A Spicy Kale Soup Recipe from a Centenarian Azorean

A bookseller colleague sent me an heirloom recipe many moons ago when we were chatting about our mutual love of cooking. She has a neighbor, a certain Mrs. Lewis, a native of the Azores, who was 102 years old and still cooking up wonderful things in her kitchen at the time my buddy sent on her recipe for Kale Soup. I like to think Mrs. Lewis is now 103 and still stirring up pots of this wonderful soup, which is a traditional favorite in Portugal and the Azores, an Atlantic chain of islands 900 miles west of Lisbon and a Portuguese Autonomous Region.

My hardy kale plants soldier on in the Crispy garden even under the snow and after enduring several bouts of freezing and thawing along the temperature scale. Kale is a super vegetable in terms of nutrition too. Kale is high in many great vitamins and nutrients, including betacarotene, Vitamins C and K, lutein and calcium, and it makes a hearty soup for these chilly days of deep winter in upstate New York.



I am reproducing this treasure of a recipe below verbatim, (**funny typos and all, you'll see) and will just note that in deference to my Crispy spouse, Dan, who eschews meat, I substituted 1 (12 oz.) package of Melissa's meatless soy chorizo, removed from its inedible casing, for the linguica sausage called for by Mrs. Lewis.



Mrs. Lewis' Kale Soup

4-6 cups water (depends on how many you're severing**)
1/2 cup chopped up onion
1 clove garlic
1 potato small
1/2 cup thin slice linguica
2 cups kale chopped
Salt to taste

Bring water, onion, garlic, salt and linguica to boil. Add greens and potato, cook until tender. Serve with bread. If you don't have linguica you can use salt pork and if you don't have meat use red beans.



This hearty recipe is my contribution to this week's edition of Weekend Herb Blogging. Weekend Herb Blogging is a weekly event that was started by Kalyn's Kitchen and has been organized by Cook (Almost) Anything At Least Once for the last year or so.

I am happy to report that I the host of WHB #218 this week and will be happy to accept recipes featuring plant ingredients (herbs, vegetables, fruits, seeds, stems, flowers, etc.) until Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010. Entries must be submitted by:

* 5 pm Sunday - New York City Time (EST)
* 3pm Sunday - Utah Time
* 10pm Sunday - London Time
* 11pm Sunday - Rome Time
* 9am Monday - Melbourne (Aus) DS Time.

Your post can be informative, spotlight a particular ingredient and/or include a recipe where your chosen ingredient is one of the primary ingredients in the recipe. WHB posts must be written specifically for this blog event and may not be cross-posted in other events.



If you have a great veggie recipe to share this week, please send your posts to oldsaratogabooks AT gmail DOT com with WHB#218 in the subject line and the following details:

Your name Your Blog/URL
Your Post URL
Your Location
Attach a Photo: 250px wide

Looking forward to seeing what's cookin' in your kitchen this week. I've already had several cool WHB submissions and can't wait for more to include in the roundup.

Bhajis Enable My Legume Love Affair

Some time ago I discovered Jeena's Kitchen's fabulous Onion Bhaji recipe. It was an instant hit with my family and has become one of our quick and easy recipes for weekday nights. I have made these Indian oven-baked delights with various kinds of vegetables, including thawed (and squeezed out) packages of our garden string beans, diced par-boiled potatoes, blanched cauliflower and even blanched Brussels Sprout halves, and they are always winners. The vegetables get delightfully CRISPY and we make bhajis at least a couple of times a month.

Dan even made bhajis one night for supper using a jar of my pickled dilly beans thinking somehow that they were just like our frozen green beans, and while they were not great, they were edible. Their taste was how I imagine a deep-fried pickle is.

Jeena's Onion Bhaji recipe is fantastic and uses buckwheat flour and a great mix of spices. Her recipe blog, which features many other gluten-free recipes, is a great resource and has many detailed instructions and photographs to guide you along on your first go at these delicious little fritters. She has also recently added a video of this marvelous recipe so you may want to view this step-by-step instruction before you whip up your dinner.



We make our bhajis and like to accompany them with some rice, a dab of Cucumber Raita and some Apple Chutney. One batch of bhajis with these condiments makes a hearty dinner for four, but they can also be served as an appetizer or first course for more hungry mouths.

I like to make Jeena's recipe with chickpea flour, or besan, which I find at my health food store. Larger urban area grocery stores may carry this in the natural foods or Indian foods section. The buckwheat flour version is fluffier, but the chickpea flavor seems to be our favorite. We also add in chopped pickled ginger, snipped fresh cilantro or chives from the garden and substitute cumin seeds for ground cumin for a little variety.

Here's my tweaked-up version of the Jeena's Kitchen recipe using green beans and our customized seasonings. No doubt we will keep playing around with this versatile recipe. I plan to try it with shredded zucchini and summer squash and perhaps chunks of sweet potatoes. Hopefully you will love this recipe too and come up with your own special version.

Green Bean Bhajis

1 medium onion, peeled and sliced thin
2 cups blanched green beans (I use frozen green beans) squeezed dry
Olive oil

First Seasoning Mixture:

1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds

Second Seasoning Mixture:

2 Tbsp. pickled ginger, finely chopped
3 Tbsp. fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. salt

5 Tbsp. chickpea flour
1 tsp. tomato puree or sauce
Several Tbsp. water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil in frying pan. Add onions and saute until softened, about 4-5 minutes. Add beans and heat through, another 2-3 minutes. Add first seasoning mixture and continue to cook, stirring, another 2-3 minutes, or until spices are fragrant.

Take off stove and pour into medium-sized mixing bowl. Add chickpea flour and second seasoning mixture. Stir to coat beans and onions well. Add tomato puree and a tablespoon of water to make into a batter consistency. Add more water, a tablespoon at a time, if needed for right consistency. You don't want the bhajis to be runny, just moistened. If you think your bhaji batter is too wet, add another tablespoon of chickpea flour.

Drizzle olive oil to coat two cookie sheets. Drop about 2 Tbsp. bhaji batter onto your sheets for each bhaji. Flatten a little with spoon.

Bake 10 minutes. Remove trays, flip your bhajis so they brown evenly and return to oven for another 5-10 minutes.

Bhajis are best served right away, but for the rare occasions when we have a few leftovers, they are also good reheated in the microwave over some more rice.

Serves 4 as dinner, or more for appetizers.

This is so delicious, you will have to try it. Make sure to try Jeena's original Onion Bhaji recipe too with the buckwheat flour and her delicious spice combinations to see which you enjoy best. I know my husband pouts when I promise him a bhaji dinner and then make something else, so you know this is good!

Simona at Briciole, a wonderful food blog that offers definitions (and audio file pronunciation) of Italian culinary terms AND mouthwatering recipes, is the current host of My Legume Love Affair, which celebrates the awesomeness of the legume and is the baby of Susan over at The Well-Seasoned Cook. This Green Bean Bhaji recipe is my contribution to MLLA, which runs until tomorrow. Be sure to check back with Briciole to see a noteworthy roundup of beany recipes.

Simona is also the co-host of another event, Novel Food, which invites readers to select a novel, short story or other literary work and cook up an inspirational recipe. I have something in mind for this fun event, which runs until December 20, 2008. If you would like some more Foodie Fiction fun, be sure to check out Cook the Books, a new book club started by yours truly and two other blogger buddies, Food Junkie and Kahakai Kitchen. We are reading "La Cucina" by Lily Prior and cooking and blogging about Sicilian foods inspired by this lush and lusty novel by the December 15 deadline. Come joins us!

Copper Pennies - Carrot-Pepper Salad with Tangy Tomato Dressing

I used to work with a fun and feisty woman, Diana, who was a terrific cook. My office mates and I would always lick our chops and surround her like saber tooth tigers when she arrived at the office bearing some home cooked treat, like her almond-scented Danish Puff, or her homemade candies. Diana was also one of the organizers of a monthly theme lunch in the main conference room which some of us would cook for and all of us would attend (we sold lunch tickets for $3 as I recall), with the year's total donated to a local nonprofit that provided needy area families with clothes and gifts for kids at the holidays. We would "adopt" a family and get the list of what items were needed and then we'd shop and bring the presents to our December lunch for a group wrap-up. Great food for a great cause and it was all so much fun.

There were never any leftovers with Diana's contributions to these monthly lunches; the bowls were scraped clean, the crockpots scoured, the tins of cookies reduced to a meager crumb or two. One of the great recipes that she shared was for Copper Pennies, a carrot and pepper salad that was bathed in a sweet and tangy tomato dressing.

I made this salad a long time ago according to Diana's recipe and it was awesome. However when I took it out the other day, I wanted to tailor it to my family's updated cooking and eating habits.


First to go was the can of tomato soup called for in the recipe. While there are probably gluten-free canned tomato soups out there, I don't want to have to read three crowded paragraphs of ingredients and frankly, I am spoiled by the taste of my own homegrown, homemade tomato sauces and soups, so I substituted tomato sauce or puree. I also slashed the amount of sugar called for in Diana's recipe by 2/3 and did a little other seasoning adjustment. The result? Still as tasty as I remember and still a winning salad dish. I think Diana would approve.

Copper Pennies

2 lbs. carrots, peeled and sliced into thin coins (a food processor works great for this)
3 green bell peppers, seeded and sliced into thin slivers
1/2 Bermuda onion, sliced thin and separated

1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1 tsp. soy sauce (check to make sure it's wheat-free)
1 cup tomato puree or sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. prepared mustard

Bring 2 quarts of salted water to a boil in a soup pot. Cook carrots until tender, but not mushy, about 5 minutes. Drain and cool.

Mix together oil, vinegar, soy sauce, tomato puree, brown sugar and mustard.

Layer carrots, onions and peppers in 2 quart serving dish (looks lovely in a clear glass bowl). Pour sauce over vegetables. Cover and refrigerate at least 8 hours to marry flavors.

This recipe keeps very well, so you can make it several days ahead of any big feast, like Thanksgving.

When your salad veggies are gone, use the remaining marinade as the basis for a Catalina style homemade salad dressing.

Allergy Mom over at The Allergic Kid is rounding up recipes in her Thanks for "Nothing" Thanksgiving that are gluten-free, vegan, and allergy-friendly, and the Copper Pennies cover all the bases. Be sure to check back with her blog for more recipes to share at your holiday feasts that would be safe for everyone to enjoy.

Soup in the Leaves

Though the nights are frosty, we have so far resisted turning on our heat and stuffing our precious wood into the fireplace because: a) we haven't cleaned out the chimneys yet, b) we are cheap, er, frugal, yeah, that's it, and c) we have plenty of sweaters and furry friends to keep us toasty at night. It is definitely soup and stew season, and I used my day off to peruse my cookbooks for a new soup recipe for "No Croutons Required", a monthly soup and salad cooking event alternately hosted by Tinned Tomatoes in Scotland and Lisa's Kitchen in Ontario. This month's challenge is to create a hearty vegetarian soup that would stand alone as a filling meal on a chilly day, and I came up with just such a soup.

Inspiration was divined by "Chef on a Shoestring", edited by Andrew Friedman (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2001) and based on the CBS Early Show feature in which top chefs produce budget-friendly meals. I was hooked on a recipe Greenwich Village chef Jeanette Maier served at her Herban Kitchen restaurant for Hearty Root Vegetable and Lentil Stew with Three Herbs. Perusal of the Crispy larder came up rootless, veggie wise, however, and I didn't have a couple of other ingredients, but with a little substitution here and there I concocted this satisfying, hearty, and vegetarian pottage:

Autumnal Peasant Soup

2 Tbsp. 0live oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried rosemary, crumbled
1/2 tsp. caraway seeds

12 oz. small lentils, picked over and rinsed (I used a beautiful autumn blend of brown, grey and orange lentils from my health food store. They look divine dried but all turn the same shade of brown when cooked).

1 (28 oz.) can crushed tomatoes
2 qts. vegetable stock, homemade if possible
5 small potatoes, peeled and cut into small dice
4 stalks celery, diced
3 carrots, peeled and diced (I used a small bag of baby carrots that had been hiding in the fridge and were unappealingly dessicated to eat out of hand, but were fine cooked)

1/2 head medium cabbage, chopped (next time I would chope more finely)

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed soup pot. Add onions and garlic, and cook, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes, or until onions are translucent. Add herbs and caraway seeds and cook another 2 minutes.

Add lentils, tomatoes, vegetable stock, potatoes, celery and carrots and bring to boil. Lower heat, stir, cover and simmer on low heat about 40 minutes, or until potatoes are fairly well cooked. Add cabbage, stir and cook another 10 minutes, or until cabbage is softened. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Makes 4 main dish servings, 6-8 starter servings.

This is the last day for the Hearty Vegetarian Soup No Croutons Event, so I am squeaking into eligibility, but check back on Lisa's Kitchen later in the month for a satisfying, seasonal roundup.

Double-Stuffed, Twice-Baked Acorn Squash

It's time for another Royal Foodie Joust over at the Leftover Queen's Foodie Forum. Last month's winner, Stickygooeycreamychewy, produced an intriguing Gorgonzola, Fennel and Pear Tart using the required ingredients of fennel, parsley and dairy and as part of her Joust prize, she got the honor of picking the ingredients for the October Joust: acorn squash, oranges and sage.

As usual, I was able to think of many recipe options to combine two of the ingredients, but the oranges had me stumped. I kept thinking of sweet squash options and savory squashes, but I couldn't reconcile the two until I had the idea that it might be fun to have both sweet and savory flavors cuddling next to each other in the same dish. The sculptural beauty of the acorn squash was also not to be overlooked. Aren't they sexy squashes?



So I tried out some ideas on my willing Crispy Cook guinea pig, husband Dan, and after a bit of back and forth taste testing, I ended up with two squash fillings canoodling with each other in their heart-shaped squash love nest. The rice base contains baked acorn squash, sauteed mushrooms and scallions and sage and is topped with a slightly sweet and very aromatic squash-orange puree with toasted walnuts. It's like having your dessert first and then plowing through to the main course, and the two fillings also blend nicely together on the same fork. Without further ado, here's the recipe:




Double-Stuffed, Twice-Baked Acorn Squash


2 medium acorn squashes
Olive oil

1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
Zest of one orange
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1 bunch scallions, trimmed and chopped
1/2 lb. mushrooms, trimmed and chopped
1/2 tsp. dried sage
1 cup cooked rice

Cut acorn squash in half. You'll aim for 2 equal halves, but if your cleaver aim is poor, as mine is with this roly-poly squash, you'll end up with one much larger half. That's okay, too, because I just ended up cooking all four squash halves and then scooping out the flesh of the skinny halves to use for filling the love nest.

Back to the squash. Scoop out seeds and pulp with a teaspoon and then place in a lightly oiled baking pan, cut side down. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes, until softened, but not mushy-soft. Let cool.

Scoop out flesh from acorn squash halves, making sure to leave at least 1/4 inch of flesh remaining behind to provide the superstructure for your stuffing. Divide squash flesh in half.

For the first half of the stuffing, add first part of baked squash with orange juice, orange zest, nuts, brown sugar and cinnamon. This will not be a super sweet mixture as you might be used to when making sweetened, mashed acorn squash, but later on, when this aromatic stuffing mixes with the savory second stuffing, the flavors meld beautifully.

Take the other half of your squash flesh and mash in a bowl. Heat 2 Tbsp. olive oil in a skillet and heat. Add sliced scallions and cook, stirring, until softened, about 3-4 minutes. Add chopped mushrooms, and cook, stirring, another 3-4 minutes. Add mashed squash and cooked rice and heat through. Season with sage, salt and pepper.

Stuff acorn squash halves with a base layer of the rice stuffing and then top with citrusy squash. Score with tines of a fork for a decorative top and top with sage sprig, if desired.

Place bake in 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, or until heated through.

Serves 4. (or 2 hefty servings if you hack up your squash unequally as I did).

This would make a terrific vegan entree for any holiday meal, perhaps accompanied by an herbed mushroom gravy.

Grow Your Own Squash and Roast It

It is time again for another round of Grow Your Own, a blog event started by Andrea's Recipes that features dishes cooked up by folks who harvest some of their own foodstuffs. Grow Your Own is being hosted this time by A Scientist in the Kitchen, a molecular biologist blogging from the Philippines with a passion for cooking.

There's not a whole lot of edibles left in our Zone 4 Fall garden, but Dan and I did try a new variety of winter squash this year, Ambercup, which looks like a pumpkin but cooks up like an acorn or butternut squash in flavor and texture. We didn't get too many Ambercups to harvest since we were besieged by various kinds of squash-eating beetles, but we have enjoyed a few sliced, brushed and grilled on the barbeque (they're kind of mealy, but good with a spicy condiment slathered over them) and even more tastily, grated up and roasted in the oven.


The recipe is simple and has been enjoyed by our family as a mellow side dish for hearty autumn dinners.

Roasted Ambercup Squash

1 medium ambercup squash, peeled and cut into large wedges (you can substitute other firm winter squash)
3 Tbsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp. smoked paprika
Salt and pepper to taste

Grate squash wedges on the coarse end of a box grater. Toss with olive oil, paprika and salt and pepper in 9 x 13 baking dish.

Bake at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes, stirring several times to mix in browned bits.

We have also tried this recipe with cumin instead of the smoked paprika and with steak seasoning instead of the paprika, but this version above is our favorite.

Serves 6 as a side dish or 4 as a main dish if mixed with some cooked rice and topped with some grated cheese.

Be sure to stop by the Scientist in the Kitchen's blog over the next few days to see a harvest roundup of home-grown recipes.

Gluten-Free Crackers with the Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen

Sea at the Book of Yum is once again hosting the Adopt-a-gluten-free-blogger event she founded and this time around it has a lunchbox theme. I had bookmarked a recipe for chickpea crackers on Susan's Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen blog for a long time now and this seemed like the perfect excuse to assemble the ingredients and bake some up.

Susan's blog is not not exclusively gluten-free, but she has a wide range of gluten-free recipes noted in the left-hand sidebar of her well-designed blog, from Kidney Beans in Curry Sauce to Cherry-Chocolate Mousse Pie. She's a Mississippi resident whose popular blog provides a wealth of healthy, low-fat or fat-free vegan meal ideas that are perfect for planning meatless menus. Her photography is impeccable and every recipe typically gets added to my heap of TBC (To Be Cooked) bookmarks folder. Even if you are not vegan or vegetarian you are sure to be tempted by many of these delicious recipes.

I had never tried making crackers, gluten-free or otherwise, but Susan's post inspired me to grab another bag of chickpea flour and nutritional yeast from my local health food store and cook up some of these wafers. While Dan has appreciated having the almond-based Nut Thins crackers for a safe snack cracker, he was hankering for some variety in CRISPY edibles, so I took on this project.

Cracker making was surprisingly easy. I had thought that rolling out the cracker dough to 1/8 inch thickness would be a feat, but the dough worked well as long as I kept sprinkling white rice flour on my counter and rolling pin. If anything, I think I made some of the crackers too thin and they and their smoked paprika topping came just shy of being overdone. I used a one-inch wide heart-shaped cookie cutter to make the crackers, but as Susan notes in her recipe, you could even more easily cut them into squares.

We paired our crackers with hummus and cheese and they were a welcome addition to our gluten-free recipe file. Thank you Susan! And thanks to Sea for this fun blog event which always inspires me to break out of the weekly recipe rut and try something new.

Be sure to check out the Lunchbox Roundup at the Book of Yum after October 13th, when this Adopt-a-gluten-free-blogger round ends for some more portable food ideas. Gluten-free, of course!

Go Ahead, Honey, it's Cauliflower!

The garden continues to pump out an astonishing amount of produce, which Dan and the girls and I are valiantly trying to eat, give away or preserve for the winter like a bunch of crazed squirrels. The latest produce to pop are some beautiful heads of cauliflower. I've tried growing cauliflower before, but been skunked by bad soil or growing conditions, but now I've got lots of lovely yellowish heads of cauliflower to play with. If I had been vigilant and tied up the leaves over their heads they would have been snowier white, but I don't mind little yellowing of my cauliflowers.


Naomi, of Straight into Bed Cakefree and Dried, the founder of the Go Ahead, Honey, It's Gluten-Free blog event, is off on holiday, so I am this month's host for that fun cooking event. The theme for this round of GAHIGF is "Seasonal Vegetables", so I came up with a delicate mushroomy saute to feature my beautiful cauliflower bounty as my contribution:


Cauliflower and Mushroom Saute

1 big head of cauliflower, separated into small flowerets
1 large onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
1/2 lb. mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
2 Tbsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Steam cauliflower flowerets in lightly salted water until crisp-tender, about 7-10 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Heat olive oil in large skillet. Add onions, and saute until softened, about 4 minutes. Add mushrooms and continue cooking, stirring often, another 4 minutes. Add cauliflower flowerets, salt, pepper and nutmeg and cook another couple of minutes, until heated through.

This delicate dish is lovely served over rice or GF egg noodles.

Serves 4-6.

The Seasonal Veggies Round of Go Ahead, Honey, It's Gluten-Free, continues through Sept. 7th, so feel free to join in the fun until then. There are already a colorful array of veggie entries that will tempt you all, I'm sure. The details for submitting an entry in this foodie blog event are found here. I believe Naomi is also looking for a guest host for the next round of GAHIGF, so feel free to contact her if you are interested.

Back to harvest....

Putting Up the Cilantro Harvest with the Book of Yum

Sea over at the Book of Yum is my kindred gluten-free cooking spirit. While she may be an urban dweller on the West Coast, and I'm a rural devotee on the East Coast, she and I share a love for vegetables, herbs and adventurous cooking. She's the first foodie blog I check every day and I'm always delighted by the fresh take on a recipe, her good natured and detailed commentary about her kitchen experiments and her interest in Asian, Indian and other international flavors.

Our family has enjoyed her Southern Fried Tofu recipe quite a lot and I was delighted when she started the Adopt a Gluten Free Blogger Event this past winter so that I could have an excuse to try out some of the many bookmarked recipes in my pile.

I have enjoyed adopting Jeena's Kitchen (Onion Bhajis), The GFCF Experience (Brownie Tart), Fresh Ginger (Lard Nah) and Gluten A Go Go (Coca-Cola Cake) in the past rounds of this event, and now I am pleased to adopt our Founder, Sea. from the Book of Yum, in this fifth round. I have a ton of cilantro coming up in my garden and before it bolts overnight, I harvested two huge bunches to make Sea's recently posted Cilantro Chutney recipe.

I had all the ingredients in my pantry and garden except for the asafoetida/hing, which a quick trip to Wikipedia informed me was a plant seasoning also known as Devil's Dung (?!?) which lends a leek-like flavor to dishes when cooked. I opted to substitute in 2 cloves of finely minced garlic instead of this quaintly-named delight and things seemed to be tasty enough. Whirling around this chutney in my food processor produced just enough chutney to fill twelve spots in my ice cube tray. I froze this overnight and then popped out the cubes into a freezer baggie to be pulled out well after cilantro season for spicing up raitas, yogurt dips, and zipping up my canned salsa. Thanks Sea, for helping me with my summer garden harvest and for starting this fun foodie event!

Go Ahead Honey, Those Taters are Gluten-Free

Naomi over at Straight into Bed Cakefree and Dried is hosting this month's "Go Ahead Honey, It's Gluten-Free" cooking challenge. The May theme is breakfast and we certainly love to have our breakfasts in our house; sometimes a second breakfast too, if we're feeling hobbity. Come to think of it, breakfast for dinner is a good idea also.

The naturally gluten-free potato is often featured on our breakfast table and the recipe below is a versatile favorite. We have two well-loved cast-iron frying pans which we wipe out carefully after use to preserve the layers of seasoning that keep foods from sticking. If you don't have this kitchen staple on hand, another kind of frying pan will do, but you may have trouble getting the spuds crusty enough.


Breakfast Fried Potatoes

5 potatoes, peeled (Save the peels for tomorrow's secret recipe!)
1 large onion, diced
1 green pepper, seeded and diced (other color peppers are lovely too)
Canola oil for frying
3 Tbsp. seasonings of your choice. We like sage, salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder and chili powder, but adjust to your mood)

Cut potatoes in half and then cut into medium dice. Place potatoes in salted water in a medium pot and bring to boil. Lower heat and cook until softened, about 15 minutes.

Drain and reserve.

Get your frying pan heated up and then add 2-3 Tbsp. canola oil. Let the oil warm up and then toss in onions. Cook until soft (5 minutes), then add peppers and seasonings. Cook until peppers are softened (another 3-4 minutes), then add potatoes. Keep an eye on the stove and stir up potatoes every couple of minutes, so that a nice crust forms on the bottom of the pan that can be scraped up and mixed in with the rest of the vegetables. When this fry-up is at its crustiest peak (5 more minutes) adjust seasonings and serve.

Makes 4 hearty breakfast servings.


The Go Ahead Honey, It's Gluten Free Challenge will continue through tomorrow, so there's still time to get cracking (those eggs) and join the fun. Check out Naomi's great gluten-free blog for more information http://milkforthemorningcake.blogspot.com/2008/04/go-ahead-honey-its-gluten-free-may.html.

Quinoa and Asparagus Salad

There were finally enough asparagus spears to plunder from the garden, so I snapped them out and gathered up some of their garden buddies: snippets of chives, a handful of lemon balm and a few sprigs of fresh thyme and dill. The herbs were rinsed and minced, the chubby stalks of asparagus were cut into 1/2 inch chunks and then they were briefly steamed up in the last minutes of making a pot of quinoa. Then all were reunited with a mustardy vinaigrette and on our dinner table within the hour.

That's what I love most about the kitchen garden. I can step outside and shop in my own farmer's market and figure out a recipe based on what's ready and looks good. All of the greens above are perennials (dill is an annual but reseeds itself all over the place, so I just "weed" it out as needed) that overwinter easily in our Zone 4 garden plot and that makes this a fresh, frugal bonus.

Quinoa and Asparagus Salad

1 cup quinoa, rinsed
2 cups water
6 asparagus stalks, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 Tbsp. snipped fresh dill
1 Tbsp. snipped chives
1-1/2 tsp. fresh thyme leaves
3 Tbsp. lemon balm, sliced thinly (substitute a splash of lemon juice)
1-1/2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard (coarse ground mustard would also work well)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Couple of splashes of rice vinegar
Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Place quinoa and water in small pot and bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover and simmer until almost done, about 20 minutes. Toss asparagus chunks on top and cover. Cook another 3-4 minutes, or until asparagus and quinoa are al dente.

Mix together remaining ingredients into a vinaigrette. Toss with warm quinoa and asparagus. Let cool a few minutes and then fluff up and serve either warm or chilled.

Makes 6 servings.

Adopt A Gluten-Free Blogger: Fresh Ginger

For the third installment of the Adopt A Gluten-Free Blogger Event I chose Fresh Ginger.
I had the impression from her blog name and pineapples lounging on the beach masthead that she lived in Hawaii or some other Pacific paradise, but it turns out that she's a Michigander. Ginger is also a beer and cider brewer, gardener, knitter and from a family of fruit farmers, so her blog is an interesting mix of these interests.

Fresh Ginger also provides a lot of cocktail and appetizer recipes which I have bookmarked for future consumption. However, the recipe that triggered her adoption was for Lard Nah, which does not contain lard, thankfully, but is a traditional Thai noodle dish. This worked out beautifully in my wok with some collard greens, tofu and mushrooms, although I did hold back on the amount of water mixed with tapioca starch as my Lard Nah seemed adequately hydrated. This is really a tasty stir-fry dinner with delicious sauce that I look forward to trying with other garden greens.

A note of caution to other gluten-free folk who want to check out this great blog. Fresh Ginger is able to tolerate spelt, so if you can't eat any kind of gluten, not just wheat gluten, please do not cook up any recipes using spelt.

If you are interested in adventurous cooking from around the globe, this is the blog for you. Fresh Ginger features lots of different cuisines: Scandinavian, Indian, Thai, Cuban, etc., and has a breezy, fun writing style, so it's a lot of fun to read. I look forward to cooking up some more of her wonderful recipes, and soon!

The Adopt A Gluten-Free Blogger Event, started by Sea at the Book of Yum, continues until May 11, 2008, so look for a roundup after next weekend. There's still time to participate in this event and if you are interested in doing so, check out this link.

Spanish Rice in the Crockpot

I have been getting a real kick out of Stephanie and her blog, A Year of Crockpotting, chronicling her self-professed obsession with her kitchen appliance. Every day Stephanie produces a new slow cooker recipe, mostly meaty stews and soups, but also an astonishing variety of cookies, caramel corn, play dough and vegetarian dishes. Her writing is very funny and the recipes are neatly broken down and have lots of photos to show the assembled ingredients pre- and post-crockpotting.

All of the recipes are also gluten-free. Stephanie uses a lot of naturally gluten-free ingredients and for the baked goods, she uses gluten-free flour mix. The other day I wanted to whip up dinner while we were running around doing several different work/kid/store/garden/dog/cat projects and so I turned to A Year of Crockpotting for inspiration. She had a Spanish Rice recipe which I have modified below for the in-house vegetarian and vegan. Brown rice always takes an preternaturally long time to cook in our house, so the crockpot worked great. The rice came out soft but chewy and soaked up all the yummy sauce.

Spanish Crockpot Rice

2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 stalks celery, diced
1 green pepper, seeded and diced

2 cups brown rice
1 (28 oz.) can crushed or diced tomatoes and water to make 4 cups liquid

Couple of glugs of hot sauce (I like Frank's Louisiana Red Hot, the chicken wing sauce)
1 Tbsp. chili powder
Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat oil in frying pan. Add onions, garlic, pepper and celery. Saute until softened.

Dump into large crockpot (mine is 4 quarts). Add remaining ingredients.

Cook on high heat for 4 hours, then turn to low for at least another 3 hours, until rice is done. Stir every once in a while. We actually let it go another two hours, cause noone was home to deal with it. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Top with your favorites: sliced green or black olives, sour cream, grated Cheddar, more hot sauce, sliced scallions.

Serves 6-8.

I am submitting this recipe in Just Get Floury's Dollar Dish Duel, which challenges participants to cook up some grub to feed at least two people for $5. I estimate this recipe cost right around $5, minus the toppings, and this served our family of four one night for dinner, with enough leftovers for another round of meals, so this was a frugal recipe indeed.

There is still time to enter the Dollar Dish Duel, as entries aren't due until May 6th, so get cooking.

Elegant Sesame-Ginger Cookies (Gluten-Free and Vegan)

For our Gluten-Free Book Signing, I wanted an elegant dessert that would be gluten-free and vegan so our circle of family and friends could eat together. I consulted the newest cookbook on my shelf, Isa Chandra Moskowitz' and Terry Hope Romero's "Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook" (NY: Marlowe & Company, 2007) and there was an appropriate recipe, but alas, unlike many of the recipes in this awesome tome, it was not gluten-free. Undaunted, I tied on my apron and went at it.

I used a combination of flours to replace the wheat flour: garbanzo bean for taste, buckwheat for structure and brown rice to make it fluffy. There was no hope of rolling out this squishy cookie dough, more the consistency of mayonnaise than a stiff dough the authors encourage you to mix with your hands. Instead, I spooned out tablespoons of the dough out on the cookie sheets and sprinkled on a combination of black sesame seeds and Turbinado sugar crystals. The cookies spread out too much and got brittle, so I made the second batch out of teaspoon-sized lumps and kept the baking time short and they came out very elegantly.

These are cookies for grownups: not too sweet, elegant to look at and a sophisticated blend of flavors. I will be serving at our book signing this Saturday and will report back on their success. Without further ado, here is my gluten-free adaptation of Veganomicon's

Peanut-Ginger-Sesame Cookies

1 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup garbanzo bean (or chick pea) flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
1/4 cup brown rice syrup (I used corn syrup)
1-1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup soy milk
1 tsp. vanilla
5 oz. candied ginger, diced finely

1/4 cup black sesame seeds
1/4 cup Turbinado sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease two cookie sheets.

Sift flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon.

In the large bowl of a standing mixer or using a handheld mixer, cream shortening until fluffy. Add peanut butter, rice or corn syrup, sugar, soy milk and vanilla. Beat until creamy, about 5 minutes. Stir in candied ginger by hand.

Place teaspoonfuls of dough onto cookie sheets. Don't use more dough, as the cookies really spread out while baking. Separate each lump of dough at least one inch apart. Sprinkle with a blend of sesame seeds and Turbinado sugar crystals.

Bake 12 minutes in oven. Let cool on cookie sheets 2 minutes before lifting gingerly with a thin spatula to let them cool on baking racks. These cookies are pretty delicate when cooling.

Makes 50-60 cookies.

Bonkers for Bhajis

The Book of Yum is hosting an Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger Event and I decided to adopt Jeena's Kitchen over in England. Jeena is a professional chef with a blog full of clear and detailed recipes for healthy cooking, many of which are also gluten-free, as noted in her index. She has lots of photographs to guide you through each step of a recipe, which is so helpful when you are first attempting a dish or cooking technique. Many of the recipes are vegetarian as well, and many are twists on traditional Indian recipes.

I had long bookmarked Jeena's recipe for Onion Bhajis (pronounced "bah-zhees"), which are a popular British-Indian starter in many restaurants and a close cousin of the pakora or pakoda. Typically they are deep-fried, but Jeena's recipe calls for baking. I made her recipe and everyone in the family really liked them. I have paired them with basmati rice for dinner twice now and that makes an easy meal for everyone in the family to enjoy, even my vegan teenager. Jeena's recipe directs you to drizzle oil on the bhajis midway through the cooking time, but I found that flipping them over instead worked well in my often balky oven.



After a little bit of bhaji research, I found that they are usually accompanied by a cucumber raita or a mango chutney, so I will be whipping up some condiments for upcoming bhajimania. You can also serve bhajis on a bed of shredded lettuce with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice.

I tried making bhajis a third time with chickpea flour instead of buckwheat flour and they were even more delicious. The beaniness of the chickpea flour, which I don't fancy in my sweet treats, is perfect in this savory recipe. We're going to keep experimenting, as other bhaji recipes I've seen utilize other vegetables, such as string beans, cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, peppers, spinach and even brussels sprouts. The versatility of this recipe is exciting for me, and I can't wait to try other add-ins, like snipped chives, cilantro, mint and peas. When the garden produce starts flying in July and August, I look forward to playing around with other bhaji delights.

Vive Le Bhaji! And thank you, Jeena, for turning me on to a new family favorite recipe!

Polenta Fries

Kate over at the Gluten Free Gobsmacked has a great recipe for polenta fries. You make up a batch of polenta, add in seasonings (I added 3 Tbsp. of nutritional yeast for a little extra vitamin power and flavor and used gluten-free vegetable broth instead of chicken broth), slice and bake in the oven. Here's the link to her wonderful recipe.

Everyone in the family (two omnivores, one vegetarian, one vegan) loved them and I did a happy dance having to only plan and cook one dinner meal. We tried them out with an artist's palette of dipping sauces: ketchup, our beloved Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce, Creamy Dill Dressing, Sweet and Sour Sauce and Marinara. Consensus: Tomato-Based concoctions rule.

Try them out soon; this is easy if you have time to let the polenta cool and harden.

**Side note: With a vegan diner in the family now, I went back and tagged a bunch of recipes on this blog, so you can check them out in the right-hand side bar.

Asian-style Sweet and Sour Cabbage

The Vegetable Kingdom, specifically the cruciferous family, exhibited mind control over Dan and I yesterday as we each returned from separate trips to the supermarket with a head of cabbage and bag of broccoli. My head of cabbage telepathically ordered me to my recipe card file to make this delicious stir-fry. Resistance was futile.

Asian-Style Sweet and Sour Cabbage


1 medium head of domineering cabbage
4 Tbsp. peanut oil
3-4 scallions, chopped
6 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 green pepper, sliced thinly
1/2 red pepper, sliced thinly
3 Tbsp. cider vinegar
3 Tbsp. gluten-free soy sauce
3 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. dried red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp. cornstarch mixed with 1 Tbsp. warm water

Wrestle control from the cabbage and chop coarsely.

Heat oil in large frying pan or wok and then stir in scallions and garlic. Stir for 2 minutes, then add peppers. Saute until softened. Add cabbage and saute again until softened.

Add vinegar, soy, sugar and red pepper flakes. Simmer, covered, 3 minutes. Add cornstarch mixture and quickly stir for 1-2 minutes, until sauce is thickened.

I sprinkled the top with a mix of white and black sesame seeds for color, but this is optional.

Serves 6.

Always listen to your vegetables.

Barbecued Tempeh

One of the perks of owning a used bookstore is that you have first dibs on any of the books that come in. Sometimes they are just for borrowing and reading (eventually I hope to make my way through my own book collection), but many times they are keepers. One such cookbook is "The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen", by Peter Berley (NY: Regan Books, 2000), which is 450 pages of enthusiastic and cleanly-written and laid-out cooking ideas for the meatless kitchen. It received several publishing accolades, including a coveted James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award.

Dan has been a big fan of tempeh, those fermented, compressed cakes of soybeans and Rhizopus mold (mmmm!), but the girls and I have remained unconvinced of its delectability, until we tried Berley's Barbecued Tempeh Sandwich Filling. We altered it a bit to suit us, instead of the ground chipotle chili he recommends, we used our kitchen staple, Chipotle Tabasco sauce, and we cooked this recipe much longer to achieve the texture we like. You can check out Berley's wonderful website and try his Recipe of the Month. We recommend purchasing "The Modern Vegetarian Cookbook", but if you need a test run first, try this altered version of:

Barbecued Tempeh Sandwich Filling

1 lb. tempeh
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup gluten-free soy sauce
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. chipotle Tabasco sauce or other hot sauce
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. paprika

Preheat oven to 35o degrees.

Slice tofu in half horizontally, then slice each piece in half.

Whisk together barbecue marinade of vinegar, soy, oil, maple syrup and spices. Pour half of marinade into a 10 x 15 glass baking dish. Lay on tempeh and then pour on rest of marinade.

Cover dish with foil, shiny side down, forming a tight seal. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes, until most of marinade is absorbed. Uncover last 15 minutes in the oven.

Remove tempeh to a plate to cool.

Great as a main dish with rice or cooled as a sandwich filling.

Serves 4-6.

You Say Finocchio, I Say Fennel

This suspicious looking character showed up in my kitchen and started getting fresh...so I whacked him.



To torture this noir pastiche no longer, I will say that I love fresh fennel. I haven't had success growing this potherb in the garden, but I like to buy an occasional bulb and slice it up into salads or just munch it raw. It has a delicate anise flavor, but otherwise resembles celery in crunch and preparation.

I used a recipe for traditional Italian sauteed fennel, or Finocchio al Oglio e Aglio (Fennel with Olive Oil and Garlic) and took it a few steps further to make an accompaniment for our broiled fish supper. This dish would also be great paired with polenta or atop rice. The anise taste of the fennel still lingers, but it's richer and mellower when paired with its fungal friends.



Braised Fennel and Mushrooms

1 fennel bulb, whacked (trim off bottom and tops saving some of the feathery tops for later. Cut fennel in quarters and remove hard core. Dice coarsely)
3 Tbsp. olive oil
10-12 mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced
6 cloves garlic, chopped
Salt and pepper

Heat oil in saute pan. Add garlic and stir around the pan for 1 minute. Add diced fennel and mushrooms and saute until soft, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in chopped fennel fronds.

Serves 4 as a side dish.

Frugal Gluten-Free Chickpea Stew

With a lingering head cold clogging up the collective Jag sinus cavities, none of us wanted to cook, much less run to the store for dinner ingredients. Six bleary eyes lasered in on me, Chief Cook of the Household, so I was forced to stagger over to the kitchen. My trusty cookbook collection provided inspiration for using up a conglomeration of leftovers last night and it proved a success. Riffing off of a Mexican Sopa Seca recipe from one cookbook and a Moroccan stew from another, and then rolling the dice with the contents of my cupboards and many covered bowls from the fridge, I produced this tasty and frugal Chickpea Stew:

Frugal and Fragrant Chickpea Stew

1 cup cooked chickpeas
1 cup marinara sauce (mine had red wine, chunks of onion and garlic and red bell pepper)
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup sliced almonds
Diced red onion
Hot Cooked Rice

Steam up a pot of rice.

Toss everything else except the red onion into a pot and simmer, covered, 1/2 hour. If you don't have marinara sauce on hand, saute up some onion and garlic and then toss in some canned (or in season, fresh) tomatoes and simmer for 1/2 hour before you add all the other stuff.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over hot cooked rice.

Top with diced red onion. I added some capers too, to my bowl.

Serves 4.