Creamy Asian Noodle Salad

Yes, you read that right:  creamy.  Don’t worry, there isn’t any dairy in here.  It’s the tahini that gives this a creamier mouthfeel.

A great lunch or dinner for the warm spring days and hot summer ones to come (ok, it’s hot here already…).  For me, this salad is a very refreshing meal.

I have to add a note here, now that I am finally posting this: I’m thinking some avocado would be pretty tasty tossed in here as well.  Just thinking…

Creamy Asian Noodle Salad

• 1 lb soba noodles
• 3 T tahini
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 t fresh ginger, minced
• 1/2 t chili powder
• 2 T soy sauce
• 1 T maple syrup
• 1/2 t rice vinegar
• 1/4 c toasted sesame seeds
• 1-2 T sesame oil
• 1/4 lb Shiitake mushrooms
• 4 scallions, chopped
• 1/4 lb peas, shelled
• 1 cucumber, quartered and sliced thin
• 1/4 c chopped cilantro

Cook the noodles according to the package directions, drain and rinse.

Soak the Shiitakes in warm water for 20 minutes (if you use dried, use this time to rehydrate them).  Press into a collander or between paper towels to wring out.

If not already toasted, doctor up your sesame seeds.  I usually do this in our toaster oven keeping a CLOSE eye on them.  Really, don’t take your eyes off them, they will burn.  You don’t want that.

Combine all the saucy ingredients (excluding the Shiitakes, peas, cucumber, scallions and cilantro).  If you have a small food processor, that is a great way to whip things together.  If not, just do it in a bowl 🙂

Toss the noodles with the dressing, Shiitakes, peas and cucumber.  Sprinkle the cilantro and scallions over the top and serve.

I Heart Green Goo

I have decided to share recipes that I have stumbled on and love in addition to the ones I come up with on my own.  There’s no way that everything we eat could be a new creation out of my brain.  Usually, it’s a combination of what we have in the fridge and other recipes that spark my ideas.  For those who like life a little spicier, this recipe is a keeper.

Heidi over at 101cookbooks.com posted this recipe for Hummus with Green Goo back in March.  I haven’t made the hummus yet (though I am interested to try the baking soda version), but I can tell you that the Green Goo alone makes this recipe worth bookmarking.  I made a double batch, portioned it into little jars and froze all but the one in current use.  Today I pulled the last one out of the freezer.  We have been eating it on EVERYTHING.  It is just that good.  Here are some things it has been yummy on:

• Eggs – poached, scrambled, in a breakfast burrito…
• Tossed with Quinoa
• Spread on Toast
• Drizzled over a vegan tamale from Tucson Tamale Company
• As a salad dressing
• As a condiment on almost any veggie.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. 😉

Fallen Berry Muffins

I don’t make muffins very often because, for me, they are an awfully sweet way to start the day.  Besides, if I am going down the sweet breakfast road, I’m much more inclined toward pancakes and waffles.  D loves muffins, though.  I recently made some banana muffins out of Heidi‘s wonderful book Super Natural Cooking only to discover (after almost 8 years of marriage!) that D is not fond of banana in baked goods.  He does like banana bread, though…hmmm…

Anyway, I felt I owed him some of his kind of muffins.  These are them.

I wanted to make blueberry muffins, but discovered we had only a few blueberries left in the freezer.  Fortunately, we also had some strawberries, so I combined the two.  I decided to add some sour cream too because I wanted to offset the sweetness of the muffins (which we all know are really cupcakes in disguise, right?).  I started with a recipe out of the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion and sort of winged it.  They turned out darned good, if a little flat on top.

Fallen Berry Muffins

• 8 T butter
• 1 c sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 t salt
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 2 c AP flour
• 1/2 c milk
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1/2 c strawberries, roughly mashed (I used frozen)
• 1/2 c blueberries (again, frozen)
• 3/4 c sour cream
• cinnamon-sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 375°.

Cream together the butter and sugar.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each.  Add the salt, baking powder, cinnamon and then the flour alternately with the milk.  Add the strawberries, but don’t do any more stirring than necessary.  Stir too much and the muffins will get tough.  Now, gently and gingerly, stir in the blueberries and vanilla extract.

Dole the batter out into muffin tins. (With liners, if you prefer.  I do).  My batch filled 12 muffin cups.  Take the sour cream and dollop the top of each muffin with about a teaspoon (but, really, don’t bother measuring).  Now smoosh the sour cream down into the center of the muffins with your spoon or a finger.  Whatever works.

Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with cinnamon-sugar.

Bake for 30 minutes.  Remove them from the oven and cool in the pans for 5 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. (KAF tells me that muffins left in the pan will steam, creating a tough crust).

Yum 🙂

Creamy Broccoli Mushroom Soup

I am not sure if there is still anyone out there reading this lil’ blog anymore but, in the spirit of my original intent of posting recipes for my own recollection down the line, here we go again.  D and I both loved this soup and so here it shall be scribbled (typed?) down for us to refer back to.

I know, I know…you never thought I could do it, could get back to this.  In some ways, neither did I.  I’m working on a small goal of just 1 post every 2 weeks.  I should be able to do that, right?  We shall see…

This recipe is something I threw together on a week night really very quickly.  Usually, when I come across recipes that claim to be easily prepared in 30 minutes I grumble under my breath.  I’m not a fantastic sous chef (my knife skills could use some speed work) and things rarely come together that quickly.  This did, though.  And, since broccoli is in season (or heading out of season if you live here), now is a great time for some broccoli soup.

Also, I should tell you (should I?) that I took this photo the next day, on the floor, next to a playing baby right before I gobbled it down.  I ate it cold and it was still delicious.

Creamy Broccoli Mushroom Soup

• 3T olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 pound cremini mushroooms, sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 pound of broccoli florets
• 3 c vegetable stock
• 1 c sour cream

Sautee the onion, mushrooms, and garlic in oil until softened.  Add the broccoli and vegetable stock.  Cook until the broccoli is tender (this took me about 10 min.).  Stir in the sour cream.

Allow the soup to cool a bit (the cold sour cream helps with this) and puree in a blender.  If you are cooler than me, puree with an immersion blender (and don’t worry about waiting for it to cool).

Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.  That’s it!!

p.s. I just want to comment that I totally agree with Andrea: I love using parenthetical asides because it really makes it feel like an intimate conversation (don’t you think?), rather than me just typing willy-nilly on the internet…

Not Forgotten

I just wanted to post a quick note.  I haven’t forgotten about this blog.  I still love cooking and eating.  It’s just that with the little dude calling lots of the shots I don’t have time to, well, take shots of what I’m cooking.  I’m off my dietary restrictions and am even giving West tastes of our food, but haven’t worked out how to find time to photograph things we’ve been enjoying.  I’ll give you some verbal tantalization for now…and someday there will be pictures and recipes again!

Recently in our kitchen:

• Butternut-Sweet Potato-Shitake Curry (someday I will photograph and share a recipe for this.  It’s delish)
• LOTS of bread…I’ve been hitting the Peter Reinhart recipes pretty hard
• Poached eggs…on toast with arugala pesto…on polenta with sun dried tomatoes…over quinoa with Mediterranean tapenade…
• Butternut and Sweet Potato Tagine
• Sweet Potato and Pea Curry

And..my time is up for the night!  Gotta go feed that little Sauegling!

Welcome Baby West!

Okay, I just realized that my last post was in March. MARCH! It is now November! Zoikes where did all that time go?

I don’t have a recipe to share today, or even a tantalizing picture of food. You see, my diet is pretty restricted right now and my free time is even more restricted! How about we make a deal? I’ll share some photos of our little love if you share your favorite ‘I’m a nursing mom who is avoiding all dairy, soy, eggs, and wheat recipes’ 🙂 Deal?

Okay then.

From top to bottom: 5 days old with papa, 3 weeks old with grandpa and papa, 2 months old.

What’s going on around here anyway?

Hey gang –

I’m long overdue to write this post, but I really have been meaning to do this for a while. Obviously, I’ve been a slacker about getting you new recipes and photos. There are good reasons, I promise.

The main reason (which many of you know already) is that I am preggy – we are expecting our first baby at the end of August!

Of course, life never hands you change in easy to chew pieces.  As such, there have been a few other (less exciting or fun) big changes going on in our lives that have been sapping me energetically.

I think about posting, but I haven’t really been inspired lately.  Honestly, I can’t stand the sight of greens lately (gasp!) and have been eating a lot more pre-prepared or easy to prepare foods (double gasp!).  I know I’ll be back at some point.  Perhaps (and hopefully) before the baby is born.  I also know things will be a bit more sporadic for a while until we get our footing again.  Thanks for bearing with me!

-Micha

Grapefruit Avocado Spinach Salad

To continue the citrus theme, I’ve got a grapefruit recipe for you this week.  After requesting suggestions in my last post, Dear Cousin Shiela gave me a rough outline of a recipe that she is fond of.  The original recipe comes from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites.  I don’t have this book, however, so I sort of winged it based on Shiela’s description.

I prepared the dressing first, and separately, so it would be ready to go once the rest of the salad was.  Overall, I think I put too much garlic in the dressing, so the ingredient list below reflects a more toned down version.  You’ll probably have left-over dressing for use in other yummy salads.

I used a bunch of Bordeaux Spinach that I got in my CSA share and it was yummy and added some color.  Of course, I think the original recipe probably utilized plain old green spinach.  We had this for lunch with some fresh bread and brie – the combination of bitterness in the salad (grapefruit, garlic and spinach) and the slight sweetness of the bread and brie was divine.

Grapefruit Avocado Spinach Salad

• 1 grapefruit, sectioned and cut into smaller pieces
• 1 avocado
• 1 bunch spinach
• 1 clove finely chopped garlic
• 1/2 c extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Mix together the olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper to make the dressing.  Set aside.  Toss together salad ingredients and drizzle with dressing.

Lemon Bars

When I start thinking about favorite yearly events I always come up with two related to our lovely little lemon tree. The first, in spring when the tree is in bloom. That heavenly, intoxicating citrus bloom smell. I can hardly wait! The second, early winter when the lemons from our tree (and all the other citrus, for that matter), are ripe and ready to be enjoyed.

Several years ago, when we were living in Seattle, I encountered my first lemon tree in bloom at a nursery. Right then and there I decided that I would someday own a lemon tree. I may have to build a green house, but I would own a lemon tree. As such, when we moved to Tucson getting a lemon tree was a no-brainer.

We have a dwarf Meyer Lemon, which produces some of the most fragrant decadent fruit you can imagine. It’s a cross between a lemon and an orange, so it’s slightly sweeter than a straight lemon. We actually only got one lemon off of the tree this year (apparently citrus trees cycle up and down with their abundance of production). Because Meyer’s are so perfect for lemonade, I saved ours for that purpose.

The lemons for these bars came from next door. Our neighbors Malcolm and Barbara were lovely enough to plant a full-sized lemon tree next to the wall we share. It’s still small (they only put it in last year), but it produced a copious amount of lemons this year. Because they won’t be back in town until mid-February, we took the liberty of rescuing what lemons we could reach to save them from an ill fate. So, thank you Malcolm & Barbara!

It is already starting, but soon there will be more citrus than we can consume. The folks on the other side of us have an orange and a grapefruit. They usually take care of the orange but always have lots of extra grapefruits. Hmmm…grapefruit bars? If you have a yummy grapefruit recipe, please share 🙂

For now, I’m thrilled to have these Lemon Bars to wash away any cold-weather blues we may have been feeling. The dough that makes up the bottom of the bars is basically a shortbread, the top essentially a custard or curd, if you like. I sweeten the custard/curd with honey instead of regular sugar because I love the way lemons and honey go together. These bars are bright and tart, but not too tart. They taste like lemons in the best possible way!

Lemon Bars

• 1/2 lb unsalted butter, room temp (16 T)
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1/4 t almond extract
• 3 c all-purpose flour, divided
• 1/8 t kosher salt
• 7 large eggs
• 1 c honey
• 2 T lemon zest
• 1 c lemon juice, fresh squeezed
• powdered sugar, for dusting

Preheat your oven to 350° and greasing a 9×13 baking dish.

Cream together the butter, sugar and almond extract. Gradually add in 2 c of AP flour and all of the salt. Press the resulting dough into your baking dish. It’s likely that the dough will get really sticky, more so the warmer your hands are. If it’s hard to work with, stick the dish (dough and all) in to the fridge for a few minutes to help it firm up. It will be a lot easier to work with once it’s chilled. Prick the dough with a fork once it’s all pressed into the dish.

Bake the shortbread bottom at 350° for 25 minutes, until it begins to brown around the edges. Remove from the oven and set on a wire rack to cool.

Beat together the eggs, honey, zest, juice and remaining 1 c of AP flour.

Pour the curd mixture over the shortbread and bake (still at 350°) for 25-30 minutes. You want everything to be firmly set before you pull it from the oven – no jiggling. I baked mine for 30 minutes, but you oven could run hotter, so check at 30.

Cool completely and cut into squares or triangles, depending on your preference. I used my dough scraper, sprayed with cooking oil, to slice even bars. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Mesquite Flour Pancakes

Early last fall one of my coworkers surprised me by bringing in two large buckets filled with mesquite pods she had collected from her property. She knew that I have a baking habit and thought I might be able to use the pods. All I had to do was take them to get ground into flour/meal. In Tucson we have a great organization called Desert Harvesters who set up at several locations around town in the fall to grind mesquite pods. Sadly, I managed to miss two different weekends when they had set up to mill the pods. In the end, the lovely pods that I had been gifted became infested with some sort of bug while sitting in my garage. I can not tell you how wasteful I felt. I had such a great opportunity, and I blew it.

Fortunately, acquiring mesquite flour isn’t terribly difficult in Tucson. Mesquites are the most common shrub/tree in the desert Southwest. The pods, ground into a flour or meal, have been a part of local cuisine for hundreds of years. In fact, several studies have show that, like many other desert foods, the sweetness of the meal is deceiving. In truth, mesquite flour can be wonderful for controlling blood sugar levels. Obviously, this is a boon to people with diabetes, but I think it’s really great for all of us.

I picked up some flour from my beloved Native Seeds/SEARCH. It is also available here, here and here. It’s a little pricey, but is used in smaller quantities and in combination with regular flour.

These pancakes have no sugar in the batter. In the picture, they are show with honey as a topping. For the gluten-free folks out there, just substitute your favorite gluten free flour mix for the all-purpose portion of this recipe and you’re all set!

Mesquite Flour Pancakes

• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup mesquite flour
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cups milk, maybe slightly less
• 2 eggs, well-beaten
• 1/2 stick butter, melted

In a large bowl sift together the all-purpose flour, mesquite flour, salt and baking powder.

In a separate, smaller bowl whisk together the eggs, butter and milk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. There will probably be some lumps, but if you mix too much your pancakes will get tough.

Pour your batter onto a hot , lightly greased skillet in 2 T increments for silver dollar sized pancakes or in 1/4 c dollops for full-sized pancakes.

Serve with warm honey, maple syrup or fruit preserves.

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UPDATED 1.7.09:

Check out Peter’s comment below if you are planning to make these gluten free.  The picture below is his and shows the difference between waffles with mesquite flour subbed in using his method and plain GF flour waffles (looks like moslty just color to me).  He offers some experience with GF flour mixtures that I don’t have, hopefully it helps!