Graiiiiiins….

[Mushroom zombies, banana pirate, and peach bun creatures by Kaela.]

I love the crunch of lightly salted pumpkin seeds, still warm from the oven.  This is just a teaser for the pie to come and is incredibly easy and quick.

We found a nice little sugar pie pumpkin at the market that we sliced in half and baked at about 350°. I dusted these with some kosher salt; I also like adding a shake of cayenne or chili powder. I suspect there’s some phenomenal spice mixture to be created (maybe a dab of brown sugar, ginger, and cinnamon with a pinch of salt?) that would give you pumpkin pie-flavored seeds. We still have a couple of weeks until Halloween; I’ll have to experiment.

I started baking these together on the same pan; this saved washing an extra pan but was a little fiddly to get the seeds off when they were toasted and lightly brown, about 10-15 minutes later. The pumpkin still needed another half-hour until it was fork-tender.

The seeds store well in Tupperware-type containers or plastic bags once they’ve cooled. I’ll cube and freeze the pumpkin until I’m ready to make the pie. Stay tuned!

I have been very lucky in the draw for coworkers. Linda sends me home with cayennes and green beans, and Kathy and her husband go out to a tomato grower each year and bring back lots of tomatoes for anyone who asks. This is the lovely box we got this year and was very welcome especially in this year of tomato blight (I got four, count ‘em, four from eight tomato plants).

I was a little intimidated by the entire crate, especially while recovering from flu, but what’s better for recovery than something fresh, hot and spicy?

Start with eight large tomatoes, and a couple fresh jalapenos, depending on how much heat you like.  I’ll also use a couple rounded teaspoons of kosher salt; add half while cooking and adjust as it cooks down.

I’ve made this recipe before by boiling the tomatoes to remove the tomato skins (throw the jalapenos in while they’re boiling), but I thought it might add a nice note to roast them. So I put them under the broiler for a bit until the skins blackened a bit and split, let them cool, and peeled and cored them.

Remove the stem from the jalapeno, slice lengthwise and remove the seeds (a few left are fine). Put tomatoes and peppers in the blender and blend till smooth, or to your preference. I like these pureed to a smooth red sauce.

Bring to a boil over medium heat, adding half the salt. Turn the heat lower once it’s reached a boil, and let it simmer until it thickens a bit. These tomatoes were quite juicy so I wound up simmering it for much of an hour on low. Check the salt and add more if it needs it.

I might use a bit of this over burritos later in the week, if there’s any left.

Peach buns are one of my favorites from dim sum.  We made our own sweet red bean paste from canned adzuki beans, but if you’ve got a well-stocked asian market you may be able to find it canned and save some time.

Ingredients – Sweet Bean Paste

Two 15 oz cans azuki beans
1 cup sugar (add more or less to taste)

Ingredients – Bun Dough

1 pkg yeast
1 c. milk
2 tablespoons sugar
3 c. flour plus 1 cup for kneading
1/2 tsp salt
2 egg whites

We mashed the beans through a strainer; next time I’m going to use the food processor because everyone’s wrists were tired by the time we finished.

Add the sugar to the beans in a saucepan over medium heat and cook until it darkens a bit and becomes glossy.

Meanwhile, start the dough by heating the milk and sugar until bubbles just begin to form around the side of the pot. Let it cool to lukewarm and add the yeast, flour, and salt. Use a mixer to beat the dough while adding the two egg whites.

Knead this, adding flour as necessary to tone down the stickiness. Let it rest for a few minutes before patting it into wrappers.

I’ll let Kaela demonstrate while she fills the wraps with bean paste:

Put these into a steamer lined with a greased bit of parchment paper – I did the snowflake thing with folds and scissor cuts to add holes; a regular hole punch would have been quicker. Don’t put them this close together or they will stick together.

Steam them for 12 to 15 minutes and roll off onto a plate. To get the peachy appearance, brush them lightly with a little bit of food coloring to resemble a peach. If you want to get creative like Kaela did below, with her fish and watermelon and turtles and zombies, use a small paintbrush and food coloring.  These are best right off the stove, but they will keep refrigerated for a few days.

Now, the first hints of changing maples on my commute are lovely, and the light chill in the morning while the dogs nose around in the damp goldenrod and poke is refreshing, but I gotta say that I hate that it’s dark by the time I get home from work.

On the other hand, longer dark and cooler temperatures mean more baking, soups, and richer dishes, so I look forward to that.

This curry is very quick to fix and works well for the ‘oh, I need to use up those vegetables’ days. I’m still working on approximating Cha Da Thai’s most excellent curries – this is close but I still have a way to go until I figure out how they get so much flavor in their green and panang curries.

Ingredients

3/4 – 1 cup Tempeh
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4″ piece of ginger, chopped
1 green onion, sliced
1/2 to 1 cup vegetables of your choice (here we’ve got kale and green peppers chopped finely; eggplant is great, zucchini, bamboo shoots, carrots, whatever you have)
~1 tsp. green curry paste (this is Mae Ploy; I’ve used Thai Kitchen to good effect as well, though to my taste it’s hotter)
1/2 cup vegetable broth
4-5 tablespoons coconut milk
1 scant tsp brown sugar
salt to taste
couple tsp oil

Add the oil to a hot saucepan over medium heat and stir in the curry paste. Add the garlic, ginger, green onions, tempeh, and vegetables (if you’re using carrots or something sturdy, add that first).

Saute until the vegetables are just tender, and add the broth, coconut milk, and brown sugar. Add salt to your taste. I like this over rice.

When I was growing up in Denver, August meant a trip to the western slope for peaches. It’s about four hours to Palisade and Grand Junction, and a full day trip if we (ohpleaseohplease) stopped in Glenwood Springs for a swim in the huge hot springs pool. If you ever have the chance to take the California Zephyr through Glenwood Canyon, do it.

Some years we’d get cases of peaches, and other years we’d go to a U-pick, with Mom and Dad up in the trees handing down buckets of fruit. On the trip back the tiredness of the travel and full day in the sun was offset by the rich scent of peaches wafting into the car from the crates packed snugly in the trunk.

Then my grandmother would dip big peaches into the kettle – how fuzzy fresh peaches are, compared to store peaches – and slide big slices into quart jars. There would also be peach ice cream, and if she had the energy after the steamy day in the kitchen, peach pie.

There are so many recipes I wish I’d asked her to show me, but one gets wise too late. I can’t make peaches without thinking about her.

We found eight large South Carolina peaches in the discount bin at the grocery. They’re a little bruised, but hey, it’s jam. This is going to be a micro-batch of jam – there were four half-pints here.

Using a slotted spoon, place them in a pot of boiling water for a minute or two. This will make the skins slip off easily.

Peel and slice the peaches, and cut each slice into three or four pieces.

In a heavy pan, add sugar and ginger to taste. For these eight peaches, I added a scant half cup of sugar – I tend to like tart jam – and I grated a teaspoon of fresh ginger. This was enough to add a little brightness but not overpower the peaches. I also like a runny jam; if you’d like it to be thicker you could add some pectin or cook it down longer – this was on a medium burner for about 40 minutes.

Note to self: wear closed shoes next time. The jam bubbles as it thickens and it’s hot when it lands on your toes. Probably wouldn’t hurt to have a wet dishcloth at hand for the splorps that escape onto the stove and counter even when you’re trying to be careful with the lid.

To check for doneness, I put a metal tablespoon in the freezer until it was cold, and I called it done when a spoonful of jam poured onto the tablespoon dripped off rather than pouring.

I processed these jars for 10 minutes in boiling water, and am looking forward to some fresh bread toasted with this jam. It might also turn into the filling between cake layers. Hmmm…

This batch of Seitan was a plain gluten and water mixture, simmered in chicken-style flavorings of sage and thyme. Unfortunately I found out what happens when you allow seitan to boil – this batch came out much tougher than the earlier batch we’d made.

The sweet chile sauce was an experiment – mix a couple teaspoons of honey or other sweetener with a teaspoon of chile paste (we used the sambal paste here), a teaspoon of oil, and a chopped clove of garlic. That was still a bit too sweet for our taste, so I added some chopped ginger (later in the week we also added some bok choy). Fry these all together until the honey bubbles, and add some sliced seitan. The same sauce works well for chicken too.

I’d had this sambal when I lived in BC, and found it less fiery than the Sriracha sauce. I tend to forget that this difference is trivial for the rest of the crew here that likes spice but not fire, so my ‘oh, you’ve gotta try this!’ resulted in a number of spectacular dives for the soy milk and yogurt. The consensus was that it was a really tasty chile sauce – in a somewhat smaller quantity.

This dish made up another easy-to-prepare lunch. I’d never popped mustard seeds in a pan before – but I’d caught the Alternative Vegan podcast by Dino* where he emphasized adding the mustard seeds to hot oil to pop and release their full flavor, and thought I’d try it.

I added a half an onion, a large clove of garlic, both chopped, and sauteed those until the onions were soft. Then I added the lentils from the freezer.

Since this is just me eating it, I drizzled a couple good spoonfuls of sambal over the top, and a couple dollops of greek yogurt. If it’s too garlicky (if there is such a thing), well, my officemate is off tomorrow and I have no meetings.

* Lots of good information packed in these podcasts – go listen.

Lots of bits and pieces of projects today. Black beans on to soak, bread baking for the Lindas in our office, seitan on to boil for later. I’ll make a savory lentil thing with the lentils in the freezer, and maybe something in the spicy black beans and rice spectrum later in the week.

Terrific roadtrip yesterday. We drove down to Asheville – it’s just about an hour there – and stopped at Kim’s Oriental Foods & Gifts to stock up. I was tickled to find the green curry paste I’d first been introduced to when I lived in Victoria, BC. We also got a bit of sambal (that’s going on the seitan and on the guys’ chicken tonight), cardamom, star anise, red curry paste, and…well, here’s a picture:

We also wandered around downtown Asheville (sometime I’m going to have to spend a full weekend there) and window-shopped. I was quite amused by the disclaimer at the front counter of Chevron Beads – essentially a warning to all that enter that you can get hooked on beads and will from then on have beads all over the house. Millie, the éminence grise (er, jaune; she’s a yellow lab), wandered out to inspect, and Rosie, the store cat, allowed herself to be petted on her couch.

A highlight of the afternoon was a stop in the French Broad Chocolate Lounge. We sampled a few of their truffles – check out their amazing assortment – as well as their drinkable liquid chai truffle and a chocolate frappe. The French press coffee was just the touch to finish off a lovely afternoon.

Lentils are fabulously quick, so this was another pick for brown bagging.  These are plain green lentils, though red lentils would substitute just fine.

To start, rinse the lentils a few times and pick through to make sure there aren’t any rocks. I use the very scientific measurement of a cup of lentils and then water up to the first knuckle on my index finger.

Bring them to a boil:

When they reach a good boil, cover the pot, turn down the heat to very low, and simmer them until they absorb the water and are soft to the bite.

At this point, I let it cool a bit and then put half in the freezer and half in the refrigerator.

To make the curried lentils, we’ll need the lentils (that’s half of the one cup dry we started with) and

1/2 a small onion chopped
chopped ginger to taste (this is about a tablespoonful)
1 clove of garlic, chopped
carrots, chopped  (these tiny ones are from the carrot patch we should have thinned last month)
2-3 tablespoons coconut milk (We had some leftover coconut milk in the freezer – it keeps quite well this way if you don’t use all of a can.)
1 teaspoon green curry paste (ok, here, a generous knifetipful)

Saute the onions and carrots til the onions are a bit transparent, then add the garlic, curry paste, and ginger, and then the rest of the ingredients to the saucepan.

Bring this to a boil, and it’s ready to eat.