Well, here I am again…borrowing yet another page from Heidi Swanson.  This time it’s a special request from the friend who borrowed Super Natural Cooking.  So, I happen to have eaten this salad but never made it myself.  For that reason, I’ll just give you the recipe with little commentary.

Wheat Berry Salad with Citrus, Toasted Pine Nuts, Feta, and Spinach
from Super Natural Cooking, by Heidi Swanson, Celestial Arts, 2007

2 cups soft wheat berries, rinsed
6 cups water
2 teaspoons fine-grain sea salt, plus more as needed

Citrus Dressing
Grated zest and juice of 1 orange
1 Tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 Tablespoon minced shallot
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Fine-grain sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

3 generous handfuls spinach leaves, stemmed and well rinsed
1 cup toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Combine the wheat berries, water, and 2 teaspoons salt in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.  Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer, covered, until plump and chewy, about an hour or so.  The berries should stay al dente, and the only way to be sure they’re done is to taste a few.  Drain and season to taste with more salt. 

To make the dressing, combine the orange zest and juice, lemon juice, and shallot.  Whisk in the olive oil and season with a few pinches of salt and a few grinds of pepper.

Toss the hot wheat berries with the spinach, pine nuts, citrus dressing, then top with the feta.  Taste for seasoning and sprinkle with a bit more salt if needed.

Serves 4 to 6.

As you’ve probably noticed by now, I’m a bit of a traditionalist.  All my food snobbery can’t change my love for the roast beef and gravy recipe of my childhood that involves all canned and processed ingredients.  So, when I first found Heidi Swanson’s recipe for Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies, I was intrigued, but not convinced.  I was intrigued enough to order some mesquite flour from Amazon (I love Amazon, but the shipping price was a little crazy).  Sadly for me (and for everyone else out there in cyberspace), when my flour arrived and I went online to get her recipe, I found it was gone.  She’d taken it down because she included it in her book Super Natural Cooking.  I own this book, but I’d lent it to a friend.  So, I had to wait.

In the meantime, I couldn’t help myself, I just had to open the mesquite flour to see what all the fuss was about.  From the moment you open that bag, the aroma is amazing – it’s warm, nutty, spicy, kind of cinnamon-y and kind of cocoa-y.  I’m considering using it as perfume.  Seriously. 

When I finally got my book back (I shouldn’t say finally, it didn’t take that long…but it seemed like a long time with mesquite flour and organic chocolate chips sitting on my counter, staring at me), I couldn’t wait to make these cookies.  I made mine almost exactly like Heidi’s recipe.  The only differences were I used coconut oil, as part of a new experiment, and regular old (evil) white granulated sugar because I didn’t have the good stuff Heidi’s recipe calls for and I was too lazy (and too anxious to get started on these cookies) to run out to the health food store to get some. 

So, the cookies…this recipe comes together just like a regular chocolate chip cookie dough.  It doesn’t have a ton of ingredients, so I think it’s important to use high quality ones whenever possible.  (Thanks to Tera for bringing this to my attention in the early days of my food snob awakening…it was Tera who practically wrestled a bottle of imitation vanilla from my hand on our first Christmas cookie baking day…I’ve never let her live down her food snobbery, but I’ve also never bought imitation vanilla again).  So, I use organic, free range eggs, organic butter (when I use it), real, high-quality vanilla, and a good brand of whole wheat flour. 

Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking, Celestial Arts, 2007

2 1/2 Cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 cup mesquite flour, sifted if lumpy
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
3/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened (I used 3/4 cup coconut oil)
2 cups natural cane sugar (I used the same amount of white sugar)
3 large eggs (organic, from my local farmer’s market)
1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Position the racks in the upper half of the oven, and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper (or silicone baking mats).

Whisk together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.  Set aside.  (I like to do this is a large measuring cup or one of those “batter bowls.”  This way you have a spout and it makes it a lot easier to pour the flour into the mixer.

In a large bowl or stand mixer (I used my kitchen aid), beat the butter until light and fluffy, then beat in the sugar until of a consistency like thick frosting.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.  Stir in the vanilla until evenly incorporated.  Add the dry ingredients in 3 increments, stirring between each addition (I just put the mixer on low speed, and slowly add in the dry ingredients).  At this point, you should have a moist, uniformly brown dough.  Stir in the oats and chocolate chips by hand, mixing only until evenly distributed.

(Here, I have to say, I almost never mix in ingredients by hand.  My personal conviction is that my mixer was a very expensive item, and it should darn well be able to mix up some cookie dough.  So, usually, I make my mixer add in the chips or whatever comes at the end of the recipe.  This dough, however, is very, very stiff.  So, I pressed on with the rolled oats, and my mixer was doing a valiant job, but it was protesting, and groaning, and I finally gave in and finished the job by hand.  The reality is that even if your mixer can do it, the dough is stiff enough that it really needs a human touch at this point to get the oats and chocolate evenly distributed.  If there’s anything that will change my stubborn mind, it’s the thought of a cookie without chocolate chips.)

Drop 2 tablespoons of dough for each cookie onto the prepared baking sheets 2 inches apart and bake for about 10 minutes, until golden brown on both top and bottom.  don’t over-bake these, if anything, underbake them.  Cool on wire racks.  (again, of course, Heidi is totally right – I baked these for exactly 10 minutes, and when they came out the seemed awfully gooey and not set.  I gave one that had been cooling for 5 minutes or so to my husband and he immediately declared it underdone.  I ignored him, and the cookies, once cooled are perfect.  If they’d been cooked longer, they’d be dry.)

So, the finished product?  Well, after I burned my tongue on the first cookies to come out of the oven, I have to say, they are absolutely amazing.  They’re moist, nutty (with no nuts, for those of you with allergies), chewy.  They almost taste like you’re eating a chocolate cookie, but not quite.  And I know I’m not the only one who loves them – I found numerous other bloggers who just had to post this recipe because they loved it so much and Heidi took her version down.  So, go, make these cookies, and then go buy Heidi’s book.  It’s amazing, and every recipe is as interesting and tasty as this one!

This recipe is adapted from the wonderful (and beautiful) Smitten Kitchen.  First, I’ll come clean – one of the biggest changes to this recipe was actually an accident.  I was at the store, staring at the bulk whole grains, and I could have sworn I scooped from the bin labeled: bulgur.  Apparently, it was barley.  I know that most people would know the difference between these two things on sight, but I, alas, did not.  I even insisted to many of the people who ate it that this was, indeed, bulgur.  All of them kindly nodded and went about their business, but I’m pretty sure that most of them were laughing at me on the inside.  Oh well, there are worse faux pas than confusing your whole grains. 

Luckily, it turns out that this salad is wonderful with barley, but barley needs to be cooked for considerably longer than bulgur, so if you’re in a time pinch, use bulgur instead.

I love this salad, and it’s really very good for you, so I usually make a double batch and eat it for lunch every day.  This has led to my husband boycotting barley for the remainder of the summer, but that’s another post.

Don’t be intimidated by the ingredient list – this is a very simple recipe that requires a minimum of prep.  You can leave out the garam masala and turmeric if you can’t find them, and don’t be afraid to play with other spices you think might work.

Barley Salad with Chickpeas, Tomatoes, and Spinach

1 1/2 cups barley
4-5 cups water
3 Tablespoons lemon juice (when I first made this, I didn’t have lemons, so I used 3 TB mojito mix and skipped the honey, it was fabulous)
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon garam masala
1/8 teaspoon turmeric
salt
2 Tablespoons Walnut oil or olive oil
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small red onion, finely chopped (to reduce it’s bite, you can soak it and then drain it out with the barley for some of the soaking time).
2 handfuls or so baby spinach, washed and dried
Whole Wheat Pita bread, sprayed with olive oil and toasted in a 450 degree oven until brown and crispy

To cook the barley, bring water to boil in a medium saucepan.  Add barley and return to a boil.  Cover, reduce to a simmer, and simmer 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for an additional 20 minutes. (If you like your barley softer, simmer longer).  Drain the barley and place in a large bowl.

Whisk together lemon juice, honey, cumin, cayenne, garam masala, turmeric, and salt.  Whisk in oil until dressing is smooth.

Add chickpeas, tomatoes, onion, and spinach to the bowl with the drained barley and stir to combine. Pour the dressing over the barley mixture and toss to combine. 

Serve with toasted pita wedges.  Good served warm or cold.

Oh my gosh!  Has it really been over a month since I posted?  Well, I never said I was reliable.  But, when I come back, I come back with something good.

I first had a Thai curry at a tiny little restaurant in the Grandview neighborhood of Columbus, OH.  A friend and I had just finished a wonderful yoga class at It’s Yoga! and were ravenous.  We went in search of chinese food, and found this tiny place just called “Chinese Restaurant.”  When we went inside, low and behold, they had Chinese food, but they were clearly a Thai family and they had many Thai dishes on the menu.  I got a coconut chicken curry, and my life has never been the same.

I should say, I do not do spicy foods.  I like them, but I have almost no tolerance for spicy things.  What can I say, I was raised on British food.  So, although the kind owners of the restaurant assured me that they made it “not spicy” for me, it was very, very spicy.  The first version I made at home was also very, very spicy.  I’ve since toned down the spice.

The original of this is cooked like a soup (with the chicken simmered in the coconut mixture), and served with rice.  I’ve also done this with fillets of fish in packets: just layer al dente rice, fish, and veggies, ladle sauce over and seal.  Bake or grill until fish is cooked (time will vary based on type of fish and size of fillet).  This weekend I marinated kabobs with chicken, sweet potato, bell pepper, onion, cherry tomatoes, and mushrooms in the same sauce.

However you serve it, you absolutely must serve it with tomatoes.  I don’t even like tomatoes that much, but little cherry or grape tomatoes simmered in this sauce are to die for!  When I’m using this for kabobs or a packet style meal, I just whisk everything together in a measuring cup and don’t simmer it.

Spicy Thai Coconut Curry Sauce
1 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp red curry paste (adjust according to taste; beware, heat intensifies as it cooks)
1 cup chicken broth
1 can coconut milk
1 lb chicken breast tenders, thinly sliced
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 Tbs. fresh basil, torn or chopped

Combine ginger, garlic and curry paste in a medium saucepan.  Heat over medium heat until fragrant.  Add chicken broth and coconut milk.  Bring to a simmer.  Add chicken or other protein, simmer until cooked.  Add cherry tomatoes, simmer another 5-10 minutes.  Remove from heat, add fresh basil.  Serve with rice.

This recipe for sweet potato casserole comes from my mother-in-law, Debbie, who I believe got it from her mother.  I was never a big fan of sweet potatoes in any form, but this casserole made a believer out of me.  This is now a favorite dish at my family’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter holidays.  This is the only sweet potato dish my sister will touch. 

This is the traditional recipe.  I’ve also lightened the recipe, which I think came out amazingly.  But, for now I’ll stick with the tried and true.

Sweet Potato Casserole
Filling:
4 1/2 cups Sweet Potatoes (canned)
3/4 cup sugar
3 beaten eggs
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 stick of butter
1 ½ tsps real vanilla
Mix all of the above ingredients together (works well in the mixer) and pour into a 13 x 9 casserole dish or an extra large pie plate.
 
Topping 
1 cup of brown sugar (half light half dark)
2/3 cup flour
1 stick butter
1 cup nuts (I use pecans)
 
Crumble evenly over the sweet potato casserole and bake at 350° until hot and bubbly, usually between 30 & 40 minutes.  Serve warm.

This recipe is one of my childhood favorites (I think I say that about all my recipes, but it’s true!).  My grandma always made it for my sister and me when we went to visit her and Papa in Tennessee.  One of the highlights of our summer visits was finding out what desserts grandma had waiting for us.  There were always at least two.  Usually, they included a chocolate pie and this “icebox cake.”  Of course, we usually stayed there for at least 3 weeks, so there were lots of other desserts to be had.  She made (and still makes) amazing red velvet cake, strawberry cake, lemon icebox pie, German chocolate cake, coconut cake, and many, many more. 

This was probably one of our favorites, and to this day my mom makes it when I go to visit, and my sister and I still reminisce about how Papa used to cut the dessert.  Papa was a devoted dessert lover, and we loved when he cut any sort of cake or pie, because he always gave us the size piece he wanted – which was always very big!  My mom (a weight watchers instructor) is not allowed to cut desserts at our house – my sister or I usually take this job, because we can be trusted to give each other enough, and – almost as important – the right part!  This cake is extra fun because of it’s punning name (Cool Whip, Cool Miner’s…like Coal Miner’s…) - I think it’s from the era when convenience foods were a big deal, and Campbell’s casseroles were actually fashionable to serve for your husband’s boss or whatnot. 

If you have kids in the house (or a husband), you can let them crush the Oreos (grandma always let us loose with a Ziploc of cookies and a rolling pin).  You can also give them a zip in the food processor, but what fun is that?  This is a great summer cake, since there is no baking and very little prep.  Perfect for a summer barbeque or picnic – although I have certainly made it in the middle of the winter!

Cool Miner’s Cake
Crust:
Regular package of Oreos
1 cup butter, melted

Filling:
2 small pkgs instant vanilla pudding
1 cups milk
1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese (low fat does not work as well)
1/2 cup sugar
1 9 oz. container of Cool Whip

Crush Oreos, reserve 1 cup of crumbs for topping.  Mix remainder of crumbs w/ melted butter.  Press into a 9×13 pan.

Mix cream cheese, sugar, and 1/2 of cool whip, spread over crust. 

Mix pudding packets and milk and spread over cream cheese layer.  Spread remaining Cool whip and sprinkle with extra crumbs. 

Chill at least 4 hours before serving.

You know (or maybe you don’t, but I’ll tell you) how wordpress logs all kinds of fun info about how people find blogs and what search terms sent people to your site?  Well, they do, and it’s a great way to procrastinate.  I could spend hours looking at my stats and thinking about what I should add based on what people are looking at. 

Anyway – I saw a very interesting search that sent someone to my site.  The query was: “can you cook roast beef without foil.”  This made me realize that I didn’t give traditional cooking instructions with my roast beef recipe.  I assumed that everyone knew the traditional way, and so I just offered my revised version.  But then I realized that not everyone spends 95% of their time thinking about food, and not everyone grew up in a household that held roast beef in such high regard.  Whatever the reason, this oversight on my part must be remedied!

YES!  You can cook a roast without foil.  I use foil for 2 reasons: 1)I’m lazy, and foil makes for easier clean up, and 2)it keeps the juices around the meat, infusing more of the meat with yummy flavor and making it more uniformly tender.  That said, I have gotten great results using a more traditional method.  Traditionally, since you’d sear the meat on all sides and then saute some aromatics, you would use a large dutch oven (or other heavy pan with a tightly fitting lid).  I’ve used this method with my version of roast beef and it works just fine.  If you choose this option, you should choose a vessel with the smallest possible diameter in relation to your roast.  This way the liquid will cover more of the roast.  (again, if you were making a traditional roast this would be different, since you’d want a slightly larger pan for the searing).  If you don’t have a dutch oven (I highly recommend an enamel coated cast iron one, it’s a great investment and there are lots of inexpensive alternatives to the expensive name brand), you can use a roaster with a lid, a casserole with a lid, a soup pot, etc, etc.  Just keep in mind that the wider the vessel, the shallower the liquid will be around your roast. 

So, go, free yourself from aluminum foil!  Or, you could invest in some foil and a disposable foil roaster and free yourself of dishes almost completely!  (I do this on holidays when I’m going to have a lot of people and a lot of stuff to do, and soaking and scrubbing a pot is the last thing I want to waste energy on). 

Hello again!  I just got back from a whirlwind visit with family.  I met my sister and my mom at my Aunt’s house in the Detroit area.  I’ll be honest – I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about the visit ahead of time – I hadn’t been feeling great, I was tired, I’m up against some deadlines, all the normal life-gets-in-the-way stuff.  But, aside from the warm welcome and hugs all around, I was immediately glad I went.

When I walked in the door of my aunt’s house (she just bought it and redid the whole place, it looks amazing), and immediately smelled cake.  I’d barely taken off my coat and sat down when she told me it was Grandma Sally’s chocolate cake…which I’ve been dreaming about since I blogged the recipe.  This started an animated 4-way conversation.  It was sparked by my aunt apologizing for the cake – she said it didn’t look like grandma’s or my mom’s, and that she’d used a cake mix and only made the frosting from scratch.  This prompted my sister to ask (urgently, we’re a family that takes dessert seriously) if my cake comes out looking like my mom’s.  I admitted that it doesn’t – all the frosting tends to run down around the edges of the cake, rather than sitting on top.  My sister said hers does the same thing, and it’s because my mom “overcooks” her frosting and lets the cake sit longer than she told us in our versions of the recipe (and she pokes the cake with a toothpick to let the steam out).  This of course let to my mom loudly defending herself, her baking, and her recipe passing skills.  The whole debate ended with laughter and chocolate cake all around. 

This entire exchange, which probably took only 10 minutes of the 24 hours I was with my family, reminded me why I love food so  much.  Sure, there’s the flavors, textures, smells, and appearances of food that are so powerful and captivating.  But, more importantly for me, food creates and evokes memories, laughter, and love.  If you think this sounds cheesy, you’re not alone.  As I write it, it seems cheesy to me too.  But it also seems true.  I remember my favorite events, places, and people through food.  I can conjure up the feelings of those people and places by recreating the food.  After my grandmother passed, I found myself making her cake or her meat and potato pie every time I thought of her.  It made me happier, and brought back memories.  My husband and I occasionally have a dinner made up of cheese, bread, dry sausage, and wine.  This immediately transports us back to our trip to Europe, dining in cafes in Paris and Vevey. 

The greatest thing about all of this, is that the food doesn’t have to be fancy or fussy.  Proust had it right with his image of madeleines and tea: The simplest foods are often the most powerful – saltines with butter and jelly bring back a perfectly clear image my grandma and papa’s kitchen in Tennessee, with Papa spreading the toppings on the crackers and handing them out to us.  It wasn’t anything special to him at the time – it was probably his attempt to pacify two young girls with big appetites until grandma returned home from the store – but to me that simple snack always brings back a warm fuzzy memory. 

Wishing you fond memories old and new -

RR

(and promising more recipes soon)

Ok…so it’s not really a makeover.  But I did make a couple changes to my traditional beef roast.  I decreased the mushroom soup by one can, and added a bottle of Guinness and about a cup and a half of beef stock.  I also served it with mashed sweet potatoes (with just a touch of butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon) instead of white potatoes, and sweet peas.  It was tasty.

I’ve been holding off on posting this recipe, because just looking at it makes me start to drool.  I’m going to try to post this without giving in to the urge to make it….but let’s just say that there might be pictures of this sooner rather than later.

First, let me say that this is not a cake for the faint of heart.  This is a rich, sweet, over-the-top chocolate cake.  The frosting is right on the line between insanely rich frosting and fudge.  It also happens to be quite easy to make.  This was my favorite birthday cake growing up, and when I was in college in Texas both my grandma and my mom sent it to me (it travels amazingly well) via USPS.  I was oh so popular on the days when those packages arrived!  My grandma always made this cake when we came to visit, and then insisted that we eat it as soon as we got there (even if it was 2am; you can see where my love of food comes from).  Now my husband makes it every year for my birthday.

Be careful…the frosting and the cake are both made on the stove-top, and they’re both so luscious and tasty that I often burn myself trying to lick the spoon and pan.   So, try to be patient – but don’t let any of that chocolate go to waste, either!

If you’re not lactose intolerant, serve with a big glass of cold milk! 

Grandma Sally’s Chocolate Cake
For the Cake:
1/2 lb butter
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup water
4 Tbs. cocoa
2 cups flour
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda

Combine butter, water and cocoa in a saucepan until boiling.  Remove from heat.  Add sour cream and sugar.  Beat eggs lightly.  Temper (slowly adding small amounts of the hot liquid to the eggs; then add to chocolate mixture.  Add baking soda and flour (whisk, whisk, whisk!).  Stir to combine. 

Pour batter into a 9×13 pan.  Bake 30-35 min at 350 degrees.

For the frosting:
1 stick of butter
4 Tbs. cocoa
7 Tbs. milk
1 lb confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Combine butter, cocoa, and milk in saucepan.  Bring to a gentle bubble, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat.  Add sugar and vanilla; beat until smooth (more whisking).  Immediately pour onto hot cake.