Rhubarb + Sugar = Marmalade

This is from a very old cookbook (The American Woman's Cookbook, edited by Ruth Berolzheimer, 1941) which came from my grandmother's house, though, let's be clear, I don't think she ever canned anything... so was not an adventurous cook.

This is a delicious recipe!

1 lb rhubarb (4 cups)
1 lemon
2 cups sugar

Wash rhubarb and cut into thin slices. Wash lemon and shave off the thin yellow rind, cut rind into small, thin pieces. Juice lemon and set aside.
Mix rind with rhubarb with the sugar, let stand overnight.

The next day, add lemon juice and cook until it boils over a high heat, stirring constantly. Cook rapidly *almost* to gelling point (this is important- if you cook to gelling point, you will get marmalade that's too stiff to spread unless you warm it first.)
Do your normal jam prep work, this recipe makes about 4 1/4 pint jars.
Remove from heat, fill hot jars, process in boiling water for 10 minutes.
Enjoy!

What to do with Green Tomatoes?

Green Tomatoes, a photo by zombie amelia on Flickr.

This was my question. The answer was, make hot green tomato jam!

I didn't have many green tomatoes, so this is a tiny batch, but maybe this is what you also have in your yard on your tomato plants.

2 cups tomato pulp (I used the food processor to pulp them)
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 T lemon juice
2.5 t calcium water
2.5 t pectin (Pomona's Pectin, hence the calcium water)
1 T Sambal Oelek (Fresh ground chili paste)

Mix pectin with sugar and set aside. Prepare your jamming stuff (this made 2 1/2 pint jars and 2 1/4 pint jars)

Cook tomato pulp and lemon juice until boiling (you want it to break down a little first) then reduce heat and add chili paste and calcium water. Bring mixture back to a boil and add pectin/sugar, stir vigorously while cooking until the pectin/sugar dissolves. Return to boil one last time, then remove from heat.

Fill jars to 1/4" from top, process in hot water for 10 minutes.

Grilled Calzones!

I've made these twice now, and they're a tiny bit tricky (I'm not much of a grill expert) but delicious, and great left over.
The original recipe was from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from July 27, 2011, but I can't find it in their recipe archive, so I'll just write it out. They had three versions, Spinach-Ricotta, BBQ Chicken, and Rosemary Mushroom. Mine is mushrooms, basil, spinach, and goat cheese.
I used the Pillsbury Classic Pizza Dough (the recipe told me to used "store bought pizza dough" and this worked pretty well. Mine then ended up being rectangle, rather than half round.
to make 4 calzones:
1 tube Pillsbury Classic pizza dough (thin crust is too thin)
1 cup of grated goat cheese
1 cup (ish) pizza sauce
10-12 mushrooms, sliced
1 cup spinach, chopped
half an onion, chopped
fresh basil
garlic, pressed
olive oil
salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper
Saute the onions, garlic, and basil together until the onions are clear. Add the mushrooms and saute until cooked. Add the spinach, saute until wilted and mix into mushrooms & onions.
Remove from heat and let cool.
Unpop your pizza dough and stretch a little, like you would putting in in a pan. Cut into 4 rectangles.
In each rectangle, spread tomato sauce, sprinkle some cheese, then add some of the mushroom spinach mixture, top with more cheese, and make sure to spread tomato sauce on what will be the top inside of your calzone. Fold in half, and pinch sides closed. Sprinkle each side of each calzone with flour to prevent sticking. Repeat.
OK, so your grill needs to be heated with two zones- a medium hot zone and a medium cool zone. Brush your grill with the olive oil, and put as many calzones as will fit in the hot zone. Put the lid down and grill for about 2 minutes, until the bottom side has formed a hard crust and shows grill marks. Filp and grill another 2-3 minutes. Move calzones to the cooler area on the grill and bake an additional 3-5 minutes until sides of calzones have formed a hard crust and turned golden brown. Enjoy!!

Cold Brew Coffee

Ah, summer. Hot days don't mean hot coffee, hot days mean cold, iced coffee. YUM. Now, some people will tell you that you need a fancy iced coffee brewer or something to make cold coffee, but you don't. (I'm talking about cold-brewing coffee, which is less acidic than brewing it with heat, then cooling it.)

All you need is coffee, ground for a french press, a container to steep it in, and a container to filter it in.

The ratio is 1 part coffee to 2 parts water, so I usually use 3 cups coffee to 6 cups water. Make sense?
Find yourself a good-sized glass pitcher (I use the yellow one in the picture) and mix up your coffee and water and let sit for a good 12 hours. I usually put saran wrap on the top to keep bugs out since my pitcher has no cover. After at least 12 hours, you are ready to strain. Really, you can probably use a drip coffee maker and filter for this, but I don't have one, so I use my Chemex. I put a paper filter in the Chemex and stir up the grounds/coffee in the pitcher and pour it through. Now, it's thick stuff, and generally I fill up the filter, then let it filter itself while I walk away and do something else for a while- it takes a bit. I often go through 2 paper filters per batch, and this does involved scooping some of the coffee grounds out of the filter to pour more in.




it's not as complicated as I just made it sound. But this is why you could use a regular old drip coffee maker with pot & and a strong paper filter- pour your coffee & grounds into the filter and let it drip through into the pot.


Anyway, once you've filtered all your coffee, you have coffee concentrate. Chill, and serve by mixing 1/3 cup coffee concentrate with 2/3 cup water, serve with yummy soy creamer over ice and enjoy!

French Toast

mmm... delicious french toast... made with eggs & almond milk!!
it's a staple of our Sunday morning breakfast rotation, and it's very simple. you need:

stale bread
eggs (4-5)
almond milk
cinnamon
vanilla
oil

decide if you want 4 or 5 eggs worth of toast and then crack those in a bowl with a flat bottom (I use a pyrex bowl.) Pour quarter sized dollops of almond milk into the eggs (one for each egg) and then beat until everything is smooth. Pour in a little vanilla (maybe 2 tsp?) to taste, and liberally shake cinnamon over the top and beat again.

Oil your pan, dip your toast, and enjoy!

What Goes Well with Leftover Enchiladas? Pumpkin Soup!

Yes really. Especially when it's goat cheese & seitan chorizo enchiladas and spicy pumpkin soup!
This is a slightly modified recipe from a cookbook called "The Complete Vegan Cookbook" which is actually where the beginnings of my goat cheese enchilada recipe came from.

The recipe in the book is Pumpkin-Rice Soup with Sage & Allspice, and I encourage you to try it as written, but I'm posting what I actually ended up making (since I didn't have all the ingredients on hand, and I made only a partial batch, because I only had 1 cup pumpkin.)

1.5 (ish) cup vegetable broth
1 cup pumpkin
3 cloves minced garlic
1/6 cup basmati rice
1/2 tsp sage
1/4 tsp salt
a few sprinkles allspice
several grinds black pepper
1/3 cup almond milk
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped roasted walnuts

In a stockpot, saute the minced garlic in a little oil until just a tiny bit crispy. Add the stock & pumpkin, cover and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then add the rice, sage, salt, allspice, and pepper. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes, or until the rice is tender. Stir frequently. Add the almond milk and lemon juice and heat until steaming. Serve hot with roasted walnuts on top.

Makes 2 bowls, perfect for a second meal of...

Goat Cheese Enchiladas!
10 corn tortillas
1 package seitan chorizo (I love Upton's,) crumbled
half an onion, chopped
1 can green enchilada sauce
8 oz goat cheddar, grated

Saute the onions until clear, then add the crumbled seitan, and saute until a little browned. Remove from heat and set aside. Coat the bottom of a baking dish big enough for two rows of enchiladas with a thin layer of the sauce, and then pour a little sauce on a plate. Warm the tortillas and then dip both sides in the sauce on the plate, and fill with chorizo/onion mixture and goat cheddar. Roll and place seam down in the pan. I can get 5 enchiladas in 2 rows with this amount. Pour the remaining sauce on top of the enchiladas, then sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Cover with foil and bake at 350F for 20 minutes. Let stand, uncovered, for 5 minutes before serving- they're less gooey this way, and stay together. Great with beans & rice or Pico de Gallo chips & Tomatillo salsa.

Enjoy!!

Delicious Tortilla Stew

This stew was a modified version of several online recipes... and it is delicious. And SPICY.

veggie oil

1 onion, minced

1 package Quorn Chik'N Tenders (defrosted)

3-4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced

liberal amount of taco seasoning

1 can green (medium heat) enchilada sauce

1 1/2 cups veggie stock

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

salt and pepper to taste

1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes, preferably fire roasted

4 (6 inch) corn tortillas, cut into strips

In a pot, sauté the onions and the garlic in the veggie oil. Once the onions are cooked well, add the Quorn. Sauté together for a few minutes (until the Quorn seems softer) and add the taco seasoning. I usually mix the taco seasoning into the sauté so everything is coated with little granules, and then add a little water and mix- just enough water to dissolve the seasoning and coat everything evenly.

Cook until you think the Quorn has absorbed enough of the taco seasoning flavor- maybe 10 minutes. You can even brown it a little if you want.

In a separate bowl, mix the enchilada sauce and stock. Add the chile powder, cumin, salt and/or pepper. Add this mixture to the pot with the onions and Quorn, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low. Mix in the beans and tomatoes. Cook the tortillas on a griddle until cooked enough for tacos, and then slice into strips and add to stew. Simmer until heated through. 

Garnish with goat cheese or fake sour cream and enjoy!!

Delicious Dal

Dahl and Pie
Originally uploaded by zombie amelia

This is a great, simple recipe from a Nepali cookbook that I checked out of the library years ago.

4 cups water
1 cup lentils, red or brown or yellow, though I usually use red
1 T margarine
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp turmeric

1/4 onion, chopped
pinch cloves
1/2 tsp cumin
pinch cinnamon
2 cardamom pods
1 T margarine

Warm water in a stock pot and add lentils, 1 T of margarine, salt & turmeric. Cover and simmer over low heat for 40 minutes to one hour. In a small pan, fry up the onions in the other 1 T of margarine until brown. Add the cloves, cumin, cinnamon, & cardamom pods and sauté for a few more minutes. Add this mixture to the soup and simmer for another 15 minutes. Enjoy!!

The picture also shows samosa pie, but I wasn't happy with the crust, so I'll have to fiddle with the recipe before I post it.