Twenty down, 7 to go.

flailing with some bok choy

We continue our way towards the 27 vegetables in one month goal. I think we're going to make it, although I'm starting to run low on ideas. What am I missing here? 


Luke has tasted, if not masticated and/or squashed all of the vegetables here. He isn't really getting the hang of actually consuming them quite yet. Favorites seem to be the cruciferous vegetables- there must be something about the flavor, but he likes gnawing on broccoli, cabbage, and kale. He also loved roasted red pepper, though I can't say the same for the fresh red pepper we gave him this week. 


1. carrot
2. sweet potato
3. avocado
4. kale
5. peas
6. acorn squash
7. celery
8. bell pepper
9. asparagus
10. cucumber
11. brussels sprout 
12. arugula
13. zucchini
14. purple cabbage
15. broccoli
16. artichoke heart
17. spinach
18. bok choy
19. mustard greens
20. green bean


Tonight we're giving him a chunk of beet. I anticipate that he'll be covered in pink beet juice, but we'll see if he actually eats any of it! 

slurping on some broccoli

Cornmeal cookies (what?!)

Nathan and I got to go out on a date this weekend (!), and I wanted to bake a little something for our babysitters (our kind and awesome neighbors who have a baby Luke of their own). I found this recipe for Cornmeal Cookies on shutterbean. They sounded weird, but intriguing, and really easy. 

They were a huge hit! The recipe is basically a shortbread recipe, but with a half cup of cornmeal and a bit more salt. They were light and flaky and the texture of the cornmeal was addictive and unexpected. I ate 4 in one sitting. That's a lot of cookies. 


Cornmeal Cookies
(from shutterbean.com)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Cream butter and sugar, then add the egg and vanilla. Mix in the flour, cornmeal, and salt. Form ~1 inch balls, then roll in a dish of granulated sugar (this gives them a pretty crust when baked), place on the baking sheet and smash (lightly) with the bottom of a drinking glass. Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. 

The original recipe had them decorated with glazed hearts, but I didn't have it in me to painstakingly paint hearts on each cookie, so I went for a graffiti-glaze effect instead, which I think turned out great! I also made my own food coloring which sounds crazy but was really simple. I had fresh beets, so I sliced one small one up (it was about the size of an egg), and boiled it for about 30 minutes. Then, I used my immersion blender to almost puree it, and then reduced the liquid by boiling it for another 10 minutes or so. Finally, I poured the beet puree into a paper coffee filter, which drained into a small glass jar. I added about 1/2 tsp. of vinegar, and that was it! 


The glaze was made from about a cup of powdered sugar, 1/4 tsp of the beet juice food coloring, and about a tablespoon of water (add small drops as needed to make a viscous glaze). 

Preserved Lemons (are awesome!) (Part 2)

I finally made a couple of dishes with my preserved lemons. I'm planning to make a Moroccan tagine with the lemons, but I ran across several easy and tasty-sounding recipes on Eating From the Ground Up and thought I'd try them out. 


Amazing! I am a huge fan! The lemons added incredible and unique flavor to both dishes. 


I made hummus, and roasted garlic and preserved lemon spaghetti tonight. The hummus was wonderful- though it was a bit salty- I think I need to soak the lemons in cold water to extract some of the salt from the preservation process before I toss them into a dish. 


To make the hummus, I chopped the lemons (which were soft, but not slimy, and tasted brine-y and lemony and not at all bitter) and threw them in a food processor with a can of garbanzo beans, about 1/3 cup tahini, two cloves of roasted garlic and a clove of fresh garlic, a healthy dash of cayenne pepper and olive oil. Usually I add a lot of fresh lemon juice to my hummus, but the preserved lemon flavor was MUCH better... more mature in a way? It definitely added a deeper flavor- less tangy and acidic than just lemon juice.


(Please excuse the horrible photos- Nathan's iPhone was with him all day and clearly my photography suffered.) 

The pasta dish was also delicious. I added a heap of pan-roasted broccoli to the recipe (I like to toss dry broccoli florets on a very hot cast iron skillet until they develop dark brown bits- the dark, roasted, cruciferous-vegetable flavor balanced this dish out well!). It was a simple recipe to make- I sauteed a head of roasted garlic with 3/4 of a preserved lemon (finely diced) in butter and olive oil, then added two generous servings of whole wheat spaghetti and the broccoli. Top with a scattering of parmesan cheese, and done!

Incredible! The roasted garlic and lemon somehow combined to become creamy and smooth- neither flavor was overwhelming. I could probably eat just the garlic and lemon combination spread on crackers (mmm, with goat cheese?). Nathan and I loved it- I'll definitely be making it again! 


Have you cooked with preserved lemon? What did you make? Let me know if you try either of these recipes!

Amazing Artichoke Tart and Veggie Update

I'm not a huge fan of polenta. I eat it, but I don't love it. I want to like it- I tend to like warm, starchy, comforting things like pasta and toast and risotto and hot cereal. For some reason, polenta (so far) hasn't really become my thing. But...!


I gave polenta another try this week and discovered a HIT!  I found this recipe on The Wednesday Chef's blog: Artichoke Tart with Polenta Crust. You make a thick polenta, then form it into a crust shape in a tart dish (I used a springform pan), then layer artichoke hearts and goat cheese on the crust, and pour a tangy, herby yogurt mixture over the top, sprinkle with parmesan cheese, and bake. I made a few changes- I didn't use scallions, added about a cup of shredded zucchini to up the vegetable quotient, and used about 1/3 cup sour cream in place of some of the yogurt. 


I highly recommend it! It's a really flexible, healthy, and seemingly fool-proof recipe that looks and tastes fancy! Fresh herbs are key- I used about a tablespoon of fresh rosemary and a large handful of fresh parsley. The polenta is flavorful thanks to the vegetable stock it's cooked in and a generous handful of parmesan cheese in the mixture. The texture is firm and anything but gloopy. The  left-overs were also great for breakfast!

I've been offering Luke his choice of fresh (and cooked) veggies. He's excited about tasting them, but really doesn't consume much. He seems to really like gnawing on fresh cucumber. I'm about halfway through my goal of introducing 27 vegetables in his first month of eating!

The updated list:
1. carrot
2. sweet potato
3. avocado
4. kale
5. peas
6. acorn squash
7. celery
8. bell pepper
9. asparagus
10. cucumber
11. brussels sprout 
12. arugula
13. zucchini


(14 to go!)

Vanilla Extract

When I was in fifth grade, I had a hamster named Vanilla Extract. I named him or her this because I acquired him/her shortly after another hamster (Goldilocks The Second- I went through a lot of hamsters in elementary school) and in order to introduce a second hamster to the first, the pet store advised us to dab vanilla extract on the two animals noses and hindquarters so that they'd smell similarly and not beat each other up. It worked, and the name stuck. 


Vanilla extract has thus been an important part of my life for many years now. I no longer have pet hamsters so the flavoring is solely used as an ingredient in baking in our household--but aren't you glad to know how to keep hamsters from fighting? Useful information.


Vanilla extract! It's expensive stuff! And, unless you buy the fancy, pure, organic stuff, it's also often loaded with strange chemicals like propylene glycol. Why consume a substance that's also used as a de-icer? Vanilla extract from Mexico is also shady- the FDA strongly recommends against consuming most Mexican vanilla extract. 


"Ugh," you say. Hamsters? De-icer? FDA warning?! What are we doing here?


Exactly! Let's make our own vanilla extract! It's much better to know exactly what we're putting in our bodies. And vanilla extract? So easy!


Step 1. Acquire 8-10 fair trade vanilla beans. PCC (in the Seattle Area) or Whole Foods are good sources, but you can also buy them online.

Step 2. Get a bottle of vodka. 

(Enjoy the scent of vanilla bean caviar on your fingers!)

(After 24 hours)

Step 3. Slice the vanilla beans lengthwise and insert into vodka bottle. Shake. Let sit, shaking occasionally, for around a month. Enjoy! 

(After 3 weeks)

I've been using it in place of store-bought vanilla extract and it is great. Every time I use it, though, I find myself pondering what sort of cocktail could be made with it...

"The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry" book review

"The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooking School"

Kathleen Flinn

2007

(image credit: http://kathleenflinn.com/books/sharper/)

I enjoyed this memoir written by journalist Kathleen Flinn. After years working in corporate middle management, she finally gets up the nerve to quit her job, move to Paris, and attend Le Cordon Bleu. The book details the year or so that she spent studying French cuisine- through the Basic classes all the way through the super-competitive Superior course. 

There is a whole genre now of "What I Did in One Year" books out there (followed all the rules in the Old Testament, learned to become happy) and I tend to really enjoy these books. I expected this book to be similar to the wildly popular "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. I was pleasantly surprised to find "The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry" to be mostly free of emotional angst. 

The author moves to Paris to follow her dream of learning how to become a chef--but she doesn't do so because of heartbreak or to get out of an unhappy relationship. She does it for herself and to be true to her passion for cooking. I really appreciated that facet of the book: her motivations were pretty clear and the reader didn't have to follow a roller coaster ride of emotions to get through the book. Kathleen starts her culinary journey at the beginning of a sweet and loving relationship, and ends her studies married to that same kind and supportive man. How refreshing is that? 

I felt like the lack of emotional drama allowed me to just enjoy the story- her experiences at the competitive Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, her foodie adventures in Paris, and cooking in tiny, romantic sounding, French apartments. At the end of the book, Flinn is proud of her culinary skills, madly in love, and pleased to have followed through with something she had been longing to do for years. 

Flinn's writing was not at all pretentious, in direct contrast to the utterly pretentious food that she cooks. Flinn approaches her education at Le Cordon Bleu with enthusiasm, but doesn't ever adopt the snobbishness that often imbues French cuisine.  I'm not at all compelled by French cooking- too stuffy, meat-heavy, and fatty, however, she makes French cuisine approachable and interesting. (Though you won't find me stuffing veal or cooking with foie gras anytime soon!)

I think this book would make a great light read for a foodie or food-loving francophile. It's full of mouth-watering food adventures and glimpses inside the fascinating world of Le Cordon Bleu. It isn't a life-changing book, but it is an enjoyable read and has some inspiring recipes. It was a great way to start off the literary part of my 2012 Food Challenge!

I'll be cooking something based on a recipe in "The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry" sometime in the next week!

27 Vegetables

I recently read an article online about vegetable variety in French and German babies' diets during their first month of feeding. Researchers* compared the diets of French and German infants over the course of 28 days, and found that French babies were exposed to as many as 27 different vegetable varieties during that time period. None of the German babies were given more than 6 vegetables, while 40% of French babies ate between 7-12 different types of vegetables. 

The part I found most interesting was this: The mothers (who were the focus of the study, rather than the fathers) were asked why they chose their particular feeding strategies. The German mothers said they were concerned about food allergies (and exposed their children to just 3 different vegetables on average), where the French mothers mentioned "taste development" and exposed their children to an average of 6 vegetables, on average. 

(asparagus)

Taste development. I can get behind that. I was a pretty picky eater as a child (sorry mom) and didn't discover the joys of things like brussels sprouts, sushi, caramelized onions and kale until my late teens and early 20's. I'd hate for Luke to miss out. 

(thinking about asparagus)

Luke has just started "eating". He doesn't really understand the concept of swallowing and mostly gnaws on chunks of food and smears it on his tray and head. But I believe that tasting, smelling, and squishing foods are important parts of the learning process and exposure to a lot of vegetables, fruits, grains and legumes are crucial to developing an adventurous eater. 

(red bell pepper)

Over the next month, I'm going to try to expose him to as many fruits and vegetables as possible- just to taste and squish- or even swallow if he can figure that out. 


27 vegetables. I think we can do that. 

The list so far:
1. carrot
2. sweet potato
3. avocado (not technically a vegetable, but whatever!)
4. kale
5. peas
6. acorn squash
7. celery
8. bell pepper
9. asparagus


 (18 to go!)

*Source: Maier, A. et al. 2007. “Food-Related Sensory Experience From Birth Through Weaning: Contrasted Patterns in Two Nearby European Regions.” Appetite 49: 429-40.

Okonomiyaki

Yeah, I had no idea what that was, either. Okonomiyaki is a Japanese "pizza" that is a popular street food in Kyoto.

Luke was nursing while I was reading through food blogs (again) and I encountered this post on one of my favorite food blogs, Daily Nibbles. At first glance, a "pizza" made of cabbage and leeks sounded unpleasant at best, but after reading it through a second time it sounded intriguing. Sarah at Daily Nibbles got her recipe from 101 Cookbooks.

It didn't hurt that I'd picked up a "Good Food Box" from Seattle Tilth (more on that particular adventure later!) and it was full of cabbages, leeks, herbs, and potatoes. Perfect! So, okonomiyaki it is!

In what was probably the fastest "read-it-on-a-blog-and-prepare-it-for-dinner" turn-around time, dinner was ready.

It was really easy to make: I shredded about 4 cups of savoy cabbage (local and organic!) and tossed it with about a half cup of finely shredded leek. Then, I added about a cup of whole wheat pastry flour and a dash of salt and tossed everything together. Finally, I added 4 beaten eggs and mixed everything together with tongs.

Pour around a tablespoon of olive oil into a frying pan (I also added a kersplash of toasted sesame oil) and then place around a cup and a half of the mixture in the pan and gently flatten it like a pancake. I cooked each side over medium-low heat for about 4 minutes per side, flipping when the egg mixture set (it seemed like it would be a delicate process but the whole thing flipped quite easily).

We topped it with a dash of cayenne and some chives, and dipped it in soy sauce.

(That's Nathan's homebrewed IPA beer in the background!)

It was weirdly delicious. I'm going through a roasted brussels sprouts phase, and also hugely enjoy oven-roasted broccoli and kale, and this reminded me a lot of it. What is it with browned cruciferous vegetables that make them so darn tasty?

Oh, Farro

Have you tried farro yet?

Oh, gosh. It's SO good.

Farro is an ancient wheat grain that is quite robust and hearty, but really easy to make (simmer it for about 25 minutes.) It's chewy and nutty and holds its own in a dish. We buy ours from PCC, and it comes from Bluebird Grain Farms in Winthrop, WA (yay for local food!).

If you haven't yet cooked with farro, I highly recommend it. I've cooked it several different ways, and tonight's dinner was one of my favorites.

While the farro was simmering, I sauteed kale in butter with a dash of lemon juice and salt and pepper. I added garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, paprika and red chili pepper to white beans, and then cooked two turkey sausages. I also heated pureed spaghetti sauce with a touch of butter, red wine vinegar and cayenne pepper. I tossed the cooked farro with chunks of sausage. To serve it, I piled the farro and sausage on top of the sauteed kale, then added a heap of the beans, and an over-easy egg. I artfully (?) drizzled the tomato sauce over the top.

Nathan loved it. I loved it. Luke tasted his first piece of kale and didn't seem repulsed (but preferred applesauce).

I've cooked farro with diced bacon and it's also amazing.

Have you tried farro? How did you cook it?