The Perfect Muffin

Today I reached for the stars and left them in the dust. I've been wanting to do this for so long!

I chose a recipe impulsively from the comments on another recipe website, and it worked out perfectly. I proved that hard work and not taking shortcuts is important for getting where you want in life: lacking orange juice, I squeezed my own from an orange, had a first impromptu solo flight with a super cute mini food processor, poured muffin batter from one paper cup to another, and trashed the kitchen. And then took about fifty pictures, they were that good (the muffins were good; in defense of taking so many pictures, many of the pictures were crap, which explains why I take so many. I'll stop taking so many pictures if someone wants to donate a digital SLR... :P).

It was SO worth it. Even people who ate zucchini loved it. They rose perfectly, were the best possible brown, were moist, delicious...I need to go eat another right now! Here's the recipe:

Zucchini Carrot Spice Muffins

1.5 c flour (I used 1/2 c white, 1 c wheat)
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 egg whites
1/6 c canola oil
1/2 c honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c orange juice
1 c zucchini, grated or finely chopped (yay food processor!!!)
1 c carrot, grated or finely chopped (double yay food processor!!!)

Mix wet and dry well individually, then mix together just to moisten. Fold in orange juice and veggies only until combined. Bake at 370 for 15-20 minutes until beautiful brown and a tester comes out clean.

That's my batter at the last step; the puddles on the right are the freshly squeezed orange juice. I'm taking this success as a sign it's gonna be a great fall!

Quinoa Bean Stew

This was another successful cleaning-out-the-fridge stew, and also a success for cooking improvisation. I typed up the general procedure I followed, but it's very flexible to anyone else's modification. Epic win!

Quinoa Bean Stew

1. Saute lots (2 tbsp) minced garlic in ample olive oil
2. Add 2-3 c total chopped onion, carrots, celery, and potato, with a pinch of salt.
3. Add 3 roma tomatoes, chopped and 1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
4. Add 3 c water
5. Add 1 c rinsed quinoa and 2 c cooked white beans and the corn cut off an ear of corn (next time I'm using more because I love corn so much)
6. Add 2 chicken bullion cubes, 1 tsp basil, 1 tsp oregano, 3/4 tsp thyme, 1/2 tsp rosemary, 1 large bay leaf
7. Simmer for a long time, blend at some point if you want. Taste and adjust spices if necessary.
8. Reheating is best done on the stove, on low heat to avoid burning things, with extra water if it gets too thick.

(Guys, seriously, this is why I need a digital SLR. Giovanni is fantastic but I really need to be able to focus things myself, cuz zoom + flash + macro mode = tearing hair out. And last I checked, hair isn't something you want in stew.)

Hummus Quesadilla

The pinto beans were a bit elderly and not quite feeling up to being eaten, so the hummus bravely offered up itself. The result was so delicious I couldn't do anything else while I ate but taste.

Spread a generous layer of hummus on a (whole wheat, what else?) tortilla, then cover with lots of (red leaf) lettuce, tomato slices, carrot slivers (when this guy isn't busy trying to kill me, it does a great job with the carrots), and hunks of sharp cheddar. You gently fold it in half and microwave until the cheese is quite melty.

Devour distractionless. :)

Untitled Improvisations

Here are two delicious fast things to do with a saute pan. They're somewhere between risotto and stir-fry, and have infinite flexibility. The 28th and 29th saw improvisational cooking at its best.

Day 1:

Saute some of the minced garlic in olive oil until fragrant, then add chicken. Cook until just brown on the outside and set aside. Saute more minced garlic, then chopped onion, carrot, and celery (about a cup each?) and saute some moe. Without adding water, add about 1 c chopped tomatoes and boil with 1 tsp oregano, dried basil, rosemary, thyme, and a bit of black pepper.

Add chicken and rice (how much depends on how many veggies you use). Cook, stirring often, until the chicken is cooked through and everything is nice and hot and well blended. Serve with heavy whole wheat bread. :)

(Sorry it's a crappy picture; the flash was misbehaving and I was hungry!)

Day 2:

Brown the chicken in sauted minced garlic like day 1, but with the addition of Famous Dave's Country Roast Chicken Seasoning. Remove, add more olive oil and minced garlic to the pan, and saute the already cooked broccoli for a minute, then add cooked brown rice and browned chicken to the pan. In lieu of canned cream of whatever soup, I added a 1/4 c (skim) milk and about 3/4 c grated cheese (mostly cheddar, but also some romano to use it up), and lots more of the chicken seasoning.

(Easy, efficient way to grate cheese. These guys are infinity times better than the box kind.)

(This guy reminds me of  Gavroche singing "Little People" from Les Mis)

Cook, stirring often, until the chicken is cooked through and everything is nice and hot and well blended to creamy deliciousness.

Hummus & Veggie Sandwhich

It was the perfect Sunday lunch. It was also the messiest sandwich I have eaten in my entire life. (Not that I let that keep me from reading while I ate it!) It also reaffirmed my belief that the key to the perfect hummus & veggie sandwich is hot hummus on crusty bread. If your bread isn't crusty and your hummus isn't hot, just put the whole thing in a panini press, which will make it also compressed enough to not break your jaw eating it.

I used the Italian bread because I was out of wheat (I'm supposed to make more this afternoon but am getting tired of being sweaty...) and stuck it in a 500 degree oven for 5-7 minutes to try to toast a bit. Next time I'm toasting it with olive oil in a frying pan (like how you make grilled cheese) and hopefully that'll work better. In assembly, you use the hummus to hold down the garlic sprouts and shredded (I gleefully recently discovered how well the big round holes on the cheese grater work for shredding baby carrots!) carrots. Then you sandwich the tomato slices in the lettuce to keep them from soggifying the bread. I recommend making this kind over overstuffed un-panini-pressed sandwich with fresh, strong bread that won't fall apart.

Just like I wanted to say last week that there's nothing like cleaning up the homemade sauce on your plate with homemade bread, there's REALLY nothing like a hummus and veggie sandwich on homemade bread, with homemade hummus, and homegrown veggies. Someone please make my tomato plants hurry up!

Chicken Debut

Stir fry is fantastic for lots of reasons, all of which I'm too hot to write about right now. Tonight's was an epic success, taste-wise and protein-wise. It went like this.

1. Saute trimmed chicken in 1.5 tbsp olive oil until it's done on the outside. Remove to plate that can't absorb chicken germs.
2. Saute minced garlic until fragrant. (You can can turn up the heat after adding the veggies because you no longer have to worry about smoking the olive oil.) Then add chopped broccoil, onion sprouts, scallions, and carrots until half done. (The broccoil should be half cooked. The easiest way to do this is to cut and wash it, and put it in a ceramic bowl with a cup or two of water and microwave on high for ~2-3 mins. It doesn't need a cover. Take it out with a hot pad, pour off most of the water, and add to sizzling veggies in more olive oil.) Add a tablespoon or three of water.

3. To veggies, add 0.5 tbsp peanut butter and 0.5 tsp salt.
4. When veggies are half done, add back chicken and stir lots more.
5. When cutting through the thickest piece of chicken reveals it to be done, add cooked bulgar and mix well. Serve piping hot.

Lessons:
1. Scallions and sprouts cook down a TON. Add extra.
2. Next time exchange carrots for onions. The Pteph, you knew you don't like cooked carrots, so why did you put them in?
3. The bulgar should be added before serving, to warm it up, break up the chunks, and integrate everything better.

Lentil Tomato Soup

it was really cool to get to see the quinoa half-cooked like this

Lentil Tomato Soup

(adapted from Italicious, who has the nerve to have prettier pictures than me...)

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a heavy soup pot or Dutch oven, and add a chopped onion. Cook, stirring, until tender, about five minutes. Add the two crushed but not chopped garlic cloves, diced carrot and a diced celery stalk, and a generous pinch of salt, and continue to cook for another five minutes until tender. Add the 2 chopped tomatoes and some rosemary and a bay leaf, and cook, stirring often, until the tomatoes have cooked down somewhat and smell fragrant, about 10 minutes. Add 1 c lentils and 1/2 c well rinsed quinoa and 5 c water. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer gently one hour. Taste and adjust seasonings. Stir in the parsley. Serve, garnishing each bowl with Parmesan or Gruyère. Serve with bread.

Victory! (Magic Summer Stew)

Did I not call it at the base of the stairs? I did, I did indeed. I declared that tonight would be a night of victory! Victory over the unknown of the Future, victory on extra veggies floating around the fridge...

And so it was. We'll call it Magic Summer Stew. It's very much like Stone Soup: it's a conglomerate of whatever you feel like using up. The only rule is that it must be colorful. Mine included onion, potato, carrot, red and yellow pepper, scallions, and garbanzos, but you're free to include whatever you'd like. I usually care so little for recipes I have no right to inflict them on others (except, of course, the Hershey's Holiday Chocolate Cake recipe, but that's a very different story).

To start, I sauteed minced garlic in a very generous amount of olive oil and then added a bit of cooking sherry and black pepper. My prayers were answered and the veggies cooked down a lot (I added 1.5-2 c of water to help them) - the silly people I live with don't have any big pots :(. I added bit of many spices; if I remember correctly these included about 1/4 tsp salt, about 10 tiny red pepper flakes, and 1/4-1/3 tsp oregano, and 1/3-1/2 tsp dried basil (I meant to put in fresh basil at the end but forgot). After there was enough room in the pot, around the time I added the spices, I added as many garbanzos as I felt like (maybe 2 cups? You can probably tell by now I don't keep track of stuff like this) so they had plenty of time to take in the flavors of the veggies and the spices. Let's hear it for impromptu cooking!!!

Served best over barley (not bulgar like I tried at first; bulgar is too nutty and in my opinion best suited for accompanying stir fry, which I like to do with cashews...). Also, since it's kind of stew-y, but the barley kind of soaks it up, I recommend serving in those dishes you never use, the ones that are a combination bowl and plate.

Yes, you should be jealous. Even the broth by itself is absolutely delicious. Lucky for you there's plenty left (if you hurry!).