Za’atar

I have read much about the spice Za’atar, the Middle Eastern spice, but I’d never been able to find it, or find out what was in it until recently. I don’t remember exactly where I got this recipe, but ever since, I’ve been putting it on everything.

Za’atar

1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
4 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried garlic
1/2 tsp coarse salt

Curry Craze-Part 3

I love lentils. They are my absolute favorite legume. I think it has something to do with a quick turn around time. But, I also love the shape, and especially the texture. Regular brown lentils are my favorite, with red lentils coming in close second. My cousin passed this recipe on to me this past winter. I’ve adjusted it a bit to my taste. I could eat it all day.

Indian Spiced Red Lentils

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
pinch of salt, dash of pepper
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger, or more!!
2 tsp Garam masala
3 cups water
1 1/2 cup red lentils, sorted and rinsed
1 can coconut milk
one bunch of cilantro
4 chopped tomatoes

Cook the onion in the oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger and Garam Masala. Stir and cook for about 30 seconds, until fragrant. Stir in water, lentils and coconut milk. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer, covered for 20 minutes. Remove lid, and cook until lentils lose form and become mushy, about 10 minutes more. Serve over rice, if desired, with fresh cilantro leaves and spoonfuls of chopped tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Curry Craze-Part 2

Curry Ketchup just wasn’t enough to sooth my palate. Here’s a recipe that I love…though my kids, not so much. I’ve had a lot of squash soup lately. My neighbor makes a great Hokaido soup with fresh ginger. Yum! Here in this recipe, I think the apples add just enough tang to keep the soup interesting. And the curry? Can you ever have enough? (The recipe can be easily doubled.)

Squash and Apple Soup

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Large onion, diced
1-2 Tbsp curry powder
1 large butternut squash, or other baking squash
2-3 sweet apples
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste
1 cup apple juice or cider

Heat oil in a large stock pot. Add onions and curry and cook uncovered for 15-20 minutes, until onions are tender and curry is fragrant. Stir frequently. Meanwhile, peel the squash, remove the seeds, and dice into chunks. Peel and seed the apples and slice into chunks, too. Add squash, apples, salt, pepper about 2 cups water to the pot with the onions. Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes, until squash is tender. Process though a food mill or in a blender. Pour back into the pot, add the apple juice. Since I rarely have juice on hand for drinking, I like to use the 100% juice boxes when cooking. They are the perfect size (+/-) and I don’t have any leftovers. Add additional water to adjust consistency. Season to taste, garnish with extra curry powder. Enjoy!

Curry Craze part 1

For the past two weeks, I just can’t seem to get enough spice in my life! For me that means a serious bout with a curry craze. Believe it or not, this is a huge departure from my childhood tastes. I hated curry, especially the traditional yellow curry you can buy in a powder at the grocery store. Just the smell reminded me of sweaty t-shirts. We usually didn’t eat yellow curry powder at home. I tried to avoid it while going out. Alas, the aversion continued as I was exposed to ‘curry-rice’ served in a Japanese school cafeteria, and later to curry flavored food at a Saudi Arabian feast. And Indian food? Gag me with at spoon! I had a very hard time. That’s why it is so crazy for me to actually want that same kind of curry flavor now. My taste buds must be dying.

Here in Germany they have all different kinds of ketchup. None of them, even the ‘regular’ ketchup, tastes like ketchup in the US. The ketchup here is much sweeter. (I like mine to sting with vinegary goodness, more tart than sweet.) Anyway, they have something called Curry Ketchup. According to the ingredients on the back of the bottle, it’s no more than regular ketchup mixed with curry powder. And what better to have with your curry ketchup than a good ol’ German sausage. Voilá! Curry-wurst is born. The Germans sprinkle extra curry powder on as garnish. Last week I had to buy my own bottle of Curry Ketchup. I’ve been putting it on all sorts of things. I can’t stop. Once I get back to the US, I’ll have to concoct my own Curry Ketchup. Here’s a guesstimate of how to make your own:

1 cup regular ketchup
1 tablespoon curry powder

Mix together. Put on anything you fancy. Store in the refrigerator. Add more or less curry powder depending on your personal tolerance for t-shirt smell. Depending on what kind of ketchup you use, it can be organic, veg, vegan, gluten free, etc. Just use what you normally do!

Powdered Sugar Cookies

I got this recipe from the wife of our branch president when we were in college. It’s actually an altered drop cookie recipe. By adding more flour, you can make the dough firm enough to roll, which is what I always do. We eat them plain at our house, but they are perfect for a royal icing. They taste like shortbread. To make drop cookies, just reduce the flour by one cup or so.

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
2 cups butter (ha ha)
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
5 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix the first 4 ingredients until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, and then vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients together. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Mix until dough is uniform. It will be soft. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight until ready to roll/cut. I usually divide the dough into 3 parts and freeze two portions wrapped in parchment paper.

To make the cookies, roll the dough to desired thickness on a well floured surface. Cut using cutters, or simply make squares, rectangles or circles by pinching off pieces and rolling into 1-inch balls and flattening to about 2 inches. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350ºF for 8-12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Shao Mai

This is something we grew up eating on Christmas Eve every year. It’s really a Chinese dumpling, but somehow we ate it along with the other Thai food we shared with friends on that day. A bamboo steamer is traditional, but a stainless steel one works just fine.

Ingredients
1/2 cup chopped onions
1 lb ground pork or turkey
1 can small water chestnuts, drained and diced
1 egg
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
pepper to taste (don’t eat raw meat, so really, pepper to sight)
wonton wraps

Mix all things together in a large glass or metal bowl except wonton wraps. Spoon mixture into wontons and shape into dumplings, sort of like an open tulip. Garnish with shredded or diced carrot pieces. (Optional) Place in a steamer. Don’t over crowd or they will stick together. Steam for at least 20 minutes or until inside is cooked through. (Test one). Serve with dipping sauce. Serve warm. Makes about two dozen, depending on how big you make them.

Dipping Sauce Ingredients (***The best part, but I am totally making up the amounts. I have no idea how much of each liquid to use. I just keep mixing things like a chemist until I like the taste.)

1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp water
1-2 tbsp vinegar
1/2 inch crushed fresh ginger root
1-2 crushed garlic cloves
1 thinly sliced green onion (including green part)

Whole Wheat Bread

So I’ve been busy with my new toy, the KoMo Fidibus mill. I love it. It is fantastic. Everything I make with the flour that comes out of it has turned out better than I expected. I’ve never had such great flour.

A few years ago I got a recipe for whole wheat bread. The recipe calls for using a large Bosch-type dough mixer, which I don’t have. The mixer I had when I got the recipe wouldn’t hold all of the dough at once, so I halved the recipe.  Now that I don’t have the machine, I can use the original recipe amount, but I had to do a little adjusting and mix it by hand. And guess what??  The bread turned out better than it ever had before now. The loaf is dense, chewy and has a great crumb, not at all crumbly and dry. This recipe will make four loaves, but I can only fit three bread pans into my little German oven, so I made just made three big loaves instead of four, following the same amounts. Using molasses gives the bread a darker color.

Ingredients

5 Cups warm water
3 Tablespoons yeast
1/2 cup oil
1 Tablespoon salt
1/4 cup gluten flour
2 Tablespoons dough enhancer
1/2 cup honey, syrup or molasses
1 Tablespoon lemon juice (half a lemon)
12-14 cups freshly ground whole wheat flour

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Oil or grease 3-4 bread pans. Set aside.
Mix all the ingredients except the flour in a large bowl until well combined.
Add 12 cups of flour all at once and stir with a wooden spoon. Add additional flour and knead until dough forms a tight ball. Knead for 5-7 minutes. Divide dough equally among pans. Brush top with oil or butter and let rise until double. Turn down oven to 350ºF. Bake for 30-35 minutes until deep golden brown, and loaf sounds hollow when tapped (longer for larger loaves). I check mine with a long metal skewer. You can feel the density difference if it’s not cooked through.  Remove from pans and let cool on a wire rack. Wrap and freeze for future use.

Turnip soup

Turnips are a root vegetable similar in flavor to a radish.  You can eat them raw, but I prefer to make soup out of them. I found a great recipe for it in the Vegetarian Times magazine, but of course, here is my version.

Ingredients

6-7 medium sized turnips, peeled, and diced (or big ones, more or less, as you choose or are available)
1 large onion
2 tbsp oil
water
2-3 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and turnips and cook until tender, about 15 minutes. I like to cook until the onions are golden brown and caramelized.  It’s important to make sure the turnips are soft, because if you don’t cook them long enough, your soup may end up bitter.  Once the onions and turnips are soft, add water to cover, 2-3 bay leaves and bring to a boil.  Boil about 15 minutes until the turnips break easily with a fork.  Remove the bay leaves. Transfer the soup in batches to a blender or food mill, adding more water as needed for good consistency. Puree until smooth. Return pureed soup to pot. Salt and pepper to taste.  You can add a bit of cream to the soup if you like before serving. This soup freezes well before any cream is added.  Without cream, the soup is vegan, gluten and dairy free.

New Toy

Say Hallo to the KoMo Fidibus Classic: My latest kitchen toy, a grain grinder.

I’ve been doing a lot of research and saving up for a good grain grinder. I actually have a hand grinder of my own already, but it was just too inefficient for my grinding needs. I also have a VitaMix, with the grinding container, but right now, I don’t have a power source equipped to handle the 1500W needed to run the machine. I have a lot of friends with various grinders of different kinds; WonderMill, NutraMIll, etc., all mostly made of a plastic housing with steel inside. I wanted several things when looking for my own:

1. I don’t like a lot of noise. I don’t like to be deafened by the grinder, or any other appliance.
2. Must be Energy efficient. Living overseas, we have to use transformers to convert 220V to 110v for our appliances. The more energy an appliance uses, the bigger and more expensive the transformer needs to be. I don’t like big transformers. They tend to blow the circuits in the house.
3. Must be Efficient at grinding. My hand grinder is great…at building muscles. Not so much at making flour. I figure it takes about 30 minutes of grinding to get about 4 cups of flour by hand. If I need about 8 cups for a bread recipe, then I’d have to work for one hour before even beginning. That’s too long. I have time, but not that much.
4. Easily convertible to Man-Power, either by direct drive belt system, or through a human powered generator, again with a low power draw.

Something else to consider: Storage. Did I want to have to take down my grinder and put it away after each use, or could it be something I wouldn’t mind having on the counter all the time?

Well, the Germans are pretty big about their grain, with all their Müseli and dark bread. I thought it would be easier to find something here at a better price than back in the States. I stumbled across the Fidibus series, and instantly fell in love. Not only was it energy efficient, quiet, quick at grinding and available in 110v, but it was also beautiful. With a power draw of less than 400W, it makes flour from fine to coarse instantaneously. Instead of steel heads, the Fidibus uses ceramic-corundum plates to grind the grain. The hopper holds over 2 pounds of grain, so I don’t have to constantly stop and add more grain, like in the VitaMix. The plates are even self cleaning! I’m in mill heaven.

Olé Mole

Last year I was able to sample something divine. One of the teachers at the boys school made mole, the lovely sauce served with chicken. Unlike other mole I’d tasted before, this one had NO CHOCOLATE. It was heavenly, a blend of peanuts and broth, creamy, spicy. I started craving it. Thus began my quest for a good no-chocolate-mole recipe.

As you may know, actually having a recipe is only 1/2 the battle. You still have follow it to make the food. For me, I think the ratio is even worse, since I routinely ignore recipe instructions. This can lead to disaster, which is what happened to my mole. I found several nice-looking mole recipes. I tried to follow them. Maybe I did follow them as far as ingredients, but erred in the operator department. Needless to say, my mole might as well have had chocolate, because it was dark brown like chocolate, instead of the lovely peanutty color I was hoping for. It tasted horrid. After a few bites, I decided to add some chocolate, because chocolate usually makes things taste better. What a waste of good chocolate! You know something is wrong when not even chocolate will make things better. Eating my mole was much like eating wet ash, which it probably was.

Lots of people say I am a good cook, that everything I make is bound to be good. Well, here’s proof of the contrary. Yet another cooking experiment gone awry. What makes a good cook anyway?? Practice, practice, practice! I’ve tried a lot of things and tossed a lot of things. Sometimes my family loves the food I make. Sometimes they won’t eat it, though they are hungry. The important thing is that there is food on the table. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes are just lessons learned. I have yet to attempt mole again, but I’m sure I’ll get back to it someday soon.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.”
-W. C. Fields quotes