Roasted Tomatillo Soup with Nopalitos & Mushrooms, and Daiya Cheddar Quesadillas

 The weekly routine here in Chico isn’t complete without a bike ride downtown to the Thursday night market. Cherries and new red potatoes are coming into season, joining the mountains of strawberries, fresh herbs and flowers, Asian greens like bok choy and Chinese broccoli, and more. One of the new items last week - new to me, at least - were cactus paddles (nopales or nopalitos in Spanish.)  Here they are now:

 Whenever I have a question about traditional Mexican cooking or ingredients, I turn to my copy of Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen, one of a handful of cookbooks I packed for the move. Bayless recommends roasting or grilling cactus paddles, and the recipe I knew I needed to try was a tomatillo soup with mushrooms and nopales. My version was a quick and simple adaptation, mostly because I lacked a few traditional herbs and chilis.

The cactus was surprisingly simple to prepare, especially since the vendor had removed the thorns. All I did was rinse it, cut it into chunks about an inch square, and toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper. I roasted the pieces for about 20 minutes at 375 F, in the same pan as about a half dozen husked and rinsed tomatillos. After about 10 minutes the nopales and tomatillos began to soften and release their moisture, and I added about a half dozen peeled garlic cloves to roast with them for the final 10 minutes.

After roasting, the tomatillos were soft and lightly browned, and the nopales were tender and juicy. They have a taste all their own, but I was reminded of a cross between roasted green peppers and good sour cucumber pickles, with a twist of lime juice.

Reserving the nopales in the roasting pan, I removed the tomatillos and roasted garlic and let them cool for a few minutes.  They're then pureed in the blender with a little vegetable stock and water, and salt and pepper to taste. The resulting soup base was tart and tangy, with warmth from the roasted garlic and a pleasingly creamy texture.

Everything else came together in minutes. About a cup of sliced cremini mushrooms were sautéed in olive oil and a little salt in the soup pot for a few minutes, until lightly browned and fragrant. Add the tomatillo soup base to the pot, and stir in the roasted cactus paddles, keeping the soup over medium heat just until warmed. I mixed in a little fresh cilantro at the end, and garnished it with red pepper flakes and more cilantro. If you have fresh limes or vegan sour cream on hand, they would be naturals here too.

 The soup was tangy and richly flavorful on its own, but pairing it with simple quesadillas made it special. I stuffed corn tortillas with Daiya nondairy cheddar cheese, and warmed them in a dry pan for just a few minutes, until the cheese melted. I’m pretty sure Daiya is the cheese substitute many vegans have been waiting for - it tastes great, and most importantly it melts.  I've been using it everywhere.

The flavor combination of cheddar quesadillas with this soup was strikingly similar to one of my favorite dishes at Mexican restaurants - cheese enchiladas with green sauce. Dipping the quesadillas into the soup brought back fond memories of those meals.

Goodbye Fargo, Hello Chico

 I’m starting this post about changes with a final picture from my place in Fargo, North Dakota, which has been home for most of the past seven years. This is Maya, who I still call the puppy, though she turns three this summer. Time goes by a little faster every year. Maya’s chair was one of the last things we moved out of the apartment, and I think that’s when she sensed something funny was going on.

So what has been going on, and why did Maya lose her favorite nap spot? I have a new job, at Farm Sanctuary in California! This is something I’ve thought about for a long time, after interning at the California shelter two years ago, and visiting again for a couple weeks last spring. I was hired in March, but was grateful to have enough time to wrap things up in Fargo during April and spend time with family and friends before leaving in early May. I just finished my second week of work here - I’m a caregiver assistant - and I’m loving the job, which I expected.

I assume most of you are familiar with Farm Sanctuary, but if not check out their web site, which is linked here. The California shelter, with rolling hills and the Coast Range on the western horizon, is a beautiful place, and I feel pretty lucky every morning I go to work there.

Though it’s nice to be in northern California, leaving North Dakota was hard. Fargo is a wonderful place, and if you don’t believe me go visit sometime, though maybe not in January. The Fargo-Moorhead area has been showing up at or near the top of all kinds of livability and environmental reports in the past few years, and three major universities and significant communities of new Americans create a cultural atmosphere you might not associate with North Dakota. I don’t mean to go all Chamber of Commerce on you here, but I won’t leave Fargo without giving it a big hug. Fargo rocks.

Of course, I said my goodbyes to family and friends in person, so I won’t elaborate here. If you’re reading, thanks for everything, and I hope to see you out here sooner or later! I’m especially missing my 3-year old nephew Lucas, who has been my buddy in Fargo and an inspiration to all of his extended family. His attitude and energy light up wherever he is, and I hope to see him again soon.

I’m living in Chico, in an upstairs apartment in an older house. The neighborhood is full of huge shade trees, and I share a giant fenced backyard with my downstairs neighbors. There are dogs everywhere - woohoo! - so I couldn’t have hoped to find a better place for Otter and Maya.

From all indications so far, Chico rocks too. On Thursday nights throughout the summer there is a street fair/produce market downtown, that attracts big crowds of happy looking people. The fruits and veggies are abundant, varied, and cheap, so I’m already a big fan of the Thursday market after two visits.

If you’ve made it this far, I’ll remind you that this blog is usually only about food. So let’s get on with it. My cooking has been pretty basic so far, since I’m rebuilding my kitchen and pantry. In honor of simplicity and the Thursday market, here’s my Thursday Market Salad. Everything is fresh and local - avocadoes, phenomenal strawberries, walnuts, sweet peas, and spring greens including chard, spinach, and a few types of lettuce. The dressing is sherry vinegar, olive oil, black pepper, salt, and a little sugar.


Here’s some nachos, with beans and guacamole. The chips are topped with Daiya cheese, which I’ll have more good things to say about in my next post.  Like I said, we're keeping it simple.


 I can't break in the new west coast version of my site without a couple of pictures of Otter and Maya exploring their new environment.  I think they'll enjoy the break from winter, but it's a little harder to find open spaces nearby to run around off the leash.  I'm sure we'll figure that out soon enough.  Here's Otter looking for fish, or maybe at her reflection, in a Chico creek.


 One more of Otter and Maya for the road.  I think they like it here.


Thanks for making it to the end of a longer than usual post, but we had some catching up to do.  Speaking of, I'm looking forward to catching up with all of your amazing blogs that I've been following the last couple of years.  Until next time, goodbye from rainy NorCal!

Bistro Asparagus Twists from American Vegan Kitchen, & Primal Strips vegan jerky

This will be a quick post, but I couldn't keep these puff pastry-wrapped asparagus twists to myself.  They're from American Vegan Kitchen, by Tamasin Noyes.  Tami does the Vegan Appetite blog, which never fails to feature awesome vegan goodies.  The cookbook is exceptionally well done, and delivers on it's promise of "delicious comfort food from Blue Plate Specials to homestyle favorites."  I've also made the sweet garklicky ribz, and a fabulous non-meatloaf from this book.

This asparagus recipe is fairly simple, but looks and tastes totally elegant.  Asparagus spears are blanched and then wrapped in strips of puff pastry brushed with mustard, and baked.  There's a good dipping sauce to go with these too. 

I've become a big fan of Primal Strips vegan jerky, since the nice folks at Primal Spirit Foods sent me a sample pack a couple weeks ago.  There are six flavors - my favorites are the teryaki and mesquite lime, though they're all really good.  Some are seitan-based, some soy, and the "Hot and Spicy" version is made with shiitake mushrooms, which is really creative.  I was a big jerky fan in my younger days, so this is one more food I'm no longer denied, though I've long since lost the idea that eating vegan means "denial" in any way.  These are great, and have been my staple afternoon snack since I received them.

Feijoada (E.A.T. World: Brazil)

 Feijoada is Brazil's take on one of the world's great food pairs - rice and beans.  In it's traditional form, feijoada (pronounced fay-zwah-duh) usually contains meat, and judging by recipes online, lots of it.  Since vegans know a thing or two about rice and beans, there are lots of recipes out there for vegan or vegetarian feijoada.  I based this on a recipe in American Wholefoods Cuisine, my go-to old school veggie cookbook.

Everything here is pretty straight forward - long grain brown rice is cooked in water and tomato juice, along with a dried chili pepper and bay leaf.  Black beans are seasoned with onion and garlic, and another couple of dried chilis.  The greens are collards, also simply prepared and seasoned with a little salt and some chopped onions.

I was surprised by the great flavor the orange slices added, mixed with the rice and beans.  Plus, they just look pretty as a garnish.  At the bottom left is a spicy onion salsa, made by blanching sliced onions in boiling water for a few minutes, and marinating the drained onions in fresh lime juice and hot pepper sauce.

One of the classic Brazilian flavors I didn't incorporate here, but would like to try, is farofa, which is coarse ground, roasted cassava or manioc flour.  This post from SHIFT Vegan has a nice pic of feijoada with farofa.  If you want more Brazilian food, don't miss The Crafty Kook's trip to Brazil from earlier this winter!


I don't bake nearly often enough, so when I do I like to share it here :)  I was cleaning my fridge this afternoon, and found black cherries and some cranberries in the freezer, so made this pie from The Joy of Vegan Baking.  Yum.

Ancho Chili Enchiladas & French Meadow Bread Pressed Sandwiches

 Every time I make my own enchilada sauce with dried chilis, I wonder why I ever buy the canned stuff.  Making your own is cheaper, it's really easy, and the results are always worth the extra effort.  This was made with dried ancho chili peppers, seeded and soaked in hot water, and blended with roasted garlic, Mexican oregano, and ground cumin seeds and cloves.  Apple cider vinegar and salt are mixed in at the end - as usual, my chili sauce is based on recipe from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen.

For these enchiladas, I covered the corn tortillas with ancho sauce, then fried them for a few seconds on each side in a lightly oiled pan.  Speed is of the essence - fry the tortillas before they get soggy from the sauce, and carefully remove them from the pan after just a moment of frying on either side.  It's a little messy, but I love how the chili sauce gets seared into the tortillas.  These are stuffed with roasted chayote, & sauteed spinach and mushrooms.  The cheesy looking bits are a provolone "uncheese" recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, by Joanne Stepaniak.

Here's a couple of sandwiches, made with spelt bread from French Meadow Bakery, thanks to some promotional coupons they sent me.  There aren't a lot of French Meadow products at stores here in the Fargo-Moorhead area, but I really like this spelt bread - I'll have to try their rye too, which I also found.  Since they're made without preservatives, they're in the freezer section.  This bread includes exactly three ingredients: organic spelt flour, water, and salt.  I've long since gotten tired of reading the long list of fine print ingredients on most supermarket breads, so I appreciate what they're doing here.

I used my Foreman grill for some pressed sandwiches, which makes this one of my fave kitchen gadgets.  Elvis inspires the sandwich at top, with peanut butter and sliced bananas, and a bit of agave nectar to make it gooey and sweet. 

This is my spelt bread panini, stuffed with roasted red pepper, sliced avocado, more of that provolone "uncheese", and a simple pesto of Italian parsley, spinach, garlic, and walnuts.  Tasty stuff.  The French Meadow slices are on the small side, making for nice little snack size sandwiches.

Fresh Herb and "Chicken" Larb with Sweet Mango Sticky Rice (E.A.T. World: Laos)

It's been great to see E.A.T. World taking off across the blogs, and I've enjoyed travelling with everyone!  Our ongoing mission: to explore new food worlds, to seek out new ingredients and new recipes, to boldly go where I almost certainly have not gone before.  Like Laos!

My alphabet soup approach to E.A.T. World brings us back to southeast Asia, for an introduction to larb, sometimes called the "national dish" of Laos.  Larb (or laap, larp, laab, or lob...it's one of those words with a slippery spelling as translated to English) is a salad of meat, fresh herbs, lime juice, hot peppers, and an abundance of fresh flavors.

This recipe comes from Cooking from the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America.  The Hmong are an ethnic group from mountainous regions of Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, and southern China, and the authors of Cooking from the Heart say nobody makes a better larb than Hmong cooks.  I've been curious about Hmong cooking and culture since getting to know some awesome Hmong students in a summer program a few years ago - there is a large Hmong population in Minnesota, especially in the Twin Cities.  This cookbook nicely combines recipes with information about Hmong tradition and culture in Laos and America. 

Vegan Chik'n strips from Morningstar Farms are the meat substitute here, although nicely marinated or seasoned tempeh, seitan, or extra firm tofu would be really good too.  The flavors in this salad are so bold that whatever protein you use will be instantly infused with larby goodness and taste spectacular.  Promise. 


Regarding all those flavors, this salad is a showcase for a few ingredients I've never used before - Sichuan peppercorns, roasted rice powder, and galangal.  Sichuan peppercorns can be tricky to find because they are quite often not labelled as Sichuan peppercorns, rather "dried pepper corn" like the packet above, or other variations on that theme.  If you're not sure, ask the folks are your local Asian market, like I did.  They have a light citrus scent, and a reputation for causing mild numbness on the tongue.  I toasted these and ground them before adding to the larb, and used a fairly generous amount.  The effect, and I mean this in the most complimentary way, is a little what licking a battery must feel like.  My whole mouth felt all tingly and sparkly after a few larb lettuce rolls.  Really worth checking out, if you haven't tried Sichuan peppercorns before.

Regarding battery-licking, I'm sure you can find a lot of videos of kids doing that on Youtube, if you want to make yourself wish the Internet was never invented.

Above, from left to right:  Galangal, lemongrass, mint, culantro, and green onions.

Besides the process of collecting and chopping all of the ingredients, larb is pretty straight-forward to make.  The Chik'n strips were marinated and lightly sauteed in rice wine and lime juice.  To this, I added all kinds of good stuff:  lots of fresh mint and cilantro leaves, fresh culantro, green onions, a red jalapeno pepper, lemon zest, galangal, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, white pepper, more lime juice, and lemongrass.  A few spoonfuls of roasted rice powder, pictured earlier, is added at the end.  It adds a crumbly, sticky texture, and a distinctive and pleasing smell.  You can make your own rice powder too, but it's really cheap to buy.

Once everything is tossed together, the preferred way to eat larb is in lettuce wraps.  They're really onto something here, as the cool and crisp lettuce wrap is the perfect contrast to the chaotic jumble of flavors inside.  Chaotic might be exactly the wrong word though, because all of these flavors come together in what might be better described as a chorus in perfect harmony.  My ability to come up with a metaphor to describe what larb tastes like ends here, so I can only recommend you try it yourself sometime.  I used butter lettuce, but Boston or good old iceberg lettuce would be fine too.

I'm not reprinting the entire recipe from Cooking from the Heart here, since I'm hesitant to copy recipes out of cookbooks without permission.  There are a lot of larb recipes online, so google away...every one is a little different, so you can adapt to your tastes.

To settle things down after larb, here's a simple dessert of sweetened sticky rice with coconut milk and mango, also from Cooking from the Heart.  I'm new to sticky rice too, and I screwed this up by overcooking the rice.  It ended up as sweet sticky rice porridge, still pretty tasty, though the rice was supposed to hold together in a neat ball on the plate.  Whatever :)

Potato Pancakes and Mulled Wine (E.A.T. World: Czech Republic)

 
We're in the Czech Republic for today's stop on the E.A.T. World tour, enjoying a bit of street food and drink.  These potato pancakes - I see them called bramboráky or bramborová placka - are the essence of the street food ideal: portable, hearty, and fried.  If you'd like something to wash down those greasy golden wonders, you could do worse than svařák, mulled wine served steaming hot.  Sitting here in midwinter, this pair seems pretty appropriate for a chilly weekend afternoon.

To set the scene, come along with me to Český Krumlov, along the winding Vltava River.  I took this photo last January, from the castle overlooking the old town center.  With ice on the river and snow on the ground, mulled wine was the perfect companion as I wandered around the city.  One guy - just up the street from the bridge on the left side of the picture - sold cups of mulled wine at a table on the sidewalk, from one of those big coffee thermos servers.  It's a brilliant idea for getting through winter, and I can't imagine why the concept never caught on here.

We'll get to the wine in a moment, but potato pancakes come first.  They often contain eggs and maybe milk, but vegan bramboráky deliver exactly what a potato pancake should.  They're crispy and golden on the ouside, soft and creamy on the inside, and flavored with onion, garlic, and marjoram.  Sauerkraut is an optional addition.  As a sauerkraut fan, I mixed a healthy dose into the potato batter, and loved the sharp and tangy flavor it added.

These are easy, and the quantities are pretty flexible.  I found just a couple of tablespoons of all purpose flour was enough to bind about two cups of shredded potaotes while frying.  Here's my quantities, and basic directions:
2 cups raw potatoes, peeled and shredded (use a grater or food processor)
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup sauerkraut (optional, but very nice if you like sauerkraut)
1 tbps. dried marjoram
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground black pepper
1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk, or any other non-dairy milk, or water
2 tbsp. all purpose flour (maybe a bit more, depending on your first pancake)
Oil for frying, enough to liberally coat the bottom of your pan

Here's what worked for me - mix everything together in a big bowl, keeping a little extra flour on hand.  Test to see if your oil is hot enough by adding a tiny bit of potato - if it sizzles immediately, the oil is ready.  Next, make a small potato patty with your batter as a test run.  Let it brown on one side for a few minutes, then flip over.  If it holds together, you have enough flour.  If it's a little loose, mix another tbsp. of flour into your main bowl of batter, and make another patty.  I mention this just because you might get a little variance in the moisture content of the potatoes or sauerkraut, so the amount of flour needed may fluctuate a little.


Fry on each side for 3 or 4 minutes, until nice and golden brown.  I found the oil maintained a nice temperature, without cooking too fast, at medium high heat.  After draining on paper towels for just a couple of minutes, enjoy them while they're piping hot and crispy.



Svařák
I found a bunch of different takes on mulled wine online, but the fundamentals are red wine, spices, and sweetener.  Here's an excellent article on Czech mulled wine, as well as varieties from other cold countries of Europe.  For the base of my svařák I used a bottle of Yellow Tail cabernet sauvignon, which is vegan - all of their reds are vegan, but not their whites. 

Rather than getting into the whole vegan wine/beer briar patch here, I'd just recommend you check online about whatever brand you like and is available to you.  Many companies - like Yellow Tail - include FAQs on their sites.  And if you don't drink at all, problem solved :)

Cinnamon and cloves in the mulled wine will make your place smell like the winter holidays.  Orange zest adds a little zing, and agave nectar and brown sugar heightened the sweetness.



While you can make mulled wine on the stove top, I took a tip from the Czech wine vendor and made it in my coffee pot.  Here's the logic - my coffee machine pot never boils, so I put this on and let it be for almost an hour.  You can do the same thing on the stove top, just as long as you keep the wine from boiling - the alcohol will burn off as the wine boils. 


For a one liter bottle of red wine, I mixed in 2 tbps. each of agave nectar and brown sugar, 1 tsp. orange zest (lemon is great too), a cinnamon stick, and 4 cloves.  Whether in the coffee pot or on the stove top, keep it hot but not boiling for at least a half hour.  It can be kept hot throughout a party, and leftovers apparently keep pretty well.  I just had a little cup when I made this, and put the rest back in the wine bottle.  Now it's back in the fridge, ready to go whenever the mood for mulled wine strikes...which I think is right about now! 
Na Zdraví!  (That's Cheers!, folks :)