocolatey, and really, really good. I'm not going to tell you how many I ate tonight. Ok, four. And two at breakfast. But we don't have to talk about that either, do we?

The recipe is from Orangette. I made the obvious substitutions: margerine for butter and plain soy yogurt for the dairy yogurt. And I used 1/2 a cup of white sugar instead of 2/3rds, but otherwise I followed the recipe exactly.