Smells like Fall at our House

The squirrels are still enjoying the acorn buffet in our front yard. 

Besides squirrel watching, John and I have been up to a few other things around London.

We went to our first London Knights hockey game, and we sat  almost high enough to see the Northern Lights (j/k, it just felt scary while we were climbing to our seats). Before the elementary school kids sang the national anthem, they announced that Wayne Gretzky's dad, "THE FATHER OF THE GREAT ONE!" was in attendance. John and I watched the Knights beat the crap out of the Plymouth Whalers while we ate too much pop corn and cherry slushees. 

Our friend's daughter turned two, and we all celebrated with a potluck. John and I brought chocolate zucchini muffins (more on those in a minute), and a small collection of children's books we bought at Goodwill. The birthday girl is really into books - when they come over to our house, she always shows me her new books, and she looks at the two we happen to have (in French and German - we are nerds). 

The chocolate zucchini muffins are oil free, from Oh She Glows.

They are unbelievably moist and taste more like cupcakes than muffins. You can't even find a strand of zucchini in them! I love these muffins. They are a dream come true. Several people asked me for the recipe. 

All the leaves have peaked, I think. John and I stared at them from our bedroom window, since we both spent almost all of last week sick in bed. We watched about 6 seasons of the Office, and John watched Lawrence of Arabia on his own, while I graded assignments and midterms. 

Before we got sick, we had some squash! 

No recipe here, just roasted halves of acorn squash, filled with caramelized onions, lentils, and thyme with a little olive oil. I think adding goat cheese and/or mushrooms would crank these up a notch.

We also made this loaf, which may be the main dish at our American Thanksgiving dinner this year:

Glazed Lentil Walnut Apple Loaf, also from Oh She Glows. We made a loaf once before, but this one was hands down better. It held together so well that we could take it out of the pan and slice it for left overs. Even better, the glaze is amazing. We made a second batch of it to add to the left over pieces and I wanted to lick the leftover spots off my plate. It would be a great vegan entree for any holiday meal (or any other fall dinner).

These are the final harvest from my tomato plant:

It produced about 1 tomato per month for June and July, and then it went crazy near the end of August. Unfortunately (for the plant), we've had a very wet and cold September and October, so these toms didn't get enough sunlight and warmth to ripen on the vine. When I told my mom, she offered two suggestions: 

1) Cellar them in newspaper and they will very slowly ripen. Apparently my Grandma Madge does this. My priest seconded this recommendation and said she does the same thing with a paper bag for her tomatoes. I feel like my mom is full of random gardening advice that I didn't know she had. I need to get some more advice from her next year, as I plan to expand the tomato plant to 2-3 tomato plants, including one cherry or grape tomato plant. 

2) She also told me to just slice the green ones and fry them, and have fried green tomatoes. I'm not from a big city, and I often feel like a country mouse compared to my friends and relatives in places like Chicago and Toronto, but seriously - I did not know that unripe tomatoes and "green" tomatoes were the same thing. I thought it was some special variety of tomato that never got red! Color me ignorant. 

So we've fried a few and cellared the rest.

These were part of a recreation of the Amazing BLT from the FARM cookbook we made earlier in the summer. We used almost all the same ingredients, except the basil, and made BLTs with these fried dudes and some fake bacon (fakon). Their batter is simple - flour, egg, cornmeal with seasonings. They're best with some chicken seasoning. and a pretty fun fried appetizer all on their own. 

Other upcoming highlights this fall: the Halloween Haunting 10k/5k, then we're off to NOLA for the AMS/SEM/SMT Triumvirate.  It's hard to believe we're already at the end of October!

Avocado Zucchini Pasta and Blueberry Muffins

Ah, the end of the summer.

I know in the last post I went on about how summer was over, but this time I really mean it.

(Note: this is not our dog. This is a random beach dog.)

Summer is really ending. John and I went to Lake Huron for Labor Day, and everything. We decided to go to Ipperwash Beach, the site of a WWII army base that now features a dog friendly beach with free parking! Everywhere on Lake Huron takes about the same amount of time to get to, and the beach itself was lovely, so we will definitely return.

John and I completely forgot to bring our beach chairs or umbrella, so we sat in the shade beneath some beach vegetation until the sun moved too far to the west. It was still a relaxing and beautiful afternoon. I love Lake Huron. 

Tonight, John and I had what I'd like to call the Last Summer Dinner of the Year. We made two summery recipes that came up on my feed reader this week.
First: Julienned Zucchini Pasta with Avocado Sauce, from Oh She Glows.

(Also featured: random counter items, including the Centennial IPA from Founders that John and I shared while preparing dinner, in a new-to-us Apricot Brandy glass from Talize, part of a mixed group of glasses I bought for a grand total of $2.) 

Angela, who writes Oh She Glows, posted that she bought a julienne peeler. It's like a regular peeler, but with teeth. It easily juliennes things like squash, cucumbers, and carrots. You could use it for salad toppings, but, like Angela, I saw it and thought of veggie "pasta." A spiralizer would do the same thing, but the peeler is much cheaper ($7 for the peeler, vs. $25 for the spiralizer). I took her suggestion and made the easy avocado pasta sauce (avocado + basil + oil + garlic in the food processor) for this raw zucchini pasta, and it was a total success. We each ate an entire zucchini for dinner, along with half an avocado each. Lots of raw vegetables in this meal! 

 I think you could easily heat this very briefly in a pan and top it with basically any pasta sauce. It's perfect for the end of the summer when zucchini is still plentiful.

Since our pasta was really squash, we decided to have "pasta" with a side of carbs, in the form of these Blueberry Corn Muffins from Daily Garnish. These muffins only have a 1/4 cup of sugar and not much oil. Instead, they get moisture and sweetness from the blueberries and corn. I ate three and could have kept going, if it weren't for all that common sense I have.


Now that it's September and there are only a few hours of Labor left, I really am excited for fall! One more post about summer running, once I get around to writing it. After that, I'll start blogging about pumpkin scones, or the 100 sweet potatoes I plan on eating this month, or how cheap acorn squash is. You know, whatever's par for September.

FARMFood

When we went to Memphis in June, John's mom gave me a cookbook she'd recently bought. It's by Daniel Orr, the chef who owns FARM, a very popular, upscale restaurant in Bloomington that focuses on local ingredients. Though FARM is highly regarded, I somehow have yet to make it there. So I was excited when Julie offered the cookbook to me and John to take home.

 

So far we've made a few of the recipes, and I thought I would share some thoughts here. 

 Let's start with the bad: 

- The layout is strange. For instance: we wanted to make a veggie pizza. The recipe for the dough was on the same page as the toppings, so that works well. But the suggested sauce is a hummus recipe from the "Snacks" section - flip back about 10 pages. To make the hummus, you need a spice blend from the "Spice Blend" section - flip back another 20 or so pages. That much flipping to make a pizza is a little annoying, but I get it - he just wanted to print each recipe once. And he's adamant that you can sub anything you like for the recipes. 

I'll also say that this book is not for beginners. The ingredients can get slightly difficult to find (unless you have Bulk Barn, of course), and they can also be a bit complicated. While we loved the pizza we made, it took a LONG TIME to make, in order to let the dough rise, to make the hummus, to let the dough rise again, to grill the veggies, etc. It's kind involved for pizza. But it was damn tasty.

Speaking of exotic ingredients: one other complaint, and then I'll stop being a Negative Nancy: the chef suggests subbing anything you'd like for any of the recipes, and I believe in the intro he stresses that these recipes should be accessible. Ok, so far so good. But the very first recipe in the book is for Cattail Pollen Muffins. Oh yes, just stroll down to the local pond and pull the pollen out of some cattails! 

It doesn't exactly sound hard, but it's a little specific. And what do you sub for cattail pollen? Honey? Nothing? I have no idea. In fairness, if you do live within reach of pond (and I'd venture that almost everyone in Bloomington does), then this would very simple to make. But I found it a bit off-putting.

The good: 

Generally, I feel like it's an amazing book. The photos are beautiful, it's well written, and there are tons of options for veg people and omnivores alike. We've made some fabulous food with this book, and I'm looking forward to trying more of the recipes.

Let's look at some examples.

Here's the hummas recipe we used for the pizza.

This hummus has a TON of ingredients before you even make the spice blend, but we suffered through. It was fun to make hummus with white beans, instead of chick peas, and it's extremely flavorful. Making the spice blend took some time, and truly, we didn't do it right because we don't have a spice grinder (or coffee grinder that's designated for spices). John and I agree that it's not our favorite hummus to eat by itself, like we normally eat it. But it's a good base for the pizza. It also made me want to try making a simpler hummus with white beans, garlic, and rosemary.

Here's the pizza itself: hummas, grilled eggplant, grilled zucchini and red peppers, tomato, and kalamata olives.

The dough recipe was excellent and made enough for two nights of this fabulous pizza. It would go perfectly with a spicy red wine, like a Shiraz. I'd say the crust was the tastiest part, and that's how I like my pizza to be. You can get away with a lot if you have a good crust.

Next, we made a much simpler recipe: the BLT. For this, we used tempeh bacon, nicknamed faux-bacon,  "facon," "fakin,' etc. We bought special heirloom tomatoes for this sandwich, since tomatoes are sort of the main event, and then took a bunch of pictures of them, because we're weird.

I love heirloom tomatoes. They're so funky looking, and so flavorful.

Here's the sandwich in its finished form:
grainy bread, tomato, avocado, herbed mayo (we chopped some basil and garlic for the mayo), tempeh bacon (amazing!), basil leaves, lettuce, and goat cheese. This is a life changing sandwich.

Seriously, I would eat this all the time if possible. Tempeh bacon is one of the better faux-meats I've had, and I can't wait to make this again. Heaven!

All in all, we like the FARMFood book, and we'll keep using it. I'm interested in trying some of the brunch recipes, since FARM is known for an outstanding brunch.

Summer Foods, 2012

Since this used to pass for a poor man's excuse for a food blog, I thought I'd post a few recipes that we've enjoyed this summer.

First up: Caprese Salad. 

We didn't use a recipe for these, so I'll talk you through what happened.
I thinly sliced two large tomatoes, and a big ball of mozzarella. We actually had 4 tomatoes total, and I wanted to make the mozz go a little further. So I mixed up a couple big hunks of goat cheese with the juice of half a lemon, and the leaves from about 3 sprigs of our lemon basil plant. Lemon basil is amazing! It has a sweet, lemony taste and aroma, and it went perfectly with these. After that was mixed up, I spread it on every-other tomato, so the stack alternates: tomato, basil, mozzarella, tomato with goat cheese spread, larger regular basil leaf, and then I started the process again. The mozzarella ball was definitely enough for each of these stacks, and the goat cheese added a little flavor. We each ate two, and we also made some herbed dropped biscuits.


Next: Chocolate Chia Pudding with Peanut Butter Crunch Balls.

I've been using a recipe from Hell Yeah It's Vegan for the basic chocolate pudding recipe. It's just chia seeds, cocoa powder, almond milk, sweetener, and vanilla. It's ready in 30 minutes, though it's also good if you let it set a bit longer. We had this for dessert after sushi night, and I love to serve it in these Japanese rice bowls my mom gave me. When I was a kid, she always used the bowls to serve pudding or jello, and it's really a great size bowl for each portion.
After I had the hang of this version, I did a google search for a peanut butter-chocolate version, and I found one here. Then I had the idea to add the peanut butter crunch balls that recently appeared on Oh She Glows, and they are a perfect topping. They're super easy to make, and I just stored the extra ones in the freezer (though they didn't last long!). Chia pudding is my new favorite way to combine omega 3s and 6s with dessert (see a description of chia seeds' nutritional info here).



Next: Gnocchi with Zucchini, Sweet Corn, and Goat Cheese.

The Kitchn's Facebook page shared this last week, and we immediately decided to make it. Everything in it is summery, starchy goodness. Since the goat cheese doesn't come in until the end, it melts and coats everything a light, flavorful sauce. Here's a fun fact: I don't like parsley. Ever. This is only a real (white girl) problem when a recipe calls for it, but we usually sub some other herb. After those caprese salads, we had a lot of basil on hand, so I just julienned it and added it to this, for some more herby flavor. This meal was really easy and will probably show up again on our weekly menu.





This week we decided to make the BBQ Chickpea Burgers, also from Oh She Glows. 

They are only slightly complicated to make, and they are SO GOOD. The carrots and spices give every burger a ton of flavor, and the pumpkin and sunflower seeds add a good texture. We used cilantro instead of parsley, and I used the same bbq sauce from the recipe as a condiment. The recipe for fries in that same post is also a pretty good one, though we had to stop ourselves from finishing what would have been a 1/2 lb. of potatoes...each. The burger recipe made 8 burgers, so we had a lot of leftovers - something John and I both love.



We also recently made: Summer Sweet Corn Tacos, from Vegan Pandamonium.

These are super easy and tasty tacos. We cooked the sweet corn, but it actually calls for raw corn, which would take even less time. Throw the corn in a bowl with a can of beans, some spices, and a chopped tomato, and you're basically done. We made a slightly larger batch of the corn/bean mixture, and had this for a couple nights in a row. It's a great weeknight, summery meal. 

And finally, I improved a simple dessert when I had an INTENSE OMG CRAVING FOR CHOCOLATE RIGHT FREAKING NOW! the other night.
As a joke, someone at our engagement party gave John a box of graham crackers (I should say, a neighborhood inside joke from way before my time), but he doesn't like them anymore. So I've been slowly eating the whole box, spreading each one with peanut butter. Then it occurred to me that I could make a very simple chocolate sauce and pour that on top - because how could that be bad, right? I make this very simple chocolate sauce from time to time and put it on frozen strawberries: about 2 tbs chocolate chips and a couple splashes of almond milk. You melt it with the heat on very low, stirring constantly. If it's too thin, add more chocolate, or turn the heat off and let it sit for a minute or two, and it will thicken up. I spooned that chocolate onto these little graham-pb sandwiches, and then put the whole plate in the freezer for about 30 minutes while John and I watched more of Avatar - the Last Airbender (no spoilers, please! I love that show!). That hardened them up and made the whole thing taste more like an ice cream sandwich - I'd highly recommend them!

Zucchini Bread

One of my adventures last weekend was trip to the Trail's End market, a combination farmers market/antique store/livestock sale/Mennonite furniture shop. It's sprawling, and they sell so many neat things there. The friend who took me likes to go at 3pm, since they close at 4 and a lot of people are trying to get rid of their wares by 3. We got some really good deals on vegetables - so much so that I wasn't sure what to do with everything I brought home.





















I bought this enormous zucchini for 50 cents, and planned to stuff it and bake it (similar to this)
But the I realized I had the perfect zucchini to bake with, since it would easily yield cups and cups when shredded.

After a quick internet search, I found a recipe that suited me (and decided to make a loaf of bread instead of muffins). The author suggests using a cup of canola oil, in place of butter. They seemed to think it tastes less good that way, but both John and I think this bread is delicious. So much so that we both can't stop eating it. I was still left with about a half pound of zucchini after taking the three shredded cups for this recipe.































Not the most elegant picture, I know, but this tastes so much better than it looks.



Zucchini Bread
adapted from Simply Recipes

• 3 cups grated fresh zucchini
• 1 cup canola oil
  
• 1 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• Pinch salt
• 3 cups all-purpose flour (I used two cups all-purpose, 1 cup whole wheat)
  
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). In a large bowl combine the sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the grated zucchini and then the melted butter. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the zucchini mixture and mix in. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Stir these dry ingredients into the zucchini mixture. Stir in walnuts, raisins or cranberries if using.

2. Coat a loaf pan with cooking spray and pour the batter into the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes (depending on the speed of your oven), or until the top and edges are brown and a toothpick comes out clean from the center. Cool on a wire wrack.

*You could add nuts, raisins, etc. to this bread with ease.