Sweet Cherry Tomato Tarts

This FS recipe test calls for a good heirloom tomato, so I'll revisit this in summer when more tomato varieties are available. I used some tasty cherry tomatoes instead. The tomatoes are lightly stewed in a sugary broth, and placed atop home made almond cream "cheese" in sweet tart crusts. I don't usually think of using tomatoes in a dessert dish like this, but the tart flavor of fresh cherry tomatoes works nicely with the sweet ingredients.

A poem from Bill Holm

Bill Holm, a poet and essayist from across the river in Minnesota, died yesterday. Here's a poem of his, which I found written on the wall of a camp shelter on Isle Royale a few summers ago. I don't know much about poetry, but I like this.

"August in Waterton Alberta" - Bill Holm

Above me, wind does its best
to blow leaves off
the Aspen tree a month too soon.
No use wind. All you succeed
In doing is making music, the noise
of failure growing beautiful

Red Beans and Rice and leftover pizza

I've been on a mission lately to do more cooking with dry beans, for the obvious reasons - they're so much cheaper, and I like being able to manage the taste and texture. Plus, winter is a great time to have a pot of beans simmering on the stove for an hour or so. I was looking longingly down south the last couple days, as Mardi Gras came to a close - I participated in spirit by making some really good red beans and rice, using a delicious recipe from http://www.fatfreevegan.com/. Nothing beats a good bowl of beans and rice.

I made this pizza earlier this week, with the last of my block of colby/cheddar from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. The toppings were mostly leftovers or stuff hanging around in the fridge - marinated artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, and seitan. The base sauce was super easy and tasty - it's made with almost a whole bulb of roasted garlic, blended with a bunch of Thai basil leaves, spinach, and olive oil.

Chermoula Seitan and Squash Kebabs

This weekend I broke out the trusty Foreman grill yet again, and made these kebabs with seitan, zucchini, and yellow squash. Two cookbooks - Donna Klein's Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen, and Marcus Samuelsson's pan-African The Soul of a New Cuisine, inspire the chermoula sauce - I have my combined adaptation below, with a little of my own tinkering. Chermoula features fresh herbs like cilantro and parsley, a citrus tang from lemon juice and zest, and an array of ground spices that complement each other very nicely. It's traditional in Morocco and Tunisia, and seems highly versatile - I think it would be great with roasted veggies, in fresh salads with raw ingredients, and as a marinade or rub for anything on the grill.

My take on chermoula sauce:

1/2 cup fresh cilantro

1/2 cup parsley (I used flat leaf parsley)

juice from a lemon, plus a tsp. or so lemon zest

2 cloves garlic

2 tsp. paprika

1 1/2 tsp. cumin powder

1 tsp. ancho chili powder

1 tsp. red pepper powder

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. brown sugar

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Chermoula tossed with chunks of seitan, zucchini, and yellow squash.

I processed the chermoula ingredients in the food processor, scraping everything together a couple of times until I had a paste with fairly coarse pieces. The seitan chunks and squash pieces were tossed in the chermoula, left for about an hour, placed on bamboo skewers, and grilled for around 5 to 7 minutes, until the squash and seitan had browned nicely with some blackened grill marks. The squash is still a little firm, but zucchini and yellow squash are soft enough that they really don't need additional cooking time. I drizzled a little more lemon on the kebabs, and the combined flavors of the marinade were tangy and spicy, with just the right amount of heat.

Stuffed Poblano Chiles with Creamy Walnut Sauce

Today's recipe test produced this souped up version of chiles rellenos, with a creamy walnut sauce. Poblanos are fried and peeled, then stuffed with a vibrant spiced filling of onions and garlic, tomatoes, fruit, and seitan. The recipe suggests pomegranate seeds as a topping - the idea, which I love, is to use the flat leaf parsley, seeds, and sauce to represent the colors of the Mexican flag. I subbed roasted red peppers, but I bet pomegranate seeds would be great with this. The sauce was made with a base of soaked walnuts and home made tofu sour cream. Each bite was full of different flavors, and the filling invites all kinds of variations. Stuffed peppers require some patience, but the payoff is always a treat.

Earlier this week I made a block of cheese of the Colby/Cheddar variety, from Jo Stepaniak's Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. Cashews, tahini, miso, nutritional yeast, and other ingredients are brought together with the magic of agar powder. It's very tasty, and works pretty well for sandwiches and grilled cheez - I crumbled some in a simple beans and rice bowl too, which was great. When it's mixed with hot food, or reheated, the agar softens up and "melts" nicely.

Beignets and soup

Today's recipe test for the FS cookbook produced these tasty beignets - the French word for doughnuts, so says wikipedia. To me, they're reminiscent of the fried doughnut pastries my German great aunt would make - I wish I remembered the German name for them. This is happy food - deep-fried dough doused with powdered sugar, and I probably ate more of them in one sitting that I should have. My deep-fryer's basket suffered a serious injury a while back, so my deep-frying is now done in one of my soup-pots on the stove top. I went off script for the recipe, because it was an excuse to use my new dog bone cookie-cutters to make the beignets. I have big plans to start making my own dog biscuits, and picked up these great cookie-cutters at the local True Value, of all places. Even though these beignets are probably not ideal for dogs, my taste-testers were fired up to try a few bits and pieces.

I picked up a couple of new cookbooks, Donna Klein's The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen, and Vegan Italiano. In both of these books, Klein focuses on dishes that are naturally vegan in their traditional context, rather than veganizing meat and dairy based recipes. That's a pretty cool approach, as much as I like tempeh meatballs and seitan burritos and stuff like that. The first thing I made was a gigantic pot of minestrone, with loads of fresh veggies and white beans.

Grilled Rum Peaches in Phyllo

This is another FS recipe test I would love to take credit for. I used frozen peaches instead of fresh, since fresh peaches are pretty scarce in these parts this time of year. After soaking in spiced rum and olive oil for about an hour, the peaches are grilled or roasted - I used the Foreman grill again. My phyllo sheets were kind of torn and crumbly right out of the package, but since they're wrapped in multiple layers everything ended up working out fine. This was really good - sprinkled with cinnamon and sliced almonds, and a subtle hint of spiced rum.