Portabello Steaks and Minted Almond Quinoa

As vegetarians, most of our meals are essentially a single dish, possibly with salad on the side, a piece of bread, what have you. Alright, so this isn't really that different, but part of the fun of having a big portabello cap is that it reminds us of the meat-centric meals of our youth; that and, of course, the deliciousness. I think we'd gotten a bit off track with portabellos that last few times that we made them by over marinating them. This is great for grilling, but tends to sog them out when searing them in a pan. This time I only added about a teaspoon of good soy sauce to each while they were cooking (gill side up). They came our rich and meaty; moist without juices running everywhere.

The quinoa dish is essentially a variation on tabbouleh. Julie is excited by quinoa's super food reputation and keen to try new recipes. We made some minor variations to this one from Vegetarian times. I was worried that, on its own, the quinoa might mush out, but the pan roasting seems to have prevented that. In any case, it's a really pleasing and nutty salad.

1 cup quinoa

2 cups water

pinch salt

1/2 cup almonds, toasted and roughly chopped

1/3 cup diced baked tofu (optional)

1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped

2-3 tablespoons mint, finely chopped

3 tablespoons ev olive oil

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Rinse the quinoa and drain thoroughly through a fine mesh strainer (if using boxed quinoa you can probably skip this step). Add to a small sauce pan over medium heat until it dries and then becomes golden and fragrant. Add the water and salt. Cover, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, until all the water is absorbed. Fluff the quinoa, transfer to a medium large bowl and allow to cool slightly. Add the almonds, tofu (if using), parsley and mint and toss throughly. Whisk together the olive oil and lemon juice and pour it over the top of the quinoa mixture, tossing to distribute thoroughly. Taste for seasoning and add additional salt and pepper as desired. Serve at room temperature.

Amaretto Raisin Swirl Ice Cream

I'm generally suspicious of recipes produced by the American Stuffnstuff Promotion council. The last one of these that Julie tried was some sort of chocolate sauerkraut cake, conceived by the National Sauerkraut Alliance (or something), that she inflicted on sweetly shared with her colleagues at work. The best thing that could be said about this cake was that some people didn't think it tasted too strongly of sauerkraut. So when she brought home a calendar of recipes from the California Raisin Marketing Board, let's say I was dubious and did a certain amount of reflexive eye-rolling. But I'm here to repent and atone and prostrate myself at the feet of the raisin marketing gods, because they gave us the recipe for some incredibly tasty ice cream. Hopefully, with this ringing endorsement, they will forgive me my earlier skepticism and also forgive me for having been out of raisins and having substituted dried currants (which, it turns out, actually are a kind of raisin and not a currant at all, so they probably won't mind).



The recipe can be found here, and the ice cream is some of the creamiest I've made in a long time, and also one of the easiest to make because it doesn't require you to make a custard. In fact, I was able to make the whole thing in one evening. It's a really incredible combination of fruit, spice and cream. The amaretto doesn't really come across as a distinct flavor, but you can tell that it makes everything richer and deeper.

I promise to be more trusting of my raisin overlords in the future.

Mushroom Stroganoff with Spinach

This is one of the first dishes that I more or less figured out on my own and knew that I had an actual keeper; not a "well that wasn't too bad, I think I'll keep making that in the hopes that it will get better", but a "wow, that was good and other people say so too!" I even started making it back when I was vegan and using tofu sour cream (a fine product; I recommend it if you're non-dairy). It's almost healthy enough here to be an everyday meal, though we normally save it for a special occasion. We added some yellow pepper, which was fine but superfluous, and some frozen spinach (frozen cause, you know, it f***in' snowed this morning). I didn't mind the spinach, but Julie found it overpowering, so maybe skip it or wait until things actually grow. The basic recipe is very simple and can be easily modified to suit your tastes and inspirations.

In a large skillet, over medium heat, saute one diced onion in a mixture of butter and olive oil until translucent. Add two or three cloves of garlic, diced and cook until they begin to color, then add two to three cups sliced mushrooms. The type of mushrooms is up to you, but more flavorful is better. I would recommend a mix of brown mushrooms. Turn the heat up slightly and add more oil if necessary to allow the mushrooms to brown. Once the mushrooms have seared, add 1 tablespoon soy sauce and cook until absorbed. Add approximately 1/4 cup red wine and reduce slightly, then add 8 oz sour cream and stir until the sauce comes together. Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper (I would be slightly aggressive with the pepper here). If you are adding spinach, I would do so at this point and just allow it to wilt. Serve over egg noodles or the pasta of your choice.

Bun

One of my favorite meals EVER is Vietnamese noodle salad, bún or bun (and it's twin sibling: spring rolls). A bed of lettuce is put down, followed by fresh herbs, sweet or crunchy vegetables (carrot, daikon, cucumbers, bean sprouts) and meat, or in our case tofu or gluten. By now we've got the hang of prepping it in record time and can get extra fancy with the toppings.

Bun is often the reason we sit on the couch 30 minutes later, moaning in agony, our stomachs ready to burst because we could not stop eating until the entire plate was clean. I don't care. I love bun.

We use a base of lettuce (any kind, any amount...but we use a plateful), topped with rice vermicelli noodles, a hearty handful of shredded carrot and herbs (usually basil and mint, although I also like cilantro). Then it's a free for all, based on whats in the pantry or fridge--cucumbers, tofu, gluten, scallions, sesame seeds, radishes, daikon, arugula, etc. Here we have baked tofu, carrot, sesame seeds, basil and cilantro. Traditionally it would be dressed with fish sauce, but we used hoisin and a lime vinaigrette.

Ugh, I could eat this every day.......YUM!!!!!

Raspberry Brownies

Sometimes the internet is a wonderful thing. All you have to do is make a reasonable supposition that something exists and lo and behold it will. The other week I though to myself, "You know what would probably be tasty, raspberry brownies." I then went about proving that such things existed. You do need some pre-existing knowledge to help separate the wheat from the chaff, though. The first recipe I looked at looked promising at first, but on closer inspection looked to be one of those horrible cake-y approached to brownies. (I know that reasonable people can disagree here, but for me brownies are meant to be dense, tender fudgey morsels of head-melting chocolateness. Eating brownies from a box mix means that I am sad and/or will eat whatever's in front of me, despite its strong resemblance to styrofoam topped with chocolate syrup.) So I kept looking, and eventually settled on a combination of this fine recipe and this one. Below is my version.

Over a low flame or in the microwave, melt 8oz (2 sticks) butter and 6oz unsweetened chocolate, then allow to cool slightly. Mix in 2 cups sugar, then beat in four eggs, one at a time. Add a pinch of salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 2 tablespoons raspberry liqueur (we used our homemade stuff, Chambord is the most common commercial one), and stir to combine. Sift in 1.5 cups flour and stir until just combined. Fold in 1/2 cup pecans.
Put 3/4 cup raspberry jam in a sauce pan with another tablespoon of the raspberry liqueur and heat until just softened. Pour 2/3 of the brownie batter into a grease 9" x 13" pan. Spread the melted jam gently over the top, then cover with the remaining third of the batter.
Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes, until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out with maybe some crumbs but no batter (do not over bake you brownies, they will be sad).

Ginger Butternut Squash Lasagna (or when ice cream goes bad and then goes good again)

They always say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It's good when, as I said, you know your way around a recipe well enough to jump in and vary it up. On the other hand this also lets you jump in and realize that the pool was far shallower than you thought that it was, and your ankles are now perhaps sprained and broken.

Half and half was on sale this last week and so was ginger, so I had an idea to make some ginger ice cream. I looked online at a few recipes and thought that I understood the basic principles. Several steeped shredded ginger in milk, then made custard and then added cream. So I figured I would just use the half and half and skip the step of adding cream later. I brought the half and half, sugar and shredded ginger (maybe a bit more ginger than the recipes called for, but I wanted it gingery) together to a simmer. It didn't look quite right, but I decided to turn off the heat and take a look at it after it'd had a chance to steep. As it turned out the acid from the ginger had curdled the half and half (it had also probably come to too much of a boil), but I wasn't sure how much so I left it to strain through a tea towel. As it turned out, it was pretty thoroughly curdled. The whey was nearly clear and I essentially had sweetened gingery ricotta.

What to do, what to do. Ice cream was out. A dessert seemed obvious, but I've never liked ricotta cheesecake and cannoli seemed more trouble than it was worth. Hmm, how about a sweet savory dish? I knew that there were some Italian dishes that used ground up amaretti cookies along with ricotta. Maybe my ginger sweet ricotta could substitute for those. After much googling I came upon this recipe. And so this initially confusing but ultimately delicious dish was born.



It's a fabulous dish for fall or winter. Rich and sweet but very satisfying.

Here's my modified version:
1 onion diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium(1 1/2 to 2-pound) butternut squash
16 oz gingered sweet ricotta
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 1/2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup (lightly packed) fresh basil leaves
12 lasagna noodles
1 1/2 cups shredded whole-milk mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Saute the onion in the oil over medium low heat, until caramelized. Halve and seed the squash, then bake in a 375˚ oven for 45 minutes, until soft. Scrape the flesh into the bowl of a food processor and add the onion and the gingered ricotta (if you don't happen to have an ice cream mishap, use 16oz whole milk ricotta, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon grated ginger). Process until completely smooth.

Boil the lagsagna sheets until al dente. Melt the butter in a sauce pan and sift in the flour. Whisking constantly, bring the roux to blond-brown and then add the milk. Still whisking bring the sauce to a boil and thicken it. Combine in a blender or food processor with the basil, salt and pepper.

Assemble the lasagna: sauce, noodles, filling, cheese, repeat (at the end you should have three layers of filling and four of noodles). After puting the last of the sauce on the top layer of noodles, cover it with foil and bake at 375˚ for 40 minutes. Remove the foil, top with parmesean and bake 15 minutes more. Remove, cool for ten minutes, slice and eat!

Asparagus Mushroom Risotto

You know that you've made a dish enough times to feel feel comfortable with the basic procedure when you can pick the ingredient variations and just head on in. I think I've finally reached that point with risotto. Not that I don't make mistakes or some aren't better than others, but I basically know what I'm doing.

There was some great looking Mexican asparagus in the grocery stores last week, and we decided that it needed to come home with us. We also had some mushrooms that needed using, and Julie made a strong pitch for using them here. I was dubious, but went along.

I put a pot of stock on to simmer and dropped the woody end of the asparagus in to add to the mix. I browned a diced onion and sliced mushrooms in a mix of butter and olive oil and then added 2/3 cup of arborio rice. Once the rice was glossy I added the first ladle full of stock. The secret to making risotto is adding the stock a little at a time and stirring gently but almost constantly. When rice was just getting toothy, I added the 1/2 inch pieces of asparagus, so that when the rice was finished (you want a starchy sauce, but the rice should still be firm) it would be tender but firm. When it reached this stage, I added a pat of butter and the 1/2 cup parmesan that Julie had shredded for me and stirred them in. It's best right away, so we ate it here with a simple salad.

As for me, I wouldn't combine the strong mushrooms with the subtle asparagus again, but Julie liked it fine. Now we just have to wait for spring and beauty of local asparagus to try it again.

Black Forest Cheesecake for Angie

For Christmas this year, Angie got a homemade cheesecake each month for four months, in the flavor of her choice. This is the third cake, and I used this recipe, but with substitutions (of course! Do I ever make a recipe without tweaking it?). I used a store-bought chocolate wafer crust and used only 2 packages of cream cheese. Also, instead of the nasty canned cherry pie filling, I used tart cherry jam that we made last year. I also topped it with chopped white and dark chocolate. The cake itself was dense and fudgy, but it definately needed the cherry and chocolate topping to break up the overwhelming flavor. Thumbs up. By far the best of the three cheesecakes I've made for her so far.