Polenta with Grilled Veggies and Canollini Bean Humus

Polenta recipe from Mario Batali, found here.

Ingredients

Polenta
4 c. water
2 T. salt
1 c. yellow corn meal

Grilled Veggies

3 zucchini, sliced
1 smallish eggplant, sliced
1.5 green peppers, sliced

Canollini Bean Humus

1 tin canollini beans, drained
2 T. olive oil
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
salt, pepper, paprika


Methodology

1. Put water in a pot with salt. Bring to a boil. Stir in the corn meal. Keep stirring, lowering heat until corn meal is thick. Ladle into greased muffin tins, a little more than 1/4 c. polenta/tin. It makes 12 very full or probably more if you're not lazy. See note.

2. Put polenta tins in fridge. Wait. When cool, remove from fridge.

3. Slice veggies and put on grill. Brush lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put polenta cakes on grill also.

4. Put beans, oil, and garlic in food processor and hit go. Add spices.

5. Serve ensemble.

Notes

*On Polenta: This cooking methodology is problematic on two accounts. One is that I think 2 tablespoons of salt is too much - I would recommend maybe half or a quarter of that. The other is that "put corn meal in pot and mix with a spoon" doesn't really convey a) how lumpy the stupid corn meal is and b) how it's kind of scary when it boils and spits hot grits at you.

Cooking this might be much easier to deal with if you are not sick and your brain makes sense of complex inputs like the boiling of a pot and is capable of looking at a recipe and saying, "Two tablespoons seems like too much!", so feel free to disregard this advice. Warning. Thing.

*One polenta cake = ~40 calories, assuming you made them all the same and not, you know, some really huge and some quite small. I don't know. Maybe you don't understand the idea of dividing things equally. I'm not judging.

*This was really good, but it would have been better if the polenta hadn't been so salty. Seriously, don't make this recipe like this.

*5/7 on the disaster index.

Pumpkin Bread

From a recipe on the Culinary Institute of America website.

I don't bake much in the way of bread, even quick breads like this. For some reason in my family bread is a guy thing. There's no particular reason for me to think this, as far as I can tell.

Anyway, I needed to use up some eggs, so I went looking for something that might require them.

Ingredients

2.5 c whole-wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp double-acting baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 cup dried cranberries, plumped (to plump cover with boiling water and rest for at least 15 minutes and drain)
1/2 c. chocolate chips
1 cup tinned pumpkin
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs or egg replacer stuff, whatever.
1/4 cup margarine, melted
1/4 c. buttermilk
probably some water

Methodology

1. Preheat oven to 375° F. Pour water over cranberries and set aside. Grease one 8.5 x 4.5" bread pan and one 12 cup muffin tin pan, or two bread pans or whatever you have.

2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.

3. In another bowl, mix cranberries, chocolate chips, pumpkin, sugar, eggs, and margarine. Mix well.

4. Add wet to dry (or dry to wet, it doesn't matter) all at once and mix together. Add buttermilk and water at this point to make it fairly batter-like. Don't overmix.

5. Put about half the batter in the muffin tins and half in the bread pan, or divide it between the two bread pans, (or eat it, I don't know. Careful about the eggs though). It will make about 2 loaves of bread or one loaf and 12 muffins.

6. Bake for 15 minutes (muffins)/50 minutes (loaf). Turn out of tins onto a clean towel and let cool. Think of someone you can pawn muffins off on, because that's a lot of muffins.

Notes

*I followed the recipe pretty precisely this time, because I was curious as to what the CIA had come up with. Conclusions: it's not quite as good, texture-wise, as the banana bread recipe my father typically makes. Next time I will try futzing with that one. It is good, though. It needed more curry powder and maybe less cranberries. I don't know. Depends on how you like cranberries. It has a nice colour, though.

*A deeper/narrower loaf pan might be nice, too.

*3/7 on the disaster scale. I brought Dan and Claire a bunch of muffins, and Daniel ate half of them right away, so they were delicious. Just not quite what I was trying for.

*I keep having these "let's make X to use up Y" things, and I inevitably wind up with something else to use up. It's kind of weird. Now I have half a tin of pumpkin to use up.

*About 130 calories/slice if you assume 20 slices (=10/loaf). If you make half of it into muffins, I can't really tell you, and I'm tired of thinking about this.

Punk Rock Muffins

These are based on a recipe from Dan and Claire. "Based" is maybe the wrong word though.

Ingredients

1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. white flour
1 T. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs (okay, I used that stuff you buy in a carton which is only egg whites, so it wound up being slightly less than 2 eggs' worth. Make of that what you will.)
1 c. fat free yoghurt
2/3 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. melted margarine
1 T. buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1 c. frozen raspberries, chopped
1/4 c. chocolate chips

Methodology

0. Preheat the oven to 400* F.

1. Mix dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt) in a bowl.

2. Mix the eggs, yoghurt, buttermilk, sugar, butter, and vanilla in another bowl.

3. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Do not over-mix. Stir in berries and chips.

4. Put in muffin tins, put tins in oven. Bake approximately 17 minutes, or until a toothpick/knife/whatever is clean. Makes about 18 muffins.

Notes

*I have this really bad short attention span and I think following recipes is kind of boring. Someday this is going to get me into trouble. Today was not that day.

*I call these punk rock muffins because 1) you could pretty much put whatever you want in them and 2) with the chopped up raspberries, they look a little like they're bleeding.

*I theorize these have about 150 calories/muffin, but I could be wrong. I put in the wrong number for how many calories in chocolate chips when I did the math. So approximate. But it's okay.

*They are quite delicious. 2/7 on the disaster scale, only because I was a bit worried about the eggs.

The Top 15 Best Breakup Songs Ever

According to me, in a vaguely chronological order.

1. "You Oughta Know", Alanis Morissette. We were about thirteen when this album came out, so none of us had actually gone through it, but it was fun to sing. At the time I also had long curly hair like she did. I must have listened to Jagged Little Pill a million times.
   
2. "There Goes My Ex-Girlfriend", Aerosmith. I listened to this a bunch when I broke up with my first high school boyfriend, who had played it for me as a song he used to get over his previous girlfriend. I was really into irony in high school. (I don't know why I make it sound like this is something old about me. I'm still into irony.)
   
3. "Gone Daddy Gone", the Violent Femmes. Suggested by Claire. Amusingly, the Aerosmith boyfriend also got me into the Violent Femmes. This was the only good thing he did.
   
4. "It Ain't Me, Babe", Bob Dylan. The next boyfriend was really into Dylan and the Beatles and stuff. I don't remember if I found it especially poignant when we broke up, but I thought I'd put it on there. My Dylan phase lasted from high school until, oh, now. I saw him in concert in 2001, too.
   
5. "Kissing a Fool", George Michael/Michael Bublé. A couple years ago there was an homage to old Rock Hudson/Doris Day films starring Ewan McGregor and David Hyde Pierce as the kind of sexually ambiguous male leads and Renée Zellweger as Doris Day. It was called "Down with Love" - perhaps you remember it? I recall that it had fabulous costumes, was charmingly funny, and that the heroine let me down by totally caving in the last 10 minutes. Seriously, it would have been a much better film if she'd walked. But the inability to walk out on Ewan McGregor is a constant in many womens' lives, so I suppose it doesn't do to judge. Anyway, this song was in it. Apparently George Michael wrote it, but the Bublé version is the one I fell for.
   
6. "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover", Paul Simon. Suggested by Chandra. This song has perennially fascinated me, as some of these don't seem to be ways at all ("Make a new plan, Stan?") and there are definitely less than fifty listed. I just thought I'd throw that out there. Also it's entirely targeted towards men, which in retrospect is obnoxious. Perhaps this was a poor selection.
   
7. "I Will Survive", Diana Ross/CAKE. Do I need to explain why this song is here? I thought not. Though I should note that I prefer the CAKE version.
   
8. "Why Bother?", Weezer. I used to listen to this song over and over while running when I broke up with my last boyfriend. Rivers Cuomo will save your mortal soul.
   
9. "Early in the Morning", Buddy Holly. I went through a Buddy Holly kick in 2006, right before I left the country for a while. Nothing else to say about this, moving on.
   
10. "Go Your Own Way", Fleetwood Mac. A kind of theme of my time in 'Nam.
    
11. "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)", Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. One of the radio stations I listen to played this perpetually for about a month, and it was in my head all the time after my commutes.
    
12. "Breakin' Up", Rilo Kiley. Daniel gave me this song. On a drive from St. Paul, he pointed out that it has the lyrics, "Are we breaking up/Is there trouble between you and I?/Did my heart break enough/did it break enough this time?", which might help explain why it is an awesome song.
    
13. "Thanks for the Memories", Fallout Boy. Emo. But it has a catchy tune and an amusing music video with monkeys, so why not? I'm no music snob.
    
14. "Kiss You Off", Scissor Sisters. I love the Scissor Sisters. This narrowly beat out "I Can't Decide", which is one of my favorite songs ever but slightly less relevant to the topic. Contains the lyrics, "Kiss you off of my lips/I don't need another tube of that dimestore lipstick/cuz I guess I'm gonna buy me a brand new shade of man".
    
15. "Before He Cheats", Carrie Underwood. Okay, I get it, violence is bad, and the fact that violence towards men is accepted and towards women is not is a big fat double standard. This is still one of the most entertaining songs in the top 40 of late.
    

And, all right, five non-traditional love songs that have amused me lately:

1. "I Will Follow You into the Dark", Death Cab for Cutie. What other song begins with "Love of mine, someday you will die"? It's like an opera.
   
2. "Stuttering", Ben's Brother. I don't know, I feel like this sometimes when it comes to love, i.e., kind of slow and incapable.
   
3. "You and Me", Little Brazil. Suggested by Daniel. Begins, "You and me/fit together so awkwardly", which reminds me of most of my previous relationships.
   
4. "Rebel, Rebel", David Bowie. I saw him do this live. Favorite lyric: "You like me and I like it all". Exactly what I'm looking for in a mate: nondiscriminatory. Actually I was going to put "Cracked Actor" ("Forget that I'm fifty 'cause you just got paid") on here, but I'm in a good mood today.
   
5. "Get it On", T. Rex. I am fascinated by T. Rex because they have albums with titles like "My People Were Fair and Had Sky in their Hair...But Now they're Content to Wear Stars on their Brows" and "Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow", which is basically as emo as saying "I'ma cut my wrists and listen to Dashboard Confessionals", but they're still considered a glam/punk band (punk bands in the 60s and 70s tended to have albums titled things like "SPEW" and "A RIGHT COCKUP". Okay, I am making those up, but it could be possible). Even the combo of glam and punk seems odd. And yet. But what is with these lyrics? Even if you say okay to "You've got the teeth of the Hydra upon you", you're still in pretty deep waters with, "You're built like a car/You've got a/hubcap diamond star halo/You're built like a car/ oh yeah". What does that even mean?

Well that was fun and somewhat embarrassing. Great! Feel free to comment with songs I missed.

Honorable mention goes to: "Already Gone" by the Eagles. It's a damn catchy song, which is too bad, because "I really hate the fucking Eagles, man", is the only thing I can think when I think about them. Also "No Love Today" by Chris Smither.

Singapore Noodles

Singapore Noodles is a dish I first encountered at a Chinese restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City. It was one of a few vegetarian dishes there (Asia in general is pretty big on meats), and it was delicious.
Yesterday, having some bok choy left over from my foray into stir fry, I decided to recreate it. Recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients

1/2 c. veg broth (1/2 c. hot water and bouillon)
3 (heaping) T. veg stir fry sauce
2 T. ketchap mantis (a type of sweet Indonesian soy sauce. It cost about $3 for a huge bottle of it at the local Asian grocery and it's delicious, sweet and salty. I highly recommend picking some up.)
2 T. soy sauce *(I use really dark stuff.)
1 T. chili sauce (like SriRacha or similar) to taste
4-5 baby carrots, cut in matchsticks
1 head bok choy, chopped
4-5 mushrooms, sliced
a couple T. garlic oil
a couple cloves of garlic, minced
1/3 lb thin rice noodles
1/2 block extra firm tofu (Chinese tofu)
chili powder
some spinach (optional. I just had this lying around and I figured why not)


Methodology

1. Mix broth, stir fry sauce, ketchap mantis, soy sauce, and chili sauce in a bowl. Set aside. Chop veg and tofu; put the tofu in a container and toss it with, oh, a little soy sauce and some salt and pepper.

2. Put a little oil in the wok and stir fry the tofu. Dust it with salt, pepper, and chili powder. Remove from wok and set aside.

3. Put a little more oil in the wok and add the garlic, then put in the carrots and mushrooms. After a few minutes, add the bok choy and spinach. Let that cook a few minutes, then add the broth mixture. Bring it to a boil and add the noodles.

4. Depending on the size of your wok and stuff, you may have to add about a cup more water in order to cook the noodles. Putting a lid on the pan helps too. When they are cooked, add the tofu back in and mush everything around until it is hot again. (I do not mean literally mush the tofu; obviously you do not want crumbs of tofu, or perhaps you do in which case disregard this advice.)

5. Eat! Yay.

Notes
*So, was it Singapore Noodles like you had in 'Nam?

No.

*Was it good?

Yes. Would eat again. (Which I will have to, since it made about 400 pounds of leftovers).

*Time?

About 25-30 minutes, with me working at top speed, so it fit kind of uncomfortably into the short period post-karate and pre-gnawing own arm off. It was tough, though. Thirty minute meals be damned, I want my dinner in 7 or fewer.

*Improvements?

Cook the noodles separately, since they're not fresh, thus reducing the total liquid in the dish. Use baby bok choy (also called choy sum) as it is more tender and needs less chopping. Put in some onions (did not have any). A couple of the recipes Google is bringing me use curry powder, which doesn't mesh with what I recall, but sounds interesting anyway.

*Disaster scale?

3/7. Delicious but problematic, especially with the cooking of the noodles.

Veg Stir Fry with Peanut Sauce

I am so excited to have cooked this, it is fantastic. I cannot even tell you.

Ingredients

Rice

1 c. brown rice
2 c. water

Veggies
(all amounts approximate)

1/2 white onion, chopped
a handful of baby carrots
3 leaves of bok choy, chopped
3 mushrooms, sliced
1 sweet potato, chopped
1/2 head of broccoli, broken up into florets
1/2 block of tofu, cubed

one recipe of peanut sauce

Methodology

There are two fantastic things about this dish. One is the timing.

1. Put water and rice in a pot over high heat. You can throw in some spices if you want - cumin, turmeric, coriander. Cover. Chop up the veg.

2. Put some oil and garlic in a pan and start the vegetables cooking in a wok or deepish frying pan (make sure it has a lid). I recommend throwing in the carrots, onions, and tofu and letting it brown a bit, then adding everything else. Put in about a cup of water and put the lid on to let it steam.

3. Make the peanut sauce at this point. Keep an eye on the rice, it is probably nearing completion.

4. The veg should be done around the time you finish the sauce Pour the sauce over the veg. Serve over rice.

Notes

*This recipe is so awesome. I was SO hungry after jiu jitsu, too. Wow.

*1/7. \o/ I win at life.

Peanut Sauce

This is almost too easy.

Ingredients

2 T. peanut butter (I used chunky reduced fat Skippy, because that is what I have around. I buy it for nostalgia I guess. You could use real, grown up peanut butter and it would be fine. You do not need to use nostalgia peanut butter.)
about 1.5 T vegetarian stir fry sauce (non-oyster oyster sauce)
about 1.5 T soy sauce (I use Pearl River dark soy sauce, it coats the bottle and almost eats through it.)
3/4 to 1 c. hot water
1 heaping tsp. brown sugar
hot sauce, to taste

Methodology

1. Put peanut butter, stir fry sauce, and soy sauce in a bowl. Add about half the water and mix until it dissolves. Add the rest of the water. Add the sugar and hot sauce. Adjust soy and stir fry sauce to taste. Put over veggies.

Notes

*1/7 on the disaster scale. I am fantastic.

Cranberry Chocolate Chip Scones

What a weird day. So I made scones.

Ironically, though this started out as a project to use up some eggs, I wound up using this recipe as a base, and it has no eggs in it. It's really easy, though, and doesn't take long to make.

Ingredients

2 c. white/all purpose flour
1 3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3 T. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 c. brown sugar, packed
8 T (one stick) butter, cold
1 1/4 c. buttermilk
about 1/2 c. skim milk, give or take
1/2 c. dried cranberries
1/2 c. dark chocolate chips

Methodology

1. Preheat the oven to 375*. Mix the dry ingredients and sugar. Cut the butter into little pieces and mix that in, then cut it in with a butter knife approximately until your arm is tired. Add the buttermilk and mix, then add the chips and cranberries and mis those in. Do not overmix.

2. You should have a messy, kind of lumpy-looking dough with a fair amount of loose flour. Add a little of the skim milk if it's really dry. Turn it out onto a clean, floured surface, like a counter or baking pan. Knead it a couple of times and it will start to come together; you may need to add more milk. Knead it approximately until you think you've overkneaded it.

3. Pat the dough into a circle about seven inches in diameter and cut it in half. Cut each half into six triangles. Place on an oiled baking sheet, making sure they do not touch. Brush the tops with buttermilk and sprinkle with brown sugar. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a tester comes out clean. Serve hot with vanilla frozen yoghurt or whipped cream, or eat for breakfast with butter and jam..

Notes

*The dough will look weird lumpy and you'll think you've screwed it up; you haven't.

*These could perhaps use a bit less baking powder, though.

*There are nearly endless variations that can be done on this, with various types of textures and mix-ins.

*Using buttermillk instead of milk produces a lighter scone.

*1/7 on the disaster scale. Yay.

Fake Calzones

An attempt to use up some leftovers. Kind of weirdly fusion-y.

Ingredients

about 1/4 recipe of chapati bread
1/2 zucchini, chopped
1/4 onion, chopped
a handful of spinach
2 mushrooms, sliced (I used "Baby Bella", which I think are crimini)
a few cloves of garlic, diced
paprika, chili powder, salt, pepper, oregano, basil
2 T. tomato sauce
cheese (I used Pepper Jack and Mozzarella)

Methodology

1. Heat some oil in a pan and add the garlic. Saute the veg and spices until cooked. Remove from pan.

2. Roll out the bread into a biggish circle. Put tomato sauce in the center, add some spinach and some of the veg. Put cheese on top. Fold it over and seal the edges.

3. Cook the calzone in a pan until brown on all sides, being careful not to rip it.

Notes

*The edges were still a little more mushy than you might like, but the dough doesn't have any eggs in it so it's not a huge deal.

*Pretty delicious, all in all. About a 3/7 on the disaster index.

Apple Brown Betty

Oh man; if you do a google you'll find that everyone and her brother has a recipe for Apple Brown Betty, and all of them are different. This was my attempt to 1) use some stale cake and 2) split the difference on a bunch of conflicting recipes.

Ingredients

Approximately 1/2 of a cinnamon sponge cake, slightly stale, cut into 1/4" cubes
1.5 tsp nutmeg
1/2 c. brown sugar
rind of 1 lemon
2.5 lbs apples (suggest Granny Smith and McIntosh)
8 T. apple juice or cider
1.25 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice, salt
about 2 T. butter

Methodology

1. Preheat oven to 375*. Peel, core, and slice apples. Combine sugar and nutmeg and set aside about 2 T.

2. Mix spices and cake. Put a layer of cake at the bottom of a casserole pan, then a layer of apples, then pour about 4 T. of apple juice over. Put another layer of cake and sugar, another layer of apples, more juice. End with cake and sugar, then sprinkle the reserved 2 T of sugar on top.

3. If you are paying attention, dot the top with butter. Otherwise just put the lid on the casserole (or cover with foil) and put in the oven for about 45 minutes.

4. After 45 minutes, take lid off (dot top with butter now if you forgot earlier) and let it bake until brown, about another 15 minutes depending on how long you spend gaping at it with the oven open.

5. Serve with vanilla frozen yoghurt or whipped cream.

Notes

*Though the top layer was a bit dry, the other layers were extremely delicious. Next time I will cut some margarine in with a pastry cutter to help this problem. Perhaps even make a more apple crisp-like topping.

*About a 3 of 7 on the disaster index.

*Well received, though.

Quinoa Squash Stew

From Epicurious, somewhat.

Ingredients

Stew
2 tablespoons olive oil or margarine
1 cup chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
\1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cup water
1 14 1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 cups 1-inch cubes peeled butternut squash
2 cups cubed peeled carrots

Quinoa
1 cup quinoa (a grain, available at the grocery store) 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil or 2 T. margarine, etc.
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup finely chopped peeled carrot
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
2 cups water

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro, divided
a few T. fresh basil, chopped

Methodology

1. Quinoa: put garlic, spices, and oil in a biggish pot. Add onion and carrot and saute until it begins to brown. Add quinoa and water. Bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes.

2. Stew: Put garlic and oil in. Add spices. Add onions and carrot and saute briefly. Add squash, tomatoes, and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer until cooked, about 15 minutes.

3. Mix about half the cilantro and basil into the stew. Serve stew over quinoa and sprinkle with more herbs.

Notes

*Healthy, tasty, and looks pretty on a plate. Win on three levels. For best effect, I'd use a green plate.