Magical Fruit

For my birthday, my sister gave me some cold.hard.cash. to buy beans. This is my haul. I have a dish of them today -- Cannelini beans -- with roasted butternut squash and goat cheese. I went wrong on the dressing (sherry vinegar?) and on the other vegetable ingredient (radish sprouts). But the beans are beautiful.
They're FAR larger than the cannelini beans at the grocery, and I've blended them to bulk up a soup to good effect. Just this week, I followed a recipe for baked beans, and turned out a plump, gorgeous batch. (The recipe for baked beans is from the "Modern Vegetarian" cookbook, and calls for the following to spice: a quartered carrot, a celery sprig cut in half, one onion pierced with three whole cloves, a bay leaf, and some unpeeled garlic (+ kombu). Stir in, when the vegetables have seasoned plump beans and are discarded, 3T tamari, 4T maple, 2t dijon, and 2T olive oil. A terrific broth.
Will the popcorn be purple? Will the chia seeds improve the nutrients in my cells? Gosh, I hope so...

Sourdough pancakes

I love my sourdough starter. However, I find these days that breadmaking doesn't really fit in my schedule. (Or maybe it is truer to say that I am more impatient.) What to do, what to do? The answer -- if only this were the answer to more of life's questions -- is pancakes.

I've tried a lot of sourdough pancake recipes, but this is the best. It's from Nancy Silverton's Breads from the La Brea Bakery, via Wild Yeast. Unlike a lot of sourdough pancake recipes, this one uses baking powder in addition to baking soda, and it works best with nice lively starter. The end result is pretty much the fluffiest, tastiest vegan pancake I've ever made.

So here's the routine: in the late afternoon or evening, pull the starter out of the fridge and feed it enough for the pancake recipe (I've been making half batches, so this means at least 125g flour and 125g water. A half batch is just barely enough for us two.). My starter is usually fed white flour, but I've been feeding it wholemeal when I make pancakes. After sitting on the counter overnight, in the morning the starter is ready to go -- measure out the required amount of starter and simply whisk in the other ingredients (I've been veganizing with egg replacer, but I have a hunch that its not necessary.)

I wish this photo were better. I was in too much of a rush to get eating these babies, so just took a quick snap before the syrup went on and they got gobbled up.

Mango season

Serendipity

So, when it comes to food shopping, I bristle at the thought of planning a week's meals and writing a list. I do bring a list, but it's of staples that we've run out of. And when it comes to fruit and veggies, I buy what looks good and what's cheap.

This means that I can have a recipe bookmarked for ages before it happens that all the necessary ingredients are in the house at the same time. It's only taken about a year for me to get around to this recipe: cauliflower with almonds, capers and raisins. (The capers were the hold-out ingredient -- somehow they haven't made it onto the staples list, but I think they might deserve a place there now.)

This was really good. The story behind the dish is that it was developed to convert a cauliflower-hater. I don't know whether it can do that, but this cauliflower-lover liked it a lot. It's a bit of a fussy recipe, with a few separate steps, but it's easy enough. The cauliflower is sauteed and then finished in the oven. It's topped with capers, almonds, raisins, herbs (I only had parsley, and left out the chives and tarragon. If I had waited until I had tarragon in the house, I don't think I ever would have gotten around to making this.) and toasted bread crumbs. Delicious!

For lunch today I had a simplified version: cauliflower with capers, raisins and parsley -- still good. I think I am officially a fan of the raisin + caper combination.

Sourdough crepes

I wanted a snack, and my sourdough starter was sitting out on the counter, and one thing led to another.

I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner. Take some sourdough starter, add a pinch of salt, a spoonful or two of chickpea flour, (a tiny bit of sugar if you want), and whisk in soymilk until you get crepe batter. (Optional addition for flax-fiends or the omega-three deprived: a spoonful of ground flaxseed.)

My dad the expert crepe maker always insisted that you let the batter rest for at least half an hour, to let the flour hydrate properly. But sourdough crepe batter is ready to go right away. Yay for instantaneous crepe-based gratification.

Kale!

This is the first kale I've had in over a year (it's not really a thing here). I finally found some, and then it found its way into my belly (sauteed with garlic, salt and pepper, and a squeeze of lemon at the end). I did not share this with anyone.