fennel-olive pastries January 3, 2010

It’s been a while since I posted a recipe.

Reading my pal Erin’s blog about calzones reminded me that this summer I took photos of how her lovingly-grown fennel became Fennel-Olive Pastries, after she asked me what I did with it. So, though fennel is far from in season near me, maybe it’s in season where you are, or maybe you can get some nice organic non-local fennel, or you can just mark this recipe for summertime.

If you’ve got the ever-present fear of phyllo (which everyone but me spells “fillo,” apparently—I pronounce it like fillo and spell it as if it would be pronounced “fy-lo,” what can ya do.), now’s your time to get over it! Don’t be scared of phyllo. It’s so much easier to work with than you think. And it’s insanely impressive, because we’re at such a place in our cooking culture that people are impressed by anything that uses any sort of dough whatsoever.

This dish, along with my Vegetable Phyllo Triangles with Dijon Mustard-Lentil Sauce (which I’ll post as well if I get sufficiently unlazy) is the most requested meal from my clients. I make the Vegetable Phyllo Triangles four times a year, which is pretty heavy rotation for me. I make these twice a year, in the late spring and early fall, when fennel is in season here in upstate NY.

Enough chatter, let’s get a move on.

I just realized that I didn’t actually take any photos of Erin’s gorgeous fennel before it was chopped up, which is a minor sin. Hopefully you know what fennel looks like.

Though working with phyllo is easy, there are secrets that make it much easier:

• First of all: buy Fillo Factory brand. It’s organic, the spelt phyllo is perfectly lovely if you’re a spelt fetishist, and it’s made of high-quality ingredients. Many health food stores carry it (if you’re in New Paltz: Health & Nutrition carries it sporadically, no one else ever has it. If they don’t have it, I can always sell you some at cost, I buy it by the case). Otherwise, read the ingredients on your sketchy supermarket brand to make sure it’s vegan.
• Then, defrost it in the refrigerator overnight. Otherwise, defrost it in the box, in the plastic for a few hours on the countertop. I can’t really express in words how much worse of an option this is than the overnight fridge defrost route. Your goal with phyllo is twofold: to keep it from drying out, and to keep it from tearing. A slow defrost is essential to both. If you yank it from the freezer into a hot kitchen, and especially if you then unwrap it, exposing it to the drying effects of air, you will get a roll of phyllo with every sheet most likely torn along each crease because it defrosted too quickly.
• Here’s the thing though: it’s still fine. You can work with torn phyllo, and no one will ever know the difference in the final product, I guarantee it. You, however, will know, because it is infinitely more headachey to work with ragged strips, rather than beautiful whole sheets, of phyllo. So save yourself the headache and defrost it slowly.
• After the slumber party in the fridge, in an ideal world you’d then let the box hang out on the counter top for an hour or so, smoothing out the transition from cool fridge to presumably hotter counter top. If you don’t have an hour, that’s cool—see the above paragraph.
• After that, you’re ready to go. There are two ways to work with phyllo at this point: working fast, or covering it with a damp cloth or paper towel sprinkled with water. The goal, again, is to keep it from drying out, which will cause it to tear and crumble. If you work fast enough there’s no need to mess around with the damp towel, but if you’re just starting out it makes sense to give yourself some extra time by using a towel. More below.

Fennel Olive Pastries
Makes about 40

• You can sneak small amounts of some leftover vegs into these that might be dying in the fridge. Jarred artichoke hearts are lovely in here. But resist the temptation to throw in a ton of random stuff, it will muddle up the flavor.
• Make sure to rinse the olives, otherwise they will be too salty.
• If your fennel has no fronds attached, reserve and do not chop a small handful of the dill. Use dill fronds as instructed to decorate triangles instead of fennel fronds. Use the rest of the dill as indicated.
• These freeze ridiculously well.

Extra virgin olive oil, much more than you think you’ll need.
1 small fennel bulb (or two baby fennel bulbs), bulb finely chopped, fronds separated and set aside. Use all parts of the fennel that look fresh and green, especially the feathery fronds, but do not use any stalks coming out of the bulb that are hollow.
2 medium thinly sliced red onions
1 small bunch chopped dill (see note above)
2 cups pitted Kalamata olives, rinsed and chopped
3 teaspoons fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried oregano, chopped
1 teaspoon ground toasted fennel seeds or 2 tablespoons ouzo (fennel liqueur)
Optional: a few handfuls washed and chopped greens
1 pound phyllo dough, thawed in refrigerator if frozen (see above)
Sea salt and fresh pepper.

1. In a large saucepot, warm a few splashes of olive oil over high heat. Add fennel bulb and sliced red onions and cook until beginning to brown, about 7 minutes.
2. Add chopped dill, olives, oregano, fennel seeds, and greens, if using, and stir to combine. Turn off heat and let cool.

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly oil two baking sheets, or line with parchment. (I never do this, but I want to make sure yours come out perfectly, and I am afraid you won’t use the massive amounts of oil necessary to make these not stick to the baking sheet.)

1. Lay one sheet of phyllo on work surface. Cover the rest of the roll with a damp towel (do as I say and not as I do in the photo above).
2. Brush sheet with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Use enough oil to make everything slightly juicy, otherwise your triangles will be dry and not flavorful enough. Think about it this way: every bit of phyllo without some oil caressing it will be too dry and crumbly, and won’t have the full flavor that olive oil provides. Make sure pretty much all of it has a nice, thin oily sheen. Yay for fat!

1. On the short edge to your left, place four small (about one to two-inch) fennel fronds side by side with about one inch of space in between. Lay another sheet of phyllo on top, oil and season it, and cut into four strips.*
2. Place 2 tablespoons of so of cooled filling on the edge of phyllo opposite the fennel, and roll up like a flag. (It would have been really helpful if I had taken pictures of this part of the process.) Don’t use more than around two tablespoons of the filling–less is always more, and you will be astonished at how little you need. Too much filling will make messy, broken triangles.
3. The fennel fronds from the left edge should be visible through the phyllo when rolled up (if they aren’t it’s cool—they are just for show. In fact, feel free to skip that whole step). Brush triangles with oil and place on baking sheet. Continue until all filling is used up. Sprinkle each filled baking sheet with coarse salt and fresh-ground pepper.
4. Bake until phyllo is golden brown, about 20 minutes, turning halfway through. Cool slightly and serve, or cool completely, wrap well, and freeze.

*Please note that though I like the size of triangles when the sheet of phyllo is cut into four strips, These photos illustrate triangles made with phyllo sheets cut into three strips, because that’s how I usually make them for my clients. I made a few with the phyllo cut into four strips, though, see them there at the top of the baking sheet, next to the fennel? Three strips makes a bit more of a hearty, meal-like triangle. Four strips makes a nice appetizery, dainty, prettier triangle, which is especially suited to this recipe and its strong flavors.

pumpkin bourbon tart (Updated recipe!) November 18, 2009

Hello sweet beets,

A Facebook pal friend asked for my pumpkin pie recipe and I thought I’d toss it on here even though I don’t have a picture of it and it’s not exactly my recipe, but rather an adaptation of an old recipe from Fine Cooking. It’s so great though. Make it, take a picture, and send it to me along with your kudos, will ya?

Fun fact! I started making this tart my regular Thanksgiving pumpkiny dessert after Khaela Maricich (yes, Khaela of The Blow!) tasted it alongside my standard non bourbony pie and declared that it “had more going on.” My god, I love that Khaela. We’re actual friends, but every time I see her I still can’t stop from basically screaming about how much I love her and making dorky references to all her songs. This is of course slightly awkward and I commend her for being so awesome about it (full disclosure: she’s more of a Jacob friend than a Lagusta friend, but how great to be in a couple where you get to be friends with all your sweetheart’s friends, non? Actually…read this paragraph quick, because when Jacob sees it he will sigh in that “you don’t have to share everything with the internet” way and I will feel weird and take it down. He is in Sweden today though, so I can blab on and on about my deep and wild love for Khaela to the entire world without any sighing disrupting my oversharing.).

I LOVE THE BLOW!!!

Pumpkin Bourbon Tart with Walnut Streusel

1 11” tart

• This recipe looks long, but it is really just three easy components. It calls for a stand mixer and a food processor, but it can be made without these by combining the tart and filling ingredients (separately) in a bowl and by hand-chopping the streusel ingredients and combining them with a fork or pastry blender.
• The coconut oil should be at room temperature, which means that it shouldn’t be completely liquefied or completely solid – it should be soft enough to scoop out easily but still white. Since it can be tricky to get it to this consistency, especially in very hot or cold kitchens, remember that is always better to err on the side of it being more liquid, because otherwise the dough or streusel could end up with holes that were once solid coconut oil. However, a colder oil makes a more flaky pastry, so finding a balance between workable and too warm (liquid) is worth it. If you’re scared of coco oil or don’t know what kind to buy, read my coco oil manifesto here!

tart crust

2 c all-purpose flour

1/3 c sugar

1 ts. orange or tangerine zest (tangerine adds a special quality)

½ ts. sea salt

10 Tb. coconut oil, at room temperature, see note above

2 Tb. flax seed “eggs” (you know, just boil 1c of water and 3 Tb. flax seeds for a few minutes, then strain it. If it’s too thick to strain, add more hot water and whisk whisk whisk. Voilà! Egg whites!)

¼ c coconut milk, more if needed

1. In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the flour, sugar, zest, and salt. Add the coconut oil and combine on low speed until the mixture looks crumbly and like dried peas – about 2 minutes.
2. Add the flax seed “eggs” and coconut milk and mix on low speed until the dough is just combined. If the dough is too dry to come together, add more coconut milk a spoonful at a time.
3. Evenly press dough into a 11” ungreased tart pan with a removable bottom. Refrigerate. (Yep, a pressed crust! EASY!)

pumpkin filling

15 oz. pumpkin or squash (I like Blue Hubbard squash the best), steamed (use canned pumpkin and I will kill you. Just STEAM SOME SQUASH, you can do that, Jesus!) [If anyone has both a scale and measuring cups and can tell me how many cups 15 oz. is, let me know and I will update this for the benefit of non-scale-owners. But if you're serious about baking, you should buy a scale!)

scant 1 Tb. agar powder (I talk about it here)

½ c evaporated cane juice sugar

¼ c packed minimally processed dark brown sugar

2 Tb. all-purpose flour

1 ts. ground ginger

1 ts. freshly ground cinnamon

¼ ts. freshly ground cloves

½ ts. sea salt

½ c coconut milk

¼ c bourbon (once I accidentally used Southern Comfort and it was delicious as well, which is weird because I usually find SoCal vomitious.)

1. In blender, combine all filling ingredients over low speed until combined. Set aside.

streusel topping

¾ c walnut halves, toasted, cooled

¼ c crystallized ginger, coarsely chopped

¾ c all-purpose flour

1/3 c evaporated cane juice sugar

¼ c packed minimally processed dark brown sugar

½ ts. freshly ground cinnamon (I always use canela Mexican cinnamon from my local Mexican market [Casa Latina in Poughkeepsie---I call it a Mexican market even though it's a Latina market because I am a big giant racist.] and grind it in a spice grinder, but you can use your sad little tin of cassia cinnamon, sure, go right ahead, even though it’s probably like 10 years old and doesn’t taste cinnamony at all…)

½ ts. sea salt

1/3 c coconut oil, at room temperature

1. In a food processor, combine walnuts and ginger. Pulse to chop into medium pieces. Remove. Add remaining ingredients except coconut oil and pulse briefly to mix. Add coconut oil and pulse until just barely combined. Remove blade and stir in walnuts and crystallized ginger.

assembling the tart

1. Heat the oven to 350F.
2. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the unbaked tart crust. Do not overfill tart pans because the filling puffs a little. It might overflow a little in the oven. I personally like the look of it when it does, and it sinks back down after it comes out of the oven, but if you want a tidy tidy tart, take out 1/3 cup or so of the filling and just eat it. Scatter the streusel topping evenly over the pumpkin mixture, covering it completely. Put the tart on a cookie sheet.
3. Bake until the topping is evenly cooked and no longer looks wet in the center, 50 to 65 to 75 minutes, depending on your oven.
4. Let the tart cool on a rack for at least 2 hours before serving. The tart can be wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated overnight; before serving, let it sit at room temperature 1 to 2 hours.
5. The flavor of this tart is best after one day, and it will keep up to 6 days.

pumpkin carrots (and a recipe for tzimmes!) October 30, 2009

My farmer pal Jessica grew these teeny little carrots, an heirloom variety called Thumbelina. They are a serious pain to  cook with, because you need to peel them to get all the dirt off (you could just scrub them, but I like to peel instead of scrub) and tiny round objects aren’t the easiest to peel, but look what happens when you cut them in half!

Technically you’re not supposed to eat the tops of carrots, but I couldn’t resist giving them to my clients like this. They were part of a tzimmes recipe, which is a Jewish New Year dish of sliced carrots cooked with something sweet. We’re a ways past Rosh Hashanah, but tzimmes is a nice dish anytime. My favorite recipe for it uses lemons sliced micro thin, which cuts the sweetness of the dish.  Give it a whirl:

Tzimmes with Lemon

6-8 servings

• Gil Marks, in The World of Jewish Cooking, from which this recipe was adapted, says: “Since carrots grow even in poor soil, they became a staple of eastern Europe. Carrots are an important part of the Rosh Hashanah tradition:…the carrot’s sweetness fits in with the theme of the holiday [a sweet New Year], and when sliced they resemble gold coins.*”
• Most tzimmes recipes use ginger, cinnamon, raisins, prunes, or dates, but I like these plain.

grape seed, coconut, or canola oil

2# carrots, peeled (unless very fresh) and sliced

1 c vegetable or mushroom stock or water (orange juice is nice but sometimes too desserty)

½ lemon, sliced as thinly as possible

½ c maple syrup or natural brown sugar

1 ts. sea salt

chopped fresh parsley for garnish

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add the carrots (only as many as will fit in one layer) and sauté until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the lemon, broth, sugar, and sea salt. Cook over medium-high heat until liquid is reduced to a glaze. When no more liquid is left in pan, stir constantly until carrots are deeply colored. Be careful to avoid burning.
3. Remove from heat and stir in parsley. Serve.

 

Adapted from The World of Jewish Cooking (a great book!) by Gil Marks

*Oh Jews, we’re so great at combating stereotypes about us…

DIY shelves! September 5, 2009

Our house is pretty much reaching a crisis point in terms of book-holding capacity, and I say this as someone who bought four books this week alone.

Tragically, though I keep buying books—new and used, fiction and poetry, graphic novels and cookbooks—my bizarro rushed life means I rarely actually read an entire book.

Still, it comforts me to have them around, and there could be worse habits (like, perhaps, scouting the world for vintage pantyhose packages).

pisces love cancers / everyone should be loving agar July 4, 2009

For someone who says she doesn’t believe in astrology, I seem to have a ridiculously large amount of Cancer friends. I’m pretty in love with all of them, and was super psyched that I rounded so many up to have dinner and managed to fit all their names on one cake! I was planning on decorating it with tiny peanut butter cups, but in the end it was just going to be too busy, so chocolate shavings won.

At any rate, I’m pretty happy with this cake. It’s a basic chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and filling that I frosted with my favorite easy easy easy chocolate frosting: ganache (yeah, it’s got a double frosting: ganache, then the pb just on the top.). Ganache frosting really is the shit. Have you ever made it? You pour it on the cake and it hardens to a shiny, smooth gloss. It’s incredibly rich and, unless you always have a lot of untempered chocolate to use up like I do (you don’t need tempered chocolate for ganache, and I’ve always got chocolate hanging around that’s been in the tempering machine for 2 hours or something and is tired of being tempered. [Yes, chocolate gets tired and needs a rest sometimes too!]), it’s pretty expensive. Basically you’re covering your entire cake in a chocolate bar.

I usually use about half a pound of chocolate on a standard cake. To make it, just bring 3/4 of a cup coconut milk and 1 tablespoon coconut oil to a strong boil. While it’s coming to a boil, finely chop 8 oz. of chocolate and put it in a medium bowl. When the liquids boil, pour them over the chocolate, stir for a few seconds, then cover it and let it sit for a few minutes. You can also add 1 tablespoon or more of any alcohol that will go well with your cake, or 1/2 teaspoon or so of any extract that will go with the cake. I usually add a little brandy. After the chocolate has sat for a few minutes, stir it until it’s completely smooth. If some chocolate pieces won’t melt, cover it for another few minutes then try again, and remember to chop the chocolate more finely next time.

Spread whatever filling you’re using for your cake on the middle layer (you can use ganache for that too, or raspberry jam, or anything else you can think of), top it with the top layer, and make sure it’s nice and cool before frosting. Set it on a rack on top of a parchment-lined sheet pan—all three of these (rack, parchment, sheet pan) will make your life so much easier when frosting this cake, I really wouldn’t recommend doing the ganache frosting unless you have a rack or can rig up something like a rack to put the cake on. You need some space between the cake and the pan to let the excess frosting drip.

When the ganache is super smooth, pour it over the cake. Use an offset spatula to smooth it all out gorgeously. Work rather quickly, because it’ll start setting up pretty quick (especially if the cake is very cold), then you won’t be able to smooth it out. You can always reclaim all that frosting on the parchment and spread it over any holes on the cake, too.

Here’s a picture of a plain chocolate cake frosted with this frosting.

I pretty much made up the peanut butter frosting on the spot (I knew Jacob & Veronica liked p.b. + choc, but I had to quickly call Randy to make sure his sweetheart Lacey liked the combo. ["Randy, is Lacey near you? Don't say it's me!" "Sort of." "OK, just say yes or no: does Lacey like peanut butter and chocolate?" "YES!" "OK, see you tomorrow!"], and I know it’s going to enter my regular rotation. I’ve been slowly training myself to use agar-agar powder to thicken all kinds of sauces, frostings, fillings, etc.

I already make a killer fluffy chocolate fudge frosting (it’s based on one in Myra’s first book—that recipe is worth the price of the book alone, I swear) with coconut milk and agar that incorporates lots and lots of chocolate. It’s a perfect decorating frosting, you can pipe it into all kinds of shapes, and it makes great fluffy fudgy swirls of frosting on a cake. It’s the complete opposite of the cool cucumber that is ganache frosting, which is sophisticated and fierce. It’s good to have both under your belt.

I also make a super basic white frosting used only for writing on cakes and decorating that is nothing more than coconut milk, water, agar-agar powder, maple syrup or sugar. It sets up very firm then I process it in the food processor and it’s perfect to put in a pastry bag. You can tint it with those nice all-natural food colorings the health food stores have, or you can go all DIY and add some turmeric (yellow), or beet juice (red).

Oh wait, but what is agar-agar? I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about it on the blog and as I am writing all this from a hotel room in downtown Manhattan on the Fourth of July,* I’m not exactly inspired to get all into it right now, but I’ll give it my best shot.

Vegans should be using a lot more agar than they do (I use the terms “agar-agar” and “agar” interchangeably). Agar is often called “vegetarian gelatin” and that’s exactly what it is. You don’t use it exactly like the ground up hooves and whatever else is in death gelatin though.

Hmm, can I find something already written about how to use agar, so I don’t have to do it myself? Well, here’s something.

Where they get it wrong:

• “Agar, also know as agar agar,”   Um.
• “Create a mousse or pudding by adding tofu or yogurt—or both.” Eeeew. Tofu thickened with agar, ick.
• “Gelatin can be replaced with agar powder or flakes in a one-to-one ratio.” Nope. Agar powder is about ten zillion times stronger than agar flakes. My guidelines are to 1) NEVER EVER use agar flakes, or those horrid agar bars. They are a huge pain to work with. Buy agar powder. You can get it in health food stores where it will cost you dearly, or in Asian (usually Thai) markets where the exact same stuff will be 99 cents for a packet that will last you a while. I’m all fancy these days and I buy Ferran Adria’s brand of agar, but that’s because I like to pour money down the drain. If you can only find agar flakes, grind them as finely as you can get them in a coffee grinder. The truth is, it’s not difficult to get the flakes to work perfectly too, but agar powder is so much easier that I hate to think of novices even fucking with the flakes. The bars are twice as annoying as the flakes, so, skip those all together. 2) If you’re using powder in a recipe that calls for flakes, use about 1/2 as much powder as flakes.
• “Agar will not gel liquids containing vinegar or foods that contain high levels of oxalic acid, such as chocolate.” Uh, that’s completely wrong. I’ve made lemon gels and tons of chocolate-agar concoctions. The trick is to use a lot more agar in recipes that contain a lot of acid, and if you’re using chocolate make sure you have some sort of carrier like water or coconut milk, because you couldn’t just melt chocolate and add some agar powder and you know what, actually? Who knows? It seems like it wouldn’t work because of the oxalic acid, but I’ve never tried it. I’m not sure why anyone would, but I’m not going to be a hater like stupid ehow and say it’s impossible.

OK, clearly someone different wrote this article on using agar in dessrts, and it’s a lot better. Good tips, lady!

So, that peanut butter frosting.

I didn’t write down what I did, but here’s what I can reconstruct after three days, two glasses of wine, 1 glass of sake, and four beers standing between me and the frosting:

2 (14 oz) cans coconut milk

3/4 Tb. agar powder (I bet you could do 1/2 Tb. I always add too much agar because if you add too little your recipe is crap, and if you add too much you just need to process it more later and it’s fine.)

pinch of sea salt

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 c peanut butter, but actually I have no idea. It could have been 2 cups.

splash vanilla

So you just bring the milk, agar, salt and sugar to a boil, whisking once in a while. Bring it to a boil slowly so the sugar dissolves. When it’s all dissolved, crank up the heat and let it come to a real, rock-solid, rollicking boil. Agar needs heat to do its thing, but too much heat will kill it, so don’t boil it forever. Turn off the heat and whisk in the vanilla and p.b. If the p.b. doesn’t want to get totally smooth, don’t sweat it, it’ll be fine.

Taste it and see if you want to add more p.b. or sugar or anything. If you want to add more sugar, use powdered sugar so it doesn’t get grainy. Put the entire thing in the fridge for an hour or so until—magic!—it sets up super firm and hard. You can now have fun by slicing it up and handing out slices, or you can make a frosting by whipping it in the food processor until it’s creamy and smooth. Keep tasting and adding stuff (vanilla, sugar, peanut butter) until it’s perfect.

Spread it on the cake!

*

(Oh, hey, local peeps: I brought this cake to Garden Café in Woodstock**, and they were so incredibly sweet about a party of 11 people and a cake—they even put candles on it and brought it out singing, though I didn’t ask them to do either! And as always the food was super super tasty, and I loved that they were only going to let me bring the cake if it was vegan—fuckin’ A! Go Garden Café!)

OK, oh dear, its getting late, I’ve got to go outside!

*

*Can you believe there are hotel rooms so teeny that they don’t even have a bathtub? This Wall St-area hotel is ridiculous. One of the main reasons I decided to follow my sweetheart around for the past few days was to stay in an NYC hotel room & take a bath, because my bathtub at home is so shitty. Tragic.

**Um, a message to the person who wrote the “disappointed” review on that page: you are possibly certifiably insane and should really seek professional help.

the pains of being pure at the bar June 20, 2009

(I wrote this yesterday, FYI)

I’m going to tell a story-within-a-story in pictures. Vegans, take note: it’s not a happy story. People who loved my old hair style: ditto. (But please know that the picture of it below doesn’t showcase its awesomeness fully. For one thing, it looks best when it’s not behind my ears. For another, it usually doesn’t look so…Egyptian!)

So I went to the new New Paltz Farmer’s Market outside Robin’s.

The problem with being an aesthete, a perfectionist and a giant, giant snob (in my head I pronounce it the French way: “snoob.”) is that the deeper you get into how amazing things could be, the worse you realize things are. I don’t want to stereotype, but 95% of all the gay men I’ve ever met understand this deep in their bones (Carmen who used to live in Teaneck NJ, you are the exception that proves the rule.), which is why decent awesome straight women tend to immediately like decent gayboys.

This is neither here nor there.

My pal Billiam was there along with Anne and her husband Dave (not pictured) and it was all Billiam-style: prettiness and flowery and just gorgeous.

I just wrote a long post about how annoying this day has been (a truffle scammer, annoying emails, a weird flirty dude, all starts and no stops with nothing to show for doing chores all day—the standard stuff), but you know what? I’m not even going to post it. It was a bundle of curse words and negative energy, and there is just no reason. Instead, let’s talk about tonight. It is 5:30 PM. In the next 2 hours, I am planning on doing one of those magical TV-style stopping time things so I can mow the lawn, change my clothes, answer 30 emails, pay a stack of bills, make my shopping list for the weekend farmers markets and about 100 other things, then I am going to take the night off and go to dinner with a pal, then a girls’-night-out sort of a thing.

And Billiam brought two of his goats, newborns just five weeks old: Salt and Pepper. As I was petting them and inviting them to my place to eat all my poison ivy (goats like poison ivy!) Billiam tentatively sidled up to me. “So….um…I’m a real farmer now…the goats just keep having babies, you know, and…” “AND WHAT? And you’re going to spay and neuter them, RIGHT?????” “Well, um, actually….Iwasgoingtoeatthem HEY! Your hair looks SO GORGEOUS! Did you get a hair cut?”

I’m excited to see my awesome ladyfriends at the bar tonight. It’s not my typical scene, but it’s so nice once in a while. I’d love to seriously drink, too. It feels like a night I should drink just the tiniest bit more than I should, which for me means one Manhattan. Instead and because I have to drive home, I will drink one granny smith hard apple cider when we first sit down then will sip water for the next two hours like the lightweight that I am.

And anyway, I can’t get the sort of Manhattan I want at any bar in New Paltz. I don’t blame the bars in New Paltz: except for a handful of ultra fancy places in big cities, no one really cares about quality drinks. So bars can’t afford to literally pour money down the drain on people who don’t care about or know the difference (of course, all this applies to food too). What do I mean by a quality drink?

“You know how I keep my hair so healthy, Billiam?” “Um…you don’t eat your pets?” “YES. How did you know? Oh Billiam! Salt and Pepper! Really.” And we kidded (with the kids) and I tried not to be sad or to be that annoying vegan everyone hates, but what can I do? Billiam clearly feels how he feels, and he clearly feels what I feel too. And we’ll still be friends, and he’s not running a factory farm or anything, and blah blah.

Let me write a dream sequence inspired by an actual dream I had a few nights to explain:

I walk into a bar. (It is exactly the bar in the season two finale of Mad Men.) I order a Perfect Manhattan.

The bartender is sweet yet serious and about my age. He pulls an old-fashioned glass from a shelf behind him.

“Oh man,” I say, “I’m so happy you’re using a rocks glass. Most of the time people make Manhattans in martini glasses, and I can’t stand martini glasses.”

A lot of the farmers I buy produce from kill and eat their animals, though I of course give preferential treatment to the veganic ones. I survive. We mostly don’t talk about it.

“Well, I really believe most drinks are better in old-fashioned glasses,” he says, all businesslike and proud. He pulls out a big, clear, crispy block of ice from a lowboy freezer and begins to crush some to put into a shaker.

“You make your own ice, too? That’s really wonderful.”

“We got rid of the ice machine about a year ago. Most commercial ice is just too soft, as well as cloudy.”

I just beam at him. He measures Tuthilltown Manhattan Rye Whiskey into the shaker and adds a practiced amount of both sweet and dry vermouths (thus making a Perfect Manhattan). He gives the mixture a few stirs (not shakes!) and pours everything but the ice into the glass. He skates just a bit of Fee Brothers old-fashioned bitters and a twist of orange peel over the top.

But a vegetarian always feels that disconnect with their meat-eating friends, don’t they? I mostly pretend not to think about it, but it often drives my mother crazy. She will go out to eat with a new friend or something and report back: “Isn’t it weird? You think you like someone…but then you see them eating a chicken piece or something, and you just think—why am I friends with them? How can this be happening?”

“Oh! I have those same bitters! My sweetheart bought me a set for my birthday, they are so tasty.”

“They really are. We use artisanal products from small companies whenever we can. And,” he says as he carefully unscrews a jar of brilliantly red cherries, ” we make our own brandied cherries from local fresh fruit in season. These have pits, though, so be careful. Not pitting the cherries means that—”

“That the flavor doesn’t all leak out into the jar!”

“Yep. Here you go, enjoy.”

And I so do.

Ethiopian wat with savory teff muffins May 28, 2009

Wat, you’re going to like it.

Though I should say that one of my former clients really hated it. She once said to me, “I just hate that wat dish. Can I never have it again?” Ahh, cookin’ for money, gotta love it.

In the defense of the wat, said client was…how can I put this? Secretly racist. She was always complaining about any dish that wasn’t Jewy or tomato saucey or pasta-y (and yes, telling her that there are lots of Jews in Ethiopia didn’t help matters any). Anything too “ethnic” bothered her, and she was always struggling to explain to me that “my family…we just don’t want kind of stuff.”

Sigh. But you, my pretties, you will like this. Oh, also! I’ve changed the dish a lot since then. It used to have all this super authentic stuff in it, like mint. Here’s a tip: people really hate mint in anything savory. What is that whole dead lamb + mint jelly thing all about? In my experience everyone hates mint in hot food.

So, wat. As I understand it, wat is any sort of stewy dish, and of course there are myriad variations. The wats I’ve had in Ethiopian restaurants have all been finely chopped vegetable stews, but my clients get sort of weird if I chop things up too fine–they want to see what they are eating. And I want to show off my gorgeous vegetables, so my wat is super chunky.

Here’s the simplest wat formula:

Sautéed onions + a nice fat like olive oil + a spice mix called berbere (more on that soon) + any vegs + water+ cooking time = wat.

Here’s how I do it:

Wat

Oh, first, a note about quantities. Like most chefs, I don’t really measure. The measurements for the spice mix are accurate proportionally to what I use, but it might end up making too much for your stew—use your innate good judgment and only add half (or a quarter) if it looks like it will be too strong. Save the rest in the freezer for next time!

I didn’t give quantities for the vegetables because I eyeball all that. Thus, I can’t really tell you how much this makes. I suggest you think of my recipes not as hard rules, but as techniques and notes intended to teach you to rely on your own cooking instincts. So, use as many vegetables as feels good to you.

Berbere spice mix:

1/4 c cumin seeds
2 Tb. whole coriander seeds
3″ cinnamon stick, preferably soft Mexican cinnamon
1 Tb. whole fenugreek seeds
9 whole cloves
1 Tb. red pepper flakes
1/4 ts. whole ajwain seeds (leave out if you can’t find them)
1 Tb ground cardamom, optional
1/4 ts ground nutmeg

Wat:

10 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
3” ginger, peeled and minced
olive oil
grape seed or canola oil
3-4 onions, diced
any nice seasonal green thing: fiddlehead ferns, asparagus, ramps, bok choy, whatever looks tasty!
carrots or another nice earthy long-cooking vegetable
some lovely chopped wild mushrooms, or cultivated mushrooms, or no mushrooms
5# seitan, chopped into bite-sized pieces
homemade vegetable stock or water as needed
optional garnish: fresh mint or cilantro leaves

1. Toast all whole spices and red pepper flakes in a saucepan until aromatic. Grind in spice grinder. Mix with cardamom and nutmeg and set aside. Instead of all this, you can buy some berbere at a good spice shop, since that is basically what you are making. Making it yourself looks time-consuming but really takes about 5 minutes, max.
2. Sauté onions in a whole lotta olive oil in a heavy-bottomed stew pot until nice and crispy. They are the umami-rich base of the whole dish, so don’t undercook them! Then you’re going to make a kind of roux with the spice mix: add it to the onions and add another glub of olive oil. A roux usually uses equal parts fat and flour (in this case, spices), but don’t go crazy and measure it, that’s ridiculous. It should be pretty oily though. Whisk like crazy and turn the heat up to medium—no lumps! Whisk! When it’s cooked a few minutes and is bubbly, add the ginger and garlic and very important: have some water or stock or water mixed with shoyu (my go-to faux-stock) on hand to toss into the pot, because hot roux looks harmless but will give you the most intense burns you will ever see. It doesn’t look like much is happening when you’re whisking it, but the second you add that garlic and ginger it will bubble and sizzle and go nuts. Have water ready to add and get your arm out of the way, but then go back and whisk the hell out of it when it all calms down, otherwise you’ll have lumps. Keep cooking another 2-3 minutes or so. (You know what would be nice at this point that you could add? Tomato paste. Add a few tablespoons and cook it a little in the roux.)
3. Sauté all your other vegetables and seitan in grape seed oil (separately, or else they will steam) until lightly browned. If you have super fresh green veggies that cook quickly, don’t bother sautéing them.
4. Add everything back to the stew roux pot, including any fresh green veggies. Add liquid to make it nice and juicy.
5. Simmer 20-30 minutes, then garnish with the optional mint or cilantro. Done!

Now! What delicious carb are you going to have with your awesome stew? Usually injera, that tasty sour fermented gorgeous bread, is served with wat. I can’t make injera for my clients because it doesn’t keep, so I used to make a polenta-type thing with teff instead. Oh, what’s teff? Here’s what I tell my clients about teff on the menu sheet I send with this meal:

Although until recently teff was unknown outside Ethiopia, these days the teff available in the US usually comes from Idaho, as the Ethiopian government discourages its cultivation for lack of economic value and because warfare in Ethiopia has caused the loss of many valuable teff varieties in the last few decades [holy run-on sentence!]. Apparently the Snake River Valley in Idaho is quite similar to the Ethiopian climate, so about 20 years ago American entrepreneurs started working with Ethiopians living in American metropolitan areas and re-established the relation between Ethiopians and their favorite grain. Teff from Idaho is grown with “ecologically sensitive farming methods” in “fertile fields,” according to the website of the producer.

You might have met teff in the form of the teff flour that is often used to make injera, the delicious spongy, tangy, addictive flatbread available in Ethiopian restaurants. The next time you are in an Ethiopian restaurant, make sure to request teff injera, to make sure you get the real thing and not a millet or wheat variety which can be less flavorful.

Teff is so tiny that 150 grains weigh the same as a single kernel of wheat, and has a lovely sweet flavor. Since teff is too small to hull, it can’t be refined or lose nutritional value, and it’s gluten free. The dark chocolate variety in this dish is the most flavorful. It is high in protein (for a grain), is loaded with calcium, and is an excellent source of iron, zinc, and copper.

The teff polenta thingie was never really amazing, though, to tell the truth. So, the last time I made this dish I did the rarest of rare feats and improvised a baked good with a flour I don’t normally use, and, incredibly, it turned out awesomely! I made it one more time for good measure, and I think it’s pretty solid. Then I had a bunch extra and ate them the rest of the week and only liked them when toasted. I think they are best right out of the oven.

Savory Teff Muffins

completely modified in every way from a recipe on the Bob’s Red Mill Teff Flour package; makes 12

1/2 c brown sugar
3/4 c teff flour
1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 1/2 ts. baking powder
1/4 ts. baking soda
1/2 ts. cinnamon
1/4 ts. sea salt
1/4 c flax seed “eggs”
1/3 c olive oil
2/3 c water
1/4 c caramelized onions –if you are smart you will make some extra when making the wat!
coarse sugar, for sprinkling on the muffins

The standard straight mix method, pretty much:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Whisk up the dry ingredients.
3. Blend up the wet ingredients, including the onions.
4. Quickly combine and barely mix, then fill muffin cups 3/4 full. Sprinkle with the coarse sugar.
5. Bake 20-25 minutes. Yums!

let’s make caramels, shall we? You do most of the work, and I’ll eat them, OK? May 14, 2009

Two things happened at once: I just tasted some purchased vegan caramels (which were good, but they just made me want to make my own), and a day or so later I came across this work-in-progress recipe for butter rum caramels. I first made it in Hawaii maybe two years ago, and it came out OK. I know with a bit more tinkering it would be amazing, I’m not too into the tinkering-in-the-kitchen thing lately, so do you want to give it a try? Report back, preferably with pictures (email them to me at lagusta@lagusta.com) and let’s perfect this recipe!

(photo by Romulo Yanes)

Butter Rum Caramels, adapted from a recipe in Gourmet magazine, October 2005

Makes 64 (1″) squares

grape seed or canola or coconut oil for greasing

1 1/2 c packed light brown sugar

1/2 c granulated sugar

1 scant c coconut milk (the caramels won’t taste coconutty, because everything boils down to a syrup)

(originally this recipe had 1/4 c butter in it. I felt it was too oily with it, but let’s remember for experimentation purposes that it was taken out)

1/4 ts. salt

1/4 c plus 1 ts. dark rum (I used whisky once and it was great!)

1/4 ts.vanilla

1. Line the bottom and sides of an 8″ square baking pan with parchment paper. Oil parchment.
2. Bring sugar, milk, salt and 1/4 c rum to a boil. Boil over medium heat, stirring often (I always stir caramel slowly, because I have an idea this prevents it from becoming gritty. The brown sugar in here already puts this recipe at risk for grittiness, so let me know what happens when you make it), until thermometer registers 248F (firm-ball stage), about 15 minutes. My two years’ old memory of this is that it was way too firm and the temperature needs to be taken down a bit, because coconut oil (in the coconut milk) caramelizes faster than milk fats (in butter and cream). Maybe try 240F?
   
3. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and remaining teaspoon rum. Pour into baking pan and cool completely until firm, about 1 hour. Invert caramel onto a cutting board, discard parchment, and cut into 1″ squares.

beet-sauerkraut pierogies with caramelized onion topping April 22, 2009

Sous chef Veronica asked me for this recipe, and since I already have it typed up and have decent pictures of it, I thought I’d toss it up on the blog. It’s great! It’s a lot of work! The filling freezes amazingly, though, so maybe double the filling and freeze it so the next time you feel like making the dough you can be all ready to go. This is a combination of an old Gourmet recipe and one from my pal Selma.

(But first! I feel sort of guilty blogging because I know a bunch of you blog readers have ordered chocolates, and I’m worried you’re all “Why is she blogging when she should be shipping out my chocolates!!” Here’s the deal: Tuesdays and Wednesdays are my days off, the days in between the cooking part of the week and the chocolate part of the week, and if I don’t have them I will cry. This week I have masses of paperwork to do, so I am blogging to avoid it. Chocolates will be arriving soon, don’t worry!

Also: I wrote this post while sitting next to Brittany at the New Paltz Village Board meeting. In case you were wondering, it looks like the issue of Village Hall requiring $1,000,000 of insurance in order to use the building—hello, we the people own that building!—is going to work out OK….maybe. Everyone is talking the talk of allowing groups without insurance to meet here, we’ll see if they will walk the walk. Of course the New Paltz Green Party JUST let our insurance lapse. Awesome.)

Pierogies

Makes about 60 if rolled in pasta machine or 50 if rolled by hand

Dough
4 c ap flour
¼ c flax seed “eggwhites” (see here for a recipe)
1 ts. sea salt
¾ c cold water
2T extra virgin olive oil

1. Make a dough with all ingredients. Knead about five minutes in standing mixer or ten minutes by hand.  Let stand 1 hour at room temperature.
2. Roll out dough using pasta maker to setting 4 (well, 4 on my machine, I’m not sure if they are all alike?), then make 50-60 rounds, using a biscuit cutter or a cup or anything round and a nice pierogi size.
3. Spoon 1 teaspoon of filling (see below) onto center of pierogi, fold in half, and pinch edges together to seal completely. If edges don’t adhere, brush lightly with water.
4. Transfer pierogi to a heavily floured tray (or a tray lined with a silicone baking sheet) and form more pierogies in the same manner. Do not stack pierogies, they will stick together.
5. Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Add half of the pierogies (or a quarter, if your large pot is really more of a medium pot), stirring once or twice to keep them from sticking together, and cook 5 minutes from the time pierogies float to surface. Transfer cooked pierogies to a bowl with onion topping (see below) and toss gently to coat.
6. Serve immediately, or reheat pierogies in onion topping over low heat, gently tossing to coat.

Beet-Sauerkraut Pierogi Filling

1. Fry 1 onion in olive oil, add 1 1/2 c drained, rinsed sauerkraut and (optional) a crushed garlic clove or two and fry for another minute.
2. Cook 3 medium beets until tender.
3. Mash beets and add to onion and sauerkraut.
4. Grind everything in a food processor until practically but not completely a paste.
5. Refry in olive oil, adding 1 ts. sea salt. Seriously! Double fry!

Sometimes I add fried up mushrooms to the filling, and leftover mashed potatoes are nice added in too, for that extra carb kick.

Topping
Onions sautéed in lots and lots of olive oil – LOTS! If you’ve got leftover pierogies and you toss them with this topping but you’ve skimped on the oil, they will all glom into one horrible mass by the next day. Also, the whole thing will be bland without a ton of oil.

passova without ova! (matzo ball soup recipe) April 15, 2009

I can’t let go of that dorky subject line!

Don’t you love it when your friends do items on your to do list?

That same day:

Thanks for helping Lacey with the Matzo Ball recipe.  Despite your previous attempts to get me to try your flax snot recipe, I hadn’t until this Saturday.  Amazing!  Thanks so much for this transformative knowledge!

I formalized and quadrupled your recipe in case you get the request again.  It is below.

Start boiling a large pot of heavily salted water in which to boil the Matzo Balls.

Make egg white substitute by boiling in a small pot 2 cups water and 1/3 cup flax seeds until water becomes viscous (approximately 10 minutes).  Strain it, reserving the clear viscous liquid and discarding (or using for something else [Lagusta note: you can reboil the seeds with fresh water for an only-slightly-weaker snot] the seeds.  This should yield just slightly more than needed for this recipe. [It also freezes well!]

Grind approximately 8 sheets of matzo to yield 2 cups of matzo meal.  Place into medium bowl. [Only dorks buy matzo meal!]

Whisk well 1/2 cup flax egg whites (from above), 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup plain seltzer water [last time I used leftover Champagne--highly recommended!], 1 Tbs. dill [dried] and salt and white pepper to taste.  Gently fold this into matzo meal.

Form matzo balls (1.5 inches in diameter should yield about 16) and boil them in heavily salted water for 15 minutes in a covered pot.  At 15 minutes, test one for consistency.  Might need to boil for as much as 10 minutes more.

-Randy (remember him? He wrote the awesome bike-buyer’s guide!)

How awesome is Randy? I especially love that he wrote it in the paragraph format, just like Bloodroot does!

I’ve been making this recipe for a few years now, I like it a lot. I was happy to read that awesome Isa also uses f.s.s. (flax seed snot) as a binder in her ballz too—great minds think alike!

Here is how I make the soup the balls go into:

I take out the balls and put them on a tray or whatever, then I make the soup with the ball-cooking water. It’s ball tea, if you will. I sauté chopped leeks, maybe some diced carrots, and a little chopped celery in a good bit of olive oil (don’t skimp on the oil, or your soup will taste suspiciously “vegan” to nonvegans who eat it, if you know what I mean. Think of how much schmaltz is in nonvegan m.b.s.!) until lightly browned. Then add the ball-cooking water and sometimes I add long strips of carrots (if you have a spiralizer, how pretty would carrot noodles be in it?), and maybe a few chopped ramps, which are usually around when I’m making this soup. The first dandelion leaves cluttering up your lawn would be great too, or the baby bits of sorrel that might be coming up in your garden. Finish it all off with freshly snipped chopped dill, or parsley (flat-leaf! My god, don’t get me started on curly parsley), or both. Put the balls in the serving bowls and serve the hot soup over them.

If you have leftover soup with balls that you just tossed into it, reheat it gently so the balls stay intact. Actually, I usually boil it up a bit because I love broken-up matzo ball soup, heretic that I am.